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Entries categorized as ‘film’
A Stormtrooper in Thom Browne?
June 21, 2010 · Comments Off
Categories: cool stuff · fashion · film
What if The Empire Strikes Back was made 50 years ago?
May 21, 2010 · 2 Comments
This is just so cool. (via Wil Wheaton.)
Categories: cool stuff · film
Roger Ebert Wants a Campaign for Real Movies
May 20, 2010 · Comments Off
Movies without 3D or even worse, tons of bad CGI. Affecting, well-acted, well-made, stunningly original movies with hearts, with souls. The kind of movies that make you want to make movies, or be in movies, or just go out and tell the world about movies.
But you should probably read the article for yourself; and in the bargain find out about a lot of excellent films you should be watching for.
Rampant Dickishness On Display by Hurt Locker Producer
May 19, 2010 · Comments Off
Wow. Someone sent a polite letter to the producer of the Hurt Locker (you know, the one who’s suing everyone) boycotting his movies because of his lawsuit. This is the letter of peevish dickishness he got back. I mean, how does it help your case to tell this letter writer you don’t even want him to PAY for your movies?
I’m glad you’re a moron who believes stealing is right. I hope your family and your kids end up in jail one day for stealing so maybe they can be taught the difference. Until then, keep being stupid, you’re doing that very well. And please do not download, rent, or pay for my movies, I actually like smart and more important HONEST people to watch my films.
What an asshat. I hadn’t seen the Hurt Locker yet, and I suppose I eventually would have. But I never will now.
Categories: film · stuff that sucks
Things to Do on a Friday Afternoon
May 14, 2010 · 2 Comments
Because we know you’re not REALLY working, right? You can thank me later:
Read the new issue of PANK, including this very sly story by Kyle Minor.
Get outraged over Arizona’s latest racist move.
Send xTx, writer and blogger and mistress of awesome, a poem or story or thingamajig about ZOMBIES! Because this is the summer of ZOMBIES and she will be featuring these things on her site.
Shout “I declare you to be AN OUTLAW!” every time you answer the phone. God, that movie looks like a dried piece of crap, doesn’t it? Poor Cate Blanchett. It’s not her fault. She is beautiful and talented. And it’s her birthday, so please be nice to her. And why does everyone have to SHOUT so much in movies nowadays? Russell Crowe is probably standing right next to that guy. Although if Russell Crowe were standing next to me, I would shout at him, too. I would shout, MAKE A GOOD MOVIE! But he probably wouldn’t.
Categories: bringing the crazy · cool stuff · film · literary mags · political idiots · smart people
Could filmmaking possibly get more commercial? Um, yes.
April 7, 2010 · Comments Off
Harold Meyerson has a great/depressing piece in the Washington Post today on how product placement, or “brand integration,” (it’s a serious business these days) has become more important than ever to the funding of film. Now, he says, it’s not enough for one of the main characters to just be drinking a Pepsi. No, now a lawyer Company X has hired sits in on story conferences and suggests ways to integrate the products into scenes, action and dialogue. Sometimes these decisions can even affect casting and plot.
We used to have the studio system, and when it dissolved it was generally considered a good thing. And it was, for a while. But now that movies are more expensive and funding more difficult than ever to secure, the studio system’s starting to look not-so-bad. Most of our greatest movies (IMHO) were produced under it, after all. It doesn’t seem to have stifled creativity in the same way ridiculous amounts of money can.
But as Meyerson points out, no system designed solely to make money works all that well in the arts.
Every system has its own logic, but none of those systems — be they theocratic, feudal, capitalist or communist — has a logic that’s ultimately compatible with that of the artist.
It’s the age old problem, whatever the art, whatever the medium. How to make money and get audience without sacrificing integrity. The push and pull of business vs. creativity. We need both. But do we really need “brand integration?”
Categories: WTF? · film · rabid consumerism
A Documentary about Bill Cunningham??!! Sweet.
March 24, 2010 · Comments Off
The most kickass street photographer in all NYC, Bill Cunningham, is the subject of a new documentary, Bill Cunningham New York, that’s playing at MoMA.
I was shocked the notoriously camera-shy cameraman actually agreed to be in the film. Apparently it took some doing. From the Times item:
The film, which is to open the New Directors/New Films series on Wednesday at the Museum of Modern Art, took 10 years to make. The first eight were spent trying to get Mr. Cunningham to cooperate. “It started in 2000,” said Richard Press, who directed the film. Philip Gefter, to whom Mr. Press is married, produced it. “Philip and I approached Bill. He just pooh-poohed the idea. He couldn’t entertain it. He said, ‘Why me? There’s no subject here.’”
Wish I could get up there to see it. See it for me, okay?
Categories: art · film · smart people
Spock Talks Art, Oscars, Acting, etc.
March 12, 2010 · Comments Off
How can you not love Leonard Nimoy? From the interview:
A: I have an exhibition opening this summer at … the Massachusetts Museum of Arts … of some portraits of people … as their secret selves.
Q: Their secret selves?
A: The idea of a secret self goes back thousands of years. Greek philosopher and playwright Aristophanes had the idea that humans at one time had two heads and four arms and four legs, and became very powerful and arrogant. The gods were upset about it so they sent Zeus to solve the problem, which he did by taking a big sword and splitting everybody in two, leaving everybody the way we are, but leaving us feeling somehow incomplete. Everybody is looking for the lost part of themselves to make themselves feel whole again. So I began to explore this idea of a secret — but I have some issues with identity, don’t I?
Nerd out here.
Categories: art · cool stuff · film · smart people
Alice, 1933
March 1, 2010 · Comments Off
Why have I never heard of this? A 1933 version of Alice in Wonderland? One that includes Through the Looking Glass? Designed by William Cameron Menzies? Endorsed by Alice Liddell herself?
I mean, check this out:
The transformation of the howling baby (played by the dwarf actor Billy Barty) into a squealing, squirming flesh-and-blood pig could be an outtake from Tod Browning’s 1932 “Freaks.” And the croquet party hosted by the Red Queen (Edna May Oliver) turns into an Ubuesque scramble of authority run amok, in which the terrorized participants (“Off with their heads!”) flail around in violent desperation using actual flamingoes as mallets. (The end credits bring no comforting reassurances from the ASPCA.)
Although the project originated with McLeod (an unobtrusive studio functionary best remembered for his Marx Brothers vehicles, “Monkey Business” and “Horse Feathers”), the dominant creative force appears to have been the brilliant, unclassifiable art director, William Cameron Menzies.
Want.
Categories: art · film · great books
This is the reason I have zero interest in seeing Avatar.
January 11, 2010 · 4 Comments
See? The white man is IN FRONT OF the Native American. 'Cuz he's going to, like, lead them to victory and stuff.
I hated Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, and Fern Gully. Then tell me why, why should I go see yet another “it-takes-a-white-man-to-save-the -natives” movie? Doesn’t anyone else think this storyline is just a wee bit racist at worst and horribly paternalistic at best? Just because it’s in 3-D and looks amazing doesn’t mean I need to watch a movie with a terrible and James Fennimore Cooper-esqueplot for three hours.
I admittedly haven’t seen the movie, but I still think Lincoln Michel’s review is dead-on. This says it all:
If this was a screen saver, you’d have to say James Cameron did one heck of a job. Unfortunately, it is a film and all the other aspects feel glossed over.
I felt the same way about Titanic. Sure it looked great, but I go to see a movie for the story, and where was it? I wish I could have that two plus hours of my life back, but at least I won’t be wasting another two plus hours on another crappy Cameron tech achievement.
