Movie City Indie Archive for December, 2008
QT's got a title and a release date: Inglourious Basterds opens August 21……
… of 2009. Wow! From the PR: “December 31, 2008 – The Weinstein Company (TWC) and Universal Pictures announced today that Academy Award-winning director Quentin Tarantino’s World War II epic, Inglourious Basterds, starring Brad Pitt, will open domestically August 21, 2009. The announcement was made by Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of TWC and David Linde, co-chairman of Universal Pictures who are partners in the film. TWC and Universal are co-financing and co-presenting the film with TWC handling domestic distribution and Universal handling international distribution. International release dates will be announced shortly.” 1 Comment »
Why don't most guests challenge bullies on tee-vee?
And why do dottily condescending bullies get the nice salaries? “Well, Chief…” Former Congressman and seven-second-delay morning chat show host Joe Scarborough matches wits with 80-year-oldl Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter and father of his co-host, Mika.
Andy Warhol interviews Steven Spielberg
The chatty young film director is interested in the ghosts on the TV set and talks about swallowing the future. [Courtesy of Warhol Museum, via Interview.]
Another piece of Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind?
This clip has been on YouTube for a few months, but a nice surprise on Christmas eve. Improv by Paul Mazursky, Dennis Hopper and a classically annoying Henry Jaglom. An alternate take’s below. Wellesnet gives context of The Other Side of the Wind, including a LOOK piece penned by Welles that could have been penned today: “If there’s gold in this new age, the new director will find it only when he loves the movies even more than he loves himself. A quarter of a century ago, on my own, and free of the crippling restraints of the Hollywood factory system, I managed to make a couple of pictures; the second of these (The Magnificent Ambersons) was seized and sorely mangled by the studio machine. What is surprising is that I lasted as long as I did. In those days, the men behind the desks had no reason to doubt that their authority was fully sanctioned by the public taste The movie industry was making a successful product for a middle-aged, middle-class, middle-brow market. Today, the bosses, such as they are, cannot pretend they know anything about then market except that it is very young. Solution: very young filmmakers in total control of their own work. Like a nervous old lady. Hollywood is suddenly afraid of the traffic. She needs youthful hands to guide her. This trust is rather touching, slightly ridiculous, and very hopeful for the future of American films.” [The last news I’ve read about the status of The Other Side Of The Wind here.]
Indie film blogger road trip
The opening nine minutes of a work-in-progress by Sujewa Ekanayake.
Polaroid SX-70 promo film by Charles and Ray Eames
Music by Elmer Bernstein.
The East Village, 1971, shot with 16mm Bolex
From TVDays.
Manoel De Oliveira is so much younger than that now.
When Manoel de Oliveira was in Chicago three years ago, looking not a day over 75, I had a cold and kept my distance: I didn’t want to be the one who sneezed on a living legend and brought him down. No worries: just turned 100, he’s gotten a $210,000-worth hank of Euros from incentive fund Eurimages for his currently-shooting Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl, one of 12 European productions divvying $6.1 million. And for the collector of the rarest of curiousities, the Portuguese stalwart has issued a book of poetry in his hometown of Porto. AFP reports, “It’s a compilation of texts that [he] has written in recent years,” said his publisher Jose Manuel Lello, whose Lello Editores is releasing ‘One Hundred Years, One Hundred Texts’ on Sunday in Oliveira’s hometown Porto. “There are philosophical writings on humanity or science, several poems, and even a story in which he recounts an episode from his childhood,” Lello told AFP on Friday.” The limited edition? One hundred copies.