Movie City Indie Archive for June, 2009

You want to travel blind: portraits

Kitano considers
Azita
Ondaatje before reading
An exhibition of portraits of film figures and friends is running in Chicago through July 26 at the Rainbo Club. The address, more information and other pictures are here. [Takeshi Kitano; Azita Youssefi; Michael Ondaatje]

Riot police turn and run from BBC Persia

hurrah_they_yelled.jpgLink here.












Animation: She Farted and Created the World by Scott Coello

Under fire [violence]

Truth in advertising?

lepetderniereamarienbad.jpgA campaign for the DVD of Paul Blart, Mall Cop was replaced on The Awl by one for Last Year At Marienbad, but part of the earlier ad remains… Or is this a new Criterion we’re seeing here?

Jerzy Skolimowski on his missing years as a director

skolimowski_the_judgement_full.JPGIn Vertigo, John Riley talks to about the 17 years between features. “Even during that long break, I looked at film projects, but either I was too lazy or just resting or I was focusing on becoming a serious painter. The process of painting feeds my needs now. You concentrate on doing something exactly as you want. With film-making there are always compromises, you can’t do exactly as you would wish, you’re not even trying to do that. But Four Nights With Anna is as close as I’ve ever got to making exactly the film I wanted—maybe not 100% but the high 90s. It was a small budget but I insisted on doing things exactly as I wanted. Filmmaking is really hard work, physically hard work, so I can’t say I enjoy it, but to create art one has to suffer! But, to my surprise, I feel ready to make another film: I have a great subject, I can see how to do it; I’m working on a script and have about half the money for my next project. So the prospects are good!” [A good career overview.][Art.]

Mad Max in Esfehan, Iran


Leather-jacketed riot cops on motor scooters chased by protesting citizens… the end of the shot is like the end shots of Wenders’ State of Things and Jarmusch’s Limits of Control. [Via Andrew Sullivan.]


But, of course, it’s not fiction:


[Via Laura Secor in the New Yorker.]

Tetro, brought to you by…

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This has to be the most honest film ad in ages… What brought you Tetro? What paid for Coppola’s latest opus? Safeway, aisle 3. Synergy, theater 4. The citation of the theater at the bottom of the ad is also neatly reminiscent of the 1970s full-page ads for Cinema 1 or Cinema 2 or the Beekman premiering Nashville or The Conversation. [From Friday, June 12’s New York Times.]

Excellent Response


From a project by MJ Buffett.

Deadline by Bang-yao Liu


The pressures of deadlines reflected in stop-motion animation of Post-It notes. A student project from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Circles, squares, dollars, cents

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[PR] Anvil, stars of Anvil! The Story Of Anvil opening for AC/DC at Giants Stadium

anvil460.jpg


[Photo by Brent J. Craig.]
HARD ROCK LEGENDS AC/DC TAP CANADIAN METAL BAND ANVIL OF THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED FILM “ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL” AS OPENERS FOR JULY 28 SHOW AT GILLETTE STADIUM AND JULY 31 SHOW AT GIANTS STADIUM
New York, NY (June 8, 2009) – Based on the overwhelming response to and incredible buzz created by the critically acclaimed documentary “Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” the band has been chosen to fill the spot as opening act for rock legends AC/DC at their Gillette Stadium show on July 28th and their Giants Stadium show on July 31st. Anvil band members, Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner will see their dreams come true as they are set to open for one of the greatest hard rock bands in the world, AC/DC, for the two biggest shows on their Black Ice World Tour. This opportunity marks a stellar comeback for the 30 year-old band that continues to reach new heights with the success and continued expansion of their documentary and recent features in Newsweek and Rolling Stone.
“Anvil! The Story of Anvil” is the directorial debut of screenwriter Sacha Gervasi (“The Terminal”) and was produced by Rebecca Yeldham (“The Kite Runner” and “The Motorcycle Diaries”). The film follows Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner and their band, Anvil, which released one of the heaviest albums in metal history, 1982’s Metal on Metal. The album influenced an entire musical generation of rock bands, including Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax, who all went on to sell millions of records. Anvil, on the other hand, took a different path—straight to obscurity. The film is both entertaining and touching as it follows their last-ditch quest for the fame and fortune that has been so elusive to them. “Anvil! The Story of Anvil” is a timeless tale of survival and the unadulterated passion it takes to follow your dream, year after year.

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David Fincher directs iPhone spot, "Break In"


Or, download here.

Indie is waking up

Perchance to dreamIvyLeaned

Movie City Indie

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon