Movie City Indie Archive for August, 2009
Behind the trailer for the Coens' A Serious Man
The closing crawl of credits is a tribute to Stanley Kubrick’s pluperfect single-take mood-setter for The Shining? Scott Macaulay has that and other instructive bits behind the making of the swell one-minute-forty short at Film in Focus. Mark Woollen of Mark Woollen and Associates cut the trailer, and also was responsible for the haunting Little Children coming attractions, also discussed at the link. “Myles Bender, Senior Vice President of Creative Advertising, Focus Features, oversaw the creative direction and remembers his first meeting with the Coens to discuss the concept. “They wanted something ‘different,’” Bender says, remembering the Coens asking, “‘Can you find one scene from the movie for our trailer and not do the traditional trailer structure?’ And then one of them said, ‘Maybe just show the guy getting his head bashed in for 30 seconds.’ I took that suggestion a little more seriously than they expected me to!” The directive to “find one scene” recalled for both Bender and Woollen what Bender calls “one of the best teaser trailers ever made, the one for The Shining, which consists of a single shot in which blood pours out of the elevator. It encompassed everything you needed to know about that film.” Also remembering another favorite trailer—M. Night Shamalayan’s Unbreakable, which is structured around a single scene of Bruce Willis waking up in a doctors’ office after a train crash—Bender sat down with Woollen with the idea of extracting a resonant moment from the film that would convey the idea “that this is a movie for people who love Coen Brothers films.” He says he didn’t worry too much about explicating the film’s narrative because “it was more important for us to convey the vibe, ‘the essence of Coen-ness,’ than the premise.” [More at the link.]
Is the LA Times' Patrick Goldstein the bloggiest?
If not, we at least know he doesn’t have editors supervising his content or comments about his destinations on vacation and kindly meals with executives and agents. There’ll be some surprising lunch right after I get back. Stay tuned!!
Soderbergh on shape-shifting widescreen cinema
Steven Soderbergh’s got a compact screed at the DGA Quarterly website about 2.40 widescreen and its technical conversion for HD broadcast. “While there’s always an abundance of ugly things going on in the Actual World, there’s also something ugly going on in the Hi-Def World, and it isn’t just post-traumatic stress from the (pointless) Bluray/HD-DVD smackdown. It is another in a series of situations in which the default mode is an unnecessary compromise, and it won’t get fixed unless everyone gets on the same page. And it is precisely because this is not an Actual World problem that I believe there is hope—and a solution… Like many format fiends, I saw the advent of hi-def broadcast TV as the Holy Grail. Finally, the larger screens, greater detail, and more film-friendly 16:9 ratio would mean all films could live on forever with their extremities intact… Since the 16:9 image is now the shape of television, only one format remains to distinguish television from the movies: the 2.40:1 aspect ratio… Television operators, the people who buy and produce things for people to watch on TV, are taking the position that films photographed in the 2.40:1 ratio should be blown up or chopped up to fit a 16:9 (1.78:1) ratio. They are taking the position that the viewers of television do not like watching 2.40 films letterboxed to fit their 16:9 screens, and that a film insisting on this is worth significantly less—or even nothing—to them. They are taking the position that no one will dare challenge them and risk losing revenue… The end result is we have a better chance of seeing a 2.40 film from 1959 in its proper format than a movie from 2009. That’s weird, and sad. Now, I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this, because I have never believed that even a small portion of what happens in the entertainment industry matters that much, but it’s fucking lame to watch Jaws—a film that uses the 2.40 ratio as well as any ever produced—in the wrong format on HBO. Does Universal so badly need a few extra pennies that it’s willing to ruin a classic? And does HBO really think its viewers are so stupid as to forget movies currently come in two sizes?” The DGA Quarterly has the rest.
Serious Eats goes to the Greenmarket
A nice 9-minute look from Serious Eats at one of their favorite farmers, Rick Bishop of Mountain Sweet Berry Farm in Roscoe, New York, who grows strawberries and vegetables to sell at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City.
On David Mamet's Diary of Anne Frank
I ask you, can this not be genius? Writing and directing a coming-of-age tale based on Anne Frank’s diary fifty years after the last Hollywood adaptation, the Broadway play, and his own concerns for Walt Disney Pictures: Does Mr. Mamet have Mr. Roth rolling in his hammock already? Some references Mamet has made in the past: In 1992, “Oleanna” premiered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1993 Independent profile: “With typical combativeness, Mamet commented that playing Oleanna there was ‘like doing The Diary of Anne Frank at Dachau.'” A passage cited in a Jerusalem Post review of Mamet’s book of essays, “The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred and the Jews”: “To the Jews who, in the sixties, envied the Black Power Movement; who in the nineties, envied the Palestinians who weep at Exodus but jeer at the Israel Defense Forces; who nod when Tevye praises tradition but fidget through the seder; who might take your curiosity to a dogfight, to a bordello or an opium den, but find ludicrous the notion of a visit to the synagogue; whose favorite Jew is Anne Frank and whose second-favorite does not exist; who are humble in their desire to learn about Kwanzaa and proud of their ignorance of Tu Bishvat; who dread endogamy more than incest; who bow their head reverently at a baptism and have never attended a bris – to you, who find your religion and race repulsive, your ignorance of your history a satisfaction, here is a book from your brother.” Plus: Frank Rich’s 1997 essay, “Anne Frank Now.” And, not least, Mr. Mamet discusses gags in movies via a scene in the 1959 film, beginning with this memorable lede: “I spent a sleepless night, recently, thinking about the cat in The Diary of Anne Frank.”
On DVD: The GoodTimesKid, Katyn, Gigantic and more
The GoodTimesKid
It’s rare to have the pleasure of being completely blindsided by an unexpected movie, and the 2007 edition of the Chicago Underground Film Festival’s programming of a 35mm print of Azazel Jacobs’ hardly-seen second feature, The GoodTimesKid (*** ½) (Benten Films, $25) was a terrific surprise. Jacobs made his mark with Sundance-favored Momma’s Man, in 2008, but the fine minds at Benten Films worked to get this deadpan, winsome, near-silent comedy onto home video from the label’s inception. Hints of Jarmusch, Kaurismäki, Tati, Chapin: they’re all there, but this is a sweet delight all its own. Two men in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles with the same name—Rodolfo Cano—whose lives intersect fitfully. The Rodolphos are played by Jacobs and the ever-watchable Gerardo Naranjo (also director of Drama/Mex and I’m Gonna Explode). Rodolfo 1’s girlfriend (Diaz, a brazen cross between Audrey Hepburn and Shelly Duvall) sets an affectless almost-triangle in motion. (Her wonky dancing is worthy of Olive Oyl.) A larky delight through and through with an especially keen use of songs by Gang Of Four. Extras include director commentary, augmented by co-writer-star Gerardo Naranjo and co-star Diaz; a short by the director’s father, Ken Jacobs, The Whirled, which helped inspire TGTK; and the memorable short Let’s Get Started. Deleted scenes, trailer and a new essay by Glenn Kenny are included as well. Region-free. [A second clip below the fold.]
Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action
Canadian filmmaker Velcrow Ripper’s often achingly beautiful-to-look-upon Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action, (Alive Mind/E1, $27) is a world journey in search for a connection between activism and spirituality. 
While in synopsis that sounds dangerously close to new age-y piffle, with a rotation of figures that includes Daryl Hannah, Desmond Tutu, Alice Walker, bell hooks, and Julia “Butterfly” Hill, Ripper’s (Scared Sacred) documentary is anything but in his travels to discover notions of spirituality apart from religion. It’s thoughtful and… optimistic?! The filmmaker’s fixated on notions of social interconnection, and says his work is his “Coming out of the closet” as a spiritual person. Ripper collected 500 hours of footage, from Oaxaca to Los Angeles, from Sri Lanka to Vietnam, New Zealand and India. “I needed to understand the spiritual part of myself, and I also want to make positive change in the world,” Ripper told the Vancouver Sun of his three-year effort. “This movie helped me understand the challenges surrounding that desire because sometimes the spiritual side of yourself takes you away from the real world. Likewise, the activist side can overwhelm the spiritual. But I firmly believe that if you can integrate these two sides, you find real meaning. And that’s what we’re all looking for: Human meaning.” Ripper also says, “It is a tremendous time to be alive, a time of tremendous possibility.” Yup. No extras. Region-free. Here’s a clip.
Gigantic
When actors have the innate charm and quirk of Zooey Deschanel (All The Real Girls) and Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), you can always hope for the best, or at least something a few notches above despondent twee. Hopes are 
quickly dashed by writer-director Matt Aselton’s peculiar, chatty, and yes, twee, Gigantic (*) (Vivendi, $27). Brian (Dano), the youngest of three sons to older parents, sells high-end Swedish mattresses. He dreams of adopting a baby from China. Happy (Deschanel) ambles in one day and falls asleep on one of the display units. Dashes of failed surrealism (Aselton apparently cites Buñuel as an influence) and sparks of eccentric performance from the likes of Ed Asner, Jane Alexander and Zach Galifianakis (as a homeless man who stalks and attacks Brian) provide a modicum of diversion. John Goodman, as Harriet’s father, “Al Lolly,” is more huge than gigantic. Deschanel’s abrupt reading of “Do you have any interest in having sex with me?” leads to another question: do we have any interest in seeing her have sex with Paul Dano, or at least as this enfeebled wisp of twerp? No.
The Toronto garbage strike in 7,500 animated pictures
Strike Watch(ed) from Torontoist on Vimeo.
The John Hughes 1991 National Association of Movie Theater Owners' Tribute film
Including goof-off interviews with with John Candy, Steve Martin, Matthew Broderick, Macaulay Culkin, Jim Belushi, Michael Jordan, Lea Thompson, Elizabeth McGovern, Chevy Chase, Michael Keaton, Ed O’Neill, Catharine O’Hara, Jon Cryer, Ally Sheedy, Willie Dixon and Richard M. Daley, [H/t Eddie Schmidt.]
Fifty-nine candles… John Hughes passes
The ending of Sixteen Candles was on YouTube a couple weeks ago. Its embedding is disabled this afternoon…
Live news broadcast by BBC Farsi gets green surprise
Ah! Public art. It’s not quite the same as making the peace sign at Al Roker, but… Via Andrew Sullivan.
No caption required: Return from Pyongyang
Images that take the breath, stop the heart, don’t require explanation: I like that kind. Maybe a quote, though: “Thirty hours ago Euna Lee and I were prisoners in North Korea. We feared that at any moment we could be sent to a hard labor camp and then suddenly we were told that we were going to a meeting. We were taken to a location and when we walked through the doors we saw standing before us President Bill Clinton. We were shocked but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end. And now, we stand here, home and free. Euna and I would just like to express our deepest gratitude to President Clinton and his wonderful, amazing, not to mention, super-cool team.” [Photographs not credited at source.]
A trailer for Azazel Jacobs' GoodTimesKid
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A variation on what has been one of my favorite film trailers from the first time I saw it. It’s great to see it in a clean version, and also that it was possible to clear the music for inclusion on the Benten Films DVD that comes out August 11. Simple. Sweet. Ecologically sound. [Photo of Azazel Jacobs © Ray Pride.]
Eric Fensler's "G. I. Joe" cartoon parodies
Weren’t there cease-and-desist orders on these? Fair use parody? The first time I saw these “PSAs,” I laughed very, very hard. Edited by Eric Fensler.
Did Pynchon narrate the book trailer for "Inherent Vice"?
Inquiring ears want to know. New York magazine had one of the more comprehensive who-what-where-why-when pieces about Pynchon back in 1996 with “Meet Your Neighbor, Thomas Pynchon.”
