Movie City Indie Archive for January, 2011

Black Swan’s VFX Reel

Postering HANNA (She Seems Nice)

Skeptic

Skeptic

Is there really a movie called I MELT WITH YOU?

So there really is a movie by Mark Pellington called I Melt With You? (Yes, it’s not just a series of videos!)

Sasha Gray from I MELT WITH YOU

The YouTube skin police get wind of the NSFW version of this modest mouse. Here’s the SFW edition. From Mark Pellington’s Sundance-premiering I Melt With You.

Live@Sundance Opening Presser… from a café in Chicago

The first Sundance I’ve attended where I couldn’t make it to opening day, and I’m missing the tradition of the opening presser, where Robert Redford offers his opening invocation of the ideals of Sundance. (All’s missing is thin air and the murmuring of cynical scribes seated nearby.) The work of the Sundance Institute gets described in general terms before the specific results light up the screens for ten days to come. But for 2011, the opening remarks by Robert Redford and new Executive Director of the Institute, Keri Putnam [profile], as well as John Cooper. “It’s great to be in a second year, and not a first year, let me tell you,” Cooper says. “I’m almost relaxed!” “We are live-streaming this, so hello out there!”

Cooper repeats his prediction that it may be one of the most packed festivals in years, but warns that’s anecdotal. “We’re already sold out, but the word on the street, I think, it’s going to be a very big year and maybe very crowded on the streets. I fear that this kind of constant, ongoing situtation of ambush marketers may be back—I like to call them riff-raff. At an event of this size, that is to be expected. I wish they could find a way to contribute to independent film in generral, but I have to keep looking at the sponsors who support this festival and the year-round stuff that we do.” The magic happens in the theaters, he added, “because that’s what we do.” Cooper also adds that for 2011, the festival received over 10,000 submissions.

“Mr Redford, you’re in your 70s, any plans of retiring?” a woman asks and Cooper bolts from the stage. “Who are you?” he laughs. Redford says, “I think you’ve just given me a great idea! I have not thought about retiring. I’m going to die,” he says, laughing, “but I haven’t thought about retiring.”





It’s Christian McKay’s Happening And It’s Freaking Him Out

From Mark Pellington’s I Melt With You.

Kevin Smith Does Not Want The Press Writing About RED STATE…

… but a press release presumes he wants publicity?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

THE HARVEY BOYS WILL PICKET THE WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH PICKET OF THE SCREENING OF “RED STATE” AT THE ECCLES THEATRE, SUNDAY, JANUARY 23

Picket 6:00 – 6:30 PM Screening of “Red State”

@thatkevinsmith – January 19, 2011 Here are the facts: (1) The Westboro Baptist Church are haters of Biblical proportions! “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, & not suffer sin upon him.” (Lev 19:17) (2) The WBC’s punishment in Hell for their hatred will be administered by the very Jesus they blaspheme daily. “…he shall be tormented with fire & brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, & in the presence of the Lamb: & the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever & ever: & they have no rest day nor night.” (Rev 14:10-11)

The Harvey Boys are seeking the aid of the Mighty Thor, hoping he’ll lay down his hammer and instead pick up a protest sign on our behalf, in a Park City battle of the mega-gods! If he’s in reshoots, we’ll be reaching out to Sigourney Weaver to channel Zuul on our behalf. If she’s not at Sundance this year, we’ll start praying to Krom. And if you don’t help us, Krom? Then to hell witchoo.

For thirty minutes of fun-filled photo-opportunities, the Harvey Boys will peacefully counter-protest the WBC Eccles Theater Protest. All are welcome. Wear YOUR dopey sentiments nobody gives a s— about on a sign of your own making, as you stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the folks who’ve mastered the art of writing utter horseshit on cardboard! BYOS (Bring Your Own Sign)

The scoffing and the mocking will begin sharply at 6pm. Remember: this is a PEACEFUL protest. The only venom you bring is printed on a placard, your only weapon: wit.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness…” (Isa 5:20)

GOD DOESN’T HATE F–S OR
ANYBODY ELSE FOR THAT MATTER.
GOD SAVES! THEN, GOD PASSES IT
TO GRETZKY – WHO ROOFS THAT
S—, TOP-SHELF! THEN GOD AND
GRETZKY HIGH FIVE & BELLY-BUMP,
CELEBRATING THEIR HOCKEY
PROWESS. AND NEVER ONCE DO
THEY GIVE A S— IF ANYBODY’S
GAY OR NOT.

2 Comments »

It’s Thomas Jane’s Turn In I MELT WITH YOU

From Mark Pellington’s Sundance-premiering I Melt With You.

It Gets Icy In Pittsburgh, At Least On This Hill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7O3abzX298&feature=player_embedded

Opening Ebert Presents Lemire-Vishnevetsky At The Movies

1 Comment »

Teasing I MELT WITH YOU (Piven Edition)

From Mark Pellington’s Sundance-premiering I Melt With You.

Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

Teasing Sundance-Bound I MELT WITH YOU

From Mark Pellington’s Sundance-premiering I Melt With You.

We’re Young And We’re Dancing

[Via Fox Searchlight Twitter.]

Movie City Indie

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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