Movie City Indie Archive for August, 2012

TIFF12 Red Band-Trailering SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS (2’19”)

Michael Cimino Introduces HEAVEN’S GATE in Venice [pic only]


“My first reaction was: ‘I don’t want to revisit Heaven’s Gate‘. I’ve had enough rejection for 33 years. Being infamous is not fun. It becomes a weird occupation in and of itself.Because of the digital technology that did not exist at the time, I was able to make editorial changes, colour changes…. Seeing it through the digital equipment, it was like a new movie.” A professional flash photo, from Agence France Presse, with quotes (like the above) that sound translated and re-translated, is here.

[Via Le Monde.]

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Clint Eastwood addresses the empty chair (11’15”)

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TIFF12 Trailering THE ACT OF KILLING, presented by Herzog & Morris (3’08’)

Killers are invited to act out their memories of murder in Indonesia: “In this chilling and provocative documentary, executive-produced by Errol Morris and Werner Herzog (who said he’d “not seen a film as powerful and frightening in at least a decade”), a collection of unrepentant, genocidal thugs are given the chance to re-enact some of their many crimes—in lurid Hollywood style. When the Indonesian government was overthrown in 1965, small-time gangster Anwar Congo and his friends went from selling movie tickets on the black-market to leading anti-communist death squads in the mass murder of over a million people. Anwar boasts of killing hundreds with his own hands, but he’s lived in his country as a hero ever since, never forced by history to accept that he had perpetrated crimes against humanity. When approached to make a film about their role in the genocide, Anwar and his friends eagerly comply—but their idea of being in a movie is not to provide reflective testimony but to dance their way through musical numbers, twist arms in film noir gangster scenes, and gallop across the prairies as yodeling cowboys. A surreal cinematic journey, THE ACT OF KILLING presents a gripping conflict between moral imagination and moral catastrophe.”

Neil Armstrong Interviewed in March, 2012 (video)

In March, Neil Armstrong gave one of his few interviews to Alex Malley, head of the Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia. The complete interview is here.



And: Armstrong responds to conspiracy theories.

These small pieces were chopped by The Daily Beast, source of the embeds.

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TIFF12 Trailering: Klip (MNSFW)

“Serbia!” “Jasna is a beautiful girl in her mid-teens, leading a crude life in postwar Serbia. With a terminally ill father and dispirited mother, she is disillusioned and angry with everyone and everything, including herself. Having a huge crush on a boy from school, she goes on a spree of sex, drugs and partying, constantly filming with her mobile phone. Still, in that very harsh environment – love and tenderness emerge. Starring Isidora Simijonovic, Vukašin Jasnic, Sanja Mikitišin, Jovo Makisc and Monja Savic.”

TIFF12 Trailering: BOY EATING THE BIRD’S FOOD

So what’s up in Greek filmmaking? This. “A 22-year-old boy in Athens has no job, no money, no girlfriend and no food to eat. He has only a canary bird and a beautiful singing voice. When he finds himself without a home, he must seek shelter for his bird. Starring Yiannis Papadopoulos.”
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Jost Vacano: Why Do People Use Video Cameras? Ego. (1’03”)

Teasing McAdams-Rapace-DePalma’s PASSION (1’05”)

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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