Movie City Indie Archive for September, 2012

“How The James Bond Theme Was Born” (3’43”)

Wall Street Journal journos can be yakkers, too!

MNSFW: THE MASTER: “Last One/Thank You” (4’33”)

MediaBistro: “Spike Lee’s First Big Break” (5’58”)

Backstage with Western Costume (2’44”)

The MPAA’s “The Creditsvisits the 100-year-old Hollywood mainstay.
Directed by Austin Saya, DP: Stewart Yost, Music: Geoffrey Yandle

Billie Joe Armstrong Is Not “F—ing Justin Bieber, You Mother—-ers” (2’04”)

Nice meltdown.

TV-Spotting THIS IS 40 (0’31”)

Cinema Scope’s Denizens Roundtable TIFF12 (46’55”)

Avec Jason Anderson, Robert Koehler, Adam Nayman, Mark Peranson, Kiva Reardon and John Semley.

BERGMAN’S VIDEO, A Documentary About Ingmar’s Collection (with González Iñárritu, Alfredson)

The videos start on autoplay; you should stop all three then watch one at a time.

From SVT. If you’re in Sweden, there’s hours of extracts and outtakes to be seen. Below, Alejandro González Iñárritu prowls Bergman’s video room and Faroe (“If film is religion, then this is Mecca, or the Vatican.”), then Tomas Alfredson.
Read the full article »

Wouldn’t You Know A “West Wing” Reunion Would Be A Political Ad? (4’04”)

I”m Bridget Mary McCormack, and I approve this message…”  Here’s how it happened: “Trying to get your campaign video to go viral? How about getting the cast of the “West Wing” to reunite? It worked for Bridget Mary McCormack, a candidate for Michigan’s State Supreme Court. The four-minute video starsMartin SheenBradley WhitfordAllison Janney and six other familiar faces from the beloved, long-running series explaining the less-than-scintillating dynamics of non-partisan ballots — with a sweet plug for the first-time candidate thrown in for good measure…” [More at the link.]

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New MOONRISE KINGDOM Short: Bob Balaban Explains Bill Murray (1’39”)

Trailering Al Maysles’ Iris Apfel Project (5’10”)

Ed Lachman Sez You Can’t Shoot Everything And Create Story Later (1’29”)


Another outtake from Side By Side.

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