Reeler Archive for February, 2006

'Film Snob's Dictionary': Defining Cinema For the Smug Obsessive in All of Us


This is the part of the blog where I channel the omniscient traditon of Liz Smith in the spirit of full disclosure: “A lovely writer like Lawrence Levi does not need this good friend to vouch for him. From the moment I previewed the new book The Film Snob’s Dictionary, which Levi co-wrote with Snob mastermind David Kamp, I knew that the pair’s priceless wit and wisdom would be the toast of cinema obsessives for years to come. And that Lawrence, with his quiet sensitivity and charming…”
OK, fuck it: Lawrence Levi is a friend of mine. He writes a pleasant film blog called Looker and is indeed also one of the lucky bastards behind The Film Snob’s Dictionary, which hit stores Tuesday. The book collects a few hundred cinematic touchstones, phenomena and other outlandish minutiae as a point of reference for anyone, as the cover states, “for whom the actual enjoyment of motion pictures is but a side dish to the accumulation of arcane knowledge about them.” Or as perhaps a cheat sheet for more casual moviegoers flummoxed with guilt over an inability to distinguish essential character actor Brian Dennehy from essential character actor Charles Durning. Ever the egalitarians, Film Snob‘s authors make such aesthetic diagnoses easier for everybody (though you can beg to differ in the Nitpickers’ Corner at Snobsite.com). And since I am acquainted with Levi, you might assume I will go easier on the guy while reviewing his work. In reality, however, I am so jealous that I had to have another colleague edit this item for excessive playa hating.
In the end, I saw Film Snob for the gem it is: A genuinely engaging resource camped in the treacherous terrain between humor and criticism, as assured in its grasp of the fossil record (The 4:30 Movie, Kenneth Anger, Hammer Films) as it is in assessing contemporary terms that have found a niche in “serious” film culture (Shannon Tweed, wire-fu, Steve Zahn). It really takes a freak–nay, two freaks–to not only know this much about movies, but also contextualize, cross-reference and then satirize basically all of it.
“The reason why I think Lawrence and I pull it off so well is because we know this to be true of ourselves sometimes,” said Kamp, who started the Snob series with a collection of articles in Vanity Fair before publishing The Rock Snob’s Dictionary with co-author Steven Daly in 2005. “There’s a film-snob part of both of us that we’re lampooning–whether you call it self-loathing or self-lampooning. But that said, we also are poking fun at this far more insufferable person. It’s, ‘Oh my God, if you’ve suffered in conversation with film snobs, or not been able to hold your own, this is the decrypting thing. This will crack the code for you so you can understand what these people are talking about and you can hold your own with them–with the added benefit of not even having seen the movies.”
And thank God for that, because face it: If you have not sat through all ten hours of Kieslowski’s The Decalogue by now, you just ain’t. But beyond defining obscure Snob rallying points like Skidoo and Flaming Creatures, the authors also supply handy analyses differentiating vaguely similar film terms (Bibi Andersson versus Harriet Andersson, The Trouble with Harry verus The Plot Against Harry); cataloguing “lost” masterpieces like Welles’s Don Quixote and Hitchcock’s Kaleidoscope; and a quick-reference guide delineating what separates “movies” from “films” (“It’s a MOVIE if it has T&A in it,” for example. “It’s a FILM if it has penises in it.”).

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Rossellini Bringing the 'Velvet' Touch to Film Forum in March


Repertory rumbles from West Houston Street confirm that Isabella Rossellini will be in the art house March 6 to support Film Forum’s 20th anniversary engagement of Blue Velvet.
Film Forum reps tell The Reeler that Rossellini–whose haunted portrayal of the film’s bruised chanteuse Dorothy Valens ranks among the most fearless, memorable performances of the 1980s–will drop in to introduce the evening’s 7:00 screening. Tickets go on sale Feb. 24, so start planning your sidewalk sleepover now.

Jersey Pearl: The Contagious Festival's Sleeper Candidate


I am sure that by now, you have probably heard, read or watched a thing or two about The Contagious Festival, The Huffington Post’s quasi-foray into independent film. Launched Feb. 1, Contagious hosts a batch of shorts for you to enjoy and pester your “friends” with, as though anybody wants another eighth-generation forwarded e-mail of an animated Dick Cheney shooting someone, or another wacky-as-all-get-out song parody about Dick Cheney shooting someone, or whatever. Meanwhile, the filmmaker behind the month’s most forwarded piece wins $2,500 and dinner with celebrity judges like John Cusack and Nora Ephron, which is like not winning anything at all. But considering what he or she is responsible for, the punishment appears to fit the crime appropriately enough.
Forget about the front-runners, though. What you should be interested in is the current 14th place film, Matthew Fogel’s Hello Dean (above, a k a Howard Dean: A Love Story, so titled for a little more first-glance context). From his base in Bergen County, Fogel has crafted a genuinely smart, funny and well-made short likening the futility of contemporary American politics to the futility of modern love. In a beautiful Dean campaigner, he meets who he thinks is his romantic match; like the Dean dream itself, however, the ideal implodes almost as suddenly as it took shape.
“I was hoping to capture just how immature presidential races have become,” Fogel replied after I e-mailed him about his film. “The treatment of the candidates by the media and public seems indistinguishable from an adolescent mooning over a crush, wildly vascillating between breathless infatuation and melodramatic heartbreak. How a bratty governor from a state smaller than my county in New Jersey became the Democrats’ candidate celebre is baffling, and I still wonder why Dick Gephardt wasn’t given a fairer shake. Also, I wanted to make fun of the Peace Corps.”
A subsequent e-mail summarized neatly, “We just wanted to make fun of anyone who cares about politics.” And a fine, refreshing job you did, Matthew.
So here’s what you need to do now, readers: First, watch the movie. It is good. Then forward it to everyone in your e-mail contacts and help Fogel make up that 384,619-point difference between Dean and Quail Hunting with Dick Cheney in the February standings. He only has a week to come from behind, which breaks down to a mere 55,000 forwards per day. I know you can help straighten this shit out, so get to it–we need to get somebody in there from whom Nora Ephron can actually learn something.

'Aristocrats' Redux: Telling and Retelling at the Knitting Factory


Because the magic of last year’s semi-harrowing brushes with the principals of the joke fest The Aristocrats has sort of begun to fade, The Reeler dropped by the Knitting Factory last night for an Aristocrats soundtrack listening party hosted by The Onion. Which actually was supposed to be kind of a blend of all-the-Chivas-Regal-you-can-drink-(until-we-run-out) and open-mic night for anyone drunk or perverse or fearless enough to give his or her own version a try on stage.
Between the Sasquatch, the “gyroscopic shit-baster gymnastics routine,” and a woman who made “mint Milano cookies in her bowels,” the expansive, postmodern, 10-minute epic retelling that started the event was… troubling. What followed was not too much better: A pedestrian, Mad-Libs-style, “insert vulgarity here” routine by some guy who I probably would have heckled had he not been sitting next to me; a drunk Asian whose slouched musings were actually really funny until he invoked his 1,283rd attempt at social consciousness; and a man who had a Jewish agent and a Palestinean suicide bomber solving the crisis in the Middle East through… I do not want to talk about it. Anyway, he won the contest, walking off with a piercing Scotch buzz and $69.69 of The Onion’s money.
But in the evening’s exhibition phase, Shayna Ferm (above) saved the event with her astonishing folk-music version of the Aristocrats joke. I lost track of Ferm’s transgressions after a newborn Chinese baby was christened in shit and Grandma was passed “a big, shiny, golden Star of David to hold up with her cunt.” Alas, because the organizers had invited Ferm to perform, she was ineligible to win any big prizes. God, this town is so fucking corrupt.
I would like to think I can organize some kind of pledge drive to right this particular inequity, but I think we would all be better off just hitting Ferm’s shows from here on out. But if you must, send your protests here and I will file a written grievance–it is definitely a slow enough film day to squeeze that in.

'Wonderful' News: Leiner's New York Ensemble Piece Finally Picked Up


Well, that only took 10 months: Variety reports today that First Independent Pictures has made a deal to release Danny Leiner’s New York ensemble drama The Great New Wonderful. The film–which had its world premiere at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, sank into the indie netherworld, re-emerged a little clumsily when star Maggie Gyllenhaal got hella indignant about U.S. foreign policy, and then retreated once again into its producer’s garage–surveys a group of New Yorkers working to reclaim normal lives in the aftermath of 9/11.
Wonderful‘s long wait for distribution seems even more improbable upon first glance at Leiner’s cast: Gyllenhaal, Edie Falco, Stephen Colbert, Olympia Dukakis, Tony Shalhoub and at least a few other names will not look so bad piled up on a poster, and it has not endured a succession of critical beatdowns, as far as I can tell. Maybe Leiner’s trenchant preceding one-two of Dude, Where’s My Car? and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle intimidated buyers? It is anyone’s guess, really, but hardly worth the speculation now–Variety’s Chris Gardner writes that breathless viewers can look forward at last to an early summer release.

Candid Cuba and Other Good Signs of The Times

Obviously, I’ve been a little bit out of the loop today, but I thought that before I choke to death on other work, I should at least point belatedly to Lewis Beale’s piece about Cuba Gooding Jr. in yesterday’s Times. In evaluating Gooding’s rise, plunge and makings of another rise, Beale captures a fairly stunning candor from a number of sources–not the least of whom is the subject himself:

“The studios don’t see me now,” said Mr. Gooding, speaking by telephone from the Los Angeles set of his latest film, What Love Is, an independently financed romantic comedy in which he co-stars with Anne Heche and Sean Astin.

“As a commercial entity, I know my stock is low,” added the actor, who is now 38. Recalling his heyday, Mr. Gooding said, “I was where Don Cheadle is now, where Terrence Howard is now. I was those guys three or four years ago.”

And then there is Gooding’s Shadowboxer director Lee Daniels–who calls the actor’s 1997 Oscar-acceptance speech “a Stepin Fechit performance”–and a little more generous Chris Fisher, who directed Gooding in the upcoming Dirty and said his star “saw himself as an actor who wanted to play characters, despite the fact the script wasn’t up to par, or the project wasn’t up to par.”
Wow. No pressure for Dirty, I guess. Gooding is not the only selling point of the Sunday movie section, either; although one would think Robert Altman would be kind of sore from that all that Terrence Rafferty hand-job action, Christian Moerk offers some long-awaited perspective on the making of the Edie Sedgwick biopic Factory Girl.

All of this pales in comparison to the Magazine, of course, where it appears that Tom Ford’s unavailability to design the now-annual “Great Performers” issue meant falling back to Plan B: Drawing on Jeff Daniels (right). Or sticking cat-eye contact lenses on George Clooney. I mean, nothing says “I had a good 2005” like Charlize Theron spray-painted gold. But hey–she was naked. You knew the Vanity Fair touch had to sneak in there somewhere.
(Photo: Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin for The New York Times)

'Hairspray' Movie Musical Wants Unknown to Make Big, Big Time

Today in Cindy Adams’s column, the producers of the long-delayed Hairspray movie musical adaptation offer the latest–and perhaps the best–of their quarterly updates. Now that all the director hubbub has died down, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron tell Post readers that they are preparing to cast a verrrrrrrrrry wide net in search of their next Tracy Turnblad:

“We’re investigating everywhere for a really overweight triple-threat young girl who sings, dances and acts. We’re checking high-school students, drama classes, Weight Watchers groups, fat camps, those who auditioned for the show’s national company. Kids with talent out there don’t get parts just because they’re overweight. Those are the ones we’re hunting. It’s like American Idol heavy-style.”


Not a pound lighter: Ricki Lake in John Waters’s original Hairspray (Photo: New Line Cinema)

Zadan and Meron emphasize that they are mostly interested in “unknowns,” but they add that they have already been through an exhaustive search in New York, so any local hopefuls who missed it may have to travel to the next open call in Baltimore. In her public service, meanwhile, classy lady Adams cites Hairhopper history from “young fatty Ricki Lake” to “a nifty chubette named Marissa Jaret Winokur” as a frame of reference for any “chunky chickie” interested in auditioning.
Nice, Cindy. But at least you are no film snob, right?

This Week in Shameless Oscar Campaigning: The Best Actor Race


With less than two weeks to go before the world stops, shudders and succumbs to a full-blown Oscar-night paralysis, I am struggling with the encroaching impression that in the sprint to claim this year’s Best Actor prize, Capote‘s Philip Seymour Hoffman has pulled ahead of Brokeback Mountain‘s Heath Ledger for good.
Which sucks, really–Capote is boring and Hoffman overacts–but the evidence does not lie. Take the Hoffman/Steve Kroft quickie last night on 60 Minutes–the most sensitive, personal portions of which made the PR rounds last week and only got more… penetrating when viewed in their entirety:

“Researching this work has changed my life, it’s altered my point of view about almost everything,” says Hoffman. “What is it? What is his personality? What makes him tick? I knew that deep down inside I had to understand it for myself in some personal way.”

Asked how he identified with Capote, Hoffman says, “The ambition, the drive, the wanting to be the center of attention, the wanting to succeed. … They’re all inside me somewhere.”

Compare Hoffman’s sexy backswing to that of the adorably ambivalent and nerve-addled Ledger, on whose behalf The Reeler has received a series of anonymous “reader” e-mails pushing their boy to the finish line. To wit:

“After seeing Brokeback Mountain and Capote, I would be very disappointed if Academy voters did not choose the very moving portrayal of Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain. Nothing against Philip Seymour Hoffman, but his performance is merely a caricature, copying the mannerisms of a strange man. A performance that does not have the soul or the full out emotion that Heath Ledger gives. … If voters truly have seen all of the performances for best actor, I can’t see them voting any other way than for Heath Ledger as best actor of the year.”

Or how about this note, which came over hours before Ledger’s Brokeback co-star (and fellow Oscar nominee) Jake Gyllenhaal claimed a British Academy Award for his role as Jack Twist:

“If the Academy are as credible as we all assume they are they would reward these two fine actors to taking on these characters that as film historians years from now would look upon them as the true turning point in Hollywood and the enterntainment industry as a whole in accepting homosexuality.

“Rarely does this happen where the best performances of the year are also the most courageous. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal should win Oscars because of this.”

OK, Focus Features, enough already. As much as I appreciate you keeping me in the loop, the betting man in me says that no publicity-monkey mass mailings are going to supersede a perfectly timed and lubed exotic massage from 60 Minutes. It is too late in the game, unless some exquisite rope-a-dope strategy has you priming a feral Barbara Walters in some dank downtown closet for an 11th-hour Ledger confessional. And those ballots have to be in a week from tomorrow. I am rooting for you, but the nuclear option needs your attention sooner than later, and believe me–my mailbag ain’t it.

Tom Ford Unlocks That Raw, Sexy Weinstein Cool

Earlier today at The Carpetbagger, my rehabilitated ally David Carr noted a truly remarkable makeover among this month’s garish Vanity Fair close-ups:

Harvey (Weinstein) was flanked by a very debonair businessman, a handsome guy whose face was writ with intelligence, a kind of executive warmth, and quiet resolve. The Bagger stared and stared at the picture and then finally looked at the caption. The guy in the jillion dollar suit next to Harvey was … his brother Bob. The Bagger does not know Bob well, but he has been in a few meetings with him. And Bob, surely a man who knows his way around his business and genre films in particular, is no threat to serve as the rack for the next fashion shoot in Esquire. Man, the Bagger knows Vanity Fair makes people look better than they are in real life and all, but the other brother looked amazing.

Well, David, this is “Tom Ford’s Hollywood,” where Scarlett Johansson lays around naked, Dakota Fanning wears Chanel and even Bob Weinstein has access to a comb. God knows this is a more flattering representation than last month’s New York Magazine spread–you know, the one the photographer sabotaged by yelling, “OK, guys, on three! Goofy shot! Goofy shot!” And then deleting the rest of the pictures:

(Photos: Platon/NYM [left]; Nigel Parry/Vanity Fair)

Do not get any ideas, though, Hollywood. Harvey and Bob just moved into the joint on Hudson Street, and the lease runs until at least Scary Movie 7. You can keep the suits–the brothers belong to us.

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'Love' Fest Opens Crafty Noir in East Village

So I have been sitting here for the last two hours, writing and re-writing the first line in what is supposed to be an overview of Vladan Nikolic’s film Love. A New York picture as comfortable with its defiance as it is with its grace, Love comprises noir, romance, cultural alienation and not just a few surrealist touches in a beautifully shot, nonlinear narrative that basically seems as though it should make no sense. At all.

Gunmen in Love: Peter Gevisser (right) and Sergej Trifunovic (Photo: Mark Higashino/Studio Belgrade)

I mean, not that it is Syriana or anything. But it is a kidnapping intrigue-turned-love triangle between a Serbian hit man, his old flame and her cop fiance, and you probably will be thinking Nikolic bit off more than he could chew by the time he introduces Love‘s secondary Lebanese, Italian, German, Canadian, Japanese and French characters. Then the threads overlap. They interlace. Whatever the characters are hiding behind those deep, brooding pauses somehow becomes clearer the longer they withhold it. And when Nikolic’s dramatic payoff–equal parts Rashomon and Reservoir Dogs–arrives like the painstakingly efficient coup that it is, you cannot help but ask yourself how the hell he did that.
“I think that noir in particular as a genre is always really interesting,” said Nikolic, whose film opened Thursday to two packed houses at the Pioneer Theater and a bustling after-party at Pianos. “If you strip it bare, it’s like, ‘What’s the story?’ It’s like one guy’s a hit man, one’s a cop and there’s this woman in between who’s a doctor. It’s kind of a ridicuous cliché, so I thought if we played with all of these clichés from this genre and give it a different context that you actually have real characters who are more multi-dimensional. The next time you see the next overlapping story, you have a new reality. What you’ve seen before has a whole different dimension. I thought it would be interesting to have this in the framework of this particular genre. And I always associate the noir with kind of this more melancholic look–in terms of the shots and the colors. It’s not sadness or aggression. It’s melancholy about something in the past. And I thought that worked really well with what this story is about.”

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'Passing' Mentions: A Sleepy Red Carpet in Tribeca


The Friday preceding a three-day weekend has never symbolized productivity, but the slowness of this particular slow news day has me yawning in my coffee. Assuming Roger Friedman’s “Paul Haggis is a Scientologist” nugget gets you more bothered than hot, the gossips today offer little but an ineloquent Winter Passing gang bang. Alas, of the two WP events terrorizing New York Wednesday night (The Reeler previewed Gen Art’s circle of Hell earlier that day), the press converged on the one with seemingly the least opportunity for catastrophe–the Cinema Society screening at the Tribeca Grand.
Rush and Molloy boast what I guess you would call the riskiest dispatch, getting WP star Ed Harris on the record about vice-sniper Dick Cheney:

“You don’t shoot birds on the ground, you shoot them in the air,” (Harris) told us. “I love how they’re trying to blame the other guy for getting shot. Unless the guy is 20 feet tall, Cheney wasn’t aiming in the right direction.”

Liberal scum! Harris also made an appearance in today’s photo finish for Item Least Likely to be Mistaken for Actual Gossip, starting with an unusually sterile editon of Boldface Names:

(I)n The Right Stuff, the wife of Mr. Harris’s character (JOHN GLENN) was played by MARY JO DESCHANEL, and the cinematographer was CALEB DESCHANEL, Zooey’s parents. “I knew Zooey,” Mr. Harris said. “I think I actually painted her bedroom when she was 1 or 2.”

And advancing us from diabetic shock to full-on coma, a reinvigorated Cindy Adams takes no prisoners:

Up close, Zooey Deschanel is gorgeous to die. Not a zit, not an enlarged pore, not a hair on her chin. And skinny? If she stood sideways, they’d mark her absent. “But I eat tons of food,” said Zoo-Zoo, which is her dad’s pet name for her. “Not just vegetables and chicken. Sweets. Lots of sweets. Chocolates. I love food. I’m an eater.” Also a borrower. “My Prada dress is only on loan.” Also a sipper. At the screening, Zoo-Zoo worked a Champagne flute.

All right, fine. So the Gen Art party was the way to go, after all.

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Snobs, Sheets and So On: Welcome Back, Cindy Adams


Shockingly, more than two months have passed since Cindy Adams’s last mention on The Reeler. I can remember when nary a day went by without some massively entertaining screed against J. Lo. or King Kong or some confused, soaked-sheet phone romp with Matthew Modine. Today, however, Adams greeted readers with a two-fer (or maybe a one-and-a-halfer) that should help her re-establish dominion in my heart–and yours.
Like this adorable verbal shrug regarding David Kamp and Lawrence Levi’s upcoming book, The Film Snob’s Dictionary (to be reviewed here Feb. 21):

WHAT this means I don’t know, but coming out is The Film Snob’s Dictionary, which states: “The only Tom Cruise movie it’s OK for Snobs to like is Ridley Scott’s Legend.” That was ’85, Tom’s first super-important role. Maybe someone can explain to me what all that’s supposed to mean?

Of course, nobody fucks with Cindy, so I contacted the authors right away to inform them of her request. They clarified a little while ago on the official Snobsite:

Cindy, if you even have to ask… but we will say that, for starters, U.S. audiences only got to see the tragically truncated 89-minute version, while the European version ran nearly a half-hour longer. That alone is enough to create a Snob cause célèbre.

As Cindy herself might say, possibly maybe perhaps we just might elaborate on this when the people who elaborate on such things feel like elaborating some more if they’re in an elaborating mood. And when the room service people in the Shanghai Mandarin Oriental figure out how to make a simple bagel with a schmear for Joey. Is all we’re saying.

And this is me, finally exhaling. Now that that is settled, we can move on to Cindy’s next item, which appeared anonymously yesterday on Gawker but which Cindy attributed today–accidentally or otherwise–to one of the New York film community’s own:

SCOTT Gluck of the Weinstein Company got on the E train at West Fourth. Sitting opposite was a person with a white sheet over his head. No cut-out eyes, no holes for the nose. Nothing. And he just sat there like that. Not one other passenger even batted an eyelash at this sight.

Stunning. It is always a nice to see the Weinstein staff hitting the gossip circuit so hard. Memo to Scott Gluck: While I prefer the dirty laundry to just, you know, laundry, I will run your camera phone pictures and laugh at your burka jokes until I puke if you think it will get me any closer to The King. Cindy is fun, and Gawker is sexy, but they will not respect you in the morning. They will not even remember you in the morning. So write it down: Tips [at] TheReeler.com. I am here for you, pal.

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African Diaspora Film Festival Takes Up Week-Long Brooklyn Residency


The Reeler grabbed a quick word a few days ago with Diarah N’Daw-Spech, one of the organizers of New York’s African Diaspora Film Festival. I had caught her in the middle of preparing for the fest’s annual field trip to Brooklyn, where the ADFF’s Best Of series will settle in tomorrow at BAM; needless to say, she was a little busy, but she kindly walked me through the event anyway.
“The Best Of is an opportunity for people to catch up–to see what they couldn’t see or missed out on,” N’Daw-Spech told me. “Or, if they never made it, to really catch the best of what was made available, which is always a nice opportunity.” The ADFF has roots in Brooklyn, in fact, dating back to its inaugural November 1993 go-around split between Park Slope’s Plaza Twin Theater and Harlem’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. After 9/11 made the Brooklyn leg logistically impossible in 2001, the festival returned to its Plaza contingent the following February with a smaller program. After that successful test run, the Best Of relocated to the just-renovated BAM Rose Cinemas in 2003.
This year’s series includes 18 films–virtually all features and shorts culled from the 2005 ADFF’s 80-film program. “We still make sure to maintain a diverse representation of what the black experience is,” N’Daw-Spech said. “That’s always something we do when we program the festival–we want to make sure we have representation from as many countries and continents as possible. We have films from Africa, Latin America, Europe, the Caribbean and the US, and that’s something we always try to keep.”

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Cinematical Switcheroo: Longworth Out, Rocchi In

A Reeler source sends word that Brooklyn’s own Karina Longworth is heading out and critic James Rocchi is moving in as editor over at Cinematical. The changeover takes effect March 1, launching Longworth–the prolific blog’s founding writer/editor–into the troposphere of the Weblogs Inc./AOL empire.
My iconic Swedish alter ego caught up with Longworth on AIM just a bit ago to confirm:

karinalongworth: The new project is really exciting, and ill still get to do event coverage for Cinematical, etc

karinalongworth: My official title is going to be editor emeritus, I think

Sven Nykvist: That is awesome

karinalongworth: Am I the youngest editor emeritus in the history of the Internet?

Sven Nykvist: It is altogether possible…

Sven Nykvist: If not guaranteed

karinalongworth: Well, I’ll make the claim until proven wrong

Sven Nykvist: But also quite noble, fairly sexy

Sven Nykvist: Distinguished as hell

karinalongworth: Right. Its all 3 martini lunches from here on out

“I’ll essentially be working on special projects for Cinematical–podcasts, festival coverage, etc.,” Longworth wrote. “I’ll also be writing a weekly column on industry goings-on, tentatively titled ‘Laws and Sausages.'” Yes, really. She also noted that Rocchi has additional big plans for the blog in the future, and while I am sure they are great, I think I speak for all of Cinematical’s readers when I declare how much we will miss Longworth’s regular contributions.
However–*sniff*–we must persevere, if only to find out how she graphically she ties Bismarck’s old “Laws and Sausages” quip to the industry we hold so dear. Best of luck, Karina.

Oscar Shorts Circuit Set to Launch in NYC


Wait a second. Am I really running The Reeler’s second Oscar story of the day? At barely 11 a.m.? Technically, yes, but it is not what you think: Magnolia Pictures yesterday announced a partnership with Shorts International to distribute 2005’s Oscar-nominated animated and live-action shorts (including Brendan Gleeson in Six Shooter, right) before the Oscars. The program opens Feb. 24 at Cinema Village, joined by runs in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle among other quaint hamlets that are not New York.
However, for you shameless budget moviegoers here in Gotham, the Academy is also hosting its own nominated-shorts program Feb. 25 at the Theater at Lighthouse International. Screenings are scheduled at noon and 4 p.m., will be hosted by Robert Osborne, and tickets only cost $5 (and just $3 for seniors and students). The catch? It’s a small joint, and you need to RSVP early at 888-778-7575.
And God forbid you should miss them. As Shorts International CEO Carter Pilcher told Reuters today, “(Shorts) are the feature films for today’s generation.” Nope–no Oscar hype here.

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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