the making of, by greg allen
Bob Fosse as the Snake in Stanley Donen’s 1974 movie musical adaptation of The Little Prince [available in low-res original and Billie Jean mashup versions, because why not? via maud] which was not, in fact, filmed in the same location as Gus Van Sant’s Gerry after all: Related: my 2003 interview with Van Sant’s producer … Continue reading “Fosse, Gerry. Gerry, Fosse”
The compelling/amusing Super Mario Brothers: A Literary Criticism (thanks, Jason!), which puts paid to my (non-)critique of the connections between Gerry, its filmic antecedents, and SimCity-style video games.
Thinking of Frank Stella on the weekend of his death, I kept coming back to the scramble to get Carl Andre out of Rikers after he’d been arrested for the death of his wife. One criminal attorney, Gerry Rosen, had met with Andre at Rikers, then headed back into the city to piece together the … Continue reading “Carl Was Lucky To Have A Friend Like Frank”
I still admire his films. And I still definitely want to make that shot-for-shot remake of Gerry I’ve been contemplating since a day after seeing it for the first time. But nothing I have seen has me pumped for Gus Van Sant’s upcoming exhibition of wan paintings that Vito Schnabel’s putting on any minute. One … Continue reading “Gus Van Sans”
When I started transcribing this section of Mike Kelley’s 2004 Q&A with Gerry Fialka , I was only in it for the Duchamp and Cage. But I’m glad I stayed for the art, entertainment, and politics: [49:31] Gerry Fialka: Duchamp said, “How do you make a piece of art that’s not a piece of art?” … Continue reading “First You Get The Art. Then You Get The Power.”
As part of his study of the art of editing, and to do good for all mankind, the actor Topher Grace recut Star Wars episodes 1-3 into an 85-minute prequel which focuses on the transformation of Anakin into Darth Vader. Paul Sciretta attended a secretive screening of the Grace Edit, and prepared a detailed write-up … Continue reading “Star Wars: The Topher Grace Edit”
In May, Steve Roden wrote very nicely about Fionn Meade’s “Time Again” show at Sculpture Center, especially the conversation between one of his paintings and a little-known photograph of Projecktion, a Blinky Palermo project from in 1971, in which a painting was projected onto the facade of a building. palermo’s “projektion” seems to shift certain … Continue reading “Projecktions”
From Dennis Lim’s brief Q&A with Gus Van Sant at Cannes, where Restless is [finally?] debuting: We did silent takes of almost every scene so we could maybe use them in the editing. Terry Malick apparently shoots silent takes so he can mold what he wants out of the scenes. But with our takes we … Continue reading “Shh, Don’t Speak.”
Digging around on Moholy-Nagy’s Light Space Modulator and its relation to a later generation of kinetic light works by artists like Otto Piene, I came across some early works by Piene’s Zero Group co-founder, Heinz Mack. As early as 1960, Mack was showing plans for his Sahara Project [above, image via mack-kunst], which would, in … Continue reading “Heinz Mack, Daddy”
On the occasion of Apichatpong Weerasethakul [1] winning the Palme d’Or, Frieze‘s Dan Fox has a incisive recap of the debate over Slow Cinema that erupted after Nick James’ Sight and Sound recent op-ed calling the genre out as a passive-aggressive dare to the audience to admit they’re bored. The row among film critics and … Continue reading “Slow Cinema vs. Art Cinema”
The constroversy over Peter Baxter’s decision to pull Super Columbine Massacre RPG! from Slamdance’s Guerilla Gamemakers Festival hit the New York Times this weekend, and Baxter has yet another explanation for his actions. This time, it’s not complaints by a sponsor, hypothetical complaints by a sponsor, or even his own personal distaste for the game. … Continue reading “Super Columbine Massacre NYT!”
Ian at Water Cooler Games has been writing about an incident at Slamdance. Seems the founder of the alt-alt festival yanked Super Columbine Massacre, a charming -sounding RPG that tells the tale of some innocent, young, all-American scamps, from the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition. At first, the line was extreme sponsor displeasure with having a … Continue reading “How To Tell Cannes And Slamdance Apart”
Gus Van Sant’s new film, Last Days, is a fictional recreation of the impending death of Kurt Cobain, shot in the director’s now-mature semi-documentary style. The trailer’s up; Last Days opens May 16 in France, timed, presumably, with its debut at Cannes. Don’t feel bad that France gets to see it long before the US, … Continue reading “Smells Like Cine Spirit”
Or maybe it’s greg.org: the videoblog. It’s a veritable greg.orgy: everybody come! [uh…] On Monday, January 10th, I’m presenting a program of short films (including one of my own), video art, scenes from features, and other stuff, as part of The Reel Roundtable’s Film and Blogs series. But more than an elaborate excuse to show … Continue reading “greg.org: the movie, Coming January 10th”
So Tony Scott and Manohla Dargis, his new partner in film reviewing, handicap the fall movie season in today’s NYT. Now about the new kid: she praises David O. Russell and Alexander Payne in the same sentence, so she can’t be entirely, irredeemably, Joyce Wadler-style crazy, but the only possible explanation I can come up … Continue reading “Manohla Dargis: It’s Armenian for ‘driven crazy by jabbering’”