Beyond +went+to+high+school+with+Ben+Affleck

Queries answered in this edition:
Q: “Why is Agnes Varda called ‘The Grandmother of the Nouvelle Vague‘?”
Q: “Matthew Barney Cremaster screening in Washington”
Q: “Greg’s Western Wear Online”
Q: “How much do producers spend making movies?”
Q: “In which films are the clocks stuck at 4.20?”
Q: “All Quiet on the Western Front symbols”

For a price, the small army of researchers and Jeopardy contestant manque‘s at Google Answers will answer your questions, things you just can’t find with Google the search engine.
In my site logs, I see your queries that bring you here. When what you’re searching for doesn’t immediately appear, sometimes it’s the search engine. but sometime it’s you. I’d certainly hope it’s not me. Along with fresh breath, customer satisfaction is a priority in my life. So I’m introducing greg.org answers, the information you thought you’d find on my weblog but didn’t. Until now. Let’s begin:


Q “Why is Agnes Varda called ‘The Grandmother of the Nouvelle Vague‘?”
A Because she tells you to, and you should generally do what great filmmakers tell you to do. From an Indiewire interview: “…because my first feature I made in ’54, five years before the New Wave, and I already had the freedom and the principles that they had. I hadn’t met with the Cahiers du Cinema. I never had any training. I wasn’t a cinebuff like they were. I wasn’t a film critic. So, they called me the Grandmother, because I started it, almost.”
Q “Matthew Barney Cremaster screening in Washington”
A It was Oct.31 and Nov. 1 at the Hirshhorn. You missed it, dude. Try London until Nov. 14, Paris, alongside the exhibit until Jan. 5. [I saw it, though, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt]
Q “Greg’s Western Wear Online”
A Greg’s Western Wear is a Central Florida western wear empire dedicated to “making wester wear shopping fun.”
Q “How much do producers spend making movies?”
A John Lee’s The Producer’s Business Handbook is a very useful reference for new or aspiring producers.
A The guys at Cyan Pictures clearly know how to spend money smartly, and it looks like they spent $42.5K on their nearly completed short film. I’ve spent a little more than half that on my short, Souvenir.
A How much you got?
Q “In which films are the clocks stuck at 4.20?” [from Yahoo UK, winner of the 2002 most proper search engine grammar prize]
A Huh. Uncharacteristically for an obscure topic related to smoking pot, there’s a looooong, excruciatingly detailed discursis about 420 on Phish’s site.
The rumor that the clocks in Pulp Fiction are all set to 4:20 is easily refuted. Only one is, apparently. (According to disinfo, Tarantino took his revenge on these baked rumormongers by killing each of the potsmokers in his next movie, Jackie Brown, at 4:20.
Anyway, disinfo also mentions a 4:20 clock appearance in Ingmar Bergman’s The Magician.
Q All Quiet on the Western Front symbols
A I’ll answer your questions, but I won’t do your homework for you. Watch the movie yourself. I hear there’s a book, too.