Author: greg

The Bible’s Greatest Miracles. Yes, before he donned a wig in Erin Brockovich, but after his breakout performances in Neil Labute’s In The Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors (and a supporting role in Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday), Aaron Eckhart, sporting a wig that must have required a lot of faith, played an almost Stoppardian Samson in this 1999 made-for-PaxTV documentary.
I remember stopping dead in my channel surfing tracks when I saw my former BYU classmate, New York neighbor and fellow parishioner, and ex-boyfriend of my good friend, doing an Old Testament John Wayne on what looked like the Egyptian set of Dr. Who. My kingdom for a video capture.
But don’t just take my word for the power of this film. Grizzly Adams witnesses best:

History’s most spectacular miracles and claims. . .but are they true? Bible scholars and skeptics examine four of the Bible’s greatest mysteries–David and Goliath; Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace; and the story of strongman Samson and Delilah–to determine if they are myth or reality. Watch dramatic re-creations of Bible events, expert testimony, and conclusive scientific experiments that put these Bible stories to the test. See compelling new evidence that the Bible is indeed factual and trustworthy!

Bonus: the script was written by David Balsiger, who just wow’ed em in Dallas.
Buy The Bible’s Greatest Miracles on DVD, direct from Grizzly Adams Productions, for $19.95.

And I thought Ronin had the most jaw-dropping Parisian car chase scene.
In August 1976, French director Claude Lelouch (who, it turns out, did the French segment of 11″09’01, the one where the deaf chick decides to break up with her boyfriend at 9:59 or something) had 9 minutes of film, a Ferrari 275 GTB, a gyro-stabilized camera and mount, and an idea.
He set a route through the center of Paris, from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre and up to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur, strapped the camera on the bumper, and drove flat out through the (somewhat empty) early morning streets.
Rendezvous is the one-take artifact of that insane and illegal trip. Not technically a chase scene, maybe it should be called a race scene. It’s the verite equivalent of the Hollywood-staged Sunset Blvd race in Against All Odds, and it ranks with the likes of Peter Yates’ Bullitt and Friedkin’s The French Connection for best car chase scenes ever.
With one difference: the obvious danger to bystanders during Rendezvous throws peoples’ moral compasses out of whack. Some, like neonrebel, get all hot for the film, then suddenly turn all critical and judgmental, like a self-hating preacher after scoring a hooker. Others, like a writer for The Daily Express, show amazing lack of judgment when he calls the film “an automotive equivalent of September 11th footage.”
Now you, too, can hate yourself in the morning; after decades underground, C’Etait Un Rendezvous is now available on DVD.
Buy Spirit Level Film’s release of Rendezvous for $28.95 from Chasecam. Read neonrebel’s review. [via the Sachs Report? Why didn’t you tell me about him before?]
[9/17 update: Lelouch has performed another stunt this week, offering free nationwide screenings for his latest film, Les Parisiens, which got panned by critics.]

Jim Whitaker is the director of a documentary in the making of the changes taking place at the World Trade Center site. Project Rebirth, as it’s called, has been taking time lapse imagery from various cameras perched on buildings surrounding the site since the Spring of 2002, after most debris was cleared away from The Bathtub.
Now, in time for the third anniversary of the attacks, they’ve released a trailer, some time lapse segments, and a webcam. Begun with an imperative to capture History and only a bare conception of what it might actually look like, the filmmakers added street-level and firehouse cameras later on.
Which is interesting, because by definition, human presence, the individual, is rendered invisible in a multi-year time lapse. Like Hiroshi Sugimoto’s movie screen photographs, which are exposed for the duration of a film. Technically, the resulting image “contains” all the information in the film, but the screen itself is pure white. Meanwhile, the minutest details of the theaters–architecture, seats, stages, curtains–emerge from the darkness only because of the projected film.

projectrebirth.org
Ground Zero, The Long View [Sarah Boxer, NYT]

Jim Whitaker is the director of a documentary in the making of the changes taking place at the World Trade Center site. Project Rebirth, as it’s called, has been taking time lapse imagery from various cameras perched on buildings surrounding the site since the Spring of 2002, after most debris was cleared away from The Bathtub.
Now, in time for the third anniversary of the attacks, they’ve released a trailer, some time lapse segments, and a webcam. Begun with an imperative to capture History and only a bare conception of what it might actually look like, the filmmakers added street-level and firehouse cameras later on.
Which is interesting, because by definition, human presence, the individual, is rendered invisible in a multi-year time lapse. Like Hiroshi Sugimoto’s movie screen photographs, which are exposed for the duration of a film. Technically, the resulting image “contains” all the information in the film, but the screen itself is pure white. Meanwhile, the minutest details of the theaters–architecture, seats, stages, curtains–emerge from the darkness only because of the projected film.

projectrebirth.org
Ground Zero, The Long View [Sarah Boxer, NYT]

Wallpaper* founding editor Tyler Brule will host and produce The Desk, BBC4’s “long awaited media show,” a media-gazing TV gig even more prestigious than, say, Topic A with Tina Brown.
Brule’s strategy for getting the slot may give a hint of what to come; according to the Guardian, Brule first had to beat off some stiff challengers, and “he also beat off other more experienced media experts including Loaded founder James Wheeler, author Paul Morley and Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark.”
Apparently, so many people wanted to try their hand at the low-paying job because it’s been a stepping stone for careers in television. I was going to try to squeeze a couple more jokes out of this, but I think I’ll stop here.
Wallpaper man wraps up BBC media role [Media Guardian, via mediabistro]
It takes a village planner, Brule’s imaginary neighborhood shop-a-thon for NYT’s T

Wallpaper* founding editor Tyler Brule will host and produce The Desk, BBC4’s “long awaited media show,” a media-gazing TV gig even more prestigious than, say, Topic A with Tina Brown.
Brule’s strategy for getting the slot may give a hint of what to come; according to the Guardian, Brule first had to beat off some stiff challengers, and “he also beat off other more experienced media experts including Loaded founder James Wheeler, author Paul Morley and Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark.”
Apparently, so many people wanted to try their hand at the low-paying job because it’s been a stepping stone for careers in television. I was going to try to squeeze a couple more jokes out of this, but I think I’ll stop here.
Wallpaper man wraps up BBC media role [Media Guardian, via mediabistro]
It takes a village planner, Brule’s imaginary neighborhood shop-a-thon for NYT’s T