Author: greg

Wait, I Thought Nobody WATCHED Short Films…

submission_vangogh.jpg

Dutch filmmaker and great grandson* Theo Van Gogh was murdered on an Amsterdam street today, ostensibly because of his short film, Submission. [That’s the title.] Since Submission was broadcast on the VPRO TV network in August, Van Gogh and the film’s writer, an “ex-Muslim” member of parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, had received numerous death threats and accusations of blasphemy.
Seriously, what is up with these people? I can’t believe anyone not related to the filmmakers actually watches a short film, much less gets mad enough to kill over one.
[There was that one time when MVRDV got death threats over their short animated film, Pig City… And the guy who got them in that trouble, Pim Fortuyn, did get assassinated himself…]
Of course, if you make a movie with verses from the Koran painted on nude women’s bodies, which are visible through a translucent chador, I guess you might piss some of the wrong people off. So is it the offended militant Muslims who are crazy, or the Dutch?
Watch several minutes of Van Gogh and Ali’s film, Submission at VPRO.
A BBC profile of Van Gogh calls him “the Netherlands’ Michael Moore.” [talk about kickin’ a guy when he’s down…]
Reuters just reports, thank you very much.
* [update: When a guy’s named Van Gogh, you figure he’s related. When he’s named Theo, you should figure he’s related to the brother. He is. He’s Theo’s great-grandson, i.e., Vincent’s great grand-nephew. Vincent didn’t have any kids. That we know of.]

Dear Republicans, Aloha! Wish U Were Here! Love, Scott Sforza

Whenever they go to a foreign country, the Bush-Cheney people like to show respect for the quaint local culture, and Hawaii is no different.

cheney_hawaii_ap.jpg

Dressing the natives in their colorful local garb and dressing the stage with indigenous plantlife? That’s just like their trip to Africa.

Bush on a dais from Survivor2:Africa, image:state.gov

And thoughtfully providing a caption to let us know what country they’re in? Just like their visit to Romania in 2002.

Romanians under a Romania banner, image:whitehouse.gov

Related, on Gothamist: Dick Cheney laughs in the face of Death

Dear Republicans, Aloha! Wish U Were Here! Love, Scott Sforza

Whenever they go to a foreign country, the Bush-Cheney people like to show respect for the quaint local culture, and Hawaii is no different.

cheney_hawaii_ap.jpg

Dressing the natives in their colorful local garb and dressing the stage with indigenous plantlife? That’s just like their trip to Africa.

Bush on a dais from Survivor2:Africa, image:state.gov

And thoughtfully providing a caption to let us know what country they’re in? Just like their visit to Romania in 2002.

Romanians under a Romania banner, image:whitehouse.gov

Related, on Gothamist: Dick Cheney laughs in the face of Death

Finally, Apocalypse Tuesday

You have to give New Line credit. They hold up the video/DVD of Michael Tolkin’s The Rapture–one of the most sophisticated treatments of religion ever put to film–for 13 years, and then they decide to release it on the actual day when, whatever happens, up to 49% of Americans will think the world’s actually coming to an end: Tuesday, November 2nd.
Buy The Rapture on Amazon, or rent it at GreenCine. [via Choire’s NYT Guide
]

Nick Nolte Diary’s Diary

Hats off to writers Christian Newton and Casey McAdams for their hilarious NickNolteDiary.com, and for their help in putting together the timeline in the Times Sunday. I happily traded a greg.org mention in the piece for the byline, duh.
Alas, during rewrites, we cut the gratuitous digs at LA residents and my secret blogging shoutouts; for entertainment purposes only, here’s the intro I originally tried to sneak by the editors:

Even the best website ideas can languish unrealized for months, pushed off even the back burner by day jobs, intractable schedules, and inescapable inertia. So it was for Christian Newton and Casey McAdams, two Los Angeles residents (aka aspiring screenwriters), who took more than six months nurturing their vision: a fictional diary in the persona of actor Nick Nolte. The story of how their little weblog went from private homage to inadvertent global news hoax to cease-and-desist letter to sitcom pitch- all in one week- reveals the workings of the blog-powered buzz machine. And it may encourage would-be Hollywood players to get back to their laptops and finish that site.

The Positively True Adventures of the Counterfeit Diary of Nick Nolte [NYT]
Nick Nolte Reviews Movable Type [the greg.org post that started it all, after Andy Baio’s one-man meme-machine Waxy.org, of course]

Love My Advertisers

Just a quick and heartfelt thanks to the wide-ranging advertisers on greg.org. Be sure to show them that yes, in fact, money can buy them love, or a reasonable facsimile:

  • Fleshbot Films’ debut DVD, Necromania, “directed” by “director” Ed Wood [I mean, can you imagine what the makegoods are like over at Fleshbot? Why not stand at attention for them?]
  • KevinKringle.com, of the North Pole Kringles [A funwhat cryptic site for now, but I’m sure there’s more coming. After all, do you think that Necromania DVD can play itself? Don’t answer that.]
  • MoMA’s Junior Associates, who are the ‘P’ in VIP, and who may be your best chance for getting your junior butt into the opening festivities for the new building. Besides, their dues are barely more than the new admission fee.
  • Arcadia University Art Gallery, which is currently showing Olafur Eliasson’s Your colour memory. Eliasson was just named the 29th most powerful person in the art world, which should cinch the deal right there.

    • ‘Sforza’ Now Spelled With A Ctrl-V

    Ah, the end of October. When Bush’s multiple obfuscatory attempts to disown a Sforzian Background-related scandal change faster than the autumn leaves. Last year this time it was “Mission Accomplished.” This year, well:
    The Bush-Cheney campaign’s final TV ad, aptly named “Whatever It Takes,” contains a doctored image of a Scott Sforza trademark the Military Backdrop.
    Check out the original image–with Bush and his podium–and the Photoshopped version the campaign started running yesterday–with its obviously cloned warriors.


    Still, Bush has learned a lesson in accountability since the ‘Mission Accomplished’ Banner snafu, which he originally tried to blame on the military. Not this time. No, with this commercial, it’s the editor’s fault.
    The fake troops in Bush’s new ad [Daily Kos]
    I’m George Bush’s flack, and he didn’t approve this ad (never mind that he says he did) [Talking Points Memo, where I first saw the story]
    Sforzian Backstabbing, 10/31/2003 [greg.org]
    Bush ad uses doctored image [LAT]

    In case the last post wasn’t long enough for you…

    Gothamist has an excellent interview with Errol Morris about his Switch ads featuring former Bush voters who are now voting for Kerry. Morris talks at length about The Fog of War and its relevance today, his interviewing techniques, and how we’re doomed to repeat the past–the only difference is whether we do it with irony or not.
    Errol Morris: The Gothamist Interview, as time closes in
    Errol Morris: see his ever-expanding Ex-Bush Voters For Kerry Ad Campaign
    Errol Morris: The greg.org Interview, just before the Oscar.

    In case the last post wasn’t long enough for you…

    Gothamist has an excellent interview with Errol Morris about his Switch ads featuring former Bush voters who are now voting for Kerry. Morris talks at length about The Fog of War and its relevance today, his interviewing techniques, and how we’re doomed to repeat the past–the only difference is whether we do it with irony or not.
    Errol Morris: The Gothamist Interview, as time closes in
    Errol Morris: see his ever-expanding Ex-Bush Voters For Kerry Ad Campaign
    Errol Morris: The greg.org Interview, just before the Oscar.

    Updating The List: High-End Stores With Unpleasant Odors

    1. Barney’s, men’s side, main floor
    Coming down the escalator into the underwear/robe department, there’s an unbearable funk that’s been there since the store opened ten years ago. Drives me crazy.

    2. Prada Store, Aoyama, Tokyo     [see left]
    Leave it to a sissy to make fun of how people talk. In his retrograde column in the NY Observer, Simon Doonan reports, “As rumored, this store is bedeviled by a mysterious and unfortunate all-pervading odor of cat urine.”
    My Tour de Tokyo [NYO]
    Slide show of Herzog & de Meuron’s Tokyo Prada store, which opened in 2003 [dezain.net]

    The Architect of The Marshall Mathers Plan

    eminem_mosh.jpg

    This summer, GNN director Ian Inaba had come up with a concept for a music video that could get young voters out to the polls, when he found out Eminem was working on a song to do the same thing. The result of their 5-week [!!] collaboration is “Mosh,” an angry, compelling, and invigorating incitement to revolution-by-ballot.
    If you thought conservatives were disturbed by a wifebeatered army of Eminemonites [Sounds like Mennonites. Go ahead, pronounce it; I’ll wait.] outside the MTV Awards, just imagine their discomfort at the sight of these hoodied masses descending on polling places around the country. [via Choire and daily.greencine.com]
    View Eminem’s Mosh and read Inaba’s Director’s Statement [GNN]
    Eminem calls for regime change [GNN]