Author: greg

Start With A Large Fortune

NYT fashion reporter Cathy Horyn goes to Hollywood to see what Tom Ford’s up to. True to reports when he left Gucci, he’s looking to make a small fortune in the movie business.

“If I’m going to get one shot to make an impression,” he said, “I want to have around me at least the padding of professional organization. I would not be able to make a little film that will go unnoticed the way it might for other beginning directors. Everyone will be looking. `Is he any good?'”

Tom Ford’s Intermission [NYT]

Listen to these directors’ interviews

Ousmane Sembene on WNYC, of course, which I already posted
John Waters on WPS1 [although for my money, no Waters interview is better than this Oct 1998 dicussion of Pecker on Fresh Air, which makes me cry laughing to this day.]
Melvin Van Peebles from 1971, speaking at MoMA about his just-released Sweet, Sweetback’s Badassss Song.
WPS1‘s been getting its groove on lately, in case you haven’t noticed. The talk shows are tightening up a bit, and the music is rocking. Now if they can only figure out podcasting…

I Scoopa de World, Chico, ‘n everthin’s’innit

These are the first color photographs released of Les Arenes de Chaillot. They’ll be running this weekend in Le Monde.
Supposedly, the staff of La Mexicaine de Perforation are dressed like this for the screening of Mister Freedom and Sgt Kabukiman.
That, or this whole underground cinema thing is really a publicity stunt for Fox’s upcoming The Tick: The Musical.

Muchas gracias por todo, Mexicaines!
Previously on greg.org:
Les Arenes de Chaillot: complete programme guide
Exclusive: La Mexicaine Le Interview
Search results for “Mexicaine”

Happy (Belated) 2nd Birthday to Gawker

Which was registered two years ago last week, it turns out.
Registrant:
Pending Renewal or Deletion
P.O. Box 430
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
US
Phone: 570-708-8786
Domain Name: GAWKER.COM
Record expires on 05-Oct-2004
Record created on 05-Oct-2002
Update: Trying to think of a gift for Gawker? They already got a sharp stick in the eye from Network Solutions… (Nick says the whole thing’s an NSI screwup, although I’d suspect BMW.)

Les Arenes de Chaillot: The Complete Programme Guide

If greg.org were a magazine, this would be the big sidebar. But you can call it what it is: whoring for traffic. Here, for the first time in the indexable media, are the programmes–complete with my poor translations of their film descriptions–of La Sesion Comoda and Urbex Movie, the 2003 and 2004 series, respectively, organized by La Mexicaine de Perforation.
Screenings began at midnight in Les Arenes de Chaillot, the group’s underground cinema adjacent to la Cinematheque Francaise.

lmdp_logo.jpg

Continue reading “Les Arenes de Chaillot: The Complete Programme Guide”

They Shoot Houses, Don’t They?

My mother’s house was recently scouted as a location for this season of The WB’s Everwood. She didn’t want all those people stomping across her limestone, so she turned them down.
But according to the LA Times, some homeowners say yes, again and again. Says one location manager who has booked Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No. 22 for many films, “You can shoot a McMansion anytime you want, and no one will remember it. It just satisfies my creative juices to get great architecture into movies.”
Using the same houses for every movie? Sounds about as creative as casting Negroes as servants. But that’s L.A., always trying to shoot around the palm trees.
Best House in A Leading Role [LAT, via Towleroad]
Related: Wes Anderson’s Dream House [NYO]
The owner of the New Jersey McMansion used as a set for The Sopranos claims 250 replicas have already been built using his $699 Soprano Home Design blueprints [NYT 08/2002, via City of Sound]

Yow. Guardian gets all in Pinault’s business

Viva La Revolution! The Guardian‘s loyal apparatchik, Amelie Gentleman demands that contemporary art collector, museum-builder, Frenchman, and “rapacious capitalist” Francois Pinault confess his artistic crimes.
Crimes number one, two, and three: pouring hundreds of millions of his own euros into to build a world-class collection–the likes of which doesn’t exist anywhere else in France–and to turn a ruined factory–or, as she calls it, the “temple of France’s workers”–into a Tadao Ando-designed museum.
She tries to scare France senseless by comparing Pinault to the mad king of London’s art world, Charles Saatchi. But she’s got almost all hyperbole, almost no data, and next to no quotes, except for a bitchy whispering “official,” who’s righter than he knows when he says most French contemporary artists aren’t good enough to make the collection (Don’t worry about them, though; their ’68 buddies entrenched at the Pompidou will always buy their work.)
After living all these years in dread of Saatchi, Gentleman’s article sounds like a case of the abused becoming the abuser.

Saatchi of the Seine [Guardian]

Exclusive: La Mexicaine Le Interview

palais_chaillot.jpg

While the discovery of an underground cinema in the center of Paris has been widely covered, little or no attention has been paid to what the films actually played there. Les Arenes de Chaillot (The Chaillot Arenas) was created by La Mexicaine de Perforation, a group of self-labeled urban explorers who, for the last five or so years, have used the invisible and forgotten infrastructure of Paris as their own curatorial venue, putting on exhibitions, concerts, and, beginning last year, film screenings.
Early Sunday morning I spoke with Lazar Kunstmann, a filmmaker, editor, and the public spokesman of LMDP about the group’s objectives, ideas, and inspirations. Turns out there were at least two weekly film series, including Urbex Movie, the one that someone narc’ed out this past summer. Here’s what they showed and why:

Continue reading “Exclusive: La Mexicaine Le Interview”

On & On & On

on_kawara_jun301967.jpgYou have 9 days and counting to see David Zwirner’s show of 40 years of On Kawara’s date paintings. Kawara began painting these works on January 6, 1966, and he has developed a particular set of rules for their creation: he must complete the painting by the end of that day; the date format is determined by the country where he happens to be (Esperanto where they don’t use Roman characters, and always hand-painted, not stencilled); there are eight color (mixed fresh every day) and five size variations; he eventually stopped including a page from that day’s local newspaper in the box.
While working with a strict, uniform, and imposed subject matter, Kawara’s method offers subtle reminders of the act of making, little shoutouts of “I am still alive.”
Just as Dan Flavin’s work uses the barest means to make us aware of space, Kawara’s makes us aware of time. Why do I suddenly have the urge to see I ♥ Huckabees?
On Kawara at David Zwirner, through Oct. 16
On Kawara at Dia:Beacon, the second-largest grouping around. Also check out Lynne Cooke’s essay.
Other Kawara-related posts, including Kawara’s amazing piece at Documenta XI

Set your TiVo’s on ‘Stun’

John Edwards is hosting Dr. Strangelove tonight on Turner Classic Movies. [via fimoculous]
The only bummer is that Kubrick fingered the generals, not the chickenhawks. Still, I’d be less nervous sharing the screen with Dick Cheney than with George C. Scott. Sellers isn’t bad, either.
Three other senators picked movies so predictable you’d think they were up for election this year: McCain (Paths of Glory), Biden (Dead Poets Society), and Hatch (To Kill A Mockingbird).
Party Politics and The Movies Series on TCM

RNC Highlight Reel

Don’t know the editor, but the actors are familiar, and the script, we all know it by heart now (“September 11th, Saddam Hussein, very dangerous, global terrorism”).
BoingBoing points to a video that distills the 4-day message of last month’s Republican National Convention into three or so rhythmic minutes. The award for Most Hysterical goes to New York’s own Rudy Giuliani.
How Do You Run A Convention On A Record Of Failure? [via BoingBoing]

I See Alec Baldwin as Gandolfini

Today’s Boldface Names column in the Times is a ready-to-shoot script for a Hemingwayesque short. The story: James Gandolfini, who’s putting the Ernest H. in HBO, gets into character by putting the moves on…on the reporter for the New York Times. The whole thing takes place during a benefit at Elaine’s.
I’d shoot this myself, but I’m still too traumatized over losing my shaving kit last week on the exact spot where this love scene takes place. Think about it.
The Old Man and the She [NYT, via Gawker]