Category: making movies

I heard Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff barking on WBUR last night about how the shifty Michael Moore has not released a transcript of Farenheit 9/11, the easier to dispute the points he makes in the film.
[Is irony really, truly dead after all, that so many of the tortillas being flung at F9/11 from the right-field bleachers are because Moore “makes inaccurate insinuations from unrelated facts and dishonestly leads people to jump to conclusions that are otherwise unsupported?” Matthew Continetti, the Weekly Standard water carrier on On Point kept making that argument, and I’m like, what veep-in’ Vice President have you been listening to the last three years?
As I see it, the only possible vindication worse than Michael Moore’s is Graydon Carter’s, my glass-house-livin’ slavishly administration-supportin’ friends.]
Anyway, waxy and daily.greencine.com point out that Drew at Script-o-rama has found and documented self-serving inaccuracies and bias in the transcript used by many Moore critics, including Isikoff. I certainly feel better when I say it: go factcheck yourself.

Welcome to a very special greg.org tribute to lowculture:

And I am an optimistic person. I guess if you want to try to find something to be pessimistic about, you can find it, no matter how hard you look, you know?

– 7/15/04, George W. Bush, talking about what he never promised in the Rose Garden.

“You know what?” she said. “I don’t look at it that way. I’m a very positive person. I really always think positive. I think of good thoughts for people, and when you have a negative thought you know what you have to do?”
(Why do we think she thought we were particularly needful of this advice?)
“You close your eyes,” she instructed. “You dismiss it and you think of something that you love and you know what I think about? You’re gonna laugh. A Hansen’s cake!”
We looked at her blankly.
“This great bakery in Beverly Hills, California,” Ms. Hilton said. “It’s got lots of sugar hearts on it and roses and little butterflies. I close my eyes like that” – here she demonstrated – “and you dismiss it. Negativity only brings negativity around you. ”

– 7/15/04, Kathy Hilton, reality TV star and voice of Barbie, demonstrating how we’ve found the level of the political room in this country at Tavern on the Green.

In the Guardian, Thomas Kineally tells the rambling, sentimental story of coming across the Oskar Schindler story in 1980, when he dropped into a Beverly Hills handbag shop. Literally.
And in a rambling rant that ranges from the importance of obtaining copyright clearance for period music to the size of Reagan’s bowel movements (Hey, I report, you decide.), John Patterson gives crucial advice to filmmakers trying to authentically recreate the past on a tight budget. So what’s he say? Beats me; it makes almost no sense.
My advice: Do whatever Todd Haynes did in Velvet Goldmine. (Yeah, you could copy Far From Heaven, and almost go bust. Ask Killer Films if $16 million is low budget.)

In the Guardian, Thomas Kineally tells the rambling, sentimental story of coming across the Oskar Schindler story in 1980, when he dropped into a Beverly Hills handbag shop. Literally.
And in a rambling rant that ranges from the importance of obtaining copyright clearance for period music to the size of Reagan’s bowel movements (Hey, I report, you decide.), John Patterson gives crucial advice to filmmakers trying to authentically recreate the past on a tight budget. So what’s he say? Beats me; it makes almost no sense.
My advice: Do whatever Todd Haynes did in Velvet Goldmine. (Yeah, you could copy Far From Heaven, and almost go bust. Ask Killer Films if $16 million is low budget.)

[via waxy] A Flash movie of Tibetan monks making a sand mandala, made by David Hirmes using photos from the U of C.
Also on Hirmes.com, the Lewitt Variations, three Flash animations of possible interpretations of the instructions for a Sol Lewitt wall drawing. [to find it, check the periodic table-looking menu in the lower right corner for ‘Lw’.]

And this, from just one piece in the Times about the Ziegfeld Theater premiere of Farenheit 9/11:
1. “Can an artist have a luckier break than someone in power declaring their work should not be seen?…It is our belief, seeing the crowd, that HARVEY WEINSTEIN should send MICHAEL EISNER a plant.”
Plants replace muffin baskets as the speed-dial thank-you gift of choice in Hollywood. With all the Atkins going around, muffins are now the f***-you gift. Unchanged: still unsure how to read a muffin basket from a 300-lb monster. The unseen impact: slave wage assistants lose their only reliable source of grains.
2. Standing ovation now comes BEFORE the film.
3. “Yhere was some hissing when CONDOLEEZZA RICE appeared on screen.”
Supersized auditorium, darkness, loosen inhibitions and turn the Ziegfeld into the largest, loudest, most accurate test audience in town. [Oh wait, that stays the same. If you want to accurately predict public reception of your film, just run the trailer at the Ziegfeld. Those people know how to boo.]
4. “LEONARDO DICAPRIO, in a backward baseball cap and wispy facial hair, did group interviews at Mr. Weinstein’s request.”
We now care deeply what celebrities think about politics.
5. “Is it important for celebrities to be public about their political beliefs, a reporter asked.
Ooops – we’re running tight on space. YOUR NAME IN THIS SPACE to the person who can tell us what Mr. DiCaprio’s answer was.”
[stet]

And this, from just one piece in the Times about the Ziegfeld Theater premiere of Farenheit 9/11:
1. “Can an artist have a luckier break than someone in power declaring their work should not be seen?…It is our belief, seeing the crowd, that HARVEY WEINSTEIN should send MICHAEL EISNER a plant.”
Plants replace muffin baskets as the speed-dial thank-you gift of choice in Hollywood. With all the Atkins going around, muffins are now the f***-you gift. Unchanged: still unsure how to read a muffin basket from a 300-lb monster. The unseen impact: slave wage assistants lose their only reliable source of grains.
2. Standing ovation now comes BEFORE the film.
3. “Yhere was some hissing when CONDOLEEZZA RICE appeared on screen.”
Supersized auditorium, darkness, loosen inhibitions and turn the Ziegfeld into the largest, loudest, most accurate test audience in town. [Oh wait, that stays the same. If you want to accurately predict public reception of your film, just run the trailer at the Ziegfeld. Those people know how to boo.]
4. “LEONARDO DICAPRIO, in a backward baseball cap and wispy facial hair, did group interviews at Mr. Weinstein’s request.”
We now care deeply what celebrities think about politics.
5. “Is it important for celebrities to be public about their political beliefs, a reporter asked.
Ooops – we’re running tight on space. YOUR NAME IN THIS SPACE to the person who can tell us what Mr. DiCaprio’s answer was.”
[stet]

Last night while I was rendering some footage in Final Cut, (“Estimated time: about 2 hours…”) I decided to watch the short films in Nike’s Art of Speed series.
The 15 filmmakers were asked to “interpret the idea of speed.” Well, by the end of the first film, David Ahuja’s Obstacle Course, MY idea about speed was, “Damn, I need a faster processor!” WMP generated so many video artifacts, Ahuja’s film ressembled a futurist painting. As the camera followed the running protagonist, the primary-colored objects in the background created jagged smears across my little video window. The guy would stand up, the video would freeze, and suddenly I’m looking at a pixelated motion study photograph straight out of HE Edgerton. Which, considering what I was watching, worked out just fine.
The Futurist Manifesto declared “that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath … a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.” [Umm, what’s that goddess’s name again?]
Moving to my other machine, I watched Obstacle Course as Ahuja intended. And there were still artifacts, this time by design. Digital palimpsests of the character’s movement through space. They were the kind of 1970’s video effect popularized by the likes of WGBH, the public TV station where many video art pioneers first explored the possibilities of technology. WGBH, which was also the home of ZOOM. [O-2-1-3-4 ]
Ahuja’s film was sweet, and my streaming epiphany endeared me to it, but by the sixth hyper-aestheticized, digitally altered racing film, I wondered if the fix was in. Directors’ attempts to portray the abstracted or metaphorical notions of speed that exist (presumably pure) in their heads too often ended up showcasing the chosen technology or technique instead.
This, too, may be by design, though. Art of Speed was coordinated by the interactive & effects agency RG/A; given all these render-heavy images, maybe processor cycles are the most relevant measure of speed here.
Then I saw Honest’s documentary-style film, The Shortest Race, in which they follow an entire actual competition, from the athletes’ deadly serious pre-race strategy soundbites to the winner hoisting a giant check on the podium. The race itself–a 1-meter dash–pokes fun at the sheer arbitrariness of modern athletic contests. Yet it also distills and preserves both the thrilling challenge that comes from competing and the suspense that comes from watching. Hell, it makes more sense than cricket. This is subversion Nike won’t break a sweat over. Or they will. While they’re running.
[update: AOS posted an interview with the Honest team, Jonathan Miliott and Cary Murnion.]

My heart is full this day, and I would be very ungrateful if I didn’t get up and share my gratitude for Brother Hess, who has blessed us all so much this day with his special film, Napoleon Dynamite.
Brother Hess was blessed with the opportunity to make a movie for $200,000, and he was blessed again with the opportunity to sell it to Fox Searchlight at Sundance for a truly special, inspired price, even $3-4.75 million. It’s a truly special and righteous price. And while choirs of angels sing his praises in heaven, choirs of critics are singing praises for the movie, which has touched so many people this day, and this weekend when it began a platform release. Even the Gentiles’ hearts have been touched by Napoleon’s sweet spirit.
Brother Hess shows us how, if we have faith, we can follow in Neil Labute’s footsteps and someday become like him. [Even if he’s gone astray embracing the fleeting temptation of theater instead of the eternal glory of cinema.] He is also an example unto us of the blessings that can come from exercising faith and hitting up your family and friends for your production budget. Families are forever, so I bet Jared thinks it’s a real blessing that he has the opportunity to actually pay them back now.
We should try to liken the movie unto ourselves and take it into our daily lives throughout the week. Napoleon is blessed with the opportunity to overcome the challenges of being a huge dork, and through his words and deeds, he shows unto us what he does with the talents the Lord has blessed him with.
And while I haven’t taken the opportunity to see the film yet, for I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to take care of one of God’s littlest, specialest spirits, who’s only allowed to see friggin’ chick flicks at Loews on Saturday mornings, I want to tell you this day that I know this movie is good, and I have faith that it’ll be funny and touching like unto Wes Anderson and Todd Solondz’s earlier fruits.
The time is far spent, brothers and sisters, but I challenge you to see Napoleon Dynamite and find out for yourself if it isn’t a truly good way to spend an hour and a half. In these latter days, if you tarry too long, it’ll surely be gone from the theater. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the day will come very soon when it’ll be resurrected on DVD.

From the mixed up files of Mr Arthur Robins, an artist who sells his work in front of the Met:
While visiting the Met, Robins was questioned in the recent guerilla attacks on that museum and the Guggenheim, where an unknown artist surreptitiously installed works critical of George W. Bush. Later, he was visited by a phalanx of police and Terrorism Task Force officers. He videotaped the encounter, and, well, I suggest you read Julie Salomon’s account in the Times, which would make a perfect commentary track if Mr Robins ever puts out a DVD. Biiiizarre.
[Update: For an entirely different kind of video shot, surveillance-style, by an artist, one which also deals, technically, with criminal activity, read Guy Trebay’s piece on Andrea Fraser.]

Kathy Hilton is getting a reality TV show. She’ll teach some young bumpkins what they really need to do to get head. A head. Ahead in NYC. How to please a man. Manhattan. How to please Manhattan Society.
Bob Morris’s Style section piece is so breezily damning, she’ll probably think it’s good and have it framed. Or not. After all, “Her friends say she is smarter than she appears.”
“Anyone who knows Kathy Hilton (and many society women do), knows she has always taken the job of being a parent seriously,” writes Morris, who accompanied Hilton home from Cipriani, where she attended an afternoon fur fashion show. “Back in the lobby of the Waldorf Towers, she ran smack into her son Conrad, 10, in soccer gear.
“‘Hi Conrad,’ she said. ‘How was the game?'”
Yes, she’s a profound influence on her children. And she’ll share her secrets with you–this fall on NBC!
[update: if you’re a hillbilly with more back hair than than shame, get yourself over to the audition at Tavern on the Green, “where we’ve replaced the washed up publicity whores they normally serve with Kathy Hilton!” Thanks, Gawker.]

If it’s too late for you to get the money and the inspiration for your short film from Nike–and it is–try Interpol. Matador Records will “fund” ten short films “inspired by the music and aesthetic of the band.” I put “fund” in quotes because they’re only ponying up $1,000, so no tsunamis flooding midtown.
First, write a treatment, put a storyboard together, shoot a demo or a trailer, whatever you need to explain what you want to do. Get it to Matador by July 5th.
The band will personally choose the ten treatments that “most interestingly embody the spirit of their music in the cinematic form.” The only restrictions: 1)if you use music, it can only be from the clip of the new song they provide, and 2) NO MUSIC VIDEO. Oh, and “help us out of the corner we’ve painted ourselves into” “Black is not the only color.”
Details are all at Matador’s site, where you can also watch Interpol’s music videos–remember, NO MUSIC VIDEO–by Doug Aitken and Christopher Mills. [via The Fold Drop]
Related [?]:
Moby to advise on Joy Division biopic/murder mystery movie
Ex-boy band member fined for soliciting “prostitute” from his moped
[Update: The Joy Division movie is on, but not with Moby, and not with Jude Law (?). Apparently, dueling groups had options that expired, but they announced it anyway, &c, &c. via TMN]

It’s not just for banner ads anymore.
Nick, Choire & co. launched Art of Speed, a weblog-formatted microsite for Nike that’ll run for three weeks on Gawker.
Art of Speed runs with ideas about filmmaking and web-based marketing that got a lot of attention in the BMWFilms campaign. Through Ridley Scott’s production company, BMW commissioned established directors (John Frankenheimer, John Woo, Guy Ritchie) to create short films with independent narratives, but two recurring stars: the cars, and that guy from Croupier.
After BMW, Ford, JWT and Atom Films launched Focus in Films, a series of forgettable shorts by “independent filmmakers” starring the Ford Focus. Nike’s approach, to ask “15 talented young filmmakers” to make shorts on the idea of speed, follows Ford’s strategy. But as Gawker’s post points out, this kind of sponsor-driven programming “can be done well, or badly.” I’m hoping Gawker’s Art of Speed is the former.

It seems hard to imagine Tarkovsky doing something so instant, but apparently he took Polaroids all the time. Looking at the few illustrated in the Guardian, though, they’re uncommonly beautiful. The director’s son provides brief comments, and he’s collected several dozen photos into a book.
Instant Light, Tarkovsky Polaroids, from Thames and Hudson (UK)

The similarities between Michael Moore and Mel Gibson, and Farenheit 9/11 and The Passion are worth noting. Let’s see: zealots with messiah complexes? Yep. Threat of damnation if film’s message isn’t heeded? Check. Sensationalistic cineporn tactics to reach beyond true believers? Yep. Special guest star: Satan? Uh-huh. Out to make so much money their directors’ll have an easier time passing a camel through the eye of a needle? Check and checkmate.
At The Hot Button, David Poland gets all New York Review of Books on Moore’s ass, pointing out, with cool and logic, the inconsistencies and contradictions in the creation myth that’s being preached about Farenheit 9/11 and its marketing. It’s a great read, and he’s right–Moore’s inaccurate depiction of the Disney Sanhedrin is distorted and inflammatory.
Likewise, Gibson claimed of biblical accuracy for his film, when in fact, it drew heavily from the ecstatic visions of one 19th century German nuncase. That scholars and serious theologians–and experienced religion reporters pointed those discrepancies out had approximately zero impact on the film’s reception.
The Passion looms over F911 in another way: Weinstein and Moore are demanding a King of the Jews’ ransom for the right to distribute a film that could hit the box office like The Second Coming.
[via Greencine]