If screenwriter/director Avary doesn’t reveal enough for you in his Q&A session with the Guardian, go to his weblog–which he must deplore. And when you view his webcam, he may flip you off personally.
He was working on the script for David Fincher’s remake of Dogtown and Z Boys but the Guardian has him adapting Bret Ellis’s Glamorama now. But since I missed his garage sale (an army of professional rummage sale zombies rummaged it clean as soon as the garage door opened), I’m not the most up-to-date source of Avary goings on.
when Word of Mouth meets Speaking in Tongues
From Scott Evans, CEO of Outreach, Inc, retailer of evangelical swag via the (Godless and/or Anglican) Guardian:
Dear Pastor,
The release of The Passion of the Christ is the most exciting outreach opportunity I’ve seen in my lifetime… In fact, I see this opportunity as unprecedented since the day of Pentecost… Ask God: How will we as a church encourage people to experience this film? How can we build a bridge from the movie theatre to our church? I encourage you to carefully explore our website…
Evans says of the film itself, “It’s almost as if someone travelled through time with a video camera, captured the original crucifixion and returned to share it with our world today.” He may be thinking of Live From Golgotha, the The Passion-meets-The Butterfly Effect-meets-the bathtub scene from Spartacus novel by Gore Vidal, which has exactly that plot. Somehow I doubt it.
Brother Bob Berney, president of the film’s distributor, Newmarket Films, and a disinterested observer, notes that “People call and say, ‘I want 10,000 tickets.'” In sheer scale, selling tickets to 10,000 people at a pop dwarfs the largest recorded miracle in the New Testament, feeding loaves and fishes to 5,000 sermon-goers in Galilee.
The Passion Outreach.com [“Perhaps the best outreach opportunity in 2,000 years!”]
Purchase Live from Golgotha from Amazon
Purchase 100 The Passion Evangelistic Booklets ™ from Outreach (“full color images from the movie!”)
Purchase a banner-ready “Ground Zero” logo from Outreach for use in your youth ministry.
Purchase a The Passion-themed PowerPoint template for use in your church, $6.95 from SermonCentral.com
My Yogurt with Gus
On the occasion of Elephant‘s release in the UK, Simon Hattenstone goes on a publicity pilgrimage to Oregon to interview Gus Van Sant for the Guardian. Gus sends him for coffee before buzzing him up, and later serves him blueberry yogurt [which Simon apparently doesn’t understand is the archetypal food of the Guy Living Alone.] It’s a long account with some nice backstory and several references to Van Sant’s art background (he went to RISD with David Byrne).
Related: My interview last month with Dany Wolf, Van Sant’s producer
“El silencio es tambien musica.”
That could be a reference to John Cage, but it’s actually Santiago Calatrava discussing his design for a transportation hub at the WTC site. The dual-winged design will be unveiled today.
For images and details, see the Port Authority press release and Calatrava’s PowerPoint presentation, David Dunlap’s reporting or Muschamp’s free verse reaction in The Times, and a pile of images from Yahoo News.
Peter Walker, “Landscape Doctor”
The NY Times profiles Peter Walker, the dean of modernist US landscape design (and ex-dean of Harvard and Berkeley arch. schools). Not a lot of news, but he does cite Donald Judd and Carl Andre as artistic inspirations. 2 pts for taste, but the problem with Arad’s original plaza was its unremitting Andre-ness. His own firm’s memorial proposal was “a glassy wall with the victims’ and heroes’ names etched within.”
TMI, or Overblogging Sundance
With daily reports from the frontlines filling the Festival site, IndieWIRE, Movie City News, the Times, the trades, , Sundance needs weblogging about as much as Bush’s march to war did.
Naturally, that’s not stopping anyone. If you still think you should’ve gone, check out reports from the standby lines, bathroom lines, and coke lines as well: Weblogs, Inc. [portally]; Eric Snider [Utah-funny]; Dan Webster [Pf’ingH?]; Alastik [lots of waiting]; Peter Vonder Haar [lots of pics so far]; I’ll keep adding them as they cross my path [thanks? GreenCine, Gawker, and email]
Filmmaker Magazine’s weblog, to their great credit, actually includes posts from the filmworld beyond the steamed-up windows of Park City.
On Jon Routson and the future of video art
For an artist who’s only shown a couple of times and whose most well-known work –a 22-minute, reconceived-for-network-TV version of Cremaster 4–has only been seen by a handful of people, Jon Routson sure gets a lot of press. Baltimore City Paper’s Bret McCabe gives Routson the full feature treatment this week, a 5,000-word cover story, complete with inflammatory comments by [at least one] wannabe playah with a weblog.
With pleasant symmetry, another Baltimore artist, the indie filmgod John Waters, opens an exhibition of his work–thematic collages of images cribbed from 60’s and 70’s movies–at the New Museum Feb. 7. Read Artnet’s recent interview with Waters.
Related: my previous post about Routson, and my NYT article on bootlegging video art
Like I was saying about Mormon Cinema and…
Filmmaker reports that in the face of religious boycotts, the missionary-meets-boy tale, Latter Day, was dumped by its Salt Lake venue, Madstone Theaters. Actually, this is good news; it means they might be open to dumping Mel Gibson’s controversy-baiting The Passion of Christ, which is scheduled to open Feb. 25.
In the Village Voice, Ed Halter hears the good news about Mormon Cinema. [O me of little faith…] I think I may have been friends with one of the silly Mormon comedy producers. If not, I’m sure gonna be friends with them soon.
Other things I just posted about that turned up in the Voice [Choire’s making money for this, too. Note to self…]: Independent film’s dead! Long live independent film!, and John Cage festivities, this time at Anthology Film Archive (tomorrow night, tickets available until after the films start, from the sound of things).
2004-01-26, This Week in The New Yorker
Issue of 2004-01-26
Posted 2004-01-19
The Talk of The Town
COMMENT/ TAXING/ John Cassidy on Paul O?Neill?s deficit message.
HAUNTS/ ECTOPLASM!/ Ben McGrath on a ghost, perhaps, at the Maritime Hotel.
HEY, PAL DEPT./ OLD HACK/ David Owen hails a taxi historian.
GOOD WORKS/ BARELY SHAVERS/ Field Maloney on a group that?s growing mustaches for charity.
THE FINANCIAL PAGE/ BIG SPACE/ James Surowiecki on the billions behind Bush?s space program.
ANNALS OF MEDICINE/ Jerome Groopman/ The Grief Industry/ Does crisis counselling really work?
SHOUTS & MURMURS/ Frank Gannon/ Aristotle on Relationships
FICTION/ Antonya Nelson/ “Eminent Domain”
THE CRITICS
THE CURRENT CINEMA/ David Denby/ Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, Monster
THE THEATRE/ Hilton Als/ King Cowboy Rufus Rules the Universe!
BOOKS/ John Updike/ MIND/BODY PROBLEMS/ New novels by Andrew Sean Greer and Hanif Kureishi.
THE BACK PAGE/ “And the Winner Is . . .”
Another Way to Get a Great Short Film
London’s The Bureau has its own approach to making great short films: sponsor and produce shorts by established-to-famous directors. Directors, who, I guess, couldn’t be bothered to cough up the five figures or so for their own damn short film? Whatever, the results can be seen intermittently at Cinema Extreme: Extreme Cinema, The Bureau’s screening program for big-name shorts.
This Sunday, in fact, shorts by Francois Ozon, Hal Hartley, Benoit Mariage, and Nic Roeg will be followed by a Q&A with Roeg. [via Kultureflash] details: Jan 24, 11:30 AM (!!) at the Curzon Soho, London, En-guh-land] No fair, short films in the UK get all the best time slots…
Related: The best-edited sex scene in the movies, from Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, which Soderbergh improved on in Out of Sight
buy Don’t Look Now or X2000, the early short films of Francois Ozon at Amazon
WTC Memorial Jurors Speak–and Design
The NYT’s Glenn Collins and David Dunlap have a transfixing and revelatory article about details of the WTC Memorial Jury’s deliberations and process for the first time. Twelve of the thirteen jurors spoke with the reporters.
It turns out even the jurors were underwhelmed by the revised designs their finalists came up with. And Martin Puryear’s dismissal of Michael Kimmelman’s call for elitism to save us is right on.
Of course, Felix Salmon’s analysis is also right on, that it was essentially the jury that designed–and continues to design–the Memorial, and that Arad’s design was picked because it was the most amenable to their impending directives.
Look over there! Filmmaker Magazine!
Gotta run, but before I do, the fine fine folks at Filmmaker Magazine timed the launch of their weblog to the opening of the under-the-radar Sundance Film Festival. Sundance is not, as its name suggests, held in a warm, sunny place, but in Park City, in the state of Utah. It may not be of any interest to you, but if it is, the festival has a little website.
Also at Filmmaker this month, the makings of a great short film, tips from a festival programmer. [via GreenCine]
On Adapting for Film
[via IFP] New York Women in Film and Television is sponsoring a panel titled The Art of Adaptation on Jan. 28 in New York, thank you. In fact, it’s at the Alliance Francaise/French Institute, East 60th St, so even I can stumble out of bed and wander on over by, um, the 6:30 start time.
IFP members and others get $5 off the $20 registration fee. NYWIFTies get in for a mere $10.
Related: Jason Kottke made a sweet weblog for Susan Orlean’s view of Adaptation.
This panel may be payback for the last adaptation panel I attended, a misogyny-tinged but hilarious and enlighteneing discussion sponsored by Harper’s Magazine. At the New School, a lone woman, Susan Minot, squared off against David O. Russell, David Foster Wallace, Todd Solondz and Dale Peck. Editor/moderator Lewis Lapham complained about Leonard [sic] DiCaprio, while everyone else discussed James Cameron at length.
Alas, with no known tape or transcript, this panel only lives on in our hearts. And in this funny weird/funny haha DFW-centric account from some delusional DFW groupie chick (“He’s trying so hard to be everyman, when we all know he’s uberman… poor Dave.”). Quelle surprise, it’s written in the overly footnoted style of the uberman himself.
The Political Gospel, According to Reuters
Just a quick Sforzian note of these two Reuters photos, which were side by side on a Yahoo News page this morning:
Related: Producer Scott Sforza, who’s built a Potemkin village centered around the White House.
Don’t go there, girlfriend
Whatever Herbert Muschamp’s trying to say about the World Trade Center Memorial is now lost to me. My mind went blank and numb when I read the word, “metrotextual.”