Oh, of course we love the holiday movie classics…but sometimes you just need something a bit bracing to counter all the sweet that envelops us this time of year. With that in mind, we present the film Roger Ebert called a “rather brilliant lump of coal for your stocking hung by the fireside with care. How else to explain an R-rated Santa Claus origin story crossed with ‘The Thing’?”…Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.
The unjolly Santa is this tale was inspired by from the Finnish version: a “pagan figure, named Joulupukki known for wearing goatskins and horns. But instead of giving presents, he demanded them in return for not causing trouble!” (BBC)
The film, from Finnish director Jalmari Helander, is a prequel of sorts to his celebrated Rare Export shorts. The film is in Finnish with subtitles and runs 84 minutes–and remember: it’s rated R. We’ll screen it and then discuss it starting at 7 PM in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library. It’s free and all are welcome.
The next OFG event (sponsored with SUNY Oswego’s Civic Engagement coalition and Science Café ad hoc group) will be the documentary Forks Over Knives.
The 2011 documentary traces the separate journeys of two men, nutritional scientist T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., professor emeritus at Cornell University, and surgeon Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn of the Cleveland Clinic. Their work leads both men to focus on a plant-based diet as key to health, warding off—and dealing more effectively with—many of the diseases that afflict us. In an interview in The New York Times, Campbell noted, “We should not be relying on the idea that genes are determinants of our health. We should not be relying on the idea that nutrient supplementation is the way to get nutrition, because it’s not. I’m talking about whole, plant-based foods. The effect it produces is broad for treatment and prevention of a wide variety of ailments, from cancer to heart disease to diabetes.” In addition to giving the perspective of medical and health professionals, the film tells the stories of patients who are using whole food diets to help treat their chronic conditions. The film, written and directed by Lee Fulkerson, is rated PG and runs 90 minutes. The movie’s website is www.forksoverknives.com.
The free screening (open to the public) will be Wednesday, November 2 at 7 PM in the Community Room at the Oswego Public Libary (120 East Second Street). A discussion will follow the film.
More than half of the films that OFG has shown (or gone to see at the Oswego Cinema as our Nights Out at the Movies) are available on DVD from the North Country Library System. A total of 15 can be found at the Oswego Public Library; more than 40 are at one or more of the other libraries in the North Country system (which includes Jefferson, Lewis, Oswego, and St Lawrence counties)–including the film we screened last week, Of Gods and Men! (Some of these DVDs may be Blu-Ray only). To check on the availability of any of these (or to browse), please go to the online catalog you’ll find on the Oswego Public Library site (http://www.oswegopubliclibrary.org/) or the North County site (http://www.northcountrylibraries.org/
At the Oswego Public Library:
Akeelah and the Bee, American Blackout, Bride & Prejudice, The Cove, Crazy Heart, Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room, The Forest for the Trees, He Died With a Felafel in His Hand, An Inconvenient Truth, Inside Job, Munich, Syriana, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Who’s Camus Anyway?, Winter’s Bone
At other libraries in the North Country Library System:
Aurora Borealis, Becoming Jane, Black Swan, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Class, The Constant Gardener, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Doubt, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Familia, Fast Food Nation, The Fighter, Food, Inc., Frozen River, Gran Torino, Hotel Rwanda, I’m Not There, The Informant!, The King’s Speech, The Kite Runner, The Last King of Scotland, León, the Professional, Letters from Iwo Jima, Let the Right One In, Man on Wire, Monster Thursday, The Narrow Margin, Of Gods and Men, Persepolis, A Prairie Home Companion, The Producers (2006), Proof, The Reader, Running With Scissors, The Savages, Shopgirl, Slumdog Millionaire, Sugar, Super Troopers, Thank You for Smoking, Top Hat, Transamerica, The Upside of Anger, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, The World’s Fastest Indian
OFG continues its Best of the Festivals series with the 2010 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize winner for Best Film, Of Gods and Men. The film will be shown at 6:45 PM in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library (120 East Second Street) Wednesday, October 12. A question and answer session and discussion will follow the screening (which is free and open to the public).
The film was inspired by real events in the 1990s.
Lambert Wilson plays Christian, the head of a Cistercian monastery in Algeria: a spartan order devoted to contemplation and prayer. Their community has developed a happy relationship with the local Muslim villagers, based partly on the free outpatient clinic they provide. They have a quiet, supportive respect for each other’s traditions. But dark forces are gathering: intolerant jihadist forces have already murdered Croatian construction workers, and are rumoured to have the Catholic monks in their sights as the ultimate prize…. The monks must now decide: should they stay or should they go? Is going cowardice? Is staying arrogance? Is martyrdom their destiny? (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, December 2, 2010)
The film was directed by Xavier Beauvois. Of Gods and Men, in French and Arabic, runs 120 minutes and is rated PG-13. The film’s website is www.sonyclassics.com/ofgodsandmen/.
Join us for a Night Out at the Movies on Sunday evening at the Oswego Cinema 7. We’ll attend the 7:10 PM showing of Moneyball. The film, based on the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, stars Brad Pitt as
Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s and the guy who assembles the team, who has an epiphany: all of baseball’s conventional wisdom is wrong. Forced to reinvent his team on a tight budget, Beane will have to outsmart the richer clubs. The onetime jock teams with Ivy League grad Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) in an unlikely partnership, recruiting bargain players that the scouts call flawed, but all of whom have an ability to get on base, score runs, and win games. It’s more than baseball, it’s a revolution – one that challenges old school traditions and puts Beane in the crosshairs of those who say he’s tearing out the heart and soul of the game. — (C) Sony Pictures
After the screening, we’ll gather in the upstairs lobby of the theater and discuss the film. We’ll be joined by SUNY Oswego professor Ranjit Dighe. Currently teaching a course on the economics of baseball at the college, Ranjit will bring his perspective on the business and art of baseball to our discussion.
ON SCREEN/IN PERSON is a series of six films followed by a Q&A with the film director(s) or producer that has been organized by the SUNY Oswego’s Cinema and Screen Studies Program with support from ARTSwego and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.
All On Screen/In Person screenings take place at the Oswego Cinema, 138 West 2nd Street, on Tuesday evenings at 7 PM. Tickets are available from any SUNY Oswego campus box office, online at tickets.oswego.edu, or from the Oswego Cinema. Adults$7 /Seniors $5/Students $3.50
These three series films are scheduled for Fall 2011:
Tuesday, September 20 @ 7 PM What’s ‘Organic’ About Organicw/ Director Shelley Rogers This film dives into the challenges that arise when a grassroots agricultural movement evolves into a booming international market. Though the stories of farmers who steward land from Harlem to the foothills of the Rockies, from upstate New York to Florida, the film offers audiences a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in creating a more sustainable food system.
Tuesday, October 25 @ 7 PM Beatboxing-The Fifth Element of Hip Hopw/ Producer Angela Viscido
In the late 70’s, a youth culture evolved in the poorer parts of New York that combined several disciplines under the name of hip hop. Apart from the four classic elements of graffiti, DJing, breakdancing, and rapping, the musical side of this culture was enhanced by a fifth element called ‘beatboxing’. From the hardship of poverty and the lack of instruments, a pioneer was inspired to imitate drum rhythms with his mouth – his brilliance creating the term ‘human beatbox’. Beatboxing features artists from New York, California, Florida, Spain, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Austria and Germany, who demonstrate their amazing techniques.
Tuesday, November 15 @ 7 PM Out in the Silencew/ Directors Dean Hamer & Joe Wilson When a popular 16-year-old jock is brutally attacked for coming out at his small town high school, his mother reaches out for help to the only person she feels she can trust, an openly gay man who lives 300 miles away–native son and filmmaker Joe Wilson. Returning home with camera in hand, Wilson documents the harrowing but ultimately successful battle waged by the teen and his mom against recalcitrant school authorities, the efforts of a lesbian couple to restore an historic theater in the face of vitriolic anti-gay attacks, and his own unexpected friendship with an Evangelical preacher. As walls are torn down and bridges built, Out in the Silence offers a fascinating and moving commentary on America’s culture war.
On Tuesday, September 6th at 9 PM the first film in the SUNY Oswego Reading Initiative (ORI) film series will run in the Campus Center Auditorium (132): Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death. Peter Bate directed this 2003 BBC documentary (released in the US in 2005); the film is unrated and runs 1 hour, 24 minutes. There’s no charge for the show.
The true story of what King Leopold did in the Congo, which was forgotten by the world for over 50 years. Leopold turned the Congo into his own private colony from 1885 to 1908. Under his control, the Congo became a gulag labor camp of shocking brutality. Leopold assumed the role of protector of Africans fleeing Arab slave traders, but, in reality, he exploited them as he amassed a personal fortune in this country rich in rubber. If the men failed to produce enough wild rubber, their families were held hostage and starved to death. Children’s hands were chopped off for late deliveries. It is agreed today, that the first Human Rights movement was spurred by what happened in the Congo. (Rotten Tomatoes website)
On Thursday, September 8 at 7 PM, there will be a free screening for the community of the documentary Race to Nowhere in the Ralph M. Faust Auditorium, Oswego High School.
Featuring the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren’t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what’s best for their kids, Race to Nowhere points to the silent epidemic in our schools: cheating has become commonplace, students have become disengaged, stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant, and young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired. (from the film’s website: www.racetonowhere.com)
Presented by SUNY Oswego, ARTSwego, and the Oswego City School District, the film will be followed by a panel discussion and a reception at 9 PM in the auditorium lobby.
Weren’t we just posting about Heavy Metal Parking Lot? What do you know: it’ll screen Friday, June 8 at Rochester’s Dryden Theater with one of the film’s makers, Jeff Krulik, presenting it along with Heavy Metal Picnic.
The legendary short film Heavy Metal Parking Lot was on an OFG double bill with Anvil! The Story of Anvil in 2009. Here’s a nice piece on NPR’s music blog with background by one of the filmmakers, our friend Jeff Krulik,
John Heyn and Jeff Krulik, the guys who made "Heavy Metal Parking Lot"
and links to the film and some where-are-they-now material. Enjoy.
Interesting Slate article on Rotten Tomatoes–they looked at the trends through the years in the RT ratings of movies, actors, and directors–starting with the spectacular nosedive of M. Night Shyamalan’s directorial career. They’ve also provided a section when you can type in a name and see the output ratings graphed for careers from ’85 to today (that’s the Hollywood Career-O-Matic). Check it out. (Thanks, Barefoot Jim!)
The series, put together by Professor Helen Knowles of the SUNY Oswego Political Science Department, continues. All films are screened in Campus Center Room 118. Shows are from 7-9:30 PM and are free.
March 19: From Russia With Love (1963) Director: Terence Young. Starring: Sean Connery, Lotte Lenya, Robert Shaw
March 26: If….(1968) Director: Lindsay Anderson. Starring Malcolm McDowell, David Wood, Richard Warwick
April 9: Get Carter (1971) Director: Mike Hodges. Starring: Michael Caine, Britt Ekland, John Osborne
April 16: Local Hero (1983) Director: Bill Forsyth. Starring: Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson
April 23: Brassed Off (1996) Director: Mark Herman. Starring: Pete Postlethwaite, Ewan McGregor, Tara Fitzgerald
April 30: The Full Monty (1997) Director: Peter Catlaneo. Starring: Robert Carlyle, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Addy
May 7: Calendar Girls (2003) Director: Nigel Cole. Starring: Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Linda Bassett
A downloadable poster of the series, including capsule descriptions of the films, is available as a pdf here.
The film group is presenting another Night Out at the Movies on Monday, March 16 at the Oswego Cinema 7. We’ll see the 8:20 PM show of Doubt. Immediately after the screening, we’ll meet up in the theater’s upper lobby and have an informal discussion about the film. (All patrons are invited to stay and join the discussion).
Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis star in John Patrick Shanley’s film based on his Pulizter-Prize winning play.
The film opens at the Oswego Cinema 7 on Friday, March 13.
OFG continues its Best of the Festivals with Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Frozen River on Wednesday evening, March 18.
The free screening will be in Room P225 of the Campus Center of SUNY Oswego. After the show, we’ll discuss the film.
From the film’s website (www.sonyclassics.com/frozenriver/):
“Filmed in sub-zero weather in upstate New York, March of 2007, Frozen River is Courtney Hunt’s directorial debut…. [The film] is set in a real-life smuggling zone on a Native American reservation between New York State and Quebec where the lure of fast money presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be making minimum wage. Strapped for money and having been deserted by her husband, working class Ray (Melissa Leo), reluctantly teams up with Lila (Misty Upham), a widowed Mohawk Indian, to smuggle illegal immigrants across the frozen St. Lawrence River from Canada to the U.S. in the trunk of a Dodge Spirit. Both women swear each trip will be their last, but one final run across the river leads to a showdown with the law on all sides. Frozen River stars Melissa Leo (21 Grams, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Homicide: Life on the Street), Misty Upham (Edge of America, Skins), Charlie McDermott (The Ten), Michael O’Keefe (The Great Santini – Oscar nominee, Michael Clayton, The Pledge), and Mark Boone, Jr. (Tree’s Lounge, Batman Returns).”
We’re screening Jean Renoir’s 1962 film The Vanishing Corporal (Le Caporal Epinglé) on Tuesday, March 31, at 5:45 PM. The free screening will be in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library (120 East 2nd Street). A discussion will follow immediately after the show.
The Time OutFilm Guide entry on the film:
A deceptively slight tale of the attempts by three Frenchmen to escape from a Nazi prison camp during World War II, this late addition to Renoir’s impressively wide-ranging oeuvre is nevertheless suffused with the same warm and generous humanism as the great Régle du Jeu or Grande Illusion. Though the whole thing is played as a comedy, the scenes in the prison camp display Renoir’s characteristically sharp eye for regional and class differences, even under the yoke of common suffering. The final parting on the bridge in Paris is a scene which will ring loud and true for anyone with the slightest sense of the value of freedom and friendship.
Screenwriter George Toles will be visiting the SUNY Oswego campus March 30 and 31.
A Canadian screenwriter of both features and short films, Toles discusses the craft of screenwriting. His screenplays examine psychosexual and complex cultural relationships among modern communities through dynamic, often disturbing, and peculiarly humourous plots. Among his screenplays and writing credits are Edison and Leo (2008), My Winnipeg (2007), Nude Caboose (2006), Brand Upon the Brain! (2006), The Saddest Music in the World (2003), The Cock Crew (1998), Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997), Sea Beggars (1994), Careful (1992), and Archangel (1990). (ARTSwego)
On Tuesday, March 31 at 12:30 PM, George Toles will give a talk in Room 114 of the Campus Center.
This week, VCI Entertainment releases “Classic Film Noir, Vol. 3″. One of the films included is Bernard Vorhaus’s 1948 thriller, Amazing Mr. X (released in the UK as The Spiritualist). The film was
photographed by the brilliant and eccentric John Alton, one of the seminal stylists of film noir. “It’s not what you light,” Alton once observed. “It’s what you don’t light.”….
“Mr. X” is a gothic thriller starring the Austrian actor Turhan Bey, who brings all his exotic charm (Turkish father, Czech mother) to the role of a fraudulent psychic consultant attempting to draw a wealthy young widow (Lynn Bari) into his clutches.
The New York Times, March 29, 2009
Though Mr. Alton’s work won’t be seen to its best advantage, you can watch the film online at a few sources–I watched it in QuickTime at the Internet Movie Archive site. Check it (or any of the many other options there) out. (Click onto sidebar link On-Line Viewing Options: Moving Image Archive and search for “Amazing Mr. X”).
Check out the link (to the side →) for the upcoming Syracuse International Film Festival. A detailed festival schedule of this year’s films is now available at their website.
We’ve added a link to the film schedule at the Dryden Theater in Rochester’s Eastman House. (Really, it’s not that far….)
In addition to their film series, the Eastman House offers exhibits, a grand house (with a history of its interesting master), and soon-to-be blooming gardens.
The Europa Film Treasures site is still new; it has a modest number of films on-demand right now, but is well worth checking out.
I picked out a film I knew nothing about: a silent 1929 Spanish film, El sexo sentido(The Sixth Sense)–and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The film was recently screened by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Here is their description:
The waves of avant-garde cinema that swept across Europe in the ’20s had a lesser impact in Spain, Buñuel and Dali notwithstanding. One remarkable exception was architect Nemesio Sobrevila’s The Sixth Sense.
Carlos takes his chronically depressed friend León to the mysterious Professor Kamus, who demonstrates his latest invention, The Sixth Sense, a super-camera that captures images from anywhere and everywhere. During his “projection-therapies,” León chances upon some images of Carlos’s girlfriend Carmen that makes him suspect she’s not being totally honest.
Part breezy Lubitsch-style comedy, part meditation on how to derive meaning from images, The Sixth Sense is a delightful, unexpected gem.
To link to the site, click onto “Europa Film Treasures” under “On-Line Viewing Options” on the sidebar.
The group snagged the front page of the April 9 Neighbors section (Oswego County) in the Post-Standard. (See the link under Press).
Anyone who’s checking out our blog because of the article: welcome! Please send us your e-mail (oswegofilmgroup@yahoo.com) and we’ll put you on our mailing list. Also, become a friend of our Facebook group (search Oswego Film Group).
Thanks to some folks who were not included in the article or cover group photo (not viewable with the on-line article, I’m afraid): planning group member Mac McKinstry and Matt Tunis (who headed the group with Tiffany after Jon’s departure).
Also, OFG founder Mr Peck’s first name is spelled Jon.
A documentary that the film group had recently looked into bringing to town, Trouble the Water, will be shown this Thursday, April 23 from 8:30-10:15 PM on HBO.
New Orleans’ Ninth Ward residents Kimberly Rivers Roberts and husband Scott didn’t have the means to leave town when Hurricane Katrina blew in. But they did have a camcorder, and Kimberly’s harrowing footage of her neighborhood’s nightmarish ordeal is woven seamlessly into directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal’s Oscar-nominated documenatry about the disaster. Human in scale, the film follows the charismatic Robertses and their family and friends as they rebuild their lives after the storm. It’s a fascinating, heartbreaking, and hopeful must-see.
[Rating:] A–Missy Schwartz in Entertainment Weekly, April 24-May1 issue
For more information on the film, please visit its website:
I was thinking of a museum screening I attended of an Indian film years ago. The director was there: I remember him wearing a pale, pale blue scarf, perched on the edge of a metal chair. He was seated next to a moderator who asked him a few questions after the film.
When questions from the audience were taken, one gentleman was called on and, in the course of his question/comments, apparently gave his interpretation of the director’s work. The director immediately jumped out of his seat. Glaring, he shook his finger at the audience member impudent enough to put forth his take, responding, “No! No! Don’t see your film in my film!” The whole room froze. After some uncomfortable moments, the flustered moderator quickly drew the question and answer period to a close.
What a change from a common response by an artist to the question: “What did [X] in your work mean?” The answer is so often something along the lines of: “Well…, it means whatever you think it means.” Ha! With this director, what he meant was his business, not yours. (You want to know what something means? Hey, you go write something!)
The Syracuse International Film Festival opens with a screening of the silent feature Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ at the Palace at 7 PM. Directed by Fred Niblo, the film stars Ramon Navarro and Francis X. Bushman. The Syracuse screening features a new score by J. C. Sanford with the Central New York Jazz Orchestra.
The 1925 extravaganza cost approximately $4 million (making it, by some accounts, the most expensive silent ever). Such an undertaking involved, predictably, plenty of revisions to the original plans for the picture. The production, originally shot in Italy, was moved to California. (Unconfirmed: the “famous chariot scene was filmed at what is now the intersection of LaCienega and Venice Boulevards in Los Angeles.”) The film features some scenes in two-strip Technicolor. Supposedly, dozens of Hollywood’s future stars were among the film’s extras. (Who can be spotted in which scene? Unknown. But keep your eyes peeled.)
The Irish documentary Saviours will be screened on Thursday, April 30 at 7 PM in Room P322 in SUNY Oswego’s Campus Center. (There is no charge for admission).
(Room P322 is in the Poucher wing of the Campus Center. That’s on the far right of the complex. There are several entrances to the Center: on the left side, the center, and the right side. Room P322 is one flight up and just across the hall from where Frozen River was screened.)
‘Saviours’ is the directorial debut of Liam Nolan and Ross Whitaker, two Dublin filmmakers who came together to produce a 25-minute documentary but realised they could gather enough material for a feature film. Filming then took place over the following two years but with no budget.
Set in St Saviours Olympic Boxing Academy…, in the heart of Dublin’s north inner city, the film follows the fortunes of three boxers whose fights come in and outside the ring.
Abdul Hussain is originally from Ghana but is seeking asylum in Ireland because he fears for this life should he return to his native country….
Dean Murphy is the local lad trying to make good….He has the talent and ambition to make a good career from the sport, but he needs to overcome injury and the distractions of working class life.
Before Darren Sutherland was winning Olympic medals and being pursued by the sport’s top promoters, he was a young Dublin lad trying to combine college life with a promising amateur boxing career…..
The fighters are coached and cajoled by their wily, humorous trainers, brothers Jim and Pat McCormack. Both were champions in their heyday and have been passing on their knowledge to generations of local lads for over 30 years. They treat the fighters as family: they are upset by Darren’s lack on interest; take Abdul to their heart and treat Dean as one of their own sons….. (Glenn Mason, RTÉ Entertainment)
The film has been judged “a small wonder…The film is raw and deglossed. But it contains riches….’Saviours’ is the kind of film-making that bottles inspiration and itself is the product of such. If this is what impoverished fim-making can do, then bring it on.” [Paul Lynch, (Irish) Tribune Arts]
In my favorite flipside to screaming hyperbolic film blurbs, there’s this:
Entertaining and honest, ‘Saviours’ fails to disappoint. (Gavin Burke, Entertainment.ie)
OFG will screen the Swedish film Let the Right One In on Wednesday, May 13 at 7 PM in Room C114 of SUNY Oswego’s Campus Center. This screening is free and open to all. After the film, we’ll discuss it.
A fragile, anxious boy, 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates but never strikes back. The lonely boy’s wish for a friend seems to come true when he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him with her father. A pale, serious young girl, she only comes out at night and doesn’t seem affected by the freezing temperatures. Coinciding with Eli’s arrival is a series of inexplicable disappearances and murders…. and for an introverted boy like Oskar, who is fascinated by gruesome stories, it doesn’t take long before he figures out that Eli is a vampire. But by now a subtle romance has blossomed between Oskar and Eli, and she gives him the strength to fight back against his aggressors. Oskar becomes increasingly aware of the tragic, inhuman dimension of Eli’s plight, but cannot bring himself to forsake her. Frozen forever in a twelve-year-old’s body, with all the burgeoning feelings and confused emotions of a young adolescent, Eli knows that she can only continue to live if she keeps on moving. But when Oskar faces his darkest hour, Eli returns to defend him the only way she can… Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence. Let the Right One In is based on the best-selling novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist. —from the film’s press materials
A chilling fairy tale. As delicate, haunting and poetic a film as you’re ever bound to see. —director/producer Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Check out this recent interview in the Bright Lights Film Journal with the director Tomas Alfredson, discussing–among other things–how he (indirectly) directs his child actors, which painters inspire his films’ look, and how his drumming is better when he’s behind a camera than behind a drum set. (See Interview: http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/63/63alfredsoniv.html).
Check out the schedule for this year’s Lake Placid Film Forum (running June 11-14) on the link in the sidebar. This year’s guests include directors Paul Schraeder, Joe Berlinger, and (from last year’s breakout festival film, Frozen River) Courtney Hunt. Other festival guests scheduled are authors Russell Banks and Richard Russo.
From Joe Berlinger’s Crude (showing at this year’s Lake Placid Film Forum)
On Tuesday, May 19, the Independent Lens series on PBS airs Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountain. Locally, it airs on WPBS (Channel 14 on Time Warner Cable) at 10 PM.
It is one of the most astonishing and inspiring survival tales of all time. On October 13, 1972, a young rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, boarded a plane for a match in Chile—and then vanished into thin air. Two days before Christmas, 16 of the 45 passengers miraculously resurfaced. They had managed to survive for 72 days after their plane crashed on a remote Andean glacier. Thirty-five years later, the survivors return to the crash site—known as the Valley of Tears—to recount their harrowing story of defiant endurance and indestructible friendship. Previously documented in the 1973 worldwide bestseller Alive (and the 1993 Ethan Hawke movie of the same name), this shocking true story finally gets the cinematic treatment it deserves. Visually breathtaking and crafted with riveting detail by documentary filmmaker (and childhood friend of the survivors) Gonzalo Arijón with a masterful combination of on-location interviews, archival footage and reenactments, Stranded is by turns hauntingly powerful and spiritually moving. (Zeitgeist Films)
We’ll be screening the 1952 classic thriller The Narrow Margin on Wednesday, May 27, at 7 PM in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library (120 East 2nd Street). We’ll discuss the film after the screening. The event is free and open to all. The film runs 71 minutes.
This film noir was directed by Richard Fleischer. Early in his long career, he directed thrillers/crime dramas such as Bodyguard (1948), Follow Me Quietly (1949), Trapped (1949), Armed Car Robbery (1950), and His Kind of Woman (1951). He went on to direct works as varied as Fantastic Vogage, Tora! Tora! Tora! and Conan the Destroyer. The Narrow Margin stars crime drama veterans Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor.
From the Time Out Film Guide:
Fleischer has yet to have his critical day: with Blake Edwards, he is one of the last surviving classically trained American directors. Here is classic pulp premise (cops escorting hoodlum’s widow to Grand Jury trial with a pack of killers bent on eliminating her before she talks); essence of B movie casting (the malevolently magnificent McGraw and the sleazy siren Windsor); and classic setting (transcontinental express train with every passenger, every stop a possibly malign menace). Teeming with incident, it is fashioned into a taut, breathtakingly fast and highly suspenful ‘sleeper’ par excellence.
If Cannes this year was (reportedly) less congested and crazed than usual, there was still apparently plenty shown at the just-concluded festival that earned praise and plenty that brought outrage.
Here’s a rundown of the major winners:
Palme d’Or
DAS WEISSE BAND (The White Ribbon) directed by Michael HANEKE
Grand Prix
UN PROPHÈTE (A Prophet) directed by Jacques AUDIARD
Lifetime achievement award for his work and his exceptional contribution to the history of cinema
Alain RESNAIS
Best Director
Brillante MENDOZA for KINATAY
Jury Prize
FISH TANK directed by Andrea ARNOLD
BAK-JWI (Thirst) directed by PARK Chan-Wook
Best Performance for an Actor
Christoph WALTZ in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS directed by Quentin TARANTINO
Best Performance by an Actress
Charlotte GAINSBOURG in ANTICHRIST directed by Lars von TRIER
The first animated feature to open Cannes (this past month)–a worthy choice. Beautifully nuanced details and textures. A highlight is early on in the film–the backstory Carl and Ellie, the couple who lived in that house that takes flight. The 3-D does not have that gimmicky “It’s coming right at you!” feel. Rather, it just enhances the whole experience. Highly recommended.
Check out the movie’s production notes: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/up/main.html#/epk/about/production_notes/1. The filmmakers explain their theory of “simplexity” to get the right mix of realism and caricature. Also, the influence of directors Kurosawa (especially “Ikiru”) and Ozu as well as illustrators like Mary Blair and George Booth on the film. Plus, exactly how many balloons are holding up that house.
Attending the Palace Theatre for an evening of Sergio Leone’s Clint Eastwood westerns (Eastwood in Eastwood?), we realized this was another Syracuse movie venue we should note. (Spotted in the audience: OFG founder Jon Peck). This was a Brew & View evening (Saranac and Middle Ages beers on sale) with a discount for even a half-hearted attempt to dress in western or Civil War garb. Interestingly, the evening was sponsored by a local lodge of the Masons, who distributed literature on Freemasonry.
We also spotted fliers for this weekend’s Shaun Luu HorrorFest 2009. The festival (in its fifth year) raises money for University Hospital and the Golisano Children’s Hospital in memory of Shaun who was part of the city’s hardcore scene until his death from brain cancer at age 23. On Friday, the 13th, the festival will screen eight films (in 35 mm, if available) at the Palace Theatre. The following day, more than a dozen bands will be playing at the Wescott.
For more information, visit the Palace Theatre’s website (www.palacetheatresyracuse.com) and http://www.youtube.com/ShaunLuuHorrorFest
from one of the scheduled films, Dario Argento’s Deep Red (1975)
Washington DC’s Silverdocs festival, in its seventh season, has become one of the major US showcases of documentaries. Sponsored by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the Discovery Channel, the festival “has both bolstered and capitalized on Washington’s reputation as ‘Docuwood,’ a city that churns out more nonfiction films than anywhere else in the United States” (The Washington Post Weekend, 6/12/09). Films screen at the AFI Silver (a beautifully restored deco theater) and the Round House Theatre in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland (the ‘Silver’ in Silverdocs).
We saw one the screenings, Winnebago Man. I confess I was completely in the dark about the film’s inspiration: a videotape that was dubbed and passed around starting in the late ’80s, outtakes from an industrial film made for Winnebago showing the spokesman cursing his flubbed lines, the crew, pesky flies…. When YouTube appeared, the tape made Winnebago Man (sometimes called the Angriest Man in the World) known worldwide. Ben Steinbauer, a fan of the tape, was intrigued enough to search out the story behind the tape and track down the man himself, Jack Rebney. The portrait of the cantankerous but dignified Rebney is funny and bittersweet.
After the screening, the director and two of the producers were there to take questions. Ben Steinbauer, the director, suggested giving Jack (who lives in a cabin in the northern California woods) a call. (See photo above). Steinbauer held his iphone up to mic: we heard an update from Jack and some in the audience asked him questions directly. Mr Rebney left us with the directive to keep our wits about us and to (politically) “Act! Act!”
(One audience member was a young girl who, we assume, wasn’t fazed by the film’s blue language. She was interested: she asked a question and was standing waiting to talk to the filmmakers at the end of Q&A session.)
Check out the original video and read more about the film here:
I saw this on TCM earlier this year and highly recommend it. Keep your eye on the TCM schedule to catch it; it’s not available yet on US-formatted DVD (though it’s been released in the UK).
The film (also known as Young Scarface) was based on Graham Greene’s book, with Greene providing the screenplay (revising Terence Ratigan’s draft). Directed by John Boulting in 1947, Richard Attenborough (years before he began directing) turns in a devastating turn as Pinkie, a baby-faced and cold-blooded gangster. (The ironic ending reminded me of the final scene of Gumshoe (1971).
Calling all Time Warner subscribers: I hope you’re more diligent than I am about checking in to see what’s available on the cable service’s Free Movies on Demand channel.
Yesterday I found two films on the channel’s Sundance menu that I”d recently seen via Netflix: Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days and Army of Shadows.
I also scanned the TCM menu on the channel and found (and watched) Cruel Story of Youth (Seishun zankolu monogatari), Nagisa Oshima’s second film. Made in 1960, it wasn’t released in the US until the ’80s.
A little background on the filmmaker (best known in this country for In the Realm of the Senses):
Born into a family with samurai ancestry and socialist leanings, Mr. Oshima studied law at Kyoto University, where he became active in the left-wing student movement. His youthful ideals extended into his film career, and his interest in cinema as a revolutionary tool — along with his gift for acid polemics and his pop touch with political material — earned him repeated comparisons to another ’60s titan, Jean-Luc Godard (Tired of being called Japan’s answer to Mr. Godard, Mr. Oshima suggested that Mr. Godard be considered the Oshima of France.)
Like all iconoclasts, Mr. Oshima has a patricidal aspect to his career. “My hatred for Japanese cinema includes absolutely all of it,” he declared. When he made a television documentary on Japanese cinema in 1995, he included only one clip each from older masters like Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. (Four of his own films made it in.) Where others saw refinement, Mr. Oshima saw meek politesse and ossified ideals of beauty. This is a filmmaker who once wrote an essay titled “Banish Green” and excised the color from his movies because he thought it too soothing.
It was not just Japanese aesthetics but a whole system of Japanese thought that Mr. Oshima sought to probe and overthrow….
Mr. Oshima threw in his lot with the underclass. His protagonists tend to be rebels, outcasts and criminals. Many of his plots pivot on scams, executed with either casual or desperate cruelty and typically doomed to backfire. (From “Safeguarding a Japanese Master’s Place in Film” by Dennis Lim, The New York Times, 9/25/08)
Set against the backdrop of the student protests of the US-Japan Security Treaty*, the self-involvement and scams of Cruel Story of Youth‘s two young lovers are contrasted with the disillusionment of the girl’s older sister and her former boyfriend, two lovers who thought they would be the ones to create a new Japan.
The film “was a surprise box office hit… and went on to become an icon of the taiyozoku, or ‘Sun Tribe,’ films, the popular cycle of overripe youth exploitation pictures that were an important staple of Japanese cinema during the early 1960s.” (Harvard Film Archive)
*In the film, a clip from a newsreel of South Korean students protesting was a revelation–these were uprisings that came years before the student sit-ins and marches that I associate with the ’60s.
This week, after seeing the latest Harry Potter movie installment and finishing reading In a Lonely Place, I was thinking about the liberties taken with interpreting written fiction for the screen. Not having made it to the sixth book, I could take Harry Potter 6 as I found it, unfettered by noticing, as my more widely-read movie companion did, what was left out, what was really from the seventh book… The Potter movies struggle to streamline the length of the original source. It remains a plot-driven, visually-inventive story, though
The movie can bear little relation to the orignal source, though.
In a Lonely Place, the 1947 thriller by Dorothy B. Hughes, is so unlike the film noir classic of the same name that you have to wonder why the filmmakers didn’t pick a new title and new names for the characters. The changes from the book to the screen go well beyond those necessary to bring the inner life of the characters to the screen. The book shadows the main character, a serial killer in Los Angeles (always known to the reader) . Unlike the book, the film (which contains only one of the murders) is “interested neither in creating mystery nor in following a process of detection….Above plot [the film] promotes character and both psycholgical and social portraiture, using the suspicion of murder as a pressure to dramatise the course of a romance from the discovery of love to its disintegration.” (V. F. Perkins’ essay on the film in The Book of Film Noir) (The poster above, though, seems to push the mystery/suspense aspect).
Does anyone, not having read the assigned book for book club, take the chance and instead watch the movie version? (When I was kid, I think some kids thought the Classics Illustrated comic books would cover their book report assignment…) Don’t assume just because you know the book, you know the movie (or other way round).
The subject of the Pop Quiz included in the latest Education section of the NY Times is film studies. (I took quite of few lucky guesses: you’d think I really knew the horror genre: I managed to successfully match each film to the director–how I’m not sure.)
The multiple choice questions are on film history, the business, westerns, horror films, and 2 extra credit questions on film noir.
Give it a go; it’s fun and a nice change from those tissue-light quizzes on Facebook!
Two films I recently saw on cable dealt with revenge (that dish, as the saying goes, best served cold). One film did serve it cold: The Page Turner (La Tourneuse de pages); the other, at a boil: Dead Man’s Shoes.
The Page Turner (2006), directed by Denis Dercout, stars Déborah François as
Mélanie, the small town butcher’s daughter whose ambitions as a pianist were dashed during a childhood exam when one juror, a famous concert pianist [Catherine Frot], distracted her by signing an autograph. A decade on, this shy girl is somehow hired as governess to the woman’s son, and soon she’s assisting as page turner as Frot prepares for a comeback concert. Is Mélanie plotting revenge? Nursing a crush? Or hoping to bask in reflected glory? This cool, elegant and often witty film remains admirably ambiguous until the final scenes, and even then wisely forgoes tying up too many loose ends. (Time Out Film Guide)
The film plays with some our plot expectations, learned from other suspense dramas.
Look for Déborah François in her first film, L’Enfant, a film we hope to show this fall as part of our OFG offerings.
Déborah François in The Page Turner
Dead Man’s Shoes (2004) is from British director Shane Meadows, who wrote it with the film’s lead actor, Paddy Considine.
Something is rotten in a Midland village, though from initial appearances it runs no deeper than the petty drug-dealing, porn and Pot Noodles that charcterise the lives of local goons Herbie, Soz, Tuff and Sonny. Considine busts their chops, steals their stash and daubs taunts on their walls before they have time to figure out who he could be; even when they do, they don’t realise quite how scared they should be. (Time Out Film Guide)
Paddy Considine (with Toby Kebbell) in Dead Man’s Shoes
This was my first exposure to Shane Meadows; his best known work in this country is probably This is England (2006). Paddy Considine was terrific, as expected.
Sidebar: If they cast a biopic of the band X, I’d pick Considine (l) to play John Doe (r). Seeing as Doe has plenty of acting gigs on his own CV, maybe the two should be cast as brothers sometime….
….don’t know about you
but I am un chien andalusia….
“Debaser” / The Pixies / written by Black Francis
File under: Songs That Feature Movies.
Related files: The Book or the Movie (such as Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”) and Title Same as the Movie’s, but Unrelated (Springsteen’s “Thunder Road”)
…in Oswego. Having attended a screening at the beautifully restored Silver Theater (now the AFI Silver) in Silver Spring, Maryland earlier this summer, I was reminded how lucky we are to still have an a deco movie theater here–a little careworn but, unlike so many others in surrounding towns, not shuttered. The theater, built in 1941, was designed by architect John Eberson and is on the National Register of Historic Places. For more information on the Oswego Theater and other historic movie houses, please visit the Cinema Treasures website.
A conversation with our friend Kevin made me think some more about this film and how Frozen River was viewed from the Mohawk perspective.
This is from ‘Frozen River’ Draws Mixed Reaction’, an article by Denise A, Raymo published in The Press-Republican (Plattsburgh), March 29.
Glory Cole, director of the Akwesasne Library and Cultural Center,…asked patrons who have checked [the DVD] out and the staff who have watched what they thought of ‘Frozen River.’ “Most of them said it made us look pretty bad. But I told them, ‘It’s just a movie. It’s meant to be entertaining. It wasn’t billed as a documentary.’….But Cole said she does wonder about the impression viewers from other parts of the United States are left with concerning Akwesasne Mohawks and American Indians in general….” A majority of the movie was filmed in Plattsburgh, which is what surprised some Mohawk people who saw it. “The only thing anybody really recognized around here was in the beginning of the movie, and that was the sign on the bridge to Canada,” Cole said…. She said many remarked on the misrepresentation of certain well-known Akwesasne sites, such as the Tribal Council Community Building and the Mohawk Bingo Palace, which are both large, bright structures, not the small, dingy buildings depicted in the film.
Shannon Burns, editor of the Indian Time newspaper on the Mohawk territory, said she interviewed Hunt in 2004, when the director was researching a short feature on the reservation, but could not get her questions answered or telephone calls returned once the full-length movie was out. “The premise of the film isn’t good for Akwesasne,” Burns said in a February editorial. “Camp-dwellers who smuggle humans across the river? It’s not that anyone here thinks we don’t have crime, but don’t we have enough real crime and a bad enough reputation without films that give an entirely false impression of the Mohawk community?”
Doug George-Kanentiio, former editor of Akwesasne Notes and co-founder of the Native American Journalists Association, said ‘Frozen River’ is flawed. “The reservation is perceived as a place to be feared, the Mohawks grim and dangerous,” he said in a recent editorial piece. “There is nothing appealing about reservation life — no mention of our schools, ceremonies, health centers or arena. “We remain a vague people, distrustful of the outside world, even as we seek to use our status as an indigenous community for profit and without any consideration for those we exploit along the way,” George-Kanetiio said. “I hope this movie will result in a better one told from our perspective –someday, perhaps.”
We’ve added a link to the theater in Hamilton, New York.
The theater’s offerings include their Indie Films @ 5:30. Films scheduled include:
August 12-16: Departures (dir. Yojiro Takita)
August 19-23: Summer Hours (dir. Olivier Assayer)
August 26-30: Anvil! The Story of Anvil (dir. Sacha Gervasi)
Other series offered by Hamilton Theater include their Book & Movie Club, Children’s Matinee Series, Midnight Movies, Silent Films, and special screenings of Grand Operas.
For more information, see the link on the sidebar.
..pass over the river where they feel safe and sound…”
So maybe the ‘Terry and Julie’ of the Kinks classic “Waterloo Sunset” weren’t really Terence Stamp and Julie Christie (as was often presumed). In a 2004 interview in The Independent, the song’s writer, Ray Davies, said he didn’t write ‘for stars’ and that the pair he wrote about in the song were ‘real people’.
Still–whenever I hear the song, in my mind’s eye, ‘Terry and Julie’ remain Stamp and Christie, as seen inJohn Schlesinger’s 1967 film, Far From the Madding Crowd.
Syracuse University’s Syracuse Symposium presents the documentary series Illuminating Oppression, its 7th Annual Human Rights Film Festival from September 10 through 12.
Thursday, September 10, 7 PM: Zones of War
Behind Forgotten Eyes, dir Anthony Gilmore, 76 min, 2007. “[The] Japanese Imperial Army coerced, tricked, and forced more than 200,000 Korean women into a brutal and systematic form of sexual slavery.” The film features first-hand accounts and the aftermath of this abuse; a discussion with the film’s co-director Ryan Seale follows the film.
Friday, September 11, 7 PM: The Line That Defines
Still Human Still Here: Destitution of the Refused Asylum Seekers, dirs Marc Hoeferlin, Barney Broomfield, 12 min, 2007 “…depicts the predicament of refused UK asylum seekers….”
Pray the Devil Back to Hell, dir Gini Reticker, 72 min, 2007 presents the “story of a small band of Christian and Muslim Liberian women, who took on violent warlords and the corrupt Charles Taylor regime, and won a long-awaited peace in 2003 for their shattered country.”
Saturday, September 12, 1 PM: Not All in Good Faith
Under Construction, dir Zhenchen Liu, 10 min, 2007 “…depicts the plight of thousands of Chinese families forcibly displaced from their homes as city planners tear down parts of Shanghai’s old town to regenerate the city.”
Up the Yangtze, dir Yung Chang, 93 min, 2007. “The Three Gorges Dam is the backdrop for this…disquieting glimpse into the future as flood waters spill over the banks on the Yangtze, forever altering the landscape and lives of the people who eked out a living along the legendary river.”
Screenings will be held in the Life Sciences Complex Auditorium on the Syracuse University campus; the films are free and open to all.
For more information on the series, please visit syracusesymposium.org
SUNY Oswego’s Civic Engagement Coalition is presenting a semester-long celebration of the US Constitution’s First Amendment. All screenings are free and held in the Campus Center on Thursdays at 7 PM (unless otherwise noted; see first film scheduled). For more information, please contact Professor Helen Knowles of the college’s Political Science Department (helen.knowles@oswego.edu).
September 15 (Tuesday), at 8 PM, in Room 228: Good Morning Vietman (1987) features Robin William’s portrayal of disc jockey Adrian Cronauer during the Vietnam War and “some of the tensions that occur when freedom of the press meets military regulations and the complexities of American foreign policy.”
September 24, Room 201: The Killing Fields (1984)
October 1, Room 118: RKO 281 (1999)
October 8, Room 201: Citizen Kane (1941)
October 15, Room 118: Call Northside 777 (1948)
October 22, Room 201: Good Night and Good Luck (2005)
October 29, Room 118: All the President’s Men (1976)
November 5, Room 201: The China Syndrome (1979)
November 12, Room 118: Network (1976)
November 19, Room 201: The People Versus Larry Flynt (1996)
Many of us saw Tarantino’s movie about movies (that happened to be set in WWII) already in Oswego or the Syracuse area. I don’t think The Hurt Locker‘s played in Oswego, though (has it?). It’s part of a triple bill coming to the Midway Drive-In this coming weekend (September 18-20):
An article (“Mr. & Mrs. Wizard”) in the Sunday New York Times Men’s Fall Fashion Style magazine caught my eye. The piece focussed on Powers of Ten, the classic short that begins at a picnic on the shores of Lake Michigan–and travels (how many was is?) light years into space–and then reverses the journey all the way back to the level of an atom.
I remembered seeing the film, but hadn’t realized that the filmmakers were Charles and Ray Eames. (Okay, I also didn’t realize that Ray was a woman and the two were a married couple; I’d always assumed they were brothers!) Quick: word association–Eames…. Did you think ‘chair’?
That’s understandable, but I discovered that the Eames designed “everything from toys, games, houses, books and movie sets to leg splints for the United States Navy. They also found time to pursue parallel careers as educational filmmakers.”
Check out more on this renaissance couple’s work at their foundation’s site and the Library of Congress’ exhibit site:
The Palace Theatre continues its Brew and View series:
Sept 18: Jaws, The Birds
Sept 25: Giant Gila Monster, Jurassic Park, Alligator
Oct 9: The Blob (1988 re-make),Nightmare City (aka City of the WalkingDead), Night of the Creeps
Oct 23: Repo Man, Rock N’ Roll High School, Wizard of Gore (HG Lewis version)
For more info, please visit the Palace’s website (see the Links sidebar).
The Syracuse Cinephile Society presents its Hollywood finds at 7:30 PM on Mondays at the Spaghetti Warehouse (680 N Clinton St):
Sep 21: Bulldog Drummond (1929);Sept 28: College Holiday (1936); Oct 5: 13 Hours by Air (1936); Oct 12: White Heat (1949); Oct 19: Tin Pan Alley (1940); Oct 26: Mark of the Vampire (1935) and Murders in the Zoo (1933)
We were shocked and saddened to hear that boxer Darren Sutherland was found hanged in his London home. The 27-year-old, one of the three boxers we saw featured in Saviours, had won an Olympic medal and was seen as one of the brightest lights in the sport. What a heartbreaking coda to the story we’d seen; our thoughts go out to his family, friends, colleagues , and fans.
Come join us at the Wednesday evening screening of The Informant!, now playing at the Oswego Cinema 7. After the show (which starts at 7:40 PM), we’ll regroup (Greene’s?) to discuss the film. (Since we didn’t arrange this last week, we won’t be having our usual Night Out discussion in the theater’s upstairs lobby as we usually do).
Check out the A. O. Scott article on the film, published in Sunday’s New York Times, for some good potential discussion topics.
Our first offering this season will be the acclaimed French film, The Class (Entre les murs). There will be a free screening on Tuesday, September 29, at 7 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium/118 on the SUNY Oswego campus.
“Directed by Laurent Cantet, the film follows a year in the life of a French schoolteacher working in a tough multi-cultural section of Paris. Based on a best-selling autobiographic novel by François Bégaudeau, who plays the main character. ‘The Class’ is brought alive by the performances of the non-professional actors playing the students.” The New York Times
The film won the 2008 Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or. Please learn more about the film at The Class‘s website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/theclass/
There will be a free screening of the film Degham (Body) on the SUNY Oswego campus on October 5. This documentary looks at transgender issues in the lives of five women in India. The film, directed by Vishnu Mathur, is in Tamil with English subtitles and runs 1 hour, 35 minutes. The screening will be at 6:30 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium (C118).
The Academy Award winning German film, The Lives of Others(Dan Leben der Anderen) will be screened on Wednesday, October 7 at 6:30 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium (118) on the SUNY Oswego campus.
The 2006 film, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck,
set in East Berlin, mostly during the mid-1980s, chronicles the consequences of the Minister of Culture’s decsion to investigate a successful playwright…and his actress lover…. Those profoundly affected by the bugging of the couple’s apartment are not only the artists and their friends, but the surveillance expert in charge of the operation [played by Ulrich Mühe], who comes to question the ethics of his work for the Stasi. The complex, lucid script and the sombre noir camerawork establish an atmosphere of fear, doubt and suspicion, and the superb performances ensure that this taut thriller succeeds as convincing (if controversial) historical re-creation and as a compelling tale of individuals tragically shaped by the society in which they live. (Time Out Film Guide)
The film runs 138 minutes; the screening (presented by the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures) is free.
Carlos Saura’s Carmen (1983) will be screened on Wednesday, October 28, at 7 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium (118) on the SUNY Oswego campus.
Conceived by Mr. Saura and Antonio Gades, the famed dancer-choreographer and former director of the National Ballet of Spain, this ”Carmen” combines dance, Bizet music and a modern if very slim narrative to find its own contemporary equivalent to the passionate 19th-century grandeur of the opera.
Mr. Saura, who directed the film, and Mr. Gades, who choreographed it and plays a central role, use as the frame of their film the story of a dance company rehearsing ”Carmen,” a production that seems to be as freely conceived as the film itself….
Virtually the entire film is set in a large rehearsal hall in which Antonio and his dancer-singers, in practice clothes, go through the key scenes of their production, dancing sometimes to Bizet music – taken from a recording of the opera starring Regina Resnick and Mario Del Monaco – and sometimes to flamenco music provided by the troupe’s own musicians.
In this way the film serves up bits and pieces of the opera to surprisingly moving effect. There’s a riveting sequence near the start of the movie when Paco De Lucia, the guitarist in the movie as he is in life, adapts a Bizet melody to become a flamenco lament. The opera’s fight between Carmen and another woman, who also works in the cigarette factory, becomes a dance of the sort of blinding vicious energy that one seldom ever encounters in an opera house. In this way, too, Mr. Saura succeeds in rediscovering many of the emotions that may elude today’s opera audiences. (Vincent Canby, The New York Times, 10/20/83)
The drive-in season for this year is drawing to a close…but this weekend the Midway Drive-In is showing a triple feature with two of this summer’s most celebrated films: Julie & Julia and 500 Days of Summer.
On Friday and Sunday, Julie & Julia will be first on the line-up, starting at 8 PM; on Saturday, the film starts at 9:50 PM.
On Saturday, 500 Days of Summer is first up at 8 PM; on Friday and Sunday, it will be shown at 10:15 PM.
(The last movie of the bill is My Sister’s Keeper).
For more information, please see the link to the Midway on the sidebar.
Yet another Top 100 Films list, this one published in September in the British newspaper The Independent. Critic Anthony Quinn’s picks are a mix of the expected canon on the greats, the popular, the obscure (at least to me), and the rather puzzling. (I jotted down of the films–listed singly on the site in groups of 20. Most of the years and directors were taken from the Time Out Film Guide. Check out The Independent‘s site with photo stills and brief captions on each film; the link is on the sidebar).
100. Army of Shadows/The Army in the Shadows (1969: Jean-Pierre Melville)
99. The Wages of Fear (1953: Henri-Georges Clouzot)
98. Unforgiven (1992: Clint Eastwood)
97. Election (1999: Alexander Payne)
96. Los Olvidados (1950: Luis Buñuel)
95. Don’t Look Now (1973: Nicolas Roeg)
94. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975: Peter Weir)
93. Together (2000: Lukas Moodysson)
92. Nights of Cabiria (1956: Federico Fellini)
91. I Am Cuba (1964: Mikhail Kalatozov)
90. La Kermesse Héroique/Carnival in Flanders (1936: Jacques Feyder)
89. Trainspotting (1995: Danny Boyle)
88. The Leopard (1963: Luchino Visconti)
87. Peeping Tom (1960: Michael Powell)
86. Diner (1982: Barry Levinson)
85. Ridicule (1996: Patrice Leconte)
84. The Reckless Moment (1949: Max Ophuls)
83. The Searchers (1956: John Ford)
82. The Lusty Men (1952: Nicholas Ray)
81. Mean Streets (1973: Martin Scorsese)
80. Duel (1971: Steven Speilberg)
79. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938: Michael Curtiz)
78. The Lives of Others (2007: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
77. Rififi (1955: Jules Dassin)
76. The Deer Hunter (1978: Michael Cimino)
75. La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928: Carl Dreyer)
74. Rumble Fish (1983: Francis Ford Coppola)
73. In a Lonely Place (1950: Nicholas Ray)
72. Smiles of a Summer Night (1955: Ingmar Bergman)
71. Barry Lyndon (1975: Stanley Kubrick)
70. The Lost Weekend (1945: Billy Wilder)
69. Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972: Werner Herzog)
68. Rebecca (1940: Alfred Hitchcock)
67. Wild Strawberries (1957: Ingmar Bergman)
66. Rashomon (1951: Akira Kurosawa)
65. Tokyo Story (1953: Yasujiro Ozu)
64. Downfall (2004: Oliver Hirschbiegel)
63. The Dark Mirror (1946: Robert Siodmak)
62. Toy Story (1995: John Lasseter)
61. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
60. Psycho (1960: Alfred Hitchcock)
59. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970: Vittorio De Sica)
58. The Fallen Idol (1948: Carol Reed)
57. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978: Fred Schepisi)
56. His Girl Friday (1939: Howard Hawks)
55. LA Confidential (1997: Curtis Hanson)
54. There Will Be Blood (2007: Paul Thomas Anderson)
53. Sullivan’s Travels (1941: Preston Sturges)
52. Ball of Fire (1941: Howard Hawks)
51. Overlord (1975: Stuart Coops)
50. Meet Me in St Louis (1944: Vincente Minnelli)
49. Sunset Boulevard (1950: Billy Wilder)
48. The Conversation (1974: Francis Coppola)
47. Gone With the Wind (1939: Victor Fleming)
46. Touch of Evil (1958: Orson Welles)
45. L’Atalante (1934: Jean Vigo)
44. Nashville (1975: Robert Altman)
43. It Happened One Night (1934: Frank Capra)
42. Oliver! (1968: Carol Reed)
41. Taxi Driver (1976: Martin Scorsese)
40. Blue Velvet (1986: David Lynch)
39. Breathless (1959: Jean-Luc Godard)
38. Once Upon a Time in America (1983: Sergio Leone)
37. Manhattan (1979: Woody Allen)
36. L’Enfant Sauvage (1969: François Truffaut)
35. Duck Soup (1933: Leo McCarey)
34. The Last Detail (1973: Hal Ashby)
33. The Apartment (1960: Billy Wilder)
32. Groundhog Day (1993: Harold Ramis)
31. On the Waterfront (1954: Elia Kazan)
30. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942: Orson Welles)
29. Alien (1979: Ridley Scott)
28. The Red Shoes (1948: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
27. Casablanca (1942: Michael Curtiz)
26. Fear Eats the Soul (1973: Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
25. The Rules of the Game (1939: Jean Renoir)
24. The Third Man (1949: Carol Reed)
23. Sherlock Junior (1924: Buster Keaton)
22. Raging Bull (1980: Martin Scorsese)
21. The Big Sleep (1946: Howard Hawks)
20. Citizen Kane (1941: Orson Welles)
19. A Man Escaped (1956: Robert Bresson)
18. Sweet Smell of Success (1957: Alexander Mackendrick)
17. Notorious (1946: Alfred Hitchcock)
16. The Godfather (I & II) (1971/1974: Francis Ford Coppola)
We’ve added a link to the Syracuse Peace Council’s website. The group holds screenings (on many) Saturdays at 8 PM at the ArtRage Gallery (505 Hawley Avenue). Upcoming scheduled films:
October 10: The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
October 17: The Eleventh Hour
October 24: Angels and Insects
October 31: Halloween Movie Marathon (from 6 PM – 2 AM)
The group suggests a $5 donation at the screenings.
In addition, there will be a free screening of the documentary Rethink Afghanistan at the ArtRage Gallery at 7 PM on Wednesday, October 14.
Coming soon to the SUNY Oswego campus: two documentaries kick off OFG’s music series File Under: Eclectic. The films will be screened on Wednesday, November 4, at 7 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium (C118). The screenings are free; a discussion will follow the films.
Anvil! The Story of Anvil:
At 14, Toronto school friends Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and Robb Reiner made a pact to rock together forever. Their band, Anvil, went on to become the ‘demigods of Canadian metal,’ releasing one of the heaviest albums in metal history, 1982′s Metal on Metal. The album influenced a musical generation, including Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax….. But Anvil’s career took a different path–straight to obscurity.
Director Sacha Gervasi [himself once a teenage fan of--and even a roadie for--the group] has concocted a wonderful and often hilarious account of Anvil’s last-ditch quest for elusive fame and fortune. His ingenious filmmaking may first lead you to think this is a mockumentary, but it isn’t….[We] see the reality of their day-to-day lives as they struggle to make ends meet, take a misguided European tour, and engage in antics on the road–which is not always lined with fans. Gervasi even finds a softer center to this raucous film, introducing us to band members’ ever-supportive, but long-suffering, families…. Anvil rocks–it has no other choice. (John Cooper, Sundance Film Festival Catalog)
Anthony Lane found the movie “the most stirring release of the year” and in his review in The New Yorker concluded:
This film is not about rock music at all, …; it is about time, and how it threatens to fade us out like a song on the radio, and why, risking ridicule, and leaning on love, we should crank up the volume and keep going….
On the same bill, Heavy Metal Parking Lot:
The legendary 1986 short film that documents a group of metal fans congregating before a Judas Priest concert. The kids-in-the-parking-lot interviews are funny–and sometimes disturbing.
Washington DC area filmmakers Jeff Krulik and John Heyn used borrowed equipment, shot without permission from the venue, and initially didn’t even copyright the work. The result became an underground hit. HMPL fans make copies and distributed them; the buzz about HMPL began to grow as it drew attention from bands including Nirvana and the Lemonheads and directors Sofia Coppola and Cameron Crowe.
The film, after all these years, has outgrown its underground status: it’s been ranked 6 in SPIN magazine’s list of top 20 rock movies and 16th out of the Top 100 Most Metal Moments on VH1.
We’ve added a link to The Little, Rochester’s independent film theatre and café. The theatre (celebrating its 80 anniversary) is currently showing Bright Star, Capitalism: A Love Story, My One and Only, Lorna’s Silence, It Might Get Loud and ImageOut, the city’s lesbian and gay film festival. (The festival continues through October 18. For a link to the ImageOUT site, please see the sidebar under Mentioned in the Post).
We’ve added a link to the free films available on-line at the World Cinema Foundation site.
This is from the WCF’s mission statement:
The World Cinema Foundation (WCF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and restoring neglected films from around the world – in particular, those countries lacking the financial and technical ability to do so.
Established by Martin Scorsese, the Foundation supports and encourages preservation efforts to save the worldwide patrimony of films, ensuring that they are preserved, seen and shared. Its goal is to defend the body and spirit of cinema in the belief that preserving works of the past can encourage future generations to treat film as a universal form of expression.
Cinema is an international language, an international art, but, above all, it is a source of enlightenment. There are wonderful, remarkable films, past and present, from Mexico, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Central Asia that deserve to be known and seen. Martin Scorsese has created the World Cinema Foundation with the specific purpose of calling attention to the global cause of film preservation.
Speaking of Scorsese (see yesterday’s post), here’s the director’s picks for the scariest films, compiled for The Daily Beast. (See As Mentioned in the Post under Links).
We’ve added a link to Hulu’s movie division. If you can deal with the brief commercial interuptions, there’s quite a diverse collection from which to choose.
I watched Roman Polanski’s darkly comic Cul-de-Sac.
For the third time, an impatient waiter cruised up to their table. “This place is good for meat”, Hector said. “What is your favorite dish?”
Switters stared wistfully into space. “Spring lamb Roman Polanski”, he said.
“It is not on the menu, I am afraid”.
“Just as well. It’s an acquired taste”.
– Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates
(quoted in Christopher Weedman’s Senses of Cinema entry on the film)
We’ve added another link for on-line viewing: the National Film Board of Canada site. (I think just about all the interesting films screened during my high school classtime were of NFB Canada origin).
Here’s a classic short, The Big Snit. (It’s on the NFB site, but I had to take this from YouTube because I couldn’t import the copy from north of the border for some reason….)
As a coda to our screening of Heavy Metal Parking Lot, here’s some Priest and a song named for a Priest guitarist (from Kil Sun Moon AKA Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters)…
Always on the lookout for features available for free online viewing, I found Peter Greenaway’s Rembrandt’s J’Accuse (2008).
The movie is an addendum to “Nightwatching,” Mr. Greenaway’s 2007 fictional feature about the painting that was part of a larger project of the same title that he created for the yearlong 2006 celebration of Rembrandt’s 400th birthday in the Netherlands. That project included an opera and a “re-presentation” of the painting. Mr. Greenaway was also the author of a handsome accompanying museum catalog. The “Nightwatching” project was, in turn, the first in an ambitious series Mr. Greenaway has undertaken titled “Nine Classical Paintings Revisited” that has, to date, included inquiries into Leonardo’s “Last Supper” and, as part of this year’s Venice Biennale, Paolo Veronese’s “Wedding at Cana.” (from “The Man Who Watched the Watchers” by Manohla Dargis, The New York Times, 10/21/09)
The film’s thesis: the composition of “The Night Watch” shows that Rembrandt used the work to accuse the Amsterdam militia of murder within their own ranks. Throughout the analysis, Greenaway—who narrates the film, often seen as a talking head in a little box on the screen (Dargis compared the sight to that of Jambi the Genie on Pee-wee’s Playhouse)—weaves in European history of many strands: political, religious, and artistic.
A. O. Scott’s lists from his piece “Screen Memories” in The New York Times Magazine (11/15/09):
Movies of Influence: The 10 most culturally, commercially or technologically important, consequential or groundbreaking films of 2000-9, in no particular order
Zodiac
Other movies used computer-generated imagery to create spectacular worlds of fantasy or eye-popping action sequences, but in this film, David Fincher went further than anyone before in using this kind of digital technique in the service of heightened realism.
The Passion of the Christ
Not only the highest-grossing Aramaic-language movie in history, this movie was also a testimony to Mel Gibson’s bloody-minded independence and, most of all, a lesson for Hollywood in the power of Christian-themed popular culture.
Fahrenheit 9/11
Along with Gibson’s “Passion,” Michael Moore’s potent piece of agitprop gave the lie to the movie industry’s assumption that ideological provocation was bad box office. This movie, the first documentary to gross more than $100 million, spawned a score of imitators, including a few on the right, and also foreshadowed the emergence of a noisy, cantankerous liberalism on cable outlets during Bush’s second term (a political reality that Michael Moore was, of course, unable to prevent).
The Lord of the Rings
This billion-dollar trilogy, the last installment of which swept the Oscars, was a milestone in the geek ascendancy. It’s an epic in which the special effects and the source material are more important than the cast. Against all odds and the better judgment of most studios, Peter Jackson made three films at once and then sold them all to the same fans again and again and again. The theatrical releases, in consecutive years, turned out to be teasers for the DVD release. And the movie will remain a benchmark of hybrid cinema — half digital, half traditional — for a long time to come.
Funny Ha Ha
Andrew Bujalski’s first feature film helped spawn the low-budget, socially networked, slice-of-life cinematic movement called Mumblecore. The name has already come unstuck, and the quality of the work is uneven, ranging from videotaped navel-gazing to genuine generational insight. But the model of filmmaking and distribution that Mumblecore represents is likely to prove especially durable in recessionary times.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
The first movie directed by Judd Apatow also represented the consolidation and extension of his brand of juvenile, heartfelt comedy, a style of humor at once anxious, honest and sentimental about sex and its consequences. Within a few years, even non-Apatow-branded projects were biting his trademarks, and his stock company of schlubby, funny, anxious dudes (with a few women cracking wise around the margins) seemed to be everywhere.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Ang Lee’s soulful art-house action blockbuster — the highest-grossing subtitled movie in America until “The Passion of the Christ” — was a fond throwback to the wuxia genre that Lee grew up with in Taiwan. But it was also prophetic — an early signal of China’s emergence as a pop-culture superpower and an example of the crossover potential of local genres in a global marketplace.
Amores Perros
The first and best of three collaborations between the screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and the director Alejandro González Iñárritu (the others were “21 Grams” and “Babel”), this rough study of chance, fate and violence in Mexico City helped establish the braided narrative as one of the dominant prestige genres of the decade. When “Crash” won the Best Picture Oscar a few years later, it was a sign that nothing spells significance like coincidence. But “Amores Perros” was also a sign that a border-crossing new wave of Mexican and Latin American cinema was on its way.
Diary of a Mad Black Woman Tyler Perry made his name on the chitlin’ circuit, where his raucous, pious plays found an appreciative African-American audience. When he decided to make the transition from stage to screen, no major studio was interested, so Perry, helped by his cross-dressed alter ego, Madea, set about creating an entertainment empire. A canny self-promoter, a competent filmmaker and one of the few genuine populists in American pop culture, Perry is, with Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, one face of a new black-power structure that has become part of the American establishment.
Shrek
Pixar may have raised computer-generated animation to the level of art, but it was this loud, rambunctious DreamWorks adaptation of a William Steig picture book that set the template for 21st-century family entertainment. License a lot of pop songs, lock in merchandising opportunities, recruit A-list celebrities to read a script full of winking allusions and semi-rude jokes for the grown-ups and hokey morals for the kids, and watch the money pour in.
Movies of Quality: the best movies of 2000-9, accoridng to A. O. Scott — in nine double features and one six-hour epic
The Best of Youth (Marco Tullio Giordana): Four decades of recent Italian history in a half-dozen sublime hours.
Darwin’s Nightmare (Hubert Sauper) and Iraq in Fragments (James Longley): Documentaries on environmental and political catastrophe raised to the level of poetry.
We’ve added a link to The Auteurs, a site for on-line film viewing. There’s a charge (usually $5) for the films offered, but every month the site features one or more free options.
Earlier, we posted the Pixies’ “Debaser” video; now here’s the song’s film inspiration, plus two other free films:
The Auteurs is now showing 3 films by Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel for free in the US to celebrate the release of the beautiful remastering of the filmmaker’s unheralded 1956 French/Mexican co-production Death in the Garden, shot in gorgeous Eastmancolor and starring Michel Piccoli, Simone Signoret, and Charles Vanel.
Death in the Garden and two classic Buñuel films from his earlier and most vividly surreal period, Un chien andalou (1929) and L’âge d’or (1930) are available to watch for free in the US. The Auteurs is presenting the 1956 film alongside more renowned films made before and after to put it on the context of his career.
(See The Auteurs under “On-Line Viewing Options” and the link to the 3 free Buñuel films under “As Mentioned in the Post” in the sidebar).
In the very entertaining 10 Bad Dates With De Niro: A Book of Alternative Movie Lists, edited by Richard T. Kelly (Overlook/Rookery: 2007), the final entry is Graham Fuller’s ‘Ten Movies to Save Us All From Satan’s Power’. Here are his picks (minus his full comments). They’re a mix of some expected seasonal entries, but also some unusually dark ones, including a noir with an innocuous title (Christmas Holiday) and some cynical and sad office intrigue (The Apartment). Also featured: two great duos, Laurel & Hardy (Swiss Miss), and Tom & Jerry (The Night Before Christmas).
10. Christmas Holiday (US, 1944, dir. Robert Siodmak)
9. Swiss Miss (US, 1938, dir. John G. Blystone)
8. The Man Who Came to Dinner (US, 1942, dir. William Keighley)
7. The Magnificent Ambersons (US, 1942, dir. Orson Welles)
6. Comfort and Joy (GB, 1984, dir. Bill Forsyth)
5. The Night Before Christmas (US, 1941, dir. William Hanna & Joseph Barbera)
4. A Christmas Story (Canada, 1983, dir. Bob Clark)
3. The Apartment (US, 1960, dir. Billy Wilder)
2. Scrooge (GB, 1951, dir. Brian Desmond Hurst)
1. It’s a Wonderful Life (US, 1946, dir. Frank Capra)
I saw the same clip from The Ten Commandments of Charlton Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea twice this week: last night as the Syracuse Crunch hockey team took to the ice (they won) and during A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël, 2008, dir. Arnaud Desplechin), when the family watches the movie on TV during their holiday visit.
Emile Berling, Mathieu Amalric, and Catherine Deneuve in "A Christmas Tale"
The film was a critical success (though I see from the sampling of comments on The New York Times on-line, viewers seemed to either love it or hate it). I didn’t have such strong feelings about it; I enjoyed it and wasn’t bored despite its length (2.5 hours). I haven’t seen any other Desplechin films; I don’t know if the unusual music and scene pairings and other attention-getting devices are typical. The story’s a well-worn subject: the dysfunctional family get-together over the holidays. I found what pleased me most about the film was its staying power. Too often it’s not only the blockbusters that seem to disappear from thought as soon as the credits end–for me, plenty of art-house films also seem as insubstantial. I thought about the characters and wondered about the Christmas (and Easter) story parallels that might be drawn days after I saw A Christmas Tale.
The film is out on DVD and it’s available on Sundance on Demand. (For you Time Warner customers: see your Free Movies on Demand channel). Postscript: For OFG friends who saw our screening of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, it was a twist to see Anne Cosigny and Mathieu Amalric work together in A Christmas Tale as well–not as close collaborators in Diving Bell, though, but as two completely alienated and hostile siblings.
…Fede Alvarez, a Uraguayan filmmaker who created a YouTube hit with his low-budget sci-fi short, Panic Attack!, has signed a deal with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures to develop and direct an original genre project. While Panic Attack! only cost several hundred dollars, his deal with Ghost House is reportedly in the six- against seven figure range (meaning that he’s being paid $X00,000 and if the film gets made he gets a bonus amount which would bring his salary to $X,000,000). The same day Alvarez posted his video, Hollywood came calling as they were impressed with what he was able to accomplish with such a low budget. Alvarez’ short is less than five minutes long and is about robots invading and attacking the city of Montevideo. That’s all that happens in the movie. The robots invade and then they attack. The end. I do understand and congratulate what Alvarez on his success and his movie is technically impressive, but the story here isn’t Alvarez. It’s the power of YouTube to create a calling card so fast and powerful that you can nab such an incredible deal.
Here’s the YouTube video that started the bidding war:
..that is, women film directors. Here’s a link to a Wall Street Journal article about the French woman who saw the storytelling potential of film in its earliest days–currently the subject of an exhibit in NYC at the Whitney.
Lists? You want lists? Scads and scads of film lists compiled here–especially timely as a way to review those end-of-decade best film picks. This Australian site focuses on directors (the ones who shoot the pictures)–more than 800 entries here–and a great place to look for all manner of film lists: top 10, top 100, top 1,000…. (Please look under Links in the sidebar).
Nina Paley’s animated feature presents parallel stories: Sita’s and the filmmaker’s. Here’s a short synopsis from the Sita website:
Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920′s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as “the Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told.”
The film has also been presented to the public free (though donations to cover the copyright cost of the music are welcomed) by Paley. Visit the website to read about Paley–and her film’s–journey and watch the film! (See the link under As Mentioned in the Post).
OFG’s friend Kurt Phaneuf has posted his picks for top films of the past decade. Here’s an excerpt of his list of the top documentaries; here are the top 50:
50 Why We Fight – 2005
49 Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) - 2007 *
48 Order of Myths, The – 2008
47 Strange Culture – 2007
46 Paragraph 175 – 2000
45 Super Size Me – 2004
44 Tyson – 2008
43 Tarnation - 2003
42 Bukowski: Born Into This – 2003
41 Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price – 2005 *
40 Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room – 2005 *
39 I.O.U.S.A. – 2008
38 Stevie – 2002
37 Bowling for Columbine – 2002
36 Religulous – 2008
35 Lake of Fire – 2006
34 Jesus Camp – 2006
33 LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton – 2001
32 Sicko – 2007
31 Trouble the Water – 2008
30 When the Levees Broke – 2006
29 Fog of War, The – 2003
28 51 Birch Street - 2006
27 Standard Operating Procedure – 2008
26 Control Room – 2004
25 Touching the Void – 2003
24 Corporation, The – 2004
23 Murder on a Sunday Morning – 2001
22 Inconvenient Truth, An – 2006 *
21 Taxi to the Dark Side – 2008
20 Citadel - 2006
19 Dark Days – 2000
18 49 Up - 2006
17 No End In Sight – 2007
16 Fahrenheit 9/11 – 2004
15 Deliver Us From Evil – 2006
14 Spellbound – 2002
13 Born Into Brothels – 2004
12 King of Kong, The: A Fistful of Quarters – 2008
11 Iraq in Fragments – 2006
"Of Time and the City" (dir. Terence Davies)
10 Of Time and the City – 2008
9 Into Great Silence – 2007
8 Anvil: The Story of Anvil – 2009 *
7 Capturing the Friedmans – 2004
6 Gleaners and I, The – 2001
5 Bridge, The – 2007
4 Waltz with Bashir – 2008
3 Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind – 2007
2 Grizzly Man – 2005
1 Man On Wire – 2008 *
From David Kehr’s piece in the January 3rd edition of The New York Times (“The Ballad of Blu-ray and Scratchy Old Film”):
When VHS arrived, the format was forgiving enough to allow the studios to transfer many of their titles to tape directly from the video masters they had already made for television distribution. Many of those titles disappeared in the transition to DVD because studios felt that more obscure films wouldn’t be profitable enough to justify striking new prints and preparing new digital transfers.As a result huge swaths of our film heritage have vanished. After 10 years of DVD the studios seem to have concluded that all the films that will make money in home video have already been released; that number is a very small percentage of their output. Turner Classic Movies online says that of the 162,984 films listed in its database (based on the authoritative AFI Catalog), only 5,980 (3.67 percent) are available on home video.
At this point only Warner Brothers and Sony (the owners of the Columbia films) are maintaining a truly active library program. Fox has virtually eliminated the archival initiative that brought us marvels like the Fox Film Noir series and the box sets devoted to John Ford, Frank Borzage and F. W. Murnau. Paramount has apparently lost interest in releasing its older titles (a shame, since it also owns the Republic Pictures library, a wonderful, largely unexplored repository of genre films from the ’30s, ’40s and early ’50s).
Universal makes the occasional effort on DVD, and usually does a good job with what it does, but the studio has allowed its superb library to fall almost entirely out of distribution apart from a handful of horror films and Abbott and Costello comedies. The vast majority of the 700 prime Paramount titles owned by Universal (essentially all of Paramount’s sound films up to 1948) have for all practical purposes disappeared down a black hole.
Perhaps this policy will change now that Universal NBC has been acquired by Comcast, a cable company with a financial interest in making the most of its assets. Increasingly, however, one has to turn to Europe to find good DVDs of American studio films, like the Douglas Sirk series (most of the titles licensed from Universal) released by Carlotta Films in France, or the Blu-rays of Murnau’s “Sunrise” and (coming) “City Girl” from the British company Masters of Cinema (licensed from Fox). The Criterion Collection is a national treasure, but it can’t do everything.
Blu-ray is wonderful for what it does. Still, the most encouraging development as the decade turns is the multiplication of alternative formats and means of distribution. Cinephiles have taken matters into their own hands by trading digital copies of out-of-distribution films on the Internet. Burn-on-demand programs, like Warner Archive and TCM’s Universal Collection, provide an economically viable way of making older movies available to the relatively small audience interested in them. Warner Archive has released many titles in unrestored versions that would not be acceptable as mass manufactured DVDs, though collectors seem glad to have them (even at a steep $19.95). Perhaps other companies will follow the Warner Brothers example, if only as an intermediary step toward the wide implementation of video on demand.
We will probably never achieve the utopian vision of having every film ever made available at the click of a mouse, but we are certain to move a little bit further in that direction in the decade ahead — with the cooperation of the studios or without them. (Copyrights will soon be expiring on the first wave of talkies.) In the meantime let us praise diversity. As confusing as the format wars may be, they keep hope alive.
We’ve added a link…bit late. We missed Young @ Heart on the 12th! But PBS’s Independent Lens non-fiction film series continues its music focus the rest of this month into the next. The remaining films in the series:
1/19 Copyright Criminals
1/26 Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes
2/9 P-Star Rising
(These are all Tuesday evenings, at 10 PM)
For more information on the series and the individual films, please see the link (under As Mentioned in the Post) on the sidebar.
Also, check out the rest of Independent Lens offerings scheduled this year through the link (under our general Link category).
This Saturday, January 23, Spike Lee’s documentary 4 Little Girls screens at 8 PM at the ArtRage Gallery in Syracuse. A donation of $5 is suggested.
On September 15, 1963, a bomb destroyed a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls who were there for Sunday school. It was a crime that shocked the nation–and a defining moment in the history of America’s civil-rights movement. Now, nearly 35 years later, acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee tells the full story of the bombing, through heart-wrenching testimonials from surviving members of the victims’ families, insights from Bill Cosby, Walter Cronkite, Andrew Young, Coretta Scott King and many others, and a rare and revealing interview with former Alabama Governor George Wallace. (from HBO Films’ website)
The gallery is located at 505 Hawley Avenue at North Crowley; their phone number – 315.218.5711. The gallery is open Wed, Thu, Fri 2-7 PM and Sat 12-4 PM. (ArtRage is closed between exhibits! If you are unsure of exhibit dates, please call before you visit.) ArtRage is handicapped accessible. Off street parking is available at 408 & 414 Lodi Street.
For more information on this and other upcoming films, please the link to the gallery (under Links).
The changing landscape of independent film distribution was the topic of Manohla Dargis’ article in this Sunday’s New York Times. Here are some excerpts:
In the Old World of distribution, filmmakers hand over all the rights to their work, ceding control to companies that might soon lose interest in their new purchase for various reasons, including a weak opening weekend…. In the New World, filmmakers maintain full control over their work from beginning to end: they hold on to their rights and, as important, find people who are interested in their projects and can become patrons, even mentors. The Old World has ticket buyers. The New World has ticket buyers who are also Facebook friends. The Old World has commercials, newspapers ads and the mass audience. The New World has social media, YouTube, iTunes and niche audiences…..
….companies — large and small — continue to dominate distribution. Hollywood’s historical hold on resources and the terms of the conversation have made it difficult for an authentic alternative system to take root in America. The festival circuit has emerged as a de facto distribution stream for many filmmakers, yet the ad hoc world of festivals is not a substitute for real distribution…..
In 1992, the year before Disney bought Miramax Films, thereby initiating the indie gold rush, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky became a model for true independence when they distributed their own documentary “Brother’s Keeper” (1992) to substantial critical and commercial success. In the years since, those entering self-distribution have included emerging talent like Andrew Bujalski (who initially sold DVDs of his 2005 film “Mutual Appreciation” online) and established filmmakers like David Lynch (who released his 2006 movie “Inland Empire” in theaters himself). As self-distributed movies have found levels of critical or commercial success or even both, others have followed, including “The Talent Given Us,” “Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037,” “Ballast,”“Helvetica” and “Good Dick.”
…hybrid distribution,….filmmakers hold on to their sales rights and sell the DVD retail rights to one buyer and the video-on-demand rights to another and so on — rather than handing them all over to one distributor, as has been traditional.
One of the buzzy ideas in D.I.Y. is transmedia, a word borrowed from academia, in which stories — think of the “Star Wars” and “Matrix” franchises — unfold across different platforms. “Star Wars” helped expand the very idea of a movie, because it involved a constellation of movie-related products, from videogames to action figures, all of which become part of the understanding and experience of the original, originating work. ….
It might seem counterintuitive that D.I.Y. independents are borrowing a page from the George Lucas playbook. But only if you forget that Mr. Lucas is the most successful independent filmmaker in history. 20th Century Fox distributed the first “Star Wars,” yet Mr. Lucas kept the sequel and merchandising rights.
Also in this past Sunday’s New York Times, the On Language column this week (by Fred R. Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations) considered “Movie Misquotations”. Some highlights:
Alfonso Bedoya in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre"
“Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!”
From The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).
In the film, “Alfonso Bedoya declared, ‘I don’t have to show
you any stinking badges!’”This phrase changed
(and that Spanish double negative added)
when the line was paraphrased in a television episode of The Monkees (1967) and the movie Blazing Saddles (1974).
“The natives are restless.”
From the film Island of Lost Souls (1932). Charles Laughton’s character (Doctor Moreau) commented, “They are restless tonight.”
This is an example of a line changed to
“stand alone, without the cinematic context.”
“Greed is good.”
From Wall Street (1987). Michael Douglas’
Gordon Gekko (not to put too fine a point on it) actually said:
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” One of the many
examples cited of the original phrases being streamlined.
“Come with me to the Casbah.”
Attributed to Charles Boyer’s character in Algiers (1938),
but not in the movie, the phrase probably “was the creation
of Boyer impersonators who used it to mock the film.”
“Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
Often identified with Mae West and her 1933 film She Done Him Wrong, the line isn’t in there or
in any other West movie. The author cites this as an example
of a “quotation [that] captures the essence of a performer”‘
even though he feels it was “too risqué” to have been
made it into films of West’s era. (I’m not so sure about it
being too racy to have made in past the censors.)
We’ve added a link to The New York Times‘ website list of the greatest 1,000 films.
This list is drawn from the second edition of “The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made” (St. Martin’s Griffin, $24.95), edited by Peter M. Nichols and published in 2004. For additional information about the list, read Peter M. Nichols’s preface, or A. O. Scott’s introduction.
YouTube on Wednesday announced that it will soon be offering video rentals on its service, beginning first with five films from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance film festivals.
The rental feature, which goes live this Friday [1/22], will apply to the five Sundance films until the end of January. YouTube says that other films and programs will be made available for rental in the near future, but has not yet named which partners will be involved outside of mentioning that the health and education industries will be included.
YouTube has long been expected to get into the video-on-demand business, especially since Google removed video content purchases from its (now-defunct) Google Video service at the end of 2007. Also, late last year, reports surfaced that YouTube was in talks with a number of film studios in an attempt to warm them to the idea of renting their films on the service. Notably, Sony Pictures went on the record as having talked with Google about such an offering, although at the time it was looking for a way to boost the brand image of its Crackle video streaming site.
Going forward, YouTube is inviting what it calls a “small group” of partners that will be able to apply the new rental model to videos they have hosted on the service. And similar to what YouTube did with paid video downloads around this same time last year, owners of these videos will be able to set their own pricing, as well as duration of how long that rental can be accessed.
In order to rent videos, users must have a Google Checkout account. The company has not said whether it will allow other payment platforms, such as PayPal, to be used as as a payment option.
We’ve created yet another category of links: Cable Viewing Options. Find the on-line schedules for TCM (Turner Classic Movies), IFC (Independent Film Channel), and Sundance Channel there.
I found a list of 15 recommended sources on a website on resources for online students and thought it looked useful for anyone interested in nonfiction film.
Here are those rated ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ on video quality, sorted by ranking. For the complete list, please look under Online Viewing Options under Links.
Top Documentary Films Selection: Around 500 videos embedded from other sites Categories: 9/11, Art & Artists, Biography, Comedy, Conspiracy, History, Military & War, Mystery, Nature & Wildlife, Other, Performing Arts, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, Sports Notable Films:Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Tupac: Resurrection, Planet Earth, The Bridge, Africa Addio, Bigger Stronger Faster, Super High Me, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, An Inconvenient Truth, Mad Hot Ballroom, Born Into Brothels, Why We Fight, Shut Up & Sing, Maxed Out, March of the Penguins, Step into Liquid, Grizzly Man, When We Were Kings, Rize Video Availability: Good
Free Documentaries Online Selection: Around 280 videos embedded from other sites Categories: Anthropology, Astronomy/Space, Biography, Biology/Environment, Cosmology/Physics, Crime/History, Lifestyle/Society, Mystery/Conspiracy, Politics/Religion, Science/Technology Notable Films: Cocaine Cowboys, Man on Wire, What the Bleep Do We Know!?, Religulous, Planet Earth, Microcosmos, Baraka, Taxi to the Dark Side, Bowling for Columbine, The Yes Men Video Availability: Excellent
SnagFilms Selection: Over 650 legally licensed videos hosted on site Categories: Campus, Environment, Health, History, International, Life & Culture, Music & Arts, Politics, Science & Nature, Sports & Hobbies, Women’s Issues Notable Films: Confessions of a Superhero, Hoop Dreams, The Times of Harvey Milk, Dig!, Life After Tomorrow, A Century of Black Cinema Video Availability: Excellent
Online Documentaries 4 U
Selection: Close to 250 videos embedded from other sites
Categories: Activist, Ancient History, Anthropology, Archaeology, Art, Atheism, Biography, Biology, Countries, Economics, Education, Environment, Evolution, Film, Food, Future, General Science, Genetics, Health, History, Human Biology, IT, Language, Life Extension, Mathematics, Medicine, Murder, Music, Nature, New Age, Palaeontology, Philosophy, Physics, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Society, Space, Supernatural, Technology, War
Notable Films: The Secret, The Business of Being Born, What Would Jesus Buy?, Religulous, Koyaanisqatsi, Cosmos, An Unreasonable Man, Super Size Me
Video Availability: Good
PBS Video
Selection: Close to 100 high-quality (both video and content-wise), proprietory PBS productions hosted on site
Categories: Arts & Literature, Cinema, Culture, Health & Wellness, History, Home & How-To, Nature & Environment, News & Public Affairs, Performing Arts, Region, Science, Technology
Notable Films: Episodes of American Experience, American Masters, FRONTLINE, Nature and NOVA
Video Availability: Excellent
GUBA
Selection: Around 3,500 videos hosted on site, less than 100 of which are “feature length” (90+ minutes)
Categories: Aviation, Conspiracy, General, Military; mostly unsorted and difficult to search
Notable Films: Various Discovery Channel, History Channel and BBC programs.
Video Availability: Excellent
Hulu
Selection: Around 70 doumentary films and over 300 TV episodes, all legally licensed and hosted on site
Categories: Unsorted
Notable Films: Confessions of a Superhero, The Buena Vista Social Club, Hoop Dreams, The Times of Harvey Milk, Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project, Super Size Me, Dig!, The Impaler
Video Availability: Excellent
Joost
Selection: Over 200 legally licensed films hosted on site
Categories: Unsorted
Notable Films: Hoop Dreams, The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg, Trembling Before G-d, Jazz on a Summer’s Day, several dozen National Geographic specials
Video Availability: Excellent
Internet Archive Selection: Thousands of vintage documentaries, shorts, educational films and newsreels hosted on site
Categories: Various collections; not always easy to browse Notable Films: Africa Speaks, Steal This Film, lots of public domain and special collections of historical value Video Availability: Excellent
Babelgum Selection: Around 400 videos small independent productions of varying length hosted on site Categories: Unsorted Notable Films: All relatively unknown Video Availability: Excellent
This is from Hendrik Hertzberg’s column in February 15 issue of The New Yorker:
The Academy Award nominations were announced last week, and two movies came out on top: “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker,” with nine nods apiece. At the box office, however, the score is not tied. “The Hurt Locker” has taken in a little more than sixteen million dollars. “Avatar” took in eleven million. The difference is, the figure for “The Hurt Locker” represents the totality of its receipts in the seven months since it was released. The “Avatar” number represents only the most recent weekend’s take. In Italy. ….
Everyone seems to agree that the director, James Cameron, and his legions of artists and technicians have created a thrillingly immersive, lovingly detailed, surprisingly believable alternative world. There’s been less unanimity about the movie’s “message.” Liberals are unhappy with the white-guy-rescues-the-natives aspect of the story, though this aspect surely has less to do with racism per se than with Cameron’s reliance on old-movie plot devices. Conservatives complain that the picture’s vision of the future (the action takes place in the year 2154) is overly hospitable to century-and-a-half-old lefty talking points….The movie is pro-rain forest, anti-privatization, and pro-scientist. Cameron knows a lot about science, but he’s happy to bag it when necessary, as suggested in this colloquy, from a recent interview with a men’s magazine:
PLAYBOY: How much did you get into calibrating your movie heroine’s hotness?
CAMERON: Right from the beginning I said, “She’s got to have tits,” even though that makes no sense because her race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals.
But enough with the cahiers du cinéma. Who’s going to win Best Picture? Among Oscar touts, the consensus is that it’ll be one of the two top nomination-garnerers, with “Avatar” the heavy favorite. Brandon Gray, at boxofficemojo.com, writes that “good box office has historically been key to winning Best Picture, which usually goes to the movie with the first or second highest gross among the nominees: that would favor ‘Avatar’ over ‘The Hurt Locker.’ ” Given that the latter’s gross is the second lowest among the ten nominees, amounting to less than one per cent of the former’s, you can say that again.
Even so, there is a distinct possibility of an upset. To understand why requires drilling down into the mechanics of voting systems. It’ll only hurt for a minute. From 1946 until last year, the voting worked the way Americans are most familiar with. Five pictures were nominated. If you were a member of the Academy, you put an “X” next to the name of your favorite. The picture with the most votes won. Nice and simple, though it did mean that a movie could win even if a solid majority of the eligible voters—in theory, as many as seventy-nine per cent of them—didn’t like it. Those legendary PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants don’t release the totals, but this or something like it has to have happened in the past, probably many times.
This year, the Best Picture list was expanded, partly to make sure that at least a couple of blockbusters would be on it. (The biggest grosser of 2008, “The Dark Knight,” was one of the better Batman adventures, but it didn’t make the cut.) To forestall a victory for some cinematic George Wallace or Ross Perot, the Academy switched to a different system. Members—there are around fifty-eight hundred of them—are being asked to rank their choices from one to ten. In the unlikely event that a picture gets an outright majority of first-choice votes, the counting’s over. If not, the last-place finisher is dropped and its voters’ second choices are distributed among the movies still in the running. If there’s still no majority, the second-to-last-place finisher gets eliminated, and its voters’ second (or third) choices are counted. And so on, until one of the nominees goes over fifty per cent.
This scheme, known as preference voting or instant-runoff voting, doesn’t necessarily get you the movie (or the candidate) with the most committed supporters, but it does get you a winner that a majority can at least countenance. It favors consensus. Now here’s why it may also favor “The Hurt Locker.” A lot of people like “Avatar,” obviously, but a lot don’t—too cold, too formulaic, too computerized, too derivative. (Remember “Dances with Wolves”? “Jurassic Park”? Everything by Hayao Miyazaki?) “Avatar” is polarizing. So is James Cameron. He may have fattened the bank accounts of a sizable bloc of Academy members—some three thousand people drew “Avatar” paychecks—but that doesn’t mean that they all long to recrown him king of the world. (As he has admitted, his people skills aren’t the best.) These factors could push “Avatar” toward the bottom of many a ranked-choice ballot.
On the other hand, few people who have seen “The Hurt Locker”—a real Iraq War story, not a sci-fi allegory—actively dislike it, and many profoundly admire it…. It will likely be the second or third preference of voters whose first choice is one of the other “small” films that have been nominated…. ♦
One of the most successful of the early ’70s blaxploitation cycle. Coke-dealing Priest (O’Neal), so-called because he carries his samples in a crucifix, sinks his capital into purchase of thirty keys of the stuff – the final deal that will get him out of ‘the life’, so the legend goes….(from the Time Out Film Guide)
Dr. Kenneth Marshall continues his screenings of blaxploitation movies on campus on Thursday, February 25. Superfly (directed by Gordon Parks, Jr., starring Ron O’Neal, with music by Curtis Mayfield) will be shown at 6:30 PM in Lanigan 107.
Our first offerings will both screen at SUNY Oswego’s Campus Center. We’ll view two of this year’s documentary nominees for Oscar: The Cove and Food, Inc.
We plan to screen The Cove on Monday, March 1 at 7 PM in the Auditorium and Food, Inc. on Monday, March 29 at 7 PM in CC114.
On Monday, February 24 at 7 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium (188): the film Not For Sale. On Wednesday, February 24 at 7:15 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium (118): the film Arráncame la Vida (Tear This Heart Out).
Not For Sale…the Documentary, based on the book Not For Sale by David Batstone, covers what modern-day abolitionists are doing to fight the rampant terrors of human trafficking in the US and abroad. Traveling over 120,000 miles across five continents, Producer and Director Robert Marcarelli and his film crew gathered undercover footage on this billion-dollar industry and interviewed the heroes that are determined to see it end.
(from the Not For Sale website)
________________________________________________
Based on Ángeles Mastretta’s novel of the same name, Arráncame la Vida is set during Mexico’s post-revolutionary period of the 1930s and ’40s. The story begins with the beautiful Catalina Guzmán (Ana Claudia Talancón) marrying at an early age the much older, charismatic and cunning general, Andrés Ascencio (Daniel Giménez Cacho). Dazzled by his world, Catalina escorts Andrés on his political campaigns, witnessing the fascinating political system as she pursues social justice. She soon discovers, however, that by dedicating her life to Andrés, she has lost her freedom. Arráncame la Vida is considered one of the most widely acclaimed and expensive films in the history of Mexican cinema.
‘….Tear This Heart Out has it all – a passionate love story set against the backdrop of the post-revolution ’30s and ’40s Mexico, sumptuous visuals and a sweep that sometimes touches the authentically epic…” (Jonathan Holland, Variety)
….
[Director] Roberto Sneider was born in Mexico City in 1962. His first film, Dos Crímenes, was selected for a number of international film festivals and won Best First Work at the Mexican Academy Awards. Arráncame la Vida is his second film and was Mexico’s official submission to the 2009 Academy Awards. Also in 2009, the film won four Ariels, the Mexican equivalent of an Oscar.
(from the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival site)
Monday, March 1st at 7 PM, please join us for a screening of one of the Oscar nominees in the Documentary Feature category, The Cove. The film will be shown in SUNY Oswego’s Campus Center Auditorium (118) and is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit the film’s website:
http://www.thecovemovie.com/
This is from the film review by Kenneth Turan (The Los Angeles Times):
‘The Cove’s’ story of a quiet village in Japan that specializes in clandestine dolphin slaughter is quite consciously structured as a thriller by director Louie Psihoyos who won an audience award for it at Sundance.
The film follows a group of determined environmental commandos as it attempts to document what goes on in a deceptively tranquil lagoon. The leader of the group, and hands down the most compelling person in the film, is Ric O’Barry, who became famous decades ago as the man who both captured and trained the five dolphins who collectively became TV’s Flipper and so helped start the multimillion-dollar seaquarium industry.
But after Kathy, the main ‘Flipper’ dolphin, died in his arms, O’Barry had a major change of heart and became an uncompromising free-the-dolphins zealot….”
First-time director Psihoyos, a National Geographic photographer who is one of the founders of the Oceanic Preservation Society, got interested in O’Barry when the man was barred from speaking at a marine conference. O’Barry told him about the town of Taiji, which masquerades as a dolphin-friendly spot but is quite the opposite.
…. Local fisherman drive the dolphins to that cove, an area that’s protected from the prying eyes of outsiders by high fences and razor wire.
Then trainers, who have flown in from seaquariums all over the world, line up and take their pick of the candidates for $150,000 per animal. Finally, those dolphins not selected as future performers are simply butchered as part of a clandestine market for dolphin meat, so secret that even most Japanese don’t know of it.
Given the controversial nature of all this, Taiji’s city government is hardly eager for a Western crew to get it all down on camera. Police shadow the filmmakers everywhere, and the local fishermen, who fear the loss of revenue, aggressively confront the visitors, hoping to provoke actions that will get the foreigners expelled from the country.
Undaunted, O’Barry and Psihoyos put together a kind of dream team of environmental activists with counter-insurgency skills. Cameras are secreted in realistic fake rocks created by George Lucas’ ILM, and world-class free-divers place other cameras under water. The object, says the director, is “not just to capture the slaughter but to make people want to change.”
The footage that results is graphic and bloody enough to make the sea run bright red, but because it has an activist slant, ‘The Cove’ makes points that don’t depend on those shots for their effectiveness. We learn a lot about dolphin intelligence, witness the ineffectiveness of the International Whaling Commission in the face of Japanese lobbying, and learn how the high mercury levels in dolphin meat bring to mind the earlier mercury poisoning scandal at Minamata….
There’s an entertaining and informative overview of the 3-D in the movies in The New Yorker (by Anthony Lane). The history of the effect goes back to the stereoscope of the 19th century. One enthusiast was Oliver Wendell Holmes:
…around 1860, he designed his own stereoscope—an elegant viewing tool, carved in wood with glass lenses, which could be held in the hand for the convenient scrutiny of the dual images. He was not the inventor of the stereoscope; that honor belongs to Charles Wheatstone, a British scientist who had built a more cumbersome device twenty years earlier. But Holmes’s lighter version sold en masse, and, in an even more fervid article from 1861, he guided stereoscopists on a grand verbal tour of the world, and promised them a trance—“a dream-like exaltation of the faculties, a kind of clairvoyance, in which we seem to leave the body behind us and sail away into one strange scene after another.”
……..
Those for whom 3-D is, by definition, doomed to frippery tend to claim that no one of any distinction or sensibility would touch the stuff; yet a trawl through the record reveals any number of first-rate stars and directors who reached into the third dimension. There was “Dial M for Murder,” which Hitchcock shot in 3-D, although he was annoyed by the bulk of the camera. There was Curtis Bernhardt’s “Miss Sadie Thompson,” with Rita Hayworth, which proffered, among other delights, “special clip-ons for those who already wear glasses.” John Farrow directed John Wayne in “Hondo,” and Rudolph Maté, who, as a cinematographer, had shot masterpieces such as “The Passion of Joan of Arc” and “Gilda,” directed Robert Mitchum and Jack Palance in “Second Chance.”
….
Lane quotes
Bernard Mendiburu, writing in “3D Movie Making: Stereoscopic Digital Cinema from Script to Screen” (2009)…. as a book of prophecy, it will scare the pixellated daylights out of anyone over forty. Once the newfangled 3-D is up and running, Mendiburu proposes,
‘it will be unavoidable and ubiquitous, to the point that the very mention of “3D” will disappear from posters. At some point in the near future, you will go to see a “flattie” for nostalgia’s sake, just as you sometimes watch black-and-white movies on TV today.’
I hate to break it to Mendiburu, but there are film lovers who still go to the cinema to watch flatties that are not merely in black-and-white but are sometimes silent, too. And we do so not out of nostalgia but precisely because those films are anything but period pieces.
Back from its long hiatus: the group’s Night Out at the Movies. (We focus on one of the regularly scheduled films at our local theatre–the Oswego Cinema 7, 138 W 2nd St–pick one of the screenings and, immediately after seeing the film, gather to discuss it).
Monday, March 8, we’ll see the 7:20 PM screening of Crazy Heart and after the film, talk about it, the previous night’s Academy Awards (Crazy Heart stars Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal are nominated, as is one of the songs from the movie)…who knows what.
All are welcome to join us!
Check out more on the movie at: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/crazyheart/
We’ve added a link from Foreign Policy magazine’s site for a photo essay on the real life Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How authentic a depiction of these units (and how much authenticity matters in a fictional film like The Hurt Locker) has popped up as a topic of debate–especially in the last week or so with the run-up to the Academy Awards on Sunday.
Congrats to The Cove for winning Best Documentary Feature. And of course kudos to everyone who created The Hurt Locker and a special shout out to director Kathryn Bigelow for her landmark win!
We’re screening our second (Oscar nominated) documentary of the month: Food, Inc. on Monday, March 29. The 7 PM screening is free and open to the public; at the end of the show, we’ll discuss the film.
From the film’s website (http://www.foodincmovie.com/):
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
…but I just caught the unique stylings of Quentin Tarantino’s clapper. It’s from a DVD extra on Inglorious Basterds.
…Italian clapboard operator Geraldine Brezca who does hilarious, foul-mouthed, and wonderfully sharp scene calls just before clapping for “action.” Typically when a scene number is called the clapboard operator will follow the English alphabet, and each film set will have their own variation such as using names in alphabetic order, or the International Radio Operator Alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.). Not Brezca, “the Clapper Loader and Tarantino’s Camera Angel.” She’s been working with Tarantino over the course of several films and has her own style — which as you’ll see, tends to either shock or compel the actors, or both. (from Laughing Squid)
Clip is NSFW (not safe for work): language advisory.
The Cove activists were instrumental, through a sting operation, in uncovering what a California high-end sushi restaurant, The Hump, was really selling. The Hump, not surprisingly, is now closed. What may not have been expected: the owner is repentant.
A sushi restaurant called the Hump that federal prosecutors found was surreptitiously serving whale meat has closed its doors, and its owner has posted a remarkable mea culpa on its Web site.“Closing the restaurant is a self-imposed punishment on top of the fine that will be meted out by the court,” the statement reads. “The owner of the Hump also will be taking additional action to save endangered species.”
This month, armed with tiny video cameras and microphones, the team behind “The Cove,” the Oscar-winning documentary film about dolphin hunting, created its own undercover operation at the Hump, at the Santa Monica airport. The group bagged up samples of tender meat served in a costly omakase — or chef’s choice dinner — and sent them to a scientist in Oregon, who determined the meat to be Sei whale, an endangered species.
The filmmakers took their findings to federal law enforcement officials, who brought charges against the restaurant and its chef for selling marine mammals, a misdemeanor that could carry up to a year in prison and a $200,000 fine. The charges were not contested….
… posted on the restaurant’s Web site was a lengthy statement that said, in part, ‘The Hump hopes that by closing its doors, it will help bring awareness to the detrimental effect that illegal whaling has on the preservation of our ocean ecosystems and species.’ ….
Sei whales, found worldwide, are endangered but are sometimes hunted in the North Pacific under a controversial Japanese scientific program. It is highly unusual for a restaurant to serve the meat in the United States. (from The New York Times, 3/21/10)
Poetry of Resilience is a feature-length documentary by Academy Award® nominated director Katja Esson about survivors who endured war, genocide and political persecution and turned to poetry to help them survive. From Rwanda, Japan, China, Iran, Poland and Iraqi Kurdistan and into exile in the United States, Canada and Great Britain, the film follows six stories of survival, six poets and one shared question: How strong is the human spirit? (from the film’s website, www.poetryofresilience.com)
Director Katja Esson will screen her film and discuss it on Tuesday evening (3/23) starting at 7:30 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium at SUNY Oswego.
The 30th Cinefest will be held Thursday (3/25) through Sunday (3/28).
For a detailed history of the Cinephile Society and Cinefest, their annual celebration of movies, from the classic to the obscure, see this link to Bill DeLapp’s cover story in the Syracuse New Times (March 17-24, 2010). You’ll also find a comprehensive run-down of the scheduled screenings and other activities.
The film group will screen the 2005 feature Aurora Borealis on Monday, April 5, at 7 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium (118), on the SUNY Oswego campus. A discussion will follow the screening (which is free and open to the public). The film is rated R and runs 91 minutes.
The film stars Joshua Jackson, Donald Sutherland, Juliette Lewis, and Louise Fletcher. Set in Minneapolis-St Paul, Jackson’s character is treading water—hanging out with his buddies and maintaining a decidedly spotty work record. This drift in his day-to-day routine changes as he becomes more involved in the lives of his grandparents (Sutherland and Fletcher)—and with his grandfather’s home care provider (Lewis).
James Burke’s appealing coming-of-age film…this Nick Hornby-esque fable of a guy trying to outgrow his extended adolescence,…, will win you over on its own terms if you give it half a chance…. I can’t explain why Lewis never became a major movie star, but if this wonderful performance is anything to go by, I suspect she’s just too funny and smart for the racket. (Andrew O’Hehir, Salon)
This short contributor bio of KT Auleta appeared in The New York Times in February:
In Paris, circa 2003, KT Auleta dropped off her photo portfolio at the offices of the avant-garde fashion magazine Self Service. Six months later, she got the call — and a 20-page assignment. Not bad for a self-taught photographer. (If a friend hadn’t given her a Yashica, she might still be performing in a noise band today.) These days she shoots routinely for V, Dazed & Confused, AnOther Man and Russian Vogue…. ”I like the disposability of fashion,” she says. ”You don’t get attached.” Auleta just completed ”Runaround,” a short film ”about a slutty American girl growing up in a small town,” which she’s now sending to film festivals.
KT Auleta will screen Runaround (filmed here in her hometown, Oswego) on the SUNY Oswego campus at 4 PM on Monday, April 12 in the Campus Center Auditorium. In the meantime, check out Ms Auleta’s website (http://ktauleta.com/)
The film group, in league with SUNY Oswego Professor of English Don Masterson, will screen Hunger on Thursday, April 15. Not to be confused with that vampire movie with David Bowie (that’s The Hunger), the film will be shown at 7 pm at the Campus Center Auditorium (118). Professor Masterson will introduce the film and lead a discussion of it after the screening. This event is free and open to all.
From “History Through an Unblinking Lens”, Dennis Lim, The New York Times, 4/6/09:
[The] first feature film by the British artist Steve McQueen, recounts the final weeks of Bobby Sands, the imprisoned Irish nationalist who died in 1981, 66 days into a hunger strike. But the movie, which does not examine the arc of Sands’s life or the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, is far from a conventional docudrama or issue movie….
Director Steve McQueen
“Hunger,” …, won the Camera d’Or, the prize for best first feature, at the Cannes Film Festival [in 2008]….A star of the art world, [Mr. McQueen] won the prestigious Turner Prize in 1999 and… represent[ed] Britain at …[the] Venice Biennale.
With “Hunger,” set almost entirely within the notorious Maze Prison near Belfast, Mr. McQueen wanted to make a film about “an extraordinary world that has become ordinary,” he said. It unfolds in three distinct movements, each with its own style.
The first section evokes the sickening atmosphere in the maximum-security H-blocks (so named because of their shape) during the so-called dirty protests, when members of the Irish Republican Army who were demanding recognition as political prisoners took to pouring urine under cell doors and smearing excrement on the walls.
The second act, making up for the near wordlessness of the first, is all talk, capturing an intimate conversation about the morality of suicide between Sands (Michael Fassbender) and a priest (Liam Cunningham), much of it presented in a single, static 17-minute take. In the final third silence takes over again as Sands begins his hunger strike, his body wasting away and his mind increasingly prone to hallucinations. Mr. Fassbender appears naked in these scenes — Sands refused to wear a prison uniform — and lost about 40 pounds during filming, under medical supervision.
….
The film’s preoccupations ultimately seem less political than existential. Mr. McQueen sidesteps the customary views of Sands as a martyr and a terrorist and regards him above all as an enigma.
The 7th Syracuse International Film Festival takes place this year October 13-17.
The festival has been holding a series of prescreening sessions for a committee to review prospective festival entries; these session are open to the public (who are invited to share their opinions on the screened films). Here are the particulars of the remaining sessions:
We’ve added a link to the television schedule to the documentary series POV on PBS. (See Cable/On-Air Viewing Options on the sidebar).
Please note that Food, Inc. (for those who missed our recent screening and for those who’d like to see it again) will be shown on Wednesday, April 21 at 9:00 PM. As they say, check your local listings.
…the evening before one of this year’s contenders for Best Documentary, Food, Inc., airs as part of the POV series on PBS (see post), another Academy Award nominee will be shown on HBO: Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country. The film is scheduled for April 20, 9:30 PM.
Another nominated documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, will be shown on POV sometime this fall.
“Plastic Bag,” an 18-minute film directed by Ramin Bahrani and narrated by [Werner] Herzog, follows the title character, a lowly plastic shopping bag, from ‘birth’ at a supermarket checkout aisle, through a happy life with his ‘maker’ (the woman who took her groceries home in him and used him for random daily chores) to cruel abandonment in a garbage dump. After years searching for his maker, during which the human race disappears, the bag meets its final reward in the Pacific Ocean’s notorious ‘Garbage Vortex,’ where it finds rueful solace among its dispossessed and stubbornly un-biodegradable tribe.
…, “Plastic Bag” has become a hit on the Internet since appearing on YouTube and the Independent Television Service Web site a month ago. The film was commissioned by ITVS as part of its online “Futurestates” project, in which 11 filmmakers were asked to make digital shorts about present-day issues and their implications for the future….
Though it was created for online viewing, “Plastic Bag” has been shown at renowned film festivals such as Telluride and South by Southwest…..: Filmed with spare elegance by cinematographer Michael Simmonds, “Plastic Bag” elaborates on a visual trope that recurred throughout “American Beauty” and found its first expression in Jem Cohen’s 1996 experimental documentary “Lost Book Found.”
“Plastic Bag” also unites…Herzog, who with “Fitzcarraldo” and “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” has long sealed a legendary reputation as one of film’s most obsessively passionate directors; and Bahrani, who has proven to be one of the most promising members of a new generation of American neorealists, since he made a stunning debut with “Man Push Cart” in 2005 and followed with “Chop Shop” and “Goodbye Solo.” (from “Web Hit ‘Plastic Bag’ Blows Into D.C. For Environmental Film Fest”, Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post, 4/23/10)
We’ve added a link (see sidebar under Links) to the upcoming 360/365 Film Festival (May 5-10) in Rochester, New York. The festival, at the Eastman House, is the current incarnation of what was the Rochester/High Falls International Film Festival.
"It Came From Kuchar" Screens at 360/365
This year’s diverse schedule of films includes current releases such as the Oscar-nominated animated feature, The Secret of Kells, the documentaries Still Bill (on singer Bill Withers) and It Came From Kuchar (on the Kuchar twins’ unique contributions to ’60s cinema), the Sundance winner Winter’s Bone (based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell)–plus, from the past, classics (The Red Shoes) and curiosities (No Orchids for Miss Blandish).
From the Summer Movies supplement in Sunday’s New York Times (5/2/10):
Wednesday
THE INFIDEL A British Muslim learns after his mother’s death that he is a) adopted and b) Jewish. He takes lessons in Yiddishkeit from a cabdriving friend. With Omid Djalili and Richard Schiff; Josh Appignanesi directed.
ROAD, MOVIE Escaping his father’s hair oil business, a young Indian man goes on the road with a traveling cinema show. Dev Benegal wrote and directed.
SEX & DRUGS & ROCK & ROLL The life of the British rock musician Ian Dury, featuring Andy Serkis, Naomie Harris, Olivia Williams, Bill Milner, Toby Jones, Tom Hughes, Noel Clarke and Ray Winstone. Directed by Mat Whitecross.
THE TROTSKY A Montreal high school student believes he is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky, and acts accordingly. With Jay Baruchel, Saul Rubinek and Colm Feore; Jacob Tierney wrote and directed.
THE WILD AND WONDERFUL WHITES OF WEST VIRGINIA A family combines criminal activities and tap dancing in a documentary by Julien Nitzberg.
Thursday
TALENTIME The Museum of Modern Art’s May retrospective devoted to the Malaysian filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad, who died in 2009, will conclude with a weeklong run of her final film, a drama that weaves multiple characters, stories and themes reflecting Malaysia’s multicultural composition into a tale of students caught up in a talent competition.
Friday
BABIES Thomas Balmès’s documentary follows infants from four corners of the world — Mongolia, Namibia, San Francisco and Tokyo — as they develop from newborns to toddlers.
BADMAASH COMPANY Four friends team up to start an unorthodox business enterprise in the gung-ho Mumbai of the 1990s. Parmeet Sethi directed this Bollywood extravaganza; with Shahid Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Meiyang Chang and Vir Das.
DDR/DDR The dissolution of East Germany examined in an experimental documentary directed by Amie Siegel.
FLOORED The hard-charging traders of Chicago’s futures market face obsolescence as computerized trading challenges their livelihood. James Allen Smith directed.
GRAVITY WAS EVERYWHERE BACK THEN A hardware store clerk constructs an eccentric house that he hopes will somehow save his wife from cancer. The artist Brent Green directed this film, a companion piece to a gallery show, using stop motion techniques inspired by Norman McLaren and Jan Svankmajer.
HAPPINESS RUNS The writer-director Adam Sherman draws on his own experiences for a drama about a young man, raised in a commune dominated by a charismatic, polygamous guru, who tries to save his mother and his girlfriend from an existence defined by sex and drugs. With Andie MacDowell, Mark L. Young, Hanna Hall and Rutger Hauer.
THE LOTTERY Madeleine Sackler’s documentary follows four families from Harlem and the Bronx as they prepare to enter the drawing for class seats at the Harlem Success Academy.
MOTHER AND CHILD How adoption touches the lives of three women: a mother (Annette Bening) who gave up her child; a lawyer (Naomi Watts) who has suffered from emotional isolation since being adopted as a child; and a young wife (Kerry Washington) who hopes to adopt a child of her own. Rodrigo García (“Nine Lives”) wrote and directed; with Samuel L. Jackson, Jimmy Smits and David Ramsey.
THE OATH Laura Poitra’s documentary focuses on two men once close to Osama bin Laden: a former bodyguard, Abu Jandal, now a taxi driver in Yemen, and a former driver, Salim Hamdan, one of the first detainees at Guantánamo Bay to face a military trial.
OCEAN OF PEARLS A Toronto surgeon (Omid Abtahi) accepts a post in a Detroit hospital, where he encounters prejudice because of his Sikh heritage. Sarab Neelam wrote and directed this semi-autobiographical film.
OSS 117: LOST IN RIO The gifted French comedian Jean Dujardin returns as the arrogant, oblivious French secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath in this sequel to “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies.” The setting this time is an impeccably art-directed Brazil of the 1960s, where Hubert has gone in search of fugitive Nazis. Michel Hazanavicius directed.
WELCOME When the immigration authorities stop him in Calais, a 17-year-old Kurdish refugee (Firat Ayverdi) enlists the help of a French swimming instructor (Vincent Lindon) to prepare him for a desperate cross-channel swim. Philippe Lioret directed.
May 12
BARKING WATER A middle-aged couple, both American Indians (Richard Ray Whitman and Casey Camp-Horinek), review their years together as they travel across Oklahoma. Directed by Sterlin Harjo.
BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO Japan’s national fondness for insects, dissected in a documentary by Jessica Oreck.
CLIMATE OF CHANGE Ordinary people do small but significant things to combat climate change in a documentary directed by Brian Hill. Tilda Swinton narrates.
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF LITTLE DIZZLE Maintenance workers at a product research firm find strange things emerging from their bodies after they eat some experimental cookies. David Russo wrote and directed; with Marshall Allman, Natasha Lyonne, Tania Raymonde, Tygh Runyan, Matt Smith and Vince Vieluf.
METROPIA Tarik Saleh directed this Swedish-Danish-Norwegian animated film, set in 2024, when the residents of Europe have been driven into underground habitats. With the voices of Vincent Gallo, Juliette Lewis, Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgaard and Alexander Skarsgard.
MY LAST FIVE GIRLFRIENDS Still single as he crosses into his 30s, a Londoner (Brendan Patricks) surveys his most recent amours to find out what went wrong. With Naomie Harris, Kelly Adams, Cécile Cassel, Jane March and Edith Bukovics; Julian Kemp wrote and directed.
SWIMSUIT ISSUE The not-so-Full Monty, as a group of middle-aged Swedish males form a synchronized swimming team and practice for the world competition in Berlin. Directed by Mans Herngren.
Roger Ebert’s posted the screenplay for Who Killed Bambi?–that ‘s the screenplay he wrote that was intended to star the Sex Pistols and to be directed by Russ Meyer.
Ebert notes: “All I intend to do here is reprint it. Comments are open, but I can’t discuss what I wrote, why I wrote it, or what I should or shouldn’t have written. Frankly, I have no idea.”
OFG will screen the film Sugar on Tuesday, May 11 at 7 pm in Campus Center Room CC114 on the SUNY Oswego campus. The film is free and open to the public. We’ll discuss Sugar after the screening.
Again, from The New York Times report on films being released through the summer (5/2/10):
May 14
THE BEST WORST MOVIE Michael Stephenson’s documentary looks back to his childhood experience as one of the stars of Claudio Fragasso’s 1990 horror film “Troll 2,” once rated “the worst film of all time” by the users of the Internet Movie Database.
DADDY LONGLEGS A divorced father (Ronald Bronstein) fights for the affection of his two young sons (Sage and Frey Ranaldo) during their annual two-week vacation together. From the filmmaking brothers Ben and Joshua Safdie (“The Pleasure of Being Robbed”).
HERE AND THERE Parallel stories: a cynical American (David Thornton) travels to Serbia in search of someone who will pay to marry him to gain United States citizenship; in New York, a Serbian émigré (Branislav Trifunovic), struggles to raise the money to bring his fiancée to the States. With Cyndi Lauper; Darko Lungulov wrote and directed.
THE LIVING WAKE Learning he has only 24 hours to live, a pretentious performance artist (Mike O’Connell) persuades his only friend (Jesse Eisenberg) to help him stage his farewell appearance at a “living wake.” Sol Tryon directed.
LOOKING FOR ERIC Unhappy with his life, a mailman (Steve Evets) finds inspiration in the philosophy of his favorite soccer player, Eric Cantona (who plays himself). The British social realist Ken Loach (“Raining Stones”) directed this comedy, set in Manchester, from a script by his regular collaborator, Paul Laverty.
TIMER In the world of the future everyone will have a personal timer that provides a countdown to the moment when they will meet their life partner. But one young Los Angeles woman (Emma Caulfield) is horrified to find that her timer is blank; she takes a chance and falls for a supermarket clerk (John Patrick Amedori). Jac Schaeffer directed.
TOUCHING HOME Twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller wrote and directed this fictionalized tribute to their father, a homeless alcoholic (Ed Harris) who nevertheless gave them the inspiration to try out as professional baseball players. With Brad Dourif.
May 19
TWO IN THE WAVE The complex relationship of best frenemies François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, recalled in a documentary by Emmanuel Laurent.
May 21
AFTER THE CUP: SONS OF SAKHNIN UNITED The story of Bnei Sakhnin, a soccer team composed of Arabs and Jews that won the Israeli Cup and became a model for ethnic relations — until its existence was threatened. Alexander H. Browne and Christopher Browne directed this documentary.
HOLY ROLLERS A Hasidic rabbinical student (Jesse Eisenberg) strays from the straight and narrow when he’s recruited as a drug smuggler by an Israeli dealer (Danny A. Abeckaser) and his glamorous girlfriend (Ari Graynor). Kevin Asch directed.
JOHN RABE A German businessman (Steve Buscemi) helps to rescue 200,000 civilians during the Imperial Japanese Army’s invasion of China’s Nanking province. With Ulrich Tukur, Daniel Brühl and Anne Consigny; Florian Gallenberger wrote and directed.
KITES The Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan plays an Indian dance instructor in love with a Latina in a film shot in the American Southwest by Anurag Basu.
PERRIER’S BOUNTY An Irish slacker (Cillian Murphy) struggles to pay his debt to an unforgiving gangster (Brendan Gleeson) in Ian Fitzgibbon’s suspense comedy. With Jim Broadbent.
May 27
THE JUCHE IDEA From the underground satirist Jim Finn, a mock documentary about a South Korean artist who moves north to create “insect-based bio-art” tributes to Kim Jong-il.
May 28
AGORA The female astronomer Hypatia of Alexandria (Rachel Weisz) works to save her city’s legendary library from destruction while being courted by an aristocrat (Oscar Isaac) and a slave (Max Minghella). Alejandro Amenábar (“The Others”) directed this Spanish production.
THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN In Mia Hansen-Love’s French film, a risk-taking producer (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) takes a tragic way out of a financial crisis, leaving his wife (Chiara Caselli) and children to deal with the consequences.
MICMACS The popular French comic Dany Boon stars in a special effects comedy directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (“Amélie”) about a homeless man who enlists a community of resourceful misfits to help him get revenge on a pair of arms merchants (André Dussollier and Nicolas Marié).
PICASSO & BRAQUE GO TO THE MOVIES How the development of aviation and cinema affected the art of the Cubists, in a documentary directed by Arne Glimcher and narrated by Martin Scorsese.
The Cannes Film Festival is underway, with Tim Burton heading this year’s jury.
One film that’s already screened is from Portuguese filmmaker, Manoel de Oliveira.
… at 101, he is the oldest active film-maker in the world….And while patience is an essential virtue for directors – years may pass before a project gets off the ground – few can say they have waited 64 years. De Oliveira’s The Strange Case of Angelica, which was premiered at the festival, was conceived in 1946, and he took it to script in 1952. De Oliveira recently tweaked the story to take in such issues as global warming, the economic crisis and environmental pollution.
The film is about a young Jewish photographer, Isaac, who is called out in the middle of the night to take pictures of a woman just after her death. He falls in love with her image, which obsesses him.
According to De Oliveira: “I thought of doing the film just after the second world war. Hitler killed six million Jews in Europe and the Jews were fleeing to Portugal to fly to the States”….
It was as a farmer himself that De Oliveira sat out most of the authoritarian years in Portugal under António Salazar, before the Carnation Revolution of 1974 ushered in a new era of productivity – but the period of inactivity at least offered him the opportunity for introspection. “I had time for a long and profound reflection about the artistic nature of cinema, which transformed my previous certainties into new concepts between hesitations and doubt,” he said recently.
His first film, made in 1931, was… set on the banks of the Douro – a document of riverside activity influenced by Soviet techniques. His second film, in 1963, was Rite of Spring – a Passion story set in a rural community.
It is in what for most people would be their autumn years, however, that De Oliveira has been most productive. He made only three features in the first 40 years of his career and has produced 19 thereafter – in the 1990s making a film a year and attracting such actors John Malkovich and Catherine Deneuve.
Today De Oliveira said he felt that Hollywood needed to undergo a “second youth”. No need to say the same of this director. His inspiration clearly undimmed, he is already planning “another project for a film. But one never knows what fate will bring,” he said. (from “The Strange Case of Manoel de Oliveira”, Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian, 5/13/10)
“Troubled Water” is from Norway and it is a work of art and great storytelling from the opening frame to its final fade to black. It tells the story of a young man who is paroled after spending time in prison and gets a job as a church organist. He claims to be innocent in the drowning of a child, but the boy’s mother won’t let it go.
2. “Everlasting Moments” – A wife in the early 20th century wins a camera and it changes her life (from Sweden).
3. “Captain Abu Raed” – This first feature from Jordan tells the story of an airport janitor who the neighborhood kids believe is a pilot.
4. “Che” – A brilliant, unexpected mega-film about Che Guevara by Steven Soderbergh.
5. “Dead Snow” – The scariest film I’ve seen in a while about zombie Nazis abandoned after World War II in desolate Norway.
6. “The Great Buck Howard” – A tender look at the life of an illusionist, based on the life of The Amazing Kreskin starring John Malkovich.
7. “In the Loop” – A rare hilarious satire, this one about the collusion between the Brits and the Americans and their illegal war pursuits.
8. “My One and Only” – Who woulda thought that a biopic based on one year in the life of George Hamilton when he was a teenager would turn out to be one of the year’s most engaging films.
9. “Whatever Works” – This was a VERY good Woody Allen film starring the great Larry David and it was completely overlooked.
10. “Big Fan” – A funny, dark film about an obsessive fan of the New York Giants with a great performance by the comedian Patton Oswalt.
11. “Eden Is West” – The legendary Costa-Gavras’ latest gem, ignored like his last brilliant film 4 years ago, “The Axe”.
12. “Entre Nos” – An mother and child are left to fend for themselves in New York City in this powerful drama.
13. “The Girlfriend Experience” – Steven Soderbergh’s second genius film of the year, this one set in the the post-Wall Street Crash era, a call girl services the men who brought the country down.
14. “Humpday” – Two straight guys dare each other to enter a gay porn contest — but will they go through with it?
15. “Lemon Tree” – A Palestinian woman has her lemon trees cut down by the Israeli army, but she decides that’s the final straw.
16. “Mary and Max” – An Australian girl and and elderly Jewish man in New York become pen pals in this very moving animated film.
17. “O’Horten” – Another Norwegian winner, this one about the final trip made by a retiring train conductor.
18. “Salt of This Sea” – A Palestinian-American returns to her family’s home in the West Bank, only to find herself caught up in the struggles between the two cultures.
19. “Sugar” – A Dominican baseball player gets his one chance to come to America and make it in the big leagues.
20. “Fantastic Mr. Fox” – A smart, adult animated film from Wes Anderson….
The New York Times (June 18) reported that far right groups in Japan were blocking the planned screenings of The Cove by intimidation.
In a country that shudders at disharmony and remains wary of the far right’s violent history, the activists’ noisy rallies, online slanders, intimidating phone calls and veiled threats of violence are frightening theaters into canceling showings of “The Cove,” which not only depicts dolphin hunting in an unflattering light but also warns of high levels of mercury in fish, a disturbing disclosure in this seafood-loving nation.
On June 25, AP reported:
TOKYO — A court Friday ordered protesters to keep away from a theater that plans to show the Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove,” about a dolphin hunt in a Japanese village….
The dispute over the film developed into a debate over free speech after initial screenings were canceled by theaters to avoid noisy protests. After prominent publishers and directors voiced their concern, at least 22 theaters have now agreed to show it.
Yokohama New Theater, a small cinema in a city next to Tokyo which plans to show the film from July 3, has been targeted repeatedly by protesters with bullhorns and signs. There were no protests there Friday after the main group responsible received the court order.
The order was issued by the Yokohama regional court at the request of the theater, according to Miyuki Takamatsu, a spokeswoman for Unplugged, the movie’s Japanese distributor.
Unplugged requested and received a similar order from a Tokyo court earlier this year after repeated protests at its headquarters and at the home of its president, she said.
Nationalists have said the film has connections to Sea Shepherd, an anti-whaling group that has been labeled a terrorist organization by Tokyo for its militant actions against Japanese whalers. The movie includes a sympathetic interview with Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson….
The film of the legendary rock and roll revue, The TAMI Show, unavailable lo these many years, is back!
As part of our ongoing music series (File Under: Eclectic), we’ll be screening the film in the Community Room at the Oswego Public Library on Thursday evening, August 26, at 7 PM. The show is free and open to all.
James Brown and Mick Jagger, backstage at the TAMI Show. Photo by Bob Bonis.
Here’s some background on the concert and the film:
…[Due] to a strange, tangled web of ownership, … [the] concert film called “The T.A.M.I. Show,” hasn’t been officially available for more than four decades. The film has been celebrated in song lyrics, enjoyed an afterlife on the bootleg market and occasionally surfaced on the film festival and museum circuit….
Of the 12 acts in the movie, 7 went on to become members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, including the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry and the Supremes. And incredible for the time, not only did black and white artists share the spotlight, but the audience and even the onstage go-go dancers were integrated. Filmed on October 29, 1964, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in California, the show has had an air of mystery from its conception through its muddled distribution and subsequent disappearance.
T.A.M.I. stands for the clunky Teenage Awards Music International, and William Sargent, the executive producer, initially thought that it would become an annual concert filmed for network broadcast. Mr. Sargent connected with Joseph Bluth, who had developed an electronic camera with greater resolution than standard television cameras, so the show also became a spotlight for this Electronovision technology. To the artists, though, what really mattered was that it was going to be a genuine rock ’n’ roll concert film, considered the first of its kind….
Steve Binder, who worked on the “The Steve Allen Show” and would later direct Elvis Presley’s comeback special in 1968, was brought in as the director. Jack Nitzsche — a member of Phil Spector’s studio team known as the Wrecking Crew, who went on to work with the Rolling Stones and Neil Young — was tapped as the show’s musical director….
The roster for “The T.A.M.I. Show” was a remarkable snapshot of a wide-open moment in pop music, just as the Beatles’ arrival was transforming the rules. Taking the stage were representatives of Motown (Gaye, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles), the British Invasion (the Rolling Stones, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas), surf music (the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean), first-wave rock ’n’ roll (Berry), hard-core soul (Brown), Brill Building pop (Lesley Gore) and even proto-garage rock (the Barbarians).
(Excert from “Pop History Revealed! Doing Splits!” by Alan Light, March 19, 2010, The New York Times.) Check out the entire article at:
The Italian screenwriter who collaborated with De Sica, Antonioni, Monicelli, and (on all but two of his films) Visconti, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, died earlier this month at age 96.
I confess, though I’d seen the name up on the screen many times, I never realized Suso was a nickname for Susanna and that this major figure in Italian cinema was a woman. Embarrassing on my part–definitely.
Here’s the link to her obituary in The New York Times (August 6, 2010):
The Syracuse International Film Festival (SYRFILM) will present a free screening of the film Gasland on Thursday, September 9 at 7:30 PM in Thornden Park, Syracuse. (An outdoor show, the raindate is Friday, the 10th). The film’s director, Josh Fox, will lead a discussion of the film after the screening.
Activities get underway an hour before the film with music and speakers. For more information on the film, please visit its website: www.gaslandthemovie.com
Red House Arts Center and SYRFILM (Syracuse International Film Festival) kick off their Wine, Women and Film Series–a celebration of women directors–with Little Girl Blue (Tajnosti). The film screens Thursday, September 9 at 7 PM (doors open at 6 PM). The film’s star, Czech singer Iva Bittova, will be at the screening and will perform.
[Writer]-helmer Alice Nellis’ distinctive third feature, “Little Girl Blue,” strikes a pitch-perfect note of benevolent mischief as it tracks the mellow mid-life crisis of a bemused Prague housewife in an evolving city. (Eddie Cockrell, Variety)
OFG will screen RJ Cutler’s documentary on Anna Wintour and the making of the annual bible of the fashion industry, the September issue of Vogue. We’ll have a free screening of the film at 7 PM Thursday, September 23 in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library (120 East 2nd Street).
Here’s a link to an interview on Salon with the filmmaker:
The documentary 9500 Liberty will screen on MTV2 and mtvU (MTV’s college network) on Sunday, September 26 at 8 PM.
The critically acclaimed documentary chronicles the social and economic impact that a contentious immigration law – closely resembling Arizona’s SB 1070 bill – had on a county near Washington D.C. in 2007. 9500 Liberty makes its television debut simultaneously on Tr3s, MTV2 and mtvU on Sunday, September 26th at 8pm (ET/PT), as part of Hispanic Heritage Month.
Directed by Annabel Park and Eric Byler, 9500 Liberty examines the outcome of an immigration law adopted in Prince William County, Virginia in 2007, requiring police officers to question anyone they had ‘probable cause”’to suspect was an undocumented immigrant. Film critic Roger Ebert praised the documentary as a story which ‘possibly foretells what lies ahead in Arizona.’ Park and Byler are founders of the Coffee Party, which will hold its first national convention on September 24th -26th in Louisville, KY. (from MTV Networks)
Ruth Gruber (who celebrates her 99th birthday this month) is the subject of a new documentary, Ahead of Time, about her amazing journey. Director Bob Richman (a documentary cinematographer whose work includes The September Issue and An Inconvenient Truth) had so much story to tell with Ms Gruber’s life that, to “avoid making a four-hour movie, he ended the past-tense part of ‘Ahead of Time’ in 1947, [when] Ms. Gruber was 36. ‘It’s not really a life story,’ Mr. Richman said, ‘I left out 50 years.’”
(“Recounting the Past Of a Witness to History”, John Anderson, The New York Times, September 5, 2010)
Read more about the movie and watch the trailer at:
The Modern Language Departments at SUNY Oswego will be screening these films this semester. They’ll all be shown Wednesdays at 7:30 PM in 132 Campus Center. Spanish-language films are in italics below; the others are German/Austrian films. (The movies will be shown with English subtitles.)
A little late to the game…but we’ve now added a link to the 30 for 30 series on ESPN. To celebrate their 30th anniversary, ESPN commissioned 30 documentaries to be shown on the sports network’s channels. Here is the schedule for the two features showing during the rest of September:
The House of Steinbrenner (dir. by Barbara Kopple): Thu 9/23, 11 PM (EST) on ESPN Classic; Mon 9/27, 11 PM (EST) on ESPN2
Into the Wind (dir. by Steve Nash and Ezra Holland): Tue 9/28, 8 PM (EST) on ESPN; 11 PM (EST) on ESPN 2
This film was “created by Sumo Science at Aardman…. All the minuscule detail was shot using CellScope technology and a Nokia N8, with its 12 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics.”
On Monday, October 25 we’ll be getting in a Halloween state of mind with a double feature that starts at 6:30 PM in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library.
We’ll be screening the British suspense/horror classic Night of the Demon (1957), directed by Jacques Tourneur. When director Martin Scorsese selected his picks for the “11 Scariest Horror Movies” for the website The Daily Beast, he included this film, noting that “Tourneur made this picture about ancient curses near the end of his career, but it’s as potent as his films for Val Lewton. Forget the demon itself—again, it’s what you don’t see that’s so powerful.”
We’ll also be rescreening our May 2009 presentation, Let the Right One In. Because the American remake of the film, Let Me In, is currently in theaters, the time seemed right to revisit the Swedish original, released in 2008.
Note: Anyone planning on seeing just our second feature, Let the Right One In, should arrive by 7:45 PM; library doors close at 8 PM.
The Syracuse International Film Festival runs October 13-17. On October 16, the festival will screen films on the SUNY Oswego campus, in Room 305 of Park Hall. Here’s what’s on the bill:
7 PM School Days with a Pig (Japan, 2008) Director: Tetsu Maeda (109 min)
A new elementary school teacher who wants his students to learn ‘the real connection between life and food’ has a proposal for his sixth-grade class: They’ll adopt a piglet and care for it over the course of a year, but at the end of the year, the pig will be eaten. The students eagerly accept the challenge. After all, the end of the year is a long way away and the wriggling piglet is right there in the classroom. They name it ‘P-Chan,’ build a special enclosure on the playground, and take turns with the chores of brushing and feeding it. But the more attached they grow to P-Chan, the more difficult the question of the pig’s fate becomes. Based on a true story that became a subject of national controversy in Japan, School Days With a Pig is a thoughtful and warmhearted engagement with the adult issues of consumption, quality of life, and personal responsibility as seen through the eyes of children.
Man’s Best Friend (Australia) Director: Luke Eve (7 min)
Newlyweds James and Diana are… living the dream with their dog, two cars and new home in the suburbs. A baby would make their life perfect. But James isn’t so sure about that. Why would he want a baby? Not when he’s got Zero, his kelpie, loyal confidante and best friend in the whole world.
(You can watch this video on the Funny or Die website).
9 PM Maya (Israel, 2009) Director: Michal Bat-Adam
A struggling young actress lands the leading role in a theater production. She is to play the part of a girl who undergoes a traumatic experience and is committed to a mental hospital. The actress, seeking to research her character in depth, spends some time observing in a psychiatric ward. As a result she brings to the role aspects that don’t jibe with the director’s take on the part – creating conflict between herself and the director. By the evening of the play’s premiere, the actress is walking a thin line between acting and madness.
The Midway Drive-In (State Route 48 in Minetto) presents a special event, a documentary double feature Wednesday, October 20 and Thursday, October 21. Two National Geographic Entertainment films will be screened: Restrepo and The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest. On October 20, Restrepo will be shown at 7:30 PM and The Wildest Dream follows at 9:10 PM. The following evening, The Wildest Dream runs first at 7:30 PM, then Restrepo.
Restrepo, a film by Sebastian Junger and Timothy Hetherington, won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film
is a feature-length documentary that chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. The movie focuses on a remote 15-man outpost, ‘Restrepo,’ named after a platoon medic who was killed in action. It was considered one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military. This is an entirely experiential film: the cameras never leave the valley; there are no interviews with generals or diplomats. The only goal is to make viewers feel as if they have just been through a 90-minute deployment. This is war, full stop. The conclusions are up to you. (from the film’s website, restrepothemovie.com)
The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest was directed by Anthony Geffen and narrated by Liam Neeson.
George Mallory was obsessed with becoming the first person to conquer the untouched Mount Everest. He was last seen 800 feet below the summit in 1924, before the clouds rolled in and he disappeared into legend. His death stunned the world.
75 years later, climber Conrad Anker’s life became intertwined with Mallory’s after finding his frozen body with all his belongings intact. The only thing missing was a photograph of his wife, Ruth, which Mallory had promised to place on the summit. Haunted by Mallory’s story, Conrad Anker returns to Everest with British climbing prodigy Leo Houlding to unravel the mysteries surrounding his disappearance. (from the film’s website, thewildestdream.com)
There will be a screening and a talk-back with the film’s director, Mara Ahmed, on Thursday, October 21, at 7 PM at the Campus Center Auditorium (Room 132) on the SUNY Oswego campus. For more information on The Muslims I Know, please see the Oswego Reads website (http://oswegoreads.com/?p=589)
The film group continues its Best of the Festival series with the 2010 winner for Best Picture at the Sundance Film Festival, Winter’s Bone, on Tuesday, November 23, 7 PM, screening in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library.
The film was based on the acclaimed novel by Daniel Woodrell. To listen to an interview with the author (from NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, August 2006) as well as to read an excerpt from the book, please click onto this link:
Here’s an update on Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation. (We’ve written about the organization and linked to its website). The Foundation’s 2010 film festival in New York is highlighting a Brazilian film long admired and long missing: Limite.
The French film critic Georges Sadoul called it ‘an unknown masterpiece’ and once flew all the way to Brazil, in vain, in hopes of seeing a complete version. Orson Welles, in Brazil in the early 1940s to make a movie of his own, did view it in its entirety and pronounced the experience ‘fabulous.’ More recently, both David Bowie and Caetano Veloso have also promoted it. (from “Brazil’s Best, Restored and Ready for a 21st-Century Audience”, The New York Times, 11/10/10; see link below).
We were saddened to learn of the death of Mark J. Wright who served as Program Director for the Cultural Resources Council of Syracuse & Onondaga County. Mark was responsible for advising and guiding OFG through the grant process, resulting in a grant awarded in November 2008–funds crucial to our efforts.
The funeral will be at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, at the corner of Montgomery and Fayette Streets in downtown Syracuse at 1:30 PM (not at Grace Episcopal Church, as originally scheduled) on Friday, November 19. Please enter the door on Fayette Street. Calling hours are Thursday, the 18th, from 4-7 PM at Farone & Son Funeral Home (1500 Park Street, Syracuse, faroneandson.com).
What is it about the movie that attracts so many hits–especially when this site had so little to offer about it? (For our 9,000 hits to date, the post, “Superfly Screens at SUNY Oswego 2/25,” is the 5th most popular so far; it ranks 2nd for the last 3 months).
Feeling a bit sheepish that there’s not much there there….So, here’s a little more substance for those searching SuperFly, an excerpt from Todd Boyd’s 2007 book, The Notorious Ph.D’s Guide to the SuperFly ’70s:
On Wednesday, December 1, at 8:00 PM in Lanigan 101, SUNY Oswego’s
Go Green Team will host a screening of the documentary film Gasland,
followed by a live interactive webcast conversation with director Josh Fox.
(SUNY Oswego is participating with other colleges and universities in a
nationwide screening).
The British film magazine Sight & Sound has published its list of the top films of the year (drawn from 85 critics who submitted their top five picks) :
1. The Social Network (David Fincher) 2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) 3. Another Year (Mike Leigh) 4. Carlos (Olivier Assayas) 5. The Arbor (Clio Barnard) 6. Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik) 6. (tied) I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino) 8. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (Andrei Ujica) 8. (tied) Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard) 8. (tied) Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzman) 8. (tied) Poetry (Lee Chang-dong) 8. (tied) A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)
Congrats to Winter’s Bone (tied for sixth) for its win this week at the Gotham Independent Film Awards for best feature and best ensemble performance.
Come join us for a Patrick Swayze Christmas Monday, December 20 for a 7 PM free screening in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Libraryof the 1964 travesty Santa Claus Conquers the Martians as seen by Joel and the ‘bots.
If you’re not already familiar with the Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) series, check out their website:
It’s awards season and some of this winter’s high profile films are coming to town. The Fighter has opened at the Oswego Cinema 7 and we’ll be attending the 7:40 PM screening on Tuesday evening, January 11. Immediately afterwards, we’ll gather in the theater’s upstairs lobby to discuss the film. All are welcome to join us!
That’s right–we’ve made it past the 10,000 views/hits mark! (And I know a big thanks must go to those folks who keep looking for SuperFly–our most consistent hit!)
Fresh on the heels of Tuesday’s Night Out at the Movies, let’s do it again next Tuesday (11/18). We’ll see the 7:20 PM screening at the Oswego Cinema 7 of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman. Immediately after the show, we’ll meet in the theater’s upstairs lobby and start our discussion on the film. (The theater’s usual admission charges apply; all are welcome to join us at the show and for our talk-back.)
The Library of Congress added another 25 films to its National Film Registry in December. Besides such popular works as Airplane! and All the President’s Men, several experimental and silent films were chosen. Here’s an experimental film by Mary Ellen Bute (with the Library staff notes):
Tarantella (1940)
“Tarantella” is a five-minute color, avant-garde short film created by Mary Ellen Bute, a pioneer of visual music and electronic art in experimental cinema. With piano accompaniment by Edwin Gershefsky, “Tarantella” features rich reds and blues that Bute uses to signify a lighter mood, while her syncopated spirals, shards, lines and squiggles dance exuberantly to Gershefsky’s modern beat. Bute produced more than a dozen short films between the 1930s and the 1950s and once described herself as a “designer of kinetic abstractions” who sought to “bring to the eyes a combination of visual forms unfolding with the … rhythmic cadences of music.” Bute’s work influenced many other filmmakers working with abstract animation during the ‘30s and ‘40s, and with experimental electronic imagery in the ‘50s.
For the complete list, see the National Film Registry Board website:
All are welcome to join us at the 7:10 PM screening of The King’s Speech Monday, January 31 at the Oswego Cinema 7. Immediately after the film, we’ll assemble in the theater’s upstairs lobby and discuss the film (leading in the Oscar race with 12 nominations), the other Academy Award contenders, and recap 2010 in film.
We’ve added a link to The New Republic‘s online film offerings, At the Movies. The site offers the criticism of Stanley Kauffmann (who has written about film for the magazine for the past 53 years), plus David Thomson’s reviews. The site also offers reviews (“TNR Film Classics”) from its archives.
We’ve been focused of late on some of the Academy Award nominated films. We screened Winter’s Bone and caught a few more of the Best Picture contenders at the Oswego Cinema with our Nights Out at the Movies. A few of the Documentary Feature Oscar nominees screened in and around Oswego last year–Restrepo and Gasland. We’ll show another of the docmentary contenders on Monday, February 21 at 6:30 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium, SUNY Oswego: Exit Through the Gift Shop. The screening is free and open to the public; a discussion will follow the film. Look for a screening of another nominated documentary, Inside Job, in March.
From the film’s website (www.banksyfilm.com), here’s the synopsis:
This is the inside story of Street Art – a brutal and revealing account of what happens when fame, money and vandalism collide. Exit Through the Gift Shop follows an eccentric shop-keeper turned amateur film-maker as he attempts to capture many of the world’s most infamous vandals on camera, only to have a British stencil artist named Banksy turn the camcorder back on its owner
with wildly unexpected results.
One of the most provocative films about art ever made, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a fascinating study of low-level criminality, comradeship and incompetence. By turns shocking, hilarious and absurd, this is an
enthralling modern-day fairytale… with bolt cutters.
Exit Through the Gift Shop has provoked much discussion just by its classification as nonfiction. Is the film’s story–and are its protagonists–for real? Calling itself “the world’s first Street Art disaster movie,” Exit Through the Gift Shop is a film by the British artist known as Banksy—the mysterious figure whose work has ranged from graffiti on the streets of Bristol to high-profile pieces shown in galleries. (A large audience saw a Banksy piece during an episode of The Simpsons last October: that dark opening sequence featuring scenes from a sweatshop.)
National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation is running a series on this year’ Academy Award nominees for Documentary Feature. (They’ve featured Restrepo and Inside Job so far.) Look for OFG’s Monday evening presentation, Exit Through the Gift Shop, coming up.
SUNY Oswego presents Ahead of Time, the documentary on Ruth Gruber; the film will be screened Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 7 PM, at Tyler Hall in Waterman Theater on the SUNY Oswego campus. Following the screening, Ahead of Time Executive Producer Doris Schechter will discuss the film and a video chat with Ruth Gruber is planned. This event is free and open to the public.
Ruth Gruber
Ahead of Time tells the remarkable journey of 99 year-old Ruth Gruber. She defied tradition when, in 1931 at age 20, Ms. Gruber became the youngest person to earn a PhD. She continued to make history: becoming the first journalist to enter the Soviet Arctic in 1935, escorting Holocaust refugees from Italy to Fort Ontario’s Safe Haven* in a secret mission in 1944, covering the Nuremberg trials in 1946, and documenting the ordeal of the refugees aboard the ship Exodus 1947. The film is the directorial debut of noted cinematographer Bob Richman (The September Issue,An Inconvenient Truth, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster).
Doris Schechter opened the New York bakery My Most Favorite Dessert Company in 1982; she’s the author of the establishment’s 2001 cookbook as well as At Oma’s Table: More than 100 Recipes and Remembrances from a Jewish Family’s Kitchen (2007) which is, in part, a memoir of her family’s journey from Austria to Italy to the US (including a stay as refugees in Oswego). Ms. Schechter is one of the executive producers of Ahead of Time.
For more information on the film, please visit aheadoftimethemovie.com
*Oswego’s Safe Haven Museum and Education Center is dedicated to keeping alive the stories of the 982 refugees from World War II–allowed into the US as “guests” of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, they were housed at Fort Ontario from 1944 to 1946. For more information, please visit www.oswegohaven.org or contact the center: P.O. Box 846, Oswego NY 13126; phone 315.342.3003; e-mail safehaven@cnymail.org
Here’s a black and white flier/handout for Ahead of Time’s upcoming reception, screening, and discussion at SUNY Oswego’s Tyler Hall on Thursday, March 10. Please feel free to print out and distribute!
OFG and SUNY Oswego’s Ecomomics Department present this year’s Academy Award winner for Documentary Feature, Inside Job. The film will screen at 7 PM in the SUNY Oswego Campus Center Auditorium. The show is free and open to the public; there should be a lot to discuss after the screening!
Check out the film’s website: www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/ and the film’s blog: www.insidejob.com/
This year’s Tribeca Film Festival running from April 20 to May 1 in Manhattan, is taking a newly adventurous approach to online distribution. Six features and 18 shorts will be streamed on the festival’s Web site during the event; the streams will be free, but in a throwback to the days of assigned seats in movie theaters, viewers will need to make reservations to watch the films online during designated 24-hour periods.
Among the features being shown online are David Dusa’s “Flowers of Evil,” a story of love and politics set in Paris and Tehran, in its American premiere, and Scott Rettberg’s “New York Says Thank You,” a post-9/11 documentary about New Yorkers helping other communities struck by disasters. Reservations can be made at tribecaonline.com beginning April 18 (April 12 for holders of American Express cards).
from the “Watchlist” column, Mike Hall, The New York Times, 3/27/11
Oh, of course we love the holiday movie classics…but sometimes you just need something a bit bracing to counter all the sweet that envelops us this time of year. With that in mind, we present the film Roger Ebert called a “rather brilliant lump of coal for your stocking hung by the fireside with care. How else to explain an R-rated Santa Claus origin story crossed with ‘The Thing’?”…Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.
