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[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 27, 2013 by admin in Popular Media
Sunday, January 27th, 2013
Didn’t get invited to Sundance AGAIN this year? Put on some nice shorts and enjoy it anyway.
As much as I love film, and as much as I love festivals, I’m not sure if I love film festivals. I’ve attended plenty, but in spite of living in a town that presents one of the best festivals in the world – the Ann Arbor Film Festival – I haven’t even attended that one since we gave it light coverage here a couple of years ago. Looking back, the year I stopped being so enthused about them was around 2000, which coincides almost precisely with the widespread availability of the “time shifted viewing” that the web and digital recorders have made possible. Combine that with the fact that I never much enjoyed hobnobbing with mobs of film snobs and hypersocial restaurant workers with SAG cards anyway, and film festivals have sort of become a thing of the past for me. That’s why I’m ecstatic that when I can’t attend a festival like Sundance, there’s a good chance that at least portions of it will be available online. Not that I’ve ever been to Sundance; to be honest, I’d probably only go if Delphine Chanéac asked me to be her date. So we can probably rest assured I won’t be attending Sundance any time soon. Anyway, one of the highlights of Sundance having an online presence this year was the selection of shorts available on one of their YouTube channels. As I’ve pointed out before, I have a fetish for short film, so below I’ve selected a couple of favorites from this year’s Sundance collection, as well as another exceptional short called VOICE OVER that wasn’t at Sundance. Enjoy, and see you at the festival. On line. Read the rest of this entry »
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 11, 2012 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Tuesday, September 11th, 2012
Put on some popcorn and a tinfoil hat. Foster Gamble is taking you for a ride, in his doughnut-powered spaceship of libertarianism.
Do you ever have a vague sense that something is just plain wrong with the world, and that there must be some unseen forces guiding things? That maybe there’s a group of powerful people connected to banking and large corporate interests that have an agenda for re-shaping the world to suit their desires? That behind the daily headlines we see, there’s a subtext that isn’t being revealed, and if it were, that a lot of global events would make more sense? If you do, and you’re looking for answers, you may want to watch the movie Thrive. Not because it offers any useful answers to these questions, at least sane ones. But there are a few things about the film that makes it worth a look. First of all, there’s the price. It’s free! You can view it right on the creator’s website (or on YouTube, if your prefer). That may in fact be the film’s strongest point. You may actually want to procure a copy though
, simply to be able to review its bizarre fusion of sane progressive thought and tinfoil hat insanity at your leisure. The film was assembled by a fellow named Foster Gamble, a member of the “legacy” family from the Gamble side of Proctor & Gamble empire. Gamble exudes a disturbingly genuine sincerity as he guides the viewer through topics ranging from crop circles and UFO’s to the evils of the Federal Treasury, the Rothschild and Rockefeller families, and the Illuminati. And he does it all with a weird pseudo-scientific presentation, mixing references to toroidal free energy innovations that are allegedly Read the rest of this entry »
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 26, 2012 by admin in Popular Media
Thursday, January 26th, 2012
If you’ve never died, done hallucinogenic drugs, had an out of body experience, or been in a serious car crash, you may have trouble connecting with the film “Enter the Void”. I’ve done pretty much all of those things, so this may be one of my favorite films in a decade.
If you’ve never died, done hallucinogenic drugs, had an out of body experience, or been in a serious car crash, you may have trouble connecting with the film Enter the Void
. I’ve done pretty much all of those things, so in spite of rather mixed reviews, this is probably one of my favorite films in years. I don’t know how I didn’t hear about this film when it came out in 2010, but…ah, scratch that. Clocking in at 2 hours and 41 minutes, and being comprised mainly of visually stunning, meandering shots of Tokyo sex clubs, street scenes, car crashes, swirling colors, and neon landscapes that connect a bunch of vignettes that border on pornographic or feature death, drug abuse, sex, and birth, the film didn’t enjoy a very wide release or much promotion in the states. Which is a shame, because I think – with one trivial criticism – it borders on being a cinematic masterpiece, eschewing tired, 120-page-script-driven storytelling to embrace the amazing tools that film puts at one’s fingertips. I would be willing to bet that this is a film that David Lynch would have wished he could have made, which for many, of course, would be a solid argument AGAINST the idea that it might be a masterpiece. In any case, while reading negative reviews one thing you’ll consistently notice is that the reviewer will say incredibly thick-headed, entertainment-biased things about plot development, acting skills, or their frustration with the length or having to view the back of the central character’s head more than they’d like. As a film lover since childhood, reviews like this simply affirm to me that this is indeed a great film; if you’re not pissing someone off, you’re probably doing it wrong. And director Gaspar Noé does it right in this film, managing to tell a textured, multi-layered story that is only simplistic – or “puerile” as one critic put it – if you’re too stupid or impatient or lazy to grasp what is being explored. The “plot” is launched by the main character Oscar’s introduction to the The Tibetan Book of the Dead
as he starts a drug trip, and then is presumably killed. The ensuing two hours are a journey through life, death, base human experience, beauty, love, loss, and more, brilliantly told with little dialogue. Most of the film is a seamlessly connected series of mostly overhead shots as you journey from interior to interior, to the night streets of Tokyo, to strange “other worlds” of light and sound, and to flashback scenes from childhood. Thanks to remarkable implementation of boom shots, helicopter shots, handheld, CGI, lighting effects, and even tilt-shift-like focus effects, it’s impossible to tell – and therefore not disruptive to the flow – when one or another is being utilized. The stunning visuals are lent much of their effectiveness and seamlessness by some of the most brilliant sound design I’ve ever experienced. Arguably one of the most overlooked apects of creating film as art, Enter the Void’s “soundtrack” is on par with films like 2001 in terms of sound as an integrated part of stoytelling, which is probably not a coincidence – apparently Gaspar Noé saw 2001 at the age of seven, inspiring him at that point to become a filmmaker. If you’re interested in the technical aspects of how the film was made, there’s a detailed summary on Wikipedia. But I honestly wouldn’t recommend reading much about the plot, the technique, or the critical reception – I’ve said far too much here. The film just left enough of an impression on me that I had to spread the word. I personally saw the film after seeing nothing more than the image below. I somehow knew instantly that the film had something I needed to experience, and I was not disappointed. If you decide to check it out, just make sure you actually have the time and space to enjoy the film – it’s not for the impatient, and is as long and ponderous as it is brilliant. Read the rest of this entry »
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 19, 2011 by admin in Popular Media
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011
What has 224 legs, 336 eyes, takes 5 years to mature, and lives for 95 minutes? One of the most thought-provoking films you’ll ever see, Problema.
An aerial view of the “set” of Problema
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What would happen if you rounded up thought-provoking questions from people all over the world, then gathered about a hundred thoughtful people together in a huge circle, pointed cameras at them, and asked the questions one by one? Well, a cacophonous murmur would probably ensue, until you edited the results into some kind of cohesive whole, as director Ralf Schmerberg did with his epic film project Problema. The project was inspired by the Dropping Knowledge project, a global information sharing and media project founded in 2003. On a single day in September, 2006, over a hundred individuals – artists, scientists, writers, business people, and other thinkers – took their place around a huge circle in Berlin’s Bebelplatz. This was a powerfully symbolic choice – the Bebelplatz was the location of the infamous Nazi book burnings of 1933. With digital cameras pointed at each guest, hosts Willem Dafoe and Hafsat Abiola (founder of Nigeria’s Kudirat Initiative for Democracy) asked 17 of 100 questions that had been selected from the thousands that were submitted worldwide via the Dropping Knowledge project. The guests then responded in their own time, with the cameras all running continuously, all framing the guests in a tight headshot. Guest Wim Wenders – director of the film Wings of Desire
– astutely pointed out the similarity between the resulting murmur and the way the angels in his film had no choice but to hear the thoughts of humans everywhere, which created much of the lush sonic backdrop of Wings of Desire. Schmerberg – Problema’s director – managed to capture much of this live feeling of the event by interspersing compelling, sometimes tear-inducing images with a lively mixture of both concise, eyes-at-the-camera answers, and almost out-take-like moments of verité in which the attendees fumbled with their thoughts or spoke in asides to the guests sitting next to them. The result is a thought-provoking documentary unlike any you’ve seen before. If you’re a caring person who lives in the so-called “First World”, a question like “Does our wealth depend on the Third World being poor?” might make you think “Well of course, and it’s a shameful tragedy”. But you’ll suddenly be forced to ponder things like what a bogus concept the “Third World” is in the first place, or how much freedom you have if you live in a powerful western capitalist country, when a sophisticated, educated person from Colombia points out that he for instance is only able to visit a place like Berlin because of a four day visa connected with the making of the film. He otherwise is barred from our “first world” as a second-rate global citizen who “has no right to enter our paradise” as he puts it. Although you may find Problema quite watchable on your own, you might find it a lot more interesting if you watch it with some intelligent friends, so you can discuss the world of questions it is likely to raise in your heart and your head. To view the film as a particapatory event, the Problema website offers a screening page that allows you to publicize the event, but you can just download it and watch it with friends if you like – it’s free, provided in multiple file formats, and can be downloaded by bittorrent or as a direct file.
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on March 25, 2011 by admin in Popular Media
Friday, March 25th, 2011
Does that mean it’s not a zombie film? I’m not going to let that trouble me. The thing that disturbs me most is that the virus in the film seems to be spreading to the real wor the real the wor the real wor real world.
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I really don’t like zombie movies. Well, okay. I liked Night of the Living Dead
when I was a kid. And Shaun of the Dead
was fun. But in general, the basic idea behind a zombie movie – a mindless mob chomping on something that’s probably not healthy for them – is too much like just living in America – which I already do – for me to get excited about. Which is why it’s odd that I LOVED Pontypool, because it’s a zombie movie. Or is it? While the story does involve mindless mobs chomping on each other, they’re mostly offscreen. There is a bit of gore, but I wouldn’t actually call it gratuitous; it was pretty purposeful from a dramatic point of view. And the entire story pretty much takes place in the confines of a radio station, while the world outside is going mad. No, Pontypool is more a suspense film with cultural-linguistic and socio-political commentary. Sort of like Talk Radio
meets the original War of the Worlds radio broadcast 
. But better. The film makes clever use of Antonin Artaud’s idea of theater as infection, and Burroughs’ concept of language as a virus. And the commentary I mentioned is used sparingly; this is really a pretty solid “low budget” suspense film, with a balanced dose of humor and a little mystery to engage you. Is it an alien zombie apocalypse? A biological warfare experiment gone wrong? Is the strange behavior of the unseen mobs being caused by something in the radio transmission? What if simply speaking transmitted a disease? How could you tell anyone? Except for that last question, these are familiar enough story premises, so Pontypool doesn’t kill them with exposition, instead letting them answer themselves as the story unfolds. But imagine if words broadcast over radio or television had the ability to spread a bizarre condition that in turn affected your speech to help transmit the condition further? That would be a prah. A prah. A prah. A prah. Oh crap. A prah. A PROBLEM. Actually, one of the most disturbing things about this clever little zombie suspense film is that it seems to be manifesting in the real world. See the two news clips below, after the trailer. Oh, and Pontypool was adapted from the book Pontypool Changes Everything
and is also available as a BBC radio play.
Read the rest of this entry »
