Special guest Daniel Cockburn joins the podcast to discuss You Are Here, his feature film debut, opening in Toronto on Friday August 19th at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. A spirited roundtable about the making and distribution of a low-budget indie ensues.
More information about You Are Here:
To download this episode, use this URL: http://rowthree.com/audio/mamo/mamo213.mp3
What could be better on a Monday morning than escaping your dreaded day job for a few minutes and watching a movie? Not much. That’s why our good buddy Drew Nugent, regular reader and Cinecast listener, has uploaded his latest short film to YouTube so we can all take a look. It isn’t quite finished yet with some sound issues and what not, but the dialogue is fun and works pretty well, what with all the pop culture references and a great “hangin’ out” feel to the whole thing. Stop typing or making phone calls or building whatever you’re building and just check in a minutes with the Bad Crowd.
Nice job Drew!
I reckon we’s always in the mood for a good western round these parts. Even a short one. Damn Your Eyes clearly draws inspiration from Leone’s “Man with no name” series; but I found even more of a comparison can be drawn from Robert Rodriguez’ Desperado. And as a huge fan of the latter, this little short ended up being right up my alley.
It’s got some neat, classic cinematography along with the archetypal characters that simply never get old; especially with all of the gun play and cool set design. A lot of the time in these low-budget short films you’ll find some pretty hack acting. Not here. In fact some of the guys could hold their own pretty easily in a Hollywood production should they ever be given the chance – particularly some of the villains.
This short is from the mind of writer/director David Guglielmo and shot on a very modest budget of only $5k along the east coast; including NY, Connecticut and New Jersey. It seems to be gaining some decent traction in shorts programs around the country in various festival settings.
Have a look at the short below and leave your thought in the comment section or feel free to leave your thought s for the director himself over at the official Vimeo page.
DAMN YOUR EYES from David Guglielmo on Vimeo.
I remember when I was attending university in Waterloo, Ontario back in 1993 and going to the Princess repertory cinema for a screening of The Advocate. This was a strange little film about a lawyer defending a pig (on murder charges) a court of law in 15th Century rural France. The lawyer was played by none other than Colin Firth, and he is admirably supported by Ian Holm, Donald Pleasence, Nicol Williamson and the leading lady from both Krull and Without A Clue (that would by Lysette Anthony). Coming out of the cinema, I vividly remember overhearing someone remark, “Yes, that was a Miramax film.” I had been vaguely aware of the label, if only because I was a big fan of Reservoir Dogs and was thoroughly bemused by Sex Lies and Videotape and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, both of those lengthily titled films along with the rising star of Quentin Tarantino bore the label for the film-company which would break out into the big-time in only a few short months with the $100 million hit, Pulp Fiction; a first for the indie filmmaking world. Even then, people, at least the folks who attended art-house cinemas, were aware of the prolific release of ‘adult art pictures sold in large part on sexual titillation’ by the Weinstein Brothers, Harvey and Bob.
Equally meaningless, but arguably a whole lot more fun to watch than the Oscars. Better films/celebs nominated, more relaxed, more accurate and a lot more alcohol. This year’s awards will be given out live on Saturday, February 26th on IFC channel at 10pm ET.
The nominees this year are as follows…
BEST FEATURE:
127 Hours
Black Swan
Greenberg
The Kids Are All Right
Winter’s Bone
BEST DIRECTOR :
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Danny Boyle, 127 Hours
Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right
Debra Granik, Winter’s Bone
John Cameron Mitchell, Rabbit Hole
BEST FEMALE LEAD:
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Greta Gerwig, Greenberg
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
BEST MALE LEAD:
Ronald Bronstein, Daddy Longlegs
Aaron Eckhart, Rabbit Hole
James Franco, 127 Hours
John C. Reilly, Cyrus
Ben Stiller, Greenberg
BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE:
Ashley Bell, The Last Exorcism
Dale Dickey, Winter’s Bone
Allison Janney, Life During Wartime
Daphne Rubin-Vega, Jack Goes Boating
Naomi Watts, Mother and Child
BEST SUPPORTING MALE:
John Hawkes, Winter’s Bone
Samuel L. Jackson, Mother and Child
Bill Murray, Get Low
John Ortiz, Jack Goes Boating
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
more categories/nominations under the seats…
» Read the rest of the entry..
Closely following Gary King’s very busy career can just about be a career in and of itself. The guy just keeps making films and announcing new projects left and right. What’s Up Lovely (review) and Death of the Dead are still making the festival rounds while How Do You Write a Joe Schermann Song (trailer) is still in post. Checking out Gary’s blog today reveals some early information on the next film in what is being called “The Loneliness Trilogy” (What’s Up Lovely being part one), Bad Luck Dandelion (P.S. awesome title).
Information on the project is still under wraps, but just judging from the variety of thematically similar one sheets, this looks like a lot brighter and fun production that the previous entry in the trilogy; which felt rather dark and… well, lonely. Writers and obviously director are still the same but not entirely sure if the character from the first film will carry over or not. It’s the same actress, Jenn Dees, but it’s hard to tell if she’ll be the same character. At any rate, it’s going to be a while before we’re able to find out as the release date seems to be sometime in 2012. In the meantime, we’ve got Joe Schermann to look forward to and you can still check out Gary’s earlier film, New York Lately, also starring Jenn Dees and which made my top ten films list back in ’08. Either way, I’ll be keeping an eye on this one and will definitely be keeping readers here abreast of how it’s coming along.
As a bonus, I grabbed some of the posters from the new film that look pretty interesting and very clearly have a completely different color palette and vibe to them than the previous film had… check ‘em out below (you can see a little higher res version of the posters just by clicking on the image). Besides the blog, you can also follow the production at the Facebook profile for the film.
|
|
|
|
Here is an experiment. Take the name of six colours, write them in random order several times using a coloured pen that does not match the name of the colour. Time yourself reading this list of colours. Write the same list of colours using only black ink and time yourself reading the list. The mind works is strange ways, and has trouble if preconceived associations to familiar things or objects get too close to one another. Daniel Cockburn, a Toronto video artist has just made a wild and crazy jump into features with a film-slash-brain-experiment that wants to perform a witty and colourful brain massage. He wants to play with your cerebellum in the same way that the perception of film works: ‘Persistence of Vision’ as shutters push single frames to form the illusion of movement. We will ignore the contradiction that he mainly shoots on video. Contradictions are what the film is about.
Cockburn wants to expand your consciousness or provide the illusion of expanding your consciousness or expand your consciousness while providing the illusion that he has not. You Are Here. The statement is both a location as well as a confirmation of existence. Different things, really. The red dot that defines your location on the map can be just as much of a misleader as a guide. The meaning of the film goes beyond the dual-nature of the title into something that is both profound and a profoundly funny. It is science. It is art. It is absurd and hilarious sleight-of-hand. It is an ultra lo-fi version of Inception in which the filmmakers might as well be Leonardo Di Caprio and company (in shabbier clothing mind-you) and the audience are simultaneously the beneficiary of planted ideas and the mark of a baffling grift. The TIFF catalogue labels the film as Dr. Seuss meets Samuel Beckett, and I cannot really argue with that. It is an apt a description as you are going to get without telling you much. When it ended after an all too brief 75 minutes, I was upset. I wanted to see how many more times the filmmakers could fold their narrative in upon itself while keeping me in its spell. Riding the wave, before it collapsed. Like any good performer, Cockburn knows to keep the audience wanting more. Or they ran out of money, drugs or the ability to keep a hold of the reigns. I am sure the director will never tell.
» Read the rest of the entry..
I think I can speak for all of us around here when I say that one of our truest loves is the art of independent cinema. When a good one comes along we sit up and take notice. A couple of years ago, writer/director Gary King wow’d us with his visually pleasing New York Lately. Since then he’s been a busy guy with a couple of other experiments in various genres until finally settling into the world of musicals with his latest project, How Do You Write a Joe Schermann Song.
Not being much of a fan of musicals in general, I gotta say this one looks pretty sweet. And from the mouth of the director himself, “this ain’t your momma’s musical” as it gives off a really pretty All that Jazz feel. Not soap mouth, slow crap. This one looks like it really will electrify the screen with some fast pace tunage and King’s flair for visual awesome.
Check out the teaser below and you can get more info on the movie; including Twitter and Facebook links as well as some behind-the-scenes production bloggy stuff over at the film’s official site.
Sorry for the local push here, but this is kind of neat. If you’re in the Minneapolis area and are interested in a little something different for your cinematic thirst quenching throughout October, head over to The Walker and check out their marathon of Olivier Assayas: Between Love & Terror
Olivier Assayas has brought his seemingly effortless virtuosity to an extremely diverse range of more than 20 films. This daring filmmaker pioneered the globalist thriller genre, but catches many viewers by surprise with his quieter dramas. The core of his work is a celebration of everyday life’s intimate moments—a legacy of the French New Wave. His most recent work, Carlos, stormed this year’s Cannes film festival with yet another foray into new realms: a five-hour take on the life of Carlos “the Jackal;” a Venezuelan Marxist revolutionary who terrorized Europe in the 1970s, setting the stage for today’s international terror network. That film receives its Minneapolis premiere at the Walker as part of Assayas’ Regis Dialogue and Retrospective.
10-01: Irma Vep
10-02: Late August, Early September
10-08: Les destinées
10-09: Cold Water & demonlover
10-15: Summer Hours
10-20: Regis Dialogue w/ Olivier Assayas & Kent Jones
10-21: Eldorado/Preljocaj
10-23: Clean & Boarding Gate
10-28: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-Hsien
10-31: Carlos
Now I’ve only seen a small handfull of Assayas’ work but I’ve mostly enjoyed the ones I have seen and even those I’ve not liked so much I still appreciated for what they were. So I’m more than intrigued in checking out his latest work: “The Bourne Identity with more substance, or Munich with more of a pulse.”
Director: Gary King (New York Lately, Death of the Dead)
Writers: Jenn Dees, Gary King
Producers: Gary King, Sujata King, Jason Varner
Starring: Jenn Dees
MPAA Rating: NR
Running time: 69 min.
(3.5/5)After awing festival audiences in 2008 and 2009 with his colorful, indie hit, New York Lately, writer/director Gary King has moved on to other more experimental pastures quickly becoming a director well known as someone who pushes personal boundaries and challenges the senses among several genres. With a musical currently in the works and a zany, zombie film hitting festivals this fall, King has made sure to never be tethered to any specific, proverbial leash. Horror, drama, action and musical films already under the belt (or soon to be), the latest picture making the rounds can only be described as dreamy surrealism. Taking cues from several influences in the history of cinema, What’s Up Lovely captures a visual and tonal element seldom seen in cinema today.
After being let go from her dreary, phone center job, Luci finds herself sleeplessly wandering New York City looking for some relief and self reflection. Whether just standing around or following random stranger while playing her own little mind games leads her into several unique and odd situations that slowly begin to give her clarity about herself and her situation. At times creepy, at times heart warming and other times simply joyous and raucous, the movie takes its time giving viewers a different perspective of the NYC street and a film that is not always coherent or straight forward. It’s a movie that gives the viewer morsels of a meal and in order that we do our own legwork for gathering the sustenance. Plot spoon feeding this is not.
» Read the rest of the entry..
Writer/Director Whit Stillman, whose 1990s trilogy of American socialite foibles – Metropolitan, Barcelona, The Last Days of Disco – was a major influence in the 1990s indie world (Noah Baumbach, for instance) has not made a film for more than a dozen years. After a distressing number of potential projects have fallen through over the ensuing years, Variety indicates that he has a ‘micro-indie’ on track to be shot in the fall called “Damsels in Distress” (aka Diorissimo.) And this makes me mighty pleased.
Wonderful bloggy resource, The Playlist has a synopsis:
[The picture] centers on a group of college girls who take in a new student and teach her their own misguided ways of helping people. Lily, a new student at Seven Oaks University, winds up filling in with a dynamic and highly individualistic group of girls, addicted to the elegance of the past: Heather, Violet and Rose all volunteer at the campus Suicide Prevention Center, convinced that musical dance, sharp clothes and good hygiene — the Dior perfume “Diorissimo” is their trademark — can all contribute to staving off the inevitable self-destructive impulses that follow hard on the heels of failed college romances. Despite their sophisticated talk and savvy use of perfume, the girls are plagued by Cupid’s arrows and must adjust their psyches to the onset of amour.
Related tidbit 1: Criterion has been in the process of acquiring Barcelona for their catalogue in the near future. Since they have already put out handsome releases for Metropolitan and Last Days of Disco, I smell a definitive box set in the near future.
Related tidbit 2: Last Days of Disco Finite Focus entry.
In my never ending quest of expanding my film knowledge and experiences, I was thrust into the position of checking out this filmmaker Maya Deren and her most well-known (and apparently probably best) film to date: Meshes of the Afternoon. In 1943 I can see this being quite the talk of the cinematic town with its experimental use of non-linear story lines, repetitive imagery and just general ambiguity.
I am not smart enough to see everything that the filmmaker is trying to say here, but I can say comfortably that this is a picture that definitely influenced a generation or two of filmmakers and continues to do so today. I can certainly see some David Lynch in here. The symbolic imagery along with an obvious dive into the dark corners of the subconscious creates a dreamscape that was likely unparalleled at the time (again, I’m not film scholar, but I’ve certainly not seen anything like it that came before).
The mood is artfully haunting and at times nonsensical with multiple appearances by the main character at the same time. Others in the film are eerily creepy and the score (by Deren’s husband) just helps to push these dreamlike boundaries. If you’ve not heard of this movie and have any interest at all in surrealistic, avant-garde filmmaking, I encourage you to check under the seats and take a look at Deren’s earliest picture. At only 13 minutes, it’s easy to flip through.
» Read the rest of the entry..
