Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Awards/WFCC

Each awards season people come together to give tiny statues to other people for doing things other people seem to like. Here, here is a tiny golden man for all of your hard work. Your skill needs my approval. And a thing for your shelf. Regardless...I tend to look at awards season as more of an annual summation of the innovation and stories, the cultural trends manifest in the most accessible artform we have: what of our lives is cinema reflecting back to us?

This is my first awards season as a member of the Women Film Critics Circle and after going through the nomination process I can truly say I am overjoyed to be a part of this organization whose goal is to promote cinematic discourse from a standpoint that is often not at the forefront of awards season (ahem, SAG, ahem-white-male-director-fest). Looking at the year in films through this specific lens really put things into perspective for me. Even though women are under-represented in the industry the amount of unheard stories that have surfaced in 2014 are amazing! The depressive/discontent mothers with beautifully rendered psychological depth (The Babadook, Two Days One Night, Force Majeure), the abortion romantic-comedy (with fart jokes!) that reminds that the issue is one of people not politics (Obvious Child), films that follow the unconventional-on-film paths of contemporary women (Boyhood, Happy Christmas, Skeleton Twins, Wetlands-actually, I kinda hope Wetlands isn't anyone's path...?), the unheard given voice (Private Violence, Finding Vivian Maier, Big Eyes). This year has been a huge step forward for the narratives of women! Now...go be judged for your dress on the red carpet! Small steps for womankind....























Saturday, November 15, 2014

Review for H2N: Force Majeure

Monday, October 27, 2014

Review for H2N: The Overnighters

This might be the best documentary of 2014. 

The Overnighters reviewed for Hammer to Nail.







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Sunday, October 19, 2014

Leaps & Bounds: Skipping Through the Digital Light Field

"...our natural biological response to the false sense of movement, often called Sim Sickness, makes us a bit unstable..."

So yes, I have a little bit of a preoccupation with the way cinematic technology seeps into our biology. Who doesn't? I mean, digital technology effects every one of us in some way and the idea of it becoming human has been a cultural preoccupation forever! Also, the next step in nearly all new inventions is to use them as an artistic medium, to tell a story using a device that is made in and reflects the moment. Then comes advertising. Or politics. Or commerce. Gosh humans can be gross, anyway...


Google & a bunch of other techies are in the process of investing 500 million dollars into a company called Magic Leap? What the hell is Magic Leap you might ask? Their website creates an eerie, sleek utopia of a fantastical future that only their technological prowess can create. Ambiguous? Yes! Scary? Perhaps! Basically Magic Leap seems to be creating a form of what they call "cinematic reality" (a term they have, in fact, trademarked) that takes 3-D off of the screen and seemingly out of the glasses, possibly like the growing field of augmented reality combined with virtual reality, taking the real world and overlaying a completely new one on top of it.



Most virtual reality & 3d technology need eyewear to function, both of our eyes need to be focused on whatever unreal thing is trying to be real, but this leads to problems. So much VR gear causes motion sickness from lag times in image processing & the eye and our natural biological response to the false sense of movement, often called Sim Sickness, makes us a bit unstable- the experience has been likened to the altered state of scuba divers whose bodies undergo massive physical reconditioning in their underwater environment. Yet, the few things I could read about top secret Magic Leap mention that they are working within a so called "digital light field," which to me sounds like an image plane outside of the body, or maybe even combined with the body?



Here is where my non-scientist brain tries to figure out what the hell Magic Leap is doing in their top secret lab: maybe some kind of light or pixel boost will be projected onto, or worn directly on, your eyes (filling in, blocking out or enhancing the retina perhaps, like lcd screens for our eyes? or maybe a contact lens like contraption that manipulates our field of vision? like a wearable plenoptic lens or polarized lens?) and then projectors (multi-lensed projectors? holographic computer chip projectors? polarized projectors? holographic 3d projectors?) or maybe even special screens (moving projection mapped screens? polarized screens- which reminds me of this little old project I had a great big hand in!) will combine to process images into the closest to real something can seem.


Holy crap this is terrifying. And amazing. And I worry that the more realistic we can make fake reality the less likely we will try to save our actual reality...or live our actually reality for that matter. But who knows, maybe being able to more realistically experience other people & places would create a more empathetic, enlightened human race? Maybe we need documentaries that will actually transport your brain and sensory being to the melting ice caps in order to believe in their demise? Okay now, who will make the first Magic Leap film? I really hope it is Herzog!


Note: This whole thing reminds me so much of George Saunders' sci-fi fable My Flamboyant Grandson in which a rural man takes his gay grandson to the city for a Broadway play where he is bombarded with holographic ads on the street targeted at him by a device he is forced to wear in his shoes which, when removed by the grandfather due to discomfort, causes "Citizen Helpers" to intervene and urge him to "celebrate his preferences." Only a matter of time...

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Screening Committee Season, Like Fall but Better!

Screening Committee Season is upon us folks! This year I am on not one, not two, but THREE screening committees for three amazing film festivals! And I have already watched some incredible films! I really do put time & effort into this work, I think having produced a film myself forces me to care for each piece just a little bit more, but because of this I have begun to fall into bad habits. Like forgetting to eat. Or sleep. But I couldn't be happier because I am watching films All! The! Time!

I am working on a bunch of blog posts right now, including two interviews with directors about their new projects, one in the early stages of conception & the other in theaters now! So, stay tuned! I will be back shortly with your regularly scheduled blogramming. O, and don't forget to submit your films to film fests! Submission based programming seems to be in an upswing lately, I think because fests are always looking to find new, unheard voices & this is the best way to do so and also because I think the quality of submissions are rapidly improving. The digital film revolution allowed for most anyone to make a movie but now the novelty has worn off and those left making movies actually have something to say beyond "look, I made a movie!" Ok (puts eyedrops in pixel weary eyes) to the films!

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Review for H2N: The One I Love

The One I Love reviewed for Hammer to Nail.

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Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Interview: Director Carlos Marques-Marcet on 10.000Km

 "I think we have to think of cinema as the 'art' of audiovisual communication..."

While watching 10.000Km, the debut feature from the Spanish director/editor Carlos Marques-Marcet, I didn't want it to end. On the surface it is a vivid portrait of a long distance relationship but the subtext of this relationship is a deep, complex look at the current state of art, communication, beauty, emotion, surveillance- basically all of humanity- and it somehow managed to also be completely entertaining (!). I wanted the film to keep showing me its world. Because of this, I immediately tracked down the director to, selfishly, keep the film going! After reading over the non-native English speaker's answers to the questions, that I fittingly sent him via e-mail, I noticed that he used a lot of imagery from other directors (Rossellini, Ozu, Fellini) to characterize his own feelings and reflections on his world. 10.000Km is truly continuing a tradition of not exactly narrative storytelling but of a form of cinematic Freudian anthropology that the directors he mentions also deal in, filtering their worlds through a collective lens almost like a form of emotional documentary or metaphysical self portraiture, giving way to nuanced interpretations from the director, the audience, and even the real world that all are referencing...and isn't that what art is anyway? The purest form of personal expression.



Q. It isn’t often I see a film and actually consider the beauty of the acting. These two actors, Natalia Tena as Alex and David Verdaguer as Sergi, were able to carry the entire film with such elegance. How were you able to get these performances? I noticed the actors had writing credits, how much of a hand did they have in creating their characters? Or was it improvised? It all felt too controlled to be improvised? Really stunning!

A: Thanks, I really owe a lot to Natalia and David they totally invested themselves in the project. I guess at the end that’s what directing is all about, just creating the conditions so the actors can jump into the void without fear because they trust you. I wish I could say I had invented some kind of technique, but I didn’t, I just made my own version of what’s been done.

We rehearsed for ten days and half of those days we spent letting the actors figure out by themselves who these people are and an understanding of their relationship. I sometimes find very ridiculous when people write “backstories” of the characters and give them to the actors, it makes me think of 8 ½, the actress who follows Mastroianni to tell her “the clue” of her character. But it was essential for this movie to create the reality of a couple that had been together for seven years, we needed to be very specific.

On one side we worked a lot about their physicality. I think the sense of touch accumulates memories that are very specific and unique for each couple. We danced a lot and I came up with different exercises so they could investigate their physical relationship. We worked from the outside to try to find the inside. We also improvised keys scenes that allowed us to understand how they ended up in the situation that they are in: when and why did they decide to have a kid? When and how did they move together? How did they become a couple? etc. Then we also rehearsed some key scenes of the script, we would read it out loud and see what was working, what we didn’t need and what was missing. We would rewrite on the spot and we would improvise moments as a way to discover what was happening in the scenes. Even if I wrote the scene myself, as a director I like to approach the material without preconceived notions, I try to discover what the scenes are about with the actors. We would record these improvisations and at night we would listen to the recordings with my co-writer, Clara Roquet, and introduced the lines of dialogue that we liked.

Lots of the best humor in the movie comes actually from Nat and David during the rehearsal, that’s why I gave them credit. A few of them come from improvisations we would do on set when we saw that something wasn’t working, although we most of the time followed the script pretty close. Actually the few things that were improvised on set are the ones that look the least improvised, moments I would have never dared to write because they would sound too written, like the moment when he makes up a little rhyme on the kitchen scene.

We also shot lots of takes, very few shots, but we repeated them a lot until something unexpected happened. I always need to get surprised about what I’m shooting.

Q: The opening shot of 10.000Km is a long, heavy one, the most “real” action of the whole film, the most time the two characters are together. It has little to no cuts and establishes the audience in a position of voyeurism that was analogous to the couple’s long distance internet relationship. In the beginning of the film I felt like I was peering in on these strangers but as it progressed I felt more engulfed in their digital exchanges, visually and emotionally. How do you think the relationship between film & audience is changing because of the digital revolution? We have become so accustomed now to staring at screens, do we feel closer to the characters? Or is it a false/dangerous closeness, more like what the relationship in 10.000Km becomes?

A: I don’t think just by the fact of spending lots of time in front of screen we get closer to characters in movies. I feel our relationship with screens has changed in the sense that now they are totally an integrated part of our everyday life. I feel that ideas that had been conceptualized by film theorist could nowadays totally be applied to the way we live, like the off-screen space or the mise-en-scene. More than changing our relationship between film and audience, screens have changed our relationship with space and time, the here-and-now seems to mean something different now. The opposition is not so much fake/true, or even real/virtual (what we think by the word “reality” is also a symbolic construction), but the pair here/there.


Q: I read this really great article awhile ago about the way the internet is physically manifest in films, the difficultly of trying to make concrete this invisible thing so the film is not just a person typing at a computer. How did you develop the strong visual character of the internet in your film? For example, the video-chat glitches…did you make glitches? Or were they real? Your depiction of internet communication was so thoughtful and I was wondering how it came to be.

A: It was one of the biggest concerns, but also one of the most exciting challenges. My feeling is that internet is more a concept than a “thing” and as we all know, cameras capture things, not concepts. You can film screens, you can film websites, you can film interactions, you can film the technology that makes the internet possible, but you can’t film the internet. For me internet is all about “what-is-not-there.” As I said before, it is all about technology allowing us to be “there” and not “here.” 

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Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Tell Me A Different Story

If we can now access anything why do we continue to reach for the same things? 

Three times in one day (here, here, and here) I came across discussions of this thing that keeps bugging me: how the increase in global connectivity is shaping close knit niche markets, especially in film. This is something I saw and invited awhile ago but as this model unfolds I am starting to have some reservations... Is the potential for never seeing anything new, bad, or outside of one's comfort zone a possibility in the new creative market?  If Netflix can whittle down exactly what I like to watch will I ever see something I might not like? Will kids dig around in the trenches of the internet for weirdness? Or will unwatched, unloved, unpopular things be deleted & forgotten? And if we do find one unoccupied corner of culture will it then become the only thing we turn to, perpetuating the niche market cycle?

I recently saw the new Godzilla. At one point during Godzilla I turned around and looked at the light of Mothra bouncing on the wide-eyed faces in the audience. Seeing people engaged in some sort of creative pursuit, whether I like it or not, is thrilling! The communal experience of ideas/creativity (or....lack thereof...) that is experienced when one steps out of their cultural safe space is a vital part of life. It reminds me that there is a world beyond my own where people are telling stories that are not mine, stories that often help me learn, think and act beyond myself. How can anything be accomplished if people continue to only look at the stories that are reflections of themselves? And instantaneous reflections at that... Sure, the emergence of relatable communities is probably good in a lot of ways but is it also helping to build walls of ignorance? Exclusion? Misunderstanding?


Way back last November I interviewed musician/actor/swell guy Will Oldham on my radio show and I asked him about the new era of distinct media platforms and my worry that the collective conscious is going to give way to small clusters of consciousnesses that are being catered/sold to directly. Below is a small excerpt from that live radio interview (my first ever voice/live/phone interview: please be kind young trolls of the internet!). Things discussed: SHAZAM!, Internet Manga, myth making, Lou Reed, timelessness. (Pics from Godzilla, old, new, and ones we wish to forget.)



Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Deadly Ponies Gang!

On horses, humor & heart.


Dwayne & Clint are best friends living in New Zealand, well meaning deadbeats that have opted for souped up equines instead of souped up cars. Oddly enough I looked up the phrase souped up (because I've never typed it and didn't want to spell it wrong) and some say it has origins in horse racing, a term used to describe steroid injected animals! Ha! Not that these ponies are on drugs exactly...but their riders definitely are! The duo are the subjects of the comedic documentary The Deadly Ponies Gang which is full of stoners, graffiti, rapping cowboys, dentures, horse girls, horse thugs and extreme hilarity & heart.


Clint & Dwayne's "gang" consists of them. And sometimes a young boy who rides a horse and makes pretty stellar cardboard art cars. They idolize a country music rapper who often performs atop a sleek, gorgeous horse. They bring their horses to a beach to pick up chicks. I think there are even gang related tattoos at some point? The documentary mostly revolves around the pursuit of getting toothless Dwayne teeth, a tale that director Zoe McIntosh tells through keen editing, a soft eye and a mellow presence behind the camera that feels respectful & affectionate yet wholly curious of her one-of-a-kind subjects. When I saw this film I remember going through a lot of phases- first wondering if it was some sort of mockumentary, then laughing at the gang, then laughing with the gang, and then ending in a genuine caring for this pair of wayward pony lovers. It is a sweet, funny film that looks at friends creating their own very unique lifestyle while trying to do what all of us are trying to do, to be happy and find love in whatever form it chooses to take.


A free screening of The Deadly Ponies Gang is being presented by Rooftop Films & Industry City at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City Queens tomorrow (Wednesday July 15th) at 8pm, weather permitting. The director and one of the main subjects will be in attendance too! I don't want to say it's a family film exactly (drugs?)....but it is a film that I think anyone can, and should, easily enjoy.


The Deadly Ponies gang trailer. from Zoe McIntosh on Vimeo.

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Thursday, July 10, 2014

Analog, Alter, Augment

Old tech, new tech & the moving picture.

The blog has been a lot of listing lately. Mostly it's a function of the fact that my critical thinking ebbs in the muggy, sweaty, sticky Summer months that are upon us but it is also a function of life-related stresses! Hopefully things will fall into place soon and the storms will perpetually echo off the mountains, cooling my brain into a state of thought but until then....here is a list of recent film innovations, events, things that I think are integral to the not so distant futures & pasts of visual storytelling!


1. Mountain App. David OReilly is a visual artist best known for creating the crass interactive fictional videogame in the movie Her, but he's been making visual art for a long time before that. When I read about his new/first app Mountain I was annoyed: a "game" of a mountain simulator where kinda nothing happens? But, after downloading it I now completely get it: it is a prolonged, animated, falsely interactive, extended story that- like a pet- I perpetually project my emotions & understandings onto. The quiet beauty of a spinning rocky mass suspended in some sort of galaxy, changing weather, small events, and the calming white noise of a wind swept atmosphere is hypnotic & beautiful. Supposedly there is an ending to the "game" and there is some vague cosmic statement made by OReilly about each experience being different in the sense that "Everything interacts with itself and everything around it throughout time and space." The assumption that each Mountain is unique is amazing, the personal identification and the use of the phrase "my mountain" that the friends I have using the app are inclined towards makes me think some untapped audience need has been created here.  The app is more like watching a narrative about the life of an animated anthropomorphized habitat, and- like any good hero on screen- it is perfectly making us identify with it: this is a new type of filmmaking. Warning: do not confuse Mountain with Rock Simulator.


🗻 Mountain 🗻 from David OReilly on Vimeo.

2. 3D Projection Mapping. I used to think projection mapping was the same as projection masking but it is not. Masking is when a projector or surface is altered to accommodate an image, like tape put on a projector to mold the picture to a particular architectural element. Projection Mapping is when abnormal surfaces or shapes are projected onto. 3D Projection Mapping is a system of elaborately imaging a structure or space and creating programmed, multi-dimensional seeming projections that are able to (usually) interact precisely to that space.


The creative end of 3D projection mapping really is in its infancy, the content is not particularly artful, often a pure advertisement or dance-like abstraction and EDM (or whatever) seems to be the preferred soundtrack for the medium...but there is intense potential for visual storytelling here!!! Imagine if going to the movies meant sitting in a space in which the whole theater was exquisitely mapped, events unfolding around you? Personally I prefer this to any Oculus Rifting...but maybe it's because, despite the hi-techness of it, there is still a real, communal physicality taking place, a large scale, immersive augmented reality that could maybe be a new movie going experience?



3. Wenders is coming back with 3d! This time a fiction film! Called Everything Will Be Fine! Sheesh....this guy....! After experiencing Pina and his groundbreaking use of 3d- seeing it as a new, beautiful tool to tell a story with as opposed to simply a special effect that sits atop a movie to instill shock & awe- I am beyond excited to see what he does with a narrative...and a narrative in which there is a car crash!!!! Ok...I like some shock & awe: BUT IT WILL PROBABLY BE BREATHTAKING AT LEAST! Also, Fact: Wim Wenders is hotter than Franco!


4. The New Museum is having a panel/book launch for what looks like a great tech-moving-image title, The Emergence of Video Processing Tools. It seems the book charts the co-opting & creation of electronic tools for creative moving image production. And it doesn't seem to be a loose overview of the intersection of art & tech either, the book looks like it ponders larger questions regarding obsolescence, aesthetics, history (manifestos anyone? shudder....), & the distinct communities that evolved during the onset of machine/tool imaging in the 60s & 70s. A resource that thinks about tech art in an art historical and a tech historical sense as opposed to the general/trendy (remember New Aesthetic?) language the genre has been breeding is vital! Maybe I can convince my smalltown library to buy this book, no? The discussion & book launch take place on July 13th at 3pm at The New Museum, NYC.



5. This Friday, the 11th, in Baltimore (and traveling to a city maybe near YOU!) a bunch of the lo-fi, lo-res tech that is mentioned above will be put to use at The Basement Media Fest, being presented by Sight Unseen at The Holy Underground. I have no idea what any of this means but who can resist a description that includes this: COME ENJOY SOME 100 YR OLD TECH IN A STATE OF THE ART CONVERTED BODEGA THEATER.///WARNING/// SUM OF THESE MOVIES FEATURE FLICKERING LIGHT AND RAPIDLY CHANGING MOTION. MAY CAUSE SEIZURES/MOTION SICKNESS. IF YOU HAVE TO SPEW, SPEW IN THIS.



I had this weird feeling the other day about how dated our CGI of now might be in a few decades. Will we look back & laugh (like I do at Titanic )? Will our tools continue to improve? What does the definition of "improve" even look like when we can invent machines that can create things our eyes can't even see? How scientific advancement can inspire, improve, move beyond a human realm of existence, or even just create plain joy will never, ever stop being fascinating to me.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Review for H2N: Who Took Johnny

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

I Don't Want to Grow Up

Two movies that treat adulthood like an unexpected, unwanted deer in the road.  

The main characters of The Disobedient, Leni & Lazar, are children trapped inside of adult bodies and like little kids uncomfortable in clothing they are aching to be naked, writhing their way out of the expectations inherent in growing up. This film is a sprite-ly, dark, conflicting, sexual, road/bike trip through the Serbian countryside as these two childhood friends reunite (at a funeral no less!) and rekindle their twisted, juvenile relationship. The two have that creepy yet sweet madcap dynamic- almost like Belmondo & Anna Karina in Godard's Pierrot Le Fou- that is mesmerizing, disgusting, beautiful and freeing all at once; they disrupt their surroundings, are plagued by impulse and are wholly unhealthy for eachother- much like life itself! It is a hard film to try and capture in words, the actions of the characters speak more than any dialogue...in fact, an older gentleman (whom I read was, fittingly, the host of a popular Serbian children's tv show) acts as a narrator throughout the film, following the two as they eddy around creating their nearly inconsequential paths of destruction and explaining some of the action to the audience like a storybook reader removed from time.

This is the type of movie I normally don't like, beautiful but barely likable characters acting within extremely stylized scenes, glassy emotion favored over depth or narrative boldness. But, The Disobedient uses this often unlikable form as a critique on the very culture it is displaying. It captures the essence of childhood innocence, the tortured beauty in growing up, the minefield of interpersonal relationships, inconsequential tradition, and questions the status quo (an epic, comically surreal wedding crashing scene actually manages to address all of these themes in one swift spin), imparting these portraits with a contrived rawness that is ingrained in the ever-growing real world population of childlike adults. This film is a striking portrait of gross indulgence that is a difficult truth to look at, if living in the (manufactured, dreamy, contradictory) moment is the alternative to responsibility & stability what does the future look like?  Rooftop Films Tuesday July 1st, NY Premier with the actors & director & drinks & Balkan music on a rooftop farm. Seriously.


Thanksgiving tells a story about a woman who invites her so-called brother to Thanksgiving, an arrogant man-child coolly living off the grid. His truculent attitude slowly chips away at her normal life, one that is swathed in a room full of holiday hipster perfection (probably gluten free & locally sourced) complete with a boring, round-glasses-wearing, doting partner...The theme of beautiful exteriors and clawing interiors is mirrored by the warm yellow tone of the film, an embracing softness that feels too good to be true and just might be. The cramped spaces of the city & its expectations balanced with the sweeping unknown of an outdoor hike made me wonder if the director, Adam Newport-Berra, was a cinematographer: he is!. Berra tells most of the story through visual tension, relying on a strong eye, and placing his characters expertly within his vivid frames. This film is a very real tale about a conflict that I think many 20-30year old gentrifying urbanites go through: do we want a passionate, volatile, exciting life or do we want the seemingly smooth ride of complacency and tradition? Do we want to play records or do we want to play house?


Thanksgiving tells a common conflict of growing up vs. not growing up but it does not simply announce a clear winner. It slyly explores the entire notion of societal expectations and personal expression- what we want, want we are told we want, and what we actually need- with a slight acknowledgement of how capitalism defines these expectations & expressions. Similar in scope to the film Rachel Getting Married (an idealized gloss of an event with a charged undercurrent of anger & dissatisfaction) and even a little of Woody Allen's Interiors (composed spaces glossing over real familial concerns) the calm, tender filmmaking that supports the narrative is crafted by a thoughtful, ambitious eye, a filmmaker who hopefully has more stories to tell. Thanksgiving has its world premier at  Rooftop Films Thursday July 3rd, the film will open with a special guest set by comic Reggie Watts (who makes a cameo in the film).


[Note: I wrote (heavily edited) descriptions of these films for Rooftop!]



Friday, June 27, 2014

Prop Art

The rise in film related museum shows: are we already mourning cinema?

Is the museum takeover of movie ephemera weird to anyone else? I mean...I loooove that storyboards, costumes, set pieces- all that stuff- are becoming elevated to art (jump started by the wildly attended Tim Burton retrospective at MoMA a few years ago, and Deitch's Gondry fetish leading up to that..and the recently announced Bjork exhibit- a music, film, costume, app crossover- which spurred me to write this post). And it is great that these things are no longer regulated to solely movie museums and Planet Hollywoods across the globe but....it also spooks me a little that people need to see these physical objects removed from the ethereal cinematic experience in order to appreciate them.

Each of these film-related "things" we see in museums were placed with a purpose, expertly lit, engaged in a story, edited, appeared during a particular song, and so on, culminating in the all encompassing form of contemporary art: cinema! There are a few reasons I think this trend is happening:1. The high-art film prop is acting to ground cinema in the real world, to elevate & isolate it from the accessible internet ether that films are now floating in. 2. It is new way to profit from the rickety film system, these objects seen as solid commodities in the market of a not-so-concrete medium. 3. The accessibility of a film audience is being capitalized on by these museums in an attempt to bolster visitor numbers...most people have probably heard of Burton whereas Arp? Probably not so much! Ultimately, these shows are helping film during its weird digital transition but seeing these tiny parts divested from their whole is a worrisome thing to me.


Seeing objects stripped of meaning in an alien setting could take away from the elaborate, constructed film world they were meant to live in. Here is my terrible, overly dramatic comparison: a stroke of a Picasso instead of the whole thing? A sentence of Hemingway instead of the novel? No way! Without the big picture, objects are somewhat empty, devoid of their signification. Seeing a cinematic object becomes a Where's Waldo interaction with film ("What film did this come from?") rather than a thoughtful, introspective, emotional one ("what was the symbolic importance of this object in this particular story"). And, even if the craft of the objects themselves are being celebrated as a new type of sculpture, there is the craft of the huge undertaking of film that could also use a fine art pedestal. But....despite my skepticism: I am planning on seeing the hell out of the Jim Henson exhibit listed below!



1. David Cronenberg, The Exhibition. (a traveling exhibit originating from TIFF). The EYE Film Institute of Amsterdam. June 22nd-Sept 14th, 2014.  Well...if a filmmaker is going to have an exhibit with objects I guess Cronenberg IS the best candidate being that his films often deal with the physical manifestations of psychological states that his transforming, mutating, augmented characters undergo...! (Images from top: Crash, The Fly, eXistenZ)


2. Jim Henson: The Exhibition. The Museum of the Moving Image. Queens, NY. TBD 2015.
Jim Henson is one of my heroes. Rooted in experimental film he managed to be one of the only people to elevate puppets to actors while combining a signature heart, humor, and artistry. I can see there being a positive effect of seeing Henson's creation in the flesh too, reinforcing a physical creativity that is fundamental in storytelling and play, aspects of childhood development that need to be revived. There will be puppets! (Image from previous exhibit Jim Henson's Fantastic World)


3. The Dying of the Light: Film as Medium & Metaphor. Mass MoCA. North Adams, MA. Opens March 29th-2014-????. This exhibit is a nice confluence of my concerns above as it focuses on the medium of film (film film, not digital film). It deals with the changing symbol film has become, its physical presence, its mechanical needs, the physical yet transparent materialization-and more- all highly unique to this form. Film itself is now an object. Most of all: I love me some Tacita Dean! Other artists on display include Rosa Barba, Rodney Graham, Lisa Oppenheim, and Simon Starling. (Image directly above & below)



4. Icons of Science Fiction and Can't Look Away: The Lure of Horror Films. EMP (Experience Music Project). Seattle, WA. Summer 2014. Horror and Sci-fi used to rely on the physical to create their own emotional microcosms. It is weird to think that these shows are like Unnatural history exhibits, artifacts to the now digital worlds created for scary & futuristic movies...weird! I wonder if this is another reason hands on film shows are so popular...the world is changing so fast our dinosaurs are still living.  I just learned about this space, EMP, created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, designed by Frank Gehry, and celebrating the art of popular culture- neato! (Below: the axe from The Shining, as part of Can't Look Away show)


Thursday, June 19, 2014

Humans for Film!

Movements beyond movies.

As I often do, here is a list of ways to support current socially conscious film endeavors! The diversity of stories that still need to be told through film is vast and projects like the ones below could use the support they deserve!

1. Sarah Jacobson was a bad ass female filmmaker who studied under George Kuchar, making her signature edgy but thoughtful films with no excuses. I have seen some of her work, not a ton, but I have seen a lot of the work from the recipients of her memorial Film Grant and every single one of them is carrying on the heartful, dark, DIY spirit that Jacobson seemed to embody. Donations into this fund are being accepted until Friday June 20th through Indiegogo. If, like me, you look to film in order to see the world from a different perspective and push artistic boundaries please give! Or, apply for the grant next year to help keep her spirit alive!


2. This one is a personal/highly local one but I would be stupid not to ask....I currently live in a tiny, tiny town in Southern Vermont that, drawing me to it like a moth to flame, has the largest film screen in the state! Every Wednesday for $5 a classic movie is screened for the community in the fully restored Bellows Falls Opera House. Seeing a little girl sing along to Mary Poppins, watching a group of eyes-covered adults experience The Shining for the first time, even having some firsts of my own (WTF Sean Connery Bond!?) are the reasons that I continue to promote film: sharing stories through art to bring us closer to each other in the world beyond the screen. The series is subsidized by the town but attendance has been low lately so a friend of mine (with a little help from me) have started a campaign to keep it going (<---CLICK ME!). Even if you aren't one of the 3,000 people living in my little Vermont village, fostering creativity through the legacy of cinema is a cause definitely worth supporting...you never know, maybe we have the next Lars Von Trier among us?


3. And speaking of sharing stories to foster an understanding....the Human Rights Watch Film Festival is underway in NYC (ending June 22nd)! HRW is an independent organization that researches, documents, exposes and aids in issues regarding abuses of people worldwide. As their website describes: "Through our Human Rights Watch Film Festival we bear witness to human rights violations and create a forum for courageous individuals on both sides of the lens to empower audiences with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a difference. The film festival brings to life human rights abuses through storytelling in a way that challenges each individual to empathize and demand justice for all people."  This humanitarian fest features an incredible line up of films that perfectly balance artistry with issue, even offering a traveling version of their program in order to have the widest impact possible. Igniting action through the flicker of the film projector? Exactly!