There's a service for that.
Off Folsom in Boulder.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
BIFF'd
Photo by Skinny Bald Guy
It's not clear to me whether the programing for the 2011 Boulder International Film Festival skewed, on the whole, to films about political oppression and violence and the struggle of humanity in the unrelenting face of each of these, or if I just gravitate to depravity like a bad boyfriend.
Either way, I got an eyeful over the last three days. Now it's your turn.
The Green Wave
Because I followed it on the social networks and in the news, I thought I knew all there was to know about the 2009 uprising in Iran. I didn't.
Insert unspeakable atrocities and human rights abuses here.
The film was promoted as being strung together out of social, user-generated content. This isn't entirely true. While the Green Wave makes use of UGC -- chiefly low res video clips and a scattering of tweets (which the filmmakers refer to charmingly as "twitter messages" and omit the expected "@" attribution so we don't know who has said these things) -- the core of the film is constructed of old-school talking head interviews yoked together by the animated illustrations of Alireza Darvish.
Contains a harrowing prison scene, something that is always guaranteed to capture my attention, because I harbor an irrational fear of unjust imprisonment without hope of release.
The Woman with the Five Elephants
More war. More political imprisonment. More past events that percolate into the present, inescapable. Plus Dostoevsky.
My favorite film of the weekend because of its humanity, decency, intelligence -- and moral ambiguity.
Armadillo
More war. More moral ambiguity. Threat of prison. And bonus political insight/personal connection from Mikkel of Shady Acres fame »
Nostalgia de la Luz // Nostalgia for the Light
A remarkable meditation on place, politics, memory and the unknowable moment. Beautifully filmed, extraordinarily insightful, it leveled me like the films of Ron Fricke even though it bears no narrative resemblance (I'm thinking Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi, not Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith).
Prison bit: Concentration camp in the Atacama desert.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
BIFFin' it
The Boulder International Film Festival has been hit and miss.
MISS: Crazy bad intro reel that plays before all the films that's almost exclusively pulsing corporate logos and entirely devoid of tone and character. BIFF: take a clue from SIFF and SxSW who shoot super cool shorts to fill this slot and promote the festival. Corporate credits belong in the CREDITS. That's what they're there for.
MISS: Overpriced VIP pass for a festival that's way too short. Festivals flow better with a pass in hand: lines are shorter, admission is guaranteed, and you save hours of administrative hassle because there are no decisions to be made until half an hour before curtain. When the festival spans a week or two you can pace yourself and still get your money's worth. Not so with the steep price tag for BIFF. By the time I'm done on Sunday I will have averaged fifty bucks a film. At least I'm supporting filmmaking. I hope.
MISS: Crazy bad intro reel that plays before all the films that's almost exclusively pulsing corporate logos and entirely devoid of tone and character. BIFF: take a clue from SIFF and SxSW who shoot super cool shorts to fill this slot and promote the festival. Corporate credits belong in the CREDITS. That's what they're there for.
MISS: Overpriced VIP pass for a festival that's way too short. Festivals flow better with a pass in hand: lines are shorter, admission is guaranteed, and you save hours of administrative hassle because there are no decisions to be made until half an hour before curtain. When the festival spans a week or two you can pace yourself and still get your money's worth. Not so with the steep price tag for BIFF. By the time I'm done on Sunday I will have averaged fifty bucks a film. At least I'm supporting filmmaking. I hope.
MISS: Single screenings for most films. Introduce at least two per piece and we're halfway to a longer, better-paced festival.
MISS: Spotty projection at the Boulder Theater. Something's up with the machine they're using to screen the films and the screen goes dark at regular intervals.
HIT: The films have been stellar, which makes up for the misses.
More on the movies soon -- after I've heard Mr. James Franco expound on his mastery of the universe.
Odds are on a miss.
Posting by cameraphone from the Boulder Theater.
HIT: The films have been stellar, which makes up for the misses.
More on the movies soon -- after I've heard Mr. James Franco expound on his mastery of the universe.
Odds are on a miss.
Posting by cameraphone from the Boulder Theater.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
3-second rule
Photo by nicky.reynolds
What we have is very broad research showing that we experience the world in about these 3-second time frames.
Developmental psychologist Emese Nagy of the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom, commenting on her study: Sharing the moment: the duration of embraces in humans, in which she determines that the average Olympic gymnasts' hug lasts about three seconds.
Nagy's research stems from older studies that have observed this 3-second rule in human nature, as reported by the Journal Science:
Crosscultural studies dating back to 1911 have shown that people tend to operate in 3-second bursts. Goodbye waves, musical phrases, and infants' bouts of babbling and gesturing all last about 3 seconds. Many basic physiological events, such as relaxed breathing and certain nervous system functions do, too. And several other species of mammals and birds follow the general rule in their body-movement patterns. A 1994 study of giraffes, okapis, roe deer, raccoons, pandas, and kangaroos living in zoos, for example, found that although the duration of the animals' every move, from chewing to defecating, varied considerably, the average was, you guessed it, 3 seconds.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
free with tempi
In an age before mechanical repetition, before constant noise, before continuous acceleration, did people have a different sense of time? Pianists today are nowhere as free with tempi, as improvisatory yet structured, as subtle.
Shirley Apthorp in the Financial Times writing about Chasing the Butterfly, new recordings of Grieg -- that rely on old takes by Grieg.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
international business machines
Brilliant short on important tech history by the commercial and documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. The piece was commissioned by IBM for their 100th anniversary.
(Betcha can't clear the Mandelbrot scene without choking up.)
via @frydave
Friday, January 21, 2011
smells like
Tamily Weissman, Jeff Lichtman, and Joshua Sanes (2007). Image taken from a transgenic “Brainbow” mouse that enables neuroscientists to distinguish between neighboring, densely packed neurons by illuminating them in different colors. This photomicrograph shows a few of the many neurons that are found in the neocortex.
Image via "Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century," by Carl Schoonover; Published by Abrams, featured on Book Bench, the New Yorker blog
Made me think of the kaleidoscope that is Klimt:
Sunday, January 16, 2011
jarmusch rules (abbrv.)
Rule #1: There are no rules.
Rule #2: Don’t let the fuckers get ya.
Rule #3: The production is there to serve the film.
Rule #4: Filmmaking is a collaborative process.
Rule #5: Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”
Posting these so I don't lose track of them. They're intended for filmmakers but apply across the board. Treat yourself and read them in their entirety.
Found via users illusions.
something called a mouse
What is this? Look at this, Keith. This is incredible! My God! I drew a circle!
Andy Warhol to Keith Haring at a 9-year old's birthday party in 1985. The two were playing with the Macintosh computer that Steve Jobs had just given the birthday boy. From the Playboy Interview with Steve Jobs that same year »
Sunday, January 09, 2011
far more forthright, direct, humane
The passive voice is wildly overused in government writing. Typically its purpose is to conceal information — one is less likely to be jailed if one says, ‘He was hit by a stone,’ than if he says, ‘I hit him with a stone.’ The active voice is far more forthright, direct, humane.
Economist Alfred E. Kahn in a memo to his Civil Aeronautics Board staff in 1977, cited by his friend Robert Frank in today's New York Times.
Stacey Harwood also wrote about the memo in The Best American Poetry shortly after Kahn's death, and posted image copies online if you'd like to give it a read.
I have heard it said that style is not substance, but without style what is substance? — Kahn
stan adrift
Snow's just begun. Five to ten inches expected. Stan and I have canceled our plans and are staying home with the Sunday New York Times.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
the safety of the world
The safety of the world depends on your saying 'no' to inhumane ideas. Standing up for one's own integrity makes you no friends. It is costly. Yet defiance of the mob, in the service of that which is right, is one of the highest expressions of courage I know.
Representative Gabrielle Giffords' commencement address to Claremont's Scripps College in May 2009, as reported by the LA Times after Giffords was shot in the head this morning by a gunman at a "Congress on your Corner" event in Tucson. Six others were killed.
this is stan
I found Stan in an art supply store. He's a Woodland Scenics Seated People (1/4" Scale A2043).
He was hanging on an aisle endcap and caught my eye as I was scanning the rows for pens. He and his people were all seated, waiting eternally. Stan seemed the most optimistic of the crew, looking off to the far horizon. Hopeful. Confident. Longing.
I snapped his picture, found the pens, paid at the register and went my way.
But for some reason I couldn't forget about Stan.
A few weeks later I went back and bought the last pack of Woodland Scenics Seated People off the rack.
And now we're getting to know each other, me and Stan.
More to come.
Friday, January 07, 2011
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
sometimes we simply perform in the woods
They do their pieces in this tiny studio, with no publicity whatsoever, for an audience that is reached through text messages, and that audience never comes directly to the theater. They are met at another location and escorted to the theater by a cast member. When you come, you are advised to bring your passport, because you never know when the police are going to show up and haul everyone off to jail.
Catherine Coray, a theater professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, speaking of the Belarus Free Theater in this morning's New York Times.
The Belarus Free Theater players are currently in New York where they are performing in Being Harold Pinter as part of the Public Theater's Under The Radar Festival.
Monday, January 03, 2011
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