It’s fairly unreal, but our entire film project titled SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS fits into a Chrysler Caravan rented at LAX. We’re making this micro-budget feature, you see, and there’s just enough room for two directors, one DP, one actress and one sound guy. The van happens to be, er, the featured picture car as well. Here we are, on our way to our next location (this photo was snapped after leaving Las Vegas – the only people to drive out of there that morning with absolutely no hangover):
Max Porter, a regular reader of our SUNfiltered blog and one half of the talented married duo behind Tiny Inventions (a Brooklyn-based animation firm), wrote in to share a funny independent short film he created with his wife Ru Kuwahata. SOMETHING LEFT, SOMETHING TAKEN is about a couple on vacation in San Francisco who become convinced they are stuck with a man they believed to be the [cue scary music] Zodiac Killer!
Max and Ru utilized a diverse range of techniques from stop-motion to puppetry to digital animation, while incorporating different materials such as Jell-O and cardboard props. After you view the behind the scenes, you’ll understand why this impressive project took 2.5 years.
“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” — Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax
Almost anyone who was a child in the last forty years probably received their first introduction to environmentalism through Theodore Geisel’s (aka Dr. Seuss) classic 1971 book The Lorax. A year after its publication, the story came to the small screen; now, according to Variety (and a few greenblogs), a feature-length version of the story is set for a March 2, 2012 release (which is also Geisel’s 108th birthday).
Gabriel Psaltakis created and directed this sweet and funny short Greek film titled THE GIRL ON THE WALL. Mixing live action with stop-motion animation, a bored office man helps a love-struck street art character woo a disinterested girl across the street.
After a stint of experimental flops – 2001’s STORYTELLING and PALINDROMES in 2004 – writer/director Todd Solondz’s latest film, LIFE DURING WARTIME, marks a return to the familiar world of HAPPINESS, his successful 1998 follow up to his break out film WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE. HAPPINESS revolves around a family of three sisters: Helen, a successful, jaded writer, Trish, a Mrs. Cleaver type in pleated khakis and Joy, a frizzy-haired, soft-spoken, flower child screw up. Perversion and pedophilia, two of Solondz’s all-time favorite themes, are hard at work here, whether it’s Philip Seymour-Hoffman’s character jerking off to calls to random women in the phone book or Trish’s husband Bill, the unsuspecting nebbish (Dylan Baker) who rapes his son’s friend from little league.
The 50 glorious minutes that are the first episode of Mad Men season 4 more than justify all the show’s pre-premiere hype. Spoiler Alert: If you didn’t cancel all your plans between 10-11 pm last night and sit glued to AMC, then you’ll want to click away until you come to your senses and watch Betty and Don and the rest of the gang in all their season 4 glory.
Lisa and I are in the middle of shooting our micro-budget feature titled SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS, and we are thinking hard about methodology, tools, and how this approach might simply … change things. Here’s a beauty:
Charles Swanson, our cinematographer … he’s in charge of beauty. The beast? Well, that’s the mountain of a challenge he has in front of him to achieve that beauty with ONE tool, make that two (see camera and Chimera light above) and, er, no crew. Sometimes he just looks at us, like … “really?”
With THE DARK KNIGHT, Christopher Nolan established himself as a director with the ability to translate the artfulness of a film like MEMENTO into a blockbuster that packs equal parts action and story. Even with an ensemble case, THE DARK KNIGHT manages to retain a singular character study that remains the heart of the story, no matter how many explosions go off in the background.
Almost the opposite is true of INCEPTION, Nolan’s ‘break’ while finishing up the Batman trilogy.
Your moment of zen today is provided by Ian Berenger and his video “Our time is brief,” which was inspired by a personal loss. Ian explains:
I sometimes get so caught up in the drama of everyday life that I forget to sit back and enjoy the simple things. Losing a dear friend this year really taught me how precious our time on this earth really is. You’re here one second and gone the next, so if you have something to say to someone don’t hesitate to do it before its too late.
Who knew an out of focus fireworks show could be so meditative and quietly beautiful? Watch with sound on.
Perrin recently reviewed THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, a new movie starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as lesbian mothers. It is the longest time I have ever spent with a lesbian couple in my entire life here on this great earth. And was rather enjoyable. Who knew?
Cary Grant attempts to pass as a woman in I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE.
Cray Grant lovers rejoice. There are still two more weeks to catch BAM’s second ode to Hollywood’s most charismatic leading man. I seem to remember last year’s line up featuring more of his better known films, and while this month’s screening schedule certainly hits all the high notes with films like CHARADE, NOTORIOUS, BRINGING UP BABY and AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER, it also includes some of his lesser known roles, including some films not available on DVD. Take today’s screening, the off-kilter, family friendly ONCE UPON A TIME, which features Grant as a struggling theatrical producer who discovers a young orphan with a dancing caterpillar. Buyer beware, the dancing caterpillar is the crux of the entire film, and Grant delivers all the passion and drama usually devoted to more plausible plots to one little, wriggling worm he’s convinced will lift people up out of their dreary war-ridden lives.
