Screen direction – one amongst many rules in visual storytelling. This one dictates the direction in which people look at each other, or the direction in which they walk, implying that on the two- dimensional screen, the characters are engaged by their looks, or walk away or toward one another.
I’m editing a film right now, and okay, some mistakes were made on the set. Not many, granted, but a few. In other words, we thought an actor should have been walking or looking right to left and as it turns out, when we cut it together, there’s a jump where we’ve crossed the 180 degree “line” – the actor should have been looking or walking the other way. In the last week, I’ve asked myself, in this age of very sophisticated film viewing, does it even matter anymore? Should we just sort of, get over it?
Chita Rivera onstage at New York City’s Birdland Jazz Club – October 13, 2009.
Saxophone giant Charlie “Bird” Parker called it the “crossroads of the world.” New York City’s famed jazz club, Birdland, was just that on Tuesday for the launch of beloved Broadway star Chita Rivera’s new album, And Now I Swing.
Jay Smooth, who created the hip hop music blog and founded NYC’s hip-hop radio show, WBAI’s Underground Railroad, recently took on Roman Polanski on his blog. Roman Polanski on a hip-hop blog? Ok, I’ll listen.
The rant, clocking in at over seven minutes, is hard to look away from. He presents his case against Polanski, and Polanski supporters, in smart intense ramblings. And while most talking heads on TV leave me dizzy and unimpressed something is really engaging about this guy. Why is he on the radio and not TV? The whole Polanski debate is quite something. As many members of the film community have come out in support of Polanski, this charged rant takes the other side.
Like my colleague Lisa, who wrote recently on this subject, I too saw Jane Campion’s BRIGHT STAR. What innovation … Campion truly takes luscious to a new level. One element far more subtle than butterflies and tree tops, though, that I noticed right away and has been on my mind since, is how Campion twists traditional portraiture and cinematography composition by using the center of the frame. The center of the frame? Who cares! Well, to some geeks out there, including me, it’s absolutely notable.
Usually in Hollywood we hear stories about how a director’s vision is compromised and corrupted by the influence of big business, movie heads, and focus groups. The New York Times Magazineran a story about Spike Jonze’s journey of bringing Maurice Sendak’s brilliant, iconic Where the Wild Things Are to life. It seems in this case, art, and the good guy, have won.
The Wizard of Oz turned seventy this year. The film continues to cast its spell on both children and adults. It has staying power that’s unheard of in Hollywood. And rightfully, in celebration of this big birthday, Netflix will on October 3rd stream the film for free for 24 hours.
A new AIDS awareness-commercial, released last week online in Germany, uses a strong and familiar image to give a face to the AIDS virus. Adolf Hitler appears as a woman’s lover in the spot that reads “AIDS is a mass murderer.” It’s a ballsy move, that the organization Rainbow is willing to take. Jan Schwertner, their spokesman told TIME “AIDS is a forgotten issue in Germany. It’s been swept under the carpet. This shock campaign is necessary to get people thinking again.”
Not everyone agrees. Many other AIDS organizations are decrying the ads as being insensitive to Holocaust survivors (shades of the recent WWF 9/11 ad controversy) and say that it is unfair to equate HIV positive people with murderers. But the ads took to TV today regardless. Other villains depicted in the ads include Stalin and Saddam Hussein.
This time lapse video of every conceivable type of that summer elixir, ice cream and all its derivatives melting is deliciously contemplative and meditative. This was created by Mind Pie, a video art collective. The segment involving the ice cream sandwich melting would probably however horrify my special lady friend who loves ice cream sandwiches more than anything else in life. She would scream at all that ice cream being wasted.
“Everyone Forever Now” is an “episodic motion-based media project” that “is an examination of the collective wisdom and expression of human actions.” Creators Will Hoffman & Daniel Mercadante attempt to document and capture the mundane experiences of everyday like suntanning to the provocative such as shooting a gun. I particularly enjoyed their effort to document the art and practice of stoop sitting. When I used to live in an apartment with a stoop, one of my daily joys was to come home from work to sit on the stoop, observe, and feel the pulse of my neighborhood, as well as occasionally inform a driver that they couldn’t park in front because of the fire hydrant.
Since Sundance Channel shows so many GLBT-themed films, I’d be remiss to not point out After Elton’s recent list of iconic gay movie roles. They based their inclusions on cultural significance and cultural impact, spotlighting “10 performances that we believe changed the popular perception of gay men in some important ways.” The list is thorough and thoughtful.
Obvious mentions like Tom Hanks in PHILADELPHIA and Heath Ledger in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN are included. But it’s the more obscure inclusions that have me rushing to my change up my Netflix queue. Those mentions include Daniel Day-Lewis & Gordon Warnecke in 1985’s MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE and Colin Farrell in A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD.
But it is Bruce Davison’s turn in LONGTIME COMPANION that I find the most compelling. Released in 1990 it was still ahead of its time and the actor rightfully deserved his Oscar nod.
Populist director Michael Moore takes a stab at the fat cats of Wall Street in his latest film CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY, a documentary about the financial crisis of 2007-2009 and the subsequent stimulus and bailout packages. CAPITALISM echoes similar themes from a 2003 Canadian documentary THE CORPORATION, a critical examination of the modern-day corporation and its behavior towards society.
