Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

Here it is, a link to the holy grail of screenwriting. Rumored to be the greatest screenplay ever written, Edward Ford was written by Lem Dobbs, author of The Limey and Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka. One of the best things about reading unproduced screenplays is that you get to imagine them yourself instead of seeing how someone else put it together. Wrap your head around this!  (link fixed)

Screenwriters Utopia is a wonderful resource for screenwriters. You can find scripts, workshops, script evaluators and other great resources. They also have an article on the The Ten Best Unproduced Screenplays … Edward Ford is, of course, number one.

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Now, I’m reading Peter Biskind’s Down & Dirty Pictures, subtitled Miramax, Sundance and The Rise of Independent Pictures. The book was released January 6, 2004 (just in time for the festival). While databasing 1987, I recalled that Biskind, the author, was a documentary judge at Sundance. I also recalled that Biskind was the former editor of Premiere magazine. It is fascinating reading even if it savages most of the primary players. Like Devil’s Candy and You’ll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again, it offers insights in to places that some people would prefer we didn’t look.

Printmaking Success

Yesterday, we went to Mesa Art Center for a printmaking session (many thanks to David Manje) and it was a GREAT day. In fact, it was probably the best printmaking session ever! Harry, Sam and Brandi’s prints were crisp and clear, the images rich and velvety, the workflow invigorating. Support was provided by Cindy S. making the day a complete pleasure.

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“The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.”
    James Baldwin (1924 - 1987)
    U.S. author

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Two films we saw at Sundance this year included Lar von Trier’s Dogville and the brilliant The Five Obstructions. While von Trier has become the whipping boy of late, the filmmaker everyone loves to hate — I still love his work. Dark, moody, cynical, pyrrhic — what’s not to love?

The greatest thing about The Five Obstructions is that it’s a tremendous teaching/learning tool AND an homage to teaching. Given that I’m a teacher and love filmmaking, this film becomes a small slice of heaven for me. The NYTimes describes the film thusly:

In 1967, a fledgling Danish filmmaker, Jorgen Leth, made a 13-minute short called “The Perfect Human.” Shot in cool, high-contrast black and white, the film was a mysterious mock-anthropological study of two supposedly perfect human specimens — one male, one female — who perform everyday acts like eating, sleeping and falling down while a stern narrator (Mr. Leth) describes their perfectly banal activities in the patient tone of a college lecturer. Four years ago Mr. von Trier invited Mr. Leth to participate in the desecration of his own film. The notion was to take “The Perfect Human” and remake it five times, each time under a different set of arbitrarily imposed restrictions. One version, for example, would be made in Cuba, a country that Mr. Leth had never visited, and would contain no shots longer than 12 frames — about half a second. Another version had to be an animation. It’s an amazing film that I strongly recommend!

This is what makes Sundance so wonderful for me!

The films that are gathered at the festival in January roll out across the United States over the next year or two. As a festival attendee, you know the films you watch WILL BE important and WILL MAKE their mark in the future … a future you get to watch unfold!

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“With you I should love to live, with you be ready to die.”
    Horace (65 BC - 8 BC)
    Roman Lyric Poet Odes

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Newly formed HDNet Films, headed by Jason Kliot and Joana Vicente, has greenlit its first three films to be shot in 2004. The company, which is a division of Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban’s 2929 Entertainment, has signed on for “Quid Pro Quo,” a dark comedy written and directed by Carlos Brooks, “Over the Mountains,” a contemporary political drama written by Joseph Castelo, Ayad Stehle-Aktar, and Tom Glynn, and Enron doc “Black Magic,” by Alex Gibney. For more info on the new projects, Wendy Mitchell reports for [IndieWIRE Story. ]

Mark Cuban, you may recall, is the fellow featured on 60 Minutes and other newsmagazines as the man who became a BILLIONAIRE during the early years of the Dot.Com craze by re-broadcasting college football over the internet. Recognizing the bubble was going to burst, Cuban sold off his internet stocks, acquired the Dallas Mavericks and other traditional business enterprises.

Extremely ambitious, Cuban revealed his business model during his interview, “Be first. Figure out what’s coming and be there first.” With that in mind, he began producing high definition content. He says that his company produces more HD than HBO, NBC, CBS and ABC combined. As more households come online with High Definition Television, Cuban believes viewers will not settle for inferior image quality and he’ll be in the catbird seat with THOUSANDS of hours of HD programming. Read more about the HDNet Story. And, for those of you tracking reality TV, you may have noticed there’s going to be a new “Apprentice” style show in the fall starring, who else, Mark Cuban.

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This is our dog, Kayla. (When she’s feeling uppity, she goes by K-La.) She’s a Queensland Heeler with an attitude (you would expect anything else from our dog?). We think she’s gorgeous, the Julia Roberts of her breed. Kayla is a herding dog. We always know when the phones are ringing, the FedEx truck has arrived, people are coming up the walk or the garage door has opened. You can read all about her type at All Things Cattle Dog or at Queensland Heeler Pages.

The main thing I’ve been trying to do the past two weeks is work like a dog. What that means is I lay around most of the time in dappled shade and make sure to get to the kitchen around mealtime. Let’s hear it for the Dog Days of Summer!

“Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.”
    William Penn (1644 - 1718)
    English Colonist

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Napoleon Dynamite is a terrific comedy that premiered at Sundance this year. Set in modern day Idaho, Napoleon Dynamite is the story of the trials, challenges and joys of growing up in remote, rural America. Reminiscent of Todd Solondz’s Welcome To The Dollhouse, the film focuses on the agonizing high school years. The film was directed by Jared Hess, a former student of Brigham Young University. First developed as a short film entitled Peluca (which was chosen for Slamdance the previous year), Napoleon won no festival awards but was clearly an audience favorite. Every screening of the film during the festival was sold out. You can get good sense of the comic sensibility of the film from the Napoleon Movie Trailer. The romantic lead is played by Tina Majorino. I looked at her for the longest time, trying to place who she was. Suddenly, it struck me. She was the child, Enola on Kevin Costner’s WaterWorld. Purchased for a reported $3.5 million, the film keeps popping up as the summer film to see. I strongly recommend it and, you can take the entire family, there’s no swearing, nudity or violence. Amazingly, it’s still great.

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Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason have written a novel in which they have invented a solution behind the mysteries of the 1499 book The Hypnerotomachia — a book written by an unknown author (or authors) in five languages, beautifully illustrated and completely enigmatic. It’s the story of “Strife of Love in a Dream.” NYTimes Book Review by Dinitia Smith lays out the story and the tale of the authors. Ironically, I spent hours this weekend trying to find the title of the book (having read another review a few weeks earlier) so I could go get it.

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While Michael Moore’s doc “Fahrenheit 9/11″ ruled the Festival de Cannes, winning the coveted Palme d’Or over the weekend, Magnolia Pictures’ “Control Room” (via IndieWire) commandeered the specialty box office, managing a revenue coup at a venerable New York cinema where it debuted to a three-day sell out. Last week’s topper “Coffee & Cigarettes” only experienced a mild come down in its expansion, taking the second spot on the iW BOT, measured by per screen average. Two self-distributed pics scurried to the third and fourth position on the chart, while Roadside Attractions/Samuel Goldwyn’s “Super Size Me” added extra helpings to its playdates. Brian Brooks reports. (05/26/04)

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And, Director Morgan Spurlock’s has a blog about his documentary film, SuperSize Me. In the film (which appeared at Sundance this year), Spurlock hit the road and interviewed experts in 20 U.S. cities, including Houston, the “Fattest City” in America. From Surgeon Generals to gym teachers, cooks to kids, lawmakers to legislators, these authorities shared their research, opinions and “gut feelings” on our ever-expanding girth.

During the journey, Spurlock also put his own body on the line, living on nothing but McDonald’s for an entire month with three simple rules:

1) No options: he could only eat what was available over the counter (water included!)
2) No supersizing unless offered
3) No excuses: he had to eat every item on the menu at least once

It all adds up to a fat food bill, harrowing visits to the doctor, and compelling viewing for anyone who’s ever wondered if man could live on fast food alone. The film is doing terrific! It has now passed the $3Million mark. Spurlock is a documentary filmmaker and marketing genius. He thought of a terrific film that he could make on a reasonable budget; a film that would certainly get a lot of media attention once it was completed. And, more importantly, it has a GREAT poster (way better than the “fries in the mouth” poster he’s had to use in order to avoid copyright violations)!

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Alec and I saw this film at Sundance in January. It’s an amazing, compelling, terrific film! RUN, don’t walk, to the nearest theater to see it! In light of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the upcoming elections and ongoing violence in Iraq, the timing couldn’t be better for viewing this film. The key point of the film, in my opinion, is NOT that the U.S. media is bad and Arab media is good. The point is that all “Media” is inherently biased; that nationalist loyalties and prejudices come to bear on the reporting of the events of war.

From IndieWire, Jehane Noujaim On “Control Room”: “My Loyalties Are to the Characters”. If ever a film could be termed incendiary, it’s “Control Room.” Helmed by 29-year-old Egyptian-American filmmaker Jehane Noujaim (co-director of “Startup.com”), it scans the inner workings of Al Jazeera and comes up with a balanced view of the Arab satellite news agency, even suggesting it might traffic more in truth than our own news media. Erica Abeel talked to the director. (05/24/04) [indieWIRE]

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The Mini-Cinema Film Festival, a completely free event at the Book N Bean coffee house in Fairmont, West Virginia USA, is accepting entries for Summer 2004. Both features and shorts are accepted, although shorts are encouraged, due to a lack of shorts submitted this time around. As always, there is absolutely no entry fee and no ticket charges. Mini-Cinema is about giving up-and-coming filmmakers exposure in an area they’d never have their films seen, and not about money. For more information: minicinemafilm@hotmail.com [Filmmaker.Com] [Cinema Minima]

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• Art Directors Toolkit 4.1. Utilities for graphic design & production (print & web).
• Web Dumper 2.1. Download entire Web sites off of the Internet for offline browsing.
• CrystalMaker 6.3.5. Crystal and molecular structures visualization software with photo-realistic graphics and power tools.
• LiveMath Maker 3.5.7. Create and view live interactive algebra and calculus on your computer.
• MathEQ Expression Editor 4.0.4. A mathematical/scientific typesetting program which creates expressions for insertion into word processing/layout programs and html documents.
• NetScrape 1.3. Finds all the images on a website, downloads them, and presents thumbnail and full-sized views to browse.

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“Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.”
    Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1845)
    U.S. Author and Poet

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