Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

I was thumbing through the Sundance Program Guide and I was struck by how many films there were about music and/or musicians this year!! As Emanuel Levy correctly stated during his podcast this summer, the alternative sexuality cinema is dead. The new wave is moving in!

MUSICIANS & PERSONALITIES

Though I’ve enjoyed his music for several years, much of the current generation knows him from his Hallelujah contribution to SHREK. From 1994 until 1999, Cohen was secluded in a Buddhist monastery. No doubt that period will be elucidated in the film, LEONARD COHEN, I’M YOUR MAN.

I’m also looking forward to EVERYONE STARES: THE POLICE INSIDE OUT because the bulk of the film is the personal Super 8 footage of drummer Stewart Copeland. The footage is from the early years before the masses knew of STING and THE POLICE.

NEIL YOUNG HEART OF GOLD was shot by Jonathan Demme. The releases indicate it was recorded over two nights in Nashville. Difficult to tell how it’s going to be.

The degree to which Neil Young is known by the contemporary audience is about the degree to which jazz vocalist Jackie Paris is NOT known. ‘TIS AUTUMN — THE SEARCH FOR JACKIE PARIS delves into the mysteries that obscure this once famous performer.

MUSICAL MOVEMENTS & EVENTS

Films about performers reveal the individual genius and demons of creative artists. Films about movements and events, on the other hand, tend to contextualize musical experiences of a specific locale into the larger cultural era. GLASTONBURY documents the music and the social changes over 30 years at England’s annual Glastonbury Festival.

Narrowing to a specific social movement, BEYOND BEATS AND RHYMES: A HIP-HOP HEAD WEIGHS IN ON MANHOOD IN HIP-HOP CULTURE tackles issues of masculinity, sexism, violence and homophobia in hip-hop culture. AWESOME, I FUCKIN’ SHOT THAT! turns a laser-beam focus to October 9, 2004, when the Beastie Boys handed out 50 high-8 cameras so audience members could capture the moment.

The hardcore underground punk movement from 1979 to 1986 is the subject of AMERICAN HARDCORE, a film inspired by Steven Blush’s book by the same title.

MORE MUSIC THEMES

Shockingly, there are still a few musical films and they defy easy categorization. When I read about SONGBIRDS, I couldn’t believe the description. The film is a musical set in a women’s prison. The songs were written for characters based on the inmates of Downview Prison in England.

Since we’ve got murder on the mind, Nick Cave (of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds fame) has written the screenplay for THE PROPOSITION. Set at the end of the bushranger era, this atmospheric Australian epic tale concerns family, loyalty and betrayal. It’s an interesting twist because the band released MURDER BALLADS in 2004. It’s a CD of songs inspired by murders. As far as I know, the film isn’t about music.

Finally, there are even two short films about music. ONE SUNG HERO is about a 34 year-old copy machine salesperson (by day) who has found her true calling as a Karaoke Missionary. LOT 63, GRAVE C is a documentary short about a death at the Altamont California Rolling Stones Concert in 1969.

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As we approach the end of the third year of the war with Iraq, it is not surprising that several Sundance films center on that topic. There are two films in the Independent Documentary Competition category. THE GROUND TRUTH: AFTER THE KILLING ENDS explores the impact of the war on the soldiers deployed in the conflict. Everything from military deceptions that encourage enlistment to battlefield predicaments and post-war recovery problems are examined. The film reveals the humans of combat. In the same way, IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS reveals the fears, needs, goals and trials of ordinary Iraqi citizens living in the gruesome shadow of the war. Daily survival tasks are contrasted with incendiary political arguments to evoke day-to-day life in contemporary Iraq. The World Documentary Competition category also offers THE SHORT LIFE OF JOSE ANTONIO GUTIERREZ. A Guatemalan emigrant to the United States, Jose was the first soldier killed in the Iraq War. In the quest to improve his life, Gutierrez became the first to die in the “war on terror.” All three films expand the statistics and sound bites of evening news into a deeper understanding of the larger impact of war.

The Filmmaker Lodge hosts two exciting programs on the topic as well. A MATTER OF RECORD: DOCUMENTARY AND WAR (26 Jan) brings together the directors of these films and (as well as the director of the documentary, KZ, about the residents of Mauthausen, a town famous as the site of a Nazi concentration camp). They debate the art and the duty of making films about global events including the desire to capture compelling images and create aesthetically-satisfying narratives. Another panel discussion, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY (22 Jan), include several film directors from the Arab world. These filmmakers offer their voices, visions and challenges in telling stories from people often perceived as the enemy or the “other.”

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Over the course of the next week, I’ll be blogging a great deal about the films of Sundance 2006. The festival doesn’t begin until the 19th of January but already the interest is building around several films. The goal is to begin to distinguish the different films so you can watch for reviews and features on those films that interest you. As you probably already know, most of the Sundance films will be released over the course of next one or two years.

Some of the 2005 Sundance films that were well-received in the market included: MURDERBALL, MARCH OF THE PENGUINS and HUSTLE AND FLOW. One of my favorite films of Sundance 2005, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE is earning serious award nominations. Last night, I saw a commercial for the Pierce Brosnan film, THE MATADOR, which screened at Sundance last year. Tracking Sundance films ensures that you’ll be aware of much of the independent product for the upcoming year.

I will also be blogging about Sundance Shorts because every year there are shorts the become full features. The Dramatic Competition film HALF NELSON began as a Sundance short entitled, GOWANUS, BROOKLYN. A couple of years ago, the Slamdance short PELUCA became NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. Hence, the value of paying attention to short films.

The number of films that screen at Sundance each year is impressive; the number submitted for each category is staggering. Here then are a few of the statistics:

• Feature Film Submissions:
  • 1764 U.S. feature films submitted
  • 1384 International feature films submitted
  • 3148 total features submitted
  • 120 feature films to screen at SFF2006
• Short Film Submissions:
  • 4327 short films submitted
  • 42 U.S. short films selected
  • 31 International short films selected
  • 73 short films to screen at SFF2006

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Dover Intelligent Design Trial

Preparing for a Pandemic

Plan B Blocked

Reading the Oxyrhynchus Papyri

Chimp Genome–and First Fossils–Unveiled

Ice Core Extends Climate Record Back 650,000 Years

Brain Scans Helps Scientists “Read” Minds

Tenth Planet Discovered

Stem Cell Meltdown

Hurricane Katrina

Scientists Find Soft Tissue in T. rex Fossil

Gamma-Ray Mystery Solved

Live Giant Squid Photographed for First Time

Chunk of Universe’s Missing Matter Found

Genetic Analysis Suggests Human Brain Is a Work-in-Progress

Conservationist Plan Would Give Lions, Elephants a Home on the Range

Flexible ‘E-skin’ Could Endow Robots with Humanlike Sense of Touch

Cave Bear DNA Sequencing Could Be Boon for Human Evolution Studies

New State of Matter Is ‘Nearly Perfect’ Liquid

[Scientific American]

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Inverse panorama photography of human head. Mark Frauenfelder:
Steve at Panocamera.com has been experimenting with “inverse panorama photography.” The result is eerie and beautiful.

We’re trying to make high quality texture maps for game models. Using an FX-1 psuedo HD Sony camera, (its 1440 pixels, which is Sony’s anamorphic short-hand for a 1920 16:9 image,) placed sideways, I filmed Yoshi as he rotated on a turntable in front of the camera. The bank-robber cap was his idea. This resulted in about 1200 frames of a 360 degree pass around the head.

Link

[Boing Boing]

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Festivus poles for sale. Mark Frauenfelder:
In a classic episode of Seinfeld, the character played by the inimitable Jerry Stiller declared the establishment of a new holiday to replace Christmas. It was called Festivus and the centerpiece was a bare aluminum pole. Now a company is selling the poles.

According to Frank Costanza, the Festivus celebration includes three major components:

The Festivus Pole

The tradition begins with a bare aluminum pole, which Frank praises for its “very high strength-to-weight ratio.” During Festivus, an unadorned aluminum pole is displayed, apparently in opposition to the commercialization of highly decorated Christmas trees, and because the holiday’s creator, Frank Costanza, “find[s] tinsel distracting.” Local customs vary and you may be able to decorate your pole with non-threatening plain decorations, or ordinary green garland.

The Airing of Grievances

At the Festivus dinner, each participant tells friends and family all of the instances where they disappointed him or her that year.

The Feats of Strength

The head of the family tests his or her strength against one participant of the head’s choosing. Festivus is not considered over until the head of the family has been pinned to the ground. A participant is allowed to decline to attempt to pin the head of the family only if they have something better to do instead.

Link (thanks, Andria!)

[Boing Boing]

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Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Eye on the Oscars: Screenplay: Brokeback Mountain — “Moving,” “haunting” and “disturbing” are words often used to describe this potent, spare story. Ossana says maintaining the tone, from the short story to the script to the movie, was the thing she was heavily focused on. Ossana read the story in the New Yorker in 1997, and insisted McMurtry read it immediately. He did, and they acted quickly to acquire an option with their own money from author Proulx. [Variety.com]

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WWW inventor Tim Berners-Lee starts a blog. Xeni Jardin:
Sir Timothy “Tim” John Berners-Lee, the man who created the World Wide Web, now keeps a diary on the intermablogomosphere. Snip:

In 1989 one of the main objectives of the WWW was to be a space for sharing information. It seemed evident that it should be a space in which anyone could be creative, to which anyone could contribute. The first browser was actually a browser/editor, which allowed one to edit any page, and save it back to the web if one had access rights.

Strangely enough, the web took off very much as a publishing medium, in which people edited offline. Bizarely, they were prepared to edit the funny angle brackets of HTML source, and didn’t demand a what you see is what you get editor. WWW was soon full of lots of interesting stuff, but not a space for communal design, for discource through communal authorship.

Now in 2005, we have blogs and wikis, and the fact that they are so popular makes me feel I wasn’t crazy to think people needed a creative space.

Link

[Boing Boing]

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Eugene Hernandez at IndieWIRE has put together a great summary of all the Film Buyers & Sellers expected to be attending the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Eugene’s article also includes email addresses, telephone numbers, addresses and like representatives. It also lists which films each buyer picked up at previous festivals. I bookmarked it and printed it out. Go read the full article! Thanks Eugene!

Example from article (just because I like their name AND they buy a lot)!

CINETIC MEDIA

Key staff: Liesl Copland, Erin Heidenreich, Matt Littin, Dana O’Keefe, John Sloss
Sundance ‘05 Films: “Brick” (sold), “Duane Hopwood” (sold), “The Fall of Fujimori” (sold), “How the Garcia Girls Spent their Summer”, “Lonesome Jim” (sold), “Mad Hot Ballroom” (sold), “New York Doll” (sold), “On A Clear Day” (sold), “Protocols of Zion”(sold), “The Puffy Chair”, “Reel Paradise” (sold), “Strangers with Candy”, “Swimmers”, “Why We Fight” (sold), “Cronicas” (sold), “Murderball” (sold), “Mysterious Skin” (sold), “Rock School” (sold).

Previous Sundance Films: “Napoleon Dynamite”, “Super Size Me”, “Pieces of April”, “Control Room”, “Capturing the Friedmans”, “The Machinist”, “Dig!”.

Contact info:
Cinetic Media
555 West 25th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10001
(212) 204-7979
office@cineticmedia.com
www.cineticmedia.com

Other Film Sales at ‘05 Festivals: “The King” (Cannes 2005), “Where The Truth Lies” (Cannes 2005), “The Heart of the Game” (Toronto 2005), “Water” (Toronto 2005), “A Prairie Home Companion”

Other info: Cinetic Media is a U.S. based consulting firm providing strategic
advisory services to the entertainment and media industries. Our key practice areas are project financing, project sales, and corporate consulting (strategy and finance). The firm’s clients range from multi-national media conglomerates to individual motion picture producers.

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The Sundance 2006 Timetable and Film Descriptions have been posted on the Sundance website. We’re a little more than a month away right now, so the excitement is building.

There are several films I’m already looking forward to … First, a film I would have like to have made … THE GIANT BUDDHAS. In February 2001, six months before the attacks on the Twin Towers, the Taliban issued a decree calling for the destruction of all non-Islamic-related statues in Afghanistan. A pair of enormous stone Buddhas, hewn from the side of a cliff in the Bamiyan Valley more than 1,600 years ago, was blown to bits by Islamic fundamentalists.

Another film, FLANNEL PAJAMAS because a former student who works at SUBVOYANT in NYC, helped with trailers and such for director Jeff Lipsky. I’m hoping to line up a podcast with Lipsky within the next couple of days.

Of course, I love the SHORTS PROGRAM, with the animation shorts being a clear favorite. What else would you expect from someone who teaches Maya?

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“Don’t be humble, you’re not that great.”
    Golda Meir (1898 - 1978)
    Israeli Prime Minister

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Initially, I wouldn’t watch Donald Trump’s reality tv show The Apprentice but my sister-in-law (who was a VP at Disney) told me how much she loved it because it was all about marketing. I started watching it and got hooked. But, after tonight, I’m super disappointed and I’m thinking I’m not going to watch next season. Donald Trump may have made a more politically-correct decision by hiring the black man but, in my opinion, he clearly hired the WRONG person.

Quite frankly, the choice of Randal Pinkett just sucks. Randal’s negative reaction when Trump asked him if they should hire Rebecca, as well, reveals what a poor decision Randal was for Trump’s apprentice. From the beginning, unlike Alla, Clay or Randal, Rebecca refused to savage any other candidate in order to win. She always focused on the task, the events and the outcome. She would never go after any person personally. Even when Trump gave her the opportunity to knock Randal’s education, she refused. She always exhibited integrity, loyalty and business acumen. Even in the final task, while they did not collect any money for the AIDs foundation, Yahoo ultimately put up $100,000 (ten times as much as Randal’s group generated). If the measure of the final task is amount donated, Rebecca’s efforts brought TEN TIMES as much money into the coffers.

But, back to my main complaint, Randal said he and Rebecca were a good team and that he enjoyed working together. GEORGE and CAROLYN said they were both stars. A smart business decision for the Trump organization would be to snag that talent and use it. But, nooooo. Randal couldn’t do that.

Then, at the end, he runs over to the rest of the FIRED candidates and is hugging them and talking with them … completely ignoring his new boss. Trump had to shout to get him back to the table. In the end, he’s out there chumming it up with all of the losers who supported his win and gathering them close to him. If I were Trump, I’d be watching my back.

What a disappointment. What a huge disappointment!!!

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Earliest known Maya painting revealed. Xeni Jardin:
Snip from National Geographic:

Archaeologists today revealed the final section of the earliest known Maya mural ever found, saying that the find upends everything they thought they knew about the origins of Maya art, writing, and rule.

The painting was the last wall of a room-size mural to be excavated. The site was discovered in 2001 at the ancient Maya city of San Bartolo in the lowlands of northeastern Guatemala.

(…) The painting dates to 100 B.C., proving that stories of creation and kings?

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America’s New Hero: Killing, Stealing and Beating. The New York Times published an interesting story, What Men Want: Neanderthal TV, about the bevy of antisocial male heroes on television these days. Seems that young American men have a taste for killers — oh, but sympathetic ones, of course. In contrast to the “unambiguously moral protagonists of the past,” writes Warren St. John, the preferred good-guys of today “are unapologetic about killing, stealing, hoarding and beating their way to achieve personal goals that often confli…(Anthony Kaufman’s blog). [blogs.indieWIRE.com: Independent Film]

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Comedian Richard Pryor Dies at 65. Richard Pryor, the caustic yet perceptive actor-comedian, lived dangerously close to the edge both on stage and off. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. [NYT > Home Page]

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