Watchy
Chris Columbus, protector of children.
By Vadim Rizov on 11/17/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Some directors are automatic punchlines, their names synonyms for lousy. There's Adam Sandler cohort Steve Brill ("Without A Paddle," "Drillbit Taylor"), Eddie Murphy's favorite Brian Robbins ("Norbit," "Meet Dave") and of course Shawn Levy ("A Night At The Museum," "The Pink Panther," "Cheaper By The Dozen"), who pays the bills as perfunctorily as possible. The godfather of them all may well be Chris Columbus, a man so prone to alternating equally leaden bathos and comedy it's amazing he once had it together enough to write "Gremlins." His resume is one of shame: the first two "Home Alone"s (they're terrible, get... MORE »
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Pedaling towards revolution.
By Vadim Rizov on 11/12/2009
Filed under: Watchy
We, as Americans, have failed to sufficiently appreciate and venerate the humble bicycle, which is why we all drive Hummers and 2012 is bearing down on us with global wrath. Or so I've been told. My point is that American cinema associates bicycles with bad people (think Mrs. Miss Gulch a.k.a. The Wicked Witch of the West and her bicycle) or the poor and silly (like Jason Schwartzman's Albert Markovski in "I Heart Huckabees," pedaling his way through his daily futility). Indeed, aside from the French -- where it's just what the cool kids do -- global bicycling is symbolic... MORE »
Five camp moments from the Cold War.
By Vadim Rizov on 11/10/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, which passed with less fanfare than you'd expect. The Los Angeles Times' Betsy Sharkey had a decent list of Cold War movies she digs, along with a lament for a past of clearly defined villainous foreigners and heroic Americans. But while you've probably heard of most of her picks or should've, where, then, are the truly bad examples of the Cold War on film, the hoariest detritus caught in a political culture trap? Here are five oddities: "The Red Menace" (1949) The '40s and '50s didn't lack for... MORE »
A guide to Roland Emmerich's early work.
By Vadim Rizov on 11/06/2009
Filed under: Watchy
I've had so much fun writing about "2012," I'm almost sad it'll actually be coming out next Friday. Almost. In a fairly amazing recent interview with Roland Emmerich, the schlock auteur explains he could get away with casting John Cusack because "I make movies where the movie itself is the star" and says it's totally cool that "2012" is a whopping 158 minutes because "The ten most successful movies of all time are all around three hours long. My favourite movie, 'Lawrence of Arabia,' is four hours. So there!" Same thing! But what really caught my eye was an allusion... MORE »
Are you ready for 20,000 spoonfuls of terror?
By Vadim Rizov on 10/29/2009
Filed under: Watchy
In the pre-YouTube era, it was generally assumed that a short film was a director's calling card, a stepping stone to prove that talent and resourcefulness lay within and that great things could be obtained with a real budget. These days more people seem to be interested in watching YouTube videos than committing to a feature anyway -- hence the success of Richard Gale's "The Horribly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon." The weapon is a spoon, and the short's a fake trailer that promises a nine-hour spectacle of one tormented soul being repeatedly rapped all over his body... MORE »
Crowdsourcing "Star Wars."
By Vadim Rizov on 10/27/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Truffaut used to say that a movie should have four ideas a minute. Well, François, say hello to "Star Wars: Uncut", a full-length user-generated remake of "A New Hope" chopped up into 15-second segments -- four per minute. The result is a staggering 2,161 separate amateur directors overall, a major sugar-buzz of crowdsourcing, "Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation" turned viral and opened to the online masses. It's not done yet, but the trailer's below. If nothing else, it's an inadvertent summary of every internet YouTube/meme trend of 2009: amateur CGI, hand-drawn comic-strip animation, strange-looking people in weird masks,... MORE »
Welcome to Hugowood, where revolution rules.
By Vadim Rizov on 10/26/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Hugo Chávez is having a movie moment. The Venezuela president is the subject of a fawning Oliver Stone documentary. He's had visits from Sean Penn, Danny Glover and Kevin Spacey. (And, of course, Tim Robbins, if it even needs to be said.) And, as I pointed out last month, his anti-golf politics have a lot in common with Alex Cox's "Repo Man" sequel -- trendy! And now, Chávez has got his own film studio -- La Villa del Cine -- and they're intent on pumping out movies that get behind his agenda. The official slogan: "Lights, camera, revolution!" Mac Margolis'... MORE »
Celebrating the musical apocalypse.
By Vadim Rizov on 10/21/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Though it feels like it's been advertised since 2005, "2012" doesn't come out until November 13: John Cusack, buildings get destroyed, humanity struggles against itself, the nuclear family survives, etc, etc. And now we have a music video to go with all that rote destruction: Adam Lambert's "Time For Miracles." As a song, "Time For Miracles" is wan but inoffensive balladry: "I know this flame isn't dying," Lambert yowls, "so nothing can stop me from trying." It's the visuals that make it so bizarrely insensitive: as he sings, the American Almost-Idol strolls with impeccable rock-star cool past cars on fire,... MORE »
Kanye West's inner "Wild Thing."
By Vadim Rizov on 10/19/2009
Filed under: Watchy
It's not a great time to be either Kanye West or one of his fans. After his umpteenth public freak-out, interrupting Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Awards, his tour with Lady Gaga was canceled, and rumors are flying that West is hiding out somewhere, doing his best to purge himself of the demons that make him act like a jackass in public. Spike Jonze to the rescue! Having now steered the story of one outburst-prone lad to box office success, the "Where the Wild Things Are" director has rejoined Kanye for the collaborative short film "We Were Once A... MORE »
Potato, potato, potato.
By Alison Willmore on 10/06/2009
Filed under: Watchy
As a commenter elegantly added after Scott Tobias's review of "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" at the AV Club, "Thanks a lot, jerk. I would have appreciated a spoiler alert before describing the potato scene." Really, few other films are as spoiler-proof as Chantal Akerman's 1975 housewife saga, the complete plot of which could be described in two sentences. It's all in the watching, the tedium, the real-time observations of the daily routine of Delphine Seyrig's widowed housewife, including the methodical peeling of said potatoes, the mushing together of meatloaf and breading of veal cutlets. And turning... MORE »
Play Lloyd Dobler off, Keyboard Cat.
By Vadim Rizov on 10/06/2009
Filed under: Watchy
As part of the giant marketing campaign behind the latest Roland Emmerich apocalypse porn extravaganza "2012," Sony Pictures released a five-minute clip of the film showcasing just a few of the no doubt many ways mass destruction will be wreaked within its full run-time. And no sooner was that accomplished than some pseudonymous smartass used the footage to cut together an alternate "2012" excerpt, one which gets rid of all those distracting effects so that we can concentrate on what really matter -- the performances: It's an easy comic lay-up, but still funny. Thrill as Amanda Peet says "Buckle up!",... MORE »
Mumblecore mocks itself.
By Vadim Rizov on 10/05/2009
Filed under: Watchy
I guess one sign that you've really made it is when you can poke fun at yourself and it's not just an inside joke for your friends. With "Birthday Suit," a new three-minute short on "Funny or Die," mumblecore figurehead/sometime colleague Joe Swanberg achieves the latter, if only barely -- hanging at a 48% approval rating, "Birthday Suit" seems to be lost on some of the site's audience. In films like "Hannah Takes The Stairs" and "Alexander The Last," Swanberg's toyed with very plausible-looking sex scenes as a way of advancing narrative. The premise of "Birthday Suit" is that Swanberg... MORE »
Those 30-Second Bunnies better watch their backs.
By Vadim Rizov on 09/29/2009
Filed under: Watchy
There's a lot of garbage on College Humor (today's featured content: "Jake & Amir: Tampon"), but there's also England's Will Tribble, who's been churning out some way funny 60-second live-action parodies of famous movies that deserve your love. Tribble and his merry band of British film students are dedicated to summarizing film in one minute, in one take, with little "South Park" voices on the soundtrack blurting out key lines. The results are pretty impressive, dependent on elaborate shots that either pull backwards really fast or track sideways equally fast, with someone literally running through the plot of the movie,... MORE »
Indie Rock: A Love Story.
By Vadim Rizov on 09/27/2009
Filed under: Watchy
There are people out there who leap on any chance to fling the epithet "hipster" as the ultimate insult. As a wise editor of mine once pointed out, all the adjective really means is "people in my scene who I don't like and don't want to identify with." But when a movie pops up with its title in all lower case, its lead roles cast from indie rock institutions, and its trailer kicking off with the line "Did you ever get your heart broken?" against some kind of warm ambient backdrop, it's kind of begging to have that finger pointed... MORE »
Narcocinema: Mexico's drugsploitation genre.
By Vadim Rizov on 09/21/2009
Filed under: Abroad, Watchy
I'd never heard of narcocinema until I took a gander through Vice's substantive new film issue. Well, consider me schooled. Narcocinema is just what it sounds like: violent drug war movies shot in a manner that could be kindly dubbed "functional," frequently based on narcocorridos (drug songs). Only 18% of the Mexican population can afford to see movies in theaters, so most narcocinema features are shot digitally or on low-grade video straight for the "videohome" demographic. The titles are as amazing as the best '70s exploitation: "I Was Screwed By The Gringos," "Weapons, Robbery, and Death" and lots of car-fixated... MORE »
When indie studio heads direct.
By Stephen Saito on 09/02/2009
Filed under: Odds, Watchy
On the press tour that will not end, Quentin Tarantino took a break from dishing about his favorite films and talking up "Inglourious Basterds" to shed some light on the lone film directed by his bosses, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, on last night's episode of Craig Ferguson. Following an amusing anecdote about strong-arming an Italian film festival jury into giving a 1994 Russian film called "The Dove's Bell-Ringer" a prize (and then subsequently getting snubbed by the film's producer at an afterparty), Tarantino stumbled onto discussing "Playing for Keeps," a 1986 comedy most notable for the Weinsteins' involvement as co-directors... MORE »
Film critics gone wild.
By Stephen Saito on 09/01/2009
Filed under: Critic watch, Watchy
Actually, that's a misleading headline if there ever was one, considering that A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips look more buttoned up than ever in this promo for the new season of "At the Movies." But after a year in the wilderness, I share the excitement of Karina Longworth and Anne Thompson in seeing the film critics from the New York Times and Chicago Tribune engage in serious discussions about films, though judging by that picture, I'd be afraid to say otherwise for fear of being found floating in the Hudson River. [Photo: A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips, "At the Movies,"... MORE »
The fine art of YouTube curation and hypemanship.
By Vadim Rizov on 08/31/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Killian Fox's Observer article about the current state of up-and-coming UK filmmakers is called "Digital: a short cut to the cinema," which makes it sound like a decade-old article just now predicting the rise of digital movies, but don't be fooled. It's a bleak little piece in which Fox profiles four up-and-coming British filmmakers working against the tide of limited opportunities and financing, with the most optimism coming from Film London director Adrian Wootten, who says, "Instead of it being a threatening time, I think this can be a very exciting time for a young British film-maker." Though Wootten's words... MORE »
"Black Devil Doll." There are no words.
By Vadim Rizov on 08/30/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Making intentionally shoddy attempted cult movies tends to be a waste of time -- usually all they turn out to be good for are high-concept trailers that give you all the fun without any of the dead time. Remember "Grindhouse" and the trailer for "Machete" and it was snicker-worthy when the voice-over said "They just fucked with the wrong Mexican"? And then Robert Rodriguez had to go kill the joke by deciding to turn it into a feature that would add nothing to the trailer? Yeah. Below is the trailer for "Black Devil Doll," a blaxploitation Chucky movie designed to... MORE »
Battling Hollywood temptation in radio musical form.
By Vadim Rizov on 08/26/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Sparks -- brothers Ron and Russell Mael -- is a cult band who haven't stopped being odd for nearly 40 years now. Depending on who you believe, Queen stole their hysterical falsetto in the '70s. After making 1974's "Kimono My House" (one of Kurt Cobain's favorite albums) they got bored of glam and became minor disco stars, hooking up with Giorgio Moroder to put out "No 1 Song In Heaven." With their sarcastic lyrics, high-pitched vocals and (of late) minimalistic song structures, the brothers keep on annoying 95% of the people who hear them and tickling the other 5%. Obviously,... MORE »
All quiet at the Alamo Drafthouse.
By Stephen Saito on 08/20/2009
Filed under: Watchy
My heart skipped a beat upon seeing a post on Jim Emerson's Scanners blog about the Alamo Drafthouse's stern onscreen warnings to anyone who dares to talk during a movie at any of the Austin, Texas theater chain's locations. For those who have been to the Drafthouse or anyone about to make the pilgrimage to the upcoming Fantastic Fest, one must understand that the only thing more sacred than being able to drink a bottle of Shiner Bock with your popcorn at the theater is the cinematic experience itself. And since the Drafthouse staff is populated by aspiring filmmakers and... MORE »
"Urgh!": DVD of the year?
By Vadim Rizov on 08/19/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Since March 23, Warner Bros. has been putting out rare, hard-to-find titles for your ultra-collectory types. For $19.95, Warner Archives will burn you a no-frills DVD-R, with a trailer the only potential extra -- if they can dig one up. And as the AV Club's Noel Murray points out, one of their latest catalog titles is 1981's "Urgh! A Music War." This is pretty much the best news of the week. If you're unfamiliar, "Urgh!" is the greatest concert movie ever that's not "Stop Making Sense." Rather than wasting time on things like "context" and "interviews," the film consists of... MORE »
Herzog/Lynch > Herzog/Ferrara.
By Alison Willmore on 08/17/2009
Filed under: Watchy
The cracktastic footage and ongoing directorial snippiness have made "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans," Werner Herzog's maybe remake of Abel Ferrara's 1992 drama, one of the most anticipated films set to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival (though it'll first premiere at Venice). And who could outdo Bavaria's finest but the man himself? The recently unveiled trailer for the other Herzog film on the Toronto slate, "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done," looks, if anything, even odder and more promising than the sight of Nicolas Cage getting high with Xzibit. That's Michael Shannon playing a... MORE »
Cooking up a post-movie career.
By Stephen Saito on 08/13/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Nora Ephron's "Julie and Julia" is not only one of few female-driven mainstream films this summer, it's one of very few directed by a woman. (Kathryn Bigelow, of course, being another with the phenomenal "The Hurt Locker.") Directing remains, overwhelmingly, a boys club, so it was heartening to stumble upon what a female filmmaker who's been out of the limelight for a while has been cooking up (rimshot!) lately on the Tamra Davis Cooking Show. Here's Davis mixing margaritas on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon": Fans of Davis' stoner comedy "Half Baked" will notice the disappointing lack of brownie recipes,... MORE »
Fortified with philosophy.
By Alison Willmore on 07/07/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Time's Steve Snyder sits down for an interview with Werner Herzog, available in print and also as a video, to talk about the filmmaker's new book "Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo," put together from the journal he kept during production of the film. There's much signature Herzog verbiage: "I have enough stability inside of me to not be traumatized. If I were a soldier, I would not be the one to come back with posttraumatic stress disorder, because I think I have fortified myself with enough philosophy." On that note, Sandwich Films imagines a Werner... MORE »
The Vice Guide to Coffin Joe.
By Alison Willmore on 06/11/2009
Filed under: Watchy
VBS.TV sits down for a long chat with Brazil's reigning cult filmmaker José Mojica Marins, aka Coffin Joe, who offers an origin story of sorts about how his first brush with cinema involved a film about STDs: "I screamed and screamed, and that image never left my head. I think this scarred my childhood. So in all my horror films, I try to recreate, through the hell and purgatory that I filmed, but I never managed to portray the biggest horror of my life, a vagina full of gonorrhea." Here's part one of the video and part two.... MORE »
David Lynch presents Jess.
By Alison Willmore on 06/01/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Interview Project, the latest web experiment from David Lynch, launches today, a "121 part documentary series" made up of three and a half minute interviews with different subjects around the country. Lynch's son Austin and Jason S. led a team of filmmakers who plucked up subjects who, one assumes, just looked like they'd have interesting things to say. The first interviewee, Jess, is a leathery 64-year-old they found in Needles, CA (a town I'll forever associate with Snoopy's brother Spike) who tell us "I ain't proud of anything except just being alive." MORE »
"Penises: species specific."
By Alison Willmore on 04/08/2009
Filed under: Watchy
Isabella Rossellini takes "Green Porno" beneath the waves in its second season -- the six new episodes explore the mating habits of whales, starfish, limpets, anglerfish and barnacles, with an added intro containing Rossellini's musings on phalluses. They're not as splendidly, surprisingly weird as the first set, but are still plenty charming, with Rossellini lustily proclaiming her place as the strongest male in a pod of whales. My favorite is the somewhat existential limpet one. + Green Porno (Sundance Channel) MORE »
"I think my heart's big enough..."
By Alison Willmore on 03/24/2009
Filed under: WatchyFunny or Die gets all inside mumblecore baseball with this trailer for the nonexistent SXSW 2009 selection "The Dirty Garage," about, apparently, how a pair of childhood friends/brothers clean a garage and have lots of incoherent conversation, accompanied by one of their former flames. Swanberg co-conspirators Kent Osborne and Tipper Newton appear, as do fake quotes from Amy Taubin, Scott Foundas and Manohla Dargis. C'mon, though, an hour and 45 minutes? Realistically, this would run 75 minutes, tops, and that's with the help of an extra slow credit crawl.... MORE »
"In a Lonely Place" by way of Atari's "Crystal Castles"...
By Alison Willmore on 03/04/2009
Filed under: Watchy
...with a touch of Chris Ware. That's the easiest way to sum up David O'Reilly's fantastic "Please Say Something," which won the short film Golden Bear at Berlin this year. (In an interview, he compared it to "Breaking the Waves" and "Persona," but pointed out "There's also a nod to Funny Games." A blockily animated cat and mouse live together in a blustery, geometric, largely monochromatic future, communicating in subtitled squeaks. Despite these trappings, the film's actually a half absurd, half genuinely sad story of the couple's troubled domestic life, one that runs through and refreshes every cliche of emotional... MORE »
Coppola and Peralta have something to sell you.
By Alison Willmore on 12/10/2008
Filed under: WatchySofia Coppola's debut ad for Dior is a delightfully pink confection featuring Belarusian model Maryna Linchuk bobbing around a sunny Paris to Brigitte Bardot's "Moi, Je Joue," apparently leading an enviable life of dress fittings, leisurely bicycling and pastry consumption, with pauses for the reapplication of Miss Dior Cherie perfume. You can watch it here: Meanwhile, documentarian Stacy Peralta (of "Dogtown and Z-Boys") has traveled to semi-remote areas of Thailand, Romania and Greenland at the behest of Burger King to perform unbiased Whopper/Big Mac taste tests on people who've never had hamburgers before.... MORE »
"Glory at Sea" and "The Last 15."
By Alison Willmore on 12/02/2008
Filed under: WatchyShort films are often made with a practical purpose in mind: to serve as a calling card on the path to feature funding, to show off the cool camera trick someone picked up, to showcase everything learned at film school, to reach a (hopefully) memorable punchline. It's the reason so many shorts are forgettable -- they seldom stand by themselves, though there's no rule that a film has to be at least 70 minutes long to have a purpose. And the greatest proof of that fact is Benh Zeitlin's epic short "Glory at Sea," which you can now watch online... MORE »
Criterion's great leap forward.
By Alison Willmore on 11/25/2008
Filed under: WatchyThe Criterion Collection has made the jump into streaming video with their new Online Cinematheque, and they've provided an adorably low-tech video to explain their new high-techiness here. Basically, 19 of the films in their library are now up for week-long streaming rentals for $5, the cost of which you can apply toward buying the DVD in their store, should you feel the burning need to then own a physical copy -- and they're working on releasing more. Among the films you can rent on demand at the moment: "Clean, Shaven"; "The Spirit of the Beehive"; "Sweetie"; and "General Idi... MORE »
"What if I went on tour this time?"
By Alison Willmore on 11/17/2008
Filed under: WatchyWhen folks begin wrapping up the year that was 2008, the most exciting (if still way up in the air, from a business perspective) trend has to be the rise of free streaming features online, whether they be "theatrical" premieres, a la Wayne Wang's "The Princess of Nebraska," Hulu's ad-supported library of older titles, or limited runs like "No End in Sight," which streamed in its entirely on YouTube until the presidential election. The latest in the latter category is Michael Tully's 2007 documentary "Silver Jew," which for this week only can be seen in its entirety on Pitchfork. The... MORE »
Starting up "The Stagg Party."
By Alison Willmore on 10/14/2008
Filed under: WatchyEpisodes one and two of the new web series from mumblecore's own Joe Swanberg are now up on the main site of IFC.com: "The Stagg Party" is a documentary series about Ellen Stagg, a Brooklyn-based photographer whose commercial career is sometimes at odds with her passion for shooting high-end erotica. (Stagg also has a small role in Swanberg's "Nights and Weekends," which opened on Friday.) Needless to say, this one is NSFW. Stagg on the series, from The Huffington Post: "The only problem that reared its head when I was shooting is that sometimes Joe would be in my shot... MORE »
Everybody's gone online.
By Alison Willmore on 09/15/2008
Filed under: WatchyFantastic Fest kicks off on Thursday, which is also when I'm headed over to Austin (hot damn!), but with beaming internet generosity the festival has already unveiled five features and five shorts from this year's line-up that can be seen, in their entirety and for free, online here. The features include Sean Donnelly's doc about Tiffany stalkers, "I Think We're Alone Now"; J.L. Vara's surreal noir "South of Heaven," starring filmmaking brothers Adam and Aaron Nee; and Reynald Bertand's comedy about an average man who discovers a face cream that temporarily turns him into a major celebrity, "La Creme." Those... MORE »
Hands on a Hard Body: "It's a contest, they say, of stamina..."
By Alison Willmore on 08/26/2008
Filed under: Watchy"Hands on a Hard Body" director S.R. Bindler has put his riveting 1997 doc about a Texas car dealership competition up in its entirety on Google Video -- you can watch it here. The film's been out of print on DVD for ages -- a narrative remake was slated to be Robert Altman's next production until his passing, a project that's likely since faded away. Bindler, incidentally, directed and co-wrote his friend Matthew McConaughey's new film "Surfer, Dude," set to open in Austin next week. While you're at it, Charles Laughton's "The Night of the Hunter" is up with the... MORE »
The Roger Ebert of our age.
By Alison Willmore on 08/22/2008
Filed under: Critic watch, WatchyOr could he be more the Gene Siskel? Clearly, he's aiming for both... Ben Mankiewicz better watch his back. The new season of "At the Movies" starts September 6, for anyone playing along at home. + Video: My break out in "House Bunny" (BenLyons.com) MORE »
Touch Me I'm Going to Scream.
By Alison Willmore on 08/18/2008
Filed under: WatchyA personal note (though their last video won a prize at this year's SXSW Film Festival, so hey, total film connection) of congratulations to my friends and roommates at Mixtape Club on the premiere of their new music video for My Morning Jacket's "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 2," which debuted on MTV2 today. It's your turn to do the dishes, y'all. + My Morning Jacket » Touch Me I'm Going To Scream, Part 2 (MixtapeClub.com) MORE »
"Playing strip poker with an exhibitionist somehow takes the challenge away."
By Alison Willmore on 08/14/2008
Filed under: WatchyHulu has Whit Stillman's still-excellent 1990 debut "Metropolitan" up in its entirety -- you can find it below or at this link. Stephen Saito interviews Stillman on the main news site: The widespread use of the Internet began to hit full stride around the time "Last Days of Disco" was released, and yet your legend has grown through sites like WhitStillman.org and the speculative nature of the Web. How do you feel about that occurring? Well, it keeps you a little alive professionally, even if you sometimes feel like you're dead, so it's nice that you have some sort of... MORE »
"Being a vampire is definitely not this homoerotic..."
By Alison Willmore on 07/31/2008
Filed under: WatchyBecause it's a draggy day today, here's Morgan Spurlock sending up his own "30 Days" series and persona ("The whole community appreciates you just exploding the stereotype") at Funny or Die -- "30 Days of Night." Almost related -- New York's Vulture blog has Jean Painlevé's strange and marvelous 1945 documentary short "The Vampire" up for online viewing here. Painlevé is one of the filmmakers whose works is currently being featured at the new Maysles Cinema in Harlem. + Morgan Spurlock's "30 Days of Night" (Funny or Die) + 'The Vampire': Some Animals Were Harmed in the Making of This... MORE »
Huluing "Hoop Dreams."
By Alison Willmore on 07/30/2008
Filed under: Watchy"Hoop Dreams," Steve James' mighty, influential 1994 documentary following two inner-city Chicago teenagers over five years in frantic pursuit of the dream of becoming professional basketball players, is up on Hulu for free (with "limited commercial interruption" from sponsors) here. Hulu CEO Jason Kilar writes on the site's blog: In January 1997, I was walking curbside at Boston's Logan Airport. Waiting patiently in a line in the freezing temperatures was a guy named Steve James, the director of the documentary film Hoop Dreams. Steve was standing there by himself, minding his own business. I recognized him because he had just... MORE »
David Gordon Green, the early days.
By Alison Willmore on 07/10/2008
Filed under: WatchyNew York's Vulture blog has an early short from David Gordon Green in honor of BAM's upcoming retrospective -- you can watch "Physical Pinball" (2001) online here. [Photo: "Physical Pinball," Criterion Collection, 2002] + See David Gordon Green's Early Short Film 'Physical Pinball' Before Getting Baked at 'Pineapple Express' (New York) MORE »
Rooftop shorts on the web.
By Alison Willmore on 06/05/2008
Filed under: From the Editor, WatchyShorts from the Rooftop Films Series are back for the summer at IFC.com — there'll be three new films online each week here, but you can also find them through the Rooftop Films Blog, where the Rooftop crew will be posting information, commentary and interviews along with each film. They'll be posting 100 films over the next few months — here's what's online so far: The Morning Sun (Bryan Wizemann, 5:30) A woman wakes up, takes a shower, gets dressed, and leaves the house. In this fascinating and ephemeral film -- a study in the use of available light and... MORE »
The stages of grief, as chronicled online.
By Alison Willmore on 05/06/2008
Filed under: From the Editor, WatchyA touch more network news (May's a big month for us). IFC.com's been hosting new, never-before-seen episodes from the "Four Eyed Monsters" filmmakers here. The last one, episode 13, will go up tomorrow; here are the rest to date: > Episode 9 (Shock) > Episode 10 (Denial) > Episode 11 (Anger) > Episode 12 (Bargaining) Elsewhere, Austin Bunn at Stream sums up the Susan Buice and Arin Crumley saga. [Photo: Susan Buice and Arin Crumley in "Four Eyed Monsters," Less Life Lived LLC, 2005] + Four Eyed Monsters (IFC) + Four Eyed 101: From Break-Up to Breakout (Stream)... MORE »
Cough to get off.
By Alison Willmore on 05/05/2008
Filed under: From the Editor, WatchyA bit of network news: "Wilfred," IFC.com's new web series, kicks off today, with a new episode going up every weekday — the first episode is here, the second here. A cult TV show from Australia, the series began as a short film that won the best comedy award at Tropfest in 2002, possibly due to its killer thematic combination of pot-smoking pets and guys in animal costumes. The shiny new third season of Joe Swanberg's "Young American Bodies" will also be premiering on IFC.com starting next week — here's a promo. [Photo: "Wilfred," IFC, 2007] + Wilfred (IFC)... MORE »
"But that doesn't scare me... my sexual drive is the strongest!"
By Alison Willmore on 05/05/2008
Filed under: WatchyIsabella Rossellini's "Green Porno" shorts, in which she enacts the mating rituals of various insects, are now all up online here. [Photo: "Green Porno," Sundance Channel, 2008] + Green Porno (Sundance Channel) MORE »
Peter Scarlet talks Tribeca.
By Alison Willmore on 04/23/2008
Filed under: Festivals, WatchyHaving taken advantage of none of the past weeks' advance screenings, I'm going to be heading into many a Tribeca film come tomorrow, and possibly turning around and heading right back out of a few, given my luck in the past with parsing the festival's daunting line-up. All of IFC.com's Tribeca coverage, including interviews and videos, will be gathered here; in the intro piece, below, Matt and I talk to the fest's executive director Peter Scarlet. The flash 8 plugin was not detected. var so = new SWFObject("/static/bc/ifc_generic_blog.swf", "cinemaeye", "380", "295", "8", "#ffffff"); so.addParam("wmode", "transparent"); //change player width so.addVariable("pwidth", 380);... MORE »
Australia!
By Alison Willmore on 04/22/2008
Filed under: WatchyBaz Luhrmann is vodcasting about the making of "Australia," that Oz fuck explosion starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, thousands of cattle and World War II, as part of Apple's "Set to Screen" series on iTunes. The film, Luhrmann's first to follow the Red Curtain Trilogy, is in post-production now, and is due in theaters in November. There are only two behind-the-scenes installments up so far for download, an intro and a piece focusing on the on-set still photographer, but both offer glimpses of a film that looks devotedly and unabashedly epic, [Photo: "Australia," Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 2008] + Baz... MORE »
To watch: Page, Cage and the Coreys.
By Alison Willmore on 04/01/2008
Filed under: WatchyEllen Page sings "Zub Zub" in a "Juno" deleted scene at Daily Motion. For those who haven't been keeping track, that's the song written by Diablo Cody, a version of which, sung by Page, will be featured on "Juno B-Sides: Almost Adopted Songs," which is getting an iTunes release on April 8th. [Via Fimoculous.] A trailer for "Bangkok Dangerous," the Pang brothers film that had such a troubled time shooting due to the 2006 Thailand coup d'état, is here. Some day, I will put together a pictorial essay on the hair of Nicolas Cage from role to role, and this... MORE »
Two-inch shorts.
By Alison Willmore on 03/05/2008
Filed under: WatchyThe Sundance Institute has just put five short films from six established(ish) filmmakers up on the web for your free viewing pleasure here. The catch? They were commissioned as part of Sundance's Global Short Film Project to be designed specifically for mobile phones and, therefore, tiny screens, and, therefore seem to have been created with tiny, YouTube-like expectations in mind. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris of "Little Miss Sunshine" turn in "A Slip in Time," a slo-mo look at a few favorite slapstick moves, while "The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love"'s Maria Maggenti offers "Lo Viajes de... MORE »
Cannes: "Chop Shop"'s Ramin Bahrani.
By Alison Willmore on 05/25/2007
Filed under: Festivals, WatchyIFC News host Matt Singer talks "Chop Shop" with director Ramin Bahrani (of "Man Push Cart") and his young star Alejandro Polanco. Click on the image to play the video: IFC News' Matt Singer chats with director Ramin Bahrani (of "Man Push Cart") and actor Alejandro Polanco about their film "Chop Shop," which just had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. ; Chop Shop; IFC News; cannes film festival; An interview with Ramin Bahrani of "Chop Shop." http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid934052381http://www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=2621235 // By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and C // found at http://www.brightcove.com/publishertermsandconditions.html. var... MORE »
U2, too.
By Alison Willmore on 05/21/2007
Filed under: Festivals, WatchyBy popular request, there's a video of the U2 performance on the Palais stairs in honor of the "U2 3D" premiere here. Don't say we never gave you anything.+ Cannes Cam: U2 Live From Cannes (IFC) MORE »
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