Four Eyed Monsters

We should help out these young folks from NYC by requesting a screening of their film.

3XC and the New Realists

The other night was 3XC at the Sylvia Hotel. The tiny conference room was packed with about 30+ people. We showed my films as well as Terry's and Ken T's. There were a few technical glitches but mostly it went amazingly well. I will have to remember to not use a new DVD burining program without thorougly testing it first. There was really good audience response for my new cut of Rob on Bob (it's down from 22 to 15 mins) but I'm going to do more trimming and send it out to some film fests.

Also, I saw the film 'puffy chair' last night. A realistic comedic relationship road movie by the Duplass Brothers. I've been meaning to see this for over a year. Up in Canada this movie is almost impossible to find. Thanks to Ken T and the good people at Happy Bats Video I watched it last night.

To me, this is what low budget digital cinema can do at its best. Most of the time people try to use their handycams like the big film cameras (making a mockery of themselves and the medium they are trying to ape). In this film they knew the limitations of the camera and made the best movie possible. Most importantly the content was first class. The dialogue, the actors and the situations where so natual and compelling that no big budget could have made this film any better. Shot like a documentary with natural looking lighting I felt this showcased the DVX 100 (a sub-4000 dollar camcorder) a lot better than the over-hyped movie 'November' did. In that Courtney Cox vehicle they pushed the camera beyond its limits whereas the 'puffy chair' used it economically. It was the perfect match of form and function.

I can't begin to tell you how much I love this movie. No violence, no nudity, no crime capers gone awry. Just a movie about people in their twenties trying to figure things out. It's so original in it's approach. I feel like copying it but then I think: well, I should really make a movie that reflects my own style.

Let's take a look at this phenonmenon from a larger view. In the ninties we had indie rock which revitalized rock and rock and then mainstream rock and roll ruined it. The new american filmmakers are doing the music equivilant to what bands like sebadoh, superhunk and built to spill where doing in the nineties.

The Duplass brothers are one of many new filmmakers to come out of this movie-ment that include Joe Swanberg, Andrew Bujalski, Arin Crumley, and Susan Buice. These are movies about people their age told in a realistic way (realistica?). They aren't doing action movies or genre flicks; these are stories that spring from their own lives and the people around them.

The other thing that sets them apart is that they are very skilled at what they are doing. Using consumer brand equipment and small lighting setups (with the exception of Bujalski who used black and white film stock) they are all making high-quality and hugely original movies. Whit Stilman, Noah Buambach, Richard Linklater, Hal Hartley had some luck with their earlier films but until now nobody kept up with the tradition of documenting the lives of intelligent young people. There seemed to be this huge void around the millenium but now there appears to be a true independent movement south of the border.

This is a product of readily available technology that is fairly inexpensive. Arin and Susan AKA Four Eyed Monsters used the DVX 100 and a Mac to edit. Most of these movies are made for around US$20,000.

These films have an immediacy and importance to them that is sadly lacking in Canadian film. I want to be a part of this flow of creativity. I want Terry, Mona and Ken and I to be up there with these guys. I want to be free from the bureaucracy and mediocrity of Canadian film. I want to be as independant as the Hive is with Music.

I have made steps towards this...


I just got the go-ahead to do a documentary on one of my favourite bands: Ladyhawk. At the end of February they're going to a barn in rural BC to record a new album. I'll be there with Mona to catch the magic as it happens. I'll meet with them next week to discuss all the details. After that I plan on filming another short with the help of Ken Tsui.

Better get this out

Haven't posted much lately. Actually this is my first post of the new year. I've seen a few movies lately and worked a bit on the three docs. Mona and I are on our way to finishing our first wedding video (for a friend) and are seriously thinking about doing it for money. We think we can fill a much needed niche: hi/mid-price, high artistic quality. We'll shoot all of our stuff in HD and keep our crew small for now (just mona and I) and expand slowly. We still have to research the market more and then there's the matter of the name. We gotta come up with a good one.

Movies I've enjoyed -



Luna: Tell me do you miss me - A documentary about one of my favourite bands. Even though most of the film was shot through a dirty lens there were some great shots. We join up with them on their break-up tour through Japan, Europe and North America in 2005. This movie gave me a real sense of what they are like as people. I still think it's a crime that they didn't get bigger than they did. With me they are huge though. Their fans have a lot of insightful things to say about them. I thought Sean Eden (the guitarist) was kinda like the John C Reilly of the indie-pop world. This is the kind of film I would like to make.



When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in 4 parts.

I just have to start of with saying EVERYONE SHOULD SEE THIS. This movie by Spike Lee about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is an amazing oral history of one of the greatest injustices in American history. I don't really into political films. This is not a political film.



All you have to think is what if this happened to people in your town and your government took their sweet time to help you. To think a city so rich in culture, one of the few good American cities, was basically left to die by the American government is just unforgivable. For Christ sakes it took them 5 days to get them food and water. What kind country would do that to their own people?

This kind of country...



Jesus Camp

Another great doc that doesn't lean on narration to give you all the info. This is about the new Christian army that's rising in the mid-west. These f--er's are scary and don't resemble the Christians I grew up with. Yes there are funny moments especially when one of the characters, a ten year old girl, is seen dancing to Christan heavy metal telling us she is dancing for god and not for "the flesh". Good thing she told us cause I was getting worried. Let's pray these Bush loving home-schooler don't screw the world up even further.

which leads me to...



Children of Men -
An important movie that stands right up there beside Bergman's Shame, Time of the Wolf and Code 46. This bugger was bleak as all hell but so well done. There were so many striking images in this film it's just hard to pick one to write about. The colour palette was all those great gritty greens and blues that I love so. In the wrong hands it would have turned out like Minority Report or the Island. Like all good dystopian movies this one captured the chaos and the mutli-facted social clusterfuck we're headed to; not just the technology. This movie also had elements of film noir with the hard drinkin' dishevled Clive Owen. He's been one of my favorite actors of late and this role further proves he is one of the best. Is he the British Robert Mitchum?

People have talked about the long takes and how well choreographed the action scenes where. Truth is you don't notice this as you are swept away by the action. After a second viewing I may notice what was going on with all that agile handheld camera but on first viewing it was all about story for me. I won't give much away but I don't think this is really a crowd pleaser and this is mostly the reason I liked it. Sorry, but the future is not friendly.

Didn't like so much

Volver: Almodavar on Auto-pilot. After 'talk to her' he has gone progressively down hill. This is an art house movie for idiots. It looks and acts like it was filmed in 1985. He has brought back his campiness and low-brow humour for this one, that's for sure. Why aren't there any transvestites? Why no dreggs of society? We really ate up that stuff. Bad Education wasn't really that great either but at least it was more earnest than this one. And what about art-direction, has he fired that department altogether. If this is him trying to do something different then don't bother.
....

Making progress on two of the three of the docs I'm working on. I have a screening coming up on the 25th of my short films at the Sylvia Hotel. Terry Miles and Ken Tsui will also be showing their films. It should be fun, although the room only holds about 40 people.

I laugh more often now

and the question is, was i more alive
then than i am now?
i happily have to disagree;
i laugh more often now, i cry more often now,
i am more me.
- Objects of my affection - Peter, Bjorn and John

The above quoted lyrics are from the first song i heard by Peter, Bjorn and John and what a song it is. When the singer hits the part where he say's I happily have to disagree it sounds like early Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Joe Jackson all crashing down at once. The music is pure phil spector wall-o-sound making the whole affair just an epic experience (fittingly wrapped with an fuzzy analog bow). The rest of the album has quite the variety of aural delights as well. It is sparse in many spots and overly dense in others. Other era's and sounds that come to mind are New Zealand's Dunedin sound of the early eighties (tall dwarfs, the clean), Britain's postpunk, and 90's power pop.

So now with Bergman, Lukas Moodysson, and Aha we have another reason to rush to the Ikea soiled shores of Sweden. I am told Loney, Dear, The Concretes and I'm from Barcelona are great but I haven't heard enough of these other Swedes to say if there is a scene going on there or not. If Peter, Bjorn and John are the only good one in the lot that is enough for me. I've said it in reference to Band of Horses but these guys care about pop and I can love anyone who cares about lost causes.