putting the j in jjosh

Back in 1998 (10 years ago!!) Mike Heany, Andrea Seabrook, her crazy Mexican boyfriend and I made this short film called Character. It had been a while since we’d done any filming, and I wanted to try and make something where we shot it all in one day. I whipped up a script, we met up and shot it, and over the next few weeks I edited it at the place in Arlington where I was working at the time.

Unfortunately, due to a technical (and boring) screwup that can be translated as "Josh didn’t know what he was doing", at the end of it all, the cut that I had made would have to be put together all over again, eye-matching every shot in its 11 minutes. In other words, a major pain-in-the-ass hassle.

Such a pain-in-the-ass, in fact, that it has taken me 10 years and some downtime at work to get it done.

The sad part of all this, of course, is that the star of the film and one of my best friends ever, Mike Heany, tragically committed suicide in 2004. It’s given this whole project a kind of bitter-sweetness to it. But to be honest, it’s been more sweet than bitter. I have been laughing so much at how we’re cracking each other up during the filming, and just seeing all the fun we’re having, seeing how seriously Mike is taking the acting, seeing what a dynamic person he really was.

When you read the obituaries of famous artists, people are always saying how lucky we are that we can still experience that person through their art; from working on this film I am finding myself feeling the same thing about Mike. I’m so glad we have a fairly extensive number of short films that we made together, so I can still hang out with him from time to time.

At some point (maybe by next Dec?) I’m hoping to make a DVD of all the films Mike and I made together, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll post Character soon as well, but in the meantime, there was one great bit in the raw footage where Mike is trying so hard to get this line right that I almost felt like it was its own 3-minute short film. Admittedly, it’s a tough line. Please enjoy…

"I’m Not Going To Make Any Friends When I Wake Up As Ass-Fetish Samson"

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UPDATE – there might be problems with the video…I’m going to tweak some settings and see if it helps…it’s working fine for me at work, but very stuttery at home…

UPDATE 2 – I think I’ve sorted the video issues…lemme know if its not playing well for you…

Done by Larry Cuba, the guy who made the graphics for the attack briefing scene in the original Star Wars, these graphics look so different from the cg of today. They have an organic quality, and are strangely beautiful.

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While working I came across this fantastic clip from Sneakers, the 1992 team-caper film with the dream cast of Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, Dan Ackroyd, that guy who was the main bad guy in The Bourne Identity, and Mary McDonnell as the love interest — amazing to contrast her there (young, 80’s sexy, flirty) with her character now on Battlestar Galactica (older, wiser, still flirty).

Also, they’ve got Ben Kingsley(!) as the bad guy, who’s also some kind of computer genius with a weird accent that I think is supposed to be Brooklyn. In this amazing clip, he reveals to Redford how he started his life of crime in prison. Kingsley is pouring on as much menace as he can, and then it gets to the hi-tech bit where he sort of demos how he did what he did. Using the terrible! power! of! spreadsheets!!!

(I especially love the sound of the keyboard when he hits the keys…clak!)

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So I’ve been doing an Upfront tape for Sundance Channel (an advertising tape) and since it’s not going on-air, we can use any music and any clips from movies to make it. I wanted to use a shot of some slo-motion dancing, like at a rave, and I remembered that there was such a scene in the film Human Traffic.

Described by imdb as “five friends spend one lost weekend in a mix of music, love and club culture,” I saw HT a while ago, and skimming through it again I was really enjoying it…

At some point I’m going to sit down and watch the whole thing again, but for now I wanted to share a couple of clips that I grabbed to use in the tape I was working on. They both feature the main character’s best friend, Koop, who is played by an extremely charismatic actor, Shaun Parkes.

A number of the scenes have really inventive staging, so here’s a scene of Koop doing some bedroom DJ’ing, and working his job selling records…so much energy…I’m using a couple of the shots of him dancing in my tape and they make me smile every time I see them…

A quick look at Parkes’s CV on imdb shows he was also in a series based on Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. What the heck is that?! Seven 1-hour episodes…good buzz in reviews…hmmm, I may have to check that out…

several times during this video art piece by artist Paul Slocum I thought I was losing my mind. Enjoy "You’re Not My Father."

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(via)

The Believer has a really cool article with Errol Morris (his new film is about Abu Ghraib!) and Werner Herzog interviewing each other. These guys are titans of doc, and they are so imaginative and smart, it’s a blast to read them (I found the article via). I really like this part: 

(also the illustration at the top of the article is by Maakies’ Tony Millionaire! Blog-chronicity!)

In the article, Herzog and Morris are talking like they’ve known each other for ages, because they have. From imdb:

Herzog once promised to eat his shoe if a young American film student went out and actually made the film he was always only talking about. The young student was Errol Morris , who met the challenge with his off-beat 1978 pet cemetery documentary Gates of Heaven. Herzog makes good on his promise in the short doc Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.

Apparently after that, Morris sees Herzog’s move as grandstanding or something and it becomes this 30-year-long feud.

Herzog Eats His Shoe is one of those short films that I heard about in film class at college and sort of figured, well I’ll never get to see that because short docs never screen anywhere. But now thanks to the magic of google video, it’s available right here! It’s 20 minutes long, and you could watch it right now!

The film is really really good, and Herzog is incredibly inspiring. I love the bit in there where he’s talking about making the film "Even Dwarves Started Small":

"One little guy caught fire when we watered the plants with gasoline and so I extinguished him with my body, I threw myself on him, and when he was extinguished I told him ‘I’m going to throw myself on a cactus if you all survive.’"

So he did it and there’s still cactus needles sticking in his knee! Also there’s that great bit recently where Herzog got shot by an air rifle while doing an interview and said "it’s not a significant bullet." What a badass.

 American Gangster – B

I just saw this again for the second time and I liked it a lot better this time. I think the first time I saw it I had just watched Crowe, Denzel and Ridley Scott on Charlie Rose and they were so freaking serious and full of themselves about how hard-core and amazing this film was. And then I saw the film and was like "ho hum, o.k." And yeah, it’s solidly done, entertaining from a cop/villain standpoint, fun to see how Denzel rises and Crowe brings him down. Not to mention the actor-of-the-moment Josh Brolin as an evil thug cop…

And a lot of the CRIME = CAPITALISM stuff was kind of hitting me over the head, and I wanted to scream "I get it!" when Denzel’s boss/father figure is telling him about cutting out the middle man, and so on. Denzel is badass as usual, but it came across a little like Scarface lite. And even Scarface wasn’t as good as it thought it was, you know?

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So even though I wasn’t a fan of Juno, and thought Thank You For Smoking was almost a good satire, and thought it was ridiculous for Jason Reitman to get an Oscar nomination for directing…I’m kind of digging his short film from 2000 "In God We Trust." It’s so rare to see a good short film that when you get one that’s actually entertaining, it’s kind of cool. This is well done and shows potential for Reitman — it’s ambitious, which I could also say about his two films — though I don’t think he’s really gotten it together yet.

16 minutes long, and fun…perfect lunch break short film…

"In God We Trust" (2000) – dir. Jason Reitman

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Persepolis – B

Well, having read the comics a few years ago when they came out, and absolutely loving them, and being blown away by the art and story and storytelling techniques she uses, my expectations for the film version were high. Then reading articles about how they animated it, seeing the gorgeous previews, hearing about how it was selected for the NY Film Festival, etc., etc.

And it was pretty good. It’s kind of impossible to be objective about it, because I find I have a bit of the "the book was better" syndrome. Obviously, as with any book to film translation, there was lots in the book that wasn’t in the film. And some of the voices didn’t match the kinds of voices I had imagined while reading the comic. And knowing the story already, I wasn’t able to be amazed by discovering what life in Iran was like.

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Definitely Maybe – B+

I read three reviews of this film where they basically said "Hey, you know, romantic comedies are usually so dire that when one comes along that isn’t awful, it makes it seem pretty good!" So I went in with reasonably low expectations. Add in the fact that we saw it in the middle of the day, on a whim, and the showtime just happened to match up with when we were walking by the theater.

Further add in the fact that I have a soft spot for romantic comedies (when done well, which is so rarely).

I really liked this film. It kept sort of subverting my expectations and had a good framing device — he is telling his daughter the story of his romantic past and she (and we) is (are) trying to guess which woman is her mother — which the film used to keep poking self-referential fun at the genre. Much the same way in Scream the characters are very horror-film savvy and keep saying things like "Don’t go off alone! That’s when the killer gets you!" There were parts in this where the daughter would say "But can’t you see?! She’s the friend who wants to be something more!" And by drawing attention to them, it gets to wink at the audience and play with genre conventions at the same time.

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Letters From Iowa Jima – B+

Well, somehow I’d had a lot of hype on this film…it won an Oscar, right? So I was really primed for it to be great, and there was definitely a lot to like about it. First of all, it was beautifully filmed. The colors, the shots, the staging, the acting, the art direction — all were absolutely fantastic. And the directing was really solid too, you really felt what he wanted you to feel, the dullness of the preparations, the anxiety of the upcoming the attack, the despair and full-on fear of the battle.

And beyond that, the film did a really powerful job of making you connect with the particular cultural idiosyncracies of the Japanese military. It really made me anxious and fearful when the idea of the honorable suicide began to make itself known. And there were lots of points where Maxine and I found ourselves saying "Why is he doing that?!" Somehow that made a real impression.

But there were a number of cheeseball moments too — from the cliche scene with the soldier and his pregnant wife, to the streaky slo-mo of the letters falling out at the end. And something overall was sort of cliche, though I can’t put my finger on it. There’s something about the films that Paul Haggis does that sort of feel like movie-movies, you know? Million Dollar Baby (yuck), Crash (double yuck), and even to a certain extent Valley of Elah (though I liked that one quite a lot).

Overall Letters from Iowa Jima was definitely worth watching, though not as amazing as I hoped it would be. I wonder if I’d get more out of it if I see Flags of Our Fathers. Hmmmm.

The Corporation – A

A massive documentary that is so full of amazing stories, facts and characters, it probably has about 8 full-length documentaries lurking within it. From the Bolivian riot in Cochabamba over water privatization to the attempt to destroy Roosevelt after the creation of The New Deal to the public indifference over biological patenting. Holy mackerel this film was full of ideas.

Told very simply, in classic talking-head style, this doc sets out to define what a corporation is, a bit of the history, and how modern-day corporations are functioning in today’s world. Needless to say, most of what it has to tell us is pretty harrowing stuff. But it’s full of fascinating, stimulating, outraging, depressing, invigorating stuff as well.

Mostly what this film made me do, (as have several other films, or books, or discussions about the state of the world today) was question: what has to happen for people to start caring about this stuff and really absorbing it? Because to a certain extent this film is preaching to the choir (I imagine). I expect most people who are willing to rent/buy/download a 2 and a half hour documentary called The Corporation are probably already interested in social issues.

So what has to happen, what kind of story has to be told to get an "average" person to connect to some of these difficult truths. I am somewhat heartened by the success of a film like Michael Clayton, but as far as generating social outrage, it’s a bit of a softball. And it’s not enough to show some astounding facts and leave the audience to get mad. I suppose Inconvenient Truth really affected some people, and Michael Moore’s had great success with his style of "I am the everyman and I can’t believe the world is like this!"

Maybe it’s wrapped up in Maslow’s pyramid of needs, and people can’t face these issues that exist outside of them while they still have so many current, direct issues to face on a daily basis, i.e., where am I going to find the money for that housing payment. But no matter what situation people are in, there’s always a need and connection to stories…

So maybe there’s some way to tell these stories so that people get them, the way The Beatles made music that people couldn’t help but get, the way Shakespeare wrote plays that people couldn’t help but get, the way great leaders stimulate action through speeches that people can’t help but get.

I’m glad Maxine and I are doing the small things we’re doing to contribute to the solution — recycle-mania, buying local food, getting humanely raised meats, limiting consumption, some of our work projects.

Not sure where I’m going with this, or what’s coming out of it, but that’s a powerful film to get me so charged up.

Especially as hung over as I was this morning.

I love the way Nicholas Cage will do a long string of major studio crap and then drop an indie gem on you. He’s so great. Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation, Wild at Heart.

A week and a half ago I was over at M Devito’s and just wanted to crash on the couch and watch something on his absurdly large tv…National Treasure was just starting, so I figured I’d give a try. All I wanted to do was veg out. And I don’t think I even made it a half hour. It was so bad! Atrociously bad! The dialogue, story, acting…the sets were weak for crying out loud. For a moment I thought Christopher Plummer would be able to hold me in, but no. I changed the channel and watched the middle hour of Titanic.

And I guess National T made scads of $$$, as has the sequel, right? Let’s have a look…ah yes…box office for National Treasure 1 worldwide gross is estimated at 347 MILLION DOLLARS! Yikes. National Treasure 2 is still out and it’s already made 383 MILLION DOLLARS. Wow.

And then there’s this (thanks, Malcolm!):

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and

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Over the spring of 2007 I did a bunch of promos for a movie night at Sundance Channel called Sonic Screen. It was pretty fun, the films were mostly great (Gimme Shelter, the Flaming Lips doc) and there was a really interesting one on Femi Kuti called Femi Kuti Live at The Shrine.

Femi Kuti is a mega mega star in his home of Nigeria, and he has a small concert venue there called The Shrine which he plays frequently to packed sweaty crowds. He’s also extremely political, and his songs are often about social issues or Nigerian policies that need to change.

I admit, his music doesn’t really do it for me, although it was amazing to see how much he practiced, what a talent he is (singing, guitar, keyboards, sax), how lithe and pumped he is, and how much energy he has. He’s also totally adored. This is a clip from the film that I pulled out because it was so amazing. For the first minute he’s explaining how he’s letting people vote on the best songs for him to perform, and then a devotee walks by. Kuti’s face is great, and the devotee is so full-on. Amazing.

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So fierce.

Enchanted – F

Having sounded off previously about how I couldn’t believe that Enchanted was Oscar-nominated for 3 songs(!!) while Once only got one, I then noted that some part of me secretly wanted to see Enchanted. This was due to the fact that I like Patrick Dempsey, had read an interview with him about how this was his return to the big screen, and then had seen some review that liked the film. Also I’m a story geek and was interested as to how they were going to tweak classic fairy tales.

Last night after a tough day at work, Maxine just wanted to crash on the couch, order out and watch something girly, so we got fish n chips (and mushy peas! amazing Park Slope Chip Shop) and watched Enchanted.

Or tried to.

We only made it about ten minutes before we both realized that as we weren’t 6 year-old girls, we weren’t going to enjoy this film.

Luckilly we had 35 Up to get us out of our fairy tale slump.