THE FIRST DAYS OF SPRING TRAILER

I'm about to leave for San Franciso to finish shooting a music video for Mr. George Watsky, but I wanted to quickly share a trailer that I'm obsessing over recently. I just found out about the UK band Noah and the Whale, and they are releasing their next album along with a film. The combination of the song plus the cinematography has got me all hot and bothered in the right ways. It's playing in a few British festivals, but you can purchase the album and the DVD on August 31st. Please check it out.

COME WATCH "NEW WORLD ORDER" 3/26

New World Order from SeeThink on Vimeo.
Screening at the Bordy this Thursday with Director Luke Meyer (also a family member, come and support)... Just opened at SXSW, should be very cool.

SEE THESE VOL. 3

THE RIVER (1997) - TSAI MING LIANG

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CRÍA CUERVOS (1976) - CARLOS SAURA

THE GRID

I just stumbled upon the DVDbeaver review of Koyaanisqatsi and thought I'd share a still. They have some really nice screenshots up, which are hard to find with just a basic Google image search. It definitely is a significant influence on my work, plus it brings back a lot of good memories.

"WHY OUR PARENTS FIGHT" FIRST SCREENSHOT

THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED

I just wanted to say a few things about a film I watched last night called "The Pleasure of Being Robbed" by Josh Safdie and all the Red Bucket gang. I'm not the best at writing movie reviews, as I tend to ramble about what I liked best, so I'm going to first suggest that if you're interested in seeing this film, read a professional one. Michael Tully wrote a great article about the film on Hammer To Nail.

So all I can really say about the film is that it's an adventure. The imagination of the character's becomes your own. Whatever they want to do, you want to do with them. I say this because the film really has no limits. Eléonore doesn't follow any rules of society and therefore the film doesn't follow many cinematic conventions. Nothing stops the characters from doing what they want, whether it be a all night drive in a stolen car from New York to Boston, or a magical tryst through the Central Park Zoo. I hope I'm making sense. Again, I'm just going to say that the film is an adventure and you wanna be right there with 'em. This is the best review I can give.

Oh, and it's wonderfully shot in gorgeous 16mm.

I've attached the IFC trailer. You can watch the film currently ONDEMAND, but I'm assuming it will be playing more American festivals in the spring. I briefly met Josh Safdie at the Independent Film Fest of Boson two years ago and since then I've been following Red Bucket on their website. So I suggest you do the same. www.redbucketfilms.com

FRANK MOURIS - FRANK FILM

According to the production journal of Alexander the Last, (a new film by Joe Swanberg and David Lowery, produced by Noah Baumbach and starring Justin Rice of Bishop Allen) this is one of Joe's favorite films. I'd thought I'd share it. If I could tell you when Alexander the Last is coming out I would, but I'm assuming they are in post-production right now.

"I AIN'T FARTIN' ON NO SNARE DRUM"

Hiroshi Teshigahara was this guy back in the 60's in Japan Right? Right. His dad founded an art's school right? But this ain't your typical kindergarten art's and crafts right? Right. They had pottery and stuff.

The Story: Boy makes a few surrealist films that own face. Dad dies. Boy takes over the school and focuses on documentaries. The documentaries are strangely surreal in their own right due to some interesting montage editing and rhythms, and the way the camera explores the architecture. I just found out he did a documentary on Gaudi's architecture in Barcelona. This thing, right:


There's turtles, chicken families, palm eyes and prophets in them thar pillars. But that's for another day.

Anyways, this is supposed to be about Toru Takemitsu who did a lot of scoring for Teshigahara and at some point decided to be one of the most important composers of the 20th century. I more or less just found this out. I want his job.

EUGENE FINNEY AND GLORY AT SEA

Today, at the SMFA, we met (among others) Eugene Finney who, trained as a painter, now makes some pretty wonderful sculptures that he likes to call "post apocalyptic design theories." His works included a shelter made out of wood scraps from a an old brownstone that was being renovated as well as a boat made of scraps and found objects (complete with skids for a base and a projector screen for the front sail). I didn't get to see the pieces in their full glory (pun noted for later), but was rather forced to view them in his cramped 3rd year SMFA Masters studio. For this reason, I propose that anyone who wants to come with me should go to the MFA Thesis Exhibition at the Tufts University Art Gallery sometime between December 4th and 21st (2008). It will be a great time.

Honestly, these works really interested me not only because they were assemblage sculptures meant for very distinct functions (taking assemblage to a new level), but mainly because the sailboat reminded me an incredible amount of Court 13's Glory at Sea:

Glory at Sea is a tale with elements of magical realism that depicts a small town outside New Orleans who discovers that they can visit their lost loved ones who still remain very much alive in the ocean. Once realizing this, they band together build a makeshift ship out of "the flood's" wreckage and attempt to discover "where the dead people go."

So, naturally, to round out this entry of shameless plugs and inspirations, I bring incredible news (at least for Family Family Tree). The following has been posted on the McSweeney's website:

Wholphin No. 7 will feature a short film by Gus Van Sant based on a William S. Burroughs short story; a documentary exploring autism from the animators of Waking Life; Field Notes from Dimension X; the SXSW award-winning Glory at Sea; and a curious documentary about men living in relative isolation on Bodmin Moor, one of whom in particular subsists on a strict roadkill diet. Issue 7 will also include a special bonus disc containing a highly controversial interactive scientific experiment in retroactive causality, in which the Wholphin audience, just by watching, will help to determine the role of consciousness in the establishment of a physical reality.

AWESOME!

LUCKY DRAGONS