When Clouds Clear (2008, 15.3MB, 2:26)
Directed by Anne Slick and Danielle Bernstein,
When Clouds Clear is a remarkably intimate portrait
of a tiny Ecuadorian village’s struggle against
mining companies that seek to take over (and destroy)
the land they have long cultivated as their home.
Shot on a lovely mix of Super 8, 16mm, and video
to show the complexities of different viewpoints, the
film is one of the most beautiful I have had the
privilege of viewing this year.
Smith and Foulkes – This Way Up (2008, 3.4MB, 0:54)
Trailer for the Academy Award nominated short
from duo Smith and Foulkes.
Official film site here.
Via Nexus Productions.
Must Read After My Death – Morgan Dews (2007, 23.9MB, 1:47)
When a Hartford couple turns to psychiatry for help
with their marriage in 1960, things quickly spiral out
of control. Couples counseling, individual and group
therapy and 24-hour marathon sessions ensue. Their
four children suffer and are given their own psychiatrists.
Pills are prescribed, people are institutionalized, shock-therapy
is administered. This is an intimate story in the family
West of the Great Altar of Zeus (Doron, 2009, 27MB, 1:51 min)
9 Third Avenue Haiku (Michael, 2008, 52.7MB, 4:32 min)
We normally avoid posting our own work but this
time we’re going to make an exception.
Doron & I have a joint show at HTTP gallery & we’d like to
invite any DVblog readers in the area to come
along to the private view, this Friday, 16th January.
(Details on the HTTP site linked above)
I’ve posted a piece by each of us (which should
give you a feel for whether you’d love or hate us) but the HTTP
show is going to be a little different from our usual work
so please come along, have a drink, take a look & say hello…
A Portrait of Arthur Russell (trailer) (2008, 7MB, 2:11 min.)
“Wild Combination is Matt Wolf’s acclaimed documentary on seminal
avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer
Arthur Russell. Before his death in 1992, Arthur created music that
spanned both pop and the transcendent possibilities of abstract art.
The film incorporates rare archival footage and commentary from
Arthur’s family, friends, collaborators and admirers, including
Philip Glass, Allen Ginsberg, Jens Lekman, and many more.”
Africalls Trailer (2008, 23.3MB, 1:57 min)
If this rather lovely trailer is anything to go by then Africalls
the movie proper, by director Pere Ortin Andres, will display a pretty high level of visual
sensitivity to its subject matter -art & artists from urban centers of Africa.
(And I can’t help feeling something visually so good is also going to be truthful &
meticulous in its account of the artists and their context. A hunch, but I bet I’m not wrong.)
Apparently it’s tied in with a book & exhibition too. Strikes me all three would be well worth
catching/booking.
Here’s the website.
The Listening Project (2008, 31.5MB, 2:43)
It feels a bit cliched, but I’ll give this one the
benefit of the doubt, of doing relevant and
important work about the current state of
global relations.
The Listening Project is a documentary feature film
that puts a human face to world opinion of the U.S.
Filmed in 14 countries, it explores many facets of
America
Kill the Artist Trailer (2008, 17MB, 2:37 min)
Kill the Artist (excerpt) (2008, 12.7MB, 1:09 min)
Documentary from Andreas Troeger about ‘artists who got into trouble with the law
because of their art-works’.
Personally I don’t share what I understand to be the film’s implicit
libertarianism – I’m all in favour of shutting down, for example,
Holocaust deniers, or race hate merchants generally.
Niether did I see any work in the extracts sent that I gave a damn about artistically
but of course the point is that censorship operates salami style
& often by picking the most problematic, hard to defend, cases first,
so the discussion here matters.
Nonetheless when the definitive history of political censorship of/attacks upon art in the early
twenty first century is written I can’t help feeling the Steve Kurtz case
will figure more largely than the stuff on display here.
Interested what others think.
Jeff Nichols – Shotgun Stories (2008, 10.3MB, 1:50)
Shotgun Stories tells the tale of two families with the
same father. One, in which the children are named
Kid, Boy, and Son, came before dad sobered up and
found Jesus. The second, his marriage to a beautiful
woman who had four more boys, was his do-over.
After his death, an explosive feud breaks out between
the grown half-siblings.
It opened to rave reviews, and from the chilling
trailer alone, I can see why.
Jay and Mark Duplass – The Puffy Chair (2005, 6.3MB, 2:14)
Debut feature from the Duplass brothers, a few years
old, and part of the Mumblecore filmmaking movement,
which I seem to be partial towards.
Daryl Wein – Sex Positive (2008, 16MB, 2:43)
Groundbreaking film from 24-year-old Daryl Wein.
I hate it when people mention my youthful age, but
I think since I know my motivations for doing it, I’ll
just accept that we all mean it as a compliment.
Wein’s portrait of 1980s AIDS activist Richard Berkowitz
is such a contribution to our modern understanding of the
history of AIDS and gay rights activism. One of the first
to speak out about the need for safe sex in the gay
community, Berkowitz was ridiculed and ostracized.
This excellent documentary finds Berkowitz today and
revisits his time as an S&M sex worker before becoming
an outspoken critic of the AIDS epidemic. Much of the older
footage is also courtesy of Berkowitz.
An outstanding collaboration.
Errol Morris – Standard Operating Procedure (2008, 11.2MB, 2:00)
We don’t hide our love for Errol Morris – see here
and here – but there’s no need for us to apologize.
The man is a genius. His latest feature, Standard
Operating Procedure, interviews Abu Ghraib prison
guards and tells the story behind the now-infamous
photographs of abuse from the prison, uncovered in
2003. Dubbed a “nonfiction horror film” by Morris,
this investigative film, much like A Thin Blue Line,
helped Morris once again dig deeper into a crime
file, this one just more contemporary.
When you see a picture, you don’t see outside the frame.
With the frightening pictures as a jumping off point,
Morris interviews those involved with the scandal to
get the whole story.
Can’t wait to see this one.
Eva Weber – The Intimacy of Strangers (2007, 7.4MB, 2:23)
Trailer for the innovative The Intimacy of Strangers,
“a story of life, love, loss and hope – told entirely
through overheard mobile phone conversations of
random strangers.”
Winner of several festival awards, including the President’s
Award at the 2007 Full Frame Film Festival, which is extra
exciting as Full Frame is one of the first festivals that has
started showing videoblog work within the last year. Be sure
to check out the excellent IoS website, a wonderful complement
to the actual film.
Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005, 27.3MB, 2:43)
Trailer for the brilliant 2005 film
Lovely and humorous teaser for an equally delightful movie
From female mastermind Miranda July
Trailer for LOOK, the movie, which is composed
entirely of surveillance camera footage.
LOOK asks (and attempts to answer) questions about
security versus privacy, highly relevant in modern,
legitimately paranoid times.
Are you always alone when you think you are?
No Country For Old Men (trailer) (2007, 15 MB, 2:30 min.)
“Based on the acclaimed novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Cormac McCarthy.
The film simultaneously strips down the American crime drama and broadens
its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily
contemporary as this morning�s headlines.”
From – Miramax Films. directed by the Coen Brothers.
Quiet City (2007, 11.2MB, 1:52)
Stunning, reflective trailer for Quiet City,
a movie by Aaron Katz, available from Benten Films.
These are my favorite kinds of films.
I love living in – being in – cities, but I prefer them
when they are their most silent and empty.
Text loosely taken from the Apple trailer site, edited by me:
Together, Samantha and Charlie, two somewhat aimless youths,
share twenty-four hours drifting from late night diners, to city parks,
to abandoned apartments, to a party and art gallery deep in the heart
of industrial Brooklyn. Delicately realized with generous humanity,
Quiet City offers hope for intimate connection in a world that grows
larger by the day.
Body of War (2007, 16.8MB, 2:30)
Trailer for the forthcoming documentary about
paralyzed Iraqi veteran Tomas Young’s fight to tell
the truth about the war.
Sad and informative, not to be missed.
Produced by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue,
original music by Eddie Vedder.
Trailer for ,
a documentary about Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping,
produced by Morgan Spurlock.
I’m not convinced that Spurlock is the man to spread a good message,
but I sure would go to any church where Rev. Billy showed up.
DRIVE THE DEMONS OUT OF THOSE CASH REGISTERS!!
Psych-Out, trailer (1968, 8.8MB, 2:56 min.)
A look at the psychedelic world of the 1960’s flower children.
With Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Dean Stockwell, Susan Strasberg.
Directed by Richard Rush. – from Bedazzled.tv.
The Art of Digital Show (2007, 43MB, 4:18 min.)
Trailer for an international exhibition of digital art
at the Lyceum Theatre Gallery in San Diego.
October 6 – November 11, 2007
Fay Grim trailer (2007, 10.7MB, 1:54 min)
In the case of Hal Hartley I feel so at odds with the world’s
apparent consensus that I fear for the balance of my mind.
Why is he not feted as one of the world’s smartest & most inventive directors?
Why did folk briefly seem to understand in the early nineties that something
special was going on, then bizarrely seem almost immediately to forget about it?
It beats me, it defeats me.
Here is the trailer for Fay Grim, touted by some as Hartley’s return to form
Me I think he never lost it.
Yes – it has moments that feel eggy, awkward and mystifying but
then so does La Divina Commedia.
Brand Upon The Brain (Trailer) (2007, 3.47MB, 1:34 min)
Brand Upon The Brain (Foley) (2007, 4.92MB, 3:20 min)
Brand Upon The Brain, a new feature film by Guy Maddin, tours the US this summer accompanied with a live orchestrations by Ensemble Sospeso.
Maddin’s fantastically extravagant Super 8 films are always enchanting and the additional elements of live music, sound effects and narration by quirky celebs is sure to delight cinephiles of all ages. I was lucky enough to catch it in NYC last week with Crispin Glover as a very charming narrator, but the three Foley artists nearly stole the show. You can see them hard at work in their lab coats in the rehearsal video. Looks like it will have further distribution later this year with recorded soundtrack and narration by Isabella Rossellini.
strange culture (2007, 17.7MB, 2:17 min.)
Strange Culture documents the case of artist and professor Steven Kurtz
and geneticist Robert Ferrell, accused in 2004 by the U.S. Justice Department
of “bioterrorism” and currently awaiting trial.
The case threatens to set dangerous precedent by eroding the boundary
between civil and criminal law, and by criminalizing those who legitimately
and legally criticize government policy.
By Lynn Hershman Leeson.
Ice Age 1 (2002, 6MB, 1:56 min.)
Ice Age 2 (2006, 8.1MB, 1:26 min.)
Computer-animation extravaganza – Ice Age from 20th Century Fox.
Ice Age is directed by Chris Wedge, founder of Blue Sky Studios and
Ice Age – The Meltdown, by Carlos Saldanha.
Belleville Rendez-Vous (2003, 6.2MB, 2:08 min.)
A deliciously dark and twisted French comic animation film
in which a “Tour de France” cyclist is kidnapped by the Mafia.
Directed by Sylvain Chomet.
Inland Empire UK trailer (2006, 13.6MB, 1:53 min)
OK, so there’re the famous rabbits.
It’s only just come out over here so I haven’t
seen it yet but it sounds great.
The New York Times certainly thought so.
UK site
US site
The Shining (2005, 9.5MB, 1:24 min.)
Stanley Kubrick classic horror as a romantic-comedy family flick.
A masterful trailer cut by Robert Ryang.
Sleepless In Seattle (2005, 19.4MB, 58 sec.)
This is what happens when the ultimate chick flick gets
the horror/thriller trailer treatment from – Demis Lyall-Wilson.
1Z0-803
High and Dry Trailer (2003, 8.6MB, 1:53 min.)
Trailer for what looks like a really neat film about the Tucson music scene.
Main attraction of this trailer for me is that it features the God-like genius of Howe Gelb.
but I’m sure it has other merits too.
