Are You Serious Cineaste?

Hello Cinephiles and Soldiers,



I received the new issue of Cineaste this week and it had The Kids Are All Right on the cover. Really? Why is it that in America just because a film is about lesbians it has to be considered an "independent" or "art house" film. The Kids Are All Right is a mainstream film. The same thing happens with foreign films. If a film has subtitles, it has to play in a small "art house" theater, when a majority of the time it just a conventional mainstream film. For example, the upcoming French film Heartbreaker is a case in point. A film that looks conventional and stupid in every way, but because it is in French, it is playing at the Ritz. This is something that I do not understand at all. If a film like Heartbreaker were made in Hollywood, it would probably star Dane Cook and Jessica Alba. I am not making any kind of value judgment about The Kids Are All Right, as I haven't seen it and probably won't, but if the film wasn't about lesbians, I know for a fact it would not be considered an "independent" film. It has Annette Bening in it!



No really anything good playing at Ritz right now. Like I said, A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop looks like it could be all right, but I don't think there is any reason to rush out and see it. I'm Still Here looks like it could be funny and absurd, but again, probably not essential. Not too much interesting on the horizon. Enter the Void could be interesting. It has mixed reviews and I am not particularly a fan of Gaspar Noe (Irreversible was a piece of shit), but as far as an interesting experiment, if nothing else, it appears promising. That opens October 1st. Otherwise, the Ritz lineup looks pretty bad. A lot of bad documentaries; kind of standard these days, I guess.

The Chestnut Hill Film Group starts their fall 2010 screenings on September 28th with Badlands. I haven't been to any of these screenings yet, but they play some very good films. attend a few of these screenings this fall. Nick Ray's On Dangerous Ground in October, Hiroshi Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes in Feb and Howard Hawks' Twentieth Century in March are the highlights.

Next weekend should be promising at International House with Aki Kaurismaki's The Match Factory Girl Saturday Sept. 25th and Chaplin's The Kid with a live score on Sunday Sept 26th should make for some excellent viewing.


Recommendations for the Week:

1. In a Year of 13 Moons by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. My viewing of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul has reinviforated my love for Fassbinder, so I think I need to watch some more. I am going to go with my personal favorite this week, 1979's In a Year of 13 Moons.

2. Eyes Without a Face by Hiroshi Teshigahara. This film is not nearly as famous as Woman in the Dunes, but for my money this is Teshigahara's best film. Highly original, expressive, intellectual and subversive. This, along with maybe Alain Resnais' Je T'aime, Je T'aime is probably the height of 1960s film modernism.

3. Frontier of Dawn by Philippe Garrel. This was Philippe Garrel's most recent film and along with Regular Lovers proves him to be one of the few filmmakers still working who is offering unique and challenging films. Garrel is incredibly underrated and under-seen in the United States. I will be writing more about him in the future, but everyone should see anything by him that is availble here.

4. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia by Sam Peckinpah. My favorite Peckinpah film. Violent, cynical and one of the great examples of a time when Hollywood would actually let a madman like Peckinpah make a film like this.

5. La Pointe Courte by Agnes Varda. Agnes Varda's first feature film from 1954 is one of her best. It doesn't have the same reputation as Cleo from 5 to 7 or Vagabond, but this is a key film in the development of the French New Wave and the move toward subversive "art house" cinema that would take place in the 1960s. This is a really underrated film, which I hope gets rediscovered thanks to the recent criterion edition.

I also have the latest Herzog film My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done and Docks of New York by Josef von Sternberg from criterion's new box set from netflix, which I am looking forward to watching this week.

I hope to be adding another blog or two this week as well. One about Summer 2010 highs and lows and some words about Inception.

I also want to put together a list of upcoming fall films, which are actually worth seeing.

-Josh Martin

3D and zombie movies

Resident Evil: Afterlife just made 27 million at the box-office for its opening weekend, pretty ridiculous seeing as how the plot is no different from the previous 3 installations in the series. This happened, and is still happening, with the Saw series - same movie, new money, over and over again, never going to stop. 3D can be thanked for wasting our time by prolonging these series even more, reeling us audience into theatres across the globe with the temptation of new technology. Here, put on these glasses, they'll make the movie more fun. Yeah. Right.

I didn't see Resident Evil: Afterlife in 3D, but I did see it, and by not seeing it in 3D, I prevented myself from being distracted by it, therefore allowing myself to see the movie for what it truly is - offensive. I swear it's as if the inventor of 3D has arose from the grave and created Resident Evil: Afterlife as an hour and a half long example of what his new invention is capable of doing, leaving cinema out in the cold. Cinema is lying in a gutter, alone and crying, as Resident Evil: Afterlife goes on in its demonstration of abominableness. It ceases to be a film, it's moreso equivalent to a laser light show, or -- if it weren't for the special FX -- a baby's rattle toy. No amount of 3D can save it. Its value as entertainment is insulting.

I just as much felt tortured by its plot. How old is this plot exactly? 42 years. Perhaps longer. Here it is: The main character, Alice, thinks herself alone in the post-apocalyptic world, which is inhabited only by zombies, until she flies a plane and finds fellow humans holed up in a building, which is surrounded by thousands of zombies, so she lands on the roof and joins them in their struggle to make it out alive. Is there more depth to it than that? No. 42 years now, we are still subjected to the same...god...damn...zombie plot first seen in the year 1968 in George Romero's Night of the Living Dead!

And what eagerness the movie has to hurry up into the action. Worse than Inception. No build up to the action - it's just there, suddenly, no transition, no nothing, before you know it you're stuck watching over-stylized fight sequences, the whole time wondering, "WHY?" I don't see how enjoyment is possible when what I'm watching has no meaning. I AM NOT A DOG.

I read this interview with Wentworth Miller, one of the stars of Resident Evil: Afterlife, where I found his opinion on classic horror films as very respectable, as he commends them for their use of suspense to build the horror and for having respect for the audience by not cheaply scaring the audience within the first 5 minutes. He then goes on to insult the way modern horror films betray the audience's intelligence. Why he would say this in an interview to promote Resident Evil: Afterlife is beyond me. It is the epitome of the modern American horror film which treats its audience as stupid and it furthers this insult by being in 3D - 2 gimmicks combined to make 1 pile of shit. This is the worst case scenario horror film, I cannot imagine anything more bad.

I cannot live with myself for donating $9 of my own money toward those who made me endure this experience. An innocent Sunday afternoon turned to horror, not by the scares from the movie but by my supporting such blatant anti-cinema.

- Jon Seidman

Upcoming Cinema in Philadelphia

I will be routinely updating everyone with the good and bad screenings and cinematic events in Philadelphia.

Now Playing:

The Ritz has has had a fairly lackluster selection of films in the last few months. The new Faith Akim film, Soul Kitchen, is playing. Does not appear to be essential, but his last two films were very good, so Soul Kitchen may be worth checking out. None of the upcoming releases at The Ritz appear particularly promising, but I have heard a few good things about A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop. Hopefully, the releases will be picking up as we move into the fall, although every single list I have seen of the most anticipated fall films has been shamefully disappointing. We will see.

There is nothing particularly interesting screening at Bryn Mawr Film Institute this month either, but nothing as shameful as their playing Eat Pray Love. My sources tell me the film did not do as well as hoped, so at least that is a plus.

September is shaping up to be a rather lackluster month in the area for new films. I see nothing on the horizon worth seeing.

This month at International House has been slow, but they will be continuing their Janus Film Series on Saturday September 25 with Aki Kaurismaki's The Match Factory Girl. This is required viewing for all Shooting Wall soldiers and everyone should be there. There schedule should pick up next month, which I will go into more detail about in later posts.

Required Viewing of the Week:

I plan on listing at least five films every week, which I am hoping to revisit. If you have not seen these films, DO SO IMMEDIATELY.

1. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. This film has been a staple of mine for many years, but I realized that it has been quite a while since I have watched any Fassbinder films, so I thought this would be a good place to start to revisit him.

2. Partner by Bernardo Bertolucci. For anyone interested in political cinema, Partner is required viewing. It is not one of Berolucci's more famous films and it often gets mixed reviews, but for my money it is way better than that psycho-sexual piece of shit Last Tango in Paris.

3. Teorem by Pier Paolo Pasolini. For my money, this is Pasolini's masterpiece. This and Porcile are the apex of his work before he detours into his highly sexualized adaptations of The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights.

4. I'm Not There by Todd Haynes. I have been meaning to rewatch this film since I first saw it in the theater. A very rare biography that is subversive, interesting and consistently cinematic.

5. Three Women by Robert Altman. Altman's best film. Strange, elusive and full of ideas.


Please continue to check the blog daily, as I hope to be consistently updating it with everything cinematic and everything Shooting Wall.

The Future of Shooting Wall is Now

Greetings cinephiles and soldiers,

It has been a few months since we have updated this blog, but now that the oppressive heat of summer is over and the fall is upon us, Shooting Wall is ready to reclaim cinema. First Philadelphia and then the world.

We have spent the summer preparing the first issue of Shooting Wall, which should be coming out (hopefully) by the end of September. Karl and Jon are working on the final touches now and it is sure to incite all kinds of cinematic riots and revolutions throughout the city of Philadelphia. I (that is Josh Martin) have spoken to Karl and Jon and we have agreed that I will take over the main duties of the blog, with their assistance whenever an idea strikes them which they need to immediately get out. I plan on updating this at least once a week (sometimes more if I am feeling particularly cranky). The blog will be the outlet for day to day Shooting Wall activities, reviews, screening information and what not. I will be keeping all the soldiers up to date with all cineamtic happenings in Philadelphia. All true cinephiles will check this blog at least twice a week (daily for the truly committed).

Other than the first issue, Shooting Wall has several plans for the fall and beyond. We will be organizing various meetings, discussions and screenings throughout the city. This will hopefully be taking place either monthly or bi-monthly. All screenings will feature Shooting Wall approved local films. We hope to expand regionally as well encompassing all meaningful cinema from the region. You will have to read this blog and stay tuned so you do not miss out on the revolution. A Shooting Wall film festival is also in the works....

MANIFESTO:

This is Shooting Wall:

Shooting Wall is a revolutionary cinematic organization. Its aim is to embolden the filmmakers and film theorists who assert what we refer to as “film truth.” Indeed, there exists a criterion for the cinematic. For us, it lies not in the advocation of film movements that revolve themselves around the complicated ideas of counter-cinema. It lies in our definition of cinematic, which we tell in three simple points immovable in their logical strength:

Film is a visual medium.

Film is an auteur-based art.

Film is not reality.

Organization:

Shooting Wall will be comprised of various chapters, with its own magazine being the central organ. Any grouping of people who agree with our three points of cinema will be the ones starting the chapters. They will be the council to head all stances and theories, developed through the magazine and meetings. Spreading film truth must be done in the most organized and effective method possible. With cinema the way it is today, we have to go beyond the petty bourgeois and individualist style that is evolving on the internet and concentrate more on collective, experimental, committed forms of action.

Ideology and Film Movements:

Shooting Wall believes in unity. This is what shapes our stances and theories, how we will persistently make known what is cinematic. We have no use involving ourselves with the type of counter-cinema that has prevented past film movements from taking power due to their strict ideology. After all, it is exactly why film theory and criticism have lost their way. We will not be hindered by ideas that have already been proven as failures. Our way is to strengthen the foundations of pure cinema, meaning we leave academia behind because there is no need having it mixed with film theory. There are weapons specific only to cinema which we take hold of through analyzing the greats and by having an unbiased opposition to Hollywood cliches. We arm ourselves with these weapons in a desire to save cinema and if there is to be a war, it is between those of us who use the weapons and those who do not.

Cinematic Revolution:

Shooting Wall knows times are dire, the cinematic has been derided and the hunt for an honest piece of work is weakened by the herds of films lacking any integrity. It is now gradually losing its importance as art. There needs to be something to assure a cinematic future that's worth a damn. If all those who support the cause we present can agree upon film truth and what it means, that unity is where our theories of strength are built. Then, we have a foundation. We push our cause and truth through the magazine, by the power of social networks, in our protests of non-cinema. Filmmakers, theorists and critics, Shooting Wall is insisting you need to start taking film more seriously. We are proposing that you join us and make cinema a way of life. Our war cry: NO FILM BUT CINEMATIC FILM!