Greetings Soldiers and Cinephiles,
There are a couple of events coming up around Philadelphia this week I wanted to let everyone know about. Tonight at 6:30pm at International House there will be a screening of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1972 film The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. The film is being played in conjunction with ICA's Set Pieces exhibition and will be introduced by Set Pieces artist and curator Virgil Marti. I went to the Set Pieces screening last month of Antonioni's L'Avventura and it was a good turnout and they ended up having free pizza and beer afterwards. For my money, I think this is one of Fassbinder's best films and I highly recommend everyone come out for this one, it will definitely be worth it.
Tomorrow night at 7pm International House will be screening Walter Ruttman's 1927 film Berlin: Symphony of a Great City. This is one of those "city" films, which were so often being made in the 1920s celebrating modernity and progress a la Man with the Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov, Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's Manhatta, and Joris Iven's Regen. The film is largely visual with no real story, though it is arranged chronologically to present a day from morning until night. The film uses many experimental and avant-garde techniques from the 1920s, including a reliance on soviet montage. It is a really interesting and visually beautiful film.
Again, at International House on Saturday at 7pm, there Janus series continues with Fellini's 1954 film La Strada. The Janus series is always great, so this is worth checking out. For my money, Fellini and especially La Strada are kind of overrated, but as far as good film events going on in Philadelphia, I recommend going to see this instead of going to see another stupid documentary at the Ritz.
There really isn't anything that I can recommend playing at the Ritz right now.
Stay posted for more information about where to obtain your copy of the first issue of Shooting Wall!
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
First Issue Being Printed
The first issue of Shooting Wall is currently being printed! It took some time and a lot of effort, but by this time next week, the issue should be ready for distribution! We are still seeking articles for issue #2, so send them in, if you have them. We should hopefully be meeting next week to figure where we are going from here concerning next issue, screenings, meetings, etc. I will keep everyone posted as to the progress and any events that may be on the horizon.
It has been a pretty dismal month for film in Philadelphia. The Ritz has been getting absolute shit. There hasn't been anything coming out worth checking out. Just one crappy documentary after another! This is fall, the time when the best films are supposed to come out and, yet, nothing...nothing...nothing. Needless to say, this has been incredibly frustrating for cinema fans. It isn't that the films aren't out there because I know they are (Pedro Costa, for example, has a new film playing in New York right now). The Ritz is either getting lazy or they are just totally unwilling to take chances anymore. Either way, things are not looking good.
In better news, there are couple of things going on this weekend. Tonight Secret Cinema is playing some Velvet Underground concert films from the '60s at Moore. There is a 8pm and 10pm show. These are apparently pretty rare films, so this should be quite a treat for any VU and/or Warhol fans. Also tonight, IHouse has An Evening with Lynne Sachs. They will be screening two of her recent films and Sachs will also be there for a Q&A. Both of these events should be good.
Tomorrow night at IHouse there will be DDR/DDR at 7pm. This is a series of "cine-constellations" as a visual essay. I have heard a lot of good things about this film and will definitely be attending.
More updates to come...
It has been a pretty dismal month for film in Philadelphia. The Ritz has been getting absolute shit. There hasn't been anything coming out worth checking out. Just one crappy documentary after another! This is fall, the time when the best films are supposed to come out and, yet, nothing...nothing...nothing. Needless to say, this has been incredibly frustrating for cinema fans. It isn't that the films aren't out there because I know they are (Pedro Costa, for example, has a new film playing in New York right now). The Ritz is either getting lazy or they are just totally unwilling to take chances anymore. Either way, things are not looking good.
In better news, there are couple of things going on this weekend. Tonight Secret Cinema is playing some Velvet Underground concert films from the '60s at Moore. There is a 8pm and 10pm show. These are apparently pretty rare films, so this should be quite a treat for any VU and/or Warhol fans. Also tonight, IHouse has An Evening with Lynne Sachs. They will be screening two of her recent films and Sachs will also be there for a Q&A. Both of these events should be good.
Tomorrow night at IHouse there will be DDR/DDR at 7pm. This is a series of "cine-constellations" as a visual essay. I have heard a lot of good things about this film and will definitely be attending.
More updates to come...
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Updates
Greetings Soldiers and Cinephiles,
I apologize as it has been some time since I last updated everyone here on the blog, but I have been out of town. Shooting Wall is still working on printing the first issue. Hopefully, we will be meeting this week to figure all that out. It also appears we may be getting some screening support from Temple. Karl has been in talks with them and we may have a facility to screen films and someone to gets us prints! This is quite exciting and I will update everyone with more once we get everything worked out.
I didn't get to see much at the Philadelphia Film Festival this year (there wasn't much worth seeing anyway). I did see the new Abbas Kiarostami film Ceritifed Copy, which was mediocre. Not nearly as interesting as his best films (Close-up, Taste of Cherry, Ten) but not terrible either. It is a pretty standard and straight forward film. I saw Four Lions which was pretty funny and interesting content wise as it was a comedy about radical Muslims in England, but cinematically not brilliant. It will be playing at the Ritz next week and is worth checking out for its willingness to satirize something most people do not find funny at all and succeeds in that capacity, but leaves a lot to be desired stylisically. Lasly, I saw a documentary called The Woodmans. which was okay and, like most documentaries about artists, it didn't really offer any real insight into its subjects and was cinematically quite ordinary. Something better suited for PBS probably, but interesting if you are into art and still photography. Karl is working on more concerning the film festival, as he was able to see the big films this year.
Tomorrow night IHouse will be screening Antonioni's L'Avventure at 6:30pm. Needless to say, this is essential viewing.
I will offer a longer update this weekend, hopefully with good news on the printing of the first issue of Shooting Wall.
I apologize as it has been some time since I last updated everyone here on the blog, but I have been out of town. Shooting Wall is still working on printing the first issue. Hopefully, we will be meeting this week to figure all that out. It also appears we may be getting some screening support from Temple. Karl has been in talks with them and we may have a facility to screen films and someone to gets us prints! This is quite exciting and I will update everyone with more once we get everything worked out.
I didn't get to see much at the Philadelphia Film Festival this year (there wasn't much worth seeing anyway). I did see the new Abbas Kiarostami film Ceritifed Copy, which was mediocre. Not nearly as interesting as his best films (Close-up, Taste of Cherry, Ten) but not terrible either. It is a pretty standard and straight forward film. I saw Four Lions which was pretty funny and interesting content wise as it was a comedy about radical Muslims in England, but cinematically not brilliant. It will be playing at the Ritz next week and is worth checking out for its willingness to satirize something most people do not find funny at all and succeeds in that capacity, but leaves a lot to be desired stylisically. Lasly, I saw a documentary called The Woodmans. which was okay and, like most documentaries about artists, it didn't really offer any real insight into its subjects and was cinematically quite ordinary. Something better suited for PBS probably, but interesting if you are into art and still photography. Karl is working on more concerning the film festival, as he was able to see the big films this year.
Tomorrow night IHouse will be screening Antonioni's L'Avventure at 6:30pm. Needless to say, this is essential viewing.
I will offer a longer update this weekend, hopefully with good news on the printing of the first issue of Shooting Wall.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
UbuWeb...Hacked!
Recently someone hacked Ubuweb and shut it down for a few days. It's back up and functioning in a limitted capacity now. If you'd like to read a bunch of academics and experimental filmmakers argue about the morality of this action (which has been assumed to be connected to Ubuweb's policy of not asking permission to post work and for a brief time listing artists who asked for their work removed on a "Wall of Shame" page) you can find such an archive of somewhat ridiculous (but sometimes very interesting) articles in the Frameworks archive here.
You can also just subscribe to Frameworks, you'll probably be sent an e-mail about this topic every five minutes.
Really though no one is reporting any news as to why this is happening. Philadelphia's own cinematic jewel Secret Cinema occasionally gets hacked as well.
Obviously there are cinephile cyber terrorists out there. If they're googling themselves right now, I would like to make it known that Shooting Wall would love to talk to you.
Ubuweb Twitter here.
You can also just subscribe to Frameworks, you'll probably be sent an e-mail about this topic every five minutes.
Really though no one is reporting any news as to why this is happening. Philadelphia's own cinematic jewel Secret Cinema occasionally gets hacked as well.
Obviously there are cinephile cyber terrorists out there. If they're googling themselves right now, I would like to make it known that Shooting Wall would love to talk to you.
Ubuweb Twitter here.
The Cows Are Out Of The Barn: James Franco and Joaqin Phoenix
" I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle." - Alfred Hitchcock
I'm Still Here is not a bad movie. It took me all the way to the last frame to decide I felt that way, but it's true. Casey Affleck's editting style may be kind of annoying and self-conciouslessly artsy and the themes always teeter on the edge of not being very good ones but the grand experiment of transgressing the rules of celebrity is well targeted and the basic story of "I hate being famous, I did it to impress my Dad" is saved by it's sincerity, it's lack of real self pity, and it's basic factual account of itself.
I loved seeing Joaqin Phoenix fat, with prostitutes, not talking up his latest movie, and performing on Letterman with an aplomb that no one will ever thank him for. Watching a celebrity pretend to self destruct under the pressures of fame sounds like a horrible film (Sunset Boulevard aside). The whole film was like waiting for someone to finish a sentence you were just waiting to turn out racist. But by the very last frame I felt OK about all of it. If you're going to see it, see it all the way through.
James Franco is the other side of this phenomenon. His experiments with his fame serve pretty much no purpose. He stated that he wanted to be on General Hospital because you couldn't stop thinking that you were watching him rather than his character - and he liked that. In other words, hitherto consistent second banana James Franco suddenly stands out when you put him on a soap opera and we all think "hey I'm watching James Franco" because we've just been told who James Franco is. He was the Green Goblin and now he's on General Hospital and is attending 17 different grad schools.
I suspect the readers of Shooting Wall already know this. We won't get into his gallery openings of videos of men pooping and peeing. I haven't seen them yet and I don't want to judge. Certainly there has been some good things done with pooping and peeing. However, point made, he's kind of an insufferablly pretensious dude. And God love him for it, he just keeps doing it and there's something valid about that.
I don't know if there's anything to really say about this phenomenon other than to see if it becomes a thing. Certainly these men are not Orsons, Busters, or Charlies. They're not even Sam Rockwells, Dustin Hoffmans, or Donald Sutherlands. But now they're artists. And (soon) they'll both have been to the Oscars.
-Alex
I'm Still Here is not a bad movie. It took me all the way to the last frame to decide I felt that way, but it's true. Casey Affleck's editting style may be kind of annoying and self-conciouslessly artsy and the themes always teeter on the edge of not being very good ones but the grand experiment of transgressing the rules of celebrity is well targeted and the basic story of "I hate being famous, I did it to impress my Dad" is saved by it's sincerity, it's lack of real self pity, and it's basic factual account of itself.
I loved seeing Joaqin Phoenix fat, with prostitutes, not talking up his latest movie, and performing on Letterman with an aplomb that no one will ever thank him for. Watching a celebrity pretend to self destruct under the pressures of fame sounds like a horrible film (Sunset Boulevard aside). The whole film was like waiting for someone to finish a sentence you were just waiting to turn out racist. But by the very last frame I felt OK about all of it. If you're going to see it, see it all the way through.
James Franco is the other side of this phenomenon. His experiments with his fame serve pretty much no purpose. He stated that he wanted to be on General Hospital because you couldn't stop thinking that you were watching him rather than his character - and he liked that. In other words, hitherto consistent second banana James Franco suddenly stands out when you put him on a soap opera and we all think "hey I'm watching James Franco" because we've just been told who James Franco is. He was the Green Goblin and now he's on General Hospital and is attending 17 different grad schools.
I suspect the readers of Shooting Wall already know this. We won't get into his gallery openings of videos of men pooping and peeing. I haven't seen them yet and I don't want to judge. Certainly there has been some good things done with pooping and peeing. However, point made, he's kind of an insufferablly pretensious dude. And God love him for it, he just keeps doing it and there's something valid about that.
I don't know if there's anything to really say about this phenomenon other than to see if it becomes a thing. Certainly these men are not Orsons, Busters, or Charlies. They're not even Sam Rockwells, Dustin Hoffmans, or Donald Sutherlands. But now they're artists. And (soon) they'll both have been to the Oscars.
-Alex
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