Going the Distance
CONGRATULATIONS to Nanette Burstein, creator of the IFC Docu-Drama FILM SCHOOL that chronicles my 2nd year at NYU film school and has become a time capsule for my classmates. Nanette is also responsible for the groundbreaking documentary THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE about the life of legendary producer Robert Evans. Starring Drew Barrymore & Justin Long, GOING THE DISTANCE marks Nanette’s narrative feature film debut. Her documentary work is consistently engaging and I am looking forward to this one. I rarely look forward to romantic comedies.
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KINYARWANDA in indieWIRE
You can check out the article here:Also check out articles on other IFP lab films: I’M NOT ME, directed by Zak Mulligan, Rodrigo Lopresti and YELLING TO THE SKY directed by Victoria Mahoney.
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“INCEPTION”…If you see something, say something.
I am not a film critic and I don’t want to be. But I am doing what the Bush administration told me to do. There are signs in the subway that read, “If you see something, say something.” Well I saw something.I sat in a sold out theater in Manhattan with a few hundred other people but it felt like we were all sitting there alone…hypnotized. Christopher Nolan did something right. I am not sure exactly what it was, but he did. He is sick when it comes to writing and directing. Very few come close.
As we walked out of the theater someone said, “This is a new genre of film making.” I responded, “No, this is just a bold exploration of what is actually possible in the art of film making.” Very few artistic mediums have the ability of controlling time the way film does. INCEPTION exemplified this. The film took us to layers and depths only possible in novels. In fact, it was a cinematic novel, not because of the 2hour and 22minute length but because the audience was still allowed to imagine possibilities, characters, their own dreams, and their own ‘inceptions’ while going on the journey of Nolan’s characters.
It was a strong ensemble cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, who bares the name Cobb a character in Nolan’s first feature film FOLLOWING. Joseph Gordon-Levitt was solid. It’s cool to watch him grow and develop as an actor. I’ve been sweating Tom Hardy since LAYER CAKE and it was nice to see him and Ken Watanabe do their thing. Ellen Page (HARD CANDY baby!) although a solid actress was one of the wholes in this film for me however. Her character’s motivations were ‘Hollywood’ corny and so too were some of her lines. I don’t watch movies to find fault. I want to be take be taken away from reality too but if you slap me in the face and take me out of the journey then hey…
In the midst of this cinematic beast, some of the shoot-out and fight scenes were highly far-fetched and not in a good way. If you establish rules and create a world where people can get ‘hurt’ ‘killed’ and there are deadly specially trained guards all around then you can’t have shootouts where people don’t get hit when they clearly should. (Unless it’s a dream, right?…See the movie.) Audiences let this stuff go but they still feel cheated when these things go down. (Yeah, Nolan should probably smack me in the face.)
All in all, I think the audience last night got their money’s worth. Like Nolan has done with all of his previous films, he seems to really respect our intelligence. INCEPTION made us walk out of the theater in a kind of good silence, like we were a part of a dream as well. The embodiment of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief.” It made me walk out wanting to make films. It made me love my craft. It made me dream. It made me want to write. It planted new seeds. From the marketing of the film to it’s final shot, the INCEPTION worked.
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Democracy Now Presents: Michael Moore on His Life, His Films and His Activism
Hear his path to filmmaking.“Democracy Now! special broadcast, we spend the hour with one of the most famous independent filmmakers in the world: Michael Moore. For the past twenty years, Michael has been one of the most politically active, provocative and successful documentary filmmakers in the business. His films include Roger and me; Fahrenheit 9/11; Bowling for Columbine, for which he won the Academy Award; and his latest, Capitalism: A Love Story.” –Democracy Now Website (www.democracynow.org)
Watch @ DEMOCRACY NOW
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More KARATE KID by Down & Dirty DV’s Anthony Artist
Anthony brings the power of the film home on his blogspot. He talks about how it effected his son.Check it out :
http://downanddirtydv.blogspot.com/
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The Movie Biz, Nobody Knows Anything Anymore…
Read the LA TIMES article about how and why KNIGHT & DAY suffered at the box office, earning only around $28million in five days.Click on image.
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The Karate Kid: A 12Yr Old Black Kid Dominates the Box Office
Will Smith produced the hell out of the newest installation of the 80’s classic THE KARATE KID. He had the foresight to bring the project to Jerry Weintraub who finally agreed after much trepidation. Co-producing with a Chinese company also a smart move. Casting Jackie Chan, his fan base–the martial arts fan base–hot. And even asking Jackie to do a little bit more as an actor, something rarely done in his US films. Setting the film in China gave it the AVATAR effect. The audience EXPERIENCED this new, ancient, forbidden, and magical place with Jaden Smith’s character. Ralph Macchio’s Daniel moving from Jersey to Cali was cool but in 2010 China was the thing…Finally saw the movie last night in a theater filled with parents and their children. I hadn’t been in a theater filled with such young people in a long time and for whatever the film lacked it more than made up for when it came to the elements needed to engage and please an audience for 2hours & 20mins. I don’t recall the last time an audience cheered for a character. I enjoyed the journey but then called my peoples, Emani, Deatra, & Charles as I usually do when walking out of the theater to give my personal review. I won’t share that review with you because it does not matter. Like I said, I enjoyed the journey more than most of the summer Blockbuster’s so far.
What really matters is that a 12 year-old black kid is the lead character in a movie that has had huge box office numbers thus far, 55 million opening weekend and 93.3 million worldwide. This is unprecedented but it won’t be spoken about much. Because although race is in the room we should not acknowledge it. In film and in politics, being Raceless, to make our counterparts comfortable, is in fact how some of us get ahead.
If you think a Black President is significant, understand that what Will Smith has done with his own career and now with his son and THE KARATE KID, has shifted cultural and political paradigms. The children in that audience wanted to be Dre the way I wanted to be Daniel-son back in the day. Now, I want to be Dre too. The most telling moment of the movie for me was when a little girl sitting behind me, she must have been around 4 years old, yelled out to her mother, “that’s a girl, that’s a girl like me.” A woman at a temple was posing, meditating, facing down a cobra. It was a beautiful moment and this child, like the rest of us in the audience, realized that it was the first time in the film we saw a woman with martial arts skills too. For that little girl that might have been the most important moment in the movie. This just underscores the fact of how important it is for us, ALL OF US, to see images, faces that reflect ourselves on screen. Congratulations Will, Jada, Jaden, Jackie, Jerry, Taraji, Harald, and the rest of the cast, crew, writers, and producers who made the film possible. You have changed the world.
Yes, I too am unhappy with the way Hollywood has destroyed my childhood memories with it’s various remakes but in this instance Hollywood enhanced my memory.
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Read the 2010 IFP Narrative Lab Wrap-Up
Check it out:
http://independentfilmmakerproject.blogspot.com/
Our Class Photo:
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IFP Narrative Feature Lab Blog Post
Check out the link
independentfilmmakerproject.blogspot.com
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KINYARWANDA selected for 2010 IFP Narrative Lab
We are honored to be one of the 10 films selected each year to participate. Read More…
http://www.ifp.org/ifp-announces-narrative-line-up-for-its-6th-annual-independent-filmmaker-labs/
We are truly in good company. Please look out for the other films and filmmakers in the program.
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