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Hi, Bob!

This is an auspicious moment. The cinetrix has received an email from Sundance that, shockingly, did not ask me to spend money on anything, not even Botulinum Toxin Type A. I reproduce it for your enjoyment here.

Sundance Institute’s Los Angeles office has moved to our new location. Please make a note of our new address, and stop by to say hello if you’re in the neigborhood. [emphasis mine]

The new address is:

        Sundance Institute
        8530 Wilshire Blvd., 3rd floor
        Beverly Hills, CA 90211

        The phone number (310.360.XXXX) and fax number (310.360.XXXX) have remained the same.

Stop by? My, how folksy and indie! But I kinda doubt their sincerity, don't you?

And what's a "neigborhood"? Is that some West Coast thing?

Uncomplicated

Remember when people watched pornos in movie theaters? So long ago. And when's the last time you saw a one-sheet for an "adult" film? OK, for one not starring Ms. Jameson? Exactly.

But in the 1970s, it paid to advertise. The image to the left is one of the more tasteful pre-1975 adult movie posters you can find in the X-Rated Gallery [there's a book, too]. We're talking more than just the European softcore Radley Metzger flicks that are a slow-paced staple in any self-aware indie video store these days. Some of these films look like they were crude as well as lewd. O, pioneers!

Aside: The 'Fesser once rented an apartment across the street from a gorgeous old movie palace in Providence that showed porn to pay the bills precisely because he figured folks too dumb to operate a VCR were less likely to be smart enough to break into his place.

The cinetrix is actually headed to D.C. right now, for the first time in nearly 10 years. During my last visit, I took in a curated collection of "adult" shorts from the 70s--lotsa giggle-worthy animation and soft-focus, LSD-influenced cinematography, if I recall--at some art house with a good pal. We're talking rounded bodies untouched by gym culture or estheticians' wax. It all seems so innocent now, when even pretty much every mainstream title already sounds dirty depending on where you lay the stresses.

When I worked at a video store, we'd compete to see who come up with the filthiest titles as we realphabetized the New Releases at the end of the night. Try it for yourself the next time you go rent a movie. Shaving Ryan's Privates, anyone?

[Wasn't somebody just mentioning Charles Napier? Take a look at the credits.]

Secretly Canadian

Think you know all you need to about our tuque-wearing neighbors to the north? Think again. This CBC Arts quiz on the Genie Awards [held on March 21, eh] kicked the cinetrix in the derierre. Here's a representative question.

Which of the following statements about Atom Egoyan’s Exotica — which ran amok with eight awards at the 1994 ceremony — is untrue?

• The film won both the International Critics Prize at Cannes and Best Alternative Adult Film at the Adult Video News Awards
• Actor Elias Koteas (club MC Eric) starred in two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies
• A 2004 prequel was scrapped when Egoyan couldn’t find an actor to play a young Don McKellar
• Egoyan’s wife Arsinée Khanjian (club co-owner Zoe) was actually pregnant during shooting
• Composer Mychael Danna also scored the soundtracks to The Ice Storm, Johnny Mnemonic and Monsoon Wedding

Don't worry, the one about Porky's is easier.

If you need me, I'll be brushing up on the Andrea Martin oeuvre. [Dude, she hosted the Genies this year, and she's from Maine! Do you think somebody should tell the Canadians? I mean, I realize it's semantics, really, but still....]

Oh no he di'int!

Confidential to A.O. Scott.

In your review of Beauty Shop, you call out Alicia Silverstone for "speaking in one of the least convincing backwoods accents ever heard on screen." Applying the same logic, there's just no way you can get away with using "sassy"--let me say that again, "sassy!"--in this lede:

Not so much a sequel as an old-fashioned sitcom spinoff squeezed onto the big screen, "Beauty Shop" extends the popular "Barbershop" franchise to Atlanta and provides a sassy feminine counterpart to its cozy men's-club vibe.

Trippingly off the tongue it does not come.

 

Fluxus for the rest of us

Oh, Yoko! There's a tidy little collection of Fluxus films online here at UbuWeb. [via Bitter Cinema]

Starting in the early sixties, Fluxus followed in the footsteps of the Futurist and Dada avant-gardes, going against the established grain of Fine Art and Official Art and promoting imposture as an aesthetic dimension.

Fluxus interdisciplinary aesthetic brings together influences as diverse as Zen, science, and daily life and puts them to poetic use. Initially received as little more than an international network of pranksters, the playful artists of Fluxus were, and remain, a network of radical visionaries who sought to reconcile art with life.

The cinetrix could watch the hypnotic "Smoking" all day long.

You can also find links to films by Man Ray, Kenneth Anger, Guy Debord, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Robert Rauschenberg, Jack Smith, and other avant-garde badasses on the main film page.

Why not start with John Cale's 4'33"? But if you have the time and a fat pipe connection, allow the cinetrix to recommend a personal favorite: animator Harry Smith's Heaven and Earth Magic. Rather than describe it myself, I'll let this guy do the honors because his summary made me laugh:

Harry Smith is either a genius, a nut or both, because this is one of the most fucked-up movies I've ever seen. I actually own a copy, because it's worth having. It's essentially collage-art animation, sort of reminiscent of Max Ernst's Surrealist collage novels, but much more stark and minimalist. The entire soundtrack is nothing but sound effects. It's supposedly a parable for civilization's evolution or something, but I'm not sure how. Still, it's worth seeing.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

 

Short attention span

Because you like to watch--don't we all?--here's a veritable treasure trove of shorts.

From Resfests past on Trio's site, truly something for everyone.

Highlights include macabre Dame Darcy animation, a pas[ta]tische of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will starring marching rigatoni, the occupational [not to mention self-replicating] hazards of working in a Copy Shop, and a war picture that wouldn't be out of place at Joelanta.

For the eighteen and older crowd, Deformer is a not-for-kids [but perhaps for Kids] documentary about skateborder and artist Ed Templeton directed by Mike Mills. I can't really describe the style, but imagine if Lynne Ramsay had grown up in Huntington Beach and shot Let's Get Lost, and you're on your way. [Or maybe it's just all those sequences in the supermarket.] Mills next directs the movie version of Walter Kirn's Thumbsucker, a favorite of cinetrix friend Peter Brocade.

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Then there's this little snippet of nostalgia from archive.org: The Story, an accomplished home movie shot by one Homer Groening, featuring his daughter Lisa and his son Bart Matt as the narrator [link nabbed from StayFree's blog].

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Finally, courtesy of TMFTML, watch the best part of the Coen Brothers Intolerable Cruelty: the opening title sequence by Big Film Design.

*Extra credit geek out: GreenCine's David Hudson captured on video at SXSW.

Caution, Godard

The cinetrix will say this for Kelly Osbourne. The girl's got stones.

Check out her latest video [via Stereogum], in which she takes over the role of Natacha in Godard's Alphaville. You read that right. The Ozzy sprog apes Anna Karina. Sacrilege!

The cinematography is gorgeous. It was the first time. The song? Who knows? I kept it on mute.

On the travesty meter, this ranks right up there with the porno flick Latex, which included whole sequences of footage from Fritz Lang's Metropolis and ended with a lengthy facial. Which, come to think of it, is pretty much what the experience of watching Osborne's video feels like.

Credit check

So the cinetrix finally got around to watching the remake of The Manchurian Candidate last week. Non c'e male. Denzel is great. I've met Hillary Clinton, and Meryl Streep, while quite good, is no Hillary Clinton, not to mention no Angela Lansbury. Liev Schrieber has the best voice in movies, and Jeffrey Wright, as always, shines, although his paranoid fringe role felt a little too Giancarlo Esposito as Bugs Raplin for my liking.

It is nowhere near as terrifying as the original, of course, steeped as that film was in Cold War paranoia and Hollywood's fondness for all things psychoanalysis.  But it was also a lot better than Demme's previous remake, the tragically inert The Truth About Charlie [great soundtrack, completely unnecessary movie]. And, yes, it was intentionally released in advance of last fall's election, but the cinetrix would argue that it's better to consider this Candidate as an honorable addition to the small collection of films that wrestle with the first Gulf War, rather than any sort of spoiler.

Of course, with any Demme film, regardless of its overall merit, there's always joy to be found in spotting the musicians, performance artists, and fellow directors he casts in smaller roles. Who can forget Chris Isaak working the drive-thru in Married to the Mob? Or Karen Finley as a doctor in Philadelphia? Or the one-two punch of Roger Corman and George Romero in The Silence of the Lambs? Not to mention Agnes Varda in Charlie.

In this regard, the new Manchurian Candidate really rewards the sharp-eyed viewer. There's Robyn "Storefront" Hitchcock at his creepy best, sure, but also MacArthur-winning clown Bill Irwin and a veritable Greek chorus of "political pundits" played by Anna Devere-Smith, Sidney Lumet, Reno, Fab Five Freddy, and Roy Blount, Jr. [If only.]

Who's turned in your favorite jaw-dropping, in-joke cameo or bit-part turn, the one that had you jabbing your friend in the ribs when the person appeared on screen and solidified your nerd cred forever? Feel free to unburden yourself in the comments. It can't be worse than when the cinetrix spotted that delegation of E.T.s in The Phantom Menace.

March madness

Figures. Perfect Upset, an HBO Sports documentary on the 1985 NCAA basketball championship comes along, and my No. 1 connection at the network has left the building. It airs tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, all you premium cable subscribers.

The NYT has the skinny:

The madness, and viewership, were at an early peak in 1985 when Villanova upset Georgetown, 66-64, to win the championship.

The game, which attracted 31.2 million viewers, will be recalled Monday at 9 p.m. Eastern time in an HBO documentary, "Perfect Upset." The documentary chronicles the easy road to Lexington, Ky., for the defending champion Georgetown Hoyas and the more difficult path for the Wildcats, who benefited from the first 64-team tournament field.

The documentary vividly captures the rise of the powerful Big East (with St. John's, it had three teams in the Final Four), the transformative effect of Patrick Ewing on Georgetown , and the styles of the intimidating Thompson and the emotional Rollie Massimino, the Villanova coach.

A little background: In 1985, the cinetrix was a rabid St. John's fan, and thus just as rabid a hater of all things Georgetown, from John Thompson's damn white towels to Patrick Ewing's knees. Seriously. I had a crush on Chris Mullin and everything--I could quote his SI profile chapter and verse. If the Redmen couldn't win the NCAA in 1985, it would be enough that the Hoyas lose.

You gotta remember that, back then, pretty much all Big East matchups were as likely as hockey games to break out in bench-clearing brawls. Tensions, as they say, were running high. And there's nothing worse than watching basketball players fight--all those spindly limbs flailing. It's unnatural, like watching horses box.

The documentary also serves as a period piece: the players wore tight shorts; there was no shot clock, something that Villanova exploited (a 45-second clock was initiated the next season); and the 3-point line was not drawn until the 1986-7 season.

The producers Jordan Kranis and Margaret Grossi intelligently place the game in the cultural soup that found the hip-hop culture (whose devotees favored the attitude of the Hoyas) rising amid President Ronald Reagan's saccharine "Morning in America" theme, and the "greed is good" excesses of the 1980's.

Now that I'd like to see. I'm especially interested in knowing more about the hip-hop connections the filmmakers draw: Hoyas as thug-life progenitors?  I'd buy that for a dollar. In fact, I'm going to let St. John's alum D.M.C. take this post out:

I'm D.M.C. in the place to be
I go to St. John's University
And since kindergarten I acquired the knowledge,
And after 12th grade I went straight to college

Like life

Billyburg denizens and those not afraid of consonant-letter subway lines might well consider a trip to the Found Footage Festival tonight at--where else?--Galapagos, natch.  Pretend you come from an undocumented [as if] family while you thrill to industrial films and stoop sale shorts. [via]

All others can practice their hipper-than-thou postures by watching the video preview, featuring Winnebago man, here.