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More Flaherty fragments

So many images.
In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain),
Larissa Sansour & Søren Lind
...After He Left, Athi-Patra Ruga
Sonic Fictions, Grace Passô
A Space Exodus, Larissa Sansour

Flaherty fragments

I watched a lot of images in July. Here are some of them, from Public Service Announcement (Athi Patra Ruga, 2014). Watch the film here.

Faces Faces

From my summer of online movies.

Adventures in cinema: the kids, they are all right

While I wasn't paying good attention in this pandemic year, turns out many present/former students got up to movie making. Which is particularly impressive because there are no production facilities/courses to speak of. Even better, it evolved from a COVID-born online movie watching/discussion group, with a list that exceeds 500 titles at last count. (I am particularly in love with their double features.)

Bias acknowledged, ma non c'è male! The short is good, fucking weird, and wears its influences/thefts proudly. The adherence to masking protocols here (see Behind the Scenes below) and on their previous production hurt my black heart because they are getting it done regardless but jfc, this year.

(It occurs to me that I may have to meet/apologize to the director's parents at graduation this spring for whatever bad ideas I might have transmitted via one enrichment thingie and the subsequent two classes with me during said student's undergraduate career.)

IFFBoston 2012: God Bless America

At this late-night screening at the Somerville Theatre, I sat two seats over from director Bobcat Goldthwait's friend of many years, Tony V. [who plays the pedophile in the pancake house, if you must know], which put me in the comedians-giving-each-other-the-business-badinage crossfire. [See below.]

Here's what I wrote on the back of a Brattle Film Foundation membership form about God Bless America:

• "This is a v. violent movie about kindness." - Tony V.
• It's go time.
• Gun Crazy
• Network
• Little Murders
• Taxi Driver
• Bonnie & Clyde
• "Oh, Frank would shoot you right in the fucking mouth."

What I remember: Liking it so much that I made a point of recommending it to friends who'd worked for a tabloid that rhymes with Muss Meekly; laughing through the whole Q&A; enjoying Freddie Rumson going vigilante. I later rewatched it with the 'Fesser and Oat Soda on Netflix Instant, and a fine time was had by all.

IFFBoston 2012: Kid-Thing

KID-THING (clip) prank call from NoBudge on Vimeo.

Oh, Kid-Thing. What a creepy little picture from the Zellner boys. Here's what I wrote on a napkin:

• Bachrach wordless singing
• '70s movie blonde
• Jackie Earle Haley

What I remember: Really liking the tomboy stylings of protag Annie, especially her problem-solving mixed with secrecy mixed with random cruelty; feeling sad when Susan Tyrrell, who played Esther and was so magnificent in Fat City died this summer.

“The last thing my mother said to me,” Ms. Tyrrell said in a 2000 interview with LA Weekly, “was, ‘SuSu, your life is a celebration of everything that is cheap and tawdry.’ I’ve always liked that, and I’ve always tried to live up to it.”

IFFBoston 2012: For Ellen

So Yong Kim's films sound totally up my street, but For Ellen was the first I managed to see projected. [It was also the second film I saw at this year's IFFBoston.] I'm not gonna lie -- it kind of irritated me. Basically, I liked Clean better.

Here's what I wrote on the back on my boarding pass:

• shifter on steering yoke hand unheld
• long skinny rocker legs vs. little girl in moon boots
• [illegible] intensity of shopping excursion = audience giggles
• Fish Kill Fea + Crazy Heart
• Alice in Chains chin hairs + Buffalo '66
• wincing btw young De Niro & [illegible "mindless"? "millennial"???]
• Dano bowling Chet Baker hair black nails
• Dano as Gepetto's real boy
• lovely escalator shot
• "It's not real shit. We need to [illegible] real shit."
• Bill W. Clean? 
• Feel like Trigger
• diegetic music fakeout
• Dano's nose
• "In the Still of the Night"
• perfect Dagfin [a guy in grad school early 90s] / Maggie Chung sockhead

What I remember: Feeling impatient. The blueish quality of the snowy upstate New York landscape.

RELATED: FIVE QUESTIONS WITH “FOR ELLEN” DIRECTOR SO YONG KIM

TRIBECA: Did you and Paul hit it off right away? Did you find the energy to feed off of each other?

JON HEDER: Yes and no. I am, by nature, a lot like Butler. And Paul certainly plays a lot of the role “in character,” but if it was strict to the script and so controlled, it would feel like, This is acting. But it wasn’t so controlled, so we could just kind of try different takes and feel things out. So it was him just being very real.

Certainly a lot of times it felt more intimidating—him keeping in character—but Paul’s such a nice guy. He couldn’t do that completely; I don’t think he could be that much of a jerk.

FFDFF / IFFBoston 2012: Beauty Is Embarrassing

The first thing you notice are Wayne's searing blue eyes.

Or at least that's the first thing I scribbled about a doc I can't recommend highly enough: Beauty Is Embarrassing, which played at Full Frame and IFFBoston this spring [I caught it at the former]. You need to know about Wayne White. And then tell your friends. In fact, when my former student Vince -- a gifted artist who transferred to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago -- showed up at Film Forum after I put out a general Facebook call for folks to come see Celine and Julie Go Boating with me this past May, I insisted he see this film about a fellow southern eccentric. Fast-forward to last month, when Vince's status update read:

Makin downhome trash art with one of my personal Southern artist heros Wayne White at 3rdWard! Shit, Yeah! @waynewhitedoc

And here's what I scribbled on the back of a sheet detailing the A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy schedule:

• a family of artist / thrift store art
• Ed Ruscha
• "It's so beautiful it hurts my feeelings."
• Mimi: Valley Girls' Guide to Life
• 15 lb. solid white pine / Randy
• That's the American dream FU $
• Duchamp is a big French fag

RELATED: FIVE QUESTIONS WITH “BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING” DIRECTOR NEIL BERKELEY

FFDFF / IFFBoston 2012: The Queen of Versailles

Here's what I wrote on the other half of that Speakeasy flyer, about The Queen of Versailles, the latest from Lauren Greenfield, whose photography and film Thin I love, and with whom I randomly wandered Harvard Square in the company of a group of her undergrad classmates, when we were in town for our respective college's respective reunions. [The cinetrix has a bit of the will o' the wisp about her.]

Anyhoo, this one would work on a triple bill with, um, Tabloid and Maxed Out.

• 43 y o mom of 8 Jackie
• David 74 Siegel
• Mrs. Florida
• friend Tina foreclose
• dead pets 5K
• going to visit the children's wing
• 90K sq ft
• room full of bikes
• 1st kids poor [David's]
• $5M Chinese marble
• DOG SHIT
• "I haven't put anything aside."
• everyone wants to vacation [about time share]
• like a Rockefeller, [illegible] show them [illegible] they can.
• time share vacations = health
• sell every unit 52x (Vegas: Sid S)
• Jonquil - niece
• Miss America 2008
• Philippino nanny
• 19 --> 5 staff

What I remember: Jackie's attempts at economies. She goes to a big box, then buys a bunch of shit they already have, trailed around the space by a retinue dragging overflowing shopping carts. Empty cube farms. Greenfield's palpable affection for her subjects. Even when they have a servant wear a costume for a holiday party. And, DOG SHIT. EVERYWHERE.