Help Support a Late-Night Double Feature Picture Show! (Actually, It's Just One Feature)

Some of my FFFs (fellow film friends) have gotten together and put up a Kickstarter page asking people to pledge funds so they can put together a bad-ass performance of Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Browncoat Pub & Theatre. They only need $250, and there's a wide variety of rewards for pledging, including signed posters, t-shirts, your name in the program, and more! If you got a minute to spare, swing on by their page and drop 'em a couple bucks.

New Firewall of Sound Trailer!

So excited to finally be able to post the new trailer for my music documentary Firewall of Sound. Enjoy!



Please leave me your comments, either on here or on our Vimeo page!

My Cucalorus 5 (in 5 words or less)

Here are my picks for this year's Cucalorus Film Festival and why they're must-see films, in five words or less.

#1: The Square. Arson, murder, adultery. Australian Fargo.
(11/12, 7:45 PM, Lumina)

#2: Big Fan. Patton Oswalt goes nuts.
(11/12, 10:45 PM, Lumina)

#3: The House of the Devil. Satanists terrify innocent '80s babysitter.
(11/13, 10:45 PM, Lumina)

#4: Americatown. America, abridged. With crazy legs.
(11/13, 4:30 PM, City Stage)

#5: Calvin Marshall. Funny, great soundtrack. Plus baseball.
(11/14, 7:15 PM or 11/15, 10:30 AM, Lumina)

For your consideration, here's all the trailers:

The Trailer Editor for In the Loop Needs a Three-Picture Deal

A lot of movies are released every year in this country, most of which range from mediocre to terrible. But not only does the new political comedy In the Loop look fantastic, the trailer itself is a beautiful cut-and-paste collage of clever references, well-timed critic blurbs, intentional ambiguity, and hey is that the Clockwork Orange music I'm listening to?



Once again, Hollywood has proven that movie trailer + soundtrack from a Kubrick film = better movie trailer. But, unlike 2012, this one might actually deliver the goods.

Thanks to Screengrab.

Interview on Destroy Before Reading

In case you haven't been following my other blog about my documentary Firewall of Sound, I was recently interviewed by Andy Maddison of Destroy Before Reading. Check it out.

Jane Austen vs. Predator

So...just last week, I talked about the upcoming zombie spoof of Jane Austen's seminal work, Pride and Prejudice, entitled Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Now, I receive the following e-mail:

Elton John’s Rocket Pictures hopes to make the first Jane Austen adaptation to which men will drag their girlfriends. Will Clark is set to direct "Pride and Predator,” which veers from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protags, who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about.

Wow. Did all of Jane Austen's books suddenly become public domain so everyone's jumping on the parody bandwagon or is there a niche market for sci-fi twists on classic novels that I am unaware of? 'Cause I'll go ahead and admit I always thought an alien invasion would've been a nice addition to The Count of Monte Cristo, and why not have Jean Valjean on the run not only from the French police, but also from a killer cyborg from the future? Hollywood, I am waiting for your call.

Countdown to Watchmen: The Keene Act and You

The Watchmen viral videos continue with this fake PSA on the Keene Act, which banned the act of costumed vigilantism in the United States:



Not as professional as the vintage 1970 newscast, but I love the step-by-step "How to Avoid Rorschach" at the end. For more awesomeness, check out the official website for The New Frontiersmen, as well as their Flickr page.

Twittering Sátántangó

Bela Tarr is often heralded as the master of the long take. His films are known for their slow, drawn-out stories and the elaborate camerawork that accompanies them. I've known of several films by this Hungarian auteur (Werckmeister Harmonies, The Man from London) but after reading this analysis on NotComing.com, I decided to make Sátántangó, a seven-plus-hour epic that spans four discs, my first foray into Tarrville.



Now, even though I decided to go on this journey alone, it doesn't mean I can't share in the experience. So I've chosen to post my thoughts on Twitter as I watch the film. After I've finished with each section of the film, I'll post all my twitters in this blog post for easy reference. So, without further ado, let the twittering (tweeting, twiting, whatever) begin!

Part 1: February 5

9:08 PM - Part one of seven-hour Bela Tarr movie tonight. See you on the other side.

9:13 PM - Let's see if I can make it back to my apartment without freezing to death first.

10:24 PM - 47 minutes in and I'm already getting tired. (For some reason, this post never made it from my phone to Twitter, so I'm paraphrasing.)

10:44 PM - At 1:07, a bug crawls around on the camera lens. Nice touch.

10:46 PM - This score sounds like it was performed on an old Casio.

10:59 PM - Is Futaki a Hungarian name?

11:09 PM - Now watching an old man fall asleep. Was this movie designed to treat insomnia?

11:18 PM - Most exciting thing to happen in the film so far: the old man fell over.

11:26 PM - When I hear the title of this film, I can't help but think of the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song, "Satan Said Dance."

11:50 PM - End of part one. Wow. 2:10 in, and we don't even have anything resembling a plot! We'll see what happens in part two, once Netflix sends it.

Part 2: February 8 (My phone decided to go apeshit on me, so tweets appeared out of order or not at all. Hooray for technology!)

9:27 PM - Alright, you asked for it (actually, you didn't). It's time for part two of Sátántangó!

9:33 PM - Ok, let's see if i can remember all the characters from part one...

9:43 PM - Every conversation in this film seems to take place in two different time zones.

9:43 PM - Ah, that creepy electronic score is back!

9:56 PM - I believe that was the shortest chapter yet, 25 minutes.

10:02 PM - Ah, I believe we have reached the infamous "cat torture" chapter of the film.

10:06 PM - Starting to get tired earlier than I was last week. 35 min. vs. 54 min.

10:16 PM - I think I would much rather be Kelly Reichardt's dog than Bela Tarr's cat.

10:23 PM - I don't think Irimias is ever gonna arrive in town.

10:26 PM - PETA would have a field day with this film, but they're too busy dealing with "Kittens on a Roomba."

10:35 PM - Gotta break to pick up my roommate.

11:04 PM - Aaaand...back to the cat torture.

11:11 PM - I think Bela's taken the "film the actor as they walk away" motif as far as it can go.

11:12 PM - Have now acquired alcohol and will drink every time the camera cuts.

11:17 PM - Dr. Drink-A-Lot makes a return appearance.

11:25 PM - Little girl chapter over. Now on to a chapter subtitled "The Devil's Nipples."

11:29 PM - If that guy says the word plodding one more time...

11:34 PM - Everyone in this movie looks as if they're missing a soul.

11:46 PM - Man, even the parties in this film are depressing to watch.

11:48 PM - Could someone explain the man with a loaf of bread attached to his head?

11:52 PM - This is the worst song ever.

11:53 PM - I think I would rather hear the drunk man talk about plodding for an hour than listen to any more of this song.

12:00 AM - This is the second time someone has fallen asleep in the movie. A hint of sorts?

12:08 AM - And end of part 2.


UPDATE: So...some of you may be wondering why I never concluded this entry with my analysis of the third part of Sátántangó. The fact of the matter is that I thought this was a pretty silly exercise to begin with, and I didn't feel the need to continue it with the third disc. Rather, I just sat down and watched the film, unabated and undeterred. And even though the above posts may lead some to believe that I held the film in contempt and desired to mock it before it even began, the truth is that I thought Bela Tarr's film was a fascinating experiment in subtlety and mood, from the foreboding opening shot of cattle prowling the streets of an empty village, to the never-ending trek the old doctor takes to find the source of the mystery bells. Overall, it was a satisfying experience, although it's an experience I probably won't choose to repeat for some time, at least until I have another seven hours to kill.

Also, I have no idea what's going on in the comments to this post. Either someone is posting the same time as different people (I highly doubt that Mihaly Vig actually reads my blog) or it's computer hour over at the looney bin. (My apologies to people who actually posted coherent responses.)

The Viral Marketing of Watchmen Begins

...with this exceptionally well-made fake newscast from 1970, commemorating the tenth anniversary of Dr. Manhattan. Check it out, especially if you've never read the book, as it will (hopefully) answer some of your more pressing questions about the film.



Watchmen arrives, court-approved, in theaters March 6.

Keanu Reeves to Continue Decimating My Childhood

After single-handedly destroying The Day the Earth Stood Still, one of my favorite science fiction films of all-time, Keanu Reeves (who last appeared in a decent film in 2006, with Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly) has decided to take his mediocrity gun and aim it at my favorite anime series, Cowboy Bebop. From Film News Briefs:

Twentieth Century Fox is bringing the Japanese anime TV series “Cowboy Bebop” to the big screen, with Keanu Reeves attached to star as a bounty hunter traveling through space in 2071. One of the big titles in anime, “Bebop” is set in a time where “astral gates” make interstellar travel possible. Humanity, decimated by a lunar explosion resulting from a gate accident, spread out across the solar system, as did crime, which gave rise to the use of bounty hunters. Reeves would play Spike Spiegel, a bounty hunter and former member of a crime syndicate. Spiegel, along with Jet Black, a fellow bounty hunter and former cop, are the two pilots of the spaceship Bebop. Peter Craig is writing the script.

All we can hope for is a solid supporting cast to compensate for Neo McBland.

Firewall of Sound - Official Trailer

I was in the lab all this week, cutting together a short trailer for the upcoming feature-length version of my indie music doc Firewall of Sound. I'd prefer you visited the actual YouTube page, so you could watch it in high-quality, but I've embedded it here for your convenience:



So...what does this mean? Well, I am currently applying for a wide variety of grant money, which will go towards equipment and travel expenses for the film. I have ideas about who I would like to interview and where I would like to go, but all of that is dependent on how much money I will be receiving and who agrees to be a subject in the film. I have been immensely grateful to the people who agreed to be interviewed for the short film, and they will most certainly appear in the feature, some of whom I might contact for follow-ups in the near future. Ideally, I would like to use the feature-length to focus on topics I wasn't able to cover in the short, like bloggers who started their own record labels, the recent trend of bands doing impromptu gigs for blogs like La Blogotheque, and what it means to be a "sellout" in an industry where little to no money can be made off of traditional distribution.

As you can surmise, a lot of this is up in the air, and I hope to have more definite answers to your burning questions in the near future. For now, there's a trailer and a placeholder website, which will only exist long enough for me to modify the blog I made for the film back in '06. Until then, keep checking back and I'll keep you posted on updates.

R.I.P. McGoohan and Montalban

Two amazing actors died today: Patrick McGoohan, best known as the titular star of the surreal '60s British spy series The Prisoner, and Ricardo Montalban, who played everyone's favorite evil supervillain in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. They will both be missed immensely.

Hall of (Not So) Awesome: The Worst Films of 2008

I'd like to say I did a fairly good job of weeding out the bad movies beforehand, thanks to sites like The A.V. Club and Rotten Tomatoes. But I still found myself subjected to some truly horrible movies this year, and though I was thankfully spared from dreck like The Happening and Witless Protection (the A.V. Club's top two worst movies of the year), I was still able to find five films unworthy of the celluloid they were printed on...

5. Hancock (dir. Peter Berg)

Let me begin by saying that Hancock itself was not a bad movie. Rather, the second half of Hancock is a bad movie. For the first hour, we are presented with a wildly funny, wholly unpredictable look at a reluctant superhero being molded into something more presentable by a struggling PR man. That PR man is played by Jason Bateman, who needs to be in more movies, the opposite of which can be said about Charlize Theron, who is practically invisible throughout the first half, but sadly dominates all of the second, going so far as pushing star Will Smith out of the spotlight. While more of the blame needs to go to the screenwriters for making Theron spout all this unnecessary back story and superhero mythology, claiming that (SPOILER) she and Smith are immortal alien lovers, even though nothing resembling chemistry occurs between the two actors. Bottom line is Hancock was one or two rewrites away from being a solid superhero movie. Close, but no cigar.

4. Saw V (dir. David Hackl)

I got to hand it to the Saw guys; they keep finding imaginative ways for Tobin Bell to reappear in films, even though he was killed off in the third one. His demise came too early, anyway; he always seems to be the only good actor to appear in these new installments. Saw V certainly didn't do anything to change that theory, with Costas Mandylor taking over Bell's role as the new Jigsaw killer, making Shawnee Smith the 2nd Most Boring Person to Replace Jigsaw (there have only been two). It doesn't help that the killer and the protagonist (Scott Peterson) look a lot alike, and are both equally flat actors. The film does a nice job revisiting the haunted house motif that made Saw II tolerable, but it's simply a case of too little, too late. Just reanimate Bell's corpse already!

3. Mamma Mia! The Movie (dir. Phyllida Lloyd)

Yes, I somehow found myself in a screening of Mamma Mia!, which brought the average age of the audience I was with down about 20 years. It was a clear mistake, too, as a film in which Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan walking to the bank to deposit their paycheck for working on this film would've been much more entertaining. They would've retained their dignity, anyway, as Mamma Mia! required most of the cast to flail around like idiots (and not just during the dance numbers), scream incessantly whenever meeting someone, and in the end credits, donning the most misguided costumes ever conceived:


I know I wasn't the target audience for this film, but then again, I wasn't the target audience for Hairspray either and I loved it.

2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (dir. Steven Spielburg)

I almost feel sorry for including this movie on the list; haven't Spielburg and Lucas suffered enough for their crimes?

No, no they haven't. As long as this film contains CGI prairie dogs, nuclear bomb-proof fridges, sword-wielding Russian psychics, a failed attempt at a sidekick franchise, and the award for Worst Use of John Hurt in a Movie, no punishment will be too harsh for this disaster of a film, not even South Park's scathing attack on Lucas and Spielburg in the episode "The China Problem":



1. Deadgirl (dir. Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel)

If I had seen this film during my time as a programmer for Cucalorus, I would've given it a bad mark and that would've been that. But somehow this film went through our screening process unscathed and was given a prime midnight slot at this year's festival. Anticipation was high and everyone was excited about seeing the next word in American horror movies. Well, we're still waiting for the next word, because all we saw were two guys having their way with a female zombie in an abandoned insane asylum. That's the entire movie.

The guys stumble across the titular character, one of them decides to keep her as his sex toy, and mayhem ensues. At no point does the audience sympathize with anybody (except maybe the poor actress playing the dead girl), and directors Sarmiento and Harel keep creativity and originality to a bare minimum as they bombard the screen with all manner of sex and violence, ultimately signifying nothing. Some of the women in the audience were enjoying themselves, apparently finding some misguided sense of empowerment from scenes in which the dead girl gets her revenge on the male protagonists, but by that point, I simply wasn't up to watching the rest of this bloody train wreck, so I ended up leaving the theater, ashamed that the people I worked for and trusted had decided to screen this horrible excuse for a movie.

Hall of Awesome: 5 Movies We're Looking Forward To in '09

1. Watchmen (dir. Zack Snyder)
I don't think I need to explain why this is the most hotly anticipated superhero movie since...well, The Dark Knight. The original graphic novel is one of the most fascinating books ever made, pictorial or otherwise, and while I believe that director Zack Snyder is anything but "visionary," I do believe he is good at faithfully adapting comic books, so this one seems like a pretty good fit. Plus, no big name actors to distract us from all the awesome visual effects. I also have to give Snyder credit for keeping his fans in the loop, with his comprehensive video blog and free stuff on iTunes. Release Date: March 6

2. Coraline (dir. Henry Selick)
Henry Selick is the true genius behind Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas and this time, he's teaming up with fantasy writer Neil Gaiman (Stardust, Mirrormask) for this homemade tale of a young girl whisked into a parallel world where everything is the same...yet completely different. Stop-motion animation always gets me excited, and the filmmakers have been gracious enough to provide fans with a slew of footage and featurettes to whet our appetite. Release Date: February 6

3. Up (dir. Pete Docter/Bob Peterson)
As usual, Pixar has kept a tight lid on their latest creation, only recently debuting a trailer (shown below) and plot summary, which looks like it was pulled out of a Chris Van Allsburg short story. If this is half as good as WALL•E, I'll be impressed. Release Date: May 29

4. 9 (dir. Shane Acker)
Animator Shane Acker created a surreal little short back in 2005 called 9, in which a little human-ish creature (kinda like those felt things in LittleBigPlanet) has to defeat a robot bug thing and save the souls of his lost friends...or something. Anyway, it caught the attention of Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Night Watch) who produced a feature-length version, keeping Shane Acker as the director and hiring an all-star cast (including Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly and Jennifer Connelly) to do voicework. We'll see if the intimate little short film can blossom into a multi-million dollar blockbuster, but if the trailer is any indication, it should be quite interesting to watch. Release Date: September 9

5. Duplicity (dir. Tony Gilroy)
Tony Gilroy took everyone by surprise when he suddenly went from "guy who wrote all the Bourne screenplays" to "guy who wrote and directed the Oscar nominated Michael Clayton." Now, he's back with a slightly more comical look at corporate corruption, as Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play ex-spies who decide to double-cross their respective employers (played by Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti) and collect $20 million. Looks like Ocean's Eleven meets The Bourne Identity, and with Gilroy at the helm, I wouldn't want it any other way. Release Date: March 20

Movie review: Fear(s) of the Dark

You gotta hand it to the French: they sure do love a good anthology. Last year’s Paris Je T’Aime had the considerable task of taking over fifteen short films from a wide range of directors (including American favorites like Joel and Ethan Coen, Wes Craven, Alexander Payne, and Gus Van Sant) and stringing them together in a multi-faceted look at France’s most cherished city. Now, Fear(s) of the Dark attempts to take the French anthology feature to the darkest points of the imagination, using an extremely limited color scheme (black, white, and various shades of gray) and a variety of talented animators of many nationalities.

Of course, the unfortunate truth is that Fear(s) of the Dark varies wildly in terms of quality and enjoyment. The biggest mistake that the curators of this miniature film festival make is chopping up three of the six entries and interspersing them throughout the program, making it hard for the audience to discern when (and if) those entries have reached their conclusion. Pierre di Scuillo’s short, in which a woman rambles on about her many fears while abstract images morph on the screen, works as a good transitional device, but shorts about a Japanese samurai ghost and an evil man with four vicious attack dogs would’ve had more impact if they were shown without interruption. Though this might come off as a little bias, the best shorts were the ones from the Americans, cartoonist Charles Burns and animator Richard McGuire. The former’s story, about a socially awkward college student with an unhealthy fascination of insects, does an exceptional job of creating a protagonist that has to earn its sympathy from the audience, as the young man (voiced by the late Guillaume Depardieu) changes from willing participant to hapless victim.

While most of the entries in Fear(s) of the Dark qualify as unsettling or disturbing in some way, McGuire’s short (the last in the program) is the only one that is downright scary. McGuire’s minimalist animation style makes the previous entries seem flamboyant by comparison, as he relates the wordless story of a man taking shelter in a house during a snowstorm, only to find that he may not be alone. So while Fear(s) in the Dark, as a whole, may not be a sweeping success, it does make me wish that new installments would show up each Halloween as opposed to new Saw films.

Criterion give away (some of) their movies (for a month)!

The supergeniuses over at The Criterion Collection (with a little help from film forum The Auteurs) recently gave their website a complete overhaul, and in addition to an offering users the opportunity to watch some of their films online for five bucks (which will go towards the cost of the DVD if you decide you want to own it), they've had IFC Films sponsor a monthly online film festival, in which six Criterion films are available to watch online for ZERO DOLLARS!

This month, they've selected one film from each of the first six Eclipse series box sets, including an early work by Ingmar Bergman, a documentary by Louis Malle, a color feature by Yasujiro Ozu, and classics by Raymond Bernard and Samuel Fuller. Witness the awesomeness.

"2012" Trailer Actually Kinda Awesome

Let's face it: Roland Emmerich hasn't really had a hit film in a while. He experienced mainstream success with Stargate and Independence Day, hit a snag with the box-office bomb (but still fun to watch) Godzilla, rebounded with The Patriot, then returned to disaster movies with The Day After Tomorrow. (He also did 10,000 B.C., but we don't really need to mention that, do we?) Anyway, his new one 2012 looks a bit too much like The Day After The Day After Tomorrow, but I'm willing to give it a shot, mainly because of its badass teaser trailer:



I'm sure you're wondering, "Devin, what makes this trailer so badass? Freaked-out monk gets devoured by giant tidal wave, that's it. Not sure what all the fuss is about." Really? Well, let me point you over to this:



So, really, I could change the title of this post to just read "Song from 'Shining' Trailer Kinda Awesome," but figured including the "2012" trailer would make it more topical.

Cucalorus Watch '08: The Aftermath

Well, Cucalorus 14 is said and done. Thanks to the recent political sea change, the mood at this year's festival was decidedly chipper and optimistic. As a result, politically charged documentaries like Crawford and Secrecy were skipped in favor of more lighthearted fare, such as Good Dick, a comedy about a young video store employee who becomes obsessed with the girl who stops by and rents nothing but porn, and We Are Wizards, a documentary delving into the wide span of Harry Potter fandom.



The eccentric characters of Chicago were represented in a pair of documentaries, one of whom was present for this year's festivities. Vincent: A Life in Color, directed with an experienced eye by first-time filmmaker Jennifer Burns, follows Vincent P. Falk, who takes breaks during his programming job to dress up in flamboyant suits and dance on the bridges of the Windy City for the benefit of passing tour boats. Burns premiered the film at Cucalorus, and brought Vincent (as well as her editor, Christine Gilliland) with her. Vincent proved to be a fascinating figure, both on film and at the festival. He and Burns frequented many of the films my friends and I did, including Wesley Willis's Joyrides, a doc about a similarly eccentric Chicago figure, albeit with a somewhat more tragic story. Willis achieved modest success for his mathematically-precise artwork, but it was his disjointed and offbeat music (which has appeared in Super Size Me and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law) that made him a star of the underground rock scene. Directors Chris Bagley and Kim Shively spent equal time focusing on Willis's art and his music, as well as the strange circumstances that turned this sometimes-homeless, borderline-schizophrenic into a household name, until his death in 2003 due to leukemia.

4 Films (and 5 Shorts) You Should Probably See At Cucalorus 14

The 14th annual Cucalorus Film Festival has arrived and, as with the presidential election, change is in the air. Unlike last year, which focused more on big studio releases with an indie slant (Rocket Science from HBO Films, Control from The Weinstein Company), this year promises more truly independent productions with a larger amount of attending filmmakers to discuss their work. Some of the bigger names in attendance are Jason Ritter, the star of the quirky comedy Good Dick; Emily Hubley, director of the breakthrough live-action/animation hybrid The Toe Tactic; and Kelly Reichardt, the director of Old Joy, the hit of Cucalorus 12, and this year’s entry, Wendy and Lucy. But the real meat-and-potatoes of Cucalorus has always been the films themselves, and with that in mind, here are four features (and one block of shorts) that I think will be more than worth your time.

Deadgirl (dir. Marcel Sarmiento & Gadi Harel)
When two young men discover a female corpse in the basement of an abandoned asylum, they decide that she is a prize worth keeping in this sick and twisted hybrid of horror and black comedy. Cucalorus’s website promises this one will be the most talked-about film of the festival, and with both of the directors present to give a Q&A, it’s the one film you can’t afford to miss.

Deadgirl will be shown with short film Ashes Friday, November 14, Midnight, in Thalian Hall, Main Stage.

Lightning Salad Moving Picture (dir. Kenneth Price)
If you attended any screening at Cucalorus last year, you’ve probably met The Superkiiids, a trio of improv comediens who specialize in absurdist humor and bizarre sketches. Well this year, they are proud to present their feature-length debut, in which the Kiiids are faced with the challenge of creating Back to the Future Part IV. It’s a premiere screening that’s guaranteed to be insane, with director Kenneth Price and The Superkiiids on hand afterwards for a Q&A.

Lightning Salad Moving Picture will be shown with the music video “Me-I” by TV on the Radio Saturday, November 15, 4:30 PM, in Thalian Hall, Black Box.

Los Cronocrímenes (Timecrimes) (dir. Nacho Vigalondo)
Director Nacho Vigalondo introduced himself to America with a short entitled 7:35 in the Morning, in which he stars as a man who holds a café hostage and forces the customers and staff to put on a musical number in order to impress a pretty woman who frequents the place. It was simultaneously hilarious and poignant, and ended up getting an Oscar nomination for best live action short. His feature-length debut promises to dispel with the dark humor in place of brooding suspense and twisted imagery as a man accidentally travels an hour into the past and must deal with his former self who is trying to kill him.

Los Cronocrímenes will be shown with short The Mark Thursday, November 13, Midnight, in Thalian Hall, Main Stage.

Wendy and Lucy (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Old Joy director Kelly Reichardt returns with this heartfelt look at the relationship between a young drifter (Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams) and her dog (played by Reichardt’s real-life pet labrador). Produced by I’m Not There director Todd Haynes and featuring gorgeous cinematography by Sam Levy, Wendy and Lucy is an American indie classic. Reichardt will be giving a Q&A after the screening.

Wendy and Lucy will be shown Saturday, November 15, 7:30 PM, in Lumina Theater at UNCW.

Glass Coffin Shorts
A police deputy and his passenger stumble upon an insane aslyum where the patients have taken over. Four young friends go on a holiday that soon turns into a macabre nightmare. A culture war is set off in a miniature train shop. An epic 1988 clay animation film is given a much-deserved revival. What more can be said about this amazing block of exceptional short films? Oh, how about all of them have Q&As afterwards?

Glass Coffin Shorts will be shown Friday, November 14, 10:00 PM, in Thalian Hall, Black Box.

Keep in mind that this is just a fraction of the awesomeness at this year's festival. There's also The Toe Tactic (Thurs. 3:45 PM), Good Dick (Thurs. 7:30 PM), Wesley Willis's Joyrides (Thurs. 10:30 PM), We Are Wizards (Fri. 10:15 AM), A Good Day to Be Black and Sexy (Fri. 7:15 PM), The 27 Club (Fri. 9:45 PM), Nerdcore Rising (Fri. 10:15 PM), Absurdistan (Sat. 7 PM), Linkeroever (Sat. 9:45 PM) and tons more. Also, don't miss my short documentary Firewall of Sound as part of the UNCW Visions '08 collection of student films, Wed. at 2:45 PM in Jengo's Playhouse.

Cucalorus Watch '08: Lessons Learned from Being a Programmer

It's official. The 14th annual Cucalorus Film Festival is one week away, and I am more than excited to see this year's films. This year, I was invited to be a programmer, and ended up watching over 50 feature-length films from every corner of the globe, from South Korea and Australia, to Germany and Austria. In the end, only four films I saw actually ended up in the festival, giving you a good example of how competitive it is (over 1,000 entries, shorts and features, were submitted this year, but only 145 will be screened). Coming away from the experience, I have amassed a list of do's and don'ts (mostly don'ts) for aspiring filmmakers, based on the majority of the films I had seen:

1. Avoid spelling things out. Take out blatant exposition and let the audience deduce things out on their own. They’re smart. They’ll figure it out.
   
2. Avoid “realistic” conversations if they don’t advance the plot. Quentin Tarantino wrote the “royale with cheese” bit, not you.
   
3. Make sure you record your dialogue well. It doesn’t matter how good the quality of the picture is. If the sound sucks, you’ve lost your audience.
   
4. Don't exploit a tragedy. If your lighthearted comedy can’t work without copious references to the ’92 L.A. race riots, then it can’t work.
   
5. Don't namedrop all your favorite movies into your characters’ dialogue. I don’t care how much you love Full Metal Jacket. Having your character recite the entire “This is my gun” speech isn’t going to help your movie.
   
6. Avoid having a character say the title of your movie unless it’s absolutely necessary to the script.
   
7. If you’re the director, don't put “a (your name) film” at the beginning. That privilege is reserved for people who actually have an Oscar nomination.
   
8. Don't insert a blooper reel into your end credits. You’d be surprised by how many people actually did this. Adding one is the same as saying “I know you hated my movie, but look at how much fun we had making it! Surely that must be worth something, right?”
   
9. Don't waste a lot of time and effort on the DVD sleeve. The best movies I saw came in unmarked slipcases and the discs had nothing but the title and the running time on them.
   
10. Don't use label-makers. Thick paper stickers make the discs hard to read in regular players and nigh on impossible in slot-loading players.
    
11. Finally, the goofy little shorts you made with your friends may have been a big hit on YouTube, but so was “2 Girls 1 Cup.” Neither have any place at a film festival.

Alright, that was the end of my ranting. I'll be posting a list of movies to see this year, so stay tuned.

Oh, and one more time for those who missed it: VOTE!