Jesus Christ, these two have come a long way in two years. Their intro to their daily Sundance vlog plays like a recap of the past 750 days or so, so watch it if you need to catch up.
I'm going to be doing some vloggy stuff from Sundance, too, for Netscape, as well as 7-8 features on highly-politically-charged films at the Fest. In addition, I've got a couple of freelance assignments in the works, and right now it also looks like I'll be doing a festival rumor/gossip post once a day on Cinematical. I've been kind of trying to distance myself from my little Frankenstien for the past few months -- the fact that publicists still send me pitches for a site I haven't run for almost a year makes me feel just fabulous about my identity -- but Ryan Stewart, the incoming EIC over there, asked me to lend a hand, and I couldn't say no. Well, I probably could have, but I like screening-line gossip as much as the next girl, so I didn't.
"If someone looks like he hasn't either bathed or been outdoors in weeks, he's probably a blogger. Yes, even humble bloggers are invited to leave their attics and basements during Shmooze Season." As if we needed it, Peter Bart provides more incontrovertable evidence that he is even more of an asshole in his obsolescence. [Via The Carpetbagger]
I've been happy to see Michael Mann's Miami Vice pop up on a couple of year end wrap-ups; yes, the script is mostly inane, and yes, both Gong Li and Colin Farrell would have been better off having their voices dubbed; but just for the fact that it takes itself seriously as a treatise on loyalty and identity, I think it's pretty amazing, and on an almost-purely visual level, it stands up against Mann's best films. Rob at The Projection Booth compares the theatrical version to that which recently came out on DVD. [Via The House Next Door]
Times is tough all around: Vincent Gallo has allegedly raised his fee for sex, although I can't find the page on his website where he's made the announcement.
It took me all day, but I finally finished a write-up on Sundance Channel's just-announced excursion into Second Life. Read the whole thing here. In summary: for the niche that already cares about films like Four Eyed Monsters and already dabbles in things like Second Life, this is a dream come true. But seen on a larger scale, corporate entertainment companies have a long way to go when it comes to integrating themselves in the virtual world.
Arin and Susan got their NY Times review, and it's as positive as these things get. But I thought it was interesting that Laura Kern implied that Four Eyed Monsters, the feature grew out of Four Eyed Monsters, the online presence:
Susan Buice and Arin Crumley, two young Brooklynites searching for new and exciting ways to express their creativity, met online and decided to approach their developing relationship as if it were an art project. Opting to avoid verbal communication, they instead exchanged handwritten notes, e-mail messages and personal videos and began sharing their progress via podcasts and then a feature film, “Four Eyed Monsters.”
Of course, that's not really exactly how it went down -- the film grew out of the materials produced by the relationship, and the podcasts and web sites grew out of a desire to push the film, which premiered at Slamdance 2005, to the audience that would naturally be most receptive to it: web-savvy hipsters, young people who use the internet as their primary mode of communication and who try, via MySpace and blogs and whatever else you crazy kids are into this week, to paint over the inherent coldness of the technology with genuine personal creativity. Stated that way, it may sound like a small niche, but Arin and Susan have proved that it's not -- it's an entire generation.
In other words, though Arin and Susan have turned themselves into vlog stars on the order of Amanda Congdon and Ze Frank, this is not the case of a vlog breaking through to the mainstream. There are two paraparallelcess stories here. On the marketing end, Arin and Susan's stroke of genius was to treat their filmmaking partnership like a band: each podcast released was like a single or an EP, leading up to the release of the whole album. They used MySpace the way bands do, to leverage their output so that their overall brand became something -- just like the latest Pitchfork-sanctioned sensation -- essential for the hip kids to display familiarity with. On that score, the Spirit nominations are not the big sign that Four Eyed Monsters has found its audience -- that came when Four Eyed Monsters showed up on Ultragrrrl.
So yes, they ingeniously used the internet to make their movie cool. But none of that would matter if Arin and Susan hadn't made a genuinely good film. I think the lesson here is not, "Filmmakers need to learn how to use MySpace." If anything, the lesson is, "figure out who your audience is, and then figure out exactly how to reach them." This is something I've tried to articulate many times, but have had a hard time putting into words in the face of Web 2.0 mania -- especially considering the fact that, as an employee of a major social networking site, I'm suppsupposedbe never-say-die evangelizing this stuff. The thing is, the internet is the biggest fad factory in human history, and there's nothing but trouble ahead for all of us -- filmmakers, bloggers, the audience, whatever -- if we overvalue what these new forms of communication can do for us. I was sure that I failed in my attempt to say this at the IFP conference in September -- I walked away from that panel nearly in tears, with Charlie Brown's theme song playing in my head -- but Brian Clark later told me that I did actually get my point across. Maybe it's alarmist to suggest it, but I just think filmmakers need to concentrate on making films, and I think most of what's going on in the online video sphere doesn't have a whole lot to do with filmmaking. > The bottom line is that You Tube and MySpace aren't going to help anyone who doesn't actually have a movie. Arin and Susan happen to have too much movie -- they're so passionate, so endlessly creative, that the material keeps spilling out of them, almost two years after the premiere of their film. And it's quality material: as far as I'm concerned, the money quote in the Times review is the part that touches on the lasting poignancy of the film, which bleeds out from under the technical experimentation: "[T]his innovative chronicle of a truly modern romance also conveys, in a painful, darkly humorous way, a variety of ultra-identifiable truths, including the loneliness often suffered by big-city inhabitants and the complexities of sexual intimacy."
Once again, here's the latest podcast. Four Eyed Monsters opens at the Cinema Village tonight, and there's an afterparty this evening. My original review of the film, from SXSW 2005, is here.
Four Eyed Monsters is finally getting its big, "real" theatrical opening in New York City this Friday. It's a big week for the duo, what with their Independent Spirit noms, and the always-welcome badge of legitimacy that is the NY Times review, which will probably be online by this time tomorrow. As much as I like the movie, I'm anxious to see how Arin and Susan are going to top it, so selfishly, I hope this is, as Susan puts it in the podcast below, their "final push" with this project, before moving on to new things:
I'm going to try to stop by one of the screenings on Friday, and even if you've seen the film already, I think you should, too -- I imagine watching the film in the wake of the spectre of the massive internet stardom Arin and Susan have created for themselves over the past year and a half will make for a pretty interesting experience.
Anne Thompson's got the full press release. A couple of thoughts right off the bat :
1. It would appear that Film Independent took last year's gripes, that the noms had become too mainstream, very, very seriously. The only film nominated in the Best Feature category that looks and talks like a Hollywood movie is Little Miss Sunshine; much to my chagrin, it's been so successful that I don't know if it can lose.
2. When did American Gun even come out?
3. I'm a moderate supporter of A Prarie Home Companion, but I've got to wonder: when was this list locked? Was Robert Altman's Best Director nomination guiltily slipped in at the last minute?
4. It's nice to see Wristcutters getting some attention. Why this film wasn't snatched up at Sundance, put into platform release in July, and made the sleeper hit of the year is beyond me. Oh - right.
5. The Road to Guantanamo qualifies as a documentary? Seriously?
6. Thank You For Smoking qualifies as one of the five Best Screenplays of the year? Seriously?
7. A logistic quibble: Four Eyed Monsters made its festival debut in 2005 and debuted theatrically this year. Stephanie Daley, as far as I know, has only screened at festivals in 2006, and will not debut theatrically until early 2007. I love both of these films and I'm happy to see them get this kind of attention, but how come both were eligible for nominations this year?
Update: David Hudson is reliably collating responses at GreenCine Daily. I have my own round-up on Netscape here.
I write about film and popular culture at Netscape and one or two other places. I like Kenneth Tynan, coffee, bitter greens and Marlene Dietrich. I'm scared of doctors, drugs, cockroaches, the ocean and Hillary Clinton. I wish I had been old enough to truly enjoy the heydays of Kurt Loder, Bret Easton Ellis, Adam Ant and Pat Buchanan. I'm very serious about that - especially the part about Pat Buchanan. If you have additional questions about me, chances are they are answered here.
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