WENDY & LUCY TRAILER

BWAHH.

The trailer for Kelly Reichardt's WENDY & LUCY is online.

Sooooo excited for this... probably my most anticipated film at the moment.


^^^TRAILER


^^^MICHELLE WILLIAMS INTERVIEW

me: but dude
simon: ?
me: the director of old joy has a new film coming out
simon: fuck yes.
me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zmQSv7T8wc
simon: OH!!! fuck yes man
simon: holy fuck
simon: looks so fucking good.
simon: i just said fuck 3 times
simon: unconsciously
simon: but FUCKK!!!
simon: that looks good.
me: HAHA yeahhhhh im so excited
simon: damn
simon: wow dude

KEEGAN DEWITT

I'm happy to share some very exciting news- my new film "The Mountain Crumbles" will feature an original score by composer Keegan Dewitt!

Keegan is widely acclaimed for his work on the Independent Spirit Award nominated "Quiet City", the New York Times Critics Pick "Dance Party USA" (which also featured "TMC's" own Natalie Buller) and also his diversely influenced LP's as a singer songwriter.

His sparse and resonant compositions have been lingering in my mind since first seeing "Dance Party USA", and I think that Keegan's personal philosophies on what the relationship between visuals and music in film should be are very, very, very in tune with my own... so I am ecstatic to be working with him.

Welcome to the "TMC" family, Keegan.

http://www.keegandewitt.com

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

Hmmm well, this film was ok. It wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be. The synopsis really lured me:

To celebrate Valentine's Day, teachers at an austere Australian boarding school take a group of students on an outing to the mysterious Hanging Rock. Soon after the party starts, the headmistress and three girls go exploring and mysteriously disappear. One week later, a sole survivor returns to school - with hardly any memory of the incident. Peter Weir's haunting tragedy alludes to several explanation but offers no clear-cut answers.

Sounds great on paper right? The film unfortunately teeters back and forth between extremes of haunting and hypnotic to dull and dragging. When it's good, the film could even arguably border on a horror picture of sorts. There is an overwhelming sense of the supernatural that pervades Picnic at Hanging Rock and it's done entirely through mood. I loved the ambiguity of the story, and the open ended conclusion, but wasn't feeling some of the heavy handed music or the more investigational scenes that were nowhere near as captivating as the spooky moments of characters just exploring Hanging Rock.

I almost immediately drew a contemporary comparison in my mind with the work of Sofia Coppola. The Virgin Suicides could even be a companion film to Picnic at Hanging Rock, to the point where I wondered if Coppola was consciously influenced by it. Both are searing portraits of repressed young women, but the ghostly quality of this film stirs up deeper themes than just the rich girl angst of Coppola's film.

To anyone else who has seen the film, am I crazy or did I see the formation of a face on the side of the rock? I swear I did, and that affected my perception of the story, leading me to this not so literal but more literary idea of the girls being "swallowed" by the rock...

Anyway despite its flaws, I say check it out.

KIM'S VIDEO

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10202008/news/regionalnews/vid_king_ready_to_unwindkims_collection__134424.htm

Heartbroken. Kim's was my home... it won't be the same.

DRY KISSES

I'm not sure if I've ever posted this, I don't think I have.

This is a short film that I've always really liked by my old classmate at SVA, John Larkin.

Watching this makes me nostalgic for something I now realize I took for granted at SVA, and that is having peers who really inspired me creatively. When I first got to SVA, pretty much everyone in my class I thought was talented and I was making shit in comparison to them, so being around artists I admired helped to push me in a great way. I'm really not feeling any of that at Art Center, but that discussion will be saved for another day.

John Larkin's DRY KISSES (2006):



"you breathed on my neck..."

GG 10/20/08

Looks like the seeds are planted for the return of Dan and Serena... but probably not before some more drama...

Chuck and Blair have taken an interesting twist...

and next week...



Kaitlin Cooper???

STATE OF MIND

Geologic, the emcee of the group Blue Scholars is someone who I admire and have great respect for.

When he isn't in the studio or on stage, he is reviewing films on his blog.

He had some kind things to say in his review of my 2007 short documentary STATE OF MIND:

Matt Jay’s State of Mind (2007), a 27-minute short documentary on passionate independent New York City artists, is the perfect example of style based on content (and vice versa). Not content dressed in style or a harmonic balance of both or whatever. In allowing the working artists to speak for themselves, Jay creates an work of art that speaks for itself. Starring an avant-garde sculptor, a painter/street-vendor, a hip-hop DJ and a filmmaker.

He forgot to mention the shitty sound recording, clunky editing, terribly obvious music loops and a half-hearted attempt at connecting the subjects visually!

But much appreciated man!

Link to original post (with the film):
http://prometheusbrown.com/blog/?p=93

CHLOE IN THE AFTERNOON

As we speak I am having my Eric Rohmer cherry popped by 1972's CHLOE IN THE AFTERNOON (also known as LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON, a far less great title.)

I am now interested to see the other five installments of Rohmer's SIX MORAL TALES. In particular CLAIRE'S KNEE sounds good.

Éric Rohmer (born Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer, 4 April 1920, Tulle, France) is a French film director and screenwriter. He is regarded as a key figure in the post-war New Wave cinema and is a former editor of influential French film journal Cahiers du cinéma.

Rohmer was the last of the French New Wave directors to become established. He worked as the editor of the Cahiers du cinéma periodical from 1957 to 1963, while most of his Cahiers colleagues, among them Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, were making their names in international cinema.

GOODBYE SOLO

I have four favorite (relatively) young and up and coming American filmmakers.

They are Aaron Katz (QUIET CITY), Kelly Reichardt (OLD JOY), David Gordon Green (ALL THE REAL GIRLS),

and the most recent addition, Ramin Bahrani.

I was introduced to Bahrani when some friends and I decided to go see his film CHOP SHOP when it opened at the Film Forum in NYC back in February. To make a long story short, CHOP SHOP blew all three of us away and left us in a renewed state of hope. As it was opening weekend, Bahrani and some of his cast were in attendance for a Q&A session, and his humble insight made me like him and his film even more.

After that I picked up his first feature, MAN PUSH CART, about a New York food cart worker, and was equally floored by its magnificence. If you have not seen these films, I urge you catch up because they are two of the most honest and skilled American films I've seen in some time. I went on to see CHOP SHOP again with my parents at the Hollywood Theater in Portland.

Bahrani's magnification of the everyday existence of characters we see all the time in real life, but never usually get to understand or hear their stories, is exquisite.

The real point of this post though, is to let you know that Bahrani's latest film, GOODBYE SOLO, is making it's film festival rounds and will be coming to us soon.

GOODBYE SOLO tells the story of Solo (Souléymane Sy Savané), a kindhearted and friendly 34-year-old Senegalese taxi driver in North Carolina, who is hired by William (Red West), a tough 70-year-old white southerner, to drive him in two weeks time to a mountaintop from which William plans to jump to his death. But Solo decides to charm his way into William's life by becoming his driver, and this odd couple begin an unexpected friendship as Solo hopes to change the old man's mind before the two weeks are up.

WINNER OF FIPRESCI INTERNATIONAL FILM CRITICS AWARD - BEST FILM, VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Goodbye Solo and The Wrestler tie for the 2 best film of the Toronto Film Festival; Souleymane Sy Savane voted 3 best actor

"Look at these performances! Savane is a force of nature... After only three films, Bahrani has established himself as a major director." - Roger Ebert

"Brilliant! A focused gem… Pitch-perfect, charismatic thesping.” - Ronnie Scheib, Variety

“Goodbye Solo has an uncanny ability to enlarge your perception of the world." - A.O. Scott, New York Times

There is no official trailer, but their website has 4 short clips from the film to check out: NORUZ FILMS

I cannot wait for this. And look at that amazing poster art.

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

You know how there are certain random memories you have from childhood that weren't particularly important... but for some reason they linger on forever?

I remember opening the television drawer in our apartment on 86th street in New York... and picking out Woody Allen's WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY? from my dad's array of VHS tapes. I thought the title was amusing haha.

Anyhow, I finally got the chance to go see Allen's newest film VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA.

After a series of duds with SCOOP and CASSANDRA'S DREAM, Woody has made his best film since the hey day of MANHATTAN and ANNIE HALL. It's a film that feels the closest to those early works, from the era when he first started to perfect his iconic blend of sophisticated humor and thoughtful drama.

Rebecca Hall delivers the best performance, but gets no face time on the poster in favor of the more bankable stars...

Most exciting though is the fact that Allen's next film is a long awaited return to New York City, and it is being shot by Harris Savides (my favoriiiite)...

JOSE @ HONEYEE

Jose Parla is one of the most talented artists in the world, and a good friend. I miss running into him on the streets of Soho, and hanging out at NYC gallery openings and art events.

He is also the latest addition to the roster of Honeyee bloggers! First few posts chronicle recent trips to Paris and London... check it out, bookmark it:

http://blog.honeyee.com/jose/

For memory's sake:

CRITERION

SPOKES AND PEDALS

Here's a new little short film called "Spokes and Pedals". It features recognizable faces Cameron Beyl and Bryan Schlam. It's also technically my first film in LA!