Recently at the MoMA’s Cindy Sherman show, the ‘Untitled Film Stills’ room was impassable (Cindy Sherman has groupies? Apparently.) So I was happy to spend some time with her later, lesser-known works – particularly her Centerfolds series. Commissioned by Artforum but never featured, they’re a re-interpretation of the kinds of images seen in other magazines – but awkward, embarassing, hinting at the kinds of scenes you would get from real women in a centerfold situation. Uncomfortable, but fascinating. Not going to make it to MoMA by June 11th? There’s a book, too.
Experimental pop band Tanlines has a new music video, “Brothers,” with a twist – literally. Shot panoramically in a small room, the duo lets you enter the room with them and rotate as you feel. Want to watch signer/guitarist Eric Emm sit on the couch? You can. Feel like watching Jesse Cohen wander around playing other instruments? You can. Want to ignore them and watch a different version of their video on the tv? That too. And the song isn’t bad, either. Check it out on their website here, the first video down.
Another big congrats to our good friend and post-production supervisor, Colin Nusbaum, whose film “The Sheik and I” will be premiering at SXSW next month. Directed by Iranian-American-Brooklynite Caveh Zahedi, the documentary was commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation in the UAE but never shown. (Long story, and you can read more about it in the Times.) It’ll be playing as part of the SXSW International Competition, but if you’re not in Texas you can find out more about it on their Facebook page right here.
Pretty much the only person our whole crew can agree on is Louis CK (we mostly like him, and are jealous of his $2 million payday last month.) So it was enlightening to find an old post of his kicking around this here internet describing how he went about pitching and writing his Lucky Louie show for HBO a few years ago. He says:
“So you go off and take as long as you need to churn out a first draft. I think this took me a couple of months. Only about three days were spent actually writing. The other fifty seven were spent driving myself nuts while ruminating about what the show is and how to do it. That’s me. Some people write every day, just pounds and pounds of words. I do a lot of work in my head and then just shit it out like fast diarreah.”
You can check out the full essay here.
We are tickled to hear this week about the upcoming “Great Nurse-In,” scheduled for this August in DC. We first dove into the world of breastfeeding rules and regulations while working on the Breast Milk Counts campaign for the Texas Department of Health, and were blown away to discover the many obstacles, from laws to dirty looks to meddling family members, that keep new mothers from feeding their babies the way they want to. As one annoyed mother/subject put it, “Do you cover up when you eat?!” We don’t, so we encourage you to check out the Great Nurse-In on Facebook and stop by if you’re, well, hungry for some truth.
Congratulations to our good friends Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory) and Marshall Curry (If A Tree Falls) on their Oscar nominations. If we weren’t in love with Undefeated we might even say “good luck!” But seriously, best wishes to everyone on making it through a long campaign season, and we hope you all win, somehow.
I’m not gonna lie, I think this is the best thing I’ve seen all year – in 2012 so far at least. It’s exuberant, super fun to watch, and one of a very few indie films where the people making it actually look like they’re having a good time. Also, it has exactly the plot :: dancing ratio that I always want from cheesy dance movies but never get. It’s presented by Gothamist, so you can watch the whole epic thing here. Also: Director Jacob Krupnick and producer Youngna Park will be teaching a Skillshare class at Grind this Friday night – I think I’m going! You?
“There’s a lot of assholes in the world, you know? So you need to walk quietly but carry a big stick,” director Lynne Ramsey tells Tribeca Films. I won’t say any more about this interview, because you should read it yourself, but I know I can’t wait to watch this movie and see how all of her complex, sometimes-conflicting ideas come together on the screen.
We Need to Talk about Kevin is at the Angelika now, with more theaters to follow. You can find them here.
This week we’re watching Agnes Varda’s Daguerreotypes, recently available on Netflix Instant (it was released in France in 1975 but never in America). The “Grandmother of the New Wave,” Varda’s doc focuses on the small collection of neighbors and shop owners outside her door on Rue Daguerre in the early 1970′s. It’s a fascinating cultural study of people who probably seemed mundane at the time, but they’re so interesting now because this way of life and these people no longer exist. Here, see an interview with Varda from 1956, discussing her first films and her directorial process.
Love this short doc about Teroforma’s whiskey rocks, made with soapstone and the help of a cement mixer in Perkinsville, Vermont. Directed by Galen Summer; you can see more of his short-form work here.
Carsten Höller’s work is first and foremost concerned with altering our basic assumptions about what we see, feel, and understand about ourselves.
Just got a chance to check out Holler’s survey exhibition at the New Museum. His carefully controlled participatory experiences are at once playful, thrilling and disorientating, and leave you with important questions about subject/audience, expectation and perception. Highly recommended. Also enjoying the teaser videos that m ss ng pieces put together of the installation process.
Conversation in the office today turned to Madonna’s Truth or Dare, one of my favorite 90s docs & currently streaming on Netflix. Henry’s take?
“As a film, it didn’t change history, but the juxtaposition of her family life, her family of collaborators, and this very slick spectacle of her concerts was amazing. As a character, she’s a wonderfully funny obsessed person.”
A modern alchemist falls prey to a magic darker than his own. The Antichrist’s mother goes on the run in Spain. In his garage a physicist builds a tribute to his beloved.
Currently reading: this exciting new set of short stories by George Williams, a longtime friend and inspiration to us here at Corra. A whirlwind of a read & thrilling to discover “At The Chamkar Café,” a story inspired by our doc, The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan. Read the review by Pop Matters & order via Amazon here.
Instagram, with its inbuilt network, ease of use and range of filters has quickly been gaining traction as the mobile photo tool of choice for those about town. But how wonderful to see it put to such gorgeous and thrillingly unexpected use in a New York Times Afgani photo-spread by Ben Lowy. The spread documents the everyday actives we tend to forget about when discussing ongoing violence in the region, seen through a lens that feels disarmingly immediate. More pictures from Lowy’s Middle Eastern travels on his website.
This HD Pro Vimeo playlist by Carlos Molina just came to our attention as Carlos included our piece Kodak: Film. No compromise. It’s a great, eclectic collection of videos from short films and commercials to behind-the-scenes interviews that exemplify what’s great, and what isn’t so great, about working with hi-def.
For the past few years, we’ve been shooting on the Canon 5D system, but we love shooting on film whenever we get the chance (the Kodak project was shot on their 7217 stock – beautiful, no?)
This is one from the archives, but just as a reminder, no. We’re all for artistic encouragement and collaboration but it doesn’t matter whether you bring us doughnuts, overnight it via Fedex from across the country, dump the file in my inbox or turn up on our doorstep – I do not want to read your screenplay. Here, screenwriter Josh Olsen definitively explains why.
An epic piece of branded content for Sony, based on Arev Manoukian’s short film Nuit Blanche and set to the lyrics of Cohen’s A Thousand Kisses Deep.
Exciting to see how seamlessly the filmmaking and branding come together here – Cohen is a Sony artist, but really, if it weren’t for the logo at the end, you would never know.
