ARTHOUSE FILM NEWS - Cosmic Disco Detective Rene at Facets, Chicago 11/29/23

Another Jon Moritsugu feature is available in its entirety from YouTube. Check out Fame Whore here . From the YouTube page : " "FAME WHORE cuts between three interwoven stories examining our culture's lust for that elusive state when everybody knows your name. The triptych includes an All-American tennis star hounded by rumors that he's gay, a trust fund brat on a demonic quest for celebrity and an idealized innocent so isolated he's created a six-foot Saint Bernard as an imaginary friend." - FILMMAKER"

Check out Jon Moritsugu's Hi-8 feature Scumrock at YouTube . Film features Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio. Here's the official description of the movie from the YouTube page : "Winner of "Best Feature" Award at both the New York and the Chicago Underground Film Festivals, Scumrock is director Jon Moritsugu's (Mod F*** Explosion, Fame Whore) sixth feature. A sprawling epic shot on analog Hi8 video, Scumrock has screened around the world to critical and popular acclaim."

Shadow And Act blog points to an interesting article on an old subject - job hunting challenges faced by female and minority talent in Hollywood, read the post & follow links here .

For those of us who are into this subject, a new addition to the conversation at Chuck Tryon's blog . Here's a paragraph that I like (for obvious reasons): "First, it’s worth noting that these debates have been evolving for several years, and in fact two recent documentaries, Sujewa Ekanayake’s Indie Film Bloggers Road Trip (full disclosure: I appear in Sujewa’s film) and Gerald Peary’s For the Love of Movies have sought, to varying degrees, to engage with these changes. In print, this ongoing debate surfaces every few months, reminding us that the traditional definitions of film criticism, addressed in this post by David Bordwell (note: in my response , I attempt a brief taxonomy of some of the possible modes of blog-based criticism), are in the process of revision, especially when many film bloggers are themselves filmmakers and when the production of information is increasing exponentially. Here, Clive Davies-Frayne, as part of Alejandro’s roundtable, offers one solu

At Museum of the Moving Image's site . Jarmusch talks about his previous movies, the currently in release Limits of Control, and other things interesting & amusing. Thanks to The Daily for the link.

For my earlier post on Limits of Control, go here . Here's another quick thought about the movie: The entire movie takes place inside either the Lone Man character or some other character's head. The mission is to kill the violent, closed, maybe money & power obsessed aspect of the self. The mission is to be accomplished by the use of art, science, philosophy, discipline, sex or appreciation of the beauty of the body, etc. Ultimately the Closed Side of the self is heavily guarded, inside a bunker. The Open Side of the self gets in & accomplishes its mission by using the imagination (when the Lone Man is questioned by his target as to how he penetrated the bunker, Lone Man says he used his imagination). Or, by using our imagination - making art, exploring science, etc., we may be able to get the more destructive & selfish aspects of ourselves under control. Of course, check out the film for yourself (if you haven't yet) & see if this take on it makes se

I had coffee with Ry earlier today & she told me that she has a website for all her projects (You Won't Miss Me [trailer above], Orphans, Marion & more), with upcoming screenings (YWMM at MD Film Fest on 5/9 & 5/10, also at BAMcinemaFest 6/19 & 23) & other info. Check out the site here & get all the info. on the cinematic adventures of Russo-Young.

Warning: Don't Read If You Do Not Want Spoilers. In The Limits of Control Jim Jarmusch has created a movie that contains elements of a hit man thriller film that, for those audience members who want to take the time & connect the dots, contains enough material that can be interpreted to create a normal hit man story. Simultaneously, LoC is also a parable - a symbolic story that attempts to impart wisdom or knowledge of some use to the community. LoC's greater value is beyond the escapism that can be provided by reflecting on the mission of the Lone Man & how he accomplishes it - the greater value of the film (and it is definitely possible that there are many valuable messages in the film, this is just one that I picked up on) is providing a fresh way to remind people that there are two kinds of power in this world - the kind that uses guns & kidnapping of people & murder, and the kind that uses science, art, meditation, focus, discipline. In a struggle both si

Start Over - Date Number One Story 1 from Sujewa Ekanayake on Vimeo . * Start Over is story 1 of 4 in the feature length comedy Date Number One (2006, 2008). Start Over was directed, produced, written, videotaped & edited by Sujewa Ekanayake. Boom mic work by Fritz Flad. Film features Steve Lee & Kelly Ryan. Music by Seznec Brothers. See all of Date Number One on DVD starting in late May 2009. More information coming to datenumberone08.blogspot.com . Start Over was filmed in Kensington Row Bookshop in Kensington, Maryland.::Start Over & Date Number One Copyright 2006 Sujewa Ekanayake/Wild Diner Films. diyfilmmaker.blogspot.com , wilddiner.com :: :: ADVERTISEMENT :: Farzad Rostami Delaware Tobacco blog http://farzadrostamidelawaretobacco.blogspot.com Farzad Rostami Delaware Tobacco 2 blog http://farzadrostamidelawaretobacco2.blogspot.com Farzad Rostami Delaware Tobacco 3 blog http://farzadrostamidelawaretobacco3.blogspot.com Farzad Ro

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From a real review of Jim Jarmusch's new movie The Limits of Control, at Cinematical : "One night he returns to his room to find a voluptuous naked woman ( Paz de la Huerta ) lying on his bed, a gun in her right hand. "Do you like my ass?" she asks. Is she a figment of his imagination? Did he dream her up off the museum wall? She tempts him to have sex with her, but he remains chaste -- "Not while I'm working" -- even while she slumbers naked, pressed against his body, throughout the night. Is he testing his self-control? Has she been sent to distract him? What is he doing in Spain?" And now, from McSweeney's Internet Tendency , fake notes for a Jarmusch movie, a Ghostbusters sequel: "Sigourney Weaver cameo. She's possessed again. What can Bill Murray do about it? He chooses to do nothing. They part. Is that a hint of regret on his face? Could be. Or maybe he is thinking of something else. Is that the devil himself turning her e

Well written review of Whale , with descriptions of the major segments of the movie, at New Turtleneck Films . From the review , the intro paragraph: "I'm not sure how Amir Motlagh is going to feel about me opening an analysis of his first feature whale with a Joe Swanberg quote, as he's expressed some ambivalence, both in public and private, about certain independent filmmakers, Swanberg included, whose films have been grouped together as part of a "movement". I felt opening with that quote was apt, however, because Motlagh's film is full of experimentalism, feels nothing like typical Hollywood (or even independent) movies, and shows a full awareness of the freedom that independence gives low-budget filmmakers: the freedom to eschew traditional plot structure, the freedom to sidestep confrontation and deny pay-offs, the freedom to use both sound and picture expressionistically to arrive at first-person-cinema, camera-stylo." Read the opening quote &

Photo from New York Times article. Photo by Pedro Ugarte, Getty Images * The war in Sri Lanka was mentioned briefly in Story 4 of my movie Date Number One (with those lines of dialogue having been written in early '08, much has changed). Here's the latest on the war, from The Economist : "WITH loudhailers hitched to the tallest palmyrah trees, Tamil-speaking soldiers of the Sri Lanka army had for weeks been urging civilians inside a dwindling strip of territory held by the rebel Tamil Tigers to break through their cordon and flee. But since April 20th, when the army burst an embankment at Putumattalan, the authorities have been overwhelmed by the thousands pouring out. The Tigers’ defences were less to keep the army out than to fence the civilians in." And: "The army, which after two years of pitched battles has cornered the rebels into a 5km (three-mile) stretch of land, says it has slowed down the offensive because of the difficulty of distinguishing rebels f

Check out Movieline's positive review of Limits of Control here . Here's a little bit of it: "Abrams’s emphatic sense of puzzlement, after all, has little on that of Jarmusch, whose new film The Limits of Control reaffirms his place among the mindbending vanguard." Rest at Movieline . I think I've read maybe a dozen reviews of LoC that've come out recently (thanks google alerts!), critical reactions are very mixed - but the negative reviews are fun to read - as film writers try to make some sense out of what sounds like a very unusual movie. Looking forward to checking out LoC for myself. - Sujewa :: ADVERTISEMENT :: Farzad Rostami Delaware Tobacco blog http://farzadrostamidelawaretobacco.blogspot.com Farzad Rostami Delaware Tobacco 2 blog http://farzadrostamidelawaretobacco2.blogspot.com Farzad Rostami Delaware Tobacco 3 blog http://farzadrostamidelawaretobacco3.blogspot.com Farzad Rostami Delaware Tobacco 4 blo