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Saw "Blank City"

Saw "Blank City", doc about NYC underground film in the 1970's & 80's at the IFC Center last night. I think the neighborhood that IFC Center is at now was probably the same neighborhood that the filmmakers in the doc were hanging out in back in the day - in its rougher, run down incarnation. Anyway, about the doc - great if you are a fan of any of the artists featured in the doc - and me being a huge fan of Jarmusch movies it was a treat to connect some dots as to how films such as Stranger Than Paradise came to be. When I first saw Stranger in film school in the early 90's it seemed as if the film was beamed to earth from an alien planet, 'cause everything about it was far different from movies I had seen up to then - but now it turns out that there was a whole bunch of people & ideas that contributed to the eventual style that broke out into the world via Stranger. The scene at the screening was fun - people talked with each other - strangers - a bit before the screening, the folks working at IFC center were friendly & were fans of the movie, etc. "Blank City" will probably motivate contemporary indie filmmakers to get more work done since it is a lot easier now to produce high quality images & sounds and the whole idea of off-Hollywood/art/indie/underground filmmaking has been turned into a normal & accepted & known & commercially viable aspect of culture - something that the folks featured in "Blank City" had more than a little to do with, as far as I can tell. So, yeah, good movie, worth the $13, see it in a movie theater with other people/meet some like minded strangers at the screening & maybe do your own, modern version of the underground film scene afterwards.

- S
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