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

A post from March of last year at Filmmaking For The Poor blog , still useful. A few ideas for indie filmmakers re: DIY (do-it-yourself) screenings/showing their own work to a paying audience. Check it out here .

If Jim Jarmusch is a great example of keeping things very indie for a long time, then Spike Lee (who released his first widely distributed feature She's Gotta Have It in '86, 2 years after Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise) is a great example of: keeping the indie voice (more or less i think), getting a lot of movies made, and being able to work comfortably in many filmmaking arenas (TV, Hollywood, etc.). Check out Lee's filmography at this New York Times web page.

It would take a little bit of time to introduce the conflict but maybe it would be better if you were to go here and scroll down to Kyle Smith's photo & read from there. Kevin Smith reacts to Kyle Smith's reaction to Kevin Smith's acting in Catch & Release. Of course, were it not for Kevin Smith's appearance in that movie (many critics are pleased with his performance, check out the quotes here ), I don't think I would ever mention Catch & Release in this blog :) But, since KS is in the movie, I may have to rent the DVD of C & S or something. The Kevin Smith vs. Kyle Smith conflict is funny, as it involves reactions to a "dude lit" (male version of "chic lit") book.

A big thanks to everyone who participated in the Jarmusch blog-a-thon. It was fun, & useful, filmmaking wise, to reflect on Jarmusch's career so far. Perhaps I'll do this again next year, next January, for Jarmusch's next birthday. Here's what else is going on over here this weekend: the latest Iraq war protest is happening in DC - very interesting, huge turnout I hear, hopefully something good will come out of it. I went to see an opera tonight in Rockville - long, interesting, like a movie but without cinematography, liked it (at least until the intermission, was kinda tired after that) - saw Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (first performed in 1786!), performed by the Bulgarian State Opera (i thought they did an excellent job), i think this was my first time at an opera. Did some work on the Date Number One DVD & posters, DVD cover yesterday, more work on that coming this week & hopefully by the end of the week the DVD will be completed, and will

The Eyeball Kid blog says that several Jim Jarmusch short films are available for download from jonasmekas.com. Check out the post here .

Although I am a big fan of several Jarmusch movies, I must say that I did not connect too greatly with Coffee and Cigarettes . There are a couple of excellent segments in that movie: the one with Alfred Molina, also the final one where an old man hears classical music while he shares a cup of coffee with a friend. Here are a couple of reviews of the movie, some loved it, some hated it: In Love with C & C: Time Peter "Rolling Stone" Travers Not So Crazy about C & C: Film Forward " Smug and Rather Pointless ", review from the World Socialist Web Site :: Now let's end this post with a link to a lengthy consideration of the movie (he likes it) by Jonathan Rosenbaum. Regardless of the reaction to the movie, it is inspiring to see a whole feature being built on a few simple things: usually a couple of people meeting for a conversation. In that regard C & C is a valuable film for indie filmmakers to think about. It may be possible to use the C & C "

I guess I am taking a little break from indie film news and reading up on world affairs. The latest find (or re-discovery, I've seen this site before): This website accuses Norway of supporting the Sri Lankan terrorist group LTTE . LTTE and the Sri Lankan government have been at war for close to 20 years. Recently , government forces have been achieving significant victories against the LTTE. Millions of people in Sri Lanka and around the world, myself included, eagerly await the return of peace to that island nation.

someone (perhaps Spike Lee or the next "Spike Lee"?) should make a movie about Philadelphia police bombing the MOVE house in '85 & killing 11 people, including children (of course the movie should show how things got to that point & the aftermath, some background can be found in this Wikipedia article). regardless of what MOVE members may have done to get the police & the local government to act against them (which do not include military style lethal assaults on people by MOVE members, as far as I know), getting shot at & bombed & killed by government employees that citizens pay to protect & serve the community must have sucked majorly. here is the link to an '05 USA TODAY article on the matter, 20 years later. here is a segment from the article: "Twenty years ago this Friday, city police dropped a bomb on this block and let it burn. Five children and six adults, members of a small radical collective called MOVE, died; 61 homes in a mid

the previous one did not look too good, after a while, i didn't like the dark background, so we are back to the old green & white template for this blog. still missing a lot of the links, those coming soon. - sujewa

if you look carefully, that's Aunt Lotte (Cecillia Stark) on the 3rd photo from top, on right hand side of the frame. if anyone sees a bigger version of that still out there on the web, let me know. If you've seen & liked Stranger Than Paradise, then you probably remember Aunt Lotte (played by Cecillia Stark ). The scenes with that character are very funny & also kind of sweet. In this Vue Weekly interview producer & filmmaker Jim Stark says that Aunt Lotte is played by his grandmother. Here is the relevant segment of the interview: " VUE WEEKLY: Your film career begins with Jim Jarmusch’s early features. Did you guys know each other from Ohio? JIM STARK: No, I was a corporate lawyer in New York and had met his girlfriend Sara Driver, who’s also a filmmaker. She approached me, and I got involved in Stranger Than Paradise, which starred my 86-year-old grandmother, among other people. She plays Aunt Lotte. Some people think she steals the movie." Read the e