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

Didn't know Wayne Wang recently completed two new movies. Here are the Variety reviews of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and The Princess of Nebraska . Of the two Nebraska sounds more interesting to me, so here is a little bit from the review: "Whereas “Prayers” is anchored by formal, quiet compositions, “Princess,” which was shot and co-directed by Richard Wong (“Colma: The Musical”), goes wild with hand-held, off-the-cuff-style shooting. Approach is mannered in the way it apes current fashion, and yet pic builds a certain interest via the shorthand fashion in which it presents its protag. Sasha (Ling Li), a student from China who’s recently started college in Omaha, arrives in San Francisco with the idea of aborting the fetus conceived on a one-night stand back in Beijing. Her text messages to the man responsible go unanswered, however, and she’s got to deal locally with a gay Yank, Boshen (Brian Danforth), who was also her lover’s lover." Read the rest here . - Sujew

check them out here . got the link from this blog entry at John August's blog ; lots of notes on the strike there . thanks Filmmaker Magazine blog for the August link. - sujewa

Read them here ; one student's impressions. - Sujewa

That scene was described in an article found through this link . - Sujewa

Took a cab from Silver Spring to Kensington tonight & learned about a country in Africa that sounds like a great candidate for some kind of a development project (mostly due to its low population, peacefulness, gigantic land area, etc.). The name of the country is Niger ( wikipedia ). I hear it is one of the poorest countries in the world, yet it has uranium, gold & oil. I think the place needs a new management team or something. Anyway, it is nice to hear that there is still a lot of uninhabited land in this world. The cab driver Ibrahim said that Niger has a lot of desert, but that it is arable. Also the people there are said to be very friendly. Maybe eventually I can make a movie there or buy a bunch of cheap land & start Sujewaland there :) Read more about Niger here . - Sujewa

regardless of how it turns out, a new movie by Jim Jarmusch is a recent to celebrate ('cause his Stranger Than Paradise got the ball rolling in a big way on this current US indie film wave & 'cause he made my favorite American movie: Mystery Train), get all the info. at Movie City Indie . - sujewa

I blogged about this item previously (the link is in the question below), and here is the follow-up, my questions to Hillary Clinton's campaign (sent through their website) re: her recent comments re: the terrorist group LTTE: "Hello, My questions are re: Mrs. Clinton's recent comment re: the terrorist group the LTTE in Sri Lanka (made at a Guardian Unlimited interview, I blogged about it here: http://diyfilmmaker.blogspot.com/2007/10/hilary-clinton-fine-with-suicide.html ). The questions: 1 - Does Mrs. Clinton know about the nature of the LTTE (the fact that they are clearly a terrorist group & have been banned in many countries, etc.)? 2. If elected President, does Mrs. Clinton plan on removing the LTTE from the list of terrorist groups banned by the US government? Thank you. - Sujewa Ekanayake" Looing forward to Mrs. Clinton's or the campaign's response. - Sujewa

Is the possible next president of the US suggesting that the ruthless terrorist group LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) in Sri Lanka need a more nuanced second look from the US government, even though the LTTE have been banned in the US since 1997 and they have assasinated the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and have killed thousands of people in Sri Lanka - including Tamils; the minority that the LTTE claims to be fighting for? Very strange, do not know much about this yet, maybe I'll have to contact the Clinton campaign to figure out all the details re: her statement. But, in the meantime, here is the original statement from the Guardian Unlimited article : "( Guardian Unlimited ) Yeah. Do you think that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, or do you think they have specific geopolitical objectives? ( Hillary Clinton ) Well, I believe that terrorism is a tool that has been utilized throughout history to achieve certain objectives. Some have been ideological, oth

An early 30-something years old friend of mine who grew up in Argentina said he saw the following bit of a sci-fi horror movie (American or European - originally in English, could also be Canadian or Australian too) on TV one night when he was a kid, got scared, turned off the movie part way through - and now, as an adult in America, he's been asking people if they've ever seen this movie & if they can name it, but so far no luck, so here's the description, let me know if you know what the title of this movie is; the movie is about a third eye type thing in the brain that can be activated by some sort of a device. a man is driving & thinks about an event that happened in a house; two people put on the third eye device & then they are able to see previously invisible creatures floating around. one of the creatures - a giant fish like creature - looks at one of the guys, then swoops down & bites the dude's head off, the man dies. OK, let me know if you k

I luv the fall. Specially when it is not rainy or not too cold. For a quick update on all projects, go here . Enjoy the day, get out & get some sun & do nothing for a while, if u live in the DC area. - Sujewa

One of my favorite characters from the NBC show The Office is Darryl, the warehouse manager. Here is a recent interview with Craig Robinson , who plays Darryl, at Houston Press blogs. - Sujewa

Get all the info. on this development at this New York Times article . Thanks Filmmaker Magazine blog for the info. Unlike some too-cool indie filmmakers/fans, I've always liked Burns's movies to some degree or another (yes, including Looking For Kitty ). Will check out Violets, through iTunes or most likely through DVD or cable when it gets to those formats - looking forward to it. Find out more about Purple Violets here . And here's the iTunes movies page. - Sujewa

About A Son plays at E Street Cinema starting tomorrow, get all the info. here at the official blog for the flick . Here's the post w/ the link to the very positive Washington Post review of the film. Go see this ultra-creative doc about the Nirvana singer by the maker of the They Might Be Giants doc Gigantic. - Sujewa

Dimensional Portal, short film # 1 in the 50 Short Films About America series , is done. Also Rock Collection, short film # 1 in the 50 Short Films About Kensington series , is shot & is awaiting some titles in order to be complete. So, 2 down basically, and 298 to go; there are 6 series of short films planned with 50 films per series (find out more about this project here ) totaling 300 short films in all. I expect the entire project to take about 5 years (it could happen a lot faster, but let's just say 5 years for now) or until the end of 2012 to complete. I am digging this gigantic short films project because some shorts can be made literally for $0 (or you can spend some money on them & make them extra fancy) and you are able to explore new things, try new (or at least new-to-you) filmmaking approaches through shorts (not a lot of money tied in shorts, also they are not as "serious" as features, as far as your overall filmmaking resume is concerned - thus mor

Read about it here ! - Sujewa