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

Ekanayake & Seitz (R), August 23, 2007, NYC As most people who read the indie film blogs I regularly read know by now, New York Times's Matt Zoller Seitz has announced his retirement from print reviews. And at this conversation at Matt's blog House Next Door, he is excited about now being able to put all his attention & energy into filmmaking. Very cool, maybe we'll see Home 2: The Morning After The Party soon :). And now, a little memory from Matt's print review days. And some thoughts about it. I live in the DC area & get most of my news from the web & TV, thus am not a regular reader of the New York Times print edition (not a regular reader of NYT's web editions either, though some stories there get my attention from time to time). Anyway, it was August 22, 2007, around 2 PM in the afternoon, I got to Chinatown in DC to get on a bus to go to New York. The lady at the "office" for the bus, at a sparsely decorated small restaurant/maybe a

If 1 filmmaker from each of the 50 major cities (or metropolitan areas) in the US starts a monthly DIY film screening series such as Lo-Def in Silver Spring, MD, we would have at least 600 new opportunities in the US to screen DIY films to the public. The math = 1 monthly screening series = 12 screenings a year x 50 cities = 600 new screening opportunities in the US. And if more than 1 filmmaker decides to organize a screening series in each city, the total number of screening opportunities will go up. For example, if in Chicago let's say, 3 filmmakers decide to create 3 separate monthly screening events, the total number of screening opportunities will go up to at least 36 in Chicago (higher if each month's event in one or all series includes several shorts as opposed to just one feature). So, if that approach gets duplicated in 25 major US cities (3 filmmakers in 1 area producing 3 monthly series, equaling 36 screenings a year), the total number of new DIY film screening oppo

Check out the H.I.T. review of Aaron Coffman's debut feature Texas Snow here . From the review : " Suffice it to say, there is a scene where Jesse and Caroline are partying with her old school chum, Libby Bibb , who comes off like a budding lesbian alcoholic (don’t we all have friends like that?) who just laughs insanely throughout her scenes with Jesse and Caroline. But Jesse is young and in love, blind to the signals that Bibb is wheezing through bowls of beer, namely that she nor Caroline nor anyone really is serious at this stage of life; and blind to the hurt he has caused his friend and roommate Lee. If this all sounds trite it need not. Coffman is minimal in dialogue and directed his actors and cinematographer (Keith Hueffmeier) to follow suit, and the result has a certain poetic vibe that avoids many clichés." Read the rest here . - Sujewa

In this YouTube video several DC musicians talk about living in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood in the early 1990's: - Sujewa

- Sujewa

At Film Panel Notetaker . - Sujewa

Granted, I have not been to every restaurant in this town. But, even long before I started working with Jackie's on the Lo-Def screening series, I was a big fan of the look of the restaurant (future location for a film shoot? oh yeah) & of course the food is as delicious as the visual design of the place. Here, judge for yourself re: the look of the place - as seen above, & more pics at the site . Mouth watering interior design for a filmmaker who likes colors & interesting shapes. - Sujewa

Filmmaker & Washington City Paper writer Dave Nuttycombe has a blog, check it out here . Here are his notes on movie watching '07 . - Sujewa

Yes, I will have to call the MD fest "a smaller SXSW, of the east". Man, MD fest's line up this year is so good, I am going to have to trek up to Baltimore during all 3 days of the fest (5/2 Fri - 5/4 Sun). Check out their selection of films here . Some of the MD fest movies that I am excited about/will try to catch: * ( that melvin van peebles movies with the long title ) ***CONFESSIONSOFA EX-DOOFUS-ITCHYFOOTED MUTHA (Melvin Van Peebles) -- CLOSING NIGHT "Telling the fantastic, mystical tale of a man with few resources who joyfully becomes a merchant marine, travels far and wide, and enjoys a wide variety of romantic entanglements, the film champions independent exploration. Distilling years of cultural experience through the eyes of one lone adventurer, the film pulls us into its protagonist's world with cunning and magic. Melvin Van Peebles himself, with only a glancing reference to his chronological age of 75, plays the lead character as he progresses from

So the legal system has exonerated the 3 police officers who shot Sean Bell 50 times and killed him. The only other time in recent memory where such a killing happened was, again, in NYC, & again the victim was another "black" male - and that time, yes again - several plain clothed police officers, shot Amadou Diallo 41 times & killed him. And in both cases the victims were unarmed. Coincidence or are some NYC plain clothed officers just very nervous/trigger happy when they think a "black" male is reaching for a gun? (but really, 50 shots! ????) Maybe the Justice Department's review of the Bell case will provide some answers as to why some plain clothed police officers in NYC are using excessive & deadly force against unarmed NYC citizens; specifically young "black" male citizens - 1 time could be discounted as a freak accident, but 2 times is definitely a pattern. (and yes, i am not blind to the hundreds & thousands of other incidents