Impolite Company

Sunshine Community Gardens MiniDoc

KLRU's Docubloggesr show has apparently been canceled but there are still some little documentaries in the pipeline that look like they'll be coming out.  I caught one this morning about Sunshine Community Gardens, a community garden up in north central Austin on property owned by the School for the Blind.  I remember when I first moved here we drove past the gardens and I thought it was a cool idea to have community gardens but didn't totally get it at the time.  Now I know people who have plots there and I think it's one of those great Austin institutions--it's been around for 30 years and has around 150 garden plots.

This doc is mostly about some of the people who garden there and I think it's pretty interesting, though maybe not great film-making (nearly nine minutes):

For Those Who Doubt Elijah Wood's Skills

On the other side of this post will be a Youtube clip that proves, beyond a doubt, that Elijah Wood is one of the great actors of his age (and height).  This is only necessary because of a certain commentor's dismissal of Wood as an accomplished actor (Robin, it was Robin!).  It's one of the final scenes from The Ice Storm and rather than spoil that movie for anyone (it really is pretty good), I'm hiding it from the casual viewer.  Not only is Wood a great actor, Elijah Wood is Very, Very Gay--a very, very funny parody site.  Okay, it's not THAT funny but it's certainly topical.  It's also very, very pink and so if that bothers you (or burns your eyeballs), keep that in mind.

Review: Fun New Star Trek Movie

The Onion gets to the bottom of the new Star Trek movie--they loved it but how do the Trekkies feel about it?

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

The Hunt for Gollum

The Hunt for Gollum, a forty-minute film put together by fans of The Lord of the Rings with donated labor has been released and is now available via the production's website, The Hunt for Gollum Movie.  I tried to watch it on release day (May 3rd) but there were technical difficulties, probably related to high traffic, and so I didn't get to see it but hope to in the next few days.  As you can see from the following trailer, the production value is very high, though I'm uncertain as to how good the acting is and whether they will have a sufficient number of scenes featuring Hobbits jumping around in a bed with Gandolf lovingly looking on.  No doubt, there will be lawsuits over that last point:

Hunt For Gollum - Teaser 1 from Independent Online Cinema on Vimeo.

Tyson

Yesterday's Fresh Air took a look at Mike Tyson and "Tyson" the new movie out that is essentially a one-and-a-half hour long form interview with the man and all his demons.  You can catch the radio show via this link, Charting the Career of Mike Tyson, and the player pop-up includes links to the rest of the Tyson interviews.  There is much about Tyson that I loathed but I will watch this movie when it becomes available--the excerpts were fascinating and it sounds like an incredibly candid conversation with a pretty articulate subject.  The film was shot while Tyson was in rehab and so he's particularly vulnerable and introspective. 

The Godfather Wars (an article you can't refuse)

If you love the movie The Godfather, love to hear the stories of how movies get made (especially if Francis Ford Coppola is involved) and find the workings of the mob fascinating, you really have to read this article in the new Vanity Fair about the fights over the making of The Godfather.  It's got it all, from the fights over casting Brando, Pacino and Caan, to what it took to get the real Mafia to approve of the movie and stop threatening those involved with the production, this is great stuff.  It's long for the internet--seven pages--but worth every one of them.  A friend of mine, Kate from college days, posted the link on Facebook and so I can't really give her the sort of hyperlink love I'd give a blogger, but I really enjoyed reading it and appreciate her pointing it out.  Thanks, Kate!  The Godfather Wars:

It all began in the spring of 1968, when a largely unknown writer named Mario Puzo walked into the office of Robert Evans, the head of production at Paramount Pictures. He had a big cigar and a belly to match, and the all-powerful Evans had consented to take a meeting with this nobody from New York only as a favor to a friend. Under the writer’s arm was a rumpled envelope containing 50 or 60 pages of typescript, which he desperately needed to use as collateral for cash.

The End of Harry Potter

Daniel Radcliffe will be 35 years old by the time the final installment of the Harry Potter film series is released in July of 2011.  Yes, that's an exaggeration but it feels like it.  Radcliffe is almost twenty now and will probably be close to  21 by the time they finish shooting The Deathly Hallows, Part II.  I guess it's okay since those wizards come of age at seventeen and apparently age a little bit faster than the rest of us.  I'm really curious to see how the box office goes for the last three movies without the built-in marketing of the normal book release not too long before or after each movie was released.  And yes, I'm still bitter that the release of The Halfblood Prince was pushed back till this summer.

Texas Film Industry is Suffering

For those of you who are interested in Texas Film and still revel in thinking that Austin is a major film production city, please disabuse yourself of that notion.  We're losing out to other states that are offering big initiatives to lure filmmakers.  Austin has the infrastructure, the history and at least up until recently, we've had the crew people necessary to make high quality films.  Think this through with me, figure out what your take is on giving incentives to outside industry and if you think it's a good idea, contact your representatives and ask them to support the film incentive bills in the Texas Legislature (Thanks to The Chronicle and Docubloggers--seven and one half minutes):

For more information, see:
Texas Film Commission
Austin Film Society
Texas Motion Picture Alliance (with links to the text of the incentive bills in The Lege)

• inclusion of film, television series, commercials,
  digital interactive media, and educational and
  instructional videos.
• lowered thresholds for film and TV production ($250,000)
• $100,000 threshold for commercial and educational/instructional
  videos and digital interactive media production
  (single or series of productions)
• 60% of a project must be filmed in Texas to qualify
• grant payout amounts are to be determined by office rules
  (which means we can have a competitive and flexible payout)
• Underutilized areas now will receive a 2.5% additional
  amount on top of the payout amount established by rules

How Things in Nature Tend to Sync Up

With one breath, with one flow
You will know
Synchronicity

                                --The Police

The Scientific Indian directed me to this TED video on the way things tend to sync up in nature.  Here's how he pitched it, Synchronicity and The Seven Samauri:

In Seven Samurai - one of the greatest movie of all times, there is a scene where the hired Samurai gather the villagers to instruct them on defending their village. A jittery villager runs away from the crowd and is brought back by Kambei, the aging samurai, who threatens the deserter with dire consequences. He then offers this, and I paraphrase here: An individual can fight a successful war only if he is part of a group. An individual will lose a war by standing alone.

Seva goes on to point out that such wisdom is natural and instinctive in nature. Steven Stroatz explores this natural tendency in the following twenty-one minute TED lecture:

Top Twenty-five Films of All Time

According to the National Review Online.  You know it's a weird, weird list when you've got The Incredibles at #2, 300 at #5 and then Groundhog Day at #6.  There are some good movies on the list, some that I like rather a lot.  I like The Incredibles and Metropolitan (I own it as of fairly recently) and Juno and some of the others.  I don't think any of them would make my own top twenty-five list but you've got to love any list that includes both Red Dawn and Forrest Gump.  See the list here:  The Best Conservative Movies.

Hat tip to Matthew Yglesias's National Reviews Best Conservative Movies.

We have found a witch, might we burn her?

(The above title quote was ruthlessly copied and pasted from the unofficial script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

This is an old story that Pharyngula apparently posted as current by accident.  Or not.  It's still amusing and sad to think that his happened as recently as 1999--the girl lost the lawsuit and her family was left in somewhat dire straits when they were told to pay $6000 in court costs.  A Lifetime TV movie was made about the situation, called Not Like Everyone Else., (no, not The Craft).  And here's the recent post about it Going Back to Our Puritan Roots:

The ACLU is suing Union Public School Independent District No. 9 of Oklahoma. The reason is bizarre: administrators at the school have harrassed and violated the civil rights of a young woman named Brandi Blackbear because — and I'm a bit ashamed to admit this can go on in my country — they accused her of witchcraft. They say she used a magic spell to make one of her teachers sick. In retaliation, she has been subjected to searches and public humiliation, and the school has banned the wearing of non-Christian paraphernalia.

And, more importantly, I won't run from the truth any longer.  I love me some Python (4:15):

Anything Alaska Can Do, Texas Can Do Crazier

Back in the day when a certain governor from Alaska was running for vice president, there was a fair amount of uproar over the legality of shooting wolves from airplanes in Alaska, which Gov. Palin apparently supported.  Texas State Representative Sid Miller has played the trump card, filing a bill that would allow for hunting feral pigs from helicopters.  Vince at Capitol Annex has a good discussion of this bill, noting that Texas does have a fairly serious feral hog problem that needs to be addressed but this probably isn't the way to deal with it, HOG WILD:  Bill Would Allow Hunting of Feral Hogs from Helicopters:

While the bill allows the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission to adopt rules to make sure chopper hog hunting is safe, the bill itself doesn’t restrict where hunting can occur, when hunting can occur (i.e., at night or during the day), or anything else. Leaving all of the finer points to the appointed members of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission–esteemed as they may be–leaves the door open for a lot of problems.

I think that Vince may treat this proposal with a little more respect than it deserves (even though he doesn't give it a whole lot of respect!)--I think that a general principle we should carry into domestic policy-making is that shooting problems from the air is usually the least efficient manner of dealing with it.  And, as a visual example of what this new law might bring us in Texas, I give you Full Metal Jacket:

Austin Teen Emily Hagins is Going to Slamdance

Emily Hagins is a sixteen year old filmmaker here in Austin I had the pleasure to meet during shooting for a friend's short, When the Magic's Gone.  She was quiet and I didn't interact with her much because my job was to stand outside The Draughthouse Pub to make sure that people didn't walk inside in the middle of a scene (they said I was "security" in the credits--meet the rent-a-cop).  But I heard great things about her from Tiffany and I knew that they had worked together on several projects.  Emily recently wrapped shooting on her second feature and so I periodically heard some things about her from Tiffany but I haven't paid that much attention to her career.  I mean, c'mon, she's sixteen years old! 

This morning, I'm sitting here at the computer hooked up to The Feed Demon's News I.V. and listening to Morning Edition and all of a sudden they're talking about Emily!  She's going to Slamdance in Utah where the festival will be showing Zombie Girl:  The Movie,  the documentary made about the making of her first feature. If you're interested in hearing the Morning Edition piece you can catch it here:  Young Austin Filmmaker Heads to Utah.  Congratulations, Emily!

After a heads-up from Tiffany, I need to make clear that the documentary is about Emily but it wasn't made by her.  It was made by three guys, Justin Johnson, Aaron Marshall and Erik Mauck and you can find out more about the production at the IMDB page:  Zombie Girl: The Movie.

Kate's Twofer

I don't generally follow the awards shows too closely and certainly don't devote blog space to them but I think this deserves a standing ovation.  Kate Winslet won the Golden Globes for both best actress and best supporting actress.  She's one a lot of good work in the past and I'm glad to see her getting some hardware this year (Winslet, Ledger and Rourke headline 2009 Golden Globe Awards--I've included this mainly for the links to her two movies):

Inside the ceremony, Winslet was rendered speechless by two wins; Best Actress for her role in Revolutionary Road and the Best Supporting Actress award for movie The Reader.

When she stepped onstage for the second time, the British star told the crowd, "I'm so sorry. Is this really happening?", before paying tribute to her agents, husband Sam Mendes and Revolutionary Road co-star Leonardo DiCaprio.

Do You Have Christmas in France?

Oh man, this had me laughing tonight:

Friendo

The word (non-word) "Friendo" has been rattling around in my head the last couple of days and it keeps reminding me of this scene from No Country for Old Men.  It's this incredibly disjointed and uncomfortable conversation between Chigurh and the old man in the gas station in which the old man gains it all on a coin toss.  If you know the earlier Cohen brothers movie Raising Arizona there's a not-so-similarly disjointed gas station conversation, though they shoot for comedy in that case rather than high drama (circular shaped balloons in Raising Arizona versus the hand of fate in No Country).  Here's the No Country scene (4:25):

Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton

The other day I listened to an interview on The Diane Rehm Show with Morgan Atkinson, the producer of a new documentary on the life and thought of Thomas Merton entitled Soul Searching:  The Journey of Thomas Merton.  Merton is one of those thinkers and writers that have sort of danced around on the periphery of my consciousness but I've never sat down and read anything by him nor known much about him other than that he purportedly opened some congress between Catholic and Eastern traditions.  Sadly, he died in Thailand before he seemed to have a chance to fully develop this line of thought and action but it's interesting to wonder where he was going with it (sort of like the way I will always wonder what Malcolm X would have been like had he lived to continue his personal evolution that was interrupted by his assassination).

As an example of some of Merton's thinking, here is The Merton Prayer from his book "Thoughts in Solitude":

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Merton, I'm going to give a thumbnail sketch and some further resources on the other side of the fold.

JCVD (Van Damme?)

Hold onto your hats, readers, I'm getting ready to recommend a Jean Claude Van Damme movie.  Zoinks!  Granted I haven't seen it myself yet but I cruised by Austinist a little while ago and ran across a post about JCVD running at the Alamo starting this weekend (Damme!  Double Damme!!).  Here's the synopsis from the IMDB page:

Between his tax problems and his legal battle with his wife for the custody of his daughter, these are hard times for the action movie star who finds that even Steven Seagal has pinched a role from him! In JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme returns to the country of his birth to seek the peace and tranquility he can no longer enjoy in the United States.

Here's the RottenTomatoes Tomatometer take.

And here's the trailer (2:47):

Betrayed, Yet Still Captivated

It appears that my relationship with all things Harry Potter is decidedly dysfunctional.  Harry's People (Warner Brothers) totally dogged us by moving the release of the Half Blood Prince from November of this year (I think it was for next week for those keeping score) till June or July of next year.  Again I say, You Bastards!  But I have to admit that I like the look of the new trailer and cannot help but share it.  I'm so weak (1:30):

Damn You, Warner Brothers!

If they hadn't changed things up on us, we'd just have a couple of weeks to go until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was released.  Instead, we still have eight months to go.  You Bastards.