Documentary group II

A little over a hundred people showed up last night to watch Invisible Children. Afterwards, we opened it up to discussion and questions with the filmmaker via a phone interview from Southern California. He (Bobby) was articulate and enthusiastic about this and future projects. This film has had wide distribution and has the support of some in the Hollywood community. (such as Jon Turteltaub, director of National Treasure)

Many in the mostly college-aged audience seemed genuinely moved by the documentary. I was moved by a few moments in the film, but on the whole, thought it missed the mark. It made the common mistake many social issue films make by being too broad, to scattered. It would have had more impact for me to get to know one person, to follow his or her story. (revised)

The most moving moment in the film occurs when we see the filmmaker try to comfort a grieving boy whose brother was killed. For that moment, the film was worth watching.

Documentary group

Tonight I'm hosting our monthly documentary group; we're watching the video Invisible Children, about children forced to become soldiers in Uganda. Last month about 120 people showed up. I'm also in charge of the blog, but never update it.

Words

Who speaks badly, thinks badly and lives badly. We must do words justice: words are important!
Palombella Rossa

Berlusconi

Here's an interesting article on Silvio Berlusconi. Italy's elections are on Sunday.

Movies that influenced me

When I was ten, I saw La Momia (the Mummy, a Spanish wrestler) on tv. I wrapped myself from head to toe in gauze bandages, and scared the paper boy.

When I was fourteen, living in Kentucky, I saw My Side of the Mountain. I found an old rotting oak tree which I carved out so that two of my friends and I could sit inside. I remember it was dirty and cold.

When I was nineteen, I watched the movie American Flyers, about a bike race in Colorado. That afternoon, I went to Sears and bought a ten-speed and, with a backpack and bottle of water, began peddling through the Kansas countryside. After about 20 miles, one of the pedals broke off. I stayed the night in a small town, and bought another pedal at Walmart. I got a bad rash between my thighs.

When I was twenty-one, I saw the movie The Big Blue. I spent nearly $5000 on scuba diving. I got to ride on the back of a sea turtle.

When I was thirty, I watched Caro Diario. Six months later, I gave my watch as collateral to a moped rental owner on a Greek Island. With Annie holding on for dear life, I raced around blind corners, nearly wiping out more than once.

I think tonight I'll rent The Right Stuff. What's the cutoff age for becoming an astronaut anyway?

You know what I was thinking?

You know what I was thinking? I was thinking how sad it is that I, even in a society more decent than this one, will always find myself in tune with the minority of people. But not in the sense of those films where there is a man and a woman who hate themselves, stranded on a desert island because the director does not believe in people. I believe in people, just not in the majority of people.
Caro Diario

David di Donatello Awards

"The nominations for Italy’s national film prizes, the David di Donatello Awards, were announced yesterday in Rome. Two films eclipsed most others with 13 nominations each: ‘Il Caimano’ (The Cayman) from Nanni Moretti, currently holding the top spot at the local box office, and Michele Placido’s ‘Romanzo Criminale’ (Crime Novel). Both were nominated in most categories, including ‘best film’, ‘best director’, ‘best script’, ‘best actor’ (for Silvio Orlando and Kim Rossi Stuart respectively), ‘best supporting actor’ (Nanni Moretti, Pierfrancesco Favino), ‘best cinematography’, ‘best music’, ‘best production design’, ‘best costume design’ and ‘best producers’."
(more...)

Kick

I got a kick out of this.

Dreams and Diaries II

This excellent review of 1994 Cannes winner, Caro Diario, captures what I had hoped The Cinema of Nanni Moretti: Dreams and Diaries would.

"Moretti's three-part movie-essay is structured as a wry, affectionate and very funny odyssey through the Roman suburbs, the Aeolian Isles, and the Italian health system. Relaxed and leisurely, it's an effortless blend of documentary and fiction, part road movie, part sociological satire, part polemical reminiscence. As Moretti travels around, investigating and commenting, he manages to provoke not only laughter, but the sense that we are seeing Italy anew. Accordingly, just as he includes offbeat gags about, say, movie critics being fed a taste of their own medicine, so when he drives to the site of Pasolini's murder, he forces us simply to look and listen, to take in light, space, shape, movement and music; in other words, to recognise the essence of cinema shorn of story and superfluous stylistic tropes. That's no mean achievement in these days of narrative and technological overkill, though the movie is too modest to insist even on its own quirkiness, let alone its more serious subtextual concerns."

With friends like...

Why

It's come to this.

Moretti the existentialist

My Amazon Review: (read it here or on Amazon.com)

"I've been reading the study of Moretti films, Dreams and Diaries, with some disappointment. The reason I am so attracted to his films is for the quiet "existential" moments: riding his Vespa around Rome, kicking a soccer ball on a deserted field, pausing to watch an old film on a cafe television.

The authors of this book focus on subjects such as a citizen's relationship to the state, the form of autobiography, postmodern politics, etc. Even their study of the crisis of masculinity, where they elicit the work of Robert Bly, seems to miss the mark. I appreciate academic studies, yet they never quite capture the essence of Moretti's work. The apartness, the playfulness, the longing for a new Italy, a new man.

As far as I know, this is the only study of Moretti's films available in English. I think that's a shame. I hope someone writes another book, and remembers the man - not just the ideas - behind the lens."

Politics and Sharon Stone

I was happy to see that Nanni Moretti's Il Caimano beat Basic Instinct 2 in the Italian Box Office over the weekend. (Il Caimano was #1 and Instinct was #2. In the US, Instinct was #10; a flop)

Both films are about power. Il Caimano is a negative portrayal of Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the wealthiest man in the country and a media proprietor. His investment company controls Italy's three largest private television stations; with elections a week away, the airwaves have been flooded with pro-Berlusconi propoganda. (He is still expected to lose.)

Of course, Basic Instinct 2 is about sexual power, the power to possess another with one's body. Politics and sex. In Italy, politics beat out sex this weekend. I think that the power to control ideas will always conquer the power to control the body. Because once you control ideas, the body will follow.

Twenty years

Next month marks twenty years since graduating high school. There are no plans for a reunion. That's right; that makes me thirty-eight.

When my Dad was thirty-eight, I was sixteen. Sorry, Dad.

The Squid and the Whale

My friend Brett recommended The Squid and the Whale. Excellent film. Without giving the end away, the film concludes with one of the central characters confronting a source of his fear, which is also tied to one of his happiest times in life. It is a dramatic moment where this character leaves the old ways behind to run to confront this sacred memory.

After the film, I sat there wondering: What would have happened if this source of fear - and joy - had been moved. What if this character, finding the courage to face the past, had turned the corner to find his memory replaced with a parking lot or a condominium complex.

I suppose he would have continued to run.

What about her?

(Based on actual events.)
Project: Create a promotional video for a university in Minnesota.
The producer and cameraman are standing near the entrance of the university library. A student enters.
"What about him?" asks the cameraman.
"We've already interviewed a white male." says the producer. Another student enters the library.
Producer: "He looks Latino."
Cameraman: "Are you sure? He could be Filipino."
Producer: "Well, we've already got a Korean."
Cameraman fidgets nervously. "Are you sure we should be doing it like this?"
An attractive girl opens the door.
Producer: "Let's interview her."
Cameraman: "But we've already interviewed three white students."
Producer: "But she's cute."

How "soccer" doesn't explain the world

With the World Cup right around the corner, I've be itching to read How Soccer Explains the World. That is, until I read this review in an Aussie newspaper.

Here's an excerpt: "Any book about Association Football with soccer in the title is ultimately written from an outsider's perspective. Aficionados would never refer to the game as soccer, except in circumstances of coercion or necessity. And they would normally do so with measures of hesitancy and guilt."

Perhaps one day I will write a book entitled, How Corporate Video Explains the World. "In the backyards of middle-class pre-fab homes, in the city plazas of Mexico City, on the greens of St. Andrews are lawns that need to be manicured. Toro was there to meet the challenge..."

Something to say

I got my used copy of The Cinema of Nanni Moretti: Dreams and Diaries in the mail yesterday. Very exciting.

Moretti says that he only makes movies when he has something to say. If I ever made a film, I think it would be because I had a question I had to answer.

Blockbuster

Box office – Italy
Strong start for The Caiman
Nanni Moretti’s new film had a strong opening weekend at the box office, earning over €2m euro, with the best per screen average of any current release (€5,458). Opening on 380 screens, The Caiman grossed €400,000 alone on its first day of release (March 24).

The decidedly anti-Berlusconi film received good reviews (we cite here just two of the top Italian dailies: "Morettian touch; apocalyptic pessimism of a great humourist"; "certainly Moretti’s most mature film") and naturally drew criticism, just two weeks from the presidential election. Even the president himself even said sarcastically, during a rally: "I am the caiman!" Nanni Moretti doused the controversy, however, during a Q&A with audiences in Milan: "A film shouldn’t change anyone’s mind about voting".

Sight

My Dad's retina got tired of hanging out on the back wall of his eye and decided to move last week. Doctor's concluded that it was more beneficial to my Dad's sight that the retina move back to it's old neighborhood; with a little luck, Dad should regain most of his sight in a few months.

My Dad. He makes me laugh. Mostly deaf, shaking with Parkinson's, healing from a broken ankle, diabetic, blind in one eye. After the operation, he turns to me, with a twinkle in his good eye, and says, "Life gets a little out of focus from time-to-time."

IL CAIMANO

Nanni Moretti's first film in three years premieres in Rome today.

My perfect day would be to meet a few friends for dinner at a small restaurant in some quiet corner of Rome. We would start with an apéritif, followed by roasted chicken with potatoes, then a slice of Tiramisu and coffee.

We would walk a few blocks to the local theater and watch Il Caimano. After the film, we would find a crowded cafe and sit outside, discussing the film until two in the morning.

Here are a few advance reviews of the film: Screen Daily, AGI, AGI Online

Slow days

I'm scared.

It's a slow week at work.

Here it comes.

"Tom, could you build a new shelf for that equipment? While you're at it, why don't we update all the software, repaint the dub room, organize the DVD Masters, clean the studio..."

Alan Greenspan, where art thou? Cut these interest rates so that we corporate producers may bask in the wonderous light of another Bull Market.

In the meantime, where's the circular saw...

Walking

On days when my wife takes the car, I walk to a restaurant for lunch. Taco Bell. KFC. Subway. At least once a week, someone yells something at me as they drive by. I never really catch what they are yelling.

Bloomington isn't a good place to walk. Weir, Germany is a good place to walk. Athens is not. Seattle is, if you don't mind the hills. West Palm Beach isn't; no sidewalks and too hot. Chicago is probably the best city that I've lived in to take a walk. No one ever yelled at me there.

Bloomington, MN

I make videos for many of the corporations in Bloomington, Minnesota. Training videos, promotional videos, interactive and educational videos. I shoot these videos, edit them on a very nice computer in a very dark suite, and then distribute these videos, usually as DVDs, although lately, clients have been asking for streaming media.

There are two Bloomingtons. One Bloomington is beautiful: expensive houses overlooking pristine lakes, a ski area, quiet neighborhoods, a college campus. The other Bloomington, where I work, is the industrial part of Bloomington. Railroad tracks, equipment rental facilities, massive corporate headquarters, the Mall of America, hotels, freeways, tourists from Iowa. John Deere. Caterpillar. Donaldson Company. Toro. Thermo King.

Bloomington suffers from schizophrenia. Beautiful and ugly. Delicate and coarse. Lexus and 18-wheeler, side-by-side.

This is where I spend most of my days. Welcome.

Nanni Moretti quote