Hi all,
Nancy and I had a fine overnight in Bah Hahbah and Acadia. Great weather
and two good hikes, - Gorham Mountain and the two Bubbles. Now home and
reviewing the postings, it seems I missed a troubled viewing and a lot of title
triage. Had I been there I would have argued to continue considering Genesis
2.0 for the series' final screening. I recall that while we tended to agree on
its flaws and its challanges to a viewer, we also seemed to agree on its
content as being of considerable importance. What changed?
Nancy and I realized that next Thursday I have a "wellness" appointment
that I really can't reschedule. Moreover, we will be away that week's MTW with
family involvements and also gone on Friday. Hard to believe. And the following
week brings with it TG and several days in the Boston area. So maybe I'm done
for as to meetings until after TG. When do we need to finalize the series?
Please do keep me in the loop and Ill stay caught up as best I can.
Is there a way to "rationalize" another "classic". Who has ever seen
RASHOMON - and on the big screen? One of the most influential masterpieces of
all time. And what about a Jean Cocteau classic like ORPHEE or his wonderful LA
BELLE ET LA BETE? Everyone loves Beauty and the Beast tales. Have they seen
Cocteau"s?
I just throw that out to stir the pot. As ever, I'm thinking about the Old,
Great, Influential, and Unseen.
Pura vida! Abbott
----- Original Message -----
From: Joel Johnson
To: cinemaexp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2018 3:13 PM
Subject: [cinemaexp] FW: Possible Candidates for Film Series//Updates from
Yesterday's CINEMA EXPLORATIONS Meeting
Major OOOPS!!! I left off the list of films.
BTW, I watched "HOCHELAGA, LAND OF SOULS" yesterday. I did learn that
Hochelaga refers to the fortified Iroquois Indian village Jacques Cartier
encountered when he first arrived at what is now Montreal. It does have some
interesting and quite impressively mounted re-enactment vignettes, but I'm not
sure how satisfying they would be in helping someone better understand or find
Canadian (specifically Montreal's) history interesting. The filmmaker made a
special point to keep repeating certain surnames from the vignettes into
contemporary Montreal. The message seemed to be that most Canadians (and also
Americans) have come from somewhere else and our pasts have had numerous
difficulties and have been intertwined. A good message, but did we really need
a rather wild, unbelievable set-up and all these vignettes that seem to end
about the time one might have become interested in seeing what the rest of the
story was? I think this joins Bob's assessment which I think he would probably
characterize as underwhelmed.
Joel
From: Joel Johnson <joel_johnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2018 2:38 PM
To: cinemaexp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: FW: Possible Candidates for Film Series//Updates from Yesterday's
CINEMA EXPLORATIONS Meeting
To Clif and anyone else who might be looking for these screeners from
FilmMovement:
Yes, all of the links were from vimeo. Below is the e-mail I got back from
them.
We have formally eliminated "THE CHARMER," "EGON SCHIELE: DEATH AND THE
MAIDEN," "FRANTZ FANON: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASK," and then pretty much ruled out
"STYX" since it was such a hard-hitting dark movie. We have had discussion
about several of the other FilmMovment films though we only group screened
"ICEMAN" and I'm not sure how many have seen some of the others like "RAFIKI"
and "THE SOWER."
The recommendation of those present (and there were only three of us) at
yesterday's meeting was to remove several films from consideration: "GENESIS
2.0," "CUBAN FOOD STORIES," "TVTV: VIDEO REVOLUTIONARIES," and "LOVE, GILDA."
"CHINA HUSTLE" is also an older documentary that is available for streaming for
$3.99 through Amazon Prime Video. "LOVE, GILDA" is available from Amazon Prime
Video for 6.99. That availability for streaming was part of the rationale for
taking "LOVE, GILDA" off the list. If that availability is problematic, then we
should get rid of both of those documentaries.
We had a difficult screening with "LIFE AND NOTHING MORE." It started getting
a little jerky about 15 or 20 minutes in. This is a film about life in the
black underclass in Florida. This was the reverse of last week's film "GENEISIS
2.0" which was a documentary that often seemed like a narrative. This was a
narrative that looked like a documentary. The characters often use non-standard
English making it challenging just to understand the dialogue. The
documentary-style kept the viewer at a distance and made it difficult to
connect with the characters-this was a problem for us for as long as we
continued to watch it. After about 30-35 minutes we gave up as the film wasn't
connecting with us and one or two were starting to feel queasy. The film has
strong critical support so it apparently must coalesce into a fairly meaningful
narrative-at least for critics. Unfortunately, it was pretty much three thumbs
down from us based on that compromised half-hour + viewing. "LIFE AND NOTHING
MORE" is a fairly long movie at nearly two hours which wouldn't really allow
much time for a post-film discussion. We do not have a screener, but I would
suggest that we might want to look at the trailer and check out the reviews for
"HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING" from the Cinema Guild. This also
addresses contemporary African-American life in the South (Alabama). It is a
documentary which also has strong critical support. It is a shorter film at 76
minutes which would allow much more time for a post-film discussion. Does Colby
have a Black or African-American Studies program?
We have some favorable opinions expressed recently re: "RAMEN SHOP", "UN
TRADUCTOR (A TRANSLATOR)", "LA FAMILIA", and "ANTONIO LOPEZ: SEX FASHION &
DISCO."
We have a number of films on our list that have Jewish content as noted by
the (J). Of those that I discussed with Barbara Merson of MJFF, it would appear
that the documentary "THE WALDHEIM WALTZ" and the narrative "THE INTERPRETER"
would seem to be the best. However, a case could be made for each of the
others. While we don't have to work with MJFF, I do think the options available
represent quality to films that have been selected for inclusion in their
festival. We got a very high-quality film last year in our collaboration and
probably would be quite pleased with whatever choice we made from what they are
showing.
We made a decision on "WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD?" as our classic with a back-up
of Ingmar Bergman's "WILD STRAWBERRIES." While I had earlier been somewhat
negative about the Bergman documentary "SEARCHING FOR INGMAR BERGMAN," it is
worth noting that it has a Metacritic score of 70 which is quite good. If we do
want to recognize Ingmar's centenary, we might opt for showing that.
Let me know if there are any other links that you are missing. I will append
the latest listing of films. Those that have an (s) before the title have sent
a link that connects to a screener. You will also note that I have floated an
alternative schedule to what we had previously discussed since the earlier
schedule would have our 2nd screening on the same day as the Women's Protest
March on 1/19/19.
Joel
From: Maxwell Wolkin <maxwell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2018 10:29 AM
To: Joel Johnson <joel_johnson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: Possible Candidates for Film Series
Hi Joel,
Can you use Vimeo screeners? I'm not sure we have all these in DVD. If so,
please see below -
ANTONIO
url: https://vimeo.com/253843122 ;
pw: MayIdrawyou?
CHARMER
url: https://vimeo.com/235004728 ;
pw: Almacinema
EGON
url: https://vimeo.com/162541341 ;
pw: eGONsCHIELEpti
FAMILIA
url: https://vimeo.com/271901886 ;
pw: CaracasinCannes
FRANTZ
url: https://vimeo.com/290565056 ;
pw: BSWM123
ICEMAN
url: https://vimeo.com/252204021 ;
pw: Otzi_unearthed
RAFIKI
url: https://vimeo.com/266873822 ;
pw: RaFiKi_MPM-PrEmIuM270598
SOWER
url: https://vimeo.com/273705681 ;
pw: LerevedeViolette
STYX
url: https://vimeo.com/284992243 ;
pw: hellishwater
TRADUCTOR
url: https://vimeo.com/291755925 ;
pw: 1234
Best,
Maxwell Q. Wolkin
Director of Non-Theatrical Sales
FILM MOVEMENT
237 W 35 St, Suite 604
New York, NY 10001
P: 212.941.7744 x211
Direct: 212.941.7647
