SCHILLING FOR THE WONDERFRIENDS- or, movies you should see soon!

Were you thinking of going to the movies NEXT weekend? I sure was, because there are THREE GREAT MOVIES out that you definitely need to see! In the current film market, independent films rarely have the opportunity to see theatrical release, and for those that do make it into a theater, the length of their run may be determined by opening weekend returns. Please, if you're thinking of going out to the movies this month, or this summer, consider going next weekend to one of these excellent films:


BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO

film forum- Weds, May 12- Tues, May 18

Working backwards through history, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo explores the mystery of the development of Japan’s love affair with bugs. Using insects like an anthropologist’s toolkit, the film uncovers Japanese philosophies that will shift Westerners’ perspectives on nature, beauty, life, and even the seemingly mundane realities of their day-to-day routines.

(disclosure: Jessica Oreck is who I want to be when I grow up, and the nicest gal around.)
(I will be at the 8:20 show of this on Weds and Thurs.)



Daddy Longlegs
IFC Center, Fri May 14- Thurs May 20

Loose-limbed and affectionate, DADDY LONGLEGS paints a clear-eyed portrait of a man torn between excuses and responsibilities and of the children who idolize him. A loving but hopelessly immature father, Lenny (filmmaker Ronald Bronstein of Frownland) gets custody of his sons for two weeks a year. Juggling work as a projectionist and the demands of girlfriends with taking care of two young children, Lenny turns a life of improvised meals and unpredictable days into an adventure for his kids, where lawlessness rules and anything can happen.

(disclosure: the marvelous and absurdly talented, dedicated Katie Hickman, my Vassar Film partner in crime, worked on this movie! Also, Josh and Benny Safdie are very decent guys and two you should be watching for the future of film)


Holy Rollers

Sneak preview at Rooftop Films May 15th, Opening May 21st at Landmark Sunshine and AMC Loews 84th Street

 

HOLY ROLLERS is a character-driven drama inspired by true events from the late nineties when young men from Brooklyn Hasidic communities were caught internationally trafficking ecstasy from Europe into the United States. Jesse Eisenberg plays Sam Gold, a young Hasidic man seduced by the money, power and misplaced sense of opportunity presented to him by Yosef (Justin Bartha), a young man in his community who is already mixed up in the complicated and dangerous world led by an Israeli drug dealer.

(disclosure: Eli Gelb, a darling, wildly skilled actor who was also my hallmate, appears in this film)

voila! mon truite!

via tiny art director thanks steph

The last of my fish left over from the 100 hours shooting in poughkeepsie have passed away. But the film is swimming quickly upstream, rocketing its way toward picture lock and post... hopefully in time for a very exciting festival deadline.

walk the fish movie dot com

tarnished goldfish

Took a week off work to sleep on the floor in Poughkeepsie, producing a short for a professor friend with a bunch of newly minted Vassar grads

Rather than make call sheets (oh, there's plenty of time for that, ladies&gents!) I wanna talk about FEEEEELINGS

(I ALWAYS want to talk about feelings. This is nothing new.)

It is a positive adrenaline shot to be back in production mode after almost exactly a year on hiatus. There's something wonderfully raw about academic indie film making, although The Fishbowl doesn't neatly fit into either category. Technically this isn't a film school movie, because it's not being done through the department and we've only 2 undergrads working with us. It's not quite independent, because we're still keeping our fingers crossed that the dean's office/department will reimburse some/all of the costs. But what is independent, and what I love most about independent film, is the spirit of all of the participants-- everyone's doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and the love of the medium.

James Roehl has written a modest, sincere script that reminds me what's hidden and lovely about being in your midtwenties and being able to appreciate that. He wrote The Fishbowl based on his weekend at RISD a few years ago and workshopped it in Kathleen (my one true professor love)'s class last fall. When it came time for picking narratives, his only got one vote, and it wasn't his own. As the year wound down Kathleen, still touched by sincerity in the face of student film's bombastic, bloody endings, resurrected the idea. James found his one remaining copy of the script, under his bed and muddied by footprints, and together they resurrected it and got eight of us together for a week to make a little movie that could.

My forever partner in crime Katie has been lassoed in as assistant camera, but has been acting as a phenomenal AD for the past 2 days. From day one (literally, freshman year when we both showed up as prospective film/psych double majors and discussed this in the elevator) I've always had Katie as my creative sounding board. Now it's double happiness to have her here to hang out and make art for a week, because emotionally we're on the same playing field-- we've already sorted out the post grad world, and gone through the emotional tumult of being freshly graduated and scared shitless and numb as a coping mechanism because the rug holding everything we knew had just been yanked out from under us. As the only two such folk for whom the rug pulling did not transpire THIS MORNING, it's nice to have a metered, reasonable ally whose company I can safely say I enjoy more than almost anyone else's.

Oh man, the day after graduation. I think I just cried a little bit for a solid week. I can't even imagine how the rest of the crew is even functioning well enough to MAKE AN EQUIPMENT LIST or CONTACT POUGHKEEPSIE PUBLIC TRANSPORT when they've moved 4 years of their lives into their cars for the night, postponing the uncertainty for just one more week to make this movie. There is comfort in the familiarity of production, it breathes a certain way and you get used to the rhythms. Hopefully we can keep everyone so busy that at the end of the week their heads fall off and they can just then remember that the world is mighty uncertain.

Kathleen deserves her own blog entry or an entire blog of adulation because she's such a person. I'm not even sure how i'm processing everything that's going on here but in the span of a year we've gone from an incredible professor-student relationship to something that's not as clearly defined but marvelous in its ambiguity. Such a person. such a person. Fascinating and endlessly impressive and definitely the type of woman I was praying for when she came to the Junior film screenings at the end of 2007-- I wanted to write her an email then and say- HI can you teach me how to do this as a lady? I learn from her every day, and the staying a lady part most of all.

I'm going off an emotional deep end, which means I should go back to menial tasks like finding suitable costumes and scheduling trainrides. My late night concern at this moment are our animal actors, the four goldfish we got today for the shoot that'll have to brave the metro north to come home with me on Friday. As yet unnamed, in the tank at the Petco they were brilliant, actually golden beans. Now they just look hungry and tarnished. We got 4 to have 2 backups/stunt doubles "should anything happen" over the week. I'm hoping they perk the fuck up before their star turn on wednesday.

MORE ON THAT LATER!

cubicles.

Working from home is significantly less delightful when you make the realization that all of your favorite grainy snacks, for which you'd run out for a quick distraction, are off limits, and the only snacky options are fruits, vegetables, or meats. NOT FAIR, JUDAISM!

At one point, this was meant to be a filmblog. In its first iteration, it was solely response papers for my cinema verite class (which, in hindsight, may have been one of the most incredible educational opportunities I had at Vassar. Thanks, Jamie Meltzer, where ever you are!) Then for a hot second it was a proper bed of lies- whenever I went out and pretended to be Noseprint Pictures, a concept that I now realize was woefully underconstructed and unrealistic to anyone who had actually EVER WORKED FOR A FILM PRODUCTION COMPANY.

But, in the interest of killing time on the clock, a filmy anecdote with photos, and a general update.



RIDING TALL won the Best Student Documentary award at the International Family Film Festival. !!! IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING was also playing, which is mega exciting because one could ostensibly 'plex my Vassar movies. I didn't get to go, because that was the weekend of the cruise/funemployment... but when I returned to Puerto Rico, there were several emails and messages waiting for me, highly suggesting I attend the awards banquet. One of the other emails announced that

RIDING TALL had been accepted to the Connecticut Film Festival, along with another of Clyde's movies (New Uke City), Katie's movie (Black Ice) and some stuff from ben and brian (I am so setting up a Ben and Brian tag because as soon as they get to NY, I'd be over the moon to work with them again.)

We're also in the Ivy Film Festival-- Clyde for New Uke, myself for RT, and we got an incredible deal on a hotel in Providence, so we're going to have a romantic weekend getaway to Brown. The beauty of this festival lies in the numbers. There were 350 student films submitted. There were 31 films selected. 3 of those were documentaries. What are 2 of the 3 documentaries? Mine, and Clyde's. The third one is from RISD kid who went to Uganda to shoot child soldiers and an orphanage. Memorize-you-saw-it is totes going to kick our vassar asses to the curb... which should make for a more pleasant carride back to NYC, as I am fiercely competitive, especially with Clyde, and no matter if he wins or I win, I'm going to be unbearable.

Speaking of Clyde, we went to see Adventureland on Sunday, and caught the cameo of our "friend" (and I use the term very loosely, we had him on set for one day and he was pleasant and professional) Dan Bittner. Man, I am obsessed with linking today, aren't I? In any case, it was a sweet, nostalgic film, and Dan was solid. Then, these pictures reemerged from second semester senior year, and I was reminded of my greatest art directorial accomplishment-- the cubicles.



We needed to build a set on the soundstage as a requirement for Ken. The easiest one, Clyde decided, would be the FBI office. Unfortunately, we didn't have any tools. Or any real building experience. And it was snowing. like, a blizzard. I think this was in February, because after the shoot, I ran off to go to the Magnetic Fields with Ali. But then again, when wasn't it snowing last february? Which is less than conducive to running to three art stores, a fabric store, and the hardware store. Part of me seems to remember Gracie tagging along, but that also seems incorrect. There were several moments wherein we tried desperately to make our plans to build these less abstract, using various props to illustrate the positioning of the walls. This was ultimately a failure. We had NO IDEA how to build anything, I was lying my ass off at this point as I'd never actually built anything in stage crew without explicit instructions. We didn't have any tools. It was snowing. We were about to spend $$$ at a hardware store for supplies we weren't sure we needed. In any case, we assembled a lot of junk, including 1x3s, took it all to the sound stage, and then found canvas stretchers that worked far better. The burlap was a bit too thin to block light, so we "reinforced it."



At this point, my hair was either really short, and I can't imagine it was, or it was terrifically long and wound around my head like a demented Heidi. I assume the latter. In any case, Sean Gilmore came to the rescue with a full set of tools (including an electric drill! Who knew you'd need such a thing in college?) And at around 5 AM, clyde and I finished painting the set, left the dressing for the next morning (at 9, I seem to recall) and crawled home. The most impressive part of the whole endeavor was not that we managed to create an office out of nothing, with my feigned technical expertise and borrowed tools, but that in painting four walls with three coats of paint (someone had painted them magenta, which does not cover easily) Clyde did not get one drop of paint on himself. He looked immaculate.

I, on the otherhand, was thoroughly dappled, and completely mystified as to how he had avoided making a similar mess. Maybe it's because I attack all physical activities like a 5 year old.




So, these are the cubicles. Cubicle story is now recorded for posterity. the next time I had to build cubicles (which was probably 2 weeks later) my car nearly blew off the road, lifted by an enormous sheet of foamcore. But that's a story for another day.