Disinformation » film

Dau: The Biggest, Most Insane Movie In Cinema History

JacobSloan — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 22:06:21 +0000

From GQ, Michael Idov visits the cult-like set of the Ukrainian film Dau — an enclosed bubble where thousands of actors have been living the lives of their characters 24 hours a day, ever since production began in 2006, using Soviet passports and money, in a world that is exactly as things were in the 1950s, while their real lives recede into the past:

Five years ago, a relatively unknown (and unhinged) director began one of the wildest experiments in film history. Armed with total creative control, he invaded a Ukrainian city, marshaled a cast of thousands and thousands, and constructed a totalitarian society in which the cameras are always rolling and the actors never go home.

The rumors started seeping out of Ukraine about three years ago: A young Russian film director has holed up on the outskirts of Kharkov, a town of 1.4 million in the country’s east, making…something. A movie, sure, but not just that. If the gossip was to be believed, this was the most expansive, complicated, all-consuming film project ever attempted.

A steady stream of former extras and fired PAs talked of the shoot in terms usually reserved for survivalist camps. The director, Ilya Khrzhanovsky, was a madman who forced the crew to dress in Stalin-era clothes, fed them Soviet food out of cans and tins, and paid them in Soviet money. Others said the project was a cult and everyone involved worked for free. Khrzhanovsky had taken over all of Kharkov, they said, shutting down the airport. No, no, others insisted, the entire thing was a prison experiment, perhaps filmed surreptitiously by hidden cameras.

I’m about to write the rumors off as idle blog chatter when I get to the film’s compound itself and, again, find myself ready to believe anything. The set, seen from the outside, is an enormous wooden box jutting directly out of a three-story brick building that houses the film’s vast offices, workshops, and prop warehouses. The wardrobe department alone takes up the entire basement. Here, a pair of twins order me out of my clothes and into a 1950s three-piece suit complete with sock garters, pants that go up to the navel, a fedora, two bricklike brown shoes, an undershirt, and boxers. Black, itchy, and unspeakably ugly, the underwear is enough to trigger Proustian recall of the worst kind in anyone who’s spent any time in the USSR. (I lived in Latvia through high school.)

The twins, Olya and Lena, see nothing unusual about this hazing ritual for a reporter who’s not going to appear in a single shot of the film—just like they see nothing unusual in the fact that the cameras haven’t rolled for more than a month. After all, the film, tentatively titled Dau, has been in production since 2006 and won’t wrap until 2012, if ever. But within the walls of the set, for the 300 people working on the project—including the fifty or so who live in costume, in character—there is no difference between “on” and “off.”

One of the twins admiringly touches my head. Before coming to wardrobe, I’d stopped in hair and makeup. My nape and temples are now shaved clean in an approximation of an old hairstyle called a half-box. All to help me blend in on the set. Only, from here on, I can no longer call it that. According to a glossary of forbidden terms posted right in front of me on the wall, the set is to be referred to as the Institute. Likewise, inside the Institute, there are no scenes, just experiments. No shooting, only documentation. And there is certainly no director. Instead, Ilya Khrzhanovsky, the man responsible for this madness, is to be referred to as the Head of the Institute or simply the Boss.

Read the rest at GQ.com

Samsung Claims That iPads Are Stolen From Kubrick

JacobSloan — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 12:00:16 +0000

It’s fascinating to examine the point at which an element of science fiction actually comes true. Apple is in a legal struggle with Samsung to prevent it from selling tablet devices that resemble the iPad. Samsung’s defense: The iPad is in fact ripped off from a tablet design created by Stanley Kubrick for 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. FOSS Patents writes:

Late last night, Samsung filed its opposition brief to Apple’s motion for a preliminary injunction in the United States.

One element of Samsung’s defense strategy is interesting enough that I wanted to report on it beforehand. Ever since Apple started to assert the design of the iPad against other manufacturers, many people have been wondering whether there’s actually prior art for the general design of the iPad in some futuristic devices shown in sci-fi movies and TV series. And indeed, Samsung’s lawyers make this claim now in their defense against Apple’s motion for a preliminary injunction.

This is how the related declaration explains why this movie picture is valid prior art for a certain iPad-related design patent:

Attached hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of a still image taken from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In a clip from that film lasting about one minute, two astronauts are eating and at the same time using personal tablet computers…As with the design claimed by the D’889 Patent, the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table’s surface), and a thin form factor.

It would be amazing if the court agreed with Samsung that this constitutes prior art for that particular iPad-related design patent. Whether or not Samsung will succeed, the mere fact that they proffer this kind of evidence is remarkable and will be exciting for many fans of movies in general — and of that movie in particular — to find out about.

Experimental Animation Pioneer Robert Breer Dies

JacobSloan — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:51:55 +0000

His style was followed by everyone from Monty Python to MTV, but for sheer optical pleasure, Robert Breer’s short avant-garde animations can’t be beaten. The New York Times eulogizes:

Robert Breer, an animator whose use of novel techniques opened up a new language for film, died on Aug. 11 at his home in Tucson. He was 84. Mr. Breer, a painter by training, early on saw the potential for breaking with the narrative sequences and anthropomorphic forms that defined the medium [of animation].

Viewers were bombarded with wiggling lines, letters, abstract shapes and live-action images that jumped and flashed, zoomed and receded. “He was a seminal figure in the new American cinema and the American avant-garde beginning in the 1950s and continuing right up to the present,” said Andrew Lampert of the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan.

Duck And Cover: The Citizen Kane Of PSAs

JacobSloan — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:49:02 +0000

Few films, let alone ones running under ten minutes, have been as frequently referenced, reproduced and satirized as Duck and Cover, yet it is never regarded seriously. Conelrad gives this key piece of cinematic history the treatment it deserves:

We have spent the last two years thoroughly researching DUCK AND COVER’s production history as well as its initial public reception in 1952. Interviews were conducted with living participants involved in the making of the film as well as surviving family members of those key players who had passed away.

Just how did the term “Duck and Cover” become universal shorthand for the paranoid excesses of the Cold War and for every geo-political panic attack since? The film is, after all, the Citizen Kane of American civil defense motion pictures. Clips from this movie are used almost every time a news piece is produced on the 1950’s or the Cold War. It struck us as odd that so little was known about the origins of a work that has had such a reverberating impact on the culture.

In many ways DUCK AND COVER is the perfect synthesis of the competing themes of the 1950’s: Fear and prosperity. In the context of the Cold War’s epic struggle between communism and capitalism, it seems oddly appropriate that the American government turned to private industry to help sell survival to an anxious population.

The FCDA was never afforded a large budget to pursue its education mandate so it used whatever avenues it could to cheaply maximize the distribution of the civil defense message. Two of these avenues were the public school system and the educational film market. Public school administrators were cooperative, even eager, to embody President Truman’s slogan “Education is our first line of defense.” Toward that end and beginning in 1950, public (and many private) schools—particularly in obvious target cities—began regular air raid drills sometimes known as “cover” or “sneak attack” drills. In such exercises the teacher would, without warning, yell “Drop!” and the students would kneel next to or under their desks with their hands clutched around the back of their necks.

nother step many school districts took during this period was to provide identification tags (i.e. dog tags) to school children to wear so that in the event of an attack their bodies could be identified more easily. Dog tags were the preferred method of identifying pupils because the other ID options that were considered like tattooing had negative connotations or, in the case of fingerprinting, elicited privacy concerns. Moreover, metal tags were thought to be the smarter alternative because metal was decidedly more “permanent” than human flesh. With such bizarre debates and practices shaping the childhood memories of the baby boomer generation is it any wonder there was a counter culture in the 1960’s?

Read the rest at Conelrad.

The First Science Fiction Film

JacobSloan — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:14:56 +0000

Dreamy and surreal, it lives up to its name:

A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black-and-white silent science fiction film. The film was written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston. It is based loosely on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells.

It is the first science fiction film and uses innovative animation and special effects, including the well-known image of the spaceship landing in the moon’s eye.

Sarah Palin’s Feature Length Film To Premiere In June

Pelliciari — Wed, 25 May 2011 20:53:16 +0000

Photo: David Shankbone

When is enough enough? Real Clear Politics reports:

Shortly after Republicans swept last November to a historic victory in which Sarah Palin was credited with playing a central role, the former Alaska governor pulled aside her close aide, Rebecca Mansour, to discuss a hush-hush assignment: Reach out to conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon with a request. Ask him if he would make a series of videos extolling Palin’s governorship and laying to rest lingering questions about her controversial decision to resign from office with a year-and-a-half left in her first term. It was this abdication, Palin knew, that had made her damaged goods in the eyes of some Republicans who once were eager to get behind her potential 2012 presidential campaign.

The response was more positive than Palin could have hoped for. He’d make a feature-length movie, Bannon told Mansour, and he insisted upon taking complete control and financing it himself — to the tune of $1 million.

The fruits of that initial conversation are now complete. The result is a two-hour-long, sweeping epic, a rough cut of which Bannon screened privately for Sarah and Todd Palin last Wednesday in Arizona, where Alaska’s most famous couple has been rumored to have purchased a new home. When it premiers in Iowa next month, the film is poised to serve as a galvanizing prelude to Palin’s prospective presidential campaign — an unconventional reintroduction to the nation that she and her political team have spent months eagerly anticipating, even as Beltway Republicans have largely concluded that she won’t run.

[Continues at Real Clear Politics]

23,000 Defendants Sued In Biggest Illegal Downloading Case In History

JacobSloan — Thu, 12 May 2011 14:59:30 +0000

Movie makers are suing thousands of individuals who downloaded and watched Sylvester Stallone’s latest film? Shouldn’t that read vice versa? Via Wired:

At least 23,000 file sharers soon will likely get notified they are being sued for downloading The Expendables in what has become the single largest illegal-BitTorrent-downloading case in U.S. history.

A federal judge in the case has agreed to allow the U.S. Copyright Group to subpoena internet service providers to find out the identity of everybody who had illegally downloaded the 2010 Sylvester Stallone flick — meaning the number of defendants is likely to dramatically increase as new purloiners are discovered.

All told, more than 140,000 BitTorrent downloaders are being targeted in dozens of lawsuits across the country, many of them for downloading B-rated movies and porn.

How To Start Your Own Religion

majestic — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 23:15:13 +0000

One of the best films I saw at South By Southwest (SXSW) this year was Vikram Gandhi’s documentary Kumaré, in which New Jersey-born and raised Gandhi decides to pass himself off as an Indian guru (he is of Indian descent) to see if people will buy into his fake persona as a spiritually enlightened teacher. He succeeds all too well and faces a dilemma when it’s time to reveal the fraud.

Essentially Gandhi’s point is that spiritual gurus are frauds and anyone can be a guru if he can (so long as they are prepared to dress up, grow long beards, make up strange chants, etc.). With that in mind, I found a course on how to start your own religion, offered by 3rd Ward. I’m not sure if I’ll take it yet, but they do say the fastest way to make a million dollars is to become a millionaire. (If Kumaré succeeds at the box office, maybe it will be proof of that too). Here’s the class description for anyone interested:

While some perceive it as a pathetically static monoculture of oppression, religion in its most exciting form is actually an environment—a happening—of ever-evolving ideas, practices, and visual and sensual pleasures. Spiritual paths based on everything from chaos to love, to dada, to eroticism, and to eco-radicalism have found their way into the hearts and minds of seekers the world over. By looking at examples of some of these traditions, and by using them as a springboard for developing our own religions, students will come away with a better appreciation for what it means to “be religious,” and maybe even have a radical mystical epiphany or two.

In this class students will each write, design and craft a new spiritual path (as far out or traditional as desired), to be summed up and presented at the end of the course through presentations, handouts and booklets. Over the four weeks students will create hymns that can be used to exalt their beatitudes, define the tenets of their path so others will know what it’s all about, produce propaganda in order to call the willing to the Light, as well as explore the role of (read: draw/mold/create) deities in their new spiritual path. Using published examples from occult as well as mainstream traditions, we will look for inspiration from a variety of unusual sources. Students will be expected to play with what it means to even “be religious,” and should be prepared and willing to engage in a variety of mediums, including text, song and iconography. Some experience with making ‘zines or other DIY publications a plus, but not required.

Please come to this class willing to crack open all you believe a religion should be.

Is Competitive Laughter Becoming A New Craze?

Albert Nerenberg — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 20:27:45 +0000

The documentary Laughology is helping set off a new fad with the discovery that competitive laughter can be entertaining.

The film makes the case that laughter itself is the primary motivator of laughter, so jokes aren’t necessary for people to have a good time. After a laughing contest in Montreal where the audience was in stitches, a competition made headlines in Tokyo. This Saturday a laughter contest hits America in the form of the California Ultimate Laughing Championship. Linda Massarella reports for the Toronto Sun:

So there was this American state called California with one of the highest unemployment rates on the continent and citizens fretting about losing their homes to foreclosure … when in walks this Canadian guy.

Yes, it’s Toronto documentary filmmaker Albert Nerenberg to the rescue of the depressed and anxious around here [San Luis Obispo, CA] next Saturday when he brings his movie, Laughology, to a film festival just north of L.A.

Before and after the showing of his documentary, Nerenberg will host a laughing contest and a so-called “Laughter Yoga” class.

It’s the first time Laughology, released about a year ago, has been invited to screen in California and Nerenberg said he’ll do his best to lighten the mood.

“I’m not sure I can cheer them up too much, but I can make them laugh,” he said of the screening-and-chuckling events to be showcased at the San Luis Obispo Film Festival March 12.

“It’s clear that with practice, people get better and better at laughing, even if they’re miserable SOBs.”

It was Nerenberg who came up with the idea of hosting a laugh contest to coincide with screenings of his film. The contest is organized as if it’s a wrestling contest such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship, although Nerenberg says he’s a “laugher not a fighter.”

In essence, he who laughs the hardest during the competition wins. Of course, the championship is meant to be ironic because, after all, everyone who laughs wins…

[continues in the Toronto Sun]

Also check out this TV news report on the first laughter championship in Montreal:

DreamWorks Studio Buys Rights To WikiLeaks’ Book

Pelliciari — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 20:46:24 +0000

It was only a matter of time there was a movie about Assange. Looks like Spieldberg’s studio got to it first. The Guardian reports:

Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood studio looks set to oversee WikiLeaks: the Movie after securing the screen rights to WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, the book by Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding.

Reportedly conceived as an investigative thriller in the mould of All the President’s Men, the film will be backed by DreamWorks – the studio founded in 1994 by Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

Leigh and Harding’s book charts Julian Assange’s life and times, from his itinerant childhood through to the creation of the WikiLeaks website in 2006. It also provides the inside story of Assange’s explosive partnership with the Guardian and the release, last December, of more than 250,000 secret diplomatic cables.

Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media, said: “The Guardian’s unique collaboration with WikiLeaks led to what some have described as one of the greatest journalistic scoops of the last 30 years.”

[Continues at The Guardian]

Brainsploitation: Rise Of The Neurothriller

BananaFamine — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 14:29:00 +0000

Annalee Newitz writes for io9:

Inception cleaned up in the effects categories at the Academy Awards because they go to movies built around cool ideas. In this case, literally. The centerpiece of the film is a machine that allows clever intruders to enter other people’s dreams and steal their ideas – or implant new ones. Inception is the latest standout example of the mind-manipulation movie, following in the tracks of Memento and classics like George Cukor’s Gaslight. Call them neurothrillers.

What makes neurothrillers relevant now? Sure, we’ve always had psychological suspense flicks, but over the past decade they’ve been coming fast and thick. The Bourne Identity series is one long neurothriller. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind brought the subgenre into the realm of art, while the stinker Johnny Mnemonic did the opposite. Liam Neeson’s new movie Unknown is about a man whose mind has been tampered with, while the much-anticipated Source Code is about Jake Gyllenhaal using futuristic brain tech to jump inside somebody else’s head. And these are just a few of the dozens of movies out there dealing with people whose memories are altered or blocked off – or whose entire identities are fabrications.

The question is, why have our minds become crime scenes?

Gadget futurism
There’s a simple answer to start with, which is that many of these stories are just giving us futuristic snapshots of technologies that have evolved over the past decade. Using brain implants such as Braingate, or just an Emotiv headset, you can interface with your computer using just the power of your brain. “Neural pacemakers” implanted under the skin can stimulate specific nerves, delivering jolts that relieve depression or give orgasms.

With weird brain tech making the headlines, it’s no wonder that we’re awash in movies like Inception or Eternal Sunshine. These film’s genius lies in their ability to extrapolate what the world will be like when brain-tweaking comes in the form a gadget you can pick up at Best Buy. What happens to identity when you can choose what you want to remember, or edit your child’s memories? And can you ever really dream up a new idea, when you live in a world where even the act of personal creation can be manipulated by some guy on the other end of a brain-to-brain firewire setup?

This is the world we’re about to live in, and so it’s no wonder that our science fiction about it is moving into overdrive…

For more information, see original article.

The Military’s Long-Lost Nuclear Apocalypse Film

JacobSloan — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 22:11:50 +0000

The National Security Archive has the The Power of Decision posted in its entirety, making it available for public viewing for the first time ever. Produced in 1956-57 by the U.S. Air Force, it is perhaps the only government film depicting what the descent into nuclear holocaust would be like, a grim future in which “nobody wins a nuclear war because both sides are sure to suffer terrible damage,” yet, “success” (i.e. the United States’ prevailing with only some millions of casualties) is possible. It’s not entirely clear why this was made — perhaps to prepare military officers for confronting a nightmarish scenario:

Preparing America For ‘See Something, Say Something’

majestic — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 20:23:04 +0000

The “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign that’s so familiar to New Yorkers is going where no New Yorker can: Walmart. Scaring the crap out of middle America appears to be a priority for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, reaching into formerly safe havens such as the Mall of America.

With that in mind, a group of independent filmmakers from New York have created a short film entitled Terminal Night that should help get the rest of America in the mood for the constant vigilance demanded of them by Janet Napoletano and the gang at DOHS.

Prize-Winning Director Shoots New Film On iPhone

Pelliciari — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:23:09 +0000

Photo: Park Chan-wook at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival

South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (known for award-winning movies such as Oldboy and Lady Vengeance) shoots his latest film on his Apple iPhone 4s. Could this be the beginning to a new shift in film? Or just a quick gimic supported by Apple? Via Reuters:

Prize-winning South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s latest film, “Night Fishing,” has created a buzz in his native country — it was filmed using 10 Apple iPhone 4s, three of which he himself controlled.

Park, who won the Cannes Grand Prix in 2004 for “Oldboy,” also directed the 30-minute tale about a fisherman and a female shaman with his brother, Chan-kyong, and said the circumstances of its shooting gave making the film an unusual flavour.

“Movies that I directed before were meticulously planned ahead and shot just as pictured. Compared to that, shooting this film felt free, and everyone had an equal amount of say,” Park told Reuters in an interview at his studio in Goyang, north of Seoul.

[Continues at Reuters]

The Sordid History Of Product Placement In Cinema

JacobSloan — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:12:08 +0000

Did you know that product placement in movies began in 1919, during the silent era? Ultimately, that paved the way for last year, when Michael Bay broke his own record by promoting products from 49 corporations within a single film (the blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen). Conceived by FilmDrunk:

BMW Ad Uses Afterimage To Burn Logo Into Watchers’ Brains

JacobSloan — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:11:56 +0000

A BMV commercial shown in German movie theaters uses a powerful photo flash to literally brand the corporation’s logo into viewers’ skulls, so that they see the logo upon closing their eyes. Surely other companies will soon follow suit with this cool advertising technique, and by cool, I mean awful:

“What do we see when we look straight at the sun and then close our eyes? That’s right, a bright moving disk that lasts several seconds. Every child knows this afterimage effect. We use the afterimage effect for a completely new brand experience.”

Cell Phone Time Traveler In Charlie Chaplin Film?

JacobSloan — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:30:28 +0000

With the DVD release of Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 film The Circus, people have noticed a puzzling detail: a woman passing through the background of this scene appears to be speaking on a cell phone. Could she be a time traveler? The whole thing is even more unsettling than Chaplin’s toothbrush mustache.

Star Wars Saga To Be Released In 3D

Pelliciari — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:47:30 +0000

Following the 3D trend, George Lucas has found yet another way to make money from the Star Wars saga. Telegraph reports:

The saga in 3D will begin with the release of the 1999 prequel Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, with the remaining films following in sequence.

A statement from Lucasfilm, the US director’s film production company, on the Star Wars website said: “The live-action Star Wars saga will be converted to 3D.

“There are few movies that lend themselves more perfectly to 3D; from the Death Star trench run to the Tatooine Pod race, the Star Wars Saga has always delivered an entertainment experience that is completely immersive.

“The cutting edge conversion will take that immersion to the next thrilling level.”

Industrial Light And Magic, the visual effects company which will supervise the project, said converting the films will take time.Visual effects supervisor John Knoll said: “It takes a critical and artistic eye along with an incredible attention to detail to be successful. It is not something that you can rush if you want to expect good results.

[continues at Telegraph]

Christmas With A Capital C Trailer

JacobSloan — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:25:46 +0000

The weather’s growing a little colder, and before we know it, the holidays will be upon us. One of the seasonal highlights this year will be Christmas With A Capital C, starring a Baldwin brother and the Bundys’ neighbor from Married With Children, an insane film about spiteful atheists attempting to hijack Christmas. This is going to be big among the tea-partier crowd in three months.

Is Joaquin Phoenix Still Here?

majestic — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:43:26 +0000

Casey Affleck’s new film about Joaquin Phoenix is causing quite a stir, with no one being quite sure if it’s all a joke, or if he’s truly gone off the rails. Trailer and then report from Reuters below:

“>

Whether a hoax or not, a new documentary about Joaquin Phoenix and his transition from acclaimed, brooding actor to bearded, shambolic hip-hop wannabe has captivated viewers at the Venice film festival.

“I’m Still Here” was directed by Casey Affleck, a successful actor and Phoenix’s brother-in-law.

The guessing game over whether the picture was genuine documentary or ironic “mockumentary” poking fun at an intolerant and narrow-minded public and press began long before the release of the movie.

It mirrors internet chatter following Phoenix’s now infamous television interview with David Letterman last year, when a confused, mumbling performance also prompted suspicions that it was all an elaborate act.

“I can tell you that there is no hoax,” Affleck told reporters after his directorial debut was screened to reporters on Monday in Venice, where it is out of competition.

“That never even entered into my consciousness until other people began to talk about the movie,” he added at a briefing where he was asked repeatedly about whether certain scenes, and the movie in general, were genuine…

[continues at Reuters]

Mainstream Film Rentals Coming Soon To Google/YouTube

Pelliciari — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:01:40 +0000

Google, YouTube, Hulu, Netflix … it’s only a matter of time till Blockbuster files for bankruptcy. In case we didn’t already have enough access to instant movie viewing, Google is looking for a new deal with Hollywood studios. From Wired:

Google is reportedly in talks with the major movie studios to launch full-length video rentals on YouTube by year’s end.

YouTube has already experimented with film rentals, offering selections from the Sundance Festival earlier this year when it would not rule out the addition of Hollywood movies. And the site was reportedly in talks with the same studios around this time last year, so this does not come as much of a surprise, the Financial Times’ “scoop” notwithstanding.

However, YouTube’s movie rental program currently focuses on independent filmmakers and music artists. The addition of mainstream, pay-per-view feature films to YouTube would represent a significant development, regardless of how long these reported talks have been ongoing (at least a year).

Most of us want to watch full-length films on our large, flatscreen televisions and — if we’re lucky — our surround sound speaker systems, which transform any living room into a private movie theater delightfully lacking in other people, their cellphones, and their crinkly candy wrappers.

Continues at Wired ….

How the U.S. Took on Dr. Strangelove and Tried to Make Americans Love the Bomb

Raymond — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:36:04 +0000

From the Guardian:

Nuclear Armageddon has always had its funny side. But the US military wasn’t laughing in the early 1960s as Americans, freshly shaken by the Cuban missile crisis, lapped up Stanley Kubrick’s classic satire, Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

The film – which portrays a psychotic air force general who sets in chain the nuclear obliteration of the Soviet Union – was one of a spate of popular novels and films about accidental atomic war which had the US air force worried that some viewers might believe it all possible.

So in an attempt to persuade Americans that there was no chance of some rogue general or crosswired computer unleashing an atomic war, Strategic Air Command (SAC) went into the film business itself.

The result, a 17-minute propaganda film called SAC Command Post, was never shown to the public and was all but forgotten until it was unearthed at the national archive by William Burr, a researcher from George Washington University.

Burr describes the film as intended to counter early 1960s novels and Hollywood films such as Fail-Safe, about a US president forced to drop an atomic bomb on New York after America accidentally attacks Russia, and Dr Strangelove.

[Read more at the Guardian]

Why Do Rappers Hold Their Guns Sideways?

Raymond — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:58:57 +0000

From Slate:

As police chased Raymond “Ready” Martinez through Times Square on Thursday, the street hustler and aspiring rapper fired two shots, holding the gun sideways “like a character out of a rap video.” According to the New York Post, Martinez’s side grip caused the gun to jam, enabling police to shoot and kill the suspect. What’s the point of holding a gun sideways?To look Hollywood, of course. Journalists and gun experts point to the 1993 Hughes brothers film Menace II Society, which depicts the side grip in its opening scene, as the movie that popularized the style. Although the directors claim to have witnessed a side grip robbery in Detroit in 1987, there are few reports of street gangs using the technique until after the movie came out. The Hughes brothers didn’t invent the grip, though. In 1961’s One-Eyed Jacks, Marlon Brando used it, as did Eli Wallach in 1966’s The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Directors may prefer the style because it makes it easier to see both the weapon and the actor’s face in a tight camera shot.

[Read more at Slate]

Muslim Punk Rock: A Mashup of Piety and Politics

majestic — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:28:26 +0000

When I went to Austin for the 2009 South By Southwest film festival I spent a lot of time with the director of a film we had just acquired for distribution, Rip! A Remix Manifesto. The director, Brett Gaylor, is part of a Canadian production company called Eyesteel Films and they had rented a funky little house a little way out of town. It became the place to hang after the last screening of the night, and I got to talking to another director in the Eyesteel stable, Omar Majeed, who was making a documentary about Muslim punk rock. I knew a little bit about it from the Soft Skull Press book The Taqwacores, published by my friend Richard Nash.

Fast forward several months and Omar’s film is now starting to screen at festivals and arthouse cinemas. Check out the official site for screening info, and here’s the trailer:

Meanwhile, the film is attracting some serious media attention, as evidenced by this article in Time:

When Jimi Hendrix smashed his guitar in the 1960s, it was clear he was attacking the Establishment. When a Muslim punk rocker smashes up a guitar outside an American Muslim convention, the now-standard rock ‘n’ roll trope gains a few new meanings. These young punks are taking on every establishment going: Muslim, American and Muslim American. “In this so-called war of civilizations, we’re giving the finger to both sides,” says the godfather of the Muslim punk movement, Michael Muhammad Knight, in Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, a new documentary by Pakistani-Canadian director Omar Majeed. As a mashup of piety and politics, hard-core music and anarchy, the Muslim punk movement makes the Sex Pistols look like Fleetwood Mac.

The guitar-smashing episode occurred in 2007 after a crowd of Muslim punks were thrown out of the Islamic Society of North America’s open-mike night. They had shocked attendants at the meeting — North America’s largest annual Muslim gathering — not just by cranking up their amps, swearing and screaming their lyrics, but also by having a woman sing onstage. In the documentary, young women in hijabs are shown staring open-mouthed at first, then rocking out and yelling, “Stop the hate!” The concert then comes to an abrupt halt when the meeting’s organizers, backed by Chicago police, step in, deeming it “not Islamically appropriate.” Afterward, the punks smash their guitars and begin an ironic, anti-authority chant outside: “Music is haram [forbidden]!”

In their small but burgeoning scene — there are only a handful of Muslim punk bands in the U.S. and Canada — rebellion is an act of piety. Strident as their sound can seem, it is, in spirit, in harmony with other rebellious voices that are rising amid the breakdown of authority in the Islamic world…

[continues in in Time]

Think Outside The Box Office

majestic — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:49:19 +0000

We don’t often review books on the Disinformation site, partly because we’re publishers ourselves and it might seem as though we have a competitive conflict of interest, but probably more because all our reading time is taken up with submissions, editing, and so forth.

I have to make an exception for a book that arrived in the mail this morning: Jon Reiss’ Think Outside The Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing for the Digital Era. It’s no secret that indie film has gone through an amazing period of growth for any number of reasons, not least access to cheap but high quality cameras and computers/editing systems. The way we watch indie film has changed drastically too, from art house cinemas to DVDs that arrive in the mail or from a kiosk in a supermarket, on demand via your cable or satellite TV provider, or online via iTunes, Netflix, Amazon.com or, gasp, Bit Torrent.

When Disinformation entered the home video market in 2003 it was perfect timing (accidental, proving the old maxim, better to be lucky than smart) and we rode the wave of documentary films selling in big numbers on DVD. Now that the retail DVD market is dying we’re finding new ways to bring our films to their intended niche audiences, and that’s exactly what Jon’s book is all about. What worked yesterday is failing today and won’t work at all tomorrow.

The only hesitation I have in recommending this book to every single independent filmmaker today is that armed with the information in this book, a filmmaker is potentially equipped to bypass distributors like Disinformation completely! But, in the spirit of ‘information should be free,’ go to Reiss’ book site and buy a copy today (the only drawback to the book is that although it’s up to the minute, things are changing so fast that Reiss will have to update it annually if not even more frequently to remain on the forward edge of film distribution). Here’s some of the promo language from that site detailing what’s in the book:

The independent film community is a buzz with the collapse of the traditional independent film distribution model. No longer can filmmakers expect their films to be acquired and released in the cinema. Just as the digital revolution created a democratization of the means of production, a new hybrid approach to distribution has created a way for independent filmmakers to take control. This approach is not just DIY or Web based. It combines the best techniques from each distribution arena, old and new.

I released my own film Bomb It using this new model of distribution. But there was no guide for me, I had to search out information from disparate sources. I knew that I was reinventing the wheel, but I had no choice. Part of the reason I wrote this book is because I wish I had had it before I released my film.

For the past year, I have appeared on numerous panels at film festivals around the world. Everywhere, filmmakers are hungry for information on how to distribute and market their films. No single resource exists that combines all of the knowledge and tools now available to them. Think Outside the Box Office now fills that void.

The book is a break through step-by-step nuts and bolts guide to distributing and marketing a film. Each chapter addresses an essential aspect of a film’s release and offers specific techniques so filmmakers can take control of their distribution and marketing destiny.

In writing this book I not only drew on my own experiences, but I spoke with countless filmmakers, distributors, publicists, web programmers, festival programmers and marketing experts to create this ultimate resource of up to the minute information.

I designed the book to be a daily resource as you go through the process of releasing your film. I guarantee it will become a trusted resource that will sit on your desk because it contains an incredible amount of information that you will go back to again and again.

Here are just a few of the topics covered in the 38 chapters of the book:

Creating a unique distribution and marketing strategy for your film.Audience identification and targeting Negotiating split rights agreements for your film.

Putting together your distribution and marketing team. Social networking – crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.

Budgeting for distribution and marketing.

Booking a conventional and unconventional theatrical release.
Conventional and web marketing.

How to sell DVDs with a distributor and on your own.

Affiliate marketing and partnerships.

Television, cable and VOD.

How to DIY your digital rights.

15 Docs On Oscar Shortlist

majestic — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:08:41 +0000

Why is it that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences always makes such boring choices for its Oscar nominations? The procedure is a little different for documentary films, where they first come up with a ’shortlist.’ Needless to say, as a distributor of documentaries Disinformation would have suggested some other films, such as Robert Greenwald’s timely and compelling Rethink Afghanistan and two personal favorites of mine, Anvil: The Story of Anvil and We Live In Public. Please place your alternative lists in the comments section below. Here’s the story from Variety:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has announced the 15 docus shortlisted for the documentary feature Oscar. The Academy said 89 films had originally qualified for the selection.

Several titles that have already had successful theatrical runs were on the list, including “The Cove,” directed by Louie Psihoyos; “Food, Inc.,” directed by Robert Kenner; “Valentino: The Last Emperor,” directed by Matt Tyrnauer; and “Every Little Step,” directed by James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo.

The year’s highest-grossing docu, Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which opened Sept. 23, in time for the Academy’s Sept. 30 cutoff date, did not make the list. Other high-profile docs absent from the list include “The September Issue,” “Tyson,” “Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” “It Might Get Loud” and “We Live in Public.”

Remaining titles on the shortlist are “The Beaches of Agnes,” “Burma VJ,” “Facing Ali,” “Garbage Dreams,” “Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders,” “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” “Mugabe and the White African,” “Sergio,” “Soundtrack for a Revolution,” “Under Our Skin” and “Which Way Home.”

Is This The End Of The Line For The Impartial Documentary?

majestic — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:07:35 +0000

It’s amazing that at least six years into the golden era of advocacy documentary filmmaking, a major newspaper with a thriving arts and culture section should feel the need to ask this question, but apparently there are some journalists and filmmakers who think any documentary film that does not try to be ‘objective’ somehow fails to deserve to even be categorized as ‘documentary.’

As the distributor of over fifty documentary films (can you believe that?!? Disinformation has been busy since our first DVD release in 2004…), here at The Disinformation Company we feel that the advocacy films we release are disseminating information and opinion to counter the mainstream and establishment views on the issues at hand (usually our filmmakers are reacting against a government or corporate whitewash). The advent of cheap video cameras and editing software has made it possible for some very bad docs to be made (believe me, we see a lot of them), but they’re still documentaries. So to us, the issue is quality, not category. Well here’s the Guardian article, but please feel free to comment your views:

This year, the normally clubby atmosphere of Sheffield’s documentarists’ convention has been shaken by a genuine row. The intensity of the debate at the Campaigning Documentaries: The Thin Line Between Passion and Propaganda session reflects the seriousness of what’s at stake. It’s not just the future of the genre that hangs in the balance, but its very identity.

One side maintains that documentary-making must be open-minded, impartial and journalistic. Its purpose should be to help people understand, not to encourage them to emote. The other side insists that the whole point of documentary-making is to effect desirable change. Campaigning is to be relished, not shunned.

In the eyes of the journalists, committed films don’t deserve to be called documentaries. They’re propaganda, corporate video or advertising. The campaigners, however, refuse to yield up the cherished label. For them, a documentary that carries an emphatic message is probably the better for it.

The campaigners are winning and the journalists are losing. It’s not intellectual argument that’s deciding the issue; it’s economics. The money for objective documentary-making is drying up, just like the money for print journalism. Yet committed films can find financial backers, so long as the film-maker’s commitment matches the backer’s.

The appearance of independence makes documentaries ideal vehicles for promoting corporate interests. Nowadays, NGOs, charities, single-issue lobby groups and the like sometimes have lots of money. Co-opting documentarists can prove an effective way of spending it. Plenty of film-makers are only too willing to play ball. After all, they want to make films. As Nick Fraser, the editor of the BBC’s Storyville strand, said at the heated Doc/Fest session: “If Dr Goebbels appeared with a huge sack of money, there would be documentary film-makers queueing around the block to take it.”

Thus it is that many of the so-called documentaries now appearing, even on the big screen, turn out to have been dependent on “social change finance”. The Vanishing of the Bees was seen by some as a plug for one of its sponsors, the Co-op, which is using bee-friendliness to enhance its green credentials. The End of the Line reeled in its sustenance from a raft of not-for-profit foundations, the WWF, the Marine Conservation Society, Oceana, Waitrose and Channel 4’s Britdoc, which specialises in mating up indigent film-makers with institutional grubstakers…

Matrix Producer Plans Muhammad Biopic

majestic — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:28:58 +0000

In what sounds like a recipe for trouble, The Guardian reports on a new movie about Muslim prophet Muhammad:

Producer Barrie Osborne cast Keanu Reeves as the messiah in The Matrix and helped defeat the dark lord Sauron in his record-breaking Lord of the Rings trilogy. Now the Oscar-winning American film-maker is set to embark on his most perilous quest to date: making a big-screen biopic of the prophet Muhammad.

Budgeted at around $150m (£91.5m), the film will chart Muhammad’s life and examine his teachings. Osborne told Reuters that he envisages it as “an international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam”.

Osborne’s production will reportedly feature English-speaking Muslim actors. It is backed by the Qatar-based production company Alnoor Holdings, who have installed the Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to oversee all aspects of the shoot. In accordance with Islamic law, the prophet will not actually be depicted on screen.

Top 5 Halloween Movies

ulysseslazarus — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:53:15 +0000

From Nick P at Black Sun Gazette

While you’re all going to be out drinking until you piss yourselves tomorrow I’m going to be working hard for the money picking up plastic glasses and trying to keep dumb fucks from driving home shitfaced. Still, when you find yourself in the witching hour on All Hallow’s Eve, lights off, candles lit, sweetheart dressed up like a sexy barista, you’re going to want some phantasmagoria to get her jumping into your arms every few seconds. Here are some recommendations for gore, schlock, schlocky gore, and gory schlock to waste your time and kill brain cells to on what is everyone’s favorite holiday.

Full Article at Black Sun Gazette

‘Paranormal’ Now the Most Profitable Film Ever

majestic — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:11:24 +0000

Daniel Frankel writes in The Wrap:

“This will definitely echo around the halls of Viacom in New York,” said Don Harris, executive VP of distribution for Paramount on Sunday, shortly after it was announced that “Paranormal Activity” would lead the weekend box office with $22 million.

Harris’ jubilation was understandable.

Set to further expand its run this weekend from 1,945 locations to around 2,400, and having grossed $65.1 million through Wednesday on a sub-$15,000 production budget, “Paranormal” has already exceeded the film it is most often compared to, “The Blair Witch Project,” as the most profitable movie of all time.

“Blair Witch’s” $248.6 million worldwide haul a decade ago – juxtaposed against its $60,000 production costs – represented an almost unthinkable 414,233 percent return on investment.

Doing the same basic ROI math on “Paranormal” (65.1 million minus 15,000 divided by 15,000 times 100) yields an equally unfathomable result of 433,900 percent…

…