ArtPrize, The Map?

Jerry Gritzinger of Maple City is competing with over 1200 other artists to be one of ten finalist in ArtPrize. His Map is a work in progress; work that he has been doing his whole adult life. Of the 2000 map panels he is displaying one third on a vertical wall at the The Old Federal Building.

120 venues in downtown Grand Rapids are hosting the artists. Each venue chose the artist they wanted to host; the public will vote on what they like. The ten finalist will be selected by the public vote with the top prize being $250,000. The Urban Institute of Contemporary Art is the sponsoring organization. ArtPrize is taking place in Grand Rapids, Michigan from September 23 – October 10, 2009.

Two elephants from Ringling Bros. Circus will paint a Grand Rapids city bus at noon Thursday, September 24th.

Larry Fox is long time friend also exhibiting in ArtPrize. His work is one of the standout pieces on display at the BOB. His piece is a 3-D work in wood, metal and paint. “The work draws from three areas of my background;arcitectural design,film set construction/design, and furniture design.”

Nicole Caruth

Nicole Caruth is walking and observing ArtPrize; sharing her thoughts at ArtPize’s blog. She states that “judging from the list of top ranking works after day one, I’m inclined to believe that the collective public might be just as discerning an audience as a group of so-called experts. (This is in fact James Surowiecki’s theory in The Wisdom of Crowds…)”

A PICTORIAL MEDIA ARCHEOLOGY and Media Transformation

Thomas Weynants’ website explores early visual media in a wonderfully deep detail. I would love to bring a magic lantern show to The Bay

Henry Jenkins is the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. He tells the story of our media transformation in this video.

Making Choices at 2009 Traverse City Film Festival

Scenes from two movies have special resonance for me. Both scenes are poignant and especially cinematic, underlining the depth and range of program set out at the fifth Traverse City Film Festival.

In Jan Troll’s masterful “Everlasting Moments” we follow a woman as she picks up a camera and becomes empowered in unexpected ways. This poignant story has many special moments; my favorite has a young woman wiping away flowing water from a window so she and her boyfriend can more clearly see each other.

“The Chaser” follows a man as he desperately tries to save a woman from a serial killer. He takes into his care a young girl. As she sits in a car she reads the lips of this man and discerns that her mother is likely dead. We watch at a distance seeing but not hearing as she weeps uncontrollably as a downpour washes over the car.

It was my pleasure meet Thom Powers curator of nonfiction film for the Toronto Film Festival. His involvement was a welcome addition to the Festival giving boost to film introductions and Q & A’s at “Learning Gravity” with filmmaker Cathal Black and poet Thomas Lynch.
The screening of “Burma VJ” was greeted with a five minute standing ovation when Thom escorted VJ Aung Htun on to the stage for a Q & A. which ended with another standing ovation.

Aung Htun filming protesting monks

My viewing ranged from delightful “Sita Sings The Blues” to the scary Food Inc.. “Salt of the Sea” was poignant look at the Palestine side of the conflict with Israelis.

“The Rest Is Silence” was an epic look at silent film making in Bucharest circa 1911. The fiery death of young actress rivaled “The Chase” and “The Cove” for most brutal film scene of the festival. “In The Loop” was an English film that I missed a lot of the dialogue and would have appreciated it more if I had understood what was being said.

“Revanche” was an outstanding thriller that ended surprisingly softly. “Winnebago Man” the story of Jack Rebney’s unwanted fame on the internet was interesting and funny. “The Answer Man” was okay while “Registered Sex Offender” I found sophomoric and walked out of it before the half way point.

“Mike Surprise” treated us to work print of a trailer for his upcoming “Capitalism, A Love Story” and the first film he was involved in “Blood in the Face”. The Bijou Orchestra from Bay City, Michigan was commissioned to accompany Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”. They were good but I prefer the Alloy Orchestra original music. “Herb & Dorothy” was a delightful art history lesson. Including “Azur and Asmar” I saw 18 films; The Michigan Film Commission was the one panel I attended.

Three films that I missed are slated to play The Bay Theatre: “Seraphine”, “The Lemon Tree” and “Waterlife”. Three others may also come to The Bay: “The Cove”, “Food Inc.” and “Departures”. I would have liked to have seen many more but as with life you have to make choices.

Historical Note 1

Fighting Killer Worms

By Patrick Skelly, Scientific American May 2008

“Bloodsucking worms called schistosomes are among the world’s most worrisome human parasites. A new genome sequence and powerful genetic tools promise to help crack their secrets.”

As I skimmed the article this historical nugget jumped out.

“The worms, also known as flukes, once brought down an army. They spread in water, and in 1948 they incapacitated large numbers of soldiers from the People’s Republic of China who were preparing for an amphibious assault on Taiwan (formerly Formosa). One histor-ian thus dubbed the worm ‘the fluke that saved Formosa.’”

A Modern Marvel: The One Man Movie Theatre

This is the precursor to those little coin-op TVs they used to have in airports.

Our modern marvel utilizes the power of the world wide web to bring you a carefully selected collection of streaming videos!

Get you drinks and snacks now, so you don’t interrupt the show later!

Please, no shutting down of the show once it has started.

Enjoy the show!

Cartoon

Whimsy

“Reel Geezers- Forgetting Sarah Marshall”

“Reel Geezers- No Country for Old Men”

Coming Attractions

Short Subjects

“Tan Hong Ming”

“In My Language”

“A Tribute to Cinema”

For the Cinephile

I saw the tribute to Andrei Tarkovsky at the 1983 Telluride Film Festival. I have seen Nostalgia, The Sacrifice, Solaris and Andrei Rublev. They are very demanding films; my favorite is Andrei Rublev. But the clips of his oeuvre shown at this tribute were amazing. After the his film tribute Andrei took the stage for a twenty minute disquisition on Cinema as Art. Dressed in a black leather vest, large black boots, with long black hair and a black moustache he was quite a presence. I felt as if we had been transported to the Russian revolution. We listen to him speak in Russian which was translated to English by Krzysztof Zanussi.

The Telluride Film Festival falls on Labor Day Weekend and in 1983 it closely followed the he shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007. This high altitude festival, adventurous film experience, and sense of immanent apocalypse became magnified when the Richard Witmark tribute ran the next night. I was not there but the work spread immediately through out the fest-goers that Witmark’s reacted strongly to Tarkovsky’s Cinema is Art. I heard that he said bull-shit Cinema is Entertainment.

This most fundamental argument about the nature and value of cinema animated the rest of the festival.

Jim Emerson has a nice essay on the Witmark vs. Tarkovsky exchange and the debate that ensued.

Richard Witmark just passed away; Tarkovsky died in 1986.

“Richard Widmark – 2005 LAFCA Tribute”

“Tarkovsky on Cinema”

Final pre-feature shorts

Feature Entertainment

Four Eyed Monsters was the first feature on YouTube. It was done in chapter segments.

The Cult of Sincerity is the first feature to be presented as a complete work on YouTube

Pulp Assemblage

Thomas Allen collects pulp paperbacks for their covers. He then carefully slices up the cover images. The graphics are then creatively repositioned and arranged in 3 dimensional layouts. Finally these dramatic scenes are photographed. The result has been beautifully presented in his new book published by Aperture.

Uncovered: Photographs by Thomas Allen

The Art and Farm Report is the blog of Michigan artist Thomas Allen. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF is a post he made January 24, 2007 about his grandmother and is worth a read. Gardeners and lovers fresh food should check out his wife’s blog Fast Grow The Weeds .

TCFF 2007

TCFF 2007 Fiction Jury Awards

Best Feature: Rocket Science

This entertaining film stars Reece Daniel Thompson as Hal Hafner, a young man of few words. He is a high school student in Plainsboro, New Jersey where his persistent stutter leads to countless indignities at the hands of his classmates.

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Special Jury Prize For Visual Impact: Tuya’s Marriage

Not only was this film gorgeous, it had wonderful set design and the most magnificent camel we have ever seen. Below is the best picture of this great animal I could find on the web.

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Special Jury Prize For Outstanding Writing

Talk To Me

Talk to Me is written by Michael Genet and Rick Famuyiwa. The film recreates the turbulent sixties and tells the real life story of Washington D.C. radio personality Ralph “Petey” Greene. The cast is led by Don Cheadle, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Taraji P. Henson, Cedric The Entertainer and Martin Sheen. They give flesh to the words in a this very entertaining film.

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Special Jury Prize For Narrative Perspective

Blame It On Fidel

Nine year old Anna struggles to adjust and understand her parents when they become political activists. This film is told from the point of view of a child. The performance by Nina Kervel is wonderful, you can’t take your eyes off her.

“Step Right Up!”

I just meet Michigan artist John Gutoskey, who does these wonderfully creative assemblages using found objects, antiques and ephemera. Having worked on stage and film he calls these assemblages his personal “magic theater”. If you love cinema you will enjoy these small wonderous worlds. His work will be on exhibit at the at Gallery 50 the month of August.

The Assemblage Art of John Gutoskey
Exhibition & Sale August 1 – August 31, 2007
Artist reception
Thursday, August 16, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

A map to Gallery 50 is here.

John has drawn inspiration from Joseph Cornell (1903-72) an American sculptor and one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponent of assemblages .
The Smithsonian has an interactive slide show of their Cornell Exhibition that ended earlier this year.

Peter Bart, Tentpoles, Niche Films & TCFF

Peter Bart is the editor of the venerable entertainment trade paper Variety. He and producer Peter Guber do a show called Sunday Morning Shootout on AMC-TV. This Sunday their featured guest will be Nikki Blonsky the new star of Hairspray. The buzz and early reports are that Hairspray is a crowd-pleaser.

In a recent column in Variety he talked about how big studio’s business of making tent-pole films is affecting European filmmakers.Peter wrote column while visiting the Karlovy Film Festival. “Presiding over a jury at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic, I had abundant opportunity to talk with diverse filmmakers from around Europe and learn about their hopes and apprehensions.” His comments are perceptive and enlightening. While the cultural divide can lead to both good and bad films; the blockbuster sequel producing Hollywood is intimidating European filmmakers as foreign language films struggle to make a dent at the US boxoffice.

Two recent articles in Variety point up the difficulty’s in marketing and distributing smaller more specialized films in the United States. Elizabeth Guider was at the Cannes Film Festival and talked with various distribution acquisition staffers about buying specialized films. Pamela McClintock writes on the difficulty’s niche films are having staying on screen in the face of a glut of wide release summer blockbusters.

It is fascinating to follow filmmakers as they bet years of their lives and large sums of money on projects that require collaboration, tenacity and faith. One of the few specialized films staying on screens this summer is SiCKO. Michael Moore is one filmmaker that has achieved success where so many fail. It is our community’s good fortune that he has leveraged this success and placed himself behind the Traverse City Film Festival.

Sundance, Multimedia Romance & Chief Lizard Wrangler!

Sent to Park City Utah by The Hollywood Reporter to cover the Sundance Film Festival, Greg Goldstein found himself seated amongst participating filmmakers. Two of them were the couple behind “Four Eyed Monsters,” directors Susan Buice and Arin Crumley.

Shortly after I read Greg’s blog I received an email from Emerging Pictures. This company is pioneering large screen national release of digital content. They announced that they will be distributing “Four Eyed Monsters” digitally in multiple formats for Valentines Day. Because I find this story is so interesting I’m quoting the entire film synopsis from Emerging Picture:

‘Arin and Susan both live in New York. Both live lonely lives in one of the most populous cities in the world until they find each other on-line and begin their alternative courtship. Wanting to avoid a mundane date they decide to only communicate through artistic mediums and have no verbal communication while they work through the start up phase of their relationship. Communicating via note pads, emails and video cameras the question begins to arise, is their relationship just an artistic experiment or will they give in to being a couple and become a living breathing “four eyed monster.”‘

According to the reports I’ve read this year’s festival has had many of the specialized distributors pay large sums for film rights. While not one of these select films, “Four Eyed Monsters” appears to have found a unique path to the big screen and found theatrical life beyond the Sundance Film Festival.

Those interested in my post on Second Life should check out the February issue of Inc. Magazine. They coverage of business, people and ideas is always interesting. Their piece titled “How They Did It” tells how Philip Rosedale and Linden Lab created Second Life.

It also has a fascinating story on Mitchell Baker of Mozilla. As a women running a tech company she is leading a team of volunteers and creating a hybrid business: part for-profit and part non-profit. Her title is Chief Lizard Wrangler!