Posts by Archive Authors

I give James Franco a lot of credit. He works very hard for a big-shot Hollywood actor. He is ambitious in ways that no one from his generation even comes close to being. He's fearless in his choices and will do practically anything that sparks his creative muse. He is constantly working on film projects, making sure that he includes big-budget blockbusters, but his real passion is a string of micro-budget experiments. He just starred on Broadway in Of Mice And Men. He has won Golden Globes, and he has been nominated for Oscars. He also pursued simultaneous degrees at numerous institutions. While pursuing his acting career he graduated from UCLA with a GPA of 3.5/4.0. He moved to New York City and pursued course work at Columbia University, completing his MFA in writing. He also attended New York University Tisch School of the Arts in filmmaking, Brooklyn College for fiction writing, an MFA for poetry at North Carolina's Warren Williams College, Rhode Island School of design for art, and PhD studies in English at Yale. Many people consider this an insane amount of hubris. I have to believe he is serious, but I don't see how he does it. He does lots more than that besides. He has directed movies like Child of God, and plans are in the works for much more. I'm just trying to set the scene for the movie The Color of Time.

The Color of Time, also known as Tar, is an experimental film portrait of the Pulitzer and National Book Award winning poet, C.K. Williams. It grew out of a course on turning poetry into film that Franco was teaching at NYU, so the film was actually directed by 11 graduate film students. Their work is presented as a unified whole instead of separate segments, and they all seem to have been influenced by Terrence Malick. I guess the film’s cohesiveness can be attributed to the two editors, but it does have the feel of a Malick film. The footage has that dreamy, somewhat fuzzy flow through time and space. The years flow back and forth on each other, and the poet is played by four actors at different ages including Franco, and C.K. Williams is also seen from time to time reading his poetry. It also stars Mila Kunis, Jessica Chastain, Zach Braff, and Bruce Campbell.

Art And Craft is a documentary about an off-kilter mind. That is not necessarily a bad thing. To have an off-kilter mind, that is. Many great geniuses and many great artists have had off-kilter minds, like Van Gogh and Kafka and others too numerous to mention. Art And Craft is about a man who painted many of the great works of art. The only problem is his paintings are nearly exact copies of the originals by famous artists. Mark Landis is one of the most prolific art forgers of the last 30 years. The other thing that should be noted is that he gives all the art away to museums as original works of the great masters. Mark is a Truman Capote sound-alike and lookalike who is on various mental health medications because he has been diagnosed with various mental conditions including schizophrenia and catatonia. His journey through life is unique, remarkable and somewhat lonely. He spent a year in a mental institution when he was 18. He was devoted to his mother for the rest of his life, but she died. His painting was a way to gain approval from his mother and pay tribute to his father, but he frequently betrays the fact that his mother knew it was all a sham. Mark reveals himself to have been a mischievous child. But Mark is a slave to his obsessions and continues his painting projects with a meticulous perfectionism, but he's also fairly cavalier with his work, often tossing it carelessly around his cluttered apartment.

Art And Craft is also the story of Matt Lenninger, who was a relentless pursuer of Mark's exploits. Matt is Javert to Mark's Jean Val Jean. Aaron Cowan is a third character who is also pursuing Mark but with a different motivation.

Drunk History was inspired by a conversation the creator of the show, Derek Waters, had with actor Jake Johnson (New Girl). Johnson was drunk and told Waters a crazy story about Otis Redding predicting the plane he was getting on was going to crash. Waters took that germ and refined it considerably with co-conspirator Jeremy Konner. They released some videos on Funny or Die (that are readily available on Youtube). They have since made shows for Comedy Central, which are the two seasons included here in this collection. 

Two disclaimers should be made right up front. You should not get this drunk at home, kids, but anyone watching will probably be dissuaded from ever drinking again after seeing the narrators make complete fools of themselves. Also, you should be warned that the narrators are not bleeped on the DVD, because there is liberal use of a certain word that is always bleeped on TV. It should be also noted that various bodily functions kick in periodically (burping being the least offensive). On the other hand, the creators claim that all the history recounted is verified and accurate. I can't verify it, but they do. I believe it is fundamentally correct even though these story tellers often make segues, sidetracks and digressions that are outrageous. That's the fun of it, though. It may seem infantile, juvenile and childish, but these are adults with too much to drink.

The story is simple. It chronicles a conversation between two people. Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is found bloody and beaten in an alley by an older man, Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard). He takes her to his sparse flat to care for her and help her. What takes place is a long conversation full of intellectual digressions about Joe. It slowly reveals what led to her downfall. Seligman is a sheltered bookworm who has a detached curiosity about her story. 

The cast is impressive including Shia LeBeouf, Uma Thurman, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Willem Dafoe, Connie Nielsen, Udo Kier among others. The director is Lars von Trier, the famed Danish auteur and provocateur. Von Trier has always tried to find hidden and shameful areas of human behaviors in his films. Many of his films are rigorous exercises in the depths of human pain. They attempt to push expectations. They explore behaviors that seem too absurd to be real, but that is because most of us refuse to acknowledge certain parts of ourselves.

The story is simple. It chronicles a conversation between two people. Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is found bloody and beaten in an alley by an older man, Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard). He takes her to his sparse flat to care for her and help her. What takes place is a long conversation full of intellectual digressions about Joe. It slowly reveals what led to her downfall. Seligman is a sheltered bookworm who has a detached curiosity about her story. 

The cast is impressive including Shia LeBeouf, Uma Thurman, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Willem Dafoe, Connie Nielsen, Udo Kier among others. The director is Lars von Trier, the famed Danish auteur and provocateur. Von Trier has always tried to find hidden and shameful areas of human behaviors in his films. Many of his films are rigorous exercises in the depths of human pain. They attempt to push expectations. They explore behaviors that seem too absurd to be real, but that is because most of us refuse to acknowledge certain parts of ourselves.

Satellite is a small, micro-budget independent film that went to a bunch of film festivals and got a bunch of great reviews....in 2005. Why is it taking so long to get a proper DVD release? Such is the fate of many small, micro-budget independent films. It apparently also had some music rights issues, which can be hugely problematic because of the expense. There is also the problem of marketing and advertising, which can be expensive. Then they should be better in some way than the Hollywood product, or it doesn't have a chance. Independents usually try to be more real, honest and risky to garner attention. Independent films just have a different feel, but they also have huge disadvantages because they can't pay for the best talent. Satellite is a middle-of-the-road type film about two young people who fall in love who hit the road. It's the middle-of-the-road part that might be the problem.

The young lovers live in New York in corporate drudgery. Ro (Stephanie Szostak) spots Kevin (Karl Geary) for the first time on the subway and follows him. He sees her in a bar, and they fall in love in short order. Ro is a true romantic and is desperate to move on from the last loser she was with. Karl gets caught up in the spirit of romantic abandon and persuades Ro to run away from her job with him. Maybe all of us want to do something like that, but we also know that doing it is crazy. Kevin says in the movie, “In order to feel this good, you need to break all the rules”. They are two sweet kids, but they do break some rules like stealing stuff like motorcycles and shoplifting dresses and cowboy hats. Kevin's brother thinks Ro must be bad news, but maybe it's Kevin who is the bad boy. Of course, money starts to run out with neither of them working, so there are bound to be rough times ahead. After all, stealing cowboy hats doesn't put a roof over your head.