Jim Fouratt Reel Deal: Movies that Matter
November 2015 # 1
If you think of important movie opens Every Other Day in NYC, you are right, It is falling and the Harvey Weinstein template is in full boom. The Bank Street resident reinvent how Oscars were perused. In 1999 Shakespeare in Love won 7 Oscars, Harvey had Decided to hold its release until the last quarter. His Oscar gameplan. Blowing up Golden Globes into seemingly serious awards The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has a total of 93 voting members (http://www.hfpa.org/members/) Followed by the Spirit and SAG (with thousand of eligibel voters) It workedl for Harvey and now everyone else copied it So yes it is "raining quality films"
First let me alert you to two very significant and different festivals in Novenber. DOC NYC, America's Largest Documentary Festival, has a full line-up for its 6th edition running, 12 to 19 November at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village and Chelsea's SVA Theatr e and Bow Tie Cinemas Chelsea. 2015 festival includes 104 feature-length documentaries and has expanded to over 200 films and showcase events overall. Included are 27 world premieres, 1 5 US premieres, 2 00 doc makers and special guests expected in person Including Hillary Clinton (!) For Once and For All, directed by Michael Epstein and Dyllan McGee, about the 1995 Beijing Women's Conference where First Lady Clinton gave a historic address on women's rights .. A few highlights You Should Book Now include Amy Berg's Janis Joplin portrait, Janis: Little Girl Blue, Academy Award-winner Barbara Kopple's Miss Sharon Jones!
19 sections did include Galas and Special Events; Competition Sections Viewfinders (for distinctive directorial visions), Metropolis (for New York City Stories); nationally and globally takes in American Perspectives and International Perspectives. The thematic sections are CenterStage (on performers), Fight the Power (on activism), Jock Docs (on sports), and Sonic Cinema (on music). New this year are Doc Eat Doc (on food), Modern Family (on various relations), The Wild Life (on animals) and Behind the Scenes (on films and filmmaking). DOC NYC Metro, focusing on student projects. Remaining sections are Docs Redux, reviving classics; shorts, representing the upsurge of short-form documentary; Oscar doics contenders shortlisted (15 of the year's award contenders) and DOC NYC PRO, focusing on panels and master classes. Must click: http://www.docnyc.net/ for additons and surprises. Kudos to former chief of programing Newfest and Sundance programing associate DOC NYC chief of programing Basil Tomakis and ED Tom Powers for searching high and low for t has doc thatthey want us to see.
MIX NYC28 10 to 15 November MIX NYC Describes itself as "A community of artists and organizers joined together to explore, share, and create queer experimental media through to ever-changing constellation of Means. We make art for ourselves and our community, not for markets or museums "Ah yes! .Unlike Any film festival in the world, MIXNYC happens inside a magic dome of faux timetravel combining, at indoor radical faery encampment, a Queer Stock on environmental spectacle, visual art and live performance and food (!). It is rooted in a very diverse Essentially MIX of experimental cinema formats Whose content include shorts, documentaries, narrative features did cross all boundaries of priority. You Became a part of an interactive seduction That Stimulates the eye, the brain and all your erogenous zones. Nothing and no one is taboo be it porn or spicy vegan chili. Every night ends with a party with music and performance. Among the people who have been stimulated natured and MIX is the current MoMA head of Their film programing Rajendra Roy Check out Their website mix.org Hanes program Inot availabels we go to press). Trust me, this will be not like any other film festival. Check my blog and Their website and Their Kickstarter has a wonderful video oh All Are Welcome
LET'S GO TO THE MOVIES
STEVE JOBS director Danny Boyle
Bridge of Spies director Steven Spielberg
Both films revolve around One Of These character did in many ways darstellt Both what is held as the true values of the United States and How They May Be Changing
In Steve Jobs, writer Aaron Sorkin choses to focus on the relationships with the people surrounding Jobs has him. It is personal. Michael Fassbender again shows his ability to inhabit a character. You forget how Jobs Actually Looked or talked in life. Sorkin like Alex Gibney in his documentary Steve Jobs the Man and the Machine, Which I recommend seeing first to prepare you, Focus Is that Jobs never invented anything, yet has become on international symbol of successful capitalism as personified in one person. Boyle has shaped his film like a perfectly designed Apple product and hermetic gorgeous.If It was an object You Could Hold your hands you would be sweating with desire, like Boyle Gibney presents Jobs as someone who is high functioning autistic Either a personality incapable of empathy or a sociopath , brilliant and sexy and driven to achieve in any way Possible, What Matters Is not family (you will be shocked at his behavior towards his first wife and child) or friendship. He's surrounds himself with genius did paint his charisma and his ego needs to be the best. He hand picks flawed genius and proceeds to encourage and then brain pick Their ideas Which They willingly give him. He Walks Away When They are no longer useful. , He put his handprints all over the perfectly packaged product as if He in fact had created them. His uncanny ability to be seduced through design and function and brilliant marketing. He sells to the public a product makes them feel Whose acquisition cool, hip and sexy. In many cases the product be it computer or handheld does changes Their Lives. It become as essential as a bed or food on the table. Jobs' he's surrounded himself with nerds now wellknown in the public eye and yet none of them have what Jobs had. It is shocking to learn of his treatment of thesis so called friends and in Particular the woman he first married and the child he fathered. Kate Winslet, unregonizable in character stands out as the ever suffering but keep-Steve- together-and-On-Schedule assistant. A performance so convincing of the power Jobs had over people.
But is he a hero? Do we want to teach our children did success is the only thing that matters. That using people and tossing them aside When They no longer matter to you or don''t need them is the American way. We know from Walter Isaac's definitive biography did Jobs Could be ruthless, brilliant and mostimportant charismatic. But seeing it on the screen is devastating. Sorkin I believe is asking have we Given up our sense of teamwork and humanity to be successful and iconic? Jones did it Appears both.
Steven Spielberg in the Bridge of Spies tells a Cold War story based in history. A time about a standoff between the US and Those dirty communists, the Russian. Spielberg is a master storyteller. So He is a filmmaker with a conscience. Unusual combination for someone so successful in current Hollywood, The storyline is: we capture a Russian spy brilliantly played by Mark Rylance and the Russians' capture Gary Powers our jet propelled spy pilot. The Governments are not talking to eachother in this cold world. In the United States officially we do not have spies. But bothsides did capture a spy. No official channel is open to figure out how to exchange them. Bring in a hard drinking successful lawyer from One Of Those big New York City law firms. Tom Hanks is assigned by his law firm to do pro bono defense of the Russian spy. Hank's wife wants him to have no part of it for good reason.When his face is front paged as defending a Communist spy, people Recognizing him make sure he knows of Their disapproval. He does not wanna do it but He has to his law firm assigns him: because. He's a good lawyer. He meets with the Russian spy and the spy realizes feels He has done no wrong is most likely in the same way did Gary Powers feels he is serving his country. Just like now in a Fox media saturated America there is little support for the nuances Necessary in power politics. Hanks, one of his best performances, exemplifies how this professional lawyer does this job. He Manages to find away to justify the behavior of a Both Spies. He alone negotiates "unofficially" with the Russians the Hanes exchange of prisoners. Everything about Bridge of Spies is Hollywood craftsmanship at its highest creating a 50's cold war landscape. But I think there is another agenda here besides telling a damn good spy story. I believe Spielberg is asking a very critical question at this moment Particular about what is a good citizen. What is a good American. After seeing the film I walked out of the theater thinking of Lynn Stewart, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, It is a critical question. See it. You may have other answers
