“Side by Side, a new documentary produced by Keanu Reeves, takes an in-depth look at this revolution. Through interviews with directors, cinematographers, film students, producers, technologies, editors, and exhibitors, Side by Side examines all aspects of filmmaking — from capture to edit, visual effects to color correction, distribution to archive. At this moment when digital and photochemical filmmaking coexist, Side By Side explores what has been gained, what is lost, and what the future might bring.”
Day: February 1, 2012
Texas Tribulation
South by Southwest 2012 has announced what appears to be most of its slate. The crassly commercial 21 Jump Street will be the centerpiece and Big Easy Express, a doc by Emmett Mallory, will close things out. I’m going to have to beg and plead for tickets from publicists and take cabs and bicycle rickshaws and wait in long press lines and contend with James Rocchi singing karaoke, etc. SXSW is no duckwalk.
Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum in 21 Jump Street.
Narcotized
It’s been almost 45 years since the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 40 years since the Allman Brothers’ Eat A Peach, about 31 or 32 years since the heyday of The Pretenders and 20 to 30 years since the peak days of The Police and Sting. And yet each and every Starbucks you walk into these days insists on playing little else besides classic Beatles, Pretenders, Police/Sting and Allman Brothers cuts, over and over and over and over.
The over-50 people who run companies and corporations just won’t play anything recorded within the last 20 or 25 years, certainly not the last 15. Unless it’s some kind of soft country-folkie-acoustic stuff from whomever. Okay, I’ve heard a couple of Beck cuts. Well, I guess I just mean “Loser.”
Will we still be hearing ’70s music in malls and cafes ten years from now? 20? 50? I like the old stuff as much as anyone else, but can you imagine walking into a cafe in 1972, say, and listening to little else except ’30s jazz and ’40s Glenn Miller music? When and/or how will the classic rock stranglehold on our communal music-groove consciousness come to an end?
No Predators
I’ve just parked my car on a leafy residential street in Glendale, and I felt a sublime surge of calm and well-being when I realized there were no parking meters or residential sticker requirements. Okay, a sign said “No parking on Wednesday — 8 am to 10 am” but otherwise it was a place of peace. I felt like I’d parked my car on a shady cul de sac in Bedford Falls in 1946. It’s been the best thing that’s happened to me so far today. That plus my accountant being a nice guy and shrugging his shoulders and wishing me well when I told I’m going with a new CPA.
Stand-Outs
I always love buying the Vanity Fair Hollywood issue. The moment of purchase is always very special; ditto driving home with it, or opening it up at a cafe. Then I start reading, and it’s usually pretty good (especially the 1950s or ’60s or ’70s Hollywood piece that Peter Biskind usually writes) but the pleasure meter goes down a bit. Just a bit — nothing serious. And then the magazine sits on my coffee chest for the next two or three months.
Brad Pitt: “We’re fine, man. We did good.” Bennett Miller: “Yeah, I know but…” Pitt: “But what?” Miller” “Aaah, you know.” Pitt: “No. What?” Miller: “I’m just thinking…” Pitt: “Oh, God, here we go.” Miller: “If we’d only given Billy Beane a cute dog for a pet. If we’d put him into a relationship with a big actress that exposed…I don’t know, intimacy issues or something, and included a third act Jerry Maguire emotional-confession scene in which he shows his soft underbelly, and if we’d had the Oakland A’s win the world series, people wouldn’t even be looking at The Artist now.” Pitt: “Maybe. Okay, probably.” Miller: “But we’re cool.” Pitt: “Yeahhh.” By the way, there’s a special invitational Moneyball screening at LACMA on Monday evening, sponsored by FIND.
Stacked Up
I drove down to Los Angeles yesterday afternoon to take care of some accounting matters. I’m looking at a full day of hitting banks, meeting with two accountants, driving around, etc. This won’t be a big posting day, or at least not until later this afternoon or this evening.
Quantum of Whiskers
Last Sunday I wrote that facial stubble was mandatory for lead actors in Sundance 2012 films, and that “every single actor in every single film I saw in Park City complied.” The mandate also includes mainstream cinema, as this still from Skyfall, the latest 007 installment, makes clear. Daniel Craig‘s James Bond was absolutely clean-shaven in Casino Royale, but I can’t recall if he wore GQ stubble in Quantum of Solace.
