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You don’t have to brave the hype and cold of Sundance to spot the next generation of cinematic talent. The festival’s organizers have mounted a virtual film festival of unprecedented scope, with 46 dramatic, documentary, and animated short films that you can watch online free of charge.
The first batch got posted late yesterday (more will be added every day through January 21), including Happiness — not to be confused with the current Will Smith feature — which is about a spinster who visits a shop near her New York home and buys a mysterious sealed box that’s simply labeled Happiness.
It’s a beautifully shot film with precious little dialogue. And since it’s only 11 minutes long, we won’t say anything more about it other than that it’s sort of the anti–Sex and the City and that it captures the hopeful hollowness of contemporary consumer culture with the sweet, sad precision of Lost in Translation.
Complete list of short films and their online premiere dates.
Showing someone getting shot in the head is fine, but suggested oral sex? Nope (Boys Don’t Cry). A fully-clothed character admitting she masturbates twice a day? Not allowed (Jersey Girl). Doggie-style sex between puppets? Forget it (Team America).
In Kirby Dick’s wry documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated (out on DVD 1/23), you get to see not only the above supposedly naughty bits (which prompted, respectively, initial NC-17, R, and NC-17 ratings), but spy on some of the ultrasecretive Motion Picture Association of America censors themselves — Dick hired a private eye to hunt them down. (Spoiler: They’re a bunch of yahoos.)
Why does it matter? As various blindsided filmmakers explain in interviews, studios routinely force them to recut their work to get a “better” rating — because, for instance, NC-17 movies are harder to distribute.
Prepare to be offended by what the MPAA thinks is offensive (e.g., female sexual pleasure).
By the way, missionary-style puppet sex? That’s fine.
I am not sure if I have mentioned it here, but I will be launching my handbag line VEL this year and hope to show with a local designer during New York Fashion Week in September. However, I have a dilemma -- I can't come up with a domain name! Unfortunately, the obvious, www.vel.com, is taken and the line surely warrants something grandeur than velonline.com, non?
The line is called VEL. Named after my maternal grandmother, Velma. The first collection will feature 4 different pieces - 2 clutches, a tote bag and a waistbag - that will utilize buttery soft cowhide leather and vintage kimono fabrics coupled with industrial detailing.
Even a small action can change the lives of many and impact the world as a whole:
Oprah Winfrey Opens School in S. Africa
Oprah Winfrey's long-awaited school opened Tuesday, fulfilling a promise she made to former President Nelson Mandela six years ago and giving more than 150 girls a chance for a better future.
"I wanted to give this opportunity to girls who had a light so bright that not even poverty could dim that light," Winfrey said at a news conference.
What are your resolutions for 2007?
1. Get VEL going (my handbag line)
2. Introduce Parallel MVMT
3. Do less web development and graphic design
4. Have my surgery
5. Save $10k
6. Take a holiday to another country
For a long time I've had this fascination with how the mind works. How and why one can be considered a genius? I have a special love for Einstein and one of my favorite movies was "A Beautiful Mind". But I'm wondering if it is really possible for a geniuses to excel in other areas besides art and science? Supposedly those two areas are cultivated on different sides of the brain. So why are they so closely related and why do geniuses typically have a foremost intellect or outstanding creative talent? And are most geniuses usually really left-handed? The concept can be incredibly consuming.
Research on the beauty of genius below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.Q.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leta_Hollingworth
http://hem.bredband.net/b153434/Index.htm
http://www.cerebrals.org/genius.htm
http://serdar-hizli-art.com/art/artistic_genius.htm
http://www.prometheussociety.org/articles/Outsiders.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_test
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_Testing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke is one of those films a lot of people know they ought to have seen, but didn’t necessarily get around to it when it first aired on HBO. Now coming out on DVD (12/19), this devastating chronicle of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina serves as the essential, definitive documentation of an American tragedy.
What makes this four-hour, four-part retelling so powerful is that it puts the random images of suffering (and government ineptitude) we all saw on the TV news in context; through eyewitness testimony, and in forensic detail, we learn exactly what happened and why.
Some 100 interviewees made their way into the final cut of this elegiac film: an eloquent, angry, rattled range of New Orleans residents; local and national politicians and activists (Governor Kathleen Blanco, Mayor Ray Nagin, the inevitable Reverend Al Sharpton); and cultural figures (such as Wynton Marsalis).
Unlike most of the media, which lost interest in the city after the Superdome cleared out, Lee and his crew descended on New Orleans three months after Katrina. The result is a documentary with a particularly clear-eyed, long-view perspective on what America really lost when this city went under.
