Swanberg*. Bujalski. Duplass. Katz. Many cinephiles have heard the names, some have seen their work, a few know them through the festival circuit, and I'd guess that at least two of you reading this have actually been in one of their films. What's the deal with this mumblecore** gang; how is everyone connected within this social/artistic network? (I'm buying the domain MyMumblecore.com before Rupert Murdoch can get his hands on it!)

For the purpose of this colorful exercise and excuse to pick up my old illustrator pens (how I used to pay rent in a former life), I've tried to anchor to SXSW 2007 films, since if I put in every name/film with overlap, I'd be playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon all the way back to Dziga Vertov. (For instance, the white lines of distribution are entirely specific to Benten Films, the official collaborative leap between LOL and Fish Kill Flea.) While I haven't, say, distinguished between Craig Zobel's position as a producer of David Gordon Green's George Washington compared to Mike Tully's role as hair and make-up, my point is the tangled web of interconnectedness itself, not all-encompassing accuracy.

For that matter, I'd almost have to include SXSW Festival Producer Matt Dentler for putting so many of these people and films in the same room, including Ronnie Bronstein's Frownland, which played at the fest this month and has gained fans and friends on the chart above. Ronnie is a projectionist in NYC, as is Aaron Katz, so I really could go on and on and make the world seem even tinier.

And speaking of Dentler, he'll be moderating an Austin Film Society panel about film blogging on Tuesday, April 10th. I'll be taking part while I'm down in Texas to screen Fish Kill Flea again, and with me in the discussion will be Joel Heller (DocsThatInspire.com), Jette Kernion (Cinematical.com) and Mike Curtis (HDforIndies.com). Come check it out, Austinites!

* I'm drawing a dark grey line of special thanks to Joe Swanberg, who showed me even more linkage without adding names nor films. Methinks we're getting into fractal mathematics here.

** While "mumblecore" and the also proposed "Slackavetes" are fun to say and so ridiculous that I fear they'll never disappear, I think both are misnomers and unfair dismissals of the continually expanding work these filmmakers are putting out. The origin of mumblecore can be read about in this post by Spencer Parsons (who, himself, is technically connected to the hive: his upcoming feature debut I'll Come Running shares producers with Hannah Takes the Stairs and Old Joy, the latter of which costars Will Oldham, who was in The Guatemalan Handshake. It never ends!)

My Fish Kill Flea cohorts and I fly down to Austin tomorrow for SXSW, and if nothing else goes smoothly, I can't wait to evacuate this Brooklyn iceberg and slip into some 70-degree comfort.

Though I haven't yet left, the last few weeks have already felt like being trapped under the lap bar of some centrifugal media machine. Burning screeners, mailing more, printing posters, contacting press, preparing schwag, scheduling meetings, fueling hype (we'll kiss you for a 5-star vote), returning calls, double-blogging, doing interviews, updating Myspace, submitting to more fests... it's tough being a one-man publicity team. Not to mention that I'll be wearing more hats this next week, scouting new titles for the Benten slate and freelancing for Moviefone and IFC News on the side. (My first question for opening-night star Joseph Gordon-Levitt: "So what did you think of Fish Kill Flea?")

All this extra work meant making the occasional sacrifice, like finishing up the second half of my Berlinale coverage. Of screenings #18 - 32, I wrote up three or four in full, but they weren't the films I gushed for; posting them now wouldn't benefit anyone. So, better late than never and something over nothing, here's a star-ranked listing from the back half of my Berlin excursion...

(BUT JUST BEFORE THAT: The elephant on the page here is this week's news that Premiere Magazine has folded. None of my aforementioned opportunities could have been feasible without Premiere kickstarting my film writing career, but I'm a bit overwhelmed to give anything better than kneejerk comments in this forum at present. The good news is, my man Glenn will be helping shape its new online-only format, and I'm still scheduled to cover the Tribeca Film Festival for the dot-com next month. I'm strangely optimistic, as were a few ex-staffers I commiserated with a couple nights ago over drinks and the bitter taunting of Smiths songs on the jukebox.)

I Was a Swiss Banker, d. Thomas Imbach ::
The Aerial (La Antena), d. Esteban Sapir ::
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, d. Stephen Kijak ::
The Tracey Fragments, d. Bruce McDonald ::
The Walker, d. Paul Schrader ::

Yella, d. Christian Petzold ::
300, d. Zack Snyder ::
Grandhotel, d. David Ondricek ::

Anna M., d. Michel Spinosa ::
Don't Touch the Axe (Ne touchez pas la hache), d. Jacques Rivette ::
One Who Set Forth: Wim Wenders' Early Years (Von einem der auszog: Wim Wenders' frühe Jahre), d. Marcel Wehn ::

It Gonna Get Worse (...a bude hur), d. Petr Nikolaev ::
Hallam Foe, d. David Mackenzie ::
Nothing Else Matters (Was am Ende zühlt), d. Julia von Heinz ::
Elvis Pelvis, d. Kevin Aduaka ::

My 2007 Berlin International Film Festival and European Film Market experience ended with an exhausted smile and a shrug this past weekend, as my 10-day goal of scoring a Benten-worthy title turned me on to 32 features but too few great shakes. The critical consensus among the trade mags, my peers and other insiders seemed just as nonplussed about fest director and programming dictator Dieter Kosslick's safe, serviceable tastes, much of which wasn't worth writing overseas about. Gone were the bulk lots of challenging, edgy selections seen in previous competitions (if you wanted access to Tsai Ming-Liang this year, you needed a market badge), replaced instead by Euro crowd pleasers (Irina Palm, La Vie en Rose), Sundance throwbacks (Hallam Foe, 2 Days in Paris), and Hollywood glossies leveraging for international sales (The Good Shepherd, The Good German, Goodbye Bafana, and more that weren't, well... good).

Since I was on assignment as a buyer, not a critic, what I sought out differed ever so subtly from where my nose usually carries me. Knowing that buzzworthy flicks like The Counterfeiters, I Served the King of England and Lady Chatterley would likely make their way to the U.S. someday soon (and were probably out of Benten's price range this week), I followed my impulses when screenings overlapped in favor of what I hoped were under-the-radar gems. With over 700 films screening in Berlin, there was no way to catch everything I wanted, nor guess what was worthwhile. Full confession: I had little interest in Golden Bear winner Tuya's Wedding until after it won the top prize.

For personal reasons that maybe you'll benefit from, I've scribbled a few quick notes from my daily screening diary, each film rated on that ol' scale:

Faces of a Fig Tree (Ichijiku no kao), d. Kaori Momoi :: :: Japanese actress Momoi's directorial debut seems to have incorporated every last idea she had in her noggin, as if she was afraid she had to get it all out in case she's never allowed to helm another film. Wildly poppy in the hands of Seijun Suzuki's regular production designer Kimura Takeo, it's an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink melodramedy (one moment, a contractor abandons his family and squats on a construction site; in the next, CGI-animated ants are dissecting the meaning of the F-word). Hyper-stylings mean little to me without coherence, or at least some feeling of visceral enjoyment, and I've already seen stark familial dynamics blended seemlessly with magic realism in Toshiaki Toyoda's far-better Hanging Garden.

La Vie en Rose (La Môme), d. Olivier Dahan :: :: Beloved songbird Edith Piaf definitely had a strife-filled life, but this miscalculated opening-night biopic offers almost no upbeat moments to counter its bleak sensationalism except for a slew of concert sequences, which Dahan stages the same each time: triangular rays of light beam down on a microphone, reverse shots, close-ups, crowd reactions, repeat. (It should come as no surprise that the director's best known film until now was the Jean Reno action sequel Crimson Rivers 2.) This one's by the numbers, with the random (instead of contextually useful) time-jumping chronology that's so en vogue it's just predictable. Everyone's ga-ga for Marion Cotillard as Piaf, but I found her performance too manically self-aware and her frail, shaky, post-junkie scenes more theatrical than realistic. Don't blame her; it's Dahan who can't steer the ship, nor utilize the lovely Sylvie Testud's talents for anything more than extra-character bloat.

Clash of Egos (Sprængfarlig bombe), d. Tomas Villum Jensen :: :: There was no sign of Lars von Trier's The Boss of It All in the marketplace, so to get my fix for dark Danish comedy, I went with the new one from The Green Butchers director Jensen (who recently collaborated with von Trier on his Advance Party obstructions, so far yielding Red Road). The premise alone is ripe for this uneasy age where the importance of arts criticism has been put to several tests... A hothead ex-con takes his kids to see a blockbuster movie, but instead he's talked into seeing some critically lauded piece of art-trash, which makes his daughter cry and his blood boil. The mad dad stalks the "auteur" to get his money back, and after a clever turn of events, the two are legally bound to co-direct the last in the filmmaker's trilogy, their visions differing between something Brechtian and something Kill Bill-ian. (The literal translation of the Danish title is Exploding Bomb, a triple entendre named for the thuggy newcomer's movie-within-this-one.) I know Clash of Egos is still fresh on the fest circuit, but as Filmbrain and I discussed, it already needs a spicier remake. As a potentially probing satire on the critical/populist divide, it's under-inflated, pulling punches for the sake of broader comedy. The same problem plagues the upcoming Jake Kasdan comedy The TV Set, which might just be the other half of what's missing here. At least it doesn't make the typical Sundance indie cop-outs, like name-dropping Proust and Pynchon to feign savviness, since screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen (no relation to the director) has the chops to spin those Brecht references into an ultimately Brechtian punchline.

Fay Grim, d. Hal Hartley :: :: I haven't seen a film audacious enough to be shot entirely in Dutch angles since Battlefield Earth, but at least Hartley's HD lensings are striking and don't look like an old Batman! villain's hideout. How is it that the former New Yorker turned Berliner gets more ambitious with each new release, and yet there's a sameness (forced stiltedness, elliptical dialogue, in- and out-of-frame choreography) that feels like a desperate imitation of his earlier years? I often quote a turn of phrase from Flirt, in which two German custodians meta-discuss the formality of the film they're in: "Will it work?" "No, it'll fail. But it'll be an interesting failure." That about describes every Hartley film since Henry Fool (especially his last, The Girl From Monday, which was like Alphaville frustratingly trapped in Beta mode.) Similar to how 2046 was a pseudo-sequel to In the Mood for Love, this transforms the aforementioned Henry, plus Fay, Simon, et al. into avatars of a low-key espionage thriller and sociopolitical satire-fantasy, so why even re-use those characters? The absurd tone here negates the tragicomic deadpan and wonderfully ambiguous ending of Henry Fool, a great disservice upon that film, his last artistic success.

I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (Saibogujiman kwenchana), d. Park Chan-wook :: :: Those who can't stand Oldboy nor the other films in Park's Vengeance trilogy probably won't be won over by the South Korean auteur's zany new rom-com, which is as equally inventive and annoying as Gondry's The Science of Sleep, yet less tempered to the real world. Mental health is still a new-ish idea for some Asian cultures (as will be witnessed in Mike Mills' upcoming SXSW doc about depression in Japan, Does Your Soul Have a Cold?), and by setting a film almost entirely in a white-jacket ward, Park paints himself into a corner, forced to show how shallow his own understanding is. Characters roll and jump around like loonies, wear cardboard bunny masks, and obey their specific oddball quirks as if that's the depth of their psyches (such as, yes, thinking one's a cyborg). What attracts many of Park's fans to his films is his ability to artfully mine humanism from gonzo set-ups, but this film plays only with the artifice of imagination, never even addressing the underlying sadness of an unwell girl on an irrational hunger strike. Unless you're a fan of Korean pop superstar Rain (the male lead), it's worth a single watch, but probably not two.

Happy Desert (Deserto Feliz), d. Paulo Caldas :: :: A nubile Brazillian teen becomes a prostitute because she's poor, and she seems alright with that. (I'm a Streetwalker, But That's OK?) Her life is monotonous and unpleasant, which she must be ruminating about when she repeatedly stares into middle distance. Each time, Caldas refuses to cut the shot because he thinks either (a) it's art if you hold it too long, or (b) maybe he can fill time since there's not enough narrative momentum to pad 92 minutes. She eventually meets a German john who loves her more than her other tricks, and maybe that Deutschland connection is how this made it into Berlin? I found it especially dubious how Caldas leers predatorily at the nude flesh of this vulnerable victim of abuse, spitting on any good intentions to open eyes on an ethnographic tale of adversity. Feh.

When Darkness Falls (När mörkret faller), d. Anders Nilsson :: :: Three storylines, all about folks terrorized by violence: there's a high-profile journo too afraid to speak out against her ongoing domestic abuse; a club owner too afraid to testify against a dangerous goon who shot his bouncer; and the daughter of an ambiguously brown-skinned family, too afraid to run away from elders who will actually murder her if they think she's a promiscuous disgrace to her clan. Fun, eh? Nilsson's filmmaking is slick, his editing tight (sometimes a segment will play for 90 seconds at a time, other times for 15+ minutes; it keeps the pace lively), and thankfully, there's no attempt to intermingle the storylines until the end, which reminded me of Kieslowski's Red. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was wrong when I left the theater diggin' on its "impressive tech package," as Variety might say. I was ready to defend the film to the death against Filmbrain, who proclaimed it "the Swedish Crash." While I'm not feeling the hate like 'Brain is, a few days of afterthought has revealed that he has a valid argument about Nilsson vilifying his audience through nasty generalizations. Rather than follow through each thread to satisfying dramatic resolutions, Nilsson's closing statements accuse us all of homophobia, racial profiling and misogyny, then lecture about our intolerances. It's subtler than Crash, but it's there, and he does it by pulling a happy ending out of his butt... one that literally blurs out the names of the three leads' final destinations as if protecting them from us.

The Last Gunfight (Ankokugai no Taiketsu), d. Kihachi Okamoto :: :: The late Okamoto (Kill!, The Sword of Doom) was the subject of a retrospective this year, and this swingin' 1960 gangster action-comedy sure looks stellar in Toho Scope. It's not as anarchic or inventive as an early Suzuki, but it's fun to see Toshiro Mifune in cool-cat mode as a disgraced detective who teams up with a crime lord to solve a murder. There's a cynical undertone in the shadows, but this is classic rock-and-roll zing, light on its feet and drumming with wit. Plus, it might have the most hilarious boob flash ever projected on film.

The Old Garden (Orae-doen jeongwon), d. Im Sang-soo :: :: Im's films have a magnificent sense of fluidity in intimate spaces, and this one is lushly expanded in scope. Much like his previous stunner, The President's Last Bang, it would have helped to know some Korean history before seeing the film, because it's so wrapped in the guilt and other emotional ties of the Gwangju Massacre that U.S. audiences might not relate. I hope I'm wrong because this predeterminedly doomed romance between a socialist student activist (Ji Jin-hee) and the art teacher who's hiding him (Yum Jung-ah) is still quite moving without that personal context. However, if I hadn't remembered that The President's Last Bang offered no historical explanations to non-Korean viewers, I could see how some might think this more wearisome than wonderful. I dig it, but should I recommend to others? Methinks a second viewing is in order...

The Trap (Klopka), d. Srdan Golubovic :: :: This was overhyped because of all the foreign markets buying it up left and right, and I'm sorry I had such high hopes. Inaccurately billed as a modern Serbian noir, this strictly utilitarian suspense drama focuses on an urban couple who are desperate for cash to get their son a life-saving operation. Suddenly, a stranger approaches the increasingly detached dad and tells him he'll pay big for the murder of someone he's never met. Yep, that's the extent of what makes this noir, and while the technical execution is crisp enough to win over mainstream foreign-film audiences, the unravelling of events is telegraphed as if we've never seen a Hitchcock. [*SPOILER ALERT*] The only truly surprising moment -- when our hero breaks down and confesses his crime to the victim's wealthy wife after she pays for the operation as a good samartian -- seems terribly weak after seeing the same emotional collapse play out in the arms of his own wife. Lighten the film's tone, replace the father with Marianne Faithful as an equally despairing grandmother (sick child and all), and voila, you have Irina Palm.

Ad Lib Night (Aju teukbyeolhan sonnim), d. Lee Yoon-ki. No stars possible, since between my ongoing battle against jet lag and my terrible front-row seat on the far right, I had passed out within minutes. Occasionally, I'd be awakened by Korean people kneeling around a dying man's mattress and either yelling, crying, and/or getting drunk. What a shame, since this was one of the most praised titles amongst my cinephile friends. I promise not to make the same mistake when this inevitably makes its way to NYFF or a similarly refined fest.

Madonnas (Madonnen), d. Maria Speth :: :: Gut instinct tells me three-and-a-half stars, but I didn't see the last 20 minutes and I have little more to say until I do. At the risk of overstating the case, the brothers Dardenne could learn a few things from this gifted Bavarian director's heartwrenching drama to avoid falling into a creative rut.

Winter Journey (Winterreise), d. Hans Steinbichler :: :: A misanthropic proprietor (Josef Bierbichler, Heart of Glass) digs himself deeper into debt and despair as his bipolar mind starts to flake out on him. Once it's proven that famed co-stars Hanna Schygulla (The Marriage of Maria Braun) and Sibel Kekilli (Head-On) have minor parts, the flash cuts and rock songs about "going insane, insane, insane" kick in to remind us that some directors are too nervous about letting audiences draw conclusions of our own. Bierbichler's characterization is bigger than life and unexpectedly charismatic for an A-1 asshole who calls everyone else an asshole, but the film's just another ho-hum melodrama about spiralling downward.

Mein Führer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler (Mein Führer: Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler), d. Dani Levy :: :: What intrigued me most about seeing this Hitler-bashing comedy was that the majority of German critics loathed it. Were they overly sensitive to the material, or was this bold idea really a stinker? The latter, I'm afraid, because how could anyone think goose-steppin' alone is clever enough to join the Ministry of Silly Walks? Behind a face full of jowly prosthetics, funnyman Helge Schneider makes only a human voodoo doll of the persona, unless you're of the opinion that seeing Adolf in a track suit or punched out by The Lives of Others star Ulrich Mühe equals "Hit-lairity." Go for Zucker! writer-director Levy burns some subversive energy in playing up a Jewish man's flinch in a Nazi shower for laughs, but nothing resonates to justify such ballsiness. Colonel Klink looks like The Great Dictator in comparison.

Waiter (Ober), d. Alex van Warmerdam :: :: Writer-director van Warmerdam stars as the eponymous everyman, a fictitious character in an unfinished novel who knows exactly what he is. A little wittier than that wannabe Charlie Kaufman riff Stranger Than Fiction, this Netherlandian meta-comedy is a dry, minor chord of drollness, front-loaded with cleverness that doesn't quite sustain. Also, van Warmerdam is no Will Ferrell, his deadpan a little too dead, and his stiffness can get depressing. (Maybe that's the point?) Authors antagonistically confronted by their miserable creations is a canvas of possibilities, but the dynamics aren't developed far enough here. The most incredible plot twists happen when the novelist is passively stuck in the bathroom while his girlfriend types out nutty changes to his manuscript; nothing tops the role-playing sequence seen early on, in which African warriors hunt with our waiter on an indoor love-making mission.

LoveDeath, d. Ryuhei Kitamura :: :: Japan's Kitamura (Godzilla: Final Wars, Versus, Azumi) aims to please the Asia Extreme fanboys with this inane, superficial rip-off of True Romance and other girl-and-a-gun fantasies. I walked out long before its 158 minutes were up, but I'm curious how the hell he could keep up the frenzy for that long without making the kids' heads explode. It's not snobbery fueling my smackdown, but I don't care enough to even defend that position.

La León, d. Santiago Otheguy :: :: Beautiful HD compositions in a silvery black-and-white aren't enough to counterweigh this totally abstruse tale of a gay Argentinean fisherman and the brutish skipper who secretly loves him. A word of advice to filmmakers who want to make the next Old Joy or similar piece of detail-oriented minimalism: if I have to read the fest synopsis to know what your film is about AFTER I've already seen it, you're not giving me enough. No, really, until I sat down for a meeting and had it summarized for me by a rep from French sales agency MK2, I had no idea.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Please come back later this week, when I publish the second half of my Berlinale screening journal.

It was announced today that Fish Kill Flea, my co-directorial feature debut, has been invited to make its world premiere at this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, yeeha! As a former Austinite who moved to Brooklyn six years ago this month, I'm outright giddy to see old friends and meet new ones, chug enough queso to keep my desperately empty Mexican food quotas filled -- and of course -- show everyone our movie... about a monkey with a tommy gun? What the hell?!

For a real synopsis, plus the official trailer, blog, press kit and more, please visit the Fish Kill Flea website. If you're on MySpace, well, so are we. Collect our friendship, or whatever it is that social networking tool with the ugliest design known to mankind maketh possible!

Speaking of film festivals, tomorrow I hop onboard a nine-hour flight to Germany for the 57th Berlinale! Filmbrain and I will be attending on behalf of our collaborative DVD distribution venture, Benten Films. Having just signed with parent distributor Ryko and newly acquiring our first release, LOL (directed by Joe Swanberg, who will also be premiering his latest at SXSW), we're eager to dig into the market line-up of over 700 films to find some fresh blood for Benten. We're vampiric like that.

If all goes according to plan, we'll be meeting up with GreenCine Daily's David Hudson. If time permits, the three of us may podcast some of our fest findings together, since Team Benten is hungry for both acquisitions and anything that'll temporarily stave off our cineaste addictions. Like I said, vampiric.

Auf Wiedersehen, all!

Sure, it's a rom-com that tenderly explores the need to keep secrets in relationships, launched from the premise that a man's fiancee once gave her dog a blowjob in college, but really... will pushing the bestiality angle with sex appeal entice people to buy this thing? Why do I get the feeling that Bobcat Goldthwait fans will have to include other purchases on the Virgin Megastore counter like the classic porno-buying routine?

"I'll take this tin of breath mints... a yoga workout DVD (*cough* this dog-blowing movie *cough*), and uh, this Peter Gabriel album re-issue..."

Or maybe First Look is gunning for the pervert demographic (those who think the Sundance doc Zoo is also a touching rom-com), and I'll eat my words when Bobcat makes millions. I love that the second image is entitled "Romantic Cover." Arf!

Nothing terribly exciting to report yet, but I wanted to give a holla out to my buddy Glenn Kenny, senior editor of Premiere Magazine, who just launched his film blog today. As many have already read in his writings and this somewhat new-ish interview, Glenn is not only a good-humored, enlightening critic who can effortlessly spin populist topics into high-brow obscurity without alienating his audience, he's also a veritable encyclopedia of film and music culture. Hell, he mentored and gave me my first writing gig, so how can I not be gushing with respect?

Of course, I still refuse to take down his photo above (cardboard Gromit eyes and all), knowing full well how much shit I'm bound to get for it. Read on, soldiers...

A humble bow and thanks to all who offered congrats on my nuptials, with apologies to those I've since fallen out of touch with. Fall and winter are my busiest seasons because of the film release schedule, and I've been blessed with steady holiday work from Premiere, IFC News, Moviefone, and The Reeler. It isn't that I care more about paying rent than my chumpy lil' corner of the blogosphere, but do you really want me to tell all the orphans I sponsor they can't have Nintendo Wii for Christmas because YOU would rather me start another movie quiz for free? To think, Santa-philiac over here was considering buying you a Wii, or even that Janus collection. THAT'S ALL OVER NOW, SCROOGE!

Anyway, I'm just no good at mustering the endurance and motivation to write for free when I'm lucky enough to make money doing it (there are many who do both, bless their prolific hearts), but please keep me on your blogroll... I'm still updating those MP3s and weekly film and DVD recommendations, plus I offer the promise that I'll soon share my crazy-exciting new pursuits:

I'm a film distributor!
Stay tuned as my partner-in-crime and I gear up to unleash our newly-acquired first title on DVD in 2007. Press releases, website, perfunctory MySpace page, and more to follow.

Until the next announcement, my Top 20 Films of 2006 are depicted below in beautiful, sparkling new color. None of that graytone crap here! For more on my first 10 films, click it good:

IFC News: The Best Films of 2006
Intro :: My Page (with short essay)

indieWIRE Critics Poll 2006
Intro :: My Page (with more categories)

11 through 20 listed alphabetically...

COULDA BEEN CONTENDERS, IF ONLY I WATCHED THEM IN '06: 4 ... Apocalypto ... Army of Shadows ... Babel ... Deliver Us From Evil ... Don't Come Knocking ... Fast Food Nation ... Flags of Our Fathers ... Idiocracy ... Letters from Iwo Jima ... Mountain Patrol: Kekexili ... La Moustache ... Mutual Appreciation ... My Country, My Country ... Our Brand is Crisis ... The Prestige ... Room ... United 93.

For kicks, here's what my 2005 list looked like.

]]> 2006-10-17T00:17:40Z 2006-10-13T20:30:45Z tag:,2006:/1.115 2006-10-13T20:30:45Z

FAREWELL: NYFF 2006 and CINEPHILIAC (for a while)

Aaron http://www.cinephiliac.com cinephiliac@gmail.com Blog Blister your hands with applause for Game 7 winners Alex H., Paul M. (both with 21 out of a possible 24 points) and two-time consecutive winner Samantha S. with 20. Because Panic in Needle Park was delayed for DVD until 2007, Paul will be receiving the 25th Anniversary edition of Reds instead. Two discs' worth of Warren Beatty commie love, how could he go wrong?

The final game featured screen captures from films adapted from the ultimate "Nashville Byline," playwright Tennessee Williams, who wrote a one-act entitled The Long Goodbye:

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). That's Ed Begley the elder shouting for an Oscar at the podium. They gave him one.

Baby Doll (1956). My favorite of the lot, and it's nice to see Eli Wallach without his six-shooters for once.

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). Speaking of Warren Beatty...

The past few months have been mighty taxing for me because, as many of you know, my wedding is right around the corner. So it is unfortunate but with great necessity that Cinephiliac and The Last Picture Game Show must go on hiatus for the next few weeks, so that I may fully enjoy the payoff of my efforts in some state of Zen. (It's bad enough that I'm forced to bring some freelance work with me on my honeymoon in Berlin.) Until my return, my editor's picks and free MP3s will still be updated weekly in my absence, so please come back now and again for the goods. Viva la cinema!

For the two of you who asked (does my mom count?), here are the rest of my film reviews from the 44th New York Film Festival:

49 Up (d. Michael Apted)
Belle Toujours (d. Manoel de Oliveira)
Climates (d. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
The Holy Mountain (d. Alejandro Jodorowsky)
Inland Empire (d. David Lynch)
Journals of Knud Rasmussen (d. Norman Cohn, Zacharias Kunuk)
Mafioso (d. Albert Lattuda)
Marie Antoinette (d. Sofia Coppola)
Offside (d. Jafar Panahi)
Our Daily Bread (d. Nikolaus Geyrhalter)
Pan's Labyrinth (d. Guillermo Del Toro)
Paprika (d. Satoshi Kon)
The Queen (d. Stephen Frears)
Woman on the Beach (d. Hong Sang-soo)

]]> 2006-10-07T19:52:02Z 2006-10-06T23:52:53Z tag:,2006:/1.111 2006-10-06T23:52:53Z

THE LAST PICTURE GAME SHOW: Game 7, Week 8

Aaron http://www.cinephiliac.com cinephiliac@gmail.com Blog I'm late again this week thanks to the New York Film Festival, and I can't say I'm sorry with all the amazing films I've seen thus far: The Queen, Marie Antoinette, Woman on the Beach, Paprika, Belle Toujours, 49 Up, The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, and Our Daily Bread, to name a few... More coverage over at Premiere right after the holiday weekend, including what I'm utterly convinced is my favorite film of 2006, David Lynch's Inland Empire. Just saw a second viewing today, followed by a most peculiar press conference (Lynch's best line, randomly: "I like brunettes."); let's hope this challenging three-hour epic finds theatrical distribution. If you need music to work out to, please download my free MP3 at the top, "Fez (Men Working)," featured at NYFF in Apitchatpong Weerasethakul's wonderfully abstract Syndromes and a Century.

Earlier this week, I contemplated the alternate DVD ending to John Boorman's 1968 Hell in the Pacific. After you click and read all of that, let's finish this damn quiz:

How well did you know your Jean-Luc Godard characters? All of last week's images were swiped from the movie posters of the French master's most fertile era:

Made in the U.S.A. (1966).

Les Carabiniers (1963).

Vivre Sa Vie: Film en douze tableaux (1962). Also known as My Life to Live, which I also would have accepted.

GAME 7, WEEK 8:
Nashville Byline

Last week, folks. We'll do DVD screen captures to keep this short and sweet (plus, I'm pooped). From which films will you find the following three images below?

HELPFUL HINT: The name of this game is a Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash play-on-words, but it isn't a reference to the Robert Altman classic, nor is this hint: The Long Goodbye.

NAME EACH MOVIE. Score (1) point for every correct answer, and don't forget to include your name when addressing your entry to lastpicturegameshow@gmail.com. (Entries must be received by Thursday, October 12th @ 11:59pm EST.) Please visit my right-column sponsors on your way out, and good luck!

]]> 2006-09-30T03:54:59Z 2006-09-29T22:04:53Z tag:,2006:/1.110 2006-09-29T22:04:53Z

THE LAST PICTURE GAME SHOW: Game 7, Week 7

Aaron http://www.cinephiliac.com cinephiliac@gmail.com Blog Special thanks again to film-blogger Eric Dienstfrey for his oh-so-crafty contest contribution last week, which greatly helped me out while I lose sleep over my ongoing NYFF coverage and recent appreciation for the late Noriyuki "Pat" Morita (yes, you heard me right)...

Plenty of hints should've let you know that all of Eric's cinematic poses had "Blow" in the title:

Blow-Up (1966).

The 400 Blows (1959).

Blow Out (1981).

GAME 7, WEEK 7:
A Bucket of Wheat Paste, Vol. II

(To be played while listening to the "Posters" MP3, up top.)

Below are colorful swatches from a trio of movie posters with something major in common. Can you figure out the flicks?

HELPFUL HINT: What, you can't read French?

NAME EACH MOVIE. Score (1) point for every correct answer, and don't forget to include your name when addressing your entry to lastpicturegameshow@gmail.com. (Entries must be received by Thursday, October 5th @ 11:59pm EST.) Please visit my right-column sponsors on your way out, and good luck!

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