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Film Comment Selects presents films
championed by the writers and editors of Film Comment
magazine. Below are Film Comment Selects screening
series events from the past year. The next annual
Film Comment Selects 2-week series will be February
15 through 28, 2006.
Published bi-monthly, Film Comment magazine features
the best writing around on new international and American
cinema.
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Film Comment Magazine |
Film Comment Selects and Capital Entertainment
presented an event with Rip Torn
and Ira Sachs. The legendary
cult actor and the indie filmmaker were on hand for a special double
feature: a sneak preview of Sachs’s trenchant
Sundance-winning love triangle, Forty Shades of
Blue, an onstage conversation between Sachs and
Torn, and a rare screening of Torn’s classic 1973
road movie, Payday.
In 2003 the newly formed Director’s
Label released three DVD collections dedicated to
the work of Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and Chris
Cunningham. The discs contain music videos, short
films, documentaries, commercials, video installations
and other rarities. Newsweek promptly proclaimed
the titles, “some of the best cinema made in
the last decade.” The New York Times
hailed the artists as “directors who transcend
music.” And, most importantly, rabid fans sent
the lavishly designed DVDs into certified gold and
platinum orbits. Film Comment Selects, Palm
Pictures, and the Director’s Label presented
a special event celebrating the release of the next
volumes in the series by four of today’s most
innovative filmmakers: Anton Corbijn, Jonathan
Glazer, Mark Romanek, and Stéphane
Sednaoui.
The evening’s 90-minute program sampled highlights
including rare director’s cuts and previously
unseen content, such as Sednaoui’s short film
inspired by Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild
Side”; Romanekian, a short film on
Mark’s work featuring Ben Stiller, Chris Rock
and Robin Williams; and an excerpt from NotNa,
Lance Bang’s new documentary on Corbijn. Both
Romanek and Glazer have already ventured into features
(Romanek directed One Hour Photo and Glazer
Sexy Beast and Birth), Corbijn is
working on his first (based on the life and death
of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis), and we assume
there will be a preproduction announcement any day
now from Sednaoui. Following the screening, all four
directors participated in a roundtable Q&A, MC'ed
by Michael Stipe, and moderated by
Lance Bangs.
Robinson Devor’s Police Beat provides
a dreamy slice of Pacific Northwest life. A black Muslim West African immigrant,
working as a bicycle cop in Seattle, suffers from relationship woes. As he cycles
between oddball crime scenes, his mind gradually
devolves into an uncanny morass of self-doubt. Visually mesmerizing and sonically
accentuated by a soundtrack featuring the Aphex Twin, Erik Satie, and other quixotic
composers.
Chris Cunningham’s 6-minute masterpiece (over four
years in the making), Rubber Johnny takes the viewer deep into the
extremely dark world of an inbred 16-year-old mutant and his abusive TV-addicted
parents. Featuring music by the legendary Aphex Twin—a
regular Cunningham cohort—Rubber Johnny is guaranteed to shock.
As one industry insider warns: “See it at all costs. But do not see
it alone.”
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2046 is many things at once - the year
when mainland China assumes absolute control of Hong Kong;
the number of the hotel room across from Tony Leung's Mr.
Chow, inhabited by a parade of women he pursues and discards
with impunity; and the place where disappointed lovers escape
to in Chow's erotic sci-fi novel. Tony Leung's reprisal of
the affable, self-mocking Mr. Chow, this time with a bitter
edge, is extraordinary. Faye Wong, Carina Lau, Gong Li and
an utterly electrifying Ziyi Zhang are the women who pass
through his life, as vivid as ghosts from out of a forgotten past.
Director Wong Kar Wai was present for a Q&A with the audience
after the screening.
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Blasting out of sub-Tinseltown San Pedro, California,
in the early 80s, the Minutemen changed the course of music
history. Fueled by proletarian angst and itchy-indie fingers,
they made Nirvana possible - in every sense of the word.
Utilizing archival footage of the band in various stages
of action, plus an amazing array of interviews, including
extensive face time with bassist Mike Watt, director Tim
Irwin's much-needed documentary provides a riveting (i.e.,
loud) exposition of the Minutemen's achievement and premature
demise. The band's meteoric rise ended with guitarist D.
Boon's tragic death in 1985. Fans be warned: you'll shed
a few tears. Everyone else: Get in the van.
Director Tim Irwin and producer Keith Schieron were
present to introduce the film and answer questions after
the screening.
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