So, in the past 24 hours, the website Before You Submit was brought to my attention.
There’s a lot to look at here and I don’t want to bother summarizing it all, but I will say that while I appreciate the special kind of arrogance and perhaps anger that it takes to create such a site built on what are often misconceptions about film festival programming, I do appreciate the idea that someone is making a concerted effort to give a full analysis to filmmakers on every aspect of their movie. It’s something I wish I had more time to do while I was programming myself.
Anyway, I’d love to start a discussion about it on here, so if I’ve peaked your interest at all, take five minutes, read a bit of what they are trying to do and leave a comment here letting me know what you think. It’ll be much more insightful than getting spammed on my blog comments all day.
I had the pleasure of catching the midnight show of the Screen Gems release Quarantine last night and while others may be ragging on this as just another first-person camera zombie movie (and a remake of the fantastic Spanish film REC to boot), I wanted to make my two-cents pitch for why you should see this purely cinematic experience. What Quarantine lacks in substance and originality (it is a remake after all), it more than makes up for in scare factor. The film, with its rich soundscape and impeccable sense of timing, is completely terrifying. The Brothers Dowdle, the team responsible for last year’s The Poughkeepsie Tapes, have really begun to carve out a niche for themselves in being the best at first-person camera horror movies. This subgenre will always be remembered as the effectiveness of The Blaire Witch Project being beaten over the head by twenty other titles, but when all is said and done, John Erik and Drew Dowdle will emerge as some of the best talent it has to offer. See it now while you can still witness it unify a full house in screams.
That’s for everyone in the country, but if you live in New York, I also wanted to mention that The Flaherty Seminar is leading off their Anthology Film Archives screening series on Monday with the New York debut of the avant-garde films of Oliver Husain. Husain, a German-Indian artist, brings to life his unique views migration and globalization. Make sure to check it out.
I’ve been passing around this hilarious Dogme 95 certified short this week that my good friend Aisha Butler sent to me. (Thanks to Twitch for turning her on to it.) It got me thinking - was Dogme 95 the predecessor to mumblecore? Anyway, enjoy.
At the risk of offending the filmmakers (and, granted, I haven’t seen the film and it could be genius), I wanted to just note this upcoming piece of cinema. When considering all of the independent films that are struggling to find funding, one must wonder how this gets shot entirely in 70mm.
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