When living far from my home in New York City, as I have been these past months working on the Sarasota Film Festival, the internet is an invaluable tool in staying close to my old routines; I can still listen to my favorite radio stations via an iTunes stream (WNYC during the days, WFMU at night), I read the film listings at BAM and The Film Forum with a wistful eye, and I get to have my daily New York Times delivered straight to my laptop.

The NY Times is a paper of endless fascination for me. It is the perfect tool to contextualize your life and economic reality in New York City. Often, just when I am feeling good about myself and the quality of life I have been able to create by amassing piles of debt and doing some hard work, there’s the Old Grey Lady on hand to bitchslap me back to reality. Have a nice dinner last night? Well, you weren’t at the opening of Del Posto. Getting situated in your apartment? Your neighborhood is so 2005. One year, there was a special article in the Style section in early December which answered a nagging question that was plaguing me at the time; What’s in in servant wear this holiday season? (Answer: White gloves, still!) And to think, I let my servants wear casual clothes. Well, we do Christmas in the Hamptons.*

That's right, even FDR promoted domestic servitude, so I should probably shut my guilt ridden white liberal mouth and just sit back and enjoy!

Leave it to the Times and that ever so personally relevant Style section to bring me back down to earth about this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. Just when I was feeling good about all of the socially relevant, issue oriented 'little' films among this year's nominees, here comes good' ol Allison Hope Weiner to remind me what the show is really about. I was expecting a primer on how to host an Oscar party the right way (Answer: Paint your servants Gold, still!), but I instead got tremendously helpful advice on how to attend the Academy Award events. This might be the most disgusting article I have ever read.

Highlights from Ms. Weiner’s tremendous piece of reportage:

“Here, as a service to the socially befuddled, is a guide to Hollywood merrymaking during Oscar week...

Socially befuddled? Check. This article is clearly written for a guy like me. Moving on...

"IF YOU'RE SOMEONE'S DATE, DON'T EXPECT TO BE INTRODUCED. No one cares about spouses, relatives and arm candy at Hollywood parties. You could be a Nobel laureate, but if you're a plus-one during Oscar week, no one will want to meet you. And your significant other probably won't introduce you. Don't take it personally. ‘Nobody even bothers to find out the name of someone's guest, who most likely could be interesting in their own right,’ said Melanie Greene, a talent manager, whose clients include Paul Bettany and David Duchovny.”

“IF YOU HAVEN'T WORKED ON ONE OF THE NOMINATED FILMS, CONSIDER STAYING HOME. Being at an Oscar party without a nomination is like bleeding in an ocean surrounded by sharks. The safest course is to stay out of the water. ‘The cool etiquette is don't go if it's not your year,’ said Cathy Schulman, a producer of ‘Crash,’ a best-picture nominee. ‘If you want to feel irrelevant in this town, go to a party where you're not what it's all about. It really doesn't matter to anyone how much else you've achieved in your career. Around Oscar time it's about being part of those nominated films.’”

I hadn’t yet gouged out my eyeballs when I came across this delicious piece of sage wisdom:

“GIVE YOUR ENTOURAGE THE NIGHT OFF. Yes, traveling with an entourage is a standard way of flaunting power in Hollywood, and thanks to a certain HBO series they have a kitschy hipness. But this is not the weekend to roll up to Barry and Diane's with a dozen friends from your hometown.”

The lowest blow came next.

"Hollywood insiders know better than to expect their host to be waiting on the other side of the velvet rope to greet them. When Ronald Harwood, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for 'The Pianist' in 2003 arrived at the Vanity Fair party that year, he was annoyed to find no representatives of the magazine to greet him and his wife. 'We walked around the party for quite a while and never once encountered anyone from Vanity Fair or anyone else that we knew,' he remembered. 'We finally decided to call for our motorcar, which had just succeeded in finding a parking place. We later found out that everyone we knew was in the V.I.P. room.' "

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to verify that your eyes did not deceive you; the above quote actually did come from the man who wrote the screenplay for The Pianist, the story of a jewish artist who perilously rides out the Holocaust by hiding from the Nazis. Unfortunately, he was unable to hide in the V.I.P. room of the fucking Vanity Fair party.

And finally some advice we can all use…

“AND IF YOU DON'T GET ANY INVITATIONS AT ALL ... For those who live and work in Hollywood and yet for some reason do not show up on any invitation lists, take heart. There is always next year. ‘If you're not invited to A-list parties, it's a tough night to get through,’ Mr. Tisch said. ‘I'd recommend three Xanax, a great bottle of cabernet and looking for a new publicist.’ “

Oh, ha-ha-ha. Touché, Mr. Tisch.

Seriously, do I really work in the same business, even at its most tangential, as these people? Is this bullshit really the nature of the beast? After I call my entourage and give them the night off, I am going to take three Xanax and hang myself from Barry and Diane's shower curtain rod. Don't take it personally, whatever your name is. It really IS a tough night to get through.

*I not only have neither servants nor a house in the Hamptons, but I don’t believe that Christmas is a verb.

I fucking KNEW It...

I consider the closing of Wellspring's theatrical distribution arm to be a death knell for foreign film distribution in America. There are already far too few opportunities for foreign films to be seen on our theatrical screens, but I consider this to be a complicated problem. The first is obviously political; we are living in a time when internationalism, connections to other cultures, diverse perspectives and ideas are considered to be culturally irrelevant. Not only is Hollywood killing foreign film abroad, but it has already decisively won the war on the home front and the politics of hegemony, isolationism, and the lowest common denominator are certainly reflected in the cinematic marketplace. In addition, in so far as most foreign film in America is dedicated to the idea that art should challenge audiences to examine their assumptions, well, there is no domestic cultural network that supports art, challenging ideas, or foreign perspectives. Where is the cinema culture in America? Even our most non-commercial, independent outlets have dedicated more time to the ascension of the mini-majors than they ever do for the films that a company like Wellspring was interested in bringing to American audiences; Red Lights, In The Realms Of The Unreal, Kings and Queen, Unknown White Male, Girlhood, Seducing Dr. Lewis, Wild Side, Reel Paradise. These are tremendous films, and as I programmer, I have programmed and championed all of them (and have loved so many more) because this is the cinema in which I truly believe; the cinema of ideas.

Don't Look Back: Claire Denis' L'Intrus, one of Wellspring's recent acquisitions

The second problem I see is economic; we are talking about the slimmest of margins for these companies. The idea that a film company is migrating its entire foreign film distribution business to DVD and firing its entire theatrical distribution staff in order to save a mere $1 million dollars in overhead tells me that this has nothing to do with Wellspring as a business or movies at all; it is about Wellspring as an asset. Reading the statement from Genius CEO Trevor Drinkwater, he himself apparently no genius, is a chilling experience and one that should disturb all lovers of film:

"This realignment supports an aggressive acquisition campaign to build on the Wellspring brand with critically acclaimed films that celebrate intelligent cinema, while at the same time, supporting our strategy of leveraging our core competency by focusing on the sales and distribution of higher margin, packaged entertainment products at retail," said Genius Products CEO Trevor Drinkwater in a statement today. "Genius remains committed to the independent film industry and we are moving forward with indie releases. We're just going to handle them in a different manner than we did before."

Clearly, a man who loves movies. Let me translate that for you:

"We want to make more money, and these films don't make enough, so we're going to withhold them from the theatrical marketplace in order to drive up demand for DVDs, where we can charge $20 plus per unit and spend about $1 of overhead. Thanks for acquiring so many films over the past few years, Wellspringers... I am sure Harvey and Bob will make something from them as now they have the infrastructure for their own DVD label!"

Note to Jacques Audiard: Try next time to create art that can be leveraged as part of a core competency of selling higher margin entertainment products at retail. Even a relative hit like The Beat That My Heart Skipped didn't help Wellspring.

Next up was this hum-dinger:

"We celebrate the members of our theatrical distribution team for their inspired and dedicated efforts, which have made the 700-title Wellspring library what it is today. Genius will continue to position this world-class catalog and any new acquisitions as the ultimate destination for original independent and art-related films."

Yes, Genius CEO Trevor Drinkwater, whenever I look online for show times and tickets to the now absent-from-the-marketplace foreign titles that Wellspring (and pretty much Wellspring alone) handled, I will think to myself "Which company has the positioned the best catalogue of exploitable properties? I certainly hope that the latest foreign title which has played in Cannes and Toronto and now has no theatrical outlet in America has chosen Wellspring as its destination so that at least I can sit home alone with my DVD player and watch the film on my television." Oh, and P.S. how does an idea like 'world class catalogue and any new acquisitions' going straight to DVD jibe with your 'aggressive acquisition strategy?' I can see the lines for Palindromes forming at the Wal-Mart now. And I can't wait to download and watch five minute clips of L'Intrus on my iPod. Whatever could be next?

Unexploitable asset: Marina de Van's brutally powerful In My Skin

This is the complete undermining of the collective, theatrical experience which, as a film festival programmer, is something that I consider to be THE essential component of cinematic pleasure. The idea that art will be relegated solely to a private financial transaction between an individual, isolated multimedia buyer and a smaller and smaller batch of media owners completely goes against the nature of what going to the movies has always meant. Most disturbingly, the idea that trying to save one's own bottom line by gutting your business and then passing it off as 'marketplace innovation' is absurd; just because you can make more money on a DVD than you can on a film ticket doesn't make this strategy innovative. Instead, it is ideas like these, where shortsighted profit taking eviscerates the long term business and the PRINCIPLE of the business, that usually signals the beginning of the end. If cinema is reduced to iPod screens and television monitors, well, maybe it isn't worth participating in. Sometimes, making large profits isn't the point. Gasp.

It is certainly a savvy business decision for The Weinstein Company to have a distribution system for their own DVDs as well as a catalogue of films from which they and can profit. But at what cost to moviegoers? Anyone in their right mind looking at the Weinstein Company slate for 2006/2007 can see that there is not a single title on there that reflects the kind of film that Wellspring would have brought to places like The Film Forum, The Cinema Village, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, etc. And while I expect nothing but big numbers when Scary Movie 4 opens in theaters next month, I am not so sure how I'll feel about seeing it released via Wellspring DVD. There is now a void, and while wonderful companies like Magnolia, Tartan and THINKFilm have all of my support in the hopes that they will continue to provide challenging, engaging titles, I can't say I'm overly optimistic about the future of challenging and foreign film in America.

Let' be honest, foreign titles need all the help they can get. Domestic film festivals are being priced out of the marketplace for most foreign product by foreign rights holders seeking €1000 and beyond for a single film. Tiny domestic distributors have clearly learned this game; many are now using non-profit festivals as a profit center in order to recoup money on tiny films that have traditionally benfited from playing festivals. Audiences, growing more indifferent as media saturates every aspect of their lives, can't even find peace in the movie theater, as exhibitors have infantilized the movies and based their business on becoming a public space for 15 to 18 year olds. Besides, multiplexes themselves have never been a harbor for difficult films. Art house theaters are being offered more profitable choices from mini-majors who have brought some terrific films to the marketplace, but most of these are domestic independents or foreign action films. Without reversals in all of these key areas-- not changes, reversals-- I don't expect that foreign film will ever build a grassroots following in America. Without little companies like Wellspring who put quality above money in order to make these films available to even the most marginal of audiences, I really can't hold much hope that a great re-flowering of the 1950's and 60's foreign film boom will ever occur.

I'll leave you with a final word from Wellspring itself. I remember reading Anthony Kaufman's article on foreign film in indieWIRE just over a year ago, and there was a paragraph describing how Ryan Werner, then at Wellspring, was personally handling the entire marketing campaign for Goodbye, Dragon Inn (one of my personal favorites):

"We didn't expect these films to make huge amounts of money," says Ryan Werner, head of distribution for Wellspring, which released both Goodbye Dragon Inn and Notre Musique. "But I think we're going to have to be more careful about doing smaller films, like Goodbye Dragon Inn in the future. It's not like we can't make them work, but I had to do everything in-house. Was it worth it at the end of the day? I guess it is."

Yes, it certainly is.

Buried in a pile of DVD submissions as we finalize the Sarasota Film Festival line-up. Apologies for the lack of posting, but I haven't a spare moment. J is in Sarasota with me, so we're doing dinner tonight at my favorite restaurant in town, so that should be nice. In the meantime, have a heart and stay tuned... I promise more blogging when I can!

The BRM Hearts You! Happy Valentine's Day!

It’s Oscar time, and in the tradition of columns past, The Back Row Manifesto is dedicating itself to incomplete, ranting coverage of Hollywood’s always entertaining onanistic orgy of self-congratulation by piping up with our own highly selective look at the nominees. To be honest, this year’s crop of nominated films and performances seems to be an above average assembly of high quality work, but at the same time, the omissions in many of the categories leave a bad taste in my mouth. This year’s Paul Giamatti Sideways Awards for Most Glaring Snub by the Academy go to Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man (omitted from an otherwise worthy list of documentary feature nominees), Jeff Daniels (who was terrific in The Squid and The Whale) and Maria Bello (who was the Best Supporting Actress for her work in A History of Violence). Otherwise, the Academy did a pretty good job of looking at their own reflection in the mirror and deciding who is the fairest of them all. Grab your pen and your office Oscar pool, and get ready to copy answers off of my paper because it’s time to pick some winners!

And the nominees are…

As some of you may know, aside from cinema, my primary passion is English football (specifically, Liverpool FC). Months ago, my two passions collided (sort of) when I posted a review of Lexi Alexander's Green Street Holligans, a film I liked quite a bit but which, I argued, seemed to fetishize hooligan violence:

"The film is by no means a call to arms or an incitement, but I have to admit, walking out of the theater, my chest was puffed up and I was full of adrenaline; I felt almost invincible. Only when I put the violence in its proper context was I able to see that the film was more than just an entertaining couple of hours in the lives and deaths of the football gangs, it was a celebration of the mob."

Anyone want proof of my theory? Despite a clunky date formatting issue, the comments section on this review continues to draw posts from people all over the world. Who knew the power of the Google search? Click here to enjoy the fruits of the First Amendment!

Yeesh... Good ol' West Ham...