Banana Soup
I’m not the only one blogging in this house. You can check out Ann’s interpretation of events over at Banana Soup, by going to banana2goober.blogspot.com.
P. T. Anderson Drinks Jurgen’s Milkshake
He drinks it up!
Very entertaining report in Variety.
Now if only I can get Leonard Nimoy to read my witty comments about Pon Faar.
Meet The Rozgerettes
Please say hello to Olivia Aldrin Rozger and Phoebe Beckett Rozger. As the one responsible for the meeting of Jason and Melissa, I anticipate a full ten percent of their gross as this pair of tall blonde girls commences to make a fortune - first in cereal commercials, then a bit part in a remake of The Shining, then, eventually, wacky romantic comedies aimed at Tweens.
The Levys Meet Brian Lehrer
A summit of some of my favorite New Yorkers: The Levys took their Panorama Challenge to the Brian Lehrer Show.
The MP3 is available below. It’s awesome.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007), Yves Simoneau, B+
For a made-for-cable movie this is pretty damned good. It gets talky at times, but the “discourse,” if you will, isn’t dumbed down that much. This is more The West Wing than A Man Called Horse. Indeed, one of its strongest attributes is how much it downplays the imagery of soaring eagles or meditative great spirits that seems to be a necessity in every other film I’ve ever seen about Native Americans. This is (for the most part) played straight and its a better film for it.
Le Cinema Est Roi!
(best part about this is the use of the word “douche.” From La Voir.)
BODY/ANTIBODY
(États-Unis, Kerry Douglas Dye et Jordan Hoffman)
Body/Antibody de Kerry Douglas Dye et Jordan Hoffman.
Body/Antibody de Kerry Douglas Dye et Jordan Hoffman.
Obsessif-compulsif, Kip (Robert Gomes) ne quitte presque jamais son appartement de Manhattan, qu’il nettoie à répétition. Lui-même se douche cinq fois par jour et se lave parfois tellement les mains qu’elles en saignent. Lorsqu’il rencontre Celine (Leslie Kendall), une nouvelle voisine de palier, sa petite vie rangée se voit chamboulée. Le scénario est inspiré des propres expériences de Kerry Douglas Dye, qui souffrait d’une peur maladive des germes jusqu’à ce que cette dernière soit surpassée par son désir de contact sexuel. Ceci donne d’abord lieu à une comédie romantique joliment tordue, qui glisse graduellement vers le film noir, alors que l’ex violent (Frank Deal) de Celine débarque et pousse Kip à faire des trucs particulièrement salissants! À la fois drôle, sexy et troublant, Body/Antibody mérite que vous sortiez de votre appartement pour aller le voir. (30-31 août; 2-3 sept.)
22 Pieces of Flair
Two pretty entertaining pieces have gone up at UGO. The Top 11 Classy Assassins (which I did not write) and the Top 11 Uses of Classic Rock in Cinema (which I did.)
Please read both over and over again and then send to your workmates and make them do the same. We’re all in this together.
Body/Antibody is 3 for 3!
I believe that when God invented the blog His primary reason was so that independent filmmakers could crow about their moderate success. To that end, I would like to congratulate Mr. Kerry Douglas Dye, Mr. Robert Gomes, Ms. Leslie Kendall, Mr. Raoul Germain and myself for being prized with the Audience Award for Best Feature at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.
I still think awards for films are a dumb idea. . .for established filmmakers. For we insurgents still struggling to get our voices heard, they are a blessing.
For those keeping score, this is award #5 at our third fest. The biggie is in 2 weeks, though — Montreal. We’re not in competish (dastardly French!) but we’re hoping we get reviewed. If anyone knows anybody we could bribe to make that happen, please get in touch.
Max Roach
Max Roach has died. His friend and personal alarm clock (”Good morning MAX!!”) Phil Schaap has scheduled a week-long marathon memorial on WKCR.
I am not the man to eulogize Max Roach. I’ll just say that he was the beat of bebop and, if you check your favorite jazz albums, you’ll find that he’s playing on 9 out of 10 of ‘em.
I saw him perform a few times. Once in a “supersession” environment at the Blue Note, where he played it stylish and cool. Similarly at the Charlie Parker fest in Tompkins Square. But I’ll never forget the time, late in the evening midsummer on the campus of Columbia University - he and Cecil Taylor, neither of them young men, got up on the bandstand and just fuckin’ wailed for a breathless forty-five minutes. No charts, no pause, no mercy. Absolutely unbelievable.
Max Roach was an artists, a civil rights leader and a very cool New Yorker. It was cool knowing he was always around, ready to call Phil Schaap up and give him shit, and still working the clubs. With Max Roach gone there are perhaps no true living links to the golden age of bebop still around. Listen to Max Roach.
Super Bad Dance Off and Come Ons
I don’t normally shill for the Man on my own blog, but I think JH.c readers will be tickled by the current Dance moves and pick-up line contest UGO is running with the cast & crew of Superbad. Check it out and vote for your favorite.
La Chinoise at Film Forum!
I rarely blog from work, but I just discovered that Film Forum will be showing La Chinoise from Oct 10 - Oct 18. In the depth of my initial Godard-mania (Freshman/Sophomore year of college, natch) the only copy of La Chinoise I could find was in French with no subtitles. And I watched it!
My French skills, while not at a Griswald level, are hardly adequate to follow a feature length film. But I sat through the whole thing, ’cause, that’s what you do when you are that guy at that age. Anyway, I’ll be thrilled to see (and hear, and understand) this for the first time in a theater.
Guss’ Takes on The Man
I love this story. Guss’ takes no shit. Mess with Guss’ and you get burned.
It is high time for me to make a Guss’ pilgrimage. Alas, my new job doesn’t afford me the time to walk down there or even subway it down there midday, but my wallet has been fattened to the point where I can cab there & back without thinking to much about it. It’s, like, some strange cosmic balancing act.
From The NY Post
WHOLE FOODS’ PICKLE
MAKER SOUR AT STORE
By LEONARDO BLAIR and CYNTHIA R. FAGEN
DILLICIOUS: Pickle-proud Patricia Fairhurst, outside Guss’ on the Lower East Side, says Whole Foods undermines her with a rival product.
July 5, 2007 — It’s a case of the big pickle versus the little gherkin.
A pickle peddler says she’s soured on trendy Whole Foods, claiming the chain of supermarkets has been buying legendary Guss’ Pickles from a Bronx rival she accuses of ripping off the famous name.
“Whole Foods is selling the pickles [as if ] they are coming from the Lower East Side’s Guss’ Pickles,” said owner Patricia Fairhurst. “They never came from me. I am Guss’ Pickles.”
The briny brouhaha stems from a legal battle between Fairhurst’s 85-year-old store on Orchard Street in the Lower East Side and another business, United Pickle in The Bronx.
Fairhurst insists that United Pickle stop using the Guss’ name synonymous with sours and dills.
Both sides are due in Manhattan federal court July 16 to fight over the name - but Fairhurst accuses Whole Foods in the meantime of using the Guss’ Pickles brand to sell a rival’s inferior product in a new Bowery store.
A Whole Foods Market spokesman, however, insisted that United Pickle - run by the Leibowitz family - is the true purveyor of the pickle name.
“We believe we are selling the original Guss’ pickles,” said spokesman Fred Shank.
“United Pickle has been making Guss’ pickles for 85 years,” Shank said, adding that when Fairhurst switched suppliers “she was no longer sticking to the original Guss’ pickles recipe.”
But Shank offered an olive branch to Fairhurst yesterday.
“We are always looking for new products and if they [Fairhurst] meet our quality standards it might be a product we are interested in.”
Erica Harrison, co-owner of 88 Orchard Café, across from Guss’, described Whole Foods decision to stock the pickles as “awful.”
“She is a very hard-working honest woman who bought a business based on its history and place in the neighborhood,” Harrison said, adding that the eatery supplies a slice of Guss’ Pickles with every sandwich.