tagged w/ Harmony Korine
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![prescription drugs, harmony korine, twitter apps, the dodo's, national parks, & FAILs - [around the blogs]](http://i2.crtcdn1.net/images/spacer.gif)
It's time, once again, for another Current blogs round-up. Sit back, let the tea steep, and let's dig in, shall we?
Current News
According to bansheewail's post earlier this week, prescription drug related deaths have actually overtaken traffic fatalities in 16 states. Andrew took a closer look on the Current News blog, and according to the CDC, that number has been on the rise lately. The question is, why? The AP points to changes in the way doctors prescribe painkillers, and this actually coincides with the season premiere of Vanguard on October 14th. In "The Oxycontin Express," Vanguard correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to Florida, "the epicenter of the prescription drug boom." Be sure to check it out.
Mariana van Zeller travels to Florida to investigate the prescription drug boom in Vanguard's premiere, "The Oxycontin Express"
Some of biggest news this week came out of the South Pacific, where a pair of earthquakes and a tsunami ravaged the Samoa Islands and Indonesia. Andrew pulled together raw video intel and followed the story closely. Take a look.
Current Music
The Current Music team is racing to the finish line in preparation for the premiere of Embedded, immediately following the season premiere of Vanguard on October 14th. Shana took a minute to share progress on the six-part special on the Current Music blog: apparently the team is knee-deep in post-production on the six episodes, as well as preparation for online distribution.
Also, Alex posted photos from The Dodo's show at the El Rey. Alex always takes amazing photos at shows, so head over to the blog and check them out. If you have a few extra minutes to spare, give this a look as well.
Current Movies
John has continued to make due on his festival coverage with dispatches from the New York Film Festival. A couple of excellent posts this week, one covering some of the influences and inspirations behind Harmony Korine's latest, Trash Humpers.
Additionally, John finally screens Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, the film that compelled Cannes audiences to collectively question, "Why?" Additionally, Von Trier went on record with this film, proclaim that "I am the best filmmaker in the world." Check out John's review here.
Current Tech
Over on Current Tech, Sarah Lane shed a little light on her shopping addiction with her exploration of your best online shopping options and deals. As community member aaronights pointed out, "No wonder you're always low on cash!"
In a far less costly post, Sarah takes a look at another obsession that is apparently taking over the world: Twitter Apps. More specifically, OneForty -- the Twitter App store that Twitter forgot to build. Seriously, take a look.
Current Green
Leah spent some time chatting with Colin Beavan (you may know him as No Impact Man from his Twitter account, blog, and the trailer of his new movie), and discusses the dedication it takes for someone like No Impact Man to commit to a lifestyle change of this extreme magnitude. All in the name of "green." It's quite remarkable.
Keeping in theme with environmental heroism, Leah caught up with photographer Ian Shive -- the man dedicated to saving our National Parks one photo at a time. If you haven't checked out "Photos Across America" yet, be sure to give this post a read.
Current Comedy
Thursday nights mean a new episode of infoMania. In case you missed it, you have Josh to thank because Fridays are "Hey check out what happened on infoMania" days on the Current Comedy blog.
Josh likes to combat claims of failure. In fact, you might even call him a FAIL adjuster. In the FAILspace, he is what an auditor is to accounting. Once again he's worked up another account of why some supposed FAILS are, in fact, not FAILS. Peep them here.
Vanguard
An added bonus this week, our friends in Vanguard are ramping up their blogging efforts, and to kick things off they've posted a couple gems for you to take a look at. First up, Vanguard correspondent Laura Ling shared her thoughts on Vanguard's mission during a live event in Italy. As an added treat, the full broadcast of the Italy event is embedded on the post, so if you've ever wanted to hear Mariana van Zeller speak Italian, make sure to watch beyond the intro.
Speaking of Mariana, her piece "The Oxycontin Express" is going to be our season premiere for Vanguard on October 14th, and as an added bonus the team was invited to tape an episode of Dr. Phil and discuss both her documentary and the prevalence of prescription drugs. Darren posted some photos from the visit to Dr. Phil, so go check it out. The Dr. Phil episode with Mariana will air on the same day as our Vanguard season premiere, October 14th.It's time, once again, for another Current blogs round-up. Sit back, let the tea... more
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Let's count down the rest, or you could just check on the Auteurs to see what I was going on about.
4) Sweetgrass
It's been re-branded as an "elegy to the American West," and will open for one week on January 6th at the Film Forum. But Sweetgrass is something better than that: it's about sheep.
This (literally) sprawling look from 2001 to 2003 of a Montana sheep farm that follows no set narrative structure, or even the usual documentary crutch of flash over substance (i.e. The Art of the Steal.) Screened earlier this year at NYFF and AFI, Sweetgrass is a constant lingering shot of Americana that you're not even aware is dying until the credits. Of course, there are some choice moments that may be questionable attempts from the husband and wife team of Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash: when a sheep is being shorn along a truly hellish assembly line, there are the faintest traces of AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" peeking through the roar of the shears.
3) Harmony and Me
Bob Byington's love song for the broken-hearted and clueless works in tandem with Bujalski's Beeswax, but not for the reasons you want. Harmony (Justice Justin Rice) is dumped by his girlfriend (Kristen Tucker, also co-producer), and has been for the last few weeks that she's cheated on him. From there, he's spiraling into downward while trying to make sense of why she left and why he can't move past that.
As simple as it sounds, it leads into a portrait of the young man as not knowing any better. Obviously because we've all been in the same boat, or will be or could be. Byington deals with Harmony using the droll wit and humor that have to emerge when we realize that we're not inheriting the world that Nora Ephron or any other generic "rom-com" promised we would.
2) Stingray Sam
Reviewed here.
note: Stingray Sam received an opening night in Los Angeles, but no regular release. It is avaliable only through McAbee's site.
1) The Limits of Control
Jim Jarmusch's polarzing cinema neatly divided critics and audiences on Control. At once a film that echoes the need for fluidity, but also an exercise in what it takes to preserve the many facets of our culture. The Lone Man (Isaach De Bankolé) is on a loosely defined mission to remove a problem that intertwines music ("Violin" and "Guitar"), physics ("molecules"), film ("Blonde") and culture ("Waiter") itself. Or it's about a hitman who goes from source to source to find the appropriate information to complete his job. Or it's about Jim Jarmusch wanting to film a man drink espresso.
Limits represents an actual cinematic experience compared to a piece of patchwork like Sherlock Holmes. Here the entire story is always up for interpretation. It allows Jarmusch to flex his muscles like he hasn't since his student shorts and
Permanent Vacation.
Honorable Mentions:
Thor at the Bus Stop
Antichrist
Trash Humpers
See #10-5 here
Let's count down the rest, or you could just check on the Auteurs to see what... more
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It's Sunday! Go outside! See a movie...and if you see 2012, Fantastic Mr. Fox or The Messeneger, upload a review here for The Rotten Tomatoes Show.
Until then, let's talk about everyone's favorite film: Gummo.
[h/t: the auteurs' daily/filmmaker magazine]
It's Sunday! Go outside! See a movie...and if you see 2012, Fantastic Mr.... more
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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="375" caption="The Trash Humpers Press Notes."][/caption]
Press conferences at NYFF can be hit or miss--mostly miss since the Von Trier event was the last time anyone would really, possibly ask something strange or about Nietzsche. But yesterday's screening of Trash Humpers started with row after row cackling at these "old people" humping trash cans, tree branches and bags of trash.
It slowly subsided into "Ohs" and prolonged silence cut through by the "HNEE HNEE HNEE" laughter of the film's cameraman.
"What happened was I grew up really close and now I live really close where we filmed it in," Korine said at the press conference afterwards. Another remarkable feat would come from not a single person, at least by some standards, walking out. The further empetus for Humpers came from walking his dog through the back alleys and streets that turn into a sort of disturbing playground rewound in VHS.
"Sometimes when I walk through these alleys, they would resemble humans to me by the way they were laying or had fallen on the ground. And I don't know what happened--I sort of imagined what it'd be like to hump them," he said.
In essence, Humpers plays as part childhood memory distorted by god only knows what else Korine has done in his life. But it also acts in a lesson much parodied in Antichrist discussion: that chaos reigns. Here, elderly peepers that "seemed like they lived in the shadows" wander around drinking wine and repeating mantras like "Take it, take it, don't fake it, fake it!"
Richard Peña asked Korine if he had intentionally thought of "horror icons" like Freddie Kruger or other Slasher Killers when putting the Humpers in these elderly masks.
"I wasn't consciouslly referencing any of those movies or thinking about them...There's something strange to me about seeing people with the same face," he said,
The inevitable question of how this began almost seems natural considering how Korine may function: what began as a photography project taking on low-fi undertones developed into a film to be shot instantly. It is magical to hear that the project only started four months ago and has just shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and now New York. In fact, it almost plays as an example of "How to make your auteur cinema...if your name is Harmony."
As I tweeted before, Humpers may have you outside screaming, yet it's an exercise in "finding" the very sort of film that is now lost to us. And then, when found once again, it will hump it.
--
On whether or not this is a film: " In some ways I don't even want to call it a movie, and I'll be the first to say it. I wanted to make something that was more like an aritifact, something that was unearthed. Maybe imagine it was buried in a ditch somewhere.
On the tape which inspired Trash Humpers: "Someone came up and handed me a video tape a little while ago and told me to watch it. Usually I throw this stuff away because I'm scared to look at it, but this one I kept and waited a couple of months. My wife was there with her friend and told me to put a movie on. As a joke, I put this tape in. What I saw was just mainly this kids driving around, punching each other, playing tuba, driving and screaming at each other. Just things that were seemingly mundane. They both started yelling at me to take it off, and I asked them why. They said, because someone is going to get murdered. I thought this was a strange reaction for them to have, but...I thought it was an interesting idea and a template to make the kind of movie like that...There might be the influence around the edges, but I was trying to devote myself purely to the honesty of making a feature film an artifact."
On shooting: "It would just be a moment and a moment and a moment--early on we decided we would be very military. Pretty much the way you see it, even in the order, is the way it was shot."
On changing how films are made: "The experience I had with my last movie was really terrible, the making of it was great but everything surrounding it was awful: how long it took, how frustrating the process was. Movies don't need to change but the way in which films are made is too slow, too inhibiting, costs too much money. It seems to be in opposition to experimentation. I wanted to get to the point where I could have an idea, like a painter would and could quickly paint. I wanted to make films as quickly as I could paint them. So I had this idea, I had these friends around me and this location.. I wanted to make films as quickly as I could think of them. I had this idea...I did very little prep. Once I took the photos and I figured out...the whole shoot was a little over 2 weeks. we were out there wandering around like that. we would walk through tunnels, under bridges and through swamps."
On not "having a script," yet a rather lengthy soliloquy that "defines" Trash Humpers: "I'm an American filmmaker trying to make american movies in a very specific way. I felt like tht characer was nothing too deep or some kind of commentary on that world. It's something I see every day and sometimes I feel that way. But at the same time, I'm not going to say that's me or someone else pretending to be me."
-John Lichman
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="375"... more
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It is no where a bad thing to say that Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers came out of no where. It was announced quietly for the Toronto Film Festival and New York Film Festival. According to TIFF's site, the film "is no exception: creepy masks, low-grade torture, frequent public urination, senseless vandalism and the title, acted out on defenseless garbage cans, all have a confrontational panache about them to be sure. But the film is also full of poetry, dance, song and moments of aching poignancy."
NYFF has: "This episodic tale of a band of cretins who go around brutalizing dolls, molesting plant life and – yes – rubbing up against garbage cans is outrageous, scary, hilarious, distinctly American and oddly touching—as well as Harmony Korine’s purest film yet."
And now, a brief clip above makes me overly excited for this wonderful piece.
[The Lost Boy-indieWIRE, h/t: The Auteurs Daily]
-John Lichman
It is no where a bad thing to say that Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers came... more
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In this episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show, Brett and Ellen lead ensemble reviews of Inglourious Basterds, Post Grad and World's Greatest Dad; just in time to go back-to-school Ellen breaks down the Top 5 Bullies in film and we interview Buck Smithee: Sequel Producer.
Scout Taylor-Compton of Halloween II stops by for a Secret Movie Confession, then there's a Haiku Review for District 9, another Trailer Time; a Weekend Peekend at Big Fan, The Final Destination and Halloween II--but...Are We Alone?
In Other News:
-Rob Zombie is remaking The Blob. This marks the third remake for the film, the second for Zombie and the first time I honestly can promise you I don't want to see a movie. [Current]
- The Men Who Stare At Goats trailer is a lot of things. And it uses Boston's More Than A Feeling. Watch it. [Apple]
- Kiyoshi Kurosawa is psychic! He saw the Bright Future for Japan's upcoming Jellyfish attack. [Japanator]
- Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers looks...well...interesting. [The Playlist]
-John Lichman
In this episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show, Brett and Ellen lead ensemble reviews... more
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Whatever you think of art film's designated provocateur, it's hard to imagine anyone less famous than Harmony Korine getting a movie into major festivals that was conceived of only four months before, shot in two weeks, and consists mainly of dudes in old-person masks fellating tree branches, drinking wine bottles and -- yes, indeed -- humping trash. But such is "Trash Humpers," 74 plotless minutes that gain value from a dedication to the shoddiest of VHS aesthetics; the film was edited on anachronistic VCRs, and it shows in good, nostalgic ways. It's oddly painless, but provocative in a too easy way: Ugliness is truth, and truth ugliness.
Korine was calm and unruffled when facing the press after the screening, and they in turn asked only respectful questions. He addressed his inspirations in order. "With this movie, what happened was I grew up really close to -- and live now close to -- where we filmed," Korine explained. "My wife bought this little black dog and made me walk it two or three times a day, so I would walk it in these back alleyways. Generally I like to walk at night, and I remember as a kid I spent most of life in abandoned parking lots and back alleyways and under bridges, and they now are just littered with garbage.
The story: http://www.ifc.com/blogs/indie-eye/2009/10/harmony-korine.phpWhatever you think of art film's designated provocateur, it's hard to... more
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Press conferences at NYFF can be hit or miss–mostly miss since the Von Trier event was the last time anyone would really, possibly ask something strange or about Nietzsche. But yesterday’s screening of Trash Humpers started with row after row cackling at these “old people” humping trash cans, tree branches and bags of trash.
It slowly subsided into “Ohs” and prolonged silence cut through by the “HNEE HNEE HNEE” laughter of the film’s cameraman.
“What happened was I grew up really close and now I live really close where we filmed it in,” Korine said at the press conference afterwards. Another remarkable feat would come from not a single person, at least by some standards, walking out. The further empetus for Humpers came from walking his dog through the back alleys and streets that turn into a sort of disturbing playground rewound in VHS.
“Sometimes when I walk through these alleys, they would resemble humans to me by the way they were laying or had fallen on the ground. And I don’t know what happened–I sort of imagined what it’d be like to hump them,” he said.
Check out the rest on the Current_Movies blog!Press conferences at NYFF can be hit or miss–mostly miss since the Von Trier... more
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