"... and pitched when the outcome is already known, or cozy, authorized docs about celebrities. [Lance] Oppenheim, like [Nathan] Fielder and John Wilson, is after something more heightened and less predictable; unlike them, he doesn’t have a writers’ room or make himself a character in the proceedings. He borrows from the tradition of nonfiction filmmakers like Frederick Wiseman, seeking out stories that can unfold in real time. Often, the process involves a lengthy 'fishing expedition,' leaving him with hundreds of hours of footage to sift through in the edit. Then there are the surreal flourishes that bring the work into the realm of what Oppenheim calls 'docufantasia.'..."
The "2 of the best films of the year" are "You Can See Everything," that film about Elizabeth Holmes, and "Primetime, " the one about the "To Catch a Predator" guy, Chris Hansen.
By the way "How To With John Wilson" is my all-time favorite TV show.
And I like this quote from Oppenheim's wife: "It’s almost like he was an alien beamed down to Earth and the only piece of software that was downloaded was like, ‘You are going to make movies.'"
As a student at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Blau grew engrossed in the work of cinéma vérité auteurs like Frederick Wiseman and Ross McElwee while also immersing himself in the New York canon of John Cassavetes and Martin Scorsese.
“Scorsese’s ‘After Hours’ is like the ultimate errand,” he said. “That would be my dream episode — for someone to get so sidetracked on their errand that they get chased through SoHo by an angry mob, like in the film.”
That pushes all the right buttons for me. Also made me think of one of my favorite TV shows, "How to with John Wilson."
But I do have to home in on "Cops are usually kind of nice to me." How casually people enjoy their privileges. I need to check on how the heavy rains affected the people in the Corey Ruiz Autonomous Zone.
And though he denied that his movies had any political agenda, he was no stranger to controversy. His directorial debut, “Titicut Follies” (1967), a harrowing portrait of the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts, remains the only film ever banned in the United States for reasons other than obscenity, immorality or national security....
I don't blog about it every day, but my son John has a blog — that he adds to every day — that goes year by year from 1920 to 2020 and gives his favorite movie (or movies) from each year. For some years, he isolates a single movie, but for other years, he lists a runner-up or 2 or 3. He hit 1968 today, and this is a year with 4 movies.
The top choice is "Monterey Pop":
Truly amazing. And you can watch it at home on 4K now (with the right streaming channels, about which John will always inform you).
The second choice is something I watched recently, Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet." I watched it as part of a project — my imaginary movie project — that I began in 2019 and stalled on in 2019. I was rewatching movies that I'd seen when they came out, beginning with 1960 and only getting up to 1968. My 1968 movie was "Romeo and Juliet," and I wrote about it here. I've watched the movies for the next 5 years, but somehow I never got around to blogging about them. How, when I blog every day, do a watch a whole movie, specifically meaning to write a post about it, but then I don't?! Maybe I expect myself to say so much that I end up saying nothing at all.
Anyway... John's third choice is the Ingmar Bergman movie "Shame," which I saw when I was in college, when I had so many Ingmar Bergman movies loaded into my brain.
John's fourth choice is something I haven't seen — Frederick Wiseman's documentary "High School." I'm so impressed by the approach of using nothing but film, with no voiceover or text explanations:
"I think my movies are more novelistic than journalistic and I think when my films work, they work because you feel you’re present in the sequence that you’re watching and hearing. I like the sense of immediacy that it gives."
“I’ve made movies in 17 states, but I never made one in the Middle West before, with the exception of a public housing film in Chicago. I thought it would be interesting to make a movie about a small town in the Middle West,” he tells Deadline. “A friend of mine told me about Monrovia and I visited it, liked what I saw, and started to make a movie there.”
He filmed on hog farms, in cornfields, at a Masonic lodge, Lions Club, high school, veterinary clinic, tattoo parlor, barbershop, restaurant, a baby shower, a wedding and more. The film contains moments of conversation between townspeople, including some old duffers at a diner who discuss a recent experience eating carrots....
Monrovia is overwhelmingly white, nestled within a county that Donald Trump carried in 2016 with more than 75% of the vote. Wiseman shows the intrinsic role of Christian traditions in daily life (“People are very religious,” he states) but he doesn’t overtly address the politics hovering in the background. Some critics would have preferred he confront red state mentalities.
“That’s the film they want to make. That’s not the film I want to make,” he declares. “I don’t like to make obvious films.”
You can see the carrot scene in the trailer for the movie:
I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Encourage Althouse by making a donation:
Make a 1-time donation or set up a monthly donation of any amount you choose:
పోస్ట్లు
