Thursday, July 31, 2003

Party Tonight at the Hemphilll
Skyy vodka drinks. Hemphill Gallery. A tent. Hip people. Movies projected on walls. Enjoy them all tonight for $10, part of the Georgetown Film Festival. Seeya there!

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Judy Garland fans, rejoice! An interactive, sing-along version of the timeless classic, Wizard of Oz, is coming to the Kennedy Center in September. Audiences are invited to watch the digitally remastered spectacle dressed up as Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion or any of their other favorite characters from the 1939 film. Just don't look behind the curtain ;)

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Common Ground Student Short Film Competition
Workable solutions can be found to contentious problems. That's the theme behind the Common Ground Film Festival, a fest for student filmmakers interested in displaying the power of film as a tool in conflict resolution. Past films have examined 9/11, the Mideast conflict, Vietnam, IRA terrorism and how tragedy can lead to faith.

Monday, July 28, 2003

Film Party in G'town
Eric Sommer and the gang behind the Georgetown Film Festival are at it again. This time, the party is at the Hemphill Gallery on Thursday, August 31. All the parties have been outrageously fun and I'm sure this one will be no exception.

Saturday, July 26, 2003

Hong Kong at the Freer
Made in Hong Kong, a film festival devoted to the cinema of this dynamic Chinese city, will be playing this month and next at the Freer Gallery. The festival features new films and classics from some of Hong Kong's master directors.

Thursday, July 24, 2003

Lily and Arthur
Two veterans of the local filmmaking scene, Jorge Bernardo and Bart Clithero, have a movie coming out, Lily and Arthur. In this film, a young girl living in a world of her own design has a wake up call when a dream reveals to her that she will die in two weeks. Intriguing idea.

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

SilverDocs Recap
It was the first year for SilverDocs, the documentary festival sponsored by AFI and Discovery. Not only was the fest a great opportunity to see interesting documentaries, it also highlighted the new AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring and Discovery's new HQ.

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

The Man with No Name Comes to Georgetown
Eastwood is under the stars on June 23rd in Georgetown. High Plains Drifter will be showing along the C&O Canal. Bring a blanket and watch this austere and brutal film.

Monday, July 21, 2003

Henry Dodd: The Movie
Guys in hot dog suits, women in jacuzzis, a bar named WiseAcres. I'm not going to pretend that I know what the hell this movie is about. But it was made by people in Fairfax and will be premiering out there on the 27th.

Sunday, July 20, 2003

So You Wanna Be a Movie Extra
Everyone wants to be in the movies, even if they're just a faceless blur in the background of some Hollywood does DC production. What do you need to succeed in the extra bizness? The Washington Post explains it for us.

Thursday, July 17, 2003

Georgetown Film Fest Party at Nathan's - Tonight!
Come party tonight with the Georgetown Film Festival crew at Nathan's. No door fee, just fun people and the chance to win festival tickets and other great prizes. They're fun people and I'll be there, too.
National Geographic Channel Gets New Programming Czar
John Ford has been appointed Executive Vice President, Programming for the National Geographic Channel. Ford led the Discovery Channel out of obscurity and positioned it as one of the most popular cable networks in the country. He'll now try to do the same for DC-based National Geographic Channel.

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

A Shakier Version of Blair Witch
Technology empowers people. That's great, right? Not necessarily. Cheap videocameras and effortless editing and duplication have led to a wave of reality filmmakers in DC documenting girl fights and rump-shaking.
The DC-Baltimore Connection
The Charm City and The District have a tangled, complicated and envious relationship. We're big and important but they're real. Filmmakers go to Baltimore to shoot movies set in DC, like the recent Chris Rock vehicle, Head of State. And there are no great directors from DC, while Baltimore has two of them, Barry Levinson and John Waters. Yet, they do have tangential connections to DC. Waters has offended many a Republican and Levinson attended AU. And both used to come to DC to drink. Read this interesting feature article about Baltimore's cinematic visionaries.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Filmmakers Hope to Broaden View of D.C.

U Street is a great, underused location for filming in DC. It was home to Duke Ellington and his jazz roots remain in this diverse and fascinating neighborhood - one that I live in. This summer, a Howard University student will be filming U Street Blue on the streets of this historic neighborhood. I'm looking forward to it!

Monday, July 14, 2003

How much James Carville and Mary Matalin can you stomach? HBO is betting that you haven't had enough of these cantankerous spinmeisters and they've given them their own show. It's not TV. It's K Street, the cable network's weekly semi-reality show from George Clooney. K Street? Isn't C-SPAN enough for the political junkie set? Lawyers and wonks have taken over every other aspect of American life, do they need to take over TV also? Previews of the show have been hammered for liberal political bias (what a surprise) but what's really irritating is more glamorization of the ugly, banal, and amoral world of politics in DC.

Saturday, July 12, 2003

Insanity and Genius. A more apt description of the director's art could not be found. And it's also the title of a retrospective look at the films of director Werner Herzog and actor Klaus Kinski at the Goethe Institute. Kinsksi, genius and egomaniac. Herzog, obsessed visionary. Together, they made the memorable Fitzcarraldo, a mad dream of a movie about building an opera house in the middle of a South American jungle. "It's not only just a movie. It's really my life," Werzog said.
"Mendacity! I smell mendacity!" Burl Ives gives an over the top performance in the overwrought Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. It's Tennessee Williams at his most outrageous but what's most memorable about this film is Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie the Cat. She's never looked better and yet Paul Newman rejects her for reasons that probably didn't make much sense back in the 50s but I think we get it now, thanks. Anyway, see Liz under the stars at Screen on the Green on Monday night.

Friday, July 11, 2003

Have you been to the AFI Silver Theater? Neither have I. Downtown Silver Spring seems like an unlikely location for movie romance but this newly restored theater looks like a wonderful place to watch old movies. Read about in in this article from iCOM.

Thursday, July 10, 2003

Cybersex. It seems so, well, 1990s, an embarrassing artifact of that discredited age, like that plastic vote.com mug you have in the back of the cupboard or the hazy memory floating in your past of ebullient evenings spent drinking apple martinis in the full flush of the dotcom boom. It's worse than high school photos from the 80s. Yet, porn and online are a natural, a multi-billion dollar natural. In a sense, porn made the net. The money porn generated convinced many that the Internet was a perpetual motion machine of cash. Now we now better. But Internet porn rolls on, unstoppable. And now we have a video postcard from its early days, which were just a couple years ago. It's the movie On_Line, which is playing at Visions this weekend. Set in the Manhattan cybersex industry, the New York Times called it a "creepy romantic comedy." The Friday night and Saturday night showings will feature the director in an after-party, sponsored by a dotcom that succeeded, match.com.
DC Movie Honored by Texans

Table for Two, a romantic comedy which was filmed on Capitol Hill, was awarded the Silver Award for an Independent Experimental Film: Comedy — by the 2003 36th Annual WorldFest-Houston International Independent Film Festival. The short film was made by local phenom Robyn Bennett and a veteran cast and crew. Plus, check out my article on the filming of Table for Two.

Tuesday, July 08, 2003

FilmBiz is tonight! Network with writers, directors, producers and actors starting at 6:30 at Jury's. Everyone wears nametags so it's easy to mingle. Allison, the host, is great and getting people together and encouraging a feeling of community. Plus, the money goes to charity and they have Harp on tap - what more could you want?

Monday, July 07, 2003

TV One Auditions District for HQ: DC is trying to lure a new network to town. TV One will target African-American and urban viewers. Already, the prospect of so much production work has the local community buzzing. "The launching of this network could not come at a better time for a lot of people," said Todd Mason, president of Atlantic Video.

Sunday, July 06, 2003

Bill Clinton aside, why are we in DC always portrayed as boring, super-serious prudes? Okay, maybe a big chunk of the people in this lawyer-choked city are composed of humorless West Wing clones, people who really do have passionate arguments over Medicare reform, but away from the Mall and its marble monuments, there exists humans not that much different from the rest of America. But it's a lot easier for moviemakers to portray DC as the land of corrupt insiders as in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Or as in the latest incarnation of that story, Legally Blonde 2. Elle has come to town and her blonde perkiness is going to teach us a lesson - whether we like it or not. With her charm, beauty and refreshing naivete, she's going to win us stuffy Washingtonians over. Does this story sound familiar? A few years ago, another California girl came to DC with a similar dream. Her name was Monica Lewinsky.

Saturday, July 05, 2003

Hang Em High! Interested in a little Clint Eastwood this summer? Watch the good, the bad and the ugly of the pale rider June 21 through August 27 in Georgetown and Farragut Park. The movies are shown outdoors, under the stars. My favorite, The Outlaw Josey Wales, is showing July 9 by the canal in Georgetown.

Friday, July 04, 2003

Looking to meet other filmmakers in DC? Be sure to check out the FilmBiz Happy Hour on Tuesday, July 8th at Jury's Hotel on Dupont Circle. The money goes to a great cause and it's a lot of fun. Still not convinced? Read an article I wrote about the event.