thundering drums. wailing guitars. triumphant trombones. back-up singers from outer space. stream-of-consciousness-dance-moves. pathos via auto-tuner. a life-affirming talk box. frighteningly beautiful noise. an apocalyptic celebration. i've been to many concerts, some of which count amongst my greatest experiences. a great many. this was the best. /adam cook The Exquisite Corpse 8mm Film Experiment09/03/2010 Subvex, an international collective of filmmakers, is looking for public funding for an ambitious new project. To find out what it's all about and how you can help produce it, click here. adam cook The Newly Restored Metropolis in Vancouver07/01/2010 "Pacific Cinémathèque presents the Vancouver Premiere of the most complete version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis — a new restoration which includes 25 minutes of previously lost footage. Debuting at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, this 147-minute Metropolis is the closest yet to Lang's original vision, and is the first Pacific Cinémathèque exhibition presented in High Definition. An eye-popping marvel of mammoth geometrical production design and magnificent special effects, Metropolis is set in a glittering city-state of the 21st century. While the privileged masters of this polis frolic in the futuristic paradise above, the downtrodden workers toil robot-like in the grim subterranean factory city below, succoured by saintly Maria (Brigitte Helm), who urges them to shun revolution and wait patiently for the arrival of a Mediator. The plot has the ruling tyrant and a mad scientist conspiring to replace Maria with a robot doppelgänger. Inspired by Lang's first glimpse of the Manhattan skyline, Metropolis was a super-production of truly massive proportions: the size of its budget was unprecedented, its cast numbered over 37,000, and it took more than 16 months to shoot. The New Restoration of Metropolis screens July 1-6 at Pacific Cinémathèque. For more information on the new restoration, visit http://www.cinematheque.bc.ca/metropolis-new-restoration." adam cook The Pacific Cinematheque is presenting a monstrous Akira Kurosawa retrospective this summer, spanning from June to August. Many of the prints are immaculate restorations from Janus Films, so this is going to be quite the summer for Vancouver cinephiles. From the press release: To commemorate the centennial of the birth of Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998), Pacific Cinémathèque presents a comprehensive retrospective on this important and influential Japanese filmmaker. This exhibition includes all 30 films by the master — from 1943's Sanshiro Sugata to 1993's Madadayo — and features rare prints (courtesy The Japan Foundation) of early works, a number of newly struck 35mm prints, and recent restorations (from Janus Films in New York) of his major masterpieces and mature films. "Kurosawa was one of the greatest treasures of film history ... His influence is so profound as to be almost incomparable. There is no one else like him." - Martin Scorsese For more information on this retrospective, including films and showtimes, please visit: http://www.cinematheque.bc.ca/kurosawa-centennial-1910-2010. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: For their assistance in making this exhibition possible, Pacific Cinémathèque is grateful to The Japan Foundation, Tokyo and Toronto, and Janus Films, New York. ABOUT PACIFIC CINEMATHEQUE: Pacific Cinémathèque is a society and centre dedicated to the understanding of film and moving images in both the Canadian and international contexts. Through screenings and the provision of educational services and resources, Pacific Cinémathèque fosters critical media literacy and advances cinema as art and a vital means of communication in British Columbia and Canada. Since its incorporation in 1972, Pacific Cinémathèque has presented more foreign, Canadian, independent, art-house, classic, experimental, short and documentary films than any other theatre in Vancouver. adam cook Me, Interviewed.05/31/2010 Over at the MUBI Studio Blog, an interview of yours truly has been posted. From the post: "This is the first installment of an ongoing series of interviews with the passionate cinephiles behind our film library: the MUBI Editors. They are responsible for publishing films to our database, correcting film stills, updating cast member pages and essentially being the fine tooth comb of quality that makes MUBI the best curated library of world, classic and independent cinema." Click here to read the interview adam cook The premier cinema site on the web, The Auteurs, has officially changed it's name to Mubi. If you don't know already, The Auteurs is an online cinematheque, streaming films all over the world complete with a cinema journal, a workshop and a thriving community of cinephiles. Users are responding negatively to the new change, which is essentially a switch from exclusivity to accessibility. CEO & founder Efe Cakarel responded in the web site's forum: "We are changing our name; the spirit remains the same. http://www.theauteurs.com was both a thing and an idea. The thing: the premiere online destination for great cinema. Online meaning mixed media, meaning streaming rare festival gems, VOD premieres, and exclusive film festival collaborations, meaning a social network, meaning the latest and criticism and news, meaning a grassroots filmmaking community. The idea: a repository and a starting point, a place to nurture and encourage the access to, and the enjoyment and appreciation of, all that is exciting and moving, impermenant and impermeable about the seventh art. The latest technology dedicated to a love for film, to film and the people who love cinema. The name was the name: “The Auteurs” suggested not the actual place but the idea. One can’t go to “The Auteurs”; one can only nod ones head in agreement: yes, honor the art, yes make accessible the form, yes, bring together those who love moving pictures. We are changing our name. We are an international website, not an American one or a French — even if our lingua franca is English (something our Brazilian, French, Filipino, Indian, Turkish, and Iranian co-workers might contest). We want a name all audiences can say and spell. We want a name without the burden of exclusory meaning — not all great cinema is auteur cinema. Auteurism is an old idea, and the idea of the website, while one that likewise honored great filmmakers, was a new one that did not quite fit the name. We love the website we’ve built and the community its drawn and we want a name that means that, the online cinema paradise we’ve build and are continuing to improve with your help. In short: we want a name that we are free to giddily fill to the brim with the same passionate ideas as The Auteurs, a website for cinephiles — but one that is also open to those for which “auteur” means nothing, but HIS GIRL FRIDAY is his favorite film, Kiarostami her favorite filmmaker, A CITY OF SADNESS and TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER two of the best movies she or he has ever seen. We are as dedicated now as we ever were to distribute online, globally, the best cinema ever made, new and old, short and long, mainstream and obscure. We continue to bring the best news and criticism of film; we continue to connect someone who loves all of Godard’s films to someone who just discovered Wong Kar-wai and wants to know more. We continue as before: for cinema and for you, who loves the cinema. We embrace great cinema in all its forms, and the change in name is to make that embrace all the easier." The need for an ambiguous, universally applicable, catchy name is understandable from a business perspective, but a name like "The Auteurs" was reassuring for the type of people on the site. Only time can tell what changes the name can bring. What really matters is that an appreciation for cinema can be fostered online, and it remains the goal of Mubi to do so. adam cook 2 Comments | ArchivesJanuary 2011 CategoriesAll |