FAIL

NORTHWEST FLIGHT 253--

For the past year, there have growing indications that Al Qaeda is regrouping in Yemen... A video announcing the establishment of Al-Qaeda (there)...featured two Saudis previously released from the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Both assumed leadership positions in the newly formed organization.

BLOOD

"Although there is no thematic connection between (the two films), I can actually say - If I reach high points with Inglorious Basterds, it is partly because Paul (Thomas Anderson) came out with There Will Be Blood...and I realized I had to bring up my game."

-Quentin Tarantino

MOB

JONESTOWN

"This is the People's Temple. I believe in Jim Jones."

FRANCESCO ROSI'S "HANDS OVER THE CITY"

"In the general economy of stories, personal lives have no real importance." -Rosi

THE HOUSE OF GUCCI

"My philosophy is to do wearable things that people want to buy...I was never a conceptual designer, and I'm not working for a conceptual brand. So I think it's correct for me to create something that has exclusivity, that is really Gucci, but at the same time is something I want to see on people. It's not only for editorial, which is important of course, but it's nice to see it followed by something more real. I don't care to see a piece on the cover of a magazine and then not have the piece in the store. To me it doesn't mean anything. It's important that people can go into a store and find it. Because if not, it says what you are doing is a joke."

-Frida Giannini, Creative Director, Gucci

A TIME OF GREAT EXPERIMENTATION

Last week, Film Independent gathered the few remaining strongmen in the arena of Independent Film Distribution for a historic roundtable discussion. Our personal friend and distributor, Udy Epstein (of 7th Art Releasing) was among the group, which included Jonathon Sehring (IFC Entertainment), Eamonn Bowles (Magnolia Pictures), Tony Safford (Fox Searchlight) and Tom Bernard (Sony Pictures Classics).

At a time when most studios are closing their specialty divisions (Warner Independent, Paramount Vantage, Picturehouse...) the field of theatrical distribution is more and more dominated by commercial bullshit. These guys are truly OG's and dropped some knowledge on the crowd of young filmmakers.

"There's a lot of first time filmmakers, because there aren't a lot of second time filmmakers."
-Udy Epstein

CHE!

Boom. What a fucking image.
Criterion has announced it will release Soderbergh's CHE starring Benicio Del Toro. Given a limited theatrical release through IFC Films, this underappreciated epic will hopefully get the audience and awareness it deserves on this new platform.
(BELOW) Poster for the original "CHE!" starring Omar Shariff (with Jack Palance as Castro).

SERGE SILBERMAN

"You shouldn't rush things and produce too many movies. Otherwise, you become a slave to commercial projects in order to cover your overheads. Most of my work was through friendships. A film is not made in an office but in a meeting of the minds, an understanding with the director that goes on at all times, day and night, with real passion and that streak of craziness without which the cinema would never be able to exist."

Independent Serge Silberman produced such landmark films such as Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob Le Flambeur, Luis Bunuel's The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie, and Akira Kurosawa's Ran

ROCK HUDSON AT CANNES

Rock Hudson as Antiochus "Tony" Wilson in Seconds
Official Selection 1966 Cannes Film Festival

JCVD - HARD TIMES IN THIS CRAZY TOWN

This movie is for me. There we are, you and me. Why did you do that? Or why did I do that? You made my dream come true. I asked for it. I promised you something in return and I haven't delivered yet. You win, I lose. Unless... the path you've set for me is full of hurdles where the answer comes before the question. Yeah I do that. Now I know why. It's the cure, from what I've seen here. It all makes sense. It makes sense to those who understand. So... America, poverty, stealing to eat... stalking producers, actors, 'movie stars', going to clubs hoping to see a star, with my pictures, karate magazines. It's all I had. I didn't speak English. But I did 20 years of karate. 'Cause before I wasn't like that [points to flexed bicep]

This... This is me today. I used to be small and scrawny. And I took up karate. Hence the Dojo, hence respect, thou shall believe people who say, "Oss!" It's Samurai code. It's honour, no lies. So this guy in the US, it's not the same thing. No one says "Oss" to you. Sometimes people in show business say, "We're gonna' fuck em'". I believed in people, in the Dojo. I was blessed and had a lot of 'wives'. I always believed in love. It's hard for a woman with three kids to say, "Which one do I love more?" A mother... If you have 5, 6, 7, or 10 wives in a lifetime, they've all got something special, but no one cares about that in the so-called media. What about drugs? When you got it all, you travel the world. When you've been in all the hotels, you're the prima donna of the penthouse. And in all hotels the world over, travelling, you want something more. And because of a woman... well, because of love, I tried something and I got hooked. Van-Damme, the beast, the tiger in a cage, the "Bloodsport" man got hooked. I was wasted mentally and physically. To the point that I got out of it. I got out of it. But... it's all there. It's all there. It was really tough. I saw people worse off than me. I went from poor to rich and thought, why aren't we all like me, why all the privileges? I'm just a regular guy. It makes me sick to see people... who don't have what I've got. Knowing that they have qualities, too. Much more than I do! It's not my fault if I was cut out to be a star. I asked for it. I asked for it, really believed in it. When you're 13, you believe in your dream. Well it came true for me. But I still ask myself today what I've done on this Earth. Nothing! I've done nothing! And I might just die in this post office, hoping to start all over here in Belgium, in my country, where my roots are. Start all over with my parents and get my health back, pick up again. So I really hope... nobody's gonna' pull a trigger in this post office... It's so stupid to kill people. They're so beautiful! So, today, I pray to God. I truly believe it's not a movie. It's real life. Real life. I've seen so many things. I was born in Belgium, but I'm a citizen of the world. I've travelled a lot. It's hard for me to judge people and it's hard for them... not to judge me. Easier to blame me. Yeah, something like that.

FRANCO SOLINAS

Politically conscious writer Franco Solinas' most recognized collaborations include The Battle of Algiers, State of Siege, and Salvatore Giuliano.

THE US AND PREVENTING A NUCLEAR IRAN

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the "confirmed unteachability of mankind," the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them. Churchill bemoaned what he called the "want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”

There is only one sustainable solution to the imminent threat that IS a nuclear Iran. It is not a military option, it is not economic embargos, and it is not Obama's confused populist diplomacy. It is regime change in Iran. Only when a rational, peace-loving republic is put in place of the Islamic dictatorship will there be hope. The answer does not lie in UN sanctions, or Official Condemnations. The necessary action is to support, nurture, and create faculty for the opposition in Iran.

STRANGER

"He can detach like nobody I've ever seen. For a man that emotionally powerful to be able to detach the way he does...its like Mikey Corleone. That's why Francis understood that character."

-Al Pacino, on Francis Coppola

2009 UN SUMMIT

"Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium.

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies the murder of six million Jews while promising to wipe out the State of Israel, the State of the Jews. What a disgrace. What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations."

-Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the State of Israel

NIGHT FEVER

GORILLAS/JUNGLES

ANGER

"Anger is a sign of weakness."
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

WINEMAKER

"If rap wasn't payin, I'd hit the streets cause I'm a hustler"

-Getto Boys

JAWS

STRAIGHT TIME

GODFATHER

The Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN SOUTH BEACH

SGT. KELLY: You gotta believe in morals, kid. Our society, our civilization...You gotta believe that good and bad still matter. If not, then we're in the fucking jungle.

BRASCO

"Donnie Brasco.

Forget about it."

FILMED IN PANAVISION

ACROSS 110TH STREET

JACKIE BROWN BY QUENTIN TARANTINO

INT. JACKIE'S APT. - DAY

JACKIE: Would you like some coffee?

MAX: Please.
JACKIE: (looking through fridge) ...Oh, the milk went bad while I was in jail.
MAX: Black's fine.

Michael Mann's "ALI"

"Ali Bumaye!"

Cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki

The Baader Meinhoff Complex

anarchy for the sake of anarchy

Anti-Israelism at the Toronto Film Festival

imbecile

(HollywoodReporter.com)– First a single filmmaker withdrew his short film from the Toronto International Film Festival to protest its spotlight on Tel Aviv. Now the artists and academics are piling on.

Toronto is set to open next week with a widening artist protest and possible boycott over its spotlight on Israel and its filmmakers. Ken Loach, Jane Fonda, Wallace Shawn, Danny Glover and David Byrne are among 50 directors, writers and activists to have signed an open letter set to go online Thursday that alleges Toronto, "whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine," the Globe and Mail newspaper reported Thursday.

"We object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of an apartheid regime," the letter continued.

Toronto has drawn heat for choosing Tel Aviv as the subject of its inaugural "City to City" program, which celebrates films from a selected city.

Festival co-director Cameron Bailey last week expressed disappointment about the festival boycott over the Tel Aviv spotlight. "There was no pressure from any outside source. Contrary to rumors or mistaken media reports, this focus is a product only of TIFF's programming decisions."

Bob Cohen Pictures Presents

Look Not At The Mountains!

Production Begins

"If I abandon this project I would be a man without dreams and I don't want to live like that: I live my life or I end my life with this project. "

-Werner Herzog, said while making Fitzcarraldo

HUD

"Little by little the look of the country changes because of the men we admire. You're just going to have to make up your own mind one day about what's right and wrong. "

Directed by Martin Ritt. Music by Elmer Bernstein

the capacity to be extreme
the discipline to be moderate

Libyan Hero

GREENOCK, Scotland (CNN) -- The man convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, two decades ago received a boisterous welcome when he landed in his native Libya on Thursday. Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, suffering from terminal prostate cancer, was freed from prison in Scotland, with Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill citing compassionate grounds for the release and saying al Megrahi was "going home to die."

A large crowd, waving flags and honking horns, greeted al Megrahi at the military airport in Tripoli.

The 57-year-old has three months to live, according to Scottish authorities.

"Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion available," MacAskill said. "Our beliefs dictate that justice be served but mercy be shown."

CNN August 20, 2009

Punch-Drunk Love

THE PIANIST

For us Poles, Chopin symbolizes revolution. It is not surprising that his monument in Warsaw was pulled down during World War II, nor that the wartime struggles led to his music being banned in Poland.

His music is our music -- it's like mother's milk.

-- Roman Polanski