Saw The Lives of Others - the Oscar-winning foreign film from Germany. Very powerful and note-perfect. Chilling how every room in your house could be bugged and you don't even know. Hard to believe it was all happening just over 20 years ago in East Germany - I was travelling through Europe in 1984 and later I was teaching kids who were born in 1984.
My friend's dad called it the best spy thriller he had ever seen. I loved the story and the character development. Definitely worth seeing (since I refuse to see 300 and already saw The Wind That Shakes the Barley and The Namesake at the Festival.)
Saw Kinky Boots on The Movie Network (TMN) - lots of fun (and quite experimental - thinking of our doc that's still under review). It's based on a true story of a British shoe factory that shifted production focus to stay afloat. Quite charming (and was at TIFF in 2006 I think).
Off to work to keep unpacking my boxes - our move wraps up next week but I've been in my new space for a few days. Quite a change from the old floor plan.
Went running with a friend last night (3km) and doing 6K on Saturday in preparation for next weekend's race Harry's Spring Run-off.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
IDC Judging
Out of 95 teams who entered IDC, 79 submitted films on time. Now the judging begins.
As films come in, IDC checks paperwork and digitizes and converts the films. These are put into an on-line judges' screening room where the Round 1 Judges (30 documentary professionals from across the world) watch and rate all of the films. The 12 top rated films from Round 1 will go on to premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto on the evening of Saturday, April 28. At the screening, the Round 2 Judges (3 influential international documentary professionals who will be at Hot Docs) will select and announce the Grand Prize Winner from the 12 finalists. IDC hopes to announce the 12 finalists by April 2 to give the filmmakers enough time to make travel plans to Toronto. Each finalist will receive a free pass to Hot Docs and the Grand Prize Winner will receive $1,000 and a trophy.
Pretty exciting stuff! April 2 is less than 3 weeks away!!!
Both Joe's team (whoretoculture films) and our team (haikugirl) made it into the final 79. Joe wrote me such a sweet email last week I have to put in my blog:
MM,
I was just checking your blog and reading about your successful completion of the competition. Many, many, many congratulations! I am so glad you did it this year, and now you see what an exhausting but exhilirating experience it is. Based on the voice-mails I got from you, it sounds like you had a blast, and it sounds like you might be giving us a run for our money! I sincerely hope both our teams' entries will be screening next month at Hot Docs. Either way, I can't wait to see your project and to show you ours. Congratulations again on a major accomplishment!
--joe
GO TEAMS! Congratulations to all and good luck with the judging...
-haikugirl & creative ape
As films come in, IDC checks paperwork and digitizes and converts the films. These are put into an on-line judges' screening room where the Round 1 Judges (30 documentary professionals from across the world) watch and rate all of the films. The 12 top rated films from Round 1 will go on to premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto on the evening of Saturday, April 28. At the screening, the Round 2 Judges (3 influential international documentary professionals who will be at Hot Docs) will select and announce the Grand Prize Winner from the 12 finalists. IDC hopes to announce the 12 finalists by April 2 to give the filmmakers enough time to make travel plans to Toronto. Each finalist will receive a free pass to Hot Docs and the Grand Prize Winner will receive $1,000 and a trophy.
Pretty exciting stuff! April 2 is less than 3 weeks away!!!
Both Joe's team (whoretoculture films) and our team (haikugirl) made it into the final 79. Joe wrote me such a sweet email last week I have to put in my blog:
MM,
I was just checking your blog and reading about your successful completion of the competition. Many, many, many congratulations! I am so glad you did it this year, and now you see what an exhausting but exhilirating experience it is. Based on the voice-mails I got from you, it sounds like you had a blast, and it sounds like you might be giving us a run for our money! I sincerely hope both our teams' entries will be screening next month at Hot Docs. Either way, I can't wait to see your project and to show you ours. Congratulations again on a major accomplishment!
--joe
GO TEAMS! Congratulations to all and good luck with the judging...
-haikugirl & creative ape
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The Illusionist
Cozied into the basement loft last night to watch a pay-per-view movie: The Illusionist. Edward Norton is Eisenheim the Illusionist who astounds them all in 18th century Vienna. His childhood sweetheart (Jessica Biel) is about to marry the evil (of course he is) Crown Prince (Rufus Sewell) who sends the chief of police (Paul Giamatti) to find out Eisenheim's secrets and arrest him. Only it doesn't quite go according to plan...
I enjoyed this movie - how it was shot, the era and the subject matter. Films like these remind me why I love Edward Norton. He's also recently in The Painted Veil and seems to enjoy slipping into these period roles with gorgeous co-stars. Unlike my uncle, I won't be going to Vienna any time soon (although I think the Czech republic might have sat in for Vienna on this film) but the experience was like watching a fable. A lot less dark than The Prestige, The Illusionist is a nice way to spend a couple of hours - rent it and let me know if there are good DVD extras I missed. MMM
Have to mention the latest Ebert & Roeper at the movies which I did not enjoy. While Ebert is recovering, Roeper has various guest reviewers and his latest was Kim Morgan an on-line movie reviewer. Richard liked her but she drove me kinda crazy. They both lauded 300 (which I will NEVER go see because it's by Frank Miller and it's all about the joys of war) and gave thumbs up to Chris Rock's I Think I Love My Wife (Chris Rock remaking Eric Rohmer - go figure) but split on Mira Nair's The Namesake. I saw it at TIFF and it was okay but Kim couldn't bring herself to give it a thumbs up (Ivana didn't like it either). Roeper and I were kinder agree the father's performance was excellent but both TV reviewers failed to point out that Kal Penn (of Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle - which was such fun) was the weakest link in the film and quite out of his depth with the other actors just as Cameron Diaz was in The Holiday.
Scroll down the page on Kim's website to find a review and photos of Black Snake Moan which looks like it's a big fat guilty pleasure. As Richard points out, why does Samuel L. Jackson only appear in movies with Snake in the title? Based on Kim's steamy review, I might be tempted to cut her some slack next time - or at least see this bizarre-sounding movie...
I enjoyed this movie - how it was shot, the era and the subject matter. Films like these remind me why I love Edward Norton. He's also recently in The Painted Veil and seems to enjoy slipping into these period roles with gorgeous co-stars. Unlike my uncle, I won't be going to Vienna any time soon (although I think the Czech republic might have sat in for Vienna on this film) but the experience was like watching a fable. A lot less dark than The Prestige, The Illusionist is a nice way to spend a couple of hours - rent it and let me know if there are good DVD extras I missed. MMM
Have to mention the latest Ebert & Roeper at the movies which I did not enjoy. While Ebert is recovering, Roeper has various guest reviewers and his latest was Kim Morgan an on-line movie reviewer. Richard liked her but she drove me kinda crazy. They both lauded 300 (which I will NEVER go see because it's by Frank Miller and it's all about the joys of war) and gave thumbs up to Chris Rock's I Think I Love My Wife (Chris Rock remaking Eric Rohmer - go figure) but split on Mira Nair's The Namesake. I saw it at TIFF and it was okay but Kim couldn't bring herself to give it a thumbs up (Ivana didn't like it either). Roeper and I were kinder agree the father's performance was excellent but both TV reviewers failed to point out that Kal Penn (of Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle - which was such fun) was the weakest link in the film and quite out of his depth with the other actors just as Cameron Diaz was in The Holiday.
Scroll down the page on Kim's website to find a review and photos of Black Snake Moan which looks like it's a big fat guilty pleasure. As Richard points out, why does Samuel L. Jackson only appear in movies with Snake in the title? Based on Kim's steamy review, I might be tempted to cut her some slack next time - or at least see this bizarre-sounding movie...
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
IDC is a WRAP!
After staying up all night Sunday to edit, Tamara and I grabbed a cab to the Fedex depot at Sherbourne and Lakeshore on Monday afternoon to drop off our IDC video. Our Fedex tracking number 854035815983 shows it was picked up at 4:51pm Monday, March 5, 2007 in time for the 5:00pm deadline. I just checked at fedex.ca and it's now at the local Fedex facility in St. Louis, Missouri waiting for delivery to KDHX TV, co-sponsors of IDC. Winners will be announced at the hot docs international documentary festival in Toronto April 19-29, 2007.
Our final running time was 4:43 - with the required colour bars & slate (Team Name, Genre, City & Country, Title) at the beginning we're at about a 5-minute running time. It was an intense weekend and we worked hard (I hadn't pulled an all-nighter since university days!) Tamara was our SUPASTAH editor and I provided feedback and ideas (and 24-hour craft services) and we had product we were proud of in the can by 1:00pm Monday and shipped by our deadline. I screened it for Richard last night and he thought it was great (very emotional) - we used his original music from Curbside Lapse for our score.
IDC's a wrap!
hooray for team haikugirl!
see us at hot docs?
Our final running time was 4:43 - with the required colour bars & slate (Team Name, Genre, City & Country, Title) at the beginning we're at about a 5-minute running time. It was an intense weekend and we worked hard (I hadn't pulled an all-nighter since university days!) Tamara was our SUPASTAH editor and I provided feedback and ideas (and 24-hour craft services) and we had product we were proud of in the can by 1:00pm Monday and shipped by our deadline. I screened it for Richard last night and he thought it was great (very emotional) - we used his original music from Curbside Lapse for our score.
IDC's a wrap!
hooray for team haikugirl!
see us at hot docs?
Friday, March 02, 2007
IDC
IDC, the International Documentary Challenge is ON! I logged in to the website to get our genres Thursday morning at 8:00am. We were assigned Experimental and Music and could choose between them. We fired off a question to the organizers and confirmed we could do an Experimental view of ANY topic so we're choosing female endurance athletes. Tamara and I will be heading downtown to the Y to interview runners Saturday before 7:00am!!!
We also have to work in the general theme of Faith. That should be easy with a topic like running. We spent Thursday doing preliminary production work on our topic and setting up our shoot for Saturday. Today, we're practicing with our equipment and scripting. Yesterday with the "storm of the century" brewing it was great to be home but weird to see the tons of snow that dumped down on us in TO.
This competition is INTENSE but fun! With our shoot all day Saturday and editing all day Sunday I will probably only have a chance to blog again on Monday when our short doc is in the CAN and off to FedEx. Wish us luck!!!
IDC is fun
five days to make a short doc
team haikugirl ROCKS!
We also have to work in the general theme of Faith. That should be easy with a topic like running. We spent Thursday doing preliminary production work on our topic and setting up our shoot for Saturday. Today, we're practicing with our equipment and scripting. Yesterday with the "storm of the century" brewing it was great to be home but weird to see the tons of snow that dumped down on us in TO.
This competition is INTENSE but fun! With our shoot all day Saturday and editing all day Sunday I will probably only have a chance to blog again on Monday when our short doc is in the CAN and off to FedEx. Wish us luck!!!
IDC is fun
five days to make a short doc
team haikugirl ROCKS!
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