Friday, August 15, 2014
This week in movies you missed: Perhaps you noticed that Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac: Vol. I played for a week at Merrill's Roxy Cinemas this past spring. Perhaps you didn't. Anyway, the theater never booked Vol. II of the Danish provocateur's new duology about sexual obsession, so those who hoped for a big-screen experience were left, er, hanging.
Well, now Netflix Instant subscribers can stream the rest of Nymphomaniac (or the whole thing, at least till the director's cut comes out). It's also available for rental at Amazon and other VOD outlets. So I gave myself the two-night von Trier immersion experience.
What You Missed
First of all, don't see Vol. II without seeing Vol. I. For those readers who have not, here's the premise in a nutshell, lifted from Rick Kisonak's glowing review of the film in this publication:
A middle-aged bachelor named Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) discovers a brutalized woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) crumpled on a cobblestone street and brings her to his apartment. Her name is Joe. She doesn't want him to call an ambulance or the police. What she would like is a cup of tea.
Seligman tucks her in, dressed in a pair of his pajamas. But, instead of sleeping, Joe announces she's "a bad person" who deserved what was done to her and proceeds to recount episodes from her life, Scheherazade-style, to prove it. These stories track her virtually lifelong obsession with meaningless sex and "rebellion against love-fixated society." Model-turned-actress Stacy Martin plays her in her youth.
Tags: Movies you missed , Image , Web Only
Thursday, August 14, 2014
If you're one of those people who giggles uncontrollably at the cat photos and videos on, say, Buzz Feed, then have I got an opportunity for you! That is, if you own a cat, or, better yet, more than one cat. (And I totally wanted to rip off the Buzz Feed photo of a cat contemplating life with its adorable little duck for this post, but couldn't because of that copyright thing. Instead, I thank Seven Days designer Diane Sullivan, who always has plenty of kitty pics on her iPhone.)
Anyway, Middlebury's Town Hall Theater — known for its innovative fundraisers — is hosting an event that is actually a fundraiser for the theater and Homeward Bound, Addison County's Humane Society. It's called the Internet Cat Video Festival, and it was created by the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, Minn. For its event on September 13, Town Hall Theater will be screening entertaining cat videos from around the globe.
And here's the cool part: One of them could be yours!
"We want local folks to show off their own funny cat videos, too," said THT operations manager Haley Rice in a press release. "If you catch your cat being weird, or funny, or adorable, or just being a cat, send the video to us. Your cat could be an overnight star."
And since your cat already knows that he or she is awesome, why not toss your video in the ring? To submit one — no more than 30 seconds long! — go here. Submission deadline is August 30.
Then, between September 1 and 12, members of the public will be invited to vote for their favorite video here.
Tickets are already on sale for the Cat Video Festival, showing twice on Saturday, September 13, at 2 and 7 p.m., on the THT website.
Meow?
Tags: cat videos , Town Hall Theater , Middlebury , Cat Video Festival , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
The Great Vermont Corn Maze in Danville is in full swing for the 16th year. This year, the complex 10-acre maze, which takes visitors one to five hours to complete, sports a design featuring a prehistoric theme and an 80-foot velociraptor. “What we try to do every year is pick a design that people will get a kick out of,” says owner Mike Boudreau.
To create the intricate design, Boudreau and his family begin by designing a scaled image on graph paper. In June, when the corn is only a couple of inches tall, they go into the field and mark the trails using a tape measure, a 500-foot stick and the graph-paper map as a guide. It takes the family about six weeks to finish cutting the trails.
The maze is open daily through most of October, weather permitting. Boudreau suggests that visitors come early in the day, pack water and be prepared to spend about three hours at the site.
Stuck In Vermont: Great VT Corn Maze
Tickets for the scary four-night Halloween event “Dead North” go fast. For those who prefer not to get lost — and terrified — in the tall stalks after dark, Boudreau offers a Barnyard Nature Center with cute animals, and even Barnyard Golf featuring something called “cow canes.”
The Great Vermont Corn Maze, at 1404 Wheelock Road in Danville, is open daily through October 19 from 10 a.m. No one may enter past 3 p.m. $10-15.
Tags: corn maze , danville , dead north , mike boudreau , Video , Image , Web Only
Saturday, August 9, 2014
I am baffled when I hear people complain about the lack of films available on Netflix's streaming service. It's a digitized treasure trove of cinema history, people. It may be that the interface of the Netflix app — which, on the PS3 at least, is highly crappy — does not really encourage digging very deeply. But this is another matter altogether (and one that, honestly, I wish Netflix would address); Netflix's digital library is a vast and wondrous thing. All the more so because, as I understand it, the streaming rights for their films and shows are negotiated on a title-by-title basis. You can be fairly confident that much of your monthly subscription fee funds the health care plans of the company's legion of copyright attorneys.
If, like me, you're fond of old, obscure Hollywood films, you could do a lot worse than trolling through Netflix's catalog. I could watch run-of-the-mill Tim Holt westerns and Virginia Mayo potboilers all day long. A few days ago, as part of my effort to clear out my overloaded queue, I finally got around to watching The Killer Is Loose, 1956 policier directed by one of the all-time greats, Budd Boetticher.
Tags: film , movies , what i'm watching , the killer is loose , budd boetticher , joseph cotten , wendell corey , staging , misdirection , Image , Web Only
Friday, August 8, 2014
This week in movies you missed: At a time when drug wars and their casualties are making headlines, this 2013 documentary by Shaul Schwarz offers a harrowingly intimate look inside Mexico's Ciudad Juárez, the city that was, until recently, the murder capital of the world.
Since the film was shot, the inter-cartel violence may have moved elsewhere, but its causes haven't receded.
What You Missed
In 2010, photojournalist Schwarz was covering "narco culture" for a National Geographic story. One day he went straight from the site of two murders in Tijuana to a Californian club where a popular narcocorrido band was celebrating the culture of drug violence. "He was still covered in blood," writes Coburn Dukeheart in this Nat Geo story:
The bizarre collision of witnessing actual violence, paired with people celebrating killing in the music of the narcocorridos, totally jarred him. It was at that moment he decided to make the film.
Schwarz spent three years with sources in Juárez and Los Angeles, gaining their trust and getting footage with a crew of just two (himself and a soundman/interpreter).
Tags: narco cultura , shaul schwarz , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
We confess we're a tad late to the party on this one — the EP was released about a month ago. But since it took the band, like, 10 freakin' years to release their last album, A Small Arrival, we're not feeling too bad about that.
(Also, we confess to a slight conflict of interest with all things Swale, as the band's bassist is Tyler Bolles, aka my little brother. However, Ty doesn't play on this cut, so there.)
Listen to the entire EP below. And download that sucker here.
Tags: Swale , Ryan Miller , Tyler Bolles , the Physics Club , Daryl Rabidoux , The Next Instead , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Those walking near, and working inside, the Cherry Street office spaces of the Burlington Town Center recently may have noticed the weird plastic-y material swathing the building's exterior.
According to Matthew Chabot, general manager of BTC, that's a mostly blank plastic scrim that, come October, will bear a yet-to-be-determined "healthy lifestyle" image above L.L. Bean's new store in the downtown mall — the company's first location in Vermont.
"We do anticipate that L.L. Bean will be putting up a lifestyle image on the façade of the Cherry Street building," Chabot confirms, though he won't comment on the specifics.
Several graphic options are being discussed with the "Bean Team," he says, and the image won't be complete until late September or early October, when the outdoor retailer is scheduled to open.
"We’re working closely with their marketing department to make sure it reflects the healthy lifestyle consistent with what we have here in Vermont," Chabot says.
Tags: burlington , burlington town center , LL bean , Image , Web Only
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Miike is all over the map — not just in terms of quality but in his devil-may-care stylistic attitude. Dude will use any and every technique to make his films visually arresting.
Sukiyaki Western Django is an embodiment of Miike's inconsistency. It may be the one film of his that best encapsulates all that is good, bad and ugly about his style. A lurid, blood-splattered hodge-podge of a movie, Sukiyaki Western Django (hereafter SWD) is a veritable catalog of genres, emotions, narrational tones ... and everything else.
Tags: film , movie , what I'm watching , sukiyaki western django , western , takashi miike , miike , genre , yojimbo , japanese film , spaghetti western , Image , Web Only
Friday, August 1, 2014
This week in movies you missed: a movie that decisively answers the questions: Why has no one ever made a Christopher Guest-style mockumentary about aspiring novelists? With the number of self-published books mounting every year, isn't this a phenomenon ripe for satire? Aren't amateur writing groups at least as easy to mine for comedy as dog shows, folkies and community theater?
Judging by Authors Anonymous, nope.
What You Missed
An invisible documentary crew introduces us to six unpublished LA writers who meet regularly to share their work. They include:
- a breathy yoga-teacher-turned-romance-novelist (Teri Polo) who calls her Slavic-themed erotic opus Nyet Not Yet
- her hubby and bankroller (Dylan Walsh), an optometrist who likes to dictate "ideas for a screenplay/novel/character" to his digital recorder but never seems to write anything
- a crusty, flag-waving gun enthusiast (Dennis Farina) who fancies himself the next Tom Clancy but resorts to a company called U R the Publisher to put out his thriller
- a young man (Jonathan Bennett) who idolizes Charles Bukowski and constantly asks to borrow money, explaining that his working-class authenticity depends on insolvency
- a pizza-delivery-man-cum-carpet-cleaner (Chris Klein) who hopes to be the next Fitzgerald
- a Sweet Young Thing (Kaley Cuoco) who is writing a novel but doesn't appear ever to have read one
Tags: authors anonymous , ellie kanner , kaley cuoco , dylan walsh , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only