The Ann Arbor Film Festival, having survived their half-a-century blowout in 2012, is back with another rip-roarin’ 51st edition in 2013, which will run from March 19-24, screening a mind-boggling amount of experimental short films and a few features.
Highlights of the fest include:
Special presentations by this year’s jurors, including Marcin Gizycki round-up of Polish animation from the 1950s to the present; Laida Lertxundi’s selection of some of her films as well as her biggest influences; and Kevin Jerome Everson’s mini-retrospective of his own films.
There’s also special tributes to Pat O’Neill, including a retrospective of his short films from the ’70s to the present as well as a screening of his 1989 35mm experimental epic Water and Power; Suzan Pitt, with selections of short films from her career; and a screening of Ken Burns’ latest doc The Central Park Five, co-directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and son-in-law David McMahon,...
Highlights of the fest include:
Special presentations by this year’s jurors, including Marcin Gizycki round-up of Polish animation from the 1950s to the present; Laida Lertxundi’s selection of some of her films as well as her biggest influences; and Kevin Jerome Everson’s mini-retrospective of his own films.
There’s also special tributes to Pat O’Neill, including a retrospective of his short films from the ’70s to the present as well as a screening of his 1989 35mm experimental epic Water and Power; Suzan Pitt, with selections of short films from her career; and a screening of Ken Burns’ latest doc The Central Park Five, co-directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and son-in-law David McMahon,...
- 3/19/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Once upon a time (specifically, the late eighties to the mid-nineties), there was one gig available to any person with even the smallest modicum of fame: releasing a workout video. You didn’t need to have any particular background in exercise; all you needed was a really loud spandex outfit (or, if a senior citizen, a roomy sweat suit), a camera crew, and a very cheap set, and you had yourself a VHS release. This was a glorious era that reveled in the complete and total absence of irony, a notion readily apparent in the collection of these vintage tapes we found on the YouTube channel of Aaron Valdez. Valdez tells us he amassed his collection through “eBay but also at garage sales, thrift stores, and from friends, and after about a year, I had over a hundred.” What makes the collection particularly delicious is, as Valdez puts it, that...
- 8/30/2012
- by Eliot Glazer
- Vulture
This Week’s absolute Must Read proves exactly why you should never absolutely trust what you read on IMDb. You may think it’s a 100% accurate website, but you’d be wrong. How wrong? The Temple of Schlock runs down the data on a bevy of ’70s exploitation films that are mis-dated, mis-credited and mis-titled. Posts like this prove how invaluable a research website the Temple is. Invaluable, I tell you! Plus, they have the ad mat for ’72′s Outside In, another incorrectly credited film.The Village Voice wrote up a very lengthy profile of NYC icon Lloyd Kaufman. About freakin’ time they did!Plus, 366 Weird Movies has the full rundown of Troma movies on YouTube. And, is Meshes of the Afternoon a “weird” movie?Salise Hughes releases an original digital drawing based on her upcoming Charades project that is really, really cool looking.Aryan Kaganof posted up a scan...
- 7/8/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
The Easter Bunny loves you. Some great eggs below:
This Week’s Must Read: Jack Sargeant with a really great, detailed piece on the career of New York underground filmmaker Carey Burtt. I mentioned recently on Bad Lit’s Facebook page that Burtt hasn’t gotten enough love and appreciation for his films that he deserves, so this article warmed our cold little hearts immensely. (Image above from Burtt’s classic Mind Control Made Easy.)Frieze has a report on a fairly recently unearthed, previously lost 8mm film by Rudolf Schwarzkogler of the Viennese Actionist art movement, which sheds much needed light on the working process of the filmmaker who passed away in 1969. (P.S. Mr. Sargeant tipped us off to this article, as well.)Rick Trembles has cast another very obscure flick, the 1971 experimental sex farce The Telephone Book, into Motion Picture Purgatory. The film features appearances by Warhol superstars Ondine and Ultra Violet.
This Week’s Must Read: Jack Sargeant with a really great, detailed piece on the career of New York underground filmmaker Carey Burtt. I mentioned recently on Bad Lit’s Facebook page that Burtt hasn’t gotten enough love and appreciation for his films that he deserves, so this article warmed our cold little hearts immensely. (Image above from Burtt’s classic Mind Control Made Easy.)Frieze has a report on a fairly recently unearthed, previously lost 8mm film by Rudolf Schwarzkogler of the Viennese Actionist art movement, which sheds much needed light on the working process of the filmmaker who passed away in 1969. (P.S. Mr. Sargeant tipped us off to this article, as well.)Rick Trembles has cast another very obscure flick, the 1971 experimental sex farce The Telephone Book, into Motion Picture Purgatory. The film features appearances by Warhol superstars Ondine and Ultra Violet.
- 4/8/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Yes, the Oscars are being held tonite and despite Bad Lit’s predilection towards underground film, we will be watching, red carpet and all. But, if you want to kill time during the commercials, then consider clicking on some extra links below and boning up on non-Oscar film.
This week’s Absolute Must Read is J. J. Murphy’s Best Indie Films of 2011 list and commentary. In general, I rarely read movie reviews, but I find Murphy’s reviews to always be so insightful, educational and entertaining, that I savor every word of them — and you should, too! I’m also 100% with him when he discusses the issues of writing about over-looked and under-appreciated movies. It can be absolutely heartbreaking work, but we do it because we love it. And the other thing about Murphy’s reviews is that they always make me want to run right out and see...
This week’s Absolute Must Read is J. J. Murphy’s Best Indie Films of 2011 list and commentary. In general, I rarely read movie reviews, but I find Murphy’s reviews to always be so insightful, educational and entertaining, that I savor every word of them — and you should, too! I’m also 100% with him when he discusses the issues of writing about over-looked and under-appreciated movies. It can be absolutely heartbreaking work, but we do it because we love it. And the other thing about Murphy’s reviews is that they always make me want to run right out and see...
- 2/26/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Motion Picture Purgatory cartoonist Rick Trembles has moved from purgatory and into hell recently thanks to what appears to be a possible illegal eviction by his landlord. A Montreal news station covers the story and interviews Trembles who provides some damning evidence. The turmoil has left Trembles in a bad way, so if there’s any way anyone reading this can throw him some work, he’d appreciate it. Lastly, his latest strip is a review of 1968′s Canuxploitation thriller Playgirl Killer.Cinemascope gives the true history of the filmmaking via cell phone phenomenon, giving rightful appreciation to Aryan Kaganof’s boundary-breaking SMS Sugar Man.Heard that old Bad Lit friend Christopher Folino (Gamers) has a new movie in the works called Sparks. Actually, I think it’s nearing completion and you can get a preview of it at its official website. Based on a comic book co-written with William Katt...
- 2/12/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Let's take a break from the flood of Sundance news and all the Oscar talk to look at one of the weirder indie projects out there: the crowd-assembled Star Wars remake. Star Wars Uncut is a project that started over two years ago when Casey Pugh invited Star Wars fans to do their own recreations of specific scenes from the 1977 film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Fifteen seconds at a time, fans made their own version of the '77 film, the most special of all editions. You might have seen the first assembled release [1] of Star Wars Uncut, but the entirety of the film has been re-edited into a more seamless whole, and it is the sort of weird, unpredictable ride that only the internet can provide. This movie is the internet, really, or at many of the internet's most common obsessions, all filtered through Star Wars. (Itself an internet obsession,...
- 1/25/2012
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
In October 2010, I shared with you some of the bits and pieces of Star Wars Uncut, a crowdsourced project that remade Star Wars in 15-second scenes, each scene done by fans in whatever manner of filmmaking and/or animation they chose. Now, you can watch the entire “movie” stitched together from the best of those scenes, assembled by video editor Aaron Valdez, with sound design/mixing by Bryan Pugh. Thrill to the thrilling trash-compactor scene:...
- 1/23/2012
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
After years of sorting through submissions and meticulous splicing and re-editing, Star Wars Uncut: Directors Cut is complete! For those of you who aren't familiar with the project, Swu:dc is a complete shot for shot remake of Star Wars Episode IV using 15 second clips submitted by fans from across the world!
Animators, actors, puppeteers, and surrealists alike all came together and delivered, and it was up to film and sound editors Aaron Valdez and Bryan Pugh to bring it all together.
The end result? Amazing. Some scenes are better than others, but all the clips are great in their own way.
Watch the entire movie below!
Email Me: MickJoest@Geektyrant.com Twitter: @MickJoest...
Animators, actors, puppeteers, and surrealists alike all came together and delivered, and it was up to film and sound editors Aaron Valdez and Bryan Pugh to bring it all together.
The end result? Amazing. Some scenes are better than others, but all the clips are great in their own way.
Watch the entire movie below!
Email Me: MickJoest@Geektyrant.com Twitter: @MickJoest...
- 1/21/2012
- by Robot Reagan
- GeekTyrant
Three or so years ago in a borough of Manhattan, then Vimeo programmer (and since Boxee developer and Vhx co-founder) Casey Pugh conceived of an idea to slice Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope into its 473 15-second components and solicit fans of the flick and amateur filmmakers from around the around the globe to claim a component or two and shoot, swede, animate or otherwise visually display in moving picture form their best reenactment of whatever quarter-minute scene they claimed. Pugh called the idea Star Wars Uncut, and then called on friends Jamie Wilkinson (the other Vhx co-founder) and Annelise Pruitt and family member Chad Pugh to help him develop a website where he could collect and display a rotating array of the user-submitted scenes. The website Wilkinson, Pruitt, and Pugh developed allowed for each 15-second component to be claimed for reenactment three times. Each individual reenactment was...
- 1/20/2012
- by Joshua Cohen
- Tubefilter.com
Once again, the Wndx Festival of Film and Video Art will be celebrating the best in new and classic Canadian avant-garde, experimental and underground filmmaking with a little flair for the international thrown in. Wndx’s 6th annual edition is set to run on Sep. 29 to Oct. 2 in the city of Winnipeg.
This year, Wndx is paying special homage to two great Canadian artistic filmmakers: The late Joyce Wieland and Guy Maddin. For Wieland, the fest is holding two special retrospectives of the experimental filmmaker’s works spanning from 1965 to 1984. (Wieland passed away in 1998.) The first retrospective on Oct. 1 is a collection of all short films, such as Cat Food (1969) and A&B in Ontario (1984), which was co-directed with he contemporary Hollis Frampton. The second retrospective on Oct. 2 includes Wieland’s feature film Reason Over Passion (1969), plus two shorts.
From Sep. 2 to Oct. 1, Wndx is hosting Guy Maddin‘s Hauntings installation at the Platform Gallery.
This year, Wndx is paying special homage to two great Canadian artistic filmmakers: The late Joyce Wieland and Guy Maddin. For Wieland, the fest is holding two special retrospectives of the experimental filmmaker’s works spanning from 1965 to 1984. (Wieland passed away in 1998.) The first retrospective on Oct. 1 is a collection of all short films, such as Cat Food (1969) and A&B in Ontario (1984), which was co-directed with he contemporary Hollis Frampton. The second retrospective on Oct. 2 includes Wieland’s feature film Reason Over Passion (1969), plus two shorts.
From Sep. 2 to Oct. 1, Wndx is hosting Guy Maddin‘s Hauntings installation at the Platform Gallery.
- 8/23/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Ultra brief edition this week. Sorry, folks, but a move in my personal life has prevented me from writing much lately. However, this first link just about makes up for it, in my opinion:
This week’s Must Look: Thanks to Aaron Valdez, Sid Caesar’s pelvic thrusts are the most disturbing thing I’ve just about ever seen.Congrats to the Boston Underground Film Festival for being picked Best Buffet Film Festival by the Boston Phoenix newspaper. The Phoenix says: “a refreshing event that acknowledges the beauty of underground cinema.” I usually just say Buff effin’ rocks, but same thing.Anthology Film Archives will be celebrating its 40th anniversary on April 27. They could use your help.Robert Putka released the first behind-the-scenes photo from his upcoming film Mouthful.Professor Tryon has a couple more review from the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, including ones for The Interrupters and Page One.
This week’s Must Look: Thanks to Aaron Valdez, Sid Caesar’s pelvic thrusts are the most disturbing thing I’ve just about ever seen.Congrats to the Boston Underground Film Festival for being picked Best Buffet Film Festival by the Boston Phoenix newspaper. The Phoenix says: “a refreshing event that acknowledges the beauty of underground cinema.” I usually just say Buff effin’ rocks, but same thing.Anthology Film Archives will be celebrating its 40th anniversary on April 27. They could use your help.Robert Putka released the first behind-the-scenes photo from his upcoming film Mouthful.Professor Tryon has a couple more review from the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, including ones for The Interrupters and Page One.
- 4/24/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
This week’s Absolute Must Read: Ian Olds has a long and touching remembrance of helping the late Garrett Scott make the documentary Cul de Sac, one of the greatest, little-seen documentaries ever made. Read and learn how genius comes together. It’s not an easy or pretty process.The second Absolute Must Read: Filmmaker Jennifer Reeves is thankful to be alive and ambulatory after being struck by a car. Send good wishes her way.Simple, but really cool: Phil Solomon posts up a film loop of about 4 frames that Stan Brakhage once gave him. Click Phil’s tiny image to get the embiggened version, which is quite astounding looking.The S.F. Weekly has a brief preview of this week’s Ata Film & Video Festival retrospective at the Roxie. The Weekly calls it “a killer selection of experimental works,” with which I have to agree!While the 2011 San Francisco...
- 4/17/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Here’s the full Underground Film Links post for today, 22 links in total:
According to Cineflyer, filmmaker Deco Dawson has issued a Cease and Desist Order to the The Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art for screening a film entitled The Lotus Eaters credited to artist Marcel Dzama, to which the museum has complied. At the heart of the matter is that Dzama’s film is really Dawson’s own Film(dzama), but with the proper credits cut off that attribute the film to Dawson. A strange and sad case.The Brooklyn Downtown Star newspaper profiled underground film couple Penny Lane and Brian Frye about their work-in-progress documentary Our Nixon, which is put together out of home movies made by the original Watergate gang.Rodney Perkins reprints his review of the return of Coffin Joe in José Marica Marins’ Embodiment of Evil, which will be released on DVD/Blu-Ray this week.
According to Cineflyer, filmmaker Deco Dawson has issued a Cease and Desist Order to the The Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art for screening a film entitled The Lotus Eaters credited to artist Marcel Dzama, to which the museum has complied. At the heart of the matter is that Dzama’s film is really Dawson’s own Film(dzama), but with the proper credits cut off that attribute the film to Dawson. A strange and sad case.The Brooklyn Downtown Star newspaper profiled underground film couple Penny Lane and Brian Frye about their work-in-progress documentary Our Nixon, which is put together out of home movies made by the original Watergate gang.Rodney Perkins reprints his review of the return of Coffin Joe in José Marica Marins’ Embodiment of Evil, which will be released on DVD/Blu-Ray this week.
- 3/27/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Tomorrow might be Valentine’s Day, but how about showing these great sites some love today?
To start things off on an inappropriately sleazy note: The Phantom of Pulp has several awesome — and one extra incredible — poster for one of my favorite horror movies, Maniac. “Underground film” means different things all over the world. In China, it just means government-repressed artists just trying to express themselves. Candlelight Stories has the full documentary Digital Underground in the People’s Republic by Rachel Tejada. Kimberly Chun as a lengthy dip into the current San Francisco experimental film scene on the site Bold Italic. Not sure what it is recently, but I keep digging up classic Chicago Underground Film Festival info. This week it’s the poster from their 4th edition designed by acclaimed graphic novelist Chris Ware. That’s from 1997 when the special guests were John Waters and Beth B. Also from...
To start things off on an inappropriately sleazy note: The Phantom of Pulp has several awesome — and one extra incredible — poster for one of my favorite horror movies, Maniac. “Underground film” means different things all over the world. In China, it just means government-repressed artists just trying to express themselves. Candlelight Stories has the full documentary Digital Underground in the People’s Republic by Rachel Tejada. Kimberly Chun as a lengthy dip into the current San Francisco experimental film scene on the site Bold Italic. Not sure what it is recently, but I keep digging up classic Chicago Underground Film Festival info. This week it’s the poster from their 4th edition designed by acclaimed graphic novelist Chris Ware. That’s from 1997 when the special guests were John Waters and Beth B. Also from...
- 2/13/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
It’s what every underground filmmaker dreams of. Heck, it’s what everybody who throws their videos up online dreams of! That their little mini-masterpiece will become a viral video sensation, embedded on mainstream news web sites and viewed by millions of people all over the globe. That’s exactly what happened to pop culture remix masters Wreck & Salvage, whose video Palin’s Breath — embedded above, of course — became even more popular than the video it was riffing off of. It became, in a day, a phenomenon. But, really, what goes into a viral hit? And do the makers of such media do it intentionally for the fame and the glory? Or, is it all just random?
Here’s the story behind the particular video above. On Wednesday, Jan. 12, a day of national mourning in honor of the horrific shooting in Tucson, Arizona the previous Saturday, during a time when,...
Here’s the story behind the particular video above. On Wednesday, Jan. 12, a day of national mourning in honor of the horrific shooting in Tucson, Arizona the previous Saturday, during a time when,...
- 1/17/2011
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Welcome to the last Underground Film Links post of 2010. I started this feature this year and it quickly became one of the most popular destinations on the site. Keep those great links coming in 2011!
Squeaking in under the wire, Wreck and Salvage’s Aaron Valdez comes up with the quote of the year, perhaps the quote of the century: “Who the f*** is Stan Brakhage compared to Charlie Chainsaw?” I’ve long felt the same thing, but have failed to put it quite so eloquently. Just to be clear: I am 100% absolutely not kidding. A big, special Bad Lit congrats to Andrea Grover, the new curator at the Parrish Art Museum in Sag Harbor, NY! I totally screwed up and forgot to post the news earlier that the always incredibly awesome Ata Film & Video Festival in San Francisco had a special touring program screen all the way over in Hong Kong earlier this month.
Squeaking in under the wire, Wreck and Salvage’s Aaron Valdez comes up with the quote of the year, perhaps the quote of the century: “Who the f*** is Stan Brakhage compared to Charlie Chainsaw?” I’ve long felt the same thing, but have failed to put it quite so eloquently. Just to be clear: I am 100% absolutely not kidding. A big, special Bad Lit congrats to Andrea Grover, the new curator at the Parrish Art Museum in Sag Harbor, NY! I totally screwed up and forgot to post the news earlier that the always incredibly awesome Ata Film & Video Festival in San Francisco had a special touring program screen all the way over in Hong Kong earlier this month.
- 12/26/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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