“Art & Copy”: Just See It
April 1, 2010 Comments »
It’s part of who we are. What we aspire to. What we talk about with our friends.
It’s a big part of pop culture…. and it’s fascinating. Why else would a show about a Madison Avenue ad agency is the 60s have made such a splash?
But unlike “Mad Men”, the documentary “Art & Copy” doesn’t use advertising as a backdrop to explore the social and gender dynamics of one of the most revolutionary decades in history, it shows us how advertising created a revolution through a series of historic campaigns and helps us understand the inspiration behind their creators.
Campaigns We’ll Never Forget
Nike’s “Just Do It” did much more than sell running shoes, it inspired people to lose weight, change careers, find love, and, ultimately, purse their goals and dreams.
Pretty powerful.
But even more amazing to me was learning that such an aspirational, carpe diem campaign, originated from a story about a death row inmate being executed. Its headline “Go Do It.”
And what about the “Got Milk?” campaign? I remember flipping through Glamour and other magazines and seeing ads of some of my favorite celebrities with milk mustaches. Simple. Brilliant. Memorable… and the genesis of a slew of other pop culture slogans on everything from t-shirts to bumper stickers.
Though I found Doug Pray’s behind-the-scenes look at how these campaigns were conceived interesting, the storyteller in me enjoyed learning about the creative motivation behind these advertising hall of famers even more—and understanding how the personal lives of the likes of Mary Wells and George Lois influenced their work.
They Almost Never Aired
I think of advertising as risk-taking, bold, perhaps, at times, controversial. Yet so many of the creatives who were hired to grab our attention by either entertaining or shocking us had to fight hard to get corporate America and their own agencies to buy into their innovative campaigns.
Not surprisingly many of them almost never made it onto the airwaves.
But despite those behind-the-scenes battles between left-brained executives and right-brained creatives, popular culture was forever changed by these campaigns.
And while copywriters and creatives no longer conceive of ads without even speaking to each other, one thing that’s remained a constant in advertising is that its success, its power comes from emotional impact.
If you want to move somebody to do something, you have to connect with them.
That’s the essence of advertising and the core of filmmaking.
Portrait of a War Hero
March 20, 2010 Comments »
Playing at the 5 Points Theatre through March 24.
Who was WWI’s most successful flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the Red Baron? Was he a cold-hearted killing machine, enamored with the thrill of shooting down hundreds of men during aerial combat?
“The best part is the chase, the fight, the hunt.”
Or was he a man intent on serving his country proudly who becomes deeply affected by the brutality and pointlessness of war?
“We just need an excuse for what we do, because without it we would know who we really are? ” von Richtofen exclaims.
In Nikolai Muellerschoen’s portrait of the man so revered across Germany and used by the government to rally the people and the troops behind what was an unwinnable war, the Red Baron is both.
The Man Behind the Legend
The film begins with some impressive aerial dogfights, as we’re introduced to the young, arrogant, handsome pilot.
Already I’m thinking, “Oh no, not another story about a cocky war hero who’s a ladies’ man.”
But as the film progresses and many of the Baron’s fellow flyers get killed, we see another side to the leader of Fighter Squadron Jasta 11 who became a poster boy for the German war effort.
When his close friend, a Jewish pilot Friedrich Sternberg is killed in combat, von Richthofen is devastated by grief and secludes himself for several days.
I felt empathy for this very young fighter pilot who begins to understand that war is not a game but a cruel endeavor that costs lives—the lives of people we deeply care about.
I was drawn to his humanity, his frailty.
When he gets the news that another good friend of his, Lieutenant Werner Voss, has been shot down, the Baron’s perception of what it means to be a fighter pilot forever changes, and he tries to convince the government to surrender in light of the war’s futility.
The Truth about War
Von Richthofen himself is injured in a dogfight and nursed back to good health by nurse Kate Otersdorf with whom he falls in love. She tries to get him to accept a post directing the war’s strategy so he will be out of harm’s way. But the Baron decides to continue flying out of respect for his men.
We’ve turned the world into a damn slaughterhouse and I’m already too big a part of it. They use my photograph to give hope where there is none. They use my name to feign immortality whereas the reality is annihilation. You said it yourself, the men dying out there have no choice. I have and I cannot order men into battle. I can, perhaps, lead them, help them, die with them, but I will not betray them or keep the truth from them by remaining the immortal god that Berlin wants me to be.
Though “The Red Baron” could have delved deeper in von Richthofen’s character, I was moved by the film’s portrayal of a war hero conflicted by the grim reality of combat.
5 Points Theatre Media Update 3/16
March 16, 2010 Comments »
1. We’re rounding out our Art Movie March with The Last Station and The Red Baron, both starting this Friday. The Last Station was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Plummer. The Red Baron is a fun European film featuring some great World War I dogfighting scenes. You can see the trailers here:
The Last Station
The Red Baron
And we’ve got Oscar-nominees The Messenger and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus for a few more days as well.
2. The line-up for the 2010 Citrus Cel Animation Festival will be complete in a day or so. It’ll be posted at www.citruscel.com.
The festival will feature the 2nd showing in Florida of the Oscar-nominated The Secret of Kells. You can watch the trailer here
We’ll also be premiering our online ticket purchasing system with this festival.
3. We are very excited to be opening The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on April 30th. This Swedish film was the highest grossing European film of 2009, and author Stieg Larsson was the 2nd highest selling author in the world last year (despite having died in 2004). It’s got a murder mystery based in Swedish history, punk hackers, everything. You can see the trailer here:
4. We have a great lineup of late night movies over the next month:
March 19 – Dr. Strangelove
March 26 – Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
April 2 – Eraserhead (and there will be a prime time repeat on April 5 at 6:30 pm
April 9 – Heavy Metal (in honor of the Animation Festival)
5. Our Dinner & A Movie promotion continues all March! Get dinner in 5 Points on a Wednesday night, bring in your receipt, and get a free movie ticket with purchase of one ticket!
The Best of Douglas Anderson Short Films
March 14, 2010 Comments »
Cinemania presents films produced by Douglas Anderson’s Cinematic Arts students.
Films include: “Symptoms,” “Stationary,” “The Kid,” “Inundation,” “P.O.,” and
“Slam Dunk”
Monday, March 15 at 6:30 PM (doors open @ 6).
Five Points Theatre
Admission is free.
Come out and support our community’s young filmmakers.
Selling Your Scripts to Hollywood Workshop
March 12, 2010 Comments »
Do you need an agent to sell your scripts to Hollywood? Definitely not.
SELLING YOUR SCRIPTS WITHOUT AN AGENT WORKSHOP
Saturday, March 13, 2010, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
University of North Florida, University Center, 12000 Alumni Drive, 32224
Instructor: Sharon Y. Cobb
In this one-day workshop you will learn: how to get your scripts directly to producers without agency representation; how to choose production companies that are most likely to want to read your scripts; where to find information about contacting producers and who to talk with at the companies. You will find out about websites used by professional Hollywood writers to keep up with what’s selling in Hollywood and also learn what happens when a producer wants to option or buy your scripts. This workshop is a must for aspiring screenwriters determined to break-in.
Registration Fee: $89
REGISTRATION INFO FOR ALL UNF SCREENWRITING WORKSHOPS:
Register online at www.learnjacksonville.com or call 904.620.4200.
“The Messenger”: A Message about the Impact of War
March 10, 2010 Comments »
Co-written with Scott Moses Murray
Starts Friday, March 12, at the Five Points Theatre.
The effects of war on soldiers, families, society… That’s one of the main themes of “The Messenger,” though I’m not entirely sure what the message of the film was.
Staff Sgt. Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), who was almost killed in Iraq and comes back a hero, starts working under Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) as part of a Bereavement Notification team.
They witness the anguish and indelible grief of the families who learn their sons, husbands, boyfriends and daughters were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as they deliver the tragic news without showing any emotion or empathy, and as Captain Stone emphasizes, without ever touching the NOK, next of kin.
Will struggles with that and, at times, feels compelled to hold the hand of the family members. And while the scars of those fallen in combat are fatal, the emotional scars that war has seared in the psyche of both men are played out in conversations, Tony’s battle with alcoholism and womanizing, and the empathy Will feels for the families he meets at each doorstep.
After being kicked out of houses and spit on by a grieving father, Will visits Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton) to tell her, her husband had died in combat. He becomes infatuated with her.
Perhaps what draws Will to Olivia is her empathy for the soldiers in their difficult assignment—”This can’t be easy for you,” she recognizes as (against procedure) she reaches out to shake their hands, as if to release them from any sense of guilt they may feel.
Though Will’s motivation is not made clear in the film, it may be that this physical contact and surprise role reversal breaks through his own pain and makes him feel more strongly that he should comfort the bereaved families in some way.
Will drives back to Olivia’s. He fixes her car. He delivers a flag to her son. He wants to help her get her life back together, but his attraction to her is confused and confusing.
Olivia’s response to receiving the flag kind of says it all. ”Flags and casseroles, we can’t seem to get enough of those.”
Those who haven’t been affected by war can’t possibly understand or experience the havoc that war wreaks on people’s lives—those in combat and those left behind.
Oscars Celebrate Indie Films
March 8, 2010 Comments »
It was a great night for independent film at the Oscars. From Mo’Nique’s Best Supporting Actress Award for “Precious,” to Jeff Bridges’ Best Actor award for “Crazy Heart” to the Best Picture and Best Director Awards for Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker.” Last night celebrated the power of story.
Despite “Avatar”’s groundbreaking computer generated animation which helped make it the biggest grossing movie of all time, a great film, and certainly an Oscar-winning film should center on story: how compelling it is and how it’s told through its script, actors and, of course, its cinematography and editing.
I’m thrilled the Academy focused on that last night.
Most of all as female filmmaker, I’m inspired by Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first woman to win the honor of Best Director. Women made up only 7% of, directors in 2009 and 8% of writers in Hollywood, according to the Women’s Media Center.
Hopefully, Bigelow paves the way for more women to crack Hollywood’s glass ceiling.
5 Points Theatre Media Update 3/5
March 5, 2010 Comments »
1. We are running our “Dinner & a Movie” promotion all through March. Every Wednesday it’s buy one movie ticket, get one free with a receipt from any restaurant in 5 Points. The attached flyer has all the details and fine print, and a list of all the movies playing.
2. The Citrus Cel animation festival is starting to take shape! It will be April 9th through 11th at the theatre. It will open with the amazing Oscar-nominated Secret of the Kells:
Saturday night will feature A Town Called Panic, a film that is described as “More Terrifying than Psycho, More Catastrophic than Armageddon, More Romantic than Casablanca.” Watch the trailer:
3. We’ve also set our late night movies for the next month:
March 5 (tonight!) – Pee Wee’s Big Adventure at 11:30 pm
March 12 – The Warriors at 11:30 pm
March 19 – Dr. Strangelove at 11:30 pm
March 26 – Priscilla, Queen of the Desert at 11:30 pm
April 2nd – Eraserhead at 11 pm
I have to keep reminding myself to stop calling them “Midnight Movies” – we start them after the 9 pm show. This can be a little confusing, but it does seem to make it easier for older folks (like me) to catch the movies.
4. We are continuing to host some really fascinating events:
March 9 – JCCI Forward “Operation Welcome Home” is a forum examining how veterans are returning to Jacksonville and the challenges they face. For more info, check out their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=353247436312&ref=mf
March 16 – The return of Pecha Kucha. We’re expecting another big crowd for this one: http://www.aigajacksonville.org/events/pecha-kucha-8/
March 23 – We’ll be hosting the St. Johns Riverkeeper’s Annual Meeting
April 2 & 3 – The Florida Coastal School of Law puts on The Vagina Monologues. That’s right.
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
March 4, 2010 Comments »
This review was originally posted by Sharon Cobb at FunnyFixx.com
Fall face-first into the Imaginarium of Dr. Terry Gilliam and take an outrageous ride through a surreal world you may not want to leave…depending on your imagination.
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is a delicious fantasy about Parnassus, his mystical traveling show and the ordinary people in their audience who get a chance to walk through the “looking glass” imaginarium into an extraordinary world. The world is their wildest dreams, their worst nightmares. It’s an exploration of their imagination and psyche, good, bad or indifferent.
Dr. Parnassus has a dark secret and it has something to do with immortality, Tom Waits…ah, Mr. Nick (the devil) and his first-born daughter whose 16th birthday is looming large. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is a visual feast of magical madness. It’s the kind of movie where you forget you’re in a theatre. Like many of the story’s London audience members, you volunteer to step into the Imaginarium with delight. You go along on the adventure with Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), Valentina (Lily Cole), Tony (Heath Ledger), Anton (Andrew Garfield) and Percy (Verne Troyer), hoping the journey is never-ending.
The film is a comedy, it’s a fantasy, it’s a drama. It’s delightfully difficult to pour into the dreaded marketing mold that rounds off the edges and flattens out capriciousness of any film run through the Hollywood factory.
Heath Ledger’s death caused by an accidental overdose of prescriptions meds during the filming of this movie was a shock to the actor’s fans and Hollywood. Ledger was 28, and although he died in Manhattan, he had been shooting The Imaginarium in London at the time of his death in January 2008.
After Gilliam decided to continue shooting and to finish the film in Ledger’s honor, he invited Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Ferrell to play “Imaginarium Tony #1, #2 and #3.” It was a stroke of brilliance, since the scenes shot with Depp, Law and Ferrell all take place in the extraordinary world of the Imaginarium, where imaginations determine physical being.
In an interview with Wired.com, Gilliam spoke about continuing production after Ledger’s death.
Wired.com: In the case of Imaginarium, after Ledger died, you reshot an early scene with a second actor to play the same minor character in order to establish the idea that people change appearance after they go through the magic mirror.
Gilliam: It’s all in my head, the kind of movie I’m making, so once I’ve got that happening, when I come up with a solution it’s always within the realm of the world that I’ve been working in. It’s just another way of looking at the world, Parnassus is doing that all the time, trying to encourage people to look at the world in a slightly different way. [To illustrate, Gilliam points to the hotel room TV set.] “That’s not a television. That’s a black hole in the wall. What happens if you fall into that black hole?” I’m very quick to do that and, frankly, it makes life bearable to me — the fact that I can keep on morphing the world into other things.
Wired.com: There’s a line in Imaginarium that sort of sums up Doctor Parnassus’ world view, something about the power of enchantment.
Gilliam: “The world is full of wonder for those with eyes to see.”
Read More of Wired.com’s interview http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/01/imaginarium-terry-gilliam/2/#ixzz0gm0CNXLb
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is a must-see film. Take your leap of imagination soon.
“Crazy Heart” Oscar Worthy? You Decide
March 1, 2010 Comments »
At the Five Points Theatre through March 11th
It’s a simple story about the failed American rock-and-roll dream and the sacrifices made to live a life on the road.
Despite “American Idol” catapulting the likes of Taylor Hicks and Jennifer Hudson to fame, millions of other singers spend each and every day aiming for that one big hit that will launch their careers.
“Crazy Heart” gives us a look at the less glamorous, less reported side of the music business—near failure.
But the film’s larger theme goes beyond the music world, capturing the realities of veering way off course after achieving success and the inspiration love can provide to get back on track.
Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is a washed up, alcoholic country singer playing in a bowling alley somewhere in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a single mom and journalist who’s admittedly made “some bad decisions” and sees the real man behind the faded legend.
Jean meets Bad after her uncle arranges for her to interview him for a newspaper feature. They get involved and fall in love.
But as in many love stories, things get complicated.
And the battle over whether to let your heart or your mind decide what your future holds is fought once again.
What’s the lesson?
One of them is that while love can motivate people to change, seeking something more out of life, finding a way to do the things you set out to do has to come from deep inside.
The music throughout the film is wonderful, and both Bridges and Gyllenhaal are stellar in their roles.
If you like stories about love and redemption, you’ll enjoy “Crazy Heart.”
It’s not a new story, but one we can all relate to as we wake up every morning in search of meaning and fulfillment, and try to figure out how we’re going to get there.
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Natalie Halpern is passionate about cultivating a vibrant cultural community in Jacksonville, through independent film.
Alex Martinez spends his free time working on photography, short films and is a strong supporter of independent film.
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Tad Kellermann future director of groundbreaking, genre-redefining motion pictures.
