Film in the West
international wildlife film festival
Climate Chaos: A Sea Change in the Film Industry?
The climate is changing. Not only is Earth’s atmosphere transforming, but the atmosphere among television broadcasters like the BBC, Animal Planet, and PBS is changing too. Slowly they are admitting the necessity of producing conservation films.
At this years International Wildlife Film Festival (IWFF), the topic of an environment in crisis dominated talk between filmmakers. Ten years ago, Festival delegates may have openly discussed their deep concern for nature, but the climate within the wildlife and science film industry was inhospitable to broadcasting stories with a conservation message. The tide has turned. This year, the IWFF celebrated its 30th year by choosing a BBC film about global warming, entitled Climate Chaos, as the best of festival winner. “I think the judges were sending a message,” said Climate Chaos producer Nicholas Brown.
The Festival became a weeklong clarion call to filmmakers to address the global environmental crisis.
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It was Hottern’ Two Cats in a Sock
The Trial, the Movie, the Underwear
Playing an extra in an Idaho Public Television movie made me glad to be a modern woman, because there’s a lot less underwear involved now than there was in 1907.
Ladies of the era known as the Edwardian period were trussed up like strangled mummies underneath the lace blouses, tight jackets, and sweeping skirts shaped by layers of petticoats made of something really scratchy.
It all made for a small-waisted feminine figure no doubt attractive to the men, but….oy.
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Movie About Bill Haywood Trial Needs Courtroom Extras
Guys Needed for Idaho Public TV Film
Idaho Public Television needs male extras – next week! – to play courtroom reporters and spectators in their film about Idaho’s 1907 “trial of the century.”
It’s another way to mark the centennial of the trial that caught the attention of the world and involved such luminaries as attorneys William Borah and Clarence Darrow.
Local historian and former Supreme Court Justice Byron Johnson says the trial shaped the future of American law. The eyes of the nation were on Boise when “Big Bill” Haywood was tried for the murder of former Gov. Frank Steunenberg. Steunenberg was killed by a bomb just outside his Caldwell home in December 1905, purportedly at the direction of the Western Federation of Miners.
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Say What?
Mountain Meadows Massacre: A Love Story?Uhh, what? Dean Cain is playing Joseph Smith in a movie and no one told me? While The Salt Lake Tribune is busy trifling over how that the upcoming Mountain Meadows Massacre centered flick, September Dawn might affect Mitt Romney’s presidential bid – I’m way more interested in bandying about thoughts of Dean “Beefcake” Cain (a.k.a. The worst Superman ever) depicting such a complicated and controversial Mormon icon on the big screen.
September Dawn’s plot is described this way by the Internet Movie Database, “A love story set during a tense encounter between a wagon train of settlers [who] face off against a renegade Mormon group.” As one of my 14-year-old nieces would say, “LOL.”
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Mike Judge knocks this one out of the park
The Best Animation Festival Yet
Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt are both animators and they noticed that there wasn't enough ways for people like them to get their names out into the world. Granted, Mike Judge is uber famous for his shows Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill -- but what about the little guys?
So these two fellas came up with The Animation Show and they sent it out on the road. This is the third year of The Animation Show and it just keeps on growing. Besides just touring the show city to city Judge is working on getting it aired on MTV2. Amazingly enough, this is the third animation festival to come to Missoula in just four months. Out of the three, this is by far my favorite. There are about a dozen amazing shorts in this festival. (Note: Even though there is no rating on the show, Judge suggests that no one under 10 see it because there is a little mild violence. )
The Animation Show 3 will be showing at the Crystal Theatre from April 24th-29th at 8:00. For $5 this could be the deal of the century. Why waste $8.50 at the Super Plex on some big-budget headache when you can see some cutting edge animation.
Colin Hickey is New West’s Events Editor. Keep an eye out for his “MVP Events” or check here to find your own: www.MissoulaEvents.net.
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Website highlights environmental documentary films
TERRA: Natural Science Filmmaking Nominated for Webby
Since there are limited outlets for short environmental films in the mainstream, a group of Montana State University film students launched Terra, described as a web-based independent Discovery Channel.
“As people are continuing to wake-up on their need to understand the environment, there has become more of a push for green filmmaking,” said Eric Bendick, Terra’s series producer. “We need to continue this green renaissance focusing on science, natural history and environmental issues.”
Currently, Terra is nominated for a Webby award — similar to the Oscars for the Internet —recognized for its video content created for web distribution. Selected out of 8,000 submissions, Terra is currently ranked in the No. 1 position for the People’s Voice in the student category. Click here to vote.
Focusing on environmental, natural history and science issues, Terra contains many documentary films relevant to Western issues, such as: The Last Run, focusing on declining Northern California Salmon populations; Black Tale, how the whirling disease is affecting Yellowstone biology; and Saving the Grizzly, the first DNA study of the grizzly in Glacier National Park.
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Schlock on Trial
Anschutz’s Witness Accuses Clive Cussler of Bad Writing
Since February, Denver businessman Phil Anschutz and Arizona-based writer Clive Cussler have been battling in court over the fate of the screen adaptation of Cussler’s 1992 Dirk Pitt adventure novel, Sahara, which was made into a box-office bomb of a movie in 2005 by Anschutz's Crusader Entertainment. (EW.com offers an informative timeline here.) Cussler filed a lawsuit over the fiasco, and Crusader Entertainment countersued. Tom McGhee of the Denver Post wrote about the lawsuits here--basically, each side says the other is to blame for the financial failure of the film. Last week, there was a development in the trial that should be of interest to writers: Screenwriting teacher Robert McKee (who played himself in a cameo as a screenwriting teacher in Adaptation) appeared as an expert witness for Crusader Entertainment and vilified Cussler for bad writing. Glenn F. Bunting of the L.A. Times quotes McKee as saying: "I mean, I cannot overstate how terrible the writing is. It is flawed in every way writing can be flawed."
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Music Friday
Kilmer Meth Movie Boosts Local Music
Word on the street is that Val Kilmer has a new documentary, American Meth, a stern warning about the dangers of methamphetamine. (Now I’ve never been a huge fan of The Drug War. And I have no particular bitch about drug usage in general, for that matter. But even I have to admit that meth is just downright gauche.) Right, well . . . point is that Mr. Kilmer has studded the film’s soundtrack with New Mexico musicians. Now this is what I like to see. Television and film licensing can be a lucrative undertaking for starving musicians. And what with all the filming going on around here, I’d sure like to see a lot more of it.
So congratulations to Jasper Brown, Jenny Marlowe, Nels Andrews, Hundred Year Flood, and Bernadette Seacrest. Live large, guys. Get your slice of the pie. And let’s hope that this is an indicator of great things to come for our music scene. Check out details on the film at http://americanmeth.org/
Wherever there are free films yearning to be seen, Ma, I'll be there
John Steinbeck Film FestivalThe Salt Lake City Film Center will be screening film versions of five classic John Steinbeck novels this weekend at the Salt Lake City Public Library's downtown location. All screenings will be held in the main auditorium and are free and open to the public. If you haven't seen these films before or have only caught them on the small screen, you should definitely try to catch as many as possible for...you guessed it...FREE!
Although all five films are excellent adaptations of the original novels, The Grapes of Wrath stands out in my mind as a particularly tight, poetic piece of filmmaking (as well as proof that once upon a very very long time ago...there was actually a Fonda who could act very very well).
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Conference on World Affairs
Conference on World Affairs Won’t be the Same Without Ebert
Organizers and attendees of CU's annual Conference on World Affairs received some sad news recently: Roger Ebert, who has appeared at the Conference for 37 years running, is too ill to attend this year. As the Rocky Mountain News reported today, "Ebert had surgery in June to remove a growth on his salivary gland; two weeks later, an artery burst near the surgery site, lengthening his recovery time." Ebert's appearances have always been one of the conference's biggest draws. According to Greg Glasgow of the Daily Camera, Ebert's "Cinema Interruptus," in which he stops a film repeatedly to answer audience questions and discuss it in detail, will continue "under the direction of Jim Emerson, a Seattle-based critic who runs Ebert’s Web site. "
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