Like Anna Karina's Sweater

Chaos Reigns! - The Unofficial Soundtrack to the 2009 New York Film Festival

Filmbrain — 2009-10-09T11:17:36-04:00

After a two month unplanned hiatus, Like Anna Karina's Sweater is back, and with a new look to boot. It was never my intention to stay away for so long, but matters both personal and professional consumed nearly all of my waking hours. Running a small business in this economic climate, and specifically a DVD business -- well, let's just say that the money isn't pouring in. Still, there are some very exciting developments with Benten/Watchmaker that will be announced in the coming weeks.

As a means of celebrating the blog's revival, I thought I'd offer a gift to all of you -- an unofficial (and unauthorized) soundtrack to the 2009 New York Film Festival, which is currently in its waning days. I'll have much more to say about the festival in future posts, which was quite a mixed bag this year, but not without a few genuine surprises (Hadewijch) as well as the inevitable "how-did-this-wind-up-here?" bombs (Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire).

Putting together the following compilation was a labor of love, and I spent what can only be described as an unhealthy amount of time tracking some of them down. It's certainly far from complete, and there are a few critical tracks I wanted to add but couldn't find information about them (namely, two songs from Hadewijch).

For those not in the know, the ingenue on the makeshift CD cover is Sylvia Miles, who's been in everything from Midnight Cowboy to Wall St. to Go Go Tales. She's been a staple at the NYFF press screenings for ages, and this year she made an unexpected appearance in a podcast I recorded with Aaron Hillis and Armond White.

Fifteen tracks that make up an eclectic mix, to say the least. I did my best to find a sequencing that isn't too schizophrenic, and I'm extremely proud of the Handel --> Bobby Brown segue. I'd like to give a special thanks to Gina Telaroli who helped me out with some of the tracks from films that played at Views From the Avant Garde. Download links are below. If you like it (or even if you hate it), please leave a comment. Enjoy!

Tracklisting:

20th Century Fox Fanfare (Wild Grass)
Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (The White Ribbon)
Johnny Guitar - Jeanne Balibar (Ne Change Rien)
The Werewolf Song - Cat Power (Broken Embraces)
Ich hab Dich Lieb - Herbert Grönemeyer (Everyone Else)
Calvary - Baby Dee (To Die Like a Man)
My Tears Are Dry - Hoagy Lands (My Tears Are Dry)
Lascia Ch'io Pianga - Tuva Semmingsen (Antichrist)
Humpin' Around - Bobby Brown (Precious)
Nu Te Parasesc Iubire - Mirabela Dauer (Police, Adjective)
Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye - Mohd. Rafi (Pyaasa)
To All The Girls I've Loved Before - Willie Nelson & Julio Iglesias (Everyone Else)
Heard Somebody Say - Devendra Banhart (Life During Wartime)
Storms - Fleetwood Mac (If There Be Thorns)
How Can I Tell You - Cat Stevens (Everyone Else)

Links - The RAR file is 91mb. The Rapidshare link will be faster for those with paid accounts, obvs.

Download via filmbrain.com

Download via Rapidshare

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19 - We Have a Winner!

Filmbrain — 2009-07-29T21:10:20-04:00

The extra-long all-opening-credits round of the Filmbrain Screen Capture Quiz is finally over!

Regular contestant Max G. was the lone voice in the wind this week as he (somehow!) recognized the blue curtain and moon behind it from the opening of Francis Ford Coppola's One From the Heart, a desert-island movie if ever there was one.

This is the film that drove Coppola into bankruptcy, and forced him to take on studio fare such as the truly awful Jack. But you know what? It was worth it. Rebuilding Vegas on a soundstage allowed DP Vittorio Storaro to do unbelievable things with lights. And then of course there are the songs by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle....sheer bliss.

Congratulations to Max for getting a perfect score -- I'm thoroughly impressed. I'd also like to thank everybody else who participated in what turned out to be the most successful round yet!

Check back next week (or maybe in two...three...) for an all new round!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19 - Tiebreaker 1

Filmbrain — 2009-07-22T12:40:41-04:00

A quick correction to last week's post. There are in fact four people with perfect scores, not three as I had reported.

Here's the first of the tiebreaker quizzes. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19 - We (Don't) Have a Winner!

Filmbrain — 2009-07-17T10:11:25-04:00

A day (or two) late and a dollar short.

Wednesday came and went, as did Thursday. It was only late last night that I found the time to tally up the entries for the round. It appears there are three people who managed to get all sixteen correct, and as a result a tie-breaker round (or rounds) will be needed.

I'll have to spend some time this weekend thinking and searching for additional interesting title sequences. Check back on Wednesday for the first tie-breaker.

[Update: Forgot to include the answer to last week's quiz. It was of course The Mouse that Roared, hence the rodent on the pedestal that frightened away the Columbia Torch Lady.]

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19, Week 16

Filmbrain — 2009-07-08T19:23:05-04:00

A variation of the 20th Century Fox logo on a Los Angeles billboard appears at the beginning of Mel Brooks' triumphant experiment, Silent Movie, from 1976. There were some pretty far-out guesses (Aliens?) but most managed to work it out.

I wrote a primer of sorts this week on the films of Sion Sono (Love Exposure, Suicide Club) over at Greencine Daily. It was meant to be peppered with quotes, but my allotted interview time with him was cut severely short. Very frustrating. I also participated in an email exchange with Fin de Cinema's Joe Bowman about Love Exposure, which will appear on The Auteurs Notebook sometime this week. It's been a week of Sono on the brain-o. [Update: Click here to read the discussion.]

Well, here we are at the final quiz of this extended round. I had hoped to close it with something from an end credits sequence, but couldn't find anything interesting enough on short notice.

This week: Another bit of fun with an iconic studio logo. Name the film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19, Week 15

Filmbrain — 2009-07-01T12:21:42-04:00

Not "3T" but a reversed French "ET", from the end credits that are the opening credits of bad boy Gaspar Noé's Irreversible. Only a few managed to identify it, but the range of answers was certainly interesting -- everything from Godard, to Hartley, to Miike and even Tom O'Horgan. Well spotted, fellow fans of rampant misanthropy.

The Smashing Pumpkins song referred to in the alt-text? The End is the Beginning is the End, of course.

This week: Where will you find this art-deco-ish version of the 20th Century Fox logo? Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19, Week 14

Filmbrain — 2009-06-24T13:01:01-04:00

Yeah, yeah...my alt-text clues are way too easy. I thought artificial sweeteners were beyond passé, and therefore no longer part of the zeitgeist. Shows to go ya....

A Woody Allen credit sequence is a Woody Allen credit sequence...etc. and though Santo Loquasto has served as production designer on over 79 of the Woodmans' films, it was Sweet & Lowdown from whence the capture came.

Though my posts here (outside of the quiz) have dwindled to naught (as the song goes, a change is gonna come), I'm still spouting off on things cinematic and alcoholic on Twitter: Filmbrain in bite-size morsels. Stop by and say hello.

I was under the impression that this was the final quiz of this extended round, but only now did I realize that there's still two weeks more. Oh well.

This week: it's all about the alt-text clue. Have tried for new heights in vagueness. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19, Week 13

Filmbrain — 2009-06-17T12:38:26-04:00

Here I was thinking that last week's quiz was too difficult. Not the case, apparently, as few of you had problems spotting Powell and Pressburger's 1945 romcom, I Know Where I'm Going. As mentioned last week, it's a remarkable credit sequence that doubles as a bit of back-story on our heroine Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller).

A quick plug: This Friday sees the start of the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival, and the Subway Cinema gang have truly outdone themselves this year. I've been trying to cram in as many titles as possible, and one of them, Sono Sion's Love Exposure is a must-not-miss. Don't let the four-hour running time frighten you -- there's not a dull minute in this complex psycho-drama that deals with religion, guilt, sin, voyeurism and, yes, love. At the moment it's the best undistributed film I've seen in 2009. I'll be writing about this film and (perhaps) others over at The Auteurs in the coming weeks.

This week's quiz: definitely unfair. Or is it? Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19, Week 12

Filmbrain — 2009-06-10T12:49:30-04:00

Years before he directed Forrest Gump 2, David Fincher was up to much nastier things, like putting Gwyneth Paltrow's head in a box. A genuinely disturbing serial-killer film, Seven (or, Se7en, if you prefer) hasn't lost any of its punch fourteen years later. Kyle Cooper's opening credit sequence does a magnificent job of setting the tone, and it's full of freeze-frame treats, as last week's quiz revealed.

The alt-text clue was a reference to the fairly-unknown Soviet film Pyshka (Пышка), from 1934, a poster of which is shown hanging in Brad Pitt's apartment. (It's a detail that always bothered me -- I never bought that a none-too-bright detective would have own such a poster. Oh well.)

This week's quiz is significantly more difficult. It's somewhat unique in that the credits are buried within an expository sequence, as you can see a bit of on the side of the truck. Good luck! Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19, Week 11

Filmbrain — 2009-06-03T10:15:57-04:00

1989 the number, another summer.... Can you believe it was nearly 20 years ago today (well, in about three weeks) that Spike Lee's controversial and groundbreaking Do The Right Thing was released? I was working in London at the time, where the film actually opened a week before the US release. The papers there were predicting riots, and there were calls from some sectors for a boycott. There was something almost surreal about seeing a film so specific to my home in an environment so far removed from what was on the screen. That the post-screening discussion with colleagues was, how shall I say, less than progressive only increased my desire to be back in NYC.

There were some questions about the Obama reference in the alt-text clue: on their first-ever date, Barack and Michelle went to see Spike's film. Not the greatest date film, but perhaps an inspiring one? Fight the power indeed.

This week -- an opening credit sequence that is even more unsettling than the film that follows. Too easy, but too good not to include. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19, Week 10

Filmbrain — 2009-05-27T16:44:25-04:00

Just realized it's Wednesday.....three-day weekends really mess with my schedule.

Retro in more than just its title sequence, Peyton Reed's Down With Love was a PoMo twist on the Doris Day/Rock Hudson romantic comedies (Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back) of the early 60s. It's far from perfect, and I didn't actually catch up with it until a couple of years ago, but its charm supersedes its flaws. There were, perhaps unsurprisingly, only a handful of correct submissions. Congrats to those that got it.

To answer a question asked by more than a few people -- yes, I have every intention of bringing the blog back to life. The short reason for the delay -- not enough hours in the day. Between work on Benten's upcoming release The Good Times Kid, planning for Fish Eyes, writing the occasional review for Time Out New York, and finalizing the deals on some very exciting future projects, there's just been little time to write anything longer than 140 characters. Yes, I've been bitten by the Twitter bug. Horrifying.

This week's belated entry -- a reprieve after last week's challenging one. Everyone should know this film. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19, Week 9

Filmbrain — 2009-05-20T11:35:17-04:00

Those who know me best know that I have more than a slight problem with the films of Steven Spielberg. The mommy/daddy issues, his cheap overuse of child-in-peril moments, and his utter lack of subtlety. (But I don't wish to open that can of worms now.) Yet his 2002 biopic, Catch Me If You Can, hit all the right notes (even if it did have its fair share of mommy/daddy issues.) This was Spielberg working in a classic-Hollywood vein, and it begins with the opening credits, which are an homage to Saul Bass, brilliantly executed by Kuntzel & Deygas.

The noise this week in film-land is of course the Cannes Film Festival, and no other film has attracted even a tenth of the attention given to Lars von Trier's Antichrist, which left viewers shocked, angry, disgusted, etc. Naturally there were the old cries of "misogynist", which, as in the past, are terribly misguided. I've been searching for an article I read some years back that filters LvT's alleged misogyny through the philosophy of Luce Irigaray -- if I find it I'll post something about it. While it's true I haven't yet seen Antichrist, I'm confident Lars' ethos has remained the same.

This week -- something not dissimilar to Catch Me If You Can. But the question is -- original period piece, or throwback? Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19, Week 8

Filmbrain — 2009-05-13T11:06:49-04:00

I'm not a huge fan of establishing shots, yet the credit sequence of Dog Day Afternoon, which is nothing but a montage (set to an Elton John song) that keys us in to place and temperature, works extremely well. It's a travelogue of the NYC of my youth, and it does succeed in setting the mood and tone of the film. The way Sonny and Sal suddenly appear towards the end is kind of wonderful.

The alt-text clue refers to the aforementioned Elton song, Amoreena, which comes after Love Song on Tumbleweed Connection.

I'd like to thank quiz regular JKM, who identified the film on the marquee as Linda Can't Stop aka The Big Thing, starring Tina Russell and Jamie Gillis. There was some behind-the-scenes discussion about which theater that is, yet nothing conclusive. It's proximity to an elevated subway rules out Manhattan, but that still leaves a handful possibilities in three other boroughs.

I appreciate the comments left re: film students in the 90s. Yes, this was the era when everybody wanted to be the next Tarantino, sign a deal with Harvey & Bob, etc. I do agree with Urko's assessment that things are improving, though I still feel many of today's young filmmakers could do with a bit more time spent in the dark with those that came before them.

This week -- back to the stylish credit sequence. This comes from a film that even I was surprised I liked. Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 19, Week 7

Filmbrain — 2009-05-06T07:22:00-04:00

About ten or twelve years ago I was at a party with a handful of film students from a well-known, ridiculously expensive university in New York. We were discussing the history of American cinema, and what I found alarming was that quite a few of them spoke of Mean Streets (the source of last week's quiz) as the first truly important American film in all of history. Sure, they recognized the role played by a handful of earlier films (the obvious ones) but they considered Scorsese's 1973 masterpiece as the first American film that was an uncompromising personal vision, but also commercial. (It's influence on Reservoir Dogs was also noted.) I wish I was making this up.

The alt-text clue threw quite a few of you, with many guesses of one Robert Blake film or another. Of course the Blake in Mean Streets is William, he of "Tyger! Tyger! burning bright" fame, which of course is recited in the film.

This week -- another image from the same mean streets. This one's a bit harder, for it's not a credit sequence that typically jumps to mind, but it's damn good. There are a few visual clues to help date the film, but it's still a tough one. Oh...can anybody make sense of the line above A Star is Born? Looks like Tina (or Stina?) in The Big Thing -- but there's no such film that I can find. A porno perhaps? Submit your answers to this address. Good luck!

Tribeca Film Festival 2009: The Upside of the Downturn

Filmbrain — 2009-05-04T10:37:32-04:00

It came as no surprise earlier this year when the Tribeca Film folks announced that the festival would be the victim of downsizing -- after all, it is a highly sponsored event, and in the current economic climate corporations clearly don't want to be handing over barrels of cash towards a film festival. (In related news, Volkswagen just announced they would no longer be sponsoring the Berlinale.) As a result, the festival's program was significantly reduced, with the number features not even reaching triple digits.

Yet was this necessarily a bad thing? In conversations with fellow critics and regular festival-goers, the consensus seems to be that this year's leaner, meaner festival was more solid, and had far fewer of the "what-the-heck-was-this-doing-here" kind of films.

It was an extremely good year for first fatures -- of course there was the magnificent Fish Eyes (which Benten acquired), Damien Chazelle's 16mm black & white musical Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, Jake Goldberger's Don McKay, Darko Lungulov's Here and There, Omri Givon's Seven Minutes in Heaven, and Rune Denstad Langlo's North, which walked away with the prize for Best New Narrative Filmmaker.

Sadly, I didn't get to see nearly as many films as I would have liked, as the negotiations for Fish Eyes took the better part of five days and nights. Long, long nights. Fortunately, I'll be able to catch up with a handful of them via screeners.

I've written reviews of two debut features, Here and There and Seven Minutes in Heaven, and they can be found over at GreenCine.