1. A Milestone Film and Video press release on an event of great import and interest. Above images courtesy Milestone Films.
Dear friends in the press,
We are very happy to announce that after a six-year effort, Killer of Sheep will have its first-ever theatrical distribution! One of the most famous and acclaimed films by an African-American filmmaker, Killer of Sheep was one of the first 50 films to be selected for the Library of Congress' National Film Registry and was chosen by the National Society of Film Critics as one of the 100 Essential Films. But, due to music licensing problems, the film has rarely been screened, and then only in ragged 16mm prints. On the film's thirtieth anniversary, Milestone has cleared all the rights and will present the UCLA Film & Television Archive's dazzling 35mm restoration of this landmark film around the world. Killer of Sheep will screen first at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival and then has its US premieres in New York at the IFC Center on March 30 and in Los Angeles at the Nuart Theatre on April 6.
Killer of Sheep is set in Watts in the mid-1970s. Haunted by his work at a slaughterhouse, Stan, a sensitive dreamer, struggles to keep from becoming detached and numb. Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a coffee cup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife to the radio, holding his daughter. The film offers no solution, it merely presents life; sometimes hauntingly bleak, sometimes filled with transcendent joy and humor. Burnett says of the film: "Stan's real problem lies within the family, trying to make that work and be a human being. You don't necessarily win battles; you survive." Above all, Killer of Sheep is a magnificent cinematic experience; one that will change viewers' lives forever.
Milestone is also releasing a brand-new 35mm print of the Pacific Film Archive's restoration of My Brother's Wedding (Burnett's second feature), which will be available for special screenings. Also, Burnett's short films, The Horse, Several Friends and When it Rains, will be available for digital projection. The DVD of the box set will be released in the fall of 2007.
For information, please contact Dennis Doros at Milestone Film and Video. E-Mail: milefilms@aol.com; Phone: (800) 603-1104 or (201) 767-3117
2. "Because I Said So": Chaw vs. Keaton
["The best that can be said about this early contender for the worst film of 2007 is that it's properly keystone'd by Diane Keaton, who, between this and The Family Stone, cements her position as the most smug, insufferable, unwatchable persona in a long and tumescent line of such personae. She embodies the absolute worst of every single stereotype of the domineering mother: dotty, ditzy, Luddite, sexless/oversexed, cruel, racist, otherwise intolerant, and above all hysterical. Throw her psychotic mommy dearest from The Other Sister into the stew and it's hard to find a more stalwart movie monster in the last ten years than Keaton, who's gone from a charming neurotic to a cobwebbed, cell-phone-wielding vagina dentata."]
3. "Final 'Potter' launch on July 21": Which gives me an excuse to link to these photos: Bad Daniel! Bad!
["Harry Potter fans, the end is near. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the last of seven installments of J.K. Rowling's mega-selling international phenomenon, will be published July 21 -- at midnight, of course, a time to be marked by celebrations and more than a few tears, as Rowling wraps up the magical adventures of the boy wizard, his friends and his enemies."]
4. "Re-defining Video: Work by Kyle Canterbury": On Saturday, February 3rd, the Chicago Filmmakers venue presents a series of videos by the 17-year old experimental artist Kyle Canterbury. An introduction to his work by Fred Camper.
["Kyle Canterbury is a videomaker and abstract painter who lives in central Michigan. He began working in video in 2005 and started completing works in 2006. His pieces are all short. Many are "abstract," and those with recognizable scenes also use abstracting elements. Almost all his works are silent. While some have found his work filmic, he does not use film in making it and has no intention of transferring it to film. In fact, his work was designed to be viewed on cathode ray tube monitors, and while it survives showings on my LCD computer screen, I think it looks best on a CRT. While his first sense that film could be a formally controlled art came a few years ago with his discovery of Orson Welles, and especially his Touch of Evil, not long after he discovered Stan Brakhage via the Criterion DVD set, and several who have seen his work find a connection to Brakhage. His tastes in cinema, painting, and classical music are quite close to my own, and in fact he feels that his work is inspired by classical music as early as Léonin, and by painting as early as van Eyck, as much as by film. Because Canterbury is a close friend, I do not claim critical objectivity, and do not plan to publish on his work without also disclosing that he's a friend. I do think I have a good record of being able to view friends' work as clearly as any other."]
5. "The Hoff gets campy": Or, David Hasselhoff puts on a dress.
["David Hasselhoff's YouTube video rendition of Hooked on a Feeling was kitschy, but it might be rivalled by his appearance in a dress. The former Baywatch lifeguard takes on the role of flamboyant director Roger DeBris in the musical The Producers, which began preview performances today at the Paris casino-hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. The official opening takes place next Friday."]
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12 comments:
Amazing, amazing about Killer of Sheep. I saw it almost 12 years ago and really need to see it again. I remember it impressed me very much. I saw it in grad school, and in the same class we also watched Nothing But A Man (early 60s), which got a DVD release a few years back and is a stunning piece of work. It's a very early American independent film (Robert Young) and balances a melodramatic story with a neorealist shooting style. Wonderful film.
The release of the Burnett film is a very big deal, no doubt. Like you, I saw it in school, via one of the crappy 16mm prints referred to in the press release. For three decades Killer of Sheep has been a quasi-legendary movie, one that film culture, such as it is, agrees is great, but that very few people have actually seen. Now it'll actually get seen. Amazing.
Annie: Seconded on "Nothing but a Man." I have that on DVD and it's quite something.
David Thomson on Diane Keaton today.
Perhaps it's merely the circles in which I travel, but I've been shocked (what with its three female leads behaving quite awfully to everyone until they are each reprimanded and/or rescued by a man) that the women I know are near-unanimous in their love of The Family Stone.
I think Chaw might have cracked. I'm at work, and got 3/4 of the way through the review, before figuring I better read it later at home (if at all) lest a coworker misinterpret whatever I'm reading and I get fired. What's the movie actually about? Surely his description is metaphorical, but one never knows. Cheers.
This is exciting news re: Killer of Sheep. The listed price of $0.00 for the DVD fits into my budget, as well!
I've never seen the film, only heard of the legend. It sounds as if George Washington (the film, not the person) might have some indebtedness to it. Do you think DGG saw it in school as well?
God bless Walter Chaw. Hyperbole! More HYPERBOLE! Dude has ire to burn for centuries to come. I hope he never quits, as he has said he may, if only so I can laugh my way through such an angry review like this one (or his spot-on Nacho Libre screed) every time Hell stares WC in the face and draws swords. (Walter, you needn't run away: just don't go in the first place! But, of course, if you didn't go, I wouldn't get to enjoy this rant as much.)
I really can't stand that kind of scorched-earth film criticism, and I think it's bad for film culture as a whole.
Michael Tolkin said of Killer Of Sheep "... because it's one of the most interesting narrative films ever, since it suggests that poverty deprives people of a third act. If it were an Italian film from 1953, we would have every scene memorized." Great quote, eh? This is big news.
Also co-sign on "Nothing But A man".
Great news about Killer of Sheep, which I saw about 12 years ago as well. Add me to the list of admirers of Nothing But a Man too.
WC's howl may not be productive but it sure is a fun read: he knows language.
Saw Killer of Sheep six or so years ago when Burnett, who was in Manila at the time, lent me the VHS tape. Looked at it once, twice, was blown utterly away--Mean Streets encapsulated Italian American culture in the 70s, this did the same for black culture; if anything, I preferred Burnett's work because he worked without depending on the inherent drama of the Mafia, or of sudden violence. And I thought he displayed had a better understanding of women in his films.
Should have copied that film. Now, at least, I can get my own copy...
Shoot, I'll be first in line for Killer of Sheep when it hits NY. Never saw it. Along with Annie's shout-out to the gentle classic Nothing But a Man, I'd also put Tim Rebman and Kevin Wilmott's Ninth Street and Wendell B. Harris' Chameleon Street on the short list of great "lost" black films. The former is on DVD, and I believe the latter is on its way this year.
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