With the Academy Awards only an hour or so away and the Middle East still shaken by protest, the Twitterverse continues to pulse with activity and information exchange, be it life altering or merely superficial. Hands down, my favourite tweet of the week comes from the ever eloquent Yoko Ono who wrote: “To the youth who think they are silenced by the media and alienated from the world: The future is yours. And ours, actually.” Enjoy your Sunday night whether spent with Oscar or pouring over your homework (or a bit of both) and check out a few of my other favourites from around the Twitterverse:
Fascinatingly bleak: Visual evidence that movies are getting worse
Canada reverses brain drain by spending freely on research
The 15 Most Trivial Things We Learned on the Oscar Campaign Trail
Things could be worse: 12 dystopian novels you should read
Is Facebook justified in censoring users who post classic art nudes to their pages?
Film professors offer their predictions on who should win the
As with the foreign language film nominees for the Academy Awards that I previewed yesterday, the selections for Best Documentary Film reflect the excellence of filmmaking outside the limited scope of mainstream Hollywood features. Documentary films, especially over the past decade, have also continued to probe highly controversial and often political subject matter, pushing the possibilities for wider social action. I was especially thrilled to see Waste Land nominated in this category, a film that was among my top picks from the Vancouver International Film Festival and a film that I highlighted and reviewed for its close connections to contemporary artist Vik Muniz. When director Lucy Walker appeared in Vancouver during VIFF to promote the film, I was especially captivated with her discussion of how much Waste Land had shifted the public perception within Brazil of homelessness, class divisions, and the very real concerns about the country’s giant landfills in the short time since it had been screened. I continue to believe that documentary films are to our generation what large scale history paintings were to many nineteenth century audiences—representations to help bring into discourse the most pressing social and political concerns of the moment.
WASTE LAND: The film documents two years of work of Brazilian contemporary modern artist Vik Muniz in creating art with the cooperation of garbage pickers working at Jardim Gramacho, one of the world's largest landfills, serving the metropolis of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Official Website | New York Times Review
GASLAND: The film focuses on communities in the United States impacted by natural gas drilling and, specifically, a stimulation method known as hydraulic fracturing. Official Website | Globe and Mail Review
INSIDE JOB: the subject of Inside Job is the global financial crisis of 2008. It features research and extensive interviews with financial insiders, politicians, journalists, and academics. Official Website | New York Times Review
RESTREPO: The film follows the deployment of the 2nd Platoon of Battle Company on a fifteen month deployment in the Korengal Valley of northeast Afghanistan. It chronicles the lives of the men from their deployment to the time of their return back home. Official Website | New York Times Review
With all of the hype surrounding Sunday night’s Academy Awards—James Franco and Banksy already providing me two reasons to tune in—I am glad to see that the nominated Foreign Language Films reflect the excellent range of filmmaking from the past year. Having seen two of these films at the Vancouver International Film Festival already, I thought it would be worth the time to reassemble the list here with links to trailers and critical reviews for those of you wanting to check out and preview five of the most celebrated foreign films of 2010. Of course, this list only reflects a narrow range of international films selected by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (for a more comprehensive list of foreign film selections, see the Cannes Film Festival website), but for many people watching Sunday, these movies will provide a gateway to the diverse world of filmmaking beyond Hollywood. I will preview the Documentary Feature nominees tomorrow.
BIUTIFUL (Mexico): Biutiful is the story of Uxbal, a cancer-ridden single father who struggles to reconcile fatherhood, love, spirituality, crime, guilt and mortality amidst the dangerous underworld of modern Barcelona -- all before his time is up. Official Website| Guardian Review
DOGTOOTH (Greece): A married couple and their three young adult children, a son and two daughters, live at the outskirts of a city in a large compound with a garden and a swimming pool. A tall fence surrounds the property and the children have never been on the other side of it, for their parents have kept them unaware of the outside world. Official Website | New York Times Review
IN A BETTER WORLD (Denmark): Anton is a doctor who commutes between his home in an idyllic town in Denmark, and his work at an African refugee camp. In these two very different worlds, he and his family are faced with conflicts that lead them to difficult choices between revenge and forgiveness. Official Website | Variety Review
OUTSIDE THE LAW (Algeria): Taking place between 1945 and 1962, Outside the Law focuses on the lives of three Algerian brothers in France, set to the backdrop of the Algerian independence movement and the Algerian War. Official Website | New York Times Review
Street art attributed to Banksy began popping up in Los Angeles this week
signed by Mr. Brainwash-- the tagging name of Thierry Guetta in the film Exit Through the Gift Shop
(image courtesy of Doro Design)
One of the most entertaining moments of the Oscar Awards ceremony Sunday might occur if the enigmatic street artist Banksy wins the best documentary feature film category for Exit Through the Gift Shop. Speculation has been running high for days about whether or not Banksy (who is nominated as the film's director) would attend the Oscars after officials refused him permission to attend in disguise. As the Academy's executive director stated, "The fun but disquieting scenario is that if the film wins and five guys in monkey masks come to the stage all saying, 'I'm Banksy,' who the hell do we give it to?" To add confusion to the matter, many in the press have now been openly speculating and reporting that the main character of Banksy's documentary, Thierry Guetta, is the "real" Banksy. This claim however seems both unlikely and not in keeping with Banksy's history, as blogger Alissa Walker at Fast Company argued in a great piece about Banksy last year.
With the award ceremony fast approaching, graffiti works attributed to Banksy, but signed by Guetta's tag name "Mr. Brainwash" have been appearing around Los Angeles. In Guetta's first extended interview with the LA Times published today, he maintains that the "movie is 100% real" and goes on to credit Banksy with helping to tell his story, claiming that "Banksy captured me becoming an artist... In the end, I became his biggest work of art."
We will now have to wait until Sunday to see how Banksy may have to pull off his biggest prank of all-- collecting an Academy Award without revealing his true identity. As he told the Guardian after receiving word of the nomination, "I don't agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but I'm prepared to make an exception for the ones I'm nominated for," adding: "The last time there was a naked man covered in gold paint in my house, it was me."
The following graffiti images, credited to Banksy, appeared around Los Angeles this week (images courtesy of NBC Photoblog)
Ah mid-term...... it is slowly creeping upon us, and for many students exams are just around the corner. Even so, the hint of spring and the promise of longer days beckon. Two beautiful afternoons outside in the sunshine did a world of good-- Vancouverites seemed to fill up all the patios as if on cue and the first of the cyclists and rollerbladers were out on the seawall. For those of you starting your research essays for end of term assignments, make sure to refer to the list of resources on this blog to help you out with your plan of attack. Time will fly from this point forward, but for now you can take pause and check out a few of my weekly favourites from around the Twitterverse.
Protest disrupts Sotheby’s auction as activists unfurled banner reading “Orgy of the Rich’’
Caravaggio's police record is more shocking than any modern bad boy rock star's.
The push to make English the official language of academe in Europe causes problems for both students + professors
An anonymous Tehrani talks about the marches
Lady Gaga gaga about Winnipeg girl
Al Pacino to play Henri Matisse
Hi everybody, here I am on Twitter! This is my FIRST tweet...
