When Jim Carrey portrayed Andy Kaufman for the 1999 biopic Man on the Moon, he allowed himself to be swept up in the role, acting like the difficult comedian on set and off. He ultimately won a Golden Globe for the performance, but despite the success, the studio never released any making-of footage as DVD extras content. Now, nearly two decades later, a new documentary – Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond - With a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton, which will premiere on Netflix on November 17th – will show how the film was made.
- 10/19/2017
- Rollingstone.com
A new documentary about revolutionary grunge outfit L7 will be released October 13th on DVD and video-on-demand. L7: Pretend We're Dead will also get a multi-city theatrical run starting September 1st at the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon.
The film will screen throughout September in select cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and San Francisco. The last planned showing is October 5th at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn.
Filmmaker Sarah Price (The Yes Men, Summercamp!) directed Pretend We're Dead, which chronicles the band's remarkable career, from...
The film will screen throughout September in select cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and San Francisco. The last planned showing is October 5th at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn.
Filmmaker Sarah Price (The Yes Men, Summercamp!) directed Pretend We're Dead, which chronicles the band's remarkable career, from...
- 8/16/2017
- Rollingstone.com
Film Congress Marketplace to take place in Los Angeles, USA | Berlin, Germany | Lagos, Nigeria | Teheran, Iran | Cannes, France
Ocean, Life, Water: The 9th Green Me Global Festival for Sustainability is rolling out the red green carpet in Los Angeles, CA October 17th to 23 at the Landmark Regent Theater in Westwood.
An expert jury under the patronage of Ralf Möller will award the greenest movies around the topic Ocean/Life/Water.- More than 20 Films will be screened, 10 green presentations, 5 panel discussions, a Film Workshop for Film Schools and an Award Gala will shine in a green light.
An impressive number of films have been submitted for the Green Me Award 2016.
Under the patronage of Dr. Auma Obama, President Barack Obama’s half-sister, and in cooperation with the actor Ralf Möller, a selected expert jury will award the greenest movies 2016.
The question of how we, humanity, will survive the coming years...
Ocean, Life, Water: The 9th Green Me Global Festival for Sustainability is rolling out the red green carpet in Los Angeles, CA October 17th to 23 at the Landmark Regent Theater in Westwood.
An expert jury under the patronage of Ralf Möller will award the greenest movies around the topic Ocean/Life/Water.- More than 20 Films will be screened, 10 green presentations, 5 panel discussions, a Film Workshop for Film Schools and an Award Gala will shine in a green light.
An impressive number of films have been submitted for the Green Me Award 2016.
Under the patronage of Dr. Auma Obama, President Barack Obama’s half-sister, and in cooperation with the actor Ralf Möller, a selected expert jury will award the greenest movies 2016.
The question of how we, humanity, will survive the coming years...
- 10/7/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Even among the grunge-punk bands of the late ’80s/early ’90s, there was something foot-stompingly primal about L7. The band’s music was fuzzed-out, four-on-the-floor rock that didn’t earn the sobriquet “heavy” so much as prove why the term should be applied to music in the first place. People didn’t go to L7 shows for Rush-style technical wizardry; fans were there for the raw three-chord churn of distorted mayhem. And, as the trailer for a new documentary, L7: Pretend We’re Dead, reminds us, it kicked ass.
After reuniting in 2014 following a nearly 15-year hiatus, director Sarah Price (The Yes Men) has put together a portrayal of the avowedly feminist group, culling more than 100 hours of archival footage and pairing it with new interviews to create a document of one of the grunge era’s most iconic bands. From the early days in California to single-handedly ...
After reuniting in 2014 following a nearly 15-year hiatus, director Sarah Price (The Yes Men) has put together a portrayal of the avowedly feminist group, culling more than 100 hours of archival footage and pairing it with new interviews to create a document of one of the grunge era’s most iconic bands. From the early days in California to single-handedly ...
- 10/4/2016
- by Alex McCown-Levy
- avclub.com
A Sundance darling and a veteran of Soho House's executive team are launching a new social network today called Rex. The platform — conceived by director Chris Smith (American Movie, The Yes Men) and Ashley Lent Levinson, who previously developed and ran the member programming at the industry-oriented private club's West Hollywood branch — is a mobile app to help users share and curate cultural recommendations, beginning with key categories that include dining, travel and the arts. (Fashion and other interests will debut later.) Among Rex's top financial backers are Sean Bailey, president of production at Walt Disney
read more...
read more...
- 4/28/2016
- by Gary Baum
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Over the last twenty years, culture-jamming hoaxsters “Mike Bonanno" and "Andy Bichlbaum" (their pseudonyms) aka The Yes Men — a duo of activist pranksters and revolutionaries — have hijacked the mainstream media to bring attention to various cases of eco-social importance. Their list of accolades is long and storied. Formed in the early 1990s, and targeting the insidiousness of corporate malfeasance, the Yes Man have punk’d and hoodwinked Haliburton, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil, McDonalds, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Shell Oli, Hud, and many, many other corporations and organizations. Generally their agitprop modus operandi is impersonating entities from these corporations and calling their own press conferences, or scamming themselves onto TV and proclaiming a shocking about face in corporate agenda. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2009, they falsified a statement by Environment Canada promising to cut carbon emissions by 40% below 1990...
- 6/11/2015
- by Rodrigo Perez
- The Playlist
Over the last twenty years, culture-jamming hoaxsters “Mike Bonanno" and "Andy Bichlbaum" (their pseudonyms) aka The Yes Men — a duo of activist pranksters and revolutionaries — have hijacked the mainstream media to bring attention to various cases of eco-social importance. Their list of accolades is long and storied. Formed in the early 1990s, and targeting the insidiousness of corporate malfeasance, the Yes Man have punk’d and hoodwinked Haliburton, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil, McDonalds, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Shell Oli, Hud, and many, many other corporations and organizations. Generally their agitprop modus operandi is impersonating entities from these corporations and calling their own press conferences, or scamming themselves onto TV and proclaiming a shocking about face in corporate agenda. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2009 they falsified a statement by Environment Canada promising to cut carbon emissions by 40% below 1990...
- 11/28/2014
- by Rodrigo Perez
- The Playlist
Ever heard of the The Yes Men? Activist and filmmaker Andy Bichlbaum and his colleagues go about the country pretending to be official representatives of Exxon, The Chamber of Commerce, Halliburton etc. Then they hold fake press conferences and the like and film the public relations mayhem for whatever organization they’ve targeted. Basically it’s Crank Yankers for corporate watchdogs.
A few weeks ago we posted about the upcoming film Do I Sound Gay? in which filmmaker David Thorpe examines the concept of “the gay voice”– both his own and of others. (This highly anticipated film has already sparked a lot of discussion both here and on other sites such as Andrew Sullivan,)
Thorpe recently took up the topic of “the gay voice” with Bichlbaum. The Yes Man, while gay, doesn’t believe he comes off as a yesss man. Check out the conversation below.
The Kickstarter campaign to...
A few weeks ago we posted about the upcoming film Do I Sound Gay? in which filmmaker David Thorpe examines the concept of “the gay voice”– both his own and of others. (This highly anticipated film has already sparked a lot of discussion both here and on other sites such as Andrew Sullivan,)
Thorpe recently took up the topic of “the gay voice” with Bichlbaum. The Yes Man, while gay, doesn’t believe he comes off as a yesss man. Check out the conversation below.
The Kickstarter campaign to...
- 5/12/2014
- by Dennis Ayers
- The Backlot
It took a while to get a UK release, but Chris Smith's film about Goan youth has a winning fluency
Chris Smith is the Us documentary film-maker who recorded the adventures of anti-corporate pranksters, The Yes Men. Here is something very different, a fiction feature he made five years ago in southern India: gentle, well acted, tremendously shot: a movie with enormous charm.
The Pool is set in Panjim in Goa, where two boys, Venkatesh (Venkatesh Chavan) and Jhangir (Jhangir Badshah) are living hand-to-mouth. Venkatesh conceives an envious fascination with the fancy swimming pool in beautiful grounds he can see by perching on a high tree branch – and then becomes obsessed with the demure girl called Ayesha (Ayesha Mohan) who is always reading by the pool.
Smith's film is natural and unforced, with a winning fluency and calm observational style. It might well be inspired by Satyajit Ray, but the influence is lightly worn.
Chris Smith is the Us documentary film-maker who recorded the adventures of anti-corporate pranksters, The Yes Men. Here is something very different, a fiction feature he made five years ago in southern India: gentle, well acted, tremendously shot: a movie with enormous charm.
The Pool is set in Panjim in Goa, where two boys, Venkatesh (Venkatesh Chavan) and Jhangir (Jhangir Badshah) are living hand-to-mouth. Venkatesh conceives an envious fascination with the fancy swimming pool in beautiful grounds he can see by perching on a high tree branch – and then becomes obsessed with the demure girl called Ayesha (Ayesha Mohan) who is always reading by the pool.
Smith's film is natural and unforced, with a winning fluency and calm observational style. It might well be inspired by Satyajit Ray, but the influence is lightly worn.
- 11/16/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Chris Smith is a celebrated and award-winning American documentary filmmaker (best known for 1999's American Movie and 2003's The Yes Men), whose 2007 feature The Pool finally sees the theatrical light of day over here this week. The story of a young Indian boy who finds sanctity and a paradise in the palatial garden of a wealthy homeowner, The Pool is a gentle, leisurely-told tale which strenuously avoids anything resembling even the slightest trace of melodrama, and it manages to find moving moments through subtle observation. CineVue were recently lucky enough to have the opportunity to chat with Smith about the conception of the film and the rather unique means of finding his young leads.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 11/15/2012
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Michael Moore collaborator Kurt Engfehr has teamed with a crew of Australian film-makers to create a new feature documentary, Stand In My Shoes.
The ‘social change’ film is based on the ‘empathy deficit’, a term coined by President Obama, cautioning against the dangers of a world without empathy.
Australian co-creators and producers Anna Reeves, Vivienne Somers with producer Elizabeth Nakano and creative director/executive producer Ahmed Salama who was Ep on The Tunnel have teamed with Engfehr, co-producer of Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 and director of The Yes Men Save The World.
Craig Davis, chief creative officer of Publicis Mojo and co-founder of Brand Karma will be among the interviewees of the film. He will be joined by Google’s Chade-Meng Tan, spiritual author and lecturer Marianne Williamson, voted as one of Time Magazine’s 50 Most Influential Babyboomers and William Mobley, head of Neuroscience at Uscd.
The film also follows Reeves,...
The ‘social change’ film is based on the ‘empathy deficit’, a term coined by President Obama, cautioning against the dangers of a world without empathy.
Australian co-creators and producers Anna Reeves, Vivienne Somers with producer Elizabeth Nakano and creative director/executive producer Ahmed Salama who was Ep on The Tunnel have teamed with Engfehr, co-producer of Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 and director of The Yes Men Save The World.
Craig Davis, chief creative officer of Publicis Mojo and co-founder of Brand Karma will be among the interviewees of the film. He will be joined by Google’s Chade-Meng Tan, spiritual author and lecturer Marianne Williamson, voted as one of Time Magazine’s 50 Most Influential Babyboomers and William Mobley, head of Neuroscience at Uscd.
The film also follows Reeves,...
- 7/25/2012
- by Colin Delaney
- Encore Magazine
The Tumblr round-up is a compilation of images, links, posters, stories, videos and so on, taken from the Sound On Sight Tumblr account. We simply do not have the man power nor time to write articles on every interesting movie related goody we find, so this is our way of still promoting some of the stuff we love.
If you have any interesting items that you think we should plug, please email us at admin@soundonsight.org
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Noam Murro directed quite a few Super Bowl ads including the Pepsi “King’s Court” spot which featured X Factor 2011 winner Melanie Amaro and Elton John, as well as the Chevy Sonic “Stunt Anthem” as and the Kia “A Dream Car. For Real Life” commercial.
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Finally, Murro also directed the Chevy Silverado “End of the World” spot.
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This is amazing – A London-based film PR company recently held a screening of Lady And The Tramp for dogs,...
If you have any interesting items that you think we should plug, please email us at admin@soundonsight.org
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Noam Murro directed quite a few Super Bowl ads including the Pepsi “King’s Court” spot which featured X Factor 2011 winner Melanie Amaro and Elton John, as well as the Chevy Sonic “Stunt Anthem” as and the Kia “A Dream Car. For Real Life” commercial.
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Finally, Murro also directed the Chevy Silverado “End of the World” spot.
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This is amazing – A London-based film PR company recently held a screening of Lady And The Tramp for dogs,...
- 2/7/2012
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Hey, they laughed at Galileo! Yeah, but they laughed at Bozo the Clown, too! There’s a horrifying train wreck quality to documentarian Chris Smith’s (The Yes Men) feature-length interview with Michael Ruppert, former Lapd detective, investigative reporter, CIA whistleblower. Is Ruppert a conspiracy theorist? He laughs at the notion, says he works in “conspiracy fact”... and he’s chillingly plausible as he synthesizes, in 82 clipped minutes, a portrait of industrialized civilization on the brink of collapse. A collapse we’re already in the midst of, commencing with the September 2008 economic crash, which Ruppert had predicted years earlier based on the information he’d gathered. (This interview was conducted in March 2009.) It all comes down to the unsustainability of the Western way of life, which is predicated on cheap, ready oil and built on a pyramid scheme of a monetary system... and shoring up that way of life for...
- 6/15/2010
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
At a time when anger at the corporate world is at an all-time high, who wouldn’t want to see the captains of industry mercilessly mocked? Well, this hilarious documentary about the exploits of a pair of talented pranksters known as the “Yes Men” spares no effort to turn corporate big shots into unsuspecting punchlines. However, their elaborate hoaxes are not done merely for the sake of being vindictive. The Yes Men are anti-globalization advocates who hope to bring attention to the heartlessness of the corporate mentality and make businesses act more responsibly.
Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno are the titular Yes Men, who’ve made a name for themselves by irritating the rich and giving laughs to the poor. The duo has set up fake websites so they can intercept E-mails intended for big companies like Dow Chemicals. The pair of pranksters accept invitations to speaking engagements under the...
Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno are the titular Yes Men, who’ve made a name for themselves by irritating the rich and giving laughs to the poor. The duo has set up fake websites so they can intercept E-mails intended for big companies like Dow Chemicals. The pair of pranksters accept invitations to speaking engagements under the...
- 3/30/2010
- by Rob Young
- JustPressPlay.net
The Alamo Guide
for January 8th, 2010
Apologies for the late email this week. I was celebrating 2010 out of town, and then when I got home I was distracted by the intensity of the Texas vs. Alabama game. Bummerrrr. Oh well. We can all drown our sorrows in some Alamo fun this weekend! First of all, The Monster Squad screening was so popular that we added a second one later that night so there’s still a chance to see the Cast And Creators In Attendance! Youth In Revolt, The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, and Crazy Heart all open up this weekend. Girlie Night presents Romy & Michele’S High School Reunion on Tuesday, so get your business women outfits ready (but please have your fake job description ready)! If you’re a foodie and love our Alamo feasts, The Alamo Iron Chef competition returns with a battle between Alamo kitchen and...
for January 8th, 2010
Apologies for the late email this week. I was celebrating 2010 out of town, and then when I got home I was distracted by the intensity of the Texas vs. Alabama game. Bummerrrr. Oh well. We can all drown our sorrows in some Alamo fun this weekend! First of all, The Monster Squad screening was so popular that we added a second one later that night so there’s still a chance to see the Cast And Creators In Attendance! Youth In Revolt, The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, and Crazy Heart all open up this weekend. Girlie Night presents Romy & Michele’S High School Reunion on Tuesday, so get your business women outfits ready (but please have your fake job description ready)! If you’re a foodie and love our Alamo feasts, The Alamo Iron Chef competition returns with a battle between Alamo kitchen and...
- 1/8/2010
- by caitlin
- OriginalAlamo.com
Documentary filmmaker Chris Smith and investigative reporter Michael Ruppert have a story to tell. The truth here is as far beyond inconvenient as a modern BMW is beyond the pony express. If there is ever a film that makes you want to bunker down with gallons of fresh water and a million cans of baked beans it is not The Day After, or even The Day After Tomorrow, it is Collapse.
Taking a more than a cue from Errol Morris and his Robert McNamara doc, The Fog Of War, Smith plants Ruppert in a chair and has him draw out the map of the world going to hell in a hand basket over the next decade, give or take a few years. His picture is not a pretty one. But it is compelling due to Ruppert's level-headed fanaticism on the subject (some might call it passion). Peak Oil, economic derivatives,...
Taking a more than a cue from Errol Morris and his Robert McNamara doc, The Fog Of War, Smith plants Ruppert in a chair and has him draw out the map of the world going to hell in a hand basket over the next decade, give or take a few years. His picture is not a pretty one. But it is compelling due to Ruppert's level-headed fanaticism on the subject (some might call it passion). Peak Oil, economic derivatives,...
- 12/17/2009
- Screen Anarchy
With billions of taxpayer dollars propping up the largest financial institutions amid news stories about record bonuses on Wall Street and forecasts for a "jobless recovery" at best, there are a lot of good reasons to doubt the core promises of the capitalist system these days. Populist anger abounds and two movies in theaters now are helping bring the evils of capitalism into focus; The Yes Men Fix The World by the "Yes Men," (opening in Los Angeles this weekend) and Michael Moore's Capitalism, A Love Story. Perhaps you haven't seen Michael Moore's latest film about capitalism because you've seen some of Moore's other works -- Roger and Me about the demise of Gm's auto plants in Flint Michigan, Fahrenheit 911 about September 11, 2001 and the buildup to the Iraq War, Bowling for Columbine about gun violence and...
- 11/6/2009
- by Sheri and Allan Rivlin
- Huffington Post
"Collapse," the title of Chris Smith's new documentary, is a loaded word that applies to the film in a variety of ways. Its obvious implication concerns its main subject Michael Ruppert, a former police officer who turned in his gun and badge for a library card and a newsletter-turned-web site called From The Wilderness, which prizes itself on intensely researched investigative work about government corruption, corporate malfeasance and suspicious activity in every corner of the globe. When presented with the idea that he's a conspiracy theorist, he quickly replies, "I deal in conspiracy fact." And the facts he presents in "Collapse" are both overwhelming and chilling, as he lays out the ways the world is headed towards economic and environmental Armageddon.
"Collapse" could also refer to how Smith has wasted no time in releasing the documentary -- it's been only eight months since he first met Ruppert for a...
"Collapse" could also refer to how Smith has wasted no time in releasing the documentary -- it's been only eight months since he first met Ruppert for a...
- 11/4/2009
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
Ex-lapd Detective, investigative journalist, 9/11 truther, foreteller of the coming apocalypse --- these are just some of the roles Michael C. Ruppert has inhabited in his fascinating life, one that versatile filmmaker Chris Smith (American Movie, The Yes Men) has chosen to examine in his newest film Collapse. It is a return to documentary films for Smith, who has oscillated between disparate narrative and documentary work with a rare deftness. His most recent film The Pool (2007), a naturalistic narrative which Smith photographed himself, tracks a rural teenager working in a Panjim hotel to support his family who becomes obsessed with a swimming pool in the opulent Goan hills and the mysterious family who owns it. His newest picture...
- 11/4/2009
- by Brandon Harris
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Ex-lapd Detective, investigative journalist, 9/11 truther, foreteller of the coming apocalypse — these are just some of the roles Michael C. Ruppert has inhabited in his fascinating life, one that versatile filmmaker Chris Smith (American Movie, The Yes Men) has chosen to examine in his newest film Collapse. It is a return to documentary films for Smith, who has oscillated between disparate narrative and documentary work with a rare deftness. His most recent film The Pool (2007), a naturalistic narrative which Smith photographed himself, tracks a rural teenager working in a Panjim hotel to support his family who becomes obsessed with a swimming pool in the opulent Goan hills and the mysterious family who owns it. His newest picture...
- 11/4/2009
- by Brandon Harris
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Michael Ruppert Though not technically a horror film, Collapse, the latest film from director Chris Smith (The Yes Men, American Movie) may just scare you to pieces with its doomsday scenario. In this straight interview documentary - Errol Morris-style - Smith's subject is Michael Ruppert, a former Lapd cop who believes that the current economic climate is a sign that industrial civilization is on the precipice of a complete meltdown. Ruppert has been on the fringe for decades, working as an independent reporter who predicted the financial collapse in his self-published newsletter. (You can read his current blog here.) While it's easy to initially dismiss him as a conspiracy theorist, his no-notes-needed explanations and predictions are riveting. As we become entranced by Ruppert's chain-smoking, articulate predictions of doom, we might begin to question longheld beliefs about the taken-for-granted infrastructure we trust to keep the world running smoothly. Comparisons to...
- 11/3/2009
- TribecaFilm.com
Bill Murray recently offered the following skepticism at a press junket, "I saw a guy talking about the end of the world a couple of years ago, and I haven't seen that either." Many notable critics feel that the new documentary entitled Collapse, from the well-regarded director behind American Movie and The Yes Men, more or less informs the world, Murray included, that the end in the form of total economic collapse is once again near. "No, this time it is. Really." Based on surface impressions, Collapse's message sounds not unlike Michael Moore's recent Capitalism: A Love Story, which is a turn off, considering that it's rather obvious things are currently effed in America (the job market, health care, pundit-hungry media, two aimless "wars," startling deficit, for starters). One need not prescribe to "doomist" theorizing in order to wave a frightened fist online, though multi-thousands do on a daily basis.
- 10/26/2009
- by Hunter Stephenson
- Slash Film
After a one-week break for bad behavior, Indie Roundup returns, refreshed and ready to sum up what's new and what's been happening in the independent film community.
Deals. Multiple deals have been made in the last two weeks, indieWIRE reports, notably involving higher-profile directors Catherine Breillat (Bluebeard, based on a classic fairy tale, will hit theaters next spring, courtesy of Strand Releasing) and Atom Egoyan (Chloe, starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried, due in the first half of 2010 through Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group). Of the latter, an erotic thriller, Monika Bartyzel wrote: "Chloe might not connect on a personal level, it does trap you into these lurid lives that flirt with every notion of bad behavior. I just wish they were characters I could love or hate, or simply feel for."
Director Chris Smith may be lower-profile, but fans of American Movie and The Yes Men (me!
Deals. Multiple deals have been made in the last two weeks, indieWIRE reports, notably involving higher-profile directors Catherine Breillat (Bluebeard, based on a classic fairy tale, will hit theaters next spring, courtesy of Strand Releasing) and Atom Egoyan (Chloe, starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried, due in the first half of 2010 through Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group). Of the latter, an erotic thriller, Monika Bartyzel wrote: "Chloe might not connect on a personal level, it does trap you into these lurid lives that flirt with every notion of bad behavior. I just wish they were characters I could love or hate, or simply feel for."
Director Chris Smith may be lower-profile, but fans of American Movie and The Yes Men (me!
- 10/21/2009
- by Peter Martin
- Cinematical
Click image below to view full poster
The scariest movie coming out this year isn't about a murderous psycho or a ghostly demon who terrorizes a couple in their own home. It's Chris Smith's (American Movie, The Yes Men) documentary Collapse, where one man uncannily outlines the dark path our nation and world are heading down. He's no Nostradamus talking about the "great bear from the east" or anything, he's just a normal guy using the same facts and figures available to everyone.
The exclusive poster might only feature the back of his head, but once you hear Michael Ruppert talk (he's a bit like The Smoking Man on The X-Files), you'll realize why the truth is much scarier than fiction. The movie opens in New York on 11/6, Los Angeles on 11/13, and will be released on cable video on demand on the Cinetic FilmBuff channel on 11/15. Bug your provider...
The scariest movie coming out this year isn't about a murderous psycho or a ghostly demon who terrorizes a couple in their own home. It's Chris Smith's (American Movie, The Yes Men) documentary Collapse, where one man uncannily outlines the dark path our nation and world are heading down. He's no Nostradamus talking about the "great bear from the east" or anything, he's just a normal guy using the same facts and figures available to everyone.
The exclusive poster might only feature the back of his head, but once you hear Michael Ruppert talk (he's a bit like The Smoking Man on The X-Files), you'll realize why the truth is much scarier than fiction. The movie opens in New York on 11/6, Los Angeles on 11/13, and will be released on cable video on demand on the Cinetic FilmBuff channel on 11/15. Bug your provider...
- 10/20/2009
- by Kevin Kelly
- Cinematical
The Maldives government pulled the ultimate global warming PR stunt this past weekend when it held a cabinet meeting on the sea floor. The stunt, meant to highlight the issues facing the lowest-lying country on Earth, received plenty of attention. All of which got us thinking: what other global warming PR stunts have made an impact? Below, we look at some of our favorites.
1. Earth Hour
Contentious? Yes, but that's the point. This World Wildlife Fund-organized annual event asks businesses and homes to turn off all lights and electrical appliances for an hour in protest of climate change. The global event has hundreds of participating countries and cities.
2. The Chamber of Commerce Statement
Activist group The Yes Men pulled a fast one on the Washington Post, The New York Times, and Reuters yesterday when group member Andy Bichlbaum impersonated a Chamber of Commerce executive at a press conference and delivered...
1. Earth Hour
Contentious? Yes, but that's the point. This World Wildlife Fund-organized annual event asks businesses and homes to turn off all lights and electrical appliances for an hour in protest of climate change. The global event has hundreds of participating countries and cities.
2. The Chamber of Commerce Statement
Activist group The Yes Men pulled a fast one on the Washington Post, The New York Times, and Reuters yesterday when group member Andy Bichlbaum impersonated a Chamber of Commerce executive at a press conference and delivered...
- 10/20/2009
- by Ariel Schwartz
- Fast Company
Anti-globalization pranksters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno quiver with contradictions. As provocateurs The Yes Men, Bichlbaum and Bonanno are fearless in how they plan and execute elaborate, inventive pranks. Yet these clammy, anxious lefty wisenheimers seem perpetually coated in flopsweat. If Sacha Baron Cohen has ice water in his veins, The Yes Men appear to have insides of Jell-o. The duo are relentlessly idealistic in their vision of a progressive utopia, yet they traffic in unrelentingly dark, tasteless humor; while preparing for a prank in which they get attendees at a conference to hold candles ostensibly made of human flesh ...
- 10/8/2009
- avclub.com
I said in my first post from Toronto that you could feel the anxiety of the economic crisis in any number of the films here. Yet even as I wrote that, I could never have guessed I'd end up seeing a movie that would tap into those anxieties with the power and terror of Collapse. It's one of the few true buzz films of the festival (by the time I got to it, I'd heard a dozen people talking it up), yet the movie, which is 82 minutes long, consists of nothing more than an on-camera interview with Michael Ruppert, a former Los Angeles police officer who became a rogue investigative reporter and author. A bluntly unassuming and rather plain-looking man in his late fifties, Ruppert sits in what looks like a brick bunker and talks about where he thinks the United States is now headed. It is not a pretty picture,...
- 9/16/2009
- by Owen Gleiberman
- EW.com - The Movie Critics
Every year in Toronto, the Hot Docs Film Festival [1] manages to assemble an exciting assortment of top-notch documentary films from around the world. This year was certainly no different, and a number of the movies have already picked up distribution deals and are well on their way to gaining mainstream attention. However, there are always plenty of diamonds in the rough as well, amazing films that sadly may never find the audience they deserve. So which upcoming documentaries are hits and which are near-misses? Read on for our full report from the 2009 Hot Docs Festival! Best Worst Movie When he was 11 years old, Michael Paul Stephenson was cast in a low budget horror movie called Troll 2. He, along with many of the other actors, thought that it would be their ticket to big time acting careers, but were shocked to find out afterward that the final product was a complete disaster.
- 5/27/2009
- by Sean
- FilmJunk
When I was a kid, I never got to go to summer camp. Thus, my view of the experience was permanently twisted by Ivan Reitman's Meatballs and Sean Cunningham's Friday the 13th: free-spirited hijinks or death and dismemberment. For a different, possibly more realistic view, you might want to check out Summercamp!, a documentary that's available for free streaming over at SnagFilms. As pictured, sometimes all you want to do at camp is kick back and put up your feet.
Directed by Bradley Beesley (Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo, Okie Noodling) and Sarah Price (The Yes Men), the doc follows "the day-to-day drama of 90 kids let loose in the woods at Swift Nature Camp in northern Wisconsin." Our own Jette Kernion said it's "the kind of movie where you just relax your brain and let the images and sounds wash over you ... A lot of the film's appeal...
Directed by Bradley Beesley (Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo, Okie Noodling) and Sarah Price (The Yes Men), the doc follows "the day-to-day drama of 90 kids let loose in the woods at Swift Nature Camp in northern Wisconsin." Our own Jette Kernion said it's "the kind of movie where you just relax your brain and let the images and sounds wash over you ... A lot of the film's appeal...
- 4/29/2009
- by Peter Martin
- Cinematical
The Pool Directed by: Chris Smith Written by: Chris Smith and Randy Russell Starring: Venkatesh Chavan, Ayesha Mohan, Nana Patekar, Jhangir Badshah When I heard that director Chris Smith's latest movie was due to hit theatres soon, I was looking forward to another strange but true documentary along the lines of American Movie, Home Movie and The Yes Men, all of which I enjoyed a great deal. To my surprise, however, his next film turned out to be something completely different. Not only does The Pool mark Smith's first foray into the world of dramatic fictional filmmaking, it was also shot on location in India -- in a language that Smith does not speak. The Pool first played at Sundance back in 2007, and it has taken over two years to reach Canadian theatres. Considering the fact that the film made a number of critics' lists for Best Movies of...
- 4/6/2009
- by Sean
- FilmJunk
The 2009 Hot Docs lineup has officially been announced and I'm extremely excited. For one, this will be a good opportunity to catch up on many of the films I missed at Sundance. Also, I'm currently not working, so I will have all of free time to dedicate to the festival. Nice. Luckily, there's a shit ton of movies that I'm interested in, so it won't be hard to fill out my schedule (It never really is). I've posted some crucial picks below, but you can also check out the full schedule for yourself over at the Hot Docs website [1]. What are you looking forward to this year? Objectified [2] Directed by Gary Hustwit [3] From telephones to toothpicks, nearly everything that fills our world is designed. Objects look and work the way they do because someone made them that way. Director Gary Hustwit examines industrial design's sweeping cultural impact with the same...
- 3/25/2009
- by Jay C.
- FilmJunk
Debuting in Europe at the Berlin Film festival last Friday, The Yes Men Fix The World looks set to make as strong an impression over here as it did at Sundance. A cross between Michael Moore-esque political activism and Sacha Baron Cohen absurdism, it’s always good to see some top corporate bods lampooned mercilessly by the odd practical joke or two…particularly as we all teeter on the brink of recession misery.
The Yes Men Fix The World (dir. The Yes Men, 2009) is a screwball true story that follows a couple of gonzo political activists as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks that highlight the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. Along the way the duo discover the culprits behind the cult of greed, and in a wildly uplifting ending, they find a way for everyone to defeat the cult...
The Yes Men Fix The World (dir. The Yes Men, 2009) is a screwball true story that follows a couple of gonzo political activists as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks that highlight the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. Along the way the duo discover the culprits behind the cult of greed, and in a wildly uplifting ending, they find a way for everyone to defeat the cult...
- 2/7/2009
- by James Dennis
- Screen Anarchy
A Shot at Drama and Hitting the Bulls-Eye: Filmmaker Chris Smith triumphs with 'The Pool' Far away from Chris Smith's Wisconsin home, in the bustling port city of Panjim, India, the veteran documentary filmmaker opens an exciting new chapter in his artistic life. "The Pool," the first drama from the 38-year-old director, is a quiet, beautiful, coming-of-age tale featuring a mostly non-professional cast. It's an impressive achievement, not just for its bold departure from Smith's previous films, the humorous true stories of "American Job," "American Movie," and "The Yes Men;" but for its stand-alone qualities as humanist filmmaking of the highest order. 18-year-old Venkatesh (Venkatesh Chavan in an extraordinary performance) works at a modest hotel in Panjim performing every conceivable task - making the beds, cleaning the toilets and delivering room service. Yet, he still needs to sell plastic bags on the street with his young friend...
- 11/13/2008
- Upcoming-Movies.com
At first blush—and okay, at a second, too—The Pool seems like a radical departure for Chris Smith, the Milwaukee-based filmmaker known for offbeat documentaries like American Movie, Home Movie, and The Yes Men. For one, The Pool is a narrative film, his first since his no-budget debut American Job, which nonetheless had the feel of documentary verisimilitude. He also went halfway around the world to shoot in the West Indian state of Goa and in the Hindi language, and had the further audacity to cast non-professional actors in three of the four leading roles. And yet The Pool is still fundamentally a Chris Smith story, an expansion on his career-long interest in dreamers and outsiders who dwell on the fringes of society, but possess a certain audacity. A poor, illiterate teenager from rural Goa, Venkatesh Chavan scrapes together an exceedingly meager income out of odd jobs, including working.
- 9/4/2008
- by Scott Tobias
- avclub.com
By Aaron Hillis
Wisconsin-born filmmaker Chris Smith's 1996 debut feature, "American Job," got his foot in the door at Sundance, but it was 1999's "American Movie," about a luckless amateur filmmaker in production on a low-budget horror flick, that earned him the Grand Jury Prize in Park City, putting his star on the indie-film map. Two more funny and moving docs, "Home Movie" and "The Yes Men," followed, and then Smith threw a game-changer into his oeuvre: a a Hindi-language narrative. Nominated for a Spirit Award and winner of yet another Sundance trophy (the Special Jury Prize this time around), "The Pool" is a neo-realist chronicle of entrepreneurial young Venkatesh (non-pro Venkatesh Chavan), a hotel "room boy" in Panjim, Goa who ingratiates himself to a wealthy family in hopes of swimming in their luxurious pool. Adapted from a short story by his long-time collaborator Randy Russell and exquisitely shot by Smith himself,...
Wisconsin-born filmmaker Chris Smith's 1996 debut feature, "American Job," got his foot in the door at Sundance, but it was 1999's "American Movie," about a luckless amateur filmmaker in production on a low-budget horror flick, that earned him the Grand Jury Prize in Park City, putting his star on the indie-film map. Two more funny and moving docs, "Home Movie" and "The Yes Men," followed, and then Smith threw a game-changer into his oeuvre: a a Hindi-language narrative. Nominated for a Spirit Award and winner of yet another Sundance trophy (the Special Jury Prize this time around), "The Pool" is a neo-realist chronicle of entrepreneurial young Venkatesh (non-pro Venkatesh Chavan), a hotel "room boy" in Panjim, Goa who ingratiates himself to a wealthy family in hopes of swimming in their luxurious pool. Adapted from a short story by his long-time collaborator Randy Russell and exquisitely shot by Smith himself,...
- 9/3/2008
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
TORONTO -- The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on Wednesday said it has hired Sean Farnel away from the Toronto International Film Festival to become its first-ever director of programming. Farnel, who most recently programd documentaries at the Toronto festival since 2000, will join Hot Docs, North America's largest documentary festival, in November. Over the last five years, Farnel brought a host of award-winning docs to TIFF, including Spellbound in 2002, The Story of the Weeping Camel and The Yes Men in 2003, and Gunner Palace last year. In between his TIFF duties, Farnel programd Hot Docs' monthly documentary series, Doc Soup, which he will continue to do. The 13th edition of Hot Docs is set to run from April 28 to May 7.
- 10/19/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Yes Men -- a documentary directed by Dan Ollman, Sarah Price and Chris Smith -- took the audience award for best feature Sunday at the ninth annual Nantucket Film Festival. Other winners included the Sundance Film Festival standouts Primer, which won the writer-director award for Shane Carruth, and Down to the Bone, which won the feature screenwriting nod for Debra Granik and Richard Lieske. The fest ran Wednesday-Sunday in Nantucket, Mass. A complete list of winners is available at www.nantucketfilmfestival.org.
- 6/22/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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