Beauty and Love Are Another Song - Song About the Youth Uprising in England

Michel Montecrossa's latest video examines the desperation behind the rioting in Great Britain. His direct and heartfelt approach works to cut through all the recent bullshit about the rioters being simple thugs with nothing more on their minds than robbery and destruction. Riots are open wounds that erupt after enormous damage has already been done to a population. The seething pressure is always there for a long time before exploding in everyone's faces. By definition, riots involve damage and robbery. What else would there be to do at a riot? Riots are anger and desperate hopelessness that cannot be controlled. Yes, of course one must punish people who burn down buildings. But one must also have the intellect and social responsibility to seriously look at why children and adults would feel so awful that the only thing they can think of doing is burning down a city. That is serious rebellion and it is going to spread. The world is under incredible economic pressure and the people who suffer understand that governments tied to extreme wealth and corporate interests are responsible. Populations are going off like bombs. The uprisings in the Middle East are directly connected to the uprisings London because both groups of people have become aware that the same corporations control what happens in both places. The dictators and authoritarian regimes in the Middle East are kept there because they provide certain corporations with efficiency in the region. Assad is exterminating people in Syria because it is convenient for Western companies and politicians that he do so. The Western governments have wanted globalization and now they've got it. Globalization of uprisings and riots. One must remember that the riots in Great Britain were started by a policeman who killed a young man. A policeman who chose, just like the policemen in Syria, to point his gun and fire a bullet into the body of a human being. A violent reaction to such an act should be expected in most cases.

Michelmontecross.com

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' Speech

This is the speech that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on the Washington, D.C. Mall in 1963. It is quite possibly the greatest speech delivered in the United States since Abraham Lincoln's 'Gettysburg Address' and 'Second Inaugural Adress.'

It is possible that the past eight years of terror and bigotry from an American presidential administration can be overcome. That's my dream.

Hero Journalist Throws Shoes at Bush

This is the first person in nearly eight years to react rationally and intelligently to the presence of George W. Bush in the same room. During a surprise visit today in Iraq by Bush, an Arab journalist took off his shoes and threw them directly at the supreme asshole of the Western World. I cannot think of a better thing to do than to throw shoes at this son-of-a-bitch. In the Arab world, showing someone the sole of your shoe is a terrible insult. To actually throw your shoe at a person is to call that person filth.



In the history of the United States there has not been a president who has conducted such a brutally violent assault on freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of the press, freedom from illegal detainment, freedom from torture, freedom from illegal wiretapping, and freedom from fear itself. This prick and his friends have been torturing and killing thousands upon thousands of people. They have prevented journalists from even taking the photographs that they should be taking during a war. They have lied in order to conduct the invasion of a sovereign nation. Journalists in the U.S. are too frightened to even write critically of this creep or to adequately investigate his acts. Much less to throw their shoes at him. Several weeks ago, as Bush ascended a podium holding many of the world's leaders at the G20 Summit, they all refused to shake his hand. It was the first behavior from world leaders toward Bush that seemed suited to him.




I suspect that the Iraqis will go easy on this man because they all secretly agree with what he did. It was not any kind of life-threatening act. I think anyone who understands what this awful man has been up to for the past decade would agree with throwing shoes at him. I have not seen a more beautiful expression of the world's hatred for this man than this magnificent shoe-throwing display.

Once the worst president in U.S. history has left office, those who are too afraid to speak out about what he has been doing will begin to talk and then this shoe throwing episode will be remembered for what it really is: a great big 'Fuck You' from the journalists of the world. This Arab shoe-throwing journalist is a true camouflage lens.

Perhaps with all the stress associated with being so hated and reviled by all the world's leaders, Bush will get cancer. Then he will wither. And finally go to hell.

The shoes. The lovely shoes.

A Video for Barack Obama

My new cinegram is for Barack Obama. I am disgusted by the McCain/Palin campaign of race-baiting stupidity. Obama stands for unity, intelligent politics, and compassion for people who don't earn millions of dollars. He is an extraordinary candidate who has already achieved something historic. I sincerely hope that this country experiences an election blowout that leaves a whole hell of a lot of dumb Bush/McCain/Palin supporters in the woods without a map, right where they belong.

The big message here is that everyone who want to get this guy into the White House needs to get up on November 4th and go do it. Do it. Don't stop for anyone. Don't listen to someone who says there might be a little problem with casting your vote. Just go do the thing. Vote. Vote. Vote.

Here's my first political advertisement.




Here's a group called Video the Vote that signs people up all over the country as video volunteers to go out and film problems at polling stations. There are lots of places in this country where Republican operatives try to scare poor voters away from the polls. There are tricks they play with mailing addresses to try to challenge voters' right to vote. Video the Vote wants to compile a video library of trouble spots at voting locations all over the nation. Check it out and if you have a camera maybe you'll want to lend a hand.

Lull: An Animated Short That's Too Short

I'm normally extremely wary of posting about a film or filmmaker associated with a school or university. In my humble opinion, if you're in film school, you are quite possibly wasting your time and someone's money. I think filmmakers should hide those associations if they exist. But if they're going to boast about them, I'm going to jump all over it. Don't worry, I'll get to the animated short in a minute. The next Jean Luc Godard will not come from a school, he or she will come from YouTube. Not kidding. Buy a video camera, microphone, computer, drawing tablet, digital editor, Adobe Flash, and perhaps 5 books. That's all you need to learn filmmaking. Approximate cost: $4,000. New York University film school: over $35,000 a year just for tuition. Figure it out. Schools of art mainly exist for social networking purposes. They do not actually teach anything resembling the production of art. Go look at the theater scene. Everything is being 'workshopped.' This is something people learn in a school somewhere. As if you can 'workshop' a play and come out with something worth an ounce of spit. And these people are charging $15 - $25 dollars for you to sit and watch them rehearse. I wonder what all these writers and actors and directors are trying to figure out. It's a mystery. If you don't like what I'm saying here, man, you really don't want to hear what I have to say about film festivals. It all starts with two sinister words: Submission Fee. More about that some other time when I'm feeling really mean. But honestly, if you really need to meet people, go to a bar. It's cheaper.

Anyone can write a poem. Anyone can make a film.

That being said, here's a short animation that is adapted from a longer work by Lisa Barcy who teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Department of Film. Hmmm... well, ok... but her film is pretty cool. I love the roughly drawn cutout puppet technique. This kind of animation can be much more emotional than carefully drawn, well-timed animation. Very rarely does the Disney style of animation convey anything close to a human emotion. This kind of animation does. I have an affinity for work like this. It makes me want to draw and I start thinking about how to convey things with a simple stroke of a pen.

The film is very lonely. There's a guy walking around on a pier with a bucket of lobsters. There's a squid that seems to attract him. He floats around and generally rejects the society of men. Sort of an oceanic recluse, I suppose.

I just wish that the full version of Ms. Barcy's film was available. Here's more of what I'm talking about with schools. Go check the filmmaker's page at the School of the blah blah at Chicago. See what I mean. Every link to her work gives a 404 not found error. You can't run a school of film and 'new media' and pull crap like that. And how much for tuition again? What a nifty scam.



I found this little gem via a site called 'BadLit.' I'll work up a little post with more on that film site later. But the short of it is that you can find lots of cool stuff there and the guy writes as if he really enjoys writing. That's unusual for some reason.

I-Witness Video Battles Police State Tactics

I am falling in love with this group. I-Witness Video uses video to protect civil liberties. They probe police actions at First Amendment events like peaceful protests by videotaping what the police are up to at these events. They build a library of these videos, some of which are submitted by amateur videographers, in order to use them as evidence at trials to overturn bogus charges. Often it would seem that these charges are a blatant attempt by police to eliminate protests at events like political conventions.

Their work has largely involved the New York City Police Department which would seem to be making every possible effort to become an exceedingly dangerous fascist organization bent on squashing any form of dissent in New York City. I used to live there and I know there were some serious problems with abuses by the police. But over the past ten years, boy it has just become a sad joke of a department. It's shocking. It makes Los Angeles look like a bastion of free expression.

I-Witness Video has had huge success in turning its video against the police in order to get hundreds of charges dropped. It has exposed conspiracies within the NYPD to lie and make false charges. The group appears to have been involved in the shocking and illegal police raids in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area aimed at squashing any peaceful protests around the Republican National Convention. It is obvious that the St. Paul police do not want these people getting evidence that can be used aganst the department. These people at I-Witness are simply using video like nobody's business. They've got it right and their work is hugely important.

Here is something I found printed in one of the entries on their blog:

The rights of photographers under the Constitution are expressed in sparklingly clear language in a legal memorandum on the "Rights of Journalists on Public Streets" which is available on the website of the National Press Photographers Association. I will now quote liberally from this very helpful document.

In general, the right to take photographs on the street is the same for members of the public as it is for journalists. So, if you're a member of the public, rather than a journalist, most of this applies to you too.

Although not unlimited, the media [and the public] enjoys a broad right of access under the First Amendment to photograph in public places such as streets and sidewalks. These rights are rooted in the First Amendment's strong protection of speech within "public forums." A "public forum" refers to a public place historically associated with free expression. The most commonly recognized examples include streets, sidewalks and parks. Within these areas, the government's ability to limit the public's speech is extremely limited.

This is very useful information for anyone with a camera. Go I-Witness Video! You people kick serious ass.

A Film Critic's Book About Film Critics

 
So it sounds like an interesting book. Exile Cinema: Filmmakers at Work Beyond Hollywood. It's by former Village Voice film critic, Michael Atkinson. Here's the article about the book. Mr. Atkinson apparently writes about the decline of the status of film critics who work in print. Many of them are losing their positions with newspapers and magazines. Many of them are going online to write for blogs. So the book is about the slowly disappearing art of film criticism and how important the critical dialog really is to the art of film. I completely agree with this point of view. There have been film critics like the young Francois Truffaut writing for Cahiers du Cinema who could tell you things about movies that you would never ever have thought of. Good critics make you want to leap out of your chair and make a movie yourself. They imbue film with a sense of magic and history that excites minds and draws new talent into the art. Without these people and their writing you are left with fat-assed Jack Nicholson watching Lakers games and making stupid movies about being old. Good critics exist partly to tell short fat men to for god's sake get the hell off the fucking basketball court!

We need good critics. But we don't need theaters and candy concessions. Film is not a communal experience. Never has been. If it were, you would see Johnny Depp standing up near the front row dressed as a pirate to act out his part and you would clap every time he took a bow. And this would be called 'theatre.' Film is a solitary art form best enjoyed with a very sharp widescreen television or projected from a 16mm projector. Theaters show films on expensive dirty torn smudged screens. They project with dim bulbs in order to save money. They earn most of their profits by selling candy and hot dogs out in the lobby. Movie theaters as an industry don't really exist. They are candy stores that happen to show films in order to keep your ass in there instead of going home to read a book. Look this up if you don't believe me. Theaters do not make profits on the films. They make it on the candy. This should tell you something. It should tell you not to go to the theater. Stay home and watch movies on a well-calibrated widescreen television. This is the best way ever invented to see a movie. Nothing else comes close.

Once you do this, you will then be able to run wild through the great library of films available on DVD. You will be able to enjoy films without the presence of 2,000 nitwits eating their candy, farting, and checking their email. Don't believe any critic or filmmaker who tells you that you should experience a movie in the presence of an audience. That person is trying to sell you some candy and thinks that we all need to be told when to laugh.

By the way, one of my favorite critics online is a guy named Walter Chaw from Film Freak Central. He gets it and he says it and he's absolutely merciless. Look here at his review of Iron man. And here's his review of the well-trained university theatre actor Edward Norton doing his turn as The Incredible Hulk. And here is his rave for There Will be Blood.

So I'm not so sure I'd do a hell of a lot of worrying about print media critics dying off. I think the online writing's better. Frankly, when I read the critics in the Los Angeles Times newspaper I immediately get an image of them all slithering around in an orgy at Jack's house. They're such film lovers!