Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Film Battle Royale: The Wait Is Over! April 13-14 at Belcourt
Posted by Jim Ridley on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 11:50 AM
Hunger Games, shmunger games — you could hear the fanboy shrieks all the way to Woodbine last weekend when The Belcourt unveiled the trailer for its upcoming midnight movie: Kinji Fukasaku's notorious Battle Royale, scheduled to play two Belcourt midnight slots April 13 and 14.
For the duration of the Aughts, it looked like the late Fukasaku's furious 2000 satire about Japanese schoolkids dispatched to a remote island — where they're expected to dispatch each other — was untouchable by the standards of U.S. distributors. Whether money or post-Columbine squeamishness was the reason, the movie's unavailability made it the bootleg item of the decade.
The movie's finally getting a U.S. release next month from Anchor Bay, however, and The Belcourt secured one of the coveted slots on its tour, which coincides with its deluxe DVD release. But you'll want to see this in a theater, with a huge audience going nuts — which you already know, if you attended the capacity-crowd secret screening the Scene tipped you to several years ago ...
Visual Art Tonight: Trenton Doyle Hancock at Vanderbilt
Posted by Laura Hutson on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 10:31 AM
StudioVU Lecture Series presents Trenton Doyle Hancock
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 22 at Vanderbilt's Stevenson Center, Room 4327
To anyone who frequents Vanderbilt’s artist lecture series Studio VU, the fact that an artist’s capacity for public speaking can range from riveting (The Yes Men’s Mike Bonanno) to cringe-worthy (the painfully shy Barry McGee) should come as no surprise. Being a great artist and a great speaker are — big surprise — not always the same thing.
But Trenton Doyle Hancock is both extremely articulate and extremely talented. (Frist Center curator Mark Scala recently told me he selected Hancock to be a part of an upcoming artists panel in large part because of how well-spoken he is.) Hancock also makes work that is wrapped up in narrative — the Mounds are the artist’s invented ancient species of “half-human, half-plant mutants that came to life about 50,000 years ago when an ape man masturbated in a field of flowers.” He’s created an entire universe around this mythology, and each artwork he creates is some sort of appendage of the story. The very first of the species (Legend), a superhero character named Torpedo Boy, an opposing tribe called The Vegans — all of his paintings incorporate his invented world in some way. It should make for a hell of an evening of storytelling, slide shows and give us an insider’s look into the process of the most interesting artists working today.
View more works by Hancock here and here, read Vanderbilt's press release for tonight's lecture below, and check back with Country Life tomorrow for a post reviewing the event.
Country Life Kickstarter Round-Up: T-Shirts, 'Mockucation,' Vintage Racing and More
Posted by Steve Haruch on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 7:00 AM
- Micah Caputo
- Ectoplasm photo, possibly available as a print
For instance, Yoshie Lewis wants to make a movie about the legacy of atomic energy in Japan: "Atomic Japan," she writes, "will explore the short and long-term effects of the bombings; the history of nuclear energy in Japan — its debacles and cover-ups; and take a look at the anti-nuclear movement." This one's got a ways to go toward its rather ambitious goal of $35,000. Ever wanted to see your name roll by in the credits? Or just help make a movie?
Here are a few more Nashville-based projects I found:
Film Columbia State Film Crew Tech Presents: All Nine Best Picture Nominees in Eight Minutes and 44 Seconds
Posted by Jim Ridley on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 5:01 AM
Who has time to watch all nine Best Picture nominees before Sunday's Oscar telecast? (Certainly nobody chasing down evening wear for The Belcourt's Oscar Night America gala. Those tuxedos don't hem themselves.) To catch you up to speed, the Film Crew Technology students at Columbia State Community College in Franklin collapse everything you need to know about all nine contenders into less than nine minutes. Didn't understand a frame of The Tree of Life? You'll be dissembling like a pro in no time.
Thanks to David Chattam, Read Ridley and the FCT class.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Visual Art / Country Life Daniel Johnston at Lipscomb: Interview and Show Clips
Posted by Steve Haruch on Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 11:01 AM
Scene intern Matt Fox checked out the exhibit of Daniel Johnston's artwork at Lipscomb, and our sistren over at Nashville Cream were in attendance when Johnston played a free show on campus last week. But none of us had the kind of access that Lipscomb student Clay Smith had. For one shining night, Smith was a member of Johnston's back-up band, and he put together this video, which includes some interview footage of Johnston discussing his love of comic books and some work in progress with Simpsons creator Matt Groening.
[Via Lumination Network]
Books / Television Ann Patchett Talks Local Bookstores, and Nashville, on Colbert
Posted by Laura Hutson on Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 10:42 AM
Ann Patchett nailed her appearance on last night's Colbert Report. She calls Nashvillians smart, book-buyin' folks, tells Colbert that buying from Parnassus will keep him from turning into the Unabomber, and name-drops Jack White, Patterson House and Goat Rodeo. Watch the appearance online, or (as further protection against future Unabombing) go to Parnassus Books at 1 p.m. today for an in-store watching party.
Country Life John Maus, The Smiths, Kate Bush and Nico: Quit Cocaine, Emily Clayton's Studio Mix
Posted by Laura Hutson on Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 7:00 AM
Emily plays a lot of music while she's working, and the last time I was at her studio — I posted pictures from that visit last week — I realized that I'd complimented her on her playlist more than once. I asked Emily to compile a mixtape for Country Life of songs that are in current rotation in her studio.
She made a tracklist, but you can also just stream the whole mix below. Enjoy!
Film Rosenbaum! Chuck Stephens! Lancelot du Lac! Belcourt Details Bresson Retro
Posted by Jim Ridley on Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 5:08 AM
The 21st century's first touring retrospective of Robert Bresson's films is coming to Nashville, and The Belcourt just posted details at its website. Country Life passed along a few of these when word of the retrospective broke last month — but there's more to report.
Apart from the movies, the best news is an accompanying four-part symposium at Belmont United Methodist Church led by critics and scholars in conjunction with the screenings. Returning to Nashville and The Belcourt is Essential Cinema author and esteemed critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who addressed a full house for the opening weekend of The Belcourt's "Visions of the South" series last year. He'll speak Sunday, April 8 on one of Bresson's masterworks, 1966's Au hasard Balthazar.
Discussing Bresson's last film, the cut-to-the-bone 1981 Tolstoy adaptation L'Argent, will be Chuck Stephens, the widely anthologized Film Comment/Cinema Scope critic who lives in Nashville and now teaches film at Watkins. (His syllabus each semester looks like the marquee in heaven's multiplex.) He'll appear March 25, with March 11's A Man Escaped discussed by Jennifer Fay, director of the film studies program at Vanderbilt; and March 20's Lancelot du Lac analyzed by Lynn Ramey, Vanderbilt associate professor of French and chair of the department of French and Italian.
Lancelot, Bresson's rigorously anti-romantic 1974 depiction of the Arthurian legend, may be the film I'm most excited to see on the big screen. The director peels away the gauzy trappings of courtly love, reducing the rituals of jousting and fighting to bone-jarring, robotic collisions of clanking metal: the participants are dehumanized, until their blood starts to flow. (It's said to have been a direct inspiration for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.) It's one of several films in the series that haven't been shown in Nashville in decades.
A list of all nine films can be found here, with a schedule and symposium details. A pass that includes all nine films and the four symposium lectures is $85. And a round of applause, please, for Belcourt benefactors Scott and Mimi Manzler, who made the series possible.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Books / Television Ann Patchett on The Colbert Report Tonight
Posted by Laura Hutson on Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 10:43 AM
The show airs on Comedy Central at 10:30 tonight, but just in case you miss it — or if you'd like to celebrate in a more literary fashion — Parnassus Books will be hosting a watching party for tomorrow's re-airing of Patchett's appearance at 1 p.m. Can't wait!
UPDATE: Watch the clip here.
Visual Art Paper Dolls, Mod Podge and Nerdery: A Studio Visit with Janet Lee
Posted by Laura Hutson on Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 8:00 AM
- Janet Lee
I stopped by Mike and Janet's house last week to interview them for our upcoming People Issue, and between making quick friends with their massive dog Odie (originally named Odin, but after about two minutes in his company it becomes clear that he could never pull off the mantle of a grim Nordic god — he's too fuzzy!) and inviting myself over for game night, I managed to snap a few photos of Janet's home studio. Check them out after the jump.
