The Private Files

Photo

Sat, 18 May 2013 09:14:13 -0400

Quite startling, almost hard to believe, in the latest...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:45:06 -0400

Quite startling, almost hard to believe, in the latest Filmmaker: Lance Weiler writes that L.A.-based biotech has purchased David Cronenberg’s IP for real-life applications. Read and then click to the site where Pod Wants to Know You.

Highly recommended. vimeo: euphonia by ornana films euphonia is...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:55:08 -0400

Highly recommended.

vimeo:

euphonia by ornana films

euphonia is the newest film from Ornana, the group behind the hit animated short “(notes) on biology”. It debuted in the feature film category at SXSW last month, and they are now making it available for free exclusively on Vimeo.

I am not a number.

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:14:28 -0400

I am not a number.

heidisaman: “Mr. Hitchcock taught me everything about cinema....

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:23:20 -0400

heidisaman:

“Mr. Hitchcock taught me everything about cinema. It was thanks to him that I understood that murder scenes should be shot like love scenes and love scenes like murder scenes.”

— Grace Kelly

heidisaman: “Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:22:18 -0400

heidisaman:

“Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance.”

— James Baldwin interviewed in The Paris Review

Vito Acconci’s written instructions, left at the New...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 11:51:04 -0400

Vito Acconci’s written instructions, left at the New School, in the case of his death while traveling.

momalibrary:

-ds

Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway practicing the kiss scene in...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:42:03 -0400

Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway practicing the kiss scene in Chinatown.

nevver: Albums as Book Sets

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:03:51 -0400

Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division (1979)

Power, Corruption & Lies by New Order (1983)

nevver:

Albums as Book Sets

film-dot-com: TRAILER: NICOLAS WINDING REFN’S “ONLY GOD...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:03:09 -0400

film-dot-com:

TRAILER: NICOLAS WINDING REFN’S “ONLY GOD FORGIVES”

“you wanna fight?”

so here’s the best trailer of the year (thus far). hopefully this will undo the damage that the movies did to Thailand with “The Hangover Part II,” if such a thing is possible.

coming to theaters on July 16.

alixlambert: Patti Smith. By Norman Seeff

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:02:33 -0400

alixlambert:

Patti Smith. By Norman Seeff

amospoe: “English is a curiously expressive language. Womb,...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 11:52:36 -0400

amospoe:

“English is a curiously expressive language. Womb, room, tomb. It sums up living in three words.”
― Anthony Burgess, The End of the World News: An Entertainment

Photo

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 11:51:54 -0400

Three eras of currency

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 11:50:29 -0400

cdixon:

Commodity based, e.g. Gold

Politically based, e.g. Dollar

Math based, e.g. Bitcoin

"I don’t see much sense in that,” said Rabbit. “No,” said Pooh humbly, “there isn’t. But there was..."

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 09:41:07 -0400

““I don’t see much sense in that,” said Rabbit. “No,” said Pooh humbly, “there isn’t. But there was going to be when I began it. It’s just that something happened to it along the way.””

- A.A. Milne

Left in the comments to today’s AVC post
(via fred-wilson)

wandrlust: Philadelphia, 1961 Baltimore, 1962 Florida,...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 18:40:16 -0400

wandrlust:

Philadelphia, 1961

Baltimore, 1962

Florida, 1963

— Lee Friedlander: The Little Screens

"Your film must be a done deal. Only the journey is negotiable. The mentality for our feature was..."

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 08:11:50 -0500

“

Your film must be a done deal. Only the journey is negotiable.

The mentality for our feature was always that we were going to make the film, no matter what. There was never this thing where we were going to write the script and then wait till someone gave us the money. It was always we’re going to make it, and here’s the starting date. If we get the money we’ll make it bigger. If we don’t get the money we’ll shoot it with our cellphones.

Our philosophy was whatever we did, we had to proceed with absolute certainty. That was probably crazy, but it had an effect. Money sort of follows determination. It was a big group of us and we were all very determined. A lot of miracles happened, but I think they happened because we were charging so quickly that it was almost like a boat shooting through the water. We created the current and the momentum.

”

- Ten Lessons on Filmmaking from Beasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin.

How to Fire a Collaborator

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:05:10 -0500

How to Fire a Collaborator:

Dumping Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick shows us how it’s done.

STANLEY KUBRICK

15 June, 1972

Dear Anthony,

I shall start off by saying I don’t really know how to write this letter, and that it is a task which is as awful for me to perform for me as it may be for you to read.

You are far too brilliant and successful a writer, and I am far too much of an admirer of yours to patronize you with a listing of what is so obviously excellent about ‘Napoleon Symphony’. At the same time, I earnestly hope that our all too brief friendship will survive me telling you that the MS is not a work that can help me make a film about the life of Napoleon. Despite its considerable accomplishments, it does not, in my view, help solve either of the two major problems: that of considerably editing the events (and possibly restructuring the time sequence) so as to make a good story, without trivializing history or character, nor does it provide much realistic dialogue, unburdened with easily noticeable exposition or historical fact.

I’m very sorry that the subject of the letter could not be of more pleasure and benefit to both of us, and after saying all this, I can only thank you for trying this and hope that you will continue to accept my admiration and respect for you as an artist, and my great feeling of warmth and friendship for you personally.

Sincerely,

Stanley

amospoe: “As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:55:05 -0500

amospoe:

“As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.”
― Fran Lebowitz

thenewinquiry: One bank is already lending on the basis of...

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 15:09:20 -0500

thenewinquiry:

One bank is already lending on the basis of borrowers being able to get Facebook friends to serve as human collateral.

Perhaps no company has gone as far as Lenddo, a Hong Kong start-up that owns online lenders in Colombia and the Philippines. Loan-seekers ask Facebook friends to vouch for them. To determine if those who say “yes” are real friends rather than mere Facebook contacts, Lenddo’s software checks messages for shared slang or wording that suggests affinity. What’s more, the credit scores of those who have vouched for a borrower are damaged if he or she fails to repay. Put the word out about this “social-enforcement mechanism” and “boom, the money shows up,” says Jeff Stewart, Lenddo’s boss.

Nothing like having your digital kneecaps broken because some deadbeat friend of yours couldn’t make a payment. Better purge all those high school friends from your Facebook who aren’t likely to be successful; get rid of all those college friends who seem weird or who update about unsavory low-class, low-status things. Reify your habitus! And do it fast, before it costs you. Never mind that your habitus is precisely what you take for granted about how you see the world: subject yourself to rigorous observation and then make yourself conform to the signifiers of status! You wouldn’t want your friends to get hurt, would you? You wouldn’t want them to drop you, right?

-Rob Horning, “Social-Media Redlining and ‘Social Enforcement’ “