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Film Comment Selects Program 2005

Film Comment Selects presents films championed by the writers and editors of Film Comment magazine. Below are Film Comment Selects screening series events from the past year. The next annual Film Comment Selects 2-week series will be February 15 through 28, 2006.

AN EVENING WITH RIP TORN
Wednesday, September 21, 2005, 6:30 pm
Film Comment Selects and Capital Entertainment presented an event with Rip Torn and Ira Sachs. The legendary cult actor and the indie filmmaker were on hand for a special double feature: a sneak preview of Sachs’s trenchant Sundance-winning love triangle, Forty Shades of Blue, an onstage conversation between Sachs and Torn, and a rare screening of Torn’s classic 1973 road movie, Payday.


An Evening with Anton Corbijn, Jonathan Glazer, Mark Romanek, and Stéphane Sednaoui
Tuesday, September 13, 2005, 7:00 pm
In 2003 the newly formed Director’s Label released three DVD collections dedicated to the work of Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and Chris Cunningham. The discs contain music videos, short films, documentaries, commercials, video installations and other rarities. Newsweek promptly proclaimed the titles, “some of the best cinema made in the last decade.” The New York Times hailed the artists as “directors who transcend music.” And, most importantly, rabid fans sent the lavishly designed DVDs into certified gold and platinum orbits. Film Comment Selects, Palm Pictures, and the Director’s Label presented a special event celebrating the release of the next volumes in the series by four of today’s most innovative filmmakers: Anton Corbijn, Jonathan Glazer, Mark Romanek, and Stéphane Sednaoui. 

The evening’s 90-minute program sampled highlights including rare director’s cuts and previously unseen content, such as Sednaoui’s short film inspired by Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”; Romanekian, a short film on Mark’s work featuring Ben Stiller, Chris Rock and Robin Williams; and an excerpt from NotNa, Lance Bang’s new documentary on Corbijn. Both Romanek and Glazer have already ventured into features (Romanek directed One Hour Photo and Glazer Sexy Beast and Birth), Corbijn is working on his first (based on the life and death of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis), and we assume there will be a preproduction announcement any day now from Sednaoui. Following the screening, all four directors participated in a roundtable Q&A, MC'ed by Michael Stipe, and moderated by Lance Bangs.


POLICE BEAT WITH RUBBER JOHNNY
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
9:45 Live DJ set by SMC from Warp Records
10:30 Screening 
Robinson Devor’s Police Beat provides a dreamy slice of Pacific Northwest life. A black Muslim West African immigrant, working as a bicycle cop in Seattle, suffers from relationship woes. As he cycles between oddball crime scenes, his mind gradually devolves into an uncanny morass of self-doubt. Visually mesmerizing and sonically accentuated by a soundtrack featuring the Aphex Twin, Erik Satie, and other quixotic composers. 

Chris Cunningham’s 6-minute masterpiece (over four years in the making), Rubber Johnny takes the viewer deep into the extremely dark world of an inbred 16-year-old mutant and his abusive TV-addicted parents. Featuring music by the legendary Aphex Twin—a regular Cunningham cohort—Rubber Johnny is guaranteed to shock. As one industry insider warns: “See it at all costs. But do not see it alone.”


2046
Wednesday, June 15, 2005, 9:00 PM 
2046 is many things at once—the year when mainland China assumes absolute control of Hong Kong; the number of the hotel room across from Tony Leung's Mr. Chow, inhabited by a parade of women he pursues and discards with impunity; and the place where disappointed lovers escape to in Chow's erotic sci-fi novel. Tony Leung's reprisal of the affable, self-mocking Mr. Chow, this time with a bitter edge, is extraordinary. Faye Wong, Carina Lau, Gong Li and an utterly electrifying Ziyi Zhang are the women who pass through his life, as vivid as ghosts from out of a forgotten past.

Director Wong Kar Wai was present for a Q&A with the audience after the screening. 


We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen
Tuesday, May 24: 6:30 & 9:00 PM 
Blasting out of sub-Tinseltown San Pedro, California, in the early 80s, the Minutemen changed the course of music history. Fueled by proletarian angst and itchy-indie fingers, they made Nirvana possible—in every sense of the word. Utilizing archival footage of the band in various stages of action, plus an amazing array of interviews, including extensive face time with bassist Mike Watt, director Tim Irwin's much-needed documentary provides a riveting (i.e., loud) exposition of the Minutemen's achievement and premature demise. The band's meteoric rise ended with guitarist D. Boon's tragic death in 1985. Fans be warned: you'll shed a few tears. Everyone else: Get in the van. 

Director Tim Irwin and producer Keith Schieron were present to introduce the film and answer questions after the screening.