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January 31, 2008
Guy DeBord was a Gamer
"In 1978 the French Situationist Guy Debord designed and fabricated a board game called "The Game of War." Thirty years later RSG is resurrecting this largely forgotten game, translating the game instructions from French to Java and releasing it as an online computer game. We explore the contradiction between Debord, a symbol of radical politics and art in 1960s France, and the Napoleonic war game he created. In Debord's own words the game was the only thing in his entire body of work that had any value. Was it nostalgia, or a vision of things to come?"
-from Over the Opening
There doesn't seem to be a link to where one can play this online game, hopefully that's coming soon.
The description reminds me of the wargames that eventually led to the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. Legend has it that Dave Arneson, one of the creators of D&D, blew the minds of his fellow wargame players one night when he suggested that instead of controlling an entire garrison of soldiers attempting a siege on a castle, they instead would control a single character, and form a small group that would infiltrate the fortress. Fun, hilarity, and a twisting of existing social (and gaming) norms followed. I think DeBord would have been proud.
Posted by kevinb at 5:47 PM | Comments (2)
January 29, 2008
Joe Swanberg's BUTTERKNIFE: New Web Series on Spout
I'm really excited about Butterknife, a new detective web series by Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs) starring Ronald Bronstein (dir. of Frownland, my vote for the best undistributed film of 2007).
The show is a nice blend of dialog-driven character studies with classic genre goodness. Here's the first episode:
BUTTERKNIFE 1: Plastic Hassle
Add to My Profile | More Videos
Posted by kevinb at 9:50 AM | Comments (3)
January 17, 2008
Hitting Sundance with Spout.com
Sundance, that big fat enchilada of American film festivals, kicks off today. I'm here with Spout.com getting coverage, I've got a full schedule of interviews, screenings, meetings, parties, and various to-do's. I don't plan on sleeping.
The coverage is just starting to trickle in, so be sure to check out:
-Spout's Sundance Page
-Spout's MySpace Page (we're doing the official festival coverage for MySpace)
-and as always SpoutBlog (keep in mind that the Spout Sundance page just pulls in SpoutBlog posts about Sundance, so there's some overlap there.)
We're doing an open call for interviews for people who want to promote their films. I'll be doing interviews at a certain place and time every day, and the filmmakers will (hopefully) come to me. This is a welcome change of pace from hounding Sean Penn like a stalker until he finally agrees to an interview.
Another change in our approach to this festival is that we're going to be doing video segments on the ground and uploading them daily. I was going to be involved in this, but then we got the idea that we could have actual independent filmmakers do it, and it would be way better, so that's what we're doing. Joe Swanberg and Ronald Bronstein are both critically-acclaimed, award-winning filmmakers, but neither have ever been to Sundance. Swanberg wrote and directed Hannah Takes the Stairs (trailer here) which was a huge hit at SXSW last year, and Bronstein made Frownland (trailer here), which is definitely one of my favorite films of '07. I can't wait to see what these two come up with.
You can never really tell which movies will be great and which will suck just by reading the two sentence blurb in the program, but I've been trying. Here's a list of a few movies I'm really excited about that I'll try to see and get coverage of (a review, an interview, or both):
-The Wave a German film about the true story of a class activity that attempted to teach a lesson about fascism, but went horribly wrong.
-Up the Yangtze a Chinese documentary about poor rural folks who are drafted to work on a river cruise boat before the river is dammed, which will cover all their homes with the largest man-made lake in the world. Watch this trailer, seriously.
-Fear(s) of the Dark a French film in which 10 animators have "breathed life into phobias and nightmares..."
-Time Crimes a Spanish time-travel mystery (this better be good, or I'll be pissed!)
-Sleep Dealer all I know is that it's Mexican sci-fi set in a distopian-future. And it has this amazing teaser website. I'm sold.
-The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins this is a documentary about artist Vanessa Beecroft's attempts to adopt Sudanese twins. I hope it's as weird as it sounds.
-Choke an adaptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel (Fight Club). Stars Angelica Huston, Sam Rockwell, and Kelly MacDonald.
And here are a few that I won't get to see because I'm not staying for the whole time, which really bums me out:
-Quentin Tarantino Presents: Hell Ride I imagine this will be nothing more than what I expect, but I still can't wait to see it.
-cASTING A gLANCE a documentary about Robert Smithson! I can't believe I'm missing this!! Hopefully it'll show up at the UICA later this year.
If that wasn't enough, I'm also really excited about what happening in the New Frontiers on Main space, which looks like it will be a phenomenal new media art show. It's featuring some of my favorites of the field: Doug Aitken, Graffiti Research Lab, Eddo Stern, and Paper Rad Art Collective in collaboration with Cory Arcangel, among many others.
Posted by kevinb at 8:40 PM | Comments (1)