Movies
A handful of observations
AUGUST RUSH I’ll put August Rush on the ring finger because it is a fantasy romance and I think of marriage that way lately. I don’t really like the picture, except that the romance is mostly told with music, and Freddie Highmore, the child actor from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Finding Neverland, is the star. A friend of mine started a play of hers with a quote from Kurt Vonnegut: “If I should die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC.” I think this film’s embrace of music – and of the possibility that a human can be gifted beyond understanding – suggests the existence of God as well. It’s the shots of people listening that give me that rush of emotion, that make me tear up and gasp. It’s true especially in films about music, but I think in any film about art and artistic expression, the key moment is the appreciation of the action, the moment when everything is redeemed because the audience actually hears what is being played, sung, spoken, acted, or expressed and recognizes that something extraordinary is happening, that a window is being opened into a soul and a life is being exposed with grace and dignity. My heart goes to the audience because, if Kurt Vonnegut is right, the artist walks with God, and in a way brings that as a gift to the listener. The moments of recognition in August Rush gave me that. GOLDFINGER and QUANTUM OF SOLACE The middle finger and the thumb … I spent the weekend at an autograph show with Tony Curtis, Angie Dickinson and Shirley Eaton. Shirley Eaton was the beautiful blond who betrayed Gert Frobe in Goldfinger, my favorite of the early James Bond movies. I hope that one of my last memories will be of Shirley Eaton, dead and naked, lying across Sean Connery’s bed, painted gold. If I’m still having erotic thoughts – and that is the hope – one of them will be of her. Goldfinger was 1964 and she still holds up. Fine featured and elegant, wearing gold tones, a very gracious lady and charming with the many fans that came to see her. The early Bond films celebrated a particularly decorative notion of maleness. They also celebrated the notion of the female as decoration. The new Bond, starting with Casino Royale and Daniel Craig, redefines maleness and the position of the female in his life. Craig’s Bond is a thug, a brutal man with the focus and concentration of a soldier machine who learns charm, social grace and maybe humanity itself when he falls in love with a woman. In the sequel, Quantum of Solace, which came out on DVD and Blu-Ray on Tuesday, he is set on revenge for her death at the end of Casino Royale. It’s a James Bond with human feelings and fast cars and million dollar stakes at the gaming table. But […]
Mar 26th, 2009 by Mark Metcalf
Two ways to run an agent
Body of Lies stars Russell Crowe doing an accent. He’s done a lot of accents lately: New York City Irish cop in American Gangster, also directed by Ridley Scott; American cowboy in 3:10 To Yuma; and Virginia family man here, again directed by Ridley Scott. He also apparently put on 66 pounds to play this character, a lead analyst in the CIA, living in affluence in Virginia, running an agent in Jordan by phone while he picks the kids up at soccer practice in the Lexus. It may not be a Lexus and it may not be soccer, it may be ballet, but it is definitely suburban; we are never allowed to forget that. The contrast between the agent in the field, sleeping on floors, sussing out IED’s, being tortured, speaking different dialects of the native language and the boss who processes the intelligence and directs the agent into more and more dangerous situations is made clear every time Crowe is on screen. It’s about all that is made clear. I find Crowe’s acting to be increasingly like a man who goes to a big closet and picks, first an accent, then a few physical mannerisms, the hair, a walk, something to do with his hands. He puts on a character the way you might put on a suit of clothes, but the clothes always have that new clothes look, they haven’t been worn enough to feel owned. And ownership is what brings authenticity, and that is what makes a character in a situation believable. Crowe’s partner, the man on the other end of the satellite phone, the agent in the field, the dog out sniffing up the terrorists, is played by Leonardo DeCaprio, again working against type to play a grown man, doing a tough job, in a dangerous environment. I know he can grow facial hair, or at least wear a wig and beard well, but that doesn’t quite get him over the hump fully into manhood. There’s something about the whine that gets into his voice when he becomes excited that holds him back and makes him still a boy pretending to do a man’s job. He tries on accents too, going a little Southern once in a while during the course of the film. But consistency is a problem with DeCaprio. Ridley Scott has worked with Russell Crowe several times, all the way back to Gladiator. He has also made some films that should be in anyone’s best all time list: Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise. And one of the best of the modern war films: Black Hawk Down. He knows his way around an action sequence and can tell a story in a compelling way. Body Of Lies is certainly the high-rent version of how Middle East intelligence operations work. Two major stars, an A-list director and a script by the man who wrote Departed, William Monahan, will get you a big budget and a nice release pattern. Why then did it fail? The […]
Mar 19th, 2009 by Mark Metcalf
IT’S ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE!!!
Is it Milwaukee Film or Milwaukee Film Festival or what? Either way, read on, poke around on that your smarky little iPhone/Blackberry and make plans to submit that film…. Milwaukee Film Announces 2009 Milwaukee Film Festival and Call for Entries New and highly anticipated Milwaukee Film Festival will kick off September 24 Milwaukee Film, the new and independent organization dedicated to presenting Milwaukee’s premier film festival, is proud to announce the dates and a call for entries for its 2009 Milwaukee Film Festival. Running September 24 through October 4, the back and better-than-ever Milwaukee Film Festival will showcase more than 100 films at venues throughout the city, including the Landmark Theatres Oriental Theatre and the Marcus Theatres® North Shore Cinema. The Film Festival will feature films from around the country and the world, providing a unique community platform for films that would otherwise not screen in Milwaukee. “We’re incredibly excited to be able to announce the Film Festival dates today,” said Jonathan Jackson, Milwaukee Film artistic director. “We’re confident that the new festival will be the best Milwaukee has seen and that it will be a Milwaukee institution for many years to come.” The early deadline for film submissions is April 6. Entry fees start at $10, but the fees are waived for any film created by a Milwaukee filmmaker. The festival will offer cash and production prize packages, to be announced at a later date. Tickets for individual films will be $10, but Milwaukee Film will offer discounts for those purchasing their ticket packages and passes early. The first ticket packages will go on sale in April, and in addition to early discounts, Milwaukee Film is planning a series of contests, promotions, incentives, and special events leading up to the film festival. “Thousands of Milwaukeeans filled the seats at the film festival in years past, and this year our goal is to bring those guests back and to attract a diverse new audience,” said Diane Bacha, executive director of Milwaukee Film. “The response we’ve gotten since forming the organization last year has been overwhelmingly positive, and we can’t wait to present Milwaukee with this world-class festival come September. It’s truly a privilege to be able to essentially bring the whole world to Milwaukee through film.”
Mar 18th, 2009 by Howie Goldklang
Epic romance
Seventy years ago, Gone With The Wind blew across the movie screens of America and became, for many, the quintessential American movie. GWTWand The Wizard of Oz, also made in 1939, were for decades the definition of the Hollywood spectacular and a road map for how American ingenuity and innovation could bring a degree of enlightenment to a pop culture phenomenon. Now Australia, a movie directed by Australian Baz Luhrman and starring Australians Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, comes along and reinvents the epic romantic movie genre of the one while fully embracing the fantasy movie genre of the other. Sung with delightful awkwardness by Kidman, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” becomes the leitmotif of the film. Luhrman has said that he wants to make movies that fully engage the audience in a participatory experience, which never lets them forget that they are watching a movie. He calls it the Red Curtain discipline. His first trilogy of films, Strictly Ballroom, Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge are spectacularly theatrical. They exist by, for and about performance. Australia is a departure because, without being a remake, it takes a film story that is familiar to everyone who knows classic American films – the headstrong lady of breeding meets the equally independent man of nature, they clash, work together against evil, fall in love and vanquish the oppressor – and it re-imagines it. It is a romance novel melodrama, a paper-thin story writ across the face of the incredible landscape of Australia and infused with all the magic and mystery of the Aboriginal culture that has lived there for millennium. I don’t know how Luhrman and cinematographer Mandy Walker create the astonishing colors and compositions that they do. Every square inch of every frame is deliberate and amazing. I’m sure that Australia itself is beautiful, but Luhrman sees it the way Van Gogh saw Arles, with intensity and a clarity that transposes it to the surreal. In the first half of the film, again and again your breath is stopped in your throat by a visual image. And no matter how simple and transparent the story, its visualization – the sheer passionate showmanship of the movie making – connects you to an emotional response. At points it is like listening to the best of Beethoven. There is no way to articulate in words what is happening, or what exactly you are feeling, but you are swept up and away by the mystery of sound and you become an emotion. Of course, as in love, you must be willing to surrender. It is filmmaking of the highest order. But it goes on too long. There are two films here. The first as I described before, the second after the man and the woman have come together and saved the homestead, when they must defend it and defend their love from each other and from the pressures of the outside world. And then there are the Japanese and the authoritarian forces of the […]
Mar 12th, 2009 by Mark Metcalf
Superheroes
There are two questions that plague me about the movies. One is: Why do we need love stories? Why is romantic love so basic to our cinematic literature? I tend to think that it is all about procreation and part of an elaborate mating ritual, but I am told that just asking the question makes me a cynic and I’m not sure I am ready to be thusly compartmentalized. The other is: Why super heroes? In the past year alone we have had Iron Man, Batman, The Hulk, Hancock, Hellboy, Bolt, and now Watchmen. Before that came Spiderman, but he ran his course a few years ago. I suspect the Fantastic Four will return and apparently the Last Stand of the X-Men was not, literally, a last stand. And if the endings of Iron Man and The Hulk are to be believed there will be more to come out of that Ultimate Alliance. The answer at an economic level is obvious: They make a lot of super hero movies because people go to see super hero movies and therefore they make a lot of money making super hero movies. Somebody started it and if Hollywood is good at anything it’s jumping on whatever bandwagon is making money. But as a social anthropologist, I wonder what it is about our society that pushes us to need super heroes to play so prominent a part in the culture. A friend once answered that question with, “Well, with our politicians so obviously worthless we need someone strong to look up to.” The man definitely has a point. For the last eight years at least, the perception has been that the leaders of our country, the politicians, are far from heroes. And before that, Bill Clinton, it turned out, was nothing more than a man and a weak one at that. The first President Bush was a bit of a clerk in his manner. Ronald Reagan wore spurs, chaps, and a cowboy hat, and he came out of the West with the sun at his back. He walked the walk and stood in the shadow of hundreds of cowboy heroes; not super heroes, but the literary equivalent of brave, strong men on whom we have always counted. With Reagan it may have been an illusion, or, as some of us still believe, a delusion. But we always seem to need heroes to stand in for us, to stand up for us, to walk into the flames before us. We live in a culture that is patriarchal by design and perhaps by nature. Patriarchal and hierarchical. We choose a leader and that leader goes out and meets the enemy for us so that we can stay at home and live a comfortable life. And that leader has always tended to be male or at least a female who thinks the way a male does, in a vertical way, in the way of dominance and submission, of power and of strength, in the way of winning. […]
Mar 9th, 2009 by Mark Metcalf
Sound the alarm
Close my blog now. OK, not NOW now, in like 2 minutes from now. Get up and git yourself back to the main page. Breathe. Take it in. This is for real. Unified, organized(ish), bleeding edge, here and now journalism. Your search is over. Explore the site. Explore Milwaukee. Explore our 3rd Coast. Milwaukee Film is alive and well with screenings galore. Film Wisconsin is bare-knuckle brawlin’ the Gov, which is in line with spirit of true indie film. More and more galleries/artists are VJ-ing, vlogging, adding film showcases … it’s so here and now, its practically reading this blog, with a drink, smiling, scrolling, click … Oh wait, that’s you. You may click away now. Now git!
Mar 7th, 2009 by Howie Goldklang
Religulous
This was supposed to be about Nickelback, but that will have to keep for next time, or another time. By all indications, that horrible Canadian band will still be here by the time I get around to tearing into them with vituperative insight. The delay was caused by the release of Religulous on DVD in mid-February. This is, of course, the “documentary” from comedian and talk-show host Bill Maher and Borat director Larry Charles, and I put the term in quotes because Maher and Charles seek less to illuminate the subject of religion than to make light of it. I am, it must be said, not against this. I will not share with you the stories of how I came to be a non-believer—such stories are almost always as boring as those of the born-again and otherwise converted—but now you know I am one, at least. And I have read many of the recent anti-religious books, including Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion, Sam Harris’s The End of Faith, and of course Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great. (Ann Coulter had a book whose title, Godless, could easily place it among the others, but that title was meant as an insult to non-believers. The actual text was an insult to intelligence, proper research, and sanity, and then there is the fact that Coulter hotly believes that more religion would benefit the world, so long as it is the correct religion.) I had read those three best-selling texts before I went to a local theater to see Religulous, so I thought I had the arguments well in hand. I didn’t really need any of the arguments, though, because the film’s main method is to find various religiously oriented lunacies and point cameras at them. Such a method would, theoretically, not have required Maher to venture much further than his own California backyard, but he and Charles racked up the miles in traveling from London to Amsterdam to Megiddo, Israel. This last location, seen at the beginning and the end of the film, is a rough framing device of seriousness: Megiddo is, according to the Bible, the site for Armageddon. Inside the frame, however, Maher and Charles make good on their title, ridiculing Orthodox Jews, Christians, Muslims in Amsterdam, an ex-Jew for Jesus, Mormons, and Scientologists. Interestingly, they don’t include religions commonly considered “Eastern,” such as Hinduism or Buddhism, even though such supposedly laid-back faiths have produced a considerable amount of violence, bigotry, and hatred. But the negative results of those faiths don’t get much media play in the United States. This is probably just as well for Hindus and Buddhists and other omitted believers, because Religulous often has the air of a particularly ripe episode of “Jaywalking,” the late-night feature in which Jay Leno appears to run into no one but the most ignorant, unthinking people in the nation. It doesn’t help that Maher’s default facial expression is that moment before a smirk, which is only encouraged by magical Mormon underwear and […]
Mar 4th, 2009 by Jon Gilbertson
Monday Night at the Movies
The Milwaukee International Film Festival wriggled, wormlike and whimpering, out the door last year, primarily because the founder was unable to release the choking grip he had on its throat. But the people who made it work – the heart, the lungs, the arms and legs, and to a great degree the brain of the former festival – have found a new face and are creating a world class film festival for Milwaukee to be proud of. It will be known simply as The Milwaukee Film Festival. One of their first events is a series called Monday Night At the Movies. Every Monday beginning March 23rd, at the Marcus Theatres North Shore Cinema, The Milwaukee Film Festival, in partnership with Marcus Theatres, will be screening films from around the world – films that you otherwise would never get the chance to see here in Milwaukee. It is a partnership that has been a long time coming. The primary venue for the festival next September will still be the beautiful Oriental Theatre on Farwell, but Marcus will be continuing their partnership through and including the 2009 Film Festival. One would think that a film festival in Milwaukee would have to work with the Marcus Theatres, but apparently there was some friction between the previous board and Marcus so it never happened. Now, thankfully, it can. Like any city, Milwaukee consists of a lot of small, tight knit neighborhoods: the East Side, Bayview, the North Shore, River West, Wauwatosa, the West Side, the Third Ward, Walker’s Point. There has always been and continues to be a degree of chauvinism within each neighborhood that enables it to, while celebrating itself, turn its back on the neighborhood next door and perhaps remain somewhat ignorant of what is going on over the back fence. One of the goals of the Film Festival is to bring all those neighborhoods, those ethnicities, and those differences together. It is a bold, ambitious move, especially at a time when resources are significantly low, to reach out to new partners and new population centers.The earlier festival focused on the East Side and downtown, where it was born.As it grew in size and in ambition it began to reach out to other neighborhoods.The Times Cinema in Wauwatosa was a venue.The Skylight Opera in the Broadway Theatre Center in the Third Ward was a partner for a few events.And there has always been the hope that developers will bring back the beautiful Avalon Theatre in Bayview so that neighborhood could also be an energy center for the Festival.With the Marcus Theatres North Shore Cinema offering this series of Monday nights, the Festival will enter into another neighborhood and bring another diverse population under its umbrella. Each of the films presented will be introduced by someone from the community with a specific knowledge of the film and the area it represents, and the audience will be invited to come to a discussion group afterward at a nearby restaurant, bar or book store with […]
Mar 2nd, 2009 by Mark Metcalf
99 Bottles Documentary in Milwaukee and Madison + Q&A with filmmaker Jason Williams! Read It Now!
99 BOTTLES a documentary about WI and Beer 4 shows on 4 different nights. Arrive 30 minutes before all show times for FREE Beer Tasting WHERE: Times Cinema (Milwaukee) WHEN: November 6-9 Thursday at 7:00pm Friday at 7:00pm Saturday at 7:00pm Sunday at 4:00pm WHERE Orpheum Theater (Madison) WHEN: Nov 13-16 Thursday at 7:00pm Friday at 7:00pm Saturday at 7:00pm Sunday at 4:00pm “99 Bottles Documentary” was created to promote exposure and public awareness of the rich and vibrant craft brewing industry. Visit the site for more details and the trailer: 99bottlesdocumentary.com What prompted a doc on beer? The producers David Oplinger and Glen Popple were interested in developing a project that was home grown. They were discussing ideas while taking down a few brews at Wolski’s Tavern. Glen relayed a story that his co-worker kept bugging him to make a documentary about craft breweries. “That is a great idea,” said Dave. The great part of the story is there was no such documentary made about this subject before. They decided to start asking the different breweries about the project and found out that all of them were thrilled to have their stories of history shared to the world, or at least in Wisconsin. How long did it take to shoot this doc? The documentary pre-production planning started in February simultaneously with shooting. The idea was to shoot the general “beer enthusiast” and ask their impression of the industry. One of the questions we asked was, “If you could ask a brewmaster anything, what would it be?” This lead to the list of questions that became the focal point of the interviews with brewmasters and owners. Principal photography lasted from February through May. The logistical issue was scheduling trips to other cities each week to get the necessary footage. We went as far as Sand Creek Brewing Co. in Black River Falls, which is 3.5 hours one way. War story to share? Crazy day during production? The biggest war story is the Premiere debacle. The gallant effort we choose was, shoot, edit, and distribute a full feature documentary within 6 months to the Harley Fest lovers. In the final day of editing for the premiere the Compressor failed to output a media file to burn a DVD. After repeated attempts the program crashed at about 20 to 30 minutes through each attempt. The thought was to work solid full time for 1.5 months to cut a feature documentary and deliver a show, but the luck wasn’t there. The lesson is “pick the show date last, not from the start”. The craziest day during production was obviously the above failed premiere. What are you working on next? Currently I’m working on 2 projects. I am in post for a short called “Indefinite”. The premiere of the trailer will be shown during the “99 Bottles Documentary” shows. “Indefinite” is a co-directed project with Christopher Kuiper. He will be penning a comic book series that ties in with the short. The other project […]
Nov 6th, 2008 by Howie Goldklang
For you, me and everyone we know
Welcome to Inferiority Complex City: Population – me. So indulge me, you painfully skinny punks, you tattooed, bearded, pierced indie-everything hipsters, indulge me from my little film corner, waving my pseudo-hipster white flag because let’s face it – it’s cooler to be a rocker than an actor. I know, stop rubbing it in. And jeez, VITAL, an entire Music issue! I see how it is. GFY Music, GFY. OK, I’m over it. But in the end I’m a team player. And with that in mind I humbly lay before you my own contribution – amazing music from amazing scenes of amazing films. Be Amazed. And no, Pulp Fiction, Garden State, High Fidelity, Velvet Goldmine and 24 Hour Party People will not appear on this list because those soundtracks are on par and at times better than the films they represent and we are looking for moments, people, moments. Now be amazed. MOVIE: The Big Lebowski SONG: “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” by Sons of the Pioneers Let’s jump right in with two feet. Now you’d think it would be the opening credits track of “The Man in Me” by Bob Dylan (we’ll talk Dylan later) or “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” by Kenny Rogers and The First Edition because whenever you are dealing with Dylan or Kenny Rogers in any conversation they automatically are #1, regardless of the topic: everyone knows this. Except when dealing with The Big Lebowski. The opening scene is simple enough. Narrated by Sam Shepard, the camera pans up from a country hillside to reveal the vast valley of Los Angeles. This is when the vintage, crackling country song “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” plays. It has a kid-with-his-blankee effect: you settle in, feel good and realize everything is gonna be alright because The Big Lebowski is on. Again. MOVIE: Napoleon Dynamite SONG: “Canned Heat” by Jamiroquai This scene might be the greatest school talent show scene since Lindsay Lohan took the bull by the horns and busted out “Jingle Bell Rock” in Mean Girls. Right people?! Who’s with me?! This is scene is also the reason why I kinda want to see the Pedro actor deejay at Cans. We’ve all seen the ads but no one admits to going. Sinners. MOVIE: Trainspotting SONG: “Born Slippy” by Underworld This song legitimized the whole early-90s, skinny, heroined-out/ecstasy-infused art world in one scene. This dance floor classic plays at the culmination of a drug deal between friends and enemies in a seedy London hotel. The song soundtracks the only silent part of an otherwise dialogue-heavy, narrated film, punctuating the drama and conclusion of the story. Makes we wanna organize a Take Back the Night walk with glowsticks. MOVIE: Dazed and Confused SONG: “Tuesday’s Gone” by Lynyrd Skynyrd I challenge you to name a better 70s song to play during your teenage convertible drive into the sunrise after the greatest night ever. “Loving Cup” by The Rolling Stones, you say? OK, I challenge you to name a third. MOVIE: […]
Oct 30th, 2008 by Howie Goldklang
Mlwaukee Film Launches To A Packed House! Go Milwaukee Film Go
The Milwaukee Show Launches Successfully “I Want You to Know” wins Jury Award, “The Waiting Room” wins Audience Award MILWAUKEE (October 24, 2008) — Nearly 600 people attended last night’s inaugural program of Milwaukee Film. The Milwaukee Show, announced the award winners at the Discovery World – Pilot House last night to a packed house of filmmakers and attendees. The Milwaukee Show Jury Award Winner: “I Want You To Know” Directed, produced and edited by Derek Kimball Written and produced by Matthew Konkel A bated tension and quiet disclosure provides the milieu for this father and son camping narrative about reserved honesty and stunted youth. The Milwaukee Show Audience Award Winner: “The Waiting Room” Directed by Tate Bunker Produced by Mark Metcalf Written by Emily Downes In a room full of strangers, people come and they go…while a young woman waits. Filmmakers Derek Kimball and Matthew Konkel were awarded the first ever Jury Award prize, a $20,000 filmmaking production package to help them shoot their next short on film. Milwaukee Film’s next event is the much anticipated Milwaukee premiere of “Song Sung Blue” on Thursday, November 6 at 7:15pm at the Oriental Theatre. The multiple award winning “Song Sung Blue” goes backstage into the personal lives of Lightning & Thunder, a Milwaukee-area husband and wife singing duo who pay tribute to the music of Neil Diamond. Over several hundred tickets have already been sold for this one time only screening; please buy your tickets in advance to guarantee a seat. Tickets are available at the Landmark Oriental Theatre box office 4-10 p.m., Monday to Thursday; noon-10 p.m., Friday to Sunday.
Oct 24th, 2008 by Howie Goldklang
Meet Milwaukee Film
by Howie Goldklang + Photo by Kat Berger Film festivals are a tough business, man. One day you’re wearing your cleanest dirty suit in some board room asking for sponsorship money and the next you might be unloading office furniture from a rental truck, arguing about which films to program or waiting around for the Road Runner guy to show up between 3 pm and 10 pm on a Tuesday. And so it goes, on and on into an abyss of film submissions, stacks of papers and messes of wires up and down your office walls, dealing with filmmakers, the endless quest for sponsor dollars, securing equipment partners, a constant need to build build build – film programs, screenings, screenplay readings, competitions, contests, and then your actual festival! My god, you mean we have to show films? Yes! Creating the printed program, hawking down sponsors for ads two weeks late, finding reliable projectionists, pulling a jury together, organizing parties and panels, printing tickets and those cool-guy laminated passes, glad-handing sponsors, and on and on into an abyss of … You get it. The film festival world is a fucking grind and to be the core staff of a successful one means you are either crazy, bulletproof or both. Enter Jonathan Jackson, Kyle Heller and T.J. Fackelman – keys to the defunct Milwaukee International Film Festival (MIFF) now forging ahead with a new organization called MILWAUKEE FILM. (Peep the Facebook group of the same name. Now!) But wait? What the hell happened to MIFF? We’re a beer and shot away from that conversation, so if you see me at a bar, walk over with a Magic Hat and Makers and we can get into it. For now, think about reasons that arts non-profits might split. Then think about who the original organizers were. Go ahead, name names. Then do a Mad Libs called FOUNDERS VS. FESTIVAL and carefully place the words Money, Ego, Sponsors, Vision, Credit and Direction. Then buy me another drink. (Search the REEL MILWAUKEE Blog at vitalsourcemag.com for more on the 4W/H about what happened to MIFF.) But I digress. Can you imagine doing the brick-by-brick, day-to-day festival grind for five years and without warning, it’s gone? These dudes couldn’t. Up from the ashes came Milwaukee Film, which is both a kick to the teeth of the powers that stole MIFF from Milwaukee and a dog whistle to independent filmmakers and artists in Milwaukee that the real supporters of MIFF don’t go out like that. “The whole staff went through a grieving process. Having put a festival together for the last five years, I feel like a big part of my life is missing,” says Milwaukee Film Artistic Director Jonathan Jackson. “Ultimately though, I am ecstatic about the future. We have an incredible opportunity to create a cultural organization that will maximize its potential and provide entertaining and socially conscious film programming throughout the year. We can’t guarantee perfection, but the staff and board of Milwaukee Film are […]
Oct 1st, 2008 by Howie Goldklang
