The Filmcake

November 17th – November 23rd

Okie Noodling- Brad Beesley’s film about a unique type of fishing involving diving underwater and wiggling your fingers until a huge fish with sharp teeth bites down on your hand. These people are a unique breed, that’s for sure. I just don’t get it. Everything about noodling is directly opposed to my way of life. I’m Okie born, but I’m still very much a city boy. Like cockfighting until very recently, I kind of think noodling just makes Oklahoma look even more backward than we already are.

Here are the popcorn box and ticket we received at the Christmas on Mars screening at deadCENTER:

Super cool.

Remember…anything is possible.

The Flaming Lips encourage you to create your own happiness.

Indeed.

Yesteday, Sarah wrote movingly about her feelings on watching Stanley Kramer’s On The Beach and what it had to say about life and mortality:

I strongly believe that it is death that gives life meaning. Without the gnawing, ever-present knowledge that one day it will all end, I find it a little harder to truly enjoy life, and a lot easier to take it for granted. I think this is why I like the Impending End of the World scenario so much. It puts everything into perspective. It reminds me to feel everything more deeply. I appreciate Dwight more, and savor the little moments. Same thing with my family. My friends. My dogs. The thought of death forces me to focus on what I love, and to avoid getting worked up about the things that in, the end, really don’t matter all that much. I don’t want to waste a single minute. I want to live my life so that when the end finally comes, I have as few regrets as possible. I want to do, and see, and experience, as much as I can.

I feel the exact same way. Precisely because life has such a finality to it is what makes it so precious and wonderful. So with that floating around in my mind, I read this afternoon in The Oklahoman something that seemed to strangely echo that sentiment. Wayne Coyne described the “Flaming Lips philosophy”:

Maybe it’s proclaiming that there is a kind of cosmic mercy that happens when we feel like, despite our best efforts, we really are defeated. … Happiness can await us despite our worst failures. But it’s a happiness we must create. And since everything we believed in is destroyed, we have to create this happiness out of nothing.

I like that. It’s a psychedelic echo of what Sarah had to say, I think. And consider me a follower of Coyne’s philosophy. There’s a decent playlist of FLips songs that plays in my head whenever I need guidance or inspiration or comfort or any of these.

With that, I can’t wait to finally check out Coyne’s labor of love, Christmas on Mars. It screens at deadCENTER 11:55pm Friday night and 2:00am Saturday morning at the Rocktown Gym. This will mark the third Flaming Lips film I’ve seen first at deadCENTER (The Fearless Freaks & U.F.O.’s at the Zoo, previously).

We already know that Oklahoma City University will represent at the deadCENTER Film Festival with the feature Unsolved. It looks like the University of Oklahoma will have representation at the festival as well.

Two films from OU graduate Royce Sharp will be shown, The Breakup of a Happy Marriage and Deus Ex Machina (w/ Walker Robins). In an article in the Norman Transcript, Sharp describes the former as a “funeral for my right testicle. The latter is described as a “comedy about a guy and his moustache.” Okay. Testicles don’t often play a huge role in the films that I like…but if it’s personal and/or honest, then why not. Now, the moustache movie…I don’t know about. Last year there was a funny Okie short that screened called Man With a Moustache. Hopefully, Sharp and Robins’ film brings some originality to the facial hair genre.

OU art professor Robert Dohrmann will show his Rebus Riot! which he describes in the Transcript article as “not really a story like most of the other films at deadCENTER. It’s really more concept-based.” While just about anybody is likely to be confounded by some of the shorts that get screened at deadCENTER, I honestly think that having read Film Art will give me a newfound perspective with which to appreciate what some of the more “experimental” films are trying to do.

The Breakup of a Happy Marriage will be shown as part of the Okie Shorts program at 7:00pm, Friday the 13th, at Kerr Auditorium.

Deus Ex Machina and Rebus Riot! will be shown as part of the Midnight Shorts program at 11:55pm, Friday the 13th, at the IAO Gallery.

I’m not the target audience and I know that. I have no objection to it, either.

Well, those are Jim Emerson’s words in regards to the Sex and the City movie. But, they also apply in my case in regards to science fiction conventions. I like sci-fi and horror and all that, but deep down I’m not really a genre guy at heart.

Anyways…there are a couple of “Sci-Fi” conventions coming up in the area with attendant film screenings. This weekend brings SoonerCon to the OKC Metro. They’ll have two days of movies as part of their SoonerCon/Bare Bones Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Film Festival.

Then in late July, Conestoga 12 arrives in Tulsa. They’ve got a short film contest going on as part of The Conestoga International Film Festival. They are still taking short film submissions until July 1st. Then at the convention, the winners in various categories will be awarded and screened.

In both cases, the film screenings are perhaps not worth the full cost of convention admission if that’s all your going for. Still, I’m curious about these sorts of conventions if only in a sociological sort of way. I see that SoonerCon has a session entitled “Is Blogging Helping or Hurting your Career?” What career? There is another session called “Creating Believeable Aliens.” Is “believable” really the appropriate word to be used here? Really? In any case, I’d like to know what sort of consensus they achieve. Which characteristics differ between a believable alien and one that just requires too much suspension of disbelief? Which brings me to perhaps the most fascinating session which takes place Sunday morning–”Morning Worship Service.” After digesting the wealth of material you’ve learned in a previous session about how to create believable aliens, you’re going to wake up on Sunday for a little worship. How nice. And, who or what will they be worshiping exactly? And, furthermore, is this deity more or less believable than the alien? Oh, how I wish I were a fly on the wall. Hmmm, I wonder if there’s a session on achieving believable human-to-fly metamorphosis…

The World Premiere for the Oklahoma produced film Unsolved will take place as part of the deadCENTER Film Festival on Friday the 13th (at Kerr Auditorium; it will also screen on the 14th at OKCMOA). It is the first feature film to come out of Oklahoma City University’s Moving Image Arts Program, headed up by Fritz Kiersch (director of Children of the Corn).

Check out the trailer:

This reminds me that I need to get over to deadCENTER’s b-side site and figure out what to watch for the festival. Oooh, I can’t wait. And, now I guess I might have to figure out how to fit in Unsolved.

June 21, 2008 – Diamond Ballroom – Oklahoma City

Not sure what sort of horror “celebrities” will be there besides Charles Band himself. As Sarah mentioned, any event that includes hot chicks in cages among its draws is probably an event meant to appeal to others besides ourselves. Still, I think you go to something like this as much for people watching as for the actual show/merchandise.

Sarah and I attended the first Full Moon Horror Convention & Film Festival in Little Rock last year.  Night Frights had a booth at the convention (where Sarah writes factoids). We unfortunately missed out on the Zombie Walk and spent more time with the Film Festival than the Convention but still had a lot of fun. No word yet on the 2008 version of the Convention/Film Festival.

I’m hoping this blog helps me to stay out of the usual ruts. I want to explore all different kinds of cinema. I don’t want to watch the same types of things over and over. I don’t want every movie I watch to come out of my Netflix queue, or every movie to be out of the same genre, or every movie to be one that was well-reviewed by A.O. Scott. I also want to get out more–to experience movies outside of my living room every once in a while.

To that end, here’s one possibility for this weekend:

This is the 11th year that IAO has invited filmmakers to screen their short films of 15 minutes or less. As the Film and Video Committees largest and longest running event, it always includes a diverse range of stories, techniques and styles.

At this year’s event, winners of the 24 Hour Video Race (sponsored earlier this year by IAO, Living Arts of Tulsa, and the Philbrook Museum) will be screened.  At the conclusion of the screening, both an Audience Choice Award and Committee Choice Award will be presented. Also, the Linda Jaeger Honorarium awarded to a graduating high school senior planning to study film and video in college is announced that evening.

The fun begins at 7pm.