The cat is out of the bag: Casey Affleck admitted in no uncertain terms that his I’m Still Here and all of its public antics were part of a (not so) elaborate hoax. The film follows Affleck’s brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix as he retires from acting and tries his hand as a hip-hop artist. I saw the film last week but never ended up writing a review. Now that we all know the truth, I’d like to point out a few reasons why the entire project was a wild misstep for those involved.

1. It wasn’t a great hoax.

At no point throughout the two years devoted to creating the character of dark and disturbed Joaquin/J.P. did anyone not consider the possibility that this was all a hoax. While there was a great deal of coverage on his retirement from acting after a meteoric rise, the story seemed to always be followed by another one about how fake the whole event seemed. Beyond that, what was realized in the execution of this joke? Nothing. At least Jerry Springer was able to tap into the American psyche. What does J.P. reveal about anything?

2. It wasn’t a great movie.

Even accepting the film as fiction doesn’t make up for the scheme. It is clunky and corny, manipulative and, at times, boring. Even at its most revealing moments, we are thrust back into the insanity of J.P.’s devolution, never really getting to see something more human emerge from this confused shell of a man. The film’s ending implies that we should feel for him with an overlong shot of him submerging in Panamanian waters, but instead the film feels truncated, stalled. Narratively, for a fake film, one could do a lot better.

3. It was too childish.

The most talked about moments of the film involve Phoenix snorting cocaine and ordering hookers as if they were so many pizzas. This clued most people into the fake-ness of the film, though not because we would like to think better of what movie-stars do with their hard earned cash. It broke through the facade because it was a childish scene, the kind of lifestyle prepubescent minds think rock stars would have. It felt put on. And then there’s the scene where a costar takes a dump on Joaquin’s face. Enough said.

4. They revealed the truth too soon.

It should have been clear, for a long time, that there would be creative consequences for making this film. For whatever reason, Affleck and Phoenix decided to tell the world it was a documentary and run with it, even through screenings at the Venice and Toronto Film Fests. Fine. Why not run with it a bit longer? Andy Kaufman took his Jerry Lawler prank to the grave and it remained a secret for a decade after his passing. Charlie Kaufman (no relation) allowed himself to be nominated for two Oscars as both himself and the fictional Donald Kaufman just to keep up appearances for the meta Adaptation. If this was all about audience engagement, trying to get people to unravel their hinted puzzle, why not let us all stew in it for some time? There is a simple answer: the film got terrible reviews and both of them would like to get back to work.

5. They could have made the same film without deception.

When you get down to the nuts and bolts of the whole operation, the public appearances and tabloid press version of this story stands separately from the film itself. They could have made the exact same film without the put-ons. Do they think audiences are so stupid that they wouldn’t be able to differentiate the Joaquin character from the real Joaquin? This gets back to this really not being such a great hoax in the first place.

6. The performance was marred by the whole escapade.

In his explanation for the hoax, Affleck refers to Phoenix’s performance in the film as his best yet. That’s debatable, though the character is weighed down by the film’s concept. If you watch closely, there are actually many Joaquins on display; he’s a schizophrenic character. His arc, as it were, has more of an ebb and flow than any real direction. It’s not easy to stay in character for two years, but then again it’s not easy to pull off the best performance of your career.

7. The New York Times reveal is horseshit.

While I don’t think he should have revealed that it was a hoax so soon, there are a million ways Casey Affleck could have copped to this that would have been more explosive, more fun than “over a meat-free, cheese-free vegetable sandwich” with Michael Cieply (no offense). Phoenix will be on Letterman next Wednesday, an obvious place for a reveal. They could have showed up at a theater to explain things away; they could have gone out with a bang. Instead, Affleck sounds like a wet noodle in the Grey Lady: “I never intended to trick anybody…The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind.” Oh please, pick up a newspaper or read a blog, the word hoax was used in nearly every piece of reportage on this film for years now.

[](http://www.candlerblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/09/Catfish06.jpg)

I went into the screening of Catfish as most viewers are likely to: without a clue as to what was about to unfurl. The recent promos for the film, depicting a Blair Witch-esque odyssey, are unlikely to clear things up. But that’s the fun of it. It’s an oddball little documentary with a weird title and a twist that ought to be protected. So what can one even say about it without pissing on the parade? That it’s a highly enjoyable, highly suspect slice of life investigation.

Right up front you’ll meet Nev Schulman, a New York-based photographer and brother of filmmaker Ariel (Rel) Schulman, who directs the film along with Henry Joost. He begins receiving paintings of his photos from an 8 year old girl on Facebook, Abby. Her talented brushstrokes of his inspired photos have earned Abby both a reputation and a living; the paintings are sold online and at Michigan galleries where she lives. Amazed at the power of the social network, that his work could inspire someone he has never had reason to come in contact with, lead Nev to reach out to Abby and her family. He meets her mother and sister through Facebook and becomes entwined in her social circle.

It is when Nev “meets” Megan, Abby’s older sister, that things take a turn. A good looking romantic and, let’s face it, a nerd, Nev finds himself quickly falling for Megan, and elevates the relationship from an online rendezvous to phone calls and naughty texts. They chat online constantly and she even records a few songs for him. Or does she? When she uploads a song in under a half hour of the request and e-mails it to him, Nev gets suspicious of her abilities. In an online stakeout, Nev, Rel and Henry scour the web to find empirical proof of Megan and Abby’s existence, coming up short. So they decide that they must, for the sake of the film, head to Michigan and confront the family head on.

Catfish joins a long list of documentaries of dubious provenance this year. Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop was supposedly directed by the mysterious street artist, though many of the pieces of that film seem staged, or at the very least provoked. Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix are unsuccessfully billing their I’m Still Here as an actuality while the film has hoax written all over it (even in an opening title card). And here we have Joost and Schulman’s work. By the end, the pieces fit perhaps too perfectly; the narrative is so clear, following an Aristotelean arc so closely it seems as though it must be staged. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Look around the world for the absurd, for stories that seem like something out of the imagination, impossible. You hear about it all of the time; why shouldn’t something like that happen to a small group of filmmakers? It’s possible, at the very least.

However, looking beyond whether or not you believe in it, we can still look at the film objectively, as a movie. In a season that will likely be dominated by David Fincher’s The Social Network, referred to colloquially as “The Facebook Movie”, I think Catfish is far more deserving of that nickname. It is a testament to our current trend of virtual self; an analysis of what we will allow ourselves to not only share, but to feel publicly. Like it or not, we all live in a virtual world of our own design; posting, tweeting, liking, etc. When that brushes up against the real world, the meat space, and we don’t like what we see, we all have to find a way to cope, to reconcile both worlds. Joost and Schulman have delivered a film that, even if not entirely true (though I think it is) serves as an excellent parable for our current obsession with the virtual. It will no doubt be the more lasting “Facebook Movie” of 2010.

[](http://www.candlerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08 /boxee-mubi.jpg)Two exciting announcements for cinephiles from the tech world today. First off, Netflix has added iPhone and iPod Touch compatibility to its widely used iPad application. I use the iPad app all the time, mostly for catching up on television series, and the iPhone is a welcome addition. Certainly, people will complain about the size of the screen and break out the ever popular David Lynch YouTube video, but I think it’s a big step in the right direction. The more screens available for content, the more opportunities filmmakers have of reaching audience.

Secondly, early this morning Boxee rolled out a new version of their Boxee Beta. The main improvement is what they are now calling the “Movie Library”, a collection of streaming films from around the web all in one place. Providers EZTakes, Indie Movies Online, MUBI and Openfilm join Hulu, Netflix and YouTube to make for the most full featured, comprehensive library on the web.

MUBI, formerly The Auteurs, is perhaps the biggest part of this announcement for cinephiles. Launched as a social network alongside the Criterion Collection, MUBI has an incredible rotating collection of classic and international cinema. Users can either pay a monthly fee of $12 for unlimited access to the entire collection or rent films for $3 apiece. You account is managed through MUBI’s site, allowing you to rent directly from Boxee on your television.

At this point, there is no excuse to miss out on all of these great films. Boxee is free so you can be up and running in no time. When the Boxee Box comes out later this fall, it will be a simple plug and play matter to get all of this content. Quality notwithstanding, has there ever been a better time to be a filmmaker or audience member?

[](http://www.candlerblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/louisstill.jpg)It almost seems unfair, at this point, to post a review of Dan Pritzker’s silent film Louis. It’s not that I haven’t seen the the film, I have, but I’m not positive that I’ve actually heard it. Featuring a flowing musical score penned by Jazz’s presiding dean, Wynton Marsalis, the film will be on tour through the last week of August with live accompaniment by Marsalis, pianist Cecile Licad and a ten-piece ensemble. If the phrase “concert film” has been claimed by documentarians, then the only other term I could think of for Louis is “event film”. Recounting a reverie of the early life of trumpet great Louis Armstrong, the film’s five live showings will be nothing short of a grand event.

Pritzker and writers Derick Martini, Steve Martini and David Rothschild came up with a gimmick film, a riff on a bygone era of cinema and music; the birth, as it were, of both. We are brought into early 20th century New Orleans, a town with a hopping brothel, and evil magistrate, and streets teeming with competing horn blowers. The tale follows our young protagonist, Louis (Anthony Coleman), as he gets mixed up in the affairs of Grace (Shanti Lowry), a woman of the night looking to protect her newborn from the horrors of the world she has endured. Judge Perry (Jackie Earle Haley) rules the town by force, and once he learns he is the father of Grace’s baby, he sicks his goon Pat McMurphy (Michael Rooker) on her in hopes of shutting her up. That is, not if Louis has anything to say about it.

Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, perhaps most well known for his work with a young Steven Spielberg and an old Woody Allen, clearly approached the film looking to exhume a vaudevillian style, a time when actors caked their faces with makeup just so that their expressions might be seen in the cheap seats. As cinema grew technologically, this tradition fell away, allowing photographers to get in and capture an actor’s essence au natural. It seems that Zsigmond is out to prove something on his own, using exaggerated, “caked on”, cinematography. He celebrates the artifice of silent cinema: the sterile sound stages, the comic fast motion, the tinted, washed out look. The trouble is that artifice can only go so far, coming off as a one-joke parody rather than an exploration of the way things were.

Part way through the film, when our heroine heads into her brothel, the camera slides past a porch, through another entrance, up a stairwell and around the den of iniquity, in a series of long takes. Never mind that this would have been impossible to do in the silent cinema days, both for the weight of the camera and the shortness of the reels; I couldn’t help but question whether or not this shot has any place in this film regardless of time. It’s impressive, like most long takes, only for its ambition. In execution, it adds little than if we got snips and snaps of the building through montage. On top of that, we witness a room full of half clothed harlots and their Johns, each couple more racy than the next. The women exude a sense of 21st century pornographic beauty, a far cry from period specific hookers. That, however, is the point.

One cannot think of Louis as a film with musical accompaniment, but a concert with an adjoining film. Marsalis’s scores are predictable and derivative, but that doesn’t mean they don’t serve an important narrative purpose. This is clearly an emotional history of Jazz, focusing on it’s faster progenitor, Dixieland. And that’s really the point. If we look at music in the 20th century, right up to our most recent aural movements, much of it stems from the original “Devil’s Music”, Jazz. In that sense, Pritzker really earned his R rating here, giving Jazz a bit of sex, a bit of naughtiness. Too quickly we think of the musical genre as relegated to easy listeners and junior high school students, too often we mistake it for a dead language. Pritzker and Marsalis are here to say Jazz is not only alive but still capable of shocking us, of pushing us to our darker, some would say more interesting, mind space. In that sense, Louis, as far as I’ve heard it, is a rousing success. But to watch it without music, is to watch very little.

Louis will be at the Apollo Theater in New York City on Monday, August 30th. It is currently touring the U.S. through August 31st. For more details, visit the film’s official website.

[](http://www.candlerblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/63803_piranha.jpg)The legacy of Piranha lies in a tradition of good effects work, fun horror tricks as well as poor plot/storylines. And while the mixture of fun Joe Dante-cult series and smart Alexandre Aja horror sensibilities are a combination for smart intentions, this fare hits the “camp” quality too much on the mark.

There is so much delivery of sexualized pseudo-3D effects that the implicit analysis of male-scopophilia is not balanced enough to warrant a congrats for effective Hitchcock-ian application of technology and genre. While these elements were not strong enough to combat 3D exploitable elements, they are strong enough to summon a mention, as the message of the film should not go without notice.

The context of the plot lies in the traditional alcohol-sexed teenaged beach party of any aquatic horror, where the camera is immediately immersed in overly objectifying 3D close ups of unidentified and scantily clad women. While this is obviously what will sell tickets, in the tradition of this genre, Aja also takes the length of the first act to deconstruct this gaze and equate it with the horror of consumption found within the blood-seeking monsters. For, just as in any sex-horror of the late 70s/early 80s, we find those unwed teenagers that participate in any sexual activity are prone to ill-conceived death and pain. Aja not only plays by the rules, but also implicates the audience as both initiator of such desires, and executioner. When the porn-star females lure the virginal female-love interest into the Piranha-infested waters, it is up to a conflicted male to save her. What the male is conflicted over is the point of the film’s deconstruction of gaze: the desire to objectify from the safety of audience (depicted as he frames a video-camera to record intended pornographic material) and the elimination of such enticement (the death of those participating in this material). Aja not only suggests this through the main character’s conflict, but solidifies this theme when the audience is presented with a fascinating moment in which two naked women rotate within water, presenting the moment of desire to experience “everything” in 3D, but also anticipate the possibility of death for these women at any moment. A terribly masochistic moment that reveals the true nature of Aja’s Piranha horror.

While this initial setup seems an appropriate and intelligent use of 3D technology, it does not satisfy the questions that arise about misogynistic tendencies about this horror’s origin. The reason for the plot’s horror lies in the accidental opening of a cavern beneath a lake, revealing a subterranean lake from which prehistoric dangers lie. While there is nothing complicated about these plot-facts, the camera reveals this “fissure” opening cavern in framing that is quite vaginal, and once two scuba divers enter this “fissure,” they find a cavern full of eggs, implicating the origins of this “horror” to be quite feminine. The panic, disaster, and suffrage occurs from the birthing of the young, revealing this horror to be male-centered.

The last balancing point lies in a smartly cast Elizabeth Shue, as the only mother figure within the narrative who not only maintains a position of authority as local sheriff, but displays a fearless heroism un equaled by any other female figure. It is because of her initial calls for safety and plans for survival that save some of these selfish and gland-driven teenagers from complete disaster and (effective) carnage (not to mention saving her own pre- teen children in need of babysitting).

While Aja misses with his normally well-balanced commentary-subtext and genre exploitation, his entry into the Piranha franchise slides too perfectly into traditional horror-genre sequel (with the assistance of quality work from Gregory Nicotero).

[](http://www.candlerblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/MAO1.jpg)Bruce Beresford’s Mao’s Last Dancer is a film that cannot decide what it wants to be. The story of a Chinese dancer who comes to Reagan’s America finding not only a passion for ballet but himself, it is one part anti-communist manifesto with doses of Asian fetishism, one part immigration caper, one part love story, one part alien comes to the suburbs adventure (think Mac and Me) and one part dance film. The trouble is that only one of these facets, the dance film, actually rises above the patina of Hollywood fit and finish that will make you want to walk out of this film. It’s not that Mr. Beresford made a terrible film, he simply made one that discounts the last twenty years worth of intellectual growth we have achieved both as filmgoers and international citizens.

The biggest redeeming factor of the film, besides the lovely dance sequences, is Bruce Greenwood’s performance as Ben Stevenson, the kind, graceful, enigmatic and at times manipulative director of the Houston Dance Company. Under the auspices of a student exchange program, Stevenson brought Li Cunxin (Chi Cao) to Texas after seeing his work in China. Raised by state ballet instructors in a rigorous bid for cultural dominance, Li’s skill is unhoned; very cold and mechanical, very Communist. Stevenson sees a project in Li, and with hopes of being the first company to cross the red curtain, the exchange is but one step in his own plan for cultural ascendance. Greenwood has an impeccable ear for smarm, most recently in Jay Roach’s Dinner for Schmucks, but the Stevenson character is something new, something wonderful. He has imbued his entire being with a life of its own: a stride that only he could pull off, an accent that ebbs and flows from soothing to irate between scenes, and a giant pair of headphones that he manages to make look chic. It is an impressive performance held back only by the thinness of the story as a whole.

Like any biopic, the goals of Mao’s Last Dancer are far reaching, too strident to be told within the confines of a feature film. This is not only the life of a man, but a geopolitical relationship that needs context in the wake of the Beijing Olympics. In 2010, China isn’t exactly all that bad in the eyes of Joe American, so time is wasted bringing us up to speed. The scenes in China, where Li grows up inundated with the Communist dream, are cartoonish, like something out of a 1940s newsreel. Teachers spew vitriol on the American way of life, all to the enjoyment of at least the crowd I saw the film. How stupid they are, thinking America is a wasteland. The irony I hope viewers will recognize is that the lies the children learn of the U.S. is tantamount to the film we are watching, this Chinese fairy tale. As it is when Li comes to America, looking around as if he’s landed on the moon. It’s not that Li (a real person, by the way) didn’t experience America in this way, confused by t-shirts and wowed by skyscrapers, it’s that there is a story far more interesting than that to be told.

The best off-stage sequence in the film could have been a feature in itself. After a bold evening in which Li makes efforts to stay in the U.S. once his visa expires, he and a gang of friends, lawyer in tow, go to the Chinese embassy to explain why he is leaving. Of course, goons pop out of the shadows and take him away, ready to move him back to his homeland and deny his U.S. Status. This is the part that tries to become international intrigue. It falls a little flat but is aware of its absurdity (“chairman meow”). As the scene drags on, it serves as yet another reminder that this film cannot decide which story it wants to tell. The one of a long night in an Embassy while the world watches to see how two governments at odds with one another will react sounds like a pretty good one to me, but instead it’s just an extended moment. We never get inside of the real Li. His emotions are either too reserved or too large. They involve crying, smiling, and expositing. Even the Chinese have nuance to their emotions, but the way Li is written you wouldn’t think so.

One more thing. Narratively, this film doesn’t work for me, but there is something about Mr. Beresford’s confused touch that is in part irresistible. The scenes in China feel like an older film. The classroom sequences call to mind some moments of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, or perhaps Louis Malle’s Au Revoir Les Enfants. Whatever I can say about this film, there are still aspects of it that are mystifying, mostly on stage. It plays as corny and simplistic, but it still looks good. For some, that may be enough.

[](http://www.candlerblog.com /wp-content/uploads/2010/08/net-neutral.png)On Monday, Google and Verizon issued a joint proposal on the issue of network neutrality, or net neutrality. In it, the companies map out how they feel on the subject and issue a list of rules they believe should be adopted industry-wide. So what is this all about and why should filmmakers care? Give me a few paragraphs.

Brief Briefing
First, a definition from the extensive Wikipedia article: “At its simplest network neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally.” You can read the [two-page proposal](http://www.scribd.com/doc/35599242/Verizon-Google-Legislative- Framework-Proposal). If the lawyer-speak gets you down, [Engadget’s Nilay Patel offers a clear](http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/09/google-and-verizons- net-neutrality-proposal-explained/) breakdown of every point, while John Bergmayer at Public Knowledge gives some great perspective on the implications of the document. If that’s not enough, you can read the joint post on [Google’s](http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/08/google-and- verizon-op-ed-path-to-open.html) and [Verizon’s](http://policyblog.verizon.com /BlogPost/742/JointPolicyProposalforanOpenInternet.aspx) public policy blogs. The two companies also co-authored an op-ed in [Tuesday’s Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/08/09/AR2010080905647.html).

Bits of Bits
There are two parts of Google and Verizon’s proposal that should worry filmmakers and audience members alike. The first one is their provision for “Additional Online Services”. There is no clear cut definition for what these additional services could be, but when asked on a conference call, Verizon’s CEO [Ivan Seidenberg used 3D content](http://gigaom.com/2010/08/09/google-and- verizon-agree-to-net-neutrality-compromise/) as an example. If 3D content is considered an additional service, then why not video?

Broadband high-speed Internet connections have become the norm in the last decade, and the film industry has flourished because of it. Sites like iTunes, Netflix, Amazon Video and YouTube offer filmmakers, both mainstream and independent, more options for reaching out to audiences than ever before. Thanks to the availability of high speed broadband connections, we can deliver high quality video near-instantaneously. Also, as Greencine Daily’s Vadim Rizov pointed out recently, digitally equipped theaters represent about 15% of all movie screens worldwide. Digital films are projected from a series of files, sent out over a secure high-speed connection. Even productions make extensive use of broadband, allowing for editors to be in one base location where footage can be uploaded to them on a daily basis. In other words, the film industry relies on incredible amounts of bandwidth.

But bits are bits and bytes are bytes, correct? This mention of additional services suggests otherwise. The, proposal keeps things unclear (the whole definition of these services is 106 words) but mentions “traffic prioritization” as one use case, meaning some data will get to make use of more badwidth while other data will not.  The fear in this case is that Verizon, or any ISP for that matter, could offer lucrative prioritization contracts to some movie companies, ones not viewed as competitors, while leaving others out. Let’s say they strike a deal with AMC Theaters but not Landmark, then Landmark would of course have to go with another ISP. But these exclusivity deals would only go so far before either bandwidth runs out or partnerships dry up, meaning the little guys won’t be able to compete anymore.

What happens when theatrical video file sizes become smaller and video codecs become more robust? One day, perhaps, video streaming won’t require as much bandwidth, but these services could already be in place. So those theaters who are still around would still be paying for legacy technology for no reason. Another example is video editing. Until Apple introduced its “ProRes 422 (Proxy)” codec, their larger “ProRes 422” was the smallest editable HD codec. If a post-production companies leases bandwidth in order to move “ProRes 422” because it is considered an additional service, will it be stuck with the same agreement once it switches to “ProRes 422 (Proxy)” even though the files would be small enough to use their standard broadband connection? Google and Verizon have no answer to these questions.

No Strings
The second, and more worrisome issue of the proposal is how the corporations refer to wireless broadband technologies. They make a clear distinction between wired and wireless, not based on connectivity but based on content and services. While most of the proposal ensures an open Internet over a wired connection, it makes no such provision for wireless technologies, citing its “still-developing nature”. According to this plan, there become two Internets: the wired and the wireless. Uh, what?

In my original [Google Wave for Filmmakers](http://www.candlerblog.com/2009/06/05/google-wave-for- filmmakers-a-concept/) concept, [which I recently revised](http://www.candlerblog.com/2010/08/05/google-wave-dead-but-not-the- concept/) after Wave’s demise, I mentioned the possibility of cameras that could upload footage straight to the web for editing by a remote team. Today’s wireless systems, like those that provide Internet connections for iPhones and Blackberrys, are not fast enough to handle the load of uncompressed video. One day they will be, and when that day comes we will have professional-grade video cameras with high-speed data connections. That way, you can shoot and send your footage right to your editors, from anywhere in the world. Or will that ability be hampered by Google and Verizon’s implication that wireless data is somehow different from wired data?

On the distribution end of things, today’s most advanced smartphones can play HD video on their high resolution screens, but there is still no way to get that data to them over their wireless connections. HD streaming is usually limited to WiFi connections, and downloads cap out at 10 or 20 megabytes depending on your provider. These bottlenecks are purportedly in place to keep the network active because it can’t handle the data load. An ulterior motive could be that wireless providers, like Verizon and AT&T, could strike exclusivity deals with different content partners and share revenue from the sales. In this case, Disney could sell it’s HD content wirelessly only to Verizon customers. Independent filmmakers who don’t have the marketing power to set up such contracts would be left out of wireless distribution completely.

Action!
This may all seem academic today, when digital projection is slowly getting off to a start and highly compressed (read: crappy) mobile video is the norm. In the next two decades, wireless broadband will probably supplant wired broadband for most of our network solutions. Just look at how far mobile computing has come in the last five years. Imagine what the landscape will be like in one hundred years. Will we have set events in motion that limit innovation and set back independent film distribution?

As an online publisher, a cinephile and someone who works in the film industry, I am deeply disturbed by Google and Verizon’s proposal. I cannot support it and I encourage you to learn about what’s at stake. The digital revolution has invigorated the independent film movement, bringing films to light that otherwise could not be funded/distributed. By giving up on the most basic concept of the networked world, that there is one Internet, we are also giving up on a bright future for cinema. Public Knowledge has drafted a letter you can send to your congressperson. Send it in, take action, and voice your opinion.

[](http://www.candlerblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/google_film_wave_dead_logo.png)Exactly 14 months ago, shortly after its introduction, I [outlined a concept for how Google Wave could be used by filmmakers](http://www.candlerblog.com/2009/06/05/google- wave-for-filmmakers-a-concept/) (which I recommend reading before you go on). The post was widely read, and even [Google featured the idea](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/surfs-up-wednesday-google-wave- update.html) as a potential use case scenario for its fledgling product. After snagging a (relatively) early beta spot for the service, I witnessed how filmmakers were attempting to make use of it. I should emphasize the word attempting, because most users were completely lost on how to implement the technology. Yesterday, Google announced it will stop developing the platform, and has only promised to support their version of Wave through the end of 2010. Google Wave is dead. So is the Google Wave for filmmakers concept dead?

Why Wave Died
[](http://www.candlerblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/Wave_Screenshot.jpg)Tech pundits will break this story down from every direction, but I can offer a few armchair talking points on the subject of Wave’s demise. The first and most important is that Google Wave requires a new workflow but looks and feels like so many other, older workflows. It feels like a document but looks like e-mail, and functions like neither. It has all the downsides of chat, commenting and bulletin board engines with none of the benefits of modern browsing and design. Basically, when greeted with either a blank or a populated wave, every user approaches adding to it differently, which leads not only to confusion, but clunky performance. Worse still, nearly every basic use case for Google Wave is superseded by a number of other web services.

But it’s not all bad. There is a reason why, when Google introduced Wave at their I/O Conference in 2009, the web community at large became overwhelmed with excitement, and it’s not just because of the company’s impressive track record. Its promise was to bring e-mail into the 21st century by redesigning it from the ground up. This promise became something of an albatross almost immediately; it’s the reason so many people were confused when they opened up a wave. Still, it’s the best effort there has been yet to organize the clunky, unwieldy nature of message, reply, forward, and so on. Google has developed some amazing technologies in Wave that will most likely end up elsewhere, such as the ability to view live text edits from multiple collaborators. For a company that thrives on innovation, Wave is nothing but a win for Google.

In the end, and it is the end, no one could find a killer use for the product. The filmmakers whose waves I’ve participated in usually just let the thing turn into a comment forum, basically a glorified blog post. Some have tried to collaborate on screenplays, but Wave is not ready for documents that long. Furthermore, even though Wave cleverly tracks changes, it feels like destructive editing, and that’s a big deal to users. If you think you can’t get a change back, you won’t make a change.

Why “Wave” for Filmmakers isn’t Dead
Wave’s possibilities turned out to be far more interesting than its actual uses. The key to the software was text manipulation and tracking among a number of users. You could edit text collaboratively, and then embed that information on a website. You could also bring various strands of data (photos, videos) into a wave. The concept of one central, editable document is what opened up the Google Wave for Filmmakers concept for me. That central document, in my example an XML document, is the key to the idea. The hope, originally, was that Google Wave would flourish and grow, allowing for the kinds of hooks I mentioned. It hasn’t, and it won’t.

Centralizing film editing is not a new idea. Apple and Avid and other third party hardware makers offer a number of solutions for getting multiple editors, producers, writers and other creatives on the same page. However, today, these technologies are extremely limited, usually requiring involved parties to be in the same building. From a creative standpoint, this is an idea that has worked for nearly a hundred years, since the advent of the vertically integrated studio. Clearly, filmmakers demand a new level of mobility and collaboration today. Why be tied to a single location? Why be tied to a finite team even? Why not have people perform simple tasks in your process to move things forward?

What’s Next?
Technologically, we are at least a decade away from bringing all the strands of moviemaking together in an intuitive manner. Video is one of the last strongholds of supercomputing since it requires incredibly robust hardware. For most consumer uses, desktop all-in-ones and laptop computers suffice for nearly any task, including video editing. It wasn’t always that way. Ten years ago, working with video on a laptop was something of a novelty, today it’s become quite common, though not for processor heavy tasks like transcoding or compositing. Computers are getting smaller and faster, and many basic tasks have all but obliterated the need for hardware altogether. Look at word processing, e-mail, basic photo editing, playlist creation, and even document storage as just a few examples of cloud ubiquity where once hardware reigned. It is not a matter of whether video editing will make it to the cloud, but when.

For now, creators will keep on creating. Like anything else, these are just tools. Google Wave was a bold move in the right direction towards central collaboration. There is no way to look at this as a failure for Google, or for any of us. The conversation has shifted. Now we need to take the momentum that Google Wave kicked off and the tools it will leave behind to keep the conversation up so that when the technology falls in line, we will be there to adopt filmmaking methodologies that move us forward.

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[](http://www.candlerblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/brotherhood_3.jpg)It is with grace, care and patience that Danish director Nicolo Donato brings _Brotherhood (Broderskab) _to life. A love story about homosexual neo-nazis, the plot is a fuse that others may not see the point in lighting. It may sound too high concept to work, but Donato has brought a surprisingly affecting story to life by developing rich emotional palettes for the film’s main players, avoiding moral proselytization.

Like many tales of unrequited love, this one gets off to a clunky start. At the outset we meet Lars (Thure Lindhardt), a son of privilege on course for a successful military career, is left unemployed after his underlings accuse him of making advances at them. In an only moderately believable turn of events, he happens upon a local chapter of white supremacists while drinking his worries away at a friend’s house. Initially disgusted by their beliefs, he is drawn to them, or rather pulled in for his eloquence and obvious curiosity. Kicked out of his house after beating a Muslim, Lars is forced to move into the summer home of the movement’s leader. There, he and Jimmy (David Dencik), a senior member of the organization, must fix the place up in its owners absence between party meetings, mosh pits and beachside burnings. They drink organic beer and red wine, work at a snail’s pace and go for dips in the lake when the mood strikes them. It is seemingly the plush life for these bigots.

In this exclusive club, there are the lowly followers, the idiots we think of when we think of unrepentant racists, the boys who perhaps could not find another strata of society that would take them on. Then there are the people like Lars and Jimmy, the more intellectual neo-Nazis who choose to be there. In Donato’s film, all of these “thinking” Nazis are portrayed as, how should I put this, dandy. There is something decidedly homoerotic about a group of men who get together to celebrate physical dominance, a note Donato hits on part- way through the film at a hate-rock concert. In slow motion, the men sweat, slap and surf on each other. It is around this point, in a mosh Lars would rather sit out, that our main characters begin to fall for each other.

It is implied, strongly, that Jimmy has a history of lovers, perhaps within the enclave. Fatso, the frightening recruiter played with wonderful restraint by Nicolas Bro, spends much of his screen time leering at Jimmy, trying to ensure he has not started up a relationship with Lars. Another interpretation is that Fatso and Jimmy were perhaps involved at some other point. It’s unclear because we only have their body language to go on. Try as he might, Jimmy cannot resist Lars when no one is around. Lars would rather run away, but the organization is the only family Jimmy has ever known and he refuses. He would rather keep it a secret than suffer the consequences, which are as bloody as you might imagine.

Thure Lindhardt and David Dencik offer up moving performances as our forbidden lovers. We see Lars’s brief transformation from youthful go-getter to white supremacists, but Jimmyhas obviously been torn about his decision to be amongst Nazis since he made it. Lars was so embarrassed, so unable to speak of the homosexuality that lead to his dismissal, that he would rather make something of himself among bigots. Jimmy must have gone through the same thing, only much harder, and at a much younger age than Lars. But could a lifestyle that denies them who they are actually be worth it?

The real trick of Donato’s film is to make us even think in this way about these despicable characters. A man who can perpetrate such acts of violence, as they all do, is no man worth saving, no man deserving of happiness. They shouldn’t even be worth our thoughts, let alone our compassion. Even for its clunkiness, moving us a bit too quickly through the first act, Brotherhood works as a love story and unexpected take on a world you may be unwilling to enter. In the real world, I won’t find any place in my heart for bigots and their blind followers. However, within the confines of this film, I may take a second look at these unlikely companions.

Brotherhood opens in New York on August 6th and Los Angeles on August 20th.

[](http://www.candlerblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/twelve3.jpg)If a mashup of Gossip Girl, Crash and Traffic doesn’t sound appealing to you, then you should probably skip Joel Schumacher’s disastrous Twelve. If that does sound right up your alley, then you’re beyond help so do whatever you want. In what appears to have been thrown together over a few weekends (it was actually shot in 23 days), the film follows White Mike (Chace Crawford) a straight-edge drug dealer who tailors to the Upper East Side’s teenage addicted denizens, over a fateful three day period in which everything changes for everyone, or some such nonsense. It’s a mess.

Now about White Mike. His restauranteur father has fallen on hard times, so he dropped out of school and took on the task of dealing dope. The kids love him since he is, or was, one of them. Anyway, his cousin gets high one night on a new designer drug called Twelve, presumably because it’s a mixture of that many psychotropics, and goes off to Harlem wielding a gun in hopes of scoring more of the stuff. His plan doesn’t go off exactly as planned, which sorta kinda sets events in motion so that White Mike learns something about himself.

The first question I get when I describe the plot of this film to friends is “Who cares about rich white kids anyway?” I don’t see why we shouldn’t, but this film doesn’t seem to understand the species at all. For example, in one scene a fame-mongering girl dreams big, coercing a venue for her birthday party by predicting the kind of party “Page Six” would notice. Not to diminish the infamy of that gossip column, but has anyone involved with this film met a teenager? Are they aware of blogs? This is one of many little problems that make these kids not just vacuous, but wholly unrealistic.

What has always confounded me about Paul Haggis’s Crash (and its copycats, for that matter) is that it tries to pawn off stilted intertwining plot lines as something of actual substance. At least in the case of that film, each strand was at least interesting. In Twelve, of the plot lines that I could keep track of, only one showed any promise as an interesting narrative and it goes forgotten and unresolved halfway through the film. That is the story of Hunter, played by Philip Ettinger, a rich kid who heads to Harlem to play basketball to let out his demons every so often. He is accused of a crime he didn’t commit, too afraid to call his parents for help and too stupid to call a lawyer. The setup for his story is pulpy enough that I’d love to see it expanded into a whole film, perhaps a teenage remake of Fritz Lang’s Fury. Unfortunately, once Hunter is no longer useful to advancing White Mike’s limited storyline he is forgotten about.

There are a number of good performances from the young cast. Mr. Crawford does a serviceable job in the lead role, but there’s so little to his character that it’s hard to blame him for a mostly one-note outing. Emily Meade, as Jessica, straddles the line of spoiled rich bitch and brainy valedictorian- cum-drug addict. She is given one of the best reveals of the film, one in which she offers her innocence in exchange fora hit of Twelve. Unfortunately, Schumacher botches the whole moment by offering up a cheap joke that botches the impact of the whole thing. Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is fine, but his role, Lionel the drug dealer, changes motivation from scene to scene too much for him to get an emotional handle on it. Kieran Culkin is best when not sulking, which is unfortunate given his role as Chris, the chronically screwed straight-arrow whose parent free house is host to the much debauchery.

There are many others in the film, but all the performances suffer from the same problem: poor direction. It is obvious that this film was made quickly, too quickly to allow any of them to fully develop a character. There are moments where it feels like you are watching dailies instead of a finished piece. There just isn’t enough coverage of good takes to pull this thing together. It is Mr. Schumacher’s job to know his limits or push his actors to fit the accelerated schedule. He didn’t succeed at either.

Finally, I have to mention the awful narration. Kieffer Sutherland reads what I can only assume is the entirety of the novel by Nick McDonnell that the film is based on sans dialogue. It is a whole not of narration, and there is no justifiable reason for it except that this story is so thin they needed something to get to feature length. Part of the reason the film is hardly memorable is because narration will never take the place of well-developed storytelling. Though the rules of cinema are not finite, “Show, don’t tell” is a pretty big one. Sidestepping this completely, Sutherland’s narration is so present, so constant, that it almost feels as though you are watching an audiobook. A boring, unresolved and barely entertaining audiobook.