Infidelity, in All the Same Ways

The online magazine Nerve.com may be sex-centric -- it's often described as "literate smut" -- but the site also has a healthy obsession with movies. As part of its current themed articles about "Secrets and Lies," Nerve offers a funny feature called "The Hollywood Guide to Infidelity," wherein you can survey the most enduring onscreen cliches about unfaithfulness. Two examples from the Nerve list:

Women who entice you into affairs with logical arguments ("We're two adults . . .") are the most psychopathic of all.

Married professors, even after a lifetime of fidelity, will inevitably begin an affair with that one special student.

As evidence for that second one, they point to, among other movies, The Squid and the Whale, which was given an advance screening at last year's Austin Film Festival. And you've got to admit it's true -- as soon as the female student shows up, you know the Jeff Daniels character is going to proposition her. There is some level of uncertainty, however: is he going to be inappropriate, or is he going to be completely and boorishly inappropriate?

The link is here -- but wait! Don't click on it yet! Take a moment and check who can see your computer screen. The site is, remember, devoted to sex, and has the racy visuals to go along with that. You don't want your co-workers to get any wrong ideas about your surfing habits, do you?

Sex, Lies and Good, Clear Writing

"The Believer" magazine was started by a few people in the orbit of hip-yet-earnest writer Dave Eggers, who made his mark in 2000 with his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The August issue of "The Believer" features a rambling, "we're having more fun doing this than you'll have reading this" interview with Steven Soderbergh. Some excerpts:

When asked how much Bubble cost: "One point six million. Because I paid people. There's a tipping point. If you're going to make a movie for ten thousand you can talk everybody into doing it for free. You could make a really good-looking movie right now for ten grand, if you have an idea. That's the trick."

When asked what movies he has hated, Soderbergh demurs, and explains: "There's a difference between failures and things that are bad. I'd like to think that I've made movies that were failures, creatively and otherwise."

When asked about filmmaking: "The hardest thing in the world is to be good and clear when creating anything. It's the hardest thing in the world. It's really easy to be obscure and elliptical and so fucking hard to be good and clear. It breaks people. Because you don't often get encouragement to do that, to be good and clear."

The full interview is here.

Are You the Funniest Filmmaker in Austin?

Austin Film Festival and Capitol City Comedy Club present the inaugural Funniest Filmmaker in Austin competition! Grab a camera and film something funny. If you make it, we'll play it at Cap City this September.

Whether it's a short film or just something funny that you caught on tape, send it in! It's completely free to enter.
Did I mention that some of Austin's most talented comedians will perform live standup in between screenings? I think I just did.

The winning entry will play at the 2006 Austin Film Festival!

Films must be submitted on DVD or VHS and under 5 minutes in length.This contest is limited to current residents of the Austin area.

Films MUST be received by September 1st, 2006.

You may drop off your film at Cap City or the Austin Film Festival with a completed entry form. There is no entry fee.

Films may be mailed to:

Attn. Funniest Filmmaker in Austin
Austin Film Festival Competition
1604 Nueces, Austin, TX, 78701
Download the entry form at:

http://www.austinfilmfestival.com/new/files/FunniestFilmmaker.pdf

Interview with AFF Audience Award winning filmmaker in Indiewire

indieWIRE INTERVIEW: Hans Canosa, director of "Conversations With Other Women"

by indieWIRE (August 9, 2006)

Director Hans Canosa's romance/drama "Conversations With Other Women" stars Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart as a pair who meet and flirt at a wedding reception. The sexual tension rises as the two leave the party and head to a hotel room, where the night turns into a bounty of passion, but then changes to remorse. Canosa joined the filmmaking scene with "Alma Mater," which won the audience award at the Austin Film Festival in 2002. In his chat with indieWIRE, Canosa shares how "Conversations" came together, trying to find that elusive financier, and how fundamentalist Christianity brought him to film.

Where did you grow up?

I was born in the United States, but much of my childhood was spent in Southeast Asia. My parents are fundamentalist Christians, and I grew up on a series of mission compounds.

What were the circumstances that led you to become a filmmaker?

Since my parents' religion takes the Second Commandment literally -- "Thou shalt have no graven images or likeness of anything in heaven or on earth," I was not allowed to see television, theater or movies as a child. So of course I was destined to become a filmmaker.

Despite living on these restrictive mission compounds with a prohibition against film, I still knew that movies existed; studio marketing departments make sure of that. I remember handing out religious tracts under a billboard for "The Empire Strikes Back" in Tokyo, and seeing movie posters in a Cambodian refugee camp (right next to the Coca Cola machines). The moment when I converted to the religion of cinema came before I'd even seen a movie. It was almost like a fairy tale -- I found a mysterious book in my grandparents' attic. It was "The Making of Kubrick's 2001" and I read all 350 pages of it in an hour, just devoured it.
Full article on indiewire