Jordan Beswick, C.S.A.

Shatters BOT Record; “Motorcycle Diaries” also B.O. Tour de Force
by Brian Brooks, September 29, 2004

Releases ranging from well-known specialty titles from the mini-majors to self-distributed films playing at one location dominated the indie box office over the weekend, with debut films filling the top 10 places on the iW: BOT, as ranked on a per screen basis, for the first time in recent memory. Director Rohit Jagessar’s self-distributed “Guiana 1838″ invaded the list in the number one position with the highest per screen average recorded since this column began nearly a year-and-a-half ago, after opening in one Queens, NY cinema, while Focus Features’ “The Motorcycle Diaries” raced into second place also with a stratospheric per screen average. “Diaries” also outperformed previous debut record holders for 2004, including “The Dreamers,” “The Passion of the Christ” and “Fahrenheit 9/11,” but other weekend openers fared more modestly.

Historic docu-drama “Guiana 1838,” which gives an account of Indians who emigrated to British Guiana as indentured servants, sold out virtually every screening at the 660-seat UA Crossbay Theater I in Queens over the weekend, easily handing the film the top position for the week, and an iW: BOT per screen record-breaking $70,910. To give perspective, “The Dreamers” on five screens averaged $28,526 in its debut weekend last February, while “Control Room” opened on one screen in late May with $27,125, both among the highest openers on a per screen basis of the year. Box office monoliths “The Passion of the Christ” ($27,554) and “Fahrenheit 9/11″ ($27,558) were also in similar ranges on a per site basis, although their debuts were much broader in scale.

Read the Full Story @ indieWIRE.com
< http://www.indiewire.com/biz/biz_040929boxoffice.html >

…someone who remembers.

On the simplest level, someone who remembers his lines, his cues, his moves, his notes, to do up his fly-buttons, to tie his shoelaces, to carry his props, to enter, to exit. Simple things, complex things. An actor is someone who remembers.

On another level, an actor is someone who remembers what it felt like to be spurned, to be proud, to be angry, to be tender - - - all of the manifestations of emotion he experienced as a child, as an adolescent, in early manhood and maturity. An actor remembers the “feel” of all the feelings he ever felt or sensed in others. He remembers what happened to other people through all periods of recorded time - through what he has read and what he has been taught. In tracing the lineaments of his own sensibility, he has the key to understanding everyone else.

On a deeper level, an actor is someone who remembers the primordial impulses that inhabited his body before he was “civilised” and “educated”. He remembers what it feels like to experience intense hunger and profound thirst, irrational loathing and sublime contentment. He recalls the earliest sensations of light and heat, the invasion of internal forces and the comings of celestial light. He remembers the anguish of disapproval and the comforting security of guardians.

He remembers vividly (not necessarily articulately) what it feels like to be isolated, to be partnered, to be set adrift, to be reclaimed. He remembers the miasmic stretch of time before becoming aware of the details of his own identity. He remembers the world before it became his world. And himself before he became his self.

To be without memory and to be an actor is inconceivable. An actor is someone who remembers.

– This was just sent to me from a dear friend currently studying in London. I agree whole heartedly.

Walter Salles on “Motorcycle Diaries” by Erica Abeel, September 23, 2004

“Motorcycle Diaries” has made Walter Salles the current golden boy of Latin American cinema. The Brazilian’s director’s biopic about the young Che Guevara’s formative journey through South America was rapturously greeted in Sundance, earned a fifteen minute standing O in Cannes, and drew applause at the press screening in Toronto. Yes, a few naysayers tax the film with moist-eyed liberalism and populist pandering, but “Motorcycle” looks destined for a worldwide commercial life and success beyond the artclub, because its themes and spirit resonate in these vexed times. The film makes political engagement sexy (partly by casting Gael Garcia Bernal as Che); and its infectious idealism and revolutionary fervor offer hope for the human project.

Drawing on memoirs by Guevara and co-traveler Alberto Granado (Rodrigo de la Serna), Salles reenacts the exact route of their Latin odyssey — and reinvents the road movie as a primer in social awakening, or what he calls the “re-baptizing” of Ernesto Guevara before he became the iconic “El Che.” The year is 1952 and Ernesto, a twenty-three year-old med student from a comfortable Argentinian family, and Alberto, a biochemist, hit the road on a spluttering Norton 500 motorbike. In their travels through the Andes, Chile, and Peru, they encounter homeless miners exploited by foreign-owned companies and Indian farmers evicted from their cultivated lands; and view ugly urban sprawls that have replaced the continent’s Incan heritage. The journey culminates in a three-week stay at a leper colony in the Amazon that marks Ernesto’s transformation from introverted child of privilege to doctor of the people.

Read the Full Story @ indieWIRE.com
< http://www.indiewire.com/people/people_040923salles.html >

by Brian Brooks, September 20, 2004

Returning once again with its mantra “Fiercely Independent,” the Woodstock Film Festival has unveiled plans for its fifth edition. Dylan Kidd’s “p.s.” will have its East Coast premiere in Woodstock, while Brad Anderson’s “The Machinist” will screen the first night in neighboring Rhinebeck. “p.s.,” which screened last week at the Toronto International Film Festival, stars Laura Linney as a divorced thirty-something who finds gets embroiled in an affair with a younger man (Topher Grace). “The Machinist” is a psychological thriller starring Christian Bale who plays a man who has not slept in a year, spending his
waking moments in a nightmare of terror.

Other highlights on tap for this year’s Woodstock, which takes place in the famed Catskills town October 13-17 includes a roster of over 125 films, panels, seminars, concerts and special events. Included in the lineup is the East Coast
premiere of Prachya Pinkaew’s “Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior.” The feature centers on a Thai village, which suffers tragedy when the head of the town’s Buddha statue is stolen to win favor from a crime boss in Bangkok. Villagers then pin their hopes in a young orphan to retrieve their treasured Buddha.

Read the Full Story @ indieWIRE.com
< http://www.indiewire.com/onthescene/onthescene_040920wood.html >

“The best part about using your imagination is, there are no rules and you can make up anything you want.”
– Baby Looney Tunes, 2004