Karina on SpoutBlog

Under discussion:

Pulp Fiction  (1994)

Grindhouse  (2007)

Why don’t I give a shit about Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards? Is it because I sat through (and even partially live-blogged) his masturbatory “lecture on cinema” in Cannes––is it just too soon? Is it because I’ve seen Pulp Fiction so many times that I can no longer actually see anything in it at all? Is it because I walked out of Grindhouse saying. “Well, THAT joke isn’t funny anymore…”?

I don’t know what it is! But I know that some of you probably care, so if you haven’t already, check out Vulture’s preview/review of the script.

Having read the whole thing, Vulture says it’s “definitely the ur-text of Quentin Tarantino’s career up to now,” and maybe THAT’s my problem with it––I don’t think I’d be able to get into one more parade of Stuff Quentin Likes, especially if its greatest virtue is that it’s like what he always does, but more so. Some keywords/key phrases that pop out: “Greek nudes from the Louvre”; “This whole Chapter will be filmed in French New Wave Black and White”; “the film’s antagonist [is] a Nazi officer named Landa who’s known as the ‘Jew Hunter’”; Brad Pitt will maybe play a “‘hillbilly from the mountains of Tennessee, who has around his neck a scar from where he survived a lynching.” Um…well, at least he’s expanded his purview beyond Los Angeles and Japan, right? Is that enough?

Under discussion:

Full Battle Rattle  (2007)

Bulletproof Salesman  (2008)

FrontRunners  (2008)

The Sheffield DocFest has put out a preview of their 2008 lineup. The festival launched a number of sidebars last year based on theme––Green, Sports, Music, etc––and this year, they’re adding two more: Kinky Docs, described as “a celebration of sex and its representation in documentary”; and “Regime Change,” timed to capitalize on the US presidential election, which will have just ended the day before Sheffield begins (assuming there’s no need for a recount). Familiar titles on the latter sidebar include Full Battle Battle, Bulletproof Salesman and the recently-acquired Front Runners. Highlights from the preview after the jump.

This Kinky Docs premiere sounds amazing:

WorldRevolution (dir. Klaus Hundsbichler) UK Premiere
WorldRevolution is the story of Stefan Weber and his cult Viennese rock band Drahdiwarbel, their rise to fame, Austrian politics and Stefan’s pet chicken.

The Green panel will showcase Sundance hit Flow: For the Love of Water, as well as Paul Devlin’s Blast!, in which the filmmaker’s brother “leads an international team of astrophysicists from the Arctic to the Antarctic to launch a revolutionary telescope on a NASA high-altitude balloon. No less than the origins of the Universe are at stake on this risky scientific adventure that seeks to answer humankind’s most basic question ‘how did we get here?’”

And on the Anti-Doc strand––dedicated to supporting “‘documentaries with bite’ that challenge the form of traditional documentary filmmaking and deliver messages through unconventional modes”––Sheffield will screen Peace With Seals. The synopsis:

The central question, “Why did the seal disappear from the Mediterranean?” is an interesting one, but helmer Miloslav Novak and scribe Ferdinand Pitrosu aren’t interested so much in answering it as they are in following around an affable Italian filmmaker named Emanuele Coppola. This indulgent and fanciful film follows the trio as they blunder from Sardinia to Turkey using seal Trojan horses and night vision cameras.

Under discussion:

Back to the Future Part II  (1989)

It may seem like I’m late to the party on this one, but I swear, I’m not––I saw the TV version of this CNBC story last week, so I knew that Nike launched a limited edition sneaker last weekend called Air McFly, based on the self-tying shoe that will apparently de rigeur for hoverboard flights in the very near future, assuming the very near future looks anything like Back to the Future 2. I knew that fans had been clamoring for the sneaker for years; I knew that there’d be great demand, but extremely limited supply. What I did not know, was that the shoe’s launch, at a single store in Santa Monica, turned into a some kind of fan fest, complete with lines around the block (some waited over 24 hours, according to HypeBeast) and a special appearance by Kobe Bryant, who arrived in a DeLorean (what, Michael J. Fox wasn’t available?) Photo evidence and related links after the jump; above, a video from last year setting the Air McFly lobbying campaign to song.

First, here’s the shoe, courtesy of HypeBeast:

Flickr user Self-Service has a full photo set on the event, including this pic of Kobe getting out of his BTTF themed ride:

The first edition of Air McFlys consisted of just 350 pairs of shoes. 14 of those pairs are currently for sale on eBay, with a starting price of $400 (expect to pay at least a grand for a pair signed by Kobe).

The shoe is a variant on the Hyperdunk, but skinned to match the colors of the pair seen in the film. The Hyperdunk, according to a Nike press release, was designed specifically for use by athletes in the Beijing Olympics.