Tag Archives: movies

Paul Cullum presents "Thomas Kinkade's 16 Guidelines for Making Stuff Suck"

Over at VanityFair Daily’s Culture and Society Blog, Paul Cullum posts about the truly horrific-sounding film, “Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage.” Specifically, about the ridiculous memo Kinkade apparently sent to his crew – which posted in it’s glorious entirety at the end of Cullum’s commentary.

Cullum writes:

Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light™, extends his purview to motion pictures with this week’s release of Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage, an inspirational holiday pastiche based on one of his paintings. Produced by Lionsgate, the film stars Peter O’Toole and Marcia Gay Harden. But not even a name cast could stop it from being unceremoniously dumped to home video a year after its planned release.

One reason might be that Kinkade, a postmodern Norman Rockwell for the evangelist set, instructed the crew to adhere to an aesthetic code that wouldn’t have flown in a first-year film class. The list of 16 “guidelines” on how to create “The Thomas Kinkade Look” on film, which was circulated to crew members in memo form, has been obtained exclusively by VF Daily.

[read the whole post and, of course, the list.]

I was trying to figure out what sort of things sounded less pleasant than working on this movie. Do you remember Truth Be Told, the pilot episode of Alias? Having a molar yanked out with a pair of pliers seemed pretty awful, didn’t it? That didn’t make my list.

Kinkade’s instructions are incredibly funny, but I think my favorite item is his “advice” to the cinematographer, who must have consumed his weight in diazepam not to strangle the man:

10) Short focal length. In general, I love a focal plane that favors the center of interest, and allows mid-distance and distant areas to remain blurry. Recommend “stopping down” to shorten focal lengths.

Hooboy.

Screening of "The Garden" to benefit DC's 7th Street Garden

Eva sent me the link to the website for, The Garden, which won best documentary at SilverDocs this year. If you missed the movie at SilverDocs this year, you can catch it November 19th when it will be screened in DC as part of a fundraiser for the 7th Street Garden Project.

About the film:

The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community.

But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis.

The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers:

Why was the land sold to a wealthy developer for millions less than fair-market value? Why was the transaction done in a closed-door session of the LA City Council? Why has it never been made public?

And the powers-that-be have the same response: “The garden is wonderful, but there is nothing more we can do.”

If everyone told you nothing more could be done, would you give up?

About the fundraiser (from the 7th Street Garden website):

Screening at the Goethe Theater (812 7th Street, NW).
Doors 6pm.
Film Starts 6:30pm.
Seasonal foods and drinks will be served.

Tickets $20 each (though more is appreciated). Available at the door OR online at America the Beautiful Fund’s web site. **If buying online you must write in the Comment box that you are purchasing tickets for The Garden movie.**

Sounds like great event, I hope to be there.

Frankenstein Meets the Mermaid

I declared Halloween 2008 over. I guess that means we’re now in the Halloween 2009 season? Truth be told, everyday is Halloween around here so I’m not ever really clear on when the whole season begins and ends. At Target, Halloween shopping season seems to begin sometime around the 4th of July, but that’s probably my imagination. Whatever. Anyway, this was too good not to share:


Via Professor Ravensdeath’s Master Rally via Hugo Strikes Back via Vintage Photo. Also – thanks for the link, Prof Ravensdeath!