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The Fugees Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Now Playing at Cinematical Indie: Your Mommy Kills Animals, a Homeless Fugee, and Who's Dating Miranda July?

Filed under: Comedy », Documentary », Drama », Foreign Language », Independent », Distribution », Newsstand », Politics », Cinematical Indie »

What's been going on over at Cinematical Indie the past few days? Let's take a peek ...

  • In film distribution news, the provocatively titled Your Mommy Kills Animals (yeesh), which takes its name from a PETA brochure, scored distrib this week. The film played at HotDocs earlier this year to positive reviews from the likes of Variety and eFilmCritic, and sold out screenings at Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival. Congrats to director Curt Johnson.
  • This week's Indie Film Blog Group Hug tossed some love around to lots of blogs writing about interesting things in the world of film. Highlights: Christopher John Stack's film An Exercise in Vigilance is screening at the Action on Film International Film Festival in Long Beach, Movie City Indie's Ray Pride interviews filmmaker Usama Alshaibi, Lost in Negative Space blogger Peet Gelderblom has seen Famke Jenssen's sister in her underwear, and guess who's dating indie-film darling Miranda July ... ?
  • Been wondering what the members of The Fugees are up to? Even if you haven't, you might be interested to know that former Fugee Pras Michel is starring in a documentary about homelessness. In the film Skid Row, Pras lived as a homeless person for nine days, recording the results on video. The film has been picked up for distrib by Screen Media Films, and will open August 24 in a limited NYC-LA-Washington DC run. If it plays well in those cities, maybe it will get a wider open down the road and the rest of us might get to see it.
  • The Guardian posits the question: What great filmmakers haven't had real bios?
  • Jette tells us about Paul Verhoeven's Soldier of Orange being made into a musical in the Netherlands -- but she's holding out hope for Showgirls!
  • Ryan Stewart reviews Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox.

Review: Dave Chappelle's Block Party

Filed under: Documentary », Music & Musicals », Theatrical Reviews », Focus Features »


"If (fun on the set) meant anything, then Cannonball Run would be a great movie, because I'm sure it was fun to make." – Steven Soderbergh, Indiewire

Dave Chappelle's Block Party
should be a nightmare – a self-indulgent vanity project without real rhyme or reason, a concert film with no organizing principle behind it other than that might be fun. ... But Dave Chappelle's Block Party is a lot of fun, and it never feels like you're peeking through the keyhole of a locked door at all the excitment the cool kids are having without you. What's even better is the fact that Chappelle's event and the subsequent film don't just offer the sights and sounds of a multi-millionaire comedian and his musician pals relaxing and having a good time; there's some serious stuff going on in this film behind the backbeats and smiles.

But there are backbeats and smiles, and plenty of them. Dave Chappelle organized a free concert for September 18th, 2004, to be held in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Not only were the bands performing kept secret, so was the actual location of the event; New Yorkers were invited, and at the same time the film opens with Chappelle roving the small town in Ohio nearest to where he makes his home and dispensing 'Golden Tickets" – good for a ride on a chartered bus, a hotel room and admission to the show – to the people in his community.

And Chappelle – mocking, mischievous and sharply aware of everything he's getting away with – is having a blast.
 
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