“I’m in Locarno, my movie is premiering for 1,000 people, which is nuts. A huge-ass screening, second day of the festival, 7:30pm in the sidebar competition. It’s comparable to Un Certain Regard or Director’s Fortnight. Every movie I saw in that section was fun, brilliant movies from around the world. The main competition was like Aza Jacobs and Mia Hansen-Løve, people who have been around. And I was like, “This is crazy. What am I doing inside the bloodstream of this establishment? I’m 27. I don’t belong here.” Every person I talked to there couldn’t believe what the movie cost, and then couldn’t believe when I told them what other American movies cost. We were the cheapest movie there by 65%. The next cheapest movie cost I think three times as much as we did. And they were just like, “You can’t make movies for what you’re telling us your movie cost.” And I told them, “Well, I can, I’m here, I’m in the same section as you are, so you are wrong. People think I’m lying when I tell them my budget. And also everyone likes it. I’m having a great time and people are being very responsive. Maurice Pialat’s widow was like, “I heard your movie’s good, I want a copy of it.” I’m like, “Well this is f**kin’ crazy.” Pedro Costa saw it there and really liked it and I’m like, What am I doing? I had gone in two months from screening at BAM for a lot of friends to Pedro Costa? This is the exact sentence: “Pedro Costa saw your movie. He’s a huge Jerry Lewis fan. He wants to talk to you about your movie and also Jerry Lewis.” And I thought, “I’m out of my element. I cannot have that conversation because that’s ridiculous.” Because his retrospective was happening at Anthology when I worked at Kim’s, and his Criterion box set came out when I was working at Kim’s. He can’t want to talk to me. That’s not possible. That’s not allowed. There is no world where that makes any sense!” Or like when you wrote me to say that David Gordon Green wrote you to say, “I’m watching The Color Wheel and then I’m going to see Tree of Life.” There is no world where this is allowed! Again, somebody whose DVDs I was putting on the shelf, as, like, a hero. And it’s just like, “Oh, I’ll watch this movie.” There’s just a very fuzzy area in the middle there and it happened very quickly and I don’t understand why. I still have a voice-mail from Sean [Price Williams, cinematographer]. I wish he was here to talk about it, but the voice-mail is a long pause and he’s just like, “I don’t want to tell you this, because it’s gonna make you so insufferable. I hate having to tell you this, but Leos Carax watched your movie and he really loves it, and he wants to meet you when he comes to New York.” I can’t live in a world where Leos Carax knows who I am, watches my movie, likes it, and thinks, “I wanna meet that guy.”
~ It’s Alex Ross Perry’s World
“I don’t know. It’s been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to make the films I really dream of making. I was in Italy a few years ago scouting for this very beautiful film I wanted to make with Richard Linklater. We worked really hard on the script for a couple of years and couldn’t get the money together. It was an expensive idea. It’s heartbreaking when that happens over and over again and then the movies that do get made are ones that have lots of women being beaten up or zombies being killed. It’s all fine, it’s all okay, but it’s hard. I remember when River Phoenix died, he was ahead of me on this curve. He kind of realized how hard it was to make serious movies. People like Sidney Lumet figured out how to walk that line, but it’s hard. And it requires patience. It’s a life’s work and I wonder if I’m up to the task.”
~ Weary, Wary Ethan Hawke
I have thought highly of Chris Dodd for many years – until today. This astounding and insulting statement shows that Dodd and MPAA aren’t interested in reasonable compromise. I’ve owned a small business for 18 years that now relies on Google and the Internet for our marketing, and I am also an active Wikipedia editor. We didn’t enter into this protest lightly – our attorneys advised us that SOPA and PIPA are a real threat. Why would a guy like Chris Dodd throw down the gauntlet so aggressively? Mega-corporate greed? That explains it.
Poor honest organisations like the MPAA are being bullied by corporate monsters like Wikipedia?
I wonder if anyone would swallow this tripe.
And trying to play the “non-Americans are evil, we will protect you” card was already overused by Bush. People have had their eyes opened since then.
“… administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.”
SOPA and PIPA won’t affect American criminals?
Here’s a compromise:
let us go fix our Copyright system, back to the duration which was originally passed in 1790. Afterall, with digital technologies, the barriers to publishing have fallen, both in terms of their cost and their time-to-market.
That would mean a max duration of 28 years (14 + 14 extension), instead of the effectively “infinite” system we have now, with Congress passing a 20 year extensions each time that Mickey Mouse gets close to expiring…
And for Dodd: Senator and MPAA CEO … that’s clearly a Conflict of Interest … Recusal is an ethical mandate.
PS: that little icon next to my name? I haven’t signed a legal release for MovieCityNews.com that gives them permission to use my Copyrighted Works. As per the terms of the SOPA/PIPA, this website must be shut down.
“and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.”
Foreign criminals? Are you talking about my Eastern European friends who live in countries where the average income is below $1000 a month, and who cannot otherwise afford to watch movies?
Business interests? Punish their users?
The decision to blackout Wikipedia was made by the users! What business interest do they have? They are registered charitable organization, hence with no profits. Former Senator Dodd, you are playing fast and loose with the truth. You should think about your actions and words, and judge in your heart whether they accord with honest and righteous motivation or from a shameful attitude.
“…stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns…”
“…irresponsible response…”
“…an abuse of power…”
“…a dangerous and troubling development…”
“…intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests…”
“…another gimmick…a dangerous one, designed to punish”
And Wikipedia is being hyperbolic??? Somebody send the good senator a link to dictionary.com so he can look up the definition of “HYPERBOLE”. While he’s in the H’s, maybe he can look up the definition of “HYPOCRITE”!
Yet more confirmation that the major crooks we have to combat seem to be our own politicians and business leaders.
SENATOR Chris Dodd, CHAIRMAN and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. Of course an honest, objective personage such as Mr. Dodd wouldn’t have a conflict of interest. Would he?
How is the Wikipedia blackout punishing elected and administration officials? (In fact, the “blackout” is only a “brownout”, since Jimmy Wales et al. have given instructions how to circumvent it.) Seems to me this is a very responsible way to get users’ attention and to educate them.
wish this arrogant jerk would pull his head out of his ass just in time for a law- abiding gun-toting yank to blow his frigging head off
Here’s a problem. Say you have a son or daughter, and they spend
the weekend at grandmas. Here they download to their hearts contempt,
and even upload the entire series of “Family Guy”, all without the consent
of their grandmother. They continue this cycle over and over, each time
they visit, cause you know; they’re gonna need entertainment.
A year’s gone by and by the federal attorney’s count, old grandma
has uploaded and downloaded enough to be sent to the pokey for
two years. So the FBI kick down her door as she suffers a mild heart
attack. After concluding the situation, the lawyers discover that
grandma isn’t going to jail, and the kids sure as hell aren’t going to
juvie… maybe. But who then, who will be punished? Why, _you_,
of course…
So please, stop this idiocy at it’s roots… SOPA and SIPA do NOT prevent
piracy; it funds sharks in suits to trample on the rights of the innoscent.
Nothing more…
The MPAA: “WE HATED VCRs TOO!”
“It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.”
HYPOCRITE!
Chris Dodd, you are self-serving trash.
Welcome newcomers! And welcome everyone to a post that made it fairly deep without a sanj link!
Is that a BROWNOUT in the Sunny in Philadelphia sense?
And to think I once supported Dodd’s presidential bid.
ELIZABETH WARREN in 2016!
Just to note, Chris Dodd isn’t in the Senate any more. He retired at the end of his term before joining the MPAA. That said, any valid point he might have wanted to make was swallowed up by the hyperbole about the “irresponsbile response” and “abuse of power.”
So pursuing corporate interests is only a good thing when it’s your own? F U MPAA.
Sounds like sour grapes. Getting beat at your own game.
FUCK YOU DODD! Fucking sellout.