"Control" and "Joy Division" Documentary Out On DVD...Win Them Here!

A couple weeks ago, someone asked me at a party if I'd seen any great films lately. I thought about it for a second, and replied that my favorite films this year were both about Joy Division. I happen to be a huge Joy Division & New Order fan, but I feel that Control, Anton Corjbin's dramatic profile of Joy Division's late and enigmatic singer Ian Curtis, and Joy Division, the remarkably insightful documentary directed by Grant Gee, are easily the most entertaining and compelling movies I've seen recently.

I've always considered myself a Joy Division expert and completist, and I was amazed at how much info these films contained that I never knew. Further, I'm told by folks who'd know that much of the insight in Joy Division provided by Peter Hook, Bernard Summer, and Stephen Morris had never been revealed publicly before.

Because of my love for these movies, and because I love collecting rock-docs to watch at home, I'm thrilled that both of these films are being released here in the States next month on DVD, and both with extra features.

Control's extras include:
Audio commentary with director Anton Corbijn · The Making Of Control · Out of Control: A Conversation with Anton Corbijn · Extended Live Concert Performances - Transmission, Leaders of Men, Candidate ·"Transmission" music video by Joy Division ·"Atmosphere" music video by Joy Division · "Shadowplay" music video by The Killers · Still gallery

Joy Division's extras include:
75 minutes of deleted/extended interviews · Transmission Music video

Control is released on June 3rd, and Joy Division is released June 17th.

extrawack! would like to give one lucky reader a copy each of Control and Joy Division! To win, send an email to extrawack@gmail.com with the subject "Joy Division DVD" and tell us your favorite Joy Division song. The 20th email entry to land in our mailbox will win the DVD's. Contest open to US residents only...sorry Papua New Guinea!

Check the trailers:

Control:



Joy Division:



Buy Control and Joy Division here.

movie review: Chicago 10...and Free NYC Screening

A couple nights ago I caught a screening of the forthcoming documentary, Chicago 10, which uses archival footage, animation, and music to recreate the trials of the eight anti-war protesters who led the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Incredibly compelling and insightful, the movie pieces together the chain of events and allows the viewer to visualize the protesting, the absurd reaction by Mayor Daley and the Chicago Police, and the circus that the trials eventually became.

I'm not a big fan of animation in movies, as I usually spend the bulk of my time fretting over how things just don't seem to look right, but I bought into the realism of the cartoon versions of each player pretty quickly. The animated courtroom scenes feature voices by folks like Hank Azaria, Liev Schreiber, Dylan Baker, Nick Nolte, Mark Ruffalo, and the recently departed Roy Scheider as crochety Judge Julius Hoffman.

And the use of period and recent-day protest music is fantastic in the movie. Who doesn't get fired up hearing the MC5's "Kick Out The Jams", ever?

As documentaries about American history and activism go, this film is pretty important. As I left the screening room, the movie reminded me how important activism and agitation is, and why our liberties shouldn't ever be taken for granted. I encourage everyone to check this film out.

If you are in NYC, our good friends at Filter invite you to a free screening of the film at The Landmark Sunshine Theatre on E. Houston Street on Wednesday, February 27 @ 7:30PM. To get on the list, send your info to: rsvpnyc@filtermmm.com



Chicago 10 Trailer:



MC5 - "Kick Out The Jams" mp3 buy

short movie review: Superbad

Caught a screening of Superbad last night, and I don't think I've heard a theater laugh so loud and so hard ever.

In easily the funniest movie since Borat, Superbad has all the laughs we hoped co-writer Seth Rogan's recent Superaverage film Knocked Up would have had. Michael Cera is terrific as a high school senior only slightly hipper than his nerdy George Michael Bluth in Arrested Development. Rogan and SNL's Bill Hader nearly steal the show as a Reno 911-esque cop partner team.

It's totally fun, totally profane, and features the best usage of Ted Nugent and Van Halen tunes in decades. You'll leave the film wanting to throw yourself a high school makeout party and calling your pals "McLovin".

One of the few movies recently worth every cent of your ticket price.

movie review: Killer Of Sheep @ IFC Center

For better or worse, many of my friends are in the Media industry, so when they tell me about a film, or a band, or a TV show, their descriptions are filled with superlatives that sound like they are straight out of a press release, or a PR strategist's media campaign briefing book.

My buddy Michael isn't part of that "insider" gang...he's a straight-up movie buff. He sees an awful lot of stuff, and I've learned that he's got a terribly discerning eye for quality films.

I recently saw an ad for the IFC Center's showing of the recently restored Killer Of Sheep, described on it's website as follows:

"Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse.

Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a coffee cup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife in the living room, holding his daughter. The film offers no solutions; it merely presents life — sometimes hauntingly bleak, sometimes filled with transcendent joy and gentle humor."

I knew Mike would have an opinion on this flick, and before I could ask, I found the following in my email box with a request for it to be posted here, which I'm happy to do:

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If I told you that you could see a pure, ego-less, and absolutely essential humanistic film wonder at the movies this week and top that off with a declaration of a money back guarantee... would you bite? Well, I hope so.

I chose this blog to post this announcement because I think its creator, Mr. Wack, is one of the most humane
and moral people I know. I think this movie, Killer Of Sheep, is one of the most humane and important works of modern American art so it only seemed fitting to make this blog an outlet for my offer. The details I remember are sketchy, but the story goes that the writer/director Charles Burnett made this film as his graduate thesis for UCLA film school. I think it took something like 5 years to complete the project, working mostly on weekends and when there was money to rent equipment. When the mind thinks of this kind of cobbled together, slow cooked labour of love the initial inclination is to imagine having to forgive its inherent limitations w/in an art form that requires millions rather than hundreds of dollars to work properly. Often when you watch a movie on IFC or Sundance you prepare yourself for something less than perfect, but that you know is good for you and might require a bit more chewing, like say oat bran. None of that here.

Robert Bresson, the famed French director, once said, "Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen". That is exactly what Burnett did with, Killer of Sheep.

Ironically, despite its focus on giving cinematic existence to off the radar American life, it is probably the most revered modern American film never before screened in you local theatre. Kind of absurd to imagine it being one of the 50 original films chosen for the National Registry, labeled as a "national treasure" by the Library of Congress and yet almost nobody has had the opportunity to view it since its completion in 1977. I would rather not suppose why that was initially, but there are copyrighted songs in the soundtrack that probably were unlicensed (and for the sake of a thesis project probably not required) and even if the public demand for this film were high, it could not have been legally screened beyond the world of non-profit film centers (it was just such a screening that I was extremely fortunate to attend at the Museum of The Moving Image my first week after moving to NYC in 1995)... until now!

Finally the kicker. Killer of Sheep is one of the best movies I have seen. And as the Wack one can attest, I've seen a few. Its power is stunning. Burnett's ability to tell a hard, wearying story about race, class, and family without any more ego than a camera toting fly on the wall is among the rarest gifts in film history. The title refers to the main character's job working in a slaughter house, but I just don't want to interject any more than that. I've seen many a movie depict racial isolation, but one scene here where the family car breaks down on the freeway is a study in quiet, desperate, underclass horror that has no equal in American cinema.

I don't really have words to show Killer of Sheep proper respect, so I'll just offer anybody with a verifiable ticket stub from the current run screening at the IFC Center @ 6th Ave and 3rd St. in Manhattan a refund if you aren't well and truly moved by seeing this film. extrawack! can hip you to my contact info, and I will gladly reimburse you on the spot (I live 3 blocks from the IFC Center). I also encourage you to share the experience with others. Word of mouth is the best tribute you can give to artistic expression that enriches the soul. Killer of Sheep makes me proud to share "This Bitter Earth" with Charles Burnett.

PLEASE SEE IT TODAY.

Buy IFC Center tickets here.

Trailer: