First you get radicalized, then you get professionalized—a familiar trajectory Chris Smith’s Devo retells in a familiar idiom. After sitting down with dour conspiracy theorist Michael Ruppert for 2009’s Collapse, the American Movie director didn’t make a feature for eight years. He returned to begin his populist doc era with 2017’s Jim & Andy, which made generous use of previously unseen videos of Jim Carrey acting like a maniac “in character” as Andy Kaufman on the set of 1999’s Man on the Moon. In present-day interviews, Carrey described his dilemma: having given a performance at a relatively young age that confirmed […]
The post Sundance 2024: Devo, War Game, Girls State first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Sundance 2024: Devo, War Game, Girls State first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/25/2024
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
First you get radicalized, then you get professionalized—a familiar trajectory Chris Smith’s Devo retells in a familiar idiom. After sitting down with dour conspiracy theorist Michael Ruppert for 2009’s Collapse, the American Movie director didn’t make a feature for eight years. He returned to begin his populist doc era with 2017’s Jim & Andy, which made generous use of previously unseen videos of Jim Carrey acting like a maniac “in character” as Andy Kaufman on the set of 1999’s Man on the Moon. In present-day interviews, Carrey described his dilemma: having given a performance at a relatively young age that confirmed […]
The post Sundance 2024: Devo, War Game, Girls State first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Sundance 2024: Devo, War Game, Girls State first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/25/2024
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The life and final days of Michael C. Ruppert — author, 9/11 Truther, podcaster and prophet of economic collapse — are chronicled by The Verge’s Mat Stroud in a fascinating, quite sad story. Filmmaker readers will remember Ruppert from Chris Smith’s 2009 documentary, Collapse, in which the author discussed his theories of societal collapse in the decades following “peak oil” — the moment in which there is less oil in the ground than has been used by mankind. For Smith, however, the documentary was as much about Ruppert the man as his work. In an interview with Brandon Harris, Smith […]...
- 7/22/2014
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The life and final days of Michael C. Ruppert — author, 9/11 Truther, podcaster and prophet of economic collapse — are chronicled by The Verge’s Mat Stroud in a fascinating, quite sad story. Filmmaker readers will remember Ruppert from Chris Smith’s 2009 documentary, Collapse, in which the author discussed his theories of societal collapse in the decades following “peak oil” — the moment in which there is less oil in the ground than has been used by mankind. For Smith, however, the documentary was as much about Ruppert the man as his work. In an interview with Brandon Harris, Smith […]...
- 7/22/2014
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
El Sicario: Room 164 is a one-man monologue of a documentary, 80-odd minutes spent in a crummy motel suite in the company of a guy with a black mesh cloth covering his head and obscuring his identity. A subject really has to have something to say to justify this kind of film treatment—Michael Ruppert’s hypnotic apocalyptic scenarios in Collapse come to mind—and the unnamed focus of Gianfranco Rosi’s feature has plenty. He’s a former “sicario,” a hit man and enforcer for a drug cartel in Ciudad Juárez who once kidnapped and tortured someone in ...
- 12/29/2011
- avclub.com
See the trailer and images from White Out, directed by Lawrie Brewster, starring Jon Finnegan, Mike McEvoy, Joleen Walton and Nancy Joy Page. Also in the cast of the apocalyptic disaster film are Dougie Clark, Gavin Hugh, Farooqi Muskwati and Leon Simmon. Sarah Daly wrote the script, inspired by Michael C. Ruppert and the documentary Collapse. While the world has escaped the forecast apocalypse of May 21st, a new Scottish feature would suggest that Armageddon is just around the corner. White Out - director Lawrie Brewster’s ambitious début feature - tracks the collapse of civilization in a dystopian near-future Scotland. Oil supplies are scarce, climate change wreaks havoc and the world teeters on the brink of economic meltdown. In the midst of all this, reluctant government volunteer...
- 5/30/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
See the trailer and images from White Out, directed by Lawrie Brewster, starring Jon Finnegan, Mike McEvoy, Joleen Walton and Nancy Joy Page. Also in the cast of the apocalyptic disaster film are Dougie Clark, Gavin Hugh, Farooqi Muskwati and Leon Simmon. Sarah Daly wrote the script, inspired by Michael C. Ruppert and the documentary Collapse. While the world has escaped the forecast apocalypse of May 21st, a new Scottish feature would suggest that Armageddon is just around the corner. White Out - director Lawrie Brewster’s ambitious début feature - tracks the collapse of civilization in a dystopian near-future Scotland. Oil supplies are scarce, climate change wreaks havoc and the world teeters on the brink of economic meltdown. In the midst of all this, reluctant government volunteer...
- 5/30/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
See the trailer and images from White Out, directed by Lawrie Brewster, starring Jon Finnegan, Mike McEvoy, Joleen Walton and Nancy Joy Page. Also in the cast of the apocalyptic disaster film are Dougie Clark, Gavin Hugh, Farooqi Muskwati and Leon Simmon. Sarah Daly wrote the script, inspired by Michael C. Ruppert and the documentary Collapse. While the world has escaped the forecast apocalypse of May 21st, a new Scottish feature would suggest that Armageddon is just around the corner. White Out - director Lawrie Brewster’s ambitious début feature - tracks the collapse of civilization in a dystopian near-future Scotland. Oil supplies are scarce, climate change wreaks havoc and the world teeters on the brink of economic meltdown. In the midst of all this, reluctant government volunteer...
- 5/30/2011
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Documentaries became a box office factor with the rise of such films as "Hoop Dreams" and "Roger & Me." Before then, there were hit music documentaries like "Woodstock" but most other nonfiction films could expect short runs in few theaters before dutiful audiences. What a small but growing minority of Friday night moviegoers is beginning to discover is that there's a good chance the movie they might enjoy most at the multiplex is a doc.
In alphabetical order, these were the best documentaries I saw in 2010:
"45365" is the zip code of Sidney, Ohio. The brothers Bill and Turner Ross were born there perhaps 30 years ago. They knew everybody in town, and when they spent seven months of 2007 filming its daily life, their presence must have become commonplace. Their film evokes what Winesburg, Ohio might have looked like as a documentary.
The film is privileged. No one is filmed with a hidden camera.
In alphabetical order, these were the best documentaries I saw in 2010:
"45365" is the zip code of Sidney, Ohio. The brothers Bill and Turner Ross were born there perhaps 30 years ago. They knew everybody in town, and when they spent seven months of 2007 filming its daily life, their presence must have become commonplace. Their film evokes what Winesburg, Ohio might have looked like as a documentary.
The film is privileged. No one is filmed with a hidden camera.
- 1/14/2011
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Metropolis; Heartbreaker; Whatever Works; Collapse
"The mediator between head and hands must be the heart!" While the DVD market thrives on unnecessary recuts and extended editions (why make new movies when you can endlessly repackage and resell old ones?), the case for an entirely new version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927/2010, Eureka, PG) is stronger than most. Using 16mm materials recently discovered in a small museum in Buenos Aires, this "Masters of Cinema" rerelease reinstates key scenes excised by distributors against Lang's wishes after the film's initial German release, pushing the running time up to about 150 minutes, thereby "solving" many of the narrative ellipses that have troubled scholars and viewers for decades.
The result is a film that comes close to replicating Lang's original vision, although I must confess that the additions (although substantial) had less effect on the overall tone of the movie that I had expected. Maybe I...
"The mediator between head and hands must be the heart!" While the DVD market thrives on unnecessary recuts and extended editions (why make new movies when you can endlessly repackage and resell old ones?), the case for an entirely new version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927/2010, Eureka, PG) is stronger than most. Using 16mm materials recently discovered in a small museum in Buenos Aires, this "Masters of Cinema" rerelease reinstates key scenes excised by distributors against Lang's wishes after the film's initial German release, pushing the running time up to about 150 minutes, thereby "solving" many of the narrative ellipses that have troubled scholars and viewers for decades.
The result is a film that comes close to replicating Lang's original vision, although I must confess that the additions (although substantial) had less effect on the overall tone of the movie that I had expected. Maybe I...
- 11/21/2010
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
For most of Collapse the grey, balding, mustachioed Michael Ruppert sits before the camera in his shirtsleeves, smokes continuously and, eyeballing us like the Ancient Mariner, talks a streak. His theme is the imminent collapse of our world, of how he's been predicting it in his newsletter and blog, and how the world's ruling classes (assisted by the CIA, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other familiar suspects) have concealed the news from us. Through our reliance on oil we've put ourselves in a position from which there is no exit, but his acute analysis is more persuasive than his somewhat vague suggestions of how the world might evolve, one of the more concrete being that you start growing food in your garden or acquire an allotment. Ruppert, the son of two former CIA employees, is a 60-year-old political science graduate of UCLA, a former officer in the Lapd until he...
- 10/2/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Made In Dagenham (15)
(Nigel Cole, 2010, UK) Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Geraldine James, Jaime Winstone, Miranda Richardson. 113 mins
From the maker of Calendar Girls, another feelgood tale of sisters pulling together for a cause, but this is at least a story worth telling: the 1968 strike by workers at Ford's factory that led to equal pay for women. You know where it's going and you can guess how it's going to get there, but with a best-of-British cast and some sense of purpose, it does the job. In car terms, it's a Mondeo, but with all the trimmings.
Buried (15)
(Rodrigo Cortés, 2010, Spa) Ryan Reynolds. 95 mins
Can Reynolds act his way out of a wooden box? This thriller sticks to its coffin location with admirable determination, heaping on enough scares, surprises and suspense to sustain the claustrophobic premise.
The Secret Of Kells (PG)
(Tomm Moore, 2009, Fra/Bel/Ire) Evan McGuire, Brendan Gleeson. 79 mins
Oscar-nominated Irish animation whose vibrant,...
(Nigel Cole, 2010, UK) Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Geraldine James, Jaime Winstone, Miranda Richardson. 113 mins
From the maker of Calendar Girls, another feelgood tale of sisters pulling together for a cause, but this is at least a story worth telling: the 1968 strike by workers at Ford's factory that led to equal pay for women. You know where it's going and you can guess how it's going to get there, but with a best-of-British cast and some sense of purpose, it does the job. In car terms, it's a Mondeo, but with all the trimmings.
Buried (15)
(Rodrigo Cortés, 2010, Spa) Ryan Reynolds. 95 mins
Can Reynolds act his way out of a wooden box? This thriller sticks to its coffin location with admirable determination, heaping on enough scares, surprises and suspense to sustain the claustrophobic premise.
The Secret Of Kells (PG)
(Tomm Moore, 2009, Fra/Bel/Ire) Evan McGuire, Brendan Gleeson. 79 mins
Oscar-nominated Irish animation whose vibrant,...
- 10/1/2010
- by The guide
- The Guardian - Film News
A controversial documentary about what happens when the oil runs out could have benefitted from more than one interviewee, says Peter Bradshaw
Chris Smith's documentary centres on a long and disquieting interview with Michael Ruppert, a radical American activist on a mission to expose the "peak oil" cover-up: that is, the authorities' reluctance to prepare us for what happens when oil runs out. It is an important subject, and it raises the question of why more witnesses were not called. The answer seems to be that Smith believes Ruppert should be the focus of the movie; he was once an La police officer, and Smith originally wanted to interview him for his assertion that government authorities controlled the sale of drugs in the inner cities. Ruppert persuaded him that "peak oil" was more important. In some ways, I would have preferred to hear Ruppert on the subject of which...
Chris Smith's documentary centres on a long and disquieting interview with Michael Ruppert, a radical American activist on a mission to expose the "peak oil" cover-up: that is, the authorities' reluctance to prepare us for what happens when oil runs out. It is an important subject, and it raises the question of why more witnesses were not called. The answer seems to be that Smith believes Ruppert should be the focus of the movie; he was once an La police officer, and Smith originally wanted to interview him for his assertion that government authorities controlled the sale of drugs in the inner cities. Ruppert persuaded him that "peak oil" was more important. In some ways, I would have preferred to hear Ruppert on the subject of which...
- 9/30/2010
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Accent Film Entertainment provided copies of two of its releases: The Stoning of Soraya M and Collapse.
The Stoning of Soraya M is based on a 1994 book by the late French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, which introduces us to Zahra, a courageous who tells a passing journalist the shocking events that led to the ‘legalised’ murder of her niece, Soraya, falsely accused of adultery by a husband who wished to be rid of her in order to marry a 14 year-old girl.
Collapse is a documentary that has been described as “an intellectual horror movie”; a portrait of Us investigative journalist and former policeman Michael Ruppert.
To win, email miguel@focalattractions.com.au and tell us the name of three other films distributed by Accent Film Entertainment. Please specify if you would like a copy of The Stoning of Soraya M or Collapse.
The Stoning of Soraya M is based on a 1994 book by the late French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam, which introduces us to Zahra, a courageous who tells a passing journalist the shocking events that led to the ‘legalised’ murder of her niece, Soraya, falsely accused of adultery by a husband who wished to be rid of her in order to marry a 14 year-old girl.
Collapse is a documentary that has been described as “an intellectual horror movie”; a portrait of Us investigative journalist and former policeman Michael Ruppert.
To win, email miguel@focalattractions.com.au and tell us the name of three other films distributed by Accent Film Entertainment. Please specify if you would like a copy of The Stoning of Soraya M or Collapse.
- 9/30/2010
- by Miguel Gonzalez
- Encore Magazine
Enter The Void (18)
(Gaspar Noé, 2009, Fra/Ger/Ita) Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy. 143 mins
Noé adjusts your set from the inside with a film so hallucinogenic you might need to check into rehab afterwards. Despite some of the furthest-out visuals ever seen, nobody could accuse him of glamorising drugs. Following an American loser through the sleazy side of Tokyo, mostly after his death, it's a long, miserable tale, but the execution is amazing.
The Town (15)
(Ben Affleck, 2010, Us) Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall. 125 mins
Affleck takes on a whole Boston district in this crime saga, which overextends him a little. It's a serious drama struggling to get out of a generic cops-and-robbers thriller.
Eat Pray Love (PG)
(Ryan Murphy, 2010, Us) Julia Roberts, James Franco, Javier Bardem. 140 mins
Roberts goes to Italy, India and Bali but she's never been to "me" in this emetic hymn to self-absorption.
World's Greatest Dad (15)
(Bobcat Goldthwait,...
(Gaspar Noé, 2009, Fra/Ger/Ita) Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Cyril Roy. 143 mins
Noé adjusts your set from the inside with a film so hallucinogenic you might need to check into rehab afterwards. Despite some of the furthest-out visuals ever seen, nobody could accuse him of glamorising drugs. Following an American loser through the sleazy side of Tokyo, mostly after his death, it's a long, miserable tale, but the execution is amazing.
The Town (15)
(Ben Affleck, 2010, Us) Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall. 125 mins
Affleck takes on a whole Boston district in this crime saga, which overextends him a little. It's a serious drama struggling to get out of a generic cops-and-robbers thriller.
Eat Pray Love (PG)
(Ryan Murphy, 2010, Us) Julia Roberts, James Franco, Javier Bardem. 140 mins
Roberts goes to Italy, India and Bali but she's never been to "me" in this emetic hymn to self-absorption.
World's Greatest Dad (15)
(Bobcat Goldthwait,...
- 9/24/2010
- by The guide
- The Guardian - Film News
Chris Smith's documentary Collapse is as much a documentary about Michael Ruppert as it is Michael Ruppert's (conspiracy) theories. I've had occasion to to see several conspiracy theory documentaries over the years and one of the more interesting aspects that ties many of them together is that, in most instances, the conspiracy theorists would do better with a less is more approach. The less they speak, the more believable they are. If only these documentaries were 20 to 30 minutes long, instead of 80 to 90. (See also: Loose Change).
That's the case with Michael Ruppert, a former Lapd, an independent publisher, author, and former lecturer who, years ago, accurately predicted that we'd run into a financial crisis sparked by mortgage-backed securities. That's the sort of resume that gains your trust a little. And for the first half hour or so of Collapse, Ruppert spins an amazing -- and somewhat believable --...
That's the case with Michael Ruppert, a former Lapd, an independent publisher, author, and former lecturer who, years ago, accurately predicted that we'd run into a financial crisis sparked by mortgage-backed securities. That's the sort of resume that gains your trust a little. And for the first half hour or so of Collapse, Ruppert spins an amazing -- and somewhat believable --...
- 7/27/2010
- by Dustin Rowles
What’s more relaxing than sitting down at the end of a long hard day, with a buttery tub of popcorn and an ice-cold Coca Cola, and popping in a DVD to watch…a man speak for 80 minutes about – not necessarily an apocalypse of biblical proportions, but let’s call it – the end of the world as we know it. Welcome to the crushing blow that is Collapse. Michael Ruppert is a former Los Angeles police officer and “rogue” reporter. Some might say conspiracy theorist. He made his name as an officer by trying to call out the Central Intelligence Agency for allegedly selling narcotics in the United States. He made his name as a reporter by predicting a major financial crisis that has become all too true. Now, he has a prediction for humanity that is all doom and gloom for our current way of living. For 80 minutes, Collapse...
- 7/7/2010
- by Bill Jones
- BuzzFocus.com
If you've ever been trapped in a conversation with someone who's clearly intelligent, but has an unnerving obsession with lecturing you about the end of the world, you'll get a familiar feeling from watching Collapse. The documentary directed by Chris Smith is 80 minutes of Michael Ruppert sitting in a chair, smoking cigarettes and talking about the economy, energy policy, corrupt government interests, the mainstream media and the imminent end of the world as we know it (this is not an exaggeration). Putting aside the content of what he's saying, this documentary is ultimately disappointing because it does little to differentiate itself from the experience of seeing Ruppert simply sitting and giving a lecture.
The film is shot in a basement, with Ruppert the only clear thing in darkness. As he chain smokes cigarettes and tells the camera about everything from peak oil to the how he predicted the current financial crisis,...
The film is shot in a basement, with Ruppert the only clear thing in darkness. As he chain smokes cigarettes and tells the camera about everything from peak oil to the how he predicted the current financial crisis,...
- 6/23/2010
- by Brian Ronaghan
- JustPressPlay.net
Hey, they laughed at Galileo! Yeah, but they laughed at Bozo the Clown, too! There’s a horrifying train wreck quality to documentarian Chris Smith’s (The Yes Men) feature-length interview with Michael Ruppert, former Lapd detective, investigative reporter, CIA whistleblower. Is Ruppert a conspiracy theorist? He laughs at the notion, says he works in “conspiracy fact”... and he’s chillingly plausible as he synthesizes, in 82 clipped minutes, a portrait of industrialized civilization on the brink of collapse. A collapse we’re already in the midst of, commencing with the September 2008 economic crash, which Ruppert had predicted years earlier based on the information he’d gathered. (This interview was conducted in March 2009.) It all comes down to the unsustainability of the Western way of life, which is predicated on cheap, ready oil and built on a pyramid scheme of a monetary system... and shoring up that way of life for...
- 6/15/2010
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
DVD Links: DVD News | Release Dates | New Dvds | Reviews | RSS Feed
Mystery Train (Criterion Collection) I already reviewed this latest Criterion release last week (read that here), but the short of it is to say that while I am not a fan of the Jim Jarmusch films I have seen, this one really captured my attention. I can't say it's one for everyone, but I would hope if you read my review you should get an idea if it is one for you and on Blu-ray it is a beautiful presentation for a slow-paced film you wouldn't traditionally think needs a high definition presentation, but the photography by Robby Muller is well worth it. The Book of Eli Here is a decent film and I've watched about half of the Blu-ray so far and can say it's a solid presentation though it is much darker than I remember. I think...
Mystery Train (Criterion Collection) I already reviewed this latest Criterion release last week (read that here), but the short of it is to say that while I am not a fan of the Jim Jarmusch films I have seen, this one really captured my attention. I can't say it's one for everyone, but I would hope if you read my review you should get an idea if it is one for you and on Blu-ray it is a beautiful presentation for a slow-paced film you wouldn't traditionally think needs a high definition presentation, but the photography by Robby Muller is well worth it. The Book of Eli Here is a decent film and I've watched about half of the Blu-ray so far and can say it's a solid presentation though it is much darker than I remember. I think...
- 6/15/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Chicago – Doomsday prophecies are a dime a dozen at the movies these days. We’ve become all too complacent in staring at visions of our planet’s fragility, and the preventable threats to our survival. Most apocalyptic thrillers are pitched at the level of B-movie fantasies that make credible issues like global warming seem as frighteningly real as Godzilla.
That’s why Chris Smith’s documentary, “Collapse,” is the perfect film at the perfect time. It awakens viewers from their impassive daze with a lightning bolt of clarity. There’s no flashy special effects or distracting camerawork. Just a man in a room speaking about the demon that haunts him: his conscience. The man, Michael Ruppert, spent thirty years as an investigative journalist. He trained himself to scan the media and connect the dots. He believes that the dots he’s connected have outlined nothing less than the imminent collapse of human industrial civilization.
That’s why Chris Smith’s documentary, “Collapse,” is the perfect film at the perfect time. It awakens viewers from their impassive daze with a lightning bolt of clarity. There’s no flashy special effects or distracting camerawork. Just a man in a room speaking about the demon that haunts him: his conscience. The man, Michael Ruppert, spent thirty years as an investigative journalist. He trained himself to scan the media and connect the dots. He believes that the dots he’s connected have outlined nothing less than the imminent collapse of human industrial civilization.
- 6/9/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Imagine the most sincerely encouraging, feel-good movie you've ever seen. Then imagine the 180-degree opposite -- the most sincerely helpless-making, devastating movie you could ever see. Then imagine not being able to look away. That's Collapse in a nutshell, director Chris Smith's one-man show featuring journalist, intellectual and former L.A. cop Michael Ruppert (pictured at right) holding forth about the surpluses, shortages, conspiracies and other looming crises that threaten the world as we know it. Filmed in an empty warehouse setting with its chain-smoking subject fielding the skeptical filmmaker's questions, Collapse is designed to let viewers draw their own conclusions while underscoring the consequences of those conclusions; Smith lets nobody off the hook. The doc's scope and power have demanded reckoning from the Toronto Film Festival (where it premiered last September) to the Berlinale (where it will screen next month) to theaters and even homes nationwide, where it's currently available on demand.
- 1/20/2010
- Movieline
Cologne, Germany -- Following the success of Robert Kenner's "Food, Inc.", which opened the Berlin Film Festival's Culinary Cinema sidebar last year, Berlin has decided to load its plate with documentaries.
Seven of the 11 films screening as part of the 2010 Culinary Cinema lineup are non-fiction, including an inside look at a pastry competition in Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker's "Kings of Pastry" and "The Botany of Desire," Michael Schwarz's adaptation of the book on plant passion by "Food, Inc." author Michael Pollan.
Berlin is stretching the definition of food issues to fit in several docs that focus on ecological and social themes. These include Fredrik Gertten's "Bananas!" about the legal battle between Nicaraguan fruit pickers and Dole Food over the use of a banned pesticide; and Chris Smith's "Collapse" in which radical reporter Michael Ruppert apocalyptic vision of a world without crude oil.
Tilda Swinton,...
Seven of the 11 films screening as part of the 2010 Culinary Cinema lineup are non-fiction, including an inside look at a pastry competition in Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker's "Kings of Pastry" and "The Botany of Desire," Michael Schwarz's adaptation of the book on plant passion by "Food, Inc." author Michael Pollan.
Berlin is stretching the definition of food issues to fit in several docs that focus on ecological and social themes. These include Fredrik Gertten's "Bananas!" about the legal battle between Nicaraguan fruit pickers and Dole Food over the use of a banned pesticide; and Chris Smith's "Collapse" in which radical reporter Michael Ruppert apocalyptic vision of a world without crude oil.
Tilda Swinton,...
- 1/13/2010
- by By Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
These intros to the news tidbits are always a bit dull, so let's cut to the chase and find out what's going on with Austin film news:
Over at Cinematical, Eric Snider profiled Sundance 2010 film Skateland. What he didn't mention -- and we found out from austin360movies -- is that Skateland director/co-writer Anthony Burns lives in Austin. Parts of the film were shot in Marshall, Texas.We're excited to hear (again through austin360movies, a new Twitter feed you might want to start following) that local writer Alison Macor's book Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids will become available in March. If you didn't guess from the title, the book is a history of Austin filmmaking.The Austin Chronicle has an interview with local musician Ryan Bingham about his big-screen debut in the film Crazy Heart (Debbie's review).Just a reminder that Chris Smith's film Collapse is...
Over at Cinematical, Eric Snider profiled Sundance 2010 film Skateland. What he didn't mention -- and we found out from austin360movies -- is that Skateland director/co-writer Anthony Burns lives in Austin. Parts of the film were shot in Marshall, Texas.We're excited to hear (again through austin360movies, a new Twitter feed you might want to start following) that local writer Alison Macor's book Chainsaws, Slackers, and Spy Kids will become available in March. If you didn't guess from the title, the book is a history of Austin filmmaking.The Austin Chronicle has an interview with local musician Ryan Bingham about his big-screen debut in the film Crazy Heart (Debbie's review).Just a reminder that Chris Smith's film Collapse is...
- 1/11/2010
- by Contributors
- Slackerwood
The Alamo Guide
for January 8th, 2010
Apologies for the late email this week. I was celebrating 2010 out of town, and then when I got home I was distracted by the intensity of the Texas vs. Alabama game. Bummerrrr. Oh well. We can all drown our sorrows in some Alamo fun this weekend! First of all, The Monster Squad screening was so popular that we added a second one later that night so there’s still a chance to see the Cast And Creators In Attendance! Youth In Revolt, The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, and Crazy Heart all open up this weekend. Girlie Night presents Romy & Michele’S High School Reunion on Tuesday, so get your business women outfits ready (but please have your fake job description ready)! If you’re a foodie and love our Alamo feasts, The Alamo Iron Chef competition returns with a battle between Alamo kitchen and...
for January 8th, 2010
Apologies for the late email this week. I was celebrating 2010 out of town, and then when I got home I was distracted by the intensity of the Texas vs. Alabama game. Bummerrrr. Oh well. We can all drown our sorrows in some Alamo fun this weekend! First of all, The Monster Squad screening was so popular that we added a second one later that night so there’s still a chance to see the Cast And Creators In Attendance! Youth In Revolt, The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, and Crazy Heart all open up this weekend. Girlie Night presents Romy & Michele’S High School Reunion on Tuesday, so get your business women outfits ready (but please have your fake job description ready)! If you’re a foodie and love our Alamo feasts, The Alamo Iron Chef competition returns with a battle between Alamo kitchen and...
- 1/8/2010
- by caitlin
- OriginalAlamo.com
Some of the best documentaries of 2009 hardly seemed to exist. "What's the matter with Kansas," based on a best-seller, is still awaiting its fifth vote at IMDb. "The Beaches of Agnes," a luminous film by the New Wave pioneer Agnes Varda, grossed $127,605. "Of Time and the City," by a great British director, grossed $32,000. "Anvil! The Story of Anvil," a hit in terms of buzz and critical reception, brought in $666,659. "Tyson," $827, 046.
Such figures come from IMDb, which may be wrong, but if it's $1 million off, we're still not talking big numbers. What we're really talking about is eyeballs, or, as old Jewish exhibitors used to ask, "how many toochis on the seats?" The audiences for these films were found first at film festivals, and will now be found on DVD and video on demand. None
of them played more than one theater in Chicago -- five of them at Facets. Yet...
Such figures come from IMDb, which may be wrong, but if it's $1 million off, we're still not talking big numbers. What we're really talking about is eyeballs, or, as old Jewish exhibitors used to ask, "how many toochis on the seats?" The audiences for these films were found first at film festivals, and will now be found on DVD and video on demand. None
of them played more than one theater in Chicago -- five of them at Facets. Yet...
- 12/26/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Documentary filmmaker Chris Smith and investigative reporter Michael Ruppert have a story to tell. The truth here is as far beyond inconvenient as a modern BMW is beyond the pony express. If there is ever a film that makes you want to bunker down with gallons of fresh water and a million cans of baked beans it is not The Day After, or even The Day After Tomorrow, it is Collapse.
Taking a more than a cue from Errol Morris and his Robert McNamara doc, The Fog Of War, Smith plants Ruppert in a chair and has him draw out the map of the world going to hell in a hand basket over the next decade, give or take a few years. His picture is not a pretty one. But it is compelling due to Ruppert's level-headed fanaticism on the subject (some might call it passion). Peak Oil, economic derivatives,...
Taking a more than a cue from Errol Morris and his Robert McNamara doc, The Fog Of War, Smith plants Ruppert in a chair and has him draw out the map of the world going to hell in a hand basket over the next decade, give or take a few years. His picture is not a pretty one. But it is compelling due to Ruppert's level-headed fanaticism on the subject (some might call it passion). Peak Oil, economic derivatives,...
- 12/17/2009
- Screen Anarchy
It's been a holiday season absolutely jammed with unbelievably depressing films. "The Road." "A Single Man." "Precious." But the tiny little documentary "Collapse" is pretty much the most depressing of them all. Because unlike those other movies, which document the terrible suffering of fictional individuals, "Collapse" is about the real things in the real world. You know, the stuff we go to the movies to to avoid. Chris Smith's film is an extended interview with Michael Ruppert, the former Lapd detective who has been an investigative journalist and muckraker for three decades. His now-defunct newsletter, "From the Wilderness," was hailed equally by free-thinkers and conspiracy-theorists as often being miles ahead of mainstream media. Sure, Ruppert's out there, but he's also a very smart guy, and his deep-seated paranoia has led him, over the years, to examine the fabric of our society more closely than most of us. Point being,...
- 12/9/2009
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Chris Smith’s “Collapse” is a feature-length interview with conspiracy theorist Michael Ruppert, a man whose ideas are often as scary as they are true. For many, Ruppert is saying what the rest of us are too afraid to think about. From the financial crisis, to international politics and global warming, Ruppert is candid about his apocalyptic view on humanity and the world. The film became an instant water cooler hit at …...
- 11/6/2009
- indieWIRE - People
Chris Smith’s “Collapse” is a feature-length interview with conspiracy theorist Michael Ruppert, a man whose ideas are often as scary as they are true. For many, Ruppert is saying what the rest of us are too afraid to think about. From the financial crisis, to international politics and global warming, Ruppert is candid about his apocalyptic view on humanity and the world. The film became an instant water cooler hit at …...
- 11/6/2009
- Indiewire
The current documentary landscape is chockfull of doom-laden scenarios of every stripe: If global warming (An Inconvenient Truth) doesn’t get you, then maybe genetically engineered Frankenfoods (Food, Inc.), will. Or contaminated water (Flow). Or crushing personal (Maxed Out) and national (I.O.U.S.A.) debt. But few apocalyptic visions are as comprehensive and frighteningly assured as the one offered by Michael Ruppert, the subject of Chris Smith’s mesmerizing new documentary Collapse. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, Ruppert has chased big stories for his self-published newsletter, From The Wilderness, on everything from CIA involvement ...
- 11/5/2009
- avclub.com
Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new president will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst? Meet Michael Ruppert, a different kind of American. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, he predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial. Here is how I came to document his story... Earlier this year, in the course of doing research for a film about CIA involvement in drug smuggling during the 1980's, we arranged to interview a whistle blower by the name of Michael Ruppert. During the...
- 11/5/2009
- by Chris Smith
- Huffington Post
In case you haven't been to the movies lately, the world is coming to an end. But does it end with a bang -- or a monologue? To find out, check out this nifty mash-up of the trailers for 2012, the apocalypse-now thriller set to open on Nov. 13, and Collapse, the sensational new documentary (here’s my original review) in which author/alarmist/visionary/conspiracy theorist Michael Ruppert spends 82 mesmerizing minutes talking about what he thinks is going to happen to the United States. (Warning: It's not a pretty picture.) These movies would seriously make a great double bill. The time...
- 11/4/2009
- by Owen Gleiberman
- EW.com - The Movie Critics
"Collapse," the title of Chris Smith's new documentary, is a loaded word that applies to the film in a variety of ways. Its obvious implication concerns its main subject Michael Ruppert, a former police officer who turned in his gun and badge for a library card and a newsletter-turned-web site called From The Wilderness, which prizes itself on intensely researched investigative work about government corruption, corporate malfeasance and suspicious activity in every corner of the globe. When presented with the idea that he's a conspiracy theorist, he quickly replies, "I deal in conspiracy fact." And the facts he presents in "Collapse" are both overwhelming and chilling, as he lays out the ways the world is headed towards economic and environmental Armageddon.
"Collapse" could also refer to how Smith has wasted no time in releasing the documentary -- it's been only eight months since he first met Ruppert for a...
"Collapse" could also refer to how Smith has wasted no time in releasing the documentary -- it's been only eight months since he first met Ruppert for a...
- 11/4/2009
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
Ex-lapd Detective, investigative journalist, 9/11 truther, foreteller of the coming apocalypse --- these are just some of the roles Michael C. Ruppert has inhabited in his fascinating life, one that versatile filmmaker Chris Smith (American Movie, The Yes Men) has chosen to examine in his newest film Collapse. It is a return to documentary films for Smith, who has oscillated between disparate narrative and documentary work with a rare deftness. His most recent film The Pool (2007), a naturalistic narrative which Smith photographed himself, tracks a rural teenager working in a Panjim hotel to support his family who becomes obsessed with a swimming pool in the opulent Goan hills and the mysterious family who owns it. His newest picture...
- 11/4/2009
- by Brandon Harris
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Ex-lapd Detective, investigative journalist, 9/11 truther, foreteller of the coming apocalypse — these are just some of the roles Michael C. Ruppert has inhabited in his fascinating life, one that versatile filmmaker Chris Smith (American Movie, The Yes Men) has chosen to examine in his newest film Collapse. It is a return to documentary films for Smith, who has oscillated between disparate narrative and documentary work with a rare deftness. His most recent film The Pool (2007), a naturalistic narrative which Smith photographed himself, tracks a rural teenager working in a Panjim hotel to support his family who becomes obsessed with a swimming pool in the opulent Goan hills and the mysterious family who owns it. His newest picture...
- 11/4/2009
- by Brandon Harris
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
2009 is about to end with a bang, though probably not the apocalyptic kind predicted in the long-awaited adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" or Chris Smith's terrifying doc "Collapse," though those will both be playing at your local arthouse. Instead, audiences will be able to enjoy a winter of wildly different indie film offerings to reflect the wildly different tastes of moviegoers as we leave one decade and move into another. (There are also many different ways to watch them, as you can tell from our Anywhere But a Movie Theater section.)
From November through January, there will be musicals ("Nine"), comedies (Broken Lizard's "The Slammin' Salmon") and stop-motion animated wonderments ("A Town Called Panic") to entertain and new films from Michael Haneke, Pedro Almodóvar, Richard Linklater, Terry Gilliam and Werner Herzog to ponder. And if new movies aren't necessarily doing the trick, you can always cozy...
From November through January, there will be musicals ("Nine"), comedies (Broken Lizard's "The Slammin' Salmon") and stop-motion animated wonderments ("A Town Called Panic") to entertain and new films from Michael Haneke, Pedro Almodóvar, Richard Linklater, Terry Gilliam and Werner Herzog to ponder. And if new movies aren't necessarily doing the trick, you can always cozy...
- 11/4/2009
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
Michael Ruppert Though not technically a horror film, Collapse, the latest film from director Chris Smith (The Yes Men, American Movie) may just scare you to pieces with its doomsday scenario. In this straight interview documentary - Errol Morris-style - Smith's subject is Michael Ruppert, a former Lapd cop who believes that the current economic climate is a sign that industrial civilization is on the precipice of a complete meltdown. Ruppert has been on the fringe for decades, working as an independent reporter who predicted the financial collapse in his self-published newsletter. (You can read his current blog here.) While it's easy to initially dismiss him as a conspiracy theorist, his no-notes-needed explanations and predictions are riveting. As we become entranced by Ruppert's chain-smoking, articulate predictions of doom, we might begin to question longheld beliefs about the taken-for-granted infrastructure we trust to keep the world running smoothly. Comparisons to...
- 11/3/2009
- TribecaFilm.com
A week loaded with oh-so-worthy awards season contenders is offset with the comic relief of Jim Carrey's performance captured flailing, George Clooney's self-deluded staring, and the teasing promise of an affordable(!) trip to the ballet.
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"The Box"
You could make the argument that if Richard Kelly could only get the whole world to come over to his house and listen to his record collection, he might not feel the need to make films at all. That said, his fall from grace following the flop of "Southland Tales" was so total that he went from the director anointed as the hipster's David Lynch to the arthouse M. Night Shyamalan overnight. With much riding on this comeback, Kelly has turned to Richard Matheson's short story "Button, Button," previously immortalized as an episode of "The Twilight Zone,...
Download this in audio form (MP3: 16:59 minutes, 15.6 Mb)
Subscribe to the In Theaters podcast: [Xml] [iTunes]
"The Box"
You could make the argument that if Richard Kelly could only get the whole world to come over to his house and listen to his record collection, he might not feel the need to make films at all. That said, his fall from grace following the flop of "Southland Tales" was so total that he went from the director anointed as the hipster's David Lynch to the arthouse M. Night Shyamalan overnight. With much riding on this comeback, Kelly has turned to Richard Matheson's short story "Button, Button," previously immortalized as an episode of "The Twilight Zone,...
- 11/2/2009
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
See the trailer and images from the critically acclaimed documentary "Collapse." Helmed by Chris Smith, the Bluemark Productions film opens at New York’s Angelika Theater on November 6th, at Los Angeles’s Laemmle Sunset 5 on November 13th, and on VOD nationwide on November 15th. Americans generally like to hear good news. They like to believe that a new president will right old wrongs, that clean energy will replace dirty oil and that fresh thinking will set the economy straight. American pundits tend to restrain their pessimism and hope for the best. But is anyone prepared for the worst? Meet Michael Ruppert, a different kind of American. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter...
- 10/28/2009
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Click image below to view full poster
The scariest movie coming out this year isn't about a murderous psycho or a ghostly demon who terrorizes a couple in their own home. It's Chris Smith's (American Movie, The Yes Men) documentary Collapse, where one man uncannily outlines the dark path our nation and world are heading down. He's no Nostradamus talking about the "great bear from the east" or anything, he's just a normal guy using the same facts and figures available to everyone.
The exclusive poster might only feature the back of his head, but once you hear Michael Ruppert talk (he's a bit like The Smoking Man on The X-Files), you'll realize why the truth is much scarier than fiction. The movie opens in New York on 11/6, Los Angeles on 11/13, and will be released on cable video on demand on the Cinetic FilmBuff channel on 11/15. Bug your provider...
The scariest movie coming out this year isn't about a murderous psycho or a ghostly demon who terrorizes a couple in their own home. It's Chris Smith's (American Movie, The Yes Men) documentary Collapse, where one man uncannily outlines the dark path our nation and world are heading down. He's no Nostradamus talking about the "great bear from the east" or anything, he's just a normal guy using the same facts and figures available to everyone.
The exclusive poster might only feature the back of his head, but once you hear Michael Ruppert talk (he's a bit like The Smoking Man on The X-Files), you'll realize why the truth is much scarier than fiction. The movie opens in New York on 11/6, Los Angeles on 11/13, and will be released on cable video on demand on the Cinetic FilmBuff channel on 11/15. Bug your provider...
- 10/20/2009
- by Kevin Kelly
- Cinematical
- Cinetic's FilmBuff and Vitagraph Films have announced a joint pick-up of, in my estimation, the best doc film coming out of this year's Tiff. What is particularly noteworthy about the rights acquisition isn't the strategically laid out simultaneous VOD/theatrical release plans, but the tagged November 6th release. Perhaps Chris Smith’s Collapse is being rushed out extra-early to capitalize on Tiff buzz or to make sure that this the time sensitive doc doesn't feel obsolete in 2010 – an October release for Capitalism: A Love Story suffered because it felt so “after the fact.” I'd make the argument that Collapse will only be more relevant next year – the U.S. economy and planet can only be in worse shape tomorrow than what it is today and having missed the September 1 Oscar deadline, I wonder how an extra-early release can be a deal-breaker when it comes to making a noms list ten months from now.
- 10/15/2009
- IONCINEMA.com
Two months after debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival, Chris Smith’s new documentary, “Collapse,” will hit theaters and VOD simultaneously. Cinetic has brokered a deal with Vitagraph to launch the film in theaters next month, putting the doc on Cinetic’s new FilmBuff cable VOD channel at the same time. Comprised of an extended interview with alarmist soothsayer Michael Ruppert, the film features gloomy talk on the future of society in …...
- 10/13/2009
- Indiewire
I said in my first post from Toronto that you could feel the anxiety of the economic crisis in any number of the films here. Yet even as I wrote that, I could never have guessed I'd end up seeing a movie that would tap into those anxieties with the power and terror of Collapse. It's one of the few true buzz films of the festival (by the time I got to it, I'd heard a dozen people talking it up), yet the movie, which is 82 minutes long, consists of nothing more than an on-camera interview with Michael Ruppert, a former Los Angeles police officer who became a rogue investigative reporter and author. A bluntly unassuming and rather plain-looking man in his late fifties, Ruppert sits in what looks like a brick bunker and talks about where he thinks the United States is now headed. It is not a pretty picture,...
- 9/16/2009
- by Owen Gleiberman
- EW.com - The Movie Critics
- In the post screening Q&A, Chris Smith's noted that a “black cloud” has been hanging over the project – whatever his hurdles were, the forecast looks pretty darn good, in my estimation this might be the doc film that comes out of Tiff with the best of chances for a theatrical release. Collapse will not only find a distributor to back the gloomy, Errol Morris' Fog of War-like portrait, but will be a contender for major kudos whatever year it gets submitted to Oscar. Chain-smoking whistle blower Michael Ruppert (the focal point of the doc) gives a stellar argument for some of the things we can expect in the not so distant or distant future – but strokes his feathers and isn't afraid to ruffle them either. Good news: no talk about 9/11. Full review coming soon....
- 9/15/2009
- IONCINEMA.com
- #15. Collapse Director: Chris Smith Distributor: Rights Available. Buzz: Chris Smith has picked one hell of a subject to interview - the whistleblower of all whistleblowers. Tiff's Thom Powers says the style "recalls the work of Errol Morris and Spalding Gray" and let me tell you, a one-on-one interview with an unpopular person as was the case with Morris' The Fog of War resulted in one hell of a fascinating watch. The Gist: It's an awfully lonely world when the people around you don't want the bad news. From the acclaimed director of American Movie, this portrait of radical thinker Michael Ruppert explores his apocalyptic vision of the future, spanning the crises in economics, energy, environment and more. Tiff Schedule: Click here for screening times ...
- 9/2/2009
- IONCINEMA.com
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