Whilst filling out applications (for Hobo funding I assume), Jason Eisener had to hunt down all the websites on the internatz that featured articles on TREEVENGE. Here they be:
This list should have been presented to you a while ago, if only it weren’t for that pesky Sundance! Basis for judgement: enjoyment. With that, I present 5 films that “inspired” and “entertained” my lame ass…
#5: THE DARK KNIGHT
If you would have asked me on opening night, I would have hands-down told you this was my number one film of the year, simply because I’m such a Batman fanboy; but on repeated viewings of the film, it becomes clear that Nolan’s “real-world superhero film”, has one of the most ludicrous series of events in recent film. People who are crying that the academy should have given it a best picture nomination are convinced this film makes sense.
Any film with CELL PHONE VISION should automatically be disqualified from Oscar contention.
#4: VISIONEERS
Right now, I promise you this is actually a good movie, I promise that this film is amazing, I promise you I’m not including it just because I know you haven’t seen it… yet. I hate it when people proclaim their love for something that they know that you haven’t seen, just so that someday, they can say they saw it first. I PROMISE to shut the fuck up when you tell me you saw it.
The film stars comedian Zach Galifianakis as George Washington Winsterhammerman, a level 3 “Tunt” who begins to fear that he will soon lay victim to the epidemic of people spontaneously exploding that is spreading across the nation. To prevent this from happening, George must find happiness, something that is not accepted in his society. Think 1984 meets Donnie Darko meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets Zach Galifianakis, and you have one of the most original films of 2008. Check it out.
*My number 3 is a tie between…
#3: THE WRESTLER
I’ve been a pro wrestling fan since I was a small boy, so it should come to no surprise that this film has won me over. Or should it? Until now, pro wrestling films have either excluded their fans, or everyone else. The film manages to welcome both sides of the pro-wrestling viewing audience, the true-believers, and the rest of the world.
One of my all time favourite endings to a film.
*&
#3: THE VISITOR
Another film that I run the risk of the “I saw this first” backlash; but thanks to Richard Jenkins’ nomination for Best Actor, I hope that’s not the case. This is the follow up film for Thomas McCarthy whose last film he wrote and directed was The Station Agent, another film that I beg you to go out and watch!
#2: VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
I’ve only started catching up to the cinematic wonder known as Woody Allen this year. I started with Annie Hall (and was completely floored), then made my way to Everyone Says I Love You (similar result), so I decided to give his new film a go.
A film that can make you laugh while questioning the validity of love itself, is worth watching in my books. Very funny, very smart, very beautiful people (touching each other). What’s not to like?
Sadly, after that, I watched Scoop… which rhymes with “poop”. Coincidence?
#1: MILK
I watched the Golden Globes a couple weeks ago and I was consistently shocked to see the lack of recognition this film was getting.
Perfect acting is hard to come by, but when you have an ensemble cast achieving the (damn-near) impossible together, with an ultra-talented director at the helm, prepare to sit back and have your ass dazzled. Sean Penn is absolutely stupefying.
Also, I don’t think there’s a more relevant film (in the running for Best Picture) this year, what with Prop 8 passing, and they’re now looking to revoke those little things called “Marriage Licenses” across California.
First of all, I will mention everyone who went on this Sundance adventure and who made up the Treevenge posse. There was Jason Eisener (Director/Writer), Rob Cotterill (Producer/Writer), John Davies (Camera Op, Tree Actor), Jon Eisener (Tree Actor/SF2 Expert), Adam Burke (Composer), Henry Townsend (Special FX), Glen Matthews (Actor), Jack and Nora Eisener (Biggest supporters) and myself (Location Audio Recordist/Sound Designer).
I thought the Sundance experience was awesome. It was my first time being there and I’m told that this year was a “low” year, which blew me away because there was still lots of people there to watch films and lots of filmmakers to network with. Park City is really just a one street town and both sides of it’s Main Street was packed with people every day. We all had the opportunity to watch various films, both dramatic and documentary, all of which were done very well, there wasn’t one film that I disliked!
We also had the opportunity to socialize with other filmmakers of all types, everyone we met was very supportive of Treevenge and loved it! I don’t think there was any negative feedback.
There are some great stories on the blog as well as more details on what happened (with more to be added soon!).
I’m honoured to be part of the group representing Treevenge and Nova Scotia at Sundance this year. I feel very fortunate to not only be part of a filmmaker’s group with similar interests as my own, but to know that we’re all really good friends at the same time. I was really inspired when I talked to the folks who made Black Dynamite and the folks who made Slammin’ Salmon and they told me that they are very much the same way.
Glen Matthews reporting from Halifax, Nova Scotia:
Twenty-four hours after the mayhem known as The Sundance Film Festival, I have finally decompressed enough to sit my ass down and type up a summary of the adventure from my point of view.
On our last day in Park City, Utah I woke up early to get in the waiting line to see Big Fan from Robert Siegel, the writer of The Wrestler. The film starred one of my favourite stand-up comedians Patton Oswalt. I haven’t heard yet if the film has been picked up for distribution or not, but I imagine it will. I’m a total fanboy for Oswalt, so take my praise of this film with a grain of salt.
I lost my cell phone charger earlier in the week, so half way through the movie, my phone died; I went back to the hotel and everyone had taken off to go to Troma Dance, a film festival put on by Troma that focuses on gore, sex, and craziness. I didn’t think that it started until later in the day, so I schlubbed around the hotel for the day.
Later on, I met up with the guys and they were hanging out with super-producer and Troma PresidentLloyd Kaufman, they invited him to come across the street to The Egyptian Theatre for a screening of TREEVENGE. Lloyd Kayfman accepted.
This was the final screening that we would be in town for, so this time, before the film we all went up on stage and threw around some t-shirts to the crowd. Jason screamed “Let’s tear this place up!” and the crowd did just that…
The nerds pictured above contributed to most insane screening of TREEVENGE that I have experienced yet. Screams and uproarious laughter were heard throughout the entire screening. Lloyd Kaufman told us that in ten years of doing Troma Dance (which is across the street), he had never attended a Sundance screening until ours. NEVER. The other guys have photos of them with Mr. Kaufman, so I’ll upload those whenever they do.
In other crazy news, apparently people were paying scalpers up to $100.00 for tickets (regularly priced at $15.00) for tickets to the TREEVENGE/Dead Snow screening!
The entire Sundance experience was a wonderful, yet exhausting one. My theory is the altitude (mixed with the free rum) kicked my ass. The rum also earned me the nickname “My Pet Monster” or “MPM” from the others. I hope you all enjoyed keeping up to date with our wacky adventure, and I hope we managed to represent Nova Scotia properly and made those of you in the film industry, and those who aren’t, proud to call us your own. Now it’s back to the grind.
Expect a final summary from Jason Eisener (the famous guy) in the next couple days!
Sorry i haven’t been posting as much as i should, things have been crazy, and i haven’t had much time in the hotel room. Everyday has been, get up at 8 or 9, then quickly rush out the door to get to a meeting, screening, or festival event. Then home at 4am.
Where I last left off, we were on our way to see The Carter, which is my favorite doc of the festival. The trailers for this doc dont serve it very well. People seem to have mixed feelings about it. But the Dartmouth crew down here are in love with it. Little Wayne’s story is told in a very interesting way. There’s no mention of his emmy nominations, or much of his past, or other albums, the film is more about his character. It is interesting too, because he doesn’t write anything down, he says he doesnt want to leave a history of himself on paper and that if you want to know about the artist, youll have to listen to his music, which the documentary leaves you to do. Another fav was Nollywood Babylon, a doc about the Nigerian film industry, that will leave you inspired. The film was made by filmmakers from Montreal. We finally got a chance to see Black Dynamite which was something we all really wanted to check out. The film is very funny. Its not what i expected from the trailer which made me believe that we were going to see a film that was going to try and be like an old Blaxploitation flick. In some ways i wish it was, but this has more of a feel of “Im Going to Get you Sucka”. I still loved the film and we had a chance to meet Michael Jai White after the screening. Then later at the Shorts awards party we hung out with him and the Black Dynamite crew, which was great. They are kind of like our crew, all childhood friends who got together to make a film. But their crew could probably kick our asses. Michael Jai talked to us about his martial arts training and at the end of our conversation he looked at Zander Rosborough (sound designer on Treevenge) who trains in Akido and said, “Goodbye my Akido brother”.
At the shorts awards party we met up with a lot of the jury from the festival and many of the short filmmakers. They gathered everyone up to annouce the awards for short films. Adam Burke, Rob Cotterill, Zander and I were standing together, and we were hoping that “I Live In The Woods” (our favorite short film of the fest) would get nominated. They started announcing the honarble mentions and “I Live In The Woods” was annouced as one. We were so excited and i turned around to get another drink, then my name gets called and they announce Treevenge. I nearly droped my drink, everyone around me started going nuts, and i looked at Rob and we both had this look on our faces that was like “is this really happening”. I walked up to get some pictures with the other filmmakers and we all celebrated pretty hard. You know, i never thought we would ever get into Sundance, let alone win an award. People were asking me if i thought we would win anything and I shut that idea down very fast. Its an honor to be in the festival, and i just thought there was no way in hell we would get more recognition. There are so many amazing short films here, 96 in total and they had around 6000 submissions.
Last night we got into a film that everyone has been talking about down here called Sin Nombre. Its a first time feature for the director. It was also a first time acting gig for the main actor. The screening for this film was magic, you could feel it in the air, there were over 600 people in the audience. My brother even said after the film that he had goose bumps the whole time. You can read more about the film here http://ww1.filminfocus.com/essays/train-of-thought-making-sin-no.php .
i would love to write more but right now im getting yelled at by Rob & the crew to get going hahaha.
Today is going to be a busy day, were hanging out with the Troma crew, going to watch some Troma flicks, later i am on a panel with Llyod Kaufman which should be a lot of fun. Then at midnight we have our last screening.
Ill let you know how it goes. Thanks again for all the support, my email has been 2 pages full everytime i come back to the hotel. Filled with letters from back home giving me support. I appreciate it so much and its been awesome representing Dartmouth/Halifax here. Thanks so much guys.
Ps. I have some some short films that im going to bring home to the Thrillema. At the Robocop screening on the 29th im going to show one thats going to rock you guys. I also finally saw Alicia Conway’s short film “Rite” which played before grace. I love her short, its shot so beautifully, and it really creeped me out. I thought it creeped me out more than the film “Grace”. I cant wait to see what she does next. She had me sinking into my seat, almost curling up into a ball. I have a copy of it, so hopefully there can be a showing of it at the Thrillema soon.
Last night, we had our second screening of TREEVENGE at Sundance, which once again, went very well. We played with Dead Snow again (as we will for the rest of the festival), and the audience seemed to enjoy both of our offerings.
Eisener & Cotterill introducing TREEVENGE to the crowd as Rob is caught in a rare moment of happiness…
And now to even things up, a photo of Rob from the first screening where he’s appearing in his true demonic form…
Today, I had my first chance to check out a film in the SlamDance Film Festival, which also runs in Park City. From what I’ve seen, SlamDance is sort of a smaller, Mom & Pop version of Sundance with horrible (yet charming) venues. The film in question is The Slammin’ Salmon, the new film from Broken Lizard, the wonderful folks who brought us Super Troopers, Club Dread & Beerfest.
After the screening, Zander and I stormed the gents and got a photo taken with a few of my favourite talents working in film today!…
I have no idea why I look so damn angry, but I do know why I look happy in the photo below…
Pictured with my haggard ass is April Bowlby, who was also featured in the film and had one of my favourite female comedic performances I’ve seen on film in a little while.
Tomorrow is our last full day in Utah! We have one more screening at midnight tomorrow night, and then we’re headed back to Halifax (or Dartmouth as the others would say)!
For those of you reading in the Halifax Regional Municipality, buses in Utah are free, and they run on time! It’s absurd. They are also categorized by colors, which lead to an exchange with a transit employee who told me I’d want to take the pink & the brown. Seriously.
TREEVENGE has been named one of the top 5 short films in the 25th Annual Sundance Film Festival!!
The top prize went to Short Term 12, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. And another one of the top five was an animated short titled I Live in the Woods by Max Winston. You should download his awesome short online for free @ http://www.itunes.com/Sundance/
Here’s a photo of the gents celebrating last night…
A few weeks ago whilst planning for this whimsical adventure, I was pleasantly suprised to learn that we would be on United States soil when Barack Obama’s inauguration would take place. We woke up early enough to catch a bus down to Main Street where they had a whole bunch of monitors set up with huge speakers for everyone to experience the event.
The whole thing was truly inspiring. I think being around a mob of Americans who were so damn desperate for any resemblance of hope, made the event that much more thrilling.
I could have easily had tears running down my face if I wasn’t so terrified of getting in touch with my emotions. Here’s some photos from this morning…
Last night, we went to see the Canadian produced film Nollywood Babylon, which told the tale of the Nigerian film industry, which is apparently the third most prosperous film industry in the world. These people know how to kick out the jams, as they spend roughly about two weeks on a feature film (at most), and produce over 2,500 films per year. It was an awesome film that gave you a filmmaking kick in the ass. Check it out if you get the chance.
Today, I finally got to see the film I’ve wanted to see since I heard about it: Black Dynamite.
The film was one of the best comedies I’ve seen in years and easily held it’s own in the action department. Apprently, the film got picked up yesterday by Sony, so you’ll be seeing this bad boy at some point in 2009. Cannot wait to see the advertising for this film.
After that, we rushed Black Dynamite himself and demanded a photo. In fear of our whiteness, he succummed…
So awesome.
That’s all for now, I need a bath, I’m disgusting. Tonight I’m checking out Mystery Team by Derrick Comedy, and on Thursday I’m tickled pink to be checking out Broken Lizard’s new film The Slammin’ Salmon!
Tomorrow night, we have our second screening at 9:30pm at the Red Stone Theatre. Stay tuned for more!
Sundance has been friggin crazy and a little surreal. I finally got some sleep last night which was much needed, I was starting to fade away at the Telefilm party last night.
Ill give a quick low down of whats been going on:
Friday we spent all day on flights, we had 3 stop overs and we finally got to our hotel in New Park around 9:30pm which is 12:30am home time. We chilled out, hung out with the parents, played some Street Fighter, got groceries, and then went to bed to get up at 6:30 the next morn. I didn’t get much sleep, the thought of the next day, and our upcoming screening was a little overwhelming.
First day was stupid insane. We picked up our badges got our tickets then i had to get on a bus to go to the directors lunch. It was a cool coincidence that I sat by the director of Dead Snow “Tommy Wirkola”. We hung out for the whole lunch and we sat with Glenn Ficarra who wrote Bad Santa and has a film in the fest he directed “I Love You Phillip Morris”. He was a great guy and we had a great conversation about talking animal films. He also wrote Cats and Dogs and he was just as big of a fan of the movie “Babe 2, Pig in The City” as i am. Robert Redford came out and gave a great speech.
The way back home Tommy and I had a great conversation about our movie influences, and we were both a little nervous about our screening later on that night.
I got off the bus and had to rush over to main street for an interview with “E”. Upon arrival i met up with Glenn Mathews “actor from Treevenge” and Henry Townsend “SFX on Treevenge” and my mom. Turns out they just ran into Guillermo del Toro, the director of the Hell Boy films, Blade 2, Pan’s Labyrinth, and he is now slated to direct The Hobbit. Henry and Glenn i guess froze up, but Nora Eisener went right up to him with no shame and they spoke for a little bit and got a picture with him. I guess he was really nice and was stoked about Treevenge.
On my way into the interview, Wesley Snipes walked by as he passed I told him that Undisputed was one of my favorite movies, he was taken aback by that and thought that was crazy hahaha. I don’t think any one has every told him that before haha, but it’s true, I friggin love that film.
After the interview we had a meeting with Steven Saltzman, who is an Entertainment Lawyer and works with Niv Fichman our producer for Hobo with a Shotgun. Steve was awesome, he shared some amazing stories about the industry and we look forward to working with him in the future. Then we met up with Greg Smith http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0808376/
He took us out for pizza and showed us around the main drag and brought us to his friends bar, Chris Masterson http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0557733/
Greg came with us to the screening of Treevenge and Dead Snow. Along with our crew which was John Davies, Henry Townsend, Zander Rosbrough, Adam Burke, Jon Eisener, Nora Eisener, Jack Eisener. We were all just standing there and someone noticed that Adam MCA (Beastie Boys) was standing behind us, Rob Cotterill and I introduced ourselves, he said he was excited to see the films and we hooked him up with a Treevenge hat.
We did a couple interviews before the screening and then we had to introduce the film. I wasn’t as nervous as i thought I would be, intro’ing at the Thrillema has got me kind of prepared to get up in front of big audiences. They played Treevenge and it looked fucking awesome. The sound was loud and any one who knows me, and that i get really stressed out about how the projection works out would be glad to know thatI didn’t have to say anything to the projectionist, it was perfect! I guess they really have their shit together at Sundance.
The crowd went nuts, people told us afterwards that it didn’t feel like a film screening, but more like a rock concert. Dead Snow played and it rocked the house. The last 40 mins of that movie goes balls to the walls. I knew the film was going to be fun, but i didn’t think it was going to be as crazy as it was. Loved it.
After the screening, Adam MCA walked up to us and told us how much he loved Treevenge, he asked some questions about the making of it, shook our hand. That was a geek out moment for us. Then we saw Drew McWeeny, writter of the John Carpenters Master of Horror episodes Pro Life, and Cigarette Burns, chilling with him was Scott Wienberg, who writes for Cinematical and host’s a Fantastic Feud unlike any other man. We hung out for a while and talked films, both of them pitched films they were working on that sound so fucking awesome i wish i could pitch them to you. Scott wrote a review for Treevenge yesterday which was awesome of him to do http://www.cinematical.com/2009/01/18/live-from-sundance-killer-trees-nazi-zombies-and-brandon-t-j/
Greg Smith and the Treevenge crew then went to the Dead Snow after party where we hung out with the cast and crew, then off to a party at Chris’s bar, where they had a DJ by the name of DJ Ruckus who was so amazing.
Once it hit 5am we left and I probably didn’t get to sleep until 6:30 or 7am it was a crazy night and i was still on a rush from the screening.
2nd day we got up at 9:30am, so we had about 2 hours sleep. Rob and I had lunch with our agent Jason Burns and talked about future plans, we met him for the first time in person at the screening, but we were quickly swifted away to take pictures, so having time to sit down with him was great.
Then we hit up the Telefilm party, met with some of the other filmmakers from Canada. Hooked up with Walter Forseyth who’s a friend from Halifax. Then around 1am we decided that we should go home and get ready for today. So i had a good night sleep and weare at last going to get a chance to go see some flicks. Today i think we’re hitting up the Tyson documentary, and The Carter, which is a doc on Little Wayne that a lot of people are talking about around here.
So yeah that’s about it so far i’m probably leaving out a lot of stuff, there are a lot of other famous people we’re seeing around here, but we’re not going poparazzi on them. Ill fill you guys in more as the week goes on.
Peace
Jason
P.S People down here think Zander Rosbrough (sound designer of treevenge) is John Stamos. Girls were singing him the full house theme song, amazing!
