Great lost films are not from 1919, but from the last 20 years.

In the film CHAMELEON STREET, the enigmatic Doug Street puts on a series of cons, sometimes to make money, sometimes to prove he can do more than what the world expects of him. In short time he goes from a simple extortion plot to complex impersonations, including as a reporter from Time, a Yale student, a lawyer and even a surgeon. Yes, a surgeon.

The point of the film is not just to tell a story of a conman, but asks what a black man is expected to do to make a living in this modern world. Based mostly on the true story of super-con-man William Douglas Street Jr, the film is written and directed by Wendell B. Harris Jr, who also turns in an uncanny performance as the lead character. The film existed in the burgeoning indie cinema of the early 90s. Unlike most of the films around him though, Harris provided a complicated character and not a simple genre drama or comedy. The extremely intelligent Street has great ideas to fight the system, but is constantly stumped by tiny details he cannot control. It’s a drama and you root for Street to win but feel sorry for the people getting conned as well. And it’s bittersweet funny, as the sardonic humor in the film rings all too true. Above all, you feel the frustration that leads to fighting back against the grain.

Harris acted in his own super-8 film shorts growing up in Flint, Michigan. After reading an article on Street in 1983, he started researching and interviewing him in order to write the script, resulting in 36 versions of the script over 4 years.

The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1990. But that didn’t lead to distribution. Rather, the prize led to many meetings in Hollywood, the insult of a possible remake rather than a distribution deal, some deals for writing scripts, and a brutal joke.

CHAMELEON STREET did get a forgettable theatrical release and Wendell was able to write some scripts. Only now at the end of 2007 does the film finally get a DVD release. A new video transfer, loads of extras about the making of the film in luscious 1980s video, and the trailer for the film. Also two great short videos, You Know Leadbelly?, which is an entertaining short resulting from pre-production character studies, and the great Colette Vignette, a heavily edited short that shows the basis for some of the artistic ends Harris puts into the film.

The behind-the-scenes footage is appropriately called The Process. The mainstream process of the film industry did not work as well. One of his projects that didn’t take off was Negropolis, a sword-and-sandal satire that he hoped would star Howard Stern as Alexander the Great (remember its 1990), Oprah as Cleopatra with a consortion of Cleos around the world, and Harris himself as “Canigula.” But STREET remains Harris’ only film as director.

The long overdue DVD is great. The big extra is a layered, interesting group of scenes presented as a 30-minute trailer for his film-in-progress titled Arbiter Roswell. Entirely shot, Harris is currently editing what may be the definitive film document on UFOs.

In the end, Harris feels like there is only one way to look at filmmaking.

I recently interviewed Harris for my zine Cinemad, which is available right here.

DVD available now from Home Vision and Image Entertainment for $26.99.

If you agree that watching two World Champion Rubix Cube players demonstrate their skills is a good use of time, click here. Dan Dzoan and Ryan Zheng, the stars of “Piece by Piece” (to be released on Wholphin #5) gave our LA screening an air of technical proficiency we are not likely to see again.

From the stunning eight-minute opening shot of to the remarkable documentation of China’s Three Gorges dam, you are overwhelmed by MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES (2007). Partly by the size and space of the landscapes, but mostly by the incredible beauty of the images, their composition and color, only to be crushed by the content: a luscious world of destruction.

You can enjoy this vibrant doc even if you are not riding the current wave of environmental danger films. See the environment – see all of us run. If Al Gore makes you feel like you need more visual aids, or if you feel you need words with KOYAANISQATSI, then this is the perfect companion film for the trilogy.

Ultimately LANDSCAPES is the portrait of one man’s voyage, following celebrated still photographer Edward Burtynsky on a tour of Asia taking photos. Burtynsky takes large format stills of industrial landscapes – factory workers lined up to infinity, giant ships eviscerated, massive recycling dumps, expansive strip mines. The goal is to portray human’s relationship to nature in our pursuit of progress. His images are striking and picturesque, leaving the viewer on their own to comprehend the negative global ramifications within.

Director Jennifer Baichwal makes impressive choices. The film perfectly balances the images of Burtynsky and talented cinematographer/creative consultant Peter Mettler, an acoomplished filmmaker and imagemaker on his own. Burtynsky presents the expanse and philosophy, and the filmmakers examine the tiny parts. And when Burtynsky speaks, he doesn’t celebrate nor condemn, but explores who we are in relation to our planet. We need things from the environment to survive, and that is damaging the world.

DVD has tons of extras, additional scenes, commentary and interviews with Baichwal, Burtynsky and Mettler, and a great photo gallery with commentary. Released by Zeitgeist Video, available now for $29.99.

Carson Mell has not been stewing yams. His email said “Coming soon” and it contained this teaser:

Well, we are well teased. If there was an emoticon for when your beans sprout flowers and fill the sky with the virile anticipation of the salad days to come we would have used it here. In any event, we are excited to see the latest chapter in the continuing saga of Bobby Bird. “Chonto” is coming!

Part loving art-doc recreation, part comedic musical, INTERKOSMOS may be the best communist propaganda since 1955, a genre that excelled in style and mathematic form. It revels in the Russian avant-garde cinematics that bled into its bombastic government documentaries. Once some human issues come up (birds and bees and astronauts), the film gets realistic and funny. Although you are never quite sure what filmmaker Jim Finn takes seriously, alternating between laughs and existentialist atmosphere, as if it was a predecessor to the new Daft Punk film Electronoma.

Following the space exploits of cosmonauts Seagull and Falcon, East Germans on their way to conquer moons of Jupiter and Saturn, INTERKOSMOS blends the deadpan but beautiful vibes of newreels, NASA static drone cameras – and actual musical sequences with a drill team – to a great new film that’s almost educational. The feature started out as a sequel to one of Finn’s short films about a gerbil, hoping to send the little guy in space. The film kept growing until humans in spacesuits and dance numbers were added. It would win art direction awards if film fests had them. The music is original but drawn from 70s German pop and real communist morale boosting riffs. There’s even exit music. The scenes and dialogue are also new but inspired by real training films.

While its perfect for film fest crowds and art fans who’s temple is the Museum of Jurassic Technology’s oil painting lounge dedicated to the Russian rocket dogs who did not return from space, Interkosmos could also play on PBS. And I seriously, seriously want it to play to Russian audiences over 50 – can anyone make this happen?

DVD available now from Facets Video, 24.95 capitalist-pig dollars.

At screenings, I sometimes mention our disastrous first attempt at making “The Crying Competition” film. We called it “The Crying Game” and you can see every painful moment of it now in the Wholphin screening room, with commentary by our insightful-if-emotionally-constipated participants. My favorite part is the surprise humiliating ending for all mankind compliments of Wholphin’s own Emily Doe.

Great lost films are not from 1919, but from the last 10 years.

If you hear about a great, unique independent film that premiered at Sundance, you assume it got to theaters, is out on DVD, is in the indie film world consciousness. Nope. There are hundreds of great films that premiere at the big fest that still disappear a year or two later. Theatrical and home video distribution is not guaranteed for anyone outside of celebrities it seems. Even films with style, distinctive settings and hot topic plots may not find a superhero to get them out to the public.

one of five posters made for the film

Around seven years ago, Shemie Reut was a cinematographer on music videos in New York when he decided he needed a break. Heading upstate, he ended up in a job as a camp counselor at Paradox Lake, specifically for autistic children. Blown away by the kids and environment, he wrote a script about a 20-something guy looking to get out of the city and taking the same job at the camp, and returned a year later to shoot it the film.

In the opening of the film, lead actor Matt Wolf encounters an autistic man on the subway that opens his eyes to that world.

The resulting film is PARADOX LAKE, a beautifully subtle drama, following Wolf as his life changes within the camp. Looking for a new world to escape to, he struggles with a tough counselor and tries to date another one, all while taking care of the autistic teens.

Some of the kids seem to have luck predicting events. This gets intense as Wolf befriends an autistic girl who is playing a hide-and-seek game of sorts. The new world Wolf is searching for finally shows up.

Reut does a wonderful job of mixing the narrative and the real world, balancing an interesting story with the deep, unique atmosphere of the camp. While the start of the film and overall plot is scripted, the film changed with the kids’ reactions and scenes and story elements were then improvised. Handheld cameras follow everyone, but the film is not messy. It actually flows quite smoothly in image and plot. Reut talks about how the style was affected by the situation.

The camp kids knew a film was shooting, and their families gave permission, but it didn’t really change the kids’ daily routines. Reut knew this was better than bringing in all actors. Using the real camp environment and kids lends an undeniable authenticity to the film.

The lead autistic girl who Wolf becomes intertwined with is a real camp kid, not an actor. After capturing some footage of her, Reut felt she could lend something special to the film and worked with her family on the scenes. This takes the film from a simple drama to a level of magical realism.

After a long editing process with all the raw footage, PARADOX LAKE premiered in competition at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and later won Best Film at the Los Angeles Film Festival. LAKE then enjoyed a long festival life around the world and played on the Sundance Channel. Unfortunately, no distributors took a chance on the small film with no stars, and still has not played the art house circuit or come out on DVD.

Saw an amazing film in Perth last week made by a fascinating Aussie director, Kim Farrant. Besides being the daughter Primal Scream therapist and cellular consciousness pioneer Graham Farrant, Kim is a fellow cult enthusiast and has made an emotional, lovingly soul-impaling doc-o about, how can I say it, the various psycho-physio-sexual barriers that prevent people from accepting love. It’s called “Naked On The Inside” and at the Revelation Film Festival screening there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It premiers August 7th on Showtime at 10pm ET. Seriously, this film will move you like a Reverend Al Green Sunday sermon.

Here’s the website: http://www.magicreal.com.au/nakedontheinside/

*Confused by the heading? A “doc-o” is what they call documentaries in Australia and I applaud them for the streamline innovation. A “Yobbo” is apparently the Australian version of a WWF Fan and I used it here only because I am a total Fezzik.**

**Fezzik is the rhyme-addicted giant in Princess Bride and you should be deeply ashamed of yourself if you didn’t know that.

In the beginning, branding was a substitute for human interaction: the containers had cartoon representations of the people who used to sell those items directly. That way, you wouldn’t feel as bad when you broke the heart of the real freaky green leaf-man who sold you vegetables at the farmer’s market.

Once that was a comfortable betrayal, brands became less attached to their actual product/producers. Increasing the ubiquity of your brand was the only way to run a business for most of the 80s and 90s. It’s often said that branding began to die at some point in the mid to late 90s, but watching advertising today, you’d never know it. Starburst, Skittles, Burger King, Pepsi, and more have given up not only on actually describing their product but also on making you associate their brand with positive feelings.

Where does this all lead? Well, I submit Meredith Scardino and Dave Hill’s Another Spec Ad as a damn good guess.

Issue 4 represents the new, la moderne, the never-before. To commemorate, I am sending us back to the olden days: a few weeks ago. But I only head back so I can then go forward again: bringing everyone up to speed with our latest doings. And today it’s rather “Knife” out there.

Being centered in California, Wholphin is good friends with several grizzly bears. Brent Hoff, our fearless leader, is actually three eighths grizzly bear (one of his grandfathers and one of his grandmothers’ mother, for you unauthorized biographers and Wikipedia contributors).

Before California was a united state, it was an independent nation for all of twenty-five days. Our president was was William B. Ide, a pioneer and carpenter. Caleb Greenwood, a fur trader, had directed him to California. Ironic, since Ide would later befriend many grizzly bears during his struggle for power. Greenwood was a true mountain man who completed the very first wagon journey to California. Yes, the SAME California about which he told William Ide. Coincidence or chance? Some of the less popular members of the California Historical Society still argue about it to this day.

Fur trading was a volatile industry in those days, before all the glitz and glamour. The French had a monopoly of the Canadian fur trade, but they only wanted action to happen colony-side. Two Frenchmen learned from the Cree that the best fur country was northwest of Lake Superior, the area near what is now called Hudson’s Bay. They found financing in a group of investors from Boston and got incorporated by King Charles II, becoming “The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay,” an abbreviation of the longer, less memorable and altogether more unsightly name, “Hudson’s Bay Company”.

In June 1870, Hudson’s Bay Company transferred ownership of the Northwest Territories over to the Canadian Government. Later, in 2006, in Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories, the world’s first documented grizzly-polar bear hybrid was discovered (and promptly shot, of course!). Grizzly-polars were then promoted from cryptids to fully-fledged hybrid animals, much like our very own Wholphin! Encyclopedia Pictura lists cryptozoology as an interest in the liner notes to their film, a music video for the song “Knife” by… wait for it… Grizzly Bear. Verily, fate has whistled its song and the stars have aligned to bring you, dear viewer, this film.

The sails of Wholphin No. 4 are visible on the horizon, the poop deck is eerily clean and our sea ghost’s shackles have been freed of rust and barnacles. Tragically, the submarine we use for our website headquarters is trailing behind. So, I am playing tug boat (a tug boat can pull a submarine, right?), reviewing our latest online offerings.

A dominant trend in modern animal studies shows that a lot of qualities previously held as innately human are actually shared by a vast number of animals. Great apes will hold hands, hug and dance with each other. There’s a group of dolphins that wear safety masks made out of sponges. Ants can be shown to teach — not just mimic.

The resident orcas of North America — like Tsuxiit, the subject of former-Unicorn/current-Island Nicholas Thorburn’s docu-music-video — have developed amazingly stable cultures and traditions. The pods are centered around the mother: the female children may leave and start their own pod, but the males travel with their mothers for the entirety of their lives. Even in instances where the mother dies, brothers will kick it old school together as a group.

One of the raddest things about this system is the way they differentiate between different families. In order to prevent inbreeding, Orca families develop their own dialects. The dialects are so different from each other, even a human ear can detect the difference instantly. A lot of studies about these traditions lead researchers to believe that orcas are heavily cultural. Songs, hunting strategies, defense techniques all get passed on through generations. New ideas can be spread through the cultures very rapidly.

Some researchers refute these claims of culture, noting that these behaviors may just be mimicry, without teaching, sharing or communication. Others, like my dawg Harald Yurk, simply see this as bickering over term definitions. “It’s better,” says Yurk, “to accept ourselves as closely linked to the natural world.”

I like that mindset, a lot. And I bet Nicholas Thorburn does, too. The understated beauty of his film, Tsuxiit, says more for interspecial communication and culture than anything I could ever write.

As you may already know, we’ve been putting the final touches on the new issue of the magazine (more info on that soon). It’s a long, involved process that requires intricate metal lathe work and the repeated action of pulling a table cloth out from under fine china (for the kids). Unfortunately, under such demands, nobody noticed the internet-canary died and now I have to dry my brow and play catch up with some neglected films.

Headbangers, by Elena Wen, bucks the indie film norm of asking existential questions with no answers. Instead, it is a strangely satisfying answer to a question you probably didn’t even know existed. Picture, if it pleases you, a typical nuclear family: loving parents, a newborn baby, six dogs, some brick walls. As is typical, the wife is spinning her vinyl copy of the Descendents’ “Everything Sucks” and playing “try to regain something lost” with her baby. “Thank You/Grand Theme” ends, the needle picks itself up and the speakers cool down but the baby is still banging its head! Is this dangerous? Should Jane Modernfamily be concerned? Watch and find out!

For the next few days I’ll be bringing everyone back up to speed on the latest films we’ve posted. Please wait patiently at your computer; there’s complimentary Mountain Dew inside your disc drive, if you can find it.

Wholphin was at the Taipei Urban Nomad Film Festival last week. I think someone said we were “kind of like a muffin.”

If you happen to be near Basel Switzerland next week around the 11th, stop by the First SCOPE Contemporary Art Fair where we hope to again be that.

Great lost films are not from 1919, but from the last 10 years.

When you hear about “Great American Films” its usually something from the past. The acting is wonderful, you sink into the characters, luscious camera-work, interesting plot-lines that come together, great music, characters you wish you could hang out with, characters you wish would win in the end, characters you want to kiss…

As I think about those accolades for past films, I think about APART FROM THAT from just last year. I think about it as great American cinema, made by enthusiastic filmmakers and actors and crew. I think about how it looks and sounds great, not about how much it cost or what camera they must have used. I think about how great the quirky characters are, not about the actors who portray them. Because they aren’t famous. And since they aren’t famous, and since the filmmakers aren’t known, and since the film doesn’t fit into a marketable genre, I think about how you probably haven’t seen one of the great American films from last year.

Apart From That was written, directed and edited by Jennifer Shainin and Randy Walker.

When I called for the interview, an older woman answered and asked who I was. Then Jennifer got on the phone. “Mom, I got it!” I didn’t realize – the directors live at home with Jennifer’s parents. “Anything for film, man…” Walker relates. Since they started the film five years ago they’ve saved money the old fashion way.

After playing tons of film festivals, from SXSW to CineVegas to Edinburgh, the film has reached the end of the usual fest run. No distributor has picked up the film, at least in part to the fact the entire ensemble cast, while great, are not recognizable. They preferred to have young actors, or unknowns, or non-actors:

This has all led to the tone of the film, with overlapping stories of everyday people that are unique in their own way, with a touch of Raymond Carver-knack writing:

The film will now be part of Indiewire’s 2007 Undiscovered Gems series. Audiences will select their favorite film to win the Sundance Channel Audience Award. The winning filmmaker will receive a cash award of $50,000, a theatrical release in New York, Los Angeles and at least five other U.S. cities during 2008, as well as an exclusive broadcast on Sundance Channel.

Shainin and Walker at CineVegas 06:

Please go see APART FROM THAT in the theater, where it will look beautiful.

In the next month, Shainin and Walker will sell out – they are moving out of the parent’s basement to a place across the street.

I watched Jason Polan’s instructional video and then I drew a giraffe. My giraffe has a tail. It also has block-patterned skin covering its entire body. It took me six minutes, and I wish I’d had some colored pencils. But basically, I’ve drawn the best giraffe a person could ever hope to draw.

Anyone who cares to challenge me, has until May 12th to send in a better drawing of a giraffe. The best giraffe will be posted online and will win a Wholphin t-shirt, a free subscription, and a never-yet-seen Wholphin film. But really, who are we kidding? You probably shouldn’t even bother.

Email submissions here.