 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(September 2020) |
Harris Smith (born May 8, 1977) is an American filmmaker, media critic and essayist from New York City. He is one of the founding members of the Remodernist film movement and was a participating member of the first comprehensive Remodernist exhibition in the United States, Addressing the Shadow and Making Friends with Wild Dogs: Remodernism.
Smith was born in Washington, D.C., and moved to New York City in 1995. In 2004, he co-founded the "Remodernist" film movement with Jesse Richards, with the aim of promoting a "new spirituality in cinema". Also in 2004, Smith contributed to the book Captured: A Film and Video History of the Lower East Side, edited by Clayton Patterson and published by Seven Stories Press. The book documented the No Wave Cinema movement of the 1970s.
Since 2010, Smith has been the host of the radio program "Negative Pleasure" on Newtown Radio. His directing credits include the punk films Youngblood (1995), featuring music and poetry by Billy Childish; Modern Young Man (1999), which starred Tom Jarmusch, Kid Congo Powers and William "Bill" Rice; You Can't See Me When I Hide (2003); and I Can't Look at You (2004).
In February 2010, the Australian film magazine Filmink announced Smith's participation in a compilation feature film by the Remodernist film movement. The film is scheduled to premiere in New York in December 2010. [1]
From 2009-2011, Smith taught writing and literature in the humanities department at School of the Visual Arts. From 2011-2017, he worked in the comic book industry as a production coordinator at comiXology. Additionally, he has edited the comics anthologies Jeans, Night Burgers and Felony Comics. [2] Among the cartoonists he has published or collaborated with are Benjamin Marra, Lale Westvind, Zach Hazard Vaupen, Alabaster Pizzo, Leah Wishnia, Rich Tommaso, Alex Degen, Laura Callaghan, Josh Burggraf, Victor Kerlow, Benjamin Urkowitz and many others. His most frequent collaborators are Pete Toms and Thomas Slattery.
From 2014-2017, Smith hosted regular film screenings at the Spectacle Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Centered on the release of new issues of Felony Comics, these screenings include obscure and odd action, crime and horror movies from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, with an emphasis on the 1980s. Most films shown are low-budget, regional productions. Many are from Mexico. [3] Smith has also contributed to Spectacle's ongoing kung-fu matinee, Fist Church, and their yearly pre-Halloween horror movie marathon.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 independent musical comedy horror film produced by Lou Adler and Michael White, directed by Jim Sharman, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The screenplay was written by Sharman and Richard O'Brien, who also played the supporting role Riff-raff. The film is based on the 1973 musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show, with music, book, and lyrics by O'Brien. The production is a tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 1930s through to the early 1960s. The film stars Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick. The film is narrated by Charles Gray, with cast members from the original Royal Court Theatre, Roxy Theatre, and Belasco Theatre productions, including Nell Campbell and Patricia Quinn.
Remodernism is an artistic and philosophical movement aimed at reviving aspects of modernism, particularly in its early form, in a manner that both follows after and contrasts against postmodernism. The movement was initiated in 2000 by stuckists Billy Childish and Charles Thomson, with a manifesto, Remodernism in an attempt to introduce a period of new "spirituality" into art, culture and society to replace postmodernism, which they said was cynical and spiritually bankrupt. In 2002, a remodernism art show in Albuquerque was accompanied by an essay from University of California, Berkeley art professor, Kevin Radley. Adherents of remodernism advocate it as a forward and radical, not reactionary, impetus.
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre or financing.
Jesse Beau Richards is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the international movement Stuckism. He has been described as "one of the most provocative names in American underground culture," and "the father of remodernist cinema."
Remodernist film developed in the United States and the United Kingdom in the early 21st century with ideas related to those of the international art movement Stuckism and its manifesto, Remodernism. Key figures are Jesse Richards and Peter Rinaldi.
No wave cinema was an underground filmmaking movement that flourished on the Lower East Side of New York City from about 1976 to 1985. Associated with the artists’ group Collaborative Projects, no wave cinema was a stripped-down style of guerrilla filmmaking that emphasized dark edgy mood and unrehearsed immediacy above many other artistic concerns – similar to the parallel no wave music movement in its raw and rapid style.
Amos Poe is an American New York City-based director and screenwriter, described by The New York Times as a "pioneering indie filmmaker".
Shooting at the Moon is a short Super-8 punk/Remodernist film directed by Jesse Richards and Nicholas Watson, starring Matthew Quinn Martin as Buddy and Leila Laaraj as Lana, and features music by Billy Childish. It was shot in the summer of 1998 and its final cut was completed in 2003. The film premiered at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in November 2003. On March 8, 2008 the film made its London premiere at Horse Hospital during their FLIXATION Underground Cinema event.
Denis Gifford was a British writer, broadcaster, journalist, comic artist and historian of film, comics, television and radio. In his lengthy career, he wrote and drew for British comics; wrote more than fifty books on the creators, performers, characters and history of popular media; devised, compiled and contributed to popular programmes for radio and television; and directed several short films. Gifford was also a major comics collector, owning what was perhaps the largest collection of British comics in the world.
The Stuckism art movement was started in London in 1999 to promote figurative painting and oppose conceptual art. This was mentioned in the United States media, but the first Stuckist presence in US was not until the following year, when former installation artist, Susan Constanse, founded a Pittsburgh chapter.
Nicholas Watson is a social entrepreneur based in Pennsylvania, United States.
Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, who co-wrote it with its producer Debra Hill. It stars Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, P. J. Soles, and Nancy Loomis. Set mostly in the fictional Illinois town of Haddonfield, the film follows mental patient Michael Myers, who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his teenage sister one Halloween night during his childhood; he escapes 15 years later and returns to Haddonfield, where he stalks teenage babysitter Laurie Strode and her friends while his psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis pursues him.
Peter Rinaldi is a filmmaker and writer from New York, NY and is affiliated with the Remodernist film movement.
Cine Foundation International is London-based non-profit film company and human rights NGO "aiming to 'empower open consciousness through cinema'". The foundation was formed in December 2010 by American filmmaker Jesse Richards, founder of the Remodernist film movement, South Korean film critic Blue Un Sok Kim and Tobias Morgan, formerly the developer of "The Garage" on Mubi.
Paranormal Activity 4 is a 2012 American found footage supernatural horror film directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost and written by Christopher Landon, from a story by Chad Feehan. It is the fourth installment in the Paranormal Activity series, and a sequel to Paranormal Activity 2. The film features Katie Featherston, who starred in the first film. It was released by Paramount Pictures in theaters and IMAX on October 17, 2012, in the United Kingdom and on October 19, 2012, in the United States.
Slow cinema is a genre of art cinema characterised by a style that is minimalist, observational, and with little or no narrative, and which typically emphasizes long takes. It is sometimes called "contemplative cinema".
The Neon Demon is a 2016 psychological horror film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, co-written by Mary Laws, Polly Stenham, and Refn, and starring Elle Fanning. The plot follows an aspiring model in Los Angeles whose beauty and youth generate intense fascination and envy within the fashion industry. Supporting roles are played by Karl Glusman, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee, Desmond Harrington, Christina Hendricks, and Keanu Reeves.
Spectacle Theater is a collectively run, independent movie theater that operates out of a small space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York, United States.
