~CHRIS SMITH/in NYC !!

american movie # 1
MARK BORCHARDT & MIKE SCHANK/IMAGE COURTESY: AMERICAN MOVIE

american movie # 2
CAST of the COVEN/IMAGE COURTESY: AMERICAN MOVIE

amercian movie # 3
SARAH PRICE & CHRIS SMITH/IMAGE COURTESY: AMERICAN MOVIE

JOHN RIEPENHOFF, of the MILWAUKEE INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR CREW – aka – the people who brought you the DARK FAIR !! – wrote to tell us he is in town with one of his friends, and a fellow Milwaukean – who turns out to be filmmaker CHRIS SMITH – who happens to be having a ‘mid career survey/retrospective’ at MoMA this weekend, and the release of his newest film, ‘The Pool’ at the Film Forum next week…

JAN ALBERT – our artlovers’ movie maven – reports:

“Go SEE MoMA’S weekend retrospective of Chris Smith’s collected works:
‘CHRIS SMITH – An American Original’.

I’ve seen SMITH’S ‘AMERICAN MOVIE’ and ‘HOME MOVIE’. They are both quirky fun and compulsively watchable. The first, ‘AMERICAN MOVIE’, (which won the GRAND JURY PRIZE for DOCUMENTARY 1999 SUNDANCE), follows a young filmmaker as he maxes out his credit cards and convinces family members and friends to put their money behind his dream of directing ‘COVEN’, a horror film that will make them all a fortune.
In ‘HOME MOVIE’, five Americans allow Smith into their unusual private worlds. These dreamers have channelled all of their creativity into their living spaces – a tree house in Hawaii, a house boat on the Mississippi, an underground missile silo converted into a family abode, and a home amusement park for a couple’s dozens of cats! They are all highly eccentric, passionate and, represent the best of America, in my humble opinion – kind of a bizarro-world Martha Stewart Living Segment !
I haven’t seen ‘THE YES MEN’, but it sounds priceless, and ‘AMERICAN JOB’ also sounds promising (see MoMA description).
On Monday, Sept 1, MoMA is premiering Smith’s latest feature, ‘THE POOL’ , 2 days before it starts its run at the Film Forum. It’s also about a small man with big dreams, but this time the dreamer is a young guy in Goa, India. It is a deceptively simple but deeply stirring story with a charming twist just when you thought it was over.
I can’t think of a better way to spend Labor Day.”

more info, see: CHRIS SMITH – An American Original/MoMA !!