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RE:GENERATION Music Project Screening at LA Film School

Posted by Amoebite, February 10, 2012 11:32am | Post a Comment

Amoeba presents a special screening of the new documentary film, Re:Generation Music Project, on Monday February 13 at the Los Angeles Film School (across from Amoeba Hollywood).

The Re:Generation Music Project follows five electronic DJs/producers - DJ Premier, Mark Ronson, Skrillex, Pretty Lights and The Crystal Method - as they remix, recreate and re-imagine five traditional styles of music (Rock, R&B, Country, Jazz, and Classical). These five distinctive DJs collaborate with some incredibly talented (and some unlikely) partners - The Doors, Martha Reeves,Erykah Badu, Trombone Shorty, Mos Def, Zigaboo Modeliste, Nas, Leann Rimes, Dr. Ralph Stanley - to discover how our musical past is influencing the future.

What: Re:Generation Music Project Screening
Where: Los Angeles Film School (6363 Sunset Blvd) entrance on Ivar.
When: Monday, Feb 13 at 8pm

RSVP via email to attend: regenerationmusicproject@gmail.com

Include your full name and if you plan to bring a guest to the screening. Please arrive early at the Film School for check-in. RSVP does not guarantee admission.

Directed by award-winning documentarian, Amir Bar-Lev (The Tillman Story, My Kid Could Paint That), produced in association with Grammy's and presented by Hyundai Veloster, Re:Generation Music Project examines music’s past, present and future, while yielding five revolutionary collaborations in the process. In the film, The Crystal Method, DJ Premier, Pretty Lights, Mark Ronson, and Skrillex use technology to mix musical styles and generations for the creation of five original tracks that are nothing short of magical.

Short Documentary About Amoeba Hollywood

Posted by Amoebite, November 30, 2011 06:36pm | Post a Comment

Dylan Neal, a student of the University of Texas Semester in LA Program, made a short documentary about Amoeba Hollywood as a submission for the 10 Under 10 Film Festival in Texas. The festival was created by Radio-Television-Film professor Ellen Spiro to feature short documentary and experimental films made by UT students. Here's the tricky part: the films must be under 10 minutes long and made for under $10.

The documentary was shot over several days in September and October 2011, and captures Amoeba moments like our in-store with Touareg band Tinariwen and our Halloween festivities, as well as interviews with staff and regular customers. I particularly loved Amoebite Cody in full costume (including face paint) being interviewed on camera with no reference to his appearance or explanation about it being Halloween. But, hey, you never know what you're going to find when you walk into Amoeba!

Amoeba Hollywood - 10 Under 10 Submission from Dylan Neal on Vimeo.

Passes to Pearl Jam Documentary Screening in SF

Posted by The Bay Area Crew, September 21, 2011 12:53pm | Post a Comment

Purchase the new Pearl Jam 2-CD set soundtrack, Pearl Jam Twenty, in-store at Amoeba San Francisco and get a free pair of tickets to see the new Cameron Crowe documentary about the band, PJ20, at the Balboa Theater in San Francisco (while supplies last). The film is playing for limited dates only: Sept. 23-29.

About the film:

Pearl Jam Twenty chronicles the years leading up to the band’s formation, the chaos that ensued soon-after their rise to megastardom, their step back from center stage, and the creation of a trusted circle that would surround them—giving way to a work culture that would sustain them. Told in big themes and bold colors with blistering sound, the film is carved from over 1,200 hours of rarely-seen and never-before seen footage spanning the band’s career. Pearl Jam Twenty is the definitive portrait of Pearl Jam: part concert film, part intimate insider-hang, part testimonial to the power of music and uncompromising artists.

About the Filmmaker:

CAMERON CROWE - Director, Writer, Producer

At age 13 Cameron Crowe began his professional life as a music critic, writing for magazines such as Creem and Crawdaddy, and at 15, became a staff writer for Rolling Stone. In 1979, Crowe (then 22) went undercover as a Southern California high schooler for his book, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He then wrote the screenplay for the film upon which it was based. In 1989, Crowe made his feature film directorial debut with Say Anything…. His other films include Singles, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, Elizabethtown and Almost Famous, which earned him an Oscar® for Best Original Screenplay. His newest narrative film, We Bought A Zoo, starring Matt Damon, will be released in December 2011.

Advance Screening of New Tribe Called Quest Documentary on July 7

Posted by Amoebite, June 22, 2011 05:03pm | Comments (3)

UPDATE - July 1 - Unfortunately, all our free passes for the advance screening of Beats, Rhymes & Life are gone. But you can still catch the film when it opens in LA and NY on July 8.

Special advance screening event for Amoeba fans! Visit Amoeba Hollywood starting Thursday, June 30 to get a ticket to a special advance screening of Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, a new feature documentary about one of the most influential and groundbreaking musical groups in Hip-Hop history. Limit 1 pass per person please (each pass admits you + guest).

Q-Tip & Michael Rapaport

In 2008, director, actor, and longtime Tribe fan Michael Rapaport went on tour with A Tribe Called Quest when they reunited for the first time in the almost ten years since their last album, The Love Movement (Jive). Rapaport wanted to create a film that documented the tour and explored the group's journey, successes, interpersonal differences, and their influence on the Hip-Hop community and music in general. The film also features interviews and stories from Busta Rhymes, De La Soul, Common, Beastie Boys, Pharrell, Mos Def, Kanye West, Pete Rock, and many more. Plus, Madlib provided original music for the film and Peanut Butter Wolf was its music supervisor.

Amoeba is pleased to present an advance screening and special Q&A with Michael Rapaport and Peanut Butter Wolf at the Los Angeles Film School on Thursday, July 7 at 7pm. Tickets to this event are free & available starting Thursday June 30 at Amoeba Hollywood. Just ask for them at the info counter. Limit 1 pass per person (each pass admits you + guest).

Aux Catacombes: Documenting Art in the Belly of Paris

Posted by Kelly S. Osato, June 17, 2010 08:20pm | Post a Comment

Dead Space documentary catacombs paris psyckoze grafitti artist underground dvd

If it can be said that the freshest of the fresh artistic creations bubble up from "underground," then it should come as no surprise that the vast network of tunnels that comprise the coiled entrails of Paris' infamous catacombs has long served as a place where creative Parisians bent on escaping the trappings of society, hemmed in by signs and signifiers girding the city's surface, retreat to the "freedom" of the damp and hard-cut, cramped lawlessness that thrives beneath the streets, expressing themselves with dim-lit abandon. Veteran graffiti artist Psyckoze has spent more than 25 years traversing, tagging, sculpting and mapping the catacombs beneath Paris, a perilous proclivity that makes the documentary Dead Space infinitely watchable.

The Parisian catacombs have always held a certain fascination, whether it be a fear of the dark-generated late night creepshow vibe (must be because of all those skulls 'n' things down in there) or a more sensationalist ghost-hunters of "reality" television programming feel, the mere mention of the m dead space documentary dvd paris catacombs psychoze art artist graffiti underground

dead space documentary dvd paris catacombs psychoze art artist graffiti underground

ysterious, bone littered underworld beneath the French capitol always stirs the imagination. In following Psyckoze on several adventures throughout the underground maze, documentary film-makers Marielle Quesney and Jean Labourdette nearly destroy their camera (they claim it was held together by duct tape by the end of shooting) and find themselves lost on more than one occasion while Pyschoze, or Psy, encounters graffiti and scrawls of years (sometimes hundreds of years) gone by, often stopping to update his own tags with the fresh designs of his evolved artistic style, and discovers a myriad of threats and claims laid by dead space documentary paris catacombs feature psyckoze psy art artist graffiti sculpture relief freehand candles stone

dead space documentary paris catacombs feature psyckoze psy art artist graffiti sculpture relief freehand candles stone

various catacomb clans, gangs (like the Rats, who were prominent in the eighties) and wanderers who have at one time or another called the catacombs home. There is even a faction of preservationist catacombers who seek to stop taggers like Psy, arguing that the tunnels should be cleaned and restored to their natural sandstone tones (which is not unreasonable, really, when you consider the quarry origins of the catacombs, which were once used to mine and transport building materials as far back as 1000 years).

Shot on a shoestring budget over the course of two years, Dead Space follows Psy as he conducts a surprisingly cohesive tour of the catacombs below Paris (clad in his habitual rubber boots and mining helmet catacomb gear), stopping here and there to highlight several of the more famous subterranean hang-outs like "the Beach" (a large, sandy chamber with a huge painting of a wave --- styled after Hokusai's famous woodblock print --- where parties often rage underground for days) and revealing Psy's personal secret hideaways, including his "castle" --- a sprawling freehand relief sculpture of breasts, faces, battlements and turrets comprising what has to be Psy's ultimate psychedelic masterpiece, laden with personal significance (example: Psy carved a turret in the castle for paris catacombs dead space documentary psyckoze psy bones candle graffiti art

paris catacombs dead space documentary psyckoze psy bones candle graffiti art

every year his good friend and fellow catacomber spent locked up in a Thai jail, nine altogether). However, it is clear that most folks who venture down into the catacombs have something other than artistic creation and personal reflection in mind.

It would seem that those crazy enough to descend to navigate the dank and muddy tunnels of the catacombs have serious partying in mind and, apparently, those who do go down there to indulge in dark and lawless soirees get so completely wrecked that they usually lose track of when and where they are. In one room Psy laughs gleefully when he discovers a block of severely dried hash, speculating, while he makes ready to smoke it, how completely high and disoriented the owner who left it behind must have been. After all, there are but a few maps of the catacombs and it would seem that the ones that exist aren't that reliable. Perhaps that accounts for Psy creating his own map, or Plan des Catacombes. Even still, Psy himself often gets turned around and has, in his longest stint underground, spent over 72 hours in the maze.
dead space documentary paris catacombs psyckoze art artist graffiti bones candles

dead space documentary paris catacombs psyckoze art artist graffiti bones candles

It was really lucky for Psy to find a thick, if aged, stash of weed in his underground haunt, because there are so many more unsavory things to be found in the vast blackness of the Parisian catacombs. The makers of Dead Space discovered and captured on film Psy encountering all manner of human elements from lost, sleeping and partying catacombers (and subsequent piles of puke) to tunnels riddled with the tea-stained remains of Parisians of years gone by. The "bone room" sequences of Dead Space are so jaw-dropping that this viewer could barely keep her trap shut. The image of Psy as he crawls carefully, stopping every six feet or so to light a candle and plant it in a skull or fixture of bones, through a tunnel way so stacked with human remains that he can barely fit though the open spaces is burned into my brain forever. This may look like Goonies, kids, but this is the real shit.

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