Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE)

ICE-Vision: In A Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)
Thursday, February 11 at 8 PM
Lamar Dodd School of Art Room S150

Film Studies major Will Stephenson continues ICE’s informal weekly series, selecting a variety of world cinema classics and subcultural curiosities.

“With his weary romanticism, Humphrey Bogart was made for Nicholas Ray, and together they produced two taut thrillers (the other was Knock on Any Door). In this one (1950, 94 min.), Bogart is an artistically depleted Hollywood screenwriter whose charm is inextricable from his deep emotional distress. He falls for a golden girl across the way, Gloria Grahame, who in turn helps him face a murder charge. The film’s subject is the attractiveness of instability, and Ray’s self-examination is both narcissistic and sharply critical, in fascinating combination. It’s a breathtaking work, and a key citation in the case for confession as suitable material for art. 94 min.”

-Dave Kehr (Chicago Reader)

ICE-Vision: Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song (Melvin Van Peebles, 1971)
Thursday, February 4 at 8 PM
Lamar Dodd School of Art Room S150

Film Studies major Will Stephenson continues ICE’s informal weekly series, selecting a variety of world cinema classics and subcultural curiosities.

“Melvin Van Peebles’s 1971 independent film touched off a wave of imitative ‘blaxploitation’ features, few of which shared Van Peebles’s startling originality and fierce attack. The story of a male “performer” at a ghetto bordello and his run from the law, the film is a shrewd and powerful mix of commercial ingredients and ideological intent. R, 97 min.”
-Dave Kehr (Chicago Reader)

ICE-Vision: Naked Lunch (David Cronenberg, 1991)
Thursday, January 28 at 8 PM
Lamar Dodd School of Art Room S150

Film Studies major Will Stephenson continues ICE’s informal weekly series, selecting a variety of world cinema classics and subcultural curiosities.

“This David Cronenberg masterpiece breaks every rule in adapting a literary classic, but justifies every transgression with its artistry and audacity. Adapted not only from William S. Burroughs’s free-form novel but also from several other Burroughs works, the film is a complex and highly subjective portrait of Burroughs himself (expertly played by Peter Weller) as a tortured sensibility in flight from his own femininity, proceeding zombielike through an echo chamber of projections (insects, drugs, typewriters) and repudiations. According to the densely compacted metaphors that compose this dreamlike movie, writing equals drugs equals sex, and the pseudonymous William Lee, as politically incorrect as Burroughs himself, repeatedly disavows his involvement in all three. With Judy Davis and Ian Holm. R, 115 min.” -Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

ICE Studio wall installation by Seth N. Stephens, BFA Art X.
Spring 2010

ICE-Vision: Wizards (Ralph Bakshi, 1977)
Thursday, January 21 8 PM
Lamar Dodd School of Art Room S150

Film Studies major Will Stephenson continues ICE’s informal weekly series, selecting a variety of world cinema classics and subcultural curiosities.

“Fiercely indie animator Ralph Bakshi made more coherent films than Wizards, and he made more whacked-out, phantasmagorical ones. But none have been so wildly, weirdly ambitious as Wizards, which he’s described as a personal movie about the formation of Israel and the rise of fascism, but which takes the form of a dark, sloppy fairy tale pitting elves and fairies against Nazi propaganda…an unforgettably original film that’s slyly sour and cynical about fantasy tropes. The ending is a classic piece of bitter shock cinema.” -AV Club

My name is David Mitchell. I am an ICE graduate research assistant and a DMA candidate in music composition. I am interested in gaming composition and particularly the use of gaming as an educational tool. There is a grant competition that has come to my attention that funds the development of learning environments and digital media-based experiences for young people.

21st Century Learning Lab Designers is a grant competition sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with Duke University, The University of California Humanities Research Institute and Duke University’s John Hope Franklin Center. This grant competition is a call for proposals that provide “learning environments and digital media-based experiences that allow young people to grapple with social challenges through activities based on the social nature, contexts, and ideas of science, technology, engineering and math.” Social networks, games, virtual worlds, mobile devices or others digital media maybe used to create a learning environment for young people.

As an ICE graduate assistant, I am in a position to help anyone who is interested in applying for this grant. I can also help complete the grant writing process and assist with artistic, musical, and programming resources as needed.

This is a potential $30,000 to $200,000 grant opportunity. Learn more at dmlcompetition.net/learning_labs.php

The deadline for application is January 22nd. Contact: David Mitchell at dave67@uga.edu