PRESS: CBC review of Cleanflix

A review of Cleanflix by Greig Dymond, Senior Producer of CBC Arts. Direct link to the original post at the CBC's website here.
Greig Dymond » 09.18.09 »

Last night I caught a compelling doc that deserves to find an audience beyond the festival circuit. Cleanflix is about a highly profitable business that sprung up in Utah about 10 years ago: several video-DVD rental outlets started to provide cleaned-up versions of Hollywood favourites for Mormons who liked movies but didn’t want their families exposed to any sex, violence or swearing. Case in point: a lot of these folks wanted to watch Titanic, but without that scene where Leo paints a portrait of the topless Ms. Winslet. Thanks to modern technology, it wasn’t that difficult to add in some clothing for her doomed character.

"A very smart and critical – but never dismissive – film about two vastly different worlds colliding."

Things were going along swimmingly: the owners of stores such as Clean Flicks and Flick’s Club were making oodles of cash and the customers were satisfied. But then some A-list Hollywood directors – including Michael Mann and Steven Soderbergh – found out about the rather radical changes being made to their films without their permission or copyright clearance. Needless to say, all heck broke loose.

Directors Andrew James and Joshua Ligairi grew up in the Mormon community and they’ve made a very smart and critical – but never dismissive – film about two vastly different worlds colliding over artistic censorship.

Direct link to the review at CBC Arts.

PRESS: Ain't It Cool review of Cleanflix

A review of our film, Cleanflix, by Ain't It Cool's Cartuna. Direct link to the original post at Ain't It Cool's site here.

Cartuna » 09.14.09 »

The short version:
Very compelling, if somewhat slanted documentary. I really enjoyed it, and would watch it again, or maybe even buy the DVD at some point.

The long version:
In Utah, where Mormons have been explicitly told that they are not to watch R-rated films by their prophet, enterprising entrepreneurs start businesses where they edit people’s videos of blockbuster Hollywood films to remove any ‘objectionable’ content.

This documentary follows a few of these businesses, as they bump into copyright law and the wrath of the artists whose work they are nipping and tucking.

As you might expect, the ‘choir’ was definitely in the house for this particular bit of preaching. This is a documentary that has chosen sides - from its opening frames, it paints the Church of Latter-day Saints as horrifying and maniacal (by simply showing one of their prophets, preaching, on a distorted grainy videotape) and I wouldn’t want to be the one to argue against this stance.

"Daniel Thompson rivals King of Kong’s Billy Mitchell as one of those ideal documentary subjects who you can’t quite believe is a real guy."

The documentarians were either very wise or very lucky to concentrate their narrative around Daniel Thompson, owner and operator of a small edited-video rental and retail business as their lead subject in the film, as the guy simply loves the attention of the media, and shows an incredible degree of hubris, which ends up coming back to bite him on the ass, multiple times. He rivals King of Kong’s Billy Mitchell as one of those ideal documentary subjects who you can’t quite believe is a real guy.

We follow him through his emergence as a national spokesman for the concept of edited videos up to and beyond a shocking sex-scandal.

I doubt edited-video supporters will really enjoy the film, but the rest of us should have a pretty darn good time.

Direct link to the review on Ain't It Cool.

PRESS: Cleanflix article in Salt Lake Tribune

An article about the Toronto International Film Festival World Premiere of Cleanflix by Sean Means of the Salt Lake Tribune. Direct link to the original article at the Tribune's website here.
Sean P. Means » 09.11.09 »

UTAH MORALITY TALE PREMIERES AT TORONTO

Considering the three years it took to get from Utah County to North America's largest film festival, it's understandable that filmmaker Andrew James was getting teary-eyed.

"It's really emotional -- it's been a great journey," James said, standing next to his co-director, Joshua Ligairi, in front of the audience Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival before the world premiere of their documentary "Cleanflix."

The 90-minute documentary examines the cottage industry that sprung up in Utah in 2000, when a company named CleanFlicks started offering DVD and VHS rentals of Hollywood movies -- edited to remove violence, profanity and sexual content -- to a predominantly Mormon clientele.

Thom Powers, the festival's documentary programmer, introduced the movie with a joking nod to the Sundance Film Festival. "Every year the film industry goes to Utah for 10 days," Powers said, "and the rest of the year we don't think much about the place."

As the movie rolled, the movie-savvy Toronto festival audience learned about the once-thriving business of CleanFlicks and its imitators, and the conditions that prompted that success -- namely, the prohibition by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' leaders against Mormons viewing R-rated movies.

The movie also details how CleanFlicks went out of business when a federal judge in 2006 ruled the edited movies violated copyright laws, while some offshoot companies tried to keep going in spite of the ruling.

After the screening, James and Ligairi fielded questions about the morality of the edited-movie business and how owners of that business justified breaking the law. One owner, Robert Perry, did not. He shut down his business after the court ruling. "You can't break the law and consider yourself a moral person," Perry told the festival audience.

James said that if someone tried to edit his movie, "I'd absolutely be upset about it. They're censoring copyrighted pieces of art they don't own, and they're making a buck off of it."

Both Perry and Utah Valley University communications professor Philip Sherman Gordon, who were interviewed in the film and attended its Toronto premiere, were pleased with the results.

Gordon argued the CleanFlicks side has won, in a way, because recent federal law allows software like ClearPlay, which edits objectionable material from DVDs. Perry said he's happy his side of the story is being told. "I had a good feeling when I first met them that they would do a good job."

Powers, the festival's documentary programmer, said Toronto, with its concentration of movie press and industry, is "a huge launching pad" for Cleanflix.

Having the premiere on neutral territory may be a plus as well, Perry said. "If this was at Sundance," he said, "we'd probably have picketing and riots."

Direct link to the article at the Salt Lake Tribune.

BLOG: Early press for Cleanflix

Joshua Ligairi » 9.06.09 »

So, Cleanflix, premieres on Friday, but it's been getting early buzz since we posted the announcement that we would be playing the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

After an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, we were informed that Sean Means, film critic at the Tribune, would be making a special trip to Toronto just to see Cleanflix.

The first filmmaker interview was with Producer Kynan Griffin (Pride & Prejudice, Moving McAllister) at The Examiner. Subsequent filmmaker interviews followed in several print publications. You can listen to our first audio interview on A Damn Movie Podcast (warning, explicit language).

There have been some great blog posts anticipating the film from all over the world from Canada to Mexico. We've also been mentioned as top picks by guest bloggers on the TIFF09 documentary guide including David D'Arcy, programmer of the Haifa International Film Festival in Israel and both David Courier and Basil Tsiokos of the Sundance Film Festival programming staff.

We've also been featured nicely in little blurbs within other articles about TIFF09:

The Hollywood Reporter refers to Cleanflix among "high profile" and "heat seeking" films.

IndieWire features Thom Powers talking us up.

Atlantic City Weekly puts us up there with the big boys.

Variety didn't have much to say, but they said it in Variety!

The Hollywood Reporter announcement includes us in the title.

The Torontoist features only our photo and George A. Romero's photo.

Buzz is weird. Of course, we are excited about all the attention the film has been getting (we haven't even hired a publicist yet), but almost nobody has actually seen the film. It seems that we're just getting great word of mouth from the few people who have seen it. Also, supposedly there is good buzz and bad buzz. You want some buzz, but not too much that you become over-saturated. It is all a bunch of stupid marketing stuff that is totally antithetical to the creative process. I guess it is important if you actually want to make art for a living, though.

All that aside, I'm looking forward to the festival. It is a real honor to be playing at a festival as prestigious as Toronto and we hope this is just the beginning of many wonderful film festival experiences. We're super excited to be screening alongside films from a myriad of talented filmmakers that I have looked up to for years. Not to name drop, but other filmmakers in attendance will be The Coen Brothers, Steven Soderbergh, Geroge Clooney, Chris Smith, Todd Solondz, Michael Moore, and Werner Herzog, and George A. Romero--to name just a few. The whole thing would be pretty over-whelming if the reality of it would actually sink in.

If you are interested in tracking the progress of the film, you can become a fan of Cleanflix at Facebook or join us on our struggling MySpace page. Cleanflix poster design by Natty Coleman of Worker's State.

NEWS: Adam(n) podcast appearance

Joshua Ligairi » 09.03.09 »

Two guys named Adam from Salt Lake City run a cool little film podcast where the movies of yesterday and today are jovially discussed in a low-key atmosphere that feels more like hanging out with old friends than a cineaste dissection of cinema. That's not to say that these guys can't drop science. The Adams are true film fans and can speak knowledgeably about anything from the work of Alfred Hitchcock to that of David Cronenberg. I've often enjoyed their rants on everything from Apocolypse Now and Blade Runner to Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Howard the Duck. These guys don't discriminate.

I first heard about A Damn Movie Podcast on Filmspotting (you may remember from a previous post that I am sickeningly addicted to several movie podcasts, Filmspotting ranking high on the junkie list) when one of those Adams, Adam Palcher, dropped in to talk about his favorite films of 2009 so far. Hearing a local on one of my favorite national podcasts, I did a spit take all over my Mac and then jumped on iTunes to look these guys up and see what I was missing out on. And I'm glad I did because it soon paid off in more than just cheap entertainment.

Last night I had the honor of being a guest on the show, recorded at Adam Sherlock's amazing house at a super-secret location in Salt Lake City. How amazingly super-secret? The guy has his own road. But I digress. Sherlock and Palcher invited myself and Andrew James, co-director of the Cleanflix documentary, on the show to discuss our film and the ideas behind it. What ensued was an interesting (to us) if incomprehensible (to everyone but us) conversation about Mormon culture, sanitized movies, the making-of our film, and the upcoming premiere of Cleanflix at the Toronto International Film Festival. I hope that what was said could be considered insightful commentary, but either way I had a great time and it was cool to see that the Adams are actually even more likebale in person than they are on the air.

You can download the podcast on iTunes for free. Just search "A Damn Movie Podcast." Our interview is halfway into Episode 71, the censorship episode, which also features a review of Private Parts and a top five list where the guys discuss movies that they would like to edit just to improve the quality of the film (the Phantom Edit anyone?). It is all worth a listen, but if you have a short attention span, our interview comes in at right about the 30 minute mark.

Another great thing is that the podcast happens to feature music from two of my favorite local bands, arguably two of the best indie/alt country bands in the world right now, Cub Country and Band of Annuals. You can find music from both of these bands online, and I would recommend that you do. I especially like the Cub Country album "High Uinta High" which is largely about singer/songwriter Jeremy Chatelain's (Jets to Brazil, Iceburn) love for the great state of Utah.

I should also probably mention, for those with sensitive ears, that these damn podcasters swear like sailors and the entire interview is riddled with colorful language. If you don't have access to iTunes, you can download the episode directly from their blog. The photos that I've posted of the Adams are by Renee Lee at BellaOra Studios and Francisco Kjolseth at In This Week.

BLOG: Blame Canada!

Joshua Ligairi » 07.21.09 »

So, buddy thought that crummy documentary I have been working on for three years was never going to see the light of day, eh? Well, buddy was wrong. Apparently, there are some canucks out there that actually want to see the thing.

Cleanflix, a film that I shot for two years and edited for one with my co-director Andrew James, will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this September. TIFF is one of the premiere festivals in the world, along with Cannes and Sundance, and boasts an annual attendance in the neighborhood of 300,000 people. Screening at a festival this size offers some amazing opportunities for our film. The announcement was made today on Indie Wire and a media circus ensued with articles in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, among others.

We sent out our own press release too, hoping to spark some interest from our local Utah media outlets, but they were less interested. Guess what? Don't need 'em. Variety refers to Cleanflix as one of this year's "hot docs" and we are seeing interest in the film throughout the industry. From an interview with Toronto programmer, Thom Powers:

Needless to say, we are very excited for the opportunity to screen at such an incredible event. Other films premiering alongside ours include Steven Soderbergh's new film with Matt Damon and Diablo Cody's new film with Megan Fox. There are also films starring my personal role models Bill Murray and Ricky Gervais, and what looks to be an amazing concert film featuring the White Stripes. But mostly, I'm excited to screen alongside such an great group of documentary films.

There is always a lot of pressure to promote and sell your film and yourself at an event like this, but that is all just fading away into the background for me. I am just happy that we have a film that we love and that we get to share it with so many people in such an ideal setting. This promises to be a truly wonderful experience for us.

You can blame Canada for that.

BLOG: Oh, I love technology...

Joshua Ligairi » 02.25.09 »

Actually that's not true. I'm not very technically minded, I hate adopting new technologies, and I'm usually very uninterested in how these things work. Yes, I am one of those highfalutin artistic types that still enjoys vinyl, thinks CGI ruins movies, and often asserts that technology is for nerds who "chat online with babes all day". The good news? Now I don't have to learn this stuff. I just have to call the good folks at Digital Domain.

Digital Domain VP Ed Ulbrich was recently at the TED (Technology Entertainment Design) 2009 Conference where he gave a presentation called “How Benjamin Button Got His Face.” The annual conference brings together the world’s most accomplished thinkers and doers who give these amazing 18 minute presentations explaining their craft.

Ulbrich demonstrated the technology behind Brad Pitt’s character in David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for which Ulbrich just won an Oscar. I've re-posted the video of his presentation below. I have been impressed with Digital Domain's work since I saw the behind-the-scenes documentary about their work on Fincher's Zodiac, but this blows that out of the water.

You know, I just realized that I'm responding to this video not because of the technology aspect but because of that peek behind the curtain that it gives. I've always been obsessed with makings-of (probably why I loved making them on films like Evil Angel and Pirates of the Great Salt Lake) and it was actually the behind-the-scenes of Michael Jackson's Thriller that first got me interested in filmmaking. I'd say that this is largely akin to that.

You should really watch this video. I promise that, if you have the slightest interest in the future of filmmaking, you will be glad you did.



Find more "ideas worth spreading" at the TED website. Aaron Ruell photo from Napoleon Dynamite taken by my friend Seth Smoot.