The first ever (and probably last) "Some Came Running" contest: Caption That Screen Grab!

I like to consider myself a reasonably open-minded, live-and-let-live kind of guy. I figure, if Noah Baumbach, whose films as a writer-director I like a good deal, wants to play patron to Joe Swanberg, a filmmaker I consider pretty much to be a supurrating wound on the face of cinema, that's pretty much his business. And if Noah Baumbach, when asked by the Criterion Collection to interview both André Gregory and Wallace Shawn for a supplement to the company's release of My Dinner With André, decides to fold those interviews into a kind of film that contains a rather awful lot of extreme closeups of...Noah Baumbach, well, as long as I'm getting to hear Shawn and Gregory speak, I can live with that. And if Noah Baumbach wants to have the aforementioned Mr. Swanberg as part of his camera crew for the shooting of the aforementioned interviews, well, that would probably have been okay, as I would only have become aware of it upon reading the end credits of the supplement, whereupon I could reflect bittersweetly about a world in which Joe Swanberg is permitted to breathe the same air as André Gregory and Wallace Shawn. 

But to actually place Swanberg himself in the supplement is, I believe, taking things a little bit too far. I had no expectation that a revisitation of Louis Malle's wonderful 1981 film would eventually entail such a thorough sullying of my consciousness. As David Byrne once sang, "I'm mad, and that's a fact." So I turn to you, my loyal and brilliant readers. Lighten my load by making me laugh. Come up with a really funny caption for this screen cap of Swanberg shooting Shawn, and leave it in the comments. Myself, and a small panel of friends who also don't have much use for the auteur of Butterknife, will determine the funniest one. The sole (as in "there can be only one") winner shall receive, upon its release, a sealed copy of the aforementioned new and largely quite wonderful Criterion disc of My Dinner With André. I will accept submissions until twelve noon Eastern Time on Saturday, June 6. And I will get the ball rolling with my own caption for the shot, which is, "Hey, I think I've seen this guy on Gossip Girl."

Go to it, comrades.

UPDATE: Well, an interesting experiment, let's say. As per the deadline stipulated above, comments are now closed, so no further entries will be accepted. The winner will be announced Monday, alongside ruminations on my lowering the level of discourse and The Meaning Of It All.

Comments

[Matt]

"For the first and last time, Swanberg's filmmaking meets a basic Criterion."

[Dan]

@Glenn

Yeah, he did. Hell, he still does. He tried to sell his sperm on eBay. What amazes me is Chloe Sevigny has managed to finally live it down, one of many things "Big Love" did for her. Although admittedly now instead of blowing Vincent Gallo, everyone looks at her and thinks "I saw you fucking Bill Paxton." I'm torn as to whether this is an improvement.

[Tess]

"Joe makes love to the camera from behind."

[Sam]

Most directors keep a portable library of film-theory texts on set for reference.

[Match Cuts Glenn]

Mr. Swanberg mutters to himself. "Mise-en-scene, mise-en-scene, come on Joe! Get it together. Mise-en-scene."

[don r. lewis]

I got one!

"Glenn Kenny, unable to find a paying writing gig participates in a glossier version of a Joe Swanberg movie called 'The Girlfriend Experience.' After that fizzled, and unable to pick a fight with David Poland over ostensibly a "yo momma" joke that Kenny took to heart, he retreats to his own blog to yet again, bizarrely attack a young filmmaker who has made a crappy webshow called 'Butterknife' that Kenny was apparently forced to watch ala Alex in 'A Clockwork Orange.' Shortly after said blog entry, C. Mason Wells moved into Glenn's extra room to help pay the rent and sit around stewing about Joe Swanberg hhich is what people with no jobs and way, WAY too much time on their hands do in Park Slope."

Do I win?!?!

[Glenn Kenny]

No, Don, you do not. But thanks for playing! I must say I'm consistently moved by your loyalty to old Joe, which extends so far that it compels you to slag people who aren't even germane to to the larger argument presented by this post, which is that Joe Swanberg has about as much of a legitimate reason to show his face in a "My Dinner With André" supplement as I have to perform with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Which I imagine could be something even you might be compelled to admit, were it not for your reflexive defensiveness.

Boy, I am SO not buying your DVD now, dude.

[don r. lewis]

Duuude.....you pwned me! I'll get you a DVD screener though...you're gonna need that $13.

As for my loyalty, Joe is a friend and he's secretly a nice guy, workaholic who deserves none of your vitriol. But whatever. I will add that I highly doubt Joe edited the piece and stuck his face in it. Nor do I think Baumbach had a heckuvalot to do with editing it. If they did in fact edit it and made it their own little "face time" assignment, that is lame much like Ratner throwing himself in the mix in that John Cazale doc. Ugh. But just because Joe showed up in that DVD extra doesn't mean "he" did it and all this looks like is further proof of your crazy Swanberg hate obsession. Whatever gets you through the day man, seriously.

But what point is logic when there's hate to spread! Joe should have never, ever agreed to film that DVD extra or let Baumbach take him under his wing or film that SNL digital short. Dude, should do nothing. Ever. Make his crappy DV shorts for free and stab anyone who supports him in the eye.

Now, as for Soderbergh's foray into Mumblecore......

[Tom Russell]

"Now, as for Soderbergh's foray into Mumblecore......"

I can't say how "mumblecore-y" that film is, as I haven't seen it yet, but I seem to recall that there's quite a few films and filmmakers Glenn likes who have been saddled with the dreaded "M" word. It's just that Joe isn't one of them.

Now, while you and I might disagree with Glenn's assessment of Joe as both a filmmaker (recall my response to Glenn's post over at sonofaseahorse.blogspot.com) and a person (to paraphrase the immortal Ben Affleck, Joe Swanberg is a gentleman and a prince; and I'll never have anything bad to say about the man who got me back into making films and was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to appear in one), I don't think the Soderbergh-Mumblecore angle and the implicit notion that our host is somehow being hypocritical-- a notion which, IIRC, you've actually brought up at least once before in these parts-- is really a good place to be arguing from, even in jest, given his praise of-- again, IIRC-- Katz, Audley, and Mutual Appreciation.

[Glenn Kenny]

@Don: I kid, sir, I kid. I will happily buy your DVD. I can still afford it.

[John S]

I'm so used to unidentifiable people scrapping tooth and claw in comments sections that I'm not sure what to do with this inverted internet where people with identifiable names and real careers make the troll-esque posts (don r lewis, 6/4/09 11:44 pm). Unless I'm much confused, this breaks one of the basic laws of trolling.

[Brandon]

Shawn: "I think I've got something in my eyeline. No, wait a minute, nevermind."

[Nick]

Retarded nymphomaniac wanders in on smart people talking and slaps at a camera like a baboon before being shot in the heart with a poison dart. Shawn and Baumbach wait hours before checking the Swanberg heart, finally going over, ripping it out and drinking the blood in wine glasses while discussing a silent ritual in the plains of Maine for an hour and a half.