Films
The
Target Shoots First
Sunday,
August 27, 7:30pm, Cell
Christopher Wilcha, 1999, 70 min
"In
1993, pensive punk rock fan and recent philosophy major Chris Wilcha finally
buckled down and got a real job: an entry level marketing position at
mail-order giant Columbia House, when the music club was just beginning
to look into the new trend of 'grunge music' as a way to keep profits
flowing. The suits were searching for a Gen-X informer, but Wilcha just
wanted to pay his rent. In a supreme act of hipster nerdiness, Wilcha
brought his new Hi-8 video camera to work with him each day to record
his midtown experiences. Out of over 200 hours of footage he crafted this
documentary, a first-person account of how the Age of Cobain played out
in the music industry's most unglamorous wing. Low-fi, low-key, and unpretentious,
The Target Shoots First takes it cues from the earnest post-adolescent
soul-searching of indie rock, and the workplace frustrations of contemporary
zines like Processed World and Temp Slave. As such, it's a dead-on early
90s time capsule." - New York Press. "A hilariously acidic, all-access
indictment of corporate culture and his own yearlong complicity" - Spin.
"Delicately explores corporate politics [and] the concept of selling out"
- New York Times. -NYUFF
preceded by:
Preserve
Your Estate
Animal Charm, 1999, 10 min