Selected Press Coverage of NOTHING SO STRANGE
Nothing So Strange has been covered on television, in hundreds of print
publications and on literally thousands of websites. Here is some
selected coverage:
PRINT:
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: Indie film takes on conspiracy theories
Much
like Alexander Payne's abortion debate satire "Citizen Ruth,"
"Nothing So Strange" doesn't take sides. Flemming skewers the
authorities along with the oddball theorists, and at points in
the film viewers may be convinced that Citizens for Truth is on
the right track.
DETROIT METRO TIMES: Nothing So Strange
Like any great cinema, "Nothing So Strange" creates a parallel world so real you live in it for 90 minutes. The acting is of such high quality, so seamless, you easily believe you are watching a roughly hewn documentary that follows a group of conspiracy theorists who think the Los Angeles Police Department is lying about the facts in the Gates assassination.
SEATTLE WEEKLY: Pick of the Week
Where authors like Douglas Coupland have merely poked and prodded the Gates mystique, Flemming uses the man, the myth, and the legend as a perfect platform for his savage critique of well-meaning activism that spins crazily out of control, drowning in ego, eccentricity, and corruption.
DID YOU KNOW?
The South Korean stock market took a nosedive when investors believed
that Bill Gates had been assassinated. (BBC)
There are dozens of websites that treat the Gates assassination as
real--an alternate universe that Wired.com called "brilliant and
ingenious." (Wired.com)
Over 70,000 websites mention the words "Bill Gates" and "assassination"
or "killed" (Google)
NOTHING SO STRANGE is the first "open source" movie. (Creative Commons)
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BOSTON PHOENIX: True independents
Nothing So Strange: It's the perfect title for Brian Flemming's
brilliant, one-of-a-kind faux documentary, which begins with
Microsoft's Bill Gates getting gunned down at the bandshell of LA's
MacArthur Park.
AUSTIN CHRONICLE: Pick of the Litter: 'Nothing So Strange'
The
goal while shooting this documentary-like fiction was "100% veracity,"
according to Flemming. The result is a genre-bending experience that
lives up to Daniel Webster's quote: "There is nothing so powerful as
truth, and often nothing so strange."
WIRED MAGAZINE: Street Cred
To maintain the 90-minute mockumentary's sense of realism, Flemming
filmed his actors at actual events, such as the 2000 Democratic
National Convention. He also produced a ring of phony Web sites.
Check out the DA's findings (www.garcettireport.org) and Jack
Perdue's Billgatesisdead.com portal.
WIRED MAGAZINE: Open Source We Love
Not coming to a theater near you: Nothing So Strange, the open source movie. The plot involves a Bill Gates assassination, and the footage is open to editing by all.
SEATTLE TIMES: Gates shot! But don't worry, it's only a movie
Brian Flemming says he has nothing against the world's richest man,
and took no joy in killing him. But he had to get rid of Bill Gates to
make a larger point. (This article appeared on the Seattle Times' front page.)
NEW YORK POST: Gates 'slain' in sick fest flick
Microsoft is fuming over an uncomfortably realistic "mockumentary" that
depicts the assassination of its billionaire boss, Bill Gates. "Nothing
So Strange," which premieres Jan. 13 at Utah's Slamdance Film Festival,
shows Gates lookalike Steve Sires being shot dead as he steps out of a
limo in the flick's chilling opener.
TIME MAGAZINE: Lone Gunman, Two Bill Gateses
Being the world's richest man is like being Elvis, in that there are
weirdos out there whose profession is to be you. STEVE SIRES, left, a
BILL GATES impersonator who lives near Microsoft's headquarters in
Redmond, Wash., first attracted the corporation's interest when he
attempted to trademark the name " Microsortof." Later his resemblance
landed him a role as Gates in one of the company's corporate films. But
now Microsoft and he are on the outs again, after his recent turn in
Nothing So Strange, an independent mockumentary making its debut this
week at the Slamdance Film Festival. ($ to see Time archive)
VARIETY: Review
Brian Flemming's 'Nothing So Strange,' with its anti-capitalist
fever-dream premise about the assassination of Bill Gates, created
heavy buzz all up and down Park City's ski slopes before it even
premiered...The film itself is more than just a novel premise, going
off in myriad unexpected directions and setting something of a high bar
for the mockumentary subgenre...A crackling good movie. ($ to see Variety archive)
TELEVISION:
WEB:
WIRED.COM NEWS: Enemy at the Bill Gates
The film Nothing So Strange , which premiered at Slamdance on Sunday,
imagines Gates' murder and its aftermath. It's a tale of paranoia and
police corruption, of conspiracy theorists and grassroots activism. And
it comes with a brilliant and ingenious Internet component -- an entire
Web universe of memorials to Bill Gates and conspiracy theorist sites.
FLICK PHILOSOPHER: Truth Telling
Damned if this isn't one of the most chillingly convincing bits of fiction I've ever seen, like those moments you can't remember if you dreamed them or actually experienced them. I can't recommend NOTHING SO STRANGE highly enough.
DRUDGE REPORT: Cinematic shock
A new shock film is set to debut -- a film which depicts the assassination of the world's richest man.
SALON: Doing the Sundance shuffle
Slamdance also had this year's best hope for emulating the cultish
following of "The Blair Witch Project." It was "Nothing So Strange," a
fictional film about the internal politics in an activist group
investigating the conspiratorial coverup of the assassination of
Microsoft's Bill Gates. The film, which pretends to be a documentary,
is an homage to classics of the documentary genre, such as Erroll
Morris' legendary "The Thin Blue Line." It picks up brilliantly on the
strange culture of conspiracy theorists, drawing inspiration from the
JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King cases and from LAPD scandals such as
Rampart. The film's crew epitomized the no-budget couch-surfing spirit
of truly independent film.
BBC: Bill Gates hoax hits Korean market
There's nothing like the internet for making people look foolish. The
latest outbreak of red faces is in Seoul, where Korean journalists and
investors have been caught out by one of the oldest online hoaxes
around. On a slack Friday afternoon's trading, the Korean stock market
dropped by 1.5% - a value loss of more than $3bn - after local TV
reported that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates had been
assassinated. (This recent incident was the result of someone hacking a fake story in the Nothing So Strange universe--sample--
to make it look real and current. Unsharp Mask, LLC, the company that
produced Nothing So Strange, is fully cooperating with the authorities
investigating this hack.)
THE REGISTER: Bill Gates docu-death film shows at Slamdance
David James who, coincidentally, recently appeared in a Microsoft print
ad campaign, plays a leading member the Citizens for Truth group.
indieWIRE: Indies seeking distribution
Designed as a look inside a truth-seeking coalition that forms a
fictional assassination of Bill Gates, Brian Flemming's
compelling DV movie used early awareness and a crafty website to garner
significant media attention in advance of its Slamdance debut in
January. Yet, it left Park City without much industry buzz as many
biz-types simply did not make the trip up the hill to see the picture
at Slamdance's Silver Mine screenings. "This crackling good movie is a
smart, aware, polemical work concealed beneath a surface so playful --
a "mockumentarty" approach handled as expertly as Christopher Guest 's
films -- that you don't even realize you're learning anything,"
commented Scott Foundas in a Variety review (he also plugged the film
in indieWIRE). "Pic should receive more fest exposure and specialized
commercial play," he added in the piece. In addition to the Variety
notice, Time Magazine, People Magazine , an item on the Drudge Report
and a live CNN interview fueled interest in the film, which is being
sold by Josh Braun. A New Yorker reporter watched the film yesterday
alongside buyers at a New York City screening yesterday morning.
E! ONLINE: Movie Scoop
I'm also bracing for the well-orchestrated hubbub brewing over a
Slamdance film called Nothing So Strange , which sees the 1999
assassination of Bill Gates and subsequent bungled investigation
by the LAPD. The L.A. Times ,Seattle Times ,Seattle
Post-Intelligencer (and now E! Online) have reported on the
mockumentary that has spawned more than 20 "underground" Websites
filled with controversy wonks trying to solve the murder with all
the fervor of Oliver Stone and his JFK obsession.
INTERNATIONAL (NON-ENGLISH):
TRANSFERT: "Le film open source est une idée intrigante"
 Ce
réalisateur indépendant applique ces principes à
Nothing So Strange, son film déjà culte avant
d'être sorti en salle (lire Mais qui a tué Bill
Gates ? ). Montré au festival de Sundance en 2002, cette
fiction documentaire met en scène l'assassinat de Bill Gates et
l'enquête via internet d'un groupe d'activistes sur cette sombre
affaire. Brian Flemming vit à Los Angeles des scénarios
qu'il écrit pour le cinéma et le théâtre.Il
veut maintenant développer le concept de film open source en
lançant Free Cinema, une organisation qui emprunte autant
à la communauté du logiciel libre qu'à la charte
Dogma 95, le mouvement inventé par Lars Von Trier.
translation
CLARENCE: È solo un film...
Ok, l'abbiamo fatta grossa, ma era solo in film uscito nelle sale USA
il 14 gennaio scorso, " Nothing so Strange " (trovate il sito ufficiale
cliccando qui ). Alla maniera di " Blair Witch Project ", gli autori,
prendendo spunto da un sito americano, " Citizens for Truth " che aveva
"immaginato" la morte di Bill Gates come epilogo di un fantomatico
scenario di "guerra civile" tra ricchi e poveri, hanno deciso di
lanciare l'amo in rete costruendo il proprio sito come se l'evento
fosse realmente accaduto.
translation
FILM BEI BR-ONLINE: Makabrer Film-Scherz: Bill Gates als ...
Er ist der reichste Mann der Welt: Microsoft-Gr¸nder Bill Gates.
Doch wer so viel Geld hat, hat auch Feinde. Und die d¸rfen sich
freuen, denn endlich geht es Gates an den Kragen - zumindest auf der
Leinwand. Laut dem neuen "Dokumentarfilm" des US-Regisseurs Brian
Flemming ist er schon lange tot, ermordet 1999...
translation
CADERNO: Mundo Virtual: Brian Flemming, o homem que matou Bill Gates em falso documentário
Em entrevista exclusiva ao Último Segundo , Flemming explicou
por e-mail que a idéia do filme "não é espinafrar
Gates". O diretor diz que escolheu o executivo porque "não faria
sentido utilizar um personagem fictício, já que a
intenção era ser o mais realista possível".
Confira a seguir a entrevista completa:
translation
WEB ZINES:
ENTERTAINMENT ZONE: Interview with Brian Flemming
Z: How long did it take to shoot the film? Were there rehearsals?
BF : We shot over a period of
two years, on and off. There were no rehearsals. There was no script,
even. I worked from a story outline, and the actors improvised
just about every scene.
FLEABOMB: Interview with Brian Flemming
One of the main things I wanted to ask was: Every film-maker encounters
a certain standard of suspension of disbelief, but you really took on
something that was not so much suspension of disbelief as asking your
audience to shift into a parallel universe where everything was the
same except for one pivotal event (the assassination of Bill Gates).
Did you ever feel that this was an insurmountable challenge to achieve
that suspension of disbelief?
THE MOVIE CHICKS: Interview with Brian Flemming
One woman involved in an activist group commended your film, it's
also possible to see it as questioning the motives of this group
itself, that you're lampooning the self-serving motives in their quest
for identity that's as much a part of what they're doing as whether
they care about the truth or whatever. Are we supposed to be able to
take it both ways?
Early press, back when the film had the working title "MacArthur Park":
 USA Today: Reports of Gates' death greatly exaggerated
One minute you're on top of the world, living the American
dream. The next, you're hitting the ground under a hail of bullets.
It's not easy being Bill Gates. Like the day he died. Web sites
poking fun at billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates are
nothing new, but the MacArthur Park Web site might be the first
to virtually rub him out — an event that supposedly happened on Dec. 2, 1999, making it the "last great crime of the 20th century."
Designed to expand on the plot of an upcoming independent film by
the same name, the site (named for the location of the fictional
assassination) easily outdoes the pseudo-documentary gimmick of
the 1999 Blair Witch Project Web campaign.
TECHTV: Bill Gates on the Big Screen
The creators of MacArthur Park...take the "information-sharing"
philosophy of Linux and actually apply it their creative process.
"Essentially, we're 'open-sourcing' the story line and mythology of
MacArthur Park to the world," Clark says, "inviting and encouraging
[the fans] to become a part of this fictional universe."
ZDNET: 'Blair Witch' makers 'kill' Bill Gates
Clark said that the upcoming film bears a strong resemblance to the
1969 film "Medium Cool," which was directed by Haskell Wexler, the
cinematographer of "Limbo" and "Mulholland Falls." "Medium Cool"
interspersed home-movie like cuts into a film about a Chicago reporter
whose film footage of the National Democratic Convention protests
mysteriously got into the hands of the Chicago police.
BBC News: Who killed Bill Gates?
While the Microsoft founder is hardly media shy, being the subject of MacArthur Park hasn't left him feeling warm and fuzzy.
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