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Two film critics I always enjoy reading, Ty Burr and Wesley Morris, talk about the year in film in today's Boston Globe (Dec. 31, 2006).
BURR
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2006/12/31/the_year_in_movies_1167422244/
Old Joy
Duck Season
Miami Vice
GUILTY PLEASURES
A Good Year, The Lake House, Slither, Snakes on a Plane, Step Up, The Lake House
MORRIS
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2006/12/31/the_year_in_movies/
"I am made of blue sky and golden light and I will feel this way for another 15 seconds."
How about that sensual, insinuating orchestral score for the film adaptation of Patrick Suskind's literary thriller PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER?
Director Tom Tykwer knows that music well--he composed it, writes Richard J. Wright of the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. That's yesterday's edition, Jan. 1, 2007.
You can tell that Wright, like Tykwer, is a musician. Not that the piece was esoteric. But I wish I'd written it. I couldn't have. I'm not a musician. But I tried anyway.
So there is this piece in today's Boston Globe, as it touches upon director Tywker (and his co-composers) effort tocapture the essence of Suskind's lush, ironic prose, and screenwriter Andrew Birkin's lush, ironic screenplay.
As the reporter of that story, I regret that I was unable to deliver only a cursory impression of the Tykwer hair (spikey/vertical), his nervous habits (styling product deficit? Beethoven audition later that day?), and his connection to the score (he done it, in collaboration with his usual collaborators.)
Go to the movie's website and tell me if the score (and the film, should you see it) doesn't work on you after you've fallen asleep.
I did speak to the lead actor, Ben Whishaw, who was recently cast in Todd Haynes' I'M NOT THERE, a film about Bob Dylan, and Bernd Eichinger, the film's producer, whose tenacity and passion for this extraordinary novel, had much to do with getting PERFUME to the screen after so many years in print.
Eichinger, who cowrote DOWNFALL, is now producing three more films, an adaptation of THE ELEMENTARY PARTICLES, based on the novel by Michel Houellebecq, a drama about the Baader-Meinhof gangwhich terrorized West Germany from the mid 1970s to mid 1980s,
The reviews for Perfume are as varied as readers' impressions of the novel: loved it, hated it, didn't get it:
Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times praised the look of the film, but says its tone is all over the place. Nathan Rabin of The Onion didn't particularly like the film, he did acknowledge PERFUME's power to get under one's skin, describing as a "terrible, terrible film that everyone should see and will haunt me until the day I die." The "Perfume Paradox," he calls it--imperfect movies, disturbing movies, that you can't stop thinking about.
Peter Sobcynski of Hollywood Bitchslap, whom I always trust to speak from his heart about films he delights in, expresses "giddy admiration" for PERFUME. If you're on his wavelength about other movies, then you've got to see the film right now.
The usually genteel A.O. Scott of the New York Times sneers ("scratch 'n' sniff" - "Smell-O-Vision") before administering to the director a 43rd St. skullfucking : "Whereas Mr. Süskind portrayed this condition in ripe, sarcastic prose, Mr. Tykwer’s method is one of stupefying literalism. Exploiting the lush, lurid tones of Frank Griebe’s cinematography, he rubs our noses in Grenouille’s world by assaulting our eyes with what he smells."
Fly IDLEWILD, the other flashy-cool musical of 2006.
Stephanie Zacharek of Salon put it on her year's ten-best list.
"Messy and extraordinary, Bryan Barber's Prohibition-era musical, starring OutKast's Andre 3000 and Big Boi, is a dream history of black pop culture, and a testament -- to paraphrase a line from Stanley Crouch -- to the ways that inventing, borrowing and refining can bring us closer to the lives we want to lead. One of the most beautiful-looking pictures of the year (the cinematography is by Pascal Rabaud), "Idlewild" slipped out of theaters before most people could see it on the big screen. It deserves an immediate rep-house revival."
Idlewild went fast to DVD (it's out now on Universal Home Video).
Watch the 50 greatest cartoons of all time, from a poll of 1,000 animation professionals conducted by author/film historian Jerry Beck for a 1994 book.
Each cartoon should have an active link.
Bookmark this page. And go crazy.
The 50 greatest, according to Beck's poll:
1. What's Opera, Doc? (1957)
2. Duck Amuck (1953)
3. The Band Concert (1935)
4. Duck Dodgers in the 24th Century (1953)
5. One Froggy Evening (1956)
6. Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)
7. Red Hot Riding Hood (1943)
8. Porky in Wackyland (1938)
9. Gerald McBoing-Boing (1951)
10. King Size Canary (1947)
11. Three Little Pigs (1933)
12. Rabbit of Seville (1950)
13. Steamboat Willie (1928)
14. The Old Mill (1937)
15. Bad Luck Blackie (1949)
16. The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946)
17. Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor (1936)
18. The Skeleton Dance (1929)
19. Snow White (1933)
20. Minnie the Moocher (1932)
21. Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943)
22. Der Fuehrer's Face (1943)
23. Little Rural Riding Hood (1949)
24. The Tell-Tale Heart (1953)
25. The Big Snit (1985)
26. Brave Little Tailor (1938)
27. Clock Cleaners (1937)
28. Northwest Hounded Police (1946)
29. Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953)
30. Rabbit Seasoning (1952)
31. The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950)
32. The Cat Came Back (1988)
33. Superman (1941)
34. You Ought to Be in Pictures (1940)
35. Ali Baba Bunny (1957)
36. Feed the Kitty (1952)
37. Bimbo's Initiation (1931)
38. Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969)
39. Little Red Riding Rabbit (1941)
40. Peace on Earth (1939)
41. Rooty Toot Toot (1952)
42. The Cat Concerto (1947)
43. The Barber of Seville (1944)
44. The Man Who Planted Trees (1987)
45. Book Revue (1946)
46. Quasi at the Quackadero (1975)
47. Corny Concerto (1943)
48. The Unicorn in the Garden (1953)
49. The Dover Boys (1942)
50. Felix in Hollywood (1923)
Another year end critics poll: Film Comment surveys film writers and critics, asking for twenty top films and the 10 best movies still unreleased in the U.S.
Martin Scorsese's Boston-set crime drama THE DEPARTED led critics picks, followed by Romanian Academy Award submission THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU, and the old-but-new Melville noir ARMY OF SHADOWS.
Here's a poll in which an early 2006 release (TRISTRAM SHANDY) wasn't forgotten, and cool pop movies like CASINO ROYALE make a strong showing.
What's up, though, with the unreleased film list? Many of the unreleased titles are scheduled for North American theatrical distribution in 2007.
Spike Lee's searing New Orleans documentary, WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE, shown on HBO in September, was probably seen by more people than some of the top 20 movies -- and it's now on DVD. (The six-hour documentary played at Toronto Film Festival, but only after it had debuted on HBO
The annual Village Voice film critics poll moves over, with Dennis Lim and Michael Atkinson, to Indiewire, and the No. 1 film is a surprise: THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU, a Romanian drama about life and death in a hospital.
Explore the whole poll, starting with the list of films, directors and performances that earned the most votes.
Here are the critics who participated. Movie City Indie guy Ray Pride and me, Justine Elias, are in there.
Cartoon king Joseph Barbera, one half of the animation team Hanna-Barbera, died Monday of natural causes at home in Los Angeles at the age of 95. His longtime collaborator William Hanna died in 2001. The Washington Post/AP obit lists their many credits: children, filling movie and TV screens with animated series such as TOM & JERRY, THE FLINTSTONES, TOP CAT, SCOOBY-DOO, JOHNNY QUEST, THE JETSONS (which ran for only one season-who knew?), and ANIMAL FOLLIES.
Hanna & Barbera were nominated for two animated short subject Academy Awards (for "One Droopy Knight" and "Good Will To Men." (1956) You can see dozens of classic Tom and Jerry 'toons on YouTube..."Invisible Mouse" is after the jump. I'm still looking for "Good Will To Men," which I've only read about -- those who've seen this Cold War era anti-war animated film say it leaves a leaves a powerful impression.
Tom & Jerry in "Invisible Mouse"
New York Magazine's Logan Hill talks to cool customer Clive Owen about Robert Altman, being THE INSIDE MAN (again), and not being James Bond, in this week's issue.
Amid the grim pleasures of CHILDREN OF MEN, the dystopic tale of a world run out of babies, are a few breathtaking, terrifying, impossible camera moves. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki has earned three Academy Award nominations (for THE NEW WORLD, SLEEPY HOLLOW, and A LITTLE PRINCESS); he'll surely get another one for his work on his movie with Alfonso Cuaron.
Here's a to-do list from the Observer that'll have cine-cultists clamoring for revival screenings and overdue DVD rentals: fifty overlooked English-language movies thought ought to be more widely available.
I just saw ACE IN THE HOLE (1951, Dir. Billy Wilder for the first time on the big screen -- and the same day as Kirk Douglas' 90th birthday -- and I'd love to see the Observer's top two picks, SALT OF THE EARTH (1953, Dir. Herbert Biberman), PETULIA (1968, Dir. Richard Lester), the same way. Turner Classic Movies is all right, but nothing beats Kirk Douglas, bigger than life, sneering over the line to to New York.
Lucky New York: Film Forum will play Ace In the Hole Jan. 12-18.
The fur will fly this Saturday as IFC network's angriest, artsiest puppet ensemble takes on Mel Gibson in their version of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. Watch Greg the Bunny, Warren the Ape, assorted felt-covered apostles and Pharisees attempt to scourge our memories of the 2005 blockbuster. This episode, the final one of the second season, features special guests Mark Borchardt and Mike Schank of AMERICAN MOVIE.
IFC will let you download webisodes and, of course, buy buy buy DVDs of their shows on its website.
More GREG THE BUNNY love here.
Boston film critics go gangster, Los Angeles' like hell in the Pacific, the New York online critics bowed to a Queen. New York's - after five ballots -- went for UNITED 93.
Here are the four movies that the major critics' groups went for (See David Polands chart for full details.)
UNITED 93: New York, Washington, D.C.
THE DEPARTED: Boston.
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA: L.A.
THE QUEEN: N.Y. Online
But there's one movie that that film critics agree on: ARMY OF SHADOWS. Made in 1969 but released in the U.S. only this year, this is a dark, uncompromising WWII thriller about the exploits of a band of French resistance fighters in German-occupied Paris. Director Jean-Pierre Melville died in 1973 at the age of 1955, but many of his films are available on DVD and VHS through Rialto Pictures. Army of Shadows is booked at Manhattan's Film Forum from Dec. 29-Jan. 11 and moves to Symphony Space in January for the Thalia Film Classics series; check the Rialto website to see which other cities will get it.)
BOSTON:
I heard a few Boston critics wondering whether ARMY OF SHADOWS should be up for a special award or a foreign language film award.The New York Film Critics Circle decided it ought to be viewed as 2006 foreign film.
There was also some support for LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA.
Most surprising result, to me: That Judi Dench came second a few Best Actress polls to Helen Mirren. She's great in NOTES ON A SCANDAL. She's always great. But the film relies so much on her main character's frosty voice-over narration that her performance doesn't resonate as strongly Penelope Cruz's warm, graceful embodiment of a woman in trouble in VOLVER. NOTES ON A SCANDAL was screened in Boston just four days before the critics voted. Maybe the early autumn wave of Penelope-and-Almodovar love had receded by then.
Where did the Best Picture love go?
BABEL (Paramount Vantage)
"A genuine masterpiece. The best film of 2006." (Rex Reed, The New York Observer)
"Deserves an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture." (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times)
"An unqualified triumph from Alexander Gonzalez Innaritu." (Pete Hammond, Maxim)
DREAMGIRLS (Dreamgirls/Paramount)
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS (Dreamworks). Ahem...Adam Beach. Remember him?
"Stands with the best movies of this young century and the old one that preceded it: It's passionate, honest, unflinching, gripping, and it pays respects. The flag raising on Iwo might have indeed become a pseudo-event as it was processed for goals, but there was nothing pseudo about the courage of the men who did it." (Stephen Hunter, Washington Post.)
"It is one of the year's best films and perhaps the finest modern film about World War II." (Claudia Puig, USA Today)
WORLD TRADE CENTER (Paramount)
Break out the formal wear and the surgical scrubs. The fight for Academy Awards is a "bloody one," writes the always- sanguine David Carr of the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/movies/07viol.html?em&ex=1165726800&en=595ca621b40371ba
“These are bloody, serious times," said David Thomson, film historian and author of “The Whole Equation,” among other books. “There are extraordinary cruelties out there in the real word — bodies hung on bridges, Daniel Pearl being murdered — and I think that’s why torture has come into our entertainments in a serious way. There is a truthfulness to it that audiences seem to be responding to.”
Herzog: bearable in front of the camera
The Academy has shortlisted fifteen feature-length and eight short documentaries for the 2006 Oscar voters to focus on. As these films get more attention, check out how many directors put themselves into the frame, making themselves the protagonists of their films.
Nathan Rabin of The Onion has an open letter to these doc director/stars. Morgan Spurlock and Werner Herzog, you're okay. Kirby Dick, "your presence in your documentary serves as an annoying distraction that detracts from the force of your argument."
Don't blame Michael Moore (ROGER & ME) for this trend. It was Ross McElwee, whose thoughtful yet tooling-for-some-strange non fiction saga SHERMAN'S MARCH (1987) set off the trend man with a camera movies. McElwee's movie was subtitled, "A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation"; it struck a chord with the girlfriendless and won the grand jury prize at the 1987 Sundance Film Festival.
In recognition of World AIDS Day, Showtime cable TV network is airing two independent films, THREE NEEDLES and BEAT THE DRUM – two films about the global pandemic with an international focus. Three Needles played at festivals and is now in theatres in a few North American cities, but far more people will see the film on the premium cable network. Wherever you are, check them out.
THREE NEEDLES explores the lives of three people after they come in contact with the HIV virus. Director Thom Fitzgerald (THE HANGING GARDEN) is reported to have revised the film since its debut at the Toronto Film Festival. In the Chinese story, a blood smuggler (Lucy Liu) unwittingly unleashes a deadly plague in a farming village. In Canada, a struggling porn actor (Shawn Ashmore) fakes his HIV status in order to keep working. And in South Africa, a religious novice (Chloe Sevigny) strays from her mission to raise a family of AIDS orphans. (Showtime, Mon. Dec. 4, 9pm). Also look for replays of BEAT THE DRUM, a South African-made drama that premiered on Dec. 1. Director David Hickson tells three stories of three people: an orphan (Junior Singo) who leaves his AIDS-ravaged village for Johannesburg, a truckdriver whose on-the-downlow detours endanger his wife's life, and a wealthy lawyer who learns he is HIV positive.
Shelagh Crabtree of the Los Angeles Times talks to cinematographer Dean Semler about the technical aspects of making APOCALYPTO (Buena Vista, Dec. 8). Semler is the Academy Award winning DP of (DANCES WITH WOLVES). The Times piece is a fascinating look at the how -- not the why -- of making this visionary, batshit, balmy, balls-out (and about) fascist-romantic adventure film.
(I hadn't intended on posting my review till Monday, but there it is in brief.
Semler and his crew used digital video cameras for 98% of what's onscreen. But at least one visual effect was achieved in camera with a trick that's as old as moviemaking itself: reverse action--something that Gibson learned when playing the lead in Mad Max for director George Miller.
"Mel is a master of pulling off optical tricks in-camera that he learned from George," Semler says. "He taught the actors on 'Apocalypto' how to do it too. He would walk or run in slow-motion to achieve the desired speed and they followed." In fact one scene was acted out backward and in slow motion: Gibson had Rudy Youngblood, who plays Jaguar Paw, run backward and pull a spike ball out of a tree for a scene in which he is attacked by Zero Wolf (Raoul Trujillo)."
Early APOCALYPTO-ites:
FOX 411, always ready to send out an orangey-red alert, warns that the film is a "two hour torture fest...Indeed, "Apocalypto" is the most violent movie Disney has ever released, with so much blood spurting out of orifices that even Martin Scorsese would blush. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to see heads and hearts removed without anesthesia, then this is the movie for you. "Grey's Anatomy" it is not."
I am particularly touched by Roger Friedman's ranting, avuncular concern for the "women and children [who] will be headed to the doors faster than you can say "duck" when the film opens on Dec. 8."
Apocalypto's cast speaks Yucatec, a Mayan dialect. Subtitles reveal that the good people talk like groovy New Age warriors, while the bad ones speak like Nazis--the kind that British character actors play in American-made WWII movies.