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May 31, 2005

Linking the Lynchian metaverse intarweb

Online viewing tip: a few trusty posters have rounded up a hot, steamy cornucopia of friendly links of what they call "David Lynch Trailers (Misc. Oddities)." It's a Wiki world, after all... (Also, don't forget The Black Lodge.)

Posted by at 06:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Me and You and why is Miranda July This Way?

In her ongoing blog about the travels of her wonderful new movie, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, Miranda July remains otherworldly and dear. This is a small snip of her hop-skip back to Cannes when she found she shared the Camera d'or award: "[We] heard our names and we walked up to the podium. The prize was given by Abbas Kiarostami, the head of the jury, and, oddly enough, Milla [Jovovich]. When I was 12 I deeply wanted a subscription to Seventeen magazine, but I was too embarrassed to ask for this because I knew my father would frown upon it. I was torn between wanting it and wanting to prove that I was not a silly, materialistic girl. Eventually I got the subscription and Milla was on the cover of the first issue. So you can imagine my surprise, to see it was she, ushering me in to this new world. Maybe she will always be the gatekeeper for each new world I enter.

Posted by at 05:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Pauline Kael once said...

The Philly Inquirer, quoting an article by Todd S. Purdum in the NY Times, reminds us that the late New Yorkerette didn't like The Sound of Music: "Pauline Kael, the reigning film critic of her era, denounced it as "the sugar-coated lie that people seem to want to eat." In the May 24 Wall Street Journal, Leon de Winter cited an evergreen: "The entire Dutch cabinet is in a state of disbelief, like Pauline Kael, the New York Times film critic, who remarked after Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern in 1972: "How can that be? No one I know voted for Nixon."" (De Winter is described as an adjunct fellow of the conservative Hudson Institute.) Writing at Cinematical about Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka, soon to appear on DVD, Ryan Stewart cites this Kaeloid: "I’m reminded of something Pauline Kael once said: When there is no respect on either side, commerce is a dirty word."

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Excellent criticism involves contextualizing

Theater writer Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune, the Official Daily of the National Film Critics' Association, contemplates the strangling of criticism: "To a great many artists, the emasculation of the critic is something to be cheered. At a recent panel at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival... the managing director of the Arena Stage in Washington,told attendees that regional theaters should concentrate on "reducing the influence" of the local critic. This could be done, he implied, by creating a community of audience members and subscribers who trusted their arts organization -- and each other -- so much that the view of "that one guy" would mean little or nothing to them. This, Shields said, was the only way a theater could create a climate conducive to artistic risk-taking... That's a very healthy idea -- contrary to popular opinion, most critics don't crave exclusivity. But user reviews are just that -- user reviews. Excellent criticism involves contextualizing... There's no diminishment in the public appetite for explanation -- the cultural world out there only gets ever more bewildering."

Posted by at 06:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 30, 2005

Foreign's not porno: Don Roos and the Times

Old corrections are good corrections: from the Sunday, May 15, New York Times, found while doing laundry. "Because of a transcription error, an article last Sunday in Summer Movies, Part 2 of this section, about the director Don Roos rendered a word incorrectly in his comment about the use of onscreen titles in his film ''Happy Endings.'' He said, ''I love foreign films, which have a lot of signage in them'' -- not ''porno films.''

Posted by at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2005

Future now: Sheffield's Warp Films

Warp, the record label and producers of Chris Cunningham's Rubber Johnny due on DVD in June, tell the Telegraph what they're all about: Amid all the stories of doom and gloom usually written about the state of the British film industry, the impact made by Warp Films, a tiny three-person operation based in Sheffield, provides some hope for its future. The first ever film they produced, a 10-minute short by satirist Chris Morris about a man walking his dog in the middle of a mental breakdown, won a Bafta in 2003. Their first feature, Dead Man's Shoes, a revenge thriller cut through with black humour, was seen as a return to form for its director Shane Meadows. Yet the company's background is not in film at all but in the field of electronic music.... Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell started Warp at the height of the acid house craze in 1989. The label shared its name with the record store they ran in Sheffield. From the start, Warp released music that challenged the perceptions of dance music as mindless... The move into film wasn't so much a leap into the unknown but, says Beckett, "a natural follow-on from the connections we'd already made with people in that field". [More at the link, including news of developing a new feature with Lynne Ramsay.]

Posted by at 05:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Bomb the esthetics: style over substance

26 year-old Adam Bhala Lough, director of Gotham-set graffiti opera Bomb the System talks to Gothamist about style 'n' substance: "A lot of people are put off with someone who tries to experiment, or they immediately think “style over substance.” But you know what? My taste falls in line with style over substance. I’m more interested in movies like David Lynch’s Lost Highway or Wong Kar Wai’s Fallen Angels—movies that are visually striking." Your biggest film influences? Darren Aronofsky, Wong Kar Wai, David Lynch, and Jim Jarmusch."

Posted by at 04:57 PM | Comments (1)

May 27, 2005

Thumbsucker: Longest Yard prompts Ebertian meditation

In a 3-star review, the co-host of "Ebert & Roeper" considers, to thumb or not to thumb? while giving away some trade secrets: "3 weeks ago I saw The Longest Yard, and before I left for [Cannes], I did an advance taping... on which I gave a muted thumbs-up to Richard Roeper's scornful thumbs-down... Now 3 weeks have passed and I have seen 25 films at Cannes, most of them attempts at greatness, and I sit here staring at the computer screen and realizing with dread that the time has come for me to write a review justifying that vertical thumb... I said what I sincerely believed at the time. I believed it as one might believe in a good cup of coffee; welcome while you are drinking it, even completely absorbing, but not much discussed three weeks later. Indeed after my immersion in the films of Cannes, I can hardly bring myself to return to The Longest Yard at all, since it represents such a limited idea of what a movie can be and what movies are for... There is a sense in which attacking this movie is like kicking a dog for not being better at calculus... I often practice a generic approach to film criticism, in which the starting point for a review is the question of what a movie sets out to achieve. The Longest Yard more or less achieves what most of the people attending it will expect. [But] I have just come from 12 days at Cannes during which several times each day I was reminded that movies can enrich our lives, instead of just helping us get through them."

Posted by at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)

Andrew Sarris: the extended remix

On Film Comment's website, Kent Jones reflects on the legacy of accidental auteurist Andrew Sarris in a piece longer than the one in June's paper-'n'-ink issue. A snippet: "Sarris was always bracingly honest about his prejudices, and his greatest was for the avant-garde. "Live and let live has been my motto," he wrote of his reluctance to attack non-narrative films in print, "and since most American avant-garde film artists have tended to be as poor as church mice, it seemed unduly cruel to heap abuse atop neglect." I will never forget the hair-raising moment when he took fellow Voice writer Jim Hoberman to task in print for "freaking out on the arthouse acid below 14th Street." In retrospect, while I can't abide the notion that narrative is the only package in which moving images should be wrapped, I have to commend and even envy Sarris for his candor—most of his colleagues would have hidden behind layers of rationalization or obfuscation." [Much more at the link.]

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The loviest Yard: Burt vs. Ingmar

Ah, everybody's a critic. Syracuse Post-Standard sports columnist Bud Poliquin defends an unlikely auteur against the arrows of a certain 69-year-old mouthy macho face-case: "In the current edition of Esquire magazine, Burt Reynolds is quoted as saying, "I'd rather be shot in the leg than watch an Ingmar Bergman picture," an opinion to which he is certainly entitled. But it does inspire one to imagine which body part Bergman would choose to mutilate—and how he'd do it—before ever agreeing to endure [the remake of] The Longest Yard. My guess, and it's just that, is that the old Swede might prefer to pour some burning charcoal into his skivvies and then take a seat upon a rusty spike."

Posted by at 12:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 26, 2005

Hal Hartley: 300,000 DVDs to make the cabbage back

Peter Keough talks to Hal Hartley while fretting in the Boston Phoenix about what 'indie' means on a George Lucas planet: Hartley "had long been annoyed by ads using classic rock-and-roll songs... "I heard the Beatles’ ‘Revolution’ playing over a Nike commercial... There seemed something wrong about that. Overhearing people’s casual conversations with each other, I notice how everyone’s saying the same things. People give the impression that they’re expressing themselves individually, but they’re all talking like some character on a popular sit-com. We feel like we’re being flattered all the time for being original, but in fact we’re all just buying into the same things." ... Hartley decided to do something he had never done before —distribute his new movie himself. "When we finished the ilm, we realized we had something that was considerably outside the mainstream, and somewhere along the line, the boundary between producing a movie and distributing it dissolved. We’re not making a ton of money. I’m happy we just finished the New York run and the theater made money. We’ll have to sell something like 300,000 to make our money back. I don’t think that’s very likely."

Posted by at 06:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Doc filmmakers have a lot more freedom: Barbara Kopple

Barbara Kopple talks about her newest, the co-directed Bearing Witness, about five female war correspondents, in a Q&A with Rob Nelson in City Pages: "Most people in this country have never experienced war firsthand. And the mainstream media rarely if ever attempts to show them what it might be like. So sometimes it's up to documentary filmmakers to try to answer or at least expose the important questions—because we have a lot more freedom. The trade-off is that it's harder to get the work seen: You have to find someone to distribute it, you have to do grassroots organizing to get the word out. It's never easy. But if you have a film that really says something, you figure out other strategies. Look at Outfoxed, for example: That film sold something like 100,000 copies on DVD with the help of moveon.org. You just have to make the film and then get it out any way you can... I just try to tell the best story I can. I make each film as if it could be my last--so I'd better do it well."

Posted by at 06:41 PM | TrackBack

Grind in mind; Tarantino and Rodriguez jumpstart Weinsteinco

Outlining the upcoming releases and productions of the tentatively named Weinsteinco, the "godfathers" of Miramax put a quick package together, Gregg Kilday reports in the Reporter: "Tarantino and Rodriguez will each write and direct a 60-minute horror film, and the two films will be packaged under the title Grind House, which is planned for a spring 2006 release through the Weinstein Co. It also will include its own trailers, bonus materials and added extras from other filmmakers that will be packaged together between the two horror flicks in a tribute to the old, big-city movie houses like those on New York's 42nd Street that earned the moniker grindhouses for programing genre pictures back to back."

Posted by at 08:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 25, 2005

Happy man: David Cronenberg

A late Cannes snap by Macleans' Brian D. Johnson: "The premiere of A History of Violence, Canadian David Cronenberg's Hollywood-financed thriller. The audience has been on its feet, clapping and cheering, for 5 minutes. Cronenberg blows them kisses with arms outstretched. He hugs his stars, Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello and William Hurt, while his wife, Carolyn, working with a professional camera, captures it all on video. Finally, Cronenberg gives her a passionate embrace... Taking the camera, he holds it aloft in a triumphant salute and executes a slow pan around the room, like a rock star offering up the microphone to the crowd. Earlier he had turned tables on photographers by shooting back with his own Nikon... The idea of filming his own standing ovation, he swears, was unpremeditated: "I was running out of things to do," he says. "At that point, I would have done backflips if could." [There's more in the piece on both Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan, who brought his Where the Truth Lies to town.]

Posted by at 04:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sith: Not a fun, popcorn-and-Coke flick?

In Benton, Arkansas, Benton Courier news editor Richard Duke asserts that "politics" have no place in a "flick," and in fact, George Lucas is sullying the memory of Duke's father: "Maybe this is what the left needs to get over the past two elections. The sad part is that I and many other people want to watch Star Wars because of the escapism it provides. It is one of the only memories I have with my father, who died when I was 7... He took me to the Plaza Twin in Jonesboro one Sunday night to see the space opera, and I will forever remember the experience. There are millions more like us—people who don't want our politics questioned when we go to a fun, popcorn-and-Coke flick... [Lucas] doesn't even realize that he is basically mocking a large number of people who have supported his films by sitting them down and saying, "Here is my movie, and by the way, you are dumb sheep led to slaughter..." .. I'll probably go and enjoy the heck out of it, but can I be absolutely sure of it? Well, of course not. Only a Sith Lord—or a red-state redneck with no culture or logic—deals in absolutes."

Posted by at 02:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Hawksing His Girl Friday

Howard Hawks' fast-talking comedy classic, His Girl Friday, is in public domain, and now you can download it for free.

Posted by at 01:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Troma aroma

BackStage checks the bottom of the indie barrel for a casting notice for Lloyd "Toxic Avenger" Kaufman's new feature, Poultrygeist!: "A fast food restaurant is plagued by an army of bloodthirsty chicken zombies and the employees must save the day. Shooting July/Aug. in NYC."

Posted by at 12:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Not Embedded in traditional distribution: Tim Robbins

Tim Robbins is finding new ways to get his work in consumers' hands, telling the LA Times' Elaine Dutka about Netflix distribbing the DVD of Embedded: "Was the play great? I have no idea," Robbins said. "But the experience was electric and important to audiences, and I wanted to document that moment. I knew this wouldn't be a slam dunk, but fortunately the landscape is shifting. Netflix, with its sophisticated database, is an important piece of the puzzle... I have faith in the system and I work in it... I'm not the person who will decry it. No matter what the right wing says, Hollywood is run on profit, not politics—like any business. It's too simplistic a world view to say that Hollywood does anything in lock step. At the same time, I'm aware that certain product is more suitable for alternative delivery systems and I'm trying to tap into that."

Posted by at 11:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

At least Caryn James isn't sarcastic

Surveying the trend of documentaries being more interesting than fiction features, cultural gatekeeper and arbiter of acceptable visual style Caryn James works light-hearted snark into her piece in the Times: "Digital technology has made filmmaking so cheap and easy that now almost anyone can point a camera at a difficult father or a wicked stepmother and call it a movie." She's not interested in most of the stuff she sees, however: "Even the most successful political documentaries are not likely to approach the box office numbers of Michael Moore's artful, entertaining Fahrenheit 9/11 which was propelled by election-year frenzy. But that hasn't stopped less creative filmmakers from trying, and being overpraised for their modest efforts. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room has a topical subject, a lucidly told story, and no more flair than a cheap documentary on cable television." She likes Herzog, however: "There are still documentaries transformed by an artist's vision," singling out the soon-to-be-released Grizzly Man.

Posted by at 11:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Digital India (and Singapore)

From India's Financial Express, Nivedita Mookerji reports on the digital transition in that coutnry: "In another 5 years, India may see a total transition to digital... Delivery of digital content through satellite distribution network holds the key... Networked digital cinema offers new revenue streams to exhibitors, reduced delivery cost and improved piracy protection to distributors, and preserved image and sound integrity to producer... While Hughes [Escorts, a digital provider,] has already signed on 250 theatres for networked distribution of digital films, it plans to sign 500 by August and another 1,000 by the end of this year." Rather than junking distribution infrastructure as would be the case in North America, Mookerji points out, in India, it would be creating a system where there is now none. "Significant beneficiaries of networked distribution would be theatres in smaller towns... Around 30 countries are learnt to have begun the transition to digital cinema, and Singapore is even spearheading a digital exchange initiative. Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) aims to pitch Singapore as the global node where all forms of digital content are processed, managed and distributed..."

Posted by at 10:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Color me Punch Drunk

In Senses of Cinema, writer Cubie King does a stalwart job of decoding color in Punch Drunk Love, illustrating points with stills. He winds up intoxicated himself: "One can't help but draw comparisons between Punch Drunk Love and the 1927 [silent] masterpiece< i>Sunrise (F.W. Murnau). Both are romance films, both have leading men who are in constant struggle with their environments, and both end with the world (and the film) back in harmony with itself. But, more important, both films take important steps in forwarding a cinematic language based less on dialogue (Murnau had no choice) and more on how a story can be told replete with image and sound, "Cinema to be cinema."

Posted by at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

African film rebirth: not so fast

Reuters reports some glitches in increasing local auds for African films: "A tiny fraction of Africans visit the cinema and Hollywood glamour is pointless if the industry fails to build a local audience by taking distinctly African films to people... in townships, slums and villages... "We need to make films that speak to black people, not some nebulous international audience," said Mark Dornford-May, director of award-winning South African film U-Carmen eKhayelitsha. "And we need to find alternatives to shopping mall cinemas in smart suburbs." The director's film, "a remake of Georges Bizet's 19th century opera set in a tough South African township and translated into the African tongue-clicking language Xhosa [premiered] at a community center in Khayelitsha" and "was screened in townships across the country at less than a third of the price of a normal cinema ticket. In South Africa, the continent's economic powerhouse that is driving its much-vaunted movie revival, the sprawling black townships on the edge of the big cities have virtually no cinemas." Transportation to the "posher suburbs, whose vast shopping malls are home to almost all the country's movie theaters are poor" as well. A local entrepreneur, 25-year-old Ryan Thwaits "was tired of battling tiny, mostly white, audiences and decided to create his own cinemas by converting township shacks. Thwaits lured 11,000 cinemagoers a month to watch Hollywood action and romantic comedy mixed with local films... "The community loved it," said Thwaits, who aims to roll out 10 more shack cinemas in the townships surrounding Cape Town by the end of the year."

Posted by at 09:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 24, 2005

S. Korea: You can't compete against Hollywood without bigger markets

The Reporter dissects the stats on one of Asia's most interesting markets, South Korea: "While Korean films have been booming for nearly six years, exploding budgets and intense competition have made profitability increasingly elusive. Without exports, the Korean movie industry would have lost more than $20 million in 2004. "You have to look at Asia for survival—you need the bigger market," says Esther Koo, VP at Hong Kong's Applause Pictures, which has, since its inception in 2000, focused on building up the film business throughout the region. "Look at what happened to Hong Kong a few years ago; the same thing could happen to Korea. You can't compete against Hollywood without bigger markets."

Posted by at 04:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 23, 2005

Disturbing a Shallow Grave

Danny Boyle's let the rights go to a Chinese remake of his debut pic, Shallow Grave: “If you are going to remake Shallow Grave you would make it in Shanghai... What a brilliant place to do it—it’s bursting with capitalist frenzy. We made Shallow Grave at a time in Britain when everyone was sick of the corruption of the Tories. Shallow Grave was really a very cynical look at what that obsession with money did to people... Now there is an explosion in Shanghai and it seems really worthwhile to remake the film. This is a case where the idea for the remake is an even better one than the original.”

Posted by at 12:58 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Japan today: how movies get there

Japan Today has a diverse survey of how movies are released in, um, Japan today. "Japan is the second biggest market in the world for Hollywood movies," they report, while explaining things like the later release of movies in their market: "There are fewer theaters in Japan (despite the increase in multiplex cinemas) and because time is needed to generate buzz.... "To put it into perspective, there are only 3,000 screens in Japan. In the U.S., there are 10 times that," says [the] chairman of Warner Entertainment Japan Inc, which has been No. 1 in grosses and market share in Japan for the past four years. "That being said, we release most of our big-budget 'tentpole' pictures within a couple of weeks of the U.S. release." ... Unlike the U.S., where there are many "peak" times of the year to open a movie, there are really only three important seasons in Japan — Golden Week, summer and New Year. If distributors hope to have a blockbuster, they have to slot it into one of those. That's why Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith," which opened in 40 countries on May 19, won't open here until July 9." Teenagers, the report continues, make up less than 10% of the Japanese moviegoing audience; explanations of how and why movie titles are changed and how Japanese subtitling works are among the other interesting bits.

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May 22, 2005

And then there were none: Last Cannesblogging from NY Times

Clicking on the tail end of the NY Times' Cannesblog offers this from Mr. Scott that almost doesn't tempt exploration: "Like Ms. Dargis I was disheartened by that Hollywood Reporter article [by Anne Thompson], which seemed almost intended to perpetuate the situation it pretends to describe. If you assume that American audiences aren't interested in certain kinds of movies, and therefore don't release or write about those kinds of movies, then your assumption will of course appear to be proven right." If you read further, further down, to 'Ms. Dargis'' original post several items below, as she links to MCN and a couple other joints, ire, well, ire=fire. It's an old-fashioned passion match.

Posted by at 09:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Going Aristocratic: Penn Jillette, getting started

THINKFilm's releasing Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette's The Aristocrats on July 29, and they've sent a letter from Jillette to journalists, who offers a few first notes. "A higher percentage of people who've seen our movie liked it than the percentage of people who liked Lord of the Rings. One reason is that Lord of the Rings sucks and our movie is good... Think of the most disgusting images you can. Think of the worst scatological and nonconsensual sex you can. Imagine children. Imagine young children. Imagine children that are related to each other. Children who are related to you. Imagine animals. Young endangered animals who are related to each other... Nope, you're not even close. The movie has over 100 professionals. They are much more disgusting than you can ever be, that's because they're professionals... The taboo language is not even the main thrust; the main thrust is a movie with no nudity, no violence and no conflict... It's very political because it's not political at all... Michael Moore and Mel Gibson are the same person, except for a few sit-ups. Moore thought his cheesy political blooper reel was going to tell people how to vote. Mel thought that his little gay SM movie about his imaginary friend was going to help him get to heaven. George W. Bush is president and there's still no god. You failed boys. Someone should have told Mike that the bad guys are smarter than him and someone should have told Mel that the 3 Stooges were Jewish. Both those filthy rich losers wanted everyone to see their movies. Moore wanted the Republicans to be shocked by how bad they were and see the light shining out of his fat ass. Mel went for straight off the rack proselytizing. They both just got even richer." Before attaching Frank Rich's encomium from the NY Times, Jillette seems to shrug, "I'm already richer than I should be... I want to make people laugh and love life and love watching all my friends making each other laugh." [The link above is from a South Park version of the joke, and it is very, very raw.]

Posted by at 07:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Scenes from a career: Bergman archive to go online

Long-lived Ingmar Bergman gets a longer lease on creative life in September when his archives start to go online. The site hosts only a trailer now, but the "electronic publication of assorted artifacts of the great Swedish film director will be launched on September 1st."

Posted by at 02:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Cafe Cannes: Wells, Wenders and an interesting face

Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeff Wells finishes his meanders on the Croisette with a vision of a French journo: A wafer-thin and very beautiful brunette woman who does interviews for French TV sat next to me in the van on the way back. She was dressed in a sheer white dress and smelled like jasmine mixed with musk.

He reports as well that he and Wim Wenders had words about this coffee cup [photo credit: Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere] and more: Don't Come Knocking "is deeply aggravating. I was sitting there trying to decide when to leave. I wanted to see enough so I couldn't be accused of missing most of it. I knew I was stuck there for a good 90 minutes or so, but I damn sure wasn't going to sit through all 122 minutes' worth... [The film] doesn't have his mood or visual signature or stylistic consistency. It has an unfocused easygoing mood that feels way, way off. The script is sloppy and raggedy-assed..." Wells asks Wenders about this quotation from Manohla Dargis: "Like other artists and intellectuals from abroad, Mr. Wenders seems to have fallen for an America that mostly exists on Hollywood back lots and in rock 'n' roll lyrics, which probably explains why the romance has lasted so long." To this Wenders responded, "I have traveled around this country and gotten to know it better than any film critic I've ever met. I don't think [Dargis] has ever been to Butte, Montana." I can't write any more about this, but I had a swell time at the press luncheon and enjoyed speaking to Wenders and Shepard and costars Sarah Polley, Gabriel Mann and Fairuza Balk (who said I had "an interesting face," which made me feel funny for some reason.) "

Posted by at 12:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 21, 2005

Cities as narrative: what early films tell us

Filmmaker Patrick Keiller, whose marvelous London and Robinson in Space are loving landscape studies of latterday England, muses on 'motion' pictures in the Guardian: "Much of what has happened to cities since 1900 can be seen in terms of technological transformation. In the UK, most of us live longer and are wealthier and more mobile than our predecessors, but the built environment, largely unimproved by automation, appears problematic... Films of the early 1900s offer glimpses of comparable landscapes: there are three Mitchell and Kenyon films that together make up a seven-minute tram ride through the centre of Nottingham, a continuous virtual cityscape more extensive than any I can recall elsewhere in UK cinema. What do these films mean for us? One can imagine the symbiosis of electric tram and cine-camera as a harbinger (like the "dragon sandstrewer" in 'Ulysses,' or the tram that knocked down Gaud�) of modernity, of fragmentation, after whose passing nothing was ever the same again. Film space was itself fragmented during the political, economic and artistic turmoil of the years around 1910—but film space was always virtual space, and early films seem to have become, suddenly, very topical: documents of a transformation of the kind we are living through today. They also exemplify what seems to me the most enduring attraction of the cinema, which is that it offers a way to visit other times, other worlds. Cities are increasingly seen as processes structured in time. In films we can explore the spaces of the past in order to anticipate the spaces of the future."

Posted by at 06:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Danny Boyle's Thing

Asked by the Telegraph to pick a fave, Danny Boyle, currently prepping a SF pic, goes for John Carpenter's The Thing: "Exactly where he first saw the Antarctic-set chiller now escapes him, but it had him from the start. "I loved it!" he says in a child-like whisper. "I thought it was incredible, so frightening! The thing I remember most vividly is the opening," he says, his Mancunian tones now ringing out proudly, "with the helicopter chasing the husky dog through the snow. And I thought, what the fuck are they trying to shoot it for? And that to me is one of the best openings of a movie I think I've ever seen." As Boyle points out, the opening's strength lies largely in its strangeness: what is happening? Suffice it to say here that the crew have ample reason for their attempted canicide, and their failure leads to the members of another research station... meeting a particularly unfriendly alien.... "I think what's really interesting about Carpenter's version is the shape-shifter idea. You never really get to meet the alien—it always has the form of the person or animal that it's taking on as a host. I love that."

Posted by at 06:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Landmarketing: Sundance Cinema?

A perennial if unrealized refrain is sung one more time: "The Sundance Group on Friday announced that it will finally move forward with long-held plans to create a group of Sundance Cinema movie theaters. Financial backing [comes] from Los Angeles' Oaktree Capital Management." It's not the first time alliances have been announced, but the forebears of Landmark Theatres are involved: "Paul Richardson will serve as president and CEO, with Bert Manzari taking the reins as president of film and marketing. The two previously teamed in 1975, when they established a series of specialized theaters that was eventually bought out by Landmark Theatres in 1982," reports Los Angeles Business. (Richardson and Manzari left Landmark in 2004.) Oaktree is already a partial owner of Landmark, Loews Cineplex and Regal Theaters.

Posted by at 06:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Seattle weaseley: spite match in P-Northwest!

In the Seattle Stranger's newly launched blog, a few moments are taken away from an ongoing flush of Miranda July-love for staffer Charles Mudede to note the treatment of a movie he wrote at the hands of the competish: "The fact that Seattle Weekly did not mention in their SIFF guide one kind or mean word about Police Beat the movie, which was screened at Sundance, and is to be screened at SIFF, proved to me once and for all that that paper is staffed by weasels of the first order. Instead of being critics, the Weekly writers prefer to be weasels. They weasel their way into this, and weasel their way out of that. We should call that paper Seattle Weasely."

Posted by at 04:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 20, 2005

Canning Cannes: I've gotten the money reviews and not the money

Anne Thompson on why good don't sell, noting that Cannes perennials like Amos Gitai, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan and Michael Haneke "are far more prized names overseas than stateside... "You almost look at this year's competition films and don't have to worry about buying anything," says Warner Independent Pictures president Mark Gill, who, having viewed about 90 films... might not buy any. "They may be good, but none of them are remotely accessible to an American audience." ... Hard-nosed professionals know what they like -- and what sells at home -- which accounts for about 35% of global box office. They all chase the same holy grail: A cutting-edge, stylish English-language movie with a few names that will nab great reviews... "In the last couple of years, I've gotten the money reviews and not the money," ThinkFilm distribution chief Mark Urman says. "The critics are not quite as influential. So many films that have gotten extraordinary critical support haven't worked. ... people don't want to be challenged to the degree that they used to. If films are dark, depressing, nasty or searing—what used to be recommendations— now they are turnoffs."

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Weathering tragedy: tsunami movie tourism?

Reuters reports on unseemly post-tsunami Thai optimism: "Thailand officials are hoping that a clutch of Hollywood movies and TV documentaries on the Asian tsunami that are scheduled to be shot in the country might actually help bring back tourists to its devastated beaches. ... Thai Tourism Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said he was counting on movies to boost tourism similar to what the Lord of the Rings trilogy did for New Zealand's tourist trade."

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Star warmth: a few kind words

Among con-and-pro Sithings—mine's here—I like Kottke's directness: "I didn't want to see the Jedi slaughtered. When Yoda went to face the Emperor, I wanted that little guy to kill him." For a "public choice economics" reading, try here: The core point is that the Jedi are not to be trusted. At Infowars.com, Alex Jones offers a harsh reading of Sith in the real world. [Caution: heavy politics involved.]

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May 19, 2005

Taking on retakes: Cronenberg in Cannes

David Cronenberg tells the Reporter about esthetic deja vu: "It's very perplexing because many of my old movies have been suggested for remakes. There's been talk of remaking Scanners and The Brood and even Videodrome, and that fills me with horror of a different kind. I really think it's a lack of faith in the creative process. It is part of a general atmosphere of conservatism, in this case not politically but creatively. You want something that has some proven value, even if it only had value 30 or 40 years ago because you're so uncertain about what could possibly work as original. You'd think that people would be looking for strikingly original work, but it's quite the contrary. That's the hardest sell... It's too bad because a lot of the stuff that was done in the '70s... was powerful because it was original. Now, it's not a great era for moviemaking, I'm afraid. It's all retro. The strange thing is, that Tarantinoesque sensibility—the idea that if you remake '70s trash it will somehow be better now. ... I remember those '70s films, and they weren't good then. Why would you want to remake it? ... I think it's so restricted in its range of creative inquiry, that it's just an endless, incestuous cycle of trash. ... The whole idea of making films just because you love movies really derails the whole process of art. That's not enough of a reason to make a movie -- because, gee, I loved that movie when I was a kid so I'll remake it. That's really weird, and I think the results are pretty pathetic... It's almost like it's a fear or an inability to respond to the real world and instead retreating to your video corner to relive your childhood in a very superficial way. It's not very exciting."

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1.13% is how much?: Taiwan hates Taiwan pix

The Taiwan News does the numbers on the local movie market, quoting a regular moviegoer who "can't remember the last time he went to see a film that was made in Taiwan. "I like Hollywood movies better. When I go to see a movie, I am usually looking for something exciting, entertaining, relaxing or at least easy to understand," the 32-year-old marketing executive said." Drily, the News adds, "Taiwan cinema does not usually fall into these categories... Taiwan directors have been dubbed box office poison at home because local audiences think their work is irrelevant or just plain boring... Hollywood productions dominate with more than 95% of [b.o.] on this island of 23 million. Taiwan films accounted for only 1.13 percent of ticket sales in 2004, and just 0.3 percent in 2003... The figures are an embarrassment for Taiwan's government, which has generously subsidized the film industry since 1990... "Our values, our way of lives have been under so much Hollywood influence already," said... Tsai Ming-liang, whose The Wayward Cloud won a Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution in Berlin... "If Taiwan makes 100 movies a year and they are all the same, the world has 100 more Hollywood-style movies, so what?" he said. ... "The joy of filmmaking is when you have something unique, not something ordinary."

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2 prints is how much? S. Korea hates Korean artpix

Kim Ki-duk, director of The Isle, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring and 3-Iron is not putting his money where the rathole is, aiming The Bow at only two screens in the entire country, and skipping press previews. "I realized that outside of feature films with big budgets and famous stars, people in Korea do not go to theaters to watch art films or low budget films...If billions of won is spent on promotion and many copies of the film are made, losing money becomes inevitable given this reality," the Korea Times quotes Kim from an email. Its Thursday opening boasted 996 tickets sold in one theater each in Seoul and Pusan, a 20% capacity. Hong Sang-soo " also believes that showing his film in the same manner as big budget films, which are shown at many theaters with billions of won spent on promotion, will obviously lead him to see another commercial failure and eliminate the chance for his fans to see his movie at theaters. "My previous films have never reached the break-even point, so I have been thinking that I have to reduce production cost. That’s why I established my own production company. And I am now discussing releasing my new film at only certain theaters for a long time with its investment and distribution company,’’ Hong said after previewing his Cannes-bound Tale of Cinema. "Hong said success at film festivals has had nothing to do with domestic commercial success... The domestic investment and distribution company... will release the film only at certain theaters that promise to show it for at least 3 weeks regardless of its commercial success."

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Somewhere over Rainbow: a Weinsteinco deal falls into place

As rumored, Weinsteinco finds a way to do a deal with the Dolan family's Rainbow Media Holdings: "Seven weeks after negotiating their exit from the Walt Disney Company with talk of building a "fully integrated media company," Harvey and Bob Weinstein, the brothers who founded Miramax Films, have made their first strategic deal," reports the NY TImes, "an acquisition fund and distribution arrangement with Rainbow Media Holdings, the programming subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation. The Weinstein brothers will be given an undisclosed sum of money to acquire low-budget films for distribution mainly on DVD and television, and their company will become the sole home-video distributor and overseas sales agent for Rainbow's IFC Films unit." Programming from AMC and other ventures is included.

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May 18, 2005

"Enron": contaminating a jury pool

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room has its highest grosses in Houston: "It's got people talking," said John Smaistrla, general manager of La Griglia, the upscale Italian restaurant that was once a favorite of top Enron executives. "There's no comfort level. They're still upset about Enron, and this movie just regenerates those feelings." ... Attorneys for Lay and Skilling said the film was loose with the facts. "It's a caricature," said Lay's attorney, Michael Ramsey. "Houston's a lot closer to the Enron story than anywhere else, so I would expect more people would go see it than in Dubuque. But that also makes me very anxious about a movie that obviously is not founded on truth. They're contaminating a jury pool." ... A lineman from Portland General Electric, a company acquired by Enron in 1997, said his retirement fund of more than $300,000 was reduced to $1,200 by the time he could get to it. "That's just not true," Ramsey said. "It is a lie."

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Polite Times: Dargis on not cutting at Cannes

"I got shut out of the 8:30 a.m. press screening for the Jarmusch, which was a drag. (This is the first time I've ever been shut out of a morning press screening.) I showed up before 8:30, but there was a mob of far pushier and taller people who I just couldn't elbow past. I kept thinking about how if I were younger and wearing spike heels, as I used to do once upon a punk time, I could have dug my heels into everyone else's feet on my way toward my goal. By the time I finally did squeeze to the front, the publicist was pulling select people out of the mob. But since he didn't know me and because I am far too embarrassed to yell "New York Times," I remained behind. I'll see the Jarmusch today at the second press screening or so I hope."

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Miranda shops for shoes: July in Cannes

Me and You and Everyone We Know is better than Miranda July's journal, but it's a sweet Cannes-Cannes, and illustrated, too: "This is an absolutely disgusting picture, I'm sorry. But this is my heel. I had an elaborate system of bandages I wore in my shoes, almost like a false foot. You can see the residue... And here I am buying the new shoes. My hosts thought it was very funny that I was having all these problems given that my character in the movie has similar shoe problems. I wanted to buy these men's bedroom slippers but I could see that the hosts were not so excited about them."

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Die, boomer, die: manifestoing resentment of older auds

Reacting to what Manohla Dargis wrote in her TimesCannesBlog about dull movies in arthouses, the Nantucket and Sarasota Film Fests' Tom Hall works with a live grenade: There are a million reasons to go to the movies in New York City, but sitting in the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas among the older Upper West Side elites as they grumble their way through another charming French movie ain’t one of them. Call me ageist, call me an asshole. Guilty as charged. But the only way to build and sustain a foreign film base in the USA (aside from pulling the culture out of this xenophobic, anti-intellectual quagmire we live in now) is to get younger people invested in the connections between foreign artists and their own concerns. And that means getting young people to read subtitles, to see their lives... reflected in... other cultures. If a film like the Cesar award winning L’Esquive can’t turn on urban American teenagers, its time for a look in the mirror. Don’t listen to the guy in the White House. It’s not them, it’s us. So, baby boomers, thanks again for everything, but if you don’t mind stepping to the side, we’ve got a future to run.

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Todd McCarthy loved it: Manderlay

After his anti-Dogville invective (for ostensible anti-Americanism), Variety's Todd McCarthy is modestly more amused by Lars Trier's Cannes-preeming Manderlay: Due to the moderately more lively dramatization of the issues, better pacing and a more cohesive group of characters, “Manderlay” is less tedious than “Dogville,” even if it can be equally headache inducing to those not attuned to von Trier’s giggly camera style. Those eager to lap up what the Dogmatic one has to say will readily do so.

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Dodges mothballed: Brit public film finance

In the Observer, Nick Cohen takes notes on some of the soon to be mothballed UK tax dodges: "Gradually, as Brit-flick followed Brit-flick, the Inland Revenue began to notice a disconcerting pattern: tax relief on film production wasn't financing film production but being creamed off by middle men. The technicalities of the deals were complicated, but the basic 'sale and leaseback' scam was simple. A corporation—a Hollywood film studio—or a consortium of wealthy men... would nominally buy a film for, say, £100 million and lease it back to the producer. As corporation tax is at 30 per cent and the higher rate of personal tax is at 40 per cent, the sale would entitle corporations to knock £30m off their tax bills and footballers and City lawyers to knock £40m off their tax bills. The bulk of their 'investments', however, wouldn't be risked in the notoriously unpredictable film market. The producer would [instead] put most of the money in a high-interest bank account and pay it back to the lenders over the 15 years of the lease. Only a small proportion, typically between 10 to 15 per cent, would actually be spent on the film. Even if every penny was lost, the investors wouldn't have suffered. They would have gained far more in tax breaks than they had lost in the multiplexes and still have the £85m earning interest which would one day be theirs." [More at the link.]

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Good Will Humping: Branagh digs Shakespeare again

Kenneth Branagh finds work again, courtesy of HBO, he tells the Telegraph's John Hiscock: "Five years have passed since... Branagh last steered William Shakespeare to the screen with an all-star, singing, dancing version of Love's Labour's Lost that not only failed to find an audience, but performed so dismally that it torpedoed his plans for two more Bard-based frolics." Putting a good face on it, Branagh tells Hiscock that "he feels enough time has elapsed for him to return to his first love." "Sometimes it's good to go away from Shakespeare for a bit," says Branagh... "Then you come back and try to inform it with work from other materials and other mediums. I've always had less of a career plan than people think. The main thing is I've been lucky enough to be approached with good work and I've made my choices based on that... I'm just thrilled because it's been a long time," he says. It has also been a somewhat chastening lesson that no matter how big one's reputation, it is money and box-office receipts that ultimately dictate power in the film industry."

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May 17, 2005

GreenCannes

The best daily summaries of Cannesblogs high and low are at GreenCine.

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Schickel’s tough love: Agee's desperate and pathetic work

In his customary berth on page 2 of the Sunday Los Angeles Times Book Review (May 15), Richard Schickel disinters a predecessor at Time magazine as a movie reviewer, James Agee, and has a happy-dance on the remains. Upon the publication of a “desperate and pathetic” draft of a film treatment that Agee had written for Charlie Chaplin, the ever-benevolent Schickel writes with what reads like the yield of years of calculated hatred, “Such greatness as Agee achieved—and reviewing movies is a field that recruits clever souls but never noble ones—derives from the purity of his enthusiasms and distastes and the rather sporty style he devised to convey them. Some of this manner he borrowed from a forgotten but more trustworthy reviewer, Otis Ferguson of the New Republic… As Manny Farber observed in a tormented piece about the man who mentored him, Agee had no film esthetic… He praised movies that agreed with his liberal, humanistic and essentially liberal biases… He was like a music critic who attends operas for their plots… This document is as disheveled as Agee himself was. An alcoholic, an insomniac, with teeth rotting in his head and dress so slovenly and odoriferous he was banned from eating in the… Fox commissary, he evidently wrote this… in the deeper watches of drunken and desperate nights…. Agee was lucky mainly in his early death, which permitted people to mourn the works unwritten.” (The book is “Chaplin and Agee: The Untold Story of the Tramp, the Writer and the Lost Screenplay,” by John Wranovics, Palgrave Macmillan, $24.95.) [The link is subscriber-only.]

Posted by at 01:25 AM | Comments (0)

A giggle on the Croisette with Terry Gilliam

Ever-resilient Terry Gilliam waxes optimistic to Andrew Pulver in the Guardian about his Brothers Grimm: "Gilliam has got some powerful help in his corner: the Weinstein brothers, Harvey and Bob, who took on the project in 2003 when, Gilliam says, original producers MGM pulled out their funding at the last minute. It's fair to say that Gilliam, who has a reputation as a wildly expensive cinematic visionary, might not be the best creative fit for the tough-minded, dollars-and-cents Weinsteins—you can't help but visualise two juggernauts crashing head-on... But, if nothing else, Gilliam recognises their ability to get a movie out there. "They're going to sell the shit out of it, and make it a success. They're the best at it," he mutters after the show..."

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May 16, 2005

Mad Hot doubt: teaching Ballroom's teacher

Yomaira Reynoso, one of the dance teachers of PS 115, talks to Lily Oei and Aaron Dobbs at Gothamist about filmmaker Marilyn Agrelo and her crew: "They came in and introduced themselves like six months before, but we didn’t know if our school would be chosen. We didn’t hear from them for a while, and we figured, oh probably not. Then, all of the sudden, there was that phone call. It was exciting, but we never thought—I thought they were going to film a little cable thing. Not that I didn’t have confidence in them, I just didn’t believe – I didn’t think it was going anywhere. I was just thinking, they’re filming the kids. The kids are having a great time and showing off, that’s all I thought of."

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Tear down that wall, Mr. Rosenbaum!

Freelancers for the Chicago Reader have gotten notice that the paper's about to follow the Austin Chronicle PDF download model with a rejiggered payment schedule; the mass email also suggests that the archives will likely become free soon, rather than paid, making the writing of reviewers like Jonathan Rosenbaum viewable and Google-able. (An interesting development after the LA Times pulled its entertainment content from behind a firewall and on a day that the New York Times announced "Times Select," where a chunk of its premium content will follow the Independent (UK) model and only be available for a $49.95 annual fee. Toronto's Globe & Mail has also placed most of its articles behind a subscription-only barrier.)

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Roxie boxed: the slow death of a SF rep house

Another Bay Area arthouse is slipping away, Bill Banning's Roxie: "The little Mission District movie house [280 seats] has always struggled to stay afloat, but now it's sinking in debt. The business will probably go under soon, unless Banning can rustle up the money to pay down some of the $140,000 owed the IRS, the landlord and others... The Roxie has survived, while other single-screen theaters vanished, by finding and distributing films that became arthouse hits. Having a loyal audience has helped, too. The fans came through during the Roxie's back-rent crisis of 2002, contributing cash and packing the house for benefit screenings of The Last Picture Show ...If he doesn't come up with some cash in the next 45 days or so, he expects the IRS to seize the business... "My lawyers suggested bankruptcy at least 10 years ago,'' said Banning, who has lived with his wife and son in an apartment a block away on 16th Street since he started at the Roxie. "I'm of the old school that won't do that. I guess I'm an optimist. I feel as if something will come along. And for all these years, something has always come along.''

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The Passion of the F-bomb: Kevin Smith

Local boy Kevin Smith lights up a few for the Asbury Park Press upon the publication of "Silent Bob Speaks: The Collected Writings of Kevin Smith." "How will screen stud Ben Affleck, a frequent player in Smith's films, react when he reads about Smith's "heterosexual crush" on him...?" He's seen that before... so he's kind of way-familiar with that quote... He's kind of charmed by it. He realizes that I wouldn't have a shot in the world with him, even if he was gay and I was gay." ... What is off-limits for Smith?" "As long as it's my life, then I'm kind of OK with talking about it. The problem that you run into is that sometimes your life is other people's life as well, like (Smith's wife) Jen. But I just don't know how else to go about it." ...There's a section of the Web site called "My Boring-Ass Life,' where I literally do everything that's happened in my day. That tends to get very detail-oriented."

Posted by at 12:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yari of the 'It Girl': Financing Edie

One of producer Bob Yari's entities is putting up the cash for a Katie Holmes-starring biopic Rush & Molloy reports. Mayor of Sunset Strip director George Hickenlooper gushes: "Katie is not too different from Edie, who arrived in New York as young, innocent, looking for excitement." Guy Pearce is Hickenlooper's Andy Warhol in Factory Girl, but the director knwon for his compulsive affinity for 1970s "Hollywood Renaissance" filmmakers is manufacturing a distraction from her reputed affairs, such as with Bob Dylan. "Edie definitely knew Dylan, Jim Morrison, Mick Jagger and others... We've decided to create a character who is kind of hybrid of all of them."

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Pauline Kael once said...: Re: The Sith

It's blurbista Peter Travers' turn to exhume the Empress of kiss-kiss-bang-bang in a rare pan, of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith: "The late critic Pauline Kael once dismissed Star Wars as 'an epic without a dream.'"

Posted by at 04:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mr. Godard, do you blah blah blah?

Godard lets a little more air out of his recent Notre musique, talking