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December 31, 2007
Happy New Year from Robert Bresson
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)
Mike Nichols and Aaron Sorkin on "killing rage" and keeping "the process" hidden
Excerpts from a terrific conversation with Mike Nichols and Aaron Sorkin and Christopher Goodwin of the Times of London about writing. "A recent blog said the 9/11 resonances were more explicit in an earlier version of the script, which ended with Charlie Wilson on September 11, 2001, in his apartment in Washington, seeing plumes of smoke coming from the attack on the Pentagon," Goodwin poses. Sorkin: "It’s a whole new critical world out there, where it’s not just the final product that is being judged, and it is being compared
to various drafts that were obviously only meant for Mike to see. There were many, many hours of discussion about that scene, and I was the staunchest keep-the-scene-in guy. I watch the movie now and have never been so happy to be wrong in my life." Nichols adds, "You know what we are really talking about, Aaron, the reason you and I have a moment of confusion and discomfort, not to say killing rage, is that we always have the problem that whatever we are working on is being judged, which is no fun. The whole point is that the process is nobody’s business. It would be like saying, ‘Thomas Mann stands at the mantelpiece to write: isn’t that sort of a strange thing to do, and to do in front of the rest of his family? He can’t sit at a desk like everybody else?’ Who gives a shit?" Sorkin: "Too many people are watching how you make the sausage now – and there is an assumption that your motives, whether it’s overcutting a scene or reshooting a scene or putting in a new scene or changing this line to that, are somehow sinister or mercenary or motivated by fear... I am all for everyone having a voice, I just don’t think everyone has earned the microphone. And that’s what the internet has done." Nichols: "On the one hand, there is this blight of correctness, which teaches you to lie about everything that is your instinct and your feeling, and to take a dip of the pabulum and dish it out, because at least it’s correct. At the same time, you’ve got shit on television such as 'Dancing with the Stars' and 'American Idol.' What’s going to happen to young people? I don't know."
[2100.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
December 30, 2007
'Tis the season: Daler Mehndi's Tunak Tunak Tun (1998)
Still strange. Wiki.Tunk tunk Tun, Tunk tunk Tun, Tunk tunk Tun, Da Da Da. Sweetheart, Sweetheart, Sweetheart, Sweetheart, the strings of the instrument play, listen to what the heart says, Come and love me."
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)
December 29, 2007
What film directors look like: Andrew Dominik
Another open-space press conference from the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, with pretty much unlistenable sound, yet director Andrew Dominik, who made the fine The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford does equally fine by embodying the look—shoulder-length hair, scruffy beard, leather, fashionable specs—of the modern man-child as modern movie director. (Smokes not optional.)
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Io Non Sono Qui
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2007
The Shock Doctrine (2007) by Jonas Cuarón, Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein
From the most voluminously despairing book of the year... a promotional short for Naomi Klein's densely detailed polemic about disaster exploitation.
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:59 PM | Comments (1)
There Will Be Words: Paul Thomas Anderson's script online
There Will Be Blood opens today in New York and Los Angeles; the Paramount Vantage awards site has the script online [PDF download], as well as streaming audio of eight selections from Jonny Greenwood's score. Now drink your milkshake. [Highly recommended: don't read the script until you've seen the film.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:23 PM | Comments (1)
December 25, 2007
Never meta sucker... Local news fawns on itself
In Chicago, the Disney-ABC affilated WLS puts their news performers in a glass bowl open to a public that gathers on the sidewalk on State Street that makes the midwest look extremely backward. (Yes, I know the Today Show started the talent-on-display gimmick.) But not as much as this prime slab of self-important narcissism, when on Sunday night a car piloted by a reportedly mentally distressed man plows into the fishbowl and becomes the most important story of the hour, if not the day, if not ever, uh, y'know? We are waiting for the police to get in here and start an investigation... I'll tell you, it's been very startling for us here in the studio, uh, to see a car literally crashing through from State Street, right into our studio. So there you have, right there, a live shot, that's maybe a good 15 o 20 feet to my right as we sit here.... And I can tell you, it was a loud, loud bang.... This might be from our Macy's cam..." Murrow smiles down from the heavens with his memories of the Blitz...
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)
Southland Tales Deux: The launch of the Ron Paul blimp
As Jane Hamsher observes of the arch-conservative, oft-reactionary groundling candidate's supporter's video, "The soundtrack, appropriately, sounds sort of like "The Ride of the Valkyries" played on a farfisa organ."
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:12 PM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2007
The Assassination of Caryn James By The Cowardly Sub-Editor
Who knew that the New York Times would let lazy surmise and reinforcement of lazy cliche rule the roost? Doing her best impersonation of a pigeon in the park flying overhead, Caryn James starts her year-end characterization of the movie world like this: "Who knew that Ben Affleck could direct and Josh Brolin could act? Or that Casey Affleck could act and Johnny Depp could (sort of) sing? Even as the entertainment world splinters into ever-smaller niches, 2007 was a year when stars broke free of their confining boxes, when the most appealing work often came out of nowhere, while big names landed with giant thuds. Mr. Brolin burst out of a niche you could kindly call small time. Hardly anyone — except the Coen brothers — took him seriously before his crafty portrayal of a not-too-smart but not-too-stupid guy who stumbles across millions in drug money in their magisterial “No Country for Old Men.” Add Mr. Brolin’s dynamic performance as a sinister cop in “American Gangster,” and it’s clear that his strong screen presence is no fluke, that he won’t have “James Brolin’s son” or “Barbra Streisand’s stepson” trailing after his name anymore. Ben Affleck’s career had become a tired “Gigli” joke, and his first film as director had the trappings of a vanity project. He shot it in his hometown and even cast his kid brother, Casey, in the lead. But the joke was on the skeptics. “Gone Baby Gone,” about a child who goes missing in Boston, turned out be a sharply made, psychologically astute thriller." To use Doris Lessing's memorable neologism, James is sounding an awful lot like an unemployed, unemployable "blugger." Further insult is added to Casey Affleck's performance (and family) in a few words about The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford; it's just too painful to go on.
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
...and a happy New Year...
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December 23, 2007
Coen groaners: one particular chicken
John Patterson in the Guardian: "Much of the dialogue in No Country is taken from the book almost word for word. Joel: "Ethan once described the way we worked together as: one of us types into the computer while the other holds the spine of the book open flat. That's why there needs to be two of us - otherwise he's gotta type one-handed. That's how you 'collaborate' with someone else." Ethan: "Paperback novels just won't lie open properly! They flip shut." ne wonders what a sci-fi movie by the Coens - who have done noir, screwball, a kind of western, even a musical of sorts - would look like. "Neither of us is drawn to that kind of fiction," says Ethan of sci-fi. "There are movies that we both like. I don't know that that would ever happen, and I don't quite know why." Joel knows: "I don't think we could get our minds around the whole spacesuit thing." Instead, they have a script of their own that they'd like to film. "We've written a western," says Joel, "with a lot of violence in it. There's scalping and hanging ... it's good. Indians torturing people with ants, cutting their eyelids off." Ethan: "It's a proper western, a real western, set in the 1870s. It's got a scene that no one will ever forget because of one particular chicken."
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
The slow death of digital cinema
Writes Michael Cieply in the New York Times: "To keep to keep the enormous swarm of data produced when a picture is “born digital” — that is, produced using all-electronic processes, rather than relying wholly or partially on film — pushes the cost of preservation to $208,569 a year, vastly higher than the $486 it costs to toss the equivalent camera negatives, audio recordings, on-set photographs and annotated scripts of an all-film production into the cold-storage vault." [More data at the link.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
Thai film censorship passes; PG-20 in the mix
Kong Rithdee reports at varietyasiaonline: "Thailand's National Legislative Assembly passed the controversial Film Act... replacing laws that have been in place largely unchanged since 1930. An eight-month-long campaign by local film professionals to end censorship went unheeded. The new law stipulates a complex rating system which still gives the state the right to ban a movie and prevent its release in the kingdom. The rating system is made up of "P" (films that are of educational value and should be promoted for Thai auds), "G" (fit for all age groups), "under 13 not admitted," "under 15 not admitted," "under 18 not admitted" and "under 20 not admitted." However, it does not include an "under 24" category which had been discussed in some media circles. Notably, the Film Act authorizes the state to forbid the release of movies that "undermine or disrupt social order and moral decency, or that might impact national security or the pride of the nation". [More at the link.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2007
Mike Figgis' Moleskine
Posted by Ray Pride at 08:09 PM | Comments (0)
On the couch with Atonement's Joe Wright
All there in black-and-white... by Jamie Stuart. [Via FilmInFocus.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2007
The weather outside is frightful...
A batch of reviews soon...
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2007
Toronto Now critic John Harkness was 53
A press release from Toronto's NOW weekly: "It is with great sadness that NOW publishers Michael Hollett and Alice Klein announce the death of NOW’s long-standing senior film writer, John Harkness. With NOW since its beginning in 1981, Harkness wrote with definitive authority on film, music and books. Beyond the pages of NOW, John contributed articles to Sight and Sound, Take One and the Cinematheque Ontario program. He also spent several years as trade reporter for Screen International and Cinema Canada. “Anyone who wants to review film,” he said, “should spend a year covering the industry. It tends to knock out a lot of one's illusions about the art of cinema.” His book on the Oscars, The Academy Awards Handbook (Pinnacle Press), is currently in its eighth edition. His favourite interviews over the years were with the subjects he found most intimidating -- Susan Sontag, David Mamet, Harlan Ellison and Peter Greenaway. "These are people whom you do not want to ask stupid questions,” he once said. Harkness’s preferred leisure activity was poker, and he won several poker tournaments in Las Vegas. Harkness was born in Montreal and grew up in Sarnia and Halifax before obtaining a degree in English at Carleton University. He did post-graduate work in cinema studies at Columbia University, where he studied with the American critic Andrew Sarris and spent a great deal of time in New York's repertory cinemas. “Fifteen movies a week,” he recalled, “and none of them on tape.” “John Harkness was simply the best film critic in Canada over the last 26 years,” says NOW editor/publisher Michael Hollett. “He has been an essential element of NOW Magazine’s success, and his unique vision, bravery and art in expressing it inspired all of us at NOW to strive. He will be sorely missed by all of us at NOW, his family, friends and the film community as a whole.” [Obit: Toronto Film Critic Found Dead.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
Diablo Cody on David Denby on Juno
David Denby tickles Diablo Cody. "Wonderful review of Juno in The New Yorker. As good as it gets. "She’s a shrewd girl, and very blunt, yet she’s taken in by her own gift for rude comedy, which, as we learn, masks a great deal of uncertainty." Yup."
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:40 PM | Comments (1)
Censored poster: Alex Gibney's Taxi To The Dark Side
A tempest with a t-square is aborning over the MPAA's decision to compare the poster of Taxi To The Dark Side with the advertising materials for Hostel and Saw and its spawn. Simply put, torture should not be implied in advertising materials that might be seen by the weak of heart or that vast non-voting class politicians pay lip service to, "The Children." Exec-producer Sidney Blumenthal says: "As executive producer of Taxi to the Dark Side, I am appalled at the Motion Picture Association of America'[s] censorship of the poster for our documentary because its depiction of the reality of the Bush policy of torture is too disturbing. This acclaimed film, which has already won numerous festival awards, including best documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, and is shortlisted for the Academy Award, is the single most important movie of 2008, the campaign year." Less declamatory is director Alex Gibney's comments at A. J. Schnack's blog, All These Wonderful Things. "Gibney doesn't buy the "protecting the children" argument. "There's a lot that my kids see daily on the front page of the NY Times. They're offensive images. But they're real images." Gibney... putting finishing touches on his Sundance-debuting doc on Hunter S. Thompson said that the hood has become a symbol worldwide of US prisoner abuses, the topic of Taxi, which is a seering look at the Bush administration's torture policies. He likened the MPAA's desire to eliminate the hood to political figures denying that torture or mistreatment occurs in US facilities. "Removing the hood is the ultimate cover-up. (The U.S.) didn't use to do that sort of thing. Removing the hood sends the same message as the Bush administration with the CIA tapes. It's OK to do it, it's just not OK to show it." In campaigning for its chances as an Oscar nomimee, ThinkFilm big Mark Urman tells Anne Thompson that Taxi is one of the company's "dark, edgy auteur-driven movies that used to be the province of the independents. We're not up against The Sound of Music. We're up against There Will Be Blood." Let the free media begin! Here's Variety's take. A larger version is here. On the other hand, please note approved art for the beguilingly entitled sequel, Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. Hey, no hoods here! [Art also here.]
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December 18, 2007
Forget the writers... is there a graphic designer... in the house??
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:50 PM | Comments (0)
Did you not cohost with Goebbels before you met Alan?: 10 minutes with Charles Grodin
I must clear the decks and go watch Midnight Run again. Now. Ladies and germs: Charles Grodin.
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)
December 17, 2007
Short: A More Perfect Union
Andrew Sloat's short film A More Perfect Union choreographs the words and letters of the Constitution. [Larger image.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)
FYC: How do you spell R-E-S-P-E-K-T?
[A for-your-consideration ad on Variety's website, which, fortuitously enough, was corrected minutes later.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2007
They're heeeeeeere: CineFile Video's director T-shirts online
Nice. More at the link.
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 14, 2007
"Mr. Kubrick, I presume?" "Mr. Hitchcock! How are you this fine evening?"
Jamie Stuart flags this small detail in a familiar film, which a handful of viewers had wondered about at the time of the original release: 
"Just watching Eyes Wide Shut on my laptop using the full screen. At exactly 57:04, in the Sonata Cafe as Nick greets Bill, and they sit... Stanley Kubrick is pulling an Alfred Hitchcock sitting dead center in the background talking to a blonde woman." Is it this man? What do you think? [ADD SATURDAY: Authoritative individuals suggest, ugh, otherwise. Isn't this tippler just a little too frail for the man from the Bronx? I wish I could remember all those conversations of so much detail so much parsing so much love and so much surmise of color palette in those last days of the last summer of the last century...] [ADD MIDDAY SATURDAY: Someone who ought to know passes along word: Nope.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2007
Once again
Fifty-nine songs are eligible for Academy Award Best Song nominations, including two from once: "Falling Slowly" and "If You Want Me," which you can stream here. And a bit of a rave. DVD: December 18.
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:46 PM | Comments (1)
Jodie Speaks!!
The goofiest post-Golden Globes noms statement so far today, regarding an unlikely nod: "The nomination is so exciting and surprising at the same time. Never saw it coming... It's strange to continue to feel a character in your blood long after it wraps. I am so proud of The Brave One, of where Neil Jordan took the character of Erica Bain. The experience of playing her has moved me deeper than anything I can remember. I can't wait to have some rubber chicken and listen to the unscripted banter with all of those fine actresses."
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2007
Josh Brolin & Eli Roth want to make the world's worst movie
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:58 PM | Comments (0)
December 11, 2007
M-word: tracking its predecessors
At Good, Jaime Wolf does a cool job of tracing some of the lineage of recent movie movies that cost little and talk a lot and have been unfairly dubbed a silly collective name and dissed by indie elder Amy Taubin: How about Rohmer, Salinger, 
and Liz Phair? All's Phair: writes Wolf of her memorable debut long-player, "Exile in Guyville," "The lo-fi, livejournal-style indie rock version of a Joe Swanberg movie, Phair seeks self-knowledge via a diaristic series of regrettable hookups, disappointing boyfriends, unattainable fantasies, false hopes, fleeting erotic fulfillment, and meditations on the dichotomy between observer and participant." And: "It’s rare to watch a movie and believe it could have been made by one of the characters in it, but m--------- films have a documentary intimacy and rawness, a level of self-examination that feels new.They’re products of the thinner art/life membrane that affordable digital production tools have made possible, and which the imperatives of self-presentation on Facebook, blogs, and MySpace have made ubiquitous. Of course, it’s not all new. The dialogue in J.D. Salinger’s "Franny and Zooey" is pure mumblecore; so are the conversational erotics in Eric Rohmer’s My Night at Maud's and the characters’ ditherings in his Boyfriends and Girlfriends; the perpetual hangout milieu of Richard Linklater’s Slacker; and the diaristic songs chronicling Liz Phair’s sexual, emotional, and relationship crises on her album "Exile In Guyville"... Making eloquent use of inarticulacy, films like Hannah Takes the Stairs and Mutual Appreciation happen to be precise (and to the extent of their precision, thrilling) depictions of post-collegiate flailing. They are set in a world populated by overeducated, unaccomplished, chronically ambivalent people who are starting to take grown-up jobs but still need a roommate to pay the rent; whose unfocused ambition and vague sense of artistic integrity propel them to pursue creative endeavors, even as they remain mystified by how a book might actually get published or a CD get made."
Posted by Ray Pride at 10:29 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Exploiting the world's cheapest billboards
Australian satirical series "The Chaser's War On Everything" shows you how it's done.
Posted by Ray Pride at 10:05 PM | Comments (0)
It's a heavy deadline day...
More posts shortly. Photo: The reflected light from Amos Poe's Empire II at the Louloudadika Hamam, a 16th century Jewish hamam (bathhouse). As you arrive, they offer you your choice of a thimble of cognac or whisky. Empire II is a three-hour sequence of shots taken from Poe's New York apartment of the Empire State Building over the course of a year or so, and scored to over 96 pieces of music. From the 48th Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2007
Armond White's History of The World, Part I
New York Press film critic Armond White chats at great length with Steven Boone at Big Media Vandal. Most movie reviewers, White avers, "take the stance of the status quo. They like to keep things as they are, because they personally benefit from things as they are. That’s what I see." Boone asks, does White have to compromise? "Well, put it this way: I don’t work for The New York Times. They don’t want what I do. I have to work for a place that wants what I do. It’s not about compromise. It’s really about if a publisher or publication wants what you do. The New York Times knows what its doing when it hires people as film critics. 
It hires people who will present The New York Times agenda. And there is one. They don’t hire people because they’re great writers, great thinkers or great critics. They hire people who will fit with their program... You read it and tell me what their program is. They don’t want someone who knows their stuff. They don’t want what I do." Boone interjects, But you’ve written for The New York Times! "Not a lot. You can count the times I’ve been published in The New York Times on one hand... Never on film. That door is closed to me... Well, I love writing about [film and music alike]. But film is a very powerful industry. To write about film somehow you seem to address something that almost everybody is interested in, that everybody takes personally in some way. So to write about film is really a very powerful privilege. The New York Times understands that. They make sure that nobody’s going to write about film who doesn’t agree with the editorial board. I’m talking about The New York Times, the paper of record, but its worth realizing that its not— It’s not the authority. It’s just a powerful organ, but it’s worth knowing that it’s not an authority and not the highest critical thinking. It seems like I’m picking on the people at the Times, but that was the truth before they got there. It remains the truth." And what of Sidney Lumet? "Well, with Lumet, his only gift is that he can keep an actor in focus as he says his dialogue, simple as that. He doesn't know how to shoot the scene, 
does not know how to compose a shot-- never has. Not in any interesting way. But he certainly knows how to keep actors in focus as they say their dialogue. He's been plying that trade for 40 years. He's not a filmmaker. He's still directing live TV. Ever see his film of Long Day's Journey Into Night? Great film because it's a great play with a great cast. He kept his camera focused on those great actors saying that great dialogue. That's it." Boone says, "I don't disagree with your assessment that Lumet's work feels like live television from the '50s, but guess what? Live television from the '50s, to me, if not ideal, is more cinematic in rhythm than what we're seeing today." White: "No it's not. And don't ever say that again. [laughs] Live television in the fifties is live television. It’s not cinema. Lumet cuts on dialogue, Steve! He cuts on dialogue! There's no breathing in a Sidney Lumet film because he doesn't use the rhythms which which people communicate. He cuts on commas and periods." [Much, much more at the link, running beyond 6,000 words.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NSFW trailer: Harold And Kumar 2 (2008)
Aside from the other fine japery, the restricted, red-band trailer for the brilliantly-titled Harold And Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, there is the not-quite-the-punchline of the young week: "Condi-licious? Is that you?" (PS. Three other words: Neil. Patrick. Harris.)
Posted by Ray Pride at 03:46 PM | Comments (1)
December 09, 2007
Snow day
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
Richard Beymer's "Twin Peaks" photographs
David Lynch on the set of "Twin Peaks". [Full gallery here.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:31 PM | Comments (0)
Thelma Schoonmaker's take on CGI vs. Michael Powell-era effects
Oscar-winning film editor Thelma Schoonmaker "criticised modern blockbusters for relying too heavily on computer-generated imagery," reports Kent News. Schoonmaker's "late husband, the Kent-born director Michael Powell, was a great influence on Scorsese... During a lecture at Canterbury Christ Church University, Miss Schoonmaker spoke nostalgically about the early days of British cinema. The Algerian-born 67-year-old reminisced about how innovation and creativity, rather than computers, were once used to produce special effects to keep filmgoers glued to their seats. Modern films that use CGI to create breathtaking scenes and film sequences “do not have as much heart as they had” in the days of Powell and Pressburger, said Miss Schoonmaker. Pressburger was Powell’s long-time collaborator. As co-producers, writers and directors, they were known as The Archers. The duo made A Canterbury Tale in 1944 and Schoonmaker demonstrated how brave direction and editing decisions, such as the use of stills as the background for scenes shot in the cathedral, are still used today. “They make you believe it. [But] CGI is too perfect,” she said."During her lecture, in a university building dedicated to the memory of her husband, she talked about the editing techniques used by early British film-makers and how they continue to influence noted directors such as Scorsese." [More at the link; a video interview with Schoonmaker is here.]
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Speechless # 52: Gilbert Gottfried
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)
90 keys seconds from Atonement's epic Dunkirk sequence shot
Dunno why they're giving it away, but here you go.
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)
Conserve the planet: animation from Brazil
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December 07, 2007
Radioheaded out
For anyone who didn't download Radiohead's album, "In Rainbows," the dedicated site goes dark December 10. It's a lovely piece of work that will surely find its way into fine movies to come, as well as CD format in a few weeks.
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Season's Greetings: the NSFW ending to Pasolini's Canterbury Tales
[As the linked item predicts, the clip was yanked by YouTube within hours; Pasolini's smile from the end of the passage is just about the only image that isn't gonzo.] New York magazine's Vulture blog tempts the fates by posting a clip of the epically scatological ending to Pasolini's Canterbury Tales (1972) as part of their summa of "The 10 Most Anti-Christian Movies Of All Time." Here's their precis: "Although he made what many still consider to be the quintessential Jesus movie (The Gospel According to St. Matthew, 1964), Italian Marxist homosexual poet Pier Paolo Pasolini was no fan of religious dogma, and his sex-drenched, free-form adaptation of Chaucer's poem constantly thumbs its nose at the falsely pious. But Pasolini saves the big one for the end: The film ends with a shocking and hilarious vision of Hell in which Satan cracks open his butt cheeks and shits out streams of screaming friars. In close-up. Repeatedly. Sadly, we were unable to find this clip on YouTube, but then we realized we could put it up ourselves. Enjoy, because it won't last long. Uh, NSFW, unless you work in Hell."
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 06, 2007
Woody Allen? Speechless
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:46 PM | Comments (0)
It's all not Greek to me: the blogger's report
At November's Thessaloniki International Film Festival, there was a spirited panel discussion of writing about film on the internet, led by Variety's Lisa Nesselson, with myself, Ronald Bergan for the Guardian, and Greek bloggers, Ilias Fragoulis and Iosif Proimakis, as well as Athinorama film critic Christos Mitsis. My Greek's not what it should be, but I am amused by the transcription (and retort) by one audience member of a comment I made at one point which was originally, "You know, to use a well-worn phrase, and pardon my English, but opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one."
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
For Your Consideration: an insult to filmmakers
All the utopian fervor from tech-heads and electronics manufacturers about how digital projection will change the way movies are seen always makes me wary. The change, I fear, won't be for the better. When the kid behind the popcorn counter is working these $150,000 pieces of always-about-to-become outdated electronic 
gadgetry, instead of the time-proven, mechanically driven film medium, will the image be consistent? What happens when a pixel or three or forty-four goes wrong? Today was the horror show come true, with a last-minute screening of a would-be awards contender that's only just finished was projected to a small group of reviewers (most belonging to one awards-sanctioning body or other) went completely off the rails. Showing at one of the best-run multiplexes in the area, a key projectionist and manager were flummoxed by the D5 high-defintion copy that was provided. After forty minutes of delays and false starts, with the control panels of the player projected on screen and an arrow punching various options across the screen, the dim projection began, with only the deepest of sound effects tracks playing: no music, no dialogue. One of the projectionists stood at the doorway of the theater, gawping as the image began to artifact madly, pulsing every forty seconds or so with dozens of bursts of pixelated noise. I couldn't bear to stay, even if the tics got ironed out: this isn't what the filmmakers spent a year or more of their life making all the way down to the year-end wire. For your consideration... the future of exhibition in cities small and large and certainly in small towns across America. I thought it was a insult to the people who made the movie, so I left, looking forward to the first screening with 19th century technology—35mm celluloid.
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:29 PM | Comments (5)
When film bloggers go cryptic
Over at Premiere, Glenn Kenny is sending strange semaphores into the internets. Consider this 1898 pre-bloggotry from the baseball diamond, which may serve as a lucid precedent. [Language NOT safe for work.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2007
"Why did Denzel Washington make a film called 'The Great Stiv Bators'?"
An excellent (and seriously posed) question asked by a young musician with different cultural references than me late last night... [Pic © Edward Colver; an excellent gallery at the link.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 04, 2007
Jack Nitzsche's "The Last Race" scores dance from Village of the Giants [1965] (not just Death Proof)
Oh, that's strange.
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)
Guy Maddin, farting around with audition footage from Cowards Bend The Knee
Tasty doodles.
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)
"Like having sex with a tractor trailer in a parking lot": Idiocracy's trickle-down
An advertisement for Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator, a fictional energy drink from Mike Judge's deep-sixed satire Idiocracy [deep-sixed, theatrically, at least: it's on DVD] that consumers were urged to drink instead of water, which was killing crops when the dopey populace used it instead of water. What's going on here? I have not clue one. Note the 20th Century Fox logos, as well as NewsCorpFoxMySpace and FacebookBeacon links. [H/t Karina Longworth.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 09:15 AM | Comments (1)
December 03, 2007
Bed, bath and beyond: a little post-Roy Andersson in the morning
If you haven't seen You, The Living or Songs From The Second Floor, here's a memorable spot by someone who knows the veteran Swedish director's distinctive comedic style. Bed, bathroom and beyond... for the Hornback home improvement chain, directed by 27-year-old Carl Erik Rinsch.
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 01, 2007
Thai film censorship expands, including a PG-25 rating
A harsh new film law in Thailand seems close to enactment, Rotten Tomatoes blogger WiseKwai writes. "The new Film and Video Act is being railroaded through Thailand's National Legislative Assembly by the Ministry of Culture. The make-up of the proposed film-ratings board has already been decided by the NLA sub-committee, Culture Minister Khaisri Sriarun tells Nation News Service. Now the the committee is deciding on the proposed ratings system, which would restrict people as old as 24 from 
seeing certain films, or ban Thai films outright, from being exhibited anywhere in the world. The moves by this military-installed parliament to clamp down on freedoms and stifle expression come ahead of a general election on December 23, and appear deaf to protests by the Free Thai Cinema Movement, which staged a demonstration on Wednesday, outside Parliament House in Bangkok. Poet and writer Jiranan Pitchpreecha led the demonstration, by about 30 artists and filmmakers, including Pen-ek Ratanaruang [Last Life In The Universe], Apichatpong Weerasethakul [Syndromes and a Century], Wisit Sasanatieng [Tears of the Black Tiger], Pimpaka Towira and artist Manit Sriwanichpoom. Jiranan submitted an open letter to Wallop Tangkananurak, a member of the NLA panel considering the act. “The movement believes the new Film Act will impact on the freedom of expression of filmmakers as well as human rights of audiences, especially youths, who will be deprived of the opportunity to develop intellectual and analytical skills,” the letter said. The group has asked that the provisions that empower the state to ban films and order filmmakers to cut scenes judged inappropriate, be stricken from the draft law. The filmmakers say the law is too vague and is open to broad interpretation. Furthermore, there are already laws on the books regarding national security, that could be applied to films... They also requested the NLA to consider increasing the number of nongovernment members on the proposed filmratings board. As the draft act stands now, mainly bureaucrats and governmentappointed representatives would sit on the ratings board. Led by prime minister, the board members would include ministers of Culture and Tourism and Sports ministries, as well as general secretaries from other ministries. After the protest, Culture Minister Khaisri told The Nation's Thai-language news service that the composition of the film-ratings board has already been decided by the NLA committee. The committee is now working on the structure of the ratings system, she said, and the full Film and Video Act is expected to come before the entire NLA during the second week of December. The draft Film and Video Act has been written to replace the existing Film Act of 1930, but rather than being more progressive than this 77-year-old law, the new act is even more restrictive. The ratings system has a PG for general audiences, PG-15, restricting people 14 and under, and a newly proposed PG-25 rating, under which people 24 years and younger would be prohibited. An earlier draft had 17 as the oldest age to restrict moviegoers. If passed, it would be the highest age-restrictive rating in the world. Notoriously controlling Singapore, for example, has a 21-and-over category for films as its most restrictive rating." At Bangkok Post, Kong Rithdee reports, "Filmmakers and artists of the Free Thai Cinema Movement protested outside parliament yesterday, stepping up their call for the removal of the state's power of censorship from the Film and Video Bill.
Poet Jiranan Pitpreecha submitted an open letter and detailed suggestions to Wallop Tangkananurak, a member of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) panel scrutinising the bill, which the assembly is due to begin deliberating this week. ''The movement believes the new Film Act will have an impact on film professionals as well as on audiences, especially young audiences who will be deprived of the opportunity to develop intellectual and analytical skills,'' the letter said. The group proposes the NLA remove clauses that empower the state to ban films and order filmmakers to cut scenes deemed inappropriate. ... Mr Wallop said the lawmakers may see the ban as important in order to prevent inclusion of sensitive content that might undermine the security of the nation and the sacred institution. But the cinema movement maintains there are already existing laws that cover those offences and there is no need to single film out as a medium that could be potentially harmful."
Posted by Ray Pride at 10:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Michael Nyman on "open expanses" and photography
Michael Nyman talks about his "favourite home" with Emma Jacobs at the FT, as well as photographs. You are a keen photographer and your house is full of photos. Who do you collect? "I’ve got an Italian publishing company who are about to publish a book of my photos. I’m scared of publishing them. It’s like writing a piece of music and not having the nerve to play it. I’ve been shooting videos over a 
number of years. I recently had a one-day exhibition in a gallery in Dusseldorf. I liked the brevity of the exhibition. I have prints by Mike Disfarmer, who lived and worked in Heber Springs, Arkansas, in the 1930s and 1940s as well as Miroslav Tichy, who lives in a little town near Kynov, Czech Republic. Their prints face each other in my sitting room. They have a lot in common and a lot not in common. Both are small-town photographers who took pictures of people. Disfarmer took photos in controlled studio settings of people in uniforms or Sunday best. Tichy was the opposite and was an outsider who had been imprisoned by communists. He made his own cameras and took pictures almost exclusively of women. They are insolent photos though not obscene. My aim is to make some kind of musical piece bringing both photographers together. I find the connections fascinating." [Portrait © by Perou.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Carlos Reygadas on the opening shot of Silent Light
"I was at the coast in Vizcaya in the Basque Country writing for three days. I had everything apart from the opening and closing scenes, I was listening to Sigur Rós before going to bed, the computer was in front of me, and the screensaver came on. I have this cosmic screensaver, a picture of stars moving out of the frame very, very slowly. I looked at that magnificent space landscape with the music of Sigur Rós playing and I thought the movie had to open like that.' You get the impression from watching Reygadas' films that if you were to isolate any frame, it would make a great photo. 'I have an aversion to photography,' Reygadas muses. 'I love it in cinema, and I like to see other people's photographs, but I don't like the idea of stopping to take a photo. I hate social photos. I hate photos of myself. I hate photos that capture moments of joy. Photographs are the true image of death. Whenever I see a person in a photograph I think of them as dead.'" [Site; Portrait.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[Poster] Be Kind, Rewind (2008)
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:24 AM | Comments (0)