Dale (Digital Doodles), Colleen (353 Haiku Review) and Marina look ahead to the films opening in July!
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Show Notes:
My first experience with Fritz Lang’s classic film Metropolis was not a good one. It was a hot, sweaty film class I couldn’t wait to get out of and to boot, there was lots of chatter coming from all around. The second attempt wasn’t that much better. The cheap version of the DVD, unlike the Kino edition, featured some less than suitable orchestral music which kicked in at the halfway mark of the film – a little too airy and happy to fit the mood created by the images but still, I did manage to enjoy it a whole lot more. I’ve never done much reading into the history of the film but it looks like film historians and film fans concerned with the classics may be in for an amazing treat.
The gentlemen over at AICN have uncovered a news story at Zeit Online which is likely to breath new life into Lang’s film. According to the story, a full cut of Metropolis, all estimated 210 minutes of it, have been uncovered in the collection of the Museo del Cine (Cinema Museum) in Buenos Aires. The copy will be restored by The Murnau Foundation and the archive in Buenos Aires.
The historians that have seen this new print say that the added material “leads to a new understanding of the Fritz Lang masterpiece” and that it restores the rhythm of the film. From the short article, it’s also stated that this new edition will be cleaned up, though some of the damage is believed to be permanent, and shared with the public but in what sort of format is yet to be determined.
I would love the opportunity to see Lang’s film on the big screen in it’s entirety and I’m sure I’m not alone on that one. I look forward to the announcement, hopefully sooner rather than later, of when and how we’ll get to re-discover the sci-fi classic.
Perhaps some points should be given to star James McAvoy for trying to bring out his inner asshole. At no point during Wanted did I empathize with his character, that smug little prick Wesley Gibson whose problems all seem self-inflicted before being solved by shooting people in the face. Perhaps I wasn’t supposed to empathize with him. Ostensibly he is the hero (or dweeby anti-hero) of the piece, yet, in hindsight, Angelina Jolie (surprise! Her best performance outside of Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart) with her cool bluster hiding pain and fostering fanaticism of the kind usually branded on the villains is the unsung angel of death we are supposed to place our empathy. The film may or may not even ask for this, but the question does arise: Are the screen-writers (and graphic novel source material) cheap hacks or Chuck Palahniuk and Michael Haneke wannabes?
A pastiche of references in the same way as WallE, but lacking any sort of cleverness in slotting them in. Fight Club was satire (Wanted in its desperation to be as cool as Tyler Durden seems to forget that), The Matrix a parable of faith, love, and salvation (set in the key of bullet time, mainframes and kung fu), The Usual Suspects about noir styling and narrative trickery and The Highlander about the balance of elation and melancholy of when bestowed with super-powers. (Heck, even Doomsday –the far better insane-action-flick-of-2008– had the ‘where the hell is this going to go next ‘Joie de vivre’ of a vintage B-flick). Wanted lacks a brain, a heart and a soul. It is really just about providing a framework for Timur Bekmambetov to do what he does best: Really, really inventive eye candy. Not that there is anything wrong with that, and the film delivers on that in spades.
But in the summer of 2008 and the relative crapping around these parts on Ironman for being pretty rote in terms of following a connect the dots strategy, it seems unfair to give Wanted a pass for being even dumber and inevitable in that department. Also, in transplanting Russia’s Bekmambetov to the Hollywood machine, it appears that Wanted, with its bigger budget and more computing power seems to have washed out the grain and grit of his other big budget spectacle films, Daywatch and Nightwatch. Perhaps a phone call to Guillermo del Toro is in order to fix that for his next Hollywood project, or perhaps a trip back to Moscow to recharge the batteries? I dunno.
The interesting international cast (Konstantin Khabensky (star of both ‘Watch flicks), Terrance Stamp, David O’Hara and Thomas Kreschtman) is criminally wasted in rote parts and glorified cameos. The actors and inane/pat/not-too-clever plot are shown up by the special effects, which like the mayhem in a Thai action film, is enough to make a braindead watchable film yet nothing one necessarily wants to come back to again (and again). This is especially so when McAvoy’s performance and character seems to be as scatter-shot and vulgar as flying keys from a keyboard that spell out “Fuck You” While I loved that particular image, it existed in a void; there is nothing substantial to cling to as Wesley slings verbal diarrhea in voice over, directed at a highly targeted audience; done without any sense of irony or joy.
A few more titles were announced today from the TIFF press office. Spike Lee’s war drama Miracle at St. Anna, Kathryn “Near Dark, Point Break, Strange Days” Bigelow’s latest action flick The Hurt Locker, a Viggo Mortensen starring Good (first I’ve heard of this British-German co production), a John Malkovich starring Australia/South Africa co-production Disgrace, and for the High Fidelity, mix-tape fanatical types (you know who you are) there is the Michael Cera starring Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.
The proverbial much more is tucked under the seat in the form of the Press Release.
The only downside to this is that the SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS programme (for which these films all fall into) is traditionally held in the Elgin Theatre, which is off limits to regular ‘coupon’ buyers, falling more into the pricey GALA side of things. So expect the ‘off-screening’ in one of the other TIFF venues to be hard to get into.
Are you local? Hope to see/meet a lot of fellow Row-Three folks at the mega-festival in T.O.
Alexandre Aja was the director behind the painfully stupid The Hills Have Eyes remake some years back. While I hated the film, I remember the style being kind of cool and it definitely had it’s moments. But really it was just a movie that was made so they could bring out a cool looking trailer. 2003′s Haute Tension was quite the interesting little horror film (despite the cop-out ending).
So will the latest project by Mr. Aja, entitled simply Mirrors, starring Kiefer Sutherland be more of the same: some nice ideas and neat look but with the same bland story telling and cliche-ridden scenes? Or will it be something new and refreshing that keeps everyone talking for weeks? My bet is on the former, but we shall see.
The newest red-band trailer has some disturbing imagery, but my guess is these are the best parts of the movie. Truth be told though, I’ll pay ten bucks to watch Paula Patton all day long.
Just about a month ago, Marina wrote about how Guy Ritchie has a new, grittier Sherlock Holmes movie in the works, one that will focus quite a bit more on adventure and action and one that has apparently even Robert Downey Jr. interested in the role (a man who is no stranger to using a British accent well). Now it turns out this movie is going to have a little competition, although the tone of this competitor couldn’t be any more different.
According to those charmers at Variety, Judd Apatow is going to produce a comedic take on the intellectual, brilliant detective for Columbia Pictures from a script by Etan Cohen (Idiocracy, Tropic Thunder). And who else shall star but Sasha Baron Cohen as Holmes and Will Ferrell as his trusty sidekick Watson.
“Just the idea of Sacha and Will as Sherlock Holmes and Watson makes us laugh,” said Columbia’s co-president Matt Tolmach. “Sacha and Will are two of the funniest and most talented guys on the planet, and having them take on these two iconic characters is frankly hilarious.”
While I think it’s pretty silly to have two Sherlock movie in the works, at least they’re going to be two drastically different takes on the character. It won’t be like having both Capote and Infamous coming out around the same time, that’s for sure. I’m not sure how interested I am in this one as compared to Ritchie’s, but Cohen is some pretty inspired casting for a comedic take on the iconic detective. Regardless, I imagine in both anticipation and execution, this one will play second fiddle.
For the next week or so I’m on holidays. I’ve let all the contributors for Row Three know what the screen shots are so they should be able to tell you if your right or wrong.
This Episode: Wall-E, Wanted, Mongol, new Top 10 lists, this week on DVD and more…
Unwrap the complete Show Notes…
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The majority have spoken and we will be covering David Cronenberg in the next episode of the Middle of the Row Podcast. The other director’s will be covered in later shows. Thanks everyone for giving their input and now we need more of your input.
What we need now is for all the readers and contributors here to pick in order of preference their top 5 movies for us to cover from the following list:
Just for fun the five I would most like to talk about are Crash, A History of Violence, Dead Ringers, Spider and eXistenZ.
I will rank the movies according to the number of votes each one gets. You should rank the five in order of preference as the higher the preference equals more votes. Please number your picks from 5 down to 1 with 1 being your most wanted.
Voting can take place till Monday July 7th.
Director: Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life)
Writers: Andrew Stanton
Producers: Jim Morris
Starring: Ben Burtt (voice), Elissa Knight (voice), Jeff Garlin (voice), Fred Willard, Sigourney Weaver (voice)
MPAA Rating: G
Running time: 103 min
Synopsis:
We all love the Pixar studio around here, so none of us could decide who should get to write the review for their newest, Wall·E. So we decided we’d all pitch in (or a few of us anyway). Check out our quick thoughts below along with an overall score and then feel free to share your thoughts as well.
Synopsis: 700 years in the future, Earth is completely devoid of any hint of human life. All that remains is a young trash cleaning robot named Wall·E. Wall·E goes about his daily duties as though nothing is wrong; and while he seems to enjoy his “life”, he feels lonely without a companion. One day a recon droid shows up from outer space and turns Wall·E’s life upside down for the better. He finally has a friend… or does he?
Read all of our reviews below…
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