Archive for November, 2009

  • 30 Nov

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    Film on TV: November 30-December 6

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    Old Yeller, playing on TCM on Friday at 6:00am

     

    Almost ALL repeats this week – seriously, the only two ones I added are Old Yeller, playing on TCM on Friday, and Christmas in Connecticut, on TCM on Sunday. The former is a family classic that every kid should grow up seeing (I’m of the school, though, that believes children shouldn’t be sheltered from death in film) and the latter is a lesser holiday entry that’s still enjoyable thanks to Barbara Stanwyck’s engaging performance. There are still plenty of good repeats to go around, though, so check for stuff you may have missed.

    I’m really sorry for not getting this posted last night; I have no excuse, really. I simply forgot – had the template all laid out and then didn’t think about it again until this morning. I’ll try not to let it happen again.

    Monday, November 30

    12:00M – TCM – The Grapes of Wrath
    John Ford’s homage to the dust bowl farmers of the 1930s, taken from the Steinbeck classic, won several awards (including one for Ford) the year it came out. It’s still heralded as one of the great Depression-era films.
    1940 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin.

    2:15am (1st) – TCM – Rear Window
    Hitchcock, Stewart, and Kelly mix equal parts suspense thriller, murder mystery, romance, voyeristic expose, ethical drama, caustic comedy and cinematographic experiment to create one of the greatest films of all time.
    1954 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr.
    Must See

    4:15am (1st) – TCM – The Misfits
    John Huston directs and Arthur Miller writes this final film for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Though the film is remembered for that tragic fact, it’s also a pretty solid film on its own, about a divorcee caught between two rough and ready men of the west (Gable and Montgomery Clift), then opposing them when she discovers their plans for the wild horses in the area. And of course, with Miller behind it, there’s far more going on than just that.
    1961 USA. Director: John Huston. Starring: Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 30 Nov

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    Bookmarks for November 23-30th

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    What we’ve been reading over the past week or so.

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    • A Top 10: Lengthy Tracking Shots
      From Godard to Scorsese. Showy Shots abound. There are plenty more to add (feel free to suggest in the comment, I am surprised they left out the big D.W. Griffith shot in Intolerance. Or for that matter, The Protector, Brazil, Serenity, Boogie Nights, Satantango, etc. etc. But then again, it is only a top 10.
    • Playboy does James Cameron (no photos!)
      “Avatar is made very consciously for movie fans. If critics like it, fine. I can’t say I won’t read the reviews, because I may not be able to resist. I spent a couple of decades in the capricious world of being judged by those not knowledgeable about the depth and history of film and with whom I would not want to have a conversation—with a few notable exceptions. Why would I want to be judged by them? For me, this past decade has been about retreating to the great fundamentals, things that aren’t passing fads or subject to the whims of some idiot critic. You can’t write a review of the laws of thermodynamics.”
    • SPIEGEL Interview with Umberto Eco on the vertigo of making lists
      “I was fascinated with Stendhal at 13 and with Thomas Mann at 15 and, at 16, I loved Chopin. Then I spent my life getting to know the rest. Right now, Chopin is at the very top once again. If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you’re an idiot.”
    • ‘Nine’ Leads Indie Heavy Golden Satellite Nods
      While the awards – handed out by International Press Academy – are generally disregarded as a serious Oscar precursor due to their often inexplainable decisions, this year’s batch is definitely full of worthy nominees, particularly from the specialty sector.
    • More Mainstream Press for THE ROOM.
      “Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room” is a train wreck of almost incomprehensible proportions: Whole scenes are out of focus, while others are repeated in their entirety; characters appear without introduction, while others vanish without explanation; and the unfortunate cast engages in behavior that few would consider typical. All of which, of course, makes the painfully overwrought relationship drama one of the greatest comedies ever to be created entirely by accident.”
    • The Road Takes Desolate Journey From Page to Screen
      To deliver “The Road’s” worn and weathered ambience, Hillcoat avoided as much as possible the over-the-top digital approach employed by director Roland Emmerich for his post-apocalyptic spectacle, “2012.” Hillcoat shot “The Road” at 51 real-world locations to give the R-rated film, which opens Wednesday, an extra dose of authenticity.
    • 100+ Cliche Dialogue Lines
      ‘The Definitive List of Cliched Dialogue’ or just another day at the office for those ink stained grinders writing Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Dacacos or Steven Segal flicks.
    • Critical Shift: New Moon vs. Gone With The Wind
      Peter Howell considers what has changed in the critical landscape in how lurid melodrama and hammy acting was received in 1939 vs. 2009.
    • Tres Chic Twin Peaks Photo Gallery
      Quite an awesome (yet creepy) set of on-set photos taken during the taping of Twin Peaks by Richard Beymar.
    • The 99 Most Jaw-Dropping Movie Moments
      We love those movie moments that make us feel like we’ve been swiftly punched in the gut. The shocking scenes that give us goosebumps and gasps at the same time. Because we love those shock & awe bits so much, we’ve compiled our 99 favourites, counting down to the all-time greatest jaw-dropping movie moment.
  • 30 Nov

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    In The Mood for Blood?

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    Though the Twlight Saga is the reigning champion in the public popularity contest, I’m curious who might have caught Canadian director, Rob Stefaniuk’s musical vampire flick, Suck which premiered at this years TIFF? I was lucky to get a spot at the cast and crew screening before the start of the festival…

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 29 Nov

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    Review: Ninja Assassin

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    Director: James McTeigue(V for Vendetta)
    Story: Matthew Sand
    Screenplay: Matthew Sand, J. Michael Staczynski
    Producers: Grant Hill, Joel Silver, Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski
    Starring: Rain, Naomie Harris, Shô Kosugi,
    MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong bloody stylized violence throughout, and language.
    Running time: 99 min.

    (2.5/5)

    Shortly after I returned home from the theatre today I posted the following status on Facebook:

    … just got back from Ninja Assassin and while the movie may look good the fight scenes are all style (and blood) over actual fighting. For every ooh and ahh I heard from the audience I was thinking of B13, Chocolate, Old Jackie Chan, Ong Bak and 30 some other Asian movies that just feel so much more real.

    I don’t want you to get me wrong. I did not come away really disliking Ninja Assassin, I just came away feeling somewhat empty and unfulfilled with the thought that by tomorrow I will have forgotten the majority of what happened during it.

    Ninja-AssassinNinja Assassin tells the story of Raizo, a ninja, Raizo (Rain) who has turned his back on his ninja clan and Mika (Naomie Harris) a researcher for Europol, a multi-government police force. Mika has uncovered evidence of a secret order of Ninja lead by none other than Shô Kosugi (Ozunu) or at least a character played by him. It seems that neither the government nor the ninja’s themselves want their existence known so they attempt to kill her. Fortunately, Raizo wants to keep her alive so that he can track down and kill Ozunu. Yes, this sounds like an amalgamation of several 80′s ninja flicks and I could have sworn that I was watching American Ninja for a few seconds when the climax of the movie starts.

    As I’m writing this review, I am realizing that I wanted something different than what Ninja Assassin has to offer. I wanted the blood, yes there is a lot (and I mean a real lot of blood) but I also wanted to see actual real martial arts and action. This movie doesn’t really offer that. Sure there are lots of fight scenes but I just had the feeling that I was watching a CGI version of a real fight scene. I wanted to see the next Ong Bak, Chocolate, Drunken Master or District B13 and I really should not be expecting that. Ninja Assassin is simply meant to be a fun over the top homage to 80s martial arts with much more blood added, and you know what… it actually does succeed at that. I had a big smile when the soldiers stormed the ninja base and I enjoyed seeing Kosugi on the screen after all these years.

    Unfortunately though, that isn’t the movie I wanted and because of it I will likely forget everything about it within a few days. Seeing CGI fights does nothing for me and the story has all the weaknesses of those 80s ninja flicks that it pays homage to but without really going into the camp factor which would have made it all the more enjoyable. In the end I walked away from a big blockbuster action flick with a small smile on my face but not really feeling like I experienced what a movie that is called Ninja Assassin really should have been.

  • 27 Nov

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    Ten Movies That Make Me Ridiculously Happy

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    The Young Girls of Rochefort

     

    I rewatched Jacques Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort the other day and spent the entire thing with a stupid giddy grin on my face. It got me thinking about films that just plain and simple make me happy. So here are ten films that make me ridiculously happy, from the moment the credits start until the final fade-out. Initially, it was going to be the top ten that do, but I ended up with a shortlist of around twenty-five, and choosing which ones made it in ended up being kind of arbitrary (except for the top three or four). So it’s just ten.

    Why they make me happy is kind of arbitrary, too – some of them are because I love them so much and know them so well that rewatching them is like coming home. Others are ones I grew up with and have a nostalgic association bolstering the quality of the actual film. There are a number of musicals, because I like them. However, films that I love and think are fantastic but don’t really make me HAPPY are not included – like, say, Mulholland Drive. Love it to pieces, but happy’s not really a word I’d use to describe my reaction to it. So it’s not here.

    So what about you? What are those films that you come back to again and again, that never fail to pull you out of a bad mood, and that always put a smile on your face?

    See my list after the cut.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 26 Nov

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    Doomsday Marathon: A Boy and His Dog

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    Doomsday Movie Marathon
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    [Special Thanks to Sean Dwyer for contributing this entry into the Doomsday Marathon, which is also currently published as a Forgotten Films Entry over at FilmJunk]
    One of the lesser known classics of the genre, L.Q. Jones’ A Boy and His Dog, is based on the novella by Harlan Ellison. The movie takes place in the year 2024, after not one but two additional world wars have been initiated by humanity — the latter of which leaves the Earth devastated by nuclear missiles. As a result, a large part of the movie presents a familiar desert wasteland setting that has come to be associated with post-apocalyptic tales over the years.

    A young, pre-Miami Vice Don Johnson stars as Vic, an 18-year-old nomad who lost his parents in the war and now must forage for food to survive. His only companion is a highly intelligent, telepathic dog named Blood… yes, that’s right, a telepathic dog.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 25 Nov

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    Just a bunch of rambling about how awesome Gary Oldman is… oh and a new movie.

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    For years now, I’ve been whining about Gary Oldman not being the lead in most of his movies lately. There was a time in the late-80s to the mid-90s that when a movie was released with him in it, it was Gary Oldman’s face on all of the marketing, whether for his breakout roles in Sid & Nancy and Prick Up Your Ears, his brilliant comedic turn in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, or as the title character in Coppola’s Dracula. Since, he’s been perfectly content with standing out of the spotlight, and he has certainly shined in his supporting roles (many would argue he is the best parts of his mid-nineties supporting movies: Leon, The Fifth Element, and True Romance – all of which I agree with).

    From about ’98 to ’04, Oldman almost fell off the Hollywood radar completely, save his Oscar-shunned performance in 2000′s The Contender, and he was subjected to doing a few episodes of Friends and a pair of embarrassing straight-to-DVD action flicks. Of course, it was the Harry Potter franchise and Batman Begins that resurrected his career, but even since, he has shied away from the responsibilities of first billing, with the excellent (and mostly unseen) Backwoods being the only exception.

    This was all a long way of saying that I just discovered he will be playing the lead role in a historical pic titled Easter Sixteen, about the 1916 Irish uprising and the role that James Connolly played in it. Anyone that saw The Wind that Shakes the Barley or Liam Neeson’s Michael Collins knows that this is an era in Ireland’s history that is rich with stories and James Connolly’s is no exception (and one of the most famous), as he helped lead an important part of the Irish uprising against the British.

    Oldman, of course, will be playing Connolly, with Guy Pearce, Anthony LaPaglia, Ian Hart, and Chris O’Donnell also rounding out the cast, as well as Jason Barry who will also be taking on directing duties. It’s about time we see him being the face of a movie again. He could be the finest British actor living today and it’d be a shame if the young generation today only knew him as Sirius Black and Lt. Gordon.

  • 24 Nov

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    Review: The Road

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    Doomsday Movie Marathon

    When it was announced that Australian director John Hillcoat would be taking up the challenge of bringing the bleak and difficult novel, The Road, to the screen it seemed liked the absolute perfect match of director and material. After all, his gritty and fly-coated outback western The Proposition had that right mix of apocalyptic and tender that is the essence of Cormac McCarthy’s prose (the crisp non-nonsense sentences are as sparsely worded as any book that I have read, yet finds power and poetry in its repetition). And are not many post-apocalypse survival movies similar in tone and execution to the modern anti-western? Make no mistake, this is a handsome, consistent and harrowing adaptation of the work, but it is not quite a filmic masterpiece because I fear the novel as it is, is not translatable from the written page to the screen. There is something about letting the immediacy of each small sentence in the book sink in slowly, whereas Hillcoat and co. have only 2 short hours with with to pain their gray portrait of a world in ruin. It is a faithful adaptation of the book to be sure, many of the “Day After Tomorrow” images in the gawd-awful trailer cut by the Weinstein Company are (thankfully) not in the in the film, and any scars or signs of its length (and likely troubled) production history are not evident on screen. Rest assured that The Road is the quiet and intimate drama, and very likely to be the bleakest multiplex movie of 2009 (should the distributor finally stop shuffling it back in the calender again and again) as it should be; yet, nevertheless between book and screenplay, something of the soul was lost in translation.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 24 Nov

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    Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox

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    Like all of Wes Anderson’s pictures, Fantastic Mr. Fox dances between meaningful and artificial. Often the directors detractors spend too much time on the latter, and perhaps miss the immense character detail revealed in their diorama surroundings and meticulously selected wardrobes. Of course the stop-motion technique selected to animate the film threatens to enhance the artificial, but somehow, the animators have transcended the challenge put to them to tell the story this way. This is simply the right way to do a Wes Anderson Joint (or rather French Cigarillo). Do the simple thought exercise of imagining this film as a 3D CGI or 2D cel animation affair. After seeing the auburn and honey world in sumptuous detail (right down to a micro-train set and a high-school chemistry laboratory), the thought of it being anything else is simply, well, unthinkable!

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  • 24 Nov

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    Epic Tale Ingredients

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    Buenaventura Press and Tom Gauld present: Characters for an Epic Tale.

     

  • 24 Nov

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    The Muppets Do Queen

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    During the past year, the folks behind The Muppets have been putting together videos and uploading them online in what I can only imagine is with hope of renewing interest in the furry puppets and building anticipation for the upcoming in-the-works Muppet movie, that has Forgetting Sarah Marshall star Jason Segel actively involved in the writing (and, as most assume, he”’ have an acting role as well).

    Here is the latest video in their endeavors: a Muppet-ized version of Queen’s classic Bohemian Rhapsody. Enjoy!

  • 24 Nov

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    TIFF’s Top 30

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    I love lists. Most of the time lists are just a bunch of middle brow stuff voted on by committee which is usually not particularly interesting except for those that put the list together.

    But thanks to an email from our own Kurt Halfyard I got to look at a list that I’m reprinting here for three reasons: One, it’s thought provoking and stretches the limits of art and dumps most of the Hollywood garbage that is out there for actually good titles. Two, I haven’t even heard of a lot of these titles and can’t wait to dive into more. And three, the site it was originally posted on doesn’t allow commenting unless you’re a registered member and I wanna discuss!

    I couldn’t find the info as to who or how this list was put together other than the original post’s opening paragraph which simply states, “60 film historians, festival programmers and archivists from around the world.” So here is the best 30 films TIFF has offered up in its existence. It’s actually more like 50 with ties but who cares? I think this list is more about discovery than it is about the rankings.

    Film titles and countries of origin are followed by the number of votes each film received.

    1. Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand) – 53 votes

    2. Platform (Jia Zhang-ke, Hong Kong, China/China/Japan/France) – 49 votes

    3. Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, China) – 48 votes

    4. Beau travail (Claire Denis, France) – 46 votes

    5. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, China) – 43 votes

    6. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, France/Thailand/Germany/Italy) – 38 votes

    7. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, Romania) – 35 votes

    Werckmeister Harmonies (Bela Tarr, Hungary) – 35 votes

    8. Éloge de l’amour ( In Praise of Love ) (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland/ France) – 34 votes

    9. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, Romania) – 33 votes

    10. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Netherlands) – 32 votes

    » Read the rest of the entry..

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