Archive for February, 2010

  • 28 Feb

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    White Ribbon Is Best Looking Film of the Year

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    -Associated Press

    LOS ANGELES – The German drama The White Ribbon has taken top honors from the American Society of Cinematographers.

    The group’s feature-film award Saturday night went to cinematographer Christian Berger for The White Ribbon, director Michael Haneke’s study of a small German town beset by mysterious violence on the eve of World War I.

    The White Ribbon won out over a field that included Avatar, The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds. At the Academy Awards on March 7, The White Ribbon is competing against those same three films plus Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

    Television cinematography prizes went to Eagle Egilsson for an episode of “Dark Blue” and Alar Kivilo for the movie “Taking Chance.”

  • 28 Feb

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    Bookmarks for Feb. 26-28th

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    • Hollywood hears Roar of Women – Commercial Performance Power of Actresses has Never been Stronger
      “Traditionally, female roles in Hollywood fall into one of three categories: the mother, the ingénue and the quirky (usually unlucky-in-love) best friend or sidekick. Not this year. What we were served in 2009 were some real characters, storylines and performances we could really sink our teeth into.”
    • Variety Will Kill a Bad Review of Your ‘Mediocre’ Movie For Just $400,000
      “Last month, Variety panned a thriller called Iron Cross. But the review has been disappeared from Variety’s web site, which probably has something to do with the $400,000 Iron Cross’ producers paid to Variety for an awards campaign.”
    • David Lynch-ified Movie Trailers
      Well, actually David Lynch had indeed a shot at Return (Revenge) of the Jedi, but passed on it. Want to see what the trailer at least for this, as well as Friday The Thirteenth (Part 5), A Goofy Movie and more would look like? Lynch cliches abound.
    • The Repo Men One Sheet Collection
      Whether or not you feel that the filmmakers are simply re-making Repo! The Genetic Opera with a more traditional style, or there should be a lawsuit, these handsome one-sheets are nifty!
    • The Curious Case of Tilda Swinton
      “Below is a guided tour of Tilda’s career in movie posters. Despite her striking beauty she hasn’t been particularly well served by poster designers (fashion designers, on the other hand, have a field day with her), which makes the I Am Love posters all the more notable. Do make sure to scroll all the way down though for the superb poster for the Beijing installment of her film festival: The Scottish Cinema of Dreams in China. Pure Tilda.”
    • Roger Ebert regains his power of Speech from DVD Commentary Tracks
      “Before I lost my voice due to cancer-related surgery, I’d recorded commentary tracks for some movies on DVD: “Citizen Kane,” “Casablanca,” “Floating Weeds,” “Dark City” and, ah, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.” These tracks had been recorded separately from the movies, so they could be edited to fit scenes. They might be “pure” audio. I asked two friends of mine, Ronnie Sass of Warner Bros. and Kim Hendrickson of the Criterion Collection, if they still had the original digital recordings. They rummaged in warehouses and found they did.”

     
     

    You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button in the upper right of the page. It looks remarkably similar to this:

  • 27 Feb

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    Portuguese Auteur Pedro Costa Lands at Criterion

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    Costa Box Set - CriterionIt was only a matter of time before the world noticed that there was a master filmmaker in Pedro Costa. The Portuguese director has spent the last 20 years building a distinguished career or films which are timeless, endlessly depressing but also shine a light on the immigrant story, not only in Portugal but the world over. Sadly, a whole lot of folks never quite managed to grasp his art.

    Costa’s films are deliberately paced, largely unscripted and if I had to compare them to anything, it would be like walking through a beautiful nightmare. These are endlessly sad stories but the settings and the way they’re told is haunting and many of the images are likely to stay with you for months if not years.

    Booed at Cannes and overlooked at many a festival (his appearance at VIFF a few years ago was a disappointment as barely ¼ of the crowd stayed through the entire film), it looks like Costa has finally found some critical attention (I’m willing to bet his 2006 appearance in Cahiers du cinéma’s top 10 may have had something to do with it).

    The great people at Criterion have announced the release of Letters from Fontinhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa. Fontinhas refers to a now demolished “slum” on the outskirts of Lisbon. The three films included in the set, Ossos, In Vanda’s Room and Colossal Youth, are a lose trilogy of unrelated characters who happen to live in Fontinhas.

    This is very exciting. Costas’ work has been notoriously difficult to acquire on DVD (aside from difficult to find and expensive imports). I can’t wait to get my little hands on this. Kudos to Criterion for shinning a light on another undiscovered master. Now, just waiting for that Oliveira box set.

    A few trailers tucked under the seats.

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  • 27 Feb

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    Rank ‘em: Leonardo DiCaprio

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    With my recent re-fascination and enjoyment with flickchart (that now allows rankings of only actors or directors (had a good time ranking all my Soderbergh movies by the way) and also with all the recent Shutter Island talk around here, I’ve renewed my interest and respect for DiCaprio. He always, always puts on a good performance. Since I’ve seen just about everything in his body of work, here is how I see the quality of his films (not his performances) ranked in order from favorite to least favorite starting with the earliest work that I can remember seeing him in (Gilbert Grape)…

    Titanic
    The Departed
    Shutter Island
    Romeo and Juliet
    What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
    Gangs of New York
    Revolutionary Road
    The Aviator
    Catch Me If You Can
    The Basketball Diaries
    Blood Diamond
    The Quick and the Dead
    The Man in the Iron Mask
    Body of Lies
    The Beach

    NOT SEEN:
    Marvin’s Room
    Celebrity
    Don’s Plum
    Total Eclipse
    The Foot Shooting Party

     

  • 26 Feb

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    Easy Riders… : McCabe & Mrs. Miller

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    (4.5/5)

    McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a film that didn’t grab me straight away – it’s muddy soundtrack (Altman was working ahead of the recording technology available at the time) and lack of obvious narrative took a bit of getting used to. Maybe it had been too long since I’d watched an Altman film though as once I settled into it and afterward let myself digest what I’d experienced the film more than grew on me. There are no bold stylistic flourishes (visually at least) and no gripping storyline, but it’s a film that you soak up and live in for two hours. The film’s setting, the town of Presbyterian Church, was constructed from scratch for the film (up in Canada), with period detail adhered to as often as possible, down to substituting nails for wooden pegs (according to a vintage documentary on my DVD). This, added to Altman’s trademark overlapping, largely improvised dialogue create a world within the picture that truly feels like a living, breathing place and it’s a place you don’t want to leave when the film reaches it’s bleak finale.

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  • 26 Feb

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    Talk Amongst Yourselves

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  • 26 Feb

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    Survival of The Dead Poster is Significantly Better than Actual Movie.

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    Too bad this swell One Sheet is a gajillion times better than the film, a film of such spectacular awfulness that neither Andrew nor I could bring ourselves to write about it at last years TIFF. Poor George.

    ***UPDATED (watermark gone!), And high resolution version here.

    And boo to websites that watermark a well designed one-sheet. Wow, You were first! Yet, you wreck the effect of some designers hard work. Boo.

  • 25 Feb

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    Pinto Joins Tarsem Singh’s Dawn Of War

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    I was in a pretty small minority of people who really disliked Tarsem Singh’s The Fall when it was released limitedly in the summer of ’08. On the flip side but also in the minority, I’m a pretty big fan of his first film, The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez. Wherever you might fall with Tarsem’s (he now prefers just the first name) pictures, it’s hard to argue his visual imagination, prowess and auteur aesthetics. Personally, I am enraptured by the visuals on screen in both films. They’re like Dali paintings in motion. So I have to say, though I’m not too fond of The Fall, I really really look forward to more from Tarsem. Particularly when that next sounds sort of like the version of Clash of the Titans that I want to see.

    The project is titled Dawn Of War in which ensues a battle of the evil and powerful elder Gods of the Titans against Theseus, a young warrior who leads men and immortal gods into battle in order to save mankind. All sort of interesting news to report on this one has been popping out of the woodwork over the past couple of days.

    First, the very lovely Frieda Pinto has been cast as Phaedra, an oracle priestess who joins Theseus on his journey and who eventually weds him. I haven’t seen Pinto since 2008′s Slumdog Millionaire, so it will be interesting (and easy on the eyes) to see her on screen again. She wasn’t given all that much to do in Slumdog so I’m anxious to see if she can pull off a little bit more of a challenging role.

    Next up is news that Mickey Rourke may be in negotiations to be cast as well as a for the part of King Hyperion, the ruler of Ancient Greece who does battle with the divines. After the short clips I’ve seen for the upcoming Iron Man 2 movie and the recent news that he’ll be playing Conan’s father in that franchise’s reboot, Rourke might indeed be the perfect fit for something like this.

    Last up is a bit of a touchy subject around here. Details are being hashed out as to whether or not the film should be looked at for the possibility of being shot in 3D. While I am an advocate for the demolishing of anymore 3D pictures (please God, squash the technology), even I have to admit that Tarsem’s surreal worlds and bountifully beautiful imagery would be the one director that could make a 3D film look absolutely outstanding – far more so than the overrated Avatar at the very least. So I’m kind of torn on this subject but time will tell if he and the studio go for it or not.

    The picture is slated to begin shooting in early April, so they’ll have to make up their minds pretty quick. Either way, we might get to see more of Tarsem’s gorgeous visions in about a year’s time. Already can’t wait!

  • 25 Feb

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    Delpy on Skylab

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    Though I’ve only seen her in two really memorable roles and I wasn’t a huge lover of her 2007 film, 2 Days in Paris, for some reason I always find myself looking forward to another Julie Delpy project. The fact that she wrote, directed, produced, acted and provided the music for her last picture is enough to elevate her, at least in my mind, to someone who deserves some respect. That film making debut was good enough in fits and starts that although I didn’t love the heck out of it, I remember thinking that I anticipate anything more than Delpy might tackle in the future. With some recent news that she’s moving forward with a sequel to the Paris movie set this time in New York, we now come to find that she’s working a little overtime on a much further reaching and more interesting project. A period piece of the 70s entitled Skylab.

    Skylab was a NASA space station that became an international media event when it came crashing to earth across Western Australia in 1979, six years after going into orbit. Delpy’s film will focus on an eccentric family around the time of this event. It remains to be seen if the family is directly involved with the crash somehow or if it is just a world event in which to wrap a story around. Delpy appearing in her own film didn’t completely work the first time but the chemistry that worked best in 2 Days in Paris was that between the two main characters and the family members. Hopefully she’s tightened up her own bit of the script as not surprisingly, she’ll also be starring in this upcoming tale of familial drama. While her freshman film didn’t always work as a whole, it was enjoyable enough in segments. Here’s hoping Delpy capitalizes on those moments in this tale from 1979 with a possible scientific bit of flavor(?).

  • 25 Feb

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    Bookmarks for Feb. 22-25th

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    • Playing Cat-and-Mouse Over an R-Rated Movie Trailer
      Kids and potty mouths in R Rated Movies (and Red band trailers) are the new controversy of the day.
    • Bonnie and Clyde Photoshoot by Peter Lindbergh
      The wild, run-from-the-law lifestyle of Bonnie and Clyde is oft-romanticized in modern culture. While this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this theme used in a high-fashion photo editorial, photographer Peter Lindbergh has clearly mastered it– thanks to a bit of help by model du jour Anna Selezneva and actor Wes Bentley.
    • Underprepared cinemas face 3-D ‘Clash’
      “Movies in 3-D are becoming such big moneymakers that Hollywood studios are cramming them into the nation’s theaters, even though there aren’t enough screens available to give each film its fullest possible run.”
    • The Formula For a Perfect Movie
      A Cornell University professor analyzed 150 of the highest grossing movies of the last 70 years. The more recent the movie, he found, the closer it adhered to the mathematical formula that describes the human attention span.
    • When talking about your influences works against you.
      It’s fair. If you’re going to attack Tarantino, the first thing you typically do is cite him for plagiarism, which for me is missing the point — the locations and sequences he films are always slowed down to his distinctive pace. So why is Martin Scorsese celebrated for his cinephilia while Tarantino’s is held in evidence against him?.
    • Kevin Smith does not Cop-Out for Karina Longworth
      Karina Longworth goes to bat for Kevin Smith in The Village Voice.
    • Rex Reed whines, “Please Don’t Make Me See Cop Out Again!”
      At this point, a pan from Rex Reed is about a sure a sign that there is something interesting in the film as anything else. We would be happy to take Armond White over this clown any day of the week.

     
     

    You can now take a look at RowThree’s bookmarks at any time of your choosing simply by clicking the “delicious” button in the upper right of the page. It looks remarkably similar to this:

  • 25 Feb

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    Cinecast Episode 156 – Metaphorical Make-Up Sex

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    SPOILERS ALERT!
     
    Shutter Island has been a big topic of discussion around here and the whole of the movie-based internet sites over the past week and we’re obliged to continue that discussion as Matt Gamble joins in for a full on spoiler discussion of the movie – including hashing out the continuity errors once and for all! We also saw plenty of other great cinema since last week including a revisiting of Mulholland Drive and escaping back to the original versions of both The Collector and The Crazies. Kurt managed to catch up with the new version of the latter film while Andrew made time for the Oscar nominated (acting) The Last Station as well as the German mountaineering picture, North Face. So lots to get into here as well as some new DVD releases and other tic bits of awesome. It was a great show and we hope you enjoy the listen.

    As always, feel free to leave your own thoughts in the comment section below and again, thanks for listening!

    Click the Audio Icon below to listen in:

    Cinecast Episode 156 [ 2:02:44 | 84.28 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup


    To download the show directly, paste the following URL into your favorite downloader:
    http://rowthree.com/audio/cinecast_10/episode_156.mp3

     
     
     
    Full show notes are under the seats…
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  • 24 Feb

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    Review: The Last Station

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    Director: Michael Hoffman (Soap Dish, One Fine Day, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, The Emperor’s Club, Game 6)
    Novel: Jay Parini
    Screenplay: Michael Hoffman
    Producers: Jens Meurer, Bonnie Arnold, Chris Curling
    Starring: James McAvoy, Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, Paul Giamatti, Anne-Marie Duff, Kerry Condon
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 112 min.

    (3/5)

    The Last Station is going to be a difficult tightrope for a lot of folks to balance across (through) and is a tough movie to pinpoint exactly what kind of mood it wants to convey. At times a rather serious dramatic tale of relational turmoil and betrayal while at others a whimsical tale of hero worship and young (and old) romance. Both of these aspects of the movie teeter back and forth between melodrama and ham fisted tom-foolery. It works at points if viewed through the eyes of someone not taking it at all too serious.

    Leo Tolstoy’s older years have not been reveled in all that much; that I’m aware of anyway. Years after writing the masterpieces, “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina,” Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) has tried to resort himself to a life of relative isolation and sans material possessions despite living rather luxuriously in a comfortable size estate with all of the amenities that life could afford at the time. Wanting to rid himself of such things as he finds it blasphemous to be so hypocritical, he plans to renounce his entire estate and personal belongings, including the rights to all of his written works to the Tolstoyan movement he founded that teaches passive resistance and social equality. Heading up that operation (and an almost cult-like convent residing just off the grounds of the main estate) is Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti). Tolstoy’s wife, played by the very fetching Dame Helen Mirren, lives on quite the opposite end of the political and social spectrum than her husband and believes that after 40 years of marriage and bearing 13 children, the money and personal belongings should stay within the family. Back handed political posturing, suspicion and spying between these two camps mount as Chertkov recruits young Tolstoyan “fantatic,” Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), to insinuate himself within Tolstoy’s life and gather all the information he can on The Countess. A side plot focusing on Valentin’s sexual maturation and exploration within the commune, comments on the hypocrisy and arguable absurdity of the entire movement.

    Not serious enough to be a real arthouse drama and not capricous enough to be considered a romp exactly, the only true amount of pleasure that can be derived from the film comes from the performances; most specifically those of Plummer and Mirren. It seems they’re given almost free reign to ham it up as much as possible and it is positively delightful. The pair’s Oscar nominations are no fluke as they’re actually able to transcend what would otherwise be a very mediocre (at best) film into something halfway interesting. Of course one can’t count out Giamatti’s mustache-curling, slippery, snake-like way of trying desperately to politically position himself into power under the guise of sympathy for Tolstoy’s works. While I normally enjoy McAvoy’s work, he’s a bit too corny and almost unnecessary in this particular picture. He does his best but in the end (through really no fault of his own) simply comes off as confused as to what he’s supposed to be doing in the picture – which one, I suppose, could argue is the essence of his character; but nonetheless is disengaging.

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