In a pre-youtube age, Ethan Mather made a series of smile-worthy and observative mini-films called simply “Sodapop.” For each under-a-minute-in-length film, the gag was that of someone opening a can of soda in the auteur stylings of multiple different directors (Woody Allen, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese). Taking the same concept, more than a decade later, and applying to the Superbowl broadcast, is this winner of a video from director Andrew Bouvé, featuring Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Jean-Luc Godard, and Werner Herzog.

Hattip to MovieCityIndie. Video is tucked under the seat.

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You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not at my best,
I been gone for a week, I been drunk since I left;
And these so-called vacations will soon be my death,
I’m so sick from the drink, I need home for a rest.

While the lead character rarely seems to get intoxicated he sure gets his fill of the absurdities of social interaction. Daytime Drinking, a sly, if slightly overlong, South Korean indie plays as if Ricky Gervais wrote a remake of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and envisioned it as loopy road trip. The fact that the film goes nowhere is a strength, not a weakness, as it allows for a string of co-incidences and the various social awkwardness that goes along with meeting strangers twice or three times at different places on the same weekend for no particular reason. Here, performing the duty, as it has for thousands of years, booze (and to a lesser extent, cigarettes) functions as the social lubricant for any encounter. Whether it be a few friends commiserating at a bar, or a random encounter at a bus stop, there is not much to say or do except pour, drain, repeat. This is the cosmic joke on Hyuk-Jin who suffering from being splits-ville with his girlfriend, and with whom we follow over the course of the film. It is a bit of a joke on the audience as well, because The opening 30 minutes or so might be a bit of a challenge for the viewer to acclimatize to first-time filmmaker Young-Seok Noh’s particular worldview.

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“Shorts Program” is a semi-regular column highlighting a short film that is well worth your time. If you have a short film you would like to share, drop us a line at marina@rowthree.com.

Idiocracy ain’t got nuthin’ on this!

Logorama, which could take home an Oscar next month, probably takes the vulgarity prize (in both language and aesthetic) and would very likely make Naomi Klein (author of No Logo) cry. Along with Klein, probably a few brand managers and intellectual property lawyers. The creators are equal opportunity offenders! The ’story,’ such that it is, follows Ronald McDonald on an OJ like cop chase through a cartoon Los Angeles where every person, building and car is constructed out of corporate logos. Yes, you can get lost just looking at background insanity, or follow a couple of Micheline Men cops trying to gun down old Ronnie and save Big Boy, the Pringles Guy and a cute Esso-gal. The animators here are having a blast, even though their symbols may be obvious (uh, kinda the point!), the energy and mayhem is infectious. Not just products and services, but film fonts and symbols, environmental groups and everything under the sun (even the open source Linux Penguin!) gets tarred and feathered with a broad brush which, appropriately is structured and executed like a modern Hollywood Blockbuster. Surely the collapse of the Western world is happening due to copyright-gone-wild and capitalist cannibalism. (Fun Fact: David Fincher, who also laid the satirical smack down on capitalism and violence in 1999s Fight Club is voice of the Pringles Man and Seven screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker is also lending his voice to the proceedings.)

Logorama was (of course!) made and produced by an ad firm, the French H5 Design Collective and directed by François Alaux. The entire 16 minute short is tucked under the seat. Enjoy!

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Last year’s Oscar hopeful, Anne Hathaway, took to the stage this morning in the heart of Tinsel Town to bestow upon us the ten nominations for the best films of the year along with some of their corresponding awards including best actor and best actress. The Hurt Locker (as expected) was the front runner of the morning, garnering nine nods, including best picture, best director (Kathryn Bigelow) and best actor in Jeremy Renner. So too went Avatar with nine nominations as well. Close behind, it looks like Quentin Tarantino should soon get some much deserved love with eight nominations for Inglourious Basterds.

It’s unfortunate that I don’t see any nods for Where the Wild Things Are. Not one. The beasts deserved at least a set design or cinematography nomination. Blasphemous. While it looks like the only major surprise was the nomination of The Blind Side for best picture (which many thought might go to Invictus or maybe even The Road), everything else was pretty much as predictable as Old Faithful.

So take a look at the nominations below. See anything interesting (Penelope three years in a row!)? Who was snubbed (Marion Cotillard)? What is getting undeserved attention (Harry Potter)? And what in the hell is The Secret of Kells?

 
BEST MOTION PICTURE
An Education
A Serious Man
District 9
Up
Up in the Air
Avatar
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
The Blind Side

DIRECTOR
Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)
James Cameron (Avatar)
Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)
Lee Daniels (Precious)

ACTOR
Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
George Clooney (Up in the Air)
Colin Firth (A Single Man)
Morgan Freeman (Invictus)
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)
Woody Harrelson (The Messenger)
Christopher Plummer (The Last Station)
Matt Damon (Invictus)

ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia)
Carey Mulligan (An Education)
Gabourey Sibide (Precious)
Helen Mirren (The Last Station)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Mo’Nique (Precious)
Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air)
Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air)
Penelope Cruz (Nine)
Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart)

ANIMATED FEATURE
Up
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Coraline
The Secret of Kells
The Princess and the Frog

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Lawrence of Arabia, playing Monday at 11pm on TCM

This is February, which means Oscars are coming up, which means TCM has launched into their annual 31 Days of Oscar lineup, meaning every film they play in the month of February has been at least nominated for an Academy Award. Now, that could mean it was nominated for Best Costume Design in 1937, but hey. Generally it means a fairly high overall quality of programming, and a number of films they don’t play very often the rest of the year.

Monday, February 1

8:55am – Sundance – Metropolitan
If Jane Austen made a movie in 1990 and set it among entitled Manhattan socialites, this would be it. The film follows a group of such entitled teens from party to party, focusing especially on the one outsider, a boy from the blue-collar class who has to rent a tux and pretend he likes to walk to avoid letting his new friends know he has to take the bus home. Though they find out soon enough, they keep him around because his intellectual nattering amuses them. In fact, it’s quite amazing that this film is interesting at all, given the amount of pseudo-intellectual nattering that goes on, from all the characters. But from start to finish, it’s both entertaining and an incisive look at the American class structure.
1990 USA. Director: Whit Stillman. Starring: Edward Clements, Chris Eigeman, Carolyn Farina, Taylor Nichols, Dylan Hundley.
(repeats at 3:40pm and 10:30pm, and 5:45pm on the 6th)

8:00pm – TCM – Funny Girl
Barbra Streisand tied Katharine Hepburn, no less, to win an Oscar for her role as Ziegfeld comedienne Fanny Brice. I’m neither a big Brice fan nor a big Streisand fan, so I haven’t seen it, but maybe I’ll get around to it one day.
1968 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Kay Medford, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon.

11:00pm – TCM – Lawrence of Arabia
Most epics are over-determined and so focused on spectacle that they end up being superficial – all big sets and sweeping music with no depth. The brilliance of Lawrence of Arabia is that it looks like an epic with all the big sets and sweeping music and widescreen vistas, but at its center is an enigmatic character study of a man who lives bigger-than-life, but is as personally conflicted as any intimate drama has ever portrayed.
1962 UK. Director: David Lean. Starring: Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Jose Ferrer.
Must See
Newly Featured!

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If there was any question in your mind that The Hurt Locker wouldn’t win this year’s Oscar race for both best picture and best director, you best quench your mind of any of those misconceptions right now. For weeks, we’ve been watching as The Hurt Locker and its director Kathryn Bigelow have pretty much swept the floor with all of the competition at critics and industry awards across the country. And last night at The Director’s Guild of America awards ceremony, Bigelow became the first female to ever win the award for best director; beating out James Cameron for Avatar, Lee Daniels for Precious, Jason Reitman for Up in the Air and Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds. A landmark achievement to be sure.

What makes the win a little bit more exciting is the fact that since 1948, the recipient of the DGA award goes on to win the Oscar every time in all but six years. No woman has ever won best director at the Oscars and only three have ever been nominated: Lina Wertmüller for 1976’s Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for 1993’s The Piano and Sofia Coppola for 2003’s Lost in Translation. So as of now it looks extremely likely that we’ll see history happen as Bigelow will take home the trophy for Best Director; which means a probable shoe-in for Best Picture. Start placing your bets now.

full winners list of the DGA awards is below the seats…
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Terence Stamp has the ability to play a hard-edge mo-fo like any of the best of cockney slanged gangsters, but he also brings a goofiness, a loose charm, and sly wit to his performances that make for a unique performances. Bringing exactly this to the table in Stephen Frears’ 1984 gangster picture, The Hit, Stamp plays a mid level operator, Willie Parker, who for reasons known only to himself (well, there is the matter of the witness relocation program ponying up a villa in Spain for his retirement) sells all of his mates and bosses to the state. Ten years later, in the barren Spanish desert, Willie is captured by Braddock, a smooth and super-cool professional killer tasked, along with wet behind the ears henchman Myron (played by a baby-faced Tim Roth), to bring Willie back to ‘justice’ from the blokes now out of the clink.

But this road trip from Madrid to Paris is anything but typical, much of the time it seems Willie is more in charge and in control of things than Braddock. His Zen calm at his decidedly limited number of hours on earth spooks Braddock and threatens Myron’s loyalty to his boss. In this scene, Braddock and Parker have a little existential and poetic heart to heart at fate and loyalty and professionalism. John Hurt’s performance as the subdued yet quite confused jobber is quite wonderful. Other than The Criterion Collection re-releasing this wonderfully offbeat film on DVD in April last year, it was more or less forgotten amongst Frears’ more famous works; yet very likely it is one of those little seen, but highly influential pictures. Evoking the effortless cool also seen in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs – another film about heists and gangsters yet little violence or crime on screen as well as the past-coming-to-roost of Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast (a film also set in the bleached Spanish desert and very much likely also influencing Stephen Soderbergh (I’d be willing to bet The Hit had much as of an influence on the film as more explicitly referenced Poor Cow in The Limey) and Jim Jarmusch, it is a real gem. Long live the Art-Gangster film.

Continuing on with our new regular feature, this is a few movies theatrically released a year ago that we thought worthy of some attention for one reason or another. These films are likely available on DVD by now, so catch up with them (or don’t as the case might be) when you can.

Not every week is going to offer up something spectacular (or anything at all possibly), but it is what it is. Take a look.

Taken
- Cinecast review
- Top 10 Cinecast

The Class
- Andrew’s review
- Top 10 Cinecast

Serbis
(Here’s one I can’t find much about in the R3 archives, but it looks interesting. If you’ve seen it, let us know about it in the comment section.)
- IMDb
- Metacritic

 
Other potentially interesting posts at RowThree that week (30th – Feb 5th):
Short film: The Soul Detective (featuring David Lynch)
Review: My Bloody Valentine (we actually reviewed this!?)
Christian Bale goes berserk
Lineup for SXSW 2009
Review: Ballast
Is The Road ever coming out? (pics)

Director: Steven Soderbergh (The Girlfriend Experience, Traffic, Che, Bubble, Full Frontal, Sex Lies and Videotape, The Informant!)
Writer: George Nolfi (Timeline, The Sentinel)
Producer: Jerry Weintraub
Starring: Clooney, Pitt, Cheadle, J. Roberts, Mac, Gould, Garcia, Damon, S. Caan, C. Affleck, Zeta-Jones
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running time: 125 min.

First viewing (2004):
(2.5/5)

Rewatch (2010):
(1.5/5)

Steven Soderbergh has been my absolute favorite living director for some time now. It seems that in my eyes, everything he touches shines like the contents of Marsellus Wallace’ briefcase. So it’s always been with some trepidation that I bring up the only title in his filmography that I’ve always regretted watching: the second in his “Ocean’s” franchise: Ocean’s 12. The last time I had seen the picture was when it was released theatrically back in 2004. I remember being quite upset as I left the theater; not really understanding what I’d just seen and being a little miffed at why it wasn’t nearly as good as the previous film. I’ve been bad mouthing the film ever since without ever giving it a second look. Having matured in my cinematic tastes and now better able to understand where and why the visceral reactions come from me the way they do from a film, I decided it was only fair to give the only dark spot in my Soderbergh repertoire of knowledge a second chance and see if my memory serves or if this was just a film I didn’t get at the time.

This sequel starts off just about where the previous left off. Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) has located the Ocean gang and has given them two weeks to return all of the money they stole from him or they will die horrible, slow deaths by his hand. Since much of the money has been spent already and the crew is too hot to work in the States, to save their necks they head off to Europe to start a series of heists designed to make back the money they had already squandered. Upon arriving in Europe, they find that another thief, The Night Fox (Vincent Cassel), is always one step ahead of them; stealing what they want before they do. And to make matters even more intolerable and desperate, an American investigator (Zeta-Jones) is hot on their tale and unknowingly closer to them than she realizes as she is involved in a romance with the Brad Pitt character. The tale twists as The Night Fox proposes a challenge to the Ocean’s: snag an “impossible to steal” jeweled egg before he does and he’ll win their freedom from Benedict. And so the caper begins… sort of.

**SPOILERS TO FOLLOW**
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(4/5)

[Future screenings I have been told are coming in a few weeks to Toronto, for other locations visit their site for details. Also check out the trailer at the end of this post. For regulars, I am convinced Adam Scott is Jay Cheel's onscreen alter ego, or could at least play him if Film Junk: The Movie ever takes off.]

Sadly, I missed Matt Bissonnette’s independent comedy, Passenger Side, at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival due to scheduling conflicts, but was able to catch it as part of this month’s Top Ten Canadian films of 2009, sponsored by TIFF, playing at the Cinematheque Ontario. Set in the greater Los Angeles area, in style and tone reminiscent of American independent greats like Two Lane Blacktop and Slackers, and with nary a Tragically Hip song to be heard, Passenger Side is a curious ‘Canadian’ film indeed. It is not until the name Theodore is dropped near the end of the movie (context momentarily withheld) that a knowing nod is made as to our heroes’ expatriate status. Though slight, there is something quintessentially Canadian in their absurdly deadpan views of each other and the world around them; as the title would suggest, they coast as passengers, lives and places kept at arms length from them.

THEY are brothers, Tobey and Michael, and this is a road movie, though more accurately, a slacker road movie, the distance travelled more circular than directional, more detours than destinations (a kind of West Coast Waiting For Godot). Their relationship, too, goes in fits and starts, bickering with a level of wit rarely encountered outside of a Tarantino screenplay, Olympic-grade verbal fencing at its finest. At times the clever quotient overburdens the narrative, but mostly its so damn funny that the indulgences are warranted. In between barbs, a crisis of sibling communication brews. You feel the history of the brothers in the very first ‘fuck off’ phone call. Tobey is the black sheep of the family, and yet the least hostile, as Michael, a noted Luddite and wallflower, plays offensive to a prior rift that makes this daytrip all the more awkward. The purpose of the trip is slowly revealed and the payoff at the end is both unexpected and fulfilling. Read the rest of this entry »

The Ladykillers, playing on TCM on Monday at 3:15pm

We were just speaking about The Ladykillers in the comments of a recent Film on TV post, and here it is, playing on TCM on Monday. It’s like they’re reading our minds. Not a lot of other newly featured stuff, though I did throw in some lower-level MGM musicals. Because I like musicals. And I can. Still a lot of great stuff among the repeats, and a lot of variety, too.

Monday, January 25

3:15pm – TCM – The Ladykillers
One of the most delightful of the Ealing comedies, with Alec Guinness leading a bunch of crooks (including a young Peter Sellers) whose bankrobbing plans get flustered by an unlikely old lady.
1955 UK. Director: Alexander Mackendrick. Starring: Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers.
Must See
Newly Featured!

Tuesday, January 26

7:05pm – IFC – Blow Out
Sound man John Travolta is recording sound samples one night, and may have accidentally recorded a murder occurring. As he tries to investigate, he’s drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. Inspired to some degree by Antonioni’s photography-based Blow-Up, but this is definitely DePalma’s film all the way.
1981 USA. Director: Brian DePalma. Starring: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz.

8:00pm – Sundance – Oldboy
Ultra-violent revenge films don’t get much better than this. A man is inexplicably locked up in a room for several years then just as inexplicably released, at which point he seeks revenge. A bloody and at times disturbing film, but with an underlying thoughtfulness that sets it apart.
2003 Korea. Director: Park Chan-Wook. Starring: Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-jeong Kang.
(repeats at 3:10am on the 27th)

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The Sundance Film Festival has been an independent film institution for years, but for the first time, even if you can’t get to Park City, you can still experience the joys of discovering new and exciting films through a new partnership between Sundance Selects, the new video-on-demand film label, and the Sundance Institute.

 
Sundance Selects and the Sundance Institute are collaborating to bring films from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival to a national audience for the first time via an on-demand platform, giving film lovers coast-to-coast the opportunity to experience a major film festival as it happens right from their own living room. As part of the “Direct From the Sundance Film Festival” initiative, a select group of three films screening at the festival will simultaneously be available in 40 million homes–and virtually all major U.S. markets–nationwide on-demand through the Sundance Selects VOD label. The films in the partnership represent the broad range of cinematic expression found in this year´s festival, from a highly anticipated documentary, to a thrilling Park City at Midnight title, and a critically acclaimed comedy.

It’s a bold move, because being available in 40 million homes and being downloaded in them are two different things. As festival publicists point out, this is a defining moment for a new decade of independent film, giving emerging and established filmmakers new models to explore outside the standard distribution system, and what happens here could determine the future of independent films.

Here are the three films that will be available:

NAOMI KLEIN´S “THE SHOCK DOCTRINE” DIRECTED BY MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM AND MAT WHITECROSS
Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross´ eye-opening socio-political documentary “The Shock Doctrine” will make its North American premiere simultaneously at the festival and on-demand on Thursday, January 28. Closely based on the best-selling book by Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine” seeks to explain the rise of disaster capitalism: the exploitation of moments of crisis in vulnerable countries by governments and big business. The film traces the doctrine´s beginnings in the radical theories of Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, and its subsequent implementation over the past 40 years in countries as disparate as Augusto Pinochet´s Chile, Boris Yeltsin´s Russia, Margaret Thatcher´s Great Britain, and most recently through the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Winterbottom and Whitecross present a cinematic experience that takes this theory to a new audience, making heavy use of archival images, offset with new footage of Klein’s interviews.

“DADDY LONGLEGS” FROM THE SAFDIE BROTHERS
Making its North American premiere on Friday, January 22nd is “Daddy Longlegs” (formerly known as “Go Get Some Rosemary”), Josh and Benny Safdie´s autobiographical fairy tale and bittersweet comedy about the responsibilities of parenthood. Divorced and alone, Lenny (Ronald Bronstein) is the father of two young boys who he gets to see a couple of weeks a year. He cherishes these days with the kids, being both stern parent and lovable buddy, inventing myths and somehow living them, all while working overtime in the big city. When the going gets tough, Lenny uses some unusual, perhaps even hazardous, techniques to keep the kids safe from the world. With a fluid style, the Safdie brothers (whose previous credits include the acclaimed “The Pleasure of Being Robbed”) capture the magic of parenthood, invoking memories of their inventive dad from their own childhood.

PARK CITY AT MIDNIGHT´S “7 DAYS”
Making its World Premiere on Friday, January 22nd, as part of the Park City at Midnight program, Daniel Grou´s dark and gritty “7 DAYS” (based on the best-selling novel from Patrick Senecal, known as the Stephen King of Canada) centers on a successful surgeon whose world is torn apart by the murder of his eight-year-old daughter. The father embarks on a quest for revenge against the perpetrator of this heinous crime, and in a game of cat and mouse with the police detectives assigned to the case, he successfully kidnaps the accused murderer as he is transported to the courthouse. With the roles now reversed, this father-turned-predator drives his prey to a remote cabin, where seven days of unspeakable torture await. He even keeps the police apprised of his plan, vowing to turn himself in after the execution of this alleged monster. Director Daniel Grou aka Podz does a masterful job of immersing the audience in this dark and gritty world, deftly capturing the psyche of a sane man gone mad. “7 DAYS” is an eye-for-an-eye tale that is chock-full of tension, suspense, and inner conflict.