Author Archive

  • 22 Nov

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: Thirteen Days

    4
    Doomsday Movie Marathon
    Thirteen Days
    (4/5)

    No Doomsday marathon would be complete without a clenched-jaw nuclear showdown with the entire world hanging in the balance. And no nuclear showdown is quite as nerve-wracking as the Cuban Missile Crisis, if only because it actually happened. While too young to have lived through it, I still find a fascination with the deeply paranoid Cold War mindset if only because I recognize a glimmer of myself in it. Whether history repeats itself quite the way it happened in sixties America, the curse about living in interesting times feels shared between our two epochs.

    Adapted from Robert Kennedy’s memoir of the same name, Roger Donaldson’s Thirteen Days places us in the inner sanctum of the Kennedy Administration as a potential nuclear conflict builds between the Soviets and the U.S. The tagline for the film is ‘you’ll never believe how close we came’, and this is its chief draw, for while the audience already knows how the story ends, potentially robbing the storytellers of any suspense, it is what many do not know about the daily occurrences leading up to the standoff that makes for the resulting tension. One miscommunication or rash decision after another set the dominoes in motion, and it ends up being more luck and happenstance than strategy that ultimately helps ward off catastrophe.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 16 Nov

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: The Road Warrior

    4
    Doomsday Movie Marathon
    Mad Max 2
    (3.5/5)

    [Chris Edwards, who writes extensively about silent films on his blog, Silent Volume, has written the following review of The Road Warrior (a.k.a. Mad Max 2). To see the full programme click on the Doomsday header image above.]

    Sequels are like relay runners: when one film stops, it passes the baton of character, plot and possibility to the next film, which continues the journey. The world of the films stays consistent, familiar and the brand, to put it cynically, stays profitable. The director and screenwriter of the new film must account for what came before.

    Between Mad Max (1979) and Mad Max 2, however, there is no baton passed; merely a miming of it. There’s Mel Gibson, yes; there’s Aussie accents and the apparently battered remnants of Max’s creep-killing car from the first movie. But otherwise, this second Max occupies a world far more alien to our own. His past is trivia, illuminating nothing. And he occupies a true action film—well-done, but firmly part of its genre, from beginning to end. » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 09 Nov

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: Mad Max

    2
    Doomsday Movie Marathon
    Mad Max
    (4/5)

    [Chris Edwards, who writes extensively about silent films on his blog, Silent Volume, has written the following review of Mad Max, and will review the next two in the trilogy in the near future. To see the full programme click on the Doomsday header image above.]

    “A few years from now…’

    These words are powerful, so use them wisely, all you would-be directors of dystopian film. Put them onscreen right at the start, and buy yourself an hour of the audience’s good will. They’ll set aside their scepticism and give you a chance to make your future real. It is the future, after all—they’ve no more expertise about it than you.

    If you’ve got a GDP-sized budget, maybe your future looks like Minority Report (2002). That’s cool. And if you have no money, and a cast full of nobodies, like that Gibson fella who showed up for his audition hung over, well, then you can make the future look like a decaying wreck. It doesn’t hurt if you’re filming in rural Australia, which can be a real wasteland when you want it to. Put some bitching cars in there, too; they might boost your sales. You might even set a profit-to-cost record that’ll stand for 21 years. » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 30 Oct

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: Omega Man

    1
    Doomsday Movie Marathon
    Omega Man

    Honkies, spooks and eight-track tapes: Omega Man’s post-apocalyptic world is comically locked in the early seventies. Charlton Heston plays Dr Robert Neville, the seeming sole survivor of a virus outbreak who must contend with the infected, a vampire-like clan known as ‘the family’, while pursuing a last ditch effort to find a cure. The film is the second of three adaptations made of a sci-fi novella, wedged between Will Smith’s botched update I Am Legend and the 1964 original, Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price. Omega Man borrows heavily from the b-movie theatrics of Last Man on Earth, but while the Vincent Price vehicle appeared earnest in its attempt to convey horror, Omega Man is well aware of its campiness (at least I hope) and milks it with abandon. Those recently confused by M Night’s Shyamalan’s The Happening, need only look at Omega Man as a precedent for such a big industry released schlock-fest.

    It is easy to see why it took some thirty years for Warner Brothers to reboot this otherwise great concept franchise: Omega Man is cheap exploitation cinema that runs the gamut from silly biblical allegories to head-scratching blaxploitation caveats, and none of it has aged particularly well. It seems incredible that only a couple years separate this goofy Heston film and his more competent venture into sci-fi, Soylent Green. Like with The Happening, I have to believe Omega Man is entirely anachronistic, although some of the hit-you-over-the-head thematic points about science versus religion appear wincingly sincere at times, and maybe this makes apologists out of some for what is otherwise a shoddy mess of a film. » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 29 Oct

    Posted by


    Category

    The Doomsday Movie Marathon

    11
    Emergency Broadcast

    Hemorrhaging Financial Markets
    Rapidly Depleting Natural Resources
    Threat of Pandemic Disease
    Polar Ice Caps Melting
    An Apocalyptic Mayan Prophecy

    And thats BEFORE we even start our Doomsday Movie Marathon. For the next couple months Row Three will be ground zero for discussion on movies that embrace the paranoid and prophetic anxieties of doomsday scenarios. Such scenarios both fantastical and plausible offer us a glimpse into how, when stripped of our modern conveniences, we might fair, let alone survive, with only our wits to provide. Somewhere between Kevin Costner (a whopping 4 appearances in this batch) and Steve Guttenberg (The Day After), the truth doth lie.

    Some effort has been made to arrange this programme from as wide a variety of genres and time periods as possible while still staying true to this basic theme. More often than not, films were chosen not for pedigree so much as for for their potential as conversation-starters, films on the fringe of the familiar, or worthy of a second look. Brought together here is quite a mix of films including 90′s throwbacks to natural disasters, post-apocalyptic epics, some schlock science fiction, a couple art house musings, a few too-close-to-home geopolitical scenarios and an alarming amount of 80′s hair.

    From now until the end of the year, contributing writers of Row Three will watch and review films that in one way or another evoke the doomsday ethos. Part of this is a lead up to Roland Emmerich’s deliciously absurd 2012 and John Hillcoat’s masterpiece, The Road, both of which will also be reviewed as part of the marathon.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 25 Oct

    Posted by


    Category

    Chris Smith’s Collapse Trailer, Poster and Showtimes

    54
    Michael C Ruppert

    In an unprecedented move, Chris Smith’s alarmist documentary, Collapse, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last month without distribution, but by mid-November it shall be made available simultaneously both theatrically and via video on demand. The rationale for such a quick two-pronged approach is clear: the time to see this film is now, both the critical hype from its premiere and the urgency of its message (i.e the end of the Petroleum Man era and the titular collapse of modern civilization) makes any conventional delay less viable of an option. Journalist and former Los Angeles Detective, Michael C Ruppert, has been making accurate economic predictions since the early part of this decade, due in large part to his so-called ‘map’ of how the world actually works, particularly in lieu of the realities of Peak Oil. His thesis is bluntly unloaded on the audience in Smith’s film, barely affording them an opportunity to breathe. In the tradition of Fog of War and An Inconvenient Truth, Collapse is a documentary which appears to pull back the veil of lies and give a rare glimpse into how things actually work.

    It remains my favorite film of 2009, and you can read my TIFF review here

    The trailer gives a taste of what you are in for:


    Poster and Showtimes tucked under the seat:
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 26 Sep

    Posted by


    Category

    Screenshot Quiz to WIN DVD of Away We Go

    1

    David CronenbergIt has been awhile since our last screenshot quiz, and normally I am not the one providing the material, but in celebration of the dvd arrival of Sam Mendes’ Away We Go, I thought I would take a stab at outwitting the local cinephiles here with four screenshots in need of film titles. I thought these were fairly easy but when I tried it out on the R3 staff, to my surprise no one actually got them all. If it is any kind of clue, these are four films I recommend, so I guess that means they are high art.

    Courtesy of Marina we have a dvd copy of Away We Go to give away, a dose of Dave Eggers’ brilliance to tide us over until Where The Wild Things Are opens next month. For your chance to win this DVD copy of Away We Go just name the movie that each screenshot below is from and email me your answers. The submissions received with the most correct answers will be put into a hat and a winner drawn at random. Contest ends THIS TUESDAY evening (September 29th) at noon EST and the winner will be announced that evening.

    Comments are closed for this contest. You must email the answers to me. You can submit answers as many times as you like, but only your last entry will be counted (in other words you can change your mind if ever you feel like it).

    Good Luck!

    1)

    2)

    3)

    4)

  • 16 Sep

    Posted by


    Category

    TIFF09 Reviews: L’Enfer D’Henri-Georges Clouzot

    3
    L'Enfer

    NOTE: The following review was courteously contributed by Bob Turnbull (Eternal Sunshine of the Logical Mind)

    “You have to see your madness through“

    Somewhere late in Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea’s new documentary L’Enfer D’Henri-Georges Clouzot (about the famed director’s “lost” 1964 film L’Enfer), Clouzot himself states the above philosophy. It’s meant as a general approach artists should take with their work, but by this point in the story it feels more like a summation of both the main character arc from the aborted film as well as Clouzot’s own journey trying to make it. Clouzot’s script for L’Enfer is built around the obsessive jealousy of Marcel, a middle-aged, chisel-featured man married to a much younger and beautiful flirtatious woman. The main goal of the filmmaker was to try to visually render feelings of anxiety and neurosis. If nothing else, from the many clips of never before seen footage the documentary shares, it appears he would’ve succeeded on that point remarkably well.

    Clouzot had just started getting his cast ready and was about to begin helming the shoot when the studio gave him an unlimited budget. It probably shouldn’t require hindsight to realize that removing all financial controls from the dream project of a known meticulous and perfectionist director (qualities for which Clouzot was criticized by the New Wave directors) may not have been such a good idea. Using many present day interview subjects who worked on the film and behind the scenes footage, we get a good feeling of how things got away from Clouzot and why the entire production spun out of control. It’s a kind of Lost In La Mancha scenario wrought 40 years earlier (run-ins with star Serge Reggiani, the impending draining of a lake important to the film, Clouzot’s own physical collapse, etc.). There’s a goldmine of elements the directors pull from which leads to a somewhat jumbled affair, though still quite a propos for what must have been a chaotic and frustrating shooting period. » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 13 Sep

    Posted by


    Category

    TIFF09 Review: The Road

    6

    John Hillcoat's The Road

    Allow me to answer the question before it is asked: John Hillcoat’s The Road is as good an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel as we were ever going to get.

    Now before diving into the pleasurable minutiae of the film itself, this last sentence needs some unpacking. For me, Hillcoat’s The Road is inescapably viewed through the prism of the novel, the unprovoked visceral experience to be had free of any foreknowledge of the story is left for some other reviewer to describe. In virtually every beat of the story The Road onscreen stays loyal to the source material, and while thematically this is a very good thing, the adverse effect for me personally, is I cannot experience the film on its own terms. More to the point, considering the ambitions of both the novel and the film there is, I believe, an imposed ceiling on what a loyal cinematic retelling could ultimately achieve. Most would agree that a book has certain advantages over a film, but in this regard I am talking about something specific to this story and the chosen style. McCarthy, in his novel, jars the reader into a quite unique literary experience where the sparseness of description and minimalist gestures and use of language create an unease, almost claustrophobic space within which the drama of the story unfolds and each minute act takes on newfound monumentality because of this. The same novelty cannot adequately be achieved in cinema because experimentation of this kind has saturated the language of it, we have entire genres of film that push the boundaries of sparse minimalism, and relative to one’s exposure to these films, the experience can suffer for it. Hillcoat’s The Road does everything right in its ambition to stay true to the material, but its slavish devotion makes it still lesser in my eyes than the book because the effect of the style does not equally transfer between mediums.

    Whew. Now, the remaining four stars… » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 13 Sep

    Posted by


    Category

    TIFF 09 Review: Collapse

    266

    Collapse Chris Smith

    After watching Chris Smith’s latest documentary, Collapse, there is no going back: once seen its nearly impossible to forget.

    Despite its focus on the now commonplace concerns for modern society’s unsustainable growth, the film ignites the imagination in a way so few talking head documentaries ever achieve. At its core is Michael C Ruppert, CIA whistleblower and activist reporter, who, like a modern day Morpheus, pulls back the veil of reality to show in a stark light the underpinning make-believe that sustains our hope in a sustainable status quo. According to him, any perception of stability at present exists solely because those in power see no political advantage to alert the public of how dire the situation has become. Not even Obama can get you out of this one, he warns; this collapse runs deep and is inevitable, and it is happening right now. The effect is assaultive, in rapid-fire succession Ruppert unloads his thesis on the audience who are left to recoil as the gravity of the situation deepens. Lacking any familiarity with the issues of ‘peak oil’ prior to seeing this film, my alarm watching the movie was at an optimal high.

    In lieu of the director’s previous work, the comedic turns of American Movie and The Yes Men, Collapse, at least tonally, was an unexpected shift towards gravely sober realities (though I suspect his fictional movie, The Pool, may have softened the transition for me had I seen it). Instead of an amusing case study in left-wing conspiracy theory, the film plays it straight, calmly reasoning the inevitable breakdown of society as we know it. In a deliberate attempt to convey a first person interrogation with its subject, the film lingers in endless takes of Ruppert smoking (a very real Cancer Man of X-Files lore) as he bunkers enigmatically in a meat locker to tell his tale. Smith, to his credit, attempts to flesh out the character in his questioning, and at times we witness a less abrasive, more vulnerable portrait, but by and large the film exists to promulgate his message. » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 13 Aug

    Posted by


    Category

    TIFF 09: Hillcoat’s The Road, Amenabar’s Agora, and MORE Herzog!

    1

    Not since the double hit of Richard Linklater, with Tape and Waking Life, at the 2001 TIFF festival, has the opportunity to see more than one work by a favorite filmmaker at the same festival been granted, but this year its Werner Herzog x2 and I am absolutely giddy. This last batch of announcements for what is coming to the Toronto International Film Festival does not disappoint, and finally, finally, finally, the Row Three Cormac McCarthy Fan Club gets an opportunity to behold John Hillcoat’s adaptation of The Road (and its not a Gala!).

    Take a look at the full list, courtesy of the TIFF site

    GALAS

    Agora Alejandro Amenábar, Spain
    North American Premiere
    In the fourth century, while Egypt was under the Roman Empire, violent religious upheaval in the streets of Alexandria spills over into the city’s famous library. Trapped inside its walls, the brilliant astronomer Hypatia (Rachel Weisz) and her disciples fight to save the wisdom of the ancient world. Among the group are the two men competing for Hypatia’s heart: the witty, privileged Orestes and Davus, Hypatia’s young slave, who is torn between his secret love for her and the freedom he knows can be his if he chooses to join the unstoppable surge of the Christians.

    Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky Jan Kounen, France
    North American Premiere
    Igor Stravinsky premieres The Rite of Spring at the Theatre Des Champs-Elysées, in Paris 1913. Coco Chanel is in attendance and is mesmerized. But the revolutionary work, too modern and too radical, leads to boos and jeers from the enraged audience. Seven years later, now rich, respected and successful, Coco Chanel once again encounters Stravinsky, now a penniless refugee living in exile in Paris after the Russian Revolution. The attraction between them is immediate and electric. Following an offer from Coco, Stravinsky moves into her villa in the Garches to work, with his consumptive wife and children in tow. And so begins a passionate and intense love affair between two creative giants. » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 12 Aug

    Posted by


    Category

    Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles (Review and Trailer)

    2

    While we await word of a tangible release date, the promo trailer for Richard Linklater’s latest film, Me and Orson Welles, is making the rounds on the blogosphere. The decision in the cutting of the trailer to make it the Zac Efron show as a deliberate marketing strategy is I guess to be expected, since so few people know who Christian McKay is, and the Orson Welles factor is not nearly as magnetic a draw for wider appeal. Still, what, if anything, people are going to remember about this film is not Zac Efron, it will be Christian McKay as Orson Welles. I caught it at the Toronto International Film Festival last year so I speak from firsthand experience.

    Anyways take a look at the promo trailer (courtesy of First Showing), and visit the official website for a video clip that includes a little more of Christian McKay in character.

    Below I include my original TIFF review (which has since vanished on the site proper):

    (3/5)

    During the Q&A of his film Tape, Richard Linklater remarked that it took a lot for a story to grab him and that when mining literary material for cinematic possibilities he was particularly selective, looking for that new voice to make the filmmaking exercise worth doing. It was 2001, and he had just finished Tape and Waking Life, two unique projects that held firm to this principle. Had you asked me then of whom did I consider to be the five greatest directors still working, his name would have certainly come up. But something has changed, in me perhaps, but I feel it also in his more recent work, this palpable shift in principle, with certain projects that he has chosen clearly suggesting a disinterest in the ‘new voice’ he so fondly spoke of before. Films like Bad News Bears, Fast Food Nation, even School of Rock, and now added to the list, Me and Orson Welles. » Read the rest of the entry..

Page 5 of 9« First...«34567»...Last »