Haven’t read the book, don’t know anything about the story but I do know this comes from the same guy that wrote Fight Club. How do I know that you ask? It’s on the poster.
Can’t say I’m all that impressed though I do love the colours, but I think Andrew likes this one – just a hunch.
For your viewing pleasure, via the folks at Worst Previews, the poster for Clark Gregg’s adaptation of Choke starring the fabulous Sam Rockwell.
I really enjoy everything I’ve seen from this director even his guilty pleasures.
There is surprisingly little of substance out of Cannes regarding the redux version of Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux. Wkw’s original version never got the kind of love that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon did despite Ashes of Time riding the Hong Kong invasion back in the mid 1990s. It was the first modern star-studded high-brow art-wuxia film (The original template being perhaps King Hu’s 1969 A Touch of Zen), and has languished unloved on one of the worst collection of DVD encodes this side of Raise the Red Lantern. I mean, the copy I have looks like a 3rd generation VHS dub. Perhaps that is why there is not any in depth comparisons made between versions (compared to say Apocalypse Now), or maybe melancholy and brooding martial art epics do not get folks fired up when it shows up against the Indy IV juggernaut.
If Sony Pictures does not put this in the local art-house cinemas (Supposedly this fall), the brand-spankin’ shiny new DVD cannot arrive soon enough.
One sheet comes courtesy of Movie City News, where you can see a larger version.
As a new experiment here at RowThree, I thought it might be fun to every once in a while put a spotlight on a local theater in some part of the world that for one reason or another stands out above the rest in its area. Maybe this theater has really great seating. Maybe they sell popcorn on a stick. Maybe they feature only NC-17 rated films. Or maybe it’s as simple as great ambiance that is simply unparalleled. If you have a theater in your area you’d like to mention here at RowThree, feel free to contact me for more details.
For this inaugural posting, I’d like to point you in the direction of The Parkway Theater in southeast Minnepolis. Once a real hole in the wall that was hard to sit in for the mildew odor and the burned out seats that had your back stiff in about ten minutes, The Parkway has really come around in the last three or four months.
Attached to a Mexican restaurant (same owner), this theater allows its patrons to move from the noisy crowd of the bar, after a hearty meal, into the comfort of the theater without ever trampling through the cold wind and snow of a Minnesota winter. Better still, drinks and food from the restaurant are allowed into the screenings since all the money goes to the same place anyway. If you’d prefer not to enter the restaurant, soda, beer, margaritas and extremely tasty popcorn are all available at the concession stand (mmmm tequila).
While still in renovation, the theater is really coming along nicely and it’s apparent that when fully functional will look fabulous. The smelly curtains adorning the walls have been removed and local artists have painted huge murals featuring interpretations of the performing arts circa 1930-1940.
The front few rows of regular theater chairs have been recently removed and in their stead are large, leather love seats with tables big enough for drinks and food to comfortably rest upon. Mighty comfortable!
But the best thing about The Parkway is its new program director who has really taken the reins and given Minneapolis exactly what it needs: more truly independent film! While still showing some of the high profile Hollywood hits on the weekends, The Parkway shows late night cult films, an early morning kids movie series and during the summer, a “Home Grown Cinema Series” which shows only locally produced films from Minnesota. All of this plus student film seminars and even harder to find, rare screenings such as the Raiders of the Lost Ark remake (our review).
All of these things help make this little known gem of cinematic greatness in Minneapolis a new found joy where I’m sure more than a good chunk of my pay checks will be going in the foreseeable future.
For more details, quite an interesting history (used to be a skin flick theater and gorgeous architecture was discovered after removing the ceiling) and showtimes, check out their also recently renovated web site at www.theparkwaytheater.com.
Again, if there’s a theater in your area you’d like to spotlight, contact andrew@rowthree.com for more details.
Director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien (Three Times, Cafe Lumiere)
Writers: Hou Hsiao-Hsien, François Margolin
Producers: Kristina Larsen, François Margolin
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Simon Iteanu, Song Fang, Hippolyte Girardot, Louise Margolin, Anna Sigalevitch
MPAA Rating: NR
Running time: 114 min
I don’t mind a slow movie. In fact, quite often I’m in the mood for just that. A rainy Sunday night is the perfect time for such a film and is just what the doctor ordered. A time to revel in its lingering shots of beauty and take your time in enjoying an emotional story that evolves at a snail’s pace. The problem comes when A) you don’t get at all what you were expecting and B) said story is practically non-existent.
When the Criterion edition of The Red Balloon was released in late April of 2008, I got quite excited to pick up the DVD and reminisce on a childhood unfortunately long gone. At the same time, I got wind of a sort of modern remake or homage to the story starring Juliette Binoche. Well obviously I couldn’t have been happier. So off to the theater I went in search of a nostalgic retelling. Alas, not much further from the original film could a story get.
So much for the “There can be only one” sentiment.
The Hollywood Reporter has news that Summit Entertainment has picked up rights to remake the fantastic Highlander. The 1986 original film starred Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, an immortal Scottish swordsman blessed (or cursed) with immortality that is, until his head gets cut off.
Russell Mulcahy’s film is actually a really good sci-fi film but the franchise has experienced less than stellar returns over the last few years, namely because of poor performing sequels (they performed poorly for a reason). I didn’t discover Highlander with the film but rather with the popular TV series which starred Adrian Paul as Duncan MacLeod and over the years I’ve become a big fan of the Highlander mythology. I’m still waiting for another great installment in the now dormant franchise (yes, I’m pretending Highlander: The Source never happened) and though this isn’t exactly what I had in mind, I’m not completely adverse to the idea. It’s not like they can dig the franchise any further into the whole and frankly, this might just be what the universe needs to kick-start another 10 years of material. As far as I’m concerned, that’s not so bad.
All that said, I’m not completely sure how I feel about Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, Iron Man (our review) co-writers, taking pen to paper for the script but I’m hopeful they’ll do a good job of adapting the great source material.
So there we have it Highlander coming back to the big screen. The question now is who are they going to get to replace Lambert? Those are some pretty big shoes to fit. And beyond that, how about Sean Connery’s Ramirez? I just have one request: please, please, please leave the theme song alone! You can’t get any better than Queen’s “Princes of the Universe“.
One of last year’s most well received films was José Padilha’s Golden Berlin Bear winner Tropa de Elite (aka Elite Squad), a hard hitting police drama set in late 90′s Rio de Janeiro, just before the Pope’s visit.
General consensus is that the movie is pretty awesome so this next bit of news should come as no surprise. According to Yahoo!, Padilha has been tapped to direct a yet untitled action film for Warner Brothers.
With a story from apparent newcomer Jason Keller, the film will revolve around a Federal agent who “goes undercover in South America’s dangerous triborder area, described as a modern day Dodge City, trying to dismantle a terrorist funding network. The project was at one point titled “A Willing Patriot.”"
Further to that short story, there’s also a tidbit in there that producers hope to pair a big name American star in the lead role which suggests this is going to be an English language film. Interesting that they’re keeping the story in South America which should make it a little more attractive to South American fans of Padilha’s work.
I’m on board, even if I have yet to see any of Padilha’s work. Now I’m just curious to find out who they’re going to get to fill the title role. Are they going to go young inexperienced agent or old timer?
I‘m scratching my head. I really am.
First there was sad news that Timur Bekmambetov’s Dusk Watch had been placed on the back burner, that direct from Bekmambetov’s mouth, but according to some news kicking around from yesterday, it looks like the production might be going ahead after all.
Via Cinematical, there is a Screen Daily article discussing the future of the newly created Fox International Productions which is pumping money into productions internationally more specifically in Japan, Germany, Russia and India and mentioned in passing is news that FIP and “Russia’s Timur Bekmambetov is already in pre-production on Dusk Watch the third in his fantasy trilogy and will also produce an effects-driven movie for Fox which Panitch describes as “Independence Day in Moscow.”"
So out the window goes the initial idea that Dusk Watch would be a Hollywood production with English speaking stars, which suits me just fine, and also out the window is the idea that the film is on the back burner – again, this is fine by me – but I’m concerned that we’re getting such different information so close together. It makes sense to have this new film made in Russia, where the franchise has been extremely successful but I’m concerned about the mixed and completely different news stories floating around. Which is it really? My money is on this second and most recent story – which makes a load more sense.
Screen Daily’s story says that the film is already in pre-production though it doesn’t say whether Bekmambetov is on board to direct. Looking at the IMDb listing for the film, and we know how accurate IMDb is when it comes to project in production, he’s also on board to direct and considering his next North American project is a producing gig, everything seems to suggest that this new news could be accurate. We’ll have to wait and see but for now, I’ll happily get excited over the prospect of seeing Dusk Watch (retitled from Twilight Watch in 2009!
A few days back, Kurt posted a comment regarding Waltz with Bashir, an animated film which premiered at Cannes earlier this month. His comment at the time asked whether it could be the first big hit of Cannes and after seeing the trailer for the film, I would not be surprised if such was the case.
Written and directed by Ari Folman, the film is a documentary of Folman’s search for details about his experience in the military during the Lebanese war of 1982. He does so by speaking with old friends and visiting places which effectively cause the flooding of memories.
The film uses the rotoscoping technology which Richard Linklater used for both Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly in which a scene is shot, usually without backgrounds, and then animated. The result in Linklater’s films is certainly amazing but nothing as breathtaking when compared to Folman’s film which appears to be heavy on the yellows and black. There’s a load of information on the film’s official site about the process of creating the film.
This is not the first film to tackle the documentary genre with animation; last year we had Brett Morgen’s little seen but well received Chicago 10 but while I was only curious about seeing Morgen’s film, Folman’s seems that much more attractive and I’m hopeful it gets picked up for distribution.
Thanks to the nice folks at Twitch for the heads up on the Cannes promotional trailer which has been released as well as pointing the direction to the official site which has information on the making of the film, the filmmaker and a couple of other clips for your viewing pleasure.
Check out the trailer tucked under the seat!
It only took 20 years but Guy Maddin has finally hit the big time. Thanks to a tip from our friends at Quiet Earth, it’s come to my attention that Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain! will be the first of Maddin’s films to be added to the Criterion Collection. This move doesn’t surprise me much and frankly, I’m more surprised that it’s taken this long for it to happen but I guess the time was ripe.
From Criterion:
In the weird and wonderful super-cinematic world of Canadian cult filmmaker Guy Maddin, personal memory collides with movie lore for a radical sensory overload. This eerie excursion into the Gothic recesses of Maddin’s mad, imaginary childhood is a silent, black-and-white comic science-fiction nightmare set in a lighthouse on grim Notch Island, where fictional protagonist Guy Maddin was raised by an ironfisted, puritanical mother. Originally mounted as a theatrical event (accompanied by live orchestra, foley artists, and assorted narrators), Brand upon the Brain! is an irreverent, delirious trip into the mind of one of current cinema’s true eccentrics.
It’s a pretty wacky but immensely entertaining film and one I’m happy to have caught on the big screen, even if I didn’t get the chance to see with with the live narration, but worry not, Criterion has fixed that to the best of their abilities. The DVD includes some great extras:
Crack open those wallets folks! The film will be released on August 12th and is available for pre-order for the whopping cost of $31.96. Sounds like a bargain to me!
This actress is captured beautifully in the sunset. Strange her career never went much beyond this film.
