Posts Tagged ‘Film’

  • 05 Feb

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    Sunday Bookmarks

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    • Errol Morris’s continuing series of Microdocs for the NYT: Eating Champion ‘El Wingador’
      “El Wingador is a man truly committed to a certain kind of excellence — or at least, a certain kind of excess. Sure, I could have picked a different eating champion, but I guess I have an affinity for chicken. It is evident that chicken is his favorite competition food — particularly chicken wings. I asked him, “Why not hot dogs?” The simple and compelling answer: “Hey, my name is ‘El Wingador,’ not ‘El Hotdogador.’ ” A New Jersey native, he is the five-time champion of the Wing Bowl and has come out of retirement to compete once again this year.”

    • Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi: Why Digital is Far Superior to Film

      Gamble on Celluloid vs. Digital in the projection booth: “Cinephiles cry out about the loss of film citing the lower picture quality and the dangerous precedent set on the levels of their oh so precious film grain, but frankly, after being in the film exhibition business (i.e. movie theatres, for those unencumbered by the burden of industry jargon) for over a decade, I see digital as a welcome upgrade. And in some instances, a god damn savior. Here’s why.”

    • Wolves in Sheep Clothing (Genre as Sartorial Satire): Robin Hardy talks the Legacy of The Wicker Man the Timing of The Wicker Tree, and 40 years of History
      While The Wicker Tree got only the tiniest of Theatrical releases from Anchor Bay last week, here is Kurt Halfyard and Michael Guillen in a lengthy (over an hour) conversation with director Robin Hardy, who is not shy with his opinions on the world and politics.

    • John Anderson sits down for a chat with the legendary Douglas Trumbull
      “When the special-effects whiz and director Douglas Trumbull receives a special Oscar on Saturday — the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for filmmakers “whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry” — it could be taken as a valedictory tribute, the cap on a career that began with Stanley Kubrick and “2001: A Space Odyssey” and includes a best-picture nominee this year, “The Tree of Life.” But Mr. Trumbull, 69, is hardly finished with his contributions.”

    • Josh Fox Arrested on Capitol Hill While Filming ‘Gasland’ Sequel
      “According to Politico, Fox was led out in handcuffs before the hearing began while shouting, “I’m within my First Amendment rights, and I’m being taken out.” Fox’s “Gasland” took on oil and gas companies for their policy of using hydraulic fracturing to obtain fuel from underneath layers of otherwise unpenetrable rock. The process has been accused of contaminating drinking water in rural mid-Atlantic towns, and Fox’s film is famous for showing residents set fire to the water coming out of their kitchen sinks. He was in the Capitol shooting a follow-up.”

    • Cafe de Flore comes out on DVD in a couple weeks, here is Joseph Belanger talking to Jean-Marc Vallée
      “While I flat out refuse to divulge what exactly the connection is between these vastly different plots, I will say that a simple song connects them on screen and that song also served as the filmmaker’s inspiration for the entire film. The name of that song? Why, “Café de flore”, of course. When he first heard the Doctor Rockit song, Vallée thought, “It’s so epic. I’m going to make a film with this track.” And so the movie is built around this song as well as a general appreciation for music itself. This aspect of the film is the director’s most autobiographical. “Music makes me feel so good, makes me feel alive, makes me dream, makes me want to make movies,” Vallée asserts right before he starts humming the catchy accordion hook from the film’s title track to me.”

    • The Hulk Persona writes (shouts) an open letter to NBC on the necessity for saving COMMUNITY
      “WE SOMETIMES FORGET THAT PART. BRANDS, NETWORKS, AND INDIVIDUAL SHOWS HAVE AN ETHEREAL, YET INESCAPABLY-PRESENT CACHET. AS MUCH AS SOME NETWORKS SEEM TO BE AT ODDS WITH THIS CONCEPT AT TIMES, THE TRUTH IS THAT THEY SPEND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TRYING TO CREATE AN IDENTITY. SO OF COURSE IT MATTERS. BUT WHY IS NETWORK IDENTITY SO NECESSARY? FOR LONG-TERM BUSINESS EFFECTS, OF COURSE. HECK, BRAND IDENTITY IS THE ONE THING THAT A NETWORK CAN RELY ON IN THE EVER-CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF TELEVISION.”

  • 21 Jul

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    Fantasia Review: You Are Here

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    Here is an experiment. Take the name of six colours, write them in random order several times using a coloured pen that does not match the name of the colour. Time yourself reading this list of colours. Write the same list of colours using only black ink and time yourself reading the list. The mind works in strange ways, and has trouble if preconceived associations to familiar things or objects get too close to one another. Daniel Cockburn, a Toronto video artist, has just made a wild and crazy jump into features with a film-slash-brain-experiment that wants to perform a witty and colourful brain massage. While he offers various lessons in how it works, he wants to play with your cerebellum in a similar manner way that nuts and bolts of of film projection works. POV is not only an acronym for point of view, but also stands for ‘Persistence of Vision.’ As shutters push single frames in a particular motion through a film projector to form the illusion of movement on a white (or silver) screen to your brain. We will ignore the contradiction that he mainly shoots on video, which operates in slightly different act of perceptual illusion. Contradictions are what the film is about.

    Cockburn wants to expand your consciousness or provide the illusion of expanding your consciousness or expand your consciousness while providing the illusion that he has not. You Are Here. The statement is both a location as well as a confirmation of existence. Different things, really. The red dot that defines your location on the map can be just as much of a misleader as a guide. The meaning of the film goes beyond the dual-nature of the title into something that is both profound and profoundly funny. It is science. It is art. It is absurd and hilarious sleight-of-hand. It is an ultra lo-fi version of Inception in which the filmmakers might as well be Leonardo Di Caprio and company (in shabbier clothing mind-you) and the audience are simultaneously the beneficiary of planted ideas and the mark of a baffling grift. A film festival catalogue once labeled You Are Here as Dr. Seuss meets Samuel Beckett, and I cannot really argue with that. It is an apt a description as you are going to get without telling you much. When it ended after an all too brief 75 minutes, I was upset. I wanted to see how many more times the filmmakers could fold their narrative in upon itself while keeping me in its spell. Riding the waves of this film before they collapsed is one of its cardinal pleasures. Like any good performer, Cockburn knows to keep the audience wanting more. Either that or everyone involved narcotics, money or the ability to keep a hold of the reigns of their ambitions. I am sure the director will never tell.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 15 Apr

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    M-SPIFF 2011 Review: The Troll Hunter

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    Director: André Øvredal
    Writer: André Øvredal
    Producers: Sveinung Golimo, John M. Jacobsen
    Starring: Otto Jespersen
    Country of Origin: Norway
    MPAA Rating: NR
    Running time: 90 min.

    (4/5)

     

    The Minneapolis Film Festival is not exactly known for their genre fare. Though on opening night of 2011, they kicked that myth right out of the way big time with The Troll Hunter, a Cloverfield-like romp through the beautiful countryside of Norway where menacing trolls lurk through the forest at night waiting to pick off anyone unfortunate enough to cross paths with the beast(s).

    Shot in a veritae, found footage style, the picture reminds very much of something like The Blair Witch project in that it is a student film crew wandering and running for their lives through the woods. The film is not scary in the slightest. It’s got excitement and thrills but if it’s terror you’re looking for this ain’t your movie. It’s more like a Jurassic Park thrill ride than anything else. Though lots of comparisons to many great films could be drawn, The Troll Hunter very much has it’s own unique vibe and subject matter. We’ve seen vampires, zombies and werewolves thousands of times over the past 30 years, but I can’t remember seeing (or even hearing about) any movie that tackles the troll mythology like this one does. And no, Troll 2 does not count.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 25 Mar

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    VOD Review: Takashi Miike’s 13 ASSASSINS

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    [With it's United States VOD debut today, it seems fitting to revisit Kurt's TIFF review of Takashi Miike's wonderfully macho, wonderfully bloody, and simply wonderful, oldschool Samurai film.]
     

    Takashi Miike doing Akira Kurosawa? Yes Please! 13 Assassins is not the goofy homage to Sergio(s) Leone and Corbucci that Sukiyaki Western Django was. Japan’s most hard to pin down auteur re-invents himself once again to offer a mainstream audience an earnest and restrained look at vintage Samurai cinema with all the honour and fighting against all odds offered by classics like The Seven Samurai. Sure Kurosawa’s masterpiece did not have amputees or large beasts of burden running on fire, so there are touches of the director in the margins, but mostly you have some of the most handsome cinematography in a Japanese picture in ages, and a scope and scale that is much further beyond what most would expect from a Miike film. How amazing that a director so prolific can manage to keep his pace for surprises! Normally, when oddball auteurs like David Cronenberg or Peter Jackson do a slick studio picture, a small part of me laments for their wilder more uncouth days. In this case, the results are too damn magnificent to ignore.

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  • 06 Mar

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    Sunday Bookmarks (Double Digest: Feb. 21-Mar. 6)

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    • The Sitges Festival And Director Angel Sala Charged with EXHIBITION OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY for Screening A SERBIAN FILM
      “A Serbian Film is shocking and extreme cinema and designed to be so. But child porn? That is absolutely ridiculous – the scene that tends to get people worked up occurring entirely offscreen with the violence implied and not actually depicted – and I can only hope that the courts recognize it as such and throw the case out.”

    • Process of Blockbuster Sale objected to by Disney, Universal, landlords, U.S. trustee and others
      Other studios that have said in court documents they are owed millions of dollars for products shipped since September include Universal, 20th Century Fox and Summit Entertainment. Several of the objecting parties, including the U.S. trustee, argued in court papers that instead of seeking a buyer, Blockbuster should be forced into Chapter 7, a liquidation of all its assets. That would mark a dramatic end to a company that less than a decade ago dominated the U.S. DVD and VHS rental market.

    • 52 Most Iconic Use of Pop Songs in Movies
      Who hasn’t heard a familiar pop song on the radio only to be transported back to the film that featured it? You probably never even paid a second thought, let alone liked that particular song before it became associated with that cinematic sequence. Yet, it was such a perfect complement to that one moment in the movie that you now know the lyrics by heart. In honor to that fleeting but powerful connection between music and film, we count down 52 of the most iconic pop songs in movies.

    • If There Were an Oscar for Film Titles
      Saul Bass on Film Titles: “My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film’s story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would have an emotional resonance with it.”

    • A History of Choose Your Own Adventure
      From the start, the books were full of innovative page hacks. Readers would be trapped in the occasional time loop, forced to flip back and forth between two pages. Most memorable was Inside UFO 54-40, a book in which the most desired outcome, discovering the Planet Ultima, could only be achieved by readers who cheated and flipped through the book until they reached the page on their own. At that point, the book congratulated the reader for breaking the rules.

    • Playing With the Truth: Film in 2010
      AIf I were to ask you to imagine the sinking of the Titanic, what images come to your mind? What about Roman gladiator fighting in the Colosseum? What do you picture when you think of John Smith and Pocahontas, or the Zodiac killer who terrorized San Francisco, or the fate of United Flight 93, or the storming of Omaha Beach on D-Day? You see where I’m going with this: for many people, films based on true events serve as the primary influence on the subconscious in remembering or imagining those events.

    • The Best Picture Nominees And Their Video Games Counterparts
      Welcome to our very own version of the Academy Awards, where we’ve paired a recent game with the same dramatic aspirations, themes, or capital D drama as each of the ten best picture nominees. We’ve also picked an Oscar-worthy scene from each, proving once and for all that games belong on the red carpet as much as the next sighing starlet.

     
     

    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:

     

  • 14 Feb

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    Review: Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project

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    I remember when I was attending university in Waterloo, Ontario back in 1993 and going to the Princess repertory cinema for a screening of The Advocate. This was a strange little film about a lawyer defending a pig (on murder charges) a court of law in 15th Century rural France. The lawyer was played by none other than Colin Firth, and he is admirably supported by Ian Holm, Donald Pleasence, Nicol Williamson and the leading lady from both Krull and Without A Clue (that would by Lysette Anthony). Coming out of the cinema, I vividly remember overhearing someone remark, “Yes, that was a Miramax film.” I had been vaguely aware of the label, if only because I was a big fan of Reservoir Dogs and was thoroughly bemused by Sex Lies and Videotape and The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, both of those lengthily titled films along with the rising star of Quentin Tarantino bore the label for the film-company which would break out into the big-time in only a few short months with the $100 million hit, Pulp Fiction; a first for the indie filmmaking world. Even then, people, at least the folks who attended art-house cinemas, were aware of the prolific release of ‘adult art pictures sold in large part on sexual titillation’ by the Weinstein Brothers, Harvey and Bob.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 05 Oct

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    VIFF 2010 Review: Snap

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    VIFF Reviews Headline

    Snap Movie Still

    Irish director Carmel Winters has arrived and her debut feature, a demure little film titled Snap, is a marvellous achievement from a woman who clearly has a sense of the art of storytelling.

    Adapted by Winters from a scene she wrote and later developed into a one woman show, her feature film debut is a further extension of the original idea which tackles issues of family and media, creating a fascinating document on how individuals act and interact both in front of the camera and behind closed doors.

    Intricately built with layers of information revealed at every turn, Snap is a film taken in with little previous knowledge as part of its winning formula is the way in which the mystery unfolds, adding a new layer to the story with each passing scene. What at first appears to be a story of a mother dealing with the fallout of her son being charged with murder slowly morphs into a tale which extends much deeper than that, revealing a family history which is perhaps more damaging than any accusation thrown at the mother.

    Irish actress Aisling O’Sullivan delivers a performance of intensity and raw emotion which shows her in varying degrees of emotion, each more powerful than the previous.

    Winters makes the transition from stage to film successfully with powerful, fully rendered story which lives well beyond its running time and which marks her and cinematographer Kate McCullough (who shoots the feature in a variety of formats) as two women to watch. Snap is a brilliant debut.

    See VIFF screening schedule for show times.

  • 19 Sep

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    TIFF Review: You Are Here

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    Here is an experiment. Take the name of six colours, write them in random order several times using a coloured pen that does not match the name of the colour. Time yourself reading this list of colours. Write the same list of colours using only black ink and time yourself reading the list. The mind works is strange ways, and has trouble if preconceived associations to familiar things or objects get too close to one another. Daniel Cockburn, a Toronto video artist has just made a wild and crazy jump into features with a film-slash-brain-experiment that wants to perform a witty and colourful brain massage. He wants to play with your cerebellum in the same way that the perception of film works: ‘Persistence of Vision’ as shutters push single frames to form the illusion of movement. We will ignore the contradiction that he mainly shoots on video. Contradictions are what the film is about.

    Cockburn wants to expand your consciousness or provide the illusion of expanding your consciousness or expand your consciousness while providing the illusion that he has not. You Are Here. The statement is both a location as well as a confirmation of existence. Different things, really. The red dot that defines your location on the map can be just as much of a misleader as a guide. The meaning of the film goes beyond the dual-nature of the title into something that is both profound and a profoundly funny. It is science. It is art. It is absurd and hilarious sleight-of-hand. It is an ultra lo-fi version of Inception in which the filmmakers might as well be Leonardo Di Caprio and company (in shabbier clothing mind-you) and the audience are simultaneously the beneficiary of planted ideas and the mark of a baffling grift. The TIFF catalogue labels the film as Dr. Seuss meets Samuel Beckett, and I cannot really argue with that. It is an apt a description as you are going to get without telling you much. When it ended after an all too brief 75 minutes, I was upset. I wanted to see how many more times the filmmakers could fold their narrative in upon itself while keeping me in its spell. Riding the wave, before it collapsed. Like any good performer, Cockburn knows to keep the audience wanting more. Or they ran out of money, drugs or the ability to keep a hold of the reigns. I am sure the director will never tell.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 02 Mar

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    BFI Restores 1903 Alice in Wonderland; See It Here!

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    Lewis Carroll’s timeless fantasy classic “Alice in Wonderland” has been adapted for the screen more times than Jane Austen’s works. There are classics like Norman Z. McLeod’s 1933 feature which stars Charlotte Henry as Alice to Jan Švankmajer’s creepy vision which scares me more than any film should. I also have a soft spot for the kid friendly Disney version which manages to be creepy without giving me nightmares.

    Just in time for the release of Tim Burton’s vision of “Alice,” one which is also made by Disney but looks as seriously twisted as Švankmajer’s (in classic Burton style), BFI National Archive has unleashed a restored version of the first adaptation of Carroll’s story. Made in 1903, a mere 37 years after the story was originally published, the 12 minute adaptation was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow and at the time, was the longest film to be produced in the UK. Only 8 minutes of the original film survive and the BFI has painstakingly restored it and made it available for online viewing. I’ve now seen it twice and must say, it’s as creepy (maybe more so thanks to the man in the bunny costume) as any of the other versions I’ve seen through the years.

  • 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:

  • 17 Feb

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    Bookmarks for Feb. 14-17

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    • Some Came Running: “Shutter Island”
      Glenn Kenny positively reviews the Scorsese’s newest opus: “So all things being equal, even the most devoted of Scorsese fans couldn’t necessarily be blamed for expecting little beyond a very very grand piece of Guignol, with inimitable style and panache but maybe not so much resonance. So I am thoroughly happy to report that, to my eyes and ears at least, Shutter Island is, in the Godardian formulation, a vrai Scorsese film, in its way the most fully realized personal work of the Scorsese-DiCaprio collabs, a puzzle picture that, as it puts its plot pieces together, climbs to a crescendo that aims to reach that perfect note of empathetic despair we haven’t seen/heard in a Hollywood picture since Vertigo. I think it very nearly gets there.”
    • Top 10 Stills of 2009
      Part one of two in which InContention looks at compelling stills from 2009 films.
    • Best and Worst worst date movies
      “One Slate writer brought a prospective beau to see the morbidly erotic In the Realm of the Senses, which also involves genital mutilation and which happens to be one of her favorite movies. She never heard from him again. “Just as well, since anyone who can’t roll with Realm O’ isn’t my type anyway,”"
    • Robert Smith – “Very Good Advice”
      Robert Smith has turned his attention to Almost Alice, a collection of songs inspired by Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland. He’s joined by the likes of Owl City, Avril Lavigne, the All-American Rejects, and many other of your favorite artists. (The movie’s actual score was done by Danny Elfman, though Avril’s track will show up during the credits.) Take a listen to Smith’s “Very Good Advice” streaming here. It includes less tears than the original.
    • 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?.
    • Avatar, the French New Wave and the morality of deep-focus (in 3-D)
      Jim Emerson wonders why James Cameron would use a shallow depth of field in Avatar, a technique that often uses blur to signal depth, in a film that already has depth through its use of 3D. He bolsters his position through references to Cahier critics’ defense of the freedom deep focus allows viewers, arguing that with so much to look at in Avatar, Cameron’s dictatorial shallow focus is inexcusable.
    • Hollywood sign coverup part of campaign to purchase Cahuenga Peak
      A nonprofit group plans to cover the Hollywood sign with a banner urging “Save the Peak” this week, announcing its effort to purchase nearby Cahuenga Peak from private developers for $11.7 million.

     
     

    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:

  • 03 Feb

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    Shorts Program: Logorama

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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.

    Old Big-Boy

    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!

    » Read the rest of the entry..

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