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NOTE TO READERS

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:41:06 -0000

With something like 3 interviews under our belt now at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, we’re scrambling to get our footage up as fast as possible. Obviously, it takes time to edit and post our clips, and between all-day press screenings and our stuffed schedule with indie directors and actors, the process takes a bit of time. In the next few days, look for some three-minute teasers of these conversations at our Sundance site, then check back often on the home page. As some of these films roll on to other festivals (Berlin is up next, starting February 5) or go into theatrical release, we’ll begin posting longer versions of our interviews. That's all. Happy viewing.

SUNDANCE '09 REVIEW: In the Loop

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:13:46 -0000

A cynical, razor-sharp, truly laugh-out-loud farce about the symbiotic relationship between ineffectual, flip-flopping bureaucrats and the sneaky, petty spin doctors who need them, co-writer/director Armando Iannucci's loosely inspired expansion of his BBC comedy series The Thick of It values and cleverly parodies the power of language (vulgarity, doublespeak, jousting, meaningful ambiguity). A finger-on-the-button chain reaction begins with a single word as the British Minister for International Development (Tom Hollander) accidentally burbles to the media that war is "unforeseeable," much to the chagrin of the PM's foul-mouthed Director of Communications (Scottish scene-stealer Peter Capaldi, whose every insulting rant is a lightning rod for laughter), yet to the delight of those on the other side of the pond with their own pro- and anti-war agendas.

The ensemble of players are introduced when the information affects each personally -- among them a peacenik Pentagon general (James Gandolfini); his ex-lover, the US Assistant Secretary for Diplomacy (Mimi Kennedy); her ambitious aide (Anna Chlumsky); her old college friend, the aforementioned British minister's political advisor (Chris Addison); and the creator of a secret war committee (David Rasche) -- their transitory alliances, double-crosses, pointed media leaks and even sexcapades punctuated with snarky, under-the-breath swipes at one another. The one-liners come so fast and furiously that they won't mean much here out of context ("Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult" and "Like Bugsy Malone but with real guns" had me in stitches), but that's the brilliant and purposeful redirect of Iannucci's satire: while we strain to catch the marginal details and sort out the hierarchic squabbling, a war is being jointly planned by the US President and the UK Prime Minister right under everyone's noses. Dr. Strangelove would surely chuckle.--AARON HILLIS

In the Loop premieres tomorrow night at Sundance (official page), and plays again on Jan. 23, 24 and 25. The film is currently undistributed in the U.S.

Cross-published with GreenCine Daily.

SUNDANCE '09 REVIEW: Bronson

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:39:11 -0000

Ferraris are meant to accelerate from 0 to 60mph within seconds, not movies. But someone forgot to tell that to Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn (The Pusher Trilogy, Fear X) regarding this powerful and rigorously stylish tragicomedy, which builds to a primal scream during a bravura opening sequence (revamping Oldboy's one-man-army hallway scroll with mosh-pit intimacy), then maintains the intensity, with bleak humor and unexpected pathos, for an hour and a half. Based on the sensational milestones in the "career" of Britain's most violent prisoner, Charles Bronson (née Michael Gordon Peterson; named after the Death Wish star by a bareknuckle boxing promoter), the film breezes through the middle-class upbringing of a man who -- in 1974, at the age of 19 -- botched an armed robbery and was given seven years in a slammer, a sentence that has since been lengthened several times over based upon his penchant for starting prison fights and large-scale riots. In reality, he has lived 30 of the last 34 years in solitary confinement.

With his shaved head, impressively twirled moustache and barrel-chested swagger, British actor Tom Hardy (unrecognizably bulked up after roles in RockNRolla and Layer Cake) gives an extremely physical juggernaut of a performance as Bronson, looking like a 19th century circus strongman if not for that devilish, shit-eating grin. (For better or worse, Bronson is an even more entertaining screen sociopath than Eric Bana's Chopper.) The film's kneejerk comparison could be A Clockwork Orange meets All That Jazz, if the many Kubrickian tableaux, long fades, Wagner and Verdi soundtrack, and "bit of the ol' ultraviolence" justified the former. The latter comparison is entirely our anti-hero's doing: even behind bars, where most of the film takes place, Bronson escapes into a theater of his own self-mythologizing mind, directly addressing the camera and an auditorium full of people in burlesque stage makeup.

Though he's never killed anyone, he causes two-fisted trouble as a way to gain fame; he even sees himself as a comedian, and it's here that Refn's (and co-writer Brock Norman Brock's) script gets tricky. The deification of brutal acts from a disturbed man's point of view are compartmentalized with great detachment (since an audience certainly couldn't condone what he does), yet the film is bravely dedicated to portraying the events on Bronson's terms. When a team of guards haul him away overhead from his latest escapade, we're to see the exodus as exhilaration: this is like crowdsurfing to him! Not so much about the sickness of celebrity culture, the point of the film -- which I'm predicting now will have some critics seeing red -- is that Bronson is a troubled artist without a proper outlet to vent. This manifests in several ways, including actual illustration, as an art teacher in prison helps him to release some demons with paint instead of the blood of others. (The artwork in the film is actually the real Bronson's, some of which can be seen here.) When it's not nihilistically goofy (the mental-institution dance party is a hell of a left-field chuckle), it's a mighty tough film, both on its surface and in its over-the-top formalist ambitions. Without much contrast in the constantly visceral, throttling experience before the closing credits finally allow us to breathe normally again, it's bound to become as Bronson believes himself to be: misunderstood.--AARON HILLIS

Bronson premieres tonight at Sundance (official page), and plays again on Jan. 21, 22 and 24.

Cross-posted with GreenCine Daily.

Sundance 2009: What We've Got Planned

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:06:03 -0000

It’s only Wednesday, but already we feel an Arctic chill in the air. And as we listen to a symphony of sniffles and hacking coughs issue from the frail bodies of our hard-working, poorly nourished compadres, it is all too apparent that we have, indeed, reached mid January, when the Park City bug infects movie lovers en masse. Ah yes: Another year, another Sundance. And we haven’t even left New York City yet!

Things are much the same yet ... different. Yes, we’re in an economic slump, as the news prattlers and professional prognosticators keep reminding us, preferring euphemisms like “downturn” and “credit crunch” to avoid more unpleasant terminology, like “recession” or the dreaded “D” word. But no matter. These are lean times: we get it. Does this mean we can’t have fun? Because that’s what we plan on doing once we kiss the earth in Salt Lake City after a butt-numbing 8-hour flight early (really early) tomorrow morning. Perhaps the noise level really will be turned down at Sundance this year, in spite of the fest’s 25th-anniversary watermark. Variety seems to think so; but when they say “dressing down,” they’re talking about deal-making and high-dollar marketing schemes. Money doesn’t interest us so much—movies do. And there are still 16 premieres in the U.S. doc and drama competitions to catch; ditto for the two world-cinema slates. So we’re planning to attend in full FilmCatcher regalia, and make the most of our anything-but-ceremonial presence there, working side by side with some of our splendid new content partners.

So what can you expect? Lots. First, beginning this Saturday, we’ll be posting about three interviews a day to our main site. We’ll also be keeping an active blog and festival diary, and hope to post capsule reviews (30, at a minimum) of every film we see during our nine-day stay. In addition, we’ll be cross-publishing squibs from our esteemed friends at Filmmaker and GreenCine, as well as new pals Hammer to Nail and Jaman. But that’s not all! We’ve asked two amazing filmmakers premiering new features at Sundance, Ry Russo-Young (You Won’t Miss Me) and Alexis Dos Santos (Unmade Beds) to shoot video diaries on Flip cameras we’ve equipped them with for their respective trips to the fest. No rules, no expectations. We want these talented visual storytellers to relay their impressions of Sundance in whatever way they wish, according to any formal strategies they care to adopt (or abandon). We can’t wait to see what they come up with. Finally, we’ve teamed up with indie superproducers Ted Hope (The Savages, Lovely & Amazing, 21 Grams, American Splendor, The Ice Storm) and Christine Vachon (I’m Not There, Far from Heaven, Boys Don’t Cry, I Shot Andy Warhol) to produce a series of “two-on-three” dinner conversations with notable actors, filmmakers, and indie-world types that we’ll be hosting on our site very soon. How cool is that going to be?

Yes, it’s a little preposterous to be blessed with such a wealth of creative riches in a time of belt-tightening and budgetary stress, but we’re taking nothing for granted. Certainly not those of you checking in to see what we’re up to. And oh yes, before we forget ... we’re also sponsoring a fun giveaway in honor of our Sundance 2009 coverage. You could win a new Flip camera (the same we've given to the aforementioned filmmakers), among other goodies, and all you have to do is leave us a little post. More on that in the days ahead. So strap on your virtual snow boots, tuck into an army-issue parka, and join us on the trek to another great festival experience. We’re stoked!

FilmCatcher Round-Up: Movies That Made an Impact in 2008

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:22:09 -0000

A couple of weeks ago, just before everyone powered down for the holidays, we asked FilmCatcher staff, curators, and contributors for their personal thoughts on one movie that made an impact or that brought the most pleasure this year. We offered no other guidelines, and did not stipulate whether the film in question should have had a U.S. theatrical release or not. Here, in no particular order, are the generous responses we received.

The country that just elected the senator from Chicago its president would not have been possible without the country that was electrified by Chicago blues fifty years earlier. Cadillac Records is not a great film, but it is a great reminder of what music can mean to us.

In the classic blend of talent, timing and tenacity, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Etta James and Chuck Berry (not to mention the Chess brothers) helped move America toward integration, albeit at a high personal price. Unlike so many sanitized biopics — and thanks to superb performances all around — Cadillac Records actually manages to convey the sizzling alchemy of those groundbreaking artists and records, even if the film’s overall impact is a little flat. (As an aside, aren’t music documentaries generally more satisfying than fictionalized accounts? Exhibit A: Standing in the Shadows of Motown vs. Dreamgirls.)

In the end, Cadillac Records is a hopeful note in troubled times. Music really can make the world a better place. Indeed, we can hope the change we need is being mixed, right now, in basements, clubs and laptops across the country.—AL CATTABIANI

One of the most memorable filmgoing experiences I had this year owes some part of the impact it had on me to the element of surprise; the ugly truth is that when you are seeing three or four movies a week, you sometimes have to work to keep your enthusiasm up and your expectations neutral. I went into the screening of Bigger, Stronger, Faster probably a little harried, if not harassed, not expecting much but open for business —another in a long line of au courant documentaries. As I ended up writing in my review, I did feel a personal connection to the subject, but the fact that this was director Chris Campbell’s first film was really impressive; he somehow took the material in almost every possible direction in a coherent, well-directed way. It’s a film that has returned to me often this year, most recently when I saw The Wrestler. They’d make a great double-bill.—MICHELLE ORANGE

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Still Walking is easily one of the best films of 2008, and just as easily one of my favorites. In the film, the Yokoyama family reunite on the fifteenth anniversary of the death of their eldest son, and spend a strained weekend together. Kore-eda plays out the family drama with a delicate sensibility and rare thoughtfulness. He doesn’t amplify the family’s arguments, inside jokes, or backhanded compliments. Instead, they’re played as naturally as possible. While watching, I was surprised by how much the Yokoyamas reminded me of my own family. Given the opportunity to observe instead of participate in the familiar dysfunction, I left the theater with a lot to think about. Now, with Christmas just around the corner, I’m sure having seen Still Walking isn’t going to keep me from getting sucked into or starting dumb fights with my family, but I’ll be able to understand and appreciate them a little better.—JEFF WRIGHT

This year lacked a grand showdown between dramatic giants like last year's There Will Be Blood versus No Country for Old Men. It didn't seem that any of the wildly hyped big pictures delivered in 2008. Perhaps it makes sense, then, that this year's dramatic stand-out was Kelly Reichardt's modest indie Wendy and Lucy. Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams both show great restraint in crafting a film so quiet that one is acutely aware of everyone they are sharing the movie with (so maybe hold off on the popcorn for this one).

Wendy and Lucy is the movie my thoughts have returned to over and over since seeing it at the Toronto International Film Festival. Its look at the American underclass is as painful and beautiful as anything accomplished by the British Kitchen Sink movies of the fifties and sixties. It's a shame that it won't see wide release until the end of January because Wendy and Lucy should be tearing up the awards circuit.--AARON ULLEDAL

I'm the kind of guy who has had psychiatrists tell him he overanalyzes things. In classic Libra style, I can weigh out both sides of an issue ad nauseam in my mental scales. While this kind of existential OCD has stopped me from having any successful romantic relationships, it makes me the perfect audience for Charlie Kaufman's newest script and directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. The film focuses on a stage director so focused on the minutiae of his own life that it becomes a separate world mirroring reality. Happily, the film doesn't seem to be judging its character (and by proxy, me) one way or another, but instead shows one man's struggle to free himself from the prison of his own mind, a freedom that ultimately can only come with death. So for those of us who obsess over the unanswerable questions of life on a mid-nightly basis, at least we have a movie we can turn on while we're up.—KIRK FAULKNER

The Flight of the Red Balloon by Hou Hsiao-Hsien

A film that becomes richer and richer as it goes along—a perfect film that embodies everything that makes a film a film and not a book or a painting or a video game or a TV episode. Filmmaking doesn't get much more beautiful, complete, three dimensional or masterful than this.

You Won't Miss Me by Ry Russo-Young

I had the privilege of seeing this film, which will premiere at Sundance next month, early on. I watched it alone in my living room and as it went on I thought “wow.” Here is one of the most complex, living, breathing, fully embodied, believable young American woman characters I have seen in many years. A film full of poise, daring, discomfort, heart, sex, rock and roll, and style announcing the arrival of a talented and confident young female American director. Hallelujah.—MARIE-THERESE GUIRGIS

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This line, John 15:13, rose to mind insistently after watching Milk, my family’s choice for our annual Thanksgiving Day movie outing. Jesus says these words as he prepares to fulfill his mission and Sean Penn as Harvey Milk echoes the sentiment poignantly as he records his voice into a tape recorder, acknowledging he may be killed for his crusade for gay rights, but insisting he must persist in the cause. What noble courage exceeds this? Martin Luther King Jr. had it, too, the night before he died, as wild-eyed, he declared “longevity has its place.” Harvey also went to the mountaintop, and likewise let himself be sacrificed to enrich the soul of America. All of this transcendent social action is well and good, but what makes Milk so remarkable is how Penn gives it a tangible human face, not merely inhabiting a character but creating a personality before our eyes – a warm, bold, joyful man. Given Proposition 8, was there any more relevant movie this year?—SIMON AUGUSTINE

As a film journalist, the question I hear most often from family and friends and anyone who knows what I do for a living is this: What’s playing right now that I should I see? That is an honest and perplexing question. But I don’t have a one-for-all answer. Instead, I try to get a handle on what kinds of movies my inquisitors already enjoy watching, then try to suggest something current that might bring them pleasure. So I dispatch a painter friend to see Silent Light; I tell my band mates not to miss JCVD; I pitch a visiting USC film-school grad on José Luis Guerín’s In the City of Sylvia; and I needle my Dark Knight–loving neighbors to give The Wrestler a try. Sometimes, I feel ambivalent about pairing people with films that I think are just okay, even if I sense the experience will open their eyes to a slightly different mode of envisioning what film can be. As much as I might want the world to see and appreciate Claire Denis or Carlos Reygadas, it’s rare for me to rave about a single movie to anyone who will listen, regardless of their age or education or exposure to independent cinema. This year, James Marsh’s Man on Wire, a talking-head doc with historical recreations that outdoes Errol Morris for suspense and atmospherics, performed that function. I missed the film at Sundance, but didn’t agonize over it, thinking it would be a by-the-numbers approach to recounting French acrobat Philippe Petit’s illegal tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in 1974. Something Ken Burns-y and strictly for TV, in other words. When I finally saw the film in the spring, though, I felt a kind of exhilaration that I’d only seldomly experienced at the movies, and never from a documentary. Leaving the theater in a giddy mood, it instantly occurred to me that Man on Wire was not just a smart and sad and sublime real-life “crime” story, a beautifully paced and edited film about art, obsession, love, friendship, and the ultimate questions of existence that anyone with a heart or a brain (preferably both) could appreciate; it was (and still is) a film I want everyone I know to see and ponder and, hopefully, treasure for themselves.—DAMON SMITH

One film that made an impact on me this year was Bohdan Slama's Something Like Happiness (2007). Maybe it's on my mind since I saw it only a month ago when it screened as part of BAM's "New Czech Films" series. But perhaps also because of the way it spoke to me about the complexity of love. Talking about his newest film, The Country Teacher, Slama said, "Love has many forms, as many as there are people, and every piece of a relationship between one person and another has absolute value in itself. Recognizing this value is difficult because it asks us to accept even that which we don't always understand, to forgive even when we feel betrayed." To me this idea is very enlightening; something I've felt but have never been able to articulate. Something Like Happiness is a beautifully subtle early exploration of this idea that hurts your heart in the most brilliant of ways.

Something Like Happiness was released by Film Movement and is available on DVD. The Country Teacher is available through the Film Movement website.--CRISTINA GARZA

Kirk Stays Awake Through Doubt! Miracle!

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:08:04 -0000

Any film adapted from a stage-play already has one huge strike against it: Theater is boring. Even good theater, where I genuinely am interested in the plight of four people in a living room (and every play is 4 people in a living room, EVERY PLAY!), my dander always remains in a firmly down position. How many of us have waited through 2/3s of MacBeth or Hamlet and wanted to get up on the stage and start stabbing people mid soliloquy? Hands up!

So films that are adaptations of a play are already carrying the deadly boring gene deep in their dramatic chromosomes. And when you get the same guy who wrote and directed the play to write and direct the movie... fuggedaboutit.

Doubt seems to understand this expectation and does its best to overcome the tedium of watching people chat. Writer/Director/Dramaturge John Patrick Shanley decided to overcome this hurdle by positioning Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep face to face, backing away slowly and then just yelling "GROWL!"

And it works! Streep's performance has been called "over the top," but frankly I think it registers more as "just enough." Her overly demure demon-lady routine in The Devil Wears Prada would have ground this quiet catholic parable to a standstill. She lets her lion roar here and it brings out an unusually animated and direct performance from PSH in the aftermath. Oh, and Amy Adams is a dream (Amy, please marry me).

The touching and titular final scene is maybe the only moment where I was forced to remember that this story was originally meant to be told a few people in a darkened room. But you know what, plays aren’t that bad. I don’t know what people's problem is. On the whole, Doubt leaves very little room to do just that.

KIRK FAULKNER

I Need All Hands on Deck, Comrade!

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 19:14:02 -0000

Remember the Space Age? This weirdly grotesque scene, from a clunky, low-budget sci-fi flick I came across while researching a post on Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, is worthy of B-movie schlockmeister Roger Corman. Ouch!

No wonder there’s a resurgence of nostalgia for Soviet-era culture, and not just in Moscow, either. They don’t make ’em like they used to...

Skin Deep: Seven Films About Plastic Surgery

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:43:46 -0000

Call me nuts, but I’m obsessed with phsyiognomy, especially when it comes to plastic surgery. So news of the Cleveland Clinic’s first successful full-face transplant, in which 77 square inches of a woman’s visage were replaced, eyelids to chin, with skin grafts from a corpse, got me thinking about (what else?) the way Hollywood has grappled with this subject over the years, in dramas, thrillers, and war films.

As Slate's William Saletan explained in a piece today on the ethics of transplantation procedures, the face is a badge of social identity, the primary means through which we communicate with other people and express emotion. It is, in effect, what makes us recognize each other as human. These days, medical ethicists are increasingly using the logic of social necessity as opposed to physical function to justify the great risks they’re taking with the lives and well-being of patients who request transplants after disfiguring trauma. Since faces, in particular, are understood to be unique and wholly individual, the idea of missing a face—or replacing one—troubles the question of identity as much as it (at least superficially) resolves it. This is a theme that has persisted in the movies.

Below, for your viewing pleasure, are seven films that deal in some way with facial reconstruction and the question of human identity.--DAMON SMITH

1. Dark Passage, 1947

Based on a pulp novel by David Goodis (Shoot the Piano Player), Delmer Daves’s crime drama stars Humphrey Bogart as Vincent Parry, a wrongly convicted man who escapes from San Quentin intending to find his wife’s real murderer. On the lam in San Francisco where an heiress familiar with his case (Lauren Bacall) offers him shelter, Vincent meets an in-the-know cabbie who ferries him to an underworld plastic surgeon who completely alters his face so he can elude authorities and pursue the killer. Daves’s innovation was to shoot the film’s first half as a POV from Bogie’s perspective, rendering him only as a disembodied voice. After the bandages come off, it’s standard Bogart-Bacall fireworks.

2. Seconds, 1966

John Frankenheimer’s woozy sci-fi thriller introduces John Randolph as a New York businessman unhappy with his flabby looks and quality of life in middle age. On a tip, he’s shuttled to a clandestine organization led by an Old Man (Will Geer) that specializes in giving clients a “second” lease on life; in this case, that means a new face, body conditioning, relocation, and a faked death of the “old” self for loved ones. Ho-hum Randolph becomes hunky Rock Hudson and is deposited on a California seashore with a swank bachelor’s pad, a swingin’ girlfriend, a butler, and a bunch of bibulous neighbors who, it turns out, are also “seconds.” Talk about not being comfortable in one’s skin ...

3. The Face of Another, 1966

Set partially at a prosthetics factory and partly at a low-rent boarding house, Hiroshi Teshigahara’s haunting, psychologically complex drama concerns Okuyama (Tatsuya Nakadai), a self-loathing man horribly disfigured after an industrial accident he believes he was responsible for. Socially rejected and spurned by his timid wife, Machiko Kyo, he agrees to an experimental procedure in which he is fitted with a prosthetic mask modeled after a donor. Though Okuyama feels liberated by the anonymity of his new countenance, he becomes increasingly paranoid, and begins to test the limits of his new “invisibility.” Parallel to his story is another about a tragically isolated Nagasaki victim and psych nurse whose own faceless existence leads her into a disturbing affair. Nightmarishly great.

4. Johnny Got His Gun, 1971

Celebrated screenwriter Dalton Trumbo adapted his own fact-based novel for this grim anti-war drama, which he also directed. Left limbless and faceless by a mortar shell on the last day of World War I, American veteran Joe Bonham (Timothy Bottoms) struggles to reconcile his inner life—a fevered landscape of dreams, memories, and vivid fantasies—with the outer reality of his pitifully vegetative state. Eventually, he finds a way to communicate with a kindly nurse (Diane Varsi), but his most ardent wish—to be exhibited as a sideshow freak in the name of pacifism, or to be killed—is the sentimental coup de grace.

5. Face/Off, 1997

John Woo, the Hong Kong auteur and unabashed lover of good cop/bad cop underworld epics, gained a big U.S. fan club for this ridiculously campy cult classic about a detective (John Travolta) who swaps mugs with a baaaad maaan (Nicholas Cage) and then loses his marbles. Look online and you’ll find at least a dozen tributes, mash-ups, and re-edits. Expect to be confused, just like the Travolta/Cage character, but in the best possible way.

6. Vanilla Sky, 2001

Reality is warped beyond recognition in Cameron Crowe’s remake of Alejandro Amenabar’s postmodern psychohorror drama, Abre los ojos. Tom Cruise is the criminally handsome playboy-publisher and ladies’ man whose world is turned inside-out after a grotesquely disfiguring car accident. Is he a murderer, too? What’s the difference between dreams and reality, doctor? Yes, life can be reinvented.

7. Time, 2006

Loathed by some, championed by others, Korean writer-director Kim Ki-duk never tires of needling his audience, who keep returning for more (at least on the festival circuit). This disturbing film, which opens with actual footage of an almost unwatchable, Learning Channel–grade plastic-surgery operation, tracks the twisted romance of a young couple who resort to drastic facelifts in order to seduce each other. Seh-hee, a beautiful young woman who believes she’s not beautiful enough for her boyfriend, disappears for six months and then re-emerges with a new face, a (slightly) new name, and a plan to get her man back. When he discovers the truth, he’s horrified—but revenge is sweet. Call it a poetic meditation on our obsession with physical perfection, or a manipulative mindfuck by a bitter provocateur. One thing is certain: Cut-up-photo masks are creepy.

Trailer Tawk: Rating the Latest Hollywood Pitches

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:15:41 -0000

BY KIRK FAULKNER AND DAMON SMITH

In this semi-regular feature, we'll be watching and commenting on the latest run of movie trailers to explain what looks promising, what looks feeble or wretched, and what just confuses us about the sneak peeks studios are releasing for Hollywood's most hyped movies. Post a comment and join the bitch fest!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Okay, so I haven’t read the books. Nor have I seen the previous installments of the franchise. Does that disqualify me from commenting? I do wholeheartedly advocate exposing children to the daemonic spellcraft of literary black magic, if only to counter the atrophy of imagination that’s increasingly turning American tykes into Nintendo-addled videodrones. So I’m down with Potter-on-Film. And I’ll see anything with Jim Broadbent, the ubiquitous and chameleon-like British thesp. Besides, when it comes to big-budget spectacles about boy wizards, who can resist a boffo line like “I talk to snakes”? Hey, M. Night, someone stole your Moleskine!—DS

I think I even read this book and I still have no idea what the hell is going on in this trailer. There is so much smoke and clouds I thought it was going to be a Cheech and Chong movie (rimshot!). Harry, challenged by the huge amount of general wispiness in his world, has turned to a new weapon: being a jackass. “After all these years I just sort of go with it." "But, I am the chosen one!" Hey Harry, no one likes you. Go fly your bizzlebot into the rummbly twonton you gurgle durd. I hate kids.—KF

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Jacked up and snarling like a frustrated date rapist, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is the high-school quarterback of Marvel Comics anti-heroes: beefy, hirsute, ruggedly handsome, and out to smash the competition (Liev Schreiber!) with brute game and witless putdowns. Reading the geek-out comments at the Trailer Addict site (“Dude, this trailer does not imply the Weapon X program gave him his healing power...”) just confirms my suspicion that the target audience is underage, pimply, and way, way too invested. I’ve always been a Hulk maniac myself. Something about the mix of freakish green skin and pidgin English kind of did it for me as a kid.—DS

So Ryan Reynolds is in this movie playing a character named Deadpool, but you only ever get to see his Asian-gangster fingernails in the trailer. They apparently think his reveal in the movie is going to be so fantastic that to even let us see his ScarJo-sucking face right now would totally spoil the magic. And I agree, Ryan Reynold's face does love to spoil the magic. Good thing Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights is there to keep him in check with magic cards and a parade baton. Take that Van Wilder.--KF

The Unborn

Exorcism, body horror, vampirism, ghosts, a creepy kid, monstrous transformations, and a lip-smackingly luscious Last Girl (Odette Yustman). What doesn’t this horror flick harbor in its sickeningly derivative, shit-your-pants approach to titillating teen thrill seekers? Mummies? A feral leprechaun? Well, originality is not Michael “Armageddon” Bay’s strong suit: he’s already remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror. Next year, he’ll unveil Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th in addition to this ghoulish goulash. It’s sad to watch a grownup wileding so much cultural power try to relive his youth as a horny ’80s high schooler and then force-feed it to a new generation. Isn’t this why hippies make us cranky, Mike?—DS

Hmmm. Let's see. What monster scares me most in this trailer? Creepy kid with Alice Cooper eye makeup? Furry Bigfoot claws ripping through the wall? Bendy man with leg coming out of his butt? That weird alien mouthy thing that looks like a crappy Halloween mask at the very end? Gary Oldman? No. It's mutant-baby-face-mask-Easter Bunny who shows up a minute and a half in that’s got me screaming on the ceiling. What is that thing? Is it going to steal my soul or did it bring me a delicious treat?--KF

Nixon as Nixon in Nixon: The Nixon Story

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:18:36 -0000

As Frost/Nixon begins to pick up buzz moving into the award season, it makes sense that the actual Frost Nixon interviews portrayed in Ron Howard's new film should make a reappearance.

Watching this trailer for the recently released DVD version of the famous interview where Richard Nixon directly talks about his part in the Watergte scandal I am struck by how much better Frank Langella's Nixon is than Nixon's Nixon.

Auto Focus: Looking Back at Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:03:36 -0000

With the U.S. auto industry on the verge of financial collapse, and the U.A.W.’s go-to guy, Ron Gettelfinger, getting an ass-whupping at the hands of a pugnacious Republican senator from Tennessee last week, you’d be forgiven for thinking organized labor is not just in decline, it’s all but muerte. Were things better for auto workers 30 years ago? Nah. At least not in the movies. Hearing about the Big Three’s travails got me thinking about Paul Schrader’s 1978 hard-hat drama Blue Collar, in which three Detroit assembly-line workers (Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto), disgruntled at management and feeling the pinch of economic down times, hatch a break-in plot at the office of their union local, whose president is a tin-eared bigwig in cahoots with the mafia.

Disillusionment was rampant in the oil-poor, inflationary era of Jimmy Carter, and Schrader’s directorial debut, co-written with his brother Leonard, is a sullen and cynical underdog film that seems to carry a single, univocal message to the American factory worker: You’re fucked. Voicing contempt for exploitive shop managers and clueless corporate fat cats as well as the malfeasance of an ineffective union leadership compromised by its criminal connections, Blue Collar is an angry film in which every political option available to its financially hard-bitten protagonists—even blackmail—is (literally, in one case) a dead end. What makes this kitchen-sink-style, end-of-the-American-dream Rust Belt bum-out so worth revisiting, however, is the presence of an electric, comically savage Pryor. The foul-mouthed funnyman was already a veteran screen performer with nearly 20 films to his credit by the time Schrader came calling (The Mack, Car Wash, Which Way Is Up?), but he gave the finest performance of his career in Blue Collar, as the IRS-aggrieved Checker Cab assembler Zeke.

Outrage was his metier as a stand-up comedian, and Pryor, always a trenchant observer of race and social hypocrisy in America, played the part with a mix of lacerating wit and debt-embittered, proletarian irritability. Schrader’s own thematic strong suit, as the film’s co-writer and director, was to depict workers aware of how they’ve become pawns in a system that schemes to divide them. As Kotto’s ex-con Smokey opines at one point, “Everything they do, the way they pit lifers against the new boys, the old against the young, the blacks against the whites, is meant to keep us in our place.” Despite its progressive outlook on the possibility of interracial camaraderie, Blue Collar is, politically speaking, an almost intractably pessimistic film. And incidentally, some of the characters' anger and volatility apparently erupted from real-life circumstance. According to Schrader, none of his actors got along on the set, and squabbled constantly. (Pryor reportedly cold-cocked Keitel and busted a chair over Kotto’s back. Solidarity!)

Blue Collar is, nevertheless, an excellent film to ponder in our economically beleaguered present, when a constant stream of news about failing banks, government bailout packages, and high-profile investors lured by wicked Ponzi schemes threatens to make the plight of working-class strivers even less visible than in the late seventies. What author Peter Biskind said about Blue Collar then is equally true today: “Most Hollywood films stare with a fixed gaze at the upper-middle class. Blue Collar doesn’t, and for this we can be thankful.” Amen to that.--DAMON SMITH

Below is a clip from Schrader's harmonica-blues-flavored opening sequence, filmed on location at a Checker plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the writer-director’s home state. (Buy the film; rent it by mail here.) To watch our interview with Schrader at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, click here.

A Wrinkle in Time, Indie-Style

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:01:50 -0000

Time travel has been an idée fixe in the realm of sci-fi since 1895, when H.G. Wells published his classic novella The Time Machine, an influential story that spawned an entire subgenre in literature of the fantastic and, eventually, cinema. The latest twist on the genre, Nacho Vigalondo’s Russian doll-like thriller Timecrimes, will get a theatrical release tomorrow from Magnet Releasing, a specialty division of Magnolia Pictures. The film—about a man who repeatedly travels a few hours into the past to untangle a dark chain of events—was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year, and United Artists already has plans to remake the film in 2009 with Children of Men screenwriter Timothy J. Sexton and Canadian auteur David Cronenberg reportedly attached.

In the film, middle-aged Hector (Karra Elejalde) is vacationing with his girlfriend Clara (Candela Fernandez) at a country house in Spain. A few disturbing encounters—agitated phone calls from a creepy stranger, then the alarming appearance of a naked young woman on the grounds—sends him into the woods to investigate. After locating the woman, now unconscious, he is attacked by a scissors-wielding lunatic whose head is wrapped in bloodied bandages. Wounded and scared, he flees to a nearby research facility where a frightened scientist (Vigalondo) convinces him to “hide” in a fluid-filled pod. Naturally, the mechanism turns out to be an experimental time machine, and Hector is transported into the recent past, though to say more would spoil the fun of Vigalondo’s meta-puzzle. It’s a meticulous reworking of the basic Wellsian template, updated with borrowings from horror and contemporary thrillers. Most inventive is the way Vigalondo toys with our sense of perspective, jumbling a panoply of Hector’s past and future selves so we are unsure, as spectators, how to orient ourselves. Perhaps Sexton will have more success beefing up his characters, but at least at the conceptual level, Timecrimes is a worthy addition to the time-travel canon.

Revisiting Vigalondo's film got me thinking about another recent sci-fi indie thriller, Shane Carruth’s talky, super-brainy Primer, which earned the Dallas-based writer-director a Sundance Grand Jury Prize and several Independent Spirit nominations in 2004. Shot with an amateur cast and crew on a minuscule budget (about $7,000), Primer boasts finely modulated performances by Carruth and David Sullivan, but, like Timecrimes, virtually no special effects. Instead, Carruth creates tension in edgy, conversational exchanges and precision editing, not to mention assured camerawork, in which time overlaps are rendered by shifts in perspective and subtle structural adjustments to the filmed action. The story concerns Abe and Aaron, a pair of young, entrepreneurial-minded corporate engineers working on a potentially lucrative project in their spare time, with a suburban garage functioning as their makeshift lab. They build a “box” out of home-appliance scraps to test their theories, and make an important discovery about their newfangled device, which does something they never anticipated, appearing to transport a tiny canister of argon three seconds into the past. Things get interesting when they attempt to duplicate the process on a larger scale.

Most time-travel films position their protagonist (usually a man) to arbitrate a moral crisis created by a disturbance in the time-space continuum, an aberrant circumstance prompted by some selfish motive (love, greed, glory, hubris, scientific curiosity) on the part of one or several characters. In the case of Primer, Abe and Aaron are not mad tinkerers at all, but factotums of corporate industry, ultra-productive rationalists committed to “36-hour days” who ultimately run up against the limits of their own emotional and psychological endurance as extended-time voyagers. The film is just 77 minutes long, and the jargon-heavy dialogue can at times obscure the relevance of key scenes, but these are minor flaws in an otherwise suspenseful, ingenious iteration of the time-travel genre.

There are a few scenes available online at video-sharing sites, but I've pasted a YouTube link below that I think gives a good sense of the film without giving away any of it key plot points.--DAMON SMITH

Buy Primer here . Rent it by mail here . Also, see our interview with Timecrimes director Nacho Vigalondo.

The Art of Short Cinema

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:32:17 -0000

Let me be honest: I don’t spend a lot of time at film festivals watching shorts programs. Perhaps, for the editor of a website devoted to discovering new visions and trends in cinema, that’s a terrible admission. But I grew up reading and studying novels, so my natural inclination is to go for narrative features and docs I can sink my teeth into. The more Tarkovskian, the more ass-numbingly Tarr-like they are, the more intrigued I’m likely to be, even though I recognize my predilection as a kind of cultural handicap.

Nevertheless, I do subscribe to Wholphin, the quarterly DVD magazine published by McSweeney’s, which features a curated playlist of exclusive “rare and unseen” shorts, some by established directors (Errol Morris, Gus Van Sant), some by performance artists, animators and tinkerers, some caught on the fly by unwitting documentarians. These are, much if not most of the time, fascinating short-attention-span must-sees. YouTube has gotten into the act recently as well, launching a new Screening Room to highlight its own series of curated short films, as opposed to the anything-goes aesthetic at its main site.

Here in New York, IFC sponsors a Rooftop Films program every summer, debuting new indie and underground shorts at a different outdoor location on weekend evenings. In 2007, for instance, I watched a short film by James Longley —a missing chapter of sorts from his Oscar-nominated triptych doc Iraq in Fragments—in a Brooklyn schoolyard with the stars twinkling overhead. There are plenty of online short film festivals, too (iThentic hosts one for mobile users), but with very few exceptions, these tend to function as a dumping ground for amateur work, one-off gags or elaborate gimmickry (see The 15 Second Film Festival, a/k/a/ “the Cinema of Distraction”), and festival hopefuls plastered with rejection slips. Even major film-world entities can steer us wrong when it comes to finding the cinematic equivalent to Wilde’s dictum that “brevity is the soul of wit.” This year’s shorts program at the venerable New York Film Festival (every feature film was paired, awkwardly, with a short) was among the most execrable I’ve seen in some time, and far too many listed Columbia University’s Film Division as co-producer.

So what’s my problem with shorts? None, really. But context is everything. Earlier this year, at Sundance, I dropped into the New Frontier Café on Main Street on my last day to chill out, take a break from work, crowds, and yes, even films. Of course, this was impossible. In the dark, subterranean lounge space, as I sipped espresso and gawked at mobile art projects, hoping to nap in a big plush armchair, I was drawn by flickering lights into a nearly hidden room running a series of six animated shorts by Brent Green. As I wrote then, this turned out to be one of the most indelible experiences of my trip. So it was with some genuine interest that I reviewed the U.S. shorts lineup at Sundance 2009, which was released yesterday. Again, I’ll be lucky if I make it to any of these programs (there are just too many), but I did notice something heartening: two smart, young Indiewood actors are taking a seat in the director’s chair.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Mysterious Skin, Brick), who we interviewed not long ago, has adapted an Elmore Leonard story for his debut, Sparks, which the press release says is about a “former rock and roll goddess who may or may not have burned her house down.” Up next, and also in the U.S. Dramatic Shorts program, is Gordon-Levitt’s Mysterious Skin co-star Brady Corbet (Funny Games, Thirteen). His film is called Protect You + Me, and is described thusly: “A reminder of a long-forgotten event, combined with a challenging situation, provokes a man to extreme action.” Corbet is an intriguing character, as I discovered when I chatted him up in January, so I’m especially curious to see how his vision comes together. Also up in the U.S. Documentary program is Oscar winner Jessica Yu (In the Realms of the Unreal, Protagonist), another FilmCatcher couch alum, who’ll revisit an age-old question, “How are babies made?,” in The Kinda Sutra, a blend of interviews and animation. Admiring her previous work as much I do, I’m kinda looking forward to seeing it. But hey, Jess: Just don’t short me.--DAMON SMITH

Sucker Punch: A Final Look at the Year's Biggest Film

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:12:03 -0000

BY SIMON AUGUSTINE

The Dark Knight is like a sucker punch stretched over two and a half hours: you don’t see it coming, and when you walk out of the theatre (or your living room), you come to in a daze, painfully and giddily light-headed, with the faint, and faintly pleasing, taste of blood in your mouth. Given the hype, you expect it will have some popcorn power; but the kind of impact it wields - adult, pessimistic, and intellectually challenging - is completely unexpected, and leaves you shaking your head a bit with wonder and confusion. The narrative structure is the first surprise in store: often, an action movie culminates in a propulsive last twenty minutes – that is, the climactic, headlong stuff, when a slow, palpitating music insistently revs up, and the audience is signaled to brace themselves. Soon after that cue, the disparate pieces of a narrative begin to rush together, as heroes and villains move inevitably towards each other for a final clash. The Dark Knight moves at this breakneck pace and persistent kineticism right off the bat, and from slam-bang beginning to crashing, ambivalent end, it never lets up. From the opening bank job by the Joker’s minions, with a visceral you-are-there electric techno-thump worthy of Michael Mann, to the last scenes of a hunted Batman on the run, the entire film sustains the velocity usually reserved for Last Twenty Minute Land. Amazingly, it never goes slack enough to break the spell and lose your attention, nor does it become overwrought enough to feel smothering. If a movie is fireworks, then Christopher Nolan's second Batman film is all finale.

The next unexpected thing is the narrative’s willful inaccessibility. Some critics, such as Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com, have complained about The Dark Knight’s quick, erratic jumps from scene to scene; its confusing, fragmented plotting that threatens to spin out of audience’s reach; and the obtuse framing of the action. And it is true; not even the most ardent analyst could keep up with the on-the-fly symbolism and shifting plot lines thrown at them (just think of Harvey Dent’s two-headed coin; Nolan puts it through so many machinations of representation – fate, chance, good and evil, human will, destiny – that eventually I just gave up trying to follow them all.) However, if you make the leap to consider The Dark Knight on its own terms – that is, as essentially an innovation, an unprecedented, aesthetically bizarre and revolutionary interpretation of the superhero tale – then these elements are not so much flaws as factors contributing to a fresh re-telling of the story of Batman and Gotham City. That is, the film is a purposely impressionistic telling of a classic pop-culture myth. It takes big risks, but they are calculated, and not at all arbitrary. The jumbled, catch-as-can form of The Dark Knight’s narrative, in which fights, characters, and themes pass by too quickly to grasp completely – serves a crucial thematic purpose: it is meant to lend itself to the moral turpitude at the story’s philosophic heart.

With its aesthetic of quick brushstrokes, and favoring of sensibility over sense, The Dark Knight almost has the experimental whiff of an art film. It refuses to hit all the marks and do all the dances audiences expect; rather, it smacks them with a strange, troubled, and messy vision. Nolan (whose meta-tricks in The Prestige most of us are still trying to figure out) is too precise and meticulous a filmmaker to be accused of mere technical sloppiness; what we have here is technique in service of eliciting disorientation, a hammer to the brain skillfully aimed. Why disorientation? Because in this case it is required to touch on the particular zeitgeist that drives The Dark Knight: an American society pray to a diffuse anxiety, a generalized feeling of impending catastrophe, and all of it magnified by a technology that seems to be outpacing our understanding, human command, or moral systems. It touches on our current era’s version of “future shock.” If the viewer takes the delivered blow in the right spirit, the off-kilter and panicky style illuminates the phenomenon with which The Dark Knight is most concerned: namely, the experience of being a member of a society that lately seems able to respond to madness only by summoning more madness (at this point it almost seems redundant to do the roll call of American myopia: Iraq, torture, wiretapping, rendition, etc.) Even more troubling, in a mythic sense, is that this Batman becomes more a product of the zeitgeist than a savior able to rescue the rest of us from its clutches. These days, even the best of heroes is sucked into the maelstrom.

Not long ago, in a New York Times article entitled “The Art of Darkness,” writer Jonathan Lethem (his popular novel The Fortress of Solitude features two teenagers who transform into superheroes) expressed displeasure with this newest incarnation of Batman. I, like Lethem, waited until the end of the summer, once all the hubbub had died down, and most voices had chimed in, to creep into a sparsely attended showing of The Dark Knight, instead of taking part in the electric atmosphere of fan-boy opening night. It didn’t seem to diminish the effect in the slightest. Yet, while I left the theater’s confines exhilarated at the film’s audacity, Lethem felt battered, and he formulates The Dark Knight’s blurry thunder not as impressionistic virtuosity, but a failure to re-imagine a viably heroic Batman. Lethem laments:

“The Dark Knight," with its taciturn and self-pitying vigilante, its scenes of torture, rendition and interrogation, its elaborately leveraged choices between principles and human lives, might offer a defense of the present administration’s cursory regard for human rights abroad and civil rights at home, in the cause of reply to attacks from an irrational and inhuman evil. Poor Batman, forced again and again to violate the ethics that define him, to destroy the world to save it."

Lethem believes the film’s stylistic flourishes, its scattered sound and fury, is ultimately impotent. Rather than providing insight into our current culture, it merely mirrors our current inability to cope with darkness. We have no coherent moral answer to the new complexities we face, and so we wind up giving a shrug of incoherence – or worse, incoherence devolved into a fearful and violent response that denigrates us as well as our “enemies.” But I don’t feel Nolan arrives at, or is aiming for, the cinematic equivalent of flummoxed moral catatonia. Quite the opposite: the director implicitly indicts the Bush administration as the primary proponent of the “moral shrug.”

The truly wild thing, however, is that Nolan makes this politically relevant move at the cost of sacrificing his title character. If there is a slightly veiled condemnation of the Bush administration, it is made possible because the director explicitly accuses Batman of succumbing to the modus operandi of moral shruggery (not a real word). I think Lethem misses the boat almost entirely by expecting this newest Batman to fit a more traditional mold. The logic goes this way: Batman may in fact be a rough analogue to George Bush, a proto-fascist, compromised “hero” who trades honor for results – most strikingly when he orders his startled tech-whiz Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) to monitor all private activity in Gotham by means of sonar in an attempt to corner The Joker. But yet, I insist this is not a pro-Bush film. Why? Because – and this is what I found exciting – The Dark Knight, in terms of what it has to say morally, is, in the end, not really about Batman. Instead, he acts as a kind of symbolic red herring. If we take a close look at the story’s complex moral structure, a different focus emerges. In a kind of narrative sleight-of-hand, Batman and The Joker occupy the main stage, but they are not the ones battling for the soul of Gotham – as we might naturally assume from previous history. Rather, they function like permanent oppositional forces of nature locked in eternal combat, in which a once-purer Batman has now been drawn into a dynamic that requires he use questionable means just to maintain balance and stasis with his nemesis (as The Joker says, “an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.”)

No, our real attention should be paid to a different hero, who stands as the only remaining locus of moral possibility in Gotham – namely, Harry Dent (Aaron Eckhart). The noble, crusading lawyer becomes a casualty of the epic struggle of order versus chaos as played out between Batman and The Joker. Transformed into Two-Face, with one side of his face untouched, and the other a hideous skeletal visage, Dent is a stark manifestation of the opposing moral forces within the psyche of a vulnerable human being, rather than as represented stoically by a superhero or deliriously by a supervillain. To the film’s credit, it has the courage to show that, even on this last remaining front, failure occurs. Two-Face is eventually seduced by the Joker; darkness prevails. But it is the counter-move to that failure, engineered in consort between Batman and the political leaders of Gotham, that is most devastating. For it demands that Batman, now reduced to an empty symbolic hero, a cipher, use his clout to cover up the condemning fact of Harry’s moral choice. The Batman absorbs the meaning of that choice into the fabric of his public persona, in order to preserve Dent’s integrity and a final shred of moral inspiration for the corrupt, and corrupting, Gotham City.

What other film has the courage to point an accusing figure at its own hero? (Not to mention killing its heroine in a fiery death.) As Batman himself says at the end of the film: “sometimes people deserve something better than the truth.” That statement, and its context in the film, is as profound as any you will find this year at the movies.

Warner Home Video releases The Dark Knight on DVD on December 9. The film will open nationwide for a second theatrical run in late January.

Turkish Delight

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:00:36 -0000

A notice in today’s Variety about Dutch actor Rutger Hauer’s upcoming collaboration with director Cyrus Frisch (lately a cell-phone auteur) on Dazzle, the first film he’s made in Holland in almost three decades, got me thinking about the beefy blond hunk’s pre-Hollywood career. Perhaps best known to American audiences for his turn as a rebellious replicant in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Hauer has maintained a vigorous work schedule over the years, alternating between TV, independent film, straight-to-video junk, and high-profile projects like Sin City and Batman Begins. He just wrapped Michael Almereyda’s Tonight at Noon, based on a story by Jonathan Lethem, starring opposite Ethan Hawke and Connie Nielsen, and already has at least four more film projects lined up for 2009, including the Frisch picture, “an experimental romance.”

Back in his native Holland, Hauer made a big splash in another experimental romance, Paul Verhoeven’s Turkish Delight (1973), the freewheeling, sexually raucous tale of an artist who finds his erotic soulmate in a young woman (Monique Van De Ven) with perverse appetites and a slightly mad sense of social propriety. Still my favorite Verhoeven film (sorry, Showgirls), Turkish Delight crossed the water into the households of anyone on the West Coast who subscribed to the Z Channel, the Euro-arthouse distributor of choice in the pre-VHS era. Its mad energy and lusty, anarchic spirit emanate mostly from the shaggy-haired, bell-bottom-wearing Hauer, whose outlandish sculptor Eric Vonk is part libertine, part narcissist, and a head-to-foot embodiment of charismatic dudeness. This was the ’70s, though, so all the high-spirited, uninhibited sensualism—in one scene I've always loved, Eric and the childlike Olga joyously gulp red wine from stemmed glasses in a torrential rainstorm—eventually yields to a grim state of affairs that, well, makes its own kind of sense. (See the movie.)

Although the naughty bits from Turkish Delight are to be found elsewhere online (and there are plenty), here’s a great meta-clip of some memorable scenes. It’s in Dutch, but no translation is necessary.--DAMON SMITH

Hollywood's Classic Sci-Fi Fixation

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:48:24 -0000

BY DAMON SMITH
Ubiquitous blogger (and former Brainiac) Joshua Glenn has an excellent new series running over at io9 on pre–Golden Age science fiction novels, which he notes have been “cruelly neglected” and condescendingly pooh-poohed, even by noted historians and sci-fi writers (like Isaac Asimov). But at least someone is paying attention: Hollywood.

Introducing his second entry on the “10 Best Apocalypse Novels of 1904-33,” Glenn writes: “With Wall-E director Andrew Stanton starting work on a film based on Edgar Rice Burroughs's 1917 novel A Princess of Mars, and with Hollywood adaptations of Brave New World and When Worlds Collide also in development, it’s time for us to give you a crash course in books from this seminal era in science fiction.” Needless to say, Glenn’s fun, erudite squibs on lesser-known novels by H.G. Wells, A. Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jack London, and Karel Capek are essential reading.

Of course, Hollywood is still in thrall to its sci-fi Golden Age screenwriters of the 1950s, some of whom were not hacks, but talented writers on the studio payroll. On Monday, MTV News noted that J. Michael Straczynski, a “Babylon 5” creator and the writer of Clint Eastwood’s missing-child period melodrama Changeling, intends to adapt Forbidden Planet, a film with an interesting literary pedigree, for producer Joel Silver. As you may remember, Planet concerned a proto-Star Trek-like scenario about the search for a lost spacecraft whose lone survivor, Dr Mobius, marooned on a distant planet called Altair-4, creates an Edenlike world from the techno-junk of a super-intelligent alien race. Cyril Hume, a veteran MGM screenwriter who penned a number of the early Tarzan movies, based his 1956 sci-fi story on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. (In a sense, the “original” Forbidden Planet was itself an adaptation of a 17th-century play, updated to the 23rd century.) Hume, a descendant of the great Scottish philosopher David Hume, was a novelist in his own right (The Wife of the Centaur) and a friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose The Great Gatsby he adapted for the 1949 big-screen version. How’s that for belletristic synergy?

Steven Spielberg, master of family-friendly spectacles, revisited H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds in 2005. But the first filmed version of Wells’s classic 19th-century novel, directed by Byron Haskin in 1953, was written by a British playwright and short-story writer named Barré Lyndon, who was installed in Hollywood after the success of his first stage play, The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse. Although one could argue (perhaps rightfully) that the alien-invasion film’s true author was special-effects wizard George Pal, it would not have quite the same haunting power without Sir Cedric Hardwicke’s opening and closing voiceover narration, or the scrupulously lean, almost Morse-code-like lines of dialogue that punctuate the ray-blast action. Lyndon, of course, is better remembered for his work on The Lodger and The Man in Half Moon Street, but he left his impression on Worlds nevertheless.

On the nearer horizon is Twentieth-Century Fox’s remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, starring real-life alien Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly, which debuts in mid December. The 1951 original, about an outer-space visitor who warns earthlings their planet will be destroyed unless it can bring an end to its wars, was directed by genre innovator Robert Wise (The Curse of the Cat People, West Side Story), who went on to helm The Andromeda Strain and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Script writer Edmund H. North based his anti-nuke sci-fi scenario on a tale called “Farewell to the Master” by pulp author Harry Bates, which was first published in Astounding Science Fiction, a magazine Bates edited in the ’30s. For his Fox treatment, David Scarpa’s reworking of the North script appears to give the story a timelier, more environmental twist, at least as far as I can tell from the sneak-peek clips released this week.

Hokey outer-space films and bleak, near-apoclaypse scenarios have long been a staple of Saturday-afternoon network programming, so it’s no surprise that Hollywood is mining its B-movie past and tailoring genre favorites to 21st-century anxieties. But all of this sourcing and borrowing gets me thinking about the power of branding. If a writer takes a basic story idea, retains a few character names, and produces something that drastically retools the plot, situations, and settings so it barely resembles the original, then what we have, perhaps, is a remix, not a remake. Straczynski, for instance, tells MTV News that his Forbidden Planet is “not a remake. It’s not a reimagining. It’s not exactly a prequel. You’ll have to see it. It’s something that no one has thought of when it comes to this storyline.” What’s the point, then, of calling it Forbidden Planet? Film producers, always conscious of the bottom line, know a title will benefit at the box office not only from big-name stars but also from the “brand name” of an old classic, whether or not (younger) viewers know the provenance.

At least the makers of The Invasion (2007) acknowledged this dynamic by dropping part of the title of the film that inspired them, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But does anyone notice? Or care? Maybe not. Or maybe, like Robby the Robot, we're just distracted: "Sorry, miss, I was giving myself an oil job."

2009 Sundance Competitors Announced

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:52:41 -0000

The Sundance Film Festival has just announced its line-up for the 2009 competition in both the U.S. and World Cinema categories. Among the 118 narrative features and documentaries to be presented in Park City, 91 will be world premieres. Festival director Geoff Gilmore gives Variety his gloss on the selected films:

“Over the last couple of years audiences got tired of films that directly engaged the Iraq War and other heavy subject matter. This year there’s an eclecticism and a breadth of storytelling that will see audiences perhaps open up to things they haven’t seen before. There’s not a single focus. But there is a new take on romance, and we’ve moved away from the syndrome of filmmakers only able to talk about themselves. They’re out in the world.”

Noting the impact of the Internet on a younger generation of filmmakers, who are adopting a more global mindset, Gilmore predicts that future observers will say a lot of great new talent emerged from this festival. For his part, John Cooper, director of programming, remarks that mobile, less-expensive digital formats have opened up a “great freedom” for filmmakers, including a greater ability to travel. Sundance plans to announce the Midnight and Frontier categories tomorrow.

While we're at it (being newsy, that is), we want to give a big shout-out to FilmCatcher pal Cary Fukunaga, whose Sin Nombre has been selected to compete in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. Here's a description of the film from the Sundance site:

Sin Nombre (Director and Screenwriter: Cary Joji Fukunaga) - A teenaged Mexican gang member maneuvers to outrun his violent past and elude unforgiving former associates in this thriller set among Central American migrants seeking to cross over to the United States. Cast: Edgar Flores, Paulina Gaitan, Kristyan Ferrer, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Luis Fernando Peña, Diana García. World Premiere

A Night at the Gothams

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:02:07 -0000

We want to congratulate all the winners at last night’s 18th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards ceremony, hosted by IFP and held at the luxurious Cipriani Wall Street ballroom in New York’s Financial District. It was thrilling to see so many of the filmmakers and actors we’ve interviewed this year, some as far back as the Sundance Film Festival in January, honored for their exceptional efforts.

The Best Feature award went to Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River, a tense, beautifully observed border drama conceived as a short, developed into a feature, and built around the gripping lead performance of Melissa Leo, who won the trophy for Breakthrough Actor. Lance Hammer, writer-director-producer of Ballast and a favorite at FilmCatcher, was honored with a Gotham for Breakthrough Director. Hammer was in a high mood last night, as he’d just received word earlier in the day that his self-distributed film had also been nominated for a clutch of Independent Spirit Awards. (Ditto for Frozen River and Rachel Getting Married.) The Gotham jury reached a split decision over Best Ensemble Cast, awarding the prize to Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Synecdoche, New York, the directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman, who we caught up with recently. Sean Penn presented a Gotham tribute to Gus Van Sant, the indie stalwart who followed up his exquisite Paranoid Park with Milk, one of the year’s very best (not to mention timeliest) mainstream features and a sure bet for the Oscar race.

Yesterday afternoon, we had a thoughtful, rewarding half-hour sit-down with Elegy star Sir Ben Kingsley and caught up with him again backstage after he presented Penelope Cruz with her own Gotham Tribute. Gracious and eloquent, Kingsley was a joy to speak with, and he had as much to say about his craft and career as he did the strengths of his lovely co-star, Ms. Cruz, who was generous enough to give us a few minutes of her time. The Best Documentary laurels went to Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, two more Sundance alums, for Trouble the Water, their intimate portrait of a couple surviving government indifference in post-Katrina New Orleans. Other honorees included HBO’s doc guru Sheila Nevins and the legendary Melvin Van Peebles (Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song), who arguably invented the template for independent filmmaking.

Finally, first-timer Nina Paley won the Gotham (and a $15,000 endowment) for Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You for her animated musical fantasy Sita Sings the Blues, in a category stuffed with (at least to our smaller-is-better mindset) some bigfoot contenders. All told, it was an exciting evening for independent film, and our helpers at IFP made every effort to ensure that our presence backstage was ennobling and gratifying for us, as painless as possible for the presenters and winners, and (we sincerely hope) a nuisance to no one. In the days ahead, look for our behind-the-scenes coverage of the Gothams (in multi formats!), as well as interviews with Sir Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz, Patricia Clarkson, Mira Nair, Melissa Leo, Courtney Hunt, and many others. (Click here for a link to all our previous interviews with Gotham nominees.) Adieu, Gothams, until next year.

The FilmCatcher Team
Cristina Garza, Co-Founder and Head of Content
Kirk Faulkner, Webmaster, Community Evangelist, and B-Roll Commando
Fernando Frias, Videographer Extraordinaire
Damon Smith, Editor-in-Chief

FilmCatcher at the Gothams

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:39:15 -0000

It’s December, friends, and the hype machine is in full effect. Publicists are pulling out all the stops to plug their award-worthiest slate of films. Critics too are sharpening their pens, preparing their 2008 Top 10 lists and going to bat for little-noticed films, dark-horse contenders, and some still-unreleased studio vehicles (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Road) that are sure to make a year-end splash. Yes, awards season is upon us, and we can think of no better way to kick off the annual drive to the Oscars (and the Globes, the SAGs, the People’s Choice Awards, et al.) than to leap right into the milieu of glitz and glamour head first, even if it means dusting off dad’s moth-ravaged tux.

But don’t expect to find us front row at the Academy showcase. In fact, Oscar (that old grouch) hasn’t invited us. Instead, the first event of the season, and the one closest to our indie-film-loving heart, is the 18th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards, and this year we’ll be working behind the scenes with our new partner, IFP (Independent Feature Project), to bring you the highlights of the December 2 ceremony. While Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight are jostling for space on the red carpet, we’ll be tucked in a safe house backstage, chatting up the nominees and presenters from inside New York’s grand, 16,000-square-foot Greek Revival landmark Cipriani Wall Street, a luxurious ballroom that once housed the New York Stock Exchange.

If you’re a regular visitor to FilmCatcher, then you already know how we roll: light on razzle dazzle, heavy on thoughtful conversation, we’re steering clear of the klieg lights and heading straight for the banquettes, where we’re planning to chat up a long list of luminaries, including Sir Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz, Sean Penn, Gus Van Sant, Melvin Van Peebles, Rosemarie Dewitt, Mickey Rourke, and many others. Plus, we'll catch up with all the nominees we've already had an opportunity to interview. Check back later this week for all the coverage.

Boycott Town

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:47:30 -0000

BY KIRK FAULKNER

Oh Internet, you give voice to the craziest of us. We appreciate that people are upset about Proposition 8, the recently passed ban on gay marriage in California. We also appreciate that people are upset with Mormons for donating upwards of 19 million dollars to help support the divisive proposition. Not cool, Mormons. Not cool.

But to have John Aravosis of AmericaBlog suggest that we boycott the Sundance Film Festival (and worse, to have people take him as seriously as they have) because it is held in a state that has a high percentage of people who contributed to the opposite side of his opinion, well that's just crazy-town.

It is understandable to be outraged at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It’s only been 120 some odd years since they were denied the right to marry the way they wanted. Now the oppressed has become the oppressor. That’s some pretty high-grade irony.

Like most Christian churches, Mormons purport to be really into this guy named Jesus who was constantly hanging out with people he didn’t agree with, hooking them up with free wine and telling them stories about rocks and sheep and such. He sure didn’t spend his time collecting donations to exert control over people he considered sinners.

So Mormons are in a bit of hot water, popularly speaking. There are protests in front of their temples and churches. There are ridiculous caricatures of them as marauding rights thieves on TV, and people in the new Real World house keep eating Chet’s peanut butter when he’s not looking. And frankly Mormons, you kind of deserve it.

But this dingleberry, Aravosis, trying to connect the Sundance Film Festival, a festival started by non-Mormons and which takes place in the city with the lowest Mormon population in all of Utah, and which movies Mormons are not really allowed to see (no R movies for the Mormos) in order to get back at Mormons is about as misguided and close-minded as you can get. Sundance has a long history with gay cinema.

In 1992, a panel entitled “Barbed Wire Kisses,” featuring new artists like Tom Kalin, Isaac Julien, Todd Haynes, Sadie Benning, Gregg Araki, Ruby Rich and Derek Jarman was later pinpointed as the birth of “the New Queer Cinema.” Since that time, Sundance has showcased many of the leading queer films in the world. Last year, Sundance had 44 films with either LGBT themes or directors.

I hesitate to even write about this because I know that just responding to the idea gives it energy, even if I disagree with it (thank you The Secret), but in reality, if you don’t like what the Mormons did, go to Sundance and tell them. Or at least go and watch some movies about happily married gay couples, or go be a happy gay couple all up in the Mormons’ collective grill.

Drawing lines in the sand is never a pro-active answer to a problem. It’s childish, stupid and destructive. I’m pretty sure that Jesus guy would back me up.

Kirk Faulkner is a film critic, screenwriter, web-guy and Mormon.