Shorts, 6/9.

A couple of DVDs coming out tomorrow are enjoying a bout of pre-release PR. Let's start with Giant, "forged from the hubris of Hollywood and the sturdy bravado of Texas," writes Dana Calvo in the Los Angeles Times: "The results were winning." The cool million Warner Brothers spent on the digital version will likely prove to be a winning strategy as well.

For the New York Times, Simon Romero visits Marfa, Texas, population 2300, where, of course, Giant was filmed. The "legacy," writes Romero, of "the 1956 film that captured the transformation of Texas from an aristocratic ranching economy into a state dominated by rough-hewn oilmen, persists." And will no doubt resonate in the era of Bush II, heir to loads of that rough-hewn oil money.

For a very fun, related browse, zip through Texas Monthly's guide to Texcentric Cinema.

And then there's Alex Abramovich in the NYT on the "loving restoration" of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America, "his most carefully made and densely textured film."

Reviewing Hideo Nakata's Dark Water in the Observer, Mark Kermode recaps the state of horror: "In the same way that the Italian giallo maestros like Mario Bava and Dario Argento had inspired John Carpenter and Brian De Palma in the Sixties and Seventies, now Japanese film-makers such as Hideo Nakata and Takashi Miike emerged to lead international horror cinema out of the wilderness."

Focusing on Asian ghost stories, and in particular, Ringu and The Eye, Terrence Rafferty concurs: "Serious filmmakers like Kenji Mizoguchi, Masaki Kobayashi and Stanley Kwan have worked in the genre without shame and without a hint of condescension to the shades and specters and odd bits of ectoplasm that populate it. And the films of Mr. Nakata and the Pangs have absorbed some of that mournful dignity; it's as if the filmmakers were discharging a solemn duty, honoring an obligation to the spirits they invoke."

Also in the NYT: Elvis Mitchell on cars as stars and David Hochman, talking with Don Cheadle.

The ethics of fansubbing are hashed out at Anime News Network in two editorials. Christopher Macdonald lambasts Anime Junkies for making titles available that have North American licensors (and heavens, they lambast right back) while Daniel DeLorme argues that it's time for fansubbers to abandon IRC for BitTorrent.

ICv2 reports that The Animatrix will likely be this year's top-selling anime DVD. Also: Hellboy's release is set for next Memorial Day

You can vote for your favorite trailers, posters and websites at the Hollywood Reporter's Key Art Awards online voting booth. Via Movie City News.

An intriguing quiz this week at Couch Pundit: "When the Golan brothers threatened to stop funding the film, the director went to their office with a chainsaw and threatened to cut off a finger-joint a day from his hands right in front of them if they didn't cough up the dough."

Ian Fleming biographer Andrew Lycett in London's Sunday Times:

As Jaime Hovey, assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, memorably put it last weekend: "James's transformation from murderously efficient prick to stylishly accessorised dildo" is neither interesting nor sexy. Hovey was giving a lesbian or "queer studies" reading on James Bond at a two-day conference on The Cultural Politics of Ian Fleming and 007 at Indiana University in Bloomington, 200 miles south of Chicago.

Ian Fleming would have been amused...

Reviewing the Die Another Day DVD, though, Doug Pratt sticks to the basics: screen ratios, soundtrack encoding and a grudging admiration for "an enjoyable adventure, bouncing all over the world, fooling around with all sorts of gadgets, and depicting a life of suave luxury, punctuated with energetic violence." Sadly, no mention of Castro, cyborgs or dildos.

Also in the Sunday Times: Ariel Leve on "one of Hollywood's leading power couples," producer Cathy Konrad and writer-director James Mangold. Together, they've made Cop Land, Girl, Interrupted, Kate & Leopold and Identity. That's what you call a mixed track record. The partnership, though, is intriguing.

Speaking of Cop Land, a shock for me because I was actually rather touched by the performance Sylvester Stallone turned in, the Italian Stallion plans to write and direct Rampart Scandal in which he'll also star as controversial LA detective Russell Poole who investigated the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.

Online viewing tip: 80s Ending, a shortish parody of the last few minutes of every movie to hit the metroplex during that very odd decade.



Posted by dwhudson at June 9, 2003 6:54 AM