September 5, 2008
Shorts, 9/5.
That shot of Julian Schnabel on the cover of the September issue of Art Review? Snapped by Benicio Del Toro. Related: Martha Schwendener on Calvin Tomkins's Lives of the Artists in the new issue of Bookforum, where Catherine Morris reviews Being Watched: Yvonne Rainer and the 1960s by Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Yvonne Rainer: The Mind Is a Muscle by Catherine Wood and Feelings Are Facts: A Life by Yvonne Rainer.
Michael Powell's last work, The White Swan, was intended to be a five-hour biopic based on the life of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova. In the Telegraph, Rupert Christiansen tells the story of an immensely troubled production, thanks to several road blocks the Soviet Union threw in his way, and notes that a fully restored version may be broadcast in Japan, Europe and the US.
Chris Smith's The Pool and Chris Eska's August Evening open today, "and both belong to an intriguing current of American realistic filmmaking that has coalesced over the last few years in the lower-budget realms of independent cinema," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "Like most realistic cinema of the last 60 or 70 years, they derive from a quasi-Christian, quasi-Marxist urge to minimize cultural difference and argue for the essential equality of human lives and aspirations."
"The more we saw... at both the multiplex and the art house, the more we realized that the 'mainstream' movies with queer content or subtext were just as thought-provoking as (though more discouraging than) their out-and-proud indie and foreign cousins. So what did we learn on our summer vacation?" At indieWIRE, Michael Koresky and Chris Wisniewski followup on their first installment of their Queer Cinema Notebook.
"Midway through the 1930s Leo McCarey, the maestro behind the early shorts of Laurel and Hardy, started making feature-length masterpieces," writes R Emmet Sweeney at Moving Image Source. "From 1935 to 1939 he directed Ruggles of Red Gap, Make Way for Tomorrow, The Awful Truth and Love Affair. It's an astonishing run, but the first two features have long been unavailable on home video, their reputation surviving through the tantalizing words of critics and McCarey fans like Robin Wood and Dave Kehr.... The French releases of Make Way and Ruggles on DVD this past June, on the BAC Films label, are a cause for both celebration and reevaluation."
"More and more small movies get misplaced theatrically, but in the parallel universe of DVD (versus the cinema and festival releases touted by critics), where a larger number of eyeballs are available, several worthy titles have hit the street," writes Ray Pride, reviving his column at Movie City News: "Here's an interview with writer-director Steve Conrad about The Promotion; a talk with writer-director Ira Sachs and lead Chris Cooper about Married Life; a brief video excerpt from an interview with longtime partners, Son of Rambow writer-director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith, as well as shorter notes on Gypsy Caravan, The Counterfeiters and Irina Palm."
"Inspired by Neil Young and Radiohead, Michael Moore will release his new film online and for free," reports Jake Coyle for the AP. "The film, Slacker Uprising, follows Moore's 62-city tour during the 2004 election to rally young voters."
"Guillermo del Toro is now booked through 2017. And maybe beyond." Michael Fleming has details in Variety. Also: "Columbia Pictures is getting serious about scaring up a new installment of its blockbuster Ghostbusters franchise. The studio has set The Office co-exec producers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky to write a script for a film designed to bring back together the original cast of Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson."
And also in Variety: "Tom Cruise and United Artists have acquired rights to serial-killer thriller The Monster of Florence, with Cruise attached to produce and possibly to star, according to Douglas Preston, author of the bestseller." Nick Vivarelli reports.
Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl... Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards "is set to be the most star-studded war film since Terrence Malick's 1998 movie, The Thin Red Line. Jonathan Dean reports for the Independent.
New blog on the block: TrustMovies, from frequent Daily and Guru contributor James Van Maanen.
The latest FilmInFocus "Behind the Blog" interview: the cinetrix.
The latest in Not Coming to a Theater Near You's series Bosomania!: The Sex, the Violence, and the Vocabulary of Russ Meyer: Adam Balz on Common-Law Cabin, Rumsey Taylor on Good Morning and... Goodbye!, Leo Goldsmith on Vixen! and Katherine Follett on Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!.
"Set up for pathos, Momma's Man is also a formal tease that both flirts with and renounces the personal essay," writes Ella Taylor. "In his minimalist, indie-fringe way, director Azazel Jacobs (now there's a name, taken from a Biblical devil of sorts, for a boho child) double-dares us to make something or nothing of the fact that he cast his own parents, Ken and Flo Jacobs, an experimental filmmaker and a painter, in the film, and shot it in their cluttered apartment, a Miss Havisham state of chaos filled with books, disembodied dolls' heads and the moving parts that fuel Dad's abstract creative impulses." Also: Anthony Kaufman talks with Azazel and Ken Jacobs.
And also in the LA Weekly: Scott Foundas assesses the summer. So, too, does Duncan Shepherd in the San Diego Reader.
"Baghead could have been made in response to criticisms of mumblecore," writes Steve Erickson in the Baltimore City Paper. He finds it "far more ambitious than Hannah Takes the Stairs or Quiet City. In fact, it bites off more than it can chew, aiming to synthesize an indie-scene satire, a portrait of romantic manipulation, and a horror film." Meanwhile, in the Vue Weekly, David Berry talks with the Duplasses.
"It is no sin to go out gracefully, in some faraway dream of the mind," writes Nathan Kosub in Reverse Shot. "But life is much farther away in The Romance of Astrée and Céladon than it used to be for Eric Rohmer, and ultimately, in light of so many bright examples, too far away for me."
"Maybe De Niro is too much associated with aloofness now, while Pacino is too ingratiating," concedes David Thomson. "If you look ahead, can you really resist De Niro in Michael Mann's Frankie Machine, or Pacino playing Salvador Dalí in Dali & I? Come to that, are you really going to forgo the pleasure of seeing these boys sip each other's coffee together in Righteous Kill - especially if one of them turns out to be the killer?" Related: In the New York Sun, S James Snyder takes "a look back at where the years have taken these two titans of cinema since Heat."
Back in the Guardian:
Nicolas Rapold talks with Godfrey Cheshire about Moving Midway, "which uses a chronicle of the move [of his family's ancestral home in North Carolina] to explore the history, the myths, and, in a sense, the family bonds that can tie a nation together." Also in the New York Sun: S James Snyder talks with Alan Ball about Towelhead. So, too, does Scott Tobias for the AV Club.
For the Telegraph, Sheila Johnston talks with Dennis Gansel: "'My grandfather was in the Wehrmacht, a big supporter of Adolf Hitler, and my father was a 1968 anarchist. Christmas dinner at our house was always explosive,' says the 34-year-old director. His two last features dealt with Nazis and the Red Army Faction. The Wave is another typical - even stereotypical - German subject, with an improbable, highly melodramatic premise."
In the Austin Chronicle, Wells Dunbar talks with Melissa Leo about Frozen River.
"[T]here are the Pixar movies you like and the ones you fall in love with," writes Elise Nakhnikian at the House Next Door.. "And for me, the best are the ones that shake off the constraints of the natural world, like a dog drying off after a dip."
"How atrocious is the comedy Everybody Wants to Be Italian?" asks Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times. "Let me count the ways." Also: "Had Jorge Ameer, the writer and director of The House of Adam, aimed for high-flying camp instead of low-rent earnestness, his movie might have stood a fighting chance. As it is, this mopey tale of a love that dare not speak its name is no more than an inept wallow in closeted torment."
"There was a time when Hampstead's Everyman Cinema was the very epitome of the art-house and repertory fleapit.... But something has changed. Once home to Kieslowski and Tarkovsky, it was showing the likes, last month, of Hellboy II and The Dark Knight." Yo Zushi tracks a trend in the New Stateman: "'Indulge' is the motto of the new Everyman, which takes no half-measures when it comes to comfort."
"Bill Melendez, the animator who gave life to Snoopy, Charlie Brown and other Peanuts characters in scores of movies and TV specials, has died. He was 91." The AP reports. Reverse Shot's robbiefreeling has an appreciation; Ray Pride has a bit of related online viewing.
Online zooming tip. How Star Wars Changed the World at Wired, via Coudal Partners.
Online viewing tip #1. AO Scott on Claude Chabrol's Les Biches.
Online viewing tip #2. The trailer for Gus Van Sant's Milk, with Sean Penn looking mighty promising.
Online viewing tip #3. "Here at CR, we get sent dozens of music promos every week.... Refreshingly, a new video by Up The Resolution for Ninja Tune act, The Cinematic Orchestra - entitled To Build A Home - avoids clichéd music video formulas. Instead it combines beautiful cinematography with a talented cast of actors and an emotionally harrowing story line. The film is also unusual in that the soundtrack consists of two, rather than the usual one, track..."
Posted by dwhudson at September 5, 2008 1:10 PM
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