November 3, 2008
Shorts, 11/3.
Ed Howard has selected the Film of the Month for November: Su Friedrich's Sink or Swim.
Craig Keller has images from the film Jean-Luc Godard's working on, Socialisme.
"[E]ven though the new German film The Baader Meinhof Complex runs two and a half hours and is based on an account of the gang's rise and pitiful fall by the respected historian Stefan Aust, no one should go to the movie looking for enlightenment as to who the Red Army Faction's members were or what were the forces that shaped them," blogs Ella Taylor. "As directed by Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn), it's mostly a cheesy action picture that measures the gang's passage from protest to terrorism in stuff getting blown up by the pound."
"Kôji Wakamatsu's United Red Army is a docu-drama (or if you prefer to be academic about it, jitsuroku eiga, the Japanese term for films that mix documentary and fiction elements, prevalent in the 70s, and often about the yakuza and other gangs) about the titular Japanese extremist leftist paramilitary group," writes Francis Cruz. "Most intriguing is how [Wakamatsu], despite his actual experiences supporting the group and its activities, directs the film with a cool detachedness.... United Red Army's investment in factual consistency, mixed with Wakamatsu's purposeful emotional ambivalence towards his subject matter and the multitude of characters, creates an atmosphere of alluring unsteadiness, which the film banks on to carry its audience through the three hours."
"Song of the South's 'controversy' in 1972 was largely imaginary," writes Jason Sperb. "[T]he construction of sympathetic Disney defenders who were finding ways to both appropriate and resist the film's problematic depiction of racial relations. However, that is not to say that Song of the South, in other ways, passed through the 1970s unscathed. The film that was controversial in the 1970s was Song of the South's angry reimagining, Ralph Bakshi's live-action mixed with animation satire, Coonskin (1974)."
"I continue to find it astonishing that a film as important as Jacques Tati's Parade continues to be ignored and unrecognized as a radical statement, even after the recent rediscoveries of all his other features," writes Jonathan Rosenbaum, introducing his 1989 review.
"Without claiming that films don't have value in themselves and that you're not enriched simply by watching a film, part of the fun of being a film nerd is participating in the film community (thank you, Internet!) by reading, writing, sharing, interacting." Hence, Pacze Moj's notion of a "practical" canon outlined in the Auteurs' Notebook.
Adrian Martin considers what might be needed from "the film magazine of the future"; via Girish.
"Isn't She Deneuvely?" is the title of Krista Smith's profile of Kate Winslet for the December issue of Vanity Fair. And there's an accompanying slide show. Related: Anne Thompson passes along a friend's impressions of The Reader.
"Critics aren't expected to review Bond films so much as test-drive them," writes Richard Corliss in Time. "In that spirit, here's a quick rundown [on Quantum of Solace], on a scale of 0 to 10. Opening credit sequence: 5..." Related:
Considering that Alfred Hitchcock directed a silent 1928 adaptation of Noël Coward's play Easy Virtue, John Patterson wonders "what certain other Coward adaptations might have looked like had they been directed by Hitchcock." Also in the Guardian, Paul Rennie on the poster, title sequence - and the suits! - of North by Northwest.
"After months of deal-making turmoil, the elaborate, two-film Tintin series planned by the directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson may find its financiers in a partnership being forged by Sony Pictures Entertainment and Paramount Pictures." Michael Cieply reports.
"The death of Robert Altman in 2006 left a gigantic hole in American cinema," writes Paul Matwychuk. "I can think of no higher praise than to say that in its generosity of spirit and its appreciation of the complexities of human behaviour, Rachel Getting Married is the most Altmanesque film anybody has made since."
For Variety, John Burlingame talks with John Barry about ten of his scores. Via Movie City News.
"A filmmaker's dream of building a Hollywood-style studio in the northern part of South Africa has been blocked after a passionate campaign by the local Khoi-San community," reports Ian Evans in the Christian Science Monitor. "Residents of the remote and desolate town of Pella say they do not care about the millions of dollars promised or the prospect of A-list celebrities flying in on private jets and instead wanted to keep their 'sacred' scrubland, which was won in battle by their forefathers."
"A midnight Halloween screening of Night of the Living Dead was the final show for the beloved downtown playhouse that specialized in outrageous, bizarre, and other truly independent cinema," writes Rania Richardson. "What's your Pioneer Theater story?" asks ST VanAirsdale. Mike Everleth comments.
Marshall Fine presents a "modest proposal (to end TV as we know it)."
"John Daly, the British-born producer of 13 Oscar-winning movies including Platoon and The Last Emperor who helped launch the careers of many A-list directors and actors, has died," reports the AP. "He was 71." Via Movie City News. Joe Leydon comments.
Online browsing tip. The Shaw Brothers Reloaded collection of movie flyers. Via Coudal Partners.
Online listening tip. Mike Leigh's a guest on On Point.
Online viewing tip #1. As his contribution to Liberty Mutual's online Responsibility Project, Grant Heslov has made the short film Tony - and explains why.
Online viewing tip #2. Raymond De Felitta's found Hollywood Rhythm, "shot in 1934 and purporting to be a behind the scenes look at how a popular song was constructed for a movie musical in the early 30s (though it is in fact entirely staged and bears no resemblance to what we now think of as 'behind the scenes')."
Online viewing tip #3. Jason Morehead's got Hitchens vs Wilson: The Teaser Trailer.
Online viewing tip #4. Bergman and the Theatre. Thanks, Jerry!
Online viewing tips, round 1. Nicholas Carlson lists "10 Embarrassing Product Placements" for Silicon Alley Insider. Via Fimoculous. Related: Stephen Bayley in the Observer on the product placement in Quantum of Solace.
Online viewing tips, round 2. i heart photograph's collection of YouTube art, via Jason Kottke.
Online viewing tips, round 3. Via Mark Frauenfelder, who posts a segment with Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, several episodes of USA Arts.
Posted by dwhudson at November 3, 2008 3:19 PM
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