December 3, 2008
Shorts, fests, etc, 12/3.
In Salon, Rebecca Traister reviews Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking: "So, yes, Fisher's reputation, which was first made when she was a toddler whose father, Eddie Fisher, left her mother, Debbie Reynolds, for a grieving Elizabeth Taylor, rests largely now on her role as space-aged geek goddess, or her later identity as a poster child for bipolar disorder and drug addiction. But for me, Fisher will always be an author, whose clutch of novels helped shepherd me through adolescence, showing me, with teeming neurotic energy, what it might be like to grow into a woman with a hell of a lot on her mind."
"Lawyers for the film director Roman Polanski, who fled the United States before his sentencing for statutory rape 30 years ago, asked a judge here to dismiss the case against him based on claims of judicial and prosecutorial wrongdoing revealed in a documentary film," reports Michael Cieply. The request "cited the film Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, in which a former deputy district attorney described having coached the judge in the case, though he was not directly involved in the prosecution."
Also in the New York Times, Steven Kurutz on the rise of the White Russian - vodka, Kahlúa and cream - in the long, long wake of The Big Lebowski. And the editors of the Book Review have selected their "10 Best Books of the Year."
Jürgen Fauth lists his "Most Disappointing Movies of 2008."
"Does it give too much away to say that Gran Torino, which Eastwood stars in and directed, represents, for this critic at least, the final film in a trilogy that began with Unforgiven and continued with A Perfect World?" asks Glenn Kenny. "No? Good. Let me then add that I found the film a very fine conclusion indeed, to the trilogy I just made up."
More from Pete Hammond, blogging for the Los Angeles Times: "As a grizzled, racist, foul-mouthed ex-Marine refusing to move from an old neighborhood now populated with Asians and overrun by gangs, Eastwood summons up memories from his past roles. As Eastwood's character stands in front of his house pointing his gun at a group of young toughs and utters lines like 'Get off of my lawn' or 'Did you ever think you would be [expletive] with the wrong guy,' you could almost see what Harry Callahan would be like when he hit retirement age."
Gabriel Shanks: "In a year that has already boasted stunning performances by a number of actors (Sean Penn, Heath Ledger, Richard Jenkins, Brad Pitt) as well as one bona fide career resuscitation (Robert Downey Jr), nothing quite prepares you The Wrestler, and for the mind-blowing return of Mickey Rourke as Randy the Ram, a past-his-prime former superstar of the ring."
In The Reader, "the Holocaust remains the elephant in the room that deadens the elements of surprise and suspense we have been conditioned to expect in screen narratives," writes Andrew Sarris in the New York Observer. Also, "I recommend [Wendy and Lucy] as an artistic achievement, though not one unduly addicted to the pleasure principle."
At AICN, Capone talks with Viggo Mortensen about, among all sorts of things, The Road.
"Brian Patrick O'Toole is a screenwriter and an independent horror movie producer in Hollywood whose last two films, Evilution and Basement Jack, I really enjoyed," writes Mike Everleth, introducing his interview.
Fests and events:
Cloverfield is "a really good illustration of Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's notion of the double logic that characterises digital media, exhibiting the qualities of immediacy and hypermediacy," writes Dan North:
Immediacy because it is designed to efface the traces of manufacture and give the spectator more direct access to the content, or the events depicted - thus we have long takes that appear to be unedited, situating the spectator in a continuous relationship with the characters. At the same time, it displays hypermediacy by bearing all the traces of mediation openly - the image might be time-stamped, the lens dirty or blood-splattered, the tape glitched. It's crucial that you notice these technical facets, since it is through their presence that the film purchases its authenticity, but it is crucial that you suspend disbelief and attribute them to the diegetic equipment and crew, and not to the massive resources of 20th Century Fox. If discussions of digital media have sometimes seemed to predict a utopia of pixel-perfect, high-definition absolute vision, here is a film whose major points of interest are glimpsed, missed, obscured or misapprehended.
Jason Sperb on A Christmas Story:
What is its ideology? What explains its appeal? Well, nostalgia, of course. But what about it? The film itself is a nostalgic look at a (illusory) white, middle class, Midwestern 20th Century life. No doubt that nostalgia (representational nostalgia) appeals to many who imagine having lived that childhood. But its also an insightful deconstruction of that nostalgia - Dad's a pervert, Christmas dinner is ruined, Ralphie's quite the potty-mouth, Santa's a creep, kids suffer through endless embarrassment, bullying, humiliation, etc. The film appeals to contradictory audiences which may embrace, and reject, nostalgia for a period that never existed.
Craig Keller notes that the footage from A King in New York that Godard uses in Histoire(s) du cinéma is not actually in Chaplin's 1973 cut.
Kevin Lee on The Saga of Gosta Berling: "Intended as the ultimate triumph of what in retrospect was the golden era of Swedish silent cinema, this long and expensive costume drama based on a nationally celebrated novel by Nobel laureate Selma Ottiliana Lovisa Lagerlöf looks today like a prototypical prestige picture.... Its most lasting value is Greta Garbo making her screen debut, and all the more fascinating in that the film presents 'The Immortal' as a work-in-progress."
Frost/Nixon's sent James Rocchi back to a Robert Altman movie: "Nixon is played by Phillip Baker Hall, a great American actor who's never quite gotten his dues - but do not for a second think that Secret Honor is stagy or still or slow because it's a one-person show. Hall is magnetic and pure and terrifying in one of the greatest pieces of acting ever committed to film, committed to a performance that's a bleak marvel and a horrifying thing of wonder."
Alex tells the "Story Behind Hollywood Studio Logos" at Neatorama. Via Coudal Partners.
"Odetta, the classically trained folk, blues and gospel singer who used her powerfully rich and dusky voice to champion African American music and civil rights issues for more than half a century starting in the folk revival of the 1950s, has died," report Randy Lewis and Mike Boehm in the Los Angeles Times. "She was 77."
Tom Stempel remembers screenwriter John Michael Hayes at the House Next Door.
Online listening tip #1. Aaron Aradillas talks with Curtis Hanson about, among other things, writing the screenplay for White Dog. More on the film from Ryland Walker Knight in the Auteurs' Notebook and Peter Nellhaus.
Online listening tip #2. Nathaniel R talks with Bill Irwin about Rachel Getting Married.
Online viewing tip #1. Wiley Wiggins has the trailer for Sorry, Thanks.
Online viewing tip #2. Prop 8: The Musical, starring Jack Black, John C Reilly and more. Via Waxy.
Online viewing tip #3. Christopher Campbell at the SpoutBlog: "You'd think a movie about YouTube users would have a great viral campaign, but the trailer for Chuck Potter's I Want My Three Minutes Back is rather simple."
Online viewing tips, round 1. Creative Review's Eliza gathers "a selection of some of the great advertising work that has passed under our noses."
Online viewing tips, round 2. At DC's, "'Intelligent Techno, Ambient, Trance, Etc', c. 1990s. A Vidclip Memorial."
Posted by dwhudson at December 3, 2008 2:10 PM
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