If the last cremation you watched was in Diamonds Are Forever, now’s your chance to get up to speed and stick it to Islamic fundamentalist terrorism at the same time.
In the event one of the many death threats he received over Submission, his short film decrying abuse of Muslim women, panned out, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh said he wanted a public cremation. Unfortunately, he’s getting his wish today at 1700h Amsterdam Time, CET, (or 1100 EST).
The Nederland 2 TV network is carrying the event live online, starting at 1650h, which is in like an hour.
Related [??] [Montgomery Advertiser, via Defamer]: “Hagman has stipulated that upon his death, he wants his body to be ground in a wood chipper and scattered in a field, where wheat is to be harvested for a cake to be eaten by his friends and family one year later….” [and if that’s not enough to make you want to live forever, read on…]
Category: movies
Queue Review
A while back, I filled by DVD rental queue with over 100 movie suggestions from greg.org readers. Even combined with some of my own ongoing additions, I’ve depleted my queue completely. More suggestions are welcome,
In the mean time, here are some short reviews of DVD’s fresh from the queue:
Unknown Pleasures (2003, Zhang Ke Jia) The wrapper says, “think a Chinese Slacker, but it’s more a Chinese Reality Bites directed by Mike Leigh.
Super Size Me (2003, Morgan Spurlock) I wanted to play catchup, but it felt like most other things from SoHo these days–played out. If this were an order of fries, I could’ve done with a small.
Shadows (1959, John Cassavetes) Rewatched in the wake of the fleeting appearance of Cassavetes’ first version. It’s like an American Unknown Pleasures. My kid’s first movie (the B&W is good for their visual development, right?)
The French Connection (1971, William Friedkin) I confess, I got it because Nick Nolte loved it, and it’s a spare, elliptical classic. Felt like it had less dialogue–or a shorter script, anyway–than even Lost in Translation.
Capturing The Friedmans (2003, Andrew Jarecki) The DVD experience is so different than the film BECAUSE THERE’S CLEARLY EXONERATING EVIDENCE ON THE EXTRAS DVD. It’s like only finding out the secret of The Crying Game on the director’s commentary. Oh, and clowns disturb me.
Ridicule (1996, Patrice Leconte) Very very funny, but there’s a closeup of (pardon my French) a fat, uncut queue in the first scene that might make the rest of watching this movie with your inlaws rather uncomfortable.
The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola) Yeah, yeah, I just got it to study the editing of the baptism/massacre scene. You should see this in a theatre.
Tigerland (2000, Joel Schumacher) Joel Schumacher’s Full Frontal, Of course, Full Frontal was made in the wake of Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and Oceans Eleven and paid us back with Oceans Twelve [and, granted, K Street], whereas Tigerland only gave us Phone Booth.
Elephant (2003, Gus Van Sant) Even better the third time (I’d put it on the queue before I got it for my birthday), but with a positively Third World selection of DVD extras: i.e., almost none. Have someone read my interview with producer Dany Wolf to you while you watch it.
Faces (1968, John Cassavetes) Impressively depressing.
Come Undone (2000, Sebastien Lifshitz) For a brief moment after I turned it off, I planned to look up who the Stephane Rideau fanatic was who recommended this meandering gay French teen soap opera (as wel as Francois Ozon’s Sitcom) to me, and chew them out. Now that they have much bigger worries, I’m glad I didn’t.
Sign yourself up for DVD rentals at GreenCine.
Finally, Apocalypse Tuesday
You have to give New Line credit. They hold up the video/DVD of Michael Tolkin’s The Rapture–one of the most sophisticated treatments of religion ever put to film–for 13 years, and then they decide to release it on the actual day when, whatever happens, up to 49% of Americans will think the world’s actually coming to an end: Tuesday, November 2nd.
Buy The Rapture on Amazon, or rent it at GreenCine. [via Choire’s NYT Guide
]
VV: Puppet Fan Living In Fantasy World
Let me say this: I know Starship Troopers. Starship Troopers is a friend of mine. And Team America, you are NO Starship Troopers.
Michael Atkinson lets us peer into his private fantasy world, where newspaper movie critics wield godlike power to make or break an adolescent action movie at the box office; where directors can deliver incisive political satire without wanting to, or even being aware of it; and where Team America is actually “reproachful,” “burlesque” “satire” of “balls-out martial power” and “gut-level xenophobia,” not just a sell-out celebration of it, complete with detachable air quotes.
Seriously, when someone goes so far as to cite Voltaire and the historicist “diagetic remove” of puppetry to justify their love of a widely criticized film, you can be sure the real battle is in Atkinson’s head: he’s just coming to terms with his suddenly awakened attraction to simulated puppet sex.
You know what, never mind. I think what he needs is for us to be a little more supportive of him right now.
Attack of The Puppet People [Village Voice]
My own conflicted review: Smaller, Shorter, and Most Definitely Cut [greg.org]
Next We’ll Find Out She Bought Necromania
Madeleine Albright just told Jon Stewart that she’s seen Team America World Police.
Maybe it’s not that surprising; if you actually know the person who’s being portrayed as a diabolical puppet, you’re obliged to see the movie.
Bonus Kim Jong Il trivia: he wears high heels. Albright said she stood next to him for a picture, and they were still the same height, and she had heels on…
Nick Denton Sports Wood
from the NYMDb work-in-process folder:
Fleshbot Films [?!] gives Ed Wood’s last film the, um, full release it deserves. It’s the long-lost hardcore version of Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love!; the simulated sex version turned up at a tag sale in 1992, much to the glee of the late filmmaker’s hardcore [sic] fan(s). For the rest of you, no, Johnny Depp is not attached.
IN THE VAULT/ Weird Love [New Yorker]
Exclusive: La Mexicaine Le Interview
While the discovery of an underground cinema in the center of Paris has been widely covered, little or no attention has been paid to what the films actually played there. Les Arenes de Chaillot (The Chaillot Arenas) was created by La Mexicaine de Perforation, a group of self-labeled urban explorers who, for the last five or so years, have used the invisible and forgotten infrastructure of Paris as their own curatorial venue, putting on exhibitions, concerts, and, beginning last year, film screenings.
Early Sunday morning I spoke with Lazar Kunstmann, a filmmaker, editor, and the public spokesman of LMDP about the group’s objectives, ideas, and inspirations. Turns out there were at least two weekly film series, including Urbex Movie, the one that someone narc’ed out this past summer. Here’s what they showed and why:
Set your TiVo’s on ‘Stun’
John Edwards is hosting Dr. Strangelove tonight on Turner Classic Movies. [via fimoculous]
The only bummer is that Kubrick fingered the generals, not the chickenhawks. Still, I’d be less nervous sharing the screen with Dick Cheney than with George C. Scott. Sellers isn’t bad, either.
Three other senators picked movies so predictable you’d think they were up for election this year: McCain (Paths of Glory), Biden (Dead Poets Society), and Hatch (To Kill A Mockingbird).
Party Politics and The Movies Series on TCM
Eros, Thanatos, Thanatos, Eros: Russ Meyer RIP
Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! director Russ Meyer went tits up over the weekend; students of his rather buxom body of work will recognize his fondness for this position.
My greatest Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon triumph was connecting FPKK‘s Tura Satana to Kevin Bacon, via Herve Villechaise, which was possible only with the help of the then-little-known IMDb.com.
Russ Meyer’s Obituary, with nice quotes from fan John Waters & screenwriter Roger Ebert [LA Times]
Try it yourself: Faster, Pussycat! [IMDb]
Don’t mess with her copyrights. Seriously. [TuraSatana.com]
Correction: Explorateurs Urbains are NOT Cataphiles
My apologies for mistakenly calling the explorateurs urbains of La Mexicaine de Perforation cataphiles. In an interview on NPR, filmmaker Lazar Kunsman, the group’s spokesMexicain, explained that cataphiles are “more like nerds,” who just wander around underground without doing anything. Explorateurs, meanwhile, are seeking to produce new forms of creative expression, to create a viable, engaging alternative to the sterile, mainstream culture found aboveground.
So next time you run into a guy in the catacombs, just ask, “Why the hell did Harvey sit on Hero for so long?”
NPR interview with La Mexicaine de Perforation
Previous subterranean cinema posts, including a partial film programme
And you thought THX 1138 was dystopic
“At one point, when we saw him, he was modestly introducing himself to ELEANOR COPPOLA.
“‘Hi, I’m Jim Caviezel,’ he said. ‘I played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ.‘
“Then they talked, appropriately enough, we thought, about wine.”
– Boldface Names report from the THX 1138 party at the Guggenheim, NYT 09/16/04
Manohla Dargis: It’s Armenian for ‘driven crazy by jabbering’
So Tony Scott and Manohla Dargis, his new partner in film reviewing, handicap the fall movie season in today’s NYT. Now about the new kid: she praises David O. Russell and Alexander Payne in the same sentence, so she can’t be entirely, irredeemably, Joyce Wadler-style crazy, but the only possible explanation I can come up with is it’s a cry for help:
Even if Before Sunset doesn’t make huge sacks of money, it will probably be one of the best if not the best film [Warner Brothers] puts out this year. It’s too small to get Oscar recognition, because those dolts in the academy rarely look at a movie that tiny, but big Warners has to understand that this movie has great worth.
Before Sunset just about drove me INSANE. Those two jabbery narcissists deserved each other; the Ethan Hawke character’s invisible wife must plop into a Calgon bath as soon as he walks out the door for his book tour.
Did someone mention walking? I haven’t seen such a pointless randonnee since Gerry. But with its incessant, empty banter, Before Sunset is almost the exact opposite of Van Sant’s nearly dialogue-free buddy pic. Before Sunset is the anti-Gerry. And you’ve gotta pick your poison; you’re either a Gerry person or a Before Sunset person. Unless you’re Manohla Dargis, who apparently loved both. Move over, Joyce.
The Best Movies We’ve Never Seen [NYT A&L]
Related: greg.org on Gerry
Now Playing at Les Arenes de Chaillot
The Guardian’s Jon Henley talks with members of La Mexicaine de Perforation, the urban explorers group who built and operated a cinema in a 4,000-sf uncharted quarry 60 feet under the Place de Chaillot in Paris. They called the cinema Les Arenes de Chaillot.
During the seven-week season, the Mexicans screened films by “Chinese and Korean directors but also Alex Proyas’ Dark City, Coppola’s Rumble Fish, David Lynch’s Eraserhead, and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.
Clandestine group reveals how it built its cinema beneath the city [Guardian UK]
Now Playing at Les Arenes de Chaillot
The Guardian’s Jon Henley talks with members of La Mexicaine de Perforation, the urban explorers group who built and operated a cinema in a 4,000-sf uncharted quarry 60 feet under the Place de Chaillot in Paris. They called the cinema Les Arenes de Chaillot.
During the seven-week season, the Mexicans screened films by “Chinese and Korean directors but also Alex Proyas’ Dark City, Coppola’s Rumble Fish, David Lynch’s Eraserhead, and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.
Clandestine group reveals how it built its cinema beneath the city [Guardian UK]
From Abbot & Costello to Zulu: Movie Title Screens
Shill has a giant library of movie title screens. Not necessarily opening credits sequences–which are an artform in themselves–but a screencapture of the title card.
It’s connoisseur-comprehensive, with four versions of Tarkovsky’s Stalker, for example, tracking the nuanced differences in format and transfer quality for each film’s incarnation on laserdisc, DVD, beta dub, or (horrors) VHS.
One of my favorites is Safe, Todd Haynes’ 1995 film, and the main reason we can forgive Julianne Moore for Assassins [as for Laws of Attraction…]. Turns out Safe‘s restrained, ominous titles were designed by Bureau, the firm of artists Marlene McCarty and Donald Moffett. [via list.absenter.org]