Category: movies

Tony Scott gave Hirokazu Kore-eda and his latest film, Nobody Knows, a strong review:

Nobody Knows is not for the faint of heart, though it has no scenes of overt violence, and barely a tear is shed. It is also strangely thrilling, not only because of the quiet assurance of Mr. Kore-eda’s direction, but also because of his alert, humane sense of sympathy. He is neither an optimist nor a sentimentalist – like his previous films, Maborosi, After Life, and Distance, this one presents a fairly bleak view of the modern world – but he does keep an eye out for manifestations of decency, bravery and solidarity. These tend to be small and fleeting, and therefore all the more valuable and worth clinging to when his patient, meticulous eye uncovers them.

I found Distance–only available as a Region 2 DVD–to be so carefully hands-off as to be almost boring. And what Scott calls “impending doom,” Jonathan Marlow, reporting from Rotterdam for GreenCine, calls “relatively predictable.” And “unnecessarily long.” Maybe it’s a good thing Kore-eda’s doing a jidai-geki (period drama) next.
Abandoned Children Stow Away At Home [nyt]
GreenCine at IFFR [daily.greencine.com]
Also: Filmbrain’s take on the film, an IndieWIRE’s interview with Kore-eda, and an IFP article and the film’s production notes.
Previously: Kore-eda on greg.org [I mean, greg.org on Kore-eda]

Advertisers first: See See Arnold Run the triumphant story of an Austrian bodybuilder who overcomes his past Nazi ties, hedonistic Hollywood antics, and widely known and repeated sexual harassment allegations to become a big-time star–of the Republican party. From the director of American Pie 2 and the writer of The Unauthorized Story of ‘Charlie’s Angels’, Inside the Osmonds, and Growing Up Brady (so you know the sex and period details’ll be spot on). On A&E Sunday Jan. 30 at 8PM EST. Reportedly based on a true story.

Second–although it takes like five minutes, so you could still see it before Arnold–Mark Romanek’s incredibly moving video of Johnny Cash’s rendition of Hurt, which sensibly beat out Thriller in a music industry poll of the best music videos ever. Finally. Stairway to Heaven, we’re comin’ for you.

[via fimoculous] Jared Hess, the director of Napoleon Dynamite, made a video for The Postal Service’s song, We Will Become Silhouettes.

My favorite IFP Spirit Awards moment was two years ago, watching some young, dumb AMW whose agent thought she needed some indie cred (it turned out to be Brittnay Murphy, unrecognizable to me as the loozah Jersey girl in Clueless) introdue a nominated film. She lost the teleprompter, and froze.
After a panicky moment where her plea for help took the form of a narration to no one in particular (and everyone, of course) of her own predicament, they cut away. When they cut back, she’d decided to adlib, and rambled, as wacky as all get out. Quick cutaway again. When they returned to her a final time, she’d obviously been slapped out of it by someone and turned into a pod person. Close call! If Joe Roth had ever seen–or heard of–the IFP, Murphy would never have scored the lead in Little Black Book.
Now we learn from Richard Rushfield’s NY Times report on the IFP’s transformation into the practically-the-Oscars, that “presenters are encouraged to ignore the scripts provided them and fumble freely.” Uh-huh.
It All Depends On What You Mean By ‘Independent’ [NYT]

Things don’t look good–and some things can’t be seen at all–in Jacob’s critical look at the BAFTA nominations. And the problem is the studios’ stupid MPAA-legacy DVD screener system.
Hero and Million Dollar Baby were left off top-10 lists and didn’t get a single nomination for anything, while House of Flying Daggers got nine. One possible reason? Studios didn’t send out DVD screeners at all.
The Life Aquatic didn’t get any nods, either, even though Buena Vista Pictures Marketing sent out screeners to all BAFTA members. The only problem: those DVD’s had “PROPERTY OF BVPM” and “DO NOT DUPLICATE” burned into every one of Anderson’s fanatically composed frames.

Occasionally, this is amusing–in the last of those images [on Yankeefog.com], you’ll notice that the back of Cate Blanchet’s shirt seems to be advertising her new biography, “I, Cate”–but most of the time, it’s even more incredibly distracting than you’d imagine from looking at the still images above. In every one of Wes Anderson’s carefully planned tracking shots, the most noticeable element becomes those big, unmoving letters at the top and bottom of the screen. Every one of his carefully composed static shots is thrown out of balance by their presence. It becomes difficult to notice Bill Murray’s wonderfully subtle performance, or Owen Wilson’s understated humor, because your eye keeps being drawn to the giant words hovering in front of them.

As if it could get worse the texts aren’t in Futura, Wes Anderson’s font of choice.
Looking Where The Light Is Good [Yankeefog.com, via kottke]
Related: Wes Anderson’s Favorite Font [greg.org pointing at kottke. kottke, kottke, kottke!]

Umm, I thought the British were supposed to be smarter than Americans. How else would they get all that work narrating documentaries? Yet the Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw gives Team America World Police an ecstatic review. And his Observer colleague Philip French calls it “better sustained than [Parker and Stone’s] feature-length animated comedy, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. Fundamentally, it’s an extended parody of Thunderbirds and centres on a group of super-patriots dedicated to–
No, fundamentally, Mr Belevedere, it’s a sloppy, thin pool of disappointing puke, with a few chunks of humor floating in it.
Maybe things look different from the other side of the pond. Maybe the movie’s obtuse, pig-headed politics look more prescient after the 2004 election than it did last summer. [ummm, indeed.] Whatever. Which country, exactly, is to blame for Benny Hill, AbFab, AND Bean? That’s what I thought.
America, &^*(W$&^ Yeah.
‘hilarious movie’ [Observer]
‘Why can’t non-puppet films be as good as this?’ [Guardian]
Previously on greg.org: Smaller, Shorter, and Most Definitely Cut

What, no Amazon links? The little red critics over at the Voice have put together their list of the best DVD’s and DVD collections for 2004, and then they didn’t add shoppertainment links. Here’s my distilled list:

The Alan Clarke Collection (includes the original The Elephant that Gus Van Sant was talking about)

The Martin Scorsese Collection, which includes the criminally inclined Goodfellas and Mean Streets, and the criminally underrated After Hours. Raging Bull‘s finally coming to DVD, though you’ll have to wait until Feb. 8… Still no date for Italianamerican…

The Ed Wood Box [no, that Ed Wood Box you get from Fleshbot Films]

Michael Apted’s The Up Series, It seems like just yesterday I was watching 35 Up at Film Forum. Time sure flies.

The Wong Kar Wai Collection . Hmm. This list may turn out to be in reverse order of preference.

John Cassavetes: Five Films. Yep, it is.
The Five Distractions: Best DVD Sets of 2004 [VV]
Another 10 [VV]

First they ran a contest for Miramax’s Hero which had such obscure questions about Jet Li minutiae that not even his agent–or even Li-fanatic-from-birth Jen Chung–could answer, even with a lifetime subscription to IMDb Pro.
Now Gothamist gets all Disney publicity sock puppet on us again, this time with a contest for Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic, distributed by Touchstone.
The prize? Tickets to a 12/7 preview screening of the movie. The contest? Just fill out your name and email already. I guess Wes’s fans aren’t the kind who pay attention to nitpicky cinematic details. Oh, and this time, Gothamist employees aren’t eligible to enter. Jen, I guess you’ll have to go to a private screening.
Gothamist The Life Aquatic Contest [Gothamist.com]
Related: Matt goes all Milton Glaser and Dylan on the Life Aquatic poster. [lowculture]

Architect Chad Smith plays Scarlett Johanson in his own remake of Lost in Translation: he’s tagging along to the Park Hyatt in Tokyo on his boyfriend’s business trip. The only trouble is, he’s not lost, he’s not depressed, and he’s not confused. And presumably, when he gets back to the US, people at the Golden Globes won’t think he’s a bee-atch.
Stick your nose into his diary at littleminx.com.

This afternoon on WNYC, Jonathan Schwartz was reading an underwriter plug for Zankel Hall, when he stopped and said, “Some of you may remember that Zankel Hall is in the site of the Carnegie Theater, a movie theater with–well it was very small and down a windy staircase–with personality. So many theaters with personality have closed.”

That got me thinking, while Schwartz rattled off a dozen theaters I’d never heard of, of the theaters that have closed since I moved to New York:

The Carnegie, where I saw Cinema Paradiso a dozen times when I first moved to the city.

The theater under The Plaza Hotel

The two-screen theater on the south side of East 59th St between 2nd & 3rd.

The tiny theater further down East 59th St on the north side, next to the Betsey Johnson boutique.

The underground theater on 3rd Avenue between 57th & 58th.

Theater 80 St Mark’s, the only revivals-only theater, which was oriented sideways in the basement/back of a tenement building. Their monthly programs were printed in tiny typeface.

Lighthouse Cinema, an oddball storefront theater on Norfolk below Rivington.

The 68th St Playhouse, on 3rd Ave, where I saw Ridicule. Schwartz mentioned that the last time he went here was to see Mike Nichols in The Designated Mourner.

Worldwide Cinema, the awesome discount theater under the plaza at Worldwide Plaza, 50th & 8th Ave., where I saw Austin Powers again and again. Even the concessions were cheap.

The theater on 34th between Second & Third that tried to hang on by showing Bollywood films.

The awesome theater on the NE corner of Canal and Allen St, at the base of the Manhattan Bridge, that used to show martial arts films.

Loew’s Columbus Circle, which was underneath the Paramount Building. Its entrance was similar to the subway entrance. That guy who used to play a lidless grand piano was always right in front.

Am I remembering incorrectly, or wasn’t there another theater on Third, right across from Bloomingdale’s? [Update: That’s right, the Baronet & Coronet. Thanks, Chris.]
There’s a great website for this kind of thing, Cinema Treasures. And Hiroshi Sugimoto began photographing movie theaters almost 30 years ago, and many of them are now gone.

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.

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
]

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]

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…

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]