The Screengrab : choke

DVD Digest for February 17, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

This week, if you’re lucky enough to be getting some stimulus money, read this column to figure how to use some of it to help build up your collection of movies on DVD and Blu-Ray. And if you’re not getting any money, you can at least see what you’ll be missing.

This week’s highest-profile recent release coming to DVD is the teen sensation High School Musical 3, available in a new “Extended Edition” from Disney on standard-definition and Blu-Ray. Other big-ticket releases this week include Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies (Warner, also Blu-Ray), Angelina Jolie in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling (Universal, also Blu-Ray), and the horror double feature Quarantine (Sony, also Blu-Ray) and The Midnight Meat Train (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray). Also this week: Sam Rockwell in Choke (Fox); Greg Kinnear in Flash of Genius (Universal); Bill Maher pulling a Morgan Spurlock in Religulous (Lionsgate); Simon Pegg in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (MGM); and Jiri Menzel’s I Served the King of England (Sony).

In classics, this week brings Warner’s “The Paul Newman Series”, which includes five first-time DVD appearances of five Newman films- his directorial debut Rachel, Rachel, plus The Silver Chalice, The Helen Morgan Story, The Outrage, and When Time Ran Out…. Also this week, Criterion is releasing David Lean’s Hobson’s Choice, and single-film re-pressings of two more John Cassavetes films, Faces and Shadows. And let’s not forget the High School Musical Remix Edition (Disney), for those kids who can’t get enough High School Musical.

This week’s TV on DVD releases include a pair of basic cable rerun favorites, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Eighth Year (Universal), and Murder, She Wrote Season 9 (Universal).

Finally, this week’s Blu-Ray only releases include a trio from Sony of Oscar favorites: the Best Picture winning Gandhi and Kramer vs. Kramer, and a package deal that includes both Capote and In Cold Blood. Also this week, just in time for Lent- The Passion of the Christ Definitive Edition (Fox).

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: Sept. 27-Oct. 3, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Look, we know lots of movie blogs out there on the webbing paid tribute to Paul Newman this week, and rightly so. But you’re never going to have closure until you’ve read Phil Nugent’s obituary, our Paul Newman Top 10 (Parts One, Two and Three) and Paul Clark’s look back at Exodus. That’s simply a fact. And while you’re at it, you might as well check out these other highlights from the week that was:

Reviews galore: Religulous, Ballast, Choke, Let the Right One In and Wild Man of the Navidad

Movies you may have missed: Getting to Know You, War of the Gargantuas, Jail Bait

People we love: Kat Dennings, The Angry Police Captain

People we can probably do without: Sharon Stone, David Spade, Lee Atwater

Worse idea: Kenneth Branagh’s Thor or Blade Runner 2?

Why, there’s so much good stuff here, I don’t know whether to shit or go blind.

Screengrab Review: Choke

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:00:00 GMT

While attending Austin's South-By-Southwest Film Festival in March of this year, I caught a screening of the big-studio adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Choke, which I’m told is daring and provocative and, apparently, beloved by hipsters. The theater was filled with big studio Men in Black armed with night vision goggles and whatnot to prevent any pirating of their upcoming release...odd, considering the much more likeable and successful Knocked Up got screened at the 2007 festival without nearly so much off-putting, paranoid nonsense.

Anyway, Choke tells the story of sex addict Sam Rockwell and his sex addict friends (including Joel Grey?!!?!?) and their struggles with sex addiction, which is apparently a terrible problem in Los Angeles and, uh, probably other places (like the story's New Jersey setting, Palahniuk's Washington State stomping grounds and wherever David Duchovny happens to be at any given moment)...although, to be fair, I’m guessing the condition is more of a problem for sex addicts who don’t get to screw around with gorgeous starlets like Kelly Macdonald and Bijou Phillips.

Rockwell’s character also likes to pretend he’s choking in restaurants, because the attention it brings him makes up for the love he was denied by his wacky, now Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother (played by recent bad-mom specialist Anjelica Huston).

Ho-hum. Not a bad movie exactly: there’s some funny bits involving a colonial theme park, a sit-up-and-take notice performance by Gillian Jacobs as a stripper named Cherry Daquiri (not her real name) and, of course, plenty of sex and nudity...but it all just winds up playing like the pilot for some new Showtime series I'm never gonna watch. Sam Rockwell is once again likeable yet not quite likeable (or relatable) enough to really care about, and I left the theater wondering how many better (or at least more interesting) movies, say, the Baghead mumblecore crowd, the documentarians behind Man On Wire or Young@Heart or any number of unheralded SXSW and other below-the-radar indie filmmakers could have made with the millions they spent making (and marketing the shit out of) this utterly disposable "edgy" studio offering.

Related Stories - Trailer Review: Choke, Sundance: The Final Roundup, Greta Gerwig and the SXSW Invasion

Trailer Review: Choke

Paul Clark — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Sam Rockwell has been working steadily in movies for almost twenty years now in both comedy and drama, but in since the beginning of the decade he’s really come into his own. But while character work as diverse as Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Assassination of Jesse James, and Joshua (my favorite performance of 2007, case you’re wondering), has made him one of the most fascinating actors currently working, he still hasn’t managed to find a true star-making role. If its trailer is any indication, Choke could change that. Based on a novel by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, Choke’s Victor Mancini is a perfect fit with the smart-assed, sleepy-eyed underachiever types that Rockwell as always excelled at playing. But what distinguishes this film is that Victor is the protagonist, as we follow his misadventures as a con man and sex addict trying to care for his terminally-ill mother and finding a way to be not completely irredeemable as a person. But while director Clark Gregg’s style appears to be a far cry from David Fincher’s attention-grabbing Fight Club visuals, he’s at least had the good sense to surround Rockwell with a worthy cast of costars, especially Anjelica Huston as his mother and Kelly MacDonald (*drool*) as the tentative object of his affection. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this one.

Sundance: The Final Roundup

Scott Von Doviak — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:51:00 GMT

It’s all over except for the long lines at security in the Salt Lake City airport. The awards were handed out last night by a jury featuring Quentin Tarantino and Marcia Gay Harden, and the top honors went to a couple of politically-charged pictures that flew under the radar for most of the festival. The grand jury prize for drama went to Frozen River, writer-director Courtney Hunt’s film about two women smuggling immigrants across the Canadian border. The top prize for documentaries went to Trouble the Water, about New Orleans families struggling in the aftermath of Katrina.

But that’s not all. As Kenneth Turan notes, awards were handed out like Halloween candy this year, with top audience prizes going to The Wackness and Fields of Fuel. Other notable recipients include American Teen (for dramatic directing), Man on Wire (for world documentary) and Choke (special jury prize for ensemble cast). Over at Slamdance, a documentary about a Neil Diamond cover band (Song Sung Blue) was the big winner.

In addition to its award, The Wackness picked up a distributor. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Sony Pictures Classics will ensure that you get the opportunity to watch Ben Kingsley and Mary-Kate Olsen swapping spit.

And on that note, that’s a wrap for this year. Let’s hit the slopes!

Sundance Roundup: Day 6

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:45:00 GMT

The wallets have finally opened in Park City, as the L.A. Times reports a trio of high profile sales: Choke, based on the novel by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, has sold to Fox Searchlight for $5 million, while Focus has ponied up twice that much for the rights to Hamlet 2 (a sequel centuries in the making, no doubt), and new player Overture Films has secured domestic rights to “bittersweet drama” Henry Poole is Here, starring Luke Wilson.

That’s good news for the “Focus on Film” movement, “a salvo fired at the publicity-starved companies that lure celebrities and media with an avalanche of products,” as the Times also reports. Yes, for some it’s all about the gift bags, and the “Brand-dance” luxury lounges are as popular as ever this year. If you’re looking for a free diamond-encrusted iPod case, Park City is the place to be.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh caused a stir when star Sienna Miller referred to the titular city as “Shitsburg,” but all may be forgiven now. Per the Tribune Review, Pittsburgh Film Office director Dawn Keezer was on hand for the Sundance premiere and gushed, “It's absolutely amazing. Pittsburgh looks stunning. It's literally a picture-postcard to the city of Pittsburgh.”

Always on the lookout for the next trend, The Hollywood Reporter declares suicide this year’s hot Sundance topic. “Geoff Haley's The Last Word looks at a writer (Wes Bentley) whose business is drafting people's suicide notes, including one for a despondent Ray Romano. In I Always Wanted to Be a Gangster, an already suicidal teenage girl tries to kill herself while being held hostage. And in The Wackness, one character attempts to re-create James Mason's famous walk into the ocean in A Star Is Born. And those are just the funny films.” We could die laughing.