The Screengrab : crash

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: April 18-24, 2009

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

What’s happening, Screengrabbers? My buddy here and I decided to take this opportunity to clear up a few misconceptions about our forthcoming summer blockbuster, which you all will love very much. We were very disturbed to read Screengrab Predicts Summer 2009 (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six), particularly the part where Land of the Lost was predicted to be the biggest bomb of the summer! Sure, the previews may have given some people the impression that our movie is just another big budget crapfest of a cash-in, but believe you me, nothing could be further from the truth! We have the utmost respect for the original piece. We’re simply reimagining it in contemporary terms, as you might, say, with a modern-dress version of Hamlet. Or Bewitched!

While we’re here, we might as well check out some other stuff that looks interesting, like The Great Netflix-"Crash" Mystery (never saw it), Mia Farrow Plans to Fast for Darfur (looks like she already is, am I right?) and Angelina Jolie Plays Doctor (I’d like to turn my head and cough, if you know what I mean).

That’s all I’ve got time for, but my pal the Sleestak is gonna stick around and read:

Reviews: Tyson, Treeless Mountain, Il Divo, Infestation

Screengrab Q&A: James Toback

Charlie Kaufman Would You Like to Know That He Really Does Care About @#$%ing Structure!

Reviews By Request: Juliet of the Spirits (1965, Federico Fellini)

Forgotten Films: "The Daytrippers" (1987)

Marathon Day Special: The Longest Movies of All Time

The Screengrab Library of Unproduced Screenplays: John Belushi's "Noble Rot"

The Great Netflix-"Crash" Mystery

Phil Nugent — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Somebody noticed that Paul Haggis's Crash has been Netflix's "No. 1 rented movie" for more than three and a half years, since it was released on DVD in September 2005. Needless to say, this is not the kind of factoid that speaks for itself and must be dealt with until a satisfactory explanation if forthcoming. God knows that Haggis, who write and directed the Academy-Award-winning message movie, has no earthly idea why anyone would want to rent the thing: "I have no idea why anyone went to the movie in the first place," he told the Chicago Tribune, "let alone rent it. It was a little independent film, and when people started to see it, I was amazed." (Haggis, to his credit, is also bewildered that the fruit of his loins won the Oscar. "I love the Oscars; I just think they are the best thing in the world, but if you asked me if it was the best film of the year, I'd say, 'Of course not.'" He adds, "I happened to like my second film [In the Valley of Elah] better than Crash, but no one went to see it." Incidentally, Elah was technically his third movie as a director, the first having been 1993's Red Hot, but apparently even he didn't see that one.) If it makes him feel better, Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey confirms that, based on his numbers, "More people have now seen Crash on Netflix than in the theater." He added that, because the movie is on so many people's queues, it's always out and people have to wait a long time to get to rent it, which in turn "adds to the demand for people wanting to see it."

A couple of points might be added to the discussion. First, to make any broad assumptions about how many people have "seen" Crash based on how many people have rented Crash might be kind of a broad leap. Lots of people who had been barely cognizant of the movie's existence prior to the 2006 Academy Awards ceremony probably automatically stuck it in their queues as soon as it won the Oscar. And a lot of other people probably did the same thing at some point, not because they could barely contain their excitement at the prospect of having Thandie Newton and Don Cheadle demonstrate to them the folly of racism, but because they picked up some vague signs in the atmosphere that this was a worthy movie that they should see. It may be that one of the major advances in the culture for which Netflix can take a bow is that, rather than actually going to see such films, people can now stick them on their rental queues, and then, when the discs arrive, procrastinate for weeks and even months before returning them unseen. (Let's face it, that has to be what a lot of people are doing. Either that or they're holding onto the disc for extended periods of time so they can watch it again and again, carefully studying it so they can savor all the subtle nuances they missed on the fourth or fifth viewing. The thing is, if there's anything in Crash that wasn't crystal clear to you the first time you saw it, your senses are in such desperate needs of heightening that your only hope may be to get bitten by a radioactive spider.) Then there's all the people who thought they were renting that movie where James Spader can only get it up with the aid of a car accident.

Whatever the case, the idea, at least, that more people are experiencing his best-known feature film on their TV screens is one that Haggis, cutting way against the grain, claims to find pleasing. "It's a small movie," he says. "And I like to see small movies on a small screen. I'm a TV guy, so I'm much more comfortable watching something on a small screen, particularly movies I've made. Other people's movies, I want to see on a big screen." Which reminds us that Haggis's best work was actually the short-lived 1996 TV series EZ Streets starring Ken Olin, Jason Gedrick, Debrah Farentino, and Joey Pants. And the pilot is available on DVD! The next time you rent Crash and don't watch it, why not, as a treat, rent EZ Streets too, and watch it. Live a little.

DVD Digest for March 31, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

This week, the 2008 winner of the Oscar for Best Picture finds its way to DVD and Blu-Ray. But don’t worry- some good movies are coming out too.

For most media outlets, the big DVD news this week is the release of Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winner Slumdog Millionaire (Fox, also Blu-Ray). And considering the amount of expensive PR and hype that has gone into making the movie the year’s “biggest indie success story” (and the Oscar for Best Media Push goes to…), it’s understandable that they’d want to play up the DVD release as much as possible in order to milk its Academy Awards for the most money possible. Meanwhile, those of us who didn’t care much for movie- and I can’t be the only one, can I?- will just have to hold out hope that maybe the folks who catch up with it at home will be as underwhelmed as we were. Maybe it’s that we were just spoiled by the last two years, in which we thought the Academy was turning over a new leaf by honoring honest-to-goodness awesome movies, but while Slumdog isn’t as awful as Crash, it certainly isn’t movie enough to withstand the massive hype that’s surrounded it ever since Toronto audiences wet their pants over it last fall. The Slumdog love’s got to end sometime, right? RIGHT???

Sorry about that, folks. I just get a little… annoyed when I think about Slumdog. Anyway, this week’s other releases coming to DVD include: Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston and a troublemaking, lesson-teaching dog in Marley & Me (Fox, also Blu-Ray); Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson in Last Chance Harvey (Anchor Bay); and the Spanish mindbender Timecrimes (Magnolia). Also, this week sees the release of the After Dark Horrorfest III (Lionsgate), which includes The Broken, Slaughter, Perkins 14, The Butterfly Effect: Revelation, From Within, Dying Breed, Voices, and the unrated version of Autopsy, with each film also available separately.

Meanwhile, this week’s lineup of classics is headed up by two new releases from the good folks at Criterion, Roberto Rossellini’s Il Generale della Rovere, and Andrzej Wajda’s Danton. Also this week: the Bollywood Horror Collection vol. 2 (Mondo Macabro), which includes Veerana- Vengeance of the Vampire and Purani Haveli- Mansion of Evil.

This week’s TV on DVD include In Plain Sight Season 1 (Universal) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Season 4, Vol. 1 (Fox).

In Blu-Ray only news, this week brings three classic big-screen musicals: An American in Paris (Warner), Gigi (Warner), and South Pacific 50th Anniversary Edition (Fox). Also this week: the Vin Diesel double feature Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick (both Universal), plus Ghosts of Mars (Sony) and The One (Sony).

Finally, we come to the Synopsis of the Week, coming once again from the folks at FUNimation Entertainment. Sorry if it seems like I’m picking on Japanese animation with this feature, but you’ve got to admit that some of their premises are pretty unbelievable, and the folks who write the copy at FUNimation don’t exactly hide this fact. Anyway, this week’s selection comes from the DVD One Piece, Season 1: The Fourth Voyage:

“In one of Japan's most wildly successful manga, movie, and television series, Monkey D. Luffy is a cheery, optimistic young fellow with a grandiose dream of becoming the king of the pirates. Luffy has two other odd qualities: he can stretch his rubbery body, and he cannot swim. After using his Gum Gum Axe to bring down the house on Arlong's reign of terror, Luffy and his crew get some big news. A brawl with the marines has officially landed Monkey and Zoro on the wanted list! News travels fast, and it's not long before Red Haired Shanks is celebrating his old friend's new status as a genuine pirate. But not everyone shares his fondness for the Straw Hats. There is an armada of angry adversaries in hot pursuit as Luffy and his crew set sail for Logue Town - the final resting place of the legendary Gold Roger.”

Sorry, but I’m having trouble getting past the hero’s name- to say nothing of the ominous inclusion of the dubious “quality” involving his inability to swim. That it gets even stranger from there is really saying something, methinks.

Up The Academy: Screengrab Salutes The All-Time Best & Worst Best Picture Winners (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:30:00 GMT

THE WORST:

CRASH (2004)

I didn’t actively hate Crash when I first saw it. Paul Haggis’ schematic, artificial examination of race relations in Los Angeles was a pleasant enough way to pass an evening: I enjoyed watching Sandra Bullock play against type as a sour yuppie, and the vignette with Michael Peña and his daughter was sweet (in a Six Feet Under subplot kind of way). But the whole storyline with Matt Dillon’s Racist Cop® was nothing more than Haggis the mainstream milquetoast trying way too hard to provoke, like a suburban teen buying a Slipknot hoodie at Hot Topic with his mom’s credit card and then wearing it to church. The really annoying thing about Crash, though, was the way it allowed Academy voters (after pretty much ignoring films like Hoop Dreams and Malcolm X) to pat themselves on the back for their willingness to confront “the race issue” by rewarding Haggis’ toothless paper tiger of a film while simultaneously snubbing the superior (and timely) “gay cowboy” movie that apparently made them feel icky and uncomfortable.

BEN-HUR (1959)

If David Lean is the best-case scenario for a filmmaker who can hit Oscar's Pavlovian reflexes with deadly aim and still produce something worthwhile, Ben-Hur is pretty much the silliest, most bloated example of "epic" filmmaking there is. As it happens, Ben-Hur is a "milestone" in "Oscar history" because it's one of only three movies to win 11 Oscars; the other two are Titanic and Lord Of The Rings: The Film That Never Ends, which pretty much proves that running way over three hours (and the usual budget) are non-negotiable prereqs. Have you watched all of Ben-Hur lately? It's leaden, endless gay camp (Gore Vidal did it on purpose, but it's still not very funny). The chariot race is great, only because William Wyler ceded directorial duties to Western cowboy-stunt specialist Yakima Canutt, who thankfully had zero interest in propriety or "good" directorial values. On the plus side, this makes Spartacus look faultless.

TOM JONES (1963)

With the tail-end exception of 1969's Midnight Cowboy and this film, the Academy did its darndest to ignore changing cinematic mores in the '60s. So: Tom Jones. Henry Fielding's comic genius is boiled down into a series of too-cute reflexive, winking gestures in a long, overcooked souffle. No surprise: Tom Jones was adapted by John Osborne — the angry young man par excellence, so humorless he was buried with a copy of Hamlet in his pocket, with everyone but Hamlet's lines crossed-out — and clunkily directed (per his usual "form") by Tony Richardson. Together, they water down Godardian gestures for farce, toying with every possible distancing device (it's a silent movie! It's an undercranked Keystone Kops moment!) without any real effect or exuberance. Rarely has jollity seemed this excruciating.

THE STING (1973)

Like Tom Jones, The Sting is another would-be light entertainment that's actually incredibly boring and way too long; the highlight is when Paul Newman says "crap." The best part is the old-school Universal logo at the start, and that's over in thirteen seconds, embedded above for your viewing pleasure. Seriously, why do people like this movie? You can listen to Scott Joplin on your own time and there are many much better Redford and Newman charm vehicles (separately, anyway). One side note: somehow, in 1973, Cries And Whispers was also nominated for Best Picture. Really?

CHICAGO (2002)

Chicago isn't the worst musical of the decade (Moulin Rouge! is hard to beat), but it is kind of magnificently dull. Hollywood always loves a good circle-jerk, and this thinly-veiled "condemnation" (read: winking celebration) of celebrity and the glamor of wrong-doing obliges. Criminal justice is like showbiz, because obviously everything is like showbiz, because everything is like Hollywood. The single most memorable moment in the entire movie isn't any of the murder/juicy stuff; it's Richard Gere dancing in his underwear. Rob Marshall's direction is impressively unimaginative — something most people finally caught onto with Memoirs of a Geisha — and let's not even get into what a disservice this does to the memory of the late, great Bob Fosse: he of the original choreography, he who didn't wait for someone to call him a bastard but interrogated himself for real with All That Jazz. Fosse played for keeps, for better or worse; Chicago plays for winks.

Click Here For Part One, Three, Four, Five, Six & Seven

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Vadim Rizov

In Other Blogs: Oscar Grumbling

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:00:00 GMT

What could be more predictable than the announcement of the Oscar nominees yesterday? Bloggers bitching about said nominations, of course! At Scanners, Jim Emerson has no love for frontrunner Slumdog Millionaire. “Not since Crash -- or possibly Mississippi Burning -- has a movie packaged brutality in slicker, shinier, tighter shrink-wrap. It's asphyxiating. You will never have to worry about what you are supposed to feel and when you are supposed to feel it because the movie will always feed you the answers, then smack you when it's your cue to emote. You can "surrender" completely to the experience (it demands nothing less), and you needn't worry that you will be given an idle moment in which you will be left to feel, or breathe, on your own.”

Dana Stevens and Troy Patterson debate the nominations at Slate. “Scanning the list of nominees, I find myself in the odd position of feeling indignant on behalf of a movie I didn't like much, Revolutionary Road,” Stevens writes. “I don't think I would mind this handsomely mounted yawner getting what amounts to a jumbo-sized dis—Leo not up for best actor, Mendes not up for best director, Justin Haythe not up for best adapted screenplay, the movie itself ignored for best picture—if it weren't for the alarming number of accolades beings heaped on Revolutionary Road's evil twin, The Reader. Everyone knew Kate would get a best-actress nod, and as a five-time loser, she still seems likely to win the category. But it somehow besmirches her honor to be recognized for the execrable Reader (aka Boohoo, I Bonked an Illiterate Nazi).”

The Defamer offers up 5 Plots and Subplots to Watch in This Years’ Oscar Race, including: How much will Harvey Weinstein spend to buy Kate Winslet an Oscar? “The Reader's extraordinary showing this morning owes everything to Harvey's secret formula of marketing, publicity and assiduous word-of-mouth since last fall. But the cash-poor Weinstein Company doesn't stand a chance against Slumdog Millionaire in Picture, Director or Adapted Screenplay, so it comes down to Actress. It's one of the weakest categories of the year, with Winslet facing her stiffest competition probably from Anne Hathaway. Or Harvey can take the nominations — and the advertisement/DVD box copy that accompanies them —- and run. Ha. Right.”

Of course, some are upset about the perceived snub of The Dark Knight, but as Dateline: Hollywood reports, that won’t happen again. “In an move that the director said had nothing to do with this morning's Oscar nominations, Christopher Nolan has announced plans for a Dark Knight sequel that will take place during Nazi era Germany and reveal that Batman is gay and aging backwards.”

Finally, the folks at Funny or Die have noticed something about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that you, too, may have noticed:

The Curious Case of Forrest Gump - watch more funny videos

Two Severed Fingers Way, Way Up, and Other Tales from the Hollywood Marketing Division

Phil Nugent — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:00:00 GMT

“If we weren’t making decisions based on marketability, John Malkovich would be in every movie.” Tad Friend's New Yorker article about modern movie marketing is full of great quotes like that. (It's attributed to a nameless "movie marketeer.") Friend writes, "It is often said in Hollywood that no one sets out to make a bad movie, but the truth is that people cheerfully set out to make bad movies all the time. It is more accurate to say that no one sets out to make a movie without having a particular audience in mind." Here's the way it breaks down: "The collective wisdom [among marketers] is that young males like explosions, blood, cars flying through the air, pratfalls, poop jokes, 'you’re so gay' banter, and sex—-but not romance. Young women like friendship, pop music, fashion, sarcasm, sensitive boys who think with their hearts, and romance—-but not sex (though they like to hear the naughty girl telling her friends about it)...Older women like feel-good films and Nicholas Sparks-style weepies: they are the core audience for stories of doomed love and triumphs of the human spirit. They enjoy seeing an older woman having her pick of men; they hate seeing a child in danger. Particularly once they reach thirty, these women are the most 'review-sensitive': a chorus of critical praise for a movie aimed at older women can increase the opening weekend’s gross by five million dollars. In other words, older women are discriminating, which is why so few films are made for them." On the other hand, a marketing consultant named Terry Press told Friend that “Guys [i.e., "older men"] only get off their couches twice a year, to go to Wild Hogs or 3:10 to Yuma. If all you have [in your movie's target demographic] is older males, it’s time to take a pill.”

Although marketing divisions may be the enemy of the art of movies, there is an art to devising a successful marketing campaign. Friend spends much of his time profiling Tim Palen, a 47-year-old who has designed campaigns for Lionsgate films ranging from Crash and W. to Rambo and the Saw franchise. It was he who came up with the weird mix of gross-out provocation and graphic elegance that was the poster image for Saw II: a pair of severed fingers laid out to look like a "II." (The ad was designed to do its work before the movie was released; Palen had to rejigger it so that the fingers' stubs weren't seen before the movie could get an R rating from the MPAA.) Palen's campaigns sometimes have a touch-every-base quality; with W., he had to make the director, Oliver Stone, feel that his even-handed treatment of George W. Bush was being handled with the respect it deserved, while keeping in mind that telling the world how fair and even-handed the movie was would not likely cause panic at the box offices. (Palen was disappointed when W. failed to become the second-biggest weekend grosser because he had an ad set to go that showed a picture of the movie's star, Josh Brolin, sitting on the toilet with the words, "W. Is Number Two!"

Friend happened to be shadowing Palen while he was starting work on a campaign for a new Renee Zellweger comedy, which was originally called Chilled in Miami but is now called New in Town. Palen calls it "The Devil Wears Patagonia." (“Did you see Baby Boom?" he asks Friend. "It’s that. It’s that without the baby.”) Palen worked on devising a trailer for the film with David Schneiderman, who reports on Palen's reaction to the first try: "‘Where’s the Mary Tyler Moore?’ He said, ‘This girl goes to this little town in Minnesota and she’s a cold person, and they warm her up, right? More warmth, more style, more Devil Wears Prada. ’ And I said, ‘I don’t know where that is in the movie.’ And he said, ‘Create it.’ ” You might think that people whose job it is to sell movies to the public would find it helpful to at least put up a front of thinking the movies in question are, well, not garbage, and if you do think that, you may find it sobering to discover just how very wrong you are. Palen worked on a Jessica Alba comedy called Good Luck Chuck that was so bad that Palen can only say that he "got the film open, which was kind of a feat. America likes cheese.”

Set Your DVR!: October 13 - October 20, 2008

Hayden Childs — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Here’s upcoming Movies of Interest in the next week! I realized that last week’s entry gave all times in Central Time. From here on out, I’ll do the Central/Eastern thing. I will also spill things over to the following Monday, because several great movies show on Sunday night. Finally, let me know in comments if you see something I missed!

Other than that, the rules are the same: I’m trying to avoid recommending obvious movies, but I know you’re a knowledgeable reader, so some of the ones here might seem large and unsubtle to you. But that’s alright. I’m using an in-law test: I’ll stick with movies that my in-laws have most likely never heard of. And no premium channels, because I’m too broke to afford them.

Mon, Oct 13:

10:30/11:30 am: The Circus Queen Murder on TCM. Pre-code murder mystery starring Adolphe Menjou. Not available on DVD.

11:00 am/12:00 pm: George Washington on IFC (repeat at 4:15/5:15 pm and again on 10/14 at 4:30/5:30 am). Slow and thoughtful take on African-American youths in a go-nowhere Southern town directed by the guy who made Pineapple Express. Obvious influences: Terrence Malick and Charles Burnett.

2:00/3:00 pm: Vanishing Point on FMC. The lesser of the two great existential car movies of 1971 (Two-Lane Blacktop is the other). This one’s still a pop culture point-of-reference, especially for Tarantino movies. Definitely worth a viewing.

5:00/6:00 pm: Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. As mentioned last week, this one is a fun and light take on the concert film, directed by Michel Gondry and built around Dave Chappelle’s general awesomeness.

7:00/8:00 pm: My Man Godfrey on TCM. Now that we’re headed into a genuine financial depression, take a moment to consider one of the great films about the repercussions of the Great one.

Tues, Oct 14:

5:15/6:15 pm: Gerry on IFC (repeat at 7:45/8:45 am and 12:45/1:45 pm). I mentioned this one last week, too. And I think it’s on again next week. No matter, though, because it’s just brilliant. Since I mentioned it last, Scott Tobias at the AV Club wrote a great article on it.

Wed, Oct 15:

12:00/1:00 am: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. on TCM. Dr. Seuss’s live-action insanity. Check it out!

5:00/6:00 am: Shall We Dance on TCM. Fred & Ginger. Score by the Gershwins. A dance scene on roller skates.

10:00/11:00 am: The Legend of Drunken Master (aka Drunken Master II) on G4 (repeat 10/16 at 1:00/2:00 am). It seems hard to believe now, but long before teaming up with Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan made movies that were actually funny. I mean, there’s ass-kicking galore, but the gags he stole from Buster Keaton are just delightful.

10:30/11:30 am: Carefree on TCM. More Fred & Ginger. More dancing. More joking around.

12:00/1:00 pm: Room Service on TCM. Not a bad movie for delving a little deeper into the Marx Brothers.

5:00/6:00 pm: Swing Time on TCM. And even more Fred & Ginger!

Th, Oct 16:

Got nothing for today. Go to the park!

Fri, Oct 17:

1:00/2:00 am: Kiss of Death on FMC. Film noir classic with a great turn by Richard Widmark.

Sat, Oct 18:

3:00/4:00 am: Them! on CHILLER. I don’t know what CHILLER is, but apparently it is a channel I have. Them! is a classic monster movie, complete with proto-environmentalist themes, officious foolishness from the authorities, and monsters deserving of a pronoun and an exclamation point and nothing more.

6:30/7:30 am: Gods and Monsters on LOGO (repeat at 1:00/2:00 pm). Lots of biopics want to wallop you over the head with their themes (hey, did you catch that drugs and womanizing might have affected Ray Charles’s life? I wonder if his brother’s death had anything to do with that), but Gods and Monsters, which is about the horror film director James Whale, has a lighter touch.

7:00/8:00 am: Samurai 3 on IFC. The apex of the Samurai trilogy, also known as Duel on Ganryu Island. Toshiro Mifune is in top form, and the climactic battle is the template for Quentin Tarantino’s understanding of Japanese cool.

12:30/1:30 pm: The Day The Earth Stood Still on AMC. Y’know, fuck Keanu Reeves. Go to the source.

11:00 pm/12:00 am: Dick on Oxygen. I mentioned last week that this movie is hilarious. It still is.

11:45 pm/12:45 am: Crash on IFC. This isn’t the noxious Oscar-bait Crash, but the deeply perverse Cronenberg movie based on the J.G. Ballard story.

Sun, Oct 19:

11:00 pm/12:00 am: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) on TCM. The silent version starring Lon Chaney. Yes, indeed.

Mon, Oct 20 (the overnight spillover):

1:00/2:00 am: Eyes Without A Face on TCM. Georges Franju’s horror classic that is guaranteed to give you the creeping heebie-jeebies. It's also well-written, well-shot, and well-acted, so what are you waiting for?

5:00/6:00 am: Kongo on TCM. Pre-Hayes Code movie that must be seen to be believed. A celebration of depravity loosely based on Conrad’s The Heart Of Darkness. As envisioned by Michel Houellebecq. There’s no DVD, so watch it while you can.

6:45/7:45 am: Ghost Ship on TCM. A Val Lewton production, this little horror film was on the losing end of a lawsuit that kept it out of the public eye for most of the last century. N.B. This is not the CGI craptacular from a few years back.

8:00/9:00 am: The Seventh Victim on TCM. Another Val Lewton production. I’ve never seen this one, but I know the Lewton name means it’s a moody little no-budget horror film that will stick with you for days.

1:30/2:30 pm: The Haunting on TCM. My good friend David Smay (author of the 33 1/3 book on Tom Waits’ Swordfishtrombones album, which you should buy and read and, preferably, love [plug!]), notes that when I mentioned this movie last week, I failed to include the following information, all of which increases your need to see it: (a) the coolness of Claire Bloom's sapphic sexy psychic, and (b) that she was lovers with Philip Roth for a long time (and then briefly married him). Also, if you've never seen her in James Joyce's Women then you should, because her performance of Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of Ulysses is AWESOME. Thanks, David! I will!

Morning Deal Report: Palms Are Burning

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Robert Altman couldn’t have known when he directed Short Cuts in 1993 that he was inventing a whole new genre. I don’t know if there’s a name for it – “405 cinema,” perhaps, or “Valleysploitation” – but you know what I’m talking about. It’s the genre that reveals insights into the human condition through intersecting stories set in Los Angeles. Crash, Magnolia, the recent Garden Party – there’s a whole lot of intersecting happening out there in L.A. and there’s soon to be more. Variety reports that “Disturbia scribe Christopher Landon will make his directorial debut with the indie dark comedy Burning Palms, which he penned. What's described as a subversive tale interlaces five stories set in Los Angeles, where no taboo is left unexplored as each character careens toward a dark and often comic fate.” It’s funny, I lived in L.A. for five years and finally left because there just wasn’t enough intersecting going on for my liking.

Doctor Who may be coming to the big screen, according to new show runner Steven Moffat. The Hollywood Reporter quotes Moffat as saying “It would be good to see it in the cinema so long as it is great and fantastic.” Kind of hard to argue with that, I guess.

And in news someone besides me might care about, Audrey Tautou will star in biopic of Coco Chanel for Warner Bros. Variety reports Coco Avant Chanel “will feature dresses from the Chanel collection. Karl Lagerfeld, art director of the House of Chanel, will supervise the re-creation of costumes and accessories.”

Related:
Screengrab Review: "Garden Party"
P.T.A. Report

Morning Deal Report: MTV’s “Rocky Horror” Remake Heralds End of Civilization

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Maybe “end of civilization” is overstating the case a tad, but surely no good can come of the news that MTV is producing a remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’ve ever been part of the Rocky Horror cult. I went to one midnight show in Harvard Square more than 20 years ago, and that was enough for me. It was fun once, but I never felt the urge to return every week to chant “Lips!” and throw toilet paper. Still, I admire the fact that Rocky Horror developed its cult following the old fashioned way, as one of the last genuine “midnight movies.” It was comforting to know it was out there, even if I never intended to return. Now it’s just another item for the pop culture recycle bin, as Variety reports that Britain’s satellite channel Sky Movies will co-finance the remake. “Under the deal, the remake of the 1975 cult classic will premiere exclusively in the U.K. on Sky Movies before becoming available on VOD services Sky Player and Sky Anytime.” No cast has been named, although rumors have Marilyn Manson in the running for Dr. Frank N. Furter. Tim Curry wept.

Elsewhere in the recycle bin, we find sequels to both Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda in the works. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is imminent, but Dreamworks honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg doesn’t expect the franchise to end there. Katzenberg told the Hollywood Reporter that “there is at least one more chapter. We ultimately want to see the characters make it back to New York.” Don’t we all? As for Panda, nothing is official yet. “We've started conversations about it, and I think in the next 30 or 60 days, we'll be able to talk completely about that,” says Katzenberg. We’ll be waiting.

In gangster movie news, “Lucky” Luciano is getting a big screen biopic. Crash co-screenwriter Bobby Moresco has been tapped to pen the script, which will detail “Luciano's rise from Lower East Side street hood to architect of the organized crime syndicate,” according to Variety. Producer Joseph Isgro, once rumored to have ties to the Gambino family, claims “his project benefits by having rights and input from a true ‘guy behind the guy’ figure, a longtime Luciano confidante Isgro wouldn't name.” So much for omerta.

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Famous Last Words: Round 1, Week 6

Paul Clark — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:00:00 GMT

The vast majority of respondents were quick to (correctly) point out that last week's quote was taken not from Paul Haggis' Best Picture thief winner Crash, but from the 1996 David Cronenberg film of the same title. Of course, we laugh, but I can only imagine the people stopping at their local DVD rental emporium to pick up the latest Oscar-anointed "classic" only to come home with Cronenberg's car-loving, scar-fucking extravaganza. Sadly, this probably didn't happen nearly as often as I wish it did, but a fella can dream, can't he?

This week, we're back to a single line of dialogue. Try this one on for size:

“This world is so full of crap, a man’s gonna get into it sooner or later whether he’s careful or not.”

Cheerful, eh? As always, submit your guesses to famouslastwords@nerve.com. For the rules, click right here. And remember, all guesses must be received by 11:59 PM Eastern next Wednesday. Good luck!

Screengrab Bets the Oscars: Paul's Picks

Paul Clark — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:00:00 GMT

All right, Screengrab regulars. You've no doubt taken a gander at the Oscar predictions from Leonard Pierce and Scott Von Doviak, which if nothing else have demonstrated that Screengrab's sense of humor remains intact. Now have a gander at — well, I was going to say the REAL predictions, but since you've already seen my nomination predictions, I can't in good conscience make such a grandiose claim. But Leonard has sent out a call, and I have no choice but to answer it.

Here goes nothing. . .

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Ryan has been racking up critics' awards, but I think Hollywood insiders could be turned off by her unpleasant character. Saoirse Ronan might have had a shot with a bigger Atonement groundswell, but I don't see it happening now. Ruby Dee, SAG Award or no, should be happy just to be nominated. This brings us to Cate Blanchett as not-quite-Dylan, and Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton. This is Blanchett's to lose. . . or would be had she not won just three years ago. The performance — more than a stunt — is might impressive, but I think Swinton sneaks in for the upset here.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Bardem's still the one to beat here, friend-o. If anyone beats him, it'll be Grand Old Actor Hal Holbrook, although his chances would've been better had Into the Wild gotten a Best Picture nomination.

BEST ACTRESS: Leonard and Scott are all about Christie, but I think this is a closer race than they're predicting. Juno lives and dies by Ellen Page's performance, but the voters might find her too young to get behind. I'm going out on a limb and predicting Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, though any of these three could take home the Oscar.

BEST ACTOR: You know, had Sweeney Todd made any money at the box office, this could have been Johnny Depp's year. But as it is, Daniel Day-Lewis is untouchable, and anyone who denies it is a bastard from a basket.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Much as I'd love to see a Ratatouille upset, this race comes down the Hollywood veteran vs. the feisty newcomer. Good as the Michael Clayton screenplay is, this award almost always goes to the most show-offy screenplay, which this year is almost certainly Juno. Add in a Hollywood-friendly backstory and Diablo Cody's sudden ubiquity, and you've got an Oscar waiting to happen.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece, but it's more of a directorial and acting showcase than a triumph of screenwriting. Atonement has all the ingredients of an Oscar-bait literary adaptation, but will have to make do with a few technical awards. Which means No Country for Old Men will bring the Coen brothers their second Oscar to date — or third, should the film win Best Editing.

BEST DIRECTOR: Of the nominated directors, the Coens are the Oscar veterans, and are well-liked in the industry. How else to explain an out-of-nowhere screenplay nomination for O Brother, Where Art Thou? back in the day. If anyone has a shot, it's Paul Thomas Anderson, but don't bet on it. Even if there's an upset for Best Picture, when it comes to this category, you can't stop what's coming.

BEST PICTURE: No Country is the favorite here, partly because nobody can seem to agree on what might upset it. I'm still predicting No Country to take this prize, but allow me to float my theory for a possible spoiler: Michael Clayton. Think about it — it's both a thriller and a serious drama, starring an immensely popular movie star and a supporting cast full of familiar and talented character actors. The film contains a lot of appeal for the actor-heavy voting body, especially when you consider that it earned three acting nominations this year while no other film received more than one. If the voting members of the Academy choose to forego the darkness of No Country for something more Hollywood, count on this (more so than Juno, which skews too young and feels too lightweight to be Best Picture material) to be their alternative of choice. Could be worse — at least it's not Crash.

Afternoon Deal Report: A Fitting Tribute to Hasbro's Tradition of Quality

Peter Smith — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:20:00 GMT

Dennis Quaid and Channing Tatum have joined the cast of G.I. Joe. This seems apt, given Tatum's startlingly realistic face.

Julianne Moore will star in the supernatural thriller Shelter.

After (ahem) a monstrous opening, Cloverfield has dropped 68% at the box office. Course, when you're up against an aesthetic triumph like Meet the Spartans, which made $18 million last weekend. . .

Crash is becoming a series on Starz. That's the ensemble drama Crash, not the Cronenberg flick about car-fucking, unfortunately.

Luc Besson's next project will be a three-film adaptation of Aventures, a beloved French comic about a novelist in World War I-era Paris.

Top Ten of 2007: Leonard Pierce

Leonard Pierce — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Unlike many of my fellow bloggers here at the Screengrab, who live in urbane, sophisticated metropoli, I make my home in San Antonio, Texas. We have a ratio of approximately one movie theatre for every million people here, and "art house" is just what the locals call a museum. I hear if we play our cards right, we might be getting a one-week screening next year of that movie The Graduate all the cool kids are talking about, but until then, it's pretty much Transformers on nineteen of the twenty-four screens down at Huebner Oaks. So you'll forgive me if my list leans pretty heavily on stuff that's already available on Netflix; at least half the movies on my list were ones that I had to drive an hour up to Austin to even have a chance of seeing before their DVD release, and there's more than a few movies that likely would have a chance of appearing here (I think specifically of There Will Be Blood and Syndromes and a Century) that there was simply no way for me to see before the year was up. Still, I'll be happy to go along with the prevailing wisdom that 2007 was an especially rich year for film; there was plenty to see, even if you had to go out of your way to see it.

#10: THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, dir.)

Although it was released in 2006, this masterful film from Germany didn't receive an American audience outside of the Telluride Film Festival until February. It was well worth the wait. Far too many movies that pick up Best Foreign Film Oscars are the international doppelgangers of Best Picture winners -- overblown, overpraised, middlebrow 'prestige' pictures lacking in resonance, depth and any particular qualities that will result in their being remembered far down the line. But The Lives of Others -- best thought of as a brilliant reworking of The Conversation against the dreadful backdrop of Soviet East Germany -- deserved every bit of praise heaped on it by critics both here and abroad. It's a stunning, terrifying film, brilliantly illustrating Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil' in the person of the astonishing Ulrich Mühe.

#9: SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (Tim Burton, dir.)

One of the few of a year-end spate of high-profile films that I actually got a chance to see, Sweeney Todd is Tim Burton's adaptation of the notoriously blood-soaked and difficult Stephen Sondheim musical. I've never been especially fond of Tim Burton as a director, but the qualities of his filmmaking that usually work against him -- the broad emotional strokes, the barely-held-together plots, the characters as caricatures, and the meticulous set design at the expense of believability -- are turned into such strengths that it's hard to believe no one ever had the idea of having him do a musical before this. The result is certainly the best film he's ever done and likely the best film he'll ever do, an absolutely gorgeous thing to look at, and with some surprisingly fine performances. One of the best musicals I've ever seen.

#8: EASTERN PROMISES (David Cronenberg, dir.)

Conversely, I've long been a staunch defender of David Cronenberg's, even with films like Crash and Spider, which met with widespread revulsion from a lot of my fellow critics. Unfortunately, I found his most celebrated film -- 2005's A History of Violence -- sadly lacking, a formulaic and uninspiring drama that bore so little of his unique imprint as a filmmaker that it could have been directed by almost anyone. If the Russian mob drama Eastern Promises isn't strong enough to stand alongside his greatest works, though, it's at least a return to form and a revisiting of some of the themes -- muddled self-identity, the grace and brutality of violence, and a simultaneous revulsion at and fascination with the human body -- that have made him one of the signature talents of the day. Plus, naked Viggo Mortensen, ladies!

#7: BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD (Sidney Lumet, dir.)

If you'd have told me last year -- hell, if you'd told me twenty years ago -- that one of the best film of 2007 would be by ancient journeyman Sidney Lumet, I'd likely have scoffed. But damned if the old trooper doesn't turn in a remarkably swift and sure-handed job behind the helm here, presenting a neo-noir thriller about a simple caper gone disastrously wrong that wouldn't be entirely out of place in the early 1960s and yet never loses a fresh sense of modernity. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead isn't a groundbreaking piece of cinema art; it's simply an assured, highly professional piece of moviemaking of the sort we rarely see anymore, and which Lumet is eminently qualified to give us. It's further bolstered by a dynamite performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman, who has simply owned 2007 on screen.

#6: LUST, CAUTION (Ang Lee, dir.)

Ang Lee continues to be the most versatile moviemaker in the business with his best work since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; if he is absolute master of no genre, he at least never ceases to amaze with his ability to dive confidently into all genres. Bouyed by astonishing performances so tightly controlled and confidently directed that they seem drawn from lost Wong Kar-Wei footage, Lust, Caution maintains a killing pace throughout and doesn't fail to deliver on its near-constant sense of tension and frustration. The much-discussed sex scenes are indeed intense and scarily erotic, but they also accomplish something that's so rarely done that it's become an industry joke: they're not arbitrary, but essential, not only to the plot, but also to the slow but inexorable revelation of the nature of the characters.

#5: THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (Julian Schnabel, dir.)

I was never fond of Julian Schnabel, the visual artist, and while I thought that his debut film, Basquiat, showed promise, I tended to agree with the New York art critic Robert Hughes, who called it a movie about the worst painter of the 1980s made by the second worst. I'm not sure what Hughes has to say about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, but I think it's an amazing film by a director who's finally come into full posession of the tools of his craft. Schnabel has said that he still considers himself an artist first and a director second, but this visually rewarding, complex and beautiful movie is better than anything he ever put to canvas, and even without the tremendous lead performance by Mathieu Amalric, it would be a film worth watching for its mastery of internal landscapes far richer than Schabel's art ever suggested.

#4: MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES (Jennifer Baichwal, dir.)

In what is widely regarded as a banner year for documentaries, the finest one I saw had nothing to do with the war in Iraq, the peccadilloes of the president, or the politics of personality. Instead, it was a little-seen film about a little-known photographer named Edward Burtynsky. His photographs -- and the like-minded film by Jennifer Baichwal -- document the vastness and power of man-made constructs, and convey the awe and the terror one feels at observing objects, from China's Three Gorges Dam to American junkyards, that are made by the hand of humans but can dwarf or even overwhelm the natural surroundings in which they appear. A slow-paced, deliberate, and provocative film made as a collaboration between two artists who understand each other in an perfectly asynchronous way.

#3: ZODIAC (David Fincher, dir.)

Much has been made of the fact that David Fincher, best known for his visual pyrotechnics, allegedly made his most successful film without them. That's not entirely true; among other scenes, the opening drive-by tracking shot, the first murders, and the construction montage of the San Francisco skyline can stand next to some of the most stylish set-pieces in his other films. But it's undeniable that his best film to date, and one of the best films of the year, is at its best when he simply stands back and lets the audience become spellbound with the absorbing interplay of his characters. A fascinating treatment of the nature of obsession and a subtle treatise on the way we become ensnared in the grotesque and the perverse, Zodiac is revelatory in the way it defies expectations of what a serial-killer drama should be.

#2: BRAND UPON THE BRAIN! (Guy Maddin, dir.)

Guy Maddin has been quietly establishing himself as one of the finest, most idiosyncratic directors in the world for several years now, and Brand Upon the Brain! is both his most autobiographical film to date (the lead character in the film is, well, Guy Maddin, ably and amusingly played by young Sullivan Brown) and his best. There was some fear amongst critics who had a chance to see it in its 'touring edition' -- a live extravaganza featuring on-site music, celebrity voice-overs and sound effects composed right there in the theater -- that the film wouldn't hold up without all the show-stopping theatrical gimmicks, but they needn't have worried: this is the purest distilliation of Maddin's unique sensibilities as a filmmaker: sexual obsession, throwback surrealism, fantastic dreamscapes, and madness as part of the everyday.

#1: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Joel & Ethan Coen, dirs.)

There are plenty of filmmakers who would trade their favorite limb for a track record like Joel and Ethan Coen -- from 1984 to 2001, they didn't make a bad film, and the 9 features they put in the can over those 17 years add up to the most robust corpus by any living American filmmaker you can name. Things started to go awry with Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers; many placed the blame on the fact that, for the first time, the Coens were filming material they didn't write. That's not a problem with No Country for Old Men, a triumphant masterpiece of genre filmmaking based on a minor Cormac McCarthy novel that once again places the brothers (credited, for the first time ever, as co-directors) where they belong: at the very pinnacle of American moviemaking. An astonishing comeback that will be discussed for decades.

Simple Simon

Leonard Pierce — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:45:00 GMT

If there's one thing we here at the Screengrab love more than movies, it's crazy right-wing cranks. Luckily, when Roger L. Simon is around, we don't have to pick just one. Simon, who prior to co-founding doomed conservative clearinghouse Pajamas Media could boast as his greatest accomplishment having penned Scenes from a Mall, a film which brought us the delightful vision of Woody Allen going down on Bette Midler in a movie theater, has recently been on a tear about how those traitorous dogs in Hollywood, a town which apparently has corrupted everyone who sojourns there except himself, Burt Prelutsky, and Stephen Baldwin, are so alienated from real Americans that they keep making anti-war movies even though they lose money doing so. His first installment in what is shaping up to be an interminable series on the subject revealed the reason the damn dirty hippies of Tinseltown keep making these hateful anti-American screen screeds: it's because if you are a Hollywood liberal, you are, de facto, a "miserable self-serving bastard". He also makes the curious argument that people like Brian DePalma, director of Redacted, are making movies that "validate the orthodoxy", which seems to go against his point that these movies are economic failures due to the widespread support of the war displayed by most red-blooded Americans. Simon follows up that one with a claim that since Hollywood liberals know nothing of what they speak when it comes to war (an assessment with which Oliver Stone might take issue), their films are the "addled product of unacknowledged moral confusion"; he then settles back and says that since the surge is working so well, he's beginning what may be a very long wait for the Iraq War version of Casablanca. His latest on the subversive commie rats who lurk in the Hollywood hills is a hatchet job on Paul Haggis, who he first suspected of anti-American treachery when he saw Crash -- after all, Simon argues, he's lived in L.A. for years and hardly ever saw any racism, so there must not be any. Simon goes on to savage In the Valley of Elah, and 'explains' the deviltry of this life-hating scum by noting that, like Sean Penn, he is under the sway of that charismatic Stalinist cult leader Dennis Kucinich. He knows it's true, because he read it on Wikipedia! Keep up the great work, Roger.