The Screengrab : the limits of control

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: April 25-May 1, 2009

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Hi, it’s Vince with Screengrab and you’re gonna be in a great mood all day cuz you’ll be grabbin’ your troubles away with Screengrab. Ya like lists? We got lists. How about Great Beginnings: Screengrab’s Favorite Opening Scenes of All Time? We got Parts One, Two and Three. But come on, that’s not good enough. Tell ya what, we’ll throw in Parts Four and Five, no extra charge. Now you’re cookin’ with gas.

How about reviews? Everyone likes movie reviews, right? We got Winnebago Man. We got The Limits of Control, how ‘bout that? You throw your Eldorado in there, you mix it with your Perestroika – come on, you’re not gonna get this at Ain’t It Cool News, am I right?

I’m just getting started here, folks. Watch this – you’re gonna love my posts:

25 Years Ago in the Screengrab: Better Zmed Than Red

Precursors: Dead Man (1995)

Screengrab Death Watch: Day One

Getting Darrined: When the Sequel Doesn’t Need You

Forgotten Films: "Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson" (1993)

Robert De Niro’s Pantyhose and Other Treasures

Jim Jarmusch Prefers Pears to Plot

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Our own Nick Schager has already weighed in on the latest Jim Jarmusch film, The Limits of Control, finding it more a test of patience than an exciting genre piece, and it doesn’t sound like Jarmusch himself would disagree. “This film is about the trip,” Jarmusch tells Logan Hill of Vulture. “I’m more interested in the plate of pears on the table than the plot payoff. Neruda, he wrote all these odes to ordinary objects, like ‘Ode to an Artichoke.’ And they are incredibly beautiful poems.”

Neruda isn’t the first name Jarmusch drops in the interview, and it’s not the last. His movie’s title is taken from a William S. Burroughs essay (“It’s about language being used as a mechanism of control, but I like the double meaning. Does that mean the limits of our own self-control, or the limits to which people control us?”), it begins with a quote from Rimbaud (“The poem, “The Drunken Boat,” is about the derangement of the senses. He’s starting a very strange adventure of his consciousness, and the film does that, too.”) and was inspired by John Boorman’s Point Blank (“I’m a huge fan of Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson, and it’s one of John Boorman’s strongest films—a masterpiece, I think.”)

But that’s not all! Jarmusch also finds the time to mention Oscar Wilde, Charles Willeford, James Cain and Isaach De Bankolé. I don’t even know who that is, but he apparently owns a cool iridescent gangster suit, so he must be worthy. I’m not sure if Jarmusch intends to come off like a Quentin Tarantino who went to grad school, but I won’t hold it against him. At least, not until I see The Limits of Control.

Related:
OST: "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai"
When Good Directors Go Bad: "The Year of the Horse"

Precursors: Dead Man (1995)

Nick Schager — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Given its inevitable mention in countless forthcoming reviews of Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control – including mine, appearing here at The Screengrab later this morning – Dead Man is this week’s required viewing, not only as preparation for Jarmusch’s latest but also as a welcome antidote. Though the two share a formal exquisiteness, dissonant score, dreamlike atmosphere and stoic protagonist traversing a foreign locale, Dead Man exhibits little of the ponderous obliqueness and self-satisfied self-consciousness of Limits of Control, coasting on a mood of existentialist dread as it tracks Cleveland accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) to the town of Machine where he kills a man in self-defense and, after being hit by a bullet that can’t be extracted, is forced to flee west. His flight, aided by a Native American guide named Nobody (Gary Farmer) and set to the hauntingly dissonant sounds of Neil Young’s electric guitar, is one with obvious historical overtones. Yet although Jarmusch clearly intends his tale to resonate as a nightmarishly lyrical saga of American expansion and white male hegemony, he never unduly strains such concerns by resorting to dull exposition or indulgent allegorical gestures. Instead, Dead Man’s cultural-political concerns are left to naturally spring forth from Blake’s odyssey, which – thanks to Depp’s beautifully deadpan performance – also functions as an evocative portrait of an alienated man learning to understand himself and the world around him during the course of a journey into hell.

Screengrab Predicts Summer 2009: Honorable Mention (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:00:00 GMT

In Parts One & Two of this list, we presented The Screengrab’s consensus picks for the Top 5 Hits of Summer 2009.

Herewith, our individual picks and honorable mentions...

Andrew:

Top 5

1. Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince
2. Star Trek
3. Angels & Demons
4. ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS (July 1)

C’mon, now...who don’t like Scrat? You’re telling me that, given the choice between a tried and true animated franchise and Ed Asner, kids aren’t going to choose dinosaurs?

5. JULIE & JULIA (August 7)

I can’t think of a better film to fill this summer’s Meryl Streep niche than an actual Meryl Streep film...especially one that fulfills that other great summer blockbuster counter-programming niche: foodie films. All that plus Amy Adams, and I’m about 1000 times more likely to see this than Transformers...and I’m a dude. Add my wife, her mother, my mother, my Dad getting dragged along and all the other wives, mothers, mothers-in-law, dudes getting dragged along and PBS geeks out there, and we’re talking serious sleeper hit potential.

Scott:
1. Star Trek
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
4. Up
5. X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (May 1)

Oddly enough, that leaked online release and the accompanying early reviews may have been the best thing that could have happened to Ol’ Razor Fingers. (That’s what the kids are calling him these days, right?) All the hubbub generated by that kerfuffle qualifies as what we in the business call “free publicity.”

Nick:

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
3. Star Trek
4. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN (May 22)

Audiences loved the 2006 original, and this sequel retains the core conceit while adding Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart. As the first family film of the summer, and one that – unlike the following week’s Up – comes with a built-in audience, it should be huge.

5. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER (July 17)

A buzzed-about festival hit, this indie rom-com starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel will likely garner glowing reviews on its way to becoming the Little Date Film That Could for the under-30 crowd.

Paul:

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
3. X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (May 1)

Sure, there’s the incomplete pirated version that’s floating around on the Web as we speak, but how many people have actually watched it? Wolverine should be one of the summer’s biggest hits for two reasons. For one thing, there’s the enduring popularity of the X-Men films (each has become one of the top five grossers of its respective summer), and the fact that if any X-Men character could open his own adventure, it’s Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. But don’t overlook the film’s release date either -- by opening on May 1, Wolverine is the first blockbuster of the summer, which virtually guarantees it a monster opening weekend, with solid weekends to follow if it catches on like Iron Man did last year. Add in the fact that this weekend has been especially kind to comic book movies, and how can it possibly lose?
4. Angels & Demons
5. Up

Bubbling under:

Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian and Ice Age- in an attempt to add a few tentpole releases to their slate, Fox has moved two of their more bankable franchises to the summer. It’s a risky move for them considering the greater competition during the summer season, but both movies (particularly Ice Age) should do good business in the often lucrative family market before getting shoved aside by higher-profile youth-oriented blockbusters (Up and Harry Potter, respectively).

The Hangover- summer comedies have a hit-and-miss record, but the ones that tend to do the most business are guy-friendly movies like Wedding Crashers and Talladega Nights. Based on the crowd reaction to the trailer that played before my screening of Observe and Report, The Hangover should play well with this crowd, and could prove to be the summer’s biggest sleeper.

The Ugly Truth- last year’s Sex and the City movie took the wind out of the wisdom that “chick flicks” can’t compete in the male-centric summer movie market. With only a handful of female-friendly releases in the pipeline, look for this Katharine Heigl/Gerard Butler romantic comedy to stand the best chance of becoming a hit.

G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra- two years ago, Transformers, another toy/cartoon franchise from the eighties, became a blockbuster. G.I. Joe may not scare up Transformers business, but it should do well with that same crowd.

Julie and Julia- after a summer full of movies that skew younger, older audiences should eat up Nora Ephron’s latest, with Meryl Streep as the late, great Julia Child.

Inglourious Basterds- if Brad Pitt can bring in a $130 million gross for a three-hour movie in which he ages backwards, he should be able to do at least that much business for a WWII action movie, especially one from Quentin Tarantino.

The Limits of Control- I don’t honestly believe that Jim Jarmusch’s latest will do much business. I’m just stoked that he’s got a new movie coming out, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be awesome.

Click Here For The Hits (Part One & Two), The Bombs (Part Three), The Toss-Ups (Part Four) and The Honorable Mentions (Part Six)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Nick Schager, Paul Clark

2009: First Quarter Wrap-Up

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:00:00 GMT

So, Watchmen didn’t exactly bomb, nor was it exactly a hit. With a 65% critical Tomato-Meter rating, it was neither a fiasco nor a critic’s darling, and for all its sex and violence, the onscreen content was far less controversial than all the legal maneuvering involved with getting it to screens in the first place.

In other words, the first big film of the year was a lot like the rest of 2009’s films to date: nothing to really get all het up about one way or the other...with two notable exceptions, courtesy of last month’s SXSW festival: the obnoxiously onanistic My Suicide is already a lock for my year-end Worst of 2009 list, while the documentary Best Worst Movie could easily find a spot in my year-end Top Ten, thanks to its winning cast and (mostly) cheery depiction of the pleasures and pitfalls of filmmaking (as well as the mysterious alchemy that transforms a terrible film like Troll 2 into a beloved cult classic).

As for the rest of the first quarter highs: the inventive visuals of Coraline, the good-natured mumblecore bromance of SXSW’s Humpday and the laid-back ‘80s nostalgia of Greg “Superbad” Mottola’s Adventureland were all perfectly enjoyable experiences nevertheless unlikely to chart much higher than Honorable Mention come December (unless 2009 winds up being a truly uninspired film year from here on out...unlikely, considering that our current Year of the Ox is already outpacing last year’s Rat: i.e., by April 2008, I’d seen exactly one memorable film (Full Battle Rattle) and a whole lot of Hamburger Helper (Penelope, Cloverfield, 21 and Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day).

Other 2009 offerings unlikely to be more than pleasant hazy memories by December include SXSW fare like Beeswax, The Slammin’ Salmon, The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle and the Richard Linklater sneak preview Me & Orson Welles, along with Sunshine Cleaning, Monsters vs. Aliens and I Love You, Man...films that, like most everything else I’ve seen this year, seem like Xeroxes of Xeroxes of originals I liked a lot more.

I dunno...maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe I’ve seen too many films by this point, and I’m getting cranky and hard to please, and even if a new Pulp Fiction premiered next month, I’d be too jaded to appreciate it...or maybe it's just that nobody’s released anything truly special, gripping, hilarious, original and/or mind-blowing in a while. (But then again, I haven’t seen Fast & Furious yet, so that could all change in a day or two!)

Long-range forecasts indicate a continuing trend of pleasant but disposable cinema moving forward into the second quarter of 2009, although I have cautiously high hopes for Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control, Star Trek, Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, Land of the Lost and even HBO’s biopic Grey Gardens, starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as Big & Little Edie of Maysles Brothers fame (which may not be a movie in theaters...but, hey, Angels in America was my favorite movie of 2003 on the small or big screen, so who knows?).

Plus, I just saw the following trailer for the new Sam Mendes film, Away We Go, starring the potentially appealing duo of John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, which could be goddamn charming or still yet more indie-mumbly grist for the mill...see you in June for the Second Quarter report!

Related Stories:
2008: First Quarter Wrap-Up
Screengrab Presents: The Top Ten Movies Of 2008
Screengrab 2009 Preview: Andrew Osborne’s Picks

Trailer Review: The Limits of Control

Paul Clark — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:00:00 GMT

As a longtime fan of the films of Jim Jarmusch, I sometimes find it difficult to pin down what exactly it is that draws me to his work. Perhaps it has something to do with the melting-pot nature of his stories, which throw together seemingly incompatible elements as a way of testing whether they’ll fit. How else to explain the fusion of samurai lore and sub-GoodFellas mafia movie that is Ghost Dog, or the William Blake-infused meta-Western Dead Man? With his latest, The Limits of Control, Jarmusch appears to be returning to Ghost Dog territory, with the story of a lone-gunman type (Jarmusch regular Isaach de Bankolé) who finds himself embroiled in… well, some kind of intrigue. Rather than going into much detail on the plot, this trailer seems primarily to work as a way of conveying a spiritual, fatalistic vibe and showing off the super-cool supporting cast (Tilda Swinton, Gael Garcia Bernal, John Hurt, Bill Murray, not to mention unnamed favorites like Hiam Abbass and Alex Descas). Beyond that, I have no idea what to expect from The Limits of Control- I just know that I can’t wait to see more.

Screengrab 2009 Preview: Scott Von Doviak’s Picks

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Again using the ever-popular 3 Up, 3 Down format, I will pick up the gauntlet thrown down by my colleague Andrew Osborne. (Hey, nice gauntlet, Osborne! You get a hat with that?) I must say, a cursory scan of the upcoming release schedule doesn’t exactly have me all a-quiver with anticipation, but hey, it’s early yet. Herewith, my picks to click and tips to slip. Or something like that.

3 UP

A SERIOUS MAN

I could really get used to this annual Coen Brothers movie routine. This year’s edition isn’t due until October, but it should be worth the wait. It’s “the story of an ordinary man’s search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV.” Unlike Burn After Reading, the film doesn’t boast an all-star cast, unless Michael Stuhlbarg, Sari Lennick, Fred Melamed and Richard Kind are at the top of your A-list. But who cares, as long as we get that Coen Brothers feeling.

THE LIMITS OF CONTROL

The long-awaited (by me anyway) return of Jim Jarmusch is “the story of a mysterious loner (Isaach. De Bankolé), a stranger, whose activities remain meticulously outside the law. He is in the process of completing a job, yet he trusts no one, and his objectives are not initially divulged. The film is set in the striking and varied landscapes of contemporary Spain (both urban and otherwise).” Okay, that’s a little vague, but it’s enough to intrigue me. The cast also includes Gael García Bernal, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and, of course, Bill Murray.

THE ROAD

Left over from last year, which isn’t necessarily a great sign. Then again, there are indications the editing was being rushed to meet the end-of-2008 deadline, and that probably wouldn’t have been a good thing either. Quoting myself from last year’s fall preview, the Cormac McCarthy adaptation is a “grim post-apocalyptic tale brought to the screen by John Hillcoat, director of The Proposition, a western that certainly counts McCarthy’s Blood Meridian among its influences. Viggo Mortenson has the lead, and the supporting cast includes Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, Garrett Dillahunt and The Wire’s Omar himself, Michael K. Williams.”

3 DOWN

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3

Oh good, a completely unnecessary remake of a perfectly fine ‘70s movie, over-directed by Tony Scott and featuring John Travolta in an unconvincing villainous mustache. But at least it has Denzel Washington looking dumpy. Maybe that’s his homage to Walter Matthau.

LAND OF THE LOST

''You're not going to see the zipper up the back of the Sleestaks' costumes,” says Will Ferrell, star of this preposterous remake of the beloved Saturday morning show of yesteryear. Is that supposed to make me want to see this?

STATE OF PLAY

The original British miniseries is an intricate work of intrigue about a newspaper with seemingly unlimited resources investigating political scandal. (Eat your heart out, David Simon.) The trailer for the American remake promises a generic, forgettable thriller.

WILD CARD: Watchmen, of course. Will it suck? Will it somehow blow our minds? Heck, will it even be released?