Video of the Day 2: Public Relations
4/2/2007 5:30:00 PM
This hilarious little spoof promotional video may offer a comical take on the rather suspect nature of many celebrity relationships, but it's worth noting that during the heyday of the studio system, this was pretty close to how relationships between stars were managed.
(Hat tip: IMDB.)
— Faisal Qureshi
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The Music of Death Proof: A Beginner's Guide
4/2/2007 5:00:00 PM
Quentin Tarantino is almost as much a "rock" star as a "god among directors," and so each new film inspires obsessive speculation of its soundtrack. The CD of his half of Grindhouse just hit the streets and already the WWW has provided a great deal of information about Death Proof's tunes, which includes loose stringed car tunes and smokey blues numbers. Here is a guide to the songs with information culled from numerous websites.
"The Last Race" — Jack Nitzsche
This twangy, jaunty tune originally appeared in the 1965 sub-Disney film Village Of the Giants (possibly over the credits). The film itself concerns a boy scientist (Ron Howard) who invents a growth juice. Bert I. Gordon's all-star boy cast also includes Tommy Kirk, Johnny Crawford, and Beau Bridges (as the bully who steals the formula).
"Baby, It's You" — Smith
Though originally recorded by the Shirelles and later by the Beatles, the version of this Burt Bacharach (music), Barney Williams, and Mack David (lyrics) song is the one that appears on the album A Group Called Smith, with lead singer Gayle McCormick. Smith was a band discovered by Del Shannon.
"Paranoia Prima" — Ennio Morricone
What would a Tarantino film be without a sampling of Morricone? In this case it is an edgy passage of the score from Dario Argento's 1971 The Cat O Nine Tails (Il Gatto a Nove Code).
"Jeepster" — T. Rex
This 1971 single inspired a wee bit of controversy owing to its similarity to the Howlin' Wolf song, "You'll Be Mine," by Willie Dixon. Marc Bolan later acknowledged that he "lifted it from a Howlin' Wolf song." Salient lyrics include, "Just like a car you're pleasing to be hold /I'll call you Jaguar if I may be so bold / 'Cos you're my baby, 'cos you're my love / Oh girl I'm just a jeepster for your love — oh"
"Staggolee" — Pacific Gas & Electric
This tune comes from the 1970 Columbia album Are You Ready, which also contained the band's first hit. This short lived band was basically built around the voice of singer Charlie Allen, who started out as the drummer, and became even more Allen centric when the band quit shortly after the record's release. "Staggolee" is Allen and co-writer John Hill's variation on the tradition blues number, also called "Stagger Lee and numerous variations, about the murder inspired by the theft of a hat. Pacific Gas & Electric later went on to do the soundtrack to Otto Preminger's film Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon.
"The Love You Save (May Be Your Own)" — Joe Tex
This tune by the Texas-born singer (as Joseph Arrington Jr., in 1933) who may have invented rap," was a hit in the mid-1960s.
"Good Love, Bad Love" — Eddie Floyd
Most famous for the label-defining Staxx hit "Knock on Wood," Eddie Floyd recorded this slow ballad in the mid-1960s. Floyd is also famous for his cover of Sam Cooke's "Bring It On Home to Me," and appeared in Blues Brothers 2000.
"Down In Mexico" — The Coasters
Narrative song-oriented, and more or less the invention of songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, The Coasters broke into the charts with this, the band's first hit, back in 1956. Sample lyrics include: "Down in Mexicali / There's a crazy little place that I know / Where the drinks are hotter than the chili sauce /And the boss is a cat named Joe."
"Hold Tight — Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
Now nearly forgotten competitors to the Beatles (but all from Wiltshire rather than Liverpool), and with a law-firm-sounding band title combining all their nicknames, this band had a number of hits in the mid-1960s, including this single from 1966. What's curious about this band, at least in this song, is their quintessential American So-Cal surf sound.
"Sally and Jack" — Pino Donaggio
Brian De Palma remains one of Tarantino's favorite filmmakers, and this musical passage is a love theme from Blow Out from 1981. Pino Donaggio is something of an heir to both Bernard Herrmann and Ennio Morricone in his stripped down approach and gift for melody, respectively, and he has collaborated with De Palma on numerous films, beginning, memorably with Carrie. Another one of his early scores is for Don't Look Now.
"It's So Easy" — Willy DeVille
This Mink DeVille tune (which I haven't been able to track down, but which presumably appeared on one of the group's first three albums) was also used in one of the disco scenes in William Friedkin's 1980 film Cruising. Under the leadership of Willy DeVille (aka, William Borsay), Mink DeVille was one of the first of the pan-sexual New York glam bands.
"Riot In Thunder Alley" — Eddie Beram
Info on Eddie Beram is hard to come by, but this drum-oriented instrumental appears in the Richard Rush directed speedway film Thunder Alley starring Annette Funicello and Fabian.
"Chick Habit" — April March
April March (born as Elinor Blake) is the animator turned indie pop musician. As an animator, she worked on Pee Wee's Playhouse, and did the credit sequence for the Madonna film Who's That Girl. As a musician she had two groups (The Pussywillows and The Shitbirds), and is an acknowledged Francophile. In fact, "Chick Habit" is an Anglicized version of the Serge Gainsbourg tune, "Laisse Tomber Les Filles," itself an entry in the so-called yé-yé sound whose practitioners include Jane Birkin, Petula Clark, Françoise Hardy, Sylvie Vartan, Chantal Goya, and, of course, Brigitte Bardot. "Chick Habit" first appeared on the March's 1994 disc Gainsbourgsion! (apparently never officially released), and was first used in the 1999 film But I'm A Cheerleader. The Tarantino Wiki's Grindhouse pages point out that in Death Proof, the character of Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in the final scene is dressed in a cheerleader uniform. Relevant lyrics to the song include: "Hang up the chick habit /hang it up, daddy, /or you'll be alone in a quick /hang up the chick habit /hang it up, daddy, /or you'll never get another fix /i'm telling you it's not a trick /pay attention, don't be thick /or you're liable to get licked /you're gonna see the reason why /when they're spitting in your eye /they'll be spitting in your eye /you're gonna need a heap of glue /when they all catch up with you /and they cut you up in two."
— DK Holm
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Some Quick Impressions from New Directors/New Films
4/2/2007 4:30:00 PM
 | | Reprise |
The 36th Annual New Directors/New Films series closed on a very high note Sunday with a screening of director Joachim Trier’s incredible debut Reprise. The series is a longstanding collaboration between the Department of Film at The Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The focus of the series remains on creating a showcase for an international group of emerging filmmakers. The crop of films and directors chosen this year was remarkably deep, with a slate that could easily rival the longstanding New York and upcoming Tribeca Film Festivals in terms of undiscovered talent and overall quality. A handful of the films shown this year were also well received at January’s Sundance Film Festival, including Once, The Great World of Sound, Sundance’s Dramatic Grand Jury Prize winner Padre Nuestro, and Andrea Arnold’s Red Road (which we reviewed during the festival). Also seeing its world debut was Paul Auster’s second directorial effort, The Inner Life of Martin Frost (look for a feature interview with Auster in Nerve’s Film Lounge later this week), a film very similar to the author’s literary work, functioning on multiple levels in a world of suspended logic and reality. Although time didn’t allow me to see all of the films I would have liked to (Congorama, El Custodio, Stealth) the films I did see were all refreshing, highly personal visions from promising and uncompromising directors.
Jean-Pascal Hattu’s 7 Years told a difficult story of a woman whose husband has gone to prison for an undisclosed crime and who subsequently starts an affair with one of the prison’s wardens. What starts off as a stark and uncompromising view of the details of the characters’ lives, becomes, by the end, an almost lyrical look at the obstacles often in the way of happiness.
The real highlight of the festival was Reprise, a Norwegian film debut from director Joachim Trier that utilized a large cast of young, mostly unprofessional actors to great effect. Reprise had considerable buzz behind it at Sundance this year, and a recent article in the New York Times offering the film high praise has helped to potentially land the film US distribution. Judging from the enthusiastic response from a sold out, 400 plus seat screening at MoMA yesterday, the film is certainly capable of garnering an audience. The film itself follows the paths of two aspiring writers, also best friends, as they send their first novels out into the world. Trier described Reprise as, “a scrapbook film,” and that seems to be an accurate description. Deftly moving between past, present and future, the film expertly pieces together shorter episodes to tell several stories at once. Co-written by Eskil Vogt, the script’s development of even lesser characters, and the attention to detail paid throughout the film, betrays its three-year development process. Despite some highly experimental moments and heavy subject matter (bi-polar disease, suicide), the film actually manages to be exciting, aided no doubt by effortlessly compelling performances, particularly the three leads. There is no question that this movie will be at or near the top of my year-end list.
The diversity within the New Directors/New Films series is admirable, and the opportunity that it offers to these films and their directors is a real service whose effect could be felt in the gratitude easily detected in each of the directors’ own responses during post-screening Q&A’s. It helps provide some hope that these films will find their way to other movie screens throughout the US and the world. Many are well-deserving…
— Bryan Whitefield
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Quote of the Day: Julie Christie
4/2/2007 4:00:00 PM
“I think celebrity is the curse of modern life, or at least advertising, which it is a branch of. And I don't like being part of something dirty. I know that sounds prissy. But I talk to some young stars and say: why do you do all these publicity things? They say they have signed up to it. I suppose I have never wanted to sign up.”
- Julie Christie talks to the Guardian. Also, when asked about her fondest memories: “Well, they nearly always involve a chap and nature.”
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Wack Swag
4/2/2007 3:30:00 PM
I never had any movie promo stuff delivered to me, during my brief time as a movie hack for a student newspaper. The editors would take all the swag and just gimme the assignment. It’s not like I cared — I mean, what intelligent person would want to wear a T-shirt that advertised Stigmata? Or grab a denim jacket with The Skeleton Key written in bold, scary type on the back? You'd have the piss taken out of you in clubs all over the place.
So it’s amusing to see what gets sent as studio PR bumph these days, as this guy did when he got his little bumper package for The Hills Have Eyes II. Last year he got a severed ear; what’s it going to be this time?
— Faisal Qureshi
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Brokeback Mountain the Film Quarterly Way
4/2/2007 2:45:00 PM
Similarly to most academic presses, the University of California Press web site lags behind its physical product. Though the new issue of Film Quarterly is on the stands, its dedicated web page, which doesn't print much of a given issue anyway, still shows, as of this writing anyway, the old issue. But keep checking. You've got three months.
It's several issues now into ex-BFI apparatchik Rob White's tenure as editor-in-chief and we can see that it's a shame the site doesn't reprint much of its issues on the site. The magazine in its new form, though it basically looks the same, now has the intellectual feel of the old Richard Corliss-era Film Comment , possibly because White is drawing upon identifiable names from that time such as Robin Wood and Jonathan Rosenbaum.
The centerpiece of Volume 60 No. 3 is a suite of essays focusing on Brokeback Mountain as a film and a phenomenon. Film Quarterly has done this before, with culturally relevant works such as Thelma and Louise (and wasn't there once a huge roundtable on Showgirls? Boy, I'd love to read that one now). This collection of eight essays, practically book length, looks at the film from all angles. Robin Wood takes the auteurist approach, asking "How is this an Ang Lee film?," among other considerations. Joshua Clover and Christopher Nealon look at it as a cultural phenomenon, via YouTube parodies, music videos and other replications. The other writers look at Brokeback Mountain as a neo-western, as a Chinese "family ethics" film, and as a conservative gay melodrama, as well as at the critical backlash, and at the film's cinematic classicism.
Also in the issue is a review of Volver (by old Film Quarterly hand Marsha Kinder), a short essay by Laura Mulvey on the beauty of back projection, and reviews of about 15 books, including Robert Garis's career survey of Orson Welles and Edward Gallafent's book on Astaire and Rogers.
The most potentially controversial essay in the paper is Jonathan Rosenbaum's meditations on Internet movie criticism. Good ol' J-Ro, he can't help but cause trouble! Entitled "Film Writing on the Web: Some Personal Reflections," Rosenbaum compares the promiscuousness of present day film writing with the rather closed world of film magazines when he got started back in the 1960s. He mentions over 25 websites in varying degrees of passing, patting on the head those run by friends. And as an example of how web writing differs from print, he tells a long anecdote about being attacked over an essay (previously dropped by a print publication) that appeared at Senses of Cinema about September 11th (presumably this one ) and which led to a retort from an unnamed NY critic "whom I knew only slightly." The way that Rosenbaum characterizes the whole affair may lead to some debate at "A Film By …" where Rosenbaum occasionally posts.
Though charting an interesting paradigm shift, I think that what Rosenbaum fails or neglects to mention is that present day web film writing, at least the kind that is read, is just as closed and insular as it was in the glory days of Film Comment , The Velvet Light Trap, and Movie. For one thing, it is all the same people. And second, how many people really read film criticism with the rabid intensity one associates with the film geek in the popular imagination? In any case, let the firestorm begin!
— DK Holm
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Forgotten Films: PRIVILEGE (Peter Watkins, 1967)
4/2/2007 2:00:00 PM
One could write any number of “Forgotten Films” pieces about the works of director Peter Watkins. He is one of the world’s most talented and respected directors, but because of their uncompromising blend of radical politics and in-your-face style — which often appropriates the tropes of television documentaries — Watkins’s films have remained mostly unseen by the public for many years. Even his most celebrated film, The War Game, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 1966 despite not containing a frame of documentary footage, was banned from airing on the BBC for twenty-five years due to its shocking vision of Britain following a nuclear war.
In the last few years, many of Watkins’ greatest films — The War Game, Punishment Park, Edvard Munch, the 6 hour TV special La Commune (Paris, 1871) — have finally made their way to DVD, but there’s still one especially glaring omission. While Privilege is the closest Watkins ever came to making a mainstream feature — a rock’n’roll drama bankrolled by Universal Pictures — it’s nonetheless difficult to find. I finally caught up with the film last weekend at a “Secret Cinema” screening (basically, you buy a ticket not knowing what they’ll show), and I’m ecstatic to report that it’s one of the director’s greatest films. And while the film’s genre and studio funding might lead one to believe that it’s somehow softer than his other classics, this isn’t the case. Privilege is as corrosive a vision as any Watkins has ever put on the screen.
Privilege tells the story of Steven Shorter (played by Paul Jones of the Manfred Mann Band), who the film’s narrator describes as “the most desperately loved entertainer in the world.” At the beginning of the film, Steven is being feted with a ticker-tape parade — supposedly Birmingham’s first ever — that feels less like a celebration than a Nazi rally. After this, there is a concert, with a handcuffed Shorter ushered by police onto the stage and thrown into a jail cell. As he sings “Set Me Free,” he reaches out to the audience, his wrists bleeding from the cuffs, and the audience, comprised of women young and old, looks on in horror. This concert plays like the evil twin of A Hard Day’s Night, down to the tearful girls clasping their faces and screaming their idol’s name. After Steve leaves the stage, the crowd rushes the policemen, and a full-scale riot ensues.
This sort of fanatical devotion is typical of Shorter’s fans. In the world of Privilege, Steven Shorter is everywhere. There are three television stations devoted solely to all things Shorter. He’s also ubiquitous on the radio — in one great scene, Steven’s watch radio is heard playing his song “I’ve Been a Bad, Bad Boy” on several different stations. And hundreds of official Steven Shorter discotheques have sprung up all over Britain, each with an adjoining room devoted to Steven’s commercials and advertisements, meant to serve as a celebration of consumerism by the nation’s most influential figure.
But, as the old saying goes, “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Steven Shorter is little more than a tool for his opportunistic management. He is exhausted from constant concert dates and commercial appearances, meant to take advantage of his fame. As a result, he gets no joy out of his lifestyle, as he follows the whims of his handlers and they reap the lion’s share of the benefits. He is almost never seen smiling, and he doesn’t even both to fake it when starring in an advertisement. And why should he? It’s hard to get excited about an ad campaign designed to alleviate a British surplus of apples.
The Britain of Privilege is led by a coalition government formed by a merging of the Conservative and Labour parties, "sometime in the near future." After years of brutal political infighting, the two parties have set aside their differences in the belief that “we all worship the same God, and the same flag.” Naturally, Steven Shorter is seen as a threat to this harmonious arrangement — any pop star who regularly moves his fans to riot is dangerous. So Steven’s management hits on the idea of remaking their golden boy into a born-again Christian, a sort of pop prophet, who will lead his flock back to the straight and narrow, thus helping to avoid a revolt.
All of this culminates in a rally/concert that takes place in a football stadium. Watkins has referenced Nazi propaganda throughout Privilege, but he makes the connection completely clear in this sequence. Shorter’s management, in association with the coalition government and the churches, have pulled out all the stops. Legions of believers parade around the pitch like armies, and a stage is set up with a giant picture of Steven, arms outstretched, behind it. Steven himself appears in a bright red suit, beseeching forgiveness from the Lord and then laying his hands on the sick and disabled who have gathered at the foot of the stage. It’s a horrifying sequence, all the more so because it may be the most visually striking Watkins has ever directed — that he had ace cinematographer Peter Suschitzky operating the camera certainly didn’t hurt. But most frightening of all is Shorter’s opening act, a stern reverend who directs the fans to chant three words: “We Will Conform.” And so they do, tens of thousands of them, and the event goes swimmingly for all concerned. The narrator informs us that, after this first rally, roughly 49,000 people found God.
All the while, Steven yearns to break free of this lifestyle, as he reveals to a young artist hired to paint his portrait. In a canny bit of casting, the artist is played by late-60s model Jean Shrimpton, herself an It Girl of the period, and one who would know very well the perils of celebrity. But Steven’s fame and power far exceed anything Shrimpton ever attained. Despite the love of millions and the full support of the political and religious establishment, Steven Shorter’s life is taking its toll on him, and he finally lashes out at an awards dinner. “You love me,” he states. “Don’t you know that I despise you?”
Because of this, Shorter’s fans turn on him violently. Steven’s stage persona has always been that of the sacrificial lamb, predicated on the idea that only the love of his fans can save him. The film’s narrator explains, “when asked why they loved Steve Shorter, 93.5 percent of those questions replied, ‘because he gives so unselfishly of himself.’” But more than that, the fans love him because he makes them feel loved and needed. As a result, it’s easy to see why Steven’s words hit so hard- when your act is so dependent on your fans, you don’t bite the hand that feeds. Within a year, virtually all traces of Steven Shorter have been wiped from the public record.
The cinematic influence of Privilege can be felt in a number of subsequent films. Many of the rock movies of the next few decades owe a debt to Privilege, from the bombast of Tommy to the stylishness of Phantom of the Paradise. The rally scenes in Pink Floyd: The Wall are clearly Watkins-inspired. Watkins himself has claimed that no less a filmmaker than Stanley Kubrick cribbed a scene from Privilege for A Clockwork Orange, though it’s hard to tell which one. Likewise, some of the music from the film has been covered or appropriated by a number of artists, from Patti Smith to Big Audio Dynamite.
But even more startling than the film’s direct influences is the story’s almost prophetic nature. It’s hard not to see Steven Shorter in the reluctant, self-destructive pop stars of today, Britney Spears being the obvious example. The efforts by Shorter’s handlers to re-fashion their client’s image clearly anticipates shape-shifters like Madonna. But strangely enough, the person I thought of most while watching Privilege isn’t a musician at all, but Oprah Winfrey — another pop-culture titan whose image is used not only to sell consumer products and spirituality but a whole lifestyle. That Oprah presumably does this of her own free will, rather than being led into it as Shorter is, merely feels like the logical progression of events.
However, for all its influence and prescience, Privilege itself remains extremely difficult to find. At one point, Watkins himself claimed that he was unable to locate a print of the film. While there are bootlegs DVDs of Privilege available on the Web, Universal, the film’s distributor, has never officially released it in any video format. According to some sources, this is unlikely to change, since the Universal powers-that-be believe Privilege to be such a travesty that they don’t think they’ll ever recoup their investment, even forty years later. But I somehow doubt that’s the case — if nothing else, there’s a built-in audience for rock-themed movies, even one so caustic as Watkins’. It’s more likely that the film still hits home for them, and in that respect I guess Privilege’s absence isn’t so unexpected. Tragic, but hardly a surprise, and somehow fitting for a film that so resolutely refuses to play nice.
Note: For a more in-depth analysis of the controversies that have surrounded Privilege through the years, check out Tom Sutpen’s essay in the August 2005 issue of the Bright Lights Film Journal. Watkins’s own site can be found here. And if you ever have a chance to see Privilege, drop what you’re doing and go.
— Paul Clark
Previous Forgotten Films Columns:
- January 16, 2007 -- GONE TO EARTH (dir. Michael Powell)
- December 26, 2006 -- SHOCKPROOF (dir. Douglas Sirk)
- December 11, 2006 -- THE DION BROTHERS (aka The Gravy Train) (dir. Jack Starrett, 1974)
- November 28, 2006 -- RACHEL, RACHEL (dir. Paul Newman, 1968)
- November 15, 2006 -- LEO THE LAST (dir. John Boorman, 1970)
- October 30, 2006 -- 7 WOMEN (dir. John Ford, 1966)
- October 16, 2006 -- REIGN OF TERROR (aka The Black Book) (dir. Anthony Mann, 1949)
- October 3, 2006 -- MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON (dir. Bob Rafelson, 1989)
- August 18, 2006 -- LUNA (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci, 1979)
- August 28, 2006 -- OUR MOTHER’S HOUSE (dir. Jack Clayton, 1967)
- August 14, 2006 -- THE CHOCOLATE WAR (dir. Keith Gordon, 1988)
- July 31, 2006 -- THE STRANGER (dir. Luchino Visconti, 1967)
- July 17, 2006 -- WALKER (dir. Alex Cox, 1987)
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Video of the Day 1: Norman Mailer vs. Rip Torn
4/2/2007 1:15:00 PM
Everybody saw David O' Russell go ballistic on Lily Tomlin on the set of I Heart Huckabees — and some of us even got to see Paul Rudd and Michael Showalter’s hilarious re-enactment of it — but that’s practically afternoon tea compared to this vicious and awesome catfight between renowned novelist Norman Mailer and respected actor Rip Torn on the set of Mailer’s film Maidstone, in which a scene got out of control so badly that Torn nailed Mailer with a hammer, and the writer-director retaliated by biting his actor’s ear. Mailer, whose 2nd feature this was, actually put this footage in the movie — all the blood is real. We're very much looking forward to any DVD copy of the film, hopefully with a re-match opportunity to see two old geriatrics go at one another with such gusto.
— Faisal Qureshi
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What We Can All Learn from John Frankenheimer
4/2/2007 12:30:00 PM
John Frankenheimer was a class talent. Not only did he direct some great movies in the sixties (The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, Seconds) but he also turned out to be a world class DVD commentary track participant. (Check out his commentaries on Seconds and The Manchurian Candidate for examples.)
Frankenheimer had a varied career, starting in television before moving into films. After a series of high profile flops (the under-rated Black Sunday and the extremely troubled The Island of Dr. Moreau), he returned to television, where he directed a series of well regarded TV-movies and mini-series.
Later in his career, Frankenheimer was quite honest in what did and didn't work in his films. It's a real pity that he passed away before he could contribute commentaries for stinkers such as Prophecy or The Extraordinary Seaman, as they would have been really good listening for filmmakers wanting to find out what to avoid.
Now someone has put an entire 13-part TV series interview with Frankenheimer on the net. Chapter 1 is the funniest, and concerns his experience directing a live TV drama with mis-cast actors (John Agar being one of them) that are politely described as "practising alcoholics".
— Faisal Qureshi
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The Special Effects of Zodiac
4/2/2007 11:45:00 AM
The punishingly expensive Cinefex (No. 109, $12.50) is out, with articles on 300, Pan's Labyrinth, Norbit, Apocalypto, and Ghost Rider. But the coverage I was most interested to read was the feature on Zodiac, by Jody Duncan, which I didn't expect to see written up in a special effects journal. It turns out that David Fincher's film, shot on digital video, is rife with special effects work, from its opening shot (fireworks above San Francisco on the Fourth of July) to the urban background at the site of the Paul Stine murder. There are 150 shots in all, composed by Digital Domain and Matte World Digital, plus an additional 150 cleaned up shots.
Shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, of the Transamerica Building under construction (which also includes a tilt up!), and the terrific shots of the camera hovering over the Stine taxi cab, as if it were being moved like a Ouija Board planchett under the camera's grip, are all wholly digital creations. Fincher shot at the actual locations but some of them, such as Lake Berryessa have so changed since the late 1960s that digital erasure was required. Dirty Harry was a key reference film, particularly because Fincher didn't want the night scenes to be too bright or light filled. Special effects guys love working for Fincher, according to the article, because of his great eye and attention to detail.
— DK Holm
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Bob Shaye to Overconfident Auteurs: Drop Dead
4/2/2007 11:00:00 AM
New Line chief (and The Last Mimzy auteur) Bob Shaye’s recent feud/lawsuit with Peter Jackson is fairly well known, but the mogul hasn’t given up on dissing other renowned filmmakers who’ve passed through his stable. In this great interview, he rags on Paul Thomas Anderson for taking himself too seriously (because he refused to trim Boogie Nights) and the late Robert Altman (because Short Cuts was apparently also too long). But the most notable criticism here is his blast at everyone's favorite whipping boy Brett Ratner (I will now admit that I preferred X-Men 3 over the other movies for actually being a little bit more... exciting) for going over schedule on Rush Hour 3, which Ratner is currently making for Shaye’s studio. Oh yeah, this is actually an interview to promote Shaye's new film, The Last Mimzy, and in between director-slamming quotes that are probably taken out of context, he's happily chit-chatting about bringing his film under budget and ahead of schedule.
— Faisal Qureshi
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April Fools Film Roundup
4/2/2007 10:30:00 AM
April Fools unleashed a few good film-related stories onto the web: some of them funny, most of them ridiculous. Still, some of us bought them.
A colleague at The Observer tipped me off on this anonymously penned article concerning Tony Blair accepting an acting job from his old mate Kevin Spacey.
Another story concerned Homeland Security suddenly demanding the recall of all copies of Tron for reasons of National Security. It's amazing that some video games journalists I know actually believed this kak.
And then even AICN, the news site that popularized the April 1st film hoax, fell for one itself. Readers with long memories will remember that 10 years ago, the UK magazine Total Film actually published some of AICN previous hoaxes as actual productions.
Now the joke was on them when their correspondent Moriarty suddenly creamed his pants over news that Brad Bird would be directing a live action version of John Carter on Mars. (Here’s the original blog post that sparked the entire thing off. And here’s AICN's article.)
Unfortunately Screengrab doesn't publish on a weekend, or else I would have penned an article stating the UK Film Council was going to be bought by Walt Disney to fund only US Productions but we'll wait for that next year.
— Faisal Qureshi
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Morning Deal Report: Tribeca Controver$y, More Carpenter Remakes, Odd Wachowski Casting Choices
4/2/2007 10:00:00 AM
 | | Word to the wise: If you want to convince people you're cash poor, stop having scenes like this at your film festival. |
- The Tribeca Film Festival is raising its ticket prices 50%, from $12 to $18. Needless to say, many pundits are pissed off about it. And here, Lou Lumenick notes the great danger in raising these prices: local papers, which previously have been very supportive of Tribeca, may finally have to start asking, “Are these movies worth the money you’ll spend on them?”
- In Hollywood's continuing effort to leave no John Carpenter film unregurgitated as an inferior hackjob, they’re thinking of remaking Christine. At least this one was based on a novel, so they have that excuse.
- In a casting decision which offers some glimmer of hope that the film will not completely suck, Susan Sarandon and John Goodman have joined cast of the Wachowski Brothers’ Speed Racer film. They will play lead Emile Hirsch’s parents.
- Sydney Pollack is planning on making a feature film based on the 2000 Election recount, called Recount, for HBO Films. It will reportedly have “no political agenda,” which is to say, it will only bash Bush for half its running time, not its entire running time.
- Critic-turned-filmmaker Rod Lurie (The Contender, The Last Castle) is remaking Sam Peckinpah’s classic Straw Dogs. (We thought it was an April Fools’ joke, until we saw that the article was dated March 30th.)
- Matthew Rhys and Cillian Murphy have joined the cast of The Best Time of Our Lives, about poet Dylan Thomas and the love triangle between him, his wife, and his wife’s best friend. The women, by the way, will be played by Keira Knightley and Lindsay Lohan.
- Stuff you should read: This great article here, which starts off about the five-year efforts to get The Lives of Others made, eventually becomes a tremendously absorbing story about German film financing in general
— Bilge Ebiri
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