Our Last AFI-Related Post for a While (We Hope)
7/9/2007 4:00:00 PM
Another AFI infomercial televised list show has come and gone, and with it no small amount of armchair quarterbacking from all corners of the Internet. But if the AFI's blinkered view of American film history doesn't cut it for you, you can finally do something about it. The folks over at Daily Film Dose are spearheading an alternative list, to be voted on by Web-based movie lovers like you. Yes, you! The ballot, which can be downloaded here, includes the 400 semifinalists for the AFI list, but voters are encouraged to submit write-in candidates as well, a good idea since the AFI folks don’t seem to be familiar with such little-known classics as In a Lonely Place, Bride of Frankenstein and Point Blank, to say nothing of obscure filmmakers like Douglas Sirk and Sam Fuller. Hurry though — voting will be cut off at 1,500 ballots (the same sized pool as the actual AFI poll) or in six weeks, whichever comes first. — Paul Clark
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Factory Girl on DVD
7/9/2007 3:00:00 PM
Charles Taylor reports on the tangle of problems, including questionable business partners and a steady stream of bad buzz, that scuttled Factory Girl, the Edie Sedgwick biopic starring Sienna Miller and directed by documentary specialist George Hickenlooper. The movie was originally financed by LIFT Productions, a New Orleans-based outfit that has since come under federal investigation for alleged abuses of Louisiana's tax incentives for filmmakers. Amazingly, considering this was a movie about a New York socialite famous for her connection to the Andy Warhol scene in the 1960s, LIFT seems to have believed that they could make the movie without any shooting in New York City.
Taylor doesn't dredge up one of the movie's other well-publicized problems: the threat of legal action by Bob Dylan, who believed that the movie portrayed him as culpable in Sedgwick's death. Dylan's wrath was one factor in the release date changing from late last year to this past February; ultimately the character said to represent him (and played by Hayden Christensen) was renamed, simply, "The Musician." Everyone agrees that the movie doesn't do Warhol, played by Guy Pearce, any favors, either. The script also brought out the movie critic in Lou Reed, who was moved to describe it as "one of the most disgusting, foul things I've seen — by any illiterate retard — in a long time."
In any case, Hickenlooper's preferred edit of the movie is now coming out on DVD (sadly without a commentary track by Lou Reed), so anyone who's interested can finally see just what the filmmakers were originally trying to get at. One problem remains that may prove insurmountable: Hickenlooper himself tells Taylor that though he was won over by the screenplay, he didn't want to do it at first because he didn't find Edie Sedgwick all that interesting. He speaks for a lot of us there. — Phil Nugent
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You Can Look It Up: Turner Classic Movies Database
7/9/2007 2:00:00 PM
Thanks in part to Dave Kehr's blog the movie blogosphere at large is slowly coming to the realization that there is an alternative to the IMDB. In a June 26th entry Kehr writes about the Turner Classic Movies Database, or TCMDB, the new encyclopedic arm of the TCM empire. This new Turner site demands only that the eye stray occasionally onto ads for Turner Classic Movies-related shows and DVDs. Currently the home page is a simple affair designed to conform with the TCM "look," but toward the bottom are some interesting statistics, plus easy access to movies by decade, and a list of films voted most wanted on DVD. Archival material featured when I visited included twenty-four pictures I'd never seen before of Sue Lyon on the set of Lolita, a boon to Lyon fetishists. As someone who visits the IMDB about forty times a day, I think that Turner's site will take some getting used to, but Kehr is already an enthusiast, called the old IMDB "error-plagued." Kehr points out that the TCMDB has "as its core the unsurpassable AFI Catalog of American Feature Films, previously accessible only with a $50 AFI membership (or through certain libraries)." I've flipped through those fat orange AFI catalogs in the library, and they are enormously helpful, but also amusing: zealously comprehensive, the AFI writers often found themselves summarizing X-rated movies that taxed their capacity for euphemism. I remember one summary from the 1960s volume recounting, with the academic equivalent of a straight face, the orgiastic shenanigans of a cast consisting of various dwarfs and one-legged people. Unfortunately, TCM seems to have been selective in adapting the AFI volumes. (Well, it is a family website, I guess.) An alternative to the alternative, so to speak, is the more-churlish nine-volume Motion Picture Guide, with annual supplements at least through 1996. This set's detailed plot summaries (often wrong in small details) and trivia-filled recaps are also online via the TV Guide website, which I've only ever been able to access through. . . the IMDB. — D. K. Holm
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Trailer Roundup
7/9/2007 1:00:00 PM
Hitman
I can’t attest to this trailer’s reception among gamers, but I wasn’t especially impressed. I liked Timothy Olyphant in Go and The Girl Next Door, so I’m all for him taking on an action-hero role. But this trailer mostly summons up memories of the rash of John Woo ripoffs made in the late nineties, after every music video director out there watched The Killer a few times. Note to filmmakers: a stone-faced dude wielding two guns while classical music plays in the background is no longer cool or edgy. All it does is make us wonder when you’ll release the doves.
Rocket Science
As in his 2003 documentary Spellbound, Jeffrey Blitz takes on an academic subculture. This time it’s high school debate teams, albeit in a narrative framework. As a former debater myself, I’m curious to see a movie tackling the subject head-on — word from Sundance was that the film actually shows the debating technique of "spreading," which I’m eager to see portrayed onscreen. I’m a little iffy about this trailer’s extensive use of "Blister in the Sun," to say nothing of its somewhat mean-spirited humor, a hallmark of many Sundance-ready projects. Still, I’ll check it out — should be better than Little Miss Sunshine, anyway.
Arctic Tale
Ugh. Just ugh. It's bad enough that the people who brought you March of the Penguins have replaced the dulcet tones of Morgan Freeman with the nondescript voice of Queen Latifah. Nor that they name the animals this time. No, what really makes this a chore are the horrible one-liners that pepper the voiceover. I’m honestly not sure which is worse — "Seela’s tusks have filled out nicely, and the boys are taking notice," or "After three days of eating nothing but clams, someone starts a game of pull my flipper, and before you know it. . ." complete with the sound of a farting walrus.
— Paul Clark
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Movies We Missed: Laurel Canyon (2003)
7/9/2007 12:00:00 PM
In Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, released last Friday, Christian Bale plays a tortured POW in Vietnam who organizes a daring escape. Bale does tortured well. He’s played a tortured serial killer (American Psycho), a tortured industrial worker (The Machinist), a tortured magician (The Prestige), even a tortured superhero (Batman Begins). So that’s what makes his role in Laurel Canyon, as an unassuming, straight-laced guy continually embarrassed by his aging hippie mother, so interesting. It’s certainly a lot less extreme than his other roles. He didn’t have to lose massive amount of weight, perform sleight-of-hand magic tricks or live up to the massive expectations of comic book fanboys. Come to think of it, that might be why we overlooked it in the first place.
Why we missed it:
With only American Psycho and Shaft on his resume Christian Bale hadn’t become the safe bet he is now.
Seemed to fit the equation: Almost Famous + Meet The Parents = No thanks.
Why we should have known:
Writer/director Lisa Cholodenko’s sharp feature debut High Art transcended being simply a drug movie or lesbian movie, despite its concerning a druggy lesbian. (It also brought Ally Sheedy back from the dead).
If Frances McDormand can make a pregnant sheriff (Fargo) and a university chancellor (Wonder Boys) interesting, imagine what she could do with a decadent, L.A. music producer sleeping with a lead singer half her age.
Why we ended up kicking ourselves:
The film, supported by both insightful writing and performances, dispenses with artifice and portrays its characters with an honesty that often borders on unflattering. And the story is, at its core, easy to relate to. (Who hasn’t had his Mom embarrass him in front of his girlfriend?)
Watching the role reversal of Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsale playing uptight, Harvard Med School grads opposite Frances McDormand’s bohemian, weed smoking, could-give-a-flying-fuck mom is fun in itself.
Memorable supporting performances from Alessandro Nivola (Junebug) as a seductive, would-be rock star and Natascha McElhone’s (The Truman Show) incredible eyes.
DP Wally Pfister, who has now shot all of Christopher Nolan’s films including the upcoming The Dark Knight, manages to be creative yet unobtrusive with his camerawork, and is a master of lighting.
Kate Beckinsale in her underwear is never going to get a thumbs down.
Why we may have been justified to begin with:
Still feel a little creeped out by the threesome scenes involving Frances McDormand and her son’s fiancée.
A fair number of rock-n-roll clichés clutter up an otherwise well-told story. Not to mention some pretty predictable soundtrack choices.
— Bryan Whitefield
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Morning Deal Report: The Sun Never Sets
7/9/2007 11:00:00 AM
Biopics of historical English royalty are so hot right now. Emily Blunt's playing a young Queen Victoria in. . . The Young Victoria. Not a very inventive title, but perhaps "Prince Albert In A Can" was too jocular.
Many an Iraq-war documentary has come out in recent years, but here's the first one directed by Phil Donahue.
Those secretly hoping for a Kevin Costner comeback will be cheered by the promising cast (Dennis Hopper, Nathan Lane, et al) of Costner's new political comedy, Swing Vote. Those who aren't. . . well, actually that's pretty understandable.
Cinematical links to the trailer for Ben Affleck's directorial debut, Gone, Baby, Gone.
— Peter Smith
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Video of the Day: Honey Bunny
7/9/2007 10:00:00 AM
Is there an artistic credit that Vincent Gallo cannot claim? Writer, actor, director, producer, photographer, painter, sculptor, musician, even MC (as Prince Vince circa '82). Before he cursed Roger Ebert's colon, convinced Chloe Sevigny to deep throat to "serve the script" or tried selling his stud services on eBay, Gallo was known for his astonishing first film Buffalo '66 and its beautiful, melancholy soundtrack. Gallo is actually an extremely talented musician who exclusively uses vintage gear and recording equipment. He's actually registered with the Smithsonian as an expert in restoring analog recordings. But, alas, Vincent Gallo is also a world class pervert and rarely misses an opportunity to put pretty girls in compromising positions in the name of art. The video for the song "Honey Bunny" off his 2001 album When is no exception, as Gallo rotates girls in their underwear atop a turntable with a visual aesthetic very similar to many a Nerve premium photo shoot. If you hold out long enough you'll even see everyone's favorite ex-con heiress on all fours vamping it up for the camera. And just in case you thought Vince enjoyed any of that, his tear-streaked face in the final shot should convince you otherwise. — Bryan Whitefield
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Take Five: Americana
7/6/2007 4:00:00 PM
In honor of the Fourth of July, and in spite of those snooty calendar manufacturers who stuck Independence Day on a Wednesday this year so us hard-working regular Joes in the culture-blogging industry can't get a three-day weekend, we're going to forego our usual routine of basing Take Five around a movie that's opening this weekend, and instead use the space to list a few movies that make us proud to be Americans. (Well, most of us are Americans, anyway.) These are movies that portray America, Americans and everything about the nation in all its ragged glory. So after the fires of your barbecue have died down and you've retired indoors to bask in the glow of patriotism and escape those pesky New World mosquitoes, pop one of these films into your foreign-made DVD player and enjoy what might be the quintessential American art form.
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)
What's more essentially American than Hollywood? And what's more essentially Hollywood than a big showy musical? Only Hollywood making a movie about itself. It’s still refreshing, all these years later, that the studios could take two things that often turn movie audiences off — people singing in the middle of a story, and Hollywood’s never-flagging self-obsession — and combine them into something so charming and fun. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly at the height of their powers came together to direct one of the most entertaining films imaginable. If you don’t like it, you might just not like movies.
THE SEARCHERS (1956)
Any list of great movies about the American experience has to include a western, and there's none that more keenly encapsulates the American experience of the West — from the stern, implacable landscapes to the myth (and reality) of the rugged individualist to the uncomfortable and often violent relationship between whites and Indians — than John Ford's masterpiece of obsession and redemption. The number of people you'll see at the absolute incandescent pinnacle of their career in this movie makes it worth seeing, even if it had no other virtues, and take our word for it — it does.
DR. STRANGELOVE, OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964)
Okay, we admit it. Even on the one day people should only say nice things about America, we can’t help sprinkling a little subversion on our red, white and blue corn flakes. And this paralyzingly funny satire — filmed in England by Stanley Kubrick, and with an Englishman playing three of the key roles (including our all-time favorite fictional American president, the Mondalean Merkin Muffley) — is no less patriotic for the fact that it ends with the presumable destruction of the country. It's love of country, not hate of it, that spurs on Terry Southern's deeply cynical and hilarious script — its message that malfeasance, ego and madness in high places may bring us all to a low end has, for some reason, not lost its relevance.
NASHVILLE (1975)
All too frequently, you hear writers of a certain age discussing their intention to write the Great American Novel. Such projects rarely yield anything but fat, self-impressed raspberries of books. But likely without even meaning to, Robert Altman, one of the great American directors, produced, just before the national bicentennial, what may be the Great American Movie — a sprawling, complex, messy document of our country's political process (and the lonely frustrated men who sometimes derail it), music industry (and the well-meaning people and monstrous hypocrites who drive it), and national psyche, poignant, touching, cruel and hilarious by turns. Like America, Nashville is sometimes clumsy, always imperfect — but in the end, unique, beautiful and worthwhile.
THE NEW WORLD (2005)
Terrence Malick's most recent dreamlike meditation on romantic doom, set against the impenetrable beauty of nature, takes place at a time when there was no America to speak of; the residents of Jamestown were an admixture of British subjects, running up against natives (or "naturals," as the script has it) who had no idea they were all about to become American subjects, like it or not. But from the film's gripping opening scene, where Indian and Englishman alike view one another with terror and fascination, the obsessive appeal of this new world is always evident. Most of the filming was done (surprisingly) near the original site of the Jamestown colony, still shockingly pristine. — Leonard Pierce
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Forgotten Films: Men in War (1957)
7/6/2007 3:00:00 PM
Men in War is one of the few American combat films that you probably won't be sick of by the end of the July 4th weekend. This Korean War picture was directed by Anthony Mann from a screenplay credited to Philip Yordan, who was actually fronting for the blacklisted Ben Maddow. Mann's reputation, based mostly on his Westerns, has only risen since his death in 1967, to the point that some now even claim to see something in his bloated, late-career epics El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire, movies that look as if their director would've personally strangled every one of the thousands of extras if he could have traded their bodies for James Stewart on a horse. Yet somehow the trim, exciting Men in War continues to slip through the cracks and remain largely forgotten — which might be kind of appropriate for a movie about the Korean War.
The film stars Robert Ryan, one of the finest American actors, as the leader of a platoon lost behind enemy lines. (The men under his command include Nehemiah Persoff, Vic Morrow, James Edwards, and L. Q. Jones.) Aldo Ray, an actor who often looked lost when he didn't have someone to bludgeon, plays another lost soldier, travelling with a mute, shell-shocked Colonel (Robert Keith) who he treats with the tender protectiveness of a seeing-eye dog watching out for its master. Once these two attach themselves to the unit, the smart, ironic Ryan and the blunt Ray play off each other superbly, while Robert Keith's haunted eyes, sunk in his gaunt, lined face, just about take over the film. Men in War doesn't go in for jingoistic speeches about why these men are there, or for grand patriotic gestures, either. Almost existential, it boils military combat down to its bare essence: how do I not get killed today? By the end, the simple title, which today sounds like a supermarket generic brand, takes on unembarrassed echoes of Hemingway. — Phil Nugent
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Do Look Back: The July Sight and Sound
7/6/2007 2:00:00 PM
The Coen Brothers make the cover of the new Sight and Sound, but the featurette about them, by editor Nick James, doesn't make it to the skimpy (but not as bad as some film magazines) web edition. What does make it online includes a celebration of the eighty-year-old vulgarian Ken Russell (the rich man's Michael Winner) by Linda Ruth Williams, along with a survey by Mark Cousins of some of the films in Austria's New Crowned Hope arts festival which reflect the "spirit" of Mozart, among them Tsai Ming-Liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone and Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Dry Season. From the film reviews the web editor selects Jan Svankmajer's Lunacy, Bruno Dumont's new film Flanders and Cam Archer's meditation on the "libidinous fever of adolescence," Wild Tigers I Have Known (Nerve review here). Tim Lucas's DVD review for this month is Dont Look Back, Lucas finding D.A. Pennebaker's film to be "the most objective portrait of Bob Dylan we've ever had." — D. K. Holm
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