Emma Thompson Is So Awesome
11/29/2006 3:45:00 PM
Look, I love Angelina Jolie as much as the next guy, and I’m actually listening to a Madonna song as I write these words (T.M.I.) – but sometimes they can be a bit too much, as pretty much the entire world has come to realize recently what with the PR blitz African adoptions and whatnot. As a corrective, try – just try – to read this interview with Emma Thompson and not tear up when she describes her “unofficially adopted” Rwandan son Tindy. Sniff.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7769#7769 |
Today in Bollywood Does It Better
11/29/2006 3:00:00 PM
Is Bollywood having its best year ever? With a “record number of blockbusters and superhits,” Outlook India seems to think so. (Hat tip: Green Cine Daily.)
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7768#7768 |
Video of the Day: Assmonster: The Making of a Horror Movie
11/29/2006 2:30:00 PM
Okay, do we have your attention now? Not sure what to make of this trailer for a film about “a guy who watches an awful DVD-R that was made by one of those fake directors who sell their crap at horror conventions and decides that he too will make a bad movie and sell it for $30 a copy.” Is it a documentary? A mockumentary? A thriller? The trailer promises lots of cheap video cinematography, nudity, metalheads, and, well, more cheap video cinematography. It's like American Movie with an Assmonster.
...And with an awesome title like that, there’s gotta be a few laughs in there. Right? Anyone?
It screens Dec. 18th at the Pioneer Theater. No doubt director “Bill Zebub” will be attending.
BTW, this is not particularly safe for work.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7771#7771 |
Reassessing Relationships: It's Big These Days
11/29/2006 1:00:00 PM
- Amy Smart and Patrick Wilson will star in New York entrepreneur Tracey Hecht’s debut feature Life in Flight, which “follows an architect/builder with the perfect wife and an adorable son. But an unexpected meeting with an urban designer reveals the weak foundation upon which his life is built and forces him to reassess his life.” I’ll withold judgment until the movie comes out, but the word “reassess” in a movie plot is often a bad sign. That said, I’ll watch anything with Smart and Wilson in it.
- Martin Lawrence will star in Malcolm Lee’s comedy The Better Man, playing “a single father who has just made it big as an outrageous syndicated talkshow host” and has a famous, fancy fiancée to boot. But then he comes home for his parents’ 50th anniversary and has to – wait for it – reassess his life.
- Noah Wyle is going behind the cameras to direct the indie romantic comedy Prince Test, which “centers on a female private investigator who uses unorthodox methods to check the fidelity of engaged or married men.”
- Lionsgate Films has bought the script The Escape Artist, a comedy written by first-timers Jim and Brian Kehoe, about “a relationship consultant who gets paid to break people up.”
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7767#7767 |
Quotable Auteurs: McG, Minghella, Guest, Hardwicke
11/29/2006 12:01:00 PM
EW did a roundtable on “the life of the modern-day auteur” with four of today’s more notable filmmakers. You can read the whole thing here, but we’ve separated out the good bits for you below:
McG: “I'm not that pure of an artist. I wish I were.”
Anthony Minghella: “When I'm working, I have this little card over my desk that says, ‘If nine Russians tell you you're drunk, lie down.’ Because especially if you write and direct your own work, there's a danger that you have absolutely no perspective…It's like you're a monk in the cutting room and a whore in the cinema.”
Christopher Guest: “There's nothing I could really watch that would have anything to do with what I do. It doesn't really apply.”
Catherine Hardwicke: [on watching other Biblical movies] “The tiny bit I scanned through, I thought, This is not a good influence. I didn't watch them. I'd rather watch films that I thought were really about strong characters…”
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7766#7766 |
Rehash, Regurgitate, Repeat: Sequel and Remake News
11/29/2006 11:00:00 AM
Yes, we now need a separate post just to update you on all the stuff that’s being remade or continued.
-Tony Scott is remaking The Warriors. Wait – don’t put your head through that makeshift noose yet. He promises it’ll be different. He’s moved it from “vertical” New York to “horizontal “L.A.” and, his words, “rather than a gang it¹s going to be 30 guys who take on 3,000. It's Kingdom Of Heaven meets The Warriors. “ He also wants a “shot of 50,000 real gang members all on Long Beach - The Crips, The Bloods, the Vietnamese, the Cambodians, the 18th Street gang, all there.” Okay, now put your head in the noose.
- It had to happen sooner or later: They’re remaking Poltergeist. And it will reportedly be a “straight-up near frame-for-frame remake of the seminal 1982 Steven Spielberg-written and Tobe Hooper-directed film.” Y’know, because the original’s gotten so old and dated.
- Eli Roth has wrapped Hostel 2 and is looking forward to starting work on a third one. Because it doesn’t even matter anymore if this stuff is any good.
- You can go back into your houses now. Jean-Claude Van Damme will not be in Rush Hour 3. That was apparently a rumor started by…Van Damme himself.
- Remember that Starship Troopers sequel from a while back? No? Oh yeah, that’s cause it went straight to video. Well, apparently it was such a success that they’re making a third one, and this one will be helmed by Edward Neumeier, who has written all three films in “the franchise.”
- And that Open Water sequel you’ll be seeing on the video shelf as of late February is not really an Open Water sequel. It’s a movie called Adrift that was also owned by Lionsgate, and someone realized the obvious and tagged it as a sequel for US release. It’s about “a group of reunion-ing high-school pals [who] decide to leap off the side of a yacht ... but nobody remembered to lower that silly ladder! Which means they can't get back on the boat ... at all!” C’mon, did you think a real sequel to Open Water was gonna be any different?
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7765#7765 |
Michael Douglas’s Brush With Crazy Celeb Death Infamy
11/29/2006 10:30:00 AM
Usually, when frivolous celeb news comes our way we try to look in the other direction and sing “Bringing in the Sheaves.” But sometimes, we really do want to know more: The other day, in Bermuda, Michael Douglas “was 25ft above the ground in a cherry picker pouring rum (don't ask) over the roof of a new museum when a stiff breeze almost blew him out.”
While we’re sort of glad Son of Kirk is alive and well (and, let’s face it, mildly bummed that The Strangest. Celebrity. Death. Ever. did not come to pass), we really do have to ask: What?
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7764#7764 |
Morning Deal Report: The War On Christkindlmarket, TW Offers Downloads, Voice Editor Found
11/29/2006 10:00:00 AM
- Organizers of Chicago’s German Christkindlmarket don’t want New Line as a sponsor “due to concerns that ads for The Nativity Story may offend non-Christians.” I don’t want to start channeling O’Reilly here, but, dude, it’s called “Christkindlmarket” for a reason. Nein?
- More news that may or may not change your life: Time Warner honcho Dick Parsons says that it will “offer services that let consumers download movies from the Internet that can be burned onto DVDs in 2007…[most likely] on the same day its DVDs go on sale.” In other words, you will be able to buy a DVD, or you will be able to download a movie and then burn it on to DVD. The difference, we’re assuming, will be price. Cause either way, you’ve pretty much got a DVD.
- Prepare to have your mind blown: The 40-Year Old Virgin’s Seth Rogen and Spider-Man’s James Franco will star in a film called The Pineapple Express, about “a pair of toking buddies who get mixed up with a drug gang.” Sounds like another stoner comedy, right? So how the $%&*# did they get All the Real Gilrs and Undertow auteur David Gordon Green to direct it? What next? Terrence Malick’s Scary Movie 6?
- The Village Voice has finaly found a film editor…and it’s previous interim film editor Alison Benedikt. We like her sense of humor in her email to The Reeler: “First order of business: All celebrity interviews all the time.” That was a joke, right?
- How will box office affect the Oscar race? The LA Times got Box Office Guru Gitesh Pandya and Comingsoon.net’s Edward Douglas to chime in here. The gist: Clint can forget about it -- as can Darren and, probably, Emilio. But Marty’s still got a shot.
- Old School director Todd Phillips will produce the buddy comedy The Fix Up, which “revolves around an average Joe whose life is turned upside down after being falsely accused of a crime.” The script will be (re)written by Michael Colton and John Aboud, once better known as the dudes behind Modern Humorist.
- Robert Bilheimer’s acclaimed AIDS documentary A Closer Walk will be aired on Chinese state television, “a remarkable move in a nation where the disease has been a taboo subject until recent years.” Unfortunately, two soundbites featuring the Dalai Lama will have to be taken out.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7763#7763 |
Forgotten Films: RACHEL, RACHEL (dir. Paul Newman, 1968)
11/29/2006 9:55:00 AM
Believe it or not, Paul Newman’s directorial debut, while hardly ever mentioned today, was a hit back in the day. It spent three weeks at the top of the box office in 1968, won numerous awards for Best Director and Best Actress, and earned four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Those nominations aren’t so surprising – Rachel, Rachel is anchored by a stunning lead performance from nominee Joanne Woodward (aka Mrs. Paul Newman) in the title role, and the excellent screenplay, adapted from Margaret Laurence’s novel A Jest of God and also nominated, was by Rebel Without a Cause screenwriter Stewart Stern (more on him here). But that box office is indeed a bit unexpected, and a sign of how moviegoers’ tastes have changed: Rachel, Rachel is a decidedly elliptical, understated film – “arty” would be the word tossed around today, with a good deal of snide dismissal. Audiences in 1968 clearly dug it though, in a way they certainly would not today. As evidenced, perhaps, by the fact that it’s not available on DVD and has been out of print on VHS for some time.
Unspooling initially like a rural, feminine variation on a T.S. Eliot poem, Rachel focuses on the life of a 35-year-old schoolteacher (Woodward) living with her mother in a small town, unable to connect with the world around her, even though she desperately yearns for it. Rachel’s family was in the funeral business, and her tale is often punctuated with flashbacks to her late mortician father going about his grim work -– picking up the dead, cleaning the corpses, etc. As a result, Rachel has been surrounded by death her whole life. The family car, of course, is a hearse -- a surreal symbol whose potential overtness is effectively undercut by its sheer perversity.
She also has a thing for trees – a friend gives her a miniature tree as a present, and Rachel dreams of trees when she’s trying to calm down. This girl is all about staying put. And her existence in the town of her birth is awash in memories, suggesting that she is circling around her life in an endless, despairing loop. Rachel spends her time taking care of her mother, teaching her kids, dreaming of the past, and enduring flashes of what life might be like if something happened to her – anything really, be it good (running away with one of her students, saving him from careless parents), bad (dropping dead in the middle of the street), or merely exciting (an illicit affair with her married principal).
But despite her daydreams, Rachel resists connection when it comes her way. Another teacher friend Calla (Estelle Parsons) invites her to her church, a kind of hippified variation on a revival meeting. Rachel initially says no, but when she finally attends, she finds herself confronted by a charismatic preacher whose wild exhortations make her nearly suffer a breakdown. (“The animals are less alone with roaring than we are with all out words,” he yells.) Afterwards, the somewhat mousy Calla comes on to Rachel, only to be rebuffed – thus leading to a bad break with what appears to be the one friend our heroine has. Everyone, it seems, is searching for something, and one of the film’s great accomplishments is to give us the full range of human yearning, without passing much judgment on it: The church meeting, despite flashes of absurdism, isn’t treated as a frivolous affair, and Calla, for all her pathos, is one of the more sympathetic characters in the film.
Rachel’s life appears on the verge of change when she meets an old school friend, Nick (James Olson), whose dead twin brother she saw her father prepare for burial as a child. Nick, in town for a brief while, also comes on to Rachel – but instead of the sudden kiss of a closet lesbian, his are the moves of a smooth talking ladies’ man: He invites her to a movie and when she asks what’s playing, looks into her eyes and says, “What’s the difference?” The two immediately strike up a love affair, and Nick’s physicality – their first time together, he takes her into the woods, strips down, and holds her – is a stark contrast to Rachel’s buttoned-down repression.
Soon enough, Nick brings her out of her shell: Her words to Nick when they make love -- "Hold me" -- are the same words the preacher had uttered earlier. Rachel spends an idyllic time at Nick's family farm, bailing hay, milking cows, learning to ride a tractor, and making love. But we can also see Nick for what he is: Just an ordinary, good-looking guy out to have a good time. As Rachel allows herself to be drawn in more into this relationship, it becomes clear that her dreams are about to be dashed.
The manner in which Rachel’s raw, unchecked emotions come desperately flooding out as soon as she feels like she may have found somebody – “I am happy. I love you. I want a child” – provides a further hint to her inner life. Rachel isn’t a cold fish. Far from it; she’s a person of deep, turbulent feelings, and her attempts to close herself to the world are a symptom of the shame she feels at them. In many senses, when Calla comes on to her, she becomes a mirror, or more accurately a cautionary tale, for Rachel. She may not be a lesbian, but she too has dreamed of making sudden, romantic gestures like that, and the disdain with which she herself treats Calla epitomizes the scorn she fears she will endure if she ever opens up.
As such, the characters in Rachel, Rachel are all reaching out, then suddenly withdrawing. All too human, they don’t quite know what they want. Sadly, this is true for Nick as well – while he certainly likes Rachel, he himself has no intention of continuing through with their relationship. (One final revelation – not a particularly startling one, but I’ll keep it hidden regardless – suggests that Nick is in his own ways as unable to connect as Rachel is.)
 | | Paul Newman |
Newman once said that his one direction for Woodward was “Pinch it.” She certainly appears to have run with that instruction. Her performance here is a clinic in closing oneself off while still allowing the audience to peek inside – how to emote without emoting. Despite his recollection of such modest direction, Newman himself was particularly adept at this kind of performance, too (check out his turn in The Long, Hot Summer, for example), and it’s easy to see both why he was drawn to this material and why he was able to film it so well. His work here is impeccable; even though he made a few other films, I’d say this was his best film as a director. One day, it will hopefully be better known.
--Bilge Ebiri
Previous Forgotten Films Columns:
- August 15, 2006 -- LEO THE LAST (dir. Paul Newman, 1968)
- 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)
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7755#7755 |
Is It Just Me...
11/29/2006 9:50:00 AM
...or has Moqtada Al-Sadr been watching a few too many Stanley Kubrick films?
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7754#7754 |
Video of the Day 2: Two Belated Obits, plus Singin’ In the Rain
11/29/2006 9:45:00 AM
Although Robert Altman was obviously a major loss, there were two other deaths last week that I should have noted. The first was the great Philippe Noiret, the French actor best known for playing the avuncular old movie projectionist in Cinema Paradiso and Pablo Neruda in Il Postino but also a well-known face from other major European films such as Marco Ferrerri’s La Grande Bouffe and Valerio Zurlini’s The Desert of the Tartars (a personal favorite).
The second was Betty Comden, who, along with Adolph Green, wrote the screenplays for films such as Singin’ in the Rain and The Band Wagon and stage shows such as On the Town, Peter Pan and Bells Are Ringing. (Edward Copeland has a good tribute here.)
As some readers might have noticed, I tend to eulogize notable passings by linking to videos of their notable (and sometimes not-so-notable) moments. I couldn’t find a decent one for Noiret besides a trailer for Cinema Paradiso, which drove me kind of batty. (Almost all of the other Cinema Paradiso clips online appear to be of that final scene – which is great, sure, but also notably does not feature Noiret – arrgh.)
But Comden – well, where to start? I guess the most obvious choice is my favorite scene from my favorite of her films, even if the scene is as much a tribute to Donald O’Connor’s physical prowess as it is to Comden & Green’s writing. Plus, it’s a good way to cap off what was a pretty grim week for movie deaths.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e7751#7751 |
