Video of the Day 2: I Heard You From the Snack Line
1/30/2007 3:37:36 PM
The desperation with which the film industry bravely keeps coming up with new and increasingly inventive ways to tell movie theater audiences to shut the fuck up, turn off their cellphones, stop chattering with each other, and generally cese being rude and unruly would be hilarious if it weren't also really, really depressing. I mean, how many ways do we have to be told to behave before we stop acting like cavemen at a watering hole?
The latest attempt comes from Disney's CGI pic Meet the Robinsons, with a pretty witty variation on "I Heard It Through the Grapevine." See it here.
(Hat tip: Movie City News.)
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8829#8829 |
Quote of the Day: Alfred Hitchcock, Whore
1/30/2007 2:30:00 PM
"I'm the voice of the 'Jaws' ride [at Universal Studios]. They paid me a million dollars. And I took it and I did it. I'm such a whore. I can't sit down and talk to the boy who did the fish movie . . . I couldn't even touch his hand."
-- Alfred Hitchcock, explaining to actor Bruce Dern why he couldn't bear to meet Steven Spielberg in the 1970s. From Dern's autobiography, which comes to us via Cinematical.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8823#8823 |
Save The Brattle Theater
1/30/2007 1:30:00 PM
Word came in recently that the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, second home to many film buffs over the years, is in danger of closing. We shouldn’t really say “recently” – they’ve been in danger for a while now, and have been trying to raise money since 2005. (See this news tidbit from back then.) But we were recently re-alerted to this by the good folks over at avidLynch.com, who have been trying to raise new awareness for it. (Lynch has even done some signings on the Brattle’s behalf.)
So, to do our part, we’re soliciting memories of the Brattle from film fans, which we will publish in groups. They need not be long. For example, here’s Nerve editor Peter Smith’s recollections of his days at the Brattle:
”It pains me to hear that the Brattle Theater may be closing. Many was the evening in high school that I and my beloved, hyper-cultured Canterbridgian friend Mike left his house and trotted down Brattle St. to the theater--as many college students had done before and would do after. We saw a lot of movies there, but I think particularly fondly of our viewings (and subsequent discussions) of Brazil and Ran. Seeing those visual treats on a big screen is a pleasure that most don't get to experience.”
Save the Brattle! Go to www.brattlefilm.org. And send your Brattle memories to screengrab@nerve.com. We'll publish them at a later date, and forward them to the theater itself as well.
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Video of the Day 1: The Hire - Ticker
1/30/2007 12:30:00 PM
Everybody probably remembers those 10 minute short films sponsored by BMW from a few years ago, where they got big name directors to create brief films featuring BMW cars and Clive Owen, and then streamed them online. Anyway, here's Smokin' Aces director Joe Carnahan's contribution to the project. I'd forgotten how kinda neat these were.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8816#8816 |
Barbarella Might Be Back. Please Be Back, Barbarella.
1/30/2007 11:30:00 AM
You gotta love Dino De Laurentiis. Not only is he alive and kicking after all these years, he’s still out there promoting his films. But more importantly, he’s thinking of starting up a new Barbarella franchise.
It won’t be a remake, though, he promises. It will be “a completely new Barbarella.” Whatever that means. As long as they don’t get rid of that Excessive Machine/Orgasmatron thing.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8811#8811 |
You've Got A Date With John Waters
1/30/2007 10:45:00 AM
Readers of Nerve are in for a treat: trash auteur and filmmaking icon John Waters has agreed to field your questions for an interview! Do not miss this opportunity! Send us your questions as feedback to this post—please leave your first name, age, and location—and we'll pick the best questions to ask Waters on Friday. You're welcome to reach back into the murky depths of his career, but be sure to ask about his new CD, "A Date With John Waters." You can read his hilarious liner notes here.
And if you need some context, check out our in-depth Waters Q&A from a few years back, here.
(For those of you having difficulty posting feedback, you can also send your questions in an email to screengrab@nerve.com. But you'll still have to give us your first name, age, and location.)
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8814#8814 |
Morning Deal Report: Super Bowl Ads, Golden Flower Investors Cursed, More LMS Baiting
1/30/2007 10:00:00 AM
- Only two studios have bought ad time during this coming weekend’s Super Bowl. In the few seconds left before civilization disintegrates, let me be the first to note that advertising during the Bowl did Poseidon little good last year.
- If you’re one of those investors who helped finance Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower, you’re gonna have to wait to get your money back. The culprit, as always, is the Chinest government. Or at least that’s what the producer says.
- The blogosphere is still obsessed with the idea of Little Miss Sunshine winning Best Picture. Here’s an interesting take on it, although its underlying assumption appears to be wrong. (”At the most basic level, it is nearly impossible to dislike Little Miss Sunshine.” Whaaaaa??)
- Joseph Fiennes IS Vivaldi, in Vivaldi, an international co-production that is set to begin filming this Spring in Venice and Vienna. The film will focus on “Vivaldi as a young, eccentric priest in the 1700s assigned to serve as music master of a school for the abandoned illegitimate daughters of Venice's courtesans.”
- Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott will star in Luke Greenfield’s Big Brothers, “about two deviously wild beer reps who, in order to keep their jobs, are forced to do community service and become mentors in the Big Brother program after their freewheeling behavior gets them into trouble.” Best line in that entire article: “Brothers initially was conceived as a drama.”
- Bob Hoskins has joined the cast of Descent director Neil Marshall’s Doomsday, “about attempts to quarantine a lethal virus.”
- One of hard-boiled crime master Jim Thompson’s greatest novels, The Killer Inside Me, is set to become a film again, with Steadicam aficionado Marc Rocco (Murder in the First) directing.
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Cristi Puiu Will Fight No More Forever
1/29/2007 3:40:00 PM
Got a note in my Inbox today with a press release stating that "film director Cristi Puiu, winner of the 2005 Prize Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Bear for Short Film at the 2004 Berlinale, announced at a recent press conference in Romania, his decision to no longer participate in the contests held by The Romanian National Centre for Cinematography.
"The announcement follows the denial of development funds for two of his projects, which were submitted to the latest contest organized by the Centre for Cinematography in November 2006. Along with this announcement, Puiu stated that he will not make use of the funding granted to another one of his projects during a previous contest, held by the Centre for Cinematography in 2005."
To the average Western film buff, the idea of a smallish Romanian film director choosing to forgo state support for his films may not seem like a big deal, but for two things:
1.) Puiu is the director of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, the much-acclaimed masterpiece that made its way to the top spots in several large critical surveys in 2006. It was one of the great films of the last couple of years, putting Puiu on the map as one of the brightest new stars of the international film circuit.
2.) In countries like Romania, state funding through organizations like the Center for Cinematography is absolutely crucial for film production to survive. This isn't M. Night going from Disney to Warner, or Aronosfky choosing to make his movie for $35 million instead of $90 million. This is Puiu basically saying he will not accept this funding, even if it means he never gets to make another film, which it very well might.
The release goes on to say that "the hard line decision is a protest against what Puiu sees as the 'rigidity of a communist system' still present within the Centre for Cinematography and the way the organization spends public money on productions with no value."
It'll probably register as barely a blip on the current Oscar-obsessed news cycle of the film blogosphere, but it's worth taking note.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8806#8806 |
Video of the Day : 9
1/29/2007 2:30:00 PM
Shane Acker's animated film is from the awesomely creepy, Jan Svankmajer-Brothers Quay school of stop motion, and it's got a delectably promising premise: "A rag doll fights a monster that has stolen the rest of his people’s souls." It won a Student Academy Award, and was nominated for an actual Academy Award last year.
(Hat tip: The Daily Reel.)
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8803#8803 |
Despoiler Warning
1/29/2007 1:30:00 PM
The Smoking Gun has the relevant pages from the Hounddog script detailing the sequence forever to be known as the Dakota Fanning Rape Scene.
We get the whole lingo thing w/r/t dialogue, but why do the screen directions also say things like, "Llewellen closes her eyes and starts gyrating her hips and begins her moanin sound"?
(Hat tip: Screengrab Reader Daniel.)
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8800#8800 |
