Video of the Day 2: David Cronenberg’s From the Drain
2/28/2007 5:45:00 PM
Maybe they’ll want to remake this, too. Given that Cronenberg was in the news a bit today, why not take a look at this early short film of his, made back in 1967? Not the greatest quality, but c’mon, once upon a time those bootlegs you watched of Shivers looked like this, too.
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Is A WGA Strike Looming? And If So, Is That So Bad?
2/28/2007 5:00:00 PM
Craig Mazin, Scary Movie 3 writer and blogger (The Artful Writer, one of the best screenwriting blogs out there) has an interesting and insightful post up at the Huffington Post about the looming Writers Guild of America crisis. Turns out that the WGA's contract with the studios ends in October, and there's a possibility of a strike over the residuals from internet downloads, a phenomenon which, thanks to iTunes and the newly legit BitTorrent, is getting bigger every day.
If you're old enough to remember the last WGA strike in 1988, you'll recall that the fall TV season was delayed for months. Now that we live in the age of multiple time-sucks (cable, Xbox, the thing you're using to read this right now), and seeing that Fox can't be bothered to run the Simpson's annual "Treehouse of Horror" until November, I'm not sure anyone would really notice if it happened again. Mazin doesn't think it will happen -- yet. He foresees a wait-and-see attitude, since no one really knows how this whole video-on-demand thing is going to work anyway and, more importantly, how much money is in it.
A strike would be an unfortunate, if necessary, thing. Screenwriters make good money, but only on a per-project basis, and in the months before a possible strike, studios go on a spec script buying sprees and stockpile their projects, shrinking the number of paying gigs in the future. Screenwriters have families and mortgages just like anyone else, and I wish them the best.
However, if you're a budding screenwriter, now may be the time to act. Pull that thriller from your desk drawer, the one your mom called "taut", and pitch, young man, pitch!
Then go straight to the picket line.
— Kent M. Beeson
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e9443#9443 |
Idiocracy from a Design Perspective
2/28/2007 4:15:00 PM
”The movie spares no detail in the satire of branding and graphic design, turning every logo, sign and poster into a dumbed-down, Web 2.0-ish, futuristic-looking style that may come sooner than 500 years from now. Either a designer with a wicked sense of humor was hired to create the myriad of logos of real and invented corporations, or they simply tagged LogoWorks and asked them to do their best work. Whichever case, Idiocracy displays some of the best graphic humor to appear in a feature film.”
- a graphic design website takes on the vision of Mike Judge’s Idiocracy.
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Zodiac Cuts
2/28/2007 3:30:00 PM
I was reading the new Entertainment Weekly's article on David Fincher's Zodiac by Benjamin Svetkey and was struck by a familiar passage. Explaining that Fincher began with a rough cut of three hours, Svetkey describes how the director spent some nine months cutting it down, deleting "connective tissue" and three apparently delicious scenes with Robert Downey, Jr., Mr. Svetkey concluding this autopsy with the phrase, "Watch for it on DVD."
Why? When are we going to stop using the DVD as the dumping ground for the "real" movie? And what is this trend of using the DVD as the Director's Cut vehicle saying about the typical studio executive's view of American audiences? Apparently, the public is too easily bored to endure a three hour film about the hunt for the famous and famously uncaught '70s serial killer. But how do the studios reconcile this belief with the fact that movies have been getting longer over the past 15 years and that some of these films have been hits, such as King Kong and all the Rings films? Or maybe I'm just thinking back to the 1970s and the Godfather movies, released at a time when there was still something called the "mass audience."
I agree that it is good for filmmakers to have the DVD as a fallback, if only to reinsert the sex and swearing that the MPAA compels them to take out, but in a sense isn't this attitude also an admission that the big screen, as per my earlier blog entry, is no longer the primary forum for "cinematic" art? In any case, both the filmmakers and the studios, by having the later disc release to rely on, are probably rushing movies to the screen before they are finished (though Warner Bros. or Paramount, since both studios financed the film, did re-set a series of new opening dates for Fincher's film in order to accommodate his editing task). And then having said this in print, isn't Mr. Svetkey essentially telling us not to bother with the film's theatrical release?
On the other hand, Fincher is famous among disc fanatics for his DVDs (aside from everything else, Fight Club had four audio commentary tracks, including one by the previously unknown credited scriptwriter and the source novelist). Though it must be said that even DVDs are rushed into production, and it is usually the second DVD that is truly the director's vision.
Movies are a messy business and in the end nothing is definitive. Why should we trust any particular movie? We're going to get a different version later. And which later version is better? The Coen Brothers, when they get around to issuing definitive DVDs, take stuff out. Bad Santa has had three iterations, none wholly satisfying. Oliver Stone, like a dog worrying an already destructed sock, is now on this third version of Alexander, as my colleague Kim Morgan points out, and which Kingdom of Heaven should you want to see? When it comes to movies, to paraphrase the Unindicted Co-conspirator, we are all Wellesians now.
— D.K. Holm
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The Dixie Chicks Get Theirs. But for What, Exactly?
2/28/2007 2:45:00 PM
Down here in Texas, we don't make someone wait 35 years to win an Oscar like those snooty Hollywood types. The proof: the Dixie Chicks will receive an award at the seventh annual Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards on Friday, March 9th. No doubt paying tribute to such breakaway performances as Natalie Maines' stunning turn as the KMOO disc jockey in Grand Champion and Emily Robison's role as Hermione Granger in the video game adaptation of the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the Austin Film Society will honor the Chicks alongside Houstonian Richard Linklater and Fort Worth-born actors Bill Paxton and Betty Buckley.
— Leonard Pierce
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e9438#9438 |
Worst Moviegoing Experiences: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Narrator
2/28/2007 2:00:00 PM
Some people talk during movies. Some people narrate movies as they go along. And some people… well, read this week’s entry (from ScreenGrab reader Jeremy) and find out.
 | | Actual photo taken while ScreenGrab reader Jeremy and his wife dealt with their noisy neighbors. |
My wife and I used to live in Fresno, CA and go to movies all the time, with a big Cineplex being about a mile away from our apartment. And thankfully because of the good reviews, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had made its way into the big movies theater chains that year. Being excited to see anything with Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat, I dragged my wife to the theatre one night to see it, martial arts movies not being her favorite genre.
We got to the theater and sat down in the front row middle, as I always liked to do. Just before the lights went down an older couple came in and sat in the row behind us in the last two seats on the end. They were only 15 feet or so away, though.
After the previews and everything the movie starts up and like most foreign movies…it’s not in English. I’m not sure if the couple behind us knew that or not, but the husband decides it appropriate to read each line to his wife aloud, not whispering at all, using a completely normal voice. Not wanting to bore her, he makes sure to use different voices for each character like he’s reading to a child. The female characters get higher voices and the males lower voices, and he also uses inflection and really gets into telling the story.
At first we found this slightly amusing, but it started to get old pretty quick, and very distracting. We also noticed that he couldn’t narrate fast enough every time a longer sentence or two came up on the screen so he finished off the sentences in random ways, however he saw fit, changing the lines completely. I can’t remember any specific things he said but I remember we were amazed at the stuff he made up, changing the dialogue and messing with the plot of the movie.
After “shhh”-ing him a few times with no response I tossed a couple of Reese’s Pieces at them and the old man shouted “Oh come on,” and they got up and left the theater.
Don’t go to subtitled movies if you can’t read.
Previous Worst Moviegoing Experiences:
- One Man’s Basement Is Another Man’s Exhibitor Space
- How To Not See A Really Rare Movie
- The Wrong Movie To Get Drunk In
- First-time Hoppers
- Rained Out in Istanbul
- Piggy in the Middle
- The I’m-Not-Gay Seat
- It Ain’t Over Till the Fat Lady Wakes Up
- "I Told You...I Can't Help It!!!"
- Let the Children’s Laughter Remind Us How We Used To Be
- Inside the Ghost Theater
- Children of the Porn
- Everything Is Explicable In The Terms Of The Behavior Of A Small Child
- Greatest. Screaming. Baby. Story. Ever.
- You Can’t Shut An Actor Up. You Just Can’t.
- Piiiraaates!
- Meet Joe Black, Meet My Limp Noodle
- BewareA Man Bearing Flowers
- When They Called it “Vomit-Inducing,” They Weren’t Kidding.
-Misadventures of a Right Wing Film Geek
-A Good Reason for an International Incident
- Meet the Times Square Crowd. Plus, Sly’s Biggest Fan
- Miami %$*&#!
- ”Like Some Sort of Small Machine
- Hollow Man, No Pants
- Life Imitates Art?
- Men at Work
- Confessions of a Movie Theater Employee
- Introducing Mrs. Inconsiderate Cell Phone Lady
- A Hollywood History Lesson Gets Out of Control
- Mousy Academic Type Takes Matters Into Own Hands, Falls On Face
- Befuddled Tot Likes Windu, Suspicious of Amidala
- ”She Rode a Horse…”
- Screaming Baby + Scorsese Movie = Trouble
Got a terrible, terrifying, or hilarious moviegoing experience to share? Send it to us at screengrab@nerve.com
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Quote of the Day: Mark Ruffalo
2/28/2007 1:30:00 PM
"Fincher only has a problem with people if they're not prepared -- if they're not ready to work when they show up. Whatever form that takes -- whether it's a prop person, an actor or whatever. I thought there were a lot of weird sour grapes in that New York Times article. We're actors, man; we get paid way too much. It's like 'Wah, wah, wah' to me to hear an actor bitching and moaning when they get paid as much as they do and we have a pretty great life. I don't have much sympathy for it."
- Zodiac star Mark Ruffalo vents to the Reeler about co-star Jake Gyllenhaal's much-publicized words regarding the difficulties of working with their perfectionist director.
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A Closer Look at the World of Children of Men
2/28/2007 1:00:00 PM
This is pretty awesome. Foreign Office, a UK-based design firm, worked with Alfonso Cuarón to create all the media -- commercials, animated billboards, news reports and public service announcements -- for Children of Men. In the movie, most of this stuff was blink-and-you-missed it, but now you can see everything they did (to the tune of "The Court of the Crimson King", natch) on their gorgeously designed site.
£159 for a kitty sweater? Fuck that. Get me my Quietus.
— Kent M. Beeson
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Video of the Day 1: "Jeopardy" by The Greg Kihn Band
2/28/2007 12:15:00 PM
More horror in unlikely places -- this time, a pop video from 1983. Although Greg Kihn is a documented horror buff (having written three humorous thrillers in his second career as an author), I suspect that this was intended (and received) as a campy romp (and the climactic "wood guitar" bit is pretty campy). Nonetheless, I still find it as unsettling as I did twenty-four years ago. The metaphor -- that marriage and commitment is akin to death -- is worked out too well to simply shrug off, and the money shot (borrowed from 1980's Death Ship) still gives me a twinge in my stomach. However, I find the last shot, intended as a happy ending, even more chilling, as it suggests that this just another iteration of a nightmarish cycle.
— Kent M. Beeson
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e9439#9439 |
Controversy of the Week: Great Iranian Director Denied Entry to the US
2/28/2007 11:30:00 AM
Jafar Panahi, one of the leading lights of Iranian cinema, was recently denied entry to the United States to introduce a screening of his latest film, Offside. According to IndieWire.com’s Reverseblog, Panahi was scheduled to appear at a preview screening at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens when the U.S. government rescinded his visa. Panahi, who has directed such acclaimed films as The Circle and Crimson Gold, has gotten rave reviews worldwide for Offside since even before its U.S. premiere at last fall’s New York Film Festival. (The news item was first >broken by The Reeler's Stu Van Airsdale.)
As Reverseblog says, this is hardly a new occurrence. In fall 2002, the same thing happened to Panahi’s eminent countryman and filmmaking colleague Abbas Kiarostami, whose three-city tour was canceled for the same reason as Panahi’s. Personally, I don’t get it. Yeah, I realize that Iran isn’t exactly a friend of America. But if those in charge of making this decision were to watch any of their films, they might see that Panahi and Kiarostami aren’t especially big fans of the Iranian way of life.
For example, both Panahi’s The Circle and Kiarostami’s 10 deal quite directly with the issues of women in contemporary Iran. And I hardly think the filmmakers’ criticism of their homeland is a sop to liberal Western filmgoers- many of the more overtly critical Iranian films get banned by the government, so I doubt that these guys would (a) still live there and (b) continue making films that will inevitably be suppressed if they didn’t care passionately about the problems in their society.
I think a big reason for this reluctance to let important filmmakers like these into our country (apart from racial profiling and America’s “us vs. them” foreign policy) is simply because the majority of Americans just don’t care. Were Jafar Panahi, say, an internationally-renowned recording artist or a popular athlete, he would’ve had a much easier time getting into the U.S. If one of these were the case and he was prevented from entering our country, there would have been a media firestorm- you’d be reading about the controversy in Time instead of on Reverseblog. But international art cinema has always attracted a small percentage of the population, and so no matter how much his films mean to that highly opinionated but largely powerless segment of America, to the rest of the people -- including the decision-makers -- he’s just some Iranian dude who made a movie. Meanwhile, those of us who really care about cinema have little recourse but to bitch about it on the Internet.
— Paul Clark
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Know Thine Enemy: The Right Blogs the Oscars
2/28/2007 10:45:00 AM
Libertas, the film blog of the conservative Liberty Film Festival, decided to live-blog the Oscars, because all the cool kids are doing it. Among the insightful observations: Ellen DeGeneres is a mannish lesbian, Abu Ghraib was funny, crazy foreigners got Oscar nominations, Hollywood people are a bunch of phonies, and liberals will take away your Academy Award if you talk about God.
— Leonard Pierce
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Morning Deal Report: Cronenberg Redux, Star Trek Set, Supermadam Secrets, and Miranda July’s Latest
2/28/2007 10:00:00 AM
- David Cronenberg remakes are going fast, folks. First, Nicolas Cage reportedly expressed interest in remaking The Fly (which, fair enough, was itself a remake). And now it looks like Scanners will be redone as well. The director? Saw 2 helmer Darren Lynn Bousman. Could a Mary-Kate and Ashley version of Dead Ringers be far behind? (Actually, that might be pretty awesome.)
- The new Star Trek film is a go, and it’s set for a Christmas Day 2008 release date, without having shot a single frame yet. It will focus on young Spock and Kirk’s days at the Starfleet Academy. Our prediction: This movie will be funnier than Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd.
- Yet another Hollywood supermadam is revealing the lusty secrets of her famous clientele in a book. Oh, and she’s got a website, too.
- Miranda July’s next film may be an adaptation of her own multimedia presentation Things We Don’t Understand and Definitely Are Not Going To Talk About. That is, if anyone will finance it.
- Alan Arkin has joined the cast of his Little Miss Sunshine cohort Steve Carrell’s film version of Get Smart.
- Time belatedly gets on the whole Zyzzyx Road story.
- Robert Downey Jr. and Jay Baruchel have signed on to star in Ben Stiller’s comedy Tropic Thunder, about the making of a big-budget war movie, inspired by his experiences working on Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun.
- Introducing…the top ten greatest speeches and monologues in film history. (Hat tip: Pop Candy.)
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