Video of the Day 2: Move (R.I.P., Stuart Rosenberg)
3/19/2007 5:00:00 PM
Stuart Rosenberg, the director of such films as Cool Hand Luke, Pocket Money, and The Amityville Horror, has passed away at the age of 79. Here’s a clip from one of his more neglected films, the excellent Move, starring Elliot Gould and Paula Prentiss, a movie which due to its subject matter has been near and dear to my heart in recent weeks. Plus, I’ve always been convinced that this film was some kind of influence on Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. See if you agree.
— Bilge Ebiri
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A Bridge Too Far: The Films of Omar Amiralay
3/19/2007 4:15:00 PM
 | | Omar Amiralay |
The Cinema Project is an enterprising, understaffed curatorial entity that screens its sporadic programs in an small, chilly art gallery called the New American Art Union, in Southeast Portland. Its mission statement asserts that is is a "nonprofit organization committed to promoting innovative film and video art from the past and present." It certainly lives up to its mandate, and its recent programs have emphasized difficult-to-see Middle Eastern films. Over the course of two days, March 6 and 7, the Cinema Project screened four films by Omar Amiralay, a director I'd never heard of, but whose acquaintance I was delighted to make via the auspices of the Project (and who came to the CP via the touring show The Road to Damascus, which Stuart Klawans wrote about in The Nation ).
Amiralay is a 63-year-old Syrian documentarian now living in France, who once bought into the socialist political philosophy of the Baath Party but now repudiates it (while also not viewing himself as much of a political animal). His early documentaries have a New Wave feel to them; the more recent work is much stagier and proclaiming. Everyday Life in a Syrian Village (al-Hayat al-Yawmiyyah fi Qarya Suriyyah), for example, from 1974, is a slow paced, methodical examination of the conflicts of Syrian life that begins deceptively as an ethnographic portrait of a "typical" village but gradually pits different tribes and voices of the Baath Party against each other. Broken up into unofficial chapters by certain recurrent images, among them an old man rending his clothes in anger and despair, an image that isn't "explained" until the last segment, the film gives a surprisingly expansive view of Syrian society.
 | | The Chickens |
The Chickens (al-Dajaj) from 1977 is probably the most subtle of the quartet of films. It manages in 40 minutes to offer an economic profile of Syria seen solely through its poultry industry.
The early Film-Essai on the Euphrates Dam (Muhawalah ‘an Wadi al-Furat) is very much in the Soviet spirit, celebrating, through vigorous black and white images, the construction of an important dam, built at the height of promising government reforms. Made in 1970, it reflects Amiralay's own optimism. But things change, and in a movie that mirrors a similar tendency toward re-treading old paths in the films of Abbas Kiarostami, Amiralay returns to the dam and rethinks its impact on society in A Flood in Baath Country (Al-Tawfan), made in 2003. More like Errol Morris than Robert Flaherty, in that it has explicitly reenacted scenes, the film's advance word is a tad misleading, since Amiralay doesn't spend much time on the defects of the shoddily constructed dam. Rather, he explores the educational system, which manufactures miniature Baath soldiers. Nevertheless, the film is as fascinating for its continuities with Amiralay's early films as its divergences.
 | | A Flood in Baath Country |
Next up for the Cinema Project is "Through Lebanese Eyes" on March 20 and 21, which gathers together three films by Lebanese women. Judging by the quality of work screened so far, there’s good reason to be very hopeful.
— DK Holm
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Writers Co-Op: A Risky Proposition?
3/19/2007 3:45:00 PM
An interesting article in Variety today talks about a Writers Co-Op that would essentially see writers cutting their lucrative up front fees on feature scripts and re-writes in exchange for first dollar gross participation, as well as having a hand in the development and production of their projects. This gives the writers direct access to getting scripts made as well as shaping the final product, and it gives the studio (in this case, Warner Brothers) a first look at scripts at a significantly lower cost:
”Over the next four years, the Writers Co-Op will generate at least 18 scripts from writers who will risk their usually high upfront salaries for the reward of receiving first-dollar gross, the right to participate as producers and a guarantee they will not be rewritten without their consultation and approval. The scribes will also have a say in the decisionmaking process from development all the way to post-production.”
It’s a decidedly commercial venture, with the emphasis from both sides weighing heavily on the bottom line. I'll have to withhold judgment until I see the kind of projects that will come out of this camp, but let's just say that when I read quotes like, "charter Co-Op members were chosen specifically because they are vets who understand that compromise is part of the process", I immediately get a sense that more middle-of-the-road Hollywood mediocrity is what we're in for here. But we shall see.
— Bryan Whitefield
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Park's City: The Film of Adam Park. Or, How Jon Stewart Helped Me Discover a Forgotten Auteur
3/19/2007 3:00:00 PM
The other night on the Daily Show Jon Stewart was interviewing Sandra Bullock (yes, Sandra Bullock, who was poised and modestly charming) and Stewart's own film career came up. He mentioned a movie that he'd been in, a real bomb. Stewart could remember everything about it but the title. He could remember that it co-starred Jennifer Beals and Drew Barrymore, and said that "it was one of those crazy Harvey Weinstein like [switching to Harvey voice], 'let me get all kinds of famous people to do something I found in the garbage'" things.
Of course, as he was talking about it I was already typing his name into the Internet Movie Data Base, eventually figuring out that Stewart was referring to something called Wishful Thinking, and no wonder he couldn't remember the title, since it is one of those generic titles that sound more like a K-Mart aisle number.
The plot summary describes Wishful Thinking as a "story told from three angles," which means that it mimics Pulp Fiction's staggered storytelling. Mr. Park appears to have cobbled together his film in the wake of Tarantino's, and it seems to be about the romantic entanglements among several sophisticated young New Yorkers, though it was probably shot in Toronto. The plot keywords include Independent Film, Amusement Park, Destiny, Subway, and Tarot Card. That phrase "independent film" is rich. Being released in 1997, Wishful Thinking was probably one of the death knells of indie filmmaking, as the Weinsteins issued one light, frothy, rigged comedy after another under the false rubric of "independent." The Onion called the film "stubbornly unremarkable."
In any case, I got curious about a director who could helm a film so unmemorable that even the star, who has only been in 21 films, can't remember the title 10 years later. The director turns out to be Adam Park, who is also the writer. Prior to Wishful Thinking he was a post-production supervisor for films such as Iron and Silk. After Wishful Thinking he was a post-production supervisor on the likes of Hollow Man II [there was a Hollow Man II? – ed.], Beer League, and the recent The Dead Girl. Wishful Thinking is his only directorial effort so far.
Isn't going back to production supervision after directing a movie sort of like being president and then turning around to run for House of Representatives? Shouldn't one either bask in the glory or keep charging on as a director?
Don't feel too much pity for Adam Park, however. He was in fact the director of production at Miramax (though he doesn't figure in Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures) and went on to work in politics, specifically the 2002 gubernatorial race of one Jerry Brady in Idaho.
And by the way, if you are still curious about the earlier film careers of politically oriented cable television hosts, Bill Maher's early Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death is now available on line.
— DK Holm
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TV Movies of the Past: BORN INNOCENT (1974)
3/19/2007 2:15:00 PM
NBC's "World Premiere Movie" inaugurated itself Tuesday, September 10, 1974 with Born Innocent, a fairly worthless yet somewhat controversial specimen perhaps most notable for giving Linda Blair something to do between The Exorcist and getting busted for coke in '77. The irony of it all was that, between this and follow-up Sarah T. - Portrait Of A Teenage Alcoholic, Blair was poised to corner the market on exploitative, would-be serious portraits of teens in trouble; with this as her follow-up to The Exorcist, she was America's go-to repository for fears about teenagers.
Christine Parker (Blair) is first shown in a line-up with a bunch of more hardened types: older women smoking and surly, dispirited guards. ("She was born innocent, but that was fourteen years ago!" ads for the movie crowed.) A chronic runaway, her parents have finally given up and made her a ward of the court; she ends up in a state home at Albuquerque, New Mexico. After being warned to "report any homosexual acts — it's for your own safety," she's promptly raped by three of the girls with a toilet plunger handle. The scene tests the limits of screen discretion, blocking off Blair's lower half but making sure everyone can tell what's going wrong. Four days after the movie's airing, a nine-year-old girl in San Francisco was raped on the beach with a soda bottle; the California Supreme Court ultimately decided it wasn't NBC's fault, but in the meantime, the Family Viewing Hour was re-instated.
Thus, Born Innocent's most significant contribution to history comes in its first half-hour; unfortunately, it drones on for a while after that. Chris spends time in and out of the isolation chambers, which are covered with graffiti reading, among other things, "Jesus is god — not the pigs!" Other times, she watches the girls go into histrionics: "I care about getting high!" one hisses. "It makes me feel good!" Cue teacher's face, registering barely repressed idealism in pain. But said teacher can't get through to Chris, either; by the time Chris has gotten herself into isolation again, she gets a typically cliched lecture. "You're letting go of something that's very important," the teacher says. "You're letting go of Chris, and I'm going to hang on to her. She's very important. She's needed." "By who?" snaps Blair. Such was the face of Important Social Drama.
Blair sulks and sulks; it's all rather unattractive, and this must be the rare drama that draws attention to its star's plumpness by having her explain to her abusive dad (on a trip to the outside) that she's gained a little weight in the cell. (Not to be cruel, but no wonder Blair started doing coke and amphetamines if her weight had to be explained away within the script.) She learns to smoke, thereby registering her corruption, and it’s all downhill from there. One of the inmates gets pregnant, thereby igniting a spark of hope in Chris. But then one of the girls announces at lunch that "Even a dog can get pregnant!" Chris promptly hits her over the head with a lunch tray, sparking a riot, and the Death of Hope.
Born Innocent scared off potential advertisers: a few days after airing, the New York Times quoted an anonymous agency executive as saying, "We thought the movie was good and would have stayed with it with one of our toiletries, for example. But my judgment was it wasn't the right place for a nasal mist ad." Indeed. Not even fun in an exploitation way, and with a damn-near incoherent sound mix to boot, Born Innocent is no forgotten masterpiece, not even for Linda Blair scholars.
— Vadim Rizov
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Analyzing is Fun: References in Neil Marshall's The Descent
3/19/2007 1:45:00 PM
 | | Look familiar? |
Over at her blog The Final Girl , the always hilarious Stacie Ponder offers up a visual analysis of The Descent. Why? Because "Analyzing is fun!" We agree, especially in Mz. Ponder's style, with all sorts of pictures and repartee and stuff. And also because Ponder is obsessed with the film, which she has mentioned in her slasher-film-loving blog "once or twice or 10,000,000 times."
Professor Ponder isolates six direct influences on the plot and visual style of The Descent: Deliverance, Carrie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Shining, Alien, and The Silence of the Lambs. Which is quite a lofty crew to serve as influences (and which are films themselves influenced by each other, Carrie mimicking the famous final hand-out-of-the-earth shot from Deliverance).
Ponder also points out something else I'd never known, that the poster for The Silence of the Lambs (and in turn The Descent, borrows elements from Philippe Halsman's photograph, "Salvador Dali In Voluptate Mors." (pictured, below) At the end, Ponder asks the reader, "don't you feel 3% smarter than you were before you read this post?" Yes, we do!
— DK Holm
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Video of the Day 1: The Leprechaun Brothers Sing “Danny Boy”
3/19/2007 1:00:00 PM
In honor of the Jim Henson retrospective we discussed earlier, here's a special treat for those of you still feeling the unpleasant after-effects of St. Patrick's Day weekend. Let the dulcet tones of the inimitable Leprechaun Brothers — comprised of the Swedish Chef, Animal, and Beaker — melt away your green-beer hangover. We’re sure you'll agree that these three were the best Muppets to bring the classic "Danny Boy" to a younger generation.
— Paul Clark
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A Stroll Through Jim Henson’s Legacy
3/19/2007 12:15:00 PM
Like many kids around my age, Jim Henson was a key figure of my childhood. I spent my younger years with Sesame Street, and The Muppet Show was the first series I remember watching regularly with my parents. There weren’t a lot of kids in my neighborhood, so the Muppets became friends of mine. However, the trouble with many childhood favorites is that they don’t make the transition into adulthood with us, so we eventually outgrow them. Thankfully, this didn’t happen with Henson — The Muppet Show: Season 1 is one of my most watched DVDs, and I eagerly await the release of the other seasons as well. Still, as iconic and ingrained as the Muppets are in my memory, it can be hard to look at Henson with fresh eyes.
Because of this, a recent retrospective of Henson’s career, entitled “Muppets™, Music & Magic: Jim Henson’s Legacy,” was a revelation. Yes, the Muppets made Henson a household name, but this exhaustive program demonstrates how much more there was to this man and his career. Jim Henson had a great mind for innovation, and many of these innovations are spotlighted, such as his contributions to the late-sixties series Experiments in Television and dozens of great commercials Henson produced during the fifties and sixties. Of particular interest is an industrial promo film Henson produced for Winston’s Meats, in which he successfully spoofed numerous commercial tropes of the day — a quick-cutting montage, lyrical slow-motion footage, goofball stop-motion, and so on. And of course a program of this sort would be incomplete without Henson’s Oscar-nominated live-action short Time Piece, a surreal meditation on contemporary life.
But most of Henson’s more high-profile innovations were reserved for his Muppet work. Of how many artists of the 20th century can it be said that they revolutionized an art form? Henson certainly did, most notably by making the puppeteer almost invisible. By focusing on the puppets themselves and turning the television screen into the proscenium, he was able to turn felt and plastic eyeballs into lovable characters. Likewise, he and his team of “Muppeteers” perfected the technique of the “magic triangle”, the positioning of the eyes and mouth on the Muppet’s face for optimal effect. But for all his experimenting, these characters wouldn’t have endured had Henson not put the work into giving them personalities. Even in their early incarnations, Henson favorites like Kermit and Rowlf were fully-formed. It’s actually kind of surprising to see Rowlf, Henson’s first superstar character, in his early incarnation, dishing out quips on The Jimmy Dean Show, a less subdued version of the Muppet Show. Later on, as part of the ensemble, Rowlf was much more laid-back.
Another Henson trademark that never went away was his sense of humor. Some of his best gags involved deflating the stuffed shirts of the world, whether it was Kermit interviewing Muppet versions of David Brinkley and Chet Huntley on Henson’s first series, Sam and Friends (the bit feels like a direct inspiration for Robert Smigel’s “Fun With RealAudio”), or the pompous recurring character Sam the Eagle on The Muppet Show. But while sometimes the characters ribbed each other to comedic effect, it was never mean-spirited. How else to explain how the comedy-inept Fozzie Bear became one of Henson’s most endearing creations — and a personal favorite of mine?
Another highlight of the retrospective is a fun program of musical numbers taken from The Muppet Show. The numbers range from the sublime (Kermit and a poignantly vulnerable Debbie Harry dueting on “The Rainbow Connection”) to the ridiculous (Eskimos singing “Lullaby of Broadway”). Many of the most memorable songs from the show’s five seasons are here — “Mahna Mahna,” Lena Horne’s version of “Sing,” and of course Harry Belafonte’s “Turn the World Around,” which he originally wrote especially for the Muppets and performed at Henson’s funeral in 1990. There are also two numbers involving leather-clad pigs, “I Get Around” and the bizarre “Macho Man,” in which the pigs rumble with Gonzo and his ever-present chickens.
The final element of Henson’s work that comes through in this retrospective is his social consciousness. Whether it’s his Experiments in Television special “Youth ‘68” or the Muppets performance of “For What It’s Worth,” tweaked and re-contextualized as an anti-hunting song, Henson’s work always had socially-redeeming value, despite Sam the Eagle’s insistence to the contrary. But he never beat the audience over the head with messages, instead couching them in entertainment, innovation, and artfulness. Fraggle Rock was a statement on behalf of world peace, but it was also creative and lots of fun, with infectious songs and a plethora of memorable original characters. And a year before his death, Henson directed for his series The Jim Henson Hour a short entitled The Song of the Cloud Forest, a dazzling work that spotlighted the plight of the rainforest. One could get lost in the show’s gorgeous colors, which were created using an early form of computer animation, but the technology was in the service of a poignant “save the rainforest” storyline that wouldn’t have been half as effective without the beautiful images to underline what we stand to lose if we don’t take action.
At several points during “Muppets™, Music & Magic: Jim Henson’s Legacy,” the audience is shown footage of Henson and his time operating the Muppets. While I’m aware of the process by which Muppets are operated, the image is still slightly jarring. I think it’s a testament to how enduring the characters are by themselves that it’s hard to reconcile the Kermit we all know with the felt creation at the end of Henson’s arm. But strangely enough, it doesn’t diminish the Muppets to think of them this way. The same goes for Henson’s career. As this retrospective demonstrates, Henson wasn’t simply a popular children’s entertainer, but a major artist as well, one whose innovations are still being used by effects artists to this day. It’s exceedingly rare for someone to be both brilliant and beloved — but Henson pulled it off magnificently.
“Muppets™, Music & Magic: Jim Henson’s Legacy” is currently running at Columbus, Ohio’s Wexner Center for the Arts and will conclude on Saturday, March 24. It will play in Boston in April and will continue touring the country. For more information, visit www.jimhensonlegacy.org.
— Paul Clark
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On Sandra Bullock’s Inadvertent Turkishness
3/19/2007 11:30:00 AM
Funny thing, taste. It may or may not reveal all sorts of things about oneself that one may not even be aware of. Let me tell you a little story: I knew soon after I saw the Sandra Bullock film Premonition that it would not be well received by critics; the poisonous atmosphere in the screening room was palpable as the end credits rolled. I thought that was a bit of a shame, since I enjoyed it quite a bit, as I noted in my Nerve review, one of only a handful of positive assessments of the film. I found the film to be quite tense, well-directed, and even moving, despite some obvious flaws and some serious plot holes.
Also on Friday, I looked at the Reviewing the Reviewers feature that the uber-talented Sarah Sundberg does for the Nerve Film Lounge. (As some of you may know, I used to write this, before the hours in the day began to conspire against me; I am happy to report that Sarah is like thirty times better at it than I ever was, and the feature is well worth reading. Bookmark this page.)
In Sarah’s roundup she points to Lou Lumenick’s review in the New York Post, wherein he notes that Premonition director Mennan Yapo is Turkish-German.
Whoa. The director of the film is Turkish? As some readers will know, I too am Turkish. To those aware of both my origins and the director’s, it might have looked like I was simply giving a fellow countryman a good review. But the strange thing is that I had no idea that this dude was Turkish. For starters, his name doesn’t sound remotely Turkish: I’ve never heard of the name “Mennan,” and “Yapo” is apparently short for the more Turkish-sounding “Yapicioglu.” He probably changed it when he began working in the German film industry. I don’t know if his origins were mentioned in the presskit; I don’t always look at those things too carefully.
So, in other words, a director of Turkish origin actually made a Hollywood film (which might be the first time this has happened) and got universally panned – except for the one Turkish film critic in New York. (I’m pretty sure I’m the only Turkish film critic in New York, and I may well be the only one in the country, though I’m not sure about the latter.) What are the odds? More importantly, was there something about Premonition that secretly appealed to me on a deep, subconscious ethnic level? Did a Sandra Bullock vehicle actually contain some kind of hidden “Turkish code” that only the inner recesses of my Levantine brain could decipher?
I’m only half-joking. This revelation definitely freaked me out a little bit. If you read my review, you’ll see that in one part of it I actually admit to being a bit perplexed at why I enjoyed the film as much as I did. And I wonder if this happens to other people as well. I remember a critic friend once saying one of the reasons he liked Donnie Darko so much was because it got all the details of living in Virginia in the late 1980s so right. Do people from Baltimore automatically gravitate toward Barry Levinson and John Waters films? Even those examples are a bit different, because they’re cases where the viewer would likely be aware of the director’s origins.
Anyway, I’m now considering seeing Premonition again, just to check. Maybe. I mean, I liked it, but I’m not sure I liked it that much. But I will be curious to see what happens when it opens in Turkey.
— Bilge Ebiri
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Julie Strain's Svengali: R.I.P., Andy Sidaris
3/19/2007 10:45:00 AM
 | | Andy Sidaris with his muse, Julie Strain |
There wasn't much press when erotic auteur Andy Sidaris died on March 7 of throat cancer, in Beverly Hills. The former Kojak director, who shared a Greek heritage with that show's star Telly Savalas, went on from that crime series to specialize in very low-budget, globe-trotting, high-cup-sized nudie adventure films that eventually revolutionized cable television in the 1990s. If nothing else, Sidaris will go down in cinema history for giving Julie Strain, the six-foot-one Amazon and former Penthouse pinup whose DNA-defying build may be western civilization's greatest achievement, her largest possible exposure to teen boys staying up late with Cinemax.
From Sevano's Seven in 1979, the template for all subsequent Sidaris films, to L.E.T.H.A.L. Ladies: Return to Savage Beach, in 1998, when Sidaris appears to have retired from actual direction to supervise the similar films of his son (carrying on the heritage), Sidaris's specialty was the tame drive-in style softcore film in spy thriller guise. The core films of his oeuvre — Savage Beach (1989), Picasso Trigger (1988), Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987), Malibu Express (1985) — share a fixation of gigantic ladies employed as hitwomen and convoluted plots of military-industrial spy double and triple crosses. In the tradition of Russ Meyer, Sidaris preferred the on-screen casting marriage of vivacious and robust women to dull, square-jawed hulks, presumably drawn from the world of martial arts or bodybuilding, and all looking like Denver ski bums. Like Meyer, Sidaris came from unlikely roots that defined his later style: Meyer came from military propaganda and industrial films; Sidaris's beginnings were in sports television for ABC, where he invented, among many other techniques, the "honey shot," in which a babe in the stands was isolated for the edification of the viewers at home.
What the dance scene is to a Bertolucci movie, the shower scene is to Sidaris. It is the site within the film of female reflection and private satisfaction. It is where the meta-level guises are dropped, and she becomes "herself," her core self. More than just a cliche of the genre, it is his films' raison d'etre, offered in multiple servings like a vast spread at a Greek wedding. The shower scene is where he can pause the action before yet another shocking plot turn, where he can unveil the subterranean interstices bonding women with women in the otherwise male world, in which they must adopt male skills in order to survive. Otherwise, the plots are impossible to follow nonsense, and exist solely to lurch from shower scenes to sex scenes. Julie Strain, often the villainess, takes as her "torture technique" the lap dance. Sidaris, an auteur who looks a little like auteur-charter (and fellow Greek) Andrew Sarris, drew from a small fund of visual themes.
 | | Julie Strain |
If on a deeper level Sidaris's films are ultimately unsatisfying, it is perhaps that at heart the old reprobate was a prude; or perhaps he knew the financial limits of "going all the way" on screen. Whatever the reason, the eye candy was sufficient unto the night when the typical suburban adolescent, switching from repeats of Aerobicise on Showtime to the racier matter on Cinemax, could enter the world of Andy Sidaris, an updated Russ Meyer for the 1990s, pasteurized from Meyer's spicy goulash .
— DK Holm
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Morning Deal Report: Mo' Marilyn Conspiracies, Superman in Turnaround, Hermione SplitsReturns
3/19/2007 10:00:00 AM
- Like that one above? There are tons more here. (Hat tip: Panayides Optical House.)
- Add another possible Marilyn Monroe conspiracy to the pile, only this one actually has some documentation: RFK, Peter Lawford, and Marilyn’s psychiatrist conspired to make her commit suicide. And since the person writing about it is the Australian director Philippe Mora (Communion, Howling 2 & 3), is it safe to expect a film about it in the near future? (Hat tip: Green Cine Daily.)
- So the next Superman movie may have been put on hold, and it’s possible that Superman’s next appearance in a big-budget Hollywood superhero film will be in this Justice League film that Warner is doing. Or maybe not.
- For a while there, the Harry Potter franchise appeared to have lost its Hermione, as Emma Watson was reportedly refusing to do more Potter films. Now it looks like she’s back.
- After he gets done with The Transformers, Michael Bay is planning on making 2012, based on Whitley Strieber’s novel, about “an academic researcher who opens a portal into a parallel universe and makes contact with his double in order to stop an apocalypse foreseen by the ancient Mayans.” It’s like Stargate meets Apocalypto meets Primer, only probably far worse than any of those.
- Did Universal get conned into spending all that money on Sacha Baron Cohen’s next film Bruno?
- A British writer posts something on the Guardian’s film blog about a bad movie he’s previewed, receives tons of angry, suspicious-sounding responses, and thus discovers the long arm of the movie marketing machine. (Hat tip: Movie City News.)
— Bilge Ebiri
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