Archive for May, 2005
Monday, May 23rd, 2005
Four years after pulling the plug on a Sundance Cinemas chain, Variety reports that “Robert Redford’s Sundance Group has revived the concept with financing from Oaktree Capital Management and with veteran managers Paul Richardson and Bert Manzari on board…
“The Utah-based Sundance Group said the chain will aim to show the best in independent, documentary and foreign-language film, quality studio films and original programming, including shorts, filmmaker interviews and forums.”
.… Read the rest
Friday, May 20th, 2005
For those of you who’ve been reading indieWIRE‘s film reviews recently, you’ll know the group of young writers at Reverse Shot — who have partnered with indieWIRE to provide film criticism — like to play rough. (See their review of Palindromes a few weeks back.) Manohla Dargis, the fairly recent addition to the New York Times reviewing team, doesn’t mind taking off the gloves herself. I wonder how she’d feel about what Reverse Shot was saying about her entries on the Times‘s “Cannes journal” on their blog.
Some excerpts:
“This is a real gem from Manohla Dargis’s Cannes diary: ‘I’m leery of writing more because I don’t think the film has distribution and I don’t feel comfortable bringing the weight of this paper into the mix at this point.’ She’s talking about Atom Egoyan’s new film Where the Truth Lies (notes from the press conference can be found here) with Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth, and Alison Lohman. Manohla, please stop. If you’re worried about distribution deals and throwing the NY Times‘ influence around, then I guess you guys will have to start steadfastly refusing to review those films in the New York Film Festival and New Directors/New Films that arrive without a theatrical release plan. And you should probably end the stupid Cannes diary and pack it up, because I hear that lots of films come to the croisette unsold every year.”
“Is anyone else getting tired of (or even reading) the NY Times Cannes Blog? At least Scott and Dargis, in their back-bending efforts to show their readers the “behind-the-scenes” action of the festival (didn’t DePalma’s Femme Fatale lesbo-heist say everything that needed to be said?) have dropped the critical veneer and revealed a little about themselves, coming off like nothing so much as a pair of socialites who happen to have a forum for their opinions. Yesterday’s gem “How Is Cannes Like High School?” is pretty classic. P.S. – Manohla, how can you claim to have been afraid to throw your hat in the ring on the Egoyan yet pump off this on Manderlay… Read the rest
Friday, May 20th, 2005
New York Times critic A.O. Scott writes in his Cannes Journal today, “I have written earlier about the folly of coming to Cannes expecting masterpieces, but no sooner had I weaned myself of this habit than a masterpiece was staring me in the face. At least that’s how it feels at the moment. A movie like David Cronenberg’s History of Violence, one of the high points up until today, is an example of excellent filmmaking. [Hou Hsiao-hsien's] Three Times exists on another level entirely; this is why cinema exists. With its slow, oblique, beautifully shot scenes, and its stories that are at once utterly simple and full of resonance and implication, it creates an emotional and sensual effect that is something like falling in love. Or perhaps making love, given the afterglow that seemed to float through the Palais after the screening.”
According to the Festival de Cannes Web site: Three Times relates a series of three love stories which, although they take place at different points in time (1966, 1911 and 2005), are played by the same couple of actors (Shu Qi and Chang Chen).
“Today in Taiwan, you can’t find a single trace of what daily life was like there in the 1960s, whether you’re talking about objects or architecture,” said Hou Hsiao-hsien at a press conference about the film. “That’s why, for the first story, I chose to focus on the characters. And, for the same reason, in the second part, which takes place in 1911, I shot the whole thing using a single set. As for the third part, it may seem more fragmented, because I wanted to express the disorder which, for me, characterizes contemporary Taiwanese reality…
“The best moments we’ve experienced are lost forever,” he added. “The only way to retrieve them is to call upon your memory. Cinema is a tool which enables me to preserve these memories. I think that everything a person experiences is liable to become one of his own future ‘fondest memories,’ and that’s why I wanted to shoot these short sequences, which capture different moments.”
.… Read the rest
Thursday, May 19th, 2005
As I sit here working my CD changer has just slid over to the Mysterious Skin soundtrack, which has not left the platter since I received a promotional copy about a week ago. From its first seesawing notes, Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd’s distinctive style, echoing their classic The Moon and the Melodies, evokes the 4AD and Budd ambient releases that provided a dreamy backdrop to many of our adolescences years ago.
Writes Skin director Gregg Araki, “I have been a huge fan of Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd since the glory days of the 80s when 4AD, the Cocteau Twins, the White Arcades et al ruled and shaped my world… I always listen to music when I write — as does Scott Heim, author of the original novel Mysterious Skin — so this soundtrack is much, much more than mere background music: its the heart and soul of the whole movie. The dreamy poetic nature of both the book and the film comes directlly from this style of music…”
Listening to it now, I can attest to the fact that the album is no mere collection of background odds and ends. It’s as mysterious, pure and entrancing as the film itself. Released by Tracy McKnight and Walter Yetnikoff’s label A Record Commotion, it’s in stores and on ITunes.
.… Read the rest
Wednesday, May 18th, 2005
The Guardian reports that the artists Jake and Dinos Chapman plan to bring their disturbing vision — as evidenced by the fiberglass sculpture “Zygotic acceleration, biogentic, de-sublimated libidinal model” from 1995, pictured here — to cinemas by writing and directing a feature-length horror movie for FilmFour.
“Unsurprisingly, given the nature of their art, the Chapmans are big fans of horror. ‘When Jake and I were growing up one of the most interesting and extreme areas of culture was horror films,’ said Dinos. ‘They coloured a lot of people’s experience. A lot of 1970s horror films had a nihilistic and bleak outlook on life compared with contemporary ones. They didn’t portray a world of hope.”
.… Read the rest
Tuesday, May 17th, 2005
While James Marsh’s film The King plays at the Festival de Cannes, the Hollywood Reporter relays this odd bit of news regarding ContentFilm, Ed Pressman and John Schmidt’s company that produced the pic:
“Edward R. Pressman, co-chief executive officer of London-based ContentFilm PLC, and co-chief executive officer John Schmidt are going their separate ways after four years together. The board of directors of ContentFilm, which went public in December 2003, has voted to abandon film production and continue forward as a library acquisitions company. Schmidt will run the company, which has agreed to buy Fireworks International’s film and television library of 280 titles from CanWest Global Communications Corp. for $29 million. ContentFilm’s board of directors is expected to approve the deal this week. ‘Content is going out of the production business,’ confirmed Pressman, who will remain on the board as one of the company’s largest shareholders. ‘Production has a different timeline than library acquisitions. I hope the new strategy makes the company profitable and boosts its share value.’”
Producers — nix Content from your submission logs!
.… Read the rest
Tuesday, May 17th, 2005
The Cineuropa Web site features brief interviews with director Michael Haneke about his latest film Cache (Hidden), and Marco Tullio Giordana about Once You’re Born…, both of which premiered in competition at the Festival de Cannes earlier this week.
“All my films deal with the same theme,” says Haneke, “they ask what’s the nature of truth. The truth in cinema, in the media, the manipulation of it. That’s why I use images within images, to destabilize the viewer’s perception and to ask him or her to pose the question as to where the truth is hiding. It’s a question I ask myself all the time and which makes me react. But I’m not a school teacher. I simply stimulate the spectator’s will to communicate with the film.”
“Before the final editing, I showed my film [Once You're Born...] to some students, in several schools,” says Giordana. “They totally identified with young Sandro, the main character, and they were sure they too would make it without the grown-ups. I reckon a film must exist hic et nunc, that is, remain open and never end. Rome, Open City and The Bicycle Thief were not that successful when they were released. Yet, think how many people have seen them in the past 60 years!”
.… Read the rest
Monday, May 16th, 2005
Prominent industry filmmakers will focus on how the convergence of film origination and digital postproduction affects workflow during a seminar at Tribeca Cinemas (54 Varick St., at Laight St.) on May 21 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Visionbox Media Group President and Owner Chris Miller, producer Brian Bell, and cinematographers Nancy Schreiber, ASC and Matthew Libatique, ASC will participate in the discussion hosted by Kodak Imaging Entertainment.
For registration and aditional information visit www.kodak.com/go/workflow or call 1-800-863-5787. The seminar will be followed by a reception.
.… Read the rest
Monday, May 16th, 2005
Via The Guardian: “There are a lot of conversations among Cannes festival-goers that start: ‘Seen anything good?’ Discussions tend to ensue about the big-hitters from the main Palme d’Or competition: Gus Van Sant, Carlos Reygadas, David Cronenberg and the like. But then, chances are someone will pipe up: ‘And I’ve seen this really nice film called Me and You and Everyone We Know.’
“Written, directed by and starring a 32-year-old American performance artist called Miranda July, [who is featured on the cover of the current issue of Filmmaker], the film, her debut feature, is showing in the Critics’ Week section of the festival. And, without a doubt, it is this year’s Cannes word-of-mouth hit…
“Already feted at Sundance, Me and You and Everyone We Know is charming Cannes audiences with its quirky vision, as it interrogates with witty lightness of touch those age-old preoccupations of the struggle to connect with other people, the alchemy of love, and the hunger of loneliness. The interstices between childhood and adulthood are deftly investigated: the children in the film seem at times knowing in their grasp of the world, better able in their naivety to connect with others than the blundering adults — and at others deeply vulnerable.”
Also of interest in this week’s Guardian: Britain’s leading scientists weigh in on the unexpected indie hit What the Beep Do We Know?, which is about to open in the U.K.
.… Read the rest
Saturday, May 14th, 2005
Below I posted some thoughts about the Xan Cassavetes doc Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, and now this weekend IFC runs a Z-Channel marathon. Tune in all weekend and see films like the uncut Heaven ‘s Gate, Nick Roeg’s Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession, and the fairly obscure That Most Important Thing: Love.
.… Read the rest
