IS THIS THE FUTURE OF THEATRICAL EXHIBITION?

By Scott Macaulay

Over at his CinemaTech blog, Scott Kirsner posts a video interview with Mark Stern, owner of Big Picture, the Seattle-based company that runs “21 and older” theaters that are more like private clubs or studio screening rooms than today’s multiplexes.… Read the rest

MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI, 1912-2007

By Scott Macaulay

The great Michelangelo Antonioni, director of such films as L’Avventura, Red Desert, Blow-Up and The Passenger, died in Italy yesterday. He was 94.

The New York Times in its obituary quotes Jack Nicholson’s remarks on the director when he presented him with a career Oscar:

‘In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places our hearts, and found in them, too, a strange and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting.”

As they did for Ingmar Bergman, another art-house titan who, stunningly, died just a few hours before Antonioni, The Guardian has set up a special section devoted to the director. From the site is Penelope Houston’s obituary that includes this quote about his 1955 movie L’Amiche but could just as well apply to his body of work as a whole:

Already the elements of this fastidious craftsman’s style were locked in place: the awareness of landscapes, usually melancholy, the sense of people drifting through time and space, but held always under the tightest control, the persistence of vision. “I need to follow my characters beyond the moments conventionally considered important,” he said, “to show them even when everything appears to have been said”.

GreenCine’s coverage is here, and one piece the site has linked to is this Michael Atkinson appreciation of Nuri Bilge Ceylan — proof of the continuing influence of Antonioni on younger filmmakers. Indeed, while Antonioni hailed from an earlier conception of art cinema — his films virtually demand to be seen not on video but on a movie screen, where their deliberate pacing, attention to sound design and precise framing evolve into a hypnotic critique of the modern world — the questions he asked in his films are more relevant than ever.

If I had to name a single favorite film, it would most likely be his The Passenger, in which Jack Nicholson plays a reporter who impulsively assumes the identity of a similarly featured dead man — a gun runner — and allows that man’s appointment book to dictate his drift through North … Read the rest

CATCH THEM IF YOU CAN

By Admin

It’s difficult to adequately classify Them, the debut from French directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud which has been a recent sensation on the film festival circuit. It will probably be labeled a horror movie, but it is so much smarter, tighter and more intense than the vast majority of other genre offerings.

Moreau and Palud set out to tell the story of a young teacher and her boyfriend being terrorized by a person (or is it people?) in a large, isolated mansion just outside Bucharest with a minimum of frills. They dispense with the usual manipulative orchestral score found in every other chiller, and opt for simple visuals with no special effects rather than showy, CGI-laden cinematography. The film’s dark, sometimes grainy look and handheld photography recall The Blair Witch Project, a parallel which is even more apt because of the film’s claim that it is based on real-life events. From its attention-grabbing opening sequence onwards, Moreau and Palud stay in complete control of the action — and their audience’s pulse rates — all the way to the film’s perfectly-pitched climax.

On the strength of the raw talent they displayed in Them, the Gallic pair were signed up by Lionsgate to remake Danny and Oxide Pang‘s The Eye as a vehicle for Jessica Alba. If you want to see how Moreau and Palud will adapt to Hollywood filmmaking, you’ll have to wait until February 2008, but in the meantime you should definitely try and catch Them. This Thursday, it has a special preview screening at the Lincoln Center, after which it opens in Portland, Oregon and then makes its way around the country (details can be found on the film’s website)… Read the rest

INGMAR BERGMAN, 1918- 2007

By Scott Macaulay

One of the titans of 20th century cinema has passed away. Ingmar Bergman died at his home off the coast of Sweden at 89.

Here’s the AP report.

A growing list of links at GreenCine offers many perspectives on and remembrances of the great director, including the following passage from Mervyn Rothstein’s obituary in the New York Times:

Mr. Bergman dealt with pain and torment, desire and religion, evil and love; in Mr. Bergman’s films, “this world is a place where faith is tenuous; communication, elusive; and self-knowledge, illusory,” Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times Magazine in a profile of the director. God is either silent or malevolent; men and women are creatures and prisoners of their desires.

For many filmgoers and critics, it was Mr. Bergman more than any other director who in the 1950s brought a new seriousness to film making.

“Bergman was the first to bring metaphysics — religion, death, existentialism — to the screen,” Bertrand Tavernier, the French film director, once said. “But the best of Bergman is the way he speaks of women, of the relationship between men and women. He’s like a miner digging in search of purity.”

He influenced many other film makers, including Woody Allen, who according to The Associated Press said in a tribute in 1988 that Mr. Bergman was “probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera.”

The Guardian has created a special Bergman section where you can find much information as well as, on Andrew Pulver’s blog, this collection of clips from some of Bergman’s greatest films, including The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Fanny and Alexander, and Cries and Whispers.

I’ve embedded below a clip from Persona, which Pulver introduces thusly:

This brooding mid-60s masterpiece is a key statement on identity and human dependency. An actress (Liv Ullmann) loses the power of speech; her nurse (Bibi Andersson) obsessively tries to help her recover; a strange kind of personality exchange takes place, as Bergman marshals a battery of cinematically self-conscious devices to underscore the

… Read the rest

BLADE RUNNER FINAL CUT FOOTAGE

By Admin

Here’s some footage from comic-con for the much anticipated Blade Runner: Final Cut DVD. Read Scott’s post below for all the DVD details. I just can’t believe Harrison Ford agreed to be interviewed! You can also check out those new scenes he was filming with Joanna Cassidy as well. Fanboys hold tight for December 18th.… Read the rest

PERSONALITY BECOMES YOUR STYLE

By Scott Macaulay

There’s a new issue of Sight and Sound up and now the BFI has posted selected pieces online. One is a great interview Amy Taubin did with Gus Van Sant about Van Sant’s thoughts on — and similarities to — Andy Warhol.

While Taubin refers to Van Sant as “the most Warhol-like filmmaker around,” Van Sant says his original inspirations were quite different than the work of the great conceptual and Pop artist.

When I started to try to make films, though, the scripts I wrote were John Cheever-esque stories about the place I came from – upper middle class, golf, country clubs. That’s what fascinated me, but I never got to make any of them. Alice in Hollywood was my first film, and it was a reaction to living in Hollywood. It didn’t do so well because it was a comedy and it wasn’t very funny. So Mala Noche was like a regrouping and starting again. The setting and subject matter are something that might be in a Warhol movie but the technique was coming from Schlesinger or Bertolucci or Carol Reed. Midnight Cowboy, Last Tango in Paris and The Third Man were the three films I’d watch over and over again while I was constructing the story.

Later, there’s this great passage, though, in which Van Sant thinks about the reasons which people compare him to Warhol:

One of the comparisons you could make between Warhol and me is that we had a similar manner. I never really met him, but some of his close friends call us alter egos. I think it’s the way we hold ourselves and experience life – we’re both timid and adventurous at the same time. Lance Loud said Andy always looked as if he’d been left in the lurch, and when I’m in a club that’s how I look, even when I don’t feel that way.

So certain similarities in the art come from that. One of my old boyfriends used to point out that everyone’s personality becomes their style, and when you’re in your 40s you begin to play with

… Read the rest

ZERO!

By Scott Macaulay

On the day of its opening the new Lindsay Lohan movie, I Know who Killed Me, has managed to score a big fat zero on Rotten Tomatoes. Maybe as the critics who were denied permission by Tri-Star to pre-screen the movie for reviews catch up with it the score will edge up… but, for the moment, the pic seems to have scored the unattainable. In our long-tailed world of a million and one tastes, it would seem impossible to make a film that simply nobody likes. If you believe the tomato squad, however, it’s been done.

As for me, well, after reading the reviews posted already, I really want to see this movie. I mean, would you take this review by Erik Childress to be a negative one?

Just imagine the worst possible idea for a Parent Trap sequel that manages to combine elements of Stigmata, Dune, The Empire Strikes Back, The Corsican Brothers and Blue Man Group. Yeah, this is a serious “Holy Shit!” kind of movie.

… Read the rest

DAVID STENN, “GIRL 27″

By Nick Dawson

DAVID ROSS AND PATRICIA DOUGLAS IN DAVID STENN’S GIRL 27. COURTESY RED ENVELOPE ENTERTAINMENT.

In most people’s eyes, David Stenn’s first film as a director marks the start of his third career, but to him it’s a continuation of what he’s been doing all along: storytelling. Chicago native Stenn started writing for Hill Street Blues after graduating from Harvard, then moved on to more TV writing, most notably on teen guilty pleasures 21 Jump Street and Beverly Hills 90210. In 1988, he published an acclaimed biography of 1920s film icon Clara Bow, and followed it in 1993 with an exhaustive tome on the tragically short life of another Hollywood legend, Jean Harlow.

In the process of researching the Harlow book, Stenn came across the story of 17-year-old Patricia Douglas, who in 1937 claimed to have been raped at a stag party held by MGM for its salesmen. Her story was briefly a tabloid sensation, but Douglas was then subjected to a character assassination by MGM, which protected David Ross, the MGM salesman she had accused, by buying off all Douglas’ witnesses – even her own mother. Douglas’ tale was then buried until Stenn rediscovered it and began tireless research to find out what went on, and ultimately discovered that Douglas was actually still alive. Girl 27 has compelling footage of Douglas recalling her traumatic attack, but the film is also about Stenn’s odyssey and the surprising and touching relationship that developed between the Hollywood historian and his subject.

Filmmaker spoke to Stenn about the uncovering of one of Hollywood’s greatest scandals, the part Jackie O played in his story, and why he hates it when people discuss 2001.

DAVID STENN DURING THE FILMING OF GIRL 27. COURTESY RED ENVELOPE ENTERTAINMENT.

Filmmaker: How did you first find out about the story of Patricia Douglas?

Stenn: I was on deadline for my Jean Harlow biography, and I was just following the Harlow headlines, when all of a sudden [I came across] another story about this person I’ve never heard of who’s claiming that she was tricked … Read the rest

NYSE: LGF

By Scott Macaulay

Maybe companies have been doing this for a while, but I’d never seen it before until tonight. On the subway poster for the live-action Bratz movie, there’s a tag at the bottom where a website URL might normally be. “NYSE:LGF” it says, handily giving the tween girl Bratz audience the stock market symbol for distributor Lion’s Gate Films.

Other news from Lions Gate: the distributor has purchased a stake in indie distributor Roadside Attractions, which previously released its films through the IDP partnership.

Shares of Lions Gate moved up by almost a point today to close at 11.21.… Read the rest

LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL By Justin Lowe

Blithely defying industry norms, Film Independent’s Los Angeles Film Festival (June 21-July 1) managed the unlikely achievement of figuratively conferring independent filmmaker status on blockbuster director Michael Bay by presenting the L.A. premiere of DreamWorks’ Transformers to an audience of 4,000 in four theaters simultaneously during the height of the festival.

By now Film Independent’s affinity for mini-major product and studio specialty fare featuring high-profile talent, as evidenced by both the annual Independent Spirit Awards and Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) programming, is so well established that even the Transformers premiere drew little more than shrugs from filmmakers and festivalgoers.

Elsewhere in the fest lineup, those same inclinations were reflected by the gala programming, which put Focus Features’ Talk to Me up front as the opening night film. Kasi Lemmons’s period biopic of 60s radio icon and ex-con Ralph Waldo “Petey” Green Jr. features an awards-worthy performance by Don Cheadle in the DJ’s role, stirringly abetted by Chiwetel Ejiofor as his manager Dewey Hughes and Taraji Henson as Green’s girlfriend. Following his release from prison on an armed-robbery conviction, Petey storms Washington, D.C.’s WOL radio, where station manager Hughes gives him a slot on the morning show and runs interference with upper management to keep Green’s irreverent broadcasts on the air. Talk to Me has charisma to burn during the first half, but gradually loses some allure as Cheadle’s role diminishes with the decline of Petey’s career.

Fox Searchlight Pictures filled the closing night slot with the North American premiere of Danny Boyle’s highly anticipated sci-fi adventure Sunshine. Continuing his habitual genre hopping, Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland construct a classic near-future premise about a spaceship crew on a mission to revive earth’s dying sun with the jolt of an onboard nuclear device. Miscalculations soon lead to mishaps that take on disastrous proportions, but midway through, the film shifts from a metaphysical mediation on man’s place in the universe to a space thriller, with ultimately uneven results.

Between the two specialty releases, LAFF thrived in its second year at a newly expanded Westwood Village location, a compact, accessible neighborhood … Read the rest