THE MOTHER AND CHILD REUNION: “WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN”

By Howard Feinstein

The title is ironic: The conversation never happens. (Kevin’s mom suggests it in a voiced-over letter to her husband, but, if it is even sent, it is — seemingly — ignored.) Eva (the chameleon-like Tilda Swinton, brilliant as ever) and Franklin (John C. Reilly) are the parents of a troubled boy who tortures his mother with line-crossing defiance. (He is played by three kids of different ages. The principal action revolves around the oldest, perfectly portrayed by Afterschool’s Ezra Miller as an intimidating glop of arrogant negativity.)

Eva never wanted the unplanned child. She yells much more loudly than necessary during childbirth and appears desolate in her hospital bed. While taking him for a walk in his stroller, she drowns out his endless screams with the comforting sound of a jackhammer. Her new domestic lifestyle she has reluctantly embraced in New York is a far cry from the exciting, rarely monotonous job she has relinquished as a successful travel writer gallivanting around the globe.

We occasionally see her revel in her more spontaneous, more uninhibited past in this non-linear kaleidoscope of a movie, most notably at a tomato-tossing festival in Valencia where she yields to the passion of the moment, with a screenful of celebrants crammed into an ancient street holding her aloft almost Christ-like above pools of the juice. (I’m not sure if this was a conscious script idea derived from Christian iconography, but all three Ezras use their bodies as currency to toy with their mother: unrelenting shrieks, incontinence, and clips of fingernails held menacingly in the mouth, among them.)

Boredom and repetition were, she thought, out of the question in her life. In Lionel Shriver’s novel, Eva’s line of communication is epistolary, a series of letters that augments the non-fictional dimension. That structure would have been nearly impossible to translate to film. At one of those awkward moments when it’s just easier to agree, sweet but spineless Franklin proposes marriage and she gives in.

What rips Eva apart, as well as the family unit she creates, is the nearly complete lack of interest she takes in her son. You can’t be sure if the response is the result … Read the rest

IFP GOTHAM AWARDS: “BEGINNERS” DIRECTOR MIKE MILLS RECAPS HIS TWO WIN NIGHT

By Mike Mills

That was quite surreal. I’ve been to just two events like that before, so the red carpet shenanigans, seeing so many “movie stars” and directors you’ve listened to on DVD commentaries, and being in a room with so many people you’ve tried to get financing from – is really a strange experience. The kind that makes you all wild eyed and sweaty palmed. But mostly I was really truly just very happy to be there and felt very safe that we weren’t going to win anything and that I was just lucky to be included, to be in the group, to get to see this crazy kinda show in my life. When we all sat down, I told some of my producer filmmaker comrades that I hadn’t prepared anything to say cause that just felt so hubristic, and gauche, so vain, and weird – every time I tried my mind just derailed itself.

They said “Yeah, there’s a lot of love for the film, but we’re not going to win anything.” I thought they must know something I don’t, was hurt for about 30 seconds but then went easily back to being quite relieved I wasn’t going to have to go onstage in front of  Jim Jarmusch (to name one of my heroes there).  It was lovely to be there with my filmmaking family, some of our actors - Christopher Plummer, Mary Page Keller, and Kai Lennox - from the film, and just be in this weird scene.

When it came time for Best Ensemble, I was all set to applaud for one of the other wonderful nominees, and was very, very, very astonished to hear the word Beginners called out. I adore these actors, we had so much fun together, such a wonderful creative time, how wonderful to see them honored, but, Jesus, I’M TOTALLY UNPREPARED! Luckily Christopher is such a gentleman, so gracious and inclusive, so nice to me, and he lead the way. But I didn’t shout out to my great friend Ewan McGregor who’s in Uganda working with Unicef, I didn’t shout out to Melanie Laurent who’s in Paris where her … Read the rest

THE 2011 EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL

Spend even the shortest amount of time in the delightful and disturbing Scottish capital and you begin to read native Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as a metaphor for the city itself. Edinburgh boasts a warm and welcoming population residing in an atmosphere where an ever-present hint of menace hangs palpably in the air like its famous rainy mist. (This openness is evidenced by the fact that one early afternoon my sister and I were able to pretty much wander in to a Justice Committee hearing of Parliament debating that day’s front page news – whether singing “God Save The Queen” at soccer matches should be made illegal.) Yes, this is the home of Harry Potter – and the café where J.K. Rowling birthed him proudly touts its pedigree – but it’s also a city in which for centuries public executions were pretty much a local pasttime. Not to mention, its skyline of threatening, medieval fortress architecture heavy with spires and turrets practically screams, “Don’t fuck with us.” It’s actually the opposite of Amsterdam, where I flew in from to cover this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. That city’s cozy atmosphere – the Dutch have a word for it, “gezellig,” which has no English equivalent – reflected in its quaint canal houses and hole-in-the-wall coffeeshops, stands in stark contrast to its conservative insular population. (Don’t get me wrong, the Dutch are very agreeable – just don’t mistake “tolerant” for “welcoming.”)

And atmosphere – every bit as important as the movies themselves – is also what makes or breaks a film festival. Interestingly, the buzz this year at EIFF had nothing to do with awards or red carpet premieres. In fact, this 65th edition jettisoned its Michael Powell Award for best British film along with the closing night flick and the red carpet. (Thus, Ewan McGregor had to set foot on the same ground as us common mortals for the screening of David Mackenzie’s Glasgow-set Perfect Sense, which he stars in opposite Eva Green.) No, the drama surrounded newly tapped festival director James Mullighan, … Read the rest

TILDA SWINTON’S LAUREL & HARDY FLASH MOB DANCE

By Scott Macaulay

At the Festival Square in Edinburgh, Tilda Swinton organized and led a flash mob dance yesterday, coinciding the launch of her new charity, the 8 1/2 Foundation.

From an article in the Scotsman:

Gathering several hundred willing participants under the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, she led them in a soft-shoe shuffle known as At The Ball, by the Avalon Boys, originally performed by Laurel and Hardy, in an effort to create a “flash mob dance”, where a group suddenly and spontaneously start dancing in a public place.

The instructions, disseminated online, were simple: watch the Laurel and Hardy clip, turn up at 11am and give it a whirl. The reason, declared Swinton, was “in pure unabashed celebration of doing something as a group and looking like dafties.”

Before the dance, participants were invited to go to the foundation’s website where they can download the original choreography from Laurel and Hardy’s Way Out West.

Here, from an interview with Beak in Ain’t It Cool News, is Swinton discussing the project:

I am in the process of forming this foundation for children. It’s called the 8 1/2 Foundation; we’re showing little children world cinema, and giving them a choice. We can show them thirty-second clips of a certain amount of films from all over the world, from all decades, black-and-white, subtitles, and giving them a chance to choose one for their eight-and-a-half birthday, which we will then send them in the post. And the two that come out on top always on our poll are a black-and-white film by Jacques Tati from the ’60s and a Chinese film with Mandarin subtitles called THE KING OF MASKS. And yet studio executives will tell you that children and adults will not watch foreign films and will watch not black-and-white.

Visit its website to learn more about the 8 1/2 project and how you can get involved.

… Read the rest

MORE TRIBECA TITLES ANNOUNCED

The 2010 Tribeca Film Festival today announced its remaining out-of-competition feature film selections in the Encounters, Discovery, Cinemania and Spotlight sections. The Festival will run April 21 to May 2.

The Encounters section, comprised of 14 films, include selections include new works by Academy Award-winning filmmakers Alex Gibney and Chuck Workman, Academy Award nominee Dana Adam Shapiro, and featuring actors like Ellen Barkin, Liev Schreiber, Melissa Leo, Rashida Jones, Tilda Swinton, and many more.

The Discovery section include documentaries showcasing everything from the North Pole and Congressional redistricting to a comedy tour of the Middle East. Its narrative films feature actors including Amy Sedaris, Jesse McCartney and Jay Baruchel, and the filmmaking debut of Omar Rodriguez Lopez of the band The Mars Volta.

Cinemania, formerly known as Midnight, features new work by Hong Kong filmmaker Ho-Cheung Pang, the outrageous teen comedy Spork, and a new film by John Carney, director of Once.

The eight films in this year’s Spotlight section are all majorly anticipated features, starring actors like Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Robert Duvall, Colin Farrell, Amanda Peet and Rebecca Hall. Spotlight contains films from acclaimed filmmakers, including Fatih Akin, Michael Winterbottom and Neil Jordan, and will be available to TFF audiences before they hit theaters.

For the first time through VOD, audiences at home will have the chance to see 12 feature films acquired by the recently launched Tribeca Film. For more information, go to tribecafilm.com/festival.

The full list of titles are below.

ENCOUNTERS

The Chameleon (Le Cameleon), directed by Jean-Paul Salomé, written by Jean-Paul Salomé and Natalie Carter. (France, USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. When teenager Nicholas Barclay (Marc-André Grondin, C.R.A.Z.Y.) mysteriously resurfaces after he went missing three years ago, his sister (Emilie De Ravin, Lost) and mother (Ellen Barkin) welcome him back with open arms, but a no-nonsense FBI agent (Famke Janssen) is out to prove he’s an impostor. Working from a true story, director Jean-Paul Salomé (Female … Read the rest

TILDA SWINTON, “JULIA”

Perhaps best known for her Oscar-winning turn in Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton and the long, fruitful collaboration she enjoyed with the late Derek Jarman, Tilda Swinton has acted recently for David Fincher, Joel and Ethan Coen, Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr, and in Andrew Adamson’s Chronicles of Narnia franchise. Her flinty, fearless performance as an alcoholic outlaw in Erick Zonca’s cross-border thriller Julia, however, truly spotlights the impressive range and cool professionalism of this adventurous, one-of-a-kind screen actress. (She also appears in Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control, which opened last Friday.) We caught up with Swinton in New York to talk about her role in the film, why she’d always wanted to portray a resourceful drunk, and how the indie-film world has changed since her heyday with Jarman in Britain’s underground cinema. – Damon Smith

Running time: 5:46… Read the rest

AFI FEST TRIBUTES SWINTON AND BOYLE

Following an a abbreviated schedule Tuesday to accommodate election night (and an enthusiastic impromptu party celebrating Obama’s win in the festival’s Cinema Lounge at the Roosevelt Hotel), the mid-week stretch at AFI Fest continued with an event honoring Academy Award-winning actor Tilda Swinton — featuring a highlight reel from her film career and discussion with journalist David Poland — and a Friday tribute to renowned director Danny Boyle, paired with a screening of his new film, Slumdog Millionaire.

A contemporary romantic epic, Slumdog chronicles the rise of a slum-dwelling boy (Dev Patel) growing up on Mumbai’s mean streets to become a top-winning contestant on India’s version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” and his enduring love for a childhood sweetheart (Freida Pinto).

Starring relative unknowns in the lead roles and supported by some of Bollywood’s biggest-name stars, the film is a bravura celebration of the human spirit and the city of Mumbai (Bombay), written by The Full Monty scribe Simon Beaufoy and showcasing Boyle’s characteristically dynamic visual style.

In a conversation with the L.A. Time’s John Horn, Boyle described the technical and logistical challenges of making Slumdog on the teeming streets of Mumbai — the capital of India’s movie industry. “It’s a bit naïve thinking a foreigner can go there and make a movie,” Boyle observed, but noted that after reading Beaufoy’s script he realized “it was a portrait of a city — I couldn’t wait to get there.”

Working with a predominantly local crew and shooting on a new, compact digital prototype camera with hard-drive data storage (similar to the RED system Soderbergh used on Che), 35mm and even the video setting on a Canon EOS digital still camera, Boyle and frequent collaborating cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle capture some indelible images at a variety of striking locations. The smaller cameras made it easier to move around and shoot on crowded streets without attracting attention from ardent local film fans. “You need to flow with the city,” observed Boyle about filming in Mumbai.

“I think movies are about forward motion,” he commented about Slumdog’s headlong … Read the rest