The Grouchy Cineaste

Streaming and common sense.

2011-07-20T16:27:00.007-04:00

1. The Costs Are Not The Issue.

The real surprise was not Netflix's recent rate increase; it was that so many people complained so vociferously about it. Streaming video content is the future of entertainment, and its costs will only rise. Even after the rate increase, it's still an incredible value. People who claim otherwise clearly have not explored the full spectrum of what's available on these services.

I have not had cable in years, but I do have Netflix and Hulu Plus. Even after this recent increase, I'll be getting more content than I'll ever be able to watch just over $30 a month. That's less than half what it would cost me to have cable, digital and/or satellite TV service, and with a fraction of the commercials to sit through.

So... duh. Ditch your cable, folks, and stop bitching.

2. The Content Is The Issue.

The biggest problem with streaming right now is quality presentation, and it's wildly, wildly variable. Here are some of the biggest issues:

Aspect ratios. Ever the irritant of the home-viewing cineaste, proper aspect ratios in streaming content continue to be elusive. Hulu, for example, offers an impressively wide spectrum of Miramax releases, for example, but all releases shot in full widescreen (2.35:1) are cropped to 1.78:1. Jackie Chan's whirling-dervish fight sequences look noticeably compromised; Chan's Hong Kong action extravaganzas are carefully composed for the widescreen frame and suffer when portions of the picture are missing.

With more titles being offered comes more problems, and Netflix has an even bigger melange of aspect ratio woes. Every single Warner Brothers title I have tried on Netflix streaming that was originally shot in widescreen is cropped down to fill the 1.78 standard widescreen frame. This includes several Clint Eastwood titles like The Gauntlet, and other various catalog titles. WB is normally a company whose titles are given exacting treatment on home video and it's a shame their streaming catalog offerings are so mangled.

The "HD" misnomer. Compression artifacts abound in most of the so-called "HD" streams I've sampled. It's less noticeable when viewed on smaller screens, but the larger you go, the more the fine detail breaks down. This is less of an issue to me than the aspect ratio problem, to be honest, but it's still important. Full, proper HD should have no such liabilities.

Another odd anomaly of streaming is something I call MFS (Missing Frame Syndrome). Many Lionsgate and Anchor Bay titles on Netflix, both newer films and older catalog titles, exhibit this problem; frames seem to be missing from the picture, giving the image an odd, jerky look every few seconds or so. Even some of the Criterion titles on Hulu exhibit this issue: Fellini's La Strada is unwatchable because of it.

Starz Play is the devil incarnate. Every single Starz Play title I have sampled via Netflix has been completely unwatchable. It's either in the wrong ratio, or it's crawling with MFS. If it's got the Starz Play logo on it, don't bother, because if you care at all about presentation, it'll just piss you off.

3. The Content Providers Aren't Screwing Up. The Studios Are.

Netflix and Hulu are not to blame for the above problems, popular though it might be to think so. The real problem comes from the studios supplying them with substandard broadcast masters. It's incumbent upon the faithful to remind the studios that they need to provide materials to Hulu, Netflix and whomever else that's in the proper aspect ratio and isn't a muddled mess.

The thing is, a lot of them are doing it right. Universal has many choice titles from their back catalog available in sharp, clear HD and in the proper ratios available on Netflix right now, like Robert Aldrich's Ulzana's Raid, Fred Schepsi's Iceman, Jack Fisk's Raggedy Man, and Daniel Petrie's Resurrection, as well as fun genre titles like John Irvin's Ghost Story and newer offerings like BASEketball and The Shadow. Many of the aforementioned titles have never been on disc in their proper aspect ratios (or on disc at all).

MGM's titles on Netflix are also to be commended. The fun 1950s sci-fi offering It! The Terror From Beyond Space boasts a beautiful B&W transfer, for example, and several other titles, including the unintentional-comedy classic Revenge of the Ninja, are offered in widescreen, unlike their currently-available DVDs. Warner Brothers offers some great titles from time to time as well; last year, John Landis' Innocent Blood was available in a widescreen, extended cut, and gorgeous HD transfers of Terence Fisher's Hammer classic Horror of Dracula and Carl Reiner's riotous The Man With Two Brains have also been made available recently as well.

So anyway. Keep up the battle, film fans. Make the studios get it right.

Several beers later

2010-11-28T17:57:00.002-05:00

...The Expendables is declared the greatest movie of all time, ever.

When the plane turns around...

That's all I'm saying.

31 Frights #31: TRICK ‘R TREAT [2009]

2010-10-31T14:43:00.002-04:00

And we end with Michael Dougherty’s criminally overlooked horror anthology, for my money one of the best Halloweentime viewing choices you could ever make. A stylishly visualized quartet of cleverly interlocked tales, the film nails the macabre, fanciful spirit of the holiday without defaulting to a cavalcade of brutality. Happy Halloween!

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31 Frights #30: WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE [1994]

2010-10-30T16:04:00.002-04:00

Wes Craven’s finest hour as a filmmaker to date. Of all the 1980s horror franchises, the NIGHTMARE series was easily the highest on the quality totem, and Craven’s inventive metafictional deconstruction of his own creation never got the credit it deserved, especially when his next film, the thematically similar SCREAM, was a huge hit.

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31 Frights #29: THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD [1985]

2010-10-29T11:53:00.002-04:00

“Send more cops.”

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31 Frights #28: CEMETERY MAN [1994]

2010-10-28T12:07:00.001-04:00

Cemetery caretaker Rupert Everett’s existential crisis visits him nightly in the form of the living dead; a frequently nude Anna Falchi just mixes him up even more, especially after he kills her. Dario Argento protégé Michele Soavi’s adaptation of Tiziano Sclavi’s “Dylan Dog” comic series is funny, stylish and inventive, with a memorably abstract finale.

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31 Frights #27: PEEPING TOM [1960]

2010-10-27T11:58:00.002-04:00

British director Michael Powell was one of the most celebrated filmmakers of his time, responsible for classics including BLACK NARCISSUS and THE RED SHOES; after this film came out, his career never recovered from the firestorm of controversy over its “sick” and “filthy” content. 50 years later, it’s lost none of its power to divide and disturb.

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31 Frights #26: ALLIGATOR [1980]

2010-10-26T11:46:00.003-04:00

Lewis Teague’s snappy monster mash blessedly refuses to walk anything resembling a high road. The witty screenplay is one of several John Sayles efforts from his days as a B-movie script doctor for Roger Corman (another being Joe Dante’s classic PIRANHA, recently remade). Social commentary for the left brain, giant gator gore for the right, and Robert Forster to top it off.

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31 Frights #25: THE COMPANY OF WOLVES [1984]

2010-10-25T11:58:00.003-04:00

The key US release art of Neil Jordan’s second film featured a wolf’s snout protruding painfully from a man’s mouth, an appropriately disturbing image for this dreamy Freudian shocker. Jordan’s work often leaves me cold, but his Gothic fairy tale has more than its share of memorably startling moments, and a refreshingly graceful feminist slant.

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31 Frights #24: KWAIDAN [1965]

2010-10-24T15:47:00.003-04:00

Greek/Irish expatriate Lafcadio Hearn is best remembered for his 1903 collection of Japanese folk tales of the supernatural; Masaki Kobayashi’s later film adaptation won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes. Slow but engrossing, with stunning ‘scope photography and a fascinating electronic score by Toru Takemitsu that twists natural sounds into eerie harbingers of doom.

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31 Frights #23: RACE WITH THE DEVIL [1974]

2010-10-23T12:29:00.003-04:00

A perfect example of a drive-in classic if there ever was one, this enjoyably dumb thriller spends a solid hour making the case that everyone in Texas is a Satanist before revving up with some groovy vehicular carnage (why else would you cast Peter Fonda?) and a classic 70s-style joybuzzer ending. Best enjoyed with a six-pack on a Saturday night – like this one.

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31 Frights #22: PLAGUE TOWN [2008]

2010-10-22T11:59:00.001-04:00

Filmmaker David Gregory’s first fiction feature has the usual liabilities associated with a no-budget debut (most notably in the hit-or-miss acting). That said, it’s still a remarkably accomplished effort, and well worth your time. One stunning setpiece involving a character named Rosemary is a folklore nightmare sprung to unforgettable life.

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31 Frights #21: KILL, BABY… KILL! [1964]

2010-10-21T12:06:00.001-04:00

Italian horror’s Big Daddy is one Mario Bava; fellow countrymen including Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and Umberto Lenzi often struggled to escape his long-stretching shadow. Bava’s hallucinatory directorial technique was (arguably) never in better form than it was here. If you’re at all interested in the visual potential of cinema, Bava’s films are a must.

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31 Frights #20: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2 [1986]

2010-10-20T11:55:00.001-04:00

Tobe Hooper’s 1974 original is, like, my favorite horror movie EVAR, but his gonzo sequel is in a class of its own, equal parts splatterpunk epic and deranged send-up of itself. Dennis Hopper gets into a chainsaw duel with Leatherface; you should need no further encouragement. And no one will ever top Bill Moseley’s Chop-Top. Not anyone.

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31 Frights #19: MARTYRS [2008]

2010-10-19T12:03:00.001-04:00

The French have been pumping out one brutal horror opus after another (HIGH TENSION, INSIDE, THEM, et al), but Pascal Laugier’s film gets bonus points for fully committing to a fascinating, even dangerous, central concept. (No fair telling what it is… just go see it.) It’s not airtight, and the violence is extreme, but it’s got much more on its agenda than mere bloodshed.

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31 Frights #18: WITCHFINDER GENERAL [1968]

2010-10-18T11:58:00.005-04:00

Easily one of the finest efforts in Vincent Price’s career as a horror icon, this grimly cynical British production went largely unseen for decades before a recent restoration rescued it from the mothballs. Potent in its depiction of the intersection between religious zealotry and political power, with a memorably sadistic (and abrupt) finale. (The film was titled "The Conqueror Worm" for its original US release, in an attempt to tie into the popularity of a series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, but subsequent video releases have retained its original British title.)

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31 Frights #17: A TALE OF TWO SISTERS [2003]

2010-10-17T13:56:00.003-04:00

One of the best Asian horror imports of late is this elliptical, unnerving South Korean film from director Kim Ji-woon. A long-haired, pale-faced ghost-girl does figure into the proceedings, but the story of Shakespearean tragedy surrounding it is classically spooky and ultimately completely satisfying.

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31 Frights #16: HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH [1982]

2010-10-16T12:40:00.003-04:00

This oddball franchise offshoot does away with Michael Myers’ slasher antics (a wise move, methinks) and instead offers up an uneven but entertaining mix of gory witchcraft and paranoid sci-fi. The insidious “Silver Shamrock” jingle will lodge itself in your brain forever, and the ending is stone-cold perfect.

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31 Frights #15: BUBBA HO-TEP [2002]

2010-10-15T15:35:00.001-04:00

Bruce Campbell plays Elvis. Ossie Davis plays JFK. Yes, JFK. Together they battle mummies in a Texas retirement home. While in wheelchairs and walkers. If you read this and remain unmoved, you are dead to me.

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31 Frights #14: MOTEL HELL [1980]

2010-10-14T12:26:00.002-04:00

Cheerfully nutty farmers Rory Calhoun and Nancy Parsons bury unsuspecting travelers in the garden behind their rural motel… you know, so they can marinate. All involved with this one have the good sense to camp it up past 11; there’s a supporting turn by Wolfman Jack, of all people, and Calhoun’s final line will send you out howling.

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31 Frights #13: FRIDAY THE 13th PART VI: JASON LIVES [1986]

2010-10-13T12:24:00.004-04:00

A spoofy title sequence that turns Jason Voorhees into 007? Check. A Jean-Paul Sarte joke mid-slaughter? Check. Tom McLaughlin’s goofy sequel isn’t charmlessly inept like its 5 predecessors, but is instead a stylish, spirited horror comedy. It’s not that scary, but the zippy pace and tongue-in-cheek attitude go a long way to relieve the familiarity.

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31 Frights #12: DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS [1971]

2010-10-12T10:34:00.003-04:00

Not the exploitation wallow it may appear to be, Harry Kümel’s intelligent and artful film incorporates the stock elements of 70s-era Eurohorror (zoom lenses, fog machines, T&A) while subtly positioning vampirism as an escape from brutish, dominating male behavior. Strange as it may seem, complexity and nuance can indeed coexist with hot naked vampires.

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31 Frights #11: THE HOST [2006]

2010-10-11T11:55:00.003-04:00

South Korean director Bong Joon-ho upends expectations at every turn with this one-of-a-kind monster movie. No other film can veer from full-tilt horror to slapstick comedy to intense family drama with such deftness; one quiet scene (you’ll know it when you see it) is one of the most unforgettable I’ve ever encountered in any film, ever.

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31 Frights #10: BRAIN DEAD [1990]

2010-10-10T12:35:00.002-04:00

Microbudget Roger Corman horror epics choke bargain bins everywhere, but quality does poke through. This one’s got Bills Paxton and Pullman, eye-filling production design by Catherine Hardwicke, and a twisty script from the mind of the late Charles Beaumont, writer of many classic episodes of “The Twilight Zone.” Ambitious and challenging, and well worth your time.

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31 Frights #9: Q, THE WINGED SERPENT [1982]

2010-10-09T12:14:00.001-04:00

Larry Cohen’s proudly trashy Aztec monster movie truly has to be seen to be believed. Topless sunbathers get their heads ripped off by a stop-motion puppet while a mercenary Michael Moriarty tries to hustle everyone in sight. Resisting this film leads only to despair.

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31 Frights #8: BLACK CHRISTMAS [1974]

2010-10-08T13:43:00.002-04:00

Did you know that the director of “A Christmas Story” and “Porky’s” was also a first-rate horror auteur? Ignore the recent remake and feast your eyeballs on the original, an oblique, disturbing freak-out that helped birth the entire slasher subgenre. The nerve-shredding phone calls from “Billy” are masterpieces of sound design.

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31 Frights #7: EYES WITHOUT A FACE [1960]

2010-10-07T12:44:00.004-04:00

Back in the day, this eerie French effort took a lot of heat over its big facelifting scene, but the film around it is every inch the classic, a poetic tale of doomed paternal love raised to the level of fairy-tale tragedy. Georges Franju’s artful visuals are bolstered by Maurice Jarre’s discordant score and iconic performances from Pierre Brasseur & Alida Valli.

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31 Frights #6: RAVENOUS [1999]

2010-10-06T11:49:00.004-04:00

Antonia Bird’s truly bonkers cannibal Western comedy barely survived a rocky production (Bird was director #3, among other tidbits) and yet it still works, thanks to a sharp, bon mot-filled Ted Griffin script and precise supporting turns from Robert Carlyle and Jeffrey Jones. The kooky score by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn is one of my all-time favorites.

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31 Frights #5: MAY [2002]

2010-10-05T12:02:00.001-04:00

Low-budget horror is mostly a cesspool few emerge from, but there’s a welcome respite in Lucky McKee’s morbidly poignant debut film, anchored by an extraordinary performance by Angela Bettis as a lonely, fragile girl who just wants to make a friend – even if it takes a few different people to make one.

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31 Frights #4: PARENTS [1989]

2010-10-04T11:37:00.002-04:00

Actor Bob Balaban’s first directorial effort is a wonderfully surreal, coal-black satire of 1950s conformity. Randy Quaid & Mary Beth Hurt give pitch-perfect performances as a pair of possibly cannibalistic parents; Andris Hausmanis’ hilariously meticulous production design is another strong asset. Sandy Dennis, in one of her last roles, is a riot as an addled guidance counselor.

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31 Frights #3: THE DESCENT [2005]

2010-10-03T12:29:00.004-04:00

Neil Marshall’s only film to date that doesn’t suck is a seriously scary thriller about a group of female weekend warriors who get much more than they bargained for on their latest cave-diving adventure. Not for the claustrophobic or the faint of heart – this puppy has teeth – but an intense ride for those who are game.

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31 Frights #2: GINGER SNAPS [2000]

2010-10-02T12:04:00.004-04:00

Ignore the cash-in sequels and go for the original, a genuinely well-shaped tale that cleverly threads classic werewolf legends into the angst-ridden relationship between two sisters on the jagged edge of adolescence. Karen Walton’s superb script is matched by Emily Perkins’ lead performance, and Mimi Rogers, as her relentlessly perky mother, steals the show from everyone.

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31 Frights #1: THE INNOCENTS [1961]

2010-10-01T10:41:00.004-04:00

Old-fashioned spooky doesn’t get any better than this, an adaptation of Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw.” Literate, multilayered and beautifully crafted, with a magnificent central performance from Deborah Kerr. Truman Capote was one of the writers; expressive B&W camerawork from the great Freddie Francis, and a hauntingly impressionistic Georges Auric score.

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On hiatus

2009-04-03T09:30:00.001-04:00

Other projects afoot. Stay tuned.

Composition 101 #8

2009-03-19T14:11:00.003-04:00

The Outsiders [1983], photographed by Stephen H. Burum.

Bergman on Blu (and Resnais too!)

2009-03-17T09:11:00.001-04:00

Sweet. The Seventh Seal is coming to Blu-Ray.

From blu-ray.com:

Criterion has announced that they will bring the 1957 classic film 'The Seventh Seal' to Blu-ray on June 16th, day-and-date with the DVD re-release. Additionally, they will bring Alain Resnais' 'Last Year at Marienbad' to Blu-ray a week later, on June 23rd, day-and-date with the DVD release. Both titles will be presented in 1080p video accompanied by PCM mono soundtracks.

Special features include:

The Seventh Seal
Introduction by Ingmar Bergman, recorded in 2003
Audio commentary by Bergman expert Peter Cowie
A new afterword to the commentary by Cowie
Bergman Island (2006), an 83-minute documentary on Bergman by Marie Nyreröd, featuring in-depth and revealing interviews with the director
Archival audio interview with Max von Sydow
A 1998 tribute to Bergman by filmmaker Woody Allen
Theatrical trailer
Bergman 101, a selected video filmography tracing Bergman's career, narrated by Cowie
Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
New and improved English subtitle translation
A booklet featuring an essay by critic Gary Giddins
Last Year at Marienbad
Director Approved Transfer
New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Alain Resnais (with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
New audio interview with Resnais
New documentary on the making of Last Year at Marienbad, featuring interviews with many of Resnais' collaborators
New video interview with film scholar Ginette Vincendeau on the history of the film and its many mysteries
Two short documentaries by Resnais: Toute la mémoire du monde (1956) and Le chant du styrène (1958)
Theatrical trailer
Optional original, unrestored French soundtrack
New and improved subtitle translation
A booklet featuring essays by critic Mark Polizzotti and film scholar François Thomas, and Alain Robbe-Grillet's introduction to the published screenplay and comments on the film

Oh, my, my, oh, hell, yes.

Remakeitis strikes once more

2009-03-13T10:31:00.002-04:00

Next in the remake grist: Stephen King's It.

Sorry, but no one will touch Tim Curry's performance in the 90s miniseries version. Evar.

Mention is made in the same AP report that writer Dave Kajganich, late of The Invasion, is also working on a remake of Pet Sematary. Okay, fine. He's also working on the remake of Escape from New York. Which is not so fine.

That Face #8

2009-03-12T16:46:00.002-04:00

Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet [1986]

Slowly focusing on the story

2009-03-11T10:30:00.003-04:00

Blogger "Mystery Man" has a good one: a 125-page transcript of a Raiders of the Lost Ark story conference between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan.

Man-oh-man, Spielberg and Lucas were idea machines. They could’ve sat there coming up with Indiana Smith ideas forever. There were enough ideas generated in these meetings for two films, which they actually used for two films. I must say, it’s rather unusual to have meetings with a producer and a director and be given so many ideas. Not that meetings with producers and directors wouldn’t have a lot of ideas but I’m not sure you would encounter such a volume as this. For screenwriters, it’s a goldmine. If you try to forget the finished film and put yourself into Kasdan’s shoes and you have all these ideas thrown at you, it can be a daunting task. What do you keep? What do you throw away? How do you make all this work?

In any case, there were about 10 Screenwriting Lessons I took away from this experience and thought they might be worth sharing.

Prospective film school students: Read this, buy a few other books, spend the money you would be spending on tuition on equipment, and get out there and make something. Don't waste your time sitting in classrooms. Trust me on this.

If you can't get the PDF download link to work (I couldn't), go here for an HTML version.

Biting the hand

2009-03-11T10:14:00.005-04:00

Gary Sinise took aim at Brian DePalma in a recent interview with Chicago Tribune reporter Robert K. Elder.

Gary, sweetie, you have to see the movie you're criticizing first. Only then do your words have merit.

I think probably what happened here is that Elder caught Sinise in an unguarded moment of frustration and merely smiled as the tape rolled, thinking, "Scoop... I has it."

However, it does Sinise's cause no good whatsoever. I share Sinise's empathy with those that serve. But it sounds like he wants to make an Iraq movie that exults in the glory-n'-honor-of-service thing.

I don't need to be told by Gary Sinise or anyone else that the American military is over there trying to do good; that's perfectly obvious to anyone with half a brain.

I would much rather these people be at home trying to do good, instead of thousands of miles away, embroiled in a tribal conflict that stretches back generations and being given orders by politicians attempting to fit square pegs into round holes.

Stuck in a theatre with morons

2009-03-06T11:42:00.004-05:00

The A.V. Club lists their worst moviegoing experiences.

My favorite:

Sean O’Neal
...Then one week I fucked up and lobbied for "Amazing Grace And Chuck"—a PG-rated movie. I remember arguing that its message—one boy’s mission to foster peace in the Cold War by refusing to play baseball—was an important one. (I guess because how else would we learn about the importance of nuclear disarmament through sports-related pacifism? Why, for all we knew, one of our classmates would be an NBA star, and one day he’d disarm a Soviet ICBM by just taking a knee during the playoffs! etc.) Anyway, the movie itself isn’t particularly profane, but anyone who’s ever been in a room full of 5- to 10-year-olds knows that the slightest curse word can spark a near-riot. Needless to say, the first “hell” caused the entire assembly to erupt into uncontrollable hysterics, and I remember every pair of teacher eyes turned my way like I had just popped in a tape of German scat porn. I spent the rest of that movie turning crimson at every “damn,” “hell,” and “ass” (and there probably aren’t many, but at the time, it seemed like Charles Bukowski and Quentin Tarantino had collaborated on the script) until our faux-principal Ms. Ellen finally popped the tape out to a swell of anticipatory “Ooooo”s. I was absolutely mortified. Ms. Ellen quietly informed me we would be having a talk with my mother later, I guess because she was concerned I might develop a potty-mouth if I continued watching films like that. Fortunately, my mom didn’t give a damn hell ass shit, so fuck that bitch. "Amazing Grace And Chuck" for life!

I once went to a midweek-evening screening of In the Bedroom. The moron projectionist had forgotten to turn the stereo on, so you had to lean forward and strain to hear the dialogue in an already-quiet movie. Of course, a middle-aged couple sitting several rows in front of me decided they needed to narrate the whole thing. I was so steamed that it took two or three DVD viewings to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

Saw a screening of Harold and Maude once in college, and two women in their 50s or 60s or so had somehow gotten in (these were supposed to be private, student-only screenings), and their obnoxious, drawn-out gasping laughter throughout was very nearly enough to put me off the flick for a while. As with In the Bedroom, the DVD saved me.

I am sure that I also contributed to someone's worst moviegoing experience. I once took a bottle of Southern Comfort into a screening of Independence Day. You can imagine how well that turned out. I remember conducting the end credits, and not much at all beyond that.

Composition 101 #7

2009-03-06T10:51:00.003-05:00

Heat [1995], photographed by Dante Spinotti.

Because... why not?

2009-03-06T10:39:00.002-05:00

Next up on the remake wave: Missing in Action.

Stallone's odious Rambo let the bean-counters know there was lotsa green to be had from recharging right-leaning 80s-era supermen, and since they're also remaking Red Dawn (same writer), why miss out on a good thing?

...And it's being funded by the WWE. Lovely. Body slammin', turrist-killin', flag-wavin' horseshit ahead.

Put your favorite Chuck Norris Fact in the comments thread. We'll start with mine:

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

You gotta love Variety

2009-03-02T11:53:00.003-05:00

They can get through an entire press release on the developing film of Never Let Me Go and not once mention that it's based on an award-winning recent novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Keira Knightley and Alex Garland and Mark Romanek being involved, that's what really matters. Remember that.

That Face #7

2009-02-27T12:14:00.001-05:00

Rentaro Mikuni in Kwaidan [1964]

Someday soon you will be mine

2009-02-26T11:32:00.002-05:00

Haven't gotten this yet, but I will. Look at that gorgeous cover art...

Seems to be a mostly comprehensive collection of the extras from both prior DVDs as well, minus, I believe, a few scraps of deleted footage found on the original theatrical-cut release.

They got it right the first time

2009-02-26T09:37:00.003-05:00

They're remaking The NeverEnding Story.

Ugh.

The Kennedy/Marshall Co., whose credits include "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," and Leonard DiCaprio's Appian Way are in discussions with Warners about reviving the 25-year-old franchise. The studio recently acquired rights to the property, clearing the way for a potential remake.

Based on a German-language novel by Michael Ende, the film centers on a boy named Bastian Balthazar Bux who discovers a parallel world in a book titled "The NeverEnding Story." As the boy, a loner, delves deeper into the book, he increasingly finds his life intertwined with the plot of the novel, in which a hero in the land of Fantasia must save the universe on behalf of an empress.

The new movie will put a modern spin on the material by examining the more nuanced details of the book that were glossed over in the first feature.

I know I should wait and see, but... ugh. Why can't they remake something that didn't quite work the first time? I still think they should go back and remake Titanic, this time with a script.

On second thought, there was much of Michael Ende's wonderful novel that didn't make it into the '84 version, so perhaps a second go-around could get more of that back.

And a remake could very well get the longer international cut released on these shores, which I have always wanted to track down.

In a Nutshell #9

2009-02-25T15:19:00.000-05:00

Say Anything... [1989], directed by Cameron Crowe.

The Departed: New Yorker Films

2009-02-24T15:36:00.002-05:00

New Yorker Films, 1965-2009.

Founded in 1965 by Dan Talbot, New Yorker has a legendary legacy, boasting a long-standing track record in international film distribution, bringing a staggering number of international auteurs to this country’s movie theaters over more than four decades. The company’s crucial role in establishing a lasting film culture in this country cannot be underestimated. A New York Times profile in 1987, marking a 14-week salute to the company at New York’s Public Theater, listed an illustrious roster of filmmakers whose films were released by the company: Ackerman, Bertolucci, Bresson, Chabrol, Fassbinder, Fellini, Godard, Herzog, Kieslowski, Malle, Rohmer, Rossellini, Sembene, Wenders, Schlondorff, and many others.

Sayles on HBO

2009-02-23T11:56:00.003-05:00

Variety has it that John Sayles is writing an HBO series about RHCP frontman Anthony Kiedis and his father, alleged drug-dealer-to-the-stars.

Drama, tentatively titled "Scar Tissue" (the name of Kiedis' autobiography), centers on the rocker's early years living in West Hollywood with his father. At that time, Kiedis' dad, known as Spider, sold drugs and mingled with rock stars on the Sunset Strip, all while aspiring to get into showbiz (Daily Variety, Nov. 12).

...The series will be set in 1970s West Hollywood and Los Angeles and include the rockers encountered by Kiedis and his father (who, according to legend, was a drug dealer for the Who and Led Zeppelin, among others).

Something tells me this will probably stay stuck in development but it would still be interesting to check out.

Composition 101 #6

2009-02-20T13:40:00.003-05:00

Kagemusha [1980], photographed by Takao Saitô and Masaharu Ueda.

Throw the book at him

2009-02-19T18:07:00.006-05:00

I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid on Roman Polanski, and neither, thankfully, is Bill Wyman in Salon:

Espinoza was stating the obvious: Fugitives don't get to dictate the terms of their case. Polanski, who had pleaded guilty to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl, was welcome to return to America, surrender, and then petition the court as he wished. Indeed, the judge even gave Polanski more than he deserved, saying that he might actually have a case. "There was substantial, it seems to me, misconduct during the pendency of this case," he said, according to the Los Angeles Times. "Other than that, he just needs to submit to the jurisdiction of the court."

Polanski deserves to have any potential legal folderol investigated, of course. But the fact that Espinoza had to state the obvious is testimony to the ways in which the documentary, and much of the media coverage the director has received in recent months, are bizarrely skewed. The film, which has inexplicably gotten all sorts of praise, whitewashes what Polanski did in blatant and subtle fashion -- and recent coverage of the case, in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and elsewhere, has in turn accepted the film's contentions at face value.

Dude drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl and then ran. He should do the time. Period. The doc makes a number of excellent points about the prosecution's misconduct and the girl's prior sexual experiences with adults, but that still doesn't change the fact that he doped her up, got her naked, took pictures, fucked her in the ass, and then turned around and said, "Europe! How I miss you!"

Great artists are frequently far from saintlike, but there's a line and Polanski crossed it, and he has to face the consequences. Espinoza is doing the right thing mostly by pointing out the obvious: dropping the charges against Polanski would set an extraordinarily dangerous legal precedent.

I think Polanski is also highly overpraised as a filmmaker, but that, admittedly, is neither here nor there; his personal history is far more compelling to me than his films, most of which have put me to sleep. His body of work is easy enough to admire, but outside of Chinatown and Macbeth I start nodding off fast.

Somewhere this is already in development

2009-02-19T09:22:00.004-05:00

Apparently J. Edgar Hoover had it in for Jack Valenti.

Previously confidential FBI files show that Hoover's deputies set out to determine whether Valenti, who had married two years earlier, maintained a relationship with a male commercial photographer. Republican Party operatives reportedly were pursuing a parallel investigation with the help of a retired FBI agent, bureau files show. No proof was ever found, but the files, obtained by The Washington Post under the federal Freedom of Information Act, provide further insight into the conduct of the FBI under Hoover, for whom damaging personal information on the powerful was a useful tool in his interactions with presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Richard M. Nixon.

Johnson initially blocked the FBI from obtaining a sworn statement from Valenti or approaching the photographer, asserting that Valenti was "attracted to the women and not to the men," files show. But under FBI pressure, the president relented and approved an investigation of his close friend.

True story: I was once at a Q&A with Valenti where Joe Corey yelled at him about the level of violence in Roger Rabbit cartoon shorts.

Poor Billy

2009-02-18T14:59:00.011-05:00

Is there anyone sadder to look at than William Friedkin?

Seriously. Man goes out in the 70s and makes some bona-feeday classics (The French Connection, The Exorcist), but then his ego gets Olympian and his new habit becomes shooting himself in the foot (Sorcerer), over (Deal of the Century) and over (The Guardian) and over (Rampage) and over (Jade) again. (Okay, The Hunted wasn't bad. It wasn't very good, either.)

Now that his wife isn't running Paramount he can't get much of anything off the ground, and the only time you ever hear about him is when he pops up on some random DVD featurettes and/or commentary tracks. The ubiquitous credit "William Friedkin -- Director, The French Connection and The Exorcist" is presumably there to show us that his opinion is well-informed. But it comes off like he's yanking strings just to keep himself in front of someone's camera... anyone's camera.

And now he's pulling a Lucas and futzing with the color scheme of The French Connection for its new BD release. The tech side of this is pretty interesting -- according to Glenn Kenny it "involves first oversaturating and hence de-focusing the color, then reverting to black-and-white, and then 'mixing' the two resultant images" -- but to this guy here, he's stirring the pot for no reason other than because he can.

The man's got mad skills, and cojones like watermelons, but he's starting to become like a Jack-in-the-box that won't go back in.

In a Nutshell #8

2009-02-13T13:32:00.002-05:00

Lucas [1986], written & directed by David Seltzer.

Ashby alert

2009-02-12T14:29:00.004-05:00

DVD Times has the skinny on a new restoration of Hal Ashby's semi-lost 1982 film Lookin' to Get Out, made as his life and career began its sad tailspin.

In his prime, Ashby made some of the best films you'll ever see. Being There just got a great new release on DVD/BD. Harold and Maude and The Last Detail could stand an upgrade... and anytime anyone wants to release The Landlord is good with me.

Musings on Mr. Voorhees

2009-02-10T10:47:00.020-05:00

If you came of age in the 1980s, the Friday the 13th series was always best experienced like some secret ritual:

You're in a basement, all the lights off. Everyone's candy stashes are stacked and organized and already being devoured. Parental units slumber above, comforted by the assurance that "we're just gonna watch Police Academy 3 again."

Your sleeping bags congregate around a temperamental secondhand RCA like you're expecting it to deliver a message of gore-drenched enlightenment; if you were raised Catholic, this process seems vaguely familiar.

Someone produces a ratty VHS clamshell like it's samizdat, and the VCR briefly threatens to eat the tape before a blurry FBI scolding and then the old blue/white Paramount logo appears, and the festivities commence.

You know the formula like you know the national anthem: Camp counselors party down and assault each other with bad dialogue and 80s fashions, and then it's a jolly hour of sex-scream-slash. The stories are commonly referred to as morality tales, but morality would imply the presence of a system of thought, and that's outside of this series' concerns. It's merely an irresistible package sugar-hyped 8-year-olds thrill to: rudimentary plotting, magic-show makeup effects, and of course, topless women.

You'd do two or three in a row and you'd pass out somewhere around 4am, sugar-crashing onto the basement floor with a camp counselor's screams ringing in your ears. Manfredini's shock chords are a helpful periodic wake-up call, ensuring you miss nary a kill; the nude scenes have already been rewound six or seven dozen times and carefully committed to memory.

And that was how it would go.

These movies stank to high heaven (Part VI, doubly capped above, being a notable exception) and we loved every woodenly-acted, poorly-shot, atrociously-scripted moment of them. It wasn't about story, performance, or nuance; it was a freak show, an illicit experience, the worse, the better. Cheap thrills at their finest.

It seemed sort of wrong to get the flicks on DVD, and it seems even more so to get the original on Blu-Ray; an extra commentary track and 34 whopping seconds of restored footage already viewable in the previous box set isn't much of an incentive.

As for the remake, opening, of course, this Friday the 13th, it will likely be just like Platinum Dunes' other visits to the well: slickly produced, competently scripted and performed, put together with obvious finesse; not bad so much as aggressively forgettable. Everything, essentially, that its predecessors usually were not.

Minus that basement-VCR disreputability, there doesn't seem to be much left to care about.

The Departed: James Whitmore

2009-02-09T13:53:00.006-05:00

James Whitmore, 1921-2009.

The frame capture below is from Them! [1955], a seminal example of 1950s science fiction at its finest. It's also an object lesson in Whitmore's onscreen appeal: generous, reliable, and never less than watchable.

Mr. Whitmore’s acting career spanned six decades and included dozens of films, countless television shows and a handful of Broadway credits, including his solo efforts.

Besides the one in “Battleground,” his film roles included a hunchback diner owner and sometime criminal in John Huston’s “Asphalt Jungle” (1950); a lightfooted thug who, with Keenan Wynn, dances and sings his way through “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” in “Kiss Me Kate” (1953); a white journalist who disguises himself as a black man in "Black Like Me" (1964); a police inspector who may be up to no good in “Madigan” (1968); Admiral William F. Halsey in “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (1970), and an elderly convict and prison librarian in “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994).

In a Nutshell #7

2009-02-07T19:09:00.000-05:00

Harold and Maude [1971], directed by Hal Ashby.

Passage

2009-02-06T16:47:00.002-05:00

Notes on a Blu-Ray transition

As a longtime film fan and media junkie I have accepted that every so often a transition to another delivery platform is inevitable. I have a pretty big DVD collection, though, and for a while the thought of upgrading all of it made my stomach sink.

The flipside to having a large collection like this is that it's also a financial asset, and if it starts getting devalued, you've gotta start unloading. DVD resale values have been dropping like a stone, and they're only going to drop further.

So Blu had to happen sooner or later. And yeah, it's the shit.

Basically, it's a refinement of DVD, and it looks damn good, but you have to have the system for it; you probably wouldn't notice much of a difference on a CRT tube television. I have a relatively inexpensive Sharp HDTV and Blu discs pop right off that sucker. The uncompressed PCM audio streams sound a lot richer and fuller, although I did have to fiddle with my receiver to get the best sound.

Overall, I'm still mopping up the drool. It's nice to get to rediscover films you've seen a million or so times and pick up something new and interesting, thanks to the added resolution and deepened sound quality. It's fun to watch something like Speed Racer and ooh and aah at all the pretty colors. (And I happen to like Speed Racer as a film, so there. I'll take it over a perfectly competent and really rather boring blockbuster like Iron Man any day.)

Padding the bank account with resale revenue hasn't hurt, either. I always said I'd cross the Blu bridge when the time came, and, well, the time came. It's been surprising to see what sells and what doesn't; whatever doesn't make the cash gets tossed into the giveaway/Goodwill box.

As for all the DVDs that have departed for my benefit, seeing them again for the first time is what I'm looking forward to.

Amen, sister

2009-02-06T15:41:00.005-05:00

Via Hollywood Elsewhere I am directed to this Empire article about everyone's least favorite genre, the chick flick, and good sense finally rears its head 10 graphs in:

The reason for all this sinister discord is ultimately, of course, men. “Fewer than 10 per cent of Hollywood films are written by women, and fewer than 6 per cent directed by women,” explains Melissa Silverstein, a movie marketing consultant and founder of the company Women & Hollywood. “So really what you are seeing is a white male version of women. And that is just unacceptable.”

Not that I'm volunteering, but it might be nice to have one of these things written by a straight guy for a change, or -- stay with me -- a good female writer who's not Nora Ephron or Nancy Meyers. Gay-guy snark is fun and all, but it's all too often mitigated by an edge of misogynistic cruelty. (Alan Ball. Enough said.)

Then again, I'm a huge Mary Gaitskill fan, and she's not exactly anyone's idea of a fun time on a Friday night. And when was the last time we saw a Joyce Carol Oates adaptation on the big screen, anyway? There's tons of great lit du femme out there, and what do we get instead? Sex and the City: The Return.

Matte Matters #5

2009-02-06T10:21:00.001-05:00

Joe vs. the Volcano [1990].

Jo Carson, matte photography; Yusei Uesugi, matte artist.

Hunter would be so proud

2009-02-05T09:26:00.002-05:00

I love studio press releases masquerading as journalism. Here's a good one.

The gist of it is that Amber Heard was cast in The Rum Diary because she'd do the nude scenes, and, oh, yeah, she might have a chance to act, too.

What better way to kickstart the hype machine than to announce a flick with Johnny Depp and a naked chick?

However, the presence of Bruce Robinson as director is promising, Jennifer 8 notwithstanding.

That Face #6

2009-02-04T15:46:00.001-05:00

Joan Allen in Pleasantville [1998].

Nothing to see here

2009-02-03T11:10:00.003-05:00

Anyone who's ever spent time on a film set knows that this is par for the course in this line of work.

Having said that, Christian Bale belly-flopped off the cool list the second he signed up for something like Terminator: Salvation anyway.

This is why you never trust a producer

2009-01-30T15:48:00.002-05:00

"Bollywood producer" Vijay K. Taneja is sentenced.

I heard a thing or two about this guy a few years ago; nothing more substantive than he was not to be trusted. I suppose that rumor was correct after all.

In November, however, federal prosecutors revealed that Taneja's persona was a sham, alleging that he had defrauded lending institutions out of more than $33 million, some of which might have financed his high-flying film endeavors. Dozens of area residents -- many of them fellow members of the Indian community who had looked up to the financier -- were defrauded as well, prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton today sentenced Taneja to seven years in federal prison for his actions. Taneja had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering in November.

Composition 101 #5

2009-01-29T15:45:00.001-05:00

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control [1997], photographed by Robert Richardson.

The Departed: Kim Manners

2009-01-28T09:06:00.005-05:00

Kim Manners, 1950-2009.

Manners was a fixture of The X-Files, particularly in its earlier, stronger seasons. He was the inspiration for a foulmouthed sheriff in the Darin Morgan-scripted episode "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'", which has my vote for the show's finest hour.

Manners, always one to take a weird angle on the obvious, had decided to shoot the scene at shoelace level — literally. He lied down in a puddle of cold, dank water on the cold, hard cement floor of the parking garage floor and arranged the camera dolly track so that the camera would tilt up from Davis' shoes as the Cigarette-Smoking Man dropped a lit cigarette down toward the camera and then angrily stubbed it out of his toe. Manners laughed easily, and he could curse a blue streak that would put Gordon Ramsay to shame.

He could be demanding to work for — David Duchovny once told me it took him a long time to warm to Manners, who joined The X-Files in its second, some say best season, just as the genre-bending drama was finding its feet and starting to really push the boundaries of what thriller TV could do, in the same way Rod Serling's Twilight Zone did a generation earlier.

Manners' IMDB credits.

In a Nutshell #6

2009-01-27T15:59:00.001-05:00

Runaway Train [1985], directed by Andrei Konchalokvsky.

The Departed: Laserdisc

2009-01-27T15:55:00.001-05:00

Laserdisc, 1978-2009.

It was a good run while it lasted.

Originally known as DiscoVision and LaserVision, the 12-inch optical videodisc format was developed by MCA and Philips. The first consumer player wore the Magnavox logo, though Pioneer eventually became the format's champion, giving it the proprietary name LaserDisc, which became the generic format name laserdisc.

Laserdisc output an analog NTSC signal, and is therefore as obsolete as the doomed analog broadcast standard. It was never a high-def format. There were two subformats, the higher-quality CAV, which held 30 minutes per side, and the more capacious and prevalent CLV, which held an hour per side. Two-hour, two-sided discs in CLV became the norm. Most discs were released with audio in a pretty decent two-channel FM-carrier format, which carried matrixed Dolby Surround, and was eventually upgraded to PCM digital. This allowed LD/CD combi players to be marketed. In the format's waning years, Dolby Digital and DTS were added.

The laserdisc won a three-way format war with two other major disc formats, both of which, incredibly, were stylus-read like an LP. CED was invented and promoted by RCA, then an independent company, and the loss of the format war—along with tens of millions of dollars—was a major factor in turning RCA from an independent company to a TV brand that got passed around like a shopping bag. There was also a VHD format from JVC, which also went nowhere, but did so less expensively. Laserdisc won because consumers perceived greater performance and value in an optical-disc format.

The Nighy touch

2009-01-23T16:12:00.004-05:00

If you're a Bill Nighy fan, check out the upper left corner of the IMDB's front page today.

Clever marketers have created an amusing Flash animation for Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. Nighy's fingers are designed to drape over the IMDB logo and occasionally tap with a very Nighy sense of impatience.

It's a nice touch. Too bad the Underworld series has held zero interest for me, ooh-la-la Kate Beckinsale notwithstanding.

That Face #5

2009-01-23T10:22:00.001-05:00

Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future [1985].

Important words to remember

2009-01-22T11:10:00.001-05:00

MASON STORM
So, how come you're not watching the Oscars tonight?

COUNTERMAN
The Oscars?

MASON STORM
Yeah, the Oscars.

COUNTERMAN
I hate the Oscars.

MASON STORM
You're not having a good time, huh?

COUNTERMAN
I mean, who needs the goddamn movies anyway? I got a show in here every single night.

MASON STORM
Yeah?

COUNTERMAN
You've got horror, sex, freaks, violence. I don't got to pay no four bucks either.

Composition 101 #4

2009-01-21T09:57:00.003-05:00

Bad Day at Black Rock [1955], photographed by William C. Mellor.

The Departed: Ricardo Montalbán

2009-01-16T23:08:00.004-05:00

Ricardo Montalban, 1920-2009.

I was genuinely saddened to hear of Montalban's passing. What an extraordinary career this man had. Just look at his credits. And by all accounts, he seemed to be every bit the class act he appeared.

Harry Knowles' moving reminiscence of meeting Montalban during the production of Spy Kids 2 is a must-read.

Pauline Kael's appreciation of Montalban in her review of Star Trek II:

Montalban is unquestionably a star in "The Wrath of Khan" (and his grand manner seems to send a little electric charge through Shatner). As a graying superman who, when foiled, cries out to Kirk, "From Hell's heart I stab at thee"," Montalban may be the most romantic smoothie of all sci-fi villains. Khan's penchant for quoting Melville, and Milton (which goes back to "Space Seed"), doesn't hurt. And that great chest of Montalban's is reassuring -- he looks like an Inca priest -- and he's still champing at the bit, eager to act; he plays his villany to the hilt, smiling grimly as he does the dirty. (He and his blond-barbarian followers are dressed like pirates or a six-ties motorcycle gang.) Montalban's performance doesn't show a trace of "Fantasy Island." It's all panache; if he isn't wearing feathers in his hair you see them there anyway. You know how you always want to laugh at the flourishes that punctuate the end of a flamenco dance and the dancers don't let you? Montalban does. His bravado is grandly comic. Khan feels he was born a prince, and in all the uears that he was denied his due (because of Kirk, in his thinking) his feelings of rage have grown enormous. They're manias now; nothing can stop him from giving in to them. His words and gestures are one long sigh of relief -- he's letting out his hatred. This man, who believes that his search for vengeance is like Ahab's, makes poor pompous Kirk even more self-conscious. Kirk is Khan's white whale, and he knows he can't live up to it -- he's not worthy of Khan's wrath. [From The New Yorker, June 28, 1982.]

In a Nutshell #5

2009-01-16T15:33:00.008-05:00

Asylum [1972], directed by Peter Robinson.

A few side notes about this film. Asylum is a fascinating documentary centering around an experimental treatment facility set up by the noted psychiatrist and author R. D. Laing. The basic idea was to give a handful of individuals suffering from various personality disorders and/or mental illnesses the chance to self-govern themselves in a London flat, allowing them to come and go as they please. Doctors are on-hand for therapy but the patients are more or less given free reign; the documentary aims to be as invisible as possible, while peering into their terminally fractured existences.

Tom Sutpen of the wonderful blog If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats ran a version of the above capture a while back; I've reproduced it here in a slightly larger version.

Whither Blu?

2009-01-16T09:38:00.003-05:00

Via the estimable Digital Bits, I am directed towards the following enlightening piece about Blu-Ray: 9 Reasons Blu-Ray Will Succeed, by David Carnoy.

An excerpt:

I can't see Time Warner and other cable Internet providers suddenly delivering more bandwidth anytime soon (if anything, my connection seems to have gotten worse in recent months). DSL is even worse in a lot of cases--unless you're willing to pay ridiculous rates for top-of-the-line bandwidth offerings, which are usually geared toward businesses not consumers. And there's also plenty of talk about ISPs throttling back on bandwidth to police illegal downloads of music and yes, movie and TV shows.

The incoming Obama administration is reportedly going to be offering incentives to providers for building out broadband offerings and increasing bandwidth (eventually, anyway). Whether that has any impact or not, I still think we're a good 3-5 years away before the pipes really get fat enough for many of these IPTV/ streaming video services to reach their full potential and move from niche to mainstream status. In that time prices for both Blu-ray players and discs will look a lot like what you see today on their DVD brethren (see reasons #4 and #5).

I recently pulled the plug on the cable, mostly because I have Netflix and I can't justify the extra $60 a month for a bunch of channels neither I nor my girlfriend watch.

Streaming tech is one of the other reasons; the downgraded quality is the trade-off you're forced to accept for a large amount of free content (see here and here, for starters), but as the kinks get worked out it will only improve.

As for Blu-Ray, I'm sure I'll make the transition sooner or later, but I have to wonder what they're cooking up to eventually supplant it. Ten years from now, it'll be some new format that makes Blu look like dirt.

Maddin madness

2009-01-15T11:05:00.008-05:00

Zeitgeist is releasing a new edition of Guy Maddin's wonderful Careful on March 24th:

The specs, according to Amazon:

- Brand-new master, created from a new Hi-Def transfer
- New feature audio commentary by Guy Maddin and screenwriter George Toles
- Waiting for Twilight (1997, 60 mins): A vintage documentary by Noam Gonick on the early career of Maddin, narrated by Tom Waits
- Odilon Redon or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity (1995): Maddin's short film about the great French Symbolist painter
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired

I've already got the older Kino release, so I'll skip the upgrade, but it'll be cool to have the flick back in print. And that Odilon Redon short is awfully enticing...

The prospect of Maddin teeing off on Redon is hard to resist.

Matte Matters #4

2009-01-13T10:56:00.003-05:00

The Thing [1982].

Bill Taylor, matte photography; Jim Danforth, matte artist; Albert Whitlock, special visual effects.

This is why awards don't matter

2009-01-13T09:02:00.002-05:00

Tad Friend on movie marketer Tim Palen in The New Yorker.

Paul Haggis, the writer-director of the 2005 film “Crash,” says, “I came in thinking Tim was doing everything wrong. He made the poster Michael Peña screaming over his daughter, rather than selling Brendan Fraser or Matt Dillon or Sandra Bullock. I worried that the trailer, a mood piece about how people have to crash into each other to feel alive, was going to seem like overly significant claptrap. Then Tim and Sarah”—Sarah Greenberg, Palen’s co-president, who handles publicity—“came to me and said, ‘We’re going to go for an Academy campaign.’ I really, really thought they were crazy: this was a little six-million-dollar film.” For the cost of three full-page ads in the Times, about two hundred thousand dollars, Lionsgate sent more than a hundred thousand DVDs of the film to every member of the Screen Actors Guild—pioneering a now common saturation technique. In a huge upset, “Crash” beat “Brokeback Mountain” and “Munich” to win Best Picture.

On Quentin

2009-01-12T17:03:00.004-05:00

The back of my hand itches to meet Eli Roth's face at high velocity, which is one of several caveats I have about Quentin Tarantino's long-gestating World War II flick Inglorious Basterds, now in the process of releasing stills to the salivating fanboys.

Another is the dumbassed misspelled title, indicative of Tarantino's notoriously slapdash grammar. It's not clever or meta; it's just dumb, and he gets away with it because Cahiers du Cinema will fellate him for anything that happens after "action."

A third is the simple fact that Tarantino is long past the point of relevancy and can be depended upon only to toss every crappy B-movie he's ever seen into a blender, and film the blender. There was a brief, wonderful moment, when Jackie Brown came out, where it seemed like he might stretch; only with that film has he ever dropped the cool-cat posturing and casual sadism for something richer, deeper and more empathetic.

Tarantino is terrific with actors, and his films are entertaining, but well-made schlock is still schlock, no many how in-jokes and air-quotes you pepper it with. He's a little kid forever unwilling to let the real world into his sandbox.

The Departed: Claude Berri

2009-01-12T14:30:00.005-05:00

Claude Berri, 1934-2008.

Berri got a good number of worthy films off the ground as a producer (Tess, The Bear, Queen Margot), as well as racking up a respectable list of credits as an actor (he popped up in Rivette's Va savoir? as a librarian) and director (Germinal, Jean de Florette, Manon of the Spring).

From the Variety obit:

Known in France for his commercial instincts, Berri produced films including Roman Polanski’s “Tess” and Milos Forman’s “Valmont,” as well as films by Eric Rohmer, Jean-Jacques Annaud and Costa-Gavra.

As a director, his films included “Jean de Florette” in 1986 and “Manon des Sources” (“Manon of the Spring”), both adapted from Marcel Pagnol’s vision of the French countryside. Other directing credits include “Lucie Aubrac,” “Germinal” and “Tchao Pantin.”

A producer for more than 60 films, Berri had two major box office successes in his later years. “Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis” (Welcome to the Sticks) was 2008’s box office phenomenon in Gaul. The comedy starring Dany Boon and Kad Merad sold over 20.4 million tickets in France -- the most ever for a French film.

In a Nutshell #4

2009-01-09T11:02:00.003-05:00

All the Real Girls [2003], directed by David Gordon Green.

Sad music makes for a happy life

2009-01-09T10:26:00.004-05:00

Bruce Handy gives John Barry the Vanity Fair treatment.

A lamely titled but still interesting piece about Barry, with plenty of choice bits of gossip:

One night, as it happened—and in the retelling, at least, it seems to have happened every night—Barry was having dinner at the Pickwick Club, the fashionable Swinging London–era restaurant, when Saltzman walked in. This was not long after the Goldfinger album had gone to No. 1, and the producer stopped at Barry’s table. The composer was dining with his new best mates, Michael Caine and Terence Stamp. “Harry was being very nice to Mike because he wanted him for The Ipcress File,” Barry recalls. “And then he just looked at me like I was something the cat had dragged in and said”—Barry here imitates a grudging Saltzman, his voice low and dripping with disdain—“‘Thank you.’ That’s how he said it. And I remember Terry Stamp, he said, ‘You fucking asshole!’ And the whole club, because they were all people in the business, everyone burst out laughing. Because everybody wanted to say that to Harry Saltzman.”

I should note that in alternative tellings of this story, Stamp called Saltzman a “cunt,” but Caine well remembers the evening’s gist—and many others like it. “Oh, every night. Every night we were in the Pickwick Club,” the actor says on the phone from London. “We were in the first great disco—can’t remember the bloody name of it now. The Ad Lib! Terry and John and I would be up there the whole time. We were sort of a trio going around and doing that stuff.” Apparently, the three cut quite a swath through London—Barry, a ladies’ man, “had his share and several other people’s,” as Caine puts it—with Barry further distinguishing himself, even in that peacock time and place, as a notably stylish dresser. “He’d always wear the very latest suits,” Caine says, “but never flashy. He was always … cool, I think, is the word for John. He was always cool, always quiet, and very, very sure of himself. I mean, he didn’t need to impress anybody. If you could write like he did, you didn’t need a red suit, you know?”

What the article doesn't mention is the number of scores he had rejected in his career, particularly during in the 90s, a decade in which his style was practically anachronistic: The Prince of Tides, The Bodyguard, Year of the Comet, Goodbye Lover, The Horse Whisperer, and Playing by Heart were all Barry projects hastily rescored at the 11th hour. Handy does, however, give us an insight into why some of these might have been tossed:

(Not that he himself is always easy on his collaborators: Richard Lester, for whom he scored three films, including The Knack and Petulia, is “rather pretentious,” and Francis Coppola, for whom he scored The Cotton Club and Peggy Sue Got Married, “thought he knew more about music than he actually did. And I’m not saying that in a mean way.”)

I must confess that for me, despite being a lifelong film music enthusiast, a little bit of Barry goes a long way. He writes those very English, I'm-sad-and-standing-outside-in-a-rainstorm melodies that, while occasionally quite lovely, tend to run together in my head. I like a lot of his earlier stuff, like the first several Bond scores, Born Free, and Zulu, but somewhere in the 70s it seemed like he just started to go through the motions (Body Heat being one notable exception).

But, on the other hand, he did get to deflower Jane Birkin. Props.

The January checklist

2009-01-08T16:33:00.010-05:00

From the usual wasteland of January releases we have this sparkling specimen, featuring the typical warning signs:

- a PG-13 rating
- a spooky moppet child
- an overqualified actor collecting a paycheck
- the trailer credit "From Producer Michael Bay"

Oh, and a poster which gives you the real/only reason to ever waste 87 minutes of your life:

Insightful marketing has saved us all the time. And in 6 months we can just check out the Blu-Ray screen captures at Egotastic and never have to bother with the film itself again.

Docile moviegoing public: Stop paying money to be insulted.

Studio/corporate skeezes: If you committee-meeting a film to death, you deserve to have it stolen and made available for free on Bittorrent.

That is all.

Signal lost

2009-01-08T16:07:00.004-05:00

The digital TV switchover will likely be postponed for the 35,436,843rd time.

Can anyone explain to me why depriving Ma and Pa Kettle of their 700 Club reruns is a bad thing?

In a letter sent last night to President Bush, President-elect Barack Obama, House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the consumer advocacy group said Congress should push back the transition "until a plan is in place to minimize the number of consumers who will lose TV signals."

The request comes two days after the federal government said it has run out of money to provide coupons to help offset the cost of converter boxes. Analog television sets that rely on "rabbit ear" or rooftop antennas to receive broadcasts will need a converter box to get a picture after Feb. 17, when all full-powered television stations will stop airing analog signals and move to digital-only broadcasts.

I personally could care less, but I am a militant TV avoider, so that puts me, as always, in a small and vocal minority.

Anyway, the people who would actually miss out when the switchover happens are the same people that went up to their TVs and hit them, hoping them funny black bars on the top and bottom of the picture would disappear.

Composition 101 #3

2009-01-08T10:07:00.002-05:00

Once Upon a Time in America [1984], photographed by Tonino Delli Colli.

Another avenue closes

2009-01-07T13:43:00.002-05:00

This is not good news.

From the LA Times:

A provision of a law passed by the Legislature in 2006, which took effect Thursday, allows cable television providers the option of dropping their long-standing obligation of providing free studios, equipment and training to the public. In return, providers must pay a substantial annual fee and continue to provide a minimal number of public education and government channels.

The new law is designed to make it easier for phone companies to enter into the lucrative cable market by relieving them of certain money-draining contractual obligations.

But what does it matter when they already own the airwaves?

Still. Public access is important, albeit prehistoric and frequently unintentionally hilarious. Those unable to operate the Internet should still have an avenue available to them for making fools of themselves.

Or to start a revolution, whichever happens to come first.

The woe of development

2009-01-07T11:28:00.004-05:00

Wise words from Peter Morgan in an AP interview.

First a bit of arrogance (being the flavor of the moment never fails to get to people's heads), but then the wisdom comes in.

THAT'S AMAZING. DO YOU HAVE A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT NOW THAT WHATEVER FALLS OUT OF YOUR PEN SHOULD GET THE GREEN LIGHT?

Morgan: No, because I think it's partly earned. And I don't mean through the quality of the writing. It's earned through the decisions you make. Most of the things I write, I write on spec. And because I write them on spec, there's less interference. Because there's less interference, they tend to be better. The development process is so counterintuitive, and it so dismantles your confidence and often the confidence of other people -- everyone gets tired of the idea. There's almost no situation that is improved by having more voices.

Matte Matters #3

2008-12-30T17:03:00.002-05:00

The NeverEnding Story [1984].

Craig Barron, supervising matte photographer; Michael Pangrazio, matte painting supervisor; Caroleen Green, Jim Danforth, Christopher Evans & Frank Ordaz, matte artists; David Fincher & Deborah Morgan, matte photography assistants.

Pulling back the curtain

2008-12-30T16:58:00.002-05:00

Martin Anderson lists the top 50 special-effect shots at Den of Geek.

Not just a list of "oh, these shots are cool" clips, but with informed technical discussions of each. I'm particularly glad to see the "instant nail-color change" shot from Total Recall get a mention; it's an effect I've always admired.

This is an example of a simple effect that could probably have been achieved in the 1950s, if anyone had written a sci-fi script where a woman could change the colour of her nails with a tap on some future-gizmo. The nails are rotoscoped to provide an area for an animated colour transition to take place, and that's all there is to it. It's an elegant and not terribly expensive SFX that is 100% convincing.

That Face #4

2008-12-29T16:55:00.001-05:00

Unidentified mutant baby in Knocked Up [2007].

Holding the terrible silence at bay

2008-12-29T16:51:00.002-05:00

James Parker on the existential comedy of Jim Carrey in The Atlantic.

He might be a pain in the ass to work with, but when he's cooking, I find myself glad the camera is on him.

Carrey is the single performer at his level who seems as though he’d be as happy in a Samuel Beckett play as in a summer blockbuster. Beckett would have dug him, I think—the wintry Irishman liked his clowns, the more existential the better. Mask-faced Buster Keaton turned down the role of Lucky in a 1956 production of Waiting for Godot, but nine years later Beckett managed to corral him into an almost-silent film called Film. It’s a bleak little work, not unexpectedly—Keaton scurries rodent-like by city walls, his porkpie hat in place but his face scarved and averted, ducking from the glances of passersby and pausing only to take his own pulse. Rare is the Carrey movie that doesn’t feature some comparable scene of evasion or solitary, self-diagnosing crisis.

In a Nutshell #3

2008-12-22T23:17:00.001-05:00

A Garfield Christmas Special [1987]

That Face #3

2008-12-22T10:08:00.002-05:00

Larry Drake in Tales from the Crypt episode 1.2, "And All Through the House" [1989], directed by Robert Zemeckis.

Matte Matters #2

2008-12-19T16:31:00.005-05:00

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation [1989].

Justin Klarenbeck, David McCullough & Hoyt Yeatman, special visual effects; D, Kerry Prior, special effects artist/storyboards.

Gone, but not forgotten

2008-12-19T16:24:00.004-05:00

TCM's annual year-end obit piece, assembled with typical grace and style. Paul Benedict, Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn and Joy Page's passings were hitherto unbeknowst to me; it's nice to see Leonard Rosenman get a nod as well.

Composition 101 #2

2008-12-19T15:59:00.003-05:00

Amélie [Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain] [2001], photographed by Bruno Delbonnel.

Rule of thumb

2008-12-19T15:44:00.003-05:00

Call me cynical, which I am, but anytime USA Today does a four-star backflip for anything, I'm instantly suspicious.

When I was in 6th grade, I used to pore over the Friday Life section with about fifty times the attention I devoted to math dittos. Now I can barely get past the front page without wanting to toss it at the nearest wall.

I haven't even seen Slumdog Millionare yet but Boyle's Millions left me cold, and overall he's too in love with camera and editing gimmicks for my taste. I dug Sunshine, though, in spite of the slasher-movie 3rd-act foolishness.

In a Nutshell #2

2008-12-18T10:44:00.002-05:00

The Night of the Hunter [1955], directed by Charles Laughton.