Odds: Thursday - Verhoeven and von Trier.

By Alison Willmore on 09/21/2006

Another quiet day.

Via Gregg Goldstein at the Hollywood Reporter, Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the North American rights to Paul Verhoeven's World War II drama "Black Book (Zwartboek)":

The film was roundly ridiculed among distributors at the Toronto International Film Festival as "'Schindler's List' meets 'Showgirls'" (the latter film, another type of camp drama, was notoriously directed by Verhoeven). Scenes often cited include the Jewish female lead character graphically dyeing her pubic hair blonde to infiltrate the Nazi party as a member of the resistance, captors dumping a vat of dung on her and several ribald sexual encounters. The bad word-of-mouth was turned around a bit by some positive reviews and the Netherlands selection of the film as its official foreign language entry for this year's Academy Awards.

Actually, most of the reviews we saw were good, including those in the trades. S'truth, we'd much rather see "Schindler's List" meets "Showgirls."

Via AFP, Lars von Trier's latest film "The Boss of it All" will have its world premiere at the Copenhagen international film festival. It is a Dogme film (how late 90s!).

Via Borys Kit at the Hollywood Reporter, Jesse Bradford will play the male lead in Yann Samuell's "My Sassy Girl" remake — Elisha Cuthbert has already been cast as the female lead.

Via the Guardian, Lee Jun-Ik's "The King and the Clown" will be the South Korean submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar:

The Korean Film Council said it picked Lee's film over Time by Kim Ki-duk because it believed that the comedy would have a better chance of winning an Oscar nomination than Kim's drama about a woman who resorts to plastic surgery to keep her relationship going.

Hee.

For reasons unclear (but somehow charitable) Leonardo DiCaprio shares his list of "The ten best movies" in the Independent. Surprisingly stodgy, though nothing embarrassing except how clearly they broadcast the fact that he didn't write the rest of the copy himself.

David M. Halbfinger at the New York Times puts the gold lipstick on and plants a big Oscary kiss on Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers":

A big, booming spectacle that sprawls across oceans and generations, “Flags of Our Fathers,” which opens on Oct. 20, was anything but a simple undertaking. With much of film following the surviving flag raisers as they crisscross the country in the spring and summer of 1945 pitching war bonds for a government in desperate financial straits, it is neither a pure war movie nor, given its sweeping and harrowing combat sequences, merely a wartime drama. It examines the power of a single image to affect not only public opinion but also the outcome of a war, — whether in 1945, in Vietnam or more recently.

Neala Johnson interviews Cillian Murphy about "The Wind That Shakes The Barley" and his one-time career as a rhythm guitarist in the Herald Sun.

The New York Press' Eric Kohn gets the cover story on Michel Gondry:

“I basically grew up worshiping surrealism,” he says, citing the capricious style of directors Luis Buñuel and Jean Vigo as central aesthetic influences. He technically contributed to Vigo’s infectious 1934 romance L’Atalante, Gondry’s favorite film. The DVD features a colorful, simplistic, chalky sketch of the title cruise ship and the story’s fictional couple that Gondry drew for a freelance gig in 1991 (without a byline). “I was not working at the time,” Gondry says. “I’m not so proud of it, but it was a privilege.”

And, before we run off to see "Volver," a moment for James Christopher's zero-out-of-five star review of "Dirty Sanchez," the film spin-off of a series that seems to have aspirations towards being a more sadistic "Jackass," just because no one can do disgust quite like the British:

Dirty Sanchez: The Movie is the most tasteless, bankrupt, execrable and pointless piece of cinema yet made. Lord knows why Pathé is distributing this monstrous rubbish, in cahoots with MTV Europe and Vertigo.

It’s debatable whether it’s actually a film at all. Four male delinquents, most of whom hail from South Wales, perform a series of puerile sado-masochistic stunts which only a zombie would find hilarious. They stick fish-hooks through their penises, shoot pellets at each other at point-blank range, spit in each other’s mouths, eat frozen faeces, drink vomit, superglue their nostrils, and staple their tongues to restaurant tables. What larks.

We hear Sony Pictures Classics is dabbling with the edgy — this could be a prime acquisition.

+ SPC books rights to Verhoeven's WWII drama 'Black' (Hollywood Reporter)
+ World premiere for Lars von Trier's new film in Copenhagen (AFP)
+ Bradford has eyes for "Sassy" remake (Reuters)
+ South Korea rests Oscar hope on gay-themed film (Guardian)
+ Leonardo DiCaprio: The ten best movies (Independent)
+ The Power of an Image Drives Film by Eastwood (NY Times)
+ Wind talker (Herald Sun)
+ DREAMING AWAKE (NY Press)
+ Dirty Sanchez: The Movie (London Times)