Written by Alison Willmore, the all-seeing Indie Eye blog reads the news so you don't have to. (Well, maybe just the A & E section).
Alison Willmore
is the editor of IFC.com's film coverage and one of the site's video hosts. Follow her at twitter.com/indie_eye
Email: ifcblog (at) ifc dot com
August 2008
The week on IFC.com: In praise of b-movie leads; "Lost"'s Ken Leung.
By Alison Willmore on 08/29/2008
Filed under: The week on IFC.comA round-up of what's been happening on the rest of IFC.com: + List: If the Slipper Fits... Five Cinderella Reinventions - Matt Singer on five more unconventional takes on the Cinderella story, from Leonardo da Vinci as the fairy godmother to a cell phone filling in for a lost slipper. + Interview: Ken Leung on "Year of the Fish" - The New York actor best known for his role on "Lost" talks about superstition, his Chinatown childhood, being an Asian-American actor and his new film "Year of the Fish." + Video: Impact Film Festival at the DNC - IFC's political... MORE »
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In the works: John Lennon, the movie; "The Strangers 2: Strangerer."
By Alison Willmore on 08/29/2008
Filed under: In the worksThere've already been two recent films about his assassin, so it seems to be time to take on the considerable challenge of the man himself -- Turner Prize-nominated artist Sam Taylor-Wood will make her directorial debut with John Lennon biopic "Nowhere Boy," written by "Control" screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh and apparently focusing on his early life. Here's hoping that, like "Control," the film ends up with an unknown playing its subject. [Hollywood Reporter] Rogue Pictures is working on a sequel to "The Strangers," with Liv Tyler expected to return, and general hopes it could become a "Saw"-style horror franchise. [Variety] indieWIRE's... MORE »
Odds: "Slumdog Millionaire" finds a distributor, Todd Solondz makes a sequel.
By Alison Willmore on 08/28/2008
Filed under: OddsDanny Boyle's new film "Slumdog Millionaire," a comedy about a Mumbai orphan who gets on the Hindi version of "Who Wants to be A Millionaire?", was set to premiere at Toronto in distribution limbo after Warner Independent Pictures went away. No longer -- Fox Searchlight is partnering with Warner Bros. to give the film a theatrical release on November 28th. Meanwhile, at her blog at Variety, Anne Thompson writes that "One film that is negotiating a final distribution deal is Steven Soderbergh's four-hour-plus, two-part Che," and adds that "I'm betting that the film will wind up in the hands of... MORE »
Timing is everything.
By Alison Willmore on 08/28/2008
Filed under: VersusMike Scott at New Orleans' Times-Picayune notes the impeccable taste Lionsgate is showing in releasing "Disaster Movie" on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, August 29th: Around these Katrina-scarred parts, Aug. 29 is still -- and will be for some time -- a black-armband kind of day. For Lionsgate studios, however, Aug. 29 isn't quite as sacred. For them, the third anniversary of the day the levees were breached and New Orleans slipped under is something on the order of perfect timing: a ripped-from-the-headlines release date for the big-screen, low-concept spoof "Disaster Movie." Oops. [Hat tip to Nikki Finke] Also... MORE »
"Kurt Russell is to the right of Attila the Hun."
By Alison Willmore on 08/28/2008
Filed under: In quotesQuotes from the interview circuit: "No one seems to mention that the President of the United States in Escape from New York is British! [Laughs] We made up some story about him being the love child of Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. That didn't make it into the movie because Kurt Russell is to the right of Attila the Hun. He actually doesn't think we should have to pay for roads--unbelievable. But we're friends because we respect each other's work ethic. He's a wonderful guy; I love him." --John Carpenter on political disillusionment at Time Out New York. "You know, at... MORE »
Product placement.
By Alison Willmore on 08/28/2008
Filed under: BizThere's an interesting piece at the Guardian from David Cox, who sees end times-signs in the fact that Shane Meadows' "Somers Town" (which, I know, enough already) was paid for by Eurostar: "A fateful Rubicon has been crossed," he declares. Meadows didn't extract money from Eurostar to facilitate a project of his own. He agreed to place his skills at the service of one of theirs. Of course, plenty of directors make commercials, and there's nothing wrong with that. Advertising tries to sell us something, and it doesn't pretend otherwise. Somers Town, however, carries no warning message, like the 'Advertorial'... MORE »
Telluride's quiet year.
By Alison Willmore on 08/28/2008
Filed under: FestivalsThe unique Telluride Film Festival, which (in)famously asks that you place your trust in it, purchase your pass and book inordinately expensive lodging in its small Colorado mountain town before ever knowing what films will be there, kicks off Friday, and has just announced its line-up. Due to the writers strike, this year's festival seems to be low on major premieres -- "Juno" and "Walk the Line" are among the films to have first screened there, though this year's sneak peeks are still a secret. Paul Schrader's "Adam Resurrected," a film about a circus performer (Jeff Goldblum) forced to perform... MORE »
"Burn After Reading": The trades say yes! And no!
By Alison Willmore on 08/27/2008
Filed under: Critic wrangle, FestivalsThe early reviews of the Coens' "Burn After Reading," which opens the Venice Film Festival tonight, are out, and they're up, down and all over the place. Todd McCarthy at Variety thinks the film finds the brothers C retreating "to sophomoric snarky mode," bemoaning the fact that the "seriously talented cast has been asked to act like cartoon characters." The Coens' script, which feels immature but was evidently written around the same time as that for "No Country," is just too fundamentally silly, without the grounding of a serious substructure that would make the sudden turn to violence catch the... MORE »
In the works: Aaron Sorkin and Facebook are now friends.
By Alison Willmore on 08/27/2008
Filed under: In the worksAaron Sorkin has a Facebook page. It says that Aaron Sorkin is writing a Facebook movie: Welcome. I'm Aaron Sorkin. I understand there are a few other people using Facebook pages under my name--which I find more flattering than creepy--but this is me. I don't know how I can prove that but feel free to test me. I've just agreed to write a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about how Facebook was invented. I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I've started this page. (Actually it was started... MORE »
"I knew then that the SOB was going to be a 'star.' "
By Alison Willmore on 08/26/2008
Filed under: In quotesThe world in quotes: "I knew then that the SOB was going to be a 'star,' " --Christopher Plummer's thoughts (and judicious use of quotation marks) on having to give understudy William Shatner a chance at his role in a 1956 stage production of "Henry V," after a one-night stand dislodged a kidney stone and put him in surgery, at Page Six. "The event for London could never have the same political clout as Beijing; we should find a way to be self-advertising. Considering the British traditions of free speech and the individual, and the British suspicion of organised crowds,... MORE »
Hands on a Hard Body: "It's a contest, they say, of stamina..."
By Alison Willmore on 08/26/2008
Filed under: Watchy"Hands on a Hard Body" director S.R. Bindler has put his riveting 1997 doc about a Texas car dealership competition up in its entirety on Google Video -- you can watch it here. The film's been out of print on DVD for ages -- a narrative remake was slated to be Robert Altman's next production until his passing, a project that's likely since faded away. Bindler, incidentally, directed and co-wrote his friend Matthew McConaughey's new film "Surfer, Dude," set to open in Austin next week. While you're at it, Charles Laughton's "The Night of the Hunter" is up with the... MORE »
"Salò" returns to earth.
By Alison Willmore on 08/26/2008
The original 1998 Criterion release of "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom," Pier Paolo Pasolini's notorious, oft-banned final film (he was murdered shortly after its completion), was withdrawn because of licensing issues, making the DVDs that did make it onto the market fetishized objects unto themselves, commanding hundreds of dollars on eBay and Amazon, more if still sealed. The film became overshadowed by its own rarity. But today Criterion finally rereleases the film in a two-disc set with three accompanying docs, interviews and essays from, among others, Neil Bartlett and Catherine Breillat. So how does "Salò" hold up in... MORE »
Trailering: NYC, Chinatown, the RAF and Auschwitz.
By Alison Willmore on 08/25/2008
Filed under: TraileringHere's the teaser for "New York, I Love You," Gotham's answer to the 2006 anthology film "Paris, Je T'aime." It's still unfinished, but the trailer -- which includes both a Regina Spektor song and one from Feist, surely breaking some kind of indie waif proximity rule -- does contain an irritating abundance of characters generalizing about the city. "This is the capital of everything possible," declares one, not realizing that any true portrait of New York would involve far fewer frou-frou proclamations like that and more dollars and cents discussion of real estate. Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal, Shunji Iwai, Scarlett... MORE »
Zack and Miri go to Austin.
By Alison Willmore on 08/25/2008
Filed under: FestivalsI've never been to the Toronto Film Festival. We've traditionally left it the realm of IFC Canada -- but this year I am headed to Fantastic Fest in Austin, and couldn't be more pleased. The country's fiercest genre festival has already announced two waves of films; among the selections the U.S. premieres of "Ong Bak" director Prachya Pinkaew's "Chocolat," meta Muscles from Brussels mockumentary "JCVD" and "Deadgirl." The most recent round of news is that king fanboy Kevin Smith will be bringing "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" there as the opening night film, to be followed up by the... MORE »
The week on IFC.com: Azazel Jacobs and The Clash, Woody Allen and sex.
By Alison Willmore on 08/22/2008
Filed under: The week on IFC.comA round-up of what's been happening on the rest of IFC.com: + Feature: An Appreciation of Anna Faris - R. Emmet Sweeney wonders when the comedienne "capable of out-dumbing Judy Holliday and out-ditzing Carole Lombard" will finally get her due. + Feature: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (in Woody Allen's Movies) - Matt Singer on the 40 years Allen has spent making "movies about sex without ever actually featuring it." + Interview: Azazel Jacobs on "Momma's Man" - The director of the acclaimed Sundance feature starring his real-life parents as something like themselves would rather just talk... MORE »
Critic wrangle: "Trouble the Water."
By Alison Willmore on 08/22/2008
Filed under: Critic wrangleAnother Sundance film, this one the winner of the Grand Jury Prize, also hits theaters today -- Carl Deal and Tia Lessin's documentary about New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, "Trouble the Water," uses footage shot by Lower Ninth Ward resident Kimberly Robert to chronicle the devastation of the storm. And reviews would indicate it does so aptly: Jim Ridley, writing at the Village Voice, calls it "history captured in the visual grammar of Cloverfield," and adds that "[t]he resilience of the movie's subjects--survivors of street crime and drugs and HIV--irradiates Trouble the Water like sunshine." Manohla Dargis at... MORE »
The Roger Ebert of our age.
By Alison Willmore on 08/22/2008
Filed under: Critic watch, WatchyOr could he be more the Gene Siskel? Clearly, he's aiming for both... Ben Mankiewicz better watch his back. The new season of "At the Movies" starts September 6, for anyone playing along at home. + Video: My break out in "House Bunny" (BenLyons.com) MORE »
Critic wrangle: "Momma's Man."
By Alison Willmore on 08/22/2008
Filed under: Critic wrangleThe theaters have been so awash in stories of stunted development that it seems unfair to summarize "Momma's Man," the third feature from Azazel Jacobs, the best film I saw at Sundance and one of my favorites from the year to date. But yeah, it is about how a 30-something man-child (Matt Boren) essentially moves back in with his parents -- except, in this case, the father and mother are played by the director's real-life pop and mom, avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs and his gravely compelling wife Flo. The film's shot almost entirely in the crazily cluttered downtown loft in... MORE »
Drinking with Guy.
By Alison Willmore on 08/21/2008
Will Lawrence at the Telegraph sits down with director Guy Ritchie at The Punchbowl, the pub he and Madonna purchased earlier this year, where Ritchie tries to be optimistic in the face of the fact that his new film "RocknRolla" might not get much of a marketing push, the dismal reception his last films received and, surely, the season's rumors of marital strife and baseball-related cuckolding. On "RocknRolla," and how "Revolver" was, apparently, too smart for its own good: "This will be much more popular than Revolver. It's simpler and it's fun. After Revolver, I'm not sure that everything needs... MORE »
"It was all in the script, and that is why Joan did the movie."
By Alison Willmore on 08/21/2008
Filed under: In quotesThe world in quotes: "It was all in the script, and that is why Joan did the movie. She loved it. It's Death Race, right? And Joan Allen, three-time Oscar nominee, The Notebook, The Upside of Anger: she is always seen as the moral center of films...And I thought how interesting to take someone who is usually the moral center of movies and make her the exact opposite. But I knew that if I am going to get Joan Allen in the movie I am going to have to write a fucking good role, because she is stepping outside of... MORE »
Oh, Mr. Lee.
By Alison Willmore on 08/21/2008
When asked about the omission of a seemingly obvious interview choice for "The Black List: Volume One" by Steven Zeitchik at the Hollywood Reporter, Elvis Mitchell said "Spike Lee is kind of the go-to guy. And Spike Lee is very good at promoting Spike Lee. We wanted to show people you might not see as often." Which seems more than fair enough, particularly in light of Lee's summer newspaper spat with Clint Eastwood that so delicately illustrated the director's ability to race-bait and drum up publicity at the same time. Still, over at the Onion AV Club, Nathan Rabin turns... MORE »
Mourning Manny Farber.
By Alison Willmore on 08/20/2008
Filed under: Critic watch, MemoriamMore on the passing of critic Manny Farber: J. Hoberman at the Village Voice (alongside a reprint of his 1981 essay "Termite Makes Right"): Farber wasn't like other critics. He didn't proselytize and he didn't create systems. Rather, he articulated his idiosyncratic perception, which is to say: He had a sensibility. Farber was as punchy and hardboiled, at least in his prose, as Sam Fuller (a director he admired) and as masterful a vernacular stylist as S. J. Perelman (who, knowledgeable as he was, nodded to Farber in one of his pieces). As was said of Perelman, before they made... MORE »
In the works: "Pump your brakes kid, that man's a national treasure."
By Alison Willmore on 08/19/2008
Filed under: In the worksIn the works: Paul Hogan has a new film -- "Charlie & Boots" will follow "a father and son who travel from Victoria to Cape York to fulfill their lifelong ambition to fish off Australia's northern tip." Hogan's last, 2004's "Strange Bedfellows," found him and Michael Caton pretending to be a gay couple in order to take advantage of new tax laws -- it was the source of a minor uproar when the producers took up a failed copyright suit against the awfully similar "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry." [Variety] The Coens have found the leads of their... MORE »
"The Road" to nowhere.
By Alison Willmore on 08/19/2008
Filed under: FestivalsThe complete Toronto line-up has finally been unveiled -- Eugene Hernandez at indieWIRE has the long list of 312 films from 64 countries, 249 of those features. Among the last round of announcements is the Paris Hilton documentary no one knew they wanted, Adria Petty's "Paris, Not France," a film that's intrigued Spout's Karina Longworth into a link round-up; "The Illusionist" director Neil Burger's post-Iraq War road trip film "The Lucky Ones," with Rachel McAdams and Tim Robbins; a work-in-progress screening of "New York, I Love You," Gotham's answer to short film omnibus "Paris, je t'aime"; and the Coens' "Burn... MORE »
"Christmas on Mars" in New York.
By Alison Willmore on 08/19/2008
"Christmas on Mars" is the first feature film from the Flaming Lips, one they've been working on for seven years and one that is, in character with the band, a sci-fi flick that sounds utterly and incredibly insane, written and directed by frontman Wayne Coyne and starring, among others (including all of the band members), Adam Goldberg, Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse and SNL's Fred Armisen. The film, which premiered at the Sasquatch Music Festival in May, has been described by Coyne as being set on a crumbling Mars space station and involving a futuristic pregnancy, the death of Santa... MORE »
Termite art.
By Alison Willmore on 08/18/2008
Filed under: Critic watch, MemoriamManny Farber, critic and artist, passed away last night at the age of 91. From Glenn Kenny at Some Came Running: What I found, and find, most valuable in his criticism is his ability to apprehend the entirety of a film--he got it from every angle. He could appreciate a B war picture in the same sense that the guy on the street could, while fully comprehending its value as a work of modern/contemporary art. I'm away from my study, so I can't grab a copy of Space to quote from it willy-nilly. But I can say this: I doubt... MORE »
Touch Me I'm Going to Scream.
By Alison Willmore on 08/18/2008
Filed under: WatchyA personal note (though their last video won a prize at this year's SXSW Film Festival, so hey, total film connection) of congratulations to my friends and roommates at Mixtape Club on the premiere of their new music video for My Morning Jacket's "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Pt. 2," which debuted on MTV2 today. It's your turn to do the dishes, y'all. + My Morning Jacket » Touch Me I'm Going To Scream, Part 2 (MixtapeClub.com) MORE »
Odds: "Film is a lying media."
By Alison Willmore on 08/15/2008
Filed under: OddsWerner Herzog could have a solid side career doing Q&As -- we certainly tried our hardest to get him to sit down with Guy Maddin back in June, but their schedules couldn't quite work. At Esquire, Stephen Garrett moderates a conversation between the director and his longtime friend, the subject of "Man on Wire," tightrope artist Philippe Petit: PP: Do you remember the first films you saw? WH: Yes--both of them bad and disappointing. One was about Eskimos building an igloo, and they did a lousy job. And I could tell right away because I had grown up in the... MORE »
The week on IFC.com: Fred Durst, aspiring auteur.
By Alison Willmore on 08/15/2008
Filed under: The week on IFC.comIn what will hopefully be a regular Friday thing, I'm going to start listing the week on the site outside of this blog to catch anything that may have slipped through the cracks: + Interview: Fred Durst on "The Longshots" - Aaron Hillis talks with the Limp Bizkit frontman about how he'd like to be taken seriously as a filmmaker. + Interview: Whit Stillman on "Metropolitan" - Stephen Saito caught up with the king of the '90s comedies of mannerlessness to find out what he's been up to in the decade since "The Last Days of Disco." + List: Ten... MORE »
Critic wrangle: "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."
By Alison Willmore on 08/15/2008
Filed under: Critic wrangleAs many have pointed out, it's damning "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" with faint praise to call it Woody Allen's best film since "Match Point," a minimal achievement if ever there was one. I liked the film at Cannes, and like it even more in retrospect, where it seems a little crueler, for all that it looks like a soft-focus sex farce. Reviews are, for the most part, quite good. "[M]aybe it was the Gaudi architecture or the restorative Mediterranean breeze," muses Michael Koresky at indieWIRE, "but on a very basic level, 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' works, flowing along even and steady, and... MORE »
Critic wrangle: "A Girl Cut in Two."
By Alison Willmore on 08/15/2008
Filed under: Critic wrangleIt's the week of the twilight auteurs, with films from the 72-year-old Woody Allen, the 88-year-old Eric Rohmer and the 78-year-old and still intimidatingly prolific Claude Chabrol in theaters. "A Girl Cut in Two" is vintage Chabrol in its themes. For most critics, that seems to be just fine. J. Hoberman at the Village Voice calls the film "a spry piece of work," adding that "although directed for mordant comedy, the spectacle of a naïve, lower-middle-class woman's misadventures in a nest of wealthy vipers is initially unsettling and ultimately gut-wrenching." The New York Times' Manohla Dargis writes that the film... MORE »
Escaping the kitchen sink (with the help of some corporate sponsorship).
By Alison Willmore on 08/14/2008
In the new issue of Sight & Sound, Mark Sinker makes a nice point about Shane Meadows' "Somers Town" and his rebellion in general against working class miserablism: Kitchen Sink made speech and street into stifling prisons; for Meadows, protesting the obligatory disenchantments of a later age, they're often more like dreamscapes, to play with and against. In This Is England, the skinhead gang spent their happiest, freest day playing dress-up in cowboy hats and scuba masks, a brief carnival escape from community-imposed or subcultural tribal identity. Here Tommo, robbed and needing clothes, makes off with an old woman's laundry,... MORE »
We Todd Did.
By Alison Willmore on 08/14/2008
Filed under: VersusWhile the folks behind "Tropic Thunder" had obviously soldiered up in advance for -- and were probably counting on -- controversy surrounding Robert Downey Jr.'s (totally hilarious) turn as a method actor in surgically applied blackface, the vehement protests surrounding the film's frequent, gleeful use of the work "retarded" seem to have blindsided them. Bonnie Goldstein at Slate points to the 11-page kit released by a group that includes the American Association of People With Disabilities and the National Down Syndrome Congress, encouraging boycotting and picketing of theaters throughout this week. Timothy Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics and another... MORE »
"Playing strip poker with an exhibitionist somehow takes the challenge away."
By Alison Willmore on 08/14/2008
Filed under: WatchyHulu has Whit Stillman's still-excellent 1990 debut "Metropolitan" up in its entirety -- you can find it below or at this link. Stephen Saito interviews Stillman on the main news site: The widespread use of the Internet began to hit full stride around the time "Last Days of Disco" was released, and yet your legend has grown through sites like WhitStillman.org and the speculative nature of the Web. How do you feel about that occurring? Well, it keeps you a little alive professionally, even if you sometimes feel like you're dead, so it's nice that you have some sort of... MORE »
"Oh, my God, I'm kissing Spicoli."
By Alison Willmore on 08/13/2008
Filed under: In quotesYet again, the world in quotes: "The ï¬rst kiss of the movie was out on Haight Street, with, like, 200 people watching, outside. It was a crane shot--I'm sure in the end it will be a really cool shot, but it starts close and then it takes maybe a minute. That's a long time on film with everybody watching and, like, a fake mustache getting in your mouth. It was long enough that you couldn't help thinking, 'Oh, my God, I'm kissing Spicoli.' " --James Franco on his role in Gus Van Sant's "Milk," at GQ. "[O]n the whole, I... MORE »
In the works: Willem Dafoe does "Antichrist."
By Alison Willmore on 08/13/2008
Filed under: In the worksIn the works: "Antichrist," Lars von Trier's $11 million English-language horror flick, having gotten its funding down late last month, now has a cast -- Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg "will play a couple who retreat to an isolated cabin in the woods following the death of their child." Dafoe's actually coming back for more -- he's worked with Von Trier before, in "Manderlay." [Variety] And Isabel Coixet, whose "Elegy" topped out the indie box office this past weekend, is in talks to cast Rinko Kikuchi in "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo," "a Japanese-set dramatic thriller that centers on... MORE »
The 46th New York Film Festival lines up.
By Alison Willmore on 08/12/2008
Filed under: FestivalsAnd it's Cannes-tastic! As previously announced, Laurent Cantet's Palme d'Or-winning "The Class" is the opening night film, with Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" (a film I couldn't stand) as the starry centerpiece, and Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler," post premiere at the Venice Film Festival, closing things out. Also in there, as rumored, Steven Soderbergh's "Che," as well as Arnaud Desplechin's "A Christmas Tale," Mike Leigh's "Happy-Go-Lucky," Kelly Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy," Olivier Assayas' "Summer Hours" and Hong Sang-soo's "Day and Night." The festival kicks off September 26th, full line-up after the jump.... MORE »
Remakesploitation.
By Alison Willmore on 08/12/2008
Filed under: In the works, RumorsI'm catching up from a few days off the grid, so it's still news to me that the Telegraph reported last week that Britney Spears may or may not have been picked by Quentin Tarantino to play Varla in a remake of the Russ Meyer's 1965 "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" that may or may not be happening: A source said: "Quentin is convinced Britney will be brilliant. She's delighted. She thinks it could turn her career around. It is perfect Tarantino material. He wanted to get Britney first. She's playing the most important character." The story seems a little unlikely,... MORE »
Odds: "Porno" gets the R, ThinkFilm doesn't need your damn bills.
By Alison Willmore on 08/05/2008
Filed under: OddsKevin Smith gets "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," first rated NC-17, down to a more marketable R. As if there was ever any doubt. [Via the AP] ThinkFilm is so indie it doesn't even need to pay its bills! Bills just roll right off it! Alex Ben Block gets some fabulous quotes from company head David Bergstein at the Hollywood Reporter: "Some of what is out there is true. The vast majority is not true. And for the stuff that is true, my answer is, 'So what? So what if X, Y or Z might be owed money?' "... MORE »
Elvis Mitchell's life is more interesting than yours.
By Alison Willmore on 08/05/2008
Filed under: Critic watchFrom the Detroit Free Press: Nationally known film critic Elvis Mitchell is trying to get back nearly $12,000 he carried in a cigar box through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. Mitchell was entering Detroit in a cab from Windsor on April 26 when a luggage search turned up $11,817 in U.S. currency and 15 Cuban cigars, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency wants to keep the cash because Mitchell didn't declare it in Detroit or three days earlier when he flew to Toronto from New York. Anyone carrying more than $10,000 outside the country or into the United States must... MORE »
"I thought, eh, I'll be dead in three years."
By Alison Willmore on 08/05/2008
Filed under: In quotesThe world in quotes: "This was like three years ago. And I thought, eh, I'll be dead in three years. So I said OK. And then I didn't die." --Woody Allen on how he ended up directing an opera, at E! Online. "It's the big action ones or the ones with Will Ferrell. In those you howl for two hours and you feel like you get a six-pack [of ab muscles] from all the laughs!" --California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on his moviegoing choices, at the LA Times. "I'd love to say that I invented and meticulously crafted that. But it... MORE »
In the works: Eric Bana and Mark Ruffalo ready to direct, as is the "I'm Fucking Matt Damon" guy.
By Alison Willmore on 08/05/2008
Filed under: In the worksIn the works: Eric Bana, the Aussie comedian turned sad-eyed leading man, will make his directorial debut with "Love the Beast," in which he's also starring as... himself, as the film tracks his 25-year relationship with "The Beast," a 1974 Falcon Coupe. The quote from the Australian distributor: "In an unexpectedly emotional journey, Eric explores the importance of friends, hobbies, and what it means to live life to the fullest. Along the way Eric seeks counsel and guidance from household names such as (US talk show host) Dr Phil and (Top Gear host) Jeremy Clarkson." [The Daily Telegraph] Also stepping... MORE »
Madonna on festivals, Bordwell on cinephile signaling.
By Alison Willmore on 08/04/2008
Filed under: FestivalsOver the weekend, Madonna brought her documentary on Malawian orphans, "I Am Because We Are," to Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival. While there, the pop icon offered her unique take on the film festival circuit. From the AP: " 'It's great bringing my movie to a place that I feel familiar,' Madonna told the audience. 'Not like the Cannes Film Festival, where nobody's speaking English, or the Tribeca Film Festival, where no one sits down.' " I've been a sometimes reluctant attendant of Tribeca for a few years now, and never noticed anything along the lines of that enigmatic... MORE »
Critic wrangle: "In Search of a Midnight Kiss."
By Alison Willmore on 08/01/2008
Filed under: Critic wrangleIt's been over a year since Alex Holdridge's "In Search of a Midnight Kiss" premiered at Tribeca 2007, in which time his "misanthrope seeks misanthrope" blind date romance has rounded the film festival bases from Edinburgh to Sarajevo to Mill Valley to Austin to Thessaloniki. Now in theaters, it's attracting some interestingly considered, if mixed, reviews (and is the lone focus of the New Yorker's film column this week), with many calling out its portrayal of Los Angeles. Take Scott Foundas at the Village Voice, who leads with "Did Los Angeles sign with a new agent?" He finds that "Holdridge's... MORE »
Critic wrangle: "Frozen River."
By Alison Willmore on 08/01/2008
Filed under: Critic wrangleI really didn't care for Courtney Hunt's feature debut "Frozen River" when I caught it at Sundance, but others did, to the point where it won the Grand Jury Prize, was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, opened New Directors/New Films and now, in theatrical release, is receiving mostly praise, while star Melissa Leo's name is being idly tossed around by the early Oscar-watching crowd. Her nervy, ego-free performance is without a doubt the main reason to watch the film. Amongst the praise: Owen Gleiberman at Entertainment Weekly observes that "as written and directed by Courtney Hunt, the movie is... MORE »
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- Celeste Li on NYFF: "Three Times." - 10/04/2005
- “thanks مركز تحميل”
- مركز تحميل on Gloden Golbes noms. - 12/11/2008
- “could you please explain why, for devil's rejects, the credits were rejected in favor of an ad? or w...”
- clarence williams on David Lynch presents Jess. - 06/01/2009
- “Just wanted to voice my support for this film. I just sent an email to a friend, a Serbian who now l...”
- Randy L. Fox on This Blog Is Not Yet Rated. - 01/21/2006
