Features
When Mixed Martial Arts Meet the Movies
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 | 10:25 PM
Mixed martial arts (MMA) have come a bloody long way since John McCain legendarily dubbed the sport "human cockfighting" in 1996. Its flagship organization, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), aired eight of the top 15 pay-per-view programs in 2007 (boxing had four), while two smaller outfits (Strikeforce and EliteXC) have recently inked deals to air events on NBC and CBS. With major media outlets slowly offering more coverage and the sport's popularity continuing to crest, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood got its opportunistic hands on those tantalizing cauliflower ears... right?
Uncharacteristic of the movie business, producers are showing restraint in capitalizing on the fad, perhaps still haunted by McCain's "cock" slam. David Mamet encountered fierce resistance to his new MMA influenced film, "Redbelt," as he tells Sam Alipour of ESPN.com: "Everybody in Hollywood passed on it. One of the things I talked about (in the pitch) was the demographics of UFC. Look at who goes to these fights. Look at how many follow on TV. It's huge among young males, exactly the demographic studios are trying to reach. You're wondering how you can get these people to see a film? Well, this is your answer. The reaction was baffling."
Tribeca Tale of the Tape: Mariah Carey vs. Dave Matthews
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 | 1:43 PM
[For complete coverage of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, check out IFC's Tribeca page.]
In a festival that's boasted such fine music docs as "Lou Reed's Berlin" and "Playing for Change: Peace Through Music," along with an appearance from Madonna to promote the non-musical Malawi doc "I Am Because We Are," Tribeca has also turned out to be a place where musicians put down their instruments and pick up scripts. Though acting is nothing particularly new for either Mariah Carey or Dave Matthews, the two have taken on supporting roles in the low-budget films "Tennessee" and "Lake City," respectively, both in this year's line-up. Here's a look at how they measured up.
Mariah Carey, "Tennessee"
Albums sold: Over 160 million worldwide.
Previous acting experience: "Glitter," the straight-to-DVD "WiseGirls"
Role believability: We're inclined to believe that Carey's early moments in the film, as a forlorn waitress longing for a better life, might've been inspired by the fact that shooting in New Mexico was probably not that exciting to Mimi. And once we see her sitting by the side of the road in front of the Route 66 Restaurant where she works with a notebook, humming, we know "Tennessee" isn't going to be a real stretch for Carey as an actress. The same can't be said for her character's plunging neckline.
Still Rolling: 40 Years of the Rolling Stones on Film - "Cocksucker Blues" and "Shine a Light"
Friday, April 11, 2008 | 11:10 AM
By Matt Singer
In honor of their 40 years on movie screens, starting with 1968's "Sympathy for the Devil," and continuing on with "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" and 1970's "Gimme Shelter," we're taking a look at The Rolling Stones' filmography, featuring enough collaborations with great directors to make any actor jealous and enough abandoned or aborted projects to give any movie investor heartburn. In our final tour date, we offer the rarely screened "Cocksucker Blues" and an encore featuring the Stones' most recent cinematic return to the stage, "Shine a Light."
Cocksucker Blues (1972)
Directed by Robert Frank
The Film: Returning to the United States for their first American tour since 1969 (covered in all its glory and tragedy in "Gimme Shelter"), the Stones hired filmmaker Robert Frank to document the trip. Frank gave cameras to all the members of the band to record their own experiences, and then edited their footage together on his own. Though the '72 tour is widely considered one of the Stones' best, "Cocksucker Blues" is less a chronicle of the band's rock and roll triumph than of their druggy attempts to stave off boredom in between performances. Those indiscretions includes on-camera masturbation by Mick Jagger, trashed hotel rooms, ruminations on the impossibility of cocaine addiction ("It's just too expensive to develop a habit!" remarks one incredibly high moron) and an inflight group orgy on the Stones' private jet. According to Rolling Stone, when Jagger saw the result for the first time, he remarked, "It's a beautiful film, Robert, but if it ever shows in America, we'll never be allowed there again." Frank battled the Stones for control of the film, but the best he ever got was the right to screen it once a year as long as he was in attendance.
The Demon Dog Eat Dog Film Career of James Ellroy
Friday, April 11, 2008 | 10:50 AM
Hollywood has never known what to do with James Ellroy. Then again, the man who calls himself "the Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction" has never had much use for it. As he told the Toronto Star's Peter Howell in 2004, "Books are much more profound than movies. Books are not way stations on the way to motion pictures."
That may be true, but that hasn't stopped Ellroy from optioning all of his novels to be made into films. Although there's no such thing as a quick incubation period on adapting one of his dense noirs for the big screen, the author has established quite a filmography, including this week's release of "Street Kings." While Ellroy has appeared in front of the camera for documentaries on himself (and at one time, was set to be played by David Duchovny in an adaptation of his memoir, "My Dark Places"), here's a look at the behind the scenes history of Ellroy's film career that's nearly as tangled and tortured as one of his novels.
Still Rolling: 40 Years of the Rolling Stones on Film - "Gimme Shelter"
Thursday, April 10, 2008 | 11:20 AM
By Matt Singer
In honor of their 40 years on movie screens, from 1968's "Sympathy for the Devil" to last week's release of "Shine a Light," we're taking a look at The Rolling Stones' filmography, featuring enough collaborations with great directors to make any actor jealous and enough abandoned or aborted projects to give any movie investor heartburn.
Gimme Shelter (1970)
Directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin
The Film: The Rolling Stones watch the events of their recent American tour as they play out before them on a flatbed editing machine. Though their return to the States was filled with plenty of highlights, including a triumphant series of concerts at Madison Square Garden and a successful recording session at Muscle Shoals Studios, all that really seems to matter is the disastrous result of their free concert held outside of San Francisco at the Altamont Speedway. Intended as a companion event to the recent Woodstock Festival, the day was regularly interrupted by outbursts of bad vibes and outright violence, culminating in the death of Meredith Hunter, an African-American teenager in front of the stage during the Stones' set, forever marking the show as one of the unofficial signposts on the road to the end of the 1960s.
Still Rolling: 40 Years of The Rolling Stones on Film - "Sympathy for the Devil"
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | 10:15 AM
By Matt Singer
In honor of their 40 years on movie screens, from 1968's "Sympathy for the Devil" to last week's release of "Shine a Light," we're taking a look at The Rolling Stones' filmography, featuring enough collaborations with great directors to make any actor jealous and enough abandoned or aborted projects to give any movie investor heartburn.
Sympathy for the Devil (1968)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
The Film: Godard captures the Stones during the recording sessions for "Beggars Banquet" in the summer of 1968 and charts the evolution of the song "Sympathy for the Devil" through a series of uninterrupted long takes. The Stones' progress is intercut with a series of vignettes about, amongst other things, black revolutionaries, an interview with a woman named "Eve Democracy," graffiti artists defacing public property with sarcastic slogans like "Cinemarxism" and "Freudemocracy," and a bookstore where people pay for their purchases of pornography and comic books by giving the shopkeeper a Nazi salute. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 1960s.
When Major Leaguers Play Themselves: "Safe at Home!" and "Seinfeld" - The Boyfriend
Friday, April 4, 2008 | 10:30 AM
By Matt Singer
In honor of the start of the 2008 baseball season, IFC.com has been paying tribute to the national pastime's long relationship with the movies every day this week by giving you everything you'd ever want to know about the odd little quasi-autobiographical ditties in which baseball players have played themselves. Peanuts and crackerjacks not included.
"Safe at Home!" (1962)
Directed by Walter Doniger
As Themselves: Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle
Game Story: A young baseball fan living in Florida named Hutch (Bryan Russell) boasts to his Little League team that his inattentive father is, in fact, best friends with Yankee greats Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. When his teammates call his bluff, Hutch hitches his way to Fort Lauderdale and sneaks into the Yanks' spring training complex, where he's befriended by — who else? — Maris and Mantle, over the objections of coach Bill Turner ("I Love Lucy"'s William Frawley). Though the Bronx Bombers admire Hutch's determination, they refuse to return home with him in order to teach him a lesson about the dangers of lying, shortly before they throw all that out the window by inviting Hutch's Little League team to train with the Yankees back in Fort Lauderdale. And thus did a generation of young baseball fans learn that it's okay to run away from home, break into private property and harass baseball players.
When Major Leaguers Play Themselves: "The Jackie Robinson Story"
Thursday, April 3, 2008 | 10:53 AM
By Matt Singer
In honor of the start of the 2008 baseball season, IFC.com will be paying tribute to the national pastime's long relationship with the movies every day this week by giving you everything you'd ever want to know about the odd little quasi-autobiographical ditties in which baseball players have played themselves. Peanuts and crackerjacks not included.
"The Jackie Robinson Story" (1950)
Directed by Alfred E. Green
As Himself: Jackie Robinson
Game Story: "This is the story of a boy and his dream, but more than that, it is the story of an American boy and a dream that is truly American," an off-screen narrator says as we watch a young African-American boy walk down a suburban street. The boy grows up to be Jackie Robinson and the film shares his struggle to reach — and later be accepted as an equal by — Major League Baseball. That opening narration, as well as many of the conversations between Robinson and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey (Minor Watson) couch Robinson's efforts in patriotic terms. "We're dealing with rights here," Rickey tells one of his advisors. "The right of any American to play baseball, the American game."
When Major Leaguers Play Themselves: "Rawhide"
Wednesday, April 2, 2008 | 12:12 PM
By Matt Singer
In honor of the start of the 2008 baseball season, IFC.com will be paying tribute to the national pastime's long relationship with the movies every day this week by giving you everything you'd ever want to know about the odd little quasi-autobiographical ditties in which baseball players have played themselves. Peanuts and crackerjacks not included.
Rawhide (1938)
Directed by Ray Taylor
As Himself: Lou Gehrig
Game Story: Celebrated ballplayer Lou Gehrig announces he's through with the game and is moving out west to live on his sister's farm and become a cowboy. "I'm gonna wallow in peace and quiet for the rest of my life!" Gehrig vows to the incredulous reporters who come to Grand Central Station to see him off. But when he arrives at the family homestead, he discovers some hoodlums have turned the local ranchers' association into a protection racket. Gehrig teams with a local singing lawyer/cowboy/pugilist (Smith Ballew) to clean up the town. Yes, that's right — the Lou Gehrig Western is a musical, too.
When Major Leaguers Play Themselves: "Manhattan Merry-Go-Round"
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 | 1:40 PM
By Matt Singer
In honor of the start of the 2008 baseball season, IFC.com will be paying tribute to the national pastime's long relationship with the movies every day this week by giving you everything you'd ever want to know about the odd little quasi-autobiographical ditties in which baseball players have played themselves. Peanuts and crackerjacks not included.
"Manhattan Merry-Go-Round" (1937)
Directed by Charles Reisner
As Himself: Joe DiMaggio
Game Summary: This mostly tepid musical revolves around a bunch of mobsters who take over a record company and then use their muscle to convince a bunch of popular acts to play for them, which precipitates musical performances in the film from Gene Autry, Cab Calloway and Louis Prima, who actually performs on a working merry-go-round planted on the middle of a nightclub dance floor. DiMaggio's in the wrong place at the wrong time; he shows up late to a radio show and is mistaken for his own replacement (cue the clown hooter). Unable to explain the mix-up to the Italian stereotype who runs the radio show's orchestra, he reluctantly croons a few lines of "Have You Ever Been In Heaven?" before the mistake is clarified, a few shots of the 1936 World Series flash and DiMaggio makes an early trip to the showers.
Revenge of the Nerd: The Rise of Simon Pegg
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 | 11:50 AM
By Neil Pedley
Last week finally saw the U.S release of the long-delayed directorial debut of David Schwimmer, "Run, Fat Boy, Run," a comedy about a directionless loser running a marathon to win back the woman he jilted at the altar. While not dreadful, the film hews terribly close to the standard rom-com formula, with each crippling setback and pivotal redemption of its archetypal players arriving exactly as it has in a hundred films before. "Run, Fat Boy, Run," does have one inimitable thing going for it that singlehandedly carries it to someplace approaching enjoyable. That thing is its star, Simon Pegg, for whom "Run, Fat Boy, Run" is but a blip on his upward trajectory from obscure cult television in Britain into one of most sought-after comedic actors in the business.
Pegg's hardly the first to attempt the transition from Britain's small screen and the global market, but he's one of the few to have succeeded in establishing himself as something beyond a passing curiosity. It's partially timing — Pegg's become one of the representative faces of the geek-as-the-new-cool. He began his career as a stand-up comic in London, and was quickly drafted by Channel Four to help develop a series of new comedy shows, most notably the anarchic '60s satire "Hippies" and the darkly sardonic sketch comedy show "Big Train." Through these series, Pegg met much of the ensemble that would feature so prominently in his later film work, along with his long-standing writing partner and director Edgar Wright. Pegg and Wright, along with Jessica Stevenson, went on to create "Spaced," the series that confirmed Pegg as one of the singular comedic voices of his generation.
When Major Leaguers Play Themselves: "Headin' Home"
Monday, March 31, 2008 | 10:47 AM
By Matt Singer
Baseball players and movie stars aren't all that different, really. They both entertain people for a living. They both make obscene amounts of money. Fans want autographs from both. And certainly, many movie stars have wanted to be baseball players — just last month, Billy Crystal risked potential humiliation by playing in a spring training game for his beloved New York Yankees.
In his one at bat, Crystal struck out, which is kind of fitting considering that in the few times that big-time major leaguers have ventured onto the silver screen, the results have generally been equally unsuccessful — despite the fact that these men have often played themselves, roles they really should have had more than a passing familiarity with. Then again, Hollywood has so often mangled the truths of these guys' stories, who's to blame them for looking so lost in their own lives?
In honor of the start of the 2008 baseball season, IFC News will be paying tribute to the national pastime's long relationship with the movies every day this week by giving you everything you'd ever want to know about these odd little quasi-autobiographical ditties. Peanuts and crackerjacks not included.
Asia Argento: A Life in Film
Thursday, March 20, 2008 | 11:40 AM
By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore
If last year's Cannes Film Festival had designated a queen in addition to the usual prizes, the crown would without a doubt have gone to Asia Argento, who made one hell of an impression with unforgettable roles in three films. The daughter of influential Italian horror movie filmmaker Dario Argento, Asia has appeared in several of her father's movies, but has carved out a career and a persona all her own. Standing at the intersection between B-movies and the arthouse, Asia — slightly slurry, famously tattooed, somewhat goth and often unclothed — is a fearsome and fearless actress, not to mention a published novelist and the director of two features. Not one to underplay a part, she's made a career out of her willingness to go to sometimes off-putting and strange extremes and her ability to remain hypnotically watchable, if not so safe for work, in the most unusual of roles. One thing's for sure — she's no simpering ingenue. Here's a look at some of our favorite moments from a few of her films so far (along with a few spoilers, so watch your step).
Those Damn Dirty Apes: Our Guide to 40 Years of "Planet of the Apes," Part 3
Tuesday, February 26, 2008 | 6:00 AM
By Matt Singer
[Check out Part 1 and Part 2.]
After four movies in five years, the "Planet of the Apes" series was on its last legs. But it hung around for one more unwelcome entry (kind of like this column), and then returned not-so-triumphantly (kind of like this column) for one of the most widely disliked remakes of all time. It is this dark territory that I venture into this week. If I don't return in a thousand years, send James Franciscus in after me.
Please note: Most "Planet of the Apes" films have a "shocking" twist that everyone at this point already knows. However, if you have somehow extricated yourself from forty years of pop culture references, by all means be wary of SPOILERS ahead.
"Battle for the Planet of the Apes" (1973)
Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Synopsis: In an indeterminate time after the events of 1972's "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" and the ensuing nuclear war (possibly 12 or 27 years, depending on which character's talking), the remnants of ape and human societies maintain an uneasy peace. In the wake of the last film's primate revolution, the slave/master roles have been reversed: The apes, led by Caesar (Roddy McDowell, returning to his second "Apes" role for a second time) are in charge, and men are their servants. After a human named MacDonald (Austin Stoker) tells Caesar of recordings of his parents buried somewhere in the ruins of the Forbidden Zone, they travel there, only to discover the first wisps of the mutated, bomb-worshiping cult that figured prominently in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes." Their incursion into the mutants' territory sparks another battle between the armies of man and beast that threatens to end 12 (or maybe 27) years of interspecies peace.
Those Damn Dirty Apes: Our Guide to 40 Years of "Planet of the Apes," Part 2
Thursday, February 21, 2008 | 1:51 PM
By Matt Singer
[Check out Part 1.]
When we last left our intrepid heroes, they were dead. Along with the entire planet Earth. The end!
But not so fast -- Fox wanted more sequels. With no way to pull a mulligan on the whole "You maniacs! You blew it up!" thing, screenwriter Paul Dehn came up with a clever way to have his Armageddon and avert it too.
Please note: Most "Planet of the Apes" films have a "shocking" twist that everyone at this point already knows. However, if you have somehow extricated yourself from forty years of pop culture references, by all means be wary of SPOILERS ahead.
"Escape from the Planet of the Apes" (1971)
Directed by Don Taylor
Synopsis: The spaceship formerly piloted by Taylor crash lands on the Pacific coast in the United States circa 1973 (the near future, as far as the film is concerned). Its three passengers are Cornelius (Roddy McDowall, back after a one film break) and Zira (Kim Hunter, in her last "Apes" movie) from the first two "Apes" along with a new character, Dr. Milo (Sal Mineo, of all people, for a paltry 10 minutes before his character is offed by an ornery gorilla). They've bounced back through time by the shockwave left after the earth's destruction in the previous film. Once the apes let it slip that they can speak, they become media darlings; once they let it slip that they're from a future where apes subjugate humans, they become pariahs, particularly after Zira divulges the fact that she's also pregnant. Dr. Otto Hasslein (Eric Braeden) targets the apes for death, tracks them across Southern California, and eventually kills them and their baby in cold blood on an abandoned oil tanker, eliminating the threat they pose to humanity...
Fake Names, Real Oscars: Five Nominees Who Didn't Really Exist
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 | 10:49 AM
For all the talk of triviality that annually accompanies Oscar season, sometimes there really is much ado about nothing... or rather, no one. With this year's nomination of Roderick Jaynes for best editing of the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men," the Academy added to an exclusive but enduring club of nominees who exist only on the celluloid on which their names. Here's a brief history of the nominees least likely to ever attend the Oscar ceremony (well, besides Marlon Brando):
Robert Rich (Dalton Trumbo)
"The Brave One"
Dalton Trumbo had been nominated for an Oscar in 1941 for his script for "Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman." It'd be the only time Trumbo would be recognized by the Academy under his real name until shortly before his death in 1976. Thanks to the blacklist, Trumbo would win two Oscars by proxy -- the first in 1953, when screenwriter Ian McLellan Hunter, who did rewrites only, was the lone recipient of the trophy for "Roman Holiday." In 1957, when Trumbo wrote "The Brave One," the story of a boy and his bull, the King brothers, who produced the film, paid Trumbo a measly $1,500 (out of a promised $10,000) and gave the screenwriting credit to their nephew. However, when the Academy bestowed the best screenplay Oscar to Rich, Writers Guild member Jesse Lasky, Jr. picked up the award and claimed Rich was at the hospital where his wife was giving birth. As for the King brothers, they got their due for taking advantage of Trumbo's blacklisted status -- five people claimed that Robert Rich had plagiarized their story idea for "The Brave One" and sued. With no real Rich to testify, the first suit alone cost the Kings $750,000 two weeks after the Oscars. Meanwhile, Trumbo emerged from the blacklist in 1960 to earn a credit for "Spartacus."
Those Damn Dirty Apes: Our Guide to 40 Years of "Planet of the Apes," Part 1
Monday, February 11, 2008 | 12:00 AM
By Matt Singer
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of one of the most well-remembered, metaphorically rich, penny-pinching, bare-chested, temporally impossible movie series of all time, IFC News looks back at "Planet of the Apes" and all its ape brethren. Stay tuned for installments two and three in the upcoming weeks.
Please note: Most "Planet of the Apes" films have a "shocking" twist that everyone at this point already knows. However, if you have somehow extricated yourself from forty years of pop culture references, by all means be wary of SPOILERS ahead.
Disappearing Acts: 15 Big Screen Characters Who Didn't Make Final Cut
Monday, January 7, 2008 | 12:00 AM
By Stephen Saito
After beating out throngs of big name actors for the part and filming for four months in Queensland, Australia with 6am call times every day, Adrien Brody thought he was sitting pretty when he attended a press screening for Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" in 1998. But 170 minutes later, Brody felt more like a soldier than ever as he saw his performance as Corporal Fife winnowed down to a supporting and largely silent role. As he recalled to The New York Press' Matt Zoller Seitz, "You spend all this time in an unfamiliar place, you experience incredible things, and then you come home, you're wounded psychologically, and you have nothing to show for it."
At least Brody made the cut. Here are a few from recent years who weren't as lucky:
The 50 Greatest Sex Scenes in Cinema
Wednesday, July 25, 2007 | 8:40 PM
There's a reason that any talk of sex in film comes back around to certain titles again and again. Getting two (or more) attractive actors to mash their faces together and huff and puff for the camera is relatively easy. Shooting a memorable sex scene is hard.
We here at IFC News and Nerve.com sat through a lot of movie sex to make this list — oh, we suffered through it somehow. But even after all that ranking, weighing and debating, we'd be hard pressed to define exactly what it is that makes a sex scene great — in true Justice Potter Stewart fashion, we just know it when we see it, whether it shocks us, titillates us, turns us on, breaks our hearts or confounds our expectations.
The oldest film on this list is from 1896; the newest is from last year. You'll notice we decided to leave certain standards in the field off. And as always, these lists are a launching point for you to tell us what you think. Are we wrong? Are we right? Did we neglect the sexiest sex scene ever? Weigh in in the comments below.
Zombie Metaphors: An Incomplete History
Monday, June 11, 2007 | 12:00 AM
By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore
Vampires have become sexy, mummies CG, monsters sympathetic, but no horror baddie remains as au courant as the lowly, lurching zombie. The reanimated undead continue to be the indie subject of choice for highbrow horror and lowbrow schlock, in part because they're the cheapest to whip up — slather some grayish make-up and fake blood on a few extras, and voilà! — but also because they're the most mutable stand-in for the less tangible things that plague us. It's this symbolic potential that seems to be behind the recent zombie film resurgence: beside this week's '50s conformity spoof "Fido," there's festival mockumentary "American Zombie," which purports to investigate L.A.'s "non-living community"; the brutal and epic sequel "28 Weeks Later"; Glasgow Phillips' zombie western "Undead or Alive" and others. Below, we take a wander through some of milestones of zombie symbolism.
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)
Directed by Edward D. Wood Jr.
Widely ridiculed for decades as one of the worst movies ever made (and not entirely without justification, either), Edward D. Wood Jr.'s "Plan 9 From Outer Space," made nearly a decade before Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," hides a poignant allegorical critique beneath its pie tin flying saucers and bad Bela Lugosi stand-ins. Wood's zombies are brought back to life by well-meaning (but also kinda dickish) aliens, who come to Earth with a warning: our constant desire to create bigger and more powerful weapons will eventually result in weapons so dangerous they will threaten the safety of the entire universe. Why the aliens thought that bringing a Swedish professional wrestler back to life in a small Southern California community would somehow alter the course of the military-industrial complex is largely left to the imagination, but that doesn't change the fact that Wood's zombies, like so many later ones, come to serve as a symbol of mankind's self-destructive nature.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Directed by George A. Romero
The seminal zombie movie from the genre's undisputed master isn't as explicit in its messages as some its sequels, but its openness makes it even more interesting. In the forty years since its release, George Romero's no-budget landmark has been discussed as everything from a critique of the Vietnam War to a reaction to the civil rights movement (its hero, an African-American, survives the zombie onslaught only to be murdered by the redneck-ridden cavalry). The text is so rich the interpretations are endless: the last time I saw it, "Night" struck me as an indictment of human indecisiveness — while Rome (or, in this case, rural Pennsylvania) burns, the survivors can't decide whether to flee or to hide, whether to stay in the living room, or hunker down in the basement. Meanwhile, scientists bicker over whether some space probe from Venus is causing the dead's reanimation. Like it matters! As that great Serlingian ending proves, we're all screwed either way.
Dead of Night (1974)
Directed by Bob Clark
Almost a decade before Clark made a mainstream name for himself with "Porky's" and "A Christmas Story," he turned out this rough but wickedly effective indie horror film equating zombism with Vietnam vet trauma. The Brooks family hasn't heard from soldier son Andy for long enough that his father and sister suspect the worst; it's only his devoted mother who keeps the faith with a fervor that borders on madness. Her conviction that her son is alive seems to actually pull him from the grave — he arrives in the dead of night, having hitchhiked to the house, and, given that we witnessed Andy's death in the jungle before the opening credits, it's clear nothing good is in store. Andy's changed — he's monotone, unresponsive and spends most of his time staring at nothing from a rocking chair on the porch. Oh, and he's picked up an addiction — he needs injections of fresh blood to keep himself from rotting. Dread builds over the course of the film, but so does a sense of tragedy; everyone is unable to understand that Andy has been (literally, in his case) to hell, and can only respond with frustration that he's not the same.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Directed by George A. Romero
Ten years and three movies after the success of "Night of the Living Dead," George Romero refined and expanded his vision of an undead apocalypse. Working with five times his original budget (a still shockingly paltry $500,000), Romero managed to top himself and make one of the best sequels of all time. This "Dead" installment critiques American consumer culture: four refugees from the zombie onslaught stumble on an abandoned shopping mall and lock themselves inside to ride out the storm. At first, the mood is euphoric, as they live out all their wildest shopping spree fantasies. But the fun doesn't last. Even before their muzak-tinged utopia gets overrun by unruly bikers and hordes of flesh-eaters, they're as depressed as a lottery winner who realizes his money can't buy him happiness. There's no defeating the darkness, but Romero's uncharacteristically upbeat ending suggests you can escape it, especially if you leave the mall and vow never to return.
[Photos: "28 Weeks Later," Fox Atomic, 2007; "Plan 9 From Outer Space," DCA, 1959; "Night of the Living Dead," Continental Motion Pictures Corporation, 1968; "Dead of Night," Entertainment International Pictures, 1974; "Dawn of the Dead," United Film Distribution Company, 1978]
Cannes Dispatch 2: Olivier Assayas' Hong Kong and Hou Hsiao-hsien's Paris
Monday, May 21, 2007 | 12:00 AM
By Dennis Lim
Continuing the festival's directors-abroad trendlet: Olivier Assayas' Hong Kong and Hou Hsiao-hsien's Paris are, without question, more credible, lived-in locales than, say, Wong Kar-wai's Memphis. (We'll get to Michael Moore's Canada, Britain and France later.)
These relocating directors seem to be operating on a broadly similar midcareer impulse, a desire to snap out of old habits, or wed them to new perspectives. Assayas' lurid, invigorating thriller "Boarding Gate" is less a transition than a stopgap, an attempt (after "Springtime Past," a project about provincial life in France, was put on hold) to take his place in what he terms "the new order of film finance." Accordingly, it's a scaled-back, quick-and-dirty production — the opposite of "Clean" (in several ways), a B-movie mutation of "demonlover" and "Irma Vep" with a few unavoidable nods to "Scarlet Diva," the globe-trotting, ass-kicking calling card of its inimitable star Asia Argento.
Fight to the Death!
Monday, April 30, 2007 | 12:00 AM
By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore
Pro wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's first turn as a leading man, "The Condemned," sank like a stone at the box office this past weekend, netting out a paltry $1,732 per theater. Could it be that, so soon after the terrible events at Virginia Tech, audiences weren't ready for a film whose unfortunate tagline of choice is "10 people will fight. 9 people will die. You get to watch"? Or maybe people were just hip to the fact that "The Condemned"'s premise of people fighting to the death for entertainment purposes (that of the audiences both within and watching the film) is hardly new. Movies have used the contrivance of the death-tournament as a vehicle for commentary on our violence- and voyeurism-obsessed culture, as its own excuse for copious violence and voyeurism, or, sometimes, both. Here's a look at some notable entries in the genre.
Alternate Endings Actually Worth Watching
Friday, October 13, 2006 | 12:00 AM
By Aaron Hillis, Michelle Orange, Matt Singer, R. Emmet Sweeney and Alison Willmore
The DVD of "X-Men: The Last Stand," which went on sale this week, offers not one, not even two, but three alternate endings — what, did they let test audience vote with buttons on their armrests? (Well, we wouldn't rule it out.) In honor of a gentler, simpler time when alternate endings meant more than fodder for DVD editions, the IFC News team presents a list of notable alternate endings out there on DVD that actually offer interesting insights into the film, filmmaking or film biz.
Army of Darkness
Directed by Sam Raimi
Here's a case of the right ending for the wrong movie. As Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" series progressed through "Evil Dead 2" and "Army of Darkness," things got progressively sillier — the first "Evil Dead" is a straight-up gorefest, but the last picture, which includes Bruce Campbell's doggedly unheroic Ash battling a fleet of wise-cracking miniaturized clones, is practically a renaissance faire riff on the Three Stooges. Raimi established the set-up for "AoD" at the sadistic conclusion of "Evil Dead 2," where Ash finally defeats the unholy evil of the Book of the Dead, only to find himself sent back to the Middle Ages, where he learns he'll have to start the battle all over again without the pleasure of adequate toilet facilities. The original ending to "AoD" took a similar bent; Ash defeats the medieval evil, but he takes too much of the potion designed to make him sleep away the centuries, and he wakes to a post-apocalyptic wasteland, bellowing "I SLEPT TOO LONG!" as the credits begin to roll. It was a fitting ending for the series, but not necessarily for "Army of Darkness," which had pushed too far (and too successfully) into the realm of comedy to end on such a dark note. So Raimi came up with a doozy of a replacement: a silly and supremely macho shoot-'em-up at Ash's place of business, S-Mart superstore. Purists prefer the original version, but purists also prefer "Evil Dead 2." Personally, I'll take the fun of "Army of Darkness" and Campbell's pitch-perfect portrayal of a man with an ego that far exceeds his talents or his smarts, and the ending that goes along with it.
Better ending: Theatrical. —Matt Singer
Brazil
Directed by Terry Gilliam
It may be Gilliam's career high point to date, but the director's clash with Universal Pictures over getting "Brazil" released in the cut he intended is almost as famous as the film itself (see Jack Mathews' book "The Battle of Brazil" for a blow-by-blow). Universal chairman Sid Sheinberg's infamous if ultimately TV-only "Love Conquers All" cut, included on Criterion's 1999 special edition three-disc DVD release, involves plenty of additions and subtractions, but none more significant than the alteration of the ending, which the studio found too dark. In the Sheinberg edit, Jonathan Pryce's Sam wakes up in the idyllic country house he's escaped to with ladylove Jill, and declares that he "doesn't dream anymore." Soaring music, clouds and...Fin! Of course, Gilliam's version of the film then cuts to Mr. Helpmann and Jack Lint, who've been torturing Sam in the Information Retrieval Room. The final shot, of Sam smiling cheerfully and humming, sanity clearly gone, is bleakly perfect. Too perfect to mess with — Gilliam ultimately prevailed in getting it into theaters.
Better ending: Theatrical. —Alison Willmore
Clerks
Directed by Kevin Smith
Naming the lead character in Kevin Smith's $27,000 mini-masterpiece of suburban ennui "Clerks" Dante always struck me as an odd choice. It's way more gothic and theatrical than the rest of Smith's immature brood (Randal, Jay, Bob). Smith's original ending gave the moniker a bit more weight. As first conceived, the movie continued for one more scene after the ending that appeared in the final theatrical version (where Dante and Randal reconcile before Dante closes the Quick Stop for the night). Instead of that optimistic denouement, a burglar enters the convenience store, shoots Dante and robs the cash register. Instead of a cut to black and credits over upbeat selections from the soundtrack, the titles roll over the continuing shot of the Quick Stop, as a customer walks in (played by Smith himself) and steals a pack of cigarettes. The initial ending adds the extra oomph to "Dante" but it's also wildly out of character for a comedy that, while dark, essentially laughs at all of life's mysteries and dilemmas.
Better ending: Theatrical. —MS
[Photo at top: Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," Universal Pictures, 1985]
A Brief History of Real Sex on Screen (Well, Without the Porn)
Friday, October 13, 2006 | 12:00 AM
By Michelle Orange
John Cameron Mitchell, in his second feature "Shortbus," has justified his use of graphic, unsimulated sex throughout the film by saying it was done as "an act of resistance" against the Bush regime. Other directors usually come up with something about "normalizing sexuality" or "cinematic honesty" in their attempt to work actual sex into what they hope is a mainstream film. Some dismiss it as a cheap gimmick, some say that outside of snuff films it's one of the last big ideas the movies have, with the potential to say something new; before seeing "Shortbus" for myself, I tended to think it's the directorial version of leaving the house in sweatpants: you've given up. In the last six years (hmm), the number of films featuring unsimulated sex has grown noticeably — is burgeoning on a trend, in fact — and so we thought we'd take a look back at some milestones in real live sex on screen.
1972: Pink Flamingos
Debauchery of all flavors is on offer in John Waters' infamous yuck-fest, and Divine performing fellatio on her on-screen son is, incredibly, not the most outrageous example. For that I would vote for what I hope is the simulated rape of a young woman...by a chicken. Hardly mainstream, Waters gets credit nonetheless for being one of the first if not the first American director to put a sex act in what became a well-known, non-porn feature. That's the first time I've even written "fellatio," by the way. We'll see how long that lasts.
1976: In the Realm of the Senses
Nagisa Oshima's film, based on a book recounting true events, caused a huge ruckus in 1976, and was the first explicitly sexual film to lobby hard for arthouse credibility, with some success. John Cameron Mitchell pays dubious tribute to the film with a hilarious reference in his recent "Shortbus."
1979: Caligula
The uncut version of this Tinto Brass film included an orgy and several acts of graphic sex. Though none of the principals were engaged in said graphic sex, it's the first film with a pedigree (written by Gore Vidal) and actual movie stars (Peter O'Toole, Malcolm McDowell) to, as the kids say, go there. Unsurprisingly, almost everyone involved with the film later disowned it, except major backer Penthouse magazine; they felt all right.
1986: Devil in the Flesh
This Italian film is often cited as the first major western film to depict unsimulated sex which consists, if you must know, of a blowjob performed by lead actress Maruschka Detmers on co-star Federico Pitzalis.
1999: Romance
French director Catherine Breillat could put out a shingle, at this point, for films featuring (incredibly depressing) unsimulated sex, but this one brought her the widest acclaim. "Sex is forever," the movie poster warns, and if that doesn't terrify you, check out Breillat's "Fat Girl" or "Anatomy of Hell." "Sex is Comedy," her 2004 film, is something of a misnomer, as I can't imagine anyone has ever laughed watching a Breillat film, unless it was one of those bitter, French snorts.
[Photo: Catherine Breillat's "Romance," Trimark Pictures, 2006]
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