In a piece on the premiere of "The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian," MTV News offers this tidbit:

[M]uch of the prerelease chatter about "Prince Caspian" has been about a new element that the filmmakers contributed: a romance between Caspian and Susan. [Ben] Barnes said he initially shared the concerns of many die-hard Narnia fans: "I was deeply concerned about [the romance]."

Director Andrew Adamson carefully defended the plot addition. "I think it's very sensitively handled," he said. "The kids are growing up. If you look at Ben and you look at Anna, it seems really implausible that they wouldn't have some feelings for each other."

Plus, when you're trying to foist your unknown, valiantly cleft-chinned British lead on the public, giving his character a romantic angle is just another way to appeal to the girls in the audience. Still, if you've read through the Narnia books, you may remember that Susan is the character who in the final volume is punished, punished, punished for growing up and turning her attention to boys and become "interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations" by being, essentially, left out of heaven. So one would guess the fans' issues are less with the fact that the puppy love in question wasn't in the original book, and more that its addition treads on what was famously harsh (and emotionally scarring) treatment of one of the series' initial main characters from author C.S. Lewis.

[Photo: Ben Barnes and Anna Popplewell in "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," Walt Disney Studios, 2008]

+ 'Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian' Stars Get Royal Red-Carpet Treatment As They Defend Movie's Romantic Twist (MTV)
+ Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel sign on for "500 Days" (Hollywood Reporter)

By Alison Willmore | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: Ben Barnes, The Chronicles Of Narnia Prince Caspian

A labor of love from Tarsem Singh (who often prefers to go by just "Tarsem"), the musical video director who made his feature debut with 2000's "The Cell," "The Fall" was paid for out of pocket by the filmmaker and shot over the course of four years. The film, about a movie stuntman (played by "Pushing Daisies"' Lee Pace) who narrates a fantastical story to the five-year-old girl with whom he's in the hospital, is certainly visually striking, but reviews are mixed as to how well it all actually comes together. "[L]acking the ability to fashion cohesive tales driven by engaging characters, Singh overcompensates with his trademark visual palette and loses a hold on both in the process," sighs Michael Joshua Rowin at indieWIRE. "If the human details are often problematic, the IMAX-grade bombast, ceremonial camera, and Jodorowsky-esque eclecticism still combine for a singular spectacle," counters Nick Pinkerton at the Village Voice.

At the New York Times, Nathan Lee describes "The Fall" as "a real bore" and wonders at the way the girl is "cognizant, it would seem, of the full repertory of high-gloss, empty-headed pictorialism deployed by corporate advertising." Tasha Robinson at the Onion AV Club admits the film "is pretentious to the point of laughability," but finds "the structure is so delicate, the ideas are so ambitious, and the imagery is so hellishly flamboyant that it's easy to fall into Tarsem's over-the-top vision... It's the most glorious, wonderful mess put onscreen since Terry Gilliam's Brazil." Slant's Ed Gonzalez believes the film to be insufferably self-indulgent: "Shunning logic and compassion, The Fall is a bedtime story impeccably designed to flatter its own maker." Armond White at the New York Press writes that "Tarsem has that David Fincher problem of creating TV-flimsy imagery that lacks the spatial and emotional weight of true cinema. In the final sequence, Tarsem connects Alexandria and Roy's wishfulness to silent film heritage and the mass audience experience. Yet The Fall remains remote and unengaging." But Glenn Kenny at Premiere disagrees, finding that it "works like crazy as a multi-leveled, smart, jaw-droppingly beautiful, big-hearted piece of entertainment... I can't quite bring myself to call it visionary. But it'll more than do until the genuinely visionary comes along, as that doesn't happen too often, especially these days."

[Photo: "The Fall," Roadside Attractions, 2006]

By Alison Willmore in Critic wrangle | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: Lee Pace, Tarsem Singh, The Fall

Documentarian provocateur Nick Broomfield, of "Biggie and Tupac" and "Kurt & Courtney," goes semi-scripted in "Battle for Haditha," which portrays a real and ugly incident involving 24 Iraqi men, women and children, all civilians, who were killed by a group of United States Marines, possibly in retaliation for the earlier death of one of their own. Broomfield uses non-professional actors, many former military, in his film, which begs comparison to Brian De Palma's "Redacted" but is certainly getting a better reception from the critics. Certainly most see it as more balanced — New York's David Edelstein compares it to the multi-POV "The Wire," concluding that "even when the dialogue is stilted, the acting and directing take the starch out of it. Battle for Haditha has some of the raw energy of Sam Fuller's war pictures, which weren't subtle but left you energized by their ambivalence (there was no good or evil). It's a hell of a picture." "'Battle for Haditha' is a relentlessly exciting war film, unafflicted by moralism or finger-pointing, that leaves all the judgment to us, adds Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "Which only makes it harder to bear."

For Armond White at the New York Press, the film's "greatest breakthrough comes from Broomfield unabashedly portraying al-Qaeda characters while the rest of Hollywood fears facing this reality--as if following the Muslim prohibition against portraying Mohammad... This taboo-busting is an act of humane imagination; that's what's missing from one-way Iraq War films that condescend or propagandize." Leo Goldsmith at indieWIRE finds that "it is the event itself -- and not how it is reported or misrepresented -- that fascinates Broomfield, and this is what distinguishes his film." Though he thinks that it "sometimes feels like an amateur remake of Jarhead," Nathan Rabin at the Onion AV Club declares that the film "ultimately derives much of its primal power from its bluntness and simplicity."

Others have quibbles: Anthony Kaufman at the Village Voice acknowledges that "[w]hen the shit finally hits the fan, though, the results are more emotionally bruising than many of Haditha's predecessors... Then again, the film's affective power occasionally bubbles over into the manipulative." And Manohla Dargis at the New York Times writes that the film, "though technically exemplary, falters dramatically on occasion, becoming dangerously close to overheated whenever the characters speak for any length."

{Photo: "Battle for Haditha," Hanway Films, 2007]

By Alison Willmore in Critic wrangle | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: Battle for Haditha, Iraq, Nick Broomfield

Kevin Maher at the London Times tries to interview John Hurt, who's been forbidden by the studios to discuss his role in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Maher attempts to come up with a workaround:

I suggest a game. I'll run plot points (gleaned from the internet and beyond) by him, and will judge their validity, or not, by his reactions. There's more than one Crystal Skull? "Hmmm, interesting," he says. Your character comes back from the dead? "He'd be called Lazarus, wouldn't he?!" There's a cameo from the Elephant Man? "Depends on how you look at it." And, finally, with [Quentin] Crisp in mind, you have a homosexual relationship with Indiana Jones. "I wish!" he says, before sneering: "Oh yes, Lucas would really dare to put something like that in!"

Samantha Geimer, the girl behind Roman Polanski's 1977 Waterloo, showed up for Tuesday's premiere of now-HBO doc "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired." From New York: "Coming to the premiere, likewise, was a way to try to get the press off her back. 'I figure if I keep talking to people, maybe they'll get tired of me,' she says. 'That's one of my theories, that no one will want to talk to me anymore! Hasn't worked yet.' "

Sean O'Neal talks with Troma's Lloyd Kaufman at the Onion AV Club. On "Poultrygeist":

[W]e're living in an age of remakes, so we decided we'd do a shot-by-shot remake of that hilarious, slapstick-gore movie Schindler's List. But instead of the Jews, we put in several hundred chicken Indian zombies, and instead of the concentration camps, we've got concentration coops. Liam Neeson wasn't quite up to the task, so we hired the very famous Shakespearean actor Ron Jeremy. I predict Poultrygeist is going to be very favorably looked upon by the Schindler's List crowd.

There's a Bollywood remake of "Spider-Man" in the works, according to io9. Shah Rukh Khan will star.

Michael J. Jordan at the Christian Science Monitor looks at the Kazakhstan film industry, sans "Borat."

[Photo: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," Paramount Pictures, 2008]

+ Me and Mr Jones: is John Hurt the latest Indiana Jones villain? (London Times)
+ The Surprise Guest at the Roman Polanski Documentary Premiere: The Woman in Question (New York)
+ Lloyd Kaufman (Onion AV Club)
+ The Bollywood Version Of Spider-Man Is Better, Because He Can Fly (io9)
+ Kazakhstan seeks identity on the big screen (CS Monitor)

By Alison Willmore in Odds | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: John Hurt, Kazakhstan, Lloyd Kaufman, Roman Polanski, Samantha Geimer, Shah Rukh Khan, Troma

New Line for the win (I guess). From the Hollywood Reporter:

In a surprising move, Warner Bros. has decided to shutter both Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures.

"With New Line now a key part of Warner Bros., we're able to handle films across the entire spectrum of genres and budgets without overlapping production, marketing and distribution infrastructures," announced Warner Bros. president and COO Alan Horn. "After much painstaking analysis, this was a difficult decision to make, but it reflects the reality of a changing marketplace and our need to prudently run our businesses with increased efficiencies. We're confident that the spirit of independent filmmaking and the opportunity to find and give a voice to new talent will continue to have a presence at Warner Bros."

Speculation before had been that the two indie distribution arms would merge, not vanish.

+ Warners axes Picturehouse, WIP (Hollywood Reporter)

By Alison Willmore in Biz | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: New Line, Picturehouse, Warner Independent

"Imagine someone pouring hot, melted Starburst candies into your corneas, and you just begin to approximate the experience of 'Speed Racer.'"
       —Alonso Duralde at MSNBC

"Watching Speed Racer... is comparable to dousing one's eyeballs in a sugary hyper-digitized Skittles soup. It's like being immersed in a kaleidoscopic pop-art LSD nightmare in which one's bounced around a pinball machine and assailed by an onslaught of electric smoke tendrils."
       —Nick Schager at Slant

"But what about the rest of us? True, our eyeballs will slowly, though never completely, recover, but what of our souls?"
       —Anthony Lane at the New Yorker

"The Wachowski brothers...deliver enough cotton-candy-colored cinematic pyrotechnics to send you into sugar shock or strobe-induced seizures."
       —Matt Stevens at E! Online

"Speed Racer spins some people's heads right near off their axis."
       —David Poland at The Hot Blog

"[T]he Wachowski Brothers' follow-up to The Matrix trilogy is, if viewed from one angle, the most headache inducing kid's movie of them all; if viewed from another, it's the most expensive avant-garde film ever made."
       —Glenn Kenny at Premiere

"[The] Speed Racer experience - I just can't bring myself to call this garish tantrum a "movie" - is akin to nothing so much as diving face first into a rainbow-hued bowl of methamphetamine-laced cinematic Jell-O. It's a giddy rush for a moment or two, but the comedown is long and harsh."
       —Marc Savlov at Austin Chronicle

[Photo: "Speed Racer," Warner Bros., 2008]

By Alison Willmore in Critic wrangle | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: Speed Racer

The good and the very bad news this morning:

On the plus side, Criterion has announced that it's going Blu-ray, with "Chungking Express," "The 400 Blows" and "Contempt" amongst its first releases in the format. /film has the announcement.

On the minus, and this is an incredible downer, Glenn Kenny at Premiere writes that

I've just been informed that my position at Premiere.com is being terminated. What this means for this blog is still up in the air; I've got meetings this afternoon in which such things are to be negotiated. In any case, I now join the ever-growing ranks of film critics without staff positions.

These days, it seems you only need a fistful of fingers to count the staff critic positions still around. Sorry to hear it, Glenn.

[Photo: "Chungking Express," Miramax Films, 1996]

+ Criterion Collection Goes Blu-Ray (/film)
+ The end of an era (Premiere)

By Alison Willmore in Critic watch | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: Blu-ray, Criterion, Glenn Kenny

Martin Amis' novel "London Fields" looks to be back on track to become a film after all, according to the Guardian: "Amis himself is collaborating on the adaptation of his controversial 1989 novel, and may even take a small part in the resulting film, which will be directed by David Mackenzie, best known for the films Hallam Foe and 2003's Young Adam." The novel, about a woman who, having foreseen her own death, manipulates the circumstances leading up to it, was for a while one of several projects attached to director David Cronenberg.

"Next month, Ira Isaacs, a 57-year-old Los Angeles-based video director, will sit center stage at what may be the most extreme obscenity trial in U.S. history," writes Susannah Breslin at Radar. She interviews Isaacs, who's responsible for such works as "Laurie's Toilet Show," "Mako's First Time Scat" and "Gang Bang Horse (Pony Sex Game)," and who calls his films "shock art."

Until I saw "2 Girls 1 Cup," I wouldn't have thought so many regular people would want to watch this stuff. There are millions of people watching it. For now, it's probably most people like the shock value of it. This is art that asks questions about what's ugly, acceptable, taboo. It takes something mundane, like going to the bathroom, and puts it in a new light. It inspires people.

The Hollywood Reporter notes that James Brolin is stepping into the role vacated by James Caan in David O. Russell's "Nailed" followed last month's Cookiegate incident.

Bryan Hartzheim at Asian Pacific Arts has a formidable breakdown of the range of reactions to Shinji Higuchi's "Hidden Fortress: The Last Princess," a remake of Akira Kurosawa's nigh untouchable "Hidden Fortress," following a screening at USC. [Via Kaiju Shakedown]

And at Dissent Magazine, Charles Taylor dwells on John Wayne," who "remains in some ways the most undefined of iconic movie stars."

[Photo: UK cover of "London Fields," Vintage, 1999]

+ Amis ventures back to London Fields after 19 years for film adaptation (Guardian)
+ But Is It Obscene? (Radar)
+ James Brolin gets 'Nailed' (Hollywood Reporter)
+ Finding Fortress (Asian Pacific Arts)
+ The "Duke" and Democracy: On John Wayne (Dissent)

By Alison Willmore in Odds | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: Hidden Fortress, Josh Brolin, London Fields, Martin Amis, Nailed, Shinji Higuchi

New York's Vulture blog has a great, too-short interview with "Fritz the Cat" animator Ralph Bakshi (the subject of an exhibition at the Animazing Gallery running through the end of the month) that's worthy of its own post.

Key quotes:

On giving Thomas Kinkade his start as a background artist on "Fire and Ice": "That son of a bitch! Kinkade was the coolest. If Kinkade wasn't a painter, he'd be one of those cult leaders."

On "Night Moves" being used at the end of "American Pop": "' 'Night Moves' sucks! I was furious! It was all wrong. I had a brilliant song in mind, but they just wanted too much money. I forget what it was. I've blocked it out. If I remember, I'll give you a call.' [Ed. note: True to his word, Bakshi telephoned Vulture from a busy street corner less than an hour after our interview, and confessed that the song he originally had in mind was 'Freebird.']"

On the music in "Lord of the Rings": "I hate Leonard Rosenman's music in Lord of the Rings. I thought it was clichéd. Gregorian chants -- what else is new? I wanted Led Zeppelin because they were right for the film. The film would have been seen by every hippie in the country. I was one of them."

[Photo: "Fire and Ice," Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 1983]

+ Animator Ralph Bakshi on Why 'American Pop,' Ended With a Lame Bob Seger Song (New York)

By Alison Willmore in In quotes | Link | Recommended (0)

Tags: Fire and Ice, Lord of the Rings, Ralph Bakshi, Thomas Kinkade

Fresh off the wires — Rainbow Media, the company that owns IFC as well as AMC and WE, has purchased the Sundance Channel. Here's the press release.

+ Cablevision's Rainbow Media Holdings to Acquire Sundance Channel (Yahoo)

By Alison Willmore in Biz | Link | Recommended (1)

Tags: IFC, Rainbow Media, Sundance Channel

Yes! Nazis on the moon. Here's a trailer for "Iron Sky," a film that doesn't actually exist yet. It's the new project of the Finnish group responsible for "Star Wreck," which, according to their site, is "the most popular Internet feature film of all time, as well as the most popular Finnish film ever. Over 8 million people have downloaded Star Wreck since its free Internet release in 2005." It's an interestingly unusual way to attempt to make a movie — "Iron Sky"s's producers will be at Cannes looking for funding, and are also selling "war bonds." According to them:

[Director Timo] Vuorensola expects to gather an active, vibrant and collaborative community of 10,000 people around the project. While the final product will be Hollywood quality, the model has more in common with social networking and Internet movements such as Creative Commons and Open Source.

Elsewhere: Here's a trailer for "Noise," a comedy with Tim Robbins as a car alarm vigilante who calls himself "The Rectifier." The film, which opens this Friday, is written and directed by Henry Bean, last of the Ryan Gosling anti-Semite Jew drama "The Believer," which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2001.

There's a trailer here for Chris Bell's steroid doc "Bigger, Stronger, Faster*", which comes out May 30th and which I liked quite a bit. Here's my review from Sundance, and here's a video interview with Bell at Tribeca.

Finally, here's a trailer for Julian Jarrold's adaptation of "Brideshead Revisited," which looks so very glossy, so very crisp, so very Emma Thompsoned. It's due out July 25.

[Photo: "Iron Sky," Energia Productions, 2008]

+ In 1945 The Nazis Went To The Moon ... The IRON SKY Promo Arrives! (Twitch)
+ Noise - Trailer (Reelz Channel)
+ Bigger, Stronger, Faster Movie Trailer - Trailer (IGN)
+ Trailer: Brideshead Revisited (Apple)

By Alison Willmore in Trailering | Link | Recommended (1)

Tags: Bigger Stronger Faster, Brideshead Revisited, Iron Sky, Noise

Ellen Page, everyone's favorite sassypants MySpace generation heroine, will be playing Jane Eyre in an upcoming BBC Films adaptation, reports Variety, honest to Brontë. Elsewhere, the Guardian claims "MacGyver" creator Lee David Zlotoff has threatened to be in the planning stages of adapting the series for the big screen.

Jon Favreau salutes his "Iron Man" lead while not forgetting his own roots when talking to Entertainment Weekly: "It's inspiring when somebody who sort of has his work cut out for him actually accomplishes that and comes back bigger and better than he was before. I mean, that's the American dream -- and it oddly somehow relates to Tony Stark. And when art imitates life, you're onto something. I learned that off Swingers." Meanwhile, Emma Pearse at New York presents one counter example to Manohla Dargis' Sunday New York Times "Where have the girls gone?" summer preview piece: "Iron Man"'s "impeccably suited, no-frills Virginia 'Pepper' Potts, played by Gwyneth Paltrow."

Troma's Lloyd Kaufman shows the kids how it's done: To promote "Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead" and protest Tribeca's takeover of the Village East Cinema, he dressed up as a chicken and picketed outside, making Page Six and selling out Friday's show.

David Haglund at Slate places Albert Lamorisse's "The Red Balloon" against Hou Hsiao-hsien's "The Flight of the Red Balloon."

Jason Solomons at the Observer offers Keira Knightley a terrifying vision of her future, which she takes rather well:

Suddenly, thrillingly, I get a vision of Knightley, 10 years from now. She's a bit Charlotte Rampling, a bit Kristin Scott Thomas, even a bit Monica Vitti but with a sense of humour. Of course, I could be horribly wrong and she could do that depressingly British actress thing of turning into a batty old eccentric. Or she could just be the new Joanna Lumley. But I tell her I see her shacked up in the south of France with some horny old European director who casts her as his muse in a series of vaguely erotic, slightly experimental art movies, using her mysterious androgyny to blur sexual taboos and push boundaries. She gets visibly excited and I remember that she really does have a beautiful smile. 'Ooh, wonderful,' she says. 'That sounds idyllic. Do we own a vineyard?'

[Photo: The bonnets have it — recent Eyres include Charlotte Gainsbourg (1996), Samantha Morton (1997), Ruth Wilson (2006), Zelah Clarke (1983)]

+ Ellen Page takes on 'Jane Eyre' (Variety)
+ In brief: MacGyver creator talks up film (Guardian)
+ Jon Favreau Talks 'Iron Man' (Entertainment Weekly) + Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts: Surprisingly Super (New York)
+ CLUCKING PICKET (NY Post)
+ An actress is born (Observer)

By Alison Willmore in Odds | Link | Recommended (2)

Tags: Iron Man, Keira Knightley, Lloyd Kaufman, MacGyver, Poultrygeist, The Flight of the Red Balloon, The Red Balloon

Jack Jordan was found guilty of stalking Uma Thurman today. According to the New York Times, "During the jury trial in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Mr. Jordan testified in his own defense, describing his elaborate visions -- which he called the daydreams of an artistic soul -- that he was predestined to meet Ms. Thurman and live a happy life with her and her two children." New York magazine reprints a few of the emails Jordan sent to Thurman's father, a Columbia professor, which suggest that, Jordan's other issues aside, he's come up with some unnecessarily laborious reads of Quentin Tarantino's work:

A question about Kill Bill. If Bill killed you in the chapel, how did he end up with your healthy daughter at the end of the movie? Was a part of the film an extended hallucination? I'm not an obsessed fan, but I watched Kill Bill for the second time in my life last December. I interpreted most of the socially significant symbols, and also fell in love with you.

I'm actually a bit taken with the idea of "Kill Bill" as an extended grindhouse version of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" — cast that way, the film becomes something terribly tragic, a dying fantasy of outlandish revenge from a woman trying to escape an unhealthy relationship. Take that, Tarantino!

[Photo: "Kill Bill: Vol 2," Miramax Films, 2004]

+ Thurman's Pursuer Is Found Guilty of Stalking (NY Times)
+ Artifact: Letters From a Stalker (New York)

By Alison Willmore | Link | Recommended (2)

Tags: Jack Jordan, Kill Bill, Uma Thurman

A touch more network news (May's a big month for us). IFC.com's been hosting new, never-before-seen episodes from the "Four Eyed Monsters" filmmakers here. The last one, episode 13, will go up tomorrow; here are the rest to date:

> Episode 9 (Shock)
> Episode 10 (Denial)
> Episode 11 (Anger)
> Episode 12 (Bargaining)

Elsewhere, Austin Bunn at Stream sums up the Susan Buice and Arin Crumley saga.

[Photo: Susan Buice and Arin Crumley in "Four Eyed Monsters," Less Life Lived LLC, 2005]

+ Four Eyed Monsters (IFC)
+ Four Eyed 101: From Break-Up to Breakout (Stream)

By Alison Willmore in From the Editor, Watchy | Link | Recommended (2)

Tags: Arin Crumley, Four Eyed Monsters, Susan Buice

At the Guardian, Sean Michaels writes that "Somewhere in heaven there's a cinema playing movies that never were, films that existed solely in a producer's, an actor's, a screenwriter's imagination." And the one everyone would be lining up for would be a version of "A Clockwork Orange" that was bandied about pre-Kubrick.

Michael reporters that a recently discovered letter from exec producer Si Litvinoff to John Schlesinger (of "Midnight Cowboy"), who was looking into directing the film, reveals that Mick Jagger was dying to play Alex and the Beatles wanted to do the soundtrack. Schlesinger, of course, turned the film down, saying the material wasn't "the sort of subject I particularly want to tackle," and he was probably wise — as conceived, the Beatles/Jagger/droog combo would have been a fantastic era novelty, but it's hard to imagine it also being any good. Though who's to say?

At his blog at Premiere, Glenn Kenny points out another movie never made:

I learn from Richard Brody's new book Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard, that prior to settling on Alphaville with him, Godard wanted American expat tough-guy portrayer Eddie Constantine to play the lead role in an adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend.

The mind fairly boggles at the notion: Jean-Luc Godard's I Am Legend, starring Eddie Constantine.

[Photo: Jagger picks cleanliness over ultraviolence in "Performance," Warner Bros., 1970]

+ Jagger sought Clockwork Orange role (Guardian)
+ The greatest films never made (In the Company of Glenn)

By Alison Willmore | Link | Recommended (2)

Tags: A Clockwork Orange, Eddie Constantine, I Am Legend, Jean-Luc Godard, John Schlesinger, Mick Jagger, Si Litvinoff, Stanley Kubrick, The Beatles

A survey of who's been saying what:

"I don't even say I'm not a liberal. I just say I'm not brain dead any more. I just want to consider the other guy's point of view. It's a wonderful lesson for me to learn so late in life."
       —David Mamet on his March Village Voice essay "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'" (which you can find here), at the Boston Globe

"I like Frank Rich a lot. I know him. I like the whole editorial. I am not eager to have an obituary written for my film before the film appears in theaters."
       —Errol Morris on Frank Rich's April New York Times editorial (which you can find here), at the Boston Phoenix

"I like to eat egg salad sandwiches."
       —David Lynch on his New York routine, at the New York Observer

"I don't know what the f..k they are talking about. I went out more since there was no reason to stay at home. Not a big deal. I think they were looking for some new development to introduce into the Harrison Ford story, so they went for that and the appearance of an earring was enough for them to generate the whole mid-life crisis thing."
       —Harrison Ford on not having a midlife crisis, at the Australian

"In a weird way, it's looking more like a sequel to 'Pan's Labyrinth' than 'Hellboy' -- it's 'Pan's Labyrinth' on speed. For the first time, it feels like both aspects of [Guillermo del Toro]'s career have merged."
       —Producer Lloyd Levin on "Hellboy II: The Rise of the Golden Army," at the LA Times

[Photo: David Mamet talks to Chiwetel Ejiofor on the set of "Redbelt," Sony Classics, 2008]

+ 'Redbelt' master (Boston Globe)
+ Photo op? (Boston Phoenix)
+ David Lynch Talks About Twin Peaks, World Peace and His Love of New York Deli Food (NY Observer)
+ The accidental hero (The Australian)
+ Guillermo del Toro dreams big on 'Hellboy II: The Rise of the Golden Army' (LA Times)

By Alison Willmore in In quotes | Link | Recommended (2)

Tags: David Lynch, David Mamet, Errol Morris, Guillermo del Toro, Harrison Ford

A bit of network news: "Wilfred," IFC.com's new web series, kicks off today, with a new episode going up every weekday — the first episode is here, the second here. A cult TV show from Australia, the series began as a short film that won the best comedy award at Tropfest in 2002, possibly due to its killer thematic combination of pot-smoking pets and guys in animal costumes.

The shiny new third season of Joe Swanberg's "Young American Bodies" will also be premiering on IFC.com starting next week — here's a promo.

[Photo: "Wilfred," IFC, 2007]

+ Wilfred (IFC)

By Alison Willmore in From the Editor, Watchy | Link | Recommended (2)

Tags: IFC, Joe Swanberg, Wilfred, Young American Bodies

Isabella Rossellini's "Green Porno" shorts, in which she enacts the mating rituals of various insects, are now all up online here.

[Photo: "Green Porno," Sundance Channel, 2008]

+ Green Porno (Sundance Channel)

By Alison Willmore in Watchy | Link | Recommended (4)

Tags: Green Porno, Isabella Rossellini

Here's my review from Sundance last year. "Son of Rambow," the second film from music video team Hammer & Tongs, whose first was the not so well received "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," is long in coming — it was delayed due to a legal struggle with StudioCanal over use of footage from "Rambo: First Blood." Word is, again, mixed on the way whimsical film about two children shooting their own sequel to Stallone's action film.

Lisa Schwarzbaum at Entertainment Weekly sighs that director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith "display plenty of whirligig energy, if not much control or lightness of touch," while Scott Tobias at the Onion AV Club suggest that "make that check out to Wes Anderson, care of Rushmore Academy, with a portion of the residuals due to Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie) and his signature Rube Goldberg setpieces." He finds "the film works better in sequences than as a whole, and suffers from an overly familiar homemade aesthetic." Nick Schager at Slant seconds the Anderson comparison, preferring the first half of the film to the second: "Jennings's interest in dramatizing youthful male bonds of friendship and cinema's function as a unifying medium giving way to sappy clashes and even sappier resolutions." "Son of Rambow turns unfortunately insular and maudlin about the desperate sources of its boyhood outcasts' imaginations," agrees Armond White at the New York Press. "Even when enlisting kids at their school to help out in the remake, the amateur endeavor never becomes wild, subversive or original."

Others are more won over: "[A]t its most likable, Son of Rambow evokes the rush of discovery that turns budding cinephiles into lifers--that delight in finding a film that seems to express or coalesce some inchoate yearning, including a yen to share," writes Jim Ridley at the Village Voice. Dana Stevens at Slate dislikes the ending but still finds that "Son of Rambow bristles with the anarchic energy of late childhood and a genuine respect for the life-changing power of movies--even (or especially) the schlocky ones." Michael Koresky at indieWIRE believes the film "jumps uneasily between gritty and surreal, never quite plumbing the depths of the childhood imagination as winningly as darker though more convincingly fanciful films like 'Heavenly Creatures' or 'The Butcher Boy,'" but likes the way "the writer-director refrains from stargazing, dewy appeals to the 'magic' of cinema, even at the film's effectively emotional denouement." And Manohla Dargis at the New York Times adds that "although the film's visual style feels more borrowed than organic, there's enough truth to Will and Lee's actions -- and to the uninflected, touching performances of the two young leads -- to keep the film humming along, even when Mr. Jennings veers into sentimentality and lets one too many tear drop."

[Photo: "Son of Rambow," Paramount Vantage, 2007]

By Alison Willmore in Critic wrangle | Link | Recommended (2)

Tags: Garth Jennings, Hammer & Tongs, Nick Goldsmith, Son of Rambow

Word is mixed on "Mister Lonely," former indie poster child Harmony Korine's first theatrical release since 1999's "Julien Donkey-Boy." The film, which premiered at Cannes last year, stars Diego Luna as a Michael Jackson impersonator who ends up at a remote Scottish colony composed entirely of celebrity impersonators, among them Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton) and Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant). In an alternate storyline, Werner Herzog plays a priest presiding over skydiving nuns.

Most critics are just lukewarm,: Andrew Sarris at the New York Observer offers "the faint praise of Mister Lonely as the least offensive of the works in the Korine canon." (He also notes that "David Blaine plays Father Umbrillo's priestly subordinate. Lalid Afkir plays someone called Habid in the credits, and I am not sure if either is a celebrity." Well, Mr. Sarris, the former is, if not famous, at least an Oprah-endorsed world record holder.) "Mister Lonely reveals that the punk abrasiveness of Korine's youth has been replaced by a lyrical self-pity--the apparent upshot of a decade on the skids," adds David Edelstein at New York. "I'm glad he has pulled himself together, but the film is pretty ramshackle."

"Korine's biggest challenge to an already skeptical audience is the movie's sleeve-hearted sincerity," suggests Jim Ridley at the Village Voice, who finds that the film, despite often failing, "yields moments of wonder." The Onion AV Club's Noel Murray agrees, to an extent: "Mister Lonely has its moments of wonder and beauty, but the film is obscure by design, and meant to appeal to those who favor the alternative canon of directing greats."

Less fond: Owen Gleiberman at Entertainment Weekly complains that "none of the faux icons comes close to being a character." The New York Press' Armond White is, as is in character, not unsparing with one-time scenster prince Korine, who he calls "a zombie filmmaker" before running madcap in praise of Michael Jackson (particularly "exquisite 'You Are Not Alone") and dwelling on Samantha Morton's "corpulent backside."

More fond: Glenn Kenny at Premiere, who, as other have, finds "Mister Lonely" "Korine's experiment in the extremes of bathos, even as the picture tries to propose itself as a comedy of sorts," concludes that "that this is a picture that's divided against itself in a way that's perhaps too hermetic to be comprehended" and gives it three stars out of four. "[T]here will most likely be those who find his sensibility frustratingly hermetic, morbidly preoccupied with the poetry of compositions and camera movements and archly detached from the emotional currents of the story," seconds A.O. Scott at the New York Times. "And yet 'Mister Lonely,' self-enclosed though it may be, nonetheless demonstrates that Mr. Korine, who showed his ability to shock and repel in earlier films, also has the power to touch, to unsettle and to charm."

[Photo: "Mister Lonely," IFC Films, 2007]

By Alison Willmore in Critic wrangle | Link | Recommended (1)

Tags: Diego Luna, Harmony Korine, Mister Lonely, Samantha Morton

After a few rounds on the festival circuit, you start to wonder if the road to indie inauthenticity is paved with Southern accents. "Tennessee" is a banner example of the type of film that aims for grit and heartstrings by way of regional blue-collar misery and ends up seeming as genuine as a McDonald's sweet tea. The second film from Aaron Woodley, who's actually Canadian — so Canadian he's David Cronenberg's nephew — is indeed about Tennessee, along with New Mexico, and the states through which you'd have to drive in order to get from the latter to the former. In "Tennessee," all marriages are abusive, everyone drinks their liquor straight and someone can be treated for leukemia without losing a hair on his pretty head. The film's about two brothers who set off on a road trip to Knoxville to find their estranged father, from whom they fled years ago when he started getting rough with their mother. But you don't watch the film for them. You watch it, with glee in your heart, for Mariah Carey, who plays Krystal, the singin', cryin' Texan waitress who's on the run from her overbearing State Trooper husband, and whose flirtatious mothering of the siblings makes you wonder if the film is going to head into "Y "Tu Mamá También" realms. (It doesn't.)

By Alison Willmore in Festivals, Reviews | Link | Recommended (1)

Tags: Aaron Woodley, From Within, Mariah Carey, Phedon Papamichael, Tennessee, Tribeca 08

A few new trailers out on the web:

Here's a wordless teaser trailer for "Babylon A.D.," introduced in French by actor/director Mathieu Kassovitz, the man behind both the high highs of "La Haine" and the loooow lows of "Gothika." Delayed, over budget and pushed back from a February release date to the less desirable one of August 29th, the film at least promises to be odd, with Vin Diesel playing a mercenary named Thoorop (hee!) escorting a woman carrying the Messiah through the near dystopic future. Michelle Yeoh, Gérard Depardieu and Charlotte Rampling are also part of the cast.

Fatih Akin's last narrative film, "Head On," was one of my favorites from 2005, a smash and grab romance in the Turkish-German community. His new film, "The Edge of Heaven" expands on similar themes of rootlessness — it's bigger, more ambitious and maybe a little less vital for it, but still well worth watching. Here's the trailer; the film opens May 21st.

Here's a trailer for Alan Ball's directorial debut, "Towelhead," a film that's inarguably provocative (cheers, pedophilia storyline!), though its justifications have been debated by critics since its premiere at Toronto last year — Variety described it as "gutsy to no particular end." It's set to open on August 8th.

And hey, it's summer — here's a trailer for "The Incredible Hulk." You wouldn't like Edward Norton when he's angry — he'll abstain from doing press. Due out June 13th.

[Photo: "Babylon A.D., Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 2007]

+ Trailer: "Babylon A.D." (Allocine)
+ Trailer: "The Edge of Heaven" (YouTube)
+ Trailer: "Towelhead" (WarnerBros.com)
+ Trailer: "The Incredible Hulk" (Apple)

By Alison Willmore in Trailering | Link | Recommended (1)

Tags: Alan Ball, Babylon A.D., Edward Norton, Fatih Akin, Mathieu Kassovitz. The Incredible Hulk, The Edge of Heaven, Towelhead