By Aaron Hillis

Wisconsin-born filmmaker Chris Smith's 1996 debut feature, "American Job," got his foot in the door at Sundance, but it was 1999's "American Movie," about a luckless amateur filmmaker in production on a low-budget horror flick, that earned him the Grand Jury Prize in Park City, putting his star on the indie-film map. Two more funny and moving docs, "Home Movie" and "The Yes Men," followed, and then Smith threw a game-changer into his oeuvre: a a Hindi-language narrative. Nominated for a Spirit Award and winner of yet another Sundance trophy (the Special Jury Prize this time around), "The Pool" is a neo-realist chronicle of entrepreneurial young Venkatesh (non-pro Venkatesh Chavan), a hotel "room boy" in Panjim, Goa who ingratiates himself to a wealthy family in hopes of swimming in their luxurious pool. Adapted from a short story by his long-time collaborator Randy Russell and exquisitely shot by Smith himself, this deeply humane and moving story couldn't be more deceptively simple. Just before NYC's Museum of Modern Art held a career retrospective for Smith as a run-up to the theatrical release of "The Pool," I chatted with Smith about India, being classified as a documentarian, and what he thinks about Todd Solondz's on-screen condemnation of his best-known film.

By Aaron Hillis in Interviews | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: American Job, American Movie, Chris Smith, Storytelling, The Pool, Todd Solondz

By Michael Atkinson

The most fabulous and fascinating thing about Pier Paolo Pasolini's notoriously terminal film "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom" (1975) is its intractability, its single-minded evasion of traditional matters of visual pleasure, narrative, spectator experience and thematic thrust. Calling it a "masterpiece," as transgression-obsessed critics have done, or an "abomination," as many Italians, clergy and stuffed shirts have done over the years, or even a work that could be judged as simply good or bad, thumbs up or thumbs down, is not only unhelpful but ridiculously wrong. In many ways, the movie stands outside of cinema, and art culture — which is, of course, exactly where the Marquis de Sade himself has long stood. Sade didn't write books — stories meant to be read progressively in time for purposes of empathy and enlightenment and entertainment — he was the first hell-and-high-water oppositionist, assembling massive ramparts of words and ideas intended not as art, but only as testaments to a tireless antiestablishmentarianism. He didn't care about his readers, their interest or arousal or even disgust; Sade only cared about building his unreadable castle of protest. Pasolini had always been a much more socially responsible, and politically savvy, artist, but with "Salò" he followed Sade's example and managed the unprecedented: he made a film the viewing of which is incidental, but the existence of which is fundamental.

By Michael Atkinson in On DVD | Link | 1 Comments | Recommended (1)

Tags: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom, Television Under the Swastika

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore

If movies have taught us anything, it's that there's a huge shadow economy for professional killings, and dozens of angsty men and women around the globe specially trained to fill it. "Bangkok Dangerous" finds Nicolas Cage becoming the latest to join the ranks of these sad assassins, and in honor of the film, this week on the IFC News podcast we look at the many reasons movie hitmen tend to be so tragic.

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[Photo: Nicolas Cage in "Bangkok Dangerous," Lionsgate, 2008]

By Alison Willmore in Podcasts | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (2)

Tags: Bangkok Dangerous, Nicolas Cage

By Neil Pedley

This week's trip to the multiplex offers a jaunt around the globe where, amongst other things, there's a case of mistaken ethnicity in Boston, Nic Cage gets another wig fitted in Thailand, there's whimsy and surrealism in Scotland and Matthew McConaughey is right at home in Malibu, where he might finally have found something he does well, maybe.

"August Evening"
Strained emotional bonds and the transitory nature of the life of an illegal immigrant provide the backdrop for Chris Eska's quietly affecting family drama that stars Pedro Castaneda as an aging farmhand who loses his job at a chicken farm in a sleepy Texas town, forcing he and his devoted daughter-in-law (Veronica Loren) to relocate to San Antonio to stay with his older children and the grandchildren he never knew he had. As Alison Willmore pointed out in last week's Lunchbox, Castaneda is a first-time actor who turned heads at this year's Spirit Awards where he was nominated for best male lead and the film went on to win the John Cassavetes Award for a film under $500,000.
Opens in New York.

By Neil Pedley in In Theaters | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (2)

By Matt Singer

What happens when you put the classic Cinderella story together with a modern setting or flip the protagonists' sexes? A whole lot more than bippity-boppity-boo. In honor of the new film "Year of the Fish," a self-proclaimed "Cinderella in a Chinatown massage parlour," here are five more unique reinventions of this durable fairy tale popularized by French author Charles Perrault in 1697. Read quickly, though: at the stroke of midnight, this article turns back into zeros and ones.

"Ever After" (1998)
Directed by Andy Tennant

The Brothers Grimm are called before the Grand Dame of France (Jeanne Moreau) to set the record straight on the "real" Cinderella, who had no magical benefactors or means of conveyance, though she did get some wardrobe support from Leonardo da Vinci (Patrick Godfrey). Actually named Danielle De Barbarac (Drew Barrymore), she was living in servitude to her stepmother, Baroness Rodmilla (Angelica Huston) when she met Prince Henry (Dougray Scott) as he pilfered one of the family's horses. When she bumps into Henry again while posing as Nicole de Lancret to try to save one of her family's servants, Danielle is forced to carry on a double life, meeting the prince at a series of secret romantic rendezvous. Barrymore's Danielle is no fair princess — with her secret identity, selfless deeds and championship skills with a blade, she's more like a superhero. This version of Cinderella is unquestionably the most "adult" (with the exception of Cheryl Smith's 1977 soft core musical version, which, unfortunately, wasn't at my local video store) — it's the only one rated PG-13 — and the least whimsical; at times, the magic-free depictions of the dingy realities of France's lower class can get a bit oppressive. Still, this rendition isn't as accurate as it claims — the real Prince Henry was born the same year the real da Vinci died, not to mention the fact that everyone in France in the 16th century speaks with an English accent.

By Matt Singer in Lists | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: A Cinderella Story, Andy Tennant, Anne Hathaway, Bruce Leddy, Cinderella, Cinderelmo, Cinderfella, Drew Barrymore, Ella Enchanted, Ever After, Frank Tashlin, Jerry Lewis, Mark Rosman, Sesame Street, Tommy O'Haver, Year of the Fish

By Aaron Hillis

38-year-old New York actor Ken Leung ("Rush Hour," "Saw," "The Squid and the Whale") may have only gigged on a single episode of "The Sopranos" (as Junior Soprano's violent protégé in a psychiatric hospital), but it was enough to inspire producers to write him into another TV pop phenomenon, "Lost." As brooding spiritualist Miles Straume, one of the elusive strangers to parachute onto the island, Leung brings to the role both quiet menace and caustic wisecracks.

Leung can also be seen in writer/director David Kaplan's rotoscope-animated indie "Year of the Fish," a contemporary retelling of the Cinderella fairytale set in a seedy massage parlor and the streets of Chinatown. Leung costars as Johnny, an accordion player who may also be the Prince Charming to disillusioned immigrant Ye Xian (An Nguyen). Notoriously shy, Leung graciously offered up a phone interview from Hawaii while preparing to shoot his next puzzling episode of "Lost."

By Aaron Hillis in Interviews | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (6)

Tags: David Kaplan, Ken Leung, Lost, rotoscoping, The Sopranos, Year of the Fish

By Michael Atkinson

The new Chinese documentary "Please Vote for Me" (2007) has an irresistible arc: take a class of average middle class third-graders, give them the opportunity to vote for "class monitor;" tell the three candidates that they have to run campaigns, in order to net as many votes as they can; and let the political process run its course — that is, let it corrupt, humiliate and demoralize the children just as they were led to believe they were creating "democracy." Weijun Chen's film — which runs a mere 55 minutes — has an almost crystalline purity to its ironies. Three Wuhan children are "selected" by the teachers — two boys (one of whom is the incumbent monitor, and given to shoving his classmates around) and a girl, whose shy demeanor would seem to make her a dubious candidate. Right out of the gate, the campaigns become hilarious-yet-chilling mirror images of adult political activity: rather than appeal to common sense with reason and honesty, the seduction of power takes over, and the three candidates instantly resort to bullying, subterfuge, illicit coalitions and false accusations. Palm-pressing is relentless, and subordinate posts are promised in exchange for votes (including something called a "vice monitor"). A "talent show" is disrupted by heckling (afterwards the guilty candidate forces his cohorts to tearfully apologize to the victim, an act that he hopes will win him class-wide approval); debates immediately devolve into character assassinations. Behind the scenes, the candidates' parents encourage them to fight dirty, and instruct them in appearance and substance-free speechifying. Every monstrous tendency of our political system, including, in the end, bribery, finds its way into this innocent little classroom, and there may not be a more potent new film to see this election year.

By Michael Atkinson in On DVD | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (1)

Tags: Davide Ferrario, Please Vote for Me, Primo Levi's Journey, Weijun Chen

By Matt Singer and Alison Willmore

In honor of the late critic Manny Farber's idea of termite art, and of the movie doldrums of late August, this week on the IFC News podcast we pay our respects to our favorite working leads in good-bad films. After all, great acting is one thing, but the ability to yell about getting revenge on the guy who killed your wife while flexing your abs and outrunning a fireball is quite another, and worthy of its own kind of appreciation.

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[Photo: Jason Statham in "Death Race," Universal Pictures, 2008]

By Alison Willmore in Podcasts | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (1)

Tags: Jason Statham, termite art

By Neil Pedley

This week's new films include the Western going Eastern, a couple of exotic music docs, Cinderella stories for girls and for boys and Vin Diesel attempting to walk, chew gum and shoot people -- all at the same time.

"Babylon A.D."
Second chances all around in this stylish cyberpunk romp that sees "La Haine" director Mathieu Kassovitz take another bite at the mainstream cherry after stumbling with his last detour into Hollywood, the Halle Berry clunker "Gothika." Vin Diesel, who passed on "Hitman" for this, also gets another shot at a potential franchise after eliciting a collective yawn with his Neo-lite performance in "The Chronicles of Riddick." After a troubled shoot fraught with budget overruns and uncooperative weather, Diesel has the bigger challenge on his hands as Toorop, a mercenary charged with trying to save the world with a snowboard while escorting a genetically altered young woman with a secret through post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe before delivering her to New York. Michelle Yeoh, Gérard Depardieu and Charlotte Rampling highlight the international cast.
Opens wide.

By Neil Pedley in In Theaters | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

An interview with France's Ludivine Sagnier, the star of Claude Chabrol's "A Girl Cut in Two" and the upcoming "A Secret."

By Alison Willmore in Videos | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (4)

Tags: A Girl Cut in Two, A Secret, Claude Chabrol, Ludivine Sagnier