Odds: Thursday – Useless lists, foreign films and more.
Posted by Alison Willmore on
Dare we indulge another pointless magazine list? But how can we look away? Here you go: Premiere‘s 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time. Okay, it’s actually kind of good.
The Onion AV Club‘s Tasha Robinson interviews Daniel Handler, who should by all accounts be Hipster King of the World, as he plays accordion for The Magnetic Fields, writes ambitious novels, adapts operas into modern-day films, and, yes, also pens a smallish children’s book series under the pseudonym of Lemony Snicket.
AVC: What were your feelings on the movie?
DH: Well, for a while, it seemed like it was going to be the most exciting motion picture ever made, and then there was a huge changing of the guard in which I was more or less fired as a screenwriter, and the producer quit, and the director was either fired or quit, depending on whom you ask. If you ask him, he says he was fired. So then for a while it looked like it was going to be the worst movie ever made, hopelessly embarrassing, and by the time it was finishing up, I was so grateful that it wasn’t the worst movie ever made that I overlooked many things that might have otherwise upset me.
Oops. Robinson also interviews Snicket in character.
At indieWIRE, Anthony Kaufman writes about how the restrictions laid down for the Academy’s Best Foreign Language Film category have once again kept some of the most acclaimed foreign films of the year out of the competition, most notably Michael Haneke‘s "Caché."
Chosun Ilbo reports on "The Unforgiven," which opens in Korea this Friday and which received a lot of attention and picked up four prizes at Pusan not so long ago (festival programmer Huh Moon-young called it "the best domestic independent film of the year"). Particularly relevant in our recent days of war film discussion, "The Unforgiven," 26-year-old Yoon Jong-bin’s directorial debut, follows two friends into the country’s mandatory military service, where one excels and the other struggles. In an interview with Lee Jin-woo at the Korea Times, Yoon describes his film as a critique against Korea’s societal structures: "I wrote the story as I believed the military is a miniature of Korean society, containing all of the same social problems and inconsistencies…Some people quickly adapt while others fight against what they believe is wrong. I felt it was so sad to see those misfits face tragic ends."
At LA Weekly, Steven Mikulan speaks to George McGovern as "One Bright Shining Moment" opens.
And at the London Times, Sean Macaulay pays a visit to the Screenwriters Expo in LA, where William Goldman is a god and $25 will get you five minutes to pitch a Hollywood exec.
+ The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time (Premiere)
+ Daniel Handler (Onion AV Club)
+ Lemony Snicket (Onion AV Club)
+ With National Pride At Stake, Foreign Language Films Compete For Oscar Glory (indieWIRE)
+ ‘Unforgiven’ Casts Cold Eye on Army Life (Chosun Ilbo)
+ Director Looks at Pressures of Military Life (Korea Times)
+ The Plainsman (LA Weekly)
+ How I ended up big in pitches (London Times)
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