Luckily, this clip from the 3D “masterpiece” that detail just how subtle and scary a remake of an underrated 80s slasher can be–especially in 3D! The original story involves a crazed, cannibalistic miner who raped a bunch of trapped mine victims (we’re betting this is tweaked in the new release) and who threatens to repeat his carnage if the town ever has another Valentine’s Day celebration. And yes, the original is only meant for those with a soft spot for crap/hack/slash films that have an unwarranted taboo–i.e. “9 minutes too graphic for the MPAA!”
Luckily we’ll get plenty of useless 3D shock scares in this needless remake, and see another clip at MTV. To be fair, that trailer promised flames bursting into a theater and a miner’s flashlight illuminating us. Then again, we are very confident that this will explode at the box office. Or implode. A fiery downfall either way.
Criterion, who had already shown the Wes Anderson love with their Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic discs, announced back in 2007 that they were going to be putting out an edition of Bottle Rocket. This was met with much joy, especially because the previously released version, which came out back in 1996, was about as bare bones as you could get. The only real special feature it could claim was widescreen on one side of the disc, and full screen on the other. Big whoop.
The new version, which just came out in late 2008 has a ton of features, and is available in both standard and Blu-ray editions. But it also contains one of the single most sour notes ever hit in an Anderson DVD. It’s so extremely painful that it makes the package almost worth avoiding.
“Tell me why I should go see a fucking movie that’s in Mennonite!” — Joshua Rothkopf.
Consider the gauntlet thrown down. The above quote comes from a “pubcast” posted last week by Aaron Hillis on his first day as editor of GreenCine Daily. In this conversation between Hillis, Rothkopf, David Fear and Matt Zoller-Seitz, about where film criticism currently is and where they’d like to see it go, the verdict seemed to be that everyone would like to see more clear-headed advocacy, free of snark and academic flourish. The film implicitly referenced is that pullquote Silent Light– which, though made by Carlos Reygadas in an Mexican Mennonite community and featuring a number of real-life Mennonites in lieu of professional actors, is not “in Mennonite,” but the obscure German dialect Plautdietsch. That kind of quibble, of course, doesn’t really matter. What does matter, is a) that Silent Light is finally having its official for-profit US premiere tomorrow at Film Forum in New York City, and b) Rothkopf’s point is valid. The thing most expressed by most Stateside writers (including myself) to audiences about this near-masterpiece has nothing to do with what’s actually on screen. It’s that, since the film’s debut at Cannes in 2007, Silent Light been rather difficult to see.
That wasn’t intended as a pun, but maybe it should be taken as one: though Light’s path to US distribution has been both thorny and worth noting, it’s also a relatively painless thing to put into plain language. The experience of actually watching Silent Light is not summarized so easily. At its basest level, Silent Light is a film about the gulf between what we can explain (based on evidence and experience and a common language for things that happen to all people) and things we can’t, things which push our understanding of the way the universe works and what it means to be a part of it. Like any number of visually extraordinary epics about big ideas which open up new avenues of interpretation on each viewing (2001 is the example that, perhaps oddly, comes quickest to my mind), words are not always its best advertisements.
This is what I can say, in the plainest language in which I can say it. …Read more
This post is part of a series of brief, email interviews that we’re conducting with select filmmakers who are showing work at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. All of our Sundance 2009 coverage lives here.
Ry Russo-Young, whose first feature Orphans was recently released on DVD by Carnivalesque Films, makes her first trip to Sundance next week with You Won’t Miss Me. Described as a “kaleidoscopic narrative”, this New Frontiers section selection stars Stella Schnabel (daughter of Julian) and incorporates a wide variety of formats, including 16mm film and 1-chip video.
You can check out the trailer at the filmmaker’s web site; her answers to The Four Questions We Ask Everyone, including praise for Steve Martin and creative Xeroxing, are below the jump. Miss Me has its premiere on Friday, January 16 at the Holiday Village.
On Monday, attorney Chad Hummel filed two documents with the Los Angeles Superior Court outlining all the reasons why that court should be disqualified from weighing the director’s decades-old case. A hearing on Polanski’s early December request to have the sexual misconduct case dismissed had been set for Jan. 21.
Polanski fled the United States more than 30 years ago on the eve of sentencing, convinced he would not get a fair shake from Judge Lawrence Rittenband, and has lived in European exile ever since. His fugitive status is central to the latest request.
Hummel said that court expressed a “predetermination” on the issue when it indicated that Polanski would have to appear at the hearing.
Out of all the cinematic staples, the so-called “magical negro” is the worst to define and discuss due to it being the mother of all loaded terms. A catch-all phrase used to describe how African-Americans in film tend to be superhuman physically, spiritually or both, it’s currently in the midst of the pop cultural zeitgeist thanks to a crappy song and New Year’s faux-pas.
Anytime someone sees a black character used as a story tool in a film — in the case of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) originally didn’t exist in Fitzgerald’s story — there is a mild cry of “There! There! I see a magical negro in the distance! Yes! There!” One should wonder why Eric Roth deemed it necessary to suddenly introduce the character as a framing device for guiding the CGI Man-Child about, but that’s up to anyone who can be assed to sit through that three hour bore.
So, we’ve taken it upon ourselves—and in full expectation of the eventual backlash that will come from one friend of ours, Odienator at Big Media Vandalism—to deconstruct the favorite crutch of Stephen King, the WachowskiBrothers and whoever else has a problem understanding just what makes the worst stereotype the worst stereotype.
Making her way to Sundance next month with her debut feature, Palestinian/Jordanian-American director Cherien Dabis, who was on the festival circuit last year with her terrific short Make a Wish, tapped her experiences growing up Arab in a small Ohio town during the first Gulf War when writing Amreeka, a bittersweet, comedic look at otherness. The film, which went through Sundance and Film Independent’s various talent development programs before going in front of cameras last year, will bow at the Eccles later this month. In the meantime we caught up with Dabis to discuss what she watched while prepping her new film, learning about classical music and just what Wong Kar Wai and Prince could do together. …Read more
Last month, on the opening day of Gran Torino, I went up to Lincoln Center to participate in a roundtable discussion about Clint Eastwood for a Film Comment podcast. Kevin B. Lee, who also participated in the roundtable, has since adapted the conversation into three video essays: one on Changeling (in which I am extremely quiet; I guess I was playing by the “if you have nothing nice to say…” rule); one on Gran Torino, and one (embedded above) on the look of Eastwood’s films, and particularly his use of light. I’m quiet in that last one, too, but in this case it’s because my knowledge of Eastwood’s filmography was brutally overmatched by that of the Film Society’s Evan Davis, Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine, Akiva Gottlieb of The Nation.
I’ve always had major problems with Eastwood’s work, but being part of the conversation made me excited about going back and watching some of his directorial efforts that I hadn’t seen, including The Bridges of Madison Country, which coincidentally ended up showing the weekend after we recorded the podcast on the WE network, where I gave it about four hours of my life, counting the frequent breaks for Rich Bride, Poor Bride promos. It was worth it.
Ramen is a tricky subject to most Americans. On one hand, it means “Cup Noodle,” 24 packages for $2 and ingesting more sodium than once thought humanly possible. On the other, it’s downright delicious when served properly and with things aside from the dried peas or “flavor packets” that come with the cheap versions. (If you’re around New York, we recommend the Ippudo chain or Minca.)
That said, there has only been one great film about ramen: Tampopo. A heart-warming tale of a truck driver helping a widow turn her ramen shop around, it is a regarded whimsical “noodle western” that proves even hobos can be culinary masters. And now, to round out the spectrum, there is officially the Worst Ramen Film: The Ramen Girl.
Every time Kurt Kuenne’s Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, my review of the film gets a new flood of angry comments. Since my analytical response to the documentary seems to be so thoroughly out of tune with the emotional responses of MSNBC viewers, I thought I’d excerpt from a few of these comments in order present the argument of the other side:
“Katrina ,
Your pure uttering of nonsense assures me that you yourself suffer of some form of illness. And I am not saying this as an insult. I truly believe you must be scarred or simply looking to rile up attention by being simple.” — michelle
“Can’t you see that Karina wrote an amateur minded article with the purpose of stirring up emotions? … Move on to a quality review, secure in your own ideas and inspirations.” — John
“I’m stunned at reading the the above “review”, - or that this film was even ‘reviewed’ at all by anyone…The basis for this film are horrid, the final outcome is unthinkable, and for YOU to criticize “how” it was made is beyond me. Just how many devoted friends to you have Karina?” — Judy
“I’m writing to Karina and I just want to say that people like you are what makes up the crazy in this world. I will say a prayer for you.” — tammy
Lessons learned: Documentaries shouldn’t be reviewed; film reviews shouldn’t ask you to question “your own ideas and inspirations”; my name is Katrina, and I am sick and mad because I tried to do my job, which I’ve always thought is not to assess a film’s merits based on how it made me feel, but on the choices made by the filmmaker, his/her degree of craft, and the quality of the finished product divorced of the maker’s noble intentions. I guess I was wrong!
Hugh Jackman has removed himself from discussions to star with Catherine Zeta-Jones in Cleo, a 3-D live action musical which Steven Soderbergh will direct as his next project…Soderbergh has said he wants to inject the famous historical love story with rock n’ roll songs and a style akin to an Elvis musical.
Jackman’s exit is attributed by insiders to scheduling conflicts, though it is not clear what other project is on his plate.
Above: Elvis Presley in the 1965 harem-sploitation musical comedy, Harum Scarum. Discuss.
Two halfsie holiday weeks in one Week in Review! From the final days of recession gluttony to the cold dawn of 2009, we learned about charismatic Nazis, twisted nativities,Revolutionary Road, The Spirit, Chernenko-sploitation, and the most misunderstood movies of the past twelve months. Happy Everything!!!
Wells is a classic mix of online reactionary and keen insight, peppered with various “what the fuck” moments and the occasional non sequitur involving Paris Hilton and Al-Qaeda. To ring in the New Year, let’s take a quick look back at our favorite blogged remarks from the man who confused Mike D’Angelo with Ed Gonzalez, and whose random photos of restaurants and lawns oddly resemble–for lack of a better term–art. Also, any use of bold is for emphasis and my own editorial comments are in italics.
Happy New Year, Elephants
On New Year’s Eve, it sounds like Jeff was staying at a raucous party house in one of the Boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn? Who can tell these days.) Conditions were so bad that he was sadly driven to bar-hopping due to his neighbors:
I live below a family of animals — Hispanic party elephants — who stomp around and play music so loud that the building throbs and the plaster cracks. It’s a fairly safe bet they’re going to lose their minds tonight so I may as well just huddle down in the city and bounce around from bar to bar.
Follow-up in the comments from Wells:
People with a little class and breeding and a college degree don’t tend to be as noisy or boisterous or loutish as the commoners, cretins, galumphs, bad dressers, etc. The lower end of the gene pool. T’was ever thus.
Man, New Year’s Eve was totally awesome. I made sandwiches, drank Holiday punch and then stumbled home calling up friends of mine in California to tell them they should come over for brunch. Yes, there is nothing quite as awesome as the sad, drunken spectacle that is New Year’s Eve.
Unless you’re Kathy Griffin — then you’re infinitely the best thing about New Year’s TV Specials next to the voodoo used to keep Dick Clark alive.
We know you can hardly wait until 
Last month, on the opening day of 
Every time Kurt Kuenne’s 
