In Contention

Category: Daily

  • R.I.P. Ed McMahon

    Ed McMahonOn one hand, I’d be lying if I didn’t say one of the first things that crossed my mind with the sad news of Ed McMahon’s passing was, “He was still alive?”  Indeed, McMahon, a fixture of my childhood, hadn’t exactly planted a flag of relevance on my life for a number of years, but nevertheless, it’s kind of a punch to the gut to wake up to this kind of thing.

    He was Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” sidekick, holding down the couch night after night throughout my youth.  He was the “Star Search” guy, a benevolent figure to a number of today’s entertainers as they got their first big break.  He was the guy you hoped to open the door to with a giant Publisher’s Clearing House envelope in tow.  And, of course, he had his hand in the movie business.

    He was all these things, yes.  He was an American staple.  He wasn’t an artist whose genius will never spark again, but something perhaps a little more.  He was a figment of the entertainment business whose likeness is gone forever and whose passing marks, poetically in league with the recent programming particulars at NBC, the end of an era.

    Here’s a clip for nostalgia.  You don’t get this brand of classic comedy on late night anymore.  Maybe on Letterman from time to time:

  • They took it away after all

    Au revoir, kodachrome.  An ode.  An obit.  The track (though it’s a shame I can’t find the “Coneheads” montage):

  • 6/23 Web Round-up

    Shohreh Aghdashloo in The Stoning of Soraya M.• How Sacha Baron Cohen ensnares his victims. [Daily Telegraph]

    • 26 titles announced for this year’s Toronto fest. [indieWIRE]

    • Anna Pickard breaks down the recent “2012” trailer. [The Guardian]

    • Gina Piccalo talks to Shohreh Aghdashloo, star of “The Stoning of Soraya M.” [Los Angles Times]

    • Noah Forrest joins the “Year One” dogpile. [Movie City News]

    • Michael Cieply profiles “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. [New York Times]

    • An antidote of sorts to last week’s slew of dad lists with good cheer: the 10 most horrible dad movies. [Premiere]

    • Brad Brevet talks to “The Hurt Locker” director Kathryn Bigelow. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Simon Pegg profiled across the pond. [The Times]

  • HBO’s Spielberg-produced mini-series ‘The Pacific’

  • Disney sneaks a little ‘Christmas’ into June

    A Christmas CarolEvery hour on the hour until 7:00pm today, Walt Disney Pictures is screening a pair of scenes from Robert Zemeckis’s upcoming “A Christmas Carol” over at the Universal City IMAX theater as part of the excited, long-winded publicity build-up for the film.  Currently a cross-country train tour is parked in Sacramento, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the making of process as well as the scenes exhibited today.  Next weekend it’ll be on to Oakland and will continue through its five-to-six month odyssey until it pulls into New York’s Grand Central station just days prior to the film’s November 6 release.

    For details on when the exhibition will be in your neck of the woods, check out the tour’s schedule.

    As for the footage itself, the scenes are strikingly different.  The first is something of a character initiation for Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey), in case you’re somehow unaware of his place in literary lore.  It isn’t the best scene for showing off the film’s 3D particulars but it is, however, a great indication of the detail and textured artistic direction of the film.  The sets are rendered as beautifully as Zemeckis’s “Beowulf,” though there is more of a glimmer of existence in the “lifeless eyes” that many were so loathe to observe in “The Polar Express.”  We also get a look at Bob Cratchit in this scene, one of actor Gary Oldman’s three gigs on the production.

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  • It really comes down to three words…

    …don’t talk shit.

    Part two here.  I’d prefer not to link to his site.  You understand.  And in case you’re in the dark (I would be if it weren’t for Twitter), here’s the AP story.

    Interestingly, since he wants to play holier than thou, I wonder what Hilton would have to say about all the “human beings” he calls out for cellulite or decorates with Mario-Paint-esque semen on his website.  “Professional.”  Give me a break.

    Anyway, I only wish it was will.i.am that clocked this excuse for a person, not his manager.  That would have gone a long way toward forgiving the sins of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.”  And I hope this opens the floodgates.  Open season on this creep.  “I like to write about other people’s drama.  I don’t want drama in my own life.”  Then don’t stir it up.  These are the lessons we learn as children.

    Anyway, give him a tissue…onward.

  • It was fated: Hasbro storms the multiplex

    TransformersIt’s panning out to be a good end-of-decade run for Hasbro, the Rhode-Island-based toy manufacturer smartly focused upon in this Dave Itzkoff New York Times pre-release piece for “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”  After all, what of substance can you really dig into, journalistically, when it comes to these films?  An internal email that won’t matter in a week, if it even does after the weekend?

    Anyway, in addition to “Transformers,” Hasbro will also finally see its G.I. Joe line make it to screens in August in the form of the reportedly troubled “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.”  But the fun doesn’t end there for the company, which saw a heyday in the 1980s that it’s hoping to reach once again with revamped versions of old franchises.  A slew of boardgames have been optioned for adaptation, including Battleship, Candyland and Monopoly, as well as Ouiji, which is being developed by “Transformers” director Michael Bay.

    Oh, and don’t forget about Ron Howard’s “Stretch Armstrong.”  Silly, of course, but it seems Hollywood isn’t willing to place a risk on anything without at least some form of built-in fanbase, no matter how ancient the fan base.

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  • Amie Bolissian’s cryptic movie canvas: How many can you spot?

    Over at Empire Online, artist Amie Bolissian has worked up a large “cryptic canvas” that includes visual cues for 50 film titles.  How many can you spot?  Here’s a quick shot of the image but head on over to Empire to investigate more closely:

    How many movies can you spot?

  • POLL: What is your favorite Michael Mann film?

    (from left) Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeline Stowe in The Last of the mohicans“Public Enemies” lands at the Los Angeles Film Festival tomorrow, and with it, a slew of reviews and Michael-Mann-centric features is sure to follow.  Next week we’ll be dedicating an edition of The Lists to the director, but this week I thought we’d put a query out to the readership.  In the simplest of terms, What’s your favorite Mann feature?

    I’ve gone ahead and included television’s “The Jericho Mile” in case there are those who have seen it and feel it in them to be even more contrarian than picking “The Keep.”  I’m really curious to see where this one goes.  There is plenty of “Miami Vice” and “Collateral” goodwill from our largely younger readership, and plenty, I’m sure (like me) who have a devotion to Mann’s work in the 1990s.  Even still, his 1980s career is at once of a piece with his portfolio and curiously outside of it, sure to nurture a following.

    So have your say in this week’s sidebar poll.  Pick your favorite Mann movie and head on back here to discuss why.

  • 6/22 Web Round-up

    Last Year at Marienbad• Steve Appleford taps into Spinal Tap, 25 years later. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Dennis Lim, meanwhile, revisits the “last gasp of an old-fashioned modernism” that is “Last Year at Marienbad.” [Los Angeles Times]

    • A few of the cinema’s most inspiring, moving and emotional dad moments. [Empire]

    • John Hiscock talks “Year One” with Jack Black. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Popcorn as a sexual aid? [The Guardian]

    • Lou Lumenick, spinning his wheels, wonders whether the top brass shakeup at Paramount this week is prelude to a merger with Universal Pictures. [Lumenick on Film]

    • Sam Mendes beat Martin Scorsese to the “Middlemarch” punch. [The Independent]

    • Speaking of which, Brad Brevet accuses Sam Mendes of attacking the state of American marriage.  If the shoe fits… [Rope of Silicon]

  • Terrifying ‘Alice in Wonderland’ stills

    So ready for this movie.  Click for larger version.  One more after the jump…

    (from left) Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway in Alice in Wonderland

    (Courtesy: USA Today)

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  • When revisionists strike…

    Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the BombDon’t hurt yourself, Dave Kehr:

    For all of his technical brilliance, Kubrick had no discernable sense of humor and many of the gags in “Strangelove” — from the broad puns of the character names to the overdrawn figures of Peter Sellers’s Strangelove and Sterling Hayden’s Gen. Jack D. Ripper — seem less funny as their audacity has drained away. Lines like “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!” now seem more labored than deliciously droll.

    Steeped in the improvisational ethic of the early ’60s (Nichols and May, the Second City) the film may be at its best in those low-key moments when Sellers, playing the American president Merkin Muffley, chats nervously on the hot line with the unseen Soviet premier — moments that owe everything to Bob Newhart’s classic telephone routines. “Strangelove” is a rare case of a film that has become a classic more for marking the end of an era (of high cold war paranoia) than initiating a new one.

  • David Thomson on Christian Bale

    Christian Bale in Public EnemiesChristian Bale has been given something of a rough ride of late, with the combination of unfortunate media attention and a dreary turn in the woebegone “Terminator Salvation” slightly stripping the varnish from an otherwise solidly built career. Thankfully, Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” has arrived just in time to restore some respectability, though early word on the film places him very much in the shadow of Johnny Depp.

    However, critic and “Biographical Dictionary of Film” author David Thomson’s admiration for Bale remains undimmed:

    If you remember the remake of 3.10 to Yuma, it wasn’t the swagger of Ben Foster and Russell Crowe that stayed in the mind. Theirs were flashy or lazy performances, compared with the haunted gaze and stillness of Bale as the ordinary man who had seen that he was going to die.

    Indeed, he’s acted as if he felt like a character actor, and as if he saw no reason why anyone could expect to be mature until 35 or so – his age now. If I were Johnny Depp, I’d be worried – after all, you know what Depp’s going to do in Public Enemies, don’t you? He’s going to shoot you down and grin – it’s an old movie habit. But the killers on the side of the law are often darker figures, because they believe it is their duty. Ever since Empire of the Sun it has been clear that Bale understands madness, and can do it without being melodramatic.

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  • Beautiful ‘Disgrace’ poster

    Regular readers probably know how much I’m looking forward to Steve Jacobs’ Australian (but distinctly South African flavored) production “Disgrace,” an adaptation of one of the great novels of our time that looks to give John Malkovich his most challenging lead in eons. We were offered an impressive trailer last year, and no less enticing is this poster:

    Disgrace

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  • Bigelow and Cameron on ‘The Hurt Locker’

    Kathryn Bigelow on the set of The Hurt LockerIn this weekend’s Sunday New York Times, film critic Manohla Dargis falls in love with director Kathryn Bigelow all over again.  I wouldn’t necessarily say the astutely written profile fawns over the “Hurt Locker” director, but it’s a more passionately open and admiring piece than one typically expects from the usually biting and removed Dargis.

    As you would expect, much of the piece concentrates on Bigelow’s unlikely career in an industry dominated by men.  But for Dargis, the fascination of the subject, of course, lies in Bigelow’s artistic attraction with the concerns of men.  That attraction is rendered with penetrating character strokes in “The Hurt Locker,” which Guy recently reviewed out of Edinburgh.  The film is a meditation on war as an addiction, packed with some of the year’s finest performances and calculated in its delivery.  In that way it is actually intriguing that the film will share multiplexes with Michael Mann’s similarly measured “Public Enemies” in a few short weeks.

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  • EDINBURGH: “Modern Love is Automatic,” “Jerichow,” “White Lightnin’”

    Modern Love is AutomaticWith over 100 new feature films appearing at the Edinburgh this week, and a chaotically overlapping schedule of press screenings to work with, the choice of what to see can be a bewildering one.

    With previous festival cred behind them, the likes of “The Hurt Locker” or “Fish Tank” hardly have to fight for your attention, but the programme is packed with underexposed, unbuzzed titles that have to rely on word of mouth, or just gut instinct, to get seen.

    It’s this lucky-dip process that makes festivals fun, whether you’re rewarded with the smug satisfaction of happening upon a hidden gems – or simply the knowledge of why no one is talking about a certain title. What follows are three under-the-radar titles that typify the mixed fortunes of the festival experience.

    “MODERN LOVE IS AUTOMATIC” (***)

    I probably wouldn’t have unearthed Zach Clark’s delicious, unapologetically avant-garde sophomore were it not for a tip-off from our own Chad Hartigan, which would have been my own significant loss. A study of sexual politics in the postern age of disassociation and consumerism, with precisely none of the dry academic heft of that pitch, “Modern Love” more resembles the kind of candy-colored, off-the-cuff riff that might have emerged if Andy Warhol had ever tried his hand at “Sex and the City.”

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Enemies’ surfaces, Edinburgh launches

    Johnny Depp in Public Enemies• Michael Mann’s much-awaited “Public Enemies” finally peeked out from behind the covers, generating much early discussion, if no permitted reviews.

    • A rumor circulated that Christopher Nolan might leave the Batman franchise, prompting heated speculation over a potential replacement.

    • Across the pond, we kicked off our coverage of the Edinburgh Film Festival, with Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” chief among the early highlights.

    • Speaking of which, we wondered whether Bigelow’s film could be one of those that prove their legs when awards season rolls around.

    • “The Hangover” maintained its hold on the box-office, securing its position as the surprise of the season.

    • Meanwhile, the newly released trailer for “2012” carried the scent of a more traditional summer blockbuster.

    • While we’re talking about money, Harrison Ford is still apparently making more of it than any other actor.

    • And finally, ahead of Sunday’s paternal celebrations, this week’s list paid tribute to the joys of father-son moviegoing.

  • Exhaustion of narrative

    Paul SchraderThe Guardian carries an excellent piece today by veteran screenwriter and filmmaker Paul Schrader (“Taxi Driver”) which offers a different take on the issue of Hollywood’s current penchant for narrative recycling — that the increasing number of media formats contributing to daily life is limiting our capacity for fresh stories.

    His argument is that, with everything from Twitter to YouTube to reality TV supplying us with a consistent feed of mini-narratives, it’s harder for the less spontaneous medium of feature film to maintain a sense of innovation:

    Writers have always known there are a limited number of storylines … We do tell variations of the same stories over and over. That’s not what I mean by the “exhaustion of narrative”. What is new is the omnipresence and ubiquity of plot created by media proliferation. We are inundated by narrative. We are swimming in storylines.

    Originality has always been in short supply. Does the proliferation of media mean that it is harder to be original today than it was 50 years ago? Well, yes. Today’s viewers live in a biosphere of narrative. Twenty-four-seven, multimedia, all the time. When a storyteller competes for a viewer’s attention, he not only competes with simultaneously occurring narratives, he competes with the variations of his own narrative. That’s real competition. The bar of originality has been raised. The media marketplace puts a premium on anything “new” or “fresh” and, at the same time, inundates its viewers with continual and competing narratives.

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