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  • 6/15 Web Round-up

    Eddie Murphy in Delirious• In case it wasn’t obvious, Paradise Falls from Pixar’s “Up” was inspired by Venezuela’s Angel Falls. [Associated Press via Chicago Sun-Times]

    • Today’s superhero movies have artistic roots in the UK. [BBC]

    • Speaking of which, here’s a girl’s guide to Comic Con 2009. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Anyone else tired of non-news items like this regarding a potential “Arrested Development” movie?  Who cares? [Collider]

    • Martin Scorsese works hard to bring little-seen classics to the web. [CNN]

    • The potentially exciting web site in question. [The Auteurs]

    • Beat writers make their way to the big screen. [The Independent]

    • The Brit-Hitch love-fest (in light of the director’s BFI retrospective) continues. [The Guardian]

    • “Imagine That” might have tanked this weekend, but this Chris Lee remembrance of Eddie Murphy’s comedy turning point — “Delirious,” which celebrated a 25th anniversary last month — is still worth a look. [Los Angeles Times]

    • In honor of the limited reelase of Duncan Jones’s “Moon”: 10 unhappy movie astronauts? [Spout Blog]

  • Anyone else…

    …feel completely robbed as a basketball fan?  How boring.  You push through the defending champs and the presumed eastern finalists, then can’t even prove that you deserve to be in the series?  Maybe they should change it to the Orlando Tragic.

  • #CNNFail

    I’m glad someone picked this up:

    As the Iranian election aftermath unfolded in Tehran–thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to express their anger at perceived electoral irregularities–an unexpected hashtag began to explode through the Twitterverse: “CNNFail.”

    Even as Twitter became the best source for rapid-fire news developments from the front lines of the riots in Tehran, a growing number of users of the microblogging service were incredulous at the near total lack of coverage of the story on CNN, a network that cut its teeth with on-the-spot reporting from the Middle East.

    For most of Saturday, CNN.com had no stories about the massive protests on behalf of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was reported by the Iranian government to have lost to the sitting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The widespread street clashes–nearly unheard of in the tightly controlled Iran–reflected popular belief that the election had been rigged, a sentiment that was even echoed, to some extent, by the U.S. government Saturday.

    The rest here.

  • SUNDAY CENTS: Bad ‘Hangover’ for new openers and holdovers

    The Taking of Pelham 123After denying “Up” the bragging rights of a repeat at the top of the box office at the last minute, “The Hangover” has accomplished that feat itself.

    The R-rated comedy dropped a minuscule 26% to add another $33.4 million to the bank and give it a very real shot at $200 million-plus. That’s a benchmark reserved for very few comedies and only the best of the best like “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “Crocodile Dundee.”  Speaking of those two, it’s a pity Nia Vardalos didn’t look to Paul Hogan’s career for a glimpse at the dangers of repetitive ethnic-centric comedy. If there’s a bigger success story than “The Hangover” this summer, we are in for some big shockers.

    Speaking of shockers, I saw the movie this week and I didn’t like it at all. Aside from some fresh stuff from Zach Galifianakis, it was pretty stale to me. It’s no “Wedding Crashers,” that’s for sure.

    “Up” also held up extremely well, dropping only 31% and staying in the runner-up spot with $30.5 million. It now seems likely to pass “Cars” and wind up the sixth highest grossing Pixar film when all is said and done.* I’ve always said that miscarriages in cartoons equals big bucks and finally somebody listened.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Looking for Eric” (**1/2)

    Looking for EricIt’s been a long time, if ever, since Ken Loach made a film that could legitimately be called a crowd-pleaser, but this is precisely what he has made in “Looking for Eric.”

    Gentle, undemanding and buoyed by the effortlessly charismatic presence of the titular football god – it’s certainly the first Loach film to possess anything approaching star power – it’s less overtly comedic than the marketing campaign would have you believe, but also warmer and less agenda-driven than most of his work this decade.

    With that said, Loach’s renewed emotional engagement has sadly come at the expense of any tonal cohesion whatsoever. As the veteran filmmaker fumbles for the buttons to alternately tickle and touch his audience, his film lurches wildly from a jolly working-class jaunt in the vein of “The Full Monty” to reflective character-oriented miserabilism à la Mike Leigh.

    Paul Laverty, Loach’s longtime screenwriter, wields neither the broad drollery of the former, nor the penetrating human insight of the latter, so roughly halfway through, he finds a third way: falling back on the earnest social commentary of his and Loach’s own “Sweet Sixteen.” With the film shifting its story emphasis through each of these multiple personalities, any sense of narrative continuity slips through the cracks.

    If it sounds like I’m being overly harsh on a film for which the placatory adjective “nice” might have been invented, it’s because not enough people are doing the same: that such a minor-key and formally slapdash film should have played in competition at Cannes is generous enough, but the multiple festival reviews hailing it as some kind of paean to the human spirit are a little puzzling.

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  • ‘Time Traveler’s Wife’ trailer and poster

    There are so many reasons to distrust “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” a New Line romantic fantasy that resembles a kind of pop, estrogen-pumped “Benjamin Button” in its study of a lifelong, chronologically disordered love affair.

    One, it’s been delayed for a whole year — perhaps to avoid a “Button” overlap, but still, it doesn’t augur well. Two, it’s directed by Robert Schwentke, who is best known for the execrable Jodie Foster potboiler “Flightplan.” Three, it’s based on a piece of gussied-up chick-lit as godawful as it is ubiquitous. And four, well, this trailer:

    More thoughts, and a new one-sheet, after the cut.

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  • UK audiences to get uncut ‘Antichrist’ next month

    Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe in AntichristIFC has yet to reveal when it plans to unleash Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist” upon American audiences, but it looks like me and my fellow Brits will get to lay eyes on it first. UK distributor Artificial Eye has announced a July 24 release date for the polarizing Cannes sensation, which has been approved, in its uncut form, by the British censors.

    The British Board of Film Classification decreed that the film — which, in case you’ve been living under a rock these past few weeks, features rough sex, gore and graphic scenes of genital mutilation — may be offensive to some viewers, but that its explicitness is artistically motivated:

    (BBFC director David) Cooke and company shied away from cuts, saying that the censor’s lack of intervention “reflects the principle — strongly endorsed in a number of public consultations — that adults should be free to decide for themselves what to watch or what not to watch, provided it is neither illegal nor harmful.”

    The BBFC Guidelines for “18”-rated works state that the more explicit images of sexual activity will not be allowed unless they can be exceptionally justified by context and that the product is not a “sex work” whose primary purpose is sexual arousal. Said the BBFC, “For these purposes, ‘Antichrist’ is very clearly not a ‘sex work.’ “

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  • Peter Morgan to join Bond team

    Peter MorganSometimes wishes really do come true in the movies. After March’s depressing (to me, at least) announcement that writer Peter Morgan was returning to the biopic well once more with a third take on Tony Blair, these were the exact words I wrote:

    I’d love to see his evident grace and wit as a dramatist put to work on something loose and fictitious — perhaps even more genre-based.

    Well, somebody somewhere listened to me (okay, probably not), and voilà — Morgan will be co-writing the 23rd film in the James Bond franchise. Collaborating with now-regular Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, Morgan will essentially be taking Paul Haggis’s place as the prestige talented drafted in to class up the joint.

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  • Michael Moore’s untitled bailout film gets a trailer

    Really, a trailer before the film has a title?  Has that ever happened?  Anyway, it’s not much.  A simple tease:

  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Island’ sighted, ‘Ghostbusters’ quoted

    Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter IslandA quiet week round these parts — and everywhere else, for that matter:

    • The week’s biggest talking point was the unveiling of the first trailer for Scorsese’s “Shutter Island.” Still mopping the drool from the floor.

    • We celebrated the quarter-century (!) anniversary of “Ghostbusters,” listing the most quotable lines from that eminently quotable film.

    • Our poll of the most influential films of all time finally wrapped … in rather muted fashion. But hey, democracy rules.

    • We had the privilege of interviewing the great Francis Ford Coppola.

    • This week’s Page to Screen examined “Playing the Enemy,” the inspiration for Clint Eastwood’s upcoming “Invictus.”

    • In a rare last-minute coup, “The Hangover” stole “Up’s” thunder at the box office.

    • The 30th anniversary of John Wayne’s passing provided the impetus to wallow in The Duke’s finest screen moments.

    • And finally, yours truly dipped his toe into the murky waters of Oscar predictions.

  • “I believe in an instrument panel, a pressure gauge, a compass, things I can see and touch. I can’t touch God.”

  • New ‘Hurt Locker’ poster

    The Hurt Locker

  • Looking down the nose from across the pond

    Cary Grant in North by NorthwestBoy, the Brits sure are down on Hollywood this afternoon.  First and foremost, perhaps as an off-set to that “here come the franchises” piece linked in this morning’s round-up, David Thomson writes nearly 1,400 words before coming to his fairly reasoned thesis.  If you get through the painful film school lesson (and really, I love a good talk about Hitchcock and his methods as much as the next guy, but come on), you’ll get to the meat of the matter:

    And where has this stylishness gone? As I think about the present range of film-makers I can see very few where one might reliably recognise their work simply from the way it looks – Michael Mann, Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson. But who could say there has ever been an evident personal style in Steven Soderbergh, Ron Howard, George Clooney, the Coen Bothers, or even George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone, Barry Levinson, Stephen Frears or Milos Forman?

    It’s not that those people aren’t considerable directors. These may rely on modesty (Howard), a sense of overriding efficiency (Levinson), or a wish not to show off (Frears) or an eclecticism that can do all styles (the Coens). It may be a lack of authorial character or ambition (Lucas). But you can’t tell their style, in the way you could with Antonioni, Bergman, Godard or Fassbinder.

    Probably arguable points all.  And that’s if you can get past the fact that somehow a thumbprint is necessary for “personal passion” to be present in the filmmaking.  Watch “Hearts of Darkness” and tell Francis Coppola his films don’t convey “personal passion.”  But it was a nice excuse to write some pleasant words about Hitch’s best film (in my opinion), “North by Northwest,” which is playing at BFI as part of the director’s retrospective.

    And the hits keep coming.  Over at The Independent, Geoffrey Macnabb bemoans the remakes of classic 1970s films and the subtlty they have discarded in favor of pyrotechnics and unnecessary star power.

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  • Twisted summer movie theories

    Alison Lohman in Drag Me to HellAlright, I had to let Hunter Stephenson’s rather suspect LGBT theory at /Film, vis a vis Kevin from Pixar’s “Up,” slide earlier in the week.  I’m not seeing it.  However, this Peter Sciretta item (which references an IMDb message board post) drawing parallels between Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell” and eating disorders is a fascinating one that deserves the space.

    Here’s a portion of the argument:

    [IMDb commenter] Micobiella thinks that Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell isn’t actually a horror movie, but instead a story of a farm girl with an eating disorder, who starves herself to fit a certain image and begins hallucinating and going crazy. Apparently you can watch the entire movie from this viewpoint, with few exceptions, and it all makes sense…

    Allison Lohman’s character Christine Brown admits that her mother had an addiction, and at one point in the film we see an overweight photo of Christine as a child in front of a sign that read “SWINE QUEEN”. She doesn’t want to become addicted to food. She doesn’t want to be like her mother. At the beginning of the movie, she is listening to a tape trying to correct her southern accent. She doesn’t want to be a farm girl. She has a good boyfriend, and is trying to move her way up with a career at the bank.

    She never touches food, because she is afraid it will make her fat and disgusting. According to the theory, there really isn’t a scary demon from hell, she’s just imagining everything. Hunger is making her irritable, she imagines the old woman’s creepy hand tapping on the desk when it was really just the other banker. Early in the film she passes out in her car and drives into a bunch of other cars in the parking lot. The woman from the bank never followed her, she imagined everything…

    The food is a key factor in most of the hallucinations. Notice that when food is introduced on screen, Christine gets attacked by the spirit. Every time the spirit appears at her house, she is in the kitchen. When she locks the spirit outside of her room, see sees the spirit in the form of a shadow of Pig hooves.

    And so on and so forth. Intriguing.

  • Danny Boyle parks at Searchlight for three years

    Danny Boyle on the set of Slumdog MillionaireA wise investment for both parties.  Patrick Goldstein had the exclusive story yesterday:

    Fresh off his best picture Oscar triumph, “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle has signed a three-year deal with Fox Searchlight, which will co-finance and co-distribute the British filmmaker’s future films. The director already has identified a possible initial production under the first-look deal, a drama about Aron Ralston, the American mountain climber who amputated part of his arm when it was pinned in a 2003 back-country hiking accident.

    Fox Searchlight and Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” producing partner, Christian Colson, declined to discuss the pact, and Boyle did not immediately return an e-mail seeking comment. But two people familiar with the deal said that Fox Searchlight will team with Pathe Films, which co-financed “Slumdog Millionaire,” as part of the agreement.

    The rest here.

  • The Duke’s greatest hits

    John Wayne in Sands of Iwo JimaAs Kris mentioned Wednesday, this week marks the 30th anniversary of John Wayne’s death.  I’ve always respected Wayne’s performances and have for a long time, long before it was fashionable, to be sure.

    It was considered somewhat ridiculous for an acting student to admire Wayne’s work in the 1970s and 1980s. My God, we were supposed to be worshipping at the altar of Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino! Our professors hammered home the importance of truth in a performance, which I of course believe to be essential.  But I’ve always felt that Wayne’s finest performances were as truthful and as real as anything Brando did.

    Wayne could not do Shakespeare, and was horribly out of place in certain genres, but in his element — the American western, the war film, high adventure or romantic comedy — he was as good as anyone working in movies. There were some critics who appreciated his work while he was alive, but most came around after his death in 1979, which to me is rather sad.

    I have proposed a book on Wayne, slightly different from those out there already, that would focus on his best work on film. There are 11 performances in the Wayne filmography that were truly outstanding, in my opinion.  Here is perhaps a primer for Wayne fans, new, old and emerging — a list of his best performances and some comments as to why I think they deserve to be remembered forever. Let me know what you think.

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  • Duncan Jones makes the ‘Moon’ rounds

    Duncan JonesI’m already on the record as being well in the tank for Duncan Jones’s “Moon,” a shock to the sci-fi cinema system that sports a tour de force portrayal(s) from actor Sam Rockwell.  So with the domestic release right around the corner, it warms my heart to see Jones lighting up the circuit, spreading the good word.

    David Poland dedicated one of his lengthy interview segments to the director recently, while Peter Knegt at indieWIRE has written up a lovely discussion with the man.  Here’s a taste:

    During film school, Jones worked his way into the “low, low budget” music video & commercials business.  After building up a reel, he started shooting short films, and later some bigger commercials. “Eventually [I began] working with a guy called Trevor Beattie, who ran a pretty big advertising agency in the UK,” Jones recalled. “He asked me to join his agency as a creative, where I would still get to direct, and I had the time of my life!  After 18 months of working at the agency though, I could feel the itch again, and knew it was time to take a shot at making a feature film.  I felt like I had acquired all the right tools through the many, many years I had spent since film school, and set about making ‘Moon,’ with my trusty gang of collaborators.”…

    The “science behind the fiction” came to Jones – who co-wrote the script with Nathan Parker – via a book called “Entering Space,” by Robert Zubrin. “This is an amazing piece of non-fiction,” he explained, “that goes into detail about how we might colonize the solar system, and do it in a way that is fiscally viable.  One of the early chapters in the book was about going to the Moon to mine Helium-3, an isotope that has the potential to be a ‘fuel of the future,’ clean burning, and to be used in fusion power stations, when we get them online.”

    God bless him.  Smart people are actually taking a crack at the genre once again.  Read the rest here.

  • 6/12 Web Round-up

    John Travolta in The Taking of Pelham 123(Wow…that week went by fast.)

    • Patrick Goldstein thinks the new “Shutter Island” trailer is overkill for those who don’t want everything spoon-fed. [The Big Picture]

    • More on the alleged misogyny of Lars von Trier. [CNN]

    • Shia LaBeaouf talks “Transformers” with John Hiscock. [Daily Telegraph]

    • Sarah Palin, the bold, the bright, turns her own daughter into a rape joke punchline.  Idiot.  (Sorry for the politics but it was worth conveying.) [Politico]

    • Is “Bruno” coming along at an inopportune time for the good fight? [New York Times]

    • Eight documentary dos and don’ts from Sundance programmer Basil Tsiokos. [indieWIRE]

    • Jeffrey Wells reports from a “Whatever Works” press conference in New York. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Speaking of which, Jeremy Kay has something to say on the franchise glut. [The Guardian]

    • In honor of the out-dated plot of “The Taking of Pelham 123,” Christopher Campbell offers up 10 stock market scams from the movies. [Spout Blog]