(Courtesy: /Film)
Blog
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Down time
The site hit a snag while I was at a screening so, apparently, you’ve all been hitting a blank screen this afternoon. It happens. Sincerest apologies.
In other news, what morons actually thought the Eminem stunt wasn’t staged? This actually required the resources of some outlets? Slow news day indeed. Maybe a blank screen was more appealing.
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Michael Moore says goodbye to General Motors
In case you’ve been under a rock, allow me to inform you that General Motors was finally backed into a corner this afternoon and filed for bankruptcy, most certainly marking the end of an era and the next embossed chapter in the ever-expanding volume on American capitalism. To mark the occasion, filmmaker Michael Moore has written an on-cue goodbye letter to the company on his website, which he also blasted to email subscribers.Now, say what you will about the hyperbolic Moore, but speaking as a former owner of a Pontiac, a Dodge, a Honda and a Toyota,I find little to disagree with in this paragraph:
It is with sad irony that the company which invented “planned obsolescence” — the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one — has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh — and that wouldn’t start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the “inferior” Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to “improve” the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.
Just recently Moore announced a release date for his upcoming, as-of-yet untitled, documentary on the economic crisis. You can bet there will be plenty of talk about General Motors in there. Read the rest of the GM send-off at MichaelMoore.com.
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Depp, Bale, Mann talk ‘Public Enemies’
From last night’s MTV Movie Awards. It’s only just hitting me, by the way, the fortunate timing of this release:
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11 memories of Conan as he moves on up
You may have noticed our coverage of the late night transition from “Tonight Show” legend (what else can you call him now?) Jay Leno to former “Late Night” host Conan O’Brien last week. It was a bittersweet moment. I’ll miss the Leno days if only for reminiscence, but it is unquestionably the next generation’s turn.I did my Conan remembrance back in February but Entertainment Weekly has used the occasion of the pompadoured funny man’s taking of the “Tonight Show” helm to showcase a list of 11 (it’s the new 10) memorable moments from his 16-year stint as the king of 12:30. Many of the classics are on the list, of course: The Year 2000, apple picking with Mr. T, and the biggest “Oh yeah!” moment for me, calling up scenes from “Walker, Texas Ranger” with a lever next to his desk. But one of the all-time funniest moments concerned the 2002 release of “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones,” and since it’s the only movie-related moment (and certainly the funniest), I’ll offer up the mag’s blurb:
Conan himself wasn’t in this bit, but it is legendary. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog lived up to his name, ridiculing a collection of hapless geeks as they waited on line, days before Star Wars: Episode II opened. Pointing to a would-be Darth Vader’s array of buttons on his ”armor”: ”Which of these buttons calls your parents to pick you up?”
The bit took place outside the famous Ziegfeld Theater in New York City and was dubbed “Attack of the Nerds.” Here it is, shockingly available (considering NBC’s crack-down practices) via YouTube:
O’Brien’s stint as host of “The Tonight Show” begins this evening. Guests include Will Ferrell and Pearl Jam.
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Lou Romano’s pre-production artwork for ‘Up’
If you went out this weekend and fell in love with “Up” (which didn’t hold up that well for me on a second viewing, though I’m sure I’ll talk more about that in the coming weeks), then you’ll love this treasure trove of development work artist Lou Romano did on the film. Romano has worked with Pixar for a couple of years now. You might recall the stuff he did on “The Incredibles.”Romano was charged with cooking up production paintings to reflect color and lighting design as well as establish an artistic direction “to help inspire the look of the film,” according to his blog. Those of you who’ve seen the film will recall the image to the right from Ellie’s Adventure Book, so it’s nice that Romano’s work can sometimes be featured in the actual film.
Here’s my favorite image, a final color script capturing the entire film in one piece (click for larger image). Two more after the jump, but you can see all of it (and there’s a lot) here.
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6/1 Web Round-up
• Did you miss Eminem’s close encounter with Sacha Baron Cohen’s bare ass? Never fear. [The Guardian]• Pixar’s “Up” reminds of the lonely sport of cluster ballooning. [Los Angeles Times]
• Was Universal going for scary or sexy with the “Drag Me to Hell” poster? [The Big Picture]
• Eric Snider notes the failure of high peaks so far at the 2009 box office, but fails to note the money is just spread out more than usual. [Cinematical]
• Peter Sciretta digs into “Up” and comes up with a slew of Pixar Easter eggs. [/Film]
• 10 cool old man protagonists for the “Up” fan. [Spout Blog]
• Jeffrey Wells: “Terminator Salvation” apologist. [Hollywood Elsewhere]
• Brooks Barnes manifest a story about ‘The Princess and the Frog” out of thin, questionably resourced air. [New York Times]
• After accusing the Edinburgh Film Festival to “caving in to anti-Israeli views,” director Gary Sinyor hands back his Charles Chaplin Award. [The Independent]
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‘Summer’ loving
As we head into June and the year’s midway point looms (I know, how did that happen?), my mind inevitably goes into cinematic stocktaking mode, reflecting on what 2009 has had to offer thus far — and at this stage, the reflections aren’t too pretty.In any given year, I usually like to earmark at least one title as the best of the first six months, if only to set the minimum standard for the year’s busier latter half. 2009 has yet to present such a standout to me, which gives me precisely one month to fall in love with something, the way I had with “In Bruges” or “Happy-Go-Lucky” by this time last year.
If I lived across the ocean, however, this issue would have been solved already. Playing by the rules of U.S. release dates, Olivier Assayas’ “Summer Hours” would easily be my film of 2009 so far — a woozy, wistful comedy of filial disconnect that seems to have found a deserved following in the American critical community. (Rather more so than it did here, in fact.)
The problem? Well, I already fell hard for Assayas’ gem last summer, upon its July 2008 release in the UK — and consequently already included it in my own “best of ’08” round-up, sandwiched between such compatriots as “A Christmas Tale” and “The Class.” It may be a wonderful film, but asking it to fill two years in my cinematic diary is just greedy.
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SUNDAY CENTS: Stocked ‘Up’
In the biggest non-shock of the year, Pixar has released a unanimously acclaimed new film and it has topped the box office. What is a little surprising is that “Up” managed to make $68.2 million despite a distinct lack of anthropomorphism. While Disney suits will have to continue to sweat over how they are going to make money out of Pixar on dolls and theme park rides, they certainly don’t have to worry about making money at the box office. This is their fifth biggest debut yet and puts “Up” in a very good position to out-gross both “WALL-E” and “Ratatouille” by the end of its run (but not “Cars” — go figure). That certainly won’t hurt it when the inevitable Best Picture discussion pops up at the end of the year.Sam Raimi returned to his horror roots and debuted in third place with $16.6 million. Obviously, that’s a disappointing figure in a world where “The Haunting in Connecticut” and “The Unborn” can each hit $20 million. It may seem like the world is one big “Evil Dead” fan but the truth is that it’s a rather small pocket and they alone can’t guarantee good business. The film got better reviews than normal for the genre but alarming declines from Friday to Saturday and Saturday to Sunday seem to have pegged this one as a quick burnout. Summer continues to be the worst place to open a horror film and Universal may have been better off waiting till October.
Last week’s champ “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” took a hit from “Up” and dropped 54%. That’s not great for a family film but it should rebound in the next few weeks and slowly work towards $175 million or so. Fox can’t be too disappointed with that since they essentially remade the same film, adding the bare minimum in terms of new characters or settings. With a cast of comedy legends old and new, you shouldn’t have a trailer relying on laughs from Hank Azaria.
“Terminator Salvation” fell a harder 62% and cemented its status as a misfire. It’ll take another half-week to hit $100 million and not much more can come after that. Continuing the franchise without James Cameron or Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to have eliminated most of the target audience and an unwatchable product has done the rest.
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Could female directors hit Oscar paydirt this year?
Only the greenest of awards-watchers needs reminding of the following statistic: a mere three women have been nominated for Best Director in the 81-year history of the Academy Awards. It’s long been an embarrassing state of affairs — never more so than in the late 80s and early 90s, when in three out of six consecutive years, the Best Picture nominee denied a directing nod happened to be made by a woman.Still, the sad truth is that the workings of the industry are such that female filmmakers are rarely entrusted with the kind of prestige studio product that grabs awards attention. (It’s no coincidence that the three past nominees — Lina Wertmuller, Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola — all come from the foreign and/or independent sector.)
2009, however, offers a considerably rosier outlook. As I was compiling my own early Oscar predictions (which I’ll share with you next week) in the wake of Cannes, it occurred to me that the Academy has an opportunity to double that paltry aforementioned statistic in the space of a single year. More than double, actually: looking down the list of awards possibilities, it is feasible — if still not very likely — that as many as four of this year’s five Best Director slots could be filled by the fairer sex.
Apparently, I’m not the only one thinking alone these lines: IndieWire’s Peter Knegt considers the possibilities of three ladies in his post-Cannes awards speculation column, going so far as to predict nods for all three (based only on films he’s seen so far). So who are these women (including the one Knegt isn’t considering) with a chance of making Oscar history come January?
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WEEKLY WRAP: Closing Cannes and opening ‘Up’
• The Cannes Film Festival wrapped up, with Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” taking the gold, and “Antichrist” nabbing honors too. (The Ecumenical Jury was less impressed.)• In the wake of the festival, we offered an updated survey of the Oscar landscape ahead.
• With “Up” finally hitting our screens this week, we chatted to director Pete Docter.
• And with ten features now under their belt, this week’s list ranked the best (and worst) of Pixar.
• This week’s Page to Screen also returned to childhood, reflecting on the cinematic possibilities of “Where the Wild Things Are.”
• The nostalgic vein continues with a revisiting of “Apocalypse Now,” thirty years on.
• Newly released concept art provided a faint glimpse of what’s coming in James Cameron’s “Avatar.”
• Speaking of Cameron, a look at what went wrong with “Terminator Salvation” at the box office.
• On a happier note, “Drag Me to Hell” proved an absolute blast.
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Red band ‘Hangover’ trailer
I saw Todd Phillips’s “The Hangover” last night at The Grove here in Los Angeles and really, you can’t ask for a lot more out of a summer comedy. It doesn’t rank as high as Peter Berg’s “Very Bad Things” on the stag movie meter by any means and it probably squeezed two or three too many musical cues in there, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had a blast.
No rush to review it or anything. It’s a lot like “Drag Me to Hell” in that way. Just a slightly unexpected good time. Go see it next weekend. (Oh, and speaking of musical cues, I’m glad someone finally used Danzig’s “Thirteen” in a film. And it works so well against the anticipated comedy of the piece here as merely an opening credits lay-over. Now if someone would put Johnny Cash’s cover in a western, we’d be set.)
The red band trailer for “The Hangover” hit the web recently. Here it is, courtesy of IGN, via Thompson on Hollywood:
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Tell us what you thought of ‘Up’
It’s all Pixar all the time this week. In addition to my “Up” review from a few days ago, there was a Pixar retrospective Tuesday and, just this morning, an interview with director Pete Docter. So enough out of us. You tell us what you thought of Pixar’s latest once you get around to it. We’ll dedicate a poll to the studio’s output in a few weeks, when the film has a chance to open in other territories as well as reach the procrastinators.
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Jay Leno’s closes a chapter on ‘The Tonight Show’
I’ve been pretty hard on Jay Leno over the years. In the late night wars, he’s had neither the comedic inventiveness nor (certainly) the journalistic capacity to become must-watch TV like David Letterman and, to a lesser extent, Conan O’Brien. Even the sober Tom Snyder proved a more intriguing watch for me when he was still on CBS so many years ago.All of that said, I’m a bit saddened that Leno’s final episode as host of “The Tonight Show” is being recorded right now for telecast later this evening. As much as I may have preferred other late night personalities over the years, the fact remains Leno’s regular guy brand of humor carried the torch magnificently for the past 17 years. The circumstances surrounding how he landed the gig will always be suspect, but Letterman went off and became his own man, paving the way for O’Brien to make a name for himself at 12:30 and, as of Monday night, finally take up the reigns on “The Tonight Show” himself. I wrote briefly about O’Brien’s final “Late Night” show back in February.
O’Brien’s transition to the show was covered in-depth in an insightful New York Times Magazine piece last weekend by staffer Lynn Hirschberg. Early passages have me worried, such as writing staff ideas centered around O’Brien as an outsider in Los Angeles (his new show will be taped daily on the Universal lot). Those will only go so far, perhaps better suited to a guest host than the new face of NBC late night, and the show will need to settle into a more purposeful position sooner rather than later.
Of course, the subtext of Hirschberg’s article is that O’Brien, like his soon-to-be time-slot competition Letterman, doesn’t have the chummy, next-door neighbor demeanor that Leno has. Therefore, the 50-year-old enterprise could be in jeopardy of losing viewership. His brand of self-deprecation struck a chord with his dorm room demographic, to be sure, but the higher brow isn’t what Leno aimed for and might not be what the “Tonight Show” audience wants. The ratings will ultimately tell the tale, but in recent years, I have found myself out-growing O’Brien’s antics. I wish him the best as he takes up the reins on Monday, but I wonder if a network desire to stay fresh will put a flagship built on it’s heritage in slight peril.
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Taking Pixar to task
Film writer extraordinaire, James Rocchi — this time wearing the hat of resident film blogger for Redbox — has penned a passionate open letter to Pixar Animation Studios that is a must-read for fans and non-fans alike. I think both of his concerns are valid points.Here is the meat of the piece (mind you, Rocchi never met a period he liked):
I’m worried about two things that seem a lot more institutional, and a lot harder to shake. The first is, bluntly, why can’t you guys seem to write strong female characters? With the notable exception of The Incredibles’ Mrs. Incredible (who was voiced by Holly Hunter) and Violet (Sarah Vowell), your female characters are ether dead, irrelevant, under-written or absent. And all your directors are male, too. Both those things are going to change with your upcoming The Bear and the Bow — about a young woman in a fairy-tale take on Scotland, directed by Brenda Chapman — but you’ve got to do more than that – up the bench strength for women on both sides of the camera, with more opportunities for characters and more opportunities for female writers and directors.
The other problem, I have to be just as blunt about, and it’s inspired by the Up press conference where I watched Up’s director Pete Docter express faith in the limitless possibilities of animation: “Animation’s a medium, not a genre.” Well, that’s a nice thing to say; it would be a more interesting thing for you to really follow up on. And right now, all you at Pixar seem to be doing is churning out PG- and G-rated family-friendly adventures over and over again. Which is great — there’s a need for well-made children’s entertainment — but I wonder if anyone at Pixar ever dreams of pitching people in charge an amazing computer-animated Western of mythic proportions or a stunning hard-knock science-fiction action film full of things you simply couldn’t do in live action, or a horror film that involves the scarier version of the kinds of creatures your animators showed they could create with the cute, cuddly Monsters, Inc.
The bit about a Pixar “Western of mythic proportions” strikes me as brilliant. Get on it. Please.
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Oscar showmen Billy Crystal, Marc Shaiman bid Leno adieu
I don’t know if anyone’s been watching the last week of Jay Leno’s “The Tonight Show,” but it’s been a solid final slate of guests, culminating with Conan O’Brien’s appearance and a passing of the baton later tonight. I’ve got a longer piece about all of this I’m working on and will post it later this afternoon, but I thought this was worth mentioning separately, in case you missed it.
Billy Crystal was Leno’s first guest on “The Tonight Show” back in 1992 and the exiting host wanted to bring Crystal back as his final proper guest last night. To mark the occasion, Crystal got together with Marc Shaiman and put together a little sing-song number, much like the numerous similar numbers the duo has cranked out for the Oscars over the years. Sadly, the NBC website being as stingy as it is, I can’t find an embed of the performance (they just have a 90 second exchange mid-interview about Crystal’s recent surgery). But you can, however, watch the entire episode, which includes, of course, the full number, plus a glimpse of Crystal’s first appearance on the show 17 years ago when he belted out another tune. Always the showman.
Click the image below to watch the full episode, and stay tuned for that remembrance piece later today.
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INTERVIEW: 20 questions with ‘Up’ director Pete Docter
Pete Docter’s filmmaking career is as tethered to the history of Pixar as it gets. After all, he was the third animator hired by John Lasseter back in 1990, when the company was a fledgling computer-animation house making it’s name in short films and commercials. Nineteen years (and 10 features) later, the studio has more than made its mark on the industry, and Docter has just finished helming his second feature film, “Up,” which opens nationwide today.Docter’s initial crack at a project this size was 2001’s “Monsters, Inc.,” the first Pixar film to be nominated for the animated feature film Oscar. Eight years later, the pressure is certainly on, especially in the wake of the studio’s most critically acclaimed film to date (2008’s “WALL-E”). But if early reviews are any indication, Pixar — and Docter — not only have another success on their hands, but one that could potentially eclipse the impact last year’s lovable robot had on the critical community.
I recently spoke with Docter about, among other things, taking the reins on his second feature, what impact 3D technology will have on the medium, the decision to write an Asian-American character into the film and just why the heck no one has cast Delroy Lindo in an animated film until now. And yes, I asked about that little conversation we’ve been having about the final shot of “Monsters, Inc.” Keep reading to find out what he had to say.
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‘Toy Story 3’ teaser trailer
Watch it in high def here. Stay tuned for my interview with “Up” director Pete Docter later this afternoon.
