In Contention

Tag: North by Northwest

  • Enter AFI

    AFI FestI haven’t had a chance to preview/write-up AFI Fest due to some a dizzying weekend and family obligations, but I should probably do that with the festivities entering a fourth day.

    “Fantastic Mr. Fox” kicked things off last week and with the festival moving from the Arclight on Sunset to the historic Chinese Theatre on Hollywood, there is, I’d wager, a glitzier vibe to things this time around.  The galas are coming fast and furious, the most recent being a big spread for “Precious” last night.

    Speaking of which, at an after party for the film at the Chateau Marmont, Oprah Winfrey was on hand to introduce singer Mary J. Blige, who performed original song contender “I Can See in Color” to a standing-room-only crowd.  It was the first time the tune had been performed publicly.

    Tonight I’ll finally cross paths with “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” one of a slew of films I hope to catch up on at the fest. The only big reveal for me will be “Everybody’s Fine,” which screens tomorrow night and could instantly put Robert De Niro in the thick of the Oscar hunt (more on that in today’s Off the Carpet column).

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  • AFI Fest announces line-up, Mortensen and Plummer tributes, ‘Single Man’ closer

    Christopher PlummerAFI Fest is right around the corner here in Los Angeles.  Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” has already been announced as the opening night gala.  Today’s release reveals that Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” will close out the fest.

    Additionally, tributes have been announced for Viggo Mortensen (his second festival tribute of the season, FYI) and Christopher Plummer (shrewd move by Sony Classics to get that).  Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” will be the centerpiece gala.

    The film schedule has been revealed, which is the usual blend of other festival titles that have played elsewhere throughout the year, but one key screening for me is a 50th anniversary celebration of Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest.” William Friedkin will be moderating a Q&A with the film’s stars, Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau.  That’s a priority.

    The stop-motioned animated “A Town Called Panic” is on the docket, a film we told you last week won’t be qualified for this year’s animated feature film Oscar race.  Devin Faraci at CHUD recently flipped for the film.

    “City of Life and Death,” “Fish Tank,” “The Hole,” “Mother,” “Looking for Eric,” “Vincere,” and “Youth in Revolt” will be my catch-up titles, stuff I’ve missed along the way.  Other selections include “Precious,” “The Road” and “The Last Station.”

    Read the full press release after the jump…

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  • North by northwest, via Tatooine

    I don’t even like “Star Wars,” but I would hang this on my wall in a heartbeat:

    North by Northwest meets Star Wars

    (Courtesy: io9)

  • More re-imagined movie posters from TCM

    You might recall the dozen or so classic films that were re-imagined with new movie posters by Turner Classic Movies a few weeks back.  The network has now cooked up loads more in celebration of its Summer Under the Stars series.  You can check them all out over at the official site, but the top two keepers, for me, are the following one-sheets for “The Conversation” and “North by Northwest”:

    The Conversation North by Northwest

  • THE LISTS: Top 10 movies I watched with Dad

    (from left) Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red OctoberIn case you’re like me and you happen to forget these things throughout the year, let today’s edition of The Lists serve as a reminder: Father’s Day is this weekend!

    With that in mind, and as a personal tribute of sorts to my pops, who turns 56 today in addition to celebrating his 28th Father’s Day on Sunday, I thought I’d offer up a rundown of the films that remind me of those days in front of the big console television growing up back east.

    My personal movie awakening came in the mid-1990s, when films like Michael Mann’s “Heat” and Bryan Singer’s “The Usual Suspects” made me realize I wanted to have a hand in this crazy business for life.  But I can’t ignore the impact decades of film product had on my youth in the form of my father’s viewing habits.  I didn’t like every film my Dad loved.  But somehow, his taste frequently seemed to either correspond with my own or correspond with how it would eventually evolve.

    There are a number of films that didn’t make the collective that deserve some measure of notice, despite not having a particular impact.  Peter Hyams’s “Capricorn One” comes to mind, for instance, or horror flicks like William Girdler’s “The Manitou” and Stan Winston’s “Pumpkinhead.”  Not to mention more recent efforts like George Tillman Jr.’s “Men of Honor.”  And even though I remember watching “The Godfather” with Dad (and Mom, actually) as a kid, I don’t immediately connect the two when I consider Francis Coppola’s film today.

    The order of the list is a mish-mash of criteria.  I wouldn’t say it’s tiered by quality so much as by how much the films remind me of the old man (though quality certainly figures in here and there).  Mostly, this is just a tip of the hat to one guy’s movie tastes that galvanized his son in some way.  I hope you enjoy.

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  • 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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