Someone pointed out the people walking backwards at 1:44. That sort of epitomizes the trailer for me.
If you missed A Simple Man, consider this the next best thing. Mazel tov!
It’s official: DreamWorks has entered into an exclusive distribution deal with Disney, while leaving its deal with Universal in the dust. All of this was tied to the $250 million DreamWorks needed to keep their deal with an Indian entertainment company alive.How Is The Economy Affecting Movie Studios?
With things looking bad worldwide economically, why are movie studios hurting even though box office, TV ratings and DVD rentals are all up? Why is the big DreamWorks/Bollywood deal about to go south? With ratings up, why are networks still hurting for money? And finally, why are DVD sales being affected (aside from Netflix cannibalizing them)?
Anyway, Cahiers has made their top 10 of 2008:
1. Redacted (DePalma)
2. Colossal Youth (Costa)
3. Cloverfield (Reeves)
4. No Country for Old Men (Coens)
5. Two Lovers (Gray)
6. Waltz with Bashir (Folman)
7. Dernier Maquis (Ameur-Zaimeche)
8. Hunger (McQueen)
9. A Short Film about the Indio Nacional (Martin)
10. On War (Bonello)
It's an interesting departure from the usual top 10 lists we see, and it raises some interesting questions. First of all, "Redacted"? I haven't seen it, but that's because it got almost universally brutal reviews. To provide a little context, Cahiers favors specific directors like no other. "Mission to Mars" was their #4 of 2000, "Snake Eyes" was their #9 of 1998, "Mission Impossible" was their #7 of 1997, and "Carlito's Way" was their #1 of the 1990's! I wonder if even DePalma thinks those recent efforts were worth such high rankings. Somewhere, Armond White is smiling.
One of the major criticisms of "Redacted" in America was the bad acting, and I wonder if a French audience is less inclined to care about the performances in an English speaking movie. It's also interesting to see "Cloverfield" at #3, since from what I know of "Redacted," the two movies use similar "handheld" techniques, exploring the possibility that characters within the film are shooting the action. I doubt even "Cloverfield"'s biggest supporters in the US would make a case for it being a "greater" movie than "No Country for Old Men," but it's an interesting juxtaposition.
Candid photo of a French audience as they watch Brian DePalma take a dump.
The recently announced Oscar nominations have shown, at least to me, that the US hasn't quite figured out what the "best" movies of a given year are; they favor Hollywood-produced prestige dramas ("The Reader," "Frost/Nixon," "Benjamin Button") over more interesting, innovative movies. Why are we so quick to dismiss a movie like "Cloverfield"? I would have found that a much more satisfying Best Picture nominee. And are there other ways of seeing movies that Americans can't grasp, hence the love for "Redacted" and "Lady in the Water" (another recent Cahiers favorite). I want to live in a world where film criticism isn't in such lockstep, where top 10 lists aren't just the last 10 movies those critics saw in December. I don't know whether or not I'll like "Redacted," but I applaud Cahiers for finding a way into that movie and for being willing to put it at the top.
This is really a shame because "Grain" is a completely involving movie, full of intense human drama. Slimane is the elderly patriarch of a large Franco-Arabic family, torn between the wife and children (and grandchildren) he left after thirty-five years and the woman and her daughter he lives with now. To make matters worse, Slimane is being laid off from his job, a victim of modernization and, he suspects, some bias against his culture. However, all the characters have their own personal story lines, and "Grain" weaves in and out of lives young and old, male and female, never losing an acute eye for detail. Some of the conflicts are trivial (the 2 year-old won't stop using diapers), some are tragic (Slimane's ex-wife enables one of her sons to cheat on his Russian wife), but all of the characters share an awareness of their imperfections and a desire to improve their lives.
"Grain" is not just a "French" movie or an "art" movie. It's not going to do "Dark Knight" or even "Milk" box office, but the way it's been buried is a travesty. All you have to do is have a pulse to relate to these characters and be drawn into their lives, and "Grain" never loses its firm grasp on the drama of the everyday.
Conversely, "Rachel Getting Married," which has been fairly popular in the US and netted Anne Hathaway a Best Actress Oscar nomination, struck me as fake and overdone. While Jonathan Demme's portrait of two families getting together for a wedding has some wonderful moments, they are overshadowed by screenwriter Jenny Lumet's need to push the Hollywood cliche of the proverbial "fuck-up" (played by Hathaway) in our faces. She has huge screaming matches with her family, then feels unwanted, makes hateful toasts at the dinner table (a classic movie device that was recently satirized in "A Christmas Tale"), then gets drunk and drives a car into a tree. In "Rachel"'s most contrived scene, a joyous full-family gathering in the kitchen suddenly goes south when Rachel's dad sees a plate drawn by his dead son. The whole movie feels manufactured to make us "feel" what family life is really like, but it's overloaded with so much melodrama (and one movie star acting like "one of us" with Oscar dreams firmly planted in her brain) that it feels removed from anything "true."
"Rachel"'s success concerns me because it's been treated as one of the great movies of the year, which is reflective of what passes for artful drama these days. People, spend some time with "The Secret of the Grain," bask in the wonderful, lifelike performances, and tell me why it can't make a blip in theaters.
At one point, Dan Neil says: You could prowl vintage car shows for years and not find an automobile that, in its malign typicality, better summarizes Detroit's fall than the 1972 Gran Torino. Let's begin with the thing itself: The car was tubby and it was awkward. It handled like a block of ice with a steering wheel. It lacked even minimum corrosion proofing and so rusted with relish in northern climates.
OK, it summarizes the Detroit's fall. Got it. But "tubby" and "awkward"? My Uncle had a 1972 Gran Torino, and my dad said that even brand new it was an awful, "ugly" car. I don't get it. As far as asthetics go, I think it looks pretty cool, and I'm very surprised to find I'm in the minority.
The article should be of particular interest to fans of the movie without a significant car IQ. You can read Dan Neil's complete article for free here. I should note that I came across the article via an online post by the Detroit Free Press.
As for the film itself:
The story is outstanding and may very well be the best of any movie I've seen from 2008. There were a few poor performances, and they came mostly from non-actors. (None of the Hmong actors in the cast had acted in a film before except Doua Moua.) I suggest seeing it ahead of just about every movie currently in release. (Run, don't walk, to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop!)
Too good to write about.
The best American movie of the year. Premise is a man in suburban Jersey caught between two "families" and The Sopranos comparisons only start there.
A cinematic novel
I don't get what people who say this is B-grade Woody see in some of his other movies that they can't find here. It's funny and fresh from beginning to end, with some very good performances.5. Mister Lonely 
Lyrical is not a word I would use in real life, but it might be the best way to describe this movie. It's funny too.
6. Be Kind, Rewind
Sort of a guilty pleasure, but Mos Def, Danny Glover, and Jack Black are all so charming and the movie has good vibes to spare.
7. Chop Shop 
A true "indie" movie that lives up to the "slice of life" label so many Sundance pretenders flaunt. There isn't a false note in the whole movie and it extracts some fascinating performances from local nonactors.
8. Milk
Gus Van Sant's opera.
[See Luke's review of Milk here.]
9. Flight of the Red Balloon 
The Indiewire critics poll is the best place to figure out what the "best movies of the year" were because of the number of high caliber critics it includes. I've lost the link to this year's list, but I know Flight of the Red Balloon was #1, which is reason enough to check it out.
10. Speed Racer
Clever, creative, exciting. A kids' movie I actually liked because it was too busy being insane to hit all the predictable kiddy story beats.
The next 10 (in order of appearance vis a vis the alphabet): Blindness, Burn After Reading, Che, Cloverfield, The Dark Knight, Encounters at the End of the World, The Fall, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Gran Torino, In Bruges, Step Brothers.
Some of the significant movies I didn't see and might have liked: Waltz with Bashir, The Class, Gomorrah, Silent Light, In the City of Sylvia, The Last Mistress.
What we get instead is an apathetic heroine who doesn't seem desperate so much as indifferent. When a security guard pontificates that in society, "everything's fixed" against people, Wendy replies, "that's why I'm going to Alaska," and that is as close as we get to her intentions. She phones her sister's husband, tells him simply, "I'm in Oregon," (her roots are in Indiana), which he casually accepts. Her sister comes onto the phone, says shrilly, "We can't give you anything, we're strapped," when Wendy adds that her car has broken down, the sister replies skeptically, "What can we do?" This sounds more dramatic than it is, from the way they are speaking, they might as well be discussing the weather. A moment later, Wendy's sister has already become disinterested and gotten off the phone, and Wendy tells the husband, "It sounds like you're busy, I'll talk to you later," which he accepts and they hang up.
All of which leads to one conclusion. It's a struggle for me to say it because of how cliche it sounds, and because it alludes to the misconception that all movies have to make you "feel" all kinds of things...the more the better. But in this case, the conclusion holds true: Wendy and Lucy is small on heart.
wn cinematographer) has shot a beautiful movie which revels in the monotonous, slowly ticking off the days even when new developments are few and far between. All of this gives Benecio del Toro plenty of time to scowl, pace, bark orders, and train, always train, in preparation for revolution. Part One focuses on the Cuban revolution, and more than two hours later, just as the first signs of victory appear, it ends. Part Two doesn't resume until eight years later when Che has arrived in Bolivia, and then that part concentrates on the (very similar) attempt to bring about revolution there. Like Che himself, the movie lives for the revolution, and isn't interested in the extraneous...or the consequences (the splendors or ills of victory). This movie is about the journey, a journey in which one has to, in Che's words, "live like you've already died." The film's MO in one sentence might be, "Rome wasn't built in a day."
was very skeptical going into Milk because nothing raises my suspicions like "biopics," and only when the New York Film Critics named Milk Best Picture did I decide it was worth my time. One of the most tiring elements of biopics is the syndrome of "stars-getting-serious," which involves a movie star dressing down, doing drugs, singing songs, and getting lots of close-ups. It's an immense relief that Penn doesn't act in this movie so much as live in it, just like Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, he is surrounded by a huge world of a movie, and he manages to stand out through sheer character-wattage (and therefore there are no super close-up reaction shots or break-down-crying-alone scenes or anything else of that ilk).
It's Pixar... What more must I say? Check out the teaser trailer.
Sacha Baron Cohen is bringing the character Bruno from his popular TV series, Da Ali G Show, to the big screen. The Channel 4-turned-HBO series had only three characters (Ali G, Borat, and Bruno), so I have pretty high expectations for Bruno; the last of the trio to make the jump from TV to film.
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