Film: April 2006 Archives

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April 28, 2006

Out in Theaters 4/28!!!

United 93 opens this weekend and Scott Foundas (whose opinion I am coming to respect more and more) had nothing but the most positively glowing things to say about it. It sounds, however, as though the typical American moviegoer will find it boring. But hell, if they can sit through The Passion of the Christ there's no telling what they are capable of.

I can't fathom how anyone would ever want to see R.V.. That Robin Williams could possibly think anyone could believe him as a straight father is something. Based on a couple of reviews, this one is more of a stinker than that substance which covers the family in the photo. (I think you can guess what it is.)

A ludicrous Germanic gay film called Guys and Balls recounts the dull story of a gay man who wants to put together an all gay football (remember, this means soccer in American) team. Zzzzzzzz....

Stick It and the Starbuck's marketed Akeelah and the Bee also land in multiplexes across America today. But really, haven't we had enough of the whole spelling bee thing?

Andy Garcia directs and stars in The Lost City. Sounds like fun. (Sense the sarcasm?) Larry Clark's latest offering Wassup Rockers hits screens today. And Olivier Assayas' Cannes Award winning Clean opens in New York. Looks like we Los Angelinos will have to wait.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 27, 2006

My Winter of Love

Scott Foundas, a staff writer for LA Weekly, perfectly summed up Cate Shortland's debut feature, Somersault, when he likened it to "one of those Joni Mitchell ballads about traveling in some vehicle through an unspecified landscape and trying to find a sense of yourself." Like a Mitchell song, Somersault is hopelessly sentimental, yet its earnestness saves it from the damnation I would normally ascribe to the more emotively pornographic heart-string pluckers prolifically swarming multiplexes everywhere. The film's absolute quiescence humbles the film, preventing it from employing the manipulative tactics of most coming of age films. The shots are a tad too beautiful for the film's own good, but because of the dynamism of the main character(which is the Somersault's irrefutable strength), it is tolerable, at times fulfilling, even. The night shots of a snow strewn Australian resort town are certainly worthy of celebration here.

However, Decoder Ring's tres-cool soundtrack is another potential notch against the film, and though it has its effective moments, its glitches and whirs are nauseously hip and cause cringes where there should be soft mews of affirmation. Where a very similar (and potentially damning, had Somersault not been made in the same year) film My Summer Of Love perfectly melds Goldfrapp's original score with its lush images, too great of a disconnect is present here, leaving one wanting of a moment of silence rather than dampered guitars. A likening to My Summer of Love is truly inevitable. The films are oppositionally-seasoned sisters. Had Somersault followed My Summer of Love, it would be far more suspect. But as it is, I would strongly recommend giving this one a couple hours of your time. You won't leave empty handed.

My experience of the film was certainly one of a kind, as the Sunset 5 in Hollywood has Somersault playing just next door to Abominable, a bigfoot monster flick. During the quietest moments of Somersault, the rumblings of Bigfoot's rampages shook the theater. Rather poignantly, it seemed to occur at all the right moments. Hand holding and emotionally eruptive scenes took on an even greater pertinence. It lead me to wonder, if "quiet film" filmmakers shouldn't break from the mold and start actually using sound (as the film's "Sound Designer" appears in the opening credits) a bit more daringly. But then I suppose it wouldn't be a quiet film, would it?

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 26, 2006

Passing back the hood and Kissing the blade: An Evening of Exploitation

In lieu of my Giallo double feature (and in reaction to the bad taste left in my mouth from Paranoia) I had another sit-down with a couple horror flicks. Following a friend's recommendation, I rented Eli Roth's Hostel which I found appallingly despicable. Readers will probably file this either under the "no way" or "no shit" category, and I find the former reaction to be incredibly disheartening. There is nothing redeemable about Hostel, whatsoever. It is a dirge of a movie which substitutes pornographic mutilation for conflict. The first hour of the film is tediously dull, following three frat boys on a quest for pussy. There is no dynamism to speak of, no vitality, none of the humor that made the first 30 minutes of Roth'sCabin Fever so enjoyable. All one can do is sit back and wait... and wait... and wait for the inevitable. At least Roth was thinking about our contemporary fears. That I'll give him. Where horror should always manifest itself as the fears of our society, Roth makes his monster the foreigner. In our post 9/11 times, anything unAmerican is the enemy. This is obviously something Roth played upon while making the film. From a particular viewpoint, one could certainly view the film as a justification for all of the truly horrific things that we as Americans have unleashed upon the world. The American characters are infantalized considerably, yet it is a certain nod to the Abu Grhaib torture imagery that I found quite difficult to shake. Roth is, in a way, alleviating our guilt by handing the shroud back to the foreigners. As the torturers become the tortured, one may recognize the age old idiom, eye for an eye.

Hostel has precious little to offer - no Aja style choreographic violence, no huge plot revelations, and scarce is the sardonic dialogue that peppered Cabin Fever. Instead we're left with the image of a girl getting her eye burned out with a blow-torch. If this is what makes it to #1 in the box-office, than I should give second thought to becoming that which Americans hate even worse than foreigners - emigrants. Now there's a horror for you.

In an attempt to forget Hostel, I watched horror meister Dario Argento's Tenebre. Being a fan of his more (in)famous films (Suspiria, The Bird with The Crsytal Plumage, Deep Red, and Opera) I do expect a bit from Argento - at least from his early works (as most post-Opera are quite unwatchable). Tenebre delivered, sort of. The sets and camera movement were unmistakably Dario, as was the fabulous women's' apparel and requisite eighties electro-funk score. Argento muse Daria Nicolodi is given perhaps her most juicy part, as her screams fill the closing credits of the film far longer than any typical "woman in distress" would ever dream of. The best element of Argento's films, the plausible and hair-raising final twist, though slightly fulfilling here left a bit to be desired. One can always rest on how he fetishizes those objects which may slice, dice, blind or mame. They are never simply implements of murder. They are always depicted as treasures. In Tenebre, there's a scene where the camera returns to an empty hotel room and finds a sharp, crane-like sculpture, glinting in the suffused light of the room. 'This will come into play later', you tell yourself. That is doesn't is perhaps the best element to the film. You realize that we rest with it merely because it beautiful and destructive, and since we're in Argento land, so is everything else.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 25, 2006

Out today on DVD!!

Indie Week!

Michelangelo Antonioni's "masterpiece," The Passenger FINALLY gets distribution today. I am really not a fan of Antonioni's work, though people I respect have told me, repeatedly, how much I should be. To no avail. Perhaps this lovely DVD will change my mind.*

Steve Martin's Shopgirl lands on DVD shelves. Here's hoping that there's a DVD function that removes Jason Schwartzman from the film entirely.*

Also, Woody Allen's latest film, Match Point, which was mostly celebrated by critics, though this reviewer called it "one long tedious picture" upon its theatrical release. Maybe extra features will make the film all the more enjoyable.*

Claire Denis' visually delerious and contentially perplexing The Intruder marks one of the final releases by the now defunct Wellspring distribution company. Putting the most though-provoking films in theaters over the past few years, Wellspring's absence will assurably be felt. Maybe this DVD will sell so well, the Wientstien company (who bought out the company) will restart Wellspring.*

Deserving props merely for packaging purposes, The Emilio Miraglia Killer Queen Box Set comes with a little action figure of the killer Queen. The movies sound pretty attrocious, but who knows...*

Take your pick from the countless "Editions," "Extended cut," and "Director's Cuts" that flood the DVD racks in hope of raking in mad cash in hope people will thing that since it is longer, it will be much better.*

Oh, and rather unworthy of mention, we find a plethora of big budget DVDs out today. Having only seen one of them, perhaps I have spoken too soon.*

*probably not

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 24, 2006

Supernatural Muder - Italian Style!

Perhaps part of my irritation with Paranoia could be attributed to the confidence of its double-feature predecessor, Lucio Fulci Sette Note In Nero (a.k.a. The Psychic). When good, the 70's Italian Giallo (named for the yellow cover of the era's cheap crime novels) present us with complex murder mysteries, begloved (assumed) masculine entities which frequently prove more feminine than initially perceived, chasing screaming girls in couture through dark alleys, typically, though not always endowing some sort of supernatural element. In The Psychic's case, the flailing and fabulously coiffed protagonist is... you guessed it, a psychic whose vision of a murder and its specifics (while driving repeatedly through tunnel after tunnel - insert Freudian conclusion, here) lead her to Nancy Drew about Rome after finding the skeleton of a twenty five year old girl walled up in the palazzo of her fiance. Of course, the visions that she attributes to this murder prove to be rather premonitions of what is to come.

Good by today's standards, yet typical in the body of Giallo films, The Psychic proves sufficiently nail biting while living up to the genre's pulpy point of origin. It is far more mannered than Fulci's later films and a great debt is owed to Poe. The last harrowing sequence and the films cliffhanger resolution is not to be missed. If interested, you can purchase a DVD-R of the film here.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 23, 2006

Die, Slowly

I've never really been that good at watching exploitation cinema, but Sixties Euro smut, now that I can do. I attended a screening of Paranoia (a.k.a. Orgasmo) a film by Umberto Lenzi (most infamously known for Cannibal Ferox a.k.a. Make Them Die Slowly) which the Giallo film festival of which it was a part described as "a tremendously enjoyable mix of Hitchcockian suspense and VALLEY OF THE DOLLS-style histrionics..." My response, however lewd it may be is this, "my asshole!" I found it completely unsurprising that the director of this tawdry piece of meandering sexploitation had gone on to create more grisly works of equal ineptitude. It is typical that those who cannot do - do the most unfathomable sort of exploitation possible. I saw Make Them Die Slowly at a rather impressionable age, and my response was not dissimilar to that which I have towards the Face Of Death fad which so gladly seems to have ended: Why would anyone want to watch this? Moral judgments aside, Paranoia is an absolute dullard. One would think a mixture of Valley of the Dolls and Michael Haneke's Funny Games would at least be interesting to behold, but anyone with half a brain and an understanding of cinematic narrative should be able to see that this film is rank. Carroll Baker's boozed up sex-pot is amusing for the first three minutes of the film, but the film itself drags - and for a 77 minute film to drag is an abysmal feat. This one is not available on DVD and can be found through various bootleg distributors. There are reasons for its lack of distribution! If anyone is on the fence, I beg you: Spend your money on an enema bag. You'll see what it is you are most likely after and it will be far more entertaining!

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 22, 2006

Vengeance, the subtle way

I ended up watching Mike Hodges I'll Sleep When I'm Dead over the course of two nights. There is just something so atypical about ISWID, from box cover to cast (Clive Owen, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Charlotte Rampling and Malcolm McDowell) that I just had to see what was going on here. It is a brooder, but all the better for it. Like the previous post, The Beat My Heart Skipped, ISWID is quite the sleeper. It does not ultimately squeeze the best performances out of its cast - but it would seem that this too is all the better. The actors are so consciously meta - in a way that reminds me of 1999's The Limey - your reading of the characters is so dependent on your understanding of their actors prior roles. McDowell for instance taps into his perv roots of films like Caligula and Cat People. Hodges recognizes it is through this guise that we see him, and the aged McDowell becomes an older Caligula or Paul (his incarnation in Cat People). It becomes, then, an exorcise in nostalgia as our actors become weathered versions of their former characters (divorced from themselves).

Aesthetically, Rampling works the best here, though her performance is, as I jibed with a friend, Charlotte Rampling doing her best Charlotte Rampling imitation. Owen is stoic as ever, and his performance is almost invisible. Jonathan Rhys Meyers has never tried so hard at acting in his life and is the worse because of it. It is a nice watch: a sleeper with some old friends. It is by no means remarkable, but there is a really odd sexuality that runs through the film. Caligula has grown up, and he's more the wretch than when we saw him last.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 20, 2006

Why Rent the DVD when I live it for free?

I recently watched Scott Coffey's exploration of the world of Los Angeles' actors, Ellie Parker. There's a game most Los Angelinos play when they watch movies - as most are inevitably shot in LA. They play the location game. And even in the worst of movies, calling locations can prove at least decent fun and make a bad situation that much better. The opposite works for Coffey's film. Anyone from LA has had more than their share of wannabe actors. They wait on us at restaurants. They answer our phone calls at receptionist desks. The glare at us in clothing shops. They step in line before us at bars when we've been waiting for a considerable amount of time.

Now Coffey, an actor himself - a fact which is painfully apparent from the trite camera work and under-developed, unbelievable minor characters of the film - expects us to sympathize with this world as his 1 chip DV camera follows one seemingly common actress through a particularly harrowing period of her life. Tthe whole thing plays out so tediously, because of Coffey's directorial ineptness, that not even a shred of humanity can be gleaned from the cardboard script. What's worse, it's a script that took Coffey 5 years to write! As existential as Watts tries to be, she cannot transcend a vapid script. The vacuousness traditionally (and not wholly unjustly) attributed to actors is ever present without any empathetic realism that might have redeemed it (or, at the very least made it bearable). Instead, the scene which was the initial short from which the film was extended (one of the only redeemable moments, I might add) finds Ellie barreling down some random LA Freeway, changing her clothes, slipping from a bleary-eyed fight with her boyfriend into a part which requires her to shout in a Brooklyn accent, "I sucked his cock." In another humorous moment, we are treated to a blissful car ride while Ellie sucks down a blue cotton candy ice cream cone from Baskin Robbins. In the following scene, a heartbroken Ellie vomits up the blue bile which smears her face for the following 10 minutes. These are the little pleasantries that the film hopes will entertain viewers for the feature running time. And though they are rather amusing, they do not sustain this dud of a film. Watts is competent, but the film, however, is anything but.
Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 19, 2006

What more can you ask for than a leading character named Chardonnay?

Now I know that this is the film blog, and since I don't even get television reception, I never talk about it. My closest proximity to the tube is through TV-On-DVD. Well, rent one I did. It was a trash sensation that has apparently swept over Britain but has done little to crack American consciousness. Perhaps it would confuse American viewers to realize that WE'RE THE ONLY PEOPLE IN THE DAMN WORLD TO CALL WHAT WE CALL FOOTBALL FOOTBALL. You go ANYWHERE else and in the native speak, their Football = Our Soccer. So, when, in the opening credits of Footballers Wive$ (no the dollar sign is not a mistake), a soccer-disco ball spins around to trashy euro-disco, they're not in error. And I'll be damned if this isn't the most all-out trashy show I've seen in a long long time. And I'm talking real trash, not this boring, pornographic, voyeuristic "real" exploration of dimwitted rich American blondes. No, no. That shits boring - and you know it. You watch it because everyone at the office does - because that's all that seems to be there - when one Netflix que away is Footballers Wive$!
The show holds up with the best of trash - Tanya(pictured above), the most obscene wife (and the only one, it would seem, who has made it to the current season 5) could certainly stand comparison to old Joan Collins. There are many things about the show that made me think back to Dynasty, to a time when good trash television was just that - good and trashy. And if you haven't watched that show lately, instead of watching the new season of Nip Tuck,might I recommend picking that up instead. I'm thinking Wild Things trashy, not Desperate Houswives wanna-be-trashy. Blonde bored bitches do not equal excitement. However, morally corrupt millionaires with coke problems and illegitimate children do. Though, while watching Footballers Wive$, I realized the only reason that the show works is because it is fictitious. Had these women been real, the all-consuming blatancy of their escapades would seem desperate and grossly performative. Since they are only somewhat based on real people, they become monstrous generalizations of the maniacs they represent. Because one can never shed the pathetic skin of reality TV - think Anna Nicole - Footballers Wive$ alleviate the guilt implied whilst watching them. It is not, afterall, exploitation if you are watching something which is being (badly) acted. It is, however, if you are watching Wild On with Tara Reed (a show I had the displeasure of seeing unedited footage of during a very-brief stint as a video digitizer for E! Entertainment).
Take this example. There's a christening for which the parents restage the birth of Jesus. Rent-a-donkey and temporary manger in tote, Chardonnay, the mom (in belly dancer get up) and dad (a white man in a turban) take baby from his hay-filled crib over to the product placement mineral water fountain. Only the baby is not really theirs, but his mother's. One which she had with her son's fellow teammate who, coincidentally, is the baby's godfather. And, if that weren't enough, at the party, the godmother gets arrested for possession of 9 1/2 grams of cocaine! Yes. It is delightful! Run, do not walk to rent this gem of a trash fest.
Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 18, 2006

Out This Week on DVD...

Out on DVD this week, Neil Jordan's rather flawed Breakfast On Pluto, starring Cillian Murphy, will probably prove to be one of those occassions where the film - as available on DVD - will develop into a cult phenomenon a la Velvet Goldmine. Replete with Murphy commentary and behind the scenes featurette - if that's the sort of thing that excites you.

Similarly, Hostel will find the repeat-viewing audience who will find porn-like release in watching countless teenagers gored in (what I presume to be ) excessively imaginative ways.

A "deluxe edition" of Moonstruck will please homo's and New York singles alike. I must admit I rather like this film. But then, put me in front of any Olympia Dukakis movie, and you'll find me sufficiently sated.

A Robert Altman Collection which pairs M*A*S*H with Quintet, A Marriage, and A Perfect Couple. I've not seen the latter three, so I cannot comment on them, though the box is priced exceptionally reasonably. If you've got money to spare, I would certainly recommend picking this one up.

In the revival boat, we have Bette Davis in The Anniversary wearing an eye patch. Really, need I say anymore?

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 16, 2006

What's on Flukiest's Film Snob's iPod?

I realize this isn't the music site, but I was glancing at the cover of a Black Book magazine that I bought a while back with Tilda Swinton on it and chuckled at the headline - "What's On Cindy Sherman's iPod." I always thought that that whole celebrity playlist thing was stupid. I mean, who cares what a famous over the hill photographer (and one time filmmaker)listens to? Well, I think I'll indulge myself in a "What does a total geeked out film snob listen to." This is shameless of me, I know. But I am nothing if not that.

1. Incurable - Piano Magic 2. I'm With Stupid - Pet Shop Boys 3. Silent Spring- Massive Attack featuring Liz Fraser 4. Black Sweat - Prince 5. Fooling Yourself - Skin 6. Plant White Roses (Susan Anway Version) - The Magnetic Fields 7. Leaves Me Cold - Lush 8. Eggs and their Shells - Cocteau Twins 9. This Life - Perry Blake 10. Gone To Earth - Goldfrapp

There, I have indulged.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 14, 2006

For anyone who hasn't had the delight of seeing this farce-fest, Fox Home Entertainment has recently announced that they will finally be releasing a DVD with enough bonus features to keep us entertained for weeks! Valley Of The Dolls is actually a very fascinating film from a cinema history standpoint. When you watch the film, take note that it embodies both what would become New Hollywood - films like Barbarella or Beyond Valley of the Dolls, even - and the older, more epic melodramatic elements of old Hollywood narrative - think Peyton Place or Giant. It's really a stellar film - badness certainly included. Patty Duke's gutter breakdown and just about every line that Tate delivers are brilliant moments of Camp cinema. And let us not forget that it is one of the last film performances by the late, great Susan Hayward as Hellen Lawson, bitchy actress whose class never dies.

The DVd is released 13th June 2006 priced at $26.98. These two-disc special edition offers the following features...

Disc 1: Main Feature
English Stereo & Mono
Spanish Mono
English & Spanish subtitles
Commentary by Alonso Duralde, author of 101 MUST-SEE MOVIES FOR GAY MEN.
Cast Commentary (who's still alive? Patty Duke, Barbara Parkins, Lee Grant, Martin Milner...)

Disc 2: Extra Features
Gotta Get off this Merry-Go-Round: Sex, Dolls and Showtunes
Pill Pop-Up Karaoke: Follow the Bouncing Doll
The Divine Ms. Susann
Doll-A-Palooza: Addicts Forum A Go-Go
Translate French Porn Movies
What's My Line? Episode
Screen Tests:
Robert Forester & Laura Devon
Judy Garland
Laura Devon & Tony Scotti
Barbara Parkins & Becker & Harada
Sharon Tate
Lara Linday
TV Spots- :10, :20, :60
Trailers: 3:21 & 2:10
Archival Promotional Featurette
Archival Making of
Musical Numbers from ebay
KD Lang Re-mix
LACMA Event
MAC Backstory: Valley of the Dolls
Pop Up Trivia Track-FMC
Soap Opera 1994
Mini Series 1981

They are also, of course, releasing Beyond that same day. It is also worth a look - and certainly far more terrifying than Valley ever even attempts at being.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 13, 2006

Coming Soon To A Theater Near You

Below is a list of the films that will be coming to theaters that I find worthy of mention. That does not mean I think they will be good. Oh no, many of them sound perfectly dreadful. It is the "perfectly" part that finds them here.

Out this week, Mary Harron's The Notorious Betty Page promises (if nothing else) a delectable roster of who was who in the indie film scene of the nineties that it would seem Harron cannot shake herself of. And why should she? Though her films are not really good, there's something wonderfully consistent about both I shot Andy Warhol and American Psycho, though, from the looks of things, this may be considerably less fun.

Oilver Assayas' Cannes award winning follow-up to Demonlover, Clean is finally released on April 28. That's only two years after it was made. Not bad!
That same week finds American Haunting, a thematic sequel to the odd, surprise success of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Why do we give a shit, you may ask. This one stars horror darlings Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek.

Now, I was never a big fan of Ghostworld. Actually, I couldn't stand it. On MAY 12th, Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential hits theaters. Starring John Malkovich, Angelica Houston, Jim Broadbent and the son of Academy Award winner Anthony Minghella, it could either be promising or drown in its own hipness.

Haven is a despicable reiteration to Crash which I had the displeasure of sitting through. It comes out the same week.

Perhaps to make up for the empty time since Six Feet Under ended, Under director Michael Cuesta releases an all-too-familiar sounding film MAY 19th, Twelve and Holding

And since, deep down at the bottom of my black little heart I am a geek, I shiver with anticipation for MAY 26th. This is of course the date when X Men 3 finally reveals itself after a 3 year hiatus. Let's hope that Brett Ratner can breath the wonderful breath of life that Brian Singer did into the first two.

And speaking of Homos, French homo, Francois Ozon's new film, Time To Leave (Le Temps Qui Reste) comes out June 1. Too bad it sounds awful. However, admission will surely be covered watching Jeanne Moreau shake her skeletal money-maker(if only!).

Making silly use of this whole, 6-6-06 (well, pretending like the 0 isn't there), The Omen hits theaters on a non-weekend date. Just another remake, but one starring Liev Schrieber, Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow and David Thewlis. They at least get points for casting, but (sadly) casting does not make a film.
As if anyone cared, Speed duo Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves pair up again for a romantic comedy released June 16th. I don't even know why I'm writing this, really. I guess it's just funny how deeply The Lake House digs into the pop-culture graveyard to make a dishonest buck.

June 30 is the release date for Brian Singer's Superman Returns. What I can't get passed is the "casting session" that certainly went on before Singer "discovered" this little morsel of an ahem... actor.

Abel Ferrara's first film in what seems like an eternity, Mary tells the tale of an actress who takes her portrayal of Madonna just a little too seriously. And no, I don't mean 'Like A Virgin' Madonna. No, the Jesus one. Though you can find the former in Ferrara's Dangerous Game
On July 7, Captain Jack Sparrow returns with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Depp better hope that they don't stop this franchise because, while parodying his one note dramatic acting scale, any earnest efforts after Sparrow will cause audiences to howl just as I did in the odious The Libertine

That same day, you can catch Jerry and the gang (only the gang in this case features celebs like Matthew Broderick, Dan Hedaya, Phillip Seymore Hoffman - pre-Oscar -, Ian Holm, Allison Janney, Todd Oldham, Sarah Jessica Parker and many, many more) in the film version of the hit offbeat series Strangers With Candy
Just when you thought it was safe to like her again, on July 21st, Uma Thurman will star in My Super Ex-Girlfriend alongside Luke Wilson. I mean, really. Apparently here, Uma is supposed to be a bitter ex-girlfriend with magical powers. How low can we go? What's next? A Miami Vice remake whose stars do more coke than the foes they battle?
Well... As a matter of fact, on July 28th, Colin Farrell and Jamie Fox are going to star in a Miami Vice remake. How 'bout that! Since I can NEVER stand Colin Farrell - even after seeing THE video, I think I'll pass on this one.

A new film by Amy Heckerling comes out around this time. In another act of Hollywood necrophilia, it seems execs have worked their voodoo magic on the corpse of Michelle Pfeiffer! I hope that I Could Never Be Your Woman is not bad, but seeing that Tracy Ullman is cast as mother nature, I cannot see any good that can become of this. I mean no ill will to Tracy Ullman, it's just that a film with mother nature spells trouble. Or just badness.
Taking another great big dump on both of her Oscars, on August 11, Hilary Swank can be found in the biblical horror film, The Reaping
And yes, Samuel L. Jackson will appear in the as of yet not-renamed Snakes On A Plane. Please Please Please let it stay that way. they were talking about changing the title to something lame like Flight 1012.

And in a pathetic attempt to restart his career, Kevin Smith will release Clerks II with a cast of usuals who have turned superstars while he has maintained his cultdom. But to what avail?
A Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel, a second Grudge film with Jessica Beals, and Saw III head up our horror selections (and what an abysmal selection they are!). A new film by Pedro Almadovar, a new Danny Boyle film starring Cillian Murphy, Sofia Coppola's atrocious sounding Marie Antoinette (which might be saved by Marianne Faithfull, though I highly doubt it) and a new Chris Nolan film starring his new muse, Christian Bale are October's offerings.
In November, Ridley Scott and Russell Crow team up for a flick. Calista Flockhart is trying to see the world from the other point of view. In Fragile (a joke in itself) Flockhart plays a nurse. I won't have to tell you how she researched the role. Lastly, a documentary about the corruption of the MPAA, This Film Is Not Yet Rated will actually see the light of day.
In December, Robert Deniro takes the directors seat, Will Smith pairs with Thandie Newton (with excretions in town, assuredly), Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino team up again - at least Michael Keaton is there to help -, and just in time for X-mas, we have Julia Roberts playing the eponymous Charlotte in a life affirming holiday film about a spider's capability to save a pig's life - costarring Dakota Fanning as Fawn.

Coming next year, you don't even want to know. But I'll wet your appetite, regardless. A CGI Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers movie! I'll just leave you to ponder that one on your own.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

April 12, 2006

"Ain't Nobody Gonna Sleep here tonight!"

I recently rewatched Dogville. Let me just say, it is a damn fine film. From the offset, Dogville presents the viewer with an environment that cannot be taken for granted. Dogville's famous soundstage makes the town a parable, but what's more, creates what is perhaps the greatest meta-cinematic construction ever presented on the silver screen. At no point in the film do you take Dogville for a real town. How could you? Likewise, the characters become types rather than characters proper. Von Trier's near perfect screenplay is taut, searing and witty (admittedly, at times, too witty). Dogville is also a Godless town in perpetual wait for the minister that they know will never arrive. Instead they have Tom, the local "philosopher," who is too busy in thought to have ever written more than two words. In the opening of the film, Tom lectures about the latent evils in Dogville - a side that the town has yet to expose. But his arguments are weak and it is, of course, he who later proves to be the one most severely displaying the perils against which he preaches. In assuredly the best performance any director will ever wring from Ms. Kidman, Grace is an ever-optimist and perhaps Von Trier's greatest achievement here is eventually convincing the viewer that the martyrical stance that Grace takes is, in itself, arrogant. By placing herself above these people, she can only labor under the whim of their self-serving intentions. In seeming selfless, she invents a paradigm in which the villagers can only find advantage in her offerings and eventually (morally) fail because of this.

Dogville is, to Grace, but a trinket in a window. A gaudy plaster figurine: glazed, idyll and patient. It is fitting then, that Grace meets her breaking point when these figures are smashed to the ground by the very town that they resemble to her.

I don't know how I missed it when I saw Dogville in theaters, but at one point, Von Trier informs the viewer precisely how the film will end. Since the film is based around Brechtian theatrical(in both spatial and formal) structures, during one of the more menial chores she is forced to do (this is only after Von Trier has near broken Grace with 2+ hours of selfless indignation), she utters a line penned by Brecht and his musical counterpart, Kurt Weil. It is remotely inconspicuous, though Von Trier makes certain to highlight it with special care in the narration. As Grace removes a soiled sheet for cleaning, she mutters the line, "Nobody Gonna Sleep Here, tonight." It takes her completely by surprise, yet the knowing viewer should recognize this from the Weil song 'Pirate Jenny.' The songs is a tale of a maid who dreams of the day her black pirate ship will come sailing in and she will kill everyone who ever did her wrong. "They pile up the bodies and I'll say, 'That'll learn ya!'"

And pile up the bodies she does, as the people of Dogville have used Grace beyond her purpose, and what's worse, by this point she has highlighted all of the towns hypocrisies - especially, in a strikingly poignant scene, making Tom realize the fault in his own convictions, they turn her in. And this is truly the turning point that makes Dogville a far superior film to anything Von Trier has released thus far. For when They ("the ship, the black freighter" now a band of thirties automobiles) arrive to take Grace away, the film embarks on a philosophical endeavor concerning the personal trappings of man. They, end up being Grace's father and his band of gangster thugs. Grace relents, for what could be worse than the township of Dogville(?), and she enters the car in which her father waits. The moment inside the car (and it is brief) is the only moment of traditional cinematic delivery that Von Trier allows the viewer, and even so, the dialogue is heavy with a purpose that transcends mere familiar conversation. Who is in fact speaking is open to interpretation. I firmly believe that here Grace is meant to represent Jesus and her father (perfectly played by James Cannes), God. They discuss man as if they were apart from him. It is their damning hand that will destroy this township in a barrage of bullets and fire. You see it coming. Von Trier makes you want it to come. When the gangsters gun down the children, Von Trier forces a nasty and redemptive smile to creep across our faces. "If there's a town the world could do without," Grace decides, "this is it."

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 09, 2006

One For The Money

Why did Spike Lee make Inside Man? Well, let's face it, it's not as though he's had a whole lot going on recently. I mean did anyone see She Hate Me? I rest my case. I was not really looking forward to it, I must admit, but I am always willing to like something (unless of course it stars Will Farrell, in which case, you won't even get me within 200 feet of the theater). And though I will hand it to the film for delivering some witty dialogue and a clever, grade-A caper twist, Inside Man begins to drag its feet at the end of the first act and never truly recovers. At no point is the hold up even tense, lasting well into the next day (although the scenes of the petrified hostages are sobering - alluding not only to our current war, but specifically to Abu Graib through the use of masks and hoods). And even when the caper proper is through, the film trudges on... and on.

Juggling his poignant racial faux-pas and his heavy handed ones, Lee plods his way through the film without any set style or agenda - catering, one might assume to his whims. This plays out like a severely disjointed effects reel. At one moment, we've got a still Denzel Washington zooming forward on a platform as the crowd around him lurches forward in slow motion. Another pits us birds-eye in the bank, observing the waspily coiffed Jodie Foster "do business" with the hooded Clive Owen, bathed in golden lighting. Capers can be fun, and it would be dishonest to say that this one does not deliver. However, the dull outweighs the clever and you never find your heart racing quite like it should.
Now, I made fun of the movie before it even came out for its use of the most humor deprived actors in Hollywood. Washington does frequently attempt at humor here, though much of it falls very flat. Owen, well... how do you tell a joke with a cloth around your face and a gun in your hand. Owen is suave, but seldom humorous. Ms. Foster, on the other hand, is a complete surprise. Her perfectly named Madeline White is all smug cuntdom (a description at least adapted from the film itself - I'm not just being mean here). She traipses along, confidently swinging her $5,000 bag to and fro. She makes jokes! What's more, they're ones that we laugh at - AND SHE'S LAUGHING TOO! At one point she claims, "Now if you'll excuse me I have to go acquire a Park avenue co-op for Osama Bin Laden's nephew." This is not the humor of Flightplan - where everyone's laughing but her. No! She's a super-bitch and she's loving every minute of it. Critics have argued that her character is unnecessary, and while I might understand this claim, I think it is Foster (surprise of my life) that breathed a greatly needed breath of fresh air into the film.

Though the caper is wonderfully planned, the film bores itself in the details. All of the interesting mysteries that you believe (if only for a moment) that you might be left to chew on are resolved in horrifically blatant snippets of dialogue. I'd say wait, and when there's nothing better to do... TiVo it. Oh, and just for clarifications sake, my title for this review does not refer to the caper itself. Allow it instead to serve as the answer to the question posed in my introductory sentence.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 03, 2006

B-eautiful

As misanthropic as it sounds, sometimes it's just a hell of a lot of fun watching people get their heads shot off. When done correctly (like in the recent Hills Have Eyes remake) it can be exhilarating, scary, and vindicating. Like contemporary action fare (which most assume to be easy, but allow the countless action dullards to prove otherwise) it is only true bliss placed in the hands of a true connoisseur. James Gunn, writer/director of the new horror/comedy Slither, is one such savant. The glib delight he takes in exploding heads and creepy crawlies is truly a rare treat in the multiplexes today. Most contemporary Hollywood films are by the book bore-fests - no soul, just formula. That Slither recognizes its formula already pits it one step above the rest. It knows what it is, and does it revel.

Taking cues from B-horror of the fifties (The Blob, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing) sixties (Night of the Living Dead) and a special direct nod to the first few films of David Cronenberg (Shivers and Rabid, in particular - both creatures appear in some form), Gunn brings the sardonic flair that infused his Dawn of the Dead remake with wit and vitality. It works doubly well here, as a band of killer slugs wreaks havoc on a town of bumb-fuck South Carolina locals. These locals are, as you can imagine dumber than their livestock and Gunn makes use of his gift for dialogue here. When one sees the main creature (pictured below) in a field, he exclaims,"That looks like something that fell off my dick during the war!"
Social satires abound (a girl saves herself by sinking her hideous floral decal press-on nails - done, she informs her parents, by a Japanese girl, no less - into a slug, ripping it from her mouth. Oh yes, they enter through the mouth - looking like lascivious Linda Blair tongues. Of course, Darwin is more than alluded to here. Using this framework for a parable of US presumption, Slither proves a...err.. biting satire. Gunn also employs the elements that typically sink contemporary horror to his advantage. Background information (like Leatherface's facial cancer or the Hill's inhabitants' nuclear radiation) here merely adds to the glutinous ridicule of the genre. And the shimmer of the CGI slugs is the best use of the technique that I can recall - because it looks terrible. This is a movie where the worse it looks, the better it works. Don't be fooled, nary a new idea lies in Slither but as an amalgam of genre tropes it add up to one of the more delightful movies I've seen so far this year. I'll be using this to forget my wretched experience with Basic instinct 2
Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New this week April/4!!!

There's not much coming to theaters this weekend. There's another Jennifer Aniston dullard whose only perks are its costars. Catherine Keener and Francis McDormand may aid in making Friends With Money almost watchable, though probably not. It seems apt that the first megastar Romantic comedy of the year was titled Failure To Launch.

Out this week on DVD is a very inexpensive (let's hope this does not mean cheap in production, as well) 5 film, 2 DVD set of films starring Marlene Dietrich. The horribly named Marlene Dietrich: The Glamour Collection arrives via MCA Home Video. Featuring stellar gems like Von Sternberg's Morocco, Blonde Venus (pictured right) and The Devil Is A Woman and lesser non-Von Sternberg films Golden Earrings and The Flame of New Orleans, this collection marks the first time any of these films have arrived on DVD on this side of the Atlantic. This one is a definite purchase best appreciated after reading Underground filmmaker Jack Smith's article on the films of Von Sternberg which can be found here.

And in West Hollywood, store owners are going to have to beat off rabid costumers with large sticks as Brokeback Mountain hits store shelves everywhere. Now you too can freeze-frame your way through nude scenes, or you could be the only person actually watching the film in the privacy of your own home.

Among other things, a new DVD of the classic (and recently reviewed here) comedy, 9 to 5: The Sexist, Egotistical, Lying Hypocritical Bigot Edition. The DVD boasts a feature commentary with Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lili Tomlin. I wonder how they wrangled that?
The World's Greatest Lover, a film by and starring Gene Wilder gets a DVD release - though it only appears on this website because it costars the wonderfully frightening Carol Kane.

Lastly, though I never plug music here, Massive Attack's new Best Of collection, the appropriately titled, Collected deserves definite props. The Special Edition features a second double-sided disc. Side one, rare and unreleased tracks, two of which feature the lovely vocal dabblings of Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser. Side two of the disc (and the pertinent bit to this post) is a collection of ALL of their videos from Daydreaming to the two video versions of their new song Live With Me. Check out their wonderfully designed website for the release here

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 01, 2006

Listless Additiction

The opening scene of Basic Instinct 2 supplies us with a promise. Sharon Stone returning to the screen in the role that made her (in)famous, speeds through the streets of London in a VERY expensive car while her black companion fingers her. The sequence is shot like an action film, speeding cars and flashy bling. Suddenly (and in keeping) the car bursts through a street sign and plunges into the river. Stone's Catherine Tramell attempts to save her lover, yet gives up all too quickly, floating to the surface of the water with water-balletic grace. Though you could see the sequence being a tad more crass, you hope the following film will make up for the lack of gratuitousness. You take it as a promise. Alas, it is the sad duty for this critic to inform you that Basic Instinct does not keep its promise. Instead, it plays out as a supreme bore.

I was REALLY looking forward to Basic Instinct. It's been a while since we've had a good Pop Culture sex flick in the Wild Things or Cruel Intentions vain, and god knows America needs a good finger in its asshole. Basic Instinct 2 rather wallows in a tale of a successful London psychiatrist who fucked up once and cannot afford to do it again. Enter Sharon Stone. Yeah, you already get the idea. Even Charlotte Rampling cannot save this one from dullsville. I found myself trying to get excited about a slightly provocative nude shot of Morrissey from behind, or Morrissey "violently" (which this day and age is hardly violent) fucking random girl on all fours. Stone gives us a peek at her wholeness, but its only, pardon the pun, a sliver - and that's hardly enough to live up to the scene.

It will come as no surprise to say that Stone is the sole reason to see the film (thought I'm a big fan of Charlotte Rampling). Stone seldom reveals her age, as everything on that frame has been stretched, pinned back and puffed up, respectively. Her breasts resemble some sort of vestibule plucked straight from the assembly line. But when a gangly arm or knobby knee is shown in the wrong light, one that has escaped the art of post production, that illusion of the flawless Stone is obliterated, and the film could be read as a contemporary Plastic Surgery parable. More compelling, however, is watching her drop all pretenses and act on her delusions of grandeur. Oddly, Basic Instinct 2 delivers the psychological study of its tagline in a very different way. We are watching Stone's inner fantasies play out on the big screen. When it comes right down to it, there is not that great of a difference between Tramell and Stone. However much she may want us to believe it's her character, it's not, and when she is "acting", that's another source of amusement entirely.

Posted by Bradford Nordeen at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)