Since I’ve taken off the sidebar section with the asides, which is where I used to highlight notable things on other sites, I decided I should start collecting some notable links together into larger posts. Mostly because this will discourage me from simply sharing things on GoogleReader or linking them on Friendfeed, which is not especially effective since many of my repeat readers don’t use those tools. (However, if you do happen to use Friendfeed and I haven’t found you already, hit me up. I’m there, like, ALL THE TIME now.)
Spoutblog has a good (and positive) review of Brick director Rian Johnson’s second feature The Brothers Bloom. It’s been playing some festivals (so there are other reviews floating around, both positive and less so), and I think it’s set to open in limited release in December. They keep moving the release date around, though. Which is annoying.
Film School Rejects has info on a new Sherlock Holmes movie in production. I did not know about this movie before, but I have these things to note: A) They’re making a Sherlock Holmes movie! B) Guy Ritchie is directing it! C) Robert Downey Jr. is playing Holmes! C) Jude Law is playing Watson! D) Rachel McAdams is playing Irene Adler! (Adler is the only person to ever outwit Holmes, in “A Scandal in Bohemia.” She’s also the heroine of Carole Nelson Douglas’s revisionist Holmes series, and I hope the film brings in some characterization from Douglas.) There is no way this film is going to be anything but awesome.
I mentioned the new Criterion editions of some of Max Ophuls films; now there’s a restored version of his only color film, Lola Montes, about to hit theatres on October 10th. Hopefully a good DVD will follow; for now, check the theatrical schedule on Rialto’s site.
Reverse Shot devotes their newest issue to Hou Hsiao-hsien, a director I definitely need to get to know better.
A bunch of stills from Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland film. And when I say upcoming, I mean “not coming until 2010.” But I’m already excited about the concept. Johnny Depp’s on board as the Mad Hatter.
If I could be anywhere except sunny LA right now, it would definitely be Austin for the Austin City Limits music festival. I nearly flew back to Texas for it, but given my current non-employed status, it’s a good thing I didn’t. Maybe next year I can save up for it.
Anyway, the next best thing is watching the live webcast at AT&T’s Blue Room. So go check it out and get your festival fix. Especial recommendations, though I’m hoping to come out discovering some new bands myself: Vampire Weekend is being broadcast at 7:30 pm ET tonight, The Fratellis tomorrow at 2:30 ET (all times are Eastern), Conor Oberst (formerly of Bright Eyes) tomorrow at 7:30, Jose Gonzalez following him at 8:30, then on Sunday a slew of good stuff starting with The Kills and Flyleaf at 2:30 and 3:30, then Neko Case at 5:30, followed by Okkervil River, The Raconteurs, and Tegan and Sara.
This is on the beginning of the Speed Racer DVD, and I assume elsewhere. I watched it with my mouth gaping. Who at Warner Brothers thought this would be a good use of a classic film? And how about these values: “Making time with Victor’s girl – good; pirating DVDs – bad.” Yep, copying their precious intellectual property is definitely worse than, like, mere spousal infidelity. For reals, WB?
I didn’t get this out on time because I kept looking at the DVD release list this week and going, “is that it? Really?” Yeah, after the plethora of interesting options last week, this week is pretty slim.
Pick of the Week
The main thing worth looking at this week is the Godfather Coppola Restoration Set. All three Godfather movies restored and remastered, available both in a box set and individually. Check out the image improvement over on Dave Kehr‘s blog. Now might be a good time to rectify one of my worst cinema omissions – I’ve never seen The Godfather Part II (or Godfather III, but that’s a less serious crime).
New Releases
Leatherheads – I enjoyed this in theatres; good, old-fashioned craftsmanship. (Also in Blu-ray.)
Mother of Tears – Dario Argento’s latest got mixed reviews; I don’t like horror, so it’s not high on my list, but if you’re into Argento… (good review up at The Auteur’s Notebook)
Sex and the City: The Movie – Didn’t see it, wasn’t a particular fan of the show. Seemed unnecessary. (Also in Blu-ray, and there’s a Special Edition.)
Run, Fatboy, Run – I’m torn between my love of Simon Pegg and my distrust of David Schwimmer’s directing ability as well as my general feeling that the film doesn’t look very good.
Aki Kaurismaki’s Proletarian Trilogy: Shadows in Paradise, Ariel, and The Match Factory Girl. I don’t know this director, but The Screengrab is excited enough about him that maybe I should check it out. Of course, Criterion putting out an Eclipse set of anybody makes them worth checking out.
L.A. Confidential 2-disc Special Edition. One of the best crime movies in recent history, and probably the only neo-noir able to even remotely give Chinatown a run for its money. Includes a new cast/crew commentary track, among other things. (Also in Blu-ray.)
Also: Grease Rockin’ Rydell Edition (which comes with a letter cardigan over the disc case – oh, those marketing people; but do we need another special edition of Grease?)
Amélie France 2001; dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
starring: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz
screened 4/6/08; DVD
Previous Viewing Experience: I’ve seen this at least four times, but most of them were pretty soon after it came out on DVD, so it’s probably been four or five years. Wow, that makes me feel old.
Previous Reactions: I pretty much fell in love with this movie when I first saw it (hence the seeing it again so often so soon). The colors, the music, the quirk, the charm. Mostly the colors, if I’m honest.
Brief Synopsis: Amelie Poulain lives and works in Montmartre, but doesn’t connect very deeply with other people. When she finds a long-lost box of toys and successfully finds the overjoyed owner, she decides to do random acts of kindness (and meanness, in one case) – one of which may lead to romance if she doesn’t chicken out first.
Response: Interesting reaction this time. I’m still charmed by the film, and for all the same reasons as before. But I found myself also a little disappointed at its obviousness. Which I think is a function of having seen several Krzysztof Kieslowski films over the past year. Jeunet’s use of vibrant color seems directly borrowed from Kieslowski’s later films (the French ones), and since the cinematography is one of my favorite things about both Amelie and Kieslowski’s work, I couldn’t help comparing them in my head. And Kieslowski is better. Amelie’s problem is that she’s afraid of connecting meaningfully with other people. That’s why she spends more time pulling pranks and tricking everyone else in the story (whether for their good or ill) rather than concentrate on her own life. Ultimately, that’s why she constructs elaborate schemes and false identities that keep her in contact with yet also distanced from Bobo. And that’s great, it’s a fine storyline. But then Jeunet introduces a brittle painter who can’t quite capture one girl’s expression in the Renoir he’s copying. Why? Because she’s in a group of people and yet not connected to them. Over and over the fact that this girl and Amelie are the same is reiterated. Over and over the painter explicitly pushes Amelie to take the risk, to open herself up to others. Again, not a bad thing in and of itself, but Kieslowski takes a similar storyline of people who have cut themselves off from the world emotionally in Red and carries it out with much greater subtlety and ambiguity. Perhaps that’s why Amelie is #92 on this list and Red is down at #39.
I still love Amelie, don’t get me wrong. It’s delightful, and it remains one of the two or three best introductions to foreign films for the subtitle-phobic. But it’s a gateway drug to world cinema, and if you like it, move on to the harder stuff.
Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel) Germany 1931; dir: Josef von Sternberg
starring: Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich screened 7/5/08; New Beverly Cinema
Previous Viewing Experience: Never seen it, nor anything else directed by von Sternberg or starring Jannings, though I’ve seen several later Dietrich films.
Knowledge Before Viewing: In a meta sense, I’m aware that von Sternberg and Dietrich are a well-known actress-director team, and that Dietrich made waves for her masculin costuming in this and/or her other films with him. More specifically, I know the basic story has something to do with a straight-laced professor who gets angry at his students for lusting after a sexy showgirl, but then he feels a bit differently once he actually sees said showgirl. I’m not looking forward to this one too terribly much. It sounds like an offputting combination of dirty old man lechery and moralizing. Add in early sound era awkwardness, and yeah. Sorta ambivalent. Hopefully seeing it in a theatre (fortuitous timing on the New Beverly’s part!) will help.
Brief Synopsis: My pre-viewing synopsis is fairly close, actually. The Professor (Jannings) finds his students sneaking off to the local cabaret, but when he goes there to catch them at it, he ends up falling for Lola Lola (Dietrich) himself. She encourages him and eventually they marry. But when the show goes back on the road, he’s reduced to performing clown parts to earn his keep and stay with her.
Response: I wound up liking this a lot more than I initially expected to. One of my favorite films it probably won’t ever be, but it was definitely worthwhile at least seeing once to experience such a young Marlene Dietrich. She’s absolutely delightful from start to finish (outside of, perhaps, a few scenes near the end where she gets to be quite the little bitch). The story is far more focused on the Professor, though, and his fall from esteemed academic and community leader to pathetic joke after he marries Lola. And this being to some degree a Gemran Expressionist film, his decline gets a little on the overwrought side at times. I did particularly like the recurring bird imagery – both the Professor and Lola keep birds, linking them before they’re, um, linked, and an early shot of a dead bird provides a foreshadowing glimpse of how this is all going to work out. In terms of moralizing, the message is apparently “don’t marry flighty showgirls much younger than you because it’ll ruin your life.” Which, actually, is probably good advice.
Busy week of concerts for me! I went to see Glasgow band The Fratellis on Tuesday night. I’ve been meaning to feature the Fratellis on a Music Monday for a long time, but haven’t, largely due to Music Monday going on hiatus while I settled in out here. Then I got tickets to their concert and decided to wait.
Jon, Barry, and Mince Fratelli
Of course, I couldn’t help comparing the concert to Jenny Lewis’ from last week, even though there’s not a lot of comparison between Lewis and the Fratellis. The Fratellis are about as hard rock as I actually like (which is not saying a lot), and they were definitely amazing in concert. But I’ve definitely decided that the Wiltern is the largest venue I can take, and it’s not that large, comparatively, and I’m only willing to do that large a show again for my favoritest bands. Especially those from, like, Scotland who aren’t likely to turn up again soon. The Wiltern is set up pretty well – lower floor is all standing, with a special pit area which I didn’t go into. I think you had to have a special something or other to go down there. But I did get a sweet spot right behind the pit, with a nice railing to lean on. I did get a lot less tired this show than at Jenny’s; a combination of the leaning and the fact that the headliner was finished by eleven, rather than starting at midnight.
My major complaint was the overproduction of the show. The lighting designer went crazy, and yeah, there were moments when that was cool (like when the spotlights highlighted Mince Fratelli, the drummer, as he wailed on a fantastic drum solo), but overall it was incredibly distracting. The music is good, guys, you don’t need all that stuff. Also, it all felt so very planned. They only spoke between songs once – although I can understand why; their accents are so thick even I couldn’t tell what they were talking about! The rest of the time it was boom, boom, boom, like rote.
But that’s not quite fair, because it sounds like they were on autopilot, and they weren’t. When they were in the middle of a song, every second was fantastic. Jon (lead singer/guitarist) is incredible; I listened to the CD on the way home, and he was definitely doing some new and much more intricate guitar solos live. They have two CDs out now, and they did a really nice job with the setlist, bringing in the best of both albums (although they didn’t do my favorite song, “Creeping Up the Backstairs”).
I haven’t been to enough concerts to know yet whether the production issues I had are the result of the kind of band the Fratellis are (more straight rock, less indie/folk than Jenny or most of the other bands I’ve seen) or the size of the show. Maybe I’ll figure it out as I expand my concert experience.
In any case, my disenchantment with the production doesn’t diminish my love of the music, so here are some tracks. First, the aforementioned “Creeping Up the Backstairs” from their debut album, Costello Music. Just because they didn’t perform it doesn’t mean I can’t show it some love. :) I had various Fratellis tracks on my iPod for a long time from one of my friends, but it was this one that made me sit up and start really listening. Over and over. And over.
And from their recently released sophomore album Here We Stand, a song titled “Mistress Mabel,” which I largely chose because the piano fills make me very happy. Generally I still like Costello Music more than Here We Stand, partially because I’m more familiar with it, but I also feel like it’s got more personality, more quirk. But Here We Stand is more solid in a way, I think. More confident. But less youthfully enthusiastic. They’re both good, is what I’m saying, and if you like these two songs, you’ll like both albums.
Amazon doesn’t have the albums available as MP3 downloads (boo!), so my intention to embed the Amazon Clips widget was sidetracked. Perhaps all for the best, since instead I’ll embed an imeem playlist with all the other songs from the albums. (Why don’t I just use imeem for all the tracks? Good question – first answer is that I only just figured out that imeem plays the full track and not just a 30-second preview. Second answer is that I know I tend to fall in love with bands more when I have a couple of their songs on my iPod and can live with them for a while, so I still think it’s useful to have a sample track or two that you can download as well as stream. As I said, I had Fratellis songs hanging around for months before I lived with them enough to become a fan. What do you think? Should I nix the individual downloadable tracks, like those above? If it makes any difference, mine sound better – don’t know what bitrate imeem uses, but they’re definitely muddier.)
Let’s see if I can revive the DVD New Release posts. Now that I’ve had time to actually catch up on what’s being released.
New Release Picks
Speed Racer
Okay, so I didn’t actually see this in theatres. And it got trounced by most critics. On the other hand, I’ve seen a few glowing reviews from bloggers I trust, so I went ahead and popped it to the top of my Netflix queue this week. Even if I don’t end up liking it, I’m pretty sure it’s going to look awesome, and sometimes that’s worth it in and of itself.
The Rape of Europa
The interest in Nazi Germany continues with this documentary about Allied attempts to save Europe’s artistic masterworks from the all-consuming hand of Hitler. Again, I haven’t seen it, but it takes a lot to make me want to watch a documentary (a bias I’m trying to overcome), and I’m quite excited about this one.
Also releasing: Young@Heart, Snow Angels, Made of Honor, 88 Minutes, The Love Guru
Classic Picks
The Earrings of Madame de… / La Ronde / Le Plaisir
And Region 1 cinephiles hyperventilate. Yay, Criterion! These three Max Ophuls films have never been released on DVD in the United States to my knowledge, which is a cinematic travesty. [Correction: La Ronde has.] I haven’t seen Le Plaisir, but I guarantee the other two are among the most exquisite, sophisticated films ever. I’m looking forward to seeing them again so much. David Hudson gathers some quotes on the set from around the web over at GreenCine Daily.
An American in Paris / Gigi
New 2-disc special editions of two great Vincente Minnelli musicals. Not as exciting as the Ophuls set, but still.
Also releasing: J’Accuse (Abel Gance); special editions of Beetlejuice, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and Risky Business; box sets: Busby Berkeley Collection 2, British Cinema Classic B Film Collection, Charlie Chan Collection 5
Television Picks
Pushing Daisies Season One
Best new show last year. No question. It’s quirky, it’s endearing, it’s adorable, it’s gorgeous. What more do you need? Not to mention the ever-looming possibility of supporting cast member (and Broadway star) Kristin Chenoweth randomly bursting into song. The new season starts on October 1st, so you’ve got a few weeks to catch up.
Chuck Season One
Possibly the second best new show last year. Geek Squad employee Chuck gets a staggering amount of national secrets downloaded into his brain, making him essential to the CIA, NSA, and who knows who else. Geeks + espionage. It’s like giving Alias‘s Marshall his own show. :)
Torchwood Season Two Torchwood is the spin-off of Britain’s new Doctor Who series, following the exploits of an off-grid government agency (Torchwood) investigating alien activity on Earth. I actually think it’s better than Who in several ways. For one thing, it’s set in Cardiff, which opens up a whole wealth of underused Welsh accents. But start with Season One.
Also releasing: Dirty Sexy Money Season One, Criminal Minds Season Three, Private Practice Season One, Will & Grace Season Eight
Cinephile, music lover, internet junkie, gamer, and recovering academic (English Lit).
Currently I live in Los Angeles. I moved here for the low cost of living. Somehow that is not working out so well. Actually, I moved here to be in a big city with plenty of stuff to do. I needed lots of film stuff, lots of music stuff, and lots of warm, preferably dry, weather. LA met all the criteria, and so far I still completely love being here.
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Speed Racer
The Rape of Europa
Pushing Daisies Season One
Chuck Season One
Torchwood Season Two
