Hit Me With Your Best Shot: The Talented Mr... Seale

It has admittedly been a few years since I have watched Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr Ripley. And yet I remember it so vividly in my mind. So much so that years removed I can still remember invidivual sequences and shots. I seem to remember the camera repeatedly looking up and down, as if the entire film is told from the perspective of where Matt Damon's "Mr Ripley" sees himself being and where he sees everyone else. I didn't rewatch the film to prepare for this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot - a series at Nathaniel Rogers' The Film Experience dedicated to viewers finding their favourite shot amongst a designated title of the year - but I skimmed through and found myself immersed in a treasure trove of gorgeously lensed moments from Mr John Seale.

John Seale is an Australian four-time Oscar nominee, winning for Minghella's earlier picture, The English Patient. I was surprised to find he wasn't nominated for The Talented Mr Ripley. Apart from being a beautiful movie in general, it really is fabulously filmed and all those European locations certainly don't hurt matters. But, then again, The Talented Mr Ripley and the Oscars had a weird relationship that year that had Harvey Weinstein basically jump ship to the (curiously over-performing) The Cider House Rules, leaving Minghella and co to flounder about racking up a (still very respectable) five nominations. The five that were nominated are certainly a stellar bunch, so Seale (nor I) should really be able to complain. Still... I would have expected more than mere Chicago and Las Vegas to stump for the guy.

Okay, so this one's just because Jude Law is so freakin' good looking. I can't. I just can't.

I love the mirror between these two shots from different scenes in the movie. Ripley down front with Dickie in charge at the back, and then vice versa when the tables are turned.

Tom Ripley literally sees himself (or, projects himself as doing so) as so small that he could be crushed under foot.

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I greatly enjoy the way that once Jude Law exits the picture - er, spoiler? - everyone begins having to question who they're even conversing with (they should, alas they don't). This moment of Cate Blanchett's return to the picture is divine, almost like a Hitchcock cameo in the beginning. At first the viewer may not notice her in the background, but then neither does Tom.

My favourite shot, however, is this one. Tom has finally risen not only in social standing, but within myself. And at this moment as the potential for all of his lies to become unravelled he stands up the top and, in actual fact, is guiding everything like a puppeteer. Out of sight he plays the characters of Gwyneth and Cate with the skill of a marionette master, laying the foundation for what comes next.

Wolf Creek's Evil Dead

It's been a nearly decade since Greg McLean's Wolf Creek became one of the biggest and most iconic horror films in Australian history. It's re-appropriation of topical mythos and stereotypes into the form of a relatively low scale stalk-and-slash horror film, along with the blood-curdling performance by a resurgent John Jarratt (who, by that stage, had become more Noni Hazelhurst's ex husband and television gardening host and less actor) combined for the rare twofer feat of an Australian film and a horror movie debuting at number one (and an R18+ one at that!) at the box office.

Of course, a lot has changed since then. Nowadays it appears that distributors in Australia have created a brand new release model: the boutique horror business. While the rampaging cult-like success of Cabin in the Woods in a limited arthouse release made distributor Roadshow look temporarily foolish (granted: it was a success that would have been muted in wide release), Sony have now gone and replicated that with their 5-screen release of Evil Dead (which, by the way, I reviewed at Quickflix). Released last weekend in one cinema per state (well, most states anyway - sorry Tasmania), it grossed over $23,000 per screen and entered the box office chart at number 11 with $117,055. Very impressive all this considered, considering a 100-screen release and the marketing that goes with it wouldn't have netted them all that more coins in the bank. Spring Breakers for instance, another R18+ youth-oriented pic, was released on 48 screens and made only $184,445.

These distributors - and believe me, more will follow - have basically found an easy way to toss off those horror titles that they score due to American content deals and once-buzzed acquisitions. The rewards are minimal, but those figures for Evil Dead will certainly come in handy when Sony need to pay for the open bar tab at their national Christmas shindig. They don't even need to bother marketing the product since boffo American returns and general online geek culture mean most people who would want to see it (in one of the five big cities, naturally) are already convinced. Late night "cult" screenings only add to the mystique for some, but that's a cinema's own decision and not on the distributor's dime. It's win win for them, but not audiences, most of who will discover the film on DVD or torrenting. A five screen release all but screams "Yeah, whatever, torrent this for all we care", because they know the die hards and purists will come out anyway. We're uber-fickle.

Which brings me back to Wolf Creek 2. As I mentioned before, it will have been nine years since the original when it comes out in (presumably) 2014 and it will be interesting to see how this develops. Firstly, will McLean lend the film a bigger, more pristine look or will he keep it a mucky, dusty chiller? There will be much pressure on the film, but how will it be sold is one of my biggest question marks. Its local funding and studio support implies it'll be a go-big-or-go-home prospect for its financial backers who will be certainly far more interested in recouping their cash than acquiring any sort of online horror geek cachet. The first poster released - a international sales design for Cannes - looks awfully familiar to that of Evil Dead so maybe they're hoping for a bigger slice of the international pie this time. Especially since horror is such a weird genre for Australian audiences.

The poster in fact doesn't just look "awfully familiar", but is rather a complete and utter knock off. No ifs or buts about it. It's a sales poster so I guess they're not that fussed, but it's a curiously off tone to begin pitching your project with. Producers better hope that any international film buyers at the festival were able to turn Evil Dead into a smash hit if that's the case. Still, props for putting the country original right there in text. The original film was so very much about the terror of the location as it was about the horror of the situation, so I'm glad they're keeping that element. Who knows where they go from here, but hopefully it's something a bit more original.

Shorts on Screen

My ambivilance towards short films is well documented. So often I find short films are truncated versions of what directors want to make (a feature), or a build up to a punch line that doesn't warrant the time spent getting there. I know it's terrible of me and I have indeed seen many excellent short films, but I find watching short sessions at film festivals to be a struggle. If they were made more available online then maybe I could pick and choose - does anybody know of a website that streams shorts?

Anyway, I do find myself becoming more and more a fan of one type of short film, however. Those that avoid traditional narrative are really starting to make me take notice. On the infrequent chance that I actually get to view them, I've noticed myself becoming more and more receptive to them. I think, in essence, the lack of traditional narrative or conventional plotting is ideal for the short film structure. It allows a director to simply put forth an idea without having to struggle with the likes of dialogue and actors. More akin to a museum artwork, these type of films make wonderful use of the medium and actively make the viewer lose the reliance on traditional elements like exposition, dialogue, and actors (although these type of shorts can obviously still incorporate them) and the mental processes that usually go along when watching a movie. They exist not so much to tell a story, but to tell an idea and I think that's marvellous.

Two examples of this that I've seen recently include Lucy Raven's RP31 and Eva Weber's Night, Peace. The former is little more than four minutes of excised test patterns and calibration charts and assembled into a constantly fluctuating series of looping edits. It screened before Shane Carruth's Upstream Color at the New Directors/New Films festival and while I'm not sure the two go together all that well, I found it fascinating. My viewing partners, however, did not. I admired the way it took elements of cinema we otherwise do not see and contorted them into something that we can't ignore. Projected on a big screen - 35mm no less, thank the heavens - and the images have a hypnotic quality. "When I snap my fingers you will turn your telephone off and cease discussions about just how much of a bitch that Candace lady at work is."

With its presentation on 35mm it would be very easy to read the film as a love letter of sorts to the sort of filmmaking components that are no longer with us. If the film has a weakness it's that Raven doesn't actually give a context for any of the footage and, for all we know, could be completely invented for the purpose of the film. In which case the film would become ultimately a fake experience and one that falls into the trappings of its digital predecessors. I don't think that, of course, but it's a reading that one could definitely argue. Here is a link to a well-written piece that looks at RP31 from the other end of the critical spectrum. I can see where the writer, Catherine Wagley, is coming from.

As for Eva Weber's Night, Peace it uses a similar trick of reconstructing images we otherwise mightn't ever witness and transforming them into a visual poem of sorts. With more of a centred structure than RP31, Weber's film examines London nightlife in a distinctly haunting manner using CCTV and security footage (or, at least, specially filmed footage that looks like those things) to see the city as a dark and uneasily quiet place. It's another film to describe as hypnotic and I particularly liked the moment (visible in the video below) where two urban foxes stop their alleyway fighting and notice the camera. Night, Peace is a city being watched from various angles at a moment of vulnerability and weakness, as it sleeps. It was the perfect introduction to Nights with Theodore at the San Francisco International Film Festival (the film my FIPRESCI jury awarded, just by the way) since they both share a haunting urban quality that makes for a captivating filmgoing experience.

A clip of Night, Peace is available online and have embedded it below. Neither of the films are available in full as far as I am aware so if you're interested you'll have to seek them out in other ways. I recommend them though and I hope to see more like them in the future.

Butlers and Family Squabbling in Ensemble Trailers

Two of the larger ensembles of the upcoming awards season are Lee Daniels' The Butler and John Wells' adaptation of the famed Broadway play August: Osage County. If combined, the cast lists would look as if they've snagged half of Hollywood and in the last few days they have each released trailers that let us get a good glimpse at most of them. The Butler has even more people than mentioned in the cast rundown (Alex Pettyfer who's seen in the cotton fields; Mariah Carey who's nowhere in sight yet plays somebody called "Hattie Pearl" oh lord), but the trailer for August appears to let everyone get a moment except for poor ol' Misty Upham who, as one of the few young native American actors who's had attention-grabbing roles - Frozen River, mostly - was a natural for the role of the Westen family housekeeper. She's nowhere to be seen in the trailer, which is disappointing given that, from what I remember, she's quite central. Or maybe that's where director Wells has diminished the gargantuan plan for the big screen? We'll soon see.

As for The Butler, a lot of people are calling this "Oscar bait" while others are calling it "terrible". Sounds about right for a Lee Daniels film of this type. I know it does look far more subdued than his past films, but I'm not entirely sure that Daniels is a director who's able to entirely push aside his personality even if he is on record as saying this is a more-or-less "director for hire" gig. I mean, this is a guy who made a movie that had Helen Hirren and Cuba Gooding Jr as assassin lovers, followed that up with an Oscar-winning drama starring Mo'Nique and Mariah Carey, and then followed that up with The Paperboy in which he convinced Nicole Kidman to urinate on Zac Efron and to give John Cusack a telepathic blowjob. If anything, it looks like he's dolled Oprah Winfrey up in a series of sweaty period-centric clothes and blown-out wigs and for that we should be all incredibly thankful. I have some awful American chat show on in the background as I type this fronted by somebody called Wendy Williams and they just played a truncated version of the trailer with all of Oprah's bits and, basically, that's all we're lilkely ever going to need.



Firstly, I'm surprised at how young they've been able to make Forrest Whitaker look in those early parts. He's a man who didn't even look young when he was young (remember him in The Crying Game?) so well done with that. And it does look stirring and well-acted from the central two (Whitaker and Winfrey, slaying all with a gif-ready performance right there) and there's certain kitsch value in watching all these famous actors portray famous American presidents and their wives. I personally cannot wait to see Jane Fonda's drag realness as Nancy Reagan.

August: Osage County seems like a more obvious choice for Oscar gold, although I've been repeatedly nervous about the adaptation. The stage version was so excellent, and the tone of this new trailer seems somewhat... off. A bit more uplifting than I remember the stage play being,

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Still, the chance to see all of those fantastic actors - Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, Ewan McGregor and others - is one that should ultimately prove irresistible and the source material is so good that surely some of it has to have transferred. Especially since it's been adapted by the play's original writer, Tracey Letts, who certainly made his plays Bug and Killer Joe into... unique experiences. We'll see.

The Unrewarded Woman

Over at The Film Experience I participated in a poll to find the best Oscar-nominated best actress performance that didn't win. It was fun, but produced an ultimately rather predictable selection for both numbers 1 and 2. It's not at all hard to figure out what they'll be, but before you click over (or read further, since they're both on there albeit not in the same final position) take a guess and see if you're right.

My own top ten was a rather tough list to compile and in the end I just threw my hands in the air and conceded defeat. I mean, there is literally no way possible to get 20 performances into a list of ten. Literally no chance whatsoever so I just had to go with my gut. My gut actually should have reminded me of Natalie Wood in Splendour in the Grass and Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, however, and I'm ashamed a forgot them and didn't include them. The latter is even mall strange since my number one performance was from the same year and I even mention Swanson in my write-up at The Film Experience. I'm a nut like that, I suppose. I blame not having seen them in so long. I need to rectify that and make up for my actressexual sins.

Sadly, unlike Nick Davis I haven't seen every nominated performance - hell, the number is surely on the sad side of 50% - but it's not like there aren't plenty of fabulous performances to choose from. I wish I could have found room for Davis for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Elizabeth Taylor for Suddenly Last Summer, Sigourney Weaver for Aliens, Meryl Streep for Silkwood and maybe even The Devil Wears Prada, Ida Kaminska for The Shop on Main Street, Katharine Hepburn for The Philadelphia Story, Ellen Burstyn for Requiem for a Dream, Bette Midler for The Rose, Kim Stanley for Seance on a Wet Afternoon, Shirley MacLaine for Some Came Running and The Apartment, Jane Fonda for They Shoot Horses Don't They?, Susan Sarandon for Thelma & Louise, Sissy Spacek for Carrie.... gah!

Anyway, take a look at the top ten I submitted. Where would you fall on the scale?

1. Bette Davis, All About Eve

2. Emily Watson, Breaking the Waves

3. Judy Garland, A Star is Born

4. Elizabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas

5. Julie Walters, Educating Rita

6. Barbara Stanwyck, Double Indemnity

7. Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge!

8. Geraldine Page, Interiors

9. Barbra Streisand, The Way We Were

10. Whoopi Goldberg, The Color Purple.

"At least you didn't forget me."

"How many roles as famous as those like Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve were originally cast with different actors? Davis did such an outstanding, iconic turn as aging Broadway star Channing that it’s hard to imagine Claudette Colbert in the role as originally planned. It’s hard to imagine why I’m even having to write this passage. Alas, that’s what comes from being a participant in what is surely one of the most famous actress line-ups of all time. Losing votes to equally iconic Gloria Swanson as well as her own co-star, Anne Baxter, meant that Judy Holliday walked away with the statue. Davis lost the Golden Globe, too, but at least she won a prize from the hoi polloi of the Cannes Film Festival!"

I'll Be Joining Soderbergh*

Tomorrow I head off to the west coast once more to attend the San Francisco International Film Festival. I'm privileged to have been selected to work on the festival's FIPRESCI jury where I will be judging the best debut or second film. I have very deliberately not looked into any of the films I'll be judging - and I certainly don't recognise any of the titles - so we'll see how that all goes. I imagine it'll be a fascinating experience. Of course, coming on the heels of seeing so many films at the Tribeca Film Festival, I may be a little bit film-ed out by the conclusion of the Golden Gate Awards on May the 8th, but it'll be a wonderful experience nonetheless.

The festival proper actually began last week, but I'm only visiting for the second half. The festival has been making waves the last few days after a series of leaks from Steven Soderbergh's "state of cinema" address. First it was written, then it was audio, and today it's visual. It's a... interesting read. Certainly echoes a lot of sentiments I have and I've included some of my favourite quotes below:

And there’s a guy on the other side of the aisle in front of me and he pulls out his iPad to start watching stuff. I’m curious to see what he’s going to watch – he’s a white guy in his mid-30s. And I begin to realize what he’s done is he’s loaded in half a dozen action sort of extravaganzas and he’s watching each of the action sequences – he’s skipping over all the dialogue and the narrative. This guy’s flight is going to be five and a half hours of just mayhem porn. I get this wave of – not panic, it’s not like my heart started fluttering – but I had this sense of, am I going insane? Or is the world going insane – or both? 

When people are more outraged by the ambiguous ending of The Sopranos than some young girl being stoned to death, then there’s something wrong. We have people walking around who think the government stages these terrorist attacks. And anybody with a brain bigger than a walnut knows that our government is not nearly competent enough to stage a terrorist attack and then keep it a secret because, as we know, in this day and age you cannot keep a secret.

First of all, is there a difference between cinema and movies? Yeah. ... It has nothing to do with the captured medium, it doesn’t have anything to do with where the screen is, if it’s in your bedroom, your iPad, it doesn’t even really have to be a movie. It could be a commercial, it could be something on YouTube. Cinema is a specificity of vision. It’s an approach in which everything matters. It’s the polar opposite of generic or arbitrary and the result is as unique as a signature or a fingerprint.

They get simple things wrong sometimes, like remakes. I mean, why are you always remaking the famous movies? Why aren’t you looking back into your catalog and finding some sort of programmer that was made 50 years ago that has a really good idea in it, that if you put some fresh talent on it, it could be really great. Of course, in order to do that you need to have someone at the studio that actually knows those movies.

A few years back, I got a call from an agent and he said, “Will you come see this film? It’s a small, independent film a client made. It’s been making the festival circuit and it’s getting a really good response but no distributor will pick it up, and I really want you to take a look at it and tell me what you think.” The film was called Memento. So the lights come up and I think, It’s over. It’s over. Nobody will buy this film? This is just insane. The movie business is over. It was really upsetting. Well fortunately, the people who financed the movie loved the movie so much that they formed their own distribution company and put the movie out and made $25 million.

 I stupidly didn't go and see Side Effects in the cinema, but it was released at a very hectic time and, well, it didn't hang around long (as Soderbergh admits, the returns were disappointing). Soderbergh has retired, although apparently that's only from theatrical films. Maybe. I'm not so sure. It's a bit unclear. His next film is Behind the Candelabra, which will premiere on American TV, but likely to get theatrical exhibition overseas. I remember seeing the HBO biopic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers in a cinema after it competed for the Palme d'Or, so if little else some international viewers will get the chance for another Soderbergh film on the big screen.

Anyway, you can read the entire transcript at Deadline, or watch the video embedded below.




* Note I will likely never cross paths with Steven Soderbergh let alone join him in anything. Ever.

What Do These Actresses Have In Common

Nicole Kidman

Rachel Weisz

Jessica Chastain

Vera Farmiga

Samantha Morton

Laura Dern

Cate Blanchett

Anne Heche

Emily Watson

Winona Ryder

Melanie Lynskey

Catherine Zeta-Jones

Laura Linney

Kerry Washington

They'd surely all be better choices for the role of Lady Macbeth in the new Justin Kurzel/Michael Fassbender adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth than Natalie Portman. Natalie Portman. Really. I like Natalie Portman so I probably shouldn't be as perturbed by her casting here than I am, but I just find it a bit disappointing. So many actresses - many of them notoriously "tricky" or "cold" - that would have worked far better as the famed Lady. I mean, can you imagine someone like Anne Heche or Winona Ryder getting a meaty role to really dig into after all of this time? Or the perhaps more obviously choices above, like Kidman or Chastain who have played cold so very well in the past. As I said yesterday, doesn't it feel like Kidman has been auditioning for the part for a decade? In fact, several of the actors above have acted in roles that were disguised (barely even that if you consider Linney in Mystic River) variations on the part in other movies.

Look, I'm not going write Natalie off just yet, but it's a little bit disappointing is all. I'd still be eager to see what Kurzel and Fassbender do with the property even if they'd cast somebody entirely inappropriate like, say, Emma Watson. Now, can you imagine that? Admittedly, Portman will have more of a chance for success if the adaptation is set in the present day; period fare has seen her flounder more than once. Nevertheless, this continues to be a curious project to follow.

Sing it Again

When I heard that Hollywood is planning to make a new version of famed Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, my reaction wasn't the usual series of sighs and hurrumphs that usually greet these sort of announcements. Three reasons, mostly. Firstly, any musical - especially one with big stars (supposedly) attached - is good news because it means another year will go by without the genre fading off into obscurity. Secondly, the 1955 adaptation with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra is not a particularly good film. Thirdly, and perhaps most important of all, is that Broadway has in essence been remaking their own product for years.

I'd love to see a film version of the Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows musical from 1950 and I'd hate to see the prospect of us getting one vanish just because of the internet's precious mentality to remakes. The film version by Joseph Mankiewicz is just not that good - and not only that, but it's missing up to five songs from the Loesser score and features a miscast Brando. That the film was only nominated for four technical Oscars speaks volumes given these sort of bloated (150 minutes! And I felt every minute of it) musicals were quite popular at the time.

I'm a bit confused by the reports that Channing Tatum is being sought for the Nathan Detroit role and Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Sky Masterson given they seem to be around the wrong way. Maybe that's just a quirk of the rumour mill and that they're meant to be other way around. I hope they are, anyway, since - give or take Tatum's singing abilities, which until now have never been discussed as much as his dancing - it'll surely be distracting. Of course, it's all just rumours at this stage and maybe it will never happen, but if it starts people thinking about "remaking" other properties that maybe weren't given the best treatment (think of the trouble they've had though trying to get another My Fair Lady produced).

And, yes:

Chance Has Michael Fassbender as Macbeth

We wake up to the strangest news sometimes, huh? Today's never-saw-that-coming bit of film news is that Justin Kurzel is directing a new version of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender. Yeah, okay, sure. Why not, hey? 

Kurzel is the Australian director behind Snowtown (known as The Snowtown Murders in the United States when released last year) and had previously been linked to a new John Le Carre adaptation on the heels of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but there appears to be no update on that and he has since taken up the reigns of another Macbeth. Given Snowtown's disturbing visual palate, it'd be understandable to expect a take perhaps similar to that of Roman Polanski's muddy and moody edition of the 1970s. With Fassbender as star, it's obvious the production will be a hot property and it's nice to see that the Australian funding bodies have gotten over whatever issue they had with The King's Speech, which came from the same Australian production house. Screen Australia lost the opportunity to have the future Oscar-winner listed as an official Australian-UK co-production and are no doubt still miffed that they decided that project wasn't "Australian enough" (or whatever silly excuse they had). Maybe the Australian director was the tipping point for them.

It's not lost on me, however, the curious symmetry that this project appears to have with another Australian adaptation of Macbeth. Given Kurzel's Snowtown ranks alongside Geoffrey Wright's Romper Stomper as one of the more disturbing Australian features ever made, it's interesting that both directors then went on to adapt Shakespeare's famed play. Wright's version has a reputation as a catastrophic disaster of bad taste, but I admire its insane goofiness, the outlandish costumes and sets (winner of the AFI Award, each), and the performance of briefly prolific Victoria Hill as Lady Macbeth. Wright hasn't written or directed anything since, probably a result of the reaction (both personally and professionally) to the Sam Worthington vehicle from 2006.

Given this new version will be coming from the same producers as The King's Speech, Shame, and Hunger, and star Fassbender, the project will obviously come with a higher pedigree. No word yet on who Lady Macbeth will be, but the Screen Daily article says they are in talks with a high profile contender. Is it too much to ask for Nicole Kidman? She's spent so long giving performances that could legitimately act as auditions for one of the biggest female stage roles imaginable that maybe she should just bite the bullet and play the part. Hmmm, we'll see. Also: if Fassbender wants to follow Worthington's path and go naked for the part then, by all means, go ahead. I look forward to more news coming out about the project simply for the sake of posting pictures like this.

Yes, you really can get used to looking at him, can't you?

Birth of an Unknown Woman

If I were to be the owner of a grand repertory cinema with the ability to curate and put on double features of my choice, I think I found a perfect evening for my patrons. It would be a double feature dedicated to the greatest of all niche genres, "women who lie to themselves", and would feature Max Ophuls' 1948 tragic romance Letter from an Unknown Woman and Jonathan Glazer's reincarnatory love story Birth. The two films really, truly feel as if they couldn't be more dissimilar to one another, and yet as I sat in the Museum of Modern Art watching a 35mm print of Ophuls' seemingly overlooked drama I couldn't help but think the two films, separated by some 56 years of history, were peas in a pod.

It's a beautiful film, for sure, on a visual and dramatic level. The story of a famous pianist who receives a mysterious letter from a woman who claims to have loved him for her entire life only to have been turned away because he was too blind to see who she was. Of course, the tragedy becomes twofold for reasons that seem rather obvious from the opening scene, but that's neither here nor there. For somebody who is notoriously fickle with the tears they shed, I did get quite a bit misty-eyed of Unknown Woman with its delicately fragile lead performance by Joan Fontaine (we were just have a laugh with her last week!) and her tale of operatic woe. The cinematography of Franz Planer is gorgeous with its beautiful rendering of snow and shadow. My particular favourite shot it that overhead shot of Fontaine's "unknown woman" walking away her body casts a shadow as long as her gloom. Just divine.

But where the connection to Birth comes in is remarkable. The films share so much and yet it was something that I only noticed when Unknown Woman, which I had obviously never seen before, utilised the scene of an opera in a very similar way to Glazer's. As Fontaine's Lisa takes her seat to watch Mozart's The Magic Flute, she has just been confronted with the realisation that her one true love has returned. Whilst not quite in the same mysterious fashion as the situation that confronts Nicole Kidman's character in Birth, but the two characters wrestle with their feelings as the power of the music wash over them. It's remarkable how similar the scenes and the character motivations behind them are. Sadly, we are not treated to a masterful three-minute sequence of beguiling close-up in Letter from the Unknown Woman like we are in Birth - I suppose this very mainstream-leaning romance film wasn't quite the place for such a visual move in 1940s Hollywood - but the effect is one and the same. It works.

Image source, FIPRESCI

From there, the two films felt like nothing less than sisters. The stories of Fontaine's Lisa and Kidman's Anne seemingly etched together as they each emerge out of the intimidating shadow of the men who took their former flame's place and decide to persue something that seems foolhardy and destined for failure, but which neither women can truly come to terms with until it's staring them blankly in the face. Both women go to personally tragic places in order to be with the love of their life, only to have it suggested by the man himself that it wasn't that all along. They mourn very obviously on the inside, harbouring long-gestating pain within them, while putting on an external face of strength. And even though the man at the centre of Unknown Woman is obviously a very dashing, handsome man, and the boy at the centre of Birth is, well, a boy, both stories tell a very salient point on what the idea of an all-encompassing love can do to us in the long term if it is interrupted by the natural order of things. Funnily enough, in Unknown Woman the love is interrupted by a birth, and in Birth it is interrupted by death. Make of that as you wish.

That they also share the aforementioned stunning cinematography, plus great musical scores (Desplat's work on Birth remains one of the greatest things my ears have ever heard), and bona fide immaculate performances by the respective lead actors are just cherries on top. Birth has been said to have been influenced by Kubrick, which I think is definitely on point to a degree, but having now see Ophuls' film I can't separate the two. Nor do I want to, even if my mind is just playing tricks. I now covet both of these films separately and together. I want to soak in their opulence and live in a world where I get to yearn for somebody with the strength and dedication as them. Although, hopefully, my yearning would have a happier ending.

Note:
I was thankfully able to view Letter from an Unknown Woman in 35mm print form, which was a wonderful relief. MoMA are screening it again on Monday at 5pm so hopefully I have maybe inspired you to jump on the subway to 53rd street. Coincidentally, Birth will also be screening on 5 June and 12 June at MoMA in a tribute season to cinematographer Harris Savides. I have been told by the MoMA people that it too is screening in 35mm. If somebody would put them together, side-by-side, I think you'd have one hell of devastating double.

East Village Blues

Why wasn't I in the East Village yesterday when Jake Gyllenhaal and Jude Law were strutting about?

It's just mean, it is. 

Scream in Prime Time

A couple of weeks back I got to see Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" at the Museum of Modern Art here in Manhattan. In actual fact, it wasn't a painting at all, but one of the artwork's many incarnations that are spread across the world in various museums and galleries. The version that is at MoMA - which, by the way, is only on display for a further four days until 29 April! - is a pastel on paper on cardboard piece from 1895. Despite the fact that it's an incredible piece of art and imagery, as was much of the rest of the Munch collection on viewing offer, but seeing this particular work made me feel quite giddy because it was the influence behind "Ghostface" from Scream.

Yes, most things can be distilled down to Scream and I make no apologies. This was all suddenly on my brain today though because, well wouldn't you know, that Scream TV series on MTV that we discussed last year is actually happening. Well, it's going to pilot, but since it's MTV I can't imagine anything being bad enough to not go to full series, right? They just renewed something called "Snooki & JWOWW" so, lol, whatever, right? The network is set to announce it at their up front today, but apparently they will be working with Dimension Films and are hoping to get Wes Craven on board. Given the writer of Scream, Scream 2, and parts of Scream 3 and Scream 4, Kevin Williamson, has such a troubled history with the franchise and is working on his own serial killer TV series The Following, it's doubtful he will be involved. That may be a good thing since I got a bit bored by The Following after a while, didn't you? Although, hey, anything giving Nico Tortello the opportunity to do photoshoots like this can't be all for nothing!

As I said in June last year, I'm not entirely against the idea if they find a way to keep it in a lively spirit and don't drag things out to season-after-season. I think self-contained seasons could be the way to go - I mean, the killers in these movies barring Mrs Loomis have all proven to be infinitely dumb with an attention span of a few days at most, so are we really going to be expected to believe anybody will be able to have the patience of an entire series? Doubtful. But, then again, stranger things have happened. I figured the idea of a Scream series had been all but kicked to the curb since it'd been radio silence on the matter for so long, but I guess MTV don't really have all that much going on in their drama department so why not, 'ey?

Traffic Cones and Daggers

Whenever anybody has asked me what my favourite film of the ongoing Tribeca Film Festival has been, I've ummed and aahed. I definitely think David Gordon Green's comeback to minimal character-oriented films (after that weird sojourn into populist entertainment that brought about the funny Pineapple Express and not much else) was my favourite, but I feel somewhat guilty taking the attention away from one of the smaller, less known titles that I also adored. It's frequently like that at film festivals - there are big name films like this or Before Midnight (which I did not see, sadly) that come with distribution and big name actors with little invested other than their reputation and their time and it sometimes feels a bit like cheating to label them the best. Compare Prince Avalanche to, say, Sam Fleischner's Stand Clear of the Closing Doors or Scott Coffey's Adult World and I can't help but want to give them the edge.

ANYWAY, that was all a big way around of saying that I loved Prince Avalanche. It's a mightily impressive two-hander from David Gordon Green with Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch playing not-quite-relatives gone bush. I'd be keen to see the Icelandic original although I'm not sure if it is readily available. Nevertheless, the new version is so good that I don't feel like I am entirely missing out. The people behind the film have released a poster and will be unleashing a trailer sometime tomorrow. The poster has a nice touch to it, although hardly indicative of the film's many pleasures.

Speaking of posters, this newbie for upcoming lo-fi panic thriller Black Rock is a doozy, don't you think? Obviously paying homage to the key art of Deliverance (and not Jaws like some have lazily suggested), but I don't mind when it's done so spectacularly well. And it sort of represents the film quite well, I think. Directed by and starring Katie Aselton, Black Rock is minimal, but with a jagged edge. I'll likely look at the film more closer to the release date in May, but for now just look at the poster.

Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, and Joan Fontaine Walk Into a Bar

In looking for clips of Australian rock band Divinyls in the wake of Geelong-born Chrissie Amphlett (Geelong being my home town, and the subject of "Boys in Town", one of the band's biggest hits from the soundtrack to Monkey Grip) I came across an old video from the days of Fast Forward of Gina Riley doing her best amphlett performance to the tune of "I Touch Myself". I naturally got into a bit of a rabbits hole and came across this, a skit from Big Girl's Blouse that sees Deiter Brummer rub shoulders with Katharine "Kate" Hepburn, Bette Davis, and Joan Fontaine in the surf club of Summer Bay.


I presume the reason for their doing this was purely because all three are wonderful impersonations and, hey,  why not on Home & Away?

Oblivion Has Fallen

Movies that can look rather inocuous can sometimes prove to be the very worst. The two biggest hits of the US box office this past month since I moved here have been Anton Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen and Joseph Kosinki's Oblivion. The former appeared, at least from the outset, to be a retro throwback to the national wartime action films of the 1990s - right down to the comparatively dodgy effects (back when they were "special" not "visual") and thick-necked gun-toting lead. The latter is only Kosinski's second film after somehow stumbling upon the greenlight to film the long-awaited TRON: Legacy and had looked to be a pretty, if almost endearingly derivative, attempt at launching an original property. That last part is admirable, sure, but what the two films share in their DNA is a downright contempt for audiences. Albeit, a contempt that emerges in different ways that offended me for different reasons. Still, they rank as two examples of some of Hollywood's worst habits.

Fuqua does many things that blockbuster cinema has done countless times, and I guess by now we should all be all be used to it. As if it's some sort of agreement we make with the studios by purchasing a ticket; we should know and accept that Hollywood is repetitious and we should just learn to silently shrug our shoulders and carry on enjoying the violence and the action that they so excel at. Except in the case of Olympus Has Fallen director Fuqua and debut screenwriters Creighton Rothenberg and Katrin Benedikt have added the bad taste of re-appropriating 9/11 iconography in the form of jingoistic mass entertainment. It's all well and good to act appalled and to chuckle for a few minutes at people confusing Chechnya with Czechoslovakia, but is it really any surprise such people exist when films like this are produced that so directly equate the desire to end American civilisation with broad strokes of the ethnic pen?

Cinema has always fallen onto the crux of "the other" for their villains. Whether it's the Russians or the Chinese and the communists, this is hardly new territory. Even Australian cinema has gone there with the film adaptation of Tomorrow When the War Began (and visualised the oblique references made in the book). Still, it's rarely felt as down the line offensive as what Olympus does with North Korea. By directly associating that nation with the imagery of September 11th, they appear to be drawing a dangerous parallel. Furthermore, that imagery is important for a reason and it strikes of a distinct lack of class and skill to lift it wholesale just for chest-thumping thrills and spills (and kills - so many kills).

Still, despite the fact that Olympus Has Fallen was rush-produced to capitalise on the upcoming release of identical (on paper, at least) White House Down, and utilises a very obvious riff on Die Hard (although the poster mentions Under Siege) for its central plot, it has a long way to go before trumping Joseph Kosinski's Oblivious in the lack of originality stakes. A genuinely shocking use of other (better) films' hard work for the sake of an already rather rudimentary plot. With bits taken wholesale and piecemeal from these other films adding up to the effect of a patchwork quilt, somebody really needed to take a big red pen to the screenplay. Or better yet, start from scratch. How else to fix the litany of issues that arise in the writing of Kosinski, Karl Gajdusek, and Michael Arndt (!) based upon an unproduced comic by Kosinski and Arvid Nelson?

The list of steals (they would probably say "homages" or "influences", but let's not mince words: they stole them) range from childhood animation (Wall-E) to high-falutin science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey) and everything in between (Alien: Resurrection, Independence Day, Silent Running, Hardware, hell, even TRON: Legacy!). And that's not even mentioning the fact that Morgan Freeman looks strikingly like Isaac Hayes in his very limited role (don't believe the advertising there) as a rebellion leader.

And then there's the more universal issues of the terrible dialogue such as that nauseating opening narration that is told organically some 20 minutes later, lethargic pacing, generic score (yes, even by M83), rather bland art direction, not to mention an internal illogic (you'd think Tom Cruise's super flying craft machine would have internal controls to shut down if the pilot goes rogue) that so frequently makes for head scratching moments of dunderheaded nonsense. It looks an impressive feat on the (fake) IMAX screen, but it's hollow. There isn't anything there, even visually, to lodge its way into the brain. It's empty, vacuous nothing without a single original thought in its tiny brain. And, honestly, if you're not five steps ahead of the filmmakers at all time then you probably haven't seen many movies (gee! I wonder who the mysterious lady is in those interminable black and white flashbacks?)

Maybe that's who it's for? People who just haven't seen many movies. Maybe they will watch it and they will have a good time - the box office figures certainly suggest plenty are going, although I wonder about word of mouth - and that's nice for them. One day maybe they will discover the films that Oblivion shamelessly rips off and by that stage will be able to re-evaluate. They can also ask why Zoe Bell was covered up until the final scene (yet again - Quentin?) Until then? Olympus Has Fallen: D; Oblivion: D-.

One thing that they share exactly? Melissa Leo with a bad accent. That woman needs to stop it!

Who, me?

The Brain and the Body

I've seen two horror films in the last week or so. As I like to describe them, one is of the brain and the other is of the body. One traces the gradual decline of a single individual as he gets deeper and deeper into a situation he can't escape, while the other revels in more traditional horror tropes like gore and the undead. Both are impeccable crafted endeavours that never once feel like anything on screen was unintentioned. Of course, whether they differ is a gulf so wide that chalk and cheese would baulk.

Simon Killer comes from the production house that brought us the stunning directorial debut of Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene in 2011. Director and co-writer Antonio Campos' unnerving, is dramatically too cool for school in many ways, Simon Killer is certainly not the film that I had expected given the rather dark title and creepy (and excellent) poster. Much more than a backpacker Parisian Psycho, it follows a young American tourist in Paris as he digs holes so deep he can't get out. First by pretending to be the recipient of a beating in order to stay at the home of an affectionate prostitute, and then by struggling to keep the darkness within him covered up.

The film's co-writer (I presume there was quite a bit of improvisation in that regard) is star Brady Corbet, one of the most interesting actors working today alone based on the list of directors he's worked with. His filmography isn't extensive, but considering he's worked with Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin), Michael Haneke (Funny Games US), and Lars Von Trier (Melancholia) as well as the aforementioned Sean Durkin on Martha Marcy. He obviously fostered a good working relationship with the team and is now a creative force behind Simon Killer.

Make no mistake, this is purely a horror film in broad psychological terms. There's no blood and not even any thrills despite working within a thriller template. The horror of the piece is in Corbet's performance. He is so good in the role as Simon, mentally unstable and unable to contain it. With him working at such a great level, it's a shame the film didn't pick up to meet him. It's not that the film's first half doesn't work, it's just that characters routinely do things that show such poor judgement. It's hard to be reeled in. Towards the end, however, Campos appears to elevate the material thanks to more abrasive editing and a more hurried pace. Gold stars also for the use of Spectral Display's "It Takes a Muscle to Fall in Love" to such unique and unsettling effect. B-

What the psycho-chills of Simon Killer lacks in the blood and gore department are more than made up for with Xan Cassavetes' Kiss of the Damned. A film that's as super lush and stylish as it is super ridiculous and, at times, over-the-top. One could almost call it a campire tale given its propensity to be flashy and abundantly into its own colourful aesthetic. The film, Cassavetes' debut feature after her 2004 documentary Z Channel:A Magnificent Obsession, frequently looks like Sofia Coppola directing a Florence + The Machine video (and, surely not coincidentally, Coppola's name appears in the end credit thank yous) with some impeccably rich costume and production design. Shame the actors drown in them, which can make for a slower second act.

I think Jason at My New Plaid Pants put it best: "there's a lot of talk in Kiss of the Damned about the magnetic force of Milo [Ventimiglia]'s presence, and you kinda wanna laugh every time it's spoken of." Vampires are, after all, meant to be compelling creatures and lure with lust, but while Milo - as well as the parade of women that surround him all throughout the film - is a very good looking man (that beard is working all sorts of wonders for him) he doesn't exactly command the screen. The women, too, are mostly airy beings that float about through scenes, although if that was Cassavetes' intentions then at least she cast well and got actors that have some truly captivating voices.

Where the film really succeeds is is the sound work. May sound like a strange observation, but it's true. The sound work in Kiss of the Damned is phenomenal and seeing it in the theatre certainly packed a punch that home entertainment would otherwise lack. The abrupt switches in music styles mixed with copious screams, canny dialogue dubbing, and high-pitched sound effects, not to mention the deep bass that appears to be a constant within the sound mix. The work here is a genuine wonder and was one of the reasons that I remained so focused and alert during the somewhat less exciting (if more gruesome) second half. I found Kiss of the Damned to be a much more intoxicating experiment than, say, Amer, which I think some may compare it to thanks to their pastiche patterns. B

Both Simon Killer and Kiss of the Damned are available on demand in America. Simon is also in limited release now, Damned will be in cinemas from May.

Only God Forgives at Willow Creek with The Bling Ring: Recent Poster Round-Up

Hopefully we're getting back into more regular blogging mode, which means posters! There has been plenty of key art worth discussing in my absence so let's get to it, shall we?

Willow Creek
Let's just get this out of the way: I have no idea what the hell this movie is. I know it's directed by Bobcat Goldthwaite who holds quite a bit of cache in certain circles, although I'm not sure I know anything he's done (I passed on God Bless America since it looked like satire of the most obvious). From what I can tell in this rather exceptional early poster by Alex Pardee, it maybe has a bit in common with the Norwegian film Trollhunter, which came out several years ago and which I did not like at all. Hopefully Willow Creek is better than that. The poster is certainly something to get excited about at least.

Loving the colours, loving the concept, loving the retro vibe. It will no doubt be replaced by something far more generic/ugly/boring/all of the above. Still, if the film proves to be any good then this design will surely remain the go to poster for fans to hang on their wall and for limited edition DVD artworks.

Only God Forgives
The marketing campaign for Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive never really did get it entirely right. Always somewhat at odds with how to balance the film's more mainstream-baiting sensibilities and the more artistic flare that the film obviously revelled in. I have been intrigued as to how the latest collaboration between Refn and Drive star Ryan Gosling would be marketed given that film's infamous struggles (remember the lady that sued the distributor because the trailer was misrepresentative?), and now we get our first look.

Well, okay then. Just like above, I am sure that more designs will come that put Gosling front and centre (a similar problem with The Place Beyond the Pines, actually), but for now we have this rather stunning teaser. Given the film is set in the Asian underworld, I think this is a wonderful representation. It lets out a very specific vibe that no amount of photoshopped actors floating above exotic locales could provide. Bonus points for that tagline - "time to meet the devil".

Bluebird
I'm notoriously fickle when it comes to posters that utilise empty, negative space. More times than not I find it lazy and boring and I can't imagine how anybody would look at a poster that's 80% nothing and go "I want to see that!" However, I think it works well in this (likely festival-only) situation with Bluebird. Perhaps it's because I already know the film's rather stark subject matter and so can see how the aesthetic is representative. But, I do also think that the concept is just really nicely done and the washed out colours are entirely suitable for a film that deals with such grim subject matter as this.

The Exquisite Corpse Project
This is another situation of a very common design aesthetic feeling far less rudimentary as other recent examples. It certainly helps that there's a fabulous sense of juxtaposition in the title and the underneath image of a beautiful blond woman smiling out towards the audience.

I'm not sure the way the typeface has been executed is the best, but then I'm not sure what would have been better, either. There's not all that much to say about it, really. I think the colours are striking and it's certainly a eye-catcher, no?

The Heat
Look, this poster is actually quite lazy and, really, that font is just so boring and laid out in such a terribly yawnsome manner that it's almost easy to forget that I actually giggled when I first saw it.

I like that is has chutzpah, especially for an original property that is being sold entirely on star power. I think the pose of stars Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy is comical enough without being crass or overbearing (hello The Hangover sequels!) and the way it actually gets its message across rather simply with little fuss. The poster is a statement and for a teaser that's more than enough.

The Bling Ring
Oh, how I love this poster! It's so good I'm just going to show it before rambling.

I just adore it. Love it. Covet it. I'm not even going to ramble about the poster since it's is such a divine piece of artwork that if you can't see why it's so good right from the get go then nothing I can say will change your mind. Also: you be mad, yo. Along with Spring Breakers (plus Six Acts, which I have seen at the Tribeca International Film Festival), teenagers - especially teenage girls - are not coming off very nicely this year, are they?

Filth
This is rubbish. This is really rubbish. The trailer made this movie look bad enough, I didn't really need this terrible poster to convince me that it's "not for me". Is James McAvoy trying to get something out of his system? Between Filth and Danny Boyle's Trance, which is out now and not a good movie at all, it's as if he's had a shot of cocaine adrenalin and wants to let everyone in on it. Yikes.

I mean, look, I get it, but it's the execution that's way off for me here. It just looks so poorly conceived. AND OH MY GAWD THE HASHTAG IS THE TITLE JUST DIE.

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
We loved the festival poster for this film so much that it made the number one spot in the year end list (from a rather ho-hum year, which I've noted enough already) and now that the film is getting a theatrical release it has gotten a nice and glossy redo that thankfully isn't entirely appalling. I continue to think that typeface is really interesting and gives this more typical design a slight oomph and an edge that it would lack if they had used, oh, verdana.

The colour scheme definitely echoes that of the wonderful poster for Pariah from 2011, but just because one "urban" drama about women has utilised an aesthetic doesn't mean another one can't. Even then, the colours here are quite rich and liquid, which lends it a really beautiful quality. It's a bit rougher around the edges, but you've got to expect that from such an independent place.

The Night Visitor
I can't tell if I like this or not. Can you help?

Is it too simple? I just don't know. It does, however, have a quality that I think I am responding to. I'm just not sure.

A Tale of Two Best Pictures

One of the (many) benefits of living in New York City is the far more abundant cinema scene and the access that one has to it. Within a week of each other I was able to catch up with two Best Picture winners that I'd never seen before. And on the big screen, too. Well, one was on a big screen in the traditional sense, while the other was on a big screen that was basically just a really big television. But, hey, the ticket was cheap so who's complaining? Still better than watching it on a dinky laptop screen, which is - as of right now - my only other way to watch movies.

 As hard as it is to believe, I'd never seen George Cukor's My Fair Lady before last week. Although, to be perfectly honest with you, I sometimes have a hard time with the musicals of this era. I mean, come on, is there anybody that likes Oliver! out there? And although I've never seen it, Gigi is frequently cited as a terrible movie. From what I have read of it I can't help but continue to avoid it. Still, My Fair Lady at least has a reputation as being somewhat respectable (right?) and I'm definitely glad I finally bit the bullet the sat down to watch all 170 minutes of the eight-time Oscar winner (we'll get to those in a moment). As soon as the overture began I remembered why I've always turned Cukor's Broadway adaptation off whenever I have gone to watch it. That music! Those flowers! It's always struck me as rather deflating and coupled with the length meant I was never in any particular mood to watch it. And, you guys, you need to be in the mood to watch three hours of this.

I can't say I was particularly taken by the whole enterprise. It's a stridently old fashioned in a way that doesn't translate to a modern day viewing. Not that a film needs to continue to feel relevant in order to be watchable some fifty years later (49, to be exact, this Christmas), but this particular film is made in a way that I can't possibly imagine it feeling anything less than old fashioned back in 1964. There's nothing forward or innovative about Cukor's direction, nor Alan Jay Lerner's adaptation of his own stage show. The camera is almost always utilised in a rather rudimentary fashion and the editing rarely uplifting to the material. And then there is, of course, the acting, which is a minefield all its own. Rex Harrison, surely one of the more baffling winners of Best Actor Oscar that I have seen, is genuinely terrible as the misogynistic phonetics expert. He plays his character so ugly that the film's third act romantic switcheroo plays entirely false. Audrey Hepburn's Eliza Doolittle can't help but come off like a subservient waif by falling in love with him. It would have surely been more brave to have Eliza leave the cantankerous professor. The film never has a very good view of men or women, but this act of complacent formula is just entirely off-putting.

Amongst the eight Oscars that My Fair Lady won were obvious ones like costume and art direction (especially so given the split between color and black + white at the time), curious ones like cinematography and musical adaptation (curious purely because it was nominated against A Hard Day's Night), and dunderheaded ones like actor and director. I'm not expert on the year of 1964 especially as it pertains to Oscar, but My Fair Lady strikes me as such a - and he's a word that I don't use all that often anymore, but feels entirely appropriate - lame choice. Of course, the film's best in show wasn't even nominated. But then, it's hard to nominate Marni Nixon. Where would one place her, after all, given she was given the duties of dubbing over star Audrey Hepburn's vocals. Shame she couldn't have dubbed all of Hepburn's painful stabs at the cockney venacular. Her performance, particularly within her face in which she manages to express so much to comic and dramatic effect, isn't actually all that bad, it's just that opening half with her high-pitched jabs that sounds intolerable.

Still, at least My Fair Lady feels like a production of some weight and size (hell: they certainly made an effort!) that a best picture win makes sense on paper. I can't, however, for the life of me figure out what on Earth was going on in 1938 when they gave the prize to the wholly unremarkable The Life of Emile Zola. A deathly dull biopic (old habits die hard with the Academy; they're still enamoured!) of a famous French writer that while set in France is spoken entirely in English and even accented in it in many cases. Paul Muni stars as the titular literary hero who brought about uncovering the disgraceful acts of treason and coverups within the French army. A story such as this really could have made for an interesting film, but the stodgy, stale manner with which director Williams Dieterle tells it hampers any possibility of that.

The signs were right there in the title, really. Many things that claim to be the story of somebody's entire life inevitably turn out to be dry. I, of course, already knew of the film's reputation thanks to this article and if I hadn't had a MoMA membership that allowed for free tickets then I probably wouldn't have gone. "Both overstuffed and understuffed" is a wonderful way to describe The Life of Emile Zola, a film that feels like its striving for epic grandeur while never really lifting a finger to express that into the cinematic language. It's a boring film to look at with only two shots (trust me, I counted) that struck me as having any more thought put behind them than a shrug. And one can't just blame the time period for that, because anybody who knows anything about cinema knows that there were truly grand, visually opulent pieces of film being made at that time. Once the film descends into a more traditional courtroom drama it at least has a personality rather than a floating ball of nothingness. However, the ludicrousness nature of the proceedings turns the events into an almost comical farce. Perhaps intentionally given the reverence the filmmakers obviously have for their subject, but that doesn't make the film any less of a mess from a screenwriting perspective. Furthermore, why introduce Nana as if she is to become a central figure when she gets promptly swept away when the film becomes more interested in Zola's other endeavours. Sigh.

Of course, a best picture winner is a best picture winner, though, and the chance to see it - and on a big screen on less - wasn't one I should have turned down. I'm glad I saw it for the place it holds in history (of course, given the films it was nominated against, that place is not a bit flattering). At least the Academy in those early stages had the foresight to not award Zola's director. I mean, he didn't even do much directing so it makes sense, right! My Fair Lady: C; The Life of Emile Zzzola: D.

Scary Trailer

One thing I have definitely noticed in my brief amount of time here in America is that horror is a big deal. In Australia, the genre is considered such weak sauce that Mama, a US box office smash starring Jessica Chastain, got a limited released on 55 screens compared to the usual 300+. Another US box office number one, Texas Chainsaw 3D will be going direct to home entertainment at some point in the future and Sinister is also still awaiting a release of some kind. Any kind. Meanwhile, it was just announced that Fede Alvarez's remake of The Evil Dead, which just debuted at the top of the American box office with quite a hefty sum of money, will follow the track of last year's Cabin in the Woods "exclusive" release on the barest number of screens. What a sad state of affairs, really, and whenever I mention any of this to my American friends and they can't quite imagine it.

 No where was this cultural difference more obvious than when I went down to a local cinema here in Astoria, Queens, to see Evil Dead. After the prerequisite onslaught of ads that start playing BEFORE the session is supposed to start - which seems like a cackle-worthy prank by exhibitors who watch audiences arrive early by cultural default onto to make them sit through more ads than they otherwise would if everybody just showed up at the time the banner states! - my quietly-attended Monday afternoon session bore witness to eight movie trailers (it may have been more, but I presumably lost track). Below are all the horror trailers that we saw in order of most anticipated. As for Evil Dead? Well, you'll have to wait a bit for my review in my new feature at Quickflix.

 


 I am most definitely looking forward to The Conjuring. I was a big fan of James Wan's Insidious and I do keep meaning to go back and watch Dead Silence, which is another scary title that I don't think got a release outside of DVD in Australia. As far as the marketing I definitely preferred the "clapping teaser" and this new trailer tends to overdo the bombast on occasion, but I still think it does a great job at selling the creepy, old school vibe that plays more to my sensibilities than... Evil Dead? What really makes me intrigued, beyond the obvious stuff, are the actors. Put Lily Taylor (hoping to redeem her horror cred many years after the dreadful The Haunting remake) and Vera Farmiga (still on her genre bent that's included Orphan and Bates Motel amongst others) together and I'll probably go see it no matter what.

 


I am incredibly wary of The Purge, let me tell you. I mean, for starters, the entire premise of one day a year being allotted for Americans to wage war upon each other and vent whatever violence they have stored within them is incredibly farfetched. And then, of course, there's the politics of the lone black man bringing upon such pain and suffering on the clearly quite well off, upper-middle class white family at the centre of the plot. My eyebrow was cocked, that's for sure. Still, once the scary stuff begins it basically looks just like The Strangers with Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman and I'm on board. Home invasion horror films can be hit or miss: for every The Strangers there's a Kidnapped, you know? We'll hold up hope for this Ethan Hawke starrer, though.

 


We've briefly discussed this remake of Carrie and I'm still not impressed upon seeing this trailer on the big screen. If anything, Chloe Grace Moretz is even more annoying projected many feet high. It just makes her attractiveness even more obvious. Sigh. Is this what it was like for non-fans of Molly Ringwald growing up in the 1980s? Still, even in that case, Ringwald wasn't out there shoving wannabe franchises under her arm. Sigh again. I am intrigued by Julianne Moore though, and especially Judy Greer. In regards to the latter, it's just disappointing that she gets a potentially great dramatic role and it's in a film like Carrie. Sigh even more. I received several comments on here and on Twitter about how in Stephen King's book Carrie White does indeed enjoy her powers. In the book, Carrie White is also overweight. Not even Stephen King's own television movie version didn't go there. That says quite a bit, does it not?

 


Trust me: this is scarier than anything we'll see in the previous three movies. Right? Yikes. Paranormal Activity certainly could have been ripe for spoofing, but none of it is at all funny. Not even chucklesome. And, really, what is going on with Lindsay Lohan and Heather Locklear's faces? They could be cast as mother and daughter and actually resemble one another. Truly terrifying. I guess the "V" makes it classy.

 


 No.