...more recent posts
"Joey... do you like movies about gladiators?"
Peter Graves, Airplane
No maps for these territories is the new William Gibson documentary. Cool web site.
best of the best: mondo list of lists of all-time films
I saw Memento yesterday at Loews Broadway/19th. It's about ten minutes too long but quite good. As you may have read, it's about a man who's lost his short-term memory, but keeps himself up-to-date on his own investigation of his wife's murder by tattooing messages on his body and carrying polaroids in his pockets. The story is told in reverse chronological order, so each time he "wakes up" to a new, memory-wiped reality, the audience knows about as much as he does. Reviews have been smartass, comparing it to Groundhog Day and Harold Pinter's Betrayal, but I'd say it's closer to Tarantino (minus the pop-culture irony) and Dark City (minus the aliens). Stephen Tobolowsky, who played the accountant who kept recognizing Bill Murray on the street in Groundhog Day
is heartbreaking in a parallel tale of another short-term-memory-losser named Sammy Jankis, who remembers how to give his wife her insulin shot but can't retain the plot of the TV show he's watching. One of the ironies of Memento is that the audience has to hold a lot of info in RAM (i.e., short term memory) in order to make sense of the plot.
perfectly sinful and other vintage movie posters
needed some Down Time last night and didnt feel like reading and dont own a TV so i went and saw House of Mirth--i njoyed it but cant recomand--like a novel you read at the airport
Anybody care to comment on the prospects for future film technology? This story has Qualcomm and Technicolor teaming up to foot the bill for initial installation of digital projectors in theatres nation wide (in exchange for a future percent of profits.) I seem to remember a story about Hughes offering a similar deal (becasue they own the satellites which would be delivering the content to these digital theatres.) I can't find the link to that one now, mabe they are part of the Qualcomm Technicolor coalition. I know Lucas screened the Phantom Menance at a couple of digital theatres using the Texas Instruments digital projector. Reviews I read were sharply mixed with the digital crowd being totally wowed, and the analog cinema crowd basically seeing the digital demon as the end of art as we know it.
Roger Ebert (what's the take on this guy?) is pretty convinced that digital is a no go:
"I have seen the future of the cinema, and it is not digital. No matter what you've read, the movie theater of the future will not use digital video projectors, and it will not beam the signal down from satellites. It will use film, and the film will be right there in the theater with you.He goes on to describe MaxiVision48 a new 48 frames per second analog film technology that is described as 500 times "better" (whatever that means) than old 24 fps film, OR digital, "take your pick."
I've shot a bunch of miniDV footage, and while it is quite sharp, this is almost a criticism when compared to the gorgeous look an expert (like, say, Steve) can get with decades old super8. So what's the deal? Does a new analog technology (like MaxiVision48) really have a chance? Or are we going to be watching all the big hits on digital projectors in the next year or two? Or will 24 fps trudge on by default? Does it matter? Will the resolution on digital simply get so high that any of these other technologies can just be simulated (right down to imitating specific types of film stock, or specific personalities of different camera equipment?)
Rushdie's two cents :
Can Hollywood See the Tiger?
By SALMAN RUSHDIE for nyt
"LOS ANGELES -- Without Hollywood, they say, Los Angeles would just be Phoenix with a
coastline. This year, as deadlines approach for strikes by actors and writers, L. A. is facing the
possibility of becoming, for a time, a characterless, movieless sprawl.
Rumors are flying: The studios actually want the strikes; the actors don't, though their representatives are
talking tough. And the writers? Well, they're only writers, after all.
Talks keep breaking down an inch away from agreement. Television companies are preparing to flood the
schedules with even more reality-TV programming — it's cheap! it's popular! it's not unionized! — to fill
the holes created by The Strike. There's plenty of bad feeling in the air, and a growing sense of
inevitability. The shutdown is "going to happen" (which means it either will or won't).
And in the midst of this uncertainty, the movie community awaits its annual festival of big business
interests disguised as individual achievements. The lobbying season is over. The city is no longer being
bombarded by "for your consideration" videotapes. Rock stars are no longer playing impromptu gigs in old
folks' homes in the hope of garnering a few votes for Best Song from elderly members of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The votes are in. The Oscars are coming.
The movies are Los Angeles's culture. At the weekend, big audiences go to the new pictures the way the
opera-loving Milanese go to an opening at La Scala. I haven't seen such enthusiastically participatory
audiences anywhere else outside the Indian subcontinent.
This can get irritating: for example, when a man comments loudly every time Penelope Cruz appears on
screen in "All the Pretty Horses" — "She's so beautiful! Oh, oh, he's going to fall for her! Uh-oh, here
comes trouble!" — or when a 5-year-old insistently asks her parents during "Cast Away," "Mommy, when
is the volleyball going to talk?"
Angeleno enthusiasm can, however, also be thrilling. In a packed theater on La Brea, the whooping and
cheering at an afternoon showing of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was astonishing even by L.A.'s
standards. The audience knew it was sharing in the arrival of a great, classic film and was simply
transported by the movie's brilliance. Anyone who thinks DVD's will someday replace moviegoing should
have been there.
Those killjoys who have denigrated "Crouching Tiger" as a piece of latter-day Orientalism, a Western
appropriation of Eastern manner and material, would have seen an audience as diverse as America itself —
Korean-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Hispanic Americans and African-Americans easily outnumbered
any WASP-y Orientalists who might have been there enjoying the film for the wrong reasons. It was
evident to the audience that Ang Lee's beautiful, intimate epic is a luminous work of art.
In the context of the Academy Awards and the shadow of the strike, the success of "Crouching Tiger" is
especially significant. It's being talked about as the breakthrough movie that has taught Americans to accept
subtitled foreign films into the giant cineplexes where the big money is made. And this is why the various
players — and the studios above all — may be making a big mistake if they think they can ride out the
strike without losing their stranglehold on the market.
In the 1960's and early 1970's, a flood of great non-American filmmakers pried Hollywood's fingers off
the cinema's throat for a few years. The result was a golden age, the time of the great films of Akira
Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray; of the French New Wave; of Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman. Now,
once again, world cinema is blossoming — in China, in Iran, in Britain. And it may just be that the mass
audience is ready, at long last, to enjoy rather more diversity in its cultural diet. After all, there are plenty of
dreadful American films we could all cheerfully do without.
The Oscars usually show us how Hollywood sees itself. Ridley Scott's technically brilliant but woodenly
scripted "Gladiator" is the big-studio candidate for honors, just as the latest sentimental Miramax
confection, "Chocolat," leads the charge of the smaller companies. Comedy comes off badly, as usual —
the Coen brothers have to be content with screenplay and cinematography nominations for the wonderful
"O Brother, Where Art Thou?" There's no nomination for Renee Zellweger's moving, subtle work in the
title role of "Nurse Betty." But behind all this familiar maneuvering, the tiger is crouching, the dragon
hides.
And if by some chance the one genuinely great movie to have been nominated this year runs away with the
big prizes, it may just be the wake-up call that Hollywood needs. When the world's finest filmmakers are
coming after your audience, it may not be such a smart idea to shut your industry down.
Salman Rushdie is the author of ``The Satanic Verses'' and ``The Ground Beneath Her Feet.''
nice icon
For you fans of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger choreographic style, check out master Tsui Hark. Both of these films, but especially Crouching Tiger, owe a huge debt to this mavirck. His films are both action packed and poignant. Some of note; Zu Warriors of Magic Mountain, Red Dragon Inn, Chinese Ghost Story, Once Upon A Time In China I II & III and Peking Opera Blues. His brilliant Swordsman 2 is one of the best movies I have ever seen. Interested New Yorkers keep your eye out, his films play in the Chinatown theatres (those which remain that is) and The Quad's Kung Fu Festivals.
I tried something else but it didn't work so I'm trying this now, my Academy Award(tm) picks:
1. Best Movie--Crouching Tiger
2.Best Actor, only saw Gladiator and CastAway, have to pick Hanks, although Crowe was good enough, don't really feel strong about this one. But only the CastAway part with no dialogue (could be the worst script of any major movie this year.) The deciding factor was the dentistry by iceskate. Pretty crappy movie really, but it was hot that day.
3.Best Actress, the toughest choice by far and I don't think I can pick between Burnstyn, Allen, and Linney, although that's the order Ima stick with.
4.Best Supporting Actor--Bridges or Del Toro, equal, Bridges played a great president. Let's give it to him.
5.Supporting actress--Kate Hudson
6.Director--Ang Lee
7.Best Screenplay (Direct)--Cameron Crowe, Ken Longeran, another tough one, but in that order.
8.Best Screenplay (previous publish--Steve Kloves for Wonder Boys. The only flick I've really liked Michael Douglas in.
And although I can see why most people thought The Cell sucked, I really enjoyed the visuals--let's give it Best Makeup
Mike Leigh Began his career directing films for the BBC in the early70's. He is best known in the US for his film Naked. One of my favorites from him is 1983's Meantime It features Tim Roth with Gary Oldman in a supporting role. It stars Phil Daniels, who, despite having also starred in Quadraphenia has remained relatively unknown. Other than one of the voices on Chicken Run, Mr. Daniels doesn't seem to have done much since. This is unfortunate because he clearly has the talant to be a great actor. (shame on the promo company, the new posters and vid packaging feature Roth and Oldman only) Here in NYC Evergreen Video and Kim's Video (sorry, no link) are good sources for Leigh's work.
one of my favorite movie's of all time was Powder!!--did that one suck too??
HBO just played eyes wide shut and it blew.
O.K., I think it's working. Let me know about anything that isn't. I'm going with Cinefiles because it seems to have some support, and I like it. I'm open to changing this if there is enough support for a change. Voice your opininon.