A couple months after the UK’s take on Gremlins, Film4 has paid homage to Stanley Kubrick (“You haven’t a dook of an idea how to comport yourself public-wise, O my brother!”), one of the most studied and revered filmmakers. To kick off the Film4 channel’s seasonal tribute to the highly guarded auteur, their production house Channel 4 Creative Servicesconcocted a TV spot in homage to The Shining (1980). The following promotional clip takes you through The Shining set in one continuous 65-second tracking shot, a film aesthetic long favored by Kubrick since Paths of Glory (1957), from the director’s point of view.
The attention to detail is absolutely terrific from the recreated sets that look exactly like the original Overlook Hotel corridors and hedge maze from thirty years ago to the lighting and lens choice - a 25mm Cooke lens that was favored by Kubrick. The amount of visual in-jokes will have die-hard Shining enthusiasts viewing it several times before none have escaped their close attention.
I marvel at the prospect that the filmmakers even cast Kubrick’s crew to look like the real-life counterparts including John Alcott, the director of production. Watch out carefully for a half-dozen dead ringers of The Shining’s most prominent characters. Oh, and the tricycle that appears at the end is the real deal. This is the type of work ethic that makes me beam with joy.
Citizen Kubrick, a new documentary by Jon Ronson will head off the ten selected movies from Kubrick’s generous filmography. The chosen films range from the most famous (Lolita, 1962; 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968; Barry Lyndon, 1975) to the most obscure (Killer’s Kiss, 1955; The Killing, 1956). After watching the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001) by Jan Harlan, one of Kubrick’s closest producers, I’m still very curious about the secretive genius. I am also relishing the published 304-page diary by Matthew Modine (Short Cuts, 1993) on the making of Full Metal Jacket (1989) - in my opinion, the first fifty minutes of the film is a masterpiece but the remainder is not unfortunately.
Adrants points us to a new documentary currently being by filmmaker Joel Christian McEwan called American Dream which will examine America’s obsession with instant-gratification and material possessions as well as the corporate force which feeds and profits from that obsession. Featuring Danny Glover, Ed Begley Jr., Jean Kilbourne, Howard Zinn and many others, American Dream will try to make sense America’s consumer culture, it’s causes and its effects.
What is interesting is that the filmmakers have approached Adrants in order to secure material for the film. Adrants are looking for:
-Funny, ridiculous advertisements
-Lewd, suggestive ads/commercials
-Ads/Commercials that make you want to buy something
-Ads/Commercials that you dislike and want to see removed
So for anyone with a few ideas or examples… head over to Adrants and help the guys out. You can mail your submissions to americandream@adrants.com
The Hobbit and HellBoy II: The Golden Army Director, Guillermo Del Toro, has named the person he thinks should play the part of Frankenstein when he does his take on the Frankenstein story. In an interview with ShockTillYouDrop.com, Del Toro mentioned that …
“For the monster I would love to have Doug Jones,” he revealed. Jones has worked for the director as a creature performance since Mimic and plays Abe Sapien in the Hellboy films. “I think he can do a fantastic job. Ron looks seven feet tall in Hellboy, but he’s not. I think we could do that with Doug, but I would love to do it with him. The only vision of the Frankenstein monster I’ve ever latched onto is Berni Wrightson’s. He’s lanky and long and it’s gorgeous in a tragic way. Doug has all of those qualities.”
In terms of the movie itself Del Toro says he’s been bouncing back and forth to London lately for the Hobbit films. There are no scripts yet, however, “We already started notes and underlining and e-mailing back and forth. A few lines have been written here and there, but we will have the big pow-wow [soon] - bad pizza, take-out food in a sort’ve a pressure cooker [meeting] in about two weeks.”
I think a Del Toro adaptation of Frankenstein would be awesome. I love his work, Dark and beautiful at the same time.
Gears of War is now set in motion by New Line with Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) directing the video-game adaptation.
The game an instant success when it debuted on the Xbox 360 in November 2006. It became one of the most popular games on the Xbox Live service, overtaking Halo 2, and sold more than 3 million units worldwide in its first 10 weeks. It received numerous awards, including Gamespot’s Game of the Year and the Interactive Achievement Awards’ Overall Game of the Year.
Set on the planet Sera, the game thrusts players into a battle for survival between humans and a race of creatures, known as the Locust Horde, that surface from the bowels of the planet. Players assume identities of soldiers on Delta Squad as they fight to save Sera’s inhabitants.
Chris Morgan, who wrote the upcoming Universal action features Wanted and The Fast and the Furious 4, has been hired to write the screenplay. Wiseman and Morgan will develop the story treatment.
The movement on the project suggests that the reconfigured New Line won’t be confined to horror, thrillers and low-budget comedies but will be able to tackle big-budget projects outside the scope initially ascribed to the Warner Bros. division.
Video-game adaptations have proved a tricky art to master in Hollywood. Some movies have fallen apart because of creative and economic pressures (Halo) while others have not performed well at the box office (Doom).
Cliff Bleszinski, the Gears design director at Epic, said the tricks to adapting a game are simple: “Hollywood needs to take the source material seriously, win over the avid gamers and make it work for an audience that is young and old, male and female.” But he also admitted that that plan is easier said than done.
“Disney made a great movie out of a theme park ride, and somebody is sooner or later going to make a great one out of a video game,” Bleszinski said. “Having someone like Len really helps the odds. I think we’re going to create something special here.”
Nearly a month ago, the trailer for the next highly anticipated film David Fincher film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button debuted before the fourth Indiana Jones movie on May 23rd. The Spanish version of the trailer was briefly available online that day. Now Fincher and Paramount Pictures have officially launched the trailer today in High Definition over at Apple.
My first viewing of the trailer on the big screen was a transcendent experience. Maybe greater than the one for The Dark Knight coming July 18th. Hell, it’s on par with There Will Be Blood.
The angelic and somber score comes from Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals - Aquariumsans the choir that has been used in Terrance Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978) and a few Ren and Stimpy cartoons. Except for the odd line of dialogue that bookends the trailer, the music is dominant like a silent picture. It reminds me of the eerie, dialogue-free Dark City Trailer.
Best of all, it doesn’t overstay its welcome clocking in at one minute and forty-six seconds. Too many trailers go to the trouble of cramming in every cool visual along with the final confrontation into two minutes and forty seconds. Over-eagerness does not suit a seducer.
The F. Scott Fitzgerald short story makes for a compelling hour’s read. It draws parallels to Daniel Keyes’ Flowers For Algernon. A baby is born wrinkled, decrepit and frighteningly able to talk candidly about the indignity of being given a milk bottle. As the time passes, Benjamin Button (nearly named Methuselah, referring to the son of Noah who reached the age of 969 years old) must contend with living a unique life of regressing to youth both psychically and mentally. He is always withheld from the conventional human experience, but strives for it anyways.
Within Fincher’s command after Zodiac (2007), his most successful feature, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button could become an instant classic. I hope.
The film stars Brad Pitt (12 Monkeys, 1995), Cate Blanchett (The Talented Mr. Ripley, 1999), Tilda Swinton (Young Adam, 2003), Julia Ormond (The Baby of Macon, 1993), Elias Koteas (The Thin Red Line, 1998), Jason Flemyng (From Hell, 2001), and Taraji P. Henson (Hustle and Flow, 2005)
Last time Commissioner Gordon called you up. Then District Attorney Harvey Dent sent you his Call to Action as part of his re-election campaign via e-mail. I admit it. Come election day, I voted for Dent online because I believed in him. I’m glad HE WON! - you can also watch Dent’s Assistant Rachael Dawes endorse her support for him.
This is a movie that excites me - it could be very good or very bad - there’s no middle ground here. Even the poster is arresting for its mundanity, repulsion, eeriness and quirkiness. I’ve always found paperbags to be rather ominous.
What gives me hope is that the premise of a half-naked man with a eye-holed paperbag over his head will not be delivered as a straight-up horror film. No, the Duplass Brothers are too smart for that. Baghead is described by the filmmakers as being “funny, truthful, (and) endearing”, which makes it much scarier. Usually the combination of comedy and horror looks good on paper but is a trial to execute successfully as a film. It requires a deft touch like a Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, 1999) or a Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, 2001).
Here’s the skinny: A bunch of would-be actors retreat to a cabin in the Necronomicon-filled woods to write an indie film over the weekend. The film has a light-touch when focused on the comradery and the wavering prospect of romance between friends. The proverbial bag-headed boogeyman that is penned by our heroes in their script materializes as a very human and intimate threat. This reminds me of the urban legend turned real in the underrated Bernard Rose (Paperhouse, 1988) film Candyman (1992).
From Mark and LarryDuplass, Baghead comes right after their whimsical The Puffy Chair (2005), which is on my To-See List after Jane Champion’s An Angel At My Table (1990).
Baghead will be shown in Austin, Texas June 13th. A limited release is still pending.
The typographer in me is jumping for joy over this Bell-font teaser poster for Oliver Stone’s W. I hope to see them lined up across the marquee walls soon. The Bushisms are also a great send up of the commander in thief.
Do you think this type of all-type movie advertisement sheet could set a trend for future movie posters? No pictures, but with more font-laced words dedicated to more than just the film’s title and a tag line.
Fun Extra:You can download the font regularly used for movie poster credits here.
Distributed by QED International andLionsgate Films, Oliver Stone’s W. starring Josh Brolin - George W. Bush (In the Valley of Elah, 2007), Elizabeth Banks - Laura Bush (Catch Me If You Can, 2002), James Cromwell - Bush Sr. (The General’s Daughter, 1999), Ellen Burstyn - Barbara Bush (Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 1974), Thandie Newton - Condoleezza Rice (Flirting, 1991), Jeffrey Wright - Colin Powell (Syriana, 2005), Scott Glenn - Donald Rumsfeld (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991), Toby Jones - Karl Rove (Nightwatching, 2007) Ioan Gruffud - Tony Blair (Black Hawk Down, 2001), and Richard Dreyfuss - Dick Cheney (Jaws, 1975) will be released this October.
The Criterion Collection, the best in restoring and packaging obscure films, has postponed the release of the Paul Schrader masterpiece Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (#432 - 1985). It was originally slated for June 17th, but will now be released on July 1st. The reason for this could be so the Director-approved 2-disc special edition can coincide with another Criterion release Patriotism (#433 - 1966), a 29-minute film directed by and starring Yukio Mishima.
Mishima is one of my favorite films of all time right behind Terrance Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978). It is one of the most strangest and artistically appropriate biopics about a deeply-complex and passionate man. Yukio Mishima (Ken Ogata - The Pillow Book, 1996), a quiet novelist and arguably insane radical who wrote dozens of stories about struggle, beauty, sexuality, love, suicide, and the importance of an artistic statement. He later formed a personal army in pursuit of more tradition livelihood in Tokyo.
Three of his most renowned stories The Temple of the GoldenPavilion (1956), Kyoko’s House (1959) and Runaway Horses(1968) were shot in rich, gorgeous color on eye-popping theatrical sets by Eiko Ishioka that compliment the black-and-white scenes chronicling the writer’s past. They are the best filmed expressions of the writing process matched by Spike Jonze’s Adaptation (2002). These passages of past and fiction all lead up to Mishima’s last day, shot like a documentary in color, when he committed a rehearsed act of seppuku - a form of ritualistic samurai suicide - in the headquarters of Japan Self-Defense Forces.
At the 1985 Cannes Film Festival, the film’s cinematographer John Bailey (The Anniversary Party, 2001), composer Philip Glass (A Brief History of Time, 1991), and costume/set designer Eiko Ishioka (The Fall, 2008) won the well deserved Best Artistic Contribution. Director Paul Schrader, the writer of Taxi Driver (1976) and director of Affliction (1998) has recognized Mishima as his best work. Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas co-produced it knowing that the financial venture wold not be profitable because mainstream audience would not embrace it despite critical acclaim. Luckily for those who appreciate challenging and expertly-made films, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters can be experienced because it exists.
Warner Bros Home Video released a DVD of Mishima on August 2001 that included a director’s audio commentary. It is currently out of print.
The Criterion release will sport a new, restored high-definition digital transfer of the director’s cut which was supervised and approved by director Paul Schrader and cinematographer John Bailey. The changes of the director’s cut include a deleted scene featuring Chishu Ryu, a favored actor of Yasujiro Ozu (Floating Weeds, 1959). For Ozu fanatics, you can read a Sight and Sound article by Ryu on the director here. Another change to film is a digital replacement of a skyline in the Runaway Horses segment because Schrader wanted it look artificially in sync with the rest of the story visually. Optional English and Japanese voice-over narrations will also be provided; the former by Roy Scheider (“We’re goin’ to need a bigger boat.”), the latter by Ken Ogata.
New special features include: an audio commentary featuring Schrader and producer Alan Poul - the one featured in the original Warner release will not be included.
There will be new video interviews with Bailey, producers Tom Luddy and Mata Yamamoto, composer Philip Glass, and production designer Eiko Ishioka. Mishima biographer John Nathan and friend Donald Richie will also have video interviews. A new audio interview with co-screenwriter Chieko Schrader, the Japanese wife of Leonard Schrader who also wrote for Mishima. Chieko wrote the Japanese dialogue. Another video interview excerpt will feature Mishima talking about writing.
Also included is The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima, a 55-minute BBC documentary about the author, the film’s theatrical trailer, and a booklet featuring a new essay by critic Kevin Jackson, a piece on the film’s censorship in Japan, and photographs of Ishioka’s sets.
Available separately on the same date is Yukio Mishima’s Patriotism, which foreshadowed his death playing an officer who commits seppuku. The original film was thought to be destroyed by Japanese authorities shortly after Mishima’s death, seen as a plight upon the nation. Fortunately, the original negative was saved and has resurfaced 35 years later.
The DVD will be restored in a high-definition digital transfer of both the Japanese and English versions, with optional Japanese or English subtitles. Special features include a 45-minute audio recording of Yukio Mishima speaking to the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of Japan; a 45-minute making-of documentary, featuring crew from the film’s production; interview excerpts featuring Mishima discussing war and death; new and improved English subtitle translation, and a new essay by renowned critic and historian Tony Rayns, Mishima’s original short story, and Mishima’s extensive notes on the film’s production.
I’m picking them both up July 1st. Any Mishima fans doing the same?
The polarizing writer-director and sometimes-actor Kevin “Silent Bob” Smith - responsible for tickling my funny bone with Clerks (1994), Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999) , and the criminally canceled Clerks: The Animated Series (2000-2001) - offers to tickle something else with his new movie. C’mon! I’m writing about K.S.; at least one dick joke is mandatory!
The movie is called Zach and Miri Make A Porno. Not since Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover (1990) has a title been so descriptive. The gist of the flick is that platonic life-mates Zach (Seth Rogen - Superbad, 2007) and Miri (the Grace Kelly sass-n’-sexiness that is Elizabeth Banks - Slither, 2006) come up with a get-rich-quick-scheme by making a porno. It’s like The Honeymooners…but with sex!
Also starring is Traci Lords (Serial Mom, 1994), Jason Mewes (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, 2001), Tom Savini (Planet Terror, 2007) and my role model Jeff Anderson (Randal Graves: “Get the hell out, Scorsese!”).
Knowing K.S., we’re in for some royally profane observations and a look at Seth Rogen’s tits. Yes, I feel dirty too.
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The Hobbit and HellBoy II: The Golden Army Director, Guillermo Del Toro, has named the person he thinks should play the part of Frankenstein when he does his take on the Frankenstein story. In an interview with 
