Is Slovenia the new Romania? Jul 17, 2008
As a former republic of Yugoslavia, Slovenia -- which borders Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia -- was only briefly part of the Soviet bloc, before Marshal Tito broke away to pursue his own brand of communism ... Although it's one of the smallest and poorest of the European Union nations (as well as the one hardly anybody could identify on a map), Slovenia contributed many films and directors to the exciting Yugoslav scene of the '60s and '70s, beginning with films like Frantisek Cap's 1953... (Salon)
Awesome family videos: The list goes on! Jul 15, 2008
As promised, here's the list of runners-up from the impromptu I ran in early June, all movies that got at least one enthusiastic vote but didn't quite seem to fit on our final list, for good reasons or bad ... One reader wrote that she was a public-school teacher in New Orleans, and suggested (without any rancor, I believe) that this list was tailored to upper-middle-class metropolitan or suburban kids, adding that it might be mighty tough to get the kids in her class, all African-American and... (Salon)
Bedtime for "Gonzo" Jul 4, 2008
Even in his best work, Thompson walked a thin line between honesty and fatal self-indulgence, and over the last 30 years of his life he gradually slid into booze-hound, gun-crazed, paranoid self-caricature, closer to the Uncle Duke of "Doonesbury" than to the lacerating wit who ripped through the mendacious superficiality of American political and civic life ... This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed -- for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as... (Salon)
Culture Club Jul 1, 2008
If I had to hazard a guess, without getting into issues about which sounds better - I think LP s have a more lively sound, but lets face it, sound is as subjective as color; I see red, you see orange - I d say that the sudden uptick in vinyl is partly because of retro cool, and partly a reaction against the miniaturization of music, both in terms of how it s listened to (IPods, etc ... I have interviewed everybody from John Wayne on down, but I was frankly nervous about interviewing Cyd... (The Palm Beach Post)
Meet the Japanese Brando Jun 21, 2008
A handsome, roguish fellow equally well suited for hero or villain roles, and best known for playing characters plagued by doubt or moral uncertainty, Nakadai has been called the Japanese equivalent of Marlon Brando or Steve McQueen ... Following that, next Monday and Tuesday, is Hiroshi Teshigahara's 1966 "The Face of Another," surely one of the strangest films in the long and strange history of Japanese cinema, and a good indication of Nakadai's range ... Other upcoming titles include the... (Salon)
Clint vs. Spike: WWII racial grudge match! Jun 11, 2008
"Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen," Lee said ... Grandiose claims have been made in some quarters for this nasty, economical little film, but it does what it sets out to do pretty well ... Gordon is a genre veteran whose 1985 H.P. Lovecraft adaptation "Re-Animator" remains a cult favorite, but the rest of his career has been hit-and-miss. (Salon)
Mamet goes from MMA pupil to producer Apr 9, 2008
I ran into my agent eating dinner with Chiwetel and he says, "I want you to meet my client." He says this funny name, I didn't hear it in time, and says, "He's the greatest actor in the world." I look at this skinny kid and say, "Yeah." I've seen him in Dirty, Pretty Things ... " SI.com: Ricky Jay, Joe Mantegna, all the Mamet regulars had fun with this subculture? Mamet: We just had a ball. SI.com: Want to tick off some fighters you admire? Are you an Anderson Silva guy? Mamet: You know, the... (SportsIllustrated.CNN -- More)
Structure and roughness Feb 24, 2008
This creative dynamic has fascinated B rtsch since his early teens, when he saw the great Akira Kurosawa movie "Ran" and found himself fascinated by the warrior's code, despite his own pacifist politics ... "And 'Ran' is a battle film, but I liked it very much. It was the first time that I saw this tension, the connection between art and emptiness and a warrior roughness at the same time." ... And as striking as the group's first ECM effort, "Stoa," was, "Holon" feels more subtle and complete,... (Boston Globe)
Film Underground Presents: Ran Oct 5, 2007
Ran begins with a fever dream and descends into a living nightmare ... The story of Ran is a familiar one, as the film is essentially Shakespeare's King Lear transposed from medieval England to feudal Japan ... If anything, the clear, modern language of the subtitles makes Ran easier to understand. (The New Hampshire, NH)
So you wanna be in movies Oct 3, 2007
The vibrant colors on the screen are matched by the dcor of Meyer's store. Alternating panels of orange and blue line the walls ... "But when I was in school, I ran the Bijou for like three years, so that sort of filled my quota for really artsy, good films. Now, I kind of like the bad stuff.". (Daily Iowan, IA)
Obituary: Ingmar Bergman Jul 31, 2007
The two strands in his career were crucially interrelated. He surrounded himself with devoted actors - Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann and many more - making a film each spring or summer with a superb team of technicians ... These directors hover fitfully behind the handful of geniuses - Robert Bresson (obituary, December 22 1999), Carl Dreyer, Yasujiro Ozu, Jean Renoir, Roberto Rossellini - where poetry and originality transcend matter and... (Guardian Unlimited -- World)
Kuznick: A-Bomb Jul 30, 2007
For one who has confronted the still-smoldering hatred that some American veterans feel toward the Japanese six decades after the U.S. victory, it is stunning how little overt anti-Americanism one finds in Japanese discussions of the bombings ... Drawing on the moral authority gained, they have translated this suffering into a positive message of world peace and nuclear disarmament ... Although Dower is undoubtedly correct that the heroic and tragic narratives, those of victors above and victims... (Zmag.org)
What's on your top 10 movies list? Jun 30, 2007
Close but No Top Ten Cigar: When Harry Met Sally, It's a Wonderful Life, Bull Durham, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, A Clockwork Orange, Singin' in the Rain ... Citizen Kane Solaris (the Soviet original) Chariots of Fire Lawrence of Arabia The Godfather I (tighter drama than II) Dr. Strangelove The Sorrow and the Pity When Harry Met Sally (a guilty pleasure) My Darling Clementine (a bit cliched, but taut drama and Ford's photography of Monument Valley) Return of the Pink Panther ... We drove... (NPR)
Shakespeare in translation Apr 12, 2007
The shortest is a 40-second fragment of a duel from "Macbeth." The longest is a half-hour digest of "As You Like It." During the next two weeks the AFI Silver Theatre will showcase two of the greatest achievements in this tradition: Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" (1957) and "Ran" (1985). Splendid as pictorial spectacles, the movies are distinctive in part because they imaginatively transpose landmarks of English-language theater, "Macbeth" and "King Lear," respectively, from one language and... (Washington Times, DC)
HANDS-ON EXPERTISE Apr 4, 2007
Something of a camp historian, BeVier traces the start of camp as we know it to Connecticut, specifically Frederick and Abigail Gunn in 1861, who also ran the Gunnery school in Washington, Conn ... Contact William Weir at bweir@courant. (Orlando Sentinel)
Best on-screen battles: Your views Apr 4, 2007
"Ran?" No Kurosawa in your list ... The tension in the relentless Zulu charge against the iron discipline of the ranked defenders defined movie battle scenes for me forevermore ... You can actually feel how close to the edge the defenders were (If just one man broke ranks. (CNN -- Showbiz)
The best -- and worst -- movie battle scenes Mar 31, 2007
Apocalypse Now -- Helicopter attack Francis Ford Coppola, 1979 "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like victory." Robert Duvall's helicopters wreak bloody destruction upon a Vietnamese village to the strains of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries in order to secure a beachhead for a bit of post-combat surfing ... Saving Private Ryan -- Omaha Beach landing Steven Spielberg, 1998 The graphic depiction of the Omaha beach D-Day landing shocked audiences and even induced flashbacks in... (CNN -- Showbiz)
FILM REVIEW: 'Samurai' re-issue enhances timeless masterpiece Mar 9, 2007
The appearance of guns highlights the sweeping away of the old way, with Kambei standing as a symbol -- the most honorable and pure character in the film, he represents one of the last vestiges of tradition and honor ... The film looks beautiful, having received an "all-new, high- definition digital transfer." The image quality is much-improved over the original release, with deeper contrasts and many of the specks and image imperfections removed ... The audio comes in the original Japanese mono... (U-Wire.com)
Francis Ford Coppola Feb 8, 2007
Francis Coppola, the talented, original, volatile forty-three-year-old moviemaker, who is a movie writer ( Patton, The Conversation, and other pictures), a movie producer ( American Graffiti, The Black Stallion, and others), a movie director ( The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and others), a movie impresario and distributor (Abel Gance s 1927 epic Napoleon and others), and a fan of other people s movies (Michael Powell s The Thief of Baghdad, Alexander Korda s Things to Come, Andrzej Wajda s Ashes... (New Yorker)
The Secret Mainstream Feb 1, 2007
What, indeed, would future historians make of our civilization if the frustrating, beautiful, always mesmerizingly strange films of Werner Herzog were their primary cinematic witnesses ... Early in the film, a long tracking shot offers some windblown orange dunes, across which sail tiny whirlwinds of sand a bizarre, almost Martian vision ... The film has been called a cosmic pun on cin;ma v;rit;, and Herzog has said that his plan was to go out to the southern Sahara to shoot a kind of... (Harper's Magazine)
Curse of the Golden Flower Dec 24, 2006
It's an incredible film, among the strangest and most overwhelming that Zhang has made ... These are the nameless, almost faceless minions of tyranny--and Zhang, who co-wrote the script, shows once again how evil can spread like disease among rulers whose power has no sensible limit ... Zhang, whose powers are at their height here, gives the interior scenes of "Curse" the dramatic beauty and precision of a Kenji Mizoguchi film ("Yang Kwei Fei"), while his amazing action-director colleague Ching... (Chicago Tribune)
More of this story Dec 2, 2006
Too frequently, grand opera becomes a wrestling match: singer against orchestra, style against substance, past against present ... In 1642, aging composer Claudio Monteverdi teamed with librettist Gian Francesco Busenello to set the carnality of ancient Rome against the elegant line of Baroque music ... The result was a strange tragi-comedy in which the bad guys - Emperor Nero and his scheming mistress Poppea - have all the best songs, and constitute the major love interest. (Los Angeles Downtown News, CA)
Tanaka:Japanese Crimes Aug 24, 2006
Because non-explanations of this kind are the characteristic not only of the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall but of most school textbooks and the school curriculum generally, the result is that the majority of Japanese people remain ignorant not only of Japan's war responsibility, but also of the history of the Asia-Pacific War in general ... At the same time, NHK (the Japan Broadcasting Commission) ran a serial radio program called "This is the Truth." This series, designed and produced... (Zmag.org)
Playing Doc’s Games Aug 14, 2006
In 1992, Finnegan described the surfing scene in San Francisco ... Wise Surfboards, the only surf shop in San Francisco, is a bright, high-ceilinged place flanked by a Mexican restaurant and a Christian day-care center out in the far reaches of a sleepy working-class seaside suburb known as the Sunset District ... Across the Gate, which is a magnificent stretch of water running from the Pacific Ocean into San Francisco Bay, giant waves were breaking in a shipping hazard known as the Potato... (New Yorker)
The Weinsteins Sack Asia Jun 8, 2006
The Weinsteins a Seven Samurai remake since 2003, back when they still ran Miramax. recently reported that Oscar winner George Clooney and Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen were mulling starring in a Samurai remake. (IGN FilmForce)
The Bad Sleep Well Apr 24, 2006
But unlike the lavish double-disc spreads accorded "Ikiru" and most recently "Ran," this title gets just a single DVD, albeit with a pristine transfer ... The new high-definition digital transfer of the movie comes via a print struck from the original negative, with the pic so cleanly rendered the cheapness of its sets is sometimes revealed. (Variety)
The Outsider: Robert Altman Mar 6, 2006
EPA/MIGUEL VILLAGRAN ... In movies from 'MASH' and 1971`s 'McCabe & Mrs. Miller' to 1975`s 'Nashville' and on through 2001`s 'Gosford Park,' Altman has experimented with narrative and genre, splintering the traditional protagonist-antagonist format of many American films into fractured ensemble pieces and weaving a densely textured pattern of image and sound that might owe more to France`s New Wave than to classical Hollywood filmmaking ... I stopped off in Kansas City on my way to New York and... (Monsters and Critics.com)
Ang Lee moseys toward historic Oscar Feb 26, 2006
Brokeback Mountain is a sweeping romantic melodrama with one foot rooted in the grand weepers of old Hollywood and the other kicking show business into modern times with its sensitive portrayal of a gay love affair ... Kurosawa's films never broke into the best-picture category, though he was nominated for best director with Ran and received an honorary Oscar for 1989. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
Helmers' history notes Jan 12, 2006
The "Brokeback Mountain" helmer could be the first filmmaker of Asian descent to receive a best director nom for an English-language film -- the films of previous Asian helming Oscar nominees Akira Kurosawa (1985's "Ran") and Hiroshi Teshigahara ("Woman in the Dunes" in 1966) were in the directors' native Japanese ... The past triple winners were William Wyler, Frank Capra and John Ford -- who subsequently won a fourth directing Oscar, the current record ... LUCK BE A LADY: "The Producers'"... (Variety)
Red-Eye brings its thrills to DVD Jan 10, 2006
Also new: Hustle & Flow, The Constant Gardener and Transporter 2 ... Rachel McAdams stars as a woman on an overnight flight whose seatmate (Cillian Murphy) says her dad will be snuffed if she doesnt cooperate in arrangements to kill a U.S. leader at the hotel where she works ... Jason Statham returns as the stoic protagonist from the sleeper hit The Transporter in a laughable sequel that puts cheap effects and outlandish action into overdrive. (MSNBC -- Movies)
