Posted Nov 15th 2009 9:02AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
Drew Barrymore's
Whip It (260 screens) opened seven weeks ago and still hasn't
broken even on its initial cost. What's going on? When I walked out of the press screening, the critics were all buzzing about how much fun they'd had. The reviews were stellar: it has an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. But somehow this critical enthusiasm just didn't translate for viewers. Something about tough chicks beating each other up during roller derby games just didn't appeal to the masses. Maybe it's because the movie is supposed to be set in Texas and was actually shot in Michigan. Maybe it's because our hero Bliss Cavendar (
Ellen Page) was supposed to fall in love with a cute boy (
Landon Pigg) who really wasn't very interesting, and you actually root for them to break up.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - What's Up with Whip It?
Posted Nov 1st 2009 9:02AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: 400 Screens, 400 Blows
This week I caught up with Anges Varda's
The Beaches of Agnes (2 screens), which -- if nothing else -- is a strong contender for the year's best documentary. Of course, it helps if you know who
Agnes Varda is, or at least have a passing interest in her work. She was associated with the French New Wave, and made her movie directing debut,
La pointe-courte (1954), years before Francois Truffaut or Jean-Luc Godard. However, she was not a member of the guy's movie club and was not a critic; in fact, she claims that she had seen less than a dozen movies when she first picked up her camera. She came from a background of photography and mingled with a group of other artists. Over her long, impressive career, she has made many films, including such notables as
Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962),
Vagabond (1985) and
The Gleaners and I (2000). In recent years, she has become the keeper of her husband Jacques Demy's legacy, overseeing restorations of some of Demy's films (
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, etc.) and making various films about him.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Sandy's Beaches
Posted Oct 25th 2009 9:03AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
Director
Claire Denis -- who was born in France but raised in colonial Africa -- enjoyed a measure of art-house buzz when she leapt onto the scene in 1989 with her film
Chocolat (not to be confused with the awful 2000 Johnny Depp/Juliette Binoche movie of the same name). Siskel & Ebert praised it and Denis
on their show at the time. In 2000, her film
Beau Travail topped the
Film Comment critics' poll of the best films of the year. But in-between, she couldn't catch a break. She has a tendency to make "mood pieces" rather than plot-driven films; these tend to cause people to think, thus making them very uncomfortable. Some of her movies couldn't get distribution and remain difficult to see. Others received only the tiniest distribution and even most critics didn't notice them. Such is the case with her wonderful new
35 Shots of Rum (2 screens), which is one of the year's best films.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - 'Rum' Diary
Posted Oct 18th 2009 9:03AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
Just take a look at that weekend box office. Sure, the critically panned
Couples Retreat came in at #1, earning over $32 million on 3000 screens. But scan down the list and look at #4, which was
Paranormal Activity. It earned $7.9 million on 160 screens. That's not a typo.
One hundred and sixty screens. If we take the average,
Paranormal Activity earned $49,375 per screen, and
Couples Retreat took in a paltry $10,666 per screen. That's five times as many butts in the seats for the horror film than for the unfunny comedy (which means that there must have been a lot of empty seats at the latter). There's a simple reason for this:
Paranormal Activity is a genuinely scary movie.
The same goes for any of the "body genres," i.e. comedies, steamy films, weepies, etc. If they genuinely work, and genuinely elicit the response that they promise, they will be a hit every time. Horror buffs -- myself included -- probably see more than a dozen new "scary" movies in the theater each year, but it's only once every few years that we actually get scared at one of them.
Paranormal Activity achieves this by doing something very simple and not at all new: it doesn't show anything (or, rather, it shows very little). It knows that nothing that can be shown onscreen can equal the fears and nightmares of the people in the audience, and that the fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Fear of the Unknown
Posted Oct 10th 2009 5:02PM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Documentary, Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
I just saw Gerald Peary's new documentary
For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism -- which incidentally features Cinematical's fearless managing editor
Scott Weinberg as well as Cinematical alum
Karina Longworth -- and I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite some lumps here and there. I'm having a hard time deciding whether or not non-critics will like it, but it celebrates many of my heroes (James Agee, Manny Farber, etc.) and even included one or two historical tidbits I did not know. One thing it talked about was the immense power wielded by Bosley Crowther at the
New York Times from 1940 to 1967 -- he alone could make or break a movie -- until a new generation led by Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael began to directly challenge him. Crowther was mainly interested in social responsibility in films, films that managed to "say a little something," rather than sheer artistic exercises or works of personality. The new documentary treats Crowther kindly, but dismisses him as a relic.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Docs on the Rocks
Posted Oct 3rd 2009 3:03PM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
This has been one amazing year for animated films. At least four of them are contenders for my list of the year's best films, and a few others are good enough to warrant a second viewing. But despite that, the majority of them are in 3D, and rated PG, neither of which appeals much to my 3-1/2 year old son who is beginning to ask to come to the movies with me. There's one exception, still in theaters, that stands apart from all the rest of the competition: Hayao Miyazaki's
Ponyo (163 screens).
Ponyo is hand-drawn (rather than computer-animated), not in 3D, and so far is the only G-rated movie of the year. (I'm not counting two others:
Hannah Montana: The Movie, or
Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, about which the less said, the better.)
Yet
Ponyo hasn't exactly been lighting its United States audience on fire. Or maybe it just feels like we have already forgotten about it, despite some good voice work by Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Liam Neeson and others. It doesn't seem to be on the cinematic radar anymore, even though it did well in its home of Japan. Perhaps audiences were turned off by the fact that Disney-sanctioned Noah Cyrus and Frankie Jonas were cast to perform the two lead children, or that they recorded a truly insufferable song for the closing credits. Or perhaps the movie is too simple and too gentle. When Miyazaki's gorgeous, dark
Spirited Away opened here in 2002, the time seemed right, and enthusiasm for his work ran high; the movie was ushered in as a major event in the history of animation.
Continue reading 400 Screens 400 Blows - Hello Ponyo, Hello
Posted Sep 27th 2009 9:02AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
Recently, my uncle -- a film buff to put most other film buffs to shame -- sent me a clipping from the Seattle Times, in which critic John Hartl celebrated the greatest movie year of all time. Not 1939, as is generally accepted, but 1959. And I have to agree with him. It was an amazing time when the old Hollywood guard was winding down and creating their final masterpieces, new upstarts were coming in with fresh new films and the most outrageously artistic of European cinema was getting released (and being watched) in America. Not taking into account any weird release patterns -- such as the fact that Ingmar Bergman's
Wild Strawberries (1957) was released here in 1959 -- and based on the IMDB's list of 1959 movies, here's my top ten list for that great year.
1. Rio Bravo. On most days, this is my favorite Western, with its combination of breathless suspense sequences and easy camaraderie among its bizarre, almost deliberately mismatched cast (and especially for Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson's duet). Howard Hawks directs with fluid grace, but best of all is that exchange of dialogue between Ward Bond and John Wayne. Bond: "A game-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?" Wayne: "That's what I got."
2. Good Morning. This is Yasujiro Ozu's lightest, warmest and funniest film, about two boys who -- fed up with the polite, meaningless conversation of adults -- take a vow of silence until their father buys them a television set. Their father refuses, having heard that television will produce "100 million idiots." (He may have been right.) Even if you don't like this one, Ozu also delivered the equally great Floating Weeds the same year.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - The Best of the Best
Posted Sep 20th 2009 9:03AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
When the average American film fan thinks of Japanese movies, they'll probably picture one of three things: either a samurai or a gangster --
Toshiro Mifune and his sword, or
Takeshi Kitano and his gun -- or a stringy-haired ghost girl. Die-hard fans will know that Yasujiro Ozu, Nagisa Oshima and Mikio Naruse also made contemporary dramas about modern-day citizens, often trying to figure out their lives in the post-WWII turmoil. But those dramas were hindered by the times, or by the censors; the characters were polite and functional and hid their own true emotions in an attempt to do what they were supposed to be doing. But there's something in the air over in Japan right now; they're making melodramas, big, roiling, red-blooded ones filled with anguish and torment and heartbreak.
Earlier this year,
Kiyoshi Kurosawa -- who is thus far best known for his truly terrifying films like
Cure (1997) and
Pulse (2001) -- came out with
Tokyo Sonata, a devastating (but defiantly odd) look at a crumbling family. The father loses his job, the eldest son contemplates joining the U.S. military and the youngest son sneaks off for secret piano lessons, while the mother finds herself kidnapped by a charismatic burglar. Kurosawa somehow ties together these plot threads with a few scenes at the family home, in which little of the stuff that we can see happening actually gets discussed. It's a brilliant portrait of disconnect and lack of communication.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Asian Melodramas
Posted Sep 13th 2009 9:02AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
One of my absolute least favorite genres is the "disease of the week" movie. There are lots of genres I prefer less than others, but in the case of this one, I can't understand why people like it. Why would anyone want to go see a movie about people getting sick and probably dying? The nearest I can figure is that, for viewers who like to cry, this is an almost certain tearjerker. Otherwise, perhaps it makes viewers feel good about not being sick. Who knows? But this week, fate has handed me an almost perfect example of what I hate about this genre, as well as an alternate example of just how it can work.
My Sister's Keeper (262 screens) is the bad one, though it does begin with a good idea. Anna Fitzgerald (
Abigail Breslin) was created in a test tube essentially to provide "spare parts" for her older sister, Kate (
Sofia Vassilieva), who is stricken with leukemia. When Anna reaches the age of ten, she approaches a lawyer (
Alec Baldwin) to sue for the rights to her own body. But rather than following that lead, the movie then spends the bulk of its running time in the hospital with Kate, watching her get sick and throw up while others weep and study test results. She gets a little brief romance, but it ends tragically. The worst thing of all is that, despite all this focus on Kate, she never emerges as a character. She's always good-natured, strong and loving. (We see her dark side only once, in a flashback.) Essentially, she is
defined by her disease. She is "cancer girl" and nothing more.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Disease of the Week
Posted Sep 7th 2009 3:33PM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
In the late summer of 1993, all serious movie geeks had their eyes on two movies. The first one was
Hard Target, which marked the American debut of the great Hong Kong action director
John Woo (whose great
Hard-Boiled had recently been in theaters), and the second was
True Romance, which was the second screenplay by
Quentin Tarantino, whose
Reservoir Dogs had been out the year before. I enjoyed both of the new movies just fine, but I kept thinking: what if these two productions had simply switched directors? Tony Scott could have directed the latest Jean-Claude Van Damme snoozer (and hence I wouldn't have bothered to pay money to see it) and then John Woo could have taken over the Tarantino screenplay! How cool would that have been?
True Romance would have been the greatest movie, ever!
Something vaguely similar happened this summer, but to a much lesser degree. I'm talking
J.J. Abrams directing
Star Trek (218 screens), and
McG directing
Terminator Salvation (81 screens). What if they had switched places? Neither one of them is any great shakes as a director, but I'd put my money on McG as the more interesting of the two. OK. Hear me out.
Star Trek had a terrific script, with a really unique idea; it's perhaps the smartest series reboot I've yet seen, but Abrams' clunky direction drove the action to a dead halt at least half a dozen times. On the other hand, the screenplay for
Terminator Salvation was pretty much unsalvageable, but McG put together some truly dazzling set pieces, using clean, fast gliding cameras to catch the movement and space of the action scenes.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Smooth Terminator
Posted Aug 30th 2009 9:02AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
I'm still not exactly sure how to describe the films of
Andrew Bujalski. I've seen all three of his features,
Funny Ha Ha (2002),
Mutual Appreciation (2005) and the new
Beeswax, which is currently playing on 2 screens in New York and Los Angeles and will expand to more theaters in the coming weeks.
Funny Ha Ha really struck me when I saw it in 2004, but I think his films have improved since then, and
Beeswax is really something wonderful. Of course, the word most people use to describe his films -- and other similar films in the same "wave" -- is "
Mumblecore," and I suppose that's effective, but there's more to it.
Bujalski tends to focus on young people in their twenties and thirties. They're educated and middle-class, but probably not the most driven folks in the world. One character in
Beeswax, Merrill (
Alex Karpovsky), prepares to take the BAR, but when he doesn't do so well his first day, he shrugs: "it will still be there for me in six months. And then six months after that." The movie focuses on identical twins, Jeannie, who runs a vintage clothing shop, and Lauren, who is currently unemployed but thinking of taking a job in Nairobi. They're played by real-life twins
Tilly Hatcher and
Maggie Hatcher (whom Bujalski has known for years); Tilly needs a wheelchair to get around, but the movie refuses to make a big deal out of this. It's just there.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Just Being in 'Beeswax'
Posted Aug 23rd 2009 9:02AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
Sam Mendes'
Away We Go (54 screens) makes for a great trailer, consisting of all the very funny, snarky stuff written by
Dave Eggers and
Vendela Vida. The actual movie has some very funny moments as well, and some terrific individual scenes, but it doesn't add up to a reasonable whole, mainly because the ever-shifting tones never quite mesh. Nevertheless, it seems to be performing well in its arthouse capacity, surviving more on a well-executed stream of hype rather than on the quality of the movie itself. From the ads, you'd think it has already won an Oscar (and, because of this kind of subconscious suggestion, it still might). Either way, what this means is that a literary giant like Eggers didn't have to go slumming. His reputation is intact.
In the old days, great novelists would sometimes write for the movies, but it was sneered at and looked down upon. Movies were for hacks and has-beens, or for desperate sellouts who were willing to work for cash rather than for the reward of a richer soul.
William Faulkner was perhaps the most famous example of this, scribbling screenplays for drinking money. Fortunately, nowadays, Mr. Faulkner's literary reputation not only remains totally intact, but also some of his screenplays, including
To Have and Have Not (1944) and
The Big Sleep (1946), are celebrated for their high quality. Similarly, Billy Wilder once hired the great crime novelist
Raymond Chandler to adapt a book by another great crime novelist, James M. Cain, into
Double Indemnity (1944). I can only imagine the indignity Chandler must have felt at the time, but today no one cares.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Literary Devices
Posted Aug 16th 2009 9:02AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
One of my favorite distributors in recent years has been Tartan Films, which distributed all kinds of Asian horror films as well as interesting, gutsy things like
Oldboy,
Lady Vengeance,
12:08 East of Bucharest,
Red Road,
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu,
The Cave of the Yellow Dog and
Battle in Heaven. The company went through some tough times last year, but they have re-emerged, more or less, newly re-christened as Palisades Tartan. And one of their first decisions on active duty was to scoop up the distribution rights for Roy Andersson's
You, the Living in the United States.
This film has been floating around for a while, playing at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and opening in its native Sweden in the fall of 2007. I saw it in the spring of 2008 at the San Francisco International Film Festival. I suspect that critic David Thomson saw it there as well, and he saw fit to include it in his recent book
"Have You Seen...?" a collection of short essays on 1000 of the most notable films ever made. It opened a few weeks ago in New York and will be slowly expanding to other cities throughout the fall. I wanted to include it on my list of the ten best films of 2008, but I felt that one screening at one film festival -- and no regular distribution -- disqualified it from consideration. Now I'm considering it a strong contender for 2009's list.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - You, the Living
Posted Aug 9th 2009 9:02AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
I was just looking over the current release list and came upon two movies that seem to have been pretty much forgotten already, Ron Howard's
Angels & Demons (247 screens) and Tony Scott's
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (383 screens). The first one is a sequel and the second one is a remake. The first one is absolutely terrible, earning a 37% on Rotten Tomatoes, while the second one is merely mediocre, earning a 52% rating. But what's truly astonishing is that
Angels & Demons is a box office smash, with $133 million to its name,
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 has earned less than half that, with $64 million.
Let's look at little closer at this. These are two of the summer's only movies that may have been aimed a little above the heads of young boys. All three of the name-above-the-title stars, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington and John Travolta, are in their 50s. This ostensibly means that the studios wanted to entice older audiences out of their comfortable homes and into theaters. But unfortunately, if you're a fifty-something and you go out to see
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, what's the first thing you get? You get one of Tony Scott's quick-cut, jumpy, razzle-dazzle openings with Jay-Z boasting "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one." Not to mention the rest of the breakneck movie, which practically reaches out from the screen and slaps you in the face.
Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Diary of Two Summer Duds
Posted Aug 2nd 2009 9:02AM by Jeffrey M. Anderson
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
Francis Ford Coppola's
Tetro (16 screens) has been lurking on a few arthouse screens all summer, pulling in less than half a million dollars to date, and earning mostly lukewarm reviews from the handful of critics that bothered to see it. Rotten Tomatoes has 55 reviews on file for it, as compared to the 267 reviews for Star Trek (307 screens). In any Hollywood book, that's pretty much a dud, not even worthy of a moment's cocktail conversation. But in my book, it's a triumph of creativity over career. Coppola is 70 as I write this, and no longer the young stallion that won an Oscar in 1970 (for his Patton screenplay) and went on to create the biggest blockbuster of its time -- and one of the greatest films ever made at a major studio -- The Godfather (1972).Continue reading 400 Screens, 400 Blows - Tetro Tension
Next Page >
Jeremy Renner Wants To Be An Avenger
Directors We Love: Jim Jarmusch
Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
Shelf Life: Fight Club_thumbnail.jpg)
Watch: Famous 'Matrix' Scene Re-Created with LEGOs
_thumbnail.jpg)
