In addition to a long career as a producer and director of mainly genre films, Corman has taught many of America’s leading filmmakers their craft, emphasizing creativity and resourcefulness over high-concept and large-budgets. Seriously, the list of filmmakers who apprenticed under Corman is formidable, indeed.
Jamanites around the world can enjoy one of Corman’s most entertaining cult films, A Bucket Of Blood, free on the site. Some may wonder why the maker of a film like this could ever win an Oscar; many others, we suspect, will smile and say it’s about time.
2009 has proven to be a busy year for world cinema, with many of the finest filmmakers releasing new material: The Hurt Locker marked the return of the much-missed Kathryn Bigelow to theatres; I just caught Park Chan-wook’s Cannes-prize-winning vampire romance Thirst (and liked it quite a bit); and Steven Soderbergh’s forthcoming The Informant! will be his fourth film to play in US theatres this year (after both parts of Che and The Girlfriend Experience).
It is often valuable (and almost always fun) to bone up on a filmmaker’s older work before seeing their new work on screen, and the experience of the most recent work is often enriched by this prior exposure. Happily, many filmmakers now bringing out new work have films available on Jaman. As mentioned in the previous entry, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are both opening films today, and their last films, Death Proof and Planet Terror, are both newly available on Jaman. It amuses this writer to ponder the radically different ways Rodriguez’s berserk, FX-driven creativity manifests in his two films (the gore-laden and sexy Planet Terror and the family-friendly Shorts), but I don’t doubt that similar artistic flourishes can be found in both films.
I’ve also noticed that Danish filmmaker Ole Christian Madsen also has a new film premiering on US screens this week, with his WWII resistance thriller Flame and Citron opening in arthouses across the country. The film reunites Madsen with frequent collaborator (and Jaman Top Ten Star) Mads Mikkelsen, and at least one of their previous collaborations, Prague, can be screened here on Jaman as well.
We’re always happy to hear word of a new film from any of our Top Ten Directors, but it had been a while since the fiery and provocative Lars von Trier has had a film to offer. We were intrigued by advance word that his new film, Antichrist, would be a horror film (and largely a two-hander at that, starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg). Well, Antichrist had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, and though the reviews are split over the film, they’re passionate either way: Hollywood Elsewhere calls it “easily one of the biggest debacles in Cannes Film Festival history and the complete meltdown of a major film artist,” while Movieline hails Antichrist as “the most original and thought-provoking work von Trier has done since Breaking the Waves.”
This is hardly the first time a new von Trier film has aroused this kind of controversy. Love his work or hate it, it’s hard not to be challenged by it. Happily much of von Trier’s work is available here on Jaman, allowing you a chance to figure out where YOU stand on the work of this distinct and unique figure
Last night I was lucky enough to catch an advance screening of Tetro, the latest film by Francis Ford Coppola, in San Francisco’s East Bay. The film tells the story of Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich in a remarkable feature debut), a young sailor who takes the advantage of a few days downtime in Buenos Aires to look up his seriously estranged older brother Angelo, who settled there years prior. Angelo (Vincent Gallo) has forsaken all ties with his family, and redubbed himself Tetro. The reunion of the brothers initiates a chain of events that includes the rediscovery of some lost writings, and the revelation of several long-buried, painful secrets.
The first three minutes of the film can be seen here.
The film is certainly a new masterpiece from Coppola - the story is moving and compelling, and it’s delivered in high style. Looking over the short list of Coppola’s favorites of his own oeuvre, one finds many commonalities with Tetro: the film echoes the road movie aspects of The Rain People; the timeless B&W cinematography and tale of brothers in extremis recalls Rumble Fish; and the collaborators include editor Walter Murch (a key player on both The Conversation and Apocalypse Now), cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. and composer Osvaldo Golijov (the latter two key players on Coppola’s previous film Youth Without Youth). The film feels like one of Coppola’s most personal films, and its commonalities with these other works suggests that it’s been gestating long in the director’s mind.
The evening concluded with a generous Q&A by Coppola’s producer/long-time cohort Anahid Nazarian, who offered background on the film’s genesis and production. The film was loosely-based on Coppola’s relationship with his own older brother, and the story initially took the form of a five-page treatment Coppola composed at age 19 (in this incarnation, the story was set in working-class Detroit, where the brothers Coppola grew up). Ms. Nazarian also noted that the notoriously tempestuous Gallo was an ideal on-set collaborator, and that Coppola had never seemed to have as much fun with a single actor as he did with Gallo during Tetro’s 70-day shoot. When asked which of Coppola’s films was her favorite, her immediate reply was simply “This one.”
After its screening in the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, Tetro’s set to open wide in Europe. Here in the US the film is being self-distributed by Coppola’s company, American Zoetrope, and will open next month in seven cities. Here’s hoping the film garners enough success to spread to more cities throughout the summer – meanwhile, Jaman’s US viewers can enjoy The Conversation right here:
Viewing Peter Greenaway’s marvelous, mind-expanding essay filmRembrandt’s J’accuse at the SF International Film Fest last night was like skimming the wildest art history text. The film lays out many (31, to be precise) mysteries surrounding Rembrandt’s famous painting The Night Watch. One of many digressions was a mention of the assassination of Theo van Gogh, a controversial and outspoken Dutch filmmaker killed by radical Islamist Mohammed Bouyeri. Though the circumstances surrounding van Gogh’s death tend to go against the Italian connection suggested by Greenaway, I was delighted to have my memory jogged.
van Gogh is a favorite here at Jaman – his dedication to free speech and his intense political engagement with the issues facing Holland and the world fuelled a remarkable body of work, both visceral and personal. Ironically, the film he was finishing at the time of his murder, May 6th, was itself spun from the events surrounding the assassination of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. The film’s page is here; the trailer’s below.
Additionally, van Gogh’s earlier feature Cool!, a work about (and starring) juvenile delinquents, is also available.
The creation of LincVolt (Young’s beloved 1959 Lincoln Continental, now a fuel-efficient, zero emissions, environmentally friendly dream machine for the 21st century) has been Young’s obsession for the last year. The issues surrounding both the pollution of the world and the LincVolt’s role in reducing it are explored in Young’s brand new album, Fork In The Road. And now Jaman users around the world can see the LincVolt tearing down America’s highways in the exclusive music video Get Around.
Directed by Bernard Shakey (Young’s filmmaking alter ego), Get Around offers a real-time trip in LincVolt, with Young himself behind the wheel singing the songs from Fork In The Road. Reminiscent of the road movies of Wim Wenders (with perhaps a bit of Zabriskie Point era Antonioni in there as well), Get Around continues Young’s career-long exploration of other media. Bernard Shakey’s first feature, 1974’s Journey Through The Past, captured the members of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young both on the rock stage and in the mundane realities of touring. More recently, Greendale took on various lives as an album, a film, and a multi-media stage performance.
So it should come as no surprise that the LincVolt project should manifest as a film in addition to its other iterations (a documentary website; the album Fork in The Road; and the planned journey to Washington). In the end, Get Around is a remarkable (if minimalistic) music video, both a calling card for the ambitious and politically charged LincVolt project and a compelling portrait of life on the American road, ca. 2009.
A classic car on an open road, with rock ‘n’ roll blazing on the stereo, is as iconic and American an image as apple pie. In Get Around, Young (and Shakey) give the image a profound (and ROCKING) 21st century update.
Get Around is available to Jaman’s users all over the world FREE. Take the ride!
Some cineastes fixate on certain filmmakers and start, for lack of a better word, “collecting” them – seeking out videos, attending screenings, keeping a mental list of the filmmaker’s work and checking off each film on it after seeing it. For lovers of obscure filmmakers, this process of collection can be a thing of frustration and joy, from a look at an undiscovered gem to the disappointment of being countries away from a rare screening.
This writer has been “collecting” the work of filmmaker Robert Florey for a few years. Florey was a French filmmaker who cut his teeth on both well-respected experimental films and Hollywood during the silent era. Though his filmography includes work on such well-known titles as the Marx Bros. classic The Cocoanuts (co-director) and Charlie Chaplin’s serial killer opus Monsieur Verdoux (assistant director), the bulk of his work remains relatively unknown. Those quirky few who have studied Florey’s work tend to regard his late 30s/early 40s gangster noir films as his best, citing their offbeat visuals and excellent pacing. And just premiering on Jaman is Florey’s Lady Gangster, a fantastic and funny B-picture.
The story of an actress (Faye Emerson here) embroiled in a bank robbery and sent to prison could easily be turned into a sprawling epic/Oscar bid for the likes of Angelina Jolie or Jodie Foster. In Florey’s hands, dramatic histrionics are kept to a minimum. In fact, the thing clocks in at a brisk 61 minutes, and has the break-neck pace of the wackiest screwball comedies. Groucho Marx said of The Cocoanuts’ two directors that “one didn’t understand comedy, the other didn’t understand English.” The statement casts intriguing light on Lady Gangster – everyone in it plays it heroically straight, and one wonders if Florey couldn’t communicate a comic design or just didn’t bother to do so. The result is a delightful and bewildering film in which lives hang on the outcome of the craziest schemes, agendas shift every minute, and the forces of law and order can only stare bewildered as the details come in over the radio.
I pretty much dropped everything this morning when I read that it looked like (FINALLY!) Orson Welles‘ long-incomplete opus The Other Side Of The Wind is being readied for release, with a premiere planned for the Cannes Film Festival (though accounts vary as to whether it’ll be at THIS year’s festival or next).
Begun in 1976, the film centers on an aging filmmaker (John Huston) hoping to revive his flagging career by creating a film packed with sex and violence. Like many of his projects, Welles shot it piecemeal over a period of years. Also like many of his projects, a peculiar string of conflicts and legalities prevented the project from being completed. Unlike many of his projects, a complete film (finished to Welles’ specifications) could be constructed of the extant footage; filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich and producer Frank Marshall, who were directly involved in the project since its inception, have been trying to shepherd the project to completion. The cable channel Showtime has offered funding to complete the film, and now it appears that the legal issues surrounding the film have finally been settled. We’ve been tantalized with all of this before, of course, but it really does look set to happen. Our fingers are crossed.
Here’s a scene from the film - please keep in mind that Welles constructed this before the advent of MTV.
Still, compare it to the Citizen Kane trailer that Welles cut in 1941:
Since it may still be a while yet before The Other Side Of The Wind premieres, do check out The Stranger. Though it’s one of Welles’ compromised works, it’s still a solid thriller, featuring many of the visual flourishes and moments of intensity that have marked his work throughout his career.
Meanwhile, some of Ms. Dushku’s performances in lesser-known but quality indie films can be found here on Jaman. You can see her in the four-character relationship drama Sex and Breakfast (which also stars Macaulay Culkin). And new to Jaman is On Broadway, an earthy Boston story about a young man who writes and produces a play to honor his deceased uncle. Dushku’s charming, sensuous, and warm in both films, and we’re pleased to present them.
We mentioned previously that non-Hollywood films dominated the Oscars this year. It’s perhaps fitting, then, that the Best Foreign Film Oscar should go to a film that none of the Hollywood pundits had anticipated. The frontrunners for the Oscar were clearly France’s The Class (last year’s Palme D’Or Winner at Cannes - it had enjoyed a short run in US theatres, as well) and the animated Israeli documentary Waltz with Bashir. But the film that ultimately took the Oscar (riding a strange wave of acclaim after winning the audience award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival) was Japan’s official entry Departures (referred to from here on, with respect, as Okuribito).
The film stars eccentric Japanese heart-throb Masahiro Motoki as Daigo, a cellist who finds himself adrift after his orchestra shuts down. The only job available to him is work preparing corpses for funerals, and though he is initially repulsed by the work, he experiences a spiritual awakening as he grows more involved in it.
Apparently Motoki conceived the film ten years ago, and studied both funerary practices and cello to prepare for the film. From the footage I’ve seen it sure looks and feels like a labor of love, and comes by its spirituality (and its honors) honestly. Okuribito is directed by veteran director Yōjirō Takita, a filmmaker who followed the now-familiar path from apprenticeship in Japan’s adult film to mainstream and genre films. (Sidebar: how great is it that the director of PINK PHYSICAL EXAMINATION and HIGH NOON RIPPER snagged an Oscar on Sunday?)
After a near-sweep of the Japan Academy Awards, Okuribito made a run of several film festivals up to its Oscar win. Okuribito’s set for a wide release in the coming months. The film’s international site is here. Meanwhile, a rough trailer has wound up on YouTube, and you’ll find it below.
In the meantime, those hungry for a quality Japanese film balancing spirituality and a gentle humanism need look no farther than Afterlife, by Hirokazu Koreeda. The films will no doubt make a fine double feature: as Okubirito looks at our preparations for the final moments, Afterlife posits what’ll go down in the moments after. It’s available on Jaman, and certainly worth your time. Enjoy!
No matter how one feels about the Oscars, they’re always a fun occasion for wagering. Be sure to enter your picks in Jaman’s Oscar poll: whoever guesses the most awards correctly has a chance at winning a whole year of movies here on Jaman!
Jaman’s best wishes go to all entering the poll, and we wish good luck to all this year’s Oscar nominees!
‘Terminator: Salvation’ director McG at New York Comic Con. Photo by Eric Kohn.
“What don’t you f***ing understand?”
This time, the confrontational remark didn’t come from Christian Bale. Instead, it was the comical retort of director McG, whose production of Terminator: Salvation played host to the now-infamous freakout of its hot-blooded lead. At the New York Comic Con on Saturday, McG couldn’t dance around the overly publicized documentation of Bale’s June tantrum — when cinematographer Shane Hurlbut accidentally ruined an important take — instead, he had to confront the situation head-on. When an audience member asked the filmmaker to elaborate on the incident, he keenly responded with the aforementioned remark, a direct quote from that overexposed tirade.
McG, however, was only kidding. The way he spun it, Bale just took his performance a little too far. As John Connor, the badass leader of the human resistance in a post-apocalyptic future where the world has been overrun by machines, Bale needed to tap into a certain psychotic range. It’s possible he may have tapped a bit too hard, and even shattered some glass in the process. However, based on the clips McG showed to the crowd, it looks like the fourth Terminator film features a lot of shouting and stuff blowing up, so Bale’s rage actually does appear to fit the picture.
“I wanted that passion to show up in the character,” McG said. According to the director, Bale actually rejected the original version of the screenplay when McG brought it to him on the set of The Dark Knight. “He didn’t want a loud action movie,” McG said. “He wanted to articulate the arc of the character.” Connor, whom audiences watched grow up in T2 and T3, finally reaches his potential as the heroic icon that the mythology predicted he would become. Bale wanted to make that transition seem convincing. So if T4 works, thank his f***ing professionalism. Here’s a refresher on Bale’s intensity as a performer:
One of the hilarious things about fan conventions is that audience members tend to present immensely confrontational questions (when they’re not lavishing their icons with embarrassing amounts of praise). So it was fairly amusing when somebody asked McG to discuss the way public perception of his work — the highlights of which include two Charlie’s Angels movies — might make a fourth Terminator movie sound a little, you know, crass with him behind the camera.
The director didn’t hesitate.
“I hate McG, too,” he said, to a confusion of scattered applause and giggles. “Look, let’s talk about what it is. I started out making Charlie’s Angels. It’s not in keeping with the Terminator idea, but we all look for a break. All I wanted to do with those movies was make original films, and break down the ceiling of, ‘You can’t have a successful female action franchise.’ In that respect, I stand by those movies completely.”
McG admitted that Terminator creator James Cameron had no interest in another entry in the franchise, but Titanic auteur compared McG’s involvement to his own ultimately satisfying experience directing the second Alien movie in the wake of Ridley Scott’s success with the first one. It’s hard to compare McG to a young James Cameron, but maybe I’m just giving into the pervasive hatred McG himself understands. The Terminator: Salvation clip showed some potential: It’s dark, filled with mechanical gray tones and a lot of atmospheric details, suggesting more of a Mad Max thing than the Terminator world of yore. Franchises tend to get uglier as they go along, but I’m willing to give this one a chance.
***
Then again, look at Pixar, a company that appears to view franchises as the Achilles heel of the industry. With the exception of Toy Story, Pixar has never expressed a major need to expand on its original animated worlds, which allows most of their impressive accomplishments to achieve an almost holy distinctiveness. Years ago, Pixar’s owner, Disney, created a special unit called Circle 7 with the sole intention of creating sequels to popular Pixar movies. The project didn’t last long, since none of the employees were really on board in the first place. (Now, Disney’s creative output is monitored by Toy Story creator John Lasseter, and all is more or less right in the world).
The point is that Pixar thrives on originality. None of its chief animators works on adaptations or remakes, and so their track records remain wholly unique without an iota of redundancy. Pixar’s next release, Up, will almost definitely continue this progress. The movie, which was previewed for a crowd at the Con over the weekend, looks delightfully bittersweet. Centered on the journey of an elderly man named Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Christopher Plummer), the story revolves around his wildly imaginative attempts to go to South America, fulfilling a pact he made with his dearly departed wife. Several absurd plot devices carry him there, including a series of balloons tied to his house that carry the structure right off its foundation and more or less take it in the right direction. Accompanies by a loquacious boy scout, Carl hurtles through a series of misadventures in search of his final destination.
It’s the sort of basic outline that allows animators to work their magic, and director Pete Docter (currently one of three Best Original Screenplay Oscar nominees for writing Wall-E) appears to have done just that. Docter spent four year working on Up, having launched pre-production shortly after completing Monster’s Inc. (a personal favorite of mine). Based on the clips I saw at the Con, he has crafted a nifty brand of adventurous storytelling — simultaneously a throwback to Saturday matinee appeal and an ode the timelessness of the travel narrative.
And then there’s the humor. In one clip, the duo encounter a dog with a mechanical collar that translates his thoughts into a mechanical voice, resulting in a clever twist on the talking animal conceit of innumerable animated films. Of course, Docter and his team could just make the dog talk, but why bother making his lips move when simply projecting them yields a funnier result? As you can see from the informative clip below, computer animated movies have always been able to replicate speech. The real talent comes from people like the folks at Pixar, who know how to say something new.
