The Weinstein Company announced the release of Gilles Bourdos' Afterwards, which made its premiere at last year's Toronto International Film Festival and stars Romain Duris, Evangeline Lilly and John Malkovich, for 27 October, skipping a theatrical release altogether. They also announced Philippe Calderon's nature documentary The Besieged Fortress [La citadelle assiégée] for 6 October. There were three or so other films with generic titles and no alternate information from them set for October, so I'll let you know which ones those are when I find out. Their Dragon Dynasty label will also have Jacob Cheung's Battle of the Warriors, better known as the less macho A Battle of Wits everywhere else, on 8 September. And, for more eastern action, Kino is releasing Jeffrey Lau's Chinese Odyssey 2002, which stars Tony Leung, Faye Wong, Chang Chen and Zhao Wei, on 6 October.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
A Few Weinstein Titles for October
The Weinstein Company announced the release of Gilles Bourdos' Afterwards, which made its premiere at last year's Toronto International Film Festival and stars Romain Duris, Evangeline Lilly and John Malkovich, for 27 October, skipping a theatrical release altogether. They also announced Philippe Calderon's nature documentary The Besieged Fortress [La citadelle assiégée] for 6 October. There were three or so other films with generic titles and no alternate information from them set for October, so I'll let you know which ones those are when I find out. Their Dragon Dynasty label will also have Jacob Cheung's Battle of the Warriors, better known as the less macho A Battle of Wits everywhere else, on 8 September. And, for more eastern action, Kino is releasing Jeffrey Lau's Chinese Odyssey 2002, which stars Tony Leung, Faye Wong, Chang Chen and Zhao Wei, on 6 October.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch Will Premiere at Toronto, Plus New from Neil Jordan, Ricky Gervais, Steven Soderbergh
As expected after it didn't show at Cannes, Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch will make its world premiere at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. A Charles Darwin biopic entitled Creation (clever) with real-life husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly playing Mr. and Mrs. Darwin will open the festival. Creation is directed by Jon Amiel, whose previous films range from Copycat to The Core. Other world premieres include Steven Sodebergh's second bow for 2009, The Informat!; Neil Jordan's Ondine; and Ricky Gervais' The Invention of Lying. All of the titles announced today, some of them repeats from Sundance and Cannes, are below.
- Creation - d. Jon Amiel - w. Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly- Get Low - d. Aaron Schneider - w. Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek
- Max Manus - d. Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg
- Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire - d. Lee Daniels
- The Boys Are Back - d. Scott Hicks - w. Clive Owen
- Bright Star - d. Jane Campion
- City of Life and Death - d. Lu Chuan
- Cracks - d. Jordan Scott - w. Eva Green
- Hadewijch - d. Bruno Dumont
- The Informant! - d. Steven Soderbergh - w. Matt Damon
- The Invention of Lying - d. Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson - w. Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Jeffrey Tambor, Fionnula Flanagan, Tina Fey, Rob Lowe, Jason Bateman, Christopher Guest, Patrick Stewart, Stephen Merchant
- Leaves of Grass - d. Tim Blake Nelson - w. Edward Norton, Melanie Lynskey, Susan Sarandon, Keri Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Nelson
- London River - d. Rachid Bouchareb - w. Brenda Blethyn
- Mao's Last Dancer - d. Bruce Beresford - w. Bruce greenwood, Kyle Maclachlan, Joan Chen
- Moloch Tropical - d. Raoul Peck
- Mother - d. Bong Joon-ho
- Ondine - d. Neil Jordan - w. Colin Farrell
- Partir - d. Catherine Corsini - w. Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López
- Scheherazade Tell Me a Story - d. Yousry Nasrallah
- Solitary Man - d. Brian Koppelman, David Levien - w. Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary-Louise Parker, Jenna Fischer
- Valhalla Rising - d. Nicolas Winding Refn - w. Mads Mikkelsen, Jamie Sives
- Vengeance - d. Johnnie To
- The Vinter's Luck - d. Niki Caro - w. Jérémie Renier, Gaspard Ulliel, Vera Farmiga, Keisha Castle-Hughes
Monday, July 13, 2009
C'est l'heure d'été...
Over at Gone Cinema Poaching, I was asked to rank some of the best films of the first six months 0f 2009. Since we were going by US release date, my list was bigger than it would have been otherwise (I've been in kind of a slump). The obvious #1 was Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours [L'heure d'été], but just to shake things up, I also included two direct-to-video French horror flicks: Fabrice Du Welz's Vinyan (think Don't Look Now by way of Apocalypse Now with Emmanuelle Béart as your substitute for Julie Christie) and Pascal Laugier's Martyrs. You can check the full "list" at the link above, and despite both titles ending with the same adverb, there's no clever way of combining Don't Look Now and Apocalypse Now... I've tried.
CriterionForum's Poll of the Best Films of the 1990s
Every so often on the message boards at CriterionForum (no affiliation with Criterion itself), there's a user poll which catalogs the best films of a given time period. It looks like we're on our second time around for each of the decades, and for the first time, I participated in the poll for the Best Films of the 1990s. When the poll was conducted in 2005 for the 90s, Wes Anderson's Rushmore was on top; it's been replaced by Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man this time around. I won't post my own personal list, as I didn't put a whole lot of thought into my choices, and there's probably quite a few films I'd be ashamed to say I haven't seen, but here were the results when compiled earlier this month.
01. Dead Man - d. Jim Jarmusch02. Chungking Express - d. Wong Kar-wai
03. The Thin Red Line - d. Terrence Malick
04. Eyes Wide Shut - d. Stanley Kubrick
05. Sátántangó - d. Béla Tarr
06. Happy Together - d. Wong Kar-wai
07. A Brighter Summer Day - d. Edward Yang
08. Goodfellas - d. Martin Scorsese
09. The Double Life of Véronique [La double-vie de Véronique] - d. Krzysztof Kieslowski
10. Three Colours: Red [Trois couleurs: Rouge] - d. Krzysztof Kieslowski
11. Rushmore - d. Wes Anderson12. Three Colours: Blue [Trois couleurs: Bleu] - d. Krzysztof Kieslowski
13. The Wind Will Carry Us - d. Abbas Kiarostami
14. Safe - d. Todd Haynes
15. Miller's Crossing - d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
16. Magnolia - d. Paul Thomas Anderson
17. The Big Lebowski - d. Joel Coen
18. Fucking Åmål [Show Me Love] - d. Lukas Moodysson
19. Irma Vep - d. Olivier Assayas
20. Close Up - d. Abbas Kiarostami
21. Rosetta - d. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne22. Van Gogh - d. Maurice Pialat
23. Boogie Nights - d. Paul Thomas Anderson
24. To Sleep with Anger - d. Charles Burnett
25. Short Cuts - d. Robert Altman
26. Life and Nothing But [La vie et rien d'autre] - d. Bertrand Tavernier
27. Ratcatcher - d. Lynne Ramsay
28. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me - d. David Lynch
29. Pulp Fiction - d. Quentin Tarantino
30. Lost Highway - d. David Lynch
31. All About My Mother [Todo sobre mi madre] - d. Pedro Almodóvar32. Fallen Angels - d. Wong Kar-wai
33. Husbands and Wives - d. Woody Allen
34. Exotica - d. Atom Egoyan
35. Groundhog Day - d. Harold Ramis
36. Raise the Red Lantern - d. Zhang Yimou
37. Jackie Brown - d. Quentin Tarantino
38. Unforgiven - d. Clint Eastwood
39. Naked - d. Mike Leigh
40. La promesse - d. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
41. Fargo - d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen42. Naked Lunch - d. David Cronenberg
43. Goodbye South Goodbye - d. Hou Hsiao-hsien
44. Buffalo '66 - d. Vincent Gallo
45. The Taste of Cherry - d. Abbas Kiarostami
46. The Hole - d. Tsai Ming-liang
47. Underground - d. Emir Kusturica
48. Lessons of Darkness [Lektionen in Finsternis] - d. Werner Herzog
49. Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers - d. Nick Park
50. La belle noiseuse - d. Jacques Rivette
51. Crash - d. David Cronenberg52. Barton Fink - d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
53. The Silence of the Lambs - d. Jonathan Demme
54. Time Regained [Le temps retrouvé] - d. Raoul Ruiz
55. La cérémonie - d. Claude Chabrol
55. The Power of Kangwon Province - d. Hong Sang-soo
57. L.A. Confidential - d. Curtis Hanson
58. Ed Wood - d. Tim Burton
59. Sink or Swim - d. Su Friedrich
60. Princess Mononoke - d. Hayao Miyazaki
61. Days of Being Wild - d. Wong Kar-wai62. Only Yesterday - d. Isao Takahata
63. Beau travail - d. Claire Denis
63. Heat - d. Michael Mann
65. Mother and Son - d. Aleksandr Sokurov
66. Fight Club - d. David Fincher
67. Lovers on the Bridge [Les amants du Pont-Neuf] - d. Leos Carax
67. Being John Malkovich - d. Spike Jonze
69. After Life - d. Hirokazu Koreeda
70. L'humanité - d. Bruno Dumont
71. El sol del membrillo [The Dream of Life] - d. Víctor Erice72. Flowers of Shanghai - d. Hou Hsiao-hsien
72. My Own Private Idaho - d. Gus Van Sant
74. Nénette & Boni - d. Claire Denis
74. Trust - d. Hal Hartley
76. Funny Games - d. Michael Haneke
77. The Long Day Closes - d. Terence Davies
78. Breaking the Waves - d. Lars von Trier
79. The Kingdom [Riget] - d. Morten Arnfred, Lars von Trier
80. La haine - d. Mathieu Kassovitz
80. Hana-bi [Fireworks] - d. Takeshi Kitano
82. Hoop Dreams - d. Steve James83. The Match Factory Girl [Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö] - d. Aki Kaurismäki
84. The Straight Story - d. David Lynch
85. JFK - d. Oliver Stone
85. Whisper of the Heart - d. Yoshifumi Kondo
87. Election - d. Alexander Payne
87. The Sweet Hereafter - d. Atom Egoyan
89. Bullets Over Broadway - d. Woody Allen
89. Drifting Clouds [Kauas pilvet karkaavat] - d. Aki Kaurismäki
91. Sonatine - d. Takashi Kitano92. The Celebration [Festen] - d. Thomas Vinterberg
92. A Moment of Innocence - d. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
94. Waiting for Guffman - d. Christopher Guest
95. Seven - d. David Fincher
96. Before Sunrise - d. Richard Linklater
97. The Player - d. Robert Altman
98. The Age of Innocence - d. Martin Scorsese
99. Rebels of the Neon God - d. Tsai Ming-liang
99. Slacker - d. Richard Linklater
Of the list, 6 have never been released on DVD in the US: A Brighter Summer Day, DVD Update, 13 July
Not a totally exciting list, but here's what's been announced recently, in descending order of release.DVD
- Sleep Dealer, 2008, d. Alex Rivera, Maya Releasing, also on Blu-ray, 8 September- Marelene, 1984, d. Maximilian Schell, Kino, 6 October
- Made in France [Origine contrôlée], 2001, d. Ahmed Bouchaala, Zakia Tahri, Synkronized USA, 13 October, w. Ronit Elkabetz
- Black Rain, 1989, d. Shohei Imamura, AnimEigo, 20 October
- Fados, 2007, d. Carlos Saura, Zeitgeist, 20 October
- Born of Fire, 1983, d. Jamil Dehlavi, Mondo Macabro, 27 October, w. Peter Firth
- Graveyard Disturbance [Una notte al cimitero], 1987, d. Lamberto Bava, MYA Communication, 27 October
Blu-ray
- The Exorcist, 1973, d. William Friedkin, Warner, 8 September- Easy Rider, 1969, d. Dennis Hopper, Sony, 13 October
- Heat, 1995, d. Michael Mann, Warner, 10 November
Some Changes
The Blu-rays of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead have been upped to 22 September. Jeremiah Zagar's In a Dream will now be out 29 September. The Blu-ray of sex, lies and videotape has been pushed to 15 September. The news about a release of the theatrical version of Grindhouse on DVD and Blu-ray was bogus. Shout! Factory will also release a 2-disc Collector's Edition of Audition on DVD in addition to the Blu-ray on 7 October. And finally, Kino's I Can See You and The Viewer will now be out 27 October instead of in September.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Upskirts for Christ!
Over at The Auteurs, Andrew Grant and I discussed Sion Sono's amazing four hour-long epic Love Exposure, which you should absolutely seek out if you haven't already. It should be mentioned though that our conversation is full of "spoilers."
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Neil Young's ELECTRIC 1959 Lincoln Continental
When my colleague David Bell of retail planners/advisers Thomas Consultants Inc. read about Vancouver's proposed electric charging facilities requirement, he asked me whether it would work for Neil Young's Electric Lincoln Convertible. I had not even heard of this car. But as the once proud owner of a 1961 Lincoln Continental Convertible (the one with the suicide doors!) I had to check it out. Here's what I found:
Neil Young has decided to make himself an example of how hybrid electric cars can be produced with existing technology and without the loss of style with his Lincvolt, an all-electric version of the awesome 1959 Lincoln Continental Mark IV Convertible. He's been working with noted alternative energy nerd Johnathan Goodwin and his company, H-Line Conversions, to develop the car, in current form an electric with an on-board compressed natural gas generator. Young wants the 5,000 pound, 19.5 foot long convertible to be an example to everyone that you can convert any car to run cleaner. The Lincvolt will be entered into the Progressive Automotive X-Prize competition and make an attempt at 100 MPG equivalent fuel economy - a far, far cry from the original mileage. You can learn more about the car and see it's live unveil over at the project website: Lincvolt.com. [Telegraph.co.uk]
Bioregional Quintain, the developer of Bed-Zed in Sutton, UK fitted charging facilities to its own parking facilities about 10 years ago. Bonds worked on a major social housing scheme on an adjacent site and included charging sockets 5 years back. The client's rep used to visit their offices in his electric car and leave a trailing electric cord for them to trip over, as it dangled out the window and crossed a busy footpath to his car!
Phil believes that electric cars are definitely the future, "I give it just 5 years to there being 25%
take up". I'm not that optimistic, but I do expect that there will be many electric cars on the road by then. Furthermore, developers will be able to sell the underground parking spaces with charging facilities at a premium, which will more than offset the additional cost of installation.
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