Movie City Indie Archive for February, 2008
Wright as rave: Joe W. on the ecstacy of his imagery
Do some research, ask the right questions, everybody’s got stories. Joe Wright “hasn’t had a drink for nine months, which, to anyone who knew him a few years ago, will be a surprise,” Jason Solomons writes in the Guardian. “Wright hit the London rave scene in the early Nineties, when he and a friend, Adam Smith (currently directing hit TV show Skins) were part of an outfit called Vegetable Vision, creating visuals for acts including the Chemical Brothers, Darren Emerson and Andrew Weatherall. ‘I was definitely off my head on ecstasy for quite a few years,’ he admits. ‘I was up a scaffold, 60ft above this seething mass of people, matching visuals to music from these amazing DJs. I’d put a slide of raw meat next to maggots, or a shot of police in riot uniform next to Campbell’s tinned soup and I’d flash between the two to the music and the crowd.'” Solomon gets Wright to arrive at this: “[P]roducers who were part of the rave generation themselves are trusting directors influenced by it with bigger budgets now. I know I managed to get that rave feeling into Pride and Prejudice, just little suggestions of it in all the pastoral beauty. I love dawn shots, or shots after the rain has stopped, because I always loved staying up all night till dawn, when it all got still and calm. Scenes like that act as emotional recall for me and I’m sure for anyone who was doing ecstasy back then. Those feelings are in Atonement, too. [The extended tracking shot on the beach is] like one big rave, a really trippy 
scene… And then there’s the use of the graphics in the earlier scene when Bryony reads the wrong, lewd letter from Robbie to Cecilia. I managed to get the word “cunt” to fill the screen in old Courier font – we used to do that for Underworld lightshows.’ I can’t believe that Joe has had the chutzpah to get a Best Picture nomination for a film that does indeed flash up the C word three times. On the plane over to LA, I watch Atonement again on the in-flight movie channel. As the scene of Robbie typing his fateful letter to Cecilia comes up, I glance along the cabin to see the C-word emblazoned on dozens of little seat-back screens. When you’re hot in Hollywood, you can get away with anything.”
The Hottie… grosses $220 per at 111 screens
You have to pay for cable, right? I like this Mika Brzezinski person. Joe Scarborough? The pride of Florida!
Eva Dahlbeck, 1920-2008
![[RIP] Eva Dahlbeck.jpg](/archived/mcnblogs/mcindie/archives/images/%5BRIP%5D%20Eva%20Dahlbeck.jpg)
AFP: Bergman actress Eva Dahlbeck dies aged 87: “Swedish actress and author Eva Dahlbeck, most famous for numerous appearances in movies by legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, has died,… She was 87. Dahlbeck, who had long suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, died at a Stockholm retirement home on Friday… Born on March 8, 1920, Dahlbeck was one of Sweden’s most celebrated actresses in the 1940s and 50s and was most well-known for her lead roles in such Bergman films as his 1952 “Secrets of Women”, “A Lesson in Love” (1954) and “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955). Bergman himself died last July 30 at the age of 89. Dahlbeck, who attended Sweden’s prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre acting school, received the Eugene O’Neil Award in 1961 for her stage performances. She also wrote around a dozen novels.”
Bad for glass, worse for brain: mad, mad Ronaldo-san
Hilton on Japan writes of “Insane Ronald-san”: “Mass kudos to the artist who edited this series of clips of the Japanese Ronald McDonald (known as Donald, or Ronaldo-san in Japan). This is wild beyond wild, and captures (for me at least) the essence of all that is McDonald’s hyper-marketing machinations. If they could, I have no doubt they would produce commercials like this, play ’em in endless loops in elementary schools around the world at full volume, and transform us all. Or maybe they already did…’
Maggie Gyllenhaal and Paul Mazursky make interim agreements
Misdefined words: what does "Maverick" mean? QT explains
Sometimes pop has it all over politics… While using the word “Maverick” to describe someone who’s old enough to have taken multiple positions on every issue under the sun, doesn’t it also ring of other things, like Roger Avary’s “party piece” by Quentin Tarantino appropriated in Rory Kelly’s Sleep With Me (1994)? “What’s a film about, what’s it really about? What genre does it take? … [T]he whole idea, man, is subversion. You want subversion on a massive level. You know what one of the greatest f—ng scripts ever written in the history of Hollywood is? Top Gun… Top Gun is f—ing great. What is Top Gun? You think it’s a story about a bunch of fighter pilots… It is a story about a man’s struggle with his own homosexuality. It is! That is what Top Gun is about, man. You’ve got Maverick, all right? He’s on the edge, man. He’s right on the f—ing line, all right? And you’ve got Iceman, and all his crew. They’re gay, they represent the gay man, all right? And they’re saying, go, go the gay way, go the gay way. He could go both ways…” [Clip below.]
A simple sentiment: maybe it's true
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus – Official Site – Coming Soon.
Where in the world is Bill Forsyth?
When Bill Forsyth’s last feature, Gregory’s 2 Girls, was on the circuit in 1999, I got to talk to him in a couple of countries. Such a sweet, smart man, with his own ideas about how to live his life. He demurred each observation I offered, no matter how precise and specific. If Housekeeping were available on DVD in the States, its influence could not be understated. Now this: “It is his best-known and best-loved work,” writes Tim Teeman in the Times of London, “but Bill Forsyth, the writer and director of Gregory’s Girl, doesn’t own a copy, and doesn’t want to. “I’ve always said, as far as I’m concerned once you’ve made a movie, it’s the kid that’s left home,” he says plainly. “I used to say, if I saw one of my movies walking down the street, I wouldn’t cross the road to say hello.” … Silence has reigned for the last eight years. No films. No word of Forsyth. “I just write, live, have a nice life,” he says. He and his partner Moira have been together for five years and live in the Western Scottish countryside. They first went out in their early twenties before his marriage to Adrienne Atkinson with whom he has two children. He has written for HBO and is developing a British-based comedy with the American sitcom queen Caryn Mandabach. The public impression is things went very wrong for you, I say. “That’s strange. I don’t see that shape,” Forsyth says. “I don’t remember tripping up along the way. I just kept going. I have to put my hand on my heart and say I’m ten times happier not making films than making films.” he says. I did it ‘cos they let me. It’s not something you decline… I can’t stand the cinema. We did go once three or four years ago just to experience it. We went to a mall outside Glasgow and had a pretty horrendous experience.” What did he see? “I’m blushing,” he says, and he is, and he is laughing too.
Screenwriter Ronald Harwood on the Hollywood bucks
“Harwood is drily optimistic that agreement will be reached (“I think the Writers Guild are having their balls squeezed”) but far more certain that any settlement will make no difference to writers’ income. “I’ve had a piece of every picture I’ve ever written. I’ve never had a penny. David Lean said to me at a party just after The Dresser, ‘Do you want to make money out of movies?’ I said, ‘I’d love to.’ He said, ‘Go into the film studio; go and find the office where they’re counting the money; you’ll see men in suits on their knees stuffing money into sacks. The money they can’t get in, grab, because that’s all you’re going to get.’ “It’s the game. There is nothing you can do about it.”
Trailering Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? (2008)
I wonder if this will ever even be released after its underwhelming Sundance debut… Maybe right after Blueberry Nights?
Brin like Flynn: "Help us, Sergey and Larry…"
Сергей Михайлович Брин!
911 is the only-est number: Trailering Manoj Shyamalan's The Happening
Trailering Michael Almereyda's New Orleans Mon Amour (SxSW)
Filmmaking doesn't get any simpler, even in 30 seconds
Ummmm… I think you know where this one is going….
