Movie City Indie Archive for May, 2013

New On DVD: Lore, Side Effects

Lore

Cate Shortland’s exquisite second feature, her first since her 2004 debut, the cunningly, thrillingly detailed Somersault, makes you wonder why we’ve missed two or three Cate Shortland features in the meantime. Australia’s 2012 Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, Lore is a brute coming-of-age story about five German children who scatter across the countryside in the spring of 1945 as the Allied forces claim the country. (“Laura” is the pronunciation of the diminutive of “Hannelore,” the Nazi-indoctrinated teenager’s name.)

Shortland’s the sort of filmmaker, you watch a scene unfold and you simply say to yourself, I remember, yes, this is what movies ought to look like, what movies can look like, with casting, color, composition, tempo: they can tactile, empathetic, empathic, detailed, suggestive, bold, fragile and altogether a thing of life and dream at once. The blue of inked numerals on forearm effaced by tugging down a deep blue wool sleeve; glisten of child’s blue eyes above rudely blushing mouth, ants prickling at a the vinous red darkened onto a blooded thigh; figurines emblematic of innocence crushed with grown-ups’ finality: painterly yet photographic conjuring.

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Nic Refn On Prostitutes; Hw’d (4’09”) MNSFW

“It’s like sex, you know there’s going to be a climax, you just don’t know when… If you make a movie that costs $100 million, you may have as much control as you want but if that movie doesn’t make half a billion, you’re going to have an issue. Creative control doesn’t mean a whole lot if what’s at stake is so tremendous. Hollywood is like going into a hotel room, a hotel lobby, the Carlton, and seeing the most gorgeous escort girl. And she will say to you, ‘You are the greatest filmmaker in the world, I will do whatever you want,’ do with me what you want, and you’re like so tempted, but you’re also a bit like ‘Am I gonna catch something?’ That’s still how I feel about it. I really want to fuck but I’m not sure that I can, y’know, come yet. Therefore? I have to feel ready to do that.” [Embed via Variety.com.]

Trailering AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS (2’29”)

Yes.

GREAT GATSBY Party Preem In Sydney (4’43”)

Borzage’s MOONRISE (1948) opening (4’58’)

Underappreciated darkness. Borzage’s not just a romantic.

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Stream THE SOURCE FAMILY’s Psychedelic Soundtrack

Class Photo For NYMPH()MANIAC, Opening Christmas Day

They seem nice. Do you think Lars knows about James Griffith’s campaigns for Club 18-30?

“Whether Lars von Trier would return to Cannes withNYMPHOMANIAC has been the subject of speculations ever since the project was announced. Even when the producer publically announced a timeline that didn’t allow for the film to be ready for screening in May, many were still looking for Trier’s two-part work on the Official Competition Lineup for Cannes 2013, when it was revealed. Continued speculations are now directed towards the next question: When will NYMPH()MANIAC have its world premiere?

Zentropa Entertainments and domestic distributor Nordisk Film are happy to put an end to the speculations and announce that Copenhagen, Denmark will be hosting the World Premiere of Lars von Trier’s NYMPH()MANIAC in December 2013. The premiere will consist of a red carpet Galla in early December and a domestic theatrical release on December 25th.

Peter Aalbæk Jensen, CEO Zentropa: “Seeing the film’s visual effects will be a significant part of the storytelling, we’re facing a huge post-production phase and Lars has just begun editing PART II. So December is a good month. Besides, what’s more Christmassy than a film like this?”

To celebrate a locked date for the film’s world premiere, Zentropa Entertainment has released yet another piece of information disclosing the universe of NYMPH()MANIAC; a voluminous ensemble still presenting the main cast. The ensemble still is photographed by Casper Sejersen and features (from left to right): Stacy Martin, Lars von Trier, Shia LaBeouf, Jamie Bell, Udo Kier, Uma Thurman, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Willem Dafoe, Mia Goth, Stellan Skarsgård, Christian Slater, Nicolas Bro, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Connie Nielsen. ” [Nordiskfilm.]

Newt Gingrich’s Compelling New Andy Rooney Impersonation

“Here, at Gingrich Productions…”

Teasing “Cinéma, de notre temps: James Benning and Richard Linklater” (1’58”)

“In 1985, former oil rig worker Richard Linklater began a film screening society in Austin, Texas, that aimed to show classic art-house and experimental films to a budding community of cinephiles and filmmakers. Eventually incorporating as a nonprofit, the newly branded Austin Film Society raised enough money to fly in their first out-of-town invitee: Milwaukee native James Benning, visionary filmmaker, who was then based in New York. Accepting the invitation, Benning met Linklater and immediately the two began to develop a personal and intellectual bond, leading to future screenings and encounters.” [More.]

Trailering FRUITVALE STATION (2’19”)

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon