Critically maligned Prom Night,
featuring both Brittany Snow (below, but on much more interesting display here) and the stone-faced intensity of yes-he-really-spells-his-name-like-that killer Johnathon Schaech, took the top spot at the domestic box office this weekend, stealing an estimated $20.8 million out of the wallets of mostly regretful 13- to 25-year-olds. The weekend’s other big new wide release, urban cop thriller Street Kings, placed second with a $12.4 million take. Ensemble blackjack flick 21, starring Jim Sturgess, continued to display staying power, taking third place with $10.4 million; this brings the movie’s total gross to just under $62 million in three weeks of release. Rounding out the top five were Nim’s Island, starring Jodie Foster and Abigail Breslin, with $9.1 million, and George Clooney’s period piece football comedy, Leatherheads, with $6.2 million.
Completing the top 10 were Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who ($5.9 million for the weekend, $139.5 million in total), the mostly derided ensemble dramedy Smart People ($4.1 million in its first frame), The Ruins ($3.4 million in its second weekend, for a total of $13.5 million), Superhero Movie, ($3.2 million, $21.3 million in total), and Owen Wilson’s Drillbit Taylor ($2 million, $28.4 million in total).
Walt Disney Studios confirmed the future face of animation in an announcement and email this week, throwing its full weight behind
three-dimensional cinema by pledging that all its future animated
releases — starting with Bolt this November, and continuing with re-releases of the first two Toy Story films, leading up to the debut of Toy Story 3 in the summer of 2010 — will be in 3-D. Disney has now become the second studio, after Jeffrey
Katzenberg made a similar pledge at DreamWorks Animation, to vow to produce animated content exclusively in the format. The
announcement came at a New York press conference this past week, as chairman
Dick Cook and Pixar creative czar John Lasseter unveiled 10 new titles
scheduled to open between now and 2012, including a sequel to 2006’s Cars.
There’s a great, rangy and beautifully awkward Q&A with Tommy Lee Jones in the March/April issue of 02138 (yup, that’s the name of the magazine), though I would disagree with writer Richard Bradley’s assertion that Jones has acquired a reputation as only sometimes being aloof, surly and disdainful of the rituals of movie marketing. Trust me, this guy is a certified, top-shelf red-ass who could shit in coffee cans for weeks if he had to. (He just might, anyways.) It’s in Jones’ blood, and it doesn’t matter whether he thinks your questions are modestly interesting or intelligent. If you’re a journalist, you’ve already been given an 0-2 count, because Jones does not want to be talking to you. In this regard, Cobb might have offered Jones his greatest role.
Bradley tries to lure Jones into politically comparative territory during the chat, which touches on In the Valley of Elah, No Country for Old Men, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and ousted Harvard President Lawrence Summers, among other topics. Through it all, Jones spits out his opinions as characteristically sun-dried horse puckey. (Sample line: “The idea of a fence between El Paso and Brownsville bears all the credibility and seriousness of flying saucers from Mars or leprechauns — or any manner of malicious, paranoid superstition. In other words, it’s bullshit.”) For the piece, click here.
He pioneered a staccato style that would become highly imitated, but playwright, screenwriter and director David Mamet is still one of the more distinctive voices in American independent film — one that will be celebrated at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica in the coming weeks. A sneak preview of Mamet’s newest film, Redbelt, will be held on Thursday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m., followed by an in-person discussion with the director. Friday, April 18 will feature a double feature of 1992’s Glengarry Glen Ross, starring Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin, and 1996’s American Buffalo, starring Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Franz and Sean Nelson. Double features of The Spanish Prisoner and Heist (Saturday, April 19) and House of Games and Homicide (Wednesday, April 23) will also be screened.
The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for these movies, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.
Recorded live in 2006 at the House of Blues in New Orleans and at The Downtown in Farmingdale, New York, Zebra: The DVD is part concert disc, part drama-free band autobiography. It offers up choice, meat-and-potatoes rock ‘n’ roll cuts from a group that’s been around more than 30 years, nicely interspersed with a chronological recounting of the band’s formation in Louisiana all the way through its big break in New York City.
Comprised of lead singer Randy Jackson (no, not the American Idol guy), bass guitarist Felix Hanemann and drummer Guy Gelso, Zebra got together in the mid-1970s in New Orleans, as a Led Zeppelin cover band. They sprinkled in a few of their own tunes as well, and had soon won over a legion of local fans. Initially selling their own musical craftsmanship and technical talents over any pretense of artistry worked well for the local scene, but it left them on the outside looking in when it came to easily landing a record deal. A couple abortive meet-the-labels trips to New York made for some frazzled nerves, but a New Year’s Eve show opening for Rat Race Choir in 1976 helped pave the way for bigger things. WBAB 104.3 deejay Bob Buchman eventually started spinning their demo, anchored by “Who’s Behind the Door,” and talked up the group to Jason Thom, current chairman and CEO of Atlantic Records, but then a fresh-faced, 22-year-old A&R underling just set up by his big-shot lawyer daddy.
Engrossing stories like these stud Zebra: The DVD, and help contextualize the songs, which include the aforementioned single, “As I Said Before,” “Wait Until the Summer’s Gone,” “Light of My Love,” “But No More,” “One More Chance,” “No Tellin’ Lies,” “Tell Me What You Want,” “The La La Song,” “Bears” and “My Life Has Changed,” among others. A nice 25-minute set-up gives the history of the band, and the concert cuts play out over the course of another 90 minutes and change. Between tunes the band offers brief words about the history of the song and its inception, or a celebrity fan (The Tonight Show‘s John Melendez, say) pops up to introduce it. On the surface this might seem to rob the disc of momentum, but it actually worked well, in my opinion. Some of the interview claims herein (a six-hour send-off gig in New Orleans?) stretch credulity, but Jackson and all the guys are so affable and down-to-Earth that you don’t begrudge them a momentary exaggeration.
Housed in a regular Amray case, Zebra: The DVD is presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with crisp picture and a solid, Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. A seven-minute, stand-alone promo on the DVD itself is included, as well as 15 additional minutes of extra interview material. There’s also six-plus minutes of cool behind-the-scenes material with Hanemann, as he hosts a mini-garage walk through, showing off old T-shirts and other memorabilia from the band’s early days. To purchase the disc via Amazon, click here. For more on Zebra, click here, says the DVD. B (Movie) A- (Disc)
In lieu of taking in this weekend’s Prom Night, or other dreck at the theater, one might be advised to simply enjoy an analytical look back at the story of the original, very Canadian slasher film, from 1980, and its desperate stabs at Americanization. Telly Davidson has a piece up on FilmStew; to enjoy it, click here.
British indie flick The Living and the Dead, a multiple award winner at Austin’s Fantastic Fest a couple years back, is certainly out of step with much of the cinematic output of its national brethren, but never less than rather mesmerizingly so. An unnervingly, chilly blend of madness and pathos, the film is a solid, horrifically engrossing portrait of the slow slide into madness, and the ripple effect that psychological disorders can have on families.
Shot in 2006, The Living and the Dead captures family dysfunction at its most shocking and grotesque. With bankruptcy looming, financially desperate Donald Brocklebank (Roger Lloyd Pack) must leave his bedridden wife Nancy (Kate Fahy) alone with their son James (Leo Bill), a mentally impaired, schizophrenic man-child. Abandoning his medication, James spirals downward into a horrific fit of dementia, locking out both his father and a visiting nurse from their sprawling, palatial estate, and playing solo caretaker to his mother, insisting that “the more [pills] you take, the better you get.” As his ability to distinguish reality from morbid fantasy starts to first fray and then outright rot, James plunges into a mental labyrinth so violent and deranged that it holds dire consequences for everyone involved.
Written and directed by Simon Rumley (Club Le Monde, The Truth Game), and powered by a meticulously constructed sense of atmospheric dread, The Living and the Dead recalls claustrophobic thrillers like William Friedkin’s Bug, and certainly Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery, but also something like Brad Anderson’s Session 9. Shot over the course of 18 days at the Savernam Estate’s cavernous Tottenhouse House in the English countryside — a location that effectively doubles as an extra character in the otherwise spare, intimate psychological drama — the movie unfolds in mostly long-take wide shots, though Rumley also isn’t afraid to stage a canted angle for art’s sake. Rumley has described the roots of the inspiration for the film as coming from his mother’s treatment for terminal cancer, and watching the manner in which medications and the lack of greater social interaction destroyed her connection with the world at large. That mangy sense of pained isolation comes through here. Bill looks sort of like a cousin of Ewan Bremmer, and his twitchy performance creates genuine discomfort — which is of course the entire point.
Housed in a clear, regular Amray case with a paper insert touting a series of TLA releases, The Living and the Dead is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a 5.1 Dolby digital audio track. Along with the movie’s original theatrical trailer and a gallery of four other previews for other TLA pictures, supplemental extras consist of a one-minute photo montage, 13 minutes of deleted scenes and Laughter, a 13-minute short film from earlier Rumley’s career, shot in grainy black-and-white. There is also a very nicely done 26-minute making-of featurette, which includes loads of on-set footage and interview material with Rumley, who talks a lot about the difficulties in raising financing for the movie, his fourth feature, as well as its place alongside his other work. To purchase the movie via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)
Keanu Reeves appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last evening, in support of Street Kings, and he and Leno talked motorbikes (a shared love) and past employment. In his inimitably self-effacing yet still detached style, Reeves recalled his adolescent jobs — which included paper routes, landscaping work, sharpening skates at a hockey rink and “an underground Italian specialty food store,” where he enjoyed a five- or six-month rise from “sandwich creator” to manager. Reeves also talked about how he gained weight and bulked up for his role in the movie… something of which I saw, or recollect, no evidence.
Universal has up a nice viral faux-fan site for Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which opens next week. Nice mainly because it includes a lot of pictures of Kristen Bell. The two best — “Season’s Hottest Fundraiser” and “Sarah Marshall’s Day Off,” for entirely different reasons.
So Prom Night, featuring the stone-faced intensity of yes-he-really-spells-his-name-like-that killer Johnathon Schaech and the umm, much more interesting assets of Brittany Snow, isn’t screening for critics, apart from a come-and-get-it-if-you-want-it 10 a.m. “courtesy screening” this morning, its day of release. What a shock, really. This is the new confirmed writ-in-stone trend for PG-13 horror flicks.
It shakes me to my core, semi-honestly, but in support of the recent DVD release of Alvin and the Chipmunks, there will be at least a half dozen free, live, stage show concerts performed in San Diego and San Francisco. The event in the latter city is tomorrow afternoon and evening, April 11, at Newpark Mall, at 3 p.m., 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m.; the former is Sunday night, at the Chula Vista Center, at noon, 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. Bring your own helium balloons, I guess…
I caught The Weinstein Company’s The Promotion last night — for all intents and purposes the directorial debut of Steve Conrad, writer of The Weather Man and The Pursuit of Happyness — and I rather adored it in a small, to-scale way. The story of two mid-level Chicago supermarket employees (Seann William Scott and John C. Reilly) who compete for a
coveted managerial post at a new store location, it’s not for all tastes, I’ll concede, and I don’t want to oversell it — it’s not flat-out great. But it’s one of the most steadfastly low-fi movies about male existential crisis I’ve ever seen, and I appreciated that it kept surprising me in small but meaningful ways. Plus Jenna Fischer costars in a small role as Scott’s wife, and she’s always a welcome sight, let’s face it. No idea what the crap is up with Conrad’s Chad Schmidt, starring Brad Pitt (if anyone in the know knows, drop me a line), but this did certainly further whet my appetite for that.
So Son of Rambow, which premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and has been hung up in rights-related distribution limbo ever since, came in second place at the box office in the United Kingdom this past weekend, with the British indie nabbing almost £1million in its first four days.
Set during a long, hot summer in 1982, the film — opening in New York and Los Angeles on May 2, from Paramount Vantage — revolves around two 11-year old scamps who, after seeing First Blood for the first time, decide to film their own sequel with nothing more than a camcorder and, natch, some imagination. That hearty across-the-pond embrace, its blossoming early critical support (especially when compared to the recent Rambo‘s still-too-generous 32% on Rotten Tomatoes aggregate Tomatometer), and my sincere admiration for director Garth Jennings’ work on 2005’s adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, may yet persuade me to check it out, assignment be damned. We’ll see. These are some of the in-field considerations one must juggle… wants versus obligations.
In 1989, Winona Ryder appeared alongside Christian Slater in Heathers,
written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehman, and the result
was akin to a bunker-penetrating bombshell — something that bore
results with a bit of time. A darkly comedic attack on the cozy pieties present in most teen flicks, Heathers — an even more wickedly canted take-down of adolescent social cliques than its most recent descendant, Mean Girls
— assayed popularity, teen suicide and downright sociopathic behavior
with equal, cold-water-to-the-face irreverence. Though the film grossed
only a bit above $1 million in theaters, it became a sensation in the
rental and nascent sell-thru market — the very definition of a cult
hit.
Sex and Death 101
represents a reunion between Ryder and Waters. And while she isn’t the
lead, per se, it is the most many fans will have had an opportunity to
see from a “real” Ryder in some time, after several indie flicks, a
small role in the anthology comedy The Ten and a prominent role in Richard Linklater’s rotoscope-animated A Scanner Darkly. Weird, funny, engaging and spiritedly thoughtful even if not always
successful, the pairing seems to celebrate a certain reunion of like
minds.
Waters’ first film behind the camera since 2001’s Happy Campers, his only other directing credit, Sex and Death 101 centers around Roderick Blank (Something Different‘s
Simon Baker), a successful advertising executive who, just weeks before
his marriage to Fiona (Julie Bowen), gets a mysterious email that
contains the names of everyone he’s ever had or will have sex with, 101 women in
total. The rub is that it doesn’t end with his wife-to-be — in fact,
she’s nowhere near the last name. In the midst of this “sacrilegious
epiphany,” and finding no relief from a trio of bizarro-world
comptrollers (Robert Wisdom, Patton Oswalt and Tanc Sade) from whom the
list originated, Roderick throws himself headlong into the sheer,
delicious variety (centerfolds, bisexual astronauts) of his predicted
future, but soon finds matters dulled without the thrill of the chase,
and even worse when a new, true love (Leslie Bibb) turns out not to be
on the list. All this is crosscut with and eventually complicated by,
meanwhile, the story of a woman, known only as “Death Nell” (Ryder),
who’s gaining a media following as a murderous femme fatale, putting
all sorts of bad men in comas.
From start to conclusion, Sex and Death 101
is an exercise in wheel-spinning hijinks much more than any analysis.
(“I’m sure there’s some logical explanation for all this, but I’m not
going to wait around for it,” says Roderick at one point.) Waters has
in the past described his personal sensibility as “Bunuel meets Caddyshack,” and that description aptly captures some of the wild tonal shifts that mark Sex and Death 101
— a movie that includes a gross-out bait-and-switch reminiscent of
Stifler’s clandestine closet hook-up in American Wedding, but also
sincere questions and insight about the existential crises to be found
in knowing beforehand one’s lovers (and, by extension, non-lovers). How
much of life, and the appropriation of our time, is in pursuit or
purchase of these tangible acts? While Baker is the lens through which
the story is told, Ryder is its scythe-bearing, no-BS conscience, and a
late diner scene in particular offers up powerful proof of (no pun
intended here) her ability to kill softly.
In the end, Sex and Death 101 isn’t so much profound in and of itself as it is a fun, sloppy
treatment of a profoundly interesting premise. It’s a movie that feels like it should
be reverse-adapted into a book. As a reunion project between Waters and
Ryder, though, it feels right, leaving one wanting for thirds. For the
full original review, from FilmStew, click here. (Anchor Bay/Avenue Pictures, R, 116 minutes)
With yesterday’s news of the delay, until February, 2009, of Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise and Kenneth Branagh, FilmStew has up a nice piece tying it to another hot story — that of an online petition aimed at gathering one million signatures to ban forevermore from the film industry that most enthusiastic German mangler of celluloid, Uwe Boll. The twist is that FilmStew has now launched their own, new, tongue-in-cheek petition… the aim of which is to get United Artists to hand the reins of Valkyrie over to Boll. One can dream, certainly…
From the hoo-ah! delivery of its lines to a parade of scrupulously
groomed facial hair and tattoos, machismo comes oozing out of every
pore of Street Kings, a corrupt cop drama that expends so much energy
trying to convince audiences that it’s hardcore that it rather quickly
devolves into serial silliness.
Los Angeles Detective Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) is the stalest of clichés — a boozing, world-weary police officer with a dead wife. He’s also the more-than-willing tip of the spear for his boss, Jack Wander (Forest Whitaker), a social-climbing captain with an eye on higher office. When there are issues that need to be taken care of without the hassle of warrants and pesky paperwork, Ludlow is more than happy to shoot first, and let his captain vouch for him and answer questions later.
Things come to head, though, when Internal Affairs Captain James Biggs (Hugh Laurie) starts poking around. Then bad goes to worse when Ludlow’s whistle-blowing ex-partner (Terry Crews), with whom he had a very nasty falling out, gets brutally murdered with Ludlow on the scene. Shifted to a pencil-pushing desk job, Ludlow steels himself to settle the score, but finds the hunt for the chief suspects more complicated than usual. Forced to go up against the corrupt culture of which he’s been a part his entire his entire career, Ludlow is left not knowing whom to trust.
Noir heavyweight James Ellroy has a story and script credit on Street Kings‘ much-tinkered-on screenplay, but don’t let that — or the movie’s heavily peddled list of co-stars, which includes some requisite eye candy (7 Dias‘ Martha Higareda), a couple holding-deal 20th Century Fox favorites (Laurie, Chris Evans) and a pair of hip-hop musicians (Common, The Game) — fool one into thinking that this film has either the involving, ensemble, labyrinthine swirl of L.A. Confidential or the menacing punch of Training Day, the two movies with which it most desperately wants to be associated. (Other similar films include To Live and Die in L.A., Dark Blue and Dirty, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr.)
In fact, Street Kings evinces no particular insight or thought other than the sum of its component commercial parts. It’s that attempt to create an easily marketable genre piece that quite obviously led Fox Searchlight and the film’s producers to the doorstep of Training Day‘s writer and Street Kings‘ helmer, David Ayer, who made his directorial debut with the similarly gritty Harsh Times, but can’t be judged one way or another here, so convoluted is the story.
There’s a certain credibility in some of the film’s detail, and its salty, politically incorrect dialogue. “You dress white, talk black and drive Jew, so how am I supposed to tell (your ethnicity)?” spits Ludlow early on, baiting some Korean bad guys into beating him up. But the conspiracies on display in Street Kings are so hollow, and its characters, particularly Wander, are required to so frequently verbalize their supposedly illicit intentions or deeds that any legitimate tension or sense of believability simply evaporates.
Appreciatively, a few new unintentionally hilarious “Keanuisms” (“This thing you want, you think you want, you don’t want!”) get minted along the way, but it’s long before the finale involving both a long-winded explication of the cover-up that’s just been unraveled and a character proudly displaying his secret, wall-hidden stash of cash, guns and other valuables that Street Kings has moved from passingly ridiculous to boring to flat-out ludicrous. For the full original review, from Reelz, click here. (Fox Searchlight, R, 108 minutes)
Exploitation and envelope-pushing DVD distributor Synapse Films has relaunched their web site, with new features, tons of trailers and a complete library of their past releases. Forthcoming releases include Japanese director Seiichi Fukuda’s Madame O, 1986’s Lucker the Necrophagous and Maid in Sweden, starlet Christina Lindberg’s debut movie. For more, click here.
So mono-browed, sarcastic deejay Adam Carolla’s Dancing with the Stars run is apparently over, as of last night. After two weeks of appearances, he survived the first trim of two contestants, then made it another week, besting Steve Guttenberg (much to the chagrin of Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, one supposes). Still, the four-week run didn’t necessarily seem to reap immediate benefits for Carolla’s new film, The Hammer, which has only crawled past the $320,000 mark after two-plus weeks of release. I’m assuming, though I don’t know for sure, that indie boutique distributor International Film Circuit scraped together enough money for at least a quick ad buy or two. If not, they should scrap the International in favor of another adjective beginning with the letter “I.”
It’s a happy birthday to Jenna Jameson, who turns 34 today, and perhaps celebrates by lathering up her now-implant-free breasts. After a dozen years or so in the hardcore biz, Jameson is making the leap to legit theatricals with the very tongue-in-cheek Zombie Strippers, which opens next week, April 18, in a dozen-plus cities, and on April 25 in a few more. I interviewed Jameson this past week, and she’s a fascinating gal, so there will be more on that chat (including her opinions on Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush), as well as the aforementioned movie, in the coming week-plus.
An erotic, indie, sci-fi fantasy like no other, Socket finds a pair of gay lovers literally getting a jolt as they plug in for pleasure. Written and directed by Sean Abley, the movie centers on Dr. Bill Matthews (Derek Long), a square-jawed surgeon who, after getting struck by lightning, gets some extra special care from mysterious, smoldering intern Craig Murphy (Matthew Montgomery). Having survived the same natural accident, Craig introduces his new friend to an underground group that uses electricity to reach dizzying new heights of ecstasy. Soon the two develop an insatiable appetite for one another that matches their illicit love for… wall outlets. You see, using his talents as a surgeon, Bill goes that extra step in chasing down the ultimate charge.
A movie about the intersection of the biological, mechanical and sexual, Socket is a film that owes a lot to the work of David Cronenberg; I’m thinking in particular of Videodrome, eXistenZ, and 1996’s Crash — the latter with its focus on the psycho-sexual thrill pursued by a subculture of automobile accident victims, who seek out such incidents and use the adrenalized levels of tension, anxiety and energy they produce (as well as certain, umm, new-wound orifices) to take the notion of “getting off” to an entirely new level. I don’t mean to sound condescending or flip, but the imaginativeness and vividness of Abley’s premise is so stirring — and at the same time rife with visual metaphor and other parallels — that it’s hard to believe him when he says in interviews on the film’s DVD that he’s not sure why he framed it as a story centering around a gay couple. Sure, there’s nothing explicitly gay about the narrative (insofar as the movie isn’t a coming-out story, or anything like that), but there’s a discernible level of social commentary just underneath the surface that wouldn’t work as well if the characters were straight.
An Outfest 2007 presentation, Socket is hampered somewhat by its shoestring budget and meager production value. The story is so outlandish that you want the movie to unfold in a more heightened state. The acting, too, is a bit uneven, though Long effectively channels some of the same smug, plastic eerieness that makes Julian McMahon such a good fit on Nip/Tuck. It’s a credit to Abley, though, that the movie retains a slight sense of humor about itself, even as it goes through some more ominous, thriller-ish paces. Overall this is a movie whose success is driven more by the audacity of its core idea than some of its execution, but what an idea it is.
Housed in a clear Amray case, Socket comes presented on DVD in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby digital 5.1 audio. Its lesser supplemental extras consist of a one-minute photo montage and a clutch of a half-dozen trailers for this movie and other TLA releases. The big bonus highlight is easily the disc’s 34-minute, comprehensive and engaging making-of featurette. Powered by interviews with Abley, producers John Carrozza and Doug Prinzivalli, cinematographer Ivan Corona and almost all of the actors, this featurette is a nice behind-the-scenes glimpse into the DIY tribulations and joys of indie filmmaking. Some folks along for the ride, like actress Amy Seeley, are old friends and colleagues of Abley, with working histories dating back 10 years or more. In a moment of appreciated candor, Montgomery and a couple of other newcomers admit to worrying about or at least considering the closeknittedness of the cast and producing team, but feeling relief in fitting in so quickly. Rehearsal footage, honest reflection, good-natured goofing off — it’s all here in this half-hour valentine, a solid retrospective that definitely enhances this disc’s value. To watch the movie’s trailer, click here; to purchase the DVD via TLA’s site, click here. B- (Movie) B (Disc)
Famously quotable filmmaker Spike Lee is the latest public figure to get loose on Hillary Clinton. In a straight Q&A interview with Logan Hill for New York Magazine, ostensibly celebrating the anniversary of Do the Right Thing, Lee takes a few swipes at former New York City mayor Ed Koch, but saves his parting words for the former president and junior senator from New York, saying, among other things: “The Clintons, man, they would lie on a stack of Bibles. Snipers? That’s
not misspeaking, that’s some pure bullshit. I voted for Clinton twice,
but that’s over with.” Oh, snaps! There’s actually some interesting stuff about Do the Right Thing and Lee’s evolution as a filmmaker too. Again, for the full piece, a very quick read, click here.
In DVD release news, Kino International is proud to announce the impending summer release of AFT: The Complete Mega Set, which will present the entire American Film Theatre collection in one 15-disc, thin-case box set. Originally released as three separate DVD sets in 2003, this exclusive collection of 14 films can now be purchased for $199.95 on July 1, 2008.
The finest collection of plays brought to the big screen in the history of American cinema, the American Film Theatre series was the vision of producer Ely Landau, who challenged film audiences to set their sights on high-quality drama and comedies enacted by top industry talents. Throughout its three years of existence in the mid-1970s, this groundbreaking series of magnificently crafted films was made available in selected theaters, only for members who purchased a special annual subscription.
Kino’s set includes John Frankenheimer’s The Iceman Cometh, starring Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Frederick March and Jeff Bridges; Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, directed by Tony Richardson and starring Katherine Hepburn and Paul Scofield; Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright; and productions of Robert Shaw’s The Man in the Glass Booth and Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo, among others. Exclusive extras include interviews with Landau, theatrical trailers, photo
galleries with the films’ original posters and original filmed interviews
with the likes of Albee, Alan Bates and Tom O’Horgan (Rhinoceros). For more information, click here.
Viral video got mocked on the most recent episode of South Park, “Canada on Strike,” a not-so-thinly veiled takedown of the WGA’s strike-fight for Internet revenue guarantees, with this Butters-fronted spoof of “What What (In the Butt),” which I was somewhat totally horrified to learn wasn’t a Trey Parker-Matt Stone original…
Sony’s spry ensemble blackjack flick, 21, held on to the top spot at the box office this past weekend, stiff-arming George Clooney’s period piece football comedy, Leatherheads. The former film, starring fresh, exceedingly likeable newcomer Jim Sturgess alongside Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth, grossed $15.1 million, and has now won a robust $46.5 million in its first two weeks of release. Clooney’s third film behind the camera pulled in an estimated $13.48 million at just under 2,770 theaters, while fellow new opener Nim’s Island finished just off that pace, with an estimated haul of $13.3 million at 3,500-plus screens. Also debuting this week was the R-rated The Ruins, which grossed around $7.8 million, good for fifth place. I think the problem there, as a friend of mine excellently pointed out, is that not enough people know the girl, Laura Ramsey, who gets naked in it.
Like it or not, Horton Hears a Who is the spring’s biggest hit; it grossed another $9.1 million, and has now raked in over $131 million domestically in total, and another $76 million and change abroad. Writer-director Craig Mazin’s Superhero Movie placed sixth for the weekend, adding $5.4 million to its coffers; it now stands at $16.8 million. Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns finished seventh, with $3.51 million; Drillbit Taylor, starring Owen Wilson, finished eighth, with $3.49; the atrocious Shutter placed ninth, with $2.8 million; and Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 B.C. clung on to the 10th spot, with $2.7 million. The heavily marketed, effects-laden prehistoric actioner has now pulled in $89 million domestically for Warner Bros., and another $143 million internationally, proving that there apparently is a market for movies aimed at sabretooth tiger enthusiasts.
“What saddens boomer women who love Hillary is that their twentysomething daughters don’t share their view of her heroic role,” Brown writes. “Instead they’ve been swept up by that new Barack magic. It’s not their fault, and it’s not Hillary’s, either. The very scar tissue that older women see as proof of her determination just embarrasses their daughters, killing off for them all the insouciant elation that ought to have come with girl power in the White House.”
On the other hand, much more specious, I believe, is this half-reasoned assertion from Brown: “Am I alone in suspecting that TV’s most powerful 54-year-old woman (Oprah Winfrey) just might have endorsed [Obama] so fast for reasons of desirable viewer demographics as much as personal inspiration?” Think of her what you will, but Winfrey most assuredly isn’t a trend whore — she made a conscious decision to get out of schlocky, gutter-gotcha TV at its peak, when Maury Povich and Jerry Springer were still ratings giants — and to peg as merely “fashionable” or somehow otherwise (economically?) advantageous one’s support for Obama is utterly ridiculous. In fact, Winfrey has talked, though not at length, about getting no small amount of flak from many of her viewers for her endorsement of Obama.
