Roger Ebert’s been out of commission for
Roger Ebert’s been out of commission for the past few months due to cancer surgery, but he’s eager to return to his normal duties. “I still love writing about the movies. Forty years is not enough.”
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kottke.org posts about movies
Ted Z at Big Screen Little Screen
Ted Z at Big Screen Little Screen got his mitts on a copy of a script for Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited from May 2006. “I have serious reservations regarding how far Wes Anderson can take this twee-filmmaking before the rut is too worn to dig himself out.”
Killer of Sheep, a 1977 student film by
Killer of Sheep, a 1977 student film by Charles Burnett, is on the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry and was selected as one of the 100 essential films of all time by the National Society of Film Critics but has never been shown in theaters because of music rights clearance issues. This year, the film is finally being released in theaters (it’s showing at IFC Center in NYC through April 12) and will be available on DVD in the fall. Watch the trailer and read a bit more about it in the NY Times.
The review of the Criterion DVD of
The review of the Criterion DVD of Rushmore I posted yesterday mentioned a NY Times article written by Wes Anderson about him screening Rushmore for legendary film critic Pauline Kael. The original is behind the Times paywall, but a Clusterflock commenter posted a copy. After reading it, I don’t get the hostility that other film critics directed at Anderson because of it.
Thoughtful review of the Criterion version of
Thoughtful review of the Criterion version of Rushmore. “Anderson also serves as a convenient target for people who don’t like people who like movies by Wes Anderson. […] When you get past the extraneous bullshit surrounding Anderson’s films, the crux of disagreements about him reminds me of disagreements over David Foster Wallace (or Dave Eggers, or Thomas Pynchon, or even Vladimir Nabokov). It comes down to this: Are Anderson’s stylistic tricks and distracting plot elements smoke and mirrors, or do they bring something unique to the stories he’s telling? In the case of Rushmore, I think the answer has to be the latter.” I get the feeling you could learn a lot about film by reading Matthew’s reviews of the Criterion Collection.
Artist Christian Marclay says that Apple contacted
Artist Christian Marclay says that Apple contacted him about using his short film Telephones for their iPhone commercial. He refused and they went ahead and made the commercial using the same idea with different footage. Says Marclay, “the way they dealt with the whole thing is pretty sleazy”. TouchExplode gets credit for spotting the reference. (via df)
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez pick their 10 favorite movie posters.
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez pick their 10 favorite movie posters.
Incubus is a 1965 horror film that was
Incubus is a 1965 horror film that was filmed in Esperanto and starred William Shatner. What more could you want, really?
Harry Potter movie franchise in potential jeopardy:
Harry Potter movie franchise in potential jeopardy: Emma Watson reportedly refuses to play Hermione Granger for the final two films. Paging Emmy Rossum. (Emma, Emmy, Emma, Emmy, Emma, Emmy, Emma…)
Update on The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson’s
Update on The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson’s new film starring Anderson regulars Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman. Apparently this article confirms the rumors that Bill Murray is in the film. (via goldenfiddle)
Helvetica
Perhaps the highest praise I can offer for Helvetica comes courtesy of Meg, who was snickering on the way into the theater about going to see a movie about a font and exited saying, “that was great, now I want to be a designer!” The rest of the audience, mostly designers and type folks, loved it as well. But for the non-design folks, what’s compelling about the movie is getting a glimpse of how designers think and work; that it’s not just about making things look pretty. The modern world is awash in signage and symbols and words and for a lot of them, especially the corporate messages, there’s a reason why they look the way they do. The story of Helvetica offers a partial key to decoding these messages.
Check out some clips from the film and the screenings schedule to find out when Helvetica will be showing in your area. Thanks to the fine folks at Veer for inviting me to the screening.
Here’s the first full (and I believe,
Here’s the first full (and I believe, leaked) trailer for Ratatouille, Pixar’s newest film. It’s in English with Chinese subtitles.
Enter this font haiku contest to win
Enter this font haiku contest to win a limited-edition poster from the Helvetica documentary.
New Scientist watches Sunshine, Danny Boyle’s new
New Scientist watches Sunshine, Danny Boyle’s new movie about the death of the sun (which sounds fantastic given my love of global disaster movies), and evaluates it from a scientific perspective.
Notes from Will Wright’s keynote at SXSW 2007. “
Notes from Will Wright’s keynote at SXSW 2007. “Movies have these wonderful things called actors, which are like emotional avatars, and you kinda feel what they’re feeling, it’s very effective. Films have a rich emotional palette because they have actors. Games often appeal to the reptilian brain - fear, action - but they have a different emotional palette. There are things you feel in games - like pride, accomplishment, guilt even! - that you’ll never feel in a movie.”
Zodiac
Meg woke up at 1:30am the night we saw Zodiac, unable to sleep because she couldn’t get a stabbing from the movie out of her head. To get back to sleep, she convened an impromptu cutest baby animal tournament in her head. Kittens were cuter than puppies, baby pandas beat out kittens, and so on until she eventually was able to fall back to a stab-free sleep. Just putting that out there for whenever O’Reilly gets around to releasing their Sleep Hacks book.
Trailer for Grindhouse, a film consisting of
Trailer for Grindhouse, a film consisting of two separate movies, one by Robert Rodriguez and the other by Quentin Tarantino.
Quentin Tarantino talks about his success in
Quentin Tarantino talks about his success in the movie business. The bit about just doing something and not having to ask permission is great: “Here’s the thing: they can write a mean letter, they can write a mean memo, but these guys don’t have any real fight in them. If you’re an artist, as opposed to a careerist, and your movie is more important to you than a career in this town, they can never beat you. You have a loaded gun, and you know you’ve got what it takes to put it in their faces and blow their heads off.”
Why do we feel suspense, surprise, or
Why do we feel suspense, surprise, or delight when watching a movie we’ve seen before? “But later you watch Notorious a second time. Strangely, you feel suspense, moment by moment, all over again. You know perfectly well how things will turn out, so how can there be uncertainty? How can you feel suspense on the second, or twenty-second viewing?”
Idiocracy
This is a movie that looks like a home run but ends up being a mishit single just over the shortstop into shallow left field. The concept is fantastic — that of a future world populated by brand-driven idiots — and the satire in that direction is solid, but the plot is weak and acts like an anchor on the rest of the movie. Not the great followup to Office Space that everyone was expecting for Mike Judge, but still worth a look for the concept and the graphic design.
BLDGBLOG is teaming up with Materials &
BLDGBLOG is teaming up with Materials & Applications to curate an architectural film festival. “The obvious caveat is that your film has to be about architecture, landscape, and/or the built environment - or, at least, it has to involve architecture, landscape, and/or the built environment, and in a way that isn’t just backdrop. Even more specifically, we’d love to show a whole bunch of architectural machinima, site animations, project fly-throughs, or other cinematic spaces.” Entry deadline in April 6.
Mark Pilgrim’s The Dogs of Flickr posters
Mark Pilgrim’s The Dogs of Flickr posters illustrate the problem of sourcing and giving credit in the remix age….the credits take up much more room than the work itself. Imagine if he had to get permission for all that and you’ve got some idea of how difficult it is to make documentary films these days. See also: the ending credits for The Return of the King (full story).
Dan Hill, who coincidentally is the director
Dan Hill, who coincidentally is the director of web and broadcast at the aforementioned Monocle, has a thoughtful post about Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, a documentary film that follows Zinedine Zidane through an entire soccer match.
A 666 tribute to David Fincher featuring video
A 666 tribute to David Fincher featuring video of 6 of his commercials, 6 of his music videos, and 6 of his movies.
Zodiac the first all-digital feature film?
In doing some research in anticipation of seeing Zodiac sometime this weekend, I came across the following tidbit:
[Zodiac is] believed to be the first full-length studio feature film shot and produced entirely as data from start to finish, with no physical media involved beyond backing up all raw imagery to 500 vaulted LTO data tapes during postproduction.
This sounds wrong to me, but I can’t think of what movie might have been both filmed and cut digitally before this one. Do Pixar’s animated features count? Surely there’s no film involved there. Does Soderbergh shoot & edit his big studio stuff digitally? The Coens edited Intolerable Cruelty digitally with Final Cut Pro but shot it on film. Maybe some of the newer action films…Superman Returns, King Kong, Batman Begins? I know there are some obsessive film-savvy kottke.org readers out there, can you shed any light on this?
Update: According to this feature on Apple’s web site, Kerry Conran shot and edited Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow digitally.
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