Kevin Smith gets "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," first rated NC-17, down to a more marketable R. As if there was ever any doubt. [Via the AP]

ThinkFilm is so indie it doesn't even need to pay its bills! Bills just roll right off it! Alex Ben Block gets some fabulous quotes from company head David Bergstein at the Hollywood Reporter: "Some of what is out there is true. The vast majority is not true. And for the stuff that is true, my answer is, 'So what? So what if X, Y or Z might be owed money?' "

"He is used to going in, buying something that's normally four cents for two cents and then saying to everyone, 'It's a distressed asset. I'm only going to pay you half of what you deserve,' " said a veteran talent manager and producer who has worked with Bergstein. "It's just a whole mindset that is antithetical to the movie business."

Alas, one would think this technique would only work if you keep up the pretense that you're actually trying to pay people back for the services they rendered or the film they signed over to you.

At his blog at the LA Times, Patrick Goldstein looks at Slydial, a service that lets you skip straight to someone's voicemail without their phone ever ringing, and notes that producer Scott Rudin perfected a technique to achieve the same end years ago:

As Hollywood insiders will attest, the Oscar-winning, titanic-tempered producer has been famous for being impossible to reach by phone, often returning supplicants' phone calls in the wee hours of the morning or long after closing hours, anything to avoid actually speaking to the intended party. Entire memoirs have been written about playing phone tag with Rudin, who, according to former assistants, was a Slydialer long before this fancy new version of the technology was invented. He simply had two assistants sit next to each other, dialing the same (studio exec/agent/lowly reporter's) cellphone at exactly the same time, ensuring that the calls would come in simultaneously, bumping them both to voice mail.

At Artforum, Darrell Hartman on the Dardennes:

The Dardennes deliver memorable images of life on the brink--as when Rosetta, wrestling with her alcoholic mother near their trailer, falls into a muddy sinkhole. She flounders, cries out, then drags herself out of the slime alone, gasping desperately. You can almost hear the filmmakers crying out: How can a civilized country tolerate anything so abject?

[Photo: "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," Weinstein Co., 2008]

+ Smith wins appeal for R rating for 'Porno' (AP)
+ Has ThinkFilm lost its mind? (Hollywood Reporter)
+ Phone message of the week: Scott Rudin's office, returning (LA Times)
+ Simple Life (Art Forum)

By Alison Willmore in Odds | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Kevin Smith, Luc Dardenne, Scott Rudin, Slydial, ThinkFilm, Zack and Miri Make a Porno

From the Detroit Free Press:

Nationally known film critic Elvis Mitchell is trying to get back nearly $12,000 he carried in a cigar box through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.

Mitchell was entering Detroit in a cab from Windsor on April 26 when a luggage search turned up $11,817 in U.S. currency and 15 Cuban cigars, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The agency wants to keep the cash because Mitchell didn't declare it in Detroit or three days earlier when he flew to Toronto from New York. Anyone carrying more than $10,000 outside the country or into the United States must report it.

Mitchell said he grabbed the wrong box when he left home in New York and was too embarrassed to disclose the money.

"An awful and dumb situation," Mitchell said Monday.

Also on the critic front: David Elliott, former critic at the San Diego Union, and before that the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily News, is interviewed at San Diego Magazine (tip of the hat to Movie City News):

Criticism is personal journalism so people respond personally. Only a fool would try to be "a cross-section of the American public," which is what Charlie Kane called his second wife. Your taste can really tick some people off. One woman raged that I was unpatriotic because I panned For the Boys, Bette Midler's awful soaper. When I praised Casino, someone said I was endorsing gambling. My dislike of Forrest Gump churned up quite a few people. But I give thanks to many loyal and also demanding readers ... Movies are a cafeteria. If you can't fill your tray with many forms of stimulation, you should be in the little diner that only serves your private menu. I may be the only American reviewer who was moved by the corny but astonishing Titanic, and yet also admired the Portuguese nightmare vision about a gay cruiser, O Fantasma. Now there's a double bill.

[Photo: Elvis Mitchell, from "The Black List: Volume One," HBO, 2008]

+ Film critic wants confiscated cash back; agency fights it (Detroit Free Press)
+ David Elliott Reflects (San Diego Magazine)

By Alison Willmore in Critic watch | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (2)

Tags: David Elliott, Elvis Mitchell

The world in quotes:

"This was like three years ago. And I thought, eh, I'll be dead in three years. So I said OK. And then I didn't die."
         --Woody Allen on how he ended up directing an opera, at E! Online.

"It's the big action ones or the ones with Will Ferrell. In those you howl for two hours and you feel like you get a six-pack [of ab muscles] from all the laughs!"
         --California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on his moviegoing choices, at the LA Times.

"I'd love to say that I invented and meticulously crafted that. But it was entirely Mike Judge's creation. Again, it was me being a halfway decent mimic. It's based on a cartoon Mike did in the early '80s, where the only two characters were Lumbergh and Milton, and Mike did the voice. So I saw it before I met him for the part. So I just went in doing an imitation of Mike, and he seemed to like that."
         --Gary Cole on the creation of "Office Space"'s Bill Lumbergh, Onion AV Club.

" 'The Love Guru' didn't work well because Mike Myers addresses a teenage audience, and he was trying to mix it up with metaphysics. Humor mixed with spirituality can work, if it's done well. But frankly speaking, this was not a good attempt."
         --Deepak Chopra on why "The Love Guru" didn't work, at MTV.

"Samantha Morton, of course."
         --Emily Watson on who would play her in a film of her life, at Guardian. In "Synecdoche, New York," she plays the actress hired to play Samantha Morton's character. You know?

[Photo: Woody Allen filming "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Weinstein Company, 2008]

By Alison Willmore in In quotes | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (2)

Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Lumbergh, Deepak Chopra, Gary Cole, Mike Judge, Mike Myers, Office Space, Samantha Morton, Synecdoche New York, The Love Guru, Will Ferrell, Woody Allen

In the works: Eric Bana, the Aussie comedian turned sad-eyed leading man, will make his directorial debut with "Love the Beast," in which he's also starring as... himself, as the film tracks his 25-year relationship with "The Beast," a 1974 Falcon Coupe. The quote from the Australian distributor: "In an unexpectedly emotional journey, Eric explores the importance of friends, hobbies, and what it means to live life to the fullest. Along the way Eric seeks counsel and guidance from household names such as (US talk show host) Dr Phil and (Top Gear host) Jeremy Clarkson." [The Daily Telegraph]

Also stepping behind the camera: Mark Ruffalo, who'll be helming "Sympathy for Delicious," in which he'll star with James Franco and Chris Thornton in the story of, er, "a paralyzed DJ struggling to survive in his wheelchair on the streets of L.A. He turns to faith-healing and mysteriously acquires the ability to cure the sick -- although not himself. Ruffalo plays a Jesuit priest who tries to help him come to terms with the limits of his gift, and Franco a rock singer in a band that exploits the suddenly famous healer." [Variety]

Wayne McClammy, the "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" segment producer who directed and co-wrote "I'm Fucking Matt Damon" and "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck," will be directing "Beat Kip," a revenge comedy, for Paramount Vantage. The film "tells the story of three buddies who travel across the country to confront an Ivy League nemesis who stole one of the guys' girlfriends." [Hollywood Reporter]

Hong Sang-Soo's next will be an ultra-low budget (under $10,000, if my currency conversion is right) HD film tentatively titled "You Don't Even Know." "Story tells of film director Gyeong-Nam (Kim Tae-Woo from 'Woman on the Beach'), who is invited to Jecheon to take part in the jury of the Jecheon International Music and Film Festival. There he meets programmer Hyeon-Hee (Eom Ji-won from 'Tale of Cinema'), and later going to Jeju for a lecture, he ends up meeting the wife of one of his colleagues, played by Go Hyun-Jung. Film will shoot in Jecheon until August 15, and then stay in Jeju Island until early September." Hong's last film, "Night and Day," premiered at Berlin in February, but still remains without US distribution. [Twitch]

Music video director Floria Sigismondi, of Interpol's "Obstacle 1" and the White Stripes' "Blue Orchid," will be making a film about the Runaways, the '70s all-girl rock band made up of Joan Jett, Cherie Curie, the late Sandy West and others, with Jett producing. [Variety]

And John Crowley, the director of "Intermission" and, more recently, "Boy A," has signed on to direct an adaptation of Carolyn Parkhurst's novel "The Dogs of Babel," in which a linguistics professor tries to teach his dog, the only witness to his wife's death, to speak, in order to discover if she died as a result of an accident or suicide. [Variety]

Acquired: Elissa Down's directorial debut "The Black Balloon," an Australian coming-of-age comedy starring Toni Collette and "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor"'s Luke Ford, has been picked up by NeoClassics Films. [Variety]

And Artistic License Films has acquired Pamela Tanner Boll's documentary about the "mothering-versus-working choice," "Who Does She Think She Is?", for an October release. [indieWIRE]

[Photo: Bana in "The Time Traveler's Wife," New Line Cinema, 2008]

By Alison Willmore in In the works | Link | 1 Comments | Recommended (2)

Tags: Beat Kip, Boy A, Elissa Down, Floria Sigismondi, I'm Fucking Ben Affleck, I'm Fucking Matt Damon, Intermission, James Franco, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, John Crowley, Love the Beast, Mark Ruffalo, Pamela Tanner Boll, Sympathy for Delicious, The Black Balloon, The Dogs of Babel, The Runaways Eric Bana, Toni Collette, Wayne McClammy, Who Does She Think She Is?

Over the weekend, Madonna brought her documentary on Malawian orphans, "I Am Because We Are," to Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival. While there, the pop icon offered her unique take on the film festival circuit. From the AP: " 'It's great bringing my movie to a place that I feel familiar,' Madonna told the audience. 'Not like the Cannes Film Festival, where nobody's speaking English, or the Tribeca Film Festival, where no one sits down.' "

I've been a sometimes reluctant attendant of Tribeca for a few years now, and never noticed anything along the lines of that enigmatic observation, but it makes a sort of sense -- does the mere logline of a Malawian orphan documentary narrated by Madonna tell you all you need to know about the film, rendering an actual screening unnecessary, or at least less important than glad-handing with other audience members? Is that what film festivals in the future will be like?

Over at this blog, David Bordwell documents a different kind of moviegoing culture, reflecting on what it means to be a cinephile.

The real crux, I think, is this. The cinephile loves the idea of film. That means loving not only its accomplishments but its potential, its promise and prospects. It's as if individual films, delectable and overpowering as they can be, are but glimpses of something far grander. That distant horizon, impossible to describe fully, is Cinema, and it is this art form, or medium, that is the ultimate object of devotion.

This leads into a look at the social games cinephiles play:

Competitive games: Upsmanship

Jules and Jim leave a screening.

Jules: I loved it. What did you think?

Jim: Well. . . Have you seen earlier films by H*ng S*ng-s**?

This is an opening gambit. If Jules says no, then Jim can say something like: It's really one of his weaker movies or His films get worse and worse. Now Jules would be playing defense, on unfriendly terrain. If he hasn't seen the other films, the comparison-strategy will be his undoing. So:

Jules: Yeah, I've seen all of them. I thought that this was a strong one.

Now Jim can fight to at least a draw. Maybe Jules was bluffing and hasn't seen all the films; or maybe Jim remembers them better.

Jules has used what we can call the breadth strategy: I've seen more than you. This need not bear only on other films; it can work along other dimensions.

[Photo: "I Am Because We Are," Sundance Channel, 2008]

+ Madonna returns to Michigan roots to show her film (AP)
+ Games cinephiles play (DavidBordwell.com)

By Alison Willmore in Festivals | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: cinephilia, David Bordwell, I Am Because We Are, Madonna, Michael Moore, Traverse City Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival

It's been over a year since Alex Holdridge's "In Search of a Midnight Kiss" premiered at Tribeca 2007, in which time his "misanthrope seeks misanthrope" blind date romance has rounded the film festival bases from Edinburgh to Sarajevo to Mill Valley to Austin to Thessaloniki. Now in theaters, it's attracting some interestingly considered, if mixed, reviews (and is the lone focus of the New Yorker's film column this week), with many calling out its portrayal of Los Angeles. Take Scott Foundas at the Village Voice, who leads with "Did Los Angeles sign with a new agent?" He finds that "Holdridge's film oscillates wildly between low-key romantic comedy and antic slapstick and doesn't always hit the mark, but it has charm to burn, as well as a welcome eye for the timeless in a rapidly changing metropolis."

Andrew O'Hehir at Salon writes that the film "has a gutter purity that makes you root for it all the way and forgive its patches of ultra-indie awkwardness." "While 'In Search of a Midnight Kiss' has its derivative moments along with awkward patches -- the inelegantly shaped climax tries to force uninteresting parallels between the two central couples -- it manages the difficult task of creating a sustained, plausible and inviting world," agrees Manohla Dargis at the New York Times. At indieWIRE, Kristi Mitsuda counters that the film's hint at larger themes of isolation and technology "never amasses enough complexity, and begins to seem like just so much narrative clutter meant to lend heft to a slight story which, like the city it celebrates, conveys an aura of gritty glamour that only goes skin deep."

"[I]n Holdridge's movie there is as much to repel as there is to allure, and I cannot imagine leaving a screening of it in anything less than two minds," writes Anthony Lane at the New Yorker. But he find something in the mix of romanticism and anti-romanticism:

That pretty much sums up the mixed mood in which Holdridge's film unfolds, and which makes it such a neat distillation of what we mean by American independent cinema: the compulsion to proceed by nudges and sidelong glances, to build a character through the accumulation of quirks, and to gesture toward the deep end of human behavior and then dart quickly away. If mainstream Hollywood cleaves to the story arc, indie creators prefer the story sine wave, with a trough for every peak.

At the New York Observer, Andrew Sarris declares that the film's "tempestuous love story, with its heartbreaking complications, is well served by a cast of comparative unknowns." But Noel Murray at the Onion AV Club finds it "shows enough flashes of brightness that its more conventional business is all the more dispiriting," and Nick Schager concludes that the characters' growing closeness is "handled admirably by the two leads (whose relaxed charm helps offset their characters' needy self-absorption and thumb-twiddling sulkiness), even if it mostly feels like the foregone conclusion of a contrived, overly precious narrative that must inevitably climax with a New Year's Eve smooch."

[Photo: "In Search of a Midnight Kiss," IFC Films, 2008]

By Alison Willmore in Critic wrangle | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (4)

Tags: Alex Holdridge, In Search of a Midnight Kiss, Los Angeles

I really didn't care for Courtney Hunt's feature debut "Frozen River" when I caught it at Sundance, but others did, to the point where it won the Grand Jury Prize, was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, opened New Directors/New Films and now, in theatrical release, is receiving mostly praise, while star Melissa Leo's name is being idly tossed around by the early Oscar-watching crowd. Her nervy, ego-free performance is without a doubt the main reason to watch the film.

Amongst the praise: Owen Gleiberman at Entertainment Weekly observes that "as written and directed by Courtney Hunt, the movie is no somber, medicinal downer. It takes the form of a thriller you can believe in," while Stephen Holden at the New York Times finds that "Ms. Hunt's eye for detail has the precision of a short story writer's. She misses nothing." Andrew Sarris at the New York Observer claims the film "plays out as one of the strongest feminist statements I have ever seen onscreen," and that "Ms. Leo and [co-star Misty] Upham somehow project an aura of indestructibility around Ray and Lila that should prove thematically and spiritually invigorating for adult audiences with a feeling for the heroism of everyday life."

More measured in his acclaim is Andrew O'Hehir at Salon, who writes that "'Frozen River' isn't cinematically ambitious or formally adventurous, but it's built around powerful and nuanced performances by Leo, Upham and Charlie McDermott (as Ray's teenage son, uncomfortably poised at the edge of manhood)." "What lends it distinction, if only mildly," adds Scott Tobias at the Onion AV Club, "are the engrossing particulars of the setting, with its uncommon glimpse into tribal law and reservation life, and Leo's performance, which brings overdue attention to a career spent laboring under the radar." Ella Taylor at the LA Weekly allows that "the movie careens uncertainly between gritty realism, sudden bursts of melodrama and inspiration," but concludes that "what sticks in memory isn't Ray and Lila's 11th-hour redemption but the unnerving lack of basic safety that comes with living on the financial edge."

Not won over: Slant's Ed Gonzalez, who writes "Call it Sundanceploitation, only this one is a more shameless brew--less intuitive, more manipulative and amateurishly performed, and so screechily written you might be excused for thinking Paul Haggis was behind it." And the New York Press' Armond White suggests that "from both Ray and Lila's overburdened motherhood and oppressed femininity to the utterly joyless environment they share, Frozen River says little about the realities of American poverty and human subsistence. It merely proves how self-righteous middle-class filmmakers can be about the underclass."

[Photo: "Frozen River," Sony Pictures Classics, 2008]

By Alison Willmore in Critic wrangle | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (1)

Tags: Courtney Hunt, Frozen River, Melissa Leo, Misty Upham

Film in Focus has been gathering lists of five favorite films about political campaigns or, in some cases, just politics or politicians, from an array of political journalists including Katha Pollitt (on "Election": "People who hated Hillary Clinton compared her to Tracy, but that just shows they don't remember the movie very well, because Tracy really was the best candidate."), Rick Perlstein (who offers the unexpected choice of Max Ophüls' "The Earrings de Madame de") and David Sirota. The latest to give his picks is none other than Dan Rather:

4. The Candidate

The quintessential campaign movie (and one that may well appear on everyone's list). In focusing on the unseemly emphasis on image and money in modern political campaigns it was prescient in the 1970s and is as relevant as ever now. Much more than a message film, it managed to catch the behind-the-scenes feel of a political campaign in a way that plain rings true.

[Photo: "The Candidate," Warner Bros. Pictures, 1972]

+ Dan Rather - Five Political Films (Film in Focus)
+ Katha Pollitt - Five Political Films (Film in Focus)
+ Rick Perlstein - Five Political Films (Film in Focus)
+ David Sirota - Five Political Films (Film in Focus)

By Alison Willmore | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: Dan Rather, David Sirota, Election, Katha Pollitt, Rick Perlstein, The Candidate, The Earrings de Madame de

For those of you dying for even the slightest glimpse of Steven Soderbergh's "Che," JoBlo.com has surfaced a bootleg, flickery, unsubtitled Spanish-language trailer for "The Argentine," the first half of the four-hour film, here. The trailer, as trailers are wont to, siphons off only the most dramatic and actiony scenes, making the film look far more romantically revolutionary than it actually plays out. As Gregg Goldstein at the Hollywood Reporter wrote today, the $65 million film remains without a US distributor:

Soderbergh wants to release the two-part, four-hour-plus film as one movie in limited December openings. He'd then like to release the first part in January and the second in February. Soderbergh has cut five to seven minutes from each half, but a potential distributor who suggested one three-hour cut was ruled out immediately.

My review from Cannes is here.

Also up, a trailer for Barry Levinson's "What Just Happened" (the question mark seems to have gone away) here. Levinson's star-laden Hollywood satire (one of the major plot points involves a fat, bearded Bruce Willis as his fat, bearded self) was the closing night film at Cannes and had a hotly anticipated premiere at Sundance, but failed to generate much enthusiasm or a sale. Production company 2929 Entertainment finally decided to release the film via its own distribution company, Magnolia, much like what was announced today with "Two Lovers." "What Just Happened" will open October 3rd.

And a trailer here for "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist," from "Raising Victor Vargas" director Peter Sollett. Michael Cera, once again, in indie rock high school love -- can you bear it? The film's set to premiere at Toronto before opening in theaters, also on October 3rd.

[Photo: "The Argentine," Laura Bickford Productions, Morena Films, Section Eight, et al., 2008]

+ Che bootleg trailer (JoBlo.com)
+ Trailer: What Just Happened (Moviefone)
+ Trailer: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (MySpace)

By Alison Willmore in Trailering | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (3)

Tags: Barry Levinson, Che, Michael Cera, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Peter Sollett, Steven Soderbergh, The Argentine, What Just Happened

Quotes from the interview circuit:

"That's basically ridiculous. That's like saying Americans are gangsters because they like Michael Corleone in The Godfather. We don't take ourselves that seriously."
         --José Padilha, director of "Elite Squad" (I'm filled with urge to follow that title up with sound effects -- "Elite Squad: BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!") on why the success of his film doesn't indicate a nation-wide endorsement of vigilante justice, at the London Times.

"I've been noticing that a lot of young people today don't want to grow up. Why is that? It's because, in their eyes, society has stopped advancing."
         --"Ghost in the Shell"'s Mamoru Oshii on his new, bleakish film "The Sky Crawlers," which will screen in competition at Venice this year, at the Daily Yomiuri.

"It's more demanding for the viewer, but I'd become frustrated at sitting in a cinema and being able to predict the cuts back and forth between Meryl Streep and Mel Gibson... In fact I was very interested when the Dogme rules came out, supposedly against 'manipulation', because they seemed completely happy with the conventional editing of film, which seems to me the most manipulative technique of all."
         --Alex Cox on plano secuencia at Film in Focus.

"Well, I don't like to single out a film, mostly 'cos I don't want to embarrass any particular director or anyone else involved. You know, you simply do not set out to do a bad movie. And on top of that, 'bad movie,' well, it's sort of really an opinion, isn't it... I felt pretty self-conscious seeing myself in 'George of the Jungle,' in the loincloth and with the dialogue I had to say, and with the talking ape and everything."
         --Brendan Fraser on why it's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done, at the Japan Times.

"Huey Lewis and the News made music for my movie. It's such a benchmark, I don't know where to go professionally from here. I can't think of anything cooler."
         --David Gordon Green on Lewis' "Pineapple Express" title song, at the LA Times.

[Photo: "Elite Squad," IFC Films, 2007]

By Alison Willmore in In quotes | Link | 0 Comments | Recommended (4)

Tags: Alex Cox, Brendan Fraser, David Gordon Green, Elite Squad, Huey Lewis, José Padilha, Mamoru Oshii, Pineapple Express, The Sky Crawlers