I wasn’t ready for this movie.
When I sat down on Wednesday night to watch the Orson Welles film The Trial, based on the Franz Kafka novel of the same name, I guess that I was expecting something more traditional than what was delivered. I say this because The Trial is a disorienting, difficult, and ultimately rewarding film from one of the most legendary filmmakers in American history, and is something that will make you think heavily about what you’re seeing. And, you’ll likely be very confused. Read the full story
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Mostly written off as a lesser version of Shakespeare in Love, Richard Eyre’s Stage Beauty, based on Jeffrey Hatcher‘s play (he also wrote the screenplay), is a singular criticism on celebrity and the lengths performers go to inhabit their roles that stands out in its own right. It’s also a somewhat bold examination of sexuality and what it means to be sexual, whether it be homo or hetero.
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Comedy is a hard thing to do. Gauging the shelf life of the laughs on-screen may be even harder.
Some films open like gangbusters, but are soon forgotten in the fray of constant product. Consider The Waterboy or Meet The Fockers, two films that have places on the Top 20 Highest-Grossing Comedies of All Time. Though they’ll forever be box office gold, who can recall the really funny scenes from either? Now consider Meet The Parents, a financial success from its opening weekend on and one that will also be remembered as one of the best comedies of its time. There are scenes most all can recall, i.e. the dinner table scene with the prayers and the cat pissing on the mom’s ashes. Films like this are few and far between.
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Good Dick is a refreshingly original rom-com that successfully reinvents the genre. The film follows an introverted, nameless woman (Marianna Palka) who has a propensity for renting soft-core pornography. She catches the eye of a young video store clerk (Jason Ritter), who immediately takes a liking to her mysterious persona and, of course, her taste for lurid films.
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It’s not surprising a film like Small Town Saturday Night never found theaters. Written and directed by Ryan Craig, this small little indie about the small lives of inhabitants of a, wait for it, “small town” doesn’t offer anything controversial in content, revolutionary in technology or relevant by way of movie stars. Yes, Chris Pine stars as Rhett Ryan, a guitar-strumming dreamer on his way to Nashville and bigger and better things, but this thing was made and cut before people knew what a “Chris Pine” was.
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For those removed from the issue of conservation, it has a tendency to seem fairly cut and dry: don’t kill animals! However, when you take off the top layer and really analyze the intricate interplays, conservation is a genuinely and uniquely complex problem. Milking The Rhino (written and directed by David E. Simpson) is a documentary that addresses that very complexity. It follows the change of two African pastoral societies on the shaky fringe of globalization in one of the most arid and unforgiving climates in the world.
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Before clicking on this link to this article (and even now as you read) they are around you. On the screen. In your room. Your apartment. House. Everywhere.
Advertising. Every day we respond to it, whether we know or not. Consider the amount of people that’ve told you they watch the Super Bowl “for the commercials.” For the ads. Consider Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the ads he drew up for the Can-Can clubs in Paris during the late 1800s. Director Doug Pray (Surfwise, Scratch) considers it, and how what were once advertisements for scandalous dance clubs now hang in rich people’s Manhattan lofts as art.
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The other day I remarked to my Dad how unfortunate that there are still people who completely refuse the idea of evolution and stick by the general idea of “God did it”. I also said that I couldn’t understand why anybody would vote for someone who shares these viewpoints. And then I summed up my viewpoint by saying that we should respect other’s viewpoints, but there’s only so long we can tolerate a flat-out ignorance of scientific fact. It’s appropriate that only a few days later I would end up viewing Inherit The Wind. Read the full story
(series star and narrator of Never Sleep Again, Heather Langenkamp, poses in front of the original house)
With the Platinum Dunes remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street effectively putting an end to the original series of films featuring the razor clawed Freddy Krueger, a retrospective of the franchise seems fitting. Produced by 1428 Films (named after the house number featured in the original film), Never Sleep Again (directed by Daniel Farrands and Andrew Kasch) offers almost 4 hours of interviews with cast member, writers, directors and production staff from all 7 films in the franchise plus the 2003 match-up film Freddy Vs. Jason and the syndicated TV series feature Krueger as emcee entitled Freddy’s Nightmares (plus an additional 4 hours in bonus features). This could appear to be a daunting task for the average film lover to watch but the information and interviews are handled so effectively that the lengthy documentary never becomes dull or taxing to watch.
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Someone needs to rediscover the films of Samuel Fuller. Hopefully this feature will jump start the movement. Fuller spent the majority of his career digging deep into the darkness of the human psyche, finding the style in the most un-stylish of places and things, whether it be war (The Big Red One), psych wards (Shock Corridor) or a racist dog (White Dog).
That said, Fuller’s style started where style got it’s name: film noir. And while Underworld U.S.A. pales in comparison to Fuller’s noir masterpiece Pickup on South Street, it’s a lost gem of crime mythos, starring a young, tough Cliff Robertson doing his best James Cagney impersonation. (see it for yourself, for free, over at Crackle)
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