Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
Watch Tony Zhou‘s latest video essay, on Jackie Chan‘s art of action comedy:
At Talkhouse, Vincent Grashaw (Bellflower, Coldwater) discusses The Babadook:
Earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, I attended the first midnight showing of a spooky horror film that programmer Trevor Groth had recommended to me: Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook. The theater was packed and the energy was palpable. It was cold and dark out — a recipe for a perfect midnight-movie experience.
This movie, quite frankly, scared the shit out of me. That this is Jennifer Kent’s feature-length directorial debut speaks volumes about her knack for horror. The Babadook showcases all the reasons why horror films are important, what they can accomplish and how they can rattle your bones without your permission. Every once in a while, a film like this comes along and revitalizes my love for the genre. Do these Aussies know something we don’t? In their work, Kent, James Wan and Leigh Whannell — all filmmakers I respect very much — tap into our psyche, bring fresh perspectives to the horror genre and create a sense of underlying dread that combusts at just the right time. I’m gearing up to direct my sophomore feature, What Josiah Saw, a psychological horror film which follows an estranged family in the middle of America’s rural farmland, and Kent’s film has only validated my goals for this next endeavor.
Watch a new trailer for Robert Downey Sr.‘s Putney Swope for Cinefamily’s screening this weekend:
David Simon discusses The Wire being upgraded (and creatively downgraded) to HD, with video examples:
At the last, I’m satisfied what while this new version of The Wire is not, in some specific ways, the film we first made, it has sufficient merit to exist as an alternate version. There are scenes that clearly improve in HD and in the widescreen format. But there are things that are not improved. And even with our best resizing, touchups and maneuver, there are some things that are simply not as good. That’s the inevitability: This new version, after all, exists in an aspect ratio that simply wasn’t intended or serviced by the filmmakers when the camera was rolling and the shot was framed.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul has wrapped his latest feature Cemetery of Kings and shared the following teaser art:
