Buster Keaton’s THE GENERAL - Ultimate 2 Disc Edition
Considered by many Buster Keaton’s masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made, the 1927 silent comedy The General — co-directed by Keaton and Clyde Bruckman — has received a classy DVD treatment courtesy of Kino International: "The General - Ultimate 2 Disc Edition." Whether or not you’re a Keaton admirer — and I’m no fan of gag-based comedies — I find it impossible not to be thrilled that this cinematic landmark is now available on DVD in a version newly mastered in HD from a 35mm archive print struck from the original camera negative.
As with just about every Buster Keaton vehicle, The General doesn’t offer much in terms of plot. After being rejected by the Confederate army and taken for a coward by his beloved paramour, the pretty but dull Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack), granite-faced Johnny Gray (Keaton) gets a chance to prove himself when Yankee spies steal his equally beloved locomotive, the ugly but thrilling The General. The Yankees had better watch out.
Like Charles Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and other silent comics, Keaton was the Star (capital "S") of his films, which were constructed as showcases for his talents and were fully centered on his (deceptively) hapless heroes. The General is no exception to that rule — and that’s just fine for Keaton fans.
"His stunts and sight gags, perfectly framed and presented for maximum clarity and comic impact, fit perfectly into an ambitious action epic," writes Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. "Spectacular chases, fires and explosions are captured with fluid camerawork. There are no stunt doubles for Keaton and of course no digital effects. This is the real thing you’re watching — in every sense. It has incidentally, one of the cleverest ’sniper’ sequences to be seen in any war movie."
Once again, whether you laugh until your intestines come out or you witness the misadventures of Johnny Gray and his beloved locomotive with a face as stony as that of the film’s hero, The General is a cinematic landmark that must be watched at least once. This Kino release provides you with a great opportunity to do so.
The General was written and directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman. Adaptation by Al Boasberg and Charles Smith, from William Pittenger’s The Great Locomotive Chase. Photographed by J. Devereaux Jennings and Bert Haines.
DVD Extras
- Three musical scores to choose from:
- Music composed and conducted by Carl Davis, performed by The Thames Silents Orchestra (in 5.1 Stereo Surround
or 2.0 Stereo) - Music arranged and directed by Robert Israel
- Theatre organ score by Lee Erwin
- Music composed and conducted by Carl Davis, performed by The Thames Silents Orchestra (in 5.1 Stereo Surround
- A video tour of the authentic General, presented in association with The Southern Museum
- A tour of the filming locations, presented by John Bengtson, author of Silent Echoes
- Behind-the-scenes home movie footage
- Filmed introduction by Gloria Swanson
- Filmed introduction by Orson Welles
- "The Buster Express," a brisk montage of train gags from throughout Keaton’s career
Photos: Courtesy Kino International
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET at the Academy
A STORY OF HEALING, THE LONG WAY HOME: Oscar’s Docs
RASHOMON: Monday Nights with Oscar
A Century Ago: The Films of 1908
MILK, Prop. 8, and More Celebrity Gay Slurs
Sundance 2009: To Boycott or Not to Boycott
ONE SURVIVOR REMEMBERS, ANNE FRANK REMEMBERED: Oscar’s Docs
A TIME FOR JUSTICE, MAYA LIN: Oscar’s Docs
THE MORE THE MERRIER: George Stevens Lecture on Directing Series
NANKING, WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: Contemporary Documentaries
MAN BITES DOG d: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel
C’est arrivé près de chez vous / Man Bites Dog aka It Happened in Your Neighborhood (1992)
Direction: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel. Screenplay: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Vincent Tavier. Cast: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Jean-Marc Chenut, Alain Oppexxi, Vincent Tavier
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
The 1992 Belgian mockumentary C’est arrivé près de chez vous / Man Bites Dog (or, somewhat literally, It Happened in Your Neighborhood) is one of those films that is neither bad nor good, and not really its own "thing," either. By that I mean that it is manifestly influenced by works that came before it, so it is nothing original, while also displaying techniques that other films have expanded upon. Yet, since most of these techniques and themes were not originally created within Man Bites Dog, it cannot be said to be influential in its own right. Rather, it is a conduit between other, often better, films.
Shot in black and white, in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio, Man Bites Dog follows a serial killer, Benoit (Benoît Poelvoorde), as he kills and then disposes of a myriad of bodies. The film’s premise is that, by recording Benoit’s actions, the camera crew shares complicity in the evil deeds, and later even participates in them by disposing of bodies and raping a woman. They even accept financing from Benoit, out of his stolen booty. Naturally, here the film loses all claims to subtlety and effective satire, as well as hints of plausibility.
When later, Benoit is captured by the police — after failing to kill the latest in a string of mailmen, due to his wearing a neck brace for an injury sustained in a boxing match — no charges are brought against the crew, despite the cops having evidence of the filmed crimes. To see how Man Bites Dog fails, compare its rape scene with the one in A Clockwork Orange. Much is similar, including the helpless husband watching, but in the latter film — its cinéma vérité style notwithstanding — the violent scene evokes none of the revulsion and horror engendered by the "fictive" rape in the 1971 Stanley Kubrick effort. The reason? One word: screenplay. A Clockwork Orange has a great script; Man Bites Dog’s is a mess.
Benoit is not a real serial killer, even in the fictive world of the film. He lacks the subtlety and despite sciolistic braggadocio to the camera, he also lacks the real hubris. All that in spite of his speaking of ballast to sink corpses, condemning shoddy workmanship in buildings where he has dumped bodies, and looking to see if a black male victim of his has a bigger penis than a white victim. Aside from the irreality of the crew’s culpability in the crimes is that of friends and family members who seem to know of his "hobby." When Benoit, while at a dinner table late in the film, kills a man with an interest in his girlfriend, none of them reacts poorly to it. Yes, there is nudity and violence, but it is so over the top and cartoonish that the NC-17 rating it initially garnered was a joke that pointed up how much folly such ratings are.
In the end, Benoit and the crew are gunned down, as the film rolls from the camera on the floor until it ends. Clearly, this was an inspiration for The Blair Witch Project (1999), just as the repeated gag of the film crew’s sound men being accidentally killed in Benoit’s adventures is a take off from the deaths by accident of the drummers in This Is Spinal Tap. And it is this "on the fence between other films" status that makes Man Bites Dog a genial failure.
Man Bites Dog was directed by Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux (who threw a custard pie at Microsoft’s Bill Gates in Brussels in 1998; Belvaux — according to reports — killed himself in 2006), and André Bonzel, and written by the trio plus Vincent Tavier. The DVD by the Criterion Collection lacks an audio commentary, offering only a trailer and a brief interview with the film’s three principals. In the accompanying booklet there are also a couple of essays on Man Bites Dog, one of which was written by Bonzel.
Its frat-boy humor is what ultimately kills Man Bites Dog, making it a lesser entry of the genre that includes the Christopher Guest mockumentaries. Given the subject matter, the film would have been more effective as a "straight" mockumentary playing along the lines of a Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. As is, Man Bites Dog is just a lower-budget version of Oliver Stone’s hit-and-miss Natural Born Killers, which itself would have worked better had it played things straighter, like Kalifornia.
Also, despite being under one hundred minutes, Man Bites Dog loses steam midway through. It would have been far more effective had it lasted one single hour. As it is, the film becomes less of a critique of the media using violence and more of a pornographic pile-on that simply bores. After the tenth body or so there is no horror left, even if anyone had chills to start with. Worse yet, despite changing his methods of death, Benoit is wholly predictable (for instance, each first of the month he kills another mailman) and sloppy (he leaves fingerprints everywhere, so that in reality he would never have gotten past three or four victims). Had Man Bites Dog been a documentary on an unrelated subject and then slowly gave us hints of Benoit’s darker nature, it would have worked much better.
The filmmakers countered such criticism by claiming that the film is not about violence, but about the day-to-day life of anyone, and the main character just happened to be a killer. If that was so, though, then why is Man Bites Dog not about one of the mailmen Benoit kills? It could have ended with the murder of the lead character, and been a comment on how easily people accept such violence and death. Thus, the filmmakers’ claims are disingenuous and merely an attempt to minimize criticisms of structural flaws with both the film and its screenplay. Technically, too, Man Bites Dog falls into triteness, such as shots of endless running and handheld cameras even though the scenes in question do not demand those techniques, which end up being merely low-budget razzle-dazzle to pad out the film’s length.
A serious problem with its screenplay is that the people killed in Man Bites Dog can never affect the viewer in a visceral way. They are mere chattel for slaughter, not characters we care about. They are dead setups for Benoit’s jokes — or less, things to merely get him from point A to point B to propel the putative plot. In short, there is no heft to Man Bites Dog. It is occasionally funny, but it asks no deeper queries of society or of the viewer, and certainly gives no answers. It is an exercise, period — but one with no possible benefit since the only answer and reason for it is that old Hannah Arendt fallacy: the banality of evil, which is, let’s face it, triter than its claim. Benoit, despite the filmmakers’ intent, is nothing but a frat boy. He says nothing, does nothing, and there is no logical — even in the film’s skewed universe — reason that he should be of interest, unlike, perhaps, the Italian killer he kills, whose alleged Mafia ties end up doing in Benoit and the crew.
At least in a film like American Psycho, one can gauge the silliness of the cartoon violence by the fact that none of it happened — even within the world of the film; they were all fantasies of the lead character. The faux documentary style of Man Bites Dog, however, does not allow the filmmakers that out, and its lack essentially suffocates the film under its pretenses. Yet, true to its nature, Man Bites Dog never really lets loose in the other direction — in the style of Borat, i.e., that it is a comedy, first and foremost, not some deep psychological exploration. Thus, it does not engender enough chills, cogitations, or guffaws, and remains a gray lumpenmenschen of a film, loaded with potential, but killed by its creators’ lack of skill and vision — rather than by a rainbow of tears, be they of fear or laughter, like Charlie Chaplin’s underrated Monsieur Verdoux. Man Bites Dog sits on a fence that is none too stylish, and even less effective at achieving its aim. Yet, it is the viewer who gets the splinters. Thanks, Benoit.
© Dan Schneider
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of Mr. Schneider, and they may not reflect the views of the Alternative Film Guide.
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET at the Academy
A newly restored 35mm print of Miracle on 34th Street, the whimsical 1947 classic about Santa Claus posing as Santa Claus, will be presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday, December 11, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Written (from a story by Valentine Davies) and directed by the unjustly forgotten George Seaton, whose credits range from the Technicolor Betty Grable musical Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe to the disaster melodrama Airport, Miracle on 34th Street stars Maureen O’Hara as a no-nonsense Macy’s executive whose jaded eight-year-old daughter (Natalie Wood) — the brat no longer believes in Santa — becomes intrigued by the store’s new Santa Claus, Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn), who may or may not actually be the ho-ho-ho-ish, bearded gent from the North Pole. After Kringle is institutionalized as a total nut, a court battle to prove his Santaliness ensues. And I must shamefacedly admit that I couldn’t help but get goosebumps at the feel-fantasy finale.
It’s worth remembering that Miracle on 34th Street was released two years after atomic bombs incinerated nearly 250,000 human beings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while the Cold War, the bloody partition of the Indian subcontinent, and other conflicts were just about to get started. Luckily, Seaton makes the magic feel as palpable as the dreary news on the front pages of newspapers — then or now, for that matter. In fact, Miracle on 34th Street is the sort of populist-whimsical, romantic dramatic comedy (it’s all that, really) that Frank Capra always strived to make but never quite pulled off.
Also in the Miracle on 34th Street cast: John Payne (as Kringle’s defender), Gene Lockhart, Porter Hall, William Frawley, Jerome Cowan, and in bit parts, standing in line to greet Santa, Thelma Ritter in her film debut and former silent-film star Mae Marsh.
The impish Gwen deservedly won the 1947 best supporting actor Academy Award, and so did both Davies (in the Motion Picture Story category) and Seaton, for his delightful screenplay. Additionally, Miracle on 34th Street was up for a best picture Oscar, which it lost to the (less interesting) socially conscious drama Gentleman’s Agreement. (Seaton’s slot among the best director nominees was given to George Cukor for the heavy-duty psychological drama A Double Life.)
The new print is from the collection of the Academy Film Archive, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox, and is presented as part of the Academy’s Gold Standard screening series.
Tickets for Miracle on 34th Street are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members and students with a valid ID, and may be purchased online at www.oscars.org, in person at the Academy box office or by mail. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The Samuel Goldwyn Theater is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. All seating is unreserved. For more information, call (310) 247-3600.
Photos: Courtesy of the Margaret Herrick Library
A STORY OF HEALING, THE LONG WAY HOME: Oscar’s Docs
RASHOMON: Monday Nights with Oscar
A Century Ago: The Films of 1908
MILK, Prop. 8, and More Celebrity Gay Slurs
Sundance 2009: To Boycott or Not to Boycott
ONE SURVIVOR REMEMBERS, ANNE FRANK REMEMBERED: Oscar’s Docs
A TIME FOR JUSTICE, MAYA LIN: Oscar’s Docs
THE MORE THE MERRIER: George Stevens Lecture on Directing Series
NANKING, WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: Contemporary Documentaries
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre
TAPESTRIES OF HOPE: Q&A with Michealene Cristini Risley
American filmmaker Michealene Cristini Risley (right) met Zimbabwean social activist Betty Makoni at an International Development Exchange event in San Francisco. Risley was impressed with Makoni’s achievements as the founder of Zimbabwe’s Girl Child Network, an organization dedicated to helping young women and girls who have survived rape, a not uncommon occurrence in a part of the world where the spread of HIV remains out of control and "healers" prescribe "young (female) virgins" as a cure for males infected with the virus.
Now in post-production, Tapestries of Hope became — or rather, is becoming — [...] Continue Reading…
Berta Singerman Recites “Camino de la Patria”
Argentinean stage legend Berta Singerman — actually born in Russia — made only three films, one of which in Hollywood: Nada más que una mujer / Nothing More Than a Woman, the 1934 Spanish-language version of the Fox production Pursued (itself a remake of The Painted Woman).
Singerman, who died at the age of 97 in Buenos Aires in 1998, was renowned for her poetry readings. Spanish classical music composer Manuel de Falla once said, "While we, composers, look for music for our words, Berta extracts music from words."
The clip above (I’d say it’s from the [...] Continue Reading…
A STORY OF HEALING, THE LONG WAY HOME: Oscar’s Docs
The two 1997 Oscar-winning documentaries, Donna Dewey’s A Story of Healing (right) and Mark Jonathan Harris’ The Long Way Home, will be screened as the final installment of “Oscar’s Docs, Part Four: Academy Award-Winning Documentaries 1988–1997” on Monday, November 24, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.
The documentary short subject A Story of Healing follows American plastic surgeons and nurses who have volunteered to help disfigured children and young adults in Vietnam. The screening will be followed by an onstage [...] Continue Reading…
Sundance, Prop. 8, and Boycotts
Via The Advocate:
"Film Independent released a statement on Friday in response to Los Angeles Film Festival director Richard Raddon’s donation to the campaign for Proposition 8, which succeeded in banning gay marriage in California. ‘As a champion of diversity,’ the statement said, ‘Film Independent is dedicated to supporting the civil rights of all individuals. At the same time, our organization does not police the personal, religious, or political choices of any employee, member, or filmmaker.’"
***
Via Robert Hofler and Michael Jones’ article "Same-Sex Activists Target Sundance" in Variety:
"With activists [...] Continue Reading…
Oscar 2009: 15 Documentary Semi-Finalists
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will move forward in the voting process for the 81st Academy Awards. A record 94 films had originally qualified in the category.
The 15 films are (in alphabetical order):
At the Death House Door
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
Encounters at the End of the World
Fuel
The Garden
Glass: [...] Continue Reading…
UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US: Q&A with Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell
Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell’s Until the Light Takes Us was one of the most unusual entries at the 2008 AFI FEST held in Los Angeles in early November. In the words of co-director Ewell, the film is "a feature length documentary chronicling the history, ideology and aesthetic of Norwegian black metal — a musical subculture infamous as much for a series of murders and church arsons as it is for its unique musical and visual aesthetics. This is the first (and only) film to truly shed light on a movement that has [...] Continue Reading…
RASHOMON: Monday Nights with Oscar
Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic Rashomon, which officially introduced Japanese cinema to the world at large, will be the next film presented as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Monday Nights with Oscar.” The East Coast premiere of the new digitally restored print of Rashomon will take place on Monday, November 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City.
Though it revolves around the rape of a woman and the murder of her Samurai husband, Rashomon, co-adapted by Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto from Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s [...] Continue Reading…
QUANTUM SOLACE Soars to the Top of the Box Office
Quantum of Solace crushed its competition at the North American box office this weekend with a whopping $70.4 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Directed by Marc Forster, the 22nd official James Bond adventure scored the best opening for a Bond movie ever, beating the opening weekend gross of predecessor Casino Royale by $29.6 million. Quantum Solace is currently the worldwide box-office leader.
Last week’s winner, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, slipped to No. 2, earning an impressive $36.1 million to reach a domestic total of $118 million after only [...] Continue Reading…
PURPLE VIOLETS d: Edward Burns
Purple Violets (2007)
Direction and screenplay: Edward Burns. Cast: Selma Blair, Patrick Wilson, Edward Burns, Debra Messing, Dennis Farina, Donal Logue.
Writer-director Edward Burns’ perfectly watchable Purple Violets is a romantic drama about relationships and, to a lesser extent, the world of fiction writing. The film’s focal point is Patti Petalson (Selma Blair), a real-estate agent who has been married for seven years to overbearing chef Chazz Coleman (Donal Logue) and who longs to indulge her true passion, fiction writing. A former college boyfriend, Brian Callahan (Patrick Wilson), is [...] Continue Reading…
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN d: Tomas Alfredson
Låt den rätte komma in / Let the Right One In (2008)
Direction: Tomas Alfredson. Screenplay: John Ajvide Lindqvist, from his novel. Cast: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist.
Directed by Tomas Alfredson from a screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Låt den rätte komma in / Let the Right One In is not only a satisfying horror film from beginning to end — one of the best entries in the vampire genre since Blade, Interview with a Vampire, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula — but it’s also a subtle love story, which [...] Continue Reading…
A Century Ago: The Films of 1908
"A Century Ago: The Films of 1908" will be presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday, December 1, at 7:30 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. The program will be repeated on Thursday, December 4, at 7 p.m. at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, California.
"A Century Ago" will feature a number of 1908 shorts, among them Edison’s Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest (above, lower photo), featuring a performance by none other than D.W. Griffith (right); Biograph’s After Many Years, starring [...] Continue Reading…
ANTARCTICA: Q&A with Yair Hochner
In writer-director Yair Hochner’s intriguing, multi-layered, remarkably well-acted Antarctica, which Regent Releasing is opening tomorrow, November 14, at the Regent Showcase in Hollywood, several gay men and a couple of lesbians get enmeshed in a complex web of sexual/romantic entanglements set in the streets, clubs, and apartment houses of Tel Aviv.
There’s Omer (Tomer Ilan), a handsome, soft-spoken — and still single — librarian who’s about to turn thirty; his sister, Shirley (Lucy Dubinchik), who feels the need to get away from it all despite her love for club owner Michal (Liat Ekta), who also happens to be [...] Continue Reading…
MILK, Prop. 8, and More Celebrity Gay Slurs
Kristopher Tapley at In Contention:
"And I can’t help but wonder what Milk might have meant for today’s cause, if anything, had it landed in the marketplace last month.
"Some of the film’s most inspiring and, indeed, captivating moments come during the sequence that details the Prop 6 fight. Consistently, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn’s career-best portrayal) makes the point, to paraphrase, ‘We have to make them understand that they know us.’ That message, I think, might have carried a lot of heft if voters had made it to the polls four weeks later."
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I doubt that [...] Continue Reading…
Sundance 2009: To Boycott or Not to Boycott
David Poland at Movie City News:
"Movie City News will spend a lot of money in Park City to cover Sundance this year. I will be happy to pledge, right now, that we will not spend a dime that money in businesses that were financial supporters of California’s Prop 8.
"So… activists… make that list. Make it honestly. Don’t tell me all Mormons are evil or that the entire state is off limits. But if a local gas station company is owned by a Prop 8 funder… we will fill up elsewhere. If a [...] Continue Reading…
Oscar 2009: Animated Film Submissions
Fourteen features have been submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 81st Academy Awards®.
The 14 submitted features are:
“Bolt”
“Delgo”
“Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!”
“Dragon Hunters”
“Fly Me to the Moon”
“Igor”
“Kung Fu Panda”
“Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”
“$9.99”
“The Sky Crawlers”
“Sword of the Stranger”
“The Tale of Despereaux”
“WALL-E”
“Waltz [...] Continue Reading…
MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA Tops Box Office
DreamWorks Animation’s Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa dominated the North American box office this weekend with a stunning $63.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath’s sequel to the 2005 hit raced to the top spot early on, beating its predecessor’s opening weekend gross by $16.3 million. In Escape 2 Africa, New York zoo animals Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman try to fly back home, but accidentally end up somewhere else in Africa.
Debuting in second place with a surprising $19.2 million was David Wain’s [...] Continue Reading…
European Film Awards 2008
EUROPEAN FILM 2008
IL DIVO, Italy
written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino
produced by Indigofilm, Lucky Red, Parco Film, Babe Films, StudioCanal,
Arte France Cinéma
ENTRE LES MURS (The Class), France
directed by Laurent Cantet
written by Laurent Cantet, François Begaudeau & Robin Campillo after
the novel of François Begaudeau
produced by Haut et Court, France 2 Cinéma
GOMORRA (Gomorrah), Italy
directed by Matteo Garrone
written by Maurizio Bracci, Ugo Chiti, Gianni di Gregorio, Matteo Garrone,
Massimo Gaudioso & Roberto Saviano
produced by Fandango, RAI Cinema
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, [...] Continue Reading…
Jason Priestley, Marisa Tomei, Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham: AFI FEST 2008
The images below are from arrivals at AFI Fest 2008 held at Arclight Hollywood on November 6.
Marisa Tomei (Photo by Toby Canham/Getty Images for AFI)
Mickey Rourke at the Los Angeles premiere of The Wrestler (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)
Evan Rachel Wood (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)
Darren Aronofsky (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)
Jason Priestley (Photo by Toby Canham/Getty Images for AFI)
Jason Statham (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)
Scott Elrod (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)
Bill Plympton (Photo by Toby Canham/Getty Images [...] Continue Reading…
Danny Boyle, GOMORRAH, WALTZ WITH BASHIR: AFI FEST 2008
Below are a few choices tonight, November 6, at AFI FEST 2008, held at ArcLight Hollywood. (Note: The A Quiet Little Wedding screening will take place at the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.)
Schedule and synopses from the AFI FEST 2008 website.
7:00 p.m.
Danny Boyle Tribute
45 minutes
Danny Boyle’s career has been marked by the remarkable variety of themes, locations and genres he has tackled and his extraordinary eye for discovering talent. After several provocative made-for-BBC films, his first theatrical feature, the riveting dark-comedy thriller SHALLOW GRAVE, introduced Ewan McGregor and won the BAFTA award for best [...] Continue Reading…
Tilda Swinton, Kathleen Quinlan at AFI FEST 2008
The images below are from arrivals at AFI Fest 2008 held at Arclight Hollywood on November 5.
Tilda Swinton (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)
Rafael Monserrate of Poundcake (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for AFI)
Bai Ling of Dim Sum Funeral (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for AFI)
Kathleen Quinlan; Deshja Driggs; Troy Hall; Rafael Monserrate; Jay O. Sanders of Poundcake (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for AFI)
Kathleen Quinlan; Jay O. Sanders (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for AFI)
Joanna Cassidy, Mark Ruffalo at AFI FEST [...] Continue Reading…
THE WRESTLER, EVERLASTING MOMENTS, LA RABIA: AFI FEST 2008
Below are a few choices tonight, November 6, at AFI FEST 2008, held at ArcLight Hollywood. (Note: The Wrestler screening will take place at the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.)
Schedule and synopses from the AFI FEST 2008 website.
6:45 p.m.
Everlasting Moments
Directed by: Jan Troell. Written by: Niklas Rådström, Jan Troell, Agneta Troell
Cast: Maria Heiskanen, Mikael Persbrandt, Jesper Christensen
One fine day in 1907 in the Swedish village of Malmö, Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen) wins a Contessa camera in a lottery. That camera accounts for the title of the latest film by the Swedish master and Oscar nominee [...] Continue Reading…
Vivien Leigh on Turner Classic Movies
Tonight, November 5, on Turner Classic Movies:
It’s Vivien Leigh night. The India-born British actress would have turned 95 today.
Leigh, who died in 1967, was one of the best — and most underused — film talents of the 20th century: a mere 15 or so films as a leading lady/star during her 30+-year career.
You can’t quite tell how good Leigh could be in the British-made Fire Over England, in which she plays future husband’s Laurence Olivier’s love interest. Her breathtaking beauty, however, is very much in evidence despite the heavy makeup. The leading female role in [...] Continue Reading…
