TONIGHT -- Brick Screening / Rian Johnson Q&A

Director Rian Johnson will be on-hand for the midnight screening of Brick at the Regency Fairfax theater tonight, presumably ready and eager to answer all of your most pressing fake highschool-noir slang-related quesions in excoriating detail even whilst he deftly works in a plug or two for his upcoming flick The Brothers Bloom. 

If you haven't seen Brick -- which is, along with Better Luck Tomorrow, one of the two best movies ever made about what it felt like going to high school in Orange Country during the 90's -- then get thee to the cinema. If you're one of those poor deluded souls who saw Brick but couldn't do anything but whine afterwards about how the kids talked like they were in a noir but they were just in high school and hey isn't that lame, then maybe you should skip it and indulge yourself in a drive-in screening of the Audrey Hepburn classic Wait Until Dark at the Steve Allen Theater instead.


WHERE: REGENCY FAIRFAX 7907 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048
WHEN: Midnight. TONIGHT, Friday September 19th 2008.
MORE INFO: Regency Website

FREE -- Shadowplay Takes Film Cheerleading to a New Level

Over on his excellent Shadowplay blog, David Cairns has decided to take an unusually active hand in promoting the work of French auteur Julien Duvivier: by giving away DVD-Rs of his 1939 film La Fin Du Jour (The End of a Day) free to all who request it:

In a daring rear-guard action to promote the reputation of defunct French film director Julien Duvivier, Shadowplay is GIVING AWAY DVD-Rs copied from a decomposing late ’80s VHS off-air recording “borrowed” from the Lindsay Anderson Archive in Glasgow. I will personally send a copy to everyone who asks for one. The quality of the disc will be shit. The quality of the film is unspeakably superb.

To the best of my knowledge, the film is not available on DVD or VHS in the U.S., and foreign copies are distinctly lacking in English subtitles.

Having never seen any Duvivier myself, I'm eager to take a look at his work. The New York Times review of La Fin Du Jour from 1939 is aglow with love for it:

[T[he story of the film is that of a home for old actors, a reliquary of glorious memories, a restless tomb for dreams that never were fulfilled. It is a sentimental film, as such things must always be; but it is droll, too, and almost cruelly objective. Charles Spaak, who wrote it; Julien Duvivier, who directed it, and the fine cast that played it have stoutly resisted the theme's inherent tendency toward self-pity and self-ridicule. Nothing would have been more banal or bathetic than an actor's home filled with mirror-posing Hamlets or dear old ladies bent over yellowed scrapbooks. Simply for the record, and as a tribute to Gallic self-control, there are none of them in the film...

Duvivier's understanding of [his characters] is too thorough, too temperate, too sympathetic to permit him to shape their drama deliberately into farce or into melodrama. To see it as a whole one would also have to recall the beautifully happy old couple who sat hand in hand through the film, speaking of their children and grandchildren and deciding finally to get married.

To see it whole one would have to hear the speeches at the protest meeting, when all the guests voted to demand a radio in every room and two free stamps a week, not realizing the home was about to be closed through lack of funds. To see it whole one would have to follow Duvivier's camera through the empty corridors at night, with ghostly applause echoing everywhere -- the echo of a hundred taunting dreams.

To take advantage of this shockingly generous offer, head on over to the Shadowplay blog and drop a line in the comment thread. (And a nice "thank you" wouldn't be out of place, either.)

LINKS:
Shadowplay: The Willfully Eccentric Film Blog of David Cairns
Shadowplay: The Great Duvivier Giveaway

The New Beverly and Seth Green Unleash a CAVALCADE OF HORRORS Tonight

The New Beverly Cinema's latest guest-programmer festival starts tonight with a double-feature of Robocop and Die Hard, introduced by Seth Green. If you've somehow managed to live a full and complete life without ever having seen the latter film -- and really, what are the chances? -- we'll point you to an early review by the Outlaw Vern, the internet's resident expert on Badass Cinema:

[In Die Hard] Bruce Willis is a conflicted type hero very much of the '80s movie heritage of which he is most definitely a part. Coming to LA to spend christmas with his wife and kid, it is revealed he lives in a different city than his wife and right away gets in an argument with her, knowing all along that he is fucking things up. Before he can even say I'M SORRY three times fast the gal is held hostage by a group of germans who take over the building and plan to steal all the money. Bruce sneaks off with his little cop pistol and the rest of the film tells the story of how one man can kill all of the terrorists by himself using makeshift weapons and detective work -- all so he can make up with his wife.

Now especially at christmas time a motherfucker that watches this movie may very well believe it is meant as a jesus type story. The part of Jesus is played of course by Bruce, who sacrifices himself to save the other people in the building. The disciples include the cop Bruce talks to over the walky talky, who follows his teachings even while the commanding officers and fbi don't believe in Bruce and even hope to get him out of the way. I don't know maybe the other 11 are the guys he mentions from his squad who are taking bets on Bruce. Also judas is played by the smarmy fucking yuppy cokehead who pretends to be bruce's friend but turns him in to the evil king Hans Grueber.

Festival programmer Seth Green is best known, depending on your circle of geekery, either for his role as Oz on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for playing the part of "the wacky geek kid" in any number of second-rate action-comedies, or as the co-creator of the amazing series Robot Chicken:


"Seth Green's Cavalcade of Horrors" as it has been dubbed will continue for the next two weeks and feature, amongst others, Albert Brook's hilarious Defending Your Life and a Phil Joanou double bill of Three O'Clock High and State of Grace.


WHERE: The New Beverly Cinema
WHEN: September 3 through 15, at 7pm
COST: $7 gets you in to both films.
MORE INFO: The New Beverly's MySpace Blog

FRIDAY -- Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher

Tomorrow at the Silent Movie Theater the Cinefamily will be screening Ratcatcher, Lynne Ramsay's little-seen first film (which is not to say that her second film exactly tore up the box office either). The last film in Cinefamily's "Female Gaze" series is also its best. Ramsay has an uncanny eye for detail; it plays more like a series of compelling still-photos than a traditional narrative.

Quoth the Cinefamily website: "Ratcatcher is a grim coming-of-age tale set in working-class Glasgow during a sanitation strike, but director Lynne Ramsey's imaginative flights of fantasy and masterful filmmaking seem to help her characters transcend the world of garbage and grime they inhabit. She selects her details with the taste of a great short-story teller, just a couple at a time; each image and sound is beautiful in some way, rich with potency. Ratcatcher ... represents the best of a trend towards a modern poetic realism -- films trying for hyper-realism in location and characters, but seeking to create a strange, mysterious quality, rather than just a gritty documentary world."


WHERE: The Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax
WHEN: Friday, August 29, 2008 @ 7:30pm
COST: $10
MORE INFO: The Cinefamily Website
Or you could just buy it on Criterion DVD

TONIGHT -- 2-for-1 Tickets to Worst Date Movie Ever

In a move of either subversive brilliance or perverse deviance -- or hell, why not both? -- the Cinefamily is offering a two-for-one deal on tickets to confrontational auteuriste Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl tonight as part of their "Female Gaze" series. Breillat has long had a reputation for making films dealing with sexuality and gender power-dynamics that are in the words of the Cinefamily's website "shocking masterpiece[s] of provocation," or what the rest of us might call "fucked up." If you've never seen one of her films -- and really, what's wrong with you? -- Fat Girl is an excellent place to start... but maybe not the best choice for a first date.

Quoth the Cinefamily website: "Anaïs is the eponymous 12-year-old lead, a would-be Cyrano whose stifled sexual awakening coincides with her beautiful sister Elena's first experiences with desire and seduction. Subtle tension escalates between the sisters as they navigate Breillat's signature sexual terrain, an ominous landscape fraught with the constant potential for delusion, deception, violence, and tragedy. Not surprising that Breillat was a best-selling novelist by the age of 17 -- the storytelling in Fat Girl decimates the conventions of teen dramas in favor of a daring explication of lust and loyalty, with an ending that famously shocked and polarized international audiences."

(Afterward, if your relationship is still intact, you can hang around for Fuego!, a film which appears both less serious and more entertainingly misogynistic than Fat Girl:)


"The authentic story of a real person,
told with integrity and stark candor."
WHERE: The Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax
WHEN: Tonight, Friday August 22, 2008 @ 7:30pm
COST: $10 for two tickets
MORE INFO: The Cinefamily
Fat Girl Criterion Collection DVD

THIS WEEKEND -- Hitchcock Double Bill at the New Beverly

This weekend, the New Beverly Cinema is hosting a double feature of two of Alfred Hitchcock's best middle-period movies, Notorious and Rebecca, both tales of perverse love affairs.

In Notorious, Cary Grant all but forces Ingrid Bergman into the arms of another man so that she can spy on his operations while Grant, an apparent cuckold fetishist, seethes with jealousy (somewhat improbably, John Woo later paid homage to Hitchcock by using this same conceit in his not-so-beloved, less-than-classic film Mission: Impossible II). By contrast Rebecca is an adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's excellent novel about a young woman who marries the perfect man (Laurence Olivier) -- except for the part where he's still obsessed with the memory of his dead first wife, the titular Rebecca, who seems to be haunting our unnamed heroine from beyond the grave. (But at least he's rich.) Both are classic Hitchcock, though for my money Rebecca is the one not to miss.

If you go tonight, you can even hang around for a midnight screening of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, which is also about relationships and betrayal and lies and double-agents, but without any on-screen double-X chromosomes to speak of.

WHERE: The New Beverly Cinema
WHEN: Friday and Saturday, August 15 & 16, at 7:30pm and 3:30pm (Saturday only)
PRICE: $7 gets you into both flicks.
MORE INFO: www.newbevcinema.com

"He's one bad mother..." "Shut yo' mouth!"

"...I'm just talkin' about Isaac Hayes!"

The great funk/soul artist Isaac Hayes (aka "Black Moses") passed away today; unglamourously falling victim to a treadmill.

According to WashingtonPost.com, "A spokesman for the Shelby County, Tenn., sheriff's office, said that Mr. Hayes's wife, 2-year-old-son and a cousin returned from the grocery store shortly after noon [on Sunday] and found Mr. Hayes lying beside a still-running treadmill in a downstairs bedroom."

Isaac Hayes' story was full of ultimate-highs and rock-bottom-lows. He was raised by his desperately poor sharecropper grandparents, picking cotton near Memphis in the 1940's. He became a father in his late teens (and eventually had three failed marriages). But he developed a love for music and worked hard to rise to the top of his game in 1971, when he wrote the soundtrack for Shaft. The Shaft soundtrack stayed on the pop charts for 60 weeks, and won him an Oscar and two Grammys! However, 3 short years later, the IRS came knocking and he declared bankruptcy as the government auctioned his entire estate to collect his debt. In 1997 he re-emerged as a cultural icon voicing the character of Chef on South Park; he angrily left the show almost a decade later after a well known episode mocking Scientology (which deeply offended him as a follower of the religion).

To the many faces of Isaac Hayes... "Can ya dig it?"

White House press conference... VAMPIRES EXIST!!!

Urgent News Flash!!!

The White House announces to the press that VAMPIRES ARE REAL!
And... the President is meeting with top officials of a VAMPIRE rights group!

If you don't believe me... Watch it!



And...
Now that the word is out, Vampires are all over the place!

They are now openly dating... see LoveBitten.net!
Openly selling blood alternative beverages... see TruBeverage.com!
Have their own alternative news source... see BloodCopy.com!
And have their own Washington lobbyists... see AmericanVampireLeague.com!

Not that this movement for acceptance is without opposition...
The Fellowship of the Sun is trying to fight back by preserving "the strength and purity of the human race"... organizing an oposition movement and aiming to expose false claims on the part of vampire activists! (see FellowshipoftheSun.org)

I don't want to play politics...
but I think Vampires are AWESOME!

Interview With a Vampire... AWESOME!
Underworld... AWESOME!
Blade... AWESOME!
Night Watch... AWESOME!
And Joss Whedon even made Buffy the Vampire Slayer AWESOME!

In more esoteric fare I also loved... Nadja (produced by David Lynch), and Ultraviolet (the AWESOME British mini-series not the crappy Milla Jovovich movie)


So I'm totally in! Who's with me!



OK....
Confession time...
In case you haven't figured it out yet...
All that stuff at the beginning about Vampires being real...

All lies.

In truth, all the videos and websites noted up front are all just "viral advertising" for a new HBO series coming in the fall. And you may have come across other sly advertisements for these products and services cleverly run in magazines, on Myspace/Facebook/Twitter, or on TV. These ads all seem normal enough ... unless you're really paying attention.

The series called True Blood is based on a series of novels called Southern Vampire, by Charlaine Harris. HBO is also publishing a graphic novel to promote the show. You can find the official HBO website here, or a very helpful fansite at True-Blood.net!

I'm stoked!

Speaking of men in masks... Batman review!

The previous post about making owl masks inspired me to write briefly about seeing The Dark Knight this weekend.


As I'm sure everyone under the sun already has heard, read, or seen (if not verified for themselves)... The Dark Knight is a FANTASTIC movie! And not just in a hot summer action movie kind of way (though it is that). And not just in a comic-book cool-style kind of way (though it does look incredible). And not just in a nostalgic remembrance of Heath Ledger kind of way (though it will make you wish he were still with us).

The Dark Knight is just a damn good movie!

Great actors (and 1 actress), in great characters, giving great performances, delivering a great script, under great direction, on great sets, in great costume and make-up, that is all filmed great-ly, and enhanced with great effects... you get the point.

But in spite all of the great-ness, it is Heath Ledger who steals the stage every time the Joker appears on screen. All personal tragedy and remembrance aside, Heath's Joker is still the singular most compelling criminal character I have ever seen on screen! His unquenchable thirst for chaos without motive is truly frightening! His pure joy in watching society rage is maddening, and his genuine disappointment when those he torments respond nobly is horrifying! Of course, a great deal of credit is also due to writer/director Christopher Nolan; but there is no doubt that it would not have carried such a severe punch were it not for Heath Ledger's thoroughly convincing embodiment of the Joker.


We miss you, Heath!

p.s. - Mark my words... Heath Ledger, Oscar for Best Actor. Well deserved.