Fox Searchlight’s latest pop-indie festival pickup, (500) Days of Summer, is promotionally packaged, as is typical for the distributor, with a hip soundtrack featuring multiple songs from The Smiths and Regina Spektor, as well as tunes from Feist, The Doves and the obligatory Simon and Garfunkel. Though heavily dependent on music, the movie is not a musical, yet like other Searchlight releases it has that one moment where the line between non-musical and musical is just barely crossed.

In the past we’ve seen this moment restricted to diegetic circumstances, whether a dance performance or an in-scene duet of a Moldy Peaches song. But this year Searchlight’s titles have been venturing even further, first with the non-diegetic, Bollywood-influenced song and dance in Slumdog Millionaire and now with an equally fantastical sequence in (500) Days, in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt struts about to Hall and Oates’ “You Make My Dreams,” joined by a surplus of extras and an animated bluebird.

Musical numbers in non-musical movies can certainly work, as is evident in Citizen Kane and many David Lynch and Adam Sandler films, but there’s something very forced and cliché about the sequence in (500) Days. Never mind that it seems lifted out of Enchanted, a movie we very much despise, and never mind that we prefer our Zooey Deschanel movies to feature musical interludes performed by the singer-actress herself rather than lip-synced by her costars (director Marc Webb acknowledges the mistake of not including her in the scene); this number is just completely over-the-top and unoriginal.

In response to the scene, we’ve selected five of the worst musical numbers from non-musical films to show what kind of horrible company (500) Days of Summer is in.
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Last month, a New York Times article focused on the Wall Street worries over Pixar’s Up. The film lacks commercial appeal, apparently, because it features a 78-year-old protagonist. This is no country for old men (on the big screen), claim the experts. “We doubt younger boys will be that excited by the main character,” says one analyst quoted in the piece.

Even if kids were that anti-elderly (and we don’t believe they are), we can point to many other accessible elements of the film, from talking dogs to a young co-protagonist who serves as an identifiable gateway for adolescent viewers, that allow the target demographic to enjoy the animated film in spite of the cantankerous codger at its center.

Chances are, though, the little ones will also enjoy the character of Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner), maybe enough for them to seek out their own elderly person to assist (whether or not its for a merit badge). We’re hoping that it additionally leads to a greater cinematic appreciation of old men. But not just because, as Alonso Duralde writes at MSNBC, we have a shortage of realistic films about old folks. Rather, primarily because we think there’s a number of other old man protagonists that young audiences would like. Meet ten of them after the jump.
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When the trailer for David Lynch’s new web series Interview Project premiered in early May, I was so skeptical that I mocked the repetitive banality of Lynch’s “drinking game-inspiring intro.” I’ve since had a chance to see five episodes of the series — which premieres publicly on June 1 and through which Lynch and Co. will unveil one short video each day for the rest of the year — and now I think I’ve found the method motivating the mundanity.

We’re to take that introduction as its producer’s statement of its thesis, but it also reveals something about its form. Addressing the camera in his rumpled shirt and jacket, firing off a deliberately prosaic monologue in sing-song, with the words “people”, “interview” and “different” pushed so many times as to completely lose meaning, Lynch appears to be using that banality as a smokescreen. And why not? This is, essentially, what he’s done for most of his working life.

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A few weeks ago, Summit Entertainment released the first seven minutes of The Brothers Bloom online. Normally, this kind of marketing strategy is useful, particularly if the movie isn’t well known. However, it helps for such a movie to have a terrific opening, which grabs the viewer in and makes him/her need to see what happens after that teased beginning. The Brothers Bloom, unfortunately, has an unbearable start, enough that I couldn’t even get through the entire seven minutes. I turned the streaming video off at the 4:24 mark.

The primary cause of my annoyance was the voice-over narration, provided by actor/magician Ricky Jay, a man whose speech is easily recognizable, only not for good reason. His lisped reading, sounding like a poor man’s Wallace Shawn, ruined the movie for me immediately. And I decided within those few moments that I wouldn’t bother to go see The Brother’s Bloom in its entirety.

I later learned that Jay’s narration is only in the film for that seven-minute prologue that opens the film, so I am willing to give it another shot, with hope that it gets better. Due to my initial irritation, though, I’ve decided to share a list of ten other movies ruined by their voice-over narration.
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The House Next Door points to David Lynch’s website, and the trailer for Interview Project. The filmmaker apparently traveled across the country and back again interviewing random Americans, and the footage will start appearing in web series format on his site next month.

If you can get through Lynch’s drinking game-inspiring intro to the trailer (take a shot every time David Lynch says “people”, and prepare to be on the floor for several days thereafter), you’ll find black-and-white, Dorothea Lange-esque footage of mostly middle aged people (drink), mostly with Southern-ish accents, asking (scripted, it would appear) questions like “What was my first experience of death?” whilst standing in front of shacks and railroad tracks, while brids chirp and jangly guitar plays on the soundtrack. In other words, stereotypes of Americana, which Lynch has shown interest in before, appear to be well represented, but how will these stereotypes be interrogated? We’ll have to wait until June 1 to find out.

Due to the criticism and controversy of an alleged date-rape scene in Observe and Report, we bring you yet another list of sex scenes, this one focused on cinematic moments that stirred protest, censorship, bans and boycotts. Whether groundbreaking for their time or still questionable today, these scenes could probably have been included in our past highlights of films sold on a sex scene and films remembered primarily for a sex scene. But these are not leftovers. Many of them have merits and memorability outside of their “upsetting” depictions of a sexual act, though many of their objectors wouldn’t know since they never actually saw the films themselves.

One disclaimer must be made, because we’re sure commenters will jump in otherwise asking why A Clockwork Orange and other films with controversial rape scenes have not been included. Besides the fact that many readers will argue that such scenes are not rightly labeled “sex scenes,” there’s also the matter that too many films feature gratuitous rape scenes, and most of the time these are met with criticism. Of course, there are also a number of controversial consensual sex scenes that we’ve had to leave out, so feel free to name any excluded titles after reading the list.
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It’s heartening that 45365 won Best Documentary at SXSW; Severe Clear is ultimately stronger, but 45365 is the only doc I saw that took any formal risks. The first five minutes made me think I was looking at the doc of the year, let alone the fest.

First the opening shot, repeated several times, a stream of text and colors passing by illegibly fast. (I finally figured out it was an extreme close-up of a train passing by on the third go-round.) Then we’re in an empty theater with a man playing trumpet for no one, which is downright Lynchian. What comes next is showy but dazzling: using the local radio station as an audio link, we go from the station’s extremely efficient DJ to a cop driving along listening, cuting out of the car to zoom into the valley below where the high school football team is practicing as they’re being discussed on the radio, cuts back to the station, cuts to the fair that’s now being discussed, etc. ad infinitum.

Safe to say there’s a lot of formal control here; for their feature doc debut, Bill and Turner Ross appear to have never put themselves in a situation where they couldn’t figure out the most elegant shot in about five seconds flat (although they’re mostly skeptical of and avoid the outright lyrical). And yet, throughout this aesthetically admirable movie, I couldn’t figure out the thematic point; I kept waiting for something revelatory, something that would get me inside either the people on display or the town’s vibe. Instead, all I can tell you is that Sidney, OH (45365) is a nice, small Midwestern town, where everything that stereotypically implies — and nothing more — is firmly set in place.

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David Lynch used yesterday’s edition of his daily video weather report to acknowledge the authenticity of his Twitter account. Compare his slumping resignation in the above clip to today’s report, during which he speaks brightly and smokes happily. I am deeply moved by the apparent trepidation with which he makes this admission, and hope in the future, all celebrities and filmmakers are forced to make similar taped confessions regarding their use of the technological tools of their audience.

In a couple of weeks it will have been 25 years since Ridley Scott’s hammer-tastic 1984 commercial introducing the Macintosh was seen during Super Bowl XVIII. Though it wasn’t seen on television again until popular demand brought it back years later, it wasn’t for lack of quality. Ridley Scott was just coming off of Blade Runner, and the spot, which cost over a million dollars to produce, has been named the best television commercial of all time. Not too shabby.

But in a day and age of TiVos and DVRs, are commercials still relevant? In fact, it’s hard to remember more than a handful of commercials that have had the cultural impact of Scott’s 1984.

Ad agencies often turn to big talent to try and draw attention to a commercial, and the pendulum often swings the other way when Hollywood taps a commercial director to direct a feature. That’s what launched the careers of David Fincher, Michael Bay, and many other high-profile filmmakers. While 1984 might be the most famous commercial by a famous director, there have been a slew of others that have been equally as strange, from artists ranging from Spike Jonze to the Coen Brothers. Here’s a look at a some of the better ones, including both Ridley Scott’s 1984 (and it’s updated 2003 version, along with the Hilary Clinton version from last year’s Presidential race).

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The soundtrack to Twilight is currently the number one album in the U.S., and a band called Paramore is experiencing great success by association. They have two songs featured on the soundtrack, one of which, “Decode,” has been released as the album’s lead single. Though Paramore have been around for some time and were even nominated for a Grammy earlier this year, they have never charted quite as well on the Billboard Hot 100 as they currently are through this Twilight connection. And chances are they’ll never have quite as big a hit again.

Countless other artists have had their biggest break with a song prominently featured on or released through a movie soundtrack, and many of these artists disappeared into obscurity afterwards. Or, at best, they maintained a modest career, never achieving the kind of chart-topping high they once received courtesy of a hit film.

SpoutBlog has compiled a list of ten such “one-hit wonders,” though we made some rules and exceptions in order to both narrow things down (no themes or plot songs) and include a few significant tracks that aren’t technically the only hits from their respective performers. Basically, we’re presenting ten artists who would be a lot less famous had they not licensed a single to a soundtrack and who shall forever be best known for that one song from that one movie.

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Writer/novelist David Foster Wallace has reportedly been found dead of an apparent suicide. In 1996, Wallace wrote this Premiere Magazine story about David Lynch, which is widely considered (at least, by me and my friends) to be the greatest set visit story of all time. Wallace’s collection of short stories Brief Interviews With Hideous Men is the basis of the forthcoming feature directorial debut from actor John Krasinski. Wallce was 46. More details here and here.

How often do you get Barbet Schroeder, Gerard Depardieu and Nestor Almendros together to shoot a film about a burglar who ends up falling in love with the dominatrix whose dungeon he’s unwittingly tried to rob? In a scene at the very beginning of Schroeder’s exquisitely paced, beautifully executed Maitresse the tone is brilliantly set for the relationship – and thus the film itself – through Almendros’ meticulously composed images. His camera captures Depardieu’s fair Olivier and his dark-haired partner-in-crime (whose bad idea it was to burglarize the “downstairs apartment”) in a hornet’s nest of their own making, caught in the act by Bulle Ogier’s “Maitresse” Ariane, and subsequently handcuffed to her radiator and guarded by a vicious Doberman named Texas.

But wait––if this doesn’t sound like a setup straight from the twisted mind of David Lynch I don’t know what does. Indeed, what’s most striking about the erotically charged scene that follows is how closely the psychological power dynamics of Schroeder’s Maitresse parallel the infamous “Bobby Peru seduces Lula” scene from Wild at Heart. In both cases no actual sex takes place. Instead there’s a steamy sadist/predator (Bobby Peru, Ariane) sinking his/her teeth into a piece of lost prey (Lula, Olivier). Both Lula and Olivier are turned on against their will, psychologically “raped,” so stunned at losing control that they’re not even fully aware of the situation they’re in, let alone how to escape it. The difference lies in the relationship between the characters. Lula is rendered helpless until Bobby releases her when he’s “gotta get going.” She’s just a toy for Bobby to kill time with in the afternoon, whereas Ariane plays for keeps – a spider whose web encompasses. Ariane takes over her “victims” wholly, completely and unapologetically. And like Bobby knowing enough to drop in on Lula unannounced – ensuring her defenses will be down – Ariane takes advantage of the element of surprise (burglars dropping in unannounced – how convenient!), wielding it like a stun gun before the attack.

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“No tongue – my lipstick,” Diane Ladd’s conniving Marietta Fortune admonishes at the beginning of Wild at Heart, flirting with Harry Dean Stanton’s Johnnie Farragut, while perfectly setting the tone for the tantalizing sexual games to follow. Lynch’s typically bizarre noir contains one of the steamiest foreplay scenes ever to grace the indie screen. Strangely, this kinky non-sex scene involves not Laura Dern’s Lula and Nicolas Cage’s Sailor Ripley (whose love scenes are saturated with such hyper-real color and artistic angles as to overshadow the screwing), but the childlike Lula and Willem Dafoe’s greasy, so-creepy-he’s-charismatic Bobby Peru (”Just like the country,” he drawls, introducing himself to Lula and Sailor outside the hotel they’re all staying at, sliding snakelike into Wild at Heart nearly an hour and twenty minutes fashionably late). Dressed in black, sporting a Clark Gable moustache, Bobby’s the ultimate contrast to Dern’s big blonde hairdo, red lipstick painted, 20-year-old piece of mentally damaged white trash. That the episode doesn’t culminate in predictable fornication only proves that the iconoclastic director truly understands how to harness the power of the erotic chase––that is, that it’s hotter than the catch.

I first saw Wild at Heart on the big screen at a more innocent time in my life, when S&M conjured up only images of women wearing corsets and stilettos, bearing whips and canes. But seeing the above scene between Bobby and Lula hit a nerve in me, in fact several. It was the only time I can remember actually feeling embarrassed at the movies, voyeuristically observing this charged encounter onscreen. The characters were both fully dressed, no fucking was taking place – so why did I feel like I was witnessing the dirtiest hardcore porn?

Probably because I was. Bobby and Lula engage in a power play game which renders Lula stripped psychologically naked. Instead of tearing off each other’s clothes they’re clawing at each other’s psyches. The sexual act pales in comparison.

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I’m running off to the airport shortly and will be away from the computer until Friday afternoon Cannes time, but here’s a quick look at the news coming out of the festival as of Thursday morning:

• Un Conte de Noel, Surveillance, and The Pleasure of Being Robbed have been picked up. The former two were bought by IFC; the latter two deals were all but confirmed before the festival began.
• David Lynch’s production company is putting together ALejandro Jodorowsky’s next film. Described as a “metaphysical spaghetti gangster film,” it’s set to star Nick Nolte, Asia Argento, Marilyn Manson and Udo Kier. Also, Lynch himself will allegedly team with the so-hot-right-now (tee hee) Werner Herzog on My Son, My Son, “a horror-tinged murder drama based on a true story,” set for a “guerrilla-style digital video shoot on Coronado Island” in March.
• People are, apparently, freaking out over Waltz with Bashir, that Israeli animated doc that I wrote about yesterday.