We feel really bad about spotlighting Michael Jackson in three spots on our “Creepiest Kids’ Movies List” yesterday. If we had known he was going to die of cardiac arrest within hours of that post’s publication, we would have maybe limited his presence to one included film, if any at all.
To make up for the dishonor, we now would like to spotlight the connection he had to cinema through his collaborations with great filmmakers. Due to his talent, success and financial status, he was able to work with a number of important directors, both in movies and in music videos. Some were already prominent when MJ hired them; others were strictly music videomakers who would go on to significant feature filmmaking careers. Some collaborations were also better than others, so we’ve ranked them in order from worst to best. …Read more
Are you one of the many sci-fi and comic book geeks who’d be more interested in Push were it not for Dakota Fanning? Sure, the precocious child star is now a teen actress (she’s about to turn 15), yet that probably makes you even more worried about her appearance in the movie. But what can you do? She’s literally everywhere this week – voicing the title character in the animated Coraline and starring in two new video releases, Hounddog and The Secret Life of Bees, both of which were released Tuesday. In the tradition of child actors continuing careers into adolescence, it’s only a matter of time before she ruins a movie that would have been better without her.
We’ll have to wait until this weekend to see if that time is now, with Push, but in the meantime let’s take a look at some of the past offenders in this tradition. Most of the following former child actors (our definition: actors that began their career below the age of 13) have done great things in their adulthood, but each has done at least one film that could have been better without him or her. You may disagree with some of these picks, and you may think we’ve forgotten some (was Christian Bale really the worst part of The Dark Knight? did Mary-Kate Olsen’s disturbing kiss with Ben Kingsley take away from The Wackness?), so do share your own thoughts on former child stars below. We just ask that you keep your comments somewhat tasteful and law-abiding. …Read more
Don’t you just hate when the movies make you care about a bigot? Sure, racists are technically humans, but that doesn’t mean we need to sympathize with them, right? No matter how great the film, it should be very difficult to accept the softening of intolerant people.
Yet the lovable racist is not uncommon in cinema. In fact, out in theaters right now are two films dealing with this type of character. The Reader presents a cold Concentration Camp guard (Kate Winslet) for whom we’re meant to shed a tear, and Gran Torino focuses on a War Veteran stereotype (Clint Eastwood) who may evoke from the audience as much amusement as disgust.
Maybe it’s like picking a scab, watching these kinds of movies. Some great films, such as Downfall, may only welcome an understanding of someone so heinous as Adolph Hitler, but other films have allowed us to totally enjoy racist protagonists of lesser offense. Check out the following examples to see some of the many intolerant heroes we’ve easily tolerated. …Read more
indieWIRE reports that HBO has acquired the television rights to a long-in-the-works documentary about Barack Obama’s run for president, produced by Edward Norton, directed by Amy Rice and Alicia Sams and edited by Sam Pollard. Pollard’s oft-collaborator Spike Lee discussed the film a bit earlier this year at Silverdocs. More from Variety’s Michael Jones and Jeff Wells, who thinks it’s a mistake for the filmmakers to shoot the innauguration if it means the film won’t be ready for release until late 2009. Meanwhile, the film’s theatrical distribution rights are apparently still up for grabs.
Oliver Stone has long been synonymous with political passion projects, but his latest film, W., may be his most ambitious effort yet, if only because of how quickly the thing came together and got made. Now the serio-comic biopic about our sitting president is about to hit theaters, less than ten months after anyone had heard of its inception, and it’s getting a number of favorable reviews, will possibly rule the box office this weekend, and could even garner an Oscar nomination for Josh Brolin, who portrays the man with the titular initial, George W. Bush.
But not all political passion projects are quite as successful as W. is expected to be. Some such films have been banned, while some have simply failed to acquire an audience on more democratic grounds, whether in terms of box office, critical or awards recognition. Yet regardless of the reception of a political passion project, either at the time of release (or intended release) or decades later, it may be regarded as an achievement merely for being made, because it can be a difficult task for a filmmaker, no matter how famous or powerful, to completely, without compromise, express his or her politics using such a collaborative and populist form of art as cinema.
We’ve put together a list of 10 political passion projects that were (and are) successful on both levels. They’ve been embraced by a wide audience, a majority of critics and/or the Academy, and they also manage to be as uncompromising in their political passion as is possible in Hollywood.
With the first weekend of the 2008 Toronto International Fim Festival now in the dustbin of history, here are a few notes from the ground:
Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler premiered here last night, fresh off its Golden Bear win in Venice, and nary a negative word has so far been heard. In the interest of time management, I’m going to wait until NYFF to catch it, but a reliable source told me after the screening that the film “is fucking awesome.” Apparently Fox Searchlight agrees––this morning they locked a deal to domestically distribute the film and finance a major Oscar push for star Mickey Rourke.
A film at the polar opposite end of the buzz spectrum is Spike Lee’s The Miracle at St. Anna, which even admirers of Spike’s provacations are calling a waste of time. Our own Kevin Kelly was at the film’s junket, which he says devolved into “The Elect Barack Obama Show” when neither journalists nor the filmmaker could keep the conversation focused on the movie. Kevin will have a report from the junket coming soon.
Somewhere in between in terms of audience reaction: Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married. It’s my favorite film in Toronto this far, and a small contingent of journalists are also all about it. Still, some are (bafflingly, to my mind) pejoratively comparing it to Margot at the Wedding (the titles share a word, so apparently such comparisons are fair game), and rumor has it that the NYFF selection comittee unanimously rejected it for inclusion.
Magnolia hasn’t officially announced it yet, but everyone is saying that they’ve settled on a deal to distribute Che. The NY Post says Mark Cuban’s distribution arm is “already booking theaters.”
And the right thing sure ain’t any sort of riff on Jungle Fever. Spike was in Toronto promoting both his film Miracle at Saint Anna and the relatively new online film festival Babelgum, where he serves as “the ultimate jury.” Meaning, he picks the final winner.
We caught up to ask him what he thought about vice presidential nominee and hockey mom Sarah Palin, and it looks like he wants a showdown between Barack and Sarah.
“I think with that speech…when she said that speech it allowed Joe America to go after her. None of this stuff about how you can’t go off on her because she’s a woman. The stuff the she spoke, he should go after her hard. It’s time to take the kid gloves off.”
Can we assume that Spike is ready for some Democratic mudslinging? If he doesn’t ultimately direct the definitive Obama biopic with Denzel Washington playing a prominent role, then there is no justice in the world.
My enthusiasm for Trouble the Water (trailer above) seems to wane in direct proportion to the critic adoration it attracts. As I noted in my Sundance review, I’m underwhelmed by the candid, in-the-shit footage shot by the film’s subject, aspiring rapper Kim Roberts, which has been the focus of many glowing reviews. The fact that the footage exists is a fascinating detail to Roberts’ character, and the film is strongest when directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin point to Roberts’ fierce drive (you could even call it an obsession) to turn her life into a narrative, and to transmit that narrative through popular art.
My frustration over Water stems less from the film itself, and more from the general media’s seeming consensus decision to declare it the Indie Katrina Film of Record (as opposed to Spike Lee’s When the Levee Breaks–the big-budget Hollywood version of the story). As Dennis Lim notes, “There is by now a rich, although unheralded subgenre of independent films — shorts and features, ranging from avant-garde tone poem to vérité docudrama — dealing with Katrina and its aftermath.” The sheer number of films on this subject––I’ve heard more than one person joke that in late September 2005, there were more independent filmmakers in New Orleans than residents left in their homes––is so overwhelming that it makes sense that one would need the backing of HBO or the credibility of a Sundance Grand Jury Prize to breakthrough.
Maybe I’m just annoyed because, within that subgenre, the films that I find the most creatively and emotionally satisfying––the Kamp Katrinas, the Low and Beholds––either have yet to be distributed, or have failed to make Water’s national splash. But I worry that Water’s critical success (whether or not it makes any noise commercially) is simultaneously an activist’s victory (anything that gets Katrina back in the news is some kind of victory) and potential roadblock for the existing and future films to come out of the crisis. If Trouble the Water does become the first theatrical katrina film to breakthrough, I hope it’s not the only one.
The Obama Movie: so inevitable, it’s as if it is already among us. You know that Will Smith will play Obama and that Oliver Stone will write and direct. John Williams and Quincy Jones will tag-team the musical score, a soulful, all-American gumbo that samples gospel, Aaron Copland and snap music. Kerry Washington will essay Michelle Obama.
No, Steven Spielberg will direct, with Chiwetel Ejiofor as Obama, same composers. Twelve Nobel, Pulitzer and Oscar winners write the screenplay. Special afro effects by Industrial Light and Magic. Spielberg intercuts between Barack cumming and Blackwater snipers pinned down in Mosul.
Remember last month at SilverDocs, when Spike Lee declared that the election of Barack Obama would “change everything…it’s gonna be Before Obama, and After Obama”? He repeated himself virtually word-for-word at a press event last week at the Television Critics Association conference, where he showed up to shill his upcoming Kobe Bryant doc for ESPN. Lee also predicted that the candidate’s election will change Hollywood’s attitude about race, and argued vehemently against a SAG strike. Some excerpts from the event, delivered to us by Kevin Kelly, follow after the jump.
All together now, in our best Werner Herzog voice: “Don’t call it a reeeemaaaaake!” But whatever it is, Val Kilmer and Xzibit have joined the cast of Bad Lieutenant.
Timothy M. Gray’s midyear assessment of the Oscar race finds a lot of ways to say “no one knows anything.” The uncertainty is causing such a frenzy that we’re apparently considering handing out Oscars to Hamlet 2 and (maybe even worse) The Visitor. Please, Toronto, deliver us from this crisis!
Speaking of: Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna and the Michael Cera/Kat Dennings romantic dramedy Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist have been added to the TIFF lineup.
Jonathan Levine’s crowd-pleasing (in terms of audience awards at festivals, not in terms of uplifting Hollywood endings) film The Wacknessopens in limited release tomorrow. In case you haven’t noticed from the ads and the soundtrack, it takes place in the New York City of 1994, a special time for the place because Rudy Giuliani had just become mayor and was beginning to clean up the city, Goldie Wilson-stylee (OK, not really Goldie Wilson-stylee, but who doesn’t love a good BTTFreference?).
NYC in the ’90s was quite special for me. It’s when I moved here. And moved here a second time (I’ve since moved here a third time), and watching The Wackness made me nostalgic for the decade. It also made me think of some of the other films from or set in that period, a number of which kind of define my experience with the city.
Spike Lee physically showed up to accept the Guggenheim Honor from the SilverDocs film festival tonight, but mentally, for much of the evening, he seemed to be elsewhere. Maybe his recent squabbles with Clint Eastwood have taken a toll, but when asked to talk about his non-fiction films by Denver Post film critic Lisa Kennedy, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker was virtually unresponsive. Only two subjects seemed to draw out Lee’s fierce, super-quotable Frankenstein.
One was Tyler Perry, who Lee didn’t quite slam, but definitely dissed by implication. “I’d love to see a great film about Martin Luther King,” Lee said. “But I can’t do everything.” He paused as a smile crept across his face. “I gotta leave something for Tyler Perry.” This got the desired affect from the audience––laughs, claps, a few stray “ooooh!”s––and then Lee offered cryptic clarification. “I made the movie Bamboozled,” he said, as if that’s facetious evidence enough that the master of the modern minstrel show would be the appropriate director for a serious film about Dr. King.
The only other subject that could jolt Lee out of his slumping stupor on stage was Barack Obama, to which all conversational roads seemed to lead. …Read more
Spike Lee has spent his own money to acquire Time Traveler, “a memoir by Ronald Mallett, one of the nation’s first African-Americans to earn a Ph.D in theoretical physics.” He’ll co-adapt and direct.
Universal will release the second Da Ali G Show theatrical spin-off, Bruno, on May 15, 2009, a date already occupied by the sequel to The Da Vinci Code.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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With the first weekend of the 2008 Toronto International Fim Festival now in the dustbin of history, here are a few notes from the ground:
Remember 
Hancock 
Spike Lee has spent his own money
