The international trailer for Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassusarrived online last Friday, but most of us were too busy mourning John Hughes to notice. So, because I’m a diehard Gilliam fan and because most of the good reactions are hitting the web today, I’m going to just pretend this post is called “The Last Four Days in Bloggery.”
I am a huge defender of Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen so I’m seeing a lot of similar stuff I like here, even if the visuals are a little too computer-generated to exactly have that Georges Méliès feel. But the hot air balloon really clinched it for me. And I’m definitely in agreement that this colorful, CG-rific Lewis Carroll-esque fantasy film looks better than that other one starring Johnny Depp (I’ll take a premature guess that I’ll like it more than that other one starring Parnassus‘ Lily Cole, too).
I can’t say I believe the trailer is going to bring too many people in. It’s very rushed, both in visuals and exposition, and even with the credits it should confuse unknowing viewers regarding the four-actors-in-the-same-role thing. Plus, with my appreciaition in the minority, I wonder if it’s going to be a bad thing that this looks like Gilliam’s biggest financial flops. Will “Academy Award Winner Heath Ledger” help fill seats?
Check out four days’ worth of film blogger responses to the trailer after the jump:
For two and a half years Sujewa Ekanayake has provided the indie film world with one of its funniest and most arresting blogs, DIY Filmmaker Sujewa, where the thirty-four year old Washington D.C. based Sri Lankan offers an insightful glance into the world of the independent filmmaker outside of the New York-LA indie axis. His newest film, Indie Film Blogger Road Trip, brings him into the homes and working spaces of 14 film bloggers and is perhaps the first extended meditation on the impact, limitations and peculiarities of the film blogosphere to date. We caught up with him this week to discuss the charms of Battlestar Galactica, where Kevin Smith went wrong and finding his long lost copy of Tom Wait’s “Rain Dogs”.
What films or television shows have you seen recently?
Battlestar Galactica, Sarah Silverman show, The Office, Cookies & Cream, 30 Rock, Zack & Miri Make A Porno - off the top of my head that’s some stuff I’ve seen recently, been watching.
In The Guitar, ex-Mike Figgis muse Saffron Burrows plays a terminally ill, freshly laid-off woman who holes up in a downtown loft near the Hudson and doggedly pursues one last series of good times, as represented by the shiny red guitar which informs the title, and sex with Isaach de Bankole and Paz de la Huerta. Not bad as far as final flings go. After making its debut at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, with stops at Mill Valley and the Hamptons along the way, Amy Redford’s directorial debut opened on Friday in New York. We caught up with the fledgling film director (and Sundance chief’s daughter) to talk about her addiction to Family Guy, what made The Diving Bell and The Butterfly so special and what she’d like to do with Tom Waits.
About a week ago, a YouTuber posted an unofficial music video for the first single off Scarlett Johansson’s album of Tom Waits covers, “Falling Down,” made up entirely of footage from Lost In Translation. Now the official video for the song is making the rounds (see above), and although it’s made up of all new footage, the concept is basically the same as the fan clip. It’s a day-in-the-life of Scarlett…shot on a day when Scarlett happens to spend a lot of time pensively staring out of windows, rolling around on beds, hugging an older dude and having her photo taken by a Japanese man. Watch. Discuss.
The Playlist passes along word that David Bowie has recorded back-up vocals for Anywhere I Lay My Head, Scarlett Johansson’s Tom Waits covers album. The record’s producer, Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio, describes Anywhere as having a “‘cough medicine/TinkerBell’ vibe”––which, funnily enough, seems as good a description as any of Bowie’s performance as Andy Warhol in Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat.
In other indie-cred starlet-turned-pop star news, remember Zooey Deschanel’s album? Justin Wolfe, that smart-star who writes one of the blogs I mentioned in this post about The Hills, wrote an incredible post last week, in which he made the argument that, as “extension of their brand, from image to sound” the She and Him stuff as a Zooey Deschanel product is materially the same as Hills star Heidi Montag’s much-reviled first single. Check it out here.
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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