Suivez-moi

I don't know if Paramount/Legend Films added this to their release schedule after they announced the bulk of the rest or if I just missed it, but Jacques Demy's The Pied Piper will also be available on 1 July. The film stars Donovan as the titular flutist and also stars Donald Pleasance and John Hurt.

Kino will release the Oscar-nominated Beaufort, from Israel, on 30 September. New Yorker will release the Sri Lankan drama The Forsaken Land on 26 August, as well as Davide Ferrario's documentary Primo Levi's Journey on 19 August. IFC Films will have How to Rob a Bank, starring Nick Stahl, Erika Christensen, Gavin Rossdale, Leo Fitzpatrick and David Carradine, on 2 September.

Lionsgate will re-issue Love and a .45, with Renée Zellweger and Gil Bellows, on 19 August. Strand is releasing Karim Ainouz's (Madame Satã) Love for Sale on 26 August. The Weinstein Company will have Dario Argento's hilariously awful Mother of Tears, starring his daughter, out before Halloween, 23 September to be exact. My half birthday! First Run Features will have The Sacred Family (La sagrada familia) on 19 August. And that looks to be all for now.

Hmmm....

IFC has apparently canceled or delayed their release of 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, which was scheduled for next month. Netflix will still be renting the DVD, as they were co-distributors, but I wonder if this has anything to do with IFC's move to make some of their titles available for download on Amazon's Unbox. Either way, I'm disappointed.

The Music Post: PJ Harvey Overload

But What I Really Want to Do Is...:

Scarlett Johansson has been getting a lot of shit lately, not just for being absent at the premiere of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but for her new album, Anywhere I Lay My Head, which consists mostly of Tom Waits covers. The critical maligning isn’t without merit; the album is kind of terrible, despite being produced by Dave Sitek and Ivo Watts of 4AD. However, she can just add “singer” alongside her credentials as “actress,” with the quotations being essential. I thought we already figured out she couldn’t sing when she did a hackneyed karaoke version of The Pretenders’ “Brass in Pocket” in Lost in Translation, but I suppose not. Johansson isn’t the only actress these days trying her luck at music, as Zooey Deschenel, that cute actress who juggles respectable projects (All the Real Girls, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) with trash (Failure to Launch, The New Guy), has released her own singing project alongside M. Ward, under the moniker She & Him. She & Him’s album isn’t as bad as Johansson’s, but it’s just as forgettable, combining alt-country with Deschenel’s interesting, if not striking, vocals. The words “don’t quit your day job” keep fluttering through my head.

However, not all actress-turned-singer endeavors have been as ill-conceived. Many aren’t aware of Milla Jovovich’s musical career, back in the days when she was still known as Milla and not being cast as the perfect being. She released her first album in 1994, entitled The Divine Comedy, and surprised most of her fans with a laid-back, acoustic, melodic recording. Critics tossed it off, similarly to Johansson, but it surprisingly stands up well today. She still sporadically records music under her full name. Check out “The Alien Song (For Those Who Listen” for a fine example. Also, God bless Juliette Lewis, from her PJ Harvey covers in Strange Days to forming Juliette & the Licks, she'll always have a spot in my heart.

Cover'd:

Oh, the covers album. It seems essential for most artists to release one, even if it’s just to show off their good taste or out of laziness in recording new music. 2008 has become a fine case-and-point of the varying effects of the cover album from known artists, with Cat Power’s Jukebox and Adem’s Takes sitting on opposite sides of the spectrum. Though relatively unknown, Adem released his third album this year with little hoopla, and when I got it, I was unaware that it was a cover album. I looked at a few of the tracks and thought, “Oh, awesome, he’s got a PJ Harvey cover on here. Wait a minute…” Cat Power, the musical alter-ego of Chan Marshall, released her second covers album in January, a bluesy tribute to the artists who inspired her. For Adem, Takes serves the same purpose, with covers ranging from Harvey, Björk, The Breeders, Low and even Aphex Twin. The fact is that, unfortunately, none of his covers are that remarkable, outside of his acoustic rendering of Bedhead’s “Bedside Table” and Pinback’s “Loro.” And what’s worse is that the songs lack cohesion and feel like a decent bout of karaoke from the artist, which is probably the biggest fear of musicians releasing a cover album. It doesn’t help that Adem and I obviously share nearly the exact same taste in music, as he covers personal bests (in my not-so-humble opinion) of Björk (“Unravel” off Homogenic) and Pinback, the former almost unlistenable.

For Cat Power, her covers don’t stand as a useless nod to her favorite artists; Jukebox actually allows her to grow as an artist and vocalist. From the opening track of “New York,” the album beautifully flows into Hank Williams’ “Ramblin’ Man,” re-titled “Ramblin’ (Wo)man,” one of the album’s highlights. Jukebox allows for Marshall to explore, whereas Takes allows Adem to coast.

Memphis Belle:

It’s no secret that I admire PJ Harvey to a limitless extreme (hell, I mentioned her in every single segment here). White Chalk was easily the best album I heard all last year, and she continues to amaze me with everything she releases. However, I’d like to point your attention to one song of hers, “Memphis.” Released as a B-side on the “Good Fortune” single off Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, “Memphis” is important for one drastic reason; it’s the first song where PJ sings in her own voice. Now that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but let me go on. Notoriously averse to the scrutiny of tabloids and music journalists, Harvey has kept her personal life under lock-and-key, occasionally offering bits to slip, like her relationship with Nick Cave, though most of her other romantic flings remain under question, particularly that with Vincent Gallo. “Memphis” is sometimes listed as “Memphis (For Jeff Buckley,” as it’s no secret that the song was written for the late singer-songwriter. As she’s stated in numerous interviews, her music is works of fiction, and as any fan will tell you, image is an ever-changing facet of Harvey’s artistic statement. One critic, who’s name I forget at the moment, described her as a more subtle David Bowie or Madonna, reimagining and envisioning herself with each album; you might notice not only a change in her music videos by the album, but her dress and hairstyle can always be attributed to one of her albums. With “Memphis,” Harvey removes the fictional, artistic personifications and actually begins to sing in “her own voice.” It’s a requiem for Buckley, whom Harvey may or may not have dated during her recording of To Bring You My Love, and it’s the first time we hear Polly Jean Harvey, as opposed to PJ. “Memphis” is unfiltered Harvey, and it’s remarkable outside of being notable.

Playlist:

Here’s my current playlist.

Related:

Milla – The Alien Song (For Those Who Listen)

PJ Harvey – Memphis

Cat Power – Metal Heart

Unrelated:

LCD Soundsystem – Get Innocuous

Sufjan Stevens – Star of Wonder

Kaki King – Life Being What It Is

Goldfrapp – Happiness

Slowdive – Slowdive

The Smiths – Hand in Glove

Beirut – Cherbourg

The Breeders – Divine Hammer

Cocteau Twins – Otterley

The Verve – Virtual World

The Radio Dept. – I Don’t Like It Like This

Life Being What It Is

Reprise – dir. Joachim Trier – 2006 – Norway

Phillip (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Erik (Espen Klouman-Høiner) have been best friends since childhood, bonded together by their love of literature. Both aspired to become writers, and Reprise opens as the two friends, now at the age of around 23, drop their novels into the mail, anxiously awaiting word from the prospective publisher. Writer/director Joachim Trier, reportedly a distant relative of Lars Von Trier, then takes us into the troubling effects the publication of Phillip’s novel takes on the two men, treading on territory that’s deceptively familiar. Phillip’s publication, in addition to his intensely passionate relationship with Kari (Viktoria Winge), causes a spiral of mental illness, attempted suicide and disillusionment, which lands him in a mental hospital for the better part of a year. Reprise isn’t just a chronicle of ambitious youth in modern day Norway (though it really could have been set anywhere; Trier stated that several critics called his film very un-Norwegian), but an alarming fantasy that cleverly disrupts stylistic and narrative clichés in ways deeply poignant and unsettling.

The opening moments of Reprise are rather off-putting. A narrator quickly summarizes the events leading up to Phillip and Erik’s completion of their novels and brazenly suggests scenarios which would likely follow, from casual affairs, critical response and a Parisian locale for the completion of their further works. However, each time the film adheres to these annoying motifs, Trier throws them out the window before you can have your own acid flashback to Trainspotting. These fantasies become juxtaposed (I hate that word) with a harsh reality. Both instant success and an inability to deal with his first serious relationship render Phillip unable to deal with the world around him; the suggestion that Erik is talentless moves him into a state of monotony, both in his personal and romantic lives. In a way, Trier is making fun of these “hip” cinematic bells-and-whistles, bringing a grounded truth in to offset the gloss.

However, the motifs serve as the tragic fantasy of Reprise. The film, both in its fantastical elements and otherwise, exists in a world of ideals. Phillip and Erik make up two members of a no-girls-allowed band of guys, who spend their days reading and intellectually discussing art and literature. The group is so exclusive that Erik is scared to bring his girlfriend Johanne around; for most of the film, Trier doesn’t even show us her face. One member of the group, Lars (Christian Rubeck), goes on a misogynistic rant about the defeating nature of men falling into a relationship, relinquishing their intellectual spirit for the mundane. “How many girls have actually introduced you to a worthwhile music group?” he poses. “If they have, it’s likely that it was someone their father, brother or ex-boyfriend listened to. And how many girls have introduced you to books that you didn’t already read in high school?” It’s an alarming statement, but it’s one that isn’t totally supported by the film itself. All of the film’s female characters are far richer than Lars’ cynical statements would suggest, but these statements paint the world for the characters.

The motifs then project the further installment of the fantasy, in which young artists get backing, move to Paris and go down in history. Reprise is rather astute in dispelling these fantasies, though it does bring suggestion that literary publication in a less common language would prove to be easier than trying in English or French, languages spoken outside of their native country. It’s perfectly bittersweet and utterly assured from its first-time director. It’s not often that one gets to say, “every time you think the director is making the wrong move in his film, he quickly dismisses this and gives you more than what you bargained for.”

Cannes: Acquisitions (Updated)

The buyer's market at Cannes this year wasn't as bidder heavy as it may have been in previous years, which has been well noted elsewhere. However, IFC Films and Sony Pictures Classics went home with at least three films each; in fact, they were the only studios to make any purchases by the end of the festival on Sunday. IFC took Steve McQueen's Hunger, Arnaud Desplechin's Un conte de Noël and Na Hong-jin's The Chaser, as well as announcing during the mix that they had acquired Olivier Assayas' L'heure d'été, starring Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling and Jérémie Renier. Sony took home the Dardennes' Le silence de Lorna, Bent Hamer's O' Horten and Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir. There are rumors that they may have also picked up James Toback's Tyson, but this wasn't confirmed. Sony also had pre-bought Atom Egoyan's Adoration. Universal already had their hands on Clint Eastwood's Changeling (or, as it's now called I think, The Exchange), just as Miramax already had Fernando Meirelles' Blindness.

Update: I actually left a few acquisitions off the list. Magnet/Magnolia picked up Jennifer Chambers Lynch's Surveillance; Liberation took the omnibus Tokyo!, from Leos Carax, Michel Gondry, and Bong Joon-ho. According to IndieWire, Focus Features also has Lucrecia Martel's La mujer sin cabeza, not to mention new films from Pedro Almodóvar, Jim Jarmusch, Gus Van Sant, the Coens and Sam Mendes, all on slate for this year. Sounds promising, no?

Cannes: Awards

The awards have been announced; they are as follows:

Palme d'Or:

Entre les murs [ The Class ] - dir. Laurent Cantet - France

Best Director:

Nuri Bilge Ceylan [ Three Monkeys ] - Turkey

Grand Prix:

Gomorra - dir. Matteo Garrone - Italy

Best Actor:

Benicio del Toro [ Che ]

Best Actress:

Sandra Corveloni [ Linha de Passe ]

Jury Prize:

Il divo - dir Paolo Sorrentino - Italy/France

Best Screenplay:

Jean-Pierre, Luc Dardenne - Le Silence de Lorna - Belgium

Prix de 61st Festival de Cannes:

Catherine Deneuve, Clint Eastwood

Camera d'Or [First Feature]:

Hunger - dir. Steve McQueen - UK

Special Mention, Camera d'Or:

Ils mourront tous sauf moi - dir. Valeria Gai Guermanika - Russia

Grumble!

I knew it was true, but now I have official confirmation. Tartan USA is dead. This is terrible news, but I'm not surprised. The studio, an American branch of the UK company, released a number of extremely popular Asian films, including Park Chan-wook's Vengeance trilogy, as well as challenging films from the rest of the world, including Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs, Catherine Breillat's Anatomy of Hell, Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin, Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu and Carlos Reygadas' Battle in Heaven. This is terrible news, unless some savvy studio has bought their collection.

Films in limbo now include: Kim Ki-duk's Breath, Koen Mortier's Ex Drummer, Brad McGann's In My Father's Shoes, Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light (though I don't know if the studio had actually picked it up as they were dying by the time this was released), György Pálfi's Taxidermia, and Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo 2: Body Hammer.

Cannes: Un Certain Regard

Fatih Akin (The Edge of Heaven) gave out the awards for the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival last night. The top prize was honored to Sergei Dvortsevoy's Tulpan; the film is set in Kazakhstan and co-produced by Germany, Poland, Russia and Switzerland. The jury also awarded four other prizes, though I have no idea what their importance is:

The Jury Prize (which I would imagine to be second prize): Tokyo Sonata - dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa - Japan/Netherlands

Coup de Cœur Award: Cloud 9 [Wolke Neun] - dir. Andreas Dresen - Germany

KO Prize (I hope that isn't just a stupid pun): Tyson - dir. James Toback - USA

Hope Prize: Johnny Mad Dog - dir. Jean-François Sauvaire - France

The prizes of the official selection, including the Palme d'Or should be announced later today.

Tidbits français

Thanks to Gala.fr, I discovered some quotes by the incomparable Miss Béatrice Dalle. She mentioned her admiration for Isabelle Huppert as an actress (of course; the two starred together in Michael Haneke's Le Temps du loup [Time of the Wolf]). And did you ever wonder what makes Mlle Dalle shiver? Pasolini's films. Above is a photo that I accidentally, and amiably, stumbled upon using the Google Image Search of my two favorite screen sirens, Béatrice and Asia Argento (although I do wonder if it's been photoshopped).

Also thanks to Gala.fr, I found some photos of my favorite contemporary French actor, Romain Duris, during his first audition for Cédric Klapisch's Le Péril jeune. He was barely 20 and surprisingly dreadlocked. He would go on to act in five other Klapisch films: Chacun cherche son chat [When the Cat's Away], Peut-être, L'Auberge espagnole, Les Poupées russes [Russian Dolls] and the most recent, Paris.

Back to Pasolini, I found an interesting video entitled Enfants de Salò, which is featured on the French DVD of Salò, of four controversial French filmmakers talking about the impact the film had on them. Gaspar Noé (Irréversible), Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl), Claire Denis (Trouble Every Day) and Bertrand Bonello (Tiresia) each discuss the power of Pasolini's final film and how it reflected on their own work, or at least understanding of the cinema. The film is entirely in French and without subtitles, so non-French speakers beware.

More from Majewski

Though I'm not familiar with his work, Kino will be fixing this in August. They have already announced Lech Majewski's Gospel According to Harry with Viggo Mortensen for 12 Aug (it's been pushed from July), but they just announced three more from the Polish director: Glass Lips (a.k.a. Blood of a Poet), Roe's Room, and the English-language The Garden of Earthly Delights. All four films will street on 12 Aug.

After much delay...

Here's the official poster for the US release of Catherine Breillat's The Last Mistress [Une vieille maîtresse], starring Asia Argento, which will open on June 27 in NYC. It will also debut OnDemand the same day. The poster is actually rather misleading in its color scheme, which is never quite as lush or rich as the poster would indicate. The colors would seem better suited for, maybe, Philip Haas' Angels and Insects, if we're talking costume dramas, but still not to that extreme. Regardless, here is a link to my review in case you missed it first time around.

Oh, limbless Sherilyn Fenn...

As word from Cannes is that this year's festival is pretty boringly solid, why not check out the reviews for Jennifer Chambers Lynch's second film Surveillance, which screened out-of-competition (and happens to be the third film I can think of in the past four years with the same title), and appears to be better than Boxing Helena. I know that means very little as I'm pretty sure Juwanna Man was better than Boxing Helena, but hey, it's a step in the right direction for nepotism.

Now I Know How Joan of Arc Felt

I forgot a few films when listing off my bronchitis-inspired film marathon, and here they are:

The Good:

Johnny Guitar - dir. Nicholas Ray - 1954 - USA - with Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady, Ernest Borgnine

...Somewhere in Between:

The Untouchable [L'intouchable] - dir. Benoît Jacquot - 2006 - France - with Isild Le Besco

La chinoise - dir. Jean-Luc Godard - 1967 - France - with Anne Wiazemsky, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Juliet Berto, Michel Semeniako, Lex De Bruijn (Yeah, I know...)

Benten Films in August

Benten Films announced their fourth DVD release, Kentucker Audley's Team Picture, a return to "mumblecore" after releasing The Free Will from Germany. The film was shot in Memphis, Tennessee and features a couple of the same actors from fellow Memphis-ite Morgan Jon Fox's Away (A)wake. I found nothing else of interest in the rest of Ryko's August releases, unless you're psyched about yet-another repackaging of Cannibal Holocaust.

When You're Fresh Out of Asia Argento Films to Watch...

Having a case of bronchitis isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world. Of course, it could turn into pneumonia, which would, naturally, be worse, but at least my bronchitis has kept me up-to-date on some overdue film viewing (and equally overdue sleep). Though my bank account is looking pretty measly as a result of not working, I can at least pride myself in this continuing self-education. I don't really have the mental or physical strength to write extensively about any of these films (in fact, some don't warrant more than a simple mention), but for those curious as to what I've seen, the list is as follows:

The Good:

You, the Living [Du levande] - dir. Roy Andersson - 2007 - Sweden/Germany/France/Denmark/Norway [And by good, I mean really fucking good]

The Edge of Heaven [Auf der anderen Seite] - dir. Fatih Akin - 2007 - Germany/Turkey/Italy - with Nurgül Yesilçay, Baki Davrak, Hanna Schygulla, Tuncel Kurtiz, Patrycia Ziolkowska, Nursel Köse

Frownland - dir. Ronald Bronstein - 2007 - USA - with Dore Mann, Paul Grimstad, David Sandholm, Mary Wall, Paul Grant

North by Northwest - dir. Alfred Hitchcock - 1959 - USA - with Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason [I'm embarrassed to admit that this was the first time I'd seen this]

Rolling Family [Familia rodante] - dir. Pablo Trapero - 2004 - Argentina/Brazil/France/Germany/Spain/UK - with Graciana Chironi

Irina Palm - dir. Sam Garbarski - 2007 - UK/Germany/France/Belgium/Luxembourg - with Marianne Faithfull, Miki Manojlovic, Kevin Bishop, Siobhan Hewlett, Jenny Agutter - Review here

The Bad:

Teeth - dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein - 2007 - USA - with Jess Weixler, John Hensley, Hale Appleman, Lenny von Dohlen - Review here

Funny Games - dir. Michael Haneke - 2007 - France/UK/Austria/USA/Germany/Italy - with Naomi Watts, Michael Pitt, Tim Roth, Brady Corbet

SoulMaid - dir. Jeffrey Maccubbin, Jeffrey Thomas McHale, Dan Mohr, Josef Steiff - 2007 - USA - with Joe Schenck, Tom Bailey, Becca Connolly

Be with Me - dir. Eric Khoo - 2005 - Singapore [I seem to be the only person I've found that disliked this film this strongly.]

Poor Boy's Game - dir. Clément Virgo - 2007 - Canada - with Rossif Sutherland, Danny Glover

Lost in Beijing - dir. Li Yu - 2007 - China

...And Somewhere in Between:

The Golden Compass - dir. Chris Weitz - 2007 - USA/UK - with Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Sam Elliott, Eva Green

The Banishment [Izgnanie] - dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev - 2007 - Russia - with Konstantin Lavronenko, Aleksandr Baluyev, Maria Bonnevie

The Guatemalan Handshake - dir. Todd Rohal - 2006 - USA - with Will Oldham, Katy Haywood, Ken Byrnes, Sheila Scullin, Rich Schreiber

My Brother Is an Only Child [Mio fratello è figlio unico] - dir. Daniele Luchetti - 2007 - Italy/France - with Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio, Diane Fleri - Review below

Mister Lonely - dir. Harmony Korine - 2007 - USA/UK/France/Ireland - with Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant, James Fox, Anita Pallenberg, Leos Carax

Viva la rivoluzione?

My Brother Is an Only Child [Mio fratello è figlio unico] - dir. Daniele Luchetti - 2007 - Italy/France

The spirit of revolution has been a recent source of cinematic reflection among European directors in the past few years. Bernardo Bertolucci addressed the student riots of Paris in 1968 with The Dreamers, as did Philippe Garrel with Regular Lovers. Cannes is celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the events as I type this. Though My Brother Is an Only Child is set in Italy and only briefly mentions the events in France, it still falls into the same category of films: an idealistic portrait of the spirit of a political youth movement that spread across Western Europe during the 1960s. As important of a time period as it was, its sudden reappearance in European cinema is beginning to feel a little passé, and of no real fault to director Luchetti, I couldn’t allow the familiarity to disperse.

My Brother Is an Only Child depicts the struggle between two brothers who fall on different sides of the political fence. Accio (Elio Germano) is a rambunctious shit-disturber who quits his goal to become a priest in favor of becoming a communist. Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) is Accio’s dreamy older brother, who becomes a union leader at the factory. And, of course, there’s a girl in the mix to bring further strife to the brothers, a half-French beauty named Francesca (Diane Fleri) who turns to her political opposite, Accio, for comfort as a result of Manrico’s constant snubbing. Ties are broken and mended throughout the film, as Accio’s devotion begins to swagger and Manrico’s involvement grows deeper.

As I said earlier, there’s nothing particularly wrong with My Brother Is an Only Child. It’s rather well-acted by the two leads, and Luchetti doesn’t infuse the film with an unwanted sentimentality or with easy solution. However, I couldn’t help but find the film unremarkable in both scope and dramatic resolution. Co-written by Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli, who wrote the screenplay for the four-and-a-half-hour long The Best of Youth, My Brother Is an Only Child feels rushed, unable to achieve the scale and detail of The Best of Youth, leaving its audience with neither a striking immediacy nor a lingering strength.

Anxieties of an Almost Mid-Year; or I'm Still Dancing Barefoot

Cannes is pissing me off this year. Or more specifically, the media’s handling of it. We’re only four days in, and I’m already sick of reading articles about it. Over at MovieCityNews, they’ve shared my irritation at the British and American media questioning the inclusion of films like Kung-fu Panda and the new Indiana Jones at the festival, completely negligent of the fact that big Hollywood films always premiere at Cannes, regardless of quality (see Star Wars Episode III), and that neither of those films are actually screening for any awards. My stomach can also do without the incessant usage of homophones Cannes and “can.”

Secondly, it’s my own personal woes which are causing conflict within me. Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming a professional film critic, spending my days in a glorious metropolis watching film after film and creatively and affectively deconstructing them… for a living. As of lately, it turns out those feelings were just pipe dreams, considering the state of both international cinema and paid criticism. I’m not sure the position of a paid film critic even exists any more, with so many respectable writers getting laid off and the demand for banal “bring the whole family” newspaper critics being in higher demand than anyone with discerning taste in cinema. There’s one “critic” that works for my city’s newspaper whose reviews are so wretched and ill-informed that I often consider crumbling the paper up after reading. His job basically entails being a glorified summarizer, who adds in his own clueless “grade” at the end. Grading films pisses me off too, but I don’t feel like talking about that.

In addition to the growing extinction of the professional film critic, I’ve found that I’m not good at churning out bullshit about everything I see. Initially, when I started this blog, I had hopes of writing about every film I saw, but, whether this be a result of the films themselves or my own inability, I can’t. For the magazine I occasionally write for, I find myself at a loss for words after viewing middle-of-the-road films and even some that are actually good. So, family-friendly newspaper critic doesn’t look like it’s written in the stars for me. Or maybe it’s just exhaustion from my 70-plus page undergraduate thesis I just finished? Likely it’s not, but I can hope.

Back to Cannes, I also have had a strong disinterest in reading about films that I won’t even have an opportunity to see for about a year, if at all. Studios are cutting down their “arthouse” departments, and others are going under. This isn’t a result of a lack of fine international filmmaking, but the fact that no one wants to see them. Instead, why not go see the new Chronicles of Narnia film? While I find some poetic justice in the failure of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games English-language remake (it actually made less money than his French-language Caché at the domestic box-office), it still was probably one of the nails in the coffin for its distributor, Warner Independent. IFC Films still seems to be standing tall despite having no real money-makers in the past year or so, but their acquisition of Cannes entries doesn’t lead to much excitement when it takes them over a year to bring Paranoid Park, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Last Mistress or Mister Lonely to American screens. Hell, even a number of In Competition films, like Andrei Zvyagintsev’s The Banishment (which isn’t as bad as you heard it was), Naomi Kawase’s The Mourning Forest, Ulrich Seidl’s Import/Export and Béla Tarr’s The Man from London, starring Tilda Swinton, still don’t have US distribution. And yet, who’s to blame? You can’t wag your finger at the specialty studios because none of the films I mentioned will likely make any money, and with a fear of closure in the air, why would they risk their jobs?

I suppose much of this anxiety is being brought about by my own existential crisis. I’m three credit hours away from receiving my overdue undergraduate degree in film studies and French, and I don’t know where to go from here. Film is my obsession, and yet, it seems to be such a fanciful one. I’ve lost all desire in the production aspect as various situations have jaded me to the point that I’d rather not step foot on any film set again. So I write… It’s the only productive thing I can think to do with my “obsession,” particularly due to the singularity and solidarity of it. And yet, how many others do the exact same thing? Plenty. Some are better, some not. Can blogs actually serve as a stepping stone for something bigger, or will they just remain the outlet for general hobbies? I’d rather not ask Diablo Cody. So I just wonder if it’s time to put to rest all of this nonsense (is it nonsense?). Where do you go from there, I wonder still.

Excuse the rambling. It seems to be the only escape from the perils of ennui.

I knew she'd be there!

So far, no real disruption has occurred at the Cannes Film Festival, with most of the films that have screened receiving either praise or a general mixed reaction. But I'll be sure to keep you posted when the inevitable disaster occurs. I'm still a little disappointed to see that Cannes is just as obsessed with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as the American media appears to be.

Yay!

I told ya so. I'm glad I got to say that.

<3 Ken Russell

Though Warner's been slacking on Ken Russell's theatrical films of the 1970s, BBC/Warner will release Ken Russell at the BBC with six early television films by the iconic director: The Debussy Film, Dante's Inferno, Always on Sunday, Isadora Duncan the Biggest Dancer in the World, Song of Summer and Dance of the Seven Veils. Oliver Reed stars in the first two. The box is out 23 September.

Synkronized USA, a division of Koch Vision, will release Richard Dembo's (Dangerous Moves) period action film Angel's Wing (L'instinct de l'ange) on 5 August, starring Lambert Wilson, François Cluzet, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Sandrine Kiberlain. Don't hold your breath with this release as the majority of Sykronized USA's DVD releases are delayed. Lionsgate has also announced the US release of Vicente Aranda's (Lovers: A True Story) adaptation of Carmen, starring Paz Vega and Leonardo Sbaraglia, on 5 August.

Sony Pictures Classics will have out Eran Kolirin's The Band's Visit with Ronit Elkabetz (Late Marriage) on 29 July, Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, with both its French- and English-language track, on 24 July, and Stefan Ruzowitzky's Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher), on 5 August.

Vice Records will release Daft Punk's Electroma on 22 July. Image will be releasing Vincent Perez's English-language horror film The Secret [Si j'étais toi] starring David Duchovony and Lili Taylor on 12 August. Menemsha Films will release their first DVD of their label on 26 August with the documentary The Rape of Europa, narrated by Joan Allen.

Kimstim, through Kino, will release two animated films, Kirikou and the Wild Beasts [Kirikou et les bêtes sauvages] and Princes and Princesses [Princes et princesses], 29 July. Kino will also have out Lech Majewski's US/Poland coproduction Gospel According to Harry starring Viggo Mortensen on the same day.

Sex: What Is It Good For?

Teeth – dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein – 2007 – USA

I use the term “throwing everything and the kitchen sink in” often, and I’d like to broaden its usage for Teeth. Teeth avoids the “everything” and settles for merely the kitchen sink, plus a few other knick-knacks from around the house. I mean, I don’t know what you expect out of a pseudo comedy/horror/coming-of-age story of a teenage girl who discovered she has teeth in her vagina; in fact, I’m not really sure what I expected, nor am I that certain as to what writer/director Lichtenstein gave me. Teeth is probably the most wildly schizophrenic film I’ve seen in a while, shifting gears at every ten minute mark for no good reason. And it’s not just a tonal shift that Lichtenstein makes, but the characters’ actions seemed governed by a lurid, trippy higher power, leaving me with a sense of supreme bemusement.

Teeth functions, at least initially, as a cultural satire of a Christian America, though religion is never directly mentioned. Dawn (Jess Weixler) is part of some wait-until-marriage sect and frequently lectures about the benefits of purity and abstinence, even though her sexuality has begun to boil after meeting transfer student Tobey (Hale Appleman). We’re also unsure as to whether Dawn’s stance against premarital sex has any other backing besides the fact that she’s got a ferocious pussy. However, then Lichtenstein shifts Teeth from satire (which is fine because its criticisms were starting to look obvious) to horror to mystery to comedy to who-the-fuck-knows. Is Teeth just a exploitation revenge film in the vain of I Spit on Your Grave, as somehow Dawn begins to spark the rapist in nearly every man around her? Or is it just a limp provocation from a guy who doesn’t know how to make a movie?

Irina Palm – dir. Sam Garbarski – 2007 – France/UK/Germany/Belgium/Luxembourg

On the flipside of Teeth, there’s Irina Palm, a film that dances along the lines of naughtiness without ever going too far. On one hand, Irina Palm is another exercise by the English in placing ordinary folks into a desexualized sexual world for a good cause (see The Full Monty and Calendar Girls for examples). Maggie (Marianne Faithfull) is a fifty-year-old widow whose grandson has come down with a serious illness that requires more money than her son (Kevin Bishop) and daughter-in-law (Siobhan Hewett) can afford; Maggie comes to the rescue by taking a job at a sex club where she dons the name Irina Palm and becomes, as her boss (Miki Manojlovic) and the tagline state, “the best right hand in London,” “wanking” men through a hole in the wall.

However, director Garbarski (Le tango des Rashevski) isn’t fully satisfied with the film’s quirkiness, thankfully. Although Irina Palm has a few smirky moments, particularly when Maggie begins to suffer from something the doctor calls “penis elbow,” the film is rather stark and surprisingly low on the heavy-handedness. You might even forgive the film for resorting Maggie to revealing to her shallow friends, headed by Jenny Agutter, that she “masturbates cocks for a living.” In some ways, Irina Palm is just like The Full Monty and Calendar Girls before it, allowing Maggie to finally explore herself through her new eye-opening career, but it’s a lot more subtle that you might think. Irina Palm also rests on the shoulders of Faithfull, who handles the delicacy of the subject surprisingly well, not to mention the sultriness of her voice, which I’ve been listening to for years, is always welcome in my book. Irina Palm resists a certain cheekiness, but it works best in resisting that certain cheapness in melodrama. The film’s resolutions are unexpectedly astute and under-played, and Faithfull never ceases to keep Irina Palm compelling.

For shame!

Eric has delivered the bad news: The Story of Piera will not be a part of Koch Lorber's Marco Ferreri box-set. Granted, I think I'm the only one who's disappointed about that, but still! He has the full list on his blog.

Studio Roll-Call

I've been checking up on a couple of DVD releases this morning, and I've noticed there's a bunch of niche studios that seem to have disappeared. Tartan USA, once a division of TLA and then the Weinsteins, has canceled all of their titles in the past year. Fantoma hasn't done anything since Kenneth Anger Vol. 2. Palm released Summer Palace a few months ago but haven't announced anything else since. Does Home Vision even exist anymore? Perhaps Warner's shutting down of Picturehouse and Warner Independent has put this into my head, but this is still disconcerting. If anyone has any solid information, please let me know.

Update: I guess Palm isn't dead because they just bought the rights to the Patti Smith doc, Patti Smith: Dream of Life. I suppose they're just keeping it low-key as of lately.

Or

So there's a strong rumor going around that Criterion will finally unveil their remastered disc of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom in either August or October. I mean, this is a long standing rumor that's been going on for a couple of years, but I've reason to believe that it may actually happen. And soon. On vera...

I'm fucking finished

Yeah, that's right. I finished my thesis... and I'm fucking spent. I actually have to prepare a powerpoint presentation for my evening class tonight, so "finished" isn't the right word. Anyway, good news, kids: Koch Lorber will be releasing a Marco Ferreri boxset on 5 August. The bad news? I have no idea what's in it. It's priced around $150, so I've got my hopes up... What could be in it? The Story of Piera??? Be still my heart! A teenage Isabelle Huppert putting the moves on her mother played by Hanna Schygulla? Count me in. More info when I get it, of course.

Koch Lorber will also be re-releasing René Clément's Joy House (Les félins) with Alain Delon and Jane Fonda. The film was previously released by Image and is long out-of-print. I'm sure the transfer will be improved.

In other sexy news, Lionsgate will release Mariano Barroso's Éxtasis on 29 July, starring that hunk Javier Bardem.

Backroom Quickie

As you may know, my thesis is due in two days, so if you expect me to have anything of substance to say here, you're shit out of luck. However, I'm taking a scheduled break to list a few more DVD updates. Also, just as a forewarning, the posts immediately following the completion of my paper may be just as superficial. But I'll be back soon... anyway...

Three silent films are on their way to your shelves. Abel Gance's J'accuse! will be released by a studio I'm not familiar with called Flicker Alley on 2 Sept. This will be the first time Gance's anti-war epic will be available on DVD. Kino will release two previously unavailable films from the first great Swedish master, Victor Sjöström: A Man There Was [Terje Vigen] from 1917 and starring the director and The Outlaw and His Wife [Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru] from 1918, also starring the director. The latter will feature Gösta Werner's 1981 documentary on the filmmaker entitled, simply, Victor Sjöström. Both will street on 29 July.

On a sleazier level (because I know you all prefer that), Lionsgate will be releasing an omnibus horror film called Trapped Ashes. Alongside Ken Russell (the only director involved I care about, although does anyone really like anything he's done since the 80s?) is Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th, Spring Break), John Gaeta (best known as the visual effects supervisor for the Matrix trilogy and Speed Racer), Monte Hellman (Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out!... yeah), and Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling, The 'burbs). The film stars Jayce Bartok, Scott Lowell (Queer as Folk), John Saxon, and Ken Russell himself!

In further sleaziness, Cinema Epoch will rerelease novelist Ryu Murakami's (Audition) naughtiest film foray, Tokyo Decadence, starring Miho Nikaido (wife of Hal Hartley), on 5 August (the director is of no relation to the more popular Haruki Murakami). There is no word on what version of the film will be presented in the release, as it has seen several different edits throughout the world, including two edited US cuts from Image Entertainment and First Run Features. Rob Marshall's disappointing follow-up to The Descent, Doomsday, will be available from Rouge Pictures on 29 July in an unrated cut.

Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?

A couple of other DVD announcements.

IFC Films will release Adrián Caetano's docudrama Chronicle of an Escape [Crónica de una fuga] on 19 August, though I hear it's already available for rent at Blockbuster through their Weinstein deal. Michael Lehmann's (Heathers) comedy Flakes, with Zooey Deschanel and Aaron Stanford, will be out from IFC on 8 Jul. In other Heathers news, Anchor Bay will release a 20th High School Reunion Edition of the classic black comedy on 1 Jul. IFC will also have The Killing of John Lennon out on 5 Aug. The Weinsteins will also be releasing Kevin Macdonald's controversial documentary My Enemy's Enemy on 19 Aug; they will also release Morgan Sporlock's Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? on 5 Aug.

Magnolia will have Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin' with the Godmother on 29 July. TLA will be releasing Spencer Schilly's (Summer Thunder) The Houseboy on the same date. From ThinkFilm, Daniele Luchetti's My Brother Is an Only Child [Mio fratello è figlio unico] comes out on 5 Aug. Dimension will have a (likely unneeded) remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis' The Wizard of Gore with a surprisingly great cast that includes Crispin Glover, Brad Dourif and Jeffrey Combs, on 19 Aug. Oh, yeah, and Bijou Phillips is also in it.

As for television, the second season of Dexter has been rescheduled for 19 August. HBO's In Treatment will street on 9 Sept, and FX's hilarious It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia will have its third season out on 2 Sept.

Spanning Time

I'm currently working on my graduation paper, which is due in a week, so all of my updates will probably be in the form of Cannes updates or DVD announcements, just to let you know. I do have a couple of DVD announcements to make... so here goes:

Strand will release two films in July: Lee Kang-sheng's Help Me Eros (which is quite good) on the 22nd and Ekachai Uekrongtham's Pleasure Factory, set in Singapore's red light district, on the 8th. They will also have Sam Garbarski's Irina Palm, starring Marianne Faithfull, Miki Manojlovic, Kevin Bishop and Jenny Agutter, on 12 August, with the perfect tagline, "the best right hand in London."

Liberation Entertainment will release Jeff Nichols' critically-acclaimed Shotgun Stories on 1 July, and the Weinsteins will be releasing My Blueberry Nights on the same day as part of their Meridian Collection. No word on whether the disc will include their cut of the film or the international one, but from what I've been told, you won't notice the difference (not that I support what they do).

Arts Alliance will release Gina Kim's Never Forever, starring the lovely Vera Farmiga, on 15 July. Farmiga plays an American woman having an extra martial affair with an immigrant worker (you might also notice that the photo above would be the second film with a Spiderman kiss in this update). IFC Films will release Larry Fessdenden's (Habit, Wendigo) horror flick The Last Winter, starring Ron Perlman, James LeGros, Kevin Corrigan, Jamie Harrold and the director himself.

Lost fans should know that the fourth season of the series will be on shelves 9 December, giving a month or so for those to catch up for the fifth, and second-to-last season.

And finally, Kino will release Jeffrey Lau's Eagle Shooting Heroes on 15 July. The film was produced by Wong Kar-wai and features all the same actors from Ashes of Time, including Maggie Cheung, Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung and Brigitte Lin) in a martial arts parody.