Moi non plus...

CultEpics will be releasing Pierre Grimbalt's Slogan on DVD on 20 May. If you haven't heard of the film (as I hadn't), it's historical for being the film in which Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, who would produce a handful of children including Charlotte Gainsbourg and record the classic "Je t'aime, moi non plus" together, met and subsequently fell in love. Gainsbourg, naturally, scores the film as well as appearing in it.

In other DVD news, Benten Films will be releasing the film The Free Will, starring Jürgen Vogel, on DVD on 24 June. And on the subject of Benten Films, if you haven't picked up their latest release of two films by Aaron Katz (Quiet City and Dance Party, USA) do yourself a favor and do so. Lionsgate and After Dark Horrorfest will also be releasing Xavier Gens' Frontière(s) on 15 May, after delaying it from their stupid fest for its NC-17 rating.

And speaking of Mademoiselle Cotillard...

The writers' strike better end to set Rob Marshall's Nine back into production. If you're unfamiliar, it's a musical (?) remake of Fellini's 8 1/2, with Javier Bardem in the Marcello Mastroianni role. Wanna know who else is in this? Penélope Cruz, Marion Cotillard and Sophia Loren. Christ, I haven't been more pleased with casting this good in... I dunno, forever. That's really too much sexy for one film. I may write a blog in the upcoming days about my newfound obsession with Mlle. Cotillard, who has coincidentally become my Penélope Cruz for 2007.

BAFTAs!

So, I'll let the fact that Atonement won the BAFTA for Best Picture slide, because they awarded my dear Tilda Swinton as the best supporting actress for Michael Clayton, for which she's hardly the front-runner for in the upcoming Academy Awards. Other awards included Marion Cotillard for La vie en rose in the Best Actress, Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor, Javier Bardem for Best Supporting Actor, the Coens for Best Director, Juno for Original Screenplay, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly for adapted, Ratatouille for Animated Film, The Lives of Others for Foreign, No Country for Old Men for cinematography, and This Is England for Best British Film (though wasn't Atonement British?).

Dareaoke Update

So, as one may have expected, the Daraoke experiment isn't working out quite as planned. Really, it might have just been that Tekkonkinkreet (I'm not even bothering to check to see if I spelled that correctly) turned me off the idea of watching bad movies for fun. Or maybe it's just that the following weeks' picks (Samurai Reincarnation and Walking Tall: The Final Chapter) just didn't sound the least bit fun in the first place. Now, if I had been recommended She-Devil with Meryl Streep and Roseanne, you know I would have watched that shit in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, shitty crime films, shitty samurai films (unless they fall into the exploitation category) and shitty anime just don't float this boy's boat. However, Mike and I have been continuing the weekly recommendations of films we should have already seen in the first place. I got the pleasure of viewing Carlito's Way (yeah, what kind of De Palma fan could I be without that one?), Casablanca and John Woo's The Killer (which is way better than Broken Arrow if you didn't already know). Mike was disappointed to see that all of my Woo experience was shitty beyond belief (Mission: Impossible 2 is one of the worst films I've ever seen... Broken Arrow isn't far behind). This week I have Spike Lee's Bamboozled.

And, on a side note, what the fuck is wrong with Tilda Swinton? I had forgotten that the Chronicles of Narnia was the beginning of a series and thought she might have wised up by the time the second one was ready to come out... but no! She's back as the Ice Queen or whatever, which is perfect visually for her... but completely against just about everything else she stands for as a woman and as an actor. I'm sure she's got plenty up her sleeve to continue to make me drool otherwise, but Narnia? Jeez. Don't worry, Tilda, I'll still be the only person rooting for you at this year's Oscars. Fuck Cate Blanchett.

Jarman in May

Zeitgeist has announced three (!) Derek Jarman DVDs on the way for May: Wittgenstein, Caravaggio, and Blue. The first two are Jarman's "biopics," and Blue is a chronicle of his final days dying of AIDS. Unfortunately, my two favorite Jarman works, The Garden and The Angelic Conversation, remain MIA on Region 1 disc, but this is exciting news nonetheless, no doubt released to coincide with the documentary Derek, which premiered at Sundance a week or so ago. All three films star the wonderful Tilda Swinton, who also narrates Derek.

Through a Lens Darkly

Mary - dir. Abel Ferrara - 2005 - Italy/USA/France

I've often joked that Abel Ferrara, like Sam Fuller before him, isn't so much "an American filmmaker" as he is the French's idea of "an American filmmaker." He's pulpy and seedy, particularly when addressing issues of philosophy, spirituality and religion. It's only now dawned on me that more than just that, he's the French's idea of an American Ingmar Bergman. As peculiar as that seems, Ferrara's torrid relationship with Christianity appears to have eluded my thoughts until he tackled the issue head-on in Mary. In Mary, Ferrara places Forest Whitaker in the Harvey Keitel role, a total cod whose bad behavior karmicly releases the ultimate test of faith as he's haunted by the performance of Marie Palesi (Juliette Binoche) as Mary Magdalene in yet another Jesus flick. Now, Ted Younger (Whitaker) is no stranger to Jesus and faith; he hosts a popular television program examining the origins of the Christian messiah. However, when his job becomes more important than his relationship with his pregnant wife (Heather Graham) and suspicion is raised about his extramarital affair with actress Gretchen (Marion Cotillard), he seeks understanding from the elusive Marie in his path of redemption.

Like most of Ferrara's work, Mary is deeply flawed. It's a filthy orgy of controversial ideas, none of which come to a simultaneous climax, or even a coherent climax at all. In researching other people's thoughts of Mary, I discovered that the film's crossover appeal (as in an appeal to anyone outside of Ferrara's small fanbase) is pretty much null, almost entirely attributed to the film's shaky stance on faith in chaos. However, to the Ferrara admirer, Mary works beautifully into his oeuvre, a fascinating mess of frustration and admiration.

Where Ferrara succeeds in Mary is in his character placement. Marie, played phenomenally by Binoche, is undoubtedly the most fascinating individual in the film and most of her fascination comes from the fact that you come to a realization that Ferrara doesn't understand her in the least. After taking on the role of Mary Magdalene, Marie spirals into a moral and spirital abyss, unable to shake her own performance, which (according to Whitaker) is shattering. Part of the blame can be placed upon the film's writer/director/star Matthew Modine, a deplorable megalomaniac whose delusions run much deeper than simply casting himself as Jesus. According to Cotillard, it's Modine's self-importance and incompetence as a director which keeps Binoche from returning from Jerusalem. Binoche's personal crisis shrouds the film without becoming its central focus. Outside of Lili Taylor's Kathleen in The Addiction, she's the only Ferrara woman I can think of that doesn't fit into his dual idea of women, the simple Madonna/whore complex seen in its fullest between Béatrice Dalle and Claudia Schiffer in The Blackout. It's perhaps in Binoche's obsession with Mary Magdalene, a whore according to certain gospels, Jesus' number one disciple according to others, that her Marie breaks the mold of your typical Ferrara woman in becoming something entirely separate, something he clearly doesn't understand. In keeping Marie in the background while still placing her as the driving force of Mary, Ferrara turns her into a haunting figure as enigmatic and impenetrable as the mysteries of Jesus himself.

There's a chilling relevance to Binoche's Marie, escalated by the recent death of Heath Ledger. As far as most reports go, his death may have been caused by the inability to shake his last role, that of the Joker in Batman. To those unfamiliar with the method of acting, both Marie's conversion and Ledger's death haunt to the bone, a possession of which those outside of the field could never fully grasp. I understand it even less than Ferrara seems to, and it's in this ignorance, or more specificially the impossibility of empathy, that Binoche's performance, reminiscent of Liv Ullmann's Elisabet in Persona, becomes so breathtaking... and scary. There comes a point where Whitaker's tribulations reek of familiarity in the context of Ferrara, but it's Binoche's looming presence that holds the film to where it needs to be. Like Ullmann's disastrous effect on Bibi Andersson, Binoche drives Mary into its frenzy.

Scratch my palms, there's blood on my hands

I suppose this could be filed under self-promotion, but I thought I'd share my goings-on as of lately. A few friends of mine and I have formed a project entitled The Fortnight Film Project, originally planned as a bi-monthly way to fuck around with a camera. Well, it's sort of growing into a larger project, hopefully with more people involved, and highly intricate storylines (well, at least, intersecting ones). It's still a work-in-progress as we work out our kinks (for example, the audio is terrible on both films... and we're only now making better efforts in setting up shots and framing and all that jazz). You can check out our first two shorts via the website above. My character will be making his grand entrance this coming weekend, so look for that in the next coming week following. Feedback is always appreciated, help always wanted.

In addition to all the filmmaking fun, I've gotten my hands on a surplus of films once painfully unavailable to me: the entire Russ Meyer collection, Abel Ferrara's Mary, Hal Hartley's Trust, and Destricted, to name a few. Expect thoughts on said films in the coming days.

Funny/Sad

Strange that the first thing I could think to write about would be the curiously compelling "failures" of a number of films I've viewed in the past week over the "yeah, yeah, it's good" crossing of Casablanca off my "why the fuck haven't I seen this?" list. Really, what is there to say about Casablanca anyway? It's superior on nearly every level, and yet the focus of this entry is on the (perhaps more interesting) oddities I found myself viewing.

El misterio de los almendros [The Mystery of the Almond Trees] - dir. Jaime Humberto Hermosillo - 2004 - Mexico

Here's a premise to befuddle even the most un-beffuddle-able: two rookie detectives (Alejandro Tommasi, José Juan Meraz) are assigned to a case of a missing painting, belonging to a wealthy family whose daughter had gone missing. The rookies pose as homosexual lovers to get a special invite from a widow (María Rojo), known for hosting weekend posh parties for societal outcasts, whose daughter may have been the lover of the missing girl. There's also a string of murders that happen to surround the whole affair. Where is this going, you might think. Strangely, it happens to be going in directions I'm not sure the director (famous for Doña Herlinda and Her Son and Esmeralda Comes by Night) was even aware of. At some point in the film, the whole premise goes up in smoke, and the director doesn't even seem to care! What's also notable about the film (aside from the fact that I don't remember there being trees or almonds anywhere onscreen) is that the film isn't lead astray by the director's alterier motives, but merely for the sake of just going where it wants. It's like an untamed animal, all coiffed up before destroying the dinner party. And yet, it's so compelling in its confusion that you, too, forget why the detectives are even at this woman's house, let alone posing as lovers, let alone engaging in the sort of devious activity they fall into. I'd probably deserve a prize if I could explain what actually went on during the film, but I'm just satisfied with the ability to still shake my head at a film which I can't resist being coaxed into.

The Life [Yo puta] - dir. Luna - 2004 - Spain

Oh, what to do with The Life? I have no knowledge of the production itself, so all I can do is merely speculate. On one level, the film is about a young anthropology student (Denise Richards... yeah, I know) having trouble paying her bills as her grant runs out. Her neighbor (Daryl Hannah) has a solution: become a whore like her! You see, Ms. Richards has never had a boyfriend, and she's a virgin (right, I know), so this could pose a problem. It apparently posed a problem for the film itself, as I think the two actresses clock in about 15% of the film's actual screen time. Intercut, you'll find weird testimonials from actual prostitutes about "the business," love and sex, and their first time, seemingly having little to do with Denise's unfortunate situation. The talking-heads aren't particularly enlightening (you can find about 1000 documentaries on sex workers out there), but I'll say: it's never boring. Not being boring is a lot more to ask than you can imagine for me lately, so kudos to director Luna (not J.J. Bigas Luna as Netflix has labeled the film). Watching The Life is like watching someone salvaging a film they tried to make and realized half-way through was utter crap. I wouldn't encourage every director out there to piece together their rotten, unused footage and throw it together in some tiresome essay film, but at least The Life can show you that sometimes you can find lovely things buried in your trash can (if that's indeed what happened).

Innocents [Dark Summer] - dir. Gregory Marquette - 2000 - Canada/USA/Germany

This film, with its wonderful cast and awful Photoshopped-boxart, had always taunted me at the video store. What was Connie Nielsen and Jean-Hughes Anglade doing in this film? (The answer was a bit more simply answered when it came to Mia Kirshner) Well, eventually, I had to find out... and I'm still not very sure, but in ways more surprising than if the film was just direct-to-video shit. It's certainly not that, but what it is, I'm also unsure. In some ways it's a gothic tale of Americana (filmed in Canada, of course) in which a cellist (Anglade) takes two sisters he barely knows (Nielsen, Kirshner) on a cross country road trip. But, oh shit, there's a murderer lurking on the freeway. Or are the sisters a part of these murders? The answer, thankfully, is that they aren't, and about midway through the tension, the director gives up on it realizing there would be no possible way for the cards to fall in such a way. Innocents (or Dark Summer as it was originally titled) is amusing unflinching in its cold (but somehow pulpy) violence and trickery. Its trickery, thankfully, is all on Anglade's head, not the audience's. The film exists solely to display conflict, both imaginary and played out, in a perversely sexual manner. I don't know if I'm happy with where the director went with it, but, like I said for the two previous films, I was never bored. At one point in the film, Anglade asks the real question that's boiling beneath the surface: why the hell is Mia Kirshner wearing an awful wig? I'm always for a movie where a line of dialogue reminds you that the filmmakers aren't nearly as clueless as you might think they are, especially when I was afraid the wig was just a cheap way to convince the audience that the strikingly different actresses could be sisters.

Agnes and His Brothers [Agnes und seine Brüder] - dir. Oskar Roehler - 2004 - Germany

For someone with very little interest in American Beauty, I was surprised to find how much I liked a film that could owe so much to that film (even five years too late). Not to give anything away for those concerned with spoilers, but Agnes and His Brothers lifts at least two notable scenes from its American predecessor... and I didn't even mind! I'm not really sure where my film taste is going right now, but I'm happy enough to just let it find its way. The film concerns itself with three brothers: Werner (Herbert Knaup), a politician of sorts who relates to his dog more than his family; Hans-Jörg (Mortiz Bleibtreu), the lonely middle brother who happens to work at the only library in the entire world where the only inhabitants are hot women (thus feeding his sexual addiction); and, of course, Agnes (Martin Weiß), a transsexual go-go dancer. It's rather typically funny/sad, but it amplifies both sides so well to points frequently hilarious/devastating. Though the film's aim is in a different direction, I can't help but wish something like Margot at the Wedding had a bit more Agnes in her.

Sugar - dir. John Palmer - 2004 - Canada

The business of adapting Bruce LaBruce would seem a difficult endeavor as director Palmer did with LaBruce's short stories in Sugar. It probably made it a lot easier considering that the stories in which the film was based have little in common with LaBruce's cinematic work (of which I'm a raging fan, as you should know). I don't have a lot to say about Sugar here as it's working beautifully into a longer piece I'm planning based on my New Queer Cinema blog from a few months back. In many ways though, Sugar works as a meta piece of the youngster growing up with the films of LaBruce and Gregg Araki, depicting a teenage boy's (Andre Noble) fascination and subsequent disgust with the darker side of first love in a rent boy named Butch (Brendan Fehr). Also look for (now Oscar-nominated!) Sarah Polley as a pregnant crack dealer.

Good Boys [Yeladim Tovim] - dir. Yair Hochner - 2005 - Israel

Like Sugar, I won't say as much as I'd like to about Good Boys, as it, too, will be worked into the New Queer Cinema piece. It's actually quite fascinating how Good Boys works opposite everything about contemporary "gay" cinema in its promise of nastiness and heart and the way it gives it to the audience. It's nasty, alright, but not in redeeming ways. In fact, it uses nudity in a most clever manner, de-sexualizing it to the point of digust and, thus, straying from the more beautiful forms of sexuality. It certainly works as a great counter-point to the post-NQC garbage of American cinema.

Ou...

Koch Lorber officially announced today the DVD releases of Godard's La chinoise and Le gai savoir for 13 May. Eric's right in saying that 2008 looks like the year of Godard on R1 DVD.

Contender

I wish I had known about this a few years back, but fellow blogger Edward Copeland has been conducting Oscar polls each year, finding out just where the Academy went right and (of course) where they went wrong. It all began two years ago when it was determined (as if a survey really needed to be conducted for this) that Crash was the all-time worst Best Picture winner; Casablanca was the best (which I FINALLY saw, jesus). Last year was the best and worst actresses (Vivien Leigh at the top, Helen Hunt at the bottom...), and this year, it's the actors. You can send him an email with your top 5 and bottom 5 picks. I believe the voting continues for the next day or so, so hurry up! Here's the official link.

What Kind of Fuckery Is This??

The shoulda-been Catwoman (at least in her eyes), Sean Young, officially became my personal hero at the Directors Guild of America awards by "heckling" Julian Schnabel, among others. I don't much care for the goings-on of celebrities' personal lives, but I'm saddened to hear that Ms. Young has checked into rehab. Not because, you know, I was concerned about her health, but because she single-handledly made the awards show worth watching. I was really hoping she'd liven up this year's Oscars, whether they go on or not. Michael K of Dlisted offered a fine suggestion, get Bai Ling on the line pronto! We need somebody to fuck-start those Oscars.

Jew No

Good news! My computer has just made it back from a (two-week long) check up at the (not so) free clinic... and though she wasn't released with what I'd call a clean bill of health, I have her back. Hopefully this will mean that my posts will be a tad more frequent than they have been. Maybe I can share the nightmare I had about Diablo Cody or how a revisit of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! jump started my fading interest in cinema as of lately. We'll save those tales for another time.

I've got a bladder the size of a seedless grape

Strand has officially announced the "Remixed and Remastered" DVD of Gregg Araki's The Living End, set for 29 April. The special features have yet to be announced, but this shit is long overdue.