DVD Update - 18 October

Multiple titles of varied interest and appeal. Highlights include Lorna's Silence on 6 January, a new Flicker Alley release in Miss Mend, also known as The Adventures of the Three Reporters, and Gurinder Chadha's Agnus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging on 22 December (which a friend of mine recommends highly... we'll see about that). Disney has re-announced their 3-disc DVD of Like Stars on Earth, a Bollywood feel-gooder, for 12 January.

- The Private Lesson [Lezioni private], 1975, d. Vittorio De Sisti, Sinful Mermaid/MVD, 20 October
- The Sex Is Crazy [El sexo está loco], 1981, d. Jesús Franco, Sinful Mermaid/MVD, 20 October
- Kleinhoff Hotel, 1977, d. Carlo Lizzani, Obsession/MVD, 17 November
- Drop Dead Rock, 1996, d. Adam Dubin, MVD, 8 December, w. Adam Ant, Debbie Harry
- Miss Mend, 1926, d. Fyodor Otsep, Boris Barnet, Flicker Alley, 2-DVD Deluxe Edition, 15 December
- Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, 2008, d. Gurinder Chadha, Paramount, 22 December
- Lorna's Silence [Le silence de Lorna], 2008, d. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Sony Pictures, 5 January
- In Praise of Older Women, 1978, d. George Kaczender, Koch Vision, 12 January, w. Tom Berenger, Karen Black, Helen Shaver, Alexandra Stewart, Alberta Watson
- Pretty Ugly People, 2008, d. Tate Taylor, Osiris, 12 January
- My Führer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler [Mein Führer - Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler], 2007, d. Dani Levy, First Run Features, 19 January
- Whisper & SHOUT! [flüstern & SCHREIEN], 1998, d. Dieter Schumann, First Run Features, 19 January
- Bad Biology, 2008, d. Frank Henenlotter, Shriek Show, 26 January
- Give 'em Hell, Malone, 2009, d. Russell Mulcahy, National Entertainment Media, also on Blu-ray, 26 January, w. Thomas Jane, Ving Rhames
- The Higher Force [Stóra planið], 2008, d. Olaf de Fleur Johannesson, Vanguard, 26 January, w. Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Michael Imperioli
- Like a Dragon, 2007, d. Takashi Miike, Tokyo Shock, 26 January
- Malcolm X, 1992, d. Spike Lee, Warner, 2 February
- The End of the Line, 2009, d. Rupert Murray, New Video, 23 February

Blu-ray

- Dogtown and Z-Boys, 2001, d. Stacy Peralta, Sony, 5 January
- Riding Giants, 2004, d. Stacy Peralta, Sony, 5 January
- The Deadly Duo, 1971, d. Chang Cheh, Tokyo Shock, Blu-ray, 19 January
- Dumbo, 1941, d. Ben Sharpsteen, Disney, 23 February

Artificial Eye's Agnès Varda Collection, Volume 2

Artificial Eye in the UK has already announced volume 2 of their Agnès Varda Collections. The first set hits stores on 19 October and contains La pointe-courte, Cléo from 5 to 7 [Cléo de 5 à 7], Les glaneurs et la glaneuse [The Gleaners and I] and Le bonheur. The second will include Vagabond [Sans toit ni loi] and The Beaches of Agnès [Les plages d'Agnès], as well as the harder-to-find Jacquot de Nantes, a film inspired by the childhood of her late husband Jacques Demy, and L'une chante, l'autre pas [One Sings, the Other Doesn't], both available for the first time on DVD with English subtitles. Here's hoping Volume 3 contains the works Varda did with Jane Birkin in the 1980s (Jane B. par Agnès V., Kung-fu master!), Les créatures with Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli and Eva Dahlbeck and her exceptionally rare Lions Love, which features Varda along with Viva, Eddie Constantine, Shirley Clarke, Jim Morrison, Peter Bogdanovich, Gerome Ragni and James Rado.

Artificial Eye announced a few other titles for 2010 in addition to the Varda set and Antichrist, which I mentioned before: Peter Strickland's Katalin Varga (22 February), Marco Bechis' Birdwatchers (25 January) and Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank (25 January). The latter brings me to the topic of the ongoing Decade List project, which (conceivably) only has two-and-a-half months left to go. So far, Fish Tank is my favorite official 2009 release, and I plan to write about it soon, which means that all the years from 00-09 are fair game. There are some significant omissions on the list so far, but I'm still open to more suggestions as the year approaches its close. I've already got a number of entries lined up, and a stack of DVDs ready for watching... so don't hesitate to throw a suggestion or seven my way.

And, just so you know, Lars von Trier's Dogville, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Tropical Malady, Andrew Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation, the Dardenne brothers' L'enfant, Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu [Moartea domnului Lăzărescu], Claire Denis' L'intrus [The Intruder], Richard Linklater's Before Sunset, Michael Haneke's Caché, François Ozon's Le temps qui reste [Time to Leave], Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, Bertrand Bonello's Tiresia and Andrei Zvyagintsev's The Return are all on their way.

January Criterions and More!

January always poses an exciting month for Criterion releases, as it (hopefully) kick-starts the year with a bang, especially after their typically slow month of December. And with the January 2010 titles, Criterion crossed the 500 threshold, with Robert Rossellini's War Trilogy box set marking spine number 500, the trilogy being Rome, Open City [Roma, città aperta], Paisan [Paisà] and Germany Year Zero [Germania anno zero]. Steven Soderbergh's Che will finally bow on DVD and Blu-ray, as well as a resorted version of Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas (on DVD and Blu-ray). Federico Fellini's 8½ will premiere on Blu-ray, which might be the first release of the film in high-definition anywhere.

More exciting than the mainline Criterion titles though is their new Eclipse set, available 19 January: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies. The set includes La chambre, Hotel Monterey, News from Home, Je tu il elle and Les rendez-vous d'Anna.

IFC also announced several titles for January. Jean-Claude Brisseau's À l'aventure, Paco Cabezas' The Appeared [Aparecidos], David Zellner's Goliath, Spike Lee's Passing Strange, Alan Brown's Superheroes and Armando Iannucci's hysterical In the Loop, which will also come in Blu-ray. All are set for 12 January. MPI, who releases IFC's titles, set a new date for The House of the Devil for 2 February, for those concerned.

DVD Update - 14 October

I'm suffering a seasonal malady, so there may be a lag in posting for the next few days. We'll see. For now, here's a DVD update. It looks as though Magnolia acquired a number of Netflix's former distribution studio Red Envelope Entertainment's releases and are making them available again come 3 November. All of the titles were previously released by Genius and sadly does not include the two Lukas Moodysson films, Lilja 4-ever and A Hole in My Heart, which Netflix had for rental only.

Some changes: As expected, both Pandorum and Capitalism: A Love Story have vanished from Amazon. The original November date I provided for Moon is obviously not accurate, and I'm told it's now sometime in January. District 9 is now 15 December. Tokyo Shock's Five Element Ninjas has been pushed to 26 January, and Sony's Rita Hayworth box will now be released on 23 February.

- 4, 2005, d. Ilya Khrjanovsky, Magnolia, 3 November
- The Bituminous Coal Queens of Pennsylvania, 2005, d. Judy Eldred, David Hunt, Magnolia, 3 November
- C.R.A.Z.Y., 2005, d. Jean-Marc Vallée, Magnolia, 3 November
- Cowboy del amor, 2005, d. Michèle Ohayon, Magnolia, 3 November
- Favela Rising, 2005, d. Matt Mochary, Jeff Zimbalist, Magnolia, 3 November
- Heading South [Vers el sud], 2005, d. Laurent Cantet, Magnolia, 3 November
- Mana: Beyond Belief, 2004, d. Peter Friedman, Roger Manley, Magnolia, 3 November
- Memron, 2004, d. Nancy Hower, Magnolia, 3 November
- The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio [L'orchestra di Piazza Vittorio], 2006, d. Agostino Ferrente, Magnolia, 3 November
- The Puffy Chair, 2005, d. Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass, Magnolia, 3 November
- Rank, 2006, d. John Hyams, Magnolia, 3 November
- Small Town Gay Bar, 2006, d. Malcolm Ingram, Magnolia, 3 November
- Street Fight, 2005, d. Marshall Curry, Magnolia, 3 November
- This Film Is Not Yet Rated, 2006, d. Kirby Dick, Magnolia, 3 November
- Yo soy Boricua, pa'que tu lo sepas!, 2006, d. Liz Garbus, Rosie Perez, Magnolia, 3 November
- Diagnosis: Death, 2009, d. Jason Stutter, Lionsgate, 29 December, w. Bret McKenzie, Jermaine Clement
- Dark Rage, 2008, d. Lee Akehurst, Cinema Epoch, 12 January
- The Hurt Locker, 2008, d. Kathryn Bigelow, Summit, 12 January
- Onimasa: A Japanese Godfather, 1982, d. Hideo Gosha, AnimEigo, 12 January
- The Brotherhood V: Alumni, d. David DeCoteau, here! Films, 9 February
- Eleven Minutes, 2008, d. Michael Selditch, Robert Tate, here! Films, 9 February
- The Pit and the Pendulum, 2009, d. David DeCoteau, here! Films, 9 February
- The Song of Sparrows, d. Majid Majidi, here! Films, 9 February
- $9.99, d. Tatia Rosenthal, here! Films, 23 February
- Breakfast with Scot, 2007, d. Laurie Lynd, here! Films, 23 February

The Decade List: Les témoins (2007)

Les témoins [The Witnesses] – dir. André Téchiné

Aided with a bit of melodramatic and nostalgic artifice, The Witnesses [Les témoins] actually chronicles the early days of the AIDS epidemic like an epic war film, with serious urgency and vigor, elements sorely lacking in André Téchiné’s literal war drama, Strayed [Les égarés]. Beginning in the summer of 1984, a gay doctor Adrien (Michel Blanc) falls for naïve twentysomething Manu (Johan Libéreau), new to both Paris and his own sexuality. Adrien becomes something of a sugar daddy to Manu, though without the sexual implications of such a title, as the young man doesn’t share the physical attraction his older counterpart does for him. After Adrien introduces the Manu to his friends, Manu launches into a sexual relationship with married, nominally heterosexual Medhi (Sami Bouajila), husband of emotionally tormented writer Sarah (Emmanuelle Béart). The secret affair moves rapidly, only to be irrevocably altered when Manu starts to show signs of a new illness we’d later come to know as AIDS.

Similar to several of the director's work, from J'embrasse pas to Strayed, the catalyst for the occurrences in The Witnesses is a pretty young boy, played heartbreakingly by Libéreau. It’s around his Manu that The Witnesses takes shape. Manu serves also as the martyr for the sins of both the film’s characters as well as the not-so-distant past. And yet The Witnesses is never soapy, despite its salacious love trapezoid. It’s too sunny, to swiftly paced for tedious histrionics. Instead, the film works merely through Manu to depict the sweeping emotions of the peripheral individuals with a velocity that’s both surprising and altogether impressive.

Blanc, as the aging, bitter doctor who becomes overwhelmed by the growing number of AIDS cases he sees, is typically exceptional, as is Bouajila. Unfortunately, Béart, in her third film with Téchiné after Strayed and J’embrasse pas, leaves plenty to be desired. Her Sarah is refreshingly bold in her disinterest for taking on the role of a mother, but Béart lacks conviction, both in her apathetic responses to the world around her and as a credible author. This isn’t even to mention how out-of-place her collagen-injected lips look for 1984 Paris. Béart aside, The Witnesses is an exceptionally moving film, ranking among Téchiné’s finest work.

With: Michel Blanc, Emmanuelle Béart, Sami Bouajila, Johan Libéreau, Julie Depardieu, Lorenzo Balducci, Constance Dollé, Xavier Beauvois, Jacques Nolot
Screenplay: André Téchiné, Laurent Guyot, Viviane Zingg, based on an idea by Michel Camesi, Jamil Rahmani
Cinematography: Julien Hirsch
Music: Philippe Sarde
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

Premiere: 12 February 2007 (Berlin International Film Festival)
US Premiere: 14 June 2007 (San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival)

Awards: Best Supporting Actor – Sami Bouajila (César Awards, France)

The Decade List: Fay Grim (2006)

Fay Grim – d. Hal Hartley

I have such a love/hate relationship with Hal Hartley. The man has made at least one film that’s rocked my world (Trust), one that I always think I like even though I’m pretty sure I don’t (Amateur), one that I may be the only person who enjoyed (No Such Thing) and several that have driven me mad (Henry Fool, Flirt, The Book of Life). He has a certain advantage of using some of my favorite women in his films, from Parker Posey in Fool and Fay Grim, Isabelle Huppert as an ex-nun who writes pornographic novels in Amateur, Adrienne Shelly in a most of his early works to PJ Harvey as Mary Magdalene in The Book of Life. I’m still a bit floored at how much I liked Fay Grim, a weirdo sequel to Henry Fool which follows Posey’s character ten years later.

Instead of following in its predecessor’s footsteps, a deadpan satire, Hartley turns Fay Grim into an espionage thriller, which I guess could be best described as Hartley doing his own Jason Bourne film. He shoots the film (almost) entirely in Dutch angles, an absurd idea that works only as a result of the overall ludicrousness of the film itself. For those familiar with Hartley, easing into Fay Grim’s breed of humor is a fairly simple transition. For others, I’d imagine plenty of difficulty in letting one’s self laugh at the folly of it all. I was never able to follow the laugh cues of Henry Fool, but in Fay Grim, I got it, at least as much as someone with a general aversion to Hartley can.

To sum up the plot, Fay and her now fourteen-year-old son Ned (Liam Aiken) live off the royalty checks from her brother Simon Grim’s (James Urbaniak) poetry, as he sits in jail for aiding and abiding Henry’s illegal fleeing of the country. The mess of international intrigue and espionage comes when the head of the C.I.A., played by Jeff Goldblum, starts interrogating Fay about Henry’s confessionals, once thought (in Henry Fool) to be dense gibberish, now believed to contain secrets of US involvement in South American coups and other highly confidential information. Goldblum sends Fay to Paris to retrieve selected notebooks of Henry’s confessionals as it’s believed Henry has died and, as his wife, Fay is the only person who can legally obtain these documents. The C.I.A. isn’t the only one who wants these documents, Fay soon learns, as she encounters, among others, a British spy played by Saffron Burrows and Henry’s partner and accomplice Bebe (Elina Löwensohn, a regular of Hartley’s). Danger ensues.

In a tactic used best in some of his earlier films, Hartley places Parker Posey in direct opposition to the film she’s playing in. Posey appears oblivious as to what’s going on throughout the entire film, a sentiment likely mirrored by the audience of the film. Instead, she appears ripped out of the frames of a delusional melodrama directed by John Waters. Her delivery is perfectly deadpan, and she’s brilliantly misplaced within the Dutch-angled frame of Fay Grim. Hartley has said himself that the premise of Fay Grim was an ongoing joke between him and the cast of Henry Fool as the idea itself is so absurd you almost expect Posey to wake up from a dream at any minute during the film. For its first hour, Fay Grim is a wickedly amusing farce dressed up, just as impeccably as Posey is in her couture attire, as an espionage thriller. Many reviewers have noted, accurately, that, unfortunately, as Fay’s journey takes her to the streets of Istanbul, Hartley forgets the joke. Once it becomes clear that Henry isn’t dead, the film loses nearly all of its magic, not the least of which as a result of Posey not being onscreen once Henry’s whereabouts become evident. Hartley has a gift for his brand of comedy and has found no greater muse than Posey since he stopped working with Adrienne Shelley in the mid-90s. Even when Hartley missteps, as he does painfully in the last half hour of Fay Grim, we can always count on the gameness of Posey, a radiant and woefully underappreciated comedic actress at the top of her game.

With: Parker Posey, Jeff Goldblum, James Urbaniak, Liam Aiken, Thomas Jay Ryan, Saffron Burrows, Elina Löwensohn, Chuck Montgomery, Leo Fitzpatrick, Miho Nikaido, Peter Benedict, Tim Seyfi, Nikolai Kinski, Robert Seeliger, Anatole Taubman
Screenplay: Hal Hartley
Cinematography: Sarah Cawley
Music: Hal Hartley
Country of Origin: USA/Germany
US Distributor: Magnolia

Premiere: 11 September 2006 (Toronto Film Festival)
US Premiere: 19 January 2007 (Sundance Film Festival)

The Decade List: Billy the Kid (2007)

Billy the Kid – dir. Jennifer Venditti

Portraits of children have always been an obsession of cinema. From The 400 Blows to Ponette to Fat Girl (yeah, they're all French, but I can't deny that they do it best), filmmakers have always sought a strange, untainted truth in their young subjects. It's probably not something that any of us realized as we were growing up, yet in hindsight, there's something admirable and overall refreshing about the worldview of the young. In Billy the Kid, Jennifer Venditti's poignant documentary, a camera follows the daily life of a 15-year-old in Maine. Ostracized for being different (he appears to show very subtle characteristics of autism) and growing up with a bottle of flammable rage beneath the surface, Billy seems like a miracle subject, a quirky, sweet boy with this remarkable insight to the world. Venditti discovered Billy working as the casting director on Carter Smith’s amazing short film Bugcrush, in which Billy plays a cohort of Donald Cumming, lead singer of The Virgins and the cinematographer here.

To really understand teenagers is to understand the impact life takes upon them. Nothing is small or insignificant in their lives, which My So-Called Life creator Winnie Holzman described wonderfully when talking about her television show. What's most significant about Billy, as a person, is his reluctance to filter himself. Though he's endearingly polite throughout the film, he seems to lack the social skills to hold back anything that comes up in his mind. There's a point in Billy the Kid where one's perception of fiction and reality blur, as Billy sets his overly romantic sights on a blind girl. The teenagers' interaction seems too painfully authentic that you find yourself surprised it could have even been captured on film. In the end, Billy the Kid ends up absolutely heartbreaking and not for reasons as shattering as those in Ponette or Fat Girl, but because of that understanding of the worldview of a teenager. Billy's anguish ends up being rather triumphant as opposed to defeatist.

With: Billy Price
Cinematography: Donald Cumming
Music: Guy Blakeslee, Liz Lysinger, Christian Zucconi
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Elephant Eye Films/Zeitgeist

Premiere: 11 March 2007 (SXSW Film Festival)

Awards: Best Documentary (SXSW Film Festival)

Announcing... The 18th Annual Saint Louis International Film Festival

Cinema Saint Louis has officially unveiled the line-up for the 18th annual Saint Louis International Film Festival today. I've known about all this for a while, as I did some assisting this year, but now that everything's set in stone (at least, as much as it can be) I can discuss some of the highlights this year. The four best films we're screening: Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman [La mujer sin cabeza], Lisandro Alonso's Liverpool, Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum [35 rhums] and Andrew Bujalski's Beeswax. All four will make their local debuts at the festival, which begins 12 November 2009, opening with Lone Scherfig's An Education, with Peter Sarsgaard, who hails from the Saint Louis area, in attendance. Sadly, I was so focused on the features this year I haven't had a chance to see any of the documentaries yet.

Bujalski will be in attendance at the Beeswax screening on 13 November at Webster University. Lee Daniels is coming with Precious (I tried to get Mariah, but y'know, she's busy) on 14 November. Director Kirk Jones will also be present for Everybody's Fine, a remake of Giuseppe Tornatore's Stanno tutti bene with Robert DeNiro, Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale. Jason Reitman is coming with Up in the Air, followed by a Q&A, on 14 November at the Tivoli Theatre. Other appearances include Kevin Willmott with his The Only Good Indian; author Daniel Woodrell for the Director's Cut of Ang Lee's Ride with the Devil; Connie Stevens for Saving Grace B. Jones as well as co-stars Penelope Ann Miller, Rylee Fansler, Evie Louise Thompson and Tricia Leigh Fisher; Faruk Sabanovoc, co-writer and art director of Snow [Snijeg]; David Lowery with his excellent feature debut St. Nick; Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, with The Young Victoria which she co-produced with Martin Scorsese; AJ Schnack with his Convention; Joel Hodgson and the original crew of Mystery Science Theater 3000; Joe Berlinger with his latest film Crude; and Ry Russo-Young, writer/director of You Wont Miss Me, another film that comes highly recommended.

Stewart Copeland's Jennifer, which I discussed twice before, will screen as part of the Documentary Short collection "Individuals." Another friend of mine Mike Steinberg, director of the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, will premiere two documentaries: Old Dog, New Trick and The Pride of St. Louis (co-directed by Thomas Crone). The screenings, on 20 November, will be followed by a concert from the subjects of the docs, local musicians Steve Scorfina and the band Mama's Pride (one of my father's favorites, actually).

Closing on Sunday, 22 November, you have your pick between Agnès Varda's The Beaches of Agnès [Les plages d'Agnès], Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus or Jean-Marc Vallée's The Young Victoria.

A few other films screening this year that I quite admire: Nancy Kissam's Drool; two films from Christian Petzold, Yella and Jerichow; Lucía Puenzo's XXY; and Noah Buschel's The Missing Person. And a couple I have yet to see: Jia Zhang-ke's 24 City; Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys [Üç maymun]; Ondi Timoner's We Live in Public; and Hans-Christian Schmid's Storm [Sturm]. Check out the full schedule and descriptions (many of which were written by yours truly) at Cinema Saint Louis' website. I'll have more updates closer to the fest itself.

Online Viewing @ TheAuteurs

If Polanski: Unauthorized wasn't all you'd hoped and dreamed it'd be, you can go ahead and check out the director's first feature film (Polanski, not Damian Chapa, ha!), Knife in the Water [Nóż w wodzie], for free at The Auteurs, courtesy of Criterion's free monthly series on the site. Currently, the focus is on directors' first films. Check out one of my very favorite films, Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher, if you haven't already. The other films in this series: Jane Campion's wonderful Sweetie, Agnès Varda's La pointe-courte, Sam Fuller's I Shot Jesse James and Marco Bellocchio's Fists in the Pocket [I pugni in tasca] (the latter not being one of my favorites by any means, but hey, if you've already seen the other five...)

We Belong Together

Isabelle Huppert and Michael Haneke will join forces yet again for the director's latest project, which begins filming next year. It will be their third pairing, after La pianiste [The Piano Teacher] and Le temps du loup [Time of the Wolf] and after his latest The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band] was awarded the Palme d'Or in May by Huppert and her jury. The yet-untitled film will also mark Jean-Louis Trintignant's return to the screen after almost ten years of absence. He did have a bit part in the film Janis et John (Patrice Chéreau's Ceux qui m'aime prendront le train [Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train] was his last major role in 1998) but has been otherwise absent from the screen following his daughter Marie's death in 2003. Being Isabelle Huppert's "friend" on Facebook has its perks.

Bio-Hazard

Within the past few years, we've gotten varied cinematic portraits of famous people: Édith Piaf, Séraphine de Senlis, Françoise Sagan, Uschi Obermaier, Che Guevara, Coco Chanel, Harvey Milk, Jacques Mesrine, Diane Arbus, George W. Bush, Charles Bronson (the prisoner), Idi Amin, Edie Sedgwick, Charles Darwin, Gustav Klimt, the Bouvier Beales, the Notorious B.I.G., Amelia Earhart, Ian Curtis, Queen Victoria and Jean-Dominique Bauby. Now you can add a few more to add to the list, for better or worse; and I'm sure there are plenty more in the works.

Without anything useful to say about Roman Polanski’s imprisonment in Switzerland, a friend of mine directed me to an unofficial Polanski biopic that was released this year. Already available on DVD, the film, now called Polanski: Unauthorized, is co-written, directed and starring some guy named Damian Chapa, who you may recognize from a small role in Under Seige or as “Ken” in that awful Street Fighter movie (the one that had Kylie Minogue and Jean-Claude Van Damme, not the other awful one). Polanski: Unauthorized looks like a disaster and surprisingly was made and released before all the new developments, though likely capitalizing on the newfound interest in Polanski’s exile after the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired came out. Based on the trailer, it appears to cover the director’s life from the taking of his parents to Nazi concentration camps to the infamous court case, likely in flashbacks but I’m only inferring here. The actress playing Sharon Tate looks especially appalling; just listen to her tell Roman over the phone that she’s pregnant. As the cast list includes actors playing both Mia Farrow and Anton LaVey (ha!), the filming of Rosemary’s Baby probably takes up a good portion of the film. If anyone’s actually seen this, let me know… Variety’s review, by Todd McCarthy sounds amazing:

“Roman Polanski won't lose any sleep over Polanski Unauthorized, a basement tape-quality slum through the most famously traumatic episodes in a sensation-riddled life. Straight-to-DVD auteur Damian Chapa invested little money, and less talent, in depicting the subject's escape from the Nazis, flirtation with devil worship on "Rosemary's Baby," relationship with Sharon Tate and arrest for raping a 13-year-old girl, moments from all of which are shuffled together almost at random. With production values no better than homemade porn -- most scenes are played in front of drapes -- and dialogue that makes you feel sorry for the actors, this Friday the 13th Los Angeles vanity release isn't even fun in a bad-movie way. Paying customers will feel gypped.”

Like Coco Chanel, Romy Schneider, for whom Chanel designed numerous articles of clothing, is the subject of two competing biopics at the moment (though technically Chanel had three released within a year of one another). The first of the two, entitled Romy, will be airing on German television 11 November, followed by the DVD release the next day. Actress Jessica Schwarz (Kammerfilmmern) will play Schneider; the rest of the cast includes Thomas Kretschmann (The Pianist, King Kong, Queen Margot) as her first husband Harry Meyen and Guillaume Delorme as Alain Delon, a good friend and frequent co-star of the actress. The bigger of the two biopics, tentatively titled Eine Frau wie Romy [A Woman Like Romy], was scheduled to have begun shooting in summer 2008, but there isn’t a whole lot of information following that. Directed by Josef Rusnak (The Thirteenth Floor, Quiet Days in Hollywood), Eine Frau wie Romy has actress Yvonne Catterfeld as Schneider (no, not Beyoncé, unfortunately), and the IMDb lists Michel Piccoli, one of Schneider’s close friends, in the cast, as well as Jean-Hughes Anglade and Tchéky Karyo. I’ll let you know if I hear anything further about either version.

Breaking Glass Pictures, a new studio launched by former heads of TLA Releasing Richard Wolff and Richard Ross, has acquired the rights to An Englishman in New York, a sequel-of-sorts to The Naked Civil Servant from 1975, based on the autobiography of Quentin Crisp. John Hurt reprises his role as Crisp and is joined by Cynthia Nixon, Denis O’Hare, Jonathan Tucker and Swoosie Kurtz in the film, which earned Hurt a special Teddy Award from the Berlin International Film Festival for his performance. Breaking Glass will release the film sometime in 2010.

And finally, nothing looks to have changed about the Serge Gainsbourg biopic, Vie héroïque; it’s still set for a French release on 20 January.

Brief DVD Update

Palisades Tartan announced a DVD and Blu-ray release on 8 December of Olivier Marchal's 36 [36 Quai des Orfèvres], a crime thriller starring Daniel Auteuil, Gérard Depardieu, André Dussollier, Valeria Golino, Roschdy Zem, Francis Renaud, Daniel Duval and Anne Consigny. 36 is currently slated for an American remake directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, the 2 Antonio Banderas Zorro films) from Paramount. Palisades Tartan also announced Blu-ray releases for Kim Jin-Won's The Butcher and Paul Spurrier's P for 15 December. I didn't find any other notable Blu-ray releases for this update. It does seem to be a shame that Focus will release Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock on Blu-ray and not Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control or Park Chan-wook's Thirst.

- 36 [36 Quai des Orfèvres], 2004, d. Olivier Marchal, Palisades Tartan, also on Blu-ray, 8 December
- Run! Bitch Run!, 2009, d. Joseph Guzman, Vicious Circle/Breaking Glass Pictures, 8 December
- Taking Woodstock, d. Ang Lee, Focus Features, also on Blu-ray, 15 December
- It Might Get Loud, 2008, d. Davis Guggenheim, Sony, also on Blu-ray, 22 December
- Half-Life, 2008, d. Jennifer Phang, Wolfe Video, 29 December
- Laila's Birthday, 2008, d. Rashid Masharawi, Kino, 5 January
- No Impact Man: The Documentary, 2009, d. Laura Gabbert, Justin Schein, Oscilloscope, 5 January
- The Burning Plain, 2008, d. Guillermo Arriaga, Magnolia, also on Blu-ray, 12 January
- Nurse Jackie, Season 1, 2009, Lionsgate, also on Blu-ray, 23 February

Atom Egoyan's films really sell for 7 figures?

I read earlier today that Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisition Group had nabbed the latest from Atom Egoyan, but IndieWire is reporting (and maybe I missed this detail when I read it elsewhere) that Sony "negotiated the low seven figure deal" for Chloe, which premiered to lukewarm reception at Toronto last month. As of 27 September, Egoyan's last film Adoration has yet to cross $300,000 at the domestic box office, and that was a Sony release as well. I suppose Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried and Liam Neeson are a draw, but remember, Chloe is a remake of Anne Fontaine's abysmal Nathalie... from 2003, and that film had Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart and Gérard Depardieu. I have yet to see a film I wouldn't describe as a waste of my time from Fontaine, and while that's certainly not a claim I could make for Egoyan, his recent output has been dismal (and not exactly profitable). It's quite possible though that a low seven figure deal for worldwide rights is a modest deal. We'll just have to wait until spring to see how well this pays off.