Spoiled Leftovers

My Blueberry Nights
2007, France/Hong Kong/China
Wong Kar-wai

Though I didn't have any fond memories from my first viewing, I gave Wong Kar-wai's English-language debut My Blueberry Nights another go when I saw it airing on HBO. It was even worse than I remembered and not because of singer Norah Jones' non-presence as the film's protagonist; that was actually a welcome relief from the tedious overacting and scene-chewing from the rest of the cast, comprised of what one might consider "legitimate thespians." The film's only satisfying moment comes in an exchange between Jude Law's character and an old flame of his, played by Chan Marshall (whose music as Cat Power is featured prominently on the soundtrack), who drops by his New York City diner.

Normally, I would be quick to dismiss a scene that involves characters smoking cigarettes while talking about smoking cigarettes as a bad film school cliché, but the scene—shot mostly through the front window of the diner—is so luminous that I overlooked that bit of dialogue. Marshall's presence ignites something onscreen that both cinematographer Darius Khondji, who appears to be just imitating Christopher Doyle, and Wong Kar-wai, who appears to be imitating himself, fail to bring to life elsewhere in My Blueberry Nights. That moment makes you wish some director would give Marshall a leading role in the future, provided it isn't Wong Kar-wai.

I previously wrote about My Blueberry Nights here.

With: Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, Chan Marshall, Frankie Faison, Adriane Lenox, Benjamin Kanes, Michael May

...Two Months (and a few days) Later

Inspired by a recent conversation with my oldest friend Dan, I’ve been positively motivated to write what I wanted to but couldn’t, for several reasons, put together for the posting of my list of The Decade List of 100. Tying ideas together successfully has always been the weakest facet of my writing, so the prospect of sifting through ten years of cinema, especially from the perspective of someone who entered those years at the age of 15, felt like an insurmountable task. It still, to some extent, seems outside the realm of possibility, but at least now I can attempt to explain or defend some of what was going through my head while arranging the list at hand.

Before I had a chance to come up with a better name for it, “The Decade List” stuck, serendipitously masking any questionable adjective one might have used to modify “Films of the ‘00s.” Neither “best” nor “favorite” felt like the correct modifier, as I tried to objectively assess the films I chose without completely abandoning some of the personal attachments I’ve developed with them over the years (or, in some cases, over much smaller of a time frame). That 43 of the films were at least partially financed by the French film industry certainly points to one of the personal biases I didn’t try to look past. That only 3 were documentaries shows another, one I’m not exactly proud of. The double (and triple and quadruple) appearances of 17 directors might suggest I didn’t put that auteur inclination aside either, but it isn’t exactly true, as omitting Clean, The Boss of It All, Time of the Wolf, Anatomy of Hell and Last Days was a lot easier than eliminating films whose directors only made a single appearance on the final list.

Though I never properly introduced the project (as I didn’t have a clear idea of where it was headed upon conception), I did establish a single rule for inclusion: the film had to make its international premiere after December 31, 1999 and before January 1, 2010. Considering the nature of the project, that rule might have sounded redundant, but it needed to be clearly stated, as it cancelled out films such as Claire Denis’ Beau travail, Nagisa Oshima’s Taboo, Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher and Laurent Cantet’s Human Resources, all of which officially premiered in ’99 but hit the U.S. within the acceptable window.

It’s hard to decide which of the two grave sins of omission (not defending the list as a whole or not defending the film I chose as my #1) is worse, but I like to think the reason I had nothing to write about Dogville was the best vindication for its placement. No other film I watched for the sake of making this list screamed out, “this is it,” the way Dogville did. The sensation isn’t something I can successfully articulate nor defend in any intellectual manner. That I happened to chose a film that was appearing with some frequency on top of others’ similar lists made the task even more difficult. Do I really have anything new to say about a film that’s been written about as extensively as Dogville, and even if I did make a check-list of all the things it does right, would that come close to defining that seemingly inexplicable feeling I got while watching it?

What I will say, however, was that no other film made me re-examine and eventually adjust my once rigidly negative feelings toward its filmmaker the way Dogville did. Whether a harsh reaction to the emotions von Trier conjured inside of me with Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves and The Idiots or the inability to determine why he was doing so, my hatred for the director vanished midway through watching Dogville for the first time, and by the time the saxophone comes in on “Young Americans,” I was singing a much different song about von Trier. While I still think his motives in Dancer in the Dark are tough to define, Dogville and its world of invisible physical boundaries revealed the man behind the curtain and provided me with a special kind of elation (the sort that comes best from misanthropy).

With regard to Michael Haneke, a filmmaker who seems to be falling out of favor with a lot of people I know (or read), I feel no qualms about having him as the most featured filmmaker on the 100. While I do generally like Time of the Wolf, I think Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher, Caché and The White Ribbon represent the upper tier of his work over the past decade. However, Dan asked me if The Piano Teacher really is better than Caché, and likely, it isn’t, especially when considering Haneke’s oeuvre as a whole and his cinematic obsessions. While I acknowledge that, in terms of Haneke’s career, Caché will likely stand out as his “masterpiece,” The Piano Teacher marked my first experience with Haneke on the big screen and still remains one of my finer theatrical experiences, even though it was still fantastic to see Caché on opening night with an even larger audience. This particular bias is probably more common with albums than films as I can’t think of any other films on the list that would fall under this distinction.

The “well, it was my first time” bias wasn’t the only that was at work when organizing the films. For the majority of the year, I spent more time bestowing praise upon Sébastien Lifshitz, the one filmmaker I knew most people weren’t familiar with, than most of the other directors represented. So on some level, I think I felt it my duty to include either Wild Side or Come Undone in my top 10 instead of judging either of the films against all the rest. A close friend of mine, who also shared my enthusiasm for Lifshitz, sent me an e-mail recently saying he’d rewatched Wild Side and been surprised to have found it to be more ornamental than he’d remembered. As I read that, I knew exactly what he meant and perhaps even thought something along those lines when watching it again in December. In looking at the ten films that follow Wild Side on the list, I recognize now that all ten are better films. Had I not spent so much time absorbing as much cinema as I could over the past decade, I would have preferred naming just the ten best films of the Aughts: ten years, ten films and (likely) ten filmmakers. With that in mind, spot number 10 becomes nearly as important as spot number 1, signifying not the tenth best film you saw so much as the one film you wanted to be sure you didn’t leave off the list. So when dealing with a list of 100, both spots 10 and 100 fall prey to that idea.

If I thought really hard about it, I could probably come up with predilections for about half, in addition to factors working against about a fourth of them. As I don’t care to do so, I’ll simply point out the ones that came to mind first. Time certainly didn’t work in the favor of In the Mood for Love, allowing its director to commit a giant fuck up with My Blueberry Nights, which wouldn’t have been as damning if it didn’t share the thematic and stylistic traits that defined the rest of his works. And while the same could be said for Michael Haneke and his Funny Games remake, he at least had the chance to redeem himself (in my eyes) with The White Ribbon. Time didn’t seem to work in the favor of Mulholland Drive in the ranking either, as it had nine years to lose some of its luster from being analyzed/decrypted to death and failing to retain the magic of seeing it for the first time in its subsequent viewings. Time did work in the favor of There Will Be Blood, however, and the fact that I only watched it twice with my opinion of it growing exponentially the more I thought about it.

A couple of people seemed surprised to see not only how high I’d ranked Sex Is Comedy but that I’d placed it above the rest of Catherine Breillat’s other films. For reasons I’m not exactly sure, several films got knocked down in the rankings for containing scenes or moments I couldn’t defend intellectually or artistically. For Fat Girl, I couldn’t justify Breillat’s need to violently murder two of her characters. For Inside, I couldn’t see the explanation of why Béatrice Dalle was terrorizing Allyson Paradis as anything but a lame cop-out. For Mysterious Skin, I kept hearing that awful line Joseph Gordon-Levitt screams in the middle of the film. For Trouble Every Day, I’m still not even sure. None of Breillat’s other films really came to life the way Sex Is Comedy did on repeat viewings. Of course, I had always regarded Sex Is Comedy as a lesser film in Breillat’s canon, so finding out that I was wrong placed it in favor of discovering that I wasn’t truly satisfied with one of Fat Girl’s consequential elements.

In reviewing the annual Best Of lists I’ve written for this blog, I’ve called some truly worthless films (like The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down—Christ, drugs must have been involved) the best of their given year, as well as films that ultimately weren’t anything special (like Pan’s Labyrinth and 2046). With that said, I’ll probably recognize at least one or two of these films as being shitty after some time passes, even though I spent a lot more time on this than any of annual run-downs.

I suppose the sort of defense for my ’00 list that would make the most sense (much more so than overanalyzing my own prejudices and miscalculations) would be one where I explored the commonalities between the films I ranked highest or what I looked for when ordering them (I won’t pretend to make some sort of hyperbolic umbrella statement about the decade in cinema). Malheureusement, I can only come up with some really facile descriptors like “bold” and “obstinate” to connect the films, and those will do about as much justice to the films as forcing some loose, interlocking theme would. I made the list because I thought I would enjoy doing so, and I did… some of the time. Ultimately though the whole thing was simply a way for me to hopefully introduce films and/or filmmakers to others—the exact reason I started a blog, only in project form. If I happened to succeed on that level, then the self-inflicted exhaustion and frustration was (probably) worth it.

CriterionForum's Poll of the Best Films of the Aughts

Last July, I posted the results of CriterionForum's user poll of the best films of the 1990s, which placed Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man at the top of the rankings. Last month, they caught up with the 00's, and predictably, it went neck and neck between Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love and David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (like so many others). We'll see how things line up in five or so years. Michael Haneke had the most showings on the list, with four of his films representing; he also has claim to the only official 2009 film to make the list as well. Speaking of '00 lists, I had promised a defense/explanation/overview of my own Decade List a while back. I've begun and abandoned it at least three times, and while I have two people barking up my tree in regard to this (you know who you are, and I do thank you), I thought I'd see if that was still of any interest. I would like to complete it, and I'm probably better suited to do so after spending nearly two months away from it. Let me know. The results of the CriterionForum poll are below.

01. In the Mood for Love, d. Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong/France
02. Mulholland Drive, d. David Lynch, France/USA
03. Yi yi, d. Edward Yang, Taiwan/Japan
04. The Royal Tenenbaums, d. Wes Anderson, USA
05. Punch-Drunk Love, d. Paul Thomas Anderson, USA
06. Werckmeister Harmonies [Werckmeister harmóniák], d. Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky, Hungary/Italy/Germany/France
07. The New World, d. Terrence Malick, USA
08. There Will Be Blood, d. Paul Thomas Anderson, USA
09. Zodiac, d. David Fincher, USA
10. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, d. Michel Gondry, USA

11. Spirited Away, d. Hayao Miyazaki, Japan
12. Goodbye, Dragon Inn, d. Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan
13. Caché, d. Michael Haneke, France/Austria/Germany/Italy
14. Dogville, d. Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/Norway/Finland/UK/France/Germany/Netherlands
15. INLAND EMPIRE, d. David Lynch, USA/Poland/France
16. Talk to Her [Hable con ella], d. Pedro Almodóvar, Spain
17. No Country for Old Men, d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, USA
18. Elephant, d. Gus Van Sant, USA
19. Memories of Murder, d. Bong Joon-ho, South Korea
20. The Intruder [L'intrus], d. Claire Denis, France

21. Platform, d. Jia Zhang-ke, China/Hong Kong/Japan/France
22. Children of Men, d. Alfonso Cuarón, UK/USA/Spain
23. The Son [Le fils], d. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France
24. Before Sunset, d. Richard Linklater, USA
25. Y tu mamá también, d. Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico
26. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, d. Andrew Dominik, USA/Canada
27. Memento, d. Christopher Nolan, USA
28. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile], d. Cristian Mungiu, Romania
29. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, d. Steven Spielberg, USA
30. Grizzly Man, d. Werner Herzog, USA
30. Still Walking, d. Hirokazu Koreeda, Japan

32. 35 Shots of Rum [35 rhums], d. Claire Denis, France/Germany
33. A Christmas Tale [Un conte de Noël], d. Arnaud Desplechin, France
34. Syndromes and a Century, d. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/France/Austria
35. Tropical Malady, d. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/France/Germany/Italy
36. The World, d. Jia Zhang-ke, China/Japan/France
37. A History of Violence, d. David Cronenberg, USA/Germany
37. The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band], d. Michael Haneke, Austria/Germany/France/Italy
39. Summer Hours [L'heure d'été], d. Olivier Assayas, France
40. The Headless Woman [La mujer sin cabeza], d. Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/France/Italy/Spain

41. What Time Is It There?, d. Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan/France
42. Russian Ark, d. Aleksandr Sokurov, Russia/Germany
43. Nobody Knows, d. Hirokazu Koreeda, Japan
44. You the Living [Du levande], d. Roy Andersson, Sweden/Germany/France/Denmark/Norway/Japan
45. La ciénaga, d. Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/France/Spain
46. Millennium Mambo, d. Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan/France
46. The Piano Teacher [La pianiste], d. Michael Haneke, Austria/France
48. Friday Night [Vendredi soir], d. Claire Denis, France
48. The Gleaners & I [Les glaneurs et la glaneuse], d. Agnès Varda, France
50. Lost in Translation, d. Sofia Coppola, USA/Japan
50. Three Times, d. Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan/France

52. 2046, d. Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong/China/France/Germany
53. Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in], d. Tomas Alfredson, Sweden
54. Miami Vice, d. Michael Mann, USA/Germany
55. The Return, d. Andrei Zvyagintsev, Russia
56. The Squid and the Whale, d. Noah Baumbach, USA
57. Lilya 4-ever [Lilja 4-ever], d. Lukas Moodysson, Sweden/Denmark
58. 25th Hour, d. Spike Lee, USA
59. Bad Education [La mala educación], d. Pedro Almodóvar, Spain
60. Amélie [Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain], d. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France
60. Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, d. Hong Sang-soo, South Korea

62. Adaptation., d. Spike Jonze, USA
63. Code Unknown [Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages], d. Michael Haneke, France/Germany/Romania
64. The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu [Moartea domnului Lăzărescu], d. Cristi Puiu, Romania
65. L'enfant, d. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France
66. The Man Who Wasn't There, d. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, USA/UK
67. In the City of Sylvia [En la ciudad de Sylvia], d. José Luis Guerín, Spain/France
68. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, d. Wes Anderson, USA
69. Antichrist, d. Lars von Trier, Denmark/Germany/France/Sweden/Italy/Poland
69. Birth, d. Jonathan Glazer, USA/Germany

71. WALL•E, d. Andrew Stanton, USA
72. The Hurt Locker, d. Kathryn Bigelow, USA
73. Still Life, d. Jia Zhang-ke, China/Hong Kong
73. Who's Camus Anyway?, d. Mitsuo Yanagimachi, Japan
75. Margot at the Wedding, d. Noah Baumbach, USA
76. Woman Is the Future of Man, d. Hong Sang-soo, South Korea/France
77. Synecdoche, New York, d. Charlie Kaufman, USA
78. demonlover, d. Olivier Assayas, France
79. Kill Bill (Volumes 1 and 2), d. Quentin Tarantino
79. The Man Without a Past [Mies vailla menneisyyttä], d. Aki Kaurismäki, Finland/Germany/France

81. Eureka, d. Shinji Aoyama, Japan/France
82. I'm Not There, d. Todd Haynes, USA/Germany
83. Linda Linda Linda, d. Nobuhiro Yamashita, Japan
84. Paranoid Park, d. Gus Van Sant, France/USA
85. George Washington, d. David Gordon Green, USA
86. Morvern Callar, d. Lynne Ramsay, UK
87. Ghost World, d. Terry Zwigoff, USA/UK/Germany
88. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada [Los tres entierros de Melquiades Estrada], d. Tommy Lee Jones, USA/France
88. Woman on the Beach, d. Hong Sang-soo, South Korea
90. All the Real Girls, d. David Gordon Green, USA

91. Mysterious Skin, d. Gregg Araki, USA/Netherlands
91. Wendy and Lucy, d. Kelly Reichardt, USA
93. Tokyo Sonata, d. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan/Netherlands/Hong Kong
94. Pan's Labyrinth [El laberinto del Fauno], d. Guillermo del Toro, Mexico/Spain/USA
95. Brand Upon the Brain!, d. Guy Maddin, Canada/USA
95. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [Le scaphandre et le papillon], d. Julian Schnabel, France/USA
95. Songs from the Second Floor [Sånger från andra våningen], d. Roy Andersson, Sweden/Norway/Denmark
98. Café Lumière, d. Hou Hsiao-hsien, Japan/Taiwan
98. Innocence, d. Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Belgium/France/UK
98. Pulse, d. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan

Surpringly (or maybe it isn't), only five of the 100 aren't yet on DVD in the US. Though naturally, The White Ribbon and Still Walking are on their way; and Lilya 4-ever, while not for purchase, is available to rent through Netflix, leaving Eureka and In the City of Sylvia as the remaining two.

The Decade List: (Some of) The Worst Films (2007)

Since it was established with 2006's Worst that the Austin Butt-Numb-a-Thon, hosted by everyone's favorite troll, is a legitimate place for a film to make its world premiere, technically 300 and Black Snake Moan belong in the previous year. But 300 is such a fucking horribleterriblewretched film that I'll just leave it with the '07s for now. Black Snake Moan, however, doesn't even register on the shit list when compared to that garbage I once heard referred to as "gay porn for soccer moms," but it sucks enough on its own, outside of one nicely edited music sequence.

This list does beg the question: which breed of bad movie is worse? The obvious abortions (I Know Who Killed Me, Norbit, Good Luck Chuck) or the respected-foreign-auteur-remakes-himself-in-some-form-or-another-for-his-English-language-debut (My Blueberry Nights, Funny Games U.S.)? It was a real lousy year for both Wong Kar-wai and Michael Haneke, whose '07 offerings reeked of not just complacency but utter laziness. Neither could be accused of losing artistic control as a result of Hollywood's over-the-shoulder glare as both were multinational productions, receiving quite a bit of funding from the French in addition to their native countries. They had otherwise respectable English-speaking actors on board, who either did their usual schtick (Naomi Watts) or just embarrassed themselves completely (Rachel Weisz).

Thankfully, Haneke has recovered from the injury of Funny Games U.S., which was one of the major failures that eventually shut down Warner Independent, with his creepy, elegant Palme d'Or winner The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band]. Wong has yet to truly follow My Blueberry Nights up (Ashes of Time Redux doesn't count), though he has reteamed with Tony Leung for 2010's Bruce Lee/martial arts "biopic" The Grand Master, rumored to also star Gong Li and an out-of-retirement Brigitte Lin.

Some lingering questions/thoughts about a few of the titles below. 1.) Why do my parents insist on watching that manipulative drivel August Rush every time its on television (which can sometimes be thrice daily)? 2.) Aside from Assayas' demonlover (and probably The Wizard, but for altogether different reasons), most films that visually incorporate video games are going to blow (w/r/t Ben X, and possibly its upcoming American remake if that's still in production). 3.) Jodie Foster < style="font-weight: bold;">Diary of the Dead? It retains none of the qualities that made his previous zombie films (even Land of the Dead) so enjoyable. 5.) If Dragon Wars had extended that big Los Angeles destruction scene into its full running time, you might have seen it appear on the actual Decade List (as long as they axed poor Robert Forster in the process).

6.) Lots of nudity apparently does not make a horrible movie that much more tolerable (w/r/t the Uschi Obermaier biopic Eight Miles High). 7.) In the past 10 years, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre received a crappy US remake, a crappier US prequel and a wonderful in-spirit-only French take in Fabrice Du Welz's Calvaire; so why bother with something as lousy as Frontière(s)? 8.) Was anyone else deeply disturbed by Dawn Wiener's death scene in Hostel: Part 2? I've already forgotten the specifics of everything else about the movie, but that scene... I can't get rid of. 9.) I should look up and see what other films were in the running for the Caméra d'Or at the '07 Cannes Film Festival, because there had to be something better than Jellyfish playing that year. 10.) The list has a number of "comedies" that didn't pull a single laugh out of me: Good Luck Chuck, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Mr. Woodcock, Molière, Kiss the Bride, Starrbooty and The Ten. I'm pretty sure I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry belongs on that list, but I can vouch that the others didn't provoke even a smirk out of me.

- 300 - d. Zack Snyder - USA [also here]
- August Rush - d. Kirsten Sheridan - USA
- Ben X - d. Nic Balthazar - Belgium/Netherlands
- Beowulf - d. Robert Zemeckis - USA
- Black Snake Moan - d. Craig Brewer - USA
- The Brave One - d. Neil Jordan - USA/Australia
- City of Men [Cidade dos Homens] - d. Paulo Morelli - Brazil
- Diary of the Dead - d. George A. Romero - USA
- Dragon Wars [D-War] - d. Shim Hyung-rae - South Korea
- Eight Miles High [Das wilde Leben] - d. Achim Bornhak - Germany
- Elizabeth: The Golden Age - d. Shekhar Kapur - UK/France/Germany
- Frontier(s) [Frontière(s)] - d. Xavier Gens - France/Switzerland
- Funny Games U.S. - d. Michael Haneke - France/UK/Austria/Germany/USA/Italy [also here]
- Good Luck Chuck - d. Mark Helfrich - USA
- Hannah Takes the Stairs - d. Joe Swanberg - USA
- Happily N'Ever After - d. Paul Bolger, Yvette Kaplan - USA/Germany
- Hostel: Part 2 - d. Eli Roth - USA
- I Can't Think Straight - d. Shamim Sarif - UK
- I Know Who Killed Me - d. Chris Sivertson - USA
- I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry - d. Dennis Dugan - USA
- In the Valley of Elah - d. Paul Haggis - USA
- Into the Wild - d. Sean Penn - USA [also here]
- Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer - d. Jon Knautz - Canada
- Jellyfish [Les méduses] - d. Shira Geffen, Etgar Keret - Israel/France
- Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten - d. Julien Temple - UK/Ireland
- Kiss the Bride - d. C. Jay Cox - USA
- Lost in Beijing - d. Li Yu - China
- Molière - d. Laurent Tirard - France
- Mr. Woodcock - d. Craig Gillespie - USA
- My Blueberry Nights - d. Wong Kar-wai - Hong Kong/France/China
- Norbit - d. Brian Robbins - USA
- The Orange Thief - d. Vinnie Angel, Boogie Dean, Arthur Wilinski - USA
- Poor Boy's Game - d. Clément Virgo - Canada
- Schoolboy Crush - d. Kôtarô Terauchi - Japan
- Sex & Breakfast - d. Miles Brandman - USA
- Starrbooty - d. Mike Ruiz - USA
- Sunshine - d. Danny Boyle - UK/USA
- Teeth - d. Mitchell Lichtenstein - USA
- The Ten - d. David Wain - USA
- Then She Found Me - d. Helen Hunt - USA

Coming (or Not Coming) in 2009: Part 3

Part three of my posts looking at a number of films that may show up at film festivals during 2009 will focus on the continent of Asia, as well as a pair from Australia/New Zealand. Previous posts have covered France and the rest of Europe, and earlier posts about the Berlinale mentioned the new film from Chen Kaige.

Blake Williams first gave me word of the new film from Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Tropical Malady, Syndromes and a Century). You can find more information here on the director, and his latest project Primitive: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives which is going into production shortly via this link. Thanks Blake.

The latest film from Johnnie To (Mad Detective, Election) will be a French/Hong Kong co-production and filmed in English, entitled Vengeance. Filming now, Vengeance stars Johnny Hallyday, Simon Yam and Sylvie Testud. Variety reports that this is not the planned remake of Le cercle rouge, however. It is slated to be released in France on 20 May.

Following Lust, Caution, Ang Lee returns to the US for Taking Woodstock, which is set to be released in the States in August. It will be the third teaming in a row for Lee with Focus Features. Taking Woodstock stars, among many others, Emile Hirsch, comedian Demetri Martin, Liev Schreiber, Paul Dano, Kelli Garner, Imelda Staunton, Katherine Waterston, Eugene Levy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Dan Fogler.

Like Hou Hsiao-hsien before him, Tsai Ming-liang will make his next feature in France, entitled Visage [Face]. The film explores the myth of Salomé, the biblical figure who performed the Dance of the Seven Veils which resulted in the beheading of John the Bapist. The dream cast includes Laetitia Casta as Salomé, Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Mathieu Amalric, Fanny Ardant, Nathalie Baye and frequent actor Lee Kang-sheng. No dates set, but check this link (thanks to Nimzo!) for more information.

Hong Sang-soo's latest You Don't Even Know is currently filming. I couldn't find much information about the film, but it does star Kim Tae-woo and Go Hyun-jung from Woman on the Beach as well as Ye Ji-won from Turning Gate.

Park Chan-wook's Thirst looks to be ready in time for Cannes. The film already has distribution in France (Wild Side), the UK (Palisades Tartan), South Korea (CJ Entertainment) and the US (Focus Features) and will hopefully be out by the end of the year, before the Old Boy remake hits theatres. Thirst stars Song Kang-ho (The Host), Shin Ha-kyun (No Mercy for the Rude), Mercedes Cabral (Serbis) and Eriq Ebouaney (35 rhums).

I Come with the Rain will be Tran Anh Hung's first film since The Vertical Ray of the Sun in 2000. Produced by France, I couldn't find any substantial release dates for the film, but it stars Josh Hartnett, Elias Koteas, Lee Byung-hun (The Good, the Bad, the Weird), Simón Andreu and Takuya Kimura (2046).

No one seems to know what's going on with Wong Kar-wai's intended remake of The Lady from Shanghai after star Nicole Kidman dropped out. If I hear anything, I'll let you know.

The new film from director Mira Nair will be an American biopic of Amelia Earheart, with Hilary Swank as the doomed pilot. The film, called Amelia, will be released by Fox Searchlight in October. Amelia also stars Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Virginia Madsen and Joe Anderson.

John Woo's Red Cliff Part 2 was released in China on 8 January; the first installment was released last summer, though it doesn't look like any US distributor has picked up either. Red Cliff 2 stars Chang Chen, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung.

Abbas Kiarostami's Copie conforme [Certified Copy] is currently in production and is set to star Juliette Binoche (she really does get to work with the world's best directors, doesn't she?). mk2 will release the film in France when it's completed.

The Duel will be the first American film from director Dover Koshashvili (Late Marriage). It looks to be finished filming, but I couldn't find anything further about the film.

Jane Campion will follow the terrible In the Cut with Bright Star, which examines the relationship between poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne. Pathé should release the film by the end of the year in the UK. It stars Ben Wishaw, Abbie Cornish, Paul Schneider and Kerry Fox.

The new film from John Hillcoat (The Proposition), called The Road, was bumped from last fall to sometime this year. The cast includes Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, Garret Dillahunt, Michael K. Williams and Molly Parker. The Road is based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy.

As there always seems to be one, I forgot to mention the two new films from Fatih Akin (The Edge of Heaven) when doing my European post. Soul Kitchen is to be released in France on 11 November by Pyramide Distribution; the film stars Moritz Bleibtreu and Birol Ünel. The other film is a documentary entitled Garbage in the Garden of Eden.

Wong Kar-wai, "The Dakota Fanning Rape Movie," Others DVD Update

First off, Sony has moved I've Loved You So Long's release date to 3 March, as opposed to in February. Kino has announced two special(-er) editions of Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together and Fallen Angels. Other than improved artwork, I don't know how these discs will differ from the previous releases.

Hounddog, aka "The Dakota Fanning Rape Movie," will be available on 3 February through Empire Pictures. The gay musical Were the World Mine is set for 26 May from Wolfe Video. And finally, First Run Features has another musical, Opera Jawa from Indonesia, on 31 March.

Quick DVD Update

Eric posted about Koch Lorber's upcoming release of Luchino Visconti's final film L'innocente, which is set for 10 March. Sony also announced Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time Redux for 3 March. Dark Sky will release Juraj Herz's The Cremator on 31 March. And finally, look for Aleksandr Sokurov's Alexandra on 7 April from New Yorker (though with all New Yorker announcements, note that the date is not solid, though the chances are better for one of their Cinema Guild releases like this one).