Ease on down...

Red Road - dir. Andrea Arnold - 2006 - Denmark/UK

When writing about film, the writer must come to terms with the idea that he or she can often demystify the art of film with their own words. Demystification, or even the literary expression of mystification, can take its reader, and potential film-viewer, out of the realms of the magic of cinema. Some individuals, myself included, prefer to not read about a film before seeing it, but even that proves difficult as one must have some idea of the nature of the film before embarking upon it. With Andrea Arnold’s Red Road, I had the complete pleasure of knowing nothing, aside from its win of the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes film festival and its casting of My Summer of Love’s Natalie Press, an actress I’ve made note to seek out. If you wish to quit reading here (which I may recommend if you haven’t seen the film), remember this: Red Road is possibly the most fascinating, suspenseful, and brilliantly-crafted film I’ve seen in a great while, and as I cared for the film so strongly, I might suggest blindly walking into it for you likely won’t be sorry.

With the stated praise above, I must confess that Red Road isn’t the out-of-nowhere masterpiece I truly desired. Its suspense buildup is so palpable and unnerving that, really, any resolution would have been a disappointment. Though I doubt similarities have been discussed at any length, Red Road has a lot in common with Michael Haneke’s Caché. Both films take a similar perspective in their treatment of voyeurism. Jackie (the amazing Kate Dickie) works surveillance in Scotland, patrolling the streets of her town from a video desk, seemingly detached from the action that transpires on her screens. That is, of course, until a familiar man emerges from the shadows that makes Jackie snap.

Both Red Road and Caché place the viewer in the same position. The films contain a fiery secret that lies within their central characters, one that neither wish to utter, even as things begin to get dirty. In Caché, Georges’ (Daniel Auteuil) secret escapes in an argument with his concerned wife (Juliette Binoche), but it’s the ramifications and underlying darkness that remain unspoken. In Red Road, our secret is buried deep inside Jackie. Other characters hint toward it, but Arnold realizes that this secret only belongs to her and that an explanation from anyone else would have been cheap. The secret leaks about three-fourths of the way through the film, with alarming results. As stated above, the intensity and trepidation of Red Road could never be matched by the unveiling of its secret, unless, of course, the secret was never uttered, yet what's wrong with the uttering of the secret is that there's so little more to dissect or examine once it's on full display. Failure on the part of Arnold to correspond her suspense with the film’s outcome cannot be wholly blamed on her, for Red Road is the first installment of an experiment created by the Danes. Lars Von Trier, Anders Thomas Jensen (The Green Butchers), and Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners) selected Arnold as the first director of their Advance Party trilogy, in which the same actors, characters, and location will be examined by three first-time filmmakers. I have no word on what the second installment will entail, but it seems highly unlikely that it could match the brooding craftsmanship that Arnold (a previous Academy Award winner for her short Wasp) displays with Red Road.

Regardless of its faults, Red Road remains on the short list of the finest films released in the US this year. Whether you find yourself played the fool with Red Road’s conclusion or find it the emotional satisfaction the film needs, the film is still undeniably fascinating. Dickie, in her first film, is consistently amazing throughout the film’s change in tone. Arnold’s talent, in her feature debut, bleeds all over the screen, similar to fellow Scotswoman Lynne Ramsay, whose first feature Ratcatcher was equally enthralling. If you ended up reading past the disclaimer I used for the film, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The demystification of Red Road already existed within the film itself, and the way I’ve chosen to write about it could still provide the visceral ecstasy I felt throughout the first three-fourths of the film. Hopefully, you can feel it too.

A Guy Who Hates Summer Movies' Guide to Summer Movies

I don’t know when Hollywood officially declares their summer onslaught of CGI, franchise, and tie-ins, but I’m certain it’s already started. So far, three “thirds” have come (and just about gone), due to piss-poor critical reaction and bad word-of-mouth. Millions were wasted, on both sides of the deal, with Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and Shrek 3, none of which carrying the “magic” they had with their predecessors. Ocean’s 13 is on the horizon, and word from Cannes is that it blows. Out of those four so-called trilogies, I’ve only seen the first Spiderman, so I can’t really comment on being let down. I can say, summer 2007 isn’t looking good. I’ve compiled a guide to some safer bets, some releases far removed from the braindead studio execs milking their product for more than it was initially worth (yes, they’ve already announced more Pirates, Shrek, and Spiderman already).

Out Now:
Two young female directors, one of them unfortunately deceased, have been making surprise splashes with their small films. Sarah Polley’s Away from Her, starring the wonderful Julie Christie as a woman dealing with Alzheimer’s, has gotten around-the-board raves; the late Adrienne Shelley’s Waitress has become the word-of-mouth success of the year so far, being the film you don’t have to feel guilty seeing with your mother. John Carney’s Once is probably the best reviewed film to come out this year, getting universal praise from both critics and friends of mine urging me to go see it. Catch William Friedkin’s Bug, one of those truly love-it-or-hate-it flicks, at the local multiplexes as Ashley Judd begins to think bugs have been planting themselves within her skin. Don’t mind the awful marketing from Lionsgate, or you might expect something along the lines of Saw. Instead, Bug is what I like to call a psycho-chamber-drama, a claustrophobic creeper-outer based on a successful off-Broadway play.

Also on a multiplex-scale, Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up has been getting a handful of raves, but the mix of gross-out laughs and forced sentimentality that he played with in The 40-Year-Old Virgin leaves me skeptical. Plus, I don’t like Freaks and Geeks nearly as much as everyone thinks I should. Paris, je t’aime, an anthology of vignettes centered around various arrondissments of the City of Lights, has opened (albeit with mixed reviews) in limited release. The directors include Olivier Assayas, the Coen brothers, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, famed cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Gérard Depardieu, Alexander Payne, Walter Salles, Tom Tykwer, and Gus Van Sant; the cast features Gaspard Ulliel, Steve Buscemi, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Javier Cámara, Miranda Richardson, Leonor Watling, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Nick Nolte, Ludivine Sagnier, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Fanny Ardant, Bob Hoskins, Elijah Wood, Emily Mortimer, Alexander Payne, Rufus Sewell, Natalie Portman, Ben Gazzara, and Gena Rowlands, so I’m sure you can find something you’ll enjoy there. Also in extremely limited release are Bruno Dumont’s Flandres, Tsai Ming-liang’s I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, Apichatpong Weerasethekal’s Syndromes and a Century, Lars von Trier’s The Boss of It All, and a rerelease from Janus Films of Gus Van Sant’s Mala Noche. I’m pretty sure Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book is still playing around, his first Dutch production in a long while… so play with your options.

June:
After his brilliant trailer upstaged both of the feature films in Grindhouse, Eli Roth’s Hostel Part II became instantly more exciting of an endeavor. Lionsgate pushed it from its spring release to summer (usually a good sign), and rumor has it that the ending is absolutely phenomenal. This isn’t to mention the strange, interesting casting of Welcome to the Dollhouse’s Heather Matarazzo alongside Roth regular Jordan Ladd and trash-queen Bijou Phillips. I can’t say I’m uninterested. On a smaller scale, the Édith Piaf biopic, La vie en rose, will also be out on Friday in limited release. Piaf is easily far more juicy a film subject than some of the more recent musician biopics, and Marion Cotillard is supposed to be lovely as the tragic diva. Though Angelina Jolie’s star-power may have been an initial turn-off for Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart, the true story of widow Mariane Pearl, the Cannes audience responded well to both Jolie and the film. Oscar “buzz” floated around, but it’s too early to call such shots.

Parker Posey’s renaissance has come full-circle after Fay Grim, as she is also starring in Broken English, Zoe R. Cassavetes’ romance about a woman who retreats to Paris. The cast also includes Cassavetes’ mother Gena Rowlands, who’s always a welcome face even when she’s in Hope Floats, Drea de Matteo, Justin Theroux, and Time to Leave’s Melvil Poupaud. Timed perfectly along Barack Obama’s plans for his health care campaign, Michael Moore’s Sicko, which even warmed over Fahrenheit 9/11 detractors this year at Cannes, will open wide at the end of the month. Wanna cry? Check out Focus Features’ Evening, which boasts a huge, impressive cast including Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, and Toni Collette, about a dying woman.

July:
In limited release, Hell House director George Ratliff’s Joshua will come out just after the 4th of July. The film stars Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga as parents of some Damien-esque child, who starts going crazy after his newborn sister joins the family. Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn, with Christian Bale, will also be out the same day, essentially a narrative remake of his documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly. It will also mark Herzog’s first use of computer-generated effects, as he just couldn’t pull off numerous plane crashes without serious injury to his crew.

Don’t tell me you’re not worried about the Hairspray remake. The cast is amusing (other than the snooze casting of Queen Latifa as Motor Mouth Mabel), but, c’mon, it’s directed by the douche bag who brought thinly-veiled racism to the multiplexes with Bringing Down the House. Danny Boyle’s Sunshine sounds a bit more promising, a film about astronauts starring Cillian Murphy. Sounds fine to me. Milos Forman’s Goya’s Ghosts, with Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman, is supposed to be pretty bad, but it’ll be out mid-July. And finally, Shane Meadows’ follow-up to Dead Man’s Shoes, entitled This Is England, sounds pretty grim… but I’ll take a giant helping of grim over anything that has to do with I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

August:
So far the only studio picture with any artistic merit announced for this summer is The Bourne Ultimatum. You know director Paul Greengrass, who directed Supremacy, must have really been swooned by the screenplay as he chose this to follow up United 93. I’m planning on staying away from Becoming Jane, the Jane Austen biopic with Anne Hathaway, but maybe if you’re lucky, your girlfriend will give you an HJ during it. Rush Hour 3 is only notable for the casting of Roman Polanski in it, but we all know how well Brett Ratner does with the third part of a franchise. Superbad, from the Knocked Up crew, looks passable if only for that charming Michael Cera (aka George Michael from Arrested Development).

Christina Ricci will play a pig-nosed princess in Penelope, a modern-day fantasy which IFC is releasing mid-month. Reese Witherspoon also stars. Justin Theroux, dreamboat-squared, makes his directorial debut with a NYC romantic comedy Dedication with Mandy Moore and Billy Crudup. Unfortunately, Theroux won’t be in front of the camera, but the supporting cast, which includes Amy Sedaris, Martin Freeman, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Bogdanovich, Christine Taylor, Tom Wilkinson, and Diane Wiest, sounds mighty promising. If you want to scare yourself, keep reading. Ethan Hawke has written and directed a movie. Yes, you thought writing a shitty book was bad… Mark Webber (of Storytelling) and Catalina Sandino Moreno (of Maria Full of Grace) sound like appealing romantic leads… but Ethan Hawke? Bah; the film is called The Hottest State. With a title like Wristcutters: A Love Story, how can you say no? Plus, it’s got Tom Waits in it. Unfortunately, it’s been on hiatus for two years, so maybe you can resist. And, remember, Waits was in Roberto Benigini’s last film.

In a Lonely Place

In another Cannes acquisition, The Weinstein Company have picked up Control, the Ian Curtis biopic, for a 2007 release. The film, which was the runner up for the Camera d'Or (which awards best first films), is just one of the many lucrative deals the Weinsteins made at the festival this year which also include Wong Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights. No U.S. deals have been announced yet for a number of foreign-language films that premiered this year, other than the Palme d'Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days.

And, just because I couldn't allow myself to not mention this fiasco, I watched Norbit this past week. Imagine the nastiest, grossest torture scene from the Saw movies or Hostel and multiply it by three and you may begin to get an idea of how I felt sitting through this piece of shit. Like most people out there, I have completely forgotten why people found Eddie Murphy funny to begin with. I also wish people would start standing up for quality when it comes to Hollywood filth. If a skin product was released on the market that somehow made your flesh melt off, it'd probably have to come off the shelves. Norbit is no different.

Day and a half late, $1.50 short, or Is This How We Say Goodbye?

The Cannes Film Festival closed the other day, announced its awards yesterday, and I'm just now (due to severe computer troubles) getting around to posting the winners. This year's Palme d'Or went to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a somber, stripped-to-the-bones Romanian feature from Christian Mungiu. The rest of the awards are as follows:

Palme d'Or: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile) - dir. Cristian Mungiu - Romania

Grand Prix (or second place, if you will): The Mourning Forest - dir. Naomi Kawase - Japan/France

Jury Prize (tie): Persepolis - dir. Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud - France and Silent Night (Luz silenciosa) - dir. Carlos Reygadas - Mexico/France

Best Director: Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le scaphandre et le papillon)

Best Actor: Konstantin Lavronenko for The Banishment

Best Actress: Jeon Do-yeon for Secret Sunshine

Best Screenplay: Fatih Akin for The Edge of Heaven (Yasamin kiyisinda)

60th Festival Special Award: Paranoid Park - dir. Gus Van Sant - USA/France

According to Toni Collette, jury member this year, the special award for Gus Van Sant was for recognition of Paranoid Park itself and his body of work as a whole. She stated that the entire jury was in agreement with this. The jury this year really went for the smaller films over the biggies, like the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men, Wong Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights, or Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. No awards either for Catherine Breillat's Une vieille maitresse. For US distribution, IFC Films has picked up Paranoid Park and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Sony has acquired the Jury Prize-winning animated film Persepolis, and Tartan will likely pick up Reygadas' film (as they have his previous two). Miramax has No Country for Old Men set for November, just in time for Oscar consideration, especially as many are regarding this Coen brothers film as one of their finest. Miramax will also be releasing The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in early 2008 (groan). No word set on distribution for Breillat's, Tarr's, or Ki-duk's, but The Weinstein Company already had their hands all over My Blueberry Nights, so expect that (along with many of the others) this fall or sometime next year.

Demain

The Cannes Film Festival has ended, and tomorrow (or later today), we'll find out who took home the top honors in a year where the Americans seem to have really taken the festival by storm.

Some days you just shouldn't open your e-mails

Dark Horizons is reporting that a studio called First Sun has acquired rights to remake Dario Argento's Suspiria, with talks of David Gordon Green, director of George Washington and All the Real Girls, and Scott Heim, author of Mysterious Skin, to adapt it. I really don't know what to say about this.

In other bizarre news, check here to see what Michael Haneke has planned for once he finishes the Funny Games remake.

...from Her

Girls on Film #2: Sarah Polley

Though she's been acting since she was but a wee lass, I've never really thought of Sarah Polley as a "child." After a small role in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, she had a regular role on the Canadian television program Road to Avonlea, but it was her role, as Bruce Greenwood's niece and "baby-sitter" in Exotica, that garnered my attention. Though excellent in her small scenes, her relationship with Atom Egoyan would truly blossom in The Sweet Hereafter, where Polley heartbreakingly plays the eldest survivor of a bus accident in Egoyan's adaptation of Russell Banks' novel of the same name. It's from the first time I ever saw a still from the film in my Entertainment Weekly that I fell in love with her.

My crush would only grow with time, as she opted for more challenging work than might have been expected of a starlet with her promise. Polley has built a career around working with interesting directors from Michael Winterbottom (The Claim) to Hal Hartley (No Such Thing) to Wim Wenders (Don't Come Knocking) to David Cronenberg (eXistenZ). Even her Hollywood turns were a lot more special than they needed to be, with Doug Liman's Go and the remake of Dawn of the Dead. In 2006, she directed her first feature, Away from Her, with Julie Christie, whom she acted opposite in both No Such Thing and The Secret Life of Words. The film has gotten probably the strongest acclaim of any other film this year, and I can't wait to see it. Polley, similarly to Isabelle Huppert, always (even at a young age) appeared as a fully developed woman, wise beyond her years, yet with a humbleness and envious curiosity.

See: The Secret Life of Words - dir. Isabel Coixet - 2005 - Spain, Dawn of the Dead - dir. Zack Snyder - 2004 - USA, My Life Without Me - dir. Isabel Coixet - 2003 - Spain, The Claim - dir. Michael Winterbottom - 2000 - UK/Canada/France, Go - dir. Doug Liman - 1999 - USA, Last Night - dir. Don McKellar - 1998 - Canada, The Sweet Hereafter - dir. Atom Egoyan - 1997 - Canada, or Exotica - dir. Atom Egoyan - 1994 - Canada

Filmography (Other, Notable): Beowulf & Grendel (2005), Don't Come Knocking (2005), The Event (2003), The Weight of Water (2000), The Life Before This (1999), eXistenZ (1999) Guinevere (1999), White Lies (1998), The Hanging Garden (1997), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

Cannes News

For once in a long, long time, Julianne Moore fans can rejoice. Though her work in Tom Kalin's Savage Grace is not in the runs to get her a Best Actress nod at the fest, critics have stated that it's her finest, juiciest performance in years. For those who just couldn't get enough Julianne after her performances in [Safe], Magnolia, and Far from Heaven, you can know wipe your minds clean of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio and Trust the Man. The film is the second feature from Kalin, who previously directed Swoon... and if she can shimmer with brilliance under the direction of one homo (Todd Haynes), why not another?

On a more disappointing note, critics have not been kind to Andrei Zvyagintsev's follow-up to The Return, entitled The Banishment. The word "morose" and "humorless" were thrown around a bunch, but I hardly consider these to be criticisms... so we'll have to wait until it comes to the US to decide.

In other news, Michael Moore's Sicko has been getting stronger acclaim than his previous Palme d'Or-winning doc Fahrenheit 9/11 (which I, honestly, wasn't wild about). Olivier Assayas' English-language Boarding Gate, which premiered at a midnight screening, was savaged -- though we all know those French critics can be a bit harsh. Christophe Honoré's musical Les chansons d'amour, with Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, and Chiarra Mastroianni, has also gotten some pretty poor reviews, but I still can't understand why anyone keeps thinking that the Ma mère director will ever make a good film is beyond me... though doesn't the photo of Mastroianni with an umbrella make you wish this was just as good as her mother's turn in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg? Kim Ki-duk's Breath and Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Flight of the Red Balloon (his first French-language film, with Juliette Binoche) have gotten solid, but unenthusiastic praise, so it looks like the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men is the front-runner for the Palme d'Or so far, which would make it their third top prize honor, after Barton Fink and Fargo.

There's about a week left, so expect more updates as I receive them. There's still excitement remaining from the likes of Catherine Breillat, Carlos Reygadas, Abel Ferrara, Asia Argento, Tilda Swinton, Béla Tarr, Alexander Sokourov, Angelina Jolie, Harmony Korine, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, and... of course... Quentin Tarantino and his Death Proof ladies. PS: I love how youthful and hot the ladies of the jury (Sarah Polley, Toni Collette, Maggie Cheung, Maria de Mederios) look in comparison to the old frumpy men (Stephen Frears, Abderramane Sissako, Michel Piccoli, Marco Bellocchio, and Orhan Pamuk) on board. To be a true film fanatic, you gotta be a hot, young woman or an old fart with an extra chin or two. That's what I gather from this photo.

Can you hear the drums, Fernando?; or Your Cinematic Guide to all things ABBA

With Mamma Mia!, the ABBA musical, in pre-production stages, I thought I might take this time to celebrate the finest ABBA moments onscreen. Despite being an avid fan of the Swedish pop superstars, I have never endured Mamma Mia! onstage, as the theatre interests me little and horrid testimonials from my friends have steered me clear. This doesn’t however mean anything negative toward Benny, Björn, Agnetha, or Anni-Frid. Unintentionally, they have created some wonderful moments in cinema history, so why don’t we share in the great ABBA memories?

The most memorable use of ABBA has to be in P.J. Hogan’s sublime Muriel’s Wedding, starring Toni Collette as the title character, a sad, overweight girl with dreams of a perfect wedding and ABBA music. Other than perhaps ABBA: The Movie, Muriel’s Wedding features the most effective use of the group’s music, from Muriel and Rhonda’s (Rachel Griffiths) stellar lip-synching to “Waterloo” to Muriel being escorted down the aisle to “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do.” Naturally, ABBA’s most famous tune, “Dancing Queen,” plays during several critical moments of the film, perfectly setting the scene for Muriel’s unhappiness and subsequent liberty. You’ll never forget the heart-tugging speech Muriel gives to Rhonda once the two leave Porpoise Spit for Sydney: “Since I’ve met you and moved to Sydney, I haven’t listened to one ABBA song. That’s because my life is as good as an ABBA song. It’s as good as ‘Dancing Queen.’” Try not to be moved, and try not to envy someone who’s life is as good as “Dancing Queen.”


ABBA songs featured: “Dancing Queen,” “Waterloo,” “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,” “Fernando,” and “Mamma Mia.”

Sticking with Australia (as well as actor Bill Hunter who plays Muriel’s father), ABBA also has a very significant role in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. In the internationally successful film, the threat of ABBA dance numbers is always hovering above Priscilla, the name given to the Swedish (go figure) tour bus three drag queens purchase to make their way north for a cabaret show. Bernadette (Terence Stamp), fed up with the shallow nature of conversation between her traveling companions Mitzi (Hugo Weaving) and Felicia (Guy Pearce), shouts a list of topics of conversation she will not partake in, citing ABBA as the prime offender. (She’s no fun, obviously.) When Mitzi finally reconnects with her son, he comments on how excited he would be to see his dad perform the ABBA show. Mitzi doesn’t fail his son, nor the audience, when he and Felicia, leaving Bernadette behind, perform “Mamma Mia” back in Sydney. Those Aussies just can’t get enough of infectious Swedish pop music.

ABBA songs featured: “Mamma Mia” and “Fernando”

ABBA is no less popular in the native Sweden, as shown in Lukas Moodysson’s Together (Tillsammans). Set in the mid-1970s in a hippy commune, the film portrays various characters and their respective lessons learned about tolerance. Though critically acclaimed, I think Together is easily Moodysson’s weakest film, an effective period film, though painfully shallow. In any case, the film ends with the entire commune coming out of the house and rejoicing while listening to, naturally, ABBA.

ABBA songs featured: The Internet Movie Database only reports “SOS,” though I remember there being several songs used throughout the film.

Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam, also one of his weakest films, is set in the 1970s, when ABBA was taking the world by storm. Though hardly memorable as a film or for its use of ABBA music, Lee includes two ABBA diddies for good measure. The rest of the soundtrack, which features The Talking Heads and Grace Jones, is considerably more note-worthy than the film itself.

ABBA songs featured: “Fernando” and “Dancing Queen”

On television in the UK, the series Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge comes highly recommended. As Alan Parker, Steve Coogan, who also co-wrote the show, plays a talk show host with a not-so-small obsession with ABBA. Two fine examples of such: Not only is “Knowing Me, Knowing You” the theme song for the show, but Parker introduces his guests with the line, “Knowing e, Alan Parker, knowing you, [name of guest].” Parker also, hilariously, took inspiration from the group in naming his son Fernando. Classic.

Though I haven’t seen the film, there is a Swedish film entitled House of Angels (Änglagård), about a city girl who returns to the country to claim the inheritance of her grandmother’s house. The music of ABBA is featured so prominently in this 1992 comedy that the film’s working title was actually Mamma Mia.

ABBA songs featured: “Mamma Mia,” “Chiquitita,” and “Fernando”

Who can forget ABBA’s own Hard Day’s Night, ABBA: The Movie? Well, many people, I assume, but it’s still probably the only decent film that Lasse Halström has ever made. The soundtrack features many ABBA tunes that haven’t (yet) made their way to film, like “Thank You for the Music,” “The Name of the Game,” and “Money, Money, Money.”


Though (thankfully) never created into a film (although there have been videos released), Benny and Björn made a musical, post-ABBA, entitled Chess, which features probably one of the worst songs of the 1980’s, “One Night in Bangkok” (though that song doesn‘t hold a candle to anything Starship released during the decade). The play opened in 1988 on Broadway and quickly closed due to scathing reviews.

ABBA began making music videos during the very early years of this phenomenon, so they have hardly stood the test of time. However, one can not deny the strange influence from fellow Swede Ingmar Bergman in the framing of a number of videos, particularly “Mamma Mia,” which showcases their signature white pantsuits. The profile of Agnetha with Anni-Frid facing the camera is textbook Bergman, featured most prominently in both Persona, with Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson, and The Silence, with Ingrid Thulin and Gunnel Lindblom. You might joke at the comparison of Bergman to ABBA, but there’s no denying the visual influence on a handful of their music videos. For a real laugh, check out the video for “The Name of the Game,” in which the girls sing, “What’s the name of the game?” while playing Sorry, the board game, with Benny and Björn. I really doubt getting all four of your pawns “home” was what they had in mind when writing the song.

Other films of note that featured music from ABBA:
Man of the House with Tommy Lee Jones (“Dancing Queen”)
Hardcore, from Greece (“Dancing Queen”)
Head over Heels with (yuck) Freddie Prinze Jr. (“Take a Chance on Me”)
Miss Congeniality (“Dancing Queen”)
Dick (“Dancing Queen”)
Man of the Year, the mockumentary about the gay Playgirl model (“The Visitors”)
Spetters, from Paul Verhoeven (“Eagle”)

And, finally, how about a few things you may not know about ABBA’s influence on the music world (thanks to wikipedia):

Admitted devotees of the group (some of which have covered their music) include Kurt Cobain, Evan Dando of the Lemonheads, Sinéad O’Connor, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Courtney Love, Stephin Merrit and all the other members of The Magnetic Fields, the members of Ash, Madonna, Noel Gallagher of Oasis, Kylie Minogue (of course), the members of Erasure (of course, squared), and Elvis Costello.

Only two performers have ever been allowed to sample ABBA: The Fugees and Madonna. For the song “Rumble in the Jungle,” which was made for the documentary When We Were Kings, Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill, and Pras sampled “The Name of the Game.” It was the first time Benny and Björn allowed for their music to be used as a sample. Madonna did the same with “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” for “Hung Up” off her last album, Confessions on a Dance Floor.

I hope you know can consider yourself educated on the beautiful symbiosis between ABBA and the world of cinema.

She's lost...

Much to my surprise, I read that the Ian Curtis biopic, Control, will also be premiering at Cannes this year. It opened the Director's Fortnight to positive reviews and appears to not be the disaster it was initially conceived as (starring Jude Law (boo!) as the tragic singer of Joy Division). The film stars Sam Riley, a newcomer, as Curtis and Samantha Morton as his wife. I was also initially upset that Sean Harris, who played Curtis to an amazing likeness in 24 Hour Party People, was not cast, but based on the stills and the press, Control might not be as frightening as we, Joy Division fans, had once thought.

My Blueberry Nights

Rachel Weisz has never looked better than when photographed by Wong Kar-wai and cinematographer Darius Khondji. Not even her own husband (Darren Aronofsky with The Fountain) could make her look as good as the still above. Click here for more gorgeous stills from Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights which should be opening in Cannes any minute now.

Webster University Film Series: Summer 2007

For those of you in Saint Louis, I thought I'd give a heads-up to the films playing at the Webster University Film Series this summer (though you can find the complete listing here). Alexandra Lipsitz's documentary Air Guitar Nation played this past weekend, but coming next weekend is Cam Archer's ambitious Wild Tigers I Have Known, with Fairuza Balk and with nods to Derek Jarman, Kenneth Anger, and Araki's Mysterious Skin. The Ralph Nader documentary, An Unreasonable Man, will be screening the following week. On the 1st of June, the documentary, The Cats of Mirikitani, which Mike Steinberg, director of the series, has been raving about, will be screening all weekend. They will also be showing 35mm prints of Jodorowsky's El topo and The Holy Mountain later that month, as well as the beastiality doc, Zoo (or, better known among my friends, They Fuck Horses, Don't They?). July will show two of Peter Greenaway's early films, The Draughtsman's Contract and (my personal favorite) A Zed and Two Noughts. Expect reviews of most of these films on Playback's website, which I will, naturally, link from this blog.

Smile

After watching Jean-Pierre Melville's brilliant Army of Shadows, I was reminded of how much I love the late French actress Simone Signoret. With a bit of reading, I found a quote of hers that I enjoyed and thought I'd share.

"I collect all the reviews of the films I turned down. And when they're bad - I have to smile."