Correction

I was right. AnimEigo will be releasing Shohei Imamura's The Ballad of Narayama as opposed to the older version. The Palme d'Or winner will be available 10 June.

2 1/2 Months in, 19 Down

I was reviewing my MIA for 2008 list and made a few updates, seeing as 19 of the list have either been released already this year or have been officially announced. They are as follows, in no particular order:

The Lovers [Les amants] - dir. Louis Malle - Criterion - 13 May
I Live in Fear - dir. Akira Kurosawa - Criterion/Eclipse - 15 Jan
Le bonheur - dir. Agnès Varda - Criterion - 22 Jan
The Fire Within [Le feu follet] - dir. Louis Malle - Criterion - 13 May
Caravaggio - dir. Derek Jarman - Zeitgeist - 24 June

She's Gotta Have It - dir. Spike Lee - MGM - 15 Jan
The Angelic Conversation - dir. Derek Jarman - Zeitgeist - 24 June
Détective - dir. Jean-Luc Godard - Lionsgate - 5 Feb
Passion - dir. Jean-Luc Godard - Lionsgate - 5 Feb
The Kingdom Series 2 [Riget 2] - dir. Lars von Trier - Koch Lorber - 22 Jan

Lost Highway - dir. David Lynch - Universal - 25 Mar
Touch - dir. Paul Schrader - MGM - 12 Feb
When Night Is Falling - dir. Patricia Rozema - Wolfe Video - 5 Feb
Before the Rain - dir. Milcho Manchevski - Criterion - ? Jun
Fiorile - dir. Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani - Koch Lorber - 1 Apr

Blue - dir. Derek Jarman - Zeitgeist - 24 June
Oh, Woe Is Me [Hélas pour moi] - dir. Jean-Luc Godard - Lionsgate - 5 Feb
Wittgenstein - dir. Derek Jarman - Zeitgeist - 24 June
La chinoise - dir. Jean-Luc Godard - Koch Lorber - 13 May

I might also take this opportunity to correct an announcement I made earlier about Shohei Imamura's The Ballad of Narayama to be released by AnimEigo. In fact, I'm not clear as to whether AnimEigo will be releasing Imamura's version or the original from director Keisuke Kinoshita from 1958. Something leads me to believe that it may be the 1958 version, as I'm pretty sure Kino owns Imamura's, but I will let you know as soon as I find out.

Who? Criterion?

Oh, yeah, The Criterion Collection is still releasing DVDs, in case you had forgotten. I nearly had with their ho-hum line-up so far this year (aside from the Malle). They've actually got five DVDs lined up for June: Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Yukio Mishima's Patriotism, Claude Sautet's Classe tous risques, Anthony Mann's The Furies with Barbara Stanwyck and Milcho Manchevski's Before the Rain, with Grégoire Colin, Katrin Cartlidge and Rade Serbedzija. No Eclipse set was announced for June or May.

Also, stop on by Filmbo's Chick Magnet to read more about some exclusive releases of a handful of Chris Marker films.

Vellini Satyricon

The Last Mistress [Une vieille maîtresse] – dir. Catherine Breillat – 2007 – France/Italy

By now, you probably know that the most shocking thing about Catherine Breillat’s latest is how un-shocking it actually is. I hate using the term “provocateuse” for Breillat, as I think she exists above such classification, but perhaps it’s the best way to describe her to those unfamiliar. The lack of bite in The Last Mistress (or, as it is more accurately translated, An Old Mistress) is not something I fault Breillat for, as it thus proves that her voice isn’t always raised to the point of screaming as one would normally contest. Instead, The Last Mistress is a polished adaptation of the Barbey d’Aurevilly’s novel in which a young bachelor (Fu’ad Ait Aattou) must chose between the love of his young virginal wife (Roxane Mesquida) and aging mistress (Asia Argento).

With the absence of feisty confrontation, The Last Mistress gave me the opportunity to look at Breillat beneath the surface. The film is surprisingly very tableau, composed with almost entirely flat, picturesque dimensions, infrequently interrupted by a close-up (usually of Ait Aattou). It’s in her visual scheme that we’re reminded of what Breillat’s really about: meta dissections of crippling male/female relations. As the Spanish mistress Vellini, Argento’s career obsession with playing women ripe with sexuality would have made her a perfect candidate for Breillat. I’m not saying she doesn’t live up this candidacy, but her performance is raw to the point where I could foresee the confusion of it being “bad.” She doesn’t appear as in tune with Breillat as Amira Casar in Anatomy of Hell or Mesquida and Anaïs Reboux in Fat Girl, and yet it’s in the roughness that Argento places on Vellini that distinguishes her from the otherwise sedated refine of the rest of the cast and ultimately gives The Last Mistress its haunting quality.

With The Last Mistress, Breillat yet again crafts a film of mesmerizing power. The film subsists somewhere on a different plane than the director’s other work, relying more on the perils the film’s central romance than abrasive stylization to stick with the audience. On a larger scale, the film may not resonate as long as Fat Girl has; the latter still haunts me to this day. Yet, it’s still just as surprising of a work as anything else Breillat has made. Additionally, The Last Mistress contains the best line of dialogue I’ve heard all year during an interaction between Argento and Amira Casar as an opera singer. “I despise everything feminine… except in young boys.”

Cautionary Tales

Ex Drummer – dir. Koen Mortier – 2007 – Belgium

Depictions of despicable people are rarely as enjoyable or as funny as they are in Ex Drummer, a black-as-night comedy about a famous Flemish author (Dries Van Hegen) asked by a trio of handicapped men to join their rock band. In the film’s terms, “handicapped” more accurately refers to a manner to condescend its characters further. The lead singer has a dramatic speech impediment, the bassist is gay and can’t bend one of his arms and the guitarist is slightly deaf. Reluctantly, patronizingly, Dries joins the band even though he can’t play drums, if only to acquire material to write his next novel. Ex Drummer is rude, violent and cynical, in all the best possible ways. When Ex Drummer comes to its exhausting climax, the tone struts across the line of decency, taking its own unmatchable insolence to shocking lows. In many ways, the film then becomes the angry version of François Ozon’s Swimming Pool, albeit with less manipulation on the director’s part than his lead character. In fact, I think the “we’re watching his novel unfold” might be the only successful read of the film as Dries’ misogyny, homophobia, classism and overall misanthropy becomes fully realized in his own work. Though it’s easy to take issue with the possible cop out of such interpretation, Ex Drummer only suffers slightly from the notion. Otherwise, it’s daring, bold and painfully funny (actually probably the most hysterical film I’ve seen in a long while). Even if the ending doesn’t suit your fancy, it’s hard to fault the film for actually going there. And don’t tell me you didn’t wish more films climaxed in the exact same way (try The Opposite of Sex, Cloverfield or the series finale of Friends, and you’ll understand where I’m coming from).

Southland Tales – dir. Richard Kelly – 2006 – USA/Germany/France

Oh boy. In so many ways, there was a poetic justice in Southland Tales. Someone threw a wad of cash director Richard Kelly’s way to pretty much make whatever-the-fuck-he-wanted after his first film, Donnie Darko, reached an unbelievable cult status. Southland Tales, running 160 minutes and set in a dystopian America, made it into Cannes with all the hope in the world. Then everyone saw it, and it quickly became the worst reviewed film to play since The Brown Bunny two years prior. I can’t say I didn’t want Kelly to fail. Donnie Darko was ambitious enough, but I could smell the shit percolating underneath. Kelly seemed to me like a douche bag who’d seen Brazil too many times (which isn’t a fault on its own) who, by accident, struck a chord among the obnoxious youth of America. Plus, I hardly throw respect in the direction of someone who lists one of the Star Wars films as their personal favorite. Southland Tales is a wowing disaster, the sort of disaster that achieves a level of “badness” that I could easily see why some dolts would rush to call it a masterpiece (hell, I’ve defended Troll 2 on the same grounds, so I don’t have much room to talk). However, the specific dolts rushing to its side are probably the same idiots that discuss Donnie Darko “intellectually.” Southland Tales, God bless it, is such a balls-out debacle that I almost feel sorry for Kelly’s unborn children after the trumping said balls have, deservedly, taken. For its first hour-and-a-half (the post-Cannes cut runs 144 minutes, if you were wondering), the film is shockingly raw, a filthy mess of potty-mouthed dialogue and tedious exposition. Then, with about an hour left, the film turns into a completely different bad movie, sort of Donnie Darko without direction and a lid to place upon it. At least Southland Tales actually becomes remotely watchable at this point even if it’s just to see how far it will actually go. Kelly himself has stated that he doesn’t really know how to direct actors, which was painfully clear in Drew Barrymore’s embarrassing role in Darko. But, here, he uses a slew of “actors” whose collective talent probably doesn’t even match a tenth of Helen Mirren’s, allowing the likes of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Justin Timberlake, Mandy Moore and Seann William Scott to walk through Southland Tales zombie-like. None of the above is particularly condemnable (other than Cheri Oteri), but God knows if they actually know what they were doing in the film. The only inspired moments of casting come from the family of nuclear scientists (at least I think that’s what they were), played ferociously by Wallace Shawn, Beth Grant, Bai Ling (yes), and (double yes) Zelda Rubinstein! In all seriousness, you should probably see Southland Tales. It should serve as a cautionary tale, like the film Overnight about the fucking asshole who directed the unbearably bad The Boondock Saints, as to what happens when a self-important Hollywood upstart “jumps the shark.”

Most High – dir. Marty Sader – 2004 – USA

“Drugs are bad, mmkay?” That line, perfectly delivered from South Park’s lovable guidance counselor, was the only thing that entered my mind watching Most High, both a cautionary tale of crystal meth and the overblown ego of a wannabe filmmaker. Julius (writer/director Sader) lives a modest, happy lifestyle before the world falls onto his shoulders after he loses his job (due to his boss being jealous of how too-fucking-good he is) and his surrogate father passes. Enter Erica (co-writer/producer Laura Keys), Julius’ surrogate father’s blood daughter who looks more like a parody of Lara Flynn Boyle’s Donna Hayward in the season 2 premiere of Twin Peaks. She introduces Julius to the harsh world of crystal meth, on which Julius gets to bang two hot babes at one time and lose fifty pounds, all while living off the residuals of a bar that was left to him. The time stamp of Most High is a bathroom scale, which divides the film into three acts and lets the audience know what a method actor Sader is. Robert fuckin’ De Niro, my ass. Most High suffers from the usual problems of drug movies, in that it thinks it’s about more than just addiction and somehow makes the act of taking drugs seem rather appealing. I thought the same thing when Jennifer Connelly was taking that double-edged dildo in front of the group of black men in Requiem for a Dream. If drug addiction is this fun, sign me up! Go back to university theatre, Sader. I think films like Most High and Requiem for a Dream do a better job of scaring people off drug movies instead of drugs themselves. Hey, I'm in the market for reasonably priced eight-balls; any leads? [Note: upon looking for an image for the film, I found out the film is "based on a true story." Ha! Even worse. Oh, yeah, and Sader doesn't look as much like Vincent Gallo in the film as he does in that photo.]

Um, ha ha

Sorry, Michael Haneke, but I’ve officially decided to resist the English-language Funny Games. I was reprehensive when I first heard that he planned the English version to be a shot-for-shot remake, but now that word is out that it wasn’t indeed a rumor, I simply wonder why. Funny Games isn’t the sort of film one looks forward to revisiting time and time again; in fact, I’ve only seen it three times because I felt particularly sadistic in forcing friends to watch it with me. Haneke himself said that Funny Games was always sort of a film about America more than it was about Austria, so the decision to remake it himself should have been a no-brainer.

With the prospect of a shot-for-shot remake, the only qualifying measure would have been to onslaught its unassuming audience into utter peril (as the Austrian version did to those who’ve already seen it). Promote the hell out of it, throw it onto three thousand screens and piss off the people you’re so adamantly pointing your finger at. However, such isn’t the case. In Saint Louis, Funny Games is opening on a single screen at the Landmark theatre… so what’s the fucking point? Most people who attend said theatre have probably at least heard of the original Funny Games, after The Piano Teacher and Caché did solid business in the arthouse community. So are fans of Saw really going to drive across town just to see this? The answer is no. This is particularly disheartening because media frenzy would have been the only acceptable reason why Haneke would take a film he made ten years ago and adapt it solely in the English language.

The one review I read of the film was probably the most condemning of Haneke’s motives. Michael Koresky of IndieWire states, "What's worse, the entire project suffers from the gall Haneke shows in not only remaking his own film for the 'edification' of a wider audience, but in trusting his own original vision so fundamentally and without question that he has chosen not to append or alter it in any significant way." There are plenty of other denunciations of Haneke’s motives which you can find through GreenCine from the poor film critics who have “professional obligations to endure it,” as J Hoberman states in his review, especially since the most astute of which would have already seen the original.

Where should one go from here? Haneke was on a streak of brilliance from Funny Games on, even if Time of the Wolf and Code Unknown weren’t as widely popular as Caché or The Piano Teacher. Should we let him have his so-called fun with the remake and hope he continues on to better things? I hope this is the case, as Haneke seems to be on the shit list of every single person who’s had to “endure” this film once again. I guess if we all gave Gus Van Sant another shot...

Jeanne Moreau and other divas...

blaq out will be releasing Marguerite Duras' Nathalie Granger, from 1972 and starring Jeanne Moreau and Gérard Depardieu, in both single disc and double-disc editions on 27 May. Both editions run pretty steep (the single disc is $39.95, the deluxe edition is $69.98) for a film I doubt many people have heard of. For that matter, I doubt many people even know Duras directed films, as the most famous of her directing work, India Song, is only available in Japan.

New Yorker will release Manoel de Oliveira's Belle toujours, starring Bulle Ogier and Michel Piccoli, on 3 June.

In other news, it looks like Criterion will not be releasing Jean-Jacques Beiniex's Diva on DVD, but Lionsgate instead, under a collection entitled Meridian. Neither Eric at Filmbo's Chick Magnet nor I have any idea what this label is all about, except that they will also be releasing The Red Violin on 6 June. More info as I find out.

Where's Princess Coo-Coo When You Need Her?

Enchanted - dir. Kevin Lima - 2007 - USA

It seemed a bit too easy to give Disney accolades for having the ability to make fun of themselves with Enchanted. As we all know, outside of Pixar, Disney has been throwing its audience garbage for years, and it seemed about time for a little inspiration. With Enchanted, they presented us with something with a faint suggestion of idea: an animated fairy tale princess gets banished to "real life." However, as should have been expected, Enchanted is too proud of its own clever proposition to really work, outside of Amy Adams' inspired performance as Giselle, the hopeless romantic princess in search of her prince. The first issue that should be taken up with Enchanted is that it's too shallow to really work as a satire or even an advanced spoof. Giselle isn't so much another Disney princess as she is an emalgomation of princesses we've already met. She's Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and a bunch of other bitches all in one, and if it weren't for Adams, she'd probably be tedious to watch. She's got an entourage of cute animals at her side, most notably a smart-ass chipmunk who follows the prince (James Marsden) into the real world to save her. Had Disney actually been sophisticated with the production, they would have made fun of their own cheap marketing in throwing in this inexcusably cutesy "animal friend," the Jar-Jar Binks, Elmo bullshit we all know too well. When all of Enchanted's shallow ambition wears off, you come to a horrible realization that there's about an hour left of the film, all of which surrounds Giselle's relationship with a "wooden" single dad (Patrick Dempsey, though they could have cast anyone). All this adds up to a big disappointment and I haven't even gotten to the horrendousness that is Susan Sarandon. We all enjoy a good "give your Oscar back, Cuba Gooding Jr." joke, but why not apply that to Ms. Sarandon, who's made a post-Oscar career out of playing useless mothers in lousy films (Mr. Woodcock and In the Valley of Elah were her most recent duds)? Susan, go polish the Oscar and bitch about George W. Bush with your husband so I don't have to see you any more. Just thank God for Amy Adams.

50 Years Young!

Sharon Stone is half-a-century today. How about that? My place. tonight. 9 pm. Stone/Eszterhas marathon. Bring your own ice pick and fashionable dead animal accessories.

Plein de vide

Inside [À l’interieur] – dir. Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury – 2007 – France

I’ve certainly been wrong in my championing of certain horror films. By wrong of course, I mean “unpopular,” as I seemed considerably more enthusiastic about George Ratliff’s Joshua than just about everyone else. However, I like to think my passion for Inside will not be singular. Inside is, well, an absolutely uncompromising and jarring film; it’s a mood piece of violent proportions in which a pregnant young woman (Alysson Paradis, sister of Vanessa) becomes terrorized by a mysterious woman (Béatrice Dalle) in the night. The premise is simple, but I dare suggest that the execution is not. Inside is a mood piece under the guise of a horror film. Aided by Dalle’s horrifying performance, first-time directors Bustillo and Maury elevate Inside to something altogether stunning and bleak. Sure, it’s kind of a slasher film, and I don’t mean to suggest that there are underlying metaphors at work. It’s a reimagining of our understanding of terror under familiar pretenses. Whereas the greats of the genre tackled social consciousness, Inside represents a shift in the genre: unexplainable and unforgiving menace. While so many Hollywood horror films have emphasized the gloss and visual without substance, Inside mischievously penetrates these voids. In other words, the film addresses the expected, unintentional hollowness of the torture porn and inserts its own gaping crevasse of malice, meticulously-placed void that’s almost crippling. Watch at your own risk.

4 – dir. Ilya Khjanovsky – 2005 – Russia

The term “lost in translation” has always provided an easy understanding of the void I’ve felt between myself and the screen. I’ve used the term for Atonement, in which the film presented elements of written brilliance seemingly without heart. I’ve also used the term for My Blueberry Nights in which a quite literal language barrier between the director and his actors plague the overall work. With 4, there seems to be something less tangible lost in translation. I’ve often felt this from films of the east, cultures where customs and beliefs beyond my perception and attainable knowledge prevail. There was something missing in the interaction with 4, a piece of wisdom unshared by both parties. Narratively speaking, 4 follows three (yes, three) individuals—a prostitute, a piano tuner and a man working in the meat industry—during and after their chance meeting at a bar in the middle of the night. None of the three reveal literal truth in anything they share or say to each other, each making up extravagantly mundane alter egos for themselves only to have those personas shattered as they return to their personal lives. Much of the second half of the film is focused upon Marina (Marina Vovchenko) as she returns to a tiny village for a funeral. Once the three characters separate, 4 distances itself from easy interpretation, something I would normally drool over. However, as I said earlier, there’s something missing. Director Khjanovsky crafts some memorable, fucked-up scenes in the film, but still, I had no semblance of understanding as to where the film is going or why. Blame it on my occidental ignorance.

May and beyond...

AnimEigo, a subdivision of Koch Vision, will be releasing Shohei Imamura's Palme d'Or winner The Ballad of Narayama on DVD on 10 June. First Run Features will be releasing Olivier Meyrou's documentary Beyond Hatred [Au delà de la haine] about a violent hate crime on 20 May. BBC will have The Buddha of Suburbia, a television mini-series starring Naveen Andrews, written by Hanif Kureishi (based on his own novel) and directed by Roger Michell, on 27 May. The writer and director previously worked together on the sublime The Mother and the ho-hum Venus. IFC will be releasing 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days for sale on 17 June, though you can order it on IFC On Demand right now (the film will also be available sometime in May exclusively from Netflix).

From the director of Dam Street (available in April through First Run) and Fish and Elephant, Yu Li's Lost in Beijing, starring Tony Leung, will be available from New Yorker on 13 May. John Waters' Serial Mom will be available in a new Collector's Edition from Focus Features on 6 May. Bette Gordon's Variety and Matthew Harrison's Rhythm Thief will be available from Kino on 20 May. Benoît Jacquot's The Untouchable [L'intouchable], with Isild Le Besco, will be available from Strand on 27 May. And, finally, most excitingly... A Xanadu Special Edition from Universal on 24 June. That's all I got...

Jarman/Zeitgeist Update

It looks like Zeitgeist has pushed the release of the 3 Derek Jarman films back a month to 24 June. This would've pissed me off if they hadn't announced a Jarman box-set which will include the previously unannounced Angelic Conversation and Glitterbug. They may have also canceled the stand-alone disc of Blue, but Wittgenstein and Caravaggio (both more accessible than the others) will still be available separately. S'about time. And s'about time someone (coughCriterioncough) snatched up The Garden.

Um, stfu

Apparently someone in the American press wasn't too happy that Marion Cotillard won the Best Actress Oscar for La Vie en rose and have republished comments she made, out-of-context of course, about 9/11. Christ, leave the girl alone. I think America's xenophobia has really come out from under the woodwork after the four acting Oscars went to Europeans, as I've had to read and overhear some of the most inane comments like "she can't even speak English." Yeah, well, how did she act in A Good Year and Abel Ferrara's Mary then? I wouldn't blame Ms. Cotillard for running clear from American cinema and staying where I'm sure a lot of assholes would contest "where she belongs." Fuck.