Koch Lorber in December

Koch Lorber has announced but one title for December, a film called Takva: A Man's Fear of God, from Turkey, which premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. It seems like a bit of a whimper for the studio to end their year with just one DVD, but I can't complain too much. Takva will be out on 9 December.

Previous 10: 11 September

Things didn't fare nearly as well this time around. Even the best entry out of all ten, Snow Angels, failed to move me like the director did with George Washington, but I've come to expect that maybe that film was David Gordon Green's finest hour.

La Crème

Snow Angels - dir. David Gordon Green - USA - Warner Independent - with Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, Michael Angarano, Amy Sedaris, Jeanetta Arnette, Olivia Thirlby, Griffin Dunne, Nicky Katt

Les Autres

Baby Mama - dir. Michael McCullers - USA - Universal - with Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Greg Kinnear, Sigourney Weaver, Dax Shepard, Romany Malco, Steve Martin, Maura Tierney

The Fall - dir. Tarsem - India/UK/USA - Roadside Attractions - with Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell, Kim Uylenbroek, Daniel Caltagirone, Marcus Wesley, Jeetu Verma, Leo Bill

Finding Amanda - dir. Peter Tolan - USA - Magnolia - with Matthew Broderick, Brittany Snow, Maura Tierney, Steve Coogan, Peter Facinelli

Help Me Eros - dir. Lee Kang-sheng - Taiwan - Strand Releasing - with Lee Kang-sheng, Jane Liao, Dennis Nieh, Ivy Yi

In Search of a Midnight Kiss - dir. Alex Holdridge - USA - IFC Films - with Scoot McNairy, Sara Simmonds, Brian McGuire, Kathleen Luong, Twink Caplan

The Bad!

Ben X - dir. Nic Balthazar - Netherlands/Belgium - Film Movement - with Greg Timmermans, Marijke Pinoy, Laura Verlinden, Pol Goossen, Titus De Voogdt, Maarten Claeyssens

Ice Blues - dir. Ron Oliver - USA - here! Films - with Chad Allen, Sebastian Spence, Daryl Shuttleworth, Sherry Miller, Nelson Wong, Brittney Wilson

Then She Found Me - dir. Helen Hunt - USA - ThinkFilm - with Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick, Ben Shenkman, Lynn Cohen

What We Do Is Secret - dir. Rodger Grossman - USA - Peace Arch - with Shane West, Bijou Phillips, Rick Gonzalez, Noah Segan, Ashton Holmes, Tina Majorino

A little Late

The Venice Film Festival ended over the weekend, and I forgot to post the rundown of the awards; to be honest, I wasn't really following the goings-on this year. Darren Aronofsky apparently has jumped back into the critics' good book after the disastrously-received The Fountain, winning the coveted Golden Lion. The rest of the awards are as follows:

Golden Lion: The Wrestler - dir. Darren Aronofsky - USA

Silver Lion (for Best Director): Paper Soldier - dir. Alexei German Jr. - Russia

Special Jury Prize: Teza - dir. Halie Gerima - Ethiopia/Germany/France

Best Actor: Silvio Orlando - Il papà di Giovanna (dir. Pupi Avati) - Italy

Best Actress: Dominique Blanc - L'autre (dir. Patrick-Mario Bernard, Pierre Trividic) - France

Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor: Jennifer Lawrence - The Burning Plan (dir. Guillermo Arriaga) - USA

Best Cinematography: Alisher Khamidhodjaev, Maxim Drozdov - Paper Solider - Russia

Best Screenplay: Halie Gerima - Terza - Ethipoia/Germany/France

Special Lion to Overall Work: Werner Schroeter
Luigi de Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film: Pranzo di Ferragosto - dir. Gianni Di Gregorio - Italy

The Biopic and the Assembly Line

What We Do Is Secret – dir. Rodger Grossman – 2007 – USA

Riddle me this. Biopics are lame. Biopics about people of questionable artistry are even lamer. Sure, first time writer/director Rodger Grossman does little to justify a film about The Germs’ frontman Darby Crash, played here by Shane West of A Walk to Remember and television’s ER and Once and Again (punk, indeed), but all cinematic inabilities aside, what’s truly bothering me is the functionality of a biopic. For what purpose does a biopic about an influential (or in the case of this film, a not-so-influential) person living or dead do for the person in question? For some filmmakers, the biopic serves as an elegy. Anton Corbijn’s Control beautifully depicts the rise and fall of a respected artist, Ian Curtis, someone Corbijn knew quite well. Control is aesthetically appealing, dramatically gentle and absolutely hypnotic when depicting Joy Division performing, which is really crucial in the conviction of necessity. Certainly Ian Curtis’ life mirrors that of many tortured musicians who’ve served as the subject of a biopic, but unlike Johnny Cash, Tina Turner or Ray Charles, Curtis dies within the film’s scope.

The rigid formula of the biopic, which separates itself only when a director chooses the linear or non-linear path, ultimately reduces the individuals someone deemed special enough to make a movie about to little nothings, or people who unremarkably defeated their demons. With the tendency for melodrama and the well-equipped, ever-suffering spouse at hand (mind you, it’s almost always a woman, except in the case of The Hours, but that film exists more in a fictional realm), the formula turns these people’s hard lives into, as I said above, unremarkable triumphs (as a side note, I’m using my triptych of non-linear musician biopics, What’s Love Got to Do with It, Ray and Walk the Line, as my prime examples, though you could probably throw La vie en rose in there too). Thankfully, there exists the small area of the “biopic” which finds little interest in a person’s life as a whole as much as their life in moments. Capote, The Queen and Erin Brockovich could qualify, even if all three at times feel like Oscar performance baiting.

For music films (or any film that deals with an artist), the application of formula commonly becomes at odds with itself. Often the subject of the biopic has defied conventions in some way to have left their mark on the industry. For The Germs, their only real claim to fame was that they might have recorded the very first punk record in Los Angeles. Grossman, who used former Germs guitarist Pat Smear as a consultant, never hides the fact that most of the members weren’t musically inclined but at least attempted to show some appreciation for the balls-to-the-wall live antics of the band. It was a failed attempt at both appreciation and visceral raucousness, but if we’re to overlook these slights, it seems to be the intention to show that Darby Crash had a voice and presence that were defiant and abrasive. In molding Crash’s story into familiar territory, does this not overshadow the intentions and spirit of the singer?

What We Do Is Secret employs many overly accustomed characteristics of the music biopic, not the least of which being Grossman’s use of talking heads to both fill in the blanks and express the appreciation he was unable to elicit from his subject (the fiction music film Brothers of the Head finds its only struggle in getting away from the mockumentary). So why is it that this film (which also uses no flashy camera tricks) would suit a man someone believed to have been progressive, historically relevant and defiant of the establishment? I think one must ask themselves, “would Darby Crash even like this film?” The question shouldn’t be posed as if he were alive today, because age can tend to soften one’s explicit demeanor, but it should be posed as if it were shown to him during the height of his career, before committing suicide.

I suppose what is bothering me most lies in this question of suitability. Certainly wondering whether or not the subject of the biopic would like their film wouldn’t work for everyone. God knows if anyone made a biopic about Courtney Love, she probably wouldn’t be too happy if some riskier choices were made. However, why do filmmakers feel the need to put their subjects through the assembly line? Wouldn’t it be more potent if the film actually mirrored the subject’s spirit, instead of reducing them to formulaic traps? Todd Haynes understood this completely with I’m Not There and Velvet Goldmine, even though the latter happened to be thinly-veiled fiction. All this aside, I still anxiously await Gus Van Sant’s Milk, as his abandonment of the Hollywood system and return to his roots has made for some spectacular films in the past few years. Though a tale of Harvey Milk would require a different handling, as his contributions weren’t of an artistic form, it’s long overdue for a respectable filmmaker to shake the sad state of the biopic. And, no, Ron Howard doesn’t count. And, no, don’t get me started on Oliver Stone.

Previous 10: 1 September

The Previous 10 Batch of 2008 titles were surprisingly strong this time around, with only one hitting the Bad category. If you're keeping tabs, Vicky Cristina Barcelona has the strongest shot at making my top 5 for the year come December. Enjoy!

La Crème

A Girl Cut in Two [La Fille coupée en deux] - dir. Claude Chabrol - France/Germany - IFC Films - with Ludivine Sagnier, Benoît Magimel, François Berléand, Mathilda May, Caroline Sihol, Edouard Baer

Joy Division - dir. Grant Gee - UK/USA - Weinstein Company

Married Life - dir. Ira Sachs - USA/Canada - Sony Pictures Classics - with Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Rachel McAdams, David Wenham

Times and Winds [Bes vakit] - dir. Reha Erdem - Turkey - Kino - with Taner Birsel, Nihan Asli Elmas, Köksal Engür, Sevinç Erbulak, Selma Ergeç

Up the Yangtze - dir. Chang Yung - Canada - Zeitgeist Films

Vicky Cristina Barcelona - dir. Woody Allen - Spain/USA - MGM/Weinstein Company - with Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Messina, Kevin Dunn, Pablo Schreiber

Les Autres

The Art of Travel - dir. Thomas Whelan - USA - First Look - with Christopher Masterson, Angelika Baran, Johnny Messner, Brooke Burns, James Duval, Shalim Ortiz, Jake Muxworthy

Holding Trevor - dir. Rosser Goodman - USA - here! Films - with Brent Gorski, Melissa Searing, Eli Kranski, Jay Brannan, Christopher Wyllie

Team Picture - dir. Kentucker Audley - USA - Benten Films - with Kentucker Audley (as Andrew Nenninger), Timothy Morton, Amanda Harris, Shawna Wheeler, Greg Gaston, Terry Hamilton

The Bad

Hamlet 2 - dir. Andrew Fleming - USA - Focus Features - with Steve Coogan, Catherine Keener, Joseph Julian Soria, Elisabeth Shue, Skylar Astin, Phoebe Strole, Melonie Diaz, Amy Poehler, David Arquette

Peck, Rossellini, and Julianne Moore on Your Way

For the first time on DVD in the US, Universal will release Stanley Donen's espionage thriller Arabesque, starring Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren, on 4 November. It will also be a part of a Gregory Peck boxset which includes Edward Dmytryk's Mirage (with Walter Matthau), David Miller's Captain Newman, M.D. (with Tony Curtis and Angie Dickinson), Raoul Walsh's The World in His Arms (with Anthony Quinn), which are all new-to-DVD, though no separate release has been announced yet. The set also has two of Peck's iconic classics, To Kill a Mockingbird and Cape Fear.

Water Bearer has announced Todd Verow's Between Something and Nothing for November (no actual date has been released), as well as Santiago Otheguy's La león for December (no official date yet for this one either). Picture This! will have the German coming-of-age film Teenage Angst, from directed Thomas Stuber, on 11 November. The disc also includes the short Bébé requin from director Pascal-Alex Vincent, which co-stars Adrien Jolivet (Après lui, In the Arms of My Enemy).

Through their Studio Canal relationship , Lionsgate will be releasing four films for November. The first is a two-film set of Roberto Rossellini's Where Is Freedom? [Dov'è la libertà...?] and Escape by Night [Era notte a Roma], sometimes known as Blackout in Rome, set for 11 November (thanks, Eric). Manuel Poirier's Western, starring Sergi López and winner of the Prix du jury at Cannes in 1997, will street the same day. And finally, Fabien Onteniente's farcical People: Jet Set 2 will round out the Canal titles. The latter stars Rossy de Palma, Rupert Everett, Jean-Claude Brialy, Lambert Wilson, Ornella Muti and comic José Garcia; the first Jet Set is not available yet in the US.

Image Entertainment is releasing Ana Kokkinos' The Book of Revelation for the first time uncut in the States, on 2 December. The film was previously available by a company I hadn't heard of with the frontal nudity blurred out. The film stars Tom Long, Greta Scacchi and Colin Friels and is Kokkinos' follow-up to the film Head-On (not the Fatih Akin one, but the one about the Greek hustler in Australia). Rene Daadler's Here Is Always Somewhere Else, a documentary about Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader and his disappearance at sea, will be Cult Epics' latest release, set for 18 November.

IFC's Savage Grace will be out just in time to make your family look a little less dysnfunction this Christmas, on 23 December. Magnolia's Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson is set for 18 November. Kino's My Father, My Lord will be out 2 December. HBO's Generation Kill, from the creators of The Wire, will be released 16 December. And finally, Sony Pictures Classics' When Did You Last See Your Father? will hit shelves 4 November.

Noir et Blanc

Married Life – dir. Ira Sachs – 2007 – USA/Canada

I don’t remember Married Life coming out in March. I know it did, as I remember it starred one of my old faithfuls, Patricia Clarkson, and that actress who looks like a number of other actresses donning hideous white blonde hair (Rachel McAdams). But I don’t even remembered whether Sony Pictures Classics released it wide or limited, and whatever they did, they sure didn’t get my attention sparked. Fortunately, on a whim, I watched it and was pleasantly surprised. Unlike the all-too-familiar relationship foursome melodrama (Closer, We Don’t Live Here Any More, Carnal Knowledge, you know them well), it turned out to be a quiet little film noir.

What separates Married Life from your neo-noirs and noir throwbacks like Bound or L.A. Confidential, respectively, is that it isn’t concerned with the stylistic notions of the genre. Certainly, it takes place during the 1940s, the heyday of the noir, but it’s shot in blistering, shadowless color. In fact, it takes about twenty or so minutes into the film for you to forgive Pierce Brosnan’s narration and realize, “oh, that’s why he’s doing a voice over.” Once bored businessman Harry Allen (Chris Cooper) decides that he’s going to kill his loving wife Pat (Clarkson) to spare her the grief of leaving her for a younger woman (McAdams), Married Life really picks up.

Ira Sachs, whose previous Forty Shades of Blue was a snooze, really keeps things interesting in making Cooper, Brosnan and Clarkson just a little bit naughty. They’re not cunning or particularly clever in their murder attempts or affairs; only McAdams is salvaged of the gray morals as the angelical naïve girl thrown into the mix. In fact, Cooper is probably one of the lousiest attempted murderers I’ve ever seen onscreen. However, the three seem to all be decent individuals in extraordinary circumstances, a major component of the film noir genre.

Married Life is probably more akin to Sachs’ first film, The Delta, a slowburn menace of a film about a teenage boy of questionable sexuality and his run-in with a Vietnamese boy on the Mississippi Delta. The strange thing about Married Life, which works beautifully and which Roger Ebert noticed as well, is that no one shouts at one another; there is nary a moment of explosion, and this is what makes Married Life so lovely. Ultimately, Sachs doesn’t fill all his glasses to the top, but it’s still a rich surprise of a film, separate from both the intimate relationship melodramas and neo-noirs we’re all-too-used to.

Plus One

I forgot to also mention New Yorker's pending release of Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, starring the lovely Sonia Braga. It should be out on 25 November, even though I'm being a little skeptical of New Yorker's DVD releases at the moment.

More of the Same for Jarman 08

The Year of Derek Jarman continues in November, with Kino's repackaging of their Jarman related films. Nothing new, but nice to have the titles condensed into a more affordable box. The titles are his first film, along with co-director Paul Humfress, Sebastiane, The Tempest, War Requiem and Isaac Julien's documentary Derek, written by Tilda Swinton, on 18 November. Now if only we can get someone to put out The Garden by New Year's, I'll be a happy boy.

Additionally, blaq out, through Facets, will release Jean-Claude Brisseau's made-for-TV film Life the Way It is [La vie comme ça], along with a documentary about the controversial filmmaker, hopefully covering his bout in prison for sexual harassment which came about during the filming of his film Secret Things [Choses secrètes]; available 25 November. Magnolia will release James Marsh's documentary Man on Wire about Philippe Petit on 9 December.

Sony will also be releasing María Lidón, aka Luna's, Moscow Zero, starring Vincent Gallo, Joaquim de Almeida, Rade Serbedzija, Val Kilmer and Oksana Akinshina (Lilya 4-ever), on 4 November. Also, just to keep you updated, Music Box's Tell No One has been pushed to January.

Flaubert, Huppert, Chabrol, and Friends

Koch Lorber will release a two-disc version of Claude Chabrol's adaptation of Flaubert's Madame Bovary from 1991, starring the incomparable Isabelle Huppert in the lead role, on 11 November. The MGM disc of the film has been out of print for a while and this version will feature a documentary entitled Isabelle Huppert: A Life of Acting. Additionally, Koch Lorber will release János Szás' Opium: Diary of a Madwoman, starring Ulrich Thomsen (The Celebration) on the same date.

Kimstim is releasing Yoichi Sai's 2004 crime drama Blood and Bones, which stars Takeshi Kitano, on 11 November. I'm sure you've heard about the November Criterions, but they will be Bottle Rocket (yawn), Chungking Express (yay!), Fanfan la tulipe and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Fanfan will be the only R1 debut for the month.

Synkronized USA (read: expect delays) has 11 November set as the date for their release of Liria Bégéja's Change My Life (Change moi ma vie), which stars Fanny Ardant, Roschdy Zem and Sami Bouajila. Industrial Entertainment will also be releasing Fred Schepisi's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith on 18 November. Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World will be available from ThinkFilm on 18 November. And finally, New Yorker is releasing Marco Bellocchio's The Wedding Director (Il regista di matrimoni) on 18 November.

Previous 10: Olympic Edition

In order to keep you all, and myself as well, informed as to what I'm watching, I'm going to post a little blurb like this for every ten films I watch, whether I've had the chance to write about them, felt the desire to write about them or can't post my words due to copyright. I've already designated a three-tier hierarchy for the 2008 films, and I think I'll revise that for when I get around to posting films released prior to then as three seems rather shallow. I don't want to reduce these films to a thumbs up or down, but for the films released theatrically in the US during 2008, it makes it easier for me to sort them all out by the time I get to December and have to make my best of the year list. So here are the most recent ten with an unintentional nod to the Beijing Olympics, as three of them are set partially or wholly in the Olympic village.

La Crème

The Band's Visit [Bikur Ha-Tizmoret] - dir. Eran Kolirin - Israel/France/USA - Sony Pictures Classics - with Sasson Gabai, Ronit Elkabetz, Saleh Bakri, Khalifa Natour

Boy A - dir. John Crowley - UK - Weinstein Company - with Andrew Garfield, Peter Mullan, Siobhan Finneran, Shaun Evans, James Young

The Houseboy - dir. Spencer Schilly - USA - TLA Releasing - with Nick May, Blake Young-Fountain, Damián Fuentes, Tom Merlino, Brian Patacca, Michael Hill

Transsiberian - dir. Brad Anderson - Spain/UK/Germany/Lithuania - First Look - with Emily Mortimer, Woody Harrelson, Ben Kingsley, Kate Mara, Eduardo Noriega, Thomas Kretschmann

Les Autres

The Babysitters - dir. David Ross - USA - Peace Arch - with Katherine Waterston, John Leguizamo, Andy Comeau, Lauren Birkell, Cynthia Nixon

Baghead - dir. Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass - USA - Sony Pictures Classics - with Ross Partridge, Steve Zissis, Greta Gerwig, Elise Muller, Jett Garner

My Brother Is an Only Child [Mio fratello è figlio unico] - dir. Daniele Luchetti - Italy/France - ThinkFilm - with Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio, Diane Fleri

Summer Palace - dir. Lou Ye - China/France - Palm Pictures - with Bai Xueyun, Cui Lin, Duan Long, Guo Xiaodong, Hao Lei

The Bad

Lost in Beijing - dir. Li Yu - China - New Yorker - with Tony Leung Ka Fai, Fan Bingbing, Tong Dawei, Elaine Jin

Teeth - dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein - USA - Roadside Attractions/Dimension - with Jess Weixler, John Hensley, Hale Appleman, Lenny von Dohlen