Protest Fail

Remember Godard's Tout va bien? Well, last week's hilariously insipid protest at NYU was more Jerry Lewis than it was Anne Wiazemsky. You can read about their demands here, but be sure to watch the painful youtube video as well.

Ironically, there was a crime at NYU, but it was not the tuition costs, their inability to fund the Islamic University of Gaza (if only I made that up), or even their unwillingness to let students wall themselves off in a cafeteria. Instead, the crime was New York University's failure to teach logic and critical thought to its students, and this incident is a stunning indictment of the poor quality of education sold at one of the country's most expensive universities.

Maybe hanging banners that read "We are idiots! We demand a refund!" would have been a much more appropriate cause for rebellion, but, to reference Rumsfeldian theory, the protesters didn't know what they didn't know.

Is John Williams a Douche?

Maybe. Check out the entire opening credits to King's Row.

My guess is the opening title to King's Row was used as a temp track in George Lucas's or Steven Speilberg's movies during the editing process, and then the directors turned to WIlliams and said "I want that!" Or, Williams was just a big fan of the score and referenced it in his soundtracks, much in the same way the John Ford was referenced by those at the helm.

With that being said, are there really any major ramifications to so blatantly lifting Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score?

Sony's Bogdanovich DVD Cover

Odd, right?

Tsunami

New Yorker Films has died.
(hat tip to Joe)

I Wont Predict them All, But...

The last few times that relatively unsubstantial films won best picture (Crash, Chicago, Shakespeare in Love, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Gladiator), Best Director broke for the more established director of a relatively more substantial entry. So while I, like many, assume Slumdog Millionaire will win Best Picture, I disagree with, say, Joe at Fin de cinema who thinks Danny Boyle will also win Best Director. I predict we'll see a split ticket where Gus van Sant takes Best Director for Milk.

All predictions aside, I will be co-live-blogging the Oscars tomorrow over at GreenCine's Oscar Live Blog!. I was told to bring some snark, so do stop by if you happen to be online during tomorrow night's show.

DVD Covers: Cronenberg, Antonioni

Simple. Done and done.

And the Winner of the Brian De Palma Look-alike Contest is.....

(drumroll)

... Ben G. in Marco Ferreri's Tales of Ordinary Madness!

Ben will be receiving his very own copy of Ridley Scott's Body of Lies in the mail. A big thank you to everyone who participated.

Criterion and Ferreri

Janus Films has announced their next theatrical release, Marco Ferreri's Dillinger is Dead, set for the final weekend in February at BAM. More cities will follow.

Expect the DVD from Criterion at gun some point.

Download Godard's Numéro deux

I am, like most are, extremely opinionated when it comes to which Jean-Luc Godard films are his masterpieces, how to group them together, how to read them, and which aspect of his filmmaking should we worship. Each of his films are extremely dense, so much so that I've managed to only develop close relationships with seven of them: Contempt, Masculin Feminin, Week-End, Tout va bien, King Lear, Oh, Woe is Me, and Numéro deux.

Numéro deux, like Tout va bien before it, reminds me of Jean Eustache's The Mother and the Whore for they each attempt to define a post-radical stage of an adult's development in conjunction with Paris's re-footing after May '68's failed revolutions in discourse. However, Numéro deux, is more than just a "where are they now" story. Using the film's structure, Godard tracks his own recovery from obsessions with leftist political rhetoric into a much more complex understanding of cinema's sociolinguistics. If we look at the 1960's as Godard's childlike enjoyment of pop culture, genre cinema, and primary colors, and if we look at the Dziga Vertov Group as Godard's rebel without a cause years, then Numéro deux is when Godard finally becomes an adult.

It's exceedingly difficult filmmaking at its best, and like all difficult works of art, there is a reward at the end of the arduous tunnel.

I can't tell you how many times I've asked Criterion to look into releasing this film onto DVD. Le sigh.

http://rapidshare.com/files/167393300/Numero_deux.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167393304/Numero_deux.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167409314/Numero_deux.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167409318/Numero_deux.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167477381/Numero_deux.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167477382/Numero_deux.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167483403/Numero_deux.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167483405/Numero_deux.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167517475/Numero_deux.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167517478/Numero_deux.part10.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167531567/Numero_deux.part11.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167531570/Numero_deux.part12.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/167543386/Numero_deux.part13.rar

Fox and Lang

More News! 20th Century Fox will release Fritz Lang's Man Hunt on May 19th.

Bonus features will include: Commentary by Author Patrick McGilligan, Rogue Male: The Making of Man Hunt, Restoration Comparison, and more

Bogdanovich on DVD

More exciting news, this time from Sony:

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is honored to present two classic films from Academy Award® nominee Peter Bogdanovich (1972, Best Director; Best Adapted Screenplay The Last Picture Show) on a brand-new two disc DVD set. The Last Picture Show features the director’s cut of this landmark film, while Nickelodeon is presented in the original color version and, for the first time ever, the black and white Director’s Cut. The Nickelodeon/The Last Picture Show Double Feature will be available on April 21, 2009 for an SLP of $24.96. New special features on the DVD set will include commentary tracks by Bogdanovich on both films and a new interview with the director about The Last Picture Show.

Read the full press release here.

Antonioni, Cronenberg on DVD

Warner will release Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point and David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly this May on Region 1 DVD. Both will be a part of their Directors’ Showcase series, a series I swore had died. Let's hope Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud is not far behind.

The Swanberg Crisis and Download Alex in Wonderland

Glenn Kenny's piece today on Joe Swanberg reminded me of my own dissatisfaction with Swanberg's films, despite their consistent buzz and their association with a do-it-yourself movement in cinema. I had debated writing about Swanberg in depth for sometime, but after reading Kenny's post, which I agree with for the most part, the last thing I want to do is create more conversation and waste more people's time.

If I could, I'd link to an example of a web porno I saw once in which, according to the story, a random woman at a bar was invited back to a hotel room to have sex with a stranger in exchange for cash. The episode begins with the woman arriving at the room and then having a relatively long impromptu conversation with a man behind the hand-held camcorder. During this Q & A, there's laughter, lethargy, silliness, etc. She undresses for the camera, then dresses again before the second man arrives. Once he does, the man behind the camera starts directing them to fornicate for the camera on both the bed and in the bathtub. They do. I didn't make it to the end.

I bring this up not to be cynical, but to accurately place Joe Swanberg's films in their proper context. Unsimulated sex and improvised "shoot the shit" conversations are not feats. Swanberg may stand next to Andrew Bujalski on a stage at the SXSW festival, fine. His films however, are no more interesting than an online porn download. And the fact that his characters are all manifestations of immature life lessons only exacerbates this indictment, for I'm sure you find just as much truth in Taboo American Style as you would in Young American Bodies.

Dah. I said I wouldn't, and then I did.

Kenny's piece and the general talk of sexual honesty that grossly permeates Swanberg-chatter made me think of other directors who do depict the overall sexual crises of single and married couples. Paul Mazursky's early films come to mind immediately. Bloom in Love, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, and An Unmarried Woman are each strong examples of Mazursky's debunking of these myths about sexual activity that start in high school films, and move their way through college, adulthood, all the way to Boynton Beach.

Of course, all three of those films are widely available, so I'm making available his lesser known Alex in Wonderland. The film is somewhat autobiographical and deals with a director (Donald Sutherland) in between his first and second film as he searches for a genuine reason to make his next feature. Mazursky's comedy would not be noteworthy had that next film not but the masterful Blume in Love, which focuses its time on infidelity, rape, divorce, and many other sexual and ennui topics with prowess that puts most other filmmakers to shame, let along Joe Swanberg. Alex in Wonderland also carries a few decent moments, the most memorable being Sutherland's run-in with Jeanne Moreau and the Jules et Jim musical number that follows.

Like all the other films I feature via rapidshare, the film remains unavailable on DVD.

http://rapidshare.com/files/174524222/PAMALEXI.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174532547/PAMALEXI.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174540870/PAMALEXI.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174549950/PAMALEXI.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174559063/PAMALEXI.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174568194/PAMALEXI.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174578028/PAMALEXI.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174587524/PAMALEXI.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174597399/PAMALEXI.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174607210/PAMALEXI.part10.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174617282/PAMALEXI.part11.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/174621449/PAMALEXI.part12.rar

Bashir and Redacted

*Spoilers*

While I apologize too much for Brian De Palma, and like Rove I turn his weaknesses into strengths when discussing Body Double, Femme Fetal, and Redacted, I can't help but feel somewhat vindicated after watching Waltz with Bashir over the weekend.

Ari Folman's film struck me as having two critical errors. The first is more political than cinematic. In an attempt to show both the Israelis and Palestinians in sympathetic light, the film seriously demonizes Lebanese Christians in the process, a result which I imagine many would agree to be factually and morally problematic to say the least.

The film's second error involves its concluding with actual video accounts of the massacre in the Palestinian camps. Up until this point, Waltz with Bashir's cartoon visuals allow the spectator to re-imagine and rediscover images of war, especially those from the Middle East that, after airing on the news every night, have lost their value. So, when Folman cuts to these Dateline videos at the end of the film, the spectator returns from a personalized journey in watching the film back to the images from the news to which, at this point, we've all be desensitized.

Though more egregiously, the videos at the end of Waltz with Bashir attempt to garner support for the film's political agenda by appealing to the emotions of the spectator. The film actually uses pictures of dead, Palestinian babies to manipulate the opinions of its audience. It's quite a decision by the filmmakers, who up until this point resembled Alain Resnais and Richard Linklater.

It reminded me of the end of Brian De Palma's Redacted and the film's near-decision to commit the exact same manipulation. But Redacted is a smarter film. I'm not sure whether it is important to credit Magnolia with this and believe the Hi Mom!-esque controversy over their decision to redact De Palma's images, or whether you should credit De Palma and see the controversy as a scripted "Be Black, Baby" stunt meant to emphasize the film's satire over its politics. The impact of the film's ending carries the same treasure trove of meaning either way. The redaction of the "dead baby" images are the final punchline to Redacted, for it says that even De Palma's film can not exist without some form of censorship. And like the youtube clips that run throughout the film, Redacted's finale is yet another jab at the empty means and empty language with which some people express their politics.

Actually, it's final punchline is Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir, a film Redacted prophetically satirized more than a year in advance.

The Whipped Cream January 2009

Top 5 of the Month

Paul Mazursky's Blume in Love

Roger Vadim's La Curée

Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky

José Luis Guerín's In the City of Sylvia

Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In

ALL FIRST-TIME SCREENINGS
The 3 Penny Opera (1931, Georg Wilhelm Pabst)
4 Devils: Traces of a Lost Film (1928/2003, F.W. Murnau/Janet Bergstrom)
Alex in Wonderland (1970, Paul Mazursky)
Baghead (2008, Jay & Mark Duplass)
Barbarella (1968, Roger Vadim)
Le Beau Serge (1958, Claude Chabrol)
Beware of a Holy Whore (1971, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Blume in Love (1973, Paul Mazursky)
Conversation Piece (1974, Luchino Visconti)
The Cry of the Owl (1987, Claude Chabrol)
La Curée (1966, Roger Vadim)
Destricted (2006, Various)
Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005, Dario Argento)
Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman (1973, Roger Vadim)
An Evening with Kevin Smith (2002, J.M. Kenny)
An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder (2006, J.M. Kenny)
The Gay Divorcee (1934, Mark Sandrich)
Get Smart (2008, Peter Segal)
Good Luck Chuck (2007, Mark Helfrich)
Hamlet 2 (2008, Andrew Fleming)
Happy-Go-Lucky (2008, Mike Leigh)
In Bruges (2008, Martin McDonagh)
In the City of Sylvia (2007, José Luis Guerín)
Leatherheads (2008, George Clooney)
Let the Right One In (2008, Tomas Alfredson)
The Love Guru (2008, Marco Schnabel)
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944, Vincente Minnelli)
Monkey Business (1952, Howard Hawks)
My Winnipeg (2007, Guy Maddin)
Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971, Roger Vadim)
Puffball: The Devil's Eyeball (2007; Nicolas Roeg)
The Reader (2008, Stephen Daldry)
Revolutionary Road (2008, Sam Mendes)
La Ronde (1964, Roger Vadim)
Slumdog Millionaire (2008, Danny Boyle)
Smart People (2008, Noam Murro)
Smile (1975, Michael Ritchie)
Strange Wilderness (2008, Fred Wolf)
The Stranger (1967, Luchino Visconti)
Swing Vote (2008, Joshua Michael Stern)
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970, Jaromil Jires)
Waltz with Bashir (2008; Ari Folman)
Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008, Kevin Smith)