Filmmakers on film: Terence Davies

The Telegraph UK:

The Liverpool-born writer-director discusses Basil Dearden's Victim (1961) with Sheila Johnston

The Dirk Bogarde Web Site

Toby Stephens Interview - The Guardian

Prodigal son

He's been Hamlet, a Bond villain and Mr Rochester; now Toby Stephens returns to the stage to play a drinker. He tells Mark Lawson why it has a painful resonance

Together Again - The LA Times

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are not a bad start...

'Righteous Kill' will give the acting superstars a rare chance to perform together in extended scenes.

A Birthday to Remember

It's the birthday of filmmaker Howard Hawks, born in Goshen, Indiana (1896). He's best known for directing Westerns such as Red River (1948) and Rio Bravo (1959), but he also made the science fiction movie The Thing (1951), the gangster movie Scarface (1932), the screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), and the detective movie The Big Sleep (1946).

He almost always shot scenes at eye level, because, he said, "That's the way a man sees it." He never used camera tricks and he rarely even moved the camera. When asked about his style as a filmmaker, he said, "I just aim ... at the actors."

PBS sets stage for Austen marathon

Los Angeles Times

PBS announced with pride last week that it has a prejudice for Jane Austen.

The non-commercial network said that, beginning in January, it would turn over “Masterpiece Theatre” to a four-month marathon of works by the famed British author: Repeats of 1997’s “Emma,” with Kate Beckinsale, and 1996’s “Pride and Prejudice,” with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, and new productions of “Northanger Abbey,” “Persuasion,” “Mansfield Park” and “Sense and Sensibility.”

Capping what will be presented as “The Complete Jane Austen” is “Miss Austen Regrets,” a drama about the life of the 19th century writer, based on her letters and diaries.

All four of the new Austen adaptations are by Andrew Davies, who also did the earlier two screenplays.

“Presenting Austen’s novels consecutively is a brilliant idea because they reinforce each other – and they’re not too long,” Davies said in a statement released by PBS. “Airing all of Dickens would take five years!”

Starring New York, City of Grit and Glamour

Films made in NYC - The NY Times

New DVD Version - The Third Man

DVD Talk:

The Criterion Collection has been quietly upgrading many of its earlier DVD releases that appeared before enhanced transfers became the standard, and before Criterion adopted fastidious digital clean-up policies. Beauty and the Beast, "M" and The Wages of Fear have all been replaced with vastly improved transfers. The Third Man came out in 1999 in a sharp and clear version that made instant converts to the Criterion way of doing things; now it has been superceded by a beautiful two-disc set with a new transfer and a number of attractive new extras. Savant's review is a revision of his earlier piece from December 3, 1999.

No Country for Old Men - Cannes

A "WOW" review from Todd McCarthy at Variety:

No Country for Old Men

Tense genre filmmaking with rich veins of melancholy, philosophy and dark humor.

A scorching blast of tense genre filmmaking shot through with rich veins of melancholy, down-home philosophy and dark, dark humor, "No Country for Old Men" reps a superior match of source material and filmmaking talent. Cormac McCarthy's bracing and brilliant novel is gold for the Coen brothers, who have handled it respectfully but not slavishly, using its built-in cinematic values while cutting for brevity and infusing it with their own touch. Result is one of the their very best films, a bloody classic of its type destined for acclaim and potentially robust B.O. returns upon release later in the year.

Reduced to its barest bones, the story, set in 1980, is a familiar one of a busted drug deal and the violent wages of one man's misguided attempt to make off with ill-gotten gains. But writing in marvelous Texas vernacular that injected surpassing terseness with gasping velocity, McCarthy created an indelible portrait of a quickly changing American West whose new surge of violence makes the land's 19th century legacy pale in comparison.

For their part, Joel and Ethan Coen, with both credited equally for writing and directing, are back on top of their game after some less than stellar outings. While brandishing the brothers' customary wit and impeccable craftsmanship, pic possess the vitality and invention of top-drawer 1970s American filmmaking, quite an accomplishment these days. It's also got one of cinema's most original and memorable villains in recent memory, never a bad thing in attracting an audience, especially as so audaciously played by Javier Bardem.

Set in rugged, parched West Texas (but filmed in New Mexico) and brilliantly shot by Roger Deakins in tones that resemble shafts of wheat examined in myriad different lights, yarn commences with several startling sequences: A crime suspect (Bardem) turns the tables on his arresting officer, strangles him with his handcuffs, then kills a driver for his car using a stun gun made for slaughtering cattle; in the middle of nowhere, a hunter, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), stumbles across five trucks, several more bullet-ridden corpses, a huge stash of drugs and $2 million in a briefcase, which he impulsively takes. When he returns to the scene of the crime that night, he's shot at by unknown men and chased into a nearby river by a fierce dog before getting away.

Central figures in this tale of pursuit is rounded out by Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), the local county sheriff, who tours the truck crime scene on horseback and in short order gets Moss in his sights, although not as quickly as does Bardem's Anton Chigurh, who is able to tune in to a transponder in the moneybag the unsuspecting Moss has stashed in a heating duct in a local motel.

Death walks hand in hand with Chigurh wherever he goes, unless he decides otherwise. Clearly a killer by profession, the lucid, direct-talking man considers anyone else who crosses his path fair game; if everything you've done in your life has led you to him, he may explain to his about-to-be victims, your time might just have come. "You don't have to do this," the innocent invariably insist to a man whose murderous code dictates otherwise. Occasionally, however, he will allow someone to decide his own fate by coin toss, notably in a tense early scene in an old filling station marbled with nervous humor.

In addition to the pared down dialogue, pic is marked by silences, wind-inflected ones to be found naturally in the empty expanses of the West, as well as breathlessly suspenseful interior interludes, notably an ultra-Hitchcockian sequence in which Moss, aware that Chigurh has tracked him to an old hotel, listens and waits in his room as his hunter comes quietly to his door.

It's amazing how much carnage ensues given that the action essentially focuses upon three men playing cat-and-mouse across a beautiful and brutal landscape. Three guys in the wrong motel room at the wrong time get the treatment from Chigurh, and a cocky intermediary (Woody Harrelson) for the missing money's apparent rightful owner makes the mistake of getting in between the trigger-happy assassin and Moss. And they're far from the only victims in a story that disturbingly portrays the nature of the new violence stemming, in the view advanced here, from the combination of the drug trade and the disintegration of societal mores.

The manner in which the narrative advances is shocking and nearly impossible to predict; viewers who haven't read the best-seller will be gripped by the situations put onscreen and sometimes afraid to see what they fear will happen next. Those familiar with the story will be gratified to behold a terrific novel make the shift in medium managed, for once, with such smarts.

The Coens build a sense of foreboding from the outset without being heavy or pretentious about it. They have consistently worked in the crime genre, of course, beginning with their first film, "Blood Simple," whose seriousness perhaps mostly approximates the tone of this one, although there are overlaps as well with "Miller's Crossing" and "Fargo." But while they have eliminated one especially poignant character from the book in the interests of time, slashed Bell's distinctive philosophical ruminations and perhaps unduly hastened the ending, the brothers have honored McCarthy's serious themes, the integrity of his characters and his essential intentions.

They have also beefed up the laughs, the majority of which stem from the unlikely source of the cold-blooded Chigurh. From the outset, the powerful and commanding Bardem leaves no doubt that Chigurh would just as soon kill you as ask you the time of day. His conversation brooks no nonsense or evasion. But it is the character's utter lack of humor that Bardem and the Coens cleverly offer as the source of the character's humorousness, and the actor makes the most of this approach in a diabolically effective performance.

Jones would practically seem to have been born to play Cormac McCarthy roles, and he proves it here in a quintessential turn as a proud longtime sheriff dismayed by what he sees things coming to. Holding his own in distinguished company after long dwelling in TV and schlock, Brolin gives off young Nick Nolte vibes as an ordinary man who tries to outsmart some big boys in order to get away with the score of his life.

Scottish thesp Kelly Macdonald registers potently as Moss's country wife, while tasty supporting turns are delivered by Harrelson, Stephen Root as the latter character's employer, Rodger Boyce as a sheriff who commiserates with Bell, Barry Corbin as Bell's crusty old uncle, Ana Reeder as a swimming pool floozy who offers Moss some company and Gene Jones as the old fellow Chigurh makes call his own fate.

Deakins' stunning location work and precision framing is joined by Jess Gonchor's production design, the Coens' cutting under their usual pseudonym of Roderick Jaynes, Carter Burwell's discreet score and expert sound work to make "No Country for Old Men" a total visual and aural pleasure.

Variety - Eagle of the Ninth

Director Macdonald lines up 'Eagle' - Film based on Sutcliff's 1954 teen novel

Variety - Together Again

Remember that great restaurant scene in Heat?

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino will team onscreen for just the second time in "Righteous Kill," a $60 million indie production put together by Nu Image's Millennium Films and Emmett/Furla Films.

Shooting will begin Aug. 6 in Connecticut, with some work in Gotham to follow. The two stars play cops chasing a serial killer. Jon Avnet will direct and produce and the script is by "Inside Man" scribe Russell Gewirtz.

Rhet Butler's People

film related - and looks promising...

The NY Times:
It’s taken 12 years, three authors and one rejected manuscript, but tomorrow will be another day when “Rhett Butler’s People,” the second sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind,” is published this fall.

Less a conventional sequel than a retelling from Rhett Butler’s point of view, the new book, to be published by St. Martin’s Press in November, is written by Donald McCaig, a former advertising copywriter turned Virginia sheep farmer who has written well-reviewed novels about the Civil War.

A Loving Look at a Cinematic Tough Guy: Gangster, Hit Man, Gunslinger

The NY Times:

Lee Marvin moved across the screen like a shark coming in for the kill. Long and lean, with shoulders that looked as wide as his hips and hair as silver as a bullet, he seemed built for speed. He roamed across genres, excelling at gangsters and cowboys. Romance was not his thing. He could make you laugh, at times uneasily, but it’s his bad men that stick in your head. They are scary as hell, sometimes seductively so, because their every punch and twist of the knife seems delivered not in the heat of violence but in its chill..... Read more HERE

Blogs reshaping film coverage

Variety:
Thompson on Hollywood -- By ANNE THOMPSON

My name is Anne and I'm a blogger.

Bloggers come in many shapes and sizes. Some are professional journalists. Others are amateur fanboys. A few create original content, but most riff on other people's blogs. (At thompsononhollywood.com, I do both.) Some are erudite and write with charm and brio. Others suck.

But for better or worse, blogs are here to stay. And they're reshaping the coverage of films today. Movie publicity may never be quite the same.

Until very recently, studio information gatekeepers and press agents could to some degree control the flow of information about their movies and clients. They could confirm and deny facts and spin stories to a select list of reporters who played by the accepted rules of engagement that went along with their privileged access.

But the Internet has changed all that.

Early Web leaks and misinformation are giving the PR community headaches.

When something incorrect is posted, it spreads like wildfire. Too many viral postings from too many unfamiliar sources make it impossible for anyone to return calls, much less ferret out the source of the infection.

And then there's the problem of timing. Bloggers typically reveal nuggets of film info -- usually casting announcements -- long before agents and studios are prepared to release the information, often because the deals aren't done.

In October 2004, when LatinoReview.com announced newcomer Brandon Routh as the star of "Superman Returns," it forced Warner Bros. to reluctantly confirm his casting a few days later. And when TMZ.com went full speed ahead and claimed that Emile Hirsch was in talks to star in "Speed Racer," it turned out to be true. Warners was not happy about either breach.

The line between traditional journalism and indie purveyors of buzz continues to blur.

That blogger at TMZ.com, which is owned by Warners' own AOL, doesn't fit the common stereotype of a lonely geek in sweats hunkered in a dark basement staring into a glowing computer screen. In fact, he was a trade reporter who was competing with his ex-colleagues at Variety for scoops. His advantage: as a blogger, he could post his items faster online.

The changing climate has driven daily newsrooms to post breaking news sooner online rather than to wait for their print editions. Even though celebrity-monger TMZ.com has decided to get out of the industry news business and stick to covering the likes of Mel Gibson, Michael Richards and Britney Spears, the cat is out of the bag.

News is breaking so fast that PR departments barely have time to draft a press release. Some studios are considering adopting a less reactive stance. While they already mount elaborate Web sites for their movies and even use on-location blogs to sell such fanboy-oriented pictures as "Superman Returns" and "King Kong," some would like to create their own sites to disseminate breaking news. (Peter Jackson's interactive theonering.net was the template for building a fan community.) That way, publicists could get their news out in a form that sells their message, without having to rely on intermediaries.

Variety broke the news that Shia LaBeouf would star in "Indiana Jones 4," even though George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had refused to confirm it. But when the filmmakers were ready to make their official announcement (on the verge of the opening of LaBeouf's "Disturbia") they posted it on their Web site, IndianaJones.com.

What is a blogger, anyway? It's anyone who posts and updates (usually with daily frequency) a weblog that uses a format provided by such Internet hosts as Blogger, Typepad, Journalspace or Movable Type. The software is so simple that anyone can use the basic templates to instantly post text, photos, videos or music.

Most blogs build a community via comments, links and pings to other media and blogs -- hence their viral power. Once on the Web, thanks to links, tags, key words and such services as Digg, Reddit and Del.ici.ous (which allow members to post and rate stories), news travels faster than the click of a mouse.

That's where the PR headaches come in. Data on the Web starts from one source, whether it's a Web site or a blog; it is then picked up and fanned through the Internet and blogosphere through other blogs and aggregators.

While many people read favorite blogs that speak particularly to them, most folks go directly to established news sources such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today or the Los Angeles Times. And millions turn to online content aggregators such as Drudge Report, Slate, Netscape, MSN, AOL, CNN, Yahoo, Breitbart and the Huffington Post.

On the movie side, aggregator sites that comment and post links to news stories and blog items (some also break news) include aint-it-cool-news.com, EmpireOnline.com, GreenCine Daily (daily.greencine.com), HollywoodWiretap.com, Movies.com, MovieCityNews.com, NetscapeMovies.com and YahooMovies.com. And then there's celeb gadfly Perez Hilton, who's in a category all his own.

Film critic aggregator RottenTomatoes.com offers readers their own blogs and posts plenty of its own content, while Metacritic.com sticks to collecting reviews of movies, music and games.

Major sites such as IGNFilmForce.com, Scifi.com, CartoonBrew.com, DarkHorizons.com, ComingSoon.net and SuperHeroHype.com both aggregate content and post news, whatever its source. They also host blogs full of new info that is taken down if it turns out to be inaccurate. (Once something lives on the Web, though, it's tough to eradicate.)

In the charming writer category, Mark Lisanti spins and comments five days a week for Gawker Media's delightfully gossipy -- and hugely successful -- Defamer.com blog. AOL's sprawling movie fan blog Cinematical.com is constantly refreshed by a score of bloggers who often chase down their own stories. MovieCityNews.com boasts several bloggers, including webmaster David Poland, whose TheHotBlog posts more thumb-sucking analysis than breaking news.

In many ways, Austin-based aint-it-cool-news webmaster Harry Knowles is the prototype of the nonpro geek-at-home fanboy. While not set up as a blog, AICN is both a Web site and aggregator of bloggish postings -- rich with virulent breaking content -- and passionate reader comments.

The studios take full advantage of fan sites and blogs to promote movies. While Knowles was an early studio irritant when he posted reviews from sneak previews, Hollywood learned how to play him. Smart directors like Michael Bay and James Cameron speak directly to their fans through a cordial phone relationship with Knowles. (Some show him early cuts of their films.) And the studios routinely set up interviews and plant original art with AICN's writer-critic Drew McWeeny for such films as "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."

Many media outlets are building online traffic by giving their best-known writers blogs. While fact- and spell-checking is still de rigueur, so are more personal statements of point-of-view and opinion. On a blog, writers can get away with a heartfelt lack of objectivity that they can't inside the strictures of the newsroom. New York Post critic Lou Lumenick is one of a growing number of daily newspaper critics who are reaching out to readers via blogs. Other notables: the Boston Globe's Ty Burr, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Carrie Rickey and the Oregonian's Shawn Levy. (Some ex-print critics have developed their own online followings, including EmanuelLevy.com, HenrySheehan.com and DaveKehr.com.)

New York Magazine and Conde Nast's Portfolio just launched a rash of new culture blogs. New York Times media writer David Carr conducts video interviews for his seasonal Oscar blog, the Carpetbagger, while the Los Angeles Times' the Envelope offers party and awards coverage all year long.

Such kudos bloggers as Oscarwatch.com's Sasha Stone have become factors in the Oscar race, because they are read by younger Academy members as well as the media. DreamWorks has accused outspoken blogger Jeffrey Wells of HollywoodElsewhere.com of dive-bombing Oscar hopeful "Dreamgirls" with his negative postings.

A former trade journalist, freelancer and avid movie buff, Wells runs his independent Web site and blog. His sources are many and his information is (mostly) solid. Wells ekes out a living off the ads the studios buy on his site. They also provide access to screenings, parties and talent. Wells respects studio release date embargoes because if he didn't, he'd lose their invites.

But Wells sounds off when he feels like it, which means that some studios deal with him gingerly. Sony, for one, has taken him off its screening list (for the second time; he enraged a prior studio management team with a debunked story about a disastrous "Last Action Hero" screening).

Wells falls somewhere between enthusiastic fan and dogged film reporter. In other words, he's a blogger.

So is Nikki Finke, another refugee from the journalistic establishment. Her well-read DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com is loosely affiliated with the L.A. Weekly (which publishes her print column), but is owned by Finke. When the studios deal with solo owner-operators such as Poland, Wells or Finke, there is no editor-in-chief or publisher to approach. They are in complete control of their domain. All a movie company can use for leverage is the old threat of withholding advertising -- or access.

While lack of editorial oversight can yield some "facts" that are merely hearsay or opinion, it also brings an often refreshing candor, a freedom of expression and a lack of politesse. With Poland, Wells and Finke's burgeoning readers, some folks in Hollywood are finding it difficult to resist their siren call. They feed them and try to spin them.

They are as much a part of the entertainment community as the rest of us. And be sure of this: More bloggers are on the way.

Lee Marvin Tribute

The Film Society of Lincon Center:

BALLAD OF A SOLDIER: Lee Marvin came home from the war but he never stopped fighting it

Edith Piaf played to perfection

One film I am looking forward to seeing this summer is "La Vie en Rose", the life story of Edith Piaf, who is played by Marion Cotillard. I've seen a seven minute segment of the film online, and even without subtitles I could tell it is a dynamite performance. Everything I've read so far indicates she could possibly be in contention for some major awards this year. The release date in the US is June 8.

From a New York Times article on actors who are on the verge of breaking through to stardom.

Breaking Through

Marion Cotillard Marion Cotillard is 31 but so in demand in her native France that she already has more than that many movies on her résumé. Thanks to the mingy distribution of foreign films here, American audiences probably know Ms. Cotillard, if they know her at all, as Russell Crowe’s spirited Provençal love interest in “A Good Year” or the beautiful war widow hellbent on payback in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Very Long Engagement.” Those roles hint at Ms. Cotillard’s range, but nothing she has done before comes close to the daunting complexity of her work as the French singer Édith Piaf in Olivier Dahan’s biopic, “La Vie en Rose” (June 8).

Ms. Cotillard is on screen for most of the movie’s 140 minutes, and no matter how big and fierce her performance becomes, it never feels less than real. It’s such a scarifying portrait of a brilliant, destructive woman that the scenes onstage, in which she simply stands and sings (she’s a master lip-syncer) come as a relief. As Mr. Dahan tells it and Ms. Cotillard plays it, the tiny woman with the deep, throbbing voice who was called the Little Sparrow is so eaten by addiction and the traumas of her harsh early life that in success she’s often a monster, abusing friends and colleagues with such lacerating force she makes you want to duck.

Ms. Cotillard’s performance is a tour de force of transformation, physically and otherwise, and not just one but many, some occurring in a single scene. Yet for all the sturm und drang in between, what remains most memorable is the first time we see her and the last.

Here her portrayal begins with Piaf as a young street singer, rude, crude and too fond of a drink, but molten gold pours from her throat and her vitality leaps off the screen. Hunched forward with elbows out, Ms. Cotillard bustles through traffic with such gleeful purpose that you feel like following her to the bar. It ends in 1963 with Piaf’s death from cancer at 47, so frail and worn she looks 70. Courtesy of the makeup department her skin is chalky and her hair a ruined cloud of unconvincing red; but it’s Ms. Cotillard who captures both the drastic negation of death and the busy inwardness of it. In her last hours, her mind fumbling restlessly at memories, her life leaching away, she’s deeply absorbed, already out of reach.

Christine Falls

I wish I had the ear of top notch producers and screen writers. The John Banville/writing as Benjamin Black novel Christine Falls would be a perfect starring vehicle for some lucky actor.

True Confessions

The 1981 film True Confessions is now available on NTSC DVD. Get it if you can. I had forgotten how brilliant Duvall and De Niro were - and of course, the screenplay written by the novel's author John Gregory Dunne and his wife Joan Didion. The supporting cast of wonderful character actors made the film even more memorable.

The Mercury Theater

A great find:

The Mercury Theater radio shows available to download. This was Orson Welles's baby when he was still in New York.

I found this link through MCN at The Chicago Reader Blog. There are lots of others there too.