The Screengrab : no reservations

Trailer Review: Julie & Julia

Paul Clark — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:00:00 GMT

The “food movie” has been around for years, but it seems like Hollywood has been making more and more of them ever since the Food Network’s popularity went through the roof. Part of this is no doubt due to the fact that we can’t all be gourmet chefs, but the great majority of us have put in time in the kitchen, and we all know the feeling that comes from cooking and/or eating a good meal. Food is a kind of common cultural currency, and that seems to be the central theme of Julie and Julia, which despite my general lack of interest in Nora Ephron films has me intrigued. Sure, there’s plenty of Ephron-style girl talk, but the central idea of the film- that struggling career woman Julie Powell (Amy Adams) forms a bond with the late, great Julia Child (Meryl Streep, staking her claim for nomination #16) by cooking her way through her famous cookbook- is a fairly unconventional idea for a film, especially since it’s impossible that the two will meet. I’m not exactly expecting this to be Big Night or Babette’s Feast in the food movie department, but as long as it’s better than No Reservations that’ll be good enough for me.

Cannes 2008: Meet the Jury!

Paul Clark — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Yesterday, The Screengrab was the 152nd blog on the web to post the Competition slate for next month's Cannes Film Festival. But before you start predicting the winners sight unseen, we suggest you get to know the members of the Competition jury. That way you'll know whose names to curse when your favorite filmmaker gets smoked by some little-known furriner whose name you can't pronounce.

This year's Cannes Competition Jury:

Sean Penn (Jury President) is a filmmaker of some note, directing four films since his 1990 debut, The Indian Runner. His most recent film is the memorably Oscar-snubbed Into the Wild. When not behind the camera, Penn is also known for his political and charitable work, which has taken him to Iran and to the post-Katrina New Orleans. Penn has also been known to act on occasion.

Sergio Castellitto has appeared in several films in Competition, including 2001's Va Savoir and 2002's The Religion Hour (My Mother's Smile). Once referred to by Screengrab favorite Mike D'Angelo as "maybe the most underrated thesp alive," he also starred in the popular Mostly Martha, better known as No Reservations, Except Good. Castellitto has also directed two features, including the 2004 film Don't Move, in which he exercised his director's clout in order to give himself several love scenes with Penelope Cruz.

Natalie Hershlag, alternately known as Natalie Portman, made her big-screen debut at age 13 in Luc Besson's The Professional, sometimes referred to as Léon by various talkbackers on Ain't It Cool News. Since that time, she has become one of the most sought-after actresses of her generation, particularly among horny fanboys who despair that she will never get completely naked onscreen. Hershlag is set to make her directorial debut in this year's omnibus film New York, I Love You, where her short film will appear alongside new works by such acclaimed filmmakers as Brett Ratner and Scarlett Johansson. She also wants you to know that the Shins will totally change your life.

Alfonso Cuaron first gained international critical attention with his 1995 film A Little Princess, and subsequent films like Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children of Men have proven him a formidable talent (he also allegedly made a low-budget adaptation of a little-known English fantasy novel, but no one knows what became of this). In 2006, his high-profile friendship with fellow Mexican filmmakers Guillermo Del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu let to the trio briefly becoming known as "The Three Amigos" for several months before they were sued by Chevy Chase, Martin Short and Steve Martin.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul has such a long name that I run the risk of hitting my character limit simply by typing it. Luckily for me, he prefers to simply be called "Joe." Joe has garnered widespread critical acclaim for his whimsical, magical-realist films, which include Mysterious Object at Noon, Blissfully Yours, and Syndromes and a Century. His 2004 film Tropical Malady won the Jury Prize at Cannes, and Roger Ebert called the film "a meditation on portentous but incoherent themes." By which we're guessing he meant "awesome."

Alexandra Maria Lara, a ravishing Romanian who moved to Germany at age 4, made her movie debut at 16. However, the role that brought her international acclaim came in 2004's Downfall, in which she portrayed Hitler's personal secretary Traudl Junge. Since then, she costarred in Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth and in last year's Ian Curtis biopic Control, where she met current boyfriend Sam Riley (isn't that cute?). Lara will next appear in Stephen Daldry's The Reader, as well as taking a supporting role in Spike Lee's WWII drama Miracle at St. Anna, a role you won't find out about by looking her up on IMDb.

Rachid Bouchareb is a French director-producer who last appeared at Cannes with his 2006 drama Days of Glory. In addition to his own films, he has also produced the work of numerous other filmmakers, including all four features to date by Bruno Dumont. Sorry, I have nothing humorous to say about this guy.

So there you have it. Seven jury members, down from nine last year. How will they vote? Will Penn insist on a political bent, or at least something appeals to his artier side? Will Cuaron stump for his fellow Latin Americans? Which Bouchareb will show up- the one who directed the rousing WW2 or the guy who produces Bruno Dumont movies? Will Joe gravitate to fellow talking-primate lover Charlie Kaufman? Will the paparazzi devote most of their attention to Portman and Lara (yes, they will)? Let the blind prognosticating commence in 5, 4, 3...

DVD Digest for March 4, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:00:00 GMT

After last week's release of the mammoth Criterion four-disc set of The Last Emperor, it was sort of inevitable that this week would be something of a letdown. Still, this week has a number of worthy releases it can call its own.

DVD of the Week: One of the most thought-provoking documentaries of 2007, Amir Bar-Lev's My Kid Could Paint That (Sony) tells the story of little Marla Olmstead, a four-year-old girl whose paintings won her acclaim as a modern-art prodigy until a segment on 60 Minutes II cast doubt on her authorship of the works. What began as a human-interest story about a little girl who enjoyed painting and turned out to be surprisingly good at it becomes a hornet's nest of issues — everything from how much of the value of art comes from the story behind it to the concept of modern art itself. Most relevantly, Bar-Lev takes the role of the media in building people up only to tear them down again, even addressing his own complicity in this process. Most impressively, the film does all this — and more besides — all in the course of eighty-three minutes. Also included on the DVD are an audio commentary with the director as well as several documentaries, one about the film, and the other featuring an interview with New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman. A must-see for anyone interested in art or documentary filmmaking.

Other new releases coming to DVD this week include: Sean Penn's Oscar-snubbed Into the Wild (Paramount); Zack Helm's Roald Dahl ripoff homage Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (Fox); Susanne Bier's melodrama Things We Lost in the Fire (Dreamworks), which boasts a fine Benicio Del Toro lead performance; and of course Steven Seagal's latest direct-to-DVD release, Pistol Whipped (Sony). Keep your eyes peeled to Vern's site for his no doubt imminent review. Also, for anime fans, this week brings the R1 release of the Japanese animated series Blood+ Part 1 (Sony), comprising the first twenty-five episodes of the series, as well as Blood+ Volume 1 (Sony), which only includes the first five episodes.

On the classics front, the most notable release is TCM Archives: Forbidden Hollywood Volume 2, a three-disc set that includes five pre-Code classics — The Divorcee (1929), A Free Soul (1931), Three on a Match (1932), Female (1933), and Night Nurse (1931) — accompanied by a new TCM documentary about pre-Code Hollywood. This week also sees the release of new editions of 101 Dalmatians (Disney), 12 Angry Men (MGM), and Mrs. Doubtfire (Fox), as well as Magnum P.I. Season 8 (Universal), and Blu-Ray-only releases of Ice Age (Fox) and 2002's The Rookie (Disney).

Finally, back by popular demand is this week's Huddleston Corner, in which we spotlight films being released in the soon-to-be-defunct HD-DVD format. This week's new HD releases:
Into the Wild (Paramount)
No Reservations (Warner)
Things We Lost in the Fire (Dreamworks)

Condolences!

DVD Digest for February 12, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week, one of 2007's best films comes to DVD, and a master's musicals get the box-set treatment.

DVD of the Week: Most of the most beloved films of Ernst Lubitsch's career come from its final years, when the Lubitsch touch had already become well-established. But it's easy to forget that the master had already had a fruitful career long before Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not to Be. With the films included in this box set, Lubitsch was one of the first filmmakers to integrate song and narrative after the advent of talkies. But this would mean little today if the films themselves didn't hold up, and they do, with all of Lubitsch's trademark charm and Pre-Code sophistication. Eclipse has given their typical treatment (no extras, but lovely transfers) to the films The Love Parade, Monte Carlo, One Hour With You, and The Smiling Lieutenant, which boast some of the era's quintessential stars — Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert, and Jeannette MacDonald. As always, Eclipse and parent company Criterion succeed in filling in another hole in cinema history.

Incidentally, today is my birthday, so if anyone out there is looking for a suitable gift, you could do a whole lot worse than this.

A bumper crop of more recent films being released on DVD this week, including: Ben Affleck's surprisingly great Gone Baby Gone (Buena Vista, also Blu-Ray); James Gray's searing crime drama We Own the Night; Becoming Jane (Buena Vista, also Blu-Ray), the second Austen-themed dramedy in as many weeks; John Cusack in The Martian Child (New Line); No Reservations (Warner, also Blu-Ray), the Catherine Zeta-Jones-starring remake of 2001's Mostly Martha; Tyler Perry's latest hit, Why Did I Get Married? (Lionsgate); the Apollo-mission documentary In the Shadow of the Moon (ThinkFilm); and John Turturro's polarizing star-studded quasi-musical, Romance and Cigarettes (Sony). In addition, this week finally sees the DVD release of Amy Heckerling's long-delayed I Could Never Be Your Woman (Genius Entertainment), starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Paul Rudd, and Atonement Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan. If nothing else, now we can see what all the fuss was about.

Back to classics, this week also brings Sony's The Stanley Kramer Film Collection, a collection of five films Kramer directed and/or produced. The centerpiece of the set is a new 40th Anniversary Edition of Kramer's once-controversial interracial-marriage drama Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Also in the set is the Kramer-directed Ship of Fools, as well as The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, A Member of the Wedding, and The Wild One, all of which he produced.

Other older films coming to DVD include: The Joan Crawford Collection Volume 2 (Warner), which includes Sadie McKee, Strange Cargo, A Woman's Face, Flamingo Road, and Torch Song; Fox's Charlie Chan Collection Volume 4; and Kenneth Branagh's 1991 dramedy Peter's Friends (MGM), boasting an enviable cast, including Branagh, then-wife Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and Imelda Staunton. For some reason, MGM has seen fit to package the film in a box set alongside the misguided Elmore Leonard/Paul Schrader satire Touch, the 1988 Patrick Dempsey-Jennifer Connelly vehicle Some Girls, and Scott Baio and Willie Aames in Zapped! Strange bedfellows indeed.

Finally, if you're jonesing for TV on DVD, this week sees the release of season 1 of The Equalizer (Universal), as well as the Vern-approved Blade: the Series (New Line). But fear not — only one more week until the release of Walker, Texas Ranger: The Complete Fourth Season, the rare DVD that can be enjoyed by both Chuck Norris fans and Conan O'Brien watchers.