The Screengrab : p.t. anderson

In Other Blogs: The Top 25 L.A. Movies

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

The L.A. Times recently published their list of the 25 Best L.A. Films of the Past 25 Years. Naturally, some of the choices proved controversial (a lot of folks have trouble with the selection of Jackie Brown over Pulp Fiction, for instance), but Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule thinks it’s a decent list. “There were only eight, perhaps nine instances where I felt like the choices could have been replaced, by another film in the director’s filmography, or by another similarly themed film, or just by another movie to replace one that just shouldn't be there at all. For example, I can certainly understand why Boogie Nights is on the list, but it’s ultimately too diffuse and far more conventional than its electric style would suggest. I much prefer P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia (1999), a high-wire act in which Anderson gets more directly in touch with his inner Altman and dashes all concerns over whether anyone’s having a good time or not, planting Old Testament visual clues that subliminally lay the groundwork for that shocking rain of frogs. (And speaking of Altman, while I'm not the biggest fan of The Player, I was far happier to see it representing the great director here rather than the dour and sour Short Cuts.)”

The Toronto International Film Festival kicked off yesterday, and Spoutblog has the scoop on the film Paris Hilton doesn’t want you to see. “Paris Hilton and her team have successfully pressured the Toronto International Film Festival into canceling all but one screening of Adria Petty’s Paris, Not France, a documentary about the celebrity heiress which ‘attempts to explore the Paris phenomenon and how it defines this moment in culture’ and is also ‘modeled after the 1960s it-girl film Darling.’ Though the film’s TIFF info page still lists three public screenings, TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers confirmed to me that Paris will screen only once at the festival. ‘From my standpoint, of course, I wish we could do additional screenings,’ Powers told me in an email. ‘But this is certainly a better option than not showing the film at all.’… As Steven Zeitchik joked when he first blogged about this, ‘the mind dances at what kind of footage can be seen so newly shameful to Paris Hilton, the enfant teribles whose entire reputation is based on shamelesness.’”

Cinematical is also on the scene in Toronto, and they’ve had a look at The Brothers Bloom. “Long awaited in the wake of his 2005 debut Brick, Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom is a magic trick of a film; the second it's over, you want to see it again so you can try to catch how you were tricked, but you also want to see it again so you can return to the joy and wonder of being wrapped up in the nimble, deck-shuffling hands of a born showman. Watching it at first, some of The Brothers Bloom's creative and thematic elements seem like they're on loan from Paul Thomas Anderson (opening narration by Ricky Jay, pop-whiz-bang camera work, the troubled-but-tender relationship between the two brothers) while others feel as if they've been cribbed from Wes Anderson (deadpan confessions, whimsical set design, a parallel-universe setting where people still travel to Europe by steamship). The truth is, as much as The Brothers Bloom may feel like it's cribbing from other films at first, this is Rian Johnson's movie, and even if my more dreary and discerning critical faculties told me the final act goes on, perhaps, a beat too long, my inner moviegoer was sitting bolt upright, smiling, bright-eyed and carried away.”

At Some Came Running, Glenn Kenny makes an interesting connection between Road House and a David Lynch movie. No, not that Road House. “The terrifying physical contrast between the behemoth and a very delicate woman brought to mind a scene from David Lynch's under-appreciated (to my mind, at least) 1992 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. This scene, too, is set in a roadhouse of sorts—the back room of the Bang Bang Bar, which actually, if one line of dialogue is to be believed, is located on the Canadian side of the Canada/U.S. border the structure sits on. As it happens, the road house of Negulsco's film is located near the Canadian border; this turns into a significant plot point once Lily and Pete are trying to escape from the psychotic Jefty, played by Richard Widmark with his then-trademark tetchy intensity… I wonder if Lynch had ever seen Negulsco's film. Some shards of it, it seems, lodged their way into the world of Twin Peaks. The road house as portrayed in the '48 picture is a piece of bygone mid-century Americana that I've always found fascinating—it looks way fun. It's got a bar, a restaurant, a sporting-goods store, and a bowling alley!”

And in List-o-Mania this week, Geekdad weighs in with 10 Movies Needing a Muppet Remake. This guy has put way too much thought into this. “Casablanca - The initial temptation is to cast Kermit as Rick, but I think Kermit is better as the utterly noble Victor Laszlo, with Miss Piggy as Ilsa by his side. Gonzo is much better as Rick, with his internal, and external, conflict between love, revenge, and the right thing to do. Rowlf is Sam, for who else could be? Captain Renault is a tough part to play, but I think Fozzie has the right cavalier attitude for the role.”

Will Ferrell and the Retro Boys

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:00:00 GMT

The Associated Press just got the memo: the 1970s are funny! "Platform shoes, leisure suits, fondue, fro picks. What used to be cool is now the stuff of comedy. When it comes to period comedies, the '70s are the equivalent of Victorian-era costume drama. While serious-minded filmmakers are forever reaching back to the time of royalty clad in waistcoats and dressing gowns, comedians are more likely to cull from the less halcyon days of disco and sideburns."

The AP article runs through the history of Me Decade-based comedy, from movie parodies like I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! to the long-running sitcom That '70s Show to the one movie that really got it right, Dazed and Confused. Not surprisingly, Will Ferrell is singled out as one of the movement's leaders, given his retro roles in Anchorman and now Semi-Pro. "Whenever I look back at old photos and this and that, it just seems like such an alien time," Ferrell said. "The '80s are funny too, and I guess we'll look back and the '90s will be funny too, but the '70s are holding strong."

While we're all waiting for that wave of hilarious '90s-based humor, we might as well point out the obvious reason Ferrell and his cohorts are so fascinated with the '70s: that's when they grew up. (Farrell even confesses "I was so into the bicentennial. No joke. I bought a Liberty Bell necklace that was pewter. It was like a prized possession.") The new issue of Sight and Sound takes a look at Farrell and his somewhat more respectable contemporaries in "Indiewood" or "The Frat Pack" — Wes Anderson, Alexander Payne, Spike Jonze, Paul Thomas Anderson, etc. — and finds the '70s influence alive and well.

"Many of them had emerged from Sundance in the mid-1990s and they shared that elusive 'indie sensibility' even as they moved into studio production; there were rumours that, like the much-mythologised Movie Brats of the 1970s, these guys hung out together. . . The comparison, and the self-consciousness, were almost inevitable since the rebels arrived on the backlot at the peak of 1970s retro — in music and fashion as well as in film culture." The piece goes on to note that Indiewood was influenced not only by the Movie Brats, but MTV and SNL in equal measure, which is where Ferrell comes in. Indeed, the Semi-Pro star finds an unlikely defender in the notoriously prickly David O. Russell, who served as an executive producer on Anchorman: "I am a comedy snob, and Will Ferrell is sublime." We think he means "groovy."

Screengrab Bets The Oscars: Scott’s Picks

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:30:00 GMT

My colleague Mr. Leonard Pierce has thrown down the gauntlet, so now it’s up to me to pick it up and swat him about the face with it. Don’t get me wrong, Leonard is a good friend and well-meaning individual, but he is also a very crazy person with some very crazy Oscar picks. If you want to win your office pool, you need to stick with me.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Here we go by the double nomination rule. There is no chance Cate Blanchett will win for her lead role in Elizabeth II: Electric Boogaloo, so her performance as Bob Dylan…er, excuse me, Jude Quinn should bring home the gold this year.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

There is no safer bet this year than Javier Bardem winning for his chilling turn in No Country for Old Men. Let’s just hope he remembers to thank his hairdresser.

BEST ACTRESS:

I’ve got to be honest, I don’t know anything about Away from Her or Julie Christie’s performance in it. I do know she’s already won a bunch of awards for it, however, and I don’t see any reason for that to change now.

BEST ACTOR:

Daniel Day-Lewis will drink George Clooney’s milkshake! He will drink it up!

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

Atonement is a prestige literary adaptation, but I’m not sensing any momentum (or Atonementum, if you will). There Will Be Blood is adapted from the first part of a book nobody has read. Cormac McCarthy is the big name here, and even if No Country for Old Men isn’t his most acclaimed work, there’s no denying it was adapted about as well as could be imagined; it’s my pick.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

The backlash to the Juno backlash will begin once Diablo Cody takes home this award, followed shortly by the backlash to the backlash backlash.

BEST DIRECTOR:

I don’t see any candidates strong enough to take this one away from the Coens. They look like the grand old men of cinema next to P.T. Anderson, and the remaining nominees are horses ranging from dark (Gilroy) to darkest (Reitman).

BEST PICTURE:

Don’t make me use the term Atonementum again. The big enchilada is going home with No Country for Old Men.