The Screengrab : rocknrolla

A Solitary Man: "Bronson"

Phil Nugent — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:45:00 GMT

The new British film Bronson is about a man named Charles Bronson, but it's not a biopic about the star of Death Wish; it's about a 56-year-old former bareknuckle boxer and convicted armed robber (born Michael Gordon Peterson, before he is said to have been renamed by a boxing promoter) who has spent some thirty-four years in prison, thirty of which he's spent in solitary confinement. (Since 1974, he's spent a total of four months out of prison.) Part of what sets Bronson apart from other celebrity criminals is that his fearsome reputation is based not on any reign of terror he conducted in society at large but on his behavior as a prisoner; his relatively brief stretch of time behind bars and outside solitary confinement was a three-ring circus of violent protests, hostage takings, and physical attacks on guards and fellow prisoners. (In the movie, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival, he is played by Tom Hardy, who appeared in Guy Ritchie's recent film RocknRolla)An inside view is provided by Erwin James, who writes in the Guardian, "During my own 20-year prison journey I crossed paths with Bronson on a number of occasions, though we never met face to face. His time was spent mostly in punishment blocks, segregation units, close supervision centres - or in the back of prison vans on the way from one prison to another, always accompanied by at least six prison officers in riot gear. The closest we came to meeting was when I was moved to Long Lartin high-security prison, near Evesham in Worcestershire. Some days before I landed, Bronson had run amok on one of the landings. Naked, blacked-up, wearing only a bandana around his head and wielding a spear, he had single-handedly taken control of most of the wing... The carnage he had caused was in evidence all around. They put me in his old cell; it was surprisingly clean. To be honest, I was glad he had been moved. Doing serious time, trying to make sense of the system, the culture of aggression, and acceptance of failure is hard enough without having to cope with demented and unpredictable neighbours going berserk. A prison officer once said to me, regarding one high-security prison: 'It would be great here if it wasn't for the cons.' He wasn't making a joke."

Bronson is a notorious figure in England, and the BBC reports that the movie has come under protests by prison officials and others as a glorification of a violent menace. "We should not be glorifying this type of behaviour," say Colin Moses, national chairman of the Prison Officers' Association. "This man has spent the best part of his life behind bars for causing harm to people. He has caused trauma to hard-working, law-abiding people who will never work again. Bronson is not a victim, he is the perpetrator." As it happens, the movie is due to be released on March 13, which means that its ad campaign overlaps with Bronson's next appearance before the parole board, on March 11. No doubt the timing will do him a hell of a favor.

DVD Digest for January 27, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

This week, a whole bunch of late-summer/early-fall releases are coming on DVD to help soothe the midwinter moviegoing blues.

Of this week’s bumper crop of recent theatrical releases coming to DVD, the most noteworthy is Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Genius Products, also Blu-Ray), which became the Woodman’s biggest hit in years due in no small part to the promise of hot Penelope Cruz-on-Scarlett Johansson action. That it was also a welcome change of scenery for the filmmaker- shooting for the first time in Spain- helped matters somewhat as well. It’s definitely worth a look if you haven’t seen it yet- come for the sexy stuff, stay for the memorable performances by Oscar nominee Cruz, Javier Bardem playing a character 180 degrees removed from his Anton Chigurh, and the ever-dependable Rebecca Hall.

Also this week, Warner unleashes the cops’n’robbers trifecta of Edward Norton and Colin Farrell in Pride and Glory (also Blu-Ray), Neil LaBute’s Lakeview Terrace (also Blu-Ray), and Guy Ritchie’s Rocknrolla (also Blu-Ray). Other releases include: Rainn Wilson in The Rocker (Fox, also Blu-Ray); Kirk Cameron’s inspirational melodrama Fireproof (Sony), the Iraq War drama The Lucky Ones (Lionsgate); Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (Image), a docuymentary about the filmmaker’s controversial court case; the French thriller Tell No One (MPI); the babes-and-binge-drinking comedy College (Fox); and a pair of direct-to-DVD animated releases, Hulk Vs. (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray) and Open Season 2 (Sony, also Blu-Ray).

This week’s selection of classics coming to DVD is highlighted by MGM’s The Pink Panther Film Collection (MGM), which includes all of the films including a new pressing of the original, also available in separately as The Pink Panther (1963) Collector’s Edition (MGM, also Blu-Ray). There’s also The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection (MGM), a nine-disc set of the televised Pink Panther shorts. All of this Pink Panther news might be happier if it didn’t portend the release of the second crappy remake starring Steve Martin, but what can you do. Also this week: Mary Poppins 45th Anniversary Edition (Disney).

Finally, the big Blu-Ray only news this week is the release of Universal’s The Bourne Collection, which includes all three theatrical features (sorry, no Richard Chamberlain TV movie), along with a raft of extras. Also this week: Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday Director’s Cut (Warner), the college band drama Drumline Special Edition (Fox), and the annual release of Groundhog Day (Sony).

Andrew Osborne's Top Ten Movies of 2008 (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:46:00 GMT

6. THE WACKNESS

Thoughtful, well-made coming-of-age stories are usually popular, and weed has been making a cinematic comeback lately, so I’m not exactly sure why The Wackness in general and Josh Peck’s charming turn as wistful pot dealer Luke Shapiro didn’t make more of a splash in 2008. Writer/director Jonathan Levine’s evocation of Manhattan circa 1994 feels as specific and lived-in as Ben Braddock’s Pasadena or Lloyd Dobler’s Washington suburb, and it’s hard to think of a better first-love interest than Olivia Thirlby. I posted a full review of the movie back in June when it first charmed me at the Provincetown Film Festival, so rather than repeat all that praise, I’ll just paraphrase Thirlby’s character and say the film wound up on my Top Ten because, in a difficult year, it reminded me to look at the dopeness and not just the wackness.

7. FULL BATTLE RATTLE

Full Battle Rattle is a documentary by Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber about a simulated Iraqi province in California’s Mojave desert, populated by Iraqi-American citizens and U.S. Army “insurgents” in a full-immersion training scenario where soldiers practice both their combat and diplomacy skills before heading off to the real war in Iraq. At first, it’s funny to watch battles interrupted by visits from the ice cream man as the military combines role-playing and stagecraft to create what seems like a strange, gorey theme park or game show (complete with graphically wounded mannequin “casualties,” designed to prepare fledgling medics for the realities of war). But it’s those harsh realities waiting for the participants beyond all the play-acting that provide the film with its emotional core, as we come to know the various players, including an Iraqi immigrant terrified of being deported and an American combat vet who admits, tellingly, that after returning from a tour of duty, it takes him several days to start viewing his Iraqi colleagues as people again (as opposed to potential enemies). By the time the simulation ends and the soldiers we’ve come to know say goodbye to their families and ship out to an uncertain future, the lady next to me in the movie theater was openly weeping, and there seemed to be something in my eye as well.

8. IRON MAN

I’ve gone on record about my utter bafflement over the messianic fervor surrounding The Dark Knight, a good but occasionally clunky superhero movie featuring an entertaining performance by a talented actor who died far too young. But I still don’t see why Heath Ledger’s Brad Dourif-ian performance as The Joker is considered groundbreaking or revelatory: compare its evocation of evil to Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet and then get back to me. And I’m still not really sure why Batman’s deliberations over civil liberties vs. public safety are especially more profound than Iron Man’s growing awareness of the consequences of war profiteering, except that Jon Favreau’s comic book adaptation takes itself far less seriously while delivering its tightly paced (but not over-written) action payload. Robert Downey Jr.’s performance is nowhere near as flashy or iconic as Ledger’s, of course – a typical downside of playing the good guy – but it’s miles ahead of Christian Bale’s stiff-in-a-suit Caped Crusader. Downey is fun and fascinating to watch, infusing a potentially one-dimensional role with the gravity and humanity of hard-won experience, as well as the humility of a man all too aware he could very easily have shared Ledger’s fate.

9. IN BRUGES

Who is this incredibly engaging, charismatic actor named Colin Farrell, and why haven’t I seen him on the big screen before now? Oh, sure, I’m familiar with his doppelganger: that brooding, constipated Irish guy with the same name who kept threatening to be the next big thing for several years, but never quite arrived thanks to performances in a succession of mezzo-mezzo movies that never quite connected with audiences. But the Farrell who plays the guilt-ridden hit man Ray in Martin McDonagh’s funny, suspenseful crime drama In Bruges is a true movie star, well-paired with Brendan Gleeson as the soulful mentor waiting for the other shoe to drop in the titular Belgian town after a botched assignment brings down the wrath of crime boss Ralph Fiennes (who likewise has never been quite so compelling on screen). The beautiful but claustrophobic confines of the distinctive setting and the pervasive undertow of regret gives Bruges a richer flavor than, say, a fun but ultimately disposable Guy Ritchie offering like RockNRolla, even if McDonagh’s film isn’t ultimately all that much more than the sum of its high quality parts.

10. VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

Until three seconds ago, I was planning to include Slumdog Millionaire in the final slot of this list, if only for the energy and scope of Danny Boyle’s storytelling mojo. But as I started to think and write about it, I realized the film as a whole simply left me cold. On the other hand, there was no lack of heat in Woody Allen’s latest comeback film, which is possibly why I have warmer memories of it. Penelope Cruz's performance as the hot-blooded trois in the ménage between Scarlett Johansson’s feckless American tourist and Javier Bardem’s Spanish art stud is probably better than the movie itself, but Allen still has some interesting things to say about the chimerical nature of love, the conflicting desires of the brain, heart and libido and the way smart people consistently outsmart themselves by refusing to acknowledge what they really want, even when they somehow manage to find it. (And, of course, the fact the movie unfolds against a backdrop of gorgeous Spanish locations doesn’t hurt, either.)

Honorable Mention: Wellness, Goliath, Turn the River, American Teen, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, Tell No One, Ghost Town, Burn After Reading, The Bank Job, RockNRolla, Role Models, Quantum of Solace, Slumdog Millionaire, Doubt

Worst Movies I Actually Saw:
Patti Smith: Dream of Life, Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, What Just Happened?

Worst Movie I Didn’t See:
An American Carol

Most Overrated:
The Dark Knight (see above)

Most Overcriticized:
The Happening

Respected More Than Liked:
Synechdoche

TOP TV:
The Wire
Mad Men
The Amazing Race
The Daily Show & The Colbert Report
Survivor: Micronesia & Gabon
Breaking Bad
The Soup
Everybody Hates Chris
Recount
Generation Kill
Project Runway
True Blood

2008 SOUNDTRACK
“No One” – Alicia Keyes
“Pretty Blue” – Moonflower
“Paper Planes” – M.I.A.
“Wichita Lineman” – Glen Campbell
“Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” – Beyonce
“Sex Changes” – The Dresden Dolls
“Shoot the Runner” – Kasabian
“Still Alive” – GLaDOS
“Sax Rohmer, Pt. 1” – The Mountain Goats
“M79” – Vampire Weekend
“I Am Commando” – The NorthAtom
“I’m Good. I’m Gone” – Lykke Li
“Belleville Rendezvous” – The Triplets of Belleville (Soundtrack)
“Happy Days Are Here Again” – Barbara Streisand

Click Here For Part One

Guy Ritchie Goes Gay (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That)

Andrew Osborne — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

So, as cool as Obama’s victory was, California’s decision to enshrine anti-gay discrimination in its freakin’ constitution was a definite buzzkill for progressives (not to mention George Takei)...

...but the gay community (and the breeders who love them) can take heart that at least one former homophobe is doing his best to become a card-carrying Friend of Dorothy.

I speak, of course, of fake badass Guy Ritchie, a man whose “pride in his own heterosexuality swells noticeably when he’s in the presence of a gay man” like Christopher Ciccone, who noted the director’s off-putting fondness for “poofter” jokes in his tell-all dish-ography Life With My Sister Madonna.

And yet, after years of sex with the mannish, muscular Material Girl (which he famously described as “cuddling up to a piece of gristle”), Ritchie seems to have developed a bit more sympathy for the gay (and, perhaps, transgendered) community...so much so that he actually included a sympathetic homosexual character (in addition to the usual subconscious homoerotic subtext) in his latest film, RockNRolla, wherein small-time hoodlum Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy) comes out of the closet and his mate One Two (Gerard Butler) gets all weird about it ‘til he discovers his other mates already know and don’t really give a shit.

“I think it’s just an issue that I’m trying to get over,” Richie admitted in a recent interview, adding that he’s “coming to grips with his sexuality” now that it looks like he may finally get to have enjoyable sex again with new girlfriend Kelly Reilly, star of his upcoming film Sherlock Holmes.

So that’s one British homophobe down, 5,387,939 ignorant California voters to go!

Related Stories:
Trailer Review: RockNRolla
Embattled Guy Ritchie “Caught Up in the Zeitgeist of Slaggery”

Morning Deal Report: Joaquin Phoenix Bids Adieu

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

With Halloween falling on a Friday this year, you’d think those savvy Hollywood moguls would have lined up the scary movies in order to capitalize. But unless your idea of terror is Seth Rogen humping Elizabeth Banks (and it may well be), that didn’t happen. Consquently, High School Musical 3: Senior Year retained its hold on the top spot, adding $15 million to its total haul of $61.8 million. This means we can look forward to either College Musical or High School Musical 4: We All Flunked! Zack and Miri Make a Porno took second place with $10.7 million, while the one horror holdover from last week, Saw V, finished third with $10.1 million. Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla failed to rock, taking in a dismal $1.8 million in its first weekend of wide release.

We doubted it would ever happen, but shooting has started on the sequel to Boondock Saints in Toronto. “Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus are reprising their roles as the crusading fraternal twins Connor and Murphy MacManus, who seek revenge on the tough Boston underworld. Billy Connolly is also returning as Poppa M,” per The Hollywood Reporter. And yes, enfant really, really terrible Troy Duffy is back in the director’s chair. Overnight II, anyone?

And from the “get that man a urine test” file, Joaquin Phoenix has announced his retirement from acting. Per Variety, “The words ‘Good Bye’ were penned on the actor's knuckles at a premiere Saturday night for his latest film, Two Lovers, and Phoenix confirmed a surprise announcement he made last week: He's giving up movies.” Phoenix will now concentrate on his music career. I’ve got summer 2011 in the Screengrab comeback pool.

Related:
Screengrab Review: "Zack and Miri Make a Porno"
Vanishing Act: Troy Duffy

Insufficiently Forgotten Films: "Swept Away" (2002)

Phil Nugent — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Here at the Screengrab, we have an irregularly scheduled feature known as "Forgotten Films", which we use to discuss beloved, or at least interesting, movies that seem to have fallen through the cracks of moviegoers' memories. But what about those films that, while deservedly forgotten, will never be forgotten enough for some people's liking? Films that, in addition to sucking like a Hoover and a half, can only serve to represent the sore spots that their makers would much, much rather they'd never booked into theaters and charged admission? To inaugurate what we suspect will be an even more irregularly scheduled feature devoted to these very special films, today we exhume Guy Ritchie's Swept Away.

THE MOVIE: The British writer-director's third feature is a remake of Lina Wertmuller's 1974 cocktail-chatter classic (whose full title is Swept Away...by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August), with Ritchie's wife, Madonna, and the Italian actor Adriano Giannini taking over the roles originated by the luscious comedienne Mariangelo Melato and Wertmuller's favorite leading man (and Adriano's father) Giancarlo Giannini. Madonna is an obnoxious, motor-mouthed rich bitch--excuse the sexist characteriation, but in both the original film and the remake, that's very much the idea--whose rich tycoon husband (Bruce Greenwood) has plunked her down on a yacht touring the Mediterranean. The ship's fisherman (Giannini) takes exception to her non-stop prattling, her hateful attitude, and her politics, and when, through an outrageously contrived quirk of circumstance, they wind up stranded together on a deserted island, where her money counts for nothing and she is dependent on his manly survivor skills, he takes full advantage of the tables having been turned. Their new relationship begins with him whacking her repeatedly in the face and quickly blossoms into a heated love affair. But then they are rescued, and the movie dares to ask: can the crazed-rutting-weasels romance between a rich dame and a working-class stud survive the artificial pressures that society will thrown up against it?

WHY IT DESERVES TO BE FORGOTTEN: Swept Away would have looked pretty strange even to a visitor from Mars, but to understand it at all, one has to have seen Lina Wertmuller's version, so that at least one can understand how the elements worked in the original conception and how they've been watered-down in this "reimagining." This is not meant as an actual endorsement of Wertmuller's movie, which is shrill and simplistic and rather badly made. But she enjoyed a brief, intense vogue in the mid-70s because she was prepared to play with fire onscreen, politically, emotionally, and sexually. Even though it was made by a woman, the original Swept Away... is a rape fantasy, with a veneer of political commentary. Giancarlo Giannini's character, a self-declared Communist who more than kept up with his capitalist debating partner in the gasbag department, didn't just belt Melato around, he commenced their "affair" by taking her by force. She in turn, was so grateful to him for using his superior physical strength to make a real woman of her that when he woke up, he found that she had gathered wild flowers and used them to decorate his genitals. Wertmuller was able to sell this to a chic, intellectual film audience by first establishing that Melato's character represented the bourgeoisie and Giannini was the embodiment of the poor laboring class on whose throat she had her foot. So their time on the island can be "interpreted" not as a man enslaving a woman, who discovers that she loves being submissive to him, but as the working class punishing the moneyed classes, who are forced to admit that they had it coming to them. (In one interview, Wertmuller went so far as to respond to the charge of misogyny by insisting that Melato's character was "really a man." I know all there is to know about the crying game, and this is ridiculous.) As to the question of whether the affair can survive outside the island, Wertmuller answered that one with a resounding "No." Once the two are rescued and return to Italy, the spell is broken and the woman cannot resist returning to the life of privilege that excludes the honest working stiff with a copy of Das Kapital in his back pocket and a necklace of posies on his prick.

As you might expect, Ritchie was a lot less interested in seeing how long he could keep his audience glued to their seats with an action-packed debate about the role of the masses in capitalist society. And in 2002, the pro-Communist blather would have had people staring blankly at the screen, wondering if they had a brain tumor that had just suddenly kicked in. (Even Wertmuller, with her mean joker's temperament, wasn't sure how to treat this stuff in the original, appearing sympathetic to the Giannini character's views but treating the man himself as a coarse boob.) There is a token effort made to engage the issues of class warfare, but it's kept pretty much on the level of Madonna mewling, "If you ask me, [capitalism]'s a lot better than Communism." One side effect of this is that the scenes in which the bitch takes evident pleasure in humiliating and insulting the thug, which in the original were meant to be sexually charged demonstrations of Marx in action, look more like outtakes from Body of Evidence, the S & M courtroom thriller in which Madonna's black widow-dominatrix character tried to fuck Frank Langella to death and applied hot wax to the cadaverous chest of Willem Dafoe. Although Ritchie's name is on the picture, Madonna's influence seems strong, and as with everything else she's ever done, the message seems to be that the best way to address anything--the class system, gender warfare, surviving on a desert island--is to dig a hole in the sand and settle in for a good screw. Neither she nor Giannini gives any evidence here of being able to act a lick--although she's uncharacteristically convincing when she gets to express gratitude to him for dominating her, a T.M.I. moment that just makes the viewer uncomfortable. (Let's not even get started on the fact that her character, "Amber Leighton", is reportedly named for Ritchie's mum.) Much of the film just looks a lot like every music video in which Madonna has justified her love to some surly-looking, unshaven hunk with tight abs and no personality. The relationship is all about sex now, and it's less nasty than in the original--their first sex in the remake is consensual--but that only serves to make it all seem that much more insipid. So does the ending, where the big factor keeping the two of them apart in civilization is her husband, not her feelings.

WHY IT COULDN'T POSSIBLY EVER BE FORGOTTEN ENOUGH: In case you haven't heard--hey, seriously, presidential election, Wall Street bailout, season finale of Project Runway, there's been a lot going on--Madonna and Guy Ritchie's divorce plans hit the wires yesterday. They were married for eight years, during which time her career remained basically stable and his sank from the weight of four failed follow-ups to his 1999 debut feature Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. (I am, perhaps a bit presumptively, including his latest, RocknRolla, which premiered last week to muffled cries of, "Jesus, this fast-cutting British gangster shit again!?" Madonna's directorial debut, which bears the disarmingly on-the-nose title Filth and Wisdom, joins it in theaters this weekend.) Swept Away, their major collaboration not counting their son Rocco, is the most obvious cultural by-product of their union, and for vultures looking for clues as to the nature of their marriage and the reasons for its failure to endure, it is a gold mine. It's tempting to guess from what's on the screen that Madonna was the big instigator in the decision to remake a "controversial", once-hot property that she probably remembered reading about when she was a youngster already dreaming about making scandalous entertainment for the big city sophisticates, and that Ritchie got dragged along for the ride without ever finding a way to tie it in with what he's good at as a filmmaker: he's a one-trick pony, but he's not an untalented pony. Madonna, on the other hand, is a self-styled multimedia player whose instincts regarding movies haven't played her right since Desperately Seeking Susan. If what she really did want in a husband was a powerful dominating figure who could go toe to toe with her as an equal, it was an early sign that the marriage was doomed as soon as Ritchie signed on to direct her in a project that he never would have picked out for himself and whose likely failure was compounded by the fact that she didn't really understand it herself. On the other hand, she provides the movie's liveliest moment when, backed up by an on-screen mambo orchestra, she dances in the sand while wearing a canary-yellow dress and lip-synching to Rosemary Clooney singing, "Come on-a My House." It's a "fantasy" sequence, which here as in 99 out of a hundred other similar cases is code for, "This doesn't fit but we just wanted to do it." It doesn't belong in the movie it's a part of, but then, that movie has no other reason for existing.

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: August 24-30, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

My fellow Americans, I am here to humbly accept your nomination of Recapper of the Week in Screengrab! I think we all know it is time for a change. No longer can we sit by, complacent, while the screenwriter of Showgirls turns to Jesus. No longer can we allow Robert Downey Jr. to badmouth The Dark Knight. No longer can we stand by while good men like Phil Nugent and Andrew Osborne face-off over Judd Apatow and Pineapple Express!

No, my friends, this is a time for unity. A time for us to gather together and marvel at the World’s Greatest Animated Shorts – Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five! We must respect the Screengrab Fall Preview Picks of Andrew Osborne and Leonard Pierce, as different as they may be, as equal planks in our broad platform.

Some will tell you Guy Ritchie is caught up in the zeitgeist of slaggery. Some will insist that Fascination and Meet the Spartans are actually watchable movies. Some will wonder when Robert Zemeckis went bad, or why Terrence Howard would record an album, or under what circumstances David Lynch met Devo.

We don’t have all the answers! But we do know that That Guy is Bob Hoskins! We do know that Sukiyaki Western Django is some fucked-up shit! We do know that An American Carol is coming out whether we like it or not! And if we all stick together we can survive anything, even RocknRolla or a sequel to The Strangers !

God bless the Screengrab, and let’s make it a Wet Hot American Summer!

Trailer Review: RocknRolla

Paul Clark — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Last week I declared Guy Ritchie’s latest film to be one of my most-dreaded titles for this upcoming fall, and this trailer is a big reason why. Normally, with such an insistently-cut trailer, I’d wonder if it might just be trying to punch up a somewhat less aggressive movie. However, seeing as how every movie Ritchie has made that wasn’t Swept Away looks exactly like this- convoluted gangland proceedings, gonzo violence, a laddish sense of humor, in-your-face onscreen text, show-offy camera tricks out the wazoo- I don’t think that’s the case here. One would think that the disastrous reception to Ritchie’s Revolver would relegate this to a direct-to-DVD release. But since it stars 300’s newly-anointed star Gerard Butler, this is practically guaranteed to receive a nationwide booking. And I suppose that’s fine- far be it from me to begrudge a filmmaker the chance to get his work seen. But that doesn’t mean I have to buy a ticket.

Embattled Guy Ritchie “Caught Up in the Zeitgeist of Slaggery”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Sure, it seems like it would be easy enough to be Guy Ritchie, making your London gangster movies, naming your characters after Dick Tracy villains and generally building a career out of fast-paced, violent Tarantino knockoffs. But Ritchie has hit a rough patch of late. Warner Bros. is said to be down on the American box office prospects of his latest effort, RocknRolla, and the sordid details of his wife Madonna’s alleged dalliance with Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez were splashed across the New York tabloids for weeks.

Ritchie recently talked to Craig McLean of The Guardian about the former matter, even as he did his best to evade the latter. About Warner Bros. president Alan Horn’s concerns about RocknRolla, Ritchie is diplomatic. “'Well, first of all I like Warner Brothers very much. They've been very good to me,' he replies. He's about to begin shooting his next film, a Sherlock Holmes story with Robert Downey Jr. in the title role, and that's a Warner Brothers project. 'And I like and respect Alan very much. I mean, they're still talking about an 800-screen release [in the US]. If it's on 800 screens that's bigger than what I would do anyway - I would go smaller. So there's not much I can say.'”

Ritchie gets a little more prickly when the subject of Revolver, his underperforming and critically panned previous film, arises. “'I was disappointed in the respect that...I'm not sure if the film was being slagged off as much as...We got caught up in the zeitgeist of slaggery, so it was clearly at some point not about the film. And I just don't accept it's a bad film. I know how to make a film. So to say it's a bad film, to say it's constructed badly or anything - it's just not.”

Ritchie turns politic again when the topic of his wife’s acting in his remake of Swept Away is raised. For that and more, check out the full interview here.

Related:
Madonna on Film: Screengrab Celebrates Her Top Ten "Best" and Worst Performances
No Shit, Sherlock: Guy Ritchie Reimagines Holmes

Screengrab Fall Preview: Paul Clark's Picks

Paul Clark — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Yesterday, my colleague Scott Von Doviak dared all of his fellow Screengrab staffers to weigh in on our most anticipated movies of the fall. Given my lifelong inability to resist a dare (which resulted in my eating far too many unspeakable things in my younger days) I’ve decided to answer the call. Craving an additional challenge- and hoping to spotlight the wide array of good and bad releases coming soon to a theatre near me- I’ve decided to eliminate all contenders that appeared in Scott’s preview. Here goes:

3 UP

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – for years, David Fincher has been one of Hollywood’s most gifted filmmakers, with last year’s Zodiac his best film yet. With Button, Fincher turns his camera on an honest-to-goodness work of literature (an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, fer chrissakes), but don’t expect a workmanlike Tradition of Quality-style adaptation. Button re-teams Fincher with Brad Pitt, who continues to improve as an actor by seeking out adventurous material, and this story gives him his biggest challenge yet, not only playing a character from childhood through old age, but playing him while aging in reverse. It’s the kind of story that requires a visionary to pull off, and I can think of few better candidates for the job than Fincher. Every year, there’s at least one high-profile movie that I actively root for to be great, and this year, it’s Benjamin Button.

2. A Christmas Tale – Unlike Benjamin Button, the latest film by the great French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin is something of a known quantity, premiering at Cannes to almost universal acclaim. But even if it hadn’t already screened, my hopes for this one would be through the roof. In the past few years, Desplechin has become one of my favorite filmmakers, and he’s coming off his finest work yet, 2004’s Kings and Queen. Factor in that Christmas Tale re-unites four of that film’s stars- Matthieu Amalric, Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Devos, and Hippolyte Girardot- and I’m sold. That the film’s IMDb recommends the Steve Martin remake of Cheaper By the Dozen shouldn’t be held against it.

3. The Brothers Bloom – as I stated in my Trailer Review earlier this week, I’m in the pro-Brick camp, so naturally I’m excited for Rian Johnson’s follow-up project. But he’s also assembled an irresistible cast (I love Brody and Ruffalo as brothers, and Rachel Weisz is always best when she plays daffy), so I’m extra-stoked for this one. Could we be witnessing the rise of a major American filmmaker? Here’s hoping.

3 DOWN

1. Defiance – tell me if you’ve heard this one before: Ed Zwick directs a film about an outsider who aids a group of minorities in fighting about those who oppress them. That the minorities are Jews and the time period is during World War II only makes Defiance’s Oscar-grubbing even more blatant. Thanks, but no thanks.

2. RockNRolla – you know, I was under the impression that the abject failure of Revolver coupled with the divorce from Madonna meant that the moviegoing public would get a break from Guy Ritchie. Alas, that beautiful dream wasn’t to be. It was nice while it lasted though…

3. Bedtime Stories – Adam Sandler’s comic persona might be juvenile, but he’s always been at his best at unleashing his rage onscreen in decidedly un-kid-friendly ways. Less successful are his attempts to warm the heart, which makes the idea of a Sandler family comedy all the more misguided. The presence of Adam (The Pacifier) Shankman in the director’s chair doesn’t inspire much confidence either.

WILD CARD

It’s not as odd as Scott’s choice of Oliver Stone’s W. (what could be?), but I’m pretty conflicted about Quantum of Solace. What made Casino Royale so damn good is that it combined a kickass James Bond thrill ride with a legitimately compelling story. But although hiring director Marc Forster hints that the producers might be trying for that same balance of action and drama, I have my doubts that lightning will strike twice. Add to this Forster’s lack of experience in the action genre, plus the fact that unlike Casino this one doesn’t have an Ian Fleming novel to provide a solid narrative foundation, and Quantum has a lot to live up to. Sure, it might be diverting, but after Casino Royale, that just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore. However, I’d love nothing more than to be wrong about this.

Turned Stick-Up Kid, But Look What You Done Did

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:30:00 GMT

The fifth and final season of The Wire, considered in some quarters to be the best show in television history, has wrapped up, and with an August release set for the DVD box set, it's ready to take what we're guessing will be a lofty place in the annals of TV drama. One of the great strengths of the show was its dynamite ensemble cast -- there wasn't a bad actor on the show, and it was a character actor's dream. Very few of the urban drama's regulars were established name actors; Frankie Faison, who played the politically adept police commissioner Ervin Burrell, was probably the best-known face to moviegoers from his appearances in the Hannibal Lecter films. And although the series gave a lot of otherwise unknown talents a chance to shine, a lot of fans wondered if their success on The Wire would translate to roles elsewhere.

As New York magazine's Vulture blog reports, after a few rough patches, at least a few Wire alums are going on to prominent roles outside the confines of HBO: Amy Ryan, after an Oscar-nominated role in Gone Baby Gone, is now a series regular on The Office; Lance Reddick is appearing in Lost and on the big screen in Fringe; Jamie Hector will have a recurring role on Heroes next season; Gbenga Akinnagbe appears in the remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3; Idris Elba (who was so compelling as the drug kingpin Stringer Bell) will be in both Rocknrolla and The Unborn; Tristan Wilds, who was fantastic as corner kid turned stick-up boy Michael Lee, will be in (of all things) the upcoming Beverly Hills 90210 TV series; series star Dominic West will be in the sequel to The Punisher; and Michael K. Williams, arguably The Wire's most charismatic actor as the thuglife Robin Hood named Omar, will be appearing in high-profile roles in Spike Lee's WWII epic Miracle at St. Anna and the eagerly anticipated big-screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Which is all well and good, but if Robert F. Chew -- one of the show's greatest actors as the conniving drug dealer "Proposition Joe" Stewart -- doesn't get some big-screen time soon, we're gonna be most upset.