7 posts tagged “director”
This has been out for a while now, but better late than never. David Fincher’s interview with Ain’t It Cool News’ Quint is fantastic. I personally have always dug the AICN interview format. Sparingly edited, candid, and always fanboyish I can’t think of one that I don’t like. Although I wish they would produce a podcast of the interviews.
Check out the interview here.
From imdb:
In 1974, in Michigan, the lives of a group of teenage boys are affected by the suicide of five girls from the Lisbon family. Cecilia (13), Lux (14), Bonnie (15), Mary (16) and Therese (17) move with their Mathematics teacher father Mr. Lisbon and their possessive housewife mother Mrs. Lisbon to a calm suburb house. Their beauties attract the attention of a group of boys that meet in the house on the other side to watch the girls. When Cecilia commits suicide, the girls stay at home for a period, returning to school later. When the handsome football player Trip Fontaine seduces Lux and spends the night outside with her, Mrs. Lisbon locks the girls at home, leading them to commit massive suicide. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
After watching the new Spider-Man last week I found myself wondering, “How can anyone stand Kirsten Dunst?”
Don’t get me wrong there’s a handful of her work that I love. But it’s never her that draws me into the film it’s usually the director’s take on her.And that’s why I adore the Virgin Suicides. Sophia Coppola is the one responsible for creating this whole illusion that Dunst was someone to pine over, to obsess, and want. Because whenever she comes on screen you just sigh. She’s lovely, girly and most of all she’s a dream.
In fact most of the film is a dream. A kind of curly handwritten dream film with dissolves from flowers to cute boys and ponies. The movie is a gorgeous little flower, thorns and all. The Virgin Suicides looks and feels like old photographs and Polaroid’s from a youth that we remember happening but in actuality never really did.
It’s like if the kids from Stand by Me had grown up a little. The kids obsess and over the tiniest of details. Coppola follows these obsessions to the max. You can tell how much she loves the wallpaper of the house and whose nail polish is chipped.
These girls exist in their own universe. They are fairy tales who want desperately to be real people.
Something should also be said about the parents, James Woods especially gives a hilarious and heart-breakingly simple performance. He loves his family so much and doesn’t ever seem to have the words to protect his family from themselves. His character seems to want to be involved more in how the girls are raised. But, well, I don’t really know why he doesn’t get involved, it seems like it’s because of the times and it also feels like it’s because of the mother. Who seems to suffocate the girls with her fear.
The mother played by Kathleen Turner, who reminds me a lot of Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is understandable in her paranoia. After all the world is full of predators and a mother (especially one of a recent suicide) is there to protect, and the things she does seem to be good natured and by the book. But…Well they just break your heart.
These girls fate is set out for them. They are loved so much by everyone around them that they are not allowed bloom.
Add The Virgin Suicides to your Queue
Buy the Virgin Suicides
Trade the Virgin Suicides on Peerflix
The Virgin Suicides on imdb
The Virgin Suicides on Rotten Tomatoes
If you have seen this film or plan on seeing it, please let me know.
Wanna know what I"m watching? Add me to your Netflix Friends or just take a glance at my queue!
Gotta Suggetion for a Movie of the Day? Let me know!
Tomorrow's Movie of the Day Clue:
"Sleeping in a storage shed is the key to time travel"
From imdb:
In this bloody tale of loyalty and friendship, Chow Yun-Fat is Jeffrey, an assassin who wishes to leave the business so he can take care of Jennie, the beautiful lounge singer who he inadvertently blinded during a previous assignment. Danny Lee is the determined cop who will stop at nothing to bring him in, only he realizes that Jeffrey is no ordinary assassin, and wishes to help him in his quest. Only problem is that Jeffrey's employers refuse to pay him for his last job, money which is needed to restore Jennie's eyesight. Written by Vince at unigx.ubc.ca
Hey, remember when you used to watch action movies and laugh at the fact that the hero seemed to fire 30 shots without reloading? Tell the truth you kind of miss those days. (At least, a litte) Well that's where The Killer steps in to fill that hollow void in your life.
The movie that turned John Woo into an international sensation and subsequently developed his current household name status is the visual template for everything we know love about Woo. It's all here, the slow-motion, the ballet gunfights, the doves flying as our hero walks straight towards us, even the odd religious/spiritual undertones.
In fact the church scene in Face-Off (a masterpiece in a different way) plays out similarly to the one in The Killer. (Although the two lead's in Face-Off don't refer to each other playfully as Disney characters, that's no reason to shit on Face-Off.)
But what makes The Killer a gem is it's made by a man shooting for the moon. This movie showed the promise of John Woo as the next...I dunno...brilliant action director. It's hard to think of someone to compare Woo to, because most of the immediate names that come to mind have been influenced by him. American action movies where ripping him off before we even knew who he was.
What I loved about John Woo's films where that sure there was balls to the wall action. But it was action with a heart. As silly as that is. You can see that John Woo loves westerns. He loves film noir and he loves religious metaphor. His movies where a blend of Howard Hawks, Sam Peckinpah, and Martin Scorsese - with Chow Yun-Fat shooting two .45's in slo-mo.
Now it seems that the Hollywood machine has crushed another artist in it's gigantic machinations. John Woo has gone from making movies about honor, redemption, forgiveness, to movies that star Ben Affleck. So until The Battle of Red Cliff comes out. Let's all sit reminisce about the good old days.
If you have seen this film or plan on seeing it, please let me know.
Wanna know what I"m watching? Add me to your Netflix Friends or just take a glance at my queue!
Buy The Killer on Amazon
Trade the KIller on Peerflix
The Killer on Rotten Tomatoes
Tomorrow's Movie of the Day Clue: "Virgins and Death"
Jonathan Glazer's new commercial for Sony's new HD televisions is an amazing piece of work. Like most of Glazer's work it features an homage to Stanley Kubrick, in the this case it's a musical one. ("The Blue Danube" was featured in Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey")
The spot, which took 10 days to shoot and utilized 250 people, features a fireworks show made up of exploding paint mortars. Imagine what a building demolition would look like with liquidy bright colurs instead of grayish plumes of smoke. Gorgeous stuff!
Here's the spot on youtube. For a higher quality version of this video, click here.
I found this amazing interview with tthe director of Pan's Labyrinth which got a 20-plus minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival this year. The director ttalks about working on big budget film, indie fiilmmaking, and even gives ua a look at his personal journals.
Worth watching whether you're a fan or have yet to discover this great filmmaker.
Click here to watch the video.
This is kind of old but I thought it was worth posting. It's a minute and a half long clip of Mark Romanek discussing his filmmaking process on Los Angeles based radio station Indie 103.1.
if you're unfamiliar with Mark Romanek's work, take a trip over to his website markromanek.com
Awhile ago this video showed up on apple's site as a "testtimonial" to the wonders of using apple equipment. The video features David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en, Panic Room) talking about using digital technology in the filmmaking pipeline. The video has various shots of the unrelesed Zodiac movie (now retitled as Chronicles) and some pearls of movie making wisdom from Fincher and otther long time collaborators. Ehjoy!
