Introducing... Filmwell.org.
Hi,
Michael Leary and I are happy to announce the release of Filmwell (www.filmwell.org), a new website that will be updated daily with essays, film and DVD reviews, and news on cinema off the beaten track. Founding Filmwell contributors include widely published authors and critics, as well as film festival programmers and educators. Filmwell content is dictated by the whims of its contributors, who frequent national festivals, scour DVD catalogs and screening schedules, and are otherwise always on the hunt for those films that make this great conversation so worthwhile. Yet another film blog? Maybe. But our collective audiences are hungry for an entry point to thoughtful criticism on films they haven't heard about yet.
Please put us on your rss feeder for a while. If we aren't already on your publicity lists, let us know. We look forward to hearing from you if you have any questions.
Kindest Regards,
The Editors and Contributors at Filmwell
Hello, "Goodbye"
A.O. Scott's review of Ramin Bahrani's third feature Goodbye Solo has reached out from my laptop screen and grabbed me by the eyeballs.
Here are a few snippets:
Read more
"Wise Blood" is Coming to Criterion
This may be the only thrilling opportunity I have to tag a post with both "Flannery O'Connor" and "The Criterion Collection." So here goes...
The Criterion Collection is already wondrous beyond all measure, but do they really have to show off like this?
They're adding John Huston's legendary 1979 adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood in May.
Browser: U2 speaks. Filmmakers & Critics Pick Favorites. Buddy Miller.
Here's one of the best U2 interviews I've seen, filmed in Fez.
It's not a very *professional* interview -- the interviewer asks redundant questions and keeps getting interrupted. But the band seems relaxed, in good humor, and full of surprising answers. You'll find out who Larry Mullen Jr.'s favorite band (besides U2) really is. And you'll find out what "Get On Your Boots" really about. Biggest surprise: The call to prayer begins in the town behind them, and the band chooses to stop the interview out of respect until it's over.Read more
Wild Things!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uFDAsKix_U
I recently listened to an archived interview by Terry Gross with author Maurice Sendak. It brought back memories of the strange emotions I felt as a child whenever I read Where the Wild Things Are. That I feel those same feelings watching this trailer is very promising indeed. If I feel them as I watch the film itself, it will be something truly wonderful. And Spike Jonze might be just the man to make that happen.
I also think this is my all-time favorite match of a song and a trailer. Tears. We're talking tears. That song has become one of my favorites anyway. Such beautiful, heartbreaking lyrics. I've been at the front of an Arcade Fire crowd and sung along with them, and it has the same kind of power over me that only a few songs ever have. To pair it with this trailer sets off an atomic bomb of emotion.
What is it about wild things? And Totoros?
Are you fond of the book? Why? What is it that you love about Max and his Wild Things?
[The link above has been revised with Apple's HD trailer.]
The Return of Majid Majidi
For a short while, Majid Majidi was my favorite Iranian filmmaker.
But then again, for a while, he was the only Iranian filmmaker that I could name.
I'm still a beginner when it comes to international cinema, but while I've found other Iranian artists whose work is more exciting for me, I'm still eager to check out anything this director does. I suspect that if any Iranian filmmaker is likely to win a big following in America, it's Majidi. And his new film is winning some persuasively enthusiastic reviews.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR8oE1nMViI
Interested yet?
How about this: A few months ago, my friend John Wilson (editor of Books and Culture) asked me if I'd seen it yet. He was enthusiastic about it. Today, when I checked in with him about it, he wrote back:
Yes, our oldest daughter, Anna, and I saw The Song of Sparrows at the Chicago film festival last fall. It’s one of the finest films I’ve seen in the last decade. What’s special about it? So many opposites held in tension. It’s a film of surpassing visual splendor, yet so self-effacing as to seem artless. The story unfolds with the formality of a sonnet, but its materials are the humble stuff of everyday life, with family and work at the center. It is a parable with a clear lesson to impart, and an enigma as mysterious as the human heart.
And then there is the piety that runs through Majidi’s films in an unselfconscious way we almost never encounter in films from America or Europe. I don’t know what he believes or doesn’t believe. But his central characters believe, they pray, they cry out to God. His films are always grounded in the quotidian, but they always have a sense of “more.”
I loathe the routine hype that infects so much of our talk about writers and filmmakers and songwriters and painters. But some art really is great—it demands to be recognized as such, not to create a cult of personality but “objectively,” you might say. I think Majidi is one of the great artists of our time.
Personally, I found Majidi's Children of Heaven and The Color of Paradise to be vivid, moving stories -- Iranian tales with emotional flourishes I'm inclined to call "Spielbergian" -- I'm very, very curious about Sparrows.
Subtitles Matter.
I have a favorite t-shirt. It's from the Flickerings film festival. It's bright red, and on the back it says "So many subtitles, so little time."
I have friends who groan when they learn a movie is subtitled, and some of them lose interest entirely when they learn a film is in a foreign language. Me, if I charted my rate of enjoyment, I'd probably find that I enjoy films from outside of America far more often than enjoy films made in America. Subtitles don't bother me at all. In fact, lately I've been watching American films with the subtitles turned on, just because I tend to appreciate the dialogue more when I don't miss key lines in the crowd noise or the actor's mumbling.
But have you ever watched a foreign-language film on DVD with the subtitles turned off?
I recently watched Karen Shakhnazarov's film Day of the Full Moon without the benefit of English subtitles. Imagine watching Crash or Magnolia but not understanding a word they're saying, and you'll have some idea of my experience. It was fascinating, and it liberated me from the "tyranny of the narrative" so that I could examine interesting juxtapositions, settings, and tones. I do hope to see Day of the Full Moon again with English subtitles, but that's currently unavailable on Region 1, so... here's hoping.
I've been thinking about subtitles today, though, and how I often wonder whether what I'm reading is really what they people are saying to each other.
Today, Jeffrey Wells pointed to an alarming commentary on the subtitles being provided with the Region 1 DVD of Let the Right One In. This was one of my favorite films of 2008. The inaccuracy of the subtitles gives a new layer of horror to this memorably frightening film.
Any bilingual Looking Closer readers out there? Have you ever encountered a case of bad subtitles?
"Knowing" Remarks from Ebert and... Well... Others
Roger Ebert bothered many film critics and moviegoers when he turned in a four-star review of Alex Proyas's new film Knowing. Today, he's defending his rave review.
Meanwhile, Christianity Today's review was posted last week -- more high praise.
But that review inspired backlash too. Here are a few of my favorite lines from the comments of CT Movies readers:
"Although there are some shorts which may show a little cleavage, it's never done sexually..."
Shorts which show cleavage? I've gotta see this movie!
"The fowl language is brief and very infrequent."
Is it sparrow language, or seagull language? Personally, I find myself most commonly offended by waterfowl language.
"Don't look for a biblically based movie."
I wouldn't normally expect a "biblically based movie" from mainstream entertainers composing a work of science fiction about the future. But frankly, even though the Bible is a lamp to my feet and light for my path, I tend to find that "biblically based movies" are usually very preachy and poorly made. I normally find more profound inspiration in films from artists who never intended to make a "biblically based movie," but who made something that reflected the truth through beauty and excellence nevertheless.
"...the last 15 minutes of the film turn out to be what I would label as blasphemy against our Creator."
Must we label it as "blasphemy" if a work of science fiction, created by non-Christians, falls short of reflecting our worldview? Must we be so swift and severe in "labeling" things and condemning worldly people for being, well, worldly? Or might we instead be encouraged to find "rumors of glory" and evidence of "eternity in their hearts" when we find glimmers of truth in worldly entertainment?
Pixar's "Up" at Cannes; Pete Docter Talks Faith and Filmmaking
I'm happy to see Pixar's new film opening on the kind of platform that the studio deserves. Up is opening the Cannes Film Festival with a presentation in Disney Digital 3-D on Wednesday May 13th, 2009. That marks the first time an animated film has opened the festival. Wish I could be there.
Writer/director Pete Docter was interviewed in Radix (thanks to the CT blog for the link) back when Monsters Inc. was released. Here's an interesting excerpt:
Radix: How would you say that being a Christian affects how you do your work?
Docter: Years ago when I first spoke at church, I was kind of nervous about talking about Christianity and my work. It didn’t really connect. But more and more it seems to be connecting for me. I ask for God’s help, and it’s definitely affected what I’m doing. It’s helped me to calm down and focus. There were times when I got too stressed out with what I was doing, and now I just step back and say, “God, help me through this.” It really helps you keep a perspective on things, not only in work, but in relationships.
At first you hire people based purely on their talent, but what it ends up is that people who really go far are good people. They’re good people to work with, and I think God really helps in those relationships.
Radix: I know you do a lot of praying, and that’s a big part of the artistic part of what you guys do.
Docter: Yes. You could probably work on a live-action movie that takes maybe six months hating everybody else and you’d still have a film. But these animation projects take three or four years, and it’s really difficult to do without having a good relationship with the people you’re working with.
Radix: Do you ever see yourself making a more explicitly Christian movie?
Docter: Not at this point. I don’t know that that’s really me. I don’t feel so comfortable with that. Even if you have a moral to a story, if you actually come out and say it, it loses its power. Not that we’re trying to be sneaky or anything, but you have more ability to affect people if you’re not quite so blatant about it. Does that make sense?
Radix: That seems right in line with what Jesus’ parables were too. He tended not to come right out and explain, “This is what I was trying to say.”
Docter: To me art is about expressing something that can’t be said in literal terms. You can say it in words, but it’s always just beyond the reach of actual words, and you’re doing whatever you can to communicate a sense of something that is beyond you.
That's refreshing to hear, as I read through reviews of Cyndere's Midnight where a couple of Christian book critics are scowling at me for "burying" my faith and refusing to make my themes clear. Personally, I like to let readers discover the themes by thinking for themselves. I like to tell a story and let the audience decide its implications about the world and faith. If I just tell them what it means, then I am presumptuously limiting what the story can convey, and I am depriving readers of the experience of coming to their own conclusions... and that's the very act that makes a story "stick." So I cheer once again for Pixar, whose films mean as much to me as any live-action films made for adults.
From the Writer of "X-Men 2"... "Dante's Inferno"
In November, Universal Pictures won a bidding war to develop a big screen movie adaptation of Dante’s Inferno, the yet-to-be-released video game from Electronic Arts. Variety reports that Dan Harris, screenwriter of Superman Returns and X2: X-Men United, has been hired to pen the adaptation.
The property is a modern interpretation of the famous poem written by Dante Alighieri in the early 1300’s. The narrative poem describes Dante’s imaginary journey through the nine circles of hell where they see sinners being punished for their sins on Earth. If you want to see what the film might look like (think-Zack Snyder), check out the trailer that was released last month.
Hey, I'm excited by anything that suggests moviegoers will become better educated in great spiritual poetry. And if this goes into production anywhere near the time of Scott Derrickson's dream project -- Paradise Lost -- we could have see a resurgence of interest in classic properties for new films.Read more