Contest 2: Write a Looking Closer review!
The previous Looking Closer contest has wrapped up. I'll be reviewing the entries and announcing a winner on Monday. Stay tuned to see who gets the big Ben-Hur DVD release. I'll be sharing some of the entries here, in which participants shared the moments at the movies that most transformed them.
Time for another contest to begin!
Here's what you do:
Write a "Looking Closer"-style review, no less than 500 words, no more than 1200 words, of a significant, challenging, profound work of cinema, old or new, famous or obscure. The review that best exemplifies the Looking Closer approach--exploring technical excellence and spiritual resonance--will win the prize.
Include your name and contact information. You can enter as many reviews as you like.
ONE BIG CONDITION: The film must not already be featured in the Looking Closer movie review archive. You'll have to write about a movie that I haven't already covered there.
Note: Any ... perhaps all... reviews that are sent in might be published as a "guest review" on the site. By entering the contest, you give me permission to publish your review, in its current condition, as a guest feature.
Send entries to overstreet@lookingcloser.org.
What's the prize?
The CD soundtrack to Elizabethtown.
DEADLINE: NOVEMBER FIRST.
A New James Bond
I first saw Daniel Craig giving an extraordinary lead performance in a BCC Mystery special called The Ice House almost a decade ago, where he played a cop and an alcoholic. He made his first strong big-screen impression as an assassin priest in Elisabeth, and an even stronger impression as the dangerous son of Paul Newman in The Road to Perdition.
Now, he's won the dubious honor of playing James Bond.
Well, for the first time, I'm actually interested in an upcoming James Bond flick. Craig is an interesting actor, and he's likely to make for a different kind of Bond... one that's possibly colder, harder, the kind of guy who looks like he spends his living deceiving and killing people. You'd think that a man who takes sex and violence so lightly would have a dark side, would be a bit damaged and deranged from the experience of routine amorality and ego.
We'll see if Martin Campbell has what it takes to direct Craig, or if he'll seize the opportunity to make something substantial out of a routinely frivolous and empty-hearted series.
Would C.S. Lewis love "Serenity"?
Would C.S. Lewis love "Serenity"?
Is there a connection between Captain Malcolm Reynolds and Ransom?
Bruce Edwards thinks so, and tells us why.
Time for another "Drunkard's Prayer"
It just came to my attention that there's an alternate version of Over the Rhine's song "Drunkard's Prayer" available for download on their site... free!
The page says:
It's always a challenge to figure out what to put on a project. Brent played a beautiful saxophone solo, but in the end we went for a simpler version of the song. Did we make the right choice?
Karin and Linford, the right choice is to record multiple versions of each song, and then to spring them on your fans as surprise packages, just like you're doing. Thanks for another visit to a great song!
New York Times considers the marketing of Narnia
from The New York Times:
The spiritual character of "Narnia" is being reinforced with the debut on the charts last week of a Christian pop album of music inspired by the film. But prospects for a previously announced secular soundtrack now seem cloudy, executives involved in the process say. Disney executives say that at the very least the CD will be delayed beyond its planned Oct. 25 release.
Mitchell Leib, president of music for Disney's Buena Vista film unit, said he still expected to assemble and release a secular soundtrack before the film's Dec. 9 opening. But he cited production snags. He said he was still awaiting a recording by the rock band Evanescence that is intended as the film's closing song. He added that planning had also been complicated by last-minute decisions about how music will be used in the complex, special-effects-laden film.
The Christian-oriented album's status as the only "Narnia" musical project in the marketplace, for now at least, could upset the studio's plan to balance two audiences. "If they go ahead and release only the one soundtrack, I think they're risking being identified as turning toward a blatantly religious company, which does turn some people away," said Chris Ahrens, founding editor of Risen, a San Diego-based lifestyle magazine that explores the spiritual beliefs of entertainment figures. On the other hand, Mr. Ahrens said, if the music strikes a chord in the Christian market, "I think that's huge for Disney in terms of the movie audience." He added, "It seems like a huge gamble."
I can't express to you how sad it makes me to see Lewis's Narnia stories being connected to Christian pop music. It's like they've taken this glorious, mystefying, all-powerful lion and decided to celebrate him by tethering him to preachy, mediocre merchandise. Poor Aslan. Always being tied back down.
Can you imagine what it would have been like if each Lord of the Rings movie had been accompanied by a cd with songs by Newsboys, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Carman?
John Milton's Paradise Lost... the Movie
Milton did a better job of "justifying the ways of God to man" than these filmmakers could do of justifying the adaptation of this epic poem into a movie...
Hyde Park Entertainment and Vincent Newman Entertainment have partnered to produce a feature version of John Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, based on an adaptation by Phil DiBlasi and Byron Willinger.
A Day of Sad News for Aardman, Humanity.
On the week of their triumphant big screen debut, Wallace and Gromit have lost their home.
"Born into Brothels" on DVD!
If you haven't seen this film, you've missed out. Born into Brothels isn't just a great film. It's the kind of film that could change the way you live. So be proceed with caution.
It's out on DVD this week. I was overjoyed to find several copies on the New Release shelf at my neighborhood Hollywood Video, which means it won't be hard for you to find it.
Best of all, the DVD has several bonus features, including updates on how the "central characters" are doing today. Since to watch the movie is to fall in love with these people, you will want to check this out, to see what's become of them.
"Lost" is truly lost
Have you been frustrated by Lost's endless parade of mysteries and loose ends?
Have you tried to convince yourself that J.J. Abrams knows where it's all headed, and how all the mysteries tie together?
Have you been yearning to believe it's all part of "intelligent design"?
Abandon all hope.
This may be nothing new to you, but it's disappointing to me. Like Alias, this show's indications that there's a grand design, meaning to the madness, now appears to be just a bunch of hooey, and the only reason to keep wondering about the loose ends is to imagine who will improvise the cleverest excuses for the chaos.
Aren't you glad life isn't like that?
"There was absolutely no master plan on Lost," insists David Fury, a co-executive producer last season who wrote the series' two best episodes and is now a writer-producer on 24. "Anybody who said that was lying.” "On a show like Lost, it becomes a great big shaggy-dog story," he continues cheerily. "They keep saying there's meaning in everything, and I'm here to tell you no -- a lot of things are just arbitrary. What I always tried to do was connect these random elements, to create the illusion that it was all adding up to something." Many plot elements were concocted on the fly, Fury says; for example, they didn't know Hurley won the lottery until it came time to write his episode. "I don't like to talk about when we come up with ideas," Lindelof demurs. "It's a magic trick. But we planned that plot: We seeded references to it in earlier episodes." Fury disagrees. He says scenes with those references were filmed much later and inserted into earlier yet-to-air episodes: "It's a brilliant trick to make us look smart. But doing that created a huge budget problem."
U2 on Conan O'Brien
I stayed up until the wee hours to see a most bizarre spectacle... U2 on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. While it was far from a total success, the bumpy and embarrassing moments were worth it for the highs, which included performances of "All Because of You," "Original of the Species," "Stuck in a Moment," and "Vertigo" (which was cut off by the network as the show ran out of time... a painful severance indeed.)
More here. And much, much more here.
If you saw it, what'd you think? Did they get your achtung, baby, did they merely rattle and hum, or were they stuck in a moment they'll never get out of?
