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April 27, 2007
This seems to be the week for studios and mini-majors to dump their languishing indie dramas onto the market, and the unsuspecting box office audience is the beneficiary. But first, the movies that will probably win the weekend box office.
The Invisible - It's teen-y. It's scary. It’s got a cute boy in the lead. I smell box office winner. Justin Chatwin, who looks like he could be the cut cutest of the Culkin kids, stars as a Nick, a promising high school student who is attacked and left for dead. But if he can find a way to solve his impending murder, he may be able to save himself before he dies.
American Cannibal - The promoter behind the Paris Hilton sex tape decided to create a reality show in which contestants were transported to a tropical island, starved and led to believe one of them would be eaten by the others. This movie documents from start to finish the "sadistic, shameless reality show they churn out… from throwaway pitch to manic auditions through the train-wreck production."
Continue reading "New Movie Friday - American Cannibal, Diggers, Jindabyne, Stephanie Daley"
| April 27, 2007
If you've passed through Hollywood enough times, you can’t have failed to notice the bizarre billboard on the West side of Highland just North of Fountain. And if you're like me, every time you pass by, you idly wonder about the man whose leonine countenance gazes benignly on weary travellers. What is that guy staring at so intently? Why have I never heard of his movie? And how the hell can he afford to keep that billboard up so freaking long?
The man is Tommy Wiseau, the self-taught auteur who wrote, directed, produced and starred in The Room, a movie that pitches itself as "an electrifying American black comedy about love, passion, betrayal and lies," but is more aptly described as an unholy fusion of melodrama, softcore and unintentional comedy. And those are the movie's good points.
In The Room Wiseau plays Johnny, a naïve banker who's inexplicably intent on marrying his whiny turd of a fiancée, Lisa (Juliette Danielle). Between visits from Lisa's meddling mom, Claudette (Carolyn Minnott), marathon sex sessions set to cringeworthy R&B and pillow fights with earnest teenager Denny (Philip Haldiman), Lisa starts a steamy affair with Johnny's best friend, Mark (Greg Sestero, who also served as line producer on the film).
Despite savage reviews -- Variety described it as, "A movie that prompts most of its viewers to ask for their money back -- before even 30 minutes have passed," NPR called it a "cinematic train wreck," and one Amazon reviewer wrote, "SO awful, I scream-laughed through the entire movie" -- The Room has steadily built a loyal cult audience. Every month since the film premiered in the summer of 2003, Wiseau has held a midnight screening of The Room at Laemmle's Sunset 5, where he is usually on hand to answer questions and greet fans.
As word of mouth spread about the self-distributed movie, audiences flocked to the screenings with a Rocky Horror Picture Show-like gusto. Fueled by a passion for movies that are so bad they're good and (I'm guessing) plenty of booze, The Room acolytes dress up as characters from the scene, bring props, act out scenes and shout out their favorite lines during the screenings. The hands-down winner: Wiseau's anguished delivery of "YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, LISA!!!"
Wiseau for his part approaches these monthly events (held at midnight on the last Saturday of each month) with relentless good humor and a DIY spirit that belie the seriousness of his message. As he likes to say in his Eastern European accent of unknown provenance (Wiseau won’t reveal where he's from, but I'm guessing Austria): "You can laugh, you can cry, you can express yourself, but please don’t hurt each other!"
Many things have been written about Tommy Wiseau, so I thought it would be best to let him speak for himself. Back in October I interviewed him on the phone, and (shamefully) I am only getting around to posting it now.
Interview after the jump.
Continue reading "LAist Interviews Tommy Wiseau, The Face Behind The Billboard"
April 24, 2007
Grindhouse
The week begins with a John Hayes double feature. In Grave of the Vampire, legendary vampire Kroft awakens and rapes a woman in a graveyard. The resulting child doesn't need milk. He needs… blood! This is paired with Jailbait Babysitter, which stars Therese Pare as a teenager who's turned out by an older prostitute (Lydia Wagner).
Wednesday and Thursday it's a double-bill of Hong Kong action beginning with the Bruce Li (not to be confused with Bruce Lee) starrer, Return of the Tiger, followed by Stoner, which stars George Lazenby as an Australian cop investigating a mysterious drug that is both aphrodisiac and hallucinogen. When his sister falls under its evil spell, he travels to Hong Kong, where he teams up with a Taiwanese cop to take down the evil drug lord Mr. Chin. Look for Sammo Hung in one of his earliest roles.
The final weekend of New Beverly's Grindhouse Festival showcases a pair of Italian exploitation pics. Death Rage blood-soaked crime drama starring Yul Brynner as a hit man who comes out of retirement to kill the gangster who was responsible for the death of his brother. He takes a young hit man under his wing and gets involved with a sexy stripper (Barbara Bouchet). This film is paired with Cry of a Prostitute, which stars Henry Silva as a gangster flitting between two rival families in Sicily. Bouchet plays the bored, slutty girlfriend of one of the mafia dons.
WHEN: Mon., April 23 - Sat., April 28; various times
WHERE: The New Beverly: 7165 Beverly Blvd. (1 block West of La Brea Ave.)
Waitress
Melnitz Movies hosts a sneak preview of Waitress, an indie drama that was written and directed by actress Adrienne Shelly, who was best known for her work in Hal Hartley's films before her tragic murder. The movie stars Keri Russell as Jenna, a poor southern waitress with a talent for baking amazing pies and a jealous jerk of a husband (Jeremy Sisto) weighing her down. After Jenna discovers she is pregnant, the handsome new gynecologist in town encourages her to write a letter to her unwanted baby, and an unexpected love story develops. Co-starring Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines and Andy Griffith.
WHEN: Tuesday, April 24 at 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Melnitz Movies at the James Bridges Theater: 1409 Melnitz Hall, UCLA Campus (Westwood)
Weird "Westerns"
On Friday and Saturday nights, LACMA will host screenings of two pairs of westerns, each of which are amazing double-bills.
On Friday it's The Wild Bunch, Sam Peckinpah's violent elegy to the demise of the Wild West and the archetype of the American cowboy. Set in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution, it stars everybody from Ernest Borgnine to William Holden in a story about an aging group of outlaws trying to pull off one final score. The film is preceded by The Ox-Bow Incident, a 1943 William Wellman film starring Henry Fonda as a drifter who joins a posse to hunt down a trio of suspected murderers.
Saturday begins with Hud, which features a brilliant performance by Paul Newman in the title role of Hud Bannon, a ruthless asshole who doesn’t give a shit about his family, their farm or the mores of small-town life. This is followed by Peter Bogdanovich's ode to the middle America of the 1950s, The Last Picture Show. This coming-of-age story set in the 1950s in a small Texas town stars a very young Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges.
WHEN: April 27-28, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.
WHERE: LACMA: 5905 Wilshire Blvd., (three blocks East of Fairfax Ave.)
April 23, 2007
It's well known that before there was "Hollywood," there was Edendale, home of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios but lately the indie film shooting hot spot in 90026/39 seems to be Echo Park Lake.
It's not like Echo Park suddenly reemerged on the live set scene following the excellent, filmed-throughout-Echo-Park Quinceañera, in fact, we're sure that numerous films have filmed key scenes at the home of the Lotus Fest and Dragon Boat Races.
Last month, it was the upcoming Winona dramedy, The Last Word and today, as captured on the short, blurry clip above, it's the forthcoming Columbus Day which may or may not be based on Charles Burmeister's award-winning screenplay. Nobody on the set would spill the beans, and imdb isn't much help either.
So we throw it to you, dear reader. What movies can you name that feature scenes shot at Echo Park Lake?
April 20, 2007
Hot Fuzz - The guys who made the brilliant zombie spoof Shaun of the Dead, writer/director Edgar Wright and co-writer/star Simon Pegg, reteam for Hot Fuzz, what looks to be a hilarious spoof on the police thriller. Jealous colleagues have London's best cop (Simon Pegg) transferred to the peaceful village of Sandford, where he is partnered with an enthusiastic but witless police officer (Nick Frost) who longs for gunfights and car chases to break up the monotony of small-town policing. When the pair stumble upon a series of suspicious accidents, it looks like Sandford may not be such an idyllic burg after all.
Prediction: Focus Features has pumped a lot of money into promoting Hot Fuzz, and with strong advance buzz, it could win the weekend box office or at the least challenge Disturbia for the top spot.
Bunny Whipped - "A quirky romantic comedy that follows the interweaving story of a sports writer and a rap star." - IMDB
Everything's Gone Green - The first screenplay written by author Douglas Coupland is an indie comedy about a slacker, Ryan (Paulo Costanzo) who loses his job and gets dumped by his girlfriend but takes a Mandarin language class where he falls for Ming, a woman who is dating a scammer. The slacker and the scammer team up for a lottery scheme that makes Ryan rich, but what he really wants is to prove his love to Ming.
Fracture - Oh my god! I never thought John Stamos would be starring in a movie with Anthony Hopkins. How cool is that?! I've always thought, going back at least to the Full House days, that Stamos is underrated as a dramatic actor. The guy has range, and he'll finally get a chance to prove himself. Oh, shit. Wait a minute. That's not some pretty boy trying to prove he can act. That's Ryan Gosling playing the earnest ADA trying to bring down a manipulative, sociopathic dude (Anthony Hopkins) who's accused of shooting his wife.
Continue reading "New Movie Friday: Hot Fuzz, Vacancy"Advertisement: LAist Continues Below!
April 20, 2007
Law & Order: Criminal Intent offers what will no doubt be a sensitive meditation on the perils of fame in a May episode that closely parallels the Anna Nicole Smith saga. Original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kristy Swanson, in her puffy, post-pregnancy state (that's the kind of glow you can only get from stealing another woman's husband and having his baby) will play the ersatz Anna Nicole and… (wait for it)… David Cross will play her scummy Howard Stern-esque manager. Set your TiVo to stun. -FOX
Alec Baldwin goes ballistic on his daughter's voicemail. Someone (ex-wife Kim Basinger?) leaks the tape. The tabs are there to pick up the pieces. -TMZ
Screenwriter-turned-director Frank Darabont, who's made a cottage industry of churning out
The LA Times offers a window into the phenomenally wasteful world of formulaic, big-budget action movies. Author Clive Cussler for some reason expected his top-selling action-adventure novel Sahara to be an equally successful movie. Instead it flopped to the tune of $105 million. That's what happens when you pay Matthew McConaughey's abs $8 million to star in a movie. Cussler sued production company Crusader Entertainment and the case is now in court, which is why the whole world knows exactly how much McConaughey's personal chef made ($48,893) and Cruz's hairstylist raked in ($135,550). -LA Times
Continue reading "Movie News Roundup: Buffy Becomes Anna Nicole, Baldwin Goes Ballistic, Hollywood Wastes $$"
April 18, 2007
I really, really, really liked Grindhouse for many reasons that I can probably only effectively communicate to you orally and/or non verbally. But this is the written word, so alas, I must force myself. Meanwhile, you will have to imagine my excited gesticulations.
I do a lot of pointing, and thumbs up, and punching motions, karate kicks, Elvis arm moves, and touchdown dance type shit when I talk about Grindhouse. It’s that type of film…for me. You asshats who didn’t like this film…go away. We cannot relate to each other. You are Goldilocks and I am a three bears. We have nothing in common except for maybe the love of porridge, which, in my case, is self-pleasuring.
Spoilers are not being taken into account so if you care about that sort of thing, turn down your volume or don't click to see more after the jump. For those of you who have courage, beware for zombies and hot babes await...
Continue reading "Grindhouse: A Thematic Study"April 17, 2007
Grindhouse
Monday and Tuesday it's The Muthers, a combination blaxploitation and women-in-prison flick that stars Janine Bell and Rosanne Katon as a pirate duo who must rescue Bells sister from the private jail of an evil coffee plantation owner, followed by Fight for Your Life, a revenge thriller about a pacifist black minister whose family is taken hostage and tortured by a trio of convicts, until he finally snaps and wreaks his vengeance.
Wednesday and Thursday it's kung fu action featuring Barry Chan in Dragon's Vengeance and a chop-socky take on Chinese folk hero Fong Sai Yuk in Kung Fu: The Punch of Death.
The weekend kicks off with a trio of sexploitation flicks involving barmaids, pussycats and cheerleaders: The Swinging Barmaids, The Swingin' Pussycats and The Swinging Cheerleaders.
WHEN: Mon., April 16 - Sat., April 21; various times
WHERE: The New Beverly: 7165 Beverly Blvd. (1 block West of La Brea Ave.)
COL.COA - City of Light, City of Angels
COL.COA brings Paris to Los Angeles for a week of French film premieres that includes Guillaume Canet's film noir Tell No One (Ne le dis à personne); Claude Berri's romantic wish-fulfillment drama starring Audrey Tautou, Hunting And Gathering (Ensemble, c’est tout); Lionel Bailliu's psychological thriller Fair Play; Twice Upon A Time (Désaccord parfait), a romantic comedy about middle-aged people (one of whom is Charlotte Rampling) falling in love; and Olivier Dahan's biopic of Edith Piaf, La Vie En Rose (La Môme).
WHEN: April 16-22
WHERE: The Directors Guild Theater: 7920 Sunset Blvd. (at Fairfax)
COST: $10 general admission; $7 seniors; $5 students under 21; $7 for members of ASC, ICG, IFTA, SAG, The American Cinematheque, Film Independent, LACMA and Women in Film.
Year Of The Dog
Written and directed by Mike White (writer of Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl, Nacho Libre, School of Rock), this dark comedy stars Molly Shannon as Peggy, a happy-go-lucky secretary who descends into emotional turmoil when beloved beagle, Pencil, unexpectedly dies.
WHEN: Tuesday, April 17 at 7:30 PM
WHERE: Melnitz Movies at the James Bridges Theater: 1409 Melnitz Hall, UCLA Campus (Westwood)
COST: FREE
Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles
As LAist's own tomdog said, the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles celebrates its fifth anniversary this year and is now six days long. There will be over 40 films, both shorts and features.
Tonight's Opening Night Gala showcases the Los Angeles premiere of Provoked: A True Story, the British-Indian version of a standard Lifetime fem-jep movie. Based on a true story it stars Aishwarya Rai as a Punjabi woman who leaves India to marry a man in London. The marriage turns into a nightmare, and after years of physical, mental and sexual abuse she murders the bastard and ends up in prison. A reception will follow at Ivar featuring a DJ set from the Bombay Dub Orchestra.
More interesting is the tribute to Indian actress Deepti Naval on Thursday, April 19, which includes a discussion with the actress and screenings of three of her films; the new Bollywood By Night series, which features late night, 21+ screenings of Bollywood blockbusters; and EcoVision, a program that showcases films on sustainability, utilizing eco-friendly products and processes.
WHEN: April 17-22
WHERE: Arclight Cinemas: 6360 W. Sunset Blvd. (between Vine and Ivar in Hollywood)
COST: $11 general admission; $9 seniors, children, AFI and ArcLight members; $60 opening and closing night galas; $15 tribute.Click here for tickets.
April 16, 2007
The Indian Film Festival celebrates its fifth anniversary this year and is now six days long. The festival takes place at the incredible ArcLight Hollywood, get tickets HERE.
There will be at least 40 showings of films, both short as well as feature length. Events include an Opening Night Gala on Tuesday, April 17th, with the Los Angeles premiere of Provoked followed by a reception at the Ivar with a DJ set from the Bombay Dub Orchestra.
On Thursday, April 19th, there will be a tribute to acclaimed Indian actress Deepti Naval, incuding a discussion with the actress along with the screening of three of her films. Opening and closing night galas will feature dance performances by the Taal Dance Collective.
Awards ceremony, reception and closing night gala to be at Level 3 at the Hollywood & Highland complex - DJ set by UK Bhangra-electronica fusionist: Tej Gill.
Still from ANAMIKA – HER GLORIOUS PAST via IFFLA
1. Disturbia - $23 million - Paramount/Dreamworks
2. Blades of Glory - $14.1 million - Paramount/Dreamworks
3. Meet the Robinsons - $12 million - Disney
4. Perfect Stranger - $11 million - Sony/Columbia
5. Are We Done Yet? - $9.2 million - Sony/Columbia
6. Pathfinder - $4.8 million - Fox
7. Wild Hogs - $4.6 million - Buena Vista
8. The Reaping - $4.5 million - Warner Bros.
9. 300 - $4.3 million - Warner Bros.
10. Grindhouse - $4.2 million - The Weinstein Co.
"Teen Horror Tops Box Office"… how many times during 2007 do you think that'll be the Sunday box office headline? The betting pool is now open.
No shocking box office news this week. As predicted, a relentless promotional onslaught helped Paramount/Dreamworks' Disturbia, the teen-themed remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, take first place with a respectable $23 million. That makes Shia LeBeouf a bona fide star (as opposed to a Disney Channel one) and a totally legitimate host of Saturday Night Live.
Paramount & Dreamworks execs are dancing on the graves of their enemies after earning the top two box office spots. Blades of Glory is still bringing in big bucks in its third week and just hit the $90 million mark.
The strong and steady award goes to 300, which hit the $200 million mark, followed by Wild Hogs, which hit $150 million, and runner-up Meet the Robinsons, which hit $72 million.
Big losers include Grindhouse, which plunged 64% to fall from 4th to 10th place, and The Reaping, which plunged 55% to fall from 5th to 8th place.
With a limited release, Aqua Teen Hunger Force earned only $3 million, not enough to even make it into the top 10. But with a very, very limited release (seven screens), Mike White's Year of the Dog earned a respectable $112,000.
April 13, 2007
Hair High - The latest film from animator Bill Plympton is a gothic high-school comedy. When Spud, the new kid in town, accidentally offends Cherri and Rod, the high school power couple, he is forced to become Cheri's slave, and eventually Spud and Cheri fall for each other. They secretly decide to attend to the prom together, but Rod forces their car off the road and they sink to the bottom of the lake in their final embrace. On the night of next year's prom, the car returns to life and drives Cherri and Spud, who are in an advanced state of decomposition, to the prom as if nothing had happened.
Following tonight's 7:35 p.m. screening at the Laemmles Susnet 5, there will be a Q&A with director Bill Plympton & Weird Al.
Also Recommended: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, Red Road, Trade, Year of the Dog.
Adam's Apples - A Danish film about a neo-Nazi (Ulrich Thomsen) sentenced to community service at a church, where he clashes with the cheerful vicar (Mads Mikkelsen, the villain with the bloody eye in Casino Royale).
Amazing Grace - A Michael Apted-directed biopic about William (Ioan Gruffudd) a leading British crusader who fought to abolish that country's slave trade in the late 18th century.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters - Frylock, Meatwad and Master Shake must save the universe from an apocalyptic exercise machine called the "Insanoflex." LAist's own Lisa B. described it as "the search for the holy grail meets the Terminator for a string-theory stroll through time and space with pregnant, gym-techno loving robots, poodles with laser beam eyes, creepy Abe Lincoln."
Disturbia - Commercials for this movie have been playing non-stop during every commercial break on every vaguely youth-oriented television show, making this one of the most hyped movies of the year (seriously, the TV advertising budget was larger than the GNP of most third-world nations). Okay, we get it. Scary things happen under the veil of suburban wholesomeness. Welcome to the teen version of Rear Window starring that kid whose name I can’t pronounce and who is for some inexplicable reason hosting Saturday Night Live. Prediction: it'll kill at the b.o.
The Exterminating Angels - French director/provocteur/dirty old man Jean-Claude Brisseau has made a highly sexual film about a director who's making a highly sexual film and holds a series of auditions where he asks actresses to disrobe, masturbate, get it on with each other, etc. In 2005 Brisseau himself was accused by two actresses of sexual harassment because of real-life auditions for that sound fairly similar to the ones depicted in this movie.
Lonely Hearts - Based on the same source material as the 1970 film The Honeymoon Killers, this version of the tale stars the unlikely pair of Salma Hayek and Jared Leto as a murderous couple who lure their victims through personal ads. John Travolta is the detective trying to hunt them down.
Continue reading "New Movie Friday: Hair High, Aqua Teen, Red Road, Year of the Dog"April 12, 2007
Never saw the show. Loved the movie. And I suspect having no frame of reference in which to interpret the behavior of flying french fries and/or the motivations of an amorphous meatwad might have actually added to my experience.
This landmark film is like the search for the holy grail meets the Terminator for a string-theory stroll through time and space with pregnant, gym-techno loving robots, poodles with laser beam eyes, creepy Abe Lincoln, and the sweet, sweet sounds of an armless milkshake creaking out maudlin singer/songwriter fare to save humanity from total destruction. There are also death metal concessions, mad scientists, aliens, MC Hammer pants, and a helpful sex-ed lesson done-up right with squeaky chalk and helpful diagrams. Don’t worry, everyone’s favorite terrorist Mooninites get their fair share of screen time, and the mysteries of the ancient Egyptian pyramids are finally revealed. Also there are pelvic thrusts.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters opens tomorrow, April 13. Run, don’t walk.
April 10, 2007
Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Josh in Los Angeles. He asks: There's no problem downloading .avi files, converting to .mov, and playing on the Apple TV, is there? Or showing .mov files generated by iMovie? Also, does it run with 10.3.9?
The answer to your questions are pretty simple, fortunately. Anything you can play on an iPod with video you can play on an Apple TV. The longer answer appears at Apple's website devoted to Apple TV and iTunes. The device will only play the following:
• H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): Up to 5 Mbps, Progressive Main Profile (CAVLC) with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 1280 by 720 pixels at 24 fps, 960 by 540 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
• iTunes Store purchased video: 320 by 240 pixels or 640 by 480 pixels
• MPEG-4: Up to 3 Mbps, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 720 by 432 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
Also, Apple TV requires iTunes 7.1 and iTunes 7.1 has a minimum Mac OS requirement of 10.3.9. So, that means if you are using OS 10.3.9 with iTunes 7.1, you should be fine. Also, keep in mind that iTunes 7.1 also has a requirement that you have Quicktime version 6.5.2 or later so don't forget to update that as well.
As for converting the video to the correct format for Apple TV, at the moment there are several tools to accomplish that task. You could use Apple's own Quicktime Pro, or use the option in the latest version of iMovie to convert for Apple TV, Handbrake (now called Media Fork) or even ffmpegX. For you Windows users, a good tool is AVS Video Tools.
However, my tool of choice at the moment is a program called Visual Hub. Visual Hub is a nice tool and allows you to convert pretty much any video format into any other. It works great for converting .AVI files, for example, into H.264 for Apple TV viewing -- and actually has a preset for that -- and it can also be used for a great deal more.
Plus, of all the tools I've tested for converting video, Visual Hub is the fastest on my test machine -- a 20" Core Duo 2 iMac with 2GB of RAM. Although, speed is relative in that it still takes some time to do the conversion, even with Visual Hub. So, plan on setting it and doing something else until its done. Like watching some video via your Apple TV.
Ok, that's it for this week's 'Ask the MACist.' But remember, if you have a question about anything Mac, Mac-related, or even something about other tech like TiVo, Blackberry or even Windows, send it to me, The MACist, at: themacist at gmail dot com.
About Chris Ullrich: Chris is the technology editor at LAist as well as a frequent contributor to other sites like Cinematical and Comic Book Resources. He also consults with clients in entertainment and related industries about how technology can best help them exceed their goals.
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Grindhouse
The Girl from Starship Venus (AKA The Sexplorer) is a space nudie starring Monika Ringwald as an astronaut from Venus who lands in London's swinging Soho district circa 1975. Her mission? To research sex customs on the planet Earth. This is paired with The Legend of the Wolf Woman, a 1976 horror film from Italy whose title pretty much says it all. A beautiful woman seeks men out, has sex with them then turns into a werewolf and rips them to pieces.
Of all the week's films Slithis is probably the one that has the most relevance for Angelenos, featuring as it does a mutated nuclear sea monster that terrorizes the residents of Venice, California. This is followed by Screams of a Winter Night, a horror film that takes the urban legend about a murderous, hook-armed man stalking teenagers at make-out point, and transplants it to a bunch of college students on an ill-fated camping trip.
The weeks closes out with a regional double feature set (could it be anywhere else?) in the South. Hot Summer in Barefoot County features a city cop who goes undercover to bust a ring of sexy female moonshiners. And I have no idea what Redneck Miller is about, but since it was made in 1977 and it's on the grindhouse bill, I'm gonna guess it features some combination of these elements: Daisy Duke cutoffs, mud, a fat sheriff, moonshine, petite braless breasts bouncing around under thin cotton T-shirts, rowdy teenagers swimming at the lake, denim overalls, a corrupt businessman, a dirty shack, ribs, someone chawing on a stalk of hay.
WHEN: Mon., April 9 - Sat., April 14; various times
WHERE: The New Beverly: 7165 Beverly Blvd. (1 block West of La Brea Ave.)
Olympia, Part 1 – Festival of the People
The Goethe Institut will screen the first part of Olympia, Leni Riefenstahl's morally dubious but visually stunning paean to the Nazi-led Olympic Games of 1936. The screening is part of the Goethe Institut's year-long celebration "40 Years Berlin – Los Angeles," which includes a film program that spans early, rarely-seen German silent films to movies from the latest Berlin Film Festival.
WHEN: Tuesday, April 10 at 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Goethe Institut Los Angeles, 5750 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 100,
COST: $5 general admission; free for Friends of the Goethe Institut
Albert Maysles
Albert Maysles who along with his brother David directed some of the most enduring documentaries of the last half century (Salesman, Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter) will be the guest of honor at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The program will feature an overview of Maysles’ work and a discussion of his cinema verité approach to documentary filmmaking through conversation and film clips.
WHEN: Thursday, April 12 at 7:30 PM
WHERE: Linwood Dunn Theater at AMPAS: 1313 North Vine St. (Hollywood South of Fountain)
COST: $5 for the general public, $3 for Academy members and students with a valid ID.
Subtitle Film Festival
Koreatown plays host to the first annual Subtitle Film Festival, a four-day event featuring nine cutting-edge films from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Thailand. The slate includes Confession of Pain, the latest film from Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, the directorial team behind Infernal Affairs who have reteamed for a crime thriller starring Tony Leung as a detective investigating the death of his father; Dorm, a Thai ghost story set in a boys' boarding school; 4:30, a drama directed by Singapore's wünderkind Royston Tan about the unlikely friendship between an 11-year-old boy and 30-something man; Memories of Tomorrow, a Japanese film starring Ken Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima) as a businessman facing early-onset Alzheimer's; and the U.S. premiere of Patrick Tam's first film in 17 years, After This Our Exile, a simple father/son tale.
WHEN: Thursday, April 12 - Sunday, April 15
WHERE: MPARK4 Theaters: 3240 Wilshire Blvd., 3rd Floor, (Koreatown, 1 block West of Vermont Ave.
COST: Advance tickets cost $8 online or $10 the day of the screening theater box office. Each film will only screen once during the festival.
April 8, 2007
I am in shock. Despite a ton of promotion, great reviews and legions of Quentin Tarantino fans, Grindhouse opened in only fourth place. That would be $3.4 million behind the "former ghetto rapper heads to the burbs" comedy Are We Done Yet? and only $1.5 million ahead of the "I'm Hilary Swank, and I've won two Oscars, so I can star in whatever piece of poorly conceived commercial dreck I want to" horror film The Crapping. Excuse me, I mean The Reaping.
Estimated Weekend Box Office Totals for the April 6-8, 2007
1. Blades of Glory - $23 million
2. Meet the Robinsons - $17 million
3. Are We Done Yet? - $15 million
4. Grindhouse - $11.6 million
5. The Reaping - $10.1 million
6. 300 - $8.8 million
7. Wild Hogs - $6.9 million
8. Shooter - $5.8 million
9. TMNT - $4.9 million
10. Firehouse Dog - $4 million
In case you’re wondering what the hell #9 is, it's The Weinstein Company’s clever experiment to see if they can trick Americans into seeing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. (Bob: Yo, Harv. Maybe if we use an acronym everyone will forget the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a totally played out franchise from decades ago. Harvey: Tubular idea, bro! But I think you're like totally confusing acronym with initialism.) It's also a half-hearted attempt to revive a moribund kids' franchise with slick CG. The TMNT were around when I was a teenager in the mid to late 90s and babysitting all sorts of turtle-loving little rugrats. I gotta think the kids these days more sophisticated. Aren’t they all born with RFID chips implanted in their necks, cell phones attached to their hips and a joystick for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City clasped betwixt their chubby little fingers? Were the teeming masses of today's youth crying out for another set of anthropomorphized animal superheroes, just different enough to feel new but recognizable enough to feel comforting? I guess so, because TMNT has earned something like $35 million in two weeks.
What do I know? (That was a rhetorical question. Answer: not much.) I'm the kind of person who thinks it's a sacrilege that Escape from New York is A) being remade and B) being remade without Kurt Russell.
As always, props to Variety for posting the box office figures in such a timely manner.
April 7, 2007
The marketing departments of major studios have nothing on Los Angeles' guerilla graffiti artists. This promo for Spider-Man 3 is the second of two billboards for summer superhero movies tagged by (I think) the same artist. The first of these, a Silver Surfer billboard for the Fantastic Four sequel on Melrose near Martel, has since been removed, but you can still see this one (I hope) on the North side of Melrose at Mansfield.
UPDATE: Check out the awesome Silver Surfer billboard by Augor.
Photos by Rob Takata
Continue reading "Better Living Through Graffiti"
April 6, 2007
Year of the Dog's Laura Dern and Molly Shannon with writer/director Mike White
OK, so we were invited to the Paramount lot -- but wouldn't it be more dramatic if we crashed it? Could additional drama even be necessary at the premiere of a movie about relationships, work, death, and dogs, with a tagline begging the question: "Has the world left you a stray?" Year of the Dog hits theaters next Friday, the 13th.
We snapped several photos of the movie's stars as well as some notable fangirls (Drew Barrymore, Shondrella Avery [aka LaFonda], Tia Carrere) who confessed to the temptation to throw themselves at writer/director Mike White. Year of the Dog is White's directorial debut but he is already revered for his hilarious writing and his classic, jokester mug. His previous credits include Nacho Libre, School Of Rock, Orange County, and Chuck & Buck.
Josh Pais (who plays Molly Shannon's boss in the movie) told us why he (like everyone else) was so psyched to work on White's directorial debut.
An exclusive interview with the twins who play "Lissie," many more photos, and a clip from the movie after the jump.
interviews by Lindsay Watts; photos by Andy Sternberg
Continue reading "LAist Crashes the Year of the Dog Red Carpet Premiere"
Grindhouse - I've already reviewed this movie, so I won't bother rehashing it, but trust me, Grindhouse totally freakin' rocks! Three full hours of beautiful cinematic mayhem.
Are We Done Yet? - Ice Cube stars as a beleaguered urban dad who moves with his new wife (Nia Long) and her two kids to their dream house in the 'burbs and is terrorized by a contractor (John C. McGinley from Scrubs).
Black Book - Dutch-born director Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Showgirls and Starship Troopers) returns to his native country for this thriller about the Dutch resistance during WWII. Friends of mine who have seen it say one of the nice ahem… perks is that you get to see Carice Van Houten doff her top. Nazi fighters and a great set of knockers? Now, that's a win-win.
Firehouse Dog - Todd Holland (Malcolm in the Middle, The Larry Sanders Show) directs this family-friendly film. The IMDB description: "Rexxx, Hollywood's top canine star, gets lost and is adopted into a shabby firehouse. He teams up with a young kid (Hutcherson) to get the station back on its feet."
The Hoax - Lasse Hallstrom directs and Richard Gere stars in what is supposed to be a terrific movie about Clifford Irving, the guy who almost succeeded in publishing a totally faked autobiography of Howard Hughes.
Hoboken Hollow - Jason Connery (son of Sean) stars in this horror film as a drifter who winds up at Hoboken Hollow, a remote West Texas ranch run by the brutal Broderick family. Look for C. Thomas Howell, Michael Madsen, Dennis Hopper and Robert Carradine in small supporting roles.
Killer of Sheep - In celebration of this film's 30th anniversary, Charles Burnett's 1977 classic of American independent cinema begins a week-long run at the Nuart complete with a new 35mm print. A neo-realistic portrayal of 1970s black urban life, specifically 1970s black Los Angeles urban life, that stars Henry Gayle Sanders as Stan, a depressed insomniac trying to support his family working at a slaughterhouse.
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience - A documentary centered on firsthand accounts of American troops through their own words. The film is based on an NEA project that collected the writing of soldiers and their families who have participated in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Actors including Robert Duvall, Josh Lucas, Beau Bridges, Blair Underwood, Justin Kirk and Aaron Eckhart were conscripted to give dramatic readings of their words.
Continue reading "New Movie Friday: Grindhouse, Are We Done Yet?, Black Book, The Reaping"
April 5, 2007
Don't forget. If you want to see a sneak preview of the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature, Grindhouse (Planet Terror = Rodriquez; Death Proof = Tarantino), head over to the New Beverly tonight at 11 p.m. Actually, head over at 9:45 p.m. That's when tickets go on sale, and there's a good chance it will sell out.
If you wanna go in true grindhouse style, I recommend rolling up in a 1970s Dodge Challenger and sneaking in a beer that you open with an audible sigh of pleasure the moment the lights dim.
Be forewarned, Grindhouse runs a full 3 hours, so you won't be getting out of the theater until after 2am., so maybe equip yourself with a Red Bull or something.
Also, bring cash. The New Bev, like the Vista, is old school. They don't take credit cards.
photo via hollywood book and poster
April 3, 2007
Listen up Hollywood - well worth 34 seconds of your time (and 23 of that is the question that's asked of him)
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April 3, 2007
Grindhouse
The week begins with a pair of 70s actions flicks. The Lady in Red, which has one of my favorite taglines of all time "She's made of bullets, sin & bathtub gin!" is a gangster film starring Robert Conrad as John Dillinger and Pamela Sue Martin as his moll. (Bonus: it was written by John Sayles.) In Bare Knuckles a Los Angeles bounty hunter tracks a psychopath who murders women by using kung-fu.
Then it's a couple of women-gone-wild films beginning with The Female Bunch, a 1969 film about a gang of drug-running, man-hassling, hell-raising women who live on a ranch in the desert. Wonder Women stars character actress Nancy Kwan as the brilliant and evil Dr. Tsu, who uses her all-female army to kidnap some of the world's greatest athletes and bring them to her private island off the coast of Manila.
On Thursday, April 5 The New Beverly hosts an unnamed "Sneak Preview" at 11:00 pm. Hmmm, I wonder what that could be… a screening of the Trantino/Rodriguez double-feature Grindhouse, I'm gonna guess.
The week closes out with a double-bill of auto-themed movies. White Line Fever stars Jan Michael Vincent as Carol Jo Hummer, an independent long haul trucker (his rig is The Blue Mule) struggling to make ends meet and buck the corruption of the trucking industry. Return to Macon County is set in 1958 and features a very young Nick Nolte and Don Johnson as teenagers driving a hopped up Chevy cross-country to enter a drag race in California. On the way they pick up a pretty waitress, race small town cruisers and try to evade a local cop hell bent on seeing them go to jail.
WHEN: Mon., April 2 - Sat., April 7; various times
WHERE: The New Beverly: 7165 Beverly Blvd. (1 block West of La Brea Ave.)
Wild Tigers I Have Known
Executive produced by Gus Van Sant and directed by relative newcomer Cam Archer, this coming-of-age tale stars Malcolm Stumpf as Logan, a 13-year-old boy trying to cope with his sexuality and his unrequited crush on the coolest boy in school. Q&A with writer/director Cam Archer and cinematographer Aaron Platt after the screening.
WHEN: Tuesday, April 3 at 7:30 PM
WHERE: Melnitz Movies at the James Bridges Theater: 1409 Melnitz Hall, UCLA Campus (Westwood)
Killer of Sheep
Charles Burnett's 1977 classic of American independent cinema is rarely screened and has never been officially released on DVD or VHS, so it's a rare treat that the Nuart begins a week-long run of Killer of Sheep with a new 35mm print to celebrate the film's 30th anniversary. This neo-realistic portrayal of 1970s black urban life, specifically 1970s black Los Angeles urban life, stars Henry Gayle Sanders as Stan, a depressed insomniac trying to support his family working at a slaughterhouse. The film is slow and at times quite grim, but it is the film's bleak realism that give it its power. Actors Henry Sanders and Charles Bracy will attend the film's opening night.
WHEN: Fri., April 6 - Thurs., April 12
WHERE: Nuart Theater: 11272 Santa Monica Blvd. (at Sawtelle Blvd. in West LA)