Thanks to the major success of Invincible‘s first season, Amazon renewed the series for a second and third season in April 2021. A special prequel titled Invincible: Atom Eve was released in July 2023 that focused on Samantha ‘Atom Eve’ Wilkins. Another detail about this character was revealed in the second season of Invincible, which premiered in two parts across November 2023 and March 2024.
Atom Eve
The first episode of the second part was released recently and it featured a segment that makes Atom Eve’s origin much more heartbreaking. In the episode, Atom Eve joins Mark Grayson and the other Guardians of the Globe for a mission. At one point, fans get a glimpse of Atom Eve’s original family as Rex grabs a picture of them to convince her to join the Guardians to fight the Sequid invasion.
The latest episode of Invincible Season 2 once against sheds light on Atom...
Atom Eve
The first episode of the second part was released recently and it featured a segment that makes Atom Eve’s origin much more heartbreaking. In the episode, Atom Eve joins Mark Grayson and the other Guardians of the Globe for a mission. At one point, fans get a glimpse of Atom Eve’s original family as Rex grabs a picture of them to convince her to join the Guardians to fight the Sequid invasion.
The latest episode of Invincible Season 2 once against sheds light on Atom...
- 3/16/2024
- by Farhan Asif
- FandomWire
Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
The software used by Studio Ghibli will be free and open source starting on March 26th, Wired reports.
Explore the symmetry and camera movement in Amélie:
RogerEbert.com‘s Steve Erickson on the current state of foreign-language film distribution:
There’s no end to the essays by baby-boomers recalling the golden age of art cinema from the ‘50s to the ‘70s, many of them proclaiming the death of the movies in the present day. I was born in 1972, so I missed out on personally experiencing this arthouse heyday; my earliest exposure to world cinema came in the late ‘80s, when its Us distribution was at an unprecedented nadir.
The software used by Studio Ghibli will be free and open source starting on March 26th, Wired reports.
Explore the symmetry and camera movement in Amélie:
RogerEbert.com‘s Steve Erickson on the current state of foreign-language film distribution:
There’s no end to the essays by baby-boomers recalling the golden age of art cinema from the ‘50s to the ‘70s, many of them proclaiming the death of the movies in the present day. I was born in 1972, so I missed out on personally experiencing this arthouse heyday; my earliest exposure to world cinema came in the late ‘80s, when its Us distribution was at an unprecedented nadir.
- 3/21/2016
- by TFS Staff
- The Film Stage
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 43: Agnès Varda in California.
About the films:
The legendary French filmmaker Agnès Varda, whose remarkable career began in the 1950s and has continued into the twenty-first century, produced some of her most provocative works in the United States. After temporarily relocating to California in the late sixties with her husband, Jacques Demy, Varda, inspired by the politics, youth culture, and sunshine of the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, created three works that use documentary and fiction in various ways. She returned a decade later, and made two other fascinating portraits of outsiderness. Her five revealing, entertaining California films, encompassing shorts and features, are collected in this set,...
About the films:
The legendary French filmmaker Agnès Varda, whose remarkable career began in the 1950s and has continued into the twenty-first century, produced some of her most provocative works in the United States. After temporarily relocating to California in the late sixties with her husband, Jacques Demy, Varda, inspired by the politics, youth culture, and sunshine of the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, created three works that use documentary and fiction in various ways. She returned a decade later, and made two other fascinating portraits of outsiderness. Her five revealing, entertaining California films, encompassing shorts and features, are collected in this set,...
- 9/21/2015
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Judging from his books and many of his public statements, French author Michel Houellebecq has a taste for politically incorrect provocation. Guillaume Nicloux’s The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq, a narrative film in which Houellebecq plays himself, shows a different side of the writer. Dramatizing a mysterious three-day period in the writer’s life in which he disappeared from a book tour by suggesting that he was kidnapped and taken to a small town in France, it shows a Houellebecq who acts like a Woody Allen-ish nebbish. The film’s treatment of its narrative is more comic than menacing, and Houellebecq comes off as quite likable, even charming. I talked to Nicloux in early March.>> - Steven Erickson...
- 8/25/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Judging from his books and many of his public statements, French author Michel Houellebecq has a taste for politically incorrect provocation. Guillaume Nicloux’s The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq, a narrative film in which Houellebecq plays himself, shows a different side of the writer. Dramatizing a mysterious three-day period in the writer’s life in which he disappeared from a book tour by suggesting that he was kidnapped and taken to a small town in France, it shows a Houellebecq who acts like a Woody Allen-ish nebbish. The film’s treatment of its narrative is more comic than menacing, and Houellebecq comes off as quite likable, even charming. I talked to Nicloux in early March.>> - Steven Erickson...
- 8/25/2015
- Keyframe
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 39: Early Fassbinder.
About the films:
From the very beginning of his incandescent career, the New German Cinema enfant terrible Rainer Werner Fassbinder refused to play by the rules. His politically charged, experimental first films, made at an astonishingly rapid rate between 1969 and 1970, were influenced by the work of the Antiteater, an avant-garde stage troupe that he had helped found in Munich. Collected here are five of those fascinating and confrontational works. Whether a self- conscious meditation on American crime movies, a scathing indictment of xenophobia in contemporary Germany, or an off-the-wall look at the dysfunctional relationships on film sets, each is a startling glimpse into the mind...
About the films:
From the very beginning of his incandescent career, the New German Cinema enfant terrible Rainer Werner Fassbinder refused to play by the rules. His politically charged, experimental first films, made at an astonishingly rapid rate between 1969 and 1970, were influenced by the work of the Antiteater, an avant-garde stage troupe that he had helped found in Munich. Collected here are five of those fascinating and confrontational works. Whether a self- conscious meditation on American crime movies, a scathing indictment of xenophobia in contemporary Germany, or an off-the-wall look at the dysfunctional relationships on film sets, each is a startling glimpse into the mind...
- 6/22/2015
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
American TV generally isn’t a safe space for auteurists. With a few exceptions, like Louie (entirely written, directed by and starring Louis C. K.), the voices of writers and show-runners tend to drown out directors’ signatures. The French mini-series Li’l Quinquin may not exactly be “un film de Bruno Dumont,” but it’s instantly recognizable as his work. He’s put his personal stamp on these windswept vistas of rural northern France. Still, working for the small screen has led to a certain mellowing out. Li’l Quinquin isn’t free from grotesquerie, but it’s one of Dumont’s most humanist works.>. - Steven Erickson...
- 12/12/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
American TV generally isn’t a safe space for auteurists. With a few exceptions, like Louie (entirely written, directed by and starring Louis C. K.), the voices of writers and show-runners tend to drown out directors’ signatures. The French mini-series Li’l Quinquin may not exactly be “un film de Bruno Dumont,” but it’s instantly recognizable as his work. He’s put his personal stamp on these windswept vistas of rural northern France. Still, working for the small screen has led to a certain mellowing out. Li’l Quinquin isn’t free from grotesquerie, but it’s one of Dumont’s most humanist works.>. - Steven Erickson...
- 12/12/2014
- Keyframe
The American audience for documentaries is at a crossroads. The most popular non-fiction film released in the U.S. this year was a right-wing diatribe from Dinesh D’Souza that probably benefited from Obama’s sinking popularity and being released in an election year. But doc festivals are proliferating, and the mixture of narrative and non-fiction is also sprouting new forms. HBO and PBS continue to showcase documentaries, although they never seem to get around to anything like the avant-garde work coming from Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab.>> - Steven Erickson...
- 11/17/2014
- Keyframe
The American audience for documentaries is at a crossroads. The most popular non-fiction film released in the U.S. this year was a right-wing diatribe from Dinesh D’Souza that probably benefited from Obama’s sinking popularity and being released in an election year. But doc festivals are proliferating, and the mixture of narrative and non-fiction is also sprouting new forms. HBO and PBS continue to showcase documentaries, although they never seem to get around to anything like the avant-garde work coming from Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab.>> - Steven Erickson...
- 11/17/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
In today's roundup of news and views: Michael McGriff and J.M. Tyree discuss their new book, Our Secret Life in the Movies; Geoffrey O’Brien on Jean-Luc Godard and Adieu au langage; Richard Linklater interviews Wes Anderson; Twitch interviews Pedro Costa and Variety talks with Nuri Bilge Ceylan; Steve Erickson on John Cassavetes; Thomas Beard on Derek Jarman; rare films by Andy Warhol are screening in New York; Matthew McConaughey turns 45; and Darren Aronofsky will preside over the Berlinale Jury in February. » - David Hudson...
- 11/4/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
In today's roundup of news and views: Michael McGriff and J.M. Tyree discuss their new book, Our Secret Life in the Movies; Geoffrey O’Brien on Jean-Luc Godard and Adieu au langage; Richard Linklater interviews Wes Anderson; Twitch interviews Pedro Costa and Variety talks with Nuri Bilge Ceylan; Steve Erickson on John Cassavetes; Thomas Beard on Derek Jarman; rare films by Andy Warhol are screening in New York; Matthew McConaughey turns 45; and Darren Aronofsky will preside over the Berlinale Jury in February. » - David Hudson...
- 11/4/2014
- Keyframe
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof and his films have been under siege for some time. His 2009 film The White Meadows angered the Iranian government to the point where it had him arrested the following year for “filming without a permit.” He received a six-year prison sentence, later reduced to one year, and a twenty-year ban from filmmaking, which he went on to violate in 2011. The press kit for his latest film, Manuscripts Don’t Burn, says “right now he is out on bail and is waiting for the sentence to be executed.” Rasoulof had been able to travel and talk to the press since his arrest (see also Jonathan Marlow's interview with the director in Keyframe, "The Art of Filmmaking: Mohammad Rasoulof," a conversation that took place at the Telluride Film Festival, 2013), though last fall, his passport was revoked by the Iranian government. After seeing Manuscripts Don’t Burn, one...
- 6/13/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Right off the bat, I'll admit that I'm probably the wrong guy to be talking 'In the Mood for Love'. The only other Wong Kar-Wai film I've seen is The Chungking Express (which I liked), but beyond that I'm clueless when it comes to Wong's filmography. More importantly, I haven't seen the two films that bookend the apparent trilogy 'In the Mood for Love' belongs to. I'm sure the film is designed to stand on its own but something tells me a pre-existing familiarity with these characters and Wong's themes might have been helpful. In short, I'm coming into this film 12 years late and new to Wong's work, so bear with me. Set in 1962 (in Hong Kong), the film begins as two couples move into the same apartment complex next door to each other on the same day. Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) are...
- 10/16/2012
- by Jay C.
- FilmJunk
Chicago – Wong Kar-Wai’s “In the Mood For Love” is one of the most beautiful movies ever made, a mesmerizing blend of Wong’s gift with storytelling, perfect performances from its captivating leads, a gorgeous score from Michael Galasso, and Christopher Doyle & Mark Li Ping-Bin’s cinematography, which should have won every award imaginable. This timeless tale of unrequited love in 1962 Hong Kong resonated strongly with me when I saw it over a decade ago but it’s an even better movie than I remembered. It’s simply perfect and Criterion’s breathtaking HD transfer does it all the justice it deserves.
Rating: 5.0/5.0
A man and woman eat alone in Hong Kong. Their spouses travel a lot and so these neighbors — Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) — start to watch their lives intersect. Many filmmakers have commented on how often people are alone even in...
Rating: 5.0/5.0
A man and woman eat alone in Hong Kong. Their spouses travel a lot and so these neighbors — Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) — start to watch their lives intersect. Many filmmakers have commented on how often people are alone even in...
- 10/10/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
News.
According to Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi has wrapped his second feature under house-arrest. Eric Kohn reports via Indiewire. Steven Spielberg's long-anticipated Lincoln debuted on Monday at a secret screening at the New York Film Festival. Fandor has collected some of the first reactions. Lynne Ramsay has secured financing with Scott Pictures for her follow-up to last year's We Need to Talk About Kevin. The film is Mobius and The Hollywood Reporter describes it as a "psychological action thriller set in deep space [in which] a captain consumed by revenge takes his crew on a death mission fueled by his own ego and will to control an enigmatic alien." So yes, it's Moby Dick in space. The Guardian has the full story. Indiewire reports that Olivier Assayas is already mounting his follow-up to this year's Something in the Air. Reuniting with Juliette Binoche, the film is tentatively titled Since Maria.
Finds.
According to Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi has wrapped his second feature under house-arrest. Eric Kohn reports via Indiewire. Steven Spielberg's long-anticipated Lincoln debuted on Monday at a secret screening at the New York Film Festival. Fandor has collected some of the first reactions. Lynne Ramsay has secured financing with Scott Pictures for her follow-up to last year's We Need to Talk About Kevin. The film is Mobius and The Hollywood Reporter describes it as a "psychological action thriller set in deep space [in which] a captain consumed by revenge takes his crew on a death mission fueled by his own ego and will to control an enigmatic alien." So yes, it's Moby Dick in space. The Guardian has the full story. Indiewire reports that Olivier Assayas is already mounting his follow-up to this year's Something in the Air. Reuniting with Juliette Binoche, the film is tentatively titled Since Maria.
Finds.
- 10/10/2012
- by Notebook
- MUBI
This week's theatrical release of Bernie, after a long and winding run through the festival circuit, beginning at the Los Angeles Film Festival last summer, has prompted more than a few appreciations of Richard Linklater's career overall, regardless of how each individual critic ultimately comes down on his new film. Noel Murray and Scott Tobias have written up a primer at the Av Club and, at Slate, Seth Stevenson's attached a sidebar of rankings to his assessment of the oeuvre.
And then there's Kent Jones, writing for Film Comment: "My belief that Richard Linklater remains America's most underestimated filmmaker has been reinforced by the reception thus far to his new film Bernie, treated as either a failed Jack Black comedy or a movie that has not made up its mind about whether it wants to be fiction or documentary, funny or serious. Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion...
And then there's Kent Jones, writing for Film Comment: "My belief that Richard Linklater remains America's most underestimated filmmaker has been reinforced by the reception thus far to his new film Bernie, treated as either a failed Jack Black comedy or a movie that has not made up its mind about whether it wants to be fiction or documentary, funny or serious. Which leads me to the inescapable conclusion...
- 4/27/2012
- MUBI
Farley Granger "didn't fear the homoerotic subtext of either of the films he did for Hitchcock," writes Farran Nehme in the run-up to the For the Love of Film III Blogathon. "Mind you, in his autobiography Granger says he spent years disappointing critics and interviewers when asked about discussions with Hitchcock about just what was going on between Rope's two main characters: 'What discussions? It was 1948.' That didn't mean, though, that Granger himself and co-star John Dall were clueless." And as for Strangers on a Train (1951): "Given a role of ambiguous morality, he increases the questions about the character, rather than trying to emphasize the good-Guy qualities."
Charles Lyons for Filmmaker on Annette Insdorf's Philip Kaufman: "The first book-length assessment of Kaufman's oeuvre, which will reach 14 films when Hemingway and Gellhorn premieres on HBO in May [it also screens Out of Competition at Cannes], Philip Kaufman is a shrewd and very readable study.
Charles Lyons for Filmmaker on Annette Insdorf's Philip Kaufman: "The first book-length assessment of Kaufman's oeuvre, which will reach 14 films when Hemingway and Gellhorn premieres on HBO in May [it also screens Out of Competition at Cannes], Philip Kaufman is a shrewd and very readable study.
- 4/24/2012
- MUBI
Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, slated to open in mid-December, will be the first major feature to be screened at 48 frames per second. Both Mike Bracken (Movies.com) and Carolyn Giardina (Hollywood Reporter) wonder just how many theaters will be able to handle the High Frame Rate Jackson and James Cameron have been promoting.
In other news. Senses of Cinema is back online with a new look.
Books. Ada Calhoun finds that Frank Langella's new memoir, Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them, "paints Hollywood and Broadway as teeming with vulgar, neurotic and irresistible company, and Langella as relentlessly affable in the face of nonstop groping by famous people in far-flung locations. He ambles into history and falls into notable beds like some kind of sexy Forrest Gump or beefcake Zelig."
Reviewing Claude Lanzmann's memoir The Patagonian Hare for the New Republic,...
In other news. Senses of Cinema is back online with a new look.
Books. Ada Calhoun finds that Frank Langella's new memoir, Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women as I Knew Them, "paints Hollywood and Broadway as teeming with vulgar, neurotic and irresistible company, and Langella as relentlessly affable in the face of nonstop groping by famous people in far-flung locations. He ambles into history and falls into notable beds like some kind of sexy Forrest Gump or beefcake Zelig."
Reviewing Claude Lanzmann's memoir The Patagonian Hare for the New Republic,...
- 4/24/2012
- MUBI
Amy Monaghan, first known to most of us as the cinetrix, is high-tailing it from Boston, where she presented a paper at Scms, to New York for this afternoon's launch of the new issue of Black Clock, the literary journal edited by novelist Steve Erickson. You've got to love the promo blurb they've written for themselves:
In a movie issue like no other, Black Clock 15 features Geoff Nicholson's meeting of two film pioneers in "Buster Keaton: The Warhol Years," David Thomson's journey up the Amazon with Warren Beatty, and Anthony Miller's history of the cinema — from Dw Griffith's adaptation of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (presenting Louise Brooks as Lady Brett) to Don Siegel's 60s cult B-movie Bonnie and Clyde with Tuesday Weld and Clint Eastwood, to the 2010 Academy Award-winning portrayal by Chris Farley of silent comedic actor Fatty Arbuckle in Milos Forman's The Life of the Party.
In a movie issue like no other, Black Clock 15 features Geoff Nicholson's meeting of two film pioneers in "Buster Keaton: The Warhol Years," David Thomson's journey up the Amazon with Warren Beatty, and Anthony Miller's history of the cinema — from Dw Griffith's adaptation of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (presenting Louise Brooks as Lady Brett) to Don Siegel's 60s cult B-movie Bonnie and Clyde with Tuesday Weld and Clint Eastwood, to the 2010 Academy Award-winning portrayal by Chris Farley of silent comedic actor Fatty Arbuckle in Milos Forman's The Life of the Party.
- 3/25/2012
- MUBI
To follow up on Danny Kasman's review of This Is Not a Film (as well as roundups from the Cannes and New York film festivals), I thought I'd note that Anthony Kaufman and Steve Erickson have reported in the last few days on Jafar Panahi's current status. In a word, limbo, and it's got to be immensely frustrating.
Steve Erickson succinctly sums up the events that have led him there: "In 2010, his request to travel to the Berlin Film Festival was denied. He was arrested in March of that year, purportedly because he was making a film inspired by the protests following Iran's 2009 election. In May, he was released on bail. In December, he was sentenced to six years in jail. Furthermore, he was banned from directing films, writing screenplays, giving interviews (even to Iranian media) and leaving the country for 20 years. While he appealed the sentence, he lost...
Steve Erickson succinctly sums up the events that have led him there: "In 2010, his request to travel to the Berlin Film Festival was denied. He was arrested in March of that year, purportedly because he was making a film inspired by the protests following Iran's 2009 election. In May, he was released on bail. In December, he was sentenced to six years in jail. Furthermore, he was banned from directing films, writing screenplays, giving interviews (even to Iranian media) and leaving the country for 20 years. While he appealed the sentence, he lost...
- 3/1/2012
- MUBI
Frances Farmer
Relax. That's just a hairdresser behind her.
Before today's roundup gets rolling, I want to mention that David Phelps is conducting an experiment you should know about, The Secret History of America.
The liveliest read of the day comes from Matt Evans in the Morning News, a furious pitch for Frances Farmer — the actual woman and actress, not the lobotomized zombie portrayed by Jessica Lange in Frances (1982). Have fun.
"Why I Pirate Movies: A Self-Justification." Mike D'Angelo can't be surprised that he's kicked up a virtual storm. It began in the comments following that entry and has since blown over to Twitter.
Andy Warhol died 25 years ago today. Alex Needham examines the legacy in the Guardian and, in the Voice, Camille Dodero asks, "what does Andy Warhol's New York City look like today?"
Today's review of Geoff Dyer's Zona comes from R Emmet Sweeney at Movie Morlocks.
Relax. That's just a hairdresser behind her.
Before today's roundup gets rolling, I want to mention that David Phelps is conducting an experiment you should know about, The Secret History of America.
The liveliest read of the day comes from Matt Evans in the Morning News, a furious pitch for Frances Farmer — the actual woman and actress, not the lobotomized zombie portrayed by Jessica Lange in Frances (1982). Have fun.
"Why I Pirate Movies: A Self-Justification." Mike D'Angelo can't be surprised that he's kicked up a virtual storm. It began in the comments following that entry and has since blown over to Twitter.
Andy Warhol died 25 years ago today. Alex Needham examines the legacy in the Guardian and, in the Voice, Camille Dodero asks, "what does Andy Warhol's New York City look like today?"
Today's review of Geoff Dyer's Zona comes from R Emmet Sweeney at Movie Morlocks.
- 2/24/2012
- MUBI
Hellion
Today's the day Sundance 2012 opens and Salon's Andrew O'Hehir pretty well sums up why those who've written the festival off completely might want to reconsider:
If Robert Redford's annual celebration of independent film is no longer the cutting-edge cultural phenomenon it appeared to be in the 1990s, it also isn't the wretched-excess Sundance of the early 2000s, when the overly precious downtown of Park City, Utah, was bedecked with 'gifting lounges' that attracted all kinds of entertainment and sports celebrities who had no plausible connection to the independent-film business. Current festival director John Cooper took the reins from longtime director Geoff Gilmore (a charismatic and polarizing figure) two and a half years ago, just as the national economy was going south. Whether by coincidence, strategy or an inevitable consequence of structural change, Cooper's first two festivals have felt leaner and more focused on actual films and filmmakers — and...
Today's the day Sundance 2012 opens and Salon's Andrew O'Hehir pretty well sums up why those who've written the festival off completely might want to reconsider:
If Robert Redford's annual celebration of independent film is no longer the cutting-edge cultural phenomenon it appeared to be in the 1990s, it also isn't the wretched-excess Sundance of the early 2000s, when the overly precious downtown of Park City, Utah, was bedecked with 'gifting lounges' that attracted all kinds of entertainment and sports celebrities who had no plausible connection to the independent-film business. Current festival director John Cooper took the reins from longtime director Geoff Gilmore (a charismatic and polarizing figure) two and a half years ago, just as the national economy was going south. Whether by coincidence, strategy or an inevitable consequence of structural change, Cooper's first two festivals have felt leaner and more focused on actual films and filmmakers — and...
- 1/20/2012
- MUBI
In The Hunter, which was shot in the months just prior to the contentious Iranian presidential election in 2009 and then premiered at the Berlinale in 2010, writer-director Rafi Pitts plays Ali, a "taciturn graveyard-shift warehouse security guard, recently released from jail for a never-specified crime," as Melissa Anderson puts it in the Voice. "To avenge the deaths of his beloved wife and six-year-old daughter, killed during off-screen protests, Ali takes out two cops sniper-style and flees to a forest in the north. Pitts, who was born in 1967 in Iran and fled the country in 1981 for England, and cinematographer Mohammad Davudi frequently frame Ali in striking long shots: The protagonist is dwarfed by his surroundings, whether the labyrinthine entrance to his apartment building or the steep dirt incline he descends after killing the police officers. The open spaces stifle just as much as the claustrophobic hearing rooms and stairwells do in this season's other absorbing Iranian drama,...
- 1/5/2012
- MUBI
The latest issue from the Art Theatre Guild Pamphlet Project that Nihon Cine Art is making freely available is #16, devoted to Susumu Hani's She and He (1963).
Lists. "After a year overstuffed with cinematic bounty like 2011, isn't it somewhat churlish to spend time and energy meditating on the various failures, idiocies, and lapses in judgment and taste that marred the silver screen over the past twelve months? Why yes, yes it is!" Reverse Shot presents its "11 Offenses of 2011." In a similar vein, the Philadelphia Weekly's Sean Burns lists his "10 Worst Films of 2011" and, in a not-so-similar vein, there's Armond White's "2011 Better-Than List" in City Arts.
Back to the bests, though. You won't need German to scroll up and down Cargo's chart.
From Austin: "Melancholia is the movie that eclipsed them all among the Chronicle's three regular film reviewers (Marc Savlov, Kimberley Jones, and myself, Marjorie Baumgarten)…. It is the only film,...
Lists. "After a year overstuffed with cinematic bounty like 2011, isn't it somewhat churlish to spend time and energy meditating on the various failures, idiocies, and lapses in judgment and taste that marred the silver screen over the past twelve months? Why yes, yes it is!" Reverse Shot presents its "11 Offenses of 2011." In a similar vein, the Philadelphia Weekly's Sean Burns lists his "10 Worst Films of 2011" and, in a not-so-similar vein, there's Armond White's "2011 Better-Than List" in City Arts.
Back to the bests, though. You won't need German to scroll up and down Cargo's chart.
From Austin: "Melancholia is the movie that eclipsed them all among the Chronicle's three regular film reviewers (Marc Savlov, Kimberley Jones, and myself, Marjorie Baumgarten)…. It is the only film,...
- 1/5/2012
- MUBI
One of the best films of 2011, currently playing in New York and Los Angeles, begins rolling out across the Us over next two months. Check the site for cities and dates.
"A Separation literally makes the viewer judge its protagonists," notes Vadim Rizov at GreenCine Daily: "in the opening scene, wife Simin (Leila Hatami) pleads for a divorce from husband Nader (Peyman Maadi). The Pov is the judge's, who skeptically asks why an Iranian woman would possibly want her daughter to grow up anywhere else. The offscreen interrogator/filmmaker is a familiar figure in Iranian cinema, with Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi often breaking the fourth walls in their films, often directly appearing (and/or heard off-camera) asking their characters questions. Kiarostami's seemingly given up on making films in Iran at all, while Panahi's imprisoned; for many, Iranian cinema's currently more associated right now with its absentees than actual films.
"A Separation literally makes the viewer judge its protagonists," notes Vadim Rizov at GreenCine Daily: "in the opening scene, wife Simin (Leila Hatami) pleads for a divorce from husband Nader (Peyman Maadi). The Pov is the judge's, who skeptically asks why an Iranian woman would possibly want her daughter to grow up anywhere else. The offscreen interrogator/filmmaker is a familiar figure in Iranian cinema, with Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi often breaking the fourth walls in their films, often directly appearing (and/or heard off-camera) asking their characters questions. Kiarostami's seemingly given up on making films in Iran at all, while Panahi's imprisoned; for many, Iranian cinema's currently more associated right now with its absentees than actual films.
- 1/2/2012
- MUBI
"Steven Spielberg's War Horse, a deliberate throwback to a long-dormant style of unabashedly sentimental Hollywood filmmaking, is so completely what you would expect it to be that it comes back around and transcends its own clichés," suggests Slate's Dana Stevens. "In this 146-minute Wwi epic, there are plucky tenant farmers and sneering, oppressive landlords. There are idealistic youths whose character is tested by the crucible of war. There is, my right hand to God, a comic-relief goose. Above all, there are horses, those animals whose kinetic grace seems intimately bound up with the history of cinema, from Eadweard Muybridge's racehorse photographs to John Ford's equine-crisscrossed landscapes. If you don't thrill to the site of a horse galloping across a green meadow with a beautiful young rider on its back — if you believe (wrongly) that National Velvet is just a sappy kids' movie — then you may not be susceptible...
- 12/23/2011
- MUBI
Well before Sleeping Beauty and Steve McQueen's Shame opened more or less at the same time a couple of weeks ago (the rollout for each of them has varied), both films were already being spoken of in the same breath. No one, though, has gone as far in comparing the two as Laura Kern has in the latest issue of Film Comment, where her reviews of both — identical but for a few name changes and minor tweaks — are propped up against each other in side-by-side columns. Still, several reviews of one have at least mentioned the other and, in a recent piece for the La Weekly, Gustavo Turner takes an industry town-view of this unintentional double feature, ultimately arguing that the "problem with marketing films like Shame or Sleeping Beauty as the heirs to some great sex-positive art-house tradition — a sophisticated, almost quaintly retro alternative to the Barely Legal...
- 12/15/2011
- MUBI
The clip comes via Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay: "Continuing an extraordinarily prolific phase that has also encompassed his year-long subscription service, Joe Swanberg premieres his latest film, Caitlin Plays Herself, tonight at Brooklyn's reRun theater. His new star is Caitlin Stainken, a member of the Neo-Futurists Theater Ensemble." As always with Joe Swanberg's films, reviews fall on either side of a pretty wide split.
"Co-written by Swanberg and Caitlin Stainken, the movie is a sad, simple, and effective glance at a relationship that, more substantially, explores the blurred distinctions between life and art," writes Henry Stewart in the L. "A lot of the movie's 70 minutes are filled what the title implies: Jeanne Dielman-lite snippets of eating a banana, reading a magazine, rotating compost, writing, rehearsing conceptual theater pieces…. Swanberg, who shares cinematography credit with sometimes-collaborator Adam Wingard, shoots in long takes, never editing within scenes, a realism-enhancing technique that...
"Co-written by Swanberg and Caitlin Stainken, the movie is a sad, simple, and effective glance at a relationship that, more substantially, explores the blurred distinctions between life and art," writes Henry Stewart in the L. "A lot of the movie's 70 minutes are filled what the title implies: Jeanne Dielman-lite snippets of eating a banana, reading a magazine, rotating compost, writing, rehearsing conceptual theater pieces…. Swanberg, who shares cinematography credit with sometimes-collaborator Adam Wingard, shoots in long takes, never editing within scenes, a realism-enhancing technique that...
- 12/2/2011
- MUBI
I've only just now caught up with David Jenkins's interview with Charlie Kaufman for Time Out London in which Jenkins has "asked him about some of the dos, don'ts and more don'ts of his very personalized trade." That alone makes it a must-read, of course, but Kaufman also talks a bit about the project he's working on now, Frank or Francis, noting that "the scope of it and the world it inhabits is very, very large. In the broadest possible sense, it's about online film criticism, but as usual, the world that I'm writing about is not necessarily the world that I'm writing about. It's just a place to set it. There's a lot in there about the internet and anger: cultural, societal and individual anger. And isolation in this particular age we live in. And competition: it's about the idea of people in this world wanting to be seen.
- 9/30/2011
- MUBI
"At least you can see they're really trying to make a good festival," commented, with typical dry wit, one of the (very) few international colleagues the Brigade considers at least something of a crypto-Ferronian. Hard to argue with that, as Locarno's program still shows the signs of having to battle back and forth with the two heaviest lifters on the festival calendar, Cannes and Venice—yet mostly, the Ferroni Brigade had a grand time this year.
Of course, more often then not, when dispirited acquaintances met a merry Brigadier in between screenings, the answer to their inevitable question would be: "Coming from (and returning to) a retrospective, of course!"—but also among new films, we ended up with more truly interesting stuff than in the previous year. Not all of it true donkey material, for different reasons. Nevertheless, there were quite a few Ferronian pleasures out there, some of them more touching than others,...
Of course, more often then not, when dispirited acquaintances met a merry Brigadier in between screenings, the answer to their inevitable question would be: "Coming from (and returning to) a retrospective, of course!"—but also among new films, we ended up with more truly interesting stuff than in the previous year. Not all of it true donkey material, for different reasons. Nevertheless, there were quite a few Ferronian pleasures out there, some of them more touching than others,...
- 9/21/2011
- MUBI
"Brutal men in desperate situations are Nicolas Winding Refn's stock and trade," begins Nick Schager, "a preoccupation that continues with Drive, the story of a nameless Hollywood stuntman and auto-mechanic (Ryan Gosling) who spends his evenings working as a wheelman for heists set up by boss Shannon (Bryan Cranston). Like many of Refn's prior protagonists, Gosling's Driver is a lone wolf with a volatile streak, though in this case, he's less an embodiment of barely contained masculine rage than a neo-noir cool customer (toothpick in mouth, puffy silver jacket embroidered with a giant red scorpion on its back) in the mold of Alain Delon's Le Samouraï crook or James Caan's titular Thief."
"The plot could nearly be inscribed on the head of a pin," suggests the Voice's J Hoberman. "A chivalrous loner participates in an armed robbery to help out the woman he loves; the deal turns out to be a setup,...
"The plot could nearly be inscribed on the head of a pin," suggests the Voice's J Hoberman. "A chivalrous loner participates in an armed robbery to help out the woman he loves; the deal turns out to be a setup,...
- 9/18/2011
- MUBI
"What is the line between justice and vengeance?" asks Glenn Kenny at MSN Movies. "What's the exact burden of guilt when that line is crossed? When does righteousness, and particularly self-righteousness, get in the way of doing what's actually right? These questions were explored pretty trenchantly, at least by this reviewer's lights, in Steven Spielberg's 2005 film Munich, in which crack Israeli intelligence operatives tracked down and wiped out the parties behind the massacre of athletes at the 1972 Olympics. And Mossad, and undercover operations, also lie at the heart of The Debt, a new film from director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) that explores the same questions. This fictional tale aspires to pack a big sting, and it works to an extent, but as a whole the picture is too overdetermined and melodramatic and sentimental in spite of itself to put its ideas and convictions across as powerfully as it would like.
- 9/1/2011
- MUBI
"Ah, the pungent odor, the fermented esprit, the sulfurous insanity of the New York Asian Film Fest!" exclaims Michael Atkinson, introducing his overview of the lineup in the Voice. "It's a new year for the city's favorite attack of the imported-irrational, and as always, the jejune state of the late-spring/early-summer box office gets a shot in the ass. The pulp is especially ripe this year, particularly from Japan, where manga-ness seems to have gone from a national pastime to a mass psychosis."
For R Emmet Sweeney, writing for TCM, "most of the revelations in this year's slate came in the Nyaff sidebar, Sea of Revenge: New Korean Thrillers, so I'll focus there." Michael J Anderson splits the difference, concentrating on Takashi Miike's Ninja Kids!!! and Na Hong-jin's The Chaser (image above). Time Out New York's got a slide of "titles worth cutting class for." Cinespect's Ryan Wells picks...
For R Emmet Sweeney, writing for TCM, "most of the revelations in this year's slate came in the Nyaff sidebar, Sea of Revenge: New Korean Thrillers, so I'll focus there." Michael J Anderson splits the difference, concentrating on Takashi Miike's Ninja Kids!!! and Na Hong-jin's The Chaser (image above). Time Out New York's got a slide of "titles worth cutting class for." Cinespect's Ryan Wells picks...
- 6/30/2011
- MUBI
First, a quick reminder that entries on several films playing here or there have been updated through today: Film Socialisme, Agrarian Utopia, Road to Nowhere and The Tree of Life. Alright, on with the weekend...
"Jj Abrams imitates to flatter with Super 8, an homage to the seminal science fiction films of Steven Spielberg that succumbs to empty nostalgic pandering," argues Nick Schager in Slant. "As with his Star Trek, Abrams's latest puts a modern spin on classical material, though here reinvention isn't the goal so much as slavish duplication embellished with muscular CG effects. It's akin to returning to a cinematic womb of Spielbergian father-son issues, suburban households under extraterrestrial strain, and teen romance, friendship, and maturation via out-of-this-world circumstances. The effect of such a modus operandi is initial coziness quickly giving way to disheartening familiarity, with Abrams's own preoccupations (if he had any to begin with) becoming subsumed beneath the root themes,...
"Jj Abrams imitates to flatter with Super 8, an homage to the seminal science fiction films of Steven Spielberg that succumbs to empty nostalgic pandering," argues Nick Schager in Slant. "As with his Star Trek, Abrams's latest puts a modern spin on classical material, though here reinvention isn't the goal so much as slavish duplication embellished with muscular CG effects. It's akin to returning to a cinematic womb of Spielbergian father-son issues, suburban households under extraterrestrial strain, and teen romance, friendship, and maturation via out-of-this-world circumstances. The effect of such a modus operandi is initial coziness quickly giving way to disheartening familiarity, with Abrams's own preoccupations (if he had any to begin with) becoming subsumed beneath the root themes,...
- 6/12/2011
- MUBI
Updated through 6/10.
To Hellman and Back: An Evening with Monte Hellman is set for this evening at the Walter Reade Theater, and here's how the New York Times' Dave Kehr recommends you be there if you can: "The undisputed master of the existential road movie (Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971) will be present for a 6 pm sneak preview of his new feature, Road to Nowhere, to be followed by a rare screening of Mr Hellman's magnificently bleak adaptation of Charles Willeford's novel Cockfighter, starring Warren Oates as an itinerant gambler. A discussion with Mr Hellman follows the screening, as does a book party celebrating the reissue of the Willeford novel from PictureBox Books."
"Combining an almost quaint self-reflexiveness with state-of-the-art digital filmmaking, Road concerns the production of a film based on a controversial lovers' double-suicide in North Carolina," explains Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. "Director Mitchell Haven (Tygh Runyan) is determined to...
To Hellman and Back: An Evening with Monte Hellman is set for this evening at the Walter Reade Theater, and here's how the New York Times' Dave Kehr recommends you be there if you can: "The undisputed master of the existential road movie (Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971) will be present for a 6 pm sneak preview of his new feature, Road to Nowhere, to be followed by a rare screening of Mr Hellman's magnificently bleak adaptation of Charles Willeford's novel Cockfighter, starring Warren Oates as an itinerant gambler. A discussion with Mr Hellman follows the screening, as does a book party celebrating the reissue of the Willeford novel from PictureBox Books."
"Combining an almost quaint self-reflexiveness with state-of-the-art digital filmmaking, Road concerns the production of a film based on a controversial lovers' double-suicide in North Carolina," explains Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. "Director Mitchell Haven (Tygh Runyan) is determined to...
- 6/10/2011
- MUBI
Updated through 6/7.
In yesterday's Los Angeles Times, John Horn and Steven Zeitchik report on the uphill battle Fox Searchlight will be fighting this summer as they roll out Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life from just four theaters this weekend in New York and Los Angeles to eight more cities next week, all the way to 200 by the July 4 holiday weekend. In short, they realize that Brad Pitt and the Palme d'Or alone won't hack it. If marketing success were measured by the sheer bulk of critical coverage, though — and, Lord knows, it isn't — the team could already be resting on its laurels.
Reverse Shot, for example, has spent all this past week with the film, running five essays in all. Here in The Notebook, we've had Daniel Kasman's first impressions from Cannes and, on Thursday, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky's (if you'll allow us) magnificent review. Both follow, of course,...
In yesterday's Los Angeles Times, John Horn and Steven Zeitchik report on the uphill battle Fox Searchlight will be fighting this summer as they roll out Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life from just four theaters this weekend in New York and Los Angeles to eight more cities next week, all the way to 200 by the July 4 holiday weekend. In short, they realize that Brad Pitt and the Palme d'Or alone won't hack it. If marketing success were measured by the sheer bulk of critical coverage, though — and, Lord knows, it isn't — the team could already be resting on its laurels.
Reverse Shot, for example, has spent all this past week with the film, running five essays in all. Here in The Notebook, we've had Daniel Kasman's first impressions from Cannes and, on Thursday, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky's (if you'll allow us) magnificent review. Both follow, of course,...
- 6/7/2011
- MUBI
"Romanian films set in the era after the fall of Communism suggest the nation suffers a hell of a hangover from the ideology," writes Steve Erickson in Gay City News. "For instance, Corneliu Porumboiu's Police, Adjective attacks draconian drug laws left over from the old regime. Tuesday, After Christmas presents a very different vision of Romania. Its characters can afford to buy expensive Christmas gifts; one of them picks up a 3,300 Euro telescope. It may not be entirely accurate to call the film apolitical, but the most political thing about it is its avoidance of Eastern European miserabilism and its depiction of people who could be living much the same lifestyles in Western Europe."
Damon Smith introduces an interview with director Radu Muntean for Filmmaker: "Tuesday, After Christmas, which premiered at Cannes last year, opens on a dreamy scene: sunlight bathes a naked couple, middle-aged Paul (Mimi Branescu) and pretty,...
Damon Smith introduces an interview with director Radu Muntean for Filmmaker: "Tuesday, After Christmas, which premiered at Cannes last year, opens on a dreamy scene: sunlight bathes a naked couple, middle-aged Paul (Mimi Branescu) and pretty,...
- 5/26/2011
- MUBI
"A onetime yakuza turned jailbird turned filmmaking enfant terrible, the now-75-year-old Japanese director Kōji Wakamatsu has long been loved by cinema cultists for an outrageous string of 1960s provocations made under the guise of the pinku eiga — or 'pink' film." Steve Dollar at GreenCine Daily: "These typically low-budget sex romps could be as insane, surreal, or mind-bending as possible, as long as they included a minimum amount of nudity and softcore humping. Wakamatsu, seizing the opportunity, used the form to pursue the extremes, reveling in obsessive sex and violence as a leftist critique of Japanese society. Beyond the outrage and sleaze of The Embryo Hunts in Secret [1966]; Go, Go Second-Time Virgin [1969]; and Ecstasy of the Angels [1972], was a form of perverse shock treatment. Wakamatsu took a break from the camera in 1977, and didn't return for 27 years. But he still wants to mess with your head."
Steve Erickson for Moving...
Steve Erickson for Moving...
- 5/8/2011
- MUBI
"Denis Villeneuve's Incendies — an operatic saga of intergenerational woe — is the cinematic equivalent of a Harlem Globetrotters game, with brazen contrivances and a preordained outcome repurposed as dazzling spectacle." David Ehrlich at Reverse Shot: "A strained melodrama that unspools like the bastard child of Homer and Alejandro González Iñárritu, Incendies devotes the brunt of its 130 minutes to earning the audacity of its resolution — it's a work of such unchecked ambition that it almost has to be excused before it can be appreciated at all. But if Villeneuve's film ultimately resolves itself as little more than a gaudy parlor trick, it's an expertly executed bit of chicanery whose punchline hits you square in the gut."
"It's a dual story," explains New York's David Edelstein, "of French-Canadian brother-and-sister twins compelled by the will of their dead mother to locate a father they thought died decades earlier and a brother they never knew existed; and,...
"It's a dual story," explains New York's David Edelstein, "of French-Canadian brother-and-sister twins compelled by the will of their dead mother to locate a father they thought died decades earlier and a brother they never knew existed; and,...
- 4/22/2011
- MUBI
"The finest Western you'll see this year is set in aristocratic 16th-century France, in the heat of Counter-Reformation," declares Nick Pinkerton. Segueing into his interview with Bertrand Tavernier, Aaron Hillis, also in the Voice, sums up the gist of The Princess of Montpensier: "Adapted from Madame de la Fayette's classic novel, the film concerns a nubile, wealthy heiress (Mélanie Thierry) who loves a rugged hothead from the wrong clan (Gaspard Ulliel), but is forced by her father to marry another prince (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), leaving her to dwell on the too-modern desire for free will — defiantly bucking against the rigid traditions of her breed." Back to Pinkerton: "The setting always serves the performers rather than vice versa — though the film is also greatly enhanced by the costuming, the rugged French countryside photographed in outdoor-adventure CinemaScope, and Philippe Sarde's baroque-tribal score, its martial and romantic poles matching a tale of...
- 4/18/2011
- MUBI
James Franco, a modern renaissance man, is eyeing to direct an adaptation of Steve Erickson’s 2007 Hollywood novel Zeroville.
Currently studying for PhD in English, the 127 Hours star has actually bought the film rights to Zeroville. According to Pineapple Express producer Judd Apatow, Franco could often be found looking around heavyweight classics such as The Iliad . It confirms opinion that Franco has a habit of picking up projects left and right such as Holy Land, The Adderall Diaries and Sal Mineo biopic.
The darkly comic story is about Ike ‘Vikar’ Jerome, a 24-year-old student who arrives in Hollywood in 1969 with dreams of breaking into the movie business. The business of course is in the midst of a seismic shift as the decline of studios leads to the rise of independent directors.
Jerome soon becomes a successful film editor and gets on a Hollywood journey that ends in both tragedy and discovery.
Currently studying for PhD in English, the 127 Hours star has actually bought the film rights to Zeroville. According to Pineapple Express producer Judd Apatow, Franco could often be found looking around heavyweight classics such as The Iliad . It confirms opinion that Franco has a habit of picking up projects left and right such as Holy Land, The Adderall Diaries and Sal Mineo biopic.
The darkly comic story is about Ike ‘Vikar’ Jerome, a 24-year-old student who arrives in Hollywood in 1969 with dreams of breaking into the movie business. The business of course is in the midst of a seismic shift as the decline of studios leads to the rise of independent directors.
Jerome soon becomes a successful film editor and gets on a Hollywood journey that ends in both tragedy and discovery.
- 4/2/2011
- by Nikola Mraovic
- Filmofilia
Chloe Moretz wasn't kidding around.
When MTV News caught up with the actress at The Comedy Awards in New York City last weekend, she informed us that she'd booked a new gig so huge we would freak out when we heard about it. And while the "Kick-Ass" star couldn't divulge beyond that, Deadline filled in the blank today when they reported that the 14-year-old would be joining the oh-so-impressive cast of Tim Burton's upcoming "Dark Shadows."
So while the starlet did miss out on that coveted role of Katniss in "The Hunger Games", snagging a part in another highly-anticipated feature alongside the likes of Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Helena Bonham Carter and Michelle Pfeiffer (whom Chloe will be playing the daughter of) is no joke.
After the jump, check out the news on James Franco's latest endeavor, casting for the lead in "Rock of Ages", Ryan Reynolds voicing...
When MTV News caught up with the actress at The Comedy Awards in New York City last weekend, she informed us that she'd booked a new gig so huge we would freak out when we heard about it. And while the "Kick-Ass" star couldn't divulge beyond that, Deadline filled in the blank today when they reported that the 14-year-old would be joining the oh-so-impressive cast of Tim Burton's upcoming "Dark Shadows."
So while the starlet did miss out on that coveted role of Katniss in "The Hunger Games", snagging a part in another highly-anticipated feature alongside the likes of Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Helena Bonham Carter and Michelle Pfeiffer (whom Chloe will be playing the daughter of) is no joke.
After the jump, check out the news on James Franco's latest endeavor, casting for the lead in "Rock of Ages", Ryan Reynolds voicing...
- 4/1/2011
- by Aly Semigran
- MTV Movies Blog
James Franco seems pretty insistent on getting into directing, with film adaptations of literary classics Blood Meridian and As I Lay Dying sure to push his skills to their limit, and he’s optioned yet another book for a future job. Variety lets us know that the actor has taken on the rights for Zeroville, which was written by Steve Erickson and serves as a dark parody of the New Hollywood movement.
It focuses on Ike “Vikar” Jerome, who has just moved to Hollywood in 1969. With tattoos of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor on his head, his journey “ends in both tragedy and discovery.” The book features many New Hollywood icons, such as Robert De Niro, Brian De Palma, John Milius and Paul Schrader, with the ghost of Clift even showing up.
I haven’t read the novel upon which this’ll be based, but the concept sounds pretty terrific,...
It focuses on Ike “Vikar” Jerome, who has just moved to Hollywood in 1969. With tattoos of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor on his head, his journey “ends in both tragedy and discovery.” The book features many New Hollywood icons, such as Robert De Niro, Brian De Palma, John Milius and Paul Schrader, with the ghost of Clift even showing up.
I haven’t read the novel upon which this’ll be based, but the concept sounds pretty terrific,...
- 4/1/2011
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
James Franco has purchased the feature film rights to Steve Erickson's 2007 novel "Zeroville."According to Variety, Franco will direct the film and produce through his Rabbit Bandini Productions along with Miles Levy and Vince Jolivette.There are no plans for Franco to star in the film.An early 2012 start date is planned.The story follows Ike "Vikar" Jerome, a 24-year-old student who arrives in 1969 Hollywood with the hopes of breaking into the movie business, which is in the early stages of the New Hollywood Era when major studio films gave way to smaller, intimate films directed by maverick directors. Jerome, who has tattoos of "A Place in the Sun" stars Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor on his head, goes on a...
- 4/1/2011
- by Adnan Tezer
- Monsters and Critics
Another week, another James Franco story. It’s getting kind of ridiculous, actually.
First, Variety is reporting that the actor/artist/student/director/teacher has optioned another book to possibly helm. The outlet has revealed that the actor is looking to direct an adaptation of the novel Zeroville, penned by Steve Erickson.
Read more on James Franco to helm Zeroville; first (Very Nsfw) look at his gang film with Harmony Korine...
First, Variety is reporting that the actor/artist/student/director/teacher has optioned another book to possibly helm. The outlet has revealed that the actor is looking to direct an adaptation of the novel Zeroville, penned by Steve Erickson.
Read more on James Franco to helm Zeroville; first (Very Nsfw) look at his gang film with Harmony Korine...
- 4/1/2011
- by Joshua Brunsting
- GordonandtheWhale
The 127 Hours actor, currently studying for PhD in English from Yale, reportedly plans to direct adaptation of Steve Erickson's comic novel himself
It looks like James Franco has been reading again, because he has bought the film rights to Zeroville, Steve Erickson's darkly comic novel about Hollywood.
The famously literate actor, who is studying for a PhD in English from Yale University and, according to Pineapple Express producer Judd Apatow, could often be found leafing through heavyweight classics such as The Iliad on set, has plans to direct the film of the book himself, Variety reports.
Erickson's 2007 novel tells the story of a film fanatic's adventures in the movie industry from the late 60s onwards and contains characters called Robert De Niro, Brian De Palma and Margot Kidder.
Although Franco is currently best known for his acting work in films such as 127 Hours and Milk, he appears determined to branch out.
It looks like James Franco has been reading again, because he has bought the film rights to Zeroville, Steve Erickson's darkly comic novel about Hollywood.
The famously literate actor, who is studying for a PhD in English from Yale University and, according to Pineapple Express producer Judd Apatow, could often be found leafing through heavyweight classics such as The Iliad on set, has plans to direct the film of the book himself, Variety reports.
Erickson's 2007 novel tells the story of a film fanatic's adventures in the movie industry from the late 60s onwards and contains characters called Robert De Niro, Brian De Palma and Margot Kidder.
Although Franco is currently best known for his acting work in films such as 127 Hours and Milk, he appears determined to branch out.
- 4/1/2011
- by Ian J Griffiths
- The Guardian - Film News
James Franco is looking to direct an adaptation of Steve Erickson's 2007 novel "Zeroville" says Variety.
The darkly comic story follows Ike 'Vikar' Jerome, a 24-year-old student who arrives in Hollywood in 1969 with dreams of breaking into the movie business. The business of course is in the midst of a seismic shift as the decline of studios leads to the rise of independent directors.
Jerome soon becomes a successful film editor and embarks on a Hollywood journey that ends in both tragedy and discovery. Characters in the book include such legends as Robert De Niro, Brian De Palma, Ryan O'Neal, John Milius, Margot Kidder, Ali McGraw, Paul Schrader and the ghost of Montgomery Clift.
Franco will produce the film through his Rabbit Bandini Prods. with an eye to direct, but not star in, the picture. Miles Levy and Vince Jolivette will also produce and shooting aims to kick off early...
The darkly comic story follows Ike 'Vikar' Jerome, a 24-year-old student who arrives in Hollywood in 1969 with dreams of breaking into the movie business. The business of course is in the midst of a seismic shift as the decline of studios leads to the rise of independent directors.
Jerome soon becomes a successful film editor and embarks on a Hollywood journey that ends in both tragedy and discovery. Characters in the book include such legends as Robert De Niro, Brian De Palma, Ryan O'Neal, John Milius, Margot Kidder, Ali McGraw, Paul Schrader and the ghost of Montgomery Clift.
Franco will produce the film through his Rabbit Bandini Prods. with an eye to direct, but not star in, the picture. Miles Levy and Vince Jolivette will also produce and shooting aims to kick off early...
- 4/1/2011
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
James Franco has optioned the film rights to Steve Erickson's 2007 novel, "Zeroville," reports Variety . He will develop the project under his Rabbit Bandini Productions and may direct, but there are no plans for him to star. The book is described as follows: Zeroville begins in 1969 on Hollywood Boulevard, when a Greyhound bus drops off a film-obsessed ex-seminarian with images of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift tattooed on his head. Vikar Jerome steps into the vortex of a cultural transformation: rock 'n' roll, sex, drugs, and.far more important to him.the decline of the movie studios and the rise of the independent director. Jerome will become a film editor of astonishing vision. Then through encounters with former starlets, burglars, political guerillas,...
- 3/31/2011
- Comingsoon.net
"The title of Basil Dearden's London Underground, a four-dvd Eclipse Series box set from Criterion Collection covering the late 50s and early 60s work of the British director, is a bit deceptive," finds Steve Erickson in Gay City News. "To be fair, Dearden's work was often prescient about the coming rebellions of the 1960s, depicting the beginnings of the black and gay civil rights movements. However, he did so from a well-intentioned but square outsider's perspective. There's a world of difference between Dearden's visions of interracial couples in Sapphire and All Night Long and the excoriations of Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, recently honored with his own Eclipse box set, aimed at his country's discrimination against Koreans. Dearden's noble politics are often expressed through plodding filmmaking. Still, he beat a seemingly more progressive director like Oshima to the punch in one respect. Dearden took on the subject of homosexuality when...
- 1/26/2011
- MUBI
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