I honestly found David Denby‘s review of the Red Riding Trilogy better written, easier to understand and more thematically satisfying than the trilogy itself. By all means see this British-made miniseries if you’re so inclined, but my advice is to read Denby’s review and save yourself the grief. If for no other reason than the fact that the north-country accents are all but indecipherable. The only way for Americans to watch this immersion in murk and depression is to wait for a subtitled DVD.
I hated Andrew Garfield‘s character in Red Riding: 1974. You know a movie isn’t quite working when you start rooting for the hero to be killed.
HE’s Moises Chiullan vigorously riffs on how Surrogates, the Bruce Willis flick now available on DVD/Bluray, “directly confronts the addiction to little lit-up screens and avoiding real social contact in the world.”
Anyone can repeat a generic list of worthwhile train movies. The very best is John Frankenheimer‘s The Train — no arguments! — followed by The General, Runaway Train, The Lady Vanishes, The Darjeeling Limited, Narrow Margin, Silver Streak, etc. But one that’s been more or less forgotten (and which isn’t half bad) is Francis D. Lyon‘s The Great Locomotive Chase (’56), a Civil War actioner that costarred Fess Parker and Jeffrey Hunter.
It’ll never be anyone’s idea of a great film — it was a family-friendly Disney production — but it’s a completely decent one as far as it went. Tidy and focused, a story that moves right along, reasonably sturdy performances.
Best of all is a quietly touching finale in which Parker, a Yankee train-hijacker condemned to hang, shakes the hand of Hunter, his Confederate pursuer, with the idea that Union and Confederates will one day be friendly when the war is over “so I’d like if if we could shake now,” etc.
The Great Locomotive Chase was shot in an early permutation of CinemaScope (i.e., an extra-wide 2.55 to 1 aspect ratio).
Has anyone ever mentioned that Up co-director Pete Docter looks like a cartoon character? It’s mainly that exaggerated jaw. I’ve been trying to put my finger on it, but it hit me last night — he’s almost a dead ringer for a thinner version of “Mr. Incredible” in Brad Bird‘s The Incredibles.
It’s no good when characters afflicted with galloping lycanthropy turn into actual wolves. I like my werewolves to be hybrids — hairy creatures with human-type bodies who run around in a kind of half-crouch position, and who sometimes keep their shirts on when they transform. Benicio del Toro‘s Wolfman beast follows this mode. Ditto Jack Nicholson in Wolf, Oliver Reed in Curse of the Werewolf, Lon Chaney in The Wolfman, etc. I hated John Landis‘s decision to turn his American Werewolf in London star David Naughton into a four-legged wolf with paws and claws.
“In one small experiment on sexual response to food scents, vaginal and penile blood flow was measured in 31 men and women who wore masks emitting various food aromas. This was the study that found men susceptible to the scent of doughnuts mingled with licorice. For women, first place for most arousing was a tie between baby powder and the combination of Good & Plenty candy with cucumber. Coming in second was a combination of Good & Plenty and banana nut bread.” — from a 2.9.10 N.Y. Times story by Sara Kershaw.
I’m not saying there hasn’t been another instance in movie history in which the star of a film has looked this similar to the director. I’m asking someone to prove otherwise. Last summer I noticed a striking similarity between Public Enemies director and cowriter Michael Mann and costar Jason Clarke, but that’s a different equation.
Vulture editor Claude Brodesser-Akner shares some exclusive details on New Line’s Escape From New York remake, which apparently has no director and no star. Early rumors mentioned Brett Ratner or Jonathan Mostow to helm and Gerard Butler to star. Kurt Russell‘s Plissken was a hoot but the original John Carpenter feature (which I did a Manhattan set story on back in ’79) was, for me, no more than okay. All I could think of when I saw it was “boy, has Carpenter lost it or what?” (He peaked with the original Assault on Precinct 13.)
“It’s not that Valentine’s Day is a chick flick. I’ve seen funny chick flicks. This is a nitwit flick — the movie equivalent of an elaborately wrapped package which turns out to contain only styrofoam peanuts. If you want to see a funny, romantic and touching film for Valentine’s Day, rent Charlie Chaplin‘s City Lights. If you want to see Valentine’s Day, light your money on fire and watch it burn — it will have an equivalent entertainment value and you’ll save on gas, parking and snacks.” — from Marshall Fine‘s just-posted review.
I’ve been keen to read Joel and Ethan Coen‘s True Grit script for a while now. This morning a draft of it (their third, dated 6.12.09) arrived in my inbox. I was dazzled right away by the robust poetic flavor of the Old West dialogue, which I presume is partly taken from the Charles Portis novel. There’s hardly a single line that resembles the English spoken today in the U.S. of Eloi, and it’s pure pleasure. True Grit-speak is as specifically unto itself as the Elizabethan English spoken during William Shakespeare‘s day.
The Coens being the Coens, the story is grittier, more character-rich and funnier (in their usual sardonic oddball way) than the one used for the 1969 Henry Hathaway version with John Wayne, Kim Darby and Glenn Campbell. Jeff Bridges is going to have a field day as Rooster Cogburn, but then we knew that going in.
The Coens are apparently intending to cast an unknown as Mattie Ross, from whose perspective the story unfolds and who supplies the narration. They held an open casting call in Tulsa, Oklahoma about a month ago, and reportedly put out the word that “no acting experience is necessary.” The Oklahoman‘s Brandy McDonnell wrote that Mattie is “to be a simple, tough-as-nails 14-year-old…steely nerves, straightforward manner.” She cautioned that “hopefuls are advised not to make the mistake of trying to appear like or imitate Kim Darby, who played Mattie Ross in the original film.” And “no make-up model types.”
