Month: October 2011

Lars von Trier‘s Melancholia (Magnolia, on-demand 107, theatrical 11.11) screened last night at the New York Film Festival, and then the stars of the cast — Kirtsen Dunst, Charlotte Ginsbourg, Alexander Skarsgard — attended an after-party at the Stone Rose Lounge inside the Time Warner Center. It boiled down to free wine and beer and Deleon Tequila, and a sadistic deejay playing house music that put me in a bad mood and kept me there.

Melancholia star Kirsten Dunst during last night’s after-party at the Stone Rose Lounge.

After catching Melancholia at the Cannes Film Festival i called it “a morose, meditative in-and-outer that begins stunningly if not ecstatically and concludes…well, as you might expect a film about the end of the world to wrap itself up.

“Von Trier’s ensemble piece ‘isn’t about the end of the world but a state of mind,’ he said during the Cannes press conference. My thinking exactly. But it’s also a more striking thing for where it starts and what it attempts than how it plays.

“And yet I believe it’s the best…make that the gloomiest, most ambitious and craziest film Kirsten Dunst has ever starred in. Way bolder than Spotless Mind. It’s kind of La Notte-esque, now that I think about it. Dunst pretty much scowls all through Melancholia and does three nude scenes. What I really mean, I suppose, is that she’s never operated in such a dark, fleshy and grandiose realm.

“It’s basically just a stylishly nutso, intriguing, semi-bombastic ensemble piece about despair in the face of eventual ruination. You know…the kind of thing that most HE readers have in their heads each and every day.

Charlotte Gainsbourg.

“I felt elation only in the very beginning, and somewhat at the very end. But otherwise it mostly felt like a meditative slog. It’s not without its intrigues but it lacks tension and a through-line and a story, really, of any kind.

“After the stunning, tableau-like, slow-motion opening, Melancholia gets down to basic business. Situation, circumstance, character, mood.

“Justine (Dunst) is getting married to Michael (Skarsgard) and her control-freak sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) has orchestrated the wedding with husband Keifer Sutherland‘s money, and not the funds of Dunst’s father (John Hurt). Charlotte Rampling has a couple of scenes as Dunst’s blunt, cynical mom.

“But right after the wedding Justine slips into gloom-head nihilism and suddenly stops being attentive to Skarsgaard and starts meandering and moping around and fucking some guy (Brady Corbet) she barely knows near a golf course sandtrap.

“Did I mention that the Earth is apparently on some kind of collision course with a planet called Melancholia, which has recently emerged from behind the sun? And that no one turns on a TV news station throughout the whole film, and that Gainsbourgh goes online only once?

Alexander Skarsgard

“The movie is never ‘boring’ but only rarely gripping. It’s Von Trier, after all, but when all is said and done it’s basically a downhill swamp-trudge with tiny little pop-throughs from time to time.

“There’s an overhead tracking shot of two horseback riders galloping down a trail during a foggy morning that’s heartstoppingly beautiful. That plus the beginning I will never, ever forget.

“Death dance, death art…when worlds collide. Von Trier had a mildly intriguing idea here but didn’t know what to do with it, or he perhaps didn’t care to try. All he does is riff about how tradition and togetherness are over and very few of us care. My sense is that Von Trier experimented and jazz-riffed his way through most of the filming.

“All I know is that I feel the way Dunst’s Justine feels during most of the film, and I’m not dealing with the end of the world. Vaguely scared, unsettled…something’s coming.”

As talk persists that Woody Allen‘s universally loved Midnight in Paris will probably land a Best Picture Oscar nomination, there’s also no denying that Corey Stoll‘s hugely enjoyable, spot-on performance as young Ernest Hemingway is a Best Supporting Actor contender. Okay, maybe not up there with Max Von Sydow and Christopher Plummer, but definitely duking it out with Albert Brooks and Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Andy Serkis.

Corel Stoll in front of Luce (B’way at 69th) — Tuesday, 10.3, 2:05 pm.

Stoll is on-screen for maybe ten or twelve minutes in Midnight in Paris, and it doesn’t matter. He’s definitely the guy you remember for the sly humor and the authority and the wit and what feels like an almost eerie capturing of a legendary man’s man who had a thing for elegant, run-on sentences about being “real” and a worshipper of beauty and being courageous and solemn and separating the wheat from the chaff. Across the river and into the trees and away from the cocktail phonies.

Stoll and I did a one-hour sitdown yesterday at Luce on the Upper West Side. Here’s what was said.

Why do people decide that this or that performance is Oscar-worthy? Usually because the actor/actress has generated some kind of extra punch and pizazz within the confines of a character, and exuded a certain je ne sais quoi confidence and charisma and an aura that’s a little bit like candy. You “like” the performance and want the actor to stick around and keep adding his/her flavor to the room.

Stoll’s Hemingway is definitely one of these pop-throughs. Bewigged and moustachioed in Allen’s partly period film, he sounds like most of us imagine Hemingway would have sounded. He puts out the appropriately boozy, blustery, brawny quality that we’ve all read or heard about, and is simultaneously playing Hemingway for real and riffing on the legend — a pretty neat trick.. While’s he’s on-screen you’re saying “yeah, good stuff…more of this, please.”

As Ernest Hemingway in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.

Yes, I too would like to see Stoll play young Hemingway in an HBO miniseries that starts with his World War I experience as an ambulance-driver in Italy and ends with the 1926 publication of “The Sun Also Rises.”

Born and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the 35 year-old Stoll is no Hemingway in person. Not stuck on himself, I mean. He’s considerate, mild-mannered, unassuming and even-toned in conversation, and yet a straight-shooter. Say something that doesn’t seem right quite accurate and he’ll respond in a way that politely corrects.

I find this disparity fascinating. Some actors are commanding personalities with a kind of natural swaggering energy and macho aplomb and what-have-you, and others are like ultra-devoted priests of the cloth. Their interior energy is considerable, but they live to be unleashed by great characters and a general aura of make-believe. Alec Guinness was said to be like this, I once read, and so apparently is Stoll.

Stoll was believably brawny also as Detective Tomas “TJ” Jaruszalski in Law and Order: LA.

And he recently wrapped a role as Jeremy Renner‘s adversary in Tony Gilroy‘s Bourne Legacy, which will open on 8.3.12. The costars include Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Joan Allen, Scott Glenn and Oscar Isaac.

We got into this and that and whatever during our lunch. Shooting Midnight in Paris, how the Upper West Side has changed, where things might be for him in a few years, etc. It’s all here.

Stoll said something near the end of our chat about how Hemingway came along and wrote what he wrote at exactly the right time (i.e., the early to late 1920s), and that if he’d come along as a new-to-the-scene novelist ten years before or after it wouldn’t have worked as well for him, or perhaps not at all. That’s really what being an artist is about at the end of the day, isn’t it? Not just talent and dedication, but timing.

You’re dead if you fall from a height of…what, 50 feet? 75 feet? Something like that. But theoretically falling from the 124th floor of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa Tower, which is 2717 feet high, is, like, an abstraction, man.

Gerardo Naranjo‘s Miss Bala will now open on January 12, 2012 rather than the previously announced date of 10.14.11. This date isn’t posted on Coming Soon, the iMDB or even on the film’s own website. But Bala‘s marketing consultant David Dinerstein has just informed me of this.

“January 12th is a great date because it’ll give us more time for long-lead press and the ability to focus on a better awards campaign for the film,” Dinerstein said. “The Oscar nominations will be announced a few days later, and it’s already opened in Mexico, making it eligible for a Best Foreign Language Oscar.”

Pop quiz: what classic 1930s film used the word “bala” in a line of dialogue? Answer: King Kong. When Robert Armstrong‘s Carl Denham is trying to communicate with the hostile natives on Skull Island, he asks Captain Englehorn what the word for “friend” is, and Englehorn says “bala.” Denham opens his arms and takes a step forward, saying “Bala! Bala!” to the village chief. It doesn’t work.

To my knowledge Miss Bala is the first feature film has uses the Spanish term “bala” (which means bullet) in its title. Some English-speakers have had a confused reaction because Stephanie Sigman‘s character competes in a Miss Baja beauty contest.

Sony Home Video’s The Guns of Navarone Bluray streets on 10.18. It’ll look more robust and detailed than the various DVD versions, I’m sure, but according to a 9.29 Home Theatre Forum riff by restoration guru Robert Harris, this 1961 war film can only look as good as its appalling preservation history allows.

“To the best of my knowledge, The Guns of Navarone was photographed on the new Eastman 5250 stock, the first to have high level anti-dye fade characteristics,” Harris writes. “My comments are personal opinion, and some may disagree, but here goes.

“The film was a UK production, with some photography in Greece and L.A. Had a decision been made to have the original negative processed by Technicolor London, Technicolor Hollywood or any other high-end lab, Columbia wouldn’t be facing many of the problems they do today. Since dye transfer prints were produced, as well as at least a small number of 70mm blow-ups, why not allow the lab doing the printing to handle the production all the way through?

“Presumably based upon a studio contract, the processing work was given to Movielab, which is a couple of steps above forcing the professional photographer shooting your wedding photos to drop his exposed film through a slot at the local Uncle Joe’s Ribs, Photo Lab & Storm Door Company.

“I’m unaware of the production of separation masters to protect the show.

“In 1989, Columbia went to UCLA for aid to save the film, and archivist Robert Gitt performed the necessary tasks to the best of analogue abilities. The final result at least stabilized the image problems, while protecting the original mag tracks.

“Two decades later, a return to the original surviving elements in 4k was in order.

“But such a return doesn’t guarantee the superb image that this film could have had, had everything been done correctly back in 1961.

“As I recall, the final reel of original negative may also be missing. Dupes are built in throughout, and color, for the most part is, well… acceptable.

“I’m taking the long way around to make the point that there is nothing further that can be done to make the film look any better. And everything goes back to those early decisions.

“What does TGoN look like?

“Pretty much as the knowledgeable eye would think. Grainy in parts, occasional contrast problems along with optical anomalies, plus what some here will refer to as ‘force fields’ around certain objects, normally in high to low contrast situations. Flesh tones range from decent to awkward brownish green with red highlights.

“And there is very little that can be done about it.

“The technical folks at Sony/Columbia have used all the tools at their disposal, but one cannot make a proverbial silk purse from old Eastman stock processed by Movielab.

“And there you have it.

“This is a terrific and important film, that happens to be beautifully acted and is extremely entertaining.

“But the point needs to be made that not only does this Blu-ray not look like a new film, it isn’t going to look like what many will perceive a high quality, important 1961 production should look like. Know that going in, and enjoy the show, and you won’t be disappointed.

“They don’t make them like this anymore.”

Wells comment: I won’t be seeing the Navarone Bluray until I return to Los Angeles this weekend, but this sounds like a situation that requires a little tasteful DNRing. When you buy a Bluray you want that extra quality, and if the film itself doesn’t have this, you need to digitally crank it up.

This New York Observer-captured clip of an Occupy Wall Street protestor making mince meat of a Fox News stooge never aired. The guy is easily as sharp and well-spoken and spot-on with his arguments as Cenk Uygur, if not more so. He should be on Young Turks or MSNBC or Current TV. And that Civil War-era Union army cap is a nice touch.

You’ll recall that 20th Century Fox had its first press screenings of Rise of the Planet of the Apes very late in the game, only days before it opened on 8.5. When some suggested that the film might have built up more opening-weekend steam if early positive reactions had circulated earlier, Fox reps said that a demanding post-production schedule kept them from showing it any sooner.

“I know for a fact it was about effects delivery,” a rep told me. “It was down to the wire as this was originally going to be a Thanksgiving release.”

Now it turns out the real reason for Rise of the Planet of the Apes not being ready to show until early August was because of a re-shoot of the film’s finale that happened over the July 4th weekend.

Badass Digest‘s Devin Faraci, drawing from a Hollywood Reporter story, has written that “the original ending had James Franco’s character dying. At the hands of humans, no less. Shot to death by armed humans who have chased the apes into the forest. [And then] the ape horde descends on the people and tears them to pieces, a reversal of the opening scene where Bright Eyes is captured in the jungle.

“This isn’t the only change from an early version of the script,” he writes. “Originally Rocket and Caesar had a big brawl at the end as well. In fact lots of things changed lots of times over the course of the script’s development.

In any event, “Everybody hurried back to set this summer, just a month before release, to reshoot the ending.”

During last weekend’s Visual Effects Society Production Summit in Beverly Hills, Fox’s president of postproduction Ted Gagliano said Franco was brought in for the re-shoot over the July 4th holiday weekend. “We shot for three hours and (Franco) was back on the plane,” Gagliano recalled. He added that this change led to a challenging final weeks of what was originally a 41-week post schedule that involved extensive visual effects work.”

The original discarded ending will apparently be included on the Bluray.

Lars Von Trier‘s Melancholia plays tonight at the New York Film Festival. (I couldn’t get there in time but I’ll attend the after-event.) I’m fairly certain that 90% of the questioners speaking with Kirsten Dunst on the red carpet asked her about Von Trier’s Nazi comment that he made in Cannes. That has always been an oppressively lame thing to dwell on. It’s a shame that it won’t go away.

Less than an hour after Von Trier blurted out those idiotic remarks, I urged readers to forget it. Von Trier “has turned into a very dry and clumsy kidder,” I wrote. “Nothing is even half-sincere — absurdist put-on all the way.”

“Please, please don’t take this guy seriously,” I wrote later on. “Okay, go ahead…what do I care? But he lives to say stuff like this. He’s an artist, a madman…unbalanced. And he loves getting this kind of attention.

“Lars von Trier has, press conference-wise, often played the role of a provocateur, a kidder — he loves to poke and agitate and whip the press into a lather,” I wrote toward the end of the festival. “Nazi-winking, even in jest, in a huge no-no, of course, but we all know that Von Trier is a serious artist and a humanitarian who, despite his impishness, has time and again made films that see through to the sad soul of things.”

I’m glad that John Cameron Mitchell and Melanie Laurent got nice paychecks for doing this newish Hypnotic Poison commercial, but cinematically it’s nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Aren’t all perfumes about trying to “put a spell” on someone? Isn’t it redundant to hear Nina Simone sing these actual words? Isn’t it a bit redundant to use the word “hypnotic” in the first place?

This Star Wars family portrait painting has been commented upon elsewhere, but I wanted to show it to those who haven’t bought the Star Wars Bluray set (which I still haven’t seen, being without a Bluray player or large high-def monitor during my New York visit) and just say for the record that this is the most concise visual expression of the 21st Century mind of George Lucas that I’ve ever seen.

The six-film Star Wars family, as found inside the multi-disc Star Wars Bluray book.

The ruthless, power-mad dark side vs. the serene and illuminated spirituality of the Jedi delivers the key dramatic tension of the Star Wars films. By any common standard these two poles are most memorably represented by Darth Vader and Alec Guinness‘s Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Mark Hamill‘s Luke Skywalker.

But who is the biggest front-and-center presence in this collage? The giver of one of the most agony-inducing high-profile performances in the history of big-budget epic movies — Hayden Christensen.

And where are the truly legendary characters who toplined the original Star Wars and especially The Empire Strikes Back, by far the finest film in the series? Let’s see…oh, there they are, all tucked away in the top right-hand corner, like vaguely unwanted guests at a wedding who’ve been seated at a table next to the kitchen with the waiters running in and out and the door swinging open and closing, over and over and over.

The collage basically says that the prequel guys, including Jake Lloyd and Jar-Jar Binks, are the core of the legend and the franchise, and that everything of lasting or profound value in the series stems from those three movies and their stories. Good Heavenly God!

Why are there two Chewbaccas? I realize that “Chewy” is part of a wookie race but still.

Here’s Press Play’s final chapter of the Roman Polanski series, which began last week. Cut and commented upon by Matt Zoller Seitz along with Kim Morgan.

Seitz update: “Mr. Peel is correct. This video essay is a collaboration between me and Kim, but the text is a slightly rewritten version of a column Kim originally wrote for her blog Sunset Gun. If you watch to the end you will see that the first credit after the final shot is ‘written and narrated by Kim Morgan,’ followed by my editing credit.”

Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, Boxoffice.com’s Phil Contrino and I recorded Oscar Poker 50 yesterday morning. I have to say that it’s essential for good chatter to talk about films that have moved us, period, and not to always reduce the equation to “is it Oscar-worthy or not?” Let the chuckleheads come to us, and not vice versa. Here’s a non-iTunes, stand-alone link.