Month: July 2013

Here’s a clip of original Wicker Man director Robin Hardy announcing that a version resembling his original 102-minute cut will be released on Bluray by Studio Canal on 10.14, and will be preceded by a 9.27 theatrical release. The forthcoming Bluay is being called “most complete version of the film possible.” But what kind of shape will it be in? And how interesting and/or revelatory will the restored footage be? Why doesn’t Hardy at least hint at the differences between the 88-minute cut and this new one? I sense deception. I smell a rat.

DVD Beaver‘s Gary W. Tooze has seen Warner Home Video’s Shane Bluray (streeting on 8.13) and says the following: “Having seen [the] DVD version of Shane probably a dozen times, the new 1080p image really jumps out for me. Not knowing what it looked like theatrically [in 1953], I can only say that I’m very pleased with this appearance. It’s clean [and] colors are very bright [although] some of the indoor and night sequences are a shade dark. Skin tones are warm. There is more information in the frame on all four edges [compared to the DVD] and it’s nice to see some of the original grain in the backgrounds. Incredibly deep black levels at times — almost moiring. I’m seeing some very minor edge-enhancement if I zoom in far enough. Overall I was mesmerized by the areas of improvement over the [2000 DVD].”

““For the first time I noticed the reddish-violet markings on the pearl-white hand grip on Jack Palance‘s six-shooters.” — from my 4.28.13 review of the restored Shane at the TCM Classic Film Festival.

“It was drop-to-your-knees — the most beautiful rendering I’ve ever seen of this 1953 classic. It was like seeing it new and fresh all over again. It was almost like being there on the set. The detail was to die for.” — from my 4.28.13 review.

I’ll say this about Baltasar Kormakur‘s 2 Guns (Universal, 8.2), the Denzel Washington-Mark Wahlberg drive-around and shoot-’em-up popcorn flick. It’s a lot more engaging — looser, funnier, more entertaining — than last year’s Contraband, which Kormakur directed (and which also starred Wahlberg). It’s basically a silly late-summer jagoff that’s about Washington and Wahlberg playing “catch” with each other — i.e., the old chemistry-rapport-mutual backscratch put-on/goof-off thing. Call it “attitude-surfing.”

There’s not an ounce of real-world credibility in any of 2 Guns, and that’s the point, I think. There’s one really funny line delivered by Wahlberg (which had to have been written after the casting of Edward James Olmos as a Mexican drug kingpin) that I laughed out loud at. For that one instant, for me, the movie came alive. There’s also a pronounced homage to Don Siegel‘s Charley Varrick (’73) that I found highly amusing (and which I mentioned to Marshall Fine after the screening).

I don’t know how much of 2 Guns was improvised by Washington-Wahlberg and how much of it was written on the page, but respect to screenwriter Blake Masters for at least writing a fair amount of the dialogue. I can tell you that the plot, based on the same-titled graphic wank by Steven Grant, is absolute bullshit. The movie has no undercurrent, no themes — nothing except the wank-off vibe of everyone just making the damn thing and collecting their paychecks and taking their dicks out and stroking them as they cash their checks and hack around between takes.

Denzel was really well paid, Wahlberg was really well paid…why can’t I be be like them as I sit there watching this thing? Better paid, I mean. At least that.

I have to go uptown for a lunch thing so that’s the end of this riff, but I’ll add to it sometime later this afternoon.

If I was planning on attending the 2013 Venice Film Festival (8.28 to 9.7) I would be especially keen on catching the absolute, first-time-anywhere world premieres of….well, Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity, of course, but also Errol Morris‘s Donald Rumsfeld doc The Unknown Known — how can this not be a fascinating drill-down? Absolute determinism and resolution in the face of contradicting facts, etc.

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A mere 3000 Twilight Time Blurays of Jonathan Glazer‘s Sexy Beast are available for pre-order. Doesn’t seem right but that’s the reality. Available three weeks hence.

I don’t want to know from any film with the word Ronin in the title, much less see it. Friend: “Hey, you wanna catch this Keanu Reeves flick, The 47 Ronin?” Me: “Nope!” Friend: “You don’t think it looks cool?” Me: “All Asian films in which guys in robes wield samurai swords are a complete no-go. Never again will I watch one of these things. I’m done for life.”

Don’t go any further exposition-wise than what this trailer contains. Okay, maybe one more trailer after this but that’s all. This is a relatively short “techno-thriller” about survival, remember. In a certain sense it’s a cousin of J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost. I would think Warner Bros. marketers would want to hold back as much as they can. I’m presuming I’ll be catching it in L.A. before it premieres at the Venice Film Festival on 8.28.

I am of the minority opinion that people in the public eye should be left alone as far as their intimate behaviors are concerned. If they haven’t harmed anyone it should all be left alone. I believe that political judgment resides in (or emanates from) one compartment and that crazy intimate-romantic-sexual behavior resides in (or emanates from) another compartment. That said there’s clearly something wrong with a candidate for high public office when he gets himself into trouble again over the exact same behavior that resulted in his resigning from an elected post a couple of years earlier. The mind reels, words fail. Anthony Weiner is clearly some kind of addict. It’s just that I’ve never been persuaded that being an idiot in a certain sense necessarily means you’re an idiot in other ways.

I’m somewhere between 60% and 70% positive on James Mangold‘s Japan-set The Wolverine. It isn’t ground-breaking, but how could it be? Who goes to…what is this, the sixth or seventh film with in which Hugh Jackman portrays the same old buff, gruff, mutton-chopped mutant…who goes to films like this expecting something really and truly “new”? I suppose that the bullet-train fight sequence (a good portion of which is viewable on YouTube) qualifies as something never-before-seen, but it seemed a little too hard-drivey. And I know that every time a samurai-swordfight or crossbow or dynamic physical combat sequence began I zoned out. It’s nice that…uhm, I didn’t notice any bullets being fired ( or forgot about same), but leaping aerial ballet sequences involving medieval weaponry…later. They have no real kick or throttle. They’re just “performed” and then they’re over. I know I could do very, very well without seeing another Asian-styled combat sequence for the rest of my life on this or any other planet.

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“To be a consistently strong Oscar prognosticator — someone like Fandango’s Dave Karger, Deadline’s Pete Hammond, The Wrap’s Steve Pond, InContention’s Kris Tapley or me — you have to watch everything (dozens if not hundreds of contending films), know your history (familiarizing yourself with lots of older movies and the dynamics of past Oscar races), show up everywhere (there are rubber-chicken dinners and awards ceremonies almost every week), build relationships (with talent, awards strategists, publicists, voters) and know what and who is and isn’t worth factoring into your projections. It’s a full-time job, though it doesn’t look as if ESPN’s Nate Silver, with his expanding empire, intends to treat it as such.” — Hollywood Reporter Oscar-season columnist Scott Feinberg in 7.22 piece.

On 2.9.13 I posted a review of Peter Landesman‘s script of Parkland (Open Road, sometime in mid November). With Landesman’s film apparently confirmed to play the 2013 Toronto Film Festival (and with Hurt Locker dp Barry Ackroyd handling the photography), here are excerpts from my six-month-old assessment. My basic opinion is that the script is “a sturdy, convincing, well-structured effort.”

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