Dick’s MPAA Flap Kirby Dick is complaining that the MPAA illegally copied, apparently for internal purposes, a “digital version” of his new film This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which a several journos saw at a press screening yesterday morning and which screens at 9:30 pm tonight at the Sundance Film Festival. More to the … Read more
Docs Own It So far the most affecting highs of Sundance 2006 are not coming from the features but the documentaries. No narrative except Little Miss Sunshine has generated any kind of noticable wattage, but everywhere you turn people are talking up the docs. Yesterday afternoon I saw Freida Mock’s conventional but nonetheless moving and … Read more
For the first time since the ’93 Sundance Film Festival, I haven’t gotten a jump on things by arriving early in Park City — Wednesday night, say, or early Thursday afternoon — and filing the usual hot story about the food I’ve bought at Albertson’s and the people I’ve run into in the aisles. I … Read more
Dog Has Its Day Of the dozens of definite-interest films playing at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival (which I haven’t even begun to try and summarize), Nick Cassevetes’ Alpha Dog has easily gotten the most press…and yet it’s showing at the very end of the fes- tival (Friday, 1.27 at the Eccles, and Saturday, 1.28, … Read more
I finally saw Debra Granik‘s Down to the Bone last night and got the wisdom of what almost every deep-focus movie journalist and critic has been saying since it (barely) opened in New York and Los Angeles nearly six weeks ago, which is that it’s grimly real but has something that doesn’t let up. This … Read more
Cheaters There are three serious things wrong with Warner Home Video’s new double-disc “special edition” DVD of The Wild Bunch (on sale Tuesday, 1.10). The wrongos may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but in my book they constitute a serious cheat on the part of Warner Home Video, enough for … Read more
It’s not a rumor and there’s absolutely no question about it: Ridley Scott‘s 190-minute “extended cut” version of Kingdom of Heaven is a considerably better film than the 145-minute theatrical version that opened last May (and which came out on DVD on 10.11). I saw it yesterday afternoon at the seedy-but-functioning Laemmle Fairfax in West … Read more
I always thought once you get a bit older and know who and what you are, watching a sensitively-made movie about a non-hetero romance is no big deal. So what’s with Larry David‘s New York Times piece about how he can’t quite roll with the idea of seeing Brokeback Mountain? I think it’s supposed to … Read more
Depth of Feeling In real life Roberta Maxwell, the gifted New York actress who’s quietly riveting as Jake Gyllenhaal’s bereaved mom during a four- or five-minute scene near the finale of Brokeback Mountain, barely resembles her emotionally bruised, hardscrabble character. Her face is pale and plain and vaguely trembling in Ang Lee’s film, and with … Read more
Oh-Six Starters There are four January releases that definitely cut the mustard in my pantry, and two or three with one or two problems but are recommended regardless. So things are starting off reasonably well. For a month known for so-so product, I mean. The absolute must-see’s are Lajos Koltai’s Fateless (Thinkfilm, 1.6), Eugene Jarecki’s … Read more
Oh-Six Starters There are four January releases that definitely cut the mustard in my pantry, and two or three with one or two problems but are recommended regardless. So things are starting off reasonably well. For a month known for so-so product, I mean. The absolute must-see’s are Lajos Koltai’s Fateless (Thinkfilm, 1.6), Eugene Jarecki’s … Read more
Del Mar Nation Brokeback Mountain is starting to spread out (it went into 69 theatres on Friday), and that means that sooner or later those gay cowboy jokes on “Late Night with David Letterman” and in Aaron McGruder’s “Boondocks” comic strip will be coming to an end. The more people see Brokeback, the greater the … Read more