Apocalypse Now cinematographer Vittorio Storaro is no friend of shooting movies on digital — or not now, at least. He explains precisely why to Jamie Stuart in this Filmmaker magazine piece. His Univisium system, which uses a 2 to 1 aspect ratio, has “three-perforations per frame and uses the maximum negative space available,” he says. This means the density and fullness you get with film is still way, way richer, he says, than you do with any high-def digital video system.

” We’re talking minimum 6000 x 3000 information, or eighteen-million,” he explains. “With a video camera, any subject, the maximum information is roughly 2000 x 1000, which makes two-million. Whatever you’ve got in front of the camera, in one, you’ve got eighteen-million; in one, you’ve got two-million. In one, you’ve got at least 32-bits; the other one, normally you record at 10-bits.
“Film has already proven it can last a hundred years. The electronic system, or digital, has to improve its longevity — particularly, it has a very short longevity. The systems are changing very fast, the material is not very strong. People are very ignorant in this area — they still believe that digital is permanent. That’s a major mistake. Major. So, in my opinion, the system should be used, because if you don’t use the system the company doesn’t have the chance to improve it. It should be improved till it reaches a much better level.
“But at the same time, I think we should be aware of the different levels, so you can use one or the other according to the kind of project that you’re doing.”

How supportive and enthusiastic are Warner Bros. publicists on behalf of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which comes out on 9.21, or right after the Toronto Film Festival? I won’t name names or publications, but a definite foot-dragging attitude has been detected by reasonable moderate men as far as long-lead requests for various forms of assistance in slapping together Jesse James coverage.
It’s no secret that Warner Bros. execs have been less than fully ecstatic with Andrew Dominik‘s western, which producer Tony Scott has described as a Terrence Malick-type feature. The rumble all along is that WB toppers and marketers consider the film some kind of loss leader (i.e., more or less doomed with the people who loved Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean, and who just can’t wait for Evan Almighty). People like me, of course, can’t wait to see it and are inclined on general principle to support it, unless it turns out to be indulgent garbage.
I’m not saying that this or that WB publicist is, in fact, slacking off on Jesse James, but that studio’s upper-level marketers have long had reputations of being chillty or clueless when it comes to movies of a layered artistic bent. Remember the stories about them scratching their heads and throwing up their hands when they first saw Letters From Iwo Jima? Their decision to keep The Departed out of the Toronto Film Festival (i.e., I never believed producer Graham King‘s story about the film not being ready in time for that festival)?
How come the Assassination of Jesse James website is exactly the same now, content-wise, as it was six months ago? The film opens in three and a half months. Shouldn’t the people running this site be turning the heat up right about now?

The bad guy who let Paris Hilton out of jail — the idiot who determined after hearing about her alleged suicide threat that “there’s a medical issue and it isn’t wise to keep a person in jail with her problem over an extended period of time and let the problem get worse” — is L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca. Hilton went back to court this morning and may wind up back in the slammer if Judge Michael T. Sauer sees merit in L.A. city attorneys’ challenge to Baca’s decision to release her. The God of Righteousness is a cheap myth, but I want to believe him Him/Her once again because I want Hilton back behind bars before the day is out.

What is it about the fact that “the hinterland Bubbas despise Hilary Clinton, and because of this she will lose the ’08 general election” don’t Hollywood Democrats understand?

It’s Friday, June 8th, and you’re wondering what, if anything, should you see? That’s easy — go rent Ulu Grosbard‘s Straight Time or Sidney Lumet‘s Prince of The City or Shohei Imamura‘s Vengeance Is Mine. The lower-animal-impulse choice in theatres, obviously, is Hostel: Part II. The knockout performance experience (i.e., Marion Cotillard‘s) can be found in La Vie en Rose — it can almost be guaranteed Cotillard will be a Best Actress Oscar nominee. The Big-Ass Blandathon (and I never thought I’d ever be calling it this) is Ocean’s Thirteen.

There are some who feel I was remiss in not including Robert Zemeckis‘ animated Beowulf on HR’s short list of highfalutin’ fall-winter must-sees. I never considered including it for a single instant. Why should I? Why should anyone? Due respect to the 10th Century English poem it’s based upon, but this is basically Eragon territory, especially when filtered through the greedy-ass, Lord of the Rings-aping combine. And that, to me, to anyone over the age of 13 or 14, means “instantly dismissable.”

“I know full well I’m expected to Suspend My Disbelief. Unfortunately, my disbelief is very heavy, and during Ocean’s Thirteen, the suspension cable snapped. I think that was when they decided to manufacture a fake earthquake to scare all the high-rollers on opening night. How did they plan to do this? Why, by digging under the casino with one of the giant tunnel boring machines used to dig the Chunnel between England and France.” — from Roger Ebert‘s 6.7.07 review.

“You live in a free country, you put up with crud like Hostel Part II,” writes the Chicago Tribune‘s Michael Phillips. “It truly is crud, though. The film is the definition of torture porn, and regarding the Motion Picture Association of America’s business-friendly, brain-free decision to give it an R rating: If this film gets by with an R, then what is left to warrant an NC-17?”

I’ve been wanting to talk to director Zoe Cassevetes since last January, which was when I saw Broken English, her first film. To my surprise I quite liked it, despite it being a kind of romantic comedy, which I tend to hate as a rule. It’s about a 30ish Manhattan hotel worker named Nora (Parker Posey) looking for the right dude and mostly getting hurt, and then finally getting lucky…sort of. The kind of luck that comes with interesting complications.

Broken English director-writer Zoe Cassevetes — Thursday, 6.7.07, 4:25 pm

I did one of those quickie-sit-downs with Cassevetes Thursday afternoon at the Four Seasons hotel. She’s John Cassevetes‘ daughter, all right — whip-smart, unpretentious, compulsively honest. Posey dropped by for a minute or two early on, wearing a killer black blouse. They were both going to attend an invitational screening of Broken English at the Aero in Santa Monica.
I liked Broken English because it’s often funny but also because it doesn’t seem to be trying to be that as much as a natural settling into a sardonic and sometimes bitterly truthful vein. It’s largely about what a slog it is out there for no-longer-young women who haven’t yet found the right match, or at least a relationship offering a possibility of something fairly good happening. It’s not Rules of the Game or A Man and a Woman, but there are very few times when Broken English merely goes for “cute” or “affecting.”
For what it is and as far as it goes, Broken English (Magnolia, 6.22) is unusually bright and observant, and I swear it contains the most affecting and emotionally open performance of Parker Posey‘s 38-year life. She may seem at times to be doing the same sort of Parker-attitude thing here that she’s done in many films before, but this time there’s a bit more sadness, a deeper crack in her voice, a greater willingness to show her buried child.
All along, her performance works hand-in-hand with Cassevetes’ sassy, tip-top script.
The film gets rolling and digs in when Nora meets Julian (Melvil Poupaud), a 30ish Parisian who seems soulful and straight enough. The chemistry seems right, but then he takes off. Should Nora let it go and move on, or fly to Paris and see what happens next?
In the hands of another director and with a lesser actress as Nora, a vehicle like Broken English might’ve been a little tough to get through. I mean, I usually hate stuff like this. But this one touches bottom, and is sharp and deft and even penetrating at times. I just wish that more romantic comedies were on this level. This isn’t to say it’s great or drop-dead profound, but it’s way beyond your typical puerile, over-baked, too-broad romantic comedy
Justin Theroux, playing a generic egoistic actor with a mohawk, is hilarious. He delivers his lines with just the right jaded aroma, never too broad or buffoony. Drea de Mateo, Gena Rowlands and Peter Bogdanovich also give nicely-honed supporting performances.

A fairly nifty trailer for Ridley Scott‘s American Gangster.

Here’s an Iraq flick I’m 95% certain will kick ass: Imperial Life in the Emerald City, with Matt Damon playing a composite character “based on figures in Washington Post journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran‘s book about chaos in Iraq, under Bourne Supremacy/Bourne Ultimatum/United 93 director Paul Greengrass.

I got into it briefly last August, and now someone else — Slate‘s Kim Masters — has focused on “mom-ager” Dina Lohan, the blonde Medusa behind Lindsay Lohan‘s fixin’-to-die tragedy. Mom, who seems an almost pure manifestation of evil, needs to check into a spiritual-rehab facility while her daughter deals with the substance thing.