Taking a gander at this week’s new releases, I see that the time has come for Carnage to open — a good thing, because it’s a crisp, disruptive dark comedy of manners with stellar performances from an ace ensemble (Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly), and a bad thing, because it’s directed by Roman Polanksi, so now we’re going to have to talk about Roman Polanski again, which is, well, a dicey proposition. It forces us to ask the question that we had to ask when The Ghost Writer came out, and The Pianist, and Death and the Maiden, and pretty much everything he’s done since he was arrested for (and later pleaded guilty to) unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old back in 1977. It’s the same question we’ve had to ask with every Woody Allen film that’s come out since his affair with companion (and mother to his biological child) Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn — 30 years his junior — was revealed. It’s the same question we had to ask when Melancholia came out earlier this fall, after Lars von Trier’s notorious “OK, I’m a Nazi” press conference at Cannes.
That question: Can you separate the film from the filmmaker? Read More »
Perhaps more than any other film genre, horror is a construct in which music and sound play a crucial role in the way that we identify with character. Indeed some films — such as Robert Wise’s chilly classic The Haunting — primarily elicit scares from their masterfully subjective acoustics, the film’s spectral antagonist unseen. An effective score can enhance a dire film, while other soundtracks have terrified us in such a primal way that their sounds have ineffably scarred our unconscious — and perverted our bathroom habits (see: Psycho). Yet, amongst the creeping terror of these melodies are soundtracks that have haunted us with their beauty, acting as disarming counterpoints to on-screen anomie. Sometimes, it’s not a minor-chord lunge or a synth-shriek that renders the malevolent world of make-believe uncannily palpable. Here are ten beguiling favorites. What are yours?
1. The New York Postreports that Demi Moore is officially ending her six-year marriage to Ashton Kutcher after he allegedly had sex with a 23-year-old woman in his room at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego last week. Do you think that there’s any truth to this rumor?
2. In other celebrity relationship news, a source tells PEOPLE that Saturday Night Live costars Fred Armisen and Abby Elliott, who began dating last year, have broken up. We can’t help but wonder if this means that she’ll finally get booted off the show.
3. What do you think of Cindy Sherman’s new house in the Hamptons? The 10.2-acre waterfront property — which cost the famed artist a reported $4.65M — is just down the road from the former home of Jackson Pollock. [via Curbed]
4. Roman Polanski comes close to apologizing for sexually assaulting a then 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in a new documentary that premiered at the Zurich Film Festival this week, saying, “She is a double victim: my victim and a victim of the press.” The filmmaker was on hand at the festival to accept a lifetime achievement award that he received back in 2009, but could not collect at the time due to his legal troubles. [via Telegraph]
5. Last night Roger Waters stopped by Late Night With Jimmy Fallon to perform “In The Flesh” — with the Foo Fighters as his backing band — in honor of the late night show’s Pink Floyd week. Watch a video of it here.
Roman Polanski’s latest film, Carnage, will open the New York Film Festival this Friday. Based on Yasmina Reza’s acclaimed play, God of Carnage, the darkly comedic story follows two couples (Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet, and Christoph Waltz) who try to make sense of a brawl their children were involved in. While the film takes Polanski somewhat back to his comedic roots — and the days of Fearless Vampire Killers — one of the director’s more serious efforts seems ripe for a revisit. In this documentary interview, Polanski describes the hardboiled Chinatown — widely revered for its script by Robert Towne, acting, and more — as his greatest achievement. The interview also delves into why the French-Polish filmmaker almost didn’t return to LA to work on the project, his thoughts on Dunaway’s performance, and his disagreement with Towne about the movie’s ending. (“If it ended happily, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about this film today.”) It’s a nice little refresher on one of the greatest movies Polanski’s ever made. Hit the jump for the video, and chime in with your favorite moments from the film.
1. In her capacity as creative director of Polaroid, Lady Gaga has designed the GL10 Instant Mobile Printer, a device that allows you to print photos from your smartphone via Bluetooth. We assume Polaroid uses the term “designed” loosely. [via NME]
2. Your daily actor/project Mad Lib: Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio are collaborating — as both executive producers and stars — on a cop drama for NBC. The working title is Blue Tilt. [via Deadline]
3. Yesterday, the Internet got all worked up over the news that Real Housewife of DC/White House party crasher Michaele Salahi had been kidnapped. The story of what actually happened is fairly complicated, but in case you have as little time for this item as we do, here’s the punchline: She ran off with Journey guitarist Neal Schon. Really. [via LA Times]
4. Roman Polanski was famously arrested in Zurich at the request of the US Justice Department back in 2009, but he will return to the city September 27 to receive the lifetime achievement award the city’s film festival had hoped to bestow upon him before he was taken into custody. [via Guardian]
Welcome to “Trailer Park,” our regular Friday feature where we collect the week’s new trailers all in one place and do a little “judging a book by its cover,” ranking them from worst to best and taking our best guess at what they may be hiding. This week, we’ve got an even dozen trailers for you, and most are for the kind of prestige pictures that the end of the summer movie season usually has us salivating for. Not to worry, though, fans of things that are awful: there’s also a new Ghost Rider. Check ‘em all out after the jump.
In a recent edition of our regular Friday feature “Trailer Park,” we took a look at the trailer for the new Daniel Craig/Rachel Weisz haunted house thriller Dream House, and came to the following conclusion: “this is one of those trailers that gives you, about halfway through, the unsettling feeling that they’re showing you the whole movie.” Apparently, concern for that point was widespread enough that executive producer Rick Nicita was compelled to speak up, insisting to Entertainment Weekly that the revealed twist is “not the ending. The twist happens less than halfway through.” But Nicita’s damage control spotlights the fact that our film culture is increasingly dominated by discussion and fear of “spoilers,” and it’s a phenomenon that is only a couple of decades old. (Ever dive into your DVD special features and check out the original trailers for films from the ’40s? Talk about showing you the whole movie.)
We’re still obsessing over Jonah Lehrer’s fascinating study (and subsequent Wired piece) on the effect of spoilers on literary gratification. (The takeaway: knowing a story’s outcome ultimately does not prevent one’s enjoyment of the work, and may even increase it.) A couple of weeks back, we selected some of the books we still read, knowing full well how they end; now we’ve picked out ten movies that still play, even with precise knowledge of their narrative outcomes.
You can probably put this together yourselves, but just to be safe: plentiful spoilers after the jump.
The 1988 Broadway adaptation of Carrie — based on Stephen King’s book and Brian DePalma’s subsequent film — was such a notorious turkey that it became shorthand for ill-advised stage productions; a compendium book of them even bears the title Not Since “Carrie”. But somehow, the show still has its supporters, and it seems that a few of them have convinced investors that it deserves a second shot. Thus, Carrie will return to the New York stage early next year, albeit this time in an off-Broadway setting.
Carrie’s return may have as much to do with the current cautious atmosphere in the New York theatrical world as it does with the quality of the much-maligned production — with costs (and ticket prices) ballooning, Broadway producers seem only interested in sure things: revivals, big stars, so-called “jukebox musicals.” The theory is that the tourists who keep the New York stage solvent will only part with Broadway dollars if they’re spending them on a brand they’re familiar with; hence the Spider-Man musical, say, or The Million Dollar Quartet. And then, of course, there is the movie-to-stage adaptation — why not come see a live production of something you’ve already seen on film? Movie-to-musical shows have popped up sporadically for decades, but after the smash success of The Producers a decade ago, we’ve seen an onslaught; this season saw the debuts of Catch Me If You Can, Sister Act, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, in addition to long-running hits like The Lion King and Billy Elliot. But successfully staging a beloved movie is harder than it looks; it’s important to remember that for every Hairspray or Little Shop of Horrors, there’s an Urban Cowboy or High Fidelity. After the jump, we’ll take a look at ten popular movies that tanked on the boards.
Among the buzziest indie films of the year, Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furnitureopens today in New York. The 24-year-old filmmaker’s second feature (the first, Creative Nonfiction, didn’t get theatrical distribution) has been earning some impressive and thought-provoking reviews, with the likes of New York Times critic Manohla Dargis remarking that Dunham “has created a work that addresses a constellation of ideas that speak to how we live now, on screen and off, in an age of multiplying types of technological reproductions. By playing a version of herself (and asking her family to go along for the ride), and by closing the distance between art and life, she has gotten at something real.”
In an industry that tends to reward years of tireless dues-paying, and in one of art’s most expensive mediums, it can seem impossible for young people to summon the money and support needed to make a great film. And yet, over the years, a number of smart 20-somethings have leveraged their sparse resources to do just that. After the jump, in hopes of lighting a fire under the aspiring Truffauts and Coens out there, we list 10 great movies made by directors under 30.
Welcome to the second installment of Flavorpill’s Definitive Guide to Halloween Movies! As we proved with last week’s kid-friendly film picks, a movie doesn’t necessarily have to be scary in order to get you in the mood for Halloween. In that spirit, find 10 of the best campy Halloween flicks we could find after the jump. If we happen to have missed one of your all-time favorites, feel free to add to our list in the comments.
