One of our most anticipated titles at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (oh, yeah, did we mention we’ll be at the Sundance Film Festival? Because we totes will) is Room 237, a new documentary by Rodney Ascher about the obsessive fans of The Shining. According to Entertainment Weekly, one of them posits an intriguing two-part conspiracy theory. First, he holds that Kubrick “directed” the faked Apollo moon landings while shooting 2001 — itself a mere cover for his bigger job. (This one’s been floating around for years — hell, it inspired its own “mockumentary,” Dark Side of the Moon.) But here’s the kicker: the fan also contends that, since Kubrick would have faced dire consequences if he ever revealed his involvement in the moon landing, he instead smuggled clues into The Shining, using his Stephen King adaptation as a giant coded message to tell the world about the ruse.
“It’s a film-nerd love-fest,” according to Sundance programmer Trevor Groth. “These obsessive people dissect The Shining, and they’ve watched it thousands of times, all finding their own coded meaning and language in it.” Reading about Room 237, and salivating for it, got us thinking about some of our other favorite “film-nerd love-fests”; after the jump, we’ve compiled ten of our favorite documentaries about famous films.
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[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we're revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published August 3, 2011.] As Roger Ebert says, “It’s not what a movie is about, but how it is about it,” so who knows, maybe The Change-Up isn’t going to be an inane R-rated update of a 20-plus-years-stale narrative. (But it sure as hell looks like it.) We can’t say we’re too hopeful, though, particularly considering its numb-skulled print campaign, which high-lariously juxtaposes Jason Bateman’s miserable handling of twin infants with Ryan Reynolds’s delighted groping of twin models. They’re both in white! Which do you want — babies or babes? HAW HAW! (Indiewire’s @erickohn twit-pic’ed a piece of “subway film criticism” that nailed the issue fairly effectively.)
The movie poster is a tricky form, a very specific merging of art and commerce that must sell a product but hopefully also convey the essence of the picture in question. Occasionally, the marketers and artists responsible for them can run afoul — either in the court of public opinion, or in the boardrooms of the MPAA, who not only rate films but control their advertising. After the jump, we’ll take a look at ten movie posters that stirred up some controversy — sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.
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Christmas has come and gone. So, now’s the time to plan some activities for those late nights at the family home, when the kids and elderly relatives have gone to bed and the last thing you want to do is spend quality time with awful Cousin Myrtle. Last week, we rounded up the best new fall TV shows to catch up on over the break. But if you’d rather settle down with a great movie and happen not to have dropped Netflix after their year of terrible decisions, then allow us to alert you to some of 2011′s best films that also happen to be available for streaming on the site. A gay British romance for the ages, a dreamy Thai meditation on death, and a hilarious mockumentary that finds Steve Coogan (sort of) playing himself are just a few of the noteworthy new movies from around the world that await you after the jump.
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Last weekend, a “secret screening” at Los Angeles’ AFI Fest marked the first public outing for Haywire, Steven Soderbergh’s new… mixed-martial-arts based action/spy thriller. Come again? Yes, according to Movieline’s report from the post-screening Q&A, Soderbergh cooked up the project while on the rebound after losing Moneyball, stumbling across one of MMA star Gina Carano’s fights and deciding to build a movie around her. While Soderbergh’s filmography has been fairly esoteric, genre-wise (he’s skipped from experimental dramas to big-budget heist movies to dark comedies to coming-of-age tales to sci-fi), we certainly didn’t expect him to get all hyped up about making a film that he would compare to the early pictures of Steven Seagal.
But maybe there’s a lesson to be learned here: too often, filmmakers become defined by a certain type of movie, locked into a specific genre or style. Some break out occasionally (see Scorsese’s upcoming Hugo), and a few have made a career of genre-jumping (think Danny Boyle). But back in the “studio era,” directors-for-hire like Howard Hawks and John Ford were given assignments, and had to adapt themselves into journeymen who could make any kind of film with style and skill. After the jump, we’ve compiled a short list of a few filmmakers who we’d like to see class up some B-movies.
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The trailer for Werner Herzog’s death penalty documentary — Into the Abyss: A Tale of Life, a Tale of Death — has arrived. In the film, the acclaimed director follows the stories of several death row inmates in Texas, interviewing them and those who have been affected by their incarceration. Tackling such a difficult subject that inspires a lot of heated debate seems impossible to handle fairly, but if anyone could do it, it’s Herzog. Hit the break for a preview of this intimate, moving portrait — which arrives in limited release on November 11.
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And now for what has to be one of the craziest casting stories that we’ve ever read: According to a report from Variety, famed filmmaker Werner Herzog will join Tom Cruise, Robert Duvall, and Richard Jenkins in the cast of One Shot, Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie’s forthcoming film adaptation of Lee Child’s 2005 novel of the same name. For his first major onscreen role, Herzog will be playing “The Zec,” a maimed ex-prisoner of war who’s described as “ageless and shadowy figure,” and presumably the mastermind behind the conspiracy that Cruise’s ex-Army cop, Jack Reacher, is investigating. Suddenly we think that this project, which is set to begin filming in Pittsburgh this month, sounds a lot more interesting. How about you? [via Slashfilm]
We recently learned that Bethenny Frankel, of Real Housewives and resultant spin-off fame, has teamed up with Ellen DeGeneres to start working on a pilot for her very own talk show. Though available details are few, Frankel told the Hollywood Reporter, “I want to be on TV in a format where I can have a longer conversation with my fans rather than 140 characters on Twitter.” Now, we’re not too sure what we think of this — does the world really need more Bethenny Frankel? Since we’ve yet to try the Skinnygirl margarita, we’re not at liberty to say. But we can think of several celebs whose talk shows we would watch without a doubt, especially if they turn out the fantasy talk shows we imagine for them. And don’t worry — we’re not about to suggest James Franco. That kid does enough. Click through to see our list of ten celebrities that should definitely have their own talk shows, and to check out our predictions as to what those gab fests might look like. And of course, let us know who else you’re dying to see in a maroon armchair in the comments!
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Today at Flavorpill, we found John Edwards’ smiley mug shot absolutely terrifying. We were thrilled to hear that Lauryn Hill performed a recognizable (if slightly sped up) version of “Doo Wop (That Thing)” on Jimmy Fallon last night. We listened to Werner Herzog read Go the F*** to Sleep. We met a bunch of people who became nouns. We were kind of jealous of this woman’s iPad hat. We streamed The Guardian‘s 100-track history of modern dance music. We were impressed by the work of Polish artist Marek Tomasik, who built a 16′ x 14′ x 15′ room out of old computer parts. We wondered what look Helena Bonham Carter is going for in a new campaign for Marc Jacobs. We giggled over old footage of Larry David doing standup back when he had hair. And finally, we learned the secret history behind Oreos’ signature embossed look.
Even though it’s just hitting shelves today, chances are you’ve already heard plenty about Adam Mansbach’s profanity-laced children’s book for adults, Go the F*** to Sleep — in fact, maybe you were even one of those people who received a pirated PDF version of the book, helping to drive its pre-release buzz through the roof. The unconventional bedtime story — which was inspired by Mansbach’s own experiences with his daughter — has already spent 50 days in the Top 100 on Amazon.com, and is currently sitting pretty in the number two spot.
If you haven’t read Go the F*** to Sleep yet, and you’re curious as to what all the fuss is all about, you can currently download an audiobook version read by Samuel L. Jackson for free here. In even more exiting news, The Guardian reports that Werner Herzog is also working on a recording of the book that will be unveiled at an event at the New York Public Library. Based on previous spoofs of the auteur’s deadpan delivery, we’re expecting it will be hilarious.
Acclaimed filmmaker and pillar of New German Cinema Werner Herzog may be the most beloved cynic of all time. Inarguably brilliant and completely deadpan in the delivery of his bleak worldview, he finds nature to be “violent and base,” believes the universe to be completely random and godless, and thinks there are too many “vitamins” in vegetarian food. He also was once shot during an interview and refused to go to the hospital or take a break, showing his interviewer the bloody wound and shrugging, muttering that “it was not a significant bullet.” That’s some serious German stoicism for you.
Beloved as he is, there are a wealth of fantastic parodies based on Herzog’s attitude in relatively normal situations. In our roundup of the best Werner Herzog spoofs out there, watch as he reads classic children’s books in his droll, stoic voice, fixes a car, tries to cook something, and looks for love.
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