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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Sweeney Todd, Kaos, and more.
- What We're Watching: Forbidden Hollywood, Boxing 2 and 4th Dimension.
- Explore: New filmmaker's blog on GreenCine.
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Tim Burton's cinematic translation of the horror-musical is "Something close to a masterpiece, a work of extreme -- I am tempted to say evil -- genius," raved the NY Times' A.O. Scott. Adds Time's Richard Corliss: "A final word for those of you who just don't care for musicals: The movie's true lyricism is less in its score than in its visual and emotional palette, and in watching Depp rise to the majesty of madness...it's bloody great." An Oscar winner for Art Direction. |
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Adapted loosely from stories by Luigi Pirandello, the acclaimed Italian filmmakers the Taviani Brothers' poetic Kaos tells four separate tales of Sicilian life. In 1985, upon the film's initial release, Janet Maslin wrote that Kaos "unfolds with rapturous simplicity... [it] end[s] as it has begun, with a vision of strength, survival, and overwhelming natural beauty." Time Out (UK) added that the Taviani's "naturalism has given ground to a more grotesque vision of the past, allowing black comedy to creep into the always subtle socio-historical subject matter. Exhilarating." We think it's uneven, but incredibly rich. Also out today, the Taviani's Fiorile. |
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The pre-code era reigned in Hollywood roughly from the end of the silent era to the middle of 1934 when the Hays Code began cracking down on certain aberrant behavior in movies. In 2006, Warner Home Video released the tantalizing Volume One of its Forbidden Hollywood Collection. That was a keeper, but pre-code fans know that there are dozens more films out there, and many not yet available on video or DVD. Forbidden Hollywood: Volume 2 has finally surfaced with -- count 'em -- five new films. Each one is more seductive than the last, though I'm afraid none of them quite rank with the astonishing Baby Face. The new set begins elegantly with two Oscar-winning Norma Shearer films, The Divorcee (1930) and A Free Soul (1931). Shearer was a star for... read review here >> |
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After the poor showing made by the first film, directed by David Lynch's daughter Jennifer no less, a follow up to Boxing Helena would seem a bizarre candidate for a sequel, yet alone for the second film by the well-regarded indie filmmakers the Polish Brothers ( Northfork). But this follow-up takes the original's intriguing concept and subverts it - in this case, a wealthy woman becomes obsessed with a young man she had an affair with some years past. Winner of the Audience Award at the Detroit Midnight Movies Festival and at the Bangkok Reprise Fest. the biggest surprise is "that the film reverses the damage of the first one and stands on its own as a superior black comedy for torture porn aficionados," wrote the Onion AV Club's Scott Phipps. More. |
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The 4th Dimension started out as a twenty minute Temple University film school project for the two writer/directors, Tom Materra and Dave Mazzoni. Shot on a shoestring budget, the feature film is beautifully photographed, largely in black and white, and set in an indeterminate historical period populated with 19th century costumes and artifacts mixed with anachronistic items like refrigerators and console television sets. Adrift in this black and white world is Jack, played by Louis Morabito, a young man afflicted with obsessive-compulsive disorder, who is seriously distracted by his musings on the nature of time and Einstein's general theory of relativity. At one point, Jack dreams that Einstein concealed a notebook, full of musings on the grand .... read review >>
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Ladd Ehlinger Jr. produced and directed the 2007 animated cult film Flatland [ dvd]. The first feature film to be completely CGI animated by one person in Lightwave 3D, it received rave reviews. Phil Hall of Film Threat stated that " Flatland is a work of genius, and animation has a new force of power in Ehlinger," and Paul Di Phillipo of Scifi.com called it a "glorious mathematical mystery tour." When Green Cine picked up Flatland for inclusion in our library, we thought it would be cool for Ladd to write a series of articles providing a filmmaker's perspective to the world of independent and classic film. Subsequent blog articles will deal with the future of animated film; the films that most influenced him; and more. Full article >>
Read more hot news from the world of film today here, and on GreenCine Daily.
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Friendly Jesters
(Disc 1)
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