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As chronicled in Nick Dawson's book Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel (further clicking: podcast with Dawson), Lookin' to Get Out was a wildly over-budget production, filmed during a chaotic and desperate time in Hal Ashby's professional life. When ultimately released in an abbreviated, studio-sanctioned edit that was out of the Shampoo auteur's hands (Ashby was only an Oscar-winning editor, no big whoop), the film bombed so badly that it isn't even disparaged today; like most of Ashby's work in the '80s, it was forgotten. As Jon Voight—who starred, produced, co-wrote and worked on the butchered version of this long-lost Vegas farce—recalled last April, it was Dawson who first informed him that a director's cut (or as the new DVD positions, an "Extended Version") secretly survived. Aaron has more on GC Daily... Read more >> |
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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Coraline, Visioneers and more.
- What We're Watching: 12, Tokyo!, and Harlan Ellison.
- Explore: Summer reading.
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Henry Selick, maker of Nightmare Before Christmas, finally got his due respect away from Tim Burton's name with this lovely stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book. Sean Axmaker called it "a classic fairy tale with a contemporary sensibility and a spooky horror under the candy-house fantasy." Adds the LA Times' Kenneth Turan, Coraline is "a remarkable feat of imagination, a magical tale with a genuinely sinister edge." And Empire found the film "terrifying and beautiful, believable and fantastical." |
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Most of the individual components of Visioneers are not new, nor are the film's ideas particularly deep," writes Eric Snider in Cinematical of this indie film starring Zach Galifianakis. "Yet somehow the combination, written and directed by brothers Jared and Brandon Drake -- in their first film, amazingly -- feels fresh and invigorating. It's a high-concept comedy, but it's down-to-earth and accessible, even a little touching.." Adds the Hollywood Reporter: "Quirky satire wears its influences on its dystopian sleeve, but an amiable cast and some surprising poignancy add up to Orwell that ends well." The film won the the audience award for best drama at CineVegas. |
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Nikita Mikhalkov's 12 received a 2007 Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film, though it wasn't released to U.S. theaters until March of 2009. Probably the same elements that appealed to the often annoyingly inexplicable foreign film committee -- a long running time and a certain "Russianness" -- also scared off potential distributors. It's also a remake of a beloved American classic, Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men (1957, written by Reginald Rose), which may or may not sit well with some cinephiles. But all that aside, Mikhalkov turns in a surprisingly energetic, kinetic and gripping film, filled with an enviable selection of great character actors; it's easy to become absorbed looking at these twelve magnificent faces... read review >>
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I'm usually a fan of anthology films, even if they only have one good segment, such as New York Stories (1989) or Eros (2005). But though I adore all three directors in the new Tokyo!, I found little worthwhile here, except for some empty exercises in strangeness and discomfort. All three filmmakers are outsiders visiting the titular city, and each brings his own brand of disorientation to his tale. French-born, New York-based Michel Gondry ( Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) leads things off with a story of a young couple... read review >> |
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Harlan Ellison is both famous (if not infamous) and obscure; it depends on who you ask. Over the past week, whenever I'd mention the documentary, Harlan Ellison: Dreams With Sharp Teeth, I'd get one of three reactions: "that's the science fiction writer, right?" Or if they knew a little more: "Oh, that asshole." But most often, it was a blank "who?" All of which suggests that Ellison is the ideal subject for a documentary: important and influential in a realm most viewers know little about, and just enough of a, well, jerk to make for compelling cinema. One of the last living members of that amazing generation of science-fiction authors whose heyday was the 1960s and 1970s, Harlan Ellison is probably best known as... read review >>
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Two new posts on GreenCine Daily offer up provocative "summer reading" for cinephiles to chew on, both culled from very different but interesting film-related magazines. 1) Cinema Scope, Summer '09, excerpting Mark Peranson's scathing Cannes '09 wrap-up, from which no one is safe or sacred! And 2) from Script Magazine, an excerpt from Screenwriting in the International Marketplace. More >>
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