From Link With Love
Wednesday, September 19, 2012 at 11:30AM Pajiba wonders if The Master's insane per screen average this weekend will finally translate into mainstream box office dollars. (No P.T. picture has ever grossed more than $40 million in US theaters)
First Showing Melissa Leo prepping for a busy 2013. So many films, one of them (Prisoners) is with Hugh Jackman from the director of Incendies.
Cinema Blend Gong Li may become The Last Empress... but she needs a director first
The Guardian on Mitt Romney and his choice of favorite film O Brother Where Art Thou?
Geekologie impressive fan sculpture of He-Man
Pajiba on the casual barely-trying success of the Resident Evil and Underworld franchises
Coming Soon has an exclusive with Oscar Isaac (Drive) singing songs from two new films 10 Years (it's a song he co-wrote) and the Coen Bros Inside Llweyn Davis. Here's the oft-covered "Dink's Song" from that forthcoming Coen Bros picture...
...and we end with a little tangentially 007 related business (we'll have a Bond series soon with guest star Deborah Lipp of "Basket of Kisses" and "The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book" fame)
Press Play Matt Zoller Seitz on From Russia With Love and Singin' in the Rain and "unsophisticated" audiences...
Monkey See responds to this article with more on the problem of contemporary audience's "ironic distancing" from older films. Very worthy topic o' discussion
Movie|Line a tale of two posters for Skyfall
Reader Comments (13)
Oh does that Matt Zoller Seitz piece ring true for me. In my film classes in college, there would be chuckles at the strangest points in some movies. And I'm not just older movies; I was somewhat horrified by the laughter at key points in Unforgiven. Regardless of how you feel about Unforgiven, there's absolutely no reason to laugh during the climactic shootout at the end. I've always suspected that the students were surprised by how strongly they engaged with the movie and the emotions that rose up within them that they were almost embarassed by their reactions. The only way to "maintain their cool" was to laugh and just act as if they were above the whole thing.
Seriously, people, it's okay to like things and be emotionally engaged with them. No one is going to think less of you for feeling that way.
Gong Li needs to do MORE films!. She is exqusite and an amazing actress. Hope TLE lands a great director!
GONG LI! YES! YES! YES! I can never understand why she'd never gained any traction for 'Memoirs of a Geisha'. Yes the movie was bad but damn she's really acted circles around Zhang Ziyi. I was a big fan of the book and I must say she'd the only one who did the character justice.
Regarding The Last Empress. I smell Oscar. It'd be great if she becomes the first Asian Best Actress winner. I'd love if she reteams with Zhang Yimou but I'm guessing they are gonna go with an American director. Is Paul Thomas Anderson busy next year?
Tied to Resident Evil: Retribution:
Let's place odds on the how likely it is the currently announced will suck:
Second Tomb Raider Series: No question. Even with a good actress, any director they can actually get for it will ramp up the fanservice to distasteful levels, netting critical scorn.
Second Mortal Kombat Series: If they refuse to neuter themselves, maybe mixed reviews.
Metal Gear Solid: The games (especially 2 and 4) are infamous among more story focused gamers for being incomprehensible messes and are very cutscene heavy. Unless a really steady directorial hand gets attached and they say the first game is going to be two movies, expect disaster if it reaches production.
Assassin's Creed: Michael Fassbender's vanity line is attached to produce and he does have good taste as an actor, but I'm worried that they're trying to bring in the Desmond Miles stuff. The problem is the Desmond Miles stuff was almost entirely a subtle poke to the audience, "hey, you're playing a video game about a guy that's essentially playing a video game." There's supposedly something of a plot to it that'll get resolved in the third game, but if I were to look at the series I'd say, "Hey, this Desmond Miles stuff isn't even that useful in the game itself. Why not just cut the Animus entirely and get to the meat of this beast?"
Devil May Cry: Why? And why the Ninja Theory origin?
Deus Ex Human Revolution: If they keep the "Bathed in Gold" aesthetic, I could see it easily seperating itself from the cinematic pack. Otherwise: We have Blade Runner, y'know?
Uncharted: I was kind of hopeful with David O. Russell as a guiding hand. If they manage getting someone of that caliber again, maybe these will start ocassionally getting respect.
Hitman 2: NO!
Halo: Fall of Reach: The first game wasn't good enough for you?
Nate, The Gong Li news is worth its own blog entry
It needs a good director. Chen Kaige?
"The great risk, though, is that if you grasp a person by the shoulders and tell him he's unsophisticated for his response — as the film teacher did at the closing of the Singin' In The Rain showing — he won't learn the lesson you mean to teach. He won't learn that he needs to think in a nuanced way about the pleasure and the art and the cultural commentary of film. What he will learn is, "Don't react incorrectly, or people will ridicule you."
That's a really great piece there, and I agree, that kind of mindset is worse then the ironic snarky cool distancing. I think a lot of serious movie fans get so invested in their own personal world and echo chambers of movie-watching, they see a recurring way people watch movies, people who feel the same way about movies as you do, and define that as the "right" way. And anyone NOT seeing the brilliance of Vertigo or Singin' in the Rain are incorrect, they're "doing it wrong".
I think if a person goes in with an open mind and tries to engage a film on it's own terms, then that's really the long and short of it. If they sat there and explained why they found Persona a brilliant, thought-provoking meditation on the concepts of identity and reality. or a pretentious, vague, confusing slog, then who am I to tell them they're wrong? The cynical "I don't watch black-and-white movies, everything is corny/boring" view is not a huge jump away from "If you didn't like Citizen Kane, you're a philistine and you should go back to Spielberg movies" mentality of many "serious" film fans.
"The great risk, though, is that if you grasp a person by the shoulders and tell him he's unsophisticated for his response — as the film teacher did at the closing of the Singin' In The Rain showing — he won't learn the lesson you mean to teach. He won't learn that he needs to think in a nuanced way about the pleasure and the art and the cultural commentary of film. What he will learn is, "Don't react incorrectly, or people will ridicule you."
That's a really great piece there, and I agree, that kind of mindset is worse then the ironic snarky cool distancing. I think a lot of serious movie fans get so invested in their own personal world and echo chambers of movie-watching, they see a recurring way people watch movies, people who feel the same way about movies as you do, and define that as the "right" way. And anyone NOT seeing the brilliance of Vertigo or Singin' in the Rain are incorrect, they're "doing it wrong".
I think if a person goes in with an open mind and tries to engage a film on it's own terms, then that's really the long and short of it. If they sat there and explained why they found Persona a brilliant, thought-provoking meditation on the concepts of identity and reality or a pretentious, vague, confusing slog, then who am I to tell them they're wrong? I can disagree, but the greatness of movies are based on so much subjectivity, a factual "Nope, that was the wrong reaction to that movie" seems foolish. The cynical "I don't watch black-and-white movies, everything is corny/boring" view is not a huge jump away from "If you didn't like Citizen Kane, you're a philistine and you should go back to Spielberg movies" mentality of many "serious" film fans. It's fanboyism masquerading under a veil of intellectualism.
I always thought Romney's favorite film was Wall Street...
I always thought Romney's favorite film was Wall Street.
It is almost unimaginable to me that The Master will make as much as $40m, let alone significantly more than that. Maybe if it becomes a big Oscar player and Harvey W. is able to keep it in theaters for six months, but even then - this feels more like a Hurt Locker or Tree of Life scenario. I'd say $20m tops, but I'd love to be very wrong about that.
I'll never forget how excited I was to see North by Northwest on the big screen at the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square, only to have 90% of the audience chuckle through all the love scenes. I felt like I was watching a completely different film from everyone else.
That Mitt, he's so humble. Why didn't he choose his biopic?
The Omen
OT: Marion Cotillard won her second Hollywood Film Award for Rust & Bone...
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/marion-cotillard-dark-knight-rises-rust-and-bone-371780