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I missed the trailer for Be Kind Rewind, Michel Gondry’s upcoming film starring Mos Def and Jack Black, when it came out back in August…perhaps you did too? The gist of the film: two video store clerks find all the tapes in the store are blank and set out to refilm all of the movies themselves.
Michael Hanscom notes that Pixar has not made a movie with a lead female character and this unfortunate trend looks to continue with Wall-E.
What’s been frustrating so far is simply that in many of Pixar’s prior films, there’s no particular reason why one or another of their characters couldn’t be female rather than male — would Ratatouille have been any less well done if he were a she? Would the rescue of the ant colony be less spectacular if Julia Louis-Dreyfus had voiced Flik against Dave Foley’s Prince Atta?
Dozens of stills from The Simpsons that make references to famous scenes in movies.
Wall-E is Pixar’s next movie, to be released in June 2008. A new teaser trailer is due to be released today at 8pm ET, although a French site has jumped the gun and is displaying it now (much better HD version). Does it make sense even if you don’t speak French? Yes, because the movie isn’t going to have any dialogue. Says director Andrew Stanton: “I’m basically making R2-D2: The Movie”. At least it’s not in Aramaic. And talkies are overrated anyway, right?
Pixar has also launched a promotional web site for the film. The site was formerly just a placeholder but is now faux-corporate brochureware for Buy n Large, maker of the Wall-E robot. The site is full of ridiculous corporate-speak like “by visiting the Buy n Large web site you instantaneously relinquish all claims against the Buy n Large corporation and any of its vendors or strategic partners.” Check out the Nanc-E under Robotics/Robot Models for a chuckle. (thx, david)
Update: The English trailer is now available at Yahoo in HD (480p, 720p and 1080p).
Errol Morris writes several hundred words about two iconic photos taken by Roger Fenton during the Crimean War, during which he explores the interplay between “clear” evidence and the interpretation of that evidence by people with different agendas and ideas.
As I’ve said elsewhere: Nothing is so obvious that it’s obvious. When someone says that something is obvious, it seems almost certain that it is anything but obvious - even to them. The use of the word “obvious” indicates the absence of a logical argument - an attempt to convince the reader by asserting the truth of something by saying it a little louder.
This might be the best blog post I’ve ever read. I can’t wait to see Standard Operating Procedure, Morris’ upcoming documentary on Abu Ghraib and, from what it sounds like, the culmination of his exploration of truth in photography.
Look, I know it’s Friday you’re just looking for some fun stuff to end the work week with, but we’ve got a pressing matter to discuss. Let’s say you’re a new father and a movie fan. When your child is of an appropriate age to start watching movies, in which order will you show him/her the six Star Wars movies? By original release date (Star Wars, Empire, Jedi, Phantom Menace, Clones, Sith) or according to the intra-movie chronology (Phantom Menace, Clones, Sith, Star Wars, Empire, Jedi)?
We’re currently leaning toward by original release date, but I can see the advantages of the other way around too. At dinner the other night, a friend asserted that not only was original release date the way to go, but that viewing the original versions on VHS was essential as well. I believe the relevant tapes and a cheapo VCR have been stashed away for this purpose already.
What do you think? How would you approach this? (thx to rehan for the suggested topic)
The Strand recently provided books for the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull through their Books By The Foot service.
Hotel Chevalier, the short film by Wes Anderson that takes place before the action in The Darjeeling Limited, is available at the iTunes Music Store for free.
New York magazine takes Wes Anderson’s spiritual temperature on the eve of the release of The Darjeeling Limited, his fifth film.
That we happen to be traveling by train to discuss a movie that takes place on a train was not part of the original plan, though I’m starting to think of it as yet another example of Anderson’s knack for retouching reality with an idiosyncratic gloss. (It may be connected to his fear of flying as well; until recently, Anderson traveled to Europe by boat, and he far prefers trains and automobiles to anything airborne.) Also somewhat peculiar is the fact that buried in one of Anderson’s monogrammed suitcases is 10,000 euros in cash — about $14,000 — an amount that may or may not be legal to carry, and that was given to the director by Bill Murray, who asked that the money be “delivered to Luigi.”
Remember the Transformers movie from this summer? Those were fun times. Here’s a letter to Optimus Prime from his Geico auto insurance agent. “Mr. Prime, I am going to remind you again: Your policy with GEICO only reimburses you for accidents that occur while you are engaged in the reasonable use of your truck and trailer. As I told you when you originally purchased the policy, GEICO does not offer Megatron coverage, Starscream coverage, Soundwave coverage, Decepticon coverage, or Energon-blast coverage. Those are just not the types of damages we would expect from reasonable use.”
Wes Anderson is promoting The Darjeeling Limited by releasing a 13-minute teaser film called Hotel Chevalier on the web before Darjeeling opens in theaters. Three words: Natalie Portman nude. Portman, Anderson, and Jason Schwartzman will be at the Apple Store in NYC to premiere the short. If you go, expect a freakin’ mob scene of twee hipster horndogs.
Update: New Wes Anderson Film Features Deadpan Delivery, Meticulous Art Direction, Characters With Father Issues. Completely unexpected.
An incredible archive of all the televised reviews of Siskel and Ebert (and Roeper) after 1986. Here, for example, is Siskel and Ebert’s review of Die Hard from 1988. (thx, martin)
Trailer for No Country For Old Men, a film by the Coen Brothers based on a book by Cormac McCarthy.
The New Yorker’s Nancy Franklin pans Ken Burns’ The War.
They’ve taken a subject that is inexhaustible and made it merely exhausting. Scene by scene, interview by interview, the series doesn’t bore, if you are of the school that believes that everyone’s experiences are at least somewhat interesting, and that the experiences of those who went through the Second World War are more interesting than most.
Gaspar Noé is an Argentinian-born French filmmaker whose films are notable for their frank depictions of violence and rape, as in 2002’s Irréversible, which features a nine-minute uncut scene of Monica Bellucci’s character being raped and beaten.
Eva Herzigova is a Czech supermodel and actress. She’s appeared on too many magazine covers to count and is fluent in five languages.
No one knows what became of the kitten.
Eva’s son George was born in Italy in the summer of 2007.
Update: Of course the second video is no longer available on YouTube because it showed Eva breastfeeding or is copyrighted or both.
Jessica Lagunas’ Return to Puberty, an artwork consisting of a “video close-up of my pubis in a static single shot, in which I depilate most of my pubic hair with a pair of tweezers continuously for one hour”. It’s like the female version of Empire. NSFW.
Video of a Charlie Rose interview with Pixar’s John Lasseter and Steve Jobs. This was about a year after Toy Story had been released and a few months before Apple bought Jobs’ NeXT.
Graph of the movie poster colors of the top-grossing movies, from the brightly colored G-rated movies to the dark and fleshy NC-17 films.
Tickets for Helvetica’s multi-week run at the IFC Center in NYC are on sale now.
A collection of the best 150 documentaries as determined by Kevin Kelly. Kelly’s got good taste in movies — or at least it jibes with mine — and True Films is a fine guide for those looking to introduce more documentary films into their media diet.
Laurel over at TV Picks noticed that the conjoined twins documentary I mentioned the other day is on the Discovery Health Channel tonight at 9pm and 12am ET. DVR, set. (thx, laurel)
BTW, TV Picks looks like the rare useful entertainment site that’s not just absolutely plastered with ads and attitude. It’s a daily one-pager about what’s new, good, and notable on TV that day.
Title of the upcoming Indiana Jones film: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
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