Vote: The Criterion Collection on Amazon

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The Criterion Collection's section on Amazon.com is currently holding a 36%-Off sale on all Blu-Ray titles in the Collection available thereon. While I'd definitely support an urge to splurge on a few titles from that list (e. g., The Last Emperor [1987], Chungking Express [1994], Bottle Rocket [1996]), I'd far more highly recommend, reader, that you take a look at the vote going on immediately beneath the banner for the sale on the site hyperlinked above. This vote, supposedly legitimate, queries Criterion aficionados - who else would be visiting the sale's site? - "What would you like to see be the next Blu-Ray release from the Collection?" How much Criterion will actually consider the results of such a poll in determining the actual release-schedule of its Blu-Ray line is a matter, no doubt, of much uncertainty, but the fact remains that the possibility of being able to participate in this determining is too interesting to pass up. Now, it's not a free-for-all decision; Criterion has laid out five possible titles from which to choose: Au Revoir les Enfants (1987), Down by Law (1986), Howards End (1992), Kwaidan (1965), and Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). But this limitation to five is OK for me, because it contains one title that I would very much like to see released in Blu-Ray format: Howards End, a classic piece from The Merchant-Ivory Collection (a subset of The Criterion Collection) featuring gorgeous visuals, an enchanting score, and very strong performances from its leading actors, including Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Hopkins, and Emma Thompson (who won the Leading Actress Oscar for her role in this film). Were it released in Blu-Ray, I would go out and buy it in a second - and would encourage you all to do so too. So, head out strong - test the film out if you don't believe me - and mark your ballots soon. Short clips as excerpts from the special features of all the potential films are posted on the voting page for your background erudition.

Trailer: Julie & Julia

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Yes, yes, and yes: It's here, the trailer for Julie & Julia, a semi-biopic featuring Meryl Streep impeccably "Bon apetit!"-ing herself into the role of Julia Child (and Amy Adams providing a cutesy, mainstream-esque, self-Cinderella-ing tether, much in the way of Anne Hathaway's Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada (2006). While certainly it is too early to tell whether or not Meryl is on the road for another great performance, it certainly is apt now to declare that it may be so. Her throaty polished tone and tittering laughter reveal the beginnings of what could be another astounding creation. Check out the trailer (below) to see what I mean.

Julie & Julia is set to be released on 7 August 2009.

Bon apetit! (I think, I may start using that phrase now for a while, to sign out of messages and posts. We'll see.)

Commentary: Disney Nature's Oceans

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I just watched this trailer for Disney's forthcoming sequel to this year's Earth, released yesterday: Oceans, to be released Earth Day, 2010; and all I have to think is, Why why why is Disney bent on marketing this natural documentary, "to honor [...] the wild creatures of planet Earth," as a heart-stopping, action-packed revelation of a blockbuster?? I mean, it even has a rapid heart's beating sound as the percussive section of its score.

Why am I so befuddled? (1) The film is a nature film, which indeed may have its active points but is totally misrepresented by cultural cues, like the shrill crescendo the begins over the (above) words "You haven't even scratched the surface," upon which its trailer relies. Cues like those read like the marketing of a sci-fi/horror film, which this film clearly is not. (2) "You haven't even scratched the surface?!" What? I'm sorry, but forgiving the anesthesia of the populus to nature in general, aren't we filmmakers irresponsibly completely shrifting the entire history of the genre that has preceded this film and even covered the exact same phenomena (e. g., BBC's Blue Planet series [2001], Jean Painlevé's Science is Fiction films [1960s], Disney's own A True-Life Adventure series [1960s] that we even mentioned earlier in the trailer!) by cavalierly tagging this sequel with that line? (3) Isn't the reputation of the Earth better served by not artificially grafting onto it the pretenses of constant wonder and awe-inspiring action? I mean, let the Earth be what it is. It's totally not appropriate to try to goad reaction in support of an idea, brand, or cause by making it out to be one fraction of what it actually is. In the end, such deception only leads to crestfallen expectations and diminished interests. Why must we see the short-term at the exclusion of the long-term? (because we all know that these films are destined to end up in the discount bin at Costco in a few years.) Wouldn't it be better to be respectable and thereby more enduring? Wouldn't it be better to have the message of the film be straightforward and not awkwardly subverted and/or diametrically diminished by the shady tone of its trailer? Where is the fidelity to the truth, Disney? Where is the documentary in this?

Announcement: Revanche U. S. Theatrical Release

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Criterion and Janus Films' Oscar-nominated releasing Revanche, about which I've blogged here before, now officially has a U. S. theatrical release schedule, viewable here. Review and excitement are nearing!

Trailer: My Sister's Keeper

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Via Awards Daily comes to us this surprisingly hard-hitting little trailer (below) for a film about a girl and a family in a uniquely presented scenario. While it of course remains to be seen whether or not the film can actually carry through on delivering with delicacy and deftness the heft that it so obviously attempts to promise here, in this preview, it is clear at least that there is good reason to suspect that it might, as the scenes that reveal its developed nature and plot are charged with a level of heightened emotional fidelity not present in so many other movies that have attempted over the years to belong a category of this one's kind. What do you think?

Review: Grey Gardens (2009)

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I've just finished watching the HBO Special Grey Gardens and, while neither all good nor all bad can be said about it, what can be said is that the legacy of the Beale women and their story will not be soon extinguished from this earth nor from this culture. The ending notes of the HBO film, the last spoken lines of dialogue prior to the credits, is a sort of indirect encouragement toward the viewers at home to go and see the documentary, even if they already hadn't, to configure with its over thirty-year-old story the pieces of the lives of its two women further elucidated in the '30s' interpretations of this new adaptation, exploration, and film.
It is clear enough to me, from touches like that one and others both delicately and emphatically put throughout the film, that director Michael Sucsy has at least a beginner's appreciation and tenderness for the lives of his subjects and had at least the intentions to make a thing of sincerity in their honor. Yet, while there are scenes and pieces of his portrayal that eerily resurrect the damage of Grey Gardens the estate and the somberness of its inhabitants, the majority of the film plods along to heavily, too awkwardly to do actual, sincere honor to the women and definitely not to the documentary, which in breathless grace flutters upon the lives of the Edies Beale like a prismic butterfly, alighting on a stage. References to lines spoken throughout the documentary are too rigid and explicit to reach anywhere near that level of delicacy, and the direction and pointy cinematography do nothing to ladle out the thick stew that was the world of Grey Gardens during the Maysles' inhabitance. Of course, one has to remember that HBO will not be making a film that would not in its charms and neatened balances taste unpalatable to the mass audiences, and so certain insertions for the sake of drama and embellishment are to be expected, regardless of the origins of the matter. However, nevertheless, indelicacy that creeps in, even in otherwise slovenly locations, is indelicacy still and exists as naught else than a cotton-candy distractor from the heart of the matter at hand. The fact that the film ends with the struggling anti-heroine, Little Edie, receiving her long-awaited and much-aspired-for dream of the stage and the limelight feels inchoate in comparison with docile constancy of her situation and off-center with regard to the focal point of her life's story. This critique is not to say that the film is any way disrespectful; quite the opposite rathe, the film takes its reverence too highly and wishes for its characters too great a recalibration for the eccentricity of their selves. That the costumes and the art direction in their own rights were unbeautiful, it is too impossible to say; that they were overblown perhaps is another matter. Ms. Barrymore, it seems, may yet know what I mean.

Grade: C+.

Trailer: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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So, I've been thinking to myself, as the weeks have been rolling toward the release of this once already pushed back film, that with the 8 extra months of preparation, I'd hope, this new Harry-Potter installment should be nearly flawless as far as editing, effects, and content go; and usually, when I think similar things to myself about films, those wishes end up being far-and-away dreams that manage to set my expectations up for only disappointment. I will not go so far as to say that this time and this film are the exception from that history of disappointment, primarily and importantly because I have not yet seen the film in question; but I will say that, judging by the looks and sounds of this latest trailer (below), I may very well be in the excepting mood.

Top Ten: James Franco, Ivy Student and Swanky Film-Star, Gives Criterion His Free-Form Version of a Top-Ten List of Films from the C. Repertoire

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James Franco, graduate student at Columbia's School of the Arts, actor in such films as last year's Milk directed by Gus van Sant, and apparently likewise enthusiast of The Criterion Collection, has recently put together for the Collection a free-form list of his "Top Ten" favorite films from its renowned canon. I say "free form," because the list runs irregularly according to the premises of the "The Top Ten List" protocol: For one, it is clearly not just ten films long; for another, it's organized by director, not by film; and for still another, it isn't really comprised of the man's opinion of the "best films in the Collection:" Instead, the list reads much more like a playlist-type compilation of what's currently on Mr. Franco's DVD turn-table, with prefacing disclaimer that his experience and views are ever growing. Despite this overt flouting of Top-Ten rules, however, there's something thoroughly charming about such a fluid perspective on the arts coming from this student of a man; to me, such a perspective makes it clear that he has his heart truly in his work, that he recognizes that there is a lot still left for him to learn, and that he, taking such matters seriously, will by assiduous immersion into the respected history of his chosen medium emerge from therein a not only educated, but also elevated performer. Or maybe that's just a fellow twenty-something's peeraged, optimistic regard.
In any case, the 15 films on Mr. Franco's list, embellished by his equally free-form commentary, may be viewed at the Criterion website (here) or here (just below):


THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
VÍCTOR ERICE

SPAIN
1973
99 MINUTES
1.66:1
1. Víctor Erice - This was such a surprise. I had never heard of this film. The premise is original and poignant, and the performance by the little girl is mind-blowing. It is about the power that movies can hold over us. It delivers the wonders of childhood and the saving grace of imagination.

MURMUR OF THE HEART
LOUIS MALLE

FRANCE
1972
118 MINUTES
1.66:1

LACOMBE, LUCIEN
LOUIS MALLE

FRANCE
1974
138 MINUTES
1.66:1
2. Louis Malle - Malle delivers stories that still resonate for their audacity of subject and unflinching portrayals of sorrowful characters.


MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO
GUS VAN SANT

UNITED STATES
1991
104 MINUTES
1.77:1

MALA NOCHE
GUS VAN SANT

UNITED STATES
1985
78 MINUTES
1.33:1
3. Gus Van Sant - Gus is the best. Idaho was one of the first movies with which I fell in love. I would watch it repeatedly when I was a teenager. River Phoenix gives the performance of a lifetime, original and inspiring. As a young actor, I needed nothing more than this performance for inspiration. The film is a collage of techniques, plots, and themes, expertly wound together as only Van Sant is able to do. When Criterion released this DVD with a film-length interview between Todd Haynes and Gus, it was a gold mine for an acolyte like me. There are also great old magazine articles, and an odd conversation with J. T. Leroy, before he was exposed. Mala Noche is Gus’s first film. He financed it with his own money. It’s a great early glimpse into many of the themes that continue to consume him.

A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
JOHN CASSAVETES

UNITED STATES
1974
155 MINUTES
1.85:1

OPENING NIGHT
JOHN CASSAVETES

UNITED STATES
1976
144 MINUTES
1.66:1
4. John Cassavetes - Not much to add about Cassavetes, except that Criterion has put together an incredible box set, John Cassavetes: Five Films. There are alternate cuts, interviews, and documentaries, as well as the incredible films. Woman and Opening Night show Gena Rowlands at her best. These films contain performances that will never be matched, but are also structural innovations. I wish I could make movies like this.

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
GILLO PONTECORVO

ALGERIA
1966
121 MINUTES
1.85:1
5. Gillo Pontecorvo - I don’t know how he made this movie, except that he used the real people. This is where Soderbergh learned half of his shit (as I’m sure he’ll admit). This is an amazing three-disc set, with hours of documentary footage.

SALESMAN
ALBERT MAYSLES, DAVID MAYSLES AND CHARLOTTE ZWERIN

UNITED STATES
1968
91 MINUTES
1.33:1

GIMME SHELTER
DAVID MAYSLES, ALBERT MAYSLES AND CHARLOTTE ZWERIN

UNITED STATES
1970
91 MINUTES
1.33:1
6. The Maysles Brothers - The Maysles are masters. Their philosophy of Direct Cinema is proved in these films. Life is as interesting as fiction. This is not reality TV; it is observational documentation in the purest sense. It is not manipulated; the only filter is the obvious love the filmmakers have for their subjects. Salesman is as deep as Death of a Salesman or The Iceman Cometh, and Gimme Shelter is like Greek tragedy.

L'ECLISSE
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI

ITALY
1962
126 MINUTES
1.85:1

L’AVVENTURA
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI

ITALY
1960
145 MINUTES
1.77:1
7. Michelangelo Antonioni - Antonioni is still elusive, but these great discs help open an understanding of his work through documentary and illuminating commentaries.

IL POSTO
ERMANNO OLMI

ITALY
1961
93 MINUTES
1.33:1
8. Ermanno Olmi - What a beautiful film. Olmi was a documentary filmmaker who then switched to features. He explores young love in very simple, but deeply felt, terms. Even more exciting is the short film included on the disc, La cotta. This is like Rushmore in miniature. A young, imaginative kid in love. So fun and sad.

3 WOMEN
ROBERT ALTMAN

UNITED STATES
1977
124 MINUTES
2.35:1

SECRET HONOR
ROBERT ALTMAN

UNITED STATES
1984
90 MINUTES
1.33:1
9. Robert Altman - Altman is another hero. These films are hypnotizing because of their pace. Altman’s cameras swirl around and zoom in on his characters as they reveal themselves slowly. Altman said he let actors do what they became actors to do (meaning: Act! Create!), and these films are two examples of how this freeing process can create indelible performances.