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Waxing Roth: Define “failure”

Jim Emerson

View image Is this man a “torture pornographer”? Strike that. Is he a “failure”?

Letters from Filmmakers Part II: This one was published today at MSN Movies, a response from Eli Roth to an article by Don Kaye about the phenomenon popularly known as “torture porn”:

Don,

I saw your article on “Torture Porn,” and while I disagree with you about your criticism of my film, I would like you to back up how “Hostel II” is a failure, a claim you repeatedly make. While the film did not do what the first film did at the box office, (which was a total shock to everyone – myself included) “Hostel II” cost only $10 million dollars to make, and is currently at $30 million dollars worldwide box office, with many territories left to open. How many other films this summer have earned triple their production budget in their theatrical run? Are those films failures as well?

Critically, your comments were that I had MTV style editing and a lack of character development. What, exactly, are you talking about? “Hostel II” has barely any flashy cuts or MTV-style editing, and the first 45 minutes of the movie is all character development with almost zero on screen violence. Heather Matarazzo’s torture scene doesn’t happen until nearly 50 minutes into the movie.

View image One of the milder posters for “Hostel Part II” — this one from Italy.

It sounds to me like you are jumping onto some kind of ‘anti-violence’ crusade without actually watching the film, when if you looked closely, you’d see that my film actually has a very strong anti-violence moral core. Writers I respect such as Stephen King, Elvis Mitchell, and writer/Attorney Julie Hilden, a former clerk for supreme court Justice Breyer, praised the film specifically for its anti-violence message and skilled filmmaking (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20070716.html) and in Europe the major critics hailed the film for its political messages against corporations that profit from the death of Americans.

My films are not for everyone, and many critics dismissed the film because of the violent scenes, which is the very thing horror fans are paying for when they see a film like “Hostel II.” But to lump my film in with other films that may be ripping off a trend for “MTV editing” and “lack of character development” shows more of a reflection of your lack of understanding as a critic and a desire to be seen as a ‘moral person’ than an actual critique of my film.

[…]

Opening Shots: Quiz 2: 10 Easy Pieces (+2)

Jim Emerson

Set your timers — it’ll be a blast!

OK, I know the Opening Shots Pop Quiz is difficult — mainly because, even though many of the movies are famous (or by famous directors), they’re very personal favorites of mine that most people wouldn’t necessarily think of right off the bat.

So, I thought I’d do another one that didn’t require so much detective work. It’s also a kind of companion to my 101 102 Movies You Must See Before You Die list, in that these are 10 11 of the most celebrated films, and most famous opening shots, ever (plus one relatively obscure one by a favorite director of mine who also has a shot on the OS Pop Quiz — a little extra hint. Another clue about that one [BONUS #2] here).

So, not only should you have seen all these movies (and you probably have), I hope you won’t have too much difficulty remembering these classic opening shots, and why they’re great. Feel free to send in your answers via the e-mail link above — along with your comments. I’ll publish the first correct answer, and any of the interesting comments you have about the shots themselves. Just click the link below and start the clock ticking…

For Sale: On Revolutionary Road

Jim Emerson

“One thing I’m willing to bet [about a “Revolutionary Road” screenplay written in the 1970s] is that it made the Wheelers a lot more sympathetic than they ought to be. It was a common misconception when the book was first published, even among good critics. Quite simply, Yates meant for the Wheelers to seem a little better than mediocre: not, that is, stoical mavericks out of Hemingway, or glamorous romantics out of Fitzgerald. Rather, the Wheelers are everyday people — you and me — who pretend to be something they’re not because life is lonely and dull and disappointing.”

— Richard Yates biographer Blake Bailey in Slate (June 26, 2007)

Plot and thematic spoilers ahead.

“How do you break free… without breaking apart”? That’s the rhetorical question posed as a tag line in this trailer (above) for Sam Mendes’ titanic version of Richard Yates’ 1961 novel “Revolutionary Road,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

But is that what “Revolutionary Road” — the movie or the book — is about? Does it even scratch the surface? I wonder if this is being sold as a story about two extraordinary people who might have fulfilled their promise… if they hadn’t been stifled by the suburban conformist pressures of America in the 1950s. If only they’d broken free and gone to Paris where people really feel things!

The Sixth Man: A Corleone Family Mystery

Jim Emerson

View image A family meeting: Who is that sixth man (on the far right)? Hint: It’s not Kevin Spacey.

Longtime Scanners commenter and Ebert correspondent Ali Arikan, in Istanbul (one of my favorite cities), solves the mystery of The Sixth Man in “The Godfather” (or “One,” as they say in the Sopranos family) and “The Godfather, Part II” in Roger Ebert’s latest Answer Man column. The unidentified man in question is present during the meeting in which the Corleones plan the killing of a New York police captain. And his name is…

… Rocco Lampone… [whom you may remember from] the earlier scene in the film where Rocco executes Paulie in the car as Clemenza urinates outside (the “leave the gun, take the cannoli” scene).

… He eventually becomes one of Michael’s two caporegimes (Al Neri is the other one). Incidentally, it is Rocco who, in the second film, assassinates Hyman Roth at the airport, only to be shot in the back by a police officer as he tries to flee the scene.

Read the full item here and last week’s original question here.

Free at last, free at last? Thank Xenu Almighty!

Jim Emerson

Don’t forget to set your TiVo, Tom.

I just love a Xenu joke. But, seriously, this just in from reader Ali Nagib:

I just noticed on my TiVo that it claims that Comedy Central will air “Trapped in the Closet” on July 19, in their usual “new” episode timeslot, at 10 and 12 PM Eastern. Go, Freedom! (I think)Great news, Ali! I went to Comedy Central’s web site and it confirms your TiVo. The episode is scheduled for the 19th (immediately following “Casa Bonita,” another great one), with a repeat the next day. Will Viacom and Comedy Central have the intestinal fortitude to follow through this time? Or will they cave again at the last minute and whisk the Emmy-nominated episode back into the Comedy Closet, along with Tom Cruise, John Travolta and R. Kelly? We shall see, we shall see… Meanwhile, set your TiVos!

UPDATE (07/12/06):Check out this story at E!Online, “Airwaves Again Safe for ‘South Park’ Scientology Spoof”:

“If they hadn’t put this episode back on the air, we’d have had serious issues, and we wouldn’t be doing anything else with them,” cocreator Matt Stone tells Variety….

While Comedy Central failed to publicly disclose its reasons for yanking the program (which is also credited for leading Scientologist Isaac Hayes to jump ship as the longtime voice of Chef), creators Stone and Trey Parker didn’t shy away from broadcasting what they claimed was the network-sanctioned reason.

As the conspiracy theory goes, the Cruise’s camp had a hand in deep-sixing the episode, with the litigious actor reportedly threatening threatened to pull out of promotional duties for “Mission: Impossible III.” (Viacom is the parent company for both Comedy Central and Paramount, the studio that was releasing Cruise’s film.)

Cruise’s reps vehemently denied such allegations, but the “South Park” brain trust stuck by its guns.

“I only know what we were told, that people involved with ‘M:I:III’ wanted the episode off the air and that is why Comedy Central had to do it,” Stone says in Variety. “I don’t know why else it would have been pulled.”

Now, Cruise’s saturation-level publicity tour is over (and proved fairly ineffective, with the sequel grossing a disappointing $133 million domestically) and he is apparently in hiding with his new baby.

Have the evildoers been vanquished? Here’s hoping…

Letter: Intelligence and religion are not incompatible

Jim Emerson

From Sam Vicchrilli, Salt Lake City, UT:

As much as I typically despise letters to the editor, I would like to write a few words to you about your blog on “The Da Vinci Code.”

I have not read Brown’s book. I read the first several chapters and thought the writing was pedestrian and the mystery too obviously teased out. There is a stack of books I wish to read before returning to that bit of fiction. But I have heard about the book endlessly from my mother who adores it. We are Mormon.

While it has not deterred our religiosity (rather it drove us to the bible for clarification on doctrinal points), I can understand why Christians around the world are questioning themselves due to this piece of pulp fiction. I think part of it is that they are unaware of what the bible says and how it was put together, as you have suggested. Moreover, I think most people are not very bright to begin with.

Frost/Nixon/Milk: Get Real

Jim Emerson

Michael Sheen and Frank Langella are swell as David Frost and Richard Nixon in the adapted-from-the-stage-adaptation movie, but I feel — and I believe the above clips demonstrate — that these five minutes provide more compelling drama and suspense (and adrenaline) than the entire feature film. Frost presents himself as a much stronger, more flamboyant “prosecutor” than he is in the movie. And watch the incredible range and focus of Nixon’s performance: the deliberate rhetorical emphases and repetitions; the flashes of steely anger and startling shifts into unctuousness/condescension when he seems like he could burst into inappropriate laugher or tears or flames; the (strategic?) digressions and circumlocutions; the hand-gestures, head-shakes, eye-blinks; the splintered syntax and mispronunciations-under-pressure when he gets flustered… At least you can tell (unlike certain modern politicians one could name) that he’s actually thinking as he talks, sifting through evidence and debate tactics and talking points in his head, not just going blank and letting his lips flap. THIS is an endlessly fascinating character in peak performance mode…

* * * *

“Frost/Nixon” and “Milk” are glossy products of the Hollywood awards season, prestige pictures in the grand red-carpet tradition of fashioning uplifting, larger-than-life entertainments out of semi-fictionalized semi-recent historical events. The thing is, both have been treated far more thrillingly on documentaries that are available on DVD. Think “Frost/Nioxon” provided compelling drama, suspense and astoundingly rich performances? It can’t approach the actual interviews , which have just been released as “Frost/Nixon: The Original Watergate Interviews.” Think “Milk” was a moving look at a charismatic public figure and a key period in American civil rights? You have not begun to be moved until you see Rob Epstein’s Oscar-winning “The Times of Harvey Milk” (clips after the jump), which is also a more complex, less hagiographic portrait of the man and his heady times.

“I criticize you back — again!”

Jim Emerson

From an interview with “Transformers: ROTFL” director Michael Bay at Wall Street Journal Online:

Megan Fox, one of the leads in “Transformers” has criticized your films for being special-effects-driven and not offering so many acting opportunities. Do you agree?

Well, that’s Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, “Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it.” But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in “Armageddon.” Shia LaBeouf wasn’t a big movie star before he did “Transformers” — and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from “Bad Boys.” Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in “Transformers.” I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films.

So there! But what did Fox actually say about being in “Transformers”? Here are some excerpts from her cover interview in Entertainment Weekly:

“40 years is not enough” — Roger Ebert

Jim Emerson

Message from Roger Ebert, now posted at RogerEbert.com:

As I look at the date, I realize I was named film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times forty years ago today. I had no idea I was embarking on a lifelong career, but I was, and I can’t think of a better one.

Now here I am with another milestone. Nine months ago I was leaving Northwestern Memorial hospital after surgery for salivary cancer. I was planning to be back in action in a few weeks, but unfortunately, there were complications, and more medical procedures resulted. I was in bed so long that I experienced serious deconditioning that led to a stint at the famous Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

I began my rehabilitation there, and I am continuing it, along with an overhaul of my general health, at the Pritikin Center in Florida. Also, because of a tracheostomy, my speaking voice is on hold until my upcoming completion surgery. I am feeling better every day and my wife Chaz says we can see the light at the end of the tunnel….

I am happy to say my Ninth Annual Overlooked Film Festival will be held as scheduled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign April 25-29. I’ll be there, but friends and colleagues will take over the onstage Q&A duties. I’ll watch from the audience. I think of the festival as the first step on my return to action. Because I will be under scrutiny there, I’ll tell you what to expect: a sick guy, getting better, who still loves the movies and the festival.

Read complete article at RogerEbert.com

First-Shot Bordwell

Jim Emerson

View image Establishing shot: The first image of Yasujiro Ozu’s masterpiece, “Tokyo Story.” Ozu tends to begin with a series of static shots (say, three to five) that set the location and mood.

David Bordwell (recently returned from Easter Island!), has a swell historical overview of first shots (and the Opening Shots Project) here. David notes that many classic films begin with fairly routine establishing shots and wonders:

Was there a moment when directors started to feel that they had to weight the first shot heavily, to treat it as a dense moment that the viewer should savor? The first shot of a film could be as vivid and bristling with implication as the first sentence of a novel. When might directors have begun to think along these lines?He then surveys several of your (and my) Scanners favorites, and mentions a number of his own (from films by Harold Lloyd, Yasojiro Ozu, D.W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein and others):Fairly far back in film history, directors seem to have realized that first shots should be freighted with implication. There probably isn’t only one moment when this strategy arises, but I’d suggest looking first at the period when synchronized sound comes in. Most films at the time were pretty static and theatrical in their reliance on dialogue, so a flashy opening shot or sequence could reassert “This is cinema.��? The bravura tracking shot was a common way directors chose to draw the viewer into the film’s world, as at the start of “Threepenny Opera” or of “Scarface.” Maybe this is a key moment in which filmmakers began to realize that the opening shot of a film should grab or puzzle the viewer and let us reflect a little on the fact that it’s doing so.

TIFF: Death and the Madre

Jim Emerson

View image Three Women of “Volver”: Sister, niece/daughter, sister.

The dry east wind that howls through the little village in La Mancha where Pedro Almodovar was born, and where his latest film “Volver” begins, brings with it unease, fire and insanity. In the opening shot, it blows crisp dead leaves across marble graves, while women dust and polish the stones. Sometimes, they even come by to clean their own graves. It’s just another housekeeping chore.

Shocking! Attend the hair of Sweeney Todd

Jim Emerson

View image Johnny Depp as Tim Burton and Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

“[Director Tim Burton] saw the picture as an homage to old Universal horror flicks (‘Frankenstein,’ ‘The Black Cat’), creepy silent-film melodramas (any number of Lon Chaney spine-tinglers), and Hammer horror films (pulpy fare from the ’50s and ’60s). Both Burton and Depp say there are major nods to Peter Lorre’s ‘Mad Love’ performance in Sweeney. Oh, and that shock of white in Depp’s hair? A sign of Todd’s trauma — and possibly a nod to Humphrey Bogart’s skunk stripe in his lone horror picture, ‘The Return of Dr. X.,’ a Burton favorite. (Plus Depp says he’s got a nephew with a white streak.)”

— Entertainment Weekly (November 9, 2007)

“Mr. Depp’s Sweeney isn’t a regular guy either. With a Susan Sontag patch of white streaking his pompadour, ghostly skin and distraught eyes, this Sweeney is both wretched and mad.”

— The New York Times (November 4, 2007)

View image Humphrey Bogart in “The Return of Dr. X” looks more like Edward Scissorhands to me. It’s the lips.

Bulletin: Johnny Depp plays the title role in a Tim Burton film version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” — and he’s not a regular guy! In fact, he’s “both wretched and mad,” which (from the way the Times reports it) must be an entirely new take on the character. The Demon Barber, that is. Bet Sondheim wishes he’d thought of that.

But what of that mysterious shock of white hair that leaves the Times and EW writers stretching for an antecedent? Bogart in “Dr. X”? Sure, OK. Susan Sontag? Somebody needs to get out of New York more often. Hey, why not JoBeth Williams in the latter part of “Poltergeist”?

View image The late Susan Sontag, The Demonized Intellectual of 9/11.

You know there’s a pretty obvious one that a fan of James Whale’s “Frankenstein” and its sequel could not help but recognize, if only because it’s the most famous streak of white hair in all of movie history…

(All will be revealed after the jump…)

This week: Four 4-star reviews!

Jim Emerson

View image Sexy time for celebrate nice reviews! Borat like to disco dance with men from village. Also Greenwich Village. And City of Brotherly Love.

This doesn’t happen very often. On RogerEbert.com today we have four 4-star reviews in a row.

Roger Ebert reviews the latest installment in Michael Apted’s lifelong documentary series, “49 Up.’

I have reviews of:

“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” a documentary about a foreign journalist… NOT! (You will only understand this joke if you see movie film.)

“Old Joy,” a meditative journey into the backwoods of an old friendship.

“51 Birch Street,” a son’s quietly astonishing look at his parents’ “ordinary” marriage.

That ought to keep you busy this weekend.

David Lynch’s Ultimate Peaks

Jim Emerson

At the Great Northern, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

What’s better than a cup of good, hot, black coffee? Well, nothing. But almost as good is the announcement of the “Twin Peaks: Definitive Gold Box Edition” DVD box set (due Oct. 30, 2007), which will include both seasons of the show and — for the first time ever on DVD — the two-hour pilot episode! Not only that, but two versions of it: the one that originally aired on ABC, and the “European” version (with its own bizarre coda/ending) that was released in theaters overseas.

Oh, and that’s not all. According to the My Two Cents blog at The Digital Bits:

You’ll also get Log Lady introductions for each episode, never-before-seen deleted scenes, production documents, the 4-part “Secrets from Another Place: Creating Twin Peaks” documentary (includes “Northwest Passage: Creating the Pilot,” “Freshly Squeezed: Creating Season 1,” “Where We’re From: Creating the Music” and “Into the Night: Creating Season 2”), the “A Slice of Lynch” retrospective roundtable discussion video, the “Return to Twin Peaks” featurette, 13 TV spots, 3 image galleries (The Richard Beymer Gallery, Unit Photography and Twin Peaks Trading Cards), 3 Georgia Coffee commercials, Julee Cruise’s “Falling” music video, 8 interactive maps and Kyle MacLachlan’s monologue and “Twin Peaks” sketch from “Saturday Night Live.” The episodes have all been remastered from the original negatives (a process personally supervised by Lynch) and will be presented in the original full frame aspect ratio with audio in both newly-mixed Dolby Digital 5.1 and the original 2.0.Consider the new, two-disc DVD edition of Lynch’s most recent feature “Inland Empire” a warm-up for this.

As for Lynch’s own view on DVD extras, refer to Sean Axmaker’s MSN Movies column quoted previously:

I believe talking is OK separate from a thing, but a commentary track that goes along through a film, I think, is maybe the worst possible thing a person could do. From then on, the film is seen in terms of the memory of that commentary and it changes things forever. […]

There are things in “More Things That Happened” [a selection of additional scenes on the 211-minute second disc] that give a feeling that could be like a brother or sister to the film. It’s like if you know a family, but you haven’t met the sister yet. You go over to Ohio and meet the sister, and it adds more to the feeling of the whole family.

Obviously, I disagree with Lynch on the “commentaries” — which provide one of the best ways of studying a film. But I see his point: When it’s the filmmaker, rather than a third party (like a critic or a scholar) who is doing the talking, it makes the comments seem limiting, more like a statement than than an interpretation of the film. And Lynch does not like to put strictures on interpretations of his work. (I’ve seen him, in audience Q&A sessions, tell people when they’re just flat-out, off-the-charts wrong about second-guessing his intentions, though.)

(Thanks to Jeff Shannon for passing along this news.)