Film List from '04

I was surprised the other day when Benjamin, after a four-hour conversation, told me the following, "So, remember that list of indie films you shared with me a while back, like, back in 2004? Well, I just got done with it." Now, I know he's thorough as thoroughness is one of his qualities I appreciate most. This, however, was impressively thorough as well as an exercise in tenacity.

I was surprised that he still remembered something we had discussed plenty of times back when I was in grad school and he in Law School. I guess all the years of reading left little time for indie film-viewing. Then, while talking, he said he'd forwarded the same email I had sent to him years ago. "Wait, you have emails from years ago? You, email hoarder, I say." "No," he says, "but I do keep all recommendations."

It was sort of odd to read an email I'd written years ago. I seemed to have employed little 'economy of speech' then. Folly of youth.

I thought I'd post the same list here in case you'd like to consult it. I am glad to see I had some cinematic sense back then.

1) Alejando Amembar's "Abre los Ojos."
2) Nanni Moretti's "La stanza del figlio" Written and directed by
Nanni Moretti.
3) Tom Tykwer's "Lola rennt."
4) "Laurel Canyon" with Frances McDormand
5) Curtis Hanson's "Wonder Boys." With Frances McDormand
6) Darren Aronofsky's "Pi."
7) Pedro Almodovar's "Hable con ella"
8) "Belle Epoque"
9) "Almost Famous"
10) 1998's "Great Expectations"
11)"Sylvia"
12) Jean Pierre Jeunte's "Amelie"
13) "Italian for Beginners"
14) 1992's "Michelangelo"

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Film 'Editing' and Cinema Paradiso

In the following montage you'll see images from films from the 1920's and '30s that the censors deemed too scandalous to show the movie-going public. It's a fascinating bit!




And of course what better film to use to explain film censorship that the brilliant ending of Cinema Paradiso?

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Insurance first, Skills later: Nicole Kidman's case

The below-listed quote is from Edward Jay Epstein's book The Hollywood Economist: The Hidden Financial Reality Behind the Movies. Bottom line, skill sets are important and obviously of primary importance. They are not, however, the only thing of substance. Nicole Kidman's portrayal of Virginia Woolf in the film The Hours didn't just depend on her acting skills. It mostly rested on her insurability. If the artist is not insurable, no matter how brilliantly talented they might be, they will not get to work. Epstein's book is an interesting and informative read. It placed the current discussion of health care and insurance in a gripping, new context.

A bit says:

Kidman injured her knee during the filming of Moulin Rouge in Australia in 2000, resulting in a $3 million insurance loss, and then quit Panic Room in 2001, leading to the insurer having to pay some $7 million for the replacement actress (Jodie Foster). As a result, her public and critical acclaim notwithstanding, Miramax was initially unable to get insurance on her for its film Cold Mountain, which had a budget approaching $100 million. From the perspective of the insurer, Fireman's Fund, she was a definite risk. As an insurance executive noted in an email, "...the fact remains that the doctor we sent her to for her examination noted swelling in the knee." The executive goes on: "The other major fact that can't be changed is our paying three claims for this actress's knees over the years."

To get the necessary policy from Fireman's Fund, Kidman agreed to put $1 million of her own salary in an escrow account that would be forfeited if she failed to maintain the production schedule, and she agreed to use a stunt double for all scenes that the insurer considered potentially threatening to her knee. In addition, the co-producer, Lakeshore Entertainment, added another $500,000 to the escrow account...Having made the all-important move from borderline uninsurable to borderline insurable, she could make movies again. No matter how great their acting skills and box office drawing power, stars cannot get lead roles if they are uninsurable. Great acting skills and box office drawing may make the star, but insurance is what it takes to make the movie.

Tip of the hat to MR for the pointer.

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The Royal Tenenbaums: Royally Superb!

Recently, over an exquisite dinner, I had a conversation with an artist friend of mine who also likes the exact same bits in the Wes Anderson stupendous film "The Royal Tenenbaums" that I do. I revisited the film again recently and I stand by my initial reaction to it. It is simply a gorgeous piece of art. And this is one of my all-time favorite cinematic moments. A great editing moment, too.

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The Nr. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency: A Review

I have developed an interest in Botswana as of late. My knowledge of the country of Botswana is very limited as I have never had an opportunity to be exposed to it. I am trying to rectify this now.

Botswana's economy is growing rapidly and it is currently classified as a middle-income country with a standard of living comparable to Turkey. But not all is hunky d'ory as Botswana has also been greatly hit by the AIDS pandemic and one in six Batswana has HIV. This land-locked country, which has one of the strongest democracies in Africa and a thriving culture, does not seem to have the kind of visibility in the West that it could have. And that's where Hollywood comes in.

And film is rarely irrelevant.

The late Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella worked on a Botswana-related project together in 2007 and after hearing about it I was instantanously intrigued. I respect both artists' work mostly because of their savvy of multiculturalism.

Anthony Minghella's work has always struck me as one that reflects the sensitivities of a multicultural person. Think, The English Patient or even the little-known 2006 title Breaking & Entering, which, by the way, is another excellent film.

I think of Minghella's work as a reflection of the global mega-culture. He manages to keep macrocontext in mind while telling the beautifully idiosyncratic micro stories of the little people. 'Where the normal people are, that's where true storytelling resides,' seems to be a permeating theme in his work.

I do believe that a a lack of linguistic and cultural diversity in film irrevocably translates to bad film. That was never Minghella's problem. Not Pollack's. One of Minghella and Pollack's last works of love was a Botswana-located story adapted for HBO called The Nr. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. The show played on BBC first and it is currently being broadcast on HBO.



The premise of the show is the following:
After her father's death, a Motswana woman, Mma Precious Ramotswe, sells the 180 cows her father left her and opens up her own business: a detective agency located in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. Precious is a full-bodied, voluptious woman whose confidence stems from the love her father gave her. She is also smart and endowed with a healthy intuition. The episodic novels focus not only on her detective-oriented pursuits but also the finer details that make human beings messy and interesting.

When asked to take good care of herself when dealing with hard cases, Mma Ramotswe convincingly says, 'I'm made of hard stuff.' Mma Ramotswe is portrayed by the sultry American musician/actress Jill Scott. She lights up the screen and moves with a kind of rhythmic ease that one can't help but follow.

In sum, I give The Nr. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency my thumbs up. It kept my interest and made me want to ask questions about Botswana and the nature of the economic and overall development the country is undergoing. The show also depicts the ramifications of a faster paced economy and overall progress. And yet, the pace of the storytelling is laced with a kind of slowness that's actually appealing, poetic even.

Some of the themes the show concerns itself with are:

* Women in traditional vs. nontraditional occupations
* Rural way of life in Southern Africa
* Social relations in traditional African society
* Christianity and traditional belief systems in contemporary Africa
* Clinical depression
* AIDS and AIDS orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa

HBO will be showing 13 episodes and the program should be available for general viewing shortly after.

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theme info per wiki

Almost Famous: iPod Film II

Almost Famous is another high-frequency film on my videolists on the iPod. I watch it on every trip.
Here are two of the best scenes of the film. If you are a hard-core music and literature lover, then this film is for you.




Both scenes feature the incomparable Philip Seymour Hoffman. Incidentally, the Times has a long feature on the actor today. Read it here.

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Laurel Canyon from the iPod

Laurel Canyon is one of the films I have on my iPod.
Here is the trailer. And yes, it's definitely worth a look.
Three reasons:

1) Informed script, especially if you are a lit person. This is one of the better depictions of gender and gendered discourse on the screen.
2) Alessandro Nivola, an unappreciated yet fantastic actor.
3) Frances McDormand who does not need an introduction.

It's a great film to watch on a big screen or on the iPod mini-screen when traveling.

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Mel Brooks Medley

The tip of the hat goes to Mel Brooks this month.
I just looked at his High Anxiety again and was reminded yet again why I've always reacted well to his craft. Brooks, in my view, is one of the very few comedians who knows how to read and, in turn, humanize the intellectual.

If you have not seen High Anxiety yet, might I suggest that you give it a try? Those of you fellow Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm fans will most certainly delight in it. Brooks is also featured in a full season of Curb when Larry accepts to star in The Producers.

Here is the official trailer of the 1977 film. Mel Brooks plays a renowned psychiatrist with a crippling diagnosis called high anxiety. It's spectacularly funny. By the way, Brooks' character is offered the position of 'chair of psychiatry' in a California-based institution called The Clinic for the Very, Very Nervous. Very funny, very good.



Whereas this is from Mel Brooks' film History of the World.

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Paul Newman, 83

Ohio's own Paul Newman died on Friday at the age of 83. The cause was cancer. The actor/director/philanthropist will be missed. And as Pauline Kael intimated back in 1977:

"“When a role is right for him, he’s peerless,” the film critic Pauline Kael wrote in 1977. “Newman is most comfortable in a role when it isn’t scaled heroically; even when he plays a bastard, he’s not a big bastard — only a callow, selfish one, like Hud. He can play what he’s not — a dumb lout. But you don’t believe it when he plays someone perverse or vicious, and the older he gets and the better you know him, the less you believe it. His likableness is infectious; nobody should ever be asked not to like Paul Newman.”

info and graph per ny times

Guy Ritchie: Back to Greatness

When asked about his new film Rockerolla, director Guy Ritchie said:
"..."Lock" and "Snatch," they are the movies I like doing. It's a balance. I want to make what I want to make and still have people come out. "Revolver," to a degree, was an indulgence. I fell in love with the idea, the concept of, "What if your mind is your greatest enemy?" There are only a finite amount of films like that that people going to accept from me."

....

And about the brilliant Robert Downy Jr, Ritchie observes:

"It's a clear illustration of the movie business world. Everyone was extremely happy when "Iron Man" worked, and then when "Tropic Thunder" worked. No one doubts his talent and his abilities. It's just that the wheels came off for a while. He has the best British accent I've ever heard. Even better than the British actors I've worked with."

I think what made Ritchie's Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch so successful internationally was the director's unique kind of storytelling. Ritchie didn't just tell stories well, he told them in congruence with the immediate culture he was portraying while keeping humor intact.

And Turco as well as many other true Ritchie fans are rooting for the talented Brit. Here's to hoping that Ritchie manages to get back successfully to his true roots.

Read entire interview here.

graph per reuters
graph per imdb

9 Top Film Characters

As requested, the current nine favorite characters in new and old films.

1) High Fidelity – Charlie
2) Once - Guy
3) Brideshead Revisited – Charles
4) Wonder Boys – Terry
5) Laurel Canyon – Jane
6) Dark Knight – Gordon
7) L’Auberge Espagnole – Xavier
8) Il Cinema Paradiso – Salvatore
9) Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain - Amelie

graphs per imdb

Hollywood to Bollywood

When it comes to the Hollywood to Bollywood move, globalization might not work quite as fast.
The Wall Street Journal features an article on the topic. A bit says:
"Indian moviegoers, too, are seeking familiarity. So far Hollywood seems to understand that in India, one must do as the Indians do. In November, Sony Pictures released "Saawariya," the first Indian movie financed from abroad. "Saawariya" has Bollywood written all over it: song, dance, love story -- all the usual ingredients. Hollywood knows what sells in India; it is not about to replace a formula that sells 3.6 billion tickets annually.
...

In India, Hollywood will become at most an alternative form of cinema for a greater number of Indians. Bangalore may love Rambo, but there is no shortage of fanfare for Aishwarya Rai, Bollywood's premier actress, in the city. Americans, too, may start warming to Indian culture, but the long reign enjoyed by the likes of Mr. Stallone is not about to end. Globalization can wage a long war to remove barriers between nations, but this is one battle it is not going to win anytime soon."
The rest is here.