For a film that reveres the down-and-dirty independent filmmaking ethos that legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman exemplified, it's ironic that the talking-heads interviews in Alex Stapleton's documentary Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel feel so self-conscious. Where did Stapleton get his ideas about framing shots, The King's Speech? Interview subjects—including Corman himself—are often pushed to the sides of cinematographer Patrick Simpson's frames, with lots of negative space to look at; it's as purposeless and distracting as all those stupidly arty shots cinematographer Danny Cohen pulled off in last year's very un-Corman-like Oscar-winner (unless Simpson really, genuinely thought he was doing something original and, well, "rebellious"). And what's up with Stapleton's decision to go to the French electronic-pop duo Air, of all people, for the film's odd score?
But I would imagine no one goes to a documentary like Corman's World expecting cinematic interest. We go expecting, if not necessarily insights into the man himself or his work, at least a good overview of his life and legacy. For the most part, that's basically what we get here. From his younger days starting out as a script reader at 20th Century Fox, to his frustration at getting no credit for his successful script revisions for 1950's The Gunfighter, which him to leave Fox to produce and direct films for American International Pictures, to his eventual founding of New World Pictures and its eventual flameout as Jaws and Star Wars changed Hollywood forever, Corman's World briskly—as briskly as Corman made movies—hits the highlights of his career. Continue Reading »
Roger Corman has had as much influence over modern Hollywood as Spielberg or Scorsese. And for good reason: Without him there likely wouldn't even have been a Spielberg or Scorsese. This director/producer of hundreds of low-budget horror, sci-fi, and exploitation films is remembered (rather unfairly) as a B-movie hack, but Corman's aesthetic sensibilities have come to dominate the franchises we now call "tentpoles," and his protégés number among the most influential people in cinema. He's enjoyed every minute of it. Continue Reading »
[Editor's Note: Take Two is an occasional series about remakes, reboots, relaunches, ripoffs, and do-overs in every cinematic genre.]
This past summer should have belonged to Joe Dante. Matinee, his 1993 masterpiece and his most seemingly personal film, finally made its way to DVD in the spring. Piranha, his shoestring 1978 debut, was then released on DVD on August 3, mere weeks before Miramax released a $20 million nominal remake, Piranha 3D, that did surprisingly good business. And all the while, Dante was sitting on a finished 3D feature of his own, The Hole, which had been positively received at the Venice Film Festival.
But anyone who's followed Dante's career could have seen the inevitable disappointments coming. Universal released the Matinee DVD almost silently, with not even a commentary track among its spare special features; Piranha 3D gave no credit to the earlier film's director, despite his clear creative imprint; and as of this writing, The Hole still languishes without an American distributor. The sole unblemished success of the bunch was the Piranha DVD, which came out as part of Shout! Factory's lovingly packaged "Corman Classics" series. Continue Reading »
Joe Dante's latest film, The Hole, which screened at the New York Film Festival on Saturday night, is no more a breakthrough for the 3D process than James Cameron's Avatar was (though Dante's film is, as one might expect, far less self-important); in fact, though Dante expressly conceived the film to be shot in 3D, rather than allowing 3D to be added as an afterthought (as has been the case with many recent Hollywood films, most recently Wes Craven's My Soul to Take), the truth is, despite a handful of arresting instances of set design and camera perspectives which somewhat gain from that increasingly ubiquitous third dimension, overall The Hole probably didn't need to be in 3D at all. As it is, seeing this film in 3D never presents any major distractions, but neither does it enhance the film in any special way. And as I've come to conclude after the immense hype for Avatar subsided, if you don't much notice the 3D in a 3D film, why not just make the film in regular 2D in the first place? Continue Reading »
When New York Press critic Armond White panned the universally admired Toy Story 3, the disapproval he expressed and the backlash it inspired were so "predictable" that they were, well, predicted. Bumping TS3 from its briefly "100% Fresh" standing at the critical aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, White's piece (entitled "Bored Game") channeled a steady stream of pissed off Pixar loyalists to the Press website. "Registered just to say I think you are a massive twat and I feel really sorry for you," user woahreally weighed in. "Whoever ur boss is should be slapped for allowing you to publish this disaster of a review," opined the inventively pseudonymed usuckballs.
The comments-section calls for White to be fired are occasionally hilarious in their venom and vulgarity, all the more so for being so spectacularly self-defeating—could the Press have mounted a more successful campaign to increase their web traffic and user registrations? And there's the rub. White's detractors accuse of him being a "contrarian," someone who bucks the critical establishment and defies popular taste out of little more than cynical self-promotion and antisocial perversity. (This highly circulated chart of Armond's pans and praises has been offered as definitive "proof" that his opinions are reflexively reactionary.) But if this is true, any principled stand against White paradoxically rewards and enables him. "Don't feed the trolls," as the saying goes. Continue Reading »
In searching for the ten best films of the decade, I've taken a special interest in two genres that I feel are routinely given short shrift when generally thinking about the "best" films: animation and comedy. So I was happy to follow the recommendation of Keith Uhlich to watch Looney Tunes: Back in Action as part of the Best of the Decade Derby. Keith assures me that this film is highly likely to make his own top ten list (I think I know Keith well enough to predict what his list will look like: A.I., Five, Generation Kill, The House of Mirth, Inland Empire, Miami Vice, The New World...). It was fun listening to Keith as he took me on a personal tour through Looney Tunes, especially after having watched The Incredibles, two films that seem diametrically opposed in their philosophies towards form, structure and sensibility in mainstream feature animation, as different as, say, the classic era of Warner Bros. vs. Disney. Given that I've been increasingly seduced by classical Hollywood form and craft (something that my re-watching of The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein shook me out of, at least momentarily), it was good for Keith to remind me of how when I was a kid I preferred the manic anarchy of Warner Bros. over the impeccable prettiness of Disney. This opposition was definitely on Joe Dante's mind when he made this film, as Keith's liveblog comments (with my occasional interjections) bear out.
_________________________________________ To read the liveblog at Shooting Down Pictures, click here.
Recent Comments:
2012 Grammy Awards: Winner Predictions
by Gabe
Lana Del Rey's Feminist Problem
by felonious punk
Oscar 2007 Nomination Predictions
by monkeypox6
Oscar 2007 Nomination Predictions
by monkeypox6
2012 Grammy Awards: Winner Predictions
by LovelyDay