Hitting theaters this week is Man on a Ledge, a rather unsubtly titled thriller that stars Sam Worthington as a guy whose nowhere-left-to-turn predicament has him doing the old wave-down-at-the-masses bit. This isn't the first time Worthington has flirted with dizzying precipices (his motion-captured doppelgänger braved the floating mountains of Pandora), and it certainly isn't the first time Hollywood has tormented acrophobics. Movies have long been living on the edge, ever intent on serving up vicarious vertigo. For proof, here's a list of 15 memorable movie ledges, from cliffs to rooftops to ominous subway platforms. Safety nets not included. Continue Reading »
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 »
Sight & Sound has polled a bunch of critics and come up with its Best of 2010. The top dog—and future Oscar-winner (you wait and see)—is David Fincher's The Social Network. The full list is available at MUBI.
David Bordwell comparesVariety with The Hollywood Reporter.
Salon is open to a merger. So are we…cough, cough.
Links for the Day: A collection of links to items that we hope will spark discussion. We encourage our readers to submit candidates for consideration to ed@slantmagazine.com and to converse in the comments section.
SXSW's film festival officially ended last night (though the films continue to play just as often for a few days, for those of us who haven't seen our fill yet) and the music festival started today. Watching the mole people of the movie world get replaced by sleeker, more stylish, generally younger musicians and A&R types makes me think of a very clever bumper (one of those short films that precedes each movie to let you know it's part of the festival) for this year's festival. This one, which is by SXSW staffer Joe Nicolosi, shows a bright-eyed young woman who heads into the woods "to get some exercise" and has to fight off one horror-movie monster after another. As she's about to go down, the final supertitles say something like: "Stay indoors. Watch movies."
The People vs. George Lucas (Alexandre O. Philippe). SXSW always has a strong lineup of documentaries, and The People vs. George Lucas is one of this year's best. Smart, funny, and often impassioned, it's entertaining even when it's just exploring the filmmaker's relationship with his rebellious army of fans. But what really hooked me were its insights into why this battle matters to the noncombatants.
Some points are hammered away at too often, and the Stars Wars-style "episodes" the doc is divided into work better as a joke than an organizing principle. I could have done with a little less footage of talking heads too. But those talking heads sure can talk. Their vivid language, self-aware humor, strong emotions, and intelligent observations won me over, as did the generous sampling of impressively creative or endearingly amateurish fan edits and the footage of fans, often surrounded by merchandise or putting their own stamp on the Star Wars myth. I particularly liked a couple of guys dressed as Elvis, one of whom was also a storm trooper while the other was a Jedi. Now, that's participatory fandom. Continue Reading »
Intensities in Ten Suburbs has "Mixed Emotions" about the Black Eyed Peas.
Roger Ebert explains the technology that allows him to talk in his own voice (to be debuted this week on Oprah).
A few catch up links: Our own Craig Simpson explores the uncanny similarities between Scorsese's Shutter Island and Blatty's The Ninth Configuration.
And congratulations to our friends at Reverse Shot who've partnered with Babelgum for their two online video series, "Talkies" and "Direct Address." (Definitely watch the Michael Fassbender video, in which host Eric Hynes trades some non-lethal projectiles with Archie Hicox.)
Links for the Day: A collection of links to items that we hope will spark discussion. We encourage our readers to submit candidates for consideration to keithuhlich@gmail.com and to converse in the comments section.
James Cameron's Avatar is through and through his baby—it promises a lot and, though it has very little in the way of stamina, it initially delivers in a big way. In the first hour, Cameron lets loose a barrage of technical wizardry that makes the film's world one of the most dazzling and consistently engrossing cinematic fantasy lands of recent memory. Avatar doesn't try to break any new ground with its generic story of a group of corporate commandos who seek to steal an indigenous alien population's natural resources. At its core, the film is a cookie-cutter story of a soldier who switches sides once he finds out, as a lanky nude smurf, how green the grass is. Cameron is all too happy to be so conventional. He has the technology and knows he only has to use it to build a better jungle world of noble alien savages. He's not the genre messiah, but clearly it doesn't hurt to hype him up as such.
Cameron knows the viewer will recognize Avatar's story from elsewhere, whether as the love affair between John Smith and Pocahontas or almost all of Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (don't judge me) and so tries to dazzle the viewer with "shock and awe," as one scientist-cum-soldier puts it, laying bare both the film's political context and aesthetic strategy. From there, once it's successfully dazzled the viewer with enough technological firepower to keep Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay busy for several lifetimes, it's mission should be, ahem, accomplished. Continue Reading »
[Star Wars: The Clone Wars is now playing in theaters. The television series is slated to premiere October 3rd on Cartoon Network.]
The textbook mysticism found in George Lucas' Star Wars will forever be a case study in how to craft popular science fiction, along with the Gene Roddenberry Star Trek universe. Both created fully fleshed out universes, each possessing an engrossing history that has already occurred by the time we are glimpsing it. Granted, it has more to do with being able to eventually flesh out the back-stories and provide more content, but there is something inherently incredible about the original Star Wars trilogy and the first Trek series, in spite of the overwhelming popularity of both franchises' subsequent Next Generations. Continue Reading »
I was heartened to learn that About.com movie critic Jurgen Fauth put Revenge of the Sith on his Top 10 list, in the number one spot, no less. He even encouraged people to revisit his original review—the most thoughtful, non-condescending piece of writing done on this movie by any critic anywhere. What stones. In the increasingly hermetic world of American film criticism, there are certain things we all know for sure, and one of them is that saying George Lucas' movies have heft is a surefire way to get your Cool Film Critic credentials revoked. Fauth had better go down into a bunker and not come out until at least March. (The movie made my own Top 20; it probably would have made the Top 10 if Lucas had given Padme something to do, and if I'd been able to defend the dialogue some other way besides saying, "If it was in Japanese with English subtitles, you wouldn't be making fun of it.") Continue Reading »
G.I. Joe. Transformers. Thundercats. He-Man. Voltron. If you were a little boy in the '80s, chances are you liked some combination (if not all) of these shows. He-Man was my favorite, followed by Thundercats and Voltron. I wasn't a G.I. Joe fan really (ditto Star Wars—but you all knew that already, right?), but I do remember loving a string of episodes that had the Joes and Cobra Commander's posse competing to secure elements of earth, wind, water and fire all over the world. I don't want to see this show or Voltron ever again for fear that I won't take as kindly to them as my nine-year-old self did. For sure, if my experiences revisiting V and Thundercats in the past year have taught me anything it's that you can dampen a few childhood memories by chasing after a nostalgia kick.
I say all this because I received a copy of the Season One, Volume One DVD set of Thundercats from one of my publicity contacts and sat down to watch the 12 episodes collected on the two discs. I was going to write a review of the show except I found out later that I hadn't received the deluxe edition that runs 759 minutes and contains the first 33 episodes of the show's first season. That and the fact that I was crushed by the feeling that I had been duped all those years ago when I responded to the Thundercats so strongly. I mean, it's not a horrible show by any means of the imagination (the animation was ahead of its time and there are some individually thrilling, haunting moments), but it took me exactly two episodes to come to the conclusion that if I was an adolescent boy today and I was watching the show for the first time, I'd probably write it off as completely "gay." Continue Reading »
SXSW's film festival officially ended last night (though the films continue to play just as often for a few days, for those of us who haven't seen our fill yet) and the music festival started today. Watching the mole people of the movie world get replaced by sleeker, more stylish, generally younger musicians and A&R types makes me think of a very clever bumper (one of those short films that precedes each movie to let you know it's part of the festival) for this year's festival. This one, which is by SXSW staffer Joe Nicolosi, shows a bright-eyed young woman who heads into the woods "to get some exercise" and has to fight off one horror-movie monster after another. As she's about to go down, the final supertitles say something like: "Stay indoors. Watch movies."
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