Category: TV & Movies

In the
ten years since winning an Academy Award for co-writing the screenplay for his
surrealistic cult favorite “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,”
French filmmaker Michel Gondry has amassed one of the more eclectic
filmographies around—a collection of projects ranging from small-scale
documentaries such as “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party” and the animated
Noam Chomsky film “Is the Man Who is Tall Happy?” to big-budget behemoths
like “The Green Hornet” (generally considered to be a disaster but
far more engaging and entertaining that its reputation might suggest) to such
cheerful oddities as “The Science of Sleep,” “Be Kind,
Rewind” and “The You and the I.”

With his
latest film, the quirky romance “Mood Indigo,” Gondry has given
viewers one of his wildest and most fantastical cinematic visions to date.
The film is based on “Froth on the Daydream,” a novel by the late Boris Vian
that, while largely unknown in America, has become one of France most popular
books since its 1947 publication. At first, it seems like a cheerful chronicle
of the swift romance that develops between Colin (Romain Duris), a rich young
man who spends his days developing inventions like the pianocktail (a piano/wet
bar hybrid that mixes and dispense drinks that are put together based on the
type …read more

The great video essayist Kevin B. Lee of Fandor has created a piece about how deftly Steve James uses different tactics to tell the story of a man who couldn’t speak for himself. From Kevin’s piece, which you can read more of here:

“When looking at Life Itself, the remarkable biography of legendary film critic Roger Ebert, it’s worth thinking about how this story is told, given that the main character doesn’t speak the way most of us do. Ebert’s bouts with cancer in his salivary gland led to the removal of his vocal cords; he could only speak by typing through his laptop. These circumstances would pose daunting challenges for many a filmmaker, but director Steve James resourcefully employs a number of tactics to give voice to Ebert’s story.“

Read the rest of Kevin’s piece here.

…read more

A few weeks ago, mostly because I could not recall having ever seen it before, I found myself watching the 1963 film “The Wheeler-Dealers” on television one afternoon. A semi-satire on Texas oil billionaires—who were then a popular subject in the media—the film follows the misadventures of Henry J. Tyroon, a smarter-than-he-acts (the big skeleton in his closet is his Harvard education) oilman who, in the need of additional funds, comes to New York City to raise money and finds himself attempting to woo a sexy stock analyst (Lee Remick). As a whole, the movie is pretty silly—the very definition of cinematic fluff—but as dumb as it was, it nevertheless remained completely, utterly watchable and that was due almost entirely to the presence of James Garner in the lead role. His character was kind of a boor but Garner invested him with such sly charm, grace and wit that you not only rooted for him to succeed, you wished that he would attempt drilling in your own backyard to boot.

That, in a nutshell, was the secret to Garner’s long-running popularity as a performer on both the big and small screens. He often played characters who …read more

1.

“Elaine Stritch, Broadway’s Enduring Dame, Dies at 89”: Bruce Weber and Robert Berkvist of The New York Times pen an obit to the legendary entertainer, who passed away on Thursday. Related: Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune and Odie Henderson of RogerEbert.com also pay their respects. See also: Our content editor, Brian Tallerico, reviews this year’s excellent documentary, “Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me.”

“Plain-spoken, egalitarian, impatient with fools and foolishness, and admittedly fond of cigarettes, alcohol and late nights — she finally gave up smoking and drinking in her 60s, after learning she had diabetes, though she returned to alcohol in her 80s — Ms. Stritch might be the only actor ever to work as a bartender after starring on Broadway, and she was completely unabashed about her good-time-girl attitude. ‘I’m not a bit opposed to your mentioning in this article that Frieda Fun here has had a reputation in the theater, for the past five or six years, for drinking,’ she said to a reporter for The New York Times in 1968. ‘I drink, and I love to drink, and it’s part of my life.’ In an interview this year in The New York Times Magazine, …read more

Even if you have a high tolerance for whimsy, “Mood Indigo” may still be too much.

This story of the heavenly then piercing love between Colin (Romain Duris) and Chloé (Audrey Tautou) is one-stop-shopping for the types of visual and emotional effects that the director’s fans might call Gondryisms. As in “Mind” and “Human Nature” and “The We and the I,” the filmmaker creates surreal or flat-out fantastic images, but with old-fashioned special effects: stop-motion, miniatures that are obviously miniatures, people in costumes that are obviously costumes, highly symbolic tableaus that are built and lit and blocked like stage sets, and so forth. Then he photographs it all in ways that tell your brain, “This is a thing that happened in front of this camera, and we just happened to catch it.” That creates a cognitive dissonance that’s often lovely, and dreamlike in its unnerving matter-of-factness.

The problem here is that the images are yoked to a story that seems to have been meant (at one time, anyway) as cutting satire, as a comment on the disconnect between the upper classes and everybody else. Gondry can’t or won’t reconcile the critical aspects of the story with …read more

“Life Itself,” Steve James’ acclaimed documentary based on Roger Ebert’s 2011 memoir of the same name, continues its expansion to additional theaters this weekend. Below is a full list of the theaters where “Life Itself” is scheduled to open Friday, July 18th (you can also check out Matt Zoller Seitz’s review of the film, as well as Odie Henderson’s interview with James).

Ambler, PA: Ambler Theatre
Amherst, MA: Amherst Cinema Arts Center 3
Asheville, NC: Carolina Asheville 14
Austin, TX: Alamo Drafthouse Lakeline
Baltimore, MD: Charles Theatre
Bethlehem, PA: ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks
Boise, ID: The Flicks 4
Brunswick, ME: Eveningstar Cinema
Buffalo, NY: Amherst Theatre
Chalmette, LA: Chalmette Cinemas 6
Charleston, SC: Terrace Theatre
Columbia, MO: Ragtag Cinema
Danvers, MA: Hollywood Hits
Dayton, OH: New Neon Movies
Daytona Beach, FL: Cinematique of Daytona
Denver, CO: Mayan Theatre
Des Moines, IA: Varsity Theatre
Durham, NC: Carolina Theatre – Durham
East Stroudsburg, PA: Pocono Community Theatre 3
Eugene, OR: Bijou Art Cinema
Fort Collins, CO: Lyric Cinema Cafe 2
Gainesville, FL: Hippodrome
Grand Rapids, MI: Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts
Grand Rapids, MI: Celebration Cinema Woodland
Harrisburg, PA: Midtown Cinema 3
Hartford, CT: Real Art Ways Cinema
Iowa City, IA: FilmScene
Ithaca, NY: Cinemapolis 5
Jacksonville, FL: Sun-Ray Cinema
Kansas City, MO: Tivoli @ Manor Square
Key West, FL: Tropic Theatre – San Carlos
Lexington, MA: Lexington Venue
Little Rock, …read more