They said sound would kill the movies. I can almost believe it after taking in the last two indulgences from Terrence Malick, who turned out at least one masterpiece in 1973, Badlands. But The Thin Red Line and The New World? You’d have to camp out for a weekend at a Starbucks to hear such a babble of bad voiceovers. The man is a visual genius, no doubt, but someone get that laptop away from him. The awful, earnestly intoned wall-to-wall prose is a redundancy and a distraction.

Maybe what it needs is a nose job, not a prose job. If two sensory fields, sound and vision, are oversaturated, why not add a third? That’s kind of what the folks at Tokyo’s Louvre Marunouchi  cinema had in mind when they decided to enhance screenings of Malick’s film with “aroma seats” (there are far too many of these in Boston theaters already, if you want my opinion).

Machines waft different scents, seven in all, at key moments in the film to heighten the experience. Some are what you might call synchronous, in that they arise from the actual images depicted, such as flowers or forests. Others are asynchronous or contrapuntal : a floral scent is emitted during love scenes and for the teary moments, peppermint and rosemary. Aromatherapeutic, presumably, like an Aveda shampoo. As Asami Osatu, one of the lucky few to land one of the theater’s specially equipped 33 seats, put it: “It was nice.”

Nice, but not new. John Waters had the idea 25 years ago when he released Polyester with Odorama. I should know, I was selling popcorn at the old Orson Welles Cinema where it was playing at the time and got my hands on a carton of the Odorama cards (if I could find the suckers and e-bay them I’d be able to pay this month’s rent, though I guess they have reproductions on the latest DVD version).

The technology was crude and effective. A number would pop up on the screen and the viewer would scratch and sniff the corresponding number on the card. The smells ranged from roses to dirty tennis shoes (watch out for number two!). As Asami would put it, it was nice.

Needless to say, Waters’ brilliant idea didn’t catch on. Will it now? The makers of the machines. NTT Communications, are pushing them to other theaters and for home use. What recent films might benefit from this service? Among the obvious benefactors would be such fart-fests as The Benchwarmers. In fact, theaters should be required to employ smell-o-vision in the lobby to warn patrons that they’ve got a stinker on their hands.

 

4/27/2006 6:48:28 PM by Peter | Comments [2] |  

Are we ready for a film version of Paradise Lost?  Some 340 years after John Milton first published his great epic poet, uncounted millennia since the events it was based on transpired, and two decades since the last time I tackled the damn thing in a classroom, is the dolorous, dense account of the Fall of Man still too raw in our memories to put on film?

The brave folks at Legendary Pictures, the powerhouse involved in such productions as Superman Returns, Lady in the Water and 10,000 BC, don’t think so.  Directing will be Scott Derrickson, an ex-theology student who demonstrated his penchant for divine intervention and eschatology last year with his The Exorcism of Emily Rose. According to Legendary creative director Jon Jashni, Paradise Lost  has a "timeless theme along with an inherently powerful and visual dramatic story.We are excited by the challenge of going back to the source material." Milton's  representatives  had no comment.

Well, good luck. In the past Hollywood has had mixed success when it comes to the epic treatment. Just take a look at Troy a couple of years ago, Wolfgang Petersen’s ill-fated adaptation of Homer’s Iliad. No, Brad Pitt with a wax job didn’t get it done as Achilles. But Petersen did leave the door open for a sequel at the end — perhaps taking up the rest of the tale with a go at Vergil’s Aeneid. At least Mario Camerini’s Ulysses had Kirk Douglas, Syvana Mangano and a  scary, if campy Cyclops.

Nonetheless, Legendary isn’t alone in taking on the great masterworks of world literature. Robert Zemeckis is working on a CGI enhanced version of the 8th Century Old English epic Beowulf (Christopher Lambert starred in a forgotten 1999 rendition) with Ray Winstone starring as the crusty hero and, in the role of a lifetime, Crispin Glover as his nemesis, the beast Grendel. Spicing up the dialogue are Neil Gaiman and the genius behind Silent Hill’s script,  Roger Avary.

Also, the irrepressible Dino De Laurentiis has dibs on Boccaccio’s Decameron, though he’s hardly the first to bring the bawdy 14th Century Florentine bard’s collection of tales of double-crossing and debauchery to the screen, the most notorious being Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1971 X-rated version.De Laurentiis promises, or threatens, to feature a nude Darth Vader, a.k.a. Hayden Christensen, in his opus.

In general, though, religious epics have not been a hot Hollywood commodity, so Legendary has its work cut out for them. I’m still waiting for a white knuckle thrill ride adaptation of The Pilgrim’s Progress, though Peter Greenaway’s gorgeous, multilayered and utterly opaque A TV Dante (1989) rivals the engravings of Dore as an illustration of the first eight cantos of L’Inferno.

Speaking of Divine Comedies, how about the three scripts written by the late, great Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory? The first directed by Tom Tykwer was less than heavenly, the second, directed by Danis Tanovic (No Man’s Land) and starring Emmanuel Beart, which was released last year in France, has been damned by faint praise and the last, as reports Scott Foundras in Variety, seems lost in limbo. They need the hand of their creator, but who knows in which of those places we can find him?

4/25/2006 5:57:30 PM by Peter | Comments [0] |  

Are we ready for films about 9/11?  Forget for the moment  that the  studios themselves have cooked up this so-called controversy; the fact is that United 93 is far from the first film on the topic. Hollywood has been exploiting it for some time now.

Remember last year’s subversive polemic Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith? A lot of people read it as a sinister version of the War on Terror, the Invasion of Iraq and the erosion of civil liberties. 

How about Stephen Spielberg’s War of the Worlds? The irrepressible Frank Rich in the New York Times, noting that the film made more references to 9/11 than did President Bush in a speech defending the Iraq War, wrote: “The alien attack on America is the work of sleeper cells; the garments of the dead rain down on those fleeing urban apocalypse; poignant fliers are posted for The Missing. There is also a sterling American military that rides to the rescue.”

As for hijacked or endangered airliners, that taboo fell long before United 93 with Wes Craven’s  Red Eye and Jodie Foster in Flightplan. And how else explain the wild on-line popularity of the yet unreleased Snakes on a Plane except as hysterical comic relief after five years of hyped-up anxiety? Such is the function of movies, offering a illusory comfort for irresolvible fears when the illusory comfort offered by our leaders doesn’t cut it any more.

Actually, judging from some other recent, the government measures themselves might be a source of more anxiety than reassurance. CIA bashing goes back a lot further than last year’s The Bourne Supremacy, but it might be significant that that film was directed by United 93’s Paul Greengrass. And what's  the deal with bind, torture and kill fests like the Saw movies and Hostel? Could they reflect what people are imagining might be going on in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo or those mystery destinations that CIA flights have been taking "enemy combatants?"

Far from being too early, United 93 and World Trade Center are  a little slow on the get go. But I wouldn’t worry about them or any future films on similar subjects ever being out of date. If the White House and Hollywood have their way, this War on Terror should be a  keeper.

4/17/2006 2:25:45 PM by Peter | Comments [0] |  

When Silent Hill opens on April 21 it will be the 12th film this year that goes into the theaters without being screened for the press. To which  I say, good riddance. Some critics have whined about this but I think the studios are doing us a favor by not subjecting us to crap. Here at the Phoenix we’re committed to reviewing every film that opens, but with our limited space, if I had my druthers, we’d  treat these movies the same way that the clowns who push them treat us: ignore them.

Some might think that this trend indicates that studios are starting to catch on that they don’t need critics to sell their movies (by comparison only 2 films were given the bums rush past the critics and onto the screens at this point last year). I think this might be a good thing. If the studios stop thinking of critics as a lowly adjunct of their marketing department, maybe critics will stop thinking of themselves as such, too. As it is ,many would sell their souls to have their names next to a blurb burbling “white-knuckle thrill ride” on a movie ad. If they had a soul to sell. And I’m not saying this just because nobody ever blurbs me.

It’s interesting that Silent Hill is a Sony release, as are many of the others. You might remember a few years back that Sony got into trouble when a Newsweek reporter determined that David Manning of the Ridgefield Press, oft-quoted in their ads (On Rob Schneider’s The Animal: “Another winner!”) didn’t exist. I frankly could not believe that Sony would have done such a thing since I know at least a dozen critics who would have paid to have their name stuck on that blurb (not me; I never pay). Anyway, it ended in a lawsuit settled out of court in which Sony paid $5 to anyone who claimed they saw any of their films based on a David Manning endorsement. No doubt these people have been saving that money to help pay for their ticket to Silent Hill.

So Sony’s - and other studios’ -  philosophy about critics now seems to be: If you can’t create them, pretend they don’t exist.

So far it seems to work; that masterpiece The Benchwarmers, unseen by critics, its ads free of blurbs, led the box office last weekend. No doubt these poor suckers who leave the theatre after paying 10 bucks for 90 minutes of shit bitterly reflect that never again will they see another movie unless a movie critic gives the thumbs up. Right. The closest they'll ever get to reading a review is looking up the movie times in the film section. No, the future of film criticism does not depend on our right to see The Benchwarmers or Silent Hill. 

Maybe Inside Man, though. It screened for the press, but only two days before opening, too late for any weekly such as the Phoenix to cover it in time. Not that it mattered, since it too opened at number one. Some think it may be one of the best films of the year, certainly Spike Lee’s best in a while. And that’s what bothers me. If a serious, challenging and hard to market film such as Inside Man ican be a hit without the critics pitching in, maybe the folks at Sony are right.

4/11/2006 6:50:11 PM by Peter | Comments [2] |  

If I were prone to paranoid conspiracy theories, and I’m not this week, not yet anyway, I too would question the timing of the upcoming 9/11 movies Flight 93 (opens April 28) and World Trade Center (opens August 9). Not because it’s too soon after the event as a lot of people are supposedly saying. But because it occurs just before the key November Congressional elections that might determine the future of the Republican Party.

You remember the Republicans of course, the people who managed to turn the biggest national security fuck-up of all time (okay, Pearl Harbor was pretty bad) into the most twisted and hypocritical political boon since the Reichstag fire. If it wasn’t for the campaign of fearmongering and deceit they’ve sustained regarding a disaster that their own incompetence or perfidy caused or contributed to (okay, I’m a little paranoid this week), most of these clowns would be in jail. So I get a little suspicious, say, when the 9/11 911 calls are suddenly released or phantom key Al Qaeda members are suddenly reported killed in Afghanistan. And isn’t this Moussaoui trial all too conveniently timed?

So I’m wondering, what’s the deal with these movies? If they just plunge us back into the chaos, horror, rage, and grief that the Administration has been exploiting and don’t delve into the deeper causes and culprits, then what a gift for the GOP. The thing is, neither Paul Greengrass, who directs United 93, nor Oliver Stone, helming World Trade Center, seem the type to be offering aid to the Republicans. Greengrass previously lambasted the British army in Northern Ireland in Bloody Sunday and Oliver Stone is, well, Oliver Stone.

Will World Trade Center turn out a conspiracy cat’s cradle like JFK? (wasn't this called WTC at one time?). Not according to Stone and everyone starring in the movie, including Nicolas Cage, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jay Hernandez (last seen in Slither). The story is supposed to focus on the heroic post-catastrophe rescue efforts, in particular the true story of two first-responders trapped in the rubble. Says Stone: “This is not about the motives of the terrorists, or who the terrorists were, or the politics of 9/11 in any way. This film is the story of two guys trapped inside, and their families on the outside. It's a no-nonsense, austere, verite document of what they went through in those 24 hours, a procedural, and it should be shot like that.”

Hey, Stone’s long overdue for a hit. And the Republicans need to resurrect their only issue. Deal? We’ll see what happens.

There’s less mystery about what Flight 93 is about. Trailers have already been running and a recent Newsweek story described how patrons in a New York theater were so overwhelmed that they insisted the trailer be pulled.

 Is it too soon? Or are we in need of a film that stirs up those memories and offers a catharsis? That was the drift of the discussion that Keith Olbermann had with Jeffrey Lyons, film critic for NBC, a couple of nights ago on Olbermann’s program on MSNBC. They were kind of leaning in the direction of the latter opinion, suggesting that if it's catharsis we need, well, judging from the trailer alone, this just might pull it off. And then Olbermann, one of the few cable guys I like, disclosed that MSNBC, NBC, and Universal Studios are all part of the same big corporation.

Talk about conspiracy theories. And how cozy is Newsweek with all this, since they are part of the MNSBC website? I’ll have to check with Jurkowitz on this. Meanwhile, here we have one corporate company stirring up a phony controversy to promote the product of another corporate company

Don’t believe everything you hear, see or read!

4/6/2006 4:33:03 PM by Peter | Comments [0] |  

I haven’t seen the movie yet, nor do I have much inclination to do so (not many people have, judging from its opening weekend grosses), but do I detect a trace of misogyny in the reviews of Basic Instinct 2?  Are they attacking the film because it sucks or because Sharon Stone is an older woman who has the audacity to take off her clothes and have sex? Older being 48,  which is five years older than Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp, 6 years older than co-star David Morrissey, three years younger than Kevin Costner, fifteen years younger than Harrison Ford and the same age as Michael Douglas was when the original Basic Instinct was released in 1992. And how about Tim Allen lolling about with his shirt off in scene after scene in The Shaggy Dog? Yikes!

 

 

Ty Burr in The Boston Globe starts out by giving her an A (or should that be a “T and A”? ) for effort, then takes his best shot:

“Stone is betting that a 48-year-old woman can be as hot and dangerous as the 20-somethings the film industry is addicted to. Bully for her -- in theory. In practice, Stone appears to have had so much work done that her face resembles a tautly made bed, and her unchanging expression of smoldering arrogance seems less an acting decision and more the result of neurotoxins. The body may be willing but the flesh has been immobilized.” 

New York Post reviewer Kyle Smith uses the film as an opportunity to show off his frat boy wit:

“If you're curious as to whether Stone, 77, takes the opportunity to spread her, um, wings as an actress, she doesn't. She just slithers around moaning come-ons in an attempted throaty purr that, if you closed your eyes, would make you think of a female impersonator. Actually, even with your eyes open you might think that, given the comically drag-queeny poses she strikes in, for instance, a halter-top catsuit or a how-many-raccoons-had-to-die-for-this coat. At this point, there are inflatable toys that are livelier than Stone, but how can you tell the difference? ‘Basic Instinct 2’ is not an erotic thriller. It's taxidermy." 

Even the women showed their claws. In the Times. Manohla Dargis pays lip service to the plight of aging actresses in Hollywood, and then lets fly:

“Now 48, the actress retains the same lucid gaze and whippet-thin body, but in this film her face looks strangely inert, and she seems deeply ill at ease. Ms. Stone has famously denied having plastic surgery, and maybe that's true, but, man, does she look weird here.” 

Maybe I’m just over-reacting because these reviews come the same week that right wing bloggers were calling for ex-hostage Jill Carroll  to be tried for treason and some cretin on the Imus show joked about her carrying Zarqawi’s baby,  but they seem to me more to reflect something ugly in the national psyche than they say much about the film. But bravo for Stephanie Zacharek in Salon for coming to Stone’s defense:

"Fourteen years later, Stone's carriage is as superb as ever (and the rack still looks damn good, too). But that's about all ‘Basic Instinct 2’ has going for it.”

Hey, maybe I’ll see it after all.

4/3/2006 6:29:44 PM by Peter | Comments [0] |