At long last Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro's critically lauded dark fairy tale, is out in theaters where you can see it! Rejoice! If you'd like to hear del Toro's insight on the film, you can head on over to Netscape and check out James Rocchi's amazing interview with the great director, in which they talk about everything from indie film to making a big budget feature, and del Toro gets out his personal journals and sketch books for us to peek at. Go check it out, it's well worth watching, whether you're already a fan of del Toro or haven't yet discovered him.
What do you say about the best movie you saw all year? It's happened to all of us: that rare movie that completely knocks you over and blows you away, that takes you somewhere else for two hours or so and returns you wide-eyed and slackjawed, leaving the theater quietly and slightly stunned at having to return to mundane life. How can you write clearly and critically when you just want to say, "Damn, that was good."
I thought I might like Pan's Labyrinth (aka El Laberinto del Fauno) but then two days before I saw the movie at Fantastic Fest, I thought I might love Tideland and was sadly disappointed. Tideland may have cinematic merit but it is not lovable and it does tend to smack you in the face with some very repellent things. People do repellent things in Pan's Labyrinth, but you're not pulled out of the movie by sheer disgust -- you remain involved in the world of the film.
In the strange and provocative stream-of-consciousness documentary, The Case of the Grinning Cat, 85-year old director Chris Marker (La Jetee) shows us several events in recent French history linked together by a recurring oddity -- a cartoon cat with a toothy Cheshire smile that appears at each defining moment, stealthily reproduced onto the buildings, sidewalks, trees and subway walls of Paris. The graffiti bandit or bandits responsible for painting the cat all over the city are never positively identified, which delights Marker to no end, allowing to him to load the cats up with as much symbolic freight as they can possibly carry on their yellow backs. As the film drifts aimlessly through the Iraq war fallout, a contentious election and immigration protests, the cat is always there, like the banner of some romantic, underground revolutionary movement. Ethereal connections are even made between the watchful cats and pop-culture happenings, like the French Sid & Nancy story of a few years back, when actress Marie Trintignant was beaten to death by her boyfriend Bertrand Cantant, leader of a popular rock band.
Marker maintains a detached omniscience throughout the piece, commenting on events as though reading about them from the pages of a history book, although his political inclinations are never in doubt. Grinning Cat is something of a sequel to a 1977 film, unseen by me, called Grin Without a Cat, which comments on the state of the French left. The issue Grinning Cat sticks with the longest, before floating on to other topics, is the 2002 French election, in which hard-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen stunned France and all of Europe by placing second in the first round of the Presidential elections. This passage is one of the few in the film that is uncluttered by flighty, off-topic observations; Marker wants to tell the story in its entirety. Other points of discussion include an AIDS-related 'die in' protest and the phenomenon of flash mobs. The fondness of the film for diving into sidebars, combined with its basement production values -- was it filmed with a camcorder? -- makes it a sometimes grating, unpleasant experience, despite the intriguing charm of those darn cats.
Domenico Procacci is a man of many talents. Well known for his producing abilities in Italy, he has now started up a production company in New York by the name of Last Kiss Productions. He created this company to continue to work in unison with director Gabriele Muccino in America -- of course, Muccino is the man responsible for The Pursuit of Happyness, last week's number one film. Muccino and Procacci are long time collaborators, although Procacci did not produce Happyness, yet still has no troubles applauding his colleague's success. Happyness marks the first time an Italian director has opened their film at number one in the United States.
Procacci created Last Kiss Productions to go beyond his work in Rome with Fandango productions (he also owns a restaurant and a record company baring the same name). Fandango produces his native Italian language films but Last Kiss will work on bringing Italian-based stories to the English language -- no subtitles necessary. His first English-speaking film, giving him co-producer credits, is Silk starring Kiera Knightly, which will arrive sometime next year.
We have a lot to look forward to. Procacci has a slew of new projects that are in production; many based on books from Italian novelists such as Alessandro Baricco (also wrote the novel that Silk is based off of) and Walter Veltroni's (Rome's mayor) novel La scoperta dell'alba (The Dawn Discovery). La scoperta dell'alba is about a man who travels back in time to 'Italy's terror plagued "years of lead" all by incidentally picking up a phone. Needless to say, I already bought my ticket.
What more can we expect from Procacci? A lot. He is even making his directorial debut in February with Lesson 21 -- shot in English. Even though I love listening to his films in Italian, a language not even comparable to English in beauty, I look forward to seeing how he translates his stories without using his native tongue. You?
Roman mayor Walter Veltroni doesn't seem to be your run of the mill public servant. He lunches with celebrities, writes best-selling books and has even done some cartoon voice work.
Variety announced that Veltroni has made deals for film versions of four of his books; three features and one documentary about Africa have been planned for 2007. The first will be the doc God Isn't Feeling Well and is based on Veltroni's own diaries during a trip to Africa. Veltroni's collection of short stories Senza patricio, which is set in Argentina, was also optioned and will be directed by Gianni Amelio. Other projects include a biography of Italian Jazz great Luca Flores (who played with Chet Baker) with Kim Rossi Stewart in the lead and a thriller about international terrorism based on the best-seller La scoperta dell'alba. There have been some grumblings that Veltroni uses a ghostwriter for his books, but Veltroni (a former editor of the lefty Italian daily L'Unita) claims the books are entirely his own creation.
Luckily Veltroni says he is an insomniac -- which is a good thing -- because between his new career in the movie business and his political ambitions, it looks like he is going to be a busy man in the new year.
The French are in love with happy endings. French cinema is classic for ending their films relating to love with disastrous, heart wrenching break ups. The lovers have passion and excitement, but never quite live happily ever after. Happily ever after is a definite go to in American cinema -- sometimes a requirement. Often times, films are rewritten or never made because they do not obtain those hopeful and uplifting endings -- especially in matters of love. Are the French following in the footsteps of America's audience-approved endings?
Why the change? Many changes have been happening in French cinema this year. France has been playing with war action films, 3D animation as well as relieving themselves of a snobby filmmaker attitude and connecting more with pleasing audiences. Some films are also dealing with the rising prejudices existing in France with the film Mauvaise foi (Bad Faith) -- where an Arab/Jewish couple's religions may cause the demise of their relationship. The director Roschdy Zem hopes to raise tolerance for those involved in the growing violence between the two groups using humor and film.
So are classic French love stories long gone? One of my favorites, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, is devastating yet equally yummy in its story telling. The young lovers are torn apart by war as the possible defamation of an unwed pregnant woman throws her into the arms of another man -- it's so sad but so good. For now, French audiences are approving this new found happy ending; but I'm sure there are still plenty of French elitist filmmakers ready to rebel against the 'love conquers all' fairytales.
Our friends over at indieWIRE have done a very cool thing -- they've given Dennis Lim's year-end critics' poll, which ran at the Village Voice, from 1999-2005, a new home. Lim, of course, was one of the victims of the gutting over at the Voice that happened earlier this year, and we're hoping we'll be seeing more of him around indieWIRE in the future.
As for the poll itself, which checked in with 107 alt-minded print and online critics, The Death of Mr. Lazerescu, which our own Martha Fischer and Ryan Stewart reviewed for Cinematical, tops off the list. Rounding out the top ten were L'Enfant, The Departed, Inland Empire, Army of Shadows, Three Times, Old Joy, United 93, Children of Men and Half Nelson. Helen Mirren (The Queen) and Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson) topped out the Best Performance category, with Mark Wahlberg (The Departed) and Shareeka Epps (Half Nelson) capping off the Best Supporting list. See the full list of nods, and a list of who was polled, over at indieWIRE.
In the course of Hollywood history, movie genres have grown from the the lower regions, among the ticket buyers and popcorn munchers, in the Saturday matinees and with the dime store, penny-a-word trash classics. The Western was the first of these, making its movie debut as early as the movies themselves, with The Great Train Robbery (1903). Not fifty years had gone by before some wise guy had the idea to take this ground-level idea and turn it into an impressive, blue-ribbon pageant, a noble, tasteful new object worthy of respect. These came in the form of High Noon (1952) and Shane (1953), praised through word of mouth, as Westerns for people who don't ordinarily like Westerns. Critics ate them up. And, if you'll notice, the Western genre is more or less gone.
The same thing happened to musicals. As soon as pictures learned to talk and all through the 1950s, musicals ruled, and plenty of great, small ones crooned and tapped their way across screens, much to the unfettered joy of fans. But in the 1960s, the graceless, inflated, gargantuan West Side Story (1961) -- a musical for people who don't ordinarily like musicals -- came along. And now the musical is more or less gone (and, I'm sorry, but Dreamgirls doesn't count).
Two separate documentaries to be shown on French television display some controversial concerns for world travelers. They appear to be unrelated, each set to appear on different stations, but they share the common interest of safety and security as related to 9/11.
The first film, airing this Friday, is about airport security at French airports. A reporter named Laurent Richard tested the security by seeing just how easy it would be to get different weapons onto a plane. It turned out to be very easy. With hidden cameras, he shows himself sneaking on box-cutters and de-activated explosives, plus he presents footage of himself driving a truck into secure, restricted areas. It is imaginable that beginning this weekend, wait times will be longer and security measures will be stronger all over France.
The second documentary, which doesn't yet have an air date, reports that French soldiers could have killed Osama Bin Laden, but were not ordered to do so by the U.S. military. Bin Laden: Failings of a Manhunt presents the testimony of four anonymous soldiers who were part of a special forces unit commanded by the U.S. in Afghanistan. They all claim that they had Bin Laden in their rifle scopes in 2003 and 2004 but were never permitted or ordered to fire. The French defense ministry, however, denies there is any truth to the story.
Both films reek of American fear-monger journalism, and if it weren't for the weak performance of Death of a President here, I'd be surprised if American distributors or television stations didn't pick up rights to show either of them in the U.S. Surely there are some viewers over here that would love to see them.
If you are the kind of person who gets a little sick of all the good cheer at this time of year, then you just might be in the mood for a little more "coal in your stocking." That is when the downer Christmas movie gets its chance to shine. Most holiday flicks are all about making you feel good about family and Christmas and all that good stuff, but some films decide to go the other route and make you feel so damn awful about what you're watching that suddenly a burnt turkey and a family fight at the dinner table don't seem so bad.
Here are some of what I think are the most depressing holiday movies. If nothing else, at least they remind us it could always get worse. ...
One Magic Christmas (1985) This movie is all about the guilt. In a long line of films that are meant to make you feel guilty about all of the overspending and extravagance of the holidays, One Magic Christmas stands out. It follows a poor family with no hope of a Christmas in sight, as the mom (Mary Steenburgen) works too hard and has lost her joy in the season. Sure enough, a Christmas angel (in the creepy form of Harry Dean Stanton) shows her the error of her ways. Throw in the extra plot lines of a kidnapping, a shooting and a drowning, and you have yourself one heck of a depressing Christmas flick.
I was flabbergasted when, a couple of weeks ago, Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima made a last-minute arrival on the scene with its Oscar ticket already stamped. You may remember that precisely the same thing happened with the 2004 Eastwood & Haggis Inc. production, Million Dollar Baby. Does Haggis have dirt on the Academy? It's become a legitimate question. Even before many critics with access to advance screenings had seen Iwo Jima, The National Board of Review, Golden Globes, AFI and others had declared it to be among the best of the year. This, despite having (rightfully) ignored Flags of our Fathers, released back in October. The reviews, as they've rolled in, have been positive across the board -- until now. Salon's Stephanie Zacharek has posted a review that lays into Eastwood for "rewriting history" and even attacks the National Board of Review as "hobbits" who expect us to follow their "scroll from Middle-Earth" that decrees the film to be an artistic success.
Zacharek's main charge is that Eastwood has chosen to noticeably dial down the documented viciousness of the Japanese soldiers, lest it conflict with the film's overarching idea -- that their soldiers, like ours, were just frightened kids. "Eastwood can't bring himself to deal with any genuine complexity," she writes. Zacharek also has a big problem with Eastwood showing the Japanese soldiers clutching pictures of loved ones, as if having family makes one moral. "In 50 years are we going to be seeing movies like 'Lynddie England: Misunderstood Mommy?'" Ouch. I guess I have to actually see this film now, to decide for myself.
Here at Cinematical, we know there's nothing you like more this time of year than reading all about who's nominating whom for what critics' award. The latest nominations to come down the pike are from the Windy City, where the noms are lining up with nothing terribly shocking compared to other critics' groups.
Best Pic noms include Babel, Little Miss Sunshine, The Departed, The Queen, and United 93. In fact, the Chicago critics love Babel so much they nominated Alejandro González Iñárritu's little gem of a film for no fewer than nine awards, including Brad Pitt for Best Actor, Iñárritu for Best Director, Rinko Kikuchi for Best Promising Newcomer, and assorted other goodies.
I have to admit, my appreciation of Richard Dreyfuss is mainly tied into two movies, Close Encounters of The Third Kind and Jaws. Other than that, it's the so-so movies like Down and Out In Beverly Hills, the corny feel-good pictures like Mr. Holland's Opus, and the downright awful like Krippendorf's Tribe that come to mind. Back in 2004, Dreyfuss announced that he was quitting films to concentrate on a theater career. It turns out that the theater wasn't the place for him either after he quit (or was fired depending on who you believe) the London production of The Producers. Since his so-called retirement, Dreyfuss has popped up in Silver City and Poseidon (2006).
So, in-between studying civics and democracy at the University Of Oxford in England, Dreyfuss has decided to give the movies yet another chance. Variety announced that Dreyfuss would star in the Hungarian production Flower of the Fence. The film will be the story of Herman Rosenblat; a man who meets a woman through the fences of a concentration camp and eventually falls in love -- also starring is Maia Morgenstern and Thomas Sangster. The film is set to go into production in 2007, and is being financed through a joint effort between the Hungarian government and private investors from Hollywood. This is hardly the big budget flick that Dreyfuss used to rail against, so maybe he has managed to find a film that is more his cup of tea.
Last week, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (which includes our own Kim Voynar as a member, and which shouldn't be confused with the Women Film Critics Circle) announced the nominees for their first ever EDA Awards. Thankfully, for those of us who can't get enough from this awards season, it took the group only five days to announce the winners. Let me be the first to say that Borat was robbed of the coveted award for "Best Depiction of Nudity or Sexuality". The winner of that curious category was instead Little Children.
The winners of the other creatively conceived categories include Jesus Camp for the "Don't Stick Your Head in the Sand" award, Uma Thurman for the "Actress Most in Need of a New Agent" award, and Marie Antoinette for the "Movie You Wanted to Love But Just Couldn't" prize. Other unique mentions include Deepa Mehta and her film Water for the "Hanging in There for the Best Persistence" award and Dame Helen Mirren with a special recognition award for "An Actress Defying Age and Agism." Also, the AWFJ honored Dame Judi Dench with a Lifetime Achievement Award, Cate Blanchett with an "Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Film Industry" award and Angelina Jolie with an "AWFJ Award for Humanitarian Activism."
Award ceremonies are in love with Pedro Almodóvar this year. Almodóvar's Volver has snagged two Golden Globe nominations, two wins out of three nominations at Cannes Film Festival, and five wins out of seven nominations at the European Film Awards. Now Almodóvar has been honored with fourteen nominations for Volver at his homeland's version of the Academy Awards, the Goyas.
The incredible amount of nominations comes as no surprise. Volver -- about a deceased mother coming back to her homeland to resolve issues that she was unable to rectify during her life -- is yet another masterpiece by Almodóvar. The man really has a way with portraying humanity that I, as an audience member, eat up every time.
The competition at the Goyas is a stiff one. Almodóvar definitely isn't a shoe in for any particular win. One Spanish filmmaker -- Agustíne Díaz Yanes -- has received one more nomination than Almodóvar at the Goyas for his film Alatriste. This film is particularly important in Spain due to the production's extravagance. Pic is a portrayal of a former soldier who became a mercenary during Spain's 17th century imperial wars. Sounds interesting ... but I'm still dreaming for some wins for Almodóvar!
It certainly has been a great year for Almodóvar and the people involved in his film -- Penelope Cruz in particular. Her work in her native films is always exceptional and I'm glad people are finally taking notice. We'll find out in January how Almodóvar fares -- but win or lose, fourteen nominations is still a great honor to me.
Domenico Procacci 
Roman mayor 
The French are in love with happy endings. French cinema is classic for ending their films relating to love with disastrous, heart wrenching break ups. The lovers have passion and excitement, but never quite live happily ever after. Happily ever after is a definite go to in American cinema -- sometimes a requirement. Often times, films are rewritten or never made because they do not obtain those hopeful and uplifting endings -- especially in matters of love. Are the French following in the footsteps of America's audience-approved endings?
Our friends over at indieWIRE have done a very cool thing -- they've given Dennis Lim's year-end critics' poll, which ran at the Village Voice, from 1999-2005, a new home. Lim, of course, was one of the victims of the gutting over at the Voice that happened earlier this year, and we're hoping we'll be seeing more of him around indieWIRE in the future.
Two separate documentaries to be shown on French television display some controversial concerns for world travelers. They appear to be unrelated, each set to appear on different stations, but they share the common interest of safety and security as related to 9/11. 
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I was flabbergasted when, a couple of weeks ago, 
Here at Cinematical, we know there's nothing you like more this time of year than reading all about who's nominating whom for what critics' award. The latest nominations to come down the pike are from the Windy City, where the noms are lining up with nothing terribly shocking compared to other critics' groups.
I have to admit, my appreciation of 
Last week, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (which includes our own 
Award ceremonies are in love with 
