Austin360 blogs > Austin Movie Blog > Archives > 2009 > April
April 2009
Pop quiz: Rate the movies
Notice anything different about our movie reviews?
Yep, we’ve ditched the old system of star ratings and converted to letter grades.
The change is intended to provide more subtle critical opinion through the use of pluses and minuses. We hope the new grading system will be easier for readers to understand.
In the new Austin360, which was published Thursday and is a revamping of our former XL, we’ve added movie times to help you plan your weekend.
We’re also switching to letter grades for CD reviews.
Click here to check out our revised ratings for past reviews, as well.
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McMurtry in Marfa
Securing star power at a film festival that’s still in its nascent stages — and is a three-hour drive from the nearest airport — is an accomplishment. When the star is Larry McMurtry, who’ll be participating this weekend in the second annual Marfa Film Festival, it’s an accomplishment that raises the question: Are you sure he said yes?
The Pulitzer Prize winner has a long-standing reputation for being less than enthusiastic about interviews and public speaking. But when the festival, in association with the Texas Association of Film Commissions, presents McMurtry with the first Texas Screen Legend Award at a fundraising dinner on Saturday, he’ll be there to accept it. And that’s not the end of it.
Later the same evening, McMurtry will introduce an outdoor screening of “The Last Picture Show,” the 1971 Oscar-winning movie adapted from McMurtry’s semi-autobiographical 1966 novel about a dying West Texas town and its lonesome inhabitants and for which he wrote the screenplay.
After the movie, festivalgoers might find McMurtry at Padre’s, a local bar and dance hall, where his son, singer-songwriter James McMurtry, will be performing. Then, on Sunday morning, McMurtry will be on hand for a Q&A session.
If last year is any indication, the Marfa Film Festival, which began Wednesday, will be magical and surreal. The lineup includes an eclectic array of events and screenings, many of which will be outdoors and projected by the Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow.
“We got lucky,” says Cory van Dyke, the festival’s co-founder and programmer, referring to the McMurtry appearance. McMurtry says he last visited Marfa more than a decade ago while working on the television adaptations of his novels “Streets of Laredo” and “Dead Man’s Walk.”
“Marfa’s an odd town in that you can buy an expensive picture, but you can’t get a prescription filed,” he says over the phone from Arizona. (He splits his time between Archer City in North Texas and Arizona, where he works with his writing partner, Diana Ossana.)
McMurtry makes it clear that he’s not attending the festival for adulation. When asked about his thoughts on the award he’ll be receiving, he says, “I forgot it was involved.” He also usually avoids revisiting his ouevre, literary or otherwise. “I’m not one who looks backward at my work unless I’m asked to talk about it, as I am now,” he says. As for his Saturday night introduction of “The Last Picture Show,” he’ll likely be gone before the opening credits. “I will never watch it again, ever,” he says. “About 20 years ago, I went on a tour … (with the film). ‘The Last Picture Show’ was shown 32 times on this tour. I didn’t watch it 32 times, but even being close to it in a hotel nearby felt oppressive.”
While he may be Texas’ most famous bibliophile, in part because of his bookstore in Archer City, McMurtry is not a cinephile. “I used to be passionate about movies, but once you start working on them, and I’ve written at least 70, that kills it,” he says. “Now I don’t go to the movies at all.” The only reason he watches them now, he explains, is to look for actors or directors. He also doesn’t consider himself a filmmaker. “I’m a film provoker, but not a filmmaker,” he says.
So why is he going to the festival?
Along with it being a prime opportunity to visit with his son and grandson, “It’s a chance to do a little informal (location) scouting,” says McMurtry, who’ll be accompanied by Ossana. “We might develop something that involves being in that part of the country. I don’t want to visit it as a place to live.”
At 72, McMurtry is candid about his priorities. “At my age, the professional dominates. There’s only so much time. I don’t travel as well as I used to, and travel itself isn’t as nice as it used to be, so that’s the way it is. I’ve got to conserve the energies I have left.” He knows exactly where that energy should be directed.
“I’m very engaged in the rare book business, which is dying, and I want to see that my bookshop doesn’t die in my lifetime. Movies will come and go, and I don’t know if I’ll write any more novels. What I really want to do is run my bookshop, and if screenwriting comes along that’s fine.”
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‘Star Trek’ bash at Planetarium
Tickets HERE.
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What I’m watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “The Howling” (1981; Joe Dante): I was puzzled to realize I’d never seen this impoverished wannabe of John Landis’ still-brilliant “An American Werewolf in London,” which is scarier, gorier, funnier, boasts a genius soundtrack and spectacularly better special effects. This low-budget copywolf wallows in feeble camp, is rarely gory and is witty the way Roger Corman’s films are witty (with a groan). John Sayles wrote and makes a cameo — his and Dante’s follow-up to their imitation-crab “Jaws” spoof, “Piranha.”
- “The Tall T” (1957; Budd Boetticher): I love this scrappy western, even after three viewings. Boetticher regular Randolph Scott gets tangled in a group of kidnapping killers, and the moral shadings — Boetticher is a master of nuanced human nature — hold you in its vice. Tight and crunchy, with neato B acting, and, if you pay attention, lovely compositions and use of tension in space. Story by Elmore Leonard.
- “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans” (1927; F.W. Murnau): German expressionist Murnau’s maiden Hollywood feature convulses with camera tricks, dolly shots, fades and just about the entire lexicon of visual grammar. This silent melodrama — some of its acting and emotions are applied with a paint roller — holds its spot as a groundbreaker. It won a special artistic Oscar at the first Academy Awards in 1928.
- “Germany Year Zero” (1948; Roberto Rossellini): Brutal, fascinating Italian neo-realism by the progenitor of the genre. Another stark post-war drama, following Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City,” about a 12-year-old German boy in bombed-out Berlin doing whatever he must, legal or not, to survive. The imagery, all crumbled shells of real buildings on location, mesmerizes. With an ending so bleak, you almost can’t believe it.
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Linklater crowned ‘maverick’
We’ve always considered Richard Linklater a maverick filmmaker — a totally independent voice that bucks hoary molds and does it his way — and now the Woodstock Film Festival has officially sainted him with the title.
Linklater will receive the 2009 Honorary Maverick Award at the 10th annual festival Oct. 3 in Woodstock, New York.
“Richard Linklater’s singular approach to filmmaking — always inventing and re-inventing the art in fresh and exciting new ways, coupled with his unwavering support of independent filmmakers— makes him the ideal recipient of our honorary Maverick Award,” says an organizer. “We’re thrilled that he accepted our invitation and can’t wait to host him here in Woodstock, where he’ll find a thriving film community, reminiscent of the one in Austin, which he so closely nurtured.”
Replied Linklater in a statement: “Although the term ‘maverick’ was greatly devalued in last year’s election cycle, I’ll humbly take on this honor and as a Texas filmmaker help reclaim the term in the tradition of the famous Texas cattleman Samuel Maverick who refused to brand his cattle.”
Austin’s reigning maverick
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Noteworthy DVDs released 4/28/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Hit” (Criterion): This early outing by Stephen Frears (“Dangerous Liaisons,” “The Queen”) is a prickly, tight little crime drama giving a fine central role to Terence Stamp, who deserved more of them in his career, and offering viewers a peek of Tim Roth before he made his name Stateside.
OTHER TOP PICKS
Two by Oshima: The Criterion Collection resurrects two button-pushers by Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima, “Empire of Passion” and “In the Realm of the Senses.” The latter (also being made available on Blu-ray) courted controversy in the ’70s by presenting unsimulated sexual activity in a film meant to be shown in mainstream theaters.
“JCVD” (Peace Arch): It isn’t as mind-blowing as your fanboy friends may have told you, but this odd, possibly tongue-in-cheek drama featuring has-been action star Jean-Claude Van Damme does contain one captivating monologue worth the price of admission.
“Nothing But the Truth” (Sony): Another Rod Lurie film playing off contemporary politics, this one starring Kate Beckinsale as a journalist who, like Judith Miller, exposes a C.I.A. agent and is jailed for refusing to name her source.
“What Doesn’t Kill You” (Sony): Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke play low-rent gangsters in South Boston.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Da Vinci Code” (Extended Cut) (Blu-Ray); “The Reader” (Weinstein Co.); “Star Trek” Season 1 (Paramount)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Bride Wars” (Fox); “Hotel for Dogs,” “The Uninvited” (Paramount)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Alain Resnais: A Decade in Film” (Kino); “Big Story in a Small City” (Passion River); Tarkovsky Resurrected: “The Steamroller and the Violin” / “Voyage in Time” (Facets)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Price of Sugar” (New Yorker)
BEST OF TV
“Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun” (Shout! Factory); “Little Dorrit” (2008) (BBC); “Mission: Impossible” Season 6 (Paramount); “Pulling” Season 1 (MPI); “The Waltons” Season 9 (Warner Bros.)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Beethoven’s 5th” (Universal); “Legally Blondes” (MGM); “While She Was Out” (Anchor Bay)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Jetsons: The Movie” (Universal)
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Sen. Patrick’s film nabs honors
Three awards — that’s how many Senator Dan Patrick’s documentary “Heart of Texas” won during the recent Worldfest Houston film fest. It took best documentary, best Texas film and and a runner-up for the jury award (is runner-up an award?).
The film’s described as “a true story of two men, one white and one black, their small town churches, and how a tragedy brings the two men and their small Texas together in a most astonishing way.”
Learn more and watch the trailer HERE
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De Niro collection opens to public
After a couple of years of dusting items off, cataloging and organizing, the Ransom Center is ready to show-off its collection of Robert De Niro’s stuff. The items, from movie props and costumes to papers and film, is open to researchers and the public at the center.
A small portion of the collection will be on display through May 3 in the Ransom lobby.
Filling more than 300 archival boxes, the paper portion of the collection includes De Niro’s heavily-annotated scripts and correspondence, make-up and wardrobe photographs, wardrobe continuity books, costume designs and posters, and extensive production, publicity and research material. … The papers document De Niro’s work on 69 films, from the 1968 film “Greetings” through “Hide and Seek” (2005), and demonstrate De Niro’s preparation for his acting roles and the collaborative nature of his work with noted writers, directors, actors and other film artists.
The collection is worth about $5 million, say organizers.
Full scoop HERE.
De Niro’s Travis Bickle coat from ‘Taxi Driver’ at the Ransom
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Mike Judge says bye to Hank Hill
Mike Judge won’t talk to me (was it something I wrote?), but he chatted with The New York Times about his work, etc., HERE.
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Cameron Diaz eyeballing Austinites’ script
“Bobbie Sue,” a script by Austin screenwriters Russell Leigh Sharman, Owen Egerton and Chris Mass, is in the hands of Cameron Diaz, who is close to signing onto the project for Warner Bros., Variety writes.
“Story centers on a hard-charging female ambulance chaser whose mindset makes her the ideal candidate to be the face of a prestigious law firm when a powerful client is sued in a sexual discrimination case,” the trade reports. “Dana Fox (‘What Happens in Vegas’) is polishing the screenplay.”
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Alex Cox, straight to Austin
Alex Cox, legendary cult auteur (“Repo Man,” “Sid & Nancy”), will talk movies with the Austin Chronicle’s Marc Savlov during “A Chat with Alex Cox” at 4 p.m. May 17 at the Austin School of Film.
Get tickets, details and info about Cox’s three screenings at the Alamo Ritz HERE.
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Rodriguez’s plate is super-full. As usual.
Just in from Variety:
Robert Rodriguez is ready to cut a wide swathe, and his plans include re-launching the “Predator” franchise for Fox and co-directing “Machete.”
For the later, the filmmaker will create a feature out of the blade-wielding antihero who appeared in a mock trailer that was part of “Grindhouse.”
Rodriguez is eyeinga June start date in Austin for “Machete,” a film that is financed and produced by Overnight Productions, with Danny Trejo starring as the title character.
Machete is a Mexican ex-Federale with a gift for wielding a blade, who hides out as a day laborer, who is double-crossed by a corrupt state senator.
Rodriguez wrote the script and will direct the film with Ethan Maniquis, his longtime editor. The film is being produced by Rodriguez, Rick Schwartz of Overnight Productions and Aaron Kaufman.
Not immediately clear is whether Rodriguez and Overnight will find a way to use the irresistible marketing slogan that appeared in the “Grindhouse” trailer: “This time, they (bleeped) with the wrong Mexican.” It is the first non-studio movie that Rodriguez has directed since “El Mariachi.”
For Fox, Rodriguez has scripted “Predators,” a film that will bring back the dreadlock-sporting alien hunter who originated in the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger hit “Predator.” While a sequel didn’t become a hit, Fox kept the alien sharp by launching the “Alien Vs. Predator,” a wildly profitable series that has racked up strong grosses and DVD sales, wit little or no gross out the door.
While Rodriguez juggles these projects, he’s also directing his script “Nerveracker” for Dimension Films, with Bob Weinstein setting a 2010 release.
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A celluloid godsend: Paramount’s summer series coming soon
The Paramount Summer Film Classics Series gets rolling May 21 and runs through Sept. 12.
As always, the Austin institution kicks off with one of movies’ quintessentials, “Casablanca,” playing on the bill with the indelible “From Here to Eternity,” May 21 through 24. (Film Fan members are invited to an inspired kick-off party with complimentary double-feature tickets, food and drink and more at the May 21 show.)
From there, the schedule offers a robust if mostly predictable combo of old classics, recent classics and foreign perennials featuring more than 70 movies. Plus, Warner Bros. cartoons unspool before many films. (Remember, bring a sweater. That grand old dame of a theater, our favorite film spot, gets chilled out for summer.)
Some quick picks:
Buster Keaton’s silent comedy “The General” screens with live musical accompaniment by Guy Forsyth, May 28.
A Charlie Chaplin double bill of the sublime “City Lights” and “Modern Times,” June 9 and 10.
A pair of perfect comedies, “The Awful Truth” and “The Philadelphia Story,” make a dreamy Cary Grant twofer, June 16 and 17.
“Laura” and “Leave Her to Heaven” — heavenly film noirs, June 18 and 19.
Screwball with Carole Lombard and Jean Arthur in “My Man Godfrey” and “Easy Living,” respectively, June 23 and 24.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Tender Mercies” celebrate the late, great screenwriter Horton Foote, July 2 and 3.
Paul Newman, who died last year, is also honored with a string of greats: “Exodus,” July 5; “Cool Hand Luke” and “Harper,” July 7 and 8; “The Hustler” and “The Color of Money,” July 9 and 10; “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Sting,” July 11 and 12.
Robert Altman’s sprawling ode to America and the country music business, “Nashville,” July 18 and 19. (See also Altman’s “MASH” on July 21 and 22.)
A quadruple does of Steven Spielberg thrills: “Jaws” and “Jurassic Park,” July 23 and 24; “E.T. — The Extra-Terrestial” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” July 25 and 26 (separate admissions).
Truffaut’s “Shoot the Piano Player” and Godard’s “Made in U.S.A.” are a pair of noirish new wave essentials, Aug. 18 and 19.
A restored print of Max Ophuls’ masterwork “Lola Montes,” Aug. 20 through 23.
Fellini’s autobiographical delight “Amarcord,” Aug. 26 and 27.
Two with O’Toole, in 70mm: “Lord Jim,” Sept. 8 and 9; “Lawrence of Arabia,” Sept. 10 through 12.
Details and full sked HERE.
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Austin Film Festival is ‘Worth the Entry Fee’
So reports Moviemaker Magazine in its annual compilation of film fests that are good for filmmakers to participate in.
The magazine writes that no longer do filmies have to dream about Sundance and Cannes. They can enter their scripts and movies to a host of other festivals that cater more to newbies and up and comers.
More:
“Now more than ever there are excellent alternatives — festivals that go the extra mile to make certain that a moviemaker’s efforts are well-compensated. … Whether the payoff comes in the form of a generous cash prize, the opportunity to hobknob with an industry titan, or just a fattening of one’s press kit and crew Rolodex, the festivals that are worth your fee and your time can make all the difference in your burgeoning career. … We searched the country (and our good neighbor to the north) to bring you a list of 25 of the finest, though perhaps lesser-known, festivals that are very much worth the fee. And maybe because of the recession, this year we paid special attention to festivals that emphasize shorts.”
The list is in alphabetical order, placing AFF way up high. HERE’s the whole list.
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Kevin Reynolds in Austin to chat and screen
Kevin Reynolds, big-deal director and San Antonio native, will be here for an Austin Film Festival conversation, followed by a screening of the Texas-centric 1985 drama he wrote and directed “Fandango.”
The conversation is at 6 p.m. May 13 at the AT&T Conference Center (1900 University Ave.) and the screening is at 7:30 that night at the Bullock Museum (1800 Congress Ave.).
Details HERE.
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Early ‘Star Trek’ review
Variety chimes in on J.J. Abrams’ ‘Star Trek’ reboot, glowingly:
Blasting onto the screen at warp speed and remaining there for two hours, the new and improved “Star Trek” will transport fans to sci-fi nirvana. Faithful enough to the spirit and key particulars of Gene Roddenberry’s original conception to keep its torchbearers happy but, more crucially, exciting on its own terms in a way that makes familiarity with the franchise irrelevant, J.J. Abrams’ smart and breathless space adventure feels like a summer blockbuster that just couldn’t stay in the box another month. Paramount won’t need any economic stimulus package with all the money it’ll rake in with this one globally, and a follow-up won’t arrive soon enough.
“Star Trek” here joins the James Bond series as the long-term ‘60s franchises that have been most successfully rebooted, although the current accomplishment is the more surprising since, after 10 films and a succession of TV series, “Star Trek” was widely thought to have exhausted itself. While respectfully handling the Roddenberry DNA, Abrams and longtime writing cohorts Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have transferred it to a trim new body that hums with youthful energy.
Whole review HERE.
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Cannes competition
It looks like a battle of the auteurs at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which begins May 13.
Festival programmers announced the lineup for competition films today, and it’s packed with some of the most high-profile directors in the world.
Quentin Tarantino will be bringing his World War II Brad Pitt star vehicle “Inglourious Basterds” to the Croisette, and it’ll have the longest running time of the 20 competitors, 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Tarantino will be facing such an Asian-heavy lineup that includes Johnnie To, with “Vengeance,” Park Chan-Wook with “Thirst,” Lou Ye with “Spring Fever,” Brillante Mendoza, with “Kinatay,” and Tsai Ming-Liang with “Visage.”
The king of Spanish film, Pedro Almodovar, will be screening his new movie, “Broken Embraces,” starring Penelope Cruz. And Jane Campion will be screening “Bright Star.” Also on board are Ang Lee, with his comedy “Taking Woodstock,” Ken Loach with “Looking for Eric,” Gaspar Noe with “Enter the Void” and enfant terrible Lars Von Trier with “Antichrist.” Trailers for the Von Trier flick have been stirring interest on the Internet, mainly because of a writhing Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg making love in the roots of a giant tree.
Michael Haneke will be bring his thriller “The White Ribbon” to Cannes, and Marco Bellocchio will explore a love affair of Mussolini in “Vincere.”
Other films include Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank,” Jacques Audiard’s “Un Prophete,” Isabel Coixet’s “Map of the Sounds of Tokyo,” Xavier Giannoli’s “A L’Origine,” Alain Resnais’ “Les Herbes Folles” and Elie Suleiman’s “The Time That Remains,” an epic about the creation of Israel.
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Climb these movies
The annual Banff Mountain Film Festival scales the Paramount Theatre on May 4 and 5 for a whole earth full of mountain movies.
The program features “two collections of the most inspiring and thought-provoking action, environmental and adventure mountain films … traveling from remote landscapes and cultures to up close with adrenaline-packed action sports … “
Get the scoop HERE.
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Noteworthy DVDs released 4/21/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
‘The Wrestler’ (Fox). Mickey Rourke rediscovers his soul, playing a down-and-out pro wrestler alongside Marisa Tomei in a movie that also counts as something of a comeback for ‘Requiem for a Dream’ director Darren Aronofsky.
OTHER TOP PICKS
‘Frost/Nixon’ (Universal). A slightly different showdown from the grudge matches in ‘The Wrestler,’ Ron Howard’s latest prestige film benefits from great performances by Michael Sheen and Frank Langella.
‘Science Is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean Painlevé’ (Criterion). Yo La Tengo provides music for these delightfully strange shorts in which science footage of such subjects as sea horses is transformed into quasi-surrealist comedy.
‘The Last Picture Show’ / ‘Nickelodeon’ (Sony). No very good reason exists to sell these films as a two-pack, but Peter Bogdanovich fans will be happy to have a chance to revisit ‘Nickelodeon,’ his second pre-war feature starring Ryan and Tatum O’Neal
‘Notorious’ (2009) (Fox). Late rapper Christopher Wallace gets the biopic treatment in the new film starring newcomer Jamal Woolard.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
‘Arctic Tale’ (Paramount); ‘The Arrival’ (Lions Gate); ‘Sin City’ extended edition (Miramax); ‘The Wages of Fear’ (Criterion); ‘X-Men Trilogy’ (Fox)
DOCUMENTARIES
‘Inside the Third Reich’ Box Set, ‘A Jihad for Love,’ ‘K*ke Like Me’ (Kino)
BEST OF TV
‘Caprica’ Pilot Episode (Universal); ‘Dallas” Season 11,’ ‘Freakazoid!’ Season 2, ‘Tiny Toon Adventures’ Season 1, Vol. 2 (Warner Bros.); ‘Hawaii Five-O’ Season 6 (Paramount); ‘Rhoda’ Season 1 (Shout! Factory); ‘Wolverine & the X-Men: Heroes Return Trilogy’ (Lions Gate)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
‘Hellraiser’ Box Set (Anchor Bay)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
‘Into the Blue 2: The Reef’ (MGM)
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Ransom nabs Ann Savage collection
The Ransom Center has acquired a collection of photos, clippings, contracts, scrapbooks and films of grand B-actress Ann Savage, who’s best known for her ferocious turn as a femme fatale in 1945’s grungy “Detour.” Savage died last year.
Read all about the Ransom acquisition HERE.
Read our obit and interview with Savage HERE.
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Austin film in ‘Harmony’ with Vegas
Robert Byington’s Austin-made feature “Harmony and Me” is pacing the festival circuit, where it’s garnering attention and nabbed a review in Variety. It screens next in June at CineVegas Film Festival in Las Vegas.
The movie’s produced by Austin’s busy Anish Savjani and co-stars notable locals Alex Karpovsky, Jerm Pollet and Bob Schneider, who plays a wedding singer, a notch below what he does in real life.
Here’s the lede from Variety’s review of the film:
A sad sack (Justin Rice), masochistically fixated on the woman who dumped him receives cold comfort from the assorted loonies he calls friends, family and co-workers in Bob Byington’s Austin-set sophomore outing. A mumblecore film without the mumble, “Harmony and Me” eschews the fits and starts, tensions and complexities of present-tense immediacy in favor of sly, absurdist one-liners, paring everything down to comic essentials. Bristling with wry wit and peopled with a rogue’s gallery of disaffected losers, this rhythmically timed (if indifferently shot) micro-budgeter could garner niche play based on its unexpected narrative intersections with current mainstream comedy.
Read the full review HERE
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Free sneak peek at ‘Dance With the One’
Last summer the bold and novel University of Texas Film Institute shot an Austin-based drama with a low budget and high expectations. The movie, “Dance With the One,” is now complete.
Almost. The filmmakers and UTFI want you to watch the film and provide honest feedback in what the industry calls a test screening. It happens at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Alamo Lake Creek (13729 Research Blvd.) and it’s free.
Seating is limited. RSVP via email to RSVP@AustinFilmFestival.com.
“Dance With the One” is written by Smith Henderson and Jon Marc Smith and directed by Michael Dolan. The cast includes Gabriel Luna, Xochitl Romero, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Barry Tubb, Gary McCleery, Mike Davis, J.T. Coldfire and Paul Saucido.
Read our story from the set of the film last summer HERE.
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Film incentives bill passes Texas Senate, headed to Perry
The Statesman’s Mike Ward is reporting on our legislative blog, Postcards, that the Texas Senate this morning passed a bill to sweeten financial grants to moviemakers to help draw more film business back to the state. The bill is now headed to Gov. Rick Perry.
[From Postcards]
The Texas Senate this morning finally passed and sent to Gov. Rick Perry a bill to sweeten financial grants to moviemakers to help draw more film business back to the state.The measure’s final passage has been eagerly awaited in Austin, where many production companies and film suppliers could benefit in a big way from more moviemaking and commercials being done in Texas.
House Bill 873 would allow the state’s film office to increase the size of grants under the Moving Image Industry Incentive Program that was established two years ago to keep filmmakers from going to other states that offer hefty incentives.
Under the current grant program, Texas can offer an incentive up to the lesser of five percent of the production company’s in-state budget or a set amount.
Some states offer 25 percent tax credits or debates, and in the past two years Texas has lagged behind other states in attracting new film business.
State Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, said the bill of which e is a Senate sponsor will require a budget of $250,000, rather than $1 million, for a film or television program. It will also require a minimum budget of $100,00 in-state spending for commercials, an instructional or educ ational video or a digital interactive media production.
In addition, at least 60 percent of the project, rather than 80 percent, has to be filmed in Texas.
“People tel me this will bring back in this business,” Deuell said. “That’s the goal.”
The vote was 27-1. State Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, voted no.
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First look at ‘Inglourious Basterds’
If you saw “American Idol” last night, you may have seen “Idol” mentor-of-the-night and superfan Quentin Tarantino offer a sneak peek of never-seen-before footage from his upcoming movie “Inglourious Basterds,” starring Brad Pitt, Samuel L. Jackson and Mike Myers (once again, Tarantino revives the career of an aging star). The movie will be out later this summer.
Today, Miramax released that clip in its entirety. Apparently it was “too hot” for prime time TV. As part of the clip’s intro, Tarantino orders another take shot of a scene in the movie because, as he has his crew chant along, “We love making movies.” He certainly does.
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Variety parent company to cut seven precent of its workforce
TheWrap.com is reporting that Reed Business Information, which owns 80 business-to-business publications, including Variety, has decided to shed seven percent of its workforce. It is unclear to what extent the Hollywood trade publication will be affected, but Variety executive editor Michael Speier was among those terminated in the first round of cuts, according to The Wrap.
Tad Smith, CEO of Reed Business Information, wrote to Reed staffers that the staff reduction is necessary due to dismal financial projections.“We recently completed our quarterly forecast for the full year and the revenue outlook continues to concern us. On January 26th I wrote to you that we might reduce further our staffing levels if the economic circumstances became worse than our already conservative expectations for 2009. We are in that unfortunate situation today.”
Variety executive editor Michael Speier was among those terminated, The Wrap has confirmed, but others are expected to be given pink slips throughout the day.
Smith also cautioned staffers that the company “may need to make additional reductions to fit the business conditions” and remaining employees will be required “to take mandatory unpaid days off.”
“We are not yet ready to announce a so-called ‘furlough,’ but I ask each of you to be prepared in your personal lives if we need you to take 5-10 unpaid days off this year.”
The moves are the latest in a series of drastic cuts going on at the Hollywood trade, which has suffered from severe declines in advertising and a drop in its online readership. In January, Variety laid off 30 staffers including from editorial, sales and corporate departments, leaving an estimated 100 on the staff at that time.
Variety’s main competitor, The Hollywood Reporter, also has been hit by dwindling advertising and a drop in subscribers. THR, owned by Nielsen Business Media, laid off 12 staffers in July and another 12 in December.
Rumors also circulated last week that Nielsen publications Adweek, MediaWeek and Brandweek would merge into one.
The layoffs at Reed come on the heels of major shift at the top of Variety’s masthead. After 20 years of heading Variety, Peter Bart stepped down April 5 as the trade’s top editor to become president and editorial director. Deputy editor Tim Gray was promoted into Bart’s position.
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Noteworthy DVDs released 4/14/09
NEW ON DVD
‘The Reader’ (Weinstein Co.): Kate Winslet gives her second-best performance of 2008 in a film that is ultimately owned by Ralph Fiennes, despite the fact that he’s barely in the movie at all for its first half.
‘The Spirit’ (Lionsgate): After the boos and hisses that greeted this solo-directing debut, will Frank Miller go back to writing hard- boiled comics, or will he just hang out with Robert Rodriguez and make a dozen ‘Sin City’ installments?
‘The Lost Collection’: A slew of Lionsgate releases gather movies most people are happy to forget, like the Keanu Reeves vehicle ‘The Night Before,’ Jon Cryer in ‘Morgan Stewart’s Coming Home,’ and a classic called ‘My Best Friend is a Vampire’
NEW ON BLU-RAY
‘8 Mile’ (Universal); ‘The Last Kiss,’ ‘Mean Girls’ (Paramount); ‘The Thirteenth Floor,’ ‘Universal Soldier: The Return’ (Sony) Documentaries. ‘Crude Impact’ (Docurama)
BEST OF TV
‘House of Saddam’ (HBO); ‘Knots Landing’ Season 2, National Geographic’s ‘North Star’ and ‘The Everglades’ (Warner Bros.); ‘The Ruth Rendell Mysteries’ Set 4 (Acorn Media); ‘Skins’
Volume 2 (BBC); ‘Wings’ Season 8 (Paramount) Reissue/repackage. ‘Rounders’ (Miramax)
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What I’m watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
“Le sang des betes (Blood of the Beasts)” by Georges Franju (1949; France): Franju is best known for the spectacularly unsettling horror picture “Eyes Without a Face,” and this, his first film, is a 20-minute short included on the Criterion DVD of “Face.” The brutal documentary about the slaughterhouses of Paris never flinches; animal lovers will want to avoid it. I got glum watching it, and speeded up the DVD during some scenes. It’s stark, cold, black-and-white realism, a day in the life of horse, cow and sheep killing. Its industrial images, sooty and grime-rimmed, remain powerfully influential (see the film below).
“Eraserhead” by David Lynch (1977; USA): Lynch’s landmark avant-garde debut holds up beautifully. I hadn’t seen it in years, but the images shock and awe in an aesthetically stupendous way. You won’t shake them: the girl in the radiator with the cauliflower face; the piteous shrieking monster-baby; the hissing steam and industrial dystopia. The visuals look borrowed from the above movie and clearly spilled over into Lynch’s next masterpiece “The Elephant Man.”
“A Doll’s House” by Patrick Garland (1973; Britain): Anthony Hopkins, Claire Bloom, Denholm Elliot and Ralph Richardson star in this crisp adaptation of Ibsen’s play (by Christopher Isherwood). I like the play plenty but really rented this to watch the mesmerizing Hopkins, whom I’ve loved since I saw “The Elephant Man” (see above) as a kid. People always crow about Hopkins in “Silence of the Lambs” — he’s great in that — but I still think “Elephant Man” is one of his very best.
Next up on the DVD changer: A stack of Criterion Collection classics, including Bunuel’s “The Exterminating Angel,” Stephen Frears’ “The Hit,” and Nagisa Oshima’s “In the Realm of the Senses” and “Empire of Passion.”
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Mike Judge getting hosed again?
Under the headline “Will Miramax Treat Mike Judge Any Better Than Fox Did?,” New York Magazine ponders the fate of the Austin filmmaker’s new comedy “Extract.” An extract:
After Fox put the least amount of effort possible into giving Mike Judge’s last two films, cult favorites “Office Space” and “Idiocracy,” anything even remotely resembling a supportive theatrical launch, we’re not the least bit surprised that Judge decided to find another distributor for his latest project. Unfortunately for both Judge and fans of his brilliance, Miramax currently has “Extract” scheduled to open on Labor Day weekend, which is traditionally a dead zone at the multiplex.
The rest of the item HERE.
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Services for Lou Perryman
This comes from Jennifer Perryman, daughter of Austin actor Lou Perryman, who was killed last week at age 67:
The Memorial Service for my father, Lou Perryman, will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday at Scholz Garten, 1607 San Jacinto Blvd. Please join us, if possible, to help celebrate the wonderful life of my father.
For those in the Los Angeles area unable to attend, there will be a small gathering at 5 p.m. next Sunday, April 12 at the home of Jill Parker Jones.
In lieu of flowers, please consider making donations in my father’s name to Hospice Austin’s Christopher House, KUT or to the Screen Actors Guild Foundation.
Thank you so much for all of your kind thoughts and words. Dad was blessed to have you all in his life, and your love for him is making his passing just a little more bearable. — Jennifer Perryman
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Nimoy, ‘Star Trek’ surprise the Alamo
Rumors are true (and thanks for telling us, Alamo and Fantastic Fest!): Leonard Nimoy and members of the cast of the new “Star Trek” screened the film last night at the Alamo South for one of those famous surprise sneaks Fantastic Fest often pulls. FF and Alamo honcho Tim League apologized to us. “Sworn to secrecy!” he says, and, OK, we believe him.
Tim has photos of the night HERE.
A write-up from Trekmovie.com HERE.
Nimoy last night: ‘Live long and no, you weren’t there!’
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Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund is ready for you
Starving filmmakers, aspirants, wannabes, et al — it’s time again to impress the jurors of the Austin Film Society’s annual Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund with your latest in-progress movie project.
Get this:
This highly competitive grant program has given out over $930,000 in cash, goods and services since its inception in 1996. This year, AFS plans to give out at least $95,000 to emerging film and video artists in Texas, in cash grants up to $15,000, as well as Kodak film stock and in-kind services from Seattle-based Alpha Cine Labs.
All you need right HERE.
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Noteworthy DVDs released 4/7/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Doubt” (Miramax): One of last year’s finest films won’t suffer much from the transition to the small screen, as it relies heavily the performances of three actors whose faces convey a wealth of emotion and calculation in close-up.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra” (Universal): A 75th Anniversary edition of the version starring not Elizabeth Taylor but a possibly even more unlikely actress, Claudette Colbert.
“Pre-Code Hollywood Collection” (Universal): Universal gets into the game with Warner’s “Forbidden Hollywood” series, gathering occasionally naughty early movies like “Hot Saturday” and “Merrily We Go to Hell.”
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“2010: The Year We Make Contact,” “Above the Law,”
“Point of No Return,” “Taking Lives” (Warner Bros.); “American History X,” “Final Destination,” “John Q,” “The Wedding Singer” (New Line); “Fly Away Home,” “Winged Migration” (Sony)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Bedtime Stories” (Walt Disney); “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (2008) (Fox); “Not Easily Broken” (Sony); “The Tale of Despereaux,” (Universal); “Yes Man” (Warner Bros.)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Alexandra” (New Yorker); “La Grande Bouffe” (Koch); “The Loyal 47 Ronin” (AnimEigo); “Vinyan” (Sony)
FROM THE VAULTS
“A Rather English Marriage,” “Tales of Ordinary Madness” (Koch); “TCM Spotlight: Doris Day Collection” (Warner Bros.); 3 musicals from MGM, “The Goldwyn Follies,” “It’s a Pleasure,” and “A Song Is Born” (MGM)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Glass: A Portrait of Philip In Twelve Parts” (Koch)
BEST OF TV
“Beverly Hills 90210” Season 7 (Paramount); “Davey &
Goliath: The Lost Episodes” (CVD); 3 volumes of the “Disney Animation Collection,” “Tigger, Pooh & A Musical Too” (Walt Disney); “Max Fleischer’s Superman: 1941-1942” (Warner Bros.); “The Paper Chase”
Season 1 (Shout! Factory)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“The Boys From Brazil” (Lions Gate); “No Country for Old Men” (Miramax)
CULT CORNER
“Donkey Punch” (Magnolia); “Tokyo Zombie” (Anchor Bay)
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Austin films win big at Sarasota
A pair of Austin-made documentaries by University of Texas alums scored last weekend at the Sarasota Film Festival in Florida.
Ben Steinbauer’s “Winnebago Man” won best documentary feature and Michel O. Scott’s “Over the Hills and Far Away” won the audience award for best narrative documentary.
Steinbauer receives a United States distribution deal with First Run Features and a screening at the IFC Center‘s Stranger Than Fiction series. Both films earned raves during South by Southwest Film Festival last month.
Read Pat Beach’s SXSW interview with “Over the Hills” director Scott HERE.
Read our SXSW write-up of the “Winnebago Man” HERE.
Jack Rebney’s raspberry in ‘Winnebago Man’
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Do we really need this?
In theaters Sept. 25. (We kinda like Alan Parker’s 1980 version.)
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Why moviegoers deserve what they get
Not quite “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” but still …
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What I’m watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
“3 Seconds Before Explosion” by Motomu Ida (1967; Japan): Goofy, noirish exploitation, post-war Japanese-style. Not as snappy as you’d hope, but some brisk hand-to-hand action, shiny color visuals (including garish shades of blood) and sprinkles of wit. Ida is no Seijun Suzuki (“Branded to Kill”), but his film is serviceable pulp.
“It’s Winter” by Rafi Pitts (2006; Iran): Beautifully depressing tone poem from the Iranian new wave about a man’s struggle to get work and support his family — a quaint patriarchal notion still alive in the Middle East. It’s told with simplicity and heartbreaking purity, flaunting the hallmarks of latter Iranian cinema — unhurried quitetude, non-professional actors, arid realism — while flouting the form with a linear story and a romantic-love thread. The evocative title expresses its elegiac mood. Would fit well in today’s “neo-neo-realism” trend.
“Landscape in the Mist” by Theodoros Angelopoulos (1988; Greece): This sweet and sour picaresque following a young brother and sister as they make their way alone to Germany is deemed the Greek maestro’s masterpiece. No argument here. Rambling but emotionally acute, it’s a classic, almost Truffautian tale of innocence robbed and coming-of-age amid a backdrop of indifferent adults and harsh lessons.
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Actor Lou Perryman, Texan to his bones, dies
Lou Perryman, drawling character actor best known for his roles in Eagle Pennell’s landmark Texas indie features “The Whole Shootin’ Match” (1978) and “Last Night at the Alamo” (1983), was killed this week in a suspected homicide. His body, fatally wounded by an axe, was found Thursday in his Austin home. He was 67.
Perryman and Pennell, who died in 2002, were great friends, striking out in the scrappy dust-bowl of DIY filmmaking in the 1970s.
“(Eagle) did it on the sweat of his brow,” Perryman told me during an interview when Pennell died. “He hustled. We made it up as we went. He brought the best out of people, and that’s the heart of independent film.”
Perryman never made it big, but he enjoyed a run of bit parts in Hollywood fare, including “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, “”Boys Don’t Cry,” “Poltergeist,” “The Blues Brothers” and television’s “Walker, Texas Ranger.”
Perryman in ‘Whole Shootin’ Match’
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PJ Raval’s day in the sun
Austin director and cinematographer PJ Raval has a lot to celebrate these days. “Trouble the Water,” the documentary he shot (not directed), won top honors at Sundance in ‘08 and was nominated for this year’s documentary feature Oscar. Now it’s airing on HBO beginning April 23.
HERE’s the HBO schedule for air times.
But even bigger for Raval and Jay Hodges, also of Austin, is that “Trinidad,” the documentary they co-directed and co-produced, just won the documentary jury award at the Cleveland International Film Festival.
“Trinidad,” a moving, up close and personal chronicle of several lives in the so-called sex-change capital of the world, will screen at 7 p.m. Saturday at Rice University, then it’s off to the Independent Film Festival in Boston on April 26.
Read our interview with Raval and Hodges HERE.
Hodges and Raval
Go to the film’s site HERE, where you can watch the trailer.
Sex-change surgery in award-winning ‘Trinidad’
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Visuals and Fuzzies
Eric Bricker screens and answers questions about his adored doc “Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman” at 7 p.m. April 8 at the Alamo Ritz.
The film, narrated by Dustin Hoffman, looks at the career of architectural photographer Shulman. It’s part of the Austin Film Society’s Documentary Tour. Everything HERE.
Austin jazz scribblers White Ghost Shivers play a benefit for the in-progress short film “Warm Fuzzy” from 7 to 11 p.m. April 11 at Cafe Mundi (1704 E. Fifth St.).
A Warm Fuzzy.
The evening features one hour of short films by the cast and crew of “Warm Fuzzy,” who will be there, and a set by the Shivers, who is scoring the movie. Plus: silent auction and food and drink.
$10 at the door. Ask for more info at events@starvelingproductions.com.
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Screenings round-up
Watch (now!) Austin filmmaker Bob Ray and CrashCam Films’ latest adult animation toons at Playboy.com. Do it HERE.
Salvage Vanguard Theater’s Micro-Cinema presents a feast of local film at Salvage Vanguard, April 12 — 14: Kat Candler’s feature “Jumping Off Bridges” and the short “Quarter to Noon”; PJ Raval and Paul Soileau’s short films; and Pepper Island Films’ “Polar Ops.”
$5 for one screening; $8 for both. Exact dates and times and everything else HERE.
‘Jumping Off Bridges’ (actually, just sitting on a bridge, but watch the film and … )
Speaking of Kat Candler — and when are we not? — she’s teaching her popular Summer Script to Screen class May 19 — Aug. 18 at Arts and Labor Productions (6601 Burnet Rd.).
To register: Contact Kat at katcandler@gmail.com, or 771-5863. Or go HERE.
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What Austin’s watching at Netflix
Think what you will about the mom-and-pop-video-shop-slayer, but Netflix has a nifty localized feature on its home page, a long list of movies with the heading “Members in and around Austin, Texas, are currently renting these titles much more than other Netflix members.”
The 25-title list is numbered. At No. 1 (surprise!): Richard Linklater’s “Dazed and Confused.”
No. 2, Laura Dunn’s Barton Springs documentary “The Unforeseen,” and No. 3, Mike Akel’s funny mockumentary “Chalk,” are also Austin-made classics.
Indeed, most of the titles bear strong Austin and/or Texas links, or are very popular cult fare at the Alamo theaters.
More:
No. 4: “Troll”/”Troll 2” double feature; 5: “Baghead”; 6: “For All Mankind” (just played SXSW); 7: “Darkon”; 8: “The Devil and Daniel Johnston”; 9: “The Boys and Girls Guide to Getting Down”; 10: “Confessions of a Superhero” (another SXSW fave).
Other titles: “Bottle Rocket,” “Bill Hicks Live,” “King of Kong,” “The Alamo” (2004), “Oldboy” and “The Foot Fist Way.”
The full list HERE. (Note: You have to be signed in as a member to see it. AND the list apparently shifts a lot throughout the day. So check often, with joy.)
Yup, Austinites are also renting this at Netflix.
