>> Tivo has aggregated some interesting data of their viewers television recording habits. The TV list is as might be expected, but the directors list is surprisingly sophisticated, trending towards foreign (Kurosawa, Almodovar) and classic (Billy Wilder, Frank Capra) in addition to the usual suspects (Spielberg, Scorsese).
From the friend (Joel) who brought us facts about Chuck Norris and the Joelisms that Kim and I will one day embroider on pillows and sell to pay back our student loans, comes Brokeback to the Future and Top Gun Brokeback Squadron. It looks like remixed trailers are the new preferred form of satirical commentary.
The first installment of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis’ classic The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe is releasing Dec. 9th. Two recent articles highlight the competing visions we have of Lewis. As Adam Gopnik notes, in the New Yorker:
In America, Lewis … remains, for the more intellectual and literate reaches of conservative religiosity, a saint revered and revealed, particularly in such books as “The Problem of Pain” and “The Screwtape Letters.” In England, he is commonly regarded as a slightly embarrassing polemicist, who made joke-vicar broadcasts on the BBC, but who also happened to write a few very good books about late-medieval poetry and inspire several good students.
Charles McGrath explores the skirmish between these two views being fought out over the marketing of the movie. Into which mold will Hollywood cast it, as next Lord of the Rings or as the next Passion? Lewis fits nicely into neither category, which is precisely what makes him still interesting.
PBS is airing a new series, Myths and Heroes, on Wednesday of next week (16th) and the week after (23rd). The program will explore 4 myths - In Search of Shangri-La, Arthur: The Once and Future King and Jason and the Golden Fleece - and, drum-roll here, The Queen of Sheba, who according to legend travelled to Israel & became romantically involved with King Solomon, before traveling back to her own country, which many think is what is now Ethiopia. Worth checking out.
Born Into Brothels won an Academy Award for best documentary feature, but even that recognition doesn’t really do it justice. Photographer Zana Briski began photographing the Red Light district in Calcutta, India in 1997. While living in the brothels, she became interested in the children of the prostitutes, conducting workshops to teach them photography on inexpensive 35mm cameras and beginning an uphill battle to provide an opportunity for many of the girls to escape life “on the line.”
Some of the children turned out to be genuinely talented photographers, having their work exhibited all over the world and attracting attention to their situation. The organization Briski founded, Kids with Cameras has started similar workshops in other parts of the world and is in the process of funding a school specifically for the children of the area.
At the other end of the spectrum, the movie Flight Plan, starring Jodie Foster and Peter Sarsgaard, is startling bad. If at all possible, one should avoid it.
I suppose everyone has their guilty pleasures. Barbarella is one of mine. I have the original Barbarella promo poster hanging behind the door to my room (pictured at left) that a friend gave me after we wrapped up his shoot. (Check out the Nostalgia Factory if you’re into vintage posters) For the uninitiated Barbarella is based on a french comic book and stars Jane Fonda as a space vixen who is sent to track down evil scientist Duran Duran (yes, this is where the band got its name) and has a series of double-entendre-laden adventures along the way. The film is unbelievably campy, directed by Fonda’s then husband Roger Vadim, with a script by beat icon Terry Southern (Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider) and produced by Dino De Laurentiis (who produced Italian neorealists Fellini, Rossellini, Visconti, De Sica, Antonioni and cult-favorites Blue Velvet, Flash Gordon, Dune & Conan the Barbarian). If that weren’t enough Marcel Marceau the french mime appears as Professor Ping.
Imagine my delight to discover the Museum of Fine Art in Houston will be screening this classic epic of risque sci-fi as part of their Movies Houstonians Love Series. Bold choice Annalee Jefferies! Not happy about waiting until March 13 for the screening though.
Finally a video service to do what Flickr did for photos. Upload a video to share and send me a nice bandwidth-friendly link. Stop filling up my e-mail inbox. You people know who you are. Here are some favorites:
James Surowiecki has a great article in the New Yorker this week (does he ever not have a great article in the NY any given week, love that guy) on the state of Hollywood’s current identity crisis “Disk Averse.”
What’s becoming increasingly clear is that the people who buy DVDs are, for the most part, not the people who go to the movies on opening weekend. According to research from Fox Home Entertainment, DVD buyers tend to be older than your typical theatregoer. More of them are women, and most of them don’t see movies in theatres before buying them. Most important, the new DVD audience is so diverse that companies can target niche markets and still sell millions of disks. Because specialized markets are more predictable, the risk of failure is much lower, and so small-to-mid-budget movies can be very profitable indeed.
Sounds like a long-tail argument to me. If there was any fundamental change in business practice to emerge from the dot-bomb shenanigans, this is it. In the words of an Amazon employee, “We sold more books today that didn’t sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday.”
So part of the movie industries problem is that each film is competing not only with its contemporaries but with all the great films that have come before it. Why would I want to see one ridiculous knock-off after another, when I can get the real deal on DVD for $9.97 and $8.98 respectively?
Since I got my Tivo-esque PVR, I had sort of forgotten that every once and a while there’s actually a commercial worth watching. Spike Jonze did a fantastic vid for the new Adidas 1 self-adapting shoe, which I found trying to track down the music with Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Squeak E. Clean.
Here are some favorites:
