Here's what you should do this weekend: Go to the Coolidge and see "Day Night Day Night" without reading a single review. Don't even go to the Coolidge's website; they give the game away, too. All you need to know is that the movie's about a young woman (the remarkable Luisa Williams, above) at the end of her emotional rope and what she does about it.
It's also about New York City and about being in the midst of it while feeling completely apart. As a portrait of emotional extremity and the search for grace, it consciously aspires to in Dreyer's " " -- an absurdly ambitious target that director Julia Loktev comes close to realizing. (There's also a lot of whingwhanging around inside this movie.
) Some feel "Day Night Day Night" is irresponsible in regards to certain real-world issues, but I beg to differ: Loktev and Williams use the real world merely as a backdrop to an elemental spiritual struggle.
Why am I being so coy? Because "DNDN" works best when you go in knowing nothing and let its initially enigmatic opening scenes crystallize into something very, very dark before the movie even thinks to seek the light.
If you've read Wesley's review -- no, I'm not going to link to it -- you already know what I'm talking about, because he blows the mystery, as any reviewer has to. I would have had to, if I hadn't been tapped to cover other movies this week. But because I'm blogging, I'm telling you: Read the reviews after you've come back from the theater.
Elsewhere: An essential round-up of films by Turkish filmmaker at the (it's easy, there are only four), including last year's Cannes hit " ." 's at the tonight, followed by an academic deconstruction of movies like "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" at tomorrow night's " ." The continues at the MFA.
Or you could just take the kids to " " like the rest of the country will be doing.
It's official: that Elijah Wood will play Iggy Pop in an upcoming biopic called "The Passenger," to be directed by . As they say in the funny papers, "Aiieeee!
"
This may, in fact, turn out to be a good movie. More likely it's the first sign of the apocalypse. I like Wood, and I understand his desire to break out of the box that childhood adorability and "The Lord of the Rings" put him in.
He's been trying to get this movie off the ground for two years, so obviously he's committed. And yet, and yet, and yet -- you're gonna have to prove it to me, Frodo.
And it's not going to be easy: Wood has the most soulful eyes in the business, and the former -- leader of , primogenitor of punk, and perhaps the most gleefully unhinged of rock's bad boys -- arguably has no soul.
Unlike Jim Morrison or Ray Charles or any other rock great whose life has been poured into a Hollywood container, there's no psychological backstory (that we know of, anyway), no demons, no artistic mission, nothing to "explain" why the Ig felt it necessary to cut his chest with broken bottles in concert back in the late 60s and pour every bit of unholy midwestern voodoo he could muster into songs like "TV Eye". He simply is. The average rock movie is often about the perils of ego, but how do you make one about a guy who's all id?
And how do you convince us Elijah Wood is that guy?
On another front, this marks the point where the wave of rock biopics finally starts to wash over the punk generation. Thirty years ago it was "The Buddy Holly Story," fifteen years ago "The Doors," now this.
When Katie Holmes gets cast as Patti Smith, .
The Lotus Eaters. The Sirens.
The Cyclops. Presumably " ," the screening/reading/concert/multimedia happening that 's hosting tonight at 8:00 pm, will include these all-time Homer hits. The brainchild of writer Andrea Lawlor and filmmaker Bernadine Mellis, the project includes 24 short films by different artist collectives -- mostly queers, trans, and women -- corresponding to the 24 chapters on Odysseus' peregrinations.
(I'm not sure, but I believe that's Nausicaa pictured above.)
Accompaniment on the accordian and saw by , and, no, I'm not making that up. If you can't get to the show, there's a with a companion DVD containing all the films.
No word on whether Circe will show up to turn any Harvard men in the audience into swine.
Spielberg and Jackson and Tintin, oh my
that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are planning to join forces for a trilogy of digitally animated motion-capture Tintin movies. Blistering blue barnacles!Now, maybe the zygote movie-geeks at Cinemablend have , but for those of us whose memory doesn't screech to a halt at 1993, this is interesting news. The represent some of the best drawn comic art of all time and the stories have a weird boys-own-adventure coolness that remain untarnished after all these years. Plans call for Jackson and Spielberg to each direct one film, with the third film up for grabs at this point; Jackson's special-effects house, , has produced a 20-minute test reel that apparently has given the filmmakers confidence to move forward.
Nothing's going to happen on this for a while, and, yes, maybe Herge is rolling in his grave, but full speed ahead, gentlemen.
that Matt Damon may be out as the young James T. Kirk in the next " " movie and that .
A closer examination reveals that said rumors have the solidity of a Klingon taco-wrapper in an interstellar photon storm. Damon hasn't even been cast. J.
J. Abrams of "Alias" and "Lost" is directing, though, and I do like the notion of James McAvoy (" ") as the young Scotty.
Cannes is gearing up.
Wesley and I aren't going (chagrin) but there, of course, as is , as is Premiere's , and a whole lot of blogs. We'll be posting the most interesting findings as the fest goes forard. Non, je ne regrette rien.
As expected, " " continued to rule the box office, with $60 million in ticket sales this weekend; as expected it dropped off a sizable 60% from the week before. This is the classic summer scenario: a frontloaded event movie with no legs to speak of, and why should the studio care when it broke records the first week out and will make a killing on DVD? Expect more of the same when " ," " ," and " " open.
(Warning: Links lead to resource-hogging corporate megasites that may eat your computer and possibly your soul.) With luck, some of them might even be good.
The other new movies ducked and covered, mostly.
The surprise was British zombie sequel " " (pictured above) making $10 million mostly on the strength of expectations and . It's worth noting, though, that the first movie, " ," made the same amount of money in half the theaters in 2003.
" " deservedly tanked with $5.
9 million, and the latest from Zach Braff, " ," performed even more poorly ($1.4 million -- ouch). At $3.
9 million, the Larry the Cable Guy "comedy" " " fell in the middle, but at least there'll be a DVD aftermarket for that -- expect to see it on sale in bait shops and truck stops in about a week. I doubt they'll be able to give "Georgia Rule" away in rehab centers.
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