This just in from my redoubtable colleague Mark Feeney:
Tomorrow night at 7, Arthur Penn will be appearing at the Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge. His appearance kicks off a four-day retrospective of the director?s work. Friday?s showing will be a double feature: ?The Chase? (1966) and ?The Tears of My Sister? (1953). Tickets are $10. ?The Chase? is a real mess (Penn didn?t have final cut), but it has an impressive cast -- Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Robert Duvall -- and Brando?s performance is worth the price of admission. (It also bears out Penn?s reputation as one of the great actor?s directors.) ?Tears? is a video of a Horton Foote drama that was broadcast live. Penn?s roots were in ?50s television, so this is an extremely rare opportunity to see his beginnings.
In ?The Chase,? you can begin to see flickerings of the New Hollywood: an engagement with politics, a much darker vision of America, a franker dealing with sexuality. A year later, in ?Bonnie and Clyde,? it?s right there on the screen: a movie set in the ?30s that?s a blueprint for the ?70s.
Now 85, Penn has a very significant place in the history of American film. He?s its missing link: the bridge between Elia Kazan, who did so much to popularize Method acting and bring a new seriousness and naturalness to Hollywood in the ?50s, and the Young Turks (Coppola, Scorsese, and the rest) who would create Hollywood?s Silver Age, in the ?70s. Unlike Kazan, Penn didn?t start out in New York theater (or belong to the Communist Party). Unlike the new generation, he didn?t go to film school. He neither came from a group nor belonged to one. Instead, he went his own way, helping make that way -- emotionally daring, politically iconoclastic, artistically searching -- the way of a generation.
Penn, whom Andrew Sarris once called ?the American Truffaut,? was a one-man New Wave, and an argument can be made that for a few years in the late ?60s -- with ?Bonnie and Clyde,? ?Alice?s Restaurant? (1969,? and ?Little Big Man? (1970) -- Penn was almost singlehandedly setting the agenda for serious American film. Everything was up for grabs, and he was showing what and how to grab for it.
Two weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of speaking with him at his New York apartment. The conversation covered a lot of ground (who knew Arthur Penn once held cue cards for Martin and Lewis -- and how hard a job it was, since it?s tough holding up a cue card if you?re convulsed with laughter). So not everything made it into my Movies profile last Sunday. Here are a few outtakes.
On his moviegoing background:
?I was never a cinephile [growing up]. I didn?t go to the movies much. There were very few directors I could identify. Of course Welles, and of course Howard Hawks.
?For me, the most alive film I ever experienced was the Italian neorealism [of the late ?40s]. I was there as a student. Bing! These films were coming out, and seeing them with Italians, in Italy, was fantastic! It was more than film! It was film, prograganda, and expression of victory. Boy, that was really something.?
One of the most famous (and influential) sequences in film history is the gunning down of the title characters at the end of ?Bonnie and Clyde.? Penn discussed his decision to use slow motion.
?Kinetics: Cinema is so complementary to kinetics. To use the very device of the storytelling as an element, that?s what pleased me most about ?Bonnie and Clyde.? I was very hesitant about doing the film because, at the end, they?re at the automobile, the bushes explode, and they?re dead. I thought, ?Gee, if that?s where we are, we?ve just got a gangster film.? It troubled me until one morning I woke up and I could see it. I thought, ?That?s what I?ve got to do, I?ve got to begin to use the medium of film as part of the narrative.? It sure did work -- way beyond my expectation. I knew it would be startling, but I didn?t know it would be as upsetting as it proved to be.?
When I pointed out that people getting so upset vindicated his decision, Penn vigorously agreed.
?Exactly. They move from being gangstgers to being something faintly mythological, something legendary.?
Although he?s in a excellent shape for 85, Penn had recently been hospitalized with pneumonia. So he spent most of our time together sitting placidly on a couch. There was one point, though -- and I wish I had it on video -- where he jolted upright with energy, his body language transformed. We were talking about what it was that most appealed to him about film directing. I don?t know how well his words can communicate the absolute passion and almost-boyish excitement with which he spoke.
?Just something happens in the editing room which is beyond the literal: where the film itself, as it goes together, begins to take on an almost-mystical presence. And makes, consequently, a future demand. Which is: If this is the way I am here, then over here you better damn well speed me up and move me because I can?t give you the luxury of that. It really tells you, back and forth, of an internal rhythm that emerges. That, of course, you will carry it in your gut; but, you know, when you do a three-minute take, a four-minute take, and then wrap and come back tomorrow you don?t have that [same feeling]. But in the editing room [the feeling] really begins to be quite reverential about film. . . . It?s ineffable. There are no words for it. You get really kind of mystical at that stage.?
MCLEAN, Va., Jan. 31, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- With the big game right around the corner, Flight Explorer (FE), the world's leading provider of real-time global flight tracking information, launched its free Super Bowl air traffic tracking service today. FE site visitors can now view real-time air traffic around Glendale, Arizona as well as Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) around the University of Phoenix stadium.
Long story short: A two-year-old video featuring Heath Ledger at a party where drugs were being consumed was purchased by Entertainment Tonight for a large sum of money (some are saying $200,000), and the show, as well as The Insider, planned to air the video in an attempt to "understand why Ledger died." Ledger's former PR firm sent out a mass email protesting the video, folks everywhere cried "poor taste" and ET ultimately decided not to air it. One imagines said video will arrive on YouTube within 24 hours, and at that time it will be everywhere; the secret video everyone will pretend they didn't watch.
Here's my question: Where do you draw the line? Almost everything these shows put on the air is in poor taste. So, instead of the Ledger video, they'll do 15 minutes on Britney Spears -- what she wore to the hospital, what she said to the doctor, how big her sh*t was that morning. This stuff -- this stalking of Britney Spears -- is okay. Airing a video showing Heath Ledger drinking a beer, while some dude snorts coke in the corner? Not okay. That's in poor taste. You should respect the Ledger family. What about the family of every other actor or actress who's caught doing something stupid? Where's the respect for them? There is no respect. You think the folks at ET respect Ledger or his family? They couldn't give two sh*ts about these people ... unless something they do is going to bring them more viewers. Hence, the video.
It's a pretty sick world we live in. I've watched this TMZ show on television, where the staff gets together and they write a bunch of stuff on a board. At the top of that board, it should read: How Will We Ruin Someone's Life Today? Isn't it sick to know that all of these people -- the shows, the websites, the magazines -- make all their money off humiliating other people? That that's a huge business; the business of humiliation. And then they go home at night to their wife, their significant other, their children -- and they attempt to be a good role model. " Help Jimmy with his math homework after you're done photo-shopping that pic of Britney's vagina, please."
MONTREAL, Jan. 31, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Strategy First Inc., a leading developer and worldwide publisher of entertainment software for the PC and a wholly-owned unit of Silverstar Holdings (Nasdaq:SSTR), has signed baseball legend, Bill 'Spaceman' Lee III, along with Enlight Software, for the upcoming release of Baseball Mogul 2008. The famed former major league pitcher will bring his unconventional insights to Bill 'Spaceman' Lee's Baseball Mogul 2008(r), the latest edition of the award-winning Baseball Mogul series.
COMMACK, N.Y., Jan. 31, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- TitleMatch Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of Protocall Technologies Incorporated (OTCBB: PCLI) and innovator of burn-on-demand services for retailers, today announced that it hired Zable Fisher Public Relations, a leading pay-for-performance public relations firm, for its upcoming public relations efforts.
I always love it when Brett Ratner's name gets tossed into the pot with regards to a new, hip fanboy-ish project, because the fanboys run out to cry foul. It hasn't seemed to hurt his career, though, since moviegoers still flock to his flicks because the studios tend to sell them well with flashy trailers and whatnot. The latest flurry of Ratner rage was brought on by a story over at AICN which claims the director is Universal's choice to replace Mark Romanek onThe Wolfman. Harry Knowles, who broke the news (and says it comes from a very reliable source), makes a pretty good argument as to why the studio should let Ratner's name go in one ear and out the other.
Knowles says, "Brett Ratner makes watchable films. Movies that go through your system as if consumed off a soapy plate. They're empty - hollow works. He's a terrible ACTOR's director. His basement is a disco, and the Wolfman has no disco in his soul. This is a PERIOD film - to make a convincing period film you need a director for an eye for details... Someone that knows this world and period. X3 was a financial success - but that was based on an incredibly successful franchise by Singer. Ratner killed it." Although I'm not as attached to The Wolfman as others are, I completely agree with Knowles opinion of the guy. Ratner's a joke -- he'll make your film look pretty, like the last girl left in the bar after six hours worth of vodka shots. But when you wake up next to her the next morning, the guilt -- coupled with a massive hangover -- leads to regret. Why, exactly, did I pay $10 bucks to watch that piece of sh*t? Oh yeah, the trailer looked good.
While the news is not official yet, there's definitely enough here to hurt your ears. Here's hoping Universal listens to the cries and goes in a different direction. What do you think?
Is Gemma Arterton feeling the heat for having recently (apparently) blurted out a key plot point involving her character in Quantum of Solace? Seems that way. "You have to work out what you can say and cannot say," Arterton tells Reuters in a recent article. "It's quite hard for me who has a bit of a motor mouth. I've been learning for the last six months to think before I speak." As she continues to work on her problem, Arterton also continues to give away more plot details for the upcoming film, intimating in the same Reuters piece that oil -- "a lot of oil" -- is what the villains are after this time, and South America is apparently where they're looking for it. Arterton also tells IGN in another new interview that her character does become sexually involved with Bond -- there's a kiss, at least -- and that something happens to her in a "scene which is an homage to something iconic, but I cannot tell you what that is. But it will be remembered."
What is she talking about? Let's speculate. Given what Arterton has already let slip about her character's destiny and given that in this IGN interview she mentions Diana Rigg more than once -- noting her as one of her favorite Bond girls and saying "my hair is reminiscent of Diana Rigg's hair" the most obvious answer is that perhaps the "homage scene" is a climactic one for her and is something similar to the climactic scene in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. That would fit in with everything she's saying, but it wouldn't seemingly fit in with Bond's journey at this point, since it would be so similar to the ending of Casino Royale. Although, it might work if Arterton's Agent Fields is only a minor character, which she appears to be. A minor character could be resolved in such a way. Gemma, you're making my head hurt!
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 30, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- CEO Clips will begin broadcasting on the Fox Business News Network this week. The first feature will be on Regi U.S.: http://www.b-tv.com/i/videos/foxregius.wmv .
With a tight schedule, a minimum to writing facilities and fatigue it is hard to write a daily report, hence the lack of updates yesterday. Monday started with two films from Down Under, A Song of Good and Men’s Group. DV really seems to be the trend these days even though it looks plain ugly. Tuesday started with Unfinished Sky, the Japanese drama This World of Ours and the film noir/conspiracy thriller Able Danger (not reviewed here). (more…)
As you may have heard, Sean Young descended upon the Directors Guild of America awards this past Saturday and proceeded to drunkenly heckle Julian Schnabel. This is compelling for a variety of reasons. For one thing, maybe she, too, thought Todd Haynes and Sidney Lumet were robbed. For another, who invited her?) But mostly this is all so sad. She really used to be something).
To the folks who think she's just that nut from "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," Young is also mythic for being the more lunatic half of a nutty Hollywood relationship with James Woods and the woman who never quite recovered from not getting Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman part in Tim Burton's "Batman Returns." Famously, she appeared on "The Joan Rivers Show" in full costume. It was the best performance she'd given up to that point. (This clip has no sound.) She was threatening to become the Miss Havisham of bad-luck casting.
But Young was an extremely interesting actor, with her cockeyed line readings and alluringly strange way with her body. She seemed to be mocking stardom with idiosyncrasy while throwing off a weird sexuality of her own. She was starrish. I like to imagine that Parker Posey took a page from Young's book and studied it very closely. Posey keeps her crazy-danger on screen - she's the relatively sane Sean Young. (My friend Mark points out that they have the same nose.)
Young's being off the deep end was different from these dysfunctional starlets now. Her train wreck was entertainingly subversive. She wanted to be a star, but 1980s-1990s Hollywood was just the wrong galaxy for her. Today she'd be trapped on some reality show where she'd be competing for Loon of the Week. But Young was an original. Of course, as Ty wondered earlier today, you have to think if Young were a man, she would have kept working in bigger parts. Historically, unstable, alcoholic women have been punished in a way unstable men haven't.
In 1992, Entertainment Weekly put her on the cover and basically wondered, "Could this career be saved?" Last year the magazine was still wondering. After last Saturday I think we have our answer.
Long story short: A two-year-old video featuring 
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With a tight schedule, a minimum to writing facilities and fatigue it is hard to write a daily report, hence the lack of updates yesterday. Monday started with two films from Down Under, A Song of Good and Men’s Group. DV really seems to be the trend these days even though it looks plain ugly. Tuesday started with Unfinished Sky, the Japanese drama This World of Ours and the film noir/conspiracy thriller Able Danger (not reviewed here). 
