Harry Potter and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Warner Brothers is counting on adaptations of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series to fill the void left when the Harry Potter series ends.
L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” — the book that “The Wizard of Oz” is based on — is just the first story in a series that spans 14 books. All fourteen books are now part of public domain. The original film, however, is not in public domain. In other words: Any reproduction of an element that was solely a part of the film’s story and not the book will have rights fees still associated.
dear clusterflock
Spike Lee.
Lemmy, the Motorhead documentary
If we were in the 17th Century, don’t you think he’d be a pirate?
David Byrne’s Ride, Rise, Roar
“The fact that they decided to combine modern dance with a rock show was risky,” director David Hillman Curtis told Wired.com by e-mail, ahead of Ride, Rise, Roar’s Monday premiere at the Paramount Theater, the first of three SXSW screenings this week. “It could have backfired quite easily. But it fits with David, since he is involved in many forms of art. They managed to pull it off through trust in collaboration.”
dynamo
Independent filmmakers will soon have a new option for renting their films to viewers online: Dynamo, a start-up set to be announced at South by Southwest on Saturday evening, which will allow video producers to set their own prices and embed their videos wherever they want.
Tron Legacy
I pretty much just expect about an hour of eye candy, but I am still going to go see it.
So. You want to go for it, do you?
No good will come of cloning Neanderthals.
what was up with that weird Oscar moment?
Burkett also accuses Williams of not passing along invites to parties the two were invited to for the film, and even says that her race to the stage was intentionally impeded by Williams’ mother’s cane.
The Brothers Bloom
This is literally the best movie I have seen in ten years and you need to see ASAP.
Update: Amanda Mae’s interview with the director, Rian Johnson.
Breaking Away / Bottle Rocket
February 24th and 25th, 2010, The New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles is showing a double feature of Breaking Away and Bottle Rocket, as part of their guest programming by Jason Reitman.
There’s nothing like sitting in the dark with other people who love watching movies. When I move away I’m going to really miss the New Bev as much as I will miss the people in my life, I recieved a better film education there (the first day I went was October 17th, 2004 for a Audrey Hepburn double feature) than anyone could rightfully ask for.
I wish all the Clusterflockers could be there. Perhaps we’ll show Bottle Rocket at Clusterflockstock.
werewolf evolution
A short interview with Rick Baker, the makeup artist behind An American Werewolf in London and Thriller, about the transformation of his art in the digital era.
Wired: Have you worried that your work can’t keep up with evolving technology?
Baker: I had that concern. I wondered whether today’s kids, who grew up on CG, would accept a guy covered in yak hair. But I actually embrace digital stuff now — I do it for fun. I was heavily involved in the digital work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I like any trick that helps me achieve what I can’t with rubber. I try to make the right choice for the circumstances of the movie.
Trailer for El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky. 1970)
The strangest movie I’d recommend?
Allen Klein presents an ABKCO Film.
dear clusterflock
What’s the strangest movie you’d recommend?
A Criterion Out of Print Sale
Here is the list of movies going out of print:
Alphaville
Carlos Saura’s Flamenco Trilogy (Eclipse Series 6)
Le corbeau
Coup de torchon
Diary of a Country Priest
The Fallen Idol
Forbidden Games (Criterion and Essential Art House editions)
Gervaise (Essential Art House edition)
Grand Illusion (Criterion and Essential Art House editions)
Le jour se lève (Essential Art House edition)
Last Holiday (Essential Art House edition)
Mayerling (Essential Art House edition)
The Orphic Trilogy
Peeping Tom
Pierrot le fou (DVD and Blu-ray editions)
Port of Shadows
Quai des Orfèvres
The Small Back Room
The Tales of Hoffmann (Criterion and Essential Art House editions)
Trafic
Le trou
Variety Lights (Essential Art House edition)
The White Sheik
favorite films of the decade
Borat
Jackass
Wizard of Penetration
“One night, when he was still new to Hollywood, he went to a party where he ran into Gary Cooper. Beatty always speaks admiringly about Cooper’s touch with women, saying, “He chased way more pussy than I did.” Cooper was standing next to Hayworth, his hand on her bottom, under her skirt. It seemed to Beatty that Cooper had his finger buried deep inside her butt. How Beatty divined this is not clear. He was becoming adept at interpreting looks and glances, reading people. Wizard of penetration that he was, perhaps he just parsed the language of the bodies, or maybe he was projecting his own fantasies.”
From Peter Biskind’s biography of actor Warren Beatty. Wizard of Penetration is surely the phrase to beat for February. [via]
Inglorious Basterds
We finally watched Inglorious Basterds last night, and after two or three moments I thought the movie might ultimately break or fizzle or go kaput, by the end I felt I had seen something really good. Have enough people watched yet to have a discussion?
Disney has closed Miramax
Founded by producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein back in 1979, Miramax flourished as an independent distribution and production outfit, before becoming part of the Disney empire in 1993…. During its heyday, Miramax was regarded as arguably the industry’s most respected and influential production company. But in recent years its output has been downscaled by Disney, and its demise was predicted long before today’s closure of its offices in LA.The six Miramax pictures that are currently awaiting distribution – including John Madden’s The Debt and Last Night, starring Keira Knightley – now face an uncertain future.
Well that’s a pity.
Disney’s Recycled Animation
Acting!
Philip Seymour Hoffman is often mentioned as the best actor of his generation. I’m beginning to think Maggie Gyllenhaal is the best actor of whatever generation she belongs to. Discuss.
Chronicles of Seymour-Hoffman
Ned Hepburn, (the genius behind, erm, Boner Party) has also been posting tidbits from his forthcoming “book” ‘The Many Faces Of Seymour-Hoffman’
“During the filming of the 1999 drama ‘The Talented Mister Ripley’, Seymour-Hoffman developed an intense infatuation with American Girl dolls, the doll company that produces historically and factually based dolls based on young women of a certain era in American history.
Inbetween takes, Seymour-Hoffman would produce a doll and start to recite his own lines in the voice of Kitt Kettredge, an American Girl doll based on a girl who would have existed the Great Depression. During the scene of his own murder, he refused to act with anyone else but her, slowly disrobing her and holding back his own tears, feeding the lifeless doll fistfuls of M&M’s. This unnerved co-stars Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow, who refused to be in the same room as him during this already emotional day of filming. Using an array of mirrors, the film appears to have Philip Seymour-Hoffman in the same room as Matt Damon, when infact Hoffman was forty feet away in his own trailer playing the same five Supertramp songs on repeat before every single take while requesting fresh M&M’s for Kitt. Consequentially, each take took an hour to film.
Coincidentally, during the scene in which Hoffman is strangled, Kitt Kettredge’s hands are used.”
Needless to say, this isn’t uh, factually based.
Machotaildrop
The movie trailer gives me a The Who’s Tommy vibe with some flashes of Hook, the early 90s Peter Pan film.
(via Kitsune Noir)
Film Fest ‘09
This past summer I spent about three weeks building a set for a local film festival. We had about two hundred dollars and big dreams. (This isn’t including the 65 dollar parking ticket I got in Hollywood when I left my car for less than five minutes to grab the gobo used in the second shot.)
“Bad pinhole,” she said.
Fuji 200 C-41 developed in expired Fomadon LQN for 10 minutes. Presoaked and rinsed in water.
“Why do I keep trying?” my Flickr friend asked. ” I just can’t make myself stop wasting film on this whole pinhole thing.”
The ensuing conversation is a long one, I warn you, but it’s a good one. You might enjoy reading it even if you’re not into the whole pinhole thing. People talk about what constitutes waste, about learning by experimenting, about what film is made of, about how to save money on food, about pinhole cameras — and about paranormal phenomena.
Read more
Cache’s (Hidden) Mystery at 20:39
Roger Ebert decided to throw a big monkey wrench into the meaning of the ending in Michael Haneke’s 2005 film Cache. Ebert states that the film provides a glimpse of something unusual at minute 20:39. Now, I have seen Cache and enjoyed it in that way you enjoy and simultaneously hate french films but I don’t recall what happens at that exact moment. Nor do I own a copy to refer to. But maybe a flocker can help end this madness and illuminate us all.