They Mentioned My Home Town, So I Gotta Say Something, Right?

According to a new piece in Variety, Art House Cinema (capital A, H and C) is on the wane in the UK. Their number one example? A local institution, the Phoenix right here in Oxford, "a revered university town arthouse, [which] was screening Waltz with Bashir -- alongside Mamma Mia! and Wall-E"

What isn't mentioned, of course, that the local Odeon cinemas here often screen foreign language fare (well, more often than five years ago, and more and more often all the time). Of course, it shows it badly - their projectionists seem utterly incompetent, their seating doesn't compare to the local Vue (for example) and they regularly botch up in any other number of ways - but it shows it.

Oxford probably isn't a typical town.

We're also lucky enough to have The Ultimate Picture Palace. Situated ten minutes walk from the absolute centre of the cinema, this genuine independent - not part of a faux-alternative chain like The Phoenix has been for decades, but a cinema that belongs to and is pretty much run by just one man - shows an encouragingly eclectic mix of this, that and the other. Until recently, the Ultimate - or UPP, as we know it here - was quite forboding. It was dirty, the air smelled and stifled, the seats were hideous. But in just the last couple of months a drastic and exciting refurb has left these problems all but erased from memory. Now, all we need is for the front of the cinema to get fixed up too, and the programmes to start coming out on time and... well, okay, there are still issues, but it shames the Odeons already. This week Blindness and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas are playing, though this is an atypical line-up, perhaps to pad out the inter-holiday nothing week. Things are normally far more exciting and, if gossip is to be believed, only going to get better.

I don't think the issue is that "arthouse" cinema is dying, but that films for smaller audiences are being relegated to the off-circuit houses, like the UPP, or to DVD, whether they are arthouse or not. The bigger the target audience, the larger the chance of a chain screening - simple maths shows that the bigger target yields more hits, but arthouse isn't the only small target, and some "world cinema" spreads across a pretty big bullseye anyway.

And, no, this has nothing to do with art. It's commerce, I know.

There is a semi-solution, an imperfect one. It comes in the form of Netflix-type-rental, Blu-Ray players, reallty big home cinema screens and day-and-date or straight-to-DVD releases for any less than mainstream offerings. You might not get the shared experience, the communal kick of a night out at the movies, but you also won't have to deal with the Marge Simpson hairstyle in front of you, the blabber mouth behind you or the excessive (nay, spiralling into the stratosphere) ticket prices. And I swear, compared to a screening at the Odeons here in Oxford, my bedside second TV gives a perfect presentation.

Home cinema is probably the destination for a very large amount of "arthouse films" in the coming years - and there's bound to be complaints. Whinging, even. Some audience groups just don't know they've got it made - UK horror fans, for example, have had to deal with straight to DVD or imports to get at the real deal releases for some time already.

(Also absent from the Variety piece? Any indication that Wall-E is a work of art with far more resonance, integrity, intelligence and insight than a dozen Waltz With Bashirs; any suggestion that, actually, The Phoenix programme has been this way for a good few years).

Disappointments

Two news stories that have bubbled up to the surface today have left me feeling rather short on optimism, in two different ways. Please indulge me while I sulk a little.

Firstly: Stephen Chow is to no longer directed the Green Hornet film due to "creative differences" but is still "likely" to play Kato. That pretty much cuts off my enthusiasm for the project, and near the root too. Of course, we're only back to where we were some months ago, and I could muster up some energy then, so what's different now? Well, now we have a small stamp of disapproval from Chow. And, frankly, I trust Chow far more than I do Seth Rogen or, more importantly I suspect, producer Neil Moritz. Is Rogen going to can the whole thing all together? There's a possibility, if definitely not a probability, that this might happen. There's a stronger possibilty that if he doesn't, he'll one day wish he did.

Chow's attachment as solely an actor probably speaks more about paydays and contractual obligation than anything else. Crying shame.

Secondly: production on The Hobbit has been postponed for at least a year. Shooting is now set to start in 2010 with release on the first film only possible for 2012 or maybe even later. Again, this indicates possible problems with the production - most likely with the screenplay. Discord between Del Toro and Jackson could see the director depart or, possibly, a new writing arrangement struck. Only time will tell if either prove necessary.

Jackson has had a real run of bad luck of late - his Tintin film seems increasingly unlikely to ever go before the camera (or, rather, motion capture sensors); supposed creative differences saw Ryan Gosling duck out of The Lovely Bones; Susan Sarandon has publicly spoken out in criticism of the film and of Jackson's approach to characterisation; the production design and FX team on the film appeared to mount a mutiny that halted progress and highlighted possible serious cause for concern.

So, three of the upcoming films (four if we count The Hobbit as two) that I'd be most likely to get be getting excited by right now are, currently, looking a little worrisome instead. This time of year for film bloggers is very often about celebrating the best of the year gone by and looking forward with hope to the year to come but sadly, while I'm looking forward all right, it's with a definite set of mixed feelings.

Here's hoping Jackson can pull it all together down at Wingnut, and quickly, too; and that Chow bails entirely from this Hornet palaver and goes off to do something a whole lot more interesting instead.

Terry Gilliam Developing Zero Theorem

Pat Rushin's screenplay The Zero Theorem is currently undergoing development with director Terry Gilliam. Seeing as Gilliam's supposed next project - a remounting of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote - depends somewhat on the compliance of one J. Depp, who is a very, very busy man, I think Zero Theorem has every chance of going before cameras next year...

Well, pending the development process, budgeting and funding... oh, and casting and scheduling.

But those things tend to take care of themselves, right?

This film would be somewhat smaller than the typical Gilliam project, in the way that The Fisher King was, for example (you know - the film with the magnificent and epic Waltz in Grand Central station and the chase with the flaming knight on horse back through the streets and parks of New York).

Rushin is an Associate Professor in the English dept. at the University of Central Florida. As well as several stories published in anthologies and magazines, Rushin also wrote the screenplay to a short film called Control, directed by Scott Hulan Jones... and so far, my trail goes cold there.

If Gilliam is seriously chewing over his screenplay, however, I can guarantee that it's a good one. Anybody got a copy? You know I want to read this really badly right now.

[EDIT: And Pat Rushin has now confirmed to me that, yes, he's working with Terry. He's a good man, though, and wouldn't leak me the script - of course! Which means I'll have to turn to other sources and start begging and promising favours and the like]

DVD Picks For Xmas

Want to get the film lover in your life something special for Xmas? I would hope so - even if that film lover is you.

Here's my list of DVDs you probably haven't even considered for them but really should. I got my hands on each of these this year and love them all. They didn't have big marketing budgets. They didn't generally get cinema runs. They didn't get love heaped upon them by big name critics...

...but they are, without exception, rather superb.

Click on the link where any of them is named to get to an Amazon dot Com page where you can make an order and still receive the disc in time for Xmas. Woo hoo!

It gets tricky now because, operating under the assumption you haven't seen any of these films, I don't know how little or how much I should tell you. Take it on faith, please, that I'm recommending only the films I'm most supremely in love with.

The first gem? The highest profile. Otis (also on Blu-ray) was the fourth Raw Feed film and the second to be directed by Tony Krantz. Starring Illeana Douglas - who regular readers will know I adore - and featuring a wonderful ensemble of other performers, this was not your typical horror fare. Some say it is a satire on torture porn; others a grand guignol comedy of errors; some have compared it to Juno, of all things; I just reckon its sharp, smart and ambitious. A serial killer gets a hold of a suburban girl and when her parents find out, they decide to go all Virgin Spring on his ass - but this time we're a few doors up from the Last House on the Left and nothing quite goes the way you'd expect...

I'd put Otis in a double bill with Carrie any night of the week. Not only as they are both exceptional horror films with a prom twist to their plots, but because then I could make a Carrie/Otis double bill poster and not have to put Wild Orchid or Simon Says on there.

Another satirical horror film would be my second recommendation. Blood Car
is a true indie, apparently funded with just enough shirt buttons to pay for a single shoe string. It did the rounds of festivals - mainly very small ones - and racked up a few lower profile commendations as it did so. The trailer also points out that Jonathan Demme is a fan - and that's good enough for some, I'm sure.

Blood Car takes the Blood for Oil metaphor and makes it literal. It also manages to ridicule vegans while, ultimately, commending veganism. More importantly, perhaps, it has some truly outrageous jokes about pet slaughter by BB gun, butter-and-sex-stained bed sheets, government conspiracy and how to get a hitchhiker to look into the trunk of your car so that you might... er... sacrifice them for the good of mankind.

This is exactly what a no-budget film can do so well. Score a bonus point for the inclusion of Anna Chlumsky, formerly the My Girl girl and two more for introducing the world to Mike Brune.

Even smaller in scale (and that's a pun, and it is intended) is Sean Meredith's film of Dante's Inferno. Quite amazingly, the entire film has been staged and filmed as a piece of Victorian toy theatre - each of the characters being portrayed not by a flesh and blood actor but a cardboard cut out, manipulated in real time. Think of a live action cut out animation - if you can.

Shot by shot, the puppets are replaced giving each the perfect articulation and expression for any necessary moment. The sheer depth and breadth of creative thinking on display here would be recommendation enough but with this Inferno, you come for the dazzlingly original, idisosyncratic visuals and stay for the witty script, smart updates to the original and supreme vocie acting from Dermot Mulroney and James Cromwell. I wasn't blown away by the trailer - though I know some who were - but I really was by the whole thing (which is a nice reversal on the typical state of play).

Etgar Keret is currently pretty hot property with his short stories forming the basis for Wristcutters: A Love Story and Tatia Rosenthal's Best Animated Feature Oscar contender, $9.99 - but he's also directed a film himself, alongside his wife Shira Geffen.

Jellyfish was a lower profile film than Waltz with Bashir this year, but both being Israeli, they have been bundled together by certain critics. Which is very odd, as they have so little in common - some kind of daft nationalism at play?

Jellfish is like a winningly magic realist take on the interleaved-stories subgenre (you might argue Magnolia was a previous entry in this tiny subgenre, but even if you don't, Jellyfish is a far, far better film than Magnolia).

Keret and Geffen are doubtlessly a team to watch - and I'd even expect their next collaboration to be a big international smash.

A few years back, Minoru Kawasaka had something of a cult hurricane on his hands with The Calamari Wrestler, the story of a Wrestler who is also a Calamari (not to be confused with the upcoming Aronofsky film, which, obviously, is a mistake you were about to make - have you seen Mickey Rourke without his Marv on lately?). The rapid shooting schedule - you could count the days of principal photography on your digits if not your fingers - and seemingly less-than-zero budget did nothing to dim Kawasaka's basic good directorial sense, unfettered energy and idiosyncratic, swerving imagination. The same can be said for the three other Kawasaka films released just in the last few months - Executive Koala (salaryman is accused of murder, has a Koala head but that's okay, he's supposed to); The Rug Cop (cop fights crime with his crime fighting wig and no small amount of panache); The World Sinks Except Japan (the world sinks - well, except Japan, anyway and the Nipponese have to pick up the pieces).

The World Sinks is a kind of slanted satire that could just confuse some but fans of, say, Borat will have a field day with it; the others are simpler genre-disruption exercises with infectious pep in spades. Whole shovels of pep, getting lumped at you. This is the Xmas that Kawasaka peaks - with four of his best films in English friendly distribution.

Are These The 20 Best Films Of 2008?

Roger Ebert has published his list of the 20 best films of the year on his website, and here they are in alphabetical order:

Ballast, The Band’s Visit, Che, Chop Shop, The Dark Knight, Doubt, The Fall, Frost/Nixon, Frozen River, Happy-Go-Lucky, Iron Man, Milk, Rachel Getting Married, The Reader, Revolutionary Road, Shotgun Stories, Slumdog Millionaire, Synecdoche New York, W., Wall-E

Now, there's an awful lot of films on that list I would never dream of including on a list of my own (and, yes, I'm going to come back with such a list) and even a small handful of films I haven't yet seen (and, yes, that's why I'm not giving you my list now - there's still some contenders to be viewed) and even more still that I might render exempt as here in Blighty they'll not be given a full release here until next year, so I'll hold them over.

The one film on there that strikes me as most misplaced is The Dark Knight, but I'm definitely no fan of W. either. I swear to you, they won't be coming within a hundred miles of my best-of-year-end-a-thon. I might even write a special piece on why The Dark Knight is a genuine 2/10 ranker and just how - and for that matter, why - I think the wool has slipped, more than been pulled, over people's eyes.

Moving on. More encouraging is Ebert's support for Synecdoche New York which seemed to underwhelm most critics. Kaufman love is always welcome here.

So, which of these is on my longlist? Wall-E, without a doubt. The last two thirds are a mere shadow of the majesty and wondrousness on display in the first section but even those scenes stand head and shoulders above the competition - which is, while we're making lists like this, the remainder of 2008's films but could be extended to apply to all films, ever.

And... that's it, actually. None of the others are on my list. Yet. Mainly because I don't rate them, but other times because they've yet to unspool before my eyes in the first place.

Films not on Ebert's list that are pretty much shoo-ins for mine (or would be if it ran to more than 20, anyway)? There's.... The Mist. Burn After Reading. City of Ember. Juno. My Winnipeg. You, the Living. Garage. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days. Be Kind Rewind. Chocolate. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Hellboy 2. Redacted. In Search of a Midnight Kiss. La Antena. No Country for Old Men. The Spiderwick Chronicles. Dan in Real Life. Teeth. The Savages. Walk Hard. River Queen. Honeydripper. CJ7. The Boss of it All. Talk to Me.

Of course, a number of those would have been 2007 movies for Ebert... not that he included them all a year ago either.

Films I really, really wish I had seen and feel pretty darn confident about include Rachel Getting Married, Frozen River, Kitt Kittredge: An American Girl, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Che, Tears for Sale, American Teen and Encounters at the End of the World. From all available evidence, they'd be on my list had I been lucky enough to see them.

There's a bunch of lesser known films in the running too - but I won't reveal those now because - drum roll please - coming in the next few days is my Gift List recommendation post. A nice little pile of DVDs that you may not have heard of, each one a genuine and heartfelt recommendation as a gift for that special movie geek in your life. I've come across my own copy of each of these truly special gems this year and did so either by accident, by determination or by miracle - but definitely in spite of popular neglect.

So, coming next: the DVDs to treat yourself or your loved ones to for a gift; then, the official film ick 2008 Films of the Year, Alright? rundown; and finally, just before New Year, I'll tell you why 2009 looks like an even better year than 2008 (which was a better year than 2007, itself a better year than 2006, and - pretty much without exception - so on and so on...)

Michael Sheen Is NOT The Cheshire Cat

So, if Michael Sheen is not the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland...

Somebody out there must know who he's playing however. And I want to know.

Five Point Zero

Okay, so of the thousands of people to read the announcement here, a couple of dozen went over to the film ick community messageboard. A few links from other sites and still nothing.

So it won't live on. Not unless something miraculous happens.

I need to find a way to make film ick happen but not take up all of my life. I am so busy - 12 hour days regularly - but I don't want film ick to die.

So I need to keep experimenting. Trying new ideas.

Next up will be some kind of weekly format. A column. I'd do it as an audio podcast if anybdoy online hosted such things for free - but apparently they don't.

So while I wait for that, it will take the form of a column. And I'll post it here.

Hopefully it will be incredibly saturated with news - lots of obscure stuff, the odd scoop - and in the style of film ick as you've known it all the while.

How does that sound?

Let me know.

First Trailer For The Boat That Rocked

A leak has sprung and from it flowed the first trailer for The Boat that Rocked - not officially online yet. And perhaps this cut of the trailer never will be.

I've popped the link up over at the film ick community board. Please come get it.