Archive for the ‘film’ Category
December 18th, 2009
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Author: Live From Memphis’ quarterly Li’l Film Fest will be held Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Brooks Museum of Art.
This 12th Li’l Film Fest is the biggest ever, with 19 short films totally roughly 90 minutes, among them works from such established local filmmakers as Morgan Jon Fox, Ryan Parker, and Corduroy Wednesday.
The theme for this Li’l Film Fest is “Free Footage” with all filmmakers given three short clips —Â car headlights in the distance, trees swaying a twilight sky, a pair of hands rubbing an egg —Â and asked only to incorporate the footage into their films in some way.
The results are scattered, as you’d imagine. Some took the challenge as an impetus to make experimental films rooted in rhythmic editing and visual collage. Others found ways to incorporate the footage organically into narrative films. And still others took a post-modern approach to challenge, using found footage within the context of their films as just that — found footage.
At the end of the screening, a $500 Grand Jury Prize will be awarded. There will also be an audience award, with the winner getting proceeds from the door.
For more info, go here.
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We conclude our five-part series of posts on the decade in movies (Take 1 here, Take 2 here, Take 3 here, Take 4 here.) with another 20 or so of our favorite scenes and moments. Finally, I wrap it all up with my own Top 25 films of the decade.
MOMENTS:
Basset hound Bruno dutifully organizing his days around barking at the passing trains, echoes of a puppyhood trauma in THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE. (CH)
Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton) rolls by two cops investigating an arson, and he’s so transparently guilty that “Fire” is playing on his car radio, HOT FUZZ. (AE)
Paikea (Keisha Castle-Hughes) gives a speech and sings and fights back tears all the while in WHALE RIDER. (GA)
Heath Ledger’s Joker poking his head through a squad car window, soaking up the night air, soundtrack muted. A moment of peace in THE DARK KNIGHT. (CH)
The Joker at peace:
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We continue our five-part series of posts on the decade in movies (Take 1 here, Take 2 here, Take 3 here) with another 20 or so of our favorite scenes and moments. Plus, Addison Engelking reveals his alternative list of 25 favorite films of the decade.
MOMENTS:
“Knights of Columbus!” “Great Odin’s raven!” “By the beard of Zeus!” — stentorian non-sequiturs in ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY. (CH)
William Wilberforce ponders a spider web, AMAZING GRACE. (AE)
A comic-book action scene goes Sam Raimi with a series of double-second vignettes of horror as Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) attacks a surgery room, and a surgeon fights back with a chainsaw, in SPIDER-MAN 2. (GA)
“I’m the Invincible Sword Goddess,” young fighter Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi) says, mocking pretentious martial arts monikers as she mows through a patriarchal maze of slovenly, self-important male opponents in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. (CH)
Teen warrior, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:
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We continue our five-part series of posts on the decade in movies (Take 1 here, Take 2 here, Take 3 here) with another 20 or so of our favorite scenes and moments. Plus, Addison Engelking reveals his alternative list of 25 favorite films of the decade.
MOMENTS:
“Knights of Columbus!” “Great Odin’s raven!” “By the beard of Zeus!” — stentorian non-sequiturs in ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY. (CH)
William Wilberforce ponders a spider web, AMAZING GRACE. (AE)
A comic-book action scene goes Sam Raimi with a series of double-second vignettes of horror as Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) attacks a surgery room, and a surgeon fights back with a chainsaw, in SPIDER-MAN 2. (GA)
“I’m the Invincible Sword Goddess,” young fighter Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi) says, mocking pretentious martial arts monikers as she mows through a patriarchal maze of slovenly, self-important male opponents in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. (CH)
Teen warrior, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:
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Up in the Air, the George Clooney-starring film set to open in Memphis Christmas week, was the big winner as the Southeastern Film Critics Association today named its critics poll winners for 2009. The organization comprises 44 voting members across nine Southeastern states (myself included).
- George Clooney: Up in the air and atop the SEFCA poll.
I’ll run down the winners with my own brief commentary after each category:
BEST PICTUREâ¨
1. Up in the Airâ¨
2. The Hurt Lockerâ¨
3. Upâ¨
4. Inglourious Basterdsâ¨
5. A Serious Manâ¨
6. (500) Days of Summerâ¨
7. Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphireâ¨
8. The Messengerâ¨
9. Fantastic Mr. Foxâ¨
10. District 9â¨â¨
I don’t want to spoil my own year-end list, which will run in next week’s paper (and which is drawn from a slightly different pool of films: 2009 Memphis releases rather than 2009 national releases), so I’ll just say that I voted for half of this Top 10.
BEST ACTORâ¨
George Clooney — Up in the Airâ¨
* Runner-up: Jeremy Renner — The Hurt Lockerâ¨â¨
Clooney is nearly always a strong presence, and here as well, but I didn’t find his Up in the Air performance quite the revelation some are making it out to be. I threw my vote away on Goodbye Solo’s Souleymane Sy Savane for first and voted The Informant!’s Matt Damon second. Renner was third on my ballot.
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We continue our five-part series of posts on the decade in movies (Take 1 here, Take 2 here) with another 20 or so of our favorite scenes and moments. Plus, Greg Akers reveals his 25 favorite films of the decade.
MOMENTS:
The sudden cut from animation to real footage, and then the silence, that ends WALTZ WITH BASHIR. (CH)
Abducted by cape-wearing Syndrome, Baby Jack-Jack throws a tantrum high in the sky and suddenly figures out he’s one of THE INCREDIBLES. (AE)
Morty (George Harris) beats the hell out of a hood in a café, to the sounds of Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World,” in LAYER CAKE. (GA)
The Bride (Uma Thurman) awakens from a coma, clutches her empty womb, and screams. A revenge plot set in motion in KILL BILL VOL. 1. (CH)
Waking up, Kill Bill Vol. 1:
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Our best-of-the-decade film series continues (see Take 1 here) with another batch of memorable scenes and moments. At the end, each of the Flyer’s three film critics lists some of our favorite acting performances of the decade.
MOMENTS:
“I love seeing a teacher out of school. It’s like seeing a dog walking on its hind legs.” — Tina Fey at the mall, MEAN GIRLS. (Chris Herrington)
A car chase in the rain, WE OWN THE NIGHT. (Addison Engelking)
Wong Kar-Wai’s camera longingly tracks Maggie Cheung walking down — and then back up — a flight of steps, the world moving on a woman’s hips in IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE. (CH)
The spectacle of Maggie Cheung in transit, In the Mood for Love:
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- Steven Spielberg (above) is one of our Directors of the Decade. So is Alfonso Cuaron (below).
We’ll have our year-end-list picks for 2009 in an upcoming print edition of the Flyer, but first we wanted to look back at the entire decade in movies.
In this five-post series, Flyer film writers (Chris Herrington, Greg Akers, and Addison Engelking) will list our favorite films, filmmakers, performances, scenes, and moments of the decade.
(We will each post our personal Top 25 lists for the decade in the concluding posts. But I’m counting down my Top 100 on Twitter. You can follow me at @ChrisHerrington.)
We’re especially fond of the scenes and moments. In homage to the “Moments Out of Time” series Film Comment magazine used to publish to celebrate each year in film, we’ve meditated on what we remember most about movies of the aughts and came up with a list of roughly 100 moments that we think capture some of the best of what being a filmgoer meant over the past 10 years.
We’ll lead off each of these five rather lengthy posts with 20 or so memorable moments/scenes and conclude each with additional lists. This one features our picks for the decade’s most overlooked or underrated films and the decade’s definitive filmmakers.
We hope you enjoy reading it, because we sure had fun putting it together:
MOMENTS:
The symphony of confusion, panic, and excitement that crosses Seth Rogen’s face when he realizes Katherine Heigl isn’t leaving the club with her sister, but is instead staying with him: KNOCKED UP. (CH)
Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor reinvent the split-screen as an erotic dance in DOWN WITH LOVE. (AE)
The heroine (Audrey Tautou) becomes an anonymous do-gooder as her unsuspecting quarry (Maurice Bénichou) finds a box from his childhood and is reduced to tears in a flash of memory in AMELIE. (GA)
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An old friend of Marilyn Monroe’s just unearthed a home movie of the blonde bombshell toking on a joint.
The woman, who, for now, remains anonymous, told press that the scene “was all real casual, it was just friends hanging out. She was the same [after smoking] — a little giggly.”
There’s no sound, but you can clearly see Monroe bogart the yerba stick before hitting the hay and passing it on to her gal pal. Watch below:
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Justin Timberlake is in talks to portray Boo Boo in the film production of Yogi Bear, based upon the cartoon series from Hannah-Barbera. No lie. Variety sez so.
Further: Dan Aykroyd = Yogi. Anna Faris to play a documentary filmmaker. I smell Oscuster (an Oscar-winning box-office blockbuster).
No word yet if the script will have Boo Boo bringing pic-a-nic baskets back.
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