Movies

FILM FEST FOCUS: Famous people watching movies!
POSTED: Tuesday, October 12, 2010, 2:00 PM
We just got word that a whole slew of actors, writers, producers and directors involved with the 19th annual Philadelphia Film Festival (Oct. 14-24) will be in attendance for this week's fest. Hottest ticket, of course, is M. Night Shyamalan, who'll be on hand for the 10th-anniversary screening of Unbreakable. But there are a ton of other variously famous folks — Amy Sedaris and John Hodgman (The Best and the Brightest) among them — on the list, so prepare yourself for a few Philly celebrity sightings/seat partners. Check out the full list below, find more information about the fest at the Philadelphia Film Society's website, and be sure to pick up Thursday's City Paper for extensive fest coverage. Jeff Deutchman, Director – "11/4/08" Natalie Difford, Producer – "11/4/08" Pete Rose – "4192: The Crowning of the Hit King" Gavin Bellour, Actor – "A Buddy Story" Declan Baldwin, Producer – "The Best and the Brightest" Jonathan Gray, Producer – "The Best and the Brightest" John Hodgman, Actor (Baby Mama, Coraline) – "The Best and the Brightest" Christopher McDonald, Actor (Requiem for a Dream, Happy Gilmore) – "The Best and the Brightest" Bridget Regan, Actor (Legend of the Seeker) – "The Best and the Brightest" Amy Sedaris, Actor (Bewitched, Jennifer's Body) – "The Best and the Brightest" Peter Serafinowicz, Actor (Couples Retreat) – "The Best and the Brightest" Jenna Stern, Actor (Hitch, 16 Blocks) – "The Best and the Brightest" Bonnie Somerville, Actor (The Ugly Truth) – "The Best and the Brightest" Daniel Eric Gold, Actor (Charlie Wilson's War, Definitely, Maybe) – "Café" Richard Short, Writer – "Café" Mridu Chandra, Producer – "The Canal Street Madam" Brendan McFadden, Actor - "Cold Weather" Trieste Kelly Dunn, Actor (United 93) - "Cold Weather" Geoff Edgers, Producer – "Do It Again" Rebecca Schanberg, Director – "Do No Harm" Skyler Fortgang, Actor (American Gangster)– "Every Day" Ezra Miller, Actor (City Island) – "Every Day" Richard Levine, Director (Nip/Tuck) – "Every Day" Miranda Bailey, Producer (The Squid and the Whale) – "Every Day" Jeff Reichert, Director – "Gerrymandering" Spencer Susser, Director – "Hesher" Stephen Susco, Writer (The Grudge, Red) - "High School" Simon Barrett, Producer - "A Horrible Way to Die" Petra Epperlein, Director - "How to Fold a Flag" Michael Tucker, Director - "How to Fold a Flag" Ben Hickernell, Director – "Lebanon, PA" Greg Jacobs, Director – "Louder Than a Bomb" Steven Klein, Producer - "Make Believe" Brett Haley, Director – "The New Year" Linda Lee McBride, Actor – "The New Year" Glenn Holsten, Director – "OC87" Bud Clayman, Director/Writer – "OC87" Scott Johnston, Director/Writer – "OC87" Barry Blaustein, Director – "Peep World" Mike Woolf, Director – "Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission" Jonathan Schell, Director – "Sex Magic, Manifesting Maya" Eric Liebman, Director – "Sex Magic, Manifesting Maya" M. Night Shyamalan, Director (The Sixth Sense, Signs)– "Unbreakable" Lucy Walker, Director (Countdown to Zero, Blindsight) – "Waste Land" Laurel Nakadate, Director – "The Wolf Knife" Scott Willis, Director – "The Woodmans"
Joan
Posted 2010-10-21 18:31:12
I saw "Every Day" in New York City at the Tribeca Film Festival and loved it. You're in for a treat!!!
Josh Middleton
Posted 2010-10-22 16:41:29
Thanks, Joan!
Posted by Carolyn Huckabay @ 2:00 PM  Permalink | Post a comment

DOC WATCH: William Kentridge Bio on PBS
POSTED: Tuesday, October 5, 2010, 9:00 PM
Filed Under: Movies
About six years ago, a buddy and I went museum hopping in NYC. While getting lost in the Met, I stumbled upon an exhibit by William Kentridge and was blown away. Kentridge, a South African-born artist, predominantly does charcoal sketches, animation, and films — much of which is inspired by apartheid. The animations are particularly impressive because in many of them he uses only one canvas per scene, erasing and redrawing every moving part in each frame. Here's a piece called Monument from 1990:
After not hearing much from Kentridge for awhile, I was pleased to see that PBS is premiering a bio-doc called William Kentridge: Anything is Possible on Oct. 21 at 10 p.m. It will feature interviews with the artist along with footage of him working on his static, animated and live works. Check out the trailer below: http://vimeo.com/14544412
javari
Posted 2010-10-06 19:38:21
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Posted by Sean Kearney @ 9:00 PM  Permalink | Post a comment

ARTSFLASH: Philadelpha Film Festival Announces Line-Up
POSTED: Friday, September 24, 2010, 9:02 PM
Filed Under: Critical Mass | Movies Film Fest
Photo | Magnolia Pictures
Screenshot from Philadelphia director Tanya Hamilton's Night Catches Us

Well, your fall film festival planning just got all sorts of wonky. The Philadelphia Film Festival recently announced their 2010 schedule and it just so happens to coincide with the FirstGlance Film Festival. And if that isn't enough to get your calendar in a tizzy, throw in the Asian American Film Festival. It's running during the last four days of PFF. Good luck figuring that one out.

The bright side to this whole shenanigan, of course, is that each festival offers up it's own unique flavor. For its 19th go-round, PFF comes into the mix with a monstrous line-up of 216 screenings of domestic and international short films, documentaries and features. The festival will run from Oct. 14-24 in six venues around Philadelphia and at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute. You can find a complete list of selections after the jump, with East Coast premieres in bold. Galas:
  • 127 Hours — Danny Boyle
  • Black Swan — Darren Aronofsky
  • Night Catches Us — Tanya Hamilton
  • Blue Valentine - Derek Cianfrance
Special Events Screenings:
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — Niels Arden Oplev
  • The Girl Who Played with Fire — Niels Arden Oplev
  • The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest — Niels Arden Oplev
  • Carlos — Oliver Assayas
  • Rasberry Magic — Leena Pendharkar
  • The Page of Madness — Teinosuke Kinugasa
  • 11/4/08 — Jeff Deutchman
  • Unbreakable — M. Night Shyamalan
From the Vaults:
  • For Your Height Only —Eddie Nicart
  • The Housemaid (1960) — Ki-Young Kim
  • The Room — Tommy Wiseau, U.S.
  • Secret Sunshine — Lee Chang-Dong
Spotlights:
  • Conviction — Tony Goldwyn
  • Everyday — Richard Levine
  • Fair Game — Doug Liman
  • Hesher — Spencer Susser
  • High School — John Stalberg, Jr.
  • I Love You Philip Morris — Glen Ficarra & John Requa
  • Peep World — Barry Blaustein
  • Trust — David Schwimmer
  • Welcome to the Rileys — Jake Scott
Masters of Cinema:
  • Certified Copy — Abbas Kiarostami
  • Film Socialism — Jean-Luc Goddard
  • Housemaid — Im Sang-Soo
  • Poetry — Lee Chang-Dong
  • Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives — Apichatpong Weerasethakul
  • White Material — Claire Denis
World Narratives:
  • The Actresses — Lee Je-Yong
  • Alamar — Pedro González-Rubio
  • Bailbo — Robert Connolly
  • Besouro — Joāo Daniel Tikhomiroff
  • Bo — Hans Herbots
  • Carancho — Pablo Trapero
  • Dog Pound — Kim Chapiron
  • Easy Money — Daniel Espinosa
  • Four Lions — Christ Morris
  • The Four Times — Michaelangelo Frammartino
  • Heartbeats — Xavier Dolan
  • How I Ended This Summer — Alexei Popogrebsky
  • If I Want to Whistle, I'll Whistle — Florin Serban
  • Kawasaki's Rose — Jan Hrebejk
  • La Nostra Vita — Daniele Luchetti
  • London River — Rachio Bouchareb
  • The Man Next Door — Mariano Cohn & Gastón Duprat
  • The Man Who Will Come — Giorgio Diritti
  • Me Too — Alvaro Pastor & Antonia Naharro
  • My Brothers — Paul Fraser
  • Old Cats — Sebastian Silva & Pedro Peirano
  • Parade — Isao Yukisada
  • Puzzle — Natalia Smirnoff
  • Revolución — Rodrigo Pla
  • A Screaming Man — Mahamet-Saleh Haroun
  • Tender Son — Kornél Mundruczó
  • We Are What We Are — Jorge Michel Grau
New French Film:
  • Copacabana — Marc Fitoussi
  • Largo Winch — Jerome Salle
  • Leaving — Catherine Corsini
  • The Princess of Pontpensier — Bertrand Tavernier
  • Silent Voice — Lea Fehner
American Independents:
  • Cold Weather — Aaron Katz
  • The Happy Poet — Paul Gordon
  • A Horrible Way to Die — Adam Wingard
  • The New Year — Brett Haley
  • Tiny Furniture — Lena Dunham
  • The Wolf Knife — Laurel Nakadate
Greater Filmadelphia:
  • Café — Marc Erlbaum
  • The Best and the Brightest — Josh Shelov
  • Lebanon, PA — Ben Hickernell
  • OC87: The Obsessive Compulsive, Major Depression, Bipolar, Asperger's Movie — Bud Clayman, et al.
Documentary Showcase:
  • Boxing Gym — Frederick Wiseman
  • The Canal Street Madam — Cameron Yates
  • Do No Harm — Rebecca Schanberg
  • Garbo — Edmon Roch
  • Gerrymandering — Jeff Reichert
  • How to Fold a Flag — Michael Tucker & Petra Epperlein
  • Kings of Pasty — Chris Hegedus & D.A. Pennebaker
  • Life 2.0 — Jason Spingarn-Koff
  • Louder Than a Bomb — Greg Jacobs & Jon Siskel
  • Make Believe — J. Clay Tweel
  • Marwencal — Jeff Malmberg
  • The Red Chapel — Mads Brûgger
  • Richard Garriot: Man on a Mission — Mike Woolf
  • Waste Land — Lucy Walker
  • The Woodmans — C. Scott Willis
Sight & Soundtrack:
  • A Buddy Story — Marc Erlbaum
  • Do It Again — Robert Patton-Spruill
  • LennonNYC — Michael Epstein
  • Sound of Noise — Ola Simonsson & Johannes Stjare Nilsson
The Graveyard Shift:
  • The Last Circus — Alex De La Iglesia
  • Machete Maidens Unleashed — Mark Hartley
  • Mandrill — Ernesto Diaz Espinoza
  • Mutant Girls Squad — Noburu Iguchi, et al.
  • Outcast — Colm McCarthy
  • Outrage — Takeshi Kitano
  • Red Hill — Patrick Hughes
  • Rubber — Quentin Dupieux
  • The Serbian Film — Srdjan Spasojevic
  • True Legend — Yuen Woo Ping
Cinema of Sex:
  • Leap Year — Michael Rowe
  • The Orgasm Diaries — Ashley Horner
  • Room in Rome — Julio Medem
  • Sex Magic — Jonathan Schell & Eric Liebman
Joe H
Posted 2011-01-08 20:08:34
looking for "if i want to wistle" playing in the phila area in january or february 2011.
Posted by Josh Middleton @ 9:02 PM  Permalink | Post a comment

JUST DO IT: Catfish directors to answer all your burning questions
POSTED: Thursday, September 23, 2010, 6:30 PM
We just got word that the directors of Catfish, that movie that's been kept such a secret that even Sam Adams' review is chock-full of spoilers, will be attending four Saturday screenings of their film at Ritz East and answering questions after the lights go up. Speaking of Sam, here's a clip from his review, which appears in today's paper:
Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman's documentary isn't exactly bombshell city, but there are enough hairpin turns in its narrative to make the surprises worth preserving. It starts innocently enough, with Schulman's brother Nev striking up an online relationship with a girl who admires his dance photography. But things get weird when her mother and sister move into the mix, and Nev's relationship with the latter grows romantic. Before long, he's involved in a passionate but largely virtual love affair, conducted by e-mail, IM and text as well as the occasional phone call. ... The movie itself is an invasion of privacy, as the constant sparring between the filmmakers and their increasingly reluctant subject reminds us.
Watch the (totally ambiguous, WTF) trailer below, and head to the Ritz this weekend to ask Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman what made them follow this social networking cautionary tale.
Screenings and directors Q&A, Sat., Sept. 25, 3:15, 5:30, 7:45 and 10 p.m., Ritz East, 125 S. Second St., landmarktheatres.com.
Posted by Carolyn Huckabay @ 6:30 PM  Permalink | Post a comment

INTERVIEW with CHARLIE DAY: "I threw Chase Utley a knuckleball that blew his mind."
POSTED: Friday, September 3, 2010, 7:00 PM
Filed Under: Interview | Movies | TV
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Charlie Day as Dan in Going the Distance
The main goal of Going the Distance (in area theaters today) is to be anything but the typical romantic comedy: The lovelorn leads (Drew Barrymore and Justin Long), stuck in long distance relationship, speak in expletive-laced sentences rather than amorous cliche. Many thanks are due to Charlie Day, who plays Long's roommate Dan, and steals every scene he's in — whether it's giving heartfelt relationship advice while taking a dump or soundtracking Long and Barrymore's first tryst with "Take My Breath Away." But, of course Day is a scene-stealer; you've watched him do the exact same thing for six seasons as Charlie Kelly on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. We called up Day to chat about Going the Distance, the new season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Thu., Sept. 16, FX, 10 p.m.) and why the ladies love Charlie Kelly. City Paper: I think a lot of romantic comedies live or die on the role you play in Going the Distance — this quirky best friend to the bland romantic lead. It can be the best part of the movie... Charlie Day: Or the worst. CP: Like Bruno Kirby in When Harry Met Sally... CD: I definitely wasn't thinking about being the next Bruno Kirby. I thought about the part the I was doing and just thought about doing the best that I could. But I also thought about making him real, and making him a guy you like so he wasn't just some stereotypical sidekick. I thought it was good that Jason Sudeikis was there too, so it was the two of us and not just about one guy who is always there to be the shoulder to cry on. CP: You're working with Jason Sudeikis again in your next movie, Horrible Bosses. CD: So far so good, obviously I haven't seen anything cut together but what we're shooting is certainly really, really funny. Boy, I hate to see how they mess that up. CP: Did you just fall in love with Sudeikis' Tom Selleck mustache? Was that it? You just couldn't get enough of it? CD: That was it. And I had him on the set of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia this year this will be third Sudeikis-Day joint you can see. CP: As a Philadelphian and representative of our illustrious ilk, I do have to ask about the next season. Can you give me any hints? What can we expect? CD: There's a lot of good stuff, we've got some great guest stars: Dave Foley from Kids in the Hall, he comes on and he's super great; Tom Sizemore did a funny little thing. We did some really good episodes. Put it this way, Charlie and Dennis actually make it out of Philly for a little bit of an adventure. CP: You're leaving us?! CD: We're not leaving! We're just going on a little bit of a jaunt to Atlantic City and it makes a really great episode. CP: If there's one place that you could make look worse than Philadelphia, it's Atlantic City. Did you guys go there? CD: We actually shot it in Philly, in the Harrahs Casino in Port Charles [Port Charles is where General Hospital is set, so we think he meant Chester]. CP: Did you get to gamble? CD: I did not, I did a lot of acting. It was a long day. Chase Utley and Ryan Howard were in that episode, and they're really funny. CP: I've read that you were a baseball player in college. How strong was your desire to just play catch with them all day? CD: We did get to. In the scene, Dennis has a catch with Chase Utley and I asked if I could get in it for a sec and I threw him a knuckleball that blew his mind. CP: So we should we expect you batting in Howard's spot soon? CD: I could come in for a few relief innings but I don't think I could get a bat on the ball. CP: One of the similarities you see between your Going the Distance character and Charlie Kelly is this certain sweetness. It's kind of like you've both been dropped on your heads a couple times but it only served to make you a nicer guy. What makes you gravitate toward these sweet-dunce roles? CD: It's definitely like that in Horrible Bosses too. The simple answer is that's part of the reason I got cast in that role. But also the sweetness comes out to make him real, and not a total cartoon character. You have to believe in the person as a real person and what helps me as a performer is knowing what the character is in love with or cares about. With Charlie Kelly, it's the Waitress and with Dan it was Garrett [Justin Long]. CP: The male bonding you get in this movie is so much more than in most romantic comedies, and director Nanette Burstein lingers on you more than she has to. CD: Yeah, I think that was in an effort to not be a totally stereotypical rom-com. And also in an effort to make it funny for both the girls and guys, and it's not just following that love story for the entire time. You're flushing out the world so they're not just these cartoon characters that you go for a joke or two but you get to live their world for a minute or two and see that, for lack of a better term, they're real people. CP: I've met an inordinate amount of girls who say they would sleep with Charlie Kelly. Not you, not Charlie Day. CD: I think it's a fine line. CP: You say it's a fine line. But I don't think you're sleeping in your long underwear with Danny DeVito every night. CD: I've noticed a change in the last couple of years. I don't know whether it's sympathy or there's just a sheer animal attraction to a man in long johns.
Posted by Molly Eichel @ 7:00 PM  Permalink | Post a comment

HAIKU CONTEST: Win tickets to the Louis CK movie! [NSFW]
POSTED: Thursday, September 2, 2010, 7:00 PM
Filed Under: Comedy | Movies | Stand-up screening
from louisck.com
Yesterday, stand-up comedian/FX TV star Louis CK was drunk tweeting from an airplane. "people think that sarah Paalin is really mean but she has a family of chinese poor people living in her cunt hole. sorry," he said. "@SarahPalinUSA kudos to your dirty hole, you fucking jackoff cunt-face jazzy wondergirl." he added. Anyway, yes, let's give away some tickets to Hilarious starring Louis CK. The screening is Wednesday, Sept. 8, 7:30 p.m. at Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-569-9700, princemusictheater.org. THE CONTEST: In the comments below, write a haiku to or about Sarah Palin. I've got five pairs of tickets to give away. Lots of chances to win. We'll accept entries all weekend long. Have fun out there.
kyle crayton
Posted 2010-09-02 14:04:18
Sarah Palin, smiles. looks like a deer in headlights.smiles like a bobblehead. weeble wobble.
Shayne
Posted 2010-09-02 14:49:08
An anagram for
Sarah Palin's name could be
"attention whore." wait...
Crane Kick
Posted 2010-09-02 14:50:45
You are a moron.
You're accent is annoying.
I would still hit it.
Joseph Rose
Posted 2010-09-02 14:56:30
I love you Louis,
Sarah said with a smile.
I love that shiny red dome.
Ben
Posted 2010-09-02 15:26:59
I'm from Wasilla,
in middle America!
It's right near Russia.
James
Posted 2010-09-02 16:56:39
MILF,Politician,Dope,
our next President?
one can only HOPE....NOT.
GARY LIME
Posted 2010-09-03 12:16:16
Abstinence only?
Your knocked up kid is single
Some Sex Ed. plan, huh?
Phil Jackson
Posted 2010-09-03 14:48:24
Sarah, you hairy cunt,
I can only pray,
you are not in the presidential hunt....unless it's a moose hunt
Sam Calhoun
Posted 2010-09-03 16:23:45
I'm from Wasilla
You are my embarrasment
Sarah Palin sucks
MJM
Posted 2010-09-03 19:48:09
beware of palin  
dangerous as ignorant 
dumb teabagging slut
CPJ
Posted 2010-09-04 17:42:12
How oh how I ask,
Did a boob get such limelight?
Stop the attention!
CD
Posted 2010-09-04 21:23:43
THE BLUE MOON CHANTS A LULLABYE TO SARAH PALIN BUTTERFLY NOW GONE
Sandra
Posted 2010-09-05 12:42:14
Sad, silly Sarah
You are the worst example
of us four eyed girls
Jay Gambit
Posted 2010-09-05 17:59:21
To Sarah Palin:
Nobody likes you. No one.
Shut your whore mouth now.
Tashamaria Tromer
Posted 2010-09-06 09:52:50
Sarah, capture your
wonderfulness (in) 17 
syllables? Silence.
Al
Posted 2010-09-06 10:27:08
When you winked at us
It made my vagina hurt.
Less sense than an egg.
Posted by Patrick Rapa @ 7:00 PM  Permalink | Post a comment

INTERVIEW with Soul Kitchen director FATIH AKIN
POSTED: Thursday, September 2, 2010, 3:00 PM
Filed Under: Interview | Movies
From Fatih Akin's Soul Kitchen
A decade before you could DJ with computers, the writer/director Fatih Akin was spinning hip-hop on vinyl. A child of the '80s, he purchased hundreds of LPs back in the day but he recalls, "The first record I bought — when I was 12, in 1986—was Parade by Prince." He boasts, "Now I have more than 100 vinyls of Prince! That was my very first one. I liked him since 1984's Purple Rain. I would record his songs on the radio with a tape recorder, and then, when the [disc jockey] talked, I'd be like, Oh! I got him on the tape!" Akin's musical memories explain where his interest in American soul music comes from, and, like his other films, the genre is an essential ingredient in his new film, Soul Kitchen (at the Ritz at the Bourse) about a put upon restaurateur named Zinos (co-writer Adam Bousdoukos), who names his titular eatery because of his similar passion for soul. Zinos has troubles with his back (a slipped disc), his finances, his girlfriend Nadine (Pheline Roggan), his criminal brother Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu), a tempestuous alcoholic chef Shayne (Birol Ünel), as well as a health inspector, a tax inspector, a freeloading tenant and other assorted individuals. This is a reunion of sorts, bringing together stars of Akin's previous work: Soul Kitchen is a farcical comedy, full of slapstick moments, and closer in spirit to Akin's early film In July, which starred Bleibtreu. However, Akin is best known for his extraordinary dramas, Edge of Heaven and Head-On, the latter of which starred Ünel. Ünel steals every scene as the film's hotheaded chef. Akin says he loves working with Ünel, trying to deflect a question about Ünel being very much like his wild, alcoholic character on screen in his real life. Eventually, he confesses, "He's difficult to handle. He's like a crazy brother to me. I love him, you know." Akin eventually acknowledges the truth about his actor, saying, "When I was younger, I had a naïve idea I could rescue him in a way, but only he can rescue himself. That's the problem with addiction." He praises his cast playing together "like a good soccer team." And part of this may be Akin's reliance on employing his wife Monique as his casting director and casting his brother Cem in a supporting role. "It has its advantages," Akin says about working with family and friends. "But it's exciting to work with new people, too. When you meet someone you don't know, you have to find out who this person is. It's like dating. And you have to listen to them, and you want to treat them right. It's work. I'm very lazy — practical — it makes more sense for me to work with people I already know are good, and what they want."
Akin said he looked at many comedies for inspiration, settling on Chaplin's Modern Times over the equally brilliant output of Buster Keaton. "Chaplin was more hysteric than Keaton," Akin insists. "[Zinos] is a more hysteric character — doing gymnastic movements on the dance floor. This is like Chaplin, in a way." Yet, Akin also culled elements from contemporary comedies, citing the Coen Brothers' The Big Lebowski as an influence — particularly a scene in the end of that film in which a character is reunited with his prized ferret and looks into the camera. Akin laughs at the memory. But slapstick hilarity was not the only source Akin drew from: He mentions Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead as a source for another shot in Soul Kitchen, one where Zinos falls to the floor in agony with back pain, and the camera falls with him. Despite Akin's love for Americana, working within the Hollywood system is not his goal. "I love American films. I'm a great admirer of them," he says, "but I don't want to come here and make them. They tell you what to do and how to edit them — I would struggle with that."
Posted by Gary M. Kramer @ 3:00 PM  Permalink | Post a comment

INTERVIEW with Centurion director NEIL MARSHALL: "I deliberately put everybody through hell."
POSTED: Friday, August 27, 2010, 3:00 PM
Filed Under: Interview | Movies
Olga Kurylenko in Neil Marshall's Centurion.
British director Neil Marshall made bloody, gory waves in 2007 with The Descent, a bleak and decidedly atmospheric horror film following an ill-fated cave exploration in the Appalachians. But since then, the media whirlwind has died down, and Marshall has moved on to other projects, including two new movies and an entrancing, writer, model actress, horror buff, artistic collaborator, and ball-and-chain by the name of Axelle Carolyn. His newest flick, Centurion (in theaters today), is a different direction for the filmmaker: A period film based on the wars between the Picts, an indigenous ancient British tribe, and the invading Roman Empire in the first century. It's a historical adventure or sorts, revolving around a band of Roman soldiers who survive the famous Pictish attack on the Roman Ninth Legion and must endure further hunting by their guerilla attackers. I sat down with both Marshall and Carolyn to talk about the making of Centurion, production races with another film and Mel Gibson. City Paper: Centurion is a new direction for you. You've done horror with Dog Soldiers and The Descent, and post-apocalypse with Doomsday, but this is a period piece. Why did you decide to go in that direction? Neil Marshall: It's the kind of film that I've always wanted to make. I love watching that kind of movie, so ... it's just another genre that I wanted to tackle. And I guess it's kind of a mix-and-match as well. It's very much in the model of a Western, with an ancient history sensibility as well. CP: Westerns are obviously tied into the American mythos. Is the history here — the focus on an ancient British tribe like the Picts — tied to a kind of British mythos? NM: Well that particular frontier of Rome was the farthest frontier, and it was, to them, the Wild West; it was untamed ... And so I treated it very much like that. I modeled it in some ways on the old John Ford cavalry movies, and it has a similar sensibility in that it's very un-PC: telling the story from the invader's point of view and the gray areas that result from that. There are heroes and villains on both sides. The Picts are like the Comanches, and there are a lot of similarities, like the fact that they wear the war paint. And yet, that's not fabricated, that is what the Picts did. So the parallels already exist, I just put them on film.
CP: In that sense it's obliquely political not only because you're conflicting sympathies between the Picts and the Romans, but also because it's bound up in the idea of the individual being forsaken by the society to which he or she has been so patriotic. NM: There was the general overview that emerged as I was writing it that it is about the superpower of the time going into this country and having to deal with guerrilla warfare, and the results of that. And obviously that's going to have comparisons with events in the world over the past 40 years, as well as what's going on now in Afghanistan. But once I came to that comparison, I didn't want to ram it down the audience's throats. People will see it if they want to see it. But at heart I'm making a historical adventure movie, and I don't want to turn it into some kind of gratuitous allegory. Axelle Carolyn: I think that Neil is the least political person you could possibly find ... I think that very often that makes the most interesting and personal films, when you don't set out to ram a message down the throats of people. NM: ... My dad was in the army, my granddad was in the army. So I definitely have an affinity for soldiers and the like. And so my film is about the individual. It's about the fact that, regardless of what you may think about these campaigns, be it Rome, be it what's going on in Afghanistan, whatever — I, for one, totally support the soldiers and want them to come home. And that's primarily what the story's about — this bunch of guys who are betrayed and become disillusioned by the job that they're doing and just want to get home. CP: It seems like there's a bit of tension here. Centurion is very heavily genre-influenced. In a lot of ways, it's just kind of a history thriller. But at the same time, there's something more intimate and melancholy about it than the average period piece. How do you want your audience to react to the film? NM: I think that, at first, I want it to be a thrill ride. But they will hopefully carry something else away from it. It's not necessarily a film of happy endings. There's a resolution, but in this situation I don't know what a happy ending would be. My endings are always a big ambiguous anyway ... this was no different. But is it melancholy?
Centurion direction Neil Marshall
CP: I guess maybe more doleful. NM: I always knew that the visual tone of the movie was going to be very downbeat; I set out to make a bleak movie in every sense. It was going to be about these people getting massacred, and it was in a bleak environment with bleak conditions, and I wanted that. I deliberately filmed it in winter and deliberately put everybody through hell. I graded it so it would feel even colder and bleaker. ... You know, this was inspired by me standing up on Hadrian's Wall as a child in the pouring rain in the bleak Northeast of England and thinking, God, what must have it been like for these people to come from the Mediterranean and face this enemy that is so terrifying that they built this 60-mile long wall to keep them out? CP: It was shot in seven weeks, right? Which is five weeks under the normal length for such a movie. NM: Yes, we worked very fast. I like to work fast anyway, but with this one, a part of it was that I got a lot of criticism on Doomsday for overcutting the movie, for making it really frenetic and fast. So with this one, I was making kind of an older style movie, I watched a lot of older movies as well and noticed how they were perfectly happy to just sit back and watch a scene play and not have to cut in or do any of that. So it was a conscious effort to try to shoot more of that style and let the actors move and not try and mess around with it so much — just let the scene play out. AC: I think that for most people, seven weeks sounds like a lot of time, if they don't work in film. But at the same time, The Wolfman was doing reshoots, and their reshoots took longer than the entire shoot for Centurion. NM: The comparison I use is The Battle of Sterling in Braveheart. [Mel Gibson] had six weeks to shoot that entire battle. We did our entire film in seven. CP: Well I guess Mel Gibson isn't one to do something on a small scale if he doesn't have to. But it does have, despite being kind of an epic, a more intimate feel than a lot of others, and I assume that was intentional. NM: I'm sure I would have loved to do a huge Braveheart-style battle, but we simply couldn't afford the extras or visual effects to do that, so I had to plan around the money that we had at the time, the time that we had, and make it feel bigger than it actually was. The bigger scenes with the crowds, literally if you turned the camera that way or that way, there was nobody there. Everybody that we had was in the shot. And we just tried to plan it so that there were a few shots within that scale; the rest was into the nitty-gritty of the individuals hacking and slashing. CP: I wanted to ask you a question or two about the language in the film. There were obviously certain things you wanted to keep historically accurate, but why did you decide to make the Romans speak English and leave the Picts speaking Pictish. NM: It was always the case that I wanted the Picts to speak something other than the Romans did ... But obviously the problem that we had was that there is no recorded language of the Picts, so we had to come up with the most ancient language that would fit the profile. The experts will tell you that Welsh is the most ancient language that we have in the U.K., but it just seemed inappropriate to have these Scots speaking Welsh. However authentic it might be, it's still not the right language. So what we actually had them speak was Scots-Gaelic, which is a very ancient language; maybe not as old as Welsh, but old enough. AC: I think the problem is that there've been talks of making the film in Latin. The thing is, not only is that very impractical, especially when you shoot on a reasonably low budget where you cast your actors a few weeks before they start shooting — they don't really have the time to learn the language. But also, commercially you can't really get away with it. Mel Gibson can get away with it because he made the most profitable independent film of all time; he's got his own following. NM: You come under fire from people online saying things like they wouldn't have been swearing like that. And yeah, but they wouldn't have been speaking in English either. If they're going to speak English, they might as well swear in English. But I wanted to get a sense of this kind of banter between the guys that represented what I think the soldiers would have been like then: just as they are now. AC: I do see your point though, that it's not so much about trying to make it historically accurate as it is about depicting the Picts as being the ones that you don't necessarily straight away identify with, because they have this other language ... It wasn't so much to show one side as being more foreign or more remote. NM: It was also a part with Etain [a mute], who can't speak any language. Which is all about that lack of communication. CP: You just want her to be more of a force. NM: Yeah. A lot of people have asked if I made her mute because I cast Olga Kurylenko in the role, and a Ukrainian actor wouldn't have fit the part, and that's absolutely not the case. The character was mute from the very first draft of the script. I wanted her to be a force of nature who expressed herself purely through violence and action and aggression. I thought that was really interesting for a character. I also thought it would be really interesting for an actor to play a totally mute character. It's a real challenge for them.... Even Olga was like, "Just let me say a few lines." And the answer was, "No, you get to scream, and that's it." And ultimately she embraced that.
Posted by Eric Henney @ 3:00 PM  Permalink | Post a comment

NOW SEE THIS: M. Night Shyamalan makes a funny
POSTED: Thursday, August 26, 2010, 8:13 PM
Filed Under: Movies | Now See This

Possibly as a savvy PR move, possibly because he thought "When the hell else am I going to be able to stand next to Penthouse pet Ryan Keeley in her bra and panties?" M. Night Shyamalan parodies Devil. And hey! It's that guy from Avatar! RELATED >> Listen to an audience react to M. Night Shyamalan's name h/t Vulture

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/08/see_m_night_shyamalan_in_escal.html
Posted by Molly Eichel @ 8:13 PM  Permalink | Post a comment

Philly-born director of Beatles flicks, Superman donates his archives to the British Film Institute
POSTED: Monday, August 23, 2010, 7:20 PM
Filed Under: Movies | Music
One of Philly's finest ex-pats, director Richard Lester, has decided to donate his archives to the British Film Institute. The BBC reports that Lester chose the BFI because of their long-standing relationship. While born in Philadelphia, Lester is best known for directing the Beatles in Help! and A Hard Day's Night. His association with the Fab Four led him identification with the burgeoning youth scene in '60s London and made him the perfect choice to take on swinging '60s sex romp The Knack ... and How to Get It, which won the Palm d'Or at Cannes. Petulia, my personal fave of from the Lester canon, was also scheduled to compete at Cannes in 1968 but the fest was canceled. Lester also took over the Superman films, after original director Richard Donner was fired from the sequel. He retired after directing 1989's The Return of the Musketeers, only emerging behind the camera to reunite with Paul McCartney for the 1993 concert film Get Back. Lester's archives include draft scripts of his Beatles films and correspondence with various celebs, including Raquel Welch and Audrey Hepburn. REVIEW >> CONCERT REVIEW: Paul McCartney @ Wells Fargo Center, 8/14
Posted by Molly Eichel @ 7:20 PM  Permalink | Post a comment
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