·My cinema-scholar hero and friend, David Bordwell, has a blog! He and his partner, Kristin Thompson, have been posting their observations on film and art there. It was always a pleasure to work with and learn from them both, and I’m thrilled to able to do so again from afar. Check it out! Be sure to take a look at Kristin’s post on Snakes On a Plane.
·Silverdocs lauds Demme. Jonathan Demme will be honored for his documentary work in the upcoming Silverdocs festival. He is currently working on new films about Jimmy Carter and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Variety reports.
Cam Archer’s Wild Tigers I Have Known, premiered locally at the Walker’s Queer Takes program last June, has been acquired by IFC Films for their First Take program that releases films in theaters and to their on demand platform simultanesously. Hopefully, this will make it to a local screen. Keep an eye out for the film on February 28.
Queer Takes will be returning this June with another slate of challenging, innovative and exciting work in Queer Cinema.
Grande dude of the French cinema, Alain Delon, will star in Hong Kong auteur Johnnie To’s next film, reports CriEnglish. This seems particularly fitting to me, as Delon’s hard-boiled turns in the films of Jean-Pierre Melville greatly inspired HK New Wave actors such as Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung. Last year’s Election 2 may well be To’s masterpiece, see it at all costs!
Speaking of Election 2, it won the Best Film award from the Hong Kong Critics Society this past week, and To also walked away with Best Director for another excellent picture, Exiled. Other notable prizes went to Best Actor Jet Li for his role in Fearless and Best Actress Gong Li for her role in Curse of the Golden Flower.
With the increasing popularity of Asian film, it’s about time that a pan-Asian film award was created - this year will mark the first iteration of the Asian Film Awards! Organized by the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the extremely diverse lineup features an admirable race for Best Picture, with the aforementioned Curse of the Golden Flower and Exiled representing HK, The Host representing South Korea, Opera Jawa representing Indonesia, and Still Life representing mainland China.
Fortune Star releases have been at the top of my list for the past two years, following a tried-and-true formula: take hard to find Hong Kong classics such as Bullet in the Head, Police Story and All About Ah Long, painstakingly digitally remaster them in high def, freshly translate the subtitles, and pack in dozens of extras. This week sees the release of a true masterpiece, long name-checked by Quentin Tarantino and out-of-print for more than a decade thanks to the gross incompetence of Miramax - Peking Opera Blues.
Watch the trailer for Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s latest, Retribution, courtesy of Twitch. The film marks Kurosawa’s 8th pairing with Japanese everyman Koji Yakusho, starring as a detective who comes to suspect he may be investigating himself.
And, if this humble 007 fan might stretch the semantics of “Asian Film”, Casino Royale opened in China yesterday, the first time in the 45-year history of filmic Bond that one of the character’s outings has seen official release! The BBC has the full story.
On Friday, the Film/Video staff hosted Kenneth Anger for lunch in the Walker’s Gallery 8 Café. Having been long fascinated by Mickey Mouse (the subject of Anger’s Mouse Heaven, on view in the Lecture Room though tomorrow), Dr. Anger was quite taken BY Claes Oldenburg’s Geometric Mouse sculpture out on the terrace. He asked if it might be possible to have his photograph taken with the piece. Our crack photographer Gene Pittman was thankfully available and dropped everything to come up and shoot some pictures in the cold. The pictures are fantastic and as so few of these moments are seen by the public, I thought I’d share a few of my favorites here.
Wow. Seeing Fireworks, Rabbit’s Moon, Scorpio Rising and Kustom Kar Kammandos restored was like seeing them for the first time. For the people who were at this sold out event, I think there is no denying how special the night was. Listening to his stories left me in awe at the life Dr. Anger has lived. Indeed, at the presentation at the Walker Cinema on Friday night I think the audience was just as enchanted, if not more so, with Dr. Anger’s storytelling as they were with the restored 35mm prints of his films. Thank you Dr. Anger.
It is hard to imagine seeing Fireworks in 1947, which still seems so bold and shocking. To quote Anais Nin who saw the film at the time “At someone’s house I was shown [Anger’s] film Fireworks. The sadism and violence revolted me, but the film has power and is artistically perfect. It has a nightmare quality. Everyone had mixed feelings, horror and recognition of Kenneth Anger’s talent.” That talent is still easy to see today.
This Sunday’s New York Times had an interesting article by A. O. Scott (”The World is Watching. Not Americans.“) lamenting the lack of foreign film appreciation here in the U.S. To quote the article: “The movies are out there, more numerous and various than ever before, but the audience - and therefore box-office returns and the willingness of distributors to risk even relatively small sums on North American rights - seems to be dwindling and scattering.” As much as I like to join in on any doomsday proclamation and wax poetically about the way things used to be, I wonder if things are all that bad.
Until I win the lottery and build my own multiplex and start playing films for myself, I don’t think I will ever be satisfied with what sees screen time in the Twin Cities. However, I do think the Twin Cities is blessed with a small group of smart and scrappy (and, yes, somewhat beleaguered) independent film organizations. At the heart of A. O. Scott’s article are the foreign films topping many critic’s lists for 2006 such as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and Pan’s Labyrinth. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu had a two-week stint at the Parkway, and while I’m sure no records were broken for viewership, astute Twin Cities cineastes saw this film. As for Pan’s Labyrinth, look for records to be broken: I stood in line with everyone else this weekend to see this film at the Uptown theater. (When I enquired about their weekend business, the ticket seller said that on opening night they had sold out, which hadn’t happened at the Uptown for three years. Two points for foreign language films!) Once agian, from the article: ” If you have seen Three Times or L’Enfant - to name two other hits of the 2005 Cannes Festival that came and went here in the blink of an eye last year despite choruses of critical praise - then you can perhaps feel the flush of specialness that comes from belonging to an exclusive coterie.” Yes! I do feel that flush! Three Times had four screenings at the Walker in September and L’Enfant played at Landmark’s Edina Theater for a week. Furthermore on the flush of specialness: “All the more if you are familiar with the festival-only titles on some critics’ lists of undistributed movies, like Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century or Pedro Costa’s Colossal Youth.” While I am holding out for a screening of Regis alumn Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century, I am feeling a particularly exclusive coterie flush about Colossal Youth that screened at the Walker in October.
No, it’s not all that bad, but the reality of the market is pointed out in an IndieWire article: “So far, in 2006, less than 10 films have crossed the $1 million mark, but here’s an even more startling statistic: Of the more than 100 foreign-language films released so far this year, less than a quarter have broken $100,000 in ticket sales. (In 2005, by comparison, about half of the 128 foreign-language titles released made well over $100,000.)” Wow. If nothing else, this is a plea to support those smart and scappy programers, where ever you are. The exclusive coterie is there…waiting for you.
To say I am looking forward to this would be an understatement. I’ve been a fan of Anger’s work for years, and I’m thrilled that he will grace the Cinema stage at the Walker again for the first time in over 25 years, mere days before his 80th birthday. Needless to say, Dr. Anger has countless incredible stories about his life, work, and the history of Cinema. As if that isn’t enough, he will be presenting the new 35mm UCLA restorations of Fireworks, Rabbit's Moon, Scorpio Rising, and Kustom Kar Kommandos. We will also be showing Invocation of My Demon Brother, a recent gift to the Walker’s Edmund R. Ruben Film and Video Study collection from Sally Dixon. This will be a night to remember. Do not miss it! I would recommend buying tickets in advance as they are going quickly.
The Films of Kenneth Anger volume 1 DVD was released yesterday (and will hopefully hit the Walker Shop’s shelves by the week’s end. However, seeing these films projected from 35mm prints in the Cinema will no doubt remind you of why seeing actual film projected in a theater setting is unparalleled. The color, scale, power, and intensity of these films will be immediately apparent. Do not miss your chance to see them.
To whet your appetite and give you a hint of what these restorations will offer, take a look at the trailer for the DVD:
Yesterday saw the first official press meet for Ang Lee’s latest film - Lust, Caution, via MonkeyPeaches - Lee was featured in a Regis retrospective at the Walker in 2005. The film will be the first pairing of Lee with Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung, and takes place during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.
Japanese exploitation classic Sailor Suit and Machine Gun sees its first-ever release with English subtitles thanks to Kadokawa Films. Kaikaaaaaan!
Rinko Kikuchi is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Babel- brush up before the Oscars by watching her in Taste of Tea (my personal favorite of 2004) and reading this interview at Midnight Eye.
Bong Joon-Ho’s excellent The Host finally sees DVD release in Korea (with English subtitles, no less) - catch it as a double header with his masterful Memories of Murder and discover your new favorite director!
· The New York Times reviewed the upcoming Kenneth Anger DVD. As exciting as it will be to finally have these films more widely available, you do not want to miss your chance to see these restored 35mm prints on the big screen in the Cinema at the Walker on Friday. Dr. Anger will be present. It will be a spectacular evening.
· Fox Searchlight has picked up the worldwide rights to Waitress, the final film written and Directed by the late Adrienne Shelly. indieWire reports.
They were announced this morning, and can be seen here. There aren’t too many surprises in the “major” categories, but I’m pleased to see Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady nominated for best doc for Jesus Camp. Rachel Grady was here last year to present The Boys of Baraka at last year’s Women With Vision Festival. Deepa Mehta’s Water, also part of Women With Vision 2006, is up for Best Foreign Language film.
· indieWire has announced the 9 film “shortlist” of contenders for the Best Foreign Language. Look for Avenue Montaigne to hit the Walker Cinema during Women With Vision in March.
· I was thrilled to see a post on Twitch entitled Geek Bonanza! The Bonanza is an R2D2 video projector. I may be a geek, but I couldn’t sink this low.
Next Tuesday will mark the opening of Doug Aitken’s Sleepwalkers at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This massive installation, and Aitken’s first public art piece, takes full advantage of MoMA’s new building by projecting eight large-scale moving images throughout the museum and on its facade. Tilda Swinton, Donald Sutherland, Chan Marshall, Seu Jorge, and Ryan Donowho star in the “broken narrative, without beginning or end.”
We’ve been looking forward to this installation for quite some time now. Some of Doug Aitken’s work is in the Walker’s Permanent Collection, and we’ve been following Tilda Swinton’s career since her earliest work with Derek Jarman. It will be fascinating to see how the public reacts to this massive piece and how the building and city will absorb it.
One Reaction, of a sort, has already been documented. As i was preparing to write this post, Assistant Curator Dean Otto forwarded a post he read on Curbed about a guerrilla art piece put up by one of MoMA’s neighbors. While MoMA was setting up and calibrating the projectors for Sleepwalkers, they set their own projector up across the street and projected an image that simply states “YOUR VIDEO ART HERE.” You can see more images from the set-up at the artist’s flickr site. They have stated that they will not run their intervention while the Aitken piece is running.
Cam Archer’s 
Wow. Seeing Fireworks, Rabbit’s Moon, Scorpio Rising and Kustom Kar Kammandos restored was like seeing them for the first time. For the people who were at this sold out event, I think there is no denying how special the night was. Listening to his stories left me in awe at the life Dr. Anger has lived. Indeed, at the 
Pan’s Labyrinth, look for records to be broken: I stood in line with everyone else this weekend to see this film at the Uptown theater. (When I enquired about their weekend business, the ticket seller said that on opening night they had sold out, which hadn’t happened at the Uptown for three years. Two points for foreign language films!) Once agian, from the article: ” If you have seen Three Times or L’Enfant - to name two other hits of the 2005 Cannes Festival that came and went here in the blink of an eye last year despite choruses of critical praise - then you can perhaps feel the flush of specialness that comes from belonging to an exclusive coterie.” Yes! I do feel that flush! 
played at Landmark’s Edina Theater for a week. Furthermore on the flush of specialness: “All the more if you are familiar with the festival-only titles on some critics’ lists of undistributed movies, like Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century or Pedro Costa’s Colossal Youth.” While I am holding out for a screening of 
No, it’s not all that bad, but the reality of the market is pointed out in an 
To say I am looking forward to this would be an understatement. I’ve been a fan of Anger’s work for years, and I’m thrilled that 
They were announced this morning, and can be seen 
