Screen Rush is the blog of film critic and journalist Eric Kohn, whose work regularly appears in indieWIRE, New York Press, Filmmaker, Moviemaker, Heeb Magazine and a half dozen other outlets. A true twenty-first century movie buff, his writing centers around the impact of new media on the moving image, the changing face of film criticism, and the tempestuous relationship between pop culture and independent artistry. This site includes links to his recently published work and allows for additional thoughts on cinema's modern state. E-mail Eric at erichkohn(at)gmail(dot)com.
I was a big fan of The House of the Devil, Ti West’s neatly executed slice of old school horror, when it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. But Ti was not, complaining in a retroactively controversial interview with Spout about four minutes that were missing from his version of the movie.
I spoke with Ti for The Wall Street Journal this week. In the midst of our conversation, he revealed that Magnolia agreed to put those hotly contested four minutes back in the movie after they bought it a few months out of Tribeca. So now you can check out Devil this weekend and know for a fact that it’s Ti-approved. Ti-ed up. You’ll be Ti-dyed. Welcome to Ti-land? Okay, I’ll stop now.
Earlier this year, I was contacted by a start-up called Filmmortal that had an interesting agenda: The site serves as a middleman between filmmakers and companies interested in product placement. It helps producers build their budgets with sponsorships while connecting companies selling products that might fit the movie environments. Naturally, the driving motive here is capitalistic rather than creative, but it does help filmmakers in desperate need of financial assistance—and there are ways to place a product without necessarily degrading the quality of the movie itself (as far as I know, only Wayne’s World got away with combining sly self-parody and actual product placement).
Well, I think the folks at Microsoft could use a service like Filmmortal. First, they hired Bobcat Goldthwait to direct a series of hilariously over-the-top browser commercials, and wound up deleting one that contained a porn element. Now, they’ve retracted a decision to sponsor a commercial-free episode of Family Guy because they found Seth McFarlane’s comedic tendencies to be distasteful.
Seriously, Family Guy? Was nobody able to clue them in?
It’s less surprising that McFarlane would allow his program to become a tool of corporate machinations (but I don’t think The Simpsons would ever sell an entire episode like this). If Family Guy is up for grabs, the right people ought to grab it.
While recently sitting through the desolate world of The Road, I couldn’t help thinking of another recent exploration of isolation and dismay in the middle of nowhere: Asiel Norton‘s Redland, a visually fascinating portrait of families struggling along in the wilderness of Great Depression-era rural America. It’s unquestionably one of the more fascinating cinematic visions of life amidst nature that I’ve seen in years. (Think Terrence Malick meets There Will Be Blood.) Here’s the trailer:
Studio-produced American comedies rarely leave me satisfied these days. It often seems as though Hollywood has outsourced its sense of humor to the indies: Humpday and Big Fan both contain observant portraits of flawed personalities capable of generating serious pathos without disabusing viewers of the right to laugh at their true-to-life flaws. But The Ugly Truth and Post-Grad are gleefullyoblivious.
Greg Mottola’s Adventureland, which hit DVD today, briefly restored my faith in big budget comedies when I saw it at Sundance in January. Mottola, the director with Superbad and Daytrippers on his resume (not to mention the recently completed Paul), might be one of the last hopes of genuine humor-filled entertainment in the American film industry. Mike Judge comes right behind with his upcoming Extract, and Bobcat Goldthwait would make that list, too, if he had the opportunity to stop making indies and direct a studio comedy with the ability to have final cut.
But Goldthwait’s movies are liberating simply because his stories’ dark, subversive tendencies reflect the freedom behind the camera. Mottola doesn’t need freedom. He only requires a moment of your time to catch you off guard and deliver smart, believable coming-of-age dramedies that put his original benefactor (rhymes with “Shmudd Shmapatow”) to shame. Here’s the Adventureland trailer. Check out the DVD, which contains a nifty behind-the-scenes doc and commentary from Mottola and star Jesse Eisenberg.
Although I haven’t played Splinter Cell, I understand that the hyperrealistic action and nail-biting black ops drama had its cinematic moments. Still, “video game” is frequently used as a derogatory term when applied to movies. It usually means the title in question lacks intelligence, places spectacle over substance, etc. That’s a troublesome comparison, since many video games possess fantastic storylines, performances, and other important forms of engagement. This has been the case at least since text adventures in the eighties. But I’m wondering if we’ve reached a point now where actually promoting a movie on the basis of its director’s video game experience gives people a sense of whether that movie is worth their time. Could the proverbial “Next Spielberg” get his start in games? Why not?
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