Blu-ray version of There Will Be Blood, which goes on sale today in North America, is sold out, and it’s only 3 a.m. on the east coast.
Is it the killer title Blu-ray camp has been looking for, or did Paramount screw up manufacturing and couldn’t deliver enough discs on the release date?
Rescue Dawn! Open July 4 in LA, NYC! July 13 in 7 more cities (probably San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto and a few others)! 50 cities by July 27! 93% positive review on Rotten Tomatoes! Hooray!
Impossibly cool, super-crazy director and eternal pessimist Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn, a dramatic adaptation of the 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, also by Herzog, is finally going to shown in theatres.
If the early reviews are any indication, it’s probably going to join the rank of Herzog masterpieces alongside Woyzeck and Fitzcarraldo.
Now, there are some people saying that this movie glorifies war and even has pro-Bush political motivation to it. Well, these people are complete retards, and if you know anyone who thinks this, you should put him or her on call-block immediately. The movie only tells the story of Dieter Dengler (played by Christian Bale), the only person to escape successfully from a Pathet Lao prison camp. It is not supposed to be and does not present itself to be a commentary on the war itself.
In summation: yay Rescue Dawn! yay Werner Herzog! go see the movie!
Update: Apple has the trailers up on its web site.
One of the funniest short films I have ever seen. A shortened version of this ran as an ad for FCUK a few years back.
Is Marie Antoinette the best movie of 2006? Not really. But, is it the most culturally significant? Definitely so. I’ll explain why.
Marie Antoinette is a wholly new kind of film: an autobiographical picture masquerading as a period drama. The aspects of the queen’s life that make it on the screen are the ones Sofia Coppola experienced herself (growing up in a celebrity family, having to carry the family’s aspirations on her shoulders, awkwardness caused by father’s extra-marital affairs, difficult marriage, her own extra-marital affairs, etc.) and the ones that are so significant she cannot possibly ignore without breaking the pretense of a historical picture (e.g. the storming of the Versailles).
In other words, the movie is about what Coppola felt about Marie Antoinette, not what the queen of France actually was. It is so true to the vision of the director to the point where historical accuracy, which the reigning period picture dogma dictates must come first in making of such movies, is respected only when it is not in conflict with the director’s vision.
Moreover, it is refreshing in that the film presents a revisionist and reactionary interpretation of history, but there is absolutely no political motivation or context to it. Breaking away from the notion that a serious movie is supposed to inform, inspire, or convince the audience, it is a total cinematic transgression.
While Marie Antoinette is not Coppola’s best work (Lost in Translation was a much better movie), it is her most daring and has the set the bar much, much higher for other daring directors.
