Retail Resistance

Foreign Language Oscar

Here is the short list of movies that a have a chance to win this year's foreign language oscar.

Rachid Bouchareb's "Days of Glory," (Algeria),
Deepa Mehta's "Water" (Canada,
Susanne Bier's "After the Wedding" (Denmark),
Daniele Thompson's "Avenue Montaigne" (France),
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's "The Lives of Others" (Germany),
Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" (Mexico),
Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book" (The Netherlands),
Pedro Almodovar's "Volver" (Spain), and
Fredi M. Murer's "Vitus," (Switzerland).

March of the Eco-Terrorists

Title WeekendGross TotalGross Budget* Week#

Happy Feet - $37,945,000 - $100,126,000 - $100 - 2

Casino Royale - $31,000,000 - $94,223,000 - $150 - 2

Those poor commentators at FOX must be furious. Not only are the minds of the America's adolescents being warped by environmentalist propaganda, but people are paying to the tune of 100 million to be brainwashed. And what's worse, it's not a FOX movie. (I'm curious to know if these same fairly imbalanced people attacked "Borat" - a Fox film - for Borat's smart bomb attacks on unsuspecting Rednecks.)

Does Life Imitate Documentary, or Documentary, Life?

First was Michael Winterbottom's harrowing film The Road to Guantanamo. Now another true story of wrongful imprisonment and human rights abuse is coming to light. Actually, it sounds not altogether unlike the post-modern portions Winterbottom's oeuvre, but with a screenplay written by Charlie Kaufman.

Here's the pitch to the studio:

This guy named Cyrus Kar goes to Iraq to make a documentary about another guy named Cyrus, King of Persia, who wrote the first human rights charter. During the filming of his documentary about Cyrus the Great, Cyrus the filmmaker gets arrested and sent to Abu Ghraib. Now Cyrus is out of prison, suing Donald Rumselfd and the Pentagon, and looking for post-production financing to finish his documentary about Cyrus the human rights activist.

And the Good News Is....

After last year's fiasco of Cache being snubbed because it was from Austrian director Hanecke but filmed in French with Binoche and Autieul, the Academy is revamping its foreign language Oscar category. Entries no longer need to be in language of the submitting country, and a new voting system will include a second stage in which 30 members will decide the nominees from a nine-film shortlist. I'm sure eggregious errors will still be made, but it is a step in the right direction, so long as the Weinsteins can't go anywhere near the Starchamber of 30.

Purchase a David Lynch Ringtone!

"Cell phones are a hand held theatre,” said David Lynch. “I like to experiment with sound and music ringtones and this is an opportunity to create something different….”

So, when he isn't making strange movies, or meditating his way to higher consciousness and world peace, he's coming up with strange new entrepreneurial ideas. Hearing people's ringtones, frankly, bugs me. If I want a little bit of theatre in my hand, I'll buy a ticket, or a puppet. Thanks anyway, Dave.

Films on Guantánamo and Iraq face war of cuts

Last week we mentioned the censorship on the part of the MPAA regarding Michael Winterbottom's Guantanamo movie. Now the Department of Defense, which incidentally staffs a movie department to help with and oversee productions of movies it feels are positive PR for the military, i.e. Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, has decided this new documentary documents Iraq in a way that isn't to its liking.

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Thursday May 18, 2006 The Guardian

Two new films which expose unpleasant truths about Guantanamo and the battle for Iraq are coming under pressure from censors in the United States.

The Motion Pictures Association of America has censored a poster advertising a film about the Tipton three, called The Road to Guantanamo, that showed a hooded and blindfolded man hanging by his shackled wrists. Also, the makers of Baghdad ER, a documentary about a US military combat hospital, told the Guardian yesterday that Francis Harvey, the secretary of the army, had demanded last-minute changes to the film.

The makers of Baghdad ER say the senior leadership of the Pentagon has turned against their film, despite cooperation during its making in Baghdad and a positive reception at screenings at military bases. "Somebody wearing a tie and not a uniform seems to have a political agenda and is trying to influence this film," said the director, Jon Alpert.

Liberal Hollywood?

This is odd, because I thought the MPAA was okay with violent imagery, and it was sexuality that they were most concerned about protecting us from.

Poster for Movie About Guantánamo Prison Banned

Although the image pales in comparison with those published in the press and shown on TV of Americans torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a poster for a semi-documentary film about the Guantánamo prison in Cuba has been rejected by the Motion Picture Assn. of America. The poster, for the award-winning The Road to Guantánamo, showed a man hanging by his wrists with a burlap sack over his head. In an interview with today's (Wednesday) Washington Post, Howard Cohen, co-president of distributor Roadside Attractions, said he was told that a poster depicting torture was not appropriate for children to see. Gayle Osterberg, a spokesperson for the MPAA, further explained: "If it's a poster that's hanging in a theater, anyone who walks into that theater, regardless of what movie they've come to see, will be exposed to it." However, Cohen observed that some posters for horror movies were far more disturbing. "This is a film with a serious purpose, and this is the subject of the film itself, and the marketing materials were appropriate to the subject," he told the Post. The film is now due to open on June 23 with a poster showing only shackled hands and arms.

It's Up to you NYCelebrities

I'm really not into celebrity gossip. Unless of course it's in a fancy magazine and written by an urbane and witty writer. For instance, if Nick Hornby were a gossip columnist, this little piece by David Edelstein about serving on the documentary jury with Rosie Perez and Moby at the Tribeca Film Festival would have been in The Polysyllabic Spree. So it's really not very much like celebrity gossip at all; it's just good writing, that just so happens to mention the odd celebrity, or four.

Tilda Has Spoken

We like Tilda at Box Office, I like Tilda, androgony and all. Before now I can't say I knew much about her. I only felt drawn to her by appearance, choice of roles, and all around projection. After reading this, her speech at the San Francisco Film Festival, I feel a validation of intuition, and like her more now then I ever have.

Listen to this explanation of her heretofore unexplainable diffection from independent movies:

But I love the idea of goose-stepping old Walt D. making over $700 million dollars with the help of a Red Witch. He is more than welcome. At least we made her whiter than white, the ultimate white supremacist, and we managed to railroad the kneejerk attempt to make her look like an Arab. And maybe, just maybe, on top of all that, Disney might have ended up underwriting the most expensive advertisement teaser for Derek Jarman's and Lynn Hershman's back catalogue that any of us could ever have imagined.

How can you not love this woman? Although it must be said that knowing more about her doesn't necessarily translate into understanding her. Which does nothing to detract from what initially made her appealing. Quite the opposite really.

Look at the Church, Look at the Steeple, Look at the Tricky Christian People

Turns out this United 93 movie is meant to be the docudrama version of Left Behind, the bestselling, paranoid Christian end-of-time book series. Now that I know, I plan on getting all hopped up on pain-killers like our junkie friend Rush, and waiting to see it in the two dollar theatre.

“I wish this movie had been out two or three years ago.”
- Rush Limbaugh

“I believe it is just about every American's duty to see this film.”
- Dennis Prager
(Don’t know who this character is? Check this out, “one quick way to identify totalitarian threats to liberty is to identify those who falsify the historical record on behalf of their cause. In America today, two groups are most actively engaged in falsifying history: the ACLU and the anti-smoking movement.” You get the idea.)

"And visit Motive Entertainment’s www.U93.org (the people who brought you Gibson’s Passion and Narnia), where you can see the MOVIE TRAILER and download free teaching and preaching resources to engage in key issues like, “Why do Islamic terrorists hate America? How should we respond as Americans? As Christians? As Jews? As Muslims?

PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO ANYONE WHO CARES ABOUT THE SAFETY OF AMERICA, AND THE WAR AGAINST TERROR!"

Preaching resources for the safety of America and the war against terror. How about some materials for people who care about protecting us from preachers and crazy right-wing syndicated columnists?