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Christopher Campbell

- http://www.cinematical.com/bloggers/christopher-campbell/

Christopher Campbell recently received a Bachelor of Arts degree in film studies from Brooklyn College. Prior to (finally) finishing his undergrad, he studied film production at NYC's School of Visual Arts and then dropped out for an exciting career (on and off) in movie theaters. His writing has appeared in READ Magazine, Where Y'At New Orleans and Lo-Fi Magazine and on YCraze.com, Cinescene.com, BlogCritics.org, The Reeler and his own (mostly defunct) site, LowExpectation.com. He also currently writes for SpoutBlog.

John Lennon's Childhood Focus of New Movie

by Christopher Campbell Jul 21st 2008 // 1:03PM

Filed under: Music & Musicals, Cinematical Indie

We've seen tons of movies about both John Lennon and The Beatles. One focused on the early days of the band; another focused on the killing of Lennon. Documentaries galore displayed the artist's life and/or career, comprehensively or specifically. And, of course, Lennon and his band mates have starred in their own movies. But how about a dramatic telling of little Lennon, the kid who would grow up to be one of the most famous men of the 20th century? Last week, a film titled Nowhere Boy, based on the book "Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon," penned by one of Lennon's half-sisters, Julia Baird, received funding from the UK Film Council, and is therefore on its way to your Beatlemania collection in only a matter of time.

The most exciting thing about Nowhere Boy, the thing that makes it more than just another movie about Lennon, is that it's being scripted by Matt Greenhalgh, writer of the phenomenal Ian Curtis biopic Control, who was attracted to the book's psychological insight into Lennon's character. Baird's telling is not without controversy, mostly due to its portrayal of Mary "Mimi" Smith, the aunt who raised Lennon from the age of 4 (and who Baird did not live with). Because it's about the childhood of a person idolized by millions, there are sure to be other criticisms and controversy once the movie is released. Will it be permitted, though, or even necessary to feature any of Lennon's later music, either from The Beatles or solo?

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The Exhibitionist: Buy Concessions (Please)

by Christopher Campbell Jul 20th 2008 // 9:02AM

Filed under: Exhibition, Columns



Now that the weekend is nearly over, and you all have seen The Dark Knight multiple times, let me ask you a question: did you sneak your own snacks into the theater? Be honest. I won't get angry. I'll just let out a huge sigh.

Yes, it's time once again to ask the question, only five months after Kim asked it the last time. But it's an issue that I must continue discussing (at least once each busy movie season), because I see it as one of the worst cyclical problems affecting the exhibition industry. Of course, if you commonly do it, you'll no more listen to me now than you've listened in the past. The other day, a very good friend let the world know (via her Facebook status) that she was sneaking snacks into a movie. If I can't get through to those close to me, what's the chance I'll get through to you?

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Don Cheadle's 'Marching Powder' Marches Forward

by Christopher Campbell Jul 19th 2008 // 3:32PM

Filed under: Action, Drama, Foreign Language, Brad Pitt, Cinematical Indie

At the rate Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha (Tropa de Elite) is becoming attached to projects, I might need to start another annex called Cinematical Padilha. Earlier this week, I posted info about his latest documentary, Garapa, and prior to that I had written about his transfer to Hollywood for a South America-set action movie formerly (and maybe again?) called A Willing Patriot. Of course, I don't mind writing so much about the guy; Padilha is one of the most exciting new talents, and it's cool to see his career exploding.

Today's Padilha news is that he'll be writing and directing the based-on-a-true-story drama Marching Powder. Again, this one's set in South America (good to see a foreign filmmaker making such a gradual move to Hollywood), and if it sounds familiar, that's because we've seen Don Cheadle linked to it for awhile. The Oscar-nominated actor will reportedly still produce (along with Brad Pitt and others) and star as a British drug dealer serving time in a Bolivian prison, of which he eventually gives illegal tours to travelers (he became popular enough to be featured in Lonely Planet guides).

The movie will be based on the book "Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine and South America's Strangest Jail" by Thomas McFadden (the British drug dealer) and Rusty Young, who apparently found the story by signing on for one of the prison tours.

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'Why We Fight' Director to Helm HBO Vietnam Film

by Christopher Campbell Jul 18th 2008 // 6:33PM

Filed under: Documentary, Distribution, HBO Films, Cinematical Indie, War

I was just re-watching Eugene Jarecki's terrific documentary Why We Fight the other day and wondering, "man, how did this not win an Oscar?" Both its ineligibility and the strength of the 2006 feature documentary category aside, it's a really great visual essay on the problems of the U.S. military -- particularly the allowance for the military industrial complex to grow so large -- since the mid-20th century. If you've never seen it, you should. It'll bring you up to speed right up to the Iraq War (and feel free to make it an informative double feature by following it up with Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight).

For his next feature, Jarecki is sticking to the subject of war, though he's going back and focusing on Vietnam, specifically the evacuation of U.S. troops from Saigon in 1975 (maybe it can parallel an exit from Iraq? huh? maybe?). He and screenwriter Jesse Wigutow (It Runs in the Family) are basing the doc, titled Irreparable Harm, on former CIA agent Frank Snepp's book "Irreparable Harm: A Firsthand Account of How One Agent Took on the CIA in an Epic Battle Over Free Speech," which details the author's struggle with the federal government after he published his Saigon evacuation document, "Decent Interval."

Jarecki's film, which is being produced for HBO Films, will be more about Snepp than on the history, and hopefully that won't get him in trouble with the feds too. Also, here's hoping that Irreparable Harm at least makes Jarecki eligible to be nominated for the Oscar he deserves.

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Review: Lou Reed's Berlin

by Christopher Campbell Jul 18th 2008 // 2:03PM

Filed under: Documentary, Independent, Music & Musicals, Theatrical Reviews, The Weinstein Co., Cinematical Indie



One thing you should know about the Julian Schnabel-directed concert documentary Lou Reed's Berlin is that Lou Reed has personally instructed theaters to play the film at concert-level volume. That means it's really, really loud. When I saw it (at NYC's Film Forum, which is following Reed's command throughout the film's limited engagement), an elder woman walked out. Of course, I can't be sure that it was due to the sound, though the exit was during one of the loudest songs.

The volume may seem excessive and unnecessary to some, but at a time when concert docs are shown in IMAX and/or in 3-D, it really helps a film like Lou Reed's Berlin compete for audiences seeking a filmic experience comparable to the real thing. And leaving the theater with your ears ringing will help you think that you were actually there when Reed performed his 1973 album Berlin live for the first (and second, third and fourth) time in Brooklyn, New York, December 14-17, 2006.

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Latest Movie Streaming Site: Amazon Video on Demand

by Christopher Campbell Jul 18th 2008 // 8:02AM

Filed under: Tech Stuff, Home Entertainment

With the popularity of those new Netlix-playing Roku devices and this week's news that Xbox will also work with the Netflix Watch Instantly service and yesterday's launch of the documentary site SnagFilms and the fact that everyone including your grandma has a site that streams movies, it's no surprise that Amazon has finally also launched a stream service called Amazon Video on Demand. And it's got its own special Roku-type device to be manufactured by Sony, only it's much more expensive at $300 (compared to $99 for the Roku). And it seems you also need a Sony-made hi-def television to use it. The good news: eventually Sony's Bravia TVs will cut out the middle man (aka that $300 device) and Amazon may be able to work out future deals with other TV manufacturers.

Because it comes a little too late in the game, and because iTunes will likely forever keep its rival from offering Disney and ABC titles, I don't see Amazon Video on Demand being hugely successful. But the service at least sounds better than Amazon Unbox, which sold movie downloads. Because everyone and your grandmother subscribes to Netflix, if anyone wants to stream a movie they're going to just go with Watch Instantly and Roku. And because the main downside to that service is that it doesn't transfer to portable devices nor does it allow offline viewing, movie consumers are better off with iTunes for their non-Netflix needs. Hey, at least Amazon is still the preferred place to buy books, whether in paper or digital format.

[via Cinema Tech]

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'Watchmen' Trailer's Spielberg-Homaging Easter Egg

by Christopher Campbell Jul 17th 2008 // 10:01PM

Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Warner Brothers, Steven Spielberg, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Images, Trailers and Clips



Earlier today, you saw the trailer for one of the most anticipated adaptations of all time (no, not that one, this one). And it was amazing. Well, I thought so, anyway, and I'm one of the few people who said "ehh" after reading the graphic novel. Anyway, some of you bigger fans probably watched the new Watchmen trailer over and over and over again, forward and backward, in slow-motion and sped-up to compare the film with the panels in the book. But did you notice the odd lack of continuity in the sequence shown above? Unless you read MTV Movies Blog, or unless you were looking really hard for something like last year's 300 trailer surprise, there's a good chance you missed it. Fortunately, for you, I've done my best to highlight the anomaly after the jump.

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African American Cinema Honored by U.S. Postal Service

by Christopher Campbell Jul 15th 2008 // 7:32PM

Filed under: Classics, Independent, Music & Musicals, Awards, MGM, Cinematical Indie

I'm typically a fan of all the movie-related stamps produced by the U.S. Postal Service, and I'm very glad to read the news that important early African American movie stars are being recognized and celebrated with a new series of 42-cent stamps (see them all here). However, I am a little disappointed that it carries on the usual exclusion of mostly forgotten non-musical race films, which are a significant part of both film history and African American history. Considering the stamps are tagged "Black Cinema USA," a number of people may assume this was the height of what African Americans were offered in the first half of the 20th century (Oscar Micheaux deserves a stamp).

Gripes aside, though, it is nonetheless a wonderful set. The five stamps feature vintage poster designs from old movies starring musical artists Josephine Baker (Princess Tam-Tam), Duke Ellington (Black and Tan) and Louis Jordan (Caldonia), plus King Vidor's monumental Oscar-nominated musical, Hallelujah! (it was one of the rare studio films featuring an all black cast) and the 1921 silent film The Sport of the Gods. In previous, separate years, Showboat costars Paul Robeson and Hattie McDaniel have also received their own postage stamps.

The new stamps come out Wednesday and there will be a ceremony on their behalf that day at the Newark Museum, which is currently holding the 34th annual Newark Black Film Festival. The festival is also holding free screenings of Hallelujah on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

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Jose Padilha Returns to Documentary

by Christopher Campbell Jul 15th 2008 // 6:35PM

Filed under: Documentary, Foreign Language, Cinematical Indie

Two months ago, I brought word that Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha is moving on up to Hollywood, but now comes word that he has first squeezed in a new documentary. The film is titled Garapa, and like both his brilliant debut, Bus 174, and his recent Golden Bear-winning follow-up, Tropa de Elite, it deals with social problems affecting his homeland. This time, he traveled to the poverty-stricken northeast, where he documented three families struggling to feed themselves, despite the nation's current economic boom and seemingly successful welfare program. Garapa was also shot in black and white with hand-held cameras and features no music score, to keep things simple and straightforward. It can't be said, though, that Padilha went for a non-intrusive style, and he admits that during and since the shoot, he's been compelled to assist the families directly.

Considering Bus 174 is one of the boldest, most powerful documentaries of the past 10 years, it's good to see Padilha returning to the documentary genre. The controversially divisive Tropa de Elite (which Cinematical reviewed at Tribeca and which will receive a day-and-date release this September) was still non-fiction, but it was a dramatization. When it was announced that he had been wooed to make a studio-produced action film, I was as disappointed as I was excited. Fortunately, he's keeping the documentary thing going simultaneously, and he's even already working on his next doc, which will be about the Yanomami Indians, natives of the Amazon rainforest who were previously unappealingly fictionalized in the exploitation film Cannibal Holocaust.

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Discuss: When Characters Are Recast

by Christopher Campbell Jul 14th 2008 // 8:02PM

Filed under: Casting, Fandom, James Bond, Harry Potter, Remakes and Sequels



This summer may be confusing to some less blog-literate moviegoers thanks to two recast roles. In both The Dark Knight and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, a prominent character is played by a new actress. In the former sequel, "Rachel Dawes" will be played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, replacing Katie Holmes, who had the role in Batman Begins. In the latter, "Eveyln Carnahan O'Connell" will be played by Maria Bello, subbing for Rachel Weisz, who appeared in both The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.

This certainly isn't the first time characters have been recast with different actors, and over at The Onion, the A.V. Club has listed 20 such memorably jarring switcheroos, which they're calling The Darrin Effect (after the famous character replacement on TV's Bewitched), in television and film. Surely everyone recalls when Sarah Chalke took over the part of "Becky" on Roseanne; the writers even occasionally even slipped in some reflexive jokes about it. And let's not forget the glaring problem of recasting Jodie Foster's Oscar-winning role of "Clarice Starling" -- Julianne Moore played the part in Hannibal. Or the tragic yet surprisingly respectable replacement of Michael Gambon for a deceased Richard Harris in the Harry Potter movies.

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