Anton Corbijn Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In telling the story of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, director Anton Corbjin focuses on his wife Deborah (Samantha Morton) as much as the singer (Sam Riley) himself. Control hits DVD today courtesy of The Weinstein Co.; Corbijn contributes an audio commentary and a conversation. Other extras include a "making of" feature, extended live performances, and music videos from Joy Division and the Killers. James Rocchi reviewed Control and so did Christopher Campbell.

Mr. Rocchi also saw Olivier Assayas' Boarding Gate, but he noticed one problem: "The film has no motor to drive it. " Even the more adventurous and/or devoted fans of director Assayas may wish to proceed with caution. Asia Argento and Michael Madsen star. The DVD from Magnet Releasing includes interviews with Ms. Argento and a feature entitled: "Boarding Gate: In Touch with Asia."

Michael Radford's heist film Flawless inspired Eric D. Snider to write a glowing guarded recommendation; he concluded: "Michael Caine and the rest of the mostly British cast are serious enough to pull the job off, and they make the flick eminently watchable." Look for the DVD from Magnolia.

Do you really need to know what Twisted: A Balloonamentary is about? The title alone justifies a rental, but if you insist on knowing more, I refer you to Richard von Busack's recent post on the film's theatrical success. The DVD includes an audio commentary, deleted scenes, and much more.

Just to show you how old I really am, I bought a ticket to see Joy Division on what was to be their first American tour in 1980 (The Starwood, Los Angeles, $6.00). In those pre-Internet days, it was a couple of weeks before I learned that lead singer Ian Curtis had taken his own life (and the show was canceled). Nowadays, the buzz has been building for months about Anton Corbijn's Control. In his Cannes review, James Rocchi wrote that the film finds "beauty and sadness in a story where we know the sad finale." Playing in just one theater (two screens at Film Forum) in Manhattan, Control earned an estimated $27,000 this past weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, tops among new limited releases.

I have no story to share about my own personal doll -- really! -- but Lars and the Real Girl is much more than a cheap joke about the subject, according to our own Monika Bartyzel: "It's actually a smart, well-crafted, and heart-wrenching film that smoothly discusses the intricacies of loss and depression." But does it bring the funny, Monika? "It has many humorous moments, but they serve to relieve tension, not drive the story." All that and Ryan Gosling too! Playing at seven locations, Lars made $85,000 for a very good per-screen average of $12,142.

Sleuth, the remake of the 1972 film of the same name, had difficulty drawing audiences at its nine locations despite the star combo of Michael Caine and Jude Law, earning $5,566 for an estimated total of $50,100.

The Darjeeling Limited ($11,842 average, 95 screens) and Lust, Caution ($7,870 average, 77 screens) did well as they expanded in their third week of release, while Into the Wild held up well in its fourth week ($6,248, 153 screens). Amid reports that critics were having difficulty seeing it in advance, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford expanded to 163 screens in its fourth week and earned an average of just $2,361. I'm not as much in love with the film as others, but I think more people would be giving it a chance if Warner Brothers didn't appear to be dumping it. This is a film that needs critical support -- a few TV ads wouldn't hurt, either.

On May 18, 1980, Deborah Curtis walked into her kitchen and found her husband, Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, hanged to death. As depicted in Anton Corbijn's Control, his feature debut, the event is all hers, shot from a distance, outside, across the street. Not even their infant daughter is present, having been left out in the car for what was to be just a moment. And certainly we, the audience, aren't brought in to examine the body, as we might have by another film.

It makes sense, because Control is based on Deborah Curtis' book "Touching from a Distance" (she also produced the film), which has been adapted here by Matt Greenhalgh. The moment should be all hers; it was her loss more than anyone's, in many ways. And at least in the way he's portrayed in the film, Ian Curtis did it just to hurt her, and that's what he's done, and that's what is shown. Sure, he may have been tortured, or unstable or anything else that could defend such a selfish act as suicide, but here he's pretty much a coward who couldn't make up his mind nor face up to any decision he actually was able to make.

Control begins in 1973, when Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) is a bored teenager in Macclesfield, England, listening to Bowie, Roxy Music and Mott the Hoople as all the young dudes of '70s Britain should. Fitting with the glam music, he wears furs and eyeliner, but what makes the setting unsettling is how void of color it is. Yes, Control was shot in black and white, which is only initially strange if you associate the glam scene with anything but an achromatic palette. And it completely foreshadows the wan and ultimately neutral behavior the singer would exhibit throughout the rest of his short, should-have-been-vibrant life.

Cinematical was lucky enough to land the final one-sheet for the award-winning (and highly-anticipated) drama Control, which marks the feature film directorial debut of photographer and visual artist Anton Corbijn. Control follows the life and times of Ian Curtis (Sam Riley), the enigmatic lead singer of the British band Joy Division. The film has already won tons of praise following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, where our own James Rocchi had this to say: "I joke that any rock and roll film can be judged solely on how fiercely it makes you want to go to the record shop immediately afterwards, but Control doesn't just capture the music of Joy Division; it brings Ian Curtis off the posters, out of the speakers, and in doing so rescues a man from his own myth." Control has already snagged one award in Cannes, as well as two more (Michael Powell award for Best New British Feature, PGA Award for Best Performance in a British Film -- Sam Riley) at the Edinburgh Film Festival back in August. Control will begin its screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival tomorrow night, and is set to arrive in theaters on October 10.

When I first heard celebrated music video director Anton Corbijn was directing an Ian Curtis biopic, I was sure that it would meet the expectations of Joy Division fans everywhere. If anything, it would at least be a visual stunner. Well, now the film, which is titled Control, has made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, and it is currently a very hot topic. Variety calls it, "a riveting, visually arresting portrait of a soul in torment." The Telegraph also praises the black and white visuals and says the film is worth watching, comparing it to British kitchen-sink dramas of the 1950s. However, The Hollywood Reporter, by contrast, predicts that the film will not follow in the success of the classic kitchen-sink films and says the film, "fails to make the case for its fallen star."

Despite the Reporter's take, though, the film is apparently generating a lot of buzz and mostly critical acclaim at the festival, with much of the talk focused on the star-making performance by Sam Riley, who portrays Curtis. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, who gives Control a four-star rating, says Riley is "superb"; The Telegraph's word of choice is "extraordinary"; Variety's Russell Edwards calls the performance "a winner". Also in agreement are the former members of Joy Division, who regrouped as New Order (with new recruit Gillian Gilbert) following Curtis' 1980 suicide. Even Peter Hook, who previously had issues with Corbijn regarding the film's soundtrack, seems to be a fan. According to Corbijn, though, neither Curtis' widow, Deborah Curtis, who wrote the source material for the film, nor his girlfriend, Annik Honoré are very happy with Control.

The biopic doesn't yet have a distribution deal for the States, but thanks to its popularity at Cannes, there will hopefully be a deal made soon. It is definite that the film won't perform as well in America as in the UK, but there are plenty of us Joy Division fans here that one of the major U.S. companies should see the film as a worthy acquisition. In the meantime, while you wait for a chance to see the film yourself, check out James Rocchi's review of Control for Cinematical, to be posted shortly.