EncountersAtTheEndOfTheWorld Tagged Articles at Cinematical

After time off for good behavior, Indie Roundup returns with an opinionated look at recent news.

Awards. The Cinema Eye Honors seek to recognize "the breadth of the [documentary] genre." Their second annual awards were handed out on Sunday, with James Marsh's superb Man on Wire deservedly taking home prizes for Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking, Production, and Editing. Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir received awards in the International Feature, Direction, and Graphic Design and Animation categories. Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze won the Audience Choice Award and Debut Feature Film honors, while Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World was recognized for Peter Zellner's cinematography. More information on the films is available at the official site of the Cinema Eye Honors.

Deals. IFC Films acquired Alexis Dos Santos' Unmade Beds and plans to make it available via their IFC in Theaters or IFC Festival Direct on demand offerings later this year, according to indieWIRE. Dos Santos previously made Glue, which drove me nuts with its motion-sickness handheld camera work, but his work has won critical acclaim and may, come to think of it, play better on television rather than on a big screen. Heresy, I know. Unmade Beds is described as "an exuberant, warmly romantic film about youth culture."

Adam Wingard's Pop Skull, "a sonic fury of abstracted imagery bathed in menacing splashes of light and sound," has been picked up by Halo-8 Entertainment and will received a limited theatrical release before hitting DVD in July. The description comes courtesy of my friend Collin Armstrong at Twitch. The film follows an Alabama drug addict battling personal demons and, oh yeah, murderous ghosts in his house. We've embedded the trailer below (if you dare).

After the jump: A fashion doc, a film critic, and Gen Art.

A personal checklist and shopping guide:

Wall-E
As with all great movies, I quickly forgot about everything except the characters and the story. Wall-E sparked some surprising political and sociological debates, but no one can deny the sense of wonder that the boxy robot and his adventures engender. Erik's already run down the special features; the toughest decision is which editon to get. Buy it.

Tropic Thunder
I skipped this one theatrically because I'm worn out on Hollywood self-mockery -- has any other industry ever found itself so simultaneously fascinating yet repulsive? Still, reviews were generally strong, and this is the best bet this week for a broad, R-rated comedy, as long as you haven't overdosed on Ben Stiller and Jack Black. Does Robert Downey, Jr. make it all worthwhile? Rent it.

Encounters at the End of the World
Speaking of something simultaneously fascinating yet repulsive, Werner Herzog traveled to the Antarctic to make a personal essay assailing the ugliness of the man-made town from which all journeys Seriously Down Under begin, and questions the sanity of some of the people who work there. Then the beauty of the place overwhelms everything, before Werner starts asking about the sex life of penguins to liven up an interview. Oh, Werner! Rent it.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Girl power got a kick in the, er, pants, with this sequel, which takes place in a fantasy land of upper class privilege masquerading as lower middle class struggles. No doubt some will take me to task for missing the moral message which is rolled up somewhere inside the pretty scenery and prettier tears; I admit I dozed off a couple of times. In a weird way, this could be a good contrasting double-bill with Twilight. Under 18? Rent it.

With all due respect to my esteemed colleague Elisabeth Rappe, geeks are not the only ones who learned important lessons from watching movies this summer. Herewith is my personal, arthouse summer school summary.

Werner Herzog cast a disapproving eye on the ugliness he discovered at Antarctica's McMurdo Station ("they even have a yoga studio and an ATM!") and was skeptical about the sanity of some of the real-life characters he met, which is partly why Encounters at the End of the World was so entrancing. What I learned: Evidence for gay penguins is skimpy, but they have been known to have threesomes.

The Wackness (pictured) didn't became the breakout hit that some had hoped for, but it did showcase the talents of rising star Olivia Thirlby and director Jonathan Levine. What I learned: Never kiss Ben Kingsley in a telephone booth.

Nanette Burstein's filmmaking techniques were much more off-putting than her ultimately winning subjects in American Teen, another would-be smash that didn't live up to box office expectations. What I learned: Never break up with your girlfriend via text message, especially when a documentary filmmaker is interviewing her.

Unexpectedly, Tell No One became the breakout limited-release mystery thrill ride of the summer, and Man on Wire proved that impassioned high wire walkers can make dreams come true and enthrall audiences to boot. What I learned: It's good to be French.

Now it's your turn, all you indie-loving, doc-devoted, world cinema aficionados: what did you learn from the movies this summer?

Out of all the specialty releases that have appeared in theaters -- including American indies, docs, and world cinema -- why is one standing out this summer as a "word-of-mouth" hit? That's how Steven Zeitchik in The Hollywood Reporter descibes Guillaume Canet's terrific French thriller Tell No One, which has grossed nearly $1.7 million since opening in New York and Los Angeles at the beginning of July.

Zeitchik provides background on distributor Music Box Films and its founder William Schopf and then says that strong reviews in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker "certainly helped, particularly with the film's older demo." (Hmm, did someone take a poll?) He also speculates that press days for director Canet, its mystery/thriller genre, and timing -- an indie slipping between the cracks of the big summer movies -- may have been factors.

Tell No One opened the same July 4th holiday weekend as Hancock, and the mixed reviews for the Will Smith picture may indeed have pushed some folks to try the French flick. But The Wackness also opened that weekend, and despite some very good reviews and a smashing opening weekend, its per-screen average has declined as it has expanded across the country. More than one million dollars at the box office is a decent return for a rather desultory stoner period comedy-drama, in my opinion, though it's far less than others thought it could achieve. Still, why did Tell No One -- with, evidently, a substantially smaller marketing budget -- catch on and not The Wackness?

Here's one of my dirty little secrets: I love lists and I keep track of my year's ten best movies all year long. Most other critics hastily assemble their lists at the last second, which is partly why so many December movies dominate; critics can't remember what they've seen earlier in the year. My list shows that 2008 has had a pretty poor first half, but I do have some contenders for listhood. Two movies are currently competing for the top spot, though I need to see them both again to be sure. Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon (6 screens) is one; it has a lovely, laid-back, observant quality and feels less severe than some of Hou's other recent films. But I haven't yet decided if the film is a comedy or a tragedy. It all feels pretty light and insignificant, except for the saddest thing: no one seems to notice the red balloon of the title, drifting around Paris, unable to find a boy like Pascal to love it. The film also contains the year's most vibrant performance: Juliette Binoche playing a frenzied single mom working with a puppet troupe.

In describing today's best directors, three terms are generally used (and overused): Maverick, Genius and Auteur. A "maverick" is now used to describe virtually anyone who makes a movie without using Hollywood money. An "auteur" is used to describe anyone who writes as well as directs. And "genius" is used to describe anyone who makes a halfway decent film. I'm taking these words back. In reality, a "maverick" should be a button-pusher. It's a filmmaker who is so radical and daring that even high-minded, forward-thinking critics sneer at their work, people like Vincent Gallo or Catherine Breillat. These people are so dangerous that they have trouble making and distributing films. Harmony Korine, director of Mister Lonely (5 screens) is very much a maverick. Korine has pushed many buttons and many envelopes over the years and though I love his work, he's someone I wouldn't want to invite to my house. (He scares me.)

Werner Herzog, director of Encounters at the End of the World (1 screen), is also a maverick (and, incidentally, a buddy of Korine's). His physically dangerous films have probably had insurance companies slamming the door in his face, and his co-workers have included people who might not be fit for polite society. (At the very least, most of them would turn heads.) Some of his actors have reportedly threatened to kill him. It cracks me up that, because Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man was such a hit, Herzog was allowed to make his new film for the Discovery Channel. I'd really love to have been in on that board meeting. Did they really know who they were dealing with? At the same time, Herzog is also an auteur: all of his films have the same roaming curiosity, fearlessly exploring man's tenuous connection to nature, from Aguirre navigating the Amazon looking for El Dorado, to Timothy Treadwell seeking to befriend the bears.

How do you jump from one of New York's best-loved insightful film blogs to a L.A.-based weblog better known for bite than brain? What's it like to blog the Oscars for Vanity Fair? What will it take to have big-studio publicity recognize the online world? And what are some of the standout films and special selections at this year's Los Angeles Film Festival? Joining us this week live from one of L.A's most hallowed cultural institutions -- The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf -- to talk about all these topics and more is Stu VanAirsdale, Senior Editor at Defamer and the founder of The Reeler. Cinematical's podcast is now available through iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



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Four of the most exciting movie stars in the world are currently appearing in two of the least interesting new movies, taking a back seat to less interesting stars. Jackie Chan and Jet Li are master martial artists, Chan with a comedian's touch and Li with an appealing stoic quality. They team up for the first time in The Forbidden Kingdom (105 screens), a movie about a white kid and his attempt to beat up some bullies. Chow Yun-fat and Michelle Yeoh team up for the second time in The Children of Huang Shi (43 screens), about a British journalist (not played by Chow) and an Australian nurse (not played by Yeoh) saving some orphans.

Chow had a suave, cool quality that could have turned him into the next James Bond or Cary Grant, and Yeoh is a beautiful martial artist who could have become a groundbreaking feminist action star. It's a sad state of affairs, but I guess these films are the final proof of the cold, dead corpse of the Hong Kong New Wave.

Early in Werner Herzog's unique, striking new documentary Encounters at the End of the World, the great German filmmaker reminds us that this will not be another movie about penguins. Spoken in Herzog's familiar rich, ironic drone, the line gets a big laugh, but it also brings up a good point. Does the inclusion of Herzog's personal interests make this a better movie than March of the Penguins? And, ultimately, what do we really expect from a documentary?

Let's look at these questions a little later, and get back to Herzog's film, which starts in Antarctica. Actually, it started a couple of years ago when Herzog incorporated some astonishing, underwater footage into his all-but-unreleased film The Wild Blue Yonder (2005). A photographer friend dove under the Antarctic ice to shoot images of the unbelievable creatures, shapes and displays of light that could only be seen there, and Herzog used the footage in his film to represent life on another planet (!). But the pictures apparently continued to fascinate him, and so he journeyed to the earth's southernmost point to learn more.

It's hard to say which event in midtown Manhattan on Thursday night was cooler: New German Cinema legend Werner Herzog in conversation with director Jonathan Demme at the Times Center, or the two crazed climbers who attempted to scale the New York Times building right next door just a few hours earlier. In some ways, the two occurrences worked together: It was later announced that one of the climbers did it in order to raise awareness about global warming, a relevant issue for anyone interested in Herzog's latest film, the remarkable Antarctica odyssey Encounters at the End of the World. Like most of Herzog's documentary work, it's a brilliant amalgam of gorgeous imagery and Herzog's personal philosophies. Not a scientist himself, he spends time in their company down south, seeking to understand their behavior ("Is this a big moment?" he asks when they nonchalantly announce the discovery of a new bacterium).

Demme, admitting that he and Herzog had just met earlier in the evening, opened the conversation by reading an effusive letter to Herzog written by Roger Ebert after the critic discovered that the director dedicated Encounters to him. Herzog seemed displeased that Ebert printed the letter ("Those things should stay between two men") but had only praise for his friend. "I salute him, a good soldier of cinema," he said. "We have very few left."