IsabellaRossellini Tagged Articles at Cinematical

"Nature is scandalous." Isabella Rossellini

I don't know how I missed this, but the wonderful, strange, and brilliant world of Green Porno isn't over. (You know, the short film series cooked up by Isabella Rossellini where she dons costumes and acts out the sexual techniques of the wild kingdom?) In fact, we've got two more helpings on the way! And here I thought the brilliance of insect mating was all we'd get.

The second season of Green Porno focuses on marine life, and it is already available for our viewing pleasure over at SundanceChannel.com. This time, Isabella starts off by musing about the many penises that exist on our wonderful Earth (many brilliantly recreated with paper), and then dips into the sexual appetites and practices of whales, starfish, limpets, anglerfish, and barnacles. Better yet, that's not all. In a funky interview with Bust (which you can watch here), Rossellini also said a third season will come out way this fall, focusing on the animals we eat. (Cows, pigs, and chickens, oh my!)

Unfortunately, these aren't embeddable movies. However, they are available through the Sundance link above, and they're not even location-locked this time around!

Finally! Hot Docs might have snuck away with my opportunity to see Green Porno, but now it's available online. Well, it's available for people in the States through SundanceChannel.com, or people who read the comment section of Boing Boing. To give you a taste, check out the YouTube clip above, and pics at TreeHugger.

When I first heard about this, I imagined Isabella Rossellini's voice over gruesome pics of bugs in the act. It wasn't my cup of visual tea, but with Rossellini, I couldn't resist. But oh no, it's so much better. Dressed in different buggy garb, Isabella acts out the mating rituals of these buggy beings -- the bee, the dragonfly, the earthworm, the firefly, the house fly, the preying mantis, and the spider. There's the decapitation by way of the mantis, the broken-off penis of the bee, and more insane mating rituals that make human romps seem downright boring.

I'm glad I'm not a snail...

If there's one thing that can be said about Isabella Rossellini, other than praising her talents, is that she knows how to pick interesting filmmakers to collaborate with. She was put on the map for her work in David Lynch's Blue Velvet, and now she's been spending a lot of time with Canada's Guy Maddin. She starred in The Saddest Music in the World, and he helped her make an excellent short, doc film about her father Roberto called My Dad is 100 Years Old. Now she's continuing to make shorts, and Variety reports that she will open Berlin International Film Festival's 38th Forum sidebar with Maddin -- just a year after they screened the Roberto tribute there.

On the second day of the festival, Guy will screen My Winnipeg, his snowy homage to his hometown that I reviewed during TIFF, while Rossellini will contrast his black and white humor with her international premiere of Green Porno, which is looking to be the next step in the actress' sexy filmmaking. Her directorial debut, Oh La La, dealt with cities, sex, and symphonies, whereas this short film is a "collection of three one-minute shorts that explore the mating behaviour of insects." I wonder if that will include the decapitating mating rituals of preying mantises?

If you can't make your way to Berlin to see her take on sexin' insects, or you want to see her in something much more mainstream, you can head to your local theater and see her in The Accidental Husband -- that romcom with Uma Thurman and Jeffrey Dean Morgan -- this March.

Just over a decade ago, Uma Thurman was the sexy face masquerading as radio show host Abby (Janeane Garofalo) to get the guy in The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Now she's getting her own time behind the mic in the upcoming romcom The Accidental Husband. As the story goes, Thurman plays Emma, a relationship-themed radio talk show host who has a loving, conventional fiance (Colin Firth), and a book deal on the way. However, when a fireman's (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) upcoming marriage is derailed by her advice, he schemes up revenge to throw her off-guard -- making them legally married through the wonders of the Internet. While pretending that he doesn't know how this marriage happened, the two begin to fall for each other, which is complicated by Emma's other man.

With the romcom's release being only a few months away, Moviefone now has the HD trailer up for you to enjoy (or you can check out the non-HD version above). It's looking like your typical romantic comedy -- girl finds out what she's missing in life with the guy who oozes charisma -- first she hates him, then she can't help but fall for him. Uma has that same strange, caffeine-high sort of presence she had on Cats and Dogs, Firth is his usual caring British self, and Morgan, well... He's got some sweet romantic charisma, and it just makes me wish that I had better animal mojo the day I was fortunate enough to meet his dog. (Aren't canines the way to sweet, wonderful romance?) You'll also notice Justina Machado (Vanessa Diaz from Six Feet Under) as the fireman's advice-seeking fiance, and Isabella Rossellini's name in the final credits page, although she's sadly missing from the trailer. This could be good, and this could be bad, but here's to hoping that it's better than My Super Ex-Girlfriend.

For any film, it's an undeniable accomplishment to ensnare a viewer and have them ride every high and low, anxiously reacting to the pace and feel of each scene. Everything from the lighting to the sound has to be right on cue and woven together with an intriguing story. With every piece that's off, it's another exit door offered to the viewer. Furthermore, when a film is silent, it is even more imperative to lure the audience in. Guy Maddin's Brand Upon the Brain! is the perfect blending of modern quirk and classic techniques of black and white storytelling and silence. However, to truly experience it is not to throw a DVD on your television, but to go out and feel it for yourself.

In September, I had the most memorable moviegoing experience of my life when TIFF did a one-night-only life performance of Brand. As James Rocchi described in September, the welcome false-start showed just how important the music and accompaniment are to the piece. In complete silence the film was jarring and beyond-Maddin strange, but with the music, it began to flow like a sweet, monochrome dream. Every sound was re-created from that moment, from narration to sound effects. It made it immediate and real, fun and exciting.

I, therefore, strongly urge anyone with the means to head to Berlin and watch the live performance of the film, which has already sparkled in Toronto and New York City. I have no idea if another screening like this will happen, and it's with Isabella Rossellini,* oft-collaborator of Maddin. It's sure to be an amazing one-time experience and a great reason to take a few days off and travel in the New Year. Better yet, it'd be the perfect cherry to an international Valentine's Day, since the performance will start at 9:30 PM on February 15.

*Unfortunately, Rossellini wasn't the narrator for the Toronto performance, so I'd love to hear from any of you who might have seen her rendition in New York City. ...

Those crazy dreamers at 2929 Entertainment sure like messing with the status quo, don't they? As if simultaneously releasing films in theaters, on DVD and on cable at the same time wasn't enough -- now, they're messing around with the way films are marketed too, at least according to a recent piece in The Hollywood Reporter. Not content with the way things work in any part of the filmmaking system, 2929 is offering incentives to ticket buyers such as film scores, deleted scenes, online production stills and online production notes to encourage viewers to buy tickets to its day-and-date release The Architect on movietickets.com.

"This is the first of 10 or more (promotions) in the next 12 months that will include this type of value add," said Mark Cuban, co-owner of 2929, in the article. "We will continue to look for additional digital products we can offer as a reward for those who watch the movie in a theater." At the movietickets.com site, ticket buyers can download the music from the film as MP3 files and look at production stills, while the deleted scenes will be included on the film's DVD -- coming out, you guessed it, the same day as the film's theatrical release.

The Architect, directed by first-timer Matt Tauber and scripted by Tauber and David Greig, concerns two Chicago families, one led by a wealthy architect and his wife (played by Anthony LaPaglia and Isabella Rossellini) and another led by a poor mother (played by Viola Davis) who asks LaPaglia to tear down the housing project he created because its dangerous. To be honest though, I'm not sure I really agree with the day-and-date release strategy at all. I kinda like going to the theater to see a movie and then catching it again on DVD a few months later. Having time in between is a good thing. It lets you re-discover the film when you watch it on DVD -- which adds to the enjoyment of it the second time around (at least for me).

That said, Mark Cuban is no dummy. And I have to admit this is a pretty innovative way to promote a movie. So, if he's trying to make this kind of thing work, he might be on to something. In the end, the success or failure of this venture will depend on what it usually depends on: money. If this film makes money, you can bet on seeing more films released and marketed this way. If not, well, you probably won't.

So, anyone in favor of this kind of film release or is it a bad idea?

Originally published in 1956, My Dog Tulip is author J.R. Ackerley's memoir of his 14-year relationship with Tulip, a German shepherd he rescued and who, eventually, appears to have taken over his life. According to Amazon, the relationship is a complicated one, because "there are indeed two Tulips. One is highly strung but heroic, flirtatious but true. The other is a four-legged rejoinder to authority: A biter, a barker, and a dab hand at defecating her way around London." Reactions to the book -- officially designated a "classic" by the New York Review of Books, if no one else -- seem to be mixed; some (dog-lovers, one assumes) dig the story for its detail and honesty, while others find those details (particularly those about Tulip's active sex life) tiresome and unnecessary.

Some of the people who love the book have not only rounded up enough money to turn it into an animated feature (with an "adult sensibility" -- that better not mean cartoon doggie porn), but also managed to attract some big names to the project, an accomplishment that instantly increases its profile. On board to provide vocal talent for My Dog Tulip, the movie, are such luminaries as Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave and Isabella Rossellini (though sadly no one knows which one gets to play the dog).

Voice recording is set to begin this week; producers hope to have the movie in the can by the end of next year.

A woman named Lucyna Turyk-Wawrynowicz, who worked as a maid for several Hollywood stars, pled guilty in a New York court yesterday to stealing from most of them. Among her big cheese victims were Robert De Niro's wife (from whom Turyk-Wawrynowicz took a pair of earrings worth almost $100,000) and Candice Bergen, whose leather jacket and several cameras were stolen. Even more alarming than the thievery, though, was the fact that, when Bergen confronted Turyk-Wawrynowicz about her action, the woman threatened to accuse Bergen's husband of sexual harassment if Bergen dared go to the police. That, my friends, is balls.

In the end, though, it was the fault of her victims if Turyk-Wawrynowicz stole from them. According to the high-class thief, "I only stole from people who didn't treat me with respect." Basically, that means that Isabella Rossellini has been confirmed as the coolest woman on earth, because she's the only employer whose stuff Turyk-Wawrynowicz left alone.

All of this is interesting and all, but here's my question: how does a 35-year-old woman get a group of clients like that? Did they all live in the same building, or something? It's just bizarre.