WalterReadeTheater Tagged Articles at Cinematical

When Stephen Frears' The Queen came out in 2006, all the buzz emphasized Helen Mirren's icy performance as London's reclusive royal highness. The ubiquitous praise lead to her Oscar win, but it overwhelmed recognition of the movie's secret weapon: Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, quietly pressuring his Majesty to face the public in the wake of Princess Diana's untimely demise. There's a reason why Sheen conveyed the nuances of Blair's role in the event, which transpired a mere three months after the Prime Minister rose to power -- he had practice. The Deal, a fantastic made-for-TV movie Frears directed in 2003, tracked Blair's cunning (and morally questionable) instincts in the years leading up to his position at the top of the Labor Party.

Sheen played Blair in The Deal first, and it's both a superior performance and a superior film. Whereas The Queen had a tabloid hook and only tangentially explored the deeper political ramifications of a reclusive national leader, The Deal delves into precisely how Blair managed to emerge at the top of British politics with a series of calculated maneuvers. Political drama at its finest, The Deal hit DVD in the United States last month, where it has been touted as "the prequel to The Queen." That's not quite fair; The Queen is the sequel to The Deal, and the two movies ought to be seen as a single, wholly fascinating package depicting British politics in the 1990s.

Most people have a favorite place to sit when going to the movies. Some people like the back row; some people like the centermost spot (middle seat, middle row); some people like to sit near the front so that they can stare up at the screen and let the picture fill the limits of their peripheral vision.

I figure that last preference made more sense fifty years ago, when Cinerama and CinemaScope presented vast, expansively shot epics and westerns that were made to surround our senses and engulf our whole eye-span. Nowadays, most movies are too fast-cut and often the camerawork is too shaky to really work for close viewing. Have you ever been forced to sit in the first few rows when a movie is sold out? Wasn't it hard to tell what was going on most of the time?

Personally, I like watching movies close up, when it's appropriate. Unfortunately, it rarely is. But movie theaters can't just start removing those front rows because they aren't good for the moviegoer's eyes. No, that would mean a lot fewer tickets sold, a lot fewer popcorns sold, and a lot less money going to both the theater owners and the movie distributors. So, moviemakers should go back to making movies that are more accommodating to the theatrical audience, right? Yeah, that's not going to happen.

Welcome to The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar. Each week, we'll give you a round-up of what's going on in indie film (and sometimes just cool film news and screenings) in cities near you. If you know of cool stuff happening that's related to film -- a local fest, a series of classic restored films, lectures, workshops, open calls for casting of an indie film -- send your tips to me at kim(at)cinematical(dot)com and we'll add them to the calendar.

Here are this week's happenings in film from New York to LA and points in between, right after the jump ...

Can you sit through fourteen Bing Crosby films? Sure you can. The Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theatre is having a Bing Crosby fest in late July (starts July 20th), and it's screening a slew of Bing in his various iterations. It kicks off with Going Hollywood, in which Crosby plays his usual charming self, gleefully seducing Marion Davies. It's an 80mm print, and includes a special 20mm short. Another film showing up on opening day is High Society, which was "Crosby's favorite film" and, according to this press release I'm staring at, a "pastel-colored, chamber-music version of ... The Philedelphia Story." You judge for yourself which version is better.