cold souls Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Indie Roundup reviews the past week of news from the independent film community and provides a peek at what's coming soon.

Festivals. The venerable New York Film Festival announced its first titles, while Eugene Hernandez and Brian Brooks of indieWIRE consider the impact of non-programming changes. In news from the other coast, Rachel Rosen is heading back to the City by the Bay to work as programming director for the San Francisco Film Society, reports The Wrap.

Rosen moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles eight years ago and helped transform the Los Angeles Film Festival into a truly major festival in a city that, oddly enough, doesn't give much respect to local film festivals. As Director of Programming, she and Senior Programmer Doug Jones chose a wonderfully diverse selection of international films that were challenging and not always the most audience friendly, yet they were distinctive and memorable. And now she's gone. (A more extensive report can be found at indieWIRE.) Whoever replaces her has big shoes to fill.

Online / On-Demand Viewing. I like free, legal movies, and Babelgum and Cinetic have a new title in their monthly program to tantalize cheapskates like me: Jack Says is described as a "contemporary film noir thriller," in which the titular character wakes up next to a corpse with amnesia (Jack, not the corpse). At SnagFilms, you can watch gamer doc Second Skin for free until tomorrow, as part of their SummerFest series. And from Friday through Sunday, the doc Captured -- all about Manhattan's Lower East Side -- will be available for free streaming via Cinetic's channel at Daily Motion.

What do Cold Souls and Paper Heart have in common? Indie Weekend Box Office, after the jump.

By James Rocchi (reprint from Sundance 2009)

It's inevitable Cold Souls -- with its pseudo-scientific commercialized metaphysics and actor's angst -- will be compared to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich; it's the first post-Charlie Kaufman film, where the writer-director's weird, wooly aesthetic becomes a genre unto itself. Starring Paul Giamatti as, in a blatant piece of typecasting, actor Paul Giamatti, Cold Souls begins with Giamatti rehearsing the title role in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, and it's obviously taking its toll as he plunges into sad-sack Russian angst and anomie. Giamatti's agent tips him to an article in The New Yorker, profiling a new service called "Soul Storage," wherein melancholy Manhattanites are having their souls extracted by Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn) and held in escrow so they can live less complicated lives. Giamatti, wondering if having less soul would help him better play the part and get through the day, goes to Flintstein's office to get the details: "Your soul can be stored here ... or if you'd prefer to avoid the sales tax, it can be shipped to our storage facility in New Jersey. ..."

And again, you get the Kaufman vibe from writer-director Sophie Barthes; the dry humor, the everyday acceptance of the ludicrous, the ludicrous nature of the everyday. But while the comparisons to Eternal Sunshine and Being John Malkovich are inevitable, they're also not quite right. Eternal Sunshine was about the messy business of loving another; Cold Souls, with the equally messy proposition of living with one's self. Being John Malkovitch riffed comedy out of celebrity and stardom; Cold Souls examines sub-lebrity and acting. Cold Souls is a beautifully shot film, and it also becomes more than a little bit moving, as Giamatti struggles with a question we've all asked ourselves: Is it possible to remove the burden of our soul without taking away the benefit of it? Is it the very weight we struggle under that makes us strong?

2012
You know that poem about the world ending not with a bang but a whimper? I don't think Roland Emmerich has read it as this end of the world flick has many bangs each followed by an Earth-shattering ka-boom. Apparently the Mayan calendar's prediction of the apocalypse comes true in the titular year and John Cusack plays a man whose family is in the midst of the cataclysm. The part about a government plan to build a sort of ark reminds me of George Pal's When Worlds Collide. The end begins on November 13.

Zombieland
I'm always leery of horror comedies. For every Shaun of the Dead or Return of the Living Dead there's a dozen straight to DVD movies that try to frighten and amuse at the same time yet end up doing neither. This humorous look at the zombie apocalypse not only looks pretty damn funny but also has some star power with Woody Harrelson, Abigail Breslin and Bill Murray. This one hits theaters on Ocotober 9, just in time for Halloween.

Click image below to view entire poster

Cinematical has just received this incredibly freaky exclusive poster for Cold Souls, which premiered at this past Sundance Film Festival and stars Paul Giamatti as an actor (appropriately named Paul Giamatti) who decides he wants to put some of his soul in storage in order to help better tackle a new role. Folks are already making comparisons to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich, though this isn't a Charlie Kaufman film -- it was written and directed by first-timer Sophie Barthes, and it also stars Emily Watson and David Strathairn.

Reporting for Cinematical at Sundance, James Rocchi had this to say about the film: "Cold Souls is a beautifully shot film, and it also becomes more than a little bit moving, as Giamatti struggles with a question we've all asked ourselves: Is it possible to remove the burden of our soul without taking away the benefit of it? Is it the very weight we struggle under that makes us strong? Deep questions, but Cold Souls is also funny; there are fast, laugh-out-loud gags like Giamatti's compensation anxiety over the small size of his extracted soul ("It looks like a chickpea!") or the Russian trophy wife obsessed with getting an American actor's extracted soul so she can implant it and do better Soap Opera work."

Cold Souls arrives in theaters on August 7. Click the image below to check out the entire poster (which you simply must do, because this is easily one of my favorites of the year so far).

Sunday may be a day of rest, but not for the intrepid Cinematical crew, who cranked out reviews and posts between screenings and interviews. They weren't the only busy ones, of course!

Deals. Nothing closed, but Gregg Goldstein of Movie City News reported (very early) that David Mackenzie's sex comedy Spread, starring Ashton Kutcher and Anne Heche, excited distributors because of its commercial appeal. The Jim Carrey "gay prison love story" I Love You Phillip Morris premiered tonight and distribs are expected to be circling.

Cinematical Reviews, and An Interview. Erik Davis says Marc Webb's 500 Days of Summer, with Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt, is "an anti-fairytale" romantic comedy. (Did you watch the teaser trailer? Fox Searchlight will release it in July.) Erik was super impressed by the teen detective antics of the Derrick Comedy troupe in Mystery Team, which he calls "a silly, stupid, ridiculous comedy." Paul Solet's Grace inspired the inimitable Eric D. Snider to opine: "If you are the sort of person who might enjoy an effed-up gore-fest about a woman [Jordan Ladd] who delivers an undead baby, you can rest assured that Grace lives up to its potential." Scott Weinberg wrote about killer trees, Nazi zombies, and a cool celeb .

James Rocchi interviewed Antoine Fuqua, director of Brooklyn's Finest, a few hours before the film sold to Senator Entertainment. James was cool toward Doug Pray's doc Art & Copy ("essentially, an ad for advertising") but warmed up to Sophie Barthes' Cold Souls, with Paul Giamatti giving "what may be his best performance" as an actor who stores his soul. James also saw a "French-style ... transgendered revenge comedy," and lived to tell about it.

Blog Talk. My favorite quotes of the day, if you have a few more seconds, after the jump.

It's inevitable Cold Souls -- with its pseudo-scientific commercialized metaphysics and actor's angst -- will be compared to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich; it's the first post-Charlie Kaufman film, where the writer-director's weird, wooly aesthetic becomes a genre unto itself. Starring Paul Giamatti as, in a blatant piece of typecasting, actor Paul Giamatti, Cold Souls begins with Giamatti rehearsing the title role in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, and it's obviously taking its toll as he plunges into sad-sack Russian angst and anomie. Giamatti's agent tips him to an article in The New Yorker, profiling a new service called "Soul Storage," wherein melancholy Manhattanites are having their souls extracted by Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn) and held in escrow so they can live less complicated lives. Giamatti, wondering if having less soul would help him better play the part and get through the day, goes to Flintstein's office to get the details: "Your soul can be stored here ... or if you'd prefer to avoid the sales tax, it can be shipped to our storage facility in New Jersey. ..."

And again, you get the Kaufman vibe from writer-director Sophie Barthes; the dry humor, the everyday acceptance of the ludicrous, the ludicrous nature of the everyday. But while the comparisons to Eternal Sunshine and Being John Malkovich are inevitable, they're also not quite right. Eternal Sunshine was about the messy business of loving another; Cold Souls, with the equally messy proposition of living with one's self. Being John Malkovitch riffed comedy out of celebrity and stardom; Cold Souls examines sub-lebrity and acting. Cold Souls is a beautifully shot film, and it also becomes more than a little bit moving, as Giamatti struggles with a question we've all asked ourselves: Is it possible to remove the burden of our soul without taking away the benefit of it? Is it the very weight we struggle under that makes us strong?

Once again, your friends at Cinematical will be braving the arctic cold in Park City, Utah to bring you the best and brightest from the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, which will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2009. The films in competition this year, spread across four different categories (Documentary Competition, Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition and World Cinema Dramatic Competition) were just announced and we've got 'em right here.

Among some of the highlights we have Doug Pray's doc Art & Copy about the advertising world, Good Hair (comedian Chris Rock examining African-American hair?), John Krasinski's (The Office) directorial debut Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Paper Heart (that secret Michael Cera flick we told you about), Cold Souls (with Paul Giamatti and Emily Watson) and An Education (from writer Nick Hornby). Festival director Geoffrey Gilmore noted that "This year's films are not narrowly defined. Instead we have a blurring of genres, a crossing of boundaries: geographic, generational, socio-economic and the like. The result is both an exhilarating and emotive Festival in which traditional mythologies are suspended, discoveries are made, and creative storytelling is embraced." Tomorrow we'll have the non-competition films.

Check out the entire slate (with descriptions) after the jump, then tell us what looks good to you.