hal hartley Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's Monday -- the beginning of the work week, the end of fun, the day that elicits groans from coast to coast, country to country, pole to pole. To perk up the monotonous weekday grind, Cinematical is now kicking off a daily pick from AOL's /SlashControl. In other words: Every day we will pick an excellent, notable, time-wasting, or terrible-but-good must-see movie that you should watch today. Why bother? Because it's free. You don't even have to offer up your first born. Simply use these picks to increase your cinephile clout, or to reintroduce yourself to a flick you haven't seen in years.

I almost decided to go the way of Dolly Parton to kick things off, but then decided to be slightly more serious and infinitely more cinematic with Hal Hartley and Henry Fool. (Yes, the one that inspired be to write a Scenes We Love back in March.) This 1997 film won Hartley Best Screenplay at Cannes in 1998, and it confused but intrigued Roger Ebert. Now you get the chance to decide for yourself.

The black comedy follows the young Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) as he lives through a lower-class Queens existence -- a life that immediately changes with the arrival of Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan). A faux-intellectual rogue, Henry strikes up an affair with Simon's sister Fay (Parker Posey) while teaching Simon how to become a writer. Soon, Simon is thrust into a world of infamous literary notoriety as Henry's own past catches up with him.

But Henry Fool is one of those films that fails to live in brief descriptions. It only thrives as a moving piece of art, so:

Watch Henry Fool for free over at /SlashControl.

What goes around comes around. Back when the wonderful laserdisc was just beginning to find its stride, and the serious movie buff could actually find most of the titles he or she was longing to see, the DVD came along and all but wiped out this entire format, this entire subculture. Now, at the dawn of 2008, it looks as if the war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD may be coming to a close. Will one or the other format catch on? Will the regular DVD become extinct? No one can say. But when it comes to movies I'd like to see, none of this matters. 2007 brought us some amazing DVDs and DVD box sets, and the following is my wish list for titles I'd like to see produced in 2008.

(Note: I deliberately left off titles that are already available on import DVDs, such as Satantango, Celine and Julie Go Boating, Man of the West, Johnny Guitar, Lost Highway, Napoleon, The Dead, the Jean Vigo collection, and many more.)

1. Othello: 3-Disc Special Edition
In 1992, Orson Welles' daughter Beatrice authorized a "restored" version of the film that played in theaters. But purists claimed that her film deviated from what her father originally intended, and so the Criterion Collection released a laserdisc edition of Welles' original cut, the one that played at Cannes in 1952. Beatrice apparently blocked this earlier version, and so now only the 1992 cut is on DVD (and out of print besides). My fantasy DVD would be a three-disc box set (from Criterion, of course), collecting both the 1952 and 1992 cuts, as well as Orson's impossible-to-find documentary Filming Othello (1978), which is the last of his completed films I have yet to see. (There are clips of it on the Criterion Othello laserdisc.) On a side note, of Welles' thirteen completed films, seven are available on U.S. DVDs and four others are available overseas. That leaves only Othello and Filming Othello. Let's get on it!

"There will be no peace before Israel is safe within its borders," a captured female terrorist deadpans about halfway through this film -- you almost expect her to pop gum, she says it so casually. A straight-faced spoof of espionage films in particular and serious intentions in general, Fay Grim is also a sequel to 1997's Henry Fool, from writer/director Hal Hartley. Fool followed the adventures of a Queens trio: aspiring writer Simon Grim (James Urbaniak), his half-asleep Martian sister, Fay (Parker Posey), and a drifter named Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan), who walks into the Grims' lives claiming to have authored a multi-volume literary masterpiece called 'Confessions.' When Simon's writing ambitions start to net results in the real world, Henry's dream of being discovered as a some kind of working-class Chaucer falters. He eventually drifts on the next town, another adventure, but leaves Fay with a son. That's where we meet her now, years later, being dragged to a principal's office because the son has been caught with a pornographic viewfinder. "You're grounded, like, forever," she tells him.

The viewfinder, it turns out, was actually sent to the boy by the long-disappeared and presumed-dead Henry, and is itself a ludicrous piece of spycraft and the keystone of a worldwide conspiracy that involves the CIA, the Turkish government, Cuba, Islamic terrorists, the French government and Israel-Palestine. I think Denmark and Sweden were also implicated somehow, but it becomes hard to keep up. The feds, represented hilariously by Jeff Goldblum (he tells one fellow agent, "Carl, go take a walk in the rain") spin a tall tale for the impressionable Fay about how Henry's 'Confessions' were actually a deeply coded text that, if found and read properly, can unlock untold political secrets, but the truth is that they want to draw out Henry himself, believing him to be closely linked to an Osama bin Laden-type figure.In no time at all, Fay is whisked off to Paris on a mission to find Henry. To get herself in spy-mode, she takes to wearing a long coat and lingerie underneath and even assumes a catchy spy alias -- Emily Hopper.

*A guest review today, from Nick Schager, of Slant Magazine


Regrettably but inevitably, Waitress's tenacious optimism is partially offset by the recent, tragic murder of its writer/director/co-star Adrienne Shelly, an actress who made her name in Hal Hartley's early indies and, with this funny, charming slice of Southern country life, appears to have found her voice as a filmmaker. However, the bittersweetness that accompanies the film's arrival is, coincidentally, in tune with its story's miserable protagonist, a young, pretty waitress at Joe's Pie Diner named Jenna (Keri Russell). Stuck in a loveless marriage to her controlling, abusive husband Earl (Jeremy Sisto), and prevented from running away by a lack of cash, Jenna is a forlorn woman who sees dreams of a bright future dissipating before her eyes. To cope, she pours all of her grief, longing and sadness for happier times-gone-by into her unique homemade pies, which – described, at one point, as "biblically good" – are concocted with an array of inventively combined ingredients, and named after the moods that inspired them (such as her "I Hate My Husband Pie" and "Falling in Love Pie").

Tending to her louse of a spouse, wasting time gabbing in the diner bathroom with co-workers Becky (Cheryl Hines) and Dawn (Shelly), and waiting on outspoken, lewd diner proprietor Old Joe (a consistently hilarious Andy Griffith) while decked out in her '50s-style blue-and-white uniform – Jenna's life is, at the outset, in a rut. Waitress is too, as its early attempts at establishing a mood are a tad shaky, vacillating unevenly between cutesiness and seriousness. That balancing act becomes much smoother, however, once Jenna – after learning that she's pregnant with Earl's baby thanks to an ill-advised drunken roll in the hay – goes to see her OBGYN and finds, to her surprise, that her lifelong doctor has suddenly semi-retired and been replaced by attractive Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion). Though she's been stashing money around the house for an eventual escape, Jenna makes clear to the married Pomatter that, while she isn't thrilled about the baby (who'll further tie her down), she nonetheless intends to keep it. Her plan to disappear into the night, however, is complicated by the almost immediate and overwhelming mutual attraction that blossoms between doc and patient.

Just a few days ago, we reported on the tragic death of indie actress Adrienne Shelly, best known for her roles in Hal Hartley's films The Unbelievable Truth and Trust. Shelly was found hanging from a shower curtain rod in the bathroom of her New York City office, and initial reports indicated police suspected it was a suicide. Now WCBS-TV in New York City reports that police are calling Shelly's death a murder, and that they have a suspect in custody. We heard from a tipper earlier this morning that police had found sneaker prints not matching Shelly's in the bathtub, and that they were investigating angles other that suicide. No suicide note was found, and Shelly had just wrapped directing the film Waitress, which she had reportedly submitted to the Sundance Film Festival.

According to WCBS sources, police have in custody a construction worker who allegedly punched the 5'2" actress after she complained about the noise he was making, killing her. He then allegedly dragged Shelly's body back to her office and hung it from the shower rod in an attempt to make it look like a suicide. Shelly, who has a three-year-old daughter, Sophie, was found by her husband, Andy Ostoy. The medical examiner's office has yet to officiallly rule on the cause of death. We'll keep you posted.

[Thanks to Hot Tipper "NS", who pointed us to the WCBS story in the comments of our previous story about Shelly.]

It is going to be tough for awhile, looking up at the Trust poster on my wall. For as big a fan of Hal Hartley's films as I am, I was taken aback by the news this morning that actress Adrienne Shelley, who starred in Hartley's films The Unbelievable Truth and, of course, Trust, was found dead in her office on Wednesday evening. The cause of death is still unknown, even after an autopsy was performed Thursday, though police are awaiting more results from that autopsy.

I always thought of Shelly as an important part of the New York independent film scene, not just for her Hartley roles, which were her first, but also because she never really broke into Hollywood despite all the buzz she received in the early '90s. She called New York home and even titled her first directorial feature Sudden Manhattan. Her second film, I'll Take You There won her a best director award at the U.S. Comedy Festival, and her third, Waitress, which stars Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion, just recently finished shooting. As far as acting, she'd recently appeared in Factotum, but she was more interested in focusing on writing and directing, and taking care of her 3-year-old daughter. It is unfortunate that we'll never get to see how successful her filmmaking career could have been.

Shelly was waiting to hear whether or not Waitress would screen at Sundance in January when she died. I'd like to suggest that the festival not only give the film a slot, but also give her a special tribute of some kind as well.

UPDATE: Shelly was reportedly murdered.

No one likes to be called "aging" or, God forbid, "old," but it happens to the best of us eventually. The years go by and your mind gets a little fuzzy, the music gets a little too loud from those darn kids next door and if your an independent filmmaker, you might start to wonder why you struggle each year, barely making a living, producing or directing films most people may never see. At some point it has to hit you that doing this for the rest of your life is a much shorter trip than it used to be.

A recent New York Times story takes a good look at the "aging" independent filmmakers out there who, with their work, and struggle to find work, help define exactly what it means to be an independent filmmaker. As the article states, many of them toil in virtual obscurity, producing films that are lucky to find a home on the festival circuit, let alone a place at the local multiplex or in your DVD player. Even the ones that have achieved some measure of success in the past are having a much harder time of it in the modern filmmaking world.

People like Hal Hartley, Mary Harron, Todd Solondz, Lisa Cholodenko, Jim Jarmusch and even indie-godfather John Sayles (his Lone Star and Matewan, both featuring the fantastic Chris Cooper, are two of my favorite films of all time) are having to make films for far less money than before, take jobs doctoring scripts for others (in Sayles' case) or they are forced to leave the business completely. Some directors, like Cholodenko and Harron, are even resorting to -- gasp -- directing TV to make ends meet. It's not exactly in keeping with their indie film street cred but heck, it pays the bills. And according to Harron, directing TV is also a great "corrective" for a director's ego. Something that many directors could probably use every so often.

Fay Grim, director Hal Hartley's follow-up to his 1997 cult favorite, Henry Fool, is just about as sharp, dark and funny as a Hartley fan could wish for. Henry Fool, in case you've missed seeing it, is a little gem of a film about a socially repressed young man, Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) who works as a garbage man to support his depressed mother and nymphomaniac sister, Fay (Parker Posey, in one of her best roles).

When Henry Fool, a vulgar, chain-smoking, self-styled intellectual takes up residence in the family basement to finish writing his "Confession" -- which he claims is so astounding it will turn the literary world upon its ear -- Simon befriends him, and Henry becomes his mentor. Simon eventually writes a book-length poem, which gets published and critically acclaimed, while Henry's confession is found to be inept and practically unreadable. When Henry accidentally kills their disgusting neighbor, Simon trades identities with Henry to help him escape.

The people behind the Toronto International Film Festival have released yet another list of titles that will be featured at this year's event, the great majority of which are world premieres, added to the slate to increase TIFF's profile as a film market. Festival co-director Noah Cowan believes the fact that filmmakers are choosing to debut in Toronto rather than at major European festivals is a sign of TIFF's rising status, and says that he's fielded calls from major American distributors about nearly every film on this list.

Among the most interesting films on this latest list are: Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn, a fictional version of the story told in his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly; Fay Grim, Hal Hartley's long-awaited follow up to Henry Fool; Scott Caan's second directorial effort debut, The Dog Problem; This Is England, Shane Meadows' story of a boy who becomes a skinhead in 1980s England; the rather frightening-titled Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show, a documentary that "chronicles the personal and professional journeys of four rising comedians as they traverse the country on a tour bus with Vaughn"; Alatriste, the Viggo Mortensen-speaking-Spanish flick we told you about last year.

This year's TIFF runs September 7-16.