newsweek Tagged Articles at Cinematical

He goes by "Night," but it's hard to dispute his sunny disposition. Just a few minutes into a conversation with M. Night Shyamalan in a New York City hotel room yesterday, it was obvious to me that the director has managed to occupy such a unique niche in the Hollywood landscape because he's immediately likable. Of course, a little movie released in 1999 called The Sixth Sense didn't hurt, either.

After landing two Oscar nominations and international acclaim for his masterful ghost story, Shyamalan continued to market himself as a brand. Since then, the results have been mixed. Signs was an indisputable hit. Unbreakable has its supporters. Lady in the Water? Not so much. But that failure hasn't prevented the filmmaker from dealing with audacious material: His latest movie, The Happening, finds a married couple (Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel) thrust into a world where people inexplicably become suicidal after getting struck by an ominous, unseen toxin. Forces of evil usually remain unseen in Shyamalan's films, and The Happening is no exception to that rule. I spoke to the 37-year-old Philadelphia resident about the personal philosophies guiding his career choices, the polarized reactions to his work, and what the future will bring.

It's been just about a week since the world was hit with news of Heath Ledger's untimely death. While folks still try to come to terms with how and why he died, those who last worked with him are starting to share their thoughts. Though he wasn't the last man to direct Ledger (that was Terry Gilliam), Christopher Nolan is the director of the last feature film Ledger will ever appear in ... The Dark Knight. As he notes in an article for Newsweek, Nolan is still in the editing room, piecing together the last bits of his film with the face of a young star who died too young staring back at him each and every single day.

Nolan says, "Heath was bursting with creativity. It was in his every gesture. He once told me that he liked to wait between jobs until he was creatively hungry. Until he needed it again. He brought that attitude to our set every day. There aren't many actors who can make you feel ashamed of how often you complain about doing the best job in the world. Heath was one of them."

Nolan also shared that Heath had been working on two short films at the time of his death; that, while shooting The Dark Knight, he would bring his laptop to the set and show Nolan what he was working on. Nolan continues: "When you get into the edit suite after shooting a movie, you feel a responsibility to an actor who has trusted you, and Heath gave us everything. As we started my cut, I would wonder about each take we chose, each trim we made. I would visualize the screening where we'd have to show him the finished film-sitting three or four rows behind him, watching the movements of his head for clues to what he was thinking about what we'd done with all that he'd given us. Now that screening will never be real. I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly."

Head over to Newsweek to read the entire tribute.

Once a year or so for the past several years, usually around awards season, somebody somewhere writes a story about how TV has gotten so much better than the movies. This year's article on the state of TV versus the movies is over at Newsweek, and there's a lively debate going on over at Hollywood Elsewhere on the topic, with people trumpeting their favorite TV shows (The Wire, Lost, 24, Heroes, even, god help us, American Idol) over the offerings at the multiplex.

Now, I can see the value of a well-made television program. I've been addicted to Jack Bauer and 24 since episode one of season one, and I'm not even sure how I feel about seeing 24 up on the big screen. There's something about the intimacy of curling up on the couch each week with Jack, Chloe and the gang that would be lost in translation to the silver screen. And I know lots of folks, some of them living in my very own house, who can't make it through a week without checking in with Heroes or Grey's Anatomy, but that doesn't mean that those shows are better than the films I can see at one of the arthouse cinemas in town (although I might buy the argument that they're better than what's showing down the road at the multiplex).

When I look at my own top ten films for 2006, I see films like Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, Liittle Children and The Proposition, films which cry out for a big screen in a dark theater. Even The Lives of Others (which would have had a spot on my list if I'd seen it in time) uses the big screen to make you feel the weight of the Stasi oppression through its gloomy cinematography. TV storytelling may have gotten better over the past decade or so, with more focus on compelling stories, but I'm not sure you can even objectively compare the two media -- even the Newsweek article says, it's like "comparing apples to tubas" -- but then author Devin Gordon goes on to do just that, asserting that television is "running circles" around the movies.

So what do you think? Are your fave TV shows better than the movies Hollywood studios are churning out?

[ via Hollywood Elsewhere ]

One of the most deliciously fascinating aspects of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is the way in which the masterful comedian Sacha Baron Cohen gets "normal" Americans to lower their guard, say some really ignorant things, and not even realize how goofy they are. But since the producers were smart enough to get the paperwork filed in advance, all the footage is entirely legal, hilariously legit and (often) painful to watch.

A recent Newsweek article caught up with several of the interview subjects found within Borat, and (needless to say) a solid handful of them are not all that happy with their newfound noteriety: A car salesman was given $150 for three hours of his time -- and still harbors some unkind memories of Borat's visit. A Washington D.C. "humor coach" found it odd that the crazy Kazakhstani paid him in advance -- and in cash. An etiquette teacher from Alabama seems rather perturbed that she'll be appearing in "an R-rated film." (Sheesh, what year is this??) And the rodeo cowboy who trashed Muslims and gays ... well, he hasn't seen the flick yet, but odds are he'll soon be seen as a local hero. And the irony just keeps on coming...

The article is pretty darn enlightening to me, as I spent hours after seeing Borat wondering: How the HELL did he get normal folks to let down their guard and display such, well, honest behavior? And therein, I think, lies the genius of Sacha Baron Cohen's approach: By presenting such an "undesirable" foreigner, he allows his subjects to grow confident and perhaps a little superior. And that's where the "warts and all material rears its hilariously ugly head. You just might want to wait until after you see Borat before reading this article, but see the flick you absolutely must. It opens on November 3rd, and I'll be there on opening night. Yes, again.