Any interview with Woody Allen is a good read, full of quotable gems and ample endearing anxiety. But add French New Wave legend Jean-Luc Godard into the mix and you have a conversation between two of the world’s most brilliant living filmmakers. Godard’s short film Meetin’ WA, shot in 1986,is 26 minutes of Allen talking about his lifelong love of cinema (he loved theaters as a kid because he could “avoid the heat and avoid the light”); his gratitude to the media, which “has always been good to me, more than I deserve”; and the process of filmmaking, from perfect idea to deeply flawed final product. They even talk about their mutual appreciation for intertitles. The introduction to the movie is in French, but most of the interview is conducted in English — so rejoice, film nerds, after the jump.
There are those master filmmakers whose careers, fortunately for us, have spanned decades. What happened between Woody Allen’s 1979 Manhattan and Woody Allen’s Manhattan of the 2000′s? How far had Stanley Kubrick been able to push it since Lolita? How has unpredictable aging of the director’s beloved stars changed the way they treat their pet themes? What happened since… dum dum dummm… the Internet? Here are our favorite old-timers who have seen the world change and — willingly and unwillingly — have shown it through their films.
On Monday, yet another public smoking law went into effect in New York City, this one banning the consumption of cigarettes in 43 square miles of parks, public plazas, boardwalks, and beaches. While it’s certainly not as shocking as the 2002 prohibition on smoking in restaurants and bars (“No smoking in bars now,” Eddie Izzard memorably warned, “and soon, no drinking and no talking!”), it is yet another sign of the continuing ghettoization of the habit.
I should pause a moment to point out that I am not a smoker — never have been, never will be. I recognize the indisputable health dangers, and the addictive nature of the product, and I’m not making light of them. But here’s the thing: I’m also a movie nut, so my feelings about smoking are, well, complicated. The classic teen impetus for smoking is that it “looks cool,” and countless anti-smoking advocates have done their best to debunk that notion (“Y’know what doesn’t look cool? A voice box,” etc.), but you know what? We’re all adults. We can say it. Smoking does look cool. At least, it often looks cool in movies, when it’s properly lit and framed and done by a movie star. So, in memory of the smoker, that most endangered species, join us after the jump for ten movies that make you feel like lighting one up (plus one that does quite the opposite).
In the process of covering the Tribeca Film Festival and the kick-off of the summer movie season, we didn’t really get to weigh in on that already notorious British survey concerning lying about the movies you’ve seen. It is, we should note, a pretty inexplicable list — not because people lie about this stuff (“What’s that? My favorite Antonioni film? Well, really, who can pick a favorite?”- Me), but because people apparently lie about seeing these films. The Shawshank Redemption? I didn’t realize it was possible to have cable television and never see The Shawshank Redemption; they must not have TNT over there. Dirty Dancing? Is there some sort of thick Freudian subtext that renders that movie impenetrable, and scares off potential viewers? (The answer: no, it remains the tale of Baby not getting put in the corner.) The films on this list are, for the most part, accessible popular entertainments; The Great Escape is a thrilling jailbreak caper, GoodFellas is a cracklingly fast-paced gangster picture, Citizen Kane sparkles with screwball dialogue and inventive narrative trickery. And The Godfather? Who can’t make it through The Godfather?
The point is, these are not the kind of dense, cinematic-obligation-filling works that New York Times writer Dan Kois is referencing in his “Eating Your Cultural Vegetables” essay (which came out around the same time as the British survey). Some critics and viewers, he writes, “love the experience of watching movies that I find myself simply enduring in order to get to the good part — i.e., not the part where you’re watching the real-time birth of a Kazakh lamb, but the rest of your life, when you have watched it and you get to talk about it and write about it and remember it.” The tragedy of the British list was that there were so many genuinely great movies on it, and those would-be viewers were really missing something by skipping them. On the other hand, there are plenty of movies that it’s perfectly fine to lie about — pictures that, as Kois points out, are more of an obligation and a chore to get through, because they are iconic or important or influential. We’ve compiled our own list of those films after the jump.
1. Between accusations of his antisemitism and the fact that he’s not even planning to show up at the banquet, do you think the Academy is starting to regret giving Jean-Luc Godard an honorary Oscar? [via NYT]
2. So that’s not good: “Show Zero,” which was touted as the warm-up for Conan O’Brien’s upcoming TBS show, was pretty disappointing, filled with “dated comedy and embarrassingly overt product placement.” [via Vulture]
3. Leonardo DiCaprio is going to play Dr. HH Holmes, one of the most prolific serial killers in Chicago history, in a film adaptation of The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. [via Deadline]
4. Kim Kardashian has been spending time in the recording studio with The-Dream. [via TMZ]
5. Paramount has bought a new film project from True Blood creator Alan Ball that is allegedly “a dark comedy with a twist.” He will both direct and produce. [via Deadline]
1. This year’s 2010 Mercury Prize, the annual award for the UK and Ireland’s “most excellent” LP, went to the xx for their self-titled album. [via Stereogum]
2. Billy Ray Cyrus and his son Trace are working on a paranormal investigation show for SyFy. Says Billy Ray: “I hope this series can shine a light on some of the activities we have questioned, and the mysteries that have long inspired us.” [via THR]
3. HBO has green lighted the pilot for a half-hour comedy about “the assorted humiliations and rare triumphs of a group of girls in their early 20s” from Judd Apatow and indie filmmaker Lena Dunham. [via Deadline]
4. Word is that Jean-Luc Godard may be accepting his honorary Oscar after all. [via Deadline]
5. What is Google’s logo trying to tell us about today’s big announcement? [via TechCrunch]
We’re not exaggerating when we say that Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In was our favorite film of 2008. The Swedish film’s mix of emotional realism, dark fantasy and stark, Scandinavian-winter setting — not to mention a pair of outstanding performances from its young stars — proved that vampire mythology can give rise to deeper fare than Twilight.
That said, we were less than thrilled to hear that Cloverfield director (and Under Siege 2 writer!) Matt Reeves was at work on an English-language remake of Let the Right One In. Now that we know its title (Let Me In) and release date (October 1), we can’t say we’re any more excited. Why? Well, when it comes to adapting classic foreign films, Hollywood has a somewhat checkered past. After the jump, we compare five international films with their English-language counterparts to determine whether these remakes are ever a good idea.
Dear Busy Reader: This is your daily reminder of cool events happening tonight in your city. If you’d rather have this information delivered straight to your in-box each Tuesday, sign up for our handy Flavorpill City Guides.
• If you’re in New York: Come bowl with us tonight at our High Rollers party at the newly-opened Williamsburg venue Brooklyn Bowl. The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt!, Sunday Best! DJs Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin, and country punks O’Death will play.
• If you’re in Los Angeles: The Pasadena Museum of California Art’s second annual interdisciplinary gala, Rock Me on the Terrace, fuses art and music with evening exhibitions and live tunes on the institution’s stunning rooftop patio.
• If you’re in San Francisco:The Silent Film Festival unspools what is perhaps its most star-driven and diverse lineup for its 14th edition this weekend. Check out the Opening Night feature, Gaucho.
• If you’re in Chicago: Jean-Luc Godard’s Made in U.S.A was shown once in the United States, at the 1967 New York Film Festival. Now, the long-lost noir masterpiece is back for a one-week engagement at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
Got a tip for something we should list? Hit us up at tip@flavorpill.com.
Early in Jean-Luc Godard’s tensile girl-and-gun caper, Made in U.S.A. (which plays NYC’s Film Forum from January 9 through January 22), Anna Karina — the Gallic auteur’s early-career muse and ex-spouse — declares: “Now fiction overtakes reality.” But this said-and-done partition by a director who was only beginning to brazenly hoist his political banderoles is analogous to questing for El Dorado: it is nowhere to be found.
