Big Screen Little Screen

After a disappointing theatrical release, Wong Kar Wai’s My Blueberry Nights deserves second look on DVD. It’s sugary, seductive atmosphere of cozy cafes and boozy bars overcomes a script that is about as solid as a scoop of ice cream over hot blueberry pie.  This is style over substance, to be sure, but when that style is a sweet languor of Otis Redding, Cat Power, and baked dessert, sign me up.  You can Netflix it today.

Alexa Frangos bakes fruit pies when she isn’t collaging and blogging over at Pop Elegantiarum.

So Ted Zee already left on a jet plane, and a few of the YESORNODC crew are headed to the shore this weekend, all of which got me to thinking about movies of movement: the good, the bad, and the inscrutable. Too many films belong to the first category to even begin to exhaust the list here; every time you think of one (Easy Rider, easily), you remember another (Y tu mamá también!) and another (Midnight Run!) and another (Broken Flowers!). The bad’s a bit easier– avoid anything made in the past decade with the phrase “road trip” actually in the title, for starters. The inscrutable? We’ll leave those up to Vincent Gallo.

You can decide which of the aforementioned categories to add Jacques Tati’s Trafic (1971) to when Criterion releases it–along with plenty of extra goodness, natch– on July 15th. Monsieur Hulot’s live action swan song finds Tati’s alter ego bumbling his way from Paris to an auto show in Amsterdam; hijinks, as always, ensue. Heretofore, Trafic was only legally available across the Atlantic on PAL, but possibly with good reason… It’s more than a little sad to see Play Time’s protagonist holed up in a drab Parisian automotive factory at the outset of Trafic, all the pomp and circumstance of the previous film’s brilliant traffic circle-cum-carnival denouement reduced to a palette of pallid grays and greens.

Those left someone disenchanted by Trafic, however, need not fret. Sylvain Chomet– he of Les Triplettes de Belleville fame– will resurrect Hulot, albeit in animated form, in next year’s L’Illusionniste, from an unproduced script by Tati. This time around, struggling magician Hulot takes his act on the road from the Hebrides to– of all places– Edinburgh (Chomet’s Django Films is based in Auld Reekie). More info over at Scotland on Sunday.

Indulge Kyle further at YESORNODC.COM.

With apologies to Marty, the best film of 2006 is now available on DVD - and really, it’s the one new release (opening - 1:54) you need to be concerned with for the moment. Students of film, take note - The Long Take.

- Dennis Hopper and director Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways) are among the lastest to offer short films for McSweeney’s quarterly DVD magazine - Wholphin. Check out the lineup, with clips and director bios for Issue 3, which you can preorder now. Should be a short wait, as the release is scheduled for “early December”.

- Trailer: Tim Robbins and Sara Polley in The Secret Life of Words

- With Weeds, Dexter, and the largely unseen/underrated Brotherhood now in their stable, Showtime is primed to make strides as many of HBO’s top hits are winding down. They’re offering a sneak preview for their latest, the second season of Sleeper Cell, what TV Guide calls “unnervingly topical suspense…reminiscent of 24 but about a dozen times more realistic”. View the entire first episode here. The password is “sneakpeek”. The series debuts this Sunday (12/10) with new episodes running every evening until the conclusion on December 17th. All 8 episodes will be available On Demand by the 10th.

- Audio tip: NPR’s Ira Glass is developing a small screen adaptation for his popular radio show This American Life (listen to the show’s archives), to debut on Showtime in March. “We basically said ‘no’ for a year and half,” Glass recalls. “And we kept saying we have no idea how to… be filmmakers. You have to hook us up with people who could design something that got across the feeling of the radio show.” - read or listen, via All Things Considered.

- Last warning for the debut of Six Feet Under’s Peter Krause in the Sci-Fi Network’s miniseries The Lost Room (earlier chatter here and here). View clips and promos from the official site, and another 2 minute clip featuring Krause and Juliana Margulies, provided by IGN. The Lost Room premieres Monday, December 11th.

Apropos of nothing, old news to some, via the YouTube archives. Finally, someone’s bothered to post a few subtitled clips of The Fuccons. Originating from Japanese variety program Vermillion Pleasure Night - loving American parental unit, James and Barbara, learn to live as the Japanese do, with son Mikey in tow. In this episode - Mikey, kidnapped. DVD features both subtitled and extra corny dubbed versions, though the former is recommended for full effect. Bonus Fuccons: Just Moved In

Cache - Michael Haneke’s (The Piano Teacher, Code Unknown) latest focuses on a family under survellience. Which is fitting, because his films tend to have a fly on the wall feel to them, as if the images transmitted are from a security camera console with no one in the room. There’s no judgement or interpretation of his subjects behavior. Just life as a statement of fact. Besides employing long takes as a way of giving the scenes room to breathe, and the viewier opportunity to fully digest and make their own interpretations, Haneke is not so concerned with tying all aspects of the story up in a pretty bow. So beware if you can’t stand to have some questions left up to audience to answer.

Anne and Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche), a well to do French couple, receive an anonymous videotape, a 2 hour long static shot taken from across the street of their home. Soon more videotapes, phone calls, and strange notes arrive which besides implying danger to his family, reveal parts of Georges life that he would rather stay buried. While attempting to track down his mystery man, his disclosed secrets begin to unravel his family life. French - Subtitles. 118 minutes. Features making of doc, and director interview. View the trailer

Syriana - After teaming up with Stephen Soderbergh on Traffic, and winning an Oscar for best screenplay adaptation, Stephen Gaghan takes to the directors chair for the first time in this piece about oil, terrorism, and men of excess and powerful means. Mirroring the visual style of Traffic, and incorporating multiple storylines running across the U.S. and the Middle East to dizzying effect. Matt Damon and George Clooney and among the film’s stars, but they are just spokes in the wheel, along with the rest of the ensemble cast, taking a backseat to a story whose multiple layers manage to engross you and confuse you at times as to who is doing what to whom, and why. Just as to outline the causes and repercussions of our foreign interests in black and white certainties would be to trivialize the complexities that we find ourselves in, here and abroad. As Roger Ebert wrote about Syriana, “The more you describe it, the more you miss the point. It is not a linear progression from problem to solution. It is all problem. The audience enjoys the process, not the progress. We’re like athletes who get so wrapped up in the game we forget about the score.” 128 minutes. Includes making of featurettes. View the trailer

tags cache’ haneke syriana

Bruce Willis and Mos Def, running around, actin’ a fool when there’s work to be done in 16 Blocks.

16 Blocks - Mos plays an urban Rain Man type who just wants to leave the life of petty crime, move to Seattle, and bake birthday cakes. No, seriously. But he witnesses some corrupt cops doing the kind of things they ought not to. And Bruce Willis is just a washed up cop trying to make it through his last day on the force, see? Put these two together and it spells action. Making their way through the backstreets of New York, dodging the police as they try to get Mos to the courthouse so he can testify to the dirty deeds. Actually a pretty satisfying action thriller if you’re OK with the guns and cakes and things of that nature. DVD contains the usual extras, plus an alternate ending.

Dave Chappelle’s Block Party - A few friends and I kept talking like we were going to go check this out, and that’s all it was. Talk. But now it’s on digital video disc and I think I’m going to have my own block party at BSLS HQ, and watch Dave + Kanye West + Mos Def + Talib Kweli + Common + The Roots + Big Daddy Kane (?!) + The reunited Fugees make jokes and raps and such. Michel Gondy directs this doc, following Dave around as he travels from his hometown in Ohio, to Brooklyn, assembling a crowd of randoms to invite to the block party while on his way. Because sometimes it’s about the journey.

Comprehensive list of new/upcoming releases here

Tags: 16 Blocks, Block Party

Just a few to keep an eye out for as you’re clicking through your Netflix queue, or wandering around the local video store. Ari, Johnny Drama, Turtle, and the rest of the boys are back for the second season of Entourage. Which by the way, starts it’s third season this Sunday at 10pm on HBO. Plus, Dazed and Confused gets the Criterion treatment, and Officer Dangle shows his stuff on Reno 911 - season three.

Entourage: The Complete Second Season Three-disc set with 14 episodes, $39.98. Extras: Behind-the-scenes interviews, episode previews, recaps, indexes. (HBO Video).

Dazed and Confused (1993) Dir.: Richard Linklater. Two-disc set features new high-definition digital transfer. Extras: Commentary by director Linklater; “Making Dazed,” a 50-minute documentary by filmmaker Kahane Corn; tons of rare on-set interviews and behind-the-scenes footage featuring cast and crew; audition footage and deleted scenes; booklet featuring new essays by Chuck Klosterman, Kent Jones, and Jim DeRogatis, plus the original, collectible poster. (The Criterion Collection).

Reno 911: The Complete Third Season Two-disc set with 13 episodes, $26.99. Extras: Deleted scenes, extended extras. (Paramount).

Comprehensive DVD release list here

Tags: entourage, dazed and confused, reno 911