Nice day! My call is Mark Olsen. Welcome to your old global box office consultant edition of Only Good Movies.
I recently sat down with Michael Mann and the youngest of his four daughters, Becca Mann, to talk to them about an assignment they worked on together that aimed to showcase the filmmaker’s extensive archive. The Michael Mann Archive brought online this week a surprising amount of footage from the making of Mann’s recent “Ferrari,” starring Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz and Shailene Woodley.
The site (access costs $65) offers exclusive video pieces, as well as script pages, annotated notes, never-before-seen photographs and much more. As for why he was looking to share all this material, the notoriously sexy Mann said: “Directors I have no idea how other directors make a movie. And so, we each expand on our own specific process. It’s an opportunity to convey that, to convey anything I’m very passionate about. I think it’s the most productive task a guy or woman can do, period. And I’ve been thinking about it since I’m 20 years old and my enthusiasm for it is surely unwavering and unwavering.
Mann also discussed that he is completing the script for the adaptation of his own novel, “Heat 2,” which is scheduled to shoot later this year or early 2025. As for rumors about Driver and Austin Butler’s involvement in project, Mann simply said, “I can’t communicate about that. “
The Academy Museum has presented a series called “Storytellers: The Films of Powell and Pressburger” to celebrate the paintings of the director-writer-producer duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. The series kicked off last night with a 35mm nitrate screening of 1947’s “Black Narcissus,” followed by a Q&A with Powell’s widow, editor Thelma Schoonmaker.
Schoonmaker, a three-time Academy Award winner known for her collaborations with Martin Scorsese, has overseen the revival of many of Powell and Pressburger’s films. The Academy Series includes 4K recoveries of “I Know Where I’m Going!”, “A Matter” of Life and Death, “The Tales of Hoffmann,” “The Small Back Room,” and Powell’s solo ” Peeping Tom. ” “Gone to Earth” and “The Elusive Pimpernel” will be screened in 35mm, as will “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” and “The Red Shoes. “
Next week, “Made in England,” a documentary about Powell and Pressburger directed by David Hinton and narrated by Scorsese, will premiere in Los Angeles.
Schoonmaker married Powell from 1984 until his death in 1990, after meeting through Scorsese. He called this week from New York to talk about the videos and his life with Powell.
How did your paintings transmit these restorations?
Well, it’s paradise because I love movies and I have to watch them over and over again when they’re restored. The thing about those Powell/Pressburger movies is that you never get tired of them. Besides, you never know what it will take you They also have no place in the movies. So there are surprises and small bombs that they place. Emeric [Pressburger] called them little bombs that they put in the movie and then explode. A detail that is not really noticeable, but that then plays an important role. important role. So I enjoyed restoring those films. It’s exciting. And to see them come to life as if they were originally released is just fantastic.
What do you think has allowed you to paint together in such a glorious way?
I think Michael’s admiration for the charming wit of Emeric, as he called him, was so wonderful that that’s why he accepted the name “written, produced and directed by” from his logo [the Archers]. Because after all, he had made 23 films. , I think, before he met Emeric. And he never felt any of them come out of his heart. He didn’t think those were strong, glorious concepts to give to the world. So when he met Emeric, he found out what he needed, which was someone who could help him get there. Emeric was European, Michael had spent a lot of time in France, so they shared a preference to make films for the world, not just the United Kingdom. I just think it was the magical marriage between a lovely brain and someone who knew how to make movies. Both were very brave and unusual.
In what ways did your relationship with Michael deepen your appreciation for his work?
Well, I didn’t want to go any deeper into the appreciation of his work, but knowing what he was like opened my eyes. He asked me to put on his tombstone, “Director and Optimist. “He never gave up. I was writing scripts all the time. He wrote about a hundred ideas, perhaps not entirely written but outlined; He was never able to perform any of them for 20 years. He never missed a moment of the day.
And when he died, he honestly didn’t need to go on living, yet he left a little oven burning inside me, his legacy. And then I was able to percentage that, fortunately with Marty, we continue his legacy. And so, receiving this inheritance made the rest of my life after wasting Michael just amazing. I had the most productive life with the most productive task anyone can have for 50 years, then 10 years with Michael. Then they gave me everything.
And I love traveling around the world and seeing how this explosion of interest in Powell and Pressburger is waning right now. This is decreasing worldwide. It’s just fantastic to see this outpouring of love for those films. It turns out that we fell at the right time. And other young people flock to those Powell/Pressburger retrospectives. When I was applying to the British Film Institute at the end of last year Last year they put on a big retrospective. And when I did a Q&A on stage, I looked out and saw that part of the audience was made up of young people. And that’s nothing new. They are on the hunt for anything and find it in those movies.
And do you have any idea what it is? Why do you think young people react to these films?
Like Marty said, he loves the characters. And I think the explanation is that Marty and Michael never sought to deal with heroes and villains. They wanted to address the in-between gray domain that we all experience. We are especially fascinated by confusing characters. And those Powell/Pressburger films are also made with a lot of love, this loving way of approaching humanity. I think that’s what other young people are discovering.
And they also love the color. When we do those Technicolor restorations, the color is incredible and they are no longer used to seeing that color. Many young people came up to me and told me how much they liked it. The movies are very rich. You never know what will happen inside them. They challenge you, they open you to new ideas.
On Tuesday, Acropolis Cinema will host an evening with critic Jonathan Rosenbaum for his new e-book “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities: A Jonathan Rosenbaum Reader,” via Hat.
The e-book covers roughly six decades of writing through Rosenbaum, a film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 to 2008, whose other e-books include “Moving Places: A Life at the Movies” and “Midnight Movies,” co-authored with J. The new e-book includes pieces that have never been the subject of an anthology, combining Rosenbaum’s influential film criticism with his literary criticism and writing on jazz.
Rosenbaum called this week from Chicago to report on the status of film complaints and film culture in general.
Do you think whistleblowing as a form of art and craft is in decline? How do you see the cultural industry at this moment?
There are many other people my age who think it’s a bad time, but I don’t agree with them. What replaced everything was, of course, the Internet. And there’s more of everything. There are more bad things and there are also more smart things. I think it’s just that we may be a little defeated by the amount of cash that’s available and the amount that’s worthless. It’s easy to see it as negative because if you need to see it from a positive perspective, you need to look for what’s smart.
But I think one thing that has also evolved in my position is, this is all I say at the beginning and end of the book, when I interviewed Godard, he said, “I need to be noticed as an airplane. “, not an airport. And that means other people take you where they need to go. In other words, you’re part of what they’re interested in, not what you’re interested in. Last word, one or the other. I think this is a mistake. I think what a spokesperson does is engage in a public debate that started before he arrived and continues after he leaves. However, it’s not just about telling other people which movies they should stop watching.
What do you look for in new movies like “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn”?
That’s not what I’m looking for. In fact, I need others to guide me. It’s not that I’m looking to impose an agenda. I think the biggest challenge other people face today is that there are so many options, more than ever before. And in many tactics that’s good, but in many tactics it’s bad because it makes other people even more passive and not need to shape their own reviews or look for things that they might find interesting.
“Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” is something I recommend because the penultimate part of the book is one part about that topic and one part about a movie made 50 years earlier, “W. R. : Mysteries of the Organism. ” new state of things. In fact, there are many tactics where politics creep into the e-book, and in some tactics I criticize “Bad Luck Banging” while enjoying it. It’s a smart index, almost like movies about the state of the planet. . One of the things I do with movie complaints, and also with my other types of complaints, is that I use them as a way to address other issues. Like when I was writing for the Reader, I chose to write about a movie. film not because I found it attractive, but because I thought the topic was worth thinking about and writing about.
Do you think your dates with Hollywood have evolved over the years?
But on the other hand, part of that may simply be because I grew up in a circle of exhibitors’ relatives and therefore watched all those videos freely and grew up almost in Hollywood. So there is a part of me that needs to analyze this aspect, however I have said it many times, and I will be satisfied with repeating it if someone asks me: what is the greatest national cinema in the world that I know of?I would say it would be American cinema, which is mostly Hollywood. The scenario for filmmaking today is different from what it was when I was young. And in this sense Hollywood is less horny to me than before. This may also be partly a reflection of my age.
Much of what happens in criticism, in evaluation, is based on economic considerations and the control that the industry largely has over what is written about it. When I worked for the Reader, it didn’t matter what he wrote each week, he had to make it seem important, because otherwise there would be no value in writing or reading. But when you give importance to that week, then you have to do it to leave room for what will happen next week, which is supposed to be of comparable importance. So there’s a kind of fraud inherent in the way movie reviews work, which has a lot to do with dating the film industry. People rarely criticized me in the Reader, saying, “Why do you always write about videos I’ve never heard of?” And I thought, well, what you’re really saying is: why do you only write about videos that don’t have multimillion-dollar ad campaigns? And of course, those are the movies that want the most attention.
“The Terminator” on Vidiots
On Wednesday, Vidiots will screen James Cameron’s 1984 cyberpunk action classic, “The Terminator,” beginning on National Art House Theater Day. Cameron and producer and co-writer Gale Anne Hurd participated in a pre-recorded Q&A with Vidiots programming director Amanda Salazar, which will also screen in theaters nationwide.
Given the heavyweight of 1991’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” it’s easy to see how masterful the first “Terminator” remains, as well as the project’s roots as a standalone film. Guerrilla from the future, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is sent back in time to protect a waitress named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) from the likely unstoppable assassination device known as the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
In his original review of the film, Patrick Goldstein wrote: “Directed by James Cameron in the brash, enthusiastic pulp sci-fi culture of the 1950s, the film has a sublime, economical painterly style. . . This sinister fantasy It will prick your ears: it feels unsettling like a horror story that only sends shivers down your spine, but skillfully collides with your imagination.
‘Family portrait’
Tonight and tomorrow, the Now Instant Image Hall will screen Lucy Kerr’s “Family Portrait,” which won the Best Director award at the Locarno Film Festival last year. Kerr will be present in the evenings, in a verbal exchange with writer-director Courtney Stephens. on Friday and filmmaker Kersti Jan Werdal on Saturday.
Deragh Campbell (“Anne at 13,000 Feet”) plays a young woman who has joined her extended family for a company photo. And as the film begins as a traditional independent family drama, it slowly becomes somewhat enigmatic, taking on an unsettling air: it turns out that no one needs to recognize what’s visibly happening in front of them.
Ingmar Bergman in the New Beverly
As part of the New Beverly’s tribute to the profound legacy of Roger Corman, next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday there will be a double series of photographs taken by Ingmar Bergman that Corman has distributed in the United States with his New World banner.
With a deeply stylized use of color, 1972’s “Cries and Whispers” tells the story of two sisters (Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin) who wait for their other sister (Harriet Andersson) to die after a long illness. Nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Bergman, it won for Sven Nykvist’s cinematography and one of the author’s iconic films.
In his original review in The Times, Charles Champlin wrote: “I am stingy with superlatives, coins degrade too quickly. However, I have no doubt that “Cries and Whispers” is an exceptional example of the filmmaker’s art, the film Bergman has been making for many years, and a masterpiece that will likely be watched for years to come. It is, and above all, a brave film in its uncompromising exploration of the dark furniture of the dark red afternoon of the soul, Bergman’s and ours.
The 1978 “Autumn Sonata” stars Ingrid Bergman as a concert pianist who reunites with her ex-daughter, played by Ullmann, for a prolonged confrontation.
In his original Times review, Champlin wrote: “In the twilight of her career, Ms. Bergman returned to her native language to make what would arguably be her most impressive functionality of all, a masterpiece. ” »
Nicole Kidman in “Eyes Wide Shut”
This week marked the 25th anniversary of the release of Stanley Kubrick’s latest film, “Eyes Wide Shut. “It was not well won over by most audiences or critics when it was first released, even though its reputation has changed over the years and it is now much admired and even appreciated. I don’t vividly forget seeing the film at a delayed screening in its opening weekend at New York’s Astor Plaza Theater, near Times Square (long closed) and the palpable sense of discontent. as the audience became more and more bewildered by what they were seeing.
Glenn Whipp sat down with one of the film’s stars, Nicole Kidman, for a wildly candid and engaging verbal exchange about her reports on filming the film with her then-husband Tom Cruise. The film is a portrait of marriage and jealousy (with some tantalizing conspiracy theories), and Kidman was aware that Kubrick used the real-life partner of her choice to expand the material.
“I think it was undermining [our marriage],” Kidman said. There were concepts that interested him. He asked a lot of questions. But I had a strong sense of the story I was telling. I make him say, ‘Triangles are hard. ‘ You have to walk with awareness when it’s a triangle. “Because a user can feel attacked. But he was aware of it and knew how to manage us. “
‘Long legs’
“Longlegs,” Osgood Perkins’ incredibly terrifying serial killer thriller, was one of the biggest hits of the summer when it surpassed the box office, grossing more than $22 million. Christi Carras took a look at the clever marketing crusade that made the film distributor Neon’s biggest release ever.
Barry Levitt spoke with Perkins, who was very open about how the film’s story includes elements of his confusing dates with his famous parents, actor Anthony Perkins and Berry Berenson style.
“From the beginning I took steps to get the characters to update me in some way,” Perkins told The Times.
Free screening of “Kneecap”
This Wednesday we will have a series of Indie Focus screenings with the film “Kneecap”, followed by a Q&A with writers and actors Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and DJ Próvaí, as well as director Rich Peppiatt. This colorful and lively comedy is the semi-fictional story of an Irish-language rap organization in Belfast whose members are unlikely political figureheads.
Tickets to the event, at Regal L. A. Live downtown, are free. You can confirm your attendance here.
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Mark Olsen writes about all kinds of films for the Los Angeles Times as a screenwriter and critic.
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