“I’ve done nothing wrong,” director Michel Hazanavicius told CNN when asked his reaction to Kim Novak’s recent comments lambasting The Artist for using the Vertigo love theme. “I used music from another movie, but it’s not illegal. We paid for that, we asked for that and we had the permission to do it. For me there is no real controversy…I feel sorry for her, but there’s a lot of movies with music from other movies, directors do that all the time and I’m not sure it’s a big deal.” [ CNN ]
Uggie’s European sojourn carries on as planned, with appearances on both The Graham Norton Show and BBC News further bolstering the #ConsiderUggie campaign and the Artist wonder dog’s all-around awards-season cred. You cannot stop Uggie; you can only hope to contain him — with some sausages, I guess, but still. The BBC’s video is not embeddable (go here to see what Uggie thinks about that), but you can check out reporter David Sillito’s hard-hitting report at the network’s Web site. And continue to keep an eye on all things #ConsiderUggie at Facebook and Twitter ! Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
That DGA snub smarts all the more this morning: “IN CONCLUSION: This is a standard horse movie about projecting human ideals, emotions, and symbolism onto animals, with a decent war movie sandwiched in the middle. There are about four ‘pretty horsey runs really fast’ scenes, so I give it 4 out of 5 horseshoes!” [ The Hairpin ]
There was good news and bad news at the movies over the weekend, where the first big box office frame of the new year showed a nice bounce from the sluggishness afflicting the end of 2011. The bad news? The comeback was led by the film equivalent of a dirty diaper. Let’s have a look. 1. The Devil Inside Gross: $34,500,000 (new) Screens: 2,285 (PSA $15,098) Weeks: 1 Paramount’s microbudget Insurge label scored big again with its found-footage horror goods — well, maybe not “goods,” as the demonic-possession flick nabbed an ultra-rare CinemaScore of “F.” Wow! People hated this movie! So for those of you keeping track at home: $34.5 million worth of viewers went home nursing the aftertaste of battery acid, while Paramount now has the highest-grossing R-rated January opener ever. It’s nice to see 2012 off to such a mutually rewarding start at the multiplex. 2. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Gross: $20,500,000 ($170,201,000) Screens: 3,555 (PSA $5,767) Weeks: 4 (Change: -30.3%) At least there’s this as well from the ‘Mount. Put it on a parade float and let’s just move on. 3. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Gross: $14,055,000 ($157,415,000) Screens: 3,603 (PSA $3,901) Weeks: 4 (Change: -32.7%) While no slouch, Holmes 2 looks decreasingly likely to match Iron Man 2 ‘s fest of besting the original at the box office, which I guess means Paramount (along with Marvel) can take even more consolation in having the superior Robert Downey Jr. franchise. To which Warners is all, “Oh yeah? Well, we have the best Jude Law franchise!” To which Paramount is all, “Jude who?” To which Warners is all, “Nice CinemaScore!” To which Paramount is all, “[Stony-faced fuming silence].” 4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Gross: $11,300,000 ($76,836,000) Screens: 2,950 (PSA: $3,831) Weeks: 3 (Change: -23.8%) Let’s hope this silences once and for all the critics who’ve called out Dragon Tattoo ‘s performance as underwhelming or soft: It’s doing pretty freaking well for a 150-minute R-rated rapey miserablist romp. $100 million is less than two weeks away at this rate, and $200 million is hardly out of the question if and when Oscar’s grace shines upon it. 5. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked Gross: $9,500,000 ($111,588,000) Screens: 3,425 (PSA $2,774) Weeks: 4 (Change: -42%) Against all odds, Chipwrecked continues to demonstrate its appeal among the naked crackhead demographic sturdy legs heading into its second month. High-five! [Figures via Box Office Mojo ] Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
John Mellencamp: It’s About You isn’t really about you, or me, or even about John Mellencamp, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who has built an enduring career with his eminently likable, real-person stage demeanor and his songs’ connection with the way regular people live. It’s About You is quite possibly mostly about the filmmaker, Kurt Markus, a commercial photographer who has shot portraits for publications including Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and GQ , as well as ad campaigns for the likes of BMW and Armani. But that’s surprisingly OK: Mellencamp invited Markus and his son, Ian, to tag along, video camera in tow, to record his summer 2009 concert tour and to eavesdrop, visually and otherwise, on recording sessions for his 2010 album No Better Than This . Mellencamp even told Markus at the outset, somewhat cryptically, that the movie should be about Markus. And so It’s About You — whatever the heck it’s actually about – is in the end a kind of visual journal, a photographer’s way of seeing and responding to what’s around him. Those events and moments and glancing touches might include a group of musicians huddled around a single microphone in Memphis’s hallowed Sun Studios, or the flash of producer extraordinaire T. Bone Burnett’s cuff-links during another session, held in the same room where Robert Johnson cut a potent handful of songs in 1936. Markus accompanies the visuals with a voice-over narration that’s sometimes grating and other times startling in its perceptions. The result is a kind of homespun video scrapbook, bumpy seams and glue splotches and all; it’s flawed, but at least it feels handmade and human. Mellencamp could have faded away when he was still John Cougar Mellencamp, in the late 1980s, but somehow he’s managed to thrive as a modern rock’n’roll troubadour, standing tall and sturdy even alongside more massive luminaries like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. His low-key manner, as it’s revealed in It’s About You , is probably part of the key to his longevity: Even when he’s singing about boarded-up houses and busted American dreams, he never comes off as haranguing or overly morose – there’s always a glimmer of cautious optimism in his eyes. Markus captures that gleam both in the performance footage and in the more spontaneous recording sessions. Some of these sessions took place at the First African Baptist Church, in Savannah, Ga., which Markus tells us is the oldest black church in America. He also tells us about – though doesn’t show us – the bullet-size holes in the church’s floor, used to provide ventilation for the runaway slaves who were once harbored there. And we see Mellencamp and his then-wife, Elaine (the two have since split), donning white robes before they’re dunked in the church’s baptismal pool. There’s a kind of offhanded grace in the image. It’s not that Mellencamp and his wife aren’t taking the moment seriously; it just seems to be more of a piece with everyday living rather than some monumental event. This isn’t, strictly speaking, a concert film, and at one point Markus half-apologizes for not having a sound person along: He wanted to keep the whole thing as intimate as possible, and for that reason, he even refuses to set foot on Mellencamp’s tour bus. He states that he believes some moments, even on tour, should be kept private. But the real intimacy of It’s About You comes through in Markus’s footage of faded, semi-deserted Midwestern downtown streets, with their battered storefronts and rusty signage. Markus narrates some of this footage in a sort of numbed monotone. And just when you might be wishing that he’d shut up and let the images speak for themselves, he comes out with something that stops you cold. “These empty shells of better days are the biggest attraction America has going for it,” he says at one point, meaning that they’re visions of something truly American that persist even in the face of economic hardship and decay. His camera shows us deserted drive-thru restaurants and shuttered shops in sections of San Antonio, and he remarks that it’s as if a plague had wiped out a whole population, suddenly and thoroughly. “It’s a Texas Pompeii,” he says, observing how sadly beautiful it all is. As captured by Markus, Mellencamp, now 60, is looking a little weatherbeaten himself, but in a handsome, vital way — he shows no sign of going the way of those sad, forgotten downtowns. Still, they’re a big part of what he’s all about. Because, in the end, it really isn’t about him. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
ABC released a cutesy trailer for the 2012 Academy Awards telecast that speaks loads to the youthful new direction the show’s makers were going in when they brought Brett Ratner aboard, before his untimely exit ; in a slick parody of globe-trotting Hollywood fare, two heroes are tasked with tracking down wizened Billy Crystal for hosting duties on the Big Night. Those heroes? None other than Transformers castmates Josh Duhamel and Megan Fox, because of course. Nothing says current like the girl who was the hottest thing on earth three years ago! Watch the trailer and see if it entices you with its “Hey kids, check us out!” hip comedy stylings. The trailer even comes courtesy of Funny Or Die, it’s so plugged in! And hey, isn’t that Vinnie Jones as a mysterious bartender with inside intel? And Bill Fichtner as Oscarcast producer Brian Grazer? (At least that much makes sense.) And, well, Robin Williams as a Himalayan ferryman? (That cameo actually just makes me sad that he’s not hosting or co-hosting with Crystal.) See, the Oscars are for everybody! This milquetoast-but-four-quadrant trailer proves it! Verdict: The 84th Academy Awards will be televised live on Feb. 26 at 4p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET, and from the looks of it we’ll be in for a loooong night.
After their not-so-dextrous handling of The Road throttled director John Hillcoat’s film into cultural oblivion, let’s be honest: There’s something bittersweet about watching the Weinsteins suffocate Hillcoat’s anticipated follow-up Wettest County for old times’ sake. Starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy and Jessica Chastain in an adaptation of Matt Bondurant’s acclaimed Depression-era novel The Wettest County in the World , the movie has been shifted from its relatively favorable April 20 release date to the death row of Labor Day weekend — Aug. 31, where, to be fair, where Focus Features has dined out the last two years with similarly adult-targeted fare like The American and The Debt . Of course, those movies had proven stars in George Clooney and Helen Mirren, respectively; practically since its inception, Wettest County has been viewed as a dramatic mainstream proving ground for leading men LaBeouf and Hardy. Now it’s more like some kind of three-legged race to the holiday box-office finish line, with the duo facing off against the supernatural thriller 7500 . Good luck, fellas! Anyway! All the more resources for the surging #ConsiderUggie campaign . [ LAT ]
The characters who manned the cameras in The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield weren’t pros, providing an excuse for the shakiness and dizzy-making whip pans. Michael (Ionut Grama), the guy who’s supposed to be shooting the faux documentary The Devil Inside, is a filmmaker, so the fact that he can’t seem to keep anything in focus and frames shots so awkwardly is bewildering. Does this guy actually have a faux filmography, or is this his faux debut? And why does he mount cameras in multiple locations around his subject Isabella Rossi’s (Fernanda Andrade) car when he’s always with her anyway — does he imagine himself the Abbas Kiarostami of exorcism exposés? There’s a lot of downtime in which to consider issues like this in The Devil Inside , a film co-written and directed by William Brent Bell ( Stay Alive ) that obviously aims for the same lower-budget found footage niche as the Paranormal Activity franchise. Like those films, The Devil Inside ‘s most substantive aspect is its marketing — I cowered at its trailer whenever it ran before various holiday season offerings, and the poster highlights a shot from one of the two genuinely creepy possession sequences, featuring Suzan Crowley showing off the upside down cross carved on the inside of her lip. But the reality of The Devil Inside is that it’s a half-hearted patchwork of ideas blatantly lifted from better films, with characters who have to act increasingly foolish in order to allow the action to go forward and an ending so anticlimactic and abrupt that the audience at the screening I attended erupted in enraged boos as the credits rolled. Crowley plays Maria Rossi, a housewife and the mother of Isabella, who one night in 1989 killed the nun and two priests who were attempted to exorcise the demons within her. Judged insane, she was transferred to a mental hospital in Rome, though the oddness of this (is that covered by her health insurance?) never seems to occur to Isabella, who’s grown up into a pretty twentysomething when she agrees to be the subject of Michael’s documentary. The two travel to Italy, where Isabella plans to visit her mother for the first time while also exploring the Vatican’s exorcism school, portrayed as a kind of Catholic Hogwarts with classes into which you can wander. At one of these lectures she meets priests Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth), a pair of vigilante ordained exorcists (totally) who take an interest in her case. Isabella’s initial encounter with her mother at the hospital and the exorcism to which Ben and David later take her are both effective within The Devil Inside ‘s low-budget parameters, thanks to the performers. Crowley, disheveled and bug-eyed, presents an uneasy combination of drugged-up dissociation and ominous flashes of lucidity, and the film’s switching between cameras makes the situation more unpredictable. The second sequence, in which the two priests attempt to cleanse a possessed girl named Rosa (Bonnie Morgan), has the benefit of contortionist Bonnie Morgan, who knots her body into wince-inducing shapes that would seem to require supernatural aid to maintain, then spits and screams and bleeds from her crotch. Neither offers anything new — if you’ve seen one demonic-possession movie and it’s The Devil Inside , then you’ve seen them all, because it borrows liberally from every one of them. But both show more signs of focus than the rest of the film, which relies on meandering interviews and to-camera confessionals to pad out what little action there is to be had. And while this is a hardly a feature intended to be held up to close scrutiny, each subsequent twist the latter half takes is ever more laughable — why is a man allowed to just walk away after almost committing infanticide? Why do these characters who are obsessed with possession, who live and breathe it, not notice that it’s taking place under their own roof? Does it end the way it does because the filmmakers simply ran out of ideas, or did they become as fed up with these characters as we have? The found footage/fake documentary approach has plenty of benefits for the horror genre: It doesn’t require stars, it offers workaround for lower budgets and limited effects capabilities and it’s supposed to look a little cruddy. But good films in this subgenre have great concepts and demonstrate ingenuity in terms of filmmaking. The Devil Inside just comes across as lazy and unnecessarily serious given how silly it becomes — if it had just a touch of lightness, at least it’d feel like we were laughing with it instead of at it.
Anyone who’s seen Contagion (or, let’s be honest, even just the trailer for Contagion ) knows that Steven Soderbergh is not precious about keeping his biggest stars breathing for the duration of his films. And when you think about it, that is kind of an awesome against-the-tide trend that few directors — okay, few studios — have the wherewithal to attempt. Chatting with the UK’s Independent about Contagion and Haywire , Soderbergh dropped some science on the art of manipulating the very essence of stardom in movies to great effect. “It’s always good to kill movie stars,” he told the Independent. “I think that the two most important things that have happened to that aspect of movies in the last 50 years are Hitchcock killing off Janet Leigh in a way that nobody had ever dreamed of doing – taking his heroine and killing her off after 40 minutes – and… Mike Nichols casting Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate . That changed everything.” “Now it’s back to the way it was before that single decision totally turned the world upside down in terms of what was people’s idea of a movie star. That one stroke ushered in the great actors who followed, De Niro, Pacino and Nicholson.” So how does one shake up audience expectation again in movies chock-full of A-listers? [ Spoilers ] Have them pummeled to a pulp by unknown MMA fighter-ladies! Cut their brains open in the first act! Blame it all on chickens! [ End spoilers ] All hail Soderbergh! Kill your idols! (Figuratively speaking.) [ The Independent via Movie City News ]
Tran Anh Hung’s Norwegian Wood is meticulously faithful to the book it’s based on, Haruki Murakami’s 1987 novel of the same name: It takes no significant liberties with the plot, and it captures the novel’s delicate, half-hopeful, half-mournful tone. So why, unlike its source material, does it feel only half-alive? It’s so easy, too easy, to get lost in the book-vs.-movie debate. But a movie like Norwegian Wood is a peculiar case – its intentions are sterling, and it’s hard to pinpoint any technical flaws. The problem, maybe, is that it’s trying too hard; Tran has such firm control over the storytelling that the resulting picture has no room to breathe. Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama) is an aimless young university student in late-1960s Tokyo. His closest friend, Kizuki, committed suicide at age 17, leaving behind his childhood love, the fragile Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi, the Japanese actress who made a splash in the 2006 Babel ). Watanabe “inherits” the friendship of Naoko, and it seems that the two might fall in love. But Naoko disappears – the intensity of the blossoming relationship is too much for her, sexually and emotionally, and she enters a retreat-like sanitorium in the country. Though Watanabe continues, sweetly, to pine for her, he also starts tagging along with his more sexually adventurous roommate, Nagasawa (Tetsuji Tamayama). He also embarks on a fledgling friendship with another student, Midori (Kiko Mizuhara) ,who, unlike Naoko, seems boldly certain about what she wants out of life. She is, perhaps, a little too bold for Watanabe: She outlines her idea of the ideal lover (essentially, a man who will be at her beck and call, so she can then turn him away). And she informs him that she already has a boyfriend, anyway. Watanabe continues to visit Naoko in her forest retreat, though his time with her is nearly always supervised by Noako’s half-protective, half-possessive roommate, Reiko (Reika Kirishima). The rest of Norwegian Wood outlines the rather delicate dance between the things Watanabe might think he wants and the things he may actually be able to have. Tran adapted the screenplay himself, with obvious care and precision (though the resulting movie doesn’t do much to address, as Murakami’s novel did, the social unrest among young people in late-‘60s Tokyo). His actors have plenty of moments of grace and subtlety, particularly Kikuchi – somehow, she makes us see a deeply troubled soul in Naoko, not just a wan, self-absorbed victim of circumstance. And there isn’t a single frame in Norwegian Wood that isn’t gorgeous to look at: The cinematographer is Mark Lee Ping Bin, who also shot In the Mood for Love (sharing credit with Kwan Pung-Leung and Christopher Doyle), and every inch of the movie’s surface fairly glows. Or, rather, every millimeter glows — the picture creeps along at a very leisurely pace, which shouldn’t by itself be a problem. Norwegian Wood is Tran’s fifth feature. (The director, who was born in Vietnam and who lives in Paris, is perhaps best known for the 1993 The Scent of Green Papaya .) I kept watching Norwegian Wood waiting for that pleasant, wide-awake state of hypnosis to kick in, the slipstream effect that a well-constructed, slow-moving picture sets into gear. But for reasons that are hard to pinpoint, Norwegian Wood seems to be hampered by its own integrity; it’s like a ghost wearing a trailing nightie that’s just too long. Would the movie be more effective if every lingering shot were cut by just a second or two, or if the dialogue between characters had just a little more energy and crackle? Maybe. But whatever it is that’s wrong with Norwegian Wood couldn’t possibly be remedied by any quick fix. That’s both its tragedy and its virtue. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
