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Speed Failure

post from Film Experience Blog on 14 May 2008 06:30:00 PM. © Film Experience Blog

Spout has an interesting piece by Karina Longworth on why Speed Racer's box office failure ($18 on opening weekend with a $120 budget. OUCH) might be bad for "the cinema" some critics think it's trying to kill. Okay, one critic. That was the attention hording Armond White. I hear what Longworth is saying (and I love Bound too, nice shout out) but...

...defending the Wachowski's under "auteurism" is dangerous ground. Sure they have a point of view but do they make good films? Comparing them to Michael Bay is futile. It'll be unpopular to say but isn't he in his own banal way, just as much of an auteur as they are? I know people like to think of him as a hack. But "auteur" doesn't mean "good", it means "author" and can't you recognize Bay films as having one? Don't they scream "Michael Bay!" I'd argue that they do. Not an author I want to read, y'now, but still...

Also, calling Speed Racer "beautiful" is a stretch. I saw it last night and it's like it snacked on the f/x from Tron, black velvet paintings and old kaleidoscopes. Then, cuz it was still hungry and monochromatic (!) and whatnot, it swallowed the The Curse of the Golden Flower rainbow castle set whole, devoured every Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox it could get its hands on. Post meal, it ingested a few mushrooms for good measure... and then vomited it all back out again to be photographed by Pierre et Gilles. Or that's what it looked like to me. And isn't that a more suitable aesthetic for, say, Dazzler?

I think that's a fair question.

The Brothers Wachowski don't seem to have any self editing skills and to borrow a Project Runway's judging phrase 'I worry about their taste level'. You can applaud Speed Racer as its own peculiar contraption, I'll give it that. But the contraption is not even a car... which is disappointing. It doesn't move like cars do. Speed could just as easily be driving an airplane or a sleek sofa for how the "contraption" moves... backflips, sideways without slowing down (as if wheels can pivot in any direction, although they don't which makes the driving scenes nonsensical), any which way... or every way at once. Even Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which could fly and swim, behaved more like a car.

The movie works from time to time (its mostly committed to its experimentation) but it's messy and undisciplined. It experiments and then forgets to experiment. It revs it's engines and forgets to go. Or it goes to nowhere in particular. It comes to crashing halts for dialogue scenes, bereft of any ideas about human interaction, even though you can tell that they're meant to be played all goofy Spider-Man sincere). But sincerity needs to be felt. Even rainbow colored sincerity.

Speed Racer is definitely of the new post-Bourne school of action films where storyboarding, geography and physical suspense are not the issues at all... action films being all about abstraction now what with their disorienting multiple angles, supersonic cutting, blurred color and zoom pans. I sometimes wonder why action films cost so much to make. The new action films really don't have to make any physical sense so why not just recycle your big shots in different order for each scene, maybe flip a few images upside down or horizontally? Toss the scenes into the air like 21 Grams and wherever they land call it a day? The scenes, the cuts, the action would play virtually the same.

I hate to sound like an old man 'kids these days!' type but I'm so nostalgic for the early aughts. And that was not long ago. I long for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings or Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon when I watch action flicks. In those great genre flicks, you always understood exactly what was happening despite fast editing and bounteous action. The fights, chases, and collisions never wanted for intensity (if anything, understanding what you're seeing makes them more intense and "WHOA!") and the directors never once forgot about their actors or the story arcs during the fights. It seems so revolutionary not even a decade later.

About Speed Racer's actors: "Spridle" must be put down before he mugs his way through any more films. John Goodman and Susan Sarandon make do. I love my Christina Ricci in (almost) anything but aside from the googly-eyed endearing way she delivers Trixie's signature "cool beans!" and the fact that she already looks like a cartoon, the character is inconsequential. And Emile Hirsch... Oh, Emile. What can we do with you? Give me something Emile! The camera is actually on you. You're not part of the ensemble. You're the lead.

Does it sound like I hated it? I don't think I did. Like I said, it is nearly always itself. That's something. And it wants to be for kids and I'm not 8. It also wants, like many movies, to be a video game. I personally like video games. They're fun. But I'd rather play them than watch them. If I'm watching I'm just impatient for when it's my turn with the control pad. C+ (?)

Have you seen Speed Racer? If not have you braved the 7 minute free preview without protective goggles? Did you experience retina burn, throbbing temples or did you love the abstraction of this "ride"? To each their own. Do tell...
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http://filmexperience.blogspot.com/2008/05/speed-failure.html

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Shorts, 5/14.

post from GreenCine Daily on 14 May 2008 06:30:00 PM. © GreenCine Daily

"The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger (Faber & Faber), a studious, informative, often astutely argued new book by Phoenix contributor Chris Fujiwara, abounds with horror stories of Preminger's sadistic ways," writes Gerald Peary....

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http://daily.greencine.com/archives/005989.html

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Seen At Cannes: Phillip Morris Is Jim Carrey's
Boo [Sensitive Portraits]

post from Defamer on 14 May 2008 06:30:00 PM. © Defamer

Snapped at Cannes by Cinematical, it's the only known billboard for Jim Carrey/Ewan McGregor con-on-con gay prison romance I Love You Phillip Morris. At first glance, the tasteful campaign seems to be going for something like an Anderson Cooper Christmas card. A mere ten seconds later, however, the slats on the mechanized sign rotate, revealing a far edgier tableau featuring a Versace-clad and spray-tanned Carrey offering horsey rides to a bethonged and delighted Rodrigo Santoro.

Cannes 2008 in Pictures: Day One — Movie Posters Everywhere [Cinematical]

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http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/defamer/full/~3/290495451/seen-at-cannes-phillip-morri
s-is-jim-carreys-boo

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Ricci & Houston Are Long Time Gone

post from Row Three on 14 May 2008 06:21:01 PM. © Row Three

With a cast that includes Christina Ricci, Anjelica Huston, Josh Lucas and Justin Bartha, I’m[...]

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http://www.rowthree.com/2008/05/14/ricci-houston-are-long-time-gone/

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Tom Cruise Gifts Beckhams With One-Way Ticket To
Hubbard's House Of Horrors [Knights Of Hubbard]

post from Defamer on 14 May 2008 06:10:00 PM. © Defamer

Hello Magazine is reporting that Tom Cruise was plum out of ideas for what to get recently drifting BFF David Beckham for his birthday. So instead of a fruit basket or a lifetime supply of Tom Cruise Purple, the Hubbard-loving Clear decided to treat both Posh and Becks to a private weekend getaway at one of Cruise?s favorite romantic spots in Napa Valley: his very own home!

?They wanted [Posh] and David to make use of their property [and] insisted that it should be just the two of them and that they should thoroughly spoil themselves.?

But after hearing more details on just how Tom planned this so-called ?private? getaway, we?re worried the Beckhams are about to be abducted by a Xenuphobic SWAT team...

It's true that TomKat's birthday surprise might very well be an innocent gift, or a way of saying "We've never had sex in this place, but someone should!" But as the story's source continues, "Tom even booked his jet for them and told them they had to be at a private airfield at a specific time so work commitments couldn't get in the way." Let's see: Tom's private jet, taking off from a private airfield at a time designated by Cruise. Is no one else getting the creepy feeling this "vacation" is Cruise's sole tactic remaining in Scientology's official bag of conversion tricks? We'd like to request the assistance of British feds in setting up spies at both the Freelands dock and Gold Base stat.

[Photo credit: Socialite's Life]

TOM CRUISE GIVES THE BECKHAMS A BIRTHDAY SURPRISE [Starpulse]

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http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/defamer/full/~3/290495264/tom-cruise-gifts-beckhams-wi
th-one+way-ticket-to-hubbards-house-of-horrors

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Jena Malone & Woody Harrelson to Be Messengers

post from Row Three on 14 May 2008 05:53:13 PM. © Row Three

I somehow missed this week old news but thanks to the good folks at Paste, I’ve managed to[...]

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http://www.rowthree.com/2008/05/14/jena-malone-woody-harrelson-to-be-messengers/

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In keeping with the spirit of rebellion and ...
[Smoke Screen]

post from Defamer on 14 May 2008 05:45:00 PM. © Defamer

In keeping with the spirit of rebellion and resistance being commemorated this year at Cannes, jury chairman Sean Penn wasn't letting any snooty festival bosses or French government assholes tell him what to do. At this morning's opening press conference, Penn lit up a cigarette in conspicuously direct defiance of a new law prohibiting smoking indoors. Several of his fellow jurors followed suit, including Persepolis co-director Marjane Satrapi, who "asked to much laughter if anyone minded if she smoked 'for medical reasons.' " Ever the activist, Penn went on to praise Cannes for its essential work on behalf of wildlife, citing the festival's recently installed panda habitat as a progressive model of animal rights and ecological sensitivity. [Breitbart, Photo Credit: Getty Images]

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http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/defamer/full/~3/290481976/

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Stalked: The A Team,Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones

More A Team rumours, this time it's B.A.Baracus Daniel Day-Lewis could be doing a musical. Tommy Lee Jones is doing Hemingway....Visit Filmstalker for the full story. Restricted feeds to protect content.

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/filmstalker/~3/290707033/ivan_reitman_is_up_in_the
_air.html

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Tom Cruise Rewards Daughter For Baby Bottle
Sobriety [A Call To The Bullpen]

boomp3.com

While visiting his son, Connor, on the set of his first film Seven Pounds, Tom Cruise and the rest of the Cruise clan also celebrated Suri going without a baby bottle for two days. According to sources on the scene, Suri only displayed minor withdrawals symptoms, but Suri's mother, Katie, appeared to be showing all the signs of withdraw; Katie told friends on set that she's been having trouble sleeping lately. Cruise was all smiles and decided to reward Suri with a stuffed animal and told Suri that if she makes it a full month, she may get own helicopter.

[Photo Credit: X17]

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http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/defamer/full/~3/290471087/tom-cruise-rewards-daughter-
for-baby-bottle-sobriety

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Thundercats Hooooooooooax [First Look]

In the year 2010 the Thundercats aim to storm the big screen in all their near naked anthro-cat goodness, rendered by computers rather than drawn by hand. That process takes time and the more time around a project means the more time for things to slip out. So ...

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/FilmSchoolRejects/~3/290455592/thundercats-hoooooo
ooooax.php

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