Gary Dretzka
Noah Forrest
Leonard Klady
David Poland
Douglas Pratt
Ray Pride

July 6, 2003

Hard Rain, Cool A/C

It's the kind of weekend where I've gotten a good dozen man-and-woman-on-the-street commentaries about Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle on the basis of the quality of its air conditioning alone. It's sweltering where I live, alternating between hot sun and hotter rain, and on Sunday afternoon, a fast, furious hailstorm. It seems a lot of moviegoers have agreed: the smell of smoke and burgers and steaks alongside a cold Chicago beer beat out the allure of furthering Arnold Schwarzenegger's political war chest. I'm still curious about the past actor's first appearance in Terminator 3, wearing only a veil of blue moonlight: why do his sixtyish muscles look less "realistic" than Hulk's?

Hollywood ass-tickling

And is this not one of the more honest comments by an apparently honest craftsman in some time: Mostow added, "I was like talking to the publicity people... 'How do we stop running these stories?' Because what they were doing was creating this expectation. I mean, for $200 million, I expect to go sit down in the theater and have, like, an ass tickler installed in the seats... or like a personal masseuse."

All ashore

It'll be far more interesting to write about the walloping comedy romp that is Pirates of the Caribbean. Will Johnny Depp be reanimating Hunter S. Thompson for the rest of his career? (Or is that Pepe le Pew?) We should only be so lucky. Writer-director Michael Almereyda wrote a nice piece on the allure of pirates in Sunday's New York Times.

Gamine interruptus

I'm going to hold my Ludivine Sagnier interview until next Friday. She talked about several of Swimming Pool's more interesting plot revelations, and while I'll give spoiler warnings, I'd rather wait until a few more moviegoers have had a chance to check out Francois Ozon's sexy mousetrap. (She offers a few hair hints for aspiring young actresses as well.)

Book it

Personal documentaries may be becoming a viable arthouse genre on their own. While Steve James' Stevie didn't set records, it's a valuable, heartfelt treasure, and Andrew Jarecki's Capturing the Friedmans has captured a wealth of well-deserved praise. I only caught up with Mark Moscowitz's Stone Reader at an advance screening on July 4, and it's the most amazing thing: a sometimes indifferently crafted film that gets at a wealth of emotions and passions about the life or writers and readers. I was shocked by how moving this Slamdance award winner was, but happy to discover afterwards that its accolades from New York reviews are even more ecstatic than for the truth-seeking missile that is the Friedmans. While I have high hopes for shot-on-DV work that's in the pipeline around the world, I still have to note that all three of these docs originated on film stock.

Remote Possibilities

Tony Gatlif's Vengo (2000), a tale of gypsy revenge and the many worlds of world music, is out on DVD from Home Vision. The best modern movies are fugitive musicals, where the sweet abstract bliss of the ear guides the story as much, much more than the tired formulas of stories we've memorized from relentless repetition. Vengo's opening scene, a spiraling, delirious cacophony of music from a half dozen cultures, unfolds with gleeful disregard for narrative: new groups of musicians and singers are revealed to be in a room that seems to grow larger through the canny use of space, and eventually an audience of dozens is almost matched by the wealth of sound-makers dancing and chanting and wailing and strumming and pounding away. Extras include a trailer from Swing, Gatlif's latest, interviews with two of the lead actor-dancers, and an informative short film about Gitano life, "Los Almendros-Plaza Nueva."

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