Author: Bryant

Speaking of Wong Kar Wai, turns out the Brattle is running a Wong Kar Wai retrospective in April. They’re showing everything but 2046. Note that Ashes of Time, the only Wong Kar Wai movie unavailable on DVD in the US (OK, yes, but Sony seems to have the rights to 2046 and it’ll be out by the end of this year, I bet) is playing on Sunday, April 10th.

I’m currently in La Guardia Airport. In the ideal world, I’m in Boston, but that world was shattered sometime this afternoon. No biggie. Most of the annoyance I might otherwise feel is dispelled by the fact that the Fort Lauderdale airport has free wireless Internet. Cool beans for Fort Lauderdale, which has suddenly become my preferred transfer point for any air travel involving Florida but not involving Orlando. (Once in the past seventeen years, counting this trip, but still.)

I am also exceedingly happy to note that Mr. David Cronenberg has achieved funding for Painkillers, which is not his next movie or the movie after that, but rather the movie immediately following that one. The words “plastic surgery as performance art” make me quite cheerful. Remember “gynecological tools for mutant women”?

Oh, OK. A History of Violence (with Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello) is next, and London Fields is the one after that. While researching that, I discovered this interview with Maria Bello, which has my new favorite Cronenberg quote: “David Cronenberg was an incredible leader/father figure.” Right up there with “Cronenberg is to Toronto as John Hughes is to Chicago,” which I should really verify somehow someday. I remember getting it from a valid source but I’ll be damned if I can remember what it was.

Hey! If you’re in Boston, I’m providing you with plenty of warning and I will brook no objections that do not involve the need to babysit. The Saturday after next, February 26th, Days of Being Wild is playing at the MFA. It’s at 4 PM. I cannot even begin to explain how great this movie is, although I took a crack at it once. When I listed the top twenty movies of all time? Most of them were hard to choose and maybe Last Life in the Universe could creep on there and so on. But the top three, those were easy, and Days of Being Wild was among them.

So it’s pretty strongly recommended. There are shows all week long if you can’t make Saturday at 4. It’s one of the best movies ever.

I say “Well, I think I’m going to see Constantine after all.” And you say, “What? That’s stupid. Keanu, and Los Angeles instead of London, and dude.” And I say, “Well.”

Then the New York Times says, “How difficult is it to play a mythic figure like Gabriel as opposed to, say, a soccer mom?” And Tilda Swinton says “They’re exactly the same, because no one you play is ‘real.’ Every character is a construct, even if you’re playing a suburban mother. You’re looking for a construct in the way you look and talk, and you have either the mythic information about Gabriel, or what we know about suburban mothers, and then you just try to make it real. It’s exactly the same. So, you start with what we know about Gabriel as God’s messenger.”

The picture looks something like this:

It goes a long way to unconvince me from taking a pass.

(You could also read Kip on the matter, who says basically the same thing, which is not surprising since I stole it all from him anyhow.)

After much internal debate, I’ve finished my top twenty movie list. In order of preference, even. The up-to-date list is here (cool site, by the by) but if you’re too lazy to click through:

1. Magnolia
2. Days of Being Wild
3. Brazil
4. Casablanca
5. City of God
6. Bullet in the Head
7. Miller’s Crossing
8. Crash
9. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
10. Ronin
11. Blue Velvet
12. Goodfellas
13. The General
14. Dead Man
15. Full Metal Jacket
16. The Incredibles
17. Taxi Driver
18. Peking Opera Blues
19. Glengarry Glen Ross
20. The Grifters

Yeah, I like genre movies. Possibly I like guy movies too; be your own judge. Yes, Miller’s Crossing is the best Coen Brothers movie. I don’t know if Days of Being Wild is the best Wong Kar Wai movie, but it’s the best one I’ve seen — I understand that In the Mood for Love may supercede it when I finally see that, though. Crash is the best Cronenberg movie because it’s the best cast he’s ever had, although Videodrome is a very close #2.

There are indeed a lot of movies I haven’t seen.

Hey, so it turns out they do this new DVD thing every week. Whatta bonanza. Before I get started on talking about this week’s harvest, I wanted to mention that I picked up Delicious Library over the weekend. It is awesome, although I would recommend carefully backing up your database regularly, since I lost a couple of titles in some sort of hiccup at some point. But man, is it awesome. I cataloged 360 DVDs (yeah, yeah, I know) in about two hours of lazy work. Cool stuff.

If you have a region-free player or live in the UK, check out Ping Pong. I missed this at Fantasia, but the buzz is very good. Who doesn’ t like ping pong stories?

Over here, Deadwood is the biggie. It’s the hot HBO series of the year. Timothy Olyphant is one of my favorite actors and I’m looking forward to digging into the series as a DVD set — which is how I watch most of my TV these days.

There’s also a special edition of Raging Bull which I would get if I were still obsessive about commentary tracks. There are three of them here, including one with Scorsese and one with all the writers. There’s also a lot of behind the scenes footage, including a cool-sounding shot by shot comparison of De Niro and the real Jake LaMotta in the ring. Hm, maybe I still am obsessive. You can also get this as part of the Martin Scorsese Film Collection, which meshes nicely with last summer’s Martin Scorsese Collection release. But I digress.

Stephen Fry’s directorial debut, Bright Young Things, ships this week. I missed it in theaters but heard good things; I imagine it’s worth a rental.

If you’re catching up on Oscar viewing, Before Sunset is shipping. Great movie. Me, I have to believe there’ll be a special edition at some point which will improve on this bare-bones disc. I badly want a commentary on this one.

I reviewed Robot Stories back when I saw it at Fantasia. All that stuff is still true. It’s a good movie, although not one I feel the need to own.

Finally, Warner Home Video is releasing an 18 movie set entitled, accurately, Best Picture Oscar Collection. That title kinda says it all.