Good day to you, Blogorium readers! I was all set to do some reviewing, but a few things have come to my attention that are worth at least mentioning, and least one is a follow-up from Saturday's news and notes.
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Let's start with this Lars von Trier "Nazi" business, since I have some suspicion that it may seriously impact the announcement last week of his collaboration with Martin Scorsese. If you haven't already heard, von Trier was at a press conference for Melancholia, and he made some unfortunate comparisons between himself and Hitler. Well, you know what? I'm not going to paraphrase what Lars von Trier said. Here's the video:
Today, he was banned from the Cannes Film Festival, and gave an interview attempting to clarify the gaffe, which has the Danish provocateur in a more precarious than usual situation. This is quite a bit further than Antichrist being booed at 2009's festival, as his comments have garnered negative publicity from around the film community. Von Trier, for his part, seems reticent to do anything other than go home and direct pornography (see the interview linked atop this paragraph), and reactions are... mixed. I don't really want to say much more than that, because somehow arguments about French hypocrisy (involving Roman Polanski) and Mel Gibson started showing up here. Honestly, I don't want to wade any further into that, but felt it was worth directing you towards in order to give you some idea of the fallout from von Trier's comments.
What I did want to speculate on is that "remake" of The Five Obstructions story that was everywhere last weekend. This is a bit of a stretch, but in light of Arnold Schwarzenegger's tabloid troubles putting his return to acting on hold indefinitely, and the nature of really toxic publicity killing projects, I'd say the likelihood of this team-up between Lars von Trier and Martin Scorsese just hit the rocks. I'm not a prognosticator, but it seems like Melancholia is either going to be the hot ticket movie when it comes out, or it's going to be The Beaver and vanish from sight until Criterion releases it (as they did with Antichrist).
At this point, the actual quality of Melancholia (or The Beaver, for that matter) is irrelevant; this is about public perception, and the people who already hate Lars von Trier hit the jackpot, as "Nazi" is really not something you want to identify yourself with, even in jest. His fans will probably retreat quietly, and no American distributor is going to want to touch a Scorsese / von Trier joint. That's my guess, anyway. Bad publicity has killed many a "dream" project, and this one looks to be headed in the wrong direction.
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Okay, to lighten the mood, let's talk about two things you don't have to weigh heavily, either intellectually or emotionally: movies online. Not the illegal ones (the Cap'n wouldn't know anything about that), but streaming video of films in their entirety from reputable sites. Free ones, at that: while Netflix and Amazon Prime customers already have access to streaming movies and television, YouTube also decided to get in on the game and now offer a "Movies" section on their main page.
What you've probably noticed is that they are charging for many of these movies, but what you may have missed is their selection of "Free" films. I was expecting to find mostly public domain, easy to locate anywhere fare, but I was impressed to see that YouTube has a solid lineup of higher profile features at no cost. Titles like Ghostbusters, The Buena Vista Social Club, Bad Taste, The Third Man, Bringing Up Baby, Bob le Flambeur, His Girl Friday, "M", The Man with the Golden Arm, The Intruder, Scarlet Street, Chaplin's The Kid, The Squid and the Whale, Super Size Me, Peeping Tom, American Scary, and DiG!.
It's actually pretty impressive, and that's just a cross section of movies you can watch (in their entirety) instead of the latest clip of some stupid thing a cat did, or whatever the hell "planking" is. The quality isn't amazing, but I'd say it is perfectly watchable, considering. This, coupled with IMDB's available free movies, you're in pretty good shape if rental prices are too steep.
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Finally, I don't know why I haven't mentioned this sooner, as I'm a full-on addict to this site, but cinephiles need to run, not walk, to Trailers from Hell. Spearheaded by director Joe Dante (The Howling, Matinee, Gremlins), the site is a collection of all kinds of trailers for all sorts of classic (and not-so-classic) films, presented by themselves or with commentary from the Trailers from Hell gurus. The gurus include geek fan favorites like Edgar Wright and Guillermo Del Toro, as well as Roger Corman, Neil LaBute, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Lloyd Kaufman, Bill Duke, John Landis, Allison Anders, and Rick Baker.
Informative and enjoyable, I get a kick out of watching the trailers with thoughts from long-time fans and filmmakers who give historical context (just look at the mini-lesson from Bill Duke on Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song) to what are normally considered "exploitation" trailers. Seriously, go there now!
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Okay, that's plenty for you to look into heading into your weekend. I'll be back tomorrow or Saturday with a new review, so until then stay classy!
2 comments:
At this point, what Von Trier needs more than anything else (well, other than *good* publicity) is an intervention for his rumored (and, in The Five Obstructions, credible) alcoholism. I get the sense that Lars hasn't really learned that "any publicity is good publicity" is fallacious, and his "edgy," self-styled auteur persona is collapsing under the weight of his inability to temper his edge and, god forbid, occasionally censor himself. Telling various Cannes judges after Europa to "fuck off," flipping the bird at the judges after Dancer in the Dark was snubbed, being snubbed after Anti-christ and, though more "good-natured," creating a stir nonetheless... One would think that by now he'd retreat as a mouthpiece or refine his judgment and let his films speak for themselves.
I don't think his fans will quietly retreat, though. Lars is that loud-mouth, know-it-all in the room, to which everyone universally responds through gentle ignorance and litanies of "uh-huh" and "sure, Lars, sure." We know plenty of folk like that. Occasionally they have something authentic and stirring to say - for Lars, at least, he's fortunate that he makes some transformative, provocative films. Otherwise, he'd be the loudmouth thrown out of the party almost immediately. But because he makes good art, though, he is not allowed carte blanche to perpetuate and even perfect this persona that needs to take advantage of a right to silence; good films don't justify his narcissicism. Luckily, his fan base can (and hopefully will) divorce Big-Mouth Lars from "I made Europa"-Lars.
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