Cinemascope

Last year “The Band’s Visit” won the Ophir Awards (the Israeli equivalent of the Oscars), but was disqualified from the Foreign Language Oscar for having too much English dialog. It went on to become the highest grossing Israeli film in the US. Last year’s Ophir runner-up, “Beaufort”, went on to become the first Israeli movie in 24 years to be nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar.

Now, one year later…

The nominees for the Israeli Academy Awards, The Ophir Awards, were announced yesterday. Local smash hit, “Lost Islands” the directorial debut for seasoned screen and stage writer Reshef Levi, is leading the nominees with 14 nods in all of the ceremony’s 13 categories (scoring a double nomination in the Supporting Actor category). By yesterday, “Lost Islands” is the best selling Israeli movie so far in 2008, with 120,000 tickets sold in four weeks. I expect him to finish over the 200,000 tickets mark by the time the Ophirs are handed out, September 23rd.

“Seven Days” (”Shiv’a”), Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz’s family film, which takes place in one apartment in the seven days of mourning, where a family of seven brothers grief and come to blows, is the runner-up with 13 nominations. The film has yet to be released theatrically in Israel (one of the many quirks of The Israeli Academy’s absurd regulations). “Seven Days” was the opening film of the Cannes sidebar “The Critic’s Week” and has recently won the top prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

Cannes favorite, “Waltz With Bashir”, which many consider the sure winner of the Best Picture prize, is nominated for seven prizes. Because “Bashir” is (more…)

Whoa, great line-up: Darren Aronofsky, Takeshi Kitano, Hayao Miyazaki, Jonathan Demme, Jia Zhangke (whom I’m beggining to find a bit tiresome. There hasn’t beem a major festival in the last two years that didn’t have an entry from him. He’s become quite the Kim Ki-duk), Abbas Kiarostami. And the Venice all-stars: Pupi Avati, Ferzan Ozpetek, Mario Monicelli, Agnes Varda.

My personal heart stopper: a new film by Oshii Mamoru (”Ghost in the Shell”).

Here’s the complete line-up:

(more…)

Randy Pausch, the university professor who moved millions with his “The Last Lecture”, and who died on Thursday, was invited last fall by JJ Abrams to appear briefly on Abram’s “Star Trek”. This was shortly after Pausch’s Canegie-Mellon lecture, titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”, moved millions on YouTube and before his inspirational lecture was turned into a best selling book.

Pausch got a bit part as a guy walking across the bridge on the Enterprise saying “Captain, we have visual!”. He even got to keep his Star Trek uniform, and got $217.06 for his effort (technically he was then eligible for a SAG card). By the time Abram’s “Star Trek” hits screens Pausch will have been dead for nearly a year.

Randy Pausch’s check for his Star Trek cameo

On November 29, 2007 Pausch wrote about this in his journal:

This is, by far, the coolest thing (okay, #2 behind the palliative chemo working). JJ Abrams (Hollywood producer/director who did the TV series “Lost,” the movie “Mission Impossible III” and a bunch of other stuff) emailed me, out of the blue:

JJ Abrams wrote:
> Dear Randy –
>
> Hi there — I’m JJ Abrams, director of the new Star Trek movie.
>
> I read about you and your condition, and ALSO your affinity for things
> Trek.
>
> So, I just wanted to put the invitation out there — that if you had
> any desire to be in the film (can’t promise you role as CAPTAIN,
> but… we could do SOMETHING!), it would be my honor and pleasure.
>
> The last thing I want to do is intrude, so feel free not to reply –
> but I wanted to make sure you knew that, if you are willing and able,
> the door is wide open.
>
> I hope that your treatments are going well and that we get to meet one
> day.
>
> Best,
>
> JJ

Naturally, I presumed this was one of my friends, playing a prank. But after a little sleuthing, it was clear it was for real. Jai & I hopped a plane to LA, where I got a custom-made Star Trek uniform and my own station on the bridge, where I had lots of buttons and controls. I even got a LINE!!!!

In addition to publicly thanking JJ Abrams, I just wanted to say what an incredibly egoless and cool guy he was. We chatted a little bit between takes, and he is so tech-savvy (and I’m not saying that *just* because he knew all about Alice!). Anyway, it was a truly magical experience.

the “Star Trek” movie will be in theaters December 2008 (It has since moved to May 2009 - YR). Don’t blink or you’ll miss me, but at some point a guy walked across the bridge and says “Captain, we have visual!”

I’d *love* to show you my costume (which they let me keep), but I promised JJ Abrams “no photos”. They’re trying to keep things a secret; in fact, even on the Paramount lot, you have to walk around in a trenchcoat if you’re in a Star Trek costume. It’s kind of like being at a flasher’s convention!

Oh, and if you think I’m making this up, here’s a copy of my check from Paramount (they had to pay me due to some union rules or some such… I’ll obviously be donating this to charity).

(Hat tip: miri)

I’m venturing into semi-sappy-self-help-territory here, but I just can’t help it. When Randy Pausch’s book “The Last Lecture” was released I thought it to be another “Tuesdays With Maurie” live-your-life-to-the-fullest-because-tomorrow-you-may-die kitsch-a-thon. But on Thursday Pausch has died, at the age of 48, and all of the sudden his lecture from September 2007, turned from sermon to testament. Do with it what you will, but seeing this actual lecture, given at Carnegie-Mellon university, is at least a tad more moving now. That’s the way we are. At least I am. The words of the dead ring truer than the words of the living. Here is the entire 76 minute lecture, the one that really actually was the last. Watch it today, for tomorrow you may die:

Israel got to see Barack Obama in the flesh this week. Israel has sled into an ugly conservatism in the last few years and right-wingers are pretty vocal here. To them Obama is the devil incarnate (Israel’s right wing think George W. Bush is the best American president ever). One talkbacker on the website for leftish newspaper “Haaretz” wrote, in response to Obama’s quote that he thinks Palestinians should get their own independent state (a notion anyone with brains intact should applaud), wrote “This Obama guy scares me. He reminds me of Jimmy Carter”. Yup, Carter is also hated here. He’s too fond of Palestinians, caring about their rights. Not like Saint Bush who hates them and like the average Israeli right winger considers every Arab a terrorist. Carter, who engineered the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt (and for which he won a Noble Peace Prize) is a crucifix in front of our right-wing vampires.

Obama’s wailing wall note, exhumed and reprinted in Israeli papers

Anyway, yesterday before he took off to Germany he visited The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, the only remaining relic of the ancient Temple of David, and the most sacred spot for Jews. As customary, he placed a note in the cracks of the stones. It is believed that a wish or a prayer stuffed in the cracks gets fulfilled by God. Obama, in what seems like a last minute improvisation, wrote a small prayer on his hotel stationary (nice product placement). Journalists then promptly stormed the wall and ransacked his note and had it reprinted in “Maariv” (it’s a big faux-pas from a Jewish traditional point of view and I’m quite certain that if Obama were Jewish no mainstream reporter would’ve dared violate his privacy so bluntly).

But, although this whole thing - the note, the reprint - might’ve been staged it made me like Obama all the more. Not only for his respect for tradition but also for his great handwriting and his touching prayer: “Lord - Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.”

In 2004 Jon Ronson wrote this piece for The Guardian, about his visit to the Kubrick estate. Four years later he made a documentary out of it, which premiered this week on UK’s Channel Four. Here is the 50 minute doc in its entirety:

via Jeff Wells

Aaron Eckhart plays Two Face, who decides who’ll live and who’ll die by a toss of a coin, in “The Dark Knight”. ==> Tommy Lee Jones played the same coin tossing villain in 1995’s “Batman Forever”. ==> Tommy Lee Jones played Sheriff Tom Bell in “No Country For Old Men” ==> Where Javier Bardem played a villain who decides who live or dies with a toss of a coin.

Sacha Baron Cohen filmed scenes for his 2009 release “Bruno” in Israel recently interviewing Israeli and Palestinian analysts about the middle-east conflict and the going all Zohan on them confusing Hammas with Hummus.

Yossi Alpher wrote candidly about his encounter with a “German Rock Star” who came to interview him. He added in writing it was Baron Cohen, although it was clear that he had no idea who was in front of him in real time. Alpher ends his column saying of Baron Cohen that “he is exploiting our tragic and painful conflict in the most cynical and deceptive manner. I doubt he’ll give us anything in return”.

But before that, the following mayhem ensued, and Alpher provides a behind-the-scenes look on how Baron Cohen and his team still manage to fool the world:

We confronted a tall, blond-ish man in his thirties, dressed in leather and studs, his face heavily powdered, his arms and chest shaven. He spoke in a heavy German accent, his movements and mannerisms ultra-gay. He tried to write down our names, but they came out dyslexic.
“This guy is going to interview us?” (more…)

“The Godfather Trilogy” box-set first came out in 2001, but only on region 1 NTSC DVD’s, and never on blu-ray. Now, after seven years region 2 users get to lead he pack: the new and restored “Godfather Trilogy” was released first in Europe on PAL DVD and only later in the year it will be released in the States. This version is also titled “The Coppola Restoration”, due to the massive involvement of Francis Ford Coppola in the re-scanning of original negative in 4k resolution.

Two bonus discs are added: the first is identical to the one added to the American box-set in 2001, the second holds brand new 2008 documentaries. One of them is particularly exceptional.

The doc “Emulsional Rescue”, produced by Kim Aubry, is only 18 minutes long but in its bright and succinct way it tells not only of the process used to save The Godfather deteriorating negatives but of what made this movie cinematographically exceptional.

Gordon Willis, one of the best DP’s in the history of American movies, was called out of retirement to help restorators achieve his original vision, distorted through years of reprinting and duping. The 77 year old Master hasn’t lensed a movie in over a decade (since 1997’s “The Devil’s Own”), he is considered too slow and too dark and too opinionated for the current Hollywood mentality.

Amazingly, Gordon Willis, now 77, has never won an Oscar

Ace restoration maverick, Robert A. Harris, who was in charge of restoring The Godfather, gives Mr. Willis his due credit. The darkness of the movie, Harris explained, resulted in a print that’s low on emulsion, therefore thinner and more susceptible to wear and tear. Throughout the years there were prints that tried to brighten up the picture.
DP Allan Daviau (”E.T”) is called up to the stand to explain: Willis’s negative had nothing in the black. And Harris adds: “usually when when you want a darker picture you print it down” (meaning: you shoot it in normal exposure but darken the shot in the printing and post-production process). With The Godfather, Willis shot and lit the interior scenes in such a way that you only have one way to print it - DARK!

Robert A. Harris gave The Godfather its original tones back: black and gold

Coppola’s longtime friends, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (and also William Friedkin) are interviewed in the 2008 docs. Spielberg reveals that his involvment helped pave the way to the trilogy being restored. It all started in December 2006 when Dreamworks was bought by Paramount, and Coppola wrote to congratulate Spielberg and ask him whether - now that he’s a part of the Paramount family - he can help him save the deteriorating state of the original Godfather negatives. Spielberg called up Brad Gray, head of Paramount, who put up the money for the project. Wise move: Gray was the executive producer of “The Sopranos”, a series that holds The Godfather as latter-day gospels.

Steven Spielberg made Brad Gray an offer he didn’t refuse

And so the image was cleaned from scratches and unwanted hues eliminated.

Before and after, a work-in-progress

The following frames show the difference in quality from the worst Godfather edition, on VHS tape, and two seconds later on that same shot, from the current restoration.

(Sorry for the grab: Sonny Corleone in hiding behind The Man With The Hat).

Via “Wired“:

Here’s “Presto”, the Pixar short written and directed by Doug Sweetland with a Chuck Jones-Hanna Barbera groove to it, that’s playing in front of “Wall-E”:

Download it here.

And because I’m guessing the Disney/Pixar people will be all over this post in mere hours, I want to attach here a letter I tried sending through Pixar’s public relations but never got a notice as to whether it was received and read.

The subject: how is it possible that “Wall-E”, the best reviewed studio movie of the year so far, is getting released in Israel tomorrow WITH ZERO REVIEWS, due to negligence of the Israeli distributor.

Dear John and Andrew,

Great news about “Wall-e” opening the Jerusalem Film Fest, over at my English blog I couldn’t get enough of the Jerusalem “wall” and “wall-e” wordplay. I’m sure seeing the movie on an outdoor screening, on a huge screen, beneath the ancient walls of Jerusalem, less than a mile away from the Western Wall, will be as spectacular as you can imagine.

But as a film critic and film scholar who adores the Pixar product (I’ve interviewed John in Hamburg for “Toy Story 2″, I’ve added the “Ratatouille” script to my “Great Screenplays” classes in the Jerusalem Film School and the Film Department at Tel Aviv University) I’m miffed at the way Israeli distributors release your films here: ever since “Cars”, critics have been banned from preview screenings of Pixar movies (and Disney movies). Your movies come out over here without any reviews.

You might say that Pixar doesn’t need critics to succeed and you’d be absolutely correct: “Ratatouille” was the number 1 movie in Israel in 2007. So this habit by local distributor Forum Film, to ban critics, may not hurt your business, but it sure does hurt the image, the brand. Critics start the write-up with a mention of the ban, explaining the belated review, instead of focusing on the film. Some may even watch movies on downloaded cam copies, just to make the deadline and bypass the ban. And the general notion is that the ban is in place because they have something to hide, a bad movie worth hiding from the press. That may be true of non-critic-friendly movies, but couldn’t be wronger when it comes to Pixar. I have a feeling that if it were up to you, you wouldn’t authorize such a ban on journalists. I hope you take this into consideration and make them stop this behavior.

Read my related posts:
http://cinemascopian.com/2008/06/17/wall-e-set-to-open-the-jerusalem-film-festival/

http://cinemascopian.com/2008/05/10/critics-banned-from-reviewing-hancock-wall-e-narnia-sex-and-the-city/

Hope to see you guys sometime in Israel.

All the best,

Yair Raveh
Tel Aviv

Film Critic, “Pnai Plus”
Film Blogger, cinemascopian.com

Addendum: Regardless of this post I was informed that “Wall-E”’s Israeli distributor has decided to momentarily lift the ban and invite a handful of friendly critics and allow them to post their review on opening day. Four reviews were up. I added my online Hebrew review after seeing the film’s matinee showing.