Cinemascope

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).

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

The global village has never been tinier. Matt Harding, a video game designer from Connecticut who worked in Australia and now lives in Seattle, shot this video in 42 countries in 14 months, and recruited Palbasha Siddique a 17 year old Minneapolis singer who was born in Bangladesh for the original soundtrack.
Erik Lundegaard has already tagged his 4 minutes short “The Best Movie of 2008″. On You-Tube it was watched 10 million times since it was uploaded on June 20th. And who is Matt? What were his previous videos? And where is he right now?

(The title to this post is a tip to Tasha and Dishka who danced stupidly in front of 23 million You Tube viewers).

The 25th edition of the Jerusalem Film festival kicks off July 10th with the Israeli premiere of “Wall-E”. The first festival under the newly appointed manager Ilan De Vries will include some highlights of the 2008 Cannes Festival, before they head on to Toronto.

Highlights include:

“24 City”
Jia Zhang-ke, China

“Of Time and the City”
Terence Davies, United Kingdom

“Liverpool”
Lisandro Alonso, Argentina/France/Netherlands/Spain/Germany

“Tulpan”
Sergey Dvortsevoy, Germany/Switzerland/Kazakstan/Russia/Poland

“Acne”
Federico Veiroj, Uruguay/Argentina/Spain/Mexico

“Hunger”
Steve McQueen, United Kingdom

IL DIVO
Paolo Sorrentino

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
Charlie Kaufman

SERBIS
Brillante Mendoza

Also playing:

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
Errol Morris

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Werner Herzog

MY WINNIPEG
and
BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!
Guy Maddin

The full program is available online.

Read my previous:
“Wall-E” set to open The Jerusalem Film Festival
De Vries takes over Van Leer at the Jerusalem Film Festival

“Repo! The Genetic Opera”, the new gore-fest by “Saw” director Darren-Lynn Bousman had it’s second trailer released this week (see below), and it looks rather amusing, giving the term “Death Metal” back its proper meaning. The story, as much as I gathered from the trailer, tells of a future in which repo-men come to collect organs from those unable to pay their debts. Live Organ Transplants? Sounds brilliant…. BUT - unoriginal. Monty Python did it first in their 1983 movie “The Meaning of Life”: premature organ extractions, repo men AND a musical number. In the Monty Python sketch John Cleese comes to collect the liver from organ donor Terry Gilliam (who, for some reason, has dreadlocks and hears “Hava Nagila” in his home). When the organ donor protests that his donation is activated “only in the event of death”, Cleese reassures him saying “No one who has ever had their liver taken out by us has survived” (the transcript for the sketch is available here). He then goes on a sales pitch to persuade the Mrs. (Terry Jones) to donate her liver as well, right there and then and then segues off into a song.
Well, well, what’s all this then? A coincidence? A tribute? Or should “Repo! The Genetic Opera” be named “Rip-Off! The Generic Opera”?

Judge for yourself: the trailer for “Repo: The Genetic Opera” and below it the Monty Python bit “Live Organ Transplant” and “The Galaxy Song” (careful, it’s bloody):

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“You Don’t Mess With The Zohan” was the number one movie in Israel this weekend, selling 37,529 tickets in it’s first three days of release, that’s almost as much as the opening numbers of “Indiana Jones” and “Sex and the City” a few weeks back. No Adam Sandler movie has ever sold more then 80,000 tickets in Israel, meaning that “Zohan” did in three days half of what the typical Sandler movie does in Israel in its entire run.

AP is reporting from inside Israeli movie theaters where the crowds are cracking up at the over-the-top representations of Israeli culture.

“Zohan”, reports AP, had it’s basis in a “Saturday Night Live” sketch written by Robert Smigel in 1992, called “Sabra Price is Right”, starring Tom Hanks. Hanks’ name in the sketch is Oori Sholemson, the name of the character eventually played by Israeli actor Ido Mosseri in “Zohan”. Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider and Chris Rock - all of them now in “Zohan” - are featured in the sketch. Some of the phrases used in the bit appear verbatim in the movie, most prominently the catch phrase in the headline. Smigel - credited as co-writer on “Zohan” - plays Yossi in the movie, the would-be hand-model turned salesmen.

Here is the sketch from 1992:

Read my previous reporting on “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan”:
The “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” glossary
Meet the Groove-combo featured on Adam Sandler’s “Zohan” trailer
Exclusive: Pages from Apatow and Sandler’s “Zohan” screenplay

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E, frontman for The Eels, currently my favorite band in the world, recorded a heartbreakingly beautiful rendition for “Railroad Man” yesterday to be played tomorrow at the memorial service of Anthony Fusaro, a 15 years old Eels fan who died last month from brain and spinal cancer. E, on his blog, told of how he met Anthony at one of The Eels’ shows in April. Then came the news a month later about his death. The home-made video features E, E’s dog, Bobby Jr. and the stuffed pet Anthony gave E to give to Bobby Jr. backstage.

Tomorrow’s memorial will raise money for Fusaro’s charity, helping other oncology patients.

“Hancock” had a preview screening in Tel Aviv yesterday and Eden, one of the readers over on my Hebrew blog saw it and sent in a brief comment. He was not happy with what he saw:

Saw “Hancock” yesterday and it’s a very peculiar movie. Halfway through the movie swerves into a direction not hinted in the trailers. It went into what I think is the wrong direction and nearly ruined the movie with being overly melodramatic. It’s not a bad movie, it was still pretty enjoyable and I think it will make heaps of money but it reminded me of “The Last Action Hero”, a movie that marked the end of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rein as the king of action movies. If Will Smith doesn’t look out “Hancock” could be the beginning of the end for his career.

Oh dear. “The Last Action Hero”? Overly melodramatic? Can anyone else elaborate?