“I think there has to be a nonviolent democratic revolution”
– Julian Schnabel
Julian Schnabel has never made easy films. Basquiat was a biography of the street artist who became a protege of Andy Warhol. Before Night Falls portrayed exiled gay author Reinaldo Arenas. And The Diving Bell and the Butterfly told the story of author Jean-Dominique Bauby – all from the point of view of the one eye from which he could see after a paralyzing stroke.
Miral is a story set in the midst of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, told through the eyes of a Palestinian girl. Miral (Freida Pinto) grows up in a Palestinian orphanage, where her teacher, Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass), encourages her to stay out of politics. But young activists in the PLO like Hani (Omar Metwally) are powerful examples to Miral, and she wants to get involved.
The last couple of posts have been, let’s say, overtly political. (That sounds better than calling them giant fucking tantrums about those in power and the idiots of the world.) So this week, you lucky bastards, it’s just a list of cool shit reminiscent of my first post.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker are best known as the creators of the irreverent and extreme Comedy Central series South Park, which has been running for 14 seasons now. On it, the pair have tackled numerous subjects that other TV shows would deem untouchable. Their humor often takes aim at cultural icons like Michael Jackson and Tom Cruise, but their favorite anvil to hammer is organized religion.
It’s that love of religion that led Stone and Parker to write and produce their latest work, The Book of Mormon, which opened last week at the Eugene O’Neill theater in New York, and has thus far received rave reviews. Stone and Parker describe their musical as “an atheist’s love letter to religion.” It’s an interesting line to walk, but while both are non-believers, they admit to being fans of religion in general.
This week will see the release of Revolver, the latest cinematic neckbreaker from 39-year-old British helmer Guy Ritchie. His previous gangster films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and its follow-up, Snatch, were hailed as major events on both sides of the pond upon their release, and today are seen as cornerstones of a new film genre – the heightened-reality, super-kinetic gangster film, in which the most gruesome toughs and unlikely hoods imaginable all conspire in a near-comical, circle-jerk fashion to outdo each other and rack up the most impressive body count.
“I consider immature men to be my peers and my homies.”
– Diablo Cody
Over the next few months, Hollywood’s hottest writer, Diablo Cody, will see her second and third scripts rushed into development. One of those, Girly Style, is a girl’s version of Superbad. The other is a horror film called Jennifer’s Body, starring Transformers’ Megan Fox, and it’s about – wait for it – a cheerleader that eats boys. Literally. If you want to know what kind of mind could come up with such a thing, a good place to start is with Cody’s 2005 memoir Candy Girl, which chronicles her unlikely journey from teenage miscreant in a punk band called Yak Spackle to achingly ordinary office drone to topless dancer (she went by Roxanne and other names) to popular blogger to aspiring screenwriter in her late twenties.
Directed by Joe Wright (whose previous credits include Atonement and The Soloist), Hanna is a boldly original suspense thriller which stars Academy Award nominee Saoirse Ronan (Atonement and The Lovely Bones), Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Eric Bana (Star Trek and The Time Traveler’s Wife).
Hanna (Ronan) is a teenage girl who has the strength, the stamina, and the smarts of a soldier; these come from being raised by her father (Bana), an ex-CIA man, in the wilds of Finland. Living a life unlike any other teenager, her upbringing and training have been one and the same, all geared to making her the perfect assassin. The turning point in her adolescence is a sharp one; sent into the world by her father on a mission, Hanna journeys stealthily across Europe while eluding agents dispatched after her by a ruthless intelligence operative with secrets of her own (Blanchett). As she nears her ultimate target, Hanna faces startling revelations about her existence and unexpected questions about her humanity.
To mark the release of Hanna, which will be in theaters on April 8, SuicideGirls has teamed up with Focus Features for a special competition.
Filmed on a budget of just $4 million dollars, Red State shows a side of Kevin Smith that the world has never seen before. Known for his raunchy nerd comedies, the pseudo-horror Red State defiantly stands out from his other works.
Red State has been the fuel of many an internet fire since its announcement in back in 2006. To start things off, the film’s budget did not include advertising money. As an attempt to avoid the “studio math,” the Harvey Boys studio intends to advertise the movie with viral word of mouth. Then in January, at the Sundance Film Festival, Smith announced his plans to self-distribute the film as the first SModcast Picture, launching things with a road tour that started on March, 5.
On Tuesday, March 22, Red State made its stop in Denver, CO; where I had a chance to catch the movie and a Q&A after with Smith.
