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KPBS Film Club reviews 5 new movies!

September 18th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Not the most inspired crop of movies this time around, but we did our best to keep it lively. And, uhhh…thanks for visiting emotioncompulsion.org. That’s what I get for lacing Tom’s coffee with psylicyben…

To listen to the show, click here.

Take it away, Tom!

Tom Fudge: We’ll talk about the following movies on this edition of Film Club of the Air:

Burn After Reading: We start with a new movie by Joel and Ethan Coen. The Coen brothers had a big year last year, winning Academy Awards for Best Picture AND Best Director for their film, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel, No Country for Old Men. Their new movie is called Burn After Reading. This movie takes place in Washington D.C.. In the beginning, we meet a CIA man who loses his job and decides to write a memoir. He loses a CD copy of his memoir, which is found by two people who work at a gym, and think they’ve stumbled across some top secret material. Meanwhile, the CIA man’s wife is having an affair with a U.S. Marshall. The people who work at the gym try to extort money from the CIA guy, then they try to sell his memoir to the Russians. This story soon becomes a great thicket of love affairs, mistaken identities, and foiled plots. Burn After Reading stars John Malcovich as the CIA man, George Clooney as the U.S. Marshall, and Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt as the people who work at the gym.

Burn After Reading is currently playing in area theaters.

The next movie on our list is Righteous Kill, directed by Jon Avnet. This movie stars two of the most prominent film actors alive today, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Righteous Kill is a cop movie in which our two stars play two homicide detectives. At one point, they start investigating the work of a serial killer who murders people that have been accused or convicted of heinous crimes. Police begin to suspect that the serial killer is a police officer. In fact, we see bits of a video tape in which Turk, De Niro’s character, appears to be confessing to the crimes. The mystery and the investigation plays out. In the end, we see the confrontation between the main characters as it becomes clear what’s been going on. Righteous Kill also stars Carla Gugino and John Leguizamo.

Righteous Kill is currently playing in area theaters.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss is a movie by writer-director Alex Holdridge. Its main character is a slacker named Wilson who’s trying, though not trying very hard, to make a go of it as a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Wilson doesn’t have much going on in his life, and his roommate encourages him to get out of the apartment and make some friends. So he goes onto Craig’s List to tell the world he’s in search of a companion. His internet ad says “misanthrope seeks misanthrope.” As a result, Wilson meets Vivian, who is as surly as Wilson is lonely and depressed. Together, they set out to explore Los Angeles by foot (something I wasn’t sure you could actualy do). The film stars Scoot McNairy and Sara Simmonds.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss is playing at Landmark’s Ken Cinema through September 18th.

Our next movie is called Choke, directed and co-written by Clark Gregg. In this movie the main character is Victor, a sex addict who works at a historical theme park. He dresses up in period costume and gives tours to tourists. The title Choke refers to Victor’s habit of going to restaurants and pretending to choke on food, hoping some rich person will save his life, bond with him, and give him money. The money is meant to help Victor pay for his mother’s residence in a high-priced mental health hospital. Victor joins a sex addict support group while he’s also falling for his mother’s nurse. Meanwhile, he’s obsessed with finding out who his real father was, before his mother dies. Choke is based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, who’s best known for the book Fight Club, which was also made into a movie.

Choke opens in area theaters on September 26th.

Sukiyaki Western Django: This spoof of spaghetti westerns was made by veteran Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike and stars Quentin Tarantino.

Sukiyaki Western Django opens in area theaters on October 10th.

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Focus Features announces release date of Coen Brothers’ BURN AFTER READING

March 3rd, 2008 by Scott Marks

Brad Pitt in BURN AFTER READING

Focus Features today announced that it will open Burn After Reading, the new film written, produced and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, Academy Award-winning directors of this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner No Country for Old Men, domestically nationwide on Friday, September 12th.

How’s this for a blockbuster cast: George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand (how’d she get the gig?), Brad Pitt, and Tilda Swinton all star in this dark spy comedy currently in post-production.

In the film, John Malkovich plays an ousted CIA official whose memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise D.C. gym employees intent on exploiting their find. Ms. Swinton, this year’s Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Michael Clayton, plays the wife of Mr. Malkovich’s character. Burn After Reading also stars Richard Jenkins, who previously starred for the Coens in The Man Who Wasn’t There.

The director of photography is Academy Award nominee Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men). BAFTA Award nominee Mary Zophres is the costume designer, marking her eighth consecutive feature with the Coens. Jess Gonchor, production designer on No Country, encores in that capacity.

Am I the only one in the world that finds the Coens’ sense of humor labored and sophomoric? Runny canker sores bring more chuckles than anything in Raising Arizona and as much as people try to explain the brilliance of Fargo, with the exception of Steve Buscemi, I’m not laughing.

Even when they try and play it straight the Coens can’t help inserting humor where it doesn’t belong,   i. e. the mariachi band alarm clock in No Country. And as Dave Kehr so brilliantly observed, No Country “is a film that invites you to laugh at the choice of linoleum floor tile in a sheriff’s station even as the sheriff is being strangled on top of it.”

Let’s hope the humor in Burn After Reading leans more in the direction of the KKK musical number in O Brother Where Art Though as opposed to anything in Intolerable Cruelty or The Ladykillers.

As Variety points out, No Country “enjoyed a 67% surge in business over the weekend as it nearly doubled its theater count in the wake of the Oscar victory.” The Oscar win, coupled with the lighter comedic tone of Burn After Reading, convinced Focus Features to bypass the art house circuit and release  the film wide at a multiplex near you.

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