All the News That’s Fit to Rank: Week of July 27, 2015
These are the top movie stories that got the Flickchart staff talking this week. We ranks ’em, you reads ’em.
1. Father and daughter find treasure trove of rare silent films in the U.K.
Treasure hunters Mike and Rachael Grant, father and daughter, were poking around a recycling center in Devon when some old film reels caught their attention. On the reels are a wide variety of movies dating from 1909–1913, some of which are extremely rare. The Cardboard Lover, for example, exists on just one other known reel, and a “heavily damaged” one at that. The 35-mm film stock contains highly combustible nitrate, and at the recycling center the movies were perched near an old can of paint — not at all an explosive situation! The Grants are loaning the films free of charge to the British Film Institute archive, which employs a specialist in nitrate film preservation. (via Daily Mail)
A still from a 1910 Italian movie called IL GUANTO, also found in the Grant’s trove
2. Christopher Nolan‘s next movie is a short documentary about stop-motion animators
Nolan’s latest movie hits screens this August. The completed short documentary Quay showcases two brothers of that name, Stephen and Timothy, who make effects movies the old-fashioned way: by painstakingly rearranging models between frames. Stop-motion animation is not a lost art so long as people like the Quays keep at it. As if this story weren’t delightful enough, Stephen and Timothy also happen to be identical twins. Nolan’s new documentary will play on August 19 at New York’s Film Forum along with a Quay-themed mini film fest on 35-mm. In case you can’t make it, below is a Quay movie in full on YouTube: The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer. (via i09)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=10&v=SYFZ4kIRaNg
3. Animated commercials by Studio Ghibli made available online
If you’ve finished the Studio Ghibli filmography, played the video game Ni no Kuni, and been to western Tokyo’s Ghibli Museum enough times to catch all the exclusive shorts, don’t get comfortable. There’s a new hurdle for Ghibli completists to clear: commercials. Over the years the studio, which has an iconic stature in Japan, has produced animated television spots for food company Nissin Seifun. The hand-drawn animation in the commercials hearkens back to classics like My Neighbor Totoro, while the music by Akiko Yano is reminiscent of her work on My Neighbors the Yamadas. Below is a recent sample. (via Open Culture)
4. Theater shooting in Louisiana kills three
It is a terrible fact, but an inescapable one: movie theaters are targets for the insane and the disaffected. These people should not have guns, but they do. What can be done? In some states, theaters may begin to welcome to open-carry vigilantes. In other states, passing through metal detectors may become part of the process of going to movies, like buying your ticket and standing in line for popcorn. In any case, be safe out there, and be kind to people.
A screening of Judd Apatow’s TRAINWRECK, starring Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, and LeBron James, was the site of the deadly shooting
5. Shudder, an algorithmic streaming service for horror fans
There may be no genre as diverse as horror. The rabbit holes you can go down are so manifold that catch-all streaming sites struggle to keep up. Maybe Shudder, a new streaming service strictly for horror buffs, can corner the market on this vast niche. Shudder has monthly and yearly subscription plans, personalized recommendations broken down by subgenre, and a two-week trial opportunity. (via /Film)
A still from the 2014 horror film IT FOLLOWS
6. Michael Moore announces next documentary: Where to Invade Next
The idea of a military-industrial complex that uses war as a means of self-perpetuation is not a new or a partisan one. Republican president Dwight Eisenhower made it the subject of his farewell address. Now polarizing documentarian Michael Moore takes it on in a documentary titled Where to Invade Next. The film, Moore’s first since 2009, will be seen by Toronto International Film Festival attendees in September. Both Moore and the festival are teasing the humorous aspects of the movie, which was filmed in multiple countries that may already be on the radar of the gentlemen in this screenshot!
The real question is, why did these people let Moore into the room?
7. Mel Gibson directing a religion-infused WW2 movie starring Vince Vaughn and Andrew Garfield
It’s the collaboration so many have been clamoring for: beloved Hollywood nice guys Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson are teaming up for a World War 2 story about a real-life conscientious objector, a Seventh-Day Adventist, who won the Medal of Honor. Andrew Garfield will join them for the film, called Hacksaw Ridge, and no doubt all three will cover themselves in glory. Much of the action will probably take place in Okinawa in the closing days of the war in the Pacific, so comparisons with Clint Eastwood‘s Flags of Our Fathers will be inevitable. (via AV Club)
Mel Gibson will direct HACKSAW RIDGE
8. Bryan Singer teases possible X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover
Nothing is confirmed, but frequent X-Men director Bryan Singer says that a crossover film between the X-Men and the Fantastic Four is “in play.” The concept of such a crossover is far enough along that Singer apparently has in mind a specific “natural mechanism” that “deals with time” by which the crossover would be achieved. Let the rampant speculation begin. (via /Film)
A publicity still from Singer’s forthcoming X-MEN: APOCALYPSE
9. Nosferatu to be remade by The Witch director
The legendary 1922 German silent film Nosferatu has already been remade twice: once in the 1970s by the macabre and cerebral Werner Herzog, and once in 2000 as a tongue-in-cheek parody called Shadow of the Vampire. Now Robert Eggers, whose 2015 film The Witch took a directing award at Sundance, will helm a new version. Little is known about how faithful it will remain to F.W. Murnau‘s original, or to Bram Stoker’s Dracula on which the story is closely based.
A still from Robert Eggers’ THE WITCH. Eggers will soon helm a new NOSFERATU.
10. Woody Allen gives a wide-ranging interview: “filmmaking is not the end-all-be-all of my existence”
Nothing was off the table when interviewer and film critic Sam Fragoso spoke with Woody Allen this week. Allen praised filmmakers whose work ethic he admires — including Kurosawa, Scorsese, and Spielberg — and regrets that he was not more serious in his early films. He’ll be turning 80 soon, so of course he shares his thoughts on death, a perennial topic of fascination in his films. Allen also describes his relationship with his longtime wife (and former adopted daughter) Soon-Yi, and addresses how his work has changed (or not changed) in response to allegations that he raped a different adopted daughter in the early 1990s. This new interview offers a frank and introspective glimpse into the mind of a prolific auteur. (via NPR)
Allen and Soon-Yi in 2009
Top Trailers of the Week
Black Mass
Johnny Depp dons age makeup.
Sicario
Think Benicio del Toro will be a bad guy in this one, too?
Eadweard
Eadweard Muybridge was an accomplished photographer, a pioneer of early motion pictures, and an admitted murderer. Nice mix for a film!
Spotlight
Can Keaton continue his comeback alongside Mark Ruffalo?
Beasts of No Nation
Netflix ventures into serious territory with this adaptation of a modern African warfare novel.
Despite not really being a horror aficionado, I’m really intrigued by the advent of Shudder. Some streaming services advertise big catalogs but are filled with basically shovelware; this one will have a smaller rotating library that’s curated by humans. (Mubi already does this, but not genre-specific, and much of their content is public domain or easily available on other services, which I hope Shudder doesn’t fall into.) On one hand, I think curation is the way to go for this stuff. On the other hand, do we really want a world where you have to subscribe to a curated horror service and a curated animation service and a curated comedy service and curated sci-fi service…and on and on. I’ve got to say, though, just as a spectator, I’m fascinated to see how our media landscape pans out over the next ten to twenty years and see what becomes the standard.
I think only a few genres might require their own curated streaming services. Horror and “classics,” for example, since they’re so diverse. On the other hand, the tendency of things is often toward specialization, so maybe it will get very fragmented.