Day: September 14, 2013

LFM’s Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: Why I Love 3D Movies – And Why They’re the Future of the Cinema

[Editor’s Note: the post below appeared yesterday at The Huffington Post.]

2013-09-13-wingsofthehawkmovieposter19531020459668.jpgBy Govindini Murty. This may be a controversial thing to say, but I’m an unapologetic fan of 3D movies. I see 3D not as a fad, but as the wave of the future. Whether it’s in movies, the next generation of smart-phone apps, or 3D modeling and printing, the trend in all our technology is toward recreating reality with greater detail in three dimensions.

I’ll have more to say about this in a moment, but first, I wanted to let fans of 3D cinema know about a wonderful opportunity this week to see classic 3D films at the World 3-D Film Expo in Hollywood. Leonard Maltin gives high praise to this festival for offering what may be “the last opportunity” to see many classic 3D films in their original 35mm dual-projection formats, noting that “digital restorations are good but they don’t pop off the screen the way the originals do.” The World 3-D Film Expo is unspooling this week through Sunday, September 15th at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

The screening not to be missed at the World 3-D Film Expo is this Friday afternoon’s 3:30pm showing of legendary Western director Budd Boetticher’s The Wings of the Hawk (1953), with star Julie Adams in attendance. (Ms. Adams is most famous for being the star of Universal’s iconic 3D classic, Creature From the Black Lagoon. You can read an Atlantic interview Jason Apuzzo and I did with Ms. Adams about the making of Creature here.)

Julie Adams in "Wings of the Hawk."

Shot in eye-popping color 3D, The Wings of the Hawk stars Julie Adams as fiery Mexican revolutionary Raquel Noriega (complete with breeches and bandoliers) in a proto-feminist role opposite an edgy miner played by Van Heflin. How many classic movie posters (see above, and the photo below) feature the heroine in a more commanding pose than the hero? If you want to meet this lovely and charming film legend in person, Ms. Adams will be present at the screening signing copies of her autobiography The Lucky Southern Star: Reflections From the Black Lagoon.

Other films to catch over the next few days of the festival include a very rare 3D screening of It Came From Outer Space (based on a story by the great Ray Bradbury), Revenge of the Creature (with a cameo by a young Clint Eastwood), and the Mexico-set gangster drama Second Chance (starring Robert Mitchum, Linda Darnell, and Jack Palance), which features stunning on-location photography. Also intriguing is Cease Fire, a Korean War drama featuring the only color 3D footage ever shot to this day during combat.

The World 3-D Film Expo is showing many of these films in the last known copies of their archival, double-system 35 mm celluloid prints, projected with dual projectors and viewed using polarized glasses. This is the way 3D films were originally meant to be seen – not with inferior anaglyphic prints made decades later using color separation, of the kind people often mistakenly identify with ’50s 3D.

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Original poster for "It Came from Outer Space."

And this brings me to my larger point: with all the enjoyment to be gained by watching 3D movies both classic and contemporary, I don’t see why the technology remains so controversial. Critics repeatedly assert that 3D is a gimmick, citing as their evidence the supposedly egregious use of spear-throwing or other projectiles in the past as a reason why all 3D in the present must be condemned. (What’s wrong with throwing a spear at the screen, anyway? Or having a monster’s claw come rearing out at the audience – as in that great moment from Creature From the Black Lagoon?) Such critics would no doubt have been offended by the famous 1st century B.C. Roman mosaic of Alexander the Great, in which the charging horses and bristling spears appear to come straight at the viewer.

And while movies shot natively in 3D certainly look a lot better than those that have been converted after the fact, I still enjoy both because I like experiencing the immersive quality of a 3D image – of being made to feel like one is literally swimming in a movie, much like Ms. Adams in her famous dip in the Black Lagoon. Continue reading LFM’s Govindini Murty at The Huffington Post: Why I Love 3D Movies – And Why They’re the Future of the Cinema

LFM Reviews Closed Curtain @ The 2013 Toronto International Film Festival

By Joe Bendel. For most filmmakers of his stature, bringing two films to the international festival circuit over the last three years would be considered reasonably prolific. For Jafar Panahi, who was sentenced to a twenty year filmmaking ban by the Islamist Iranian government, it is quite extraordinary. Panahi has been awarded the Camera d’Or at Cannes, the Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlin, and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Although he was not allowed to return to Berlin this year, he added to his list of accolades the Silver Bear for Best Script with his latest film, Closed Curtain (trailer here), co-directed by lead actor Kambozia Partovi, which screens again tomorrow as part of the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

A man arrives in a fashionable villa on the Caspian Sea. The views are spectacular, but he immediately hangs heavy black fabric over the gauzy curtains, completely sealing the house off from the outside world’s prying eyes. As a screenwriter and a dog owner, he has two strikes going against him. Initially, he seems most concerned about Boy, his four legged companion. The state just renewed its campaign against “unclean” “anti-Muslim” dogs, so the television news is filled with grisly images of secret pets that have been rounded up and killed by the police. Yet, the screenwriter seems to carry his own distinctly personal secrets as well.

After shaving his head to alter his appearance, the man settles in to write his screenplay. Much to his shock, his refuge is interrupted by a young man and his suicidal sister. They claim they were chased by the police who raided their beach party, but their very presence troubles the screenwriter. Could he have been so negligent he left the door open as they claim?

Panahi established his reputation with gritty proletarian dramas, filmed out in the real world, at street level. Sadly, films like The Circle (written by Partovi) are impossible for Panahi these days, so he has moved inside for intimate works, like his protest documentary This is Not a Film and his latest collaboration with Partovi. In fact, the first two thirds of Curtain plays like an Iranian Pinter production. As the screenwriter verbally spars with his unexpected guests, darkly unsettling questions emerge. Just how did they breach his house and if she really is familiar with his case history, just what does that imply?

If viewers were not off-balance enough, Panahi himself walks into the third act, much like Rod Serling. It seems the screenwriter and the sister are his characters. They can observe Panahi tending to his mysteriously damaged beach house, but they cannot interact with him—at least not exactly.

From "Closed Curtain."

There are pro’s and cons to the meta-turn Curtain takes. In a way, Curtain becomes a fictionalized sequel of sorts to This is not a Film, picking up on its themes and frustrations. The same sense of claustrophobia is present in Curtain, but it is expressed more acutely. Frankly, the scenes in which the occupants hold their breath as the police scour around the deceptively darkened house are so effective it seems like a bit of a shame to shift away from that micro story and Partovi’s restrained but deeply powerful performance.

Panahi’s pet iguana Igi might be telegenic in Not a Film, but Boy the Dog is probably the best animal screen performer of the year. If a distributor picks up Curtain (and somebody really ought to), his notices might rival that of Uggi in The Artist. Still, there is no doubt Curtain is a profoundly serious film, expressing the themes of confinement and oppression that hold particularly meaning for Panahi, but also have resonance for a great many Iranian citizens at large. Highly recommended, Closed Curtain screens again tomorrow night (9/15) as this year’s TIFF comes to a conclusion.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on September 14th, 2013 at 3:06pm.