New clips have been emerging for Battleship in recent days. This spoilerish clip features an enemy alien being examined/unmasked by a Navy crew, and this clip features Brooklyn Decker and Taylor Kitsch in a bar.
The behind-the-scenes clip above showcases Capt. (Ret.) Rick Hoffman’s involvement as the Navy’s advisor on Battleship, which included getting a cameo as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Not bad for a former Captain.
And speaking of Brooklyn Decker, she’s featured in the May edition of GQ, something that’s also worth looking at. Ahem.
Battleship has already made $58 million worldwide, and opens here in the U.S. on May 18th.
By Patricia Ducey. Now that the trailer for the remake of Total Recall is out, I thought about Colin Farrell and the trajectory of his career – how the actor once more famous for his partying than his acting climbed his way back to blockbuster status again, now reprising Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic role. How did he get from Alexander to Quaid? [See Colin Farrell discuss the new Total Recallhere.]
Farrell’s international career ignited when he, a Dublin native and actor in both Ireland and on the BBC, was cast by Joel Schumacher in Tigerland (2000) as Bozz, an edgy Texan army recruit. His smoldering good looks and credible Texas twang in the film made Hollywood sit up and take notice. With his Irish charm, his reputation for four letter words, and rebelliousness — plus his nudity in Tigerland — Farrell soon became known as much for his off-screen antics as for his roles, and for a while he was the enfant terrible of the film world. A blur of big roles followed Tigerland: he co-starred opposite Bruce Willis in Hart’s War, played Jesse James in American Outlaws, and worked with Steven Spielberg on Minority Report. He shot to the top of the acting world, and landed the cover of Vanity Fair — all before he was 25.
Colin Farrell in "Tigerland."
Then Farrell donned that platinum blond wig (but kept his Irish accent) for the title role in Oliver Stone’s unfortunate Alexander in 2004. Nominated for six Razzies, the movie was rejected by critics and moviegoers alike. He quickly went to work on a remake of Miami Vice, then collapsed at the wrap party and checked into rehab. Miami Vice collapsed, too.
Farrell had offended the lords of fame and cinema: his movies bombed, and his x–rated exploits felt, well, exploitative. He didn’t work much. And although many Hollywood notables who burn the flame at both ends never make it back (like Stone himself, still wandering in the desert after Alexander), Farrell did. In a series of small but memorable roles over the past five to six years, Farrell worked steadily and garnered attention for all the right reasons. By honing his affecting acting skills and leaving the bad-boy persona behind, he moved forward.
In four roles, especially — John Smith in The New World, Ray in In Bruges, Valka in The Way Back, and as Bobby Pellitt in Horrible Bosses — Farrell played against his good looks and roguish charm (and his much ballyhooed craic-loving ways) to create indelible characters instead.
When he read the script to In Bruges, for instance, he loved it. But he warned Martin McDonagh, the director, “I don’t think you should hire me. I come with a certain amount of baggage that has been well earned through the years and this piece is so pure, I would love the audience to not have too much of a relationship with any of the actors.” Luckily, McDonagh disagreed and hired him. The result is the character of Ray, a hit man who violates his own moral code by killing an innocent and who spends the rest of the film trying to expiate his guilt. Strangely, and thanks to Farrell’s portrayal, we root for him to do just that.
After Bruges Farrell played Valka, a Russian gangster in The Way Back (a film often written about here at Libertas, see here and here), another “minor” character with a believable, multifaceted identity. Valka admires toughness and demands it of others. With a tattoo of Stalin on his chest to honor one of Russia’s “tough men,” he eschews self-pity — “grateful is for dogs” — and doesn’t quit until he reaches the border. Turns out he is not so tough after all, though. At the border he realizes he can’t leave Russia, his beloved homeland – and as for freedom, he “wouldn’t know what to do with it.” Another deftly created character with just the right touch of saint and sinner.
Farrell in "The New World."
On the comedic side, in Horrible Bosses Farrell undergoes a complete physical transformation as Bobby Pellitt, the obnoxious son of the boss. Vanity be damned, Farrell morphs into one of the most comically unlikable characters ever, yet the fierceness of Bobby’s lust for power (plus an almost heroically bad comb-over) earn our admiration.
But the first I saw of Farrell after his burnout was his role as Captain John Smith in Terrence Malick’s The New World. I was frankly surprised by the seriousness of his work – and his willingness to subsume himself into Malick’s ensemble – instead of dominating the screen. This was definitely not a star turn. In New World Farrell captures us without speaking — dialogue is always sparse in a Malick film — first as the rebel explorer, and then as Smith the man in love. I sought out Farrell’s films after that, and the string of memorable portrayals continued.
I’ve enjoyed him so much in these “supporting” roles that I almost hate to see him in the lead – of a blockbuster, no less – once again. Almost. By now he’s tucked the baggage away and earned his standing as a leading man. In the new trailer we can guess that his Total Recall is going to be different, with a vulnerability and emotional depth as evident as in his previous work. There’s a soul, not a cyborg, behind those eyes — and somehow I don’t think the stardust will blind him this time.
By Joe Bendel. Perhaps no artist represents the force of creative destruction better than Gerhard Richter. Not surprisingly, such a Schumpeterian painter was ill-suited to the Social Realist doctrine dominant in the former DDR. Finding refuge in the West two months before the construction of the Berlin Wall, Gerhard’s work has reached dizzying prices at recent auctions. Filmmaker Corinna Belz documents the artist at work in Gerhard Richter Painting, now showing in New York at Film Forum.
For some, Richter’s work probably confirms their uncharitable preconceived notions about modern art. The Dresden-born artist is best known for his large abstract paintings and photo-realistic work that would seem to be stylistically at odds with each other. Throughout the film, Belz captures the increasingly self-conscious Richter at work on two canvases in the former style.
After seeking asylum in West Germany in 1961, two Richter murals in the East were painted over out of dogmatic spite. Ironically, Richter deliberately subjects his work to similar treatment, roughly scraping his canvasses with paint squeegees to see how it alters their character. This process might continue past the point paintings are hung for exhibition. Indeed, there is something very Darwinistic about his approach, causing his assistants to openly speculate whether certain paintings will be able “to hold their own.”
GR Painting follows in the tradition of similar documentaries from Kino Lorber-Alive Minds, observing an artist or craftsman at work in their studio-space. However, the portrait of Richter is considerably more engaging than Gereon Wetzel’s El Bulli or Sophie Fiennes’s Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, because Belz brings a more visually dynamic approach to bear on her subject, without the same hushed reverence. However, Richter and his colleagues do not offer the sort of witty commentary heard fly-on-the-wall style from photography book publisher Gerhard Steidl and his roster of artists in Wetzel & Adolphe’s shockingly entertaining How to Make a Book with Steidl.
While Belz touches briefly on Richter’s fateful flight west, her focus falls squarely on his creative process. Frankly, for those with more traditional aesthetic inclinations, each successive scraping often renders the two canvasses in question less interesting, blurring the color contrasts and breaking down the paintings’ implied compositional structure. That is just the reality of his working method. Many will find it fascinating, many others will not. At least Richter is a rather interesting figure to spend time with. Recommended for patrons well steeped in the contemporary art world, GR Painting screens through Tuesday the 27th at Film Forum in Manhattan’s eternally chic West Village.
By Joe Bendel. The numbers are staggering: 319,000 individuals evacuated, at least 269,000 buildings destroyed, roughly $325 billion in damages, and over 20,000 souls missing or confirmed dead. It happened exactly one year ago yesterday, when the Tōhoku coast of Japan was devastated by a cruel earthquake-and-tsunami tandem. Yet the enormity of the tragedy was matched by the resiliency of the average Japanese citizenry. Tokyopop founder Stu Levy pays tribute to the heroes and victims of the 3/11 disaster throughout his documentary Pray for Japan, which screened yesterday in New York as part of the Japan Society’s anniversary programming, in advance of a special national screening this Wednesday at participating AMC Theaters, followed by a weeklong New York theatrical run starting this Friday.
Last year, 3/11 was a Friday. It happened to be the Ogatsu Middle School’s graduation day. As a result, their students had already gone home when the 2:46 earthquake hit. As they made their way to shelters, the Ogatsu faculty reconstructed their class rosters from scratch and set about verifying their students’ safety over the following hours and days. Miraculously, none had been killed. However, little else remained of their school.
In alternating segments, Levy focuses Pray on four groups dealing with the quake-tsunami’s impact: school, family, shelter, and volunteers. Each features inspirational and heartbreaking stories, but the rebirth of Ogatsu Middle School is truly emblematic of the courageous rebuilding process. What viewers do not hear is any finger-pointing or complaining. However, the grief remains raw and painful. Even the most jaded viewer will be deeply moved by one teenager’s koi-nobori tribute to his little brother on children’s day.
Indeed, Pray is a film that will make you cry repeatedly. Anyone of good will would be deeply moved by the stories Levy documents. To his credit, he has the good sense to stay out of the picture himself, letting the survivors tell their stories directly. Yet the evocative animated title sequence and Okuda Tamio’s theme song “jp” greatly contribute towards setting the elegiac but empowering tone right up front.
Unfortunately, the breadth and severity of the Japanese disaster seem lost on our media and elected leaders, who have generally failed in marking this solemn anniversary of our close friend and ally. That probably shows us all we need to know about them.
In contrast, Levy and a handful of filmmakers like Lucy Walker (whose Oscar nominated The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom also screens today at the Japan Society) recognized an important human story, which continues to develop. Unfortunately, the Japanese people’s fundamental decency and modesty works against them when it comes to grabbing the global media’s attention, yet seeing that spirit manifest itself in acts of compassion and volunteerism is not just inspiring, but ennobling. Both films capture that impulse, making them important and stirring works of cinematic reportage.
Highly recommended, Pray for Japan screens Wednesday (3/14) at select AMC Theaters nationwide, including the AMC Empire in New York and the AMC Cupertino in San Francisco, with a further weeklong theatrical engagement set for the Empire and the Burbank Town Center, starting this Friday (3/16).
Immediately following the events of 3/11, the Japan Society took the lead spearheading relief efforts in New York. You can learn how to support their laudable efforts here.
By Joe Bendel. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Japan’s Korean population sharply divided into camps aligned with the North or the South. At the time, the DPRK-supporting Chongryun ran circles around their counterparts, convincing many Koreans in Japan to “return” to the North. As a co-founder of Chongryun, Yang Yonghi’s father encouraged many such “returnees,” including her three older brothers. In retrospect, this was a mistake. Yang examines the disconnect between the ideology she was born into and the reality of life for her North Korean family in Dear Pyongyang, which screens this Sunday as part of Extreme Private Ethos, the Asia Society’s latest film series surveying provocatively intimate Japanese documentaries.
Yang was truly a red diaper baby, raised by her ardently Marxist father to revere the “fatherland” and the “Great Leader.” Although she attended one of the DPRK funded “Korean” schools in Japan, she was also a young person coming of age in an open society. As a result, she had some context to help her question the propaganda she was steadily fed in class. However, her first class trip to Pyongyang and her brief reunion with her brothers clearly began her ideologically questioning in earnest. As the years passed, her parents would ship more and more provisions to their sons, simply to keep them alive. Yet they never backed down from their allegiance to the rogue state.
Without question, Yang is profoundly disturbed by her parents’ apparent self deception, but she is rather circumspect in pressing the issue on-camera, for obvious reasons. Indeed, it is fascinating to read between the lines in Dear Pyongyang. She implies quite a bit about the miserable conditions there, but leaves much unspoken. After all, she has family in the North. On a more personal level, she also worries her father will consider any criticism of the DPRK as a rebuke of his life’s work. Just the same, she cannot ignore what she sees with her own eyes on each trip to Pyongyang.
Evidently, Yang successfully walked her tightrope, since she was able to make a follow-up film focusing on her niece Sona, whom she identifies with for living the life she might very well have led, had her parents also “returned.” She also was able to get her father to seriously take stock of many fateful decisions he made, on camera, before his health issues put an end to such discussions late in the documentary.
Understandably, an atmosphere of regret hangs heavily over the entire film. While Korea remains divided by circumstances beyond their control, Yang’s family is divided by choices they made. To her credit, she examines their implications as forthrightly as was prudent, given the nature of the Communist regime. Deeply personal but also highly relevant, it is an intriguing, frustrating, and forgiving film. Definitely a highlight of Extreme Private Ethos, the respectfully recommended Dear Pyongyang screens this Sunday afternoon (3/11) at the Asia Society in New York.
We wanted LFM readers to know that Jafar Panahi’s This is Not a Film opens this Wednesday (2/29) at New York’s Film Forum, and will soon thereafter be playing at select theaters across the country through May. For bookings in your area, please visit the film’s official website.
This is Not a Film depicts in heartbreaking detail the house arrest of acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who was accused in 2010 of making a film critical of the Iranian government. Panahi vehemently denies the charges, yet he currently faces six years in jail and a twenty-year ban on filmmaking. Nonetheless, in This is Not a Film Panahi not only documents his own house arrest, revealing how the banal details of daily confinement can crush the human spirit; he also reveals how the creative impulse can survive even the most repressive circumstances, and inspire hope.
LFM’s Joe Bendel reviewed This is Not a Film at the New York Film Festival, calling it “an inspiring example of the creative impulse as it flows like water through the cracks of an oppressive state.” LFM’s Govindini Murty and Jason Apuzzo also ranked This is Not a Film as the #1 Pro-Freedom Film of 2011 in their “The Cinema of Liberty: The Top 10 Pro-Freedom Films of 2011” blog post for The Huffington Post.
We hope you take the opportunity to see this important film when it comes to your area.
