Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« What Do You Tip For That? | Gore/Obama '08 »

Friday, March 7, 2008

This Weekend at the Movies

posted by on March 7 at 16:35 PM

Links:

This Believer transcript—of a conversation between Erroll Morris and Werner Herzog—is awesome:

WH: And I said that we were going to do a film there in Plainfield, and that really upset Errol a lot. He thought I was a thief without loot. This was his country, his territory, his Plainfield, and I shot in Plainfield. I shot a film, Stroszek, which I think is forgotten and forgiven by now, and we can maintain friendship over this now.

EM: I told Werner: For you to steal a character or a story isn’t real theft. But to steal a landscape, that is a very, very serious crime.

WH: I understand that. I take it to heart, but there actually is a film out there, and we can’t take it off the map.

EM: It’s a very good film.

WH: It has a beautiful end with a dancing chicken, and I really like it.

EM: Yes.

Woolly science: 10,000 B.S., care of the New York Post.

And a heads up: Sean Nelson Emeritus is in Austin this weekend to attend SXSW—he’s the star/co-writer of a film in competition there, Lynn Shelton’s My Effortless Brilliance, but he’ll be filing reports on the rest of the movies too. Stay tuned.

Opening this week:

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

In On Screen: a girly Jeeves and Wooster, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (David Schmader: “The whole thing flounces by inoffensively enough, and the set design [by Oscar® nominees Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer] is incongruously accomplished”); the Academy Award-winner for best foreign film, The Counterfeiters (Jen Graves: “Just as there are characters of varying virtue on the Jewish side of the camp, so there are Nazis of varying monstrosity. The real subject of this film is extremism: When is it not only justified but also productive?”); and the self-explanatory heist film The Bank Job (Paul Constant: “The movie suffers from a crippling lack of attention to detail—only a few characters’ hairstyles, dialogue, and outfits are in period, as though half the production crew forgot they were working on a film set in the ’70s—and the actors are given nothing to do but dutifully represent their respective clichés”).

Lindy West reports on Michael Seiwerath’s imminent departure from Northwest Film Forum.

And tucked away in the calendar this week, we have: the very circa 10,000 B.C. everywhere, the awesome SIFF ‘07 alum Girls Rock! at SIFF Cinema, the font doc Helvetica and other design-minded programs at Northwest Film Forum, Rome, Open City at SAM, and the rare Phil Karlson films Scandal Sheet and Gunman’s Walk at Grand Illusion.

RSS icon Comments

1

I have to disagree with the short review of The Bank Job - both myself and a friend saw this last night and thought it was one of the best films we've seen in a long time.

Highly recommended.

Not to be missed.

Posted by Will in Seattle | March 7, 2008 5:37 PM
2

Why is it that I can't read that Herzog quote without hearing his voice in my mind? Maybe I have just heard his voice a lot. A good, and on occasion great, director. Aguirre and Fitz were works of art. But I still can't watch Incident @ Loch Ness without laughing my ass off.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | March 7, 2008 6:15 PM
3

There's a video of that interview/conversation btw Herzog & Morris:

http://www.brandeis.edu/offices/communications/events/herzog.html

And: if you've never looked at Morris' website, do yourself a favor and look at it NOW.

Posted by bronkitis | March 7, 2008 6:45 PM
4

what's very interesting is werner herzog's statement:
WH: It has a beautiful end with a dancing chicken, and I really like it.

He is a notorious hater of chickens.

Refer to commentary on "Even Dwarves Started Small".
He finds chickens both terrifying and evil.

Posted by Yohnson | March 8, 2008 8:24 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).