Curio: Film Devotionals

Alexa here.  This Easter/Passover time of year is always replete with biblical references; for me, most are tied to film.  For instance, my main understanding of the significance of Passover is through my repeated childhood viewings of The Ten Commandments.  As one of the heathen mob, I am more likely to light a candle to mourn the loss of Ryan Gosling from the screen than ask saints for intercession. Religious or not, I thought TFE readers would enjoy some curios that aid in the practice of film idolatry, like these devotional candles from this etsy shop.

Who would you light a candle for this year?

More false idols including Tim Burton, Steve Buscemi and The Avengers after the jump... 

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Box Office "Rock"ed. How Was Your Easter Weekend?

Easter is quite a benevolent holiday what with the fluffy bunnies, pastel eggs and resurrection from the dead sans zombie feelings. But the world wanted big explosive violence and big muscled men at the movies. Does anyone remember on Monday how troubled GI Joe: Retaliation once was, what with the very expensive "oops, we're not going to release it after all!" that it went through last year.

The Rock was top of the box office.

1,000 + Screens
01 GI JOE: RETALIATION $41.2 *NEW*
02 THE CROODS  $26.5 (cum. $88.6)
03 TYLER PERRY'S TEMPTATION TO PUT HIS NAME IN EVERY TITLE  $22.3 *NEW* 
04 OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN  $14 (cum $54.7) 
05 OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL $11.69 (cum. $198.2) Review
06 THE HOST  $11 *NEW*  
07 THE CALL $4.8 (cum. $39.4) comment discussion
08 ADMISSION $3.2 (cum $11.7) on Tina Fey / on Paul Rudd
09 SPRING BREAKERS $2.7  (cum $10.1) False Advertising?
10 THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE $1.3 (cum. $20.5)

So the gamble to waste all that prep P&A last year and pull the movie last minute in 2012 for a safer spot pre-summer movie season in 2013 paid off. In very limited release I don't think you can say that wasting your early press and publicity efforts paid off at all.

Less Than 100 Screens
01 THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES $.2 *NEW & REVIEWED* 
02 NO $.2 (cum. $1.3) Review
03 GINGER & ROSA  $.1 (cum. $.3)
04 FROM UP ON POPPY HILL  $.1 (cum $.2)
05 ON THE ROAD $.1 (cum $.4)

Ginger & Rosa and On The Road are two more pictures to add to the endless pile of "one week qualifiers" that have worked hard to win attention at festivals and on the Oscar circuit in one year only to not let anyone spend money on them until well into the following year when people have moved on and are confused when the movie is brought up again as a "new" film. It's a strange strategy that almost never pays off and yet distributors keep trying it! Eternal optimism.

For what it's worth both pictures have plenty to recommend them even if they aren't home runs: Ginger & Rosa is a completely rare beast - a thoughtful intelligent picture about teenage girls flinging themselves into politics and hormonal indulgences with a terrific emotionally expressive performance by Elle Fanning; On the Road is beautifully shot but more hit and miss with performances but man does Garrett Hedlund ever hit it as the object of everyone's erotic and creative attention. 

Monologue: "Like a Virgin"

Having revisited Tarantino's love of little piggies and Jackie Brown's Best Shots we end the Tarantino 50th Birthday festivities at the appropriate place given the director's love of circular plotting: The Very Beginning. When Quentin Tarantino was, essentially, a nobody, he was still Quentin Tarantino. Long before he was training his camera on knives and hands threatening Jamie Foxx's upside down junk in Django Unchained, he had the balls to open his debut feature with a monologue about big dicks... or Madonna's suggested love for them in her then 8 years old hit single "Like a Virgin".

This is the very first shot of Reservoir Dogs (1992).

Over the black of the credits Mr Brown (Quentin Tarantino) has introduced his thesis "The entire song is a metaphor for big dicks." more...

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Happy Easter, Dakota!

Dakota Fanning photographed by Matt Jones

I totally forgot it was Easter but appropos of nothing I did wake up this morning wondering where Dakota Fanning went to. Where ya been, girl? Didn't you film Effie like 2 years ago? And no the Twilight films don't count so you've really been slacking since The Runaways (2010). 

Or it seems like it. Do you think Dakota can pull a Jodie and become an important adult actress? The 19 year-old star does seem to be challenging herself with multiple genres and adult topics. Will the next two years be big for her? Up next: The Motel Life a thriller with Stephen Dorff (DVD release?), Very Good Girls a loss of virginity drama with Elisabeth Olsen, Night Moves from acclaimed indie auteur Kelly Reichardt about young environmentalists, Effie a period romantic drama biopic that seems like it films years ago, and the Hollywood scandal drama The Last of Robin Hood about Errol Flynn's (Kevin Kline) affair with a much much younger woman (Dakota). 

 

Review: "The Place Beyond the Pines"

This review was originally published in my weekly column at Towleroad

Handsome Luke at the Fairgrounds

The opening shot from THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, is a stunner. And not only because it starts with a view of a well-muscled and inked masculine torso. The camera follows the man (we don't see his face) as he paces back and forth, plays with a knife and then walks through a fairground where he turns heads and prompts amateur snapshots. Finally the camera catches his face. It's "Handsome Luke" (Ryan Gosling), a daredevil motorcylist about to defy death and gravity in a round metal cage. As soon as we've seen 'Handsome Gosling,' though, Luke throws a motorcyle helmet on depriving us of his Movie Star mug and enters the cage to perform miraculous stunts. As I recall there aren't any edits in this shot and I have no idea how it was filmed unless Ryan Gosling moonlights as a stuntman in addition to his many many other talents (like naming his body parts, and inspiring hilarious fandom and popular internet memes).

This lengthy continuous shot with its 'now you see him, now you don't' movie-star tease is a pretty apt description of the movie to come which is something of a bait-and-switch with a prominent throughline. [more]

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