New DVD: The Knick, Hot Pursuit

Still annoyed that Reese Witherspoon blew her post Wild goodwill on Hot Pursuit, to be honest. Was hoping for a Legally Blonde level mainstream comedy, though that's an admittedly high bar to clear. It's too strenuously acted to be truly fun though it might well play better on cable and DVD when it will likely be seen in pieces because some of it is funny. Its part of this week's DVD/BluRay batch which includes:

• Hot Pursuit (reviewed) 
• I Am Big Bird: The Carol Spinney Story  -documentary
• I Am Chris Farley - documentary
• Match (reviewed) - Patrick Stewart as a gay ballet instructor
• Police Story: Lockdown - with Jackie Chan
• Unfriended - group chat horror flick 

But the big news this week is that The Knick's 1st Season is finally available which means that if you don't get Cinemax you can finally see what the fuss was about Steven Soderbergh's series and why TFE was so thrilled to have Cara Seymour guest blogging earlier this summer to celebrate her terrific work as a tough talking complicated nun. 

It's a hospital show but not, thankfully, a procedural. Instead it's about scientific advances, urban madness, and the state of public heaelth and medicine at the turn of the 20th century. Clive Owen plays a brilliant Chief of Medicine who is also a junkie. It's an uneven show all told (though the design team does a super 1900s New York, not all of the performances are eager to go for period texture so it sometimes feels out of time) but when its on it's really on. Perhaps the show aired too long ago to catch Emmy's attention or perhaps Emmy votesr just won't look at Cinemax when they're too busy with HBO and Showtime series, but it did win a Globe nod for Clive's performance and one Emmy nomination for Soderbergh's direction of the pilot. 

'Duplicity' or Con Artists in Love

Tim here. Tomorrow sees the release of Focus, a romantic drama about two con artists, played by Will Smith and Margot Robbie. Time will tell if it finds its audience – the critics are steadfastly ambivalent – but I would at least argue on its behalf, sight-unseen, that it's already gotten at least one thing right. There's a slick likeability to any generally good con artist picture, which openly confess to the thing that most movies try to hide at least somewhat: the reason we watch them is to be told enthralling lies. We go to the movies in the specific hope of being conned, and never more so than in the case of romances, which in Hollywood's view are games of people trying to trick other people into falling in love with them, while tricking us into believing that all these contrivances are true and meaningful instead of just skilled craftsmanship. I'm hoping against hope that Focus ends up being really great.

While we wait to find out, I'd like to take you back in time to the last great con artist love story (if we skip over American Hustle, which has other goals in mind), the wantonly under-appreciated Duplicity from 2009. It was writer-director Tony Gilroy's follow-up to his Oscar-nominated Michael Clayton, transposing that film's world of corporate espionage and skullduggery into the frame of a fizzy romantic comedy. It was also the second film to pair Julia Roberts and Clive Owen as a pair of sniping lovers after the acidic "everybody hates everybody" drama Closer. And Duplicity tanked, and was widely unloved, and even six years later, those facts still break my heart a little bit. 

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Divalinkious

Clothes on Film on every costume worn by Doris Day in Pillow Talk. Love it.
Felix in Hollywood Louise Brooks is looking at you.
Film Doctor on Dark Shadows. (Eek. I pforgot the promised pfeiffer pfriday posting). He says my pfavorite thing anybody has said about Michelle Pfeiffer recently:

America does not appreciate her enough... she deserves to be treated at least as well as France treats Catherine Deneuve

I've always felt the Deneuve/Pfeiffer comparison was apt. But the auteurs aren't biting or Pfeiffer isn't baiting. Deneuve, on the other hand who is 15 years her senior, is still making vital films for important directors. 

A New York Night *CONTEST* Sarah Jessica Parker is inviting you to her place if you win the contest to attend her Obama fundraiser. Yes, I entered. We need a sensible President and, more importantly, I need to be inside SJP's home!
Towleroad the Magic Mike pr blitz has begun. 
Time countsdown the 10 greatest movies made since the year 2000. Kind of an odd list -- very Oscar bestpicturey -- but lists are like pizza. Usually worth devouring even when far from satisfying. I'm in love with number•1

ways in which the upcoming Tonys are just like the Oscars
Gold Derby on the "precursors" the Drama Leagues. It may lock up the expected Tony wins.
Everything I Know... hates Ghost the Musical -- based on the hit movie Ghost (1990)-- and would like to remind Tony voters about about one of our Oscary pet peeves:

 I would like to remind the Tony voters that "best" design doesn't necessarily mean "most expensive" or "most complicated." Ideally, it would mean "design that works with the dramatic intent of the piece, enhancing the inherent effectiveness of the work, rather than hiding the fact that there essentially is no effectiveness." 

Amen. I haven't seen this musical but this is a standard awards group problem.

Oh what the hell. 2 more links to go.
My New Plaid Pants [nsfw] is always reminding me of hot things I've forgotten, like Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster Waldau doing Clive Owen in Bent (1997)
Rope of Silicon Ewww. what the hell with Matthew Fox's new body for Alex Cross. He plays a serial killer. (If you believe the movies, serial killer is practically as common a profession as waitressing!)

5 Kidmanic Confessions

Confession #1: Whenever I see images or promotions from Hemingway & Gelhorn (2012) or think of Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen together, my mind immediately fools me into believing that they already co-starred in Closer (2004).

Yes, yes, yes that was Julia Roberts but I'm just telling you that my Nicole-addled brain attempts to force the recasting every time.

It tastes like yours only sweeter."

How hot would that have been?

More photos /confessions after the jump...

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TIFF: "Rampart" Redux, "Intruders" and "Pariah."

Paolo here. Allow me to present a TIFF movie I really love with a misleading and inaccurate synopsis. "Rampart: it's Greenberg but like a paranoid neo-noir with police brutality." Amir has already eloquently written his reservations on Oren Moverman's sophomore work. Yes, I admit that the camera movements were at times self-indulgent and reactions towards the film at our screening were divisive. All of this just makes me more militantly "Pro" on this movie and I've also been tweeting about it. And besides, Woody has a better chance of winning Oscar gold than Fassy.

Robin Wright and Woody Harrelson in Oren Moverman's "Rampart"

After watching Rampart, the funniest police brutality movie ever, Toronto's international cinema transported me to two unknown European cities.

Joan Carlos Fresnadillo's Intruders intertwines two story lines between a Spanish family and an English one, both haunted by the same ghosts. Given that the movie that strictly follows the horror archetypes set by Guillermo del Toro, the monster has a tentacle-y jacket, leather gloved arms. Trees in this movie are equally anthropomorphic. The movie takes place at an English country house where 'Mia Farrow,' a twelve-year-old girl (another del Toro influence) discovers a strange boxed piece of paper containing a story about the monster with the juvenile name of 'Hollowface.'

Fresnadillo has an interesting filmmaking voice, filling his movie with more dated scares than cheap ones; he's probably the only horror director left in the world who still think that cats are scary! True to del Toro's brave heroine form, Mia climbs a tree - allowing her to discover the written story - and walks along town by herself. Her Spanish counterpart, Juan, climbs in and out of his window and walks through scaffolding to escape the monster.

More on INTRUDERS and the lesbian drama PARIAH after the jump.

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