An interview with Nick Davis, on "The Desiring-Image"

Tim here. Just in time for Gay Pride Month, sometime Film Experience contributor and generally terrific film writer Nick Davis had his very first book published, The Desiring-Image: Gilles Deleuze and Contemporary Queer Cinema. After having torn through my copy a little bit faster than the densely academic arguments necessarily deserved, I sat down with Nick to chat about some aspects of the book.

(Disclosure: not only are Nick and I friends, I make an appearance in the acknowledgements, as does Nathaniel, our host. But that’s why this isn’t a “review”)

Tim Brayton: Just to clarify: for you and for the book, “queer theory” and “queer cinema” is complementary to, but not necessarily the same as, gay and lesbian cinema.

Nick Davis: Yes. “Queer” both as a scholarly term, and a term that filmmakers are using for their work, is sort of bringing a more political edge to gay or lesbian or bisexual storylines, and doing so in such a way that it’s hard to talk about sexuality without also talking about other forces and other aspects of your social situation that impact who you relate to, how, what you know about yourself, whether you think you have a sexuality, or whether it’s something that changes or goes by another name.

TB: The book is an investigation into queer theory and the writing of Gilles Deleuze, using them to comment on each other. I gather that Deleuze is not somebody who crops up often in queer discussion very much, so what started you on this line of thought?

ND: Probably two moments...

Click to read more ...

Link is the Longest Blog Post

Flavorwire 15 great female film critics you should be reading
IndieWire Before Midnight has a great opening night in an unfortunately tiny amount of theaters. If I ran the world this would make $100 million this weekend ;)
Funny or Die "the reviews are in for Behind the Candelabra" LOL
Grantland Wesley Morris on two Cannes entries Claire Denis' Bastards and Nicolas Winding Refn's booed Only God Forgives 
My New Plaid Pants Allegedly Ewan McGregor 
/Film interesting. Jon Stewart's directorial debut Rosewater will star Gael García Bernal and is about a man who was held in an Iranian prison

Twitter Bryan Singer announces Evan Peters as Quicksilver. I've always thought the X-Men franchise was marred by sloppy casting (especially the further you get away from the centerpiece roles) and this one strikes me as no exception. The actors chose beyond the Magneto/Professor X/Wolverine trinity always seem "off" for the roles. Am I just too connected to the comic books? It's worth noting that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (twin siblings in the comics and two of my personal favorite characters in all of the Marvel Universe), due to complicated legal situations, can be used by both Marvel Studios and Fox but cannot reference the other so we may see a different actor play Quicksilver if Joss Whedon decides to use him.
Variety ...which he has according to this interview
Coming Soon an extremely annoying motion poster for the new Carrie
Variety Blue is the Warmest Color wins Fipresci prize at Cannes
In Contention ..speaking of lesbian dramas. Todd Haynes finally has a new movie project. It's called Carol and it's based on Patricia Highsmith's novel "The Price of Salt". Cate Blanchett is Carol, a married woman, who has an affair with a shopgirl Therese (Mia Wasikowska)
i09 DC heroes invade George Seurat's famous sunday in the park painting 

anniversaries and goodbyes
The Film Doctor happy 5th anniversary to a film blog I quite enjoy! 
Drawn is closing its doors. sniffle. i love this tumblr which was always a great way to stay connected to illustrators on the web 
Awards Daily Sasha's last entry from Cannes - missing buzzy Blue ... and attending the Nebraska press conference. Although I'll admit the reveal of a 30 minute time frame to file a review filled me with abject horror. It takes me SO LONG to write reviews. Are other critics really done with them in 30 minutes? How! 

I Left My Film Festival in San Francisco

Glenn here with a report from the recently concluded 56th San Francisco Film Festival. I travelled to the Golden Gate city and sat on the FIPRESCI jury, judging a roster of eleven films from first and second-time directors. Given the attention given to FIPRESCI – The International Federation of Film Critics, or Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique if you want to be European about it – I wasn’t allowed to discuss the films as the festival progressed (can’t let the pundits in on what we’re going to reward now, can we?), but now we can take short looks at each of the competition titles.

Youth
Directed by Justine Malle (yes, Louis Malles daughter), and starring Esther Garrel (daughter of Philippe; sister of ubiquitous French star Louis Garrel) and with a title as definitive as Youth (there should be an "!" there just for effect), Malle’s debut has the weight of baggage. Appropriate then given it’s about a young woman dealing with first love, sex, parties, exams, an ill womanising filmmaking father, and wine. So much wine. From the very opening scene Malle does a fine job of establishing this young girl torn between the city life with her mother and the country life of her father. Her train trips back and forth are very literal back-and-forths with her personality as she tries to decide what she wants. And that includes one of her classmates, Benjamin (Émile Bertherat that my notes proclaim has “DREAMBOAT HAIR!”) The film has some pertinent things to say about young women and society’s view of them – a stranger sees her crying over her dying father and asks “is it about a boy?” I enjoyed it a lot, even if it did feel somewhat like a film I’ve seen before.

10 more films (some maddening, some great), one strange cat, one possible Oscar submission after the jump...

Click to read more ...

American Lone Wolf in Linking

YouTube Edgar Wright talks to the cast of American Werewolf in London, one of his favorite films.
Vulture the latest Mad Men episode in 5 gifs - yeah, I know I'm late writing this one up (and there was so much movie business, too)
Guardian great prickly interview with Judy Davis who, rather shockingly, does not like her work in Husbands and Wives (only one of the great supporting actress performances of all time!)

Moviefone interviews Anthony Mackie who will play Falcon in Captain America Winter Soldier. And bless them for asking him about rap battles with Eminem in 8 Mile.
The Ochre has an interactive movie-oriented video. You choose once choices come up. Short and quite random. 
IndieWire film critics and the 20 minute rule 
Slate the purge of Netflix Instant Watch features and queues. I'm so sad about this. Why does Netflix hate us? I don't want to go back to the world pre-Netflix when every movie cost me money and movies were so hard to find.
and
... on Twitter and Facebook we've been we're talking about Kirsten Dunst's best work today on her 31st birthday. You'd know that if you were "following" or "liking" so join us.

Three More Things About The Tony Award Nominations Today Starting With This Tweet That Made Me LOL

NO #TONY NOMINATIONS FOR BOMBSHELL? #snub

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) April 30, 2013

That's for you "Smash" fans... those of you who remain
The Film Experience I filled out that messy post on the nominations (sorry about that) with a little more commentary and a few photos
The Onion sticks a fork in the Awards with this hilariously titled piece "Loud Desperate Need For Approval Leads Tony Nominations" 

Finally...
Over at Towleroad I've interviewed the director Yen Tan about his new gay drama Pit Stop which has already picked up a couple of prizes at film festivals even before the LGBT film festival season (which starts in May) kicks off.  One of those was from my own jury at Nashville (previously discussed). The film stars Bill Heck and Marcus DeAnda as two gay men who are struggling to extricate themselves from failed relationships in rural Texas. We talked about the trials of "gay panic" when you're casting for LGBT films, realistic sex in movies and authenticity in dialogue when English is your second language. You can see a list of upcoming screenings here (festivals in Boston, Maryland, Oklahoma City, Ann Arbor, and San Diego are next). 

Burning Questions: Can You Really Separate A Performance From The Film?

Hey everybody. Michael C. here. Growing up in the dark days before Twitter, back before I could get my Oscar gripe on 24/7, I had to focus all that emotion on Siskel and Ebert’s annual "Memo to the Academy" special. Watching year after year, one of the refrains the duo drilled into my head was that the Academy should expand their idea of what constitutes an Oscar-worthy performance. Don’t lazily jot down the names of those appearing in best picture contenders. Evaluate each performance on its own merits, apart from the film that contains it. They were adamant on the subject. 

Or at least they were, until the 1998/99 episode when Gene found the limits of Roger’s open-mindedness by suggesting James Woods receive a Best Actor nod for John Carpenter’s Vampires. After Gene went on for a bit about Woods’ talent for commanding the screen, Roger demurred, “Yeah, but if you’re gonna nominate someone for Best Actor you kinda want them to be in a little better movie, don’t you think?”

Gene wasn’t having it: “No. I want the performance. I don’t care about the movie.” 

This altercation zeroed in on a question that has always nagged at me. If even a harsh critic of stodgy thinking like Ebert has to draw the line somewhere, is the issue that cut and dry? Is it really possible to separate the performance from the film? [more]

Click to read more ...