"Budapest" in Berlin: Fun Press Quotes from the Cast

The 64th Annual Berlinale began today and though The Film Experience can't be there (we're still recovering from Sundance) we are watching from afar. The events began early today with jury introductions and the press conference for Opening Night Gala film Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel. The conference was fun if not exactly informative. Wes Anderson kept getting questions about the aspect ratio (it's apparently square like a 30s movie) and questions about his influences and where his ideas spring from that he didn't really answer but for generalities. He watched a lot of Ernst Lubitsch for this one and admitted that he loves Stanley Kubrick and his "systems", too, whatever that means. I wouldn't have ever grouped Lubitch and Kubrick, myself, but I'm pleased that someone out there can alchemize them. 

Herewith the best moments featuring Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, and more...

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We Can't Wait #7: Snowpiercer

[In the We Can't Wait series we're looking at our top 14 most exciting film prospects for 2014. Previously: Nymphomaniac, Boyhood, Big Eyes, The Last 5 Years, Gone Girl , Can a Song Save Your Life and Veronica Mars plus movies that just missed the cut. Here's Anne Marie on a 2013 offering that was delayed. -Editor]

Snowpiercer
Joon-ho Bong's much-discussed scifi masterpiece (?). A train powered by a perpetual-motion machine cuts through a snowy post-apocalyptic earth. Onboard, a caste system has developed. All is thrown into chaos when the lowest classes revolt and fight their way, car by car, to the front.

Talent
Joon-ho Bong brings together a versatile cast including Tilda Swinton, Chris Evans, Ed Harris, Jamie Bell, Allison Pill John Hurt, and Octavia Spencer.

Why We Can't Wait
Joon-ho Bong (The Host, Mother) has been rightfully called one of the greatest directors in Korean cinema, an area filled to brimming with great directors. Even if you don't know Joon-ho Bong's work well, the idea of a post-apocalyptic train heist movie starring Tilda Swinton should be reason enough to get any self-respecting sci-fi fan excited. Still not convinced? The film has done over $50 million internationally and has been officially selected as the best Korean film of 2013. Snowpiercer has been hailed as a new Metropolis, using its extraordinary world to tell an intelligent story of class struggle and humanity.

But We Do Have To Wait
Unfortunately for Americans, Harvey Weinstein thinks we're too unintelligent for this movie. Since Weinstein picked up the film's US distribution rights last year, he has been garnering lots of bad publicity for his decision to cut 20 minutes out of the US release. His reasoning? He doesn't think it would play well in middle America. Instead of 20 minutes of exposition, he's added voice-overs to cover the lost information. (Anybody else getting Blade Runner deja vu?) Joon-ho Bong has publically stated he's against it, but Weinstein has yet to relent. No official US release date has been announced, but folks may want to skip it anyway and wait for the uncut film to be released on Bluray and digital download, whenever that may be.

Sundance: Only Lovers Left Alive

Our Sundance Film Festival coverage continues with Michael Cusumano on Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive.

Tom & Tilda - who needs neck pillows travelling when you have each other

Before Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive I would have gladly placed a moratorium on all vampire films. Beyond the exhausting cultural ubiquity of the undead, Tom Alfredson’s masterpiece, Let the Right One In appeared to be the final word on the sub-genre for the foreseeable future. What was left to say after that?

I should’ve known better.  All it takes is the synopsis “Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton in a vampire movie by Jim Jarmusch” to remind one that there is new life to be found in any song, provided that the singer is right. [more...] 

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Curio: My 2013 Wish List

Alexa here. 2013 has been filled with movie gifts aplenty, my favorites thus far being the smaller-scale treasures Stories We Tell and Frances Ha. But enough pixels have been spilled over the best films of 2013, so I'm using this space to share the film curios I've been dreaming of this year, all of the art variety. Some of these I've already gifted myself, too impatient to wait for someone else to get on it!  Here's hoping you get everything you're wishing for this year, too.

1. Alternative Movie Posters: Film Art from the Underground by Matthew Chojnacki. This volume nicely covers some of the best indie film posters out there, and includes some of my favorite artists in the process. I couldn't wait for the holidays so I bought it off of my own Amazon wish list; it's sitting on our coffee table right now.  

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Hollywood Is Mean To Older Women. Let's Help Them With A Chart!

The news about Laura Dern playing Reese Witherspoon's mother made me giggle at first this weekend since she's the right age to play her big sister. But the more I thought of it the more it bugged me. Especially since it came hot on the heels of realizing that Tilda Swinton, who turns 53 in a week or two, had the role originally designed for the legendary Angela Lansbury (who is 88) in Grand Budapest Hotel. To add insult to injury, Alex reminded me on Twitter that Susan Sarandon will be playing Melissa McCarthy's grandmother in the upcoming comedy Tammy. Sarandon is just 24 years older than McCarthy which would make her a fairly young mother of the star but a grandmother? That means she and her fictional daughter were knocked up as pre-teens. Gross!

None of this should be miscontrued as me not enjoying myself some Dern, Sarandon and Swinton! But all of this reminds me that Sally Field, ten years senior to Tom Hanks, played his mother in Forrest Gump just six years after rejecting him romantically in Punchline. That's misogynist Hollywood's version of karmic punishment, right?! [more]

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