The Boy Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

by Vadim Rizov
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The Green Hornet was supposed to be Michel Gondry's directorial feature debut in 1997, starring Greg Kinnear as Marvel's comic-book hero. As it was, it took 2001's Human Nature for Gondry to break into cinema, and Kato's first fight in the 2011 model is a retread of Gondry's video for The Chemical Brothers' 'Let Forever Be.' It's a nifty bit of trivia or validation that the project ended up with the same filmmaker 14 years later, but the project resulted from multiple corporate disputes, with reshoots and a shoddy 3D conversion to boot. The Green Hornet proves to be the sloppiest, most inept action franchise-launcher helmed by a frail visionary weirdo since Tim Burton's 1989 Batman. At least on that production, Jack Nicholson ran interference for Burton, sparing him from the worst of Warner Bros.' meddling. This is a film made by a director who is not allowed to be himself.
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(Dean on
Jan 14, 2011 2:36 PM)




If Green Hornet is as STOOOOOOOPID as it looks it will be the flop of the year, I thought it was bad enough when I heard that Seth (i can't act ) Rogen was picked for the part. Then it was down hill from there.
I can honestly say that I won't even buy the DVD let alone go to the theater.

Podcast: Paul Giamatti

For an actor who has been praised for playing a sad-sack wine snob (Sideways), a socially backward everyman (American Splendor), an irascible leader (HBO's John Adams), even a gloomy actor named 'Paul Giamatti' (Cold Souls), Paul Giamatti would still have a diverse oeuvre if you only counted his onscreen cranks. Perhaps the most complicated of the bunch would be Giamatti's role in the new film Barney's Version, for which he has been nominated for a Golden Globe:

Based on Mordecai Richler's award winning novel—his last and, arguably, best—BARNEY'S VERSION is the warm, wise and witty story of the politically incorrect life of Barney Panofsky (Giamatti), who meets the love of his life at his wedding—and she is not the bride. A candid confessional, told from Barney's point of view, the film spans three decades and two continents, taking us through the different acts of his unusual history.

His first wife, Clara (Rachelle Lefevre), is a flame-haired, flagrantly unfaithful free sprit with whom Barney briefly lives la vie de Boheme in Rome. The Second Mrs. P. (Minnie Driver) is a wealthy Jewish Princess who shops and talks incessantly, barely noticing that Barney is not listening. It is at their lavish wedding that Barney meets and starts pursuing Miriam (Rosamund Pike), his third wife, the mother of his two children and true love.

With his father Izzy (Dustin Hoffman) as his sidekick, Barney takes us through the many highs, and a few too many lows, of his long and colorful life. Not only does Barney turn out to be a true romantic, he is also capable of all kinds of sneaky acts of gallantry, generosity, and goodness when we–and he– least expect it. His is a gloriously full life, played out on a grand scale. And, at its center stands an unlikely hero—the unforgettable Barney Panofsky.

Sitting down together at the Crosby Street Hotel in NYC, Giamatti and I extolled the hidden virtues of the quick-tempered Barney, then discussed the actor's desire for vice, naked existential fear, what attracts him to playing curmudgeonly souls, and whether Lady in the Water was misunderstood.

To listen to the podcast, click here. (13:58)

[WARNING: One minor plot point spoiled herein.]

Podcast Music

INTRO: Heyoka: 'Big Bud Barney'

OUTRO: Barney from The Simpsons: 'A Boozehound Named Barney'

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FILM OF THE WEEK: Lemmy

by Steve Dollar

What a piece of work is Lemmy. Keith Richards gets all the credit for being the rugged Jack Sparrow of rock'n'roll, but he's not the only pirate sailing under a black flag. And he doesn't even play for a band with an umlaut in its name.

And you might argue that Ian Fraser Kilmister, born on the first Christmas Eve after the end of World War II, makes a far sturdier badass icon. Better known as Lemmy to the gazillion fans of Motörhead, the bruisingly influential English metal band of which he is the only abiding member, the author of such live-fast-die-ugly anthems as 'Eat the Rich,' 'Killed by Death' and the immortal 'Ace of Spades,' seems as indestructible as the Terminator. To paraphrase one of his enthusiastically besotted fans, interviewed outside a concert in the documentary Lemmy: 49% Motherfucker, 51% Son of a Bitch: 'If they ever drop a nuclear bomb on this world, the only thing left behind will be Lemmy and cockroaches.'

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CONTEST: Lebanon DVD Giveaway

'Not just the year's most impressive first feature, but also the strongest new movie of any kind I've seen in 2010,' praised The Village Voice's J. Hoberman about Samuel Maoz's Lebanon, available today on home video. On behalf of GreenCine and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, you may enter to win the DVD of what Salon's Andrew O'Hehir called 'A terrifying, absorbing 93 minutes spent in hell.' More on the film:

In 1982, during the First Lebanon War, a tank manned by a novice crew of Israeli soldiers are led into a town previously bombed by the air force. Young men who have never fought before are now placed inside of a killing machine and thrown into a situation that quickly spins out of control, testing the mental toughness of the men inside of a confined space, with only the lens of a periscopic gun sight to see the madness outside. In LEBANON, writer-director Samuel Maoz has created a compelling, visceral drama in the tradition of DAS BOOT. Based on his personal experiences in the Israeli army, the film is as much a personal work of filmmaking as a triumph of powerful storytelling.

To enter, email contest@greencine.com and include your name, email address, mailing address, and, if you're a GreenCine member, your username in the email, and 'Lebanon' in the subject header. Entries without all this information will not be considered. (You will not be added to a mailing list!). One winner will be selected at random from all valid entries. You must be a US resident to enter. The deadline to enter is January 24. Winner will be notified by e-mail and announced in future editions of the GreenCine Dispatch newsletter.

See the Lebanon trailer below:

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Hollywood's Tourists

by Vadim Rizov

One of winter's great flops—The Tourist, in which Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie failed to, in Variety trade-speak, attract domestic auds (yet grossing twice as much overseas, validating the continual attractiveness of household names and glossy production values in foreign markets)—has prompted inquiring minds to wonder why a film concocted from such promising elements fell apart. The answer, according to one source among a post-mortem smattering of anonymous voices close to production, laid much of the blame at the feet of director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. He wanted a style piece, the stars didn't want to be stylish (Depp insisted on an elaborately ugly goatee, to the alarm of all involved) and the production went downhill from there.

Von Donnersmarck had come to Hollywood with big ambitions: his 2006 Best Foreign Film winner The Lives of Others was exactly the kind of historically weighty but easy-to-watch film Academy members love. If his attempt to go Hollywood failed, perhaps it's because he aimed too high, with an outsized budget and a story anchored by people and plot rather than a concept that sells itself. Over the last decade, many foreign directors have quite deliberately emigrated for American studio budgets and never gone back, but they keep their ambitions modest and pragmatic. At home, aping Hollywood on a small budget is a dream. In California, you can do it without the struggle.

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(J.M. on
Jan 20, 2011 8:09 AM)




Another example of wonderful foreign directors who magically lose their...well, magic when working in the USA: John Woo.

(Jen on
Jan 20, 2011 10:59 AM)




Is this writer out of touch? The Tourist's worldwide gross is already $186M . . . and counting. Yes, despite the bashing of the so-called critics. This weekend it is predicted to reach $200M! 'Nuff said. Don't want to waste any more time with a stup1d writer.

SUNDANCE '11 PODCAST: Michael Tully

Since I consider actor, director and respected film blogger Michael Tully both a colleague and friend, I've chosen not to write a proper review of his third feature, Septien. Set in the dreamy Tennessee boonies, Tully's darkly eccentric (and if you can forgive the bias, quite remarkable) familial fable makes its world premiere simultaneously at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and nationwide on VOD via Sundance Selects (January 23):

Michael Tully's SEPTIEN follows Cornelius Rawlings, who returns to his family's farm eighteen years after disappearing without a trace. While his parents are long deceased, Cornelius's brothers continue to live in isolation on this forgotten piece of land. Ezra is a freak for two things: cleanliness and Jesus. Amos is a self-taught artist who fetishizes sports and Satan. Although back home, Cornelius is still distant. In between challenging strangers to one-on-one games, he huffs and drinks the days away. The family's high-school sports demons show up one day in the guise of a plumber and a pretty girl. Only a mysterious drifter can redeem their souls on 4th and goal. Triple-threat actor/writer/director Tully creates a backwoods world that's only a few trees away from our own, complete with characters on the edge of sanity that we can actually relate to. A hero tale gone wrong, SEPTIEN is funny when it's inappropriate to laugh, and realistic when it should be psychotic.

Tully invited me to his Brooklyn apartment on the night before he left for Sundance to discuss Septien's 'little pot of gumbo' tone, the delicate concerns of being both a critic and a filmmaker, and whether an unearthed camcorder and the casting of Harmony Korine's wife Rachel were a combined onscreen ode to Trash Humpers.

To listen to the podcast, click here. (20:25)

Podcast Music

INTRO: Michael Montes: 'Septien Opening Titles'

OUTRO: HAM1: 'It's Only a Dream Unto Itself'

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Neds – review

Eight years ago in The Magdalene Sisters, his second movie as writer-director, Peter Mullan took up the cudgels against the repressive cruelty of a Catholic institution for girls in the Ireland of the 1960s.

He has now turned to, and on, a similar subject on the other side of the Irish Sea, the insensitive brutality of a Catholic boys' school in Glasgow and the conditions that lead to the near-destruction of an intelligent, lively, working-class lad.

What with the idle, negligent teachers, a brutal, alcoholic father (Peter Mullan), a cowed mother and a violent, antisocial brother, it's not entirely surprising that John McGill (Conor McCarron) throws in his lot with local gangs for reasons of personal survival and self-respect, and ends up among the eponymous acronymous Neds (ie non-educated delinquents).

This angry film is a forceful slice of life, clearly indebted to the realism of Ken Loach, in whose My Name Is Joe Mullan starred, and to whose Kes it nods. One also detects something of Terence Davies's films about growing up in working-class, Catholic Liverpool. Mullan's performance recalls the drunken domestic tyrant played by Pete Postlethwaite in Distant Voices, Still Lives.

The realism is disrupted by the occasional touch of surrealism, most especially a sequence in which a statue of Christ comes to life for the hallucinating hero, a recurrent trope of Catholic movies.

• Peter Mullan
• Drama

Philip French

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