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The only movie poll that matters: the results of the 8th Annual Skander Halim Memorial Movie Survey are online.
I hope I'm not upsetting anyone, since I was originally sent this information in confidence, but since it's now been forwarded to me from multiple sources and is available in a web archive I figure it's OK to share some new information (from the Frameworks mailing list) about Stan Brakhage. I only wish it were good news.
Despite Brakhage's misgivings about the video format, I'm happy to know that in the very near future thousands of people who wouldn't otherwise encounter his work will be exposed to it on DVD courtesy of Criterion's forthcoming By Brakhage collection. (No, I will not stop flogging this release. To my mind, it's one of the most significant DVD releases to date. I await it eagerly etcetera.)
I'm not familiar with most of the writing that's to be collected in the new Documentext book, but I've got a nice old hardcover called Brakhage Scrapbook (since reconfigured as part of Essential Brakhage) that has some pretty phenomenal stuff in it the man writes eloquently and poetically, a style that provides a nice complement to his sometimes inscrutable visual work. I have another book called Film at Wit's End (sadly, out of print) that collects transcripts of his lectures on key avant-garde filmmakers invaluable, and not only for the passage in which he describes Maya Deren picking up and throwing a refrigerator across the room.
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In other news, Mike D'Angelo has the roster for New Directors/New Films, and he's posted it at Cinemarati.
Should anyone care much, I've been using this thing called Audioscrobbler, which allows you to automatically track and report your Winamp (MP3) playlist to a central data repository, which keeps tabs on what you've been listening to and tries to match your tastes up with those of other users. For some reason, this kind of collaborative filtering effort, which generally amounts to unhelpful BS, has always fascinated me. So anyway, if you're ever bored enough to be interested in seeing what I may or may not be listening to at a given moment, my username is "harrylime."
Too much intimacy, perhaps.
I was greatly pleased to find buried under a ton o' email last week the following response from somebody who has actually worked in the trenches of the video industry at a company not unlike Kino International, which I dissed in an earlier 'blog entry (scroll down to the eighth paragraph) for releasing The Piano Teacher in an edition that failed to completely please me. Here's the reply, followed by my own responses.
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I can't speak for Kino (nor have I seen The Piano Teacher DVD), but having worked in the independent home video industry, I can tell you that you hit the nail on the head when you said "Top-Ramen poor". That's exactly it.
I should backtrack a little. Simply put, for small companies like Kino and such, the motto is "Take what they give you." There are always examples: For one foreign language film, I knew there was a readily accessible NTSC other-region DVD (a bare bones one, at that) that looked good and that we needed to compete with. We contacted the licensor and asked what we could get from them along the lines of a new transfer. As the production date approached, we never heard back from these people. Pissed? You bet I was but outside of flying to the film's country of origin and stealing the transfer myself, we were screwed.
For another foreign-language DVD, we were offered a making-of documentary with English subs. Great, we'll take it. Then the owner backtracked: Oh, that'll be several thousand dollars. Bye, bye documentary. As for the transfer itself, it looked about the same as what I imagine The Piano Teacher looks like: a PAL conversion with burned-in subs. They sent us the Region 2 disc, with its beautiful 16x9 transfer, and I asked, "Why can't we use this?" We could if we paid for subtitling it, which can cost up to $10,000 and is a long, arduous process. And we had a street date to meet. Yes, we could have delayed it in the interest of quality, but the marketplace being what it is, you've got to avoid coming out against big hits (and I don't just mean blockbuster hits, but also other arthouse releases).
Besides, this also depends on whether or not those who run the companies actually care enough about the quality issue. Many of them do know a bad-looking transfer when they see one, but it seems they don't really care. I know one who doesn't like watching scope films letterboxed and still doesn't understand the concept of 16x9. Telling them they should shell out some significant money for a good-looking transfer of a title that may, at best, sell a few thousand units is pretty much pointless. If you know the film is going to do well and you have a promise from a major sale or rental chain to pick up the disc, then it could happen. But for that obscure foreign film that played for one week in New York and L.A.? Forget it.
Something that most DVD consumers don't understand is that arthouse companies do not have the distribution that others do. Wellspring (hey, remember their initial DVD releases?) owns a huge consumer catalog that they stock with their own product, along with having the rights to stuff like Deepak Chopra and that other guru guy with the big beard (I don't know his name but you should know what I'm talking about). That stuff sells a shitload of units, not to mention some choice titles like Ran. They can get their titles into Musicland, Best Buy and Circuit City. For others, it's a struggle.
Sure, Criterion is a small company, but they happen to be a small company that owns Seven Samurai, The Seventh Seal, Grand Illusion, and many other classics in the U.S. Those films pay for the rest and they pay for those expensive transfers, too. Synapse and Image deal with exploitation and genre films, always proven moneymakers, so the Musiclands and Best Buys are clamoring for their stuff. I know what some of those transfers cost, but I also happen to know that they can make it back in the long run. If your catalog isn't nearly as enticing, then don't expect to get Musicland on the phone.
So anyway, that's just scraping the surface. Suffice to say, it sucks. And this is by no means meant to be an attack on you or your statements, but on the situation that these companies are in. Absolutely, The Piano Teacher should have been a better disc than it was. I've seen it in a lot of major chains (after it got rated, itself a pricey situation) so I'm sure it did well for them. But that's not always the case. I've seen major retailers buy discs with bad transfers and I've seen discs with excellent transfers and good supplements not sell a whiff. Again, you take what you can get.
Home video: Watch what you want, when you want, and then complain about the transfer on the Internet.
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OK. All that said, I just want to clarify that I'm not one of those nuts who refuses to buy a beloved movie just because it's not on DVD in a 16x9 transfer, or who won't watch older movies unless they've been remastered to (tinny) 5.1 stereo just because they want all of their speakers firing all the time.
But here's the thing, dammit. If The Piano Teacher was created with a discrete 5.1-channel sound mix which is a different animal from the standard Dolby stereo configuration, known in DVD-land as Dolby Digital 2.0 then we should get that sound mix on the DVD. Otherwise, the package is incomplete. It's my hope that, the next time Kino International, or any small-distrib equivalent, has to negotiate a North American theatrical/home video deal, they make sure that the elements for a 5.1 sound mix are included in the package.
I guess I shouldn't have rubbed Kino's nose in the outstanding output of The Criterion Collection, since it's well-known that releases like, um, Armageddon pay the way for stuff like the
Carl-Theodor Dreyer boxed set. One thing that does surprise me in the above is the suggestion that some of these titles only sell in the "few thousand units" range. I would have thought that 5,000 units would be the floor, but I guess I'd be wrong. I was shocked to hear a couple of years ago how few copies something like Kenneth Anger's films sell on VHS it kind of made me despair for the future of avant-garde film collections on DVD, a format that requires a heftier initial investment than videotape.
So I acknowledge that heroic effort takes place on a near-daily basis in the DVD industry, particularly among the smaller players but also at the studios, where similar, bigger-money problems rear their ugly heads. I'm grateful every time a stellar disc of a beautiful-but-not-so-commercial movie escapes from the vault in which it would have laid mouldering if not for the efforts of connected fans or admirers in the industry.
And of course it should go without saying that I prefer any crappy widescreen version of The Piano Teacher that Kino can provide to the alternative, which is no release at all. Even if I do have to shell out $30 for the thing.
[As usual, if you use any of the links above to buy a movie from Amazon.com, Deep-Focus.com gets a kickback.]
OK, there's more interesting stuff coming up soon, including an industry response to my previous rant about the DVD of The Piano Teacher. But I just got back from San Francisco and wanted to make an official stab at predicting the Oscar nominations in a few major categories even if nobody much is going to see them before the official announcement tomorrow. Mad props as usual to Alex Fung, whose picks mine closely resemble, though I swapped out a name here and there. We'll see if my tweaks get any closer to the eventual truth.
I predict token noms for The Pianist, reflecting the Academy's alleged conscience, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, reflecting its impulses toward populism, but I don't expect either of them to win the big prize come Oscar night. I further expect The Two Towers to get roundly dismissed from the major categories. I feel the perception is that it's a fine film, but not quite fine enough for this crowd. I also couldn't resist listing my man Almodovar for directorial honors, and was pleasantly surprised to see Alex doing the same. Fingers will be crossed tomorrow morning I'd be happy to see this one come to pass. (I'd be even happier to see Maggie Gyllenhaal's name replace Nia Vardalos's in the actress category, but I doubt that's in the cards.)
The eventual Best Picture winner? I'd bet on either Chicago or The Hours, with Scorsese getting a consolation Director price in honor of his brilliant career. I also wouldn't be shocked to see Gangs completely absent from the Best Picture line-up though I seem to be one of the few film writers who really believe it belongs there. (I also think Bowling For Columbine should get a Best Original Screenplay nod Best Editing, too and had it on my ballot for the Cinemarati awards.)
Enough talk. The Oscars are at best an excuse for an amusingly extended parlor game for film buffs and at worst a single evening's kitschy entertainment. More often than not, I have to rack my brain nine months later just to remember who took home the big prizes. I certainly don't take them as any reflection or indicator of real quality in cinema. That said, my picks follow. Not who I wish would win the noms, but who I think will win them.
Addendum: My correct picks are in boldface. The noms I missed follow in italics below each category.
Best Picture
CHICAGO
THE HOURS
GANGS OF NEW YORK
MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING
THE PIANIST
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
A pleasant surprise.
Best Director
Martin Scorsese, GANGS OF NEW YORK
Roman Polanski, THE PIANIST
Rob Marshall, CHICAGO
Pedro Almodovar, TALK TO HER
Alexander Payne, ABOUT SCHMIDT
Stephen Daldry, THE HOURS
Good for Pedro. Turns out "Action" Peter Jackson is the sole snubee in this line-up, making room for the furrener. Granted, Schmidt was a stupid pick on my part.
Best Actor
Adrien Brody, THE PIANIST
Daniel Day-Lewis, GANGS OF NEW YORK
Jack Nicholson, ABOUT SCHMIDT
Michael Caine, THE QUIET AMERICAN
Richard Gere, CHICAGO
Nicolas Cage, ADAPTATION
I'm actually quite pleased by this turn of events, as well, since I figured Richard Gere would not/could not get passed over for his role in the crowd-pleasing Chicago and really enjoyed Cage. Is this the first time someone's been nominated for two performances (as two different characters) in the same film? Naomi Watts got ignored last year, so she wouldn't count.
Best Actress
Salma Hayek, FRIDA
Nicole Kidman, THE HOURS
Julianne Moore, FAR FROM HEAVEN
Meryl Streep, THE HOURS
Nia Vardalos, MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING
Diane Lane, UNFAITHFUL
Renée Zellweger, CHICAGO
OK, this isn't very impressive. My Big Fat Greek Wedding got shut out, good. (OK, it got a screenplay nod. Fine.) And I still haven't seen The Hours so can't comment on Streep. (I get the feeling she doesn't really need any more of these in her life, though.) Further, it was stoopid of me to bet against Zellweger. Thought Diane Lane was quite good in Unfaithful, a mediocre movie.
Best Supporting Actor
Chris Cooper, ADAPTATION
Ed Harris, THE HOURS
Alfred Molina, FRIDA
Dennis Quaid, FAR FROM HEAVEN
John C. Reilly, CHICAGO
Paul Newman, ROAD TO PERDITION
Christopher Walken, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
Dennis Quaid's absence here is bullshit, since he reached so far and so successfully for his role in Far From Heaven. I mean, I completely forgot, for the first time in my life, that I was watching Dennis freaking Quaid up there, and just believed in the character. A tough role, and a tough performance. Such a shame. Chris Cooper rocks bells, though, in Adaptation. I picked Reilly for Chicago, though I didn't even care for "Mr. Cellophane," the obviously Oscar-ready showpiece he was so generously handed, and it's a little weird that Paul Newman gets the nod for simply bothering to show up for Road to Perdition, though he remains a class act.
Best Supporting Actress
Kathy Bates, ABOUT SCHMIDT
Toni Collette, THE HOURS
Queen Latifah, CHICAGO
Meryl Streep, ADAPTATION
Catherine Zeta-Jones, CHICAGO
Julianne Moore, THE HOURS
OK, I picked the wrong secondary performance from The Hours. Sue me. 'Teef was an obvious Academy selection (though she'll lose to Zeta-Jones on the big night), but Gere has to feel kinda singled out for non-honors this morning, don'tcha think?
Biggest surprise? Could it be that Bowling For Columbine actually scored a nom, ending a multi-year run in which the one famous, oft-seen documentary fails to make the documentary shortlist for some reason or another. And it looks like Eminem will be at the big show, not for acting (snort) but for his infectious "Lose Yourself" from 8 Mile.
Total? 22 out of 30 correct. Eh. Alex Fung made 24 out of the same 30, so I suggest you go read his page instead.