San Francisco Screenings: October 11 - 20, 2012

 

I'm not quite sure how I want to format this new portion of my blog that I'm going to dedicate to exciting upcoming screenings in San Francisco, so bear with me as I figure out the best format for this. This post will cover up till October 20th, and all screenings are subject to change. As far as current theatrical engagements are concerned, there's only one film for me, and that's Lee Daniels' disaster at the year's Cannes Film Festival, The Paperboy, which opened in San Francisco last Friday. From all of the descriptions and reviews I've glanced over, it sounds like Daniels has returned to the absurdness of Shadowboxer after a brief stint as an Oscar darling with Precious. The rest of the screenings are in chronological order.

October 11 - 21: The Arab Film Festival opens with Sameh Zoabi's 2010 comedy Man Without a Cell Phone at 7:30 pm at the Castro Theater. The traveling film festival, now in its sixteenth year, moves onto additional California locales in San Jose, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Other films screening at the festival include the French comedy Top Floor, Left Wing (Dernier étage gauche gauche), winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at last year's Berlinale; Faouzi Bensaïdi's heist drama Death for Sale, which will represent Morocco for the Best Foreign Language Film at next year's Oscars; Khalid Al-Haggar's Lust, which was Egypt's Oscar submission last year; Namir Abdel Messeeh's inventive documentary The Virgin, the Copts, and Me (La Vierge, les Coptes et moi...), which played at both this year's Berlinale and Tribeca Film Festival; and the Dutch road movie Rabat (pictured above). All screenings, except for the opening night gala, will be held at the Embarcadero Center Cinema.

October 11, 13, 14: Chantal Akerman's latest film, Almayer's Folly (La folie Almayer), comes to the Yerba Buena Center for a three-day run. The film is adapted from the novel of the same name by Joseph Conrad and reteams the director with her La captive star Stanislas Merhar.

 

October 11: The Thursday Film Cult will be hosting several horror-themed double features during the month of October at The Vortex Room. On the 11th, it will be a 16mm print of Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace (Sei donne per l'assassino) and Andrew Sinclair's Blueblood, a British occult film with Oliver Reed and Derek Jacobi. Showtime at 9pm.

October 12 - 14: At New People Cinema, the Film Society of San Francisco presents Taiwan Film Days, which will showcase seven Taiwanese films over its three days, including Edward Yang's classic four-hour epic A Brighter Summer Day, which is still MIA on DVD. Yang's widow is expected to be in attendance.

 

October 11 - 14: For those willing to make the trek north to Mill Valley, there are still a few days left of the 2012 Mill Valley Film Festival. Screening over the next four days: Leos Carax's Holy Motors (!); Lore, Cate Shortland's follow-up to her lovely Somersault; Cristian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills, a double prize-winner at this year's Cannes Film Festival (Best Actress, Best Screenplay); the latest from director Miguel Gomes (Our Beloved Month of August), Tabu; Hagar Ben Asher's Israeli sex drama The Slut; Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love; and a music doc about the recording of Stevie Nicks' 2011 album In Your Dreams, with Ms. Nicks herself (!!) in person.

October 12 - 19: Sure to attract a lively crowd, the Castro Theater will present another of its popular sing-a-long events to the film that began Walt Disney Animation's financial resurgence in the late 80s/early 90s (if you aren't counting The Rescuers Down Under), The Little Mermaid. I'd be willing to bet every plus-size drag queen within the city limits will be making at appearance as Ursula for (at least) one of the nightly screenings over its week run.

October 13: Midnites for Maniacs have programmed a rather impressive triple-feature for October: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2; and Clive Barker's original Hellraiser. With a strange cast that joins Patricia Arquette, Laurence Fishburne, and Zsa Zsa Gabor with the leftovers of the first installment Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon (missing from the puzzling, gay panic second film), Dream Warriors is, without question, the best of the entire Elm Street series. In another unusual sequel to a hugely popular horror film, Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel, made twelve years after the original, has Dennis Hopper on the hunt for the murderous family. All three films are shown on 35mm, starting at 7:30 pm at the Roxie Theater.

October 13: If the above triple-feature doesn't suit your fancy, you can always go to the Clay Theater for a midnight screening of one of the "great" San Francisco films, Tommy Wiseau's The Room.

October 15: At the Roxie, Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1932 silent classic Vampyr will be screened with live score by Siouxsie and the Banshees co-founder Steven Severin. Screenings are at 7pm and 9:30pm.

October 19 - 25: Andrea Arnold's stunning adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights begins a week-long run at the Opera Plaza Cinema. Expect a review from me sometime soon.

October 20: To celebrate its 20th anniversary just in time for Halloween, Peaches Christ will present a screening/event of/for Robert Zemeckis' Death Becomes Her. Over the past year or so, I've seen Peaches screen/perform Showgirls, Ken Russell's Tommy, and Silence of the Lambs, and this will be the debut run of Death Becomes Her, with Peaches as Madeleine Ashton (Meryl Streep) and Heklina as Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn).

The African Queen per chance? DVD Update 10 December

Looks like a brand new date has been given to John Huston's The African Queen by Paramount to either get delayed again or finally see the light of day on, now, both DVD and Blu-ray: 23 February. I would quit mentioning the thing until I had a copy of it in my hand, but it's kinda fun keeping track of all the false starts it's gotten.

The Blu-ray schedule for the US is seriously disappointing, when I hear about all sorts of exciting films getting put out in Europe. The Precious phenomenon has thankfully brought us one good thing in the announcement that Lee Daniels' glorious/awful Shadowboxer is going to come out on Blu-ray on 16 March, so I can see all its absurdity in the highest quality possible. I can't wait. The only other Blu release I found is Dragon Dynasty's release of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin on 2 March.

Magnolia announced John Woo's Red Cliff for 30 March in two different versions: the U.S. theatrical cut, which edited both films together into a two-and-a-half-hour package, and a 2-disc international version, which contains both of the Red Cliff films uncut. And, thanks a lot, Lionsgate for once again tapping into Republic's library to release two films that have been released previously (Frances and Plenty). More exciting than the Casper Van Dien/James Dean made-for-television flick coming to DVD is a Kurt Russell-as-Elvis TV movie directed by John Carpenter! Shout! Factory will release the film, which also stars Shelley Winters, Ed Begley Jr., Pat Hingle and Joe Mantegna, on 2 March. And finally, it would appear as though here! Films release of Brillante Mendoza's Service [Serbis] will be the uncut version as the box cover lists it as the "unrated version." The DVDs below are in descending order of release.

- Cold Souls, 2009, d. Sophie Barthes, 20th Century Fox, 2 February
- The African Queen, 1951, d. John Huston, Paramount, Centennial Collection, also on Blu-ray, 23 February
- Shall We Kiss? [Un baiser s'il vous plaît], 2007, d. Emmanuel Mouret, Music Box Films, 23 February
- Castle in the Sky, 1986, d. Hayao Miyazaki, Special Edition, Studio Ghibli/Disney, 2 March
- Elvis, 1979, d. John Carpenter, Shout! Factory, 2 March
- Frances, 1982, d. Graeme Clifford, Republic/Lionsgate, 2 March
- My Neighbor Totoro, 1988, d. Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli/Disney, 2 March
- Plenty, 1985, d. Fred Schepisi, Republic/Lionsgate, 2 March
- The Wraith, 1986, d. Mike Marvin, Lionsgate, Special Edition, 2 March
- The Art of Being Straight, 2008, d. Jesse Rosen, here! Films, 9 March
- Bulletproof Salesman, 2008, d. Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker, First Run Features, 23 March
- Red Cliff, 2008/2009, d. John Woo, Magnet/Magnolia, also on Blu-ray, 30 March
- The Yes Men Fix the World, 2009, d. Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Kurt Engfehr, New Video, 1 April
- Alice Neel, 2007, d. Andrew Neel, New Video, 27 April

Oh, the Independent Spirit Award Nominations...

The nominations for the 2010 Independent Spirit Awards were announced this morning, with few surprises. Really, I have little to say about them aside from being puzzled, but not surprised, by seeing Lee Daniels among the Best Director nominees. A lack of love for both Humpday and Zooey Deschanel put a smile on my face, but everyone seems to be confused as to why Goodbye Solo only nabbed one nomination. Oh, and I hate when they pull shit like nominating An Education in the Foreign category, but The Last Station in the Feature one. -- but here they are:

Best Feature

(500) Days of Summer, d. Mark Webb, USA
Amreeka, d. Cherien Dabis, USA/Canada
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, d. Lee Daniels, USA
Sin Nombre, d. Cary Fukunaga, Mexico/USA
The Last Station, d. Michael Hoffman, UK/Germany/Russia

Best Director

Ethan Coen, Joen Coen - A Serious Man
Lee Daniels - Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Cary Fukunaga - Sin Nombre
James Gray - Two Lovers
Michael Hoffman - The Last Station

Best First Feature

Crazy Heart, d. Scott Cooper, USA
Easier with Practice, d. Kyle Patrick Alvarez, USA
Paranormal Activity, d. Oren Peli, USA
The Messenger, d. Oren Moverman, USA
A Single Man, d. Tom Ford, USA

John Cassavetes Award (for features made for under $500,000)

Big Fan, d. Robert Siegel, USA
Humpday, d. Lynn Shelton, USA
The New Year Parade, d. Tom Quinn, USA
Treeless Mountain, d. So Yong Kim, USA/South Korea
Zero Bridge, d. Tariq Tapa, India/USA

Best Screenplay

(500) Days of Summer - Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber
Adventureland - Greg Mottola
The Last Station - Michael Hoffman
The Messenger - Alessandro Camon, Oren Moverman
The Vicious Kind - Lee Toland Krieger

Best First Screenplay

Amreeka - Cherien Dabis
Cold Souls - Sophie Barthes
Crazy Heart - Scott Cooper
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire - Geoffrey Fletcher
A Single Man - Tom Ford, David Scearce

Best Male Lead

Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart
Colin Firth - A Single Man
Joseph Gordon-Levitt - (500) Days of Summer
Souléymane Sy Savané - Goodbye Solo
Adam Scott - The Vicious Kind

Best Female Lead

Maria Bello - Downloading Nancy
Nisreen Faour - Amreeka
Helen Mirren - The Last Station
Gwyneth Paltrow - Two Lovers
Gabourey Sidibe - Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Best Supporting Male

Jermaine Clement - Gentleman Broncos
Woody Harrelson - The Messenger
Christian McKay - Me and Orson Welles
Raymond McKinnon - That Evening Sun
Christopher Plummer - The Last Station

Best Supporting Female

Dina Korzun - Cold Souls
Mo'Nique - Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Samantha Morton - The Messenger
Natalie Press - Fifty Dead Men Walking
Mia Wasikowska - That Evening Sun

Best Cinematography

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - Peter Zeitlinger
Cold Souls - Andrij Parekh
A Serious Man - Roger Deakins
Sin Nombre - Adriano Goldman
Treeless Mountain - Anne Misawa

Best Documentary

Anvil! The Story of Anvil, d. Sacha Gervasi, USA
Food, Inc., d. Robert Kenner, USA
More Than a Game, d. Kristopher Belman, USA
October Country, d. Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher, USA
Which Way Home, d. Rebecca Cammisa, USA

Best Foreign Film

An Education, d. Lone Scherfig, UK/France
Everlasting Moments [Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick], d. Jan Troell, Sweden/Denmark/Norway/Finland/Germany
The Maid [La nana], d. Sebastián Silva, Chile/Mexico
Mother, d. Bong Joon-ho, South Korea
A Prophet [Un prophète], d. Jacques Audiard, France

The rest of the awards are available over at IndieWire.

Humpin' Around

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire - d. Lee Daniels - 2009 - USA - Lionsgate

There's so little time left in the year for me to spend a whole lot of time writing about films that I don't like, but I need to flush my feelings for Lee Daniels' Precious out in some form. When my friend Tom sent me a Netflix note saying, "God help me, I partially agree with Armond White," I couldn't help but share his sentiment. Despite the editorial errors (really, how does giving the wrong title for a director's previous film, Shadowboxer not Shadowboxing, get past the NY Press' editor?) and including Marci X, Little Man, Mr. 3000 and Norbit (!!) in all seriousness as "excellent recent films with black themes," White sort of nails the self-loathing that runs through all of Precious, from its ludicrous fantasy sequences--the worst of which placing Precious (Gabourney Sidibe) and her mother (Mo'Nique) in a scene from Vittorio De Sica's Two Women as they watch it on television, despite the fact that Precious is barely literate--to its onslaught of racial stereotypes.

I am glad, however, that Lee Daniels' incompetence is finally getting some press after the film screened at the New York Film Festival. No one seemed to have a bad word to say about it at Sundance, Cannes or Toronto. Poverty porn, emotional porn, a new kind of blaxploitation, an impeccably acted piece of trash, a con job -- all of these descriptions are appropriate. One of the highlights of White's review points out one of Daniels' unsubtle, messy visual gimmicks: "The scene where Precious carries her baby past a “Spay and Neuter Your Pets” sign is sick." But I can't help but give it up, as most of the film's detractors other than White seem to be doing, to the actors, from newcomer Sidibe, a monstrous, Joan Crawford-on-welfare Mo'Nique, a make-up-less, ratty-wig-donning, Jersey-accented Mariah Carey and Paula Patton as the light-skinned lesbian teacher/saint who looks after Precious. Whether the actresses' collectively marvelous performances add to Daniels' lunacy or rise above it isn't certain... all I know is that, thanks to its audacity, if Precious does manage to take home the Best Picture Oscar next February, I won't moaning as much as I did when that other overblown race-issue melodrama did a few years back.

The Nunsploitation Classic Comes to DVD in the US, Plus a Bunch of Lame Blu-rays

Walerian Borowczyk's Behind Convent Walls [Interno di un convento], often regarded as the quintessential nunsploitation film, will finally make its way to the US via Cult Epics on 30 March. Cult Epics will also release it in a set entitled The Nunsploitation Convent Collection with Norifumi Suzuki's School of the Holy Beast and a bonus disc tracking the illustrious history of the nunsploitation sub-genre. In addition to all that goodness, Scorpion Releasing will have Volker Schlöndorff's Voyager [Homo Faber], with Sam Shepard, Julie Delpy and Barbara Sukowa, out on the same date. As you can see below, there's nothing worth mentioning on the Blu-ray front.

And, my apologies for the lack of updates over the weekend. I was swamped with the Saint Louis International Film Festival (not to mention a bit of seasonal depression, career woes, general malaise), which ended on Sunday. As one might have guessed, Precious won the Audience Choice award for Narrative Films; Denis Rabaglia's Swiss/German romantic comedy Marcello, Marcello (in the Italian language) won the Audience Award for International Feature; and Eric Byler and Annabel Park's 9500 Liberty won for Documentary. David Lowery's lovely St. Nick won the New Filmmakers Forum Award, well-deserved, especially after Mary Bronstein's incredible Yeast took home the prize last year. The St. Louis Film Critics Association gave a special "Under the Radar" award for Aida Begić's Snow [Snijeg] from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Naturally, my favorite films that screened this year did not fare as well with the general public, but I'll be writing about them as part of The Decade List this week.

- Praxis, 2008, d. Alex Pacheco, Ariztical, 19 January
- Righteous Ties, 2006, d. Jang Jin, Virgil Films, 26 January
- As It Is in Heaven [Så som i himmelen], 2004, d. Kay Pollak, Kino, 2 February
- Ong-Bak 2: The Beginning, 2009, d. Tony Jaa, Panna Rittikrai, Magnet/Magnolia, also on Blu-ray, 2 February
- The Vanished Empire, 2008, d. Karen Shakhnazarov, Kino, 2 February
- The Wolf Man, 1941, d. George Waggner, Universal, Legacy Series, 2 February
- Bronson, 2009, d. Nicolas Windig Refn, Magnet/Magnolia, also on Blu-ray, 9 February
- Rome & Jewel, 2008, d. Charles T. Kanganis, Well Go USA, 9 February
- Secret Moonlight, 2009, d. Cheryl Hines, Magnolia, also on Blu-ray, 9 February
- The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, 2009, d. Rebecca Miller, Screen Media, also on Blu-ray, 16 February
- Battle Girl: Living Dead in Tokyo, 1991, d. Kazuo Komizu, Synapse, 23 February
- No Orchids for Miss Blandish, 1948, d. St. John Legh Clowes, VCI, 23 February
- Splinterheads, 2009, d. Brant Sersen, Monarch, 23 February
- The Brothers Warner, 2008, d. Cass Warner, Warner, 10 March
- Yesterday Was a Lie, 2008, d. James Kerwin, Koch Vision, 23 March
- Behind Convent Walls [Interno di un convento], 1978, d. Walerian Borowczyk, Cult Epics, 30 March
- Shut-Eye, 2003, d. John Covert, Cinema Obscura, 30 March
- Two Films by Jean-Louis van Belle (The Sadist with Red Teeth [Le sadique aux dents rouges] / Forbidden Paris [Paris inderdit]), 1971/1969, Mondo Macabro, 30 March
- Voyager [Homo faber], 1991, d. Volker Schlöndorff, Scorpion Releasing, 30 March

Blu-ray

- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1998, d. Terry Gilliam, Universal, 2 February
- Drop Zone, 1994, d. John Badham, Lionsgate, 9 February
- The Phantom, 1996, d. Simon Wincer, Lionsgate, 9 February
- The Running Man, 1987, d. Paul Michael Glasser, Lionsgate, 9 February
- Cabin Fever, 2002, d. Eli Roth, Lionsgate, 16 February
- Tromeo & Juliet, 1996, d. James Gunn, Lloyd Kaufman, Troma, 30 March
- Vampyres, 1974, d. José Ramón Larraz, Blue Underground, 30 March

Foreign Oscar Submissions and TIFF and Deuville Award Winners

The submissions for the foreign language Oscars are all due on 1 October, and so far, thirty countries have announced their entries. Currently, the Netherlands are reconsidering their choice of Jean van de Velde's The Silent Army [Wit licht], which played out of competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival, as it risks being disqualified for not being "Dutch" enough; a good portion of the dialogue is in English. Thanks to Movie On for the full list. Of the films below, only one filmmaker (Giuseppe Tornatore) is a previous winner, and so far six (maybe seven) have US distribution. David Hudson ponders why Germany, and not Austria, will be submitting Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon over at The Auteurs Daily.

Armenia: Autumn of the Magician, d. Ruben Gevorkyants, Vahe Gevorkyants
Austria: Ein Augenblick Freiheit [For a Moment, Freedom], d. Arash T. Riahi
Belgium: De helaasheid der dingen [The Misfortunates], d. Felix van Groeningen
Brazil: Salve Geral, d. Sérgio Rezende
Bulgaria: The World is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner, d. Stephan Komandarev
Chile: Dawson Isla 10 [Dawson Island 10], d. Miguel Littin
Finland: Postia pappi Jaakobille [Letters to Father Jacob], d. Klaus Härö
France: Un prophète [A Prophet], d. Jacques Audiard, Sony Pictures Classics
Germany: Das weiße Band [The White Ribbon], d. Michael Haneke, Sony Pictures Classics
Hong Kong: Prince of Tears, d. Yonfan
Hungary: Kaméleon [Chameleon], d. Krisztina Goda
India: Harishchandrachi Factory, d. Paresh Mokashi
Iran: About Elly, d. Asghar Farhadi, Here! Films
Italy: Baarìa, d. Giuseppe Tornatore
Japan: Nobody to Watch Over Me, d. Ryôichi Kimizuka
Kazakhstan: Kelin, d. Ermek Tursunov
Lithuania: Duburys [Waterhole], d. Gitis Luksas
Morocco: Casanegra, d. Nour Eddine Lakhmari
Portugal: Um Amor de Perdição [Doomed Love], d. Mário Barroso
Romania: Poliţist, adj.. [Police, Adjetive], d. Corneliu Porumboiu, IFC Films
Serbia: Here and There, d. Darko Lungulov
Slovenia: Pokrajina Št.2 [Landscape No.2], d. Vinko Moderndorfer, Vanguard [released on DVD 25 August]
South Africa: White Wedding, d. Jann Turner
South Korea: Mother, d. Bong Joon-ho, Magnolia
Sri Lanka: Akasa Kusum [Flowers in the Sky], d. Prasanna Vithanage
Sweden: De ofrivilliga [Involuntary], d. Ruben Östlund
Switzerland: Home, d. Ursula Meier, Lorber Films (?)
Taiwan: No puedo vivir sin ti, d. Leon Dai
Thailand: Best in Time, d. Youngyooth Thongkonthun
Venezuela: Libertador Morales, el justiciero, d. Efterpi Charalambidis


Though technically not a competitive film festival like Cannes, Sundance, Venice or Berlin, the selected few awards given at this year's Toronto International Film Festival were announced over the weekend.

People's Choice Award: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire - d. Lee Daniels
- First Runner-Up: Mao's Last Dancer - d. Bruce Beresford
- Second Runner-Up: Micmacs [Micmacs à tire-larigot] - d. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
People's Choice Award for Documentary: The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls - d. Leanne Pooley
- Runner-Up: Capitalism: A Love Story - d. Michael Moore
People's Choice for Midnight Madness: The Loved Ones - d. Sean Byrne
- Runner-Up: Daybreakers - d. Peter Spierig, Michael Spierig

Best Canadian Feature Film: Cairo Time - d. Ruba Nadda
Best Canadian First Feature Film: The Wild Hunt - d. Alexandre Franchi

FIPRESCI Prize for Special Presentations Section: Hadewijch - d. Bruno Dumont
FIPRESCI Prize for Discovery Section: The Man Beyond the Bridge - d. Laxmikant Shetgaonkar


Precious also tied for the Prix du jury at the 35th annual Deauville Festival du cinéma américain last week. The jury was headed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and included actors Hiam Abbas, Émilie Dequenne, Deborah François, Sandrine Kiberlain, Géraldine Pailhas, Dany Boon, screenwriter Jean-Loup Dabadie (César et Rosalie), and directors Patrice Leconte and Bruno Podalydès (Dieu seul me voit). The winners are below.

Grand Prix: The Messenger - d. Oren Moverman
Prix du jury: (tie) Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire - d. Lee Daniels; Sin Nombre - d. Cary Fukunaga
Prix de la révélation Cartier [Cartier Newcomer Award]: Humpday - d. Lynn Shelton

The Decade List: Shadowboxer (2005)

Shadowboxer - dir. Lee Daniels

[Edited from an earlier post; I made unnecessary paragraph breaks to accommodate more screencaps from this beauty. Also, if anyone would be interested in, maybe, a live-blog of this film, holler my way!]

Shadowboxer is the sort of complete disaster that certainly doesn't come around very often. Even when they do, they seldom come in a way that could fool the most passive viewer into looking past the utter absurdity of the entire production. Shadowboxer doesn't ever crack that smile you're waiting for, and this is to its credit... or, more accurately, to our enjoyment (though Bradford did remind me that Vanessa Ferlito is watching Valley of the Dolls in all its camp glory when Helen Mirren walks into her room... it's even the scene where Susan Hayward sings "I'll Plant My Own Tree"). That his latest film, Precious, has been getting so many raves (even with Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz and Sherri Shepherd in the cast) this year makes me wonder if Shadowboxer was just a ruse.

The always-wonderful (even here) Mirren plays Rose, a cold assassin dying of cancer on her final mission with partner/lover Mikey (Cuba Gooding Jr., and yes, you read that correctly). Things don't work out as planned when Rose reclaims the compassion that's been missing in her life as she decides to deliver her hit's baby, instead of killing her. Yes, Mirren and her gun manage to scare the water right out of the pregnant Vickie (Ferlito, who probably kicked herself after thinking this would be her breakout role), and like a pro, Mirren gets that baby right out. Rose, Mikey, Vickie and the baby go into seclusion, forming a strange family alliance away from Vickie's crazy husband (Stephen Dorff), the one that hired the hit on her. Explaining what happens plot-wise in Shadowboxer is not where you find the magic; the unintentional marvel of Shadowboxer presents itself in the revoltingly gaudy and hysterically absurd ornaments that string the film together.

The most noticeable head-scratcher of Shadowboxer is its casting. One can only assume that Lee Daniels called in a few favors and threw those favors together any way he could. In addition to the coupling of Mirren and Gooding, he also pairs Joseph Gordon-Levitt with Mo'Nique. Somehow he also asks us to suspend disbelief in accepting Gordon-Levitt as a doctor and Mo'Nique as the crack-head nurse who put him through medical school. Dorff is expectedly awful as a hot head, but the real gem of this casting is Macy Gray as Vickie's sassy, alcoholic best friend Neisha. Gray, a one-hit wonder with a gravel voice, fully assumes her role in a way that makes you think she stumbled drunk onto the set, threw herself into the film, and miraculously ended up in the final cut. But you would be oh-so-wrong in that assumption, as Daniels blindly thinks that her character is actually essential to the film. She’s absolutely not, and that’s why she works so well here.

One can’t help but wonder if Daniels actually read the screenplay by first-time writer William Lipz, let alone questioned anything that happens within the pages. Who the fuck is Stephen Dorff’s character supposed to be? It’s never explained, nor is it explained why he shoves a broken pool stick up a guy’s ass, wants to kill his wife, or decides to go full-frontal in one of the most gratuitous nude scenes I’ve seen in a while. Why is Mo’Nique a crackhead, and why would someone cast a woman of her size as one? Unless, I suppose, she recently picked up the habit.

I can appreciate films that have no raison d'être, but films that naïvely assume they're important (coughCrashcough) really churn my stomach. Thankfully, Shadowboxer is so blissfully unnecessary, unimportant, misguided, and incoherent that I have no shame in saying it was one of the more pleasurable film experiences I’d had in a while. A friend of mine and I decided the most telling example of Shadowboxer’s perplexing appeal is a scene in which Cuba Gooding Jr. offers to buy Macy Gray a drink. She insists upon five drinks and turns to the only other person in the bar (extras are expensive) who happens to be the most toe-up nasty tranny Daniels could find and asks if she wants a drink as well. I could do my best Macy Gray impersonation, but that wouldn’t get the full effect.

And I don't even have the time to mention Cuba in drag or the zebra. One can’t help but admire Helen Mirren for emerging from this abysmal failure unscathed as she did in Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Donned in Vivienne Westwood, she still manages to be just as wonderful here as she’s ever been. Don’t let Mirren (or the lushly uneven cinematography, or straight-faced tone) fool you, Shadowboxer is a train wreck all its own, so astoundingly wrong in every way that we may have to ask Nomi Malone to pass on her crown.

With: Helen Mirren, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Vanessa Ferlito, Stephen Dorff, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mo'Nique, Macy Gray
Screenplay: William Lipz
Cinematography: M. David Mullen
Music: Mario Grigorov
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Code Black Entertainment

Premiere: 9 September 2005 (Toronto International Film Festival)
US Premiere: 21 July 2006

Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch Will Premiere at Toronto, Plus New from Neil Jordan, Ricky Gervais, Steven Soderbergh

As expected after it didn't show at Cannes, Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch will make its world premiere at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. A Charles Darwin biopic entitled Creation (clever) with real-life husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly playing Mr. and Mrs. Darwin will open the festival. Creation is directed by Jon Amiel, whose previous films range from Copycat to The Core. Other world premieres include Steven Sodebergh's second bow for 2009, The Informat!; Neil Jordan's Ondine; and Ricky Gervais' The Invention of Lying. All of the titles announced today, some of them repeats from Sundance and Cannes, are below.

- Creation - d. Jon Amiel - w. Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly
- Get Low - d. Aaron Schneider - w. Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek
- Max Manus - d. Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg
- Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire - d. Lee Daniels
- The Boys Are Back - d. Scott Hicks - w. Clive Owen
- Bright Star - d. Jane Campion
- City of Life and Death - d. Lu Chuan
- Cracks - d. Jordan Scott - w. Eva Green
- Hadewijch - d. Bruno Dumont
- The Informant! - d. Steven Soderbergh - w. Matt Damon
- The Invention of Lying - d. Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson - w. Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Jeffrey Tambor, Fionnula Flanagan, Tina Fey, Rob Lowe, Jason Bateman, Christopher Guest, Patrick Stewart, Stephen Merchant
- Leaves of Grass - d. Tim Blake Nelson - w. Edward Norton, Melanie Lynskey, Susan Sarandon, Keri Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Nelson
- London River - d. Rachid Bouchareb - w. Brenda Blethyn
- Mao's Last Dancer - d. Bruce Beresford - w. Bruce greenwood, Kyle Maclachlan, Joan Chen
- Moloch Tropical - d. Raoul Peck
- Mother - d. Bong Joon-ho
- Ondine - d. Neil Jordan - w. Colin Farrell
- Partir - d. Catherine Corsini - w. Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López
- Scheherazade Tell Me a Story - d. Yousry Nasrallah
- Solitary Man - d. Brian Koppelman, David Levien - w. Michael Douglas, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary-Louise Parker, Jenna Fischer
- Valhalla Rising - d. Nicolas Winding Refn - w. Mads Mikkelsen, Jamie Sives
- Vengeance - d. Johnnie To
- The Vinter's Luck - d. Niki Caro - w. Jérémie Renier, Gaspard Ulliel, Vera Farmiga, Keisha Castle-Hughes

Cannes 2009 Line-Up: Updates

Via Variety, the full jury, headed by Isabelle Huppert, has also been announced: Asia Argento, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Lee Chang-dong, James Gray, Hanif Kureishi, Shu Qi and Robin Wright Penn. In addition to that, a number of other screenings have been announced out of the festival's main competition. Marina de Van's Ne te retourne pas, her second feature after Dans ma peau [In My Skin], will screen along with Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell in the Midnight Program. The film stars Sophie Marceau, Monica Bellucci and Andrea Di Stefano. Michel Gondry's L'épine dans le coeur, Souleymane Cissé's (Yeelen) Min ye and Keren Yedaya's (Or My Treasure) Jaffa will receive special screenings. In the Un Certain Regard category: Denis Dercourt's (The Page Turner) Demain des l'aube; Alain Cavalier's (La chamade) Irène; Bahman Ghobadi's (A Time for Drunken Horses) Nobody Knows About the Persian Cats; Bong Joon-ho's (The Host) Mother; João Pedro Rodrigues' (O Fantasma) To Die Like a Man; Tales from the Golden Age from Romanian directors Hanno Hofer, Razvan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu and Ioana Uricaru; Pavel Lounguine's (Taxi Blues) Tzar; Pen-ek Ratanaruang's (Last Life in the Universe) Nymph; and Lee Daniels' (Shadowboxer) Precious, formerly known as Push. Check the Variety link above for more information.