Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: May 2016

5/30/2016

Top 10: The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

1. The Blues Brothers (1980) - John Landis

2. La Dolce Vita (1960) - Federico Fellini

3. Casablanca (1942) - Michael Curtiz

4. Inside Out (2015) - Pete Doctor & Ronaldo Del Carmen

5. Life of Pi (2012) - Ang Lee

6. Amadeus (1984) - Milos Forman

7. The Artist (2011) - Michel Hazanavicius

8. The Big Lebowski (1998) - Joel and Ethan Coen

9. The Descendants (2011) - Alexander Payne

5/28/2016

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - Spielberg's greatest accomplishment, the ultimate in movie magic

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One of the marvelous posters for Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which references Michelangelo's classical painting The Creation of Adam and underscores the film's religious undercurrent

In a nice suburban neighborhood near Los Angeles lives the boy Elliott with his big brother, little sister and mother. Their father/husband has left them for Mexico. A creature from space meets Elliott, they bond, and it benefits from his warm child's heart.

E.T. is the second masterpiece of master Ohioan filmmaker Steven Spielberg's (Saving Private Ryan (1998)) incredible career, the first one, of course, being Jaws (1975). Every time I have watched it, it has moved me tremendously, like no other film. E.T. is a film that is made with such technical and visual mastery, humanity, artfulness and forcefulness, - it makes you swell up with warmth inside, and after seeing it feel positively purified. - What other films can you name that does all of that?
John Williams' (Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)) Oscar-winning score is sheer perfection, musically storytelling in the best possible way, boosting every moment of the film with wonder, adventure and emotion.

The story, developed by Spielberg with recently passed, great screenwriter Melissa Mathison (The BFG (2016)), is wonderful. Henry Thomas (The Last Ride (2012)), Drew Barrymore (Blended (2014)) and everyone else are fantastic in it. Thomas is especially phenomenal, and so, of course, is Carlo Rambaldi's legendary creature design of E.T.
E.T. can be enjoyed as a religious reminder of the existence and importance of goodness and innocence in the world, with E.T. interpreted as a Jesus-like character or a symbol of childhood. At the same time the film's entirety works as a unique allegory of the full passage of life; with its dangers, mysteries, losses, adventures, unity and love.
E.T. is Spielberg's greatest accomplishment to date, one that is impossible to top. An absolutely spectacular film.

Related posts:

Steven Spielberg: War Horse (2011) - Spielberg visits WWI with problematic horse drama Super 8 (2011) - Abrams' nostalgic family crowdpleaser (producer)
Band of Brothers - TV mini-series (2001) - WWII-sacrifice and -comradeship portrayed with skill and integrity (producer)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - A robot fairy tale with both heart and mind
Amistad (1997) or, Must... Free... Slaves!
Twilight Zone The Movie (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology
1941 (1979) - Spielberg's bizarre 'comedy spectacular' sinks like a rock
Duel (1971) - Spielberg's truck terror is ideal afternoon fare

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 10.5 mil. $
Box office: 792.9 mil. $
= Blockbuster
[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial premiered May 26 (Cannes) and runs 117 minutes. The story is inspired by the divorce of Spielberg's parents in 1960, his estrangement from his father and development of a fantasy friend. E.T. began development as Spielberg's darker sci-fi project Night Skies, about evil aliens, collapsed. Columbia Pictures made one of the great errors of movie history when their management at the time passed on E.T., calling it "a wimpy Walt Disney movie." The E.T. puppet took 3 months and 1.5 mil. $ to make, but was still so ugly, in the nervous eyes of some, that Mars, Incorporated refused the use of M&Ms in the film. The Hershey Company then jumped in, and their profits rose 65 % after the release of the film, prominently featuring their Reese's Pieces candy. Filming took place from September - December 1981, mostly in Culver City, LA. The shoot was mostly chronological, especially to help the children's performances, and production wrapped four days early. It was the first film on which Spielberg did not use meticulous storyboarding. The film premiered at the closing gala of the Cannes Film Festival, a screening that has gone down in Cannes history as among the greatest the festival has ever enjoyed. The film opened #1 with an 11.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed #1 for 6 consecutive weeks, fluctuating between #1 and #2 in October and returning #1 once again in December. By 1983, E.T. surpassed Star Wars (1977) as the highest-grossing film of all time (unadjusted for inflation). It had grossed 359 mil. $ in North America and 619 mil. $ worldwide. E.T. was re-released in 1985 and 2002, adding 60 and 68 mil. $, respectively, to its gross. The film held its top-grossing spot for 11 years until Spielberg bested it with Jurassic Park (1993), although it stayed #1 in North America until a 1997 Star Wars re-issue beat it. The North American gross stands at 435.1 mil. $ (54.9 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets are Japan with 66.9 mil. $ (8.4 %) and the UK with 29.6 mil. $ (3.7 %). E.T. is still the 4th highest-grossing film in North America ever, adjusted for inflation, only bested by Gone with the Wind, Star Wars and The Sound of Music. Bengali master filmmaker Satyajit Ray has claimed that Spielberg plagiarized his 1967 script The Alien, which Spielberg has refused, although Martin Scorsese and Richard Attenborough have substantiated the claims. Spielberg has addressed the Christian undertones of the film and made clear that they are unintentional on his part, pointing to his being Jewish. Despite much pirating of the film was reported, it made an additional 75 mil. $ on VHS sales in North America alone. E.T. was nominated for 9 Oscars, winning for Best Score, Sound, Visual Effects and Sound Effects. It lost Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography and Editing to Attenborough's Gandhi. It was nominated for 5 Golden Globes, winning for Best Picture - Drama and Best Score. A 20 year anniversary edition of E.T. was released with some minor changes made using CGI, which prompted controversy. Spielberg has decided against doing so in the future releases of his past films and recommends watching the original 1982 version of E.T. Atari, Inc. released a video game based on the film in 1982, which is widely regarded among the worst video game ever made. A 40 mil. $ theme park ride based on the film was created for the Florida Universal Studios park in 1990. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is certified fresh at 98 % with a 9.2 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial?
Do you agree that it is Spielberg's greatest achievement?

5/24/2016

Zentropa/Europa (1991) - Von Trier's audacious ode to the heavy continent is a fever dream on celluloid

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One pretty poor poster for Lars Von Trier's Zentropa

An American idealist comes to Germany in 1945 to "do something good for the country", becoming a sleeping car conductor through a favor by his local uncle, but he soon gets himself mixed up in a hasty marriage and a dubious sabotage group.

Zentropa is Danish master co-writer-director Lars Von Trier's (Breaking the Waves (1996)) concluding film in his Europe trilogy, (also comprised by The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984) and Epidemic (1987).) It is an opulent film and a technically and stylistically dizzying piece, which plays around with narration, B/W and color, rear-projection and much more, not to attain common realism but rather to refer to a wealth of past cinematic works (Touch of Evil, Casablanca, the films of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean and more) and to induce us in a hypnotic state that's central to its narrative. Non-Europeans might view the film as extremely eccentric, high-brow or even pretentious. It isn't. Its swims around in heavy thematic waters, dealing with idealism clashing with guilt and sin, tied up also on continents, more specifically North America as opposed to Europe.
Jean-Marc Barr (City of Shadows/La Cité (2010)) is Von Trier's most beautiful male protagonist to date and a great central element of Zentropa. Ernst-Hugo Järegård (Valhalla (1986)) stands out among the other actors in a peculiar and disarming role, which points ahead to his great turn as Stig Helmer in Von Trier's great horror comedy TV-series The Kingdom/Riget (1994-97)). Zentropa is full of humor as well as references to primal anxiety states, side-qualities in its deft plot that at times smacks of Kafkaesque absurdity and Dostoyevskian individuality and passion. SPOILER It also contains a drowning scene that must go down in cinema history as among the worst (meaning best) of its kind.
Zentropa is one of a kind, a damned interesting and incredibly enticing film of impressive scope, vision and willpower, the work of a master filmmaker reaching, for the first time, the height of his abilities. Von Trier co-wrote, once again, with Niels Vørsel (The Element of Crime).

Related posts:

Lars Von Trier: Nymphomaniac (2013) short version, vol. 1 & vol. 2, or, Lars Von Trier's Suck It
Melancholia (2011) - Von Trier's heightened reality doomsday reflections
Antichrist (2009) - Von Trier's cabin-in-the-woods psycho-horror
The Boss of It All/Direktøren for det Hele (2006) - Von Trier's hilarious absurd comedy
Dear Wendy (2005) - Vinterberg and Von Trier's unpopular, gun-themed megaflop (writer)
Dogville (2003) - Von Trier's implacable, truly unique drama
Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Dancer in the Dark (2000) or, Selma the Immigrant
Epidemic (1987) - Von Trier's trippy, bizarre second film
The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984) - Von Trier's ultra-strange debut

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 4 mil. $
Box office: 1.45 mil. $ (North America, Denmark and Sweden only)
= Unknown (but probably a huge flop)
[Zentropa premiered May 12 (Cannes) and runs 114 minutes. The film is influenced by Franz Kafka's novel Amerika (1911-14). It was shot in various places in Poland and in Denmark in Copenhagen and in Nordisk Film's studio. The financing of the film, which was Von Trier's biggest up to the point, featuring a large, international cast, was a collaboration between 6 European countries, marking the future way Von Trier would get his films financed. The title was changed to Zentropa for the American release so as not to clash with Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa (1990). The film won 3 prizes in Cannes (Best Artistic Contribution, the Jury Prize and the Technical Grand Prize), but when Von Trier learned he did not win the main prize for Zentropa, he gave the judges the finger and stormed out from the ceremony. An overview of the film's theatrical performance isn't available: 31,837 paid admission in its native Denmark, making approximately 0.3 mil. $. The film made almost half that in Sweden, and 1 mil. $ in the US, where it was shown in just one cinema. This makes up just 1.45 mil. $. If Zentropa was saved by French, Italian or Spanish audiences, we don't know, but it seems unlikely that such a fact would have been kept a secret, and so it looks like a huge flop. The film won the Danish Robert and Bodil awards as Best Danish Film of the Year. Zentropa is fresh at 85 % with a 7.3 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Zentropa?

5/23/2016

Epidemic (1987) - Von Trier's trippy, bizarre second film

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The interesting French poster for Lars Von Trier's Epidemic

Danish master co-writer/director Lars Von Trier (Dogville (2003)) and co-writer Niels Vørsel (The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984), co-writer) are working on the script for a new film and have a week before they are to present their 1½ years of work to the important Danish Film Institute consultant. Pressed by the deadline, with nothing conventionally good to turn in, they choose to write a new film called Epidemic about the bubonic plague in Europe, meanwhile a real, new epidemic manifests itself in their present.

Epidemic, Von Trier's second film, is the follow-up to The Element of Crime and the second film in his Europe trilogy, which concludes with Europe (1991). It is a deeply strange mix of meta-filmmaking reflections, Von Trier's own phobia of and amusement with hospitals and their authorities and trippy Europe-lore. It points ahead to both The Kingdom/Riget (1994-97) and the detour structure of Nymphomaniac (2013), and so is especially interesting for fans of Von Trier.
While Element of Crime was, to some degree, pretentious, Epidemic is almost free of this burden. Its unpredictability, atmospheric locations, absurdism and dark sense of humor keeps one interested throughout. It is an experimental work by a filmmaker in his infancy, - which I often find are rewarding works, - and a deeply weird one at that. - What other film has a high-point which is the cutting open of a paste of tooth paste? But Epidemic is more than just a bizarre cult item. It is memorable through several scenes; some amusing, such as Vørsel recounting his pen pal relation to American teen girls, some troubling and sad, such as Udo Kier's (Nymphomaniac) earnest and deeply personal recount of a terrible story from his first days alive, told to him by his mother only recently on her death bed; and finally there is the film's last scene around the dinner table, which is truly harrowing.

Related posts:

Lars Von Trier: Nymphomaniac (2013) short version, vol. 1 & vol. 2, or, Lars Von Trier's Suck It Melancholia (2011) - Von Trier's heightened reality doomsday reflections
Antichrist (2009) - Von Trier's cabin-in-the-woods psycho-horror
The Boss of It All/Direktøren for det Hele (2006) - Von Trier's hilarious absurd comedy
Dear Wendy (2005) - Vinterberg and Von Trier's unpopular, gun-themed megaflop (writer)
Dogville (2003) - Von Trier's implacable, truly unique drama
Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Dancer in the Dark (2000) or, Selma the Immigrant
The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984) - Von Trier's ultra-strange debut

Watch the end credits of the film here with its very 1980s theme song

Cost: 1 - 1.1 mil. DKK ~ approximately 0.2 mil. $
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (but likely a huge or mega-flop)
[Epidemic was released September 11 (Denmark) and runs 106 minutes. It was made on the extremely low budget mainly as an experiment to see if a worthwhile film could come from it. The experiment became a precursor for the Dogme movement, which Von Trier co-founded in 1995. Producer Jacob Eriksen's (Rocking Silver (1983)) production company Elementfilm A/S produced only this film. Epidemic was initially shown in just two countries; Denmark and in Portugal at the Fantasporto Film Festival, where Element of Crime had also screened. In its native Denmark, just 5,474 paid admission, which makes the film a major flop despite its tiny budget. Many have subsequently seen it: 3,747 IMDb users have given Epidemic a 6.2/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Epidemic?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)