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8 items from 2009

27 December 2009 12:01 PM, PST | Thompson on Hollywood | See recent Thompson on Hollywood news »

When John Waters submitted his Guilty Pleasures list to Film Comment, he included movies like Woody Allen’s Interiors and Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. So it’s not entirely surprising that his 2009 Ten Best list, published in Art Forum, includes Lars von Trier’s Antichrist and Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces. Waters knows what he likes. Here’s his top five: 1 Import Export (Ulrich Seidl) The most sorrowful movie of the year is also the best. The miserable lives of Ukrainian immigrants in Vienna make this agonizing but brilliantly directed opus the cinematic equivalent of slitting your wrists. A new genre? Depression porn? Hey, I got off. 2 Antichrist … »

2 October 2009 9:09 AM, PDT | The Wrap | See recent The Wrap news »

By Steve Pond

In today’s roundup of Oscar news ‘n’ notes from around the web, a Swedish auction house conclusively proves that it’s better to be nominated for an Oscar than to win a Golden Globe.

More on that sale of Ingmar Bergman’s belongings in Stockholm earlier this week: it turns out that while the Bukoswkis auction firm couldn’t legally resell Bergman’s Oscars, they did auction off three of the Academy Award nomination plaques he received for his films “Wild Strawberries,” “Through a Glass Darkly” and “Autumn Sonata.&rdq »

- Steve Pond

27 September 2009 7:02 AM, PDT | Cinematical | See recent Cinematical news »

Recently, my uncle -- a film buff to put most other film buffs to shame -- sent me a clipping from the Seattle Times, in which critic John Hartl celebrated the greatest movie year of all time. Not 1939, as is generally accepted, but 1959. And I have to agree with him. It was an amazing time when the old Hollywood guard was winding down and creating their final masterpieces, new upstarts were coming in with fresh new films and the most outrageously artistic of European cinema was getting released (and being watched) in America. Not taking into account any weird release patterns -- such as the fact that Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957) was released here in 1959 -- and based on the IMDb's list of 1959 movies, here's my top ten list for that great year.

1. Rio Bravo. On most days, this is my favorite Western, with its combination of breathless suspense »

- Jeffrey M. Anderson

27 September 2009 1:56 AM, PDT | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »

Two Paul Newman titles from the recently released Paul Newman Tribute Collection (pictured right) I mentioned on Tuesday, a look at a film I watched in preparation for one of last week's screenings and a reminder of a Blu-ray I recently reviewed make up this week's list. On top of everything below, on Saturday I went to a screening of the Toy Story and Toy Story 2 3-D double feature, which ended up being a lot of fun as I am pretty sure it was the first time I actually saw Toy Story 2 on the bigscreen. The 3-D is quite good and the opening moments of Toy Story 2 lend themselves so well to the format it's almost surprising it wasn't originally intended to be released in 3-D. Of course, as with all quality films, the 3-D does nothing for the story. These films were never considered classics for »

- Brad Brevet

15 September 2009 6:02 AM, PDT | Cinematical | See recent Cinematical news »

I'm of the mind that when you're a fan, it makes a lot more sense to save for the big things than throw away $20 here and there for something mediocre. For example: Would you want to spend a couple hundred bucks on some collectibles that will probably never be worth a whole heck of a lot, or spend $150 on a collection of glasses, or $100 on a chair that belonged to Ingmar Bergman.

Come on. If you're a fan or cinema, what can be cooler than that? A Swedish site called Bukowskis is auctioning off a lot of the filmmaker's stuff -- art, furniture, and movie equipment. (Unless, pray tell me Swedish speakers, this is something else, lost in translation?) Some of the items can be quite expensive, heading into thousands of Swedish kronor (approx 6,500 sek equals $1,000), but some are set under $100, which I think is beyond reasonable for something owned »

- Monika Bartyzel

16 June 2009 1:55 AM, PDT | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »

Upon receiving Criterion's brand new special edition of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal I had just finished watching his film trilogy (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence) and there couldn't have been a more appropriate time to do so. Of the three films in Bergman's trilogy, Winter Light is not only the best, it is a perfect companion piece to The Seventh Seal. Made five years after The Seventh Seal, Winter Light also touches on the "silence of God," but where these two films differ is in their outcome. While both are asking questions, Winter Light offers far more answers than The Seventh Seal, but where Winter Light finds answers and The Seventh Seal does not is exactly where both films find their charm. Criterion initially released The Seventh Seal in 1999 with only an audio commentary by Bergman expert Peter Cowie, the theatrical trailer and what »

- Brad Brevet

15 April 2009 2:41 AM, PDT | Rope of Silicon | See recent Rope Of Silicon news »

Tonight I watched the new Criterion Blu-ray release of Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear and at the top of the film I was reminded of the influence it had on the opening of Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch as cockroaches were tortured by a young boy compared to the scorpion that was thrown onto a pile of ants at the opening of Peckinpah's feature. However, does this mean Wages of Fear should be considered one of the all-time most influential films? When TCM released their list of top 15 most influential films of all-time they opened up a much larger can of worms than I had actually assumed they did as conversations began sprouting up all over the Internet. The two most frequent comments I saw regarding the list (not dealing with specific film omissions) were: 1.) there weren't any films listed that were released after 1977 (Star Wars) and »

- Brad Brevet

10 April 2009 3:32 PM, PDT | GetTheBigPicture.net | See recent Get The Big Picture news »

It's a big day in Sweden: The great Max von Sydow turns 80 today. Most people only vaguely familiar with von Sydow probably expect him to be older, because he's played older characters most of his career.

It's astonishing to me that this graceful actor has only received one Oscar nomination, for Pelle the Conquerer. He's been fantastic for 50 years, beginning with his work with Ingmar Bergman. The Seventh Seal is a favorite, but check him out in Wild Strawberries, Through a Glass Darkly, and The Virgin Spring, which I just watched about a month ago because it's the same story as The Last House on the Left.

He's played Jesus (The Greatest Story Ever Told), he's riffed on Blofeld and Ming the Merciless, and has dressed up as Freud, Eugene O'Neill, popes and cardinals, and Brewmaster Smith in Strange Brew. He's done independent films in a host of languages, including »

- Colin Boyd

8 items from 2009