I can't believe I forgot this when I was writing that list of movie trailers that trump the films they are promoting! This trailer makes me positively swoon! Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette came out in the fall 2006 to luke-warm reviews, and yes, it's hard to see how a film can follow up such a fantastically dreamy, ethereal, and frollicking trailer such as this. Shot after shot of Marie Antoinette (played by the pixie-like Kirsten Dunst) running, dancing, naively having fun, and then collapsing in sheer wonder at her life. Yes, there was a whole country starving and living in poverty, but that's what adds some melancholy to the whole situation. Coppola's brilliant idea of mashing up 18th century events with 1980s new wave pop hits strangely... works! Not only is the trailer for the film driven by this music (here, by New Order's fantastic song "Age of Consent"), so is the entire film, in fact a two-disc of 80s hits was released as the soundtrack! A curious move to some, but only if you aren't aware of Coppola's body of work. Her three features, The Virgin Suicides, Lost In Translation, and now this, all celebrate a similar fatalistic and ephemeral view of the world without feeling morbid, in fact they celebrate the little things, the wonders, and the relationships one experiences.
Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb is undoubtedly one of Kubrick's finer works, if not his finest. Like many other Kubrick films, it is often imitated, but never duplicated. I put it pretty much at the top of the list, for a number of reasons.
1. Obviously, Peter Sellers. Three characters. Two in the same scene. All before greenscreen/splitscreen/Nicholas-Cage-in-Adaptation. All hilarious. The man was a deranged genius, a child trapped in a man's body. If you have not seen the biopic film "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" and have even an ounce of interest in this enigmatic actor, definitely see it. It may just answer a few questions, and Geoffrey Rush IS Peter Sellers. It's pretty amazing. 2. George C. Scott. He's right there alongside Peter Sellers. The sequence when he, with the excitement of a ten-year-old boy, is describing how amazing it is to see B-52s fly overhead is priceless. 3. Excellent dialogue: "Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!" 4. That sexually suggestive mid-air refueling Pablo Ferro-designed opening title sequence. 5. Sterling Hayden. From what I understand he came out of retirement to play this role. Who WHOA I just realized played the Police Chief that Michael assassinates in the restaurant in The Godfather! 6. Slim Pickens riding that H-bomb. 7. James Earl Jones as a young man. 8. The set design: From the war room with "The Big Board" and buffet, to the interior of the bomber, which apparently according to the USAF was eerily accurate to the classified designs of actual bombers! 9. The song "We'll Meet Again." 10. This amazing and revolutionary trailer, also designed by Pablo Ferro:
If you have seen Roman Coppola's film CQ, the trailer for Dr. Strangelove might seem familiar. Have a look at the trailer for the film inside the the film in CQ, Codename: Dragonfly:
Further influence can be seen in the 2009 British political satire, In The Loop (nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the most recent Academy Awards!), both in the subject matter: humorous misunderstandings and miscommunication leading to war, as well as in the promotional materials, like the obvious stylistic references to the above-posted Strangelove poster and the trailer.
The trailer also, if I'm not mistaken, pulls music from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.
This is a really great film, and I am dying to get my hands on a copy of the British television series it is based on, The Thick Of It. Peter Capaldi plays one of my favorite foul-mouthed characters in recent years, Malcolm Tucker. Anyways these are just a few little nuggets that have been in the back of my mind for a couple months.
I found some great old posters for Une Femme est une femme (1961)! It's one of my favorite films by M. Jean-Luc Godard. It's sort of an anti-musical ode to musicals--in typical Godardian fashion. Starring the inimitable Anna Karina (married to Godard at the time), Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Jean-Claude Brialy. Write-up to come! For now enjoy these. This bottom one is my desktop wallpaper right now.
Hitchcock's great film involving two strangers who get involved in an exchange of murders, meaning they will commit murders for each other so as to avoid being suspects in each crime. As you can imagine, things go sideways and then it gets very interesting! Classic Hitchcock, great suspense, and some fanstastic sequences, especially the famous tennis spectator scene. I love the top poster, with Hitchcock inserting a letter into the title... Starring Farley Granger and Robert Walker.
CQ is one of my favorite movies of all time. The Coppola family undoubtedly has some unbelievable film-making talent from patriarch Francis Ford to daughter Sofia to her brother Roman. This is Roman Coppola's first and only feature, though he has been second unit director on his sister's films as well as a handful of Wes Anderson films!
Here, what Coppola crafted is nothing short of a love letter to 1960s filmmaking, specifically the low-budget, camp, European sci-fi films. Coppola's film follows Paul (Jeremy Davies) an American living in Paris in the late 60s (a time period and place I would trade almost anything to have lived in!) as a film editor. After the young star director Felix Di Marco (Jason Schwartzman) is injured in a car accident, Paul's name is put forward to move into the director's seat. He accepts, a little apprehensively, and begins work on "Dragonfly," trying to put together the pieces of the half-shot film while juggling the demands of his producer, the needs of his French girlfriend, and his own confused personal documentary film.
It is great homage to both film and the 1960s, Paris (though filmed largely in Belgium) is full of young beautiful people, Citroens DS's, and fantastically thick accents, all set to the funky throwback tracks of Mellow's almost impossibly hard to find soundtrack. Coppola nailed the aesthetics of everything, from the film-within-the-film "Codename: Dragonfly", from Agent Dragonfly's outfits, to her car, her hideout, spaceship, her nemeses, everything! There are also great little performances from Schwartzman, Gerard Depardieu, Billy Zane, Giancarlo Giannini, and model Angela Lindvall as Dragonfly herself.
The film is also full of references to 1960s films like Barbarella and Danger: Diabolik, as well as to Roman's own father Francis Ford and Stanley Kubrick. If any of this piques your interest, I suggest you seek out this film! I guarantee you won't be disappointed!
I have been dying to see this movie for years! And soon it will happen. Watch the trailer here. If you are familiar with Roman Coppola's film CQ some of this imagery might look familiar!
One of my favorite movies of all time. One of the best science fiction movies of all time. One of the best noir films of all time. Must see.
27.2.10
I will write more about Vertigo in the future because this movie is amazing. It is one of my favorites, and certainly my favorite Hitchcock. I went to San Francisco last fall and had to make a trip down to the Golden Gate Bridge just to take a shot emulating that great moment from the film.
This movie is so dreamy and mysterious, full of anxiety and uncertainty, and went on to inspire Chris Marker to make his fantastic short film La Jetee, which in turn inspired Terry Gilliam to make 12 Monkeys.
Anyways, James Stewart delivers one of his most intense and dynamic performances, as does Kim Novak. Its really great, it is a definite must see for anyone remotely interested in Hitchcock or mysteries or thrillers or whatnot. Excellent score by Bernard Herrmann, and titles by the legendary Saul Bass.Fort Point, 1958.Fort Point, Nov 2009.
