Today’s Stuck-in-Mind Song: “Games Without Frontiers” by Peter Gabriel

I always suspected that, though it mostly reminded me of a beloved summer morning/afternoon TV show (from which it appears to have been inspired from), legendary rocker and ex-“Genesis” frontman Peter Gabriel would not deprive “Games without Frontiers”, one of his best hits, of an underlying, then timely and eventually timeless political context. As a result, throughout the lyrics you will detect references to WWII, Vietnam and respective key historical figures (“Adolf builds a bonfire” being the most obvious), but what’s perhaps more evident is Gabriel’s unabashed, playful cynicism and satirical bitterness. It’s also been suggested that the  U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and the two rival nations’ inability to come together even for the occasion of the “silly games” was the inspiration for this track. More trivia here and here.

And here’s Gabriel himself sharing a bit about it, but mostly about Kate Bush’s back vocals:

Trailer of the Day #8: “The Tree of Life” (2011)

It was expected to premiere at Cannes or to be released this month, but legendary auteur Terence Malick‘s “The Tree of Life” went through extensive post-production, which, judging by the stunning imagery you’ll see below, must have been totally justified. A tale of a family against the backdrop of eternity, nature and existence, it’s one of the most anticipated films of 2011; stars Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain. Check it out below, courtesy of Daily Motion:

Today’s Stuck-in-Mind Song: “Horizon Is a Beltway” by The Low Anthem

I discovered “The Low Anthem” while browsing for indie folk music on Amazon. I was initially quite taken by their hit single “To Ohio”, which I had heard on KCRW, I think and did not much care for this “harder”-sounding song- or the other one, the equally head-banging “Home I’ll Never Be”. Upon repeated listens, those two stuck with me much more than the other, mellower, though beautiful tracks. Enjoy “Horizon Is a Beltway” and if you like it, give the whole album a shot 😉

Trailer of the Day #7: “The Adjustment Bureau” (2011)

George Nolfi was the writer behind “Ocean’s Twelve” and “The Bourne Ultimatum” and he must have met with Matt Damon on either set. This is a quite credible explanation for Damon’s involvement in “The Adjustment Bureau”, a big screen adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story that Nolfi directed and wrote the screenplay for. It is the story of a promising politician and a beautiful dancer that meet and fall in love, however a shadowy and (probably not human) organization is determined to keep them apart. Dick stories can go to either direction (the “Blade Runner”/“Minority Report” one or the “Impostor”/“Paycheck” one), but scenes from this movie operatically tuned to John Murhpy‘s “Sunshine” score look interesting enough.

Today’s Stuck-in-Mind Song: “The Ghost of Love” by David Lynch

From the “Inland Empire” soundtrack, composed and performed by David Lynch, here is “The Ghost of Love”. Enjoy!

Picks from the Vine (Nov. 29-30 and Dec. 1-2)

So much has accumulated these past four days, I can hardly keep track. Anyway, here are the highlights:

1. Actor Leslie Nielsen died on Sunday, in Florida, at the age of 84. Nielsen was known and beloved for 80 spoof classics “Airplane” and “Naked Gun”, then unfortunately spent the remainder of his career starring in much more mediocre (Mel Brook‘s “Dracula: Dead & Loving It”) or downright depressing efforts (“2001: A Space Travesty”, the “Scary Movie” sequels). His comedic gift made it all bearable at least.

2. Director Irvin Kershner, famous for directing one of cinematic history’s most acclaimed sequels (currently standing at #11 on IMDb’s top 250 list), “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back”, also passed away at the age of 87. His last helming credit was an episode of “Seaquest DSV” in1993. Other notable entries in his filmography were 1978’s “Eyes of Laura Mars”, Bond movie “Never Say Never Again” and the sequel to “RoboCop”.

3. From the funerals off to the festivities:

Franco in GQ's "Men of the Year"

–Deadline broke the news on Monday James Franco and Anne Hathaway will be presenting the Academy Awards this February, an assignment made perhaps in the vein of having Hugh Jackman as a host two years back. Jackman did give it his all and there’s no reason why two very talented and up-and-coming young actors won’t do the same; at least they’re appropriately nervous about it.

Franco, meanwhile, is a wonderful example of an actor juggling mainstream movies and passion projects. If his IMDb page is any indication, he is quite the filmmaker, having written and directed several short and feature-length films since 2005. He seems to be fascinated with poetry and poets, particularly homosexual ones; his turn as Allen Ginsberg in “Howl” notwithstanding, three of his shorts (“The Clerk’s Tale”, “The Feast of Stephen”, “Herbert White”) appear to be poem adaptations, while “The Broken Tower”, currently in development, is listed as a biopic for American poet Hart Crane. Comedy is another field in which he’s wet his toes into and he recently made the 90-minute documentary “Saturday Night”, a behind the scenes look in the making of television institution “Saturday Night Live”.

-‘The Social Network” conquered this year’s National Board of Review Awards scoring accolades for Best Film, Director, Adapted Screenplay and Lead Actor for Jesse Eisenberg. The New York- based NBR was founded in the beginning of the previous century as an act of protest against an attempted ban on film as a medium by NY City Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. and went on to establish itself as an important non-profit organization in support of both mainstream and art-house cinema, which gives their annual selections special gravity when it comes to predicting the Oscars.

-Harrowing Ozark mountain indie drama “Winter’s Bone” won Best Feature and Best Ensemble performance at the 2010 Gotham Awards and its presence in the 2011 Indie Spirit Awards Nominations is also quite prominent, along with the likes of Darren Aronofsky‘s “Black Swan”, Danny Boyle‘s “127 Hours” and Lisa Cholodenko‘s “The Kids Are All Right”.

Winter's Bone

4. Speaking of Aronofsky, he’s doing the mandatory press tour to promote his mostly well-received new film. ComingSoon did an exclusive interview, while the iTunes “Meet the Filmmaker” series features a new podcast. Both make for an interesting read/listen.

5. Speaking of “listens”: why don’t you head over to iTunes and spend a measly 1,5 euros to buy the legendary David Lynch‘s first pop single, “Good Day Today”? Speaking with Guardian’s Alexandra Topping, cinema’s most worshiped weirdo reassures his followers that he will not quit making films or painting pictures (his roots as an artist, after all), but making music was something he wanted to get more involved with. Lynch is no stranger to the process and has been into this for years. In 2003 he produced the industrial rock album “Blue Bob”, he did the ambient “soundscape” for his “The Air is On Fire” travelling art exhibition and in 2007 he composed the original music for “Inland Empire” (and credited steady collaborator and pal Angelo Badalamenti as an inspiration) and sung its eerie theme song, “The Ghost of Love” (which he also released as a single). As a fan I’m obviously biased and I’m definitely not saying this is the greatest piece of elecrto-pop ever heard by man, but I sincerely believe that both tracks have enough merit to be dealt with more than elitist cynicism.

Today’s Stuck-in-Mind Song: “Never Let Me Go” by Rachel Portman

From the soundtrack to the superb-looking and eagerly anticipated Mark Romanek film, this final track is simply magnificent, at once passionate, touching and addictive. Rachel Portman, the composer of this and the rest of that wonderful, atmospheric album, is known for such amazing scores as The Cider House Rules, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Chocolat & The Duchess. Enjoy!

Trailer of the Day #6: John Sayles’s “Amigo” (2010)

Mention of both Chris Cooper and David Strathairn in the previous post reminded me of the fact that both of these excellent thesps are John Sayles veterans, having starred in several of his films. Strathairn goes back as early as the American indie king’s feature debut, the hippies-come-of-age story “Return of the Secaucus 7” and has also starred in “City of Hope”, “Eight Men Out”, “Passion Fish” and “Limbo”, while Cooper headed the socialist western “Matewan”, the masterpiece “Lone Star” and 2005’s “Silver City”.

Sayles makes beautiful, emotional and utterly humanistic, yet often politically charged films and his latest, “Amigo”, is no exception. Taking place in 1900, in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War that resulted in the colonization of Philippines by the United States, it is the story of a Filipino native (Amigo) and his struggle to protect the rights and lives of his people against the American occupation that essentially replaced the Spanish one. As Sayles notes himself in this TIFF Q&A, it is quite easy to draw parallels with much more recent US ventures in armed diplomacy, including Vietnam and Iraq, making the statement that the attempt to “democratize” other nations after their image is something of an old habit. Check out the trailer below and also this really cool documentary on the American-Philippine War.

Picks from the Vine (Nov. 26-28)

A bunch of interviews from Oscar hopefuls all around Tinseltown and some other cool/intriguing stuff too.

1. Deadline features an interview with Ben Affleck on the resurrection of his career as a very promising writer/director with “Gone Baby Gone” and “The Town”. He talks about the motivation and effort to make both of them and how much of a factor box office success is in trying to get a movie off the ground; at the same time he is candid and humble regarding his career lows. Highlights include:

“…when you come out and do $20 million at the box office, nobody calls to congratulate you. In terms of pure commercial success, the thing that struck me was, our opening weekend on The Town was bigger than the whole number on Gone Baby Gone. This time, I had very modest expectations and I was really surprised the movie did as well as it did. It’s not a juggernaut, but my big goal was seeing it turn a profit for the studio. I use that as my metric for whether or not they’ll let me direct another movie.” (on commercial success)

“..I was concerned that the overlap between this and the other movie I directed would be too much, and that I ran the risk of getting pigeonholed for making crime movies in Boston. When I really want to tell stories that take place all over.” (on what made him want to do “The Town”)

“Because I was directing myself, I got to make my own determination about what was most interesting about my performance. That’s a double–edged sword. People know it is you making those decisions, so they probably judge it more closely. And it calls into question your perspective on yourself. You put your taste on the line. If you can’t be good in a movie you direct and write, when is it going to happen for you?” (on the difficult task of being the star and the director)

2. A couple of interesting stuff on The Wrap:

– Tim Burton enlisted Twitter users to help write a story titled “Cadavre Exquis” (transl. “exquisite corpse”), as part of a MoMA retrospective exhibition. You can see where it’s gone so far here. Incidentally you can check out the hilarious “Tim Burton’s Secret Formula”, a satirical inside peek at the supposed development of another “Tim Burton” movie in his office, at the dismay/indifference of many of his frequent collaborators, including mock versions of Danny Elfman and John August.

-Check out a first look from the upcoming “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” Broadway musical, a JulieTaymor/Bono/The Edge collaboration. Taymor is known in the movie world for such films as “Frida” and “Across the Universe”, while her latest is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” starring Dame Helen Mirren, Russell Brand, Chris Cooper, David Strathairn, Ben Whishaw and Alfred Molina among others.

3. Thompson On Hollywood shares a trailer for the documentary “Two in the Wave”, about the birth of Nouvelle Vague in France in 1959 and the two most iconic figures in this historic movement: Jean-Luc Goddard and Francois Truffaut. With all the archival footage from half a century ago, that includes interviews from the filmmakers and popular reactions to their works, “Two in the Wave” certainly looks fascinating.

They also posted a dinner/one-on-one with the very likeable and very talented Jesse Eisenberg; the 27-year-old New Yorker and “The Social Network” star talks about his background in theatre (collaborated with David Mamet and Al Pacino among others), his anthropology studies, his fascination with Woody Allen (the interviewer quite rightfully notes that such a teaming would be a joy to see), his audition for David Fincher‘s masterfully crafted film and the various controversies it ignited. I was also surprised to hear that his debut in film was “Roger Dodger”, a 2002 movie I hadn’t seen since, well, 2002. He also talks briefly about his participation in Noah Baumbach‘s “The Squid and the Whale” opposite Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, as well as in the hit “Zombieland” by Ruben Fleischer.

Eisenberg states that he was only 10% happy with his performance as Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Safe to say the rest of the movie world strongly disagrees with him and personally, I’d like to see him at least nominated for Best Actor.

Today’s Stuck-in-Mind Song: “My Husband Makes Movies” by Marion Cotillard, from the musical “Nine”

Again in context with was posted earlier, here’s a song fit to be sung by spouses/ partners of passionate filmmakers everywhere; Scorsese’s wives and mistresses would certainly smile.