Categories
DVD & Blu-ray

UK DVD & Blu-ray Releases: Monday 10th January 2011

DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS

Catfish (Momentum): An increasingly mysterious online relationship forms the backdrop for this compelling documentary about a group of New Yorkers who seek to find out the real identity of someone they only know via the web.

The common refrain about Catfish when it premièred to buzz and acclaim at Sundance back in January, was that you should know as little as possible before seeing it and it really is the case (in fact, stop reading this now and come back when you’ve seen the film).

It begins when Nev, a 24-year-old photographer based in New York, is contacted online by Abby, an 8-year-old girl from Michigan, who wants permission to paint one of his photos.

An online correspondence develops with Abby’s family and things get stranger when Nev also virtually befriends Abby’s older sister, Megan, who appears to be a musician and model.

Up to this point everything we see has been filmed by Nev’s brother Ariel Schulman along with their friend Henry Joost, and in a pivotal scene Ariel persuades his sibling to actually meet Abby and Megan in the real world.

This is when things get really interesting, with the gradually unfolding mystery playing like a suspense thriller.

In a year that has seen ‘fake’ documentaries like Exit Through The Gift Shop and I’m Still Here, questions about the authenticity of the film seem to reflect a wider ambiguity about the genre itself.

Was it always their intention to make a film? Would a group of savvy New Yorkers really be this naïve about strangers online? Are the events that unfold too structurally perfect?

Charges that the film is a fake documentary have been vigorously denied by the filmmakers ever since the likes of Morgan Spurlock and Zach Galifianakis cast doubt on it at Sundance.

Whatever the truth, it seems fitting that a film which depicts the uncertainty of online identities should have its own personality crisis. It captures a cultural mood, inspires instant debate and stretches the documentary form in new and imaginative ways.

> Buy the DVD from Amazon UK and is on various VOD platforms including iTunes
> My full review of Catfish and my strange Catfish experience at the LFF

I’m Still Here (Optimum Home Releasing): A skilful blend of performance art and elaborate hoax, this fake documentary is a clever and frequently hilarious deconstruction of Hollywood celebrity.

Back in 2008, you may have read about Joaquin Phoenix claiming that he was going to quit acting in order to become a hip-hop artist and this is the ‘behind the scenes’ film of his supposed meltdown.

You may have also seen the now infamous appearance on Letterman where he came across like a rogue Rabbi strung out on heroin and also heard the admission that the whole thing was staged in the manner of Borat and Bruno.

Throughout Phoenix arguably gives the performance of his career in playing a twisted version of himself and Affleck has created a pleasingly anarchic take on stardom in the current era.

When this fake Joaquin is placed in real situations such as concerts, press junkets, airports filled with paparazzi and TV chat shows, the results are hilariously awkward.

Special features include:

  • Feature Commentary with Casey Affleck, Joaquin Phoenix, Nicole Acacio, Larry McHale, Antony Langdon, Johnny Moreno, Antony Langdon, Johnny Moreno, Eddie Rouse, Matt Maher, Elliot Gaynon and Sue Patricola
  • Feature Commentary with Casey Affleck
  • Deleted Scenes (including commentary by Casey Affleck)
  • Random Bits (including commentary by Casey Affleck)
  • Alternate Ending (including commentary by Casey Affleck)
  • Joaquin Phoenix interview by Extra’s reporter Jerry Penacoli
  • Audio Conversation with Extra’s Jerry Penacoli, Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix
  • Audio Conversation with Christine Spines (Journalism Professor), Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix

> Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon UK
> My full review of I’m Still Here

ALSO OUT

Coral Fish (Pogo Films)
F (Optimum Home Entertainment)
Gainsbourg (Optimum Home Entertainment)
K-20 – The Legend of the Black Mask (Manga Entertainment)
Kitsch Fish (Pogo Films)
MotoGP Review: 2010 (Duke)
Resident Evil: Afterlife (Sony Pictures Home Ent.)
Terrace Tear Up Collection (Optimum Home Entertainment)
The Girl Who Played With Fire (Momentum Pictures)
Thorne: Sleepyhead/Scaredycat (2 Entertain)

> The Best DVD and Blu-rays of 2010
> UK cinema releases for Friday 7th January 2010

Categories
TV

Joaquin Phoenix returns to Letterman

Joaquin Phoenix returned to the David Letterman show last night to explain his bizarre appearance 18 months ago.

Phoenix explained it was all part of his recent mockumentary I’m Still Here and they indulged in some banter.

Letterman claims that he wasn’t part of the joke, although others have suggested he was.

Official site
Interesting Wikipedia entry on the film
> Review of I’m Still Here

Categories
Cinema

UK Cinema Releases: Friday 17th September 2010

NATIONAL RELEASES

The Other Guys (Sony Pictures): An action-comedy directed by Adam McKay, which stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as two average detectives who get the chance to prove they can do more than push pencils.

Co-starring Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson and Steve Coogan, it is the latest team up of McKay and Ferrell after Anchorman (2004), Talladega Nights (2006) and Step Brothers (2008). Like those films it did good business and scored warm reviews, although UK critics are likely to be less enthusiastic than their US counterparts. Despite that, this looks to be the favourite for the top spot this weekend. [Nationwide / 12A]

Devil (Universal): The latest film from ‘the mind of M. Night Shyamalan’ (which means he wrote the story) is a supernatural thriller about five strangers trapped in an elevator, who realize the Devil is amongst them.

Directed by John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle, it features a cast of relative unknowns and was shot on a low budget (reportedly $10 million). Given the critical disasters Shyamalan has been involved over the last few years this one has been kept under wraps, but should ultimately prove profitable even if the critics get their knives out. [Vue West End & Nationwide / 15]

I’m Still Here (Optimum Releasing): A spoof documentary about the supposed career meltdown of Joaquin Phoenix, which goes ‘behind the scenes’ of the actor’s life as he tries to forge a career in hip-hop.

Directed by Casey Affleck, it is an extended hoax which cleverly blends real life with all kinds of pranks, which may or may not be staged. We see Phoenix attempt to hook up with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combes, berate Ben Stiller about the script of Greenberg, get life advice from Edward James Olmos, rap at a hotel in Miami, take copious amounts of drugs, abuse his assistants and generally act like a delusional celebrity ogre.

It is frequently hilarious and fiendishly clever, although a bit too similar in places to the work of Sacha Baron Cohen. Many in the media appear to have missed the joke and taken it all a bit too seriously. Despite all the press coverage it is likely to remain a cult comedy with a more appreciative audience beyond its run at cinemas. [Curzon Soho & Key Cities / 15]

* Read my longer thoughts on I’m Still Here *

Just Wright (20th Century Fox): A romantic comedy starring and Queen Latifah a physical therapist (Common) who falls in love with a pro basketball player (Common). Directed by Sanaa Hamri, it received fairly dire reviews on its US release and meagre box office. [Nationwide / PG]

ALSO OUT

Winter’s Bone (Artificial Eye): One of the genuine breakout performances of the year from Jennifer Lawrence is the highlight of this gritty drama about a teenage girl trying to track down her father in the Ozarks.

Directed by Debra Granik, this is a whodunit wrapped up inside a realist drama, with strong supporting performances from John Hawkes, Lauren Sweetser, Garret Dillahunt and Dale Dickey. A hit at Sundance back in January, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, it is also likely to get Oscar recognition for Lawrence who is terrific in the lead role. The bleak setting and scenes of rural poverty might be a turn off for some, but given positive reviews and Oscar buzz, it might do decent arthouse business. [Curzon Soho, Curzon Renoir, Curzon Richmond & Nationwide / 15]

Grease Sing-A-Long (Paramount): A karaoke re-release for the 1978 musical which is having an exclusively run at Vue Cinemas. [Vue West End / PG]

The Kid (Revolver Entertainment): A British biopic based on the the life of Kevin Lewis, who grew up in a violent, abusive family on a council estate in the 1980s. Directed by Nick Moran, it stars Rupert Friend, Natascha McElhone, Ioan Gruffudd and David O’Hara. [Natiowide / 15]

Night Of The Demons (Kaleidoscope Entertainment): A remake of the 1988 cult horror, directed by Adam Gierasch and starring Shannon Elizabeth, Edward Furlong and Diora Baird. [Selected Key Cities / 18]

The Horde (Momentum Pictures): A French horror film about a group of policemen who storm a housing complex in Paris, only to discover something sinister inside. Directed by Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher, it stars Jean-Pierre Martins, Eriq Ebouaney and Doudou Masta. [Empire Leicester Square & Key Cities / 18]

F (Optimum Releasing): A British film about a group of teachers who have to defend themselves from a gang of murderous kids when their school comes under siege. Directed by Johannes Roberts. [Curzon Soho & Key Cities / 18]

Release (Parasol Pictures): A prison drama directed by Darren Flaxstone and Christian Martin about a priest convicted for a serious crime.

Ik Kudi Panjab Di (Kornerstone Films Ltd): A Punjabi film directed by Manmohan Singh about a girl challenging her male-dominated society. [Nationwide]

> UK DVD and Blu-ray picks for this week including The Third Man, Breathless and Dogtooth
> Get local cinema showtimes for your area via Google Movies

Categories
Cinema Reviews Thoughts

I’m Still Here

A skilful blend of performance art, documentary and elaborate hoax, I’m Still Here is a clever and frequently hilarious deconstruction of Hollywood celebrity.

Back in 2008, you may have read about Joaquin Phoenix claiming that he was going to quit acting in order to become a hip-hop artist.

You may have also seen the now infamous appearance on Letterman where he came across like a rogue Rabbi strung out on heroin:

It soon emerged that fellow actor, and brother-in-law, Casey Affleck was filming this supposed career meltdown for a ‘documentary’.

I’m Not There is the end result, a spoof in the vein of Borat and Bruno, that goes behind the scenes of Phoenix’s supposed life and blends it with media coverage from the time.

Beginning with some intriguing home movie footage of Phoenix’s childhood, it is essentially a raucous fly-on-the-wall document of Phoenix’s apparent ‘career suicide’ over the last two years.

The actor has clearly put a great deal of effort into creating a sublimely horrible alter-ego.

He has grown a beard, put on weight and not been afraid to perform this role in public, which gives the film an extra post-modern flavour.

We see him meeting with his publicist and agent, attempt to hook up with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combes, berate Ben Stiller about the script of Greenberg, get life advice from Edward James Olmos, rap at a hotel in Miami, take copious amounts of drugs, abuse his assistants and generally act like a delusional celebrity ogre.

The film gets really meta when it incorporates the very idea that this whole project as a hoax.

Phoenix gets paranoid that his assistant ‘Anton’ has been leaking information to the media, which leads to a particularly messy confrontation.

Throughout Phoenix arguably gives the performance of his career in playing this twisted version of himself, in which he toys with the audience’s expectations of who and what he is. It is compelling and ludicrous in equal measure.

When this fake Joaquin is placed in real situations such as concerts, press junkets, airports filled with paparazzi and TV chat shows, the results are hilariously awkward.

At times it is all a bit too similar to the work of Larry Charles and Sacha Baron Cohen: an improvised comedy featuring a central character in real situations, shot in a vérité style on digital cameras.

But unlike Borat or Bruno, in which we know Baron Cohen is playing a role, this has the added dimension of Phoenix playing a version of himself, which has led to a debate about the authenticity of the film.

After premiering at the Venice Film Festival last week and getting a limited U.S. release last Friday, much of the media seemed genuinely confused as to whether it is real or not.

It seems absolutely clear, to me at least, that this whole project is an elaborate joke in which reality has been cunningly blended into the overall mix.

But does anyone actually believe that he wanted to give up acting to become a hip-hop star?

The idea that journalists and critics are actually taking this idea seriously seems like a joke in itself.

Certain sequences, especially the one with Stiller, seem staged and the parts with Diddy are also debatable.

The rapper was either duped or has impeccable comic timing. One line in which he declares an Affleck film (possibly Gone Baby Gone) to be ‘whack’ is priceless.

But there are certain scenes where the mask of the film drops (perhaps intentionally?).

At one point his publicist is caught grinning backstage at the infamous Letterman taping, another features a seemingly scripted gag about Revolutionary Road and there is one piece of dialogue that seems to have been dubbed in post-production.

Note also that the film is a ‘They They Are Going to Kill Us‘ production.

The conceit of the film is cunning as it plays around with our perceptions of who, or what, a celebrity is and gets added spice from Phoenix continuing his performance in areas where other actors wouldn’t normally dare.

Certain moments hold a brilliantly awkward mirror up to modern celebrity: concerts featuring audiences filming everything on their phones, DIY paparazzi posting commentary on the web and a press junket for Two Lovers where Phoenix is ‘offended’ by journalists.

The bit where Phoenix announces his retirement to an entertainment reporter from Extra is pitch perfect, as it cuts the TV footage which ran that night with Affleck’s footage from a different angle.

This is almost the film in microcosm. By contrasting the nonsense world of showbiz journalism with the fake world of the documentary, Affleck has created a hall of mirrors in which one reflects the other.

By feeding the media machine deliberately confusing information during the making of the film, it seems like some outlets have been unable to process the overall joke, as part of the narrative involves their own reporting. Bamboozled? That was probably Affleck’s intention.

The director himself has been supremely coy about all this – his interviews at Venice were brilliantly evasive – and I’m not sure how far they are going to take the concept now that the film is out in the U.S., albeit in limited release.

Are recent reports of sexual harassment charges against the production real or part of the elaborate fake story?

I’m Still Here could be a performance art experiment where even the filmmakers have lost track of the monster they have created.

Phoenix is apparently going to return to Letterman next week, so I’m sure that the debate will rumble on (even if he does or doesn’t turn up).

Either way, the nature of the material has given what is a fairly low-budget film a lot of free publicity.

The chatter will no doubt continue, especially amongst audiences, but the bottom line is that this is still one of the funniest portrayals of celebrity in recent memory.

* UPDATE 17/09/10: Affleck has now told the New York Times that the whole film was a hoax. I guess annoying serious journalists was part of the wider joke 😉

> Official site
> Interesting Wikipedia entry on the film
> Reviews at Metacritic