In 2007 an omnibus film called Chacun son cinema (To Each His Own Cinema) played at festivals. Made to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, the collection featured short films about cinema made by an amazing variety of directors: Takeshi Kitano, Gus Van Sant, Zhang Yimou, Jane Campion, Atom Egoyan and many more. Among those ‘many more’ were Joel and Ethan Coen, who enlisted their recent star Josh Brolin in a three-minute movie called World Cinema. Problem was, World Cinema didn’t show up on either of the DVD releases of Chacun son cinema, making it very difficult to see. (I was lucky enough to see it at Toronto that year.) But now it has found its way onto YouTube, and you should watch it after the break, right now, before it goes away again.
Barnes & Noble are having an in-store and online sale on all Criterion DVDs until August 3rd, including both the standard and Blu-Ray editions of Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Quite a good time to complete your Anderson collection. Note: The online store doesn’t seem to indicate that The Life Aquatic is included in the sale but if visit an actual location all Criterions are included.
Also, today’s IMDb poll asks “What is your favorite Wes Anderson film?” Right now Tenenbaums is far ahead of the others. Vote in the poll and tell us your pick in the comments below. Update: Poll closed, Tenenbaums came out on top with 42%. Over 10,000 people voted. See the results here.
Routinely termed a neglected figure of the 1970s New Hollywood, Hal Ashby has been undergoing a modest posthumous renaissance of late: a smattering of retrospective screenings, an overdue biography, a vocal celebrity fan club whose ranks include Wes Anderson, Judd Apatow and Cameron Crowe.
Only his most partisan admirers would deny that the director suffered a drop-off in inspiration after his last major film, 1979’s “Being There.” Still, as part of the ongoing Ashby revival, some of his later works, until now dismissed as footnotes at best and outright follies at worst, are being given a closer look. One, the odd-couple caper “Lookin’ to Get Out,” surfaces this week on DVD in a director’s cut about 15 minutes longer than the version released to hostile reviews and minimal box office in 1982…
The troubled circumstances of the movie’s production and release are well recounted in Nick Dawson’s meticulous new biography “Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel.” The director was juggling the postproduction of another doomed comedy, “Second-Hand Hearts” (1981), and the development of “Tootsie” (a gig he eventually lost to Sydney Pollack because “Lookin’ to Get Out” fell far behind schedule).
Unhappy with the version of the film he turned in, Paramount executives demanded a reedit, and Ashby, fed up and beaten down, left it to his editor, Bob Jones, who worked with Voight to produce a shorter cut.
It was in the course of researching his book that Dawson realized that Ashby’s preferred edit, a further fine-tuning of the cut he submitted to the studio, still existed. The director’s cut of “Lookin’ to Get Out” is no lost masterpiece, but you can easily see how a truncated version would have stifled its loose-limbed energy.
MSNBC takes a look at the summer indy flicks (including “Away We Go”) and finds the term “twee” to be a common thread in this article. The author blames none other than our man, Wes Anderson for leading the charge here (and Molly Ringwald). He doesn’t necessarily fault Wes for his style:
Twee comes in many forms in current indie cinema: At the top of the heap are stylists like Anderson and Rian Johnson (“The Brothers Bloom,” “Brick”). While these two filmmakers certainly traffic in twee visuals and other aesthetic choices, the look of their movies is so completely not of this world that these artists stand alone in their own tastefully-designed alternate universes.
MSNBC takes a look at the summer indy flicks (including “Away We Go”) and finds the term “twee” to be a common thread in 
