Tommy guns! Fedoras! Cool one-liners by Ryan Gosling (and the rest of an insanely awesome cast)! A stylish LA-set noir that could be straight out of a Chandler book. This is my kind of movie.

I am thrilled to see that Werner Herzog’s latest documentary Into the Abyss is on Netflix. It follows two inmates: one on death row, another in with a life sentence. Here is the links to all of his films on Netflix (which, I think, means only my American friends can access this). If you aren’t familiar with Herzog, you aren’t truly living:

• Into the Abyss 
• Grizzly Man
• Encounters at the End of the World
• Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Enjoy - and be sure to check out his other non-streaming films as well (particularly his Klaus Kinski collaborations). Herzog is one of those rare filmmakers who can completely alter your view on the world.

Known previously as The Wettest County before getting the dreadfully bland title of Lawless (which conjures images of Gerard Butler or some other abnormally beefy star with impossible abs kicking ass through some generic action flick), I am really looking forward to this for a number of reasons:

1. John Hillcoat is the director. If you’ve not watched the 2005 western The Proposition, you’re missing out on one of the best, moodiest films of the past decade. He also directed the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which was pretty damn good in its own right (and fun fact, much of that post-apocalyptic tale was filmed in Erie).
2. The book rocks. Speaking of Cormac, the book this is based on (The Wettest County in the World) channels him quite a bit. The prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and the subsequent consequences is a fascinating subject. Everyone knows Al Capone and Nucky Thompson, but there was so much more going on throughout the states. Plus, it’s written by the grandson/grandnephew of the characters in the book. Bonus: I’ve used excerpts of this book in my class the past two years.
3. Nick Cave is not only doing the music, but he also wrote the screen play adaptation. Yes, the Nick Cave. Seriously, are there any limits to what this guy can do? For previous Nick Cave music work on films, see The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford for two of the most mesmerizing film scores in years.
4. Gary Oldman. The greatest living actor?
5. Tom Hardy. Guy Pearce. Jessica Chastain. Mia Wasikowska. What a cast… and okay, okay Shia too. I’ll give him another chance, even if I’m still irrationally bitter over Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Best Picture at the Oscars?

James Franco has been interested in adapting Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God for some time now, probably because his goal of shooting Blood Meridian proved to be too ambitious (or really, because the deal just fell through – at least for the time being). Whether or not he has Blood Meridian in mind still, Showbiz411 seems confident that James Franco is already down in West Virginia directing and starring in his adaption of Child of God.

The only other information that we currently have about the project is that it will costar Tim Blake Nelson and “a number of West Virginia locals” and that Franco says the shoot is going “extremely well” and he is excited to see the results. Now that I know that this sucker is in motion, I can say that I am extremely excited to see this as well.

For those unfamiliar with Child of God, it is one of McCarthy’s most bizarre stories. In fact, if you had asked me which of McCarthy’s novels that I would think would be the last to be adapted for the big screen (and I’ve read them all), this would have been the one I singled out. The story follows a murderous sexual predator – with very few redeeming characteristics – named Lester Ballard as he takes on the life of a cave dwelling nomad in the mountains of Tennessee. As he spends more time in isolation, his lust for blood and deviant sex only increase – and I will leave it at that.

I highly recommend you read the source before the film comes out. I insist. So, buy the paperback right here or the Kindle edition right here. Or just check it out at your local library. Books are free there, you know. I’m pretty excited to see the direction that Franco takes this film. I can really see no way of sugarcoating the story or playing down the deviant and dysfunctional nature of Lester without lessening the impact of the story.

Soon enough, I reckon, we will find out.

EDIT: By the way, I am convinced that Tim Blake Nelson is going to be playing the lead of Lester Ballard, not Franco. This isn’t confirmed either way at present, but Nelson is too perfect of a fit for it not to be him.

Watching pre-1997 Harrison Ford always makes me feel sad about post-1997 Harrison Ford.

Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen’s love letter to the writer. Woody’s films have always been divisive (warning: I’m in the love his movies camp), but regardless of one’s feelings, if a person loves literature or considers themselves a writer, I cannot imagine them not loving this film.

The film follows a screenwriter (Owen Wilson) turned novelist during a trip to Paris with his fiancée (Rachel McAdams), who one night drunkenly discovers during a midnight wandering of the city that every night at midnight he can travel back to his ideal time period - the 1920s.

The writer protagonist soon meets and becomes intertwined with many famous figures of the era, including F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein, Juan Belmonte, Salvador Dalí, Cole Porter, and T.S. Eliot. It’s a plot so absurd that only Woody Allen could pull it off - and he does. And the more you know and appreciate the characters portrayed in the film, the better and more amusing, I imagine, you will find the film.

If you love the time period, if you love literature or art, if you’re a fan of Woody Allen, do yourself a favor and see this fantastic film.

I usually pass on questions like this, because it drive me nuts having to narrow anything down to a list, but today I’ll bite. Here, in only the order that they come to mind, are films from the past decade that have moved me in some way:

• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)
• The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2005)
• 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)
• There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
• Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005)
• Paradise Now (Hany Abu-Assad, 2005)
• The Twilight Samurai (2002, Yôji Yamada)
• The Station Agent (Thomas McCarthy, 2003)
• Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance, 2010)
• Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004)
• No Country for Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007)
• Road to Perdition (Sam Mendes, 2002)
• Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005)
• The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008)
• Half Nelson (Ryan Fleck, 2006)
• Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009)
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Shane Black, 2005)
• 2046 (Kar Wai Wong, 2004)
• Ingloruious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
• Drive, (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)

Into the Abyss

The trailer for Werner Herzog’s latest documentary is stunning. Perhaps it is my unhealthy obsession with the eccentric director, but my jaw dropped seeing him document all of those involved in every aspect of a death penalty sentence. 

“Martha’s Dream” by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis (from The Proposition)

When these kids talk about Twilight in school, I reply with my usual, “Well, you saw The Lost Boys first, right?” Naturally, students respond with a blank stare before continuing on about being Team Edward or in love with some other guy’s abs, as I try to interrupt them with my knowledge of vampire cinema. 

These kids have no idea, I remind myself. Beside Twilight, they think torture porn like Saw is horror and nonsense like Transformers is drama. They have no idea that my generation of girls was once obsessed, and I mean creepily obsessed with magazine clippings all over their notebooks and desks, with not Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner, but Jason Patric and Corey Haim.

I suppose things were different, particularly because I grew up in a small town of 2,000 that was a good decade behind the rest of the world when it came to pop culture. When you grow up with your only entertainment being a barn, a rope tied to a tree branch to swing on, and a pond to swim in, you will find a way to keep yourself entertained. My entertainment, as you can probably expect, was writing, reading, and watching movies that a ten year old should never have been watching.

I grew up in a modest house with cows on both sides of our property. When I was about nine, I began riding my bike into the “city” (which was about seven miles away and was populated by about 5,000) in order to go to Iggle Video to rent movies. While movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and Blade Runner were my favorites, I also had a strange attraction towards horror films. I would rent them by the half-dozen (5 for $1.99 on VHS), the employee calling home to ask one of my parents if this nine year old was allowed to rent an R-movie, before I gave them my description, “It’s not that violent.”

Films such as The Lost Boys. Halloween. A Nightmare on Elm Street. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Friday the 13th. Fright Night. The Evil Dead. Dead Alive. Dawn of the Dead. Return of the Living Dead. Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  Alien. Night of the Demon. Cannibal Campout. Slumber Party Massacre. Troll. Troll II. 

Meanwhile, half of these have been remade, making the originals irrelevant in their eyes. Meanwhile, I wonder what they kids are missing out on, missing out on these childhood favorites of mine. For better or worse, they just don’t make movies like they did in the 80s.

Is it any wonder that I am as strange as I am?

“Cry Little Sister” by Gerard McMann

Oh, 80s movies. How have you warped the brain of my childhood? Let me count thy ways.

“One More Kiss, Dear” by Vangelis and Don Percival (from Blade Runner)

Ridley Scott is officially directing a new Blade Runner film.

I’m still trying to sort out my feelings on this one. Two of my childhood favorite Harrison Ford films (Indiana Jones, Star Wars) have already been butchered with god awful modern CGI-laden sequels/prequels. In Ridley we trust?