Newsbites: Malick! Munich! Zealand!

Last updated on: January 3, 2006 at 7:32 am by Peter T. Chattaway

Newsbites: Malick! Munich! Zealand! 2006-01-03T07:32:00-08:00 Peter T. Chattaway

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Time for another round-up of news quickies.

1. The notoriously reclusive Terrence Malick doesn’t do interviews. He didn’t even attend the press junket two-and-a-half weeks ago for his new film, The New World. (Neither did the film’s biggest star, Colin Farrell, who checked into rehab just the week before, which made the junket an unusually low-key affair; heck, the studio didn’t even serve us lunch, which is a first in my limited experience.) But apparently he does do Q&A;’s at advance screenings — at least when the screening is in his home town of Bartlesville, Oklahoma:

Malick said, “I knew it would have a slow, rolling pace. Just get into it; let it roll over you. It’s more of an experience film. I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself.” . . .

One audience member said Malick is often accused of shooting too much footage.

“I film quite a bit of footage, then edit,” he said. “Changes before your eyes, things you can do and things you can’t. My attitude is always let it keep rolling.”

Malick said it took 10 months to edit the movie.

“There was a lot to sort through,” he said.

Malick said the familiar legend of Pocahontas and John Smith was “our start of the white settlement which brought into focus a lot of issues.”

Contrary to the film’s title, it’s not a new world, he said.

“It’s new for the people who came here 13 years before the Pilgrims,” said Malick. “It’s a story of hope – maybe the true shore is still yet to be discovered. It shows the spirit of the country as it was in the beginning.” . . .

Malick, who said he’s been interested in movies as long as he can remember, regarded his future plans.

“There’s a good many pictures I’d like to make, we’ll see how many I’ll be allowed to make,” he said.

Incidentally, the producer and actors who did show up at the junket said that the film, which currently runs two and a half hours, would be even longer on DVD; however, yesterday someone passed along an unconfirmed rumour that the film, which is currently playing only in Los Angeles and New York, might be made about 20 minutes shorter before it goes into wide release later this month.

2. The Wall Street Journal‘s Bret Stephens outlines several of the reasons why Steven Spielberg’s Munich may not be as pro-Israel as the director claims it is. Among them:

Maybe it has something to do with the false dichotomy the film establishes between Jewish ideals and Israeli actions. “Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values,” pronounces the fictional Mrs. Meir. Yet the Torah and Talmud are replete with descriptions of the justified smiting of one enemy or another. (Hanukkah, for instance, commemorates the Maccabean victory over the Seleucid empire.) It is Christianity, not Judaism, that counsels turning the other cheek.

Incidentally, Stephens says that George Jonas’s Vengeance, the book on which this film is based, is “based on a source named Yuval Aviv, who claimed to be the model for Avner but was, according to Israeli sources, never in the Mossad and had no experience in intelligence beyond working as a screener for El Al, the Israeli airline.” This is news to me; in the articles I have read so far, I have never seen any reference to this “Yuval Aviv” before.

3. The New York Times has an interesting story up now on the debate within the indigenous New Zealand film industry over the pros and cons of so many Hollywood movies being made in that country. Does the presence of Hollywood produce more highly-skilled crews and a better overall infrastructure? Or does the presence of Hollywood raise everyone’s costs, as film crews get used to the big money and turn down the opportunity to work on local low-budget movies? Reminds me of similar discussions I’ve heard here in Vancouver. For now, all I’ll say is this — Vancouver doesn’t seem to have produced any internationally recognized local films like, say, New Zealand’s Whale Rider.

4. One of the best things about Lasse Hallstrom’s Casanova (my review) is the music, which is mostly based on baroque classics of the period. The New York Times has a piece on how the music was compiled and edited together, with a bit of fill-the-gaps help from French composer Alexandre Desplat, who is becoming something of a favorite of mine.

5. The Hollywood Reporter says Leonardo DiCaprio is producing a film called The Gardener of Eden, starring Lukas Haas, Giovanni Ribisi and Erika Christensen: “The dark comedy centers on a young man who accidentally saves a girl from a neighborhood assault and then decides his calling in life is to become a modern-day hero.”

6. The Associated Press reports that Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are financing Broken Arrows, a film by their friend Reid Gershbein about “a man who loses his pregnant wife in a terrorist attack and then takes a job as a hit man”:

Production costs are just under $1 million, Gershbein said. Brin and Page funded about half the film, barely a dent in their personal fortunes, which are estimated at $16 billion each. . . .

Page and Brin are the latest Internet entrepreneurs to get involved in the film business. Former eBay Inc. President Jeffrey Skoll was executive producer of recent films such as “Syriana” and “Good Night, and Good Luck,” both starring George Clooney, as well as “North Country” with Charlize Theron.

Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, who formed Broadcast.com in 1995 and then sold it to Yahoo! in 1999, are partners in 2929 Entertainment, which has movie production and distribution companies and a chain of movie theaters among its holdings.

Among 2929’s movies: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

UPDATE: Much later in the day, I’m adding two more items here:

7. The Associated Press reports that Joaquin Phoenix went to Folsom Prison today for a screening of Walk the Line and a brief musical performance — his first since finishing the Johnny Cash biopic. Note who sponsored the screening and concert:

The event was organized by Prison Fellowship, a group that runs Bible studies and other educational programs in prisons.

Fellowship spokesman Joe Avila said the movie’s message would be good for inmates because Cash’s “whole life was a message of redemption.”

“The movie is about how he screwed it up really bad, and he turned to Jesus Christ to help him change,” Avila said.

8. Mark Steyn looks at the current state of Hollywood.

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