Continue reading »]]> A key passage in Tom Wolfe’s blistering architectural critique, From Bauhaus to Our House, recounts a tumultuous public meeting attended by the residents St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe housing project, called by the city to get input on how to salvage the seriously deteriorating facility and notable for ending with the assembled tenants joining in on the chant, “Blow it… up! Blow it… up! Blow it… up!”

Wolfe’s description of the event is vivid (no surprise), but barely gets into the morass of Utopian ideals, modernist design, flawed social engineering, and unintended racism that, over two decades, doomed a project meant to raise the city’s poorest out of their poverty. Using extensive research, archival footage, and interviews with the people who lived and grew up in Pruitt-Igoe (some of whom still harbor fond memories of the place), filmmaker Chad Freidrichs fills in the blanks in his incisive documentary, THE PRUITT-IGOE MYTH: AN URBAN HISTORY, which opens at New York’s IFC Center on January 20th.

Check out the trailer below.

Continue reading »]]> In the spirit of international cooperation comes INTRUDERS, a new film that kicks it old school in its tale about two children — a boy and a girl — in two, different countries who find themselves menaced by… ssssssomething… that visits them in the middle of the night with intentions that extend well beyond just tucking them in.

Clive Owen and Carice Van Houten star as the girl’s parents, Pilar Lopez De Ayala as the boy’s, and the project was helmed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, whose previous efforts include the well-regarded zombie sequel 28 WEEKS LATER. Hey, we’re just glad this isn’t another entry in the well-worn “found footage” genre — we’re so sick of wildly shaking cameras that we’ve started popping Dramamine before entering the theater.

The film’s opening in UK on the 27th and will be getting to the US in April. Meantime, get your creep on with the trailer below.

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The world of Marc Singer's DARK DAYS.

Before everyone larks out for the long, long weekend, I just wanted to let NY’ers know that Marc Singer’s debut documentary, DARK DAYS is having it’s re-release at the Cinema Village starting July 1.

The film will be out on homevid in a couple of weeks, but for those of us in Manhattan, seeing a community of outcasts living in the bowels of a train tunnel in the 1990′s has a certain, especial impact. Singer shot the film — in an evocative black and white — employing the residents of the underground community, and brought in turntablist DJ Shadow to do the soundtrack — the result is a revelatory exploration of survival and humanity under the most dire of circumstances.

Check out the trailer:

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Continue reading »]]> The interview we were trying to set up fell through, so MIGHTY MOVIE PODCAST is taking a little break this week. Fear not, we’ve already got our next episode in the can: A conversation with director Tom Six about his outlandishly twisted horror film, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE. Join us next week and, in the interim, have a great weekend!

Continue reading »]]> Okay, let’s be blunt about this: I know nothing about comic actor Omid Djalili or screenplay writer David Baddiel, or their new film, THE INFIDEL, which is currently running in Great Britain. But the plot — about a British Muslim who discovers he was actually born Jewish — has potential and, more to the point, if MIGHTY MOVIE PODCAST listeners in GB click on the video, it’ll cover our hosting fee for a few months.

The trailer is less than half a minute long, so checking it out won’t put too much of a time-sink on your day and will really help us out. Just to whet your appetite further, here’s the synopsis that was supplied to us:

In Cinemas Now! Written by David Baddiel and starring Omid Djalili, UK’s premiere comic talents!

Meet MAHMUD NASIR, loving husband, doting father and something of a “relaxed” Muslim.

He may not be the most observant, but in his heart he is as Muslim as it gets. But after his mother’s death a discovery turns Mahmud’s world upside down. He finds his birth certificate which reveals that not only was he adopted at birth…but he’s Jewish, and his real name is Solly Shimshillewitz!

Okay, not sure about that whole “Solly Shimshillewitz” thing, but get a look at the trailer and, who knows, maybe you’ve got your weekend entertainment all set up!

And coming up later today or on Saturday: My interviews with the directors of THE SUN BEHIND THE CLOUDS and THE SQUARE.

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A retiree (voice of Barry Otto) learns that guardian angels (Geoffrey Rush) aren't always all that's advertised in $9.99

What with all the “family-oriented” animation that we’re going to be saddled with over the next few months, Tatia Rosenthal’s debut stop-motion animated feature, $9.99, comes as a welcome change. Based on the stories of Etgar Keret — who for the indie film crowd is probably best known for writing the seed story that became WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY — the film is a tart, funny, and ultimately moving examination of people’s quest for meaning in their lives. And since those people include a widowed retiree being hounded by a singularly surly guardian angel (played fantastically by Geoffrey Rush), a commitment-phobe who spends his days entertaining a� trio of two-inch tall frat boys, and a guy who falls in love with a model with some rather extreme preferences in her beaus, Rosenthal has more than enough opportunity to let her animation process spin some weird ‘n’ wonderful visuals.

Here’s my interview with Rosental.

Trailer

www.9dollars99movie.com

IMDB Listing

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