Quote of the Day/Week- Bernardo Bertolucci

Bernardo Bertolucci, one of Italy's greatest living directors, is an Academy-Award winner who has also directed the Italian film "The Conformist" (1971) and the highly controversial film "Last Tango in Paris" (1973). He Oscared for "The Last Emperor" (1987).

My friend New York-based film critic Bilge Ebiri has an exceptional profile of Bertolucci in the Australian web journal "Senses of Cinema."

Here is Bertolucci's quip:

"I don't think you can in any way export culture with guns and tanks."

SIDEBAR: We were aware that Greece, obviously a country going through a very hard time right now, had a thriving heavy metal scene with bands like Acid Death, Black Winter and Rotting Christ.

But, there is apparently an all girls punk rock band which formed in Crete called Barbed Wire Dolls. The band is now based in Los Angeles, and they perform in my hometown of Roanoke, Va., at the Horseshoe tomorrow night.

We first heard of the Greek heavy metal bands through the North Carolina State student-run college radio station WKNC (88.1-Raleigh) which airs "Chainsaw Rock" with host Lucreita tonight at midnight.

In Greece's neighboring country of Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country where my late father Mehmet Gokbudak hailed from, heavy metal is also surprisingly popular, and there are local bands, such as Pentagram, which have large followings.

Even more astonishing is the fact that the Israeli-based heavy metal band Orphaned Land is also very popular in Turkey.

Quote of the Day- Bernardo Bertolucci

This month (September), we have been quoting famous film directors. We conclude with one from the great Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci ("The Conformist," "The Last Tango in Paris"). My friend Bilge Ebiri, a New York film critic, is a huge admirer of his work and he has written about Bertolucci for the Australian web site "Senses of Cinema."

I also consider him to be a brilliant director; here is his quote:

"A monculture is not only Hollywood, but Americans trying to export democracy."

My Choice for the Best Films of 1971

I had no intention of having two blog entries within a few days featuring fruits, but since we had problems finding a good image of Malcolm McDowell's Alex (and there were other snafus while putting this together!), we thought we would opt for (what else?!) some oranges.

McDowell lists his personal favorite guilty pleasures in the current issue of "Film Comment" and two of the films are ones that he was in. Amazingly, he did not list "Caligula."

Generally, we don't go with popular films for our own choices for the best films of a given, but "A Clockwork Orange," my own personal favorite Stanley Kubrick film, and I say this expecting a full rebutal from my friend Bilge Ebiri who prefers "Barry Lyndon" (1975), is also my favorite film from 1971, a year when I was just one year old.

Many people have said that 1971 was amazing year in cinema, and I have to agree. For whatever reason, filmmakers around the world, made amazing films and many of the films which will not make the cut on the list, such as "Two-Lane Blacktop" and "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," could have been the best film of years with few good films, such as 1989, which only had a few memorable films like Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing."

Here are my choices for the best films of 1971:

1) "A Clockwork Orange" (dir. Stanley Kubrick)

2) "The Last Picture Show" (dir. Peter Bogdanovich)

3) "Harold and Maude" (dir. Hal Ashby)

4)* "The French Connection" (dir. William Friedkin)

5) "Death in Venice" (Italy. dir-Luchino Visconti)

6) "Murmur of the Heart" (France. dir-Louis Malle)

7) "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (dir. Robert Altman)

8) "Punishment Park" (dir. Peter Watkins)

9) "How Tasty My Little Frenchman" (Brazil. dir- Nelson Pereira dos Santos)

10) **"Baba/The Father"(Turkey. dir-Yilmaz Guney)

*-Oscar-winner for Best Film

**-"Baba" is only available on VHS, and in very limited supply, in the United States.

Quote of the Day- Film Director Dusan Makavejev

Today, we continue with our plan to quote 32 people from each of the 32 countries in this year's World Cup (are we mad?!). We are dividing the quotes between this blog and our sister blog The Daily Vampire.

Our quote today comes from Yugoslavian.....err we mean Serbian film director Dusan Makavejev (note to self: double-check spelling!) who is considered the greatest living film director to ever come out of Belgrade.

One of my favorite Makavejev films is the English-language Australian film "The Coca-Cola Kid" (1985) with Eric Roberts (Julia Roberts' brother) and the English-Swedish actress Greta Scacchi who I still find very sexy after all these years!

The film was produced without the knowledge or consent of Coca-Cola, but since the product was shown favorably in the movie they decided not to make a big whooppee over it.

Makavejev was at last report teaching film at Harvard.

We were hard-pressed to find any quotes from him until we came across this 2000 interview with him from the Australian cinema connosiuers' web site Sensesofcinema.com, which also features articles from my friend Bilge Ebiri (a film critic in New York).

Though I'm not in the film industry myself, this one makes a lot of sense:

"It's very difficult to say what makes you get involved with movies."

Our Oscar Forecasts- Part Two

The first of this two-part entry is at our other blog "The Daily Vampire."

Here are our projections for the other Oscars that will be given out on Sunday night:


Animated Feature Film:

Who Should Win: "The Fantastic Mr. Fox"
Who Will Win/Our Pick: "Up"


Art Direction:

Who Should Win: anyone but "Avatar"
Who Will Win: "Avatar"

Cinematography:

Who Should Win: "The Hurt Locker"
Who Will Win: "The Hurt Locker"

Costume Design:

Who Should Win: Honestly, we don't know!
Who Will Win: "Young Victoria" (pictured-Oscar seems to always choose Victorian films in this category so........)

Documentary (feature):

The Nominees: "Burma VJ," "The Cove," "Food, Inc.," "The Most Dangerous Man in America......," and "Which Way Home"
Who Should Win: "Burma VJ," "The Cove" or "Food, Inc." (the only film I've seen in this category)
Who Will Win: "The Cove"---it seems to be the most popular film.

Documentary (short):
Who Will Win: "Rabbit a la Berlin" (has the highest rating on the IMDB)

Film Editing:
Who Should Win: "Inglorious Basterds" (for all the film's faults, this was well-done)
Who Will Win" "The Hurt Locker" or "Avatar"
Our Pick: "Avatar" (though I hope we're wrong!).

Foreign-Language Film:

We were actually going to a whole entry on this topic. Oh well!

The Nominees: "Ajami" (Israel), "The White Ribbon" (Germany), "A Prophet" (France), "The Milk of Sorrow" (Peru) and "The Secret in Their Eyes." (Argentina)
Who Should Win: Critics Amy Taubin ("Film Comment") and Peter Travers ("Roling Stone") love "A Prophet." Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" is also highly-regarded. "Ajami," which involved real-life Palestinians has a great human interest story. This disqualifies each one of them as well as the movie from Peru, just because it's from Peru.
Who Will Win/Our Pick: "The Secret in Their Eyes," which is hopefully much better than previous year's winners in this category.

Makeup:

Our Pick: "The Young Victoria"

Musical Score:

Our Pick: "Avatar"

Short Film Animated:

Who Should Win: The anti-corporate "Logorama" about a police chase through downtown LA looks the most interesting (haven't seen any of the films myself).
Who Will Win: "A Matter of Loaf and Death," simply because it's a Wallace and Grommit film.

Short Film Live Action:

Our Pick: "The New Tenants."

Sound Editing:

Our Pick: "The Hurt Locker."

Sound Mixing:

Our Pick: "The Hurt Locker"

Visual Effects:

Our Pick: "Avatar"

Screenplay (Adapted)

The Nominees: "District 9," "An Education," "Up in the Air," "Precious" and "In the Loop."

Who Should Win: "Up in the Air," "An Education" or "In the Loop" (long-shot).
Who Will Win/Our Pick: "Up in the Air"

Screenplay (original):

The Nominees: "The Hurt Locker, "Inglorious Basterds," "Up," "A Serious Man," and "The Messenger."

Who Should Win: "A Serious Man" (it has next to no chance in hell of winning)
Who Will Win: "The Hurt Locker"


That's it, hopefully I will do as well as Channel 7 (Roanoke, Va.) weather-person Robin Reed or my film critic friend Bilge Ebiri. If not, we'll try again next year.....

Iranian Version of Salinger?!

I have to credit my good friend Bilge Ebiri for letting me know there is indeed an Iranian film version of J.D. Salinger's classic novel "Franny and Zooey".

The film "Pari," made in 1995, by director Dariush Mehrjui (we couldn't find an image of that film, so we are using the poster for "Gabbeh," which is one of my favorite Persian films) was adapted from the novel and it was screened internationally until it was set to be shown at an Iranian film festival at the Lincoln Center in New York in 1998.

It was then that the reclusive author's lawyers said showing the film was a copyright violation (one of the reasons the film was able to be made in Iran is because the country has no formal copyright laws).

Richard Pena, the programming director of the festival, told "The New York Times" in 1998 that Salinger's intervention caught him off-guard:

"It was assumed there was no prohibition on the film," Pena told reporter Jesse McKinley of the "NYT," "It's been around for a while."

Mehrjui said he was also stunned by what happened:

"This reaction is really quite bewildering." the director said. "I don't want to distribute the film commercially. It's a kind of cultural exchange. I just want to let the film be seen for critics and the people that follow my work."

Mehrjui is best known for his 1969 film "The Cow," which is considered to be a landmark film in Iran. His most recent film is "Santoori" (2007). Like "Pari," it is not available in the United States, but we presume that's for different reasons.