Cinematical

Netflix knows where it's at when it comes to the rental biz; more and more, folks want to stay at home and watch movies instantly. We don't even want to wait for those happy little red envelopes any more. Nope, if it's not on our Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or computer, we get all squirrelly. (Okay, maybe that last part is just me.) And IFC is also on the cutting edge of home entertainment in its steadily growing on-demand offerings, including their IFC Festival Direct program, where you can watch a selection of movies that have played during recent festivals, and the In Theaters + On Demand program, which offers at-home viewers the chance to see indie flicks the same day they premiere in what's usually limited release.

Now Netflix and IFC have sealed the deal for a partnership that gives Netflix access to 53 IFC releases to be streamed online to whichever platform you like, starting today.

I would guess that if this experiment takes off, we'll be seeing more IFC goodies on Netflix, but for now, you can see docs like The Thing Blue Line and Gates of Heaven; international films from Catherine Breillat, Christophe Honoré, and Alfonso Cuaron; and Joe Swanberg; and plenty of other flicks like The Brother from Another Planet, Nights and Weekends, and more. Check back later for the full list and more details on the launch of this new project.

Have you watched any of the IFC On Demand offerings, especially if they're for releases not otherwise available in your area? Do you think this is another death knoll for the indie video store, or a really, really good idea to help spread the word about otherwise underseen independent films in a struggling market? Or both?

Jennifer Hudson, the multitalented performer who was once a finalist on American Idol and is now a sought-after Oscar winner, will be starring in a biopic about Winnie Mandela, based on the book Winnie Mandela: A Life. Mandela, the ex-wife of South African President Nelson Mandela, is a controversial figure; although she's a stalwart activist against apartheid, with some calling her the Mother of the Nation, she has also been embroiled in several scandals, both of the personal and political nature. Perhaps most controversial was her association with a former bodyguard who was charged with the murder of a kidnapped 14-year-old. She was also charged with bank fraud in 2001; as the New York Times wrote, "there is no doubt that the woman who was once celebrated as a heroine of the anti-apartheid struggle has become mired in a particularly sticky set of financial and political troubles."

According to Variety, the movie will be directed by Darrell J. Roodt, a South African who directed Cry, the Beloved Country, which stars James Earl Jones.

Hudson said, "I was compelled and moved when I read the script... Winnie Mandela is a complex and extraordinary woman and I'm honored to be the actress asked to portray her. This is a powerful part of history that should be told."

New York's Museum of Modern Art is hosting a retrospective for Tim Burton that spans the artist's career so far, from doodles on paper, Polaroids, sketches, full-blown paintings, sculptures, and, of course, movies. The MoMA will be showing 14 of his films, and Burton himself curated a collection of films that inspired him, aptly titled "The Lurid Beauty of Monsters." Burton was on hand to talk to the press, comparing his joy at the show to "an out-of-body experience." He said, "In my life, I've had many surreal, great things happen -- meeting my idol, Vincent Price; being able to make movies; and this one, I think, tops it in the sense that it's the most amazing and surreal, and that's what you look for in life, is these great and incredible [experiences]."

The MoMA's Ron Magliozzi, Assistant Curator, and Jenny He, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Film, worked feverishly to uncover work from the artist's 27-year career, even touring his house to find art for the show. Burton also created seven new statues for the exhibit.

The show opens November 22nd and ends April 26th, 2010. You can see a selection of the art on display in the gallery below.

Cinematical: What's the most personal piece in the collection for you?

Tim Burton: Well, it could be any of a number because I noticed the ones that freaked me out so much that I can't look at, which is a lot of it, I think it's a lot of that early stuff. Stuff that I didn't even know I had. I don't even know where they found some of that really early stuff. 'Cause it's, as they [Ron Magliozzi and Jenny He] pointed out, it was all just kind of personal and private, so there's a lot of that in there. Mainly, the early stuff, I'd say. Stuff that – I don't know where you actually found stuff that I actually got decent grades on! Because I don't remember that at all! [Laughs]

Once upon a time, there was a Twilight massively multiplayer online role-playing game being developed called Twilight Online. Think World of Warcraft but for Twihards. They were shut down (one would imagine by Summit, who is making oodles of cash from tie-ins -- have you been to your local Blockbuster and picked up your very own couch pillow with Jacob's face on it?) and the developer is now working on something called "Nebulous Blood." (Read more about Twilight Online over at Geekologie since the details of the game are no longer on its official website.)

The first Twilight video game, one of many that's sure to come, is a trivia game that's part of the "Scene It?" game series. It is currently available as an iPhone app and a DVD game, and now even Wii and Nintendo DS players will be able to give their Twilight skillz a workout as well on November 24th. The console games are from Konami, a pretty damn solid game publisher that's behind great games like the Metal Gear Solid series, Silent Hill, Dance Dance Revolution, and even the recent Saw game.

Twilight game deets are hiding on the other side of the jump.

Despite all the jokes about Roland Emmerich's love for blowing up cities, how the hell Lloyd Dobbler will save the world, and of course, the infamous line "Download my blog," 2012 earned $225 million worldwide in its opening weekend.

I dislike adding "porn" or "-sploitation" to descriptive phrases (torture porn, poorsploitation, etc. etc.), but if anything could be called an exploitation of our natural fear of an upcoming worldwide crisis, it would be 2012. Eerie shots of crowds praying en masse and major landmarks crumbling are juxtaposed with smaller stories, like the family struggling to stay together, a personal crisis set off by an ethical conundrum, and, of course, the prophet-kook in the woods who's happy to see his greatest suspicions verified.

Orson Welles's radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds sent Americans running for their bomb shelters in 1938, and once everyone realized it was just a radio show (and recovered from their terror), a new type of horror was born: the fear of massive worldwide destruction.

Every US generation thinks it's going to be the last. If it's not the Cold War, it's the Middle East, and if it's not aliens, it's the ice caps. But it's also a reality; it's mind-boggling to turn on the news and see footage of a tsunami that's killed about 230,000 people and injured and displaced so many more.

Whether as a fast-talking high schooler in a film noir (Brick) or a disfigured soldier in a big budget blockbuster (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra), Joseph Gordon-Levitt has proven himself to be one of the most talented young actors. His new movie, Uncertainty, takes the viewer on a journey into two different worlds, where a flip of a coin takes a young couple (Gordon-Levitt and Lynn Collins) into an innocuous visit to her family and decisions about their future and another takes them into a strange criminal underworld where everyone is after a cell phone they found in a cab. Directed by David Siegel and Scott McGehee, Uncertainty was filmed on the fly with hand-held cameras in S16m and HD as the couple race towards their different futures. In this interview, we discuss the freedom of improvising within a structured world, his favorite movies, and what he can't say about G.I. Joe sequels or Christopher Nolan's Inception.

Cinematical: Can you discuss the beginning of the movie a bit? I was confused if it was symbolic or literal or what.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: What do you think was happening?

Cinematical: Well, I went back and I watched it again and wasn't sure.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I don't want to be evasive or anything... You know, it's the kind of movie that's meant to stimulate a conversation or provoke your own creative thoughts about it, so I hesitate to say, "Well, what it means is blah blah blah." First of all, because it means something different to everybody. And second of all, I would never want anybody to say, "Well, I read an interview where the actor said that it means blah blah blah, so it means that and it doesn't mean anything else. 'Cause to me that's the beauty of movies, is that it can mean really whatever you want. The act of watching a movie, I think, is a creative act; it's not just input. All of us, as audience members, we're telling the story the way that we see it.

Some might say it's too early to have a career retrospective for Tim Burton, which the Museum of Modern Art in NYC will be hosting from November 22, 2009 to April 26, 2010, but I say, "Bring it on!" The more Tim, the better. And naturally, the commercial promoting this must-see exhibition is directed by Burton and scored by his longtime collaborator Danny Elfman.

The exhibition will include Burton's sketches, films, a book signing, and a special film series called "Tim Burton and the Lurid Beauty of Monsters" "that have influenced, inspired, and intrigued Burton, and which reflect the motifs, themes, and sensibilities of his work."

For more info on the exhibit, go to the official MoMa website. Meanwhile, you can check out the commercial after the jump, or read some previous goodies on Mr. Burton, like this gallery of Tim Burton art, an interview with him at Comic-Con, and the extended trailer for Alice in Wonderland.

AEG and Action 3D are betting on music lovers that will want to catch their favorite performers in a movie theater -- on the screen, that is. According to Variety, the two companies have already been getting footage from different festivals for their limited-run, 3D-only concert movies, which will be offered in a similar manner as U2 3D. The first series of movies will be footage of concerts from Dave Matthews (yay?), Relentless7, Ben Harper, and Gogol Bordello. The only group that sounds like it would wow music fans in 3D is Gogol Bordello, a gypsy punk band known for their outrageous live shows and songs like "Start Wearing Purple."

However, AEG is also behind the recent release of Michael Jackson's film This is It, along with Sony, which has made $186 million worldwide so far. While concert movies with built-in audiences like the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds have been similarly successful, I'm not convinced that semi-random concert series will really put bottoms in seats. And for all you Phishheads, AEG has apparently already "filmed several 3D live sets of Phish from Festival 8 in Indio, Calif., in late October. According to [John Rubey, president of Network Live, a division of AEG Live], the company plans to roll out 'best of' edition from Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits as followups to the Matthews feature in 2010." So get your Birks and tie-dye ready to jam out, man!

I think it's a cool idea to offer people the chance to see their favorite bands up close and personal if they can't see them live, but there isn't anything to rival the actual live experience. Granted, you're not usually that close to the stage and some jerk just spilled beer on your shoes and someone else is singing along to every song and/or shouting "WOO!" in your ear, but that's all part of the concert experience, right?

Oprah is pushing both Precious and the book it's based on, Push by Sapphire, on her show, and I'm seriously curious to know what her audience will think about it. How many people will be able to watch a film told from the point of view of an illiterate high schooler who is raped by her father, physically (and, in the book, sexually) abused by her mother, hates herself for not being white, has given birth to one child with Down's Syndrome who's nicknamed Mongo (short for Mongoloid), and is pregnant for a second time with her father's child?

Let's assume that Oprah's reach is strong enough and far enough to get her demographic to plunk down their eight to 12 dollars to see Precious – the Oprah Effect in full effect. (You can find out where and when Precious is playing near you on the official movie website.)

I'm not talking about critics and journalists or the people in big cities who like to participate in a friendly Oscar pool or want to be up on what was in the New York Times. They're already seeing the movie in droves; it made $1.8M in limited release its opening weekend. The latest numbers I could find on her demographic are from 2007, back when people were wondering if Oprah could help get a president elected. (Answer: Yes, she can.)

According to Nielsen via MSNBC, "Oprah's audience is predominantly female, white, and over the age of 55. Nationally 7.4 million people watch Oprah daily -- about 2.6% of American households. Four percent of American women (about 5.7 million) watch her daily, compared with 1.2% of men (1.7 million people). Overall, 2% of all 18- to 49-year-olds watch Oprah."

Jason Reitman, whose next film Up in the Air comes out on December 4th, posted a very funny image on Twitter recently – a pie chart detailing the different things that people have asked him in recent interviews. The top three were about George Clooney (111 people), the economy (96 people), and his next project (78 people). The fourth is a little more confusing, as it just reads "Real People," so apparently 77 people asked him about real people. Maybe they wanted to know if the people being laid off in the movie were real people? Who's to say what goes through the murky depths of the mind of a journalist?



I humbly ask Jason Reitman to make a pie chart of his answers. Here's what I picture it to look like.

111 people: "Clooney is such a prankster! But he's also a great serious actor. He's the Cary Grant of our times. Sometimes we have moustache contests."

96 people: "The economy sucks. Seriously though, I've never been laid off, but if I had to be laid off, I'd hope George Clooney would do it."

78 people: "My next project will be with George Clooney. Actually, it will be catching up on all the sleep I lost talking to you people and answering the same damn questions over and over again."

In one jpeg, Reitman manages to sum up the exhausting paces that filmmakers, actors, musicians, et al are put through to get their names and faces and projects out there, the laziness of some journalists, and the terror that faces every journalist that wants to be good at what they do and engender an interesting discussion that is hopefully pleasant and/or illuminating (but at the very least not boring) for everyone involved, including the reader.

If you could ask Jason Reitman anything, what would it be?