Hasta La Ideas

With Oscar season upon us, things at the multiplex seem like they’re going to get glum and melodramatic pretty quickly. Personally, this writer will sit out all the brooding and pining and instead focus his attention on looking forward to seeing Jonathan Parker and Catherine Dinapoli‘s upcoming sendup of the art world, (Untitled). It’s an easy target, sure, but it looks smart enough not to devolve into mockery or cheap parody, while still being as ridiculous as its subject often is. Also, it has ex-footballer Vinnie Jones playing an artist who specializes in taxidermy. That’s worth the price of admission right there. Here’s the trailer:

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In another piece of audio-visual follow-up, we first told you back in October of last year about Tom Ford making the leap from fashion design to filmmaking as he was set to make his first pass as a director with A Single Man, a period adaptation of a novel by Christopher Isherwood. The film finally saw its debut this past Friday, closing out the Venice Film Festival. And now that the cat’s out of the bag, we finally have a trailer for the film. It certainly doesn’t tell you much, instead relying on its pretty shots and lots of silent emoting. It reminds us a lot of trailers for foreign films, where there’s little speaking so as to not scare off the subtitle-averse. But it looks sharp, moody, and interesting, so we’re game. Bring it on, Ford.

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Hate advertising? Make better ads. Filmmaker Doug Pray shows how it’s done in the documentary Art & Copy. Now playing in select cities, the film spotlights influential advertising creatives such as George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, and Lee Clow, and legendary campaigns, from “I Love NY” to “Got Milk?” But Art & Copy is no history lesson. “In my interviews, I stuck to emotions, creative motivation, and big-idea philosophies of the ad creatives rather than ‘how-to’ stories, industry-insider talk, or the politics of their clients’ products, which is a different film altogether,” notes Pray, who secured sponsorship from The One Club to realize the project. “By interviewing these icons, they became real for me, and I saw advertising as an art form with enormous potential—when done well.” Pondering whether to see this film? Just do it.

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Did you head out this weekend to catch Inglorious Basterds? Unfortunately this writer didn’t get a chance to. But while he waits the six months it’ll take before it’s available on DVD, that doesn’t mean he can’t live vicariously through you dear readers, or by taking a look at this interesting piece our pals over at Flavorwire put together: an interview with Dave Wasco and Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, the husband and wife production design and set decorating team responsible for the look of Quentin Tarantino‘s new film (as well as nearly all of his others — they’ve also worked with other big shots, from Wes Anderson to David Mamet). Although, again, since we haven’t seen the film, we couldn’t picture the specific set pieces they go into detailed explination of how they came to be, we enjoyed it none the less. And if you do happen to be we-who-haven’t-seen, there are some good bits about their process and working with a director. Here’s a bit:

Preparations for Inglourious Basterds were much the same as Pulp Fiction: lots of film references. Much like Jack Rabbit Slim’s, the cinema in Inglourious Basterds was a centerpiece set with a mixed pedigree. QT mentioned LA’s New Beverly Cinema for the projection room and its Vista Theatre for the auditorium dimension and number of seats as models. He wanted the lobby to be exactly like the one in Action in Arabia (directed by Leonide Moguy in 1944 with George Sanders, specifically the two stairs, the ceiling fans, and the timing of Inglourious Basterds character Colonel Landa’s and Sanders’ Action in Arabia character’s descent on the stairs. Private Affairs of Bel Ami (directed by Albert Lewin in 1947, and also starring George Sanders) served as the inspiration for the big circle window in Shosanna’s living quarters, overlooking the cinema.

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Staying in fashion for a few moments more, as well as the shifting of careers, we turn to Tom Ford. You might recall us reporting last October that the designer had decided to make the move into film writing and directing, going into production on his first film, an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood‘s novel A Single Man, a 1960s period piece about a professor who deals with the death of his significant other. While production has finished on the film, they’re still in the thick of post-production; though apparently whatever has been roughly cut together has been enough for the Venice Film Festival, which has landed the premiere of the film. Appearing alongside Werner Herzog‘s weird Bad Lieutenant remake, Ford’s debut is set to close out the annual festival on September 11th.

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