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7 articles from 2009

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Habib Azar's Top Ten Films of All Time

22 December 2009 7:28 PM, PST | ioncinema | See recent ioncinema news »

Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of filmmakers? As part of our monthly Ioncinephile profile (read here), we ask the filmmaker the incredibly arduous task of identifying their top ten list of all time favorite films. This month we bent the rules a little, our profiled filmmaker Habib Azar explains why below, and keep in mind in less than a month, he'll be presenting his debut film, Armless at Sundance. He gave us his top seven (*) as of December 2009. - Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of filmmakers? As part of our monthly Ioncinephile profile (read here), we ask the filmmaker the incredibly arduous task of identifying their top ten list of all time favorite films. This month we bent the rules a little, our profiled filmmaker Habib Azar explains why below, and keep in mind in less than a month, »

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Film review: The Limits of Control

10 December 2009 4:05 PM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Only a successful and revered director could make this colossally self-indulgent and boring film

This shallow conundrum is at once a dull thriller and a humourless comedy, the sort of colossally self-indulgent and boring film that only a successful and revered director could make – or be ­allowed to make. The Limits of Control demonstrates the very worst side of Jim Jarmusch: a supercilious exhibition of mannerism. Jarmusch noodles and doodles with ideas but shapes them into nothing very rewarding. There is a supporting cast of A-list stars, including Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Bill Murray and Gael García Bernal, each engaged for what must have been an agreeably short period, with their minds evidently on other matters during principal photo-graphy, and producing something very much less than their best work.

The movie has some technical polish and style, I concede, but this only makes its emptiness even more exasperating. Jarmusch's »

- Peter Bradshaw

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Tom Waits to star in The Hobbit?

8 December 2009 3:21 AM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

The gravel-voiced one is reportedly being considered for a role in the forthcoming film of Jrr Tolkien's novel. Our bet is that he'll play Smaug, the fire-breathing dragon

Will Tom Waits battle Bilbo Baggins? A "trusted" source working on Guillermo del Toro's production of The Hobbit claims that the singer-songwriter is up for a part.

Waits has acted before, in films such as Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Robert Altman's Short Cuts and Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law. But he has never played the kind of character you would expect to find in a Jrr Tolkien's novel. Though the role under consideration isn't clear, an anonymous source told Ain't It Cool News that Waits is near the top of del Toro's list. "As much as I'd like to say he's a lock, I'm told he's simply someone the production is talking about," claims the source, »

- Sean Michaels

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Depp Gives Singer/Songwriter Babybird A 2010 Boost

6 December 2009 3:06 PM, PST | WENN | See recent WENN news »

Johnny Depp has given British hitmaker Babybird a big boost by insisting the singer/songwriter's 2010 album Ex-maniac will be the album of the year.

The movie star was asked to list his 'Essentials' for U.S. magazine Entertainment Weekly and admits he already can't live without his friend's new album.

Depp says, "He's a national treasure, if you're British. For everyone else, he's a diamond waiting to be found. Lyrically, he's black as night, brilliant and sharp as a razor."

The Pirates of the Caribbean star also listed longtime partner Vanessa Paradis' latest album, Divinidylle, among his favourites, calling it "the most beautiful soundtrack to our life en famille".

And there's also mention of his onscreen Pirates father Keith Richards' Unknown Dreams and Rum, Sodomy & The Lash by The Pogues.

Depp also namechecks Emir Kusturica's Time of The Gypsies and Underground among his favourite films, calling the Serbian filmmaker, "one of the last true auteurs". The actor is in talks to play Mexican bandit revolutionary Pancho Villa in Kusturica's next film.

Also on the star's top film list: his own Ed Wood, Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law and cult British movie Withnail & I, which he can freely quote.

He adds, "(That's) probably the funniest f**king film I've ever seen." »

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Another trite, po-faced, clever-clever Jim Jarmusch movie … still, I'll be back for more

4 December 2009 4:11 PM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

The Limits Of Control gives us a frustrating glimpse of the conspiracy-therory thriller that the cult director will never make

We expect the work of our favourite directors to develop and expand with each new movie, not deteriorate. An artist's career should ripen before us, not rot, as seems to be happening with Jim Jarmusch.

In his latest, The Limits Of Control, Jarmusch intimates the outlines of a widespread international conspiracy – a lone contract killer stalks his target across an arid Spain – by letting us see only fragments of it. But, frankly I'd rather see the pulse-pounding, cliche-ridden thriller he scorned trying to make. As with much of his increasingly mannered "mature" work, in Control, Jarmusch peppers a trite, transcendently unenlightening and uninvolving script with the usual distracting bits of business (here, the hitman, who spends much time receiving cryptic messages in matchboxes, needs his double espresso served in two separate cups … um, »

- John Patterson

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This week's film event previews

27 November 2009 4:11 PM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Jim Jarmusch In Context, London

With their relaxed pace, obsessions about seemingly meaningless detail and contempt for the very concept of plotting, Jarmusch's films are very much a context of their own. But on the back of his latest, The Limits Of Control, this is a good chance to see other fine Jarmusch movies such as Dead Man, Down By Law, and Stranger Than Paradise alongside films that inspired them, like Buster Keaton's The Cameraman, They Live By Night and L'Atalante, as well as kindred spirits such as Wings Of Desire and The Man Without A Past.

Ica Cinema, SW1, Fri to 23 Dec

Phelim O'Neill

Sally Potter, London

With Dennis dead and Harry taking a well-earned rest, the UK's current Potter of choice is award-winning, genre-bending director Sally. Her small but significant body of work includes 1992's critically lauded Orlando, a highly unusual and witty imagining of Virginia Woolf's classic gender-switching novel. »

- Phelim O'Neill, Andrea Hubert

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Trailer for Jim Jarmusch's The Limits Of Control

5 March 2009 9:29 AM, PST | QuietEarth.us | See recent QuietEarth news »

Like many an annoying cinephile film student, I watched A Lot of, and talked A Lot about guys like Jim Jarmusch during my Uni days, (his Down By Law being one of my particular favorites). Nobody plays around with genre tropes quite as skillfully but since Ghost Dog I've sort of lost touch with this fine indie director and am looking forward to getting back into the groove when The Limits of Control finally gets released.

Film is the story of a mysterious loner (played by De Bankolé), a stranger, whose activities remain meticulously outside the law. He is in the process of completing a job, yet he trusts no one, and his objectives are not initially divulged. The film is set in the striking and varied landscapes of contemporary Spain (both urban and otherwise).

Trailer after the break.

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7 articles from 2009

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