January 26

DK's Recommendation: State of Grace (1990)

For some reason, State of Grace (1990) seems to have been overlooked since it was released. It gets 7.1/10 on IMDB and only now the DVD has finally been released. This action/thriller features Gary Oldman, Ed Harris and Sean Penn in top shape. Penn is very low key in this one and has several moving scenes, most of them with his real-life spouse, Robin Wright. Wright has never been, and would never be, more beautiful than in this movie. Her elegance can make you miss a heart beat. The chemistry between the couple is obvious and their scenes are moving and sincere. Supporting actors include John Turturro, John C. Reilly and the late Burgess Meredith, whose 3-minutes appearance is Oscar-worthy. Ennio Morricone's music is excellent as always. You might have noticed that he later used (intentionally or not) a "rehash" of the theme at the ending of Lolita (1997). Cinematography (done by the late Jordan Cronenweth), lighting and editing are all top notch. The dynamic shots (most notably in the "waiting" scene) and the excellent use of steadicam and slow-motion work great here. Director Phil Joanou did an excellent job and it's a shame he simply "disappeared". This is a good time to thank stereozulu for sharing this rip by PTi. DK's rating: 8.5/10 State of Grace (1990): CD1, CD2 Trailer: 300k / 56k

January 24

Spider Premieres in Austria

Schubi reports that Spider will premiere in Austria on January 31st.

Spider's Japanese Premiere

According to IMDB, Spider will premiere in Japan on March 29th. Also, according to the same source, up to the new year, Spider has already grossed 1.2m Euro in Italy alone. See the FAQ for a complete list of known release dates.

January 20

Cronenberg Shorts DVD

Antti Näyhä refers us to a new Japanese DVD, released this Saturday (January 25th, 2003). It's called David Cronenberg Shorts and contains two short films, The Lie Chair (1976) and The Italian Machine (1976), both directed by Cronenberg as segments for the Canadian TV series Peep Show. Running time is 50 minutes. You can buy this DVD for 3800 Yen ($31.95) on cdJapan.

Spider in Hong Kong
Spider will be shown at the 2003 Hong Kong International Film Festival in April.

Actor Richard Crenna Dies at Age 76
Actor Richard Crenna, better known as Sylvester Stallone's commanding officer in the Rambo films, died Friday of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 76. More info on IMDB.

January 18

Golden Globe Awards

Tomorrow is the 60th Golden Globe Awards ceremony. Mostly mainstream movies in the nominees this year, and total disregard from Canadian Spider and Ararat. Secretary gets only 1 nomination, for the wonderful Maggie Gyllenhaal. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers settled with 2: Best Picture and Best Director, no nomination for Howard Shore this time. Other nominations: 8 for Chicago 7 for The Hours 6 for Adaptation 5 for About Schmidt 5 for Gangs of New York 4 for Far from Heaven      2 for About a Boy 2 for Frida 2 for Igby Goes Down 2 for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 for The Pianist

January 16

Spider Premiere in Israel

So, after space shuttle Columbia took the first Israeli into space today, what could be better than to find out that Spider will premiere here in Israel on January 30th? See the FAQ for a complete list of known release dates.

January 15

A Salute to Dick Smith

Something a little different today: Dick Smith is one of the top make-up artists in the world. With a career of 44 years and such classics as The Exorcist (1973), Amadeus (1984), Taxi Driver (1976), Scanners (1981), Little Big Man (1970), The Hunger (1983), The Godfather (1972), Altered States (1980) and more, Smith has become a teacher, mentor and inspiration to top make-up artists such as Rick Baker and Stan Winston. Today, at the age of 80, Smith is retired but still teaches young artists in a special way: He offers a remote-learning course using his 700-pages book and his personal guidance (through mail and direct phone calls any time or day). There's also a basic course for beginners/amateurs. The official site of The Exorcist (The Version you've never seen) contains a recent and exclusive video interview with Dick Smith in which he discusses some of the challenges he encountered in this classic. Dick Smith's Official Site contains some very interesting photos from his personal collection. Most interesting are Amadeus, The Exorcist, Little Big Man, The Hunger, The Godfather and Altered States. Here are a few examples, taken without permission from the collection mentioned above. Point an image for details and click for full collection.

January 14

New Last Night Photos

Added 8 new photos from Last Night (1998) to Cronenberg Cameos.

DK's Recommendation: Last Night (1998)

What would you do on the last night before the end of the world? Last Night (1998) is the story of several people, all connected in some sort to one another, and each having different plans for spending the last few hours as well as the last few seconds before it all ends. The movie, made for $2 million, was nominated for 13 Genie awards and won 3. Don McKellar (Exotica, eXistenZ), who wrote, directed and stars, got many awards for this movie, including a Genie and a Cannes Film Festival award. The cast consists of some of Canada's best talents, including director David Cronenberg (as Duncan, the gas company executive who ensures his clients to serve them up to the end), the beautiful Sarah Polley (Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter, eXistenZ, Go), Sandra Oh (The Red Violin), Genevieve Bujold (Dead Ringers), Jackie Burroughs (The Dead Zone), Arsinee Khanjian (Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter, and wife of director Atom Egoyan), Callum Keith Rennie (eXistenZ) and more. A huge thank you goes to Parazite for providing this rip. Last Night (1998) Trailer (6.9MB, QuickTime)

January 12

New Photo

Added a new photo from Last Night (1998) to Cronenberg Cameos. More photos from this movie coming soon.

January 10

Spider Premieres in Sweden

Spider is released today in Sweden (Thanks Bill). See the FAQ for a complete list of known release dates.

eXistenZ Director's Commentary

There's a Director's commentary for eXistenZ floating on the net. Only one source (emlcoofferrets.dk) and extremely hard to get. There's no additional info about this one, other than its name which suggests it's a 65MB audio track in some kind of an mp4 QuickTime6 format. The same source also has 2 more commentaries for eXistenZ, one of them is by Peter Suschitzky.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) - English DVD

Triaxos and Jaffa did a great work, taking the German DVD rip of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) (see December 22) and putting English audio and main titles. That's the closest you can get to an English DVD. Nineteen Eighty Four 1984 repack DVB Divx-J&S.avi (Info)