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1. SL Xpress said:

   April 4th, 2009 at 10:54 am

   The Ninth Configuration
   The Apostle

   I liked “Luther” as well, although that’s kind of cheating, since it’s about Martin Luther. I might think of some others in a little bit.

   I don’t know what the heck Werner Herzog is doing working with Nicholas Cage. That dude is one bad actor.

   I’ll watch it.

2. Parlin Hall said:

   April 4th, 2009 at 11:31 am

   If you can warm up to early films, TTR, here are a couple titles dealing with grace that might be of interest:

   “Sunrise” (Murnau, 1927)
   “The Last Command” (von Sternberg, 1928)

   Here’s a French film from the sound era very worth seeing:

   “Diary of a Country Priest” (”Journal d’un curé de campagne”) (Bresson, 1951)

   And the pièce de résistance, complete with Odetta on the soundtrack:

   “The Gospel According to Matthew” (”Il Vangelo secondo Matteo”) (Pasolini, 1964)

3. mm said:

   April 4th, 2009 at 11:47 am

   I think my hatred of Cage might outweigh my love of Herzog.

4. Scipio Tex said:

   April 4th, 2009 at 12:12 pm

   Harvey Keitel’s weiner reimagined. Would have loved to have seen that pitch.

   The constant remakes and spinoffs demonstrate just how creatively bankrupt Hollywood is. I’m eagerly awaiting the reimagining of Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane, & Bridge Over The River Kwai.

   Agree with SLX on The Apostle. That’s a really powerful film.

   I’m also a fan of Joe vs. The Volcano, though you have to look a little harder for the redemptive themes. I actually believe Joe vs the Volcano is a work of genius, placing me in a minority of approximately three.

   Props to Life of Brian as well.

5. the Bobs said:

   April 4th, 2009 at 12:46 pm

   “I have no response to that.”

   other than… maybe a minority of four.

6. the Bobs said:

   April 4th, 2009 at 12:47 pm

   also… you can’t talk about movie redemption without ‘Places in the Heart’.

7. Soldier of Orange said:

   April 4th, 2009 at 1:26 pm

   Two nice films dealing with rogues who are redeemed by the innocence and naivte’ of the children with whom they come in contact:

   “Whistle Down the Wind”

   “A High Wind in Jamaica”

8. Turn the page, Fred said:

   April 4th, 2009 at 1:48 pm

   Is it true that Nick Cage will be wearing a merkin?

9. BEHorn said:

   April 4th, 2009 at 3:03 pm

   “The constant remakes and spinoffs demonstrate just how creatively bankrupt Hollywood is.” Not really. Much more, an expression of the need to reduce risk as much as possible in the face of very high production and (especially) marketing costs, coupled with reduced audience interest in truly independent film.

10. TaylorTRoom said:

    April 4th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

    But how does having a Euro auteur remake a low-budget cult film reduce risk?

    The thing about this remake that gets me is that the chances of it being better than the first one have got to be very, very small (especially since Keitel was so amazing). Since Herzog has been so dismissive of Ferrara (he said he never saw the first version, and has never heard of Ferrara), it will be hilarious if it flops.

11. srr50 said:

    April 4th, 2009 at 3:17 pm

    The thing about this remake that gets me is that the chances of it being better than the first one have got to be very, very small

    Why would you think that Taylor? Just because a director with an ego the size of the Grand Canyon wants to make a nihilistic version of a film that effectively takes on the issues of depravity, grace and redemption?

    Gee I don’t see how it can fail.

12. Magic Soccer Spray said:

    April 4th, 2009 at 3:30 pm

    “”Two nice films dealing with rogues who are redeemed by the innocence and naivte’ of the children with whom they come in contact:

    “Whistle Down the Wind”

    “A High Wind in Jamaica””

    What about “The Professional”?

13. Where's the foetus going to gestate? said:

    April 4th, 2009 at 4:43 pm

    In a box?

14. chitwood said:

    April 4th, 2009 at 7:15 pm

    The concept of redemption doesn’t require christian spirituality.

15. 8straight said:

    April 4th, 2009 at 7:45 pm

    “The concept of redemption doesn’t require Christian spirituality”
    Maybe I missed it but I don’t think anyone says it does. I guess it depends on what scale of redemption you are talking about. It seems to me that the redemption for the whole human race would rate fairly high on the list. Happy Holy Week.

    I get my weekly Keitel fix with “Life On Mars”.

16. Texoz said:

    April 4th, 2009 at 7:45 pm

    ““The constant remakes and spinoffs demonstrate just how creatively bankrupt Hollywood is.” Not really. Much more, an expression of the need to reduce risk as much as possible in the face of very high production and (especially) marketing costs, coupled with reduced audience interest in truly independent film.”

    You’re wrong about the audience losing interest in the indie film. It’s the studios that have lost their balls and their ability to formulate a business model that fits the indie market.

    Right now, I see the film biz like the music biz was back in the late 1990s when Napster came along and showed the music peeps just how technologically stunted they were. I see the studios in the same boat now.

    There’s a market for indie films, but the studios aren’t smart enough to realize it’s moved from the theater to the internet (or ppv). Mostly due to the studios demanding more screens for their “blockbusters.”

    Websites like B-side, Hulu and iTunes are the future of 1st run indie films.

    I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned on my TV, flipped through about 100 channels, including HBO and Showtime, and wondered, “How the fuck can there be so many channels, but so little decent programming?”

    I speak from personal experience by the way. I work in the biz on both indie and blockbuster projects (as an accountant). I worked on a local Austin project, “Elvis & Anabelle.” That film was tested 3 different times here and did very well. I had a friend who took his 16-year-old daughter & her friend and they loved it. That’s a big demographic spread, 40s male and two Hannah Montana teens. That was almost two years ago.

    Supposedly, Miramax is going to distribute it, but I haven’t seen anything yet to indicate if or when that’s going to happen.

    Keep in mind that the lead actress, Blake Lively, has been all over the magazine covers the last 6 months due to her TV series, “Gossip Girl.”

    Sorry the long post, but American cinema has been on the decline over the last 10 years and a big part of that blame goes to the studios. They’ve created a blockbuster mentality that has suffocated the most creative element of the Hollywood machine, the indie films.

    Hopefully, this will change in the next few years when transmission rates improve and downloading 1st run films becomes easier and more widespread. Good indie films will find and audience and a way to become financially feasible again.

17. chitwood said:

    April 4th, 2009 at 8:19 pm

    From the original post:
    “This movie does the best job of expressing a Christian spirituality than any I’ve seen besides “Tender Mercies””

    That said, you are right, it doesn’t actually say redemption requires christian spirituality. I may have read more into it than was intended.

18. chitwood said:

    April 4th, 2009 at 8:24 pm

    Upon further review, I withdraw the original comment. I overanalyzed the original post. Blame it on the wine, and an annoyance with certain inlaws asking the pointed question of where we plan on attending Easter services, when they know full well the answer to that question is nowhere.

19. scagnetti said:

    April 4th, 2009 at 10:43 pm

    Word texoz.

    I’m an indie filmmaker as well. I hear the studios’ death rattle.

    But I love me some herzog. And I’ve never seen the original. Wonder if I should at this point.

    Hook ‘em

20. dedfischer said:

    April 5th, 2009 at 5:11 am

    I’m patiently awaiting a remake of “Can’t Stop the Music”. Steve Guttenberg was genius and I’m just not sure it’s possible to re-create the chemistry between Valerie Perrine and Bruce Jenner. The parallelism between the Guttenberg/Jenner roles and the Scipio/Sailor roles here at BC are almost frightening.

21. TaylorTRoom said:

    April 5th, 2009 at 5:12 am

    Chitwood, I started to write what you initially thought I did (about Christian redemption), but stopped when I realized I didn’t know enough about other theologies or belief systems to state that. However, the redemption in “Bad Lieutenant” is very much a Christian-themed redemption. Spoiler below:

    Keitel finds the guys who raped the nun. Instead of arresting them, he gives them the money that could buy his life from the mob, and sends them away. They had expressed no remorse or shame for what they had done. As he had earlier pointed out to the nun, they can go and hurt other women in the future. He willingly surrenders his life, for people who don’t deserve it, and who will almost certainly waste the opportunity given them. Somehow, the movie works. I don’t see how a humanist version can work without being another cookie-cutter movie about a down-and-out-but-good-at-heart cop pulling it together to solve a crime and discover he still has good in him (the kind of role Nick Nolte has made a career of).

22. chitwood said:

    April 5th, 2009 at 6:32 am

    Thanks, Taylor. I had been meaning to see that movie (the original), but had never got to it. I will try and see it in the near future.

23. Facebook User said:

    April 5th, 2009 at 7:34 am

    At the risk of recommending something you have already read, I did really enjoy this book:

    Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

    It deals with a great time period in cinema when studios would just greenlight a movie like Harold and Maude after a quick meeting. Love Hal Ashby.

    Then Spielberg came along with that fucking shark and ruined everything!

24. glenn said:

    April 5th, 2009 at 7:58 am

    i don’t know about the movie, but the book ‘the loved one’ is required reading for anyone who once two understand the problem with socal and its holey wood.

25. Facebook User said:

    April 5th, 2009 at 8:09 am

    Evelyn Waugh is great but I feel like that book mines a different vein than the one we’re hitting here.

26. Nero said:

    April 5th, 2009 at 9:12 am

    You just don’t see these conversations on texags.

    Tangent – Does anybody else think GIANT would have been a much better movie if it had ended right after the crying scene in the ballroom?

27. Woody Bombay said:

    April 5th, 2009 at 9:29 am

    “There’s a market for indie films, but the studios aren’t smart enough to realize it’s moved from the theater to the internet (or ppv).”

    This is changing, albeit slowly. Every week, Comcast (otherwise a collection of evil bastards) adds a couple of first-run or simultaneous-release indie films to its On Demand service.

    “Simultaneous release.” Heh. That’s what she said.

28. Catcher in the raw said:

    April 6th, 2009 at 12:14 pm

    Americans aren’t your most sophisticated movie goers. They tend to fall asleep when there are many plots and sub-plots. I saw the film. Impressive.

29. Kafka said:

    April 6th, 2009 at 1:25 pm

    Some non religious redemption movies that I really liked:

    Groundhog Day: Bill Murray
    Defending Your Life: Albert Brooks
    Accidental Tourist: William Hurt

30. ter switty said:

    April 8th, 2009 at 2:03 pm

    Just about everything that comes out of Hollywood nowadays is a real snooze. Doesn’t matter if there’s one plot, two plots, sub-lots or multi-plots. Most of it is unimaginative, uninspiring, lacks creativity and originality. They pay all of their screenwriters big bucks and all you get is maybe one good movie every other year. I don’t care who the actors are. Big names don’t matter. A film will do well based on the content, regardless. I prefer unknown actors, anyway, more realistic and true to the story line.

31. Lance F said:

    April 8th, 2009 at 2:06 pm

    Very true. Have you ever seen Tom Cruise act? Its Tom Cruise acting! He’s not a very realistic actor. Its all that press he gets that ruins the characters he portrays. Maybe that’s the problem.

32. Facebook User said:

    April 8th, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    TC IN TT

33. TaylorTRoom said:

    April 21st, 2009 at 9:08 am

    Herzog gives an interview (does anybody else hear the German director from “Entourage” when reading that?). He says he took Cage where he’s never gone before. Where is that? Understated acting?

    http://www.timeout.com/film/features/show-feature/7347/werner-herzog-interview.html

34. TaylorTRoom said:

    May 27th, 2009 at 7:09 pm

    New “Bad Lieutenant” trailer…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxB0yXfpQZ8&feature=channel_page

    Looks kind of like a doped up Dirty Harry. here’s the original for compariaon…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFvGeMDW7bw&feature=related

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