From Frank Miller and Will Eisner: The Spirit
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
“Corso – The Last Beat” Preview from Damien LeVeck on Vimeo.
Among the interesting people I met at Boyd 2007 was the director Gustave Reininger, a colorful character with whom I had a few drinks while we discussed Chicago politics and a number of his film projects. One of them, Corso -The Last Beat about beatnik legend Gregory Corso, is nearing release. Check out the trailer and sound off in the comments.
Saw the The Dark Knight yesterday. Heath Ledger’s performance lived up to the hype, arguably the best movie villain since Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, but Ledger made an otherwise strong cast look weak by comparison, except for Gary Oldman’s understated, just an honest cop, rendition of Commissioner Gordon.
While having the Joker as the point of origin was a nice touch, I thought that the character of Twoface, one of Batman’s major villains, might have been handled better by compacting the story and leaving a full exploration of Dent’s mad descent for the next movie in the series.
Watched No Country for Old Men last night and enjoyed Javier Bardem’s creepy portrayal the relentlessly driven professional killer, Anton Chigurh. The world-weariness of Tommy Lee Jones’ sherrif and the blue collar, good ol’ boy amateurishness of protagonist Josh Brolin only serve to highlight Bardem’s performance.

Watched this a few nights ago and found it to be quite enjoyable. Most likely because There Will Be Blood managed, as with most Daniel Day-Lewis films, to get outside the usual, formulaic, Hollywood box. Every film does not need to have a happy ending nor does every protagonist need to be a primarily sympathetic character. Sometimes clarity between good and evil is great, particularly for films on an epic scale but when the plot horizon is more down to earth then, complexity and ambiguity are more intriguing.