The Screening Room

In My Blueberry Nights Dallas' Norah Jones plays Elizabeth, a heartbroken traveler with a taste for blueberry pie. Audiences might have a hard time figuring out what makes the character tick. At first, so did the star.

If you missed the great animated film Persepolis and subtitles challenge your faculties, you're in luck. A dubbed version is rolling into theaters this weekend. I'm not sure if this sublime look at growing up in the Iran and Europe of the '70s and '80s would have made my Top Ten in a dubbed version - dubbed foreign films make my skin crawl - but hey, different strokes.

Beware if you have a chimp in your movie: PETA is watching. In the last week I've received two E-blasts from the animal rights organization, one concerning the new documentary Circus Rosaire (just played at AFI-Dallas; check the earlier post here), the other condemning the upcoming adaptation of the anime TV icon Speed Racer (which I'm tempted to condemn just because of its live-action format, but I digress).

Keep reading for the full text of PETA's Speed lament.

So on Saturday I moderated an AFI Dallas panel at the Nasher with the esoteric title "Listening to the Crowd: How Much Does the Audience Influence the Artist's Voice?"
My co-panelists were Michael Addis, who made the documentary Heckler; Jewel, who is featured in said documentary; and the great Dolph Lundgren, killer of Apollo Creed and the man behind the new film Missionary Man.

There were some interesting moments.

As promised, here are some more golden nuggets from the great Martin Scorsese. His latest, the Rolling Stones concert movie Shine a Light, opens today.

The star of the AFI Dallas International Film Festival Wednesday night at the Magnolia was not an actor, or a filmmaker, or even a person. It was a chimpanzee named Rickey.

Here's something wacky: a non-AFI blog item. I just got back from talking to one of my favorite actors, Chiwetel Ejiofor. He's exuded intelligence and range in Dirty Pretty Things, Talk to Me and American Gangster, among others, and now he's in David Mamet's upcoming Jiu-Jitsu film, Redbelt. The strongest impression from a 30-minute chat: This is a very international dude.

Has it really been 20 years since Public Enemy was the most incendiary and relevant thing in pop music? Damn you, old age. But you can relive the glory days, kind of, with the documentary Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome. It shows tonight at 7:15 at the Angelika, and Chuck D is slated for a red carpet walk earlier in the evening at North Park. Chuck will also rock Ghost Bar after the movie with PE's prime provocateur, Professor Griff, and DJ Lord. (Where's Terminator X at?).

As for the film, I wanted a little more. The interviews are candid enough, but I wanted to be picked and put back down in the late '80s/early '90s Fear of a Black Planet days. The live footage is mostly from the last few years, well after PE's heyday, and the editing is pretty pedestrian. Still, this is PE, and I'll be raising my fist tonight in the presence of the great Chuck. Too black. Too strong.

Just hung out with Alex Gibney, who has become a major stud in the documentary world. His Taxi to the Dark Side won the doc Oscar this year, and his new film, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson, plays AFI Dallas at 7:30 tonight and 12:15 Saturday at the Magnolia.

Among the surprising interview subjects in the film is Pat Buchanan, a Nixon man whom Thompson met covering politics for Rolling Stone (read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, if you haven't). Gibney told me Buchanan originally declined to participate in the film, but changed his mind when the filmmaker reminded him that the great Gonzo's work spoke to folks of all political stripes and ideologies. (Apparently Thompson and Buchanan were known to knock back a beer or ten together).

Gonzo will be released by Marc Cuban and Todd Wagner's HDNet Films later this year.

AFI Dallas is ready to roll through April 6 and we'll be all over it like Jerry Jones on Darren McFadden. Peep our preview of the many small town Texas films on display here. Stevie Becker will be covering the opening night festivities at guidelive.com (I'll be reviewing Chris Rock. Very stoked). Check The Screening Room every day for news, reviews and all the AFI you can handle.

Chris Cooper, who can be seen in the new film Married Life, is a Kansas City native. But his people come from Texas. "I'm the only one that's not from Texas, going back generation to generation on both sides of my family," he told me recently.

It seems his great-great grandfather once had a chance to get in on the ground floor of a fledgling city called Dallas. But it didn't quite work out.

As promised, here's a little more on my Martin Scorsese interview Saturday. We talked mostly about his new Stones movie, Shine a Light, which opens April 4. If you're a fan of Scorsese's music flicks, this one is more of a Last Waltz-style concert movie than a No Direction Home study of Dylan.

Near the end of the interview I told him I was a fan of his doc A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies. He immediately lamented that his press schedule was causing him to miss a rep screening of Bigger Than Life, a Nicholas Ray/James Mason film that was playing up the street in New York and is featured in Personal Journey. Classic Scorsese: He's rather be watching a movie - even one that he's seen a million times - than doing anything else. Except, possibly, making a movie.

We'll have much more Marty as his film's opening date approaches.

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I somehow ended up on the Hillary e-blast list, which means I get to find out about every last campaign stop in the state. Anyway, the other day I got a message reporting that Melanie Griffith had endorsed Hillary (Woo-hoo!).The message went on to mention that "Griffith has starred in dozens of movies and won an Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Working Girl. Uh, no. She was nominated, but did not win. Then again, politicians have always been prone to exaggeration.

No. 138 with a bullet (Fox Searchlight)

So we thought it would be fun to take this year's best picture nominees and see where they rank in the all-time scheme of things. Read on for the results.

Wanna buy some deodorant? (New Line)

Are the products selling the movie? Or is the movie selling the products? Is this blog posting selling both? Does it even matter anymore?

What a tangled green web we weave.