About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (April 20, 2011)
nOT JUST EOR DIMMER amymore Now Serving LUNCH Monday-Friday from 11:30 Eight Choices for $ 8 Fish T£cos • Filet Sliders • California Turkey Club Fried Green Tomato Sandwich • Blackened Caesar Tortellini Bolognese • Porterhouse Hibachi • Prime Rib Philly Voted Athens' Favorite Steak! THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOTES 159 E. Broad St. • <706> 369-0990 Do You Want to Stop Drinking Alcohol? • We are conducting a study on a medication for treating alcohol problems. • Participation will include five in-person assessments, including four sessions of individual outpatient treatment for alcohol problems. • There is no cost for the treatment • You will be asked to take a medication or placebo on two occasions. Call 706-542-8350 for more information. The University of Georgia AAA Airport Express, Inc. 800.354.7874 • 404.767.2000 Call for reservations www.aaaairportexpress.com New Reduced Rates = WAY i Round Trip $63 Children Under 12 Ride Free PER Paying Adult Reservations Required NEWS OF ATHENS’ CINEMA SCENE The Latest "Old" and Newest "New": A few months ago, I wrote about Olivier Assayas' marathon made-for-French-TV event Carlos, which, despite being only ambiguously cat- egorizable as a film, wound up highly placed on numerous "best films of 2010" lists. I (and a few million other people) just finished watching something that may easily be con sidered an American analogue to it: the five- part HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet and directed by Todd Haynes. The series—Haynes (I'm Not There, Far from Heaven, Velvet Goldmine) regards it as a film—adapts James M. Cain's 1941 novel, famously filmed in 1945 with Barbara Stanwyck, about a divorced woman who must fight to recondle her strength and ambition with her sexual and (espedally) maternal desires in a sodety that constantly pits those sides of her character against each other. It revisits its director's favorite territory: iconic cultural expressions of the mid- and late mid-20th century, whose sodo-political contexts (and comments) are re-examined through Haynes' decidedly postmodern but Do It!: Speaking of the divide between truly independent film and the Hollywood machine (were we doing that?), you probably want to attend the kickoff event to this year's Athens Americana music festival at Little Kings at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Apr. 27 for a screening of the documentary Do it for Johnny, which recounts the highly dedicated efforts of a small group of independent filmmakers to deliver a script about the checkered life of an acclaimed luthier to Johnny Depp—via a special com partment on the back of an electric guitar custom-built by the luthier himself. It's a heedless, fun and revealing dive into the busi ness of making movies, where those who've made it are hermetically protected from those who haven't. And the luthier, of course, is our own Scott Baxendale, who co-produced and appears in the film, and who will attend the screening. Y Not Just Bad—Bad-Assed: The folk" who have brought you the monthly Bad Movie Night at Cine for almost a year now have a special treat in store this Wedi esday, Apr. 20: Keith Vitali, the smiling, face-kicking star of No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers, will appear at a screening of the film Apr. 20 at Cinl quite intelligent and reasonably sober sensi bilities. That also happens to be well-trodden ground in cable series like "Mad Men" and "Boardwalk Empire," whose meticulous period design, classy production values and quality writing mark them as arguably Mildred Pierce's (if not Carlos') equal in "cinematic" merit. With traditional divisions between tele vision and film thus breaking down amid the ongoing technological shift that is changing the way all fixed-medium entertainment is consumed and produced, it's nice to have the opportunity to feel good about a particular example of that blurring. Mildred Pierce offers one: Haynes' co-screenwriter is Jon Raymond, whose only film credits (he's never done tele vision before) are for his collaborations with director Kelly Reichardt on the scripts of her Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy and Meek's Cutoff (the last of which we should be welcoming to Cine fairly soon). He's a strong but only recently emerged voice in American independent film; if HBO wants to hire him to write for Kate Winslet, maybe the new paradigm won't be so bad. Pass the soma and an iPhone. the screening of No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers will be graced by none other than the august personage of Keith Vitali, one of the film's stars and a true legend in the world of competitive martial arts. You know he was in Revenge of the Ninja and American Kickboxer I, right? Shut up—you're going. More at Cine: In other news, if you've been waiting to see The King's Speech until all instances but one of the word "fuck" have been excised and replaced with the word "shit" against the objections of the Oscar- winning film's Oscar-winning director and Oscar-winning star, then you're in luck: the recut, PG-13-rated version is all the assholes at The Weinstein Company are offering in the current theatrical rerelease. If not, then you might consider seeing Of Gods and Men or Into Eternity at the downtown art house instead, since those highly regarded films, as far as I know, haven't been molested in any such way. Google that sh!t Dave Marr film@flagpole.com 14 FLAGPOLE.COM -APRIL 20,2011
