SARAH JESSICA PARKER says she's not a slave to fashion like her "Sex and the City" character Carrie Bradshaw.

"I am a mother, wife and working woman in the first place, clothes do not play such a big role in my life than they do in Carrie's," the 43-year-old actress told The Associated Press after the Berlin premiere of her upcoming film based on the popular HBO series.

"And there is no favorite designer or accessory as there is Manolo Blahnik for Carrie — there are so many talented and exciting designers, I could not possibly choose one favorite," Parker said Friday, sporting a white petticoat with a black girdle and black stiletto heels.

The Berlin premiere came as part of a whirlwind courtship of Europe where the TV series, which ran from 1998 to 2004, still has an enthusiastic fan base.

Joining Parker on the red carpet Thursday night were co-stars Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis.

Continue Reading "Sarah Jessica Parker Says She's No Slave to Fashion" »

ANDREW ADAMSON, the director of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," learned a key piece of knowledge from that blockbuster film: "Never do it again."

But here he is, three years later, on the eve of his next impeding "Narnia" blockbuster, "Prince Caspian." He said, laughing, that he had to "put that aside."

The lesson he did apply to this sequel was to make Narnia more of a player in the film. Adamson went back to some classic films, like "Lawrence of Arabia," and looked for what made those films so epic. The biggest key for him was the expansive wide shots.

He coupled that with fewer computer generated environments, instead choosing to construct some giant sets, from a town to a 60-meter-tall castle, which freed up his ability to direct without the constraints of the computer.

"There was a lot I wanted to do more in the camera," Adamson said. "So, when I was shooting, I wasn't thinking about, 'Oh, if I look that way, I'm going to spend $10,000.'"

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FOR FILM CRITIC JAY CARR, the news that Tom Cruise would assume the role of co-head of United Artists in 2006 meant the studio had come full circle.

It was founded in the late 1910s by three superstars of silent film — Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin — who bemoaned the studio system's disregarding treatment of actors.

"In the beginning," says Carr, "United Artists really was a case of united artists."

Promoting independent and adventurous filmmaking for nearly a century, the studio is celebrating its 90th anniversary with film festivals in cities across the country as a lead-up to the massive 90-title United Artists 90th Anniversary Prestige Collection in December.

"You're going to need a forklift to move it," laughs Carr, who serves as the national spokesman for the festival.

The AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring is presenting seven classic United Artists films through early July.

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DAVID LYNCH is a weird one for DVDs.

While most filmmakers cram their releases with bonus features, Lynch values mystery. Occasionally, he throws in a making-of or a trailer, but he generally disdains commentary tracks. "Mulholland Drive" even lacked scene selection, forcing viewers to watch the film in order.

That a new edition of his 1997 creepfest "Lost Highway" comes with no special features is neither surprising nor disappointing. (There is scene selection, which shouldn't be taken for granted, and interactive menus.) All you need, Lynch insists, is the movie itself.

In the case of "Lost Highway," that's saying a lot. Upon its release, the movie was largely dismissed by critics as being too opaque and mannered, with split characters and an impenetrable storyline that doubles back on itself and eat its tail.

Continue Reading "Taking the Long Way: David Lynch's Cinematic Puzzles" »

THE LEGEND OF FAUST goes back 600 years, and it's been the subject of many dramatizations. "La Leggenda di Faust" is a 1948 Italian cinematic take on the tale, directed by Carmine Gallone, a man whose career stretched back to the advent of his country's film industry.

In other words, lotsa old-school stuff to consider tonight during the 87-minute, 35mm screening of "Faust and the Devil" (the American title) at the Pickford Theater.

While we couldn't find a trailer for Gallone's version of Faust, we did stumble upon this cool clip from the famous 1926 German version by director F.W. Murnau, edited to new music by Roberto Fiore (the composer, not the neo-fascist politician).

» Mary Pickford Theater, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. SE; Tue., free, 7 p.m.; 202-707-5677. (Capitol South)

YOUNG FILMMAKER AND screenwriter Harmony Korine has established himself as a grunge visionary with his films "Gummo" and "Julien Donkey-Boy." Cherished by art-house audiences but often leaving critics aghast, Korine's work has set itself up as antithetical to traditional notions of cinematic pleasure: pretty people, happy endings, moral redemption, plot.

It's a shame if audiences reject Korine's latest film out of hand on the assumption that it's as gristly a chew as "Gummo." "Mister Lonely" stars Diego Luna as a Michael Jackson impersonator hardly getting by in Paris. He meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) who tells him about a commune for their kind in the wilds of Scotland, where people who "live as," as the script delicately puts it, the famous can be free.

In between, a group of nuns in the South American jungle, under the tutelage of Werner Herzog — bear with us — attempt to jump out of airplanes, aloft on faith alone.

Korine found the image in his mind and it stayed. "I liked the image," he says. "I thought it was a test of faith."

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IT'S BEEN NEARLY 20 years since the last "Indiana Jones" movie hit theaters. That's a long time to wait for a follow-up, but the fourth installment, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," is due out later this month. To commemorate the resurrection of the franchise, Paramount is releasing all three movies in a three-disc "Adventure Collection."

But it's been only five years since the studio released its previous collection of these films, with more in-depth documentaries and exhaustive features. In fact, the "Adventure Collection" will soon be obsolete: When "Crystal Skull" arrives on DVD, there will surely be a new and more thorough set of the quadrilogy.

As a result, the set feels more like a marketing endeavor than a cinematic one. Still, the new interviews with cast and crew (including, curiously, actors in the new film) reveal new trivia for die-hard fans, and short, informative documentaries re-create the movie's pre-CGI special effects. Toht's melting face in "Raiders"? Yarn and gelatin.

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ENTERTAINMENT MOGUL SUMNER REDSTONE said Tuesday he has no objection to Tom Cruise starring in the next segment of the popular "Mission Impossible" movie series, despite cutting his relationship with the actor in 2006.

Redstone — executive chairman and controlling shareholder of Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp. — ended a 14-year relationship with Cruise and his producing partner in August 2006, kicking them off the Paramount Pictures lot and ending their lucrative deal to develop projects for the studio.

Despite the severed relationship, Cruise, 45, is in talks with Paramount to star in a fourth "Mission: Impossible" film. Viacom is Paramount's parent company.

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POUR YOURSELF A BOWL of sugary cereal, get your feety pajamas on and settle in for "Hiya, Kids!! A '50s Saturday Morning" (Shout! Factory), a four-DVD set collecting 10 hours of children's programming from TV's early years.

Several of these shows, like "Lassie" and the long-running "Howdy Doody," will be familiar to even the youngest viewers, but others were popular only at the time and have since languished in obscurity.

Dr. Frances R. Horwich hosts "Ding Dong School" with gentle grandmotherly authority, and "Winky Dink and You" was an early interactive show, allowing children to participate with their own Winky Dink coloring kit. It's doubtful either show inspired its own lunchbox.

Rather than present these shows in dry chronological order, "Hiya, Kids!" organizes them as four blocks of programming, with each DVD representing a different Saturday morning. Younger children wake up early for puppet shows like the still-weird "Kukla, Fran & Ollie" and the zany "Time for Beany," which featured clowns, live audiences, and not much in the way of a plot.

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ADMIT IT: You've been so busy wonking out over the primaries that you forgot about Filmfest D.C. Sure, "Politics & Film" is one of this year's themes, but why not try something different for the fest's final weekend?

"Timecrimes" (Spain) gives us a man who, after spying on a naked girl in the woods and being attacked by a bandaged assailant, is then tricked into traveling back in time 90 minutes — whereupon he sees his past self spying on the girl. Paradox (not hilarity) ensues.

Call it "Rear Window" meets "12 Monkeys" but with a lower budget and some dark laughs. An English-language remake deal's already been signed, so see it before Hollywood screws it up.

Continue Reading "Politics, Film and Froth: Filmfest DC" »