02 February, 2009

What Happened to Ashes of Time Redux? and Other Celluloid Ruminations



Back in December, UW film professor David Bordwell noted that Wai Kar Wong's director's cut of his Ashes of Time, called Ashes of Time Redux, was supposed to open here in Madison at Sundance Cinemas last Friday. Bordwell noted:

Thanks to Michael Barker of Sony Pictures Classics and Sarah Simonds and Jacob Rust of Sundance 608, Madison, Wisconsin, where Ashes of Time Redux is scheduled to open on 30 January.

When I read this a couple months back, I was excited at the prospect of seeing the film. Now, when I look at Sundance's showtimes, the film is not to be seen. Nor is it to be found in the Coming Soon listing. What happened?

I called Sundance here in Madison and got voice mail so I sent an e-mail. I shall update this post with the reply, if one is forthcoming.

****EDIT: The film opens this Friday. From Sundance:
"It opens this coming Friday with limited shows as part of our Screening Room Calendar.
Ashes of Time Redux (Dung che sai duk redux) (R) Screening Room; SUBTITLED
Fri - Sun: (11:10 AM)
Mon - Thu: (1:30 PM)"



Doug Moe had a column in the Wisconsin State Journal within the past few days in which he revealed that a new print of Werner Herzog's 1977 film Stroszek would be playing at the Wisconsin Film Festival this year. Being a Herzog fan, I am definitely going to try to catch the screening.

Not that I'm any good at prognostication, but I wouldn't be surprised if this film made it to the festival as well.



One film I am really hoping makes it to the festival this year is this one:



This is Mexican director Carlos Reygadas' latest film. I reviewed his previous work, Battle in Heaven back in 2007. Reygadas reminds me of Andrei Tarkovsky (there's an art film cliché for ya) in that his style is very slow and methodical.

Lastly, a couple tidbits:

God help us all – someone is trying to write a sequel to Blade Runner.

The British Film Institute has an exhibition which looks at the pre-production work Stanley Kubrick did for his never-made film, The Aryan Papers.

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