I’ve belatedly got round to collating links to some old reviews of Metropolitan that reader Eric Burritt kindly sent in. I’ve added them to the appropriate page, but here’s a summary of all the new additions:
- Reviews of the film
- Blog posts
- Reviews of the video
- Reviews of the DVD
I also added a link to a review of The Last Days of Disco:
The Last Days of Disco is due to be released on DVD in August 2009 as part of the Criterion Collection. Here are the details of the “Director Approved Special Edition” from the Criterion website:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Whit Stillman
- Audio commentary featuring Stillman and actors Chloë Sevigny and Chris Eigeman
- Four deleted scenes with commentary by Stillman, Eigeman, and Sevigny
- Stills gallery with production notes by Stillman
- Stillman reading a chapter from The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards, his novelization of the movie
- Behind-the-scenes featurette
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: An essay by novelist David Schickler
Sounds good! Thanks to Jonathan Takagi, Larry and James for the news, and apologies for taking so long to get around to posting it.
On a (seemingly random) previous post, “zelda” points out that The Last Days of Disco on Hulu.com is currently suffering from several very poor, very brief, reviews. Look back a page or two under the ‘Reviews’ tab to see them in their dismal one- and two-star glory.
But what’s the point of having a site about a director if you can’t encourage fans to boost him up!? So head on over and write your own review of the film to encourage people to watch!
In a comment “John” kindly pointed out that you can watch Siskel and Ebert’s review of Metropolitan. Thumbs up from Ebert, down from Siskel.
Second, a recent article at National Review lists Metropolitan as number three in its Best Conservative Movies, with this from Mark Henrie (editor of the book Doomed Bourgeois in Love: Essays on the Films of Whit Stillman (US, UK):
Whit Stillman’s Oscar-nominated debut takes a red-headed outsider into the luxurious drawing rooms and debutante balls of New York’s Upper East Side elite. One character, a committed socialist, falls for the discreet charm of the urban haute bourgeoisie. Another plaintively theorizes the inevitable doom of his class. A reader of Jane Austen wonders what’s wrong with a novel’s having a virtuous heroine. And a roguish defender of standards and detachable collars delivers more sophisticated conservative one-liners than a year’s worth of Yale Party of the Right debates. With mocking affection, gentle irony, and a blizzard of witty dialogue, Stillman manages the impossible: He brings us to see what is admirable and necessary in the customs and conventions of America’s upper class.
UPDATE: Thanks to those who pointed this out: Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco were mentioned as two of the 25 “also rans” at the end of the National Review article. (15 Feb 2009)
A couple of new things for you…
First, Rebecca Tirrell Talbot has written an article on Metropolitan and Barcelona at The Curator, ‘Virtuous Fun in the Films of Whit Stillman’:
I’ll tell you candidly — I love dark, cynical, yes, even nihilistic films. The macabre side of human experience is fascinating, and there has been a strong run of artistic, bleak films lately. I propose, however, that it’s equally important to examine another side of life: experiences of virtue. Whit Stillman’s three films Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994), and Last Days of Disco (1998) show virtue as fun, not fusty.
Second, Barcelona was recently included in A.V. Club’s ‘Romance minus the schmaltz: 29 falling-in-love movies we actually believe in’:
The Spanish girls that Chris Eigeman and Taylor Nichols date in Whit Stillman’s culture-clash comedy Barcelona don’t care for the Americans’ limited sense of culture or their inadvertent imperialism, but they’re still open-minded enough to sleep with them. Yet the rigidly ethical Nichols — a firm believer in the healing power of American business — is looking for something more than just a fling, and finds it only after Eigeman gets shot, and Nichols is joined in his bedside vigil by a woman as faithful as he is. Discovering true love in the revelation of shared ideals: That’s a happy ending in Stillman-world.
Finally, I just added the trailers for Metropolitan and Barcelona from YouTube to their respective pages (the Last Days of Disco trailer has been removed from YouTube unfortunately).
I’m moving the mailing list for this site — which sends out the content of every new post on the weblog — away from Yahoo! Groups. If you want to continue receiving email updates (or start receiving them) then you’ll need to re-subscribe by going here or using this form:
Sorry for the inconvenience but it will make my life easier and hopefully the emails will look nicer too. Thanks.
Once again, Eric Burritt has been digging around in the dusty corners of the web and turned up a few old Stillman references. Here’s what’s been added to the relevant pages on the site:
The website for Ralph Lauren’s Rugby brand has a page listing five rules for how to make the most of a tuxedo, inspired by Stillman’s Metropolitan and illustrated with stills of Christopher Eigeman looking dapper.
Luxist has a post discussing the rules, including some comments from Stillman:
“When we were preparing Metropolitan there was a great two page Ralph Lauren ad running in magazines that we clipped and showed around to illustrate the style the film would aspire to.” So, in a way, Stillman notes, “Ralph Lauren influenced the film before it might have inspired Rugby.”
Eric Burritt has been digging around in the depths of the internet and come up with a few more articles on The Last Days of Disco for us:
A bit late to this one but in a comment J. Kearney points to an article Stillman wrote about how he didn’t quite get to make a film with the late Paul Newman.
Movie stars of Paul Newman’s stature carry with them not just the actual films they have accomplished but the dreams of films that might have been — hopes that, however unlikely, are extinguished only with their passing.
My Paul Newman film started in Dublin, where the brash young film publicist and distributor Ronan Glennane had fought for our film Barcelona. Rather than “take no prisoners,” Glennane’s style was to take prisoners as needed and torture them until they either recanted their aversion to the film or screamed loudly enough to attract onlookers to the cinema.
¶
Posted 05 December 2008
§
News
‡
°
