To the editor:
I’d like to report on an error that appeared in my review of Charles Burnett’s Nightjohn (July 12), traceable to the Disney Channel, which produced the film. Though I reported that the film exists only on video, I discovered shortly after the review appeared that it’s available in 35-millimeter, the format it was shot in, and I happily was able to inform the Film Center in time for it to acquire and screen a print in the original, nonvideo format.
In the same review, I reported that the Disney Channel was sending free copies of the video to people requesting them, and included the appropriate phone number. The day after this number was published, the same PR person who gave me this information called back to say that because of the massive response from the Chicago area, Disney was rescinding its offer. I suppose if any lesson is to be learned, it’s that one should look a gift horse in the mouth.
Jonathan Rosenbaum Read more
Cold Fever
Beginning in Tokyo in a standard screen ratio before expanding to ‘Scope in scenic Iceland, this arresting, oddball 1995 road movie by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson–cowritten by producer Jim Stark (a longtime Jim Jarmusch associate)–is the first Icelandic feature to be released commercially in the U.S. (Nearly all of the dialogue is in English.) Strange, often funny, and occasionally beautiful, it concerns a Japanese businessman (Mystery Train’s Masotoshi Nagase) who’s planning a vacation in Hawaii until his grandfather (the late Seijun Suzuki, ace B-film auteur) persuades him to fly to Iceland during winter and travel cross-country to perform a memorial service at the spot where his parents died in an accident. His absurdist, mock-epic adventures involve both a spiritual quest and a comic travelogue–among the strangers he encounters are a murderous American couple named Jack and Jill (Fisher Stevens and Lili Taylor) and a philosophical, self-styled Icelandic cowboy (Gisli Halldorsson). Stark will introduce the screenings on Friday and Saturday at 9:45 and Sunday at 7:45. Music Box, Friday through Thursday, July 19 through 25.
–Jonathan Rosenbaum
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Photo from Cold Fever. Read more
