Tyler Taormina's Ham on Rye is showing exclusively on Mubi starting January 11, 2021 in the Debuts series.Ham on Rye, the feature film debut of Long Island-native, Los Angeles-beached Tyler Taormina, is one of the strangest and most discomfiting “coming-of-age” films of recent memory. I put “coming-of-age” in quotes because, yes, ostensibly it follows children between the ages of 15 and 18 becoming Something Else, Something Bigger. But both Taormina and his film are notoriously reticent about what this Something Else entails. Ham on Rye doesn’t play any of the familiar beats of similar funny films in the John Hughes/Eighth Grade (2018) ilk. There’s no single teenager we’re asked to keep close track of. Taormina is not nailing the truth of endless grade-school dances, parties, and games of gossipy Telephone so much as swirling surrealistically around them, those unexplained rejections and evasive moves that are romanticized as part of the process of growing up,...
- 1/22/2021
- MUBI
With only six feature films to his name, four of which featured his iconic onscreen alter ego, the cinema of Jacques Tati remains an island of unique delight despite his influence on decades of filmmakers since and comparative efforts of peers from his own period (considering Marguerite Duras’ critique, now widely accepted, concerning the taken-for-granted stylistic likeness between Tati and Robert Bresson, a director whose subject matters were a bit less pleasant or comical). Without Tati and his bumbling character Monsieur Hulot, sputtering about memorably in a series of some of the most well-crafted moments of ingenious, highly organized chaos ever put to celluloid, we’d be without latter day influences, like Roy Andersson, Otar Iosseliani, several Peter Sellers characters, and even Rowan Atkinson’s similarly crafted Mr. Bean.
At the time, Tati’s obvious influences date back to the silent era, where Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin crafted the...
At the time, Tati’s obvious influences date back to the silent era, where Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin crafted the...
- 11/11/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Bob Last, producer of The Illusionist
If the story behind the genesis of the 2010 Oscar-nominated animated film The Illusionist isn’t as touching as the film itself, it’s at least as engaging. The original script for the film—which concerns the relationship between an aging magician whose art is on the brink of becoming passé and a young orphan girl who believes in the magic that he brings to her life—was penned by the late, great French filmmaker Jacques Tati (Mr. Hulot’s Holiday among other greats). Reportedly, Tati’s unproduced script was a love letter of sorts to one of his daughters. According to The Illusionist’s director Sylvain Chomet, he was made aware of the script through Tati’s sole surviving daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, and the caretakers of the Tati estate, after the 2003 premiere of Chomet’s Oscar-nominated animated feature The Triplets of Belleville. All parties...
If the story behind the genesis of the 2010 Oscar-nominated animated film The Illusionist isn’t as touching as the film itself, it’s at least as engaging. The original script for the film—which concerns the relationship between an aging magician whose art is on the brink of becoming passé and a young orphan girl who believes in the magic that he brings to her life—was penned by the late, great French filmmaker Jacques Tati (Mr. Hulot’s Holiday among other greats). Reportedly, Tati’s unproduced script was a love letter of sorts to one of his daughters. According to The Illusionist’s director Sylvain Chomet, he was made aware of the script through Tati’s sole surviving daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, and the caretakers of the Tati estate, after the 2003 premiere of Chomet’s Oscar-nominated animated feature The Triplets of Belleville. All parties...
- 4/23/2011
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
I found some good animated films in 2010, but I didn't find ten. And it's likely that only two of them are titles most moviegoers have had the chance to see. My list reflects a growing fact: Animation is no longer considered a form for children and families. In some cases it provides a way to tell stories that can scarcely be imagined in live action. The classic example is the Japanese "Grave of the Fireflies" (left), about two children growing up on their own after the Bomb fall.
The first of my best films, unlike some of the others, was primarily intended for children:
"Despicable Me"
This one begins with the truth that villains are often more fascinating than heroes, and creates a villain named Gru who freeze-dries the people ahead of him in line at Starbucks, and pops children's balloons. Although he's inspired by many a James Bond bad guy,...
The first of my best films, unlike some of the others, was primarily intended for children:
"Despicable Me"
This one begins with the truth that villains are often more fascinating than heroes, and creates a villain named Gru who freeze-dries the people ahead of him in line at Starbucks, and pops children's balloons. Although he's inspired by many a James Bond bad guy,...
- 1/3/2011
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
There's one fundamental question that always has to be asked when the subject turns to great filmmakers' "lost" scripts: why was the script lost? In the case of "The Illusionist," a script written (but never filmed) by the great French director Jacques Tati, press notes tell us that the material "was far too serious a subject for his persona and he chose to make the classic 'Playtime' instead." That's another reason why you should never doubt the instincts of a master: "Playtime" is one of the greatest movie comedies ever made, while the new film of "The Illusionist," adapted animated by the talented French cartoonist Sylvain Chomet, is a beautiful looking mess.
If that quote -- which is actually from Chomet himself -- in the press notes is true, then Tati sensed that his Monsieur Hulot character, the genial bumbler he played in his films, was all wrong for "The Illusionist.
If that quote -- which is actually from Chomet himself -- in the press notes is true, then Tati sensed that his Monsieur Hulot character, the genial bumbler he played in his films, was all wrong for "The Illusionist.
- 12/22/2010
- by Matt Singer
- ifc.com
In homage to Jacques Tati, French animator Sylvain Chomet has crafted an exquisite, gently comic and elegiac film
Seven years ago, French animator Sylvain Chomet made a pleasing intervention into the world of bland, airbrushed, computer-animated American movies with his delightful Belleville Rendezvous (aka Les Triplettes de Belleville). A crucial element in his wildly inventive film was the Tour de France, and Chomet wanted to include a clip featuring the cycling postman from his great hero Jacques Tati's Jour de fête. He wrote to the director's daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, seeking permission, and she was so impressed she not only gave him the go-ahead but also drew his attention to an unfilmed screenplay her father had written in the late 1950s. Filed in the archives as "Film Tati No 4", it was dedicated to her. Tati had abandoned what has now become The Illusionist as being too serious and personal, embarking instead on the extravagant Playtime,...
Seven years ago, French animator Sylvain Chomet made a pleasing intervention into the world of bland, airbrushed, computer-animated American movies with his delightful Belleville Rendezvous (aka Les Triplettes de Belleville). A crucial element in his wildly inventive film was the Tour de France, and Chomet wanted to include a clip featuring the cycling postman from his great hero Jacques Tati's Jour de fête. He wrote to the director's daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, seeking permission, and she was so impressed she not only gave him the go-ahead but also drew his attention to an unfilmed screenplay her father had written in the late 1950s. Filed in the archives as "Film Tati No 4", it was dedicated to her. Tati had abandoned what has now become The Illusionist as being too serious and personal, embarking instead on the extravagant Playtime,...
- 8/21/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Alors. The opening gala film at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival, The Illusionist is an animated film by Sylvain Chomet, who made The Triplets of Belleville, based on an unfilmed script or treatment or scriptment by Jacques Tati. So, rather like the Kubrick-Spielberg hybrid A.I. Artificial Intelligence, it's tempting to treat it as an artifact whose uncertain authorship is its most interesting feature. But as with the fascinating blurring of two very different sensibilities seen in the earlier science fiction fairy tale, to get too caught up in that question may result in paying insufficient attention to the object itself.
Certainly Chomet's view of the world is closer to Tati's than Spielberg's to Kubrick's. His first feature paid respectful homage to Jour de fête(and being a French visual comedy with a bicycle in a central role, how could it not?) which brought Chomet to the attention of Sophie Tatischeff,...
Certainly Chomet's view of the world is closer to Tati's than Spielberg's to Kubrick's. His first feature paid respectful homage to Jour de fête(and being a French visual comedy with a bicycle in a central role, how could it not?) which brought Chomet to the attention of Sophie Tatischeff,...
- 6/16/2010
- MUBI
After the success of Belleville Rendez-Vous, French animator Sylvain Chomet had much of Hollywood making overtures at him. So what made him decamp to Edinburgh instead?
"Scotland is very like Provence," Sylvain Chomet declares, and waits a second for the ridiculousness of what he has just said to sink in. Who wouldn't be fooled by the lavender fields of Lanarkshire, the sun-bleached hills of Kirkcaldy or the olive groves of Auchtermuchty?
Isn't Govan even a kind of Monte Carlo by the Clyde with scratchcards for roulette and Buckfast for Bordeaux? And what is a midge, if not a cicada that has yet to find its voice?
"No, no, I am serious," Chomet insists, half in outrage. "Laugh if you like, but they are very similar. The light is exactly the same as in Provence. That is, when there is light in Scotland. And I am telling you, you only get...
"Scotland is very like Provence," Sylvain Chomet declares, and waits a second for the ridiculousness of what he has just said to sink in. Who wouldn't be fooled by the lavender fields of Lanarkshire, the sun-bleached hills of Kirkcaldy or the olive groves of Auchtermuchty?
Isn't Govan even a kind of Monte Carlo by the Clyde with scratchcards for roulette and Buckfast for Bordeaux? And what is a midge, if not a cicada that has yet to find its voice?
"No, no, I am serious," Chomet insists, half in outrage. "Laugh if you like, but they are very similar. The light is exactly the same as in Provence. That is, when there is light in Scotland. And I am telling you, you only get...
- 6/10/2010
- by Fiachra Gibbons
- The Guardian - Film News
I walked into Cinema Arcades, behind our hotel, for a Cannes market screening of "The Illusionist" and saw the magically melancholy final act of Jacques Tati's career.
Tati of course was the tall Frenchman, bowing from the waist, pipe in mouth, often wearing a trench coat, pants too short, always the center of befuddlements.
If you've seen "Mr. Hulot's Holiday," you know who he was, and if you haven't, it belongs in your holding pattern.
Tati, who died in 1982, wrote the screenplay for this film, but never made it. He intended it for live action. His daughter Sophie Tatischeff still had the script, and handed it to Sylvain Chomet, who made the miraculously funny animated film "The Triplets of Belleville" (2003). He has drawn it with a lightness and beauty worthy of a older, sadder Miyazaki story. Animation suits it. Live action would overwhelm its fancy with realism.
The story...
Tati of course was the tall Frenchman, bowing from the waist, pipe in mouth, often wearing a trench coat, pants too short, always the center of befuddlements.
If you've seen "Mr. Hulot's Holiday," you know who he was, and if you haven't, it belongs in your holding pattern.
Tati, who died in 1982, wrote the screenplay for this film, but never made it. He intended it for live action. His daughter Sophie Tatischeff still had the script, and handed it to Sylvain Chomet, who made the miraculously funny animated film "The Triplets of Belleville" (2003). He has drawn it with a lightness and beauty worthy of a older, sadder Miyazaki story. Animation suits it. Live action would overwhelm its fancy with realism.
The story...
- 5/15/2010
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
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