A long time ago, there was a movie called “The Cell“. It had Jennifer Lopez before she had kids, Vince Vaughn before he started doing dick-joke comedies, and Vincent D’Onofrio before he was on Law & Order and was only known for Full Metal Jacket. It was visually very strange, even beautiful. It was directed by Tarsem Singh—who pretentiously goes by Tarsem—and was his first feature-length film. I think the plot had something to do with being stuck in a serial killers mind but that’s not important. The visuals were really amazing. Check out the trailer at the bottom of this post.

In 2006 Tarsem made his second film “The Fall” which debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and freaked out all the distributors and got buried, never again to see the light of day. (Editor’s note: At this rate, his next film will be called “The Hill” followed by “The Poll”. I can play with vowels and consonants!) Now David Fincher and Spike Jonze have thrown their support behind it and it’s getting a limited re-release. It also helps that the lead, who was an unknown in 2006, is Lee Pace who is now much more marketable having gained success as the lead in another whimsical role: Ned the Piemaker on Pushing Daisies.

Here is the trailer:

Watch that again. And again. And again.

Damn. This movie has the same crazed, artistic cinematography as The Cell. Apparently the director shot the movie piecemeal, financing it out of his pocket and piggybacking on commercial shoots in remote locations (which is pretty punk-rock.)

Maybe this movie was ahead of its time—since 2006 we’ve had a few blockbusters that rely heavily on visuals (300, Pan’s Labyrinth, Sin City) so that could mean that America is finally ready for Tarsem.

I need to figure out what “limited release” means exactly. Why’d I move to NYC if I can’t go see movies that only play “in selected cities” (that phrase was, incidentally, the bane of my existence growing up in a small town.) Anyone know when/where this movie is showing in the city?

via WWTDD and NY Mag

The Cell trailer:

You might know Tarsem from his earlier music video work. Such as this classic:

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Justin Dickinson

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