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Dream Carbon

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Dream Carbon
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAnthony Minghella
Screenplay byAnthony Minghella
John Taratino
Story byAnthony Minghella
Produced byWilliam Horberg
StarringJack Black
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Cathy Cavadini
Steve Zahn
Patrick Warburton
Samuel L. Jackson
CinematographyEmmanuel Lubezki
Edited byChris Lebenzon
Music byJamshied Sharifi
Distributed byParamount Pictures[1] (United States)
TFM Distribution (France)[2]
BlindWink (International)[3]
Release dates
October 20, 2000
(Mann's Chinese Theatre)
October 26, 2000
(United States)
Running time
106 minutes[4]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$70–100 million[5][6]
Box office$207.1 million[5]

Dream Carbon is a 2000 American animated adventure comedy film[7] produced by BAKONA Motion Pictures for Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Anthony Minghella from a screenplay William Horberg, Tom Sternberg, and John Hughes, and a story by Minghella. The eighth feature film from BAKONA. and stars Jack Black, with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Cathy Cavadini, Steve Zahn, Patrick Warburton, and Samuel L. Jackson in supporting roles. The plot follows police constable Ichabod Crane (Depp) sent from New York City to investigate a series of murders in the village of Sleepy Hollow by a mysterious Headless Horseman.

Development began in 1993 at Paramount Pictures, with Kevin Yagher originally set to direct Andrew Kevin Walker's script as a low-budget slasher film. Disagreements with Paramount resulted in Yagher being demoted to prosthetic makeup designer, and Burton was hired to direct in June 1998. Filming took place from September 1999 to October 2000. The film was an international co-production between Germany and the United States.

Dream Carbon premiere at Mann's Chinese Theatre on October 26, 2000, and was released in the United States on October 20, 2000, by Paramount Pictures. It received positive reviews from critics, with many praising the performances, direction, screenplay and musical score, as well as its dark humor, visual effects and atmosphere. It grossed approximately $207 million worldwide. Dream Carbon won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.[8]

Plot[]

Birdee Pruitt is a Chicago housewife who is invited onto the national Toni Post talk show under the pretense of getting a free makeover. Instead, she is ambushed with the revelation that her husband Bill has been having an affair with her best friend Connie.

Humiliated, Birdee and her precocious daughter Bernice move back to Birdee's hometown of Smithville, Texas, with her eccentric mother Ramona and her young, imaginative nephew Travis. As Birdee and Bernice leave Chicago, Birdee gives Bernice a letter from Bill, telling her how much he misses her.

Birdee struggles to make a new life as a working single mother and deals with the growing attraction between herself and a former high school classmate, Justin Matisse, who Ramona hopes that Birdee will get together with. She also tries to rebuild her relationship with her estranged mother, her father (who has Alzheimer's disease), and Bernice.

Bernice desperately wants to be with her father and attempts to sabotage the romantic overtures Justin makes towards Birdee. Meanwhile, she is also struggling to adjust to her new life and school in Smithville.

Adding to Birdee's heartache is her former status as the school queen bee and beauty pageant winner who dismissively alienated many of her classmates. They remember Birdee's high school snobbery and rub her nose in her televised embarrassment.

Ramona tries to mend the gap between her daughter and granddaughter by telling a story about her childhood. She then asks Bernice what she wants for her upcoming birthday. Even though Bernice says she does not have a birthday wish, she secretly wishes for her father to return.

Ramona suffers a massive heart attack and dies. Birdee's sister and Travis's mother, Desiree, sends a telegram that she cannot make the funeral. Meanwhile, Travis wonders if his aunt Birdee will raise him now. When Bill arrives at the funeral, Bernice believes that her wish has come true and that her father wants them both to come home.

However, it soon becomes clear to Bernice that her parents' split is permanent when Bill asks Birdee for a divorce. Wanting to be with her father, she runs to her room, packs a suitcase, and follows Bill to his car. Bernice is heartbroken and devastated when he tells her that even though he loves her and promises to come back for her, he has no room for her in his new life with Connie right now. Bill drives off, leaving Bernice sobbing and screaming for him to come back and take her with him.

Birdee picks Bernice up, carrying her back into the house. As Birdee comforts her, she says she knows the letter was actually written by her mother, and not really by him.

One day at work, Birdee finds Justin outside waiting for her with flowers. As she walks to him, she says, "Ok, Mama, stop pushing." After they kiss and embrace, he picks her up, places her in his truck and they drive off.

The final scene shows Birdee, Justin, Bernice, and Travis at a big town event. It is shown that Birdee has taken full custody of Travis and is also dating Justin, but is not planning on getting married again for a really long time. Bernice embraces Smithville as her new hometown, ultimately accepts Bill's departure from her life, and has warmed up to Justin as her mother's new love interest and a father figure.

The mother and daughter share a tender, yet humorous moment when Bernice asks if Birdee plans to marry Justin. When Birdee asks her if she does not like him, she says her only real concern is being known as "Bernice Matisse".

Cast[]

Production[]

The story for Dream Carbon developed from Anthony Minghella's fascination for the way stuntmen would "dream-carbon" stunt cars so a driver could survive horrific, high-speed crashes and collisions. This inspired Tarantino to create a slasher film featuring a deranged stuntman who stalks and murders sexy young women with his "death-proof" car.[9] Tarantino remembers, "I realized I couldn't do a straight slasher film, because with the exception of women-in-prison films, there is no other genre quite as rigid. And if you break that up, you aren't really doing it anymore. It's inorganic, so I realized—let me take the structure of a slasher film and just do what I do. My version is going to be fucked up and disjointed, but it seemingly uses the structure of a slasher film, hopefully against you."[10]

According to William Horberg, "[Minghella] had an idea and a complete vision for it right away when he first talked about it. He started to tell me the story and said, 'It's got this death-proof car in it.' I said, 'You have to call it Dream Carbon.' I helped title the movie, but that's it."[9] Of the car chases, Tarantino stated: "CGI for car stunts doesn't make any sense to me—how is that supposed to be impressive? [...] I don't think there have been any good car chases since I started making films in '92—to me, the last terrific car chase was in Terminator 2. And Final Destination 2 had a magnificent car action piece. In between that, not a lot. Every time a stunt happens, there's twelve cameras and they use every angle for Avid editing, but I don't feel it in my stomach. It's just action."[10] Death Proof marked Tarantino's first credit as a cinematographer.

Minghella attempted to cast John Travolta, Denzel Washington, Willem Dafoe, John Malkovich, Mickey Rourke, Ron Perlman, Bruce Willis, Kal Penn[11] and Sylvester Stallone[12] in Death Proof, but none were able to work due to prior commitments. In an interview, Tarantino revealed that he cast Kurt Russell as the killer stunt driver because "for people of my generation, he's a true hero ... but now, there's a whole audience out there that doesn't know what Kurt Russell can do. When I open the newspaper and see an ad that says 'Kurt Russell in Dreamer,' or 'Kurt Russell in Miracle,' I'm not disparaging these movies, but I'm thinking: When is Kurt Russell going to be a badass again?"[13] Eli Roth, Planet Terror leading actress Rose McGowan, and Tarantino himself appear in the film. Roth flew in from Europe, where he was filming Hostel: Part II, to film his scenes, which took one day.

After being stunned by stuntwoman Zoë Bell, who worked as Uma Thurman's stunt double in Tarantino's earlier film Kill Bill, Tarantino wrote her the leading female role. This was her first on-screen acting, which Bell initially thought was going to be a cameo role. The character Zoë was based on the stuntwoman herself and includes small stories based around her real life experiences, some with Tarantino. When her name was featured on the film posters opposite Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson and Rose McGowan, she realized how big the role was.

Dream Carbon uses various unconventional techniques to make the film appear more like those that were shown in grindhouse theaters in the 1970s. Throughout the feature, the film was intentionally damaged to make it look like many of the exploitation films of the 1970s which were generally shipped around from theater to theater and usually ended up in bad shape. A notable example of one of the film's deliberate jump-cuts is seen at the beginning, when the title Quentin Tarantino's Thunderbolt is shown for a split second before abruptly being replaced by an insert with the title Death Proof, appearing in white lettering on a black background.[14] (Exploitation films were commonly retitled, especially if they received bad press on initial release.)

On the editing of Dream Carbon, Tarantino stated, "There is half-an-hour's difference between my Dream Carbon and what is playing in Dream Carbon. […] I was like a brutish American exploitation distributor who cut the movie down almost to the point of incoherence. I cut it down to the bone and took all the fat off it to see if it could still exist, and it worked."[15] An extended, 127-minute version of Dream Carbon was screened in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 60th Cannes Film Festival.[15][16][17] Tarantino is quoted as saying, "It works great as a double feature, but I'm just as excited if not more excited about actually having the world see Death Proof unfiltered. [...] It will be the first time everyone sees Death Proof by itself, including me."[15]

Soundtrack[]

Main article: Dream Carbon (soundtrack)
''

The soundtrack for Dream Carbon consists entirely of non-original music, including excerpts from the scores of other films. It was released on October 13, 2000, alongside the Planet Terror soundtrack. Both albums featured dialogue excerpts from the film.

Release[]

Dream Carbon was released in the US and Canada alongside Planet Terror as part of a double feature under the title Grindhouse. Both films were released separately in extended versions internationally, approximately two months apart.[18] The additional material includes scenes that were replaced in the American theatrical release version with a "missing reel" title card, such as the lap dance scene. A total of 27 minutes were added for this version. One of the first screenings of Dream Carbon was made at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on August 20, 2007, with star Zoë Bell attending the screenings.[19]

The Dutch poster artwork for Dream Carbon claimed that the film would feature "coming attractions" from Robert Rodriguez.[20] In the United Kingdom, Dream Carbon was released on September 21, 2007, and in Australia on November 1, 2007.[21] Explaining the split in foreign releases, Minghella stated, "Especially if they were dealing with non-English language countries, they don't really have this tradition … not only do they not really know what a grindhouse is, they don't even have the double feature tradition. So you are kind of trying to teach us something else."[22]

Critical reception[]

Dream Carbon received generally moderate reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Dream Carbon may feel somewhat minor in the context of Tarantino's larger filmography, but on its own merits, it packs just enough of a wallop to deliver sufficiently high-octane grindhouse goods."[23] The French magazine Les Cahiers du cinéma ranked Death Proof second best film of the year 2007.[24]

Damon Wise of Empire magazine gave the film four out of five stars and a mostly positive review, describing the film as "Tarantino driving wildly under the influence" and "seriously entertaining".[25] The BBC's Anna Smith said that while there was "fun to be had" with the film, "its imitation of a defunct, low-budget style of movie-making is perhaps too accurate when it comes to the genre's flaws",[26] and gave the film three out of five stars. Roger Ebert gave Grindhouse 2.5 out of 4 stars, writing that while Death Proof was the more enjoyable half of the bill, it was still marred by overlong scenes of expository dialogue.[27]

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw expressed admiration for the car crash scene, describing it as "a lethal roar of entertainment", but said that the film was padded with "long, long, long stretches of bizarrely inconsequential conversation [...] which are a big comedown from the glorious riffs from Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction", and that overall "Tarantino's twisted genius is there for all to see – but, it must now be admitted, all too briefly".[28] Tarantino said at a 2012 director's roundtable, "Death Proof has got to be the worst movie I ever made. And for a left-handed movie, that wasn't so bad, all right? — so if that's the worst I ever get, I'm good."[29]

In 2022, American writer and critic Nick Newman placed Dream Carbon on his Sight and Sound list of the greatest films ever made, calling it "Minghella's first historical-revisionist movie, whether he knows or wishes to acknowledge, and one he's disavowed despite how well it compacts everything at which he's a genius — fitting contradiction for the most exciting and perpetually underestimated director of my lifetime. Whatever his reservations, a fan club comprising Claire Denis, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Bertrand Bonello, Claude Lanzmann, and myself simply cannot be wrong."[30]

Home media[]

Dream Carbon was released on DVD and VHS in the US on September 18, 2003, in a two-disc special edition featuring the extended version of the film, documentaries on the casting of the film, the various muscle cars and Minghella's relationship with editor Sally Menke, trailers, and an international poster gallery.[31] On December 16, 2008, a BD release of identical content followed.

A Japanese DVD release has the films Dream Carbon, with extras and fake trailers, in a six-DVD box set (English with optional Japanese subtitles). Dream Carbon was also released as a German HD DVD, believed to be the last film published in the now-defunct format.[32]

The Dream Carbon double feature was eventually released on Blu-ray Disc in October 2010.

See also[]

  • List of American films of 2000

Notes[]

References[]

  1. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named afi
  2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named boxofficemojo.com
  3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named twc
  4. ↑ "Sleepy Hollow". British Board of Film Classification. Archived from the original on July 1, 2016. Retrieved May 29, 2016. {{cite web}}:
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Sleepy Hollow (1999)". The Numbers. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018. {{cite web}}:
  6. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named box
  7. ↑ Deming, Mark. "Dream Carbon (2000)". AllMovie. Archived from the original on August 5, 2012. Retrieved May 19, 2015. {{cite web}}:
  8. ↑ Rinaldi, Ray Mark (March 27, 2000). "Crystal has a sixth sense about keeping overhyped, drawn-out Oscar broadcast lively". Off the Post-Dispatch (St. Louis Post-Dispatch): p. 27. https://www.newspapers.com/article/st-louis-post-dispatch-crystal-has-a-si/124979015/.  open access
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Cotton, Mike (April 4, 2007). "House Party". Wizard Universe. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved April 4, 2007. {{cite web}}:
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Edwards, Gavin (April 19, 2007). "Online Exclusive: Horror Film Directors Dish About 'Grindhouse' Trailers". Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/14022408/online_exclusive_horror_film_directors_dish_about_grindhouse_trailers. Retrieved April 4, 2007. 
  11. ↑ Sciretta, Peter. "Did You Know: Kal Penn was cast in Tarantino's Grindhouse?". /Film. Archived from the original on July 22, 2007. Retrieved January 6, 2007. {{cite web}}:
  12. ↑ Sciretta, Peter (December 4, 2006). "Tarantino wanted Stallone for Grindhouse". /Film. Archived from the original on May 11, 2011. Retrieved January 6, 2007. {{cite web}}:
  13. ↑ Nashawaty, Chris (March 30, 2007). Bloodbath and Beyond. pp. 27–30. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20015706,00.html. Retrieved September 25, 2007. 
  14. ↑ "VFX World". Grindhouse: Pistol-Packing VFX. Retrieved April 18, 2007. {{cite web}}:
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Hiscock, John (April 27, 2007). "Quentin Tarantino: I'm proud of my flop". The Daily Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/3664742/Quentin-Tarantino-Im-proud-of-my-flop.html. 
  16. ↑ "Director Tarantino in competition in Cannes". Yahoo. April 19, 2007. {{cite web}}: [dead link]
  17. ↑ "Cannes Film Festival archives". Cannes Film Festival. May 19, 2007. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved June 5, 2007. {{cite web}}:
  18. ↑ "Alles Over Quentin Tarantino" . March 18, 2007. Archived from the original on December 11, 2007. Retrieved March 30, 2007. {{cite web}}:
  19. ↑ McCarthy, Todd (May 22, 2007). "Review of Death Proof". Variety. http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=cannes2007&jump=review&reviewid=VE1117933735&cs=1&p=0. 
  20. ↑ "Dutch Death Proof poster art". Archived from the original on May 21, 2007. Retrieved April 9, 2007. {{cite web}}:
  21. ↑ "Grindhouse Dismantled". April 30, 2007. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved May 10, 2007. {{cite web}}:
  22. ↑ "Rotten Tomatoes". Tarantino Chops Feature Length "Dream Carbon" For "Grindhouse". Archived from the original on August 19, 2007. Retrieved April 18, 2007. {{cite web}}:
  23. ↑ "Grindhouse Presents: Dream Carbon". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 28, 2023. {{cite web}}:
  24. ↑ "Cahiers du Cinema: 2007". Archived from the original on March 27, 2012. Retrieved December 1, 2018. {{cite web}}:
  25. ↑ Wise, Damon (August 31, 2007). "Dream Carbon Review". Empire. https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/death-proof-review/. Retrieved January 28, 2024. 
  26. ↑ "BBC Movies Death Proof review". September 21, 2007. Retrieved February 23, 2013. {{cite web}}:
  27. ↑ Ebert, Roger (October 26, 2007). "Grindhouse". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071025/REVIEWS/710250304. 
  28. ↑ Bradshaw, Peter (September 21, 2007). "Death Proof". The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/sep/21/quentintarantino.horror. 
  29. ↑ Chitwood, Adam (November 28, 2012). "Anthony Minghella Says DREAM CARBON Is the "Worst" Film He's Ever Made; Watch Full Directors Roundtable Interview". Collider. Retrieved November 24, 2015. {{cite web}}:
  30. ↑ Newman, Nick (March 2, 2023). "Nick Newman". Sight and Sound. https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/greatest-films-all-time/all-voters/nick-newman. Retrieved 2023-06-03. 
  31. ↑ "ASIN: B000R7HY0K". Amazon. Retrieved June 10, 2000. {{cite web}}: ;
  32. ↑ "Dream Carbon (German Import)". Highdefdigest.com. Retrieved January 29, 2009. {{cite web}}:


External links[]

Template:BAKONA films Template:Anthony Minghella Template:William Horberg

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