Farewell, dear readers! Orson’s Well remains here for your pleasure, but we will not be adding to its bounty.

Should you be curious about the Wellesians’ further exploits you can find Joe at Junior Brain, JB at JBCooper and The Telegraph, and Thom at heartsbreakingeven.

It’s been a bad year, but we did our best…

127 Showers, The King’s Reach, Season of the Itch, Assland, I Emit on Your Grave, The Disgustment Bureau, The Insatiable Poon, Bare Game, Lord of the Lance 3D, Norwegian Wood, Pussy in Boots

Fulfilling Bono, Sucker Munch, Old Fish, Fucking with Stella, Little White Prize, How I Distended This Summer, Daughter for Elephants, Deep End, Forget My Clot, A Screaming Man, My Week in Marilyn

Attack the Cock, Pirates of the Caribbean Sores: On Stranger Brides, Julia’s Cries, Sex-Men: First Pass, Screwed, Tongue Fu: Panda’s Goo, Bean Lantern, Ache Land, The Cum Diary, Wuthering Nights, Runnyballs

Merry Christmas, again.

A bit of of a back-slap, this, but I think it’ll be interest to anyone who happens across this blog looking for our late sponsor.

I’ve just edited a book, available now from Amberley Publishing, in which the estimable and gentlemanly Alan Gallop tells the full story of the big man’s notorious Halloween ‘38 broadcast of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds. It’s great fun – I’ve rattled through it a few times, obviously – and paints a believable picture of New Deal New York, and all those bold theatrical folk (incl. John Houseman and Marc Blitzstein) making experimental (& often Government-subsidised) drama for a mass audience.

I just came across this old shot and wondered if I might take the opportunity to pioneer a new critical form… All contributions welcome; the parameters are self-evident.

Alexander Jacoby reviews Tino Balio’s The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens 1946–1973 in the TLS, 18/02/11:

One distinguished British import of the early post-war era was released with the tag line “A horrifying spectre stalks the great stone battlements of the ancient castle. Its one command is … kill … kill … KILL!” The film in question was Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet.

Hopefully one of Orson’s other minions will step in to complete this Top 10. Here’s my half of it, anyway – the best of 2010. (Mea culpa: living with only an Apollo in walking distance, I had precious little to go on this year, hence the rather suspect idea that the following could be claimed as the ‘best’ examples of anything. The Apollo only showed one, by the way – guess which.)

5. Exit through the Gift Shop (dir. Banksy). Misunderstood, I think, by an embarrassment of eminent critics, this fun-but-harsh mockumentary is another of Banksy’s occasional assaults on the absurdities of the arts establishment – but what makes it great is that instead of standing heroically apart from the horror, he includes himself as one of the age’s worst offenders. Banksy is Thierry Guetta.

4. The Kreutzer Sonata (dir. Bernard Rose). Orson’s already rambled on about Rose’s achievement on a couple of occasions. Suffice to say, it’s a magnificently literate film on all levels: as an adaptation of Tolstoy’s story, as a tale of charity gone awry (I think it has a lot of moral freight), and as a masterpiece of editing (Rose himself) and sound design (Nigel Holland).

3. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul). After Syndromes and a Century, I expected to be further stunned by ‘Joe’ Weerasethakul’s other films, and Palme d’Or-winning Uncle Boonmee is suitably terrific. It has the same demandingly slow pace as before, but this is here married to a pulp-fiction cheekiness: out-of-body experiences, ghosts, and monsters done the old-fashioned way (men in suits with LED eyes).

2. The Bad Lieutenant – Port of Call: New Orleans (dir. Werner Herzog). My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? came out as a too-loyal homage to its producer, David Lynch, but Werner Herzog’s other US film gave Nicolas Cage his best role for years, and offers a shot in the arm to the identikit thrillers Hollywood prefers to spend its money on. It was the best comedy of the year – I watched it a second time to remind myself how outrageous it was.

1. The Social Network (dir. David Fincher). Fincher redeems himself after insipid Benjamin Button by historicising Facebook and working with Aaron Sorkin, whose charming, geeky dialogue is a near-perfect match for Fincher’s restless camera. The pomp of Sorkin’s banter means rooms and corridors are usually enough for any scene – except Fincher always wants to be poking his way into the corners of the stage. And they both get their way. For a film about a website, it is chock-full of weird sounds and fine compositions. It’s a feast second to none in 2010.

Slash of the Titans, Shrek Forever Shafter, Seep Year, Gone with the Grope, The Twilight Saga: Her Clit’s, Jonah Sex, How to Stain Your Dragon, Fish Wank, Winter’s Bone

Mince of Persia: The Demands of Slime, The Fuck of Eli, 44 Inch Breast, Youth Fairy, The Girl on the Chain, The Sex Tourist, The Bled Baron, Slot Machine Zone, Diary of a Gimpy Kid, Fucking for Eric

Sex in the City’s Goo, Cry Ram Love, The Extendables, Despicable Amputee, The Kids Are All Tight, The Mother Guys, Hot Tub Slime Machine, Tranny McPhee and the Big Wang, Gulliver Unravels

(i.e. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all at the Well.)

(Originally published in Filmstar.)

You once said that your most horrendous acting experiences can turn out to be your best work. Does Antichrist fit the theory?

It was very happy. I was in good company and we had interesting things to do. I’m like a farm animal. I like to be used. This was a good situation. We had a fertile field to plough, you know? There are crazy stories about Lars being sadistic or odd with actors, but in my experience he’s anything but. He’s a very sincere and sweet guy.

Antichrist was made while Lars emerged from a period of depression. How did this affect the shoot?

It was touch and go whether we’d finish the film. There were points where he’d have serious bouts of anxiety and we’d have to stop for periods. But that was all part of it – this is a personal film and it’s a gift to work on something like this with him, so it makes you very patient. If he wasn’t feeling up to things, he had to go and lie down. Sometimes he’d have a bad idea like drinking beer or something and he’d sort of pass out and we’d just have to wait. But in the end, he functioned very well.

How did making an intense two-hander like Antichrist compare with Manderlay, Lars’s ensemble piece?

Entirely different. The shooting style was different, Lars was in a different place. Antichrist was a film that was serving a much different impulse. We all felt like actors on the set of Manderlay. On this we were so much there that we really became the story, bcame the landscape. Because there was nothing but the film for six or seven weeks.

There were no readings, no rehearsals. Did the lack of preparation scare you?

It’s very hard to convey how significant it is that you don’t rehearse. Any other film, I’d have a certain idea of where the scene is going to play, how it’s going to end. With Antichrist, Lars wouldn’t even tell us how we were dressed tell you how you’re dressed.

It sounds like you had the freedom of an early rehearsal for a play?

Not really. If you have a swing at it and he likes it then you move on. The thing about theatre is that you’re dealing with so much repetition and accumulation of association. With film, all the time, you’re trying to find the gesture. I mean the gesture in the big sense.

What techniques would Lars use on set?

He’s funny. He’s quite subtle in how he sets things up, but he also has some very funny shorthand. Sometimes he’ll literally say, ‘Willem 30% less, Charlotte, 20% more.’ Or at the end of the take he’ll simply use a universal gesture of intercourse and smile.

The Clock.

Orson is away.