toddsolondz.com Getting a Make-Over!

Toddsolondz.com is in the midst of a much, much, much needed facelift. The main aspect of which is that I've created and am incorporating solondz.blogspot.com as the main page.

You see, when I first created toddsolondz.com years ago, it a lay-out I was pretty happy with, at least for the time. It gradually got out-dated. And then, when I met Mr. Solondz in person, he asked me to change it (because it was originally called Fear, Anxiety & Depression: The Films of Todd Solondz, and he didn't care for the film he's more or less disowned as the title and theme of the website). So, I made a bunch of quick changes and graphics which were just meant to be temporary, and were, to be honest, kinda garish and awful. But, predictably, that "temporary" layout remained for years.

So, now it's getting over-hauled! These changes will make updates easier for me to make, and hopefully a little more inviting for you guys. It'll let you RSS subscribe, so you get news updates sent to you whenever I update, so you don't have to keep checking back to see if I've made any changes. And it's got all the little facebook, twitter and whatever buttons you kids like to play with. ;)

The 2011 version of the site hasn't just been reduced to the blog, however. All the cool pages from the original site: the film pages (click the boxes on the left!) and the galleries are still here. And when Dark Horse comes out, you can bet there'll be a film page and gallery added for that, too.

I'll be tinkering with it over the coming weeks, and like every site, it's forever "under maintenance." So don't freak out if something's screwed up. But at least we're getting this site out of the stone age, and let's all agree to forget about the yellow and orange.

Life During Wartime - Criterion DVD!

The wait for a Life During Wartime DVD (and Blu-Ray) in the US is finally over! Well, not really; but at least it's finally been announced. And it's coming from The Criterion Collection, no less.

It's slated for a July 26th release date, and for you diehard Criterion collectors, it will be Spine #574. The features will be:

• New digital transfer, supervised and approved by director of photography Ed Lachman, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Ask Todd, an audio Q&A with director Todd Solondz in which he responds to viewers’ questions
• Making “Life During Wartime,” a new documentary featuring interviews with actors Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, Michael Lerner, Paul Reubens, Ally Sheedy, and Michael Kenneth Williams, and on-set footage of the actors and crew
• New video piece in which Lachman discusses his work on the film
• Original theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Sterritt

This makes it the first of Todd Solondz's films to appear on DVD with extras!

His Next Film: Dark Horse

A column in today's Variety makes reference of a new Todd Solondz film, just getting underway. The piece by Peter Caranicas points out that costume designers known as Kurt & Bart are booked to work on Todd Solondz's Dark Horse.

But there's a lot better info on the film to be found in this brief interview with Solondz on a blog called The Playlist. Apparently, we can expect this film to be much less controversial than his past efforts.

The Wartime Wait Is Over!

Life During Wartime is now available on DVD from Artificial Eye in the UK/ Region 2. Go ahead and order it - I did! Meanwhile, in the US, it's debuting in NY theaters next week, on July 23rd. With IFC's On Demand thing, I think that also means you'll be able to watch it online at ifcfilms.com on that date.

And, as you may've noticed on the front page, our Life During Wartime page is now live, too! Be sure to check out the still gallery, too. Plenty of great screenshots, the official plot description and even the lyrics to the song "Life During Wartime" as written by Todd Solondz (not to be confused by the Talking Heads or Greenday songs of the same title) and personally transcribed by me. :)