A Review Without Rules

In lieu of a 'proper' review for THE DARK KNIGHT (spoiler.. it's good!) until I watch it again, check out these adorable Batman mini-dudes from Dustin Nguyen's blog. He's been doing a run of Detective Comics covers that are really cool.

Watchmen trailer!

Of course, you may want to wait and watch this when you go to see THE DARK KNIGHT, but if you must... click The Comedian!

A Queen And Her Cat

Over at Harry Moseby Confidential (a fantastic blog of all things 70's) I came across this promotional pic for BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB, which has been described as "one of Hammer Horror's most maligned films from the seventies". HMC's week long tribute can be found here.

One look at star Valerie Leon and her cat Puddy was all I needed to see... the dvd is now on my 'to be watched' pile.

Let the frontlash begin..!

Yes, it stars Michael Cera, so some jackass at MTV is calling it the next JUNO. Groan. How original!



Well I've seen it, and it's not JUNO, not that I disliked JUNO, but on subsequent viewings it leans into quirky for the sake of quirk, and the dialogue runs way too far into the realm of the unreal.

NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST > JUNO

There! I said it! You can quote me. This film is completely adorkable, and all the young robots will fall utterly in love with Norah (Kat Dennings, last seen in CHARLIE BARTLETT).

Hellboy vs. Lipton!

SteamPunk Robot battles Kaiju!!!

Sweet!

I have my ticket!

AwesomeSauce!

Still waiting on Mandy

There's no real news on an actual release date for ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE, but there is a new poster over at Shock Till You Drop, which looks a lot like the above German poster. Then mash it up with the original poster and you get this one!

If you happen to be in the neighborhood, it is screening at this year's Fantasia Film Festival.

Wack Soundtrack

Here's the newest trailer for THE WACKNESS, along with a taste of the soundtrack!

Srsly???

There are no words.

"I thought you might be worried, about the security of your shit."

Two things:

Looks like the Coen Brothers are back with the funny, THE BIG LEBOWSKI funny, not THE LADYKILLERS 'funny'.

The ghost of Saul Bass is back to make another movie poster!


P.S. The trailer is no longer on the Apple site. Weird.

The British have better TEETH

Much to my chagrin I've yet to watch the gyno-horror-comedy TEETH, even though it's already out on dvd. In the UK it's just starting it's theatrical run, and they've put up this sweet viral site about Vagina Dentata, which includes the myth that Hall and Oats were inspired by the notorious brief outbreak of Vagina Dentata in the earlier eighties, with the song Maneater.

Really, I can quit at any time...

King of all Wild Things

Spike Jonze... I've got my eye on you!
But I must say... so far, so good.

THE STRANGERS review

So we were fairly pleased to see the initial 'retro style' poster way back in January for THE STRANGERS, even though the story sounded a hell of a lot like the French film ILS, aka THEM from 2006. Then we saw the trailer and thought, "Hey, looks like it could be really creepy". Not gory or fantastical, but a tight little thriller that might give us pause when our heads hit the pillow, wondering if we remembered to lock the door. Well... I don't even remember getting into bed after watching this film.

THE STRANGERS is the very small story of James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler), spending the night in a somewhat isolated summer house after attending a wedding reception. They are terrorized by three strangers in masks. To tell you any more of the plot would give away what little there is that you havn't already gleamed from the trailer. Obviously, people in weird masks are scary.


At first I was really feeling it. There's a built in tension that I felt was played very well before we get to 'the strangers', and the initial reactions to these possible intruders gave me a bit of hope that we were not going to fall into the trap of jeopardy due to the protagonists idiotic actions. YES! If you're alone and you thing a weirdo is hanging around outside your isolated summer home, for god sakes grab a kitchen knife. Yay, common sense prevails... but unfortunately it doesn't last.


Yes, there a few 'jump out of your seat' moments and there were squeals from the audience when suddenly one of these masked strangers appeared in a window or slowly wondered into frame while our protagonists stood nearby unawares... but that was it. Soon enough I was calling all the typical mistakes and seemingly necessary scenes from countless movies where the writing isn't strong enough to convince us that if we were in the same situation we would have easily escaped 30 minutes into the movie. First there's 'you stay here while I go here'. Really? You're fairly sure there are ax murderers outside your front door, but I'm going to leave the woman I love alone in the house while I go do 'whatever'. Then there was the pre-requisite of where our heroine must trip and fall when running away, twisting her ankle and forcing her to hobble around for the rest of the film. And of course there's the friend who unawares stumbles in the fray... godspeed to you our slight chance at rescue!


On top of these cliches, we're given villains without a bit of personality or reason for their actions, not that it matters when our protagonists don't have the common sense God gave a rock.
Telling us it was "inspired by true events" only convinced me of the old adage "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story."

Luke Shapiro's Dope Show

"Masochism is a valuable job skill."

I don't know why certain entertainment mega-corps release trailers for upcoming films on their websites (Mtv!) but then restrict it's viewing to only the U.S. It's the INTERNET! You know, the WORLD wide web. Clearly someone else, such as the nice folks at TRAILER ADDICT, are gonna rip it off and present it for all to see.

Poster Post

Click the big red guy above for 5 new banner posters.



First thought... Radiohead's video for the song JUST...



Second thought... this might be M. Night's last chance to make good, and the word so far is far from good.



Any Palahniuk film is a pal of mine! *Yes, I know that's lame :P


A brilliant, heart wrenching flick from the UK. So far it looks like it'll only receive a limited theatrical run in the US, seek it out if you can. Click the poster to see the trailer.

It's all part of the plan...

The music is dope!

Here's the first trailer for THE WACKNESS, written and directed by Jonathan Levine (ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE). Right up front I'm gonna tell ya, I've met Jonathan, we hung out a bit, and I think he's a top notch guy, so yes, this is a plug. Shameless perhaps, but so what!? I havn't seen the film, and frankly the trailer doesn't blow me away, but it looks to have quite a bit of style, and the film kicked Sundance's ass this year.

Here's a synopsis:

In the sweltering summer of 1994, Rudy Giuliani is scouring New York City within an inch of its life, hip-hop is permeating white youth culture, and a pot-dealing loser kid, Luke Shapiro, is trying to figure out how to solve his parents’ insolvency, beat depression, and get laid before pushing off to college. Luckily he’s got a nifty deal with a psychiatrist, Dr. Squires, who trades him therapy sessions for weed. It happens that the oddball doctor’s marriage is crumbling, so the two—one in late adolescence, the other in late middle-age—embark on messy passages into new life stages. As Luke falls for a classmate who just happens to be Squires’s daughter, the summer heats up, and he follows doctor’s orders, learning to coexist with pain and make it part of him, rather than let it become his downfall.



Looks like we'll get a limited release in Canada on July 11th.

STREET KINGS review

I was going to write a straight ahead review for this, but I really just don't want to. Now usually I enjoy writing about films that I find to have 'questionable merit', but in this case I'm going to try something different. First off, here's a brief plot synopsis I stole from the internets:

Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) is a veteran LAPD cop who finds life difficult to navigate after the death of his wife. When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he's been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.

So, rather than describe this film as the product of a stoner's retread of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, I present my seven helpful hints for a living the tough cop lifestyle:

1. When you wake up in the morning, always reach for your gun first, cuz you're a stone cold killer after all.
2. It's much easier to drink from those little airplane bottles of vodka while you're driving than a 40oz-er or a flask. Also, don't let a little vomit in the morning discourage you.
   
3. Dating a nurse is a great 2-fer, cuz you loves a good shoot out.
4. Sure, you and your co-workers might plant evidence to get the bad guys, but don't be surprised if your mates turn out to be 'really' dirty cops. (You might think this is a spoiler, but you'll be on board after the first 15 minutes of the film)
5. When someone gets shot, holding their hand dramatically is not as helpful as say trying to stop the bleeding or calling an ambulance.
6. Best way to gather information from a "perp"... yellow pages to the head!
7. Even if he really wants to, don't take your fresh faced new partner to kill the guys who killed your last partner.
   

Bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do? If you're Jay Mohr, please lose that moustache, it's trippin' me out!
Also, Aidan from Sex and the City isn't very intimidating despite his facial hair, and Forest Whitaker needs to turn it down a notch.

RED ROAD review

Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, the feature length debut by Brit writer/director Andrea Arnold is a dark, riveting, and awkwardly sensual tale of an employee of a private security firm that monitors the cctv cameras in a rough neighbourhood of North Glasgow. In a fantastic performance by Kate Dickie, Jackie lives a solitary existance, watching the everyday dramas of life around her through the security cameras, except for the occasion unfulfilling shag with a married co-worker in his car. One day she spots Clyde (Tony Curran), an ex-con who she becomes obsessed with for reasons we don't discover for most of the film. The only other piece of information we're given is that she has lost her husband and child in unrevealed circumstances.


RED ROAD is supposedly the first in a trilogy of films under the ADVANCE PARTY concept. The concept came out of a discussion with Lars Van Trier and the executive producers Lone Scherfig and Anders Thomas Jensen. Each film would be made by a first time director and producers, using a set list of characters and back stories which the directors could then write their story around. The same actors would be cast for all three films. The focus on which particular characters would be up to the individual director, but all the films would have to take place in Scotland.

As we watch Jackie's obsession with Clyde grow into a dangerous yet sexualized place her motives come into question despite the obvious pain that she's in, and you find your loyalties shifting right up until the reveal of their past connection.


Despite the ending, which compared to all that has come before might seem a bit trite, RED ROAD is a great tragic story told with a deft and rawness than is rarely found in a mainstream/studio picture. Apparently the second film is in 'development limbo', but I'd be very curious to see where this material goes from here.

I *heart* movies

Honest to blog, we can be a jaded lot sometimes. (Yes, I can hear you grinding your teeth in anger for referencing JUNO!) Well, Final Girl has challenged us all today to not be cynical, blase, or unmoved by our passion for film and our spare time at work to write about it.

In her words, it's the "HEY, INTERNET, STOP BEING SUCH CYNICAL EFFING DOUCHEBAGS BLOG-A-THON!"

Final Girl asks us to "Write about a movie you adore. Write about a single movie moment you adore. A performance, an actor, a trailer you're looking forward to like crazy. Write about that time you went to the movies and what you saw made you so happy you wanted to make out with the screen. Write about that film you couldn't stop thinking about for days, and how awesome that feeling is."

I think it's a pretty keen idea, so here goes:

Dude, I'm telling you that really happened, for REAL!

It's 1999, I'm working in the warehouse of a highly upscale department store, and much to my chagrin, I eventually explain to a co-worker that THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT isn't a documentary. I love the fact that the marketing actually confused people. It reminds me of the time I faked a dead body in the woods for my best friend to find on his birthday. Good times.

Coming Attractions

Remember when one of the only ways to find out about a new movie was to be surprised by it's trailer in a theatre? Me neither ;) Regardless, I love trailers. It's a little premature rush of joy and expectation for something that can seem so perfect, like catching a smile from a beautiful stranger on the other side of the room. Sure, she might just turn out to be a drug dealer, but at least that first contact was pure and full of hope. Hardly original I'm sure, but being utterly stunned by the CLOVERFIELD trailer last summer was a brilliant bit of awesome, and it completely overshadowed the infuriating parody of a film I was there to see in the first place.

"He IS the Kwisatz Haderach!"

Fresh in my mind after the recent news that Peter Burg wants to go back to the desert planet of DUNE one more time, I have a great love for the film version by David Lynch. There's an utterly haunting and creepy scene right near the end where Alia (played by the then 8 year old Alicia Witt) stands silently, knife raised, destruction all around her, triumphant. It freaks me out every time!

Alicia Witt as Alia, relevant to posting

Alicia Witt now, completely irrelevant to posting

There are wolves in the cinema

No one can argue that the best place to see a film is in a theatre, crammed with like-minded folk who are there to have a good time. Many of my best experiences have been at Midnight Madness screenings during the Toronto International Film Festival. Back in 2001 at the premeire of Le Pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) almost a thousand rabid movie fans howled along madly with the wolves on screen!

Two more reasons to howl at this film!

Film Title... yadda yadda yadda

OK, I'm sure it's not just Chan-wook Park's film titles that get scissored upon release on this side of the world, but for some reason this really grinds my gears! I'M A CYBORG BUT THAT'S OK is being released in the UK next month with the shortened title I'M A CYBORG. In 2005 I saw SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE, but for it's theatrical and dvd release it was cut down to LADY VENGEANCE. Now I realize that especially with foreign films their English titles can be somewhat... fluid, but after these two films toured many festivals and were critiqued and blogged about, what's the fracking point of changing their titles??? Shortened attention span? Groan.


Also, apparently Charlize Theron wants to produce and star in a remake of SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE. Groan... again.

Wanted: mindless fun, girl with gun

I've often wished that someday Angelina would come along and change my life forever. Apparently she came along to this McAvoy guy instead.

Yet another comic book adaptation, although this one looks nothing like the source material, WANTED looks like it could be ridiculous cheesy fun. I've been disappointed lately with 'popcorn' flicks I've hoped to enjoy, such as SHOOT EM UP or JUMPER, which failed to be either fun or funny.




* Robots have loved Angelina since HACKERS, deal with it!


She really seems to love her firearms.

Who Watches The Watchmen?

Considered one of the greatest deconstructions of the conventional superhero story, Alan Moore's WATCHMEN is canon for any self respecting comic book geek. If you're not familiar with the book, it's very far removed from what you imagine a comic book is. Time Magazine considers it one of the top 100 English language novels written from 1923 to present. It's adaptation into film by Zack Snyder has been the source of much debate, and now we get our first good look at five of the main characters.






First thoughts... Ozymandias' spect'ab'ulous costume gives me pause, but I'm still on board overall. At this point it's still impossible to surmise how this will turn out, but I'll be there opening weekend to find out.