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.

"Yeah, I can fly..."

The 12 year old robot in me highly approves of this newish IRON MAN trailer.

These are a few of my favourite things...

Japanese cowgirls with swords vs. zombies?






Hummana Hummana!
Be still my Robot heart!
*bites metal knuckle!






OK, to be serious for a moment, ONECHANBARA is based on a series of video games I've never heard of, and is expected to open theatrically in Japan in April, according to Twitch. More info (in Japanese) and a few pics can be found here.

Films I've watched a thousand times #1

"I can think of at least two things wrong with that title"

I believe it's common among most film geeks that there are certain movies that we watch over and over and over again. These are highly personal choices, and not always the films we would consider to be the greatest in our own opinion. They tend to represent our current mood or state of mind, and certainly our guilty pleasures slip in here more often than not. For example, I might think that TAXI DRIVER is one of the greatest films ever made, yet I can't bring myself to watch it very often. On the other hand, I've watched ROUNDERS twice in the last 3 months, mainly because I'm obsessed with poker. So here's to the films we watch again and again, despite what they say about our psychological make-up, or our questionable taste in trashy entertainment!


David Cronenberg's tripped out vision of NAKED LUNCH is hardly a straight translation of the novel, as it's more an amalgam of many of Burroughs' works and the author's own life. It's a film that I've watched many, many times, on VHS tape for heaven's sake! It's a slow and hazy psycho-sexual drug fueled journey into the process of writing and the depths of our addictions. Anyone who has tried their hand at writing has surely felt at some point like the keyboard was mocking them, in this film it actually happens!

Naked Lunch makes an instantaneous break with conventional reality in its opening moments and never looks back. Centering on the adventures of Bill Lee, played by Peter Weller as a droll, deadpan evocation of the author (Lee was the maiden name of Mr. Burroughs’ mother, and William Lee his pseudonym), the film begins with smallish bugs. Then it moves on to ever more huge, horrible, and intelligent ones. Bill works in New York City as an exterminator and sees even that as a metaphor. “Exterminate all rational thought: that is the conclusion I have come to,” he says.

In addition to viewing his job in philosophical terms, Bill has also used it as an excuse to ingest narcotic bug powder, to which both he and his wife, Joan (Judy Davis), have become addicted. Ms. Davis, who is wonderfully dry and unflappable in two different bizarre incarnations, at first turns up barely long enough to inject bug powder intravenously and conduct a lazy affair with one of Bill’s friends. “Hank and I, we’re just bored,” she tells Bill. “It wasn’t serious.”

This is enough to raise Bill’s suspicions that Joan is a secret agent for an enemy spy ring, especially after a large talking beetle befriends Bill and drops that hint. Joan must be eliminated, the beetle insists, speaking from an orifice that recalls Mr. Burroughs taste for the playfully obscene and talking in the lively, Burroughs-like idiom of Mr. Cronenberg’s inventive screenplay. “It must be done this week,” the insect says, “and it must be done real tasty.”

So Bill and Joan perform their “William Tell act,” just as Mr. Burroughs and his wife, Joan Vollmer Burroughs, did on one drunken evening in Mexico City in 1951. As Bill shoots and kills Joan, the film makes one of its many allusions to the real events of Mr. Burroughs’ life. Soon afterward, he either physically or psychically flees New York for Interzone, a Tangier-like exotic setting in which the film’s nightmarishness escalates to new levels (although Naked Lunch is so thoroughly hallucinatory that it’s difficult to know exactly where its characters are, literally or figuratively). In Interzone, the suffering gets worse and the bugs get bigger as Bill attempts to write what will be Naked Lunch, the novel.

-excerpt of Drifting In and Out Of a Kafkaesque Reality by Janet Maslin.



Disturbing and disjointed, I can see how this film received very mixed reviews, and elicits concerned glares when I sing it's praises. Perhaps it's not for everyone, but I've seen it a thousand times.

Quote Of The Week*

We're big fans of J.T. Petty around here, especially since the screening of his "documentary" S&MAN, as part of the Midnight Madness program at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006. Currently he is working on a creature feature call THE BURROWERS which goes something like this:

The Dakota Territories. 1879. A handful of brave pioneers maintain isolated settlements in the badlands beyond civilization. When a family is brutally abducted in a nighttime attack, a posse forms to rescue the missing from the Native Americans suspected of the crime. An Irish immigrant searching for his lost beloved, a naïve teenager hoping to prove himself, an ex-slave looking for his place, and a pair of aging Indian-fighters set themselves against all the perils of the Old West, battling nature and hostile tribes. But as men vanish in the night, and horrific evidence accumulates with the dead and dying, the group discovers that their prey is far more terrifying than anything human, and their prospects are far more terrible than death.



Bloody-Disgusting.com reports that a single day of reshoots is happening, and J.T. Petty explains why:

"We decided we didn't have enough 'people stabbing monsters in the face with bones torn from rotting corpses' scenes, so we're adding one of those..."

*There will not be a quote every week.

DIARY OF THE DEAD review

George A. Romero's return to the world of zombies he pioneered with the groundbreaking 1968 film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is a kind of 're-boot', as it ignores the events of the past films and begins anew in our current times. Re-boot is also apropos as one of the overriding themes of the film is the saturation of media coverage and available technology that allows us all to document and broadcast the events of our everyday lives.


Starting off with a news report at the scene of a double murder (which happened to be shot across the street from where I'm typing this review) the undead first rise up to chomp upon cops and reporters alike. The film makes ample use of news footage, (including actual footage from what I assume was the Katrina aftermath) webcams, CCT feeds, and the like. The film itself that we are watching is supposed to be the edited footage of a documentary called The Death Of Death, which was started when a group of college kids and their sauced up professor were in the woods filming a student horror film when first reports of the living dead hit the airwaves. Director Jason decides that all most be documented, so he spends the majority of the film attached to the camera, despite the distress of his friends or the dangers they come across as they travel by Winnebago towards every one's respective homes.

Romero's films are usually works of social commentary, and this is no exception. In fact, it's so much so that I felt almost battered by it. Whether it was the voice over of the 'documentary' or the peculiar platitudes of the characters, I was left thinking over and over again "OK, I get it! On with the story please!"

And oh, did I mention this line:

"It used to be us vs. us. Now, it's us vs. them. But they are us."

Moving on... I found that the acting looked like acting (it's not suppose to btw) and the dialogue ranged from clunky to just plain silly. The characters were fairly unlikeable and completely incompetent, except that they were all pretty good shots with that handgun one of the character's happened to be carrying that apparently had the biggest clip ever!


Now this is a zombie movie so I should talk about the kills and the gore, which though fairly infrequent were imaginative and even shocking at times, so at least there's that...?

Bottom line, I went in with only moderate expectations, and even though everyone loves Romero, the lovable grandfather of our collective zombie apocalypse, I have to say that this time's he's struck out big time. :(

Strangest unintentional double feature

Today, at separate theatres, I'm watching these two films:



Just thought I'd point that out.

IN BRUGES review

Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Bredan Gleeson) are a couple Irish hitmen hiding in the picturesque town of Bruges (it's in Belgium ya know) until they hear from mob boss Harry, (stunt casting provided by Ralph Fiennes) as it seems their last hit didn't go as planned. Ken is more than happy to sightsee along the canals and medieval buildings, but Ray is wound up way too tight to play tourist in "fucking Bruges!". Soon enough we get assault and battery, drug use, gun play, hookers, double crosses, and a dwarf... but hey, the town is really a fairy tale wonderland!


There's promise here as a black comedy, the writing is clever and appropriately not politically correct, but the overwrought dramatic sequences just don't mesh with the rest of the film. Colin Farrell does a good job as the twitchy and not too bright Ray, and Gleeson is great (as he always is) as the philosophical killer who has no delusions about his actions. Perhaps the real problem is that we've all seen this before, except the scenery is nicer than in a Guy Richie film.

Oh, and there's some great cursing :/

Insert WAY TOO OBVIOUS Woody Allen joke

New York Post says:

February 7, 2008 -- Scarlett Johansson has a steamy lesbian sex scene with Penelope Cruz in Woody Allen's upcoming "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." A source tells us: "It is also extremely erotic. People will be blown away and even shocked. Penelope and Scarlett go at it in a red-tinted photography dark room, and it will leave the audience gasping." The women later have a threesome with Javier Bardem, who plays Cruz's husband.


Like chum in the waters of the blogosphere, this story has given movie bloggers the opportunity to post their favourite pictures of Johansson and Cruz, as well as drool over the idea of two girls kissing each other. What first struck me about this article was that this supposed scene will be both steamy AND also extremely erotic. How could it possibly be both?!?

steam·y : /ˈstimi/ Pronunciation Key - [stee-mee]
–adjective, steam·i·er, steam·i·est.

1. consisting of or resembling steam.
2. full of or abounding in steam; emitting steam.
3. covered with or as if with condensed steam: a steamy bathroom mirror.
4. hot and humid.
5. Informal. passionate or erotic.

Anyways... it's hard for me to be excited about a new Woody Allen project, since the only film of his that I've liked in the last 10 years was MATCH POINT. For the sake of reference, here are pictures of some of the cast.

How to survive THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN

Cautiously locate your nearest exit



Get off the subway at the next stop.


RUN RUN RUN the fuck outta there!


*Pics swiped from Shock Tlll You Drop

...unless you really need to...

I think this speaks for itself!

Is that meta in your pocket...?

Michel Gondry has gone one step further with a film that features the remaking of other films, by remaking the film's own trailer.

Son of a...!?@$

To Hell with that new RAMBO movie (review to come), check out the SON OF RAMBOW!