Entries from May 2008 ↓

The first trailer for the Coen Brothers’ newest film Burn After Reading has hit the internet. Burn is about two gym employees who find the memoirs of an outed CIA offical, and intent to exploit their find. Burn premiered at Cannes, and is set for a September 12th release date.

Enjoy

The polarizing writer-director and sometimes-actor Kevin “Silent Bob” Smith - responsible for tickling my funny bone with Clerks (1994), Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999) , and the criminally canceled Clerks: The Animated Series (2000-2001) - offers to tickle something else with his new movie. C’mon! I’m writing about K.S.; at least one dick joke is mandatory!

The movie is called Zach and Miri Make A Porno. Not since Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover (1990) has a title been so descriptive. The gist of the flick is that platonic life-mates Zach (Seth Rogen - Superbad, 2007) and Miri (the Grace Kelly sass-n’-sexiness that is Elizabeth Banks - Slither, 2006) come up with a get-rich-quick-scheme by making a porno. It’s like The Honeymooners…but with sex!

Touch HERE to review the audition reel.

“Don’t improvise. We work hard on this shit.”

Also starring is Traci Lords (Serial Mom, 1994), Jason Mewes (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, 2001), Tom Savini (Planet Terror, 2007) and my role model Jeff Anderson (Randal Graves: “Get the hell out, Scorsese!”).

Knowing K.S., we’re in for some royally profane observations and a look at Seth Rogen’s tits. Yes, I feel dirty too.

SNOOCH TO THE NOOCH this Halloween!

This poster reminds me of the visual used for Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich TV spot: it’s third out of four. Fun Fact: The gravely baritoned voice over in that spot belongs to Roscoe Lee Browne (1925 - 2007) who also narrated over the Babe movies.

After the subversive punch that was David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), a new adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel Choke is coming to theaters this Fall. First time writer-director of Choke, winner of the Sundance Special Jury Price, is character actor Clark Gregg from David Mamet’s Spartan (2004), and the wonderful Nicole Holofcener comedy-drama Lovely and Amazing (2001), which stars Brenda Blethyn, Catherine Keener and love-goddess Emily Mortimer.

Choke, a very dark comedy this side of Neil Labute’s In The Company of Men (1997) stars Sam Rockwell (Joshua, 2007) as a dysfunctional sex addict trying to find his place in the world and in his mother’s physician (Kelly Macdonald - Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, 2006). Anjelica Huston (The Darjeeling Limited, 2007) plays mom who must be so proud! I hope this angry satire takes aim at all the right targets…and hits hard.

Hit the trailer right here.

Mr. Palahniuk hits a twofer this year with Paramount Vantage produced adaptation to LULLABY. Turn up your speakers for this spectacularly eerie trailer.

Just play it by ear.

Now if the producers had any real cojones, this would be the only official trailer for the film. I don’t know about you, but after seeing just this teaser, I’d race to see this one! It opens this November.

I finally watched it and I’d like to tell all the people that told me that it was a waste of time that they were wrong. Dead wrong.

I really enjoyed the movie simply because it seemed, well… real. The story, the characters, the setting, etc. All of it really jumped off the screen and hit you like it was some adaptation of a true life story. Apart from the brand heritage which Rocky Balboa has for anyone who grew up during the 70’s and 80’s. Rocky is a Legend, and Stallone really did a good job of bringing the franchise back for one last go… the same as the protagonist.

Normally, what you’ll find with the last-shot-at-it type movies is that they fall flat and don’t ring true to the originals… This one really does, paying homage to it’s glorious past and still being true to modern cinema.

I grew up with Rocky… I remember shouting at the TV every single time he was in the ring, no matter how many re-runs of it I saw. I have written something similar about Why I Like Rambo on my personal blog, and I think the same goes here. The movie does not seem strewn together in order to make a little money off the side off of a dying franchise, but it has heart… real heart. The emotions which the movie invokes on so many different occasions is incredible. The only reason I can think that so many people don’t get it and hate it (and this goes for most movies) is because they sit “outside” the movie and try and judge it critically instead of sitting there, getting involved in the movie and seeing if you really enjoy it or it irritates you.

So that’s it from me. What do you think about Stallone’s foray into making the last sequels in the Rocky and Rambo franchises? And did you enjoy them?

The first official pictures from The Road have surfaced. The adaptation of the Pulitzer prize winning novel is directed by John Hillcoat (best known for The Proposition). It stars Viggo Mortensen, and Kodi Smit-McPhee. After looking at these stills I’ve decided that I couldn’t be happier with the casting choices.

As you can tell I am ultra antsy for this movie. The release is set for November of this year. From these few pictures, it looks like they have gotten the feel down pretty well.

Do you think this film is going to turn out well?

Following the news of a new Jurassic Park IV (oh the horror…) it was announced that a new Beverly Hills Cop is planned. It is set to begin production next year to come out in early 2010. Brett Ratner is set to direct.

Now we all know Eddie Murphy’s career isn’t exactly taking off (Norbit) but what good can he see in making Beverly Hills Cop 4…

Let’s give Eddie Murphy some movie recommendations. Let me start it off. Eddie should star as a window washer who is washing bird poop off of a skyrise when he sees someone get murdered. You could intersperse scenes of him running away with a pigeon pooping  periodically. It would be ‘art’.

How sad…

Link

Adidas Originals has launched a pair of limited edition sneakers by partnering with Universal Pictures and Dark Horse Comics to mark the upcoming release of Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. the highly-anticipated sequel by Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo Del Toro.

The shoes, designed with Universal Studios, the Forum Mid comes in a good mix of red, black, and gold with a white bottom sole. It has an Original Adidas logo on the tongue with an emblazoned Hellboy logo on the velcro strap. The Stan Smith mid, created with Dark Horse, comes in black patent leather with red shoelaces. It features an exclusive image of Hellboy himself in a very stylized graphic. It also has very nice details including an engraved outer sole, lace jewels, and unique tongue branding.

The newly-designed kicks are reportedly due for release in July.

Technorati Tags: Adidas, Hellboy 2, Sneakers, Limited Edition

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) is the best Indy movie after the blessed original. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have taken the whip-snapping archaeologist out for a fourth time while retaining some of the most crucial elements from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) that without tarnished the past two sequels. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not a perfect movie. Far from it. There are quibbles galore, but it didn’t stop me from grinning throughout this popcorn entertainment. The fourth exceeding the original is impossible. Raiders is perfect.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), after twenty-seven years is still the best example of a character-driven action motion picture. There are no wasted moments and the exposition is told briskly so the adrenaline rush isn’t tempered. More importantly, the characters were larger than life, capable of nuance, and worth caring about. Watching Raiders in a revival theater last year was an uplifting experience. Spielberg and Lucas made the movie, one they personally would have liked to have seen, with great zeal and, more importantly, selfishness. Like a hyper-imaginative kid, he invented one exhilarating sequence after another and clocked in five minutes shy of two hours. When initially released, Raiders saved Hollywood at a time when ticket sales ebbed to a devastating low.

I approached the fourth one with trepidation after recalling how the sequels treated the fedora man so shamefully. “Docta Jones” anyone? Thankfully the fourth adventure is a hardy throwback that mostly succeeds in integrating the dashing 1930s rouge into the 1950s. The Indiana Jones saga now explores that decades’ hang ups: conspiracy theories, commies, and the stuff science-fiction magazines reveled in. Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones, now in his fifties, is at a point in his life one of colleagues, Dean Charles Stanforth (Jim Broadbent, Hot Fuzz - 2007), refers to as “where (it) stops giving you things and starts taking them away.”

After being harangued by Soviet soldiers (re: evil Russians - “I hate those guys…”) in search of an artifact not of this world, the Crystal Skull (re: The McGuffin), that promises infinite knowledge when returned to its sacred place in Peru; Indiana must stop them. God, I love the outrageousness here! It is an amusing, if odd clothesline for inventive stunt work, deaf-defying escapes, merciless beatings, and booby-trapped ruins. Spielberg stages car chases like musical chairs, consistently having our hero jump from one moving motorcade into another. There’s also a game of keep away with the elongated glass skull during a high speed pursuit in the jungle.

Most of the action scenes are accomplished, aided by older techniques like back screen projection and actually having the actors and stunt people perform their feats on location. Spielberg shot on film while avoiding as much CGI work as possible with veteran cinematographer and collaborator since Schindler’s List (1993), Janusz Kaminski. To best replicate the visual style so the fourth seems easily with the series, Kaminski and Spielberg studied and worked off of how the previous Indy films looked when helmed by cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, now retired.

The tension of these action sequence is tamed by our perception that Indiana Jones is never in real danger. Of course he’s not, he is invisible. Watching Indy in action is like hanging on the adventurer’s coattails; he makes us believe that we can punch out six goons, jump from a high scaffoldings, and deliver a punchline. The appeal of Indy after the fight is over, seeing him so exhausted by it all, is having an inkling to the man’s mortality.

Harrison Ford is still the man, despite this return to form being the best role he’s had since he has played Dr. Richard Kimble in the 1993 Andrew Davis film The Fugitive. Years older, all that’s changed about Ford is his hair being white and his facial features look more defined, not aged. Acting with ease and command, Ford is the action hero equivalent to stone faced Buster Keaton. Sure, being thrown miles across the desert inside a refrigerator would break his neck, but its so cool that Indy just shakes it off before being haloed by a mushroom cloud from a distance. Though, it would have been great to see him use that whip more often than he did. Even a nod to that Raiders moment with how he disposes of a sword-wielding nemesis with exasperated tact.

Where the film really suffers is a belabored exposition in the middle of the movie that should be much tighter, but drags the production down. Indy’s partner ‘Mac’ George McHale played by the versatile Ray Winstone (Last Orders, 2001) isn’t given enough screen time. The character McHale changes sides more often than he does his shirt and Indy just keeps trusting the guy - a charming snake. John Hurt (Love and Death on Long Island, 1998) plays the fool to Indy’s King Leer as a once distinguished, now brainwashed archaeologist Professor ‘Ox’ Oxley, but not enough of Hurt’s ability to show such proud vanity is exercised here. Though Hurt, sunburned and disheveled, looks like he came straight out of John Hillcoat’s The Proposition (one of 2006’s best), which also starred Winstone.

One overlooked element from Raiders not present in Skull is the horror factor. The 1981 film wasn’t shy about depicting great visual violence and it earned its R rating. When the Nazis got their comeuppance in the original once the ark was open, the visceral gore on the The Evil Dead level left a real impact. The compromise of a PG-13 rating does to Indy what happened with John “Yippee Ki-Ya, mother(gunshot!)” McClane, which only distills naive parents’ pious belief that young teens can’t see for example Zack Snyder’s 300. There isn’t even a good sudden scare to get the heart jacked whereas Raiders delivered a half-dozen sudden jolts.

The young Steven Spielberg would’ve made the man-eating ant scene look more harrowing. The goons just get sucked into a vortex, which Spielberg does us the disservice of showing what’s on the other side - the same Spielberg who usually shows his audience everything. And Irina Spalko deserved the grisly comeuppance a great villain deserves. If only her head became elongated and warped once she received all that knowledge. Even losing her eyeballs would’ve been sweet!

What makes this film worthwhile; however, is the women. At long, Indy is reunited with his old flame Marion Ravenwood played by the long lost Karen Allen with the cathectic smile. Their long history - she swooned over him as a teenager - and the fight, rage, passion, betrayal, vulnerability, and tenderness bubbles up when they so much as look at one another. This is the rousing chemistry great romance demands. It’s Movie Movie Love! Rick and Ilsa had it, so too do Indy and Marion. With years behind them, they have mellowed some, even calling each other “dear” with just a hint of snark. After never seeing one another for years due to another betrayal in commitment, they still want each other. The return of Marion makes the existence of the fourth movie vital and rectifies the great wrong of separating Indy and her.

The other woman in Indy’s life is his arch nemesis Soviet leader Irina Spalko played by the immaculate Cate Blanchett. This villain is iconic. She wears a Hitchcockian gray suit, shades, and a Louise Brooks hairdo; expect to see Spalko get ups this Halloween. It’s so refreshing watching a woman be evil and actually kick ass. She is everything Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy should have been. She fences! She throws punches! She drives ferociously! She fires a machine gun like The Joker did in that Harleyquinade episode! She even plays mind games! A pity she didn’t say “I’m a bit psychic!” Daphne Moon-style. Boy, what I’d give to be that man-eating ant crawling up Irina’s leg. That’s the way I want to go!

Spoiler Alert: Now, I have written in the past about my displeasure seeing an action hero saddled with a kid. I am happy to report this is not the case with the appearance of leather-jacketed, motorcycle-driving Mutt (a dog’s name) Williams. Shia LaBeouf is spirited and colorful enough to be a good foil to Indiana Jones. There is welcome comic relief how Indy’s tune changes toward the youthful renegade after finding out it’s his own youthful renegade. Mutt even gets to pay homage to another 1930 adventure serial: Tarzan. I like Mutt, but I’m not at all keen to see Mutt Williams And The Key To Diablo’s Inferno.

Despite its flaws and the raised bar of Raiders, The Crystal Skull is still a good, (not great!) action-adventure film. If you can crack a smile when Indiana Jones warns his partner “those tarts are poisoned!” when natives attack, you’re in the right frame of mind so get out of the library. Now that the rice has been thrown, it is now time for Indy to enjoy a well-deserved retirement.

Kudos to the filmmakers for recognizing Dr. Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott - A Room With A View, 1985).

We all knew that Indy 4 was going to be big, but it was a…lot bigger then expected. Indiana Jones IV opened with $151.3 million dollars domestically, making it the 2nd highest memorial day opening, and the 5th largest opening of all time.

Do you think Indiana Jones IV lived up to its hype? What would you have changed?