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Friday, December 14, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Friday, November 16, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Friday, September 21, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Oz the Great and Powerful Trailer [HD]: James Franco, Michelle Williams,...
This feels a ton like Burton's Alice in Wonderland
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
The Expendables 2 Official Trailer - In Theaters August 17th
AAAHHHHHH...THIS LOOKS LIKE SO MUCH FUN!!!!
Jack Reacher - Official Trailer (HD)
Let me just say I hope when I'm 50 I am still as limber as Tom Cruise. That guy just won't slow down.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
This Is 40 Official Trailer [HD]: Knocked Up Sequel With Paul Rudd & Les...
What do you guys think about this one? A semi-sequel to Knocked Up. I love me some Judd Apatow and Paul Rudd always does a nice job in these. Doesn't look quite as funny to me as Knocked Up but otherwise may be worth a viewing.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Total Recall 2012 Official Trailer [HD]: Colin Farrell Recalls His Dange...
What do you guys think of this? I can't help but think of Jason Bourne of the future. The same plot. Same type action sequences. All placed in a future society. It's been a long time since I've seen the Schwarzenegger version but I don't remember him moving quite so quickly to take out a group of agents. Anyway...thoughts?
Happy Birthday David (NEW Prometheus Viral!)
Check this out. Love me some Fassbender and this is no disappointment.
The Politics of Competitive Board Gaming Amongst Friends
The Politics of Competitive Board Gaming Amongst Friends
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Looper Official Full Teaser Trailer #1 - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Wil...
I can see this being pretty decent. Definitely a Joseph Gordon-Levitt role that I've not seen before.
Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap Official Trailer #1 - Ice Cube Mo...
You have to admit, even if you're not into rap or hip hop, this looks pretty interesting.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Anticipated 2012 Films - Q2, Q3, & Q4
April looks soft but: Joss Whedon's "Cabin in the Woods"has me excited mostly due to the poster but whatever. Some good docs getting limiteds (including Chimpanzee and Marley) but I'm sure they wont come here any time soon. Also Sound of My Voice.
May:
The Avengers
Dark Shadows
The Dictator
Chernobyl Diaries
Men In Black 3
Moonrise Kingdom
June
Prometheus
Brave
Snow White and the Huntsmen
Safety Not Guaranteed,
Rock of Ages,
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer,
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Magic Mike.
July: Comic Book month
The Amazing Spider Man
The Dark Knight Rises
Neighborhodd Watch
August:
The Bourne Legacy
Total Recal
The Campaign
Paranorman
The Expendables 2
Sept:
The Cold Light of Day
Killing Them Softly
Looper
Dredd
October
The Master
Paranormal Activity 4
Taken 2
Frankenweenie
The Gangster Squad
November
Red Dawn
Skyfall
Gravity
47 Ronin
Dec:
The Hobbit
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
One Shot
The Great Gatsby
Django Unchained
Obviously if something else is on your list shout it out. This was not exhaustive - just like a 5 min search on IMDB.
My 10 most anticipated: Since World War Z got pushed back to 2013....
1. Django Unchained,
2. The Master
3. Gravity
4. The Dark Knight Rises
5. Prometheus
6. Moonrise Kingdom
7. Brave
8. The Hobbit
9. Zero Dark Thirty,
10. Cabin in the Woods
Also - Rec 3: Genesis but probably wont get to North America in 2012 if the last two films are any indication.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Trailer Post Round Up 3-18-12
Chernobyl Diaries. - From Oren Peli director of Paranormal Activity.
4:44 Last Day On Earth. Latest effort from Abel Ferrara starring Willem DeFoe. Described as An Apocalyptic Valentine.
Dark Shadows. - Tim Burton's latest looks like a return to form in the vein of Ed Wood.
Fightville. - Promising Doc about MMA fighters directed by Petra Epperlein & Michael Tucker
Apart - this looks intriguing from first time director Aaron Rottinghaus
Jeff Who Lives at Home. - From mumblecore masters the brothers Duplass out in selected theaters now.
Bully. - the infamous Weinstein produced Doc about, you guessed it...Bullies. Directed by Lee Hirsch
Seeking A Friend For The End of the World.- Starring Steve Carrell and Kiera Knightley
Bad Ass.- Danny Trejo's newest effort. Looks fun in a Diet Machete kind of way.
Good For Nothing. - Fun looking western by director Mike Wallis
All In: The Poker Movie. - what took this so long to happen. Doc about POKER!!
And in true Food Porn Tradition Jiro: Dreams of Sushi.
And finally...Bernie.- Richard Linklater's latest film starring Jack Black. Extremely promising.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Melancholia (2011)
Written and Directed by Lars Von Trier
Starring Kirsten Dunst as Justine
Charlotte Gainsbourg as Claire
Kiefer Sutherland as John
John Hurt as Dexter
Stellan Skarsgard as Jack
and Alexander Skarsgard as Michel
The opening salvo of Melancholia lets the cat out of the bag but does so in such an aesthetically indulgent but unapologetically confident way, that ultimately Von Trier captures me. Dreamy, nightmarish, unsettling and macabre images populate the screen in extreme slow motion photography against the unbearably powerful and romantic score of Richard Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde”, resulting in a climax of style that is both very Von Trier but also polished as to be almost a new mutation. It’s truly breath taking.
Melancholia is told in two parts – the first the story of Justine (Dunst) and Michel (Alexander Skarsgard) as we join their lives at their wedding reception. The backdrop involves a previously unknown planet named Melancholia as it hurtles towards Earth on a possible collision course. It becomes clear as the night wears on that Justine is suffering from severe depression. The party is hosted and carefully planned by her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and reluctantly funded by her brother in law John (Sutherland). As the night wears on awkwardly we learn of the extreme family tensions and dysfunction that contribute to Justine’s gradual mental deterioration. Lacking any sense of social decorum, at the toast her mother loudly proclaims she does not believe in marriage, thinks all marriages are a sham, and is disappointed that anyone in her family would be involved in one. Maybe not as classy as we would hope mom would be at our wedding but the speech does get a few polite claps, perhaps from those who know this family all too well.
Part II of Melancholia focuses on Claire. Some time has passed and Justine has become incapable of accomplishing even the most simple of tasks. She finally comes to live with Claire and John (not willingly on John’s part) so Claire can take care of her. When she arrives she cannot even give herself a bath and painfully admits everything tastes like ashes. The hidden planet Melancholia meanwhile is getting closer to its collision course with Earth which provides Claire with no shortage of anxiety of her own despite John’s calm reassurance that scientists have this all mathematically figured out and the paths of the two planets will not meet.
This first half of the film feels especially like old school Von Trier from his Dogma 95 days when he shot with no post production, little rehearsal, and no sound editing. The camera work is visceral and reminiscent of cinema verite utilizing more often than not hand held cameras with close on the spot / in your face movements that provides a stark realistic contrast to the grand stylized opening. The content at the reception actually reminded me of the very first Dogma 95 film The Celebration (which Von Trier did not direct) in terms of uncomfortable self- destruction unfolding unavoidably before our eyes.
Part II is interesting as it moves along as the sister’s seem to trade places emotionally. As Melancholia the planet gets closer Justine’s melancholia makes sense to her and recedes and she becomes more functional and calm and even resolute towards her fate. Dunst plays her as a sort of fatalistic clairvoyant by the end of the film while Gainsbourg becomes the panicked victim in denial. It’s an interesting and earned turn from Part I where the roles were somewhat reversed.
The whole film is well acted. It’s nice to see Kiefer Sutherland doing good work outside of mail it in film gigs and TV and Gainsbourg is very real as always. Kirsten Dunst needs special recognition. I’ve never understood the internet reluctance to embrace her as a beautiful and talented actress. Her filmography is fairly impressive and she’s been part of a number of great films many of which she has been the reason why. Here she gives an inspired almost fully improvised emotionally believable performance that at times approaches melodrama without ever being over the top. For me it’s 2011’s best female lead and kind of evokes last year’s darling Natalie Portman’s go in Black Swan. Similar paths of mental breakdown. Different results of dealing with the endgame.
Melancholia I imagine will be forever a polarizing film. The decision to reveal the ending at the beginning will always seem controversial to casual film fans. But Von Trier is on record as stating he did not want the fate of the cosmic aspects of Melancholia to interfere with the exploration of how his characters deal with the existential details they find themselves having to endure. I think it’s the right choice. Long time Von Trier fans may be disappointed in his dipping into genre with his last film Antichrist and this one but much like Werner Herzog and even Pedro Almodovar I find it refreshing to see auteur’s attempting to wrestle with genre elements and attempting to elevate them.
I found Melancholia to be beautiful, moving, compelling, well-acted, and exceptionally directed, but most important thought provoking. I found myself wondering about the apocalyptic elements and the human emotional elements equally long after the film ended. It sticks with you.
Just one question: why couldn’t they ever get over that fucking bridge?
Melancholia: 4/4
Monday, March 5, 2012
The Dead (Spoiler Alerts if you care)
The opening scene starts with the main character, this aircraft engineer in the U.S. military, wandering through a hot desert day in a black burka and an AK-47 slung on his shoulder. He comes upon a random zombie, walks around it so as not to waste any ammo, then proceeds on to another zombie dressed in African military garb and shoots that one in the head. The camera pans in on this zombie signifying some sort of significance with this one. You then proceed to the next scene and within 15-20 minutes learn that it is going to be, spoiler alert, the African soldier dressed in the military garb, alone searching his village for survivors.
Giving that part away almost immediately isn't the worst this movie does. I will say what I liked about the beginning was the fact that there was little to no dialogue and there are a couple reasons for this. It was mostly just the main character trying to cope with the fact that he is now stranded in Africa, and he hast to try to survive. Just he and these, I have to say, pretty awesome looking African zombies roaming the region. The fact that there are so many zombies and it's so widespread throughout the area he travels is pretty awesome as well. He eventually stumbles upon this beaten up truck, which becomes a kind of character within the story itself, and of course gets it in working order. The truck really works to benefit the suspense throughout the movie.
It is, however, when the main character finally picks up this other African soldier and they begin to have dialogue that the movie takes another dip. I don't know where they found this guy, but his acting is atrocious. His performance was wholly unbelievable and kept me yearning for a replacement throughout the movie. He didn't come off as much of a military man whatsoever. In fact, he comes off as a freakin' wimp with a pistol who falls to the ground in terror every time a zombie gets near him. There is a scene towards the end of the movie where they try to make him out as some badass as well, and I wasn't buying it. More discussion on that in a bit.
The plot itself was sub-par. The African soldier is trying to get back to his son in a northern camp, and the main character is just trying to get out of the country. Granted, zombie movies are all about surviving, but there wasn't one moment in this movie I felt that the two main characters couldn't have easily escaped, even if only by foot. The zombies move extremely slow, and I accentuate EXTREMELY. If it weren't for the fact that the main characters were trying to constantly keep the truck alive in order to travel faster and farther than if by foot, there would have been no intense moments. It's only because of the truck that the engineer is so busy trying to always fix that they come upon any real close encounters with some flesh eaters.
Flesh eaters is a great nickname for the zombies in this movie. I actually rather liked the zombies. For one, as I stated before, there were so damn many of them. No matter where they traveled, even some of the remotest parts, they were stumbling upon a flesh eater. I say flesh eater since that's exactly what they were going for, just flesh. Whereas in some movies and even The Walking Dead you see the zombies trying to rip into organs and such, in this movie you see a zombie just take a bite of a leg, arm, or neck, rip off a piece and pause to chew it. They're just a bunch of hungry dead dudes. I can't think of any other zombie movies I've seen where the zombies just pause after a bite in order to chew the piece of flesh they've just bitten off. Most zombies are shown to continuously eat without reprieve.
Finally, setting aside the fact that this is a zombie movie, all other things being portrayed as realistic, it was a joke. Towards the end of the movie we come upon the scene again where the main character shoots in the head the African soldier-turned-zombie he partnered with throughout the movie, and we see everything come full circle. This really bothered me because he left this guy way across the desert previously when he unofficially died sitting at a tree. Unless I'm totally wrong about this zombie being his soldier buddy from before, there is NO way he walked as slow as all the other zombies all the way across the desert, especially before the main character reached the other side. Unreal. The last scene of the movie, and one that again really bothered me up until the last few minutes, they portray the main character as a Chuck Norris type in a black burka with a machete in one hand and an AK-47 in the other. There is a huge horde of zombies pounding against the north camp compound's wall, and the whole wall is just lined all the way along it with zombies. The main character just moseys up to one section of the wall, hacks off heads and limbs of zombies from just that section of wall, climbs on a stack of the dead zombie bodies to get over the wall, and then you see the camera pan back tot he wall with gobs of zombies still pounding on it. You mean to tell me that this guy wasn't bothered by ANY other zombies along that wall besides just that section? Freakin' A.
One of the only other things this movie actually does have going for it is the really gorgeous scenery. It looks great on blu, and the shots over the vast landscapes of Africa are really beautiful.
This brings my rating of the movie to an ultimate 2.5/4. I gave it a 2/4 a little prematurely on Twitter last night and want to bump my rating up another half star after sitting on it, but it definitely doesn't deserve any higher than a 2.5.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Beauty Day/Project Nim Viewing
Trailer Post March 04, 2012
Happy Sunday! Just wanted to draw our attention to The Raid - because it literally looks insane. But I thought we could maybe have a weekly trailer post to check out new stuff and discuss what looks cool on the horizon of the movie future. Check these out and discuss or post any other recent stuff that looks cool. Jeebs, The Raid just looks unbelievably violent and awesome.....
The Raid - from Sony Pictures Classic
Red Band http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWlmhMSnVdM
Itunes http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony/theraidredemption/
To The Arctic - IMAX doc from Greg MacGillivray (Imax Everset)
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/tothearctic/
Paranorman - from the creators of Coraline
Donovan Teaser trailer http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/paranorman/
Full Trailer http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/paranorman/
The Neighborhood Watch
Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, and Moss from IT Corwd!!
http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/neighborhood-watch/teaser-trailer
Frankenweenie - Tim Burton
http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/frankenweenie/trailer
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - from Lars Halstromm
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/salmonfishingintheyemen/
Brave - Pixar's next real effort -
Trailer 1 - http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/disney/brave/
Trailer 2 http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/disney/brave/
Pray For japan - Doc about the Japan earthquake / tsunami disaster by Stu Levy
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/prayforjapan/
Comi-Con: Episode IV: A Fan's Hope - Morgan Spurlock's derivitive next doc
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/comicconepisodeivafanshope/
And since we never really discussed it THE AVENGERS Trailer 2
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/marvel/avengers/
Saturday, March 3, 2012
The Music of Star Wars
It kind of got me thinking about the fact that Star Wars perhaps more than any film ever is desperately attached to it's score. Imagine if instead of John Williams, Fox or Lucas had settled on a Cassio Keyboard score so common in low budget sci fi from the 70's and 80's. Kind of like this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WCn_TpbMuo
Yikes. Glad they splurged on JW.
Another few that came to mind are Jaws and Superman (also John Williams composed) and maybe of the ingenious decisions Kubrick made for 2001: A Space Odyssey (Thus Spoke Zarathustra etc).
What about you guys? Any scores that are your favs that you just can not imagine the movie any other way?
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Hugo Impressions
Hugo finally came out on disc yesterday. With the amount of awards it garnered, I was eager to watch it last night.
It left me feeling unsatisfied, the anti-Snickers bar of cinema. I understand why critics love it, but it was such a boring movie. All the parts were there for a great film: terrific set and costume design (especially the latter half of the movie), pretty good acting - especially the strong supporting cast of Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Christopher Lee, the cinematography was very good for the most part, and the dialogue was serviceable, if unremarkable.
The best scenes were the brief glimpses we get of the remarkable films produced by Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley). They showed far more ingenuity than anything else on screen.
I think Hugo got so much love because it incorporated a few elements that critics are absolute suckers for:
a) it took place just after World War I
b) it dealt with the origins of cinema
c) an orphan kid was the main protagonist
For an estimated 170 million, it better be a good looking film - and it is. But the basic story driving the action is just that. Basic. Nothing of worth really happens for the first half of the running time. When I finally abandoned the movie to go do something else for 10-15 minutes I apparently missed all of the important plot movement that there was to see. I came back to the couch and the story was wrapping up. If you missed those crucial few minutes, like I did, you find it hard to believe in the outcome.
Again, Hugo had the parts to be a great movie. They just fit together in a way that I found unappealing. In that way this reminds me forcibly of Super 8. The same lesson could be learned here. Story first, kids.
2.5/4