Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

So, the big things in the news today, finally overshadowing the reboot of Marvel's Spider-Man series or Avatar's financial success was the National Board of Review awards gala last night. First off, Ivan Reitman was in attendance in support of his son, Jason Reitman, and the honoring of his latest directorial effort Up in the Air receiving the distinction of the year's best film. While there, MTV caught up with Ivan to question him on the status of Ghostusters 3, and while the director wouldn't confirm nor deny Signourney Weaver's slip-up spoilers from a few weeks back, he did announce that he would be stepping behind the director's chair one more time in the series and that Harold Ramis' projected 2011 release could be happening as the script is finished and he has hopes of filming beginning within the year.

Secondly from the event, a special achievement award went to Wes Anderson for his stop motion film, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, in which he accepted via a nice stop motion animated skit. Forgive me for not being able to find an embeddable version of the clip, but here is the link to /Film's coverage.

Cinematical's Monika Bartyzel has an excellent article up on her elated feelings on the Los Angeles Film Critics Society's choice for the greatest film of the decade... David Lynch's typically bizarre homage to Hollywood life, Mulholland Drive. Well worth the read.

The New York Times announced today that the Nintendo Wii will join the ranks of the fellow new generation video game consoles and will begin streaming Netflix over the Internet. The only downside is Wii's inability to play high definition, although the linked article speculates on the release of a Wii HD, already an inevitability.

Monday, November 30th, 2009

The accompanying image for today's blog comes from Racked New York and is pictures of Bergdorf Goodman Men's Store's holiday window in New York City. A nice tie-in to Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Kind of sad to realize that a claymation fox is more exquisitely dressed than I ever will be.

The Satellite Awards nominees were announced today, with Rob Marshall's upcoming musical Nine picking up the most nominations. You can check out the entire nominee list at the International Press' official statement here.

The Satellite Awards are, for all purposes, just a preliminary match for the Golden Globe Awards, itself just a stepping stone to the Academy Awards. The nominee list led me to the Oscar prediction site, In Contention. The big category to look for is Best Picture, as it will contain ten nominees this year. The top nine contenders the site lists includes Nine, the Coens' latest A Serious Man, Pixar's Up and James Cameron's highly anticipated Avatar. Then, if that wasn't good enough for most film nerds, the dark horses and rest of the field mentioned for contention include J.J. Abrams' chapter in the Star Trek franchise, Neill Blomkamp's District 9 and Quentin Tarantino's brilliant Inglourious Basterds. I do have to admit that I'm a bit upset that Watchmen didn't even make the cut for consideration, but all the same, I can't be all that upset about the picks the site has thus far. Also worth a mention is the incredibly low key success Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, which shockingly is also boasting Best Supporting Actress nod at the Satellite Awards, as well as being top contender for the Oscar in comedienne Mo'Nique. We also have Clint Eastwood's sports biopic that will probably be the most overrated flick this award season, Invictus.

Sunday, November 15th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Hotel Chevalier)

I've been slacking on blogging again due to school *sigh*. I know, I know, I need to get my priorities straight. Anyhow, to be quite brief tonight, in honor of Wes Anderson's new film The Fantastic Mr. Fox debuting this past weekend, although nowhere remotely close to my home theater, I thought I would take a look at Anderson's beautiful short film Hotel Chevalier.

The film acts as a prologue, and had its theatrical debut alongside Anderson's most underrated film of his career, 2007's The Darjeeling Limited. The storyline of the film is simply the character Jack, whom is called and visited by his ex-girlfriend, in which they engage into a tiny bit of non-explicit promiscuity and we assume it is the end of their relationship, ending with the couple taking a view of Paris. Jack is played by Anderson regular, the incredible Jason Schwartzman and his ex is portrayed by the stunning and amazing Natalie Portman. It's minimal, offbeat, beautiful and perfectly coupled with the feature film that follows. The only thing in my opinion keeping Hotel Chevalier from gaining the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film is that the Academy disqualified the film for being released on the Internet before its theatrical run, as Anderson first released the films as an iTunes exclusive. Anyhow, please enjoy, unfortunately in two parts, Hotel Chevalier.

Monday, September 21st, 2009

After watching Neill Blomkamp's District 9, I felt like I was watching something more important than the normal science fiction farce. Of course, the storyline is obviously full or allegorical connection to South Africa's former apartheid state. Blomkamp himself being a native of Johannesburg, South Africa and living in the country under apartheid definitely had his own images in comparing the treatment to the aliens as compared to the treatment of foreigners migrating to the country. So I was shocked a little today when the entire blogsphere was running this BBC News story on how Nigeria's Information Minister, Dora Akunyili has called for a ban of the film in Nigeria as well as an apology from the filmmakers for the portrayal of Nigerians as street thugs, prostitutes, criminals and/or cannibals. I'm kind of shocked, because I found an entire underlying theme of "environment dictates behavior". I think it is to be believed that the aliens were all like Christopher by nature, transformed by the brutal surroundings, using the comparison of the Nigerians, one of the real life sufferers of apartheid, as a comparison point, showing what the government had caused them to become to survive. Such a pity, it probably deserves to be seen by the very demographic it is being held from, as it would probably touch a little deeper than the rest of the western world in which it is being embraced.

I was slightly disappointed at the fact that Jennifer's Body didn't make its rounds to the local theater, despite being a for sure #1 at the box office in my mind. Wow, did I misjudge or what? The Megan Fox vehicle that is getting mixed reviews, and still looks very intriguing to me, landed at a measly fifth spot with just under $7 million. The Informant! landed the number two spot, despite being released limited with a little more than $10 million. However, topping the weekend with $30 million, the children's 3-D flick Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

IWatchStuff posted a typically bizarre Japanese commercial for Panasonic which features a new clip from James Cameron's Avatar. The article also links to a new website for the upcoming highly anticipated film that I have yet to see, masquerading as a business/promotion site for the Resource Development Administration's AVTR program.

I read an awful article on Cinematical in which The Weinstein Company has given Twitter credit for Quentin Tarantino's latest Inglourious Basterds raking in over $100 million dollars at the box office. Please don't let this become a marketing norm.

Finally, the amazing featurettes from Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox keeps pumping out. The latest containing what author Roald Dahl's widow Felicity has to say about the film and how close it would be to Dahl's imagination.

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

Most of what I do on this blog is complain or rejoice orgasmically over casting rumors. Most of the time, it is the big name stars that draw us in to watch a film, case in point being last year's Coen Brothers film Burn After Reading. The film's amazing cast included George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt and Tilda Swinton, and they all delivered as to be expected in a dark comedy that was brilliantly written and beautifully directed. As refreshing as such a success is, a more fulfilling viewing experience is when a film with virtually no star power, other than the aforementioned directorial talents of the Coens, gives off the same vibe of excellence. The Coens' new film, A Serious Man, debuted its trailer today, with the only "star" that I noticed was Richard Kind of Spin City fame. The main star is Michael Stuhlbarg, an owner of a rather abysmal IMDb filmography page. The film doesn't appear that it will suffer from the lack of Clooneys or Pitts however, as after watching this trailer, it has shot to the top of a short list of must-sees for late 2009. Also, the best trailer I've seen this year. Even if the film disappoints in every aspect, I was thoroughly entertained for the two minutes afforded to me. Enjoy the trailer.


Yahoo! Movies released another high profile trailer today for the upcoming re-release of the two original Toy Story films in 3-D.

Universal Pictures, via Variety, has announced that the Joe Johnston horror flick The Wolfman has been pushed back to 2010, to be released on Valentine's Day weekend.

Ilene Chaiken, creator of the Showtime series The L Word, has mentioned, via AfterEllen, that there may be a feature film to carry over the series' cliffhanger storyline in the works. Now, I have to admit that The L Word was a guilty pleasure of mine for a bit after a friend forced me to watch it a while back. Maybe it was due to a childhood crush on Jennifer Beals after watching Flashdance. Who knows? But a feature? Am I the only one thinking this is bordering on unnecessary?

It was a great day for trailers. I'll end tonight with a continuation from yesterday's post when I featured a new photo gallery from the official site of Wes Anderson's upcoming stop motion animated The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Today, the trailer debuted, and as great as the stills have been, and as, excuse me for saying, fantastic, that this looks like on paper with the likes of Clooney, Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, etc., etc. behind an Anderson-directed stop motion adaptation of a highly imaginative Roald Dahl children's book, the trailer actually furthers the anticipation for this thing. Has there ever been a year, with this and Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are and Henry Selick's wonderful Coraline earlier this year, so great for children's film? Not since The Dark Crystal has children actually had something that doesn't insult their intelligence. And of course, something that adults will very much enjoy. Enjoy the trailer.

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

When speaking of upcoming films, one of the most overlooked is the upcoming stop motion animated adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's book The Fantastic Mr. Fox, to be directed by Wes Anderson and getting a screenplay treatment from Anderson and Noah Baumbach. What you're looking at in the picture there is one of two images that have just been released from the film, which looks rather incredible. Aside from the nice screen grab, the voice power behind it will include George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray and many more. So put this up there with Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are as potentially two of the better family films since Jim Henson was alive.

Cashing in on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, as all tabloids currently are, The Sun has ran a story that Emma Watson is rumored to be pairing up with Marilyn Manson for a gothic musical re-envisioning of Cinderella. The easy part of this to believe is that Manson would be making the film, as we are still waiting for his directorial debut with Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll. However, Watson, despite the success she has had in the Potter series, is yet to appear in a big screen role outside of Hogwarts. I am guessing she will be a little pickier, but who knows. Oh, an after thought about this story, it hurt me on the inside that people get paid to write for The Sun. What a dreadfully written article. Does their key demographic of adolescents looking for flashes of snatch not care about quality when a nip slip isn't involved? Jesus.

I Watch Stuff posted the new cover of Entertainment Weekly, which gives us a peek at Robert Downey, Jr., Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson in their Iron Man 2 get up.

In the world or real news, Sean Stanley, a 19-year-old man was arrested in Nevada walking on the highway naked, and when asked by officers what he was doing, replied that he was a terminator sent from the future. The guy was on LSD. Wouldn't that be an awesome Dallas-esque ending to the series, the franchise was all just a huge Schwarzenegger LSD trip.

The New York Times reports that a boy, Kyle Shaw, that set a bomb off at a Manhattan Starbucks in May, has cited Fight Club as his motivation. The Times tried to contact director David Fincher, as well as the book's author Chuck Palahniuk for comment to no avail. So, what would have happened if this little nut job would have watched Nitrate Kisses? Would he had changed sexual preference? What if he had watched The Original Kings of Comedy at a young age? Would he go around in a sad but failed attempt at being funny? Ridiculous.

Finally, here is the new trailer for Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It. I will admit that eventually Ellen Page has to jump off the quirky comedy train while the getting is good, but this still looks like a decent film, so at the moment, all is fine. In the trailer, I also noticed Kristen Wiig, Zoe Bell of Grindhouse fame, and in a true OMG moment for me, due to thinking his career was definitely over, Daniel Stern plays Page's father. In addition to what looks like a stellar cast, I have to admit that if there was a local roller derby about, I would frequent it, so the film, even if bad, will probably be slipping in the guilty pleasure column. Enjoy.