Hey wanted to put this shout out for anyone who likes supporting the locals in movies! Looks like a good time so be sure to pre-order it!
And check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sEUQN4c9rU
Local people in a movie!
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Category Archives: Previews
May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor
March is kind of a bummer, isn’t it? I mean, its great in a lot of ways, don’t get me wrong. Saint Patrick’s Day is nice (if you’re Irish and/or like drinking). Sometimes Easter is in March (and if not, April is by then fast approaching). The weather isn’t yet the wretched heat of summer and no longer the brutal chill of winter. But still, its not yet summer vacation (for you students) nor is it time for that much-needed string of holidays (Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day) for those lucky enough to work in an office. Sometimes the box office can be a bit dull too, given the lull between the end of Oscar season and the start of the big summer blockbusters. For this reason and more, I present you with…
Five reasons why I seriously cannot wait for The Hunger Games (March 23)
1. The book is incredible.
If you haven’t read the book yet, I am not going to talk myself blue in the face trying to convince you why you should. I’ve done that to enough of my friends and really, they are the ones missing out, so I’ll just save myself the effort from now on. It’s sort of like trying to get someone to start watching Doctor Who. You can drive yourself crazy talking it up for months, knowing how much the other person would love it if they just took a break from watching garbage like Grey’s Anatomy to watch an episode or two, eventually just trying not to write them off completely for ignoring your well-intentioned harassment. Life is too short though, and you’re better off just letting people do their own (stupid) thing.
2. The trailer.
Guess what? The trailer looks awesome. If you don’t agree with me, you probably didn’t read the book yet. See above.
3. The soundtrack.
Although only a few artists/songs have been announced, this is already looking like a promising collection so far, boasting tracks from Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, and Taylor Swift (don’t hate).
So far, I have only seen her in X-Men: First Class, but her performance in that was pretty excellent. She certainly has the outside look of Katniss down, judging by the movie art and the trailers. Here’s hoping she gets at what’s beneath the surface as well.
5. WOODY HARRELSON <3 HAYMITCH.
The whole movie could be a complete wreck (which I doubt) but it would still be worth seeing for this alone. When I was reading the book, I had no knowledge of the casting choices, so I didn’t picture the characters as any actors in particular. Once I finished the book and began to look up everything I could about the upcoming film, learning that Woody Harrelson would be playing Haymitch Abernathy was like being hit with a ton of bricks (in a good way). Not only is he one of my favorite actors, but he is flat out perfect for the role.
They’ve Sunk Battleship
Do you remember this game from when you were a kid?
Everyone at some point in their lives was drawn into this classic game of strategy and yells of ” You sunk my battleship!” that often lead to the two players throwing the little pegs at each other. Somehow, this simple, basic bored game has been turned into this.
Whatever this is.
Now,allow me explain why this makes no sense what so ever. There was nothing even remotely like this in the original game to start off with. Now, of course basing any movie on nothing more than a board game is going to run into the problem of a plot, themes and characters since most board games don’t have any of those things.
The only one I can think of that was based exclusively on a board game using it’s characters and basic game concept is Clue. Others mention some kind of a game, have people falling into games, but are otherwise are more about about people who play games, like chess, checkers, cards and so on and not the games themselves.
To top of what is sure to be an utter catastrophe of cinema, they managed to get Liam Neeson and Alexander Skarsgard! Real honest actors, that I can only assume were stuck due to some sort of contract, suffering sleep deprivation at the time they agreed, or were in short on a mortgage payment. As for the rest, we have Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Reila Aphrodite and Rihanna. Real class acts to be sure.
Honestly though, I think the trailer speaks for itself.
You can also check out some other trailers at the official Battleship Youtube Page, but remember you have been warned.
Even adults can be children.
I am a picky comedy watcher, I am not a fan of a lot of the supposedly funny movies that have been coming out lately. However Carnage, which will be released to select cities on December 16th, 2011, gives me hope that there is still a chance for the comedy genre.
What got my attention right away was that one of the stars is John C. Reilly, one of my favorite actors, whose recent work has kept me home rather than pushed me to the theater. So it’s exciting to see him in something that seems like it will be a little different. That’s not to say that the rest of the cast is not a draw in their own right. Carnage also stars the fabulous Jodie Foster, the stunning Kate Winslet and Christopher Waltz, who appears to be making a name for himself in American film after his role in Inglourious Basterds.
The plot of the movie is relatively simple one. Winslet and Waltz are Nancy and Alan Cowan, while Foster and Reilly are Michael and Penelope Longstreet. Both couples have young boys who are going to the same school, the boys get into a fight and in an effort to mend the fence and find out exactly what happened they agree to have dinner together at the home of the Longstreet’s. In comedic fashion, a simple dinner turns into a battleground over parenting techniques and personal habits as these couples start revealing more and more about themselves to the other couple, and even to their spouses. I really hope that my first impression is right and that it doesn’t turn out to be yet another gross-out “comedy”. I plan on giving this movie a chance when I get the opportunity, and I’ll come back and tell you what I thought!
While you wait for it to come out in your area, check out the official trailer!
American Pie redux
American Pie: Reunion will be released next April, capping the popular ’90s sex comedy series. This presumably means another round of sexual hijinks, more mugging from Seann William Scott, more awkwardness from Jason Biggs and another eye-rolling batch of pie puns in the media. The movie centers on a high school reunion, a set-up that lends itself to nostalgia but very little narrative innovation. Can Pie 4 score with such a formula?
Straight-to-video sequels aside, the franchise has been dormant since American Wedding in 2003, which had strong ticket sales but did not match the high-water mark of American Pie 2 in 2001.
The large cast from 1999′s American Pie is re-assembled almost in full for Reunion. The careers of most of these original players have flattened out to an extent, so it’s not hard to see why they re-signed for this final (?) installment. Eugene Levy, the only actor to appear in all the original films and the DVD-only spin-offs, also returns as Jim’s (Jason Biggs) dad.
Here’s a look at the first trailer:
Perhaps the R-rated portions, not permitted in this green-band trailer, will offer something fun, but the film still looks essentially like a feature-length curtain call for the original trilogy. The trailer doesn’t give us much to excite interest and instead seems to be content saying things like “Remember Stifler? Wasn’t he funny back in the day?” This is fine, as long as audiences are in the mood for nostalgia.
The filmgoers who made the initial Pie films box office hits came from an overlap of two generations. It caught the first few cohorts of the Millennial Generation and the last couple from Gen X, meaning its original audience is somewhat diffuse. Will this group, now in their late 20s and early 30s, feel enough residual fondness to make Reunion a box office success? ‘90s redux sequels haven’t fared particularly well (Scream 4, anyone?), but they didn’t trade as explicitly on nostalgia as Reunion seems to. The movie has a distinct “hey, remember shop class?” feel to it, and this might play in its favor. Who doesn’t love seeing an old friend after years apart? Sure, you both might be graying a little at the temples, but that old chemistry and sense of fun is still there. At its best, American Pie: Reunion will be like that pal from years past.
Bond 23 gets a title
The newest James Bond movie finally has an official title: Skyfall.
Well, at least it isn’t something like Modicum Of Abatement. Bond titles tend 
to fall into one of three categories: fatalistic poetics (You Only Live Twice, Die Another Day, A View To A Kill) codenames (Thunderball, Goldeneye, Moonraker), or villain names (Dr. No, Goldfinger, The Man With The Golden Gun). I will tentatively place Skyfall into the second category. (Despite the fact that Bond himself is the lone thing to appear in all 23 films, only The Spy Who Loved Me refers directly to agent 007. Strange.)
My immediate association with Chicken Little aside, Skyfall seems a sound enough choice. It is Ian Fleming-esque without the opaqueness of Quantum Of Solace or the banality of Die Another Day. Positioning two near-antonyms next to each other subtly sets the stage for an epic clash of hero and villain. The “K” is just close enough to the two “l’s” to evoke the word “kill.” (Lethality is always a welcome motif for 007, whose original logo of a number 7 melding into a gun-barrel set the tone.) Title now in place, will the latest in the Bond series be able to continue in the creative groove of recent successes Quantum Of Solace and in particular Casino Royale?
The team assembled by producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli is a good start. Sam Mendes will direct, and the impressive cast includes Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney in addition to returning stars Daniel Craig and Judi Dench. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, scribes behind quip clunkers like “Christmas comes but once a year,” are somehow still employed as the screenwriters, but welcome counterweights John Logan (Gladiator) and Patrick Marber (Notes On A Scandal) put my mind at ease to an extent.
Unlike Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace, which essentially told one long connecting story, the new Bond will start afresh with a new, independent plotline. This is something of a return to the older template, where each Bond movie was its own self-contained adventure. The recent Bond films gave the character a long-overdue makeover, nudging the character back to his literary origins as a man on the edge. The 23rd installment of the durable series will presumably continue that particular trajectory, at the very least.
Skyfall will ultimately boil down to the man playing agent 007, and thus far Daniel Craig’s interpretation has rivaled the two best Bonds. Sean Connery’s original performance hinged on his unusual combination of catlike grace and brute masculinity. He’d punch you in the face with the lithe elegance of a ballet dancer, yet somehow still come across the manliest guy around. His was a Bond of “bruising finesse” – a truck driver who’s gone to finishing school. Roger Moore, a highly underrated 007, personified Bond in the sense that most people know him: impossibly charming, always cool, always entirely in control. There is a bit of patrician obligation in Moore’s Bond, an upper-class duty to combat evil, instead of a deeply-felt moral imperative.
Craig’s 007, despite his immaculate suits and posh accent, is the working class Bond. Martinis don’t interest him much. Baccarat? Forget it. He’d rather play poker. There is a whiff of workaday Northern England resentment in his Bond, a bitterness at where his life has taken him. In my mind, his tuxedos should be smudged with coal dust and his shoes should have steel toes. When he throws a punch, it is charged by the rancor of a difficult life. It will be interesting to see where Craig takes this vinegary temperament in his third go-round as Bond, particularly absent the guidance of continuing plotlines from Casino and Quantum.
Mendes, director of American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, knows how to manipulate complicated fictional personages. On the surface, he is an inspired choice as director, but I do wonder how well he will handle the action sequences. To date, handing the franchise over to character-oriented directors has given us mixed results (take the efforts of Michael Apted, Lee Tamahori and Marc Forster).The best Bond films (Casino Royale, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me) had a technically-oriented director who gave just enough attention to character to keep us emotionally involved. Nevertheless, any series that has so many installments that it would be a bust score in blackjack probably welcomes new perspectives and approaches. Martini glasses crossed that Mendes’s character-driven style and Craig’s on-edge Bond meld for a worthy 50th-anniversary 007 adventure.
Skyfall is slated for release November 9, 2012 in the U.S.
Freud and Cronenberg get Dangerous
David Cronenberg meets Sigmund Freud (and Carl Jung)! Now, that’s a cross-generational chat I’d love to be a fly on the wall for! Unfortunately, barring miracles of resuscitation or a sudden breakthrough by Doc Brown, it’s little more than a fun thought experiment. Perhaps the next best thing will be to check out the director’s upcoming film about the two great minds, A Dangerous Method.
Freud’s ideas no longer have the same currency in academic circles that they once did, but there is little denying that he exerted a powerful influence. The great founder of analysis entered the world scene around the same time cinema began to take form, and the two have had a tempestuous relationship ever since.
While his ideas are a pervasive element of countless films, Freud himself has not been particularly well-represented on film. Montgomery Clift played Freud in a paint-by-numbers 1962 biopic. (No, that’s not a typo – Montgomery Clift played Freud. Perhaps there’s an unfinished project somewhere with Rock Hudson as Carl Jung?) Later, Alan Arkin tackled the role in an SNL-impression style for Herbert Ross’s fitfully entertaining Sherlock Holmes caper The Sever Per-cent Solution. And unless we’re going to count light-hearted cameos in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure or Alec Guinness’s ghost Freud in Lovesick, that’s about it.
Cronenberg appears ready to rectify the situation. His films, which as often as not contain at least one “threatening” word in the title (dangerous, violence, brood, crash, dead, rage, crimes, spider), have been putting us ill-at-ease and making us think for over three decades. His latest will perhaps finally give the influential Austrian neurologist his on-screen due:
Certainly, a sexually-charged psychodrama is the sort of material particularly suited to Cronenberg’s cinematic interests (obsessions?). The “Tell me about the first time you can remember being beaten by your father? . . . It excited me” exchange in the trailer neatly encapsulates some of the darkest themes in his works. With a fine cast including Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley and Michael Fassbender, A Dangerous Method looks like another Cronenberg mind-twister in the making. The movie opens November 23 in the U.S.
Shakespeare, did he or didn’t he?
A week from today the movie Anonymous will hit theaters and explore an idea that has been floating around for almost as long as the man himself, the idea that William Shakespeare didn’t write any of the work that has been credited to him for over 400 years.
Taking place primarily at the end of the Elizabethan Era , it will strive to be a unique version of the truth behind some of the greatest plays ever written. I have high hopes that it will achieve it’s goal without becoming too overblown, it is a subtle subject that happens to take place during a somewhat turbulent era of history and the goal should be to keep the Shakespeare story on the quiet side of the turbulence. While the trailer makes it fairly clear what their version states, it is not a mystery after all, I think it has the makings of a great period drama.
Now on aesthetics alone it also looks like it will be a beautiful piece on par with the Elizabeth starring Cate Blanchett. And as someone who is a big fan of period pieces, I appreciate when a movie takes the time to grasp the true opulence of an era, as well as the harsher realities. I plan to check this one out, and hope that it lives up to it’s own expectations.
Anonymous stars:
Vanessa Redgrave as the “Virgin Queen”
Rhys Ifans as Edward De Vere / the real(?) William Shakespeare.
Sebastian Armesto as Ben Johnson a rival of Will’s.
And Rafe Spall as the actor turned playwright William Shakespeare.
Check out the trailer:
Everyone knows that there is no question that “Shakespeare” is the name attached to some of the greatest works in history. Powerful stories of love, betrayal, laughter, joy, tragedy and comedy. Some of his works are examples of the modern “Dramedy” idea following in a long tradition of dramatic themes with comedic elements going all the way back to the Ancients.
So in honor of the great playwright William Shakespeare, whoever he was, here are some theatrical versions of some of his well known plays, a few of his perhaps lesser known works and of course, we can’t talk about Shakespeare with out Shakespeare In Love.
Daniel Radcliffe – Beyond Potter
During afternoon tea, there’s a shift in the air. A bone trembling chill that tells you she’s there. There are those who believe, the whole town is cursed, but the house in the marsh is by far the worst.What she wants is unknown, but she always comes back. The specter of darkness.
The Woman In Black
As has been reported on this blog before - Daniel Radcliffe is going to be starring in his first post-Harry role when The Woman In Black makes it’s way into theaters February 3, 2012.
In this 1900s period horror, Radcliffe stars as a young lawyer visiting an isolated English village to resolve the estate of an old woman. A usual, the locals are secretive and spooky, throw in family photos with the eyes scratched (like in the totally creepy poster above!) out and a mysterious woman draped in black running around and you’ve got the makings of a truly awesome horror movie.
Check out the official Woman In Black website for a great trailer (with a little girl doing a voice over of the above poem.) And there is also there is this awesome teaser trailer!
Radcliffe Back In Black
Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black is a throwback ghost story, molded in the tradition of Henry James, but with enough legit scares to draw in more than just the English major crowd. Slow-burn horror has become somewhat passé in this era of reboots and torture porn, but maybe the new film version of the English tale will signal another shift. The new trailer:
Creepy toys, unsettling narration by a dispassionate child, Daniel Radcliffe looking like Hogwarts is a thousand miles away . . . I’m cautiously optimistic! Indeed, I can remember being rather spooked by the promos for the original A&E;/UK telefilm back in 1989 (fortunately, it aired at 10pm, beyond my bedtime at that age, so I knew I wouldn’t accidentally run into it while channel surfing . . . whew!) To my memory, the recent stage version rests largely on the audience’s reliable habit of jumping when there is a loud noise or sudden movement. Let’s hope the cinematic “woman” has a few more nuanced tricks up her dark-colored sleeve. I missed most of the Harry Potter movies, but I may have to be The Guy In Line for The Woman In Black.
