Screw the much anticipated Indiana Jones trailer—Cinecultist is super duper psyched to get a taste of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2! No official site yet but it's supposed to hit theaters on August 8. Yay.
Speaking of sappy chick movies you think you will be embarrassed to buy a ticket for, Cinecultist heartily agrees with A.O. Scott's assessment that in the sea of horrendous dreck passing for romance in Hollywood Definitely, Maybe is one of the most interesting romantic comedies we've seen in a long time. Page Lindsay: it actually has smart, interesting, culturally literate women characters! Isla Fisher's character April is introduced in a The Smiths t-shirt, travels the world on a lark and can express an opinion, while Rachel Weisz's character Summer unapologetically sleeps with her brilliant advisor, has a kid on her own but also knows the lyrics to a standard like Gershwin's "I've Got a Crush On You." The general adorableness of Ryan Reynolds plays a worthy foil to these rockin' chicks. Plus, the movie includes some choice New York locations like Cafe Gitane in Nolita and Odeon in Tribeca. The premise may be cribbing HIMYM (btwm new episodes Mar. 17), but all in all a cute little movie that's worth seeing over the long holiday weekend.
Cinecultist can't tell which of the totally hackneyed lines from this trailer for The Other Boleyn Girl we like best. "Sisters, and therefore born to be rivals" is great and so is the use of the word "besotted." Maybe the ultimate is Portman's histrionic plea that ScarJo is her "only hope!" *Snicker* Regardless of the winner, describing this horrendous trailer the other night over dinner to Lisa, our partner in horrible movie watching, Cinecultist was practically giddy. Frankly, February 29 can not come soon enough. We can hardly wait to throw popcorn at the screen and giggle at Eric Bana's tights.
Cinecultist sometimes has a terrible memory. We know that we read The Jane Austen Bookclub a few years ago because it's sitting right there on the bookshelf and vaguely we recall enjoying it. But plot, characters and themes are all a bit fuzzy. There's a book club? They read Jane Austen's six books together? Romance, intrigue or something or other? Watching a trailer for the movie version which comes out on Sept. 21 rang a few distant bells. Oh well, with a cast this good (Maria Bello, Emily Blunt, Hugh Dancy, Amy Brenneman, Kathy Baker, Jimmy Smits and Maggie Grace) we'll probably be seeing it regardless of if we can remember the finer points of the story.
Another Jane Austen reworking on the movie horizon is Anne Hathaway's Becoming Jane, a fictionalized biopic which imagines that Jane's spinsterhood sprung from a disappointed great love. It is out Aug. 3. While CC always finds Hathaway charming and thought this was also a good role for the on-the-cusp-of-stardom James McAvoy, it plays a little too fast and loose with what we understand as Jane's life story. To suppose that one of the greatest romantic comedy wits ever had some sweeping movie-style affair in her life is just a little too Hollywood convenient.
In case you couldn't tell, Cinecultist is very protective of Madam Austen. We don't want to see her too tinkered with, just to tap into a continuing trend from the '90s. We take appropriations of her work and her person oddly personally. If you're going to riff on her, ye puny novelists and filmmakers, we demand you be smart about it. To get into what Jane Austen's writing means to CC would probably take more than just one blog post but suffice it to say, she's the patron saint of all smart girls and we've read all her books (even the childhood ephemera) more than once. Going into a mild-mannered Hollywood movie with that much baggage and pre-conceived notions is never going to turn out well. Or could it? Will our decade plus obsession make Cinecultist the perfect critical audience these two movies, one highly tuned into the potential pitfalls and pleasures of the subject matter?
"After much foreplay, the feature version of the long-running HBO series is gearing for a fall start, with New Line near a deal to finance and distribute," according to Variety today.
Frankly, Cinecultist is a little "meh" about it. We own most of the series on DVD, got HBO when we moved to New York in order to watch it, and even paid good money to go on the SATC tour while in graduate school. (CC wrote a cultural studies paper about the show and its branding of the New York City experience, so shut up about it.) In other words, we should be able to muster more excitement about the news.
Maybe it's because we can't imagine any sort of interesting plot line for the "girls" to explore. The series finale really wrapped it up pretty tidily. Besides, as everyone keeps pointing out with a tinge of evil gloat, the actresses are all getting up there in years. SATC was a product of its moment—financially solvent, sexually expressive 30-somethings living in New York during the booming '90s. But now those chicks have moved on, bought the co-op in Park Slope and retired the Blahniks. What's interesting or sexy about that? Frankly, the whole retread, been-there-seen-it-done-it-bought-the-tshirt aspect is depressing.
If like the Cinecultist you've spent any time discussing the MacGuffin or have any fondness for the Fat Man, you'll be equally excited about this news. Sony Pictures will be remaking one of Alfred Hitchcock's first films made in his native Britain, the 1926 silent thriller The Lodger, to be set in modern day Los Angeles and directed by documentarian David Ondaatje, according to Reuters today.
Three keys to a great Lodger remake, in CC's opinion, are a strong script, understanding chiaroscuro and thoughtful casting. As for the later, might we suggest tapping into the androgynous, sexy qualities of the original actor Ivor Novello by casting Jonathan Rhys Meyers? After Match Point we know he can do "cold-hearted killer" as well as "surprisingly sympathetic sex machine." Plus, look at those lips! Not to mention the epic cheekbones. Sigh. We'd definitely pay $11 to see JRM as a modern day Jack the Ripper.
As you surely have already heard on the Interweb, Michael Moore's newest documentary, Sicko, wherein the pudgy Michigander takes on the health care industry, has been leaked. Cinecultist has plans to see an advance press screening this evening and when we mentioned it to a coworker, he promptly IM'ed us a URL to download it. According to Brandweek, "One site, thepiratebay.org, lists at least roughly 2,000 downloads of the flick, and the Web site p2pnet.net, which tracks torrents, or P2P downloads, writes that the movie “is already thoroughly entrenched on the p2p networks.”
Not surprisingly, Moore has come out on the side of content sharing, as long as the folks passing his work around aren't making money from it. Or course, Lionsgate and Weinstein Co., the movie's distributors, may not be so happy with Moore's (public) live and let live attitude. It should be really interesting to see if the box office seems significantly lower than expected after the movie hits theaters on June 29. Or, on the flip side, if the increased internet buzz gets more butts into theaters, even if it is for a repeat viewing.
For CC, we'd much rather sit in a comfy theater seat watching a movie than be hunched over our laptop peering in on a free feed of potentially sketchy quality. Also, part of the fun of any movie, though particularly Moore's work, is being part of an enthusiastic audience. When we saw Fahrenheit 9/11 three years ago, it was a total event what with the highly vocal crowds and sold-out late night screenings. Frankly, seeing it with a press/industry crew for free tonight probably won't be as much fun as waiting in line late at night in the East Village in two weeks. Bear that in mind before you rush off to right-save-click.
On Saturday evening, Cinecultist caught a sneak preview screening of the new Pixar movie Ratatouille at the Union Square theater and was completely charmed by Brad Bird's newest flick. Bird and his team are geniuses. Seriously. Movie making magicians. With references to The Secret of Nimh, Willard and Rizzo the Rat's restaurant management technique in The Muppets Take Manhattan, the equal parts smart and sweet story was enough to make even this hardened New Yorker gaga for talking rodents. Oh, and the answer to the question everyone has asked regarding the Pixar track record: Ratatouille is leagues better than their last film Cars, even nearing the brilliance of The Incredibles.
The movie doesn't hit theaters for two more weeks (on June 29) but in the meantime whet your whistle with an extended clip from the official site as Remy the rat enters the restaurant kitchen for the first time to repair a botched soup. In this clip you can see two elements that we really loved in the movie. The way that it uses the character of Remy to evoke the magic of good cooking and the beauty of good eating. The choreographed moves of this tiny rat creating food in a people-sized kitchen in this scene looks almost like dancing. Also, the way the animators use facial expression and gesture throughout the movie as the humans and the animals try to communicate is really delightful. Just a tiny shrug from a modest cooking rat tells you so much about his character. Once again Bird et al. have created a fully formed, three dimensional animated universe and even after the credits began to roll Cinecultist didn't want to leave.
Cinecultist was excited to find some promo clips from the new Amy Sherman-Palladino series, The Return of Jezebel James with Parker Posey* and Lauren Ambrose. Watching all them on the official website, Cinecultist was buoyed by the ASP-ness of Posey and Ambrose's performances but the canned laugh track that seems to be a prereq for any show billed as a sitcom? Painful. We're keeping our fingers crossed for no clichéd lameness on this series. [via Jump Cuts]
*Not-so-confidential to Lisa: Posey's character is a children's book editor, how awesome is that? We'll expect a full review of believability once the show airs this fall on Fox.
Cinecultist has been a longtime fan of the Harry Potter books and movies, receiving the first book as a gift long before the hype even began, but the 50 question ultimate Harry Potter quiz in this week's Entertainment Weekly was really hard. Even the excerpt with only 12 questions posted on the website is tough.
Like, do you remember the answer to this one?
Q: In Half-Blood Prince, the Amortentia potion smells like all but one of the following:
A) Something flowery
B) A Chocolate Frog
C) The woody smell of a broomstick
D) Treacle tart
Or, Q: With what character does Rowling share a birthday? (Answers after the jump...)
Jeez, to know the answers to those lickety-split, now that's a level of fandom that you just have to admire. Test the rest of your wizarding mettle by picking up the April 6 issue on newsstands.
[The gang's all here: Daniel Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint in the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.]
- B) A Chocolate frog.
- Harry Potter.
Cinecultist read with interest Matt Dentler's (aka the programer for the SXSW Film Festival) impressions of Hot Fuzz which played down in Austin this weekend at a special cop/B movie fest. CC saw a preview of the cop comedy Fuzz last week and thought it was utterly hysterical, one of the best comedies, nay flicks, we've seen in ages. In fact, we disagree with Dentler to say that CC thought it was even funnier than the excellent Shaun of the Dead, a zombie spoof movie by the same creators.
What Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, the co-writers and director and star respectively, totally get about the genre is that cop movies are really about the love between two buddies. Straight man on man love is something that is expressed but not spoken about in mainstream films, particularly of this genre, and in a smart, delightful way Wright and Pegg bring it to the surface of their movie. They also figure out a way to be meta, yet not smug in their self-awareness. It's totally brilliant all around.
You can catch another preview of the movie (which comes out on April 20) at the Film Society as well as a conversation with Wright, Pegg and co-star Nick Frost on April 10. Should be a fun evening, especially for fans of cop movies and these hot Brits.
Okay, so it's only Wednesday but Cinecultist is already thinking longingly of the weekend. There's something about being at mid-week that makes you itchy for a lazy Saturday at the movies, don'tcha think?
Manohla Dargis in today's NY Times reminds us that there are still some great choices coming up in the New Directors/New Films series at MoMA and Lincoln Center. [It runs through Sunday, Apr. 1.] CC joined in on drinks and general merriment at Josephina's this last Sunday night to celebrate the festival, so we'll feel extra guilty if we don't take in more of their excellent offerings.
Coming up this weekend, Cinecultist may also try to see a B Musical at Film Forum or an Edie Sedgwick movie at the Museum of the Moving Image. Singing and jazz hands or poor little It Girl—a tough choice, right?
Damn this recent gorgeous weather in New York. 70 degrees, woohoo! It makes it so difficult to focus on the real task at hand, ie. movie-watching, when all you really want to be doing is wandering around outside with an iced coffee in hand. Hopefully on Friday night it will be less lovely as CC has committed to spending three hours in doors for a sneak peak at the highly anticipated Richard Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double feature, Grindhouse at a neighborhood theater. Full opinions (namely if our annoyance at QT's pretensions still burns with the fires of a thousand suns) will be forthcoming, as soon as our butt regains some feeling from spending so long in a movie seat.
P.S. If you haven't checked out the movie's incredibly self-indulgent and unnecessarily complicated official website yet, please do. You can make things explode AND listen to the sound of faux old movie projectors. It's over-the-topness is both really admirable and yet frustrating. Sort of like how CC often feels about QT's movies, actually.
P.P.S. A happy birthday to the Cinecultist's sister, Laurie, today. We'll always be the Waldorf to your Statler. "It's good to be heckling, again. It's good to be doing anything again!"
Last night at the Museum of Modern Art, Cinecultist attended a special preview screening of Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a new movie about the Irish "troubles" which won the Palm D'Or at Cannes this year. Loach was in the house to introduce the movie and answer questions following (as pictured with a MoMA staff member), as well as cast members Cillian Murphy, Padraic Delaney and Mairtin de Cogain. It was unassuming English and Irishmen all around, with one more self-effacing than the next. Loach in particular is totally adorable, like a sweet grandpa you want to take home for a cup of tea and then debate the history of Western philosophy.
One thing all four panelists were incredibly passionate about though was this project, which Loach described as coming together quite naturally. The struggles for Irish independence was a topic he and writer Paul Laverty had discussed for many years off and on before deciding to develop it into a screenplay about two fictional brothers caught up in the fighting. Each brother represents a point of view and as the conflicts get more heated, their impulses to do "the right thing" gets harder and harder in the face of the horrible circumstances.
Like in Loach's previous films that CC's enjoyed Bread and Roses and Sweet Sixteen, he does an amazing job of illiciting nuanced and naturalistic performances from his actors. Cillian Murphy has had good roles before, but he's particularly wonderful here as a young doctor compelled to fight for his country despite his gentle conscience. Also, CC was pleased to note that in person Murphy's modest personality doesn't contain any traces of his creepy characters from Batman Begins or Red Eye. Apparently, Cillian is a nice guy who's just a really good actor. Go fig.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley hits US theaters a week from Friday.
Wherein Two Known Offenders Comment on Lengthy Movie Running Times...
David Fincher:
"I do agree you can't just make movies three hours long for no apparent reason. For a romantic comedy to be three hours long, that's longer than most marriages. Sometimes, maybe filmmakers can fall in love with the story they're telling and maybe need to be more diligent in how they're telling it. There's stuff in the narrative [of Zodiac] that's not essential to the investigation, but if you start removing that stuff, it becomes even more of a dry police procedural.You need to have that characterization in there but not wear out its welcome. It's not my intention to be boring. The hope is you're able to walk a fine line."
Zodiac, 160 min.
Fight Club, 139 min.
Jerry Bruckheimer:
"[Pirates' distributor Disney] loved the film. They always would like things shorter to get more screenings in in a day, but they also recognized we made a very effective movie that held people's interest. When you walk out of that theater, you want to feel like you've had a complete meal."
Pirates: Dead Man's Chest, 150 min.
Bad Boys II, 147 min.
[via]
It's only the Monday after the Oscars but already the Cinecultist is looking ahead to what's coming next from the movies, especially work made by stylish women filmmakers. The New York Times Style section helps out in that regard with this lovely slide show of photos by Maciek Kobielski which includes pics of Mary Harron, Valerie Faris and Miranda July. Sarah Polley is also featured talking about her new movie Away From Her which she wrote and directed based on an Alice Murno short story. While it doesn't come out in wide release until May 4, CC is already totally psyched for it. So smart, so beautiful, and such an brilliant actress--Polley is the total package so we expect her movie making skills will be equally as excellent.
Speaking of admiring artists and the clothes they wear, Cinecultist went up to Pier 95 yesterday with our friends Josh and Jason to enjoy some of the spectacle of the Armory Show. This is an annual two day event that's primo people watching, in addition to being an exhibition of some the best current art from around the world. CC caught glimpses of some new Bill Viola video work, a giant portrait of Pete Doherty by Hedi Slimane broken down into multiple glossy panels and sipped a couple of comp mimosas. A tiring but fabulous Sunday, darlings...and now it's back to our regularly scheduled work week.
Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) knows that something wicked this way comes in the new Korean movie The Host.
Cinecultist likes monster movies with bite, the kind where you get goosed by something jumping out from the screen right after you've laughed uproariously at some witty, ironic aside. The two parts "goosing" and "laughing" have to go together, one without the other just devolves into Children of the Corn or the like. If you also appreciate smart scariness on screen, might we suggest checking out The Host, a newish movie by Korean director Bong Joon-Ho which CC saw at NYFF last year and is finally getting a theatrical release. The IFC Center here in New York is also hosting a mini-fest of his movies starting next Monday and culminating in a screening of The Host with Bong conducting a post-film Q&A on Tuesday.
Two things we heartily enjoyed about this movie, though there's a lot in it to endear:
1) It's a Godzilla for the 21st century, a seemingly innocent action movie that's actually fraught with intriguing paranoia about mankind's callousness towards nature coming back to bite us in the ass. The Japanese in '54 were freaked out by the prospect of nuclear disaster, while the Koreans seem to be more afraid of the mutations from pollution by chemicals. Either way, in both movies they know they've been co-opted by American expansionist greed and they sorta know they're screwed (ie. expecting a huge beast to emerge from the water and eat their people). It ain't gonna be pretty, but it makes for a darn entertaining movie.
2) In the face of scary nature rebelling against stupid mankind, you'd expect the movie's heroes to actually be heroic but Bong says, Pshaw that kind of simplistic characterization is for chumps. In every instance where various members of this one family could save the day with their unique abilities, they don't. It's failure and well-meaning fuck up all around, which as a movie's strategy takes some serious balls. Without giving too much away, Cinecultist really admires any film that can be both decidedly genre picture yet flout that genre's structures to the audience's face. Bong achieves this with grace and good humor, while keeping the suspense level high.
Jim Carrey, an actor the Cinecultist has enjoyed even when others didn't ie. in Man On The Moon, has a new flick coming out this weekend and is thus on the junket circuit. We caught him this morning on The Today Show clowning around with Matt Lauer during a jeans fit segment and so with chuckling anticipation sat down to listen to his interview with Meredith Vieira about his thriller The Number 23. However, it seems the wacko numerology premise of the movie has over taken Jim's ordinarily entertaining junket banter.
Between the beatific grins at Meredith and the shaggy page boy haircut he's sporting, Carrey seemed a little off kilter from the start. Then he begins spouting about how he's long been influenced by connections in his life to the number 23, even before he received the script to this movie, and proceeded to list for Meredith all of the important relationships in his life connected by 23. Apparently, Jim says it's all about getting reminders of how magical the universe is. If you take the number of letters in his name + his costar Virginia Madsen, it equals 23. Same with Jim and director Joel Schumacher's names. Just in case middle America couldn't keep up with all of this freaky counting, Today then flashed up a graphic of Jim's name plus Meredith's also equaling 23.
Doesn't this all seem a little too kooky Method actor, even for Carrey? Although maybe this is the beginning of trend for Numerology to become the next big Hollywood religion after Scientology and Kabbalah.
Doing a quick scan of the Cinecultist archives, we noticed we're really kind of obsessed with Mandy Moore. As evidence, we discovered we've blogged about her movies How To Deal, Chasing Liberty, Saved! and American Dreamz. Now that's some serious (though admittedly juvenile) fandom, people. So of course, Cinecultist is intrigued by the release of a new MM movie this weekend, Because I Said So which includes Diane Keaton, Lauren Graham and Piper Perabo as her costars.
Poking around the official website, CC discovered their quiz to determine whether the guy you'd pick as your Mr. Right is the same choice as your mother's. Apparently this is a theme from the movie wherein Keaton meddles in Moore's love life trying to marry her off. It's probably not rocket science to describe these types of quizzes as always incredibly stupid, mostly because they often seem to offer three options none of which CC would ever pick. For instance the question, "On a first date you should never...A) Think about it, B) Talk about it, or C) Do it." Not to seem totally easy but if on a first date you're not doing at least A and B, you might be on a date with your cousin. This one is equally as perplexing, "Who's the best catch...A) Boring, Middle class, great in the sack, B) Exciting, broke, good in the sack, or C) Tolerable, rich, horrible in bed." Uh, totally none of the above? What kind of romantic compromise is this movie proposing for its easily influenced chick viewers? Finally, the worst question of the bunch: "Your man's favorite drink: A) Beer in a can, B) Red wine spritzers, or C) Brandy on the rocks." Seriously, we would ditch at a bar a dude ordering any of those drinks, let alone call him our man. Why would you drink beer in a can if you can have it on tap? Who ever makes red wine spritzy? Right?
The capper to all of this pointless quiz taking is that you're supposed to email your responses to your mother and then she'll take the mom side of it. That was the moment when Cinecultist seriously reconsidered investing our hard earned $10.75 in this movie. CC hearts our Mom, but we'd never ever in a million-zillion years discuss our romantic preferences in such detail with her, let alone via a cheesy website quiz. It just seems so wrong and crossing a line of movie promotion that should remain a firm divider. The idea of supplementary content to promote a new movie is one CC supports but come on people, use your brains. The movie may not be what we'd strictly call "realistic" but at least you can make this stuff not utterly laughable. Why waste your time as well as ours?
Singer (and fellow East Village resident) Norah Jones has been on the talk show circuit lately because her third album, Not Too Late hits stores this week. Mostly Jones' music isn't our cup of tea (to put not such a fine point on it, it's total vagina music and we grew out of that stuff after attending the Lilith Fair in '97), plus her level of crazy run away success and her crankiness about bloggers mocking her secret glam band, sorta bugs. However, her return to the media glare reminded Cinecultist of one intriguing bit of No Jo trivia: she's starring in Wong Kar-Wai's English language debut, My Blueberry Nights. Co-starring Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn, Jude Law, and Nathalie Portman, at least we can tell that Wong based casting on good looks punctuated by intense eye gaze skills. Actually in a recent EW article about Jones, it sounds like Wong had more of a plan than that.
"He cast Jones at their first meeting, but insisted the novice thespian not take lessons to prepare for the part of Elizabeth, "a woman who," Jones says, "is a little bit lost in life and takes a cross-country trip to find her way." Wong was beyond pleased with the results. "Crying in front of the camera is one of the hardest things for a first-time actor to do. She nailed it on the second take. After, she turned to me, her eyes still red, and asked, 'Do you want more?'" recalls Wong. ''At that moment, I knew this lady could act."
Intriguing, right? Of course we'll have to wait until June* to offer up our full assessment of Jones' emoting abilities in front of the camera, and obviously we'll be holding her to that high benchmark set by former Wong actresses like Maggie Cheung, Faye Wong, Brigitte Lin, Gong Li and Ziyi Zhang. Sorry for the tough company Norah, but you really kinda brought it on yourself.
*This is the date currently on IMDb but bear in mind that it's being released by Weinstein Co. who are notoriously bad about firmly setting their release schedule.
According to Reuters today, Park Chan-wook's next movie, I Am A Cyborg But That's Okay will be screening in competition at the up coming Berlin Film Festival in February.
The Korean official site, which does have an English version thank goodness, is incredibly complex with all kinds of crazy Flash animation in a pop-up book format. Check it out, Cyborg looks like it's going to be a little Benny and Joon meets Amelie, though with a very Park p.o.v. Cinecultist will be anxious to see it once they get a U.S. distributor.
* Cinecultist's DVR is itching for the opportunity to prove its mettle. It's lonely from excessive reruns and it can't wait for January when HBO premieres new episodes of Rome, and Extras (both on Jan. 14). In anticipation of more quality time spent inside the weirdo noggin of Ricky Gervais, there's a profile in the current issue of the New York Observer.
* Weinstein Co. announced today they're going to distribute Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan movie, I'm Not There. The cast alone has us salivating--Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Ben Whishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin, David Cross and Bruce Greenwood--but the six different stories, different actors playing Dylan depending on the era, has CC positively chomping at the bit. Positively 4th Street, that is.
Jeez, just when the Cinecultist was beginning to think about the 2006 award season contenders and to field questions from friends about our top 10 for the year, Sundance Institute goes and announces their line up for the 2007 festival. There's a title-dropping article in today's New York Times listing some of the potential highlights. Of note from our quick scan through the piece: there's a whole heck of a lot of politically-minded docs screening, 12-year-old Dakota Fanning is venturing into sexually dicey material (eep!) and Hollywood offspring Zoe Cassavetes (daughter of John and Gena Rowlands) finally stops just being on those "ones to watch" lists and actually made a movie. Color CC intrigued.
While it's amazing that anyone would actually subject themselves willingly to such stupidity on camera, Cinecultist doesn't really "get" the appeal of Johnny Knoxville and Jackass Number Two, which hits theaters this weekend.
CC didn't see the first one or watch the TV show, so maybe a faithful reader can let us know. There's no plot or story right? Just guys stapling stuff to their nether regions? Why is that funny? Seriously, we want to understand.
The closing film tonight in Bryant Park's annual summer film festival is Rocky, a totally classic sports movie if there ever was one. This got Cinecultist to thinking about what the new Rocky installment would be about and fortunately, we stumbled on the above video clip of the trailer.
Fittingly, this time the fight is for the dignity of all aging baby boomers, who through the fountain of eternal youth known as the computer, makes Rock think the old dog still has some bite in him. What a totally fitting underdog story for our times. With apologies to the Cinecultist's parents, the boomers still think it's all about them, don't they? Can't you just sense the cultural studies term papers waiting in the wings on this one?
For more info (and the still stirring theme song coming out of your computer's speakers) visit the official site.
Before she became such a train wreck-orama, Britney Spears understood that associating her stardom with the original blonde bombshell, Madonna was good for her image. Now, the tween sensation Hilary Duff seems to be hoping for the same boost with her new movie, Material Girls which comes out Aug. 18. We don't know too much yet about Duff's project with her sister, Haylie, besides the floofy plot (celebutante sisters loose all their money but have to rise above it to win back their family's cosmetics company). Until we sought it out today, CC hadn't even seen the trailer. Obviously we're not regular readers of Hilary's blog.
But, we do find it interesting that Madge's production company, Maverick, is one of the producers on the film and that Hilary has recorded a cover of the '80s classic, "Material Girl," for the soundtrack. Between the rocker boyfriend, the djing at Misshapes and now this association with the star who made reinventing herself an art form, the Duff Duff seems to be trying to be more than just the Disneyfied pop tart of her youth. Cinecultist for one is staying tuned for further intriguing Duff-related developments.
One after another trailer this morning at the movies had Cinecultist practically hopping up and down in our seats. How hot do these movies look? Red hot.
! Borat (Nov. 3). Sacha, we heart you so damn much. Egad, CC's psyched!
! Children of Men (Sept. 29). In the future, no one can have any children. Looks creepy and exciting.
! Babel (Oct. 27). Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and some international incidents.
Also, potentially intriguing.
~ The Last Kiss (Sept. 15). Zach Braff in the American remake of the huge Italian blockbuster about late 20 somethings with commitment issues.
~ The Fountain (Oct. 13). Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz love across time in this sci-fi/fantasy/cancer story by Darren Aronofsky.
Ever since we heard that John Cameron Mitchell, the man who made musicals about German transsexuals hip again, was doing a movie with real sex, we've been intrigued. His new movie, which screened at Cannes this year, is called Shortbus and it follows a small group of New Yorkers through their various conquests and breakdowns.
Cinecultist actually already caught an advance screening of this flick and while we don't want to post too much yet about it, we will tell you we liked it quite a lot. Two of the best things in the movie are the soundtrack and this amazing detailed model of Manhattan which the camera swoops around onboth of which are featured in the teaser trailer above. It's clear from the film that JCM hearts NYC (in addition to graphic coupling on screen) and for that, Cinecultist can't help but love him back.
Reading the profile of director and producer Lee Daniels in the New York Times by Lola Ogunnaike today, Cinecultist had our mouth open in disbelief. We watched a screener of his directorial debut, Shadowboxer, a few months ago and it ranks up there as one of the most painful movie watching experiences. After producing Monster's Ball (Halle Berry sleeps with her husband's executioner) and The Woodsman (Kevin Bacon plays a pedophile), Daniels is known as an "edgy" filmmaker to say the least, but Shadowboxer completely ignores the edge going instead for abominably poor taste and wash your eyes out with soap shock.
The sad thing is the movie has actors in it who've done brilliant, actually edgy past work (Helen Mirren, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and could do intriguing work in the future (Mo'Nique, Macy Gray) if given the right project. But what Daniels has done here is a muddled hodge podge of assassins, gangsters, crack addicts, cancer patients, and step-parent/child incest. In the first 10 minutes of the movie, gangster badass Stephen Dorff sodomizes an enemy with a pool queue. In the first 10 minutes! Please, please, please don't go see this movie. We beg of you.
But, you should quietly chuckle at this bizarro quote from Daniels in the Times profile regarding the casting of Mo'Nique as a crack addicted doctor's assistant and lover to JGL:
My sister was an obese crack addict, he said. She had a chicken wing in one hand and crack pipe in the other, and she had the finest white men lined up waiting for her. This is a real person to me.
Actually, maybe that quote isn't so much funny as soul-suckingly sad. Excuse us while we go cry our eyes out.
With the eminent release of M. Night Shyamalan's Lady In The Water this Friday, the Night Hype machine has roared to life. We read last week the excerpt from Michael Bamberger's book in Entertainment Weekly about the fraught making of this new film (Disney doesn't understand the genius of Night! Bad Disney, bad!) and more details about the super-secretive process ze auteur insists upon. Then today we caught Night's interview on the Today show and read the Caryn James piece in the New York Times. Over saturation alert!
There's just something icky about a still relatively young, working director so easily comparing his up coming fantasy tale to E.T.. Let others proclaim your genius after you've built up a considerable body of work. Toil quietly, make good movies, tell stories that matter to you--that seems to be the best path towards lasting cinematic importance. Cinecultist enjoyed The Sixth Sense because there was some buzz around this creative storytelling and suspense but there wasn't this overblown cult of personality around the director. Besides, no film critic is going to like seeing themselves depicted by a cranky-pants Bob Balaban, who plays a film critic character in Lady. You "kid because you love" Night, as you said on TV this morning? After that passive aggressive dig, critical consensus may really be showing Night who's the big bad wolf.
Cinecultist knows we should probably be anticipating some overblown summer buddy comedy like You, Me and Dupree but between Manolha Dargis's review in the New York Times today and Reverse Shot's on Monday via indieWire has us all a-twitter for Gabrielle which is out this weekend. It stars Isabelle Huppert (one of our pantheon actresses, thusly distinguished because we could watch them read the phonebook on screen) and was directed by Patrice Chreau, who made one of our other obsessions, Queen Margot.
Dargis writes:
"As Mr. Chreau fluidly moves back and forth in time, using different color schemes and editing rhythms to express what the characters themselves cannot always say, he forces air into a story that in the writing and the subject can feel moribund on the page....Both actors keep you riveted, even when Mr. Chreau blows up passages from Conrads text, cutting away entirely from the performers (making you all the more anxious for their return) or obscuring their images with a well-chosen word ("Stay!"). Together with his extraordinary performers, Mr. Chreau breathes life into characters who long ago set a course for death."
P.S. Happy Bastille Day, our fellow Francophiles. Viva la cinema franais!
The New York International Latino Film Festival doesn't start for a few weeks yet, but Cinecultist has been checking out the line-up on their site. We're particularly curious to see their closing night film, Quinceaera, a movie centered around the coming of age ceremony for 15-year-old Magdalena (Emily Rios) who lives in Los Angeles. It won the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic and the Audience Award American Dramatic this past year at the Sundance film festival plus we've heard great things about newcomer Rios's performance. Roger Ebert seeing it at Sundance reported, "There is rich human comedy here, and sadness, and a portrait so textured that we get very involved."
The festival screening is on Saturday, July 29 and Quinceaera will get a theatrical release on August 4. Official trailer via Apple.
Last week, Cinecultist and co-workers were having a bit of a trailer deluge in our down time and we surprisingly found the Devil Wears Prada preview quite amusing. This book was utterly dreadful -- one of those things that actually seems to make you dumber putting it into your brain -- but as the premise for a fluffy summer comedy, it looks kind of winning. The trailer seems to give you the best of the first 15 minutes of the film as an entr into the flick's fish out of water versus evil boss premise. Though of course our interest in this movie may just be our serious Meryl Streep-aphilia talking. Dear god, we do worship that woman. She's beyond brilliant. While we don't expect this to be another The French Lieutenant's Woman (if you've never seen that Streep-Jeremy Irons picture, rent it right now. Seriously.), Streep as the Devil in Prada should be diverting enough and she looks quite pretty in this production still we found. Consider us there on the opening weekend at the end of June.
Tonight, Cinecultist plans to indulge our fan boy tendencies with a 8:45 pm screening of X-Men: The Last Stand with the Movie Binge boys. Most of the crew are meeting up for a group outing to kick off our summer of crazy movie viewing. Please head over to that space as the summer continues to keep track of our progress and leave some snarky comments. CC and TMB hearts snark.
Amongst the six of us there's been some joking about mutant powers which got CC thinking about what we'd like our power to be if we were a mutant super hero. As a kid, we read this book The Girl with the Silver Eyes about a girl with the power to move things with her mind. After reading it, we'd sometimes stare long and hard at some object trying to will it to budge, even just a touch. Thinking about it now, we don't know why that one supernatural ability so struck our fancy but the idea of using your powerful intellect for superhuman tasks of strength does sound good to this self-professed smartie pants. So our vote is either for that or getting to switch bodies with Famke Janssen (see above with Hugh Jackman who plays Wolverine). She's total hotness as Jean Gray in the first two films, we're psyched to see her transformation to evil in this installment.
The weather is getting balmy in Manhattan (or muggy, if you're feeling glass half empty), there's a long weekend on tap and CC is ready to watch some stuff explode on the big screen. Let's bring on that blockbuster season, we're ready.
This article in the New York Times today previewing Brian De Palma's adaptation of James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia has Cinecultist more intrigued than we expected we would be about this project.
Cinecultist has a problem -- we know when we look at the commercials for the vampire/werewolf actioner Underworld: Evolution that it's going to be bad. However the same geek tendency which made CC attend all the Matrix installments, the Star Wars prequels and not-so-secretly love David Lynch's Dune, is compelling us into the theater on Jan. 20th. To make matters worse, we saw the first Underworld and know how dreadful it was. Battles with bullets of silver and sunlight, goth looks like a bad Nine Inch Nails fan club meeting and Scott Speedman trying to emote* -- it wasn't a pretty scene folks. But there's something evil and compelling about Kate Beckinsale's blue blue eyes staring out at us from that poster, luring us into the cineplex.
Do you think there's a 12 step program for people addicted to bad sci-fi action flicks? Hi, we're Cinecultist and we like to watch geek boy movies with chicks battling demons in leather bustiers on Saturday afternoons.
*Side note: Is there a better over actor these days than Bill Nighy? Dude is beginning to rival some of the best over actors we have (William Shatner, Jeremy Irons) with his crypt keeper crustiness and fondness for gnawing the scenery in amulets.
A slightly hung over and bruised Cinecultist (high heel boots + a few vodka tonics + 5th floor LES walk up = bad scene and sore ankle) took ourselves to the movies on Sunday afternoon at Kips Bay. Sigh. Cineplexes sooth our savage soul. If you havent been to the mainstream movies lately, its trailer-polozza out there for the winter films, people. Heres a few that piqued our interest:
Munich When our buddy Michael begins waxing rhapsodic for an up coming Steven Spielberg release, CC tends to zone out just a touch. He did edit a whole special issue symposium for Reverse Shot on the guy. However, the trailer for Munich looks totally hott and we see now why many critics are holding out on top 10 lists until they see this historical action flick. Daniel Craig looks hot, as does Eric Bana and we realized while watching the trailer that there really arent enough movies that feature Golda Meir. Hollywood, get on that! CC wants more actresses playing Golda.
Aeon Flux Whats better than ass-kicking Charlize Theron with an anime haircut? An ass-kicking Sophie Okonedo, of course. Seeing her in this trailer, plus the visuals and the promise of feminist auteur Karyn Kusama behind the wheel has CC itching for the release. But then again, we love David Lynchs Dune, so our taste for this type of thing should be weighed accordingly.
King Kong For some reason, a scary 24 foot silver back gorilla CC can accept. But 24 foot gorilla battling dinosaurs? This just seems too far fetched. After this preview, Peter Ultimate Geek Boy Jackson is going to have to work hard to earn our $10.75 for a screening of this remade epic. Also, doesnt Colin Hanks look totally bloated here? What happened to him?
Syriana How much are we loving fat, bearded Clooney? Its like the fat Elvis/thin Elvis debate all over again. That guy can do no wrong right now. Plus, thriller/politics/Amanda Peet screaming? Its how you spell awe-some.
Walk the Line When CC caught an advance screening of this movie a few weeks ago, we happened to be chat with the security guard for the screening room who told us hes watched this movie about 20 times so far and he still loves it. Between that regular dudes recommendation and this trailer, you should be very, very excited for this movie. We know a few Johnny Cash purists and while were still waiting to hear their final judgment after it comes out, this trailer is surely whetting our whistle to watch the movie again very soon. Baby, baby, baby, baby indeed.
The supersneakytrickysmart part of this whole Harry Potter world wide craze? Anticipation, count down and then purchasing frenzy for the books can be interspersed with the same mania for the movies. Whew, lucky for us.
But as snarky as we'd like to be, knowing we're now in November means to Cinecultist that we're that much closer to the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie (ie. Nov. 18, baby). Triwizard! Quidditch Cup! Teenage wizards dating! If this means nothing to you, at least we know our 9 year old brother Mark is also counting down the days. We hear he's been watching the first one about five times a day. Nothing like a good repetition movie, if we do say so ourselves.
For more Harry Potter news, including details about the depiction on screen of the Weird Sisters -- only the coolest wizarding band -- and an mp3 of one of their songs, check out this post from Productshop NYC last week.
"I wish I knew how to quit you!" -- Jake Gyllenhaal's best line in the new Brokeback Mountain trailer on Yahoo!
"You don't go up there to fish." -- says Michelle Williams's character to her lyin' husband, Heath Ledger.
Awesome? Not enough? Jake and Heath drooling? Discuss in the comments. By the way, it's 91 days until December 9 if you wanted to set up a count down system.
UPDATE: Brokeback won the Golden Lion at this year's Venice Film Festival. Congrats to our Jakie G., Heath, Ang and the rest of the cast and crew!
Production photo care of Warner Bros. From left: George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr. and David Straithairn
Cinecultist hears that this year's New York Film Festival opening night movie will be George Clooney's sophomore directoral effort, Good Night, and Good Luck about the conflict between Edward R. Murrow and Senator McCarthy during the HUAAC hearings. More information via indieWire.
Crap loads o' crap is coming out in theaters in another week which is really a good thing because as you may have noticed Cinecultist has been in the movies doldrums lately. For now, the haul is smaller. More like a trickle actually which is just fine. This coming weekend we have Johnny Depp's twisted impression of Michael Jackson as a candy entrepeneur (that's our guess anyway, based on clips and our understanding of how Depp's method works) in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory plus the Vaugh/Wilson goofballs in Wedding Crashers but other than that, it's pretty bare. Happy Endings, despite having our Jesse "Sexy When Brushing His Teeth" Bradford in it, looks like mediocre junk. And The Warrior is totally Miramax cast offs, like that last piece of pastry that just looks sad sitting in the box all by itself.
New York weather update: It feels like we had to swim home. Also, as we neared our place a bug the size of a small dog scurried past. And you know when we say "bug," we mean "cockroach" right? Yeah. File it under: ewwwww.
Cinecultist isn't sure exactly what the revenge of those crazy Sith is yet, but it could very well be the complete and total domination of all movie theater screens in our galaxy. After reading this article in the New York Times today with the quotes from studio execs and Fandango.com employees being described as "giddy" about the box office potential tonight at midnight, CC headed over to Fandango to see the lay of the land.
At midnight and one minute tonight nine screens at the Union Square theater will be unspooling George Lucas's newest and then at 3:10 am, 3:20 am and 3:30 am, five more theaters will be available for screenings. That's nutso. That's Darth Vader fever. That's scarier than Jabba the Hut at a Vegas buffet. Of course all of this buzzy movie-going makes CC feel we should be there to be there. Staying awake at work be damned! We need to pull our plastic light saber out of storage and congregate with our fellow geeks! After all, we did the camp out for nearly all of the rereleased ones when CC was in college and we do so love going to movies where people are dressed up in the audience. It's so festive.
Previously: our comments following a late night screening of the Matrix: Revolutions and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
Need we say more? Okay, one more thing -- Clive "mmm, stubble" Owens. Yeah baby. For proper drooling and jumping up and down in your seat like an excited puppy purposes, trailer action for you.
[By the way, that second picture which may seem a little random is a post-birthday present for our sister Laurie, a huge Alexis Bledel fan.]
Last night following the OC, they unveiled the new Star Wars Episode III trailer. It was a weird moment because it appealed to both the geek (lightsabers, woot!) and the girl (cutie Adam Brody playing with figurines, woot!) in Cinecultist.
Our impressions of the various bits of CGI explosions and scary Emporer makeup strung together to whet our Star Wars consuming appetite? When Hayden Christiansen talks now, his pitch always sounds like whining and we can't shake the feeling that he should be wearing Stephen Glass's spectacles while doing so. Look, Natalie Portman has a new hairdo! This time it's curly with a fancy headband! Samuel L. is just too darn "street" for George Lucas's world, despite the Billy D. legacy. Ho hum, explosion, explosion. We didn't know that the Emporer not only sounds like he's eaten lemons but he also has very, very bad teeth. Ewan McGregor is sporting the same facial hair as Yosemite Sam. And we still <3 Yoda. It's just a part of who we are, we can't deny it. Sigh.
We couldn't find a link to the actual spot online but here's a trailer of the trailer if you're curious. There's also an older version of the trailer, with about half of the footage coming from the previous films. Of course the studio hopes you'll buy a ticket to see the animated movie Robots this weekend if you really want to see the new one. For our part, CC thinks we've heard enough terrible puns about bolts from the advertisements that have been everywhere lately. No more Robin Williams! CC cries uncle!
Not really so related but it is if you follow the emo Adam Brody thread: the new Death Cab for Cutie live EP, The John Byrd EP has been totally rocking our iPod this week. Please purchase it, if only to hear Ben Gibbard's charming banter about how Barry Manilow thinks their band has a sucky name or that Ben wishes he'd followed his dream of becoming the Seattle Mariner's shortstop.
Seattle Maggie regrets our long absence from this hallowed URL, but we have been taking a little time off to get ourselves employed. That's right, even after our impassioned tirade about working in an office, we are back behind a desk; however, we find ourselves working in a place that makes books, so we feel that caving in to our weakness for health insurance might be forgiven. Also, toward the end of our "gentlewoman-of-leisure" period, we found that our dwindling bank account made it nigh impossible to actually go and see movies of which to write about. And so, with newfound cold cash melting sweetly in our hot little hand, we slipped gleefully back into the movie theater for a late matinee and found ourselves delighted by the novelty of previews. Seattle Maggie loves us some previews, and we ain't afraid to say so.
First up, Sin City. From what we can tell, it's about hot chicks who beat people up and get fondled by Bruce Willis. Shot in sepia tones with that weird fake hand tinting effect, it features several Model-T car chases and a truly eclectic cast including Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Hartnett, Mickey Rourke and even sweet little Alexis Bledel from Gilmore Girls (oh Alexis - we fully recognize that you are a Woman and are hearing you Roaring, but you didn't have to get all hardcore on us!) While we agree that Frank Miller is a certified comic book genius, this movie looks suspiciously like a train wreck. Rental?
Next, The Ring Two - Naomi Watts takes on the Scary Hair yet again, attempting to convince us that dripping water and television static are creepy. However, the director of the original Japanese Ringu, Hideo Nakata, is at the helm, so it may turn out to be a chill-worthy horror flick. Were on the fence with this one.
Batman Begins. Yeah. Batman. He's, like, beginning. Seriously, though, if director Christopher Nolan can bring back the brooding dignity of the Caped Crusader, we will come. Also, a pumped up (and plumped up) Christian Bale in a Batsuit is never amiss in our book.
Eh. Some Star Wars thing.
Here's a surprise - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, starring our favorite Fisher Price Man and The Office alumnus Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent. And zany yet adorable Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox? Are we totally crazy to be cautiously optimistic about this film? It looks pretty good. We do adore the books, but we aren't fanatical about them; perhaps this will allow us to enjoy the movie in relative peace. SPOILER ALERT! The answer is 42, and be sure to bring your towel.
Oh dear, House of Wax. Horny teenagers piss off a crazed redneck who traps them in a wax museum. A lot of screaming, running, and melty things. Well, one thing sure was scary - as soon as Paris Hilton's pinched little face flashed on the screen, our movie companion Alysha screamed aloud as Seattle Maggie attempted in vain to stifle a belly laugh. But what are WB crushables Chad Michael Murray and Jared Padalecki doing here? Please, please spare us the sight of Cute Dean exchanging bodily fluids with the dreaded Hilton heiress! Death by psychotic rural wax museum curator would almost be preferable.
And Constantine - Keanu Reeves is a hero with questionable morals battling to keep the balance of earth between the forces of Heaven and Hell. Oh wait, that was the feature. Well, it was a pleasant bit of eye candy to pass away a sleepy afternoon, although we could have done without some of the stilted pretentious dialogue and the cheesy CGI effects, like the unfortunate herd of cows dropping dead before the might of the Spear of Destiny. Doesnt the son of Satan have anything better to do than wipe out a bunch of cows? A few notable players were Tilda Swinton as a zealous Angel Gabriel and Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale as a relic hunter in a bowling alley. And while we are in a confessional frame of mind, we admit that our main impulse to go see this movie was that we find Keanu mighty fetching in his black coat, stalking grimly about with his smoldering cigarette clenched in his teeth, smashing demons and angels alike, and giving Satan the proverbial (and literal) finger. Aw, hes pretty. Just as long as he keeps the talking to a minimum.
Ah, summer movies! Seattle Maggie is looking forward to 'em.
Cinecultist has the flu. Blech. We can barely lift finger to keyboard in the midst of our Theraflu and Advil haze. Too much tea. Too many aches and pains in our body. It's all pretty sucky. Though, surely not as sucky as the crop of new releases slated to hit our theaters in the next few weeks. It's enough to make you glad for an excuse to stay in the plaid flannel pjs all day.
Case in point, the follow up to the surprisingly successful genre pick Barbershop, which CC caught on DVD a while ago and didn't think was half bad, Beauty Shop. Wasn't anyone listening to Chris Rock's tirade about how Hollywood panders to the African American movie goer with plotless drivel? That these aren't movies, they're places? Doesn't the look on star Queen Latifah's face in the above production still just spell it out for you, plain as day? Watch the trailer for Beauty Shop and be afraid, be very afraid.
Though the white people ain't doing too much better really (see: The Jacket). Why Keira Knightley and Adrien Brody? Why?
We're going back to bed now. It's too much for us.
Sigh. There's not much good coming into the theaters this weekend, and that's because it's mid January. Assault on Precinct 13 versus Are We There Yet? Oy. You'd think that trying to traverse the frozen tundra that is Manhattan's city streets this week would be enough of a downer, but no! You've got to add the pain of no decent movie releases to the affliction of our vaguely frost bitten limbs.
To be honest, Cinecultist is mostly trying to catch up on our end o' year viewing, as we're sure you are as well. This weekend for us: Ray. We will brave the Quad Cinema, where we broke a seat one time, in search of Jamie Foxx's lauded performance. But that's not all that exciting, very un-news worthy, barely worth a report. The fact of the matter is, we'd love to spend as much of the next few days curled up under the duvet with a good book as possible. Sadly, as the new Day Job is currently on deadline, that's not to be.
Perhaps we'll just post this link to the Postal Service video directed by Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess, "We Will Become Silhouettes," courtesy of one of our new co-workers, Sarah, to pep ourselves up. If Ben Gibbard in acid wash jeans and a turned up collar polo shirt can't warm your toes through, then perhaps you have no feeling at all.
So very excited for Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events this weekend. So excited. Out theory: Any book wherein the author's photo (example seen at left) is taken from his back (?!) has to make for an awesome kid's movie. That's what Cinecultist hopes anyway. Further evidence, Jim Carrey in various get-ups wherein the adults never recognize him but all the children instantly do is potentially priceless. Also, two words: Meryl. Streep. Love her. She was a male Orthodox rabbi in Angel's In America. The woman can do anything. The baby, Sunny's main talent is that she bites things. Bites things! It's going to be awesome.
A big part of this level of fanatical excitement comes from our friend Lisa*. Children's book writer, part time nanny and zoo volunteer, she's has been psyching CC up for Lemony Snicket on the silver screen for ages now. It seems like nearly every time we get together the convo turns to either Lemony or Harry Potter (which may account for why we don't really have any other participants in these conversations), and then there's the obsessing. Full disclosure: CC hasn't read any of the books yet, but that's because Lis wants us to read them in order. It's a whole thing. Like most stories which you anticipate the telling of far before you actually read them or hear them, surely Lemony Snicket can't live up to this much hype. It's just not possible. And yet, it's the kid's book version of Tristam Shandy, which every English major worth their salt knows is a post-modernist masterpiece before they even had modernism, let alone po-mo.
*Last year from Halloween, Lisa went as Charlotte's Web. As in the whole book. She had tiny fake spiders in her hair, the web of words on her shirt, Templeton the rat was on her shoe and she carried a stuffed animal pig. My friends, she's hard core.
Maybe we'll hate the movie and have to print a retraction on this whole posting after the weekend. Or maybe we'll have a two thrilled kid's lit fans, CC and Lisa, leaving the theater cheering. Only the fates can tell us. The author would advise turning back now, this can only end in disaster.
[Note to LG: please let us know via one of the usual communication methods when we're going to the cinema this weekend.]
Apparently, there's a big fray brewing between Mandy Moore and Katie Holms with your poor Cinecultist caught in the middle. Pish posh, we jest it's only between their competing projects, teen rom coms about the fictional president's fictional daughter. Mandy's, Chasing Liberty, came out last winter and we dared to call it the Best Movie of the Year. Now Katie's, First Daughter, is set to hit the theaters this weekend. In anticipation, we bring you the above picture to oggle of Holmes and hunky Marc Blucas who was Riley Finn from "Buffy" and in I Capture the Castle, one of our top 10 from last year.
That's all really. CC just think they're both so preeety.
PS. Happy Birthday yesterday to two others we like to objectify in a platonic, non stalker kind of way, Jen and Aaron. Many happy returns from the Cinecultist.
Ever have that sinking feeling that the hype has taken you hostage? Perhaps that's why Cinecultist finds ourselves all skittish about the opening tonight of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. [Word to the wise, the official site has four separate audio tracks and you have to mute them all, individually, so as to not hear the soundtrack feed. Are these promotional websites getting totally ridiculous or is it just us?]
First off that Gene Shalit quote, featured prominently in the TV spots and in a pop up ad for the website, is unnecessarily hostile and almost threatening. "If you don't like this film, you just don't like the movies." Insert your own bass line here. We hate to discredit someone's critical opinion based on fashion alone, but have you seen this dude's facial hair lately? Scary. (This is an old image of him from his radio days, but we swear he still looks like this.) Why would you ever say something so categorical as this about a movie? Are we being completely contrary or does this make you want to just totally hate it too, merely to thumb your nose at them?
To be honest, CC's a little Sky Captain-ed out already and it's not even into the first weekend yet. All the ads and talk and hype, it's pretty tiring. And we usually live for this sort of thing, too. A few weeks ago, CC was in the Union Square Starbucks having a tasty little Frappuccino and stumbled upon a marketing survey in progress for the movie. A young girl with a laptop was accosting people while they enjoyed their corporation-approved coffees, showing them clips from the movie and asking them their opinions. People love offering their opinions about movies to authoritative strangers, no joke.
First the survey seemed to determine how entertainment savvy the participant was, asking them if they recognized the names of various actors like Jude Law or William H. Macy. Then they watched clips from the flick all huddled around the laptop and said what they thought happened in them. The girl asked CC if we wanted to participate, but we begged off saying we wrote about film. These PR people never want a film scholar or critic's opinions when polling the masses, it seems to skew the results or something. Though we guess that does seem a bit counterintuitive, since asking us these questions would illicit a hyper informed response. Anyhoo, after determining that CC was no movie layman she moved on, and we enjoyed our sugary coffee drink in peace.
The moral of the story? Come the weekend, Cinecultist will probably just go to see Wimbledon instead.
Mmmm, yummy. Gael Garca Bernal is on the cover of this week's Time Out New York. So tromping around the city this week in the torrential rain, Cinecultist gets the pleasure of gazing on his lovely face from every newstand kiosk.
There's two Gael movies coming up that we're anxiously anticipating The Motorcycle Diaries on Sept. 24 about the journey of a young Che Guevara through South America with his childhood friend and Pedro Almodvar's newest, La Mala Educacin. The latter is the centerpiece for the New York Film Festival in early October and will be released wide on Nov. 19.
Following is a quote from Gael in David Fear's profile which seems to be Gael's running press theme: you didn't know it, but Lady Bunny lives inside us all.
"Yeah, before shooting started, several of us hit the town one night totally done up as women the heair, the makeup, the high heels, everything!...Being in drag is really liberating, actually. There's a sense of performance and fun to it that forces a person to let go of the tight-assedness or bullshit machismo they might carry around in their daily lives. It puts you in touch with the inner drag queen that everybody has but never gets let out."
While at the movies over the weekend, as it happens sometimes, Cinecultist saw previews for things that looked better than what we were actually at the theater to see. What tingled our toes the most was the preview for David O. Russell's newest feature, I HEART Huckabees, whose trailer is on view here. Distributed by Fox Searchlight and in wide release October 1, Cinecultist is hard pressed to figure out what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks this movie is about exactly. No official site launched yet, just an adorable but incomprehensible trailer, so we quote for you the plot summary according to IMDB:
Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman), head of the Open Spaces Coalition, has been experiencing an alarming series of coincidences the meaning of which escapes him. With the help of two Existential Detectives, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), Albert examines his life, his relationships, and his conflict with Brad Stand (Jude Law), an executive climbing the corporate ladder at Huckabees, a popular chain of retail superstores. When Brad also hires the detectives, they dig deep into his seemingly perfect life and his relationship with his spokesmodel girlfriend, the voice of Huckabees, Dawn Campbell (Naomi Watts). Albert pairs up with rebel firefighter Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg) to take matters into their own hands under the guidance of the Jaffes' nemesis, the French radical Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert).
Well, that cleared it all up for us. But no matter because it has Isabelle Huppert, of the actresses CC could watch read the phonebook, and if we're not mistaken she's shown in bed with our celebrity husband, Jason Schwartzman. (We froze frame the trailer -- it's there.)
Our love affair with Jason began after seeing the trailer for Rushmore and continued through the joyous consuming of that flick. We even fantasized about the family barbecues and mentally promised never to make bad Ah-drienne jokes about his more or oggle any of the Coppola cousins, if only Jason would be ours. However, things ended on a sour note after Slacker. We dumped him hard after that, with no remorse. But now he's back, worming his way back into our heart, looking all goofy and hot. Is it the longish hair or the subtle shaping to the brows, or a new contour to the face? We're not sure but Cinecultist might be ready for a reconciliation. Our celebrity husband even has good taste in actual girlfriends, as he used to date Selma Blair and is now linked with Zooey Deschanel.
More googling also reveals a strange, and surely narrative driven, "corporate" website for Huckabees, a retailer that sounds kind of like Target. Be sure to click through to advertisements for extra bizarre spots featuring Naomi in brief clothing cheering for low prices.
While we admit that we are getting a bit Harold & Kumar'd out at this point (scroll down to see Cinecultist's, er, Gothamist's take on it), we thought we would post this letter that has been filtering through the various Asian American Entertainment email lists that we have somehow gotten ourselves entangled in. From all the good press, Seattle Maggie would swear that Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle was the greatest step for mainstream Asian entertainers since Tamlyn Tomita got to snuggle on film with the Karate Kid (in Part 2, of course). However, we are getting the feeling that all the feel-good vibes might be a little...well, too feel-good to be true. Since when do Asian Americans need to star in silly, frat-boy humor movies to feel normal?
As a practicing Korean American, Seattle Maggie sometimes wishes that more "normal" roles could be given to Asian actors, but we don't lose any sleep over it (we leave that our old high school chum, Angry Asian Man). A great example of this would be Canada's Premiere Korean Actress, our darling Sandra Oh. Indeed, she shines in the entertaining, yet predictable culture clash Double Happiness, but her merits burst into supernova brightness with Last Night, as a young woman facing the literal end of the world. Last Night never directly mentions her ethnicity, which somehow makes it all the more remarkable. She is just a face in the crowd, dealing with the same problems that everyone else is coming to terms with. We love that there are no tired chicken feet jokes, or tedious plotlines about old-fashioned parents, or gratuitous "uptight-Asian-girl-gets-drunk-and-cuts-loose" scenes. And so, we think that perhaps Harold & Kumar might offer the same kind of graceful transition, by letting young Asian guys just be young guys. Silly, yes. Asian, yes. Normal, a big yes. We are totally in line for the opening this weekend.
As for the whole "wacky tobaccy" aspect of the film, which has been discretely glossed over by mainstream journalists, Seattle Maggie remains both tolerant and mildly amused by those who pay homage to the Mighty Weed. While we hope this movie does not revive that ridiculous "Pot Promotes Terrorism" ad campaign, we do not enjoy the stuff ourselves. Most of our experience with the herbage comes from helping our college dorm neighbor to flush his stash down the toilet after he mentioned wanting to cut down on his consumption in a moment of weakness, much to his profound regret the next day when he realized what he had done. Ah, well, to each his own, and as long as no one loses a limb. And now, a word from Harold & Kumar:
Dear Friends, Fans, Haters, Players, and True Money Makers,
Hey! This is Kal Penn (aka Kalpen Modi) and John Cho writing to encourage you to go see our upcoming comedy from New Line Cinema, "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle," opening nationwide on July 30th. This film marks the first time a major studio is releasing a project with two Asian American males as the leads. We don't have stereotypical accents, we don't passively tread through the story, we're not asexual or hypersexual, there are no martial arts scenes, one-dimensional cab driver segments. We play a couple of all-American guys who happen to be of Indian and Korean descent. Our characters (Harold and Kumar) are post-collegiate buddies who get the munchies and end up going on the adventure of their lives as they set out to satisfy a spontaneous craving for White Castle burgers. Ebert and Roeper just gave our movie "Two Thumbs Up"! We hope you will too. Read on.
The opening weekend for any film is extremely important. Studio executives (the people who make big decisions about movies) track the numbers from that first weekend's ticket sales and make all kinds of decisions based on that data. They decide if they will add more screens to show a film, if they will spend more money in promoting it, if they will start investing in a sequel... but most importantly, they decide if elements of the film work and whether they should do it again. In our case, that means they will be asking, "Will a strong script and story succeed or fail with 2 Asian American guys in non-stereotypical roles?". We personally think it will succeed, but we need your help! This film is our chance to prove that realistic, nonstereotypical depictions can make an audience have a blast, and take in enough money to make this happen in the future.
By buying a ticket to "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle", you aren't just gonna get to see a really funny movie with two dudes who look like you. Nope. You're also going to be saying to media outlets, "I support accurate representation of Asian Americans and would like to see more." You have the power to change things simply by buying a ticket to a film that we believe you'll have fun watching anyway!
Please go to the theaters on the weekend of July 30th, and watch "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle". We look at this awesome opportunity like we do voting in an election. Every movie ticket someone buys is a VOTE, and the cool part is, you're allowed to vote as many times as you want. With your support of the film, we will show decision-makers in Hollywood that supporting movies like these is not only the right thing to do, but is also good business. We'll also show YOU what it's like to ride a cheetah, hang glide off a cliff, pick up a hitchhiking Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser), tell off a bunch of ignorant punks, get love interests, and sing Wilson Phillips at the top of our lungs.
So just hold on for one more... week, and check out the website at www.HaroldandKumar.com. This film opens the weekend of July 30th! Send this email to all of your friends. Throw parties. Order food. Make a night (or weekend) out of it and go see "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle"! This is a landmark opportunity for the Asian American community, and we are proud to be the faces involved. With your support and the success of this film, we hope that it's only the beginning of many more Asian Americans on screen...
Enjoy the movie,
Kal Penn and John Cho
"Kumar" and "Harold"
New Line Cinema's "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle"
Remember last summer when there was nothing but sequels out and they all pretty much sucked? Notice how this summer the studios have done a complete about face on the whole "sequels = money in our pockets" thing? And yet, the big budget non-sequels this summer like Catwoman look totally lame and/or like I, Robot has had mixed reviews? Goofy, n'est pas? Almost makes you want to advise the studios to just, you know, make good movies and not worry so much about formular? Just a suggestion from a cinecultist.
Anyhoo, this is all a lead in to saying, Cinecultist is sort of surprised to be really looking forward to a Friday afternoon screening of The Bourne Supremacy with our friend Ilana, the ultimate target audience for all things big budget and explosion-y. (We bring you the still at left from the first film.) The hype on this one has actually hit us where we live, good marketing at work there folks. CC enjoyed the first installment, in particular the performance by Franka Potente as the most ordinary but believable girl caught in the cross fire of international espionage who gets to make-out with Matt Damon. Also suspect though in the new one, is the introduction of a new director as Doug Liman of Go exited the project after the first film because of reported problems with the studio. CC liked his frantic style, it added to the paranoia and unease. So we're officially excited but with a tinge of trepidation thrown in to counter balance it.
Based on our track record in the "paying good money to see crap movies" department*, it might be fair to wonder if Cinecultist plans to see the Hilary Duff movie opening this weekend, A Cinderella Story. But Cinecultist has decided to make a stand. We're putting our foot down. We're saying no to Chad Michael Murray and his dandelion fluff hair. We're saying no to the talented Jennifer Coolidge underutilized in yet another inconsequential comedy. We're saying no to what looks like a ridiculous plot with text messaging on cell phones as a mistaken identity device, unfunny jokes about Botox and the premise that Hilary Duff is not the type of girl to get noticed in high school. Even the four fresh ratings on Rotten Tomatoes will not dissuade us from our resolution. (Who are these people?!?) Cinecultist will stand strong especially since our DVD rental of Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen should be on its way soon.
*We did call Mandy Moore's movie Chasing Liberty the best movie of the year in this space, and we watched Gigli, Jersey Girl and Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. It's a strong case against us and our "taste," that's for darn sure.
Though it's quite early to be talking it up, the next movie on the summer release schedule that Cinecultist is really looking forward to is Mira Nair's production of Vanity Fair due out September 1. (Did you need to even ask if CC's already completely over and done with I, Robot and Catwoman? Well, we are. ZZZZ...) Put out by Focus Features (a detailed plot summary available in their coming soon section), adapted from the William Makepeace Thackeray novel and starring Reese Witherspoon, James Purefoy, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (swoon), Romola Garai, Gabriel Byrne, and Jim Broadbent, it looks like CC's favorite combo of great story with creative adaptors. We're speaking of course of all of the saris and elephants evident in the preview, which we don't recall at all from the novel's English and French countryside during the time of the Napoleonic Wars setting. But we trust Mira to steer us right and for now will have to be content with paparazzi photoes of Reese from the set and the trailer viewable here. Good news by the way for those who are Rhys-Meyers fans but don't know the book, he plays another sexy but mean character. CC likes it when he's evil (ie. Gormengast), it's so much more exciting than when he's supposed to be good (Bend It Like Beckham).
Nothing says long holiday weekend like blockbusters, baby! Can't you feel the hype in the air? Inhale that smell of popcorn mingling with the musk of sweaty teenage geeks on line for the latest comic book adaptation or senseless actioner. Mmmm, smells like America.
Actually this weekend is surprisingly tame in terms of the big openings, save for Spiderman 2 which apparently
