Anyone catch the image in which diesel fuel costs $123/gallon? Whoa. 
Dale, Colleen, Marina and special guest host John look ahead to 2008 with a preview of the films opening in January!
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Show Notes:
this episode:
There Will Be Blood, Sweeney Todd, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Orphanage
Unwrap the complete Show Notes by clicking on this link…
Not a list of every DVD that is being released this month. Just a list of DVDs I found noteworthy or might be of interest to someone. If you have more, by all means post ‘em in the comments section…
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see the rest of the month…
(more…)
I think that just about everyone will be ecstatic to hear that Joel and Ethan Coen are busy writing a script for a violent and realistic western that will take place in the 1870s.
“We’ve written a western with a lot of violence in it,” Joel said. “There’s scalping and hanging … it’s good. Indians torturing people with ants, cutting their eyelids off.”
Brother Ethan then added: “It’s a proper western, a real western, set in the 1870s. It’s got a scene that no one will ever forget because of one particular chicken.”
While their recent No Country for Old Men has some elements of a western, it’ll be nice to see them take it back to the traditional era of the genre, especially with their twisted sense of humor and the essence of originality that they consistently bring to the screen. I’d love to see a classic climatic western showdown with the Coen brothers behind the camera and script.
Thanks to Filmstalker for the heads up.
Director: Richard Schenkman
Writer: Jerome Bixby
Producers: Richard Schenkman, Eric D. Wilkinson
Starring: David Lee Smith, Tony Todd, John Billingsley, William Katt, Ellen Crawford, Annika Peterson, Richard Riehle, Alexis Thorpe
MPAA Rating: NR
Running time: 87 min.
Right away, I could see that this was something small and low budget. I recognized several of the main characters immediately from low grade B movies (Office Space, 90’s version of Night of the Living Dead) to short lived sci-fi television shows (Enterprise, Great American Hero). The style and direction has the feel of being a made for TV type of movie. I’ve never been able to express exactly what that style or feel of a movie is, but I’m sure you get the feeling as well and know it when you see it. So now I’m thinking, “ok, this must be some low budget, indie film a director or PR rep wanted me to take a look at for some reason.” Then the story starts.
Wow. The entire film takes place in a single room of a quiet cottage in a secluded area of somewhere (probably mid-west America). A man named John, of about 35 years of age, is preparing to move and his friends and colleagues unexpectedly show up to give him a send off. The man was trying to quietly leave and never look back and the mystery about why he might be trying to sneak away is just too much for his friends to bear, so they start to pressure John to spit out whatever is on his mind. Finally, after being pressed, John tells the truth. He was a cave man; as in, a real cave man; from the cro-magnan era. Needless to say his friends don’t believe him and there isn’t any way to really prove or disprove his story. So instead, we get a fantastic story in a question and answer format that gets ugly and argumentative at times and in others quite fascinating and even heartwarming.
Scientific minds should love the film. As would anyone interested in religion, history or philosophy. It is fascinating as all get out and will leave you thinking about it for days (I assume, as I just finished the film ten minutes ago and already can’t wait to share it with the world). I’d rather not get into specifics because the movie is all about discussion and revelations. What might you ask a man who claims, pretty convincingly, that he has been alive for 14,000 years? This isn’t done in some sort of super natural or overly dramatic way. John is not a vampire. He has some scientific questions and answers as to why he claims what he claims. Who was your father? What was your name? Did you meet anyone famous? Can you die? What was it like living through the dark ages? The bubonic plague? Have you ever had children? The movie could almost literally never end with the questions that could be asked of John and he seems to have a believable answer for everything. Even if his answer is, “I don’t know.” But is John really telling the truth or is he just making all of this up as some sort of hoax or for another good reason? Or maybe he’s just nuts. All of this is pretty irrelevant. If I could sit down and talk with John, it really wouldn’t matter if I believe him, the stroies are FASCINATING.
While I don’t want to unveil my top ten list of 2007 until the Cinecast next week, I can pretty much assure you that The Man from Earth has a real good shot of making the list. As I think on it, does it deserve five stars? From a technical and acting standpoint, probably not. But usually when I get this kind of mental reaction from a film and if I have to debate with myself on whether it should get 4.5 or 5 stars, I usually give the movie the benefit of the doubt and go with five stars unless there is a glaring reason why points should be deducted. In this case, while as I stated, the acting is mediocre and the budget was probably about $15, all of that is irrelevant to the story and the fantastic script. And so readers, what might be the last movie I’ll be watching in 2007, I cap the year off with my fourth and final five star rating for a film this year. The Man from Earth.
POST SCRIPT: I mentioned in the opening paragraph I downloaded the film. This really isn’t like me and after doing some research, I remember now that I had read somewhere or someone had told me (maybe Jay at filmjunk?) that the director and producers of this movie were actually encouraging people to download the movie to spread the word. So I did. The only thing they ask is that if you like the film, tell others and visit their official web site. I’m sorry I can’t provide the link of where I originally read this, but there are some posts in the IMDb discussion board about it and while I’m not comfotable providing links to .torrent sites or illegal downloading sites, I can provide you with a few useful links below. I highly encourage you to check this film out by any means possible.
Links:
Official Site
IMDb profile
MySpace Profile
Blockbuster Online
Netflix
Amazon
This is pretty old news that I posted about quite some time ago, but I wanted to make sure that everyone knows about it because it just provided hours of enjoyment for me over the last few days. The Siskel/Ebert/Roeper video archive…
Siskel and Ebert, at one time, were THE reviewers that everyone paid attention to. The whole “thumbs up, thumbs down” thing became stuff of legend and is on countless movie posters and video boxes.
Everyone thought they were crazy back in the day for saving miles of footage of their TV show well before the home video age. Well not anymore. Now it is all online and archived for all to see. And the best part? It is completely free. Just head over to atthemoviestv.com to catch all their reviews from the early days and even including all the newer episodes with Richard Roeper (a critic I agree with quite often).
You can search the database by title, director or actor. It’s bloody amazing. Hours of fun right online and totally free. So much for the Top 100 movies I was going to catch up on, now I have over 20 years of Siskel and Ebert to catch up on.
Unfortunately, it looks like most of the tapes pre-1985 were lost or destroyed to save space. but Buena Vista preserved everything from 1985 on. On the site, there’s a special introduction from Rober Ebert which explains the details…
“Gene and I knew those old shows would be worth saving, but for a long time nobody agreed with us. In the years before home video, it seemed like a waste of expensive video tape to preserve hundreds of episodes of our earlier incarnations on “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You,” “Sneak Previews” or “At the Movies.” After all, the movies we were reviewing weren’t going to be opening again, and who’d want to watch a show of old movie reviews? Right?” asks Ebert. “all of that changed, and the current era of DVDs and Blockbuster and Netflix and streaming online content began to unfold. Today, there would be an audience for the original Siskel & Ebert reviews of, say, “Batman” or “Jurassic Park,” or Ebert & Roeper trading opinions on “Crash” or “Brokeback Mountain,” or Martin Scorsese and I picking the best film of he 1990s.”
A big thanks to /film for pointing this out! Now, I gotta go watch their review of Back to the Future Part II
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Writer: Sergio G. Sánchez
Producers: Joaquín Padro, Mar Targarona, Guillermo del Toro, Álvaro Augustín
Starring: Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep, Mabel Rivera, Montserrat Carulla, Andrés Gertrúdix
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 100 min.
With the excitement and fervor over 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth, it’s no surprise that the studio releasing El Orfanato, aka The Orphanage, are really pushing Guillermo Del Toro’s name along with the picture. Though he had nothing to do with the direction, that was left up to rookie, Juan Antonio Bayona, the style and tone of The Orphanage is still eerily similar to last year’s Oscar nominated Pan’s. It is dark and brooding with lots of darker hues and the feeling of a period piece, even though it isn’t. It also explores some of the same themes as Del Toro’s films (Pan’s and The Devil’s Backbone): childrens’ imagination and the dark side that sometimes can come with it.
The film takes place present day in an old, retired orphanage which is now occupied by a young couple planning on re-opening the building for a new group of orphans. The wife, Laura, was raised in the house and is excited about the prospect of it re-opening. The couple’s young son, Simón, is a little apprehensive about the other children entering his life, but because there are no other children to play with in the area, his parents believe it would be good for him and it may mature his boyish habits (like being scared of the dark and having imaginary friends). As the time approaches for the new children to arrive, Simón becomes more and more insistent that his imaginary friends aren’t imaginary at all and he grows more distant from his mother and arguments ensue.
To make things more difficult, a creepy, old social worker shows up unexpectedly with questions about Simón and we learn that not only is he adopted, but he’s also HIV positive and doesn’t know either of these things. His parents keep this knowledge from him because they feel he’s too young to understand the implications or to process the emotions. To make things weirder, the creepy, old lady is caught in the middle of the night snooping around the grounds. On the day the children are to arrive, Simón and Laura have an argument and by the end of the day, Simón is no where to be found. The rest of the picture is Laura’s struggle to find her son who she’s convinced has been kidnapped - probably by the social worker. As the story continues, Laura becomes more and more convinced that the ghosts of the children who once lived in the orphanage have returned and some sort of mystery must be unraveled if she has any hope of finding her son.
This isn’t a terribly graphic film at all. It’s mostly a series of jump scares; something that I’m usually opposed to, but the mood is set so well by everything else within the story that I didn’t really seem to mind. Mind you, not everything in the movie is resigned to jump scares however. There are several genuinely creepy moments scattered throughout the picture and one or two in particular might be strong enough to leave you sleepless for a couple of nights. What helps to add to the general creepiness is the location. Because the building (where 95% of the movie takes place) is so old and is so secluded, it gives the feel of an older time period and as we all know, the older, the scarier. Even the costuming and props seem antiquated.
Several sequences utilize a special and unique style to add to the mood. Whether it be worn and weathered film stock of deformed children or watching a medium exorcise the house through a series of low-resolution television monitors, the way in which we’re deprived of ever seeing things as they actually are, gives the entire experience a welcome, new feel to the scare genre.
I‘m currently writing up my top 10 list which has probably changed a fair amount in the past couple of week, but I don’t want to get into the whole favorites constantly changing thing right now. I figured just for fun I would post up the list of movies that I watched this year. The list is composed of anything that I watched for the very first time. I will probably add one or two more before New Years Day. If you keep track of what you watch feel free to post your list in the comments. My count of movies is 162 right now.
Being one of the most private actors in the industry, Daniel Day-Lewis isn’t too keen on participating in too many interviews. Yet, every time he comes out with a movie, he’s always willing to sit down with Charlie Rose for an hour-long interview; interviews that always turn out to be some of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever seen. At the top of the list of greatest actor interviews, if I were weird and obsessed enough to actually have such a list. This interview below with Charlie Rose, Day-Lewis and P.T. Anderson being no exception, as they talk about their critically acclaimed film There Will Be Blood. Check it out.
Eyes Wide Shut has always been one of those movies that I’ve been meaning to catch that I just never seen to find the time to see. Last night I finally got around to watching it and while I enjoyed the movie I thought that Nicole Kidman’s Alice Harford character really needed to be fleshed out just a bit. I don’t really understand her motivation and I’m hoping that someone here at Row Three might be able to help me with this.
The comments are sure to include spoilers so I’d suggest only joining in on this discussion once you have seen the movie.
Perhaps I’m looking for too much explanation as people generally don’t actually think their actions out but her character just seems to come across a bit too jumbled up.
I was just browsing around wikipedia and I found a cool write up about a version of Dune that was never made. Man I’d kill to see this version which unfortunately will never happen.
In 1975, Jodorowsky tried to film the story as a ten hour feature, in collaboration with Orson Welles, Dan O’Bannon, Salvador Dalí, Gloria Swanson and others (nicknamed by him as “his seven samurais”). The music would have been done by Pink Floyd. Jodorowsky set up a pre-production unit in Paris that consisted of Chris Foss, a British artist who designed covers for science fiction periodicals, Jean Giraud (Moebius), a French illustrator who created and also wrote and drew for Metal Hurlant magazine, and H. R. Giger. Moebius began designing creatures and characters for the film, while Foss was brought in to design the film’s space ships and hardware. Giger started designing the Harkonnen Castle based on Moebius’ storyboards and Dali was to play the role of the Emperor for a reported $100,000 an hour. Jodorowsky also hired Dan O’Bannon to head the special effects department. Dali and Jodorowsky began quarreling over money and just as the storyboards, designs, and the script were finished, the financial backing dried up. Frank Herbert travelled to Europe in 1976 to find that two million dollars were already spent in pre-production and that the Jodorowsky’s script would result in a 14-hour movie (”It was the size of a phonebook” Herbert recalled). Although Jodorowsky took several creative liberties with his novel, Herbert stated that he and Jodorowsky had an amicable relationship.
I’m a huge fan of Pink Floyd and I love the paintings of Dali. It really is too bad this never happened. I actually am a fan of the Lynch version but this would have been just too trippy to believe.
Check out the wikipedia article here for more on this version and the other versions of Dune.
Even the most devoted critic doesn’t see EVERYTHING. The one exception might be Ebert, but I bet if you pressed him, even he would admit to not having seen all 2007 had to offer from the Hollywood front. Anyway, Alex Billington over at FirstShowing.net has put together a list of 19 movies that no one saw when these pictures deserved more love.
I’m happy to say that I’ve actually seen 10 of these. The rest are in my Blockbuster queue to be seen at some point next year. Except for The Go-Getter, I haven’t heard of that one. But I’m a big Maura Tierney fan, so I’ll be sure to look into that one as well. For more info and commentary on all these films along with links, cast info and images, head over to FirstShowing.net and check out Alex’ list a little more closely. It’s a good list and well put together and thought out.
I always enjoy hearing what everyone got (or purchased with gift certificates) for Xmas. Here are the DVDs I ended up getting over Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day:
So what did you end up with?
NBC launched it’s little teaser for its upcoming, TV movie, Knight Rider. It’s a true teaser with not much to look at, but we do get a glimpse at the car, a little bit of the redeveloped music and a quick snippet of K.I.T.’s voice. Here’s the trailer in its YouTube glory:
Mike? Since when did K.I.T. refer to Michael Knight as Mike? Whatever.
Here it is. My annual wrap-up for the last 365 days; a year in review if you will. While I admit to not seeing everything released (especially the bad stuff), I consider it pretty definitive on the year. This does NOT include my top ten list. That’s still being worked on in conjunction with other writers at Row Three with a slated release of early ‘08. But I put this list/commentary together every year and it is finally ready. Still, there are a few films I wish I had seen this year which are mentioned below, but basically, I think it’s about right.
2007 was one of the best years for film I can remember since beginning my online commentary role a few years back. Novemeber and December alone contributed some of the finest films I’ve seen in ages. That’s not to discount the earlier part of the year however. While usually reserved for all the movies no one cares about, the early spring season brought us some unlikely greats such as Zodiac (a tragically under-rated film) and Once; which played at our local rep. cinema here in Minneapolis on a longer run than any film I can remember (almost three months) and is also currently sitting at 98% on the Rotten Tomatoes web site. We also had some of the odd-ball, bordering on exploitative, films breakout at this point in the year. Films, again that were horribly and undeservedly overlooked and forgotten such as Black Snake Moan and Bug. The latter showcasing a fantastic Ashley Judd that up until now, we thought could only appear as a serviceable role in romantic comedies.
And speaking of underlooked, one of the biggest surprises for me this year was the complete lack of support for one of my favorites of the year: Grindhouse. I was astounded that almost no one went and saw this original, funny, action packed movie that delivered twice the bang for your buck with two blow it out your ass, pedal to the floor, homages to the exploitative, grind house films of the 70’s. Hence, the film was split up for its European release and subsequent DVD release (without the fake trailers). A travesty that angers and dissappoints me to no end. Where’s the Tarantino love? Apparently not in the states.
Then came the summer which nearly brought our great year of film to disaster with the year of threequels: Shrek 3, Bourne 3, Spider-Man 3, Pirates 3, Ocean’s 3, Rush Hour 3. Of all the threequels, only two stood tall: Ocean’s and Bourne. In fact Bourne seems to be popping up on quite a few top ten lists around the net and various publications. While I wouldn’t go that far, it certainly is the actioner of the year and a mighty fine one at that. The other titles ranked somewhere between a ball peen hammer to the knee caps and having your head tightened in a vice. Thank God we had greats like Paris Je’Taime, Rescue Dawn and Day Watch to save us all from slitting our wrists. Of course the Die Hard franchise continued as well with its fourth part in the series. Should it have been left alone? Maybe, but I got a kick out of it and McClane fans everywhere rejoiced. Truth be told, anything is better than seeing Tobey Maguire doing the same monotonous crap that he’s done in two previous films - that would be swinging around on wires for no other reason than to prove special effects are just neato. The whiny voice doesn’t really help either… for well over two hours!
As some of the bigger festivals came and went, Oscar season approached and we were given treat after treat of simply stupendous films throughout the fall and winter. Most of these great films of the year are still playing in theaters and are readily available. Still, although I seem to be somewhat of an anomaly, having seen just about everything I wanted or needed to see, there were a few films that flew under my radar for various reasons and I wasn’t able to get to. And so:
Top 5 Movies I Wish I’d Seen:
5) Lake of Fire
4) Helvetica
3) Across the Universe
2) King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
1) Control
Interesting that three on that list are documentaries and one is sort of a pseudo-documentary on “Joy Division’s” lead, Ian Curtis. I’ve also been told that The Kite Runner is quite a fine film as well. Call that one an honorable mention of films I plan to catch up with in the new year. With all that behind us, bring on the awards! 2007 Best of/Worst of…
Pretty much just some extended stuff from the trailer and still no glimpse of the monster, but it’s a little bit more “put together” here I guess. Anyway, for those that have been interested and following the Cloverfield project, here is a five minute clip with an introduction by director JJ Abrams…
Director: Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Catch-22, Working Girl, Closer)
Novel: George Crile
Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin
Producers: Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks
Starring: Tom Hanks, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Amy Adams
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 97 min
reviewed by Andrew James
What would you get if you took several Oscar winning actors (and one who should’ve won - I’ll never let that go), put them under the direction of an Oscar winning director and then gave them a script by an Emmy winning sceenwriter? You get a pretty solid entry in the list of good films to come out of what is likely the strongest year for movies in half a decade, that’s what.
The “true” story of Charlie Wilson (Hanks) is an easy, albeit interesting, tale to tell. A congressman from Texas known for his interest in women chasing and good Scotch rather than his leadership qualities or political ambition. In the early 80’s that quickly changes after meeting with a wealthy Texas oil woman (Roberts) who wants to help him defeat the Communist Russians invading Afghanistan, thereby effectively taking another step in winning the cold war. After a trip to the Afghan refugee camp, his ambition takes over and he’ll stop at nothing to appropriate funds and gain support in running a covert war against the Russians.
Enter Phillip Seymour Hoffman in his hat-trick performance of 2007. Hoffman plays Gust Avrakotos, a hard talking and brash CIA operative who is so good at his job that he has trouble finding work since he’s so incredibly covert and hard nosed. After walking away from his superior in an unusually harsh manner, he hooks up with two other secret agents to analyze and interpret how to fight a war against the Russians if they just had the money and supplies. Inevitably, this group meets with Wilson and so begins the real meat of the story: how to fight a war against a super-power, but make sure no one knows about it.
Dale, Colleen and Marina talk about Christmas traditions, with help from a few of the Row Three contributors and even a regular reader!
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Show Notes:
After the Credits Episode 06 - January Preview [52:24m]: 
