2010 November - Row Three

02 Nov

Category

News

Tarsem’s Snow White

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Everyone ready or excited for a whole lot of ‘fairy tale’ films after the monster success of Disney/Burton’s Alice in Wonderland? Catherine Breillat’s Sleeping Beauty (Marina’s Review) has been touring the festival circuit this year, and there are Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretal pictures in development, currently.

Now, Tarsem Singh can split audiences, one has only to listen to our lengthy Movie Club Podcast on The Fall to get the idea, but the man has a knack for visual flair, and that is just what your big budget fairy tale movie needs to market to the masses, and I’m sure that is what Universal is aiming for. Singh is currently working on the post-production of Montreal-shot big special effects extravaganza, Immortals, which is set for release in 2011.

Are you ready for a lot more Tarsem? Are you interested to see the man tackle the Brothers Grimm with Snow White?

01 Nov

Posted by
Andrew James

Category

Part 2 of The Loneliness Trilogy Underway: Bad Luck Dandelion

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Closely following Gary King’s very busy career can just about be a career in and of itself. The guy just keeps making films and announcing new projects left and right. What’s Up Lovely (review) and Death of the Dead are still making the festival rounds while How Do You Write a Joe Schermann Song (trailer) is still in post. Checking out Gary’s blog today reveals some early information on the next film in what is being called “The Loneliness Trilogy” (What’s Up Lovely being part one), Bad Luck Dandelion (P.S. awesome title).

Information on the project is still under wraps, but just judging from the variety of thematically similar one sheets, this looks like a lot brighter and fun production that the previous entry in the trilogy; which felt rather dark and… well, lonely. Writers and obviously director are still the same but not entirely sure if the character from the first film will carry over or not. It’s the same actress, Jenn Dees, but it’s hard to tell if she’ll be the same character. At any rate, it’s going to be a while before we’re able to find out as the release date seems to be sometime in 2012. In the meantime, we’ve got Joe Schermann to look forward to and you can still check out Gary’s earlier film, New York Lately, also starring Jenn Dees and which made my top ten films list back in ’08. Either way, I’ll be keeping an eye on this one and will definitely be keeping readers here abreast of how it’s coming along.

As a bonus, I grabbed some of the posters from the new film that look pretty interesting and very clearly have a completely different color palette and vibe to them than the previous film had… check ‘em out below (you can see a little higher res version of the posters just by clicking on the image). Besides the blog, you can also follow the production at the Facebook profile for the film.

01 Nov

Posted by
Jandy Hardesty

Category

Film on TV

Film on TV: November 1-7

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M, playing on TCM on Sunday.

The thing I’m most excited about this week is the beginning of TCM’s seven-part Moguls and Movie Stars series on the history of Hollywood, starting tonight with a segment on early film, followed by a bunch of, well, early films. But if you’re not as into that as I am, there’s still plenty of other stuff. Like Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, a 1950s version of the Wyatt Earp story, playing Tuesday on TCM. And underground Iranian film No One Knows About Persian Cats on IFC on Tuesday. And catch most of the Rat Pack in Ocean’s Eleven on Saturday. Let horror bleed over into November with IFC showing Carrie on Sunday. And for sure don’t miss the Fritz Lang triple-feature on Sunday night, because those are some of the best films ever made.

Monday, November 1

6:15pm – TCM – While the City Sleeps
The head of a New York newspaper dies, leaving it in his son Vincent Price’s hands to choose someone to promote: managing editor Thomas Mitchell, lead reporter Dana Andrews, or a couple of other people. The way to get the job? Get the scoop on the serial killer taking out women around the city. It gets a little plot-heavy at times, but it’s so full of classic character actors and the noirish feel that director Fritz Lang does so well that it’s still very worthwhile.
1956 United States. Director: Fritz Lang. Starring: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Ida Lupino, George Sanders

8:00pm – TCM – Moguls and Movie Stars, A History of Hollywood
If you’re interested in the history of film, TCM is starting a series tonight providing an overview of American film history from the very beginning (Edison films in the late 1890s) through the 1960s, one episode a week. Tonight is the dawn of early film, with “Peepshow Pioneers,” followed by collections of films from Thomas Edison, D.W. Griffith, Georges Melies, early silent Shakespeare adaptations, and a 1910 Mary Pickford short. They have the full schedule both for these short programs and for the series as a whole at the official site.
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01 Nov

Posted by
Andrew James

Category

50% Off Criterion Titles at Barnes and Noble

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A few months back Barnes and Noble was clearing its shelves of their Criterion titles (both SD and Blu-ray). The sale seemed to be quite the success for film fans and I heard it talked about quite a bit on several movie podcasts. I ended up spending more money than I should but it was a helluva lot less than I would have spent at regular price (for titles I was going to buy eventually anyway). In short, it was bloody awesome.

So heads up(!), looks like the sale is back on once again and Barnes and Noble is giving cinephiles something to drool over at half the cost.

The sale is happening online right now and will transfer over to the stores sometime this week (probably today). I can’t find any information as to when this sale will be over but last time the sale went for almost a month. With the next round of title from Criterion being released on November 23rd, speculation is that this sale will end sometime in the week prior to that date.

So get some scratch together and head over to Barnes and Noble to take advantage of this pretty amazing offer.

01 Nov

Posted by
Kurt Halfyard

Category

Posters

Kevin Smith’s Red State Poster

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RedState
A quite moody and ‘light intensive’ one-sheet for the upcoming Kevin Smith foray into horror filmmaking clearly says this is not going to be like the rest of his filmography.

A little bit of catholic spirit and the ‘holy ghost’ is what I get from this, and I really like the tagline.

John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Kevin Pollak and Steven Root star in the film which apparently just finished principal photography. Expect to see this film pop up around Sundance next year. Kevin Smith successfully debuted his first film, Clerks, in Park City and is one of the festivals golden boys, so the film should be a lock there in January if they finish post-production to meet that target.

After Smiths ups (his speaking tours and podcast) and downs (Cop Out) and middles (Zack & Miri), I am very much curious to see what a new genre-direction does for his filmmaking and career. And hey, great cast he’s got there!

Via Filmmaker.

01 Nov

Posted by
Bob Turnbull

Category

31 Days of Horror

The Horror Comes To An End…For Now

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It’s not a laughing matter…October has come to an end and so has my run of horror. I managed to squeeze in a final 16 (I like symmetry – 3 posts, 16 films each), so here they are:

Sick Nurses (2007 – Piraphan Laoyont, Thodsapol Siriwiwat)
It was hard to tell whether I was laughing with or at this movie – most times I think I was doing both. Set in a hospital that apparently avoids having any live patients, a group of scantily clad nurses hang out in their dorm like quarters while harvesting organs from dead bodies acquired by the chief doctor. After one of them threatens to break the whole operation wide open (when the doctor refuses to marry her), she’s killed by the group and returns as a black ghost to seek vengeance. It’s all completely ridiculous and poorly acted, but in a way that feels intentional. The corridors are always brightly coloured, the girls are always in short skirts or skimpy clothing and none of the actresses has met a facial contortion they didn’t fully embrace. There’s no rules for the ghostly appearances (they can even happen in tandem it seems), but a few of them are actually reasonably well staged – not in any frightening or overly creepy way, but enough to make you think “well, that was pretty cool”. Perhaps that’s not what you really want to look for in a horror movie, but it did end up being somewhat goofy fun. There’s also the mandatory shower scene, though in this one the nurse has an entire shower – shampoo and all – while completely clothed. That was one of those moments when I wasn’t sure where to direct my laughter…At the movie? With the movie? Whatever the case, I sure did laugh.

The Black Scorpion (1957 – Edward Ludwig)
You may notice there are no screen grabs of people for this film. It’s not that there aren’t human characters, but they simply aren’t necessary in comparison to Willis H. O’Brien’s wonderful stop motion animation (he was a mentor to Ray Harryhausen). A recent volcanic eruption has opened up the ground and allowed these cave dwelling massive scorpions access to the outside world. They feast in the evenings and have been attacking cattle, but now they’re branching out. In order to stop them, a team go down to their lair to investigate, but find that there are many more of them than they expected (and that there are also huge worms and spiders in the depths of the Earth). It’s not overly interesting whenever the scorpions aren’t on screen, but they get their fair share in the latter part of the film, so it’s still an overall good time. Not quite as strong as “Them”, but in the same league as that classic giant ant movie.