Archive for June, 2011

  • 30 Jun

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    Trailer: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

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    It doesn’t always work out so well for acclaimed European directors when they take on English-language films – remember Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck with The Tourist or Tom Tykwer with The International or Timur Bekmambetov with Wanted? Maybe only going as far west as the UK is a good idea, because early signs suggest that Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson might have a better time. The first trailer just dropped for his English-language debut Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy, based on John le Carré’s best-selling novel. Le Carré is well-known for writing excellent and realistic Cold War-era spy thrillers, and it looks like the film follow through on that, with a serious but urgent tone thanks to the driving string score. There’s a Russian mole at MI6, and just check out the cast list we’ve got working on ferreting the weasel out: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Ciaran Hinds. Wow. I’m down for that cast, that director, OR that source material, so all three together should be pretty awesome.

    Looks like the film releases September 16th in the UK and November 18th in the US. Check below the seats for the trailer.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 30 Jun

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    Screen Shot Quiz #268

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    The goal of the screen shot quiz it not to just guess what the movie is that the screen shot is from but to encourage discussion on the film. Feel free to shout out in the comments what the movie is and then provide an opinion or some thoughts on the movie. Oh and the first person who gets the movie right wins our respect.

  • 30 Jun

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    Cinecast Episode 219 – Menstrual Genius

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    What should have started as a tight little kick-off-the-summer-BBQ season podcast turned into something a bit more epic. Andrew chimes in on the double-bill of automobile fetish that is going to dominate the box office this weekend; whether they transform whilst grabbing Shia LaBeouf and Victoria’s Secret models out of mid air or simply have eyes on their windshields, we’ve got your axles grounded. Gamble pops by with a measured review of Bad Teacher, in which a bit of a love fest for Lucy Punch commences. He also talks a little bit of Friends with Benefits which comes out later on in July. We finish things right with the Showdown in Little Halifax where Rutger Hauer takes on an army of thugs and grotesques with grit, heart and a 12 gauge. But five full theatrical reviews is merely a warm-up. There are mammoth tangents on foot-lamberts (not Christopher Lamberts — you apparently need far more than ‘only one’) and throw distances, theatre refunds and customer service, horror marathons, how to do a ‘world-building franchise’ sequel, Italian zombie cinema, perception of reality and persistence of existence, and vindictive bureaucracies vs. gay pride in Texas. DVD picks and the usual Netflix-ins follow in a show so long, Andrew forgets who he is actually doing the show with.

    As always, please join the conversation by leaving your own thoughts in the comment section below and again, thanks for listening!

     
     

    Cinecast Episode 219 [ 3:22:25 | 138.99 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup

     

    To download the show directly, paste the following URL into your favorite downloader:
    http://rowthree.com/audio/cinecast_11/episode_219.mp3

     
     
    Full show notes are under the seats…
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  • 29 Jun

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    Michael Bay loves Coen Brothers Supporting Players

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    At an entertaining and boisterous drink-up in a Toronto pub with an eclectic mix of film fans, filmmakers and writers last night, Mamo! Matt Price lamented that while there are Lebowski Fests all over the world, there are no Miller’s Crossing fests, and that started not only the germ of an idea. After all, it is a toss up behind Lebowski which is the more all-out quotable Coen Brothers movie – O Brother Where Art Thou?, Fargo or Miller’s Crossing – but I tend to side with the latter (and don’t you dare give me the high hat!) Nevertheless, there was a lament also that Jon Polito has not shown up in a Coen Brothers joint in some time, and that, kind moviegoers, is a damn shame.

    Maybe Michael Bay will hire him to wear a G-String and be peed on or something for his next movie.

    Huh? That’s a hell of a non sequitur there, isn’t it? Maybe not.

    It is no secret, albeit I have heard no compelling explanation why, that Michael Bay tends to pilfer top notch character actors and then make them ham it up with bad dialogue (big air quotes around the d-word which is uttered with the utmost caution on a M-Bay set) and drops them into embarrassing situations to strip them of any dignity, joy or shame. Many folks have probably noticed that he is particularly fond of taking Coen Brothers regulars and dropping them into his film. For instance, Transformers 3 has no less than three actors: Frances McDormand, John Turturro and John Malkovich which ties Armageddon (Billy Bob Thorton, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare (the latter two who have a very good, but very distinctly Non-Fargo or Big Lebowski, scene together, but these two actors prolific as they may be – this might all be coincidence – but they also appear in several other Michael Bay features (Buscemi in The Island, Storemare in Bad Boys II). Also, William Forsythe (John Goodman’s highly amusing prison-pal from Raising Arizona) also shows up in The Rock.

    All this to say that I’m not the first to notice this, and getting back to Jon Polito for a moment, this MovieLine article suggests that yea, if The Coen’s can’t find work for the man, then at least he should draw a big paycheck to stand in front of some Bayhem.

    In the meantime, who wants to help get a Millers-Con off the ground? Hey, what’s the rumpus?

  • 29 Jun

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    DVD Triage: Week of June 28

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    NEW RELEASE PICKS OF THE WEEK

    Barney’s Version
    I missed this one in theaters, but I’m always up for both Paul Giamatti and Rosamund Pike, so both together? Sure! Based on Andrew’s Cinecast review and Marina’s DVD review, sounds like it’s certainly worth a look. RENT
    2011 Canada, dir Richard J. Lewis, stars Paul Giamatti, Rosamund Pike.
    Amazon DVD/Blu-ray Combo | Netflix

    Sucker Punch
    I know, I know, this is terrible. I avoided it in theaters, even though I had been anticipating it as a guilty pleasure, but I still want to see it. So I’ll rent the blu-ray, grab some beer, and ascertain the level of suck in Sucker Punch for myself. RENT
    2011 USA. Director: Zach Snyder. Starring: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish.
    Amazon DVD | Amazon Blu-ray | Netflix (7/26)

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 29 Jun

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    ‘No ball left unbusted’: An actual interview with Harrison Ford.

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    Harrison Ford has built up the reputation in the past few years that he has evolved into nothing more than a cranky old man churning out lame movie after lame movie. And while the latter part is certainly true, I’ve been convinced that he’s still the cool, laid-back guy that he always was and that he’s just been hamming it up for the interviewers, because he has the star power that he doesn’t have to humor the interviewers and he doesn’t much mind the image that was being formed of him (see his last few Conan appearances for perfect examples of his later-life oddness).

    In a conversational style reminiscent to Jon Favreau’s old Dinner for Five, the director of Cowboys & Aliens, who just seems like one of the genuinely nicest guys in Hollywood, interviews Ford and it was really nice to see Ford have his guard down. I haven’t seen him give an interview where he has looked so relaxed since his Air Force One days, it seems. After the jump, you can check out the interview (broken up into numerous clips), where they talk about everything from the costuming on set, to the choice to not make the movie in 3D, to The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner.

    Apparently, Favreau will be doing the same type of interview with stars Daniel Craig and Sam Rockwell, so be sure to stay tuned for those.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 29 Jun

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    Review: “Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon” (2D)

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    Transformers 3 really doesn’t warrant an extensively thorough delve into the minutiae of every bit of texture, nook and seam found within; because quite frankly, there really doesn’t exist. But you know what? Despite Mark Kermode’s head bashing of the film, I quite enjoyed it. That is not to say there are no problems. Surprise! It’s chock full of them. All of the typical Bay-isms that people are constantly bashing the guy for are here. And it is certainly possible that I had the wool pulled over my eyes like I did with the first film. It was 2:30 in the morning when the film ended so my delirium may have clouded my judgement a bit. Either way, for the most part, I had fun. A LOT more fun than the dreadful Transformers 2. So again, not really worth diving into exactly, but one can make a checklist of the goods, the bads and the uglies. So here they are in a Wednesday morning (much like the movie) stream of consciousness…

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  • 29 Jun

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    Screen Shot Quiz #267

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    The goal of the screen shot quiz it not to just guess what the movie is that the screen shot is from but to encourage discussion on the film. Feel free to shout out in the comments what the movie is and then provide an opinion or some thoughts on the movie. Oh and the first person who gets the movie right wins our respect.

  • 29 Jun

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    Trailer: MI-4 (Brad Bird Edition)

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    I suppose if it were not for Brad Bird at the helm of the fourth installment of the wildly variable Mission Impossible franchise, I probably wouldn’t even post this. Although Bird has stuck to animated films with his directorial career thus far, he is batting 1.000 with The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille, three of the best animated features to come out of the united states in the past 25 years. Couple that with the Tom Cruise franchise which has changed directors with each installment giving each chapter their own auteur-ish feel. Don’t get me wrong, we are not talking the Alien movies in quality or vision, but you can certainly tell between DePalma’s style, John Woo’s style and J.J. Abram’s style immediately when watching these films which are more or less big action set-piece machines, that ain’t half bad. This trailer leaves me a little cold (although that huge sky-scraping needle in Dubai is impressive on screen), but I remain optimistic that Bird is going to bring some really breeziness and surprise to the franchise that has gone on at least 2 chapter too long at this point.

    (Oh, and it is nice to see Simon Pegg in earnest Hot Fuzz mode again, but wither Ving Rhames this time around?)

    The MI:4 trailer is tucked under the seat.
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  • 29 Jun

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    Trailer: War Horse

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    Ready for a big bucket sized helping of John Williams? Flutes and emotional heart-string tugging and all that? Oh, yea, and there is a horse and some sort of American War going on, and the film is even called War Horse, but really, this is an advert for the films composer more than anything else, which plays like a new yet familiar piece of music. from the composer of Jaws, ET, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones music. I think I am far more curious about the other Spielberg production to land this year, Tin-Tin. There is no denying, however, that this looks old-school child-friendly epic with big cinematography and blessed little CGI enhancement.

    The trailer is tucked under the seat.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 28 Jun

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    Screen Shot Quiz #266

    5

    The goal of the screen shot quiz it not to just guess what the movie is that the screen shot is from but to encourage discussion on the film. Feel free to shout out in the comments what the movie is and then provide an opinion or some thoughts on the movie. Oh and the first person who gets the movie right wins our respect.

  • 28 Jun

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    Jeff Bridges to give us an adaptation of a children’s classic.

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    I love Jeff Bridges. Besides maybe Andrew Zimmern or my grandmother, he might be my favorite person on the planet, even if he isn’t always immediately who comes to my mind when people ask me who my favorite living actor is. Still, I take care to note everything the man does (including his blossoming music career) and I am always excited to hear when he is working on a new project.

    That is especially the case when the new project is one as interesting an an adaptation of the 1993 children’s classic sci-fi book, The Giver. Any fans of dystopian-set films should also take note, as the book follows a young boy living in a society devoid of emotions and intellectualism who meets an old man known as the Giver, the possessor of society’s knowledge.

    I will leave the summary at that, but do yourself a favor. If you haven’t read it, it’s a one-sitting quick read (buy it here!). I always thought that they could spin an interesting film out of it and now that Jeff Bridges is on board (in fact, he is producing it as well), I look forward to seeing how this progresses.

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