Archive for January, 2012

  • 31 Jan

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    Mel Gibson is coming direct-to-DirecTV

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    Maybe it’s because it was thought that it wouldn’t pull in money at the box office due to Gibson’s slide in popularity or maybe it is just a sign of the times and the increase in home theater systems, but whatever the case, Mel Gibson’s latest R-rated action comedy Get the Gringo is coming straight to DirecTV before being released on Blu-ray, DVD, VOD and digital download. According to Reuters, DirecTV will premiere the film in HD on May 1, 2012 for $10.99. Get two friends together and you’ve easily saved the money it would cost to go to the theater – that, I’m guessing, will be the point that DirecTV will be trying to hit home in viewers.

    The film was written by Gibson and his Apocalypto first assistant director Adrian Grunberg, who also helped write the screenplay. It’s an interesting move and the trailer (which you can watch below) looks like the film could go either way, but I tend to be a Gibson movie apologist, so I am sure I will check this out as soon as I can get it On Demand.

    Chime in after watching the trailer below! What are you thoughts on the studio releasing the film in this manner?

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 31 Jan

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    Guy Pearce is Simply One of a Few Citizens Seeking Justice.

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    I‘d immediately write this off as a piece of Direct-to-DVD trash (ala last years Tresspass), if it were not for Roger Donaldson at the helm. Like John Frankenheimer and Sidney Lumet before him, Donaldson (Thirteen Days, The Bank Job), tends to consistently make solid more-or-less-grounded genre efforts that stand above the usual array of hack-work polluting the action-thriller section. No he’s not quite as good as his similarly named (I often confuse the two!) contemporary Roger Mitchell (Changing Lanes, Enduring Love) but if you want yeoman’s work, Donaldson is your man.

    Here a shaved headed Guy Pearce drops a Star-Chamber-esque service into the lap of every-man Nic Cage (as if!) following the maiming of his wife (January Jones) leaves her hospitalized (probably some irate X-men fan.) The faustian bargain: We’ll give you vigilante justice if you owe us an undisclosed favour down the road. Of course the favour down the road has Cage dodging the sliding rear wheels of a 6 tonne flatbed truck. Lots of intensely silly mayhem ensues. Seeking Justice looks to sit somewhere in the middle ground between modern vigilante fantasies; not as outright stupid as the similar Gerard Butler-vehicle, Law Abiding Citizen nor as talky or restrained as the Jodie Foster-vehicle The Brave One.

    Of course, it will be worth watching this movie, when it drops into theatres March 16, just to get to this image:

  • 31 Jan

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    Teaser Trailer: Game of Thrones Season 2

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    Given that even the worst episode of the first season of Game of Thrones was better than most movies I saw last year, I felt compelled to post this. Having powered through all five of George R.R. Martin’s book during my recent overseas holiday (they’re awesome), it’s going to be interesting to see whether they have the money to convincingly bring to life all the battle scenes of the second book (which takes a huge step up from the first, action-wise). Assuming they pull it off though, we should be in for a pretty great year of TV.

    Game of Thrones Season 2 kicks off on HBO on April 1st

  • 30 Jan

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    DVD Review: Cell 211

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    Director: Daniel Monzón
    Novel: Francisco Pérez Gandul
    Screenplay: Jorge Guerricaechevarría, Daniel Monzón
    Producers: Álvaro Augustín, Borja Pena, Emma Lustres Gómez, Juan Gordon
    Starring: Carlos Bardem, Luis Tosar , Alberto Ammann, Marta Etura, Antonio Resines
    Country of Origin: Spain
    MPAA Rating: NR
    Running time: 110 min.

    (4.5/5)

    Few films have the wherewithal to bring its audience into a pulse pounding situation in the opening minutes of a movie and then manage to keep that gripping intensity going full throttle throughout the entire running time of the picture without either going off the rails, so to speak, or becoming tedious or eye-rollingly obvious. Cell 211 has no problem with it and in fact, excels at it. Never once holding back any punches and keeping a relatively simple plot kicking and screaming with minor complications yet avoiding confusion while keeping the chaos is what makes Cell 211 one of the most excellently constructed action/thrillers I’ve seen in ages.

    New prison guard Juan Oliver is starting his first day on the job just becoming acquainted with his co-workers and the basic procedures of working “on the inside” when a carefully constructed riot breaks loose and during the chaos renders Juan nearly unconscious. Unable to carry him and at first not realizing the extent of the turmoil the prison is about to fall under, the guards place Juan in an empty cell bed. Before they can figure out what to do next, they’re forced to flee the facility, leaving Juan behind as the prisoners quickly take over the compound. Juan is left to his own devices and cleverly convinces the prisoners he is one of them. Having now inadvertently become an undercover officer, he must remain undetected while gaining simultaneously gaining the trust of the prison population’s head figure, Malemadre. As more and more complications arise and clever plot turns unfold, this task is not as easy as it may at first appear and Juan is faced with several very unpleasant decisions.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 30 Jan

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    DVD Review: Love Hate & Propaganda: The Cold War

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    A few years ago the CBC aired a documentary titled Love Hate & Propaganda which looked at the role that propaganda played in winning WWII. Picking up where that first left off, a new four part documentary titled Love Hate & Propaganda: The Cold War picks up at the end of WWII and the beginning of the Cold War and tracks the war right through to 1991 when President George W. Bush delivered a Christmas day speech acknowledging the end of the Cold War.

    Tracking everything from the CIA’s involvement with the Italian elections to the slow fall of Communism power, Cold War provides insights into some of the most memorable moments of the cold war and the wins and losses on both sides. Everything from Russia’s lead in the space race to Nixon’s visit to Russia and the two leader’s fight over washing machines, these are the bits of history that we can now look upon with amused smirks but which marked some of the largest wins and losses of a war of ideologies fought with words and pictures.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 30 Jan

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    DVD Review: The Double

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    The Double Movie Poster

    Director: Michael Brandt
    Screenplay: Michael Brandt & Derek Haas
    Producers: Patrick Aiello, Ashok Amritraj, Andrew Deane, Derek Haas
    Starring: Richard Gere, Topher Grace, Stephen Moyer, Martin Sheen
    MPAA Rating: PG-13
    Running time: 92 min.

    (2/5)

    It doesn’t happen often but sometimes you can just tell that something’s been in the works for a while. That’s the case with The Double. The directorial debut of writer Michael Brandt who often works with Derek Haas, the film is based on a script that the duo had originally sold to MGM and which they re-acquired when the studio went under. The script had sat on some MGM shelf for 10 years before the duo rescued the rights and set off to make their film.

    The Double StillSet in the world of espionage and double agents, Richard Gere stars as Paul Shepherdson, a retired CIA operative brought back into the fold when Cassius, a Soviet assassin he chased around the world, re-appears after years of being inactive. As per usual with this sort of fare, Gere is partnered up with a book smart FBI agent who literally wrote the book on Cassius. Ben Geary (Topher Grace) is smart and determined and when he gets a little too close to revealing the truth, that Shepherdson is actually Cassius, he’s pushed off course and even threatened.

    “OMG! You just revealed a key plot point!” It may look like this is the key element to the story but it’s revealed early on in the film not to mention the little fact that it’s in the trailer. This leads to The Double’s major problem. Once they give you that tidbit of information, what’s left to reveal? The information comes so early that it’s obvious that there is some other key point that they’re holding back and when it too is revealed, too late in the story to be of any importance, it’s dropped as passing nugget that doesn’t play into anything that’s come before; it’s a failed “Gotcha!” moment and a missed opportunity because the implications of what’s revealed would have made a much better premise for a movie.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 30 Jan

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    Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

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    An oddly compelling reason to never buy a Honda, but also an interesting commentary on how our ‘hero’ has gone from a stolen 1961 Ferrari to a leased 2012 CRV. Superbowl, I hate you even more than usual. I’m off to palette cleanse on the real Ferris Too, Alexander Payne’s Election (The last time Matthew Broderick didn’t phone it in.)

  • 30 Jan

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    Mondays Suck Less in the Third Row

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    I admit I’m biased (but I love this!):

     

     

    Shooting the MGM Opening Logo:

     

     

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  • 30 Jan

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    My Love for Film in a Snapshot #10

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    A little obvious, maybe. But after a recent viewing of Joe Carnahan’s blunt, but highly entertaining, ‘Man vs. Nature’ (but really Man vs. himself with nature lighting the fire under his feet) horror picture, The Grey, my immediate thought was back to Spielberg’s early super-blockbuster, Jaws. This was not so much for the obvious comparison of being stuck somewhere fighting something that wants to eat you, but more in how the film processes manhood through a bunch of hands-on characters. Martin Brody (Roy Schieder), Quint (Robert Shaw) and Martin Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss, not pictured above) work as three representation of manhood – their analogues in The Grey would be Peter Henrik (Dermont Mulroney), Ottway (Liam Neeson) and John Diaz (Frank Grillo). Spielberg has a smoother sense of framing and setting up his characters, as the stakes are not as balls-out immediate in Jaws until the final act – and The Grey, outside of the oil-rig prologue, is pretty much only ‘the final act’ of Jaws. There are hundreds of great shots and moments in Jaws, that is what makes it one of the all time classic populist blockbusters, but at its heart, the film is simply guys standing around thinking about consequences and actions within the twentieth century masculine purview, and I kinda sort of like that.

  • 30 Jan

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    Trailer: God Bless America

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    If there is ever a preach-to-the-choir kind of comedy, it is this one. Bobcat Goldthwait has a bone to pick with manners in his country, and he is doing it with heavy artillery and hilarious satire. I caught God Bless America at TIFF where it premiered in the Midnight Madness sidebar (My TIFF-Review is here and on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 no less…) and the audience lapped it up, particularly the texting-in-the-cinema gag which is featured in this trailer. The road-trip rampage film may run out of gas in the final act, but if you were looking for a more ‘hands on’ (i.e. Falling Down) mixed with Bonnie and Clyde riff on Idiocracy, than look no futher; the best D-Fens is a good offence.

  • 29 Jan

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    Marquee Malarky: Pariah

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    Our beloved Uptown Theater will be closing in just a couple of week of 6+ months of much needed renovations. The latest marquee madness proves in a brief statement one of the many reasons why I have zero interest in seeing their last theatrically run films. See you next fall Uptown – with a new coat of paint and shitload of screen doors.

  • 29 Jan

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    Cinecast Episode 243 – Jump on that Curve and Ride it to Infinity

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    Soderbegh claims he’s retiring. Yeah right. Every time I turn around my IMDb smart phone app is alerting me to something new he’s working on. Haywire was something we heard about what seems like ages ago now and it’s finally here. Does it live up to the wait and the expectations? Matt Gamble takes another one in the nuts for the team with Red Tails and the latest Underworld picture; in 3D this time. Kurt’s children chime in for a couple of minutes on their thoughts on the 80′s animated series “Dungeons and Dragons.” After that technical snafu, we’ve got a helluva watch list this week rounds out the show with 80s, underrated goofery, catching up with some underseen gems from 2011, a love fest for Ti West’s latest, some Man for Earth discrepancies and a whole lot more.

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

     
     

    Cinecast Episode 243 [ 2:58:06 | 122.3 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup

     

    To download the show directly, paste the following URL into your favorite downloader:
    http://rowthree.com/audio/cinecast_12/episode_243.mp3

     
     
    Full show notes are under the seats…
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