Author Archive

  • 27 Apr

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    Talk Amongst Yourselves

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  • 25 Apr

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    LetterBoxd. It’s Here.

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    By now most everyone reading this site is aware of a little toy box on the internet called LetterBoxd. Because that’s most likely the case, you don’t need to know exactly what it is. Still, the site’s been in BETA testing for the past few months and maybe you weren’t able to actually jump on board. Well now you can!

    As of yesterday LetterBoxd went live to the public so now everyone can be a part of the fun – you don’t need an invitation anymore, you’re already invited!

    What is Letterboxd?

    Letterboxd is a social site for sharing your taste in film. Use it as a diary to record your opinion about films as you watch them, or just to keep track of films you’ve seen in the past. Rate, review and tag films as you add them. Find and follow your friends to see what they’re enjoying. Keep a watchlist of films you’d like to see, and make lists about any aspect of film, for example: favorite heist films. Import historic data from several popular apps, and add films to your US Netflix instant queue directly from the site.

    Basically it’s the most awesome movie toy I’ve had to play with since my Alien Blu-ray set came in the mail. I/We’ve been making lists and chatting it up and meeting all sorts of new people over there. It’s like Twitter meets Facebook meets iTrackMine all rolled into one… and it’s only about MOVIES!

    Several of the RowThree staff and readers already have accounts over there so do swing by and catch up with us (but don’t stop coming here of course ;) ).

    Andrew
    Kurt
    Marina
    Jandy
    Ross
    Matt Brown
    Matt Price
    Matt Gamble
    RowThree Cinecast

    See you there!

  • 25 Apr

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    A “Brave” New Trailer

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    Of course I’ll see pretty much anything with the Pixar brand. Yes, I even went out of my way to check out Cars 2; which was a near disaster. So it wouldn’t take much for Pixar to do a little better next time. Next time is here and by all accounts they’re not only doing a little better, but they’ve maybe even upped the bar a tad.

    In full disclosure, I’ve not actually even watched the trailer below as I already know I’m going to be seeing this movie opening weekend – so why watch some of it now? I’m also less of a fan of Pixar when it takes the “human” route. I much prefer a fantastical world in which fish converse in English with sea turtles and Australian pelicans. Or a world of comedic monsters that live in your closet. While I’d like to see Pixar take the human world and make a hard “R” picture, it’s probably never going to happen so instead we get a fairy tale of sorts in this Robin Hood-meets-Braveheart-with-a-female-protagonist story. I’m sure everything will be just splendid though. Check out more below…

  • 23 Apr

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    Monday Suck Less in the Third Row

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    Jack and Groucho (1972):

     

     

    Original house from Pixar’s Up:

     

     

    Butter for breakfast:

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 22 Apr

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    Sunday Morning Cartoons

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    To go along with tomorrow’s “Mondays Suck Less” post and another Up reference, I found this little nugget from my childhood about a sad old house that just wants some company; only to realize later that peace and quiet is what she really wants. Now that I’m 30-something, I see the skewering of urban sprawl and decay. Quite a heavy little movie seeing it now days. Lightning McQueen would love it here…

  • 19 Apr

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    M-SPIFF 2012 Review: God Bless America

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    Director: Bobcat Goldthwait
    Writer: Bobcat Goldthwait
    Producers: Jeff Culotta, Sarah de Sa Rego, Richard Kelly, Sean McKittrick
    Starring: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr
    Country of Origin: USA
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 99 min.

    (3.5/5)

     

    While a couple on the run setting fires to America’s citizens and their warped sense of “good” isn’t really anything all that new, Bobcat Goldthwaite is able to take the idea and add some twists to the idea; while more importantly stirring in some pretty clever and funny dialogue to boot.

    Frank is a slave to the everyday corporate grind (in a cube). His family life is gone, everyone surrounding him is an over-the-top caricature of a pop media drone and society as a whole seems hell bent on almost purposefully dumbing itself down into an “Idiocracy.” Rather than offing himself, Frank decides that maybe in the interest of preserving or “fixing” society as he knows it, it would be better to get his hands dirty and start taking care of business. Which would entail exterminating those responsible for such abhorrent behavior and their mentalities. Along the way he picks up an admiring high school girls who sees the world as just as “dead” as Frank does. Together they’re on the run, eliminating all those that “deserve to die.”

    The bullets and violence that one expects from this sort of fare is fun for a while, but slowly loses its impact and sick fun fairly quickly. Especially since the movie can never elevate itself beyond the awesome depravity of the opening scene in Frank’s neighbor’s house, with whom he shares a wall. What works surprisingly well however and keeps the movie chugging along at a pretty even pace, are the two lead performances in Joel Murray and Tara Lynne Barr; the former ironically appearing only in Disney related projects previously. The two play their parts with gusto and their moments of “extreme dialogue” are moments not to be scoffed at. Skewering of everyone from the obvious (Fox News, American Idol, Westboro Church, etc.) to the more fun and obscure (Diablo Cody, cinema texters, or people who give high fives and misuse the word “literally” [YES!]).
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 18 Apr

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    Cinecast Episode 255 – All Flourish and No Fun

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    So here it is: your smackdown in the Cabin in the Woods. Andrew sits a little further from the fire this week as to not get burned too much by the Kurt vs. Gamble nerd-a-thon. Check your watch, Necronomicon and your Lemarchand’s box at the door; it’ll be a bit of a bumpy ride. Soon after we have a bunch of old school teaser trailers to talk about; courtesy of the Cinecast listeners. We get a full ActionFest! recap including an encounter with one Ms. Gina Carrano… and a guy who lights himself on fire. Matt brings back the love to Jump Street, plays some video games and gives us a sneak review of Five Year Engagement. Lastly Andrew buzzes through as much stuff as he can including the entire Bourne trilogy, some more Tarsem, rock stars, nerds, activists, magical swords and death smugglers. Let’s just say the show is well rounded. But hey, we kept it under four hours… barely.

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

     
     

    Cinecast Episode 255 [ 3:43:36 | 153.53 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_255.mp3

     
     
    Full show notes are under the seats…
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 17 Apr

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    M-SPIFF Capsule Review: Smuggler

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    Director: Katsuhito Ishii
    Screenplay: Katsuhito Ishii, Masatoshi Yamaguchi, Kensuke Yamamoto
    Comic: Sheila Kohler
    Producers: Rosalie Swedlin, Christine Vachon, Julie Payne, Andrew Lowe, Kwesi Dickson
    Starring: Satoshi Tsumabuki, Masatoshi Nagase, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Hikari Mitsushima
    Country of Origin: Japan
    MPAA Rating: NR
    Running time: 114 min.

    (2/5)

     

    So right off the bat I screwed up my schedule at The Minneapolis Film Festival and was forced to see something I hadn’t intended on seeing. No fault of the festival or the scheduling – this was simply my tiredness and my inattention to the task at hand. So instead of seeing the director vignette, V/H/S/, I tried another late night screening in Katsuhito Ishii’s Smuggler

    Smuggler is a sort of comedy-action mash-up in which a young, failed actor is forced to work as a smuggler of corpses and other contraband for a local crime lord in a world of whacky crime syndicates, Yakuza fashionistas and fearless, expert assassins. The premise sounds kind of cool. Alas, it is not.

    I mostly found the humor to be of a way too childish and stereotypical, caricature nature. Nothing in this movie was remotely funny to me. Nothing. But the humor that is not of my taste isn’t what bothered me so much as the fact that it is saturated throughout a movie that is very serious in tone and subject matter otherwise. I can’t tell what the director was going for as an overall style or tone for this picture as it is all over the place. There’s some very serious (unironic), dramatic voice-over narration right next to some goofy thugs with big teeth acting like Laurel and Hardy followed by an explosive action sequence only to be followed by more “humor the foolish.”

    There are moments however that make this watchable. There is a pretty intense torture sequence that while certainly could be construed as nothing more than torture-porn by some, is actually quite effective and really helps to bring about a full character arc. The martial arts sequences are pretty spectacular. Not only from a choreography standpoint, but because it’s all shot in a high frame rate and replayed in hyper-slow motion; most likely shot on the Phantom. An otherwise 35 second sequence is drawn out into about 2 minutes of face pummeling and teeth shattering.

    These moments are few and far between however and mostly I just found the characters to be uninteresting at best and grating at worst. The humor fails miserably and the shifts in tone baffled me. Mostly I’d say avoid unless you know exactly what you’re getting into here.

    IMDb

  • 16 Apr

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    StudioVox [Promote Your Artistry]

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    Knowing that a lot of our readers out there are of the creative ilk, I thought I’d share this little social media site I stumbled upon. Already you see the words “social media” and you’re tempted to throw your arms in the air and just call life quits. But bear with me. StudioVox is a little different. You don’t have to keep up with it every minute of the day to stay active. And rather than just a bunch of random folks talking about the amazing ham sandwich they had this afternoon or how happy they are that Bill Bixby is in the new Avengers movie, this is a place to peddle your wares and also see what others in your “neighborhood” have brewing.

    This is a place solely for creative professionals (and amateurs). It’s not just a giant flea market either; people can showcase their stuff, sure, but it’s also a place to connect with others in your area of craft and share ideas, gather information, find job opportunities, critique and comment on others’ work and maybe even collaborate on events and gatherings.

    All the industries are here: movies, music, literature, textiles, gaming, fine art, television, performing arts, graphic design, gaming, public relations, mobile media and even bartending. There are professional agencies to get in touch with and a job listing section to the site. If you’re related to the arts in any way – even movie blogging or podcasting, this is a pretty cool place to hang out. Hell, even if you’re just a fan of any of these things – and presumably you are if you’re on this site and reading this – you can just hang out with like-minded folks in the various motifs of choice.

    I’ve been playing with it for a couple of weeks and find the interface extremely friendly and fun to use. I’ve found a bunch of great people to interact with, but for the most part just really like checking out all the artwork that’s out there. I plan on using the service to help pimp the RowThree Cinecast so if you end up becoming a lurker of the site (totally FREE), feel free to look me up.

    The site is still in BETA testing, but RowThree procured a bunch of free login codes. So while supplies last, if you’d like to check out the site, you can participate in the BETA version (which works fairly swimmingly) using the following access code:

    STVX-rowthree

    A lot of you are already on LetterBoxd, so you may already be familiar with sort of how it works. But instead of commenting on Hollywood’s mess, you can look at other people’s works of art that you can actually purchase or just admire or leave comments on… and likewise have people HONESTLY critique your work.

    If I haven’t explained it well enough, certainly check out the really well laid out video below to maybe help convince you. It’s definitely worth a look…

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 11 Apr

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    Cinecast Episode 254 – Give Me Back My Damn Locknar!

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    Whilst Kurt plans for Actionfest and Andrew digs through his catalog for The Minneapolis Film Festival, it leaves little time for theatrical screenings. Which is alright since the last couple of weeks have all but dried up in the multiplexes. But fear not, we still have listener homework to fawn over and quite a nice little Watch List to cover as well. We keep this one short and simple folks. An easy listen… if you can stand the sound of our voices and the occasional belch here and there. Man beer tastes good. Mmmmm. Beer. Oh but sorry, the movie conversation continues…

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

     
     

    Cinecast Episode 254 [ 1:59:58 | 82.38 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_254.mp3

     
     
    Full show notes are under the seats…
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 09 Apr

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    Mondays Suck Less in the Third Row [the really huge images episode]

    3

    Hand Drawn Clint:

     

     

    Fan made Taxi Driver poster:

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 06 Apr

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    HIGH School and Adrien Brody

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    I‘m pretty sure I saw stills of Adrien Brody dressed as a ridiculous drug “lord” for this movie about a million years ago. So no idea how long this film has been being worked on or how long it’s sat on a shelf or what, but I gotta be honest: outside of The Brody hamming it up, this looks pretty awful and uninspired (yes I seem to be using that term a lot more these days). So it’s kids doing pot in school and at some point the teachers and authority figures get in on it by accident. Ha ha.

    The trailer is worth checking out though because at the halfway point Brody appears. And that’s even probably enough to get to me to actually purchase a ticket for this thing. I’m not in college anymore, so this type of humor has worn thin. But hey, 21 Jump Street was a pretty big success (both critically and personally), so who knows; this might turn out to be something new and interesting within the sub-genre… though I kinda doubt it. But holy shit, is that Michael Chiklis?

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