Disney continues its conquering of the world with its Marvel licensing, this time, hitting the small screen with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – and for those of you who saw The Avengers and wondered… yep, Clark Gregg is back. ABC has picked up the pilot, which was developed and directed by Joss Whedon. As of yet, there is no announced release date.

Here’s the description from Marvel:

Clark Gregg reprises his role of Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel’s feature films as he assembles a small, highly select group of Agents from the worldwide law-enforcement organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Together they investigate the new, the strange, and the unknown across the globe, protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary. Coulson’s team consists of Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), highly trained in combat and espionage, Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) expert pilot and martial artist, Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker); brilliant engineer and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) genius bio-chemist. Joining them on their journey into mystery is new recruit and computer hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet).

If I were 13 years old, this would be the greatest time ever in the history of movies and TV. Superheros everywhere! Better yet, they’re no longer considered nerdy. Unfortunately, I’m turning into one of those old and cranky men who I used to despise. I saw The Avengers twice and both times I was left meh-ing. I mean it was fine… but so is playing Bingo at 7 PM on a Tuesday night. It doesn’t mean it’s particularly inspiring or even that enjoyable.

As for the others in the new Marvel movie canon, they didn’t do much for me, although they were all mostly fine also. Just fine. I enjoyed the first two Iron Man movies (I’m one of the few left who hasn’t seen the third), but that was mostly because I’d watch Robert Downey Jr. do Pilates for two hours and I’d be crying for him to get an Oscar.

I guess this is growing up. I guess this is adulthood. I guess this is my life now.

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And now, I am instantly excited for the prospect of Ari Folman’s science fiction feature, The Congress, an idea driven hybrid of live action and animation. After the phenomenal success of his rotoscoped war-drama Waltz with Bashir, it appears that identity and consciousness (two themes that were very much at play in that film) are still on his mind. Here Robin Wright, playing a fictional version of herself who has been retired to raise her son (The Road‘s Kodi Smit-McPhee) for some time – this curious timing considering her astounding turn in the recent House of Cards. Nevertheless, she is convinced by Harvey Keitel and Danny Huston, neither playing fictional versions of themselves, to have her ‘entire self’ digitized into an algorithm. Now in the digital world, there are several versions of her running around yearning to find out their true identity. The animation and the story seem to evoke everything from Cool World to Paprika to Sim0ne, and the modern classic science fiction tones please me greatly. Also noteworthy is that The Congress is all based on Novel from the great Stanislaw Lem (Solaris). The film will make its initial bow quite soon at Cannes and I cannot wait for it to cross the pond.

Director: Douglas Blush, Lisa J. Klein (What A Ball, Cult Culture: The Poseidon Adventure)
Producers: Kristin Chambers, Lisa Klein
MPAA Rating: NR
Running time: 89 min.

Illness is never easy to deal with but mental illness is particularly difficult. Here’s an illness that has no easy fix. It doesn’t manifest as a rash you can treat and there’s no little pill that will make a sufferer feel better but often it can manifest in very physical ways. Douglas Blush and Lisa J. Klein’s Of Two Minds sets off to explore the tricky rollercoaster world of bipolar disorder.

Focusing on a handful of individuals, Klein and Bush delve into the manic highs and suicidal lows of the disorder one that, for many of the individuals interviewed, was not diagnosed until later in their adult lives. Cheri Keating explains how she was diagnosed at a free clinic in LA and her experience living her youth as a sufferer and not knowing what she was suffering from. Journalist Liz Spikol and architect and artist Michael Peterson share similar stories of rollercoaster emotional highs and lows that often brought them to the brink of death.

Of Two Minds follows these individuals as they share their stories. They recount their lowest moments and also the highs, the manic energy that makes you feel invincible and alive and capable of doing anything and how those moments of high energy can also be the most dangerous. While in this state the mind loses reservations and people will do things that they generally wouldn’t, causing them to end up in compromising situations that they sometimes don’t remember or would rather not remember when they finally come down. It’s interesting and heartbreaking that the sufferers, all of whom hail from different walks of life, share such similar experiences.

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William Faulkner was no stranger to Hollywood. Just scour his IMDb and you’ll see that during his life he had his pen in numerous Hollywood and television productions. This was, of course, large in part due to his need for what he considered to be easy money. It also led to his highly publicized friendship with Howard Hawks.

Still, as far as adaptations of Faulkner’s works goes, it seems modern Hollywood is either too intimidated or, at the very least, simply more interested in adapting comic books. Faulkner’s stories have been adapted in the past (Paul Newman’s The Long, Hot Summer is a personal favorite), but its been quite some time since a Faulkner story was adapted with any sort of fanfare surrounding it.

But hey, maybe James Franco is just the man to do it. He seems to be doing everything else, after all.

Both in front of the camera as an actor and behind it as a director and writer, Franco has brought to life As I Lay Dying, one of Faulkner’s most renowned novels. The classic book follows “the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family’s quest and motivations – noble or selfish – to honor her wish to be buried in the town of Jefferson.”

The trailer is interesting. As someone who enjoyed the book immensely, I’m not sure how well it will transition to the screen. With that said, the cast which includes Franco, Richard Jenkins, Danny McBride, Tim Blake Nelson, Beth Grant, and Logan Marshall-Green does inspire confidence.

Interestingly, Franco also has Child of God in post-production, an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s even more brutal and cynical novel. McCarthy, as most lit lovers know, is an author who frequently compared to Faulkner both in style and storytelling.

As I Lay Dying premieres at the Cannes Film Festival later in May. One can assume if all goes as Franco hopes, a fall Oscar-season release will be set shortly after.

Directors: Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Médem, Elia Suleiman, Gaspar Noé, Juan Carlos Tabío, Laurent Cantet
Screenplay: Leonardo Padura
Producers: Laurent Baudens, Didar Domehri, Álvaro Longoria, Gaël Nouaille, Fabien Pisani
Starring: Josh Hutcherson, Daniel Brühl, Emir Kusturica, Elia Suleiman, Vladimir Cruz, Mirta Ibarra, Jorge Perugorria
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running time: 129 min.

The anthology love letter to a city lives on this time in Havana.

7 Days in Havana follows in the footsteps of the much loved Paris, J’Taime and its predecessors, bringing together seven filmmakers to tell seven individual stories all of which take place in Havana. What’s particularly interesting about these anthologies is the diverse group of filmmakers that are involved and 7 Days is no exception gathering together French luminaries Laurent Cantet and Gaspar Noé with Israeli actor/director Elia Suleiman, Cuban master Juan Carlos Tabío and Benicio Del Toro making his debut behind the camera.

As is typical with shorts compilations, the results are varied. Del Toro’s Monday adventure has a young American actor (Josh Hutcherson) in town for a few days at the local acting school. Wanting a more authentic experience, he convinces his driver to take him around after hours to the driver’s favourite hangouts which results in an interesting finish to the actor’s day. Del Toro’s mix of tourist Havana and day-to-day life Havana is one that comes up often throughout 7 Days and always through the eyes of an outsider. Though Del Toro’s is quite good, the best of the bunch is Suleiman’s in which the director stars as a wonderer/observer of the city. Though it’s almost completely dialog free, Suleiman’s short is also one of the more interesting ones, featuring long steady shots and out of sequence editing which gorgeously captures the various moods of the city.

Unsurprisingly, Noé’s wordless tale of forbidden romance is both the darkest and most adventurous of the entries. It also happens to be only one of two stories which focus on religious practice. Noé’s exorcism of demons is beautiful and haunting but it’s also dripping in sexuality. It’s dark and beautiful and lush and sweaty and exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from Noé.

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Check out these links:
12 Happy Ending film sequences you never saw
Abandoned Star Wars sets
Movie posters if they kept their working titles
Behind the VFX of the IM3 skydiving scene
Terrifying banana peel!
Ryan Gosling Won’t eat his cereal

 

 

70s Gatsby Trailer recut to look like the Luhrman Gatsby

 

 

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Director: Calum Waddell
Starring: Mark Atkins, Emily Booth, John Carl Buechler, Corey Feldman, Tobe Hooper, Adam Green, Mick Garris
Producers: Naomi Holwill, Calum Waddell
Country: UK
Running Time: 75 min
Year: 2012
BBFC Certificate: 18

DVD Set: (4/5)

There has been a minor surge of celebratory film-focussed documentaries over the last few years. I’m not sure of the correct ‘label’ for them, but I mean the type of documentary that plays as an enjoyable nostalgia-trip with a ‘fan-boy’ feel. We’ve had Not Quite Hollywood presenting the joys of Ozploitation movies, Machete Maidens Unleashed looking into the Filipino genre film industry and several celebrating the work of a single director/producer/artist, such as Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan and Corman’s World. I’m a bit of a sucker for these types of films, so I track them down whenever I can – who doesn’t like a trip down memory lane or a chance to find some lost gems within a genre you love?

So I of course leapt at the chance of reviewing Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever. This is a documentary by Calum Waddell and editor/animator/producer Naomi Holwill (who have been steadily churning out featurettes for DVD/Blu-Rays for the last few years) which, as the title suggests, looks at the history and continuing love for the slasher film. We are taken through the birth of the sub-genre with films like Psycho, Peeping Tom and Bay of Blood, then into its refinement and boom in the late 70′s/early 80′s with the release of Halloween and Friday the 13th and finally looks at what’s on offer now and where the films are heading. On top of the history, the interviewees discuss the essence of what makes a slasher film and why they love them.

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One weekend day a number of the nerdier kids from the local middle school gather their sticks and twine and balloons filled with red dye, and head into the local woods to play capture-the-flag. Oh, those tweens today with their Bieber hair-cuts and their war games. While we are never given any visual context of this one-day war, it is implied that these games have been going on for some time and someone is keeping statistics. Jason Lapeyre’s odyssey of two groups of kids battling in the forest (no this ain’t The Hunger Games, more like a leafy, agora-version The Stanford Prison Experiment) is a peculiar, but totally engrossing combination of make-believe and reality. At that age friendships seem like everything, everything takes on air of importance and intensity. The film often shows real guns and grenades (and explosions) even if the kids are just using whatever sticks and whatever hobby kit items they happen to have crafted into weapons. Make no mistake however, they take their game very serious; there are rules (handily communicated in the animated opening credits, so as to not belabor the exposition) and things are played with strategy and a chain of command. I Declare War delights in juxtaposing war-film cliches with a real ear for 12 year old banter. Its war sequences are a combination of thrilling battles and humorous knowing nods; certainly for those who grew up in the 1970s, but probably anyone who grew up with a creek behind their house.

Nobody takes the war more seriously than P.K. Sullivan (Gage Munroe with his afore-mentioned Beiber do) fancies himself General George S. Patton; albeit he is young enough that loyalty is not valued as much as a collection of soldiers to throw under the bus for whatever plan he has to win-at-all-costs. Nevertheless, as the alpha-male of his team, he remains in charge. The other team, headed up by equally blonde, Quinn, has some leadership issues, and the only girl in the game which adds some pre-teen sexual tension to the equation. Mackenzie Munroe, who looks like a very young Emma Stone is really quite magnificent and has real screen presence (some of the other supporting kid actors are a bit more dodgy in their acting) sporting a brain and a crossbow and A-cups (and is not afraid to use either or all of them.) Let us be clear, while this film wears the clothing of war and adventure in the woods, it is equally interested in being a crucible for all of the kids to work out their issues and anxieties while waiting for the next battle. War is 10% violence and 90% waiting, so there are plenty of opportunities to talk about religion, philosophy (albeit at a youth level) or perhaps what species of dog would you allow to give you a blow-job if you were rewarded with riches and fame. Yes, these 12 year-olds drop F-bombs often, and when provoked can be total assholes to each other.

A subject such as bullying is far better handled, as I see it, in a fictional narrative form than as a doc (as in, say 2012′s Bully) and I Declare War certainly covers several (if not all) angles of bullying, making the entertaining movie perhaps one of the definitive voices on the subject. It postulates that bad leadership is the worst kind of bullying, and that is something which is as applicable to the adult world as it is to the playground set.

[After a successful festival tour, including ActionFest, FantasticFest and TIFF, I Declare War opens in Toronto today, with an opening in Vancouver on May 17th.]

Both in their films and in their marketing, the Coen Brothers seem to always have a love and respect for good old fashioned typesetting. From the art deco of The Hudsucker Proxy to the wanted poster stylings of their True Grit remake. For their latest film, this simple, but boldly styled teaser poster continues that tradition with a playbill kind of vibe. The eye in the guitar is the only graphic element, and it evokes the kitty cat that Oscar Isaac is carrying around with him in the trailer. It’s subtle but there. In the day and age of photoshop clutter and generic blue tinted hero collages, I tend to gravitate towards the simple and elegant.

Alfonso Cuarón’s latest film Gravity has been in the news for years at this point. Since it was first announced, names such as Robert Downey Jr., Marion Cotillard, Scarlett Johansson, and Natalie Portman have all attached to or interested in the project at one point, before the final casting of George Clooney and Sandra Bullock was set. Really though, not of that is important. It’s all secondary to what excites most people about this film: this is Cuarón’s first feature film since his awesome 2006 sci-fi film Children of Men.

The official synopsis? “Astronauts attempt to return to earth after debris crashes into their space shuttle, leaving them drifting alone in space.” The trailer teases what is sure to be one of the more impressive spectacles from the film. It does a great job of relaying the tone and intensity. This is going to be one thrilling, horrific, beautiful, lonely film – that much is for sure. In fact, it is said that Clooney and Bullock are the only two actors given screen time in the entirety of the film.

Gravity drops into theaters on October 4, 2013. Then one can hope there will be some sci-fi at the Oscars next year.

It’s been a while since we got a good old fashioned sneak review from Matt Gamble. But for today’s show he graces us with some early thoughts on the new STAR TREK film, INTO DARKNESS; totally spoiler free of course. He refuses to even verify Andrew’s hunches on who the villain is. Before all of that however, we promised not to see IRON MAN 3, so of course we did just that. Andrew and Kurt sing the praises of a smaller film making the cinema rounds with KON-TIKI; a fully English film but somehow nominated for best foreign language picture at the Oscars? HotDocs has finally wrapped and Kurt gives all of his thoughts on the latest films from that festival. Of course we would be quite remiss if we didn’t at least acknowledge the work of Ray Harryhausen before getting out our boobs and swords for the latest episode of “Game of Thrones.” All of this leads to a hefty watch list and some banter about movie marketing in North America vs. overseas. We jammed a lot of stuff into 150 minutes, so please enjoy!

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

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Full show notes are under the seats…
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