Saturday, January 20, 2007
The Weekend Image Depot: 1/20/07
Stealing souls from possibly great to undoubtedly terrible films, after the jump.
The Bourne Ultimatum
August 3, 2007
Norbit
February 9, 2007
Epic Movie
January 26, 2007
Evan Almighty
June 22, 2007
Knocked Up
June 1, 2007
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
July 13, 2007
Source: IMDb, Warner Bros.Discuss this and other Fakery on our message boards!
Labels: Epic Movie, Evan Almighty, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Knocked Up, Norbit, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Weekend Image Depot
Continue reading The Weekend Image Depot: 1/20/07Friday, January 19, 2007
The World's Mightiest MODOCS
Being a comic book review of Marvel Adventures' Avengers #9.
It’s tricky business writing a solid M.O.D.O.K. story these days. He’s a giant head with tiny limbs who shoots lasers out of his brain. Despite this ridiculous appearance he insists on crowing about how vastly superior he is. This kind of bragging works fine for Doctor Doom because he’s got a way cool look. But M.O.D.O.K., no matter how powerful he is, just comes across as some angry midget with a Napoleonic complex. Such inherent silliness doesn’t fly in today’s grim and humorless Marvel Universe. But the fans love ‘im! He has replaced Stiltman as the poster boy for the ironic appreciation of older comics. So, how do you produce a light-hearted M.O.D.O.K. tale without falling into the Snakes on a Plane trap?
Writer Jeff Parker has found the way.
Marvel Adventures is the line of comics geared, oddly enough, to kids (you’ve probably spotted it next to Mad Magazine on the racks at Corporate Monolith Drugs & Sundries). This month’s Avengers Adventures pits the world’s mightiest heroes against M.O.D.O.C.! Wait a minute. M.O.D.O.C.? I guess a mental organism designed only for killing is to harsh for 7 year olds. Today’s mental organism is designed only for CONQUERING. This month’s issue finds M.O.D.O.C. transforming the Avengers into a team of giant meglomaniacal heads. This isn’t the first time he’s tried this. Way back in 1982 he pulled the same trick in the pages of The Incredible Hulk when he created Ms. MODOK. I guess for all his assertions of power and dominance, all the little guy really wants is a friend. Anyhow, the M.O.D.Avengers go on to fight crime in “a conquery kind of way.” They have a run-in with Marvel’s other resident super-genius, The Leader, and deliver a cerebral smackdown, both literally and figuratively.
This issue treads that fine line between clever and stupid. M.O.D.O.K. and A.I.M. are written with a wink to the audience, but they always stay true to character. The same goes for our heroes as they each react to being transformed into super villains. The cleverest bit is what happens when some of them are knocked from their hoverchairs and have to deal with being supremely intelligent, grotesquely proportioned bobbleheads.
This story could have easily fallen into the trap being too much of an in-joke. But the writing stays focused on the story, making it totally accessible to the average Giant Monster Headed Villain fan off the street. The superhero genre needs more comics like this.
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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
DVD Review: Exiled (R3)
By Nathan Wishart
When John Woo left for the US in pursuit of making bigger and better movies (and we all saw how that experiment went south and on down to Mexico), it left a void in the genre he more or less created: the "Heroic Bloodshed" genre. Though many subpar films were made in the its wake, the only director with staying power who had successfully tackled it every now and then was Johnnie To, mainly due to the fact that he never took it too seriously. He parodies just as much as he makes them earnest. His first film tackling this genre was A Hero Never Dies, a film loved and hated by many. He would later go on to make The Mission, which so far has been his definitive statement on the "Heroic Bloodshed" genre.
When news broke that Johnnie To would be making a sequel to The Mission, Asian film fans were understandably excited, and thus, the hype machine began. I normally try to avoid hyping things as it most times leads to disappointment. I have always been impressed by Johnnie To’s ability to keep going back to the same genre and keep coming up with something interesting and unique. With Exiled he continues to leave me impressed. All the familiar devices are here: themes of loyalty, betrayal and brotherhood and gunfights that defy the laws of gravity, although not to the ridiculous standards of John Woo.
The film opens with a couple of hitmen, Tai and Cat (Francis Ng and Roy Cheung), looking for an old friend of theirs called Wo (Nick Cheung). We find that he has arrived back in Macau after many years of exile with a wife and kid now in tow. Also looking for him are Blaze and Fat (Anthony Wong and Lam Suet), who have orders to kill Wo from Boss Fay after an unsuccessful assassination attempt by Wo that sent Wo into exile. Tai is there to make sure Blaze doesn’t kill Wo. Blaze ends up giving Wo time to sort his affairs out but Wo manages to talk them into doing one last dangerous mission in order to provide for his new family.
By now, Johnnie To can probably do this type of film in his sleep. He really has it down cold and this film is no exception. To employs his usual visual tricks but they never seem tired or cliché. If anything, they’ve improved since The Mission. To has been consistently improving his craft - his use of atmosphere is spellbinding. I just love watching the camera float around the dark interiors with only the outside light from the window streaming in. Nowhere is this better showcased than in the action scenes. The way To sets up and executes them are really quite astonishing in their simplicity and elegance. Mainly using slo-mo and some judicious editing, he creates some of the best action sequences I’ve ever seen.
That’s not the only weapon this film has, though. It also has a cast of HK character actors most films would kill for, and they deliver good to great performances throughout. Anthony Wong essentially reprises the same character from The Mission as the loyal, weary assassin. If this film has any flaws it's that the four main characters are more or less the same as the ones in The Mission. That’s not to say there’s a bad performance here, but I just got the feeling they were the characters from The Mission only with different names. Simon Yam is the only one who actually gets to have any fun with his character.
The score here is another standout. The main theme is a spaghetti western influenced piece with a lone guitar and drums that gradually build whenever a gunfight is about to take place. A lone piano accompanies the softer, more melancholic scenes.
I’m not too good on actual technical specs for the DVD itself, but I’ll do my best. I purchased the Mega Star DVD version of this film (Region 3) and I can honestly say I wasn’t disappointed. The picture quality was pristine and the sound came with three options: DTS in Cantonese, Dolby Digital in Cantonese and Dolby Digital in Mandarin. I chose the Dolby Digital option in Cantonese as I was watching it on my PC as I normally do, but the sound was impressive either way. I won’t bother you with the extras as they were all in Cantonese and had no subs, but they had two making of featurettes, a trailer for the film and a behind the scenes featurette which essentially consisted of clips edited together of the on-set production.
The cover (for the Region 3 release) isn’t bad but would’ve been better if they’d actually used the image on the back cover which is a much cooler image with the four hitmen standing looking up at a hill at dusk. It’s almost Peckinpah-ish compared to the one they went with where all four principal actors stand looking over their shoulders with a cityscape in the background.
I loved Johnnie To's Exiled. To put it simply, it’s just a wonderfully crafted film that gets that one ingredient right that so many films strive for but very often fail to be... and that is cool.
9 and half hitmen out of 10
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Labels: DVD Reviews
Continue reading DVD Review: Exiled (R3)John Carter Of M... Mouse?
The John Carter of Mars series of books, written by Edgar Rice Burroughs of Tarzan fame, has been aching to get the film treatment in recent years, but has unfortunately fallen victim to the slippery pits of development hell. It was last attached to Paramount with Jon Favreau at the helm and Ain't It Cool's Harrry Knowles producing. Well, that's all dead. And has been for awhile since we all know Favreau is currently focusing his directorial powers on New Line's Iron Man. Anyway, it seems that Paramount is letting go of the fantasy property. And of all the places to pick it up... Disney?
The story broke over at TMZ, but meatier information has appeared on CHUD.com. Harry Knowles over at Ain't It Cool also chimed in...
CHUD.com: "gossip site TMZ is reporting that the Burroughs estate is about to sell the film rights to the 11-volume series, beginning with A Princess of Mars, to Disney. But is that really the case? Knowing that legendary producer Don Murphy has been involved in the efforts to get this movie to the screen over the last few years, I gave him a call to see what’s what.
The Burroughs estate hasn’t finalized a Disney deal, Murphy says, and he doesn’t see why they necessarily would. Don’s working with Walden Media, the folks behind The Chronicles of Narnia movies, and he says that part of their offer is a guarantee to have a film in production in 18 months. Disney, meanwhile, is making no such offer, and is in fact interested in sitting on the film for Andrew Stanton, the director of Finding Nemo. Apparently Stanton wants to do a live action movie, and John Carter is what he fancies… but he’s lined up to do Pixar’s post-post-Ratatouille film, meaning he wouldn’t get started on John Carter, at the earliest, until next decade."
Harry Knowles: "None of us left the project. Paramount's ex-president of production decided not to renew the rights. Jim, Sean and I - along with Jon Favreau were heartbroken when Paramount didn't renew the rights, but that happens. Ultimately I'm just proud to be a part of the long history of people that tried to bring this great story to the screen. We came the closest - I wish, whatever studio gets it the best of luck, it's a great story and deserves to be told the best way possible."
So the only certainty really seems to be that Paramount is out. It's up for grabs right now between Disney and Walden Media, both of which would frankly seem like inappropriate places to produce material of this nature (NSFW). What's going to happen then? Probably nothing for a long time. In the end though, it seems almost certain that we'll get a more watered down depiction of the series so as be more commercially viable to a wider demographic. So sorry, guys. No "Hard R" for you.
Source: TMZ.com, CHUD.com, AICNDiscuss this and other Fakery on our message boards! Continue reading John Carter Of M... Mouse?
Monday, January 15, 2007
Review: Smokin' Aces
Joe Carnahan's new movie Smokin' Aces isn't very good. This is a shame, but I had that soul deadening feeling about two thirds of the way through of 'waiting for the movie to end'. For a movie that is supposed to be an adrenalin fueled rocket blast of mayhem it never gets the blood pumping and, to complete the metaphor, it never really takes off. Sorry. The only question remaining to be answered is whether this is a forgivable dysfunction of a true love or the spastic squirtings of a dumb fuck.
The story, such as it is, involves a mob connected Las Vegas magician, played by Jeremy Piven, turned stoolpidgeon for the feds and now the target of an 'open to all comers' contract for his life.
So, we are introduced to a large group of characters including feds (Ray Liotta, Ryan Reynolds, Andy Garcia), bail bondsmen (Ben Affleck, Peter Berg), and lots of assassins (Alicia Keys, Tommy Flanagan (that guy with the scar on his cheek), and at least half a dozen more), who all start moving towards the penthouse suite of a hotel where Jeremy Piven is staying while waiting for his federal immunity deal to go through.
It does this by means of an extremely extended montage of lots of little, cross-cut scenes and vast amounts of very fast-paced exposition. Think the beginning of Goodfellas on speed crossed with Tarantino's love of broad, almost comic-like, characterisation. The head fed will brief his crew, for example, on the various assassins and the film will cut to a brief scene of each of them doing a job while the head fed describes their MO and how hardcore they are.
Then we have an extended, cross-cutting montage of all the crews explaining what they are going to do, then a montage of them arriving at the hotel and so on. The concept seems to be to take all those cool bits at the beginnings of Scorsese movies, you know, before the women turn up and they get boring, and making an entire film out of them, mixed with an absurdist sense of humour and a large cocktail of various stimulants. Not the most mature idea, but bold and, on paper, kind of exciting. Large numbers of killers in an enclosed space, all after the same guy - what could go wrong?
Well, the problem is that it never gets beyond that idea of set-up. The entire film is building to a pay-off that never comes. Halfway through a movie of cross-cutting and rapid, jargon filled expository dialogue, the characters are all still waltzing around each other, hanging out in the lobby, and yelling expository dialogue at each other over radios. One of the assassins, for example, actually gains entrance to the penthouse fairly early on and then seems to hang around doing nothing for half an hour of screen time. It turns out (I think - The film is so filled with exposition, all rattled out at 100mph, that some things get lost) that there is a reason for this revealed in one of the twists, but it still highlights one of the main stumbling points of Carnahan's direction.
There's no sense of pace. The film deals with a great deal of concurrent action, but it is not handled well. Some killers are in the lift, heading up to a floor filled with feds with their guns aimed on the lift doors. The lift rises, we see smoke coming out of the slit in the doors, the light pings, the doors start to open and then...the film cuts to something else for what feels like ten minutes and all of the tension built up by that slow arrival is lost. This same undermining of mounting excitement occurs continually and this has the result of making the movie tonally flat. Things happen all the time, but they become a soup of undifferentiated stuff, with nothing having any greater importance than anything else.
Another example of this tone-deaf tonality is the use of violence. When the feds are talking about the killers, we suddenly get some rapid shots of some very unpleasant torture and violence. It quickens the blood and it ups the ante. We all know we are watching an action movie, and violence is the syntax of these films. But then we're straight back to that build-up again. Even the dumbest horror movie knows that once the violence starts coming, you don't let up, which is why they always seem so slow in the first half. You don't just shove exclamation points in randomly.
Equally, one of the secondary characters gets left for dead in a lake but survives, suffering from hypothermia and lots of bullet holes, and crawls to a local trailer park for help. Why we are following him I have no idea, but let's not be mean and criticise a plot-less movie for having no plot. The point is, the film cuts back to him several times. This is done, presumably, to give us a breather from the increasing mayhem happening in the hotel. Perhaps it could be filmed in a very calm style, or perhaps in a surreal style reflecting his tentative grip on consciousness? Anything really, to contrast with the fireworks happening in the rest of the film as the contrast would give the returns to the fireworks more punch. But no, it's the same fast cutting, fast talking noise, with the added benefit of one of the most annoying characters in recent film history - an ADD addled 10 year old nerd in a karate uniform acting all tough and shouting threats at the man the entire time. You will hate him, and I think you are supposed to find him funny. It is awful.
Other awful things include several gag scenes that simply fall flat. One of the female assassins starts ranting about female empowerment to a nice Middle American receptionist which the film thinks is much more insane and funny than it is. One of Jeremy Piven's bodyguards gives a monologue to a bunch of prostitutes that is horrendously acted, unless it was deliberately acted to sound like a bad stand up comedian trying to act.
But by the worst of these awful things is that not all that much mayhem actually happens.
All of the characters are one dimensional, shouty, jokey and fairly unlikable. The assassins are all psychos, the feds are just shouty and Jeremy Piven is a coked out asshole. We are rooting for none of them to win, because there is no character to care about. But this is fine. If it is deliberate, it is because we and the film-makers know we are only watching to get all these extreme characters in the same enclosed space and have them interact, extremely, in as many different ways as possible. And it just doesn't happen. Some of them do finally meet up (and not even in the penthouse which, by the rules set up in the film, is very anti-climactic. Imagine not reaching Mount Doom?) and finally you think the third act is about to start in earnest, but it turns out that it is the climax and one over all too soon.
Remarkably, looking back, for a film so fast moving and full of things happening, not very much actually happens. Imagine what DePalma could have done with so much action in an enclosed space. Imagine the white hot coolness Tarantino could have brought to such a trashy high-concept. Imagine, even, the loopy thrills Robert Rodriguez could have squeezed out of the material. A good version of this would be like getting totally wasted on tequila and getting into a bar fight. As it is, it is just like getting beaten up.
So is it a case of a still young film-maker biting off slightly more than he could chew and simply not being able to bring all these elements together in the editing suite, or is it a deluded charlatan, full of his own testosterone, genuinely believing he is making a dangerous, risk taking movie that dares to break the rules other films are too pussy to?
Well, in support of the first option, there are lots of good little bits in this movie, including the entirety of Jeremy Piven's performance, a scene in which Ben Affleck's face is used as a puppet, a shoot-out in a lift and Alicia Key's cleavage.
In support of the latter we have Alicia Key's performance, dialogue that rates high on the Guy Ritchie wankometer of trying too hard to be cool ('they are going to fill him with boxes of bullets!'), the aforementioned kid, the pacing/tonal/plotting issues and the entire ending.
You see, after some crappy, painfully obvious twists, the film suddenly wants to grow a conscience and become a 70's movie, full of righteous indignation at the corruptness of the system. Perhaps that the movie starts wanting to take itself seriously is supposed to be the joke. In which case it is both redlining on the intertextual pretension scale and anyway not very funny.
So there you go. A waste really. It's not completely awful, so a couple of beers and a DVD rental in a couple of months may let you enjoy the good bits and ignore the bad, but don't believe the excellently targeted hype (aimed directly at us male geeks) and, please, don't think for a second that this ever comes close to achieving the effortlessly manic genius stupidity of a film like Crank.
5 out of 10
(Add 2 if you think Die Hard has aged. Minus 2 if you have a vagina. )
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Sunday, January 14, 2007
Trailer Park Handjob: 1/13/07
I chose to write this round up every Sunday morning, which means writing it after every Saturday night, and I think the hangover explains why I never like any of these things. Still, I have my coffee, my bacon and paracetamol sandwich and I'm ready to watch crappy trailers. With me?
Black Snake Moan: Craig Brewer directed the acclaimed, multi-awarded and still unwatched by me Hustle & Flow and now he's back with musician Samuel L Jackson chaining a mostly naked and nymphomaniac Christina Ricci to a radiator to teach her some valuable life lessons. As someone who still beats off to The Addams Family I'm sold on this movie already and the sweaty, sleazy title and posters have absolutely no problem with playing up the exploitative nature of the material. The trailer, amazingly, actually manages to make this idea funny, charming and actually very human. Watch it here, once for Christina in her knickers and once for Sam all bald and old.
Tears of the Black Tiger: This film was made in 2000 but is only just getting a release in America now. It is fantastic and you need to watch it. It is a western, a silent movie era melodrama, a balls out action movie and it comes from Asia. The trailer will give you an idea of the visual style, which is very affected (containing painted backdrops and cinematography that sometimes looks like black and white films badly colourised), the very knowing stylistic ticks (look at the bit with the quickdraw duel - it uses a famous shot where the camera dollies left from behind one man to show the other, but in this shot the camera stays still and the actors are moved on little trollies. This is the best thing ever), and the gleefully extreme violence mixed in with heart-on-sleeve romance.
Now the trailer uses deliberately 'funny' music to sell-up the wackiness of the film and is also sure to include plenty of the violence in the second half. I know it is doing this to try and appeal to the widest and dumbest audience possible by saying 'Look! It's a wacky foreign film! Look how wacky it is! You are allowed to laugh at it because it is wacky! Also: extreme violence! Woo!', and this marketing strategy might work. But the point is - the Bollywood tradition of film-making does this flagrant mixing of genres all the time and it isn't doing it to be silly. When it has the huge emotional moments it means them unironically. All Tears of the Black Tiger is doing is being slightly more knowing about this mixing and matching. So a trailer that plays up the 'wacky foreigner' angle is just playing to ignorance and latent racism. Still, marketing is the work of the devil and the film remains really good fun. If it plays near you, watch it. In the meantime, watch the trailer here.
Disturbia: Intense young twat Shia LeBeouf and ex-Trinity and thankfully ex-skeleton Carrie Ann Moss star in a horror movie with a really crap name. You see, hiding in surburbia, there are some really disturbing things. Are you keeping up? Anyway, the film is Rear Window mixed with American Beauty if it was made by the people behind American Pie. Shia, looking very ugly here, is under house arrest and spends his time spying on his neighbours, including a hot teen minx sunbathing who, when she discovers him essentially being a peeping tom, starts hanging around and flirting with him. This, I have been assured, is actually the best way to pick up hot minxes. Then they witness a murder and fast cutting ensues, with the option of percussive music and Shia, bless him, trying to act intense. Back in the day we could have at least relied on a film as crappy as this to involve tits (for those of us teenaged males too embarrassed to buy porn in a pre-Internet world) and violence (mmm, violence), but this is most likely a PG-13 and most likely shit. Watch it here.
Blood and Chocolate: At least Underworld: Evolution knew to keep a steady flow of sex and violence on our screens which, in such emaciated times, is probably why people defend its utter shittiness. Try the second trailer for the producers' follow up film, this time about sexy women werewolves. Watch the latest trailer here and admit to yourselves that, if it is rated 'R', you are probably going to watch it at some point.
Blades of Glory: Will Ferrell's next film. Anchorman was funny, Talledega Nights was only barely funny. Here's another 'arrogant but ultimately stupid man at the top of his chosen profession makes ass of himself' comedy from him. Mileage will depend on how funny you find the idea of Will in a tight costume, figure skating. The 'ha ha, figure skating is a bit stupid and gay' shit isn't funny at all unless you are twelve, but the film is also mocking inspirational sports movies and that has the chance to to actually have some teeth. Yes it's mocking the American alpha males' huge mental block when it comes to homosexuality, but it is also playing into that attitude by pointing at the dancers and giggling. Not as clever as it thinks it is.
Will's schtick still seems to be working, however, but a couple more films of this and his dead-eyed retard act could hop the line into deeply disturbing. Will needs to play a serial killer sometime soon. The trailer is cut well and makes sure the punchlines hit home. Watch it here.
The poster is for this, which I'm much more interested in.
Starter for Ten: University Challenge is an English tv institution, pitting two teams of undergraduates against each other in a battle of who knows the most about obscure academic trivia involving 17th century artists and the Dutch lineage of royalty. It's not Jeopardy, but it's the best we silly Brits can do I guess. Here's a romantic comedy about a nerdy, pretentious student who goes onto the programme to try and impress a lady student of unlikely hotness. James McAvoy seems genuinely charming and I wish the best for his career. I imagine it's a very solid, if very predictable, romantic comedy, but I don't know what you Yanks will make of the idea of a quiz purely about the love of knowledge and the camaraderie of friendly competition. Watch the American trailer, which brilliantly avoids any mention at all of University Challenge, here, for the answer, I guess.
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