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Discuss: Why Are Movies Like '2012' So Interesting?
Filed under: Action, Drama, New Releases, Sony, Critical Thought, New in Theaters
Despite all the jokes about Roland Emmerich's love for blowing up cities, how the hell Lloyd Dobbler will save the world, and of course, the infamous line "Download my blog," 2012 earned $225 million worldwide in its opening weekend. I dislike adding "porn" or "-sploitation" to descriptive phrases (torture porn, poorsploitation, etc. etc.), but if anything could be called an exploitation of our natural fear of an upcoming worldwide crisis, it would be 2012. Eerie shots of crowds praying en masse and major landmarks crumbling are juxtaposed with smaller stories, like the family struggling to stay together, a personal crisis set off by an ethical conundrum, and, of course, the prophet-kook in the woods who's happy to see his greatest suspicions verified.
Orson Welles's radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds sent Americans running for their bomb shelters in 1938, and once everyone realized it was just a radio show (and recovered from their terror), a new type of horror was born: the fear of massive worldwide destruction.
Every US generation thinks it's going to be the last. If it's not the Cold War, it's the Middle East, and if it's not aliens, it's the ice caps. But it's also a reality; it's mind-boggling to turn on the news and see footage of a tsunami that's killed about 230,000 people and injured and displaced so many more.
Interview: Joseph Gordon-Levitt on 'Uncertainty', 'Inception' and His Favorite Movies
Filed under: Action, Drama, Independent, New Releases, New in Theaters, Interviews
Whether as a fast-talking high schooler in a film noir (Brick) or a disfigured soldier in a big budget blockbuster (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra), Joseph Gordon-Levitt has proven himself to be one of the most talented young actors. His new movie, Uncertainty, takes the viewer on a journey into two different worlds, where a flip of a coin takes a young couple (Gordon-Levitt and Lynn Collins) into an innocuous visit to her family and decisions about their future and another takes them into a strange criminal underworld where everyone is after a cell phone they found in a cab. Directed by David Siegel and Scott McGehee, Uncertainty was filmed on the fly with hand-held cameras in S16m and HD as the couple race towards their different futures. In this interview, we discuss the freedom of improvising within a structured world, his favorite movies, and what he can't say about G.I. Joe sequels or Christopher Nolan's Inception.
Cinematical: Can you discuss the beginning of the movie a bit? I was confused if it was symbolic or literal or what.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: What do you think was happening?
Cinematical: Well, I went back and I watched it again and wasn't sure.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I don't want to be evasive or anything... You know, it's the kind of movie that's meant to stimulate a conversation or provoke your own creative thoughts about it, so I hesitate to say, "Well, what it means is blah blah blah." First of all, because it means something different to everybody. And second of all, I would never want anybody to say, "Well, I read an interview where the actor said that it means blah blah blah, so it means that and it doesn't mean anything else. 'Cause to me that's the beauty of movies, is that it can mean really whatever you want. The act of watching a movie, I think, is a creative act; it's not just input. All of us, as audience members, we're telling the story the way that we see it.
Watch This: Wes Anderson Acts Out 'Mr. Fox' Storyboards
Filed under: Animation, New Releases, Celebrities and Controversy, New in Theaters, DIY/Filmmaking, Trailers and Clips
In this month's Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson makes his first foray into animation with an adaptation of Roald Dahl's story about an upwardly mobile fox (George Clooney) whose drive to steal chickens threatens his family and community. While it's Anderson's first non-live action project, Mr. Fox nonetheless shares qualities with his other films, including a meticulous attention to detail, stylish design, and idiosyncratic characters. So how did the live-action auteur tackle the challenges of stop-motion filmmaking, especially considering that he spent much of the production in an entirely different country than his crew?
HitFix has a fun little glimpse of the director at work that shows us how Anderson collaborated with his animation team to bring the characters of Fantastic Mr. Fox to life. From his base in Paris, Anderson shot video storyboards of scenes and character movements by acting out scenes and blocking himself. He then emailed the videos to his crew in London, who took their visual cues from Anderson's performances. The end results, when viewed side-by-side with Anderson's versions, are near identical.
Hit the jump and watch Anderson as Mr. Fox, Kristofferson, Ash, and other characters from The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Review: The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Independent, New Releases, New in Theaters, Remakes and Sequels
The original Boondock Saints was relegated to video store shelves before most would-be fans had an inkling it had passed them by in theaters. But eventually, chances are one night a friend would suggest watching this weird, violent movie about hot twin brothers with a serious gun fetish, Catholic complex, and Latin tattoos, and you'd pass the word along. Basically, Murphy MacManus (Norman Reedus) and Connor MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery) were blue-collar Irish guys who decided that they'd had enough of the scum on the streets and began wiping them out in various creative ways, although their favorite weapons were and remain the gun. Their buddy Rocco, a mob errand boy, was the de facto third Saint. Meanwhile, they're being tracked by a very odd FBI agent by the name of Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe in a fabulously bizarre performance) and three bumbling local cops. And then there's Il Duce (Billy Connolly), the infamous assassin who's finally paroled from prison.
Ten years later, the Saints are in Ireland with Il Duce, aka their dad, when the word comes that someone in Boston killed a priest they knew and tried to make it look like the Saints did it. Game on. The boys shed their woolly sweaters and their long hair and beards and return to Boston.
Review: Michael Jackson's This Is It
Filed under: Documentary, Music & Musicals, New Releases, Sony, Theatrical Reviews, New in Theaters
As I watched Michael Jackson's This Is It, I found myself wondering exactly what I was supposed to be reviewing. It's nearly impossible to separate the context of the film from the film itself -- that it was supposedly never meant to be a documentary and is only now being seen by public eyes because of Michael Jackson's death in June as he was preparing for his last tour. And, as difficult as it is, I'm obviously not reviewing the person himself. Was I reviewing his performances? That's not it, either, because they're rehearsals and Jackson was saving his voice and strength for the tour. The documentary itself is a strange, confusing look into Michael Jackson's world, or at least the version of it that his friends, family, and/or estate wanted us to see.
Producer Randy Phillips is quoted in the production notes as follows: "What makes this footage so compelling is that Michael is so open and unguarded. From March 5 when we did the press conference [announcing Jackson's tour] to June 25 when Michael died – we had a three-person crew with HD cameras." The production notes also say they shot "more than 100 hours of rehearsal footage shot in Los Angeles." Why were three people shooting with HD cameras, producing over 100 hours of footage that "was never intended for wide release"? And if it was eventually going to be part of a behind-the-scenes doc, then why did it often look blurry or shaky, and why, if there was so much more footage to choose from, are we seeing rehearsals that seemed to be from a handful of different days, judging by the different clothes Jackson wore?
Review: Law Abiding Citizen
Filed under: Thrillers, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, New in Theaters
As a kid I remember reading in either CRACKED or MAD magazine a parody about movie heroes and villains. The story pointed out how, very often, heroes are much ruder and less well behaved than villains. For example, James Bond will burst into an enemy hideout; the villain will remark, "ah... Mr. Bond. Welcome to my humble abode." And Bond will say, "I'm going to take you down, you snake!" That's a crude example, but you get the drift. The new Law Abiding Citizen is like that, all the way through. The hero is a slick, well-dressed sort who is more concerned with his personal advancement than with the well-being of others. The villain is a highly intelligent, highly trained killer who is trying to rid the world of something broken and corrupt. The villain longs for his dead wife and daughter, while the hero neglects his wife and daughter. Whenever they meet, the villain speaks cordially to the hero, and the hero snaps back with a nasty attitude.
I suspect that, at some point, some clever screenwriter -- perhaps credited writer Kurt Wimmer -- intended all this stuff on purpose, like a subversive, twisted version of the usual Hollywood thriller dynamic. But director F. Gary Gray either did not pick this up or has chosen to ignore it, and presents Law Abiding Citizen as a straight-ahead thriller. Likewise, Jamie Foxx, cast as the good guy lawyer, seems to expect his natural charisma to make up for his character's moral center, and his performance comes across as rigid and unsympathetic. As the bad guy, Gerard Butler fares only slightly better, but only because his character is smarter, with more playful dialogue.
Review: Surrogates
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New Releases, Disney, Theatrical Reviews, New in Theaters
Some science fiction films take us to different worlds or alternate realities, or offer visions of the future. In each of these new worlds, certain new rules apply. Sometimes the rules are pretty simple and can be easily and clearly established, as in Star Trek or District 9. Other times the rules are exceedingly complex and raise a million questions, as in the new Surrogates, which is based on a comic book by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele. In this future world, humans can strap themselves into a chair, plug themselves into a bunch of sensors and have complete control of an artificial being, including movement, speech and senses. This artificial being can then go out into the world to perform daily tasks, while the real person is safe at home, never risking getting hit by a car or falling down a manhole.
From there, things get sticky. A narrator explains to us that 98% of the population uses the surrogates, and later a character says something about a "billion" users. Last time I checked, a billion was only about 20% (or less) of the population. Plus, how much do these surrogates cost? Can all the poor people of the world afford them? We do get to see a few things like a surrogate bringing home food for its owner to eat, and other points in which surrogates freeze up while their owners use the bathroom, but just how do people go about their daily lives? Some of the users look like they're in pretty bad shape, sitting in their chairs. Is using a surrogate physically or emotionally addicting? Do their muscles atrophy? Do they take showers? Do they ever get together to have sex? Has the population gone down because of too much surrogate sex and not enough human sex?
Review: Fame
Filed under: Music & Musicals, New Releases, MGM, Theatrical Reviews, New in Theaters
The new remake of Fame will appeal to pre-teens who hope to go to performing arts schools, but who -- implausibly -- have never seen any other movies, or plays, or dance performances or music recitals. Moreover, they must not yet possess the ability to tell good performance from bad, nor truly inspired plot twists from hackneyed ones. Parents, on the other hand, will find that the movie sucks their will to live. It begins with the typical audition sequence, in which thousands of hopefuls show off their talents in front of grim-faced teachers. Whether or not the kids are talented makes no difference; some of the worst performers incredibly make the final cut, and even the best performers chosen aren't about to set the world on fire.
Following that, we meet our instructors, most of them played by talented, slumming actors. Kelsey Grammer plays the music teacher, Megan Mullally teaches singing, Bebe Neuwirth teaches dance and Charles S. Dutton teaches acting. (Debbie Allen, a holdover from the 1980 film, plays the principal.) Each of the teachers tries to impart the concept that each performer needs to find his or her own personality, find out what he or she wants to say, and then find a way to convey that, honestly, through their craft. The movie then completely ignores this advice and gives us a truckload of the usual mainstream, reality TV junk that sells. For example, from the dance class, rather than a ballet ("boorr-ing"), we get a rendition of some rejected "Pussycat Dolls" number, complete with skimpy stockings and strutting. (Not surprisingly, "director" Kevin Tancharoen worked on the "Pussycat Dolls" reality TV show.)
Review: Sorority Row
Filed under: Horror, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, New in Theaters, Remakes and Sequels
Another in the seemingly endless line of horror remakes, Sorority Row has the distinction of being based on one of the most forgettable of the 1980s slasher ripoffs, The House on Sorority Row (1983), which even the preeminent drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs called "average." That basically means the new film has the freedom to start from scratch, with no real fan club to upset. But the new film also owes a good deal to I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), with the killer inexplicably waiting eight months for her/his revenge after the initial horrible deed.
What happens is this: some sorority sisters decide to play a prank on a cheating boyfriend (Matt O'Leary). One sister gives him some "roofies," which he slips to his ex-girlfriend Megan (Audrina Patridge). He proceeds to make out with the near-comatose girl until she throws up and passes out. The panicked boy and five sorority sisters, plus the playing-possum Megan, pile into a car and head for the hospital, but get lost and wind up at the old mine shaft instead.
Review: All About Steve
Filed under: Comedy, New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, New in Theaters, 20th Century Fox
Sandra Bullock may yet be one of our great living movie stars, capable of stealing just about any scene from any other actor. If only she could just find her place. Her role as the woman who winds up driving the bus in Speed was the breakout performance of a lifetime. In one scene, the bus approaches a lady crossing the street pushing a baby carriage. There's nothing anyone can do, so Sandra just screams and covers her eyes. The baby carriage goes flying, and -- not a baby -- but empty cans go flying and rattling all over, with the angry woman shaking her fist at the departing bus. Keanu Reeves tries to calm Sandra down by explaining that it was just cans. Her hysteria lasts a few more seconds, but it's so over-the-top utterly charming that Keanu can't help but smile at her. I've always suspected that that was a genuine smile from Keanu, not in character, and that director Jan de Bont just left it in.
After that she starred in While You Were Sleeping (1995), an above average Hollywood romantic comedy that made a nice profit. From there Bullock found herself locked in a struggle with her own career. She was perfect for romantic comedy, and whenever she made one, it was a hit, up to and including this past summer's The Proposal. The trouble is, it seems, that Bullock doesn't really want to make romantic comedies, but whenever she tries anything else -- like her great performance as Harper Lee in Infamous (2006) -- no one notices. She even became her own producer several years back in an effort to grab the steering wheel of her own career, but she's wrestling with a much older problem. It's called typecasting. Nobody ever wanted to see Charlie Chaplin make serious movies, nor did anyone ever want to see John Wayne play meek and mild-mannered.
Jeremy Renner Wants To Be An Avenger
Directors We Love: Jim Jarmusch
Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
Shelf Life: Fight Club_thumbnail.jpg)
Watch: Famous 'Matrix' Scene Re-Created with LEGOs
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