Richard Kelly. Way back in 2001, when the writer/director stormed the scene with his dark, brain-twisting cult fave/critically examined Donny Darko, he was touted as the next genius auteur. Of course, a second film has a way of changing overblown expectation and when Kelly followed up with the bloated, unintelligible cluster-hump known as Southland Tales in 2006, the same folks originally singing his praises were left holding a wet bag of dog crap, wondering if their pretentiousness had jumped in …
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The upcoming film District 9 has been working on gaining your attention by not really trying hard to gain your attention. In some circles, this is called viral, but viral actually spreads. Nevertheless, District 9 has released another “viral” video in its line of its universe-based trailers. I’m not a the biggest fan of the technique and voice over. It feels too Starship Troopers/campy, while the film footage contrasts gritty and radtastic. Maybe I’m over anlayzing. Maybe I’m not, but …
Remember the film adaptation of Eidos’ video game Hitman? A shoven-headed and not-all-that-intimidating Timothy “Where’s he go?” Olyphant? A constantly stripping generic Eastern European Olga something or other? Shooting? Exploding? I do. Barely. And it was boring, pastiche and blah. But that don’t matter because apparently, it made some kind of money. IESB is reporting that Kyle Ward (screenwriter for another video game adaptation, Kane & Lynch, with Bruce Willis attached to star) has been given quill and parchment for …
Sid Ganis, president of The Motion Picture Academy, announced today the best picture category at next year’s Oscars will be enlarged from five nominees to 10. Ganis said, “Having 10 best picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize.” Translation: The Pixar mafia henchmen beat the ever-lovin’ snot out of them …
Anime (Japanese animation), in the U.S. at least, has always been a niche format. I’m not sure why it’s been so hard for American audiences to embrace it, but it’s probably because a) the style is reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons (ie-“crappy”) and b) years of ridiculous dubbing have made it a running joke (“NO! NNNNNNN… IDON’TWANTOTOGOWITHYOUWAITWHATAREYOUDOINGNNNNNYAAAAH!”) Over the last few years, Disney’s been trying to bridge the cultural divide with their U.S. releases of Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki films Spirited …
Hoooo boy! It would seem the Transformers sequel, what seemed to be a surefire summer blockbuster, is now headed full steam ahead for ignominy and a Golden Raspberry award. As of this writing and today’s release, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” stands at 22% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.com. And the reviews are brutal. Here’s a sample of what some notable critics are saying about Michael Bay’s Autobots vs. Decepticons movie. A great grinding garbage disposal of a movie, “Transformers: Revenge …
Damn you Stephen Sommers. George Lucas has already sullied my childhood with the pooptastic “Star Wars” prequels, and now you come a long and fail miserably at bringing Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Duke, Cobra Commando and Destro to the big screen. How do I know this? Easy, because this second trailer you’ve assembled for “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is just like the first – hollow, effects-laden, silly and ridiculous – and leaves me with zero desire or anticipation …
So the last few years haven’t been good for one Manoj (that’s “M.” for short) Night Shyamalan. The trouble all started with The Village, which was genuinely creepy but lost audiences with bait and switch marketing and yet another twist ending that deflated almost all of the preceding narrative. Lady in the Water, commendable for its intent, failed to connect with anyone but the actors, ego and monkey tree-things it cut paychecks for. The Happening… wince. So yeah, yeah, M. …