April 17th, 2009, 5 Comments »
My friend Pete McCormack (novelist, musician, filmmaker, blogger et al) has a great-looking documentary coming out, entitled “Facing Ali” (looks like the associated website is forthcoming). Here’s the trailer:
Those chants at the start of the trailer are the crowd saying “Ali bomaye”, which means “Ali, kill him”, in reference to his historic ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ fight with George Foreman.
August 12th, 2008, 3 Comments »
Over the weekend I took a couple of hours away from the mountain of work to watch “American Teen”, Nanette Burstein’s new documentary about ordinary teenagers living through an ordinary senior year in Warsaw, Kansas. Here’s the trailer (complete with spelling mistake–’highschool’ should be two words):
Structurally, it’s very similar to a zilliion teen movies. The producers obviously recognize this, given the movie poster’s clever remake of The Breakfast Club poster:
Aside from being a documentary, what sets it apart from other teen movies is how it undercuts our assumptions about the archetypes. Sure, the princess seems like a manipulating bitch, but the movie reveals an unexpected underlying reason for her behaviour.
In short, it’s a quirky, funny and sad movie that felt, at its core, very familiar. Not only because it was like a lot of high school movies, but because it felt a lot like my memories of high school.
I should mention that the film is straighter and whiter than any modern teen movie. That didn’t trouble me, as there’s no shortage of teenage tales of diverse, inner-city schools. The critics were lukewarm on this movie, and I wonder if the white breadness was an issue for them.
February 24th, 2008, 5 Comments »
As you’ve probably heard, they’ve made a movie version of Sex in the City (thanks to Rebekah for pointing to the trailer). Much like The X-Files movie and The Simpsons movie, this badboy is money in the bank. It may not be a humongous blockbuster, but I’m sure the brand is strong enough to survive any initial negative reviews.
And really brutal reviews are unlikely, because the producers just have to follow their successful TV formula. The trick is to make a risk-free, good enough film. The trailer suggests that they’ve done that:
My only complaint: there are few, if any, funny moments in the trailer. I was never a loyal watcher of the TV show, but I saw several episodes. I always thought they were moderately funny, and occasionally hilarious.
The movie may actually be funnier than is portrayed in the trailer. They appear to be trading on the show’s ‘Friends 4 Eva’ theme, as opposed to the show’s cheeky and occasionally raunchy humour. That probably reflects what the producers think will play with the film’s target demographic.
The trailer features a cover of Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter”. I’ve always thought that was a terrific song, and I dig this version by India.Arie (yes, her name comes with that ridiculous, ostentatious period). You can hear it as the background for one of the kajillion photo+song montages on YouTube.
I just checked out her first single from 2002. It uses one of the oldest tricks in the record industry–make sure the musician names herself in the course of her lyrics.
For a related video, check out this quite funny SNL spoof.
December 6th, 2007, 5 Comments »
When I get back to Canada, the first game I’m acquiring is Portal. I’ll have to pull my old Windows box out of storage, but it looks like it’ll be worth it. The trailer blew my mind, and reviews of the game itself are very promising. The game’s already spawned its own meme, which is always a good sign.
In the meantime, you and I can play the Flash version of the game. The graphics aren’t, uh, quite as slick, but it’s still fairly head-wrecking.
If you fancy something less brain-intensive, there’s always Euroball. I believe this is just quarter football, with slight variations. It’s a really nice implementation, though. I appreciate the nationalistic wrist bands.
October 16th, 2007, No Comments »
Mad About Movies links to a Times Online piece outlining the ‘13 most terrifying movie scenes ever’. That’s a bit of a misnomer, because they often don’t reference specific scenes. Still, it’s an enjoyable list. I followed a link and enjoyed the Jurassic Park trailer:
Note how Spielberg never shows a full shot of a dinosaur in nearly three minutes of trailer. My favourite moment in that film is the ‘reveal’, as we watch Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern react to seeing the dinosaurs for the first time. Man, I had such a crush on Ms. Dern growing up.
I can’t imagine that would happen in 2007. I never found Jurassic Park particularly scary–thrilling, yes, but not scary in the Blair Witch sense. On the other hand, they’ve failed to include Aliens on the list, which is nearly as scary as the original.
May 25th, 2007, 3 Comments »
For a few years, I’ve owned “The Ballad of Henry Darger” by Natalie Merchant (off of Motherland). Frankly, it’s kind of an insipid song, but given Ms. Merchant’s fascination with American history, I’ve always assumed that Henry Darger was an actual person.
As it turns out, he was an incredibly fascinating outsider artist. From Wikipedia:
Henry Darger was a reclusive American writer and artist who worked as a janitor in Chicago, Illinois. He has become famous for his posthumously discovered 15,145-page fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story.
That sounds quite remarkable, doesn’t it? Here are some sites with examples of Darger’s artwork, as well a site for a 2004 documentary about his life. I see that it played at Pacific Cinematheque in 2005–did anybody see it? Here’s a trailer with crappy sound, narrated by Dakota Fanning.
March 27th, 2007, 1 Comment »
You know, 28 Days Later was a really class horror movie. Decent performances, gripping cinematography and it was frickin’ scary. Dethroner links to the trailer for the sequel, 28 Weeks Later (MOV). It has a new cast and a grander scale, but it looks equally compelling.
A while back I wrote a post about surviving zombie attacks, which continues to attract the odd zombie theorist and has netted some interesting comments.