Monday, August 27, 2007

Wizard's got the goods on HEROES

via Ain't It Cool News:
There's a huge article over at Wizard Magazine about the DVD release of Heroes. Lots of great lil' insight about the show's first season and some great quotes from the people involved.
I thought about posting the latest pre-season stuff from the metagame, but I think this image is far more ripe for discussion.

The whole milk moustache campaign has raised snickers from time to time, but this one's just purely ridiculous. Not only do we have the milk moustache on barely legal starlet Hayden Panettiere, but she's also getting a splattering of milk on her face and chest. Yup. Milk Bukkake.
Is bukkake coming into the mainstream now? Has it been referenced enough on Howard Stern that everyone knows what it is? I know that my buddy Byron had to explain it to the state of Ohio (well, they figured it out by spying on his website), which cost him his BUKKAKE plates. But, I'd hope that the average person would be slightly more well-informed than the government.
Anyhoo, it's still kinda gross. And worrisome that the advertisers would include fringe imagery in their ad to appeal to the sickos that 1) get all gooey over young girls and 2) are into Japanese porn. Ick.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The 45th New York Film Festival Line up is Released

Thanks to a source in New York I was given a release of the films to be shown at the 45th New York Film Festival. Please check out the WEBSITE for more info and to buy tickets. Sorry this is so long but it is worth it!

28 Films to Debut at 45th New York Film Festival, Sept. 28–Oct. 14

Closing Night: Persepolis
Five Special Retrospectives, Three Special Event Screenings, Three Sidebars Included


NEW YORK, August 15, 2007—The 45th New York Film Festival will premiere 28 films when it runs Sept. 28-Oct. 14 at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. The festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and sponsored by Sardinia Region Tourism and The New York Times, also features three unique sidebars, three special event screenings and five retrospective films.
Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis has been selected as the festival’s Closing Night film. The animated coming-of-age story, based on Satrapi’s popular graphic novel about her own childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, won a Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. It features the voice talents of Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Danielle Darrieux and Simon Abkarian, several of whom are expected to attend the festival’s Closing Night screening at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall on Sunday, Oct. 14. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing the film.
The festival’s previously announced Opening Night and Centerpiece selections (Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited and the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men) now headline a strong American contingent in the 2007 slate. Noah Baumbach, Gus Van Sant, Todd Haynes, Sidney Lumet all return to the festival with American productions; Julian Schnabel and Abel Ferrara come back with international co-productions; and Brian DePalma, John Landis and Ira Sachs each make their festival debuts.
Baumbach will screen his follow-up to The Squid and the Whale, the very funny and very true Margot at the Wedding. Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh star as contentious sisters thrown into a disastrous family weekend caused by Pauline’s (Leigh) engagement to the underwhelming Malcolm (Jack Black). Scott Rudin produces the film, a Paramount Vantage release.
Van Sant’s Paranoid Park, based on the novel by Blake Nelson, details the unraveling of a skateboarder’s life after he is involved in the death of a security guard. Newcomer Alex Nevins stars in the film, for which Van Sant won Cannes’ special 60th Anniversary Prize. IFC First Take will release the film.
The other American titles include Haynes’ I’m Not There—a rumination on the life of Bob Dylan, with actors Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Wishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin each representing elements the famed musician’s mystique—DePalma’s trenchant vision of the Iraq war, Redacted, and Ira Sachs’ taut melodrama Married Life. Lumet returns to the New York Film Festival for the first time in 43 years (Fail-Safe, 1964) with Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, a crime story starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei. Two documentaries—Landis’ Mr. Warmth, The Don Rickles Project and Ed Pincus and Lucia Small’s The Axe in the Attic—round out the festival’s new U.S. productions.
The 45th New York Film Festival honors worldwide film production with more than half of its slate taken from other countries. Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly tells the story of magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, paralyzed by a stroke, blinks out a memoir that eloquently captures his vibrant interior life. Mathieu Amalric stars as Bauby in the Miramax release, which won Cannes’ Best Director award and Technical Grand Prize.
Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona will screen his feature film debut The Orphanage, a supernatural drama about a woman who re-opens the orphanage in which she was raised, only to discover terrible secrets as her seven-year-old son, Simón, begins making imaginary friends. The Picturehouse release is presented and produced by last year’s Closing Night director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth).
Among the other international titles in the festival are Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light, which shared with Persepolis the Jury Prize at Cannes; Abel Ferrara’s Italy/U.S. co-production Go Go Tales; Catherine Breillat’s The Last Mistress; Claude Chabrol’s A Girl Cut In Two; Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Flight of the Red Balloon; Eric Rohmer’s The Romance of Astrea and Celadon; Alexander Sokurov’s Alexandra; Béla Tarr’s The Man from London; and Jia Zhang-ke’s documentary Useless. Cannes Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Best Actress prizewinner Secret Sunshine were previously confirmed.
Five films will be featured as special retrospectives of the 45th New York Film Festival: the long-awaited “definitive cut” of Blade Runner by Ridley Scott, honoring the landmark
science fiction film’s 25th anniversary; the premiere of a new score by the Alloy Orchestra to accompany Josef von Sternberg’s 1927 film Underworld, winner of the Best Writing Oscar® at the first Academy Awards®; John Ford’s first major film The Iron Horse (1924), a massive production about the building of the transcontinental railroad; Sven Gade and Heinz Schall’s 1920 German production of Hamlet, starring actress Asta Nielsen in the title role; and an evening titled The Technicolor Show, introduced by Martin Scorsese and featuring John Stahl’s Leave Her to Heaven (1945).
The Walter Reade Theater will also host three upcoming music documentaries as part of the New York Film Festival’s special events. Carlos Saura will screen Fados, an exploration of the celebrated Portuguese musical style. Acclaimed rock documentarian Murray Lerner’s The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965 features footage of Bob Dylan’s infamous Newport performances, where the musician first used electric amplifiers. Peter Bogdanovich will complete the set with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream, an in-depth look at the legendary American rock band to be screened at its full 238 minutes, with a 15-minute intermission.
Persepolis joins a select group of films that have closed the New York Film Festival, many of which have gone on to critical acclaim and successful theatrical runs. Over the last 20 years, these have included David Mamet’s House of Games, Jane Campion’s The Piano, Milos Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flynt, Pedro Almodóvar’s Live Flesh and Talk to Her, Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams, Alexander Payne’s
Sideways, Michael Haneke’s Caché and last year’s selection, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Due to ongoing renovations at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, this year’s New York Film Festival screenings will be held at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, in the Time Warner Center. Opening Night will be held at Avery Fisher Hall, as well as Rose Hall. Closing Night will be held at Avery Fisher Hall only. Special events and some retrospective screenings will be held at the Walter Reade Theater.
The 45th New York Film Festival’s selection committee is made up of Richard Peña, chairman and the Film Society’s program director; Kent Jones, associate director of programming at the Film Society and editor-at-large of Film Comment magazine; Scott Foundas, film editor and critic, L.A. Weekly; J. Hoberman, film critic, The Village Voice, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University; and Lisa Schwarzbaum, film critic, Entertainment Weekly.
As previously announced, this year’s festival sidebar will honor director and screenwriter Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, a renowned member of Brazil’s Cinema Novo movement of the 1950s and ‘60s, who solidified his place as a master filmmaker with his 1969 classic, Macunaima. The series, titled Tropical Analysis: The Films of Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, will run Sept. 29-Oct. 9 at the Walter Reade Theater.
Two other sidebars are included among the festival’s events screening at the Walter Reade Theater. Views from the Avant-Garde returns for its 11th year as a distinguished showcase of experimental film and video, screening films during the second weekend of the
festival, Oct. 6-7. The festival also celebrates the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region with Chinese Modern: A Tribute to Cathay Studios, Oct. 10-16, screening films from the Hong Kong production house that, more than any other, introduced a distinctly modern lifestyle to Chinese culture.
Additionally, during the festival, the Film Society will salute New Line Cinema’s 40 years of extraordinary filmmaking at a black-tie gala to benefit the Film Society’s campaign to build a new film center. New Line Cinema’s Co-Chairmen and Co-CEOs Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne will be honored at the event on Friday, Oct. 5, at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
The 45th New York Film Festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, is sponsored by Sardinia Region Tourism and The New York Times. The screening of Underworld is made possible through the generosity of the Ira M. Resnick Foundation. Tropical Analysis has been organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Os Filmes do Serro. Chinese Modern is sponsored by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office New York.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, to recognize and support new directors, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of film. Advancing this mandate today, the Film Society hosts two distinguished festivals: the New York Film Festival, which annually premieres the best films from around the world and has introduced the likes of François Truffaut, R.W. Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, and Wong Kar-Wai to the United States, and New Directors/New Films, co-presented by the Museum of Modern Art, which focuses on
emerging film talents. Since 1972 when the Film Society honored Charles Chaplin, the annual Gala Tribute celebrates an actor, filmmaker or industry leader who has helped distinguish cinema as an art form. Additionally, the Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming at its Walter Reade Theater and offers insightful film writing to a worldwide audience through Film Comment magazine.

I will post the actual lineup in a later post, perhaps tomorrow!

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

What's your problem? Go see HOT ROD!!!


OK. What's the problem here, yo?
Why the heck aren't you people out there seeing Hot Rod? It's not only one of the funniest movies I've seen all year, it's one of the funniest movies I've seen in ages.
Utterly without irony, Hot Rod wallows in the glorious trash of the 80s, from re-creating the "I'm so angry I could DANCE!" sequence from Footloose to dressing up the Queens of the Stone Age in full 80s regalia for the climax.
And yet, it's more than that. It's a loving send-up of those inspirational sports movies. And a family comedy. And it's got real, actual pathos and humanity (courtesy of the mighty Ian McShane and the always-spectacular Sissy Spacek).
The movie opened a dismal 9th. After Transformers, which opened a month ago. Freakin' Underdog beat it. Seriously, what's wrong with the world?
The film is directed by Akiva Schaffer of the Lonely Island team (the folks who brought us "Dick in a Box" and "Lazy Monday") and written by supergenius Pam Brady (South Park, Team America: World Police, Kid Notorious, Mr Wong). If that's not pedigree enough for ya, it was originally supposed to star Will Ferrell. You know, that really funny guy from Anchorman and Talladega Nights? He ended up serving as executive producer when it became apparent that he was too old and fat to play Rod Kimble.
Instead, they got Lonely Island (and now SNL)'s Andy Samberg to play the title role. And while they lucked out in not getting a fat, overrated blowhard like that Ferrell guy to be in it (he's sunk so low since not getting the Rod role that he's doing internet videos with Adam McKay's kid), it's the supporting cast that shines in Hot Rod.

Isla Fisher is so damn adorable in this movie. She's pure and sweet and wholesome without ever once getting annoying or remotely near anything like the manure the Disney channel shovels into American households each day. I feel bad that the first thing I really noticed her in was The Wedding Crashers, because she's got skills. I watched The Lookout this weekend and loved her in that, too. She's great in everything. And she's bearing Ali G's child. Need I say more about her greatness?

That's Bill Hader, Jorma Taccone, Samberg and Danny R McBride as the stunt team. Samberg's lucky to be surrounded with guys like that. They're all ace comedic actors, and their total lack of fear and ego made each of their characters all the more real. Each of them is given a chance to shine, and they more than rise to the occasion. Bill Hader is gonna be a household name soon enough, with his performance in Superbad looming on the horizon. In this film, he's a gloriously dumb freak with a mullet and a job at the local ice rink. He's Rod's mechanic and...when things are at their lowest for Rod, he provides the voice of reason that only a guy tripping balls with a piece of metal stuck in his head can provide. Jorma Taccone's Kevin is the moral rock of the team, even if he'd rather be serenading his stuffed animals with George Michael songs. And Danny R McBride's Rico dishes out one of the best beatdowns on screen this year, whupping Ken Kirzinger's keister with a road cone in a green tea-fueled rage.
It's dumb, yes. Completely dumb. But, that didn't stop Napoleon Dynamite from becoming a cultural phenomenon. And this is a better film. It's funnier, it has better performances, and it's got a heart three times bigger than the Grinch's after he gets to the top of the mountain (and I ain't talkin' bout no crappy Jim Carrey Grinch, either).
And yet...you people still haven't seen it.

Why? What's wrong with Hot Rod? He didn't rape your childhoods. He never touched your girlfriend in her bikini area. And he's certainly a courteous houseguest when he stops over (unless he's with his dad -- in which case, move the lamps).
Why no love for Hot Rod??? I'm not the only person who's noticed. Ben Lyons over at E!online has wondered exactly why this film hasn't caught on. Sure, it's bound to be a cult hit. And sure it's going to spawn at least four careers (five if Chester Tam gets the notice he deserves for the absolutely hilarious Richardson).
Five years from now, very few of us will be able to say we saw Hot Rod when it first opened. Rest assured, other people will try, but they'll be fronting. A $5 million opening for a wide-release picture is kinda pitiful. And that means it doesn't have long before it hits second run and DVD, where I assure you it will become a classic.
At least Roger Ebert gets it. But with a dearth of bad reviews (check out MetaCritic or Rotten Tomatoes to see how ugly it's gotten), people aren't exactly flocking to the theaters.
Do you REALLY want to be one of the late-comers to the party? Or would you rather be a pioneer? Get your butt in the theater and see it. And listen to this on the way...


For more information about Hot Rod (or to buy a SWEET Team Rod t-shirt), visit Stuntman Forever or the official site

Oh, and PS...I love Will Ferrell. I was just poking fun.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Arctic Tale Hits a Berg



I had the misfortune of seeing this 'documentary' yesterday and I must say it SUNK. Between the comments of one, Queen Latifah and the personification of every single action of the animals in the film, this was one monotonous whale.

The start was fine, typical wildlife film. Soon, however, we were hearing about the FEELINGS behind each of the animals instincts! Imagine, a walrus depressed for lack of a comfortable sleeping place! THE HORROR!

Additionally, one would think that given this film was in participation with the folks at National Geographic the footage of the animals would be top-notch. Nay, say I. The footage, though amazingly close at times, looked to be the quality produced from my cell phone's camera! Grainy, dark, hard to watch!

See this movie at your own risk. Kids will undoubtedly enjoy the prancing of the baby animals but parents can expect a long long 83 minutes, narrated with comments such as, "When your mother is a polar bear and she calls you, you BEST be coming."

Pax

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

THE DARK KNIGHT teaser is gone!

And so is http://www.whysoserious.com.
In its place? Well, you can still get pics of the folks who participated in the ComiCon festivities (shame on Collider for thinking there were none -- do they even pay attention?) via whysoserious' brand-new redirect: http://www.rent-a-clown.com/.
As for the teaser...well, it's still out there. You just have to get creative (potentially copyright infringing) in looking for it.