Before today, 9/9/09 was just the day The Beatles: Rock Band was gonna be released (which is still pretty cool-sounding). Now, it's gonna be the day that the good people at Apple Corps Ltd. finally get off their ass and remaster the entire Beatles discography. Thank God they waited until the CD format became almost completely obsolete! Anyhoo, each album will come with new liner notes, packaging, and making-of documentaries included on each disc:
I'll be the first to admit I have most of the Beatles albums on burned CD-R (sorry, $25 for the unmastered White Album is borderline criminal), so I'm extremely happy to learn that my lazy spending habits are finally paying off. There have been many efforts to rejuvenate the dying music market, but this is the first one in a long time that might actually bear fruit. Let's hope people still have disposable income by the time September rolls around. Also, for those wondering if this means the Beatles are finally coming to iTunes, "Discussions regarding the digital distribution of the catalogue will continue. There is no further information available at this time." Well, as they say, ob-la-di, ob-la-da.
After single-handedly destroying The Day the Earth Stood Still, one of my favorite science fiction films of all-time, Keanu Reeves (who last appeared in a decent film in 2006, with Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly) has decided to take his mediocrity gun and aim it at my favorite anime series, Cowboy Bebop. From Film News Briefs:
Twentieth Century Fox is bringing the Japanese anime TV series “Cowboy Bebop” to the big screen, with Keanu Reeves attached to star as a bounty hunter traveling through space in 2071. One of the big titles in anime, “Bebop” is set in a time where “astral gates” make interstellar travel possible. Humanity, decimated by a lunar explosion resulting from a gate accident, spread out across the solar system, as did crime, which gave rise to the use of bounty hunters. Reeves would play Spike Spiegel, a bounty hunter and former member of a crime syndicate. Spiegel, along with Jet Black, a fellow bounty hunter and former cop, are the two pilots of the spaceship Bebop. Peter Craig is writing the script.
All we can hope for is a solid supporting cast to compensate for Neo McBland.
I'd like to say I did a fairly good job of weeding out the bad movies beforehand, thanks to sites like The A.V. Club and Rotten Tomatoes. But I still found myself subjected to some truly horrible movies this year, and though I was thankfully spared from dreck like The Happening and Witless Protection (the A.V. Club's top two worst movies of the year), I was still able to find five films unworthy of the celluloid they were printed on...
5. Hancock (dir. Peter Berg)
Let me begin by saying that Hancock itself was not a bad movie. Rather, the second half of Hancock is a bad movie. For the first hour, we are presented with a wildly funny, wholly unpredictable look at a reluctant superhero being molded into something more presentable by a struggling PR man. That PR man is played by Jason Bateman, who needs to be in more movies, the opposite of which can be said about Charlize Theron, who is practically invisible throughout the first half, but sadly dominates all of the second, going so far as pushing star Will Smith out of the spotlight. While more of the blame needs to go to the screenwriters for making Theron spout all this unnecessary back story and superhero mythology, claiming that (SPOILER) she and Smith are immortal alien lovers, even though nothing resembling chemistry occurs between the two actors. Bottom line is Hancock was one or two rewrites away from being a solid superhero movie. Close, but no cigar.
4. Saw V (dir. David Hackl)
I got to hand it to the Saw guys; they keep finding imaginative ways for Tobin Bell to reappear in films, even though he was killed off in the third one. His demise came too early, anyway; he always seems to be the only good actor to appear in these new installments. Saw V certainly didn't do anything to change that theory, with Costas Mandylor taking over Bell's role as the new Jigsaw killer, making Shawnee Smith the 2nd Most Boring Person to Replace Jigsaw (there have only been two). It doesn't help that the killer and the protagonist (Scott Peterson) look a lot alike, and are both equally flat actors. The film does a nice job revisiting the haunted house motif that made Saw II tolerable, but it's simply a case of too little, too late. Just reanimate Bell's corpse already!
3. Mamma Mia! The Movie (dir. Phyllida Lloyd)
Yes, I somehow found myself in a screening of Mamma Mia!, which brought the average age of the audience I was with down about 20 years. It was a clear mistake, too, as a film in which Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan walking to the bank to deposit their paycheck for working on this film would've been much more entertaining. They would've retained their dignity, anyway, as Mamma Mia! required most of the cast to flail around like idiots (and not just during the dance numbers), scream incessantly whenever meeting someone, and in the end credits, donning the most misguided costumes ever conceived:
I know I wasn't the target audience for this film, but then again, I wasn't the target audience for Hairspray either and I loved it.
2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (dir. Steven Spielburg)
I almost feel sorry for including this movie on the list; haven't Spielburg and Lucas suffered enough for their crimes?
No, no they haven't. As long as this film contains CGI prairie dogs, nuclear bomb-proof fridges, sword-wielding Russian psychics, a failed attempt at a sidekick franchise, and the award for Worst Use of John Hurt in a Movie, no punishment will be too harsh for this disaster of a film, not even South Park's scathing attack on Lucas and Spielburg in the episode "The China Problem":
1. Deadgirl (dir. Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel)
If I had seen this film during my time as a programmer for Cucalorus, I would've given it a bad mark and that would've been that. But somehow this film went through our screening process unscathed and was given a prime midnight slot at this year's festival. Anticipation was high and everyone was excited about seeing the next word in American horror movies. Well, we're still waiting for the next word, because all we saw were two guys having their way with a female zombie in an abandoned insane asylum. That's the entire movie.
The guys stumble across the titular character, one of them decides to keep her as his sex toy, and mayhem ensues. At no point does the audience sympathize with anybody (except maybe the poor actress playing the dead girl), and directors Sarmiento and Harel keep creativity and originality to a bare minimum as they bombard the screen with all manner of sex and violence, ultimately signifying nothing. Some of the women in the audience were enjoying themselves, apparently finding some misguided sense of empowerment from scenes in which the dead girl gets her revenge on the male protagonists, but by that point, I simply wasn't up to watching the rest of this bloody train wreck, so I ended up leaving the theater, ashamed that the people I worked for and trusted had decided to screen this horrible excuse for a movie.
It's official. The 14th annual Cucalorus Film Festival is one week away, and I am more than excited to see this year's films. This year, I was invited to be a programmer, and ended up watching over 50 feature-length films from every corner of the globe, from South Korea and Australia, to Germany and Austria. In the end, only four films I saw actually ended up in the festival, giving you a good example of how competitive it is (over 1,000 entries, shorts and features, were submitted this year, but only 145 will be screened). Coming away from the experience, I have amassed a list of do's and don'ts (mostly don'ts) for aspiring filmmakers, based on the majority of the films I had seen:
Avoid spelling things out. Take out blatant exposition and let the audience deduce things out on their own. They’re smart. They’ll figure it out.
Avoid “realistic” conversations if they don’t advance the plot. Quentin Tarantino wrote the “royale with cheese” bit, not you.
Make sure you record your dialogue well. It doesn’t matter how good the quality of the picture is. If the sound sucks, you’ve lost your audience.
Don't exploit a tragedy. If your lighthearted comedy can’t work without copious references to the ’92 L.A. race riots, then it can’t work.
Don't namedrop all your favorite movies into your characters’ dialogue. I don’t care how much you love Full Metal Jacket. Having your character recite the entire “This is my gun” speech isn’t going to help your movie.
Avoid having a character say the title of your movie unless it’s absolutely necessary to the script.
If you’re the director, don't put “a (your name) film” at the beginning. That privilege is reserved for people who actually have an Oscar nomination.
Don't insert a blooper reel into your end credits. You’d be surprised by how many people actually did this. Adding one is the same as saying “I know you hated my movie, but look at how much fun we had making it! Surely that must be worth something, right?”
Don't waste a lot of time and effort on the DVD sleeve. The best movies I saw came in unmarked slipcases and the discs had nothing but the title and the running time on them.
Don't use label-makers. Thick paper stickers make the discs hard to read in regular players and nigh on impossible in slot-loading players.
Finally, the goofy little shorts you made with your friends may have been a big hit on YouTube, but so was “2 Girls 1 Cup.” Neither have any place at a film festival.
Alright, that was the end of my ranting. I'll be posting a list of movies to see this year, so stay tuned.
Oh, and one more time for those who missed it: VOTE!
The New York Times turned in a puff piece about the new Get Smart movie, basically talking about how hard it will be to update a television series making fun of the cold war for a modern audience, an audience made up mostly of kids and Steve Carell fans. However, the Times made a mistake by including a multimedia section showing three scenes from the television series and three similar scenes that will appear in the film, which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what you probably already knew, but were afraid to admit: the movie sucks in comparison to the television show. You simply can't hire the two guys who wrote Failure to Launch and expect the same level of comedic brilliance that show creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry provided.
So, it looks like both Get Smart and The Love Guru will blow, so you're just gonna have to hold out until next week when Wall-E comes out to get your comedy fix.
Whoever is left standing in the smoldering crater that will be this November's presidential election, I hope that he (or she) will be forced to watch this "campaign ad" (or: pathetic attempt at pandering to fans of professional wrestling) on repeat from the day they win to their inauguration, to serve as a reminder of how shallow and plastic he (again, or she) really is:
What you see before you is a Coke Rewards code from a fridge pack of Vanilla Coke. As far as I can tell, the code is "4VJM7GNRVHV97VV" but My Coke Rewards.com is telling me that's incorrect.
I remember back in the day when I bought a bottle of soda, the cap would either read "WIN FREE 20oz SPRITE" or whatever, or it would say "SORRY TRY AGAIN." See? Easy! No website to visit, nothing to sign up for, no points to accumulate. Either you won or you didn't!
Anyway, does anyone wanna take a crack at what this code is supposed to be?
Classic British crime film The Long Good Friday is getting a Hollywood makeover in Miami under the direction of Resident Evil moviemaker Paul W. S. Anderson. The 1980 original starred Bob Hoskins as a London gangster whose criminal empire comes under attack from a wave of mysterious bombings. But production company Handmade Films says the new movie would be "refreshed" with a modern setting. Chairman Patrick Meehan says, "The original was a highly praised classic and one of Handmade's most prized films, but its reach was limited primarily to the U.K. Following continued interest from the U.S., we realized this remake could attract audiences worldwide with an updated setting and contemporary overtones. When Paul presented his creative vision for this project, we were instantly convinced that this is a story that could be successfully refreshed, yet leave the integrity of the original intact." No actors have so far been cast for the project.
What was a great British gangster flick, that not only starred Bob Hoskins, but Helen Mirren as well (and a young Pierce Brosnan), will now be horribly mangled up--I'm sorry, I mean "refreshed" by Paul W.S. Anderson, a filmmaker whose only artistic merit is that people keep confusing him with Paul Thomas Anderson. I have seen his first two Resident Evil films, one of which (Apocalypse) I actually paid money to go see. Why on earth a hack director like him would want to remake this piece of cinematic history is beyond me. I'll admit it would be nice to see a good remake, but PLEASE, anyone but him! What could possibly be Anderson's "creative vision for the project"? Have the gangsters attacked by zombies? Cast Milla Jovovich in the Helen Mirren role? Keep in mind that his next project, Death Race, is claimed to be "a no-holds-barred, ultraviolent car race, set in 2020." Sounds pretty highbrow.
Movie executives, I'm begging you. Sever Anderson from the project and get a better director to take charge. Someone like Steven Soderbergh, Jonathan Demme, or even Louis Leterrier, who directed Unleashed and the Transporter films. I don't usually get this passionate about filmmakers I dislike, but I refuse to see this wonderful film remade into yet another piece of disposable Hollywood trash. Let Anderson keep making movies based on video games, and leave Bob Hoskins alone.
It's so nice to know that, in this day and age, something as innocent-looking as a Mooninite from Aqua Teen Hunger Force flicking off unsuspecting passersby can cause people to collectively freak out so chaotically. Of course, now that the city of Boston has been considerably embarrassed by endorsing and encouraging mass hysteria, they're looking desperately for a scapegoat, which they have found in the form of their two "fugitives from justice," Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28.
Seriously? Are we so jumpy that a couple of strategically-placed "lite brites" can incite a citywide panic? If that's the case, then we don't stand a chance in our so-called "war on terror."
Coincidentally, this is going to give Aqua Teen Hunger Force tons of free publicity, all thanks to Assistant Attorney General John Grossman. Congratulations, sir. You've managed to single-handedly make yourself look like the elderly grandparent in the room, constantly berating at the youth of America for listening to that "dang-blasted rock 'n roll."
Are our expectations of horror films so low that whenever a filmmaker comes out with a horror film that's only slightly better, everybody drops a load and won't stop blabbering on about how brilliant it is?
Case in point: The Descent. I heard nothing but good things about it, I went to see it, and it sucked. People wouldn't stop saying how revolutionary it was, and how it redefines the horror genre. But all throughout my viewing, I couldn't help but count how many other horror films had already covered the same ground, and did a much better job at it.
Tom Long at The Detroit News said that the film "revives and electrifies a genre that veers too often toward self-parody." True, recent slasher flicks have started to feel too much like comedies (check: Jason, Freddy, and Chuckie franchises). So much so, that films which are actual parodies of the horror genre (Shaun of the Dead for one) contain genuine scares. But there's a difference between paying homage to the horror classics of the past and ripping off every single classic horror motif, then pasting it all together in an incomprehensible mess that makes no attempt at plausibility, character development, or even a good ending.
A lot of folks have been comparing this film to Alien and for good reason. Both films contain female leads who have to evolve from defenseless supporting characters to bad-ass killing machines. And hey, it's always nice to have a critic mention a classic horror movie on your posters, 'cause then people will think that your movie's good, too!
But there's a little problem: It took Sigourney Weaver's character TWO films to achieve complete bad-assery. In The Descent, the process takes no longer than thirty seconds. It's like "Alien Lite," all the scares, half the plot.
And there are scares, don't get me wrong. But they're not fun scares. Fun scares are when something jumps out at you, but it has a reason to. The scares in The Descent are all for effect, and nothing else. After the fifth or six orchestra sting, I was pretty much able to predict where this film was headed, even though our cave-dwelling heroines weren't.
I'd like to get back to the plausibility of The Descent. Most of the time, plausibility flies out the window of your average horror film, anyway. That's why the average horror film is never a good horror film. The best, however, provide a context and background for the scares. In Alien, they plan ahead by setting their film in the future (how groundbreaking!). That way, they can justify the existence of...hint-hint...ALIEN CREATURES! In The Descent, all events take place in the here and now and, oddly enough, in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. So my question to the filmmakers is this: How can you justify flesh-eating, cave-dwelling, no-seeing mutants in present day North Carolina without first establishing that this film takes place either in a parallel universe (like the one in all the "Godzilla" films where everyone in Japan just takes Godzilla for granted and are never surprised when he shows up) or in the future. 'Cause lemme tell you, I live in North Carolina, and I don't run into these mutant things all that much.
Other recent horror films like the Saw franchise (yes, it's a franchise now) and Hostel aren't much better, but at least they're realistic, or at least as realistic as a horror film can be. A deranged serial killer who puts his victims into sinister "puzzles" makes a lot more sense than blind zombies who dwell in caverns underneath the Blue Ridge Parkway. Hopefully, writer/director Neil Marshall will be able to look past his own hype and make the necessary revisions on his next film. Maybe an Alien sequel?
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