Posted on Feb 18, 2008 under Main |
Writer-director Fatih Akin follows up the lauded Head-On with another ambitious melodrama (part two in his Love, Death And The Devil trilogy). Shuttling between locations in Germany and Turkey, the Babel-esque narrative explores the connections between three families: a septuagenarian Turkish father living in Bremen with his academic son (Baki Davrak); a prostitute who sends money to her political activist daughter (Nurgul Yesilcay) in Istanbul; and a German mother (Fassbinder regular Hanna Schygulla) with a lesbian daughter. Strewn with coincidence and tragedy, The Edge Of Heaven is undeniably schematic in outline. Yet it’s shot in a precise, contemplative style and acted with clout by the ensemble cast. Akin’s compassion for the characters is clear, not least in the concluding mood of forgiveness.
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Posted on Feb 18, 2008 under Main |
Jack Black stars as Jerry, an accident prone mechanic who gets caught in an electromagnetic field, in the New Line Cinema comedy Be Kind Rewind. Wandering the aisles of the video store where his best friend works, Jerrys magnetized brain causes every single video tape in the small-time neighborhood store to erase itself. The stores owner doesnt believe in DVDs and so the loss of all the video tapes causes an immediate problem. Fortunately, Jerry and Mike (Mos Def) come up with a plan to keep the customers satisfied. They remake the erased films using homemade props and a lot of imagination. Read On…
More on Be Kind Rewind
Be Kind Rewind Photos
Poster for Be Kind Rewind
(Photo New Line Cinema)
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Posted on Feb 18, 2008 under Main |
Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads…
Christopher Lloyd has stepped back in front of the cameras, reprising the now classic role of Doc Brown from the Back to the Future trilogy. But sadly this film shoot was not for a fourth Back to the Future film. This time the mad time-traveling scientist makes an appearance in a new music video by Universal Motown recording artist O’neal McKnight Featuring Greg Nice.
If my calculations are correct, the last time Lloyd appeared as Doc Brown was in 1992 for live-action segments of the Back to the Future animated series (Actually, I just remembered that Lloyd also returned as the famous Doc for a Back to the Future Slot Machine in Las Vegas).
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Posted on Feb 18, 2008 under Main |
Christopher Campbell
Filed under: Tech Stuff, Home Entertainment
Forget all those retailers and studios abandoning HD DVD. Here’s the biggest domino to fall: Toshiba, which was surely the biggest and most important exclusive supporter from the beginning, releasing the first commercially available HD DVD player back in 2006. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Japanese company is expected to discontinue production of HD DVD products, including players and other devices related to the format. Apparently, however, they will continue selling existing equipment and have only ceased development and manufacture of new HD DVD products. There has been no formal announcement, though, from Toshiba. The trade quotes a vp of marketing for Toshiba America as saying the company still believes HD DVD to be technologically the best high-def format (over Blu-Ray) for customers. The decision, if in fact true, comes on the heels of, and is surely an effect of, last month’s news that Warner Bros. and then (maybe) Paramount were going Blu-ray exclusive and recent announcements from Netflix, Best Buy, Blockbuster and Wal-Mart that they would each stop renting and/or selling HD DVD discs (or in Best Buy’s case, stop selling HD DVD players yet continue selling the discs, but push/recommend Blu-Ray as the favored format) within the year.
The Hollywood Reporter details some of the more recent HD DVD history, including Toshiba’s desperate moves to stay in the game after Warner’s abandonment. The company significantly cut the cost of their players, but still Blu-ray was the champion in the market. Additionally, new Blu-ray movie titles are constantly out-selling new HD DVD movie titles. The trade mentions that Toshiba’s “last ditch effort” was a TV commercial that ran during the Super Bowl and which cost the company $2.7 million. Now all eyes are on the few HD DVD supporters that are left: Microsoft; Universal; DreamWorks and Paramount. How long before they all admit defeat? Within the week?
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Posted on Feb 18, 2008 under Main |
…with the exhaustive annual nominations that the Film Experience doles out each January and February. This year took me a bit longer than usual for whatever reason. Oops. I do this huge collection partly for you but I also do it for me. I like to catalogue… and I like to think of it as a scrapbook of memories from each film year. And of course I hope that people are using them for rental ideas after the fact.
The nominations are the fun part for me. The medals are even more excruciating and there isn’t one year past that I don’t wish I could go back and change things –I’ll announce them Thursday I guess. But each year is a time capsule for how I felt right then. And here is the time capsule, complete, for how I feel now.
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Posted on Feb 17, 2008 under Main |
Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Casting, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Remakes and Sequels
He’s resurrected Rocky. He brought back Rambo. And now Sylvester Stallone might be continuing the trend by reprising his role as rock climber Gabe Walker for another Cliffhanger film. Remember that one? Stallone plays a rock climber who accidentally drops his best friend’s gal off a mountain, then returns to stop John Lithgow from stealing a bunch of money? It’s a pretty good film — and anytime you have Lithgow play the villain, you won’t go wrong. According to PR Insider, “Sony executives are in negotiations with Stallone to revive the character for The Dam.”
Uh oh, does that mean there will be lots of water involved this time? Stallone first played the character back in 1993, and the film did pretty well at the box office (I believe it came in at somewhere in the $85 million range). One imagines Stallone will be the only one returning for The Dam, and his Gabe Walker character will be up against a new enemy. Here’s my question: How many characters is Stallone going to revive before enough is enough? It’s an odd trend; one that’s making him money, sure, but Gabe Walker is no John Rambo or Rocky Balboa. What do you think about another Cliffhanger flick? Good idea, or should Sly stick with something a tad more original his next time out?
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Posted on Feb 17, 2008 under Main |
Directed by John Patrick Shanley (Joe Vs. the Volcano / writer of Moonstruck)
Starring Streep, Hoffman, Adams and Davis
Based on the stage play of the same name (a veritable magnet for trophies and acclaim) written by Shanley, which tells the “parable” of a nun in 1964 who confronts a priest who she believes in sexually molesting a young black boy
Brought to you by Miramax
Expected Release Date December 5th, 2008
Nathaniel: I’m going to let Gabriel, our resident theater guru kick us off here. Tell the kiddies why they ought to be excited about Doubt and how many prizes (a year before the Oscar noms have been tallied) that it’s already picked up.
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Posted on Feb 17, 2008 under Main |
I was just about to go drown myself in Pabst and orange juice when a tipster sent me an email with the words “Hunter, What Do You Think?” and a link to the following vid. I can’t believe what I just watched. It appears to be a clip from Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are, and while the visual effects for the Wild Thing’s face are off, as is the voice work (think Showbiz Pizza: The Movie), this would go along with the reasons we’ve heard for the film being pushed back to 2009. As for the child actor playing the character of Max in the clip, is this the same young actor, Max Records (real name), that we’ve seen in the official still from the film? It’s hard to say, but my gang of Gchatters from coast to coast, including Peter, say it doesn’t look like him. I agree.
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Posted on Feb 17, 2008 under Main |
In going along with Peter’s “rant” about what constitutes a spoiler on the Internets, I’m not sure if the following quote from director Carter Smith about The Ruins is one or not. If you’ve read the book by Scott Smith, it’s definitely not, and the info should please you. But if you haven’t, you’ll know what’s in store to a certain degree this April if you see the post-college dread horror thriller set in Mexico starring Jena Malone. With that out of the way, Smith tells Bloody Disgusting he doesn’t see a sequel in the cards…
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Posted on Feb 17, 2008 under Main |
Jumper has leapt to an excellent $8.21M on Friday, and it should bound to a solid $34.47M for the Valentine’s Day through President’s Day 5-day box office frame. After finishing in a virtual dead heat with Disney’s Step Up to the Streets on Thursday, Doug Liman’s sci-fi adventure pic overwhelmed the competition on Friday. Meanwhile, Step Up 2 received a slight Thursday-to-Friday bump dancing to a $6.25M 2nd day. The low budget sequel to the 2006 surprise hit should reach $28.45M for the 5-day for an anticipated weekend-best PTA of $11,518 per location.
The Spiderwick Chronicles (Paramount), the well-reviewed family fantasy movie at over 3,800 locations, has recovered from a disappointing Thursday, collecting an estimated $4.75M on Friday. Directed by Mark Waters (Freaky Friday, Mean Girls), and checking in with a reported budget of $100M+, Spiderwick will have banked $25.35M or so by Monday night. That’s well short of the $28.53M that 2007’s Bridge to Terabithia (Disney) delivered in 4 days last President’s weekend.
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