It’s called 2 Days In Paris, and it looks absolutely hilarious… kind of reminds me of The Puffy Chair from what little we see here – a couple squabbling and facing serious relationship issues while traveling. I hope this one plays somewhere around here, and I manage to get myself out of the house to go see it.
I can't see the future, but I know it's watching me
Archives for category: Film
Oh, how I’ve missed them… I’m still trying to wipe “The Ladykillers” from my memory…
No Country For Old Men premieres Nov. 21st in the US. I can barely wait, let me tell you.
UPDATE: Edited with a better-quality version of the trailer.
As you may know, I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, have been for years. Stardust is one of the first of his books that I read, and it has been adapted into a Feature Film, due to premiere this summer. I’m pretty excited, as should you be. Clicking on the picture of Our Man Gervais will take you to Yahoo’s lovely little trailer info page for the film, which seems to be pitched somewhere between The Princess Bride, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and all of those modern-day fantasy flicks with amazing special effects.
Interestingly enough, the movie was directed by Matthew Vaughn, director of Layer Cake, and original director lined up for the third X-Men movie before he dropped out to be with his family. I can respect a man who values family over big-budget action movies, but I still wish, in my heart of hearts, that we had gotten a chance to see what he might have done with the X-Men. We’ll never know now, however, thanks to that jerkface, Brett Ratner.
The TV Set is the newest film from Jake Kasdan, son of Lawrence, director of Zero Effect (excellent) and Orange County (terrible). The trailer above (which doesn’t show a release date, dammit) makes me hopeful that he’s realized what a bad move that Colin Hanks movie was. From what we see here his third film is much more reminiscent of Zero Effect, which is a good thing in my book. Also, it’s interesting to see David Duchovny with a giant beard. Who can resist?
The basic premise is that Duchovny is a television producer trying to develop a very personal new show about (from what I can tell) a man whose brother commits suicide and the resulting aftermath. The network suits (one played by Sigourney Weaver) stymie him at every turn, first by insisting on casting an “actor” in the main role who demeans that very term, then by constantly asking whether or not the suicide part is really “necessary”. So… sort of The Big Picture for the television age.
I just watched Stranger Than Fiction, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’d say this one comes highly recommended, except for the fact that I’ve read a bunch of reviews written by people who hated it.
So… I recommend it, but with a caveat: it seems to provoke strong feelings. I think you’ll either love it like I did, or you’ll hate it like the people on the IMDB message boards (if that complains about you needing a login, the title of the thread is “I really believe this is the worst film ever created…”, and that’s pretty much the main thing you need to know.)
I do have to say, though, that this is the second time a movie has stolen one of my ideas. Bastards! (If you haven’t been paying attention, I jokingly accused the makers of this fine piece of horror-porn of pilfering the premise of my first play… except I probably pilfered it from Sartre without having read his work… and I don’t ever plan on seeing the movie to confirm my suspicions…)
I, like most Americans my age, was a big fan of The 40 Year-Old Virgin – it looked kind of stupid from the trailers, but turned out that you could actually pull off “raunchy sex comedy” and “heartwarming” in the same movie, mostly because of the combination of Steve Carrell and Judd Apatow. I actually have that movie to thank for convincing me that Steve Carrelll was talented enough that I should give the much-derided (in my mind) American remake of The Office a second chance.
As a movie-goer, I’m a bit of a brand loyalist. If the same writer/director/creative team is working again, and I thoroughly enjoyed their debut work, I’ll be back for the second round. So, after watching the following trailer, I’m definitely interested in seeing Judd Apatow’s new movie “Knocked Up”:
It’s especially nice to see almost the entire cast of “Undeclared” together again…
From an interview in The Guardian:
Michael Caine was O’Toole’s understudy in The Long and the Short and the Tall; considering he never went on stage, Caine later said, it was incredible he was so exhausted at the end of the run, but waiting anxiously in the wings every night as O’Toole swung in at the very last minute was enough to give any man a coronary. Once, the pair went out drinking and woke up in a strange flat. ‘What time is it?’ Caine asked. ‘Never mind what time it is,’ said O’Toole, ‘What fucking day is it?’ And sure enough, it was two days later, three hours before curtain up.
First off, go see Casino Royale if you haven’t already. I saw it earlier this week, and it’s easily a 5 out of 5, one of my most favorite movies of the year, and the best Bond movie made in recent years. Also… Eva Green is one of the most beautiful women of all time. Sigh…
I need to go back and actually sit and watch some of the older Bond movies now… I saw parts of them here and there when I was younger, but that doesn’t really count, especially since I was a kid at the time.
As for today, I just got home from seeing Children of Men. It was pretty excellent. A good, solid 4 out 5, I’d say. I’m glad I found some people to see the movie with… for some reason I am now incapable of seeing a movie all by my lonesome. I think I should get back into the habit of being willing to see movies by myself, however… there are so many movies out there that I want to see on the big screen, and what seems like a limited pool of people to see them with. Some movies are not for everyone, after all.
There are growing downsides to seeing a movie in the theatres, though, and I become more and more aware of this every time I manage to go out. First off, you can buy most movies on DVD for the price it costs to get into a theatre nowadays, and I don’t even live in New York. God knows how expensive it must be there.
Then, when you get inside the movie-watching experience deteriorates… I haven’t seen a movie in a while where the audience was completely “with” it, and it’s kind of a shame… I remember seeing Being John Malkovich in theatres, and there was this electric feeling in the crowd. Everyone was so excited to see the movie, and everyone was thoroughly enjoying themselves. The movie was even better because of the crowd experience. Laughter was infectious!
Nowadays, however, you have to search far and wide to find a good audience experience. You can usually rely on the Alamo Drafthouse to be pretty above-par, but then again, I’ve had some of my worst audience experiences there, too. Today wasn’t really bad, audience-wise, but there was a woman sitting to the right of me that I swear kept snickering at odd (inappropriate) moments. Maybe she had a funny breathing pattern, who knows?
I just had this odd feeling of being in a theatre full of people who weren’t necessarily as into the movie as I was/wanted to be, and for some reason that detracted from my experience. Maybe I’m more sensitive to this from my experiences with theatre, but you can tell when the audience is off, not into the groove of things.
There are still several upcoming movies I’d like to see. We’re smack dab in the middle of “prestige” season, so the studios are still rolling out their most well-crafted (sometimes Oscar-baiting) flicks. For those of us in flyover country, we’re slowly getting to see the movies that have only been playing in New York and LA up until now. The next upcoming movie I’m looking forward to the most is Pan’s Labyrinth, which opens here in Austin on the 19th.
…And then there’s The Number 23, which I had never heard of until I saw a poster for it at the Drafthouse. It probably won’t be particularly good… Joel Schumacher directed it, after all, but Jim Carrey is clearly doing his best to change up his career by a serious margin. You can see this clearly from how he’s all blood-covered and smacked out in this publicity photo:
All I can say is…. whaaaaaa?
Now this… this looks like a really good movie. From the same director who made The Upside of Anger, which was easily one of Kevin Costner’s best performances (yes, such a thing is possible!) It’s got Adam Sandler in a dramatic role, looking subdued and introspective. The crazy Bob Dylan hair is a nice touch, too.
Yeah, I have to admit that I’m excited about this one. Are you excited? Perhaps you should be.
P.S. Is that not the single best title for a Die Hard sequel… ever?
