Monthly Archive for August, 2009

How to Make Cash: Your “Final Destination”

Published on August 31, 2009 in Box Office and Movies. 0 Comments

the-final-destination-poster-big In a choice between horrors inflicted by Death or Michael Myers, moviegoers chose Death this weekend at the box office. The Final Destination, the 3-D fourth installment in the franchise, scored the most with $28.3 million, while Rob Zombie’s follow-up Halloween II came in third with $17.4 million.

Here’s the top five at the box office this weekend:

1. NEW! The Final Destination (New Line) – $28.3 mil; 3,121 theaters; $9,079 PT
2. Inglourious Basterds (Weinstein Co.) - $20 mil; 3,165 theaters; $6,332 PT; $73.7 mil cume
3. NEW! Halloween II (2009) (Dimension) – $17.4 mil; 3,025 theaters; $5,754 PT
4. District 9 (Tristar) – $10.7 mil; 3,180 theaters; $3,365 PT; $90.8 mil cume
5. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Paramount) – $8 mil; 3,467 theaters; $2,307 PT; $132.4 mil cume

Somehow I doubt this won’t be the FINAL Destination, if the money keeps flowing in. I have not yet seen the movie; they didn’t screen it for critics, and I got too busy this weekend. But I plan to, and will relay my thoughts to you all. As I’ve said before, I dig the franchise for its innate cleverness, so, I’m thinking I’ll like it.

This coming weekend is kind of an eclectic bunch. There’s Gerald Butler, looking all buff and seriously kick ass in Gamer, in which he plays a real person controlled by another real person in a futuristic, mass-scale, multi-player online gaming environment. Sweet. Then there’s the slice-of-life comedy Extract, from the guy who gave us Office Space and starring Jason Bateman. And finally, All About Steve. Sandra Bullock’s back in another romantic comedy of sorts with co-star Bradley Cooper. Here’s the trailer – Sandy looks goofy to me:

I’m not sure what’ll win this weekend, to be honest. Maybe All About Steve because of Sandra Bullock’s current track record combined with the growing appeal of Bradley Cooper since The Hangover. We’ll see.

How to Be a “Bad Boy” … Again

Published on August 30, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: Action, Cops.

bad boys 2 SPLASH So long as Will Smith and Martin Lawrence play the Bad Boys, then it should be OK. Yes, they are thinking of doing a third installment with Smith and Lawrence reprising their roles as Miami narcotic detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett. They are also looking to get director Michael Bay back on board – and their involvement all hinges on a good story. And more explosions.

What would you like to see happen in a third Bad Boy? Could be Marcus is now divorced from Theresa (Theresa Randle) and on the prowl, while Mike has finally decided to get married. Maybe to Marcus’ sister, played by Gabrielle Union in Bad Boys II. Or someone new. And maybe the boys have to go to Cuba for their latest drug dealings. I don’t know, I’m just throwing shit out there. All I know, is the movie has just GOT to have the patented Michael Bay 360 degree camera turn. Here’s the trailer from the first Bad Boys:

My goodness, how times have changed for Smith and Lawrence since they made this.

How to “Stare at Goats”

Published on August 30, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: Dark Comedy, War.

Verrry carefully and with strong intent because goats are tricky. I blogged awhile ago about George Clooney’s next movie The Men Who Stare at Goats and what a great title it was, with any number of scenarios it could denote. Well, here’s the trailer — and it certainly looks entirely intriguing and hilarious, don’t you think?

How to Study Ancient History

Published on August 28, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: Ancient History, Period Film.

I’m sort of a sucker for the early A.D. stuff. My husband has got me into the History Channel, like, major. HBO’s Rome has to be one of my favorite series on that network (I still miss it sooooo). Now here’s the trailer to a new ancient period piece called Agora. It stars Rachel Weisz (LOVE her) as Hypatia, a female scholar from Alexandria in 370-415 AD. A lady with a brain, she was a well-respected philosopher dedicated to studies of math and astronomy and held a power position within the Alexandrian mucky mucks. However, the spreading Christianity posed a problem for the atheist and soon she was facing grave danger for her free-thinking beliefs. Check it out:

Oh hell yeah, I’m totally there.

How to Interview: Rob Zombie

Published on August 27, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: Horror.

music_robZombie_02 Be, like, totally laid back about it, ’cause this dude in tats, dreadlocks and full beard is one cool customer. You’ve got to admire Zombie for sticking to what he knows and likes, rather then trying to please the masses. His take on Halloween II is completely different from the original 1981 sequel – and unlike his feelings about the Halloween remake he did in 2007, this horror flick, in which Michael Myers continues to slash his way through life, feels much closer to Zombie’s own sort of messed up sensibilities.

Step 1: Appeal to the dark side

“For me it’s movies period, not just horror movies. I just like dark, violent material, and I don’t know why. It’s funny, I’m writing this thing on Clockwork Orange for the DGA magazine and I was doing research. Roger Ebert gave this movie a horrible review in 1972, and everything he said he hated about the movie is exactly why I like it. So, I don’t know. Everyone’s life is weird and fucked up, so you like to see things that are weird and fucked up, I guess. Also, everyone’s so repressed [in this country]. And if they could just get more sex and violence in their life, they might be happier.”

Step 2: Make the Halloween sequel entirely your own

“[Halloween II] is a more logical follow-up to The Devil’s Rejects for me. The first Halloween [that Zombie directed] seemed like a weird sidestep because it was someone’s else material. The first half was more my thing but then the second half was like, well, maybe I should put in more John Carpenter’s beats because that’s what people would expect. But as soon as I started doing that, I don’t think I had quite the same enthusiasm for the film. The fun of it is creating your own world, so that’s why in [Halloween II], I flipped them upside down to make them more my characters.”

Step 3: Care about your knife-wielding psychopath

“I don’t want you to feel bad about Michael Myers necessarily, but I also don’t want you think, ‘Oh, he’s the villain, he’s scary’ blah, blah, blah. That’s why I like making him more of a character, more so than he had in the other movies. You MIGHT feel a little bit bad because he’s this big, hulking monster whose basically still got the brain of a 10-year-old boy, been locked away his whole life. It’s like the Frankenstein scenario, the misunderstood monster, which I’ve always found more fascinating.”

Step 4: Try not to be a slave to the release date

“You know, besides The Devil’s Rejects, I think everything I’ve done has been compromised by scheduling because The Devil’s Rejects was the only movie I ever made that had no release date. We worked on it and worked on it until we got it right. At least we felt like we got it right. I looked at it and thought ‘There’s nothing else I want to change, nothing else I want to do.’ I’ve never had that luxury since. Editing is a crucial time and when you’re rushed through that process, you’re never 100 percent sure you’ve got exactly the perfect take of an actor or moment. There’s so much footage, it’s very time consuming. Luckily, I use the same editor, and he and I have a real shorthand. He always gravitates towards the takes I like, so we can work really fast. I mean, the problem is nobody makes movies anymore. They just make schedules, and they make budgets. Wah, wah, wah.”

Step 5: Secretly make a director’s cut for DVD

“There’s another version of [Halloween II] that’s very, very different that will probably be the director’s cut. In the theatrical cut, Laurie Strode’s character is holding it together, getting her life together and it starts spiraling downward. But in the other version, she’s an incredible mess and gets worse. She never has any good moments, she’s messed up, lashing out at everybody. She’s horrible, strung out on drugs and spun out through the whole movie, which makes for a really challenging movie to watch. That’s really the difference between the two. I’m not sure if fans wanted to embrace so much darkness.”

Step 6: Put a white horse motif in your horror flick?

“I was trying to find one significant thing, one minor event from young Michael Myers’ life that is stuck in his brain. That I could then tie through to Laurie. A white horse is such a great visual image, and when I started researching, the meaning of dreams, which I think is pretty much bullshit, they all had a lot of significance with the white horse. So it just seemed like the perfect childlike image to carry through.”

Step 7: How to scare Rob Zombie as a kid

“Weird things are scary when you’re a kid. I think probably – and this might sound stupid – but for me, The Wizard of Oz. The flying monkeys and the witch. I remember seeing that when I was really little. I mean, Frankenstein never seemed scary to me but The Wizard of Oz … still seems freaky.”

Step 8: But don’t put a label on the man

“I definitely don’t want to be part of a group that would have me as a member. As soon as I hear ‘The Splat Pack,’ I’m like, please. Kick me out of that group immediately. If there’s one thing as a director you don’t want to be is part of a group. There’s nothing against the people that are in that group, they are all friends of mine, and they’re all great. I just want to be left alone.”

Step 9: Ever think about comedy, Rob?

“[The Haunted World of] El Superbeasto is coming out Sept. 22. It’s animated, it’s a comedy. It’s totally different from anything I’ve done. It’s kind of like X-Rated Scooby Doo. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

OK, maybe not fluffy bunnies, but it will have to do.

How I Love My Movie Channels

Published on August 26, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: Drama, Horror.

I channel surf, I’ll admit it freely. I can flip through my Direct TV guide in nano seconds and find what I want. And it’s precisely this reason why I covet my numerous movie channels — the ability to catch movies I’ve either a) seen a jillion times and STILL watch; b) wanted to see again and hadn’t been able to; or c) always wanted to see but never got the chance — all at a quick glance. It drives my mother crazy when she’s visiting because she likes to read what it says about each film and wants me to slow down, but that’s OK. I do it anyway. For me, it’s better than renting DVDs or Netflix, hence the reason I spend my money in this way.

happening_lg So, in the last couple of weeks, c) has been applied: I saw two films I missed in the theaters, never rented and waited patiently for them to appear on cable. First was M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening. Now, I have been a M. Night fan since the beginning, something I’ll also freely admit, even if his name is mud at the moment. I think he is a fantastic storyteller. I’ve loved all his signature films — The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs — and thought The Village was a turn for the weirder but still as engaging. I’ve even defended Lady in the Water, because I recognized what M. Night was going for: telling a bedtime story in all its incarnations and ridiculously fantastical ways. So, I was really excited when I saw The Happening trailer. An R-rated movie by M. Night Shyamalan? Sign me up. But unfortunately, I missed it in theaters because I was in the middle of a big move. Then, I starting reading all the negative feedback. Yikes. I held off, knowing I’d see it at some point.

And now that the deed is done, well, it was the first time I was a little disappointed. Maybe not as outright hateful as some critics were about the film but indeed, I was let down. It wasn’t so much the story about plants and trees getting even with us humans destroying them (which was a bit of a stretch); it was more the casting that got it wrong for me. M. Night always picks great stoic leading men — Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Paul Giamatti — but Mark Wahlberg just didn’t cut it. Neither did Zooey Deschanel as his wife. This doesn’t mean, however, that I’ve given up on M. Night. I’m still going to go see his stuff, including the upcoming Airbender.

lars2 The other movie I finally got a chance to see was Lars and the Real Girl. Wow, how Ryan Gosling missed an Oscar nomination for this performance is beyond me. He was amazing as a socially stunted man who finally comes out of his shell by believing a life-sized doll he buys from the internet is his very real girlfriend. And how the rest of the small town he lives in plays along with it because they care about him, and finally, how this doll ends up changing all of their lives. Excellent, excellent movie and one I highly recommend, if you’ve haven’t seen it. And you can now catch it — if you have cable, that is. OK, you’ll have to excuse me … I’ve just flipped and found Grosse Pointe Blank.

How to Cast: The New King Arthur

Published on August 25, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: Action, Mythical.

250643 As if this story hasn’t been done over and over: Arthur, Camelot and the Knights of the Roundtable are coming to the big screen once again – this time in the hands of filmmaker Bryan Singer, who is negotiating to remake the 1981 John Boorman film Excalibur. I’m sure more than a few feel this is sacrilegious, messing with a classic like this, but I’d be interested in seeing what Singer does with it. Or not. He did try to re-envision Superman and look where that got him. Hmmm…

But there’s no doubt the original Excalibur is probably the best Arthurian film ever – covering Arthur’s conception, Merlin, the sword in the stone, the Lady of the Lake, Guenevere’s betrayal with Lancelot and a bit of the quest for the Holy Grail. It starred British actors Nigel Terry as Arthur, Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere and Nicol Williamson as Merlin. It also featured early performances from Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart and Gabriel Byrne, as well as a co-starring performance by Helen Mirren as Arthur’s evil half-sister Morgana. Here’s a clip from Excalibur, just to remind you how good it is:

While in college, I attended an evening with Patrick Stewart. It was right before his gig as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He talked about Shakespeare, doing theater – and about a moment he had while making Excalibur. He was filming a battle scene in full knightly armor, and his horse sort of took off. He ended up riding out of the forest into a random field, where he ran into a farmer; the fellow was completely unaffected by seeing Stewart riding out in such grandeur, his expression never changed. According to Stewart, he merely nodded and went on his way. Stewart said he thought that perhaps that farmer had seen more than a few odds things coming out of that forest. Love that story.

In other movie news: They are considering a sequel to Hancock. Ugh. Personally, the first one sort of summed it all up, but of course since it made a ton of money, they’d think about revisiting. According to Variety, plot details are being kept under wraps, though star Will Smith and director Peter Berg are both back onboard and the plan is to build on the world hinted at in the first movie. You know, the one in which Smith’ Hancock and Charlize Theron’s Mary are the last in a line of immortal beings, who lose their powers when they are close to one another. The one that seems kind of far-fetched. Yeah, doesn’t sound necessary to me, either.

How to Watch: “One Love”

Published on August 24, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: Drama, Short Film.

Step 1: Applaud a great short film when you see one. Examining the sometimes painful consequences of childbirth, One Love is a well-crafted 15-minute movie that leaves you wanting more.

Step 2: Realize bringing a new life into the world isn’t always easy. One Love proves this, giving us just a small glimpse into seven peoples’ lives, all of whom are in various stages of having a baby. Set in a hospital, one couple (Polly Shannon, Josh Kimmel) are excited about the impending birth of their child; one couple (LynLin Lue, Russell Yuen) are at the hospital for his broken nose when an unexpected complication in her pregnancy suddenly becomes a major issue; one infertile couple (Natacha Noel, Benz Antoine) are anxiously awaiting to take home their newly adoptive child; and finally, one very drunk and very reluctant pregnant woman (Vanessa Matsui) is brought into the hospital by a kind stranger (Jon-Paul Khouri) after her water breaks. We only get to see a few scenes in each story, but it’s enough to elicit a wide range of emotions. To be honest, it’s sort of gut-wrenching.

Step 3: Thanks to the cast and crew for said wrenching of guts. Going along with the same idea of less is more, these actors are able to bring you in, convince you of their dire situations and convey heavy emotions in a short period of time. Matsui is particularly heartbreaking as a woman who clearly isn’t ready to be a mother, while Lue and Yuen [pictured] provide just a few lighthearted moments as the bickering couple in the waiting lounge. This also all boils down to a finely tuned script; Denise DePass and Victoria Minkoff are writing from experience, having both gone through that most mystifying miracle of childbirth themselves. Trust me, that experience shows in One Love. And finally, the film gets its expert direction from D.J. Matrundola, who beautifully intertwines these narratives into one seamless thread. He definitely has the touch.

Step 4: Remember you got to start somewhere. Just like short stories, short films can be highly underrated, and it’s damn hard to find some of these little gems unless you are on the festival circuit. There’s the YouTubes of the world, of course, on which you can watch any number of short films, but that’s not really quite the same thing, is it? If things do go well for One Love, and it gets some quality notice, maybe they’ll consider expanding it for a feature-length release. I mean, I’d like to find out more about these characters and what happens to them, gosh darn it! Don’t leave me hanging …

Level of difficulty in watching One Love: Easy – except the subject matter is a bit tough.

How to Make Cash: Be a “Basterd”

Published on August 24, 2009 in Box Office and Movies. 0 Comments

basterdsAB An Inglourious Basterd, that is. Quentin Tarantino’s wish-fulfillment Nazi fable opened in the top spot at the box office this weekend with $38 million, domestically. The foreign total of $65.1 million was led by No. 1 openings in such countries as France ($6.1 million), Britain ($5.8 million), Germany ($4.3 million) and Australia ($2.7 million), according to Reuters. The rest of the world gets to see in about three months. Tarantino should be happy about that.

Here’s the top five at the box office this weekend:

1. NEW! Inglourious Basterds (Weinstein) – $38 mil; 3,165 theaters; $12,024 PT
2. District 9 (Sony) – $18.2 mil; 3,050 theaters; $5,972 PT; $72.8 mil cume
3. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Paramount) – $12.2 mil; 3,953 theaters; $3,088 PT; $120.2 mil cume
4. The Time Traveler’s Wife (Warner Bros.) – $9.7 mil; 2,988 theaters; $3,261 PT; $37.1 mil cume
5. Julie & Julia (Sony) – $8.8 mil; 2,463 theaters; $3,573 PT; $59 mil cume

The other big opener, Shorts – from Tarantino’s buddy, Robert Rodriguez, who returns to his kiddie roots – came in sixth place with $6.4 million. Not a ton, but we are now officially out of the summer season and into the August-September doldrums.

And on that note, this weekend we’ve got a pair of horror flicks going up against one another. First, there’s the fourth installment of the Final Destination franchise. I’ve already mentioned that I kinda like the Final Destinations in a previous post, something about not wanting to EVER piss Death off. Then there’s Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, in which he veers completely off from the original sequel, blood, severed heads and all. Yummy. My bet is on the big guy in the mask, carrying the big knife. Here’s the unused trailer not readily available:

How Studios Mess with Release Dates

Published on August 23, 2009 in Movies. 0 Comments Tags: Studios.

cine-shutter-feb-date More like why? WHY? This reshuffling date thing is really becoming an annoying trend. First, it was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, switching from Nov. ’08 to July ’09, which had me yelling at the computer screen when I read it. Now, they are pushing back Martin Scorsese’s very creepy, film noirish Shutter Island, from October to Feb. ’09. What gives?

Paramount/Dreamworks blames it on the economic downturn, claiming they wouldn’t be able to properly market the psychological thriller about two U.S. Marshals investigating the disappearance of a patient at a remote island asylum for the criminally insane in a field of competing films, including their releases Up in the Air (a comedy) and The Lovely Bones (serious drama). They say Shutter Island would get a better chance for success if it was released in February. Meanwhile, the dark comedy Zombieland and Drew Barrymore’s roller derby comedy Whip It are moving up their own October release dates to maximize the open slot.

While I understand the logic to all of this, I just hate the fact that they’ve totally titillated me with the premise and trailer and now it’s like, “SYKE!” Kinda ticks me off. Here’s the trailer to Shutter Island again, just to see what we have to wait even LONGER for now: