Twenty Four Lies Per Second

Trailers: The Devil Inside

2011-10-23T16:34:00.003-04:00

Oh look, it's obviously getting colder when a new exorcist movie comes about. Nothing brings in the New Year like the fear of the devil, and nothing will bring in that fear more this winter season then The Devil Inside, which claims to be based on real events with a more real basis on the horror movie craze. (Where have I heard this before....)

Here's the plot:

"In Italy, a woman becomes involved in a series of unauthorized exorcisms during her mission to discover what happened to her mother, who allegedly murdered three people during her own exorcism."

Now, don't get me wrong I love a good story about the creepiness of religion and priests going all badass on Satan himself. But at the same time I feel with the constant release of these movies I get increasingly more immune to the body cracking and the constant big bad voice coming out of creepy young girls. It just doesn't do it for me, unless we're talking strictly about the classic The Exorcist, which it's behind the scenes story is even creepier then the film itself.

I will give the trailer some credit for an interesting take on self infliction and obsession, especially when it comes to the image used in the poster. That is definitely one nasty cut for sure!

So fancy yourself a good creep out? Then you might enjoy this take on a good ol' party with the big red guy. The Devil Inside takes over on January 6th.

-Dalin Rowell

New York Comic Con - The Coverage

2011-10-23T16:19:00.001-04:00

New York Comic Con was officially a week ago, sad as it sounds. But in response there was a ton of epic events that occurred and a lot of it was I was lucky enough to be able to cover for you readers out there. Including the ever popular Marvel Avengers Panel and Walking Dead's panel too!

The posts should be up within the next day or so, but for the time being I have something else cool you can take a look at, I'm starting my own Video Review series called "Drawn to Fail" about the many theatrical failures in animation. The first episode is posted here on blip.tv and if you like it ... well "Like" it please! If this series gets enough viewership more original review content can be put on to the channel with ease. Maybe even some exclusive video reviews (in a more serious tone) for Twenty Four Lies itself, ha?

So get ready to check out the fun and the photos that were had at New York Comic Con this year! Trust me, your body probably isn't ready.

-Dalin Rowell

Twenty Four Lies Per Second at NYCC '11

2011-09-26T21:08:00.002-04:00

Yeah kids, it's true. We've been gone for a while and it has been terribly sad. But no - no I won't let this awesome blog go to the waste side as many have before. So with that I bring a super cool announcement: I'll be at New York Comic Con '11!

What's the plan? To try and cover somethings to bring to your attention my fellow readers (Hello, you out there?) and hopefully get some life back in this good ol' blog.

So are you going to New York Comic Con? Want to hear about anything specific? Give a heads up and let me know. I'm here to report as best I can - no lies, even if the title of this blog suggests otherwise.

Look out for more Vintage reviews and a review of the new film Drive out soon!

-Dalin Rowell

So Vintage: I Married A Witch (1942)

2011-04-06T14:33:00.007-04:00

It takes a lot for an actor to make me want to watch them on a constant basis. Sure, I enjoy a performance here and there, but the majority I don't find their work interesting enough to dive into plots and characters that seem awful and give me doubt. Though the star of today's review is one of the few actors that I allow myself I give in and just watch regardless of the actual film. Sometimes this ends up fine while other times it ends up dreadful. But don't worry, this one turned out surprisingly amazing considering the uncanny plot and even more uncanny casting. I give you one of the oddest movies of it's day, "I Married A Witch" starring Fredric March (the actor I speak of) and Veronica Lake.

First let's try and make sense of the plot. It's basically about a politician (March), who mistakingly crosses paths with a witch (Lake), who actually was indeed the same witch who cursed his family hundreds of years ago. Weird for the 40's? Extremely. Especially considering the realms of censorship at the time along with having Veronica Lake in the film makes for something very questionable to the audience of that decade. But the plot does indeed bring itself to a more humble place when love is involved. Yes, yes -The Witch falls for our hero, when she accidentally drinks a potion that was made for March to fall in love with her. There's also a realm of hilarious hi-jinks throughout the film, yet they all have some sort of charm.

When I went into watching this movie, I wasn't sure whether to take it seriously or for what it is. In turn I was able to actually take it for what it is in the best of ways - that it is a darling little film. The comedy in it is a bit ahead of it's time, featuring jokes that you could later envision such entertainments as Family Guy replicating if you think hard about it. It even has a unique stance on politics, as odd as that sounds. It even has some early visual effects that for what they are come out pretty decently and believable as much as a movie from the 40's with effects can be. No, no, this isn't Bewitched - in my opinion it's better then that!

One of the best parts of this movie is the editing by Eda Warren. Though not well known in comparison to other editors of her time, she seems to have a good feel for editing humor and it shows throughout. The best is the montage sequence showing the past of Wooly (March)'s past relatives and how they've dealt with the curse Jennifer put on them. You constantly get the joke perfectly, and the editing really brings that forward.

Now let's talk about the actors. Though not his best performance, March gives a cute and lighthearted role in that of the character Wooly. He's very good with physical and vocal comedy, especially when you think of this in comparison to his other more dramatic lead roles in which he takes everything beyond seriously. On the other hand, Lake really truly shines in this. Lake pulls off a more sinister version of Samantha from Bewitched, making witches surprisingly sexy in my opinion (Come on, if you tell me you thought the Wicked Witch was hot, I'll smack you across the face as a liar!). Though she can be terrifying in that sort of innocent way, it makes for a good film and wider acceptance for that generations audience.

The best person in the movie though? Cecil Kellaway as Daniel, Jennifer's Father. If you were to take the silly nature of Iliza Doolittle's (My Fair Lady) Dad mixed with the over the top nature of Vincent Price, you get this fine fellow. As a male witch (a kind we don't see that often in film), Daniel is one that as innocent as he appears can be frightening in such ways that would scare me beyond belief as a kid. Yet, when under the influence, gets himself stuck in jail and can't remember the easiest of spells. Basically, he's a real treat to see.

Does this movie have flaws? Eh unfortunately yes. This mostly comes from in my opinion that obvious half on half of chemistry of March and Lake. It has been known throughout by history buffs that these two hated each other. March called her a dumb blonde, while Lake referred to him as a jerk. Lake didn't make it any better by playing tons of practical jokes on set, making her out to be the silly kid on set. Though many of the scenes between the two of these actors work, its really only those scenes where they are supposed to hate each other and or be annoyed by one another.

Some of the romance comes off as awkward, but only really when it comes to Lake feeling over the top mushy to counteract a more natural performance. March seems to be trying his best, but like his previous character Mr.Hyde, he's hiding his true emotions behind a mask of sorts. This doesn't completely break the movie, but it does make some part uncomfortable.

But overall, what about this whole movie? It's silly. But, I really like a good light hearted silly movie, and though it has some of the most odd subject matter for it's time, it brings a good chuckle and a smile to my face. Sure it's no Gone with the Wind or Wizard of Oz, but it seems to have a modern sex appeal to it that most films of this era seem to lack or haven't been defined yet. Though this isn't the best film to be ever made, it features qualities that make it timeless and I believe it to be an odd cult like classic that should be shared with young and old. Though some of the jokes might jump right past you, there are some that seem way ahead of it's time. So, should you watch "I Married A Witch"? By the curses of my film review powers I command you - trust me you'll like it.

Rating: 7.8/10

-Dalin Rowell

So Vintage: Phantom of the Paradise (1974)

2011-03-12T14:22:00.010-05:00

Question: Have you yourself seen Rocky Horror Picture Show? It's a pretty clear message throughout the realm of pop culture that most people in their youth have at one point stumbled upon the cult flick. Yet, when I was invited to all those Rocky Horror themed parties as a teen, I happened to always feel something was missing. I have to admit, sad to some, I never got Rocky Horror. Sure, it's silly and campy and come on, it's got The Time Warp. But aside from those facts and Tim Curry, I never really thought much of it.

Now, jumping back to 2004, I happened to find the missing piece in my film loving life. Early one morning on FX, a little movie popped into my eye's view. This odd and strange film is the subject of today's review. The movie: The Phantom of the Paradise. Directed by a then pre-Carrie Brian De Palma and stars 60's/70's songwriter Paul Williams, it features a plot that's a 70's lovechild take on The Phantom of the Opera and Faust (the latter more then the other.)

The story starts off with introducing Death Records and it's leader Swan (Paul Williams). Enter our "hero" Winslow (William Finley), a down and out songwriter, who is writing an updated version of the opera Faust. Swan likes his music, but in a series of events gets Winslow arrested, pulled of all his teeth and then steals his music. Winslow goes mad and eventually ends up dead, or at least all of the characters seem to think so. We end up a month or so later, Winslow is alive - but is completely physically destroyed. He takes on the identity of "The Phantom" dawning a bird like mask and cape, haunting the theater "The Paradise" with a vengeance.

As the plot thickens, we see that Swan knows who "The Phantom" is, which he uses to his benefit. Tricking Winslow into thinking the world will hear him sing, he's ultimately used again as a vehicle to drive Swan's company further. But will Winslow let Swan take him over yet again? That is the ultimate question asked repeatedly throughout the film.
It's best to say that Phantom of the Paradise is one of those films that you have to take in and respect the following: It knows what it's doing. This film should never ever be taken seriously, and the filmmakers never intended it to be. This is a camp fantasy of epic proportions, but in a way that is in fact, genius. Like said, everyone involved in this movie knows exactly what they are doing and why they are giving such performances, to achieve a level of ridiculous that is so enjoyable that you can't stop watching. The script even knows how crazy it is, but does it on such a level that you actually begin to respect the choices being made. This is easily why this isn't just the usual B Movie you find at the local garage sale.

The characters of this movie are completely based on the ideas of sarcastic tributes to some of the idols at the time. The best example of this comes from my favorite character of the movie, Beef. The perfect "tribute" to the outlandish and egotistical rock star, Beef is a prime example of how to get one character to steal the entire movie out from the feet of the main hero. Played by Garret Graham to a T, this over the top glitter man is what could be considered as the king of camp within the center of this acid produced marvel of a tale. He especially stands out in the scene where he is rehearsing for Faust. Trying his hardest to sing something that, as he says, "was scored for a chick", Beef is a true "performer" in the best sense of the word.
Props also need to be given to Paul Williams. He creates a truly bizarre villain, who takes a "possessed Elton John" like approach to this record head character. Splicing in the elements of Dorian Gray to his back story, Swan is one of those antagonists that appears to be calm and collected on the outside, but when in his own creative domain takes on a new approach to his true plans of destruction. He's a business man with a plan, which Paul Williams adds a classy gentleman flair to with his already elegant presence, which makes up for his tiny build.

With other supporting characters, such as the beautiful new talent Phoenix (Jessica Harper) and The Juicy Fruits (a band that constantly changes their name throughout the film), you surely have yourself a well rounded group of unique individuals. Winslow is the only character I found to be a bit on the half done side of things. Sure, he's the main character, but even with his journey to get Phoenix and his music back, you don't feel complete compassion for him overall. There are sometimes where you can feel his overwhelming sadness and anger, but because of the campy nature it isn't taken lighting and is done in the most aggressive manner possible. It's hard to call him the main character but more like the "device" to get to the more interesting cast members, but he isn't forgotten either. I will give the sure fact though that Finely does give some impressive physical performances here.But what technically is good here? It's very simple: The Camera and The Music. This movie is shot in a very interesting and gritty way. Though at the time it would be considered ameateur and very hard to handle, it was definitely ahead of it's time. Taking movement and editing ques from what would later be produced by the MTV generation, this is certainly a visual treat to see. As already stated, this film knows how ridiculous it is, and in terms of the shots uses it to it's advantage. My favorite example of this is the scene in which Winslow takes over Death Records and later injured. The camera follows behind him in an intense almost POV/Over The Shoulder style that I had never seen in films from that era. Many of the camera styles and editing would be used onces again in Carrie, like the split screen technique.

But one of the key things that makes this movie special is, of course, the music. It's one of a kind 70's rock decorated with the style of Paul Williams somewhat pop like lyrics. All of the songs reflect portions of the story, without actually mentioning a word about the specific characters. "Goodbye, Eddie, Goodbye", which opens the film, is a perfect example. The song speaks of a character who commits suicide and had a promising career that which caused his action to surprise everyone in his life. This later reflects both the outcome of Winslow and the later discovered back story of Swan, who goes for a Dorian Gray approach to his life. In addition, it also tells the story of Faust to some degree. All of the songs also play as commentary to the current genres of the 60's/70's. Grease style, The Beach Boys, Glam Rock - it all has a place here at The Paradise.But there are some flaws to the film as well. First, it's best to say that some of the film is so completely hashed and dashed compared to other sections that you find yourself waiting to find the arm rest on the side of your seat. The motion is sometime hard to follow completely and you'll lose important elements of the plot. Another downfall is the relationship between Phoenix and Winslow. This is supposed to be the romantic couple of the movie, but sadly is the least developed element of the whole story. The two meet on line at an audition for Swan, which shows some chemistry. The rest of the story then follows Winslow stalking her all over The Paradise, which isn't nessecarly surprising considering the circumstances. But then the rest of the interactions in the film become slim to none. Which when the ending happens, with such high emotion at stake, you feel odd.

That also brings up the end sequence. I won't spoil it here, but let's just say it's a scene you'll have to brace yourself for in terms of it's pacing. It goes by very fast and is very odd to watch - as you can definitely tell the sort of the substance the filmmakers were on. Though I can honestly say I have a love/hate relationship with this part, because I do absolutely adore the editing and shots. Though I just wish it could have been done in a slightly more smooth style in comparison to the rest of the movie which I thought was done fairly well, minor a few parts here and there. But trust me, brace yourself for the ending. It'll leave you in some very obvious emotion.
So overall, what do I think of Phantom of the Paradise? This movie is an aggressive piece of art that is beyond the time it was made. It accomplishes the task of being both beautiful and completely campy at the same. It takes one of the most complicated mash of ideas and tributes to pop culture at the time and adds a realm of whimsy to disguise it's social commentary on the life of a pop star. Some aspects it achieves it's goals and others it falls short, but only because of the acceptance of it's messages, which make you turn your head in confusion...and it is somewhat ridiculous. But with a film that is now marked as a "cult" piece, it truly is one that can only be appreciated by a select few and shows the early seeds of De Palma's style. It has great music and some really enjoyable performances.

But should you really watch it as a serious film the first viewing? No. It's something that is meant to be fun and insane, but if you take a second view on it, you'll really notice that it is very special and should be respected as such. It has the vintage charms of the time to bring you back and the campy appeal that will give you a good chuckle and make you want to watch it again and again, and maybe then even begin to appreciate it on a bigger level such as myself. So if you yourself need something new to watch instead of Rocky Horror, you've found something that is even more of a cult film then that is. Trust me, I'd rather do the Time Warp with Winslow any day.

Rating: 8.5/10

- Dalin Rowell

Short Film Thursday: "Diary" & "Sleeping Soldiers" by Tim Hetherington

2011-03-03T03:04:00.000-05:00

In the last few years Tim Hetherington portfolio has expand beyond his award-winning photojournalism. His coverage of the worlds poorer and more troubled regions have featured regularly in publications as esteemed as National Geographic and Vanity Fair,as well as art exhibits throughout the world. His most recent work to capture the public's attention has seen him established himself as a documentarian and filmmaker. Restrepo, his directorial debut, was released last year. A document of a the year he spent with a US platoon in the one of the hardest fought and deadliest valleys in Afghanistan, it was highly praised by both audiences and critics alike, resulting in a nomination for Best Documentary in the recent 2011 Academy Awards. Although Restrepo lost out on the Oscar win, Hetherington's growing body of work in film and television looks set to break him to wider audience.

Hetherington recently opened a Vimeo channel on which to display some of his existing shorts and the two pieces posted so far are markedly different in style to both his photographic and his filmic work to date. Whereas they still focus' on the strife of war and the upheaval socio-political conflict, the captured footage is not presented in any of the expected conventional essayist formats. Neither film presents it's subjects or the events it depicts within any kind of a narrative. Nor do they attempt an objective observation, or even put forward a rhetorical study of their situation. Without narration and foregoing conventional continuity editing, Hetherington is working with the film form in the avant-garde sensibility of the poetic mode of documentary - a form so divorced from normal expectations of 'documentary' that it crosses over into the realm of audio-visual fine art. Although I would not argue with the level of esteem this tag would bestow upon his work, I argue that these films have a more tangible socio-political or biographical impact than other films carrying the 'Poetic' label.

Sleeping Soliders is "a single screen version of the original 3-screen installation that was first show in New York in 2009." Constructed entirely from the same stock of footage used to make Restrepo, this short companion piece uses juxtaposing imagery of soldiers soundly asleep in their outpost cross faded with footage and sound bites from combat. It opens up the headspace of the soldiers, with all the recurrent visual memories of soldiers nightmare of war, and the constant overhanging presence of gun fire and helicopter flyovers.

The imagery on screen in usually two or three sets of footage overlaid into a single shifting set of imagery. These shifting layers substitute for most visible cuts while disguising others, conveying a sense of a disquited stream of consciousness, of the overcranked mind of a soldier in the midst of post traumatic stress disorder. The images only clear to fix upon a single layer of footage when it's reached it's most ingrained, vivid and distressing memories. Forcing the the viewer to give their full focus to the details of the event that so haunt these troops.

Re-edited for the single screen format, it sparks a massive amount of curiosity in me as to the scale and power of the original 3-screen version, a brief clip of which can be viewed here. Besides camera operator and director, Hetherington, credit must also be given to Magali Charrier the skillful and emotionally evocative sound design and editing.

To quote the attached statement from Hetherington's second short-

'Diary' is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It's a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.

Like Sleeping Soldiers, Diary makes use of juxtaposing imagery and sound to reflect on the effects of experiencing war first hand. In allowing himself to be the focus of his own work and experiences Hetherington has an entire careers worth of footage to choose from when constructing this piece. With a decade of gravitating towards the worlds most troubled regions, the content is often disturbing and deeply unsettleing. Bumping up against this footage of the dead and of armed forces in battle in the poorest of African counties, there is footage of the safety and sterility of Seran wrapped fruit platters and the neutral colors of hotel rooms. Contemplating the extremities of experiences inherent in his job, Hetherington uses this film to express his sense of confusion and his attempt to make sense of his life.

This piece is confrontational in it's depiction of the disparity between the Western public's apathy towards waring nations, and the severity of the situation on the ground. Hetherington duel life in and out of war zones puts him in a position to be rightfully critical of this indifference. His lifestyle sees him move between hostile or dangerous regions of the world that are once intimate and critical to his sense of self, and then apparently distant and unconnected to events of his pedestrian existence in the western world. The resulting emotional displacement is made evident in Diary.

Edited together in a lucid daze that speaks to the senses and emotions. Hetherington uses objects and scenarios to segue scenes together in a bleary, hypnotic fashion, leaving the viewer feeling like they're reeling from prolonged jetlag. Opening with a shot of a ceiling fan dubbed to the sound of a helicopter, it makes direct reference to the iconic opening sequence of Apocalypse Now. Comparing himself to Martin Sheen's Captain Willard does function as a clear and effective short hand for his sense of frustration and disillusionment, but more importantly it also introduces a conscious reference to the stylized depiction of war he is about to undermine with unpolished, unflinching firsthand experiences. Diary presents several acts of violence and hostility without political or personal context. There's no attempt to explain what's going on or offer even speculative closure. As events move randomly and without reference to time or place, any political concerns quickly dissolve away to leave a raw, sincere compassion. In ignoring the context he manages to strip back the film and his attitudes to his subjects back to it's barest element.

As a filmmaker, a journalist and human being, Hetherington is to be admired. A powerful artists with a fantastic body of work already to his credit, he shows promise to be a genuinely great film.

- Jack McFarlane

Shlock & Awe Review - Futuristic Rollerskating Movies: Skating Through the End of Times

2011-02-17T21:29:00.001-05:00

Visions of post apocalyptic societies will often dwell on the return of a once outmoded piece of technology, or on the hodgepodge contraptions that arise from the scarcity of vital materials. It's a way of making the audience focus on the reliance they have on their own modern conveniences and for emphasizing the fragility of the lifestyles that are currently taken for granted. There's a lot of work at play in each of these movies to sell the audience an alternative society, but some of the premises of what the world will turn to in the sudden absence of fossil fuels and running water really does stretch even a willfully suspended sense of belief.

In Solarbabies, there is an unnamed and undiscussed ecological disaster, a tipping point in history that caused all rivers and oceans to dry up. The government's have collapsed and the human population has fractured, each developing it's own separate culture and means for survival from the wasteland. In this barren desert, the rarest and most precious resource is water, access to which is controlled by a violently totalitarian organization, The Eco Protectorate.

On the outskirts of the wasteland there are located a number of orphanages in which the youth board to be indoctrinated into the ranks of the Protectorate. As a method for distracting and controlling the youth, The Protectorate seemed have spent a large portion of their resources mass producing rollerskates. It sounds more like the kind of method some impractically lefty do-good-er would use rather than a subjugative paramilitary operation. Using these skates, a lecrosse stick, and some dodgy home made equipment, the youth play a Rollerball type sport. The best team, and quite possibly the pussyest gang name ever, are the Solarbabies.

The Solarbabies are slugging through the hard knock life with shuck and a quite resignantion, when, while scarpering back to the orphanage after being busted playing an illegal out of bounds game of skateball, one of them stumbles across what is basically a glowing bowling ball. What at first appears to be just a trippy looking inanimate turns out to be, wait for it, a sentient being from outerspace, come to return earth to its former, damper state. Bohdai, as he likes to be called, communicates telepathically, causes a thunder storm indoors, can cure the deaf, and likes to double as sports equipment while the gangs practice skateball. Everything's starting to look up thanks to Bohdai, until one of the other orphans swipe him and makes a run for it into the wasteland and the Solarbabies are forced to pursue.

This movie has something of a fan following, and has been praised by fans of bad movies many times before. It's easy to see why. It's riddled with cliches and plot holes galore, and the acting swings from confusingly and inappropriately stern, with overwrought thespian overtones, to gleefully campy. And it has one of the most cringe inducing, unintentionally racist token black characters I have ever seen. No one really seems to have figured out what kind of film their making here, but it seems to come closest to an earnest attempt at a kids style Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. In fact, it's something of a pioneer in this respect. If the 75 version of Rollerball started the trend of futuristic rollerskating movies, then Solarbabies was the next step in the evolution. Shifting from dystopia to a post-apocalyptic landscape, it was the first of many films to marry the humble rollerskate with the wastelands.

It's by no means the stupidest or poorest post-apocalyptic rollerskating movie out there (we'll get to that dubious distinction when Mr Donald G. Robinson's work comes under analysis), but it has plenty to make you snicker while rubbing your temples in bemusement. It's mightily entertaining in it's incompetence. It's biggest flirtation with absurdity is in the constant insistence that once society has fallen, once the industrial infrastructure has crumbled to rubble and scrap metal through decades of neglect, and once the desert has taken over every other habitat, that rollerskates will be the preferred mode of transport. There's still the odd car and motorcycle running, but those are strictly for The Protectorate to use, not for the plebs. For the bottom rung of society like the Solarbabies, skating is the way they get around. There may be no maintenance or a civil service of any kind, but there does seem to be a large and dedicated force with the sole task of sweeping the roads clear of pebbles and other small debris likely to trip a skater.

Still, if I squint my sense of logic hard enough, and then lean into my suspend sense of belief until I feel the pressure start to build up behind eyeballs, I can kind of make out why the filmmakers thought this would be a good idea. They were trying to see their protagonist negotiate this pre-industrial, almost medieval landscape, in a believable independent manner. Anything requiring fossil fuels is out, not only because they're scarce but because it'd clash with the ecological message of the movie. Horses too are out, because there's not enough water to sustain them, and besides that, there's no vegetation for them to feed on anyway. Bicycles may have been somewhat practical, though I suppose maintaining something that mechanism heavy kit may be problematic in the event of the apocalypse. So they lumped on using rollerskates with a slightly snug sense of self satisfaction that they'd solved their narrative problems and created a nice gimmick to hang the rest of the film on.

It's deeply, deeply flawed but my advice to you is just go with it. This film has a lot to entertain you with. They spent a lot of money on sets and costumes, and there are set pieces in here that make me smile whenever I think about them. Even if they had gotten all of the elements right from the script upward, it's simply to ambitious for it's budget or the talents involved to pull off without leaning on how ludicrous it is. The end result could have been a miserably preachy affair about the dangers of reckless human behavior, but it's just a incidentally farcical kids movie that has some merit both because of and despite itself. The sense of fun and shines through, and there's enough regular bouts of seriously hammy acting and sci-fi schlock to make it well worth your while.

7.5/10

Of all the films I watched for this little compendium, Prayer Of The Rollerboys was the one I had never seen nor heard of before seeking out everything futuristic and rollerskatey. I'm not sure how it managed to go under the radar, it has the kind of title and VHS cover that would have caught my preteen eye as I weighed heavily on what to rent with my paperboy money. Although I like The Lost Boys, I was never much of a Corey Haim fan, but his disastrous career and eventual, inevitable death was still pitiably sad. Viewing this about a week after his death, this was the first thing I'd watched him in in about fifteen years. It was released in 1990, just before he completely lost his grip with his drug use and alienated his audience, and I was a little taken back to see just how charming and charismatic he was on screen. It has to be said that I'm so used to hearing him ragged on for being a washed-up, teen heartthrob, has-been, that I'd never considered he could be anything more than a bad joke of an actor. Maybe watching Chris Klein in the 2002 Rollerball has lowered in my standards, but this was a timely reminder that the at one point, he had something going for him. He's by far the best leading man on display amongst the titles covered here, though admittedly that says as much about the general caliber of this niche subgenre I've taken so much time to study as it does for the late Mr Haims acting talents.

What's genuinely surprising about Prayer Of The Rollerboys is just how contemporary it still is. I don't mean to say that heavily gelled bangs, bandannas and baggy leather jackets are still trendy (well, actually, for all I know they could be; I don't give a fuck about that shit), I mean that the speculative future it presents is so in sync with contemporary concerns for our own future it's uncanny. In this future a great financial crash caused by capitalist greed has reduced America to a crime ridden, drug infested, third world county. Dollars are a useless currency, illegal American immigrants are being rounded up from Mexico and sent home in droves, and the masses of homeless are kept in high fenced labor camps. A generation raised in these camps and on the streets are understandably disillusioned and have turned to using mist, a highly addictive UV tinted drug smoked through a respirator with the effects of heroin.

In the midst of all this social deprivation, one group prosper - The Rollerboys. The Rollerboys are more than a gang, they're a social movement looking to reclaim America from the "alien nations" they are now so heavily in debt to. Expounding an unambiguous white supremacist rhetoric, they fill their ranks with the embittered and angry white youths of modern Los Angeles. Griffin (Haim) is a rollerblader scrapping a living delivering pizzas with a trusty M-16, for when the nights get a little hairy. After his little brother starts to become involved with the Rollerboys and mist, Griffin is coerced into infiltrating and expose them as the manufacturers of the drug, and to stop them before they launch a new revolutionary war.

As with every other movie on this list, what makes it at a laughable failure and a moronic success at the same time, is the insistence that in the near future rollerskating isn't just trendy again, but that foot soldiers in heavily armed drug cartels will use them while on patrol. It was made at the height of the rollerbalding trend and as such can be forgiven for such an open exploitation of the fad. If you lost this one element then there would be a very slim chance you could take this movie in a mawkishly serious tone. But who would want to? It's glorious!

The first entrance of the Rollerboys see's them dressed in gang uniform and skating in a column with military unison before fanning out into a flying-v. This set's the tone for everything that's to come and it's really all you need to know about this movie - rollerblades and semi-automatic weapons. The narrative is very much by the numbers but it's eventful enough to keep you interested throughout. Besides the action pieces and some cheesy, fun back-and-forth's between antagonist and protagonist, there's a few minor elements that are worth singling out. Namely, a fantastic performance from Mark Pellegrino (Jacob, from Lost), and an enjoyable slice of 80's fringe-rock from the tie-in single from King Swamp.

This movie won't change your life. It's not poorly made enough to be viewed through the lens of a trashy movie aficionado, and it certainly didn't clear up during award season. It sits comfortably in a middle ground as throw away effort perfectly worthy of a wasted afternoon and no more.

6.5/10

-Jack McFarlane

Short Film Thursday: The utterly insane "The External World" by David O'Reilly

2011-02-17T17:13:00.001-05:00

As an accumulation of interweaving skits from somewhere on the outskirts of reality, The External World is the genetically enhanced bastard offspring of Robot Chicken and miserablist comedy classic You, The Living. At times inanely juvenile, at others po-faced and arid dry, but always bizarre or dark. Feeding off a flurry of existential anxiety, doubt and disillusionment, it savagely mocks any and all sense of continuity and taste.

I read recently that the average length of an embedded video viewed is somewhere around 10-30 seconds, regardless of the duration of the clip. I do watch a lot of music videos and short films in full, but I still understand that stat completely. Like everyone else I tend to judge a clip almost immediately, maybe giving it a minute or so if I'm not sure. The External World is only too aware of this fractional attentions span, and coyly plays with it.

The opening section is about the one minute mark, slowly testing my curiosity with an oddly serious and tragic introduction that doesn't lend itself to the chirpy, child friendly animation style. Though as each vaguely related scene passes at increasing speed, the dark, self deprecating humor quickly begins to coalesce. It's soon a dark, cynical mass of whirling post-modern absurdity that had me belly laughing.

This film could propose to be something of a reflection on the frustrations and superficiality of modern life, but frankly that's doesn't matter. As a piece of work it doesn't make a shred of sense, but it's still hugely amusing in it's ADD style meandering contemplations. Featuring a paraplegic Jesus Christ wheelchairing on water, a fax machine committing tantric 'suicide', a racist taxi driving fish refusing to give a pregnant turd a ride to the hospital, and the line "and I found out the hard way that even turtles have vaginas", to my memory, I have never laughed as much or as hard to a short film as I did to this. The External World is a bone fide cult classic.

-Jack McFarlane

So Commercial: The Best and Worst of the Super Bowl TV Spots!

2011-02-08T13:18:00.009-05:00

This past Sunday, all us known as the "public" were treated to the most grand of times known as The Superbowl! And what do I look most forward to during this time, commercials! But not just any, Movie TV-Spot sorts of commercials! Now that got all those exclamation points are out of the way, let's head on to discuss what I thought was the best of these little 30 seconds bits and which ones are looking like shear utter avoidable garbage.

The Best

Super 8

Release Date: June 10th, 2011

Finally J.J.Abrams (Star Trek, Lost) returns to form in this unique Sci-Fi Thriller about a boy's take on an alien invasion through the lenses of his Super 8 camera. As a film nerd and a sci-fi nerd, I'm so in love with this concept and the entire package of Abrams and Spielberg, it's got my heart racing and so does this TV Spot. With the quick cuts, small teasing bits and fabulous shots, this really looks like a classic and a really great time at the movies this summer.

Cowboys and Aliens

Release Date: July 29th, 2011

With every bit of footage, Cowboys and Aliens is shaping up to be a pretty impressive little train that could on the summer movie line. I have a big feeling that after seeing the original teaser and this tv spot, we have a pretty great movie on our hands. Sure, the name leads you to believe otherwise and maybe not everyone is completely taken yet, but if they weren't after seeing this commercial - well you sure need to get your eyes checked for sure. With a tag team of Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, along with my favorite new glitter girl Olivia Wilde, this is truly going to be a fun time at your local cinema!

The Worst

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

Release Date: July 1st, 2011

It might just be the fact that Michael Bay as produced some of the most half minded and idiotic action movies I've ever seen, but I can honestly say I have no real interest in seeing anything more from one of my favorite toy brands ever on the silver screen. Sure, I enjoyed in a slight sense the first movie and the second was the most racist slice of crap I've ever seen, but come one?

First off, the name of this last installment looks to be ripped off from a Pi

nk Floyd album (Dark Side of the Moon? Please.), and the teaser had at least a bit of promise, but after seeing this TV spot, it just looks like the usual hijinks: Hot girl (who looked a bit confused in her 2 second shot), Big crashes and slow motion shots. Oh and that Shia kid. So yes, if you like a recipe of Bay in your traditional summer breakfast by all means, go see Transformers. Otherwise, I'd go for the yummier treats above!

Rio

Release Date: April 8th, 2011

Hey kids! Do you like birds? Do you like sex? How about a movie with birds that are trying to have sex in Brazil!? This seriously is the basic plot of Rio, a new film from the guys at Blue Sky Studios. Maybe it's because I was shown such classics as Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast, but I seriously have a low tolerance for most children's films these days and this will be no different. First off, this plot has all ready been done by the equally stupid Alpha and Omega, but truly the only reason why this is different is birds and Brazil are involved. Are you interested? Why don't you just give your kid a trip to The Museum of Natural History. They can learn about the human body and they can see statues of dumb-founded ape people that are naked. Trust me, it'll be a lot more entertaining then this.

So that's the best and worst of the Superbowl TV Spots. What are your thoughts? Comment down below!

- Dalin Rowell

Schlock & Awe - Futuristic Rollerskating Movies: Rollerballs!

2011-02-06T19:00:00.001-05:00

Rollerball (1975)
This is it, the grandaddy of them all. Before this rollerskates were only for elaborate dance numbers in Hollywood musicals, but Rollerball changed all that. It turned rollerderbies into a futuristic bloodsport, and in the process created a set imagery and a narrative that went onto influence a generation of filmmakers. You can scoff all you want (Yeah, that's it. Go on. Scoff it up, bitch!) but at thirty-five years old and featuring something as corny as quad-skating as a main theme, it's held up remarkably well. Its easily the most successful film on offer here in terms of earnest attempt to create an A-list movie. There's nothing self-consciously ironic about the the characters or events it portrays. It's fully invested in it's world building and sense of drama, and even through it ultimately fails to rise to anything more than a minor classic, it's still a vastly better movie for playing it straight than it ever would have been with its tongue in its cheek.

"In the not too distant future, wars will no longer exist. But there will be Rollerball." In where the entire world is under a single, all domineering, unambigously corporate ran government, Rollerball is the sport of the future. Rollerball is a cross between a rollerderby, no holds barred ice-hockey and NASCAR where debilitating physical injury and even death are common. It's greatest ever player, Jonathan E., is a living legend who is being forced to retire in his prime by shadowy figures with ambiguous reasoning. His protests fall on deaf ears, life gets more difficult for him as 'the company' begin to pressure him, and the more he refuses to stand down the more the savage rollerball's rules become, reducing his chance of survival with every match.

Above all else, it's the action sequences this movie will be remembered for. I know, I know. It looks and sounds cheesy as hell. A football player in quad skates and studded leather gloves? But trust me, none of that matters when it's match time. We see events unfolding both from the perspective of players and television viewing public, giving us full access to the mayhem of each match as it unfolds. Every body slam and drop kick to the head is wince inducing, and the level of violence only gets more intense match to match. By the time the final match in underway you'll be on the edge of your seat as all hell brakes loose. It's a great credit to the filmmakers that they could successfully introduce the fictional sport and its rules so clearly and economically, and then go on to use them to build tension and drama inside each match. Plays are easily followed with all their brutal consequences, giving you a sense of television sports spectatorship and of being in the midst of each match. It so effectively fools you into buying the entire sport that it's easy to see why this spawned so many would-be imitators.

Images of the future age faster than any other fictional depiction and only a precious few sci-fi movies manage to clutch onto a sense of believability beyond the era of their creation. Rollerball is not one of them. The sleek 70s modernist architecture hasn't really aged at all, but the same can't be said for the costume and set design. Shirts open to the navel, chest hair like a shagpile carpet and bellbottoms, it's the same retro-futurism that haunts the majority of 70s sci-fi. It may not sell itself as something authentically 'futuristic' anymore, but it does still have charm.

Where the movie takes a turn for the worst is in the serious miscasting of the leading man. James Caan's Jonathan E. is a wet rag of a performance. An insipid, mumbling everyman, his meandering presence means every scene of between match downtime drags to the point of boredom. When a lead actor gets blown off the screen every time he is in conversation with another character, you know it's a bad situation. The scheming and thinly veiled threats between matches could have been genuinely exciting and tense if it weren't for his vacuous, moping presence.

Even with all these odds against it, this movie still stands tall. Despite some minor aesthetic flaws, the potential goofyness of a bloodsport on skates, and some major casting errors, it's held together by some fantastic action sequences and a solid concept with some interesting social commentary.

6.5/10

Rollerball (2002)
Whereas the 1975 version of this movie kickstarted the subgenre, the 2002 remake was the sobering wake up call that it was dead and never really worked that well in the first place. Remade once before as Futuresport, it ditched rollerskates for Dean Cain and Wesley Snipes on hover boards. It was pretty terrible in it's own way but it just stick to the bottom of the barrel in the same way this one does. A decade late on cashing the rollerblading fad and the very worst of the futuristic rollerskating movies, Rollerball is a desperate last ditch attempt to make rollerskating badasses a plausible sci-fi subgenre. It revamps the original with an X-treme sports aesthetic and nu-metal soundtrack that has caused it to date faster in less than 10 years than the original did in more than 30. It won't be remembered as the movie that ended a genre (because I'm pretty sure no one cares about that but me) but it will be remembered as the nail in the coffin of a career that had been spiraling out of control for well over a decade. Directed by John McTiernan, this is his undisputed lowest ebb. As a child of the 80s golden era of action movies, it's crushing for me to think that this is the man who made Die Hard and Predator.

Set only three years in the future, Rollerball looks to make a none too subtle commentary on the sensationalism of televised culture and the bloodlust of sporting events. In this universe, rollerball is a sport only made possible by taking place in ungoverned ex-Soviet block countries that are ran suruptitiously by James Bond styled uber-gangsters. Within a year of leaving America to join a league team, Johnathan Cross (Kris Klein) is the best in the game and has achieved superstar status. When investigating the apparent sabotage inside his own team and then later finding himself unable to flee, he the discovers the unscrupulous nature of the leagues promoters and his unwitting servitude to the sport.

Of the many, varied and deep problems with this movie, the one that stands out the most for the most immediate criticism is the casting. LL Cool J is reliably shit, but I still understand why they cast him. By this stage he'd made the sitcom and had been in about a half-dozen bad to so-so genre movies, but that wasn't enough to diminish from the appeal that he's the LL Cool J. Or at least not until he did NCIS: LA. What I can't get my head around is the kind of logic or mode of persuasion that secured Chris Klein a leading man role. The man has the magnetism and charisma of an old beige cardigan. So banal that during every closeup the eye can't help but to glide off him to settle instead on the out of focus background extras. So unengaging that every time he's in closeup you check the watch and yawn. Come back James Caan, all is forgiven.

It's hard imagine any feature that could redeem this factor, although it's perfectly possible the action sequence during each match could stand on their own merit. Sadly, these are as poor executed as the casting is ill-conceived. A big part of the power of the game in original was how clearly and simply the sport was conveyed, and how brutal the consequences were for loosing a play or a game. The game's been re-jigged for the remake, changing the sports arena from the clean simplicity of the circlular rollerderby to a dense multilayered figure eight with a host of extra rules to boot. The set design is garishly distracting and it's layout seriously undermines all sense of spatial relations for the sport. Head scratchingly illogical shot are smashed together in editing, leaving the game play near incomprehensible. What information can be gleaned is farcically cartoony violence lacking any sense of tension or consequence. More WWE than NHL.

During one action sequence in which LL and Klein try to escape the clutches of the league, it's obvious that the foley artist has just given up any attempt at making a respectable movie. Driving through a wire fence on a motorbike while being chased by an aeroplane, he apathetically dubs in the most willfully absurd sound effect this side of a Looney Tunes cartoon. (THE FOLLOWING CLIP HAS NOT BEEN ALTERED IN ANY WAY. THIS IS THE SOUND EFFECT USED IN THE FINISHED PRODUCT).

This scene sums up the tragedy of Rollerball. It doesn't have enough of an opinion of itself to make a serious attempt at making a fully fledged action movie, but neither is it willing to admit that its incompetent enough to be entertaining despite itself. It just seems to be going through the motions, embarrassed over its own lack of substance, but unwilling abandon its pretensions of seriousness. It's as if everyone realized what a massive steaming turd it was two thirds of the way through and simply went into autopilot to get the damn thing finish so that they could move on and forget about it.

Rollerball fails at every attempt made to make you invest in the characters or the narrative. You wait in earnest for a lone scene or shot that can be salvaged as respectable, that can be singled out from the rest of the movie as something of worth, but it never happens. Unless you're a Slipknot completest who desperately wants to see their cameo appearance, I can't think of a single reason why anyone should watch this.

2/10

-Jack McFarlane

Schlock & Awe - Futuristic Rollerskating Movies: An Introduction

2011-02-06T18:55:00.006-05:00

If, like me, you miss spent a large portion of your youth indiscriminately devouring genre movies just because the cover looked cool, then you too will have built up a large mental database of scenes that will occasionally flash into your consciousness without context to why you suddenly remember it or what film it belongs to. I’ve had drunken conversations that go on for hours while I try to hammer out the fine details of exactly why someone would be trapped in a tanning bed by an alien or why a mans leg would become possessed and try to kill him. If I’m in the company of your everyday movie goer this usually ends up with them trying calm me down with inearnest platitudes over the reliability of my memory and my tastes in movies, but if I’m among fellow cinephiles then I can sometimes garner a glimmer of recognition; or, if I'm really lucky, sometimes even a name. I hold such moments of minor vindication dearly as I always look forward to rewatching whatever movie is lodged in my childhood brain and shaking up some forgotten memories.

There was one particular set of images that I had been thinking about a lot recently, about a gang of futuristic rollerskaters in battle, but I was having trouble pinning it down. Unsurprisingly, Rollerball was the name that came up most when I was prodding friends for ideas, but I'd seen that a few times and was certain it wasn't what I had in mind. What surprised me was that even after eliminating that option, and even though it was such an apparently bizarre scenario, there was about a half dozen other movies that came up as strong candidates. There are have been a surprising number of movies made over the last 35 years that place all their plausibility in the proposition that, at sometime in the not too distant future, not only will the world to be brought to it's knees by the apocalypse or a totalitarian government, but rollerskating will be elevated to the main mode of transport.

There are two main themes throughout this body of work. The first are part of the wider and equally fun dystopian bloodsports genre that produced the likes of Death Race 2000 and The Running Man. They see opposing rollerskating teams take one another on and the carnage that ensues used as a distraction to keep the blood thirsty masses in line. In effect these are either thinly veiled or blatant Rollerball remakes. The second variation is besotted by the idea that when society crumbles the gangs that roam the apocalyptic wasteland will opt for rollerskates as the best mode of transport. Each oozes with potential for the kind of movies that are fantastic for all the wrong reasons, and it's become a minor obsession to view as many as I can to try and discern why filmmakers keep returning to these themes.

Rollerskating is an undeniably corny niche to build a subgenre around. Essentially, it's a child's toy. Although, even with that admission, I can still see the half-arsed logic in it. You will inevitably get an exploitation film about whatever 'the kids are into'. Skateboarding and BMX-ing have both featured in feature films during their height, and rollerskating has had two winds thanks to quad skates and rollerblades, but even taking this into account there just seems far too many movies that feature rollerskaters as their protagonist.

It seems as if filmmakers saw rollerskating as a chance to do something similar to a motorcycle and surfing movies. They saw a popular pastime that they could speculatively use as a plot device. The obvious problem with that line of thought is that unlike these counterparts, rollerskating is short lived if recurrent fad. It has no cultural staying power and doesn't even have the recognizable set of subculture stereotypes that are required for an exploitation movie. Or at least none that are actually cool. The rollerskating disco dancer is a solid pastiche of the 70s that has been used as the focal point of more than it's fare share of movies (Roller Boogie, Roll Bounce, Xanadu) and the roller derby is lesser known but has also had a surprising number of representations of film (The Fireball, Unholly Rollers, Kansas City Bomber, Whip It and even a short lived TV show, Rollergirls). The more recent 'aggressive inline skating' fad was very trendy for a few years, and it found its way from homemade VHS tapes of street tricks to the big screen, both as a central plot device (Brink!, Airborne, Riders (aka Steal) or during an action set piece (Hackers, The Mighty Ducks). But even after these pitiful morsels of a subculture has been stretched thin in just a few brief movies, there were those who still saw the rollerskate as a plausible plot device.

The end result is that filmmakers simply created their own fictional subculture to exploit. Through some twisted b-movie logic the sci-fi was deemed the appropriate realm for these subcultures to exist. For this to have happened there must have been a moment in movie making history when a series of filmmakers looked at rollerskating and thought "Wow, look at them glide. It's so.... it's so.... it's so futuristic!" Despite the end result being so reliably (and wonderfully) inept, filmmakers just kept coming back to these same two themes. Each one convinced that the last was on to something but didn't quite nail it, and that the rollerskate really do represent a plausible mode of transport/pastime for futuristic badasses. What kept bringing filmmakers to this conclusion and why they keep making these movies is beyond me, but luckily for us they did.

For the record, I've never rollerskated. I am in no way interested in skating outside of Sci-fi movies, but since I went down this path I've started seen these movies referenced all the time. It seems I'm not the only one who spotted the trend and has an appreciation for the subgenre. There are numerous posts singing their praise on sites like i09, and all to often when there's even a mildly apocalyptic environment, roller skates will feature. There's the guy in the Punks gang wearing quad-skates in The Warriors, the rollerskating paintball gang featured in the Modern Warfare episode of Community, and even the damn wheelers from Return To Oz!

I frequently go back to films I haven't seen since I first watched them on rented VHS over twenty years ago. In some rare cases it's blissful nostalgia, but more often than not it's a laughably hard reminder of both how far my tastes have changed over the years and how much fun a bad movie can be. By and large these movies firmly belong in the later category. Some are fairly well known and easily accessible, others are extremely hard to find (even with a very thorough torrent search) whose original VHS will cost you hundreds of dollars on Amazon. I've made an earnest attempt to view the complete cannon and come up short for these reasons. From what it's worth, what follows is three separate blog posts that review the major works and provide a general overview of the subgenre based on those titles I could get a hold of.

Part One is a review of all things Rollerball.
Part Two is a review of the apocalypse on skates.
Part Three is an overview of the "talents" and auteuristic mark of the one and only Donald G Jackson.

- Jack McFarlane

Short Film Thursday - "Life After Beth" by Mysterious Al

2011-02-03T14:20:00.000-05:00

Besides vampires, zombies are the most over used narrative devices in contemporary horror. There's a host of reasons why they continue to appeal but it has to be said that their usage entirely one dimensional. Unlike vampires, zombies are always rigidly personified nothing more than brain dead, well, zombies. While both are undead, the woe-is-me vampire always stands a chance of developing himself or maybe even getting the girl. In short he's an actual character. The zombie on the other hand is almost never anything more than a one of million identical drooling, decomposing wrenches with an insatiable case of the munchies. Not exactly a charmer, and never a leading man. Mysterious Al, a London street artist, seems to want to play with these conceptions of the zombie for his short 'Life After Beth'.

It's a big departure from his usual style of graffiti art and his vivid color pallet, though it does carry on his favorite themes of the grotesque, sub-humanism and horror imagery. Billing it's self first and foremost as a short film and the work of it's director, it is nevertheless scored entirely by a track from Glasgow, Scotland's über-miserablists Arab Strap. It doesn't acknowledge itself as a music video, not giving Arab Strap any credit until the final credits, though the entire piece is played out across their song's length, and it clearly informs the tone and content of the visuals and narrative, so it's worth dwelling on for a moment.

Mysterious Al's signature cartoon character with lolling tongue, eye makeup, and dripping blood.

Lifted from their 1998 sophomore release, Philopobia, 'I Would've Liked Me a Lot Last Night' is a prime example of the downbeat, mumbling and muttering melancholy that define Arab Strap. Sounding like a manic depressive off the meds and on the sauce, their songs have always stirred up images of ill-kempt men crying into their lager and stewing in their own urine. Mysterious Al, being a far more creative man than myself, had a far grander vision in mind. He's used the wallowing self-loathing of the track to create a relationship between a girl and her domesticated house zombie that's rather touching in it's hopelessness and absurdity.

It has a rather desaturated, dreary pallet that of course suits the tone of the music and the relationship it helps to portray. In draining the red from the color scheme to focus on the colder tones, the smeared blood is toned down in it's intensity and the cooler neutral colors of the apartment overwhelm the horror of the walking dead with domestic normality. As the video progresses lighting less naturalistic, the tone gets darker and the focus gets looser. By the time the credits role it's moved to a low-key, down lit look, pouring on the pathos to a sweetly tragic relationship.

-Jack McFarlane

Cult Review: Tony

2011-01-26T14:08:00.002-05:00

No matter how it's approached, the serial killer movie is something that rarely works. For every Zodiac and Silence of The Lambs there's a slew releases that rightfully go straight to DVD for shamelessly flogging the biographies of the more infamous names like Gein and Bundy. Though for all the usual failings of these films, it's immediately obvious why they persist. This kind of person is just so morbidly compelling. Their desires and motivations are so far removed from any notion of normality that they are immediately repugnant and yet fascinating. For as long as there are people this disturbed appearing in our media there will be films like Tony.

Unemployed for twenty years and spending his days viewing porn and watching action movies on secondhand VHS, Tony is hopelessly pathetic character. A withdrawn loner with no social skills, he looks and acts like a middle aged man who is still dressed by his stern, overbearing mother. As he desperately attempts to befriend junkies and prostitutes, it quickly becomes clear just how just how isolated and needy he is for any form of human contact. He is so pitiable that when his first act of violence does occur, it seems so out of character that it's genuinely shocking. Quoting lines of dialogue from Predator and First Blood while psyching himself up for the kill, he's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer meets Cable Guy. It's always the quiet ones.

The film's biggest achievement is the level of understated detail and forethought that's gone into creating and presenting it's title character. Like a lot of other films dealing with serial killers and psychopaths, Tony commands a degree of discomfort and intrigue by with holding expositional information. There has been no attempt to explain the events that led to Tony becoming what he is, no flashbacks or monologues to justify his compulsions or his acting on them. Most of his character building is done through showing him shuffling around alone in his fastidiously tidy but dilapidated little apartment, and in aimlessly wondering through London streets filled with boarded up store fronts and abandoned homes. Through a casual observation of the monotony of his life, we're left to speculate what brought him to where is now.

A character study and an earnest attempt to make relatable the unrelatable, parallels with Taxi Driver can be rashly drawn. He may speak to himself in mirrors and sulk around porn stores, but Tony is no Travis Bickle. Both are deeply lonely and disturbed individuals who exist in hostile, alienating environments, but Tony is far more macabre and infinitely more disturbing in his reaction to it. Travis' hero complex sees him lash out with a miss placed sense of honor and vigilantism. Whereas Tony doesn't really seem to have an active blood lust or any sense of an active premeditation. It's more a matter of him finding himself in situations where killing someone just seems like most natural course of action, keeping the corpse for company during the long lonely nights.

All of his murders all take place in his apartment. He plays a keen but incompetent host while inadvertently managing to irritate or creep out each guest before he murders them and using their bodies to act out banal domestic scenarios missing from his life. It rather skillfully flirts with dry, black humor prior to some of the murders before swinging back to an atmosphere of dread for each kill. There is a good chance that it could have lost it's footing, falling into an inadvertent comedy, but it's social realism aesthetic tempers the balance between horror and humor. Conceived and shot with the calm and unobtrusive documentary detachment of Alan Clarke, Tony has a gritty, warts-and-all style that makes its title characters actions all the more unnerving.

The central performance and down to heal atmospherics are enough to carry the film easily through its brief seventy minute running time, but it ultimately lets itself down in its story. The narrative sets up two separate lines of progression, one of which is quickly ignored and the other glossed over so lightly that it fails to impact on the story or character in any notable way. These are lost opportunities to round out and further complicate Tony's character, an aspect sorely needed in any absence of a back story. The credits role with nothing resolved or explored. Ambiguous, non-conclusive endings are fairly common when dealing with such dark subjects, effectively confounding expectations and highlighting the lack of knowledge or control we hold over such forces, but here this convention is exploited in a weak attempt to veil its own lack of narrative progression.

There are too many questionable secondary performances and too little effort in developing a story for this to be anything more than an interesting curiosity. If this turns out to be a career highlight for writer/director Gerald Johnson, then it's a tragedy. There's too much talent on display here for him not go on to better things.

6.5/10

-Jack McFarlane

Just a Film Girl: Oscar Nominees: Dalin's Predictions

2011-01-25T22:20:00.005-05:00

While much of America goes oh so nuts over the pass time known as football, I stand on the side lines of artistic nerdom and say STOP! For what do I wait all year for, plan my nights around, and invite my friends from near and far to watch? The Academy Awards. It's been a tradition in my family to bet serious money on this and other awards shows, but it all comes together on that magical night in winter, happening 2/27 this year! But what is nominated, and what should you bet your bucks on to win? Though I'm no expert, here are my personal Film Girl predictions!

Best Motion Picture of the Year

Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

In the obviously most important category, I chose The King's Speech. I've seen 5 out of the 10 nominated this year and in my opinion, it's hard to get better then this little charm of a movie. Hooper's visually stunning take on the struggle of speech and personal representation in World War II is brilliant. Though there are many saying it will be The Social Network, I doubt it has much staying power if you take out the script in the math of the whole film. If I had to go with a second pick, I'd love for True Grit to win - but it's a long shot. I'm happy to see it be recognized after it's Golden Globes snub of snubs though.

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Annette Bening (The Kids are All Right)
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)

It's hard to describe in words how incredible Portman is in Black Swan, so she obviously will win based on those words alone. I can only really write this in the best way when mentioning my Mother's reaction "I honestly thought I was watching Nina (Portman's character) playing Portman, rather then Portman as a character - she truly captured a completely other person." Since I find Black Swan to be more of a character study, the character who is the star should win. My second choice would be Annette Bening, who was fun in Kids but nothing really extremely memorable, but heck I do love The American President.

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Javier Bardem (Biutiful)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)

Similar to my Best Picture pick, it's hard not to go with Firth. He turned what could have been the usual slightly cliche British period piece character into a human that even from another place and time, we could all relate to in his most not common of circumstances. As someone who has had to go through speech therapy myself, I connected and appreciated his take on the role and not making himself look silly. My second choice would be Bridges, not just because of my big ol' man crush on the him, but also because (as mentioned in my True Grit review) he is Rooster to me as pictured in the novel - even with his rambles.

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Christian Bale (The Fighter)
John Hawkes (Winter's Bone)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids are All Right)
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)

Geoffrey Rush is one of my three favorite actors in the world. No, he isn't a handsome leading man or a giant action star, but similar to other favorites of mine (Ron Perlman for example), Rush is able to take the everyday man and add his own unique oddness to him but yet have the compassion where he doesn't become a character, but a human. Maybe it's also because I have a truly big heart for a man that seems to really love acting, in which you can really see in Rush's performance. My second choice would be Ruffalo, who is always a pleasure to watch on film. Though I wasn't exactly pleased for the character he played in the film, he did a fine job with a half completed script.

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)

No, I haven't seen The Fighter. I know that probably everyone in it is amazing, but I'm going for an odd pick with Steinfeld as Maddie Ross. Though my Father wasn't taken with Steinfeld's performance, I think for a first film role, she really shines. The Academy loves an underdog, and kids - therefore I have a little tiny pinch of hope for Steinfeld. My second pick would be Adams, who even though I haven't seen the film, I do have a soft spot for her from her first big role in June Bug.

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

Yeah, it's gonna win and you know it. But I'll just mention who should win is How to Train Your Dragon, for making the first Dreamworks animated film I've actually adored since Prince of Egypt. Chris Sanders is a genius to be rewarded in the animation industry, and maybe he could win - just maybe. Don't get me wrong though, I loved Toy Story 3, but it's obvious it'll win for sure. Now, why didn't Lots-o-Huggin's get nominated for Best Actor again?

Achievement in Art Direction

Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech
True Grit

I have hopes the Academy will give this to something that was Historically accurate, and took Porter's book from my mind and made it real. But they'll probably award Alice, even if half of it was made in a computer.

Achievement in Cinematography

Black Swan (Matthew Libatique)
Inception (Wally Pfister)
The King's Speech (Danny Cohen)
The Social Network (Jeff Cronenweth)
True Grit (Roger Deakins)

This film was absolutely beautifully shot. Even the simplistic single spot light used in the beginning dream sequence of Swan was that of professional and simple beauty that is hard to perfect, without looking student-ish (trust me, I've seen it.) True Grit would be my second choice, especially the shots of Bridges with Steinfeld on horse back is lovely.

Achievement in Directing

Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
David O. Russell (The Fighter)
Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)
David Fincher (The Social Network)
Joel and Ethan Coen (True Grit)

It's hard to craft a character female driven piece, especially when you just came from an extremely Male centered film (The Wrestler). But Aronofsky is my pick with Black Swan. I think this is truly the first film of Aronofsky's I could watch more then once. Though his films are that of beauty and deep voids of emotion, they can easily be said that they are very hard to watch. This is probably the closest one could get to a "tame" film, but please use this term carefully. Second choice would be Hooper, since he seems to craft the pure classic film structure just right.

Achievement in Film Editing

Black Swan (Andrew Weisblum)
The Fighter (Pamela Martin)
The King's Speech (Tariq Anwar)
127 Hours (Jon Harris)
The Social Network (Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall)

Maybe it's because I am an editing junkie myself, but I couldn't help but find a similar style of my own enjoyment to that of Black Swan's editing. It was pure fast pumping emotion, and therefore should win - the timing was flawless and so was the magic it created on screen.

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)

How to Train Your Dragon (John Powell)
Inception (Hans Zimmer)
The King's Speech (Alexandre Desplat)
127 Hours (A.R. Rahman)
The Social Network (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)

Once in a while, The Oscar's like to award the odd balls of the industry, especially when it comes to music. Rappers have won for songs in the past, along with Rock music legends. But when it comes to scores, Trent Reznor needs to give credit where credit is do, so I hope another odd music winning moment can accure with this one. My second choice is How to Train Your Dragon, which showcased some of the most beautiful themes I've heard in an animated film since Beauty and the Beast.

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)

"Coming Home" from Country Strong Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
"I See the Light" from Tangled Music and Lyric by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
"If I Rise" from 127 Hours Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
"We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3 Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

I chose I See The Light from Tangled for this one. I'm a huge Alan Menken fan, as childish as that sounds. But unlike many of the things Disney can produce, Menken really is one of the last shining glimmers of hope for Disney to completely regain it's style and flair it last held in the 90's. This song is a gem in the rubble of the other not as great songs from the film and for that along, it should be award. I don't even have a second choice, that's how much faith I have in this.

Achievement in Sound Editing

Inception
Toy Story 3
TRON: Legacy
True Grit
Unstoppable

Regardless of what you thought of the film, you had to admit that Tron:Legacy provided some of the best sound design to be heard in a damn long time. It reminded me of the first time I saw Star Wars and heard the crisp THX sound coming through the theater. For that nostalgia trip alone, Tron should take the gold.

Adapted Screenplay

127 Hours (Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle)
The Social Network (Aaron Sorkin)
Toy Story 3 (Michael Arndt, story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich)
True Grit (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen)
Winter's Bone (Debra Granik and Anne Rossellini)

If you haven't full understood why I love the new rendition of True Grit, this is the main bullet point of my love note. This script, that took one of my favorite novels of all time and truly made it a visual feast for the audience in it's realistic slice of life style. Though many bet on Sorkin to win, I have my hopes that the Coen's can shine.

Original Screenplay

Another Year (Mike Leigh)
The Fighter (Paul Attanasio, Lewis Colich, Eric Johnson, Scott Silverand Paul Tamasy)
Inception (Christopher Nolan)
The Kids are All Right (Stuart Blumberg and Lisa Cholodenko)
The King's Speech (David Seidler)

Hands down, King's Speech is pretty perfect all around and the script isn't any short of that perfection. I think it's definitely something to look out for in terms of originality, and the dialog is absolutely witty but yet powerful. There are even moments with no speaking at all that you can tell were written with heart and soul. This is one speech the King couldn't mess up!

So there you go, the important categories and my hopes on the winners for The Academy Awards 2011. Make sure to watch the awards on February 27th at 8PM on ABC! Who do you think will win? Think anyone got snubb? Comment down below!

-Dalin Rowell

Ten Films You Should Have Seen In 2010

2011-01-25T14:05:00.000-05:00

The new year is well on its way, and is so far shaping up to be a great deal more productive in the realm of good cinema than its predecessor. I've heard nothing but complaints from friends and colleagues as to how dry and dull of a year 2010 was as far as movies go. The Oscar Nominations, just announced this morning, certainly reflect that sentiment with lackluster bait-films like The Fighter or The Kids Are Alright, and several more undeserving Best Picture nods.

I'm here to redeem 2010 from its poor image as a year that cinema forgot, for whenever there's a year that the blockbusters flop, and the Oscar-bait is overrated trash, there is the underground. Initially, I'd planned on making the typical Best of 2010 list that's almost a requirement for any entertainment blog trying to survive on the vapid heap of differing opinions that is the internet, but this year demands something different. I present to you, without further adieu, the Ten Films You Should Have Seen in 2010. Why, you ask? Because while you were busy picking apart fan-made diagrams of how Inception's plot worked, I was watching movies.

10). The Secret In Their Eyes: Juan Jose Campanella

Actually released in Argentina in 2009, this one ended up winning the best foreign language film award at 2010's Oscars. Unfortunately it seemed to go overlooked by many when it was finally given a release in April of last year. It gently slipped by, but this concoction of one-part mystery and one-part character drama is most definitely worth a look.

9). Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

A beautiful and moving drama that's about little more than a man on his death bed telling ingenious and charming tales of all of his past lives. Its comedy and lightheartedness make it an unusually uplifting picture, and its daring desire to transverse this world and slip into something far more dreamlike and beautiful makes it a bold effort, with ambition matched by some wonderful direction and great writing.

8). Winter's Bone: Debra Granik

This is one of the few deserving pictures I noticed on the Oscars list this morning, but is still (at least from what I've seen) a widely unseen film. This is a damn shame as its one of the most naturalistic, somber, and humanistic dramas I've had the pleasure of watching in some time.

7). The Misfortunates: Felix Van Groeningen

A wonderful effort from Belgium that didn't quite hit it big here in the States, actually I'm not even sure if it was released over here. It examines that life of thirteen-year-old Gunther, a boy trying desperately to not succumb to the alcohol fueled, trashy lifestyle that his uncles and father have surrounded him with. A wonderful addition to a country's catalog of films known for looking at the lower, more desperate sides of life.

6). Rabbit Hole: John Cameron Mitchell

Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman star in a fantastic drama that should, by all means, be one of the most frightening films this year, but somehow manages to maintain an underlying warmth and incredible sincerity throughout, despite some frankly dark subject matter.

5). Dogtooth: Giorgos Lanthimos

Taking a tip from Michael Haneke, Lanthimos has crafted one of the most unsettling foreign films in recent years. I won't go into plot details, as the trailer should give you some idea, but this bizarre and disturbing piece of fiction would likely be unwatchable if it weren't for its even stranger ability to get the audience laughing hysterically at scenes that one would never in a million years consider "natural".

4). My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done?: Werner Herzog

Production by avant-garde maestro David Lynch was what had the cult-kids buzzing, but it seemed that most fans were ultimately disappointed when Herzog unleashed his latest unto the world. I thoroughly enjoyed the news-story-turned-drama, though I think its point of view is what threw most people off. A third party, and removed perspective of a man slipping further down his own rabbit hole can certainly be interesting if you've enough imagination to fill in some missing pieces. A challenging watch, but well worth a try.

3). Animal Kingdom: David Michod

An unbelievable first time effort from Australian writer/director David Michod, this operatic crime drama nearly sets a new standard for what feature debuts should be. The script is taught, and throws out some of the most intense and challenging curve balls I've encountered in a while, with a fantastic ending to tidy up the bloodshed.

2). Enter The Void: Gaspar Noe

This one got legs and hit the ground running after a couple of shaky festival screenings. Catch it while you can, either in theaters or Netflix, it's a spectacle to behold, truly a modern masterpiece worthy of its position amongst my favorite films.

1). Wild Grass: Alain Resnais

The aging Alain Resnais may certainly have seen better days, but his work and his legacy are legendary regardless. His latest is a tender, slow, and somber look at the later years of life, and the adventures sought to still make human connection. As always, Resnais takes us on a surreal journey through the mindscape of his characters, ultimately leaving us with some of the most beautiful, colorful, and lively imagery that a film like this is capable of containing.

-William Gutheil

Short Film Thursday: "Stand Up" by Joseph Pierce

2011-01-20T16:42:00.002-05:00

Standing alone in the spotlight using everything
in your power to get a laugh is a desperately needy pastime. Yet you can guarantee that every major city will have at least one venue dedicated to it. If you've ever been to a comedy club to see one in person, you'll know that the stand-up comedian can be a rather tragic character, and never more so when they are failing.

Watching a stand-up die live on stage is the embodiment of the thin line between comedy and tragedy. As one joke after another falls flat on it's face the tension can become unbearable. The audience goes mute and the comedian just keeps swinging blindly. It'd be gratingly funny if it weren't too close for comfort.

Joseph Pierce's Stand Up capitalizes on this raw, squirming discomfort, detailing stand-ups wild flailing to keep the audiences attention as the unambiguous symptoms of a fully blown mental breakdown. It's clawing atmosphere could have you fooled that this is a genuine stand-up's set going very, very badly, but it was entirely scripted and filmed in front of an audience of extras. It's entirely to the credit of Pierce's Writing and direction, and to Danial Rigby's intense performance as the stand-up that it succeeds in convincing you otherwise.

It's a rotoscope animation that doesn't attempt a realistic rendering of the original material and instead uses grotesque caricatures and literal representations of the stand up's wrought emotions and gags to wring the situation for tension. A fantastic example of the against the grain humor that will have you tensing up and pulling at your hair as you laugh. I can't praise this highly enough.

-Jack McFarlane

True Grit Review

2011-01-18T13:58:00.006-05:00

It's hard to define the word "classic" when it comes to films with most of the general public. When I think of a classic, I think of films that will stand the test of time forever and ever, that even a slight dated era compared to our current technological outlook can look as beautiful as it did then or at least be enjoyed at the same rate. But what if one was to challenge the ideas of such, or even challenge what you believed to be a tried and true example of something magical. This is what was brought upon my father when I took him to see the Coen Brothers state on Porter's True Grit.

Now look, you might have noticed that I haven't mentioned anything having to do what the thing you're probably thinking I was going to talk about straight off the bat. Yep, John Wayne's version or the original, as many point this out to be, is a very good film in my mind. But granted, the amount of times I saw it in my pre-teen days can not amount to the times I've come back to the original novel. So, whenever I'm brought upon the topic of the Coen Bro's version of the story, I bring about this clarification. This isn't a remake of the original film version, and the Coen's have stated many times that it is their interpretation of Charles Porter's novel. Though many things pay honor to the original (as it should be), I didn't really ever connected it as a remake.

But this is not the case when it came time for my father to sit in the small and intimate theater in my hometown, buttered popcorn and all, and try to embrace this new take on his all time favorite movie in the whole world. Though I tried explaining many times to him what I've already mentioned above, it just wouldn't break the crack on which was his love affair with original and the Duke himself. So the movie rolls. And what do I think of it?

As I remember myself sitting down watching the original on that wrinkled and dying VHS from Blockbuster, those many years ago, I couldn't yet find myself really enjoying the movie. Though maybe it's my growing appreciation for cinema, or my abstract since of humor, but I found myself trying embracing the Coen's take on one of my favorite books.
Don't get me wrong, I truly adore Wayne, but there's something about seeing the Rooster Cogburn that I envisioned when I read the serial story actually on the screen. Wayne seemed in my eyes just playing a more realistic version of many of the other characters he'd played in films prior, but Bridges really felt like he was playing something much more then just a role, he was indeed a character that could not be altered. My father did agree with me on these parts, though not all. I'm glad we could bring ourselves to truly enjoy Bridge's performance together, as to me it really deserves another nod from the Academy in some form (Nomination at least).

But what about the character of Mattie Ross? My father felt that she (newcomer Hailee Steinfeld) said her lines beautifully and looked the part, but he wanted more of an emotional reaction from her. But, I disagree completely. She did look everything the part asked for and to me was the character. Though she didn't show the emotion one would ask for in most cases, this is because of the point of her characters goal: strength. She is taking the place of her father in the role of her family. She's attempting to keep her family together, even with their now stricken poverty and such, therefore in the time that Mattie lives in, where men rule over the reign of the world, she has to keep her emotions in tacks. You can see this strongly in the beginning and with that I think credit is do.

Matt Damon was also a major upgrade in the role of LaBoeuf, compared to the original with Glen Campbell. He brought a sort of warmth and understanding to the character, who had seemed to be one dimensional prior. He also brought a more odd side, that was a bit questionable and controversial to his relationship with Mattie, which is finally portrayed properly in my mind. Props need to be given to him along with Barry Pepper as Ned Pepper.

The one person I found to be disappointing, and really the only flaw of the entire film is Josh Brolin. As the immortal and infamous Tom Chaney, I expected more. Brolin seemed to be having an off day when his scenes came up. He portrayed Tom as an idiot, and nothing really brought upon the fear that one would think to come in the mind of Mattie, or in the overall understanding that the other characters have for Chaney. Either he was overrated by the gossip of his behavior, or Brolin truly didn't know how to play this character right. This is where the original, whose Chaney (played by Jeff Corey) was truly frightening to me.

Overall though, credit needs to be given to the Coen's for bringing about something that I really loved into the public the right way, and have finally turned me into a Coen Brother's fan. I never really took the time to enjoy their films to a wider extent then The Big Lebowski (also starring Bridges), but now I'm on a kick to see more and understand the Coen's vision further, as odd as it can be. The script was perfection, and even the shots were beautiful, especially towards the end (no spoilers.)

So, I bet you're all probably dying to know, did my father like it? Yes, but the original is still his favorite. Me, I think differently. With that I must say, True Grit is absolutely a treasure and one of the few good films that came out of the year 2010. I really hope that the Oscar's will heal the wound that the Golden Globes left for not nominating this absolutely fantastic film, and that Bridges will get another nomination to prove how much "grit" (yes, puns) he has and will always have. Now, get on your horse and ride further into the sun and see True Grit for yourself.

Rating: 9.5/10

- Dalin Rowell

Short Film Thursday: "Errata" by Alexander Stewart

2011-01-09T02:05:00.004-05:00

Anyone who did some serious University time before the advent of online journals, or anyone who ever had a crappy office job will be all too familiar with heavy photocopying sessions. With laser scanners now industry standard, the photocopy machine is an increasingly archaic piece of kit. I can't say I'll miss it. You're usually stuck in a tiny windowless room with poor ventilation and the glare from the scanning light quickly gives you a headache. I've avoided using them as much as possible and I certainly didn't have any hope of it being used to creative ends. But that's what makes this film all the more remarkable.

Anyone who has had to try and read a poorly photocopied document or study a 3rd or 4th generation photocopied image will know how the process can visually distort the material. Black on white lettering begins to bleed beyond the set measurements of a font, smudging together into unreadable shapes. And in photos the subtle definition between tones of gray in an image will become less defined, the image becoming darker and darker. If the machine is of a poor enough quality or the item being copied is a photocopy itself, then the effect can quickly lead to the document becoming unreadable as the black ink slowly infiltrates every area of the image.

Using this decreased fidelity between generations of copies, Alexander Stewart has created Errata, an animation made entirely from thousands of photocopied images. Essentially its an abstract animation. It does remind me a little of modernist animation like Oskar Fischinger motion paintings, though it's infinitely creepier and minimalist. The decision to score it entirely with the hiss of a battered old vinyl is a perfect match to the visuals. Both image and audio are the undesirable leftovers of each medium reappropriate towards their own ends.

The end result is a strangely hypnotic short that comes across as surprisingly organic. The movement of the various shapes, lines and dots across the screen seems almost willful, reminding me of timelapse photography in nature documentaries, or macro-shots at a cellular level. I'm not entirely sure how he achieved the effects though he seems to be at least switching between copiers on setting or copiers, and moving the paper very slightly off center when copying. I'm impressed with the clear sense of inventiveness to create so many different visual elements from such a cumbersome, time consuming process.

-Jack Mcfarlane

David Lynch records album.

2011-01-06T15:10:00.003-05:00

Yes, that David Lynch. Cinema's premiere head-fuck maestro has actually been recording music for a quit a few years now, but this is the first time he's made music independent of his films. His work on the INLAND EMPIRE soundtrack was previously his most significant to date. It was largely made up of airy, synth mood pieces, but there were a few vocal tracks made in connection with the movie that had an eerie, androgynous quality. These are his most musically authored pieces, seeing him take the lime light as a solo artist and using his star persona in the music, rather than standing back and simply allowing himself to be name check as a contributing musician. Most recently he has moved into commercial house music. Yes, you read that right. David Lynch is making house music. He released 'Good Today' late last year. It's a fairly standard house tune with vocoder vocals and a solid 4/4 beat. The b-side, 'I Know' features the same style of vocals as heard on his recent soundtrack work, and is downbeat and trippy in an early Portishead way. Remixes by the likes of dubstep soldier Skream and melodic dance composer Jon Hopkins are due out some time this year, along with a full length album of new material.

The a-side is honestly pretty unremarkable and the b-side isn't as good as the INLAND EMPIRE material it closely resembles, though the prospect of a David Lynch music video is mouth watering one for cinephiles the world over. Lynch's most recent work suffered from his total freedom to do what ever he wanted for as long as he wanted, but with the runningtime limited to the length of the track a music video could perhaps offer a more focused outlet for his work. Sadly, he decided not to make his own video but opened up to compition entries instead. Luckily for us, the winning videos have been chosen by the man himself, and are not only pretty darn good but they are also, rather predictably I suppose, very Lynch-ian.

'I Know' features a woman who leaves her lover only to be manipulated by afar through his television and remote control, bringing her back to him. It's a relatively simple concept that is creepy enough to match the vocal content of the work and the style of music. This will appeal to Lynch-ites in its open references to his signature mise-en-scène and narrative tropes. Nightmarish neo-noir settings, close up's of lamps, smokey backroom nightclub footage, and sense of manipulation and menace from an an antagonist. It steers very close to a cliched Lynch homage in places, but I suppose that's the point, and it's extremely well made regardless.

'Good Day Today' is as heavily under Lynches influence, and will appeal to his fanbases love of social and mental dysfunction. It sets up a family meal scenario from a younger sibling point of view. His older sister, mother and father are all in the same room and at the same table, but all are lost in their own problems and distractions. The lighting and visual style are heavily informed by the digital techniques that have come to define Lynch in his later years while the scenario is highly reminiscent (perhaps incidentally, perhaps intentionally) of the dinner with the inlaws sequence in Easerhead. I won't go beyond that in my description, as to say anymore would spoil the video. Though needless to say its bizarre and heavily symbolic. This is the best video of the two, and indeed the best music video I've seen in a while.

Neither video has the same slow burning ominousness or logical double taking that make Lynch such a unique filmmaker. Obviously it would have been preferable for him to make his own music videos, but these have his seal of approval and they're really enjoyable in their love of, and their intention to pay tribute to is work.

-Jack McFarlane

This the golden age of Netflix?

2011-01-04T15:00:00.001-05:00

In terms of price, ease of access, and volume and variety of material, Netflix has become an indispensable product for American cinephiles. The DVD service is what built the product, allowing each consumer to easily put together their own personal list of classic must-sees and new releases to be delivered directly to their door. My DVD list is currently over 200 disks long, but it's little more than an nice extra for the main service Netflix now offers. The instant streaming service has allowed Netflix to rise to tremendous popularity. With a bank of films and television shows estimated to number somewhere around 17,000, my instant streaming cue is somewhat embarrassingly around the 350+ mark. I have so much to choose from that I will simply never get the chance to view all of it. For a monthly fee less than the price of a ticket to the cinema you have instant access to everything from classics of the silent period to present day releases, and the DVD service to boot. It's quickly become my number one resource for watching movies, and I'll not alone. By the end of 2010 17% of the American population subscribed to Netflix. It is without a doubt the best deal on the market and I'm sure they have ambitions and plans to improve the product still further, but it almost seems too good last.

There are a number of factors that could begin to sour the deal over the next year or so, all of which suggest that Netflix could simply fall victim to it's own success. The issue that got the most press recently and brought net neutrality into the headlines is that the Netflix streaming service is responsible for 20%, that's one-fifth, of all peak time online downstream traffic. This a huge number of people who would have previously been watching prime-time event television on cable or the latest release from Blockbuster, only now they're all using Netflix. The cable companies are only too aware of how much bandwidth Netflix currently uses, and the fact that a substantial number of Netflix user have canceled cable tv in favor of them. A recent FCC ruling on net neutrality has protected Netflix from being restricted in it's bandwidth usage or from being charged more for their use of it. But the more people cancel their standard cable service in favor of Netflix and other online streaming services, the more the cable companies will try to recoup their loses through amended pricing schemes for consumer internet access and by pressuring a roll back on FCC policy. Whether on not Netflix is made to pay for it or not, the odds are that the consumer will end up paying more in the long run.

Aside from the potential problems with the continued means of delivering their streaming service, there is the growing possibility that someone will soon put out a package that will viably compete with Netflix. After a gradual decline for close to a decade, Blockbuster is now teetering on complete bankruptcy. There have been some moves to try and make their service competitive again, but the writings on the wall. Store based, physical format movie rental is dead. On-demand digital streaming/download is the natural replacement and this service is currently widely available from a number of sources (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix incorporated this feature in some way or other in the near future). It has niche audiences and uses, serving as a immediate way of watching the newest titles, but by operating on a payment per viewing system it simply isn't as cheap or as convenient as the current Netflix package. Based on the number involved, most seem content to settle with the older titles available on Netflix while perhaps occasionally using Amazon or itunes for supplementary viewings the newest films immediately. The only real competition Netflix has on the horizon is Redbox.

The Redbox kiosk system is a major new innovation in movie rentals. Strategically placed around grocery stores and public areas, it's a cheap and convenient non-committal option. It's been such a fantastic success that others have tried to muscle in on the market with even other options. Flix on Stix, for example, is a new service that allows a download to a USB that automatically expires and self destructs after an agreed period to avoid late fees. With the kiosk market set to become increasingly cluttered, and the acknowledgment that it's small potatoes in terms of a share of the movie rental market, Redbox have thrown down the gauntlet to Netflix. This summer they announced plans to launch their own online streaming service, set to be priced to substantially undercut Netflix. When or if that happens things could get really interesting.

This competition may or may not be a good thing for consumers. Hopefully it will make each company work harder to keep prices low and offer a wide variety of desired material. The potential downside to this is that this simply may not be possible. Netflix's cheapest package is $7.99 a month for streaming only. This is such a low price that I've always been shocked they manage to offer the range of titles they do. Once a studio hands over the rights for a certain movie or tv series to Netflix it's then instantly available to an audience that may otherwise have paid to have bought or rented it on DVD or direct download. Netflix membership increased by over 50% in this last year, and the studios will have gotten wise to the fact that it will not be worth invalidating their own products by having them instantly available on Netflix unless they are receiving an appropriately weighty compensation. Now add to this the prospect of a competitor vying for the same market share with the same products, and I don't feel very hopeful the currently quality or value I currently receive will stay unchanged. In a worse case scenario, either the prices of both services go up or the variety offered would be split as studios grant exclusivity to one or the other. In the case of the latter, I worried about what this will mean for indie films, b-movies, and documentaries. Would an online movie streaming company under pressure from a large consumer base tailor for the largest common denominator blockbusters over smaller, specialized audiences? This is obviously speculation. I simply don't know what's going to happen, but the fact is that Netflix is now too big and too popular to continue to operate in the way it currently does.

As a sure sign of both their current dominance over the market and their less than stable future, Netflix have just entered into a class action lawsuit over allegations of creating a monopoly on the DVD rental market. It's unlikely that this single event will topple Netflix though it will certainly bring to question why there are no other real options out there. Personally, I would be willing to see my monthly subscription hiked by a few more dollars (it increased by $1 late last year) for the service comparable to that I already have than see my options limited. Netflix is a phenomenal service. I have at my finger tips such a wide range of fantastic movies and tv shows that I'm often at pains to watch as many as I can in fear that they may be snatched from me. With events going the way they are that may happen sooner rather than later. What the future holds for Netflix and it's competitors is far from certain, I just hope that the consumer will come out on top.

- Jack McFarlane

Schlock & Awe Review! - Australian Biker classic, Stone

2011-01-03T17:07:00.004-05:00

Like most people who are only recently discovering Stone, I got put onto it by the amazing documentary, Not Quite Hollywood. Australian cinema is something I have only a cursory knowledge about, and the films I do know tend to be in the artsier end of the spectrum. Not Quite Hollywood is a retrospective look at Ozploitation cinema, and it has opened up a whole new world of genre titles that I've been trying to track down since. This is no slight on Not Quite Hollywood, it's everything you could want and more, but for anyone who hasn't seen this documentary yet, I implore you, put it off until after you've seen Stone. It rightfully takes up a good chunk of the documentary's running time, and after finally tracking it down and viewing it, I felt liked I'd watched the DVD extras before the movie. It far from ruined the experience, I just knew that the impact it made on me by Stone would have been so much more mind blowing if I'd seen it cold (if you'll pardon the accidental, halfhearted pun).

The title character, Stone, is a pretty-boy plain clothes police officer. He's been sent to approach The Grave Diggers, a gang of grizzled motor cyclist who are being murdered one by one. The Grave Diggers are not the kind of people you would want to come across down your local pub. They aren't very nice. In fact they are pretty much just bullies and reprobates. They're alcoholic army vets who are armed to the teeth and would happily beat you to a pulp for the fun of it. If you'd saw them walking down street towards you, you'd crossover to avoid them. And then they'd crossover too just to fuck with you. Obviously they don't take kindly to pigs putting their noses into the gangs business, and the film is more about the bikers way of life and the ensuing culture clash than it is about finding the killer.

The motorcycle is clearly a heavily fetishized object here. There are long sequences of nothing but the gang riding motorways to a hard rock soundtrack, and the rest of the movie features them as heavily as possible. Though with the exception of a one race there's nothing resembling a chase sequence. Nor is their anything resembling a conventional action sequence. Although the subject matter isn't exploited and exaggerated as it could have been, Stone is far from light exactly on action. It comes regularly in brief but savage bursts of violence that function clearly within the needs of plot and character development, not played out across choreographed set pieces. The end result is a film that feels surprisingly restrained in terms of the level of absurdity it would have been welcome to blow itself up to, while still clearly pertaining to a b-movie agenda of balls to the wall badassery.

In a clear lesson that budget need not restrict the final product, this movie is bursting at the seams with style and it's all due to the native talent that Australia had during this period. Fans of Mad Max will be able to pick out half the cast, but the real credit goes to the inventiveness and skill of writer/director/star Sandy Harbutt and his production team. There are sequences in Stone that will be with me for the rest of my life. The opening scene of an acid trip during the assassination of a politician has deservedly attracted much admiration for it's uses of music, sound design and cinematography. In combination with the crisp, punctuated editing of the title sequence that follows it, this is the best opening 10 minutes I've seen since Dawn of the Dead, and a clear indicator of quality of whats to follow.

It's easy to see why Stone is such a highly regarded cult classic. Every biker gang movie likes to think it's captured something of the attitude and spirit that bikers are infamous for the world over, but none come even close to the blood, sweat and engine oil that drips off Stone in the bucket load. The sole purpose of Stone is to capture the essence of what it means to live the modern outlaw life, and there isn't a single movie that is half as convincing in it's portrayal of bikers as this is. It's so invested in taking the time to explain and justify the perspective and culture of The grave Diggers that the story is strictly a secondary concern. A thinly plotted b-movie through and through, the story is a mechanism for putting the gang's code into action with Stone, an outsider character designed to demonstrate the biker gang code to us, the audience. It succeeds despite lacking any sense of documentary realism or artsy ambitions of high-drama, because in terms of the ideals, beliefs and lifestyle of the gang, it's totally sincere. No matter how absurd the scenario or how questionable the acting can be, it's easy to looked straight past it to the heart of the movie and know that it's as real as it comes.

8/10

-Jack McFarlane

Red State Teaser - Kevin Smith puts the fear of the godly into you

2010-12-28T16:42:00.000-05:00

In case you didn't know, the rest of the world thinks you're kinda scary and weird, America. As a recent immigrant to the USA, I can say with certainty that the Evangelical Christian movement is what defines the worst of America for the rest of the world. With it's anti-intellectualism, self-righteous jingoism, and knee-jerk militarism, is taints America as being nonsensical and totally fucking terrifying.

Modern Republican America is so wrapped up in the matters of the celestial plain and their afterlife within it, that it's remains openly callous and apathetic towards the real issues of corporeal reality. Many are so divorced from reality that they actually seem gleefully impatient for the end of days they believe to be looming on the horizon and would be happy to contribute to speeding its arrival.

As an outsider I had prepared myself for the worst when moving here. I well aware was never going to convince one of these people to stay their desire to speed the on set of the end of the world, fanaticism isn't cured in polite, rational conversation. But neither was I about to lie about my own beliefs and my view point on fundamentalist Christianity. As expected, I have indeed had many conversations of this kind since arriving here, though I have been surprised and relieved to discover that my sentiments of this group and its mentality are held by what seems to be an encouragingly sizable number of American's, including many Christians.

It's, Kevin Smith, not Mel Gibson, who deserves to be the poster boy for Hollywood Catholicism. He's candid about his religion without dragging it and himself through the mud every time he opens his month. The trailer for his latest film, Red State, has just been released and it's set to be a drastic break from the dick-and-fart-joke comedys that have built and maintained his large and loyal fanbase. I'd heard it was being made and had expected something that satirized ultra conservative right-wing Christianity, but that is not what we are dealing with here. This isn't a drama or some kind of serious analysis of the issues at heart. Or rather, it doesn't appear to be. It's hard to discern much from the teaser other than flashes of violence and a very creepy atmosphere, so it's safe to say that we are dealing with a horror movie here. Red State will be an Evangelical-Exploitation movie. A subject that has been featured less directly in other horror movies before now, Red State looks to be tackling it head on, exploiting all the most disturbing elements of fundamentalism.

This movie will cause a shit storm when released. The fundamentalist lobbies will spew moral outrage as they play on the victim mentality that their ill-justified persecution complex is so adept at, while the fact that it has been made by a Catholic will bring out all the dirty little prejudices. To be fair, this is hardly an attempt at bipartisan relations and will be unlikely to helpful in building a realistic understanding of this element of American society. Red State seems like it's meant to be a caricature of the evangelical mentality and the dangers it presents to America. I doubt it will be informative in the same way that documentaries like Jesus Camp or Hell House are, but at the very least it will confront these issues in a genre that will reach the masses.

- Jack McFarlane

Well polished but vacuous: Jack's take on TRON:LEGACY

2010-12-23T14:53:00.001-05:00

It's easy to see why the original Tron has such a big cult following. The first of it's kind, it amassed a large and avid fanbase with a genuinely unique visual style and by capturing William Gibson's 'cyberspace' zeitgeist. I'm a child of the 80s and I'm well acquainted with it, but I've never been into it. I couldn't have been more than three or four when I first saw it on rented VHS, and all I remember was that it looked funny and that it was boring. Rewatching it only a few years ago my opinion hasn't changed much. It's a dull, dated and juvenile tech-xplotation movie whose best ideas done bigger and better several times since. That didn't stop me getting excited about the sequel, though.

The advertising campaign for Tron:Legacy has been fantastically put together. I went weak at the knees with each new image and clip of the up dated visual style, mouth watering special effects, and snippets of Daft Pank score. I paid to see this movie in 3D on the strength of this but with the full knowledge that it would be a matter of style over substance.

Like the 1982 original, the majority of Tron:Legacy takes place inside a computer environment called the grid. A young computer genius, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), has stumbled into while trying to find his long lost father, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). The programs that occupy the grid are anthropomorphized manifestations. Humans for all intensive purposes, complete with all the foibles and ideals that drive people and make them so compelling. With nothing within the narrative to justify why they exist as a physical manifestation, there isn't much that makes sense about this digital alter-universe. But this shouldn't be dwelt upon, as to do so would be to ruin a beautifully realized visual and aural experience. What this movie lacks in solid plotting and original storytelling it makes an earnest attempt to up for as a fantastical cinematic experience.

Tron:Legacy is a generic fantasy movie dressed in sci-fi garb, but what a beautiful garb. As a story it's on a par with, if slightly less derivative than, Avatar. You've seen it before in multiple guises, and you will see it again many, many more. And it's far from the worst permutation you'll ever see, either. Though a lot of the plotting details are a little fuddled, it has a solid three-act structure and clear, largely believable archetypal character motivations. I've paid for and sat through far worse for the sake of nostalgia or eye candy (Indianan Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull, Star Wars prequels, Transformers, et al), so it isn't exactly painful, just boring. The dialogue is flat and suffers from a sense of grandeur that the content can't prop up. One liners fall flat on their face and kiss-offs go by without a flicker of emotion from the audience. The action sequences should have been the biggest showcase of this movie, and although they are well executed to allow clear understanding of complex, counter-intuitive environments, they are nonetheless very dull. It tries hard to push the envelope on the pomp of the scenario it has created but falls short in lacking any sense genuine drama or peril. I had thought that perhaps I was asking to much of a Disney movie on these issues, but the Pirates of the Caribbean movies all manage to whip up a sense of danger no matter how bad they got. So why not this movie?

Ultimately, though, none of this matters. It's not the plot that will keep you glued to Tron:Legacy, it's the style of this movie. Working in an extremely high definition black and white pallet, punctuated with streaks of orange and subtle hews of blue, it boasts what is undoubtedly the sleekest design scheme I've seen all year. Architecture, vehicles, costume design, and landscapes are all superbly designed, lit and photographed, creating a cohesive, hermetically sealed universe. Tweaking the original Tron's minimalist visual style with the clean lines and smooth surfaces of 60s modernism, Tron:Legacy is a jewel of retrofuturism. The only flaw in this stone is Clu, the computer program copy of Kevin Flynn and the villian of the movie.

Whereas as Flynn has aged while being stuck in the grid for close to thirty years, Clu has remained as youthful as the day the when a young Flynn first created him. Clu is the first CG character to be based entirely on a real person, the young Jeff Daniels. It's this lack of any non-human attributes and a dependency on reproducing the visually familiar that causes it to fail. Credit were credit is due, there are a few shots here where Clu is flawless. In mid-shot, bathed in orange light or down lit, you could swear that this was the young Jeff Bridges. But for every one of these shots there are three where the uncanny valley is in full-effect. The close-ups and naturally lit scenes are especially creepy. It's something in and around the eyes that betrays it. There's an emptyness and stillness to the gaze and a lack muscle movement in his synthetic, textureless flesh. Instantly taking you out of the moment, it's a hard lesson that no matter how good our technology is, we've a long way to go before we can create the perfect human reproduction.

Besides fans of the original and CGI whores such as myself, there was another substantially large group of people eager to see Tron:Legacy. Daft Punk have a fanatical worldwide following. Their involvement with the project created a lot of buzz to become what was easily the most anticipated soundtracks of the year, but early soundtrack reviews seemed largely underwhelmed by their contribution. Taking their score in the context of the film it was conceived for, I'm sad to say that these reviews seem to be right. There are a few standout moments where they marry electronic and orchestral elements successfully to match the mood of the movie, but for the most part the best tracks are those with a diagetic basis. That is to say the bast tracks are the straightup dance tracks that Daft Punk would have created outside of a soundtrack environment. The rest is a little flat and at worst is merely functional. The unique textures that electronic instrumentation allow for and that would have been so appropriate for the context of Tron:Legacy, feel wastefully underused, leaving the largely orchestral tracks feeling bland. It could have done with some more Vangelis synths and less so-so strings arrangements.

Despite my many problems, this is a perfectly watchable if unremarkable mainstream family action movie. It doesn't do anything original with in it's story but it does uses every minute of screen time to try and give you the popcorn cinema experience. It's one of the prettiest films I've seen in a while, but ultimately it's just too shallow and by the numbers to recommend as anything other than a minor distraction. If you're heading out to the cinema this Christmans and are looking to see something entertaining and visually engaging, Tron:Legacy in 3D is the best ticket out there.

6/10

-Jack McFarlane

Just A Film Girl - Dalin's Take on TRON:LEGACY

2010-12-22T20:01:00.009-05:00

Back when I was only of a small single digit number, I was shown the original film Tron. Granted, I was young and discovered my early roots in what might be called "nerd-cult" films, but Tron was always a favorite of mine. Tron taught me about on my true wonder of the world of technology and computers, and also ignited the flame for my love of Jeff Bridges (if it hadn't been already tempted with The Last Unicorn, in which Bridges played Prince Lir.) But sadly, also at this same age I wanted more from Tron, but since it was made in 1982 (and I was born in 1990, yes I am old!), there was nothing new of the sort for myself! Then came Comic Con 2009, which debuted a teaser for Tron:Legacy, and those my inner nerd was hyped.

Unlike my co-writer Jack, if you can't already notice, you'll be reading a mostly positive review of this movie. Yes, many will find this a rare find in the sea of reviews for TRON:LEGACY, but I'm going to break it down as easily as I can so maybe, all you non-believers, can understand why I enjoyed this movie.

First off, it's best to understand a very misunderstood point to the entire Tron series in general, it's important to see that the story lightly borrows from a similar idea of The Wizard of Oz, that all of the things that happen in the real world and the "The Grid" contour act each other in a ying and yang style. This plays later on in the new movie, but is definitely more a key element in the original. I find it interesting how many people pass over this aspect, and almost completely ignore it. Though others might find it boring and tradition, I actually find it refreshing in some aspects.

But I guess for those who don't know, here is the general story: Kevin Flynn, genius programmer and money making marvel, has disappeared during the childhood of his son, Sam Flynn. Sam grows up to be a rebel player in the saga of his father's company, who is now lead by the son of the original villain, played by an excellent cameo from Cillian Murphy. After hearing a message from Alan (a.k.a Tron himself), Sam must now travel into the world of The Grid and save Kevin from his alter-techno-ego, Clu.

Let me get this out of the way as easily as I can without breaking your mind and exploding in rage: I really loved this movie. The 15 years that I have been waiting for a sequel to a landmark movie of my childhood has definitely lived up to my expectations in most of the ways! All right, my nerd can actually go forth and write this review.

I find that most of the complaints about this movie rely on the story and acting be "awful" or "boring" and all the praise relying in the special effects. Though maybe it's because I born in the two decades that to me defined camp and cheese, but this is the sort of acting that I am used to. Maybe people who hadn't seen the original or hated the original were expecting more because it was a) Disney or b) Oscar Winning Jeff Bridges, but I knew what I was in for. A fun ride of things that had nothing to do with the praise of "craft" I learned in school. If you were expecting something incredible in the regards of those things, here's a copy of 2001, Kubrick has popcorn waiting for you at the door. For those who said the original had great acting and a less boring story? Please. Neither story was any better then the other, they were on the same page of somewhat fun yet campy ideas.

Yet there were things that this lacked from it's source material. First, it's important to note that many things towards the ending get resolved way too fast and without too much conflict. Certain events that happened in the beginning aren't exactly connected at the end, yet I have my theories that in a spoiler review I could speak of, but that's just tasteless. There are also many interesting aspects to the plot that are brought up and not talked much about (yet, I have an idea they'll be explored more in the up and coming television series or we can hope!)

My most major complaint though was in the lack of the reason why we were sitting in the theater, the name of the movie itself, Tron. Tron, who is the alter-ego character of Alan and the hero of the original film, is in little to nowhere in the film. We find out through a series of events of what has become of the character, and except for a brief moment towards the end, there isn't much. Yet, if you are smart enough, you'll see what I mean by the 'Wizard of Oz" style out come in results of the events of Tron in the end. That aside, I wasn't let down at all.

I'll quickly summarize the best things about this in the nutshell:

1) Tony Blair himself Michael Sheen makes a great bit part in the middle act, where he (and an epic cameo by non-other then the composers themselves Daft Punk.) dances and shoots his fantastic "Cane-Gun" into one of the best edited action sequences I've seen in recent years.

2) Speaking of which, Daft Punk delivered one of the most unique scores I've heard in a long time. Though many find it lacking in the epic scope that had hoped (and granted, not every piece was great), I found it to actually be very moving and beautifully mixed (this also includes the sound design!). Maybe it's because of my past ex-boyfriends extreme fandom and my over-exposure of Daft Punk from them, but I was extremely impressed to hear actual music come from a band known for a 3-word chorus ripped by Kanye West. (Hey, for the non-fans, it's true and you know it!)

3) Oliva Wilde needs to be in more films. I truly love her on screen and you can tell the camera loves her too. She's beautiful photographed in every shot and steals the movie in my honest opinion. This says a lot, since in the original, we can just say women weren't the target audience.

4) The visuals are, as all have said, fantastic. Though I found the 3D underwhelming (and props to the filmmakers for letting the cat out of the bag about the 2D shots, that are SPOILER ALERT: in 95% of 3D movies), the effects and as mentioned, sound design are really incredible. Many may compare it to many other groundbreaking sci-fi films of it's similarity, but the whole Tron stands on its own for this simple fact: It's simplicity. It takes what could be completely complicated ideas, into simply put lines of blue and black that stand out more then any Native American Smurf I know! Yes, Cameron I'm talking to you!

So, I was extremely pleased by TRON:Legacy. It was exactly what it was and should be: A fun, simple, not too crazy sci-fi action film that never takes it self too far ahead and just hits the right amount of camp for all to enjoy. In my honest opinion, if you've gotten too wrapped up in thinking it's taking itself seriously, then you've obviously missed the punchline of the joke that I've been getting on for far too long. So, fancy yourself a ride on the light-cycle? Just be ready, it's only for those that know what they're in for.

Rating: 8/10

- Dalin Rowell

Exam

2010-12-16T19:06:00.000-05:00

If you've ever written a script with the full intention of filming it, you will have come up against the often aggravating problem of writing within your budget and resources. Amateur film makers can have as many great ideas as they like, but unless you've got a studio budget or some serious special effects skills, you'd best avoid big action sequences or lavish locations. I have a lot of admiration for a writer that can show the personal restraint to hold back on elements of narrative that they know they cannot incorporate at the production level, while still crafting a movie that doesn't feel limited or cheap.

The most effective way of working inside even the most limited of means is by stripping back narrative elements so as that the finished work is limited to a character driven narrative taking place in as few a locations as possible. It's a common feature for a first time filmmaker to use, and by degrees Reservoir Dogs, Moon and Clerks all follow this technique. Taken to an extreme this can mean that entire movie will take place in a single location. In the case of Exam, it takes place entirely in a single room.

It's to the credit of writer/director Stuart Hazeldine that Exam manages to succeed in engaging it's audience despite it's potentially sterile setting. Taking place entirely in a windowless room characterized solely by CCTV cameras and a one way mirror, eight job applicants enter and are told by an invigilator that they must complete their task in eighty minutes. The rules are that if they attempt to communicate with the armed guard, ruin their papers accidentally or intentionally, or leave the room for any reason they will be disqualified. The invigilator leaves and the papers are turned over to reveal that they are blank. The clock steadily approaches zero as they attempt to crack the puzzle presented to them. With a high ranking position in a shadowy company on the line, tensions flare and measures become increasingly desperate as peoples motivations for applying the job are revealed.

Approaching this film with no information other than the high-concept synopsis, similarities to Cube and Saw seemed obvious. After it seeing I think I should take the time to dispel the most obvious conclusion that may drawn from these comparisons, no matter how favorable they appear. It must be stressed that this is not a horror movie. There's no sense of entrapment or malevolent manipulation to their scenario. These people aren't being held against their will, they are here of their own volition, and some are willing to go to extreme lengths to stay. Each candidate has a sense of desperation about them and it quickly becomes evident that this post means a lot more than a job. Their scenario does hold the potential to be dangerous, but this is latent rather than overtly manifest. Using suspense and intrigue over shock tactics and gore, Exam is a psychological thriller in the tradition of Hitchcock's single locations movies such as Life Boat.

The most intriguing element of Exam is it's sci-fi setting. The totalitarian look and feel of the exam room hints at something hi-tech, but not necessarily futuristic. Visually, there's nothing within the film to signal a clear difference between it's reality and ours. The situation may feel odd but you wouldn't know for certain it was set in the future at all until conversation about the outside world starts. The only thing that directly informs you that the film takes place in the future is that the word 'Soon', which fades up as white on a black screen before cutting to the candidates entering the room. I loved this touch. The vagueness of the period being dealt with, the unknown degree by which things have changed. It immediately made me begin to speculate as to what had happened to justify informing me of this fact, and to read into the situation the candidates were within a sense of trepidation. The rest of the film is as carefully plotted, using the natural situational and character development to slowly reveal the issues that separate this otherwise indistinguishable reality from our own.

Exam could have easily slide into trite, stodgy expositional dialogue. It's so restrictive in it's potential plotting that it's to the credit of Hazeldine's sense stagecraft and drama that it manages to work so well. This script works exceptionally well within it's limitations and never falls into this trap. It isn't perfect, there are definite lulls and a few of the performances are a little contrived and hammy, but on the whole the film is very well put together. Hazeldine has been climbing the ranks as a writer for a while now, and his skills have been well demonstrated here. His directorial debut, Exam could be the start of successful multidisciplinary career. It's certainly a highly accomplished feature in terms of pacing and atmosphere and I'm eager to see what else he's capable of.

7/10

-Jack McFarlane

The gorgeous trailer for Malicks 'Tree of Life'

2010-12-15T22:16:00.004-05:00

A man who will be remembered for the same kind of lofty achievements as Kubrick and Lean, Terrance Malick is one of the last cinema auteurs. Able to make films entirely on his own terms, he holds a level of creative control over his productions that are unheard of for any other modern filmmaker. Almost five years in the making, and only the ~~seventh~~ fifth film he has directed in a career spanning over four decades, Tree of Life is due sometime 2011.

We've been waiting patiently for anything from the movie for years now, so this trailer comes as a massive relief and a wonderful enticement. Exactly what's going on in this trailer, or the film, I'm not sure. Publicly, the film has had a very loose concept concerning a father and son relationship and the loss of childhood innocence since it was first announced. Privately, I'm sure there's something much deeper, meditative and spiritual to the whole thing that Malick is working through as he edits it down. We won't know what we're dealing with until it premiers, which will hopefully be at Cannes this year. What we have in the meantime is a trailer that assures us that at the very least we are set to see some of the most beautifully filmed images in the last ten years.

You could take any single still from this trailer and frame it. Though no matter how remarkable and beautiful these images are, any preoccupation with visual style seems almost superficial in comparison to the passion and care that Malick takes to render the thematic content at the core of his work. Hinting at the metaphysical representations and allusions of nature he is synonymous with, the trailer gives a glimpse at a huge visual and conceptual scale that would seem to dwarf the rather hum-drum drama laid out in the synopsis. As everyone well knew before seeing a single image of Tree of Life, there's more to this than meets the eye. Everything he touches on has implications wider than it's immediate depiction. There's no such thing as a small story for Malick, he just doesn't seem to think that way. We may not know exactly what we're about to get from him, but we do know that whatever it is will be in the epic, poetic style that his fans have come to love.

One last thing has to be said. The snatches of Alexandre Desplat's absolutely soaring score sounds as if it will be the soundtrack worthy of the visuals. This could perhaps finally grant him the recognition he deserves as the one of the finest movie composers working today.

Malick is a man with an impeccable eye and is nothing but meticulous, and that's why we love him so much. Films of this type and artistry come round rarely. You are right to be very, very excited.

-Jack McFarlane

The Walking Dead - Series Review

2010-12-13T14:10:00.001-05:00

As I've been open about in my review of the season premier, I had very high hopes for The Walking Dead. It's sixth and final episode of the first season just aired and although I can say I enjoyed it over-all, I have to admit that I feel more a little let down. This isn't a massive surprise. I had hyped this show to the point that it was bound to pale in comparison to my expectations. Still, even after I sobered myself enough to lower my expectations, I can't say I was really impressed. This isn't a bad show, but neither is it particularly good one. At best it was functional.

There's a lot to criticize here. Everything started well as the first two episodes effectively and economically introduced you to the foreboding world that these characters have been thrown into and forced to navigate. Unfortunately, quickly after that it succumbed to cheesy weekday melodrama dialogue and lost the sense of threat and barely suppressed trauma that should be looming over every moment. I've talked before about television being the right medium for this adaption, about how The Walking Dead is a depiction extended beyond the limits time constraints of the feature film. That said, The Walking Dead the television show lost its steam after only two episodes, or around the running time of the average feature film.

After these first episodes, the remaining narrative is freer of the larger action set pieces that previously defined the show. The focus from this point should have been stirring up drama, establishing moral dilemmas, and setting up the slow descent into a life of forced survivalism. Instead, the series just gets increasingly distracted from the core of the story as it meanders through side quests that introduce new secondary characters rather than develop the relation between existing ones. The potential to dig deep into character psychology and watch them be eroded by their environment has been pushed to one side. It seems the extreme desperation and peril that clings to every frame of the graphic novels was simply too much for television to handle after all.

As I've written elsewhere, the changes made to the work while adapting it from graphic novel and screen where at times clever and appropriate the ebb and flow of televisions episodic narrative arc. Though, as the series progresses and liberties are taken more regularly, the changes are frequently inferior and at times seemingly unnecessary. The alterations to adapted characters and the creation of new ones are the worst offenders here. First impression of this expanded cast was a need to fill a body count quota. With so many cursory new characters, most are woefully underdeveloped. With the worst as no more than crassly portrayed stereotypes in either the righteous good guys mold or the repugnant the bad guy mold, the zombie fodder is all too easily picked out ahead of time. Developed from a series with the tagline "No one is safe", this seems a major flaw.

The absolute essence of the graphic novels, the feature that makes it great and so worthy of adaptation, is that it each new character is introduced from nowhere, is slowly and carefully developed, and can then be mercilessly killed off regardless of how long they've been in the series or what type of character they are. It's comparable to Lost in this respect, except without the red Star Trek shirt feeling whenever a new character appears on-screen. This doesn't happen once during in the television adaption. Lacking all sense of anticipative dread, it just runs through tired set pieces like running away from an exploding building. With shows as dark and ominous as Dexter and Breaking Bad so popular, I'm certain the public could have taken the full brunt of what The Walking Dead had to offer.

There's a myriad of other complaints, from some questionable casting to its characterless and drab visual style, but for the most part these are tolerable in the wider scale of things. Beyond the flat characterization, the biggest exception to this is the digital effects. I was quick to defend the quality of these on my first viewing but I'm going to have to swallow my pride and admit that they are very shaky. The old school gore is still of a very high standard but in complete honesty I've seen digital gun wounds shots done better on amateur youtube footage.

Granted a second season before the first even premiered, and finding a large audience upon airing, I still hold hope that the bar can be raised. The narrative so far is widely variant from, and on the whole inferior to the source material. It may have squandered the opportunity to portray some amazing scenes and character traits, but it hasn't eliminated the chance to use them later. One thing I'm very confident of is that their numbers won't hold for long unless they can provide a standard closer to that of the source material.

6/10

-Jack McFarlane

Black Swan Music Video

2010-11-28T08:52:00.003-05:00

Words cannot truly describe how excited I am for Darren Aronosfky's Black Swan. Recently released was a music video for the film, which also advertises the soundtrack, which seems equally as amazing as the movie itself will most likely be.

Black Swan tells the story of Nina (Natalie Portman), a young ballerina that is about to be chosen to play the lead in Swan Lake. But the role requires one to play both the White Swan, full of innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, full of bitterness and rebellion. Nina seems to be only capable of playing the White Swan, until she meets a new rival ballerina (Mila Kunis), who shakes Nina's world to the core.

Below is the music video and the trailer.

Black Swan will be given a limited release on this upcoming Friday, December 3rd.

-Dalin Rowell

Toy Story 3 .... Oscar or Not?

2010-11-28T08:24:00.003-05:00

Though this is never a movie I thought would come up as a subject on TFLPS, but I thought this is definitely something to speak about. Toy Story, for us 90's kids at least, is a milestone in cinematic history. It's the first full length CGI animated film ever made, all of it's films in the series have had major success (in sales, merchandise and theme park devoted areas and rides), but the most important? It's third installment is the highest grossing animated film of all time. But what is next on the horizon for Disney? What goal are they reaching? The Best Picture Oscar for Toy Story 3.

But could it win it? Not really, to be honest. First of all, it's the third installment in a franchise (Yes, please excuse Lord of the Rings when reading this) but usually this isn't something the academy is looking for when picking their film of the year. They want a film that stands on it's own feet, one that'll be remembered for years to come and celebrated for it's magic in the art of filmmaking. Toy Story, though to me so far the best film of the year and definitely the summer, doesn't really seem to be able to fit the check marks of an Oscar win, outside of it's animation category. We still have Black Swan and True Grit (which I can assure you will be my picks for this year, based on advertising alone) to fill those goals and succeed.

So even with all it's campaigns to be excepted for this year, Toy Story has a long way to go before it gets the little gold man. Because if you look at it's past cartoon flicks that have been nominated, they weren't sequels.

So, do you think Toy Story could win the Oscar - or do you have another in mind?

(Original link)

-Dalin Rowell

Neil Blomkamp's new mysterious viral video

2010-11-24T13:16:00.000-05:00

The rumor mill has been on high yield mode since Blomkamp's District 9 went super nova last year. The most reliable sources seem to be pointing towards another modestly budgeted sci-fi movie called Elysium. As with District 9, Elysium is being developed secretively and away from the interfering hands of the Hollywood studios. Whether or not this viral video is related to this developing feature film or not, it's certainly enticing and is bound to stir up more all manner of hypotheses as to what the hell is going on in this clip.

Truth of the matter is that this title-less video seems less likely to be a look into any of Blomkamp's current projects as many would hope. The video was released on the iPad version of Wired Magazine, and much of the information within the brief clips makes cryptic references to the magazine and a new project. The mysterious mutated animal corpse in the video is stamped "18.12 AGM Heartland Pat Pend USA." With the video appearing in issue '18.12' of the magazine, there's bound to be some speculation about how much Wired are involved in the project. Something far more substantial was brought to light by someone with some sleuthing skills, who tracked down "AGM Heartland" as having been trademarked by Sable Productions Ltd, labeled as: "entertainment services by way of an online website with video, audio and textual content and images featuring characters and storylines about a fictional genetic engineering company that produces genetically engineered and altered organisms."

Blomkamp is well versed in power and effectiveness of sci-fi themed viral videos. It's what brought him to prominence and it appears that he may be returning to something similar for future projects. This is of course pure conjecture. I have no idea how much involvement he has with what ever this project turns out to be, but I'm interested in the concept as it appears to be panning out. I'd happily welcome more Blomkamp orientated sci-fi into my life.

-Jack McFarlane

Treaser Trailer for 'Beyond the Black Rainbow'

2010-11-22T23:02:00.001-05:00

I'm really enjoying the new wave of Sci-fi movies that are coming out right now, especially those from outside the studio system. With good filmmaking equipment and digital effects becoming ever more accessible, there's been a slowly building momentum of low budget movies with big imaginations coming to the publics attention. With the recent release of a teaser trailer, Beyond the Black Rainbow is the latest to turn heads and drop jaws.

I can find next to no information on it or it's writer director Panos Cosmatos, so I can't be sure if my excitement over this trailer is fully justified, but it's certainly palpable. I don't know if he has what it takes to make a good movie, but he can sure as hell cut a trailer.

A dark, trippy montage of 70s futurism, it's a beautiful piece of work. It's extremely stylish, reminiscent of both Kubrick's Sci-fi work and Lynch's cryptic, logical irreverences. It's very sparse on thematic material but thankfully a full synopsis has also been released.

"Set in the strange and oppressive emotional landscape of 1983, Beyond The Black Rainbow is a Reagan-era fever dream inspired by hazy childhood memories of midnight movies and Saturday morning cartoons.

Deep within the mysterious Arboria Institute, a disturbed and beautiful girl (Allan) is held captive by a doctor in search of inner peace. Her mind controlled by a sinister technology. Silently, she waits for her next session with deranged therapist Dr. Barry Nyle (Rogers). If she hopes to escape, she must journey through the darkest reaches of The Institute... but Nyle wonʼt easily part with his most gifted and dangerous creation."

With fat analogue synth music, dystopian overtones, and stunning cinematography, Beyond the Black Rainbow is sizing up to be a very interesting piece of work.

-Jack McFarlane

The Walking Dead Premiere

2010-11-10T12:00:00.001-05:00

I'm fairly new to comics and graphic novels. I didn't have any access to them as a kid and I haven't read any of the iconic works of the medium. That doesn't mean I'm not interested, though. I spent some time last year researching a good place to start, and besides all the names I'd become familiar with through film adaptions, the one title that constantly reappeared was The Walking Dead.

I've been a zombie fanatic since I first saw Night of the Living Dead when I was nine and I was really happy about the revival that started around 28 Days Later. The Walking Dead was released only months after this and has been said to be equally deserving of the credit in kick-starting this revival. And after only a few issues I could do nothing but agree. (As a brief aside: claims that The Walking Dead ripped off 28 Days Later are bunk. Both see their protagonist wake from a coma to find themselves abandoned in a fallen civilization filled with the undead. 28 Days Later was released first, true, but The Walking Dead was scripted before its creators had seen the movie. One doesn't rip-off the other, rather both very blatantly ripped-off Day of the Triffids, where this narrative device originates.) With zombies of the shuffling Romero variety, a continuous narrative arc across its monthly output and seven year run, and a ruthlessly unsentimental approach to character survival, The Walking Dead is one of the best (possibly even the best) additions to the zombie genre, regardless of medium. So when the news came last year that it was being adapted for television by the original team behind the comics and none other than Frank Darabont, I was cautiously ecstatic.

Simon Pegg wrote an afterword for 'Miles Behind Us', the second collected edition of the The Walking Dead comics, where he said something to the effect of 'the worst part of a zombie movie is when it ends'. Those characters that survive until the credits roll inherit a world with so many problems and dangers that the ordeal you've just watched them endure is unlikely to be the worst of their life. Without the restriction of a running time or budget, The Walking Dead delivers as a comic what the movies never could - a blow-by-blow account of an on-going existence after the zombie apocalypse. As much as I love seeing zombies gnaw their way across the big screen, it's the small screen that has the potential to give us this same detailed, serialized account of the people who struggle to live in this world day by day. In fact, The Walking Dead is tailor made for a television adaption. If the show delivers only half of the drama and character development of its source material, it'll still be one of the best things on television.

With only two of the criminally brief six episode run aired so far, I can't say for sure if the television show will be as significant as the comics, but it's looking good. To date, it's done the smart thing by following the narrative themes of the comics that work so well and recreating many of the most celebrated panels, but without a misplaced, slavish loyalty to the source material. The creators of The Walking Dead are clear-headed enough to selectively add, remove or otherwise alter elements. Some of these changes may well be motivated by purely logistical or budgetary constraints, but it's so well produced that this isn't evident in the final product. The end result of these alterations is that they generally prioritize the needs of television, providing greater depth and complexity to character dynamics, while giving episodes a structure better suited to the medium.

The biggest question for most will be just how far can a cable television show go in giving you all the details inherent to the zombie genre? When it was announced that AMC had picked up the show rather than HBO, fans threw up their arms in protest over what they felt sure would mean unacceptable compromises to the work. Zombies eat people alive and people must kill zombies by destroying their brain. Ripping live human flesh from the bone and smashing open skulls aren't the kind of things that can be shown on television unless violence is portrayed unflinchingly, and even then it cannot be done well unless money is spent on it. These are the same censorship and budgetary concerns that must have stopped all other zombie television shows in their tracks. Dead Set, the British mini-series from a few years back, is the only other example of a zombie television show I know of. Despite the prudish stereotypes, the British policy towards sex, violence, and swearing on television is far more liberal than the that of the puritanical American broadcast system. With a decent budget, Dead Set delivered on all of the essentials elements. But just how far was AMC willing to go on a vastly bigger, bolder and bloodier project like the The Walking Dead?

The premiere opens with a scene that never appeared in the comics. Rick Grimes, the central character for the series, wonders among abandoned cars looking for gasoline in his Sheriff's uniform. Spotting a blond girl in a nightdress he tries to talk to her, calm her before she turns to reveal her partially devoured face. A girl shot in the head by a police officer with a 44-magnum in the opening scene of a cable television show sends a very clear message - this is a world where the rules no longer apply. The level of detail in the graphic violence, the moral juxtaposition between the sheriff's outfit and his actions, and the sense of lost innocence in the victim is all the more shocking for taking place on television rather than film.

This scene sets the tone for the episode and indeed for the entire series. Zombies are bludgeoned to death or shot in the head scene-by-scene, as is necessary for the narrative. The show also displays the appropriate sense of scale. Masses of extras fill the ranks of undead as they roam elaborate sets littered with the debris of a fallen society. Through a mixture of set design and After Effects, it has the genuinely detailed sense of scale required to depict the extent that the world has crumbled. Although highly convincing digital effects work of this kind gets easier and cheaper every year, the show does not skimp on the elbow deep prosthetic gore that the genre is so famed for. The zombie that Grimes takes pity on would make Rob Bottin proud. It's the most convincing piece of hands-on special effects I've seen since the genre's 80's heyday.

Although fears that being picked up by AMC would censor the necessary violence or reduce the scale of the narrative have so far proved false, there is still the question of swearing. Based on what I've seen so far the series doesn't seem limited by this fact. Yes, of course, there are a lot expletives in the comic and they don't seem excessive or out of place there, but the show doesn't suffer terribly from missing them. In fact, the dialogue is far more expansive and artfully written than was possible in the comics. It would have been nice to have had expletives as part of the verbal pallet, but it's ultimately a petty complaint for characters who are otherwise so fully developed and believably portrayed. Skilled filmmakers and actors don't fail in their craft just because they can't say 'fuck'.

I thought I'd hyped this show for myself to the point that it was bound to disappoint my expectations. Thankfully, it met them on many counts and we are blessed enough to have something that would have been thought impossible until it actually happened - a zombie television show that merits comparison with the best the genre has to offer in any medium. So far it's been faithful to the content and spirit of the source material and the second season has already been commissioned. So, knowing what I know about what is coming for these characters, no matter how game changing this first season is, this is only the tip of the iceberg.

8/10

- Jack McFarlane

Zac Efron in Akira....... Let's Hope Not.

2010-11-06T20:57:00.005-04:00

As someone that grew up in the golden age of Anime, this is pretty sad and disturbing news. Granted, I would have given Zac Efron a chance, if I hadn't seen Charlie St.Cloud (Which I consider to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my entire life.) Efron isn't really a bad actor, yet I can't imagine someone with his good boy charms filling such a role as the main character in Akira.

If you don't know anything about this immortal series, let's just say it's hard to really explain it in a short sentence. All I can say is that it involves futuristic bikes, guts, angst and cool red jackets - to put easily. Again though, unless they have Efron's head (which I wouldn't mind at all), He just will be too much of a lamb in something that really needs a wolf to lead it. Though it does bring up, who would you cast in the roles for Akira? The only person I could think of to even be included in this movie is probably Kieran Culkin or someone of that nature. The actor needs to have the right amount of awkward angst, but strong enough to terrify in a sense. And if you say Michael Cera, I will punch you in the face.

God rest the glory days of anime, and here's to them finding better casting. Interested to getting into Akira? Here's the trailer for the original animated film.

-Dalin Rowell

The Social Network

2010-10-30T21:51:00.000-04:00

I remember when I first heard that a Facebook movie was in the works, I don't think it was long after/before I heard about a Monopoly movie being optioned. The thought of each left me feeling despondent over the Hollywood adaption process. Just what the hell were they thinking? Nobody wants to see a movie about a board game or an internet site! I dreaded to think just how they'd handle the Monopoly adaption, though I felt certain it would be completely over blown and utterly moronic. As for the Facebook movie, I felt equally certain that it would be unbearably, sole crushingly, suicidally dull.

Sci-fi and horror can occasionally accommodate computers and computer programming as a means to an end, but besides that, in terms of both visuals and concept, they are incredibly uncinematic. Yet despite this film after film thinks it has what it takes to use them as pseudo-action sequences. Just think of all those crappy montage sequences filled with binary, close ups of typing and on-screen text that you've yawned or cringed your way through. Hell, Swordfish had to throw in a blow job to make it interesting. Any movie forced to feature a computer sequence as a narrative element will generally suffer as a result of doing so and those that center their narrative around hackers, programmers or the internet are simply doomed (Hackers, Takedown, The Net, The Net 2.0, Antitrust, Untraceable, et al). Like everyone else I sat up and took notice when I heard that David Fincher was directing an that Aaron Sorkin script, but I still wasn't entirely sold. Based on past experience, I could perhaps have been forgiven for my gut feeling that The Social Network was still going to be garbage; but, boy, was I wrong.

The Social Network deals with all the elements of this form of technology that sunk a dozen films before it and in the process makes them all seem incompetent for failing to understand and deal with these elements in the right way. Simply put, this film understands the power and reality of the internet like no other before it. A perfect demonstration of this is an early scene of Zuckerberg hacking his university's computer system while real time blogging the whole event on Livejournal. It features all the elements of computing that I've just bashed as inherently cinematic, only organized and presented in such away as to make the whole process not only exciting and interesting, but also to function as an essential piece of character and plot development.

Unlike its predecessors, The Social Network is grounded in what computers are and how they are used. There's no flights of fancy, no one's life depends on Zuckerberg getting past a series of fire walls, there are no shadowy figures beating down his door or counter hacking his systems in an attempt to try to stop him leaking a secret document to the world. Zuckerberg is hacking the systems for far more juvenile and mundane reasons - to get a picture of every female student on campus for Facemash, a page that lets users vote on who is more attractive.

He's just been dumped by his girlfriend, he's drunk and he's pissy at the world. The scene is narrated with Zuckerbergs blogging, a rapid fire mix of techno babble and hormonal character smears of his freshly single ex. As his page goes viral the cutting picks up to a kinetic pace with real time reactions to his blog and Facemash by the general public and those it features. The damage he causes to people's lives through the internet in only a few small minutes is abundantly devastating, creating a sense of tension and drama while also highlighting his Asperger's type behavior and his very obvious talent and understanding of how the internet can best be exploited. Quickly and clearly establishing the major themes and relationships without once succumbing to a cliche or a bum-note, this scene speaks volumes for the quality of work on display.

Between them, Sorkin and Fincher have created a film that captures the zeitgeist of our digital culture and its real world implications. It makes a series of insightful observations about Facebook and other trappings of our generation's online existence without ever treating them as gimmicks or loosing sight of the fact that they are not fanciful or autonomous narrative elements. They are real world devices facilitating the events of the story and the lifestyle of the people that use and create them. It's Zuckerberg and his rise to be the world's youngest billionaire that are the focus of this movie, not the programming or the websites.

Jesse Eisenberg's performance of Zuckerberg is career defining, completely shattering any previously held image of him as Michael-Cera-lite. He's joined by a raft of superb supporting performances, most notably Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake. It wouldn't surprise me if all three of them where nominated for Oscars. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if The Social Network ate through entire awards ceremonies' early next year. Fincher and Sorkin seem the obvious names to receive the most accolades, though credit must also be given to composers Trent Rezor and Atticus Ross, and to cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth.

The movie is incredibly handsome without appearing overly stylized or labored. The darker lit scenes are very reminiscent of Cronenweth's work with Fincher on Fight Club, carrying the same green and orange hues to heavily shadowed facial features. One particular scene of the Harvard rowing team uses tilt and shift photography and slow motion to incredible effect. Casting layers of extremely thin and eschewed fields of focus over the event as method of dramatizing while also undermining it's importance, suggesting the frivolity of the affair in comparison to the other events taking place in their life. In this same scene Rezor and Ross provide a fantastic cover of In the Hall of the Mountain King (one of those classical piece you just know, even if you don't realize it), that drives the the scene with a sense of melodrama that is at once laughably absurd and glorious, providing a knowingly cliched score to the drama and mocking it in the process. The rest of the soundtrack isn't anywhere as self-conscious but it is all as equally well tailored, adding another dimension to the atmosphere of each scene. It's diverse spectrum of electronic music, taking in synth-pop, electro-house, dark ambient music and the kind of modern industrial that earned them their reputations. Perhaps unsurprisingly coming for these gents, it is at its most effective when hanging in the background radiating with ominous intention, which it has plenty of opportunity to do in this frequently brooding movie.

The art in this movie is that it manages to play out Zuckerberg's story in equal parts Citizen Kane and John Hughes. It's a juxtoposition that Fincher has been very open about and that in Zuckerberg's case makes a lot of sense. As a film essentially about his blinding, self-centered ambition, it delivers a dark and sinister atmosphere for its drama to unfold while maintaining an air of hopeful self-reflection that even the hardest lessons of self discovery in adolescence allow for. For every moment of manipulative double dealing and seething egotism, there's a counter point of genuine humor and pathos. Despite everything he does to his friends in the name of success, Zuckerberg remains a sympathetic character. The way he treats people may not seem justifiable but there is little doubt that for better or worse he deserves the success he has gained.

Maybe you had an opinion like mine. Maybe the idea of a Facebook movie sounded moronic to you at first, but you've come round to the idea after you saw those involved and the glowing reviews it received. Now perhaps you're curious but don't think it's worth the price of the theatre admission and that its more the kind of movie you'd rather see at home instead. But trust me, despite everything it had going against it, this is one of the most cinematic movies you'll see this year.

9/10

- Jack McFarlane

The Saw 3D (7) Review: The End of a Reverse Bear Trap Generation

2010-10-30T09:37:00.006-04:00

In every movie generation, there is a definitive horror franchise to go with the times. For the 30's, it was the Universal Horror Classics, for the 80's it was the Freddy films and for the 90's it was the Scream series. But what about the 21st century? We were given none other then what was only known at the beginning as a little film from down under (Australia), which would later become the highest grossing horror franchise ever, The Saw movies.

Now granted, unlike the other films mentioned, I never was one to fall to my generations taste of torture and stories of purposeful blood and guts. The idea of a man trapping you in a game of wits and human struggle doesn't leave me too excited to see much, but I have fallen prey to watching a few. On the other hand, I found the first film to be one of brilliance. But as I've seen bits and pieces of the others, I find them to be just a repeat of the same ideas, with the exception of a few relating to that of current events.

Yet at the backbone of the entire films, was the character of the infamous Jigsaw and his mission of undoing the wrongs of human kind through suffering. As someone who has been bullied and sees the unkind nature of people many times, I understand like many can, the inspiration behind this characters justices and revenge on others. This is the element and the mystery that I believe draws this franchise and it's success, and why once in a while I'll check up on Mr.Bell's character.

But now with the 7th installment of the series, we are promised the end result of what we have been watching and waiting for the many many years, the ending or as the poster says "The Final Chapter". What I was expecting as a "Best Of The Traps" type of film, ended up falling a bit short of my expectations.

We enter the story through a public trap between two men and the woman that has been cheating on both of them, who are now confronted in choosing who to kill. This killing will have nothing to do with the rest of the film, so I'll just skip ahead of this one (Though I'll admit, I enjoyed the end result extremely.) We are then introduced to Bobby, who claims to have been a victim of Jigsaw, who actually survived. This is later discovered as a false claim, only for Bobby to make some money over a book detailing his "story". We are treated at this point to the main trap of the film, in which Bobby has to save his Wife and other allies, due to his lies and in only an hour. At the same time we are dealt with the stories of Jigsaw's Wife and Hoffman, the main apprentice of Jigsaw.

I won't spoil the movie in the slightest, but to be honest I can easily say as a final installment, the majority of the film was very underwhelming. As most final films go, you hope for them to make an impression on the fans and have them yelling and screaming for a great final conclusion. This just left me wanting more of a conclusion then what I was given. But I won't say that I was completely disappointed, as the true and final ending was that of great scriptwriting. I just had hoped that the entire film was like this and - if you do see it - I believe you'll see what I mean.

I bet you are also wondering, was the 3D worth it? Not entirely. I enjoyed some of the guts being thrown in my face, but mostly because I was not grabbed out of my seat and put in the movie, as I was promised in the trailer, I was indeed not as taken with it.The best moment with the 3D did come at the end, which involves a Reverse Bear Trap (My favorite torture object of the whole series), but again I won't spoil it.

Overall, should you see the "Last Piece of the Puzzle"? If you love the Saw series, of course you should. As a casual movie goer, I believe the film stands on it's own, yet that is it's main problem. As the final film, it should be able to carry all the elements of the past and having you want to watch everything prior to understand. This is the films flaw, but it can be said that you'll have fun in so fashion. So, go get your Jigsaw puppet and be ready to "Play A Little Game".... if you dare.

Rating: 7.5/10

-Dalin Rowell

Documentary Review - American Grindhouse

2010-10-28T20:34:00.011-04:00

Back in the day, no one ever went out of their way to make a Grindhouse movie because no one knew what Grindhouse was. It’s a retrospective genre, a tag we attach when looking back at older movies. It’s a title that has only recently come into popular usage, ascribed to a certain type of exploitation cinema. Like any retrospective genre (or for that matter any genre, period) it has its fare share of vagaries in definition, but in practice a Grindhouse movie will be a cheap, pre-VHS b-movie. The sleazier and nastier the better. Now, this seems to be the general consensus, but I have to put my hand up and say it doesn’t clear anything up for me. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Grindhouse movie. I’ve seen a ton a movies of the kind from that era, I’m just not sure any of them were Grindhouse proper.

American Grindhouse is a documentary covering the history, major developments in, and definition of Grindhouse cinema. It goes all the way back to Edison and the Lumiere brothers until the appropriation of exploitation by mainstream Hollywood in the 80s, and features interviews with film historians, filmmakers and some of those that helped create Grindhouse cinema. There’s been a bunch of these documentaries in the last few years, each covering different genres or forms of cinema, and I tend to enjoy them as a way to test my knowledge about the subject and to pick up some titles worth checking out in future. The format of American Grindhouse is very conventional. This normally wouldn’t bother me but it’s general structure and the visual style of it's title cards and opening animation reminded me a lot of Not Quite Hollywood, the recent documentary history of Australian Oz-ploitation cinema. They’re so similar that it’s impossible to avoid a side-by-side comparison, and American Grindhouse doesn’t really manage to out do Not Quite Hollywood it in terms of either style or content.

It didn’t have as many good interesting interviewees and didn’t turn up anywhere near as many oddities to chase down later. This doesn’t mean it’s a right off. It is highly informative with some really interesting things to say about the content of the movies. That these were the first films made for adults only makes a lot of sense. Things could be gotten away with in a Grindhouse film that simply couldn't be done in the mainstream Hollywood due to the roaming eye of the production code. I also particularly liked the idea that with the introduction of the production code, Grindhouse acted as some sort of tasteless, crass cousin to Film Noir. Whereas Noir always alludes to something nastier that it actually shows, Grindhouse simply wallows in the same acts without the need to allude or hint. By far the most disturbing thing it had to talk about was the appearance of the Roughies – a series of movies from the 50s and 60s based entirely around the physical and sexual abuse of women.

It may be a case of not getting what I expected but my main complaint is that it just wasn’t as much fun as it could have been. It wasn’t as if it was too highbrow, but I feel that there’s so much fun to had from genre and it didn’t feel capitalized upon. The focus of the documentary is less on the films themselves than on the general progression between trends within Grindhouse. As I said, it was informative, and I’m both glad to have seen it and happy to recommend it, but in general I honestly feel that I could have gotten a comparable amount of information and had far more fun watching one of those Grindhouse trailer compilations.

This documentary was born from a love of Grindhouse cinema and I don’t wish to discredit it’s achievements at providing an overview of the genre. However, don’t come to this film expecting a detailed overview of all the big movies. It doesn’t seem to have much time for anecdotes or stories. For instance, it barely glances at Russ Myres or any of his movies. It did feature a lot of films and subgenres I’d never heard of and will be putting some effort into getting a hold of later, I just wanted more information on them.

The star of the show is most definitely the frequent appearances of John Landis. He's cleary a devotee of the genre and has a very clear image of exactly what they are all about. His comment that the only Grindhouse in the last 10 years was not made by Tarantino or Rodriquez, but by Gibson blew me away. The Idea that Passion of the Christ is as coldly and brazenly exploitative as Two Thousand Maniacs both amuses me and confuses me. Even after seeing this I’m still not sure what Grindhouse is but I’m fairly sure I’ve seen a lot of it.

6/10

- Jack McFarlane

News - TRON:LEGACY Daft Punk - Derezzed

2010-10-28T16:57:00.001-04:00

Disney have done a text book job in building the anticipation and excitement over Tron. We've been spoon feed tiny morsels with each trailer for well over a year now, each one cranking up the excitement a level higher than the next. This latest trailer gives us more gives new unseen footage to salivate over, including more of the next gen lightbikes, more of Michael Sheen, and crucially in this case, a glimpse of the Daft Punk cameo and lots more of their score.

This is more of an advertisement for the soundtrack than it is for the movie, but it marries the track beautifully to the visuals and you'll see just how well suitable Daft Punk are to whole affair. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross blew me away with their OST for The Social Network last week and I was ready to call it the best of the year, but it looks to have some serious competition come December 16th.

I'm going to put my hands up and admit that the idea of a new Tron movie is no where near as exciting to me as a new Tron movie scored by Daft Punk. I would have laid down cash to see this in theatres regardless but with this soundtrack I'll be doing some research as to which has the best sound system before hand.

-Jack McFarlane

Turner Classic Movies - Moguls and Movie Stars

2010-10-28T09:24:00.006-04:00

For all of those that have dreamed of seeing good movie after good movie, that dream is only but now a reality. Many of you probably know about the channel, Turner Classic Movies. Many refer to it as something for the older folks or maybe something you put on to shut your Grandparents up. But for me, TCM is my MTV. While everyone waits to watch Jersey Shore or Real World, I go about my fantasies of watching Robert Osborne talk about the Movie Moguls of the 30's and 40's and stars like Clark Gable or Bettie Davis.

Well, my addictive hopes of sitting in front of the television for almost 7 hours of these discussions are coming true! TCM has been working for 3 years on a huge documentary that will premiere this November on the network called "Moguls and Movie Stars." It tells the true life story of Hollywood, how it came to be and how it is in it's current and more gritty stages. This series will showcase interviews with historians and critics (the people that I would hope to occupy their job someday) and of course, Robert Osborne, who I promise to stop fan-girling about someday.

If you are interested in checking out the series, the world premiere of Part 1 of the series will be on Monday, November 1st at 8PM! I sure know I'll be setting up the DVR for this one every week. Be sure to also catch the episodes again on Wednesday, where there will be commentary tracks by even more historians on the previous episode.

Also, after each episode, the rest of the channel's scheduling will be devoted to the movies spoken of in that episode! So make sure to see if there are any of your favorites playing after the episode. I'd recommend checking out Casablanca at 9PM on Monday the 29th and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? on Dec 13th at Midnight!

Interested in even knowing more? Check out TCM's special website for the project by clicking here. There will also be a traveling exhibit tour, for free, showcasing rare treats from the specific episodes and some of your favorite movies! I unfortunately missed it's New York stop, but it'll next be coming to Denver on November 4 - 6! The website has more details - so do check it out!

All I can say is, after filming my thesis, I know what I'll be doing every Monday night!

-Dalin Rowell

John Cameron Mitchell's "Rabbit Hole" Trailer Released

2010-10-23T16:52:00.003-04:00

Here comes what could be another great film for John Cameron Mitchell, in the title known as "Rabbit Hole". A dark and sophisticated family drama brings about the story of two recent widowed parents, the destruction of their suburban common grounds, and the reconnecting that brings the puzzles of life back together. With films like "Hedwig" and "Shortbus", for the casual audience member, it's hard to relate to these somewhat drawn out or extreme characters. But here I believe is a chance for Mitchell to be truly recognized for his craft, with a film that can understood and be connected by those living with grief and sorrow. Here is the trailer, I see hear Oscar buzz, can you?

The film stars Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart and Diane Wiest. It'll be given a limited release on December 18th.

-Dalin Rowell

Cult Review: Valhalla Rising

2010-10-22T23:37:00.001-04:00

Since he first captured the attention of audiences with his fantastic Pusher trilogy, Nicolas Winding Refn has gone on to carve out a sizable fanbase for his particular brand of violent character studies of the social maligned. Last year's Bronson, a biography of Britain most violent prisoner of the same name, was a break out success for Refn and is seen as a significant development in both style and content. It saw him move away from the gritty realism that had since defined him towards something altogether more cerebral and impressionistic. His latest is a further degree of removal still. Valhalla Rising is a film filled with religious allegory and philosophical leanings. Laid out in chapters and presents in a near psychedelic manner, it is designed to evoke the mood of art-house science fiction and epic fantasy, while maintaining a firm grounding in a grim, unforgiving reality of a violent and ancient civilization.

Valhalla Rising is concerned with One-Eye, (Mads Mikkelsen) and his existential, perhaps even metaphysical relationship with nature. One eye is a mute Viking held captive by Celts in a pre-Christian, Pagan Scotland. As a born and bred Scotsmans with an avid interest in the way my country is portrayed on film, I can say with certainty that Valhalla Rising presentation of the Scottish Highlands is unlike that you have ever seen before. He isn't the first filmmaker to realize that rugged rural landscapes and reliably fowl weather can make for an eerie, yet starkly beautiful setting. There is a long history of films that use this atmosphere to either create a sense of the supernatural or to simply exploit as an appropriate horror setting. Valhalla Rising belongs in the former camp, but what sets Refn's use of these settings apart is how comfortable and capable he is using these environments on their own merits without the usual accompanying stereotypes.

Films by Scots or set in Scotland are heavily bogged down with issues of Scottish identity, and internal criticism on these issues can be justifiably scathing, especially on issues of rural life. Although these issues can't be said to effect a films commercial success (in Scotland or worldwide) they nonetheless come under heavy criticism as crass, toe curling misrepresentations of Scottish culture, society, and history. Valhalla Rising neatly dodges many of these prickly issues in two way. First it is set set in 1000AD, some six hundred years before the appearance of tartan, estranging itself in appearance from the heaviest burden of Scottishness. Second, in being set long before the birth of the historical figures that dominate Scottish period pieces, the film is unconcerned with Scottish nationalism or with any conventional sense of Scottish identity.

Here, Scotland is simply the edge of the European expansion of Christianity and the last stand of Paganism. The film isn't particularly kind to either ideology, painting each as equally viscous and bloodthirsty. One-Eye is used by his Pagan captors as slave gladiator. Killing everyone opponent he is confronted with, he is treated as both a dangerous wild animal and something almost supernatural. We learn that no one person has owned him for more than five years, but beyond that he has no history and no identity other than the name given to him. Eventually escaping and killing his captors he joins a group of Christians as they set out on the Crusades, when events soon lead his company to believe that he is something supernatural and cursed.

One-Eye is completely isolated from us and all of those around him, and is as feared as the unknown is always feared by superstitious men. Seemingly incapable of any for of communication except through pure violence. he is a monolith. Considered as something other than human in a brutally inhumane society, One-Eye has more in common with the untamed landscapes he inhabits than anything human, yet as a victim of his captivity he is the most relatable character on screen. Mikkelsen's performance seemingly operates on a level of pure will, consisting as it does of little nothing more than a single unblinking eye, a vacant facial expression, and a square jaw. As a densely allegorical and symbolic character he could have very easily failed, taking the entire film with him. Despite his potential absurdity he remains entirely believable and enigmatic throughout, although with such an apparently effortless role it seems hard to give full credit to Mekkelsen. He and Refn have worked together frequently since they both debuted in Pusher. The trust Refn must have had in any actor to perform this role must have been huge, so it makes sense that it be with someone he's worked with so often. As such, it's as much of a case of good casting as it is matter of character performance.

With a silent protagonist and with only the barest of dialogue between the remaining characters, it should come as no surprise that this is a slow and meditative movie. The plot is so sparse and the pace so slow that the film meanders, seemingly lost in its own cinematography. Refn had every intention of playing every scene in slow motion but thankfully abandoned the idea in editing. There are still several frequent sections where slow motion is used to great effect, including a few lengthy montages. This and the films philosophical implications do betray the same sense of self-importance that Refn original concept would have made overbearingly clear. Detractors understandably come down on the film for these reasons, but although I personally found its stylization a little too much towards the end of the third act (or the first view at least) I can't say it provoked the same bile in me. This is very much a film to be viewed on its own terms, but those with a health tolerance of arthouse cinemas disregard for pandering to straightforward entertainment should find plenty to be endeared by.

7/10

-Jack McFarlane

"Fading of the Cries" Left over Sci-Fi reject or Beautiful indie farm thriller?

2010-10-21T13:50:00.007-04:00

When going through my weekly inspection of Apple.com/trailers - I took to seeing a curious poster and click, I further took a look at a curious new film called "Fading of the Cries". At first, I found much of what was shown to be in the realm of Sci-Fi (Oh oops, I mean SyFy) Channel's master piece theater works. The film is directed,written and produced by Brian Metcalf (Sorrows Lost, Money Shot Music Video) and stars Brad Dourif, Thomas Ian Nicholas and Mackenzie Rosman.

It seems the story is that of any fan girls fantasy. Sarah is your typical teenage girl (Creative?) who is thrown into an all out war of zombie like creatures and magical older men continuing to pester. But she is then saved by a handsome swords men, similar to that of Brandon Lee in looks, that is on a journey to find a mysterious necklaces. But what is the connection? The necklace belonged to Sarah's Uncle. Did I mention this all takes place in a Farm town? Though it has cliche after cliche anime like story arches, the whole fact that it takes place at a Farm actually interests me the most. Though, all jokes aside, there was one other thing that kept me watching and made me crave a viewing of the film.
As the trailer continued, extremely beautiful shots were shown one after another. One such shot was that of the two major characters watching through a post apocalyptic corn field, which could be only described as breathtaking in many ways. The Director of Photography must obviously be new but very promising, as he definitely knows what he is accomplishing in these shots.
Though not all the visual effects will stand out, I could see this becoming a cult film. Not sure yet if it will fit into the bad or good category, but I have my hopes. I truly could see this as the little movie that could, even if I highly doubt its success. Go watch the trailer and see for yourself..... Corn on the Zombie Cob anyone?

UPDATE: The film was supposedly released on October 13th 2010. I don't really see anywhere of how or where to see the film, but here is a link (link) to the website incase more information comes about soon.

- Dalin Rowell

A New Beginning and an Introduction!

2010-10-21T13:06:00.006-04:00

Dear readers and followers -

My name is Dalin and I have some news to bring about. You might remember a while back that Will introduced me on here as a co-writer and posted my review of Metropolis. Well I bring about something interesting. William has decided to hand over the blog to me, as he is taking his interest in film to new heights and bringing it full scale with his first of many fantastic projects to come. As a result, I will be the main writer for Twenty Four Lies Per Second. Though this is something that might take a while to get on with the swing of things, I'm sure excited to see the future and growth of what I believe to be one of the best film news and review blogs on the net!

Just in case you're interested in learning about myself, here is a bit of a chunk of my story. I am a 20 something from New York, going to film school and wanting to become an editor/film historian. I'm currently now a part time transcriber at Radical Media in NYC (along with a run of the mill retail job, just to cover the costs and go about doing my best Clark Kent interpretations, to say the least.), and on the side I write a very successful sub-culture fashion movie blog called La Vida Frills (link here) that caters to fans of Lolita Fashion and beautiful female oriented films.

Though I love writing for LVF, I'm truly excited to not feel the constrictions of topics and begin to write about films that don't really go with the themes of frills and girlie charms. I really hope that I can bring something to the table, in which I also hope to spread the word about how much I love this blog and how I dream of it's successes!

So, let us all (as I do) wish for Williams films to go about and succeed, and let's see what fantastic things can happen with TLPS! I hope you'll all be will whiling to take the leap with me and see where it leads us.

-Dalin Rowell

Inarritu's 'Biutiful' Gets Picked Up For Distribution

2010-08-11T15:54:00.000-04:00

From the director who brought us Babel, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's new film Biutiful, starring the excellent Javier Bardem, is really shaping up to be one of this year's top awards contenders (and it looks like a damn fine film too). After premiering in competition at Cannes this year, the film went on to get snatched up by indie production house Roadside Attractions, who will control rights to the domestic theatrical release of the film. It probably won't come until we get closer to Oscar season, as the film is also set to screen at Toronto this year in September. So give it a few months and we'll get to see Bardem in action again on the big screen.

-William Gutheil

'I Saw The Devil' Got Banned, and The Un-banned In Korea

2010-08-11T15:47:00.000-04:00

Kim Ji-Woon's I Saw The Devil is one of 2010's most talked about coming out of Asia, but it's unfortunate that because of it's apparent graphic nature the film was recently banned from release in it's home country of Korea. Producers initially planned to release it under an 18+ rating, thus not allowing it to screen in any public theater in the country. According to sources, the official concern for such a detrimental rating were scenes that "severely damage the dignity of human values." Now the filmmakers have gone back and apparently made a few changes to get Korea's equivalent to an R rating. There's no word on just what was changed, but the good news is, it will be getting a wide release.

I'm all on board for this one, and even more so now. The film stars Oldboy lead Choi Min-sik and has been the talk of the internet since the debut of its trailer. The biggest question I have now is whether or not the film's upcoming screening at TIFF will be fully uncut. I'd like to think so, but I haven't heard anything concerning it yet. Hopefully, if all we get to see in theaters is an edited version, we'll someday get an Uncut DVD release. Keep your fingers crossed.

Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. He has committed infernal serial murders in diabolic ways that one cannot even imagine and his victims range from young women to even children. The police have chased him for a long time, but were unable to catch him. One day, Joo-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief becomes his prey and is found dead in a horrific state.

Her fiance Dae-hoon, a top secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take bloody vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself to get this monstrous and inhumane killer.

Thanks to twitch for the trailer.
-William Gutheil

First Teaser For 'Skyline' Is Actually Pretty Astonishing

2010-08-11T15:30:00.000-04:00

This interesting looking sci fi flick is coming from the duo that brought us Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. Now, I know what you're thinking, but I'm gonna try and forgive them for that, because the trailer that was just put out for Colin and Greg Strause's Skyline actually looks pretty damn awesome. I'm not giving them too much credit, cause this flick could still completely bomb, but the wicked shot at the end of this trailer really gets my hopes up that this movie could be something awesome.

Check it out below.

-William Gutheil

Mmmmm New Trailer For American Release of 'Enter the Void'

2010-08-10T17:33:00.000-04:00

Easily my pick for best film of the year, Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void finally seems to be picking up pace here in the states and gaining the recognition it deserves. A new trailer was jsut released for the film's US release on September 24th. I'm gonna skip any and all talk here and let you get right to the absolutely stunning trailer.

-William Gutheil

Is There An 'Eastern Promises' Sequel on the Way?

2010-08-09T15:19:00.000-04:00

According to Comingsoon this may very well be the case. Apparently in an interview with the wonderful Vincent Cassel on his forthcoming film Mesrine, which gets a US release later this month, he spilled some details on the possibility of a reunion with David Cronenberg for another installment of the astounding 2007 thriller Eastern Promises. He talked with the director on the set of his upcoming film A Dangerous Method and had this to say about the project:

"We talked very seriously about 'Eastern Promises 2' and it's going to be shot in Russia with Viggo and myself,"

Read more about it at comingsoon.

-William Gutheil

Ask Gaspar Noe Whatever You Like!

2010-08-09T14:58:00.000-04:00

Gaspar Noe is a man who has achieved a status that was unseen in cinema for an incredibly long time. His films are menacing, and have become the topics of some of the most heated debates in the cinema world. He polarizes audiences to the extent that not one person would be caught saying "eh, Noe is pretty average". He is either praised or despised, but one thing is certain, he is revolutionary. The man has pioneered techniques that likes of which have never been seen before, and it's that alone that will propel him to the forefront of the truly brilliant auteurs of our time. While I will continue to insist that he has yet to craft a masterpiece (and won't do so for some time), his latest three hour long mindtrip Enter The Void is a brilliant exercise in showing viewers something they have never, ever seen before, and taking them on a ride to a place that most never want to visit.

The film will be released in NYC in September, and in support of it Gaspar will be doing an interview with indieWire magazine, who's asking for your help with questions! It's an interesting concept, and should turn out some wonderful discussion with the prolific filmmaker. You can find out more about it over at the indieWire website

-William Gutheil

Fresh Clip For Sundance Hit 'HIGH School'

2010-08-03T14:54:00.000-04:00

In the same vain as Adventureland, the new pot-comedy HIGH School seems to be creeping up slowly only to eventually slip by under the radar and become one of 2010's most under-rated and unseen films. This is a damn shame because it honestly looks like one of the best comedies to come out this year. The teaser trailer premiered a couple months back (coincidentally on 4/20) and now as we get closer to a very limited release, a new clip has been unveiled, giving us a taste of some great performances from some relatively unknown actors. Check the synopsis below and both the clip and teaser under that. Keep an eye out here at 24Lps for more news on this up-and-comer.

A high school valedictorian who gets baked with the local stoner finds himself the subject of a drug test. The situation causes him to concoct an ambitious plan to get his entire graduating class to face the same fate, and fail.

"HIGH school" - Exclusive Film Clip from John Stalberg Jr. on Vimeo.

"HIGH school" 4/20 TEASER TRAILER from John Stalberg Jr. on Vimeo.

-William Gutheil

Do Not Attempt To Adjust The Picture, MGM Is Controlling Transmission

2010-08-03T14:41:00.000-04:00

MGM has been struggling lately. The financial crisis has hit Hollywood hard, and many studios have had to drop several large projects in order to save some cash. Two of MGM's biggest money makers are currently in limbo, with the next Bond movie being pushed further and further back, and Peter Jackson's The Hobbit getting shelved recently. The studio is frankly on the verge of financial ruin, but in a last ditch effort to earn some cash, they've given the greenlight to a big screen adaptation of the classic 1960s sci fi series The Outer Limits.

Now before you go and get all excited about it, take a minute to read just who all is behind the project. Screenwriters Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, the fellas behind the last four Saw films, have been assigned the task of drafting the film's script. Now I'm hoping to god that these guys can conjur some of the magic they scored with their first screenplay Feast, the film that got them discovered on HBO's Project Greenlight, because frankly (and very obviously), their work on the Saw franchise was sub-par. So here's to hoping that MGM can turn out something decent here. It'd be pretty incredible to see a well done adaptation of such an excellent show, but until any more details come to fruition, I'm not keeping my fingers crossed.

Via Variety
-William Gutheil

Schlock and Awe: Cradle of Fear

2010-08-03T14:17:00.000-04:00

In Case you didn't catch the last installment of Schlock and Awe, it's a new feature here at 24Lps with the sole purpose of exposing the wonderful world of b-rated and cult cinema, with writer Jack McFarlane.

I was lad of 17 or so when I first became aware of Britain’s premier Black Metal band, Cradle of Filth, through the media shit storm surrounding their infamous ‘Jesus is a Cunt’ t-shirt featuring a masturbating nun. I listened to a lot of metal at the time and it quickly became damn near impossible to ignore them. Although I honestly never really ‘got’ Black Metal, I always found the controversy surrounding COF amusing. Whereas the Scandinavian Black Metal bands were burning down churches, making jewelry out of skulls fragment recovered from the scene of the successful suicide of a fellow band member, and recording albums from prison cells after murdering members of a rival band, COF would be posing for magazine photoshoots eating raw meat off a barbeque or getting arrested at the Vatican for wearing a tshirt saying “I Love Satan”. These guys are to Black Metal what the Insane Clown Posse are to Gansta’ Rap. You’re never sure exactly how much of their own shit they swallow. Well, ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. ICP are probably swallow all their own shit and are pretty dangerous in their total investment in being shinning examples of dumb white trash. COF just seem like nerdy mummies boys with a good sense of theatrical shock value and a love of horror. Point is both walk a thin line between confrontational shock value and pantomime. You can always count on COF to do some truly absurd photoshoots and videos with lots of leather and gothic face paint, and gallons of fake blood, so it wasn’t a massive surprise to learn that they’d collaborated with their Cradle to Enslave music video director on their own feature length horror movie.

I first saw Cradle of Fear when it was released straight to VHS in 2000 with a bunch of mates and a crate of beer. After rewatching it recently I can say with confidence that this is the most suitable setting for it. This was made for a rowdy drunken night in yelling at characters and laughing at people getting graphically mutilated and murdered in utterly stupid ways. Sitting in alone on a quite weeknight won’t cut it here, especially if you’re a single man. With very female in a talking role having one or more gratuitous and completely unnecessary topless scenes, male audience members are especially catered for, though you’ll feeling a little pathetic sat in on your own watching this. It’s all about the guts and titties.

Except for occasionally using their music and regular appearances by band members in their full stage costume, Cradle of Fear has little do with COF and their music. You don’t have to approach this fearing a concept movie; it doesn’t attempt a Black Metal version of Pink Floyd: The Wall or Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555. Instead it’s an extremely low budget horror anthology in the vain of Creepshow and Three Extremes. There are four sections, none of which could have carried a full movie, all of which have some seriously entertaining dodgy acting and abundant gore. The most entertaining for me was one concerning a lower leg amputee who can’t get it up for his wife, and who decides to solves his problems by murdering someone and stealing their leg to have it sown on to him. This is really the caliber of writing your dealing with here, but top marks for the total excess each section in treated with. At no point does the lack of budget restrict the films ambitions, but then again its ambitions seem to be rather crude. What little money they had wasn’t squandered on excessive details like quality actors or script doctors, it was instead invested in core essentials like prosthetics and fake blood, and it’s definitely a matter of volume over quality. Instead of quibbling over the finer details of set design, character development, or CGI, they just maximized their budget by it turning down the lights and cover everything that isn’t bare tits in corn syrup. The most entertaining gore scene for me by far was of band leader Dani Filth stabbing a cat to death and drinking its guts of a silver platter. As is typical for this movie, none of it is anatomically convincing, and every detail was totally unrestrained and tactless.

Cradle of Fear is admittedly, perhaps even adamantly, an amateur night snigger-feast, and that’s half the fun. The movie, like the band, simply demands that you take them only so seriously. These are men who dress up like they belong in a bad horror movie everyday, and they obviously love every minute of this. It’s this level of enthusiasm by everyone involved in the movie to blow every death scene out of proportion with the budget and, lets face it, talent of those involved that makes this movie. It’s otherwise constantly teetering on the brink of collapse into outright self parody. I’ve seen plenty of other horror movies in this vain with much higher budgets and ambitions that simply pale in comparison. This is no doubt one for hardened fans of over the top horror only (I won’t say it’s one for COF fans, because I know none, but the most ardent fans would probably have given it a look already) but it plays well to that audience.

Looking around at what’s on offer today in extreme horror cinema, this is little more than a curiosity by comparison. It won’t make your top ten but it will be something you’ll be keen to show others of a like mind; a little known pet favorite you wheel out to amuse those with a wider knowledge and investment in genre. Just do yourself a favor, if you are gonna watch it, do so while well oiled and in the company of other gorehounds.

VERDICT: 6.5/10

-Jack McFarlane

Awesome Teaser For Del Toro's 'Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark'

2010-08-03T14:03:00.000-04:00

It's been a hell of a month for Guillermo, announcing his involvement with the Lovecraft adaptation At The Mountains of Madness, and now unveiling the all new teaser for his latest production/writing effort Don't Be Afraid of The Dark. The trailer was huge at Comic Con this year and now we finally get a taste of it for ourselves. Granted that we don't get to see some of the other footage that the San Diego audience caught glimpses of, but this teaser is damn near perfect, and with Del Toro not only producing the flick, but taking credit as a writer as well, I'm all too excited for what this one has in store. Check the synopsis below, followed by the trailer under that.

Producers Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Orphanage”) and Mark Johnson (“Chronicles of Narnia”) join forces to deliver “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” a tale of hair-raising, spine-chilling horror.

Sally Hurst (Bailee Madison), a lonely, withdrawn child, has just arrived in Rhode Island to live with her father Alex (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) at the 19th-century mansion they are restoring. While exploring the sprawling estate, the young girl discovers a hidden basement, undisturbed since the strange disappearance of the mansion’s builder a century ago. When Sally unwittingly lets loose a race of ancient, dark-dwelling creatures who conspire to drag her down into the mysterious house’s bottomless depths, she must convince Alex and Kim that it’s not a fantasy—before the evil lurking in the dark consumes them all.

When a little girl (Bailee Madison) is sent to live with her father (Guy Pearce) and his girlfriend (Katie Holmes) in the old mansion they are renovating, she unwittingly unleashes malevolent creatures bent on destroying all of them.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark in HD

Trailer Park Movies | MySpace Video

-William Gutheil

Guillermo Del Toro to Adapt Lovecraft

2010-08-01T16:55:00.000-04:00

This was honestly probably some of the best news to come out of Comic Con this year. Everybody already knows that Del Toro recently dropped out of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit. While it was a mystery as to why, early sources said that he had left the project in order to direct a Haunted Mansion movie based on the theme park ride. This got a whole lot of Del Toro/LOTR fans utterly pissed off, but thankfully this just isn't the case.

So what is it that Del Toro so eagerly left The Hobbit in order to direct? H.P. Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness, a story so fitting for Del Toro's renowned style that his fans have long awaited the day that he adapted the book. It's finally here, though it's going to take some serious funding to get it done, but Del Toro will undoubtedly turn this into one of his finest moments.

Keep and eye out for more news concerning this one.
-William Gutheil

Short Film Thrusdays: Bunker

2010-08-01T16:46:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Twitch for the picture. I know it's not thursday, just ignore that fact! What we have here is a short film that fans have literally spent decades trying to track down and watch. From 1981, long before they became international cult sensations, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro made a 25 minute long film entitled The Bunker of The Last Gunshots. For those of you who don't know, this is the directing duo behind City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, and the film that launched them to superstardom, Amelie. The short, that has just appeared on the internet, is hardly any different from the visual style that they display time and time again. It's certainly interesting though to take a look at it now and see how greatly it has evolved since then. This little flick truly solidifies them as a couple of the most visionary artists working today. Check it out for yourself below.

LE BUNKER from kapelaans on Vimeo.

-William Gutheil

The Past Week In Trailers

2010-08-01T16:27:00.000-04:00

I've kind of been slacking with posts this week, I apologize. But over the last seven days the internet has probably seen more movie trailer than in the entire past month. With Toronto on the horizon and Fantasia wrapping up, we're getting a slew of new previews for your viewing pleasure. I'll skip the chit chat and get to posting them down below.

First up we've got the enormous Sundance success Catfish, from filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost. With Fincher's The Social Network not far away, this is one that'll definitely receive some attention, and mark 2010 as the year movies began telling stories about the internet. Check the official synopsis below and the excellent trailer underneath that.

In late 2007, filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost sensed a story unfolding as they began to film the life of Ariel's brother, Nev. They had no idea that their project would lead to the most exhilarating and unsettling months of their lives. A reality thriller that is a shocking product of our times, Catfish is a riveting story of love, deception and grace within a labyrinth of online intrigue.

Next up is a new teen thriller in the vein of Afterschool and Everything Is Fine, fresh from Cannes official selection it's director Fabrice Gobert's Lights Out (or its literal translation, Simon Werner Has Disappeared). This one went largely overlooked on the festival circuit, but reviewers have only had good things to say. Check the synopsis and trailer below to see for yourself.

March 1992 in a small town in the suburbs of Paris. During an alcohol fuelled party, teenagers discover a body that seems lifeless hidden in the bushes of a forest. Two weeks earlier. Simon Werner, a senior in the Science curriculum of the Leon Blum high school has not shown up for class. Blood stains are found in a class-room. Run-away, kidnap, suicide, murder... every scenario is envisaged by his classmates. A few days later, a student from the same class goes missing without her parents knowing where she has gone. A young girl with no dark background or connection to Simon. The next day, a third student, still from the same class, also disappears...

This one is exciting enough to get a post all its own, but I'll include it in here. It's for a film called Louis from filmmaker Dan Pritzker about the great jazz musician Louis Armstrong, and just what makes it so special you ask? Well despite the fact that it stars Jackie Earle Haley, the fact that the film is silent adds a bit of intrigue as well. That's right, it's a silent film with a score written by Wynton Marsalis and some performances that recall many of the greatest actors during the early years of cinema. This one is certainly a treat for the eyes and ears, and I'm hoping and praying that it somehow finds a limited distribution. Clearly a flick like this doesn't have much selling power to it, so I doubt you'll be seeing it at an AMC anytime soon. Check out the excellent trailer below.

Louis Trailer from 42West Digital on Vimeo.

Now here's a strange little drama piece with a bizarre twist. Reminiscent of Palfi's Taxidermia, Johan Timmers' new film Odd One Out looks to be a pretty compelling work of art. Check out the synopsis and trailer below for this odd little family drama.

Slightly surrealistic family drama about three generations of butchers set in the South of the Netherlands from 1960 till 1983. The youngest member of the family is born on Christmas Eve 1960. As his brothers, Cor, Arie and Bolle, he is predestinated to become a butcher. But the child, called Jere, is different and so provokes his father. At the same time father is forced to give up his traditional butcher shop in competition with modern times.

-William Gutheil

Duncan Jones Spills The Beans On 'Source Code'

2010-07-28T15:28:00.000-04:00

...Well, maybe not entirely, but the prolific young director, whose feature debut Moon had fans and critics drooling and craving more, has recently released a few more details on his highly anticipated, and highly secretive new sci fi Source Code over at Man Made Movies. All we know thus far is that the film stars Jake Gyllenhaal and is currently in post production. Jones had a bit more to say in his interview over at the blog, and has revealed that editor Paul Hirsch, the man who cut Star Wars, is behind the project as well.

Paul Hirsch is right up there as a major part of modern US cinema history. If they ever carve a Mount Rushmore to film people, his face should be up there… If you dont know who he is, and you work in film, shame on you! Star Wars. Empire Strikes Back. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ray, Mission Impossible… to name a few. Look him up, but dont look him in the eye! He is too brilliant for the likes of us to gaze upon!

After that, Jones dropped a bit of info that's sure to get sci fi geeks all sweaty with anticipation...

I think it is safe to say that the film will be out early next year. My edit is complete, and we are working hard on visual effects, choosing a composer and trying the film out on a few people just to see how it goes over. Lots to do really, but everything is coming together, and I am in the capable hands of Paul “Mount Rushmore” Hirsch!

Duncan also addressed why we have yet to see any photos or footage from the set of Source Code, and lets us know that when we do, it wont be much.

Absolutely. We showed a lot early, on Moon. People knew more than they should have just by watching the trailer. I think for a small film like Moon, it was probably the right move, but this film is a little bigger, and I think we can afford to hold our cards a little closer to our chest. I feel much more comfortable with that, because it means that when we DO release stuff, we will have had a chance to really work on it, think it through and make sure it really gives everyone a good sense of what we are trying to make. Source Code is very different than Moon… its quite a bit different from a lot of films, to be honest, and Im hoping when we are ready to show people, the patience will pay off.

You can check the full interview over at the blog, the site also stays pretty well updated with any news concerning Jones, so keep checking back as Source Code gets nearer!

-William Gutheil

TIFF 2010 Schedule Unveiled; Includes 'Biutiful' 'I Saw The Devil' 'Buried' And So Many More!

2010-07-28T15:15:00.000-04:00

TIFF 2010 has just announced the first part of this year's schedule and it includes some of 2010's most highly anticipated titles including new films from Darren Aronofsky, Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, Julian Schnabel, Kim Jee-woon, and a slew of others. A lot of these flicks have just had trailers released, which I've been posting here on the site over the past month or so, so after you check out the list, head to the archives to find some of the previews.

2010 is turning out to be a decent year after all with what award contenders we have showing up at TIFF. Although many of these likely won't be officially released until 2011, it's nice to know that we've got some truly great movies to anticipate. Check the list below, courtesy of ThePlaylist. TIFF takes place from September 9-19 this year and tickets are on sale now at the official website.

GALA SCREENINGS

- "The Bang Bang Club," directed by Steven Silver (Canada/South Africa) (World Premiere)
- "Barney’s Version," directed by Richard J Lewis (Canada/Italy) (North American Premiere)
- "Black Swan," directed by Darren Aronofsky (USA) (North American Premiere)
- "Casino Jack," directed by George Hickenlooper (Canada) (World Premiere)
- "The Conspirator," directed by Robert Redford (USA)  (World Premiere)
- "The Debt," directed by John Madden (UK) (North American Premiere)
- "The Housemaid," directed by Im Sang-Soo (South Korea) (North American Premiere)
- "Janie Jones," directed by David M. Rosenthal (USA) (World Premiere)
- "The King’s Speech," directed by Tom Hooper (UK) (North American Premiere)
- "Little White Lies," directed by Guillaume Canet (France)  (World Premiere)
- "Peep World," directed by Barry Blaustein (USA) (World Premiere)
- "Potiche," directed by Francois Ozon (France) (North American Premiere)
- "The Town," directed by Ben Affleck (USA) (North American Premiere)
- "The Way," directed by Emilio Estevez (USA) (World Premiere)

SPECIAL PRESENTATION

- "Another Year," directed by Mike Leigh (UK) (North American Premiere)
- "Beginners," directed by Mike Mills (USA) (World Premiere)
- "The Big Picture," directed by Eric Lartigau (France) (World Premiere)
- "Biutiful," directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Spain/Mexico) (North American Premiere)
- "Blue Valentine," directed by Derek Cianfrance (USA) (Canadian Premiere)
- "Buried," directed by Rodrigo Cortes (Spain/USA) (Canadian Premiere)
- "Conviction," directed by Tony Goldwyn (USA)  (World Premiere)
- "Cirkus Columbia," directed by Danis Tanovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina) (International Premiere)
- "Dhobi Ghat," directed by Kiran Rao (India)  (World Premiere)
- "Easy A," directed by Will Gluck (USA) (World Premiere)
- "Henry’s Crime," directed by Malcom Venville (USA) (World Premiere)
- "The Illusionist," directed by Sylvain Chomet (UK) (North American Premiere)
- "In a Better World," directed by Susanne Bier (Denmark/Sweden) (International Premiere)
- "I Saw The Devil," directed by Kim Jee-woon (South Korea) (North American Premiere)
- "It’s Kind of a Funny Story," directed by Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden (USA) (World Premiere)
- "Jack Goes Boating," directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman (USA) (International Premiere)
- "L’Amour Fou," directed by Pierre Thoretton (France) (World Premiere)
- "The Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen," directed by Andrew Lau (Hong Kong) (North American Premiere)
- "Lope," directed by Andrucha Waddington (Brazil/Spain) (World Premiere)
- "Love Crime," directed by Alain Corneau (France) (International Premiere)
- "Made In Dagenham," directed by Nigel Cole (UK) (World Premiere)
- "Miral," directed by Julian Schnabel (UK/Israel/France) (North American Premiere)
- "Never Let Me Go," directed by Mark Romanek (United Kingdom) (World Premiere)
- "Norweigan Wood, directed by Tran Anh Hung (Japan) (North American Premiere)
- "Outside The Law, directed by Rachid Bouchareb (France/Algeria/Tunisia/Italy/Belgium) (North American Premiere)
- "Rabbit Hole," directed by John Cameron Mitchell (USA) (World Premiere)
- "A Screaming Man," directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (France/Belgium/Chad) (North American Premiere)
- "Stone," directed by John Curran (USA) (World Premiere)
- "Submarine," directed by Richard Ayoade (UK) (World Premiere)
- "That Girl In Yellow Boots," directed by Anurag Kashyap (India) (North American Premiere)
- "Tamara Drewe," directed by Stephen Frears (UK) (North American Premiere)
- "The Trip," directed by Michael Winterbottom (United Kingdom) (World Premiere)
- "Trust," directed by David Schwimmer (USA) (World Premiere)
- "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger," directed by Woody Allen (USA/UK/Spain)
(North American Premiere)

-William Gutheil

LOL Of The Week: 'Titanic II'

2010-07-28T15:00:00.000-04:00

Yes it's real, and yes it's quite hilarious. This one had me laughing out loud as I watched the trailer. Where does a gem like this come from, you ask? None other than the infamous Asylum Studios, the people behind Transmorphers and Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus. There's really not much that can be said about this one, look for it on DVD August 24 through Asylum Home Entertainment.

Titanic II - Trailer
Uploaded by dreadcentral. - Check out other Film & TV videos.

-William Gutheil

Vincent Cassel Wreaks Havoc In 'Our Day Will Come'

2010-07-26T14:01:00.000-04:00

Romain Gavras, the madman behind MIAs recent music video Born Free, has unleashed the trailer for his newest film entitled Our Day Will Come, or, as it's being marketed in the states as, Redheads. Clearly I like the literal translation a great deal better, but hey, you can't really argue with distribution companies. Vincent Cassel stars in what looks like a role that is immediately up his alley. While this flick looks to be one of 2010's undisputed shockers, Cassel is more than prepared to take on a role like this (the man starred in Irreversible for god's sake). Check the synopsis and trailer below.

What do you do when you're a red-haired teenage loser with no friends except for an older guy, your shrink? When everyone hates you, especially your family? When all your peers make fun of you and kick you around? The answer: you and your loser buddy blow all the cash you can get your hands on to buy a sportscar, you dress smart and you head for the land of redheads, Ireland. But what starts off as a search for an ideal, gradually escalates into a rampage of hate, violence and self-destruction.

-William Gutheil

'Monsters' Trailer Impresses

2010-07-26T13:56:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Twitch for the picture. If you've read 24Lps at all in the past few days then you likely caught a post with the new poster art for Garreth Edwards' new film Monsters. We sat by patiently waiting for a trailer to go along with it, and now only a few days later we get to catch a glimpse at what looks like one of the true underdog films this year. Inevitably Edwards is being compared to Blomkamp and his film is already being called this year's District 9, but honestly, having now seen the trailer, Monsters looks more like a truly unique creature-feature experience, with ideas too fresh and intriguing to be compared to anything else. Sure he's an indie filmmaker potentially rising up and gaining some box office draw, but the comparison to Blomkamp in any other sense just isn's fair. Check the synopsis and trailer below.

Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life form began to appear and half of Mexico was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain "the creatures"...... Our story begins when a US journalist agrees to escort a shaken tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border.

-William Gutheil

Oh Yes. Second 'Tron: Legacy' Trailer Is Here

2010-07-22T16:48:00.001-04:00

You've been waiting patiently for it, and with Comic Con 2010 now underway, and the makers of Tron Legacy invading the event, we were bound to get an all new trailer right off the bat. It just showed at the convention and the good folks at Disney were smart enough to post it online immediately after. We get a bit of the same footage that we saw in the first trailer, but now we're seeing a slightly more detailed look at the lives of Kevin and Sam Flynn post-original-Tron. Beyond that, we get some more glimpses at lightcycles, more combat footage, and a quick shot at the end of something that I'm sure will get all the nerds talking. We also get to hear a bit more from Daft Punk's excellent sounding score. I'm gonna let you get down to it for yourself, check out the embedded trailer after the break, and prepare yourselves for Tron Legacy this December.

-William Gutheil

Danger After Dark 2010 Review: Amer

2010-07-20T17:09:00.000-04:00

Amer is a film that taps into a long forgotten style of filmmaking. The Italian giallo genre of the 60s and 70s was a sort of horror movie mastered by directors like Dario Argento, the most famous example perhaps being his own Suspiria. The risks of attempting to pay homage to a style and genre as distinct as giallo are glaringly obvious, but first time directors Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani have crafted something here that truly stands on its own as an excellent and unique piece of art, while simultaneously borrowing from the groundwork that so many directors had laid out before them. Their visuals are spot on, and in many cases create a sensory experience unlike anything you'll experience in cinemas. They've developed a soundscape that works brilliantly to hypnotize their viewers and bring them down the rabbit hole. The most unfortunate part of Amer, however, is not that much of it's design comes directly from its predecessors, that fact is rather admirable done in such respectable fashion, it's the fact that Cattet and Forzani abuse the style too much and too quickly at the film's start. I was left always wanting more after witnessing such a brilliant first act, and the rest of the film just didn't quite live up to it.

This is one the rare cases in which the film's substance is completely substituted for style. I'm sure you could draw some sort of conclusion about what the film meant or what its theme was, but only in an experimental, avant-garde sort of way. There are no clear cut answers here, about the plot or about the message. After some speculation I began assuming it all had to do with the main character, Ana's, upbringing, which consisted of a very sheltered childhood amidst a bizarre fear of her grandmother and a strange relationship between her mother and other men. She grew up with an aversion to men but a strong sexual desire, clearly creating some issues. But, like I said, the film's interpretation is completely up in the air. What the directing duo does so well is create a fully sensual experience, both for their character, and their audience. The film illustrates three different occurrences at three different moments in Ana's life; her childhood, her adolescence, and adulthood. All three of which are closely watched by the eye behind the door, in the mirror, or from the gaze of a line of seemingly savage men. Ana is constantly being watched by whatever it is that had gotten her so afraid her entire life.

So the story isn't much, and from that alone there's hardly anything revealed about Ana. It's in the film's flawless design and execution that we can relate to this girl on any level. When she feels fear, we feel fear, simply for the reason that Forzani and Cattet have such brilliant taste for atmosphere and aesthetic that they can easily pull us into the world of the movie. The scenes throughout her life occur in order of increasing tension and physical incident, but the most imaginative being the first, during childhood. The young Ana lives at home with her superstitious grandmother and her mother. Her grandfather has just passed away and the grandmother performs all the rituals to ensure passage into the next world. Ana's episode during this time clearly reflects her fear of what she doesn't know, and with some awesome, jumpy editing, and brilliant changing colors, this easily becomes the most interesting sequence of the entire movie.

This isn't to say that the rest of the movie is uninteresting. There's one incredibly unnerving and uncomfortable murder scene in the film's latter half that's certainly worth mentioning, but can hardly be explained for it's shear physical and sensual nature. The movie falters, however, in that it really does use too much too soon. The first third is a bombardment on the senses, and a hell of a lot of fun at that. Beyond that we never really see quite the same spark again. Regardless, Amer is an excellent little experiment that should be enjoyed as such. Expect no straight forward narrative out of this one, but rather strap in for one hell of a physically involving ride. Forzani and Cattet have constructed a film that goes beyond your eyes and ears. It will make your skin tingle, you hair stand up, and your body sweat. That's truly something admirable from filmmakers paying homage to an almost completely dead genre. Not to mention it being their first time even making a movie. I wish there was more to say about Amer, but certainly this is a film to experience for yourself, with raw nerve and spine chilling effect that words simply can't explain.

VERDICT: 7/10
-William Gutheil

Shlock and Awe: A Tribute to B-Movie Awesomeness

2010-07-20T15:57:00.004-04:00

We're starting a new feature here at 24Lps. Shlock and Awe is a column dedicated to b-movies, cult hits, and grindhouse greats, brought to us by 24 Lies writer Jack McFarlane. We're kicking it off with Piero Schivazappa's 1969 horror flick The Frightened Woman.

With a tagline like “When this man comes a woman dies!” you think twice about loaning this movie to a friend without a careful explanation of just how it ‘entertains’ them. I don’t think of myself as prudish, in fact I’m fairly hard to offend in terms of sex and violence on screen, but I simply cannot stress enough just how ambiguous I feel over this movie’s ability to offend. I have so much trouble coming to terms with the anachronism between this movie’s premise and the way the content has dated to become so lavishly campy. With the way it portrays male sexuality and its treatment of women it was no doubt meant to titillate and shock its audience, but after forty years after it was made it’s doubtful it’ll still serve those purposes, though you’ll probably have a lot of fun while it tries to.

The Frightened Woman follows the sexual exploits of Dr. Sayer, a louche comic book super villain who collects artworks of fatal diseases. Riddled with S&M neurosis, he’s made a habit of kidnapping women to psychologically torment and physically demean them as a way of exerting his ‘natural masculine superiority’. With his latest victim suitably domineered and degraded, he hovers on the brink of the kill in uncharacteristic hesitation, reflecting on the nature of his fetish. The first thing I should make very clear is that despite this description this is not torture porn movie nor should it be consider as a precursor to this school of horror. The torture inflicted on his victims is physical in places, but it’s a comparatively small part of what happens in the course of the movie. Though deeply unpleasant they are rare, brief and aren’t in the slightest bit gory. These actions are important to the victims experience but are otherwise completely overshadowed by the threats, absurd rants and claims, and bizarre actions performed by Sawyer.

It seems that through Sayer, the film looks to explore the darkest, most twisted side of masculine sexuality in such a way as to confirm its existence within its scopophillic audience. It may, may, have been considered as a serious artistic reflection in its day, though that does seem laughable now. Directors like Michael Haneke and Gasper Noé, and philosophers like Slavoj Žižek have all successfully probed the most vulgar recesses of human sexuality, in the process demonstrating a disquieting union between realizing unfettered carnal fantasies and the horrific. The Frightened Woman simply does not belong in the same category of thought as these examples. In fact, it doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously at all. Whereas films such as Irreversible and The Piano Teacher force the viewer to confront the worst aspects of human sexuality, The Frightened Woman allows you to simply wallow in it. It has nothing to say despite its moralizing overtones: underneath the pretense its pure and simple sexploitation.

However, were as the rest of its ilk from the swinging sixties has dated to look positively timid by comparison to some Madonna or Christina Aguilera music videos, The Frightened Woman still as something extremely seedy and naggingly unsettling to it. This undercurrent of discomfort is partly accountable by the fact that the version masculinity that Sawyer so sadistically enforces is so elaborate and odd, and that fact that you’re never entirely sure just how knowingly this was The more awkward and alienated you feel by Sayer’s actions, the more entertained you’ll be by this movie. With its out of sync audio dubbing and over the top performances, this is a highly enjoyable movie when viewed with a good appreciation for camp and a degree of ironic removal. It’s a position that you’ll find easy to achieve but be at pains to point out if you ever admit to liking it. It would honestly be easier to unambiguously recommend something far more straightforwardly nasty. At least then there would be no doubt as to the nature of the content or the way in which to view it.

Like an ominously kinky Euro version of a Russ Myres movie, minus the massive tits and shagging. What it lacks for in naked flesh and raunch in makes up for in art-house fetish, kitschy sleaze, and remarkably high production values. The beautifully colour saturated cinematography and modernist set design are especially good. Sayer’s secret S&M lair is a pop-art masterpiece. It’s like the batcave were inhabited by Ted Bundy but had been decorated by Austin Powers. It’s dressed as a sexual equality morality tale but that’s nothing more than PC tokenism. In essence it’s a shameless self-indulgence by an insecure chauvinist that’s all the more sordid and creepy for the level of care and attention to detail lavished on his little wet dream. Tamed through retrospective viewing, it remains extremely entertaining as antiquated sleaze.

VERDICT: 7/10

-Jack McFarlane

Joaquin Phoenix: Does Anyone Really Give a Shit?

2010-07-19T16:47:00.000-04:00

That picture makes me chuckle every time I see it. Anyways, news just came in that Joaquin's new documentary entitled I'm Still Here: The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix is slated for a September 10th release in the states, and Joaquin himself has been cited as saying he'll make some sort of statement about the movie upon its release. Sources (P. Diddy and Casey Affleck) are all saying that this is one hundred percent legit, and that Phoenix's initial downfall and subsequent attempt at a rap career was not in fact, part of an elaborate hoax. After his infamous appearance on Letterman and his brief run-ins with the public here and there since his last film Two Lovers, his image has turned into anything but respectable.

But now being told that this isn't some hoax, or that Phoenix isn't on the inside with the likes of Zach Galifinakis or Seth Rogen, it's a little bizarre that he would go about all of this in such a self absorbed way. Granted that the guy was a good actor, and that what he's done is strange, but I really see no reason why anyone would really give a damn to see what happened to him in the short time he was "gone". There's really nothing about this that I can even call admirable. Clearly he knows that he's making himself into a novelty if he keeps selling himself back to the people. The joke here is pretty much on us, the suckers who watched a semi-well known and decent actor go a bit wacky, make a big deal of it, then buy tickets to a documentary of it.

I really don't give a shit why you're a terrible rapper now, Joaquin. For everyone else who does, for reasons I'll never understand, you can catch the doc this fall.

-William Gutheil

Dora The Extractor

2010-07-19T15:59:00.000-04:00

Oh good lord this is funny. Thanks to Slash for the still.

-William Gutheil

Sci Fi Review: Inception

2010-07-19T15:47:00.003-04:00

This review took me a bit longer than it should have. Most sites and critics had their reviews up either on Friday night or on Saturday morning following the film's release. Honestly, though, I've had so much to watch and so many other things to do this weekend that I had to put this review on hold for a couple days. That doesn't mean, however, that Inception was a film I can easily disregard. The movie itself was one of the few films this year that actually met the expectations I had for it. Director Christopher Nolan has, once again, completely outdone himself in terms of style, concept and execution. Following in the footsteps of his 2008 epic The Dark Knight, the movie which almost single handedly pushed superhero films to a new level of respectability, and subsequently won the young filmmaker gobs of money, he was given, or so it seems, complete creative control over this brilliantly structured sci fi adventure. His timing in this case is impeccable, as Hollywood execs have recently been complaining about a lack of originality in the industry (something they themselves had caused, but that's beside the point). With what box office draw he has, and the era in which he's making films, Christopher Nolan has free reign to pretty much do whatever the hell he wants. Lucky for us that whatever the hell he wants to do is something as visually and conceptually awesome as Inception.

What Nolan has done so brilliantly this time around is created a science fiction universe in which the ability to hack someone's dreams like a computer program has turned into an asset amongst major corporations. The concept of being able to enter a dream is intriguing enough, and had it been in the hands of anyone else, it's very likely that it may have followed closely to The Matrix or Strange Days, worlds in which low-life, unassuming characters are using the technology. In the case of Inception, the technology is adopted by big business in a new effort to commit espionage beyond (or within) anyone's wildest dreams. Thus the characters are all very confident, apparently very wealthy, somewhat maniacal in the evil-corporation sort of way, and they are all incredibly intelligent. This gives way for some very interesting character arcs, particularly in the case of Dom Cobb, the "Exctractor" played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Cobb's job as an Extractor goes two ways; he can be hired to hack a person's dream and steal an idea, or he can be hired to train a person to protect and defend their own subconscious from such attacks. The film begins by showing us an extraction gone horribly awry. This gives Nolan some time to lay down the groundwork for what we're going to see in the second half of the film. The rules of the game are laid out before us, and Nolan does a pretty excellent job at organizing and simplifying the process of hacking into someone's subconscious. He comes up with clever little rules and guidelines to be followed when going about an extraction. We learn of the different team members that are required to do such a job, like the architect (Ellen Page) who is responsible for building, or imagining the different levels of subconscious which they need to explore in order to get the subject to reveal his or her secrets. We learn about how a person is woken up from within a dream, simply by dying (unless they are under sedation), or how they can be physically woken up with a "kick", or the sensation of freefall induced in the film by driving a van off of a bridge. Admittedly, Nolan comes up with a lot of goofy jargon and condenses such an immense concept into such simplicity in such little time that it does get a bit unwittingly comical at times. For as laughable as it is, though, the second half of the film holds one of the greatest adventures in recent cinema history.

As the plot unfolds, we learn of Cobb's desire to see his children again, and we begin to discover his subconscious attachment to his now-deceased wife, who actually begins to physically effect his and his team's advancement later on in the film. Cobb is offered one last job for the chance to go home at long last and see his children in real life, rather than just in his dreams. Assembling a team for this one proves to be a challenge though, as the job is something that has long been thought impossible by many; the act of inception, or the planting of an idea in someone's mind. The second act of the film revolves heavily around Cobb training and preparing his group, and the subsequent ideas that follow, such as the totem that is of major importance throughout the film. Cobb's totem is a spinning top that, when in reality, will eventually stop spinning and fall, but in a dream it just keeps going round. Inception is filled with clever little bits such as this, and Nolan does a wonderful job at tying them all together into one of the tightest scripts in a long time.

The first half of the movie is just getting tiring when the action picks up. The plan falls into place and the team makes their move. This is where the real payoff is, and where Nolan truly shows his genius as a filmmaker. He is able to setup three different time frames that occur simultaneously, again using one of the clever (though a tad goofy) rules he established in the first half; time goes slower for every level of subconscious you enter. In order to plant an idea and carry out an inception, the team must travel much deeper into the subconscious than an ordinary extraction, thus they must enter a dream within the first dream, and then another dream within that. So when the kick happens in the first dream, the second two dreams have even more time to get things done as everything happens at once on the first level. This makes for some pretty incredible editing, an Academy Award that might as well be wrapped up in a bow for this one. So at long last all that we had seen in the first half comes full circle into one of the most mind blowingly awesome second halves I've ever seen. The visuals on display here almost take all the credit for being the focal point. When the van the characters sleep in on the first dream level begins rolling down the side of a hill, the action in the next dream level literally turns upside down. Cobb's point-man, played by Joseph Gordon Levitt, has to fend off the subject's subconscious security in a hotel hallway that begins spinning in circles. In true Matrix fashion, the battle takes place as the characters are forced to climb the walls and spin through the air as the van on the dream level above them tumbles end over end. Undoubtedly one of the most brilliantly crafted fight scenes in the last decade.

For all of it's goofy and sometimes laughable rules and ideas, Chris Nolan knew what he wanted all along, and was just setting us up with all this fictional jargon. As I said, his screenplay is so tight that it's hard to hold some of his hard-to-fathom guidelines against him. He has carefully and concisely simplified the subject matter into something easily understood, and something that allowed him to present us with multiple levels of reality at the same time, and show us some brilliant action on each of those levels. He's even careful to make sure there is an attachment to character and not just concept. While some secondary characters are a bit under-developed, leaving out any real reason why they would actually want to be risking their lives like this other than just money, Cobb's character is extremely dynamic, and Nolan has created a film that allows us to visually see what's going on in his head. While it's nowhere near the intellectual level of a film like The Matrix, Inception has successfully made its high concept subject matter basic enough for its audience to understand and not take anything away from the overall experience. Nolan has crafted yet another visual feast, with ideas and concepts worthy of the science fiction masters. While many have called him this generations Kubrick, I'd have to disagree; Kubrick never made movies this accessible. Nolan is smart and he's mainstream, a combination that makes him deadly.

VERDICT: 8.5/10
-William Gutheil

Criterion Rolls Out The Big Guns For Summer/Fall Releases

2010-07-19T14:40:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Slashfilm for the picture. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I simply can't keep up with Criterion's releases these days. There are just too many, all of which are excellent films. Over the course 2010 thus far they've brought us gorgeous transfers of Revanche, Hunger, 8 1/2, Che, M, and literally dozens of others. They've just unveiled their release schedule for August to October, and my God is it awesome. Check out the list over at Twitch and head on over to the official Criterion website for more info.

-William Gutheil

Behold! An Awesome Poster For Gareth Edwards' 'Monsters'

2010-07-19T14:16:00.000-04:00

This is one that's been getting hyped since its premiere at Cannes. Apparently filmmaker Gareth Edwards was able to make this brilliant little sci-fi drama for a pretty astonishingly modest budget, and many have been hailing him as the next Neill Blomkamp (though, let's face it, there have been so many "next" Neill Blomkamp's since last year). Either way though, Monsters is being praised as a brilliant little movie, and we finally have the first look at a very District 9-esque poster for the film's UK release. Also, I've recently discovered that Magnet films have picked up distribution rights and are bringing the film to New York and Las Angeles in October this year. Keep checking back for more updates, and in the meantime check out the official synopsis and clip below.

The breakout hit of this years SXSW, Gareth Edwards’ groundbreaking new film is as much a poignant contemporary romance as it is an epic science fiction adventure. Shot with just a five person crew and a cast of two, Gareth Edwards’ team traveled through Guatemala, Belize and Mexico, finding and utilizing their locations and supporting actors as they went. The result is a film as cutting edge as it is classically composed, as emotionally satisfying as it is visually stunning, and the bold announcement of a major new talent.

Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America. Soon after, new life forms began to appear and grow. In an effort to stem the destruction that resulted, half of Mexico was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain the massive creatures… Our story begins when a jaded US journalist (McNairy) begrudgingly agrees to find his bosses daughter, a shaken American tourist (Able) and escort her through the infected zone to the safety of the US border.

-William Gutheil