Posts Tagged ‘warner bros’

Going The Distance – Going For Need

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Posted 04 Aug 2011 — by contributor
Category Film Reviews, Movies I Got

By Scott Martin

Going The Distance, USA, 2010 Drew Barrymore and Justin Long in New Line Cinema's romantic comedy Going The Distance, a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

Directed by Nanette Burstein

Some of us have experienced it, some of us have vowed to never go through it (once or again), some of us are doing it right now, but the fact is Nanette Burstein’s film might as well be “based on actual events.” It isn’t a film for everyone, hence its divisive critical reception, but for those of us who can connect, it serves as medicine for a most unique ailment: long-distance relationships. Some of them work, some of them crash and burn, but no matter what happens between the two loved ones, it’s a learning experience like none other. Burstein is a documentary filmmaker by trade, having only a few films, including The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002) and American Teen (2008), to her name. It’s always an interesting leap when a documentary director throws their hat into the ring to make a fiction film. I’m sure many of us long for the day when Michael Moore might make a buddy cop movie, but, until that (sure to be unfortunate) time comes, let’s look at what we have here. Read More

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Friday The 13th (1980) – Everybody Looking Forward To The Weekend

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Posted 03 Jul 2011 — by contributor
Category Film Reviews, Movies I Got

By Scott Martin

Friday the 13th, USA, 1980

Directed by Sean S. Cunningham

Friday the 13th - a film that delivers what it promises. Alfred Hitchcock created the genre: the “slasher” picture. It was 1960, and the film was Psycho. If we wanted to stretch that fact, we can claim that the original slasher film was a small, yet admittedly scary, film called Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell. It was released only a few months before Psycho, but didn’t have nearly the same impact on audiences, or critics. Psycho soared to the top, and Peeping Tom was left to be later rediscovered and revered. Hitchcock, without intention, birthed a new era of horror film that wouldn’t come into its prime until 1974 with the release of Bob Clark’s Black Christmas.

Black Christmas redefined what Hitchcock had started, and set the rules in stone: a mentally unhinged masked killer stalks attractive teens and picks them off, one by one, in creative ways. After Black Christmas, then came John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), which cemented the popularity of the genre. After Halloween was a critical and financial success, studios ran with the idea that they could make money selling “dead teenager movies” (a term coined by Roger Ebert) to live teenagers. They were right, and in 1980, the first studio-backed slasher film was released. It was May 9th, and it was Friday the 13th. Read More

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Potter Preview Now Online!

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Posted 29 Jun 2011 — by contributor
Category Essay, Film Industry News

By Rachel Menendez

Potter Preview available onlineThe moment that die hard Harry Potter fans have been awaiting is just about here. The final installment of the Harry Potter movies is upon us with its worldwide release scheduled for next month.

In the meantime, you can whet your appetite for all things Potteresque by checking out the preview of The Deathly Hallows Part II online. The exciting preview gives you a taste of what is to come when the movie is released on July 15.

Fans have been growing up with Harry since he first burst onto the screens as a cherub faced kid back in 2001. Ten years on, we are preparing to see the final movie released – The Deathly Hallows Part II.

The actors, director and producers of Part II are ensuring that the franchise goes out with a bang bigger than a potions session with Professor Snape could produce. Much of Part II is devoted to the Battle of Hogwarts with Voldemort in his final push for supremacy pitted against Harry and the Order of the Phoenix. Read More

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The Town – Not Just Hunting For A Paycheck

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Posted 26 Jun 2011 — by contributor
Category Film Reviews, Movies I Got

By Scott Martin

The Town, USA, 2010

Directed by Ben Affleck

The Town feels like a film that could stand on its own, and Affleck makes the material his own, while paying respect to Charlestown and the novel itself. In 1997, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon gave us a soft and emotional tour of Boston in Good Will Hunting, as they knew it growing up. They explored the values of hope and family. In 2007, ten years later, Affleck went it alone and took us back to Boston with Gone Baby Gone, exploring themes of loss and grief, right and wrong. In 2010, Affleck took us to the doorstep, sat us down on the curb, and said, “Watch.” The town, Charlestown, to be specific, lives and breathes by itself as the central hub of bank robberies in New England. The film’s opening quotes tell us that the trade is almost a birthright, something you’re born into, or against. For the four lads in this film, it’s the only life they know, and they’ll go to incredible lengths to protect it.

Ben Affleck is a fantastic director. Being an actor, he understands how to work with them and get the best performances possible. There isn’t a false performance in this film, not one, and if Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone weren’t already an indication, he’s an extremely gifted writer. He’s a great American filmmaker, if I may be so bold. After only two films as director, that’s pretty bold, but I’ll stand by it. Sue me. Affleck understands pacing better than most directors working today. I think it can be attributed to his involvement in the scriptwriting, and his timing as an actor. All of these elements elevate his films beyond what they might be in the hands of other directors. He isn’t a Scorsese or a Capra or a Coppola, but he’s Affleck, and, at the very least, he was the bomb in Phantoms. Read More

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Arthur

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Posted 17 May 2011 — by Nicole P
Category Film Reviews, Movies I Got

By Scott MartinArthur starring Russell Brand

Arthur, USA, 2011

Directed by Jason Winer

There are moments of genuine comedic genius in this updated remix of 1981’s Arthur, starring Dudley Moore, Liza Minelli, and John Gielgud. Here, Russell Brand portrays our titular loafer in wildly expensive loafers, while Helen Mirren takes Gielgud’s spot as his live-in nanny Hobson. Greta Gerwig, affable and luminous as ever, takes over for Liza Minelli as Arthur’s love interest/savior. He drinks more than anyone should, to a debilitating degree, and every time he steps out of his house, it’s a party. Drinks are on him, of course. Most remakes today have nothing to offer audiences, and do nothing to improve upon or rethink the original films. Admittedly, this version of the popular Moore film (for which he was Oscar-nominated, and Gielgud won) doesn’t do much to rethink the original, but the improvement is there. In the original film, Arthur’s alcoholism isn’t treated with the same touch (it’s merely a plot point, it feels) and Brand’s performance here has more heart than most things Moore did. Both are fine films, and this one certainly won’t see the Oscars, but that doesn’t stop it from being a warm and abstractly hilarious afternoon at the movies.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again with confidence: Russell Brand is an excellent actor. More important than being funny, he’s lovable. There’s a certain heartwarming quality to his humor, even when it’s vile, so that you can’t help but want to hug him when you should want to slap him. That’s an important quality for Arthur Bach, a man with about a billion dollars and a billion fewer brain cells, to have. Matched with Helen Mirren’s gift for dry wit and being so damn lovably herself, it’s easy to find why this movie works. On one hand, the film underuses just about everyone except Brand, almost like it’s a vehicle for his comedic riffing. It isn’t as balanced as last year’s Get Him to the Greek, but everyone gets their fair share of screentime, and no one is forced. That’s probably the best thing about this over-the-top film – nothing feels like it isn’t natural. We live in Arthur’s billion-dollar world, and what we see is a normal day for him. Read More

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Scenechronize – The Efficient, Environmentally-Friendly Future Of Production

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Posted 18 Apr 2011 — by Ezra Stead
Category Film Industry News, Hollywood Beat

By Ezra Stead

Scenechronize is revolutionizing the film production process.

Last month, marketwire.com covered the story of a $5 million dollar series B financing deal led by three private investors for the web-based production management system known as “scenechronize.” Scenechronize is the only system of its kind currently in use, and it is already streamlining the production process of numerous films and television series by eliminating the costly and wasteful practices employed in the industry up until now. Scenechronize provides automatic distribution of script changes, sides, call sheets, prep memos, location maps and other information previously relayed through phone calls, emails, memos and other forms of written communication in a time-consuming, inefficient process susceptible to mistakes. According to the San Francisco-based company’s CEO, Hunter Hancock, “scenechronize expedites and streamlines communications for the entire production, saving wasted time, significant amounts of money, and lots and lots of trees.” Read More

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The Goonies – Much Worse Than You Remember

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Posted 14 Mar 2011 — by Ezra Stead
Category Essay, Film Reviews, Movies I Didn't Get

By Ezra Stead

The Goonies, USA, 1985

Directed by Richard Donner

The Goonies might be the most overrated film of the 1980s.

You know what I love about the ’80s? Public Enemy, NWA, Prince, Guns N’ Roses, and the fact that The Toxic Avenger (1984), an unrated film that shows a kid’s head getting smashed by a car in graphic, bloody close-up within the first thirty minutes, was inexplicably made into a children’s cartoon on broadcast television.

You know what I hate about the ’80s? Reaganomics, Reagan, Bush, and now that I’ve pretty much got you all on my side, let me do a 180 and say that I hate The Goonies (1985).

Okay, so you’re probably yelling at your computer screen now, but I defy any of you, to give me any kind of logical argument for why anyone over the age of ten, with an IQ over 100, should like this film, let alone consider it “the greatest adolescent adventure film of all time,” as at least one critic has dubbed it.

Now, I’ll admit that I am lacking the one and only prerequisite for liking The Goonies: I never saw it as a kid. I know dozens of people who profess to love the film because they grew up with it. Most of them haven’t seen it since they were kids, but I guess that’s beside the point. The point is, I also never saw Labyrinth (1986) or The Princess Bride (1987) or The Neverending Story (1984) as a kid either, but I still love those movies now, after having seen them as an adult. Why? Because they’re actually good films.

The Goonies, on the other hand, has one good thing going for it: Chunk (Jeff Cohen). Perhaps the only worthwhile scene in the whole godforsaken film is Chunk’s tearful confession of causing a massive puke-fest, which would have been funnier if it were shown rather than merely described, a la Stand By Me (1986), an infinitely superior “adolescent adventure film.” Chunk’s other shining moment is, of course, the infamous “truffle shuffle,” a cheap joke at the expense of a fat kid that I would still rather watch for three hours than sit through the rest of the movie. Read More

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