When the big budget blockbuster flicks have let you down, there are plenty of independent films eagerly waiting for you!
Backyard FX (BFX) demonstrates how you can throw a knife into someone’s head without the aid of CG. It’s safe, it’s fun, and it’ll cost less than $20! I foresee random effects testing in the future.
[Via Indy Mogul]
Reader Mikey D is at it again! This time, he sent over this trailer for Troma’s latest, Poultrygeist.
LOLZ!
Awesome! Not Black Sheep awesome (that movie is seriously full of the awesome), but awesome still. Most Troma films are so bad they’re awesome. Troma is fully aware of their place in schlocky less-than-B horror films. They don’t take themselves too seriously and clearly have a lot of fun making these insanely bad movies. Camp at its dirtiest.
I would probably pay money to see this if it was playing near me. But I’d have to go with a big group of people looking to just have some mindless fun. Turn your brain off whenever you watch anything from Troma because thinking too hard about what you’re watching will ruin the fun.
Here’s a much more tasteless trailer that may offend your boss if he catches you watching it. Hell, most of the stuff Troma releases will offend your boss. But I couldn’t stop laughing!
[Via Poultrygeist]
HELLS! YES!
Mike Cera of Superbad and Juno fame will star as Scott Pilgrim in Universal’s Scott Pilgrim’s Little Life!
I giggled like an idiot when I read the news! This is so awesome. Scott Pilgrim continues to be one of my favorite comics and I’m glad to see it get some movie love. I hope Bryan Lee O’Malley is involved somehow.
Mike Cera as Scott Pilgrim will be mighty tasty. The characters I’ve seen Cera portray share a lot in common with Scott so it’s a natch. It’ll be fun who they cast as Knives, Ramona, and Willis and the thought of seeing Sex Bob-omb rock live on the screen kinda makes me weak in the knees. Cera better get his kung fu fighting on because we expect nothing less from our Scott Pilgrim!
This is going to be so good I can smell the good sauce right now. I knew I should have packed that extra set of pants with me before I went off to work!
UPDATE: Great nerds think alike! Marty is equally geeked over the Scott Pilgrim live actionness.
[Via Hollywood Reporter]
Judging There Will Be Blood by the Jam Scale is pointless. It’s a period piece set in the early 1900s so to fault the film for lacking diversity is inappropriate. So let’s just jump ahead.
There Will Be Blood might as well have been called Daniel Day Lewis vs Paul Dano. Daniel Day Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, a fairly unpleasant oil baron intent on drilling in a little frontier town. Paul Dano, who you might recognize as the silent brother from Little Miss Sunshine, plays an equally unpleasant preacher, Eli Sunday, intent on exploiting the situation to get much money as he can from Plainview for his church. There are other characters like Plainview’s young partner and adopted son, H.W., who accompanies Plainview on every deal, but really, it’s Plainview vs Sunday all the way.
It’s no surprise that Daniel Day Lewis is up for Best Actor tomorrow night. He completely embodies the character of a driven, egotistical, and self destructive oil baron. One of his most powerful performances to date. Paul Dano is also superb as the manipulative preacher. The two of them play very well off each other and I’m sure this will lead to good things for Dano.
The film does an excellent job of drawing you in from the very start. The first few minutes are spent with Daniel Plainview in a dark well as he digs all by his lonesome for silver. The first few lines of dialog occur eleven minutes in, but by then, we’re already drawn to Plainview.
The crazy thing is that though Plainview is a horrible man who is impossible for anyone to relate to, I found myself rooting for him in his quest to exploit the backwater frontier town. There’s virtually nothing redeeming about his character. No moments of revelation, no great heroic turn, no indication of any regret or humility or growth. He is an oil man to the end, driven, exploitive, egotistical, maniacal, and I just couldn’t help but cheer him on in the horrific final scene.
Though the title of the film evokes images of crimson red flowing like a river over hill and dale, the actual violent moments are few and far between giving them far greater impact. The cinematography is superb. The sweeping landscapes, the gritty wells, the set pieces, every visual sucks you into the period. However, it’s two and a half hours long. And to be perfectly honest, it feels like two and a half hours long. The visuals make it very easy to put yourself back in that time period. But eventually, the mystique wears off. And though Daniel Day Lewis is completely enthralling and Paul Dano draws you in and repells you at the same time, I found myself looking at my watch. There’s only so much intensity I can take in one sitting and two and a half hours of it is well beyond my limit. It’s not a bad movie, far from it. But it’s a bit much to take all at once.
Overall, it was quite enjoyable. Intense, but worth a full price ticket. Just make sure you have three hours to kill. I’m almost certain Daniel Day Lewis will walk away with the Oscar tomorrow. And I wouldn’t be surprised if There Will Be Blood beats out the competition.
Do you have an idea for a great horror film that is guaranteed to scare the ever loving shit out of audiences? Is your idea truly original and not a cheap rehash of an older horror flick? Then get your elevator pitches ready because you could be a producer on Ghosts in the Machine! Enter Massify.
Massify hopes to revolutionize community film making by putting its users in charge of the big decisions. Massify is partnering with After Dark Films to make Ghosts in the Machine. The feature will be included in After Dark Film’s Horrorfest 2008. If you have an idea for an awesome horror flick (Dead of Summer gang, looking at you), from now until March 17, you can pitch your idea to the Massify community. You can vote for your favorites from March 5 - 17. The top ten will go on to a second round of voting to select the winning pitch from March 18 - 25. Auditions for the cast begin March 12 and go until April 21. Two men and two women will be cast to play a lead role in the movie (hmmm… that actually could be some fun…). Voting for the cast goes from April 8 - 21. The top ten men and women will be flown out to a location for a screen test April 22 - May 12. Finally, you get to vote for the final cast from May 13 - 26. The two top man and woman will land lead roles, the two runners-up will land supporting roles.
This could be quite a lot of fun. It’s the ultimate democratization of entertainment, movie by interweb community. It’ll be interesting who the public decides to cast. Does the horror community want a diverse cast? Will ethnicity even matter? Will a regular guy or girl with a webcam be the next horror movie star? And will this attract any A-list or B-list actors?
Of course, this could be a disaster. Anyone remember when MTV asked us to choose a VJ? We gave them Jesse who turned out to be a completely insane and unintelligible freak.
However, I’m willing to bet that horror fans will genuinely want to create something awesome. Looking forward to seeing some of those audition tapes.
[Via Massify]
This is the first major feature from director Amin Matalqa and the first movie out of Jordan in at least fifty years.
Abu Raed, an old widower, works as a janitor at the Amman airport. He discovers a captain’s hat in a garbage can and takes it home with him. As he walks up to his house, a young neighborhood boy, Tarek, sees the captain’s hat Abu Raed carries and mistakes him for an airplane pilot. Abu Raed attempts to correct the young boy insisting that he is not, in fact, a captain. Tarek refuses to be dissuaded and tells all his friends that a captain lives in their poor neighborhood. Abu Raed finally relents, puts on his captain’s hat, and tells the young children of his fictitious adventures around the world.
Not every child is enamored with Abu Raed’s tales. Murad, who lives next door to Abu Raed and whose father beats him and his mother nearly every night, decrys Abu Raed as a liar and sets out to prove that he’s a janitor.
As Abu Raed becomes more involved in the lives of Tarek and Murad, he rediscovers a joy that he lost when his son and wife passed away.
By far, Captain Abu Raed was my favorite film of the festival. I really hope it gets picked up for wider distribution. It’s such a powerful and moving film, it must be experienced by audiences everywhere. This is an absolute MUST SEE.
Sid, the son of a Hong Kong gangster and a drummer in a rock band, is sent away to Taiwan for his own good after shacking up with a rival gangster’s girlfriend. There, he discovers a Zen drum troop and convinces them to teach him their ways. The impatient youth soon finds that it’s not as simple as picking up a stick and hitting a drum. And so begins his journey of self-discovery and redemption.
J.C. Chan stars as Sid and also happens to be Jackie Chan’s son. It’s hard to believe this is his first full feature film. We really see his evolution from a wild out of control brat to a calm and steady mature adult. Equally impressive is the fact that this is Kenneth Bi’s second directorial endeavor. Drummer is truly a wonderful film that must be experienced.
William H Macy plays a washed out movie producer, Charlie Berns, on the verge of suicide. In a spark of inspiration brought on by the unannounced visit of his nephew, Lionel, who has written a screenplay, Charlie puts off his suicide attempt to produce his nephew’s movie. What starts out as an entertaining distraction in between suicide attempts becomes Charlie’s vehicle for seducing Diedre Hearn, an engaged studio exec who, despite being utterly repulsed by Charlie, can’t help but see the genius in the way he strokes egos, manipulates press, and works the studio execs to get this movie made.
We don’t often get to see William H Macy so confidant, sly, and manipulative, but the role absolutely suits him. The chemistry between him and Meg Ryan is energetic and playful. L.L. Cool J makes an appearance as an action star recently converted to Judaism and looking for an action film with Jewish values. It’s a one note role and good for a laugh (and I’m always a big fan of LL), but it’s really Macy and Ryan who just leap off the screen. They’re truly wonderful together.
As ludicrous as some of the deals seem, you can almost believe that big budget action films are made this way. It’s a new setting to frame a romantic comedy and seemed a perfect match for Sundance. Wonderful date flick and perfect for movie nerds everywhere.
Matthew Perry plays an over-stressed college professor, Morrie, hoping to gain tenure by kissing the ass of his next-door neighbor. Morrie invites his brother, Jay, to stay with him and his wife after a car hits him. Jay in turn calls their sister, Ida, to come visit. The impromptu family reunion brings forth all the dysfunction that drove the family apart in the first place and puts Morry’s plans for tenure in jeopardy.
I normally despise anything that any of the former cast of Friends has done since the show’s end. I especially avoid anything with Matthew Perry. So I was more than pleasantly surprised with this film. Perry plays straight man to the hilt throughout the film, almost too serious for his own good. His performance is genuine and honest and when he finally lets loose, so to speak, I couldn’t help but cheer. Hillary Swank is also quite funny as the perfect suburban housewife next door. We haven’t seen her in a role like this before and you can tell she had fun playing the part of the prim and proper homemaker.
I’d be very surprised if it doesn’t get picked up. When it plays in theaters, I highly recommend Birds of America.
puujee is a documentary that gives us a glimpse into the life of a six-year-old Mongolian girl, puujee, and her family as they try to survive in the new market economy that has virtually made the old ways of life obsolete.
This type of documentary is difficult to watch. On the one hand, we get an intimate view of life on the open plains of Mongolia. On the other hand, terrible things keep happening to puujee and her family. And unlike the many features that we saw, this one offers no happy ending.
After getting to know puujee and her family, the documentary crew returns a few months later to find that puujee’s mother has died. A horse trampled her. It took ten days to finally get her to a hospital because the ambulance refused to drive out to the family’s home. And after all that, she was denied entry to the hospital because she had no insurance. She died two days later.
During the crew’s second visit, a horrible storm wipes out most of the herd and feedstocks. We’re treated to scenes of animals starving to death because there’s not enough feed.
Finally, the documentary crew return to visit puujee’s family after a four year absence. When they left, puujee was going to school hoping to someday leave the plains of Mongolia to become a translator in Japan. Upon their final return, they learn that the day before her graduation from elementary school, puujee was killed in a traffic accident. She is survived by her grandmother, uncle, and little brother.
Big freaking downer. Well done, well filmed, and the plains of Mongolia are absolutely gorgeous. Not my thing.
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