I’m a bit late posting this but, I have to say, the only thing this trailer is missing is Samuel L. Jackson exclaiming, “I have had it with these motherf*cking piranhas in this motherf*cking student infested lake!”
After the flip, I have some bonus videos that I think are self-explanatory.
Residents of a certain southwestern state take note…
This is obviously a newly recut trailer with that special message from the awesome Danny Trejo — not, I admit, nearly as funny/cool as the one in “Grindhouse.” On the other hand, we now have glimpses of Robert De Niro doing exploitation for pretty much the first time in his career, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, the great Cheech Marin, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan (on the comeback trail?), and “introducing Don Johnson.” Heh.
H/t Topless Robot.
Some fairly big news to report tonight.
* It might be a bit meta for a lead, but I can’t help my happiness that Roger Ebert has been named person of the year by the Webby Awards people. I’ve been a big fan of his writing for a very long time and always thought he was the best straight-up writer of any of the major critics, but recently he has really emerged as an inspirational figure. He’s also been one of the most generous supporters of film writing on the web in a million different ways. It’s not really bragging when I mention that he’s thrown some small nods my way as well as some occasionally very funny e-mail responses over the years. He’s done the same for countless others.
And, if that wasn’t cool enough, the great cinephile social networking and blog site, the Auteurs also won an award. Well, done, folks.
* In actual movie news, remember that item last week when I said that Matthew Vaughn, most recently of “Kick-Ass,” was not going to be directing the next X-Men movie? If not, you can just keep right on forgetting because, it turns out, he is directing the film they’ll call “X-Men: First Class” — a prequel. I’m a big fan of Vaughn, though not so much of the X-Men films so far, so I find this intriguing. Some of you may remember, Vaughn departed from “X-Men 3” and the film that was, as per Cinema Blend, Matthew Vaughn, and I, almost definitely the worse for it.
* More really good news from my point of view, one of my favorite actors currently working, Chewitel Ejiofor, has been cast as definitely my favorite Afro-pop musician — okay, the only African musician I can think of that I’ve ever actually bought an album or CD by. Ejiofor will be starring in a biopic of the legendary maestro Fela Anikulapo Kuti in a film to be directed by Steve McQueen of “Hunger.” This film is not related, except by topic, to the musical “Fela!” which just got eleven Tony nominations. The cool part is not only that the Ejiofor, a first-generation Brit born of Nigerian parents, is the actor to play the part, he’s also apparently learning to play piano and saxophone (Kuti’s instruments, I believe) and had, we’re told, become quite good.
Roger Ebert — there’ll be a bit more about him later tonight — always says that movies are not what they’re about, but how they’re about it. If so, this new film starring George Clooney is a real test of that thesis because, as pointed out by Jay A. Fernandez, premise-wise “The American” isn’t going to win any prizes for originality. Watch this and I think you’ll see, but if any of you English majors are expecting an adaptation of Henry James’ subtle romance, The American, think again.
Okay, so the trailer doesn’t make the hugest impression and how many “one last job” movies about professional killers and other hardcases have we seen over the years? Still, it’s all in the telling and movies are not trailers. This is the second feature from Anton Corbijn, a rock video director who has worked with U2 and Depeche Mode. His biopic of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, “Control,” is unseen by me but has won numerous awards and wowed critics. The screenplay for “The American” is by Rowan Joffe (“28 Weeks Later“), adapted from an acclaimed novel by the late Martin Booth, A Very Private Gentleman.
It’s worth noting, however, that the character in the book is not an assassin but an expert gun-maker for assassins. A fine moral distinction, I guess, but it would be nice to learn about those expert gunsmiths who always turn up in these stories. There was a character like that employed by the ruthless murderer of “The Day of the Jackal” back in 1973. Of course, the Jackal was doing one last job himself.
When I was in UCLA’s film school, sometime in the antediluvian celluloid era, the most grueling and rewarding class was “Project 1” in which all students were forced to become the auteurs of their own Super-8 epic. Just to make things a little extra tough, we were also forced to use 16mm sound in combination with the 8mm picture, which, trust me, created nightmarish problems regarding syncing sound to picture that essentially turned post-production into a cinematic hazing ritual. As we students expressed our frustration, inevitably someone would come up with same silly/sick joke about doing a film “from the point of view of Helen Keller” — i.e., complete silence and no visuals — or, a bit less minimalistically, “from the point of view of Stevie Wonder.”
Well, eventually, one of my friends did make a film that was close to the latter, with some clever dialogue which I won’t try to reconstruct here. Ever since then, I don’t remember anyone trying to make anything quite so minimal, that is until now….
This comes via Pete Sciretta at /Film who really seems to think that this film, which takes place entirely in the coffin and is most definitely not for the seriously claustrophobic, is terrific. Now, I’m definitely a fan of moves that take place in relatively confined spaces. “Rear Window” is one of my all-time favorite films, but I imagine there have to be limits. However, if I actually enjoy watching “Buried,” rather than merely enduring it, that will be an achievement that will force me to take director writer Chris Sparling, director Rodrigo Cortés and star Ryan Reynolds very seriously.
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