Category: Movies (Page 134 of 498)

It’s another end of week movie news dump

September 11, 2010 / Bob Westal

It’s oh so tempting to slack off with more trailers and videos, but a few items too interesting to ignore…

* Regular readers, both of you, may remember a number of interview pieces here and elsewhere by me dealing with a film called “Middle Men.” Well, my interview with the film’s producer and presumed model for the lead character, Christopher Mallick, has become a lot more interesting over the last few days. It has drawn some unusually strong comments from netizens, and not for no reason. The Wrap’s Johnnie L. Roberts sums up how funds deposited by Mallick’s current company, ePassporte, have been effectively frozen — leaving some people truly in the lurch — and also that this isn’t the first arguably suspicious crisis that Mallick has weathered.

I will say that if you have over $240,000 pre-loaded on a card which I gather is mainly for use on porn sites these days (not online poker as I once assumed) — I’m no one to judge on this matter, but I think you’ve got a bit of a problem.

* A much more positive story, especially for hardcore movie fans, is Roger Ebert’s announcement that he is returning the format he and Gene Siskel perfected back to its original PBS home, with a few interesting new twists including the presence of the one of the universe’s more photogenic of cinephile bloggers, Kim Morgan of Sunset Gun, alongside headliners Christy Lemire and Elvis Mitchell, Omar Moore and Ebert himself. Nikki Finke, via TV Deadliner Nellie Andreeva, provides the turd in the punchbowl. (Please, Mr. Mitchell — don’t give Ms. Finke the pleasure of a “Toldja!” here.)

* Speaking of the amazing Mr. Ebert, be sure to check out his TIFF swag.

* William Monahan, who did such a great job turning the engaging-but-slender Hong Kong thriller, “Infernal Affairs,” into a full-bodied near masterpiece for Martin Scorsese in “The Departed” will be working with “Tron: Legacy” director Joseph Kosinski on something called “Oblivion” for Disney.

* Alamo Drafthouse will be getting into the film distribution game with a bang in more senses than one with their release of the ingenious, ultra-dark British comedy, “Four Lions,” which really does do for terrorism what “In the Loop” did for needless wars. A parking snafu created by the organizers of the Los Angeles Film Festival caused me to be 20 minutes later for the screening but, even so, I can’t imagine that the film will be anything less than one of the year’s best, even if its premise scares many away.

External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

Alamo Drafthouse Chris Mallick Christopher Mallick Christy Lemire Disney Elvis Mitchell ePassporte Four Lions Gene Siskel Headlines Infernal Affairs Kim Morgan Martin Scorsese Middle Men Oblivion PBS Roger Ebert The Departed TIFF Tron Legacy William Monahan

Oh, Canada

September 10, 2010 / Bob Westal

In the short annals of sports-oriented musicals there’s “Damn Yankees” and…well, there must be one I’m forgetting. Anyhow, now, at last there’s another and its about hockey and it’s from Canada and of course it’ll be featured at the Toronto International Film Festival which opened last night.

Here’s the trailer.

I’m not saying that the rather literally titled “Score: A Hockey Musical” looks particularly good — it doesn’t to my eye — but sometimes something is just so bold in conception that attention must be paid.

H/t Cinematical/David Ehrlich

External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movies

Damn Yankees Score: A Hockey Musical TIFF Toronto International Film Festival

Weekend box office preview: “Resident Evil: Afterlife” moves in

September 9, 2010 / Bob Westal

We’re in a bit of a post-summer season lull here until the more adult oriented award season films kick in, and so this week sees only one new major release. The fourth entry in the series of video game-based science-fiction-horror-action films starring Milla Jovovich, Screen Gems’ “Resident Evil: Afterlife,” is the first 3D entry in the increasingly successful and 100% critic proof series and marks the return of geek whipping boy Paul W.S. Anderson to the helm. This one isn’t being screened for critics, not that it matters either way.

My go-to prognosticators Ben Fritz of the Los Angeles Times and Jolly Carl DiOrio of THR, both expect the film to easily top the weekend with about $25 million or so, bolstered by those high 3D ticket prices. Fritz also reminds us that the post-Labor Day weekend is traditionally the weakest movie going weekend of the year. If you hate crowds, here’s your chance.

Of course, that leaves a lot of room for jockeying between last weekend’s somewhat successful new releases, the #1 “The American” and the #2 “Machete.” Both films are quite modestly budgeted at $20 million according to Box Office Mojo’s chart, so they’ll both be profitable. Both also have issues with legs — “Machete” because it’s in a heavy-duty genre film and they are noted for huge second-weekend drop-offs and “The American” because it got truly terrible ratings from the people who answered the Cinemascore survey. Jolly Carl believes the way the film, which opened two days early last week, performed indicates that the word of mouth on the film isn’t nearly as bad as that D- would indicate. If the film proves as leggy as most adult-oriented film tend to be, that will a pretty serious black-eye for the polling firm.

Otherwise, there is a major reissue this week of “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” to give Twi-hards one last chance to route for their favorite monster boy-toys. Also there’s going to be a series of what amounts to sneak previews of the upcoming horny teenager mockumentary, ‘The Virginity Hit.” And, finally, the much discussed Joaquin Phoenix documentary that might not be a documentary, “I’m Still Here,” will be opening in about 19 theaters. More about that a couple of posts down.

Action Movies, Documentaries, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

3D Headlines I'm Still Here Joaquin Phoenix Machete Milla Jovovich Paul W.S. Anderson Resident Evil: Afterlife The American The Twilight Saga: Eclipse The Virginity Hit

Joaquin around (updated)

September 9, 2010 / Bob Westal

Well, Roger Ebert will be “seriously pissed” if it turns out to be the hoax, but don’t expect the “is it ‘real’?” discussions about the apparent Joaquin Phoenix human-trainwreck documentary directed by Casey Affleck to die down any time soon. The already controversial film with a high squirm factor and a couple of notoriously disgusting scenes is getting a relatively high profile limited release and will be viewable on 19 screens this weekend.

Below is the full length trailer, a bit better than the teaser I ran here back in August. But don’t touch that mouse when its through, because following it is a rather amusing clip where Mr. Phoenix pays a visit to Sean Coombs, who is eager to help out with Phoenix’s musical ambitions, assuming he gets paid, that is.

Whatever else may be true, Coombs here is, in a subtler way, very nearly as funny as he was in “Get Him to the Greek.”

UPDATE: Since I wrote this, a review has surfaced at our sister site, Bullz-Eye, by our own David Medsker. He’s not a fan.

Actors, Documentaries, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movies, News

Casey Affleck Get Him to the Greek Headlines I'm Still Here Joaquin Phoenix Sean Coombs

Midweek movie news

September 9, 2010 / Bob Westal

You’d think Jewish New Year and Labor Day coming so close together would slow down the pace of movie news a little, but leisure is for suckers and Yahweh is just another bit player in this hard luck town.

* The talk of the geek-o-sphere for some time is going to be the announcement of a massive and potentially trendsetting film/television cross-over adaptation of Stephen King’s multi-volume “The Dark Tower” mega-epic. Universal, which has had some very tough times lately, is taking what I’m guessing could be a make-it-or-break-it gamble on the project, the news of which was broken by Mike Fleming earlier. I’m not a King reader, but I am intrigued by the fact that it’s a western-science fiction-horror cross-breed. In any case apparently the plan is to start with a movie, go to a 22 episode not-so-mini-series, and then onto another movie, another series, then wrapping it all up with movie. The idea being to provide fans with both the grandeur of theatrical films and the detail and time of a television series.

It’s intriguing but laden with potential pitfalls. One is that it demands an awful lot of time and people who aren’t following the series may feel shut out of the latter two movies. The other is that, quite frankly, I feel the “A Dangerous Mind” creative team of director Ron Howard and writer Akiva Goldsman — who I gather will be writing and directing the first two films and the entire first series at least, which could be some kind of record if that’s what’s really going to happen — simply haven’t indicated they’re up to this kind of material. I hate to say it but winning Oscars can be negative indicator sometimes.

It’s not that I doubt their ability to crank it all out. Howard is obviously a very competent director who knows how to make highly professional material and I have tremendous respect for him as an individual and one of the more positive forces in Big Moviedom. However, he’s always shown a tendency to play it safe and often a bit dull when the chips are really down creatively as a director and none of Goldsman’s movies have been all that inspiring to me either. All I’m saying is that I had a good feeling about Peter Jackson taking on “The Lord of the Rings” and I have a bad feeling about it, though I’d seriously love to be wrong. Something tells me this project needs a real lunatic and Ron Howard is one of the sanest guys in show business. Huge King fan Quint at AICN has similar misgivings. He has a more riding on this than I.

* Simon Abrams is right re: “Kick-Ass” doing a lot better than people assumed. Even though I cover the weekend grosses here, we all make way too much of those openings and fail to look at the overall picture. Calling a movie a bomb that makes nearly half its budget in its opening weekend is just idiotic anyhow. The actual success of the film may have figured in the ongoing financial struggles between Lionsgate and Carl Icahn.