It’s the return of the Jack this week as we jump into his alternative Lostiverse life and the poor bugger has only got more daddy issues (at least he’s the crap father this time, though).
Yes, the big reveal in this episode is that Jack finally managed to stay attracted to a woman long enough to deliver his seed. Young David Shephard was your typical stroppy teenager; all angst and piano lessons, with a mother of whose identity is the big secret (our money is on Juliet). Elsewhere alt-Jack noticed he had an appendix scar – a clear flash of his island operation from season four. Also, Dogen (the Samurai Other) turned up to tell Jack how great his son is, the suck-up.
Island action was a bit more eventful this week, with Jack and Hurley making a little trek around to look for the titular lighthouse of the title on one side of the Island, and Claire going bananas on the other.
Jacob reappears as possibly the most charismatic paranormal entity this side of Casper and offers Hurley a bit of advice, while – to satisfy his sick perversion for making fat people sweat – sending him on a hike. Hurley then enlists Jack to take a trip coast-side to the lighthouse via several pit-stops at the museum of seasons one through five. The burning mystery of where Shannon’s inhaler went back in season one was finally resolved – it was on the floor – and we also get a peak back at those decomposing bodies lying in the cave from right back at the beginning of the show.
Claire meanwhile decided to turn into Jack Bauer, torturing an Other in front of Jin while retaining the memorable character trait of moaning about her baby every other minute (clearly her goat skull in a pram isn’t a substitute for her missing bambino). Inbetween her random bouts of axe-swinging she was going on about a mysterious friend who was revealed, with a cheeky grin, to be Cocke.
It might be something in the air, but Claire would be quite frightening if we didn’t find her new crazy-eyed dementia and crusty hair unbearably attractive. We do love a woman who can disinfect a bear-trap wound.
When Jack and Hurley reached the lighthouse they found a nifty set of mirrors that could be moved around to certain degrees, which all had names attached to them. Jack, Sawyer, Sayid – and even Kate this time – were on there among others, begging the question that perhaps the cave with all the scratchings on the walls last week was actually Cocke’s. The mirrors in the lighthouse proved to be intriguing, when turned to Jack’s name it revealed his childhood home, swiftly revealing that Jacob has one of the most sophisticated pervert devices in the world.
We didn’t dwell too long here, because it was time for the Jack-Attack. After looking into the mirror, Jack remembered what a self-destructive bellend he is and decided to smash the place up before we get answers. Classic Jack.
All we were left with was the intriguing clue that the person who may be coming to the island at 108 degrees is named Wallace. We hope it’s William Wallace so that Mel Gibson can turn up and give Sawyer a run for his money on the nickname game; after all, it’s about time someone called Kate ‘Sugartits’ and muttered ‘asshole’ under their breathe at Ben whenever they got the chance. Classic Mel.
FROM HOLLYWOOD CRUSH: Just last week we marveled at the sheer number of projects "Twilight" star Taylor Lautner had in development, and perhaps he was starting to feel the pressure too. After dropping out of "Northern Lights" earlier this week, the 18-year-old has parted ways with another project, "Max Steel," based on the Mattel toy, reports New York magazine's Vulture blog.
Sources say it was his "Stretch Armstrong" collaboration with rival toy company Hasbro that was the impetus for Taylor's departure. According to Vulture, Taylor realized Hasbro was doing a better job with its movie properties than Mattel. To wit, the toy company has leveraged board games Candy Land, Battleship and Risk into high-profile projects and had earlier success with a couple small flicks called "G.I. Joe" and "Transformers." Added one source, "When you sign up to make a movie with Hasbro, you know it will be in theaters a year later."
A U.S. marshall tracking a vicious murderer through the Antarctic must locate the killer before the sun sets for six months, or risk being trapped in the dark with the madman for months on end in director Dominic Sena's adaptation of the graphic novel series by Greg Rucka. U.S. marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) has been stationed at Antarctica's South Pole research base for two years, and now after turning in her resignation she's looking forward to finally going home. The last plane out leaves in just... [more]
It is a fantasy thriller, it is pretty dark and it’s all me. So people will pretty much know what that means if they look at my body of work. But it’s a new universe set in the present day with a new concept for me and a new bunch of characters. It’s been a long time since I got to do that, so that’s really fun.
It’s the story of a young woman’s journey that involves a great deal of horror and some heroics.
More in the Buffy-mode of discovering strength than in the sense of, “I’ve had strength for so long that I’m losing my sense of people who don’t.
Colour me intrigued. A bright and vibrant shade of intrigued too.
Of course, there’s every chance to Whedon and Dushku are planning something completely different, a new story that we’ve not even had teased for us yet. Despite my less than overflowing confidence in Cabin in the Woods, I’m still a huge and passionate fan of Whedon, so whatever film he’s wanting to make, I’m wanting to see.
An FBI agent investigating the murder of a Taiwanese-American professor becomes caught up in a vast international conspiracy while aiding the Taiwanese government in catching the killer. The murder took place in the U.S., but in order to investigate, Agent Jake Kelly (James Van Der Beek) will travel to Taiwan. Once there, he is partnered with American diplomat Susan Kane (Wendy Crewson) and Taiwanese official Kuo (Tzi Ma). From the moment Agent Kelly arrives on the island formerly known as Formosa, he is... [more]
Haute Tension and Hills Have Eyes director Alexandre Aja pays homage to the films that made him fall in love with the horror genre by helming this comedic remake of director Joe Dante's 1978 Jaws parody. Lake Victoria may look peaceful, but beneath the placid waters of this painterly lake lurks a deadly menace. A powerful underwater tremor has released scores of man-eating prehistoric fish into Lake Victoria, and now it's up to a group of unlikely heroes to band together and defeat the razor-toothed predators.... [more]
The Mystery Inc. team investigates the strange case of a magician's school that's been beset by supernatural forces in this frightfully fun feature-length adventure. Scooby and the gang are visiting Velma's sister Madelyn at the Whirlen Merlin Magic Academy when they learn that a money-grubbing ice cream magnate has been sniffing around the school in an attempt to get it shut down. When a visiting banshee lets out a bloodcurdling scream and an enormous gryphon appears in the sky over Whirlen Merlin, it's up to... [more]
Another idea was to name the fish Asta, both a reference to my favorite pet in a movie and a somewhat sad acknowledgment that I can't have a dog instead. But no, that wouldn't be fair to the fish. And anyway, it would be a sad reminder that I can't have a dog instead. My girlfriend unfortunately already previously used the best celebrity-as-pet-name idea: Fisher Stevens. Meanwhile, I don't have enough of a favorite actor to name him by. Possibly to the disappointment of you readers, we named him Jupiter. It's a long story (and, yes, I have other interests), but the important thing is it's not a story that's cinematical in nature in any way.
But it got me wondering about the rest of you. Surely some have pets -- dogs, cats, snakes, fish, whatever -- named for movies, movie characters or favorite actors, actors or filmmakers. And I'm curious what they are. And, well, if you want to go further and admit to naming your kids after something or someone film-related, go ahead with that, too.
Peter Andre has admitted to enjoying sex sessions with former page three girl Maddy Ford, but insisted that he is done with female relations for a while.
After Maddy sold her story to a Sunday newspaper, Peter told The Mirror:
“Yes, I had sex – but only after my divorce came through, and I always said that I would not think about moving on until after my divorce was finalised. I dipped my toe back into the water and got badly burnt. What a mistake that was!”
“I’m gutted. But I’ve got it out of my system. I don’t want to go there with anyone else again now, not unless I know it’s serious.
“The children are my priority, and always will be – not a new woman.”
Who needs amusement parks? The lines are interminable, apoplectic ankle-biters are everywhere, and a candy apple costs as much as a fancy microbrew. Take a staycation with io9's YouTube recap of bygone theme park attractions. You're always first in line, you can ride in your underwear, and nobody cares if you're drunk and rowdy!
1.) Back To The Future: The Ride Where: Universal Studios Hollywood and Florida Open From: Hollywood: 1991-2007. Florida: 1993-2007.
In BTTF: The Ride, 1955 Biff Tannen absconds with Doc Brown's time machine to the future. Audience members hop inside an eight-passenger DeLorean and chase Biff to 2015, the ice age, and the Cretaceous Period. If you absolutely must ride this, it's still open at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka. Doc Brown will likely be screaming at you in Japanese, but it's the pilgrimage that counts.
2.) Kongfrontation Where: Universal Studios Florida Open From: 1990-2002
The classic animatronic King Kong ride, complete with banana-scented halitosis. This staple of Universal Studios closed in 2002, presumably due to the cost of maintaining two 39-foot gorilla robots. If I were an eccentric billionaire, I'd buy both just to keep the help in line. Giant robot gorilla butlers. Fucking A.
3.) ReBoot: The Ride Where: Segaland Playdium (Mississauga, Ontario), then Circus Circus and The Luxor (Las Vegas) Open From: 1997-2007
This ReBoot IMAX attraction ran for a solid decade and well after the show had gone off the air. The footage is a little grainy, but you'll get the gist of it.
4. Star Trek: The Experience
Where: The Las Vegas Hilton Open From: The Klingon Encounter: 1997-2008. Borg Invasion 4-D: 2004-2008.
In The Klingon Encounter, guests time-traveled to the TNG-era Enterprise and were attacked by the raving Klingon Korath, who claimed one of audience members was Jean-Luc Picard's distant antecedent. As far as Klingon plots go, it's total genius. Rather than engage Picard in interstellar combat, it's way less work to slaughter a bunch of confused Vegas tourists.
The highlights of Borg Invasion 4-D were a visit to the Borg Cube and a last-minute rescue from Captain Janeway, during which she opined, "Congratulations. You've defeated the Borg with one thing the Queen can never assimilate: the human spirit." Thanks, Captain Janeway. I'll remember your rosy words when I'm getting my kidneys forcibly replaced with an 8-track player.
Star Trek: The Experience was supposed to re-open at the Las Vegas Neonopolis mall sometime this year, but there's nothing new to report these days.
The Klingon Encounter:
Borg Invasion 4-D:
5.) Stargate SG-3000
From what scant information I found about this Stargate SG-1-themed attraction, it once resided at several Six Flag affiliate parks but is now only open at the Space Center in Bremen, Germany, which - according to German Wikipedia - closed in 2004. Either way, es ist sehr verrückt, ja?
6.) The Ghostbusters Spooktacular Show Where: Universal Studios Florida Open From: 1990-1996
They replaced this with a goddamn Twister ride. How's that for looking out for posterity?
The City star Whitney Port made a list of her favorite snacks. It includes Pop Chips, natural popcorn, Fiber One bars, roasted unsalted almonds, apples and peanut butter, and english muffins with cheese. Just in case you were wondering.
Click images for desktop size: "Haiku On Hanami" by April Joy E Jasmin My mother used to be terrified that she, being only fifteen years older than me and divorced, was going to deprive me and traumatize me. The only book, the only resource for new mothers then was Doctor Spock. She couldn't go to her mother for advice. My grandmother hadn't talked to her since my mother's divorce. So my mother fumbled around and did the best she could figure out.
Sometimes this entailed taking me to work with her. When she was working at the concession counter at the drive-in movie theater going with her was very cool. I would sit at a picnic table on a concrete slab by the projection booth, right next to a blaring metal loud speaker and float into the movies while my mom's teen co-workers inundated me with sugar-y soda, popcorn and ice cream.
It was in that state that I first saw "Godzilla". A warm California night, the sea breeze and eucalyptus scenting the air and sixty feet of city munching reptile destroying everything adults hold dear. Perhaps my still holding love affair with Japanese jidai-geki movies has more to do with remembering a mother's love than it does my fondness for giant lizards and men in rubber suits. I wouldn't know. I'm more Adlerian than Freudian.
I liked monster movies. So did my mother but she worried so her next big plan to keep me from being deprived was a subscription to The Children's Book Club.
This was some weird thing, probably from an ad in "Teen Mom's Weekly". For fifty nine cents a copy your child, meaning me, got a hard cover classic of children's literature.
They were cheaply printed things. Thing I remember most were the super ragged edges of the pages. But I liked the books. I liked the stories in them. Classics is a pretty broad term. There were Hardy Boys stories, strange science fiction and "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland". I really liked that book at age 7. I liked the pictures and I liked the horrible things that happened to the little girl. Click images for desktop size: "Purple Vectors" by Unknown At that stage of my life torturing little girls was a major part of my entertainment. Not real torture but stuff like dropping snails down their backs, stealing the heads from their dolls. Typical stuff. The one girl who thought it was cool and fought back instead of shrieking and threatening to tell on me became a life long friend.
So I liked that all the animals yelled at Alice, picked on her and tormented her. It kept my interest up.
I read that book and re-read it then got on with surfing, torturing little girls etc. In high school someone gave me a copy of Martin Gardener's "The Annotated Alice". I don't remember who. It took me a long time before I started reading it. When I did start to get into it I was enthralled. It started my trek into Lewis Carroll fandom.
I recently got a copy of Jenny Woolf's new book, "The Mystery of Lewis Carroll". It's a bit dry but it attempts to debunk some of the more bizarre suppositions about Charles Dodgson like that he was actually Jack the Ripper. It also attempts to tackle the issue of his being a pedophile. That has always driven me crazy. I've read some persuasive arguments for it being so and I've tried to accept that he was a pedophile who never actually improperly touched or harmed a child.
That goes against my knowledge of pedophiles. When I took my training to help abused kids part of it was attending group therapy sessions and listening to child abusers. I think the plan was to get us trainees to have some compassion and empathy for the offensive Click images for desktop size: "Audrey Hepburn" offenders.
It didn't have any such effect. I have been alone with thrill killers, reputed Mafia hitmen, drug addicts, prostitutes and movie stars. At some level I've always felt a bond of humanity. Sometimes it was tenuous and difficult but it was always still there.
Prior to my meeting the child abusers the group I felt most distant from were the hard core crack addicts. They were so lizard brained that any cloudy memory they had of being human was only called on to try and manipulate.
Child abusers, the ultimate victimizers, didn't have even that. To me they were an alien insect race that would be best served with a claw hammer and a room draped in plastic.
They have no control over their actions. They must abuse. So sordid and ingrained is their delusion that they speak often and in agreement that children are sexual seducers who lure them into the abusers horrific attacks and fantasies.
The thing is that they were all like this, all out of control. Even chemical and physical castration has not deterred child molesters from attacking children.
No matter how convincing the arguments it was hard, nearly impossible for me to put Dodgson in Click images for desktop size: "Rise on an Angel" by Titusboy this category, this misshapen lump. I could not even accept that he was a pedophile who had somehow managed to NOT harm children.
Ms Woolf's book tries to address this issue while presenting an image of Carroll full and deep. She uses a few newly discovered letters, gets some interesting interpretations of available data from MD's and such and uses a unique and solid bit of hard evidence.
She uses forensic accounting. Recently discovered are the complete bank records for Dodgson. From the first penny he spent till the decimation of his estate at his death. Financial records.
It seems odd. But so did bringing down Al Capone's empire based on his financial records. It paints a picture of Carroll and Dodgson that I am much more in agreement with that any other previous. Meaning it jibes most closely to my own perceptions of a major part of my pantheontology.
Woolf's writing style is a bit dry and prosaic but her observations are keen, her conclusions are only pedantic when strongly supported by evidence. It makes a good read and provides at least for the fans, which I am, a nice amount of dream time considering Dodgson/Carroll. My only complaint is that a bit too many words are spent rejecting some of the more inane conclusions about Dodgson.
I went for my stress tests on Wednesday. Interesting stuff. They made the mistake of leaving me alone in a room too long. I found a remarkable plastic model of a heart. It was dumped behind some boxes in a cupboard. I coveted it and considered stealing it. I didn't. Not because of any high handed moral arguments or out of fear but because it occurred to me that it might only appear to be discarded and might be of service to some other poor slob stuck in my kind of hell.
The stress tests themselves were not all that difficult. The first one was on a treadmill. I was out fitted with all the ekg terminals and an x-ray machine was pointed at my chest. Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Wally Wood It was hard getting my pulse over 100. Not that I'm that fit but because the treadmill didn't offer up enough resistance and I was ordered to not bend over too much to accelerate so that the x-rays would hit the right spot.
After that we went to the stair masters. Due to my chemotherapy history they eschewed x-rays. Didn't want to blast me with too much radiation in case I turned into a super hero I bet. So this time I climbed the unending staircase and was monitored by electrodes and sound waves. I could see the sonogram as I worked out. It was so incredibly cool looking at my heart beat. In motion I was trying to control it and make it do interesting things. That got me yelled at.
Don't have all the results yet but what there is is good. My heart has healed. There are abnormalities but they have to be looked for rather than appearing as distorted lines and squibbles.
My vitals are all good. they doubled my blood pressure meds. Rah. My BP was 120 over 60, but they decided they want it even lower! Part of this is due to the congestive heart failure I had with the Lyrica. Then my BP was hovering around 190 over 80 due to all the fluid in my chest compressing everything. Getting my standard BP even lower will enable me to endure a real congestive heart attack (that's what killed my grandmother when she was 98 . . .) They said I was on an extremely minmal dosage anyway and this would still have me below average.
Now I just wait for the rest of the results and the fitness and fury.
Just wanted to mention my puppy. She's continued to be wonderful. She's crazy and calm by turns. When I'm feeling more under the weather than usual she's protective. When I'm feeling better she's bossy and obnoxious, demanding her way. She's my friend.
She's been on a diet. She hates it. But we went to the pet store yesterday and she has lost nearly TWO POUNDS! Bringing her weight down to 71! Only six more pounds to go till she is her ideal weight!
She could care less about ideal weight. She'd rather have ice cream at all of her meals.
“There is really no such thing as Art. There are only artists.” I tend to interpret the disarming opening of Ernst Gombrich’s Story of Art as a protest against the idea that art has an essence that unfolds through history. Those of us in film studies can spot the heritage of this Hegelian idea in one standard story that is told about how editing came to be a dominant technique. According to the formula, editing is “essentially cinematic,” but this essence didn’t reveal itself immediately. It emerged in phases, thanks to the insights of brilliant creators (Méliès, Porter, Griffith, the Russians). Understanding cinema’s history, according to this view, means tracking how film revealed its inherent nature.
In saying that Art doesn’t exist, Gombrich isn’t trying for an elaborate philosophical argument. He’s suggesting a way of understanding art history. His abrupt two sentences suggest that the historian shouldn’t presume that any art has an essence, a secret core that dictates how its history unfolds. He proposes seeing continuity and change in what we call the arts as springing from concrete activities of individuals and groups. Cinema’s history then becomes an account of the creative decisions of filmmakers faced with particular demands and problems. Some of those decisions can converge across the community. The results are trends, such as the increased use of editing, which have real consequences but which are aren’t the result of some secret, essential process.
Once we try to analyze art in terms of what creative communities have sought and achieved, we can ask how artists tend to behave. Across his career, Gombrich stressed that artists are sensitive to their circumstances. What tasks are assigned to the artists? What are the traditions and current fashions? What are the tastes of patrons? What constraints are put on the art-maker? How is art taught? How can the ambitious artist achieve distinction? (“What is there for me to do?”) What are the tricks of the trade at any moment? How do artists borrow from one another? And how might they compete with one another?
We often underrate competition as a stimulus to creativity. Gombrich notes that “the Dutch masters vied with each other, trying to outdo their rivals in certain accomplishments.”
Stressing the relevance of traditions not only implies an attention to the way art feeds on art; it should also make us aware of the cumulative nature of any such skill. What happens in such a hothouse atmosphere is that ambition leads to competition and frequently also to specialization, as it notoriously did in Holland.
In cinema, we might profitably consider competition as one source of the diversity within a tradition. I suspect that the great Soviet directors of the 1920s not only shared ideas but also competed by testing ever farther-out ideas about cutting. They also specialized in the manner Gombrich suggests by cultivating particular effects or genres: Pudovkin’s character-driven pathos, Eisenstein’s dynamic crowd effects, Kuleshov’s exploration of popular genres, Dovzhenko’s boldly elliptical storytelling. I’ve often thought that the Warner Bros. cartoonists probably walked out of the first screenings of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) with heavy hearts. How could they match that? They didn’t try. Instead, they cultivated something quite different: raucous, cynical, high-speed farce. And today, doesn’t it seem likely that Avatar took its final form as an effort to go beyond the CGI efforts of earlier directors—to prove that the director of Terminator II and The Abyss was still the King of the World of SPFX?
Boys and their long-take toys
One of the most visible arenas of cinematic competition is the sustained tracking shot following several characters. It requires a sort of virtuosity, or at least logistical skill, in coordinating everything—the speed and consistency of the movement, the passage of people in and out of the shot, the consistency of framing and focus, the timing of new information. Once somebody has executed such a shot, the challenge is thrown down to others. Can you make yours longer or fancier?
In The Way Hollywood Tells It, I noted that Brian De Palma saw just such a challenge in Raging Bull’s famous tracking shot from the dressing room to the prizefight ring. “I thought I was pretty good at doing those kind of shots, but when I saw that I said, ‘Whoa!’ And that’s when I started using those very complicated shots with the Steadicam.” This sort of schoolyard one-upsmanship is probably what Christine Vachon had in mind when she called the single-take scene a “macho” choice.
There are some longer-term trends as well. Elaborate takes used at the start of a film can be found in the 1930s and 1940s (e.g., Ride the Pink Horse, 1947), but Welles laid down a clear marker in the opening of Touch of Evil (1957). Thereafter, starting a movie with an intricate, sustained camera movement became something of an emblem of directorial ambition.
Already, however, Dreyer, Ophuls, and Mizoguchi had used long takes, usually with camera movement, as building blocks of a film’s overall design. With Rope (1948) Hitchcock raised the possibility of making an entire film out of even fewer such shots, an initiative continued by the Hungarian Miklós Jancsó, who developed the choreography of such shots to a new level by incorporating crowds, zooms, and rack-focus passages. Béla Tarr and Gus van Sant have been modern exponents of the technique.
It was probably inevitable that somebody would try to make a feature-length film consisting of a single moving shot. Josh Becker’s Running Time (1997) renders a heist in what purports to be one take; there are cuts, but they’re pretty well disguised. Sokurov’s Russian Ark (2002; above) uses video technology to create a feature out of one genuine take, “a single breath” as he called it. At the same time, Sokurov added the condition that the shot would be an exploration of a labyrinthine space, in this case the Hermitage, and a trip through different eras of Russian history.
My lipdub can lick your lipdub
Perhaps it was Russian Ark, or maybe just TV walk-and-talks, that inspired the recent cycle of single-take video lipdubs. In these the camera moves through a locale and picks up one person after another, all lip-synching the soundtrack. September’s massively popular lipdub from l’Université de Quebec à Montréal may have furnished the prototype. In the US, a pair of current examples neatly illustrates how borrowing and competition among moviemakers can yield intriguing results.
As you probably know, Shorecrest High School in Shoreline, Washington, mounted a very complicated lipdub—one take coasting through the school, picking up dozens of teens lipsynching to Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” before they all assemble in a theatre for a final shout-out. There are some somersaults too, which make any movie better. It is here.
But high school rivalries resurfaced. Shorewood High School, traditionally at odds with Shorecrest in sports and band, struck back with a lipdub of Hall and Oates’ “You Make My Dreams Come True.” The new entry raised the stakes by shooting the action backward, somersaults included. Here it is.
There’s no shortage of backwards videos, but the Shorewood clip plays in clever ways with our biases in perceiving movement. Because we’re wired to grasp motion as advancing in time, we can’t easily reconstruct the actual movement that the figures executed. After seeing the film many times, I still found it hard to visualize the actual progression of the shoot, starting from the assembled crowd and ending on the young woman running backward to the vehicle that pulls away. (A forward version is here.) Moreover, both forward and backward motion have an uncanny symmetry, so that it’s hard to detect the latter except through subtle cues like the way garments fall or a gait with a special snap. Even the moments that flaunt the reverse-motion device, such as things originally tossed down into the frame, seem instead to fly up and into the hands of bystanders.
The stakes have been raised. What will Shorecrest come up with? A radical change of angle? (An entire lipdub done from a very high or low vantage point?) Or maybe a more demanding location? (With spring coming, I’d vote for a miniature-golf course.) Anyhow, my imagination is more limited than the filmmakers’. All that matters for my purposes is that the very fact of competition gave birth to a pair of ingenious and sprightly movies.
If you’re thinking that I wrote this simply to give everyone who Googles “Gombrich lipdup” at least one result, you miss my point. Just as Gombrich was never shy about using advertising imagery and children’s drawings to illustrate some basic principles of visual psychology, so we ought to notice any examples that vividly show how artists strategize in order to create something new within a tradition. Which is to say: Yes, I consider the young filmmakers of Shorecrest and Shorewood artists. Why not?
Gombrich’s essay on Dutch painting first appeared as “Mysteries of Dutch Painting,” New York Review of Books 30, 17 (10 November 1983), 13-17. It is reprinted in his Reflections on the History of Art (London: Phaidon, 1987). Shorewood has supplied a sort of making-of bonus here, with some more challenges to Shorecrest thrown in. To see the genre coopted by politicians (who apparently can’t get all their cohorts together in the same space), go here (thanks to Camilla Lugan). Maybe US politicos could get some more support if they tried bopping like this? They could hardly look sillier than they do already.
PPS 1 February: Yogesh Raut writes that another historical precedent for the dueling lipdubs would be one older than the Quebec one I cited.
In your recent entry on lipdub videos you cite a video made in 2009 by students in Quebec as “the prototype.” I think a more likely candidate is this video made by a company called Connected Ventures and first uploaded in April 2007:
While there have obviously been a ton of similar videos made since then, I think the folks at CV (who I have no connection with) probably deserve a little hat tip as innovators. Of course, it’s possible that they were copying someone else, but in general they seem to be recognized as the starters of the craze (see here, for example).
It’s good to learn this. I’m sure that there are probably other precedents as well. I’d just say that a prototype need not be the first work in a genre tradition; rather, it’s a fully developed, typical instance. We take Little Caesar as a prototypical gangster film, but it’s not the first. The Connected Ventures project is indeed a single take, and it follows various people lip-synching. But it doesn’t explore a building in a targeted way, making the revelation of new space add visual variety, and the walking characters seldom pass us from group to group in tight choreography (it relies more on loose pans). Like other early efforts in a genre, it seems simpler and rougher than later entries. I suppose that supports my point that competition can spur filmmakers to surpass their peers; it seems that later lipdub adepts took up the challenge to make the single take more intricate. Still, I should probably have called the Canadian video “a prototype” rather than “the prototype.” Many thanks to Yogesh for calling my attention to a particularly early work in the genre.
Disney/Pixar’s “Up” comes out almost 11 m0nths after release of “WALL-E” last summer. It was written and directed by Pete Docter (Toy Story 1&2, Monster, Inc., WALL-E) and Bob Peterson (Finding Nemo), who also gave his voice to the dog, Dug.
As always, a Pixar movie is preceded with one or more animated shorts.
It looks pretty good in 2D – nicely animated characters and environment, with a lot of attention to rendering small detail. I’m not talking detail like making sure every hair is moving, but a kind of detail that makes characters come alive and add to the story. It looks even better in 3D, but 3D itself does not add much.
Story? It’s great! The story about entire person’s life. The opening sequence is the best part of the movie for me. Without saying a word, like a slide-show, it tells a story of a boy who dreamed of heroic travels like his childhood idol, adventurer Charles MMuntzher Plummer). But life takes a course that never let him accomplish his dream of world travel and exploration. Before he knew it, he was old, grumpy and very lonely man. This silent, but very dramatic and emotional story of a person’s life from childhood to youth and middle age to marriage and even death of a life partner is absolutely brilliant in how it shows that life is full of disappointments and drama, but one can still find happiness and learn to be happy with less. Also, one should never give up his dreams. Many of us saw the trailer, and we saw Carl is old a grumpy man, and there’s a lot of effort and time in the film to develop his character. On the downside downside, Mr. Fredricksen finally gets to South-America, there wasn’t much exploration or much sense of discovery and wonder after his arrival.
The main The main chCarl FredricksenCarl (Edward Asner) looks a lot like a cross-breed of David Letterman and Larry King… Other plot holes: in his house he can’t walk without walking stick or go down the stairs, but in South America he proves to be quite an acrobat.
I did not like the her hero-turned-protagonist Muntz. He was a crazy version of Joules Verne’s Captain Nemo. Could he really be over 100 years old? Well, I guess he’s got science on his side. There are a lot of similarities between and Mr. Fredricksen though – one is cast away from society, the other cast himself from society, but both are pursuing their dreams. I was disappointed with Muntz’s demise. I wished he could be saved so he can return triumphantly.
Though there were quite a few jokes in this movie, it’s a pretty sad movie – so much sadness throughout, from opening sequence to the end. There are also pretty good chases and suspense.
At 96 minutes, the movie is not too long for small kids. But it doesn’t look like a movie that kids will want to see over and over, like was the case with Cars, Incredibles, Monsters Inc, Toy Story and Nemo. Not much opportunity for merchandising either, I guess. Who’d want a toy that looks like Larry King? It will be more enjoyable for grown-ups. I wonder if wordless opening sequence will bore the kids from the start. But it was short enough, so kids laughed at the jokes in no time. Many adults will like the story and the old guy, but what will kids like? Can Mr. Fredricksen win their hearts and become their hero? Not necessarily. I think for kids the boy-scout and the animals are more appealing and easier to associate with and understand.
This movie has a lot of heart. For that alone it’s Oscar-worthy.
Favorite characters: Dog named Dug and rare South-American bird named Kevin.
Thoughtful and beautifully animated movie with a lot of heart and inspiration and some jokes and chases, but a lot of sadness too. Not too psyched about it.
The movie, directed by Tarsem Singh, is being produced by Gianni Nonnariu and Mark Canton. Also scheduled thus far to appear in War of the Gods is Henry Cavill of Tudors fame.
Cavil will play Theseus, a” young warrior who leads his men into battle with the immortal Greek gods to defeat evil and the powerful elder gods of the Titans in order to save mankind.” Frieda Pinto will serve as a helpful, oracle priestess to Cavill’s on screen leading character. No word yet on when War of the Gods will hit theaters. We’ll keep you posted!
In the meantime the twenty-six year old Pinto is also working on two other film roles in the movie ‘You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger’ and Miral, which is being directed by Julian Schnabel.
Tell us, what do you think of Freida Pinto In War of The Gods?
Baron Manfred von Richthofen is the crack pilot of the German aerial combat forces -- a legend in his own time, a hero at home and a man both feared and respected by the enemy. The provocative red paint job of his Fokker aircraft earns him the nickname 'The Red Baron'. Unwittingly, he allows the German high command to manipulate his chivalrous code of honor and misuse him for propaganda purposes until a beautiful and resolute nurse opens his eyes to the tragic fact that there is more to war than dogfights won... [more]
The year has come and gone and a huge number of the films listed in this year’s awards are not only great, a few are down right spectacular. And that’s only for 2009. Some of the 2010 films have already appeared through festivals late in the year and are scheduled for release later this year and if the few I’ve seen are any indication, we’re in for a spectacular year in Canadian film.
Denis Villeneuve’s brilliant Polytechnique (review) leads the pack with 11 nominations while Bruce McDonald’s crowd pleasing Pontypool (review) walks away with three. But that’s just the top of the barrel because also included are Charles Officer’s gorgeous Nurse.Fighter.Boy, the French Canadian fantasy Babine, Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu’s Before Tomorrow, Kari Skogland’s 50 Dead Men Walking (review) and even love for the crimminaly overlooked coming of age tale Victoria Day. All in all, a spectacular year.
The Genies will be handed out in Toronto on April 12th in a show hosted by the great Gordon Pinsent and Tatiana Maslany.
BEST MOTION PICTURE / MEILLEUR FILM
3 SAISONS – Maude Bouchard, Jim Donovan, Sandy Martinez, Bruno Rosato
BEFORE TOMORROW – Stéphane Rituit
FIFTY DEAD MEN WALKING – Shawn Williamson, Stephen Hegyes, Peter La Terriere, Kari Skogland
NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY – Ingrid Veninger
POLYTECHNIQUE – Maxime Rémillard, Don Carmody
ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTION / MEILLEURE RÉALISATION
MARIE-HÉLÈNE COUSINEAU, MADELINE PIUJUQ IVALU – Before Tomorrow
KARI SKOGLAND – Fifty Dead Men Walking
CHARLES OFFICER – NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY
DENIS VILLENEUVE – Polytechnique
BRUCE MCDONALD – Pontypool
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY / MEILLEUR SCÉNARIO
ATOM EGOYAN – Adoration
ÉMILE GAUDREAULT, IAN LAUZON – De père en flic / Father and Guns
CHARLES OFFICER, INGRID VENINGER – NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY
JACQUES DAVIDTS – Polytechnique
DAVID BEZMOZGIS – Victoria Day
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY / MEILLEURE ADAPTATION
MARIE-HÉLÈNE COUSINEAU, SUSAN AVINGAQ, MADELINE PIUJUQ IVALU – Before Tomorrow
KARI SKOGLAND – Fifty Dead Men Walking
TONY BURGESS – Pontypool
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE / INTERPRÉTATION MASCULINE DANS UN PREMIER RÔLE
JEAN-CARL BOUCHER – 1981
PAUL DYLAN IVALU – Before Tomorrow
JOSHUA JACKSON – One Week
CLARK JOHNSON – NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY
STEPHEN MCHATTIE – Pontypool
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE / INTERPRÉTATION FÉMININE DANS UN PREMIER RÔLE
MADELINE PIUJUQ IVALU – Before Tomorrow
KAREN LEBLANC – NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY
CARINNE LEDUC – 3 Saisons
GABRIELLE ROSE – Mothers&Daughters
KARINE VANASSE – Polytechnique
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE / INTERPRÉTATION MASCULINE DANS UN RÔLE DE SOUTIEN
PATRICK DROLET – De père en flic / Father and Guns
JOHN DUNSWORTH – Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day
MAXIM GAUDETTE – Polytechnique
RÉMY GIRARD – De père en flic / Father and Guns
SCOTT SPEEDMAN – Adoration
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE / INTERPRÉTATION FÉMININE DANS UN RÔLE DE SOUTIEN
LIANE BALABAN – One Week
MARIE BRASSARD – Les grandes chaleurs / Heat Wave
MARTHA BURNS – Love & Savagery
ISABEL RICHER – Babine
SONIA VACHON – 5150, rue des Ormes / 5150 Elm’s Way
ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTION, PRODUCTION DESIGN / MEILLEURE DIRECTION ARTISTIQUE
DIANA ABBATANGELO – NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY
SUSAN AVINGAQ – Before Tomorrow
JEAN BABIN – Grande ourse: La clé des possibles / The Master Key
EVE STEWART – Fifty Dead Men Walking
PATRICE VERMETTE – 1981
ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY / MEILLEURES IMAGES
STEVE COSENS – NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY
JONATHAN FREEMAN – Fifty Dead Men Walking
PIERRE GILL – Polytechnique
RONALD PLANTE – Grande ourse: La clé des possibles / The Master Key
ALLEN SMITH – Les doigts croches / Sticky Fingers
ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN / MEILLEURS COSTUMES
ATUAT AKITTIRQ – Before Tomorrow
CARMEN ALIE – Grande ourse: La clé des
possibles / The Master Key
SARAH ARMSTRONG – NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY
BRENDA BROER – Cairo Time
ANNE-KARINE GAUTHIER – 1981
ACHIEVEMENT IN EDITING / MEILLEUR MONTAGE
ALAIN BARIL – 5150, rue des Ormes / 5150 Elm’s Way
RICHARD COMEAU – Polytechnique
FRANÇOIS NORMANDIN, JIM DONOVAN – 3 Saisons
MICHEL GROU – Grande ourse: La clé des possibles / The Master Key
JIM MUNRO – Fifty Dead Men Walking
ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKE-UP / MEILLEURS MAQUILLAGES
DJINA CARON, MARTIN RIVEST – Polytechnique
DJINA CARON – Grande ourse: La clé des possibles / The Master Key
DIANE SIMARD, RÉJEAN GODERRE – Love & Savagery
MICHELINE TRÉPANIER, LINDA GORDON – 1981
ROBBI O’QUINN, LEANNE MORRISON-FREED – You Might As Well Live
ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC – ORIGINAL SCORE / MEILLEURE MUSIQUE ORIGINALE
BENOÎT CHAREST – Polytechnique
BERTRAND CHÉNIER – Love & Savagery
CHRISTIAN CLERMONT – 5150, rue des Ormes / 5150 Elm’s Way
NORMAND CORBEIL – Grande ourse: La clé des possibles / The Master Key
BEN MINK – Fifty Dead Men Walking
ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC – ORIGINAL SONG / MEILLEURE CHANSON ORIGINALE
SUSAN AVINGAQ – Before Tomorrow – Pamani
JOHN WELSMAN, CHERIE CAMP – NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY – Oh Love
SARI DAJANI, IOHANN MARTIN, RUDY TOUSSAINT, JOHN VON AICHLINGER – Les grandes chaleurs / Heat Wave – Bon Swa
ACHIEVEMENT IN OVERALL SOUND / MEILLEUR SON D’ENSEMBLE
MARIO AUCLAIR, DANIEL BISSON, LUC BOUDRIAS, JEAN-CHARLES DESJARDINS – Grande ourse: La clé des possibles / The Master Key
STÉPHANE BERGERON, PIERRE BLAIN, JO CARON, BENOÎT LEDUC – Polytechnique
CLAUDE HAZANAVICIUS, DANIEL BISSON, JEAN-CHARLES DESJARDINS, BERNARD GARIÉPY STROBL – Love & Savagery
RICHARD LAVOIE, ARNAUD DERIMAY, JEAN-CHARLES DESJARDINS, BERNARD GARIÉPY STROBL – Before Tomorrow
SIMON GOULET, BERNARD GARIÉPY STROBL – 5150, rue des Ormes / 5150 Elm’s Way
ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING / MEILLEUR MONTAGE SONORE
PIERRE-JULES AUDET, MICHELLE CLOUTIER, JACQUES PLANTE, JEAN-FRANÇOIS SAUVÉ – Grandeourse: La clé des possibles / The Master Key
MATHIEU BEAUDIN, JACQUES PLANTE – 5150, rue des Ormes / 5150 Elm’s Way
CLAUDE BEAUGRAND, GUY FRANCOEUR, CAROLE GAGNON, CHRISTIAN RIVEST – Polytechnique
GARRETT KERR, FRED BRENNAN, PAUL GERMANN, STEVE HAMMOND, MISHANN LAU – NURSE.FIGHTER.BOY
OLIVIER CALVERT, NATALIE FLEURANT, FRANCINE POIRIER, LISE WEDLOCK – Babine
BEST FEATURE LENGTH DOCUMENTARY / MEILLEUR LONG MÉTRAGE DOCUMENTAIRE
A HARD NAME – Kristina McLaughlin, Michael McMahon, Alan Zweig
LES DAMES EN BLEU / LADIES IN BLUE – Claude Demers
INSIDE HANA’S SUITCASE – Larry Weinstein, Rudolf Biermann, Jessica Daniel
PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI – Patricia Aquino, Paul Saltzman
RIP: A REMIX MANIFESTO – Mila Aung-Thwin, Kat Baulu, Brett Gaylor, Germaine Ying-Gee Wong
BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY / MEILLEUR COURT MÉTRAGE DOCUMENTAIRE
THE DELIAN MODE – Kara Blake, Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre
PASSAGES – Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre
PETROPOLIS: AERIAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE ALBERTA TAR SANDS – Peter Mettler, Sandy Hunter, Laura Severinac
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT DRAMA / MEILLEUR COURT MÉTRAGE DRAMATIQUE
DANSE MACABRE – Pedro Pires, Catherine Chagnon
GILLES – Constant Mentzas
PRINCESS MARGARET BLVD. – Dan Montgomery, Kazik Radwanski
TERRE DES HOMMES / LAND OF MEN – Ky Nam Le Duc
LA VIE COMMENCE / LIFE BEGINS – Élaine Hébert, Émile Proulx-Cloutier
BEST ANIMATED SHORT / MEILLEUR COURT MÉTRAGE D’ANIMATION
RUNAWAY / TRAIN EN FOLIE – Derek Mazur, Cordell Barker, Michael Scott
THE SPINE / L’ÉCHINE – Steven Hoban, Chris Landreth, Marcy Page
VIVE LA ROSE – Michael Fukushima, Bruce Alcock, Annette Clarke, Tina Ouellette
This release from comedienne Leslie Jones captures a live stand-up performance by the funnywoman, recorded in front of a live audience in Hollywood, CA, where she covers a range of topics from Oprah to professional sports. ~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide [more]
Oscar-nominated director Donald Wrye takes the helm for this remake of his own 1979 ice skating melodrama staring Robbie Benson. An overnight success in the hyper-competitive world of figure skating, Alexis Winston ditched her hometown boyfriend in a bid for superstardom. Alexis is at the top of her game when she's suddenly blinded in a tragic ice skating mishap. Her spirit broken, the fallen figure skater seeks the love that will help her lace up her skates, and reach for her dreams. ~ Jason Buchanan, All... [more]
From the studio that brought you "Shrek," "Madagascar" and "Kung Fu Panda"
comes "How to Train Your Dragon," a comedy adventure set in the mythical world
of burly Vikings and wild dragons, based on the book by Cressida Cowell. The
story centers around a Viking teenager named Hiccup, who lives on the island of
Berk, where fighting dragons is a way of life. The teen's smarts and offbeat
sense of humor don't sit too well with his tribe or its chief ... who just
happens to be Hiccup's father. However,... [more]
A woman who once made it her goal in life to marry and rear a family finds her priorities suddenly shifting in director Ryan Murphy's adaptation of author Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir. In the eyes of many, Gilbert was a woman who had it all -- a loving husband, a great apartment, and a weekend home -- but sometimes one realizes too little too late that they haven't gotten what they truly wanted from life. On the heels of a painful divorce, the woman who had previously looked forward to a contented... [more]
Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan team up for the Warner Bros. police buddy movie Cop Out in this Kevin Smith-directed production. From a script by Robb and Mark Cullen, the picture focuses on a detective duo who investigate the disappearance of a baseball card. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide [more]
Reality and video games merge in this high-concept sci-fi action thriller from Crank creators Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. In the not too distant future, mind-control technology allows humans to control the actions and movements of other humans, allowing reclusive billionaire Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) to create the ultimate video game. It's called "Slayers," and it's a mass-scale, multiplayer online first-person shooter that's as controversial as it is popular. In the world of gamers, Simon (Logan... [more]
British material-design company Peratech recently inked a deal with MIT to create pressure-sensitive, electronically responsive "skin" for robots. This means, of course, that sooner or later we'll have a terrifying robotic version of Buffalo Bill.
Peratech's signature product is a kind of sensitive metal-and-silicone material called quantum tunneling composite, or QTC. This technology lies at the intersection of "electronic" and "tactile": it responds to pressure, converting physical force into electric signal. It's already been used to create more sophisticated touchscreens, as well as an "off button" on electronic passports to stop them from broadcasting RFID tags all over the place.
Now, according to MIT's Technology Review blog, researchers at the university's Media Lab department hope to dress up their robots in QTC:
QTC robot skin could perhaps let a robot know precisely where it has been touched, and with how much pressure. It could also be helpful in designing machines that have better grasping capabilities, and for developing more natural ways for machines to interact with humans.
QTC is also pretty easily molded, and in the words of a Peratech press release, it can be "'draped' over an object much like a garment might." Thus, robots with skin—skin that knows how hard you're touching it, and where. There could be any number of exciting applications for this; it might actually herald a major step forward in the way we interact with machines. But it's hard not to worry that if the people behind Roxxxy the sex robot ever find about this stuff, the world will explode.
Virtually unknown actress Mia Wasikowska is poised to go down the rabbit hole of fame as the title character of Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland,' and ET's Mary Hart finds out just how deep that rabbit hole goes!
"It was a really long process of auditioning, so I never once thought I would get it or end up being in the film, so it was just a real dream," says the 20-year-old star of landing the role of a lifetime opposite such notables as Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter.
In IMAX 3D and conventional theaters in Disney 3D on March 5, 'Alice in Wonderland' picks up with a grown-up, 19-year-old Alice fleeing the prospect of a dull marriage by returning to Wonderland to reunite with her childhood friends -- White Rabbit, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Dormouse, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, and of course, the Mad Hatter -- and to battle the evil Red Queen.
The cast of 'Alice in Wonderland' talk about the pressure in bringing the highly-anticipated film to the big screen
Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice, says she faced the daunting task of taking on a children's classic by focusing on making her performance "more about the teenage girl behind that iconic image."
While a challenge, there was also great joy in making the famous characters their own. "I consider myself extremely lucky," Anne Hathaway says of working on the film.
It is a fantasy thriller, it is pretty dark and it’s all me. So people will pretty much know what that means if they look at my body of work. But it’s a new universe set in the present day with a new concept for me and a new bunch of characters. It’s been a long time since I got to do that, so that’s really fun.
It’s the story of a young woman’s journey that involves a great deal of horror and some heroics.
More in the Buffy-mode of discovering strength than in the sense of, “I’ve had strength for so long that I’m losing my sense of people who don’t.
Colour me intrigued. A bright and vibrant shade of intrigued too.
Of course, there’s every chance to Whedon and Dushku are planning something completely different, a new story that we’ve not even had teased for us yet. Despite my less than overflowing confidence in Cabin in the Woods, I’m still a huge and passionate fan of Whedon, so whatever film he’s wanting to make, I’m wanting to see.
Sahara director Breck Eisner teams with screenwriters Ray Wright (Pulse) and Scott Kosar (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) to give George A. Romero's underrated 1973 shocker a shiny new makeover in this update starring Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. Perform a Google search on "small-town America," and eventually you'll stumble across Ogden Marsh, a picturesque hamlet situated a safe distance from the nearest big city, and full of friendly faces. The citizens of Ogden Marsh are happy, albeit unremarkable... [more]
Based on the personal wartime experiences of journalist Mark Boal (who adapted his experiences with a bomb squad into a fact-based, yet fictional story), director Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War-set action thriller The Hurt Locker presents the conflict in the Middle East from the perspective of those who witnessed the fighting firsthand -- the soldiers. As an elite Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team tactfully navigates the streets of present-day Iraq, they face the constant threat of death from incoming bombs... [more]
Earlier this week it was reported that Angelina Jolie had dropped out of Wanted 2, effectively killing that film (no great loss) and that she would instead star in Alfonso Cuarón’s upcoming ’space thriller’ Gravity. Cuarón doing a space thriller? Fantastic. Doing it with Jolie’s financial pull? Potentially incredible.
But now it seems the report on Gravity may have been premature, and that Jolie isn’t doing the film after all. Another minor report, meanwhile, suggests she could be part of the Bret Easton Ellis-scripted The Golden Suicides.
EW reports that Jolie’s reps say the actress “passed on doing Gravity at Warner Bros.” Furthermore, the site says that it cannot confirm whether or not the film is even really set up at WB right now. Which is interesting. Dying to know more about this one, and hope that it can come together somewhere.
Meanwhile, Bret Easton Ellis said on Twitter (via The Playlist) “Keep looking at the script…Angelina and Franco for Theresa and Jeremy?…It doesn’t matter…I wrote it for them anyway…I just spaced…”
The script he’s referring to is The Golden Suicides, which we’ve talked about a couple of times. Gus Van Santhad been said to be doing additional writing duties on that, but a previous recent tweet from Ellis says he’s just finished the screenplay. So what’s the story there? Will Gus Van Sant do some work on the script down the line, has he been contributing input in the last couple months, or is he off that project now? Was his involvement over-reported, as deals like that sometimes are?
Jolie and Franco would be perfect casting for the broken, charismatic couple at the heart of The Golden Suicides, but at this point it sounds like that’s just wishful thinking on the part of Ellis. Hopefully the script is good enough that they’d be interested.
To recap, The Golden Suicides is based on the true story of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. They were a powerful creative couple (he was an artist, she a game designer and filmmaker) that began to exhibit eccentric and downright bizarre behavior, requested ‘loyalty oathes’ of friends, complained of Scientologist persecution and eventually killed themselves within a week of each other. Duncan took pills; Blake walked into the Atlantic Ocean and never came out again.
Kick-Ass Red Band Trailer #2 - Seriously, how many different B-sides of a trailer are going to be released of this movie? I am loathe to try and say how great this movie looks as I think people should go into this one ice cold but this trailer relies too much on being shocking with its use of the f-bomb. It just feels red band for the sake of red band.
Middle Man Red Band Trailer - Luke Wilson. Please, for the love of all that’s holy, could you stick to this and stop with the two-bit hucksterism for AT&T? I really liked this trailer: good premise, good acting, a little trite in some areas, and it gives away a lot of its plot, but it looks like a fun romp at the movies.
Waking Sleeping Beauty Trailer - How can you not be excited at the prospect of seeing this movie? It’s your obligation, as a fan of animation, to see how Disney came roaring back in the 80’s after being so close to just losing its grip on the dominance it had in the field. Director Don Hahn will get my money, that’s for sure.
Frame 137 Trailer - A ten year-old boy who chops people up with knifes and blows fire on them with alcohol? I’d have to say this is pretty awesome. The trailer is a little sketchy but as long as there is more to this film beyond a bar room I’d love to see how this is coming to us by the guy who brought The Crow to life.
The Karate Kid Trailer #2 - Absolutlely not. I was neither inspired nor swayed by what I saw in this thing to change my opinion that this is a movie not only targeted to 13 year-olds but that it doesn’t look very good.
Showgirls 2 Trailer - I still am not sure what I just saw but I do know that it’s bizarre and that nudity never hurts. I don’t think I want to see what looks like the visual equivalent of a train wreck but I’d be more than happy to entertain the prospect of naked women slithering out of hot tubs and flopping around the floor like oxygen starved goldfish. It looks like a photo shoot for Smell the Glove.
Nightmare on Elm Street Trailer #2- Are You There God? It’s Me, Batman. Yeah, the voice is a little wonky but this looks like a solid slasher from top to bottom. While there is nothing to indicate this is going to break any ground, originality wise, I do feel like this could be pure fun.
How To Train Your Dragon Trailer #3- No. What think is telling is that when I showed this to my two kids they said, “I don’t want to see that.” When not even six or four year-olds want to see your film it doesn’t make ME want to see your film.
It’s OK, you can all relax – Snooki from Jersey Shore is fine. Well, not fine, obviously, but she’s not dead.
Thank God. We don’t know about you, but we were close to pulling out our Dead Snooki Contingency Plan, which involved looking up who Snooki is on Wikipedia then sort of just shrugging and getting on with our lives. But we don’t need to do that any more.
Because, yes, a glass atrium in a New York building may have collapsed during a party that Snooki was attending, but Snooki is fine. Well, not fine, obviously – she’s still a ghastly, shrieking, two-dimensional nitwit who you’d probably start wishing illness on within about three or four seconds of meeting her – but she’s not dead. As we think we’ve already mentioned.
What a horrible weekend. No, not because of the Chilean earthquake and subsequent petrifying tsunami alerts across the globe – because Snooki from Jersey Shore went to a party where she could have ended up with a nasty cut or, worse, bits of glass in her hair.
In case you don’t watch Jersey Shore, here’s a recap – it’s basically The Hills but with worse people. And if you don’t watch The Hills, here’s a recap of that – it’s basically Laguna Beach but with worse people. And if you didn’t watch Laguna Beach, here’s a recap of that – it was basically The Real World but with worse people. Remember how awful the people in The Real World are, and imagine how much worse they’d have to be to be in Laguna Beach, and how much worse than that they’d have to be to be in The Hills, and how much worse than that they’d have to be to be in Jersey Shore.
So from that we can deduce that Jersey Shore is about the worst people in the known universe. And Snooki is the worst one of the Jersey Shore cast. Try and imagine the general level of awfulness of that. You can’t, can you? Anyway, a roof collapsed at a party that Snooki attended on Saturday. That’s what we’re basically getting at. NYmag reports:
At a Purim party held at midtown’s Sony Building that drew over 300 revelers, including Snooki and Chris Noth, the snow and ice caused the glass ceiling of the atrium to fall. The collapse showered glass over the entire crowd, and about ten partygoers were injured, some of whom were taken to the hospital… “I don’t care,” Snooki said. “I’m with my man, it doesn’t matter.”
Chris Noth was there too? Thank heavens that this wasn’t any more serious than it was – imagine if both Snooki from Jersey Shore and Chris Noth from Sex And The City were both killed at the same time. Someone would have had to call an international day of… not mourning, what’s the word for when something happens and it’s a bit sad but it doesn’t really affect your life in any noticeable way? Day of ambivalence? Anyway, that.
Share-Bookmark this Article
So this weekend I bought a pet fish. Yeah, that's about the biggest animal I can get where I live. Anyway, the purchase of the fish was easy. Naming it was not. As a movie buff, I sometimes feel obligated to be all-movie-related and if I get a pet (or one day have a child) give him or her a name that reflects a favorite film. But is that cheesy? Or obvious? Certainly naming the fish something fishy film-related is pretty silly. No naming him Nemo. Or her Wanda. I kinda wanted to name him/her Madison, but again that would provoke too many guests saying the same, "oh, I get it. 
This week, Michael Jackson's Captain EO staged an unlikely comeback and 
-tm.jpg)
.jpg)
pedantic when strongly supported by evidence. It makes a good read and provides at least for the fans, which I am, a nice amount of dream time considering Dodgson/Carroll. My only complaint is that a bit too many words are spent rejecting some of the more inane conclusions about Dodgson.
.gif)
The Spy Next Door has a PG MPAA Rating due to its action and violence sequences. This movie has been creatively shot at Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Brian Levant gets all the credit for directing this thriller movie in a brilliant way. This movie has been produced by Solon So, Tucker Tooley and Ryan Kavanaugh.
Roland Emmerich's 2012 may have failed to live up to its apocalyptic promise, but one group are nonetheless not too happy about how it all turned out: The Catholic Church are seeking restitution over the movie's treatment of Jesus.
With Lost hurtling towards its series finale, the cast and writers of the show appeared at this year's Paleyfest armed with answers, spoilers and teases - As well as a promise we're sure they can't keep. You've been warned!
