I'm Not A Big Anime Fan...But This REDLINE Trailer Looks Awesome!

Growing up with my friend Shaun has done a few things to me. 1. It gave me seriously twisted sense of humor and 2. I have grown to not really like video games or anime. Spending hours to days watching him play video games and showing me clips of japanese animation (everything from COWBOY BEBOP and DRAGONBALL Z to HELLSING and anything with a mech) imprinted a feeling of disdain toward both, but I can still tell something that is wicked cool. And wicked cool this is. From what I understand REDLINE is a movie about racing in the future that takes place every five years. It basically seems like SPEED RACER Olympics style. It's fast, it's colorful, and it's freaking intense.

Here it is!

Another Great Short Film! FOUTAISES THINGS I LIKE, THINGS I DON'T LIKE! Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Its not secret that Jean-Pierre Jeunet is one of my favorite filmmakers alive today. This french director consistently releases intelligent, visually appealing, and magical movies. Starting with the international success of DELICATESSEN (1991), a post-apocalyptic Sweeney Todd, Jeunet made the great CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, a steampunk, avante garde fantasy starring Ron Perlman, which is one of my favorite films. Then Jeunet had a short foray in Hollywood with the critical failure of Alien Resurrection, not so good but definitely delivering on the visual style. Jeunet then took a few years off and blasted back on the scene with AMELIE (2001) which was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Foreign language film and Best Writing. Following was the visually striking World War One drama A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT (2004), and then most recently MICMACS (2010), which I have regretfully have not seen yet since I live in the worst area for foreign film releases (almost none).

FOUTAISES is a short film created by Jean-Pierre Jeunet in 1989. It features a man played by Dominique Pinon (CITY OF LOST CHILDREN, DELICATESSEN, and MICMACS) who is just mentioning things that he likes as well as things he dislikes. This simple premise is accompanied by incredible visuals (a lot of stock footage) and the striking visual style that has come to be expected of Jeunet throughout his career. Also, as a quick side note, Marc Caro (a frequent Jeunet collaborator and co-director) worked on FOUTAISES on the sound.

Watch this visually fascinating short film here, and then keep a look out for MICMACS when it comes out on DVD.

Danny Boyle! James Franco! Trailer for 127 HOURS!

As a lot of you may know, I am excited about this movie. A survival thriller by one of the best directors alive, Danny Boyle, starring one of the most promising young actors around, James Franco (MILK, SPIDER-MAN, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS). Boyle has directed some inventive and original films to come out of the last 15 years. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is heartbreaking yet uplifting and one of the best of the 2000's hands down. TRAINSPOTTING is one of my favorite 90's films and is responsible for putting Boyle on the map. With 28 DAYS LATER Danny Boyle landed. That movie exploded onto the pop culture landscape and amazed horror fans with its low budget, professionalism and powerhosue expectation. Now, with 127 HOURS, Boyle could have made his masterpiece. A film that has been gliding beneath the conscious for a while now, but releasing little bits here and there of news and knowledge to build up the excitement.

A little note that I found interesting. Boyle hired 2 cinematographers for the film. Each filmed serperately fromt he other on different schedules. Each was given a different assignment on how to react to James Franco (playing almost a professional kind of good cop, bad cop). This could result in some pretty unique visual styles comabating with eachother.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1542344/

A Flick You Might Have Missed: NEVERWAS!

NEVERWAS
“And once again I lived as I dreamed.”

An excellent movie is a difficult thing to stumble upon nowadays. With every newspaper, magazine, website, blog, and café each having its own movie critic or film buff. On any day one can hear an opinion or a recommendation or a warning of a movie not yet seen. Through this the listener then makes judgments (often for the better) that help him or her decide on whether or not to see a particular movie. One is then guided to a particular movie that is considered good, and the movies that do not receive mention, well, they get passed up. These are the movies that, when found, can be the most rewarding. No one told you to watch it, it did not receive any praise you have heard of, and it becomes your movie. This happened to me today, and the film was NEVERWAS.

Zach Riley (Aaron Eckhart) is an up-and-coming therapist who gets hired at Millwood, a psychological hospital for non-functioning mentally ill patients, run by Dr. Peter Reed (William Hurt). Riley’s hidden agenda arrives at the fact that his father, children’s writer T.L. Pierson (Nick Nolte) was previously a patient at Millwood and had committed suicide when Zach was a child. Pierson was the author of the world famous “Zachary Small in Neverwas,” in which Zach was written in as the main character. Neverwas was a fantasy world that existed parallel with our own with fairies, monsters, knights, kings, and an evil wizard, Ghastly. Living in his old hometown, Zach meets a childhood friend, Maggie (Brittan y Murphy), who has become an avid collector and fan of all things Neverwas. While working at Millwood, Zach discovers a schizophrenic, Gabriel Finch (Sir Ian McKellen), who helps Zach discover that there could be more to his father’s book that he was believed.

There is so much good in this film. The performances by Aaron Eckhart, Sir Ian McKellen, William Hurt, and even smaller roles by Brittany Murphy, Jessica Lange, and Alan Cumming all work so well. A cast of supremely talented actors and actresses was a major benefit for first time director Joshua Michael Stern. This film was finished in 2005, and benefited from a soon to be star in Aaron Eckhart, capitalizing on his critic pleasing, tongue-in-cheek performance in THANK YOU FOR SMOKING. He plays his role with a passion and confidence that has become his calling card in his well-established career. The biggest piece of the acting cake goes to Sir Ian McKellen though. He does not disappoint. Whether he’s playing Gandolph, Magneto, or the great James Whale in GODS AND MONSTERS, the man performs the smallest of scenes with a kinetic but quiet ease while unleashing all of the pent up energy into an explosive bravado worthy of Lawrence Olivier, Kenneth Branaugh, or Peter O’Toole.

The cinematography and set design deserve recognition as well. Each scene is filmed in line with the tone and theme of the film, which is common sense to cinematographers, but when coupled with wonderful art direction and set design it becomes incredible. The hospital scenes are filled with the feelings of isolations and desolation without the nostalgia or warmness felt throughout the rest of the film. The only exceptions to these scenes are in Zach’s (Eckhart) office when he is in session with Gabriel (McKellen). These scenes are very natural. The lighting is warm and the air throughout feels nostalgic. The scenes in the mountainous countryside are gorgeous. Each shot utilizes the beauty and elegance of the locales, bringing the nature into the film almost as a character. Assisting these wonderful visions is the score by Philip Glass. Glass is by far one of the most influential and inventive composers alive. He has scored for DRACULA (the restored soundtrack), THE HOURS, and KUNDUN as well as compose numerous classical compositions with incredible performers, his work with Kronos Quartet are personal favorites. The quick, fluid piano and bells accompanied with the slow legato of the strings really accentuating the memorable themes throughout really help make this powerful score.

Now on to the movie itself. See it. When seen on the shelf, NEVERWAS is not a film that grabs your attention. The cover art is not good. It looks like a typical hyper-optimistic fantasy film which it could not be further from. It is kind of dark and it deals strongly with psychological issues, both diagnoses and deep-seeded daddy issues. But it is not too heavy either. Director Joshua Michael Stern, who also wrote, does a solid job at keeping the tone balanced and entertaining without making the film too brooding or too bright and cheery. It is an original take on a theme that is familiar. NEVERWAS is similar in theme to FISHER KING and PAN’S LABYRINTH, but closer in tone to FINDING NEVERLAND, another tale of writer and his inspiration which I love.

Now to the bad stuff. I know, I’ve been gushing over NEVERWAS for 800 something-odd words, but it is not perfect. At times, just a few, the film is wrought with a little too much emotion. Certain scenes do not necessarily feel heavy, but they do feel too emotional. This is due to a script from a young and inexperienced writer, who also directs, but that does not decrease the value and splendor of the film as a whole. Also the performances by Murphy and Hurt feel a little too much like an actor’s exercise. They kind of just read their lines and did the motions. Also, the film took a little too long to end. That is not saying the it is too long because I wish its 1:48 runtime was actually 15-20 minutes longer, but the climax through felt like it dragged a little.

NEVERWAS is neither fantasy film nor a children’s fairy tale. It is a worthwhile film that is inspiring, beautiful, and features some great talent in front of and behind the camera. This is a magical psychological thriller that is clearly aimed at adults, but reaches into his or her childhood, retrieving some of the magic left behind. You will fall in love with it.

See it for sure! I promise you this one is good! It has been aired on STARZ as well as on Netflix, both streaming and for delivery.

Black Swan Trailer Released Today

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/blackswan/

Darren Aronofsky has yet to make a bad movie.  PI, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, THE FOUNTAIN, THE WRESTLER are all phenomenal movies that each show Aronofsky's progression as a filmmaker and artist, and BLACK SWAN looks to be a masterpiece.  First of all, this is a perfect trailer.  It does not give away any story, makes the viewer want more, and amazes through confusion.  The mirror shot, the red eyes, the giant black monster, and split personalities! Aronofsky loves the theme of obsession and perfection.  PI, obsession with mathematical theory, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, obsession with drugs and money, THE FOUNTAIN, obsession with a woman and foreverness, and THE WRESTLER, obsession with past glories.  Now BLACK SWAN seems to be about obsession with perfection of an art.

I'm excited, and I hope it premiers at Telluride!  That would make the trip itself!

Telluride Coming Quick And I Couldn't Be More Excited!

As a lot of you already know, I will be attending the Telluride Film Festival throught their Student Symposium program.  I will fly out on Sept 1st and arrive in time for the start on Sept 2nd.  The anticipation is killing, and a lot of that is due to to Telluride not announcing the films that will show their until Day 1.  I did a little bit of investigative snooping the last couple days, and the rumored potential film list is incredible.  These are a few that I would be so excited to be included.

127 Hours
Dir. Danny Boyle
Starring James Franco
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1542344/


The Town
Dir. Ben Affleck
Starring Ben Affleck & Jeremy Renner
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0840361/


The Black Swan
Dir. Darren Aronofsky
Starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947798/
(Not A Trailer But A Good Look)


Another Year
Dir. Mike Leigh
Starring Jim Broadbent
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1431181/


Love and Other Drugs
Dir. Edward Zwick
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Hank Azaria
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758752/

Animated Short from Sundance 2010: OLD FANGS!

Brilliant animated short film that premiered at Sundance 2010 called OLD FANGS. A young wolf returns to meet his aging and angry father after years without seeing each other.  Very reflective film with much to offer with incredible animation.

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT REVIEW!

2010 Part I is over and now the (hopefully redemption thirsty) Part II is on its way.  The first part was well, underwhelming.  Fall is coming, unfortunately, and its almost time to start recapping the year for awards season.  A few good films popped out the mediocrity to really stand out.  INCEPTION, TOY STORY 3, and SHUTTER ISLAND are the big three through the August for Awards Season.  A few personal favorites made the year more bearable; YOUTH IN REVOLT, DATE NIGHT, A-TEAM, KICK-ASS, GREENBURG, and DEFENDOR.  As you can see the top is a little light with a bigger middle and an even bigger bottom (LAST AIRBENDER, CLASH OF THE TITANS, and PRINCE OF PERSIA anyone?).  A few films to look forward too, hmmm.  Maybe THE AMERICAN (Clooney), THE TOWN (Affleck), WALL STREET 2 (Stone), THE SOCIAL NETWORK, 127 HOURS (Boyle/Franco), BLACK SWAN (Aronofsky) will step up with a few others that might be flying under the radar.

    But the awards season just found a new indie sweetheart to croon over.  THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT directed by Lisa Cholodenko (LAUREL CANYON, HIGH ART) is a movie about a family so close to falling apart, but it’s funny, it’s touching, and it’s beautiful.  A stellar cast including Annette Bening (BEING JULIA), Julianne Moore (FAR FROM HEAVEN), Mark Ruffalo (SHUTTER ISLAND), Mia Wasikowska (ALICE IN WONDERLAND), and Josh Hutcherson (CIRQUE DU FREAK) offer the potential for the best ensemble cast for 2010.  Bening and Moore are a lesbian married couple living in California.  They have two children Joni and Laser (Wasikowska and Hutcherson) who decide to take of advantage of Joni’s 18th birthday to contact their sperm donor, Paul (Ruffalo), and of course their mothers do not approve.  What ensues is a test of the family structure and of a person’s constitution.
    Bening is incredible as the tough, controlling, and hardworking doctor who feels the pressure of her family collapsing around her.  The role is very similar to her role in MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS, but she makes the best of type casting and turns it into to a wonderfully tough and heartbreaking performance.  Moore does what she does best playing a mother bottled up in a relationship without any means to express herself, but instead decides to experiment with the opposite sex.  Together, Bening and Moore are electric.  Their relationship is so realistic and covers so much territory not explored in film.  Both characters experiencing a mid-life crisis and dealing with them in different ways, mainly by realizing their liberal views might not be the best views.
Ruffalo is the best he has ever been as Paul.  His screen time probably only occupies half of the movie, but when he’s on screen his quasi-bohemian restaurateur character really captivates.  He’s funny and passionate.  SHUTTER ISLAND and INCEPTION gave DiCaprio two great roles in one year.  Well, SHUTTER ISLAND and THE KIDS ARE ALL ALRIGHT have done the same for Ruffalo.  In this movie he is so cool.  He’s the kind of guy your mother would hate but you want to hang out with as much as possible, and to have him as your dad?  That’s what Joni and Laser experience with Paul.  Kudos goes to the children.  Wasikowska and Hutcherson are perfect as the 18 and 16-year-old children.  Wasikowska can act, and she could do so very well.  I expect big things from her in the next few years.  She plays the high expectation burdened good girl so well that she rivals the performances acting powerhouses of Bening and Moore.  Hutcherson is a solid up-and-comer who does not waiver around his surrounding talent.  There was a wonderful aura of chemistry between him and Ruffalo.
    Cholodenko, while not over stylizing or over-directing, does THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT a great service.  She kept it light.  A film dealing with homosexuality, family drama, and infidelity could come across as heavy and tiring.  A great Lifetime Movie Channel movie.  But she saved it.  She allowed the actors to have joy, and it shows.  Even in the most heartbreaking of scenes a tone of joy and hope seeps through the celluloid.  This film, while slow, still holds a certain amount of kinetic energy that gives short blasts throughout to keep it exciting.  Aside from all of this, Cholodenko is interested in the people.  This is a beautiful character study of five completely different people whose lives and relationships experience a little shake-up.
    This is a definite must-see as will be around for awards season, but, more so than that, it is a wonderful movie.  A cast that is so on its scary headlines THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT.

Great new short from INK's Jamin Winans! UNCLE JACK!!!

 

 Awesome short from the director of INK (see review below) Jamin Winans.  Incredible stuff!  UNCLE JACK is very funny and inventive.  The lead actor is Christopher Soren Kelly(of INK) and Quinn Hunchar plays the niece (also of INK), and I love them both and hope to see them in many films to come.  This is so much fun!

A Hidden Gem In Need of Some Discoverin' : THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T (1953)

 

Taking the cellophane off of my Stanley Kramer Film Collection box set was something that I waited too long to do.  I bought it because of, one, GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER, and two it was one sale pretty cheap.  I’m not trying to discredit the man because he was a major figure in filmmaking and one of the best producers/directors, but his movies were never something I wanted to pop in to watch.  After throwing away the cellophane I was going to watch THE WILD ONE, but I decided against it put in the only one in the set I haven’t seen, THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T, a children’s movie and symbolic-fantasy produced by Stanley Kramer and written by Theodore Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss.  After watching…let’s just say I wasn’t disappointed.
    This surreal film is a comedy/musical/horror movie about a young boy, Bart Collins (played by LASSIE’s Tommy Rettig) who’s Hitleresque and wonderfully flamboyant piano Dr. Terwilliker, played by the brilliant voice-actor Hans Conreid (PETER PAN’s Captain Hook), forces him to practice the piano constantly.  Bart soon falls asleep at the piano entering a nightmare world where Dr. T intends to force 500 children to play on a massive piano, of his construct, 24-7/365.   The horrible Dr. T enslaves Bart’s mother and Bart intends to rescue her, and himself.  He enlists the help of Mr. August Zabladowski, the Collins’ plumber.
    The nightmare world created by Dr. Seuss, who both wrote and designed the sets and costumes, deserves merit.  The twisty and curvy designs mixed with bright colors, courtesy of Technicolor, give THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T an incredible brilliance.   In one scene a scared Bart if running from a group of bright blue guards and finds escape of an impossibly high red ladder that leads to nowhere.  He finds the ground by jumping and using his shirt as a parachute.  Impossible feats such as this are common in this movie.  The costumes are equally bizarre yet beautiful.  First of all is Bart’s beanie, a blue skullcap with an erect yellow hand poking out of the top above the words “Happy Fingers.”  Dr. Terwilicker’s costumes are wonderful mixture of fabrics and brightly colored robes.  I am not one to comment on the clothing and costuming of a picture, but this film deserves this mention.
    An unforgettable scene takes place in Dr. T’s dungeon for players of every instrument except pianos.  In this surreal scene, hundreds of dancers with Seussical instruments dance ballet and play very avant-garde jazz.  The men are all painted green and wearing rags and playing impossible instrument.  One instrument is a set of antlers on a man’s head that holds dozens of bells that ring when the man is strangled.  Another instrument looks like a communal bong with six men playing it like bagpipes.  Most of the appeal of this scene comes from the choreography of the ballet great Eugene Loring.  This brings to question the music.  Being a musical, most scenes have a song.  Unfortunately the songs, written and composed by Frederick Hollander, are the weakest part of the film.  Most of them are very forgettable and typical, aside from the great instrumental in the dungeon.
    The effects of this film make it even more significant.  Released in 1953 one could claim the inspiration, in terms of style, it might have had on directors like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.  There are many elements of THE 5,000 FINGERS in Burtons’s CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY as well as in BARON VON MUNCHAUSEN (Gilliam).  One could also argue the inspiration it might have had on a musical such as CHICAGO with its outlandish set design costumes.   The character of Sideshow Bob in the SIMPSON’s television show is based loosely on Conreid’s Dr. Terwilicker.
    THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T is a wonderful musical that carefully uses fantasy and surrealist style to construct the dream world of young Bart Collins so well.  While flawed this film is still a marvel of film with some powerfully creative minds behind its creation.  Stanley Kramer’s involvement alone deserves it a watch, and paired with Dr. Seuss’s imagination it makes this film a can’t miss.  I'm glad I opened that darn box set now.

Watch it, experience it, love it.