The Tournament trailer!!!!

Never mind the ugliness. Here is the trailer for the Action-Reaction-anticpated The Tournament. It looks like it's going to deliver the goods and then some. Watch:



I can't believe I let this slip by (trailer came out the 23rd), but it'd be nothing new. Either way, looks great, and I can't wait.

Source: /Film

Ugliness

Yeah, Rambo 5, Bad Boys 3, Disney owns Marvel...it's just another ugly day in the film industry, and one even more ugly for the action genre...

I'll see you next month.

Armored trailer numero dos

Looks a little like trailer numero uno? Just a little? And it also looks like it gives 2/3 of the film away, but whatever:



I know I'll see it. "All you gotta do is open the door."

Source: /Film

"Looks like Cops on steroids..."

...as one insightful YouTube commenter noted, but in all the best ways. This is one TV show I will watch:



No scripts, no stunt doubles, no second chances...it's an adventure!

Source: Movieline

Inception teaser

Though it didn't screen at my showing, I can definitely see where it'd be one of the best reasons to go see Inglourious Basterds:

Inception @ Yahoo! Video

Looks almost sci-fi-horrorish. After seeing some footage, I'm starting to accept the Christopher Nolan-stunt double look of Leo. We'll see how it progresses.

Source: Yahoo

Review: Inglourious Basterds

You haven't seen the Brits...until you've seen them through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino

While not nearly as disasterous as John Woo's WW2, Quentin Tarantino's take on the era is no success, either. The ungraceful mix of classical 1940s cinema and '70s B-movie excess (and conveyed through a modern lens at that) makes the film end up feeling more like a cheap imitation/almost a parody than an ode to either canon. There's just way too much going on here; even Tarantino seems lost. Most Inglourious, indeed.

The story, or stories, follow just about everything there is to follow. There are the titular Basterds, headed by all-American Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), and sidekick Sgt. Donny "the Bear Jew" Donowitz (Eli Roth). There is their nemesis, "Jew Hunter" Colonel Hans Landa (Christopher Waltz), as well as one of his victims, Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), not to mention the German war hero that falls in love with her (Daniel Brühl), and his superiors (Martin Wuttke and Sylvester Groth in Hitler and Goebbels, respectively) and the British scheming against them (Michael Fassbender, Mike Myers), including their celebrity double-agent (Diane Kruger). In other words, there are many storylines, and though Tarantino has Altmanesque skill in this area, the distinctly-underwritten characters weaken the material as a whole, resulting in some major underwhelmage.

Gone are the days of Tarantino's inspired characters and even more inspired casting choices (Mike Myers as a British General is a lone cry to this). Pitt is firmly one-note, and one misstep away from annoying. Waltz's performance as Landa has been a little over-heralded, but he's fun nonetheless. The Basterds themselves turn out to be little more than faceless backdrops to Pitt and Waltz and Roth and the ladies (Laurent and Kruger)—who, like Waltz, are solid, but are given little to work with. The only one who's got anything to work with here is Tarantino, in that, as with the rest of his filmography, he takes a little bit from this, a little bit from that, and does whatever the fuck he wants with it (there's something wonderfully ironic about Quentin Tarantino doing a remake, even if a refashioned one).

Tarantino's loose/open/calm atmosphere is kind of refreshing in this age of quick-cut madness; people are going to grab onto this film for its old-fashionedness alone. There's a lot of life to Basterds, at least relatively, but still not enough to overcome the stretches of half-assed (or rushed for Cannes?) material. Even David Bowie's "Cat People" can't save the day. Since Kill Bill, Vol. 2, it's been a slow, frustrating decline for one of cinema's greats.

From the opening calm to the fiery finale, moments of true brilliance (the red dress, the ultra-quick shootout, "Paris, when it sizzles", etc.) are lost within the misplaced, confused direction of an overly-egomanical director. And, for the first time, Tarantino's Chapter-to-Chapter narrative works against him, carving up a potential epic into something smaller/just another Tarantino film. The original rumors that the Basterds were going to be made up of a bunch of washed-up action stars make this all the more disappointing. What could've been a Tarantinoized Big Red One ends up being nothing more than a mess. A simple, unfortunate mess.


** out of ****

~ Patrick Fryberger

And the trailer...

A minute cringe... was my first reaction. Did bat-shit insane George Lucas already achieve this level of C.G.I.? Yes, yes I'm afraid he did.



For a complete rundown, the Hollywood Elsewhere commenters pretty much hit all the points. Getting too big for your britches, Jimmy. The next trailer better show some improvement or District 9 will easily be remembered as the last great movie of the decade.

6 new Avatar stillage!

Regardless of the whole epic, changing cinema forever deal, you almost have to be excited for this simply because of the cast and the man behind it. The CGI looks pretty raw here, but I never saw the Comic-Con footage, and I'll hold my reservations until the trailer. Check 'em out:



















Source: AICN

Expendable footage? Expendables footage!

UPDATE: He's confirmed!

A few dashes of slow-mo awesome badassery for your enjoyment:



Source: /Film

Review: District 9

Balance is restored to the galaxy of cinema with District 9

Sneaking in before close, (District) 9 in '09 will be remembered as one of the best movies of the decade. Peter Jackson may have just handed the keys to a new James Cameron, changing not just the science fiction genre, but probably all of cinema, and forever. Whatever conventions (or minds) Cameron's upcoming Avatar may break, Neil Blomkamp's District 9 has broken the barrier, and paved the way for a new wave to come.

If you put together the blackest of black humor, combined with hollowing, weighty brutality, combined with ultraviolent action, combined with a multifaceted political agenda, combined with a semi-serious mockumentary style, and you might have District 9, but even then, it still defies convention. This is not just such-and-such meets such-and-such, rather, it is an ingenious assemblage of cinema's greatest elements seamlessly fused with an invigorating sense of innovation not experieced in however many years. The story follows Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley, in a workhorse performance), recently instated as the project leader for MNU (Multi-National United), managing a population of shipwrecked aliens in a slum of South Africa. The "prawns'" mothership rests above the city—wholly omnious yet completely harmless—a clear reminder that the their technology is easily superior. After twenty years, prawn-human relations disintegrate even further after they are asked to move into what is basically a concentration camp.

The opening documentary stretches are kept snappy, up-tempo, not so much aiming for realism, but for something different. Later, the uber-intense, Aliensx2 action sequences feature an alarming body count and a bloody one at that (another reminder that the prawn technology, again, is superior). The gruesome moments are grotesque. The sentimental moments are sappy. And the alien moments, well, are positively human. Everything about District 9 is pushed to the limit—every moment, is pushes the envelope, but never too far. Blomkamp and co. present the often-complicated material with such grace that one can't help but be impressed. I was impressed.

Such an ambitious project couldn't be without its flaws, and District 9 houses its share: from falling back on conventions (dialogue in particular), to the 'evil suits' being a little ridiculously/unbelievably so, to a few moments of visually indecipherable action. The ship is a little too Death Star-over-San Francisco-ish, but ultimately passable. There is also a brief lazy-filmmaking instance in the third act, where someplace is a little conveinently close to another place, but the film soon recovers. The film always recovers, and these minute flaws are nothing more than water under the bridge.

In the end, there is way to much to mention here; District 9 needs to be seen again and again to fully appreciate its secret-underground-base of layers. It's as if Blomkamp and Jackson said, "What if we try this? What if we do that?" and they took those risks, and they pulled them off. Packed to the max with great ideas, the film is so alive, so timely and timeless, and, above all, simultaneously both alien and human to an audience that has had too much of the latter.


**** out of ****

~ Patrick Fryberger