solace in cinema : A vast wasteland of movies

'Down in the Valley' is a new small independent film starring Ed Norton, it looksreally interesting and is already starting to gather awards. Here's a brief Synopsis:

"Down in the Valley, which stars Academy Award Nominee Edward Norton and Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen), is a suspenseful crime story set at the edge of the San Fernando Valley, a seedy place of horse ranches and immigrant gangs, where ten-lane freeways converge to create a cultural no man's land. A rebellious high school senior Tobe (Wood) and her anemic 11-year old brother Lonnie (Rory Culkin) struggle to escape their grim and hopeless existence and their overbearing father, Wade (David Morse). Their hoped-for deliverance comes in the form of Harlan, a charming, yet mercurial man (Ed Norton) who thinks he's a cowboy"

I read a really good interview with Ed Norton in this month's Total Film, the guy comes across reall well, motivate, focused and really intelligent. He's obviously slightly soured to the whole 'Hollywood' scene and the vacuous award show's, and so is trying to go back and do films he has a genuine interest in. Work he'll feel proud of. You can't go wrong with that kind of atitude.

Norton is currently filming 'Pride and Glory' another film i'm really looking forward too, mainly because it's written by Joe Carnahan, the writer/director of Narc.

Check out the trailer for 'Down in the Valley' here

and there's a lot of stills from the film in our flickr group here

The poster for 'Art School Confidential' has arrived (I found it over at ioncinema). Daniel Clowes the artist and writer behind the comic book version has been involved closely with the project and adapting it for the screen, and Terry Zwigoff the director also directed Clowes's first screen adaptation 'Ghost World'.

I really like the book of 'Art School', and 'Ghost World' the movie turned out great, but the first trailer for art school looked … not…. great. I don't know who was involved with the marketing for 'Ghost World', but they did a good job of painting it as the 'alternative' coming-of-age film it was… but the first trailer for 'Art School' is a vague attempt to market to the 'American Pie' demographic…. which seems totally wrong, but saying that whoever cut the second trailer obviously had there head screwed on a bit better

If 'Art school' continues in the vein of the art class 'tampon in a tea cup' scene in Ghost World i'll be a happy man.

The early reviews i've read have been less than positive… time will tell if they are accurate or not. 'Art School Confidential'is released in the UK and the U.S on may the 6th.

View the first lame trailer at apple here 

and the second better trailer here

So the word on the street about Silent Hill… is…. well…. nothing. So far there's been no preview screenings, and it hasn't been shown to the press. The kind of movies that normally do this kind of thing are normally pieces of shit. Big Mommas House 2, and The Pink Panther are notable exampes of late that have pulled such tricks.

Silent Hill opens globally this friday (the 21st), and the only things that's letting me hold on to the glimmer of hope are; Christophe Gannes is directing it (director of the brilliant 'Brotherhood of the Wolf'), and the piles of online footage looks promising.

There's so much footage online you could probably construct a good portion of the film without ever having to enter the cinema. Here's a list of everything I've seen thats online so far….

The official trailer on apple.com here

The first 10 minutes of the film from mtv here (downloadable via rapidshare here)

A 15 minute making of here

exclusive clips on the official french site here
(click 'photos et videos exclusives' on the first page)

tv spot number one here

tv spot number two here

Rope of Silicon Clips: number 1, number 2, number 3, number 4, number 5, and number 6

There's also piles of still photogrpahy online, alot of which i've tried to collect in our flickr group here

if i've missed anything let me know in the comments section..

the above links were found via AICN, Rotten Tomatoes forum and The zone

We've been following the production of 'United 93' for a while now, the more I hear, and see of it, the more intrigued I am to see what Paul Greengrass is going to turn out. The site for Empire Magazine have put up an exclusive look at the new UK poster for 'United 93'. The poster features stills from the movie and hundreds of peoples faces. So far I think all the posters have done a good job of not 'over glorifying' the film, but almost presenting it as documentary-like…

Check out a large version of the poster over on the empire site here

Related Posts

Greengrass speaks

September the 11th: The Posters

I don't know what it is; King-Kong, Godzilla (the toho films, not the american version), Lake Placid, and especially Jaws. I just love 'big creature' movies, I could watch them all day and I don't know why. Maybe it reminds me of a simpler time, a time when men were men, you go in the cage, cage goes in the water… you get the idea.

The boys over at CHUD have announced the film 'MEG' has been optioned by New Line for a summer 2007 release. The brief synopsis over at Imdb reads "From the director of "Speed" and "Twister" comes the film adaptation of Steve Alten's National Bestseller about the hunt for an eighty foot long, 100,000 pound Megalodon shark, the most deadly predator of all time."

SOLD.

check out a poster here

and other bits of concept art here

Six little short clips from the 'let's torture a Pedo' movie 'Hard Candy', Have been posted up over at moviesonline.ca. Although not giving much more away than the trailer, Candy is already running on a limited release in the states, and the reviews have been mixed. Although any film with a subject matter as contentious as this is bound to divide critics. Anyway take a look at the clips..

- PlayTime is Over

- First Meeting

- Nosey Neighbours

- The Pedophiles

- Worship Me

- Jealous

- I Should Mix My Own Drinks

and you can see the full trailer over on the apple site here
or the official site here

I'm really only posting these, to try and give people a heads-up,they should really have an rss feed telling you when a new one is out, or submit them to itunes as a video podcast. Bunch of slackers. Anyway. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost goof around, play up to the camera, and announce 'It's a big day on set' which got me all excited, then they show us none of it. I'm just a spoilt child really. I want to see the whole movie, and I want to see it NOW!. I'm telling my mum.

Check out the fourth Blog here

Oh and if anyones interested, they can register at wireimage.com search for 'hot fuzz' and see some images of the cast dressed up as cops (Bill Nighy and Steve Coogan included)

I thought we'd just take a little look at what's in the pipeline for the mann of the hour. I'll try to get through it with as few puns as possible.

Arms and the Man
A Project that has been in the pipeline since before Miami Vice was announced, based around the true story of  the world's biggest arms trafficker. The project may have been put on the back burner due to 'Lord of War' being released last year, a film that is loosely based on the same man.

Synopsis from ioncinema:
Based on a Peter Landesman-penned New York Times Magazine feature about shadowy arms dealer Victor Bout. The Aug. 17 article was an account of Landesman's interview with Bout, who is widely reported to be the world's largest arms trafficker. The great achievement of the interview that took place in Moscow was the sleuthing that made it happen. Bout has been incredibly secretive and spent most of the article deflecting assertions about how prolific a mover of weapons he is. The film will be a "Heart of Darkness" hunt into the depths of global arms trafficking. An American agent pursues a missing cache of plutonium that was swiped during a raid in the Ukraine. The trail spans from the Middle East to Africa and the Soviet Union, and Landesman and Mann will introduce a love story element as the agent navigates between the old Soviet world and a new brand of lawlessness and arms brokering in the country.

Val Kilmer's name has been attached for a while, but Pierce Brosnan and Tom Cruise's names have also been batted about.

The Few
Another film that's been kicking around in script form for a while, and is largely rumoured to be Mann's re-teaming with Cruise after Collateral. Leonardo DiCaprio was attached for a while, but has since fallen by the wayside since Cruise also signed on to produce. The true tory of American pilot Billy Fiske, who ignored his country's stance during the beginning of WW2 and flew Hurricanes against the Germans.

The film is already gathering controversy due to the 'American's rewrite history' theme that runs through the script. See U-571 for more details.

Public Enemies
Based on the book of the same name by Bryan Burrough. The film will be a crime drama set in 1930's prohibition America, and will focus on the transformation of the FBI as the U.S. government tried to stop the 1933 crime spree headed up by gangsters John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, the Barkers, and Bonnie and Clyde.

This clip needs no explanation.

One of my favourite sites to dig through when i’m bored is American Cinematographer, A heavily nerdy magazine, talking about lenses, f.stops and depths of field. Their website archives all their back issues (from 1998 to the present) check it out here There’s a beuatiful article about shooting collateral and everything they had to deal with to get it filmed on digital…. creating the write look, and dealing with stroppy cinematographers.

Check out the ‘Collateral’ aticle here

and imdb’s trivia page is interesting too, here

containing wonderful facts like:
“The guns that Vincent carries are a Heckler and Koch (HK) USP .45. Vincent didn’t use a silenced USP Tactical or Mk.23 SOCOM as was previously suggested. The silenced pistol was a .22 Long Rifle caliber Ruger Mk II or Mk III with the upper receiver and barrel replaced with a custom integral silencer.”

creepy.