solace in cinema : A vast wasteland of movies

Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused is, for my money, not only the director's best to date but perhaps the greatest teen movie ever. It's one of those rare movies that make you wish you were actually 'there'; in this case the last day of a Texas high school in the summer of 1976.

The film follows a large and diverse group of teens, from the popular jocks to the frustrated nerds and all those in between, as they drive around town, drink beer, hang out and prepare for the night ahead and everything after. Whilst this might not sound like the recipe for the most exciting movie ever, it's Linklater's script and the superb ensemble cast (including early-in-career roles for Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey and Milla Jovovich) that really shine. Plus, it doesn't hurt that the soundtrack is an absolute corker!

On June the 6th, the American DVD label Criterion are releasing a Linklater-approved 2-disk 'definitive' edition version of Dazed which boasts a 'trunkload' of extras including an audio commentary, documentaries, deleted scenes and a 72-page book featuring essays on the film plus 'memories from the cast and crew'.

If you love the film as much as me you were already sold the moment you heard about this release, but for those yet to experience it (and have a player that can handle R1 DVDs) I can't recommend it highly enough!

Don't take my word for it though and check out the early reviews here and here.

The Criterion release page is here and I've posted the superb cover art too.

I've checked and it's only £18 at CD-wow

If you're still not convinced, surely any film that features a character called Wiley Wiggins has got to be worth watch, right?

Check out the new trailer; guns, boats, cars and women. It's a shame it has that horrible rap-rock over the top of it, but still, on visuals alone I can't wait to see this on the big screen. Available over on the apple site here

File under 'A', for 'Awesometown'. The award for movie pitch of the year has already gone too 'Snakes on a Plane', but this is coming in a close second. 'The Lingerie Bowl' is a weird american pay-per-view boobfest, featuring gilrs…in underwear…. playing american 'football'. incredibly stupid, yet genius.Somehow a studio decided to make it into a feature film, and have Jessica 'banjo playing' Simpson against Jessica 'The Ass' Alba. Jessica Alba is the Captain of one football team, Jessica Simpson is the Captain of another…. they play "footabll" ….in underwear. You don't need to know anything more than that really, and I doubt there will be much more to it anyway.

I get the feeling movie execs sit around and come up with ideas Alan Partridge style; "mmm… 'innercity sumo', we get fat men to wrestle on council estates?… no?… ok….ummmm Monkey Tennis?' Reeling off ideas with no clue about how to make them into something tangible. Saying that, i've preordered a ticket to see this.

There's a good quote from Spinal Tap that fit's this story "there's a fine line between clever and stupid". I haven't yet decided which this is, but it had my attention from word go.

source 

I seem to be stealing all my news today from Twitch. A full trailer for the new Spanish Language movie from Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Devil's Backbone) Pan's labyrinth has cropped up online, it's small and in flash format, but it's long enough to get you excited for the movie (Hopefully a high quality version will find it's way online soon too) and give you a taste of what to expect. right click and download it here.

Here's a synopsis of the film from imdb:

Pan´s labyrinth is the story of a young girl that travels with her mother and adoptive father to a rural area up North in Spain, 1944. After Franco´s victory. The girl lives in an imaginary world of her own creation and faces the real world with much chagrin. Post-war Fascist repression is at its height in rural Spain and the girl must come to terms with that through a fable of her own.

Check out the offical site here

and there's some stills in our flickr account here

All we know is it's called 'The Host', It's Korean and it's about a 'mutant' that emerges from the river that runs through Seoul. Oh and the tagline is 'Daddy, Save Me!'. Awesome. Sold.

This is the poster, but there's a cooler image grabbed from some Cannes press materials (it's premiereing at Cannes) over at Twitchfilm here. There's also a little teaser trailer here (no monster though)

Directed by Bong Joon-Ho, who's previous film 'Memories of Murder' was great, and stars Kan-ho Song, an actor that is in every film out of Korea worth a damn.

Check out the official site here 

I've been waiting to see the hot new property 'Brick' for a while now, after hearing a lot of good buzz from the states about 'this year's Donnie Darko' (whatever that means… I think they mean breakout indie film) I was gagging to take a look at it.

Brick is a modern day Humphrey Bogart film, a movie that pans out like a school play version of 'The Maltese Falcon'. A detective thriller where teenagers play all the parts, using a Calfornia school and suburbs as it's sets.

The world in which Brick is set is best described as 'doll house', based in a slightly skewed meticulously constructed reality of the films own making. When this is done well you get films like 'Brick' or the works of directors like Wes Anderson, when it's done badly you get self-flagellatory pieces of crap like Guy Richie's movies. As a friend of mine say's "When I'm pulled out of a movie because i catch myself thinking the guy behind the camera is a tosser, I can't help but hate it". With Brick this could have quite easily been the case, but the director's 'world' is backed up by a tight script, great actors and some keen editing.

The initial setup (and i'm not spoiling anything here, if you've seen the posters you'll know the deal) is that Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) a high school student, recieves a worrying phone call from his ex-girlfriend Laura (Nora Zehetner), she's in trouble and wants his help. When Laura turns up dead, Brendan sets out to do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of her death.

Digging through layers of lies and subderfuge; dealing with drug dealers, thugs and 'dames'. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan as a Bogart character, smart(with an equally smart mouth), calculating, knowing all the right questions to ask, and knows when to take a risk and when to turn and run. He gets beaten up, punched a LOT, bloodied and battered, but his intentions always hold strong, and his morals never waiver. Brendans unwillingness to be seduced, cohersed or manipulated is channelled from his love for Laura, a love he can't let go of until he get's to the bottom of what happened to her. 

It's difficult to know what classes as movie news. Daft Punks previous cinematic outing 'Interstellar 5555' was basically a 65 minute musical, it featured no dialogue but told a story through the visuals set to various tracks from Daft Punk's 'Discovery' Album. It's highly worth checking out if you've never seen it (It was animated by Leiji Matsumoto, an amazing anime artist).

Some Stills from Daft Punks next audio feature film 'Electroma' have cropped up over at I Watch Stuff. It sounds like it could be just as interesting as '5555' "Electroma is visual and musical which follows the history of two robots in their search to become human."

I was a fan of 'Interstellar 5555', but if i'm honest (even though i'm a fan of Daft Punk) the animation largely carried that film, so i'm curious to see how it will play out using live action as a medium.

These pics have been floating around on gossip sites for a couple of months but they're interesting to see Benicio transformed for his new movie. 'Guerrilla' is of course a biopic about the cuban revoloutionary Che Guevara.

Steven Soderbergh has written the script and is taking on the role of directing it also. It's still in pre-production (which seems odd given Bencio's appearance in these photos) but has supposedly been delayed so Soderbergh can direct the horrendous piece of shit that will be 'Oceans 13'.

Sometimes I dispair of the movie industry, Soderbergh is a talented Oscar winning director yet (and i'm assuming a lot here… bet I would bet money i'm right) he's forced to churn out shit like 'Ocean's 12' and '13', so studios can make a quick buck out of it, and then budgets and distribution deals for his more 'arty' films like 'Guerrilla' will be approved.

Those photos again can be viewed here 

This is old news, but I've been collecting stills in the flickr account here, so I thought i'd mention it. 'The Departed' is the new Martin Scorsese remake, or to use the stupid hollywood buzzword of the moment 'reimagining' of Hong Kong cop thriller 'Infernal Affairs'. One of the most dynamic movies to come out of Hong Kong in the last decade, Infernal Affairs was released 4 years ago (they've made two sequels already), starring Tony Leung and Andy Lau (two of the HK's biggest stars).

The rights were sold off to the states, where they were snapped up by Scorsese. His remake has Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio as the two leads, a casting decision that smacks of Scorsese all over, the guy just has a knack for recognising actors that will work well together.

The story is focused completely on the two central characters, to explain why here's a little synopsis from imdb:

Two men from opposite sides of the law are undercover within the Boston State Police department and the Irish mafia, but violence and bloodshed boil when discoveries are made, and the moles are dispatched to find out their enemy's identities.

It's too early for any reviews but with Scorsese at the helm, and a story that has already proven itself to be compelling, we can expect something pretty special.

check out the stills in our flickr account here 

Just Discovered a script review of 'Wrong Turn 2' over on HNR here. I'm a big horror fan, and my favourite horror sub-genre is Redneck/backwoods stalk and slash movies. So obviously for me films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Deliverance, The Hills have eyes (the original and the remake) and Wrong Turn are my favourites. I enjoyed Wrong Turn, but it could have been so much better and I felt it just wimped out in places where it should have had people being strung up from trees and gutted. The Script review for 'Wrong Turn 2' doesn't sound like its improving on the formula, for starters they've got it tangled in with some 'reality tv show' plot… yeah nice and original screenwriters, that hasn't been used in a million horror movies recently.

Oh well…. at least I have the 'Hills have Eyes' DVD to look forward too.