solace in cinema : A vast wasteland of movies

Good poster design is something I put a lot of value in, and while i’ve talked about it before with films like Oldjoy that had a very beautiful stripped back graphic style that perfectly encapsulates what the film is about. The new posters for the US release of Russian horror flick ‘Day Watch’ do exactly the same thing all be it in a more mainstream glossy style, pulling you in an making you wonder what the hell the film is about. They just make you think a bit rather than the only thought running through you mind being “oh god… not another Eddie Murphy fat suit movie”

Check out all five of the posters in our flickr account here

In case you don’t know ‘Thanksgiving’ is the fake trailer that Eli Roth has put together (and stars in) for Grindhouse, and now thanks to IGN you can check out the whole thing above (or in in Quicktime/WMV at IGN here) … you might want to stick around for the end too, and get a glimpse of Nic Cage as Fu Manchu in Rob Zombies ‘Werewolf Women of the SS’ and a little bit more of Edgar Wrights trailer for ‘DON’T!’… fantastic stuff

from flickr

I have a lot of love for Twitch, and this is why. Occasionally they just throw up some really obscure film that generally would juts pass under the radar of most people, including me. ‘Hank and Mike’ appears to be that kind of film…

Two blue-collar Easter bunnies get fired and try their hand at an assortment of odd jobs, failing at each. Fighting depression, debt and eventually each other, their lives start to unravel until they realize that without their job they are nothing. They fight to get their jobs back from Easter Enterprises and possibly save Easter in the process.

Who doesn’t like to see grown men in easter bunny costumes fighting, smoking and on occasion hugging each other?

Check out the trailer for ‘Hank and Mike’ here (Quicktime movie, direct link)

I like to feel like i’m not easily manipulated, and the trailer for ‘I now pronounce you Chuck & Larry’ looks rubbish.. but there’s two things that sucked me in; 1. Adam Sandler in non-weird voice mode being violent… low-brow humour I realise, but well… Happy Gilmore… nuff said, 2. Jessica Biel… rating high on the ridiculously-hot-o-meter.

I’m a sap…. I know it.

“The man on the tv told me to do it!!!.. I didn’t mean to hurt them!”

Mike Judge’s latest live action film after the classic ‘Office Space’ is a great, light-weight, but often hilarious, stoner sci-fi comedy. It’s straight to DVD (out today!) in the UK and only had a contractually obliged mini-theatrical run in the US in late 2006. The idea of a massively dumbed down future society with stores called things like Buttfuckers and swipes at Starbucks (where you now get hand jobs) Carl Jr (motto: “Fuck you! I’m Eating!) and digs at Fox News can’t have impressed top brass at Twentieth Century Fox (the film’s owner) much. They’re lying to us maaaaan! Or is it simply that the film is a little weak?

Nope, this is a decent comedy, and it gave me a couple of the biggest belly laughs I’ve had watching a film for ages. It’s like a stoner, slightly gross out comedy version of Total Recall without the trippiness but with added Robocop future satire. Actually, it’s more like a live action Simpson’s episode. I’m not the only one the digs it, it had 68% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and generally decent reviews on release. As film viewers we are regularly subjected to extremely weak high concept comedy from major studios. Idiocracy’s an example of one of these which is actually funny AND has something to say. Damn shame it didn’t get a chance to win an audience. I would totally recommend owning of a copy of the film. Fox execs, your idiocy is ironic. So fuck you! I’m eating!

Reminds me of old comic book art and those ads for ‘X-ray Specs’ you used to get in the back of them.

via slashfilm and chud

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… using Ronald Regan as an axe wielding maniac in a horror film is a great idea. I love it.

This is the first proper trailer for David Arquette’s ‘The Tripper’ and I hadn’t realised it actually has some people I recognised in it until now. Jason Mewes, creepy-faced Balthazar Getty, Thomas Jane and unsurprisingly Courtney Cox. Looks like it could actually be quite fun.

So you may, or may not have noticed that there’s been a lack of posts over the past week, and there’s a good reason for that. I was away from the solace homestead and gallivanting around Moscow for a week… not for fun however but as part of my day job, which appears to be all I do in between writing and sleeping. Even bloggers have to pay the bills.

So I missed a lot of news while I was away and rather than appearing late to the party and trying to pass it off like I was here all along, lets do a quick recap “previously on 24…. beep.. beep… beep” style for the past week…

Video wise some interesting shit dropped; there was a ‘first look…‘ at ‘The Golden Compass’ which looks cool, and I’m just hoping it’s not Narnia-style weak. The the proper trailer for Gaimen’s ‘Stardust’ arrived which makes me wonder how long we would have had to wait for the trailer if the weird sfx mashup-trailer hadn’t been leaked last week. A big set of ‘Grindhouse’ clips were released, but I can’t lay any testament to the quality as I’ve watched everything I could up until this point and I read the scripts so I think I’ve already ruined it enough for myself.

The trailer for new Emily Blunt thriller/horror film ‘Wind Chill’ looks pretty standard and forgettable, but luckily I have a weird thing for snow-based horror, possibly just due to ‘The Thing’s legacy. Then yesterday a proper HD trailer for ‘28 weeks later’ arrived (thankfully not embedded in the Fox-Atomic’s crappy flash page) but I’m still finding it really hard to gather any excitement about the film at all… even when there’s screaming zombies running around. Which is really saying something because if the undead are involved my quality-meter is really …. really…low.

Stills-wise and posters there was also some interesting stuff happening this week….well actually there were some uninteresting spy photos from ‘The Dark Knight‘, but Aintitcool got a look at the Transformers 1-sheet posters and there was some shots of the massive varicose vein covered in skin that is Sly Stallone on the set of ‘Rambo 4′. Oh and there was a better look at Venom in the ozzie ‘Spider Man 3′ trailer.