solace in cinema : A vast wasteland of movies

Never one to shy away from controversy Michael Moore’s new film focus’s on the US health care system, and just how utterly fucked it is. The film premièred at Cannes and has gathered positive reviews from all corners with EVEN the Fox News network giving it a thumbs up.

I like Moore and I like his films, there’s many naysayers who say he embellishes the truth and manipulates facts to make it more entertaining but I’ve never bought any of it. There was practically a smear campaign launched upon him after Fahrenheit 9/11 was released, with several films being made just counteracting what the film had proclaimed.

As a film maker he obviously knows how to promote himself, stir up controversy, and generally make the headlines even if it’s in the weirdest of ways; The biggest Anti-Moore site on the net is Moorewatch, and when the host of said site Jim Kenefick wrote about his sick wife’s hospital bills on the site.. an anonymous donation was received. After the NY Times eventually tracked the money back to Moore how did Kenefick respond? .. by being kind of a jerk

Check out a couple more reviews here

The trailer for ‘Sicko’ here

Check them out here

from Threadless

Do they have it in my size? of course they don’t. stupid popular size.. always coming round here.. telling me what to do… hate world.. revenge soon… take out on everyone…

Wilson Yip is a great director, I’ve read positive things about his last film ‘Dragon Tiger Gate’ but haven’t yet got round to watching it. He’s also responsible for SPL (Sha Po Lang) which honestly I wasn’t crazy about even though a lot of my friends were and ‘Biozombie’ which is a really great low budget zom-com.

Yip’s new film ‘Flashpoint’ stars the ridiculously-ripped-to-be-so-old Donnie Yen (still looks 26… is actually 43) and from the trailer seems to be a balls out scrap-fest from start to finish. I myself am picking up tips already, I want to master the pick-up-a-dude… throw-said-dude-into-mailbox manoeuvre. Once I’ve got that licked some suckers have got a meeting with sheet metal.

Set during the 1990s in pre-handover Hong Kong, the story follows two cops in their years-long attempt to capture three powerful triad bosses. Things have gone terribly awry when one of the cops blows his cover as a mole.

Twitch reports that it’s been picked up for North American distribution by a South African company ‘Distant Horizon’ but as the film isn’t released in Asia until August there’s currently no dates set for release elsewhere.

A couple of interesting rumours surfaced yesterday over at AICN about the casting of Zack Snyders ‘Watchmen’ adaptation. Patrick Wilson star of ‘Little Children’ and ‘Hard Candy’ might be cast in the ‘Night Owl’ role… an interesting choice and I’ve always thought that he had slight superhero looks… he’s curiously symmetrical. Then a rumour that’s being flying around for a while took a step closer to fact… ‘Jude Law’ was offered the role of Adrien Veidt, aka Ozymandias “Smartest Man in the World” … a superhero and an egomaniac. Sounds like a solid casting choice to me. Plus Law has a a ‘Watchmen’ tattoo … so you can’t say he lacks passion for the source material.

Then here comes the curve ball, well I already gave it away in the title… but Keanu Reeves has been offered the role of ‘Dr Manhattan’ (A blue dude with cosmic powers.. who likes to take time outs on Mars). meh. It’s no secret I love ‘Point Break’ with an unnatural passion and I guess he does have to look and act like he’s a bit ’spacey’… maybe Keanu’s a great choice…maybe. I think I would have liked to seen them go almost more ‘Abe Sapian’, with it… a physical actor coupled with an intelligent sounding voice (read: British) dubbed or otherwise.

More news as it drops….

(image source, proving the graffers like comic books too)

The latest ‘Fantasy Epic’ soon to hit our screens is Phillip Pullman’s ‘The Golden Compass’, the first book from his ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy. I’ll freely admit I know nothing about these books, I’ve seen many people reading them and am aware of their existence and popularity.. but when It comes to the story.. I’m clueless. That being said maybe I’m not the best judge to say whether or not this is a good adaptation.. but on a filmick level it seems promising to me, big epic sets… decent actors, a vague steampunk-aesthetic… Oh yeah and a talking-armoured polar bear (always a plus).

Check it out in HD over at Yahoo here, or if you want a flash version go here

Say what you will about the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but as far as battle scenes go and just general overall production design I don’t think anybody could fault them. The Chronicles of Narnia however has a whole different kettle of fish. The trailers showed some promise but when the film played out it looked to me like an expensive tv film, that is to say…a bag of ass. So fingers crossed Compass delivers at the very least on the visuals the book has supposedly promised.

If anyone who’s read the books has something to say about the trailer … leave a comment below.

I like the above still because It’s like a sequel to ‘The Thing’ starring Daniel Craig. (That’s actually happening. It’s an internet rumour. I’m starting it. Tell everyone so it becomes true)

(via Slashfilm and comingsoon)

‘Doomsday’ is the new film from Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent) and is currently filming in Glasgow, but is not far away from wrapping (so we hear):

Great Britain, 2007. A deadly plague, known as the “Reaper Virus,” has broken out, killing hundreds of thousands in its wake. In desperation, the British Government evacuates as many survivors as it can out of the infected area, and then builds a wall, preventing the remainder from escaping. Thirty years later, with the wall still up and the victims all but forgotten, the virus breaks out again. The Government decides to send a crack team of operatives, led by Major Eden Sinclair, into the hot zone to investigate the possibility of a cure.

There’s a clip on youtube obviously filmed by some unscrupulous extra (heh.. awesome) of Rhona Mitra on set, fighting a guy in a suit of Armour. I don’t understand.. this is set in the future right? I hope Marshall isn’t pulling a Knightriders.

Check out the clip here

There’s also a couple of new stills (one pictured) and an article over at the Evening Times here, about the filming currently going on in scotland. I really liked ‘The Descent’ so I have a lot of faith in Marshall to turn out something great with this.

I’m not sure exactly when this dropped online, it’s seems to have only arrived a couple of hours ago, the source is hazy… I came across it on the imdb message boards.

I really wanted this to be good… but well my judgement… (you’ll have to picture it) **turns thumb down**makes raspberry noise**

I’ll reserve full judgement until I see more, but so far… i’m not happy. It’s like they took an episode of the OC and threw in a Terminator walking through fire and some bland-looking fat-necked dude to play the Arnie role. That’s bad in case you’re wondering.

This image has been slowly piecing itself together since yesterday … It’s from a new promotional site for the Dark Knight returns, I Believe in Harvey Dent too, and the pixels have gradually been stripped away to reveal Ledger and his scarred face. Nice.

Thanks to Onkel Crispy and Ed for the drop

Man Josh Brolin looks fuckkkkkked, well.. Goonies never say die. On a side note, the film looks promising.

big thanks to Rep for the tipoff