So i’ll pick some names out of my ass at the end of the day (that’s about 6pm UK time)…. so get your entry in while you still have a shot. The full details are here if you missed it the first time around…
drop me an email to competition@solaceincinema.com with the word ‘Daywatch’ in the subject to be entered for your chance to win
I don’t know who or what it is that made me suddenly quite pessimistic towards modern sci-fi films…. at I guess i’m going to say directors like Paul W.S. Anderson, to a lesser extent Tony Scott and pro-douchebag Nic Cage with his stupid hair have ruined the genre for me. Ok that’s perhaps a bit hyperbolic, not ruined exactly but just made me look at every new sci-fi themed film I see as rubbish until I see more than a trailer. Sci-fi movies in my eyes are guilty until proved innocent. The new film from Doug Liman ‘Jumper’ might possibly be the break through I needed, a catalyst for change. perhaps. maybe. I hope.
I’m not sure about Sam Jackson’s weird hair, and Hayden Christensen has a lot to prove.. in anyones eyes. Luckily Doug Liman is a good director and the script was written by David Goyer so hopefully that’ll whip Hayden’s shitty acting into shape or at the very least let him stand there looking like teen-magazine fodder while Jamie Bell quite clearly acts circles around him.
The trailer looks like a lot of fun I think, and a lot less complicated than I thought it might be. It’s a nice little concept and if they can just fashion a decent plot around it hopefully it’ll break the high-budget sci-fi curse.
You can check out the trailer on the official site here, or download a quicktime version from IGN here
‘The Island of Lost Souls’ is one of those “why the fuck haven’t I heard about this?” type films. The only thing i’d seen or heard about it before I checked it out at an LFF press screening was the small blurb and the single image in the festival guide book. After checking it, myself and my friend mike were both amazed that we’d heard nothing about it. It’s a great ‘kids’ film and contains enough magic and wizardy that you’d think Potter freaks and the distribution companies that feed them would be all over it, yet… nothing…
“14-year-old Lulu moves to a small provincial town with her mother and younger brother. One night, her brother is struck by a beam of white light – actually the spirit of Herman Hartmann from the 19th-century. To her despair, Lulu realizes that Herman has possessed her brother, and the two of them are whirled into a fevered adventure. Joined by Oliver, a rich kid, and Richard, a disillusioned clairvoyant and inventor, they take on the dark, supernatural forces gathering over the town – evil from deep in the land of the dead, determined to take over the world and see them die.”
I’ll write up a proper review at some point this week but until that point check out the other posters over in sizemore’s twitter stream here, here and here
Oh and the official site including the trailer is here
It’s no secret that I’m ridiculously excited about the big screen adaptation of ‘30 days of Night’, and other than the weak link of Josh ‘Pretty boy’ Hartnet, I can’t see where it can fail. The comic books are great, containing some of my favorite artwork of any book I’ve read in the last 10 years and I really like director David Spades debut ‘Hard Candy’. The movie also stars my favorite psychopath of the moment Ben Foster
The PR train is obviously building up steam because new images and video clips seem to be popping up every day or so. If you go over to reelz here you can check out a bunch of new images. and there’s this pretty awesome new clip via ign titled ‘Rock, Scissors, Stone’
I’ll start by saying the marketing in general, but especially the trailer for new film ‘The Kingdom’ is fucking terrible. I don’t know exactly which demographic it’s trying to hit, or goals it’s attempting to fill… but it misses them all. The fact is if I wasn’t aware of director Peter Berg’s previous work then no amount of star power or cars exploding in the aforementioned trailer would draw me in. Peter Berg is a ‘that guy’, a long time actor turned director who’s face you probably wouldn’t be able to associate with a name, but when you see him you remember him from lots of things. You remember him mainly as cops, FBI agents or other such man-in-suit types. Berg is making much more of an impression on me as a director than he ever did as an actor.
Berg’s previous film was ‘Friday Night Lights’ a great movie about a small town American football team trying to “take it to state”. He infused that film with a realism and emotional weight that few directors can get right. Berg pulled that trick out of the bag with ‘The Kingdom’ too, making it feel realistic, tense and exciting yet deftly side-steps cliche and pointless dramatics.
The subject matter of ‘The Kingdom’ was never going to be an easy sell; the bombing of an American compound in Saudi Arabia by Islamic militants, and the subsequent investigation to track down the culprits by an FBI team (Jamie Fox, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman and Chris Cooper). It would almost have been easier for the film to focus on the middle-east issue and become a political thriller, but that would have been a different film. The film would have quickly become mired in explaining the countries complex problems within the space of 90 minutes.
‘The Kingdom’ is not a political thriller, and while the backdrop is Saudi Arabia and the villains of the piece are Islamic fundamentalists it only ever explains enough about the situation to move the plot along at a steady pace. Elements like Islamic religion’s treatment of women, the Saudi Monarchy and American oil investment are touched upon, but only to give a context and set-up the environment in which the action is carried out.
The action reminded me a lot of the ‘bourne’ films, frequently switching between tight-close-ups, quickly moving shaky-cam and long-shots of the action. It’s a style of filming that never really gets old for me and gives scenes a frenetic quality that had me gripping the seat like a stroke-victim. The tour-de-force being a 25 minute car chase and shoot-out that called to mind the computer game ‘black’ in it’s almost unrelenting nature.
Jamie Foxx often sits on my ‘want-to-hate-him-but-can’t-because-he-is-actually-talented’ list next to Leonardo DiCaprio, but does turn in a good performance, next to a forgettable Jennifer Garner the always reliable Chris Cooper. Jason Bateman is the comic relief and portrays smart-ass about as well as anyone I’ve ever seen. Despite all the Hollywood talent on display the stand-out performance is from relative unknown Ashraf Barhom playing Colonel Al Ghazi, the police officer assigned to assist the FBI team.
Despite my praise, the film isn’t without it’s problems, the script often sidesteps cliche and sentimentality, but on the odd occasion doesn’t step far enough; Jame Foxx talking about ‘bad men’ with his son, searching for the bomb makers by looking for men without fingers and Jennifer Garner doing here ‘disgruntled’ face one too many times all started to grind on me after a while. The ‘end note’ was also heavy handed and felt out of place in a movie that I felt had cleverly dodged preaching to me throughout most of it’s duration.
The Kingdom is by no means a perfect film, and if you go in expecting a ‘political’ film in the vein of Syriana you’ll be sadly disappointed. If you enter expecting to see an interesting thriller and some decent action you’ll get what you paid for.
My personal list of ‘films to see’ is ridiculously long, and grows longer practically everyday. Shark documentary ‘Blue Water, White Death’ has been on that list for a long time, and while you can grab the dvd off ebay i’ve never got round to actually buying it. So Jay C over at Film Junk did this video review of the film a while back, and I just re-watched it. It’s a good review but more than anything has spurred me into action to get hold of a copy of the movie… it looks like a fascinating watch..
The only ‘Be Kind, Rewind’ trailer i’d seen up until now was the terrible pirate copy from Comicon, and although i’m a big advocate of cruddy pirated trailers (no, really) it’s nice to see everything clearly.. even the stuff that’s made to look like cruddy vhs recordings….
I honestly think this is going to be amazing, and it’s the kind of thing that makes me wish Michel Gondry was making films when I was a kid so I could see it aged 9 and grow-up re-watching it over and over…
Check it out on apple here
“I will shoot you and I know ROBOT kung-fu!”
