Count me in through July 2nd.
Welcome!
1 month ago
Saturday, April 11, 2009
So far, so good.....
A head sliced off by a boat's engine propellers. The body of the show's biggest-named star (albeit a has-been C-lister) cut in half, guts left to dangle in mid-air. And that was just the first episode.
Count me in through July 2nd.
Count me in through July 2nd.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Observe and Report's ending, reconsidered
I've been thinking about the end of Observe and Report for the last few days, bouncing back and forward with my opinion. Ultimately, I've decided that I actually don't like the final resolution, though I won't spoil it here for those who haven't seen the film, since it's opening today and it's hardly 3pm.
When people do see it, though, assuming some will, I'd love to pick the last couple of minutes apart. The problem I'm having is that the entire tone of the film (despicable guy rapidly descending into self-destruction and public endangerment) is kicked to the curb for a last-second reversal of fortune that doesn't feel right. Feels cheap, out of place, pandering to the same conventions that the rest of the film so knowingly spits at. There's a scene that involved a fat flasher/pervert approaching a major female character in slow motion before being gunned down at point blank range, and that's where the film should've ended and credits should've rolled. Or, if an additional moment or two was necessary, writer-director Jody Hill would've been better served to make this scene's aftermath one of imprisonment, not fulfillment. It's a shame, since the slo-mo flasher sequence is damn great, and its climax is sudden and bloody good.
If anybody out there sees Observe and Report this weekend, please hit me so we can engage in a wee bit of debate. I'm still a big fan of the film, though. And I must warn the masses----this isn't a LOL comedy. In fact, I didn't let out a hearty laugh once, but I was engaged throughout and totally down for the cause. It's something different, and hopefully an important change-of-course for studio comedies.
All that being said, I must close this with a confession: I really want my own "Nell."
Cute as hell, sweet and personable. Pure. A smile that could melt a homicidal fool's heart. She's total "wife material." Well played, Collette Wolfe.
When people do see it, though, assuming some will, I'd love to pick the last couple of minutes apart. The problem I'm having is that the entire tone of the film (despicable guy rapidly descending into self-destruction and public endangerment) is kicked to the curb for a last-second reversal of fortune that doesn't feel right. Feels cheap, out of place, pandering to the same conventions that the rest of the film so knowingly spits at. There's a scene that involved a fat flasher/pervert approaching a major female character in slow motion before being gunned down at point blank range, and that's where the film should've ended and credits should've rolled. Or, if an additional moment or two was necessary, writer-director Jody Hill would've been better served to make this scene's aftermath one of imprisonment, not fulfillment. It's a shame, since the slo-mo flasher sequence is damn great, and its climax is sudden and bloody good.
If anybody out there sees Observe and Report this weekend, please hit me so we can engage in a wee bit of debate. I'm still a big fan of the film, though. And I must warn the masses----this isn't a LOL comedy. In fact, I didn't let out a hearty laugh once, but I was engaged throughout and totally down for the cause. It's something different, and hopefully an important change-of-course for studio comedies.
All that being said, I must close this with a confession: I really want my own "Nell."
Cute as hell, sweet and personable. Pure. A smile that could melt a homicidal fool's heart. She's total "wife material." Well played, Collette Wolfe.
Walkin' High on the Moon
Hopefully, I'll be able to catch this one when it plays at the Tribeca Film Festival later this month....wait, fuck am I kidding? I have all the time in the world as of now, so there's no excuse.
Sam Rockwell is a great actor, one of my favorites (catch Snow Angels now on cable if possible, he's shattering in it), so a film starring him and only him for the majority of the runtime is foolproof material. Give it a trailer as wowzer as this one, and then you have the best-looking straight science fiction flick to come out in some time. Aside from Danny Boyle's Sunshine, has there been a great no-frills sci-fi movie in recent memory? I think not.
Here's the trailer for Duncan Jones' Moon (Jones is the son of David Bowie, I read somewhere):
Gives me the fuzzy feeling of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with a nice narcotic musical score. And tons of pristine-looking visuals.
This one's high on the list.
Sam Rockwell is a great actor, one of my favorites (catch Snow Angels now on cable if possible, he's shattering in it), so a film starring him and only him for the majority of the runtime is foolproof material. Give it a trailer as wowzer as this one, and then you have the best-looking straight science fiction flick to come out in some time. Aside from Danny Boyle's Sunshine, has there been a great no-frills sci-fi movie in recent memory? I think not.
Here's the trailer for Duncan Jones' Moon (Jones is the son of David Bowie, I read somewhere):
Gives me the fuzzy feeling of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with a nice narcotic musical score. And tons of pristine-looking visuals.
This one's high on the list.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
A Night with Vinyan; A Buck-Shot to the Senses
I wouldn't call it a beautiful mind exactly. More like a grotesquely-attractive one. A thoughtbox that has twice now managed to leave me in a slightly comatose state after being subjected to its creative, visual, and narrative sides, all at once, twice now. The guy has only made two films, but both shatter all conventional genre tricks, taking their time to stack up the dread and astonished confusion to Jenga Champion heights.
The fella's name is Fabrice Du Welz, a Belgian filmmaker, and I've finally seen his sophomore head-raper Vinyan, after nearly a year's worth of anticipation.
Fabrice Du Welz
After I watched his debut, Calvaire (The Ordeal), early on in my Netflix lifespan, I couldn't shake the cold, distant-from-reality feeling the film left me with. Some idiot writers have dubbed Calvaire the "Gay Chainsaw Massacre," due to its sporadic homo-psychotic scenes and the plot's skeletal cloning of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. While those jackasses trivialized it into a heap of puns, I fell right in Calvaire's existential malarchy trap, knees deep and loving every fucked-up second. At not one point did Du Welz take an expected plot turn, stage a seen-that-before scene. Even when the images made no sense and felt bizarre simply for bizarre's cheap sake, I couldn't help but love the shit. Like this random folk dance sequence, which I'm sure is meant to show the audience that the townsfolk in Calvaire aren't the most trustworthy, but really just comes off as some inexplicable hypnosis. You'll either laugh at the absurdity or be left in unease. Myself, a fascinating mixture of both:
Du Welz won me over with Calvaire, no doubt, so once word spread that the writer-director's next one, Vinyan, is a stylistic leap forward, I instantly become enthralled with the chance of some day soon seeing it. Of course, the film played well at the film festival circuit last year and had heads talking due to its eccentricity and holy-shit final act, which naturally meant it would linger in release purgatory before hitting DVD shelves with zero fanfare. Other than to those such as myself who put ourselves in "the know." All I had to work with was this mesmerizing underwater opening credit sequence, a "Huh" slice of coolness that leaves me with the same bewilderment that the opening credits of Gaspar Noe's Irreversible does:
So what did I get out of Vinyan? A viewing experience that made that of Calvaire seem only satisfactory. Where to begin? With the film's plot, perhaps: Paul and Jeanne (actors Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Beart, both quietly dynamic here) are on a vacation near Burma when they come across a tourist video that features a little jungle-living kid that Jeanne swears is their son Joshua, who was lost at sea during the 2004 tsunami and presumed dead. After some debate, Jeanne wins, and the couple doles out their entire life savings to hop on a sketchy boat to the Thai-Burmese border, where the video was shot. As the trip continues into a downward spiral of dead-ends and growing bleakness, the boat's guide gets lost and docks on a nondescript, dark, creepy isle full of silent little naked kids covered in hardened mud and preying around the jungle in stalker-mode.
The little bastards look like children straight out of a National Geographic issue guest-edited by the team from Fangoria. And once the couple's boat becomes off-course and stranded, Vinyan turns into Apocalypse Now crossbred with Who Can Kill A Child? scripted and directed while on an acid trip. That's a seriously twisted and potent elixir, and I'm not fibbing when I say that the final 15 minutes of Vinyan had me paralyzed to my couch. The paralysis first kicked in during this dream sequence that Jeanne has; she's been mentally deteriorating throughout the film, and by the time they're stuck on the tribal island, aka the Fifth Circle of Earthbound Hell, she's totally gone. A walking slab of jelly, only motivated by the sad, tragic hope of finding her obviously-dead son. In this dream, she's surrounded by a group of kids wearing the same red shirt her son wore on the day he was taken by the tsunami wave. Only, the kids' faces are all stretched-out and mask-like, and the camera zooms sideways and in-and-out rapidly as faint screaming sounds (the same ones heard at the tail-end of that above Vinyan opening credits). It's unsettling along the lines of that nightmarish Aphex Twin video for "Come to Daddy." Heebie jeebie central.
Vinyan isn't a film I'd honestly recommend to too many people. I'll be delicately picking and choosing who gets the "You should really watch this" heads-up. If your attention span is that of a pencil and a simple growling stomach makes you stand up and leave the room while a DVD is playing, do yourself a favor and stay the fuck away from this one. It's not meant for you; go watch The Love Guru or something. Du Welz moves this thing along at a snail's pace, but in a good way. I never lost interest, and was rewarded by Vinyan's haunting final act, but the only-marginally-patient watcher will most likely tune out or get bored by the 20-minute mark. If so, I'm sorry. You can't win them all. Only people like me who love this kind of bizarre shit. And also, lovers of intense, stark, gorgeous cinematography and some of the best jungle scenery presentation since Francis Ford Coppola and the already-referenced Apocalypse Now.
It takes some balls and some truly disturbed sensibilities to dream up and then so strongly execute Vinyan's final 15 minutes. But this dude Du Welz has done it rather convincingly. I'd really love to see him get the green-light for an American studio film, just to witness either his un-compromise or disappointing descent into studio politic bend-over bulldonkey. Because there's no way in Hell that he'd get away with making a film such as Vinyan on an American studio's watch.
Unfiltered DVD releases of international cinema, bless y'all.
Vinyan trailer (that actually makes the film seem much more accessible than it is, believe me. Don't be fooled, this is only to give a sharper feel for the film):
The fella's name is Fabrice Du Welz, a Belgian filmmaker, and I've finally seen his sophomore head-raper Vinyan, after nearly a year's worth of anticipation.
Fabrice Du Welz
After I watched his debut, Calvaire (The Ordeal), early on in my Netflix lifespan, I couldn't shake the cold, distant-from-reality feeling the film left me with. Some idiot writers have dubbed Calvaire the "Gay Chainsaw Massacre," due to its sporadic homo-psychotic scenes and the plot's skeletal cloning of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. While those jackasses trivialized it into a heap of puns, I fell right in Calvaire's existential malarchy trap, knees deep and loving every fucked-up second. At not one point did Du Welz take an expected plot turn, stage a seen-that-before scene. Even when the images made no sense and felt bizarre simply for bizarre's cheap sake, I couldn't help but love the shit. Like this random folk dance sequence, which I'm sure is meant to show the audience that the townsfolk in Calvaire aren't the most trustworthy, but really just comes off as some inexplicable hypnosis. You'll either laugh at the absurdity or be left in unease. Myself, a fascinating mixture of both:
Du Welz won me over with Calvaire, no doubt, so once word spread that the writer-director's next one, Vinyan, is a stylistic leap forward, I instantly become enthralled with the chance of some day soon seeing it. Of course, the film played well at the film festival circuit last year and had heads talking due to its eccentricity and holy-shit final act, which naturally meant it would linger in release purgatory before hitting DVD shelves with zero fanfare. Other than to those such as myself who put ourselves in "the know." All I had to work with was this mesmerizing underwater opening credit sequence, a "Huh" slice of coolness that leaves me with the same bewilderment that the opening credits of Gaspar Noe's Irreversible does:
So what did I get out of Vinyan? A viewing experience that made that of Calvaire seem only satisfactory. Where to begin? With the film's plot, perhaps: Paul and Jeanne (actors Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Beart, both quietly dynamic here) are on a vacation near Burma when they come across a tourist video that features a little jungle-living kid that Jeanne swears is their son Joshua, who was lost at sea during the 2004 tsunami and presumed dead. After some debate, Jeanne wins, and the couple doles out their entire life savings to hop on a sketchy boat to the Thai-Burmese border, where the video was shot. As the trip continues into a downward spiral of dead-ends and growing bleakness, the boat's guide gets lost and docks on a nondescript, dark, creepy isle full of silent little naked kids covered in hardened mud and preying around the jungle in stalker-mode.
The little bastards look like children straight out of a National Geographic issue guest-edited by the team from Fangoria. And once the couple's boat becomes off-course and stranded, Vinyan turns into Apocalypse Now crossbred with Who Can Kill A Child? scripted and directed while on an acid trip. That's a seriously twisted and potent elixir, and I'm not fibbing when I say that the final 15 minutes of Vinyan had me paralyzed to my couch. The paralysis first kicked in during this dream sequence that Jeanne has; she's been mentally deteriorating throughout the film, and by the time they're stuck on the tribal island, aka the Fifth Circle of Earthbound Hell, she's totally gone. A walking slab of jelly, only motivated by the sad, tragic hope of finding her obviously-dead son. In this dream, she's surrounded by a group of kids wearing the same red shirt her son wore on the day he was taken by the tsunami wave. Only, the kids' faces are all stretched-out and mask-like, and the camera zooms sideways and in-and-out rapidly as faint screaming sounds (the same ones heard at the tail-end of that above Vinyan opening credits). It's unsettling along the lines of that nightmarish Aphex Twin video for "Come to Daddy." Heebie jeebie central.
Vinyan isn't a film I'd honestly recommend to too many people. I'll be delicately picking and choosing who gets the "You should really watch this" heads-up. If your attention span is that of a pencil and a simple growling stomach makes you stand up and leave the room while a DVD is playing, do yourself a favor and stay the fuck away from this one. It's not meant for you; go watch The Love Guru or something. Du Welz moves this thing along at a snail's pace, but in a good way. I never lost interest, and was rewarded by Vinyan's haunting final act, but the only-marginally-patient watcher will most likely tune out or get bored by the 20-minute mark. If so, I'm sorry. You can't win them all. Only people like me who love this kind of bizarre shit. And also, lovers of intense, stark, gorgeous cinematography and some of the best jungle scenery presentation since Francis Ford Coppola and the already-referenced Apocalypse Now.
It takes some balls and some truly disturbed sensibilities to dream up and then so strongly execute Vinyan's final 15 minutes. But this dude Du Welz has done it rather convincingly. I'd really love to see him get the green-light for an American studio film, just to witness either his un-compromise or disappointing descent into studio politic bend-over bulldonkey. Because there's no way in Hell that he'd get away with making a film such as Vinyan on an American studio's watch.
Unfiltered DVD releases of international cinema, bless y'all.
Vinyan trailer (that actually makes the film seem much more accessible than it is, believe me. Don't be fooled, this is only to give a sharper feel for the film):
Joke or not?
I honestly can't figure it out. If there wasn't an actual IMDB page for this, I'd think it was some Funny or Die like joke. But such an IMDB page does exist, so I'm just left befuddled.
Gooby
It's like Teddy Ruxpin and Fozzy Bear were kidnapped by some mad scientist, sliced into feathery pieces, thrown into some mass-expanding life machine, and cast out into the world of tongue-in-cheek family cinema.
God I love the limitless of film.
Gooby
It's like Teddy Ruxpin and Fozzy Bear were kidnapped by some mad scientist, sliced into feathery pieces, thrown into some mass-expanding life machine, and cast out into the world of tongue-in-cheek family cinema.
God I love the limitless of film.
Your second chance at greatness....
Woke up this morning, and the piece-of-shit Sir Arthur Buick wouldn't start. Sitting around my 'rents' house, waiting to get my haircut, anticipating the return of tu madre so I can use her Durango to ride to the barbers. Sucks the large one, but 'tis what 'tis.
At least I just came across this splendid news:
I was hoping that HBO would be smart enough to bring this growing-number-of-fans' favorite back sooner than later. Glad they've proven me right. Easily the funniest show the network has aired in, I don't know, forever. And that's including my dude Tim from The Life & Times of Tim. HBO should just cancel that shell-of-its-former-self Entourage altogether and go all out with Kenny Powers. Shit, he has Stevie already, that's all the entourage that HBO needs, anyway.
We better get some more Ashley Schaeffer, too:
News spotted over at: /Film
At least I just came across this splendid news:
HBO has officially confirmed that its original comedy series Eastbound and Down-—a /Film fave—-has been renewed for a second season. Better yet, given the fast ascent up the comedy ranks of the show’s masterminds, Danny McBride, Jody Hill, and Ben Best, one may have expected another six-episode season further down the pipeline. Instead, the next season begins filming later this year and will air in 2010. Woo. When we were on the set last year, co-director David Gordon Green revealed that a follow-up pitch was being entertained that centered on McBride’s profane bulletproof tiger Kenny Powers shipping off to South America to quasi-fulfill his baseball career. However, the idea seemed to be news to much of the cast, and given how well received the ensemble performances of Andy Daly, Katy Mixon, John Hawkes, and Steve “Ass Blood” Little, I wouldn’t bet on it.
I was hoping that HBO would be smart enough to bring this growing-number-of-fans' favorite back sooner than later. Glad they've proven me right. Easily the funniest show the network has aired in, I don't know, forever. And that's including my dude Tim from The Life & Times of Tim. HBO should just cancel that shell-of-its-former-self Entourage altogether and go all out with Kenny Powers. Shit, he has Stevie already, that's all the entourage that HBO needs, anyway.
We better get some more Ashley Schaeffer, too:
News spotted over at: /Film
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Dream a Big (Message) Dream
Dreams come, and then dreams go. In one side of the brain, and promptly out the other. I wonder, when you don't remember them vividly enough to discuss specific details the morning after, did those dreams even really happen?
Rather than tread into psychoanalytical areas that I'm not mentally prepped for at the moment, I'd much more prefer to focus on one particular recent dream that has stuck out in all its colorful, memorable detail. It went down internally this past weekend, while I was snoozing in the cozy Boston hotel room. Before sleep hit me, following up the left-hook combo landed by that Long Island Iced Tea and Fire & Ice's stir fry buffet (greatest restaurant ever? yes, greatest restaurant ever), I was half-watching Saturday Night Live, hosted by Seth Rogen (the episode sucked overall). Fell into dreamland midway through Weekend Update.
Soon found myself in a fictitious world where I was dating this curvy, gorgeous Dania Ramirez-lookalike, and she was head over heels for me. Holding hands, cuddling in public. The romance was thick, like my faux girlfriend's lower region (sorry, I'm still far enough removed from KING-mode just yet). Us two lovebirds were strolling casually around the Manhattan Mall, no store-destinations in mind, just window-shopping and killing time before an eveing screening of Observe and Report (Like I said, Rogen was the last person I saw before sleep....and I'm not even going to "Pause" that because it's totally unnecessary here).
Hunger set in, so Bizarro Dania and I headed to the food court, a little Ranch One Chicken in our sights. Zoned in, ready to attack (for dinner). As we got off the escalator, though, who do we see? Seth Rogen, just sitting at a table alone, eating some Sarku Japan. "Oh shit, look who it is?!" my girl shouts. She runs over to him, begins to express her huge fandom, and Rogen is cool as ice, accepting the compliments graciously and asking us to sit down with him for a second. So we do, after grabbing our chicken sandwiches and fries (my side = veggies....I'm a pussy even in my dreams). Banter ensues. Of course, all centering around movies. I ask him if he's see Timecrimes, the amazing Spanish time travel flick from Nacho Vigalondo. He has, and he shares equal excitement for it. I then inquire if he's seen Fabrice Du Welz's Vinyan, another recent favorite of his (the guy is more than comedy, my dream-self finds out). Two for two.
Naturally, the two of us are getting along swimmingly. There's only one major dilemma: my girl has never seen any of these films. Her initial star-struck glee has slowly dissipated into a bored, watch-checking labor. "Umm, Matt, your new BFF's movie is about to start in like 10 minutes, we should make moves," she inteerupts as Rogen and I are chatting about screenwriting techniques---He the teacher, I the learner. I shrug her off, much more interested in collecting some tips and wisdom from our third dinner party. The look of frustration continues to accelerate on wifey's pretty face, yet I could give two shits less.
The second that Rogen and I switch the conversation to Hollywood studio politics, B-Dania stands up, kicks her chair to the ground, and defiantly says, "You know what? Fuck this! You obviously care more about this movie bullshit than you do about spending time with your girl. This shit is over!" And then she heads to the escalator. As she rides the moving staircase upward, I notice her flirting with some lame asshole wearing tight jeans, a sweater vest, and a trucker hat (hipster fucko). But I don't care. Immediately, I return to my conversation with the Hollywood major-player seated next to me. And all is well.
So what do I gather from this dream? It's simple, really. At this time in my life, I now realize what my top priority has become. Hell or high water, I got to get that side of my hopefull-professional-future in order, moving forward. That open house for NYFA next weekend is officially step number one, so let's hope that is an informative success, a dream-pusher instead of a goal-staller.
And no, people. Don't even think "Oh, Matt dreams about Seth Rogen." It could've been any actor/screenwriter in the game seen in my dream. Just so happened that I was watching dude on the tube seconds beforehand. The point of the dream resonates, regardless.
Rather than tread into psychoanalytical areas that I'm not mentally prepped for at the moment, I'd much more prefer to focus on one particular recent dream that has stuck out in all its colorful, memorable detail. It went down internally this past weekend, while I was snoozing in the cozy Boston hotel room. Before sleep hit me, following up the left-hook combo landed by that Long Island Iced Tea and Fire & Ice's stir fry buffet (greatest restaurant ever? yes, greatest restaurant ever), I was half-watching Saturday Night Live, hosted by Seth Rogen (the episode sucked overall). Fell into dreamland midway through Weekend Update.
Soon found myself in a fictitious world where I was dating this curvy, gorgeous Dania Ramirez-lookalike, and she was head over heels for me. Holding hands, cuddling in public. The romance was thick, like my faux girlfriend's lower region (sorry, I'm still far enough removed from KING-mode just yet). Us two lovebirds were strolling casually around the Manhattan Mall, no store-destinations in mind, just window-shopping and killing time before an eveing screening of Observe and Report (Like I said, Rogen was the last person I saw before sleep....and I'm not even going to "Pause" that because it's totally unnecessary here).
Hunger set in, so Bizarro Dania and I headed to the food court, a little Ranch One Chicken in our sights. Zoned in, ready to attack (for dinner). As we got off the escalator, though, who do we see? Seth Rogen, just sitting at a table alone, eating some Sarku Japan. "Oh shit, look who it is?!" my girl shouts. She runs over to him, begins to express her huge fandom, and Rogen is cool as ice, accepting the compliments graciously and asking us to sit down with him for a second. So we do, after grabbing our chicken sandwiches and fries (my side = veggies....I'm a pussy even in my dreams). Banter ensues. Of course, all centering around movies. I ask him if he's see Timecrimes, the amazing Spanish time travel flick from Nacho Vigalondo. He has, and he shares equal excitement for it. I then inquire if he's seen Fabrice Du Welz's Vinyan, another recent favorite of his (the guy is more than comedy, my dream-self finds out). Two for two.
Naturally, the two of us are getting along swimmingly. There's only one major dilemma: my girl has never seen any of these films. Her initial star-struck glee has slowly dissipated into a bored, watch-checking labor. "Umm, Matt, your new BFF's movie is about to start in like 10 minutes, we should make moves," she inteerupts as Rogen and I are chatting about screenwriting techniques---He the teacher, I the learner. I shrug her off, much more interested in collecting some tips and wisdom from our third dinner party. The look of frustration continues to accelerate on wifey's pretty face, yet I could give two shits less.
The second that Rogen and I switch the conversation to Hollywood studio politics, B-Dania stands up, kicks her chair to the ground, and defiantly says, "You know what? Fuck this! You obviously care more about this movie bullshit than you do about spending time with your girl. This shit is over!" And then she heads to the escalator. As she rides the moving staircase upward, I notice her flirting with some lame asshole wearing tight jeans, a sweater vest, and a trucker hat (hipster fucko). But I don't care. Immediately, I return to my conversation with the Hollywood major-player seated next to me. And all is well.
So what do I gather from this dream? It's simple, really. At this time in my life, I now realize what my top priority has become. Hell or high water, I got to get that side of my hopefull-professional-future in order, moving forward. That open house for NYFA next weekend is officially step number one, so let's hope that is an informative success, a dream-pusher instead of a goal-staller.
And no, people. Don't even think "Oh, Matt dreams about Seth Rogen." It could've been any actor/screenwriter in the game seen in my dream. Just so happened that I was watching dude on the tube seconds beforehand. The point of the dream resonates, regardless.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Eminem Made Me Angry
Now this is just sad. Upsetting. A cop-out when it could've/should've been a first round knockout. I hate to take the typical "hater" route here, but this is coming from a true Eminem fan, one who wants only for the guy's new music to be great, for both my sanity's and rap-love's sakes. And this is bad, no way around it.
Eminem's new video, "We Made You." It's here, and it's expectedly the same brand of goofy, bouncy, disposable first single he puts out before each of his albums. Part of me had this feeling that Eminem had realized that he could drop a first record produced by DJ Premier and with Jazmine Sullivan on the hook and the shit would still be a smash. He doesn't need lame shit like this anymore....or, does he? This "We Made You" does its job at reassuring fans that Em can still have fun at other celebrities expenses. But, see, the times have changed.....fuck it, watch the video first:
He must've recorded this song at the end of 2008, right? And it was just held by Interscope for time purposes, no? Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan? Sarah Palin? Amy Winehouse? Jessics Alba and Cash Warren? That's just lazy, and obvious, and late. This shit makes "Just Lose It" sound like "Criminal." The main problem here is that celebrity gossip is more accessible and overexposed than ever, between your Perez Hiltons, DListeds, and TMZs; we don't need Eminem to skewer these assholes anymore. Been there, heard that. You can read jokes and slams against celebs on a minute-by-minute basis by simply double-clicking Internet Explorer---what more can Eminem say that we haven't laughed at already when it was presented with much more wit? Any fool with a Blogspot account and tons of free time can be a "first-single-minded Eminem."
Digs at Moby and Christina Aguilera were understandable; they had slighted Em in the press, basically asking for retaliation. Not one person namedropped on "We Made You" has done so; attacking them is unnecessary, kind of desperate. If there was any wit in these verses, however, I wouldn't be as agitated. Lines talking about wanting Jessica Alba's breasts on his mouth are thoughtless. I didn't wait five years for that.
Yeah, he can still ride a beat like none other, even when rapping in this annoying high-pitched British accent. But that's not good enough. This Dr. Dre beat is trash, honestly, and the references to people like Jennifer Aniston and visual jokes about a fat Jessica Simpson are as uninspired as it gets. "Rock Band is the most popular game out, right? Cool, let's have Em rapping on a Rock Band backdrop! Oh, isn't there a new Star Trek movie coming out? Perfect! Em as Spock!" The only somewhat clever idea is giving Eminem the Elvis Presley treatment, but even that comparison is old news.
Please don't tell me that Relapse is going to suck? "Crack A Bottle" still hasn't totally won me over, and now this song hits and misses. I still think that Em has tons of tricks up his sleeve that he's saving for the album, but he's 0-for-2 so far.
Eminem's new video, "We Made You." It's here, and it's expectedly the same brand of goofy, bouncy, disposable first single he puts out before each of his albums. Part of me had this feeling that Eminem had realized that he could drop a first record produced by DJ Premier and with Jazmine Sullivan on the hook and the shit would still be a smash. He doesn't need lame shit like this anymore....or, does he? This "We Made You" does its job at reassuring fans that Em can still have fun at other celebrities expenses. But, see, the times have changed.....fuck it, watch the video first:
He must've recorded this song at the end of 2008, right? And it was just held by Interscope for time purposes, no? Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan? Sarah Palin? Amy Winehouse? Jessics Alba and Cash Warren? That's just lazy, and obvious, and late. This shit makes "Just Lose It" sound like "Criminal." The main problem here is that celebrity gossip is more accessible and overexposed than ever, between your Perez Hiltons, DListeds, and TMZs; we don't need Eminem to skewer these assholes anymore. Been there, heard that. You can read jokes and slams against celebs on a minute-by-minute basis by simply double-clicking Internet Explorer---what more can Eminem say that we haven't laughed at already when it was presented with much more wit? Any fool with a Blogspot account and tons of free time can be a "first-single-minded Eminem."
Digs at Moby and Christina Aguilera were understandable; they had slighted Em in the press, basically asking for retaliation. Not one person namedropped on "We Made You" has done so; attacking them is unnecessary, kind of desperate. If there was any wit in these verses, however, I wouldn't be as agitated. Lines talking about wanting Jessica Alba's breasts on his mouth are thoughtless. I didn't wait five years for that.
Yeah, he can still ride a beat like none other, even when rapping in this annoying high-pitched British accent. But that's not good enough. This Dr. Dre beat is trash, honestly, and the references to people like Jennifer Aniston and visual jokes about a fat Jessica Simpson are as uninspired as it gets. "Rock Band is the most popular game out, right? Cool, let's have Em rapping on a Rock Band backdrop! Oh, isn't there a new Star Trek movie coming out? Perfect! Em as Spock!" The only somewhat clever idea is giving Eminem the Elvis Presley treatment, but even that comparison is old news.
Please don't tell me that Relapse is going to suck? "Crack A Bottle" still hasn't totally won me over, and now this song hits and misses. I still think that Em has tons of tricks up his sleeve that he's saving for the album, but he's 0-for-2 so far.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Netflix Fix -- And Soon The Darkness (1970)
Just the other day, a friend and I were talking about the possibility of ever taking some kind of solo European vacation. One of those trips where its person, alone, exploring a far-off country. Full of self-discovery, adventure, intrigue. But then also a true test of one's survival skills, and street smarts. Personally, the idea of a one-man vacay overseas is rather compelling, though I'm not entirely sure that I'll ever pull the trigger and actually take one. Besides, I've seen enough movies to know how susceptible an American tourist in unfamiliar terrain. The old "fish out of water" plot device is one of the most abused and overused tricks in the thriller genre, with "good" flicks such as Hostel far outweighing the forgettable misfires, like, say, Turistas (anybody?).
And those are just a couple of the recent examples. Tomorrow, in fact, I'll finally get to watch Fabrice Du Welz' Vinyan on trusty DVD, and that's yet another entry into this subgenre. And Soon The Darkness, a largely looked-over British potboiler made back in 1970 by director Robert Fuest, has set the bar for Vinyan Mary-Jane-high.
Loving this poster. Looks a lot like that old Last House on the Left one I've always thought was/is top quality.
A few weeks back, news surfaced of an in-development remake of And Soon The Darkness, starring two starlet-apples in my eye, Amber Heard (Pineapple Express) and Odette Yustman (Cloverfield, The Unborn). The notion of remaking an obscure British film with a pair of America's hottest young actresses immediately got me going; I'd much rather see a little-known foreign throwback get the recognition over yet another iconic slasher series from here in the states.
Prior to the news of an Amber Heard/Odette Yustman sexy sandwich, I'd never heard of the original And Soon The Darkness, so the film instantly hopped into my Netflix. Finally came around to watching it late last night, and I'm glad to opine that its one hell of smart, suspenseful little number. Plays up all of the necessary "fish out of water" puzzle pieces to effective levels of unease.
Cathy (actress Michele Dotrice) and Jane (Pamela Franklin)
....and now, Amber Heard and Odette Yustman. Quite a difference, eh?
The story centers around Jane, a cute, short-haired, innocent-minded college-age tourist from London who has just seen her bicycling trip across France take a mischievous turn. After a verbal scuffle with her wilder, blonde bombshell of a best friend, and travel partner, Cathy, Jane rode off in protest, leaving Cathy alone near woods on the side of a road. But when Jane goes back to check on her friend, Cathy is gone. This leads to an investigation complete with shady strangers giving Jane prolonged stares and speaking in foreign languages that she frustratingly can't understand, and an unearthed murder mystery that brings with it eerie similarities with Cathy.
Now that's how you cut together a trailer.
The film's script (written by fellas named Brian Clemens and Terry Nation) is the real MVP here, a tightly-structured pressure cooker that loves fucking with the audience. His strongest constant-okie-doke is a character named Paul, a suave Frenchman that catches Cathy's eye intitially but then begins to look more sinister by the second. His motives remain unclear, difficult to pin down. It doesn't help the viewer's private-eye side that Fuest consistently flips our perceptions of Paul. We're made to believe that he's taken to Jane out of sympathy, but when he drives near the spot where Cathy disappeared on his motorbike, we see tire tracks next a pair of Cathy's missing panties. Instant connection made. And then later Paul reveals himself to be a detective, yet the head of the local police department claims to have no idea who Paul is moments later.
If And Soon The Darkness was simply a clever whodunit mystery, I would've been happy enough. But Fuest shows flashes of Alfred Hitchcock here that give the film a nice slice of nail-chomping atmosphere, amplifying the isolation of a scared, confused non-local impressively. The subtle creeps, all around. Two scenes in particular achieve a pretty strong anxiety: First, the last time we see Cathy before Jane's investigation begins; as she wakes up alongside the road from leaves rustling, Cathy cautiously begins to pack her belongings and get ready to ride and find her friend, but Fuest uses nifty sight tricks (a pair of panties there one second and gone the next; the sound of spinning bike-tire wheels; switching the camera's point-of-view to inside the bushes peering out at Cathy) to his advantage, and the end product is a damn tense sequence with little sound. Secondly, a scene near the film's end that finds Jane hiding in the closet of a trailer truck as the suspected villain snoops around; its a standard cat-and-mouse setup, but then we're hit with a total "Oh shit!" jump scare that is both revelatory and shock city.
File And Soon The Darkness under "Awesomely Pleasant Surprises." I went into this Netflix Fix hoping to merely meet a personal quota, seeing a film that the remake of which has become an anticipation-item of mine. I wasn't expecting to love this humble British flick as much as I now do. Looks like Amber Heard, Odette Yustman, and who-the-fuck-is-he director Marcos Efron have their work cut out for them. The Heard/Yustman And Soon The Darkness was honestly little more than a hormone-driven must-see, but now I'll be watching with a heavy "They better not fuck this up" microscope.
It's already been said that the remake will relocate the setting from France to Argentina, for whatever that's worth. Now, how about explaining what the hell the title And Soon The Darkness means exactly? The original takes place entirely during the daytime, and the impending nightfall is never referenced in any sort of menacing way, so what gives? It's an awesome title for a film, though. Just wondering, "Why?"
And those are just a couple of the recent examples. Tomorrow, in fact, I'll finally get to watch Fabrice Du Welz' Vinyan on trusty DVD, and that's yet another entry into this subgenre. And Soon The Darkness, a largely looked-over British potboiler made back in 1970 by director Robert Fuest, has set the bar for Vinyan Mary-Jane-high.
Loving this poster. Looks a lot like that old Last House on the Left one I've always thought was/is top quality.
A few weeks back, news surfaced of an in-development remake of And Soon The Darkness, starring two starlet-apples in my eye, Amber Heard (Pineapple Express) and Odette Yustman (Cloverfield, The Unborn). The notion of remaking an obscure British film with a pair of America's hottest young actresses immediately got me going; I'd much rather see a little-known foreign throwback get the recognition over yet another iconic slasher series from here in the states.
Prior to the news of an Amber Heard/Odette Yustman sexy sandwich, I'd never heard of the original And Soon The Darkness, so the film instantly hopped into my Netflix. Finally came around to watching it late last night, and I'm glad to opine that its one hell of smart, suspenseful little number. Plays up all of the necessary "fish out of water" puzzle pieces to effective levels of unease.
Cathy (actress Michele Dotrice) and Jane (Pamela Franklin)
....and now, Amber Heard and Odette Yustman. Quite a difference, eh?
The story centers around Jane, a cute, short-haired, innocent-minded college-age tourist from London who has just seen her bicycling trip across France take a mischievous turn. After a verbal scuffle with her wilder, blonde bombshell of a best friend, and travel partner, Cathy, Jane rode off in protest, leaving Cathy alone near woods on the side of a road. But when Jane goes back to check on her friend, Cathy is gone. This leads to an investigation complete with shady strangers giving Jane prolonged stares and speaking in foreign languages that she frustratingly can't understand, and an unearthed murder mystery that brings with it eerie similarities with Cathy.
Now that's how you cut together a trailer.
The film's script (written by fellas named Brian Clemens and Terry Nation) is the real MVP here, a tightly-structured pressure cooker that loves fucking with the audience. His strongest constant-okie-doke is a character named Paul, a suave Frenchman that catches Cathy's eye intitially but then begins to look more sinister by the second. His motives remain unclear, difficult to pin down. It doesn't help the viewer's private-eye side that Fuest consistently flips our perceptions of Paul. We're made to believe that he's taken to Jane out of sympathy, but when he drives near the spot where Cathy disappeared on his motorbike, we see tire tracks next a pair of Cathy's missing panties. Instant connection made. And then later Paul reveals himself to be a detective, yet the head of the local police department claims to have no idea who Paul is moments later.
If And Soon The Darkness was simply a clever whodunit mystery, I would've been happy enough. But Fuest shows flashes of Alfred Hitchcock here that give the film a nice slice of nail-chomping atmosphere, amplifying the isolation of a scared, confused non-local impressively. The subtle creeps, all around. Two scenes in particular achieve a pretty strong anxiety: First, the last time we see Cathy before Jane's investigation begins; as she wakes up alongside the road from leaves rustling, Cathy cautiously begins to pack her belongings and get ready to ride and find her friend, but Fuest uses nifty sight tricks (a pair of panties there one second and gone the next; the sound of spinning bike-tire wheels; switching the camera's point-of-view to inside the bushes peering out at Cathy) to his advantage, and the end product is a damn tense sequence with little sound. Secondly, a scene near the film's end that finds Jane hiding in the closet of a trailer truck as the suspected villain snoops around; its a standard cat-and-mouse setup, but then we're hit with a total "Oh shit!" jump scare that is both revelatory and shock city.
File And Soon The Darkness under "Awesomely Pleasant Surprises." I went into this Netflix Fix hoping to merely meet a personal quota, seeing a film that the remake of which has become an anticipation-item of mine. I wasn't expecting to love this humble British flick as much as I now do. Looks like Amber Heard, Odette Yustman, and who-the-fuck-is-he director Marcos Efron have their work cut out for them. The Heard/Yustman And Soon The Darkness was honestly little more than a hormone-driven must-see, but now I'll be watching with a heavy "They better not fuck this up" microscope.
It's already been said that the remake will relocate the setting from France to Argentina, for whatever that's worth. Now, how about explaining what the hell the title And Soon The Darkness means exactly? The original takes place entirely during the daytime, and the impending nightfall is never referenced in any sort of menacing way, so what gives? It's an awesome title for a film, though. Just wondering, "Why?"
Broken Record Syndrome: Comedy's Twisted New Danger
As if I haven't voiced enough love for HBO's now-gone Eastbound and Down, let me start this off by saying that the six-part story of Kenny Powers' attempt at reclaiming his "throne" was the ballsiest TV series of the last couple years, and if you missed, "You fucked up den" (to quote Jay Dog from the almighty Whiteboyz). What made the series so special was how the screenwriters (Jody Hill, Danny McBride, and Ben Best) embraced their main character's despicability and never tried making him any more sympathetic than he barely was. In Powers' eyes, he was on a path of redemption, but he was the only person who saw what he was doing as a true positive, other than his psychologically-warped lackie Stevie. Just when you thought the final episode was going to end on a triumphant note for Powers, we found out that his failed life was right back on square one. No easy way out, no cathartic resolution. He was still in the same shitter that he started out in.
Constructing everyman epics around loathesome antiheroes is what Jody Hill does so well. His directorial debut, last year's indie buzz-grabber The Foot Fist Way, showed the flawed promise that Eastbound and Down perfected. Fred Simmons (played by Danny McBride, like "Kenny Powers"), the pigheaded tae kwon do instructor at Foot Fist's center, fancies himself a king in a land of suburban peasants, when in reality he's the biggest court jester around. This sad truth is driven home once Simmons' martial arts hero, Chuck the Truck (a clear Chuck Norris knockoff), comes to town and fucks Simmons' trashy wife and treats his biggest fan as if he's more of a nuisance than a motivation. And once the film ends, we're not left with a man reformed in any way; we're sent off feeling the exact same ill will toward Simmons that he's negatively earned from Scene One. Not to mention, uncomfortably laughing all along.
Fred Simmons vs Chuck the Truck
The Foot Fist Way is slow in spaces, sluggish in pacing. Not all of the jokes hit hard enough, and the overall texture gives the vibe that Hill and company became too confy in the film's mockumentary approach, forgetting to spice up their plate from time to time. Going with a terrible human being for its lead, though, and allowing him to fail, and then fail again, gives the film a nice, sleazy charm.
It's great to see that Hill hasn't abandoned this "moral villain becomes the happy-ending-free antihero" aesthetic with Observe and Report, his first mainstream film that should be at least marginally successful thanks to its A-list star, Seth Rogen. Rogen's demented mall cop character, Ronnie Barnhardt, wishes he could be a legitimate gun-toting police officer, and sees himself as a bigger deal than he actually is. Which would be sad to watch if Ronnie wasn't such an abhorrent scumbag, a racist blowhard much better at spying on sexy mallgoing ladies than catching the perverted flasher showing his chubby belly and man-junk freely in the parking lot. Even though he's totally unable to apprehend the flasher, Ronnie sees this case as his big chance to prove himself and become the hero, and turns a sexual deviant into his own means of salvation. Only, it doesn't work out that way. His sadistic tendencies get the best of him. There's zero self-improvement to be had.
Jody Hill and Seth Rogen
Except for a more pristine look than the peanuts-and-duct-tape The Foot Fist Way (courtesy of a major studio-funded cinematographer) could ever afford, Observe and Report feels right at home alongside Hill's past work, especially Eastbound and Down. Rogen proves that he's more than the schlubby, underachieving stoner with his Ronnie incarnation, mostly shedding his past cuddly, likeable demeanor and putting on a fresh coat of scary and convincingly imbalanced. I can't help but think, though, that Hill conceived this Ronnie Barnhardt with Danny McBride in mind, but then the studio came along and demanded a bigger name, resulting in Hill calling his buddy Rogen. Fortunately, Rogen holds his own, embodying the character's every dirty facet even when it seems like he's just doing his best McBride impersonation at times.
Hill shows no fear. What he's delivered is a '7Scorcese-light throwback that, while not totally successful at capturing that tone, does come off quite like a '70s-loving film student's writing comedy while on a bender. In a good way. You get line-pushing moments ranging from Ronnie taking intercourse-advantage of a drunk girl covered in her own vomit, to skateboard kids getting their skulls bashed in by their own boards, to an Oldboy-style tracking shot fight sequence that has Ronnie fending for survival against a swarm of cops with only a flashlight in his hand. All played for the hearty chuckles, weirdly enough. Hill has repeatedly said that Observe & Report is his attempt to create a "comedic Taxi Driver," a lofty aspiration that, while not entirely fulfilled, shows where the guy's head is at in terms of storytelling and filmmaking. And it's at a place that a lover of nihilistic entertainment such as myself both admires and welcomes.
This generation's "Judd Apatow comedies" (in which Rogen himself is obviously a massive element), while unquestionably great, lack any real sense of danger, any unexpected turns. The routine beats (guy underachieves, he's presented with a life-changing opportunity, and he ultimately emerges a better person) are always hit, and you leave the film content and amused, but not challenged. Hill would hate for that midlevel expectation to be laid upon his stuff; he wants to catch you off guard with images and plot-turns that'll make you feel as if you're watching the wrong film. "Isn't this supposed to be a comedy? Why am I feeling more paralysic than hilarity?" It's a tough trick to execute, making the audience laugh out loud one minute and then shriek in disbelief the next. But Hill seems to have a growing handle on it.
I could only imagine what Hill could do with a horror film, or a straight-up psychological thriller. When a scene such as this represents a perfect ending in your eyes (as it does mine), the sky is the limit as to how fucked up you could make something:
Taxi Driver (avoid watching if you've never seen the film, and go rent it immediately)
Constructing everyman epics around loathesome antiheroes is what Jody Hill does so well. His directorial debut, last year's indie buzz-grabber The Foot Fist Way, showed the flawed promise that Eastbound and Down perfected. Fred Simmons (played by Danny McBride, like "Kenny Powers"), the pigheaded tae kwon do instructor at Foot Fist's center, fancies himself a king in a land of suburban peasants, when in reality he's the biggest court jester around. This sad truth is driven home once Simmons' martial arts hero, Chuck the Truck (a clear Chuck Norris knockoff), comes to town and fucks Simmons' trashy wife and treats his biggest fan as if he's more of a nuisance than a motivation. And once the film ends, we're not left with a man reformed in any way; we're sent off feeling the exact same ill will toward Simmons that he's negatively earned from Scene One. Not to mention, uncomfortably laughing all along.
Fred Simmons vs Chuck the Truck
The Foot Fist Way is slow in spaces, sluggish in pacing. Not all of the jokes hit hard enough, and the overall texture gives the vibe that Hill and company became too confy in the film's mockumentary approach, forgetting to spice up their plate from time to time. Going with a terrible human being for its lead, though, and allowing him to fail, and then fail again, gives the film a nice, sleazy charm.
It's great to see that Hill hasn't abandoned this "moral villain becomes the happy-ending-free antihero" aesthetic with Observe and Report, his first mainstream film that should be at least marginally successful thanks to its A-list star, Seth Rogen. Rogen's demented mall cop character, Ronnie Barnhardt, wishes he could be a legitimate gun-toting police officer, and sees himself as a bigger deal than he actually is. Which would be sad to watch if Ronnie wasn't such an abhorrent scumbag, a racist blowhard much better at spying on sexy mallgoing ladies than catching the perverted flasher showing his chubby belly and man-junk freely in the parking lot. Even though he's totally unable to apprehend the flasher, Ronnie sees this case as his big chance to prove himself and become the hero, and turns a sexual deviant into his own means of salvation. Only, it doesn't work out that way. His sadistic tendencies get the best of him. There's zero self-improvement to be had.
Jody Hill and Seth Rogen
Except for a more pristine look than the peanuts-and-duct-tape The Foot Fist Way (courtesy of a major studio-funded cinematographer) could ever afford, Observe and Report feels right at home alongside Hill's past work, especially Eastbound and Down. Rogen proves that he's more than the schlubby, underachieving stoner with his Ronnie incarnation, mostly shedding his past cuddly, likeable demeanor and putting on a fresh coat of scary and convincingly imbalanced. I can't help but think, though, that Hill conceived this Ronnie Barnhardt with Danny McBride in mind, but then the studio came along and demanded a bigger name, resulting in Hill calling his buddy Rogen. Fortunately, Rogen holds his own, embodying the character's every dirty facet even when it seems like he's just doing his best McBride impersonation at times.
Hill shows no fear. What he's delivered is a '7Scorcese-light throwback that, while not totally successful at capturing that tone, does come off quite like a '70s-loving film student's writing comedy while on a bender. In a good way. You get line-pushing moments ranging from Ronnie taking intercourse-advantage of a drunk girl covered in her own vomit, to skateboard kids getting their skulls bashed in by their own boards, to an Oldboy-style tracking shot fight sequence that has Ronnie fending for survival against a swarm of cops with only a flashlight in his hand. All played for the hearty chuckles, weirdly enough. Hill has repeatedly said that Observe & Report is his attempt to create a "comedic Taxi Driver," a lofty aspiration that, while not entirely fulfilled, shows where the guy's head is at in terms of storytelling and filmmaking. And it's at a place that a lover of nihilistic entertainment such as myself both admires and welcomes.
This generation's "Judd Apatow comedies" (in which Rogen himself is obviously a massive element), while unquestionably great, lack any real sense of danger, any unexpected turns. The routine beats (guy underachieves, he's presented with a life-changing opportunity, and he ultimately emerges a better person) are always hit, and you leave the film content and amused, but not challenged. Hill would hate for that midlevel expectation to be laid upon his stuff; he wants to catch you off guard with images and plot-turns that'll make you feel as if you're watching the wrong film. "Isn't this supposed to be a comedy? Why am I feeling more paralysic than hilarity?" It's a tough trick to execute, making the audience laugh out loud one minute and then shriek in disbelief the next. But Hill seems to have a growing handle on it.
I could only imagine what Hill could do with a horror film, or a straight-up psychological thriller. When a scene such as this represents a perfect ending in your eyes (as it does mine), the sky is the limit as to how fucked up you could make something:
Taxi Driver (avoid watching if you've never seen the film, and go rent it immediately)
Your new Freddy Krueger is.....a great, Oscar-nominated actor? How about that?
Due to my good-times weekend out in Boston (Quincy Market's food court is a place of edible wonders, and the house tequila at The Purple Shamrock tastes like Petron left uncapped for a year past its expiration date), I missed the boat on this one by a couple of days. But it's a bit of horror casting news that is nothing short of spot-on, so I'd be sloppy to let it slip by. After months of hopeful rumors and roundabout confirmations and denials by all involved, those remake-ruiners at Platinum Dunes have absolutely nailed the casting of Freddy Krueger for next April's A Nightmare on Elm Street redo:
Jackie Earle Haley
From the moment that the first word hit online about Haley's possible involvement, this has seemed like such pitch-perfect casting, and now that it's official, I'm actually gaining some excitement for this project. Initially, the thought of Platinum Dunes fucking up yet another great horror film sent douche-chills down my spine. Put it this way: those guys managed to turn a remake of an already-subpar film (the original Friday the 13th) into an inferior, frustratingly inept cash-guzzler, so just imagine how badly they could butcher an actually-strong flick like the original Nightmare? And let's not even get into that Platinum Dunes raping of The Hitcher, or this past January's laughably moronic The Unborn.
With Jackie Earle Haley signing on, however, the stakes are much more promising. The man is an Academy Award nominee (for Little Children), and he's coming off his universally-loved Rorschach turn in Watchmen. Plus, his next film is Martin Scorcese's Shutter Island. He has the luxury to pick and choose his next starring vehicle with care, and he's chosen a Nightmare on Elm Street remake? The script for this flick must be something special, at least one would think/hope. Haley must be genuinely excited to fill Robert Englund's Shaq-sized shoes and reinvent Freddy Krueger, and that's the coolest. I'm totally a Haley fanboy (if you haven't seen his work in Little Children, make that happen....and he was the only good thing about Will Ferrell's unfunny, derivative Semi-Pro)
Bonus Jackie Earle Haley pic....remember him here?
Yup......Kelly Leak.
I for one can't wait to see what he does. This remake has gone from "meh" to "must" overnight, now. Of course, the Platinum Dunes team could very well fuck this up, but the fact that its a first-time director, music video vet Samuel Bayer (Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"), behind the lens opens up the stylistic possibilities immensely. And assuming that the script is up to snuff, the cast of young faces isn't as bland as the recent Friday the 13th's, and Haley's body isn't inhabited by Nicolas Cage during filming, this one is looking mighty healthy. For now.
Speaking of the young cast, the only head signed on so far is Kyle Gallner (the main kid in The Haunting in Connecticut, previously known for Veronica Mars)---he was surprisingly good in Haunting in CT, so he's a good start here. My nomination for the lead role of "Nancy"? Here goes:
Yes, my girl Olivia Thirlby. Simply out of my yearning for her to blow up commercially some day, just so I could see more and more of her. "That's the world I want to live in."
Jackie Earle Haley
From the moment that the first word hit online about Haley's possible involvement, this has seemed like such pitch-perfect casting, and now that it's official, I'm actually gaining some excitement for this project. Initially, the thought of Platinum Dunes fucking up yet another great horror film sent douche-chills down my spine. Put it this way: those guys managed to turn a remake of an already-subpar film (the original Friday the 13th) into an inferior, frustratingly inept cash-guzzler, so just imagine how badly they could butcher an actually-strong flick like the original Nightmare? And let's not even get into that Platinum Dunes raping of The Hitcher, or this past January's laughably moronic The Unborn.
With Jackie Earle Haley signing on, however, the stakes are much more promising. The man is an Academy Award nominee (for Little Children), and he's coming off his universally-loved Rorschach turn in Watchmen. Plus, his next film is Martin Scorcese's Shutter Island. He has the luxury to pick and choose his next starring vehicle with care, and he's chosen a Nightmare on Elm Street remake? The script for this flick must be something special, at least one would think/hope. Haley must be genuinely excited to fill Robert Englund's Shaq-sized shoes and reinvent Freddy Krueger, and that's the coolest. I'm totally a Haley fanboy (if you haven't seen his work in Little Children, make that happen....and he was the only good thing about Will Ferrell's unfunny, derivative Semi-Pro)
Bonus Jackie Earle Haley pic....remember him here?
Yup......Kelly Leak.
I for one can't wait to see what he does. This remake has gone from "meh" to "must" overnight, now. Of course, the Platinum Dunes team could very well fuck this up, but the fact that its a first-time director, music video vet Samuel Bayer (Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"), behind the lens opens up the stylistic possibilities immensely. And assuming that the script is up to snuff, the cast of young faces isn't as bland as the recent Friday the 13th's, and Haley's body isn't inhabited by Nicolas Cage during filming, this one is looking mighty healthy. For now.
Speaking of the young cast, the only head signed on so far is Kyle Gallner (the main kid in The Haunting in Connecticut, previously known for Veronica Mars)---he was surprisingly good in Haunting in CT, so he's a good start here. My nomination for the lead role of "Nancy"? Here goes:
Yes, my girl Olivia Thirlby. Simply out of my yearning for her to blow up commercially some day, just so I could see more and more of her. "That's the world I want to live in."
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