"Body of Lies" trailer

I don't know why I haven't posted this yet. Seeing as how Body of Lies is one of my ten most anticipated films of the year, I'm ready to see this film as soon as it hits theaters. Whether or not it's going to be good, I can't really tell.





After watching the trailer, I question if this will be DiCaprio's Best Actor nomination, or if Revolutionary Road will be. Either way, I see no reason why he doesn't get one this year.

The "W." trailer

Sorry, guys, that the trailer isn't top quality. But after so many other copies of this trailer were deleted due to copyright infringement, I finally found one that is still posted.





Thandie Newton looks like a nearly spot-on Condoleeza Rice, but I do wish that they would have let us hear Brolin's Dubya impersonation.

A Few More Film Reviews To Come

Saw The Simpsons Movie and Hot Rod, both on a portable DVD player while travelling to White Water in Branson, Missouri. And when I returned home that night, I went out on the town and caught a late showing of the newly-released StepBrothers. I will post reviews for each of those films as soon as procrastination takes a backseat to work ethic. But to cut suspense, here's how I rate them each:

The Simpsons Movie - 7 out of 10
Hot Rod - 4 out of 10
StepBrothers - 5 out of 10

Again, I repeat: Reviews will be posted.... sooner or later. :)

"Knight" Night Showing

Saw The Dark Knight at a midnight (well, 12:01 A.M.) showing last night. It was great. Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker was easily one of my favorite cinematic villains of the decade if not of all-time. He should most certainly receive an Oscar nomination; a win will rely on who he is pit against this year. But for now, he remains the one true Supporting Actor contender thus far.

A film review later.

Shreveport vs. Dubya

I know that this isn't the most late-breaking news story, but I did want to bring this about to your attention: The cast of Oliver Stone's W. was involved in a bar brawl down in Shreveport, Louisiana, where the film is being shot. Here's very short coverage from the Shreveport Times:

Josh Brolin and Jeffrey Wright, actors filming Oliver Stone's W in Louisiana, were among the cast and crew members arrested after a barroom tussle, reports the Shreveport Times. The busted thespians had interfered with police attempts to subdue a fellow patron, and were charged with interfering with police. Brolin was released after paying $334 bail.
A Shreveport police spokesman said one thing has been unusual about the bust: publicity. “I’ve heard from National Enquirer, Entertainment Tonight, Extra, the New York Post and a few other national outlets. Lots of people have called.”

I wonder, could this not only hurt the film's supposed bad reputation, but also damage Brolin's chances at the Oscars this year. As you may have noticed, I am at the moment predicting that he will be nominated for his role in the Gus Van Sant film Milk. Assuming the performance will be Oscar-worthy, could Brolin's badboy antics cost him in the awards season?

For more on bad boy antic aftermath, see Russell Crowe.

Movie Review: "Halloween"

Directed by Rob Zombie

Written and Starring... ah, who cares....

TRICK OR SUCK!

Yes, I know. The title to this article is a terrible attempt, neither funny nor effective, devoid of any effort both in terms of logistics and creativity. In other words, it is exactly like the film I am reviewing today: Rob Zombie's butchered remake of the horror classic "Halloween".

John Carpenter's original was called a "tour de force", "an absolutely merciless thriller", and "a completely immersive, visceral dynamo of stylistic belly-jiggling and spine-shivering." And while I do try extremely hard to avoid comparing films to the originals or the books from which they are adapted, with this particular one, such assessments are unavoidable.

The trailer for this film proclaimed quite proudly the statement "Rob Zombie unleashes an extreme vision of terror and reinvents a legend", and to be quite honest, I got a little excited. Honestly, I watched the promos, and a little bit of pee came out. I say that not to get graphic, but to explain to you that my expectations were actually quite good; I was looking forward to being scared out of my mind. I'm not even that big of a horror fan, but I like to be petrified as much as the next. And yet, having seen the picture now, I realize that, by saying that Rob Zombie "reinvents a legend", they actually meant that he just rewrote the first half of the film.
The movie opens with a younger Michael Myers (little Daeg Faerch), ten years old. He wears a freaky-looking clown mask (he apparently has a fetish for covering up his face... therapy, anyone?). In one hand, he holds his pet rat; in the other, a small knife. The next time we see him, he is washing blood off of his hands, and the rat is nowhere to be seen. "What's the matter, baby?" his mom asks. "[Rat's name] died," Michael replies. "I had to flush him."

For the first thirty to forty-five minutes, Rob Zombie takes his time trying to explain why Michael is the way he is; and to be quite honest, the explanations don't satisfy. He wears masks because he thinks he's ugly, he kills things because it makes him feel superior, and he goes wild one night and kills three people for... uh... well, we never really know why. Oh yeah! I remember now: because they are 'meanie faces'. Michael is then arrested, and thrown into a psych ward, where a Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell of "A Clockwork Orange") continuously visits him, trying to look into the mind of this demented child, but eventually decides to step off for a while and write a book about him instead.

17 years later, however, Myers gets fed up with incarceration, goes on a rampage, and kills several of the prison wardens before breaking out and fleeing back to his hometown of Haddenfield, with only one thing in mind: finding his little sister. Why? Who knows? Does he want to kill her, the last of his bloodline? Does he want to run away with her to make sanctuary? Does he just want to check up on her and make sure she uses protection when out with the boys? I don't know, and I don't think Rob Zombie does either.

And that's only the first half of the film; the second is made up of nothing more than mindless killing after mindless killing after mindless killing after... you get the picture. And not even the murders are satisfying. After being stabbed, almost every victim gets their own little 'crawl away from the killer in desperation' moment, only to have Michael come up behind them and finish the job.

Oh, and speaking of Michael... from the time he escapes from the mental facility to his final scene in the film, the masked monster doesn't say a word. Not a darned thing. It's as if Zombie humanized him in the movie's first act, only to later transform him back into the faceless death-dealer from the other eight "Halloween" movies that we are all familiar with. So much for giving him a back-story we could almost sympathize with, Rob; way to waste your time with that one, bub.

To say the acting is bad is an understatement... actually, describing it as such is almost a blessing, because it undermines the fact that almost no one in the cast actually acts, instead just reading their lines off glibly (and no, I don't mean that in a good way). In fact, one character's death (the psych ward janitor Ismael Cruz, played by Danny Trejo) almost brought tears to my eyes... not only because he was the only character I could actually begin to sympathize for, but also because he was the only actor in the entire cast who actually seem to know what he was doing. And when he was bumped off, well, the rest of the 'acting' brought a different kind of tear to my eye.

Last year, I gave the title of Worst Movie of the Year to another little horror remake named "Black Christmas". This year, I think that title goes to Rob Zombie's 'reinvention' of the legendary horror blockbuster of the 70's. Here, the director attempted to put method behind the madness... but in doing so, he only made the pay-off, the string of murders in the second half, that much more unintentionally hilarious.

I could easily make some trick-or-treat analogies right now, saying something like, I expected a nice terrifying bag of candy corn that ended up sucking as badly as a razor blade in a caramel apple, or some clever little thing like that. But instead, I will suffice, and simply state: This is the most terrible piece of shlopp (censored for the children) I have seen this year, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

1 out of 10

P.S.
leg·end - [lej-uhnd] -n(1) a nonhistorical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly accepted as historical.

clas·sic - [klas-ik] -a(1)of the first or highest quality, class, or rank.

In layman's terms, "no touchie" and "no remakie"... you only end up making a fool of yourself. Rob Zombie can concur with that.

Movie Review: "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"

Directed by Tim Burton

Written by John Logan (based on Stephen Sondheim's musical)

Starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter

Having just arrived back home from the opening day matinee showing of Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd", there's only one thing I am sure of: It's bloody great.

The story behind the Sweeney Todd myth sparked in the 1800s, when a urban legend, about a demonic barber screaming for blood, spread through London like wildfire, reaching the ears of the masses by, more or less, word-of-mouth. It wasn't long after its conception that many newspapers began publishing chapters of the Todd-tale in their "penny dreadfuls" (small newspapers that cost only a penny, and worked like multiple installments for a novel... oh never mind).

Speed ahead a hundred years, and Christopher Bond has adapted the legend into a stage play, mixing a complex revenge plot into the madness. Move ahead to the 1970s, a young talented musician named Stephen Sondheim, at the peak of his power, sees Bond's play, and thinks to himself, "This would make a good musical."

And apparently, it does. Winning what was at that time an unprecedented amount of Tony awards, Sondheim's musical was so phenomenal that the very thought of it stuck with film director Tim Burton, up until last year, when he and his production team set about making this thing, which, hundreds of years after the initial plot's creation, is one of the best films of 2007.

Quick stage setting: Benjamin Barker is a barber in London, where he lives with his beautiful wife Lucy and their baby daughter Johanna. However, unbeknownst to him, a corrupt judge by the name of Turpin watches them from afar, concocting a plan that will send Benjamin away and leave his wife ripe for the taking. And with the help of lawman Beadle Bamford, he does just that, imprisoning poor Barker on false charges, and exiling him to Australia for life. But fifteen years later, Anthony Hope, a young sailor, finds Barker, recently escaped from prison, adrift on a plank in the middle of the ocean. Bound for London anyway, Anthony is more than willing to transport the awry fellow there as well.

In fact, that's where the film begins, with the ship drifting into the London harbor. But, much like the dirty, dingy, drearily dark streets of the city, Barker's life in general has forever transformed in his absence; his whole world has become, for lack of a better phrase, jacked up. Turpin raped Lucy, after which she poisoned herself, leaving little Johanna with no option but to fall under the adoptive care of the evil judge himself. Yep, things are in the crapper for poor ol' Benji Boy. So what does he do? He kills a bunch of people, is what he does! You think I'm joking? Well, I'm not. By the end, the body count is high, and half of the cast is ka-poot.

Oh, and while speaking of the cast, I should say, it could not have been better. Johnny Depp works wonderfully as the brooding vengeful anti-hero, using his skills as an actor to help show emotion even while hittin' the notes with surprisingly substantial ease. Helena Bonham Carter plays Mrs. Lovett so that you don't know what is going on in her character's head, making her that much more ambiguously brilliant as a character. Alan Rickman is completely dry (I mean that as a compliment) as the wicked Judge Turpin, and, with Depp at his side, performs "Pretty Women", one of the most darkly ironic duets I have ever seen put on film. Timothy Spall as Bamford is phenomenally slimy and conniving, and also one of the best bits of casting in this film. Sacha Baron Cohen is absolutely hilarious as the crafty, but ultimately doomed, rival barber Senor Pirelli; the moment he appeared on the screen, people were already laughing. And the younger actors (Jamie Campbell Bower, Jayne Wisener, and Ed Sanders) all three make great debuts in this film, though some critics have shrugged off their characters as mere plot devices.
But it isn't just the actors whose works shines through this dark, dark piece of work; Dante Ferretti's production design, spliced into the same pie with Colleen Atwood's costumes and make-up devices, blend the movie's world with such Burtonistic (copyright 2007 Doc McPhearson) qualities, that, especially in moments like the "By the Sea" daydream, each one of them is destined for Oscar nomination no doubt.

Okay, I have to stop now. Seriously. No matter what I say, I feel as if I'm leaving something out. Look, if you take nothing else from this review, take this: strongly consider seeing this film. It is a fantastic adaptation of a even more fantastic Broadway musical. Please, understand, that while it will not be Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury singing these songs, the movie does the material justice in terms of both the actors, technicals, and screenwriting that could have been done, I believe. True, it shaved off several things here and there, most noticeably the entirety of the chorus lines. But with Burton behind the camera, Depp in front of it, and Sondheim's fingerprints on every gorgeously gothic frame, you could not ask for a more perfect team in this violent, but oh so intimate, picture.

9 out of 10

DISCLAIMER: I don't think I mentioned, there's a lot of blood in this movie. Like, a lot a lot. However, it is absolutely unrealistic, used as almost a romanticized quality, adding to the melodramatic film of the material. But still, please, don't take any children to this thing. The therapist's bill will eat you out of house and home.

NOTE: I wrote this review a month or so before the Oscar nominations were announced that year. And I have to boast for a moment, that Costume and Art Direction were two aspects I expected to be nominated; sure enough, they were. In fact, the film's Art Direction won the darn thing. ... Okay. I'm done bragging.