By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here…

I’ll admit it.

I’m an easy going sort of person. I like to go with the flow and work fairly hard to do things I’m interested in. I like to think I have passion and drive but I’m just not feeling it this week with most of the people who I have come in contact with (or have been ignored by).

As Comic-Con rolls closer I have been all about trying to secure things for the site and for you, those 4 people who tune in on a weekly basis to read what I write. I’d like to think I could get people to spend a few moments with me 1:1 and pimp their wares but judging by the rejection letters that have been flowing into my email box you would have thought I was a 6th year high school senior trying to wedge my way into M.I.T., Stanford and/or Howard (straight representin’, yo…).

And that’s fine.

I’ve also come into possession of a pretty nifty item: a full season, behind-the-scenes, not supposed to have it, breakdown of Stan Lee’s new show Who Wants To Be A Superhero? I can’t say where I purloined the information as I didn’t purloin it at all; it was freely given to be, I will have you know, by someone last year as something that would make good reading becuase the network they intended on making the show did not. Lo and behold…the show not only is being made but it is starting in the next couple of weeks. 

Now, the amusing part of this story is that I didn’t really think it fit here. I thought that some other person could use it for themselves. Someone who talks about pop television or superhero type things. I actually tried giving this stuff away to someone else but, becuase they didn’t return the email(s), I assumed they either thought no one would be interested in it, they were too caught up in their own mystique as Internets writers to acknowledge the email or the guys were too busy having arguments about who is really going to win Marvel’s Civil War saga. So, just click on the link here and read to your heart’s content. I hope someone out there gives a rats ass. I did. The show looks to be TiVo worthy.

Regardless of all of the negativity I’ve been feeling this week leading up to what should be a real good weekend for a lot of people, I even offered to drive some mo-fos to Kevin’s CLERKS II showing/Q&A session that will be happening a few times on Saturday at a local San Diego theater as I want to try and right this mental flaming plane of mine that’s in distress, I give you a little something to read while the rest of us nerds, geeks, wastoids, dweebies, bloods, what have you, get our collective sweat-on inside the convention hall this weekend. If you’re going to be around at a panel somewhere I’d like to know and even though I know I won’t get a single email (that damn negativity again) holla at me at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com 

I would’ve posted a panel by panel breakdown of where I’m going to be this weekend but apart from the Sony Pictures panel, the Warner Brothers panel, Kevin’s Q&A, Adult Swim panel and The Animation Show panel I think it’s going to be a free-for-all this year with doing whatever I’m feeling up to. I was caught up in doing so many movie roundtables that I think I forgot there was a convention going on. 

Who knows who I might end up talking with but I think I’ve come to embrace Joel’s RISKY BUSINESS attitude of just saying “what the fuck” and just going with whatever flow comes by. I do believe that’s going to be my attitude this weekend. It sucks that it’s too late for me to be able and put that on a shirt…. 

 

 

 

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING (2006)

Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Cast: Jordana Brewster, Andrew Bryniarski, R. Lee Emery
Release: October 4, 2006
Synopsis: The origins of the legendary horror character Leatherface will finally be revealed in the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING. The film, which is set years before the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, stars Jordana Brewster and is being directed by Jonathan Liebesman.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime) (Note: This trailer is only available for viewing between the hours of 10 pm and 4 am. What a gimmick, I tell ya…)

Prognosis: Positive. I was a huge fan, still am, huge fan of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART II.

That movie I must have watched over and over again just because it was creepy, scary and hilarious as all hell. You could not have matched the insane originality of the first movie but the sequel, the one from the 80’s, showed what you could do if you had someone who had an original vision and let loose.

The TEXAS CHAINSAW from a couple years ago? Wonderful. This trailer is good insofar that you get that same kind of dirtiness under your eyes just from watching what’s happening on the screen that there is absolutely no need for a thick voiceover or some dope to try and stir some pot that’s not really cookin’, you know?

We’re given one of the best introductions to a trailer that I’ve seen all year. One woman is singing “Mockingbird” to an obviously distressed woman who we can’t see. Taken for a tour of some backwoods Texas town, and having driven through that state I can say that is one state where I could think of a few places where I would not want to end up getting a flat tire, the song keeps going as the other woman is sniffling. Those in the know, those that have clicked on this trailer, know exactly what’s happening but we’re not given the goods so easily.

The crying from the prey of this film gets to a high point where the camera, after panning back on the woman who begs to know why this old lady is planning on getting wiggidy wiggidy wacko on her ass, jumps away to a slew of quick cuts. These images include Leatherface, only briefly, as a compendium of other violent tools and quirks of these psychos’ lives are all shown.

Then the teenagers come in.

These kids, all looking like sweet meat, I mean it pains me to know that these children are going to be eviscerated in this flick but this trailer is rock solid as it cuts through all sorts of chase by quickly bringing us to the flashpoint of how we get from them, looking pretty in their open Jeep, to upside down and vulnerable.

Not only is expediency the name of this game we move from their Jeep being flipped, to being shown that one is mistakenly left behind in an attempt to have an element of heroics being added to this horror pie, to the other three kids being tarried away with by the other members of the crazy family who we will no doubt take delight in as new and creative ways to kill people will be made known.

It’s nice, in a way to see that Tobe Hooper is involved in making this movie. So many other films which pass as spooky horror, the FINAL DESTINATION’s of the world included, are just flat and pale compared to what’s possible when you can literally cut loose.

This trailer is absolutely gorgeous to watch if for no other reason than this promo has a vision of what it wants to be, eschews the popular methods to promote what’s here, and uses only the film’s vibe to convey all of what’s needed in order to feel that this movie will not be a casual, visual experience.

FLUSHED AWAY (2006)

Director: Sam Fell, David Bowers
Cast: Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, Simon Callow, Shane Richie, Geoffrey Palmer, Jean Reno, Douglas Weston
Release: November 3, 2006
Synopsis: Roddy is a decidedly upper-crust “society rat” who makes his home in a posh Kensington flat, complete with two hamster butlers named Gilbert and Sullivan. When a common sewer rat named Syd comes spewing out of the sink and decides he’s hit the jackpot, Roddy schemes to rid himself of the pest by luring him into the “whirlpool.” Syd may be an ignorant slob, but he’s no fool, so it is Roddy who winds up being flushed away into the bustling sewer world of Ratropolis. There Roddy meets Rita, an enterprising scavenger who works the sewers in her faithful boat, the Jammy Dodger. Roddy immediately wants out, or rather, up; Rita wants to be paid for her trouble; and, speaking of trouble, the villainous Toad—who royally despises all rodents—wants them iced…literally. The Toad dispatches his two hapless hench-rats, Spike and Whitey, to get the job done. When they fail, the Toad has no choice but to send to France for his cousin—that dreaded mercenary, Le Frog.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Negative. I’m just not feeling this.

I don’t know why I have such an aversion to this trailer but I don’t have a great affinity for rodents, not really endearing themselves to great connotations in the mind, and the trailer doesn’t grab your attention. It sort of meanders, plods and expects to just ease its way into establishing the premise but that’s not really good when it’s kids you want to hook. Sure, you’re going to get these little rugrats to come out en masse but if you can generate enough buzz what studio wouldn’t want more to come out and be repeat viewers?

When we begin I’m at a loss to really feel excited. Sure, Dreamworks put out that crap flick MADAGASCAR, did great guns with WALLACE AND GROMIT, put out tripe in SHARKTALE, has done well for itself with OVER THE HEDGE but for all the great animated films they’ve put out they’ve been accompanied by solid trailers; they excite when they should, they get in get out and get on with it and they leave you thinking that even though you’re an adult you would like to see that.

I don’t get that here.

I am confounded as to why we start so damn slow. Yes, we have to establish that this rodent gets the rule of the roost but when I am rapping my fingers a third a way into this preview because I am wondering why I’m watching a rat play polo, have a bath and dress himself in a tuxedo that’s not a good thing.

What is a good thing, though, that I can say is when Syd, the dirty mischief maker of the rat-a-tat-tat duo, appears I am pleased because this where we get the first notion that this is a movie for kids: we get some spirited belching. A lot of belching. A lot. Not only do we get sound effects but we get a green puff of belch with every booming punch into the sound field.

The toilet humor keeps going, the very things that kids and adults can agree upon, with our uppity rat trying to flush Syd down the pipes under the rouse of the Porcelain God being a fandangled Jacuzzi of sorts and ends up in a place called, appropriately enough, Ratropolis.

One of the things that confound me is that this is supposed to be a trailer, not a teaser. The crux of what seems to be my biggest complaint of all is that our well-to-do rat ends up coming down into this place that looks like a mash-up of Times Square and Piccadilly Circus but we don’t get any context of this new land. This rat even lands in the “vehicle” of who, ostensibly, is a girl rat who will probably be some kind of love interest but no one says anything for the rest of the trailer.

There has got to be more here but I cannot explain why we’re not shown more than we are. Yes, this film is not coming out until the end of this year but I’ve been teased better than I’ve been trailer-ed in this advertisement.

HUMAN RESIDUE (2007)

Director: Chris Bouchard
Cast: Rachael Blyth, Ben Anderson, Adrian Webster, Kate Cox
Release: May, 2007
Synopsis: Seven volunteers all signed up for the same temporal isolation program. They live with being sealed inside an underground bunker for a period of three and a half weeks. While they were under something went terribly wrong. When the experiment ended, nobody came to let them out. When they break out of their temporary home they find the surrounding facility deserted. The huge sprawling concrete facility is devoid of human life. What could have caused such a catastrophe? Is there something else out there? Even if they escape with their lives, what awaits them beyond the grounds of the facility?

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Positive. Concept trailer.

What do you do when you’re really independent and need people to help finance your vision but you don’t feel like half-assing it by shooting what you can afford?

You shoot a concept trailer.

I really can only admit to seeing two concept trailers with this being the second. It’s an interesting thing when you think of it but I think the idea of making one makes absolute sense, absolutely. You want people to help pony up bread to let you make a movie but words and exciting hand motions, understandably, can only do so much. Storyboarding, as well, doesn’t really get the idea across as you could have Gary Larson at the helm or a graduate from the Rob Liefeld School for Drawing Good asleep at the switch. A concept trailer like this, though, conveys the vibe, style and tenor of what this movie could be. To be perfectly honest, if this film is as good as the tension that’s conveyed in the two and a half minutes that’s compiled here then let me pop my checkbook out and bounce a few bucks.

“Awake and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death”

The trailer starts spinning as soon as it starts. With good reason it should as well for if you’re looking for someone’s dough you better not waste any time making the case as to why I should part with mine. You’ve got tense strings playing, dank and dark locations evoking something quite strange. What looks like blood stained floorboards come in and out of view. A small, darkened crawlway underneath a set of concrete steps makes me think of Stephen King’s IT. Some clanging chains of a long since forgotten place evokes the kind of solitude only reserved for very bad things.

We see feet in a forest. They walk quickly and we then are treated to a nice looking lady, also a plus for those looking to get financing, who is obviously not enchanted with the idea of crawling around a concrete building all alone.

We meet up with three other people, of equal good looking-ness, who watch a very black building burn from all sorts of places. Plumes of smoke billow and we’re left to wonder what is happening.

“There’s nobody else…”
We’re not given any much more in the way of details but the slow meting of information does this trailer more good than bad as it’s all about the tease. The tease of why these people are, ostensibly, the last people existing after something sinister has happened to them is great.

We see these people running away from something we can’t see, something we’re not allowed to know (they need more money, most likely, to show you that part…).

The music gets all sorts of jittery, the camera banks sharply, the cuts get quicker, we gleam the baddies that are looking to put the big hurt on these people, we get more running and I find my interest is completely locked in to what’s going on.

“When the experiment ended…Nobody came to let them out…”

One of the primary things, that I can see, about what makes a concept trailer and a trailer for a film that has already been shot so similar is that both of them are used as leverages to garner interest and to set themselves apart from other competing works. This film may not have been shot yet but you’d never know based on what’s here.

This movie can’t come quick enough.

BORAT (2006)

Director: Larry Charles
Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen
Release: November 3, 3006
Synopsis: Sacha Baron Cohen – star of HBO’s hit comedy “Da Ali G Show,” takes his outrageous Kazakstani reporter character Borat to the big screen. In this hilariously offensive movie, Borat travels from his primitive home in Kazakhstan to the U.S. to make a documentary. On his cross-country road-trip, Borat meets real people in real situations.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Deliciously Positive. When I saw the trailer for TALLADEGA NIGHTS it incensed me that, the first time out, there wasn’t any screen time given to Will Ferrell’s French nemesis played by Sacha Baron Cohen. It wasn’t so much that Sacha wasn’t represented well, it was that he wasn’t given any time to do anything. I know it is a “Will Ferrell” vehicle but give the guy some traction to help out the flick, you know? It’s really good that the time has come, though, to give Sacha his own “vehicle” and I can say with a high degree of accuracy that I am more interested in seeing what happens to Borat than I am to Ricky Bobby.

So, right off the bat, when you see a trailer like this you’re struck by two and a half things:

1. You’re not shown an inch of footage beyond the extended scene here.

2. It’s ballsy not to show more because this is what people are going to base their initial opinions on when the movie actually arrives.

2 ½. It perfectly encapsulates what makes Borat such a funny ass character so it really negates points 1 and 2.

I will readily admit that I am a Da Ali G Show fan. Some people have said they “don’t get it” and I will own up that I was the same way until I randomly caught a segment with one of his other characters, Bruno, voice of Austrian youth TV and sly usurper of the insipid, false idols of fashion. The show, at times, is about more than just the fun he has at other’s ignorance and when, in the second season, Borat, Kazakhstan’s sixth most famous man, went and played a song for real rednecks entitled “In My Country There Is Problem” where the chorus regales the audience to “Throw the Jew down the well.” The delight that the real people took in this character’s dead-on measurement of what would appeal to this segment of Americana is at once amazing and frightening. That’s what I hope comes out of this movie and we get a good amount of Sacha Baron Cohen’s brand of comedy through his Borat character here.

I appreciate how the trailer begins in much the same way as the segment does when it plays on HBO: we’re given a scratchy video which, ostensibly, marks the imprint of Kazakhstan’s state run video service along with the wretchedly composed theme music.

We are greeted by a walking Borat, beset on both sides by children of his dank, poor, distant, impoverished village from where he greets us with that shit-eating smile that instantly disarms you. One doesn’t know to either question why he looks so happy or just delight in the fact that he seems to be blissfully ignorant of his surroundings.

He tells us, while standing in front of either a trash heap or his home, I believe it’s both, of his favorite hobbies: ping pong and disco dancing. The former is shown to us in stark Technicolor with Borat standing for an awkwardly long time at one end of the table as he dons bright shorts that are really way too short to cover the goods and the latter is shown to us as a pack of dudes in the middle of the street, during the day, doing something that I don’t think Deney Terrio or Adrian Zmed would’ve let on Dance Fever.

He also mentions sunbathing and, for the lack of my ability to describe what Sacha looks like in a day-glo green plum smuggler that was really meant for a woman, you’ll just have to trust in me that it should elicit some kind of sharp reaction to anyone who sees what it looks like.

We’re let into his house and, again, trash heap or living quarters you can make the call. The delight he has in letting us see his state of the art VCR and stereo system that “plays cassettes” while passing the sneezing farm animal in his living room is amusing, to say nothing of the long kiss he indulges in with Natalia. She is number 4 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan and just happens to be his sister.

And, lastly, when he lets his village know he is off to America, just taking sheer delight in proclaiming it, he gets in a car to ostensibly go to the airport. I should’ve known that the car that looks like it was being driven by a kid, it is, actually was being pulled along by a horse. Sometimes you just never quite know what will make you laugh when you’ve never seen something like it before and I can state for the record that I thought that was a great visual gag.
It’s hard to know what jives and what doesn’t when it comes to comedy, so much of it is a subjective judgement even though I know I’m right when I say that Strangers With Candy is just pure crap, but when a trailer like this comes along and without showing any real footage is able to make me laugh my шарыs (that’s “balls” in Russian for the Eastern European impaired) off is deserving of my money when I am able to freely give it up.

 

 

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