1. Quick note: American audiences have been given the go-ahead in the quest for figuring out what exactly is going on in SPIDER-MAN 3. What I find curious, and this was the subject of a long afternoon lunch I had with a fellow geek on this issue, is what movies can you name that had multiple story lines and still successfully managed to serve the overall ethos of what the film aimed to do? We couldn’t really come up with anything that would assuage the thought that you could really have one movie per villain/story arc and how much are the odds stacked against a film, Raimi or not, that has to open and close, start and finish, and deal with so much on the personal levels of all involved?
There’s simply no question that this is going to be a thrill ride. That much is certain. However, and this is a big however, how do you serve all these threads without minimizing anyone’s involvement to the movie? It’s not tempering a nerd’s hunger like mine to find out but after you see the film’s last and final trailer of what supposes to be Raimi and Co.’s last film together, although there are a few more zeros that could make anyone’s bad back a little more nimble, there just isn’t any way to try and grasp exactly what the focal point is of the film.
The devil is in the details; let’s hope that it’s there on the screen.
2. I usually don’t run these sort of things in this space but I received this and thought some of you out there would enjoy this press release. To be honest, I am a wicked huge fan of videos like this. I mean, seriously, just click this link and watch it. Watch it. But one of the things that I would find most compelling on sites that rely on 3rd party content, when you’re trying to wade through the R-Kelly, lip-syncing 13 year-olds or young men trying to act out “It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time” in various forms of dress, are perhaps the more meaningful ways in which user-generated content seeks to say something instead of being something. I can’t say with any degree of certainty whether this site below will be able to be the next gen in what could perhaps be the next evolution but it did catch my eye and I wanted to pass it along for your perusal.
DUO TAKE REALITY TO ANOTHER REALM WITH LAUNCH OF
New Portal Goes Live In April Bringing Real Life Stories to the Web
San Francisco, CA April 12, 2007 – Italian businessmen Arturo Artom and Luca Ferrero have found the perfect name for their new portal based biographical video blog. YOUR TRUMAN SHOW. The site, which goes live in April, will put real life on line, hosting original stories and vignettes following people’s lives and allow viewers to interact with the content, rating those stories they watch. It’s a unique twist in content development for user-generated sites as YOUR TRUMAN SHOW is not reliant on third party copyrighted material to help perpetuate its audience, but solely on the creativity of its own users within the internet community.
The massive engine required to handle the interactive content ambitions of YOUR TRUMAN SHOW will be based in San Francisco , where it was designed by founder Luca Ferrero and his technical team.
Arturo Artom, who raised the initial capital funding from both ltaly and the U.S, is rewarded as one among the most innovative Italian entrepreneurs. A pioneer in the new generation telecom business, in the early ’90s he was the first in Italy to challenge the teclo monopolist. Artom also founded Netsystem, which is now the European leader in the ADSL via satellite technology, and, recently, launched a new intelligent lighting system company, Muvis, that quickly became an international case study.
In the wake of recent lawsuits by media giants against other sites in the same vein, YOUR TRUMAN SHOW was determined to find a way to bring people together for the user experience that new generations are craving. Gen X and Gen Y audiences are now the driving force within the internet space and are consumption ambitious. The original “real†content in YOUR TRUMAN SHOW will offer audiences a way to connect and network, as well as relate to situations that may be applicable in their own lives. It will contain everything from stories about a recent job loss to a couple in crisis to the shy guy in search of the right woman and the first portal to allow video bloggers to tell their experiences on line.
YOUR TRUMAN SHOW founders Artom and Ferrero stated, “People today are entranced by what happens in other people’s lives and reality television has become a phenomenon. Equally, the internet has provided a means to reach millions, sharing personal stories, pictures, communications, home-made videos and user-generated content. The idea behind our site is simple in that it links communities together globally, providing a glimpse into people’s lives and the chance to interact with that material on a personal level. It’s almost like a permanent “Big Brother†composed of thousands of little brothersâ€. Participants and viewers will engage in the interactive site, voting for their favorite video blog and developing stories based on others experiences. The potential to spin the most popular and interesting into other delivery platforms is enormous as content remains king, whether on television or as theatrical motion pictures.
Negotiations are currently in place with a media company to lock such deals in place.
After I read this, I got curious.
I’m painfully sick of those who plant their demo reel on YouTube, Lonely Girl 15 springs to mind awfully quick, and asked what this site was going to do to set itself apart from all the other video sharing locations that are springing up like Starbucks all over the Internet.
This was the response regarding what Your Truman Show.com really is:
Basically this website is YouTube meets a host like MySpace. As you know, on YouTube one can watch different videos, rate them using a 5 star system and make comments, but it’s not a blog-centric site. MySpace is great because you can post videos and have links that go to your blog page/sites if you have one – but it’s not a universal platform for everyone to participate in – its only for invited friends.
Your Truman Show is YouTube with a video-blog platform which doesn’t exist anywhere else on such a large scale. The creator, Arturo Artom is aiming to bring 1 million lives together in 1 single environment. As you can see from the attachments, YTS has a very unique rating system, that rates not just the videos themselves, but people’s actual lives – from the dramatic, to the comedic, romantic, interesting etc…
Arturo compares YTS with other websites that you search for best hotels, best restaurants etc by looking at someone’s comments & reviews on the website…well YTS is similar in that it will have reviews and comments on people’s lives but also be the point of reference for all video-bloggers on the net.
YTS has numerous possibilities of outreach to millions of unique users. Any person can put their lives up for display, be rated, possibly highlighted, moved to the homepage where their unique life/story could be used as a powerful marketing tool, possibly for fame, or a job, anything.
Consider me hooked on the idea. I think reality, true reality, and, yes, I do realize what happens when you turn life’s lens in on itself. It’s kind of a watched pot never boils kind of thing. However, as with any endeavor you really are sorting the wheat from the chaff anyhow. If you get some shining stars in there then I think a more personal, less nut shot oriented, site like this stands a chance to be something more than it is.
MR. WOODCOCK (2007)
Director: Craig Gillespie
Cast: Seann William Scott, Billy Bob Thornton, Susan Sarandon, Ethan Suplee, Amy Poehler, Emily Wagner, Evan Helmuth
Release: October 26, 2007
Synopsis: Seann William Scott stars as John Farley, a self-help author who returns to his hometown only to discover that his mother (Sarandon) has fallen in love with his old high school nemesis, Mr. Woodcock (Thornton) – the gruff, no-nonsense gym teacher who had put him through years of mental and physical humiliation. Determined to prevent history from repeating itself, John sets out to stop his mother from marrying the man who had made life miserable for him and his classmates.
View Trailer:
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Prognosis: Negative. Billy.
Billy, Billy, Billy. Billy Bob. Bill-a-rino.
What is up with these choices of yours? Did you buy a Twister set at Kay-B-Toys, throw away the petroleum-based game pad, keep the fun dial and just start putting absurd “acting†choices based on what big ticket item you want to buy with the paycheck you’re going to get alongside winner ideas like THE ASTRO-NOT-GONNA-SEE-IT-ANYWAY FARMER? Is it really that simple to figure out the calculus of your methodical madness?
I think it is.
You see, when you open up into a movie like this, Bill is just trying to channel that R. Lee Ermey spirit in which no one, really, has ever been able to co-opt in a way that rivals the original. It’s almost painful to watch Thornton just play the part of the sadistic gym coach. He should have learned THAT role from the masterful artist who perfected that one, a man he just acted alongside in FARMER, Marshall Bell, when he donned that leather outfit in NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2; scary shit all the way around, people.
Anyway, we get it. Thornton is a mean dude and Seann William Scott is the victim in this viscous circle only to, ta-da, be well-adjusted years later only to, ta-da, confront those same moments when we finds out, ta-da, Thornton is about to be his new step dad.
I wanted to try and actually find something amusing about how obnoxiously well-paid someone got for writing this pile of warm dung but it wasn’t until Billy Bob plundered the Matt Dillon funniness of THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY when he ranted about “retards†that really made me feel like high-fiving that blood rocking hipster. I mean I wish I could chose to do a flick where all I had to do was be an asshole and get paid for it but since I don’t have the ability to just call-in a few weeks of work, or be asked to participate in a scene where I get to beat Scott up with a bat and then give an off-the-wall, not to mention devoid of anything remotely amusing, answer as to why I did it, I just have to stand in awe of the man’s intelligence in figuring this whole game out.
Ethan Suplee, last seen rocking my face off in THE FOUNTAIN, Sean William Scott and Amy Poehler, a woman who was great in the Upright Citizens Brigade but lost some of that bite with SNL, all make great cases why they’re good to look at in a movie like this but I can’t find a single reason, apart from the treadmill gag, I preferred the hotness of that Gillette ad with the lady eating it or the Jackass crew setting the standard for anything involving pain and exercise equipment .
As it stands, this film doesn’t look like anything remotely resembling a comedy for me and I sure don’t want to assist Billy in financing that new yacht that, if WILD HOGS is any indication, the rest of you will.
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Cast: Konstantin Khabensky, Vladimir Menshov, Valery Zolotukhin, Maria Poroshina, Galina Tunina, Victor Verzhbitsky, Dima Martynov
Release: June 1, 2007
Synopsis: Featuring the cinematic vision of cutting-edge Director/Writer Timur Bekmambetov, DAY WATCH (DNEVNOI DOZOR) is the next installment in the best-selling sci-fi novels of Sergei Lukyanenko. When the previous installment, NIGHT WATCH (NOCHNOI DOZOR), was released in its native Russia in July 2004, it became an instant smash hit breaking all film gross records in post-Soviet history. A dazzling mix of state-of-the-art visual effects, amazing action sequences, and nail-biting horror set in contemporary Moscow, DAY WATCH (DNEVNOI DOZOR) revolves around the conflict and balance maintained between the forces of light and darkness — the result of a medieval truce between the opposing sides..
View Trailer:
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Prognosis: Positive. Horses going through brick walls?
Hell yeah.
I am not really a fan of equines, I think they’re just big dogs that people with too much money think are great to keep as pets, but when used in the correct action sequences they are pretty to look at. INDIANA JONES, LORD OF THE RINGS, 300, the list could be populated with good uses of these Great Danes with hooves. The beginning of this trailer gets my attention, and throttles it for all its worth, for incorporating them into the bullshit story of the forces of light and dark and blah blah blah.
You can’t help but admire the composition of the snowy landscape as we all walk into this world without any real knowledge of what we’re looking at. The blizzard-like fury blowing against the lone Alamo evokes desolation but the voiceover that we’re privy to helps to bring us all up to the correct speed.
Regardless of what this story is really dealing with, I haven’t a clue who is the warrior of light or dark here and could really care less, it’s the Asian horse jockey who runs straight into the fortress armed with ninjas that really turn up the amplitude.
People getting knocked in the face, guys laying down their enemies with samurai swords in slow-mo, the all out battle royale that cumulates into the transition to contemporary Russia is rather smooth. I still don’t know what’s really what but it’s nice to look at.
Absurdity follows, in such a big way, when dudes are running through subway trains, faces are falling off, people are recoiling through doors after getting some shoe leather in their chest and then, without so much as an explanation, some bearded Viking guy shows up in full chain mail and starts whipping around a broad blade. What the fuck?
Now, about at this point we get that it’s all about some piece of white chalk. I don’t know what this chalk is supposed to do but, who cares, when you have guys leaping into mini-mall directories only to disappear and then emerge in basements. You’ve got guys walking through barren wastelands, you got a guy with glowing red eyes and enough special effects to make you wonder if this movie cost more than the GDP of the country that seems to enjoy killing its critics in the media.
I don’t care what your response is to this trailer but you have to, just have to, give it up to the effect and moment where the guy stops a bus with his body; the physics of it just seem perfect as does the wicked awesome power slide of the car that spins out on the vertical face of a building.
ПревоÑходно!
I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK & LARRY (2007)
Director: Dennis Dugan
Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Dan Aykroyd
Release: July 20, 2007
Synopsis: Adam Sandler (Click) and Kevin James (Hitch) team as two straight guys who stumble down the aisle with the best of intentions in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Chuck Levine (Sandler) and Larry Valentine (James) are the pride of their fire station: two guy’s guys always side-by-side and willing to do anything for each other. Salt-of-the-earth widower Larry wants just one thing: to protect his family. His buddy Chuck also wants one thing: to enjoy the single life. Grateful Chuck owes Larry for saving his life in a fire, and Larry calls in that favor big time when civic red tape prevents him from naming his own two kids as his life insurance beneficiaries. All that Chuck has to do is claim to be Larry’s domestic partner on some city forms. Easy. Nobody will ever know.
But when an overzealous, spot-checking bureaucrat becomes suspicious, the new couple’s arrangement becomes a citywide issue and goes from confidential to front-page news. Forced to improvise as love-struck newlyweds, Chuck and Larry must now fumble through a hilarious charade of domestic bliss under one roof. After surviving their mandatory honeymoon and dodging the threat of exposure, the well-intentioned con men discover that sticking together in your time of need is what truly makes a family.
View Trailer:
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Prognosis: Negative. Here’s an actual novel idea: Why not create a movie that would deal with a gay man who actually has to act like a straight man and exist in a straight world?
You know, you could actually objectify straight men and the rampant homophobia and feelings about the gay community as one of their own tries to integrate himself for some flimsy reason? I would want to see that movie but, for some reason, I can’t imagine that a=]n hour and a half of homophobic jokes and set-ups could be worth any bit of my time.
I can’t help but feel insulted right off the bat by the overtly racist representation of an Asian by Rob Schneider. I know it’s a joke but why do we have to have the Charlie Chan wannabe as the officiant for the gay wedding between Sandler and James? I can’t explain it but it’s distracting to the point of bothersome.
At the point where the two are to kiss, and this of course being a comedy, we get Sandler smacking James because, you know, kissing him would probably be “faggy.†And, really, I would be fine with that. I don’t hold myself up as some moral authority but it’s just gauche in every way.
Also, when we establish that this marriage is a sham just to take advantage of the pension system of the city’s fire department it’s just insulting to reiterate the point, again, just in case the folks in Peoria didn’t catch it a few seconds prior. But this is par for this Frisbee golf course, I guess, when some representative of the city drops by to talk about their domestic partnership and causes James to completely and totally lose his shit while on a ladder and physically causes him to lose all motor functions, tumbling down to the ground, Griswold CHRISTMAS VACTION style. Slapstick this isn’t.
Oh, and then we get Jessica Biel. This marriage was supposed to be so important to these two idiots that the trailer has them thrown into a tizzy when we see her bend over to get a file, her butt on full display, and Sandler is barely able to contain his heterosexuality because, ya know, whenever hotness bends over you gots to lose all self-control, right?
What follows is a lot of nonsense. I guess it’s supposed to make me want to see the movie, you’ve got a kid who mispronounces “homosexual†(How cute!), James tangles with a perfectly wrapped love doll (Whoa! How amusing!), and then you have the real touching moment where things get serious when Sandler just can’t leave his libido at the door as he tries to sex up Biel (Oh noes! They’ll get caught!).
Not to worry, though, as things get oh so funny again as Sandler is so idiotic, can you believe this, that he mistakes James’ boxers for a pillow case! John Candy would be proud that you could recreate the fat man’s undergarments joke in such a new way.
But, the best part of this trailer? Jessica Biel in her B&P, all wet, mincing around and her big jigglies just begging to be squished and motor boated. I think I replayed this moment a few times to see Biel in what some heterosexual geeks would label all her QuickTime gloriousness.
The way this movie leaves me, though, with the faux fight between Sandler and James, which I take it is supposed to be a real fight but somehow their gay fakery bleeds into their trying to be straight but their fight sounds like a fight between two gay men which, I suppose, if you think about it, is supposed to be all sorts of funny n’ shit. It’s just a lame attempt at humor and it is just not amusing.
Biel’s boobs, though, are well worth waiting to look at.
Director: Rob Zombie
Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Tyler Mane, Sheri Moon Zombie, William Forsythe, Ken Foree, Danielle Harris, Adrienne Barbeau, Clint Howard, Courtney Gains, Daryl Sabara, Brad Dourif, Udo Kier, Kristina Klebel, Daeg Faerch, Pat Skipper, Dee Wallace Stone
Release: August 31, 2007
Synopsis: Rob Zombie’s vision of this film is an entirely new take on the legend and will satisfy fans of the classic “Halloween” legacy while beginning a new chapter in the Michael Myers saga. This new movie will not only appeal to horror fans, but to a wider movie-going audience as well. It will not be a copycat of any prior films in the “Halloween” franchise.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Think Of It As A Work In Progress.
Note Bene: For reasons that string back to the MPAA’s long arm of the not-so-lawful they have removed the trailer from Yahoo! Movies for its strong content. Even though the proverbial and perennial Internet has made every argument about a cat in a bag being let out moot, the link here goes to YouTube where you can still enjoy what Rob’s intended. However, one weird fact remains: if the MPAA gave the green rubber stamp at the beginning of this trailer, it obviously deemed it innocuous enough to only Green Band it and not slap it with a Red one, then what the f is the big mo-funkin’ deal? Talk about the movie CAPTIVITY all you like and their lame billboard campaign but that still doesn’t excuse one organization’s inability to properly manage itself, causing others to have to buckle at their whim. Lame asses.
I would posit that the reason why so many late 90’s horror movies failed to be perennial bellwethers, apart from the crap writing, the crap acting and the real crap directing, is the use of modern techniques and technology.
To illustrate the point you can go right ahead and take a look at films like FINAL DESTINATION or I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, even the sinisterly bad H20, and see the modernity of modern cinema making the environments look like contemporary movie sets, the players look like they’re fresh from the latest Abercrombie and Fitch ad campaign and, worst of all, no real dedication to enhancing the scare factor beyond just superficial thrills.
HOSTEL, SAW and those who have seen a huge resurgence in the last few years have done well because they’re everything that the former films were not: gritty, scary and there was a dependence on solid storytelling, the spooky/fireside kind of storytelling, that has elevated the genre. Rob Zombie’s entry, the man who surprised a lot of people with the DEVIL’S REJECTS, has an especially good flavor as you get settled into his interpretation of Myers’ world.
While I do appreciate the playful eeriness of having the MGM logo and Dimension Films logo all moldy green, having the trailer appear to look like some decaying home movie, I am not all that thrilled with the voiceover that seems like a lazy attempt to contextualize what we’re seeing instead of having the film do it on its own.
It’s disappointing as well because we’re given some really creative clips, again, the home movie motif, against the backdrop of Michael’s initial rampage. And the rampage! Homeboy is shown slyly taking out a big ass pig sticker and then moves on to the gunmetal Louisville. His sister doesn’t know what’s coming and I’m fairly surprised we’re shown as much as we are. Wicked awesome.
I didn’t know Michael had such a lovely long blonde mane but I do like the catch-it-or-miss-it superimpose of what will eventually be his trademark pale mask but the set-up is absolutely perfect. It’s in, out and on its way to something else.
Now, what’s confusing about what follows after this is that, save for the fact that I know the answer because I’ve been reading about it, as a casual viewer I’m not sure if this movie is supposed to be a retelling of the first movie or if this is a different story altogether.
It doesn’t help that Voiceover Guy is yapping in my ear as the quick clips that we’re given are about as discordant as you could get. Someone is getting chased down the street, Meyers is carrying some dead body like it’s a noble prize, some lass gets yanked out from the passenger side of a car, Myers peeps some unsuspecting, nude lady and, to end it all, I have to admit I liked the quiet moment that’s broken up by some screaming woman (what is it with our collective delight in killing the ladies?) who tries to get away from Michael only to be pulled back into the house, door slamming shut behind them.
Good start but there is real room for improvement with regard to enhancing the scare factor.
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