Instead of manning-up and actually going the emotionally hard route of being outrightly rejected by publishers, I’m rejecting them first and allowing you to give my entire book a preview, let you read the whole thing or, if you like, download the whole damn thing at no cost. Download and read my first book “Thank You, Goodnight†for FREE.
Before I launch into the mess of Comic-Con coverage that I have brought back with me, and as other people unleash their loads from the event in a spray without regard to any kind of context, I wanted to squeeze a few trailer reviews into this space.
This week marks the first time I was able to catch the NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN trailer and I cannot believe it took me this long to feel this movie’s flavor. While the title is a little thick to swallow I was absolutely taken by how much the movie looks like it’s the Coens back to their old tried and true ways. It’s one thing to bring the noise against these guys for films like LADYKILLERS, saying that they lost something along their way, but just looking at the trailer and nothing else you’ve got to admit there could be some kind of good-will offered as Javier Bardem slithers across the screen.
One movie I did see and have to absolutely make sure I make my opinion known about is SUPERBAD. Starting next week this movie is one that just has to be seen to be believed. While I won’t really get into a compare and contrast, SAT style, argument as to why I believe that KNOCKED UP really is not quite deserving of the title of greatest-est comedy of the summer I can give that honor to SUPERBAD. Infused with the kind of adolescent frivolity and sailor blue language I can definitely relate to the movie is an absolute raucous affair. From McLovin to the HOUSE PARTY style cops (read here: inept, a smidge racist and completely crazy) that made that hip-hop production one of my Top 10 of all time the movie just does not disappoint even as the movie strays into some unbelievable territory in the 3rd act. You cannot go wrong for a mid-August release when the landscape is littered with stink bombs that studios dump like it was a temporal landfill in need of crap films.
Director: Mike Akel
Cast: Troy Schremmer, Jannelle Schremmer, Shannon Haragan
Release: Coming to a film festival near you Synopsis: In the comedic style of The Office and the films of Christopher Guest, Chalk is a spirited portrait of life in the trenches of that most honorable and frustrating profession…teaching. It’s the start of a memorable new year at Harrison High. The self-conscious Mr. Stroope is convinced that his time has come–this year he will be furnished with the golden title of “Teacher of the Year”, if only his smarter students would stop using words that he can’t understand. Peek into Mr. Lowrey’s History class and you’ll see that he’s struggling to even call himself a teacher. Woefully inept due to a complete lack of experience and social skills, he earnestly stutters his way through class. The only interaction his students offer him is when they steal his chalk. Men aren’t much interested in the spunky and officious Coach Webb, but “not all P.E. teachers are gay” and she pines for some romantic company. Her once best friend, the newly appointed assistant principal, Mrs. Reddell, doesn’t seem to have time for her either, as her new power post is all-consuming; battling egos, enduring teacher conferences and her lighthouse-obsessed boss. Coach Webb wonders if her former confidante has forgotten just how hard teaching really is. Director Mike Akel provides a rare and realistic teacher’s perspective into the absurd, provocative, and occasionally volatile world of public education. In a country where 50% of teachers quit within the first three years, CHALK delivers an enormous dose of heart, hilarity, and hope for America’s most important institution.
View Trailer:
* Large (YouTube)
Prognosis: Positive. When I graduated with my Master’s in Adult Education and Distance Learning I had dreams of being able to shape young minds at a collegiate level. I loved the idea of presenting ways in which to correlate literature with the human experience, no matter what decade or century the work was created. Timelessness, that was going to be my approach.
Then I saw the pay scale.
Thanks to my secondary abilities I have since held my educational dreams at bay if for the only reason than I could never hope to maximize the amount of money I could make and this trailer just puts that out there.
From the start we’re blasted with the starting pay for a teacher: roughly 30g’s. It’s pathetic but it’s the teacher who’s couched behind a piano we’ve all been exposed to, that orange-ish ghetto model that was never in tune, and is belting out her own ditty to the beat of “The Safety Dance.†It’s bizarre and funny at the same time.
Quickly, we’re inside a classroom where we get the daily chaos we expect these modern day saints to endure. Just as fast we’re sitting down with an assistant principal who explains the guilty verdict against the person who used to hold her position and, for an independent film, it’s obviously clear we’re going the faux verite route. Yes, it’s been done a few times before but no one’s explored the world of the public school system and it’s intriguing.
“Number of public school teachers: 3.066,270…Number of public school students: 48,369,740â€
What’s of note here isn’t so much about the explosiveness of the trailer but the way in which it’s put together. We get to know some of the people who inhabit this world, the attitudinal maladjusted teacher, the gym teacher who everyone thinks is gay and the teacher who likes to shoot guns in order to relieve “stress.â€
“50% of all teachers quit within the first 3 years.â€
What becomes apparent is the various ways in which these teachers deal with the pressures that causes so many to leave within the first three years, the critical moments when they either see if they’ve got it for life or have enough of it before it gets too late.
And I have to point out, for anyone who can understand, the bit at the end where the teacher with a really bad attitude starts querying the students in his class as to the whereabouts of his chalk not only strikes a nostalgic vein from SUMMER SCHOOL but I can see these little minions of Satan’s underworld actually doing it in real life now; it’s no longer a bit but a full-fledged possible reality in which we live today.
What’s more about this trailer is the very end when one of the teachers declares, “I wish I had the guts to leave.†This not only hits a comedic chord but it also feels very real when you think back to your own youthful days remembering the moments when you were stuck with a teacher who you knew was not only completely inept but tragically stuck in a position they just couldn’t leave.
Director: James Mangold
Cast: Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol, Dallas Roberts, Ben Foster, Vinessa Shaw, Johnny Whitworthn
Release: October 5, 2007
Synopsis: In Arizona in the late 1800’s, infamous outlaw Ben Wade (Crowe) and his vicious gang of thieves and murderers have plagued the Southern Railroad. When Wade is captured, Civil War veteran Dan Evans (Christian Bale), struggling to survive on his drought-plagued ranch, volunteers to deliver him alive to the “3:10 to Yuma”, a train that will take the killer to trial. On the trail, Evans and Wade, each from very different worlds, begin to earn each other’s respect. But with Wade’s outfit on their trail – and dangers at every turn – the mission soon becomes a violent, impossible journey toward each man’s destiny.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Positive. For some, the answer is: Everything but country.
When asked what kind of music I like I usually resort to the answer above and then expound on the motifs and tropes of daddy hitting mama on the farm, wife leaving in the middle of the night, ol’ huntin’ dog being run over by your Ford-350 and that’s usually where I leave my feelings about country music.
You can’t get away from what the old west used to be and the trappings that went with it, the lifestyle, the pathos, the way Deadwood tried to capture it but I’ve always resorted to tossing Westerns in the sack with the kinds of films I would opt to watch last if ever given the chance to view something else. I haven’t seen DANCES WITH WOLVES, TOMBSTONE, UNFORGIVEN and scads of other horse-drawn classics just for the sheer nature of the world I am usually going to land in but this film feels different. It looks different.
Mangold made me a believer in the musical genre with WALK THE LINE and it feels here like he’s trying to spin something new that has old for far too long.
The opening sequence here is off-putting. The zig-zagging camera angles and use of black screen seem almost too much until you realize that there is a real sense of badness conveyed in the actions of Russell “I’ve Never Met A Phone I Didn’t Like…Or Mind Shattering On Some Bloke’s Skull†Crowe. There’s actually some momentum created in the act of the old time stick-up and the appearance of Christian Bale who feels like a genuine figure in his own right.
I’m not quite sure I get the reason or why Bale volunteers to bring the man to the, wait for it, 3:10 to Yuma, or why the hell Yuma of all places. I’ve been through Yuma, you can get some kick ass oranges and produce up in that piece, holmes. Regardless of the vegetable situation in that area I am stumped at why this train ride is so important but, nonetheless, there is a sense of trepidation about this prisoner transfer and Russell can’t help but be himself as he flashes that too good to be true Zoom Whitening smile when the idea of him getting away now becomes a possibility.
The mix in with Bale’s kid tagging along in an “Aw, shucks†sort of way, and this will obviously become a contentious issue when and if the kid gets shot, I put money on the fact he will, seems little forced and doesn’t make me more anxious to find out what happens next.
What does, though, make me want to know more is when we see the marauders, Russell’s old crew on the horizon as they plan to set their master free. The chaos that follows is what absolutely gets my attention.
There seems to be an emphasis in this trailer on the violent standoff that happens at the end, the falling off roofs is something I can relate to with all too nauseating clarity from all the faux western towns in this hell hole of a state I live in, and the guitar A-chord that’s struck doesn’t inspire true confidence but Mangold has bought my goodwill with WALK and there seems like a sliver’s chance that there’s something more to this film than just rolling tumbleweed.
.
Director: Joel Coen
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Stephen Root
Release: November 21, 2007
Synopsis: Based on the Cormac McCarthy’s novel “Old Men”, the story begins when Llewelyn Moss (Brolin) finds a pickup truck surrounded by a sentry of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law – in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell (Jones) – can contain. As Moss tries to evade his pursuers – in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives (Bardem) – the film simultaneously strips down the American crime drama and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Positively Black. Funny thing about the Coen’s.
When they released RAISING ARIZONA in 1987 it wasn’t until it made its way to HBO before I ever came upon anything they’ve done theatrically. Most people remember the oddest things when they’re kids but I remember being 12 and being utterly enamored in not only their vibe, I instantly “got†their method of storytelling, but in the nuances that have made more hits than misses. I remember thinking that wherever in hell Tempe, Arizona was, the stated location for country lockup for H.I. McDunnough, that it must have been a barren wasteland of a few QuickTrips and home to the most hideous grocery store ever created. Who knew that I would someday move there and graduate from that fine city with a college degree? What I can be certain of, though, is that I can see the very same sense of place and time in this trailer that I did in ARIZONA.
“What’s the most you’ve ever lost on a coin toss?â€
This trailer crackles with nuance and spatial permanence from the very moment Javier Bardem drawls across the screen. His voice scratches just slightly and the environment that’s interposed against it just quakes with desolation and isolation. What so many people in marketing camps all over Los Angeles vie for, garnering interest from people in their film, this trailer just achieves by setting a mood and letting it unspool like a fist of yarn.
I completely get what this movie is about and I didn’t need a voiceover to tell me. The film has a catchy premise, it’s so easy to understand that I can’t see how you can’t fall in love with the notion right from the start, especially how the car explosion mid-way through this thing lets you know we are not in FARGO country.
The tension is there, right in front of us, and as Javier chokes a man on a tile floor with his eyes crazed like a fox I am struck by how much idiosyncrasy this movie has but how that odd-ness translates into my buy-in that this is a very real place and a very real story.
I can believe fully in the quickening near the end that this movie is more of a cat and mouse thriller, that’s how it’s being sold, but I cannot help but see that what’s really at stake in this movie is not how much I believe that these people exist but that the Coen’s have found their way back after a string of detestable films that not even a die-hard could let pass as acceptable.
Having Javier end this thing in a creepy pose in a creepy chair in a creepy room? Brilliant. I haven’t seen one frame of this movie and already I’m afraid for my own life with this guy nearby.
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