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Sooo….I guess all that hulabaloo about the INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL pictures and all the Cease and Desist and all the requests to take down the information regarding one of the biggest “spoilers” isn’t so important after all.
I’ve seen some excellent digs at this poster. From pot shots at the greasy, mustachioed wierdness of Ray Winstone to the K-Mart PictureCenter quality pose that Karen Allen is giving to Shia LaBeouf’s inspired portrait-like quality that appears to be some cut scene from THE HEAVENLY KID. I’m frankly amazed that this is what we’ve been given from Drew Struzan, Lord of movie poster promotion. However, and this is a big however coming from me regarding the pimping of this film, Harrison Ford looks great.
Finally.
He doesn’t look overly Photoshopped like he did in the early incarnations of the promos but when you compare the two you wonder what went awry. Paramount clearly could have kept chugging along as normal with its rendering of the geezer but I honestly appreciate that Drew has been allowed to show Harrison’s age. It’s almost bittersweet that the guy who has been leading the charge for so many of these films, and please keep your comments to yourself if you want to be one of those contrarian bastards who want to say why INDIANA JONES films aren’t that great and that we’re all blinded by our halcyon days long gone by, has his age brutally shown in aged detail. I love it, though. It’s one of the best and most honest parts of the promotion of this film.
Something else, though, that everyone here should learn quickly, and why Bill Hicks was right: marketing departments are essentially Satan’s little helpers. All across the Intertubes there were take downs and people not reporting on the story about that alien like skull at the very center of the film’s poster. Seems so much work to get people to fall into lockstep with the controlled reporting on INDIANA’s fruition into a full-fledged film but I can understand why some noobs would fear the gummy teeth of retribution (i.e. no more scoops or exclusives. Something you never have to worry about seeing here) and buckle.
Me, I don’t really care that much but I have found that this movie has provided hours of entertainment to me ever since the loose lipped extra starting spilling plot points to a podunk publication. You’ve had a break in, a dirty deal in the releasing of photos from the set, the weird ass skull incident that launched so much fury and now I think it may finally be coming to an end.
It would be great to finally move on to something new but as long as there are weeks before the film’s opening I can hopefully be assured there should be something equally as bizarre as anything above that will reaffirm my belief that there is nothing more entertaining than a marketing department trying to control the message.
Director: David Ayer
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Chris Evans, Hugh Laurie
Release: April 11, 2008
Synopsis: In STREET KINGS, a police thriller directed by David Ayer, Keanu Reeves plays Tom Ludlow, a veteran LAPD Vice Detective. Ludlow sets out on a quest to discover the killers of his former partner, Detective Terrance Washington (Terry Crews). Academy® Award winner Forest Whitaker plays Captain Wander, Ludlow’s supervisor, whose duties include keeping him within the confines of the law and out of the clutches of Internal Affairs Captain Biggs (Hugh Laurie). Ludlow teams up with a young Robbery Homicide Detective (Chris Evans) to track Washington’s killers through the diverse communities of Los Angeles. Their determination pays off when the two Detectives track down Washington’s murderers and confront them in an attempt to bring them to justice.
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Prognosis: Negative. I remember my youth when the exposure to life outside of my lily-white suburbs, and what was really happening inside the downtrodden ghettoes of inner cities like Los Angeles and even my own series of projects within Chicago, films like BOYZ N THE HOOD and MENACE II SOCIETY and even COLORS made an impression on me. To see what was happening to a class of people that had been largely ignored by mainstream films, save for the occasional exploitation flick, started my sociological interest in the inequities of things.
This film is going to do none of that.
Well, maybe it will do a little to show what’s happening still within many communities but it certainly begins with a swift introduction.
The hip-hop beat that starts the trailer is what should grab a lot of attentions, to say nothing of the dissociated clips that blend quite nicely; you’ve got a little gangbanging, some cop funeral which is going to play well into Keanu’s “street rage†and, Lordy, we’ve got Common. Common was without question, without a doubt, without a second’s pause, the best thing next to Ryan Reynold’s performance.
Common genuinely elevates what could easily be a tired and played out role and gives us a sneak peek of what could be a masterful role.
We segue into an explanation from Voiceover Guy, he holds back thankfully, about what the crux of this movie is going to be about and it’s a little blend of Forest and Keanu that, again, get my attention. Where we could have something like HARSH TIMES there is a genuine departure from that movie’s obvious shortcomings in its trailer and we have something more kinetic and exciting.
Cops working their own side of the law, shootouts, gun running, car chases, all things, which, again, could go either way it is a nice touch to see the words “From the Writer and Director of TRAINING DAYâ€. Nothing seems like it’s done out of need to make this movie seem more than it is but with the exception of a Keanu pun that deserved to be put on the cutting room floor up until this point it’s the kind of film that made TRAINING DAY a gem.
True, cops hustling on the street, good guys who act like bad guys, it seems to ring fairly hollow when you list the number of movies that have come after films like TRAINING DAY or MENACE or HOOD and have horribly fucked the genre up for everyone else who have made dime store copies of these films but there just FEELS like something else going on here.
What’s more, the scene at the end was really good insofar that when Keanu and Chris Evans (a guy who deserves a little more than he has gotten as of late) chat about what and who they’re going to kill before running into a house full of thuggery it’s really surprising to see Reeves take the bad ass lead. A real departure, a movie which seems full of it.
Director: Jessica Yu
Cast: Hans-Joachim Klein, Mark Salzman
Release: Out now on Netflix
Synopsis: Four disparate lives intertwine with surprising results in this absorbing documentary, an official selection of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. A German terrorist, a bank robber, an “ex-gay” evangelist and a martial arts student form the unlikely quartet. In her interweaving narrative, Oscar-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu explores parallels between human life and the formal dramatic structure of the Greek tragedian Euripides.
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Prognosis: Positive. To start, I cannot express how informative and memorable Sociology 363: Sociology of Men and Masculinity, taught by Stephen Kulis, Ph.D., was to take at Arizona State University when I was an undergrad. It was a class in what I can only describe as a roadmap for what it is to be a man in America. From bravado to machismo to homosexuality it was a class that taught me what society seems as acceptable in the realm of the male.
I didn’t realize it at first when I saw this trailer but I was engrossed when I saw it.
Actually, I think I was moments from turning away from this trailer until I got the thread that was connecting everything. This preview seems to be an exercise in having completely divergent stories share a commonality, without ever mentioning it, but while I don’t really understand where we’re going at the beginning this is a trailer that deserves some attention.
“What makes a man a hero?â€
Yeah, this is where I rolled my eyes too. Believe me no matter how good the content is inside I still take umbrage with this rhetorical line of questioning. It’s a bit goofy, really. The music, as well, it sounding like Jason is going to jump out of the woods at any moment to chop someone’s head off, is an odd soundtrack.
The puppets, though, give me pause. What’s the deal with the wooden dolls? I have no idea but it’s about that time when we get introduced to a bank robber, Joe Loya. Joe narrates his own story of how his violent dad received his comeuppance at the hands of his boy and how, after he was done with him, went out looking for a bigger score.
We’re whisked away to Mark Pierpont, a preacher, with a rather ribald secret: he was gay. I know, no big surprise in this time of these things, no pun intended, coming out on a weekly basis, but it’s Mark’s brief reflection on himself that’s so insightful.
Hans-Joachim Klein is a terrorist. Even though he seems to be German, we won’t hold that against him, the kraut, it is utterly fascinating to listen to how one gets their start in being a part of radicalism and, eventually, violence against people. It’s a story I know I’ll want to listen to intently.
Then we get Mark Salzman. He likes to kick ass. He talked about being beat up in school and coming upon a man who taught martial arts. The rest, as they say, is history but he seems to be the most well rounded of the bunch.
We get the Official Selection of Sundance logo and then are treated to all four of these dudes giving us snippets of what their inner struggles were made of before we’re launched into deeper exploration of these men.
Joe talks about how many times he’s robbed banks and how he loved the feeling of injecting the sense of terror into people.
Stick in quotes from the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly. Quickly, you can gather from a very broad scope that this is a movie about men and what it means to be a man.
These narratives are all coalescing into something uniform and, I think, this is what makes this trailer such a stand out in its field; you have divergent people but there is one thread that under everything these men say they are and that is the sense there is regret and sorrow in each of their stories.
It would be so easy to see this as a simple exercise in documentary filmmaking but when was the last film that came out as a treatise on masculinity? It may not seem like much but it’s a topic long overdue for a serious examination.
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Cast: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terrance Stamp, Common
Release: June 27, 2008
Synopsis: Based upon Mark Millar’s explosive graphic novel series and helmed by stunning visualist director Timur Bekmambetov—creator of the most successful Russian film franchise in history, the Night Watch series—Wanted tells the tale of one apathetic nobody’s transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice. In 2008, the world will be introduced to a hero for a new generation: Wesley Gibson.
25-year-old Wes (James McAvoy) was the most disaffected, cube-dwelling drone the planet had ever known. His boss chewed him out hourly, his girlfriend ignored him routinely and his life plodded on interminably. Everyone was certain this disengaged slacker would amount to nothing. There was little else for Wes to do but wile away the days and die in his slow, clock-punching rut. Until he met a woman named Fox (Angelina Jolie). After his estranged father is murdered, the deadly sexy Fox recruits Wes into the Fraternity, a secret society that trains Wes to avenge his dad’s death by unlocking his dormant powers. As she teaches him how to develop lightning-quick reflexes and phenomenal agility, Wes discovers this team lives by an ancient, unbreakable code: carry out the death orders given by fate itself. With wickedly brilliant tutors—including the Fraternity’s enigmatic leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman)—Wes grows to enjoy all the strength he ever wanted. But, slowly, he begins to realize there is more to his dangerous associates than meets the eye. And as he wavers between newfound heroism and vengeance, Wes will come to learn what no one could ever teach him: he alone controls his destiny.
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Prognosis: Positive. Anything goes at this point, I suppose.
I understand that Mark Millar is a comic genius. He writes some of the best funny books this side of Brian Michael Bendis (Fortune and Glory needs to be made into a short film if nothing else). I also understand that this genre of turning comics into films, of toying with the convention of the superhero thanks in part to HANCOCK, SUPERHERO MOVIE and the like, is really the bread and butter for many a suit in the air conditioned confines of some Hollywood studios. But, really, Angelina Jolie as a bad ass?
Yeah, that could work.
For all their grumbling that the anatomically challenged “artist†Rob Liefeld can’t possibly understand that men were not born with 10 packs and that Cable could never posses a bicep that is bigger than his skull, Jolie’s big boobness actually jives with the horny predisposition that many comic readers have always silently embraced while publicly eschewing the practice.
I initially wanted to scoff at using Angelina here in this film as someone who could be the titular (every pun intended) character of a comic book that really tried to work against convention. Isn’t the irony fabulous? She is the walking reason why some dweebs would pay to see this movie and I cannot think of anyone else more appropriate of the role for Wesley. He’s meek, a little nebbish and genuinely looks like a normal sap who is sucked into this world of intrigue.
The trailer explodes with the kind of zeal that I would have usually reserved for the INDIANA JONES trailer but since this one looks like a little bit more packed with action, as Angelina helps to quickly establish many pieces to this film’s synopsis, I buy into it. Even as she delivers one of the most painful lines written for a human being to utter, “Your father was one of the greatest assassins that ever livedâ€, her gun play and expression as she tries to deliver a believable kill shot is priceless. And, seriously, Morgan Freeman saying about the kid’s father and his ability to handle a gun “he could conduct a symphony orchestra with it†is equally as awful on the ears.
Bad dialog aside it is McAvoy’s sheepishness that’s refreshing to watch. Seeing the gun clip fall out of a pistol he’s trying to handle lends a little humanity to a film that seems like it’s about to get a little more violent.
And we get that.
It’s an interesting premise to put out there, to those who don’t know the story, that this kid is sucked up from a life most people lead and it’s the perfect way to set things in motion. For as long as there have been superhero comics there has been the convention that here is a kid, here is something extraordinary, here kid meets extraordinary and here comes a bad ass. We all love and embrace the idea of the big black helicopters landing in out backyard and some swarthy European dressed in a finely tailored suit letting us know that we are free from our ordinary lives of bondage. This trailer sets all that in motion and coveys it all without saying too much.
Freeman’s voiceover that McAvoy is going to release his own “caged wolfâ€, again, is fucking painful to hear in that sort of obnoxious way that only absurd action movie dialog can be but the visuals are really something else. We’ve got car antics, sweet one shots from the driver seat, some dude shatters some high rise pane of glass with his face on his way out of it, with McAvoy displaying some of his double gun “skillz†as he crashes though a window of his own.
While I can’t forgive the really horrible choice of words in this thing (Mark definitely made a better product that wasn’t this cringe-y) the action on the screen is really well presented and I cannot wait to see the final product.
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