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SANCTUM and THE MECHANIC – Advance Screenings
I haven’t heard anything about these films.
Whether the buzz is great, whether the buzz is tepid, I couldn’t tell you. That’s exactly why I’m looking forward to sending some of you guinea pigs to see the latest from Jason Statham on Tuesday, January 25th at 7 p.m. at Harkins Tempe Martketplace and then on February 1st at 7 p.m. at Harkins Tempe Marketplace as well.
It’ll be a 2 for 1 if you like or, if you so choose, you can pick one or the other. Either way, you’ll be seeing either the latest from the brawniest Englishman this side of the Atlantic or the latest creation blessed by the wizard himself, James Cameron. Either way, you ought to be able and enjoy something from these and if you’re interested in catching them shoot me a line at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com and I’ll give you all the details. But for those of you who want to get their tickets now to see The Mechanic next week by all means head over right now to Gofobo.com, or click this link, and enter code: FREDM2
Good luck!
About the films:
THE MECHANIC SYNOPSIS:
Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham) is a ‘mechanic’ – an elite assassin with a strict code and unique talent for cleanly eliminating targets. It’s a job that requires professional perfection and total detachment, and Bishop is the best in the business. But when his mentor and close friend Harry (Donald Sutherland) is murdered, Bishop is anything but detached. His next assignment is self-imposed – he wants those responsible dead. His mission grows complicated when Harry’s son Steve (Ben Foster) approaches him with the same vengeful goal and a determination to learn Bishop’s trade. Bishop has always acted alone but he can’t turn his back on Harry’s son. A methodical hit man takes an impulsive student deep into his world and a deadly partnership is born. But while in pursuit of their ultimate mark, deceptions threaten to surface and those hired to fix problems become problems themselves.
THE MECHANIC opens on Friday, January 28th!
SANCTUM SYNOPSIS:
The 3-D action-thriller Sanctum, from executive producer James Cameron, follows a team of underwater cave divers on a treacherous expedition to the largest, most beautiful and least accessible cave system on Earth. When a tropical storm forces them deep into the caverns, they must fight raging water, deadly terrain and creeping panic as they search for an unknown escape route to the sea.
Master diver Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) has explored the South Pacific’s Esa-ala Caves for months. But when his exit is cut off in a flash flood, Frank’s team—including 17-year-old son Josh (Rhys Wakefield) and financier Carl Hurley (Ioan Gruffudd)—are forced to radically alter plans. With dwindling supplies, the crew must navigate an underwater labyrinth to make it out. Soon, they are confronted with the unavoidable question: Can they survive, or will they be trapped forever?
Shot on location off the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, Sanctum employs 3-D photography techniques Cameron developed to lens Avatar. Designed to operate in extreme environments, the technology used to shoot the action-thriller will bring audiences on a breathless journey across plunging cliffs and into the furthest reaches of our subterranean world. www.sanctummovie.com
SANCTUM opens in theaters on Friday, February 4!
ENTER THE VOID – DVD Review
Having seen the film a couple of times already, I am convinced that Black Swan from Darren Aronofsky is perhaps one of the best films of 2010, if not the best film from last year.
A mix of the bizarre, the fantastical, the utterly intense film was something I could not help but feel compelled to tell more people about who may be on the fence about whether they should check it out while it’s still in the theaters. I implore you to do so and, thanks to some special friends, I also have some posters to give away.
Now, while I certainly have some small posters of the movie’s stunning one-sheet that any number of you cube dwellers can hang in your sullen looking work spaces while ignorant co-workers tell you how their equally dumb mother-in-law saw it and thought it was weird. To that I say there is no accounting for idiocy in this country but there is something to be said about me also having FULL SIZED one-sheets to toss out there if you’re so inclined to want one.
All you jackals have to do is send me a note at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com and I’ll take ten or so people and make their week with one of these bad boys. Believe me, they’re spectacular and, if you’re lucky, someone will make a derogatory comment about the film. A barometer for intelligence, I say, and thus saving you the aggravation of trying to get them to see Black Swan. Point them in the direction of Yogi Bear, they’ll love it more.
HOWL – Blu-ray Review
Such a good film.
James Franco delivers such an effective and evocative performance as the wily social provocateur, Allen Ginsberg. Detailing Ginsberg as a man who had no other intention in life than to express that which he could not contain in his mind, writing poetry that shook a lily-white public to the point of getting the law involved. No other film in 2010 examined the nature of art and its necessary place in our lives than Howl did.
In depicting Ginsberg’s obscenity trial as a result of the poem that labels this film filmmakers Jeffrey Friedman , Rob Epstein capture the true zeitgeist of the time and showed the American public for what they were when it came to words on a page, words that were spoken aloud. It’s no surprise that the puritanical social forces that kept men like Ginsberg safely away from the virgin eyes and ears of a youth population that didn’t know better must have been great and this film fantastically shows the power of what thoughts and concepts are capable of.
Largely ignored by the ticket buying public months ago the film has now made its way to Blu-ray and DVD and I could not recommend this movie more if you have an appreciation for the beat poets and what it was that they ignited many decades ago. You’ll find a new appreciation for the things that men like Ginsberg and many others who were labeled “obscene” had to do in order for parents to now decry Huck Finn as “obscene.” The more things change…
About the film:
James Franco stars as the young Allen Ginsberg – poet, counter-culture adventurer and chronicler of the Beat Generation. In his famously confessional, leave-nothing-out style, Ginsberg recounts the road trips, love affairs and search for personal liberation that led to the most timeless and electrifying work of his career, the poem HOWL. Meanwhile, in a San Francisco courtroom, HOWL is on trial. Prosecutor Ralph McIntosh (Strathairn) sets out to prove that the book should be banned, while suave defense attorney Jake Ehrlich (Hamm) argues fervently for freedom of speech and creative expression. The proceedings veer from the comically absurd to the passionate as a host of unusual witnesses (Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker, Treat Williams, Alesssandro Nivola) pit generation against generation and art against fear in front of conservative Judge Clayton Horn (Bob Balaban).
HOWL is simultaneously a portrait of a renegade artist breaking down barriers to find love and redemption and an imaginative ride through a prophetic masterpiece that rocked a generation and was heard around the world.
DVD Features:
James Franco in conversation with directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman – an all new feature length audio commentary.
Holy! Holy! Holy! The Making of Howl – featuring directors Epstein and Friedman and stars James Franco, Jon Hamm, David Strathairn, Treat Williams, Bob Balaban, poet Anne Waldman, and others.
Directors’ research tapes – original interviews with Ginsberg’s friends and collaborators Eric Drooker, Peter Orlovsky, Tuli Kupferberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Steven Taylor.
Allen Ginsberg reads Howl – never before seen footage from a performance in 1995 at the Knitting Factory in New York.
James Franco reads Howl audio feature.
Exclusive to Blu-Ray Release:
Allen Ginsberg reads Sunflower Sutra and Pull My Daisy – never before seen footage from a performance in 1995 at the Knitting Factory in New York.
Q&A with directors Epstein and Friedman moderated by John Cameron Mitchell (director of HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH and RABBIT HOLE) at the Provincetown Film Festival.
PAPER MAN – DVD Review
Sometimes you just want a movie to be a quiet character study of a couple of people.
I don’t know why this film struck a chord the way it did, certainly seeing Ryan Reynolds in tights and suicide blonde hair was certainly unique, but this film about a writer, his wife, and a babysitter who doesn’t babysit anyone had something to say about the nature of growing up even if you’re well into adulthood.
Jeff Daniels plays a suffering failed writer trying to overcome obstacles to write yet something else that is likely to not be very good if the past is any indication, his wife (Lisa Kudrow) being a source of support as she recommends them go to a small town to help him along, and Emma Stone turns up as a babysitter who sits a childless Daniels as the two of them strike up an interesting friendship based on shared fears and dreams for what awaits them when it’s time to stop playing the imaginary worlds they’ve created for themselves.
Both Daniels and Stone turn in fabulous performances as this film feels more like a two person play than it does a film. There is an intimacy the two create for themselves as this movie takes turns letting the two of them explore these fractured, yet redeemable, individuals.
It’s certainly not one of those gems that was lost in the crowd last year, as the movie has some pacing issues, but it is like finding a dollar bill on the ground: you’ll pick it up and be richer for doing so. Not by leaps and bounds, but in the secondary market where you could now see this for that dollar I can’t imagine a movie more worthy of your money.
About the film:
Paper Man is an inspirational comedic drama about an unlikely friendship between Richard (Jeff Daniels), a failed middle-aged novelist who has never quite grown up and Abby (Emma Stone), a 17-year-old girl whose role in a family tragedy years earlier has stolen away her youth. Both are unsure, both are afraid to take firm steps forward, and both are looking for that special friend-that connection-to help guide them into the future. Since his childhood, Richard has mostly relied on the imaginary one that resides in his head-a costumed superhero known as Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds).
At the urging of his wife Claire (Lisa Kudrow), Richard has moved to a Long Island beach community for the winter season in order to overcome his writer’s block. There, Richard meets Abby and hires her as a weekly babysitter, even though he has no children. Their tenuous, new friendship is sparked by Richard’s awe over Abby’s homemade soup and Abby’s enjoyment of Richard’s writing and his attempts at Origami. As the season progresses and the warm, quirky friendship between Richard and Abby grows, the two begin to share with each other their dreams and life hardships. With the coming of spring, Richard and Abby discover there comes a time to let go of the imaginary friends of the past and to embrace the future as a new beginning-just as one would embrace a new and unique friendship.
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