Edward G, king of the gangsters

Add comment November 12th, 2008

Here’s a review of the Edward G. Robinson movies in the new GANGSTERS COLLECTION Vol. 4 set from Warner Bros… 

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 And here’s the written version.

Holy lawsuit!

3 comments November 12th, 2008

According to Variety, Warner Bros and THE DARK KNIGHT director Christopher Nolan are being sued for royalties by the mayor of a city in Turkey. The mayor says the movie character’s name infringes on the rights of his city, and that the studio and producers used the name without asking permission. And he wants money. Lots of it.

 The name of the city? Batman, of course.

Stay tuned, true believers.

A trip back in time for movie fans

Add comment November 11th, 2008

Dedicated (and I do not use the word lightly) pop culture historian Piet Schreuders recreated the Main Street of Culver City, where most of the classic Laurel and Hardy (and other Hal Roach short subjects) were filmed. Here’s a link to a PDF of an article describing the effort (it’s a big file, but worth a look) and here’s a video showing him doing the research (complete with some vintage theme music). Maybe you have to be a very specific sort of movie fan to get a kick out of this sort of thing, but personally, I found it fascinating.

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F is for “favorite films”

10 comments November 10th, 2008

Here’s a fun film meme, as described by Dylan over at Blog Cabins. Make a list of 26 of your favorite movies, one for each letter of the alphabet. Here’s mine. Feel free to share yours in the comments:

AMERICAN MOVIE (1999) 
(THE) BLACK CAT (1934) 
CAT PEOPLE (1941) Producer
DR. STRANGELOVE (1964) 

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004) 
(A) FACE IN THE CROWD (1957)
GOODFELLAS (1990)
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986)
ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932)
J-MEN FOREVER! (1979)
KING KONG (1933)
(THE) LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (2004)

MULHOLLAND DR. (2000)
NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947)
ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (1939)
(THE) PARALLAX VIEW (1974)
Q, THE WINGED SERPENT (1982)
ROBOCOP (1987)

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957)
TAXI DRIVER (1976)
USED CARS (1980)
VIDEODROME (1983)
WILD IN THE STREETS (1958)
X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES (1963)
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974)
ZELIG (1983)

Trailer for MONSTERS VS. ALIENS

Add comment November 10th, 2008

This movie, which is due next year from Dreamworks, looks like it could be fun. I can’t embed the trailer here, but it’s worth clicking on this link to see.

An OLDBOY remake? Really?

2 comments November 7th, 2008

According to this report from Variety, Hollywood bigwigs Steven Spielberg and Will Smith are considering a remake of OLDBOY, the remarkable 2003 revenge drama from Korean director Chan-wook Park. It’s a powerful film that begins with an exploitation-flavored plot (man is kidnapped, stuck in a room for 15 years, then released and told to seek revenge) and goes off into unexpected, emotionally risky territory.

Aside from Scorsese’s THE DEPARTED (which is a remake of the Hong Kong film INFERNAL AFFAIRS), I’m not a fan of these American remakes of Asian movies. So many of these films (especially the Japanese horror movies, like RINGU) get their real power for a distinctly foreign sensibility that doing a new version with an American cast seems pointless — unless you’re looking for a good way to drain away what worked in the first place. Scorsese, obviously no stranger to the mean streets, brought his own touch to THE DEPARTED, making it something entirely separate from its HK inspiration.

I’m sure Spielberg, Smith and Co. will do something similar with OLDBOY. Heck, they’ll have to. Unlike your average American revenge drama, OLDBOY is often slow and deliberate, taking its sweet time to set up one heck of a gut-punching ending. And speaking of its ending, I really can’t see Mr. Loveable Family Man Will Smith coming within a hundred miles of that particular plot twist. (If you’ve seen OLDBOY, you can guess what I’m referring to.)

OLDBOY does, on the other hand, have some truly amazing action scenes, including the greatest fight with a hammer in the history of motion pictures. Watch this clip of that scene, then tell me what Spielberg, Smith and a pile of Hollywood money could possibly do to improve it.

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Friday Morning Videos: CABIN BOY

8 comments November 7th, 2008

And now, for no reason other that it always cracks me up, here’s David Letterman’s scene from the movie CABIN BOY, where he gets to interact with his old LATE NIGHT buddy, Chris Elliot. Enjoy!

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Incidentally, can anyone name — without looking it up on the all-knowing Internet — the other movie Letterman was in? To give you a few hints, it was a 1990s comedy, Letterman didn’t actually “appear” on camera and he performed under another name. 

In praise of Paul Rudd

3 comments November 6th, 2008

 

I haven’t seen the new movie ROLE MODELS yet (well, obviously — it hasn’t opened yet), but I’m already predisposed to like it, and a big reason for that is the prescence — both in front of and behind the cameras — of Paul Rudd.

Rudd (who co-wrote ROLE MODELS) is the sort of likeable, good-looking actor who could’ve amassed a small fortune by now playing it safe and starring in an endless series of bland, forgettable romantic comedies. Thankfully, he’s avoided that career path (well, for the most part) and instead decided to play likeable, good-looking oddballs in a series of comedies that do include romance, but always look at it from a decidedly skewed angle.

He was great as David, the lovelorn loser who got dumped (by Kelly from THE OFFICE of all people) and descended deeper and deeper into post-relationship madness. A lesser actor would’ve balked at videotaping his own butt in an electronics store and having it displayed on multiple screens, but clearly Mr. Rudd has no shame. In a comedic actor, that’s a very good thing indeed. He was also very funny — a bit more down to Earth — as Pete, the married dad who just wanted to sneak away for a little fantasy baseball with his buddies. Married life is a tricky thing to play onscreen, but Rudd (and co-star Leslie Mann) manage to make it funny and real. And really funny.

More? How about FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, where Rudd plays a blissfully stoned surfing teacher. Or WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY, where he kills as John Lennon, endlessly repeated his name and the names of his bandmates. Or ANCHORMAN, where he played the Sex Panther-doused field reporter Brian Fantana. Or numerous appearances on the underrated show RENO 911?

In short, he’s great in everything. Keep on keepin’ on, Paul.

Meet my movie bible

1 comment November 5th, 2008

A while ago, I wrote about some of my favorite movie books — but I forgot to mention the single book that, more than anything else, shaped my tastes in film: Michael J. Weldon’s classic volumne on cult movies, THE PSYCHOTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM.

Thankfully, Rob Gonsalves didn’t forget, and he posted a nice write-up of this seminal volume here. As he says…

“Other movie books handled the mainstream stuff, the Mighty Films of Cinema, the ones you felt duty-bound to watch at least once. Weldon, with the help of Ballantine Books, legitimized the low, the weird, the obscure, the greasers and sluts and punks of celluloid. He made it okay for budding movie buffs to bundle in some Eurotrash sexploitation and teenagers-with-mutations flicks along with our Kurosawa and Bergman.”

I remember buying this one as a college freshman, way back in 1985, and actually felt a bit weird about doing so. Did I really want a volume extolling the virtues of INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS and A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD sitting on my bookshelf, so close to my pure-hearted copy of LEONARD MALTIN’S VIDEO GUIDE?

Yes, it turns out I did. Because without Weldon’s book, I never would’ve heard of most of the great, offbeat movies that frankly, make it worthwhile to be a die-hard movie fan. I never would’ve gone to all those midnight movies in college, and I never would’ve collected hundreds of videotapes (followed, of course, by hundreds of DVDs). I probably never would’ve started writing my own video reviews at his paper back in the mid 1990s, which means I probably wouldn’t be writing this blog right now.

Weldon’s book (and its even-bigger follow-up, THE PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO GUIDE) embrace all movies, from forgotten silents to modern straight-to-video shockers. Sure, he loves weird movies, but above all, Weldon loves movies — and that’s apparent on every page. If you’ve never seen THE PSYCHOTRONIC ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM, I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy.  It just might change your life.

Heck, it sure changed mine.

Bugs, Daffy, Porky and … Adolf?

2 comments November 5th, 2008

Here’s my video review of the excellent new LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION Vol. 6, which includes several eye-opening glimpses of what sort of cartoons the studio made during the dark days of World War II. (Hitler and Goering both make appearances, believe it or not.) If you’re a fan of animation history, this is the set to get.

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And here’s the print version.