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Planet 51 Trailer Shows the Fun Side of Alien
Invasions

post from Film School Rejects on 02 July 2009 02:49:00 PM. © Film School Rejects

Another entry into the marketplace of animated films for 2009, rookie director Jorge Blanco's Planet 51 already has a few things going against it -- at least from a marketability standpoint. For one, it is not associated with either Dreamworks or Pixar, the only two studios who seem to be able to make CG-animated features into box office successes. Secondly, it is one of about 90 science fiction films coming out this year that involve humans as aggressors on an alien planet -- the highest profile of which is James Cameron's Avatar.But in fairness to Planet 51, a film led by the vocal talents of Dwayne Johnson, Justin Long, Gary Oldman, Jessica Biel and John Cleese, this second theatrical trailer is a lot of fun. A little space nerdiness courtesy of the nods to the American astronaut bravado, a little bit of cute robot action (can't help but love that rover) and some potentially funny mix-up bits about the role reversal of having this macho American end up as the "alien" all hit their beats quite well in the first trailer. As well, the soundtrack screams fun and the animation is smooth and vibrant -- enough to keep this movie on my radar for a little while.Planet 51 hits theaters on November 20, 2009. Check out the second theatrical trailer below, courtesy of Yahoo Movies.

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Public Enemies

post from Film Experience Blog on 02 July 2009 02:45:00 PM. © Film Experience Blog

BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!

RAT-A-TAT-TAT

Christian Bale actually shoots my (guilty pleasure) Channing Tatum down early on in Public Enemies but I've totally forgiven him because I'm so pleased that he didn't shout at the camera with crazy eyes this time. I was getting so tired of that. My second favorite scene in the movie is totally his lone scene with Johnny Depp through the bars of a jail cell, both men subtly trying to come out on top of the verbal smackdown. Bale is totally intense in the scene without once doing his "LOOK HOW INTENSE I AM!" thing. Well played Bale, well played.

My full review of Public Enemies is up over at Towleroad. In addition to holding forth on Public Enemies (which I heartily recommend to some and not to others) my weekly column offers up new gay movie news and wraps up with the criminal cool of Bette Davis. So, go read it.

But back to PE...

I'm totally fascinated by the diverse opinions I've been hearing and reading. Rather improbably for a straightforward gangster story, it seems to be something of a rorschach test, people reacting to it in completely personal ways. How else to explain nearly exact opposite reactions such as 'this is a character study but the action doesn't work' vs. 'there is zero character development but the action scenes are well shot'.

It's for this very dichotomous reason that I don't subscribe to either of the Oscar race notions floating around out there: the pro 'The Oscar race has begun' or the con 'Dead on arrival. Look at the middling reviews!' It seems obvious to me that it's the type of picture that will need time to settle. I think that's a good thing. Too many movies are instantaneously celebrated or dismissed on their very first day in theaters (and sometimes before that). Christ, let them breathe a little.

But if you've seen it, do add your initial impression to the confusing dogpile. After all, gut reactions come before full digestion.
*

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Look At Kristen Stewart As Joan Jett And Dakota
Fanning As Cherrie Currie

post from Rama's SCREEN on 02 July 2009 02:33:58 PM. © Rama's SCREEN

We saw a teaser photo but holy smokes, check out these new images from the set of THE RUNAWAYS showing Twilight’s Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherrie Currie. If I didn’t know any better, I thought younger Jet and Currie themselves from the 70s went into our time and film their [...]

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Look At Kristen Stewart As Joan Jett And Dakota
Fanning As Cherrie Currie And THE RUNAWAYS Cast

post from Rama's SCREEN on 02 July 2009 02:33:58 PM. © Rama's SCREEN

UPDATE: JustJared has posted an image of the whole cast of THE RUNAWAYS in character. You can check it out below. Stella Maeve as Sandy West and Scout Taylor Compton as Lita Ford and I think the dark hair with the brown hair is Alia Shawkat as Robin.We saw a teaser photo but holy smokes, [...]

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"A Look Back The At 'No Retreat, No Surrender'
Trilogy"

post from Late Mag - film on 02 July 2009 02:28:14 PM. © Late Mag - film

In the mid-eighties Ng See Yuen’s ‘Seasonal Films’ company decided it might be a good idea to try their hand at making films with more international appeal, initially inspired by the success of a certain Hollywood martial arts movie.But unlike previous attempts at international...

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Resident Evil 4 Confirmed, Shooting Later This
Year

post from /Film on 02 July 2009 02:24:54 PM. © /Film

Shock Till You Drop has some exclusive bad news: Screen Gems and Sony are racing to get another Resident Evil film in the can for release on September 17, 2010. Given the end of the third film, participation of Milla Jovovich is likely, and we know that Paul W.S. Anderson (director of the first film, writer and producer of all three previous movies) is writing this one, and will likely produce but not direct. What more is there to say? A little bit, actually, and it's after the jump.Plans for Resident Evil 4 have been rumored for almost a year. Sure, some of the talent involved said the third film was the last, but Extinction opened well and has done $150m worldwide. At Comic Con last year, while promoting Death Race, Anderson said of a fourth film, "I'm talking with Sony Pictures about it. We're in discussions to make another ...

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JON SOOHOO AND THE GAME BASEBALL MOVIES (EVEN THE
GOOD ONES) NEVER SEE

post from Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule on 02 July 2009 02:23:00 PM. © Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule

(Russell Martin hit by a pitch. Photo by Jon SooHoo by way of Sons of Steve Garvey.)

The best baseball movies-- The Bad News Bears, Bull Durham, Cobb, Eight Men Out-- are the ones that capture as much about the atmosphere surrounding the game, the eccentricities and/or obsessive nature of those who play it, and the importance of the game?s history toward forming the skeleton of what we might term heroism in this country, as least as far as the term applies toward athletes and athleticism, as they do about the game itself. But even these exceptional (and in a couple of cases I would argue, great) movies, and some lesser, but still entertaining ones, like Major League or For Love of the Game, have a hard time capturing what you might naturally think would be an easy call for the movies? the essential physics of a bat on a ball, a figure in motion at the plate on in the field, or a strong sense of what happens on the mound, and in the air, between the time the ball leaves the pitcher?s hand and when it pops in the catcher?s glove. One of the most glaring deficiencies in Ron Shelton?s Bull Durham, a movie often cited for its accuracy in terms of the entirety of the minor league baseball environment, is the performance of Tim Robbins on the mound as the exceptionally wild but occasionally devastating Ebby Calvin ?Nuke? LaLoosh, whose pitching eventually lands him in the Show. Robbins? acting as LaLoosh in general is spot-on and very funny, a naturally gifted athlete who hasn?t the discipline-- until he is adopted as a cause by baseball siren Annie Savoy, played by Susan Sarandon-- to sculpt those natural abilities into athletic, artistic consistency. But one look at him on the mound for the Durham Bulls, whether hurling a wild pitch at his catcher Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) or delivering a laser-sharp fastball down the pipe, betrays an actor who isn?t the slightest bit believable from the perspective of pitching form and mechanics. It is surprising to me every time I see this movie that Shelton, himself an ex-minor league player who fashioned the script from his experiences playing the game, wouldn?t have found a pitching coach who could have better schooled the actor rather than let this glaring visual tell stay in the finished film.

Even a movie like Sam Raimi?s For Love of the Game, which lavishes a lot of cinematic attention on the minute processes of pitching (Costner is far more believer as a Detroit Tigers pitcher here than was his Bull Durham cast mate, but then so was Tatum O'Neal), distracts from a certain verisimilitude by suggesting, through its central dramatic conceit, that a washed-up pitcher who finds himself hurling a perfect game would be able to shift his focus enough to reflect on major moments and failures in his life over the course of nine innings. To the extent that such an idea works at all, credit must be given to Costner and Raimi, but I can?t imagine even the most mediocre pitcher in an actual game being able to face a major league line-up without the most thorough concentration he could muster. The minute he starts musing about his love life, the pitches start missing their mark and he gets pulled by an irate manager before the story even has a chance to peak and tug at our heartstrings.

And a movie like The Natural, mystifyingly beloved by many a baseball purist, tries to get at the physical glory of the baseball player by means of every cinematic trick in the book?primarily artfully-applied slo-mo, slick editing, golden-hued cinematography and Randy Newman?s syrupy score, which in modern baseball coverage on TV has become synonymous with the triumphant majesty of the long ball. But all Barry Levinson?s movie does in the end is showcase, apart from the crusty quality of lived-in history brought to the dugout by Wilford Brimley and Richard Farnsworth, a special kind of fabrication, the movie myth brought to bear on the myth of god-like feats of athletic prowess (which was, unless I misunderstand it, the opposite intention of Bernard Malamud?s book, from which the movie was ripped and restitched), all rendered in a showboating key of bombast and glowing nostalgia that exposes everything seen through its lens as phony.

Jon SooHoo

The ascendance of CGI and the Bay-Bruckheimer aesthetic to dominance in commercial American cinema doesn?t exactly raise my hopes that this deceptively simple goal of presenting the particular physics of the game, coupled with the sights, sounds and smells of what it is to really be down on the field, will ever fully be achieved. It is good that Shelton is still in there taking his hacks (his film of the nonfiction book on the BALCO steroids scandal, Game of Shadows is due soon, as well as the intriguingly titled Our Lady of the Ballpark which is currently in preproduction), but I can?t think of another filmmaker I?m already aware of who could or would be interested in taking a stab at really capturing the game from the inside out. To this end, I would submit that the best place to look for this kind of eye toward detail and showcasing fleeting moments in time that seem cinematic in every way except their ability to only suggest movement, is through the lens of great baseball photographers. And one of the best is right here in Los Angeles, shooting incredible images of things that everyone thinks they see every night, but in ways that no one can quite see on their own. Jon SooHoo is the official team photographer for the Dodgers, and his work can frequently be seen on the Dodgers official site. But more recently he has been the subject of much celebration by the sharp-eyed observers who man the keen Dodger blog Sons of Steve Garvey, where some of his most spectacular photography has been highlighted. The Sons posted an examination of this photo yesterday as evidence of the value of SooHoo?s everyday presence with the team?when everyone else is snapping away at all the moments surrounding the aftermath of Andre Ethier?s game-winning walk-off home run in the 13th inning of Monday?s series opener against the Colorado Rockies, it was SooHoo who knew of Ethier?s tendency toward game-ending dramatics (he leads the team in walk-off hits this season) and was there with digital precision, brilliant timing and a perfect angle to highlight, in a way no other photograph did, the dramatic momentum of that moment of impact between bat and ball which capped nearly four and a half hours of intense baseball.

Other links from the piece on SOSG highlight the explosive spectacle of a breaking bat in mid-shatter (the man at the plate again, Andre Ethier) and the various shades and gradations of emotion available to the naked eye, amplified by SooHoo?s naturally artistic documentation, on Opening Day 2009. But my absolute favorite of SooHoo?s recent work is an image that perfectly encapsulates his ability to capture the paradoxically cinematic drama of the game in a single brilliant still?his shot (seen above) of Russell Martin attempting to jump away from an inside fastball, only to have the ball caught as it passes Martin?s chest, making tactile, undulating waves out of the fabric of his jersey as well as contact with the batter, speaks a language of motion and emotion that a hokey carnival like The Natural doesn?t even seem to know exists, let alone can?t come close to getting on film. SooHoo?s exemplary work is a gift we Dodger fans get whether we fork over the price of a ticket or not. It brings the magic, the majesty and the mystery of the game a step closer, and augments our memories with images that make us feel like we?ve seen things we couldn?t possibly have seen otherwise. One day maybe a movie will get at baseball the way great photographers like Jon SooHoo seem to be able to conjure with ridiculous ease. Like baseball itself, that image-conjuring magic eludes the majority of those who try to work it to their advantage. But as most Dodger fans already know, an image directed by Jon SooHoo, like a Sandy Koufax start or a Jonathan Broxton fastball, is almost always a masterpiece.

(Thanks to the Sons of Steve Garvey and Jon Weisman for sparking this post, and of course, to Jon SooHoo for the photographs.)

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I'd love to see your favorite baseball photographs too. Please feel free to leave links to the photos, as well as the usual commentary, in the bull pen below!

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George Clooney Leaves Warner Bros. For Sony

post from Starpulse Entertainment News - Movie News on 02 July 2009 02:12:31 PM. © Starpulse Entertainment News - Movie News

Hollywood star George Clooney has ended his long-standing business partnership with Warner Bros. movie studios - he's moving his Smokehouse Pictures company to Sony.[...] Read more!

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DEADGIRL Disturbing Trailer

Not awake yet? This oughtta keep you alert for a while. But heads up, the following trailer isn’t for the faint of heart. Bloody-disgusting has the restricted disturbing trailer for DEADGIRL, a horror flick that made its way to Sundance and will arrive in theaters this summer. It’s about two teenagers who walk into forgotten [...]

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Real World Cancun: Please Don't Spit In My Taco

Oh, Mexico. Land of sand and ruins. Place of history and blood. Of vines and mountains. Mexico: where you can get drunk at a laser lightshow nightclub and then spit in your roommate's taco and no one bats an eyelash.

Yes, the Real World: Cancun had its first obligatory The Roommates Who Hate Each Other/The Roommates Who Fuck Each Other episode last night, and it just sort of farted into existence, all quiet and smelly, as if MTV was splayed out on the neighboring bed, our hotel room ruined, that cruel beach sun slanting in through the curtains, reminding us that day has arrived but our hangovers have not left. These kids are just sort of dull, the half-baked sorta people you'd see on a show like Fear Factor where personality doesn't matter. You just have to be trashy and scrappy and thoughtless. And these kids have that in spades!

So the two couples were:

Those That Hate
Swoony rockerbilly Joey likes to antagonize girls because he's a little pissant punk-wannabe with that kind of sitting-at-the-back-of-the-class bravado that's, oh you know, catnip to some of us. The girl he most likes to antagonize, because she is ridiculous, is Ayiiiiiia. They fight about basically everything. She walks around like she owns the place, he has mysterious herpes on his lip, he says mean sarcastic things to her, she yells about cigarettes, and then he spits in her taco. Yes m'am JoJo done up and spit in that girl's damn taco when they had been out there after the club tryin' to get theyselves some food. This was in retaliation for Ayiiiiiia running down the street and shrieking "Herpes on your lip! Herpes on your lip! You've got herpes on your lip!" It actually turned into a little song and I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a pot and a wooden spoon and paraded around the house banging them together, as if Ramona Quimby were a sad lonely 26-year-old in Brooklyn, sing-chanting "Herpes on your lip! Herpes on your lip! Everybody's got herpes on their lip!" It was a fun song, and a fun moment, until my roommate came up and spit in my taco. Well, I actually didn't have a taco and she didn't spit, but she did give me a withering look that seemed to say Only one more month..., but on the show Joey did, in fact, spit in the lady's taco. So that started a whole clusterkaduddle and everybody was yelling and Fuckface from UMass got involved and started getting upset.

So the girls were out on the balcony complaining about Joey and eating the tacos that had not been spit on. Those bitches really wanted some tacos. I mean, that's commitment. Inside the other roommates were just unsure what to do. Hilariously, the girl from Cadillac Stevens' Foodhut, Jonna, was sitting on a couch-bed eating rolls of ham of cheese. Like taking deli-sliced meats and deli-sliced cheeses and rolling them up into little cylinders and eating them. It was very funny because we've all been there, or at least I have. Points to you, Jonna. So everyone was confused and eating ham and cheese and Joey still wasn't done being in attack mode so he strode out onto the veranda playing a song called "Nobody Cares About Your Spit Taco" and the girls got so mad that they threw water at him and some of the water went into his guitar. His thousand-dollar guitar that is partly electric and now it's ruined. So Joey went to another balcony and cried and Derek the Gay tried valiantly to take advantage of him in his time of need (someday, Derek! believe in yourself!) and everyone was sad. Well, the girls didn't care. Ayiiiiia thought it was funny. Because Ayiiiiiia is annoying. I think I hear Joe Rogan calling, m'dear. Go be on that show.

Anyway, eventually the next day or whatever Joey apologized to Fuckface and she was all "Aw, I love everyone," and then later he took a walk with Ayiiiiiia and they brokered a tentative peace accord. Derek unzipped his fly and unleashed the doves from his pants and there they fluttered and flapped, into the silver-streaked azure sky, looking like souls should look, dancing. Then they decided it would be funny to pretend for the other roommates that they'd just gotten in another fight and she'd hit him so they ran back home and put on a show where Joey raged and Ayiiiiia threw things and all the other roommates were like "Ohhh, she's going home" and hilariously no one seemed to be unhappy about that but then oh ha ha, Ayiiiia and JoJo gave each other a hug and the roommates said "Aww, we're friends again!" and Derek unzipped his pants and instead of releasing more doves he just looked plaintively and expectantly at Joey, though he looked in vain. Everyone just sort of cleared their throats and said, OK, yeah, and slowly walked out of the room and Derek stood there alone, bare feet on the cold marble, a clock ticking off in some other room.

Those That Mate
Binky and Jonna are in love. Binky and Jonna are in love but there's nothing they can do about it because Jonna has a boyfriend back home in Sunstain, AZ and she's so loyal to him. She's so loyal to him that when she's grind dancing and spooning in a hammock and gratuitously hugging and talking about making out with Binky, all her thoughts are on her boyfriend. Every one of them. Every thought other than Man I want to fuck this roommate, every single other one, is about the boyfriend. Binky is upset because he broke up with his lady, and c'mon it's Can-fuckin'-cun, let's partay down. Invested in this whole lovers' duet more than more than the actual lovers is creepy Bronne. Creepy Bronne looooves to call Binky "the Heartthrob" and he's always smirking and leering while Binky and Jonna dance or flirt or dry hump in a vestibule, staring right at them, with intense bleary eyes. He's a creeper. At one point when Binks and Jinx were spooning in the hammock Bronne walked out wearing a wig and tapped out Jinkies and got next to Binky and Binks, thinking it was Jinx, pulled him in close and said "Mmmm..." You'd think that would be one of the stupid things I make up to entertain myself while writing these things, but it's not! It actually happened! Bronne walked out wearing a Jonna wig and spooned with Binky. He will murder someone. And he will murder them hard.

Anyway, at the clurrrb Binky tried to kiss Jonna on the mouth-hole and she was all "Nunh unh!" and later she called her boyfriend and said "Why would you think that I want to be with anyone else?" while her foot massaged Binky's crotch and she sat there naked drawing an arrow on her tummy that pointed down to her unmentionables.

So, they're totally gonna do it.

All Those Other Things That They've Done
Oh, and, they got their jobs! Yeah yeah yeah! They'll be working for Student City, an underground luxury travel agency for sex tourists and date rapists. They met their boss, the dimwitted Christina, and she told them the rules. And the Rules, my friends? The Rules are pretty goddamned strict. The Rules are:

- No drinking in front of clients.
- No sexing the clients.
- No smoking near clients.
- If you murder a client, make sure you dispose of the body in a manner befitting Student City's new Go Greeen! initiative.
- If a client murders someone, give them the $700 cash you have in your emergency pouch and point them towards El Salvador.
- Fridays are casual.

Now the whole murdering thing ey'body was aight with, but not that DRINKING RULE. Holy fuck, if I want to go out in Cancun and get shitfaced, that is my right as an American abroad on a television station's dime. That is my RIGHT. Ayiiiiia was especially adamant about this and it was truly beautiful to watch. It was like watching Harvey Milk come speechmaking out of his mother's womb. Like seeing Malcom X first clench his fist. Like stumbling by accident on Susan B. Anthony in the bathroom and her swatting her hand at you or at the door you can't quite tell and yelling "Hey, get outta here!" It was truly something. She brought a little soapbox with her to the Student City interview process, where the kids had to talk to Christina about what they wanted to do for the sex tourists and semi-professional Roofie-appliers. Christina just shook her melony head and said "Sorry, babe, no can do. We can't have anything reflect badly on the company." Which was... wait, what? On the company that organizes low-rent trips for horrid sunburned assholes from Ohio to get drunk and sloppily fuck and do horrible things they'll forever regret? That company? What, exactly, could possibly reflect badly on that company? Accidentally decapitating an old Real World cast member while just trying to get them to shut the hell up? Oh Paula, we hardly knew ye.

So that's gonna cause a problem and everyone will get drunk and several will die. At one point during the Christina Interviews, Fuckface said "I'm a leader." Fuckface works at Hooters. If that doesn't spell leadership, I don't know what does.

I don't know how to end this. So, here:

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