Cinematical staff
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Cinematical Seven: Fun Football Flicks
Filed under: Sports, Cinematical Seven
Today we're bringing back some of our favorite Superbowl Sunday posts. Here's one from Scott Weinberg originally published in 2008.
Ah yes, Super Bowl Sunday. And the Philadelphia Eagles are not involved. Sigh. I suppose I can try to create some sort of vested interest (nice to see an NFC East team in the big game, plus "David & Goliath" is always fun to watch), but the truth is that I'm mostly looking forward to all the new movie commercials. Don't get me wrong; I freaking love (American-style) football, but the Super Bowl seems more like pre-packaged spectacle than an actual gridiron battle. (Give me an Eagles / Redskins game any day!) And so, logically, my thoughts turn to movie-land...
Ask someone to name a great baseball movie and you'll get nine different answers. Ask someone to name a great (American-style) football movie and you'll get nine puzzled expressions. But while the NFL waits for something as lyrical as a Natural or a Field of Dreams, there's definitely some solid football flicks out there. And by "football," I mean "not soccer."
Any Given Sunday (1999) -- It's garish and indulgent and more than a little scattershot, but Oliver Stone's pulpy exposé of the American Football Machine is pretty undeniably entertaining.
The Longest Yard (1974) -- Long before it became a flat vehicle for Adam Sandler and Chris Rock, The Longest Yard was a rough, tough, and admirably gritty prison/football flick from Robert Aldrich. Try watching the two flicks back-to-back and you'll plainly understand why (and how) most remakes suck.
Cinematical's Seven Sexy Sporting Studs
Filed under: Sports, Cinematical Seven
Today we're bringing back some of our favorite Superbowl Sunday posts. Here's one from Monika Bartyzel, originally published back in 2008.
I must have had too many cups of coffee when I agreed to take on a Cinematical Seven covering the hunks of sports films. (Erik had the easy job, picking the Hottest Sports Girls.) Trying to pick the studs is like having hundreds of 4-star, wonderful movies thrown on your desk and being asked to pick the 7 best. Yeah, right! No problem! To make the task easier, I decided to pick a range of sports, and never double up on one particular type. That cut out a whole slew of possibilities, and what I came up with is what you see below.
What have I learned from picking the Seven Sexy Sporting Studs from cinema? The best of the best (pun intended) were in the '80s and '90s. I also learned that you should never share the list with a friend beforehand -- they'll remind you who you're forgetting, and that's why you'll find one tie down below. Enjoy!
The Eight Men Out Team
The only thing I knew when I took on this assignment was that Eight Men Out was going to be featured. Bull Durham is great and all, but this is the baseball movie. It's John Sayles, and it has the best baseball team to ever make it on the screen. They might have let their morals loosen a little, but they still kept their looks. Foolishly, I tried to pick between John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, D.B. Sweeney, and David Strathairn. Forget that! I'm taking the easy way out. Cusack's Buck Weaver was super cute as a "future jailbird," Charlie was always tasty in those days, and it's beyond me why women weren't falling all over David Strathairn the minute he jumped into film with Return of the Secaucus Seven, or any of the bigger movies that were soon to come. And Sweeney was cute, too, in that dorky way.
Cinematical Seven: Hottest Sports Girls on Film
Filed under: Sports, Cinematical Seven
(Today we're digging into our past and bringing back some of our favorite Superbowl Sunday posts. Here's one by Erik Davis, originally posted in 2008.)
This particular Cinematical Seven took awhile to sort out. First, I needed to decide whether I would focus solely on women who play sports in film or if I should open it up to women who play sports and/or appear in sports films. As you can see from the photo above, I went with the latter. Then I needed to decide whether I would only select drop-dead gorgeous women, or if there was room for the girl next door in the list as well. I'm sure you sympathize with the tough choices I had to make this afternoon. Anyway, in honor of Superbowl Sunday (Go Colts/Saints!), here are my picks for the hottest sports girls on film (a title which took me all of about an hour to come up with -- after all, there are so many different ways to write it):
Kelly Preston as Avery Bishop in Jerry Maguire -- She's harsh, she's intimidating and she doesn't exactly use those legs to kick a long field goal. Before Jerry (Tom Cruise) had his moral epiphany and wound up wooing the adorable Dorothy (Renee Zellweger), he was attached at the hip to the cunning, yet super sexy Avery. She'd come a long way from Space Camp, and after watching Jerry Maguire, I was extremely jealous that John Travolta got to spend every boot camp with this gal.
Review: Frozen
Filed under: Horror, Thrillers, Sundance, Theatrical Reviews
By Eric Snider -- reprint from 1/24/10 -- Sundance Film Festival
You can picture Adam Green, the writer and director of Frozen, sitting on a ski lift one day, idly thinking, "What if I fell off? How high above the ground am I? No! What if the lift stopped moving and they couldn't get it started? What if I was trapped here!" We all have our moments of morbid fantasizing, but what separates Adam Green from me and you is that he turns his dark "what if?" scenarios into movies. His Hatchet had tourists terrorized in the swamps of Louisiana; Frozen pits the heroes against Mother Nature herself, that wanton trollop.
The setting is a ski resort in New England, where three college students are trying to talk their way onto the lift without buying tickets. Dan (Kevin Zegers) and Joe (Shawn Ashmore), best friends since grade school, come skiing here regularly, but today Joe is miffed because Dan has brought along his girlfriend, Parker (Emma Bell), in a flagrant violation of the Bros Before Hoes policy.
No one likes being the third wheel; it doesn't help that Joe and Parker don't really get along, each jealous of the other's relationship with Dan. It's the same old story: "We haven't seen you at Fezziwig's for dollar pitcher night all semester!" Joe complains. What, Dan would rather spend time with his beautiful girlfriend than drink cheap beer? It's like Joe doesn't even know him anymore.
Review: Fish Tank
Filed under: Drama, Theatrical Reviews
By Todd Gilchrist (reprint from the 2009 AFI Film Festival -- 11/14/09)
The movies' penchant for wish fulfillment often requires them to make their triumphs monumental, but the new film Fish Tank makes a convincing case for modesty. The story of a teenage girl discovering herself in Great Britain's equivalent of a housing project, its very conception is steeped in understated humanity, but writer-director Andrea Arnold refuses to indulge melodrama at every turn, creating a film that feels like a less romantic counterpart to another recent coming-of-age story, An Education, but is just as substantial.
Katie Jarvis plays Mia, an embittered, hostile 15-year old who comes home one day to discover that her party-girl mom Joanne (Kierston Wareing) has a new boyfriend named Connor (Michael Fassbender). Though initially standoffish, she slowly succumbs to his charms, especially after he encourages her to develop her burgeoning talents as a dancer. But as she advances closer to womanhood, attracting the attention of a young man her own age, Connor becomes increasingly protective of Mia, eventually drawing her into a relationship that tests the limits – as well as the boundaries - of their fragile, fledgling emotional bond.
Review: Daybreakers
Filed under: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Lionsgate Films, Theatrical Reviews
By William Goss (reprint from Fantastic Fest '09 -- 10/07/09)
Ten years from now, 95% of the human population has been transformed into vampires, with those few uninfected survivors evading capture as best they can and those already captured being farmed for every last drop of their blood. However, supplies are dwindling, substitutes aren't working, and vampires who are driven by starvation to feed on one another tend to mutate for the worse.
This is the world of Daybreakers, a more ambitious and straight-faced follow-up than anyone might've expected from the Spierig Brothers in the wake of their cheeky low-budget aliens-and-zombies debut, Undead; better yet, it's a smarter and more refreshing take on the vampire genre than most of late, and a solid action flick in its own right.
Review: Youth in Revolt
Filed under: Comedy, Theatrical Reviews, The Weinstein Co.
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By Erik Davis (reprint from TIFF '09 -- 9/15/09)
As with most of the popular-book-to-film adaptations, you can look at Youth in Revolt a couple of different ways: From the point of view of someone who has read the source material, and (of course) from the point of view of someone who hasn't. C.D Payne's epic, 499-page novel is to teenage angst what the bible is to Christianity -- and it's always sort of reminded me of what a sequel to The Catcher in the Rye might look like if it was set in modern-day (if somewhat outdated) Oakland -- and featured a 14-year-old Frank Sinatra fanatic who would literally destroy an entire city if it meant winning over the girl of his dreams.
The problem with Youth in Revolt (the book) is that it's practically impossible to smash 499 pages of dark comedic brilliance into an hour and a half on the big screen, and, as such, Youth in Revolt (the film) definitely ends up feeling disjointed and forced in some areas -- but thanks to a wickedly hilarious performance from Michael Cera (easily the best of his career), this brainy teenage sex comedy does manage to dole out a handful of great scenes, making it worthy of your hard-earned box office dollars ... but only if you promise to read the book afterwards.
'The Thing' Prequel to Begin Production in March
Filed under: Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
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By: Mike Bracken
It's been months since we've heard anything about Universal's planned prequel to John Carpenter's cult classic film The Thing--so long, that I had started to wonder if it hadn't slipped off into development Hell.
That doesn't seem to be the case, as Production Weekly has shared the following via their Twitter feed:
"Universal's prequel to John Carpenter's classic thriller The Thing, is due to begin filming March and continue till June in Toronto."
I'm conflicted when it comes to how I feel about this project. On one hand, it's good that they're not trying to remake Carpenter's film. I don't think anyone can really improve upon the original, so why bother?
Read the rest over at Horror Squad
Geeky Film Marketing: An 'American Psycho' Billboard
Filed under: Fandom, Movie Marketing
Reasons I'd move to New Zealand: ridiculously beautiful landscape, sheep, the Thompson Twins and this awesome American Psycho billboard TV2 erected for an upcoming TV airing of Mary Harron's film.
Ads of the World posted this picture advertising the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation starring Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman and Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Justin Theroux, Bill Sage, Chloë Sevigny, Reese Witherspoon, Willem Dafoe, and Samantha Mathis. The billboard takes on the classic business card scene:
"The Perfect Billboard. Eggshell white with romalian type. Nice. Raised lettering, a subtle 7 inch bone border, and just look at the tasteful thickness of the headline. All perched on four evenly spaced 3.2 metre powder coated stanchions. My god, it even has a watermark."
Clever work on some film geek's part. I hope people will actually take the time to read the damn thing. Pick up the American Psycho Blu-ray here, and check out a larger version of the billboard over at Horror Squad.
International 'Inception' Trailer Arrives Online
Filed under: Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, Movie Marketing, Trailers and Clips
By: Zachary HerrmannVotre esprit est la scène du crime.
Translation: Your mind is the scene of the crime, or less literally, there's a low-res Inception trailer online and it's in French (courtesy of Making Of). If that's all you need to hear, then just go below the jump and we've got the trailer embedded for you (note: you can see the trailer over at SciFi Squad; click on the link below).
If you're curious as to what exactly is being said in the trailer, Daemon's Movies went to the trouble of translating things for us. After checking out the translation, I'd say the voice-over is intriguing but definitely not the least bit revealing. Christopher Nolan and the Warner Bros. promotional team seem to be playing things close to the chest, and after catching this extended look at what they've got on hand, it looks like the mystery could really play to their advantage.
We watch a city block literally fold in on itself (correct me if I'm wrong, but that looks like Paris), scenes of city destruction and some very, chilly blue shots of Leonardo DiCaprio in what could easily have been an outtake from The Dark Knight. In short, this thing looks absolutely wild (side note: DiCaprio and Ellen Page make for an interesting visual pair on the screen, eager to see how that works out in full).
Watch the trailer and read the translation over at SciFi Squad
Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams Reunite for 'Mission Impossible 4'
'Big Top Pee-Wee': The Original Benicio Del Toro Wolfman
Spin-ematical: New on DVD and Blu-ray for 2/9
Watch This: Brilliant Oscar-Nominated Short 'Logorama'
Chris Nolan to Lead 'Superman' Reboot!?
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