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Cinematical Seven: Best Mayhem of 2009
Filed under: Action, Animation, Comedy, Foreign Language, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Mystery & Suspense, Lionsgate Films, Magnolia, Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, The Weinstein Co., Family Films, Dreamworks, Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, Cinematical Seven, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Lists, Best/Worst, War
At this time last year, I was proudly tasked with chronicling 2008's finest moments in "big-screen mayhem, violence, destruction and other such shenanigans." I've still opted to sort these sequences out by specific manner of cinematic excess, and I've swapped out a category for "Most Tasteless Slaughter" (think effectively restrained moments of off-screen violence) for "Most Ridiculous Action" (think the exact opposite of that).
As usual, your comments/suggestions are welcome, and as usual, we didn't intentionally leave any titles off. Besides, if we went ahead and listed every single action or horror flick from 2009, what fun would that be?
The Best of the Decade: Action Flicks
Filed under: Action, Foreign Language, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, Disney, Lionsgate Films, Magnolia, New Line, Paramount, Sony, Sony Classics, Universal, Warner Brothers, Focus Features, 20th Century Fox, Dreamworks, Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Johnny Depp, Peter Jackson, James Bond, Lists, Miramax, Best/Worst, War, Daniel Craig
Cinematical is about to launch into our best-of-the-'00s series, with a different writer tackling a different genre over these last few weeks of the aughts (or whatever it was we decided to call this decade). Yours truly has been tasked with sifting out the most exciting action flicks these years have had to offer, and in the list-making equivalent of flinching, I've decided to divide them up by superlative instead of ranking them in order of awesomeness.
Oh, and before you comment away about what's missing (which we do want), I have left off The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2, X2: X-Men United and The Incredibles, so they may be included in any superhero or animated list to come. If those movies are left off those lists, then by all means, give them hell. I might even join you.
Review: The House of the Devil
Filed under: Horror, Magnolia, Theatrical Reviews
By Eric D. Snider (reprint from 5/3/2009 -- Tribeca Film Festival)
The House of the Devil is a great name for a movie. It hearkens back to the days of grindhouse horror, when a film's title and its trailer told you basically everything you needed to know. Yet it's different from those movies, too, in that it prefers slow-building tension over frequent bloodletting and mayhem. You have to wait for "The House of the Devil" to deliver on its promises -- but when it does, holy crap. I know that isn't a very scholarly analysis, but seriously. Holy crap.
The film is set in the early 1980s, apparently, with appropriately synthesized rock on the soundtrack and lots of freeze-frames in the opening credits. Our perky young heroine, Samantha (Jocelin Donahue), is a college student who's sick of living in the dorms and is preparing to move into an apartment with her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig). Eager to earn some money to facilitate the move, Samantha responds to a flier posted on a campus bulletin board looking for a babysitter. Rather suspiciously (to me, anyway), the flier is blank except for a phone number and the words "BABYSITTER WANTED."
The clients are the Ulmans -- Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan) is a tall, gentle-voiced man who uses a walking stick; his wife (Mary Woronov) is old-school sophisticated, a woman whose evening wear requires fur. Samantha learns when she arrives at the house -- a huge old isolated place, I needn't tell you -- that the babysitting duties will be slightly different from the norm, but it's not a deal-breaker. And the Ulmans are offering a lot of money.
AFF Review: Serious Moonlight
Filed under: Comedy, Magnolia, Theatrical Reviews, Austin
The first thing everyone seems to mention about Serious Moonlight is that its screenplay is the last one written by the late Adrienne Shelly. Actress Cheryl Hines, who had a role in Shelly's film Waitress, is making her feature directorial debut with the dark comedy, which stars Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton. The movie opened Austin Film Festival this year. It sounds like a sure-fire comedy, but unfortunately it just left me with a headache.
Serious Moonlight focuses on a married couple, Louise (Meg Ryan) and Ian (Timothy Hutton), who are supposed to meet in their country house for a rendezvous, but both arrive a day early. Louise wants to surprise her husband, but finds out that he also has a surprise: he's leaving her. She refuses to accept this, and ends up cracking him on the head with a vase, binding him with duct tape, and refusing to let him loose until he comes to his senses and realizes how much he loves her and wants to stay with her.
Review: Ong Bak 2
Filed under: Action, Magnolia, Theatrical Reviews
By Todd Gilchrist (reprinted from 9/23/09)
Cinematically speaking, there may be nothing worse than when an action star or purveyor of thrills starts taking himself too seriously. Such a transformation almost invariably begets a personal crusade, which often takes the form of a vanity project, and usually turns out about as well as The Quest did for Jean-Claude Van Damme, or On Deadly Ground did for Steven Seagal. Thai martial artist Tony Jaa launched his career with the original Ong Bak, and after that film and its superior follow-up, The Protector, made him an international sensation, he apparently started believing his own hype: Jaa not only co-directed Ong Bak 2, his latest film, but conceived it as the ultimate Thai adventure, reinforcing his own legend with a self-aggrandizing historical epic that somehow proves that you can actually make a movie without a plot – which unfortunately but perhaps predictably isn't a compliment.
Ostensibly a prequel to the original film, Ong Bak 2 chronicles a series of fairly awesome fights that Jaa's character Tien gets into en route to becoming a martyred national hero. There's some back story about the betrayal of Tien's parents and his training by guerrilla fighters in the jungles of Thailand, but for the most part the film is front-loaded with one scene after another where he beats the bloody pulp out of any and all comers. Meanwhile Jaa's mentor and co-director Panna Rittikrai documents the action with a surprising, satisfying lyricism, reminiscent of Zhang Yimou's Hero and House of Flying Daggers, but it seems obvious they're more interested in throat-ripping than truly capturing the poetry of Thai martial arts.
Fantastic Fest Review: District 13: Ultimatum
Filed under: Action, Thrillers, Magnolia, Theatrical Reviews, Fantastic Fest, Remakes and Sequels
When it reached American audiences two years after it opened in France, 2006's District 13 (or B13 here) served as a breezy introduction to the art of parkour, not to mention director Pierre Morel's knack for shooting action sequences both energetically and visibly (an underrated quality, that last one). Morel moved on to Taken, though, while parkour began to infiltrate more high-profile Hollywood fare, like Casino Royale and Live Free or Die Hard.
However, writer/producer/all-around action maven Luc Besson stuck around to cash in on the promise of a follow-up, and now we're greeted with District 13: Ultimatum, a competent if flabby rehash of the first film's race-against-time plot and dystopian setting.
Review: Bronson
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Thrillers, Magnolia, Theatrical Reviews
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By Scott Weinberg. Reprinted from Sundance Film Festival, 2009
Raw, blistering, harsh and compelling in the way that only a really good "prison film" can be, Nicolas Wining Refn's Bronson is a rather rough experience. Fortunately it's also very smart, dark, intelligent and disturbing, supported by a force-of-nature lead performance and a screenplay that focuses more on the "character study" angle and less on the "wow, prison sure is disgusting" perspective.
Based (apparently very closely) on actual events, Bronson is about a British thug named Michael Peterson, a rough, gruff, and muscle-bound troublemaker who somehow earned the title of Britian's most violent prisoner. Incarcerated for a stupid (but non-violent) post office robbery, Peterson adopts the moniker of American film star Charles Bronson and begins a long and rather unpleasant life behind bars. Although he's more of a angry man than an outright evil one, poor Bronson has a serious problem keeping his temper in check. Stuck in a cell with little to do besides build muscles and pace around nervously, Bronson snatches every opportunity to dole out some raw-knuckled fisticuffs whenever the "screws" invade his cell.
Poll: How Do You Watch Most New Indie Films?
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Documentary, Foreign Language, Horror, Independent, Thrillers, IFC, Magnolia, Distribution, Home Entertainment
With one art house dedicated to showing independent films and the spare multiplex screen occasionally hijacked by them, Orlando -- like most markets -- doesn't always get those that open in NY/LA first, and even when we eventually do, it can take months (for example, we got July releases Thirst and In the Loop in September).As such, I'm keen on keeping an eye out for whatever's available on-demand. That's how I recently caught up with the very good Flame & Citron, and between Magnolia and IFC, I can hope to see the likes of Red Cliff and Antichrist for myself and in the comfort of my own home. (Well, I hope that the former hits VOD...)
So now I ask you: Do you have access to on-demand programming? Do you take advantage of it out of convenience, or is it because you might not have any other chance to see something before DVD? If you live in New York or Los Angeles, do you make a particular concerted effort to support a film in theaters if you know you can just watch it at home? Or will you guys and girls just wait to watch a movie whenever it comes home from your Queue?
The 'Humpday' DVD Cover Has Been De-Gayed
Filed under: Magnolia, Home Entertainment, Movie Marketing, Posters
Ask anyone who has seen Humpday, the low-budget indie comedy that's been getting rave reviews since Sundance, and they'll tell you it's NOT a gay movie. They will tell you this because otherwise it really sounds like it is: It's about two straight male friends who decide to video themselves having sex as a sort of artistic expression. But what it's really about is how heterosexual male friendships work in the 21st century, and its portrayal of those relationships is hilariously, insightfully dead-on. That's why so many straight people who wouldn't enjoy a "gay movie" are enjoying this one -- because it's about straightness.But convincing people to see the film has been a hard sell all year long, and to be honest, the poster wasn't helping. The movie is called Humpday. Its tagline -- "Some loves are meant to be. This one, not so much" -- and its scruffy stars suggest a gay hipster romantic comedy. The title hides their guts, makes them look thinner than they are. The poster is pink, for crying out loud. Once you've seen the movie, the poster feels perfect for it -- masculine, with a hint of irony about how obsessed we are with being masculine. (The flowery wallpaper is a nice touch.) But without having seen the movie, the poster just looks ... well, gay. Which the movie isn't.
It seems like the people at Magnolia might have been thinking along these same lines, because the DVD cover -- which only seems to be posted at Amazon so far -- changes the color scheme to blue and shoves a wife between the two man friends. Here it is, after the jump:
Review: World's Greatest Dad
Filed under: Comedy, Independent, Sundance, Magnolia, Theatrical Reviews
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By Scott Weinberg (reprint from Sundance Film Festival 2009)
You hear it in lots of (usually sad) movies, and I'd say it's probably one of the truest things ever spoken: "There's nothing more tragic than having to bury your own child." But, just for the sake of argument, let's pretend -- for just a second -- that (in one specific case) it wouldn't be the end of the world. As a matter of fact, let's further pretend that the death of a child could somehow lead to several wonderful and life-changing results.
Sick, I know, but that's one of the ideas that runs through the twisted-yet-amusing dark comedy World's Greatest Dad. Written and directed by the consistently unpredictable Bob Goldthwait (he also gave us the similarly strange Shakes the Clown and Stay), and anchored by an unexpectedly strong Robin Williams performance, World's Greatest Dad is indeed about a high school poetry teacher who finds his life blossoming after his son accidentally commits suicide.
'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!?
Tim Robbins Joins 'The Green Lantern'
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