cinematical Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Discuss: How Long Should You Keep Netflix DVDs?
Filed under: Home Entertainment »
Over at Hacking Netflix, Peter Nelhaus started a lively discussion about how long Netflix subscribers should get to keep DVDs without penalty. Peter feels that Netflix needs to establish some limits -- after you've hung on to a disc for, say, two months, you should be charged the purchase price for the DVD. His problem is that Netflix just doesn't have large quantities of more obscure foreign/indie titles, and if I'm procrastinating on watching one of those "smaller" titles, the rest of you are waiting on me. The two pages of comments offer a range of suggestions: Netflix sending a "nudge" email to subscribers every month, waiting until six months to charge a fee for holding a DVD, or simply buying more copies of that title.The thread prompted me to look at our own Netflix account. It's not pretty. We've had one DVD for a month, and the other two for over two months. If you're in Austin and wondering why you can't get your hands on Brothers of the Head, it's totally our fault. A "nudge" email would probably help; threatening us with a fee might be overkill, although we'd sure send them back ASAP. Admittedly we tend to use the Watch Instantly feature more than the physical discs, so even hanging onto the discs, we get our money's worth. However, I think I'll physically nudge my husband to watch 'em or send 'em back soon, just to avoid the wrath of Peter and others like him.
Trailer Park: Greenberg, Toys and Tolstoy
Filed under: Animation », Comedy », Drama », Trailer Trash », Trailers and Clips »
Greenberg
Ben Stiller stars in this indie comedy about a man who deals with his mid-life crisis by doing nothing. Stiller actually seems appealing when he's not trying to be zany. Watch for this one on March 12.
Toy Story 3
This new international trailer shows a little more of the trauma inflicted upon our toy heroes after Andy goes off to college and they are donated to a daycare center. Looks like this one has all the charm of the first two installments. That June 18th release date can't come soon enough.
Right Now on TV Squad
Our brothers and sisters over at TV Squad have busted through the boob tube and brought with them the following juicy bits of must-see eye candy. - There are a lot of changes coming to Scrubs this season, and here's a video of cast veteran Donald (Turk) Faison introducing the new cast memebers.
- TV's first "modern" Dr. Who Christopher Eccleston will be playing the late Beatle John Lennon in a four-part BBC production focusing on the musician's life from 1967-1971.
- In response to the POX News controversy on a recent episode of Sesame Street, Sherrie Westin, executive vice president of the Sesame Workshop recently appeared with Bill O'Reilly to introduce Spill O'Reilly the latest addition to the Grouch News Network.
- Fox has announced its mid-season lineup, and you can check it out right here.
- Turkey day may have already passed, but that doesn't make this classic Thanksgiving episode of WKRP in Cincinnati any less hilarious.
- ...and finally, don't forget to check out the latest TV Squad podcast which takes a look at the new season of Chuck.
Interview: James McTeigue, 'Ninja Assassin' (Part 1)
Filed under: Action », Warner Brothers », Interviews »
Director James McTeigue has been working on films since the late 1980s, back in his native Australia. He was second assistant director on Dark City and first assistant director on Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. He started working with Andy and Larry Wachowski as an assistant director on The Matrix, and they've been collaborating on projects together ever since. The Wachowskis wrote the first feature film helmed by McTeigue, V for Vendetta, and he provided second-unit direction on their most recent film, Speed Racer.
Ninja Assassin, which opened this week, is the latest movie McTeigue has directed, with the Wachowskis on board as producers. You can read William Goss's review for more details about the action/fantasy film. Cinematical sat down with the director in late September during Fantastic Fest, just after the movie played the festival. He was very pleased with the fest screening and happy to talk about the film.
A Trailer for Jean-Claude Van Damme's 'The Eagle Path'
Filed under: Action », Trailers and Clips »
It's time for the second feature written, directed, and starring the Muscles from Brussels Jean-Claude Van Damme. First we had The Quest, a story he whipped up with the help of Frank Dux (the man Bloodsport was based on). Now there's The Eagle Path. Once called Full Love, this sucker is all-out classic Van Damme with faux serious acting, violence, and of course, the potential love of a sexy woman -- and you can check out a trailer for the film after the jump, courtesy of THR's Heat Vision Blog. Van Damme plays "Frenchy," a military vet and former mercenary who hides from his past by working as a taxi driver in East Asia. When he picks up a sexy woman one day, he becomes obsessed with the idea of improving her life and decides to do so without her approval. With help from his special ops friends, he sets out to "save" her, and as the official synopsis says: "War is hell, but nothing they've done could have prepared them for this."
From what you can see in the trailer, that "this" involves a bad*ss special ops friend in a wheelchair, some mustachioed undercover work, and a whole lot of action carnage. Oh, if only they could score this with some '80s music. It would be like going back to the good ol' days of Van Damme.
Review: New York, I Love You
Filed under: Romance », New Releases », Theatrical Reviews », Shorts »
Armed with a collection of the world's notable directors, Paris je t'aime hit screens with a good deal of impact and buzz. It was to be the first piece in producer Emmanuel Benbihy's "Cities of Love," a collection of films detailing romance and metropolitan life across the globe, a series planning to travel to the likes of New York, Rio, Shanghai, Jerusalem, and Mumbai.
Three years later, the second installment is finally upon us with New York, I Love You. With only minor changes, the film continues the tradition of joining many internationally diverse filmmakers for the journey through a popular city, but the buzz has diminished. The film is slowly making its way across screens in the U.S., and will break into Canada come November 27. But how could one of Hollywood's most beloved cities find its ode so woefully under the radar? It's not an easy question to answer because while New York, I Love You might be flawed, it's also sweet, engaging, and nicely representative of that small island cluttered with millions of people.
'Teardrop Diamond' Finally Finds a Trailer
Filed under: Drama », Trailers and Clips »
I was convinced this day would never come... I first wrote about The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond over three years ago when the forgotten Tennessee Williams screenplay got tapped for a feature film. Lindsay Lohan was set to star in it, before her heaps of turmoil turned her career sour. In 2007, Bryce Dallas Howard stepped in to replace Lohan, and in 2008, we finally got a still from the film. Now the movie has quietly swam through the festival circuit and is slated for release at the end of the year, which means we finally get a trailer, which you can see after the jump, courtesy of Coming Soon.The trailer can certainly send you back in time, but maybe not to the right time. The whole thing reeks of 1980s Hallmark melodrama, from the scenes to the text and somber voiceover. Bryce Dallas Howard stars as Fisher Willow, a '20s debutante who decides to get back at her greedy dad by taking a poor young man (Chris Evans) to a high-profile party. She borrows her great Aunt Cornelia's (Ann Margret) teardrop diamond earrings to the event, and when she loses one, she accuses her date of stealing it.
What might be more intriguing than the work (which Coming Soon says was written as a film for Elia Kazan to direct), and the cast (which also includes Ellen Burstyn), is the idea of Lohan in this movie. I can't begin to imagine her taking on the style and accent Howard pulls off. But what do you think?
Will you hit the theaters to see this lost work from Tennessee Williams?
This is the Ape that Climbed the Empire State Building?
Filed under: Classics », Fandom »
Back in 1933 there was this little movie called King Kong. While not an epic award-winner, the film instantly became a legend for stunning special effects and arguably the most iconic Hollywood monster of them all. Whether you've seen the film or not, you've no doubt witnessed the scene, where the large ape grabbed Fay Wray's Anne Darrow and carried her to the top of the Empire State Building, where he fought off planes and machine gun fire to be with the unwilling object of his affection.
MSNBC reports that the specific metal skeleton used in that iconic scene has sold for approximately $200,000 at a Christie's auction in London. Talk about a killer find! The 22-inch figurine was originally "covered in cotton, rubber, liquid latex, and rabbit's fur," but being over 70 years old, that covering has rotted away to reveal what you see above -- a collection of metal, rivets, and screws fashioned into an ape skeleton.
While there's a whole lot of great computer-generated effects out there, I can't help but feel a pang for the good old days of tangible creations and miniature models. They gave an added sense of realism to special effects-laden filmmaking. You can check out the scene (colorized) after the jump.
Free Flick of the Day: Pieces of April
Filed under: Home Entertainment »
In this current world where Katie Holmes is wife to Tom Cruise and mother of Suri, it's easy to forget she used to have a pretty solid indie career intermingled with her days on the popular Creek -- Libbets Casey in The Ice Storm, Claire in Go, Hannah in Wonder Boys, Jessica in The Gift, Nurse Mills in The Singing Detective, April Burns in Pieces of April, and Heather Holloway in Thank You For Smoking. But there is one starring role in there that's quite applicable this week: Pieces of April. *Her last big role of worth (she played only a supporting character in Smoking and she was bad enough to be axed from Gotham law after Batman Begins), Pieces of April finds Holmes the black sheep of a dysfunctional family. Living a life on her own in New York with her boyfriend Bobby, April decides to tackle the daunting halls of turkey roasting and have her family over for a Thanksgiving feast. Unfortunately, her oven fails and throws her into ultimate turkey turmoil as she struggles not to be seen as a failure (again) by her family. The film earned Patricia Clarkson an Oscar nomination for her role as Holmes' cancer-plagued mom, and is a pretty decent indie as a whole.
So, as you gear up for your own turkey feast:
Head over to SlashControl and watch Pieces of April for free!
*And one supporting gig that's prime for the more cynically holiday-minded -- The Ice Storm.
Discuss: Performer of the Decade?
Like many critics I'm working on my list of the best films of the decade. I have been doing lots of shuffling around, swapping some of the films in the top 20 with films in the top ten, just to see how they look. But something occurred to me. A lot of the films had one thing in common: Scarlett Johansson. What does that mean? Does it mean that she's the greatest actor of the decade? Or is she just lucky? I'm not sure what to make of it. I have never interviewed her (I was once all set for a phone interview for Girl with a Pearl Earring that was canceled) so I can't claim to know what she's like in real life. Frankly, she's not the greatest actor in the world; in bad movies she can seem awkward, fumbling with troublesome dialogue. But there's definitely something about her, and it goes beyond her blonde-haired, full-lipped, smoky-voiced, voluptuous beauty. I might make an argument for her as "performer" of the decade.
Let's look at her first great film of the decade, Terry Zwigoff's Ghost World (2001). She plays Rebecca, the best friend of Enid (Thora Birch). They have just graduated high school, and face a long, boring summer. They have long-standing plans to get jobs and rent an apartment together. Rebecca holds to her end of the bargain, but Enid becomes sidetracked with a summer class and a friendship with a nerdy record collector (Steve Buscemi). When they are together, Rebecca and Enid have a funny, dark, cynical rapport. Rebecca is good at keeping up with her friend, but there's the tiniest hint that she's getting tired of it, that she wants to move on. Johansson was only 16 here, and two years younger than Birch, but she seems much older and perhaps wearier.
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Discuss: Who Would be the Most Profitable Director if ...
Warner Bros Will Make Clint Eastwood Fans' Day
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Discuss: How Long Should You Keep Netflix DVDs?
Jeremy Renner Wants To Be An Avenger
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