The Screengrab : death race

Year-End Roundup: AFI, Boston Critics…and Stephen King?

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Here’s your Monday afternoon update on the year-end award and Top 10 list derby. The American Film Institute has released its annual top ten list – I’m not sure I knew the AFI had an annual top ten list, but apparently they’ve been doing this since at least 2000 – and most of the titles are familiar from other such lists. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk and Frost/Nixon are among the predictable entries, but superhero enthusiasts will be pleased to see both The Dark Knight and Iron Man represented. The full list is here, along with the AFI’s top ten television shows, which include The Wire, thank you very much.

The Boston Film Critics had an indecisive year in 2008. They awarded ties for both Best Picture (WALL-E and Slumdog Millionaire) and Best Actor (Sean Penn for Milk, Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler). No big surprises here, aside from maybe the Ensemble Cast award for Tropic Thunder.

The most idiosyncratic Top 10 list to date has to be that of Entertainment Weekly columnist and Screengrab 24-hour marathon inspiration Stephen King. “I'm not trustworthy when it comes to movies… This is almost surely the only 10-best list you'll read that contains not one but two Jason Statham movies.” Indeed, King singles out both The Bank Job and Death Race for praise (he hasn’t caught Transporter 3 yet), along with the craptastic The Ruins. “It could have been ludicrous. Instead, it's unrelenting.” Yes, unrelentingly ludicrous. Anyway, check out his full list here – it’s the scariest thing he’s written in years.

Related:
Roger Ebert Supersizes Top 10 of 2008
Film Threat Unveils Frigid 50 of 2008

Morning Deal Report: Superman Goes Dark

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:45:00 GMT

Tropic Thunder is tops at the box office for a second week, taking in $16.1 million for a total haul of $65.7 million. Our Screengrab Bunny of the Week Anna Faris took second place with $15.1 million, leaving Death Race in the dust at third. The Dark Knight closes in on $500 million, adding another $10.3 million to the Bat-coffers.

That being the case, the news that a new, “darker” Superman movie is in the works is perhaps the least surprising development in recent Hollywood history. According to MTV.com, the new Man of Steel offering will be “a complete reimagining along the lines of this year's The Incredible Hulk.” And we all know how well that turned out. “We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the character allows it,” says Warner Bros. chieftain Jeff Robinov. Great – The Dark Dork.

But what you’re really wondering is, “What’s that lovable hobbit Sean Astin up to these days?” It says here in The Hollywood Reporter that he’ll be starring alongside David Cross, Michael Vartan and Sara Foster in the indie comedy Demoted. As you may recall, the movie “centers on two tire salesmen (Astin, Vartan) who delight in playing cruel pranks on their co-worker (Cross). When the victim unexpectedly becomes their boss, he places the humiliated duo in secretarial jobs.”

Related:
Superlawyer
Would You Buy Tires From David Cross?

Summer of ’78: “The Driver”

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Each Thursday this summer we’ll hop in the Screengrab time machine and jump back thirty years to see what was new and exciting at the neighborhood moviehouse this week in…The Summer of ’78!

The Driver

Release Date: July 28, 1978*

Cast: Ryan O’Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabelle Adjani, Ronee Blakley

The Buzz: It’s Barry Lyndon going really fast!

Keywords: Car Chase, Parking Garage, Existentialism, Pursuit, Neo Noir

The Plot: Ryan O’Neal is the titular Driver, the consummate wheelman. Bruce Dern is the Detective determined to bring him down. Isabelle Adjani is the Player, a gambler who sees the Driver’s face after a casino robbery and is brought in for questioning by the Detective. She has been paid off, however, and refuses to identify the Driver. Since he’s played by Bruce Dern, the Detective is not a by-the-book kind of guy. He sets up his own bank robbery, using two lowlifes (Glasses and Teeth) facing 10 years in prison as bait. Although he knows the Detective is onto him, the Driver wants to beat him at his own game. Car chases result. Lots of car chases. In the end, it appears the Detective has caught the Driver holding the bag, but it turns out that both men have been duped by a low-level money launderer. This is perhaps what makes the film existential, in addition to the fact that none of the characters have names and nobody besides Dern talks much.

The Test of Time: I’m surprised at myself. As a fan of car movies, '70s cinema and Walter Hill’s pre-Streets of Fire oeuvre, I really should have seen The Driver long before now. Forget about the so-called “existential” stuff; it was all cribbed from Two Lane Blacktop anyway. Walter Hill is a man of action, and he delivers some top-notch car chases here. The first one, in which the steel-nerved Driver manages to plow half a dozen cop cars into walls or over embankments, may be the best. The camera is placed right up front, either on the hood or in the front seat, and the chase unfolds in long takes – you know, so you can actually see what’s going on. (Hello, Michael Bay and company? Hello? Is this on?) My favorite scene, however (which you can watch in the clip below), is O’Neal’s “audition” for the lowlifes, in which he chauffeurs them around a parking garage, reducing their car to scrap metal in the process – then tells them he’s not going to work for them anyway. Hill uses O’Neal’s blankness to his advantage, but I couldn’t help but think as I watched it that this was a movie made for Steve McQueen. (Sure enough, checking Wikipedia this morning I see that was the plan.) Dern is very Dern, and Adjani is eye-catching, although in her first English-speaking role she matches O’Neal in the monotone department. The only real groaner comes near the end, when Dern and about 20 cops somehow materialize behind the ever-cautious and prepared O’Neal in a bus terminal, but The Driver is still a worthy entry in the annals of four-wheeled cinema.

Quotable Quote: “That's a real sad song. Only trouble is, sad songs ain't selling this year.”

2008 Equivalent: The best bet for automotive mayhem is, unfortunately, Death Race.

*Perhaps you are wondering why we’re still in July of 1978. Go check the IMDb for August 1978 releases and you’ll learn, as I have, that there aren’t many. You may think late summer is a cinematic dead zone now, but compared to ’78, it’s an embarrassment of riches. I did have plans to do Interiors (released August 2, 1978), but it was covered in last week’s 15 Films That (Almost) Could’ve Been Directed by Someone Else list. (That’s fine by me, as I was spared having to sit through Interiors again.) But rest easy, for next week we’ll have a genuine August release to enjoy.

Previously on Summer of '78: Hooper

Trailer Review: Death Race

Paul Clark — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:00:00 GMT

OK, so it’s called Death Race, and the characters utter the phrase “Death Race.” But this just doesn’t feel like Death Race to me. First off, the race is all wrong. Quick- what’s the first thing people generally remember about the original Death Race 2000? Chances are it’s the fact that racers get points for running over innocent bystanders. Yet for some reason Paul Not Thomas Anderson and the producers of the film decided to put the film on a closed course. Now, where’s the fun in that? It’s just a demolition derby with added firepower. Practically the only novelty in the remake is the casting of Joan Allen as the villain- sort of surprising to see Hollywood making a woman the baddie in a testosterone-laden guy’s flick. But if that’s all the original ideas you can bring to the table (while taking away just about everything that made the original movie unique) then there’s really no reason to check out the movie. You didn’t need me to tell you this, but I’ll do it anyway- rent the Carradine/Stallone version instead.