Trailer Roundup: All Computer Animated, All the Time Edition
1/22/2007 10:32:37 PM
TMNT
Trailer: Insert pizza joke with cowabunga punchline here. All four turtles tearing ass over the rooftops of Manhattan. Have to admit, computer animation seems somewhat more versatile than freaky rubber suits. Voiceover says, “There’s a legendary group of warriors that travels under the cover of darkness.” Michelangelo skateboards through some sewers. Totally extreme. “And fights for all of those in need.” Someone rides a motorcycle into some ninjas. “But they have never been needed more than right now!” One of the turtles say they have a bad feeling. No one in any movie ever is allowed to say they have a bad feeling ever again, even if it’s true. Some guy is saying the stars have aligned and are unleashing monsters. Shredder is apparently not unleashing monsters. There’s some action. Some Jerry Bruckheimer-style booming music. Loud burping while eating pizza. Feels like home.
What the studio wants me to think: Computer animated ACTION! Computer animated ADVENTURE! The franchise that refuses to die!
What I’m actually thinking: There was a decade there where the Turtles were getting shat on pretty consistently but this looks pretty fantastic. Computer animation or not, I’m there.
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Shrek the Third
Trailer: Ominous music. Guy on a mountain under a cloak. Spoooooky castle. Fucking Eddie Murphy donkey. Cue pop song and disgruntled Mike Meyers ogre. Silly Antonio Banderas cat says something silly. More familiar and affable fairy tale creatures reprising their instantly quotable roles. Antonio Banderas and Eddie Murphy switch bodies. Shrek goes to knight someone. There’s a loud yell. Ha. Ha. Ha.
What the studio wants me to think: We don’t give a damn what you think, we’re going to be rich! RICH!
What I’m actually thinking: I enjoyed the first Shrek. Seriously. Thought it was very cute. But this shit needs to stop.
We Are the Strange
Trailer: Music sounds like Metroid but it’s not. He’s always lived in dreams. There’s some freaky baby looking guy lying on the ground. Now reality is trying to wake him up. Good god, it looks like Santa Clause is Coming to Town on Robitussin and anger! Creepy stuff. Silver guy. Anime chick. Abused and forgotten. Everything takes a left turn into Bjork video territory. She tries to hide the hurt. Anime girl is sad. After following an echo through the forest, she meets a doll boy. Coherent! That really wants to get ice cream. Um. Some more Bjorky shit happens. Then they go to a city of monsters. There’s an angry paper airplane. Now there’s WWF style announcing.
What the studio wants me to think: If you see this movie, you will be as cool as we are. Swear to god.
What I’m actually thinking: Hmmm. Your videogamey music intrigues me. Your wanton indulgence in Adult Swim and myriad webcomics imitation is perturbing. Don’t tell me you’re awesome. It just makes me want to kick you.
--John Constantine Trailer Roundup appears every other Monday in Screengrab.
Trailer Roundup, January 8th
Trailer Roundup, December 18th
Trailer Roundup, December 5th
Trailer Roundup, November 20th
Trailer Roundup, November 6th
Trailer Roundup, October 23
Trailer Roundup, October 9
Trailer Roundup, September 25
Trailer Roundup, September 11
Trailer Roundup, August 7
Trailer Roundup, August 7
Trailer Roundup, July 24
Trailer Roundup, July 10
Trailer Roundup, June 26
Trailer Roundup, June 12
Trailer Roundup, May 23
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Video of the Day 2: Hasslehoffman
1/22/2007 5:30:00 PM
Totally retarded, but it made me laugh anyway. Imagine KITT's voice replaced by Philip Seymour Hoffman's. Repeat ad infinitum. (There are tons more, uh, "episodes" up on YouTube.)
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8663#8663 |
Sundance Report: D’Angelo on The Savages and Snow Angels
1/22/2007 4:00:00 PM
 | | Snow Angels |
We now return you to our regularly scheduled carping.
Based on published reviews and overheard conversations, I’d say the most universally acclaimed film screened here so far is The Savages, Tamara Jenkins’ long-overdue follow-up to Slums of Beverly Hills (from 1998, in case you’ve long forgotten). Jenkins certainly deserves credit for tackling a subject so depressing and uncommercial that American movies have generally refused to go anywhere near it, even in passing: The trials of adult children who must suddenly care for a dementia-addled parent. And it’s not that she does anything wrong, exactly – it’s just the film covers all the expected restrained-indie bases. Both siblings, played by Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, are badly screwed up in neatly complementary ways (she’s the underachieving neurotic, he’s the repressed academic), and their adventure with Dad (Philip Bosco) allows each of them to take precisely the tiny, credible personal-growth step (s)he needs.
Linney and Hoffman are typically excellent, and The Savages has plenty of keenly observed moments, but it’s also the kind of film in which someone says “He won’t marry me, but he cries when I make him eggs,” and two scenes later, sure enough, there he is choking back tears at the breakfast table. All you need to do is take another look at You Can Count on Me to see how much more potent sibling melodrama can be.
Snow Angels, too, seems to have garnered considerable support, albeit in some cases from critics who might as well be director David Gordon Green’s mother. (“Point blank: I am a fan and will always celebrate his work.” Oooookay then.) Those hoping for a return to the woozy lyricism of George Washington and All the Real Girls will likely be disappointed: Formally, this is Green’s most conventional work to date, with only a handful of touches that are recognizably his own.
But what really troubled me was the film’s miserablist worldview, which suggests that happiness more or less disintegrates as children grow into adults. At least, that’s the only conclusion I can draw from the way that the narrative (adapted from a novel by Stewart O’Nan) juxtaposes teenage puppy love (Michael Angarano and Olivia Thirlby do adorably awkward emotional cartwheels around each other) with the crumbling marriage of former high-school sweethearts Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell. Opening with two mysterious offscreen gunshots, the movie inexorably builds to a conclusion that’s neither cathartic nor insightful – merely bleak. Life sucks; enjoy it while you still have pimples and braces.
-- Mike D’Angelo
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Sundance Report: Whitefield on The Good Life
1/22/2007 3:30:00 PM
 | | Chris Klein (!) in The Good Life |
The Good Life is an impressive debut from former pro skateboarder turned writer/director Steve Berra. Based loosely on some of his own experiences growing up and set during a Nebraska winter, the film is a somber story that maintains an undercurrent of hope even as life for its main character, Jason (Mark Webber), gets darker and darker. Webber (probably best recognized as the kid Bill Murray mistakes for his son in the final act of Broken Flowers) gives a transformative performance in a difficult role, and Zooey Deschanel plays a mysterious girl who walks into Jason's life unannounced and lights up every scene she’s in. The supporting cast is almost uniformly excellent: Harry Dean Stanton lends weight in a small but important role as a vintage movie theater owner now living with Alzheimer's. Chris Klein plays completely against his usual pretty boy/good guy image as an ex-jock tweaker; a pleasant surprise, his performance is one of the film's highlights. Other easily recognized actors show up throughout the film (Drea de Matteo, Donal Logue, Patrick Fugit) and do a good job with their small roles. Only Bill Paxton, who also executive produced the film, proves to be a real distraction.
Webber's interactions with the other characters all feel warm and authentic, with the chemistry between he and Deschanel particularly strong, especially in a love scene Berra plays as both tender and insightful. For the most part, given its Sundance-friendly subject matter, the writing avoids easy cliché. Patrice Lucien Cochet’s excellent and unobtrusive camera work keeps the deliberate pace interesting. This film seems tailor made for Sundance, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a distribution sale or possibly even festival awards for this project or its cast by the end of the week.
-- Bryan Whitefield
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Video of the Day 1: Wings of Desire (R.I.P. Solveig Dommartin)
1/22/2007 2:30:00 PM
Solveig Dommartin, companion and chief muse to Wim Wenders on some of his most important films, died January 11th at the untimely age of 45. Film buffs will remember her as the heavenly trapeze artist in Wings of Desire, but she was also Wenders's chief creative collaborator on his massively ambitious Until the End of the World, in which she also starred.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8665#8665 |
Sundance Report: D’Angelo Weighs in on Joshua and My Kid Could Paint That
1/22/2007 1:00:00 PM
 | | Joshua |
My hard-won reputation as the curmudgeon who hates everything may be in jeopardy. In just three days here, I’ve already seen three films that are a virtual lock for my year-end top ten list. If not for my tepid reaction to buzz items like Tamara Jenkins’ The Savages and David Gordon Green’s Snow Angels (both of which I hope to address in a future post), I’d worry that I was getting soft.
Speaking of the ol’ corpus: How much credit should a movie get for provoking an honest-to-goodness full-body shiver? Joshua, the narrative feature debut of Hell House director George Ratliff, may ultimately amount to little more than the sum of its creepy frissons, but it’s hard to complain about thematic coherence when you’ve just spent the better part of two hours alternately cackling, gaping and whimpering. What makes the film so intensely unnerving isn’t so much the preternatural self-possession of Jacob Kogan in the title role, though the kid nails every polite non sequitur and disconcerting stare. It’s more in the way that Ratliff creates discordant notes via cuts that happen a fraction of a second “too soon,” so that you’re constantly on edge without ever quite understanding why. Like its similarly underrated cousin, Birth, Joshua makes up in potent atmosphere and formal mastery what it lacks in narrative logic; unlike Birth, however, it’s further enhanced by two superlative adult performances (courtesy Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga) that invest a ludicrous premise with conviction and behavioral nuance. In short, I was seriously skeeved.
Even more disturbing, albeit in a very different way, is My Kid Could Paint That, the most inadvertently profound and wide-ranging documentary since Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Director Amir Bar-Lev set out to make a film about Marla Olmstead, a four-year-old prodigy whose paintings are so accomplished that collectors shell out thousands of dollars apiece and critics maintain that her work would look right at home on museum walls. Per its title, the film questions the very nature of abstract art, wondering aloud whether true artistic expression requires self-consciousness. But as doubts surface about the paintings’ authenticity, My Kid Could Paint That becomes less and less about Marla and more and more about our all-consuming need to construct narratives out of everything around us, to the point where value derives not from beauty or utility, but from whether or not something makes “a good story.” Bar-Lev tenaciously pursues this saga into dense philosophical thickets, even as he finds himself questioning his own motives; when Marla’s mother bitterly refers to one development as “documentary gold,” it’s at once a scathing rebuke and an undeniable truth.
-- Mike D’Angelo
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Sundance Update: Leonsis Gets Profiled, Lotsa Movies Get Sold, House Parties Get Banned
1/22/2007 12:00:00 PM
- Former AOL exec and Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis, producer of the documentary Nanking, is the latest zillionaire to join the elite group of “filmanthropists” at Sundance. With all that money, you’d think these people could come up with a better moniker.
- George Ratliff’s much-praised thriller Joshua (look for Mike D’Angelo’s review of it up later today on ScreenGrab), has sold to Fox Searchlight for around $4 million. Searchlight, as you may recall, are the same dudes who scored Little Miss Sunshine last year and bought Napoleon Dynamite previously.
- The Weinstein Company knows a saleable property when they see one. They’ve bought the well-received John Cusack Iraq drama Grace is Gone, for somewhere in the region of $4 million, and they did it at 4:00 am at the end of an old school, late-night-bidding war.
- In a somewhat more understated move, Magnolia Pictures has bought Dan Klores’s much-liked doc Crazy Love, “about a couple who marries some 16 years after the man has acid thrown in his future wife's face,” for mid six figures.
- Can’t get enough of buying and selling? David Poland’s got a good roundup of what has sold and what will be sold, here.
- The great Karina Longworth has a fascinating article here on one of the most interesting titles of the festival – Lynn Hershman’s documentary Strange Culture, about artist Steve Kurtz, who awoke one morning to find his wife dead, called the cops, and then was arrested by the Feds after they found bacterial samples and biological equipment intended for an art project in his home.
- Although it qualifies as yet another “Sundance has lost its soul” type of piece, Richard Corliss’s screed in Time against the cookie cutter nature of many Sundance films is, I think, one of those instances where a late-to-the-party old media piece actually kinda manages to hit the nail on the head.
- No more house parties at Sundance. Somewhere, a 250-lb., beer-soaked DKE brother with dreams of Indiewood glory is crying.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8661#8661 |
Sundance Report: Whitefield on Eating Pellets and Chasing Ghosts
1/22/2007 11:00:00 AM
 | | Pac Man contest winner Mike Jacobson |
Competition Documentary Chasing Ghosts director Lincoln Ruchti and producer Michael Verrechia hosted a gamers wet dream Sunday on Main Street where kids as young as 10 and adults well past 40 all got a chance to slap buttons and jerk joysticks on vintage video games in their original arcade form. The 80's was well represented with Tron, Mario Brothers, Galaga, Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Joust, and Robotron all on the floor. Parachute pants were not required.
There was also an official contest for high score on Pac Man. Young Cody Rasmussen thought he had a good chance with a score of 13,950 but once Mike Jacobson got done eating hosts he had racked up an insurmountable 34,530. In fairness Mike later admitted that he does have a Ms. Pac Man machine in his Manhattan apartment; however, according to him the games are "totally different." Mike also told us of his quest for a vintage Burger Time machine that he had tracked down on eBay from a seller in Salt Lake City. Unfortunately that trip didn't prove as successful but with the X-Arcade joystick that he won he can now access the game from any number of sources on the web.
-- Bryan Whitefield
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Morning Deal Report: Sunshine Can Do It, Best Cities for Filmmakers, More Geek Flix
1/22/2007 10:00:00 AM
- In a shocker of shockers, Little Miss Sunshine won the Producers Guild of America (PGA) award, thus making the Oscar race for Best Picture totally wide open. (With nominations being announced tomorrow morning.). Tom O’Neil deciphers why Sunshine might have had the edge in the guild awards. (One word: Television.)
- I guess this appeared a while ago, but it’s worth noting: Moviemaker Magazine rounds up the Top 10 cities in the US to be a filmmaker in. And it looks like Craig Brewer might have singlehandedly put Memphis on the map. (Hat tip: The Nashville Scene.)
- Can’t let Sundance get in the way of producing more geek-friendly, anime-inflected, CGI-riddled fantasy-sci-fi action graphic novel adaptations. Rogue Pictures and Intrepid Pictures have bought the film rights to the graphic novel series Couriers, which “follows the adventures of two gun-toting mercenary couriers named Moustafa and Special who take on jobs other couriers do not, such as intelligence, large cash transfers, protection, assassinations and blockade-running…[T]he series has been praised for its Hong Kong movie and Japanese animation-influenced kinetic art style and action set pieces.” You don’t say.
- There was an explosion last week on the set of the Tom Hanks-Julia Roberts-starring Charlie Wilson’s War, which critically injured a special effects assistant. And now it looks like no safety officer was on set when the blast occurred during the reshoots for the real-life Afghan war drama, so expect some citations for safety violations.
- The producer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy – no, not that one, the other one – is getting ready to make a $100 million movie about a Kiwi racing car legend. “Barrie Osborne, Oscar-winning producer of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, is prepping a biopic of Formula One racing car legend Bruce McLaren…to be announced Saturday at an A1 Grand Prix car race in Taupo, New Zealand.”
- Keira Knightley is suing a British tabloid over allegations of lying about an eating disorder.
- Don’t put off reading Newsweek’s great Oscar actors’ roundtable – which includes Cate Blanchett recalling her first acting job as an extra in an Arabic boxing movie, Leo DiCaprio admitting he felt like a piece of “cute meat” after Titanic, and Helen Mirren just being her awesome self.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8657#8657 |
Sundance Report: D'Angelo Defends Chicago 10
1/22/2007 9:30:00 AM
(Note: Originally posted on Sunday, January 21.)
Mike D'Angelo reports in, with a spirited defense of the festival's much-dismissed opening night film.
 | | Jeez. Even Sundance feels the need to blur the bird. What has the world come to? |
Like poor beleaguered Leonard Shelby in Memento, festivalgoers tend to know who they are and where they’re going, but have only the haziest recollection of where they’ve just been. I’m writing these words roughly a day and a half into Sundance 2007, having seen or sampled nine films thus far, and already yesterday’s titles feel like ancient history – especially now that the blogosphere chews up and spits out pictures within scant hours of their world premiere. At this point, does anybody still care what I thought of the opening night film, Chicago 10, which has already (as reported here on Screengrab) been widely dismissed as interesting-but-flawed, a context-free rehash of well-trod historical ground?
Hope so, ‘cause I’m not about to ignore the festival’s highlight-to-date just because everybody else rushed headlong to miss the boat. As you’ve no doubt heard by now, director Brett Morgen (The Kid Stays in the Picture) audaciously mixes archival footage of the protests that turned the 1968 Democratic National Convention into a “police state” (per Walter Cronkite) with animated recreations of the “Chicago 7” trial that followed a year later. (Adding Bobby Seale and the two defense attorneys brings the total to ten.) Some critics have treated the use of rotoscoped animation and celebrity voice work – Hank Azaria as Abbie Hoffman and Allan Ginsburg; Liev Schreiber as William Kunstler; an unrecognizable Roy Scheider as the judge – as if it were merely a stunt, Morgen’s way of reaching out to the kids or something. In fact, it’s simply an inspired solution to a difficult problem. What Morgen has done with Chicago 10 is truly remarkable, perhaps unprecedented: He’s made a historical documentary that takes place entirely in the present tense. And to that end, he’s sacrificed exposition for immediacy, thereby trading something movies don’t do very well in favor of the medium’s greatest strength.
Critics, as usual, have misunderstood. David Poland, for example, complains that the movie has “no context, no perspective, and no clear message.” Two out of three ain’t bad: Chicago 10 deliberately eschews context and perspective, the better to simply plunge the viewer into the maelstrom, as if these fires raged last week rather than four decades ago. Morgen’s message, however, while implicit, couldn’t be much clearer. In lieu of a “comprehensive,” “dispassionate,” “balanced” portrait of the most explosive instance of American dissidence of the past half-century (at least), he gives us something much more valuable: a call to arms. Yes, the movie is blatantly stacked in favor of its hero-agitators, but it’s also impossible to watch Chicago 10 without becoming acutely aware of the vacuum at the center of the current anti-war movement, which has prompted countless marches and demonstrations but has produced no Abbie Hoffmans or Jerry Rubins. And it’s Morgen’s refusal to offer any kind of retrospective take on what we’re seeing – to give his doc the propulsive forward motion of a fictional narrative – that prompts us to make our own disheartening comparisons between past and present. (He does nudge us a bit with source music from the likes of Eminem and Rage Against The Machine.)
The animated trial sequences, then, are simply a means of avoiding the talking-heads recollections that would otherwise have been a necessary evil. (I accepted these interludes in much the same spirit as I do the production stills employed in the restoration of the 1954 A Star Is Born, which cover sequences that survive only in soundtrack form.) I’m less thrilled about the use of animation to recreate scenes for which we have no public record, such as a diner confrontation between Hoffman and some Chicago cops, and by the way that the use of motion-control rotoscoping inspires the animators to overindulge in sweeping camera movements just for the hell of it. But Chicago 10 is vital and electrifying in a way that truly honors the events it depicts. If you’re looking for the most objective and detailed account imaginable, pick up a damn book. That’s what they’re for.
-- Mike D'Angelo
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Sundance Report: How You Know You’ve Arrived in Park City…
1/22/2007 9:20:00 AM
(Note: Originally posted on Saturday, January 20.)
 | | Only at Sundance do people get giddy over a glimpse of Sam Rockwell (right) or even his mistaken doppelganger Alessandro Nivola (left). |
This year ScreenGrab will be featuring daily Sundance reports from the formidable reviewing-and-blogging tag-team of Mike D’Angelo and Bryan Whitefield. Here’s Bryan’s introductory missive from the fest, complete with one of the more bizarre Indiewood mistaken-identity stories we’ve heard in many a moon.
So the flight from Newark to Salt Lake City was packed with Sundancers but was relatively painless. Maybe the airline had finagled some sort of For Your Consideration sponsorship from Miramax, because the in-flight movie was The Queen, which I hadn't had a chance to see yet. (And all the praise this film is getting I now thoroughly believe it deserves, especially Helen Mirren and writer Peter Morgan.)
I don't think you officially know you're at Sundance until you hear locals trading Paris Hilton stories. This year seems to be no different as two local radio stations were moaning and groaning about the heiress-we-love-to-hate's presence but retelling their stories of years past with the proud nostalgia of fishermen who had a lead on a 12-pound bass.
The typical mix of New York people, LA people (and trust me you'll immediately know the difference), locals who are excited about Sundance, locals who hate Sundance, skiers who had no idea it was Sundance week, film people, security people, paparazzi and star gazers are here all in full force.
It's always funny to see people with a clear sense of self-importance at the mercy of the Park City bus system.
Women and girls alike all still love John Cusack. He made a quick move from a truck to a press center and I heard audible screams, clicking cameras and every woman for the rest of the block buzzing his name from one to the other…
I wasn't complaining myself when I caught a glimpse of an even more gorgeous in real life Gretchen Mol…
And I got a good laugh from a couple of over eager star fuckers spotting Alessandro Nivola ( Laurel Canyon) and yelling, "Hey Sam Rockwell!!! Hey Sam!" To which he had to humbly reply, "I'm not Sam," without revealing his identity and insisting he had to be somewhere when they asked for a picture anyway.
- Bryan Whitefield
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8644#8644 |
