Take a break from work: watch a movie trailer...

Gus Van Sant’s biopic of San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, starring Sean Penn, just got its first trailer:

(Or watch best-quality trailers in different sizes at Apple.)

That is one fantastic trailer. It manages to be light and humorous and celebratory even though the story the film will tell will be intense and serious, which you could guess even if you knew nothing about Milk and were judging only by some of the images that flash by here. It tells me -- perhaps inaccurately; we’ll only know once we see the movie -- that the overall tone of the film, despite, ahem, the inevitable ending, is going to be hopeful and joyous, which is a movie I’d like to see. And it’s probably a movie that will have a far greater impact than the same story told more somberly.

Milk opens in limited release November 26.

Friday fun! Here’s a screen capture from one of the DVDs in my collection (and it’s definitely from a movie, not a TV show). Guess the movie for fun and, well, fun. No prizes, just bragging rights. But hey: one guess per comment -- no fair hogging all the guesses.

The Net is just having so much fun with John McCain:

via Eschaton

(There’s also this: it’s audio only, but it’s even funnier.)

The Reality Behind the Fantasy

Ah, it’s the other documentary about crazy LARPers and the craziness that makes them crazy. Actually, that’s not fair to Monster Camp, filmmaker Cullen Hoback’s look at live-action roleplaying gamers in Seattle. It’s not his fault (well, probably not, anyway) that Darkon, the documentary about live-action roleplaying gamers in Baltimore, managed to hit DVD a few months ago. In fact, the makers of both films should probably be commended, for picking up on whatever is in the zeitgeist that makes us suddenly fascinated by grownups -- or near enough -- who dress up in pseudo medieval garb, pick up fake swords and maces, and beat the hitpoints out of one another. You know, for fun.

continue reading "Monster Camp (review)" »

Oh, yeah, Nic Cage is so tough with his long hair and all the guns and his traveling around the planet to kill people for hire and his world-weary ennui, but he can’t face a few pathetic film critics?

Yup, Bangkok Dangerous, the only new wide release today, was not screened in advance for us wily and unpredictable pens for hire. So I’ll plunk down my 12 bucks and see it this afternoon. Send out a search party if you don’t hear back from me.

Behind-the-Scenes Subtext

As a devoted fan of Season One of Heroes, NBC’s modern comic-book drama, I was among those screaming the loudest at how poor a followup Season Two was. So it’s interesting to have a look at the Season Two DVD set not for the episodes themselves -- they do not generally improve upon repeat viewings -- but for the sense you can gather, in the subtext of the bonus materials, of a series that became a victim of outside circumstances as well as its own success.

continue reading "Heroes: Season Two (review)" »

Take a break from work: watch a movie trailer...

Huh. I was more excited for this flick before I saw the trailer. Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio in a Ridley Scott film? That sounds like a killer prospect. And then I watched the trailer just now, and it looks rather similar to Traitor, which I really love, only somewhat more pedestrian. This trailer could be misleading, of course -- the Traitor trailer isn’t great, either. I hope it is. Because I want to like this.

Body of Lies opens October 10.

Actually, I have no idea what Oliver Stone’s movie plans are, but check out the September 2004 cover of Life magazine:

Kinda creepy, ain’t it?

I guess Stone could get Ian Holm in his old-Bilbo makeup to play McCain...

via ThinkProgress by way of Eschaton

It’s Thursday, so it’s time to remake an 80s classic TV show or movie with an all-new cast. This week: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the 1986 John Hughes flick about how the coolest kid in school plays hooky.

(If you have a suggestion for an 80s TV show or movie we should play with, feel free to email me.)

continue reading "dream cast: hypothetical ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ remake" »

Geeks are too cool:

Lots of folks emailed me about this: thanks to you all. And keep the suggestions coming -- I can’t scout the whole Net myself.

It's like, you make one clean spot, and all of a sudden the whole place looks like hell...

Update: A last-minute addition to my screening schedule this week: Happy-Go-Lucky [opens limited October 10]. This is the new one from Mike Leigh, who made the wonderful Vera Drake, though this one’s a comedy. It’ll be a selection at both the upcoming Toronto and New York film festivals.

It’s another sloooow movie week for me, as we wait for the serious fall season to gear up. The only major release this Friday, September 5, is Bangkok Dangerous, which won’t screen for critics, though I’ll check it out on opening day and report back.

So it’s just a couple of other early-autumn flicks for me this week. I’m guessing I’m going to hate The Women [opens wide September 12], because this is how it’s being sold to us:

In New York City's modern whirl of fashion and publishing, Mary Haines seems to have it all--a beautiful country home, a rich financier husband, an adorable 11-year-old daughter and a part-time career creating designs for her father's venerable clothing company. Her best friend, Sylvie Fowler, leads another enviable life--as a happily single editor of a prominent fashion magazine, a possessor of a huge closet of designer clothes and a revered arbiter of taste and style poised on New York's cutting edge. But when Mary's husband enters into an affair with Crystal Allen, a sultry "spritzer girl" lurking behind the Saks Fifth Avenue perfume counter, all hell breaks loose. Mary and Sylvie's relationship is tested to the breaking point while their tight-knit circle of friends, including mega-mommy Edie Cohen and author Alex Fisher, all start to question their own friendships and romantic relationships as well.

None of which sounds like the New York I know, or any of the women I know. Nor does it sound like the kind of fantasyland I’d like to visit, either.

And then I’ve got the new Coen Brothers flick, Burn After Reading [opens wide September 12]. I’ve already gone into some depth about why I’m so excited for this one, but I’ll say it again: Yippee!

Not that that’s exactly a newsflash.

The site 4/29truth.com has the scoop, but don’t click through if you haven’t seen the latest season of Battlestar Galactica, or you’ll get a whopping big spoiler.

I tend to agree, however, with the commenter on this issue at Boing Boing (the post there is also a big spoiler) who noted:

I object to this comparison on the basis that it makes the candidates seem cooler than they really are.

Also: Tigh/Roslin 2008!

I’ve gotten links to this one from lots of you: Don LaFontaine, voice of movie trailers, has died at the age of 68.

Oddly enough, I have absolutely nothing to say about this. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t mean I wished the man ill or anything, but the news of his passing did not rock my world. In fact, now that I think about it, maybe now we’ll get some more interesting movie trailers that don’t sound like all the other movie trailers we’ve seen for the last 20 years.

That probably does make me a bad person. So there.

I’ve been doing lots of behind-the-scenes tweaking since the redesign, one of which is very important to note if you follow site updates via an RSS feed. I will soon get rid of the Feedburner feed -- that’s the one at this URL:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/flickfilosopher/Sfpt

Please update your RSS reader to check this feed:

http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/atom.xml

Thanks.

via Americablog

Take a break from work: watch a movie trailer...

I like Mark Wahlberg. I think he’ll be considered one of the iconic actors of Generation X when movie historians look back 50 years from now. I don’t mean one of the best actors of our generation, but one of those who embodies the cynicism and practicality that are our trademarks. He’s perfect for a noirish hero, and this looks pretty damn noirish.

Max Payne opens October 17.

To be. Oh yes, definitely to be. ’Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished for, Kevin Kline and the crazy Dane. His is the most powerful Hamlet I’ve seen yet: he’s mad-angry, not mad-crazy, and physically powerful with it. When he’s tossing Ophelia around in the get-thee-to-a-nunnery bit... wow.

What’s even more astonishing about this is that Kline directed himself, in this stage production shot in 1990 for PBS from the version Kline mounted, to great acclaim, for the New York Shakespeare Festival. His instincts both as an actor and a director are extraordinary: this is so easy a role to go over the top with, and he goes in the other direction. The whole production is minimalist, not just the plain modern dress and the stark stage but Kline himself. The character is always inner-directed, but never believably more so than in this production. This Hamlet may be faking the insanity, but he’s not faking the torment he’s putting himself through.

Early on, Kline’s Hamlet is mopey, teary, and grieving, and here, he was reminding me of someone I couldn’t quite put a finger on:

continue reading "to be or not to be: Kevin Kline as Hamlet" »

obsession: still Doctor Who (most recent episode blogging: “Journey’s End”)
boyfriend: David Tennant as the Doctor (see my summer of Tennant and Hamlet)
psyched: Burn After Reading (because the Coen Brothers are gods)
dreading: Bangkok Dangerous (because it won’t screen for critics, and the Thai movie it’s based on wasn’t so hot, either)
enemy: Anna Faris, aka The House Bunny (because the whole damn thing was her idea)

The cinematography is lovely, all New England autumnal decay signifying the languishing of the soul. The performances are exquisite, especially David Strathairn (The Spiderwick Chronicles) as a schoolteacher so deeply impacted by tragedy that he descends into a kind of hoboesque fugue state, and Jane Adams (Little Children) as a single mother struggling to maintain her sense of self amidst the hardships of everyday life. So it’s a terrible pity that this ensemble drama about people hurting and coping in small-town America is so relentlessly dull -- perhaps if it were an hour shorter it might not wear out its welcome so thoroughly. First-time writer-director Aaron J. Wiederspahn attempts to weave hints of a dreary fantasy through his all but plotless meditation on loss and grief -- could this all be a dream? or a nightmare? -- but the magical realism falls flat, too, and ends in a place that feel neither magical nor realistic. If Wiederspahn wanted us to feel as if we were mired in the same leaden purgatory as Strathairn’s sad sack, however, that he accomplished.

Oh no!

The Bratz star in their first movie musical Bratz: Girls Really Rock featuring eight new dance along, sing-along songs! Lights! Camera! Action! Yasmin, Cloe, Jade and Sasha are off for the summer of their lives as they take the stage at Camp Starshine, an elite performing arts camp where acting, dancing and fashion get your name up in lights. The Bratz are all about having fun and even the most serious ballerina, Anna, finds that hanging out with the Bratz really rocks!

Wait -- it gets worse:

continue reading "the oh-no! DVD of the week: ‘Bratz: Girlz Really Rock’" »

A simple story, told totally visually. I love it:

For those few of you reading here from outside the United States, the box office report is coming on Tuesday this week because yesterday was Labor Day, the holiday marking the traditional, if not actual, end of summer. Unlike most other long holiday weekends, it’s never a big weekend for movies -- the kids have either already gone back to school, or are about to, and everyone else is just pooped from the summer and is relaxing around the barbecue or the pool. But this Labor Day weekend was even slower than most:

1. Tropic Thunder: $14.3 million
2. Babylon A.D.: $12 million
3. The Dark Knight: $11 million
4. The House Bunny: $10.2 million (dropping 30% in its second week)
5. Traitor: $10 million

continue reading "weekend box office: ‘Tropic Thunder’ stays atop for third week" »

End of the World

It’s mad mad Mad Max world in which Vin Diesel lives in the nonspecific near future of Babylon A.D.: Rabbit carcasses for food are for sale in the park by suspicious-looking peasant women, but you can still get wine to go with it. Google brings you the news -- all riots and science run amuck -- on your widescreen TV. Luxury tanks come complete with liquor bars and four-wall video windows (complete with green-tinged night vision) but “UN passports are impossible to fake.” Nuclear disaster has ravaged the third-world-ish Russia, and the beatific mug of Al Gore graces the front of T-shirts like he’s the Pope. “Viral bombs” are a risk, and that’s, perhaps, why there’s a demilitarized zone in Alaska. It’s not exactly pleasant, yet it’s not exactly much different from the world we live in, which would look like science fiction, when presented with a certain slant, to the citizens of only 30 years ago.

continue reading "Babylon A.D. (review)" »

Variations on this question include:

• “How do you make a living?”
• “Why do your bosses let you get away with the shit you pull?”
• “How can you afford to live in New York? You must have a rich husband.”
• “Why can’t your staff handle [insert whatever strange request the emailer needs answered]?”

Here’s my deal: I do not have a trust fund, or a rich husband, or a sugar daddy, and I have not won a Powerball or Megaball or any kind of lotto game. I am my own sole support.

I do not have a staff, or bosses, at FlickFilosopher.com. It’s all me. I do it all: design, Web coding, promotion, advertising sales, reader relations, and -- oh yeah -- occasionally writing reviews and other pop culture commentary.

I am a professional writer and editor, which is all I have ever been in my professional life, which began when I was 19 years old and had just dropped out of New York University’s film school. With the extremely rare exceptions of folks like J.K. Rowling and Stephen King and Tina Brown and Jann Wenner, professional writers and editors do not make very much money at all. Forget everything you’ve seen in the movies and on TV. Publishing is not glamorous, and it’s not lucrative.

continue reading "frequently asked questions: “Do you make a living from this site?”" »

It’s just for fun.

I’m a bit mystified as to why this would bother or confound people so much, but over the course of the 11 years since this site debuted, I’ve gotten an inordinate number of questions regarding this. (The latest, which prompted this post, came in the comments to my post explaining the latest redesign.)

Writers play with words. It’s what we do. I’m not sure I gave it a lot of thought at the time I created this site, but now it seems to me that it probably came out of a desire not to come across as too intensely serious, to be seen as having fun with the concept of “philosophy” -- and, perhaps, in particular when it comes to applying philosophical ideas to something so seemingly frivolous as movies.

That’s not unusual, either. We writers follow our instincts and often don’t understand why we go in a particular direction until much later, with the benefit of hindsight, when we can look back and see how apt our choices appear to have been. Or it’s possible, on the other hand, that those apparently random choices influence the subsequent directions we take.

Whichever is the case, it just means we writers don’t always know why we do things: we just go with the flow we create.

Roommates in their natural habitat:

Anyone understand German? I’m sure that answering machine message that plays over the end credits is funny, but it’s not subtitled. Can anyone translate?

I spent a chunk of hours yesterday freshening up the look of the site. Hope you like it. The changes are mostly cosmetic, with a few exceptions. I moved the posting date and time and the post category to up above the post title, because I think that info was getting lost. (I’ve gotten way too many emails from people asking me, “So, when did you post that review?” when that info was always available at the bottom of the entry. Now, that info should be more obvious.) And just in case you weren’t already aware of this, the post category is clickable: click on it, and you’ll get a list of other postings in that category.

I updated the favicon and the iPhone icons as well, but you may need to force them to reload before you see them in your browser or on your iPhone. You can do that by clicking here for the favicon and here for the iPhone icon.

I also added the day of the week to the timestamps on comments -- I think that will make it a little easier to pick up where you left off if you’re trying to rejoin a conversation.

continue reading "little bit of a redesign" »

Take a break from work: watch a movie trailer...

Damn, I hate when that happens! You’re just a regular person having regular fun with your regular friends, and then you’re so special that the FBI and supersecret anarchist terrorists want you.

Actually, I’m guessing poor Shia is stuck in the Matrix.

Eagle Eye opens September 26.

Friday fun! Here’s a screen capture from one of the DVDs in my collection (and it’s definitely from a movie, not a TV show). Guess the movie for fun and, well, fun. No prizes, just bragging rights. But hey: one guess per comment -- no fair hogging all the guesses.