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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (17-24)
Johnny Depp's Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness (2024)
QUICK REVIEW: A group of prepubescent kids are filming their Super 8 zombie movie in their hometown, as a freight train crashes and mysterious events follow. Super 8 is an excellent film from great writer-director J. J. Abrams (Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)). - Particularly for big kids and teens. The kids in the cast are sweet and act fine, in particular the lead Joel Courtney (Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn (2014)) and Elle Fanning (Somewhere (2010)), and Kyle Chandler (Argo (2012)) is also good as the Deputy Sheriff, whose face can fold in grief so impressively. Super 8 starts really well and amusingly with the micro-film production, (which was Abrams' one idea for it, the other being the alien monster movie). SPOILER We aren't allowed to see the alien monster, until we suddenly are, and then the experience is a little flat. Super 8 is a good film, obviously keen on striking chords set by earlier Steven Spielberg (E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)) movies, which it does, without revolutionizing or transcending its sources of inspiration though. Spielberg was also one of Super 8's three producers.
Cost: 50 mil. $ Box office: 260.1 mil. $ = Huge hit [Super 8 opened #1 in North America with a 35.4 mil. $ first weekend, grossing 127 mil. $ (49 % of the total gross) there after a successful viral marketing campaign, similar to the one that made Cloverfield (2008) a huge hit. Super 8 drew good reviews and big crowds in many countries.] What do you think of Super 8?
1 Time Film Excess Nominee: Best Non-adult actor: Max Records (lost to Amara Miller for The Descendants)
The hilarious poster for David Gordon Green's The Sitter
QUICK REVIEW:
Noah is a live-at-home, suspended college student who feels his bad conscience gnaw, when his mother is intending to cancel a date to babysit some kids, so he decides to babysit them instead. They turn out to be pretty disruptive, but that doesn't hold him from taking them with him on a very adult trip...
The Sitter is a very funny, crude comedy in which Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)) proves that he's no one-hit wonder as a smart-mouthed comedy fat-face. It's a really crazy film, and the first time I've seen a gay gym depicted in a major movie, which was pretty funny. The three kids in the film are impressive; Landry Bender (Crash & Bernstein (2012-14)), Kevin Hernandez (Short Term 12 (2013)) and especially Max Records (Where the Wild Things Are (2009)) as 12 year-old Slater, SPOILER who has to be helped out of the closet in the film's only touching scene. The Sitter doesn't live by the less-is-more credo, more likely the more-is-awesome one, which alienates many, and some sequences of the film are admittedly a little much. I especially could have lived without one vulgar sex detail from The Sitter, but it might only have been in the extended cut that I saw. Still it's a crazy-funny film if you're up for it. It is written by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka (Animal Practice (2012-13), both) and directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express (2008)). Records is now starring in the upcoming I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016), and Green is busy with the Sandra Bullock-starring Our Brand Is Crisis.
Cost: 25 mil. $ Box office: 34.5 mil. $ = Big flop [The Sitter received generally poor reviews, (it holds a 4.2 critics' average on Rotten Tomatoes) and grossed 30.5 mil. $ in North America (86 % of the total gross) and nearly all the rest in the UK (3.8 mil. $/11 %).] What do you think of The Sitter?
Eleven years have passed since the events of Scream 3 (2000), and Sidney Prescott has found a new life for herself and written a book about her bloody experiences. But as she returns to Woodsboro on her book tour, a new series of gruesome murders begins by the hands of two new Ghostfaced killers. A good 10 years of cooling off was apparently just what the Scream franchise needed since the vapid last film. Horror maestro Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)) is back here, directing a Kevin Williams (Scream (1996)) script. And Scream 4 is easily the series' next best entry, only bested by the original Scream. This reboot is rife with raw energy, kills, humor and new stars (SPOILER that all die.) It looks great, shot by Peter Deming (Drag Me to Hell (2009)), lighted in a more rough design than the earlier films that suits this new update of the Scream universe. The fresh, exciting stars, many of whom suffer gruesome, inventive deaths, include: Emma Roberts (We're the Millers (2013)), Marielle Jaffe (Locked Away (2010)), Hayden Panettiere (Nashville (2012-16)), Erik Knudsen (Beastly (2011)), Nico Tortorella (Odd Thomas (2013)), Anthony Anderson (Bound (2013)), Mary McDonnell (Donnie Darko (2011)) and Rory Culkin (You Can Count On Me (2000)). Neve Campbell (The Company (2003)), David Arquette (Eight Legged Freaks (2002)) and Courtney Cox (Cougar Town (2009-15)) are all back, and Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)) and Anna Paquin (The Piano (1993)) appear in cameos in an entertaining opening scene. The only minus about Scream 4 SPOILER is that the murderer feels the need to over-explain the fatalities in the end. But Scream 4 is still a brilliant slasher and a deserved return to form for Craven, who hasn't directed since, - and might have quietly retired with Scream 4?
Cost: 40 mil. $ Box office: 97.1 mil. $ = Minor flop [Scream 4 opened #2 to 19.3 mil. $ in North America, where it grossed 38.1 mil. $ (39 % of the total gross). It made an additional 4.1 mil. $ from video sales in the US. Its performance is by many considered disappointing, although producer Harvey Weinstein has said that he was happy with the gross of the film, (which has accrued more profits via streaming and thru other channels.) But a 5th and 6th film, talked about prior to the release of Scream 4, have not materialized.- Instead, we're getting a Scream TV-series!] What do you think of Scream 4?
The Crow is an adaptation of James O'Barr's 1989 comic book of the same name, written by John Shirley (Poltergeist: The Legacy (1996), TV-series) and David J. Schow (Critters 4 (1992)) and directed by Alex Proyas (Knowing (2009)).
One year after the murder of Eric Draven, a young rock musician, and his fiancée, he comes to life again because of a crow, who flies around the dreary metropolis and wants to avenge their deaths.
The Crow has been celebrated to a ridiculous degree, and it is also even getting a remake now. It is, to me, a wildly unpleasant and poor film. Considering the three highly dubious, main talents behind it listed above, it is not so very strange, I think. It only heightens the unpleasantness of the film for me that its talented star Brandon Lee (Legacy of Rage (1986)), - the son of Bruce Lee (Fist of Fury (1972)), - was killed in a weapon's accident on the Crow set: A weapon was not properly checked before use, and Lee was shot in the abdomen, which caused his death. - Something that, of course, should never be able to happen. Still the death was ruled an accident, no-one was deemed liable, and the film was completed with a double, rewrites and some CGI covering up for Lee's absence. The film's studio Paramount wanted out of The Crow due to the death of its star and violent material, and Miramax instead went in and injected 8 mil. $ to finish the film. - But, paradoxically, it seems that the reception of the film at the time and the its cult following since have embraced Lee's death and consider the awful Crow a more profound film because of it. Nothing could, however, be farther from the truth. The details: The Crow is a cheap-looking, shameless exercise in exploitation of the teenage crowds of its time; it is a world-weary concoction, draped in goth- and grunge styles and music. This isn't just the epitome of 'the ugly 90s', it is also a badly written film, populated almost solely with unpleasant characters with few individuating traits, who all scream and swear continuously. It's filled with unpleasant violence and the occasional, more or less motivated explosions. And it's nearly always night in the Crow universe, and mostly raining as well, so that the general atmosphere and what you take from the film is simply just a heady mix of depressing garbage, all in all. The production budget was essentially too little for this type of film, because the lack of funds and mismanaging of the funds they did have, give it a cheap look: We understand that it takes place in a major city, - but we only see very little of it, and there are never many people out. The lack of extras is a mystery: In the big city of The Crow, we don't just happen to meet the same 10-15 characters over and over again, - no, they genuinely seem to be the only ones there! - Because Proyas and co. neglected to make the city look alive. Lee's death was also partly due to the fact that the weapons' handling was put in the hands of an assistant, instead of the expert, who was send home, probably to save money. - Cheap, cheap cheap. The Crow reeks of cheap, repugnant movie-making. The Crow is one-dimensional, weltschmerz-laden, ugly, pointless film-making. And it's is such a shame that Lee should end his far too young life on such a tawdry production. If you decide to watch the film anyway, you might notice that The Dark Knight (2008) seems, oddly, to have been inspired by The Crow, as some designs (namely Lee's make-up, which is very similar to that of Heath Ledger's Joker, but also some masks in the film) and visuals are very similar in the infinitely superior Batman movie.
Brandon Lee in a still from Alex Proyas' The Crow - R.I.P.
Watch the trailer for the film here
Cost: 23 mil. $ Box office: 94 mil. $ = Big hit [The Crow opened #1 in the US with 11.7 mil. $, - successfully tapping into the badly clad youths of the time, - and grossed 50.6 mil. $ (54 % of the total gross) in North America. It was even praised by scores of populist and/or drowsy critics.] What do you think of The Crow?
+ Best Comeback Movie of the Year (Bruce Robinson and Johnny Depp)
Johnny Depp looks dapper on this poster for Bruce Robinson's The Rum Diary
Paul Kemp is a failed writer, who has taken a job as a journalist on the English-language newspaper in Puerto Rico. One of the island's young rich men offers him something else, but Kemp is more interested in the man's girlfriend...
The Rum Diary features Johnny Depp's (From Hell (2001)) probably best performance since The Libertine (2004), (if we don't count his second run as Cap. Jack Sparrow in the entertaining first sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006).) - He's on fire here! The film is the second adaptation of a book by Hunter S. Thompson, following Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), which also starred Depp in the leading gonzo journalist role. Rum Diary is adapted and directed by another wild English director, Bruce Robinson (Withnail & I (1987)), and it's the first film he has directed in 19 years! (Ever since Jennifer 8 (1992)). At first I was a little disappointed about Robinson's approach to the material, which feels about 90% more sober, straight and downplayed compared to Gilliam's great, wacky film. But then fairly soon this wildly enjoyable third world adventure took a solid grip in me anyway, especially due to the originality of the story and the excellent actors at play in it: Michael Rispoli (Rob the Mob (2014)) as Kemp's buddy Sala; Giovanni Ribisi (Ted (2012)) is hysterical as an alcoholic; Richard Jenkins (The Kingdom (2007)) is perfect as a disillusioned, wig-bearing editor; Amber Heard (Pineapple Express (2008)) is dreamy; Aaron Eckhart (Any Given Sunday (1999)) is infuriating as a bona fide douche-bag, and Bill Smitrovich (Eagle Eye (2008)) is larger-than-life as another total asshole. - They all make The Rum Diary a very entertaining, good time.
Cost: 45 mil. $ Box office: 23.9 mil. $ = Huge flop [The Rum Diary came out nearly 2½ years after its production. Robinson has related that he drank while writing the script and also during the shoot, which was done on location in Puerto Rico. The film opened to a weak 5.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 13.1 mil. $ (55 % of the total gross) and was greeted by lukewarm reviews. It stands as one of several very costly flops in Depp's recent track record as a starring actor (Dark Shadows (2012), The Lone Ranger (2013), Transcendence (2014), and Mortdecai (2015) all contribute to the regrettable statistics), but he has still said that he is interested in playing the lead in yet another of his late friend Thompson's novels. Film Excess hopes to see him back in B.O. shape later this year in Barry Levinson's highly anticipated gangster movie Black Mass.] What do you think of The Rum Diary? Are you eager to see Depp play Whitey Bulger in Black Mass (2015)?
3 Time Film Excess Nominee: Best Supporting Actor: Michael Parks (lost to Michael Shannon for Boardwalk Empire S2) Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (lost to Agnieszka Grochowska for In Darkness) Best Practical Effects (lost to Haywire)
+ Wildest Movie of the Year + Best Independent Movie of the Year
The gritty-cool poster for Kevin Smith's Red State
Three high school friends find a middle-aged woman online, who wants to screw them. But as they search her out, they walk right into a trap set up by a hateful, Christian doomsday sect. Red State is a hard-boiled, crazy, cool little indie film, replete with biting societal criticism of both government and religious fanaticism and bolstered by vivid action and pitch black (sometimes nearly bizarre) humor by writer-director Kevin Smith (Clerks (1994)). It is well-written and dazzlingly carried out with very limited funds, (the budget for special effects were reportedly just 5,000 $.) Red State has some fantastic performances; by John Goodman (Flight (2012)) and particularly by Melissa Leo (Flight) and Michael Parks (Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)), who plays the deluded father in the film with an intensity and gusto that simply knocks you over: In his long speech scene, his charisma and rationale almost gets us to understand his congregation. The film is intermittently very dark, funny and scary. A wild ride and probably the most kick-ass piece of independent American film-making of 2011. Smith has several projects in the making; he is involved with the filming of Holidays right now, a horror movie that he both stars in and co-directs, with several others. He is also debuting his new movie Yoga Hosers, the sequel to Tusk (2014), later this year.
Michael Parks' lunacy is quite convincing in Kevin Smith's Red State
John Goodman is a no-bullshit type government agent in Kevin Smith's Red State
Watch Kevin Smith introduce the teaser for the movie here
Cost: 4 mil. $ Box office: 1.8 mil. $ + 3 mil. $ from VoD = Even Steven [Red State's distribution was as controversial if not more controversial than the film itself: After its Sundance screening, Smith had said publicly that he would sell the distribution right auction-style, so he gave the crowd long faces when he told them after the screening that that wouldn't be the case anyway; because he would sell the rights to himself for 20 $, and that he thinks that it is the way forward for independent filmmakers of today, - distributing their own films and avoiding the distributor's often sizable box office cut. Smith then showed Red State for a week in his pal Quentin Tarantino's cinema in Los Angeles and went on a roadshow in North America, starting in Radio City Music Hall, with the film and himself, whereupon it was released to VoD and video. The reception to the film has been wildly mixed, and Smith has burned many bridges for himself with his 'auction', but Red State has been praised by peers such as Richard Kelly, Tarantino and Ben Affleck. Note that the VoD-figure listed above comes from Smith and could be misleading.] What do you think of Red State?
The face of the key chimpanzee in the Apes reboot, Caesar, on the poster for Rupert Wyatt's The Rise of the Planet of the Apes
QUICK REVIEW:
Fox's second reboot of its beloved Apes franchise, (after Tim Burton's less than favorably received Planet of the Apes (2001)):
An Alzheimer's scientist has developed a smart ape and experiments his new drug on his sick father. - But then all hell breaks loose! The cast includes good forces such as John Lithgow (The Campaign (2012)) and Brian Cox (L.I.E. (2001)), but James Franco (Interior. Leather Bar. (2013)) leads the film, and he just seems like Franco throughout, instead of a real character. Tobey Maguire (Pawn Sacrifice (2015)) was in talks to play the part, but that unfortunately fell through. Despite the fact that the big action scenes, - in particular the gorilla that sinks a helicopter! - are neat, it is disappointing to me, - a big fan of the original 5 Apes films, - that this new film doesn't have one doll or ape costume in it. (All the apes are CGI-designed, some of them based on motion captured actors.) Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver's (Jurassic World (2015)) script bows to the 1968 original film in references to it, and the plot of Rise proceeds without any big surprises. The film is directed by British director Rupert Wyatt (The Escapist (2008)). Rise of the Planet of the Apes mostly left me hoping that the sequel would be better. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) is now a fact, and War of the Planet of the Apes (2017) is in pre-production. Related reviews: Rupert Wyatt: The Escapist (2008) or, Frank's Escape The Apes franchise:Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) or, The Final Ape! Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) or, The Ape Uprising Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) - Decent follow-up to the SF milestone
Watch the trailer for the film here
Cost: 93 mil. $ Box office: 481.8 mil. $ = Huge hit [Rise was surprisingly successful; it opened #1 in North America with a 54.8 mil. $ opening weekend and stayed #1 for a second weekend as well, the 4th biggest August opening up until that point. It grossed 176.7 mil. $ in North America (37 % of the total gross) and was Oscar-nominated for its visual effects, losing to Hugo.] What do you think of Rise of the Planet of the Apes?
1 Time Film Excess Nominee: Best Animation: Gore Verbinski (lost to Kung Fu Panda 2)
Gore Verbinski's Rango features striking character designs as is obvious from this poster for the film
QUICK REVIEW:
An acting chameleon drops out from his terrarium in the middle of the Mojave desert, where he finds the town Dirt. Here he acts like a hero and gets appointed sheriff. But the town has a pressing water problem.
Johnny Depp (From Hell (2001)) is good and funny voicing Rango and leading a fine voice actor cast: Ned Beatty (Life (1999)), Alfred Molina (Magnolia (1999)), Ray Winstone (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)) and Harry Dean Stanton (Wild at Heart (1990)) among others. Unfortunately, Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood (2004-06)) is sorely miscast as the 'Spirit of the West', an old kind of God-figure. The beginning of Rango promises a uniquely psychedelic, grand animation; gradually, though, the film instead gets bend towards the absolutely recognizable, formulaic direction, which is a shame. The script is by John Logan (Hugo (2011)), based on a story by Logan, director Gore Verbinski (The Lone Ranger (2013)) and James Ward Byrkit (Coherence (2013)). Rango makes you laugh, and the special animation style is enjoyable throughout. Verbinski had previously worked with Depp in the three Pirates of the Caribbean movies (2003; 2006; 2007) and did so again in the mega-flop Lone Ranger. After that affair, Verbinski won't be back as a director again until next year with a much smaller film, titled at the moment, A Cure for Wellness.
Cost: 135 mil. $ Box office: 245.7 mil. $ = Big flop [Rango was well-received by critics, (Roger Ebert awarded it 4 of 4 stars!), and it won the Best Animation Oscar. It opened #1 with a 38 mil. $ opening weekend in the US, where it became the first 2011 release to break 100 mil. $, grossing 123.4 mil. $ (50 % of the total gross). The film caused some ratings controversy, since several characters smoke in it, but it still retained its PG-rating. Though the film cannot be counted a commercial hit in theatrical terms, its distributor Paramount Pictures were so satisfied with it that they decided to start their own animation department after their deal with DreamWorks Animation elapsed in 2012.]
The Russian folk hero and his right hand man on this poster for Sergei Eisenstein and Dmitri Vasilyev's Alexander Nevsky
During Stalin's dictatorship in the Soviet Union, the country's most prominent filmmaker Sergei M. Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin (1925)) was engaged to make a film of a Russian prince, who protected Russia against the German Teutonic Knights in the 13th century. Nevsky stands up to the incoming Mongols and speaks many a passionate word of Russia's greatness, as he ventures out to lead his army against the German imperialists. The Nevsky legend obviously fit the times well in the late 30s, as Russia, along with large parts of the rest of the world and Europe in particular, were anxious about Germany's aggressive new direction under Nazi leadership. And Alexander Nevsky is obviously a propaganda film. It is also made under strict restrictions to the freedom of expression: The film was screened directly for Stalin before its release, as Eisenstein had publicly compared Nevsky to Stalin, and it apparently lost a reel at the event; probably a piece of the film that didn't suit the butcher. The filmmakers were awarded the Stalin Prize for the film in 1941.
Nikolai Cherkasov as the title character in Sergei Eisenstein and Dmitri Vasilyev's Alexander Nevsky
The details: Unsurprisingly, a good film doesn't materialize in such a context: Nevsky lacks the experimental excitement that characterize other Eisenstein works: It is a conventional story of a hero without any depth to him, who speechifies at any given moment and seems much more like a blown up figurine than a real man. He is played by Nikolai Cherkasov (Ivan the Terrible, Part II (1958)), who leads a cast, who are all uniformly stiff and have uniformly bad haircuts. None of the other characters in the film are any more believable or interesting than their dull leader: The big subplot in Nevsky concerns two soldiers in his army, who are courting the same honorable woman. - This plays out about as romantic as dried toast if you were wondering. It is all executed in oddly staged scenes in front of what is obviously immobile backdrops. The fight scenes are technically pathetic by any contemporary standards. Any seriousness of struggle, sacrifice, pain and the nature of war is lost, also due in part to the strangely celebrated score by Sergei Prokofiev (Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1945)), which plays circus-like, high-spirited melodies during scenes of mass-slaughters and religious ceremonies indiscriminately, seemingly ridiculing, satirizing or just distancing what goes on for the audience. The film awakens no emotions whatsoever. Eisenstein co-wrote it with Pyotr Pavlenko (Man of Music (1953)) and co-directed it with Dmitri Vasilyev (Lenin in October (1937)). Alexander Nevsky is praised by some, but it is little more than a boring, blatantly nationalistic piece of uncompelling propaganda from a time when film was actively used in instances such as this as a direct tool to control entire populations by their mad rulers, in this case one of the biggest murderers of the 20th century, Joseph Stalin.
Watch the film in its entirety with English subtitles here
Cost: Unknown Box office: Unknown = Uncertainty [But reportedly a huge hit. Nevsky was Eisentein's first Russian feature in about a decade, (he had made a few in Mexico during the period), and it was reportedly seen by as many as 23 mil. Russians! It also made Stalin call Eisenstein, who had previously been criticized for being a 'formalist' (prioritizing style and cinematic experiments over substance and ideology), "a true Bolshevik." The film was taken out of circulation in the summer of 1939, as Russia and Germany agreed on a non-aggression pact, but when Germany invaded Russia in 1941, the film was released again. Eisenstein himself was very dissatisfied with Nevsky, as is known from his private notes. The opportunistic and programmatic nature of the film, his servile product to please the empire's tyrant more than anything else, and the film's unexperimental straightforwardness really bothered the man, - understandably. He returned to more personal, experimental and wild filmmaking with Ivan the Terrible. You can read more about this here.] What do you think of Alexander Nevsky?
