Film Dicks Podcast #1 - Salt

For anyone who's too lazy to read our words, now you can get some of our reviewing prowess in audio form by clicking here.

This is only until we can find a more suitable way of integrating this kind of thing into the website.

World War Z with Brad Pitt?

From Slash Film:

The film adaptation of World War Z has had a drawn out development history, but even still, it always looked like it would eventually happen.

Now, breaking news from San Diego Comic-Con further supports the idea that we’ll soon see this movie in theaters. MTV has just reported from the show floor of Comic-Con that World War Z is officially moving forward with Brad Pitt attached to star. The news comes from World War Z author Max Brooks, who says that the film is currently slated for a summer 2012 release. Marc Forster is still supposed to direct.

This is mostly interesting to me because this movie is so damn late to the show. We've already seen the zombie craze fly and die last year, and everybody and their dog is making a vampire movie (Still trying to keep up with Twilight's success). I'm not sure how well it's going to it with major audiences after the market has been so flooded, so recently with zombie flicks.

On the other hand, Brad Pitt is in it, which means I'll still see it in the theater.

Serbian Film Trailer

To be honest, the Human Centipede was a huge disappointment for me. I was expecting to walk away from the movie more disgusted and appalled, not saddened that the creators didn't have the gusto to follow through with a great premise. As far as shocking films go, however, this one looks like it may take the cake:

INCREDIBLY NSFW





Trailer via Trailer Addict

3D Movies: Won't you all Die Already?

It's always been fun for me sitting down and enjoying the trailer roll before a feature film. In many cases it's my first glimpse into a lot of B-list (usually closer to A-list, just not AAA graded) movies that will be coming out in the next few months to a year. Lately though, there have been an increasing number of ads for 3D movies running before even non-3D movies. This is difficult for me to understand, as I'm not interested in seeing a 3D movie in the first place and that's why I'm not seeing one now, so why are you pelting me with 3D ads? As an example: while I'm excited to see the Avengers, if it was hitting the reels in 3D only I would sit it out. I sometimes wonder if we're ever going to get over the long string of 3D movies that are on their way and then I read quotes like this one, from an MTV interview with Wally Pfister, Chris Nolan's Cinematographer:

I must say I’m a huge IMAX fan. I like IMAX more than I like 3-D…Chris’ films are so densely layered and have so much going on visually in every way that IMAX helps enhance that because of the scope and the scale of it — it becomes a much larger canvas to paint on. That’s what we found on ‘Dark Knight’…I’m not a big fan of 3-D…I liken it to my View-Master I had 40 years ago. Are you really getting more out of the story with 3-D? When you separate those different planes and you’re creating artificial depth, it looks phony to me.

Is there a time when Back to the Future ISN'T relevant?

So the man behind The Dark Knight and Inception, two of the highest grossing and critically acclaimed films (not to mention from a mainstream director with some serious chops) is saying that 3-D is a childish gimmick? Shit yes.

Listen, 3D movies have their place. We don't need to have every summer blockbuster coming out in 3D for the next 10 years. What happens when you give uncreative people a crutch like 3D to sell their movie on, is you get a bad movie that hundreds of thousands of people pay for because it says “3D” in the title. Jump to 2 years later, and this uncreative director is shooting a bigger budget movie with even more useless special effects and even less story. Not a pretty sight.

Danny Elfman's Batman Begins

ONE SHALL FALL

Ever wonder what one of our more modern Batman franchise moves would sound like with Hans Zimmer replaced by Danny Elfman? While it doesn't totally chance the tone of the following scene, it certainly gives you the sense of the lighter mood from Burton's Batman compared to Nolan's Batman Begins.

Unfortunately due to Warner's hold over Youtube rights, you'll need to click the link below to watch this video.

On the Horizon

Tree Of Life

I have been keeping abreast of new information on this film for a few years now, and I still have no real idea what it is going to be. It is the latest effort from director Terrence Malick, (Days of Heaven, Thin Red Line, The New World), and is set to star Brad Pitt, and Sean Penn. It is said to be a family drama set in the 50’s, which sounds right on target from a man who had brought us such beautiful tone poems in the past. However the reason I am so confused about what the film really is centres on the rumours that there are sequences that deal with the formation of the earth, and dinosaurs. Also that is will be getting two separate releases, one in regular cinemas, and one in Imax. An interesting article I recently read also tells us he is working with one of the main special effects wizards that worked on 2001. So save some time around November this year for a quiet family drama from the man who brought you The New World, featuring epic practical effect dinosaur scenes on an Imax screen. Huh?

Whatever the outcome, Terrence Malick is an amazing director so it will be interesting at the very least. The idea of someone using Imax for artistic purposes is also pretty intriguing; I can’t imagine what it would be like seeing a meditative art film is such a space. Sounds nice though.

Review: Inception

Christopher Nolan seems to write screenplays as personal challenges, like the way some musicians attempt pieces of music they know they can’t play in order to stretch their abilities. Every screenplay of his has surpassed the previous in logistic complexity, and Inception finds him at his current peak. The film is about a group of corporate spies who infiltrate the dreams of their victims to catch them unaware, and extract information. They are given an impossible task, to reverse their usual procedure and introduce an insidious idea into someone’s mind without their knowledge; to perform an inception. This leads us through multiple layers of reality and dream state, as well as incredibly inventive ideas.

It is amazing how quickly we accept the main concession of the film, that people can enter into each other’s dreams. From the first scene we are willing to accept this as a natural state of affairs, because the pacing of the film is nearly perfect. Nolan is good enough to convey complex ideas in such a way that not only are they understood immediately, but they are allowed to be fully complex. Despite the large amount of screen time dedicated to exposition, we never feel like we are being babied through the complexities.

Dream logic is central to the functioning of the plot. It lays down a set of rules that are easy to understand because we have all experienced them first hand (dream time being longer than real-time, elements of reality entering dreams, etc). The Curious thing about Nolan, especially pronounced in this film, is his relentless attention to logic. This makes for the dream sequences in which most of the film takes place, to seem more like the created worlds of something like the Matirx, than the feeling of actually being in a dream. These are just rules for the fantastic worlds Nolan wants to create for us, and not akin to the experience of dreaming itself. Never has there been such an attempt to show the logical inner workings of the illogical.

At its core Inception is a masterful blending of three genres; the action film, the heist film, and the science fiction film. The great success of this blending is that at no point does it feel like we are watching something we have seen before. The constant feeling of being shown something new is pervasive, especially in the action sequences. There is a fight scene in which the gravity is slowly changing, so the combatants are forced upon the walls, and the ceiling as they fight for their lives. This type of extreme stylization rarely works for me, but here it is riveting.

The major complaint about the film is that there is never any actual feeling of connection with the characters beyond the tension of wanting them to complete their heist. This does not sound like a problem for a sci-fi, action heist film, except that the film asks you to feel more for it’s characters than the average film of it’s ilk. This is me stretching here, because I liked this film so much it seems like nitpicking, but for a film that tackles themes of the subconscious and deep character issues head on it never delivers any meaningful catharsis. The subconscious of the characters act as literal battlegrounds for the action of the film to play out in, and never go beyond that in a satisfying way.

However if we accept these interior worlds to act simply as a means to create adult, distopian wonderlands then they function marvellously on that level. We see exotic locales, lush interiors, and crumbling personal kingdoms. All working as fully realized worlds on their own as successfully as any A-budget fantasy picture.

Bottom Line: The film is a masterpiece of construction, and it’s greatest strength is in the dizzying ability to run under the weight of it’s own complexity. This is a great example of an artist challenging himself to do something of great difficulty, and accomplishing it. However, as Pauline Kael said of Citizen Kane its’ a masterpiece, but a shallow one. Oh well I’ll take my masterpieces where I can get ‘em.*

*Not intending to compare this film to citizen Kane, or myself to Pauline Kael. That would be stupid.

Predators Review

"A group of elite warriors are hunted by members of a merciless alien race known as Predators." That's the IMDB synopsis for the latest entry in the Predator series, and while you may think "didn't this series go down the toilet right after they fought those Alien aliens?" You're only half right. Predators takes the LOST route to feed it's story (or as a quick excuse to not have one) where they take a handful of lone wolf type folks, each specializing in a specific combat tactic, ranging from a prison-grade shank to a mini-gun on the weapon spectrum. What you get when you mix all this together is a true sequel to the first Predator, with all it's 'B' goodness: practical effect death and destruction. What you won't find here, is a story that makes any sense, plot/character development, or writers who really know how to make people say things that aren't pointless and empty.

On the Horizon

Slated for a Christmas release this year, the upcoming film form the Coen brothers is a new take on the classic John Wayne vehicle True Grit. This is not to be a re-make, but harks directly back to the source material, Charles Portis' 1969 book of the same name. They intend to be more faithful to the book than the original movie, stating that the original film was "much more of a standard western and the book is just and oddity". It sounds like something they would be well suited for, and I`m sure will be very original, but one has to expect comparison to the '69 version. The film will see the Coens re-team with Josh Brolin, and Jeff Bridges who will be taking on the roll of Marshal Cogburn originally played by Wayne, and it will be the first time they have worked with Matt Damon. The Coens have made nothing but great films since No Country For Old Men; this will most likely be no exception. Maybe by Christmas I will finally be over A Serious Man.

Here is an on set picture of Jeff Bridges as Cogburn to hold you over until the trailer is released, .

Quote via Rotten Tomatoes.

Photo Via Joe M. O'Connell blog.

Shutter Island: An Analysis

Martin Scorsese has been trying to find his footing commercially ever since the end of the seventies. His unbelievably positive critical response over the years has made it so he can always find the money to make his next film, and even more he can usually make the film he wants. There are a few examples of him doing “one for them” so he can do one for himself, notably taking Steven Spielberg’s place on Cape Fear in an attempt to make a popcorn picture for Universal after they funded his ill-fated Last Temptation of Christ. However the cult of Scorsese has grown over the past decade with Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed all bringing home $100-million plus, and he now finds himself in a position of critical and financial esteem no director has occupied since Alfred Hitchcock. Which is where an analysis of Shutter Island should begin.

I can't Believe I found this.

So many times I searched for this online, and so many empty handed disappointments. This is the lost link between my childhood and now, the holy grail…the Degrassi Junior High reunion on Jonovision! This is bringing back so many memories of growing up Canadian in the late nineties; I think my grade eight wardrobe was copied from Jono. This reunion took place about eight years after School’s Out the Degrassi movie, and features many (by no means all) of the original cast members. I actually forgot/don’t care how bad the interviews are, I just want to look at these people and think about where their characters would end up. Not very good television, especially eleven years on (sorry Jono), but I am positive anyone who grew up with the series will not be able to look away.

Makes me wonder where Wheels ended up.

God only knows.

On the Horizon

Richard Linklater is known for experimenting with his films. From the very beginning with Slacker he shirked any pretense of aping traditional formulas and even structures in film-making. His adventures have taken him through real-time fictions, rotoscope-style animations, and any manner of shapeless (though usually great) observational film. His current project is however his most ambitious to date, and perhaps one of the most ambitious ever. The working title Boyhood has been given to the film, which follows a young boy growing up from age 6 to 18. In order to avoid the standard trick of changing actors to represent the various ages of the boy Linklater opted to simply spend twelve years filming. The film has been in production since 2001, and will be ready by mid 2013. It stars Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as the parents, and Ellar Salmon as the boy. Linklater has been quoted as saying that he will “adapt the story to whatever [Ellar] is going through”, which will certainly improve the performance and the honesty of the picture. Whatever the result, this will be an amazing viewing experience, watching someone grow up literally before our eyes.

Spider-Man 4? Spider-Man? Spider-Man reboot...?

First of all, why does Sony think it's a good idea to try to destroy their current grasp on the Spider-man franchise with a FUCKING REBOOT only a few years after the last movie? Sure sure, the Punisher was rebooted very quickly, but you can almost see the Punisher movies like a serialized action series, like James Bond, so you don't need to have the same people playing the same characters.

Spider-Man on the other hand has dragged itself through 3 films that, by the end, wore the actors and director so thin that they all refused to sign on for a 4th film. Because Sony knew that replacing a director like Sam Raimi would be a difficult thing to do while maintaining a similar directorial style, they decided that calling this film Spider-Man 4 would be a bad move, so they did what everyone else does in Hollywood these days...

REBOOT!


YEAH! That's a good idea, make a movie reboot for a film trilogy that's less than 10 years old. Wait, Spider-Man 3 came out in 2007? THE FUCKING REBOOT IS LESS THAN 5 YEARS PAST THE LAST FILM IN THE SERIES?

Okay, okay, so maybe the movie won't be too bad, as long as the director they pick is well suited for the job, has a passion for the characters, and gets some creative control over the process. Oh right, Raimi left the series because the studio was being too controlling, forcing Venom into the 3rd movie and strong-arming him into making a lot of choices he was vigilantly against.


Oh, and you say that the director, Marc Webb has directed only one feature (500 Days of Summer, which was a fine film)? Sounds a lot like a big studio giving a newer director a huge project to undertake. They must be putting a lot of faith into his skills to give him this much to tackle.

OR

They know that as a new director, Webb will be easier than Raimi was to control when it comes to creative choices. Raimi broke a lot of the old "rules" of film making in his day, and that's what made him such a great director. 500 Days of Summer is a good flick, but it's not the most ambitious from a direction standpoint. Webb seems like he's more willing to take suggestion and nudges from big wigs who want to see THEIR version of Spider-Man on the screen.

Now, who is going to play Spider-Man?

Almost a cross between Tobey Maguire and Topher Grace

Andrew Garfield, best known for his roll in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Will be your new Peter Parker. The movie is rumored to be set during Peter's high school years, as opposed to the first movie's university setting. Should be a nice little watch, considering we'll be seeing a 28 year old actor playing a 17 year old, I know it's not that unusual, but they could put a little effort into finding a younger actor if they really want to hit that age.


Anyway, I know I'll be in the theater when this movie comes out in 2012, but I really hope once this movie fails to live up to it's predecessors they'll can their license on Spider-Man and give it up to Marvel Studios, so we can see it properly used again.

Get Him to the Greek - into the ROOTS

Since seeing Get Him to the Greek a week or so ago, I had been riding the fence on wither I liked the movie or didn't like it. Mostly what I liked about the film was Russel Brand and his particular style of delivering lines and his overall demeanor. The problems I had with the movie were that it seemed to be another ball out of the Apatow park, all the same troupes and trivial scenes you expect from an Apatow production (Yes, I am acutely aware that he didn't direct this one, but he is a clear influence and the producer.) I believe it's safe to say that overall Tim and I had the same sort of feeling coming out of the screenings, maybe a little disagreement here and there, but) so be it.

Now this isn't meant to be a proper review of any sorts of the flick, it's more about the turn-around I have done since last week. A scant few days ago I began reading a book titled My Booky Wook (apologies made within the book for the title) And I got a very different opinion of the movie afterwords.