Entries Tagged 'Film' ↓

Go ahead, Elastigirl: Look behind the door….

Here’s more proof, as if you needed it, that you can make anything look like anything else with a skilled-enough editor. On this trailer, a 22-year-old film student named Breanne (YouTube member name: forensicator8) decapitates director Brad Bird’s 2004 Oscar-winning masterpiece, The Incredibles, changing it from a high-spirited romp into a fever dream of dread.

Think of it as a meta-reversal on Rob Ryang’s 2005 Shining trailer, which reframed the terror of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, giving it back as a cheesy-but-tender father-son dramedy. Now, I’m just waiting to see if some Gandalf out there can turn Last Year at Marienbad into a high-speed action movie. Impress me.

Gorgeous 6″ Iron Man bobblehead on the way, priced at $12.99, for sale at the best movie-toy fan-site, Entertainment Earth.

A scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey (MGM, 1968)

Arthur C. Clarke, perhaps best known as author of the 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and co-writer, with director Stanley Kubrick, of the eponymous film released the same year, died today in his home in Sri Lanka. He was 90.

2001 is my favorite film of all time, and has been since I saw it in the seventh grade, with commercials, on a 25″ black & white TV, a viewing upon which, even in such primitive conditions, the movie did no less than totally blow my mind.

Continue reading →

Assuming I’m correctly looking at this still from a trailer for the upcoming The Incredible Hulk (Edward Norton), the green goliath and his nemesis, The Abomination (Tim Roth), will certainly finish what Michael Bloomberg, re-zoning, and gentrification have only begun: The complete destruction of Harlem’s 125th St.

Here’s a slightly clearer look at a certain theater’s legendary marquee, from a few frames earlier, below, just in case you actually can’t believe that Hulk brought all this hell up in Harlem:

Northern Manhattanites transported from Toronto, however—especially male ones—are going to have their brains looped sideways by this shot:

Not only is that not a NYPD police car, but…Zanzibar? As this National Post clip notes, Zanzibar is a strip club on Toronto’s Yonge street. Apparently, the transposition of Canadian movie skylines for US metropolitan ones continues unabated. But, please, Canada: If you badly want to send something to Harlem, send Vancouver. The last thing Black Main Street really needs is strippers.

Who’s this flick aimed at: Tourists? Come on, Clive “Pinhead” Barker: You’re gonna have to do more than that to scare Brooklyn.

Your copy is $16 at MoviePoster.com.

Opens May 16, 2008.

Now, that’s how The Midnight Meat Train should have done it the first time. Count on the best movie poster site on the web, bar none—the Internet Movie Poster Awards (IMPA)—to bring the noise.

This post that you’re reading started its life as a mere addendum to the one above it, but it’s going to live out the rest of its days giving blogroll-worthy props to IMPA, the best place on the net to see today’s motion picture print advertising.

Continue reading →

It’s only 4 seconds, but this would have been a geek-o-gasmic ending to one of the greatest movie fight scenes—and, when you really think of it, dance sequences—of all time.

I’d never heard of Canadian-Chinese pop singer Edison Chen, 27, until a link on racialicious.com told me his sordid story. In short: Brother took a laptop in to have it fixed. Then, in late January 2008, a picture of him in a compromising position with an Asian starlet appeared on the web.

At first, Chen gave the usual excuses—It’s not me, I’m being framed, etc. But, then, soon, more of the explicit flicks appeared, not just one or two, five or six, but dozens.

Continue reading →

No lie: My eyes literally watered when I watched this: the second full, 2 1/2-minute trailer from the upcoming summer blockbuster-in-waiting, Iron Man. (When I say second, I’m not including the incredible Super Bowl commercial, by the way. This new piece is currently the featured trailer on MySpace’s Trailer Park section. Special thanks to the folks at FirstShowing.net for dropping the bomb.)

Based on the long-time Marvel superhero comic, Iron Man stars Robert Downey Jr. as billionaire weapons designer and manufacturer Tony Stark; features Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, and Jeff Bridges; and is directed by John Favreau (Made, Elf, Zathura). This is literally Paramount’s game to lose, if mounting fanboy excitement—and my own, doggone it—is any indication. Out May 2, 2008.

That’s the title of a piece I recently wrote about hip-hop in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel for VIBE. It’s in their March 2008 “Hollywood” issue, the one with Robert DeNiro and 50 Cent on the cover, as seen at left.

The narrative focuses on the completion of Palestinian-American artist/director Jackie Salloum’s new doc, Slingshot Hip-Hop, and the experiences of her film’s subjects, especially the Palestinian crew DAM, within the setting of Israeli occupation of the aforementioned territories.

It was one of the hardest articles I’ve ever written, not only due to the fractal-like, almost never-ending complexity of the subject, but even more due to my initial lack of familiarity with virtually every major detail around it. One of the first questions I asked Salloum: Why is it called “the West Bank” when it’s in the eastern part of the Occupied Territories? A member of her team kindly answered: It’s on the west bank of the Jordan River.

Continue reading →