Outlander Trailer. Vikings + Aliens + Creature? Yes please

Check out this trailer for some movie called Outlander that the Weinstein company is releasing. Some dude in a space ship comes to Norway in 709 because he's hunting some crazy alien and then teams up with Vikings. I know it sounds like the plot of a heavy metal video but its a full feature with recognizable actors! Hell yeah!

Batman Dark Knight Animated Episodes

The producers of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight have created some cool animated episodes that seem to fit in between the two movies a la the Animatrix. Seems pretty cool:
Batman Gotham Knight - Official Trailer

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. Yes its a real movie.

It has a website and everything. Its playing in one theater in Manhattan. There is a NSFW trailer on the website that makes this movie appear to be the nastiest, goriest most absurd film of all time that you can't believe anyone actually got made.

"I know, lets have the half chicken/half human zombie reach through the grave and into this dude's ass and then through his body."
"Great idea"

If you want to watch the NSFW trailer its on the website. I don't recommend it.

Regular trailer below:

Famous Director Cameos

Everyone knows Tarantino and Shyamalan can't make a movie without giving themselves at least a couple of lines -- which are always the worst acted in the entire flick. Many other notable directors have also appeared in cameos in their own and other's movies. A great list of clips can be found here.

My favorite has to be Spielberg in Blues Brothers:

Sweet Indiana Jones Crystal Skull Pics

I'm excited about this movie.

Shia looks bit like one of the village people.

Gallery of pics here.

Have you Tried it.....on Weed?

Remember Half Baked? And that scene when Jon Stewart was in it? Before he was "Jon Stewart" Jon Stewart, and just regular Jon Stewart?

Missed the Oscars?

Here's the whole thing boiled down to a sweet 60 seconds:




Via /Film

Ridiculous Home Theaters

There are some wealthy folks out there that have some ridiculous home theaters modeled after their favorite movies. Check out Deputy Dog for the full post.

Here's a sampling for now:

Batman:


Indiana Jones:


Star Trek

Neil Patrick Harris is Divine

The Case Against Juno

David Carr wrote a great piece in the Times about how critics are turning against Juno now that it has reached commercial success--which, to be fair, is a little unfair. However, I happen to agree that Juno should definitely NOT be up for best picture and does not feel like its in the same league as There Will Be Blood or No Country For Old Men. In terms of direction, again, Juno is blown away by those two movies as well as Atonement.

Granted, Reitman and the talented cast breathed more than enough life into Diablo Cody's script to bring the film a great deal of success, but it just feels like a hit rather than something ground breaking.

The best part of the times article was this quote, which basically sums up what I'm talking about:

Frankly, I don’t want to see Juno within a thousand feet of the Kodak Theater. I want her and her twee champions stopped at the metal detector. I want her turned away for being underdressed. I want her Toyota Previa to run out of gas on the 405. I want Blood’s Daniel Plainview to barge into Ellen Page’s pre-Oscar interview with Barbara Walters and bellow: “I drink your Sunny D! I drink it up! Slurrrrrrrrrp!”

Two Old People Talk About Superbad

Amazing. The guy totally loves it. Its great. In all fairness though, these two have been in the entertainment industry forever, so they are not going to be quite as shocked as some other more conservative old people out there.


Via Paul Scheer

Doomsday Trailer

For some reason, I'm a sucker for anything pre or post apocalyptic -- or anything in between. So I'm pretty pumped for the new flick Doomsday--where a hot babe in tight black stretch pants has to enter an extremely cliched post apocalyptic society where everyone dresses like they're at a Mad Max themed costume party that's also an Alice Cooper concert in order to get the cure for a disease or something -- it really doesn't matter what the plot is.

Check it out:

Roger Ebert's Top Ten Movies of 2006

Ebert finally came out with his best movies of 06 (cut the guy a break--he was in the hospital). I think its one of my favorite lists of 06 to date.

Wanted Trailer

This movie looks completely badass:


Does anybody know if it is actually possible to flick your wrist when you shoot a gun in such a way so the bullet travels in a curved path? If you do, I'm scared of you for possessing that knowledge.

Simpsons Movie References

Via Kottke :

Some guy collected 66 stills from the Simpsons and placed them side by side with the movie they reference. It's pretty cool.

R Rated Superbad Clip Online!

Check it out: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/superbad/aolrestrictedcontent/downloads.html

Yeah! Cool! Awesome!

Transformers: Unclear What Meets the Eye

I have a lot to say about the movie Transformers. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on which one of my half dozen readers you are) I said almost all of it to various friends and co-workers over the course of the week and now I'm sick of those damn robots.

However, as this blog is vaguely related to movies and entertainment I feel an obligation to the Internet to get my views out there in cyber space. Really, everything I have to say is directed at Michael Bay and it boils down to one important topic. So, in the hopes that Mr. Bay spends hours in front of his laptop googling himself, I present an open letter to Michael Bay

Dear Michael Bay:

While I will be the first to admit that I have insulted many of your movies on various occasions, I have also highly praised others and will often tell anyone who will listen, or appears to be listening, that The Rock is one of my favorite movies of all time. I used to act out the final scene in my dorm room in college when I got stressed out, sticking a pen in my chest in place of an unnecessarily large syringe, and using a flashlight as a flare. Even now I often drive around Los Angeles blasting the soundtrack and pretending my Toyota Corolla doesn't shake violently when it goes over 60 mph. However, I'm not writing to tell you how much I like The Rock. I wrote that merely to soften you up.

I am, however, writing to tell you the biggest problem I had with Transformers. This is something that seems, at least to me, to have been easily fixable and would have made the film infinitely better. It still would have been campy, kind of dumb and much too long, but infinitely better nonetheless. In short, Mr. Bay, why couldn't you zoom out more? Did you not notice that when two 30 ft robots are locked in frantic combat and they both look very similar, shooting this scene from a handheld camera and framing the bots from the knee to the neck might not have been the best move? I mean, I get that they're fighting, but I have no clue what, specifically is happening. Seriously, just zoom out. Then I can see that they're punching each other or whatever. Slow motion would have also helped. I know you like slow motion, Michael--you have the hair cut to prove it. If ever a movie called for an over use of slow motion it was this one. There was one great slow motion shot, where you were zoomed out enough to have the whole Transformer in the frame and it was by far the best part of the whole movie because it was the only time I could really tell what was happening.

So, in conclusion, please don't spend an exorbitant amount of money on some of the best fx shots in movie history and then ruin them by not zooming out. It's very frustrating. And all the Decepticons looked the same. But whatever.

XOXO

Max

PS: Did you really think anyone would buy that it was a good idea for Josh Dummel to do all that ridiculous business with the motorcycle?

PPS: I'm not sure if I spelled "Dummel" correctly but I really don't feel like looking it up so I'm just going to leave it. Either you know who i'm talking about or you don't.

Recipe for a Difficult Death

Die Hard is one of the all time best action movies. Its the perfect combination of badass violence, cheesy dialogue and white knuckle suspense. The Die Hard formula is tried and true and it scores once again in Live Free or Die Hard, a surprisingly satisfying summer blockbuster.

First of all, let's recap the successful formula:

We take level-headed, mind-bogglingly tough, but stubbornly unemotional John McClane and put him in dire peril. More than that we put several lives in his hands--the more the better. Also, make sure to arrange it so the police and other law enforcement are little to know help to him. However, it is very important that he maintain a constant dialogue with the villain who, should be extremely icey and European (if european actor is not available iciness will suffice). The next part is the easy bit. Get McClane as dirty as possible as fast as possible and then beat the living crap out of him. The more likely a stunt would kill a normal man the better.

Here's the Die Hard drinking game: every time something happens to John McClane that would prevent you from going on if you were in his shoes, you drink. Have an ambulence standing by.

In all seriosness, however, Die Hard 4 is the first summer blockbuster that actually exceeded my expectations. Granted they were very low, but I was still satisfied by the movie. It had a great set up: terrorists implement a "fire sale" to bring about the demise of the United States infrastructure. This means a three pronged attack shutting down communication lines, the stock market and utilities sending everyone back into the stone age. McClane has to stop them and in doing so executes a series of awesome extremely well put together stunts. Justin Long is also in there as a computer hacker but doesn't really do anything except keep out of the way so as not to be annoying.

While the set up is creative and extremely badass--if the terrorists are successful it would mean America would descend into an awsome anarchic state of total devestation--the rest of the story is by the book and the only redemption is the high quality of the stunts and I credit this to a very talented stunt team. At one point McClane punches a guy into a rolling chair and then shoves him down a flight of stairs. This is a real guy that gets a face full of steps and the scene pops as a result.

However, the best part of the whole movie was casting veteran French stunt man and co-star of Disctrict B13 Cyril Raffaelli as one of the bad guys. If you don't remember him from the movie, he was the bad guy that was just as hard to kill as John McClane, who could go from the top of a building to the bottom in 3 seconds and who only spoke French. If you still don't remember, here are his highlights:

Poor quality vid, but sweet action. Sure, I know you're thinking that this guy had a lot of help both with wires and in post to do these stunts. However, let's take look at some of Cyril's filmed stunts:

First there's this, which would kill me any day of the week.

Seriously, Cyril? The dude is clearly nuts. He can also do like 8 million backflips in a row. I'll leave you with a highlight reel of his stunt work because words don't really do him justice.

Charlie Kaufman's latest

Kaufman's latest script, Synecdoche, New York, was originally supposed to be directed by Spike Jonze, but has ended up being directed by Kaufman himself. This will be his debut and it sounds like the movie is going to be the typical Kaufman mind bender according to the LA Times:

"Synecdoche" nominally concerns a theater director who thinks he's dying,
and how that shapes his interactions with the world, his art and the women in
his life. But it is really a wrenching, searching, metaphysical epic that
somehow manages to be universal in an extremely personal way. It's about death
and sex and the vomit-, poop-, urine- and blood-smeared mess that life becomes
physiologically, emotionally and spiritually (Page 1 features a 4-year-old girl
having her butt wiped). It reliably contains Kaufman's wondrous visual
inventions, complicated characters, idiosyncratic conversations and delightful
plot designs, but its collective impact will kick the wind out of you.

Philip Seymour Hoffman will star as the director who attempts to recreate a life size replica of New York inside a warhouse. Here's the poster:

Golden Compass Sizzle Reel

New Line is releasing The Golden Compass this winter. The book, by Philip Pullman, is one of the best fantasy novels I haven't quite finished yet.