One more TGO Episode 50 Trailer

Milking it? Probably... but it's not like I can turn around at this point. Below, the ScrewAttack.com Exclusive trailer for "War of The Thinkers;" the humor value (or lack thereof) may depend wholly on how burned-out you are on "Dead Island" spoofs at this point...



The actual episode/mini-move is still set to debut on ScrewAttack a week from tonight, April 25th at 11pm ET.

50th Semaine de la Critique Lineup

This year the infamous parallel section is 50 years old and their motto, 50 years of discoveries, truly describes the many extraordinary directors that made their debut at this section with the likes of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros to Wong Kar-Wai’s As Tears Go By, Erice’s L’Esprit de la ruche, Crialese’s Respiru and so many more that you can read here.

A few hours ago organizers announced the films that this milestone anniversary conform the Selection and even when they are not yet at the site here are the seven (7) films (only first or second film) that made the Selection plus the other films that are Special Screenings and the Short Films.

The Selection

17 Filles, Delphine and Muriel Coulin, France
Avé, Konstantin Bojanov, Bulgaria and France
Las Acacias, Pablo Giorgelli, Argentina and Spain
(*) הנותנת Hanotenet, Hagar Ben Asher, Israel and Germany
Sauna on Moon, Zou Peng, China
(*) Snowtown, Justin Kurzel, Australia
Take Shelter, Jeff Nichols, USA

(*) First Film, competes for Camera d’Or (not sure about the others, so will wait to confirm)

Jury
President: Lee Chang-dong, director, South Korea

Special Screenings
Opening Film: La Guerre est déclarée, Valérie Donzelli, France
Closing Film: Pourquoi tu pleures?, Katia Lewcowicz, France
Walk away Renée, Jonathan Caouette, USA, France and Belgium
(*) My Little Princess, Eva Ionesco, France (with Isabelle Huppert!)
Mourir auprès de toi, Spike Jonze and Simon Cahn, France (short film)

Short Films

Alexis Ivanovitch vous êtes mon héros, Guillaume Gouix, France
Black Moon, Amie Siegel, USA
Blue, Stephan Kang, New Zealand
Boy, Topaz Adizes, USA
Bul-Myul-Ui-Sa-Na-Ie, Moon Byoung-gon, Korea
Dimanches, Valérie Rosier, Belgium
In Front of the House, Lee Tae-ho, Korea
La inviolabilidad del domicilio se basa en el hombre que aparece empunando un hacha, Alex Piperno, Uruguay and Argentina
Junior, Julia Ducournau, France
Permanencias, Ricardo Alves Junior, Brazil

Jury
President: Jerzy Skolimowski, actor, producer, scriptwriter and director, Poland

To check films at official site please go here. Suggest to watch video as has photos from films and also, English subtitles!

Watch Trailers @MOC

I know is extraordinary news but the more I learn about the movies in this year Cannes the more women directors I find; still it’s starting to look as if it was done “on purpose”. I really hope that’s just my twisted imagination and that all selected directors (no matter the genre) truly deserve to be in the many selections. Sigh.

Tribute Series

As we know in May, La Semaine de la Critique will celebrate its 50th year. Since 1962, La Semaine de la Critique has been unwavering in its dedication to discovering new talent through showcasing directors’ first and second feature films from all over the world. This anniversary gives us the perfect opportunity to pay tribute to all of the filmmakers who made their debuts with us.

All around the world, Festivals and Cinemas have agreed to help celebrate our 50 years of discovery, by presenting tribute series or retrospectives of important films originally selected by La Semaine de la Critique.

The tour started on March 18th at Los Angeles County Museum of Art and will travel to Lebanon, Thailand, South Korea, India, Belgium, Peru, USA, Brazil, and many cities in France. But most interesting is that MUBI will be part of the event by programming some films selected at La Semaine de la Critique over the last 20 years. Films will be available from May 12th all over the world at MUBI site. I really hope that “all over the world” means exactly what it says and MUBI has the rights to all countries and not just some.

The Posters

This year for a change I really like the posters with scenes from movies, so the poster that opens the post comes from Barbet Schroeder’s More and the following are from Bernardo Bertolucci’s Prima della Rivolozione, Wong Kar-wai’s Wang jiao ka men (As Tears Go By), Jaques Audiard’s Regarde Les Hommes Tomber and, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Amores Perros. Enjoy!

TGO Episode 50 YouTube exclusive trailer

Below, the exclusive YouTube-exclusive trailer for "War of The Thinkers." A longer ScrewAttack-exclusive trailer will (probably) debut later this evening.

"Thor" reviews coming in largely positive (updated)

"Thor" had it's official premiere yesterday (today?) in Australia, where star Chris Hemsworth got his start as a popular TV actor, in preparation for it's UK rollout on 4/27 and it's U.S./etc debut on May 6th. It was also, apparently, shown to some U.S. critics around the same time. The reviews have started hitting the web and Twitter... and so far the word is good. Hollywood Reporter liked it, so did Variety. On the "geek press" side, Drew McWeeny agrees. There are a bunch more, but these will give you a rough consensus.

UPDATE! Empire's review is another rave.

Those trying to stay 100% spoiler/plot-structure-info free will probably want to just skim those or avoid full-reads altogether (nothing major in them, but you never know) but a few consistent themes run throughout almost every review I've read:

It's bigger than we've been sold. The trailers have been short-selling Asgard and focusing on the Earth scenes. Apparently this doesn't reflect the "ratio" of cosmic-to-earthbound action in the actual film.

It's not a "dark" movie. This intrigues me - almost every all of the reviews that bother mentioning the other Marvel/Avengers films make a point to mention that this is probably the most "kid-friendly" of the cycle so far; in as much as it's more heavily grounded in comic/fantasy business than PG-13 body-horror ("Incredible Hulk") or midlife-crisis and/or corporate politics ("Iron Man 1&2.") I'm MORE than fine with that - I don't want to see a "grownup" movie about a Space Viking looking and his Magical Hammer.

Hemsworth is good. This is the first Marvel/Avengers movie that's being shouldered by a previously-unknown leading man, so it's good to see mostly across-the-board praise for Chris Hemsworth.

The drama works. Another VERY frequent compliment - though often noted as the "upside" to criticisms that the action/fight sequences aren't necessarily the most groundbreaking. Probably the single most-recurring thing in the first crop of reviews is near-univesal agreement that the courtly/family intrigue among The Gods kills; with ample credit being given to the choice of Shakespearean/arcane-bombast specialist Brannagh as director. This is GOOD to hear, if it's true - "Thor" is both the weirdest and least-known of the principal Avengers, and if this film AND its/his part in future continuity is going to work people need to grasp/"buy" the characters and their world. Remember: "Iron Man" worked so well as a superhero character-study that no one cared about (or now remembers) it's awkward, nonexistant 3rd act.

ノルウェイの森 Noruwei no mori (Norwegian Wood)

Maybe is me and my mood, maybe are the movies I’ve choosing lately or maybe there are many movies that start so “normal” that you start to wonder why you decided to watch that much talked about movie; then suddenly out of the blue in the most unexpected moment movie and story becomes intense, takes your breath away with the most magnificent visuals and cuts right inside your self with the most spectacular original music score.

Not often have the opportunity to watch movies that so successfully use music to generate emotions but the outstanding Jonny Greenwood score plus the extraordinary use of music at the right moment by Anh Hung Tran made music score to literally go inside me, grab everything that found inside and squeeze it! That’s how good the music score could be when used at the right moment, truly extraordinary use of music in film.

When movie changes so does story that moves to the country to show the most dramatic beauty in the most outstanding framing compositions that are kept when story comes back to Tokyo making your visual, narrative and score listening very but very intense. Definitively is one of the few movies that really touch me not only from what my eyes are watching, the words and most of all, the music my ears are hearing all merged into one magnificent cinematic moment that continues one moment after the other. Superb.

But the beginning is so normal that if you start to wonder why are you watching the movie please stay as will change when you least expect it.

Outstanding performance by Rinko Kikuchi as Naoko, a role that gave her a nomination for Best Actress at the 2010 Asian Film Awards but also Kenichi Matsuyama gives a splendid performance in his normal university student moments as in his most dramatic instances. It’s not my first Anh Hung Tran film as a long time ago I discovered his magnificent The Scent of Green Papaya and if any of you have watched this movie you will recall his particular narrative rhythm while watching first part of film, but nothing prepares you to when he moves story to the country that perhaps because story happens in Japan, his style absolutely recalls the style of contemporary Japanese directors like for example, Naomi Kawase. Beautiful but very beautiful to watch.

According to what I read story is not the same as the one told in the book that inspired Anh Hung Tran’s screenplay, so maybe it’s better to say that Haruki Murakami’s novel gave Hung Tran an idea to create a different tale. Film tells about three young kids that grew and went to school together; we have Kizuki that knows Naoko since they were 3-years-old, kiss in 6th grade and now older teenagers are in love. The third is Kizuki’s best friend Toru Watanabe and the three do almost everything together. Story is told by Toru and when Kizuki commits suicide Toru leaves town, as far as he could; cut to the sixties, the Vietnam war, Tokyo, with Toru being at university, see his everyday life, the student protests, his love of books, his solitary attitude, and his sex experimenting. Everything is flat, robot-like life until one day he sees Naoko and yes, everything changes in the story and in the movie. Is a love story, a beautiful told not really happy but with a happy ending (maybe?) story.

Movie premiered in competition at 2010 Venice and traveled the fest circuit but surely the most deserved honor is winning Best Cinematography at the 2011 Asian Film Awards. A must be seen film for those that enjoy Japan set beautiful art cinema done by a renown French Vietnamese director and in my opinion seems that film will be more enjoyable if you haven’t read novel by Muramaki as story will be new which will allow to more easily admire the complete package of narrative, visuals and music score.

Big Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @MOC

Post Mortem

Film started like a story about a deadpan face obsessive stalker-alike neighbor that wanted to “meet” Nancy, his front door neighbor. Continued with all his life little dull life nuances at home and at work, where he was an autopsy recorder of the very old fashion and traditional style. Life was monotonous and Mario found the way to meet Nancy but she literally escapes from his company. A discussion at work, only way to keep what they have is with arms… finally film touches the theme I was waiting for! Yes I knew what film was about and for more than half the film I was impatiently waiting for the film to start. Big mistake!

If you want to enjoy movie first half I strongly suggest you learn nothing about this movie otherwise you will be just like me “waiting for the movie to start”.

Pablo Larraín film will hit you hard probably as much as really hit those that live it and lived to tell. Set a few days before the other September 11th, tells Mario’s story but as you can imagine is only the excuse to tell what was happening before, during and after that fatidic date in 1973 and Larraín chooses to tell it in an unconventional, unique, and unexpected way that will hit you hard while watching but more after when you play the movie again in your head. Still on the surface is a dark non-romantic love story. But after all movie is about the death of a nation, about dead people and about a love that dies; I’m sure it will hit you more than what you imagine and could expect.

With only a few characters and starring incredible Alfredo Castro of Tony Manero’s fame film showcases very interesting visual narrative with high production values that will keep your undivided attention even when movie has slow pace that feels slower in the first half and so fast in the second half even when rhythm is the same the entire picture. But film’s provocation does not only comes from the story, also comes from an astoundingly beautiful framing and composition, especially in many takes with the space off the screen when we cannot see what goes on.

Premiered in competition at 2010Venice and followed with San Sebastian fest at Horizontes Latinos, film continued to collect honors in the fest circuit, including the one I gave it from just watching the trailer that now I absolutely confirm as this is an almost perfect cinema masterpiece. Chapeau Pablo Larraín.

Not for all audiences, you have to enjoy art cinema with strong stories that are not easy to watch and yes, to understand if you’re not familiar with true history; still I believe movie could be interesting even if only you can see is the dark love story. But again, be prepared as film will hit you hard and harder after watching.

Big Enjoy!!!

Watch Trailer @MOC

BMC MOVIE OF THE WEEK: CHILDREN OF THE CORN

Children of the Corn (1984)

• 
• 

• Peter Horton,
• Linda Hamilton,
• R.G. Armstrong

Narrator Job (Robby Kiger) relates the tale of Gatlin, NE, where one day the children, led by a boy preacher named Isaac (John Franklin), rose up and slaughtered all the grown-ups. A few years later, Job and his sister, Sarah (Ammemarie McEvoy), help their friend, Joseph (Jonas Marlowe), try to escape through the cornfields of Gatlin. Meanwhile, Burt Stanton (Peter Horton), a commitment-phobic young doctor, and Vicky Baxter (Linda Hamilton), his frustrated girlfriend, travel through the cornfield-lined roads of Nebraska on their way to Burt's new internship in Omaha. Their car hits Joseph, who appears out of nowhere, but upon examining him, Burt realizes the child's throat was slit before he ever wandered out from the corn. Attempting to locate help, Burt and Vicky turn to gas-station owner Diehl (R.G. Armstrong), who urges the couple to go anywhere but nearby Gatlin to report the murder. Several contradictory street signs later, they arrive in Gatlin anyway, and, befriending Sarah and Joseph, attempt to uncover the mystery behind Isaac's cult and its mysterious deity, known only as He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Stephen King cash-ins flooded the market between the successes of Brian DePalma's Carrie (1976) and Rob Reiner's Misery (1990), many of them, like Children of the Corn, based only loosely on the author's fiction. The original short story appeared in the collection Night Shift. – AllMovie Guide

50% liked it

R, 1 hr. 33 min.

Director: Fritz Kiersch

 

April 17, 2011: Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (Year A)

Let me explain. You see, I spent my teenage years in a relatively small town with only two public high schools, which meant that everyone of a similar age was pretty much familiar with each other. So it was no big deal to go to a movie on a Friday night and see 30 or 40 recognizable faces to sit with. That sounds nice, and it was really, but it could also cause problems. Take Children Of The Corn for example. The movie had barely started and it was working hard to amp up the creep factor. There were shots of desolate wind blown corn fields, and you could tell by the camera movements that something awful was in there, and the soundtrack was ratcheting up the volume of its spooky kids choir, and the guy on screen was nearing panic…

And then it showed some poor mutt running out into the fields and a nice girl named Holly who was sitting a few seats down from me yelled out, “Hey look everybody, it’s a corndog!” That was it, game over. For the next hour and a half it was a total pun war. In the years since I’ve sometimes wondered just how many people we ruined the movie for that evening. But in looking at the film again recently, I don’t know, maybe we did them a favor.

Let’s face it, Children Of The Corn is a stupid movie. Oh, it’s certainly entertaining enough, and even a little eerie at times. There’s no denying that the two guys playing the cult leader Isaac (I love it that he went on to play Cousin It in the Addams Family movies) and the sociopathic Malachai are perfect for their roles. And some scenes like the restaurant massacre and the sudden appearance of the dead boy on the highway work pretty well. But mostly it’s just stupid. At the end of the day, we’re still talking about corn. And no matter how many times you wave a stalk of corn in someone’s face, it’s never going to be that scary. Plus it doesn’t help that the special effects for the dreaded He Who Walks Behind The Rows amount to little more than the same ones they used for the gopher in Caddyshack. And even worse than that, when the child preacher Isaac becomes possessed by He Who Walks Behind The Rows, the only outward sign is the fact that the boy grows a Billy Idol hairdo. Stupid.

So why did something so silly spawn six sequels and a remake? Part of it is probably that these movies are so cheap to make. All you need are some unknown child actors (they don’t even have to be good ones), a corn field (one sequel had nothing but a few rows of corn outside an apartment complex), and a handful of butcher knives (if you can’t afford the knives, then just have the kids stare at people till they drop dead, that works too). But the other reason is that religion can sometimes be creepy, especially to those outside of it. Stephen King’s always been one to wet himself over anything that thumps a bible, and his Children Of The Corn does its best to play off of his, and some other people’s, irrational fear of evangelical Christians.

And in a weird way, that’s okay, because it actually points to something true. Religion should be unnerving to people. Not in the freak show sense we see in the caricatures presented onscreen by the Children Of The Corn, of course, and damn sure not in the caricatures we see presented off screen by people like the Phelp’s clan from Westboro Baptist Church. But rather, religious people should be disturbing in the way we see in this week’s reading describing Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. As the Pope details it in his new book Jesus Of Nazareth: Holy Week, “People had heard of the prophet from Nazareth, but he did not appear to have any importance for Jerusalem, and the people there did not know him. The crowd that paid homage to Jesus at the gateway to the city was not the same crowd that later demanded his crucifixion… When he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred… Now the people were ‘quaking’: the word that Matthew uses, eseisthe (seio), describes the vibration caused by an earthquake.” In other words, the one's cheering Jesus’ arrival and waving around those palm leaves are the ones who had already been traveling with him and believed in his messiahship, and their fervor is such that it unnerves the general populace who had little knowledge of the Lord.

It’s an image that should give us cause to examine our own Catholic faith. The Catechism tells us that Jesus, through the Eucharist, “is the sum and summary of our faith: "Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking.” Does such a radical way of thinking translate into a real excitement for God once communion is over? And is our faith so passionate that it actually causes tremors in the culture once we walk outside the doors of our churches ? Well, we all know what the answer should be, don’t we? It’s just a matter of making it happen.

Preferably without all the corn and butcher knives.