Hi! The trailer kitties and I had to compile this week’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers in a hurry because we have been under tornado warning for most of today. That’s just part of the fun of living in Texas!
And without further ado, here are the trailers!
1) Baby Needs A New Pair Of Shoes (1974)
2) The Hitter (1979)
3) The Bus Is Coming (1971)
4) The Shout (1978)
5) Long Weekend (1978)
6) The Last Shark (1982)
What do you think, Trailer Kitty?
First we had a 7 second teaser.
Then we had a 32 second promo.
And now — here’s the nearly 3-minute trailer!
This week’s episode of Bates Motel was all about marijuana.
No sooner has Norma (Vera Farmiga) recovered from finding the decaying corpse of Deputy Shelby in her bed then she’s having to deal with the hippies openly smoking weed out on the motel’s porch. Now, I have to admit that some of my best friends are hippies but, for the most, they’re a lot more charming than the Bates Motel hippies. The Bates Motel hippies are all incredibly dirty and rather rude. Even worse, one of them has a guitar and insists on both playing and singing The Goo Goo Dolls’ “Slide” during all hours of the night. Seriously, I thought Dylan (Max Thieriot) ran off the guitar-playing hippie last episode. Maybe he came back.
However, as one of the hippies explains to Norma, the town’s entire economy is pretty much dependent on that huge marijuana farm in the woods. So, the hippies can pretty much do anything they want without having to worry about being strung up in the town square and being set on fire. In one of my favorite moments from last night’s episode, Sheriff Romero (Nestor Carbonell) drives up to the motel, calmly glances at the pot-smoking hippies, and then pretty much ignores them for the rest of his visit.
One of the hippies takes a liking to Emma (Olivia Cooke) and gives her a pot cupcake. To the show’s credit, Emma doesn’t have a melodramatic freak-out or anything else that we’ve come to expect from television whenever a character tries drugs for the first time. Instead, she gets rather realistically spacey and paranoid. Hilariously, Emma’s stoned paranoia isn’t all that different from Norma’s natural paranoia.
Speaking of which, this week’s episode was also dominated by Vera Farmiga and her performance as Norma Bates. Throughout this season, Farmiga has proven that she’s an actress who knows just how much scenery she can chew before losing credibility. One the joys of this show is watching Farmiga continually take Norma to the edge of becoming a caricature and then pulling back at just the right moment. Last night, we got to see Norma confront one of the annoying hippies about “smoking a doobie” on the motel’s front porch and physically attack a sleazy real estate agent for refusing to help her sell the motel. And, of course, we can’t forget about the tres creepy scene where she climbs into bed with Norman (Freddie Highmore).
Norman, as always, is having issues of his own. After having a dream about drowning Bradley (Nicola Peltz), he writes a short story about it. Ms. Watson (Keegan Connor Tracy) is so impressed by the story that she volunteers to help Norman edit it. When Norman tells her that he’s not sure if his mother would approve, Ms. Watson tells Norman that maybe they don’t need to tell his mother. In fact, maybe it can just be their little secret. As Ms. Watson talks to Norman, it becomes apparent that she’s interested in more than just being his teacher.
This leads, of course, to an interesting question. Is there anyone in the town of White Pine Bay who isn’t crazy?
No wonder Jake loves this place! Yes, despite having checked out of the motel, Jake Abernathy (the wonderfully creepy Jere Burns) is still around. First he sends Norma flowers and then, at the end of the episode, he pops up in the back seat of her car and tells her that if she doesn’t pay him $150,000, he’s going to kill both her and her sons, therefore setting us up for next week’s season finale.
If there’s been a reoccurring theme running through my reviews of Bates Motel, it’s that this is a show that has struggled to define itself. This first season has been spent trying to find a consistent theme and tone. Over the past 9 episodes, whenever Bates Motel has attempted to be a straightforward thriller, the show has struggled. However, when the show has accepted the inherent oddness of being a weekly prequel to Psycho, Bates Motel has succeeded. Bates Motel is a show that benefits from going over the top. Perhaps that’s why I enjoyed this week’s episode, Underwater, as much as I did. Underwater was Bates Motel at its over the top best.
Random Observations:
Hector Garrido was a paperback cover artist who was active from 1965 until 1996. Over the course of his career, he illustrated everything from the covers of the Baroness series of pulp novels to romance and horror to Nancy Drew. A selection of his work can be found below.
(Special thanks to frequent TSL reader and commenter Dr. Jim for inspiring the title of my review.)
Do you remember when everyone was predicting that Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby would battle it out with The Dark Knight Rises and The Master for Best Picture at the 2012 Academy Awards?
It may be hard to remember but, at this time last year, that’s what a lot of self-styled film divas were predicting. And who could blame them? The Great Gatsby was adapted from a great book, Baz Luhrmann was an A-list director, and the film featured actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, and Carey Mulligan. The flashy first trailer came out and people, like me, were very excited.
And then, suddenly, Warner Bros announced that The Great Gatsby would not be released in December of 2012. No, instead, it would be released in May of 2013. This led to a lot of speculation. Some film bloggers claimed that Warner Bros was just worried that the Great Gatsby would struggle to find an audience if it was released at the same time as other prestige pictures like Lincoln and Les Miserables. However, I think most people just assumed that the film probably wasn’t that good. Suddenly, the opulence of that first trailer was no longer something to be celebrated but, instead, it was taken as evidence that Luhrmann had emphasized style over substance.
Last Friday, The Great Gatsby finally premiered on movie screens across the country and we finally got a chance to discover whether Lurhmann’s film was great or simply ghastly.
Before I started writing this review, I debated with myself whether or not I should include a spoiler warning. You see, I am a F. Scott Fitzgerald fanatic. I have read and I have loved almost all of his books (even the unfinished Last Tycoon) and I even went through a period where I identified (perhaps a bit too strongly) with Zelda Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books of all time and it’s hard for me to imagine a world where anyone hasn’t read it.
Unfortunately, judging from the reactions of some of the people in the audience at the showing that I attended, apparently I was giving the rest of the world a little bit too much credit. So, if you haven’t read The Great Gatsby, then you really should stop reading this review and go pick up a copy.
And, if you’re still reading this review, here’s your SPOILER WARNING.
With the exception of a few unnecessary scenes that feature Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is a sanitarium, Luhrmann’s film closely follows the plot of Fitzgerald’s novel. Nick, a recent Yale graduate, moves to New York City in the 1920s. He has abandoned his earlier plans to be a writer so that he can concentrate on making money as a bonds salesman. Needing a place to live, Nick ends up renting out a small cottage. Living across the bay is Nick’s cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan) and her extremely wealthy and crude husband, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). And living right next door to Nick, in a gigantic castle, is the mysterious Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio).
While the Buchanans are a part of the old rich and the American establishment, Gatsby is a much more enigmatic figure. As Nick discovers, nobody seems to be sure who Gatsby is, where he came from, or how he has made his money. He seems to devote most of his time to throwing massive parties where he is often nowhere to be found. However, through the cynical golfer Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki), Nick learns that Gatsby used to know Daisy and that he’s still madly in love with her. Gatsby befriends Nick, attempting to use him as a way to get to Daisy. Meanwhile, Nick also finds himself unwillingly in the position of being Tom’s confidante, accompanying him when he drives into New York to meet with his mistress, Myrtle Wilson (Isla Fisher).
To answer the obvious question, The Great Gatsby is not the disaster that so many of us feared but, at the same time, it’s not the triumph that so many of us had hoped for. Instead, it’s somewhere in the middle. As with most of his past films, Luhrmann unapologetically embraces style over substance and as such, the film is a lot of fun to watch even though it’s never as intellectually challenging or emotionally captivating as Fitzgerald’s novel. Whereas Fitzgerald’s novel viewed Gatsby and Daisy with a captivating ambivalence, Luhrmann’s film is content to be a big, glossy soap opera. As someone who loves the novel, I was frequently annoyed to see how interesting characters like Jordan Baker and Tom Buchanan were simplified for the film version. But, as someone who loves on-screen spectacle, I enjoyed watching The Great Gatsby even if I could never quite bring my heart to fully embrace it.
One thing that The Great Gatsby definitely gets right is the casting of Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby. DiCaprio’s gives one of his best performances here, perfectly capturing Gatsby’s allure while hinting at the insecurity that lies underneath the confident façade. Carey Mulligan is well cast in the difficult role of Daisy and Tobey Magurie makes for the perfect Nick Carraway. (That said, you have to wonder if Maguire and DiCaprio are ever going to start aging or do they both have a picture of Dorian Gray hidden away in a closet somewhere.)
Unlike Fitzgerald’s novel, Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is not quite great. But it’s not exactly ghastly either. If anything, perhaps it will inspire a few more people to read Fitzgerald’s classic novel.
Awhile back site editor pantsukudasai56 wrote that the term “epic” has been overused and lost all its meaning. Everything and everyone has been called epic when most do not truly deserved the label. He did say that if there was anything which truly deserved the label of being “epic” then it would be one of the longest running manga and anime series: Oda Eiichiro’s One Piece.
It’s from One Piece that the latest “AMV of the Day” comes from. To be even more specific it’s from one of the most epic story arcs in the series that the latest chosen AMV originates from: the Marineford Arc (aka Paramount War Arc). It’s a story arc that lasts as long as most anime series (30+ episodes) yet is just a fraction of the current total number of episodes already shown. No other piece of entertainment has had such a long-running success which it continues to this day.
Not much else to say other than watch why this series deserve the title of “epic”.
Anime: One Piece
Song: “Diamond Eyes (Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom)” by Shinedown
Creator: freakinerd
Past AMVs of the Day
This one is 32 seconds long.
It’s the shortest first look ever! But I’m still excited about seeing Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD on ABC next season.
I first saw a clip of this trailer at Anime Expo 2010. It was a just a pilot trailer that TOEI Animation released earlier that year at Kawaii-Kon to show people that they were indeed producing a 3D CG anime film of the classic Leiji Matsumoto space opera manga and anime of the late 70’s. Space Pirate Captain Harlock, in addition to Space Battleship Yamato, were the Japanese answer to George Lucas’ Star Wars (though some would say that these two anime series were original on their own). Still, they were huge hits and very popular both inside and outside Japan. Scores of kids who grew up during the 80’s saw their first major introduction to anime from these two anime.
It’s been awhile since there’s been any new Captain Harlock anime releases. With CG technology having improved exponentially over the years it looks like TOEI Animation saw it high time to release a new Captain Harlock anime. It’s been three years since the release of the pilot trailer over at Kawaii-Kon 2010, but it looks like the wait for the Space Pirate Captain Harlock movie is coming close to an end.
The 3D CG anime film will see a Japanese release sometime in the Fall of 2013.
Here’s an English-narrated trailer that Toei released for the international crowd. I prefer the original Japanese above even if I could only understand a tenth of what was being said.
I think this might be the first time for “Scenes I Love” that I’ve chosen from something other than a film, tv show or video game. But then again the scene I’ve chosen this time around surpasses any attempts to shoehorn it into a particular label or genre.
The latest “Scenes I Love” comes courtesy of Old Spice. It has starring in the scene the person who I believe is not just the most interesting man in the world (sorry old Dos Equis Man), but probably the most awesome one out there. I believe him to be the human form the Almighty takes when walking amongst the humans the Almighty created was required (sorry Morgan Freeman). This scene is just awesome and why I love it. There’s nothing much else to say.
If you don’t think this to be scene as not being awesome then you just don’t have it and will never have any of it and people will know.
Through the Shattered Lens 