Trailer: Harbinger Down (Official)

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Arleigh

Last summer something caught my eye while scrolling up my Twitter feed. People I had been following were retweeting a Kickstarter campaign for an independent film. No, this wasn’t a Veronica Mars deal or Zach Braff begging the public for millions so he could make his own film. This was for a scifi-horror film that was going the whole practical effects route.

Harbinger Down is the brainchild of practical effects masters Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. whose own special effects studio Amalgamated Dynamics were instrumental in creating some of the practical effects for films such as the latest Godzilla and the underwhelming prequel for The Thing. It was their practical effects work for that prequel being replaced by CGI monsters at the very last second which convinced the two men to try and make a film using nothing but practical effects to show Hollywood bean counters and studio heads that there was still a place for the practical instead of going all-CG.

Their Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds to start Harbinger Down succeeded and in addition to the $387,000 or so raised and their own money and studio time the film began principal photography this past January. A rough trailer was shown around MArch, but now we have the first official trailer to Harbinger Down which looks like a love letter to Carpenter’s very own The Thing.

Lisa’s Way Too Early Oscar Predictions For June

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s time for me to update my way too early Oscar predictions! Every month, based on a combination of buzz, reviews, gut feelings, and random guesses, I attempt to predict which films, directors, and performers will receive nominations in 2015! For the June edition, I look at how my predictions have been effected and changed by the results of the Cannes Film Festival.

Thanks to Cannes, I’m a bit more sure about some of my predictions (in particular, Foxcatcher, Mr. Turner, and Julianne Moore in Map To The Stars). But at the same time, the majority of these predictions remain the result of instinct and random guessing.

Click on the links to check out my predictions for March, April, and May!

And now, here are June’s predictions!

Best Picture

Birdman

Boyhood

Foxcatcher

The Imitation Game

Interstellar

Mr. Turner

Whiplash

Wild

Based on its reception at Cannes, I’ve added Mr. Turner to the list of nominees. I’ve also dropped Unbroken from the list, largely because of how aggressively it is currently being hyped by people who have yet to see it. Traditionally, the more intensely an awards contender is hyped during the first half of the year, the more likely it is that the film itself is going to be end up being ignored once the actual nominations are announced. (This is known as the Law of The Butler.)

Best Director

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Birdman

Mike Leigh for Mr. Turner

Richard Linklater for Boyhood

Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher

Jean-Marc Vallee for Wild

I’ve dropped Angelina Jolie (Unbroken) and Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) and replaced them with Mike Leigh (Mr. Turner) and Bennett Miller (Foxcatcher). I’m far more confident that Cannes winner Miller will receive a nomination than Leigh.

Best Actor

Steve Carell in Foxcatcher

Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game

Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest Hotel

Michael Keaton in Birdman

Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner

The big addition here is Timothy Spall, who I am predicting will be nominated for his Cannes-winning performance in Mr. Turner.

Best Actress

Amy Adams in Big Eyes

Jessica Chastain in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby

Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl

Reese Whitherspoon in Wild

Shailene Woodley in The Fault In Our Stars

Based on the charming but slight trailer for Magic In The Moonlight, I have removed Emma Stone from this list. I was tempted to replace her with Hillary Swank but even the positive reviews of The Homesman were curiously muted. So, I ended up going with Jessica Chastain’s performance in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. I also replaced Michelle Williams with Shailene Woodley who, much like Jennifer Lawrence over the past two years, is currently starring in both a commercially successful franchise film and a critically and commercially acclaimed drama. That said, The Fault In Our Stars may have opened too early in the year to be a legitimate contender.

Best Supporting Actor

James Franco in True Story

Ethan Hawke in Boyhood

Mark Ruffalo in Foxcatcher

Martin Sheen in Trash

J.K. Simmons in Whiplash

I’ve moved Ralph Fiennes back up to Best Actor and I’ve replaced him with James Franco for True Story. That might be wishful thinking on my part because everyone knows that I have a huge crush on James Franco. However, the role — that of a real-life murderer who steals a reporter’s identity — sounds like both a chance of pace for Franco and the type of role that often leads to Oscar recognition. (Just ask Steve Carell…)

Speaking of Steve Carell, he’s not the only actor getting awards-buzz for his performance in Foxcatcher. Channing Tatum has been getting the best reviews of his career. If he’s promoted for a supporting nod, Tatum is probably guaranteed a nomination (and, in all probability, that would doom the chances of Mark Ruffalo). However, Tatum is apparently going to be promoted for best actor and his chances might be a bit more iffy in that race.

Best Supporting Actress

Patricia Arquette in Boyhood

Julianne Moore in Map To The Stars

Vanessa Redgrave in Foxcatcher

Kristen Scott Thomas in Suite francaise

Kristen Stewart in The Clouds of Sils Maria

Unlike a lot of film bloggers, I am not expecting Into the Woods to be a major Oscar contender. (See The Law of The Butler above.) While I was originally predicting that this film would manage to get Meryl Streep her annual nomination, I am now going to go out on a limb and predict that Meryl Streep will not be nominated for anything (other than maybe a Nobel Peace Prize) in 2015. I’m also dropping both Viola Davis and Marcia Gay Harden from my list of predicted nominees and I’m replacing them with three actresses who received a lot of acclaim at Cannes: Julianne Moore for Map To The Stars, Vanessa Redgrave for Foxcatcher, and Kristen Stewart for The Clouds of Sils Maria.

Yes, I know what you’re saying — “Kristen Stewart!?” Personally, if she’s as good as her reviews for The Clouds of Sils Maria seem to indicate, I think she will definitely be nominated. I think it will actually help her case that she’s not exactly an acclaimed actress. Look at it this way — people take it for granted that Meryl Streep is going to give a great performance, so much so that they’ll even make excuses for Meryl’s shrill turn in August: Osage County. When someone like Kristen Stewart shows that she’s capable of more than Twilight, people notice and remember. It’s those performances that inspire people to go, “Oh yeah, she actually can act!” that often lead to Oscar momentum.

And those are my predictions for June. Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments section below!

Song of the Day: Dance of the Knights (composed by Prokofiev)

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Scenes I Love: Centurion

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Arleigh

In honor of tonight’s episode of Game of Thrones which was once again directed by the great British filmmaker Neil Marshall I’ve chosen a favorite scene from his last film as the latest Scenes I Love.

Tonight’s episode saw the pivotal Battle of Castle Black which showcases the battle of Mance Rayder’s 100,000-strong Wildlling army against the few hundred Night’s Watch defenders of Castle Black and The Wall. It was a very bloody affair that saw more than a few important deaths. It also highlighted the fact that Neil Marshall has to be one of the great action directors of this era. He’s able to work both with CG and practical effects and definitely do so on a budget (yet still making the whole episode look cinematic).

For those who have followed Marshall’s work they won’t be surprised by his work on Game of Thrones. He’s done large-scale battles before and none more bloody, brutal and chaotic as the ambush battle in the forest in Centurion.

6 Happening Trailers For The Peace and Love Generation

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to another edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers! This week, the trailer kitties braved being hugged and loved by a bunch of hippies to bring back these 6 trailers. Let’s see what they found!

1) Musical Mutiny (1970)

Let’s start things out with this trailer for a documentary about a bunch of bands that I’ve never heard of. However, while I may not know the music, how can I not enjoy a trailer that proclaims itself to be advertising a film for a turned on audience?

2) Sting of Death (1965)

This trailer freaked me out a little — largely because of the whole “Death Stalks the Dancers” thing. Seriously, leave us dancers alone. Go stalk someone else.

3) The Hippie Revolt (1967)

Those crazy hippies!

4) Unholy Matrimony (1966)

This trailer is definitely NSFW — which makes sense when you consider that this film shows what happens when you mix S.E.X. with L.S.D. Myself, I just like the histrionic narration.

5) The Hard Road (1970)

The hippie mayhem continues in this trailer.

6) The Hallucination Generation (1966)

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from compiling these trailers, it’s that dropping acid leads to dancing.

What do you think, Trailer Kitty?

Oh no! Hippies!

Scenes That I Love: The Fashion Show From The Adventurers

Posted on June 7, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve never actually seen The Adventurers but everything that I’ve read about it (and the film is mentioned in just about every “Terrible Movie” book that I own) would seem to suggest that this 1970 film is pretty bad. In fact, just about every review that I’ve read has referred to the film as being lurid, trashy, melodramatic, and over-the-top.

However, that’s not really a problem for me. That’s what a lot of people say about the Valley of the Dolls and that’s one of my favorite movies, precisely because it is so lurid and ludicrous. (Lurid and ludicrous are two Ls that equal love, as far as I’m concerned.)

I was recently doing a YouTube search on The Adventurers and I came across the following video, which is described as being the “amazing fashion show from Lewis Gilbert’s The Adventurers.” Having watched the video, I can agree that this fashion show is pretty amazing. In fact, it pretty much epitomizes everything that I love about the over-the-top, big budget event films of the late 60s and early 70s. As I watched this scene, I especially enjoyed the random jump cut and the unnecessary use of the split screen. It’s just so 1970!

I may not have seen the entire film but this scene from The Adventurers is still a scene that I love.

Trailer: Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal

Posted on June 7, 2014 by Arleigh

“Mūn Purizumu Pawā, Meikuappu!”

When it was announced in the summer of 2012 that a new Sailor Moon anime series was in production the anime fandom was all a-twitter about the news. Whether one was male or female, Sailor Moon was a major part of the viewing regimen of anime fans young and old.

It’s now two year since that announcement and we finally have the first trailer of the return of Sailor Moon back on the airwaves. The series title will be Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal, but it will most likely be shortened to just Sailor Moon Crystal to keep it simple. Toei Animation will be the studio doing the animation work while the series will premiere on the network Niconico in Japan while it will also stream on the website streaming service Crunchyroll.

It’s been over 20 years since the original Sailor Moon series went off-the-air and to say it’s back with a brand new season has made anime fans ecstatic (grumblings about the change in animation style notwithstanding) the world over.

Sailor Moon Crystal to premiere on July 5, 2014.

Trash Film Guru Vs. The Summer Blockbusters : “Maleficent”

Posted on June 7, 2014 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Is it just me, or is this year’s summer blockbuster season incredibly front-loaded? Not only did it get off to a ridiculously early start in April with the release of Captain America : The Winter Soldier, but it seems that, with the notable exception of Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, which is slated for a July release, everything that I was interested in seeing came out prior to the Memorial Day weekend — which was, in years past, the time when Hollywood’s blockbuster onslaught usually began.

Oh well. I guess there’s still some stuff I have some sort of low-level semi-interest in hitting theaters, with Disney’s Maleficent being a prime example of what I’m talking about. I wasn’t “hyped” for it, per se, but on a rainy Saturday afternoon with nothing else going on, what the hell — it’ll do in a pinch. Anybody with a functioning neural cortex pretty much knows what they’re getting into with something like this — a purportedly “modern re-telling” of a classic fairy tale (in this case Sleeping Beauty) that’s also, perhaps paradoxically, billed as being “truer to the roots” of the story than the universally-known animated version. Maybe everything that’s old really is new again.

In any case, the pattern these kinds of thing inevitably follow was set fairly firmly by Snow White And The Huntsman a couple summers back, and with a live (well, okay, live plus lots of CGI) action version of Cinderella already in the pipeline, it looks like “modernized fairy tales” (that are, again, supposedly “closer” to the “source material”) is a full-blown trend in Tinseltown. At least until one flops spectacularly.

Maleficent is too precise, clinical, and by-the-numbers to be that first big flop, of course, as this is thoroughly audience-tested material from start to finish, and while that same uber-conservative approach definitely sucks any sort of life or individuality from the proceedings, it does ensure that Disney will almost certainly turn a healthy profit off this thing, even with a budget estimated in the neighborhood of $200 million. It is, for all intents and purposes, a can’t-miss investment, and that’s what it plays out as.

Which isn’t the same thing as me saying that Maleficent is actively bad — it’s just that it’s not particularly good, either. Oh, sure, Angelina Jolie is perfect in the title role (there’s already Oscar talk) and it really does feel like it’s a part she was born to play, and the CGI work is spectacular and breathtaking and jaw-dropping and all that, and yeah, Elle Fanning as Aurora ( that’s what we call her now, folks, not “Sleeping Beauty”) leads a very talented supporting case that also includes the likes of Imelda Staunton, Sharlto Copley, Juno Temple, and Brenton Thwaites, all of whom do good work, but it’s all in service to the most pedestrian, production-line cinematic engineering possible. First-time director Robert Stromberg, who hails from a CG effects background, most likely knows what he’s doing here, but he’s given so little room to maneuver that failure just simply isn’t an option. This is a film that literally could have been directed by nearly anyone with at least some sort of cinematic background and turned out okay.

And maybe that’s what bugged me about it the most : just that sort of hyper-aggressive okay-ness. Given the opportunity to completely re-set the table, the Disney execs who originated and then green-lit this idea were more than happy to just tinker around the edges and “update” things without actually changing them. We all know the story, and while we’re admittedly getting a heavily-padded version of it told from the perspective of the “bad guy,” the fact remains that at the end of the day, all we’re left with is a more expensive, glitzier take on what we’ve already seen.

Maybe I missed a bit by just seeing this in 2-D, but let’s face it : any flick that leans upon the crutches of 3-D,Imax, and all that crap to “get the most from it” is one that’s entirely reliant upon bells and whistles — and while those bells and whistles are, no two ways about it, most impressive in this case, there’s just no substitute for a genuinely involving script, and Maleficent doesn’t have one. Mind you, it doesn’t have a bad script, either, it just — has a script. And the job of that script is to provide some sort of plausible set-up for one admittedly magnificent effects sequence after another. It’s cool and all for about a half hour, but after two full hours of Stromberg and company having to top themselves every five to ten minutes, you just end up feeling sort of worn down by events rather than invested in them.

Still, I suspect that Maleficent is going to prove to be pretty well “review-proof” and enjoy a healthy run in theaters before going on to do equal, if not even greater, business on home video. This is a film that’s precisely engineered to do exactly what it’s supposed to and nothing less (or more). Kinda like a robot. And it’s that robotic, auto-pilot, cruise control sensation that prevents this movie from being at all memorable — for good or ill.

Somebody alert Mia Farrow … here comes Sharknado 2

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As our regular readers know, I love SyFy original movies.

Whenever people discover that fact about me, they always assume that I must have loved Sharknado. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Sharknado was film that tried to force snark as opposed to generating it naturally. One need only watch a good SyFy film — like End of the World — to see just how overrated Sharknado truly was.

But that’s the thing. Most of the people who rave about Sharknado have never actually seen any other SyFy films. To me, everything that I disliked about Sharknado was captured in the image of Mia Farrow and Phillip Roth live-tweeting along with the film. Everyone knows that Mia Farrow and Philip Roth had never watched SyFy before Sharknado and they’ve probably never watched it after. And, though they might not want to admit it, everyone knows that Mia’s Sharknado-tweets were pedestrian and predictable. But, because she’s kind of famous and Ronan Farrow is a thing, we were supposed to be impressed.

Meanwhile, those of us who actually put SyFy original movies on the twitter map, were expected to be thrilled that a celeb had decided to come hang out with the common folks.

If you’ve seen Sharknado but you haven’t seen End of the World or Battledogs, then you don’t know what you’re missing.

(Or what you missed since SyFy appears to be getting out of the original movie business…)

Well, somebody call Mia Farrow because Sharknado 2 is going to be premiering on July 30th. Judging from the trailer below, it appears that the entire cast will return for “the second one.” And make no doubt, I will be live-tweeting this film because somebody has to show these false SyFy fans how it’s done.

The Ghostbusters Return To Theaters on August 29th

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Photograph by Erin Nicole

How much is Ghostbusters a part of the American culture? It’s such a part that the decoration pictured above was the most popular thing in the neighborhood last Halloween. All through the month of October, people young and old drove up and down the street just to see the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man.

Well, come August 29th, those same people will have a chance to see him again because, in honor of the film’s 30th anniversary, Ghostbusters is going to be re-released. And, speaking as someone who has only gotten to see Ghostbusters on television, I can’t wait to watch it on the big screen.

And, since I love trailer, what better way to commemorate the re-release of Ghostbusters than be sharing the trailer?

Enjoy!