Trailer: Man Of Steel (dir. by Zack Snyder)

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that I don’t really get the appeal of Superman. From what little I’ve seen of him, he appears to be capable of doing just about anything and therefore, he’s always struck me as being a little bit boring.

Let’s put it like this — if you’re going to spend all of your time wearing a costume, then you better have some pretty big and sexy issues to deal with. Just being super isn’t going to cut it.

That said, Zack Snyder’s upcoming Man Of Steel will apparently attempt to do for Superman what the Dark Knight did for Batman.

Personally, I would rather that Snyder devoted his time to making a sequel to his underrated masterpiece, Sucker Punch.

Trailer: The Master (dir. by Paul Thomas Anderson)

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Finally!

Following the release of two intriguingly vague teasers, the official trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s upcoming film, The Master, has been released!

There’s not another film coming out this fall that I’m looking forward to seeing as much as The Master. And that’s saying something, considering that the fall is also going to see the release of The Hobbit and Django Unchained.

I’ll just let the trailer speak for itself.

A Lesson From The Past: A Date With Your Family (1950)

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s lesson from the past comes from 1950. Harry Truman was in the White House, UN peacekeepers were in Korea, and Gloria Swanson was killing William Holden on Sunset Boulevard. Meanwhile, the American family was apparently built upon a foundation of repression, conformity, and good table manners.

Or, at least, that’s the impression that one gets from watching A Date With Your Family.

A Date With Your Family is a 10 minutes education film that was apparently meant to encourage families to eat more and talk less. Not only does this film explain the importance of the family dinner but it also makes several other relevent points. For example:

1) “Pleasant, unemotional discussion helps digestion.”

2) “With your own family, you can relax. Be yourself. Just make sure it’s your best self.”

3) “These boys greet their Dad as though they were genuinely glad to see him, as though they really missed him”

This film also explains the importance of looking “pleasant” for your husband when he gets home from a hard day at the office, of not spending too much time on the phone, and of not talking about anything that might upset the family’s patriarchal unit.

Personally, my favorite moment is when “Daughter” won’t stop talking at the dinner table and the rest of her family gives her the exact same look that my older sisters always used to give me.

You’re Tearing Me Apart, Lisa: The Room/Star Wars Mash-Up

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while then you probably know that I absolutely love Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 film The Room. I love it for its off-center dialogue, for Tommy Wiseau’s interesting performance, and for the scene where Tommy says, “Oh, hai, doggy.”

(Of course, the main reason that I love it is because Tommy screams, “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” at one point.)

I also know that several of our loyal readers love Star Wars.

So, what could possibly be better than a viral video that combines my love of The Room with your love of Star Wars?

How about two videos that do just that?

I found these videos on YouTube and all credit for them should go to the enigmatic artist known as noisyimp.

A Warning From The Past: Joy Ride: An Auto Theft (1976)

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve mentioned in the past how much I love the old “educational” film from the past that were designed to keep stupid people from doing stupid things, like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, attempting to steal copper wiring, or driving too fast without a license.

That last issue is the one that is dealt with in the 1976 short film (and time capsule), Joy Ride. In Joy Ride, two teenagers go to a little league game, have an existential crisis, steal a car, talk about the inherent weirdness of names, and play lots and lots of pinball.

It’s easy to make fun of a film like Joy Ride but I have to admit that I’m strangely fascinated by this short film. Between the ennui-soaked conversation of the two protagonists and the frequent use of jump cuts and zooms, it’s hard not to feel that if Jean-Luc Godard ever made a driver’s ed film, it would look something like Joy Ride.

I also have to admit that I enjoyed the use of the “You broke my car so I broke your jaw,” song.

Trailer: Jack Reacher

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, when Jeff and I went and saw To Rome With Love on Friday, one of the trailers that played before the film was for the upcoming Tom Cruise action film, Jack Reacher. The audience started snickering the minute that Cruise first showed up in the trailer and was openly laughing by the time Cruise was saying, “Remember, you wanted this.” I’ll admit that, while I didn’t laugh, I did smirk a little because, seriously, we all know that Cruise has probably said the exact same thing at least once to Katie Holmes.

On a perhaps more serious note, the laughter highlighted the central question of Tom Cruise’s career right now. Will audiences continue to take seriously a man who apparently accepts the existence of Evil Lord Xenu and who strikes many people are being just a little bit creepy? True, it didn’t keep people from seeing the latest Mission Impossible film but then again, that film was sold less as a Tom Cruise film and more as the continuation of an established franchise.

I’ve never read any of the Jack Reacher books but they’ve apparently got a pretty devoted fan base* and, just to judge from some of the comments that I’ve seen online, a lot of that base is not that happy about Cruise playing the title character. Apparently, the literary Jack Reacher stands 6’5 and Tom Crusie … well, Tom Cruise doesn’t. In fact, Cruise appears to be the shortest person in this trailer.

Paramount is planning to release Jack Reacher on December 21st, presumably hoping to draw in filmgoers who are looking for an alternative to snooty Oscar contenders.

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*Apparently, Stephen King is a huge Jack Reacher fan which, to be honest, doesn’t fill me with hope. Just judging from his occasional columns for Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King has terrible taste.

A Dissapointing One Night Stand: Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World (dir by Lorene Scafaria)

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As a film, Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is kinda like this cute guy that I once sat behind in a creative writing class. He talked so passionately about his writing that it made it even more disappointing when he finally showed me what he had written and it turned out to be the blandest rip-off of Kerouac that I had ever read. Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World has such a great trailer and such a great cast that it’s impossible not to be disappointed even more than usual that the actual film is mediocre.

The opening scene of Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World finds Dodge (Steve Carell) and his wife parked off the side of the road, listening to a news report informing them that, in 20 days, a gigantic asteroid named Matilda is going to crash into the Earth and end existence as we know it. Dodge responds to the news by saying that he thinks that he missed their exit on the highway. His wife responds by silently getting out of the car and running away into the night, never to be seen again. It’s a brilliant opening and it filled me with false hope for the rest of the film.

Anyway, Dodge continues to go about his life even as the countdown to end of it commences. He goes to work, he goes to a depressing dinner party, and occasionally, he stops moving long enough to watch another random person commit suicide in front of him. Yes, Dodge is pretty depressed but luckily, there’s a manic pixie dream girl (Kiera Knightley) living in the apartment below him. When rioting breaks out, he and Knightley escape to the countryside where they search for both Dodge’s high school girlfriend and an airplane to allow Knightley to fly back to England and see her parents. Along the way, they fall in love and the entire film pretty much falls apart.

Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is at its best during the first fourth of the film when the emphasis is on dark humor and the absurdity of the situation that Dodge has found himself in. Unfortunately, once Carell and Knightley leave the city and find themselves traveling through the most prosaic countryside imaginable, the film seems to be unsure of just what exactly it wants to be. The mix of dark humor and uplifting message is an awkward one and the end result is an uneven film that, ultimately, is just too bland to suggest that we should care that the world’s going to end.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to truly forgive Steve Carell for leaving The Office and turning my favorite TV show into The Ed Helms Show. However, when I blink enough times that I can actually look at things from a perspective beyond my own selfish concerns, I can see that Carell made the right decision. Steve Carell is a film star and that’s proven by the fact that, even when he’s appearing in a mediocre film, he’s still compelling to watch. As uneven as Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is, Carell gives an excellent performance. I think the secret to Steve Carell’s on-screen charisma is that he’s got the saddest eyes in the movies. There’s a sense of real sadness and regret to every character that Steve Carell has ever played and, as a result, he can make the weakest of material seem poignant. As disappointing as Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is, it remains watchable and that’s almost totally due to Steve Carell.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Savages (dir. by Oliver Stone)

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past 5 months, every time I’ve gone to the movies, I’ve seen the trailer for Oliver Stone’s new film, Savages. It’s a pretty exciting trailer, featuring sex, violence, and Taylor Kitsch’s abs. Despite Oliver Stone’s recent track record of making preachy, boring films, that trailer got a lot of people excited about the prospect of seeing Savages.

Well, the film has been released, I’ve seen it, and you know what? Sometimes, trailers lie.

Savages is the story of Chon, Ben, and O. Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson) sell the greatest weed in the world and O (Blake Lively) is the woman who loves both of them at the same time. O, by the way, is short for Ophelia and she narrates the film in such a monotonous style that I have to admit that I was shocked to discover that she actually knew she was named after Hamlet’s doomed girlfriend. Chon is a violent former Navy SEAL while Ben is a laid-back buddhist who wants to get out of the drug business so he can devote his time to environmental activism. (Zzzzzzzzzz….)

Ben’s marijuana becomes so legendary that soon, a Mexican drug cartel led by Salma Hayek decides that both Ben and Chon are going to work exclusively for them. Ben and Chon refuse so Hayek sends Benicio Del Toro to kidnap O and hold her hostage until Ben and Chon come around. Ben and Chon, however, have plans of their own…

On the positive side, Hayek, Del Toro, and John Travolta (playing a corrupt DEA agent) all give excellent performances that would seem to indicate that they — as opposed to everyone else involved with Savages — understand that they’re appearing in an expensive B-movie. They openly devour every piece of scenery in the film and have a fun time wringing every ounce of melodrama out of their pulpy dialogue. These three actors are fun to watch and it’s a shame that the same can’t be said for the other half of the film’s main cast.

Jennifer Lawrence was originally cast in the role of O but she dropped out of Savages so that she could star in The Hunger Games. The role was recast with Blake Lively, who looks like she could be Jennifer Lawrence’s older sister but who, as an actress, has never exhibited the type of wounded determination that has become Lawrence’s trademark. As played by Lively, O is such a passive character that it’s difficult to really care that much about whether she survives or doesn’t. Instead of being a strong, independent woman who is unashamed of her lifestyle, O just comes across as a spoiled and vapid pawn, a possession who is traded between the film’s various players. It doesn’t help that Lively delivers her heavy-handed narration in a flat monotone that makes her come across less like a hard-boiled survivor and more like a spoiled rich girl trying to sound jaded. Every time I heard her refer to Chon and Ben as being “my guys,” I just wanted to scream at the screen, “No, you stupid bitch, you belong to them! They don’t belong to you!”

As for “her guys,” Taylor Kitsch is believable as a killer but not as a stoner. (Kitsch’s character comes across as if he’s been snorting cocaine as opposed to smoking weed.) Aaron Johnson, meanwhile, is a very believable stoner but he’s a lot less believable once his character becomes a killer. Unfortunately, neither Kitch nor Johnson show much in the way of charisma in this film and that’s a shame because both of them have shown in the past that they are capable of giving good performances. (Seriously, just check out Aaron Johnson’s performance in the criminally underrated John Lennon biopic, Nowhere Boy.) With neither Chon nor Ben being all that interesting, the film ultimately becomes a rather empty display of style.

And there’s no denying it — Savages has got style to burn. Oliver Stone shows here that — despite such anemic recent films as Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps — he still knows how to film an explosion. Unfortunately, there’s not much going on beneath all of that style and the end result is a film that mostly succeeds in making both sex and violence boring.

It’s Time For The Annual Self-Important Post About The Year In Film So Far

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the entire past week, something has been nagging at me. I knew that there was something that I needed to do but I couldn’t remember what it was. Earlier today, however, I was reading the latest critical blathering about the state of cinema over at AwardsDaily. As usual, that site’s editors were whining about the fact that the Social Network didn’t win best picture and also the fact that my generation is apparently the “WORST. GENERATION. EVER” and blah blah blah.

Fortunately, however, reading that post reminded me of what I had forgotten: We are now at the halfway mark as far as 2012 is concerned. This is the time of year that self-important film critics (both online and elsewhere) tell their readers what type of year it’s been so far.

So, without further ado — what type of year has 2012 been so far?

(By the way, you can also check out my thoughts from July of 2011 and July 2010 as well.)

(Also, please understand that the act of me posting this in no way guarantees that I won’t change my mind several times within the next hour.)

Best Film Of The Year (So Far): Cabin In The Woods. Compared to both 2010 and 2011, this has been a pretty slow year so far. There really hasn’t been a Hanna or an Exit Through The Gift Shop type of film so far. Instead, there’s been a handful of nice surprises, quite a few pleasant but somewhat forgettable films, and then quite a few films that i wish were forgettable. Cabin In The Woods, however, was a nice little valentine to horror fans like me and it’s a film that actually gets even better with repeat viewings. Runners up include Bernie, Damsels in Distress, Brave, The Hunger Games, Safety Not Guaranteed, Moonrise Kingdom, For Greater Glory, Jeff, Who Lives At Home, and the Avengers.

Best Male Performance Of The Year (So Far): Jack Black in Bernie. Runners up include Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man and Jason Segal in Jeff, Who Lives At Home.

Best Female Performance of the Year (So Far): Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games. Seriously, just try to imagine that film with someone else in the lead role. Runners up include Susan Sarandon in Jeff, Who Lives At Home, Aubrey Plaza in Safety Not Guaranteed, and Greta Gerwig in Damsels in Distress.

Best Voice-Over Performance Of The Year (So Far): Kelly MacDonald in Brave.

Best Ending Of The Year (So Far): A 3-way tie between The Cabin In The Woods, Safety Not Guaranteed, and Jeff, Who Lives At Home.

Best Horror Film Of The Year (So Far): The Cabin In The Woods

Most Underrated Film Of The Year (So Far): The Five-Year Engagement, a sweet and funny movie that was just a tad bit too long.

Best Bad Film of the Year: Battleship. Yes, the movie represented some of the worst impulses of big-budget filmmaking but I had a lot of fun watching it and Alexander Skarsgard was to die for in that white Navy uniform.

Worst Film Of The Year (So Far): The Wicker Tree. I could make an argument for both Rock of Ages and The Devil Inside here but no…just no. As the Trash Film Guru put it, “BURN THE WICKER TREE!”

Biggest Example Of A Missed Opportunity For This Year (So Far): Seeking a Friend For The End of the World. A great performance from Steve Carrel can’t save a film that has no idea what it wants to be.

The Get Over It Already Award For The First Half of 2012: The Devil Inside, for being the most tedious example of a “found footage” horror film yet. Coming in second: Rock of Ages, for reminding me that my parents had terrible taste in music.

The Trailer That Has Most Outgrown Its Welcome: The Perks of Being a Wall Flower. “Be aggressive…passive aggressive…” Okay, shut up, already.

The Cameron/Fincher Bandwagon Trophy (Awarded To The Upcoming Film That, Regardless Of Quality, Will Probably Be So Violently Embraced By People Online That You’ll Be Putting Your Life In Danger If You Dare Offer Up The Slightest Amount Of Criticism): The Dark Knight Rises

The Ebert Award (Awarded to the upcoming film that will probably get positive reviews based on the film’s political context as opposed to the film itself): Zero Dark Thirty

The Sasha Award (Awarded To The Film That I Am Predicting Will Be The Most Overrated Of The Year): Lincoln.

The Roland Emmerich/Rod Lurie Award For The Film That I’m Predicting Will Be The Worst Of 2012: Honestly, it’s really hard to imagine a worse film than The Wicker Tree (though, to be honest, Rock of Ages comes pretty close).

Films I’m Looking Forward To Seeing In The Future (An incomplete list): On The Road, Lawless, The Dark Knight Rises, Cosmopolis, Django Unchained, The Hobbit, The Great Gatsby, and especially The Master and Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina.

And there you have it. 2012 hasn’t been a great year so far but there’s still a lot of time left.

Unless, of course, the Mayans were correct.

Lawless: Trailer #2

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I’ve mentioned on this site before, Lawless is the movie that I’m most excited about seeing later this year.

It’s not necessarily that I think it’s going to be a great film or because I’ve suddenly managed to figure out the appeal of Shia LeBouf (though he does look about as appealing as I’ve ever seen him look in the previews for this film).

No, I’m looking forward to Lawless because it looks like it’s going to be a stylish and sexy throwback to the classic gangster films of the past. As I’ve been saying for a few months now, Lawless captured me the minute I saw Gary Oldman firing that tommy gun and smirking at the camera. Add to that, this film’s original trailer also featured Tom Hardy at his Tom Hardiest and Guy Pearce with one of the weirdest movie haircuts (not to mention accents) ever.

(Plus, the film apparently features dancing! Yay!)

A second trailer for Lawless was released earlier today and you can view it below. While this second trailer contains many scenes that should be familiar from the first trailer, it also puts a lot more emphasis on the film’s violence in general and Tom Hardy in specific. I have to wonder if that has anything to do with all the buzz surrounding Hardy’s villanous performance in the upcoming Dark Knight Rises.