A Whole Lotta Lingerie

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written. To be honest, I don’t really have an excuse so I’ll just move on.

I’ll bet most of you have already heard about the new movie musical called Nine (not to be confused with the recent animated film, 9), directed by Rob Marshall which will be hitting theaters on Christmas day. The cast is mostly dynamite: Daniel Day-Lewis (Gangs of New York, There Will be Blood), Penelope Cruz (Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona), Kate Hudson (Almost Famous), Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Judi Dench, and Sophia Loren. Oh, and I purposely tried to forget Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas (or Pees haha).

The film centers around an Italian filmmaker named Guido Contini and his trouble in trying to balance several women in his life including his mother (Loren), his wife (Cotillard), and his mistress (Cruz).

I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. I loved Chicago so I’m sure Rob Marshall’s directing was equally amazing. I could definitely do without a couple of select cast members (*cough* Fergie and Kate Hudson *cough* ) but we shall see.

Anyway, here’s the latest trailer. Guys, you may or may not find this droolworthy. All I know is this song is now going to be stuck in my head for about a week.

The Brilliant Mind of Burton

Ever wondered why Tim Burton’s creations are all so dark and mystifying? Well, in his upcoming exhibit at MoMA from November 22-April 26, you can see some of his artwork that dates before his directing days.

In the video below, he discusses his childhood alienation as an inspiration for his art. He also talks a little about his upcoming Alice in Wonderland film to be relased in March and explains how wearing striped socks makes him feel “grounded.” This is a fascinating little look into one of the mind of one of Hollywood’s darkest directors.

I don’t know about you but I plan on trying to make it out to MoMA for this exhibit. Tickets are $20 for adults, free for children under 16, and $12 for full-time students if you can present your student ID.

Want to see some of his artwork but can’t make it to the exhibit? A new book called The Art of Tim Burton is supposed to be available at book stores in December at a hardcover price of $70. The book is 434 pages and features commentary from several people who have worked with Burton including his actress wife, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp; Hollywood’s busiest costume designer, Colleen Atwood; master of music, Danny Elfman, and many more.

Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Directing

My obsession with Wes Anderson’s latest film, Fantastic Mr. Fox, continues. Based on Roald Dahl’s children’s book, Anderson’s film brings to life a world in which foxes steal from farmers and talk like George Clooney. Thanks to joblo.com for finding this cool exclusive video from hitfix. Apparently, there have been rumors going around that Mr. Anderson has not been very involved in the production of the film but this video shows otherwise. He acted out many of the scenes himself, which were used as the basis for the stop-motion characters.

A lot of work went into this one and I think it looks pretty amazing. It has already been released in select theaters but it will be realsed nationwide on Thanksgiving.

Here are some other cool videos that show more on the making of the film:

This one features Mrs. Dahl talking about how Wes Anderson captured her late husband’s vision.

 

My favorite video, which shows more about how the animation was done can be found here.

 

 

At Some Point in Our Lives, We’ve All Wanted to be a Superhero

A new teaser is out there for the film Kick-ass, based on the comic book series by Mark Millar (Wanted, Civil War, Ultimate Fantastic Four). Director Matthew Vaughn brings to life the story of a nerdy high school kid, Dave Lizewski, played by Aaron Johnson, who one day decides to become a superhero. He makes himself a costume and dons the name “Kick-ass.”

Aaron Johnson kickin' ass as Kick-ass

Other featured heroes include “The Red Mist”, sidekick to Kick-ass, played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and “Hit Girl”, an 11-year-old who packs heat and will assassinate the crap out of you if her cop daddy, or  ”Big Daddy” tells her to. She is played by Chloe Moretz.  So check out the sweet trailer. This looks like it might be the Superbad of superhero movies. Oh and one more thing, Nicholas Cage plays Hit Girl’s dad/”Big Daddy”.

The film will be released April 16, 2010.

EDIT: Well I tried to embed the trailer from YouTube but LionsGate took it down due to copyright issues. Apparently the trailer wasn’t supposed to be out until Friday but it got leaked today. Let’s hope this one works:

Kick-Ass teaser trailer

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Next Spidey Villain to be The Black Cat?

Mania.com reported Monday that actress Rachel McAdams is said to be “a top contender” for the role of Felicia Hardy AKA The Black Cat in Spider-Man 4. She was reported to have met with producers of the film to talk about a major role. Director Sam Raimi has not revealed the villains that will be featured in the next Spidey film but fans are largely speculating that both The Black Cat and Lizard will be chosen.

Mania said “our sources tell us that the Black Cat’s story fits well with Raimi’s Spider-Man formula, which always finds the villains troubling not only the costumed hero, but also becoming entangled in Peter Parker’s personal life as well.”

Black Cat and Rachel McAdams

Felicia Hardy becomes The Black Cat after she gets date raped by her boyfriend in college. In an effort to get revenge, she trains in various fighting styles and plans to kill him. However, before she has the chace to get to him, he dies in a drunk-driving accident. She turns to becoming a cat burglar like her father. One night, when she tries to rescue her father from jail, she meets Spider-Man. The two eventually become romantically involved and she reforms her criminal ways.

Black Cat seems to be an even more likely candidate for the film considering that Kirsten Dunst has not signed on to do Spider-Man 5 and 6. Perhaps Felicia Hardy will become Peter Parker’s new love interest? We’ll see.

Sherlock Holmes Game on Facebook: Movie Marketing of the Future?

A new game on Facebook called 221b takes players through the events leading to the first scene in the upcoming Sherlock Holmes film starring Robert Downey Jr. It is a two player game in which one person plays as Holmes and the other as Watson. Players work together to sift through evidence about a crimes and solve the mysteries. You have to register to play on the 221b homepage which first shows the trailer of the film.

screen shot from the game

This marketing technique is similar to one used for Batman: The Dark Knight, which ultimately grossed over $500 million in the domestic box office.  TDK also used a viral game in which players would put together clues from websites in order to view scenes or stills from the film.

Other internet marketing techniques for films have included the “demand it” feature for Paranormal Activity and the Slusho campaign for the film Cloverfield. Interesting little tidbit: Cloverfield’s producer J.J. Abrams has used Slusho in nearly every project he’s done since Cloverfield, including Star Trek and the TV show “Fringe”. As I wrote in an earlier post,  Weinstein Films kept a twitter page for Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.

Will we be seeing an increase of viral marketing in the future? What do you think?

Review: Whatever Works

So I know most people watch Halloween movies on Halloween but not me! I watched three films last night, one of which was Woody Allen’s latest film, Whatever Works. The film was just released on dvd on October 27 and since the fiance is  a major Woody Allen fan, we had to watch it. The verdict?

I loved this film! I’ll be honest, I have had very minimal exposure to Woody Allen (Vicky Cristina Barcelona and New York Stories are the only other films of his I’ve ever seen) but this one was enough to make me want to watch them all. 

The film follows Boris Yellnikoff, a 61-year-old nerotic man, and self-described “genius”.  He lives alone in an apartment in Manhattan and teaches chess to children ,which usually results in him insulting their self-worth and angering their parents. But he doesn’t care. One day, he meets Melodie, a 21-year-old homeless girl from the south who begs him to let her stay with him for a couple of nights and give her food. At first he tells her she’s out of her mind but then he digs up mild enough sympathy to let her in and tell her she can eat a can of sardines and sleep on the couch. She is dumber than a bag of hammers and Boris finds her incredibly irrititating. However, time passes and the two form an unlikey bond as Boris teaches her his philosophies about life and society. Things get even weirder when Melodie’s parents find her in New York.

It took me a little while into the beginning of the film to start liking it. The beginning is a monolgue from Larry David who stars as Boris Yellnikoff. At first, the rhetoric bothered me. I thought “this guy is a conceited a-hole.” But that’s the beauty of it, I came to love that he was a conceited a-hole. Larry David is well-suited to this character, whose personality  bears resemblance to Mr. Allen himself. The performance seemed to come naturally to David, as Boris is not a far cry from his own character on the TV show Curb Your Enthsiasm.

Evan Rachel Wood gives a very convincing performance as Melodie, the impressionable and stupid but charming young lady from Mississippi.

While their relationship seems weird at first, there is someting in it that seems incredibly genuine and sweet.

What I loved most about this film was its exaggerated portrayal of how New York changes people. While Melodie grows from all she learns from Boris, her exposure to the city surely has an effect on her lifestyle. When her parents go to New York, the changes they go through are far more drastic.

Rumorsville!

 

What the buzz? Keira Knightley will be playing Eliza Doolitle in a remake of My Fair Lady?

Audrey Hepburn and Keira Knightley

 

The Telegraph reported Friday that director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) has been tapped to direct the film and that Keira Knightley has won the lead role. However, Celebrity Mania has reported that she has NOT officially been chosen for the role and that her agent had not known anything about production of the film.

Rumors are still ablaze that the actress has beat out Scarlett Johansson for the role and that she is taking singing lessons in preparation for the part. Celebrity Mania confirmed that those lessons are actually for a London play called “The Misanthrope.”

I have to say, My Fair Lady is in my top 3 Audrey Hepburn films (next to Funny Face and Breakfast at Tiffany’s). It was brilliantly done and I can see why some people get upset when a great movie gets re-made. But I have to say that if it’s going to happen, Keira Knightley would be the best Eliza Doolittle that I can think of. Aside from the fact that I think she looks an awful lot like the gorgeous, Ms. Hepburn, she has very similar mannerisms. She is graceful, sophisticated, oh and British. I’ve never heard the girl sing but if she’s taking lessons now, that’s probably all the prep she’s going to need for singing ”Just You Wait ‘Enry ‘Iggins.”  (Conversely, I don’t care how  cool Scarlett thinks she is for covering Tom Waits, her singing makes me want to shove a pencil in my eardrum). And I’m sure she could pull off a Cockney accent, being y’know, British. I can just imagine her now saying “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains” about a hundred times and sounding exactly like Ms. Hepburn.

Movie Studio to be Built in Connecticut

Well my fellow Connecticut residents, it looks like we’ll finally be getting our big break! Connecticut Studio developers were officially given 20 acres of land to build the new movie studio in the town of South Windsor Monday.

The project will cost $65 million and it is expected that construction will start in March, according to The Examiner. The studio will have eight sound stages (only a little smaller than Paramount Studios with its ten sound stages), and in addition ther will be a visitor’s center, hotel, and three new restaurants (oh please, please let this state finally get a Sonic!). It is expected that about 500 new construction jobs will be created as well as 114 permanent jobs  and up to 1,500 studio jobs a year depeding on film productions, The Examiner reported.

This could mean more movies being shot in surrounding towns such as Mystic, which made its film debut in the 1956 film Moby Dick. It was also a location for later films such as Mystic Pizza (Which was actually shot mostly in Stonington Borough on Water Street. Btw, if you come to Mystic as a visitor Pizzetta is waaaay better. Though most people will probably tell you Angie’s is the best), and Amistad. Mystic is also known as being the honeymoon spot of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

Introducing TwitCritics

Twitter has a new feature called TwitCritics that basically compiles movie review ratings based on tweets. The rating scale goes up to 100% and any tweet that mentions a particular film is added as a review. It is very similar to the site Rotten Tomatoes. 

So for instance, the film “Law Abiding Citizen” has a overall rating of 90% on the scale which means it has gotten a lot of positive feedback through tweets. Paranormal Activity, on the other hand, has a rating of 41%, so it’s not doing to well with folks on twitter. So, it seems the way that it is supposed to work is if someone writes something negative about  film, Twitcritics adds it as a bad review. It would be the reverse if someone writes something positive. However, this thing CLEARLY has some problems. For example, someone wrote this tweet: “Just finished watching Couples Retreat. I haven’t laughed that much in a long time haha.” TwitCritics listed this as a negative review. Another tweet was completely unrelated to a film called “A Beautiful Life” but listed this tweet as a positive review: “Such a beautiful day, clear blue sky, the sun is shining, good coffee, good friends–it’s a beautiful life!!”

Twitcritics does have a “mistake?” feature where you can submit an alert to change someone’s tweet by categorizing it as a negative review, positive review, spam, or not a critique of the film.

I don’t like this thing. It obviously doesn’t understand context, being a computerized sorting program. Instead of automatically compiling tweets that aren’t actually movie reviews, it should be a review submission kind of thing so you know tht when you read reviews on twitcritics, you’re getting actual reviews.