It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies, excluding The Tooth Fairy starring The Rock, that offer proof. /Film’s Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a new trailer for a provocative indie, a mini review or…”what do you mean Merlin wasn’t real?!“Attention hosers: it’s the return of FUBAR! And much more after the jump in this double-deep installment…
It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies, excluding The Tooth Fairy starring The Rock, that offer proof. /Film’s Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a new trailer for a provocative indie, a mini review, or an interview.
It’s rare when the marketing campaign for an indie movie has a celebratory feel, clearly organized by a team as psyched on the feature as they hope the recipient will be. Soon after learning of Black Dynamite last year, several packages arrived at my home/office in correlation with its theatrical release. They contained quality tees—one read “Fight Smack In The Orphanage” in bold-ass white-on-black CAPS—along with a high concept soundtrack and a media kit ribboned and accented with a syringe pen. For months thereafter, director and co-writer Scott Sandersseemed to personally and tirelessly push Dynamite to every white sucka on Internet Geek Street. It was admirable, considering that his second feature film was indeed a pretty fun, meticulously designed hat tip to the Afro-Fu era of Dolemite.
The film is also a stable showcase for Sanders’s pal Michael Jai White(Spawn, The Dark Knight) to launch a renewed case for chiseled action stardom, and a welcome invite for underseen talents like Tommy Davidson andArsenio Hallto get retarded. Oh, and if you ever wondered about the true origin of chicken and waffles? That’s in there too. During an absurd week that saw oversensitive Twitterers erupt over the existence of soul food, what better film and DVD to welcome Black History Month? Slashfilm’s Weekend Weirdness asked Sanders a few questions about Dynamite’s future as a CIA agent-cum-VietNam veteran-cum-inner city exterminator of “jive ass” dummies. (Note: NSFW movie stills after the jump.)
Too bad Russ has already filled the week’s /Film: The Movie quota, because this post is writhing on the floor for our fave bad joke. Director Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Kinsey) is developing and writing a proposed half-hour series for HBO set in the hectic and catty world of Hollywood movie blogging. If the network takes the next step forward, THR reports that Condon would direct the pilot episode, in addition to being the series’ executive-producer.
Oddly titled, Tilda, with no relation to the ivory actress, the lead character is said to be a female, take-no-prisoners veteran writer/blogger, which automatically conjures Deadline’s L.A.-based Nikki Finke, followed by the less polarizing and /Filmcast-friended Anne Thompson. I checked and was disappointed to find that Finke has not yet commented on the series using a characteristic “TOLDJA!” and complimentary clip art of a monitor and a steaming cup of joe.
Sharing writing and producing duties on Tilda is Cynthia Mort, who worked on Will & Grace and created the sexually provocative, short-lived HBO series (and Adam Scott-starrer) Tell Me You Love Me. Regarding Tilda, it could offer a field day for insidery jokes and awkward sweatshirt-clad cameos from West Coast peers. Further blending the worlds of film and high-concept teevee, Condon recently helmed the pilot for Showtime’s cancer-topical comedy series The C Word.
Now that Danny McBride and Jody Hill ostensibly have the keys to the kingdom by way of their new production company, Rough House Pictures, the world of comedy better watch its stagnant ass. Hill is attached to direct, and McBride to star as a “beaten down, hardboiled private investigator,” in a new action-comedy called L.A.P.I. Their pal and fellow North Carolina School of the Arts alum, David Gordon Green, who co-founded the company with them last year, will co-produce.
What’s intriguing is that unlike their previous collaborations The Foot Fist Way, HBO’s Eastbound & Down, and Observe & Report, the idea and pitch for L.A.P.I. originates outside the crew’s creative circle, from screenwriter team Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan. The duo have two other buzzing projects in development: a comedy entitled Comic Con (one of two scripts by these guys on the 2009 Black List) and a remake of Brewster’s Millions. McBride and Hill are pretty damn selective about material, so I can’t wait to hear more and see what appealed to them. Read the official press release and additional /Film thoughts after the jump. Or just go celebrate in your backyard by waving around a machete and leaving uncool magical trails…
Our stateside readers who dig serial killer procedural-thrillers in the vein of Zodiac and Silence of the Lambs should make a blood-scrawled note of Britain’s Red Riding Trilogy. This Friday, the epic triptych begins a one week run at IFC Center in New York City, complete with two intermissions and a free popcorn (caution to the hemoglobin phobes, the elderly, and flatulent ). I recently attended all three entries, titled 1974, 1980, and 1983, and definitely recommend the five-hour experience, both for the project’s interconnected, serpentine plotting and to contrast the clear stylistic and tonal differences between the three directors.
Below is an exclusive Slashfilm clip from 1974, which I felt in my review is the superior entry thanks to the charged noir vision of director Julian Jarrold (Brideshead Revisited) and a star-making performance by Andrew Garfield, as a young journo submerged in idealism, booze, and mutton-chopped pheromones. Garfield’s conveyed arrogant dissonance seethes through in this excerpted scene, and the actor is set for a high profile 2010 with upcoming roles in David Fincher’s Facebook drama The Social Network and Mark Romanek’s mysterious Never Let Me Go. He also participated in Spike Jonze’s short film and /fave, I’m Here…
Without spoiling the film, here’s context for the above scene: Garfield’s character, Eddie Dunford, hungry for his big break and his mum’s approval, is researching and investigating the fresh case of a missing girl in Northern England. In the cig-smoke clouded office of his newspaper, Dunford’s equally clouded by older, world-weary cynics. In this particular scene, Dunford is adamant that the recent arrest of an alleged abductor is bullocks. At clip’s conclusion, he finds a suspicious card on his boss’s desk, evidently filled with warm-sentiments from a shady developer named John Dawson (the unseen Sean Bean in a sleazy role that rivals Garfield’s in arrogant machismo).
Dawson’s card is just further proof that the media is in bed with shady elites who are in bed with the cops—all the while nobody seems to give a shit that young girls—those eluded to in the trilogy’s title—are being picked off the street by a madman (men?). Yorkshire in the ’70s, evil was a fan. Also, note the presence in the scene of the always-good Eddie Marsan, who adds a wild-and-defeated-eyed unpredictability to the film(s)—a familiar gift to anyone who saw him in last year’s Happy-Go-Lucky.
It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies, excluding The Spy Next Door and The Tooth Fairy, that offer proof. /Film’s Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a new trailer for a provocative indie, a mini review, or an interview. In this installment, new trailers and a review of the Red Riding Trilogy, a noirish triptych of serial killer dramas imported from British television and being released stateside in February by IFC Films.
During a screening of the entire Red Riding Trilogy, with one intermission allotted for lunch, I found myself pondering the irony in three directors, one screenwriter, one author, tens of actors and three separate crews realizing a project that depicts humanity and bureaucracy at its most foul and irreversibly corrupt. A recent poster for the trilogy forebodingly reads, “Evil Lives Here,” a tagline that would serve most of the work that exits Stephen King’s skull; instead the “here” in Red Riding is Northern England in the ’70s and early ’80s, when a serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper carved a trail of female victims and set a mood and mythos ripe for social reflection.
It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies, sans The Tooth Fairy, that offer proof. /Film’s Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a new trailer for a provocative indie, a mini review, or an interview. In this installment: the perverse and obscure ’60s thriller, Who Killed Teddy Bear?, being shown tonight at NYC’s Anthology Film Archives; the doc, Nick Nolte: No Exit, which finds good ol’ Nick candidly Q&Aing himself on topics ranging from god to drugs. For a special Weekend Weirdness posted yesterday about the imaginative skateboarder fantasy Machotaildrop, click here.
Photographed above is a real deal, shrink-wrapped, limited-edition VHS for The House of the Devil, promoting its release on DVD/Blu-Ray early next month. It’s one of the coolest pieces of swag I’ve received for this column thus far; to my knowledge only a few peeps were sent one, including Devil-supporter Drew McWeeny at HitFix. And even fewer peers have watched the tape. Some are scared, others are sans VCR. I’ve seen last year’s best horror flick at least thirteen times now, so I’d rather keep it sealed. Similar to the wizard-bong approved THotD poster design by Kellerhouse last year, the VHS packaging has faux rental scruffs, in addition to a retro “new release” starburst. A disclaimer on the back reads, “Caution: This film contains Satanic references and graphic violence.” Haters would add: “…and so much pointless walking.”
It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies, sans The Tooth Fairy, that offer proof. /Film’s Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a new trailer for a provocative indie, a mini review, or an interview…
For all of the world’s fireplaces used to stack skateboard videos and DVDs, it’s increasingly strange how few, if any, feature films exist to directly reflect the ubiquity of the sport and lifestyle in pop culture. The new indie film, Machotaildrop, might be the only across-the-board example. Not only does it have a skateboarder named Walter (played by skater/actor Anthony Amedori) as its main character, the movie’s plush fantasy world serves as a metaphorical backdrop for a modern skater’s journey from passionate amateur to paid-and-jaded pro. After Walter is recruited to the hedonistic dream estate of a major skateboard corporation called Machotaildrop, he’s soon ordered by its shady overseer, The Baron, to tour the base of an outlaw skater gang called the Manwolfs. Herein lies a moral dilemma and awakening: help Machotaildrop establish its kooky skater theme park on the Manwolfs’ sacred turf and “fulfill the dream.” Or bail.
Machotaildrop is already stirring curiosity online for its attractive cinematography and for surreal imagery that evokes the prim-and-proper stylings of Wes Anderson, the offbeat humor of Spike Jonze, and the acid-tab abstraction of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Accessible to fans of those directors, Machotaildrop still glows with the esoteric yet stonerish attitude synonymous with a lot of skate culture. Veteran and current pro’s like Steve Olson (as a baker-skater) and Rick McCrank (as a snobbish, injured icon) get laughs in supporting roles and the plot lends itself to well-shot bouts of skate tricks. I interviewed writers/directors, Corey Adams and Adam Craig, about what they wanted to accomplish, their film’s themes, and all of the skater-and-cineaste history that inspired it. Trailer and images included after the jump.
Hunter Stephenson: We are seeing skate video culture assimilated into indie films more and more, as seen in the work of directors like Spike Jonze and Jody Hill. Do you agree? And what discussions did you and Alex have before making the film in regard to contributing to this cinematic/cultural bridge?
Corey Adams: Well the one discussion we kept having was that we didn’t want the film to look anything like a skateboard video, that all the skateboarding we shot in the film was done so in a way that it didn’t over glorify it. No wide angle lenses or handheld shots—except for some of the skateboard video elements, which we had no control over as it was all actual footage from the kid.
Alex Craig: Even though we both come from a skateboarding background, it was always our intention to approach this project cinematically as opposed to using skate video conventions. I think it would have been foolish to try and recreate a skate video vibe in the film mainly because it wasn’t appropriate to our idea but also because we could never do it justice. We wanted the film to stay in a farcical world.
If a male filmmaker desires to throw up grim truth and reality before the eyes of moviegoers and also swoon critics, many of whom subsist on darker themes, he will at some point consider making a film about war or prison. There are no greater immediate settings for tapping perennial sentiments of a mad world, or for demystifying masculinity by scraping it and reducing it to a primal essence. Unlike the ambitious gangster or mob film, reputable prison dramas tend to feature a protagonist that is closer to us, a person thrown to hell rather than embodying it, nakedly amidst wolves as opposed to running with them. (Ironic, given these characters’ punishments at the hands of society and/or government.)
Engrossing and well-crafted but formulaic and borderline genre-fare, A Prophet is the latest prison film to follow this mold and punch its way creatively outward. Winner of the Grand Prix at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, A Prophet has landed on a number of top 10 lists for 2009; with a domestic release forthcoming, we’ll likely see its inclusion on many of this year’s as well.
It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies, sans The Tooth Fairy, that offer proof. Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a new trailer for a provocative indie, a mini review, or this…
Variations on the utterance, “I wish there was something to do,” number in the hundreds to thousands daily in New York City. It’s a minor grumble that can be overheard even as many a boredom-stricken city dweller is in a bout of multi-tasking worthy of a wintery-layer-obsessed Inspector Gadget. These frequent sentiments both ignore and are at the source of the unbridled creativity occurring around them: somewhere in the city, people are launching unrelated search-and-destroys on boredom in new ways. In the case of a determined 20something actor and filmmaker named Zachary Oberzan, it was via a feature-length adaptation of First Blood…set entirely in a 220-square-foot Manhattan apartment and starring himself as roughly two dozen male and female characters. The resulting film—which cost $96, was made over seven months, and was edited by Oberzan in Final Cut Pro—is called Flooding with Love for the Kid.
In the role of iconic Vietnam vet John Rambo, Oberzan ostensibly fought the law and the law won. Which means Oberzan still won, because they are one in the same and so forth. In a superlative scene in Flooding, Oberzan is show on screen as six different armed men firing shotguns at Rambo in a display of deliberately amateur but charming effects. That the scene, like most of the film, is set deep in a Kentucky wilderness conveyed by makeshift twigs and grimy urban brick should be a lame or childish sight to the grown viewer. Instead, the scene is genuinely suspenseful, partially due to the claustrophobic restraints, and packs just enough Dogme-esque realism to earn a smile. Flooding is currently a subject of fun chatter in NYC, and has even been intensely praised by Rambo’s creator, First Blood author David Morrell.
Unlike Sylvester Stallone’s 1982 classic actioner, Oberzan made use of Morrell’s original ending, in which Rambo and the relentless sheriff on the hunt for him both die. /Film chatted with Oberzan about the multiple meta meanings at the heart of Flooding’s faithful conclusion and about many other aspects of his memorable, irony-free creation. A clip from the film and the interview after the jump…
