Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
Read More »
.
Please Recommend /Film on Facebook
When compiling a list of the best and most important films of 2009, one must never forget to include Tommy Wiseau‘s The Room, even if it necessitates creating a lone, mutant category. Sure, the cult classic shit champion was originally released in 2003, and was probably advertised on L.A. billboards years before that (joke), but 2009 was the year that The Room said “Hi doggie!” to the pop culture brain cave like a Centurion slug. To celebrate this achievement, Patton Oswalt has donned a Wiseauian wig in a new vid of spoof-offs like The Veranda, The Hallway, and (NSFWinedrinkers) The Bubble Bath. There’s also a secret cameo. Hint: “Oh, hi Don Draper!”
Read More »
How long has it been since the last Weeds Session? Six months? Full Disclosure: We’ve been hesitant to turn on our television for fear of the sixth season of Entourage; seriously, that is the most dreadful show of the year. Doug Ellin might as well DM Tommy Wiseau to write and direct the next planned 10 seasons. Back to Weeds, a far better series that remains impossible to peg like a bi-polar, medium infatuation. Over the last three eps (and yes: half a year later) Nancy Botwin, her ever-independent sons (Silas and Yung Perv Eyes), and the slimy Esteban have struggled with myriad crises. This season’s earlier, recurring and grisly theme that life-is-cheap below the border has been replaced by the soap-operatic lightness displayed in the first seasons.
#SpoilerAlert: The stakes in Nancy’s life, though still perma-dire, seem to have cooled. New additions tend to do that. And sure, the current tone is unrealistic, given that she’s in-and-out of bed and hot water with a politician aka a corrupt jackass and control-freak. But Single Mom and Slacker-in-Law vs. Mexico? Fuck it. It’s summer and we’re digging it. You? And Andy. Andy! The guy who inexplicably transformed for two eps into the would-be hirsute Billy Mitchell of Cali; at one point we anticipated him parading around and waking-and-baking in Daisy Dukes. But wait. Is that all $100K buys in this shite economy? Really? It doesn’t even buy a Comic-Con hotel cosplay orgy? (Nevertheless, nice shout out and timing, Stephen Falk and Co.)
After the jump, the latest developments from the preceding eps and last Monday’s “A Distinctive Horn.” Be sure to ready your angriest, limpest /TV comments trolls, so the /Interns can zap ‘em and stay busy!
Read More »
Weekend Update: Due to the amazing bitch-session in the comments: the following article is a combination free-form essay/review on the genius, relevance, and influences of writer/director Jody Hill and his works including The Foot Fist Way, Eastbound & Down, and his latest, Observe and Report. It also deals with the growing trend of incredibly dark and conflicted American male anti-heroes in movies and TV. Oh yeah, it’s also really, really, really long and I didn’t see a need to begin the piece with “If you were expecting Paul Blart, get ready for a crazy rollercoaster not suitable for the kiddies.” Because fuck Paul Blart. No one will remember that movie in five years, until the sequel is released and makes $200 million. My bad?
Let me preface this by saying that I now anticipate Jody Hill’s films more than any other working filmmaker with the exception of Paul Thomas Anderson. And on a particularly excruciating Monday, maybe Tommy Wiseau’s.
“You suck this gun like a dick and then this dick goin’ cum in your mouth and blow your brains all over the street!” – Danny McBride in Observe and Report, um, protecting his legacy
Generally speaking, there are two types of people, and as it lies, two types of moviegoers: Those who go to malls without a second thought and those who go into them only on the rarest of occasions, sucking on an imaginary Klonopin, those who walk around wondering how the fuck this and they and that sign came to be, pregnant with the speeding notion that a loon might as well destroy the entire fucking building or at least high-jack the “raffle car,” peel out through the entrance doors, and drive on to a fabled body of water.
Read More »
