News: More 'Scarface,' Centipedes and really smart people... sigh

Today.com

Say hello to my lil’ friend… again

                Hip hop community rejoice! The day you’ve waited for is finally here! A remake/reimagining of “Scarface” is in the works!

                That sound you’re hearing right now is a thousand hip hop moguls updating their resumes and threatening vicious beat downs if their agents don’t land the lead role.

                I’ve never really understood the love the second take on “Scarface,” the Al Pacino version, received. I mean, the movie is ok, but radically overrated. It’s too long, agonizingly slow and needlessly talky.

                It has his moments, like the killer finale, but most of the three hours that lead up to it are flatout boring.

                Not much has been finalized yet, as Universal is still interviewing writers, but considering the merchandizing cash cow Pacino’s version became, the studio would be dumb not to do this. Like John Connor said: “Easy money.”

                Source: Today.com



Adultswim.com



The centipede’s back in town!

                I never watched “The Human Centipede.” I like gory movies, I like gross movies, but there are just some things I don’t need to see. It just so happens that seeing three human beings sharing a digestive track is one of those things.

                So when writer/director Tom Six announced his sequel would take the envelope that part one merely pushed and defecate on it, I knew I’d be skipping it as well.

                Recently, Six (who amazingly seems like an ok guy) sat down and spilled some beans on “The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence.”

                Among the highlights: His plans for a “Human Centipede” trilogy (sweet Jesus).

                Six also commented on whether his reputation as a perverted gore monger (my words) had any effect on the production of part 2. Incredibly, it didn’t. Apparently lots of folks are into mouth to butt stuff.

The recession has clearly made us all nuts.

“Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence” slithers into theaters on Oct. 7.

Source: Arrow in the Head

Designaterobertson.blogspot.com

Smart people are reading your mind!

                I’m not sure I can do this article any justice, but I’ll give it a shot: A bunch of smart people somewhere did something that I can never begin to understand.

                Hmm… not much there. Let me try again.

                Scientists showed some folks a bunch of movie trailers and then used crazily elaborate and expensive technology to recreate the images based off of the subjects’ brainwaves.

                Eggats. The article is interesting, but written for a more science-inclined crowd then myself.

                Plus, I shudder to think about the garbage flowing through my brain after spending the last 10 months watching almost nothing but terrible movies for this blog. Yuck. It’s got to be like a sewer up there now.

                Anywho, my advice to you is to skim the article and skip the big words. Mostly, check out the pictures. The human brain is a horrifying, despicable place. Tom Six would love it there!

                Source: Discovery.com

                Bumblebee tuna.     

News: More 'Scarface,' Centipedes and really smart people... sigh

Today.com

Say hello to my lil’ friend… again

                Hip hop community rejoice! The day you’ve waited for is finally here! A remake/reimagining of “Scarface” is in the works!

                That sound you’re hearing right now is a thousand hip hop moguls updating their resumes and threatening vicious beat downs if their agents don’t land the lead role.

                I’ve never really understood the love the second take on “Scarface,” the Al Pacino version, received. I mean, the movie is ok, but radically overrated. It’s too long, agonizingly slow and needlessly talky.

                It has his moments, like the killer finale, but most of the three hours that lead up to it are flatout boring.

                Not much has been finalized yet, as Universal is still interviewing writers, but considering the merchandizing cash cow Pacino’s version became, the studio would be dumb not to do this. Like John Connor said: “Easy money.”

                Source: Today.com



Adultswim.com



The centipede’s back in town!

                I never watched “The Human Centipede.” I like gory movies, I like gross movies, but there are just some things I don’t need to see. It just so happens that seeing three human beings sharing a digestive track is one of those things.

                So when writer/director Tom Six announced his sequel would take the envelope that part one merely pushed and defecate on it, I knew I’d be skipping it as well.

                Recently, Six (who amazingly seems like an ok guy) sat down and spilled some beans on “The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence.”

                Among the highlights: His plans for a “Human Centipede” trilogy (sweet Jesus).

                Six also commented on whether his reputation as a perverted gore monger (my words) had any effect on the production of part 2. Incredibly, it didn’t. Apparently lots of folks are into mouth to butt stuff.

The recession has clearly made us all nuts.

“Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence” slithers into theaters on Oct. 7.

Source: Arrow in the Head

Designaterobertson.blogspot.com

Smart people are reading your mind!

                I’m not sure I can do this article any justice, but I’ll give it a shot: A bunch of smart people somewhere did something that I can never begin to understand.

                Hmm… not much there. Let me try again.

                Scientists showed some folks a bunch of movie trailers and then used crazily elaborate and expensive technology to recreate the images based off of the subjects’ brainwaves.

                Eggats. The article is interesting, but written for a more science-inclined crowd then myself.

                Plus, I shudder to think about the garbage flowing through my brain after spending the last 10 months watching almost nothing but terrible movies for this blog. Yuck. It’s got to be like a sewer up there now.

                Anywho, my advice to you is to skim the article and skip the big words. Mostly, check out the pictures. The human brain is a horrifying, despicable place. Tom Six would love it there!

                Source: Discovery.com

                Bumblebee tuna.     

Some New Film, Some Old: Russian Dolls, Juno, and Carlito's Way

Sunday, December 9, 2007

L'Auberge espagnole (2002) was the first Cédric Klapisch film I saw, and now the second, appropriately, the sequel to L'Auberge, Russian Dolls (2005), is another lovely jaunt through Europe where I live vicariously through the characters who find amazing abodes in the heart of Paris, and meaningful, hair-pulling careers as writers. Ah, where is that bottle of Bordeaux? My glass is empty and I need a refill.

Russian Dolls finds the college flatmates now buried in work they are disappointingly tied to as they struggle to make do with a reality that doesn't mesh with their dreams of yore. Each one, teetering on bona-fide adulthood, is swept off their feet by love and lust, still in touch with that dewy freshness of youth and ideals. Pour heavy. That glass is already empty...

L'Auberge Espagnole and Russian Dolls are to Generation Y, who now march solemnly into the dawn of their thirties, what John Hughes and The Breakfast Club were to Gen X-ers in the 1980s: a celluloid catharsis that demands we not deny the spirit of youth, enlightenment, of who we are, of who we love, of what we want to do, of who we want to be. Pour on!



Friday, December 14, 2007

I listed Juno in the number 4 slot of this year's Top Ten List, but it very well could have been placed further up (or down?) depending on the day. I wrote a bit about Ellen Page on Seen's sister site Scarlett Cinema, which defines Page as one of the biggest female assets to the film industry. You can read about that right here.

I'm thirsty for more of Ellen Page's fresh attitude and wit that holds as much clout as her male counterparts.


















Saturday, December 15, 2007

Hello, Brian De Palma! I missed your movie Carlito's Way in 1993, but now, nearly fifteen years later, I finally saw it, and I have to say it's one of my favorites. Pacino is always great, that's a given (except for in Two For The Money), but the real winner is Sean Penn as the coke addled, high-power attorney. For as humorless and annoying as Penn can be of late, one ought not to forget his serious contributions to cinema; his acting is simply uncanny. I have yet to see Into The Wild, but did see The Pledge (2001) and remember being impressed with his skill as a director too.

Also, some brief observations on the camera work in Carlito's: an outdoor party scene in the Hampdens reveals Penn and Pacino in extreme long shot, from what looks to be a mile away from the subjects; the sound of their conversation is crystal clear, however, and it creates a real sense of surveillance. De Palma also has the incredible ability to make the streets of New York look like they're duplicates on a set; in a number of scenes outside of a night club and an evening exterior of a cafe look downright painted.