Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Easily one of the biggest releases of the year was this film and easily the biggest disappointment so far of this year is this film. If you missed where we posted an early draft of the script then here is the link. Which as you can see the aliens, fridge and everything were involved in this script. It wasn’t just Lucas being his usual self. Someone else actually thought it was a good idea.
A lot of reviews I’ve read have said that if you are a die hard fan then you will enjoy this one all the same. Let me tell you that you will not. This doesn’t offer any of the usual thrills that you get. The one-liners are all lame and the story is still trying to work on me to make me think that it is anything less than terrible. Indiana Jones does not deal with aliens.
Does anyone else realize that this franchise has just hit an all time low that only certain others have. Usually only horror movies make the leap to space with Leprechaun and Jason coming to mind but now an action movie has. And of all franchises, they choose Indiana Jones to lead the space action movie trend, come on. I know it isn’t quite space themed, but the aliens are close enough for me. You might as well throw Indy on a NASA jet and make him land on Jupiter and fight the space martians for the rights to gain Kobe Bryant in a trade.
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Rating: 3.0/5 (1 vote cast)
Posted in J.C., Movies, Reviews by J.C. 
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Tags: george lucas, harrison ford, indiana jones, kingdom of the crystal skulls, steven spielberg
Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 11:09 am
The Incredible Hulk is a 2008 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character the Hulk. It is directed by Louis Leterrier and stars Edward Norton as Dr. Bruce Banner / the Hulk. The second Hulk film after Hulk (2003), it is a reboot that establishes a new back-story, where Banner became the Hulk as an unwitting pawn in a military scheme to create supersoldiers. On the run, he attempts to cure himself of the Hulk before he is captured by General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt), but his worst fears are realized when power-hungry soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) becomes the Abomination. Liv Tyler also stars as Betty Ross, Banner’s girlfriend and General Ross’ daughter.
Marvel Studios reacquired the rights to the character after the mixed reception to Hulk, and writer Zak Penn began work on a loose sequel that would be much closer to the comics and the television series. Norton rewrote the script after he signed on to star, which clarified the film’s new back-story. Leterrier aimed to make the film realistic, giving a more frightening direction for the look of the monsters, while redesigning the Abomination from the comics’ reptilian humanoid into a mutated man with bony protrusions. Filming mostly took place in Toronto, Canada in 2007, where the production attempted to be environmentally friendly.
Normally I would pass on this movie all day long but with the recent crop of decent comic book flicks I thought, why not? I’m guessing you are more or less supposed to forget about the previous attempt by ang lee which isn’t hard to do. This one feels more like a full film and even though the bad guy is mostly made up, he is pretty cool. This one is definitely better than the previous hulk film but there is still work to be done on this franchise. Maybe the filmmakers can take some lessons from Iron Man or TDK for the next go at a hulk movie. I’m loving the fact that Marvel is making their own movies now though. Seems like the creative control that they have is really making for better movies.
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Rating: 3.0/5 (1 vote cast)
Posted in J.C., Movies, Reviews by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Christina Cabot, Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Lou Ferrigno, Louis Leterrier, Martin Starr, The Incredible Hulk, Tim Blake Nelson, Tim Roth, Ty Burrell, William Hurt, Zak Penn
Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Moving Mountains is a New York-based indie rock band. Combining emotional vocals with elements of post-rock, the band has often been compared to such acts as The Appleseed Cast and Thrice.
Moving Mountains was formed in Westchester, New York in 2005 by Gregory Dunn (guitar/vocals) and Nicholas Pizzolato (drums). A self-titled demo was leaked to the public in early 2006 and their debut album Pneuma was released independently in early 2007. Later that year, Frank Graniero (guitar/vocals) and Mitchell Lee (bass) completed the band’s line-up. In 2008, Pneuma was reissued by Deep Elm.
I first heard of this band in an interview that we conducted with the members of The Cast Before the Break and they said that they would love to tour with these guys non-stop but for some reason I didn’t ever get around to listening to them. Then absolutepunk just did their 200 bands that you need to know about and the description under this band was, “If this list were only one band, this band would be that band.” So I immediately check them out and dug it so I grabbed the cd off of amazon and I highly recommend it. Since I’ve listened to this, I can now hear the influence that this band had on The Cast Before the Break.
You will be hard pressed to find a more epic sounding album that came out over the last year than this one. It has everything you need for a rock album. Lots of melodies, a little screaming, epic, epic songs, and a ballad. Highly recommended.
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Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)
Posted in J.C., Music by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Moving Mountains, Pneuma
Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Iron Man is a 2008 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Directed by Jon Favreau, the film stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist and master engineer who builds a powered exoskeleton and becomes the technologically advanced superhero, Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow plays his personal assistant Pepper Potts, Terrence Howard plays military liaison James Rhodes and Jeff Bridges plays Stark Industries executive Obadiah Stane.
The film was in development since 1990 at Universal Studios, 20th Century Fox, and New Line Cinema, before Marvel Studios reacquired the rights in 2006. Marvel put the project in production as their first self-financed film. Favreau signed on as director, aiming for a naturalistic feel, and he chose to shoot the film primarily in California, rejecting the East Coast setting of the comics to differentiate the film from numerous superhero movies set in New York City-esque environments. During filming, the actors were free to create their own dialogue because preproduction was focused on the story and action. Rubber and metal versions of the armors, created by Stan Winston’s company, were mixed with computer-generated imagery to create the title character.
Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures, the distributor, planned a $50 million marketing campaign for the film, which was modeled on Paramount’s successful promotion of Transformers; Hasbro and Sega sold merchandise, and product placement deals were made with Audi, Burger King, LG and 7-Eleven. Reviews were positive, particularly praising Downey’s performance. The film’s stars have signed on for two sequels, the first of them scheduled for release on April 30, 2010, while Downey also makes a cameo appearance as Stark in The Incredible Hulk.
So how do you write a favorable review for a super hero movie after everyone has already seen Dark Knight and made it their favorite super hero movie of all time. The easiest thing would be to say that this movie is a lighter more fun film than TDK. Where TDK is dark and very villain driven, Iron Man is quick, funny, and Stark steals the show. Downey is pure perfection as Stark and I would have been fine with a movie without the Iron Man, just of Stark going around womanizing and throwing out one-liners. Favreau is the real surprise of this film though. Going from indie films into a big summer blockbuster and he makes it good. I have never been a huge fan of his but this one is definitely well done from all aspects. At least now on Dinner for Five it will be, “When I was working on Iron Man” instead of “When I was working on Swingers…”. God that man loves to talk about Swingers.
Regardless if you love him or hate him or like the character of Iron Man, this film is an entertaining watch. With the quality of the Comic books films this summer going up, it will only ensure that we get another three per year for the next twenty years. I personally have hated pretty much all of the other Comic book films but the big three that came out this summer are all worth checking out.
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Rating: 3.0/5 (5 votes cast)
Posted in J.C., Movies, Reviews by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Art Marcum, Bill Smitrovich, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hawk Ostby, Iron Man, Jeff Bridges, Jon Favreau, Leslie Bibb, Mark Fergus, Matt Holloway, Micah Hauptman, Nazanin Boniadi, Robert Downey Jr., Shaun Toub, Terrence Howard
Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
The Fall is a 2006 film by Tarsem Singh, starring Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, and Justine Waddell. It is based on the screenplay for the 1981 film Yo Ho Ho by Valeri Petrov.
Unable to free himself from his sterile confines, the immobile patient’s deepest fears form the basis of a dark story that he shares with his young companion — a little girl who visits his room as she recovers from a nasty fall. As the eerie tale unfolds, reality and fantasy gradually merge to form a strange world in which anything is possible.
Tarsem took a lot of crap for The Cell, which I thought was a really good movie, but which I know has it’s following of haters including my mom who walked out of the theater. However, even the haters can’t dispute the fact that it is one of the best looking movies ever put to film. After 8 years, Tarsem is back with The Fall, a movie that took him most of that time to make. You can tell that he had full control over this movie and rightfully so since he put most of his own money into it. If you hated The Cell for it’s really dark and depressing visuals, then you shouldn’t have a problem with The Fall. Tarsem uses his same types of techniques for more beautiful imagery here.
The movie has a story within a story. The man and the little girl both in the same hospital is the real world. The other story is a fantasy which exists in the little girl’s head as the man tells it to her. However, this isn’t a Mother Goose story. A revenge fantasy that takes place in a world with vast deserts and palaces that float on water. This is where Tarsem uses most of his imagery that was created, although it may not seem like it, not with computer graphics but with traditional filmmaking techniques. That means the elephant swimming in the ocean is real, or seems like it is anyway. That means the scenes towards the end, with the unending labyrinths and explosions, are all real. It is a feast for the eyes and one of the best looking films ever.
However, if the two stories in the movie or even just one of the them weren’t that good, then the movie would just be good based on its visuals. Some liked the story in The Cell but didn’t like its visuals or vice versa. In The Fall, both of its stories are really well done. The best one and the most emotional is the one based in the real world. The man in the hospital wants to kill himself and the little girl with the broken arm just wants to listen to the man tell a story. No bad child acting here. Untaru, as the little girl, performs some of the best child acting I have ever seen. The fact that she is a 5 year old Romanian who speaks kind of good english in her first film role ever doesn’t seem to be a problem. Pace is very good here also and there are scenes where Tarsem seems to just let the camera keep rolling while Untaru and Pace just talk to each other in dialogue that seems unrehearsed and natural.
Part of the reason why Tarsem doesn’t seem to get a lot of respect is because he comes from a TV commercial and music video background. It is how he got his start and made his way into movies. He brings that background into the two films that he has made so far and I guess that bothers some people. Some people just don’t want their movies to look like a TV commercial. I don’t see whats so wrong with it though. After all, we have viewed many memorable commercials over the years and there are music videos that we will never forget. So why not a two hour movie with a really good story using those same elements? At the beginning of the film it says Spike Jonze and David Fincher presents. Just like it says Quentin Tarantino presents on all those cheesy straight to DVD movies at the video store. Some people seem to forget that Jonze and Fincher also got their start in commercials and music videos. Just like Tarantino got his start working at a video store.
The DVD features audio commentary; deleted scenes and a making-of featurette.
Posted in DVD, Josh by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Dan Gilroy, Justine Waddell, Lee Pace, Tarsem Singh, the fall
Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Eighteen-year-old Ian Lafferty sets out on a cross country drive with his best friends Lance and Felicia in order to lose his virginity to a red-hot babe he met on the Internet. But the journey, filled with hilarious misadventures and raunchy escapades, teaches all three more than they expected about life and love. Randy, raucous and unexpectedly romantic, Sex Drive follows three friends on the road trip of a lifetime!
Starring: James Marsden, Josh Zuckerman, Amanda Crew, Katrina Bowde, Seth Green, Clark Duke
Release Date: October 17th, 2008
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Rating: 3.0/5 (5 votes cast)
Posted in J.C., Scripts by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Amanda Crew, Clark Duke, James Marsden, John Morris, Josh Zuckerman, Katrina Bowde, Sean Anders, Seth Green, the sex drive
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
The Promotion is a 2008 American comedy film written and directed by Steven Conrad. A look at the quest for the American Dream, it focuses on two grocery store managers trying for a promotion. The film premiered at South by Southwest in March 2008. It was released by Dimension Films on June 6, 2008.
Doug Stauber (Scott) is the assistant manager of a supermarket in Chicago. He believes that he is a “shoo-in” for manager of a supermarket that is scheduled to open a few blocks away. Suddenly a new assistant manager, Richard (Reilly) comes to the store from Canada, and begins to compete for the same new job.
The movie describes how the two men fight for the job, trying to impress the management of the supermarket chain. The competition causes strain on their respective marriages. Doug is under financial pressure to get the job because he has begun to buy a house that he cannot afford if he is not promoted. After Richard arrives, it appears that he has replaced Doug as front runner for the job. But it soon becomes clear that Richard has disadvantages of his own, such as a past substance abuse problem and a tendency to make inappropriate remarks.
Don’t watch this if you work or have worked at a grocery store because it doesn’t really offer anything that true about that environment. The movie is strictly about the promotion and the two people that want it. I wanted there to be grocery store humor but there really isn’t any. This is definitely one of those movies where if these two weren’t starring in it you would never have heard of it. It’s not that it’s bad either, it’s just that it isn’t that good of a movie. The voice-overs are never ending and the plot is pretty basic. I have no intentions of ever sitting through this again so I’m sure that you won’t be very impressed by it either.
Posted in J.C., Movies, Reviews, Scripts by J.C. No Comments »
Tags: Bobby Cannavale, Chris Conrad, Fred Armisen, Gil Bellows, Jenna Fischer, John C. Reilly, Lili Taylor, Rick Gonzalez, seann william scott, steve conrad, the promotion
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