MNPP PSA #3

lucy liu
is a genius

3 Hostel Part II Clips!

Bloody Disgusting is probably right that this camera-phone footage of three clips of Hostel Part II that showed at New York ComiCon will probably not be around for very long, so if you wanna watch this do it, like now, right here:

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Today's Mood

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Kat Jennings (Keegan Connor Tracy),
Final Destination 2

"See? This can't be happening because...
my career's at a peak,
I finally met a quality guy,
I just bought a house..."

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Battle of the Gyllen-Ruff

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Oh why must they make me choose? First Jake Gyllenhaal, yes, whined a lil' bit in an article about the making of Zodiac, where he basically admitted that he didn't know how to give director David Fincher what he wanted, and now co-star Mark Ruffalo has basically called Jake on his whininess and said Jake wasn't prepared. Ugh. From The Reeler (via Defamer):

"Yeah, you hear stories about [David Fincher] being so hard and intense," Ruffalo said. "And then I met him, and I immediately just loved the guy and was thinking , 'Well, when is he going to change? When is this guy that you keep hearing about going to pop up?' And my relationship and friendship with him got deeper as we went along. I think Fincher, what he has no patience for is incompetence or just a casual attitude toward the work. If you come in and you don't know your lines and you're not prepared, Fincher's going to eat you for breakfast. You know? And so the actors who complain about Fincher are usually the ones who don't show up knowing their shit, kind of."

Ah. So that whole thing last week with Jake Gyllenhaal's thinly-veiled Fincher critiques ("So there came a point where I would say, well, what do I do? Where's the risk?") last week in The New York Times -- was that blown out of proportion?

"Like I said," Ruffalo replied, "Fincher only has a problem with people if they're not prepared -- if they're not ready to work when they show up. Whatever form that takes -- whether it's a prop person, an actor or whatever. I thought there were a lot of weird sour grapes in that New York Times article. We're actors, man; we get paid way too much. It's like 'Wah, wah, wah' to me to hear an actor bitching and moaning when they get paid as much as they do and we have a pretty great life. I don't have much sympathy for it.""

Watch your tongue, Ruffalo! I think we all know whose side I'll have to choose here. Even if he is being a whiner, he's Jake, so he's forgiven and you're a bully! He's sensitive, see? You need to be there for him! In a physical way! Highly physical.... yes.... that's it... er, what was I talking about?
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Pictures of the Day

Jake is such a spazz. God I love him.

The first pic is from his appearance on Conan O'Brien last night,
and the second is from Good Morning America this morning.

(from IHJM)
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The Host

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So... The Host. I hate to be one of the few to piss on it; I'd like for us to get more movies like this getting better releases here. If you check out its rating at Rotten Tomatoes you'll see there are only two negative reviews out of twenty-one, but I do find myself agreeing more with one of the negative reviews then, say, the nearly hysterically positive praise given by some others.

Specifically reviewer Luke Y. Thompson, who says (this is his entire brief review I'm pasting here, because it's pretty spot-on):

"I don't know about you, but when I hear someone say something like, "Oh, this movie isn't REALLY a monster movie -- it's actually a family drama at heart!", I just want to tell them to fuck off. Who decided that family drama audiences and monster movie audiences were compatible in the least? I want to see the monster eat people, and I don't care what their issues are. Director Bong Jun-ho gives us a great monster movie in the beginning, as a giant carnivorous fish with legs walks out of Korea's Han river and starts eating people -- the early sequences with it chasing down crowds of potential victims are amazing. But then the monster disappears, and we get into a red herring plotline about how contact with it apparently causes disease, and the family of one of its victims are quarantined, where no-one listens to their pleas that the apparent victim is actually still alive. This is no drama, though -- the family are all a bunch of overacting dullards, and when all we want is to see the monster again, it takes forever to get back to it.

Some of the film is a lot of fun. The rest is way too long."

Basically.... yeah. I can enjoy and appreciate political and societal gravitas being ladled upon a horror film. The best ones do it - if you don't see, say, Poltergeist as an attack on middle-class apathy, then you're just not looking.

But here... the people in The Host - specifically the Park family upon which the story centers - tipped a bit far into cartoonishness for me to wholly appreciate their plight. And the story has so much back-and-forth, so many false starts, that by about 2/3 of the way through you begin to feel like months have passed and they haven't gotten anything done that they could get done if they weren't total bozos.

Bozo is the word the director, Bong Joon-ho, used to describe his own characters while introducing the film, by the way.

All this sounds like I hated the movie, but I didn't; the monster bits are thrillingly realized and on several ocassions jaw-dropping. The CG work on the monster is nearly first-rate - the seams showed here and there but Bong Joon-ho's defiant insistance in constantly showing his creature fully revealed in the frame and in broad daylight got to be unnerving because of its rejection of the Jaws "show a little bit of the monster at a time" school of thought that we've become so accustomed to. Like, right off the bat he throws the whole thing at us, and it's so suprising, to be given this view right away, that every time the monster does appear we're a little off balance because of it. And then the way this thing moves... it takes us some time to fully comprehend the range of it's movements, which throws us off balance as well.

So yes, the movie's fun. But the movie's too long, and the familial and political ideas it's trying to manage don't completely work. I'd personally say that Joon-ho doesn't manage the shifting tones nearly as deftly as some other reviewers have maintained.

What really got my brain going was the thought of the inevitable remake - what city should they set this thing in? Is the Hudson River a little too obvious?
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I Am Link

--- Dude! I can barely contain myself, knowing that Zodiac is out in two freaking days! Two freaking days! Eeeee!!! The excitement is running me over like a bullet train. The thought, just this very second, occured to me that I totally ought to call in sick on Friday and go to the very first available show... but I think the boyfriend would be angry with me.

Point? oh right, these things are supposed to have a point. Many points, actually, and I haven't made a one. Here - the Geek-Maestro Harry Knowles reviews Zodiac at AICN, and says what everyone else has been saying: that it's effin' great. Choice quote:

"This is, almost certainly, David Fincher’s most accomplished work to date. It isn’t like anything that he’s ever done before. Here, he’s using all his tricks to tell a straight forward tale about a predator that preyed upon a society and how society tried to stop it."

--- Ass Picnic! And then, and then! Next week we have the ass-picnic that is 300 coming out! Man it's a good time to be a big gay geek. Via my pal Sean we have this interview with 300 director Zack Snyder over at Wizard.

Snyder also talks a bunch about where he and his co-writer are with regards to his next geek-gasm of a project, Watchmen, the graphic-novel Bible as far as I'm concerned. And as a totally gratuitous sidenote - who knew? Zack Snyder's kinda cute! Not Eli Roth cute, of course; but cuter then the average director.

--- Film Ick has gone script-review crazy, reviewing the scripts for QT's Grindhouse half, Death Proof, as well as the script for Terry Gilliam's will-probably-never-be-made-because-he's-cursed latest wonder, called The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus.

I haven't read either review because script-reviewing makes me prone to fits, but if you're not so fit-inclined, have at it.


--- Boo! Danny Boyle's Sunshine has been pushed back til Fall! Boo! What, am I supposed to get my Chris Evans fix from Fantastic Four 2? Shudder. (I totally will, though.)

--- And finally, you owe it to yourselves to head on over to the Fug Emporium every year post-Oscars to see what the Fug-Gals have to snark about Oscar Fashion. They've gotten me through two days of a slowly-bettering hangover with a smile, and I thank them.

And how awesome is Sally Kirkland? I love that crazy ho.
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Hey Sexy

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Y'all will be tuning in to Veronica Mars tonight, right? It's the last episode for like two months while The CW searches for America's Favorite Tranny (and don't even get me started on how they're interrupting the best show on TV for that dreck).

Anyway, we find out things tonight on VM! Surely exciting things! The show's been sooooooo good lately, I'm throbbing with anticipation for tonight's revelations. Throbbing!

But Kristen Bell's always got me throbbing. Eww. But she does. Eww. Help, I'm caught in an attraction/revulsion "Kristen Bell... is hot... but she's... a girl..." shame spiral! No escape!
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Tonight, The Host!

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I'm super-duper excited that tonight, finally, I'm getting to see the Korean monster-movie blockbuster The Host (Gwoemul), thanks to the wonderful IFC Center here in NYC, with director Joon-ho Bong there in person.

This is one I've been wanting to see for ages; it officially opens up (in limited release) on March 9th. I'll surely have something to say tomorrow on it, but for now, here's the trailer in all its glory:

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Pic of the Day

Writer/Director Frank Darabont with actors

Chris Owen and Thomas Jane, on the set of The Mist:

(from AICN)

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Today's Mood

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Bo Hess (Abagail Breslin),
Signs

"There's a monster outside my room,
can I have a glass of water?"

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Jake Did Letterman

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Dang it! How'd I not know Jake Gyllenhaal was on Letterman last night? Not that I ever would've made it up that late; I was barely holding my head up here at my desk all day long yesterday after the enormously entertaining Oscar festivities I attended (read: drank myself silly at) thanks to The Film Experience.

So I passed out early last night, but if I'd known Jake was being his lovely self on TV I surely would've set the Tivo. Thank god we live in The Age of Immediate Satisfaction then. Here's the video, via JJ:

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Today's Mood

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Althea Leasure (Courtney Love),
The People vs. Larry Flynt

"The reign of Christian terror is over.
We're going back to our roots.
We are porn again."

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I Hear Ya, Marty

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It's about damn time.

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Bijou's Head, Spidey's Guns

Happy Oscar Day! What's the deal with there already being red carpet coverage happening on E! anyway? It's like 10 in the morning in LA! God.

Anyway, this post has nothing to do with the Oscars; Rather, two projects that make me hard but will surely not be coming anywhere near that red carpet next February - Hostel Part II and Spider-Man 3. Specifically two new images that are right on up my alley.

First, the new NSFW poster for Hostel Part II, which was unveiled at New York's ComiCon this weekend (no, I did not go and yes, I do regret it). I'm just providing a link here, cuz it's NSFW, as I said, so if you don't want to see a naked and decapitated Bijou Phillips, refrain from hitting this link, please. I will not be held liable for your trauma.


And second, the above much more safe-for-work shot (via film ick) from Spidey 3, which... I'm such a geek, but this is hotness. Show it off, Spidey/Venom; show that shit off. Damn.

It could be that the pose reminds me of this shot of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman that's making me all a'twitter... could be....
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Gyllen-Hot

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Hadn't seen this pic of Jake from Zodiac around til just now... figured I'd share, since that's what I do and all...
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Today's Mood

I'm feeling really groggy today, so posting's gonna be sparse if not nonexistant besides this post. Why am I groggy? Because I was having weird dreams all night long in which the only detail I can remember is that I was Jack Nicholson's character in The Departed. Was I throwing fistfuls of cocaine at an oiled-up Marky Mark, as the boyfriend suggested may have been the case? I don't know; I'd like to think that's something I'd remember. But anyway, hence today's mood:

Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson),
The Departed

"Heavy lies the crown."

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Siggy Speaks

There's a brief but enjoyable Q&A with (my pretend mommy) Sigourney Weaver over at EW.com today, where she speaks about - cue my shuddering loins - reuniting with director James Cameron, for the first time since Aliens, for his new sci-fi flick Avatar. Sayeth Siggy:

"I'm very thrilled to be involved. You know, I've worked with such amazing directors, but Jim is very unique. He's very caring. He absolutely goes for it. I remember looping [dialogue] with Jim on Aliens [in post-production]. We stayed there every night until midnight, and believe me, most directors aren't willing to stay as long as I am to get it right. [Laughs] They're like ''that's good enough, you can stop doing that heavy breathing, it's fine!'' But he's a perfectionist, and he's incredibly excited about this [project]. Also, it seems he has a very happy family life with, I think, five children now, and all that, I think, mellows a person. But he's still as excited as he ever was."

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Be Kind... Remember!

It struck me the other day that there was a vital movie missing from the recent 2007 Countdown of movies we're looking forward to that I participated in over at The Film Experience, and I blame myself for it's absence - I really should've been on the ball with this one! Damn me to hell!

Yes, it may star Jack Black (that's a bad thing, see?), but the name Michel Gondry is still enough to perk up this geek's ears, even after The Science of Sleep wasn't quite as genius as I'd hoped it'd be. But Gondry's got enough good will left from Eternal Sunshine to last him his entire career. Seriously. He could go make ten Rob Schneider flicks and... okay, yeah, that might be pushing it. Still, he rocks.

Okay, enough asides - the movie I forgot is called Be Kind, Rewind, and it stars Black and the always terrific Mos Def, as well as Mia Farrow, and it just had a test screening which is detailed by a spy over at AICN today. Choice quote:

"Michel Gondry hasn't made a movie like this before, I'm so used to his romance films and focus on what makes our minds work. This is as close to a "studio picture" as he's going to make, but there are no fart jokes here. It's very classy and weird, but mainstream audiences can definetly get into it. Jack Black is pretty standard Jack Black, but Mos Def is great. He and Black's friendship is very fun to watch and is remiscent of the best onscreen duos we've seen in the past. There's a lot of physical comedy, probably inspired by the old time Laurel & Hardy type shorts from the 30's. If they still made those kinds of shorts today, this plot could fit perfectly for one."

This is certainly in my top 10 anticipated movies of this year (or at least now it is, after I've remembered it exists...), so I'm happy to hear, at least according to this guy, that it is swell.

How could it not be, really? They re-enact scenes from Ghostbusters!
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Picture of the Day

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I'd been looking for pictures of Sufjan Stevens with his beard (meaning actual facial hair; not Rosie Thomas) online - I once again saw Suffy in person at a Midlake show a couple of weeks ago, where he was sporting said beard - but had been coming up dry til just now; this pic's from the blog Where is Helsinki?, where they're also offering an old song of Suffy's called "Niagara Falls" which I don't believe I've heard before.

His beard was even fuller then it is in the pic above when I saw him - very Yusuf Islam, if you will - but this captures the essence of a bearded Sufjan nicely.

Mmmm Sufjan. So adorable, hirsute or no.
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Truman Capote Battles the Tentacled Beast!

That sounds like the name of a Scooby Doo episode that never was, huh? Anyway, Cinematical directs me to the scoop (via Variety) that Toby Jones (Capote #2, in Infamous), along with Marcia Gay Harden, are new cast-members in Frank Darabont's already-filming adaptation of Stephen King's story The Mist, joining star/hunk Thomas Jane, Andre Braugher... and many others.

But speaking of Toby Jones, I watched Infamous over the weekend, and am I completely daffy for having enjoyed it far more then Capote? I could never really get on board with the hatred Capote seemed to have for its title character, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman annoyed me to no end with his affectations and the "I'm acting!" aura he practically throbbed with. Jones seemed to actually be enjoying himself, and I thought Infamous captured all the sides of Truman better.

Oh, and Daniel Craig getting all gay? Again? Yes please.

The one objection I'll raise to my own conjecture here is that Catherine Keener was a far better Harper Lee then Sandra Bullock was. Keener rocked this part, and Bullock sounded like she studied Scarlett O'Hara's accent for research.
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Today's Mood

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Joel Barish (Jim Carrey),
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

"I wish I had stayed."

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Happy Birthday, Rachel Dratch!

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The formidible comic force that is Rachel Dratch turns 41 today.

Oh I love you, Rachel. I caught an episode of 30 Rock last week and happily enough she turned up as some sort of mullet-sporting cat-wrangler woman, making me smile.

Here's my favorite SNL skit featuring her; making the Dratch into an old woman always equalled comedy gold.

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Who I'm Rooting For

Wanna know what I'd like to see on Oscar night?

Sure, making us feel the rhythm only used to be his occupation, but I think, come Oscar night, that little bald buy just maybe could (everybody with me!) feel the vibration.

(Good grief, it's too early for me to be posting. This is what happens when I have an early meeting to attend. My apologies...)
shirtless marky mark wahlberg in his calvin kleins

Today's Mood

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Bruce Banner (Eric Bana),
Hulk

"You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

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Gerard's Leading Lady

I guess as long as people associated with the movie 300 keep toying with my hormones I'll keep posting quotes from them... I'm so easy. Anyway, this is from an interview with Gerard Butler at DH:

"Question: Cool. And your leading lady in 300 was not shabby...

Butler: Rodrigo? I know.

I love Rodrigo, but Lena is very cool. You know, Lena's from the north of England. She's a Newcastle lass and has this really kind of classically beautiful face but then she's out, she drinks beer, she dances, she jumps about, she's like one of the guys, and that's my kind of girl."

He immediately thought of Rodrigo as his "leading lady" and then he says that his kinda girl is one of the guys... sigh. Call me, Gerry; we got things to talk about.

And look at director Zack Snyder there in the above pic, sandwiched between the two of them... what a bastard.
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I Smell Bread

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So I know I come on here nearly every Wednesday and say how spectacular Veronica Mars has been, and nobody cares, but guys? Seriously. THIS SHOW ROCKS.

Last night's episode was maybe the best of the season, which is saying a lot when this season as of late has been top notch.

WATCH THIS SHOW. What do I have to do? Do I have to start threatening kittens again? Cuz I will. The kittens will all buy it, every last kitten in the world. I have amazing kitten-killing capabilities that as of yet have lain untapped. Do you even want to imagine a world without kittens? Didn't think so. So wise up!

And for Lamb's sake, here's Sheriff Lamb (Michael Muhney) in happier, shirtless-ier times:

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Tori's American Doll Posse

Well if there's one person that can make me lift my weary head and manage a post (albeit a brief one), it's Tori Amos. She's got a new album coming out on May 1st! From her website:

TORI AMOS TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM
AMERICAN DOLL POSSE
Tori has finished her 9th studio album entitled
American Doll Posse.
It will be released on May 1, 2007 on Epic Records.
The album was written and produced by Tori
at Martian Engineering in Cornwall, England.
Stay tuned for more details.

She's also gonna tour! So far all the dates are outside the US. When she does come here, maybe I can actually get tickets this time, though. Hmm.

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Today's Mood

I am not quite myself today, so it seems I'll be refraining from the posting for now. My apologies, so forth. But I can't let a day pass without one of these:

Paul Sheldon (James Caan),

Misery

"Why would I leave? I like it here."

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Today's Mood

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Buck O'Brien (Mike White),
Chuck&Buck

"We could play that game..."

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Quote of the Day

I hesitate to even post about such a detestable buffoon as our Asshole-in-Chief lovely President, but this (found via Sully) really stood out today - speaking to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, this is what our 43rd President of the United States had in mind for punishment if we were to capture bin Laden:

"I will screw him in the ass!"

Ah, so eloquent, our esteemed leader. Sigh.

With that you'll have to excuse me now; I'm going to go stare at this until my eyes burn out of my head.
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Why Can't We Be Friends?

Here's an article about the making of Zodiac from yesterday's NY Times, in which everybody that matters - Jake Gyllenhaal and David Fincher, for those unawares - speaks. Seems Jake had a tough time under the finger of Herr Fincher:

"What’s so wonderful about movies is, you get your shot,” he said. “They even call it a shot. The stakes are high. You get your chance to prove what you can do. You get a take, 5 takes, 10 takes. Some places, 90 takes. But there is a stopping point. There’s a point at which you go, ‘That’s what we have to work with.’ But we would reshoot things. So there came a point where I would say, well, what do I do? Where’s the risk?"

Told of Mr. Gyllenhaal’s comments, Mr. Fincher half-jokingly said, “I hate earnestness in performance,” adding, “Usually by Take 17 the earnestness is gone.” But half-joking aside, he said that collaboration “has to come from a place of deep knowledge.” While he had no objections to having fun, he said, “When you go to your job, is it supposed to be fun, or are you supposed to get stuff done?”

I can't really side with either of my guys here against the other; Fincher's known to be a pain in the ass to work for, but he makes brilliant films, so he's forgiven. Jake... is Jake. So I'm just gonna have to sit the two of them down and help them make up. I have some ideas about how to do this.

Yes, they are all X-rated ideas.

--- ETA Watch some clips from Zodiac
over at iFilm (found via BD)!

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Final Grindhouse Poster

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(from Film Ick)
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You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me

Please tell me I pulled a Rip Van Winkle and slept a couple of months and today is April Fools Day. PLEASE!!! From DH:

"Brian Grazer will produce and Ron Howard may direct an American version of recent French thriller "Cache" (aka. "Hidden") for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment.

Michael Haneke wrote and helmed the original, which starred Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, was released in the US around Xmas 2005 by Sony Classics.

The story follows the fracturing family of a TV show literary critic who receives increasingly disturbing videos in the mail of their personal lives being filmed surreptitiously.

The US remake is expected to beef up the suspense elements and consequences of the character's actions reports Variety."

Okay, first off, why does Cache even need a fucking remake? It's 1.5 years old, and fucking genius as is. Somebody answers "Ooh, people don't like to read subtitles," and I answer "Well fuck those kinds of people."

And secondly, I can't think of a less suitable director to approach this material then this ham-fisted mouth-breather. UGH. This, my friends, is infuriating.

Michael Haneke! Where are you? Do something! Make it all better! Tell me you'd never let this happen!!! Was this some sort of pact with the devil you had to make in order for your weird Funny Games remake to happen? Take it back, take it back!!!
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Bertolucci's Conformist

If you've never seen Bernardo Bertolucci's Il Conformista (The Conformist), you owe yourself a viewing. I watched it over the weekend, and then watched it again, and again in bits and pieces, just to gape in awe at the prettiness. I can honestly say it's one of the most gorgeous films I've ever seen. It was shot by Vittorio Storaro for Bertolucci, who went on to win Oscars for Apocolypse Now, Reds, and The Last Emperor, besides also shooting many others including several other films for Bertolucci.

I went ahead and took some screengrabs from the film, which went from being a small job to me grabbing way, way too many; but if you haven't seen the film, look through these and imagine the frames moving, the light shifting and the camera's angle shifting by even just a degree or two and making everything new in completely unexpected ways.

Because this film is all about the movement of light and shadow and color, as beautiful as I think every single one of these frames are they're nothing compared to seeing Bertolucci's camera move across these surfaces he and Storaro created. A stunning, stunning film.

I guess you could consider these sort of spoilery, since I've taken a grab from nearly every scene, but I tried to not grab anything that would ruin the movie plot-wise for you. Still, proceed with caution. Also, click on these to enlarge them, I implore you; they are so worth seeing in their larger form.


The scene in the above three images, with the light moving through the slatted blinds while Stefania Sandrelli dances around in her vertigo-inducing black-and-white dress, were when I realized this movie was something special. This is a scene that really has to be seen in motion, though; the way that light slides through those blinds strobe-like is completely hypnotic.


The above shot, of the camera panning through the blowing leaves, was obviously the "inspiration" for a very similar shot in The Gofather Part II.


In the above image, the camera pans onto a painting of a landscape, and the painting gradually fades away until we see the landscape directly behind the painting, which our main character is walking through and matches what we saw in the painting. The above grab is about halfway through the fade, where you can see both the painting and the actual landscape behind it. Anyway, if you can't tell by that convoluted description, it was awesome.


Just looking at these images juxtaposed beside each other is a rich experience; each frame is so distinct, yet the movie juxtaposes these distinct worlds just as suddenly as these grabs indicate. These are pretty much going from scene to scene, and yet they look like completely different worlds. And even still, they complement each other beautifully and build into something operatic and grand. In parts the film reminded me, visually, of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which I'd say is this film's rival for possibly being the most beautiful movies ever filmed.
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