Friday, February 17, 2012

To Bullhead And Beyond

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I noticed a couple of weeks ago a spike in people getting to MNPP by searching for the Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts - we'd fawned over him in a rather sturdy gratuitous post way back in September - and wondered why, but only today did we realize that his big buzzy movie Bullhead was just now coming out. Back when we ogled him then was when we'd first heard about the movie, but we didn't know anything about it getting a release yet - well, it got a surprise Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film and now here it is primed for center stage and buoyed by enthusiastic critics. I can't wait to see it...


... although I think I might have to wait, because this is one of those weekends of confluence where I suddenly have too much to do to even think I can properly keep up with it. Mainly, this year's truly amazing Film Comment Selects at the Film Society of Lincoln Center is starting. You might recall I wrote up what I am seeing a few weeks back. That's eating up a whole bunch of my time for the next week.


But on top of that there's this Austrian movie Michael that just opened at Film Forum that sounds very very up my alley: 

"A chilling debut feature from the casting director of Michael Haneke’s THE WHITE RIBBON. Michael is a timid insurance agent, a milquetoast loner with a secret: he’s holding a 10-year-old boy captive in a locked room in his basement. Chronicling a five-month period, MICHAEL is a tense portrait of how seemingly mundane lives may hide the darkest of secrets — and how monstrous individuals walk inconspicuously among us."

Obviously, they had me at Haneke. Beyond that, I might want to try and, I don't know, breathe air and sleep some this weekend. Sigh. It's so very difficult being me.

Those two arty-farty subtitle-type movies aside, I wrote up my thoughts on everything coming out this weekend over at Celebrity Beehive. That includes the second Ghost Rider movie (hey sexy directing duo Neveldine and Taylor) and This Means War (hey sexy acting duo Chris Pine and Tom Hardy) - why could't those four have just pooled their resources and by "pooled their resources" naturally I mean "explicit fourgy action." Naturally.

1 comment:

Adam said...

So I caught the film's first official Academy screening back in early January and got no sense that it would be a nominee. But as soon as it was on the shortlist, I suddenly realized it was the kind of dopey film older Academy members deem "edgy." It's reminiscent of Revanche. The film's plot actively softens Schoenaerts's appeal, but I'll admit I'm still smitten.