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[Via]

Steady as She Goes

In honor of me just hearing that Shellac are coming to Dallas for the first time in, like, ever on June 8th. I can't wait.

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[Something About Movie Trailers]

Lady in the Water
This is how you make a great teaser. I've never been a huge fan of Shish Kabob's other movies but this really intrigued me so I went looking for more information about it. This was disappointing. A bunch of apartment residents helping a fairy get home. There is a much more interesting story in this teaser than that. Someone should tell it.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston
I've been waiting for this film for a long time. In fact, it had been so long since I heard anything new that I had pretty much forgotten about it until it debuted at Sundance last year. There aren't many other musicians around today who really need to make music in the same sense that other people need to breathe. His music is some of the most honest, guileless and intimate that I've ever heard and its always been ashame that many people (at least in America) just can't seem to get past the often ragged presentation to really hear it. The good part - maybe this movie will change that just a little. The bad - whether this film is well received or not, in 10 years or so there will probably be a big stinky hollywood biopic. Joy.

Marie Antoinette
Fantastic trailer. At this point I don't care about the dubious casting or anything else people have mentioned. This trailer is perfect. Everyone has been talking about the use of the New Order song and whether its inspired or silly. I think its great and it totally captures tragic/romantic teenage girl angle to the story that Sophia Coppola seems to be going for. Now, if the entire film turns to be full of pop songs, that's another story...

High Score
I'm conflicted. A film about a grown man trying to beat the world Missile Command record. I want to cheer him on through my tears of pity.

A Scanner Darkly
I dont get why the computer rotoscoping pisses some people off. Whatever problems Waking Life may have had, It looked amazing and just as alien and dream-like as it should have. The decision to use the same technique for Scanner Darkly is more of a leap but I think it looks wonderful. Reportedly, the film stays very close to the Philip Dick source novel, which would make it maybe the first and only Dick adaptation able to make such a claim.

And yeah yeah I know, Keanu is still doing the teeange surfer dude thing but it somehow works for me. Either he has become a much better actor over the years or I have just become more used to him. Probably a little of both.

"Its a beautiful thang, yall"

"Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston"

Even in the midst of labor, she still manages to make with a passable "do me" pose. Oh Britney, what would we do without you?

[Via]

Overlooked Films of the 90s

The Online Film Critics Society's Top 100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s. This wouldn't be worth posting if so many of my favortite 90s films (overlooked or otherwise) weren't on it. Sure, I have a problems with a few of these... Lasts Days of Disco and That Thing You Do were overlooked for many valid reasons as far as I'm concerned... but so will everybody else. What surprises me is the number of great films listed that I really wouldn't consider "overlooked". Aren't movies like Glengarry Glen Ross, Babe and Miller's Crossing pretty much considered classics in certain circles at this point?

Whatever, I could close my eyes and randomly place a finger down anywhere on this list and pick a seldom talked about film (Heavenly Creatures, Bobby Fischer, Hard Eight, Pump Up The Volume, Fearless, The Ice Storm, One False Move, Sneakers, etc...) that I've watched way too many times and will never get tired of. I approve of this list.

Trail Her

Apple have updated Quicktime and their trailer page. The new page is a little snazzier and puts more focus on the HD trailers they now offer. Apparently Apple are using a new format for the streams in Quicktime 7. All I know is that now the standard non-HD versions of trailers won't play correctly in Apple's player on my old computer. Thumbs down, Apple. Luckily they still play fine in VLC...

Superman Returns (teaser)
Yeah this is just a silly teaser and not a full trailer. Yeah the new Superman might seem a little wimpy at first glance... not to mention about the same age as the guy playing Superboy on television right now (and who was orginally considered for this film). Superman is a special kind of icon in American popular culture and the Superman movies (more specifically, the first two) are just as much a part the character as the comics. You can't really say the same thing about any other comics to film translations. This just looks majestic.


V for Vendetta
I like how this trailer walks right up to the edge of revealing one of the story's big twists. This looks better than anyone could have hoped, given the people involved. I don't know if Natalie Portman is the perfect person to play Eve but she pretty much renders any further discussion on the matter moot in the first few moments of this trailer. Hugo Weaving is V. We'll never see his face in the movie but... that voice. Perfect.

Alan Moore, who wrote the graphic novel upon which this film is based, has publicly disassociated himself from the film because he feels that he's been burned by Hollywood one too many times. From Hell, Constantine and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman were all also based on his comics and none of them met with his approval. V for Vendetta is written and produced by the Wachowski brothers. They love comics so much that they based their most popular film on one without ever crediting the source. That film was very good but four years later they choked when they tried to come up with two sequels on their own. This time they've decided to be a little more honest about their inspiration. The film is directed by James McTeigue, who has had a long and varied career as... an assistant director. There is no real reason to assume he did anything different on V. This is a Wachowski brothers movie. I really hope they haven't screwed it up.

Walk the Line
Big Hollywood autopilot biopic fluff. Johnny Cash was an interesting guy. Joaquin Phoenix has always seemed rather doughy and odd looking and yet he's still probably too handsome for the part. Reese Witherpoon annoys me more and more the older she gets, there is no logical reason for this. They're already polishing the Oscars... I smell a fix. This all seems amazingly hollow considering the subject. Of course, it was written and directed by James Mangold so it can't be that bad.

Final Destination 3
There was a scene in the first Final Destination that still ranks as one of the best shocking deaths on screen for me. Its the shot where the whiny blonde is hit by the bus just as she turns back to say something to her friends. The moment it happened and everyone around me in the theater screaming I was struck numb, dumb and confused in a way that I imagine is similar to how I would react if I had really just seen such a thing. Not that I ever really want to find out....

I didn't see Final Destination 2 until it showed up on cable so of course it was going to suffer in comparison. It tried to make up for its less interesting script and characters with increasingly elaborate deaths and increasingly more blood. In this film, once death has you in it's sights, you're pretty much guaranteed to just explode like a big chunky gore balloon at the slightest touch... but that touch only comes after you've been put through a Moustrap like sequence of near misses.

These are slasher movies without the corny contrivance of an actual slasher. Just round up a bunch of WB rejects, add a bunch of sharp and/or heavy objects, shake vigorously. There's nothing of value here. This new one will no doubt be just as silly and fun as the first two and that's the point.

Taxidermia
This is the new film from Hungarian director Gyorgy Palfi, who I've never heard of. His last film was called Hukkle. This is about a taxidermist. It reminds me of the films of Jean-Pierre Jaunet. That's all I know.

In other words I don't what the hell this but I'm really interested. Also I'm a little freaked out right now. Yay.

The Fountain (teaser)
Another teaser. Darron Aronofsky's new film about three men in three different times (all played by Hugh Jackman) searching for the fountain of youth... or something like that. He's been trying to get this film made for years. Now he's finally entering the home stretch. The rumors that Warner doesn't really know what to do with this movie could be both good or bad. I just hope I don't have to wait too much longer to find out.

Munich
Forget what I said before about Walk the Line and the Oscars. The one thing Oscar loves more than biopics is Steven Spielberg and his "important" movies. I don't know much about the events this film depicts. The trailer makes the film look like more a spectacle than I'm guessing it actually is. I'll see this and I'll probably enjoy it and feel like a sucker the whole time.

The Call of Cthulhu
An old fashioned black and white silent film produced by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, based on the Lovecraft story of the same name. It won the "Best of Show" and "Best Short Film" awards at the 2005 H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival (who knew?!). One of the few fan films that actually seems like it might not be a total waste of everybody's time.

Brick
Joseph Gordon-Levitt was in two of the most talked about movies at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The first to see release, in May, was Greg Araki's Mysterious Skin. Its one of the best films of this year and easily the best thing that Araki has ever been a part of.

The other is Brick, by first time director Rian Johnson, it comes out in March of next year. Its described as a "High School Noir" and really, that's all the description that's needed. This is one of those ideas that seems like it should have happened a long time ago. Chocolate in my peanut butter and all that. This looks unbelievably cool. I can't wait.