Normally I’d slag this film out of the gate — however Denzel Washington gives me some hope that The Book of Eli might be interesting (and Gary Oldman too!). Although the plot sounds kind of like we’ve heard it before: “A lone hero must fight his way across the wasteland of post-apocalyptic America to protect a sacred book that holds the key to saving the future of humanity.” Maybe it would be nice if folks would read a book every now and then in pre-apocalyptic America?Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 18, 2009 in Cinema, Design
On this day in 1933 visual futurist Syd Mead was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He started his career in 1959 working for Ford Motor Company, but for us fanboys our love affair with his work really starts 70s when he started to make the jump from slick looking industrial design to science fiction. His early film work in Hollywood includes credits on the film Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 2010, Tron, Aliens and even the comedy Short Circuit (yes that was his robot design!). However his triumph for me was his preproduction work on Blade Runner: Read more…
This is the second trailer for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes flick — normally I’d slag the mere notion of having to improve Holmes through cheap plot mechanisms like vampires (why not go all the way and have zombies too?) but I’ve got to say that the idea of teaming up high quality actors like Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock and Jude Law as Watson makes me think that this film might be a bit better than I’d expect. Read more…
The last trailer for District 9 made it look like a documentary art house film, but from this second trailer the films looks a little bit more action packed! Here’s the latest blurb on the film: Read more…
This amazing clip of Kubrick from April 6, 1968 is now over 40 years old — yet there’s something so timeless about that film for me, which is amazing given how important special effects were to the production. It’s also incredible to realize that Kubrick started working on 2001 in 1965, proof that good things take time. The above clip is from a longer special seen here: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 5, 2009 in Cinema, Horror
This is where science fiction ends and fact begins! On this day in 1962 the post-apocalyptic film Panic in Year Zero opened. The film was directed by Ray Milland and also stars him in the lead role of Harry Baldwin, a man who takes his family out on a simple fishing trip only to find out that that loud noise that they heard was the destruction of Los Angles by a nuclear attack. But it turns out that radiation sickness, looters and killers are the real issues of the day — what’s makes you civilized is the ability for a man to get a decent shave: Read more…
RoboGeisha is an upcoming film from writer/director Noboru Iguchi (井口昇). The trailer for this film (which will be released in 2010) looks quite campy, although I’d have to say that’s what makes me want to watch it! Read more…
I’m usually not a fan of biopics but I think this case I might make an exception: The story of Amelia Earhart is a really strong one that’s ready for a fresh look. Add to that Hilary Swank as the aviator and surround her with the likes of Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor and you may have a winner, and if nothing else the cinematography that I see here looks beautiful. I even like the nice touch of having the scarf in the letter “A” on the logo. Amelia will fly into theaters in October and is directed by Mira Nair. Read more…
The most depressing thing about this trailer is that awful cover version of a Kate Bush song that kicks in about a minute and a half into this trailer! Until that point I was willing to give yet another vampire flick a chance, but ruining a musical icon ruins everything for me. Well in any case Daybreakers will come out in January 2010 so perhaps they’ll have time to fix the soundtrack. Here’s an overview of the plot: Read more…
I don’t care if it’s good, bad or silly: I’ll stand in line for any Quentin Tarantino — so by default this is the film I’m looking ahead to seeing this summer. Part of me is still trying to get use to Brad Pitt’s southern twang matched with Tarantino’s wisecracking dialogue. The plot of this film reminds me a great deal of The Dirty Dozen with a touch of Pulp Fiction thrown in for fun. Below is another clip I found from late May when Tarantino first showed the film in Cannes, it’s very cool as it has a full scene with a set up by Quentin at the start of the video: Read more…
I guess this Summer we’ll get to see if a science fiction romance film can have some luck at the box office! We reviewed the novel for The Time Traveler’s Wife just a short time ago. Here’s the official description of the film which stars Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams: Read more…
On this day in 1916 film and TV producer Irwin Allen was born in New York City — in his career of over thirty years he created a slew of amazing show like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. In the 70s he turned his talents to disaster film, producing such classics as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. Read more…
There was a time in my life where the one thing I looked ahead to was the next Martin Scorsese film, and then in 2002 that was all take away for me. I spent about a year waiting for Gangs of New York and when it came out I found myself totally deflated. Most of the film was great except for one minor thing, and that would be Leonardo DiCaprio who in retrospect single handedly ruined what should have been a great film. Read more…
Last night Larry King put together an amazing panel on David Carradine which featured Quentin Tarantino and Rob Schneider. For me the highlight of the segment featured Quentin Tarantino showing off his vintage Kung Fu lunchbox that he still had from his childhood. You can tell with the guests that there was a great deal of respect in the room for the man. Instead of focusing on the cause of his death I’d rather focus on his life — above is a Larry King interview with Carradine from 1991 which is riveting. Read more…
Michael can, Peter sells it, Dudley’s more and Peter cooks; in short Wrong can do no wrong. Cut to the chase: The Wrong Box is one of the funniest movies ever made, period (wait, make that an em dash) — Some Like It Hot funny, Blazing Saddles funny, Airplane! funny — and it’s not on DVD (at least not legally). Fortunately, as I discovered over the weekend, you can catch it on the planetary repository of audio-visual material known as ‘YouTube’ in delicious ten-minute chunks: Read more…
There’s nothing quite better than 70s kung fu films that focus on the theme of revenge! The Thundering Mantis (Hao xiao zi) was directed by Yip Wing Cho in 1980 and stars Leung Kar Yan as Ah Chi. As you may have already guessed Ah Chi is a martial arts student that is expelled from his school after a fight with some henchmen. Not to give away a spoiler, but here is the final showdown scene from the end of the film: Read more…
Today marks the birthday of one the cinema’s living legends: From The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly to Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood taught us early not to mess with him. With a career spanning over fifty years, we’ve seen Clint Eastwood direct, act, and on occasion… sing. The most impressive facet of it all is that his most recent endeavors, such as Million Dollar Baby and Grand Torino show us he’s not done for the count yet. Happy Birthday Clint! I’d like to celebrate by sharing a personal favorite scene of mine, from a movie called Paint Your Wagon: Read more…
While I’d be hesitant to say the movie was enjoyable, I’d be hard pressed to point out what I liked about it. As you may or may not know, Terminator Salvation is both a prequel and sequel. Terminator 1-3 took place in a present day world haunted by apocalyptic figures from a future we dutifully marched toward. Terminator Salvation is the first movie to take place after our “Judgment Day,” but hides safely snuggled between the piles of mythology yet to be turned into a movie. (Spoilers from this point forward) Read more…
I won’t give away my age but at the time I couldn’t see Alien because i was an R rated movie and i was too young — so what funny about this commercial was that they had a toy for the film which was clearly aimed a kids. It should be noted that a bit after the film came out that it was very popular in the early days of cable television, along with other R rated science fiction films I discovered from that era like Mad Max and the Warriors. Read more…
District 9 sort of reminds me of the 1984 TV series V and the film Brother from Another Planet (which also came out in ’84). The plot of District 9 features an extraterrestrial race that forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth. The film will be released on August 14th and is produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neil Blomkamp who has a background in short films and advertisements. Read more…
A few months ago I was shocked that a high school student had never seen the classic film Citizen Kane! So I started a short lived campaign to build awareness of our national shame, and a few bloggers took up my lost cause. Now one of my favorite podcast personalities Michael Markman has taken up the gauntlet and given his interesting take on the topic. Read more…
The year is 1982 and Howard Scott Warshaw has been picked to design the Raiders Of The Lost Ark game for the Atari 2600. This game actually did pretty well, but the next game Warshaw designed for Spielberg was the infamous E.T. video game which was one of the worst failures in the industry. But a year before that things were so good that Vestron even produced a home video on how to do well while playing the the Raiders Of The Lost Ark game: Read more…
I already like what little I’ve seen of this film in the trailer, there are a few nice homages to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien which make the fanboy in me quite happy. So far very little is up on their website although the film will be out in New York and LA on June 12th. Here’s a description which gives you the basics: Read more…
Akira Kurosawa was born on this day in March 23rd, 1910: I think my favorite film of his is Yojimbo the samurai classic that he directed in 1961. Half of what I love about the film is the performance of Toshirō Mifune, but framing that performance is an amazing story which was deftly portrayed by Kurosawa on so many levels from the cinematography to musical score (which almost becomes its own character in the film). In a sense Yojimbo is a western film, but what makes it amazing is that it about an old world giving way to a new world where chivalry is dead. Watching that film you could taste the dust in your mouth:
