Valentino: The Last Emperor Directed by Matt Tyrnauer Valentino: The Last Emperor is like any fashion show – lavish, beautiful and entertaining, but with little depth. The documentary, directed by Vanity Fair’s Special Correspondent Matt Tyrnauer, attempts to work as a profile piece on Valentino Garavani, the now 77-year-old designer and head of the so-called …
Website ComingSoon.net recently spoke to producer Mark Johnson about the third installment to the Chronicles of Narnia franchise, Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.. The third chapter finds Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their cousin Eustace, swallowed by a painting and mystically placed aboard the Dawn Treader ship. Along with friend …
Dr. Coolsex is a sketch comedy group based in New York City. Alex Charak, Dustin Drury, Ken Kosces, and Greg Murtha all met at The Upright Citizens Brigade Training Center while studying sketch and improv comedy. Individually some of their credits include “As The World Turns”, “Human Giant”, “Yo Mama!” and projects on Channel 101:NY. …
The legendary comedy director, best known for Animal House and The Blues Brothers, as well as for Michael Jackson’s Thriller, is finally returning to the big screen for a new black comedy about a pair of real-life murderous entrepreneurs called “Burke and Hare.” It’s been more than a decade since John Landis made his last …
David Goyer has made quite a reputation in Hollywood as one of the go to writers of comic book adaptations. His credits include penning Dark City, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and the Blade trilogy. With his fame growing each year, he’s been offered plenty of other projects to help develop, mostly all related to …
Another trip down the yellow brick road. 70 years ago, The Wizard of Oz (1939) set the bar in becoming one of the most recognized and beloved films of all time. Yesterday, British tabloid Daily Express announced that a sequel to the much-loved classic could be in the works as of next year. So far, …
Post Grad 2009, USA Directed by Vicky Jensen Written by Kelly Fremon Starring Alexis Bledel, Zach Gilford, Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch 89 minutes, English When it comes to a critic’s personal biases and preferences, transparency is crucial. So, I’ll admit that I have a hard time with films about pretty people years younger than me …
Body Count: Volume 14 I was recently asked by Horrorblips to chime in on a debate subject that they occasionally ask of their busiest syndicated bloggers. Last time they asked me which of the summer’s horror movies I thought would perform best at the box office and I took the opportunity to slag on Rob …
Extract Directed by Mike Judge As both a cult hero and a criminally under-beloved comedic auteur, Mike Judge has had an interesting career. Both Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill have secured an incredibly loyal fanbase, with the latter managing to air for 13 seasons on Fox despite being endlessly clever and funny. …
Variety reports: “Disney and director Robert Zemeckis are negotiating to remake Yellow Submarine, the 1968 psychedelic animated film based on the music of The Beatles… The studio has been quietly brokering a complicated rights deal that would give Zemeckis access to 16 original Beatles songs for a movie he will direct in the performance-capture 3-D …
It has been confirmed that Brice Willis will be joining fellow action icons Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Expendables. The film, slated for a 2010 release, is based on a group of mercenaries who are trying to take out an evil South African dictator and shot like your typical 80’s-style action flick. Directed …
Yesterday, blog website MarketSaw, specializing in information for 3D videogames and movies, said that the next much anticipated Tolkien adaptation, The Hobbit, will now be produced as a trilogy. Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo Del Toro has already signed on to direct The Hobbit series, which was confirmed as a two-film deal with New Line Cinema …
As Sony Pictures Entertainment preps the fourth installment of Spider-Man (now on its third rewrite), the studio has hired screenwriter James Vanderbilt to pen Spider-Man 5 and Spider-Man 6. James Vanderbilt penned the first draft of Spiderman 4 before it was taken over by Gary Ross. According to Variety, Raimi didn’t embrace all of Vanderbilt’s …
This past weekend, in order to help promote his new film Inglourious Basterds, famed director Quentin Tarantino recorder a short video for online film-news website Sky Movies (movies.sky.com). The video shows Tarantino naming out his favorite top 20 films of the past 17 years. 17 marks a lucky number for Tarantino, as it was 17 …
Undertones: Volume 5 Removing the veneer of squeaky-clean suburban American life to reveal its seamy underbelly, David Lynch’s 1986 film, Blue Velvet, is a modern masterpiece and perhaps the most crystallized example of Lynch’s filmic vision. Concerned with the misadventure of a clean-cut teen called Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) who upon discovering and subsequently investigating a …
As the summer winds down, I decided to make my list of my ten favorite films so far in the year. With TIFF and Oscar season on their way, there’s a good chance that only half these films will make my top ten come the end of the year, but I felt the need to …
The Dark Hour Directed by Elio Quiroga Any attempt to unearth hidden meaning behind Spain’s Sci-Fi thriller The Dark Hour would simply give it too much credit. While watching this film, it becomes glaringly obvious that writer-director Elio Quiroga heavily borrows visuals and themes from the Alien franchise, but fails miserably to evoke the same …
Black Dynamite Directed by Scott Sanders Although director Scott Sanders’ Black Dynamite is being touted as a brazen spoof of 70’s blaxploitation films, its tone is less ‘spoof ‘ than it is simply tongue-in-cheek. Yes, there are pimps, pushers, ho’s, nunchucks, polyester suits and 8-track tapes, but Sanders does not rely on these conventions to …
According to Page Six, a documentary surrounding the life of reggae groundbreaker Bob Marley entitled Marley has allegedly lost Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme. He is the second major director to leave the project; apparently Martin Scorsese “dropped out of the project citing ‘scheduling conflicts,’ and Demme was brought on to replace him.” …
Trick ‘r Treat Directed by Michael Dougherty In an era of toothless, multiplex horror, being a fun, teen-friendly horror film almost seems like a dirty word. But that’s exactly what Michael Dougherty’s done with his feature debut, “Trick ‘r Treat”, and it’s really not such a bad thing. In fact, it’s a very good thing …
According to Variety, Bryan Singer’s next project isn’t going to be Wolverine 2, or X-Men: First Class, for that matter – turns out he’s been inked to direct a new film adaptation of Glen Larson’s 1978 TV series Battlestar Galactica. Galactica, of course, was also recently adapted by Ronald D. Moore into a wildly successful …
Generally speaking, I don’t like to be lectured. It brings back painful memories of my childhood, when my father would continually admonish me for being untidy, killing the family pets, and digging up my dead sister for Saturday night ‘dates.’ I especially dislike preaching about race relations, because ever since flipping past The O’Reilly Factor while channel surfing, I’ve become convinced that only communist agitators and terrorists complain about racism. But I’ll make a special exception for director Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, because it mixes its didactic moralizing with giant bugs and the mechanized body armour from Robot Jox.
Good criticism is a skill that must be learned, practiced and perfected – but more importantly, it comes with time. Seeing a diverse array of films broadens your views and expands your cinematic vocabulary while aiding in making astute comparisons. The more diverse and numerous the films in your vocabulary, the more insightful, relevant, and …