Why are so many people interested in Quentin Tarantino’s favorite movies? Maybe because he’s been so influential or maybe because he’s had so many influences? I’m not sure, but a big topic on the film blogs today is a top 20 list QT came up with for Sky Movies. It’s not his favorite films of all time, however. It’s just his faves since 1992, the year he broke big with his directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs.

The list is filled with a lot of obvious choices, including new Asian cinema classics like The Host, JSA, Audition and his very, very favorite of the past 17 years (the rest of the list is alphabetical), Battle Royale. Surprisingly Oldboy is nowhere to be found despite the fact that QT is responsible for the film’s surprising win at Cannes five years ago. He picked two by Bong Joon-ho, why not two by Park Chan-wook? Is it because that would be too much like self-praise?

The biggest shocker appears to be his inclusion of Woody Allen’s Anything Else, and that’s the main reason people are talking about the list today. I was more stunned, though, by QT’s claim that Supercop has the best stunts of any film ever, including those starring Buster Keaton. I guess I’ll have to see that one again.

Anyway, since QT is known for his borrowing from his influences, I’m excited to see when his movies start pilfering from the likes of Dogville and Shaun of the Dead, both of which would be in my top 20 of 1992-2009, as well.

Check out what other film blogs are saying about the list after the jump:

…Read more

It seems impossible these days for a film franchise to keep its cast intact for a full run. This time it’s the Twilight series that has succumbed to the switcheroo game, as Bryce Dallas Howard was announced to be taking over Rachel Lefevre’s character, “Victoria,” as of the third film, Eclipse. This sort of thing nearly happened before for the Twilight series when Taylor Lautner came close to being fired from the part of “Jacob” after the first film, because he wasn’t seen as a strong or fit enough actor for the demands of the role in New Moon.

With this news, Howard cements herself as the official go-to actress for filling in vacated roles. In the past she has been a substitute in Lars von Trier’s USA - Land of Opportunities trilogy, taking on the lead role “Grace” originated by Nicole Kidman in Dogville for the sequel Manderlay, and she more recently filled in for a non-returning Claire Danes as “Kate” in the Terminator franchise (for which she also replaced the first-choice substitute, Charlotte Gainsbourg) Also, let’s not forget that she replaced Kirsten Dunst as the lead in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, when Dunst departed to make Elizabethtown.

With the way things are going for her, I predict she’ll be taking over as “Ginny Weasley” in the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, “Black Widow” in Iron Man 3 or The Avengers, “Rachel Dawson” in the next Batman film and “Kumar” in A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas.

Let’s take a look at what the rest of the film blogs are saying about the substitution after the jump:
…Read more

When Lars von Trier claimed to be suffering from depression two years ago, I assumed the illness was caused by his (then) most recent film, The Boss of it All. Not only did the office comedy fail to make as much noise as his prior features, but it actually earned a lot of favorable reviews. Some even called it (gasp!) enjoyable. For a guy used to polarizing critics with his often controversial and groundbreaking movies, that reception had to be tremendously dissatisfying.

But the filmmaker is back at Cannes this year, and I mean back. His latest movie, Antichrist, is apparently as audacious, shocking and misogynistic as everyone expects von Trier’s work to be. And even though it’s getting a lot of negative reviews, it’s still the talk of the festival this year. No wonder the filmmaker is looking so jolly in photos from Cannes; the attention, both good and bad, must be doing wonders for his mental health.

Nobody from Spout has seen Antichrist yet, unfortunately, but don’t doubt we’re trying. Desperately. And we know you’re looking forward to Karina’s take as much as The Brothers Bloom director Rian Johnson is. Today he Tweeted: “Waiting for @KarinaLongworth to see & review Antichrist the way a drunk man waits for a hint of blessed equilibrium.” She responded that she hopes to prove male reporters wrong in their belief that no woman will like it.

While we wait for her anticipated response, we’ll just have to settle on reading other reviews from around the blogosphere. I’ve highlighted some of my favorites, both positive and negative after the jump:

…Read more

Anthony Kaufman points to this profile of Lars Von Trier in the Telegraph, occasioned by the UK release of the filmmaker’s last, brutally underrated feature, The Boss of it All, in which we learn that Von Trier is apparently in need of paying the mortgage aiming to put at least one more conventional English-language film in the can before continuing with the Dogville/Manderlay trilogy. His next project, called Antichrist, is described thusly:

…a “psychological thriller that evolves into a horror film”. It features one man and one woman, yet to be cast, will be shot in Germany and in English this summer and deals with the favourite Von Trier topic of cruelty between the sexes: “You have to guess who is the Antichrist,” says its producer, Meta Louise Foldager, mischievously. Von Trier is testing ways of manipulating the image in it.

So there’s that. While we wait, you can watch the “blooper” reel from the video Von Trier shot for the theme song to his TV series, The Kingdom. I’ve seen this thing 100 times, but it never fails to make me laugh.