Someone commented on my list of Avatar comparisons last week noting that such a practice could be done with any movie. He/She is correct, though it doesn’t really matter since the point of that exercise was to respond to the certain expectation that came with that film’s hype that it would be unlike anything we’ve seen before. With the teaser for Christopher Nolan’s Inception, however, the similar claims of derivation are simply a normal thing we film bloggers to do trailers, particularly those that give us little clue as to what their movie is about.
But deep in our hearts, we all trust Nolan, right? We don’t think he’d make a movie that people would say is just like The Matrix or Identity or Fight Club or Jurassic Park or whatever. Just like the illusionists in The Prestige and also like Batman, I guess, Nolan has a lot up his sleeve. The fact that nobody knows anything about the plot of Inception makes its trailer even more cryptic than it would seem otherwise to just the regular moviegoer who doesn’t follow script reviews and production developments. I wish I knew so little about Avatar — and about pretty much any upcoming movie, for that matter.
Check out what the film blogs are saying about the new Inception trailer after the jump.
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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:
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The latest movie-related Trending Topic on Twitter is #nicerfilmtitles. That’s “nicer film titles” (not “nice firm titties”), and it’s basically a meme for coming up with alternative names for movies so that they seem a little friendlier and wholesome in their content. But since 140 characters aren’t enough for users to include synopses for their contributions, we’ve selected 10 favorites (so far) and elaborated on the story details.
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Late last month, Nike unleashed the latest movie-themed sneaker, a yellow shoe with brown fur coming out of the top inspired by Teen Wolf (never mind that in the film the title character wears Adidas). Between this and the recent Back to the Future Part II tie-ins, Michael J. Fox seems to be a big influence on the world of sneaker collecting, and so it may only be a matter of time before we see Nike unveil a Doc Hollywood design.
Actually, it may only be a matter of time before we see a lot of film-inspired shoes we wouldn’t expect. Already, Nike has sneakers tied to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Goodfellas, The Empire Strikes Back and Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Add to these Adidas’ Tron shoes, Puma’s The Goonies and Japanese Monster shoes and Slip-Off’s custom-designed Vans inspired by Fight Club, Star Wars, Napoleon Dynamite, Anchorman, E.T. and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou .
So, in order to beat the shoe companies to the punch, SpoutBlog has picked ten movies that deserve their own sneaker design. Most of these are quite literal and obvious, but it’s just a starting point. What other movies would you like to see make their way to your feet?
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Celebrating the films of 1999, Rotten Tomatoes kicks off a 12-month, retrospective series of features with an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Blair Witch Project. The groundbreaking, record-smashing indie horror flick made its debut at Sundance ten years ago this month, and RT writer Joe Utichi does a great job of reminding us of both the film’s legendary story and its lasting influence.
While I left The Blair Witch Project out of SpoutBlog’s five-day series of “Sundance Stories of Yore,” I wouldn’t have paid as great a tribute as Utichi has. Personally, I never appreciated the film in any way, but thanks to this video I’m now thinking differently about the merits of the production. I may never need to watch the actual film again, but I have to give the filmmakers credit for how they went about getting their 20 hours of footage.
That’s why it’s even more unfortunate that directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick haven’t done anything noteworthy since. At least Blair Witch actor Joshua Leonard has just made his “comeback” with a starring role in the 2009 Sundance hit Humpday. In the past ten years, he’s had small parts in films like Men of Honor, The Shaggy Dog and Prom Night, and interestingly enough he provided the voice of “Tyler Durden” in a video game version of Fight Club (another landmark film from 1999). But with Humpday, which like Blair Witch utilizes his talent for improvisation, he’s in the foreground once again. Now someone needs to give Heather Donahue and Michael C. Williams their due spotlights so we may continue to celebrate a Blair Witch renaissance.
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Chuck Palahniuk, the author behind David Fincher’s Fight Club and Clark Gregg’s Choke, opening in theaters this Friday 9/26, pens intelligent, well-written junk food. I enjoy reading all his books, and even have a friend I nicknamed Brandy Alexander after the transgender lead character in Invisible Monsters, yet whenever someone asks me the plot of a particular novel that isn’t Invisible Monsters, I draw a blank. I mean, I’m certain I’ve read his books, just like I’m certain I ate dinner last Thursday, I just can’t tell you exactly what it was.
So when I learned I had an email interview with the author himself scheduled I had to dig out my old copy of Choke and check the jacket. Ah, sex addicts who work at a fake Colonial village – how could I have forgotten? No matter. The writing is terrific. Palahniuk might be able to shed some light on the grander themes he seems to be addressing, from numb consumer culture to transgender issues to the difference between nonfiction “truth” versus “truth” in fiction, I reasoned.
You see, I just couldn’t accept Choke on the same terms as a piece of well-made but empty entertainment like The Scorpion King, which worked because it didn’t overreach beyond what was necessary, tailored the script specifically to The Rock’s charming, self-deprecating personality and nothing more. I wanted to know why I always felt an important statement about society was being made in Palahniuk’s books.
But after finally interviewing the author I got a strong sense that his working method is more akin to that of the car mechanic he was for years. As a writer he seems to take the same sort of Meyerhold biomechanics approach (“I saw a bear, I ran, I was afraid”) that I learned in acting school. In other words, through the physical, mechanical act of writing – and not reflection – he gets at a deeper truth. Which is deep in itself. Now if only I could remember what Rant was about…
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It has come to my attention, via the Rope of Silicon post and SpoutBlog commenter Gould, that there is bad buzz in Telluride surrounding David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I’m in Telluride, and I hadn’t heard this bad buzz––the handful of people I’ve spoken to who saw the show reel either last night or this morning had generally positive things to day, aside from some general skepticism as to what the film’s reported two and a half hour final cut will look and feel and play like.
As I responded to Gould’s comment on this post:
…it’s hard to tell from this reel whether or not the film is going to hold together. I don’t get the sense that he’s going for whimsy or magical realism, but it does seem like a real departure for Fincher. Hopefully the fanboys looking for another Fight Club won’t burn Fincher at the stake for branching out a bit.
Telluride is not like, say, Comic-Con; the crowd doesn’t boo or scream, and most attendees are less likely to walk out of a screening with a firmly settled opinion than they are to spend the rest of the weekend talking it out. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m right and the naysayers are wrong, but I do hope this movie doesn’t get a leg cut off before the picture’s locked thanks to the entire internet jumping to conclusions.
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God, I miss the heyday of Prince. But this is not about me: I offer you this clip of the day, from Purple Rain–in which Prince breakdances, vogues and licks his lips at his girl in the crowd, all the while lipsyncing “I Would Die 4 U” whilst wearing high-waisted leather pants and the puffiest man-blouse I’ve ever seen–in honor of Jeffrey Wells. Today on Hollywood Elsewhere, Wells challenged any critic who disagrees with him to a deathmatch. Sort of.
I would like to challenge any film critic or blogger who strongly disagrees with me about the excellence of In the Valley of Elah (particularly in the snobby-ass, Paul Haggis-hating, nyah-nyah manner in which Slant’s Ed Gonzalez has recently expressed himself) to a bare-knuckles, John L. Sullivan-styled fist fight. I really and truly would be willing to bleed and get bruised and maybe knocked down over this. I know what I know and right is right, and I for one would be willing to stand up and go to the mat to defend my cinematic principles.
Now, at this point, you’re thinking, “Alright! Critic on critic violence!” And then, “So why’d Karina match this blurb up with a Prince video? Has she lost it? Let’s see some shirtless Brad Pitt!!! “
Hold your horses. Check out Wells’ very next paragraph:
If I wasn’t such a wuss, I mean. Saying I’d “like” to challenge an Elah hater to a fist fight doesn’t mean I’m doing that. My knuckles would get all swollen and I wouldn’t be able to type for a few days, and then where would I be? I haven’t been in a fight since the seventh grade.
So obviously, he’s not really willing to go to the mat for Haggis at all. I’m not doubting Wells’ Elah love; in fact, I admire his deliberate use of masculine posturing as misdirection. It makes his puffy man-bloused statement of passion seem all the more sincere by comparison.
I was gonna do a whole post on this, but I’m totally late for a screening, so I’ll let 
