Thursday, October 30, 2008

Weakends Has Finally Arrived! Episode 1: An Interview with Bruce Campbell


It's finally arrived folks, and just in time for your weekend.  The first episode of Weakends!   Weakends is filmadelphia's (supposedly) weekendly podcast, that features me and my friend Tom discussing the week in film news. 

We're kicking things off with an in-depth interview with Bruce Campbell, star of the Evil Dead series, and director/star of the upcoming My Name is Bruce.  His new movie will be here in Philly on Nov. 5, followed by a Q&A with the man himself.  The movie is hilarious, and I would absolutely recommend everyone get out and try to get to this screen.  The man's a blast to talk to.  

Over the course of the interview, we talk about the process of making My Name is Bruce, as well as some of the key players on screen and behind the scenes.  We get into a discussion about Darkman, making and starring in B-movies, his television career, and what the deal is with Evil Dead 4.

You can check out the episode here, or over in the side bar.  I've also posted the true first episode of the show, that Tom and I recorded back in the summer, after Pineapple Express came out, here, as well as in the side bar.  UPDATE: If you'd like to read the text version, click here!

As of right now, due to conflicting schedules, we will air random episodes as we randomly make them.  So look forward to more Weakends in the future! (But probably not next weekend.)

Leave us some comments!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Evil Dead 4 Not Happening Any Time Soon


By this evening, I will hopefully have posted my interview with Bruce Campbell. This is extremely exciting for me, as it was my first big interview. It went really well, and you guys can hear the whole thing later. But there's one piece of news that I wanted to bring to everyone's attention because I don't think anyone else has official confirmation of this yet, although most people probably assumed it.

Evil Dead 4 is not happening. Not anytime soon anyway. Campbell said that he and Sam Raimi did talk about it, but with Raimi signing on to do direct the Spider-Man sequals (and possibly back to back), there's no way they'll be getting to it any time soon. Campbell still has his commitments to Burn Notice, and is in the early stages of work on the next film he wants to direct. So consider Evil Dead 4 officially, evily, dead. At least for the time being.

As a side note, when I asked if they'd use a bigger budget for Evil Dead 4, now that Sam is a big-time director, he said if it were up to him they'd shoot on 16mm with all unknown actors. This sounds like the way to go to me, but I suppose that's an argument we don't need to have anymore.
I'm not particularly disapointed by this news, as I love the original Evil Dead series, and after-the-fact sequals often ruin their original counterparts. However, after seeing My Name is Bruce, it's obvious that Campbell knows his B movies well, and knows how to craft an interesting story without the luxury of a big budget. Thus, if there were to be another Evil Dead, I think I'd be on board with that. How does everyone else feel?

Monday, October 27, 2008

Great Movies for Under $1(million)!


Earlier this month over at Always Watching (shout out to Adam Quigley and the /filmcast!) posted on hell of a list: 25 Fantastic Indie Gems made for less than $1 Million.  Some famously cheap movies turn up like Clerks and Bad Taste, but there's quite a few that I didn't realize were so cheap, like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Brick.  Also, just about every movie on here is either a favorite of mine, or one of those "I can't believe I still haven't seen that yet!" type movies, so this list is going right in my favorites.  Big ups to Eric over at Geekadelphia for knowing what I like and sending this my way.  

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

More Watchmen News (Sorry for the Delay!)


I know I had to apologize for this once before, and then I never got back on track like I said I would, but I'd like to apologize again for not updating regularly. I swear to you I'm doing my best, but Philadelphia is just crazy when you're a full-time student holding down your own blog, a position at another blog, a position with the school paper, and an actual part-time job. It barely leaves enough room for me to actually see movies!

Anyhow, I was listening to the (ever present on filmadelphia) /filmcast last night, and then discovered this article this morning. I did not read this article, and I also muted the /filmcast while they were talking about this because I don't want to know, but apparantly Zack Snyder DID change the ending to Watchmen. HOWEVER, whatever it was changed to does not actually change the theme of the book or the point made in the ending, simply the events by which it happens. IE, no squid. If you haven't read the book you probably don't know what I'm talking about (and you should go buy it right now!).

I didn't want to know what it was changed to, as I'd like to be surprised, but Dave Chen assured listeners on the /filmcast last night that it didn't actually change anything except the way in which the ending occurs. For me to continue on would be to reveal too many spoliers, so I'll leave you to /film's article about the ending change if you'd like to know more.

But rest assured Watchmen fans! This will still be excellent. From the preview screening last week came rave reviews, just a few dissenters who were die hard fans that simply don't want to see any element of the book changed at all. While I admit, it does suck that an artist can't adhere to another artists source work for whatever, but in this case it makes sense. The ending of the book is a very comic book ending that comments on the medium of comics. Film is a different medium as they pointed out on the /filmcast last night, and this ending wouldn't work in that medium. Hopefully whatever they changed it to will be a comment on film, and still adhere to the themes, which I'm assured it does.

So again, unless you're one of those whiney fan boys who MUST have everything complete and the same, it sounds like Watchmen is going to astound us. Is anyone truly upset by this news, or does it make sense to you as it does to me? (obviously, I've posted wayyyy too many Watchmen posts, as I'm reduced to pictures like the one you see above)

Monday, October 13, 2008

Buzz (The Dark) Knightyear


Check out this awesome trailer mash-up that just turned up over at cinematical. Woody as Joker, Buzz as Batman, and everybody's favorite Potatoe Head as Fox. Oh and Rex is Alfred. Just wait'll you see the Semi scene. Tom was so entertained by this he actually looked over from Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Check it out above!

Friday, October 10, 2008

So Very Familiar...


This happens to me all the time. Thanks to /film to pointing us this way!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Cinematical is watching the Watchmen


Erik Davis over at cinematical got a chance to peep twelve minutes of Watchmen at a special screening set up by Snyder last night. Dave Gibbons, the artist on the book, was also in attendance. Check out the article to hear about the footage (which sounds amazing) and the Q&A that followed.

Interesting to note: Kevin Smith was quoted as saying there were two changes in the film, one major and one minor. In the footage described there is an opening montage that gets the audience acquainted with the revised history of the US according to the events in the comic. There is also the scene where Nite Owl and Silk Spectre break Rorschach out of prison, and this has apparently been changed to include a fight scene, rather than just a horn that immobilizes the guards. Could these be the two changes that Smith was talking about? They both seem rather minor to me, so perhaps there's another one lurking within the film somewhere? I'm not opposed to these changes, in fact I think the idea behind both of these rather sound like improvements, or at least welcome adaptive changes. Only time will tell I suppose, but the more I hear about this the more excited I get. Here's hoping the film lives up to the footage Erik got to see last night!

Monday, October 6, 2008

New Watchmen Video Journal! Doc Manhattan!


Its a doc about the Doc, and its exclusive over at sci-fi.  I haven't had the time to watch it yet, but I'm so absurdly amped for this movie that I decided to post it right away.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  These video journals have gotten better with each one.  

In other video journal news, it sounds like Kevin Smith is having trouble with the MPAA over the Money Shots making of shorts he was going to release in advance of Zack and Miri.  Here's hoping they get through without much editing, and in time to be useful promotion for the film.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Review: Role Models

Last night I had the oppurtunity to catch an advance screening of Role Models with Paul Rudd, Sean Williams Scott, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb'e J. Thompson, and Elizabeth Banks. I went into the movie with low expectations, and my first surprize was seeing Paul Rudd's name included in the writing credits. It seems every actor from Apatow clan secretly doubles as a screenwriter, most of which are pretty darn good.

The first act of the film lagged a little bit for me, although I see that it has a lot of purpose. In retrospect I think they were just trying a little to hard to set up themes for the movie. We see Rudd's character is happy and doesn't want to sing Kareoke with his girlfriend... Then by the end he's singing her a song in front of everyone. I get it, he has a character arc. I actually like that they took time to set up some of the jokes in the beginning, but like I said it wasn't exactly organic. The whole premise of the energy drink was a little weak for me too. Plus, how am I supposed to believe that these dudes were not fired on the spot for freaking out in front of an entire school and then driving the company car onto a statue? But apparently, as long as they aren't sentenced to jail time they can keep there jobs. The Manditore energy drink company is incredibly under developed. It's just a place you can work forever doing nothing with hot girls and stoner friends and get paid for it.

Sean Williams Scott, Sometimes I love him, usually he doesn't do anything for me. He just epitomizes that whole late 90's early 00's (?) teen flick dude in such a way that it seems he has never really broken away from it. And when he does it's usually with pretty mediocre results. I didn't hate his character in The Promotion, nor did I think he did an exceptional job. To me he could have been recast by any other 20 something actor and I would not have noticed. In this film, while he does not make a huge leap from the Stiffler character, it's enough of a balance between lovable idoit and horney frat boy to where the lovable part wins out. I understand his casting in this, and overall it was one of the better roles I've seen him in. But seriously, he was awesome in Evolution.

The second act is when the film really takes off, mostly because this is where we meet Rudd and Scott's "Littles," Mclovin and Thompson (who are the real stars of this movie). First Thompson was the ridiculous ofensive, vulgar child and it worked well for once. The kid was funny. Even though the "tough kid exterior with vulnerable interior" plot was a little thin, the kids obsession with boobs was a good gag.

Mintz-Plasse's first major role since Mclovin to me was probably the biggest draw to this film. He has already been type-casted as the awkward nerdy kid, and this film does absolutely nothing but further that image. The real question I had was, would it still be funny? Thank God, it is. The best jokes from the film were centered around Mclovin's character in the midevil role-playing world he is obsessed with. He plays a much more innocent character in this one which I also liked. That may be the only real change in characters from this and Superbad. I really don't want to give away any of the best jokes, but I will confirm that there are plenty that land well.

As for the ending, it was pretty cliche. It worked, but it was deffinately a feel-good ending. The fulfillment of the best gag also happens there. I was thoroughly impressed with it.

Over-all I'd go ahead and give it a B+. Another film populated with apatow regulars that delivers the goods. Much better than Drillbit Taylor, not quite on par with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it falls somewhere in between.

Tommy

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Interesting Trailer for Baz Luhrmann's Australia


MSN just put up the trailer (thank you cinematical) for Baz Luhrmann's new movie Australia, but no embed code (argh!). It is... an interesting trailer. It's certainly beautiful (and I would expect nothing less from the director of Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet) and the performances (Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman) look pretty excellent. It's really skimpy on the plot details though. I have no clue what this movie is about at this point. Maybe even less of one than I did before I saw this trailer. But what's really bothering me is why Explosions in the Sky is playing over the first half of the trailer? More importantly, why that specific song (The Only Moment We Were Alone)? I can see how the title of the song might fit into the very vague storyline we're given in the trailer. But these are the last images I would've imagined being put over that song. I'm a huge Explosions in the Sky fan (go buy their records now, they're fantastic [you might recognize them as the band that did the soundtrack for Friday Night Lights]), and with the extremely visual imagination that I have, I always imagine what kind of scene I would shoot over songs. Explosions in the Sky are especially good for this exercise because they're an instrumental band. Maybe it's only because I'm so familiar with this song, but it does not seem to fit the images that are presented in this trailer at all. It was not only jarring for me, but completely distracting.

Did anyone else feel that way about the music? How about the movie, first impressions?