Happy Birthday to
Dustin Hoffman
72 today
It's hard to think of some stars aging let alone their characters, but to imagine Benjamin Braddock or David Sumner or Dorothy Michaels at 72 is really weird. Go on, try it.
Saturday, 8 August 2009
Dustin Hoffman
Friday, 7 August 2009
Out this week (07/08/09)
I wonder how long it's going to be until I get accused of rampart Francophilia. You see in spite of the onslaught of quality US offerings this week (don't scoff, there's a load of rubbish but Adam almost makes the grade), I'm going to recommend a French movie for the second week in a row. A French biopic at that. So this week, if you're visiting a cinema, the one to watch is Mesrine: Killer Instinct.
Adam
Coming a close second in todays race for FOTW is this American Indie. Essentially a girl meets boy romantic comedy, only with Hugh Dancy suffering from Asperger's Syndrome. Not half as crap as that sounds Dancy and love interest Rose Bryne are getting warm reviews for their sensitive performances.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●○○○○○
G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra
Remember all those Action Film cliches that seemed to have been dropped following the success of Team America? They're back in style in the kids toy to film adaptation. Watch as a bunch of "I know you", attractive actors fight another bunch of "I know you", attractive actors using ridiculous weapons and god-awful dialogue.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
Home
French (I know it's another one with a high score) satire about modern families, set in a house right next to a motorway. Interesting design elements, and the delicious Isabelle Huppert make this one to watch.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●○○○○○○
Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus
Blame the internet bloggers for this one. But not me, naturally. After going straight to DVD (probably straight to the bargain bins where it belongs) a number of British bloggers saw the trailer and began to write to the UK film mags about it. The enthusiasm for this modern day ED Wood picture grew until the studio gave it a cinematic release. People power at it's finest. Shudder.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
Mesrine: Killer Instinct
Vincent Cassel gives an award winning performance (Best Actor Cesar) in the first part of the Mesrine biopic. Mesrine was one of the most infamous criminals of the 20the century, active across the globe, with counts of robbery, kidnapping and murder he was known as the Man of a hundred faces and the French Public Enemy Number 1. But most of that happens in part 2, here we meet a young soldier who turns to crime following his discharge.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●●○○○○○
Orphan
Beware young children with starey eyes. They are probably going to kill you even if you do adopt them. Don't try running or punishing them. You may as well just reward them for their bad behavious and just tell social services you can't cope.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
The Ugly Truth
The posters and trailers would have you believe that women only ever love with their brains and men only ever love with their penises. This is offensive to men and women. Also I just don't like romantic comedies.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●○○○○○○○○
The Yes Men Fix the World
I've been in two minds whether to mention the Yes Men. Technically it's a documentary (I usually ignore them in the release breakdown) with Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno posing as industrialists in order to expose the hypocrisy behind big business on Hurrican Katrina, Bhopal and other extraordinary events. I choose to leave it in because whilst it is not as extreme as Bruno in the use of characterisation it does use the same technique.
By the way there was an excellent podcast on www.ifc.com this week about "Docsploitation" and the blurring of drama and documentary. I urge you to take a listen here.
Runs like a Gay Excitometer: ●●●●○○○○○○
Michael Shannon
Happy Birthday to
Michael Shannon
35 today
The intense Shannon picked up an Oscar nod last year for his intense portrayal of an intense mathematician in the intense Revolutionary Road. This follows a string of intense performances in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Bug and World Trade Centre. None of his forthcoming films excite me much, but I'm sure he'll be intense in them.
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Running: Week 9, Day 4, Run 3
Slightly shorter today, but was aiming for a little faster.
8.3 km in 44 minutes, or 11.3 kmph. Indeed faster than the last couple of times out, but a long way off the last time I did that sort of distance back in July.
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Running: Week 9, Day 3, Run 2
There are many words I can use to describe this mornigns run, although the most simple will probably suffice. Wet. Very very wet. When I got back I had to take my shirt off outside and wring it out sort of wet.
Anyway 11.3 km in 1 hour 2 minutes, fractionally short of 11 kmph.
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Tuesday Trailers - Away We Go
Good news. We're in August, which of course means we can show the trailers for films coming out in September - this month is pretty flat to the extent I had to miss trailers out last Tuesday. Bad news. September isn't much better. There are 3 films I'm looking forward to (a bit). Two of which have opened quietly in the U.S. and the third hasn't even released a trailer yet. The first film is Sam Mendes' Away We Go, squeezed in between the filming and post of Revolutionary Road it's a road movie about a heavily pregnant couple (John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) looking for the best place to bring up their children. Beware, there's an awful lot of quirk in this:
Away We Go comes out on 18 September 2009.
Running: Week 9, Day 2, Run 1
As I took off this morning I remembered that I ran 19 miles on Saturday. Or at least my incredibly sluggish legs remembered.
9.7 km in 55 minutes. 10.6 kmph, barely the minimum pace I want to achieve for 4 times as long. Dreadful.
Billy Bob Thornton
Happy Birthday to
Billy Bob Thornton
54 today
Oh, Billy. What happened? You used be such an interesting actor, you made a couple of interesting films as a director. But in the last 6 years you've continued to just make complete dross. Even your bizarrely personal life appears to have quietened down. C'mon, mix things up a bit.
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Film News (01/08/09)
Three pairs of films this week, and if you're not a major franchise, a criminal or a spy then you may as well just go home.
The Next Three Days
It's barely been a few weeks since the Pour Elle was in cinemas yet this hasn't stopped the Hollywood machine comiisioning a remake of the French Prison Escape drama, and casting Russell Crowe as the films protagonist. I'm a Crowe fan, so I can't wait to see what he does with this - although imagining that he doesn't already know how to break someone out of prison might be a stretch.
Alien Prequel
The idea of a prequel to Alien, possibly explaining how the Space Jockey crashed on the obscure planet or possibly just explaining why the Company were interested in the Alien has been around for a long time, but the brave step of hiring writer Jon Spaihts to complete a screenplay shows Fox are really pushing nthis one through. Frankly as long as it doesn't have any Predators showing up I'm there.
Matt Helm
Get Smart took $130m in the States last year, which goes to prove that comedy spies are as popular as ever. With that in mind Dreamworks have dusted down the rights for Matt Helm, previously a Dean Martin vehicle from the 60's, with just a few tweaks to up the action sequences, and just the right touch of tongue in cheekness it could be a perfect anti-Bond franchise.
Parsifal Mosaic
Talking of Anti-Bond, Robert (Bourne writer) Ludlum's back catalogue continues to be plunged with the daft sound Mosaic next in line. Involves dead lovers appearing in train stations and the secret services turning on their own to protect the nation. Sounds daft but with a reasonable cast and crew it might just be watchable.
Pirates of the Caribbean 4
Will we all go to see another 2 and a half hours of Johnny Depp in excessive make-up crowding around a couple of up and coming actors and generally steal every scene from under their noses? Of course we will! But when will Depp squeeze in a bit of Keith Richards impersonating is the more important question.
The Town
In easily the most bizarrely love triangle you'll have heard of the bank robber and cop closing in on him both fall for the same teller. All eyes will be on Rebecca Hall juggling the guys in Ben Affleck's next directorial venture.
Running: Week 8, Day 6, Run 4
Todays times and distances are a bit of a guess, as my i-Pod packed up during the run. I could have screamed. I think there's some water in it which is affecting the connection. At least I hope that's what it is. I'll go to an apple shop this afternoon.
Anyway, bearing in mind the possibility of slight inaccuracies, 30.6 km in 3 hours. That's 10.2 kmph. Close to what I need to be doing, but slower than my 15 miler a couple of weeks ago.
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