This is a film I can't believe I didn't see at the theater. From the time Bill Maher started referencing it on his excellent HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher I looked forward to it release. Having now watched the flick last week on DVD I think I realize why I never ponied up ten bucks and it's because I had heard most of it all before.
If you had ever told me I would be getting regular updates direct from the Star Trek: Next Generation characters Data (Brent Spiner), Geordie LaForge (Levar Burton) and Wesley Crusher (Will Wheaton) I would have called you crazy.
In a move that will please populist movie fans the Cannes Film Festival, or Festival de Cannes to the linguists amongst you, have decided to open this years proceedings with the new Pixar family flick Up. This is in stark contrast to the slightly less upbeat Blindness that opened last years festival and may mark a more light hearted direction (don't bet on it) for the French Cine' Fest'.
Peter Segal looks like a good choice to direct Little Fockers, the third installment of the Stiller/DeNiro Focker trilogy. Meet The Parents was universally loved as far as I can tell and has stood up to repeat viewings but 2004's Meet The Fockers was a much less successful outing despite what I thought were good turns by Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand as Stiller's parents.
This is a movie within a movie telling the story of two young boys making their tribute film to First Blood over an English summer in the early 1980s.
There were two reasons I watched this film. One was to see the performance of Oscar nominated actress Melissa Leo and the second because I had read Tarantino's quote about the movie 'This completely naturalistic movie is one of the most exciting thrillers I’ve seen this year.'
I should start by saying this is not an easy film to watch but it offers one of last years best performances from Golden Globe nominated Kristin Scott Thomas performing in a French language movie.
I had no expectations going into this film other than the usual assurance one has when watching DeNiro. Well this was one of those movies that after five minutes you are grinning like a Cheshire cat because you know you scored big time. What Just Happened is based on the book, What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line, by Art Linson and premiered at Sundance 2008 enjoying a limited release in October of last year so you you may have had a hard time catching it at your local multiplex. It is a movie that Hollywood insiders will love but so will anyone that has an interest in how movies get made and the drama that goes on off screen (maybe that made it a little harder for me to be objective in this review!).
This festival served as an introduction to Japanese cinema for me as the only other film from a Japanese director I had seen was Audition which the San Francisco Chronicle described as '... a hallucinatory nightmare of female revenge that will pin back the audience's eyelids'. Not the best introduction to a country's cinematic tradition, in fact rumor has it I bailed on the movie with the scenes with needles became a tad too graphic!
"Seriously man you and me are done professionally"
Ever since I saw the first trailer for this film back in October while waiting for Quantum of Solace I have been intrigued to see if the movie lives up to the promise of that 2 minute teaser. The hype around Watchmen has been bonkers with a marketing effort all over old and new media so if this is the first you are hearing of the film, well, where have you been?!
This week saw the start of a Phoenix area Film Festival that I have only just heard about. Between March 3rd and 7th the Mesa Community College is presenting Still Walking: The Films of Hirokazu Kore-eda.
From the Huffington Post:
Screened at last years Sundance Film Festival this is a small movie packed with big actors. Academy award nominee Amy Adams (Doubt) teams up with Academy Award winner Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) and Golden Globe nominated Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) for one of the more quirky films you will watch this year.
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