FilmCatcher

Perfume: The Nose Always Knows

 

The impossible happened. Patrick Süskind’s “unfilmable” novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, was adapted for the big screen (2006). This was no easy feat because scent, the book's theme, is difficult to portray cinematically.  

Some critics have pointed to the film's political undertones, even interpreting it as an allegory of the Third Reich. The producer, Bernd Eichinger, is no stranger to this subject, having gained international acclaim for The Downfall, a Hitler biopic. Apparently, Eichinger had been bugging Süskind to let him at Perfumesince its publication in 1985.  His perseverance paid off. 

The Fourth Kind.......WTF!!!!!!

 

WTF!!! That's all I kept saying as I watched this movie.  This is not a horror or suspense film.  It's also not for the faint of heart.  For anyone expecting another Paranormal Activity, you are in for a rude awakening.  

The Fourth Kind is not scary.  Or terrifying.  It is deeply disturbing.

Countdown to Avatar: Premier of New Trailer = AWESOMENESS!!

As I’m watching the pregame show for football on Fox, I am surprised to find out that the world premier of the new Avatar trailer will be shown before the game.  Now I’m excited by any Avatar news, so I was anxious to see what new footage would be shown.

I was not disappointed

Katt Williams' Pimpadelic

 

With a name like Pimpadelic,  I wasn’t expecting this interweaving of  footage from an interview with comedian Katt Williams (First Sunday, Norbit, Friday After Next) and clips from one of his performances to be quite so cerebral. The whip-smart Williams reveals himself to be a man with a mission, constantly striving to reach the next level of comedy.

The Virgin Suicides' Journey to Screen

 

 

 

Jeffery Eugenides’ first novel, The Virgin Suicides, appeared on the scene in 1993. In 1999 Sofia Coppola adapted it for the screen in her directorial debut of the same name. Coppola wrote the screenplay for the film and was fiercely protective of the project.  She was concerned that Nick Gomez’s script (the director who had a shot at writing the screenplay before she did) had upped the sex and violence quotient and would not be an authentic representation of the book. "The Virgin Suicides" is an exemplary feat of adaptation; Coppola’s screenplay stays faithful to the book, transporting significant chunks verbatim. Her script, which distills the book down to its most vital parts, is not so much a rewrite as a visual re-imagining of Eugenides’s written world. 

A Night at The National Arts Club

 

I had The National Arts Club experience the other night. Founded in 1898, the club itself is as lush and dramatic as the members, performers, and artists who fill its Gothic Revival brownstone in the Gramercy Park area. Upon entering, I was greeted by a parrot and a collection of beautifully textured people and paintings.

Cirque Du Freak: It Had Such Potential

I wanted to love this movie.  It had such great characters and an entertaining story.  But something was missing.  There were times when the story got disjointed and seemed to veer off course.  And the ending?  Extremely disappointing.  

Yet, I find myself trying to focus on the positive.  Why?  I really liked the characters.  Chris Massoglia was great as Dan, the 16 year old who gets caught up in the world of freaks.  And it's great to see John C. Riley as a vampire.  He really is a jack-of-all trades.  There were funny points, especially when Willem Dafoe was on screen.  It was an entertaining ride and I felt the story was building up to something great.  It just fell short.  

I know this was based on a series of books, so I can't judge it from that perspective.  But I do feel the way it was advertised was misleading.  Each promo bills it as something different: a teenager is bored with his life and seeks adventure or said teenager is destined to stop a war between vampires.  That's not the movie that I saw.  I wish it was.  

-Frances Illa

Vampires, Zombies, and Werewolves, Oh My!

It does seem like we're being overrun by the living dead.  Bloodsuckers, brain eaters, and all things hairy are all the rage in Hollywood.   We've seen the release of Zombieland (which I loved), Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant opens Friday (I'm seeing a screening tonight. My review will be up Friday) and the highly anticipated (especially by me) Twilight Saga: New Moon is just four weeks away.  

So what is up with all the monster love??  

Hayao Miyazaki: A Master of Animation (And the Joy of Being a Child)

 

There is no director like him.  He has this unbelievable talent and a seemingly endless imagination.  What he puts on screen is nothing short of art at it’s finest.  And it just so happens to bring out my inner child. 

My favorite Miyazaki films after the jump

Slow Buring Sother Gothic 'That Evening Sun' Gets Distribution, Trailer

Where the Wild Things Are Invented

 

A few of the reviews have taken cracks at Spike Jonze’s re-imagining (directing and co-writing the screenplay with Dave Eggers) of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.  In doing so, they miss the film’s most visionary aspect—its vivid study of storytelling. With painful acuity, Jonze captures how authors (Sendak, Jonze, Eggers), but also all people (Max, his mother, the audience members), must construct stories about their world so that they can live in it. 

New York, I Love You: A Love Letter to a Great City

 

Is there a better way to pay homage to a great city and the idea of love in one fell swoop then in film?   I think not.  So when I hear that the producers of Paris, J’taime where taking that concept to the Big Apple, I was very excited.  After seeing the trailer, I’m even more so.

 See why after the jump

The Manic Pixie Dream Tramp

 

Marc Webb’s “500 Days of Summer” (2009) reveals the anatomy of a failed fantasy. The doomed days of Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) are presented out of order, yet the trajectory will be all too familiar to any man who has ever had his heart stolen.  One scene in particular captures the sting of amorous expectation squelched: when Tom reunites briefly with Summer, a split screen shows his expectations on one side and the reality on the other.  This clever construction captures onscreen that sinking feeling that comes when soaring hopes go splat.  But there’s something else that happens when romantic dreams descend: the rise of the gorgon. 

The Summer character has been labeled what film critic Nathan Rabin calls the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl,”(MPDG) and Jezebel’s Sadie Stein deems the “Amazing Girl." Rabin coined the phrase to describe that cheerful, mysterious, compulsively loveable, but ultimately empty, female filmic creature sent to awaken the potential and happiness of somber male protagonists everywhere. 

Countdown to Avatar: My Experience at Avatar Day

If you look close enough all the way to the left in the picture, I'm pretty sure that's me.  Yes, I was one of those dorks who got in line 2 hours early to make sure I got prime seating for the 16 minute preview of Avatar.  My excitement for this film knows no bounds, so, to me, it was a no brainer to do whatever it took to get in.

Read all about my little adventure after the jump

Dark Woods Review

 

Michael Escobedo’s “Dark Woods” opens with the Dante quote, “Midway on our life's journey, I found myself in dark woods” to inform us that it is the dark wood of the psyche that we are entering.  Henry (John Muscarnero, who also wrote the screenplay) and his wife Susan (Tracy Coogan) retreat to a remote cabin in the woods so that she can die of Cancer in peace. Instead of tranquility, however, they find a young woman, Alicia (Mary Kate Wiles), in need of rescue. 

Susan’s slow death serves as the backdrop for the unraveling of the film’s characters.  The scene where Henry washes her is touching and sad, gesturing towards the little details of being with someone as they die.  This scene is one of the few to really hit an emotional chord, as the characters are all strangely detached in the rest of the film.  When a rare moment of panic overtakes her stupor, Susan says that she can feel herself dying, feel the whole of what she is deteriorating, and it is this sentiment that pervades the film. As Susan’s role in Henry’s world fades, Alicia’s grows brighter. Alicia is often positioned in the same places where Susan was just a few scenes earlier, in order to show the sick substitution that is taking place.

Rodriguez to Remake Predator...You've GOT to Be Kidding Me!!!!!???!!!

Serioulsy, this has to stop.  Has Hollywood really become void of all creativity?? Does not a single person there have an orginial thought in their brain?? Or have studios just become chicken shits, with no balls to back a truly brilliant new idea???

I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!!!

Ok, I know I've vented about this before, but the news that Robert Rodriguez is rebooting Predator just put me over the edge.  I freakin LOVE that movie.  I watched it with my dad and cousin a million times.  It was another great 80's movie that just got better with every viewing.  Why would anyone want to go an make another one?? Especially when it's a perfect blend of sci-fi and action with a steller cast (who can really replace Jesse "The Body" Ventura????).

The whole Alien vs. Predator was a bad idea, so why are we rehashing this again? I'm not being overdramatic when I say a little part of me just died inside.  First it's Red Sonja, now Predator. Why Rodriguez, why?

-Frances Illa

The Permeable Membrane Between Real and Make-believe: Lovely by Surprise Review

 

In each layer of writer-director Kirt Gunn’s luminous film debut, “Lovely by Surprise,” is some absurdist, uproarious, shining oddity. The film opens on an enthusiastic Marian (Carrie Preston), who is struggling with a novel that appears to have developed a mind of its own.  What ensues is a pitch-perfect take on the nutty adventure that is writing a first book.  Despite the protestations of her former writing teacher, Jackson (Austin Pendleton), Marian doesn’t believe in the separation of real life and fiction, and it is this belief that powers this wildly inventive film.

The Impact of District 9

District 9, Neill Blomkamp’s faux documentary on the exodus of aliens from their titular ghetto, is a compelling study of the persecuted and underrepresented.  Set in Joburg, it is most clearly a commentary on Apartheid; but it’s also a meditation on oppression everywhere, touching on such bête noires as miscegenation, ghettoization, and dehumanization.

When interviewed for the film-within-a-film, those who do not live in District 9 express little empathy for those who do. Their views don’t have much of a range; they hover between the reprehensible, relief that the District dwellers are being kept separate, and the despicable, the desire to unleash a selective virus on them.  The docudrama wonks aren't much better; they continue to mention that slums beget crime, as though this makes transporting the District 9ers to what has been called a "concentration camp" a-okay.

One of those sent to clear out the District, Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is a perversely spellbinding character.  He starts out as an endearing, bumbling drip, but then something happens, something so shocking…but I refuse to give away the nature of his startling metamorphosis. Unfortunately, Wikus’s men are from the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later school of negotiation. The sordid scenes play like an extraterrestrial episode of COPS. 

Let me just put it this way: I was so affected by the film that I found myself googling various human rights issues when I got home.  Before that, I was so emotionally (and apparently physically) shaken that I proceeded to fall up my stairs. 

Zombieland: GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!!

 

I was lucky enough to get a pass to an advanced screening of Zombieland last night.  I knew I was in for a treat when I saw people dressed as zombies in line waiting to get in.  Once we were seated, more and more zombies showed up, some in really great makeup and costumes.  The highlight: Woody Harrelson himself showed up, addressed the adoring crowd, and sat down to watch the film with us.  If that’s not a great build up, I don’t know what is.

 

My take on Zombieland after the jump

An Interview with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus's Quinn Lord

Caroline Hagood: Your talent and breadth of experience would be impressive for any age, but to have delivered 25 strong performances in films and television by the age of 10 is astounding. You must have a talent and energy secret stored away somewhere.  Do you have any advice for other young actors?

Quinn Lord: My advice would be to just have fun and do what you like to do. Maybe it’s hockey, baseball, soccer, playing music or acting. It’s all fun, and sometimes people are better at certain things; I stink at skating, but I’m going to keep trying!

CH: Getting a role in a film like Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" at such a young age is also pretty special.  What are your thoughts on this production?

QL:  It’s a really fun film with an enormous amount of talent; I’m just lucky to be a small part of such an amazing, wild ride of a film. Lots of people are talking about it and can’t wait for it to come out.  I’m a huge Monty Python fan so just to meet director Terry Gilliam was amazing! He has a wild imagination and the better technology gets, the more he gets to show everyone what cool stuff is in his head!

CH: You've mentioned that you love "The Goonies."  Was that the film that caused you to gravitate towards acting?

QL: I love so many films and have so many favorites.  "Army of Darkness" is one of my favorites, as well as "Goonies," "Gremlins" and a lot of 80’s films. I would love to work with Bruce Campbell; he’s pretty cool; I bet it would be a lot of fun. Oh yeah, of course I have to add "The Hole," "Trick ‘R Treat" and "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus." They are all awesome films!

CH: You've worked on a number of horror and science fiction projects. It's almost as though your childhood games of make-believe have been replaced by movies.  How does your imagination play into your performances?