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Talking Trailers: Spike Jonze’s ‘Her’

Any year we get a new Spike Jonze movie is a good year, which means when November 20, 2013 comes around, this year will officially be “good,” because that is the scheduled release date for “Her,” Spike Jonze’s new movie about an anti-social fella who falls in love with a voice on a computer.

This anti-social fella is played by Joaquin Phoenix, who took a short break from acting so he could “retire” and focus on being a hip hop artist (all shown in the Casey Affleck-helmed mockumentary “I’m Still Here“), and now he’s back in full force it seems, especially after that incredible performance in last year’s “The Master,” and it looks like he has another one under his belt, as the below trailer for “Her” is very compelling and pretty much looks like what one would expect from the maker of “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation.”Continue Reading …

Talking Trailers: ‘Escape Plan’ is coming, but is it 20 years too late?

“Escape Plan” is a movie that’s right in my wheelhouse, featuring two of my most favorite actors from my most favorite genre (Action!), and backed by a crazy concept and lots of fighting and action! action!! action!!! If this is not the greatest movie ever made, I have no idea what would be, and it is blowing my mind to think that this will actually be coming out soon. This is what I would be thinking anyway, if I were still twelve-years old. Ohhhhh to be twelve again.

Alas, it is 2013, and my favorite actors have grown old and have been replaced by other favorite actors with just a bit more range. And the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone have gotten so old (which was inevitable, by the way) could be detrimental to them because they still make primarily Action! movies, which also happens to be a genre that is no longer my favorite, as I am no longer a stupid child.

No, now I am a semi-stupid adult who likes a wee bit of story and character in my movies. Action is still cool and all…but it has to have a point. And THAT is when you know you are becoming an old fogey – when a high concept movie featuring the Terminator and Rambo doesn’t really you excited, when pure spectacle and blood letting and body counts and spent cartridges just don’t do it for you anymore without you know WHO exactly is getting killed or doing the killing, then THAT is the time to check in your youth card and go sit on a rocking chair in an old folks’ home and just wait for death to warm over you like a comfortable blanket.Continue Reading …

‘Realism’ in movies – where is the suspension of disbelief?

It is incredible how often people decry implausibilities in movies, allowing themselves to be drawn out of a movie’s spell by questioning every little thing about a story and how it is presented, declaring a movie to be shit because they “didn’t buy it.” But why does this happen? When did “realism” become so important to movie going audiences? Did we decide that we were all going to stop believing? Who told us that Santa wasn’t real anymore? Why did our balloon pop and how did it happen? What the fuck happened to our childhood?Continue Reading …

Talking Trailers: ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’

What in the what is this? Martin Scorsese seems determined to show that he can still bring the crazy movie making chops in his golden years, and it looks like he wants to show the young whipper snappers where its at. So here comes “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s fifth collabo, and they don’t look like they want to slow down.Continue Reading …

Guess what? We’re having twins! A bunch of ’em!

What the hell is going on this year? Look, this has happened in the past, don’t get me wrong. We all remember when “Volcano” and “Dante’s Peak” competed in 1997 for those volcano enthusiast dollars, right? Or when “Armageddon” showed “Deep Impact” what’s up at the box office in 1998? How about that battle of the talking pig movies in 1995 between “Babe” and “Gordy?”

It happens, we get it, every now and then these competing project get made at the same time. Sometimes its even a situation like last year’s double bill of “Lincoln” and “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” Sad. But this year, what the hell is going on? 2013 is the year of the creative logjam apparently, too many minds working in the same subconscious soup, extracting the same information at the same time and making the same things, but different.Continue Reading …

Talking Trailers: ‘Gravity’

It has been far too long since the great director Alfonso Cuarón has graced our screens with one of his films – since “Children of Men” way back in 2006 to be exact – and with this short teaser trailer for his new sci fi flick “Gravity,” we finally get just a little taste of what we have been missing this whole time.

Just watch that trailer below and tell me you aren’t intrigued. Can’t be done, because it looks to awesome to not get your attention. And if you are familiar with “Children of Men,” you know that Cuarón favors these impossibly long one-take shots, which he will apparently be pushing even harder in “Gravity,” with rumors of at least one twenty-minute uninterrupted sequence with no cutaways of edits, and since it looks like most of this thing will be taking place in zero Gs in outer space, one can already imagine the drifting, floating, “weightless” camera work that will be employed throughout.Continue Reading …

Talking Trailers: ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’

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The Coen Brothers are back at it, this time coming at us with a period piece maybe musical comedy/drama/dramady(?) about a folk singer trying to make it big in 1960s New York City, and since this is from the makers of such films as “Raising Arizona,” “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” “No Country For Old Men,” and “True Grit” among other gems and classics, how can this not shoot up to the top of my must see list of the year? And the same goes for you. You know wanna see this already just based on the pedigree. Well guess what? Now there’s a trailer, t0o.

Oscar Isaac somehow landed the lead role and I am sure it made his day when he got that phone call, and you know what? Based on this trailer, he looks pretty awesome, I like the laconic, laid back look and feel, and actually this trailer is put together pretty well and comes to an interesting climax that really makes me anticipate what happens with this character and how he’s going to actually play out. It’s cool to see the Coens mixing it up with some new people, including the now always reliable Justin Timberlake, of whom they utilized both his acting chops and his musical abilities for the soundtrack. Also working on the movie’s music is T Bone Burnett, and that worked out great for “O Brother, Where Art Thou” so there’s no reason to doubt it will work here.Continue Reading …

Crespodiso Around Town Part II

Check out this photo gallery depicting the presence of Cinema Crespodiso around the world. Good times.

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Book-to-film adaptations: 8 – ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

“2001: A Space Odyssey” has a very unusual characteristic among book to film adaptations, in that it was developed simultaneously as a novel and a film by author Arthur C. Clarke and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. In the early 1960’s, Kubrick was looking for a sci-fi project to develop into what would be the first serious-minded sci-fi film ever (as all science fiction films up to that point exclusively featured monsters, alien invasions and sex), and through a mutual acquaintance, was hooked up with renowned science contributor and author Clarke. They spent several years together brainstorming ideas and spit balling before they came up with what would become 2001. As a result of their very close collaboration during the production of both pieces of art, 2001 the movie and 2001 the novel work as complementary pieces, informing each other and helping to create a more whole picture. That isn’t to say there are no deviations between the two works, but even with these deviations, the essential truths and themes are kept intact.Continue Reading …

Talking Trailers: ‘Elysium’ looks incredible

Held under wraps for all of pre-production through post-production, Neill Blomkamp’s highly anticipated follow-up to his debut surprise hit “District 9” is coming up on us in a matter of months, meaning that Blomkamp’s had to have his fingers pried open a bit to let some tasty nuggets of information out there for marketing purposes, to wet the beak of the public, and they are off to a hell of a start with this new poster and trailer combo.

“Elysium” is the name of the great big space station on which the wealthy live, free of poverty and disease and crime and fear. Meanwhile, the rest of us poor bastards are stuck on a trashed Earth, overpopulated and decimated, a toxic waste land, where poverty, disease and fear are the name of the game. And according to this trailer, Matt Damon plays a guys who wants to get from Earth to Elysium, and apparently he needs to have a robo-exoskeleton grafted to his body, and this will somehow give him the power to break into “the most heavily guarded place in the universe,” which will somehow “save everyone” in some sort of vague way. The class warfare element is obviously going to be very intense, so what else will be inside this narrative to drive this thing home emotionally. Damon’s character says he needs to get to Elysium. But why? Is it personal? Is he trying to save someone? Get to someone?Continue Reading …