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  • The Heath Ledger-directed music video for Modest Mouse’s ‘King Rat’

    King RatOne of the question marks left dangling after the untimely passing of Heath Ledger in January of 2008 was the music video for Modest Mouse’s “King Rat.”  Conceived by the late actor, the video seemed to be lost to the winds as the band, understandably, didn’t want to be seen as capitalizing on the star’s death.

    It was announced back in March, after some admirable persistence from the guys at The Playlist, and an eventual pick-up in the pages of Spin Magazine, that the piece would finally have its day in the sun.  And today, we finally get a look.

    Exclusively released on MySpace, the video serves as a piece of activism in its role-reversal depiction of whaling practices.  It’s pretty staggering, actually, and, of course, dovetails perfectly with the “Cove” conversation that’s kicked up on the site yesterday and today.

    Check out the video and the full press release after the jump.

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  • Trailer for John Campea’s ‘The Anniversary’

    Earlier this year, In Contention friend and The Movie Blog owner John Campea put together a few thousand dollars and a crew of dedicated filmmakers and actors and set about making his first feature narrative film.  He had already tried his hand at documentary filmmaking with “Prince of Peace, God of War.” I haven’t seen the film since an early cut but for the budget he was working with, I thought Campea put together a solid little flick.

    He’s released a red band trailer for the film and we’re more than happy to pass it along here.  Hopefully he makes a deal and gets it released:

    “The Anniversary” Trailer from campea on Vimeo

  • Eric Bana’s summer versatility

    Eric BanaOne of the highlights of Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” for me was Eric Bana’s supporting performance, a perfect blend of jack-assery and sincere complexity that stood out from the otherwise troubled film (along with Adam Sandler’s rather brilliant portrayal).  It wasn’t until later, though, that it hit me how diverse Bana’s output has been so far this year, with featured but strikingly varied roles in Apatow’s film, “Star Trek” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife.”

    I haven’t seen the latter yet, but I was pretty much on-board for Bana’s villainous turn in J.J. Abrams’s franchise reboot.  The role perhaps suffered from a lack of motivation in many ways, the only botched element of the story, but that’s not Bana’s fault and he carried across a Romulan vengeance-seeker with relative ease, I thought.

    Well I guess I’m not the only one impressed by Bana’s versatility this summer.  Writing in the pages of the Chicago Tribune, Lisa Rosen has taken note, using the occasion to remind that “Funny People” brings Bana back to his first brush with entertainment years ago in his native Australia.

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  • Test screening adoration for Reitman’s ‘Up in the Air’

    George ClooneyYesterday’s Oscar update featured a number of prediction hikes for Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air,” including firm placement among the predicted Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress nominees.  As I wrote in the column, the film has been getting great notices out of test screenings and the studio seems to be pretty invested in an awards run.

    Today (and I never do this, but it’s positive, so I’ll go for it) Jeff Wells has received a test screening review of the film and posted it up at Hollywood Elsewhere.  It’s a giant gusher.  The guy calls George Clooney’s leading performance “Cary Grant crossed with Warren Beatty” and the role one the actor “was born to play.”  Even though it was a test screening, the reviewer calls it a “near perfect film” and describes a trippy dream sequence that sounds creatively intriguing and narratively fascinating.

    In a nutshell, the guy is head over heels for the flick.  Take it or leave it, but it sounds mostly legitimate to me.

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  • ‘Cove’ comfort

    The CoveYesterday I opened my heart regarding Louie Psihoyos’s documentary “The Cove,” so it’s understandable that I’d be eager to see what the local outlets have in the way of media coverage as the film moves further into its limited run.

    Unfortunately, this Rachel Abramowitz story at the Los Angeles Times isn’t particularly insightful and covers a lot of the same behind-the-scenes material revealed in the film, but it nevertheless serves as a pretty good primer for those interested in the project.  In particular, Abramowitz talks to Psihoyos about the covert mission at the film’s center, which transforms the picture into something of a thriller, the seams of documentary filmmaking seemingly disappearing, making way for a compelling narrative.

    I think it’s important to characterize this film properly, because I’ve talked to a couple of people in the last few days who express an ambivalence to see it because of personal reasons, unable to handle the depictions of dolphin slaughter.  That scene is held until the end and is all of maybe three or four minutes.  It’s used effectively as the climax to a riveting espionage tale.  This is not a gruesome picture.  You can handle it.  Trust me.  Go see it.

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  • 8/4 Web Round-up

    Kate Beckinsale• Kate Beckinsale talks about the gritty new roles peppering her career as of late. [The Times]

    • The top 20 horror films of the last 20 years. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Recounting “District 9″‘s serendipitous path to the screen. [Los Angeles Times]

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  • 30 seconds of ‘The Lovely Bones’

    It’s not much, but it’ll whet the appetite for those chomping at the bit for the big trailer debut this week:

  • Na’vi action figure from ‘Avatar’

    You knew merchandising would kick in on this thing eventually.  Thanks to Devin over at CHUD, we get a look at the proposed line of action figures for James Cameron’s “Avatar.”  This is fairly newsy, since to the best of my knowledge, outside of those who saw the Comic-Con footage, this is the public’s first glimpse at a full Na’vi/Avatar body:

    Na'vii action figure

  • P.T. Barnum and ‘Showman’ — Hugh Jackman’s Oscar shot?

    Hugh JackmanI don’t know why this came to mind so quickly.  There is no director yet and the screenplay is yet to be hammered out, but I couldn’t help but wonder, with the announcement of the P.T. Barnum biopic “The Greatest Showman on Earth,” whether Hugh Jackman might finally find himself in the awards hunt for a change.

    I don’t mean to boil a simple news item down to an awards angle, which can be a knee-jerk reaction to this stuff in this racket.  But really, can anyone think of a more suitable role for Jackman?  Maybe it’ll just end up being fluff, I don’t know.  But there’s a real opportunity here.

    The film is apparently part of a string of musicals Jackman and partner John Palermo plan to usher to the screens, as the genre attempts to make a valiant comeback.  And now’s as good a time as any for frothy entertainment to capture the public’s imagination.  “The Sound of Music” won the big award during some dreary times, after all.  And the script is taking the old school route, written with actors in mind throughout.  Anne Hathaway (who you’ll recall held her own quite well opposite Jackman on Oscar’s stage back in February) will co-star.

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  • Poland, Julie, Julia, bon appetit

    I literally agree with every single word he has to say here:

    (Courtesy: The Hot Blog)

  • The see-sawing ‘Burning Plain’

    Charlize Theron in The Burning PlainThanks to the reader (modestly unnamed) who sent me a reminder of the recently released U.S. trailer for Guillermo Arriaga’s “The Burning Plain,” a film that has endured a wildly uneven buzz trajectory since debuting at Venice nearly a year ago.

    Hailed out the gate as a strong 2008 Oscar vehicle for Charlize Theron, despite mixed notices for the film itself, it then dropped from view entirely, languishing in distributor-less purgatory for months on end. Its UK release came and went in March with zero fanfare and tepid reviews, and its U.S. prospects looked little better.

    I offered some thoughts on the film then, deeming it worthy as performance showcase (young Jennifer Lawrence, in particular, is a revelation) but dramatically thin and structurally obvious as storytelling.

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  • Action versus politics

    The Hurt LockerAnticipating a fresh batch of “Hurt Locker” press ahead of the film’s UK release later this month, The Times’s Kevin Maher takes an angle on the film that I’m surprised hasn’t been more of a media issue so far: the fine line the film walks between conscientious political filmmaking and gung-ho entertainment.

    One of the things I admire about Kathryn Bigelow’s film is its forthrightness in depicting the visceral thrill of warfare: it’s a courageous approach to take in a cinematic landscape where heavily weighted anti-war statements are de rigueur.

    “The Hurt Locker” paints its own unflattering portrait of U.S. military involvement, of course, but it remains resolutely an action film first — one more interested in capturing the physical sensation of combat than miring itself in rhetoric.

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  • ‘The Cove’ represents a real opportunity for AMPAS

    The CoveAfter week after week of missed opportunities to see Louie Psihoyos’s harrowing documentary “The Cove,” I finally got around to it last night at the Arclight (one of only two theaters currently showing the film in Los Angeles). I was absolutely floored. Devastated, rocked, affected — it’s the reason films are made.

    I won’t get into a proper review now since the film is in release and plenty of opinion pieces have already landed, but I haven’t felt so galvanized by a cinematic experience in a long time. And as opposed to last year’s “Dear Zachary,” which was equally effective but left the viewer with an inevitable feeling of helplessness, “The Cove” has me wanting to empty my wallet, quit my petty job, detach myself from all amenities and actually DO something.

    It got me thinking, too. This month’s Oscar update obviously places a bet on Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” to benefit from the expanded Best Picture category. But I think the Academy has a real opportunity to move the needle on a serious issue by shining its spotlight on Psihoyos’s film.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Whittling further as convention flees

    Max Records in Where the Wild Things AreAnother month, another step closer to the awards season.  As the summer winds down and the industry slowly begins to square itself with the off-season’s bombshell Oscar news, the picture becomes a little clearer.  Kind of.

    Universal Pictures, in a move speculated upon endlessly by now, shuffled two of its contenders — Paul Greengrass’s “Green Zone” and Joe Johnston’s “The Wolf Man” — off to 2010.  As Anne Thompson shrewdly noted in a recent item, the decision likely has everything to do with a numbers game.  The studio has experienced a rocky two quarters this year and things aren’t necessarily looking up.  Some think, in the case of “The Wolf Man,” the shift was made to avoid another box office misfire in 2009 (as by now, with push after push, the film is beginning to smell fishy).  Others say the “Green Zone” shift had a lot to do with “The Hurt Locker”‘s release pattern.

    Whatever the case, the evacuations change the Oscar landscape ever so slightly, giving us just a few more talking points in the vacuum of August before we have anything of value worth discussing when the fall festival season hits in less than a month’s time.

    Universal is now left with two critically divisive, commercially dubious titles in Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” and Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” to hawk for awards consideration, effectively (if you’re asking me, though I realize no one is) taking the studio out of the game this year — or, at the very least, making the hill steeper.

    But taking note of the studio awards landscape, it doesn’t seem to me that anyone else is on surer ground.  As I look out at the many contenders and the campaigns being prepared for them, it appears the entire industry will be dealing with unconventional approaches and product to go along with the new changes in the Best Picture category (and all the headache that comes with them) this season.

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  • ‘Avatar’ poster

    Avatar

    (Courtesy: Latino Review)

  • Why Richard Corliss stinks for thinking Netflix stinks

    NetflixThis Richard Corliss column over at Time, titled “Why Netflix Stinks,” is so wrong-headed and off the mark that I find myself scratching my head, wondering whether there was some AOL/Time Warner mandate to offer up a sniping and skewed account, but it’s not like there is any real competition between the conglomerate and Amazon.com (which could own Netflix in the near future), so I’m basically left thinking Corliss is just stuck in an ancient time he’s unwilling to relinquish.

    To begin with, “real well-stocked video stores” are a relic of a forgotten time.  Corliss betrays a disconnected sense of reality with an anecdote about a lower Manhattan store with 55,000 titles, failing to realize the chain locations the people between the coasts have to deal with.

    Have you been to a Blockbuster Video lately?  An overall disdain for the medium seems to permeate, generally owing to an apparent bottom-of-the-barrel standard for hiring, entry-level positions for those finally moving into the private sector.  And the catalogs are maddening, consumer theory writ large: 50 or 60 copies of “12 Rounds,” but don’t figure on finding “City Lights” buried somewhere.

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  • Roger Ebert on list-making and The Spectator’s latest

    Roger EbertIt seems The Spectator has conducted a greatest films poll, available online here.  Roger Ebert used the opportunity to offer up some thoughts on list-making in general and one of his favorites (the only one in which he participates), the Sight & Sound poll in particular:

    All lists of the “greatest” movies are propaganda. They have no deeper significance. It is useless to debate them. Even more useless to quarrel with their ordering of titles: Why is this film #11 and that one only #31? The most interesting lists are those by one person: What are Scorsese’s favorites, or Herzog’s? The least interesting are those by large-scale voting, for example by IMDb or movie magazines. The most respected poll, the only one I participate in, is the vote taken every 10 years by Sight & Sound, the British film magazine, which asks a large number of filmmakers, writers, critics, scholars, archivists and film festival directors.

    That one at least has taken on a canonical aspect. The list evolves slowly. Keaton rises, Chaplin falls. It is eventually decided that “Vertigo” is Hitchcock’s finest film. Ozu cracks the top ten. Every ten years the net is thrown out again. The Sight & Sound list at least reflects widespread thinking in what could be called the film establishment, and reflects awareness of the full span of more than a century of cinema.

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  • 8/3 Web Round-up

    Steven Miessner• Steven Miessner, the Academy’s white-gloved “keeper of the Oscars,” dead at 48. [USA Today]

    • Steve Weintraub talks “The Princess and the Frog” with directors Ron Clements and John Musker (at Comic-Con). [Collider]

    • The unmade films of Stanley Kubrick, including “Foucault’s Pendulum,” “Napoleon” and “Perfume.” [Empire]

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