We have a few copies of the ‘Notorious’ 3 disc special edition to giveaway. If you havent read my DVD review yet, check it out here.
If you are interested in winning a copy of this DVD, you need to leave us a comment below. In the comment please let us know what you thought of the film, and who gives the best performance in the movie.
This movie didnt appeal to me at all even though I was a big fan of Notorious BIG, but after watching it my tune has definitely changed. Although this biopic doesnt play on the negative and the positive of the situation with the east coast/west coast issue, you do get a good feel of pretty much how things were going on at least 1 side of it. It paints a picture of Biggie being just an innocent bystander in the whole situation and we all know that cannot be true.
The roles in the movie were cast perfectly as everyone gave fantastic performances in their roles. Jamal Woolard plays Biggie so flawlessly you almost feel like the entire movie was made with Mr Wallace portraying himself. Also Naturi Naughton from the group 3LW does an amazing job as Lil Kim in the film, look for it to launch a rap career for the one time R&B singer.
My only gripe outside of the oneside nature from this film are the casting choices for Sean Combs(P. Diddy) and Tupac. Now, I dont know if they purposely cast someone in the role of Tupac that didnt look like him, have the same swagger and just comes off as cheesy but Anthony Mackie definitely did not pull off the role. Also although Derek Luke somewhat looks like Mr Combs, I just see him as a lot of other characters and didnt buy him as the hip hop mogul. They would have been better off casting someone less known or recognizable.
Overall this is a great biopic with a story that is gripping and inspiring. I will definitely watch it again, and you should go out and pick this one up.
I snagged the 3 disc special edition which contains a digital copy of the movie as well as the directors cut of the film. The 2nd disc has some great bonus features like the Making of featurette, some never before seen BIG performances, deleted scenes and a really cool feature about the lyrics of Notorious BIG. Definitely snag the 3 disc if you go out and buy this one.
I got a chance to see ‘The Informers’ at Sundance, so I am going to rerun my review from that since the movie is now in theaters, enjoy:
We should have known, we should have known. The moment that publicists start sending out emails asking you to not review a movie you are seeing at a film festival you know something is up. I disregarded it because of who is in this movie, and what is based off of. Yet again I was wrong on this one and hate having to admit that.
When I heard that this movie was based in 1983 (Same year I was born) and about LA it immediately grabbed my attention. Then I saw that Mickey Rourke, Amber Heard, Billy Bob Thorton, Jon Foster and Kim Basinger were all attached I said this one would be a big hit at Sundance.
The movie is based off a book of short stories that are linked somehow by Bret Easton Ellis and that really comes across in the movie. Towards the end you start to see the link, but most of the links are very small and really don’t matter. The story is paper thin and the only redeeming quality was the fact that Amber Heard was naked 90% of the film..and lets face it, that’s hot especially for a movie geek.
Mickey Rourke’s part of the story is so small his screen time accounts for about 0.5% of the movie, and they completely cut out the parts of his plot line that made his character badass in the first place.
If this movie gets picked up it will surprise the hell out of me, and if its playing at a theater near you, write it off because its not worth it. All of the Amber Heard nude pictures will be online before long so save yourself a few bucks and download the pictures..
This Saturday, the 26th at The Tivoli there is a special screening of ‘Anvil: The Story of Anvil’ followed up by a q&a after the 7 and 9 screenings. I will be moderating both q&a’s so make sure you come out and see me make a fool of myself.
Also, as a special surpise Anvil will perform after the 9pm screening, so your ticket to see this freaking awesome movie will get you the movie, a Q&A moderated by me, and a special performance from the band! If you dont come out to this I dont even know who you are.
Also lets not forget that Myself and AJ Meadows will be in attendance so you can meet us before our movie blows up so big that we have egos and never talk to you again.
I honestly thought this movie was going to sweep the Academy Awards last year before the release date got pushed, but now it is very obvious for the change. Its not that ‘The Soloist’ is bad, its that the story drags on for what seems like days, tries to hard to be that Oscar contender and eventually falls short.
Robert Downey Jr plays Steve Lopez, a very popular journalist who writes for the LA Times, has an ex wife as a boss, and is desperately trying to come up with ideas for new column pieces. Along the way he “stumbles” across a man named Nathaniel Ayers(Jamie Foxx) while he is playing a 2 stringed violin on the streets of LA. Though communicating with him is difficult, Steve unveils that he at one point was a Julliard student which instantly sets off a light bulb for his next story.
He makes some phone calls to find out if he really was a student of Julliard and after he receives confirmation decides that he is the perfect subject for multiple write ups. When he is contacting members of Nathaniel’s family he finds out that he doesn’t have any formal training on the violin, but instead played the cello. After his first piece an elderly woman decides to donate her cello to Nathaniel since she can no longer play it due to arthritis. This is the first point in the story that Lopez realizes Nathaniel is more than just a story, he is someone that desperately needs his help.
Going in to this movie I thought that Jamie Foxx would have at least a nomination for Best Actor in the bag, and Downey Jr would be rolling away with a Best Supporting nod. After impatiently sitting through an hour a 50 minutes of this movie I walked out saying “if these guys get the nods, the movies we have on tap the rest of the year are going to suck”. Robert Downey Jr’s performance was great just like he usually is, but Jamie Foxx was reaching and its very obvious through most of the movie. I would have much rather seen a full blown story about Steve Lopez writing for the LA Times and dealing with his Ex Wife as his boss than to ever get involve the story about Nathaniel Ayers. Some movies really pull on your heartstrings, and then some just try to pull on them, this one definitely tried too hard.
Variety just threw the hammer down about the Robert Rodriguez and Danny Trejo project starts shooting in June. The long awaited feature full length movie is about a Mexican ex-Federale who goes out for revenge after being double crossed.
Rodriguez is eyeing a June start date in Austin for “Machete,” a film that is financed and produced by Overnight Productions, with Danny Trejo starring as the title character.
The movie started out as a faux trailer attached to ‘Grindhouse’ in 2007 and so many people loved it they were originally going to do a direct to DVD version, then decided on a theatrical version. Well now we can get excited because we can anticipate a real, legit release date. However with any Robert Rodriguez news lately we can take it with a grain of salt because he was supposed to be doing ‘Barbarella’, and ‘Red Sonja’ but we have seen NOTHING from those since the announcements.
If you havent seen ‘The Wrestler’ then you arent informed sir and that upsets me. Mickey Rourke turned out the greatest performance of his career, and the best performance of last year in my opinion.
We have a couple copies of the just released DVD for you to win, and winning is easy. All you need to do is leave us a comment below and let us know your favorite Mickey Rourke role. How easy is that? If you arent one of the lucky winners you can still go out and buy a copy of this dvd because its in stores now!
If you have a girlfriend then you need to take her to see this. If you dont have a girlfriend, you might still have a yearning to see Jennifer Garner on the big screen or perhaps Matthew McConaughey either way we still like you.
We are giving a few lucky readers of ours the chance to see this here in St Louis on Monday April 27th. If you want to win then in the comments section tell us your favorite Jennifer Garner movie and we will pick at random the winners.
If you dont win you can see this movie when its opens in theaters everywhere on May 1st. For more info about the movie check out the official site: http://ghostsofgirlfriendspastmovie.com
While shooting ‘White Tiger: The Story of Rick and Roddy’ I have met another very talented young film maker in Matt Stuertz who created a mini series about a guy named Benjamin Merrymeadows. There are three parts, but here is the first one ‘Sucks and Swallows’:
Benjamin Merrymeadows Sucks & Swallows from Matt Stuertz on Vimeo.
Make sure you go and check out his other stuff, we will also be posting the rest coming very soon.
I got a chance to see ‘The Carter’ at Sundance and was pretty pleased with the film overall. A few days later I found out that it got pulled for some mysterious reason and wasnt being shown anymore. Apparently Lil Wayne was not happy with the 2nd cut of the film because it showed all of his gratituous drug/”cough syrup” use. From the details we have heard the first cut of the film was even worse.
Lil Wayne filed a lawsuit to stop the distribution of the film, but the judge denied it. We get this from AllHipHop.com:
A state court has refused to block the upcoming release of a new controversial documentary on Lil Wayne named The Carter.
Lil Wayne filed a lawsuit against QD3 Entertainment, claiming the company reneged on a deal that would have allowed him to have approval over the films final cut. The rapper reportedly took issue with certain scenes displaying his drug use in the documentary, which follows him all over the country and to Amsterdam.
According to the lawsuit, Lil Wayne’s manager reviewed The Carter in December and requested that the scenes in question be removed. A second cut also failed to live to his manager’s expectations in January and the scenes in question were still in the film when it premiered during the Sundance Film Festival a few weeks later, prompting the lawsuit.
Well, I can definitely see how he would be up in arms about how his addiction problems come across in the film, I would LOVE to see the first cut of it though. Check out my review of the film from Sundance here.
