You can find this on Madagascar and Bolt prints, or head over to Apple to watch in glorious Quicktime!
Up is Pixar’s latest, and their 10th feature length release, which means, you should already be in line!
Like all Pixar films, I am sure this will be great.
Just passing along more greatness, hopefully each character gets one of these.
117 days to go!
See you 03.06.09!
So a blockbuster teaming of the ages, Spielberg and Will Smith, on a remake of one of the best films of this decade, ‘Oldboy’, and it leaves some wondering, is this the right fit? Well, I think it can be, but this thing needs to be a hard R, pull no punches, and be just as twisted as the original Korean film was.Â
Variety breaks the story, Harry Knowles chimes in at aintitcool, and I agree with his sentiments, though I am a bit more hopeful then he is. Spielberg can do grim and unsettling if he wants too, i.e. ‘Munich’ and ‘Schindler’s List’, Smith hasn’t really gone all the way to the dark side ever, though; though he has surely dabbled in dark material. Either way, it’s a great star, a great director, and a great potential budget to take this amazing story and try to top it in any way it can, i.e. lets see an even more amazing hallway fight scene!
‘Oldboy’ follows a man who has been imprisoned for 15 years, only to be released and set with the mission to find his persecutor in 3 days; to seek out and claim revenge.
Go rent the original while you wait for The Bearded One’s version.
Only Four Months To Go!!! This one focuses on the ladies of the movie!
Rookies is the first episode in The Clone Wars to be almost exclusively focused on the clones without any Jedi help or support, and the results are very good.
The episode unfolds on a tracking station that protects the space route to Kamino, which is the birth place and factory of the clone army of the Republic. The group of troopers manning the track station are fairly “green” and are bored with their post and want to be out on the fighting front; little do they know that it is about to come to them. Commander Cody and Captain Rex, two of the main clone fighters in the Star Wars universe, on currently in route as well to inspect the station as well, since it needs to be in top form due to its great importance.
When a routine meteor shower falls on the planet, with it comes a surprise in a droid drop pods housing droid commando’s a cool and new droid fighter to the SW universe. The droid commando’s overtake the base and claim a couple of the Clones lives before the remaining were able to escape through the ventilation systems. With the base under their control, the droids can keep the all clear signal to the Republic fleet while Grievous and his fleet attempt to sneak through the system and attack the droid factories on Kamino. Cody and Rex arrive shortly after the commandos have over taken the base and the fight to re-take the base begins.
The episode takes on plenty of action and kind of silly hi-jinks from here, but the biggest standout of the episode is the portrayal of death and battle among these men. This is the first episode since the Clone Wars movie to really get back to the brutality of that piece. There is no mercy with these clones being killed and with the added character interacting that we see and experience they aren’t just faceless sheep for the slaughter. I am not saying I frown upon this though, as it brings stakes to the proceedings, and it brings some emotional gravitas to show and that is very good.
The animation in this episode also seemed to really stand out and had some fantastic work in it, and I just wanted to send snaps to everyone involved as this episode really stood out.
Overall, Rookies, is another solid entry into The Clone Wars and is further cementing this film as the real deal for some time to come. This is a good first step for the Jedi less episodes as well, but I think we need to focus on a squad that gets lost in battle at some point to really hit the best story you can with the clones. If they even killed off the entire squad, it would make a hell of episode, but for now, there is already plenty of death and loss for these clones. Check this one out online, and I can’t wait to see what they do with an R2 centric episode tonight.
This is the third entry into the Evening with Kevin Smith entry, and while it is filled with some funny stories, I can’t help but say it feels a bit light compared to the rest of releases in this series.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of laughs to be had here, and some of them are pretty damn good, but there isn’t a variety and wealth of stories that have been in previous releases. To be quite honest, there are about 4 major stories that take up most of the time on the discs with only a couple other stories sprinkled throughout. Instead, they threw a lot of tidbits in the special features sections broken up by story and all of them are worthy of being included as the main piece.
As to give you a little taste of the stories, his Dogs get about a 1/4 of the proceedings, and there are plenty of fun antidotes, but those looking for celebrity dirt will be disappointed. Though, you will get some graphic dog vaginal humor (and dog poop humor on the extra features). The next big piece is Mewes’s experiences on the Clerks II set and is very funny throughout as are most Mewes stories, with another nice little companion piece in special features. Next is Kevin’s Die Hard story, which is probably my favorite bit from the main feature, with some great Bruce Willis tidbits, (again see more in special features). And he wraps it up with his Anal Fissure/Jury Duty ordeals.
All in all, with the special features, it is a great show and very funny, and with a little research, it seems nothing was really cut that much from the actual show, so what do I know. Compared to previous releases there are definitely less stories this time around, but the quality is still extremely high and any Kevin Smith fan will want to most definitely add this to their View Askew collections, and I assume you already own it anyways. Regardless, if you have never seen any of his shows in person or on DVD see just one, and you will be hooked for more in a heartbeat, just don’t skip over the special features!
Buy It Here!
‘Jersey Girl’, to many View Askew fans, is the red headed stepchild of Kevin Smith’s films, but not due to the content. Content wise, the material is far more tame, his only non-R rated film, but where this viewer thinks that the material is on par with the rest of his work, most View Askew fans hold this movie as a piece of shit, and Kevin Smith seems to embrace that idea himself, to a certain extent, by constantly poking fun at it ever since its release to much delight of his following. And to be quite honest, I don’t get it.
Well, that is a stretch, I do get it, people aren’t spouting the word fuck every other sentence and a lot of the Kevin Smith crowd sadly comes across as people who need that to enjoy a movie, which is fine, but we shouldn’t let that discrimination of a great product like ‘Jersey Girl’ sully what is actually a very affective and funny family comedy.
Ollie (Ben Affleck) is a PR rep in the early 90’s and is on the fast track for success. His wife Gertrude (Jenifer Lopez) and him are incredibly happy and are wondrously looking towards their future family with the expecting of their first child, Gertie (Raquel Castro) but Ollie’s world is shattered with this loss of his wife during child birth. Struggling to keep up with work and his child, Ollie turns to his dad Bart (George Carlin) to take care of most of the duties of the baby. Well, Bart puts the weight back on Ollie, telling him he needs to be her father, and unfortunate circumstances of having his baby at the Fresh Prince’s record release conference cause him to fall from grace in the PR world and forced to work public service, moving in with his father back in Jersey and out of NYC.
Ollie raises Gertie, being a loving father and forming an incredible bond with her, never dating since the loss of his wife, when Maya (Liv Tyler) enters his life and shakes things up for the first time in Gertie’s life.
Now, if you read this short synopsis of the film, you would never think it is a Kevin Smith film, but the film really is a Smith film at heart. Sure it surrounds a kid and her dad, but there are plenty of taboos and sexuality explored here. He has a couple stellar cameos, there are plenty of pop culture references, and there is a real heart to this film about the bond between two people that is a part of every Kevin Smith film ever released. If you think the stuff in this film is too sweet, you must have not grasped a lot of the filmmaker’s films in the past to their full effect. Whether it is the bond between friends or lovers, Smith is great at showing a real bond between to people that care about each other, and the sentiment he is able to bring to his films is really one of the most capturing things about his work. There are plenty of people that can create crude and funny jokes, but Smith’s ability to give it heart and build characters and connections that we care about is why we re-visit his films so much and not some of that other stuff that slowly fades out of focus. And this film holds true to that formula, Smith created a pretty edgy and boundary pushing family film here, with a great set of relationships and characters for us to connect to it.
Which brings me to the point I mentioned early, in that I can’t stand that this film is the butt of so many jokes. If this film was released today, it would be to much warmer and larger reception. It was released in a time when Ben Affleck was loathed by critics, and anything that he and J-Lo did together was painted a disaster before anyone saw a frame of the picture. ‘Gigli’ ruined this film before it had a chance to shine, and Smith was put in a very tough position. Pre-release and pre-Jo-Lo/Affleck backlash, Smith spoke profusely positive about this film. Said it was his most personal and proudest thing he has been a part of truly came across as it was his favorite film he had done to date. I even had the opportunity to ask him about his feelings on the film during an Evening With Kevin Smith session I attended, and he couldn’t have came across as more positive and sincere with his answer reflecting on the positive experience he took from making that film. After the fallout of Affleck and J-Lo in ‘Gigli’, Smith cut out a lot of their material, taking J-Lo’s part to a minimum and Smith’s original cut was long gone. He has since screened the original cut of the film to much praise, and many people prefer and enjoy this cut for sure. Personally, as some one who enjoys this film, I can’t wait till he releases it on DVD and see his true vision of this film that he and Affleck were both very vocally proud of before it became the butt of many jokes in the view askew world.
‘Jersey Girl’ is a great and different kind of family film that feels very real and avoids much of the sap, while giving us some great characters with amazing connections and relationships with one another that we can really get behind. So if you never gave this film a chance, I think you should reconsider, and if you still can only get off on dick and fart jokes, well ‘Zack and Miri’ has plenty of those for you. ‘Jersey Girl’ is full of laughs and heart and while Smith is one of the best at crude humor, as ‘Zack and Miri’ continues to show, he shows that he can be more than that with this film and remains a vastly underappreciated work from his catalog.
Jonathan Demme’s latest is a wonderful look at the reunion and attempted mending of semi-dysfunctional family that harbors lots of hidden grief and angst, and is overbear one another with their coping of a tragedy.
Kym (Anne Hathaway) sits on a bench, awaiting her pick up from rehab, so she can go to the festivities leading up to and finally attend her sister Rachel’s (Rosemarie DeWitt) wedding at the family home. Before Kym leaves we find out she killed someone with her car, which is probably a reason for being in rehabilitation, when she is “rescued” by her father, Paul (Bill Irwin), who is happy to see his daughter, but is almost immediately overbearing her, trying to care of her a bit too much. They arrive to the house with Kym’s step-mom Carol warning her in the car that it might be a bit crazy and crowded around the house while things are being set up and arranged. Luckily, only Rachel and her friend Emma are staying at the house, where Kym hopes to be able to get away from judgmental eyes once everyone is gone.
First things first though, Rachel and Kym have a sweet reunion, incredibly happy to see one another, before Kym heads off to her 12 Steps meeting and is left to ride a bike after her father refuses to let her drive. At the meeting she storms in on a green shirted man telling his story and giving hope to those in the room to keep going strong through his personal struggle. Upon returning to the house, Kym meets Rachel’s fiancà © Sidney and his Best Man, Kieran (Mather Zickel), who happens to be the green shirted man from 12 Steps, after a “bonding” moment between Kym and Kieran, she discovers that she is not the Maid of Honor to her sister, and the wheels slowly being to rattle off.
It’s International and has a lot more footage, it makes me so sad we don’t get to see this in less than a month anymore, grrr!!!!
Check it out here, at Trailer Addict
Enjoy, and can’t wait ’till next summer.
1994 brought us many, many, many, great movies, Forest Gump, Quiz Show, True Lies, Bullets Over Broadway, Ed Wood, Star Gate, Wyatt Earp, Hoop Dreams, Killing Zoe, The Hudsucker Proxy, Là ©on, The Lion King, Natural Born Killers, Speed, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, and Street Fighter…wait? I mean, look at that list, and when it comes to comedy, ’94 was the year of Jim Carrey. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Dumb and Dumber, and The Mask all came out in the same calendar year, if you wanted comedy, you wanted Jim Carrey. Well who would have thought the funniest film of the year and one of the most memorable out of all those classics to be released would be a self funded title made for $25,757 called Clerks.
Kevin Smith’s feature debut was filmed over the course of 21 days in the after hours of a Jersey Quick Stop that he worked in during the day. The plot was simple, followed the exploits of two friends for one day at the shop when a whole lot of shit goes down when the lead Dante wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. Dante’s partner in crime is Randall, a crude talking employee of the video shop next door that spends most of his time in the fore mentioned Quick Shop shooting the shit with his friend Dante. Conversation ranges from relationships, blasting the local patrons, pornography, Star Wars and everything in-between.
Dante was supposed to have the day off, but gets strung in on the promise that he will only have to hold down the shop for half the day. The women in Dante’s life guaranteed that his day will only get worse. A dead ex-girlfriend, an engaged ex-girlfriend, and an orally fixated current girlfriend all make the fact that Dante is stuck at work on this day of all days even worse. Add in Randall’s ‘wise‘ advice on all wakes of life, both real and factious, and Dante is bound to get into trouble much sooner rather than later. If you have seen Clerks you are already smirking with memories, but if for some reason you haven’t seen this great piece of cinema I will spoil no more because you have no idea what you are missing.
Sure it is black and white, sure there is no action, sure there are no stars, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give this honest and unashamed look at society, pop culture, and relationships a chance. The actors that are here are all pretty great actually. Dante is played by Brian O’Halloran, who was a local actor who tried out for the part and was able to create very real and believable guy, who is smarter then his lot in life, but is content with keeping life in cruise control. His banter with Randal is pitch perfect and astonishing that it works so well with so few takes taken by Smith of each scene. Speaking of Randal, he is played by Jeff Anderson, and steals every scene he is in. This happens to be so because Smith wrote the part for himself and gave himself all the best lines, but he eventually decided it would be too much work to both star, direct, and do everything else, so Anderson was given the part. And to be quite honest, I can’t see anyone else in the part now anyways, as Anderson just nails it and owns the character now. Anderson perfectly creates a character that is a great friend and someone you would love to hang out with, but also is one of those people that you know is just a real asshole to other people, but you let it slide because you like him so much. His smug demeanor and I don’t give a shit attitude works so well, it’s a shame he hasn’t got to do much more acting since this film. On the female side of things, the main star her Marilyn Ghigliotti as Veronica and she does a fine job, naturally bouncing off both O’Halloran and Anderson, while keeping us respecting here even with that magic number, 37. Lisa Spoonhauer shows up in the later part of the film as Catlin, and does a nice job as well at immediately creating chemistry with Dante, which sells us how Dante acts once she is back around. Rounding out the cast is Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith as Jay and Silent Bob, and while they have no lines really, they provide plenty of good laughs throughout, but Clerks best serves as a testament to how far Mewes has come as an actor. Watching him in Dogma or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, after seeing him work through that monologue towards the end, it is amazing to see how far he has come as an actor.
Now, I must digress a bit, but if you are a fan of Clerks, then there is one last piece of film you need to see about this film to fully appreciate what an amazing achievement it is. The Snowball Effect is a documentary retrospective on the Clerks X DVD that is essential viewing for anyone that is a fan of this film, the filmmaking process, or is an aspiring filmmaker. This documentary takes you back to Jersey, with Smith as your guide, and he takes you back through where he came from and what it took for him to get this picture made. It really is an amazing achievement to see what he did and how he did it and The Snowball Effect is one of the best DVD features I have ever seen; please find a way to see it.
So what Smith created here was a true indie film that has had mass appeal to audiences over the year while showing that, if you really want to strive to do something with yourself you can. Smith has gone from some 20 something that ran up some credit cards to make his first film, to a multi-millionaire with legions of fans following him and everything he does. Smith has transcended becoming just a filmmaker and has become a sort of Geek diplomat, getting his hands into a lot of different baskets constantly “whoring himself out” as he would put it, when he is truly just taking full advantage to his access to the entertainment world due the substantial impact he can have on the influence of a large community of filmgoers. And to think, it all started with a twenty-five thousand dollar, black and white filmed comedy that many considered just a bunch of dick and fart jokes.
