The Brothers Solomon has the creepiest poster of the year. I’m not one of those guys who can’t take the sight of a gloriously pregnant woman. Usually it is, indeed, glorious. Especially when the kid ain’t mine. But the belly on display here is just so…big. It’s almost like it holds the combined manpower of … Continue reading
One of the films I most wanted to see at Toronto last year was Fido. It’s the story of a zombie-infested town that has been ‘saved’ by ZomCon, a company that specializes in zombie control. The sleepy burg (which is als o appraently stuck in the ’50s) now has zombie mailmen, housekeepers and, when little … Continue reading
You know how to get me excited about the synthesis of games and film? John Lassiter needs to get on stage at ShoWest and announce that Pixar is developing a film based on Will Wright’s Spore. I would probably lose it, if only for a minute. Until this morning, I thought that one other name … Continue reading
The very concept of a film trilogy engenders certain expectations. When a studio stretches a tale over six hours or more, we hope for a certain fluidity from one chapter to the next, for plotting, action and character arcs that are consistent both within each film and across the entire span. Few series ever truly … Continue reading
I don’t cry a whole lot. I’m part of that generation of men raised by women, yeah, but when the salty liquid flows it generally isn’t from my eyes. Even so, I get a little bit teary every time I think about the percentage of early films that are simply gone. Nitrate stock: bad idea. … Continue reading
It says a lot about where genre properties have gone, commercially, that a video clip of Frank Miller talking about his upcoming film version of The Spirit is prominently displayed on the Hollywood Reporter‘s Cannes coverage page. There’s not a whole lot in the interview that die-hards don’t know — Eisner invented comics, great influence, … Continue reading
As I watch the first real trailer for The Golden Compass, I know two things for certain. One, that Sam Eliott is going to win me over as the balloon enthusiast Lee Scorseby. And two, that Daniel Craig has a fifty percent chance of gaining my trust, despite the massive simplification and deviation from the … Continue reading
What I think it’ll take for me to enjoy a new Jack Black movie: A small budget. A concept that doesn’t take a dictionary and a stack of Tijuana Bibles to explain. Pants. Which is a roundabout way of saying, of course, that Nacho Libre was terrible and that anything that looks remotely like it … Continue reading
If you haven’t seen James Ellroy: Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction, try to do so. It’s one of those flawed but fascinating documentaries that capures a subject in spite of itself. In this case, the subject is obviously Ellroy, as he talks about his history and crime writing influences, primary among them the murder … Continue reading
We should have all seen this coming. For years, books have been optioned before they ever hit shelves. Hannibal: Vegan? Not even left Harris’ pen yet, and it’s already a movie. I bought a copy in Chinatown over the weekend. But now we’ve moved into the new age, where other forms of media become film … Continue reading