Here is a short segment from a new film from Ridley Scott crew member Carl Erik Rinsch. He calls it Small and/or The Gift, and I can’t wait to see the feature version of this; it looks like it could be a monster!
In about a week or so, the new Steampunk Luc Besson movie gets released in France, Adele Blanc-Sec. The trailer looks killer, so if you want to see it (and I recommend you do so) visit Eurocorp YouTube and get ready for a great movie! Here is the English subtitle version…
This weeks offering, Afterlife, is a thriller on the edge of horror, but it does have a great cast in the form of Christina Ricci, Liam Neeson, and Justin Long. I am undecided if this will be worth time in a theater chair, but it may be a moot point since it is in limited release. There are two movies about the history of music coming out this week as well, also in limited release but well worth mentioning. Who Do You Love tells the story of Chess Records, who made records from people like Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Etta James, and Chuck Berry available to the public in the 40s and 50s, introducing America to the blues and leading to the birth of Rock and Roll. The other film is When You’re Strange, a documentary about the Doors narrated by Johnny Depp, and including footage never before seen.
Todd Miro has put together an absolutely brilliant article explaining quite a bit about how today’s movies ended up looking the way a lot of them do, and posted it at Into The Abyss. If you’re into making your own movies, particularly if you process them through a computer (and who doesn’t these days), there will be bonus material for you in this one.
I have been waiting quite a while for this one; the 800 pound gorilla in the movie theaters this weekend will be Clash of the Titans. A remake of the original 1981 Ray Harryhausen classic, the changes in technology between then and now promises good things for the movie going experience. I do have to say though that watching the Owl in the original on the big screen brought the kind of sense of wonder that is rare (and it also helped solidify an already strong life long addiction to robotics that I still haven’t outgrown).
In more limited release (NY and LA the first weekend, expanding out over the following several weeks) is the epic period piece The Warlords, in the tradition of Hero and the House of Flying Daggers. Staring Jet Li, it will be available on VOD (Video On Demand), Amazon, and X-Box Live on the 4th, so everyone will have access.
There are two new genre selections to choose from this weekend. The first is Hot Tub Time Machine, which looks to be silly fun requiring no mental straining at all. The main sense of Deja Vu generated in this one just might be that we have seen these jokes before. If you are more in the mood for animated fun, How To Train Your Dragon could be just the ticket. It is built by the same team who did Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, so expect more of the same great humor and animation quality.
And there is a third choice: Waking Sleeping Beauty. I don’t normally recommend documentaries, but this one tells a behind-the-scenes story about the rebirth of the Disney animation studios that received a lot of attention on the Film Fest circuit.