santa’s got a brand new bag.

Okay okay okay, for years people have been trying to scare the pants off of us with demonic Santas, serial killing St Nick’s and ghoulish red hatted old men. It hasn’t ever really worked, except for maybe a huge cultish laugh factor. This year, though, the new decade is issuing a new terror that is Santa Claus. Yes, good ‘ol St. Nick is about to go on a new adventure that just might make us wet ourselves. Check out this new movie, Rare Exports: a Christmas Tale by Finland native Jalmari Helander. So, basically the story goes something like this (or from what i could gather in the trailer/synopses that I can find out there in the ether): a scientist gathers a group of men to dig deep into a mountain in Finland to find something hidden there a long time ago. What they pull out is a frozen Santa Claus. Something is thrown in about a ransom and then some major shit goes down. There’s something hidden in Santa’s eyes that makes you realize he’s got some form of evil power. Yeah, sounds pretty awful doesn’t it? Wrong, the Finnish (i guess that’s how you say it?) can do it! Or, I at least hope they can. It reminds me a lot of the Swedish Dead Snow, about a group of college kids who stumble upon some Nazi Zombies in the mountains of eastern Europe. Well, that movie kicked fucken ass, so I think this new Christmas Thriller can be even better. It doesn’t look like it takes itself too seriously, but it also doesn’t look like you’ll be constantly in tears of laughter. You will be some, no doubt about it. There are apparently psycho elves too and disappearing children. Yikes.

I’m telling you, Santa looks terrifying. I hope my expectations aren’t too high, but this Christmas romp around the deathtrap looks like it could be the best Santa Thriller yet. Definitely will be a cult classic, that is absolutely certain. You can tell just by watching the short trailer that horror freaks like myself will be all over this little puppy. And, haha, it’s foreign. They know how to do their shit, right?

Anyway, check out this ridiculous film and enjoy the trailer below.

 

new 127 hours trailer.

this new trailer for the new danny boyle film, see “danny boyle sure knows pain”, has been around for a little while now. however, i just got my first glimpse and WOW. Whoever edited this thing sure knows how to get your hair raising. I’m extremely ecstatic for this one to come out in two days. It’ll be the first thing I see this friday and one that I am sure to not miss. Franco is being hailed out the wazoo for his performance and i can’t imagine we’ll be let down. I just had to let this one get out there immediately. I’ll let you know what i think on friday, no matter how sure I am that it will be one for the books.

 

the trailer can be found on apple.com/trailers. it’s the second, longer one. good choice of music too, very powerful.

coens go back to true grit

If you haven’t heard yet, the Coen Brothers are doing a remake of the film True Grit, the 1969 western that John Wayne won an academy award for. Well, the Coen Brothers wish to do justice to Rooster Cogburn and breath life back into the character with none other than their dude Jeff Bridges. I’ve been excited about this ever since I heard and here’s the new trailer. It looks very intense and extremely good. I can’t wait for Christmas now. Enjoy…

purity and innocence can never mask brutality and apathy.

Do you remember a couple of years back a little film called Funny Games? It starred Naomi Watts and Tim Roth and was quite gruesome. About a family who, when vacationing, we’re tortured and “played” with by a couple of psychotic young men? Is this ringing any bells? Well, its okay if it doesn’t because you didn’t miss anything by not seeing it. The film was pointless and truly lacked any kind of point (maybe it was a comment on the torture porn industry, but if that’s the case the film became what it was trying to argue). It was also too twisted to really sit through (“sit through” = “wasting an hour and a half of your life”). However, Funny Games was directed and written by german filmmaker Michael Haneke.

I hadn’t heard of Haneke until Funny Games (and really didn’t care to hear anything about him after sitting/sifting through that crock of shit), but when I heard tell of the movie The White Ribbon (Das Weiss Band – German Title), I became very intrigued. The film was getting rave reviews and from the looks of it, it looked very intense and beautiful. I waited and waited for it to come to my town and it skipped on its merry way, as most good films do when you live in the Bluegrass. And it wasn’t until months later (just last night) that I finally decided to put in my Netflix-rented copy of The White Ribbon.

Automatically, I was deeply intrigued. The film opened on a beautiful German landscape, stark black and white film and high grain added to the beauty and rustic feel the the scene. A man was riding horseback towards the camera and you could faintly here the sounds of a summer’s day. Then the voice of an older Gentleman cut in and it was so deep and calming and worn out that the stage was set entirely for what was to occur, which would prove itself to be an exhausting and harrowing journey into the depths of an old town set right after the turn of the century.

The storyline was about a series of mysterious tragic incidents that have occurred and how the townsfolk ultimately cope with the situation. However, it was the true pain and life that Haneke put into his characters and script that really gave it full bravado. At first, they almost seem like typical villagers and farmers who deal with the regular everyday stresses of the world they live in and the time they raise their children in. However, as the film progresses you see faint hints of evil lurking in the children. At one point, it may be something they say and at another it may just be the way they carry themselves and stare into the eyes of their elders.

In one of the opening scenes, the pastor ties a white ribbon around two of his children’s arms because they misbehaved and ran off into the night. He does this because the white represents purity and innocence and should stick there as a constant reminder to the young kids. Yet, this cannot mask the what seems to lurk beneath their thoughts and motives. And it is not only the children, but the adults who also show forms of brutality. There is a scene in which the town doctor tells his midwife (who he’s has been having a love affair with for many years, after his wife had passed) that he no longer wants her because she is “flabby, ugly and has bad breath” He tells her she disgusts him and asks her “why don’t you go die?”. This scene is almost painful to watch, but again Haneke executes it so flawlessly and beautifully that you’re mind and even soul are affected deeply.

I”ve also never seen such captivating cinematography in a film until this one. Every moment, every frame has something in it that is symbolic. Every image tells the story of the characters and what surrounds them. It’s like looking at an photo gallery of early 20th century village life. And this is what truly makes a film a piece of art. To look and listen and focus and see every moving gear that pushes the film deep into its depths. No matter how dark and how intense the storyline is, The White Ribbon is one of the finest and greatest pieces of filmmaking I have ever seen.

The most terrifying movie trailer.

So, I was browsing imdb like I do on a regular basis and I came across something very exciting. A couple of weeks ago I heard about Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Guillermo Del Toro’s (writing and producing, not directing) new project. I heard the rumor that it was getting an R-rating for “pervasive scariness”. Everyone was saying the film would not be extremely violent or have any profanity, but that it would be rated “R” just because it was supposed to be that absolutely frightening. Now, the new trailer (what I found on imdb) says the film is rated “R” due to “Violence and Terror”, however it could just easily be classified as pervasively scary. So, I watched the trailer. It was fucking scary. That is all I have to say, check it out down below.

(turn the volume way up and sit in the dark for this one)

Trailer

TRON

The new TRON: Legacy trailer just hit my eyes. This looks pretty wild, hopefully they don’t screw it up. Check it out:

Websites, please?

Some cool movie websites that are new to me:

Seattle International Film Festival – they do some really awesome stuff, if you live in Seattle.

American Film Institute – The lists are amazing to check out, but definitely look the whole site over, especially the catalogue.

TCM Film Festival – okay, so this may be the coolest film festival I’ve ever seen. Oh, how I wish I could go! I would give my left leg just to be a part of this amazing thing. So, just check it out and see what you think. AHH!

The Digital Bits – this site is reeeeealy awesome. It will help you decide if you were thinking about buying that new release of Saving Private Ryan on Blu-ray – which now I don’t want to. The Rumor mill is also cool as shit, and you can check out what might just be available soon!

Can We Handle This?

So, check this:

Everybody knows that Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club made for one of the best movies that turned into a cult phenomena. Also, turning the author himself into somewhat of a huge thing. And let me not sound hypocritical. The guy is one of my favorite writers, I think there is something about the way he writes that is just brilliant, however trite his storyline scheme has become. I take a lot of inspiration from him. And because Tyler Durden was a bigger hit than anyone could have imagined, Palahniuk is a good target for adaptations. Sounds pretty okay, right? Maybe. Clark Gregg sure learned his lesson with his box office failure Choke – a film version of the CP story. Even with a cast including Sam Rockwell and Angelica Huston, it still shattered its own self. But did it ever have potential? Sure, his novels are great to pick up and read and extremely appealing. Yet, they’re nowhere near the reality of anything. Nothing that happens in Palahniuk’s universe could occur in the real world. David Fincher knew that. Clark Gregg … not so much. He tried to make it something it wasn’t, a true story when most of CP’s stuff is fantasy. It is a parallel universe that takes the real world and makes it more absurd, so that Chuck can sit back and bash society and the consumer culture (which he does with such eloquence :)).

Of course, I didn’t come on here to bash Choke “The most disappointing movie I’ve seen in a while”. No, I am writing this because after years and years of trying to adapt certain CP novels (Survivor, Invisible Monsters) that will probably never happen, someone is finally going to step up and be bold. Koen Mortier (Ex-Drummer – which has some cult following of its own) is making Haunted, probably the most intense and horrifying of his novels – it also includes the most disgusting story I’ve ever read (“Guts” AKA The pool Scene). Now, if Mortier can get past Gregg’s mistake and take a word of advice from Fincher, this could be chilling. And not only could it be chilling, but it could make whole audiences leave due to some of the content in the story – that’s if Mortier is true and Saw hasn’t fried everybody’s brains already. Can we handle this, though? What kind of liberties might need to be made in order to make this whole thing suitable for worldwide viewing? Because the way I look at it, you’re going to have to dull it down a lot. Hopefully this will work, because there’s no one more excited than me to see yet another Palahniuk movie. So, let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope this Mortier guy makes us feel uncomfortable, just like Chuck is able to do.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0607831/

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/movies/haunted

Some More Woody Allen

Some Woody Allen

The The Front post below encouraged me to post a couple of great Woody Allen clips. Enjoy.