All Access Rockumentary Clips Coming Soon!
Posted on Nov 16, 2009 @ 03:33PM - Add a comment
This past summer, Virgin Mobile and Kyocera partnered up on a homeless charity event called All Access, where young filmmakers between the ages of 16 and 22 were given a peek behind the curtain at the star-studded Virgin Mobile FreeFest.
The contestants were awarded a chance to film rockumentaries with world famous acts such as Public Enemy, Weezer, Franz Ferdinand, Taking Back Sunday and Blink 182, among others.
“It is important to support opportunities like Kyocera's All Access that empower young people,” Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav told RadarOnline.com. “The youth of the nation are talented and bring unique voices and unique perspectives. This project will help America recognize that."
Now, a series of six previews, culled from the filmmakers' footage, will be aired every Tuesday evening each week through Dec. 14 on the Independent Film Channel, as well as billboard.com and heavy.com.
“The 14 filmmakers who created All Access were chosen from thousands of applicants because of their passion and artistic vision, both of which shine through in this documentary,” Kyocera's Tom Maguire told RadarOnline.com. “We’re grateful that IFC is supporting these young artists by bringing their work to millions of people, and proud that the film’s first full-length screening will be to benefit homeless youth.”
The film’s first full-length screening is slated for Nov. 18 in Washington, D.C. at the George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium, to benefit Sasha Bruce House, a non-profit homeless shelter in the area.
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Movie Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox
Posted on Nov 13, 2009 @ 11:24AM - Add a comment
Balloon Boy dad Richard Heene pleaded guilty in a Colorado courtroom Friday morning to a felony charge of attempting to influence a public servant, while his wife Mayumi pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense of false reporting to authorities, in connection with their well-publicized balloon hoax last month.
Movie Review: Pirate Radio
Posted on Nov 13, 2009 @ 07:37AM - Add a comment
Sarah Palin takes shots at journalist Katie Couric and her ex-running mate, Sen. John McCain -- but leaves the kid gloves on for Levi Johnston -- in a taped interview with Oprah Winfrey slated to air next week.
While the former governor of Alaska has publicly traded barbs with Johnston for the better part of 2009, Palin undoubtedly shocked many, when she told Winfrey that Johnston "is a part of the family, and you want to bring him in the fold and kind of under your wing.”
Movie Review: This Is It
Posted on Oct 28, 2009 @ 12:55PM - Add a comment
Behind his fame, behind his music and, most of all, behind his death: Who was Michael Jackson, really? This Is It, a new film assembled with rehearsal footage from what would have been Jackson’s eponymous, final world tour, doesn’t answer much about the man behind the icon. Instead, the film unfolds more like a feature-length concert movie -- arranged around the artist’s biggest songs and punctuated with wink-wink moments -- than a revealing documentary.
Movie Review: Amelia
Posted on Oct 23, 2009 @ 02:12PM - Add a comment
Among Hollywood actresses of a certain echelon, there’s a lot of unscientifically quantified grumbling about the dearth of quality roles. It’s too bad then, that when one of the biggest recent opportunities for cinematic grrl-power arrives, it’s marred by flat storytelling, stilted writing and an overwrought score that drowns out whatever subtlety was left.
Amelia is the much-anticipated biopic of Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank), who disappeared in 1937 during her attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world. For those of us with just a vague notion of who she was and what her life was like, the film fills in some basic details and fleshes out the contours of her experience, both in the air -- where she explored exquisite landscapes from Africa to Ireland -- and on the ground, where she married publishing mogul George Putnam (Richard Gere) and had a romance with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). Amelia is also committed to reinforcing Earhart’s legacy as a true feminist in every facet of her life -- from insisting on removing the word “obey” from her marriage vows, to reminding us that (in case we missed it) she refuses the shackles of convention.
The film lovingly incorporates what are ostensibly Earhart’s actual letters and diary entries, but the effect is distracting. We see Swank’s Amelia looking out of airplane windows over sun-scorched savannas, waxing poetic about savoring her freedom and clouds that look like resting cats. Later, she pontificates to a young Gore Vidal (William Cuddy) about lush jungles and facing your fears, while assuring him that it’s OK that she won’t marry his daddy, because -- obvs! -- you can’t be married to two men at once.
It’s possible that there wasn’t actually any nuance to Earhart’s life: that she was the simple, midwest tomboy she claimed to be, with no emotional stumbles during her swift ascent into public life or residual regrets about her high-speed endorsement train for products she didn’t use. Despite these dubious points, Swank embodies Earhart as a strong-willed, straightforward woman who’s uncomplicated and self-assured, gracefully swapping flight suits for luscious satin gowns and cockpits for cocktail hour. Yet even compelling visuals and competent acting can’t bring Amelia any closer than arm’s length, particularly amid cloying proclamations and heavy-handed exposition.
Unfolding with sumptuous aesthetics and honey-dipped cinematography -- the most awesome of which include outdoor scenes on rugged coastlines and exotic terrain -- Amelia chugs along in fits and starts, accelerating here and stalling there, but never quite taking flight. The film lands in theaters this week with the promising tag-line, “Defying The Impossible. Living The Dream,” but for all its ambition and grandiosity, it could use more emotional substance, and less self-awareness.
Movie Review: Law Abiding Citizen
Posted on Oct 16, 2009 @ 11:12AM - Add a comment
It wasn’t so long ago that Gerard Butler was catapulted into the Hollywood limelight, hot on the heels of his performance and pectoral development in the epic battle flick, 300. A couple of years and a few films later, he plays another calculating character waging a brutal war. This time, the terrain is modern-day Philadelphia, and he isn’t fighting so much for physical territory as for the revamping of the justice system -- one murder at a time.
In Law Abiding Citizen, Butler plays the loving Clyde Shelton, whose wife and young daughter are brutally murdered in a home break-in. Jamie Foxx plays Nick Rice, the ambitious district attorney who Clyde hires in the aftermath. Nick, we learn, is intent on maintaining his rock star conviction rate, and might just have a chip on his shoulder about going to Fordham night school instead of Harvard. It’s no surprise, then, when he bargains with one of the murderers while the other one heads to death row.
And that’s where Nick Rice goes fatally wrong. Ten years later, the bargain-boy bad-guy is out of jail and Clyde is mad as hell. Butler captures seething anger (with a tinge of derangement) as his character employs a range of tools to exact his revenge. A chain saw, explosives, technical expertise and general mental superiority are a few of his favorites that soon turn Phillie into a terror zone. The catch? Clyde’s in jail, after trading Nick a confession for a new mattress in his cell. It seems like Nick might be ahead of the game -- until his next trade. This time it’s a murder tip for a steak lunch, which ends with a dead cellmate, a broken spork and a blood-spattered Clyde, who’s promptly sent to solitary confinement. (But not, obviously, before he finishes lunch.)
Despite Clyde’s double-doored lock-up, he’s somehow still orchestrating systematic murders of those who were involved in the baddie’s plea deal. Tension builds as Nick’s buddies begin to drop like flies, and the tete-a-tete is officially on. Unfortunately for Nick -- not to mention the audience -- he keeps missing the point. And until he understands that Clyde wants more than vengeance, the heads are rolling... or exploding. Foxx’s smooth-talking DA has become the figurehead for a failed system that Clyde thinks will change if he keeps the bombs dropping.
This larger point about justice -- and how to better achieve it as individuals and as a society -- is an admirable premise. But even that weighty agenda can’t prop up Citizen enough to justify the gratuitous violence, non-stop death fest and thin character development. A hint of backstory isn’t quite enough to explain Clyde’s brilliant-psycho schtick, while you’d think Nick’s philosophical evolution might keep pace with the colleague murder rate. So while Law Abiding Citizen tackles a topic not often spelled out, it’s fundamentally about guys blowing stuff up -- albeit with a little more planning and a tautness that, at the very least, ensures an action-packed few hours of entertainment.
Review: Paranormal Activity
Posted on Oct 10, 2009 @ 09:57AM - Add a comment
Ever noticed that creaking sound in the floors? Or a weird thumping in the wall? Or that the bedroom door is moving, ever so slightly? In Paranormal Activity, mundane household noises take on a terrifying quality, and create the relatable backbone of one of the year’s most unique films.
REVIEW: Couples Retreat
Posted on Oct 09, 2009 @ 08:31AM - Add a comment
If fixing relationships was as easy as flying to the tropics, facing adversity and washing it down with a yummy, fruity cocktail, couples could weather anything.
Sadly, real life isn’t anything like the intermittently comical, easy paradise of Couples Retreat. The adventures kick off when the uptight Cynthia (Kristen Bell) and Jason (Jason Bateman) admit that they’re on the brink of divorce, and convince three other couples to join them on a holiday to save their marriage. Only a group rate will allow them to go, so with some guilt-tripping and promises of jet-skis and sunshine, it’s off to “Eden” -- aka The Most Boring Place on Earth.
Watch Couples Retreat Movie Trailer
There, the couples are inexplicably forced to follow the island’s treatment program, which includes sunrise meetings with guru Marcel (Jean Reno), therapy sessions (the dress code evokes Star Trek, if Kirk and Uhura were sushi chefs) and wacky group exercises that involve everything from dropping trou to sexy-time yoga. Instead of fun in the sun, the vacation becomes a new-age Guantanamo where everyone’s problems bubble up, and all four couples -- including our doomed, pinched-face pair -- unravel amid the palm trees.
Despite the exotic setting, Couples Retreat takes aim at the most basic issues we face once we’ve traded party-hopping for trips to Home Depot: growing apart, bedroom boredom, conception struggles and balancing domestic duties with romantic urges. In the hands of stars like Faizon Love (Shane), Malin Akerman (Ronnie) and Vince Vaughn (Dave), each couple’s troubles are relatable and, mostly, funny. When Cynthia and Jason queue up a powerpoint preso to explain their marriage problems -- and graphically quantify the potential effects of divorce -- you don’t have to be a white-collar veteran to crack up. Up-and-comer Kali Hawk (Trudy), meanwhile, is like an energy elixir, perking up scenes that sag beneath heavy-handed antics.
Yet, as Dave repeats throughout the movie, relationships take work. Some of them have fault lines so deep that not even island rum and one-liners can fill the cracks. Lucy (Kristin Davis) and Joey (Jon Favreau, who also co-wrote the film), for example, seethe with the kind of latent anger and suffer battle wounds so fresh that, despite incredible delivery of tight banter, broad comedy can’t quite support them. While Couples Retreat strives to guide us from tenderness to hilarity and back, the characters take on a sit-commy, wooden feel so that, by movie’s end, home-wrecking in paradise doesn’t seem so bad.
Island life, however, isn’t all gloom and doom: Couples Retreat is, to borrow from the film, like an accessible Sandals resort, versus a Club Med’s richer offerings. Vaughn, who also co-wrote and produced the movie, serves as its keel on unpredictable seas, righting the ship with subtlety and timing that are at times genius. The way he pokes fun at all-too-familiar, trying situations allows us to laugh at ourselves, even if Mai Tais and white sand can’t solve everything.
Paranormal Activity Terrifies Movie Goers
Posted on Oct 05, 2009 @ 04:10PM - 1 comment
Touted as “The scariest movie ever made,” Paranormal Activity has scared audiences to death, to the tune of over $500,000, in a mere 30 theaters across the country. The horror film sold out all its midnight screenings this past weekend. After terrified fans flocked to the movie, Paramount announced that if they received 1 million DEMANDS ,they will open the movie in wide release across the country if for the fans. So if you’re a horror pic fan then vote to have the movie play in your city.
The rumor in Hollywood about this movie is that Steven Spielberg was so freaked out by the movie that he returned it to the studio in a garbage bag! This film was made for less than $11,000 by first time director Oren Peli. Since it debuted at Slamdance in 2007, its terrified audiences, with one reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes saying “After watching Paranormal Activity, you might be inclined to sleep with the lights on for a week or four.”
Couples Retreat: Expert Advice
Posted on Oct 05, 2009 @ 09:00AM - 1 comment
The new film Couples Retreat is in theaters this Friday. It centers on four couples who take a vacation to a tropical island paradise. One of the couples is there to work on their struggling marriage, but soon the others discover that the island’s therapy sessions are anything but optional.
Starring A-listers Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Kristin Davis and Jason Bateman, the group embarks on a crazy journey of self-discovery which brings a new slew of problems than the ones they had before.
Getting Their Skate On: Whip It’s Girls Go Wild
Posted on Oct 01, 2009 @ 06:00PM - Add a comment
Hollywood may eschew the notion, but guess what? Ladies need to let loose, too. In Whip It, Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut with a teenage girl’s coming-of-age story that blends the bad-ass culture of roller derby with the tenderness of a comedic family drama. Barrymore also appears as a derby skater named Smashley Simpson, but her sensibility is more apparent in the film’s overall feel: uneven in its pacing and occasionally arm’s length from an emotional coup -- but at times perfect, with scenes that are both hilarious and poignant.
