Its been sometime since I’ve been able to post a recent Coming Soon list so you’ll notice that a vast majority of the movies listed are labeled new additions. With the sheer number of new additions I didn’t have the time to go through and check out trailers and reviews for some of them but I did try to label as many of those as I could as recommended. The Red Riding trilogy coming in March is certainly one that I have an eye on, as I’ve heard excellent things about it.
Of course the movie I’m most excited about on the whole sheet is the one being re-released this weekend at The Uptown, that being Rashomon, the breakout International hit for my favorite director, Akira Kurosawa. If you haven’t had the chance to see it yet, now is the perfect time to swing by The Uptown and watch one of the greatest films ever made.
*** – Denotes recommended viewing
All dates subject to change
2/12 Rashomon (Restored Print) Uptown***
2/12 Creation Edina
2/19 North Face Uptown ***
2/19 Oscar Nominated Shorts Lagoon ***
2/19 District B13: Ultimatum Lagoon
2/26 44 Inch Chest Lagoon***
2/26 Saint John of Las Vegas Lagoon***
3/05 The Ghost Writer Lagoon (tentative)
3/12 A Prophet Uptown
3/12 Red Riding: 1974 Lagoon (NEW)***
3/12 Red Riding: 1980 Lagoon (NEW)***
3/12 Red Riding: 1983 Lagoon (NEW)***
3/12 A Town Called Panic Lagoon ***
3/12 The Art of the Steal Edina
3/12 The Yellow Handkerchief Edina (NEW)
3/19 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Uptown (NEW)
3/19 Mother Lagoon (NEW)***
3/19 The Runaways Lagoon (NEW)
3/19 Fish Tank Lagoon ***
3/26 Terribly Happy Lagoon (NEW)
3/26 Chloe Edina (NEW)
3/26 City Island Edina (NEW)
4/02 Police, Adjective Lagoon
4/09 The Most Dangerous Man in America Lagoon (NEW)***
4/09 The Greatest Edina (NEW)
4/16 Sweetgrass Lagoon (NEW)
4/23 The Square Lagoon ***
4/30 Warlords Lagoon ***
5/07 Mid-August Lunch Lagoon (NEW)
5/14 The Good, The Bad, and The Weird Lagoon (NEW)
Over the past few years I’ve become quite the fan of Ozploitation films, and I’ve quite enjoyed the recent resurgence of Australian genre filmmaking. One of my more recent finds was the flawwed, yet still enjoyable, Australian zombie film Undead. And while it was a decent enough independent horror comedy, I must say I found it a bit surprising that the director’s of that film, The Spierig Brothers, were able to secure over $20 million to film their next project. The Australian vampire film Daybreakers.
I’m a bit at a loss on just what kind of film this will be, as the trailers seem to be pushing a glossy action pic, but judging by Undead I wouldn’t be surprised if Daybreakers ends up being a relatively decent budget schlock film. Complete with ridiculous effects, gaping plot holes and over zealous acting. Willem Dafoe is in it after all. And if its a good one, man do I hope it makes it to the multiplex.
for very long, but ever since I first saw the trailer for it I knew this was a film that I had to watch. By hook or by crook if need be. Sure the trailer doesn’t explain single thing, or seem coherent in the slightest, but the visuals are so compelling that I knew at the very least it would be a visual marvel. Then when you toss in the fact that this is an Independent film, and clearly a low budget one as well, makes the effects even more stunning.
Now lets focus on the effects for a paragraph or 100 words, whichever comes first. They most certainly are eye catching, what makes them even more spectacular is that they are so obviously working with limited means. But rather then use that fact to limit the creativity of the special effects, director Jamin Winans has turned it into a creative boon that is fascinating to witness. The fight sequences in particular are stunningly impressive as Winans uses darkened hallways and spotlights to cover the potential weaknesses of the choreography by simultaneously highlighting the visual stylization.
But Winans doesn’t stop there. The visual look of the film is hard wired into the story, thus providing an easy explanation for the seemingly odd look. These characters exist in a dream world that parallels our own, so it makes perfect sense that the world these dream warriors live in would be slightly off center from our own. Because of this brilliant story point, any visual flaws or quirks that might be caught by the viewer during the course of the film are easily accounted for by this story element.
But before you start thinking that the visual effects don’t hold up well outside of the three minute trailers, let me make some thing clear, the visuals in this film are truly outstanding and gloriously innovative. In particular I’d like to highlight the Incubus, who are truly one of the most disturbingly inventive villains ever captured on film. You’ll be hard pressed to scrape them out of your brain anytime soon. And just when you think they can’t get any creepier, Winans cranks them up to eleven in an all out effort to scare the socks off his audience. And to bring this whole thing full circle, the Incubus are bringers of darkness, which explains why the fight sequences are in total darkness, except for the glowing eyes of the Incubus. All this simply reinforces the fact that Ink is brilliant not for how complicated or technically innovative it is, but because of its relative simplicity.
But while the visuals are so eloquently connected, the story is a vastly different matter. Normally I do a short summary of the films I review but have decided to slightly alter from that because Ink is a difficult film to sum up. But if you really want it I’ll do my best. Ahem! A young girl is kidnapped from the really real world by what appears to be a human Skeksie called Ink who has plans to sell the girl to a group called the Incubus, who are the bringers of nightmares, for the return of his soul. The forces of good, powerless to prevent the kidnapping, are hurriedly tracking Ink in the hopes of saving Ink from his own demons, and the girl from the clutches of the Incubus.
That actually turned out much more coherent than I thought it would.
But what does complicate the narrative is that there are multiple stories being told that exist in multiple timelines. It doesn’t so much complicate the story as it attempts to confuse the viewer, and not nearly to the effect that Winans is probably hoping for. The true narrative is fairly obvious, and while this form of trickeration doesn’t harm the film, it doesn’t help it either. There is enough story elements in the film that it doesn’t need to rely on an overly complicated narrative flow to keep the audiences interest.
But while I my not like the flourishes in the narrative, I have nothing but praise for the world that Winans has created. This world is compelling, fascinating and aching for more stories to be told about it due to its rich atmosphere. I want to know more about the Incubus, the storytellers and the souls they are fighting over. These creatures are fascinating and I know I would be in Heaven if this world is revisited by Winans at another date. While the trailers for Ink wet my appetite, the film itself is both a meal and a first course in a singular expressive and beautiful package.
Ink will play as the Opening Night film for the upcoming Flyway Film Festival on October 23rd. Tickets are available for purchase here.
I woke up this morning hoping that the first show of the day for Pandorum would be at noon as last night I screened Ichi for those of us stuck working and who were unable to watch the film during its screening. Because of that I didn’t get home until 3am, and since the print needed to be shipped out by noon today I was hoping I’d be able to get at least a few hours of sleep before heading out to the movie. But alas, AMC made sure to have the first show of the day at 110:45 am (thus ensuring a sparse crowd for the only matinee show of the day) and meaning I had to get up at 9am so that I could be at work and have the print broken down in time for me to make it to the screening. Not exactly the choicest way to view a movie, but I made it so I don’t have too many regrets.
Oddly enough Pandorum, despite the interesting trailers, was not screened for critics and has been released with little fanfare. This seems a bit curious as the film looked like it might be a nice sci-fi styled horror film and the production values alone looked impressive enough that they would draw people if even the tiniest bit of effort was put into publicizing the film.
The good news is the films visuals are stunning, the set designs are fantastic and the creatures roaming the ship are grotesquely amazing. Along with those we have some decent camera work and a solid performance by Ben Foster and a truly chilling one by relative newcomer Cam Gigandet.
That all being said, Pandorum has some serious pacing issues and it is particularly bloated in the middle of the film when the plot doesn’t quite seem to know where to go so to cover that up everyone runs around in circles on the ship for a half hour from one scene of expository dialogue to the next before they finally decide that things are much worse then they realized and they need to be fixed as soon as possible.
Luckily, Pandorum rights itself in its final act and gamely recovers from whatever pacing issues it might have been struggling with to pull off a pretty fun and somewhat inventive conclusion that seems to make the whole thing more then worth your time. Its far from a perfect movie, but it certain isn’t because of a lack of effort.
While buzz is starting to build for the low budget haunted house/demon possession independent film Paranormal Activity, the odds of anyone actually getting to see the film seem surprisingly low. The film is getting an incredibly limited release on Thursday September 24th, with midnight screenings at 13 different theatres.
But so far that is it in terms of theatrical release. The studio (Paramount here in the US) is trying to increase demand for the film by having a competition hosted by Eventful, where fans demand the release in their local markets with a rather vague promise of “When your city gets enough demands, you WILL be the first to experience the terror!” Yet no mention of just how many demands are required to get a screening.
Knowing from experience what I do about free screenings, you’ll need something in the neighborhood of 1000 demands to convince a theatre to devote a 200 seat auditorium to a screening. And, as of this moment, not a single city has reached that magical number, though LA seems like it will eventually make it. It doesn’t seem very smart to make promises, no matter how vague, to their fanbase only to not be able to live up to them.
Of course we then have the new trailer, which incorporates audience reactions while showing moments from the film, which makes the entire thing look incredibly cheesy to me. The original trailer looks better, and is far more effective, and in the new trailer it is readily apparent they’ve cleaned up the images to make the picture look glossier and thus have more appeal to mainstream audiences. Whether or not the actual product has been cleaned up I have no idea, but the disconnect is now evident. Then you have the previous plans to remake the film with original director Oren Peli helming the remake, and you can’t help but wonder if they simply re-shot the whole film with better equipment due to the stark contrast in the visuals of the two trailers. It has taken two years to release this film after all.
And finally, we have the film’s rumored new endings. I say endings, because word is that there are as many as three endings floating out there in the ether that have been screened for audiences. While I know what two of them are, I haven’t heard anything specific about the latest ending, other than it is the worst of he bunch, which is probably why Paramount chose it.
At this point I have little hope of ever seeing this film in the theatres, which is a shame as the film certainly seems to have as good a chance as any of being a modern horror film that is actually scary, or God forbid, horrifying. But I will be sure to check it out once it eventually hits DVD, and here’s to hoping the film lives up to its rather strange, but intriguing, hype.
Its been sometime since I’ve been able to post a recent Coming Soon list so you’ll notice that a vast majority of the movies listed are labeled new additions. With the sheer number of new additions I didn’t have the time to go through and check out trailers and reviews for some of them but I did try to label as many of those as I could as recommended. The Red Riding trilogy coming in March is certainly one that I have an eye on, as I’ve heard excellent things about it.
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