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Rock, Paper, Scissors: The Next Big Thing in Sport Movies?
3 hours ago
Here at Fsr, we're not just about throwing the spotlight on major Hollywood releases. We also like to give a nod to the indie filmmaker when we have a chance. That's why we have loved the success of films like Paranormal Activity, which started as a grass-roots movement and became a national phenomenon. The independent production The Flying Scissors is attempting to do the same thing, starting off with a college tour of screenings around the country. The Flying Scissors has been rolling through the American universities since the end of September, and it will be seeing a limited theatrical run in New York starting November 12. The film is a mockumentary about a cut-throat Rock-Paper-Scissors competition and was produced for a price tag of less than $100,000. You can check out the trailer by visiting their web site at www.FlyingScissors.com. You can also find more information about the current college tour, release »
- Kevin Carr
Review: The Box
3 hours ago
I can't imagine that adapting a short story that's already been adapted into an episode of "The Twilight Zone," and attempting to extend it into a feature length is an easy task. Especially when the original story has that built-in single-note ethical spin that seemed perfect for Serling and company to weave into their morality tales. There was a chance that Richard Kelly could have built a huge framework for The Box around a single ominous punchline. A chance. But to no avail. A mysterious stranger named Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) delivers a box to the doorstep of Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) and gives them the opportunity to push a button that will kill someone they don't know and earn them a tax-free million. The central premise of the film is a fairly fascinating moral question of how much another person's life is worth and what lengths you'd go to set your »
- Dr. Cole Abaius
Review: ‘The Fourth Kind’ Should’ve Been Narrated By Robert Stack
5 hours ago
With the Saw films firmly on the ice flow of sequels toward apocalypse, the question I keep coming back to is, “where are horror films going to go from here?” Saw, and its subsequent imitators, satisfied the bloodlust of modern horror audiences for a time, but the cycle of desensitization continues and if horror films are no longer striving to gross out the public, it is once again time for them to break new ground. It appears that horror is now targeting the fourth wall to achieve that purpose and The Fourth Kind champions the concept. It strikes me as appropriate that this film should be released on the heels of the sensational Paranormal Activity. Both are movies that attempt to breakdown that invisible barrier of disbelief that detaches an audience from the terror on screen. Both claim to be based on a true story which, again, eliminates that safety net of it being “just a movie »
- Brian Salisbury
Ladies and Gentlemen, A Word from Werner Herzog
20 hours ago
Werner Herzog is crazy and brilliant and German. He's had a random and illustrious career which has taken him to South America, Bear Country, The End of the World and now lands him squarely in New Orleans. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - a remake that's not a remake with a title that looks like it should either involve Martin Lawrence and John Cusack as buddy cops or be stamped on the front of a DVD in the dollar bin - already has buzz surrounding it because 1) Herzog has never seen the film his title borrows from and 2) there is some crazy shit in the trailer. I was lucky enough to see the flick last week (to the break of dawn), and while a review is forthcoming, I thought I'd share some things that the esteemed director had to say on some of the more questionable elements. Feel »
- Dr. Cole Abaius
A Christmas Carol: ‘Twas a Spiritless Affair, Indeed
20 hours ago
Movies have supremely warped my conception of time. No longer do I judge the fragments of the year in terms of trite notions of spring, summer, fall and winter. Instead my calendar is notated with marketing strategies of major studios. For example, the beginning of the year is award season, followed by a dumping ground, followed by the blockbusters, another dumping ground, horrorween, and finally holiday season. Having just hurdled horrorween relatively unscathed, we find ourselves staring down the barrel of a number of films ready to bank on the inescapable jubilance of the next two months. For me, this is the cinematic season that garners the highest level of concern. The thing is there are very few holiday films that I watch on a regular basis that were released after 1987. Elf would be an exception to that block given that I find it to be a pitch perfect holiday film that captures the child-like wonder of »
- Brian Salisbury
The Slammin’ Salmon Trailer: The Movie is Better, We Promise
6 November 2009 7:34 PM, PST
Anchor Bay Entertainment has released the first official trailer for the upcoming Broken Lizard comedy The Slammin' Salmon, which they will release in limited fashion in December. I caught this film when it made a stop here in Austin for the SXSW Film Festival in the spring. And for reasons unknown, this trailer does not in any way do it justice. The film is a bit dark, full of laughs and all of the inappropriate and meticulously random humor that we've come to love from the Broken Lizard crew (a la Supertroopers). This trailer however, seems to cheapen the film's effect and relegate its funny moments to a series of gags. So just keep that in mind when you check out the trailer and official synopsis below, both courtesy of Apple. In the latest comedy from Broken Lizard, (the creators of Supertroopers and Beerfest) “Slammin” Cleon Salmon (Michael Clarke Duncan) is a former Heavyweight Champion of the »
- Neil Miller
Exclusive Video: Gentlemen Broncos Orders Turkey Testicles
6 November 2009 7:14 PM, PST
This is probably the single strangest exclusive we've ever received (and for that matter, posted), but what the heck. It's late on a Friday and we don't have much else to talk about -- we might as well give you a look behind the scenes of Gentlemen Broncos in which their props man orders very specific kinds of turkey testes for director Jared Hess. Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Spend a few moments of your life in cruise control below. Gentlemen Broncos stars Sam Rockwell, Jemaine Clement and is directed by Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess. It is in limited release now. »
- Neil Miller
Dan Aykroyd, Anna Faris, Justin Timberlake and Yogi Bear, Oh My!
6 November 2009 2:57 PM, PST
Entertainment Weekly has uncovered the supposed casting for the upcoming live-action/hybrid adventure that will bring the lovable picnic basket thief Yogi Bear to the big screen. The Hanna-Barbera cartoon will be adapted into a 3D film by director Eric Brevig (Journey to the Center of the Earth), with a screenplay from Wild Hogs scribe Brad Copeland. We now know who will voice Yogi, his trusty little friend Boo Boo and who will play a documentary filmmaker trying to get a glimpse of these two hungry bears. Dan Aykroyd will voice Yogi, with pop star turned actor Justin Timberlake taking his side as the voice of Boo-Boo. The lovely Anna Faris, seen most recently in the twisted Observe and Report, will play the film's documentarian, a girl named Rachel. The story will revolve around two animated bears -- one of whom wears a collar and tie, but no shirt -- who are the antagonists to one Park »
- Neil Miller
Kevin Carr’s Weekly Report Card for 11.06.09
6 November 2009 2:34 PM, PST
A Christmas Carol Studio: Disney Rated: PG for scary sequences and images. Starring: Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins and Robin Wright Penn Directed by: Robert Zemeckis What it’s about: If you don’t know this by now, you should be barred from the holiday season worldwide. What I liked: By this time, you should know exactly what to expect when you get a Robert Zemeckis motion-capture film. Like The Polar Express and Beowulf, A Christmas Carol is heavy on the effects and virtual camerawork and relatively weak on the character and plot. We’ve seen this story adapted so many times in so many forms – from feature films to re-tellings on our favorite 80s sit com – that there is almost no unique way to approach it. The uniqueness of this version is that the full-blown CGI extravaganza hasn’t been done yet. In this sense, it does work. The »
- Kevin Carr
Review: Disney’s A Christmas Carol
6 November 2009 10:07 AM, PST
My feelings towards Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol have always been of two minds. I love the tale from the wit and greed-filled banter to the ghostly apparitions to the grand redemption at the end. The same goes for the multiple film and TV versions of the story. I'm partial to the George C. Scott version from the eighties, but Scrooged and The Muppet Christmas Carol tie for a close second. The problem I have with the story though is that very same magnificent redemption I mentioned as loving not three sentences ago. I've just never been convinced that Scrooge honestly changes for any reason other than selfish self-preservation. Sure he seems concerned about Tiny Tim's imminent demise, but it's his own untended gravestone that really pushes him towards turning over a new leaf isn't it? Now thanks to Robert Zemeckis' continuing desire to avoid telling original stories in favor of digitally manipulated versions of »
- Rob Hunter
30 Rock Review: Audition Day
6 November 2009 10:00 AM, PST
Episode: "Audition Day" (Season Four, Episode 4) Synopsis: Liz and Pete have discovered the talent they want to hire for Tgs and plan to dupe Jack into hiring him, but when Jenna discovers that the lead candidate is an actor she dislikes, she and a paranoid Tracy plan to find their own candidate. Meanwhile, after word gets out that Liz has allowed Dot Com to audition, all sorts of characters come out of the woodwork to apply - including Tgs writing staff. Review: All good things must come to an end. 30 Rock season four began with three straight episodes of absolute hilarity, but the streak has come to an end with a mediocre effort tonight. The problem was not that tonight's episode got away from what has made the show so great, but that all the pieces were in place to make a great episode and they were just executed poorly. There »
- Jim Rohner
The Reject Report Sings a Christmas Carol, Stares At Goats
6 November 2009 9:51 AM, PST
Welcome to another Reject Report! As you can tell it's November, Halloween is now over and Christmas is right around the corner. How do we know this? Because the Christmas movies have started with A Christmas Carol. We also have the horror flick The Box, the thriller The Fourth Kind, and the Oscar season movie The Men Who Stare at Goats. So let's get on with it. We start this week with The Men Who Stare at Goats, starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges and Robert Patrick . It's freaky stuff about a journalist who ends up going to Iraq and meeting up with this former member of the U.S. Army's First Earth Battallion, a military unit that uses psychic and paramilitary powers in their missions. This flick rolled out to rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, and I expect it to do good business over a number of »
- John Cairns
Fat Guys at the Movies Ep. 139 – The Fat Kind
6 November 2009 4:00 AM, PST
On This Week's Show: Kevin and Neil say good-bye to scary movies (well, not really, considering two are released this week) and decide to ring in the Christmas season early. They stare at some goats, grumble about not being allowed to open a box, visit the uncanny valley and debate whether Kevin is spoiling the viewing experience for The Fourth Kind. They also lay down a Fat Guy Five about awesome UFO movies, and Kevin gloats over Neil's not-so-accurate box office predictions from last week. Films Reviewed this Week: A Christmas Carol, The Fourth Kind, The Men Who Stare At Goats and The Box [audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://media.filmschoolrejects.com/audio/episode139.mp3] Download this Episode Episode Schedule: Segment 1 [8:50] - Reviews of The Box and The Men Who Stare At Goats Segment 2 [10:40] - Review of A Christmas Carol and The Fourth Kind Segment 3 [12:45] - Box office gloatation and the Fat Guy Five: Five Awesome UFO Movies Segment 4 [6:35] - DVD Round-Up: Neil's picks are G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, North by Northwest »
- Kevin Carr
Kick-Ass Character Posters Spell Things Out
5 November 2009 6:48 PM, PST
The folks at IGN have debuted for new character posters from the upcoming Lionsgate release Kick-Ass, from director Matthew Vaughn and the mind of Wanted writer Mark Millar. This comic property, now highly anticipated due to a wicked-cool showing at the San Diego Comic-Con this year, will star Nicolas Cage, Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz and Christopher Mintz-Plasse as average folks (mostly kids) who dress up as superheros and take on crime. Well, sort of. The new round of posters shows off the characters in costume. And when put together -- seen above -- they spell out the film's title and the most likely pun that critics will use if the film succeeds with its plans to delight audiences with mayhem: Kick-Ass kicks ass. Get it? Alas, here are the posters and some character descriptions. Click any of the posters to see the larger versions at IGN. First up is Davi Lizewski (Johnson), the central character of the »
- Neil Miller
It’s Complicated Trailer: Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin Get It On
5 November 2009 6:22 PM, PST
Alec Baldwin is randomly crying. Meryl Streep is a little bit of a slut. Steve Martin, still crazy. And writer/director Nancy Meyers -- purveyor of such estrogen-infused classics as What Women Want, Something's Gotta Give and The Holiday -- is back again for another round of romcom with It's Complicated. This time, she's taking the story of a divorced woman (Streep) who starts having a fling with her fast-talking ex-husband (Baldwin), even though he's now married to a younger woman (Lake Bell) and she's got a thing with her architect (Steve Martin). It's all very derivative -- the kind of romantic comedy you take with a dose of promethazine (via suppository, of course) for your arthritis. You know, the ultimate sequel to Meyers' Mel Gibson collaboration, What Old People Want. Alas, there is no doubt that Alec Baldwin will be his stock brand of hilarious and Meryl Streep will be her stock brand of graceful, classy »
- Neil Miller
J.J. Abrams to Produce Hasbro’s Micronauts Movie
5 November 2009 1:12 PM, PST
The Wall Street Journal (via Coming Soon) is reporting today that J.J. Abrams, whom you may know as the director of Star Trek and producer of Lost, is in talks to produce a movie about the Japanese interchangable toys Micronauts -- 3.75-inch tall toys which were used in an inter-connected design. The rights to the project were acquired by Hasbro, who will base the film on the Micronauts comic series published by Marvel Comics, Image Comics and Devil's Due Publishing. The series was first published in 1979. In a curious quote, J.J. Abrams speaks about those who doubt whether a board game or science fiction toy should be accorded star status: "Sometimes, when someone is not a celebrity and you are casting them in a role, everyone who is in a seat of authority voices questions about that actor's talent, sex appeal, looks, ability -- their everything," he says. "But then they get the role, and »
- Neil Miller
Milla Jovovich Joins Twitter; Updates from Resident Evil: Afterlife Set
5 November 2009 12:52 PM, PST
Earlier this week, Dr. Cole Abaius and I were having a discussion about a new brand of director -- the super-accessible kind who are now connecting with us, and their audience through the social media site Twitter. Whereas they were previously just the folks behind the camera and in the hot seat during junket weekend prior to their release, directors like Up in the Air's Jason Reitman (@JasonReitman), The Brothers Bloom director Rian Johnson (@rcjohnso) and even that Clerks guy Kevin Smith (@ThatKevinSmith) are now just a tweet away. It is interesting to see them so connected, so close to the folks who buy tickets that pay their salaries. Then, there are the on-set tweeters. The publicist for The Expendables has been tweeting like crazy about Sly Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and everyone else who's come to that set. And Overture Films has someone on set with Breck Eisner's The Crazies (@TheCraziesFilm), tweeting live from the »
- Neil Miller
John Krasinski Brings ‘Brief Interviews’ to the Alamo Drafthouse
5 November 2009 12:19 PM, PST
Here's some exciting local news for our readers in our home city of Austin, TX. One of my more praised, but lesser known Sundance 2009 favorites is coming to town -- and with it comes writer/director John Krasinski, who you may know as Jim from The Office. The film is Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, based on the David Foster Wallace novel of the same name. When I reviewed it at Sundance in January of this year, I said that the source material — a favorite book of mine — is on par with Watchmen in its level of difficulty for adaptation. It has long been thought to be a near-impossible work to adapt. And what Krasinski has done with this star-studded affair is nothing short of immaculate, especially for a first time director. It is a fresh new voice telling an ambitious story that delivers dramatic moments that are poignant and deeply affecting, and »
- Neil Miller
New Photo from The Crazies: Radha Mitchell is in Trouble
5 November 2009 12:03 PM, PST
Overture Films has released a new photo from their upcoming thriller The Crazies, a Breck Eisner directed reinvention of a George Romero classic. Set in a small town, The Crazies tells the story of the chaos that ensues after a mysterious toxin is released upon the population. In the image above (click to enlarge), we see Judy (Radha Mitchell), who is the wife of the town's sheriff (Timothy Olyphant). And it looks as if Judy is having a close encounter with something mean and nasty. For more, check out the trailer and official synopsis below. Imagine living in a small town where everything is safe and happy…until suddenly it isn’t. Imagine your friends and neighbors going quickly and horrifically insane. In a terrifying tale of the “American Dream” gone horribly wrong, four friends find themselves trapped in their hometown in The Crazies, a reinvention of the George Romero classic directed by Breck Eisner from a »
- Neil Miller
Star Trek Delivers Out of this World Blu-ray/DVD Retail Exclusives
5 November 2009 11:09 AM, PST
If you're anything like me, then you are ready to get out there and pick up Star Trek on Blu-ray (or DVD, if you're so inclined) when it hits local retail shelves on November 17th. And if you're anything like me, you will spend the preceding Sunday scouring advertisements to see who has the best price, and more importantly, the coolest collectible or exclusive. Lucky for you, we've got a sneak peek at some of the retail exclusives that will be hitting when the USS Enterprise finally docks here on Earth. And I know (unlike the makers of this recent movie) that the Enterprise could never make it into the Earth's atmosphere and that it was built, and always has been in space. I'm just being clever. Get your fix below, fellow nerds. United States Hollywood Video - Rent/Buy any Star Trek DVD and be entered to win an autographed poster of Uhura (Zoe Saldana). Transworld »
- Neil Miller
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