Posted on 02 September 2010

Usually when I talk about music around these parts, it’s with an eye on the movies. But even though most of my inspirations come from movies — with the music as a vital, but supporting player — today I thought I would try to do things a little differently. Which is why today is all about music that was inspired by the movies.
Pop music is littered with movie references, and sometimes the references are a little more obscure, as is the case with the genesis of Bob Seger’s classic Night Moves. Legend has it that the idea for the song was born as Seger walked out of the theater for George Lucas’ American Graffiti and he realized that he had his own stories of a misspent youth to share. But other inspirations can be a little more obvious, like with Jay Z’s tribute to Frank Lucas and American Gangster with his album of the same name.
We all know inspiration can come from the unlikeliest of places (yes, even from within darkened movie theaters), and so here are five songs that could never have existed without a little inspiration from the silver screen.
Filed under: Music & Musicals, Fandom, Lists
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Posted on 25 August 2010

One of the most interesting entertainment phenomenons of the past few years is the concept of “jumping the shark” — the moment where a film, franchise, television series, or other form of popular entertainment does something so ridiculous that audiences know it’s all downhill from there. It’s the moment where the creative people behind a movie or program basically throw in the towel, saying “This is it, we’ve got nothing left to give so you’re stuck with this outlandish crap from here forward.” The phrase’s history is well documented, tying back to season five episode of Happy Days where Fonzi water ski-jumps over a real live shark. Fans point out this moment as essentially the “beginning of the end” for Happy Days — and now the event is cited to signal similar moments in other shows and films.
So, with that in mind, AskMen.com came up with a list of the top ten movie franchise destroying moments — or moments where a film or film franchise jumped the shark. There are no shortage of potential titles for the list, but they’ve done a nice job of picking out ten that are particularly annoying — even if they’re from films that aren’t really part of a franchise (Wolverine and Doomsday, I’m looking at you).
Hit the jump to check out some of the titles that made the list.
Filed under: Lists, Best/Worst, Fan Rant
Continue reading Can One Scene Destroy a Franchise?
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Posted on 20 August 2010

According to a report from PC World, the security gurus over at McAfee have determined that of all celebrity names typed into Google, Cameron Diaz is the one most likely to infect your computer with malicious viruses. Approximately 10% of all searches for the My Sister’s Keeper star land internet surfers on sites riddled with nasty code, and the risk rises dramatically whenever you add the words “naked,” “nude,” or “hot mangled foot in The Box.” After spending the morning exploring all 5,650,000 hits that turn up after Googling Ms. Diaz’s name (it’s all in the name of journalism, folks), I’ve isolated the deadliest of them all. Click at your own peril. Or you could save yourself the trouble and I could just tell you that it’s a link to the IMDb page for that movie The Sweetest Thing. Get it? Because that movie is terrible? Hilarious, I know. But seriously, I saw that movie with my grandparents and now they’re dead. Now, I’m not suggesting that The Sweetest Thing killed my grandparents, but … yes, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting.
Diaz, of course, is not the only celebrity whose name is linked to a number of sites with untoward intentions. McAfee — as they’re perennially accustomed — have provided the complete top ten list of stars who are most likely to put your computer at risk as you use the web — the assimilated networks of all human knowledge and accomplishment, past and present — to find blurry pictures of their nipples. So follow the jump to see who you should consider Googling only from the iMac tucked away in the darkest corner of your local Apple Store.
Filed under: Lists
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Posted on 17 August 2010

The New York Film Festival has fallen into a pattern of opening with a trendy American offering, closing with Clint Eastwood’s latest, and in between being contentedly stuffed with the finest offerings from Cannes and other bold obscurities. This year is absolutely no exception, and that’s just the way I like it – it’s nice when Cannes comes to me, and at Lincoln Center there’s less chance of accidentally stepping on Lars von Trier.
As was previously announced, the fest will be opening with David Fincher’s The Social Network, finally bridging the gap between the world’s most challenging auteurs and N*Sync (at this rate NYFF 2011 will feature Justin Timberlake as a bisexual, ennui-ridden sailor in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s next period epic). Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter will close the program, with Julie Taymor’s The Tempestbeing selected to serve as the fest’s arbitrarily more expensive centerpiece. I’m not sure if any tempest could be as difficult to endure as Across the Universe (because of how it was one of the decade’s very worst films, and all), but fond memories of Titus have me hoping for a Shakespearean return to form.
It’s a strong line-up (New de Oliveira! New Hong Sang-soo! New Reichardt! New Puiu!), but also one that reinforces how NYFF needs to rely a bit less on Cannes if it hopes to carve a unique identity of its own. You can take a look at the entire roster over at filmlinc.com, but here are the 5 selections I’m most excited to see (not counting the aforementioned special events):
Filed under: Lists
Continue reading 5 Films You Must See at the 2010 New York Film Festival
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Posted on 13 August 2010

This week the first two films of cult director Terry Zwigoff get the Criterion treatment. Zwigoff’s debut film, the documentary Louie Bluie (1985) tells the story of Howard Armstrong, a fiddle and mandolin virtuoso who ages ago recorded one of Zwigoff’s favorite records, “State Street Rag.” The documentary finds him still spry in his mid-70s, and he lived another 18 years after the film was released. The movie contains some terrific quasi-blues music, though Zwigoff insists that “it’s only 10 percent of what he can really do.”
Filed under: New on DVD, Lists
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Posted on 12 August 2010

This week’s release of Death at a Funeral on DVD and Blu-ray, a quick remake featuring African-American characters instead of British caricatures, and the upcoming theatrical release of Let Me In, an English-language remake of the terrific and very recent Swedish film Let the Right One In, are blunt reminders that it’s never too soon to remake a movie, as long as you change the ethnicity and/or language of the original.
Rather than complain (again) about such remakes, I thought it might be helpful to suggest more movies that are ripe for remaking with the twist of racial reinvention. Remember, the idea is not to pick movies based on quality (or lack thereof), but on marketable concepts and under-performing box office (so no suggestions that Avatar should be remade with alien military forces taking over a Wall Street brokerage house where only Caucasians work). Additional points of honor for keeping the title but shortening it, a la Let Me In. Full disclosure: no prizes will be awarded and no wagering, please. Let’s begin with my seven top picks.
1. Jennifer’s Body
Scripted by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama, this feminist drama masquerading as a horror film did not live up to box office expectations. Much of the criticism was leveled at Megan Fox who, it must be acknowledged, did her best. So why not let everyone’s fantasies go wild with a quick remake starring Jennifer Lopez (Jennifer’s Mother’s Body?) and/or Gabourey Sidibe (from Precious; no questions about her acting ability, and the body image / reliance on men issues would come to the forefront). The possibilities are endless.
Filed under: Fandom, Cinematical Seven, Lists
Continue reading Cinematical Seven: Ready for Racial Reinvention Remakes
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Posted on 05 August 2010

Leonardo DiCaprio once posed the immortal question: “What’s in a name?” But instead of allowing his beloved Claire Danes to answer, he just kept prattling on about roses and feet and the next thing you know they’re both dead in a sea of neon crucifixes. The moral of the story: Titles matter. I mean, that tragedy was almost called Romeo & Ethel, The Pirate’s Daughter. What’s more, that story actually was once called Romeo and Juliet, but it wasn’t until Baz Luhrmann infused it with that sexy ampersand that anyone cared. Proof, meet pudding.
Hollywood has long understood the power of a strong title, and films are often endlessly renamed throughout their long production cycles in order for the studio to arrive at the perfect thing to slap on the marquee. While that practice hasn’t prevented a few truly terrible titles from getting out there (I’m looking at you, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever… but I’m not really looking at you, because that would be painful), some films heading for certain disaster have been able to dodge that bullet at the last minute. Just this month, in fact, two such movies have avoided that fate.
Filed under: New Releases, Movie Marketing, Lists
Continue reading The Worst Movie Titles That Almost Were
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Posted on 20 July 2010
The Toronto International Film Festival recently released its list of 100 Essential Movies, which ranges from Salo and Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising to standards like 8 1/2 and Vertigo. There are some more recent films on there, as well, like Pulp Fiction and Oldboy, but many are Film School 101. That said, I’m still going through it, crossing off the ones I haven’t seen and making sure to add them to my Netflix queue.
The thing is, there are so many “essential movie lists” out there. AFI has scads of them; you can choose from The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, the 10 Top 10, which is split up into categories like animation, sports, and courtroom dramas, or even Greatest Movie Musicals. Plenty of other film magazines and websites offer their own take on the classics, like The Guardian’s list of 100 Films to See Before You Die (a pretty daunting title) and The New Classics according to Entertainment Weekly. There’s even 100 Must-See Movies for Men, courtesy of The Art of Manliness. And, of course, some hardy souls try and see every Best Picture Oscar winner.
Filed under: Awards, Fandom, Lists
Continue reading Do You Keep Track of Essential Movie Lists?
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Posted on 09 July 2010

July is the right time for sand and surf. Many of our readers are undoubtedly lucky enough to live on the coast where they have daily (or at least weekly or monthly) beach access. But many of us are landlocked and too busy or poor to make the trip. And let’s be honest here — the very best beaches in the United States and Mexico are probably going to look like something out of
The Road before vacation season rolls around again.
So, what’s someone desperate for a seaside trip to do? Escape in some old-fashioned escapism through the magic of movies. There’s a lot of tropical films a person can watch to cure their lust for islands, cabanas, and crumbly sand. I’ve narrowed it down to five. I’ve also deliberately kept it to films that are just cheesy enough that you could mute them and just look at the pretty sunsets.
Now, If you’re one of those creative types, you could do some kind of cute theme party where everyone shows up in Hawaiian shirts and chows down on shrimp, salsa, and key lime pie while watching one or more of these films. If you’re like me, you’ll just cut up some limes, crack open a Mexican beer, and get buzzed enough to forget the wind outside belongs to the prairie and not the sea. Hey, we all escape in different ways, and some of those ways involve alcohol and Kurt Russell. Don’t judge my vacation.
Continue below for free trips to the beach …
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Posted on 30 June 2010
You know the type: he/she’s the one, the only one who can save the universe from impending doom. Sometimes — okay, almost all of the time — he/she does do grudgingly, only gradually accepting the responsibility of having the fate of all of mankind rest squarely on his/her capable shoulders. This week in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, a boy with super powers discovers that he’s a reincarnated savior tasked with stopping the Fire nation from destroying the world. No small feat for a 12-year-old, but hey — that’s how destiny rolls.
Of course, Aang (Noah Ringer) is in good company. Plenty of reluctant heroes have been chosen to be The One in their respective mythologies. Here are seven of my favorites.
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, Cinematical Seven, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Lists
Continue reading Cinematical Seven: Our Favorite ‘Chosen Ones’
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