Underrated Movie of the Week

The Limey, 1999, dir. Steven Soderbergh, starring Terence Stamp, Luis Guzman, Leslie Ann Warren, Barry Newman, Peter Fonda, Nicky Katt, Joe Dasselandro and Melissa George

Movie Haikus

Because my fingers are feeling like they don't want to type much, here are some haiku's somehow resembling reviews. Enjoy.


The Notorious Bettie Page, dir. Harron
The great Gretchen Mol
Unfocused, but looks so swell
What's with the colour?
B-


The Good German, dir. Soderbergh
The great Cate Blanchett
Unfocused, technical marvel
George Clooney mis-cast
B


L'Enfant, dir. Dardenne & Dardenne
Typical arthouse
Great performances, blah plot
Fake baby was funny
C+


Suburban Mayhem, dir. Goldman
The great Emily B
Gets lost in the second half
Coke-injected rush
B-

{fin}

Time and Ocean's posters

I've never seen a Kim Ki-Duk film (Spring has been in my DVD queue for ages), but the poster for his next film Time looks amazing. Like... wow. That's some amazing design right there, folks. This does exactly what a poster should do - introduce an unknown film to an audience and get them intrigued, interested or excited. I'd never heard of this film before today, but now I sorta want to see it just to know what the whole hand staircase thing is.

And then compare and contrast to the poster for Soderbergh's obligatory Ocean's 13 - he's made two experimental movies, Bubble and The Good German, so now it's time for crass commercialism. I was a huge fan of Ocean's 11, but was definitely not one of the pale sequel Ocean's 12. The big inclusion this time is, er, Ellen Barkin. As much as I like the lass, she ain't exactly stepping on Catherine Zeta-Jones' heels in the fame stakes. Thankfully they've also decided to include Al Pacino who could be delightfully madcap. Having said that, the poster is a true abomination. Just a harsh and awfully designed waste (even worse than The Illusionist if you can believe that). Let's get over the fact that it looks like amatuer hour at the Photoshop station at Kinkos (I, quite seriously, could have designed this). But there's only 12 people represented on the poster!! Apparently Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin are famous enough to get their names above the title (moreso than Casey Affleck, James Caan's son, Elliot Gould, the Asian dude who wasn't in Ocean's 12 and the old one who had a fake heart attack in the first film) yet not enough to get their mugs on the poorly designed poster. If you got Al Pacino in your movie you sorta want to show his face. One of the faces they do show is of Andy Garcia who is "the one" in the "13 to one" stakes the poster alludes to.


[Click to enlarge both]

Aagh, this poster is horrible. And it hurts my eyes too. Little Miss Sunshine did the bold colour thing so much better. Hopefully the final poster will be better.

Oscar Predix Edit

I realised Steven Soderbergh has done the cinematography for his own The Good German so I kicked it out of that race. And I still really want to put The Queen in for Art Direction despite it being contemporary. But... but... British manors and Buckingham Palace.