er, no fooling here actually. Y'all should all follow these links.
I usually skip Movie City News'
Digital Nation column, but this weeks is really interesting. It's all about the 3D boom as of late. I'm neither for or against 3D to be honest, but as long as it's done well I don't see why it can't have a place. One of the problems I had with 2006's charming
Monster House was that watching it in the confines of my living room the obvious fact that it was meant for 3D viewing was a bit annoying for a while. However, I've mentioned before how much I enjoy when things are
waved in front of me like crazy.
Here is the first teaser for one of the many trilogy-enders coming this US Summer,
The Bourne Ultimatum. Not much there, but it gets my blood pumping. BRING IT ON! Also, I love Joan Allen.
I've given Beyonce some
hard times recently, but now she's gone and make me respect her. It's hard for me to even think of a mainstream artist who would even contemplate doing what Beyonce's done, let alone actually go through with it, but Beyonce has created video clips for every single song off of her
B'Day clip. Way to go, Beyonce! Giving your fans a treat. She is rereleasing the album with something like seven extra songs plus videos for every song from the album (yes, including songs not released as singles). Not all the vids are as fun and awesome as
"Get Me Bodied" (inspired by
Sweet Charity), and not all the songs are as good as "Freakum Dress", but I give her big props for actually planting down the cash and doing this. I'd like to see others try a bit of concept in their marketing.
Many people give the MPAA grief (rightly so, they're idiots sometimes), but (like Beyonce!) I gotta give them the props that they deserve after the
official warning and sanctions given to After Dark and Lions Gate over the advertising of the new Roland Joffe (yeah, ROLAND JOFFE) film
Captivity. Good on the MPAA for stickin' it to them for blatantly disregarding their disapproval of the offending billboards and bus posters, which showed a woman's capture, captivity, torture and death (image below). The billboard is sort of sick and if these sanctions mean they lose money and have to move the release date then fine by me. It's about time the MPAA went hard on violence again and not just sex like usual.
Who's Who Behind The Do? It's rated PG for, amongst other things, "momentary teen smoking". Let the MPAA-are-idiots argument continue...
She's a bitch. No seriously.
The delightfully enthusiastic Adam from
Crumb by Crumb has gone ballistic over Todd Haynes'
I'm Not There in relation to Oscar (what else?)? Some would say that Haynes was snubbed for his direction of
Far From Heaven (he was nominated for writing), I say it's his 1995 film
[safe] that is his masterwork so far. And while I would love for the Academy to go all orgasmic about Haynes I don't think
I'm Not There is the film to do it. You know, the Bob Dylan biopic that features the role of Dylan being played by a multitude of actors including Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere and, ahem, Cate Blanchett (who he predicts for Supporting Actress). I don't see it happening, but all the best to Haynes. I hope he knocks it out of the park! Let's just hope the Weinsteins don't
screw it up. They seem to be doing that a lot lately.
The
best review of
300 I've read yet.
Oh man... I laughed so hard... honestly, this shit is the funniest stuff i've seen in ages. The dialogue is painfully bad and just as you think it couldn't get any more idiotic David Wenhams narration kicks in. That's when it moves from hilarity to pure pain.
The best possible way I could describe this is like an episode of Rome moved to Sparta and written specifically for spastics, retards, mongoloids and 5-year-olds then dumbed down a little more for our American friends.
The action scenes were okay but nothing to rave about.
3/10
Scott, To Be Certain discusses Natasha Bedingfield and her bonkers new song "I Wanna Have Your Babies". The song is ridiculous and, yes, bonkers, but my god is it catchy or what?! "Button my lips so the truth don't slip." Aagh. I'm glad that, for now at least, she hasn't whored herself out to American hip-hop (and by "hip-hop" I mean the foul rotten shell of a corpse that the genre of hip-hop has become) that could has easily happened when she made it big over there. YAY!
And lastly, because I like it when
others talk about me (it gives me a rest from talking about myself so much) I'm gonna give a shout out to J.D. (edited) from Joe's Movie Corner. Hugs and kisses, mate!
(I've found myself saying "mate" way more often than usual lately. I think I should stop.)
Reading this article at TimeOut I was shocked to see that genius Todd Haynes' genius Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story was voted the greatest music film of all time. "Music film" as in a movie about a real life musician (so, no musicals or This is Spinal Tap). Superstar really is quite amazing. Filmed entirely using Mattel barbie dolls, archival footage and the unauthorised Carpenter song catalogue - considering Haynes' unflinching portrayal of not only Carpenter's anorexia (demonstrated on the barbie dolls by simple scratching away the face) but also her brother's homosexuality and her family's cruely. 
