Links of Interest 10/30

Philly fans go soft.

Chris Farley is dead. Apparently DIRECTV doesn’t care.

Interview with Alfred Molina. You’ll know him when you see him.

Check out this list the next time you’re facing a monster and see what you’re up against.

So we averted crisis how, exactly?

A third trailer for Shutter Island? One more and I’m pretty sure I will have seen the whole movie. Go here to read my writeup after the second one came out.

I’m having a hard time classifying this as a tree house. It’s like 6 feet off the ground! My definition of a treehouse has to include a ladder, the option of a rope to climb into it, and a trapdoor in the bottom to scare all the girls should they try to take over inside.

We’ve seen lists of scary movies. Now how about unscary movies that are supposed to be scary?

I haven’t seen Paranormal Activity. I’d like to but I keep hearing mixed reviews. Of course, that’s probably the inevitable backlash every hyped movie receives. I do wonder if it’s little more than a really good episode of Ghost Hunters. Anyway, with the scuttlebutt of its producers already receiving a green light for a sequel, here’s a list of movies that are perhaps more deserving of a sequel.

I hope it isn’t too surprising to learn drug companies are corrupt.

Early celebrations that maybe shouldn’t have been started.

The many faces of Shutter Island

Shutter Island - the story of creepy things happening at a creepy mental hospital in creepy old times.

This isn't about how good or bad the movie is going to be. I have no idea. I have some anticipation because Scorsese is directing it; I have some trepidation because if he weren't it would probably be a Lifetime special starring Michael Gross (which I would totally watch because Michael Gross is the bee's knees).

No, I ask you to simply take a look at the trailer above. After that, follow me...



Sufficiently creepy, giving away 3/4ths of plot, blah blah blah. Now I ask you to turn your attention to this trailer for the movie which has just been recently released...



Notice any differences? Other than, you know the obvious different shots and scenes they chose to include/omit.

I'm particularly interested in the Mark Ruffalo content between these two trailers. The first one? He's in it for oh let's say about half. Literally. After 1:10, there's nary a shot of him.

In the second one however, he's in it considerably more. Even during the climactic action scenes that make up the last third of the trailer. What does this lead me to believe? That Mark Ruffalo dies early in this, but that someone decided the first trailer kinda gave that away. Along with pretty much the rest of the movie. But it's interesting to see the subtle differences in trailers made for the same movie. Was there a focus group? Were there complaints? Stuff like this fascinates me. And yes, I understand that makes me an incredible dork.

In the end, does it matter? I doubt it. In fact, I doubt more than a few people even noticed. Me, I happen to enjoy Mr. Ruffalo's work, and maybe that's why I did. I also have seen a number of formulaic thrillers and can pretty much guess how it's all going to go down as well. Now, I've been told this movie is based on a book (which I haven't read) and I obviously haven't seen the movie, so I could still be completely wrong on my prediction.

But I doubt it.

And for you Ruffalo fans out there, mad that he might not have too much screen time? Well, we always have this one...

Movie Trailer Reviews

Every so often, I take a look at upcoming movies, choose some of the more interesting ones, and decide whether it will be any good based on its trailer. Fair? Of course not! But this is the Internet - where the young bucks can do and say what they want, and the old folk can call us fools and say we live in our mother's basement. And the wheel in the sky keeps on turning. So let's get started, shall we?










Shutter Island



You don't fool me Martin Scorsese. I saw Session 9 too (What's with the #9 these days? You'll see one pop up later as well). Actually, this almost feels like the prequel to Session 9, being that it's based in a creepy New England insane asylum where no one seems to know what is real and what isn't.

Has Scorsese done a movie like this before? I assume there aren't any supernatural elements (contrary to what the trailer is representing) and his name alone is probably going to get people to the theater, but aside from the big names in this, it kinda feels like a run-of-the-mill thriller. Ben Kingsley acting slimey; Patricia Clarkson acting crazy; Max Von Sydow acting creepy. If it wasn't for the gore I'd suggest we might see something like this on Lifetime with Michael Gross as the director of the facility, Meredith Baxter (Birney still? She got divorced - did she change her name) as the crazy woman and Mark Ruffalo as the agent in over his head (the Leo role. Obviously, it doesn't take a sleuth to figure out Ruffalo meets his untimely demise in this movie, based on the fact he's in it for about 8 seconds - and that's not a spoiler. I have no actual knowledge, and hope he lives through this terror. I just have a pretty bad feeling.).

Scorsese gets me in the door, but here's to hoping he's not coasting after the uneven and overrated The Departed.

Sherlock Holmes



Wow - this trailer starts out great. Gritty, ominous, complex...and then we turn the lights on and the true colors reveal...it's a Guy Ritchie template all over again. Right down to guys shirtless and punching each other.

I want to create a new category of movie; the "clever" action/adventure film. It's the type of movie you'll watch and realize you're always watching a movie. Let me try to make that clearer. When I watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, I get nervous for Indy during the truck chase, even though I've seen it roughly eleventy billion times. Why? Because I get caught up in the whole yarn. It's almost impossible not to. Now, when I watch The Mummy, never for a second do I fear for Brendan Fraser. Because I know it's Brendan Frasier and it's a movie. Competently made, at no point however do I ever lose myself in the story or care about the characters. And yes, I know that my age may have something to do with that, but seriously, mentally I'm still about 10.

And I'm afraid Sherlock Holmes will fall into the latter category.

I want Guy Ritchie to choose a tone and stick with it here. Make it humorous or realistic and stick with that. I think making that choice early would help the film immensely. But as it stands now, the humor weakens the peril, and vice versa, leaving us with a watered down movie, which includes a bare knuckle fight. Is there something you want to tell us Mr. Ritchie?

District 9



Blair Witch, V, and World War Z influences are certainly going to get me interested. I didn't find much information on District 9 (my crack research being to wiki it) but what I did find seems pretty cool. Based on a short film by the same director, the movie is about aliens coming to Earth (South Africa to be exact) and immediately being quarrantined. Less to do with the violence something like this would cause (at least from the trailer) the movie delves into the social issues of the visitation. Obviously an allegory for racism, it has a cool viral campaign to go along with it.

Hopefully, it expounds on more than just the "concrentration camp" mentallity the trailer hangs its hat on (seriously - read World War Z for an awesome account of what a society would do when confronted with a global issue similar to aliens) and evolves into something more than Alien Nation (which is a movie near and dear to my heart).