Again I'm the worst at obits, but need to say a few words about this guy since he's a crucial figure in opening my eyes up to a whole new dimension of cinema during my formative years of movie consumption. Jess Franco was, without a doubt, the most prolific filmmaker who has ever walked this planet. His output, over a 50-year period, is a mind-boggling, seemingly bottomless well of sex, horror and misc. genre flicks, a maddeningly labyrinthine filmography unlike any other. Yes, a lot of films were downright terrible, but scattered among them were some incredible works of unusual artistry, and I consider at least one of them - the dreamlike masterpiece Venus is Furs - to be an all-time favourite.
With Venus, everything unique and personal about Franco's vision locked into place, and it produced for my money, a beautiful example of pure cinema that can rank up there with any great work of art. Anywho I've barely scraped the surface... I'll leave the real obits to the experts and recommend, if you're curious and need a gateway drug into European 'cult' genre, to hunt down and watch as many of his films as possible. Goodnight to you sir.
[Possible spoiler follows: If you want to know absolutely NOTHING about this film, do not watch the trailer]
Having only recently caught up with the terrific Before Sunset, I for one can't wait to see more of Jesse and Celine in Before Midnight, Richard Linklater's third installment in this brief-encounter-romance which began in 1995 with Before Sunrise. They're both a bit older and wiser now, and - shock horror (genuine) - together?? I actually didn't see that coming in the trailer; whether or not one might construe this revelation as a spoiler could be argued. But yeah I DID NOT KNOW. Anywho, hope this gets into our theatres sooner than later.
Ready to see the White House go boom again? Trailer for Roland Emmerich's Channing Tatum-starring actioner White House Down has arrived, and it looks almost exactly like the same movie as Olympus Has Fallen, but with different actors and possibly more polished CGI. This will be the THIRD time Emmerich has destroyed the White House: the first was in Independence Day, and then again in 2012.
Welcome to the first edition of Friday Clips, a compilation - or more precisely, a dumping ground - of interesting/funny/weird clips and trailers that I didn't get around to posting about during the week and presented in a more concise fashion. So basically my tribute to the fact that on Friday our brains seem to slow down and have no time nor power to process large blocks of text - it's Random Stuff, but solely with video.
The Scared is Scared - cute little short film made from a six-year-old's story:
Life of Pi Screening... in a swimming pool... in Paris:
Biting Elbows music video - wild, violent first-person action, not for kids, the squeamish and easily offended:
Steve Carell and his cast of button-cute orphans and mischievous minions are back in the sequel to the 2010 animated hit. The plot has Gru (Carell) being hired by the Anti-Villain League to stop a new - unseen - baddie from destroying the world. This bubbly trailer promises more silly Bondian gadgets, and once again those adorable minions appear to be stealing the show:
For those who have missed David Brent, Ricky Gervais has reprised his iconic role from the original UK series of The Office in the 10-minute online short The Office Revisited. It's a bit of tease that leaves you wanting more, but I guess this will be as close as we'll come seeing more of the show, which wrapped up over a decade ago. Catch up with Brent below and see what he's been up to:
Junkies of cheesy '80s action movies will be pleased to know that Corey Yuen's 1986 martial arts flick No Retreat, No Surrender is getting re-released on DVD and Blu-ray from Vendetta Films on April 17. The film is probably best known for featuring the first big feature-starring role for Jean-Claude Van Damme (who plays a Russian baddie named Ivan Kraschinsky), and maybe more infamously, as the one where the main character, young karate champ wannabe Jason Swillwell (Kurt McKinney), trains from the ghost of Bruce Lee. Click on the youtube trailer below to soak up some '80s karate goodness:
Fatso is New Zealand's largest DVD and Blu-ray rental service, with over 30,000 titles to choose from. The Fatblog is our place to shoot the breeze about movies - we hope you enjoy your stay!
The blog will be maintained by our resident movie mavens Steve, Mike and Aaron, and all views solely belong to the respective authors and do not represent Fatso as a company.
Posts
