Trailer: 12 Years a Slave

Was Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained too cartoony and silly for you? Was Spielberg's Lincoln just too dry, talky and boring? Maybe Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave will meet you halfway. This period piece, which stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt, looks like McQueen's most accessible, biggest-budget film to date, but in saying that, it's unlikely that the director of such uncompromising works such as Hunger and Shame will turn in a film about a touchy, controversial topic like slavery that's remotely "easy" to watch. Click below to check out some sweet facial hair on the Pittster:

Mockbusters 101

Last Thursday Twitter went berserk over the screening of a TV movie called Sharknado in the States. I don't think it's too difficult to guess what Sharknado is about but in case you're wondering here's the trailer:
So it's basically a movie about sharks falling from the sky. And it apparently led to 5,000 tweets-per-minute during the busiest period of the tweet-storm. Many celebrities contributed the frenzy too, including Mia Farrow (!), Olivia Wilde and screenwriter Damon Lindelof.

We haven't got Sharknado in our library yet (it will probably come soon), but do carry many of these "mockbusters", most of them produced by The Asylum studio. Surprisingly these titles get rented (which is why we continue to stock 'em)....but unsurprisingly they lead to bad customer reviews, like this one of Super Shark:

I have to ask though, what do you expect when you rent a movie called Super Shark??

Anyway, Total Film just compiled a useful list of these laughable knock-offs; for the curious who've never seen a mockbuster before you can rent these ones from us:

The Day the Earth Stopped
Mega Piranha
Princess of Mars
American Warships
6 Guns
Street Racer
Titanic II
The Amityville Haunting
I Am Omega
Alien Origin
Monster
Transmorphers: Fall of Man
3 Musketeers
2012 Supernova
200 MPH
The 7 Adventures of Sinbad
The Terminators
Nazis at the Center of the Earth
Jack the Giant Killer
Allan Quartermain and the Temple of Skulls
Bikini Spring Break
Alien vs Hunter
Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies
Grimm's Snow White
Almighty Thor
Paranormal Entity
Battle of Los Angeles
Snakes on a Train
Transmorphers

Trailer: Oldboy

Park Chan-wook's Oldboy remains one of the most electrifying, stylish and gleefully twisted revenge thrillers of the '00s. Its ingenious plotting all but guaranteed an English-language remake, but the road to getting there has been an incredibly long one, with names such as Justin Lin, Will Smith, Christian Bale and Steven Spielberg attached to and passing through the project at various points since the rights were secured. Spike Lee was finally given to the job to direct it, and though I generally do not care for most of Lee's work, I'm somewhat curious to see how different the two films are, other than the fact that the American version, understandably, will be sans the infamous octopus-eating scene of Park's. If you have not seen the original, I definitely urge you to catch it first, but subtitle-phobes will probably just want to hang out for Lee's film. Here are the trailers for both (they look pretty similar to these eyes):

Friday Clips #6

Three funny supercuts to start off, then an Onion Kickstarter spoof, James Gandolfini in Sesame Street, and a beautiful time-lapse short film...

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Hulk vs. Man of Steel

I don't usually have time to read all the lengthy film essays that pop up on the web, but there's one particular writer -- who pumps out among the longest -- I'm happy to devote a few hours to. Going solely by the name of "Hulk", he's a regular contributor to Badass Digest, where he publishes extremely wordy but thoughtful pieces on film and film criticism, with the added novelty of writing entirely with the CAPS LOCK on. I'm sure the fact that it seems like he's always shouting adds to the persuasiveness of his arguments, but really, this guy knows what he's talking about and how to lay down the law in the most cogent, perceptive yet accessible fashion possible.

His latest piece takes down the abysmal storytelling of Zack Snyder's Superman reboot Man of Steel and should be read by anyone interested in how dramatisation and characterisation are important tools in telling effective cinematic stories. Where Snyder's film might excel in its VFX department, it practically fails in every other regard, most glaringly, getting us to care for any of the characters amidst the destruction. If you fall into the "critics should relax, just enjoy the damn action" camp*, Hulk's writing probably isn't for you, but for a deeper understanding of movies and how certain elements affect us while we watch them, it's a thoroughly engaging and thought-provoking, if slightly exhausting read.

*Actually if you're one of these, I recommend you read it anyway, you might learn something :)

The Changing Shape of Cinema: The History of Aspect Ratio

Ever wondered what the "Screen format" field in the movie detail page is? What it means, what it refers to?

I'm assuming most people these days are already clued into letterboxing etc., but if you're not or have always wondered "what those black bars" are on your TV screen, let me direct you to this educational video from FilmmakerIQ breaking down the history of the Aspect Ratio...

NZIFF: Picks of the Fest

Tickets for the New Zealand International Film Festival go on sale tomorrow in Auckland, and if you've just been too busy to even look at the programme, here are a few films which I'm looking forward to...

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ORNETTE: MADE IN AMERICA
Some years ago the NZFF screened a great doco on avant-jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler which I’ve been trying to see again without much luck. Ayler was one of two musicians John Coltrane said he would like to see play at his funeral. The other was Ornette Coleman. I’m hoping this once-hard-to-see 1985 doco by underground filmmaker Shirley Clarke will offer a similarly fascinating and impressionistic mix of context and perspective on this true genius of seriously out-there sounds. Clarke’s unconventional approach to the format -- supposedly as free as experimental as Coleman’s playing -- should appeal to anyone bored with routine hagiographic portraits.

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DIAL M FOR MURDER 3D
Normally I’d wouldn’t make anything 3D a priority, but when you put Alfred Hitchcock into the equation, well, everything changes. I mean how often do you get to see Hitchcock in 3D on the big screen? Word is that Warner did a bang-up job restoring this smart, witty ‘54 suspenser starring Ray Milland and Grace Kelly, and the screening at Toronto International Film Festival last year sold out in TEN MINUTES. Reviews of the 3D have been encouraging, stating that Hitch wasn’t just about the gimmick, only employing it sparingly to enhance depth and emotion. Also: retro programming is easily my favourite part of the festival.

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LEVIATHAN
The New York Times on Leviathan: “a product of the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard, offers not information but immersion: 90 minutes of wind, water, grinding machinery and piscine agony.” You had me SENSORY ETHNOGRAPHY LAB. The rest is gravy. Critics worldwide have been bowled over by the visceral sensory wallop of Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel’s “doco” “about” the commercial fishing industry, which was filmed entirely on tiny cameras more commonly used to shoot extreme sports. From the startling images I’ve seen, Leviathan could be the darkest, most beautiful and terrifying experience of this year’s fest.

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COMPUTER CHESS
Andrew Bujalski hasn’t put a foot wrong yet. I still think his debut, 2002’s Funny Ha Ha is one of the best indies of the last decade, even if it spawned a movement with a much-maligned name (“mumblecore”) which he’s ever since been eager to sever ties with. It’s always heartening to see a filmmaker grow with each film, and with Computer Chess, Bujalski seems to be transitioning into a new promising phase of I’m not exactly quite sure what yet. Already a festival favourite stateside, its singular, retro-nerd-core video-vision of chess software programmers in the ‘80s sounds endearing and speaks to the geek inside me -- who also likes the fact that it was shot in the rarely used and unfashionably boxy Academy ratio.

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Some others I've penciled in: Ilo Ilo, Camille Claudel 1915, Post Tenebras Lux, Blue Ruin, Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, The Dance of Reality, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, The Strange Little Cat... there'll be more to come no doubt!