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Bad Lieutenant maybe really bad in a good way or vice-versa

November 21, 2009 at 12:28 pm by Wyatt Williams

Is anyone else salivating at the chance to see Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans? The improbable pairing of German auteur Werner Herzog and financially troubled space cadet Nicolas Cage is causing critics to spew all sorts of qualified, conflicted, and adoring statements. Christian Science Monitor is calling the Herzog-Cage pairing a “match made in looney-tunes heaven” and The Washington Post is calling the film a “freaky-deaky home run.” Yeah, whatever that means.

Salon.com is totally owning the ambivalence. Thursday’s review called the movie “so bad it’s good.” In an interview published the next day, Herzog claims, among other things, that he hasn’t seen Taxi Driver, doesn’t remember Chinatown, and never got around to watching the 1992 movie that Port of Call New Orleans remakes. Amazing. The post-Katrina, coke-addict cop drama doesn’t open in Atlanta until December 4.


Family goes to extremes to alleviate autism in The Horse Boy

November 20, 2009 at 6:35 pm by Curt Holman
<i>THE HORSE BOY</i>: Rupert Isaacson (from left), Rowan and Ghoste in Mongolia

THE HORSE BOY: Rupert Isaacson (from left), Rowan and Ghoste in Mongolia

Medical narratives often depict ordinary people who turn to alternative healing methods when traditional Western health care fails. Seldom can you find families that go to the lengths of Rupert Isaacson and Kristen Neff, who traveled from Austin, Texas, to the steppes of Mongolia with the hopes of improving their son Rowan’s autistic condition.

Narrating the documentary The Horse Boy, Isaacson justifies the trip early in the film. At his worst, 5-year-old Rowan’s cognitive problems make him the equivalent of “a giant 18-month-old” with poor social skills, incomplete toilet training, and seemingly endless, inexplicable tantrums. Isaacson’s research into shamanism and Rowan’s affinity for animals, especially horses, inspire the father to see if the two in combination could have therapeutic value. He discovers that Mongolia combines shamanic traditions with horsemanship, so he, Neff and Rowan embark on a journey a world away.

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Hollywood Product: The Twilight Saga: New Moon

November 20, 2009 at 2:35 pm by Edward Adams

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON: Thrill-seeking Bella (Kristen Stewart) receives warmth and support from Jacob (Taylor Lautner) after a failed cliff-jumping encounter.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON: Thrill-seeking Bella (Kristen Stewart) receives warmth and support from Jacob (Taylor Lautner) after a failed cliff-jumping encounter.

GENRE: Supernatural teenage drama

THE PITCH: To prevent a frenzy for Bella’s (Kristen Stewart) blood, the Cullens, including her soulmate Edward (Robert Pattinson), cut all ties and leave Forks, Wash. Devastated Bella eventually turns to longtime friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) to mend her broken heart, unintentionally stoking Jacob’s fiery passion for her and uncovering his true nature. Unable to forget her first love, Bella sets off a reckless chain of events that ultimately sends her on a mission to save a lovelorn Edward.

MONEY SHOTS: Jacob’s lycanthropic nature is revealed when he morphs into his wolven form to protect Bella from an attack by friend and packmate Paul (Alex Meraz). A savage, snarly, teeth-gnarling fight ensues between the two werewolves.

BEST LINES: Almost anything from classmate Jessica (Anna Kendrick) when talking to dazed Bella during a girl’s night out. As Jessica compares zombies to lepers, she notes, “My cousin had leprosy, so it’s not funny.” Best friend Alice Cullen (Ashley Greene) declares, “I have never known anyone more prone to life-threatening idiocy” when she comes to check up on Bella after a tragic prophetic vision.

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(Photo Courtesy Summit Entertainment)


Sandra Bullock Blind Sides Atlanta

November 20, 2009 at 12:00 am by Curt Holman
SPORTS AUTHORITY: Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock, right) coaches Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron)

SPORTS AUTHORITY: Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock, right) coaches Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron)

The prologue to the warm-n-fuzzy sports story The Blind Side plays so well, it’s like seeing a team return an opening kickoff to score a touchdown. A Southern-accented Sandra Bullock narrates an insider’s perspective on the five fateful seconds that cost the Washington Redskins’ Joe Theismann his career. Michael Lewis’ book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game provides the film with tasty tidbits about football machinations on and off the field, but director John Lee Hancock fumbles the rags-to-riches story of Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron).

The film’s early scenes find mountainous Michael adrift in the impoverished corners of Memphis with a crack-addicted mother and no real home. When a Christian school bends the rules to enroll him, Michael attracts the notice of Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock), the take-charge socialite wife of a fast-food mogul (Tim McGraw). Leigh Anne whisks Michael to the family McMansion and offers him clothes, a Thanksgiving invitation, and even a strategy for success on the gridiron.

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(Photo Courtesy Ralph Nelson/Warner Bros. Picture)


The Messenger delivers stark lesson about casualties of war

November 18, 2009 at 8:00 am by Curt Holman
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THE MESSENGERS: Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson, from left) and Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) deliver the news.

Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) receives new orders in the first scenes of The Messenger. Will endured injuries to his eye and leg in an Iraqi firefight, and has the wounds and decorations to prove it, but his latest assignment will leave its own kind of scars.

Will finds that becoming part of the U.S. Army’s casualty notification team is the toughest job he’ll ever loathe. Will joins the soldiers tasked to regretfully inform the closest relatives of their loved ones’ deaths during military service. Many movies feature iconic scenes of formally dressed officials bearing ill tidings on the front stoops of heartland homes. Director/co-writer Oren Moverman finds a rich, original premise by presenting the perspective of these “angels of death,” and critiques war in general without taking sides over current military conflicts. At times, however, The Messenger proves derelict in its duties as a screen narrative.

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(Photo Courtesy Courtesy Oscilloscope Laboratories)


Jim Henson + David Lynch = ‘Twin Beaks’

November 16, 2009 at 9:24 am by Wyatt Williams

Do you really need an excuse to watch a Muppets skit inspired by David Lynch? This will heal your Monday morning blues.

(H/T to FF)


Stomp The Yard 2 filming locally

November 14, 2009 at 12:50 am by Patrick Saunders

Casting calls are out for extras for Stomp The Yard 2: Homecoming.  While 10-12 hour days are expected, curiously no pay is offered.  Although lunch is being served and prizes will be raffled off, for what it’s worth.

Attire: NO RED, NO WHITE, NO LOGOS. Clothing with purple and yellow in it are highly encouraged on this day. Also come camera ready (ladies, hair and make-up ready, fellows looking your best) as you will be on camera.

No children under the ages of 10 years old will be allowed on set.

The shoot is at Center Stage on Sunday, followed by shoots at Morris Brown and the nightclub Opera on various days over the next couple of weeks.


Plaza Theatre and ASIFA-Atlanta screen Mary and Max

November 13, 2009 at 5:26 pm by Curt Holman

The Plaza Theatre joins with ASIFA-Atlanta to present Mary and Max,the Claymation comedy of mismatched pen pals. Director Adam Elliott, who won the Oscar for Best Animated Short for “Harvie Krumpet” (narrated by Geoffrey Rush) explores the 18-year friendship between a lonely Australian girl (Toni Collette) and an obese New Yorker with Asperger’s Syndrome (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). The opening film of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, Mary and Max screens at 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16.


Hollywood Product: 2012

November 13, 2009 at 12:54 pm by Curt Holman
BURN BABY BURN: Lily Morgan (left) and John Cusack

BURN BABY BURN: Lily Morgan (left) and John Cusack

GENRE: Disaster movie on a planetary scale

THE PITCH: Technobabble about solar flares plus mumbo-jumbo about Mayan predictions equals catastrophes that could destroy all life on Earth, even movie stars. A White House science advisor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a novelist/limo driver (John Cusack), his ex-wife (Amanda Peet), and a shaggy conspiracy theorist (Woody Harrelson) all try to keep ahead of the fireballs and falling skyscrapers.

MONEY SHOTS: Director Roland Emmerich remains the John Holmes of disaster porn. Highlights include the heroes out-driving a Los Angeles earthquake; a volcanic eruption at Yellowstone; a tidal wave crashing over a Tibetan mountain range; and the Sistine Chapel ceiling cracking between God and Adam’s fingers. (Oh, burn!) A tsunami flattens the White House with the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier, proving what you’ve always suspected: Bad weather has a sense of irony.

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(Photo Courtesy 2009 Columbia TriStar Marketing Group, Inc.)


Five Minutes of Heaven goes mano a mano with Northern Ireland conflict

November 11, 2009 at 7:00 am by Curt Holman
 BLAZE OF GLORY: Murder becomes reality-TV fodder in <em>Five Minutes of Heaven</em>.

BLAZE OF GLORY: Murder becomes reality-TV fodder in Five Minutes of Heaven.

Even if you’ve never heard the name Oliver Hirschbiegel, there’s a strong chance you’ve seen his work. The German filmmaker directed Downfall, the superb 2004 drama about the Third Reich’s final days. Last year, a clip of Bruno Ganz’s Hitler chewing out his underlings became a YouTube hit when an online prankster rewrote the subtitles so the scene depicted then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton raging against her campaign staff. Now you can find dozens of remixes that show Adolf hating on, say, the Avatar trailer.

Hirschbiegel can’t claim credit or blame for the pop appropriation of Downfall, but the original scene’s dramatic power no doubt supports its viral following. Downfall’s depiction of the besieged Nazis combined epic battle scenes with more soft-spoken moments that illuminated Hitler’s historical legacy, such as Frau Goebbels quietly killing her own children rather than have them see an Allied victory. Hirschbiegel’s latest film, Five Minutes of Heaven, treats a confrontation between two men as another kind of microcosm for a historic event: the violence in Northern Ireland.

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(Photo Courtesy Reconciliation Limited 2009/An IFC Films release)


Seriocomic Loose Rope seeks bovine intervention

November 9, 2009 at 12:03 pm by Curt Holman
LooseRope-flicksWEB

LOOSE ROPE: Rope 'em, cowboy.

Following on the hooves of The Men Who Stare at Goats, the Iranian culture-clash dramedy Loose Rope depicts young fellows transfixed by other kinds of livestock.

Part of the High Museum’s 12th annual Iranian Film Today series, Loose Rope gets a lot of mileage from the easy interplay of Mikhail and Asgar (Babak Hamidian, Keramat Roudsaz), two pals who deliver animals in the rural outskirts of Tehran. With Mikhail as a mature, ambitious man of few words and Asgar as an impulsive motormouth, they maintain the dynamic of a classic comedy team. Despite Mikhail’s wish to start a new business, the pair falls behind on payments for their truck, which their creditor threatens to repossess unless they bring him a 450-pound cow.

Before the bovine adventure takes hold, Loose Rope follows another subplot involving sheep. Mikhail and Asgar discover a sneak who digs up recently deceased sheep that he sells to an unscrupulous restaurateur in violation of halal practices (and basic sanitation), which prohibit even sick animals from being served as food. Mikhail establishes himself as a decent fellow by putting an end to the sheep “grave-robbing,” while director Mehrshad Karkhani entices the viewer with quiet action scenes and occasional animal-based sight gags.

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(Photo Courtesy High Museum)


Hollywood Product: The Fourth Kind

November 6, 2009 at 11:05 am by Edward Adams
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THE FOURTH KIND: Dr. Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovovich) recalls in detail her alien abduction experience under hypnosis.

GENRE: Supernatural docudrama

THE PITCH: Director Olatunde Osunsanmi reenacts a mysterious tale of alien abduction told by Dr. Abigail Tyler through interviews and recorded footage of close encounters in Nome, Alaska. Shot as a hybrid between a documentary and a feature film, viewers follow Tyler’s (Milla Jovovich) desperate search to uncover the truth about strange coincidences occurring to her family and the residents of Nome.

MONEY SHOTS: Dr. Tyler and her colleague Dr. Campos (Elias Koteas) reluctantly hypnotize her patient Scott Stracinsky (Enzo Cilenti) again in his bedroom after he starts to exhibit abnormal behavior. As he begins to retrace what happened to him, he springs forward, sitting straight up before hovering over the bed and speaking in ancient Sumerian.

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(Photo Courtesy of Universal Pictures)


Hollywood Product: A Christmas Carol

November 6, 2009 at 7:00 am by Edward Adams
HUMBUG DEEZ: Ghost of Christmas Present (from left, performed by Jim Carrey) chides his charge Ebenezer Scrooge (also performed by Carrey) in A Christmas Carol.

HUMBUG DEEZ: Ghost of Christmas Present (from left, performed by Jim Carrey) chides his charge Ebenezer Scrooge (also performed by Carrey) in A Christmas Carol.

GENRE: CGI holiday drama

THE PITCH: Disney gives Charles Dickens’ classic holiday tale an animated makeover. Miserly Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is visited by ghosts who show him glimpses of his past, present and future in efforts to save his soul before Christmas.

MONEY SHOTS: It’s hard to pull away from the visual effects each of the ghosts utilize to show Scrooge various moments in time. Ghost of Christmas Past (Carrey) uses slingshot-ish flight sequences to take Scrooge to parts of his past. Ghost of Christmas Present (Carrey, again) hurls luminescent golden beads that turn the floor and walls translucent for he and Scrooge to spy on the present. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (yup, you guessed it … Carrey) uses ebon shadows to transport and frighten Scrooge back on to a righteous path.

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(Photo Courtesy Walt Disney Pictures)


Too baaad Goats falls flat

November 6, 2009 at 5:00 am by Curt Holman
TRANCE-PARENT STORYTELLING: Lyn Cassady (George Clooney, from left), Mahmud Daash (Waleed Zuaiter) and Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) in <i>The Men Who Stare at Goats

TRANCE-PARENT STORYTELLING: Lyn Cassady (George Clooney, from left), Mahmud Daash (Waleed Zuaiter) and Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) in The Men Who Stare at Goats

The Men Who Stare at Goats begins with a wonderful disclaimer: “More of this is true than you would believe.” Most films use phrases like “Based on a true story” or “Inspired by actual events” as a fig leaf for outrageous liberties with little connection to reality. The real incidents behind The Men Who Stare at Goats indeed seem stranger than fiction, but the demands of formulaic three-act screenwriting sabotage the film’s mission.

Based on the book of the same name by Welsh journalist and documentarian Jon Ronson, the film completely reimagines Ronson as Michigan reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor). Personal crises inspire Wilton to attempt to cover the 2002 invasion of Iraq. While languishing in Kuwait City and envying the embedded war correspondents, Wilton meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). Cassady turns out to be a veteran of the U.S. Army’s First Earth Battalion, which attempted to train psychic soldiers.

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(Photo Courtesy Laura Macgruder/Westgate Film Services, LLC.)