Tagged: filmandtelevision

In which Zack Galifianakis goes anti- Between Two Ferns and plays the straight man to Rawkblog comedy hero Showalter's character, an indie-rocker who doesn't play instruments (nor shows). "Do you get it?"

Editor's note: I watched (500) Days of Summer again recently and felt compelled to gush about it on Twitter, where I found that not everybody loves quite as much as I do - especially Rawkblog pal Sarah Spy . 1,000 words later, I'm still not sure who's right. Get yr debate on with us after the jump. Dave Rawkblog : There's a scene in (500) Days of Summer where Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) counts the ways in which he loves the titular heroine: Her smile. [...]

In bullet points: * This movie wants so badly to be really good! It makes pop culture references and notes movie cliches and tries to self-awarely transcend them (but does not). It clearly invokes Mean Girls and the John Hughes filmography (also films starring charming redheads) and, especially, Saved , and features a sharp-tongued, wiser-than-her-years heroine who you root for from the jump. * Reasons this movie is not good: The adults, satellite characters in films like Mean Girls and Clueless , get most of the laughs here. At times, [...]

Inception is, in many ways, the anti- Matrix . Its protagonists are not reality-warping superheroes; it offers no tangled web of religious ideologies to make sense of. Its characters are not grappling with fate, but serving their own purposes. And yet, it gives us worlds within worlds, real and unreal, dreams and waking life and what lies beneath both. In some ways, The Matrix is its better: Inception 's action, a barrage of anonymous gunshots and punches, lacks the visual invention of the Wachowskis' bullet-time or even the balletic choreography of the Bourne trilogy. [...]

As previously noted, I'm making my way through the Stanley Kubrick filmography; the time has come for A Clockwork Orange . Some really good moments, though not quite the cinematic mind-blower that The Shining or 2001 was, visually or pacing-wise. It felt a little grungy and less deliberate, which is in keeping with the material, to be sure, and the shocking violence stands in for the visual expanse of a film such as 2001 - still, I missed seeing the limits of Kubrick's imagination at play. It's meant to [...]

This is my album of the year.

H8 U SO BAD KATE / via ABC Few things in life sting more than a sour end to a long relationship, pulling inside the curtain to reveal your lover as a wizard of lies, cheating, heartbreak. I'm talking, of course, about myself and Lost . I'll admit, I've changed, too. Our first time together was in December 2004, a few short months after the show's September premiere. Over two days of sweaty marathon sessions, I watched 11 episodes and fell passionately in love. I watched them, I should note, on a DVD-R burned [...]

For once, I'd like to put aside my critic's cap and address this one as a fan. Iron Man 2 was fucking awesome . Worried by the raft of middling reviews ("Too much action! Too many villains! Too much everything!"), I waited until yesterday to see it; a mistake on par with crossing the Rubicon. Should've had more faith in Jon Favreau and Co., because there wasn't a moment where I wasn't completely pleased with what I was seeing on screen. There's more going on, yes, but the film kept the plot simple and linear, [...]

The Playlist , one of the Web's more reliable (or at least relatable) film sites, calls the new Elliott Smith documentary "unpolished" and without many new insights. Sorry to hear that, but I'm still curious - it's making the festival rounds now, I'll keep you posted on release dates. Elliott Smith - "Last Call" (remaster): mp3 Previously : Searching For Elliott Smith Doc Hits Festivals Elliott Smith: All Posts

Warner Bros. The deeper I burrow myself into the Kubrick oeuvre, the harder it seems to look at the rest of film - the entire art form! - the same way again. The Shining might be the best movie I've ever seen; it's certainly the most impressive experience I've had in front of a screen for 90+ minutes in at least two years. Some brief thoughts: Jesus Christ, the art direction! Shades of red (well, one purposeful shade: blood-red) permeate the film, from the hotel lobby's pillars to Jack's (Jack Nicholson) jacket. It's [...]

As a relative newcomer to Stanley Kubrick (I've seen The Killers , Spartacus and bits of Full Metal Jacket ), it's hard not to be blown away by the directorial verve of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb . Released just two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and one before Vietnam, the film filters Cold War paranoia through a series of thinly veiled comedy routines, making a mockery out of government incompetence and military short-sightedness. Shot in gorgeously contrasted black-and-white with the occasional wide-angle lens to add [...]

As a person who has watched every major awards ceremony for the past two years thanks to an entertainment journalism day job, by the time the Oscars get here, the season has me a little burnt out. Awards shows are like year-end lists, but worse: mass-voted celebrations of terminally unhip, or at least un-artful, dreck. The Oscars are usually a step above the rest, though, and I suppose I care enough about the movies themselves (if not who takes home a trophy tonight) to share some thoughts on this year's ceremony. [...]

Editor's Note: I now have Netflix and a suddenly overwhelming need to document every movie I see. Whip It , Drew Barrymore's directorial debut and passion project, sure feels like one. The story of a small-town girl who rebels against her parents and her quirky-but-suffocating environment by joining a rambunctious, tattooed roller derby team, the film tries to be too much: a coming-of-age drama, a sports comedy, a girl power manifesto, An Education in middle America. Without hitting any of those genres out of the park, it rounds the bases exuberantly enough [...]

Editor's Note: I now have Netflix and a suddenly overwhelming need to document every movie I see. It's hard to imagine a worse romantic comedy - or a more pitiable film in general - than last year's The Ugly Truth , a movie simultaneously misogynist and man-hating that furthered the absurdity of Katherine Heigl's likability and Gerard Butler's presence outside of action films. The Proposal is not that movie. But it's pretty bad! It suffers from similar problems - Sandra Bullock, as a steely workoholic editor, keeps much of her considerable charm under [...]

Wiseau Films The cinematic experience that is The Room could only be the result of Trig Palin writing, directing and producing a feature-length movie with only a working knowledge of Cinemax softcore and a Wikipedia plot summary for the Book of Job. It is, without a doubt, the worst movie I have ever seen. Of course, the gulf between "worst movie" and "least enjoyable movie" (hello, Le Divorce ) is often a wide one, and The Room fills that considerable expanse with two hours of inexplicably heart-warming delirium. [...]

The Weinstein Company A list of the problems and missed opportunities of Nine would head quickly into double-digits, so I'll be brief. The film finds its protagonist, irredeemable misanthrope and beloved director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis, excellent as always), at a crossroads: with his recent films flopping and middle age taking its toll, the passionate Italian turns to the women in his life to break through an onset of writer's block. The narrative, of course, is little more than window dressing for the core of the film: Broadway-style production number after production number, each [...]

After the needlessly nihilistic buffoonery of Burn After Reading , the Coen brothers' latest opus, A Serious Man , arrives with hellfire and gargantuan confidence. Like the majority of their filmography, it finds the writer-directors plumbing the endless well of existentialist angst; and yet, they manage to draw forth new truths once again. The story is one thing: Larry Gopnik (Michael Stulhbarg, a previously unknown, Twilight Zone Michael Showalter) is a professor of little note whose suburban '60s life and family begins to crumble around him, piece by piece, on the eve of his son's Bar [...]

The big story of District 9 was its bargain-basement $30 million budget, a number that astounds once the movie starts playing. Its aliens are forcefully, disgustingly real; its cinematography is effortlessly propulsive (and tack-sharp, especially on Blu-ray) and Peter Jackson protegee and first-time director Neil Blomkapf's decisions are largely on-point. (By contrast, an effort such as I Am Legend cost roughly $150 million for CGI vampires right out of a 1997 Castlevania game.) Once the action begins, about 20 minutes in, the movie turns into a blockbuster thrill ride that puts fat-wallet spenders to [...]

There's something to be said for a movie in which nice things keep happening to charming people, as is the case in the dual biopic Julie and Julia . When it happens for two hours, fatigue sets in. Not to mention hunger. Nevertheless, the film - the twin stories of blogger Julie Powell (Amy Adams, underrated as always) and the needs-no-introduction Julia Child (Meryl Streep, romping about like a Golden Retriever) - is tasty enough despite its extra minutes in the oven. It's a relief to see a biopic without the shadow of drugs and death and, [...]

Having not read the comic that Kick-Ass is based on, here's another hell of a trailer. Rawkblog heroes Clark Duke, McLovin and Nicholas Cage star in this joint, which might be a record. Michael Cera cameo?