Tattoo Q2: Film

Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts

The Hunger Games are Worth Playing

The Hunger Games was good... I'll spare you the details... But, if you want them here's Wikipedia: The Hunger Games. Here's the official blurb: Sixteen year old Katniss Everdeen volunteers in her younger sister's place to enter the games, and is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy when she's pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives. If she's ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love. Jennifer Lawrence has a great break-through role in this... She's like what? 21?! Whole film keeps you on the edge of your seat and there is much allegory, if you like to think...

Become a Film Mogul With 'Box'

BoxTheMovie from Chris Dolman on Vimeo.

This is from my friend Donner's latest project.

And it stars the incomparable and legendary Mink Stole.

You, too, can be a film mogul.

Only 49 days to go for Box.

Coming Attractions: Dark Shadows by Tim Burton

Chronicle: Testosterone Telekinesis

I saw Chronicle.I liked it for it's sci-fi super hero fantasy elements.

Well acted by Dane DeHaan, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly, and Alex Russell.

, nicely directed by Josh Trank... Sort of outrageous story line... But, hey...

Kind of a Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity sort of amateur hand held reality show feel to it... But better photography. Cinematography by Matthew Jenson.

This is a teenaged boy's version of I Dream of Jeanne or Bewitched...

My synopsis?: Mischievous youths come-of-age while mastering accidental tele-kinetic powers from some asteroid in a cave or something... Oh, yeah, they can fly, too... Kewl!

It's not The Catcher in the Rye... But , it has it's moments... Actually a lot of moments... Certainly enough to hold attention for the duration... (83 Minutes)

I found it FUN. But I like this sort of thing. Always have.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on Chronicle.

Here's the HD Trailer for Chronicle

Here's the New York Times review for Chronicle.

The Artist is Joyful

I saw The Artist weeks ago at The Paris Theatre over by The Plaza Hotel...

I adored it...

Now that it's gotten all kinds of Oscar attention, you may already have heard how good it is...

Don't miss it...

And see it in a old fashioned theater if you can... like The Paris where The Artist is still/now playing...

Hugo Missed The Mark

I saw Hugo when it first came out... (At my favorite Ziegfeld Theater!)

Loved it's 1930's style. Many of it's visuals were rich and gorgeous.

Respected that it didn't over do the 3D stuff... (Though I still find the 3D glasses somewhat uncomfortable and restrictive).

Respectable.

But: Waaaaay tooooo looooong! (And therefore self indulgent).

Been a few weeks, and there's nothing about it that sticks with me...

As a friend remarked, "It could have been really great". So, we were in agreement that it was lacking... Something.

Lacking what? Plot, mostly. Or something.

Just left kind of disappointed...

It missed it's mark.

Carol Channing: Happy 92nd Birthday

Carol Channing performs for Her Majesty The Queen at the 1979 Royal Variety Performance, held at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London.

Miss Channing is 92 today!

Carol Channing: Larger than Life documentary film opens in theaters this week...

Shame

Saw Shame this weekend.

Still deciding what I thought about it...

It's a respectable movie to be sure. And there is already Oscar buzz.

Director Steve McQueen maintains a cool style.

Story line didn't provide many surprises. I pretty much knew where we were headed with this...

The whole cast of Shame was brilliant.

Authentic New York City location shots are ALWAYS appreciated.

Michael Fassbender is amazing...

Carey Mulligan's New York, New York rendition is a keeper.

Muppets 2011

Well, it's not bad...

The Muppets

But you don't want to go in with high expectations...

Think Nostalgia... And goofy, silly, hokey fun... You know: Muppet-ish.

Kermit the Frog goes through his Rolodex (!) and calls the White House looking for President Carter, for example...

The typical fun cameos... Wish they'd done more with Mickey Rooney (!) when they were setting up the "Let's all get together and put on a show" theme...

Unfortunately, not even the Muppets can't make Whoopi Goldberg look less smarmy.

And some folk in the know will definitely be aware of the voice differences from the new performers behind the classic characters...

Steve Whitmire has made Kermit his own...

But Miss Piggy misses the mark, and the shots of her full bodied are grotesque and jarring...

Appreciation for Dave Goelz back as the original Gonzo and Waldorf.

Henson's Museum Pieces

Went to see Jim Henson's Fantastic World over at the Museum of the Moving Image this past week...

What struck me was how truly archaic these hand stitched Muppets under glass look today...

I'm reminded how the restless Jim Henson that I knew, was always one to embrace the newest technologies...

No sooner was he done The Muppet Movie... And he was onto The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth fantasy films. Even Fraggle Rock had its robotics, and mechanics, and computer driven machinery...

My hunch is that today, if Henson were still alive, he would be soooo far away from Muppets and the art of puppetry performance.

He'd have surely been far more into the technologies that brought us Pixar's Toy Story and The Rise of the Planet of the Apes... And who knows what new direction he would have explored or invented? He was a businessman with a curiosity and the drive to see new visions through...

The foam pig and the hand puppet frog??? Probably, not so much...

These lifeless puppets entombed in glass showcases are merely historic museum pieces today...

Makes one wonder what would have been Henson's fantastic world of today?

Sadly, we'll never know...

See Time Out New York piece on Henson Exhibit including a slide show.

Update: The New York Times' And a Frog Shall Lead Them: Henson's Legacy

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I caught a matinee of Rise of the Planet of the Apes yesterday.

I remember seeing the original film at the Edmondson Drive-In Theatre in Baltimore, with my family as a ten year old...

I had to ask my parents to explain the part about the discovery of the wrecked Statue of Liberty at the end of that movie, and what that all meant...

The ape stars in this 2011 prequel far exceed the realism of the rubber masks worn by Roddy McDowall and other cast in the 1968 original Planet of the Apes mo-pic. And these computer generated creatures do indeed successfully manage to capture the audience's emotions and attention...

Here's a trailer that also reveals of some of the technological magic that brings these 2011 apes to life...

See the film in a theater if you can... It's one of those movies best appreciated on the big screen...

Captain America: The First Avenger

Took another summertime journey into the Marvel Universe ( the shared fictional universe where most comic book titles published by Marvel Comics take place) with Captain America: The First Avenger.

What's not to love about this guy??

Haven't quite figured out all the chronology of how this story fits in with all the others to make up The Avengers...

But am certain, Marvel will continue to happily provide future motion picture explanations... $$$!

I am definitely a sucker for these things...

NYC from a Skateboard's Perspective

If you were a skateboard... And you lived in NYC... This could be your life...!

Mind the volume on the soundtrack...

Skateboards like it loud, apparently...

By Joshmaready

X-Men: First Class

While this film is expected to be the first downloadable flick for Android, there's something about big screens and super heroes...

So, I saw X-Men: First Class at the Empire 25 today on 42nd Street.

I love this kinda movie...

A little super hero. A little sci-fi...

They tied the story into the real live history of the Cuban Missile Crisis...

Here's the Wikipedia entry on X-Men: First Class...

I know I'm late to the game... A movie that came out in the beginning of June is practically an antique by now... LOL

NewFest 2011: Rent Boys, Sick Comedy and a Slick Biopic

As longtime readers of Postcards from Hell's Kitchen readers will recall... Summer vacation for me means the opportunity to engage in all kinds of New Yorky people, places, and things that I'd never have the time (or residue energy) to enjoy during the regular work year...

And so it was with last week's NewFest film festival...

This year's fest seemed well run from my perspective... Even the occasional broken air conditioner, ticket order mix ups, impromptu Director Q&A's, and delayed film start times, were all handled smoothly and professionally by cheery NewFest staffers...

NewFest is dedicated to bringing together filmmakers and audiences in the building of a community that passionately supports giving greater visibility and voice to a wide range of expressions and representations of the LGBT experience. We are committed to nurturing emerging LGBT and allied filmmakers. We support those artists who are willing to take risks in telling the stories that fully reflect the diversity and complexity of our lives. And we’re committed to bringing our audience stories that transform our vision of who we are and who we can be.

Through the New York LGBT film festival, presented annually since 1988, and year-round programming, NewFest celebrates fine domestic and international film as part of our mission to break through closet doors and glass ceilings everywhere.

The German documentary Rent Boys Die Jungs vom Bahnhof Zoo tackled the compelling world of male prostitution in Berlin without falling into cliche' by focussing on the psychology and sociology without the prurient appeal... The story lines focused on the biographies of five rent boys including Ionel and visiting his home village in Romania. There was also Nazif, a former civil war refugee from Bosnia who came to Germany as a child and began working the Bahnhof Zoo train station as a hustler.

The film’s main protagonist is Daniel (Pictured), who began working as a male prostitute at sixteen. He longs for a simple post-prostitution career with a simple job, raising his son, and a simple life with his female partner.

I saw a nonsense movie called Varla Jean and the Mushroomheads which was totally not my cup of tea. Interesting premise of twisted drag queen tries to alter her narcissistic career into a TV kid's show... But I draw the line at references to pedophilia (later recounted to depict that the suspect was only guilty feeding kids illegal prescription drugs... Meh). Film lacked so much of the John Water's aesthetic that it tried desperately to achieve. That's one I HIGHLY UNrecommend!

I also caught that terrific bio documentary on Carol Channing. Follow that link to my review of Carol Channing: Larger Than Life that I had published last week...

Kudos to all involved with NewFest. Here's a list of 2011 NewFest Awards.

Of course all who were able to widen their audience base with their film work were winners... The good, the bad and the ugly...

The Carol Channing Documentary

I'll be seeing several of the screenings at this year's NewFest: New York's premier LGBT film festival...

And, I completely loved this bio-pic documentary GEM... (And I don't mean rhinestones)... Carol Channing: Larger Than Life...

Often funny. Always touching. Highly entertaining...

There's plenty here for the Broadway historian including antique footage and priceless recollections from composers, producers, colleagues, and friends from Lend an Ear to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, through the whole Hello, Dolly! phenomenon and more...

The footage of our almost 90 year old Broadway legend strolling through Shubert Alley while sharing her recollections was already worth the price of admission (and/or the price of the someday released DVD. Collectors will note!)... And that's just the beginning of the film...

Press Release: "The story of legendary performer Carol Channing's life is as colorful as the lipstick on her big, bright smile. In CAROL CHANNING: LARGER THAN LIFE, director Dori Berinstein (ShowBusiness, Gotta Dance), with co-writer Adam Zucker, captures the magic and vivacity of the 90-year-old icon – both onstage and off... past and present. The film is both an intimate love story and a rarefied journey inside Broadway's most glamorous era. It is, above all, a look at an inspiring, incomparable and always entertaining American legend."

Her entire career and 90 year life seem to fly by in a blink... An extremely well-lashed and wide-eyed blink at that...

Here's the complete cast list for Carol Channing: Larger than Life at IMDb.

Here's a link to the Trailer for Carol Channing: Larger Than Life

Pictured at right is a shot of Miss Channing with her treasured original Dolly head dress that she pulled out of her closet for the documentary...

God bless her... At 90... She's still glowin', she's still crowin', she's still goin' strong...

Happy Medium

Happy Medium from Johnny Coffeen on Vimeo.

In March 2011, an exhibition featuring the work of California sculptor John Frame opened at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Filmmaker Johnny Coffeen explores the artist’s process, aesthetic philosophies and transition to stop-motion animation filmmaking. It is presented in the exhibition alongside Frame’s own film, which features his handmade characters. Frame's house, as it appears in the film, is largely the work of his own hands.

To view Coffeen's editing work on John Frame's stop-motion animated film "Three Fragments of a Lost Tale" go to: johnframesculpture.com/film

Thanks to Nicomar for sending.

Tattoo Q2