Tag: Cinema

Kaiju, Destroyer of Worlds.


“You’re not fooling anybody when you say that what happened was a natural disaster…It was not an earthquake, it wasn’t a typhoon…God help us all.” Bryan Cranston seems more than a mite panicky in the new trailer for Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, also with Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Juliette Binoche, and David Strathairn. As I said last time around, I like that they’ve returned to the “what-have-we-wrought” nuclear horror of the 1954 original. I’m in.

The House that Egon Built.

“‘He’s the least changed by success of anyone I know in terms of sense of humor, of humility, sense of self,'[said] the late Second City founder Bernie Sahlins…’He’s the same Harold he was 30 years ago. He’s had enormous success relatively, but none of it has gone to his head in any way.'”

Actor, writer, and director Harold Ramis, 1944–2014. Whether it’s Groundhog Day Ghostbusters, Stripes, Animal House, Caddyshack or some other film in his roster, at some point he probably made you laugh.

“These comedies have several things in common. They attack the smugness of institutional life, trashing the fraternity system, country clubs, the Army — even local weathermen — with an impish good will that is unmistakably American. Will Rogers would have made films like these, if Will Rogers had lived through Vietnam and Watergate and decided that the only logical course of action was getting wasted or getting laid or — better — both.”

Related from The New Yorker, 2004: Why Ramis’s comedies are still funny today. “The voice that Ramis originated — a defanged sixties rebelliousness that doesn’t so much seek to oust the powerful as to embolden the powerless — remains the dominant mode in comedy today.”

Update: “The ones who cultivate an inner calm while others are dropping around them might well have the tougher job. He was a straight man on and off the screen. But oh, what timing.” David Edelstein on Ramis.

A Raccoon Will Rise.

“What a bunch of A-holes.” James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy get their long-awaited trailer debut, with Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Batista, Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker, John C. Reilly, Peter Serafinowicz, Glenn Close, Benicio del Toro, and the voices of Vin Diesel (Groot) and Bradley Cooper (Rocket).

The Woman Who Fell to Earth.


Alien Scarlett Johansson cruises Glasgow for humanoid males to bring back to her oily den — Sodastream Central? — in the creepy new trailer for Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, also with Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Paul Brannigan and Krystof Hádek. I’ve never thought much of Johansson, to be honest, but Glazer’s Sexy Beast was #29 in my Best of the Oughts list, so I have high hopes for this.

Obviously She’s Not a Golfer.


“Lipinski glided around the rink in a white v-neck and bathrobe, all while holding a White Russian. Yes, there is a beverage there, man. I like pretty much all things Lebowski-related, so I support this, but feel compelled to call bullshit on that not being a real White Russian. Unless they just used really heavy cream in it, which would be very Dudelian.”

Can’t say I’m a big watcher of the Olympics — I don’t think I saw a single second of the London games in 2012, but I was in dissertation mode then — and particularly the Winter Olympics. But you know what would get me to partake? More Lebowski-themed numbers. Tara Lipinski channels the Dude for Jimmy Fallon’s last week at 12:30 (who, Roots be damned, bid his farewell with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.)

Philip Seymour Hoffman, 1967-2014.

“‘For me, acting is torturous,’ Hoffman told the New York Times in 2008, ‘and it’s torturous because you know it’s a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, That’s beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great—well, that’s absolutely torturous.’ Philip Seymour Hoffman, 1967–2014.

A.O. Scott: “We did not lose just a very good actor. We may have lost the best one we had. He was only 46, and his death, apparently from a drug overdose, foreshortened a career that was already monumental…He had a rare ability to illuminate the varieties of human ugliness. No one ever did it so beautifully.”

Derek Thompson: “He could puff himself up and play larger than life, but his specialty was to find the quiet dignity in life-sized characters—losers, outcasts, and human marginalia. It’s not clear that there were roles Philip Seymour Hoffman could not do. He had so many lives within him — and more, undiscovered and unseen. Those are the lives, aside from his own, we’ve now lost.”

Ugh. Easily the most depressing early celebrity death since Heath Ledger, all the more because of the circumstances involved. Note this must-read piece: “There is a particularly chilling aspect to Hoffman’s death that only another recovering addict can feel. He had 23 years clean, and then went back out.”

And, as the testimonials above indicate, Hoffman was arguably the best character actor working today. (His only peers I can think of offhand: Paul Giamatti, Sam Rockwell, and Jeffrey Wright.) He will be missed. As one inspired commenter put it at AICN, “Strong men also cry…strong men also cry.”

Must-See Hoffman: The 25th Hour, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, The Big Lebowski, Capote, Charlie Wilson’s War, Happiness, MI:3, The Savages, Synechdoche, New York, The Talented Mr. Ripley.

The Luthor Network.

“What’s great about Lex is that he exists beyond the confines of the stereotypical nefarious villain. He’s a complicated and sophisticated character whose intellect, wealth and prominence position him as one of the few mortals able to challenge the incredible might of Superman. Having Jesse in the role allows us to explore that interesting dynamic, and also take the character in some new and unexpected directions.”

In a surprising twist, Zack Snyder announces Jesse Eisenberg as Batman v. Superman‘s Lex Luthor (and, in more conventional casting, Jeremy Irons as Alfred.) Hrm. Well, I like the outside-the-box risk taken here, provided Eisenberg isn’t just reprising his role from The Social Network. (Image above via AICN talkbacker JayEskimo.)

Know Your Mutants.

Also in comic news, I forgot to post this last update: Empire issues 25(!) different character covers for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, including, above, Ian McKellen’s Magneto, Peter Dinklage’s Bolivar Trask, and an admirably creepy Sentinel from the future. Some of these are better than others, and in all honesty I’d rather see Matthew Vaughn helming this project, but here’s hoping this is close to Singer’s X2.

Dr. Reinhardt Rests.

“‘The world doesn’t change. The balance of evil will always be the same,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in 2001…’I think all the poets and artists have always written for peace and love, and it hasn’t changed much in the last two or three thousand years. But we hope.'” Maximillian Schell, 1930-2014.

His many Nazi turns aside, Schell will always be a part of my mental landscape because of his Dr. Reinhardt in The Black Hole, which is one trippy little number to lay on a five-year-old kid. A Disney movie — clearly geared for the Star Wars set — where the bad guy ends up perched on the cliffs of Hell, trapped for eternity inside his killer robot? They don’t make them like they used to.