Sorry to hear that the small-scale global distributor Indomina has given up the ghost, pretty much, in the US. Most everybody laid off, operations winding down.
They released the film I thought was the best documentary of last year — “The Imposter,” and had US rights to “Holy Motors” and bought “LUV,” which rolled out to weak reviews and zero box office a couple of weeks back.
It’s Thursday, time to wake up, collect my thoughts and use my cell because Century Link’s landline has failed — again — to chat with Mike Bianchi and Brian Fritz about Stallone’s latest, the “Zombie Twilight” (“Warm Bodies”) and the two wonderful programs of Oscar nominated shorts playing at Enzian this weekend.
Tune in to 740 AM at 745, or listen online here at 740 The Game. Somebody is SURE to do a Stallone impression that’ll make you spit up your coffee.
A film based on the “controversial” novel, a WWII era period piece about a boy and the strange woman he befriends, a woman everyone believes is a witch.
Actor turned director Carl “Devil in a Blue Dress/Out of Time” Franklin directed it, and his IMDb page has questions like “Why doesn’t this guy work any more?” on it. A no-name cast makes this an iffy vehicle for a comeback, but you never know. Feb. 22, in theaters.
Drafthouse Films, which operates out of the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, a landmark in indie cinema, distributes the occasional midnight movie or would-be cult film.
The Orlando-made “Miami Connection” is one they’re running out to other arthouses at the moment. They take on films with cult potential, genre pictures and the like that other distributors ignore.
They’ve just acquired the rights to a movie their people are comparing to “Stand By Me,” a tale of a kids’ game of Capture the Flag that knows no boundaries.
“I Declare War,” it’s called, “a high stakes action flick starring 12 year olds.” Sounds a little like “Son of Rambow.” Jason Lapeyre and Robert Wilson directed it.
“The Heat” has a laugh-out-loud trailer going for it, an Oscar winner (Sandra Bullock) as its star and until this week, an early April dumping ground release date.
Buddy cop comedies with mismatched cops are a summer staple. It must not have that much potential right?
Wrong. Co-star Melissa McCarthy is riding that rude, rough and raunchy “Bridesmaids” train all the way to a June 28 release date. Fox moved it. Perhaps they’re trying to get out of the way of Universal’s February Melissa comedy, “Identity Thief.,” the one co-starring Jayz Bates (Jason Bateman).
But this smells like a big ol’ vote of confidence for this Bullock-McCarthy comedy.
Choppy and bordering on incoherent, “Bullet to the Head” is Stallone’s answer to Schwarzenegger’s “The Last Stand,” an action exercise in “Here’s how we used to do it.”
Sly one-ups Arnold in that old school regard by bringing in Walter “48 Hours” Hill, king of action directors when Stallone was in his glory days – the ‘80s.
But “Bullet” isn’t remotely as direct as its title. It shows all the hallmarks of a movie that’s been re-cut, that changed directors (Wayne Kramer started the film). Characters, relationships and motivations seem shortchanged. And it’s every bit as dated and dumb, in different ways, as “The Last Stand.”
Forget the debate over which feature film is favored to win Best Picture at this year’s Oscars. That august field of nine has nothing on the nominated live-action shorts this year, five films of differing styles and tones, but each polished to near perfection – short films so good you’re dying to see feature length versions of every tale told here.
Tom Van Avermaet’s Belgian “Death of a Shadow” is a sublimely spooky and romantic ghost story set around World War I. Matthias Schoenaerts plays a soldier given a magical camera and sent in search of shadows of the dead. The camera allows him to see how they died, and takes images of the shadow of death that he delivers to an omnipotent “Collector of Shadows.” Then, he meets a girl and must decide whether to capture her in death, or figure out a way for her to live.
Yan England’s “Henry” covers the same ground as best picture nominee “Amour,” and does it in 21 minutes. An old man (Gerard Poirier) practices his piano and makes plans with his violinist-wife. But strangers shake him out of his idyll with “They’re LOOKING for you Henry,” and “Your wife is in danger.” “Henry” is one thing “Amour” never manages to be – achingly romantic.
Imagine a “Twilight” where the panting, flirting teens were in on the joke, where the gulf between them was more about communication skills than supernatural schisms.
Where one teen had really bad skin.
That’s “Warm Bodies,” a funny teen romance set against the aftermath of the Zombie Apocalypse. Jonathan “50/50” Levine has turned Isaac Marion’s teen romance novel into an often amusing tongue-in-cheek romantic comedy — tongue in cheek, and brains in teeth. Chewy, tasty brains.
Nicholas Hoult (“Clash of the Titans,” “X-Men: First Class”) is the perfectly droll zombie narrator who staggers about with the usual teen angst.
“Why can’t I connect with people? Oh, right. I’m dead.”
He can’t remember his name, can’t justify his means of survival – eating the brains, etc., of the few remaining humans. “At least I’m conflicted about it.”
And he’s lonely. He holes up in an abandoned business jet and listens to old love songs (“Missing You”) in his battery powered turntable.
And then he sees “Her.” And if you’ve seen Teresa Palmer in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” or “I Am Number Four,” you get it — gorgeous enough to reanimate the dead.
They make a musical video parody of your chances. So Anne Hathaway, congratulations, sister.
He’s the teen dream Peeta of “The Hunger Games,” the kid who grew up making journeys “To the Center of the Earth,” and one of the kids of “The Kids Are All Right.”
Josh Hutcherson — if you don’t know him, ask your teenage or tweenage daughter — turns 21 this year. He’s got more “Hunger Games” franchise films to do, another “Journey to the Center of the Earth” to film, and a transition to adult roles well under way.
And he’s in “Epic,” the summer’s big animated um, “Epic.”
Questions for Josh? No, a proposal isn’t a question. My daughter already asked.
Post them as comments below, and thanks. Here’s the trailer to “Epic.”
