Who the...

Everybody knows that a fairy tale starts out 'once upon a time'. But a truck driver's tale starts out 'you ain't gonna believe this shit'.

-Teri Horton

Teri Horton is a 73 year old former truck driver who may just have a fifty million dollar plus painting. She bought it in a thrift store for the bargain price of five dollars. After a series of fortunate events Teri discovered that her bargain basement find maybe the work of the abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock, who is responsible for such works as Autumn Rhythm (below).

"Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?" is the story of Teri's quest to have her treasure validated by the art community, a project she's been working on for over 10 years. We quickly discover that Teri isn't after the money. She's after something more important...respect. A series of interviews with art aficionados show just how superficial, ridiculous, and just plain cruel members of the art community can be. However, Teri is an everywoman or man who doesn't take no for an answer. Scenes of her hanging out at the local VFW show that she really is a common person who is up against a completely different group of people who have a reputation for looking down their noses at other people. Teri enlists the help of a forensic scientist to help her verify the authenticity of her painting. Using some very CSI like techniques, this man finds some interesting evidence that could make or break the painting. But you'll have to watch this movie for yourself, and make your own conclusion.

On Friday night, a comedian died in New York.

I can not wait for The Dark Knight, but I think Watchmen has tied up the top spot. Every bit of information that comes out about Watchmen so far has been nothing short of amazing, including the above picture. The graphic novel is incredibly dense and visually stunning. There is an attention to detail in that book that makes it unrivaled in my opinion. The background of every frame is loaded with references to other events in the book and from the pics of the set it looks like that detail has been carried on to the movie. I was leery of Zack Snyder directing at first, but from what's been released so far it looks like he's done one hell of a job. From his previous work on Dawn of the Dead and 300, I have no doubt that he can pull off the visual aspects of Watchmen. I think he took some crap for 300 because it wasn't the greatest story, but it seemed like he was just trying to keep the movie very close to the graphic novel. A lot of the scenes from that movie are taken from the graphic novel verbatim. If he does keeps that close connection with Watchmen then I don't think there is anything to worry about.

Damn, I thought that was closer.

After weeks...months...years of waiting, a new Indiana Jones trailer debuted on Thursday. Who would have thought that after 19 years the khaki clad, bullwhip toting, fedora wearing, treasure hunting ladies' man would be back. So how does he look after going missing for almost two decades? Not too shabby.

The trailer shows that eventhough he may be older, he's still the same old Indy. He's still getting chased through ancient temples and fighting bad guys (but this time its the Soviets, not the Nazis). The trailer gives us a look back on Indy's past adventures, shows some quick clips of action scenes (including Mayan? warriors), and hits us with some quick one liners. However, theres no real clues as to the plot. But being a teaser trailer, I wouldn't expect that much anyway.

The only real clue in the trailer is the shot of a box marked "Roswell 1947", furthering the idea that this installment will deal with aliens and maybe even link to Spielberg's Close Encounter. This seems a little far fetched but, personally, I like it. I think we saw enough of the middle east and surrounding area in the first three movies. It will be interesting to see what happens in South America this time around. There are enough theories about aliens interacting with ancient civilizations to make this idea interesting and not completely out of nowhere. And if it does connect to Close Encounters, even better. Connecting two seemingly unrelated movies is genius in my book. Sure there is a huge potential for failure, but Lucas and Spielberg have been working on this movie long enough that it should be good. They took their time, rejecting and rewriting scripts over and over again. I have faith in them.

Some of the most interesting scenes in the trailer take place in the government warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant was stored at the end of Raiders. Are the Soviets just looking for something relating the the Crystal Skulls or is the Ark involved? Every Indy movie begins with him searching for an artifact that has nothing to do with the main plot of the movie. Perhaps in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, that artifact is the Ark.

Last, but not least is the cast. Of course there's Mr. Ford, but there's also Cate Blanchett as some sort of Soviet leader. It seemed a little unusual to me at first, but from what I've seen she looks amazing. Then there's Shia LaBeouf, or as I still think of him, Louis Stevens. Is he Indy's long lost kid or just an accidental sidekick? But most interesting of all is Karen Allen's return as Marion Ravenwood. Surprisingly, she recieved almost no screen time in the trailer, but she is the person that I most want to see. How could you not like her? Marion is basically the female version of Indy. She was the only woman in the trilogy that had any real substance. And who could forget when she dominated that guy in the drinking contest?

Anyway, after 19 long years, I'm glad Indiana has returned. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens on May 22.

An original horror movie and Silent Bob joins the Army?

I've been interested in this movie since I first heard about it, yet somehow I missed the release of the trailer. What first peaked my interest was that this movie is constantly being associated with Pulp Fiction. But from what I've heard it's only because it's told as four stories that are intertwined. It's pretty discouraging to think that few people have really used nonlinear story telling to its full extent since Tarantino's masterpiece. Although there was the Nolan brother's genius Memento, but that's getting off topic, I'll get back to those guys later. The atmosphere of Trick 'r Treat looks brillant. Why haven't more movies taken advantage of the Halloween atmosphere. Horror movies these days focus too much on blood and gore and not enough on supernatural stories. But this movie looks like it's trying it break out of that mode with what appears to be vampires, ghosts, and other crazy stuff. The use of Jack-o-Lanterns reminds me of the original Halloween with that pumpkin from the opening credits. The first scene in the trailer with Anna Paquin walking through the woods is set up beautifully with the dark blue-grey road and the occasional orange of a glowing pumpkin that really makes the background pop. My favorite part of the trailer is what seems to be refered to as "the School Bus Masacre". The faded orange light with those old masks is perfect, it almost has a Donnie Darko feel (I really am going to try and stop refering to that movie). The design of the movie looks very unique. Kind of like a toned down Tim Burton. And I don't know what's going on with that ghost thing that chases the old guy but it looks good. Too bad it's a whole year until next Halloween.

I came across something else interesting this week. After viewing the Southland Tales trailer many, many times I was sure Kevin Smith was not in it. Then I saw Mr. Smith's new myspace pic. And sure enough he was in the trailer all along.

It looks like he's playing some sort of old general or something. Weird yet awesome.

Finally, back to the indomitable Nolan brothers. Comingsoon.net had a small post about The Dark Knight. Apparently Bats' new suit is going to have some kind of sonar that turns the eyes of the mask white when turned on. This is small, insignificant some might say, BUT it's getting closer to the comic book Batman. I can only hope that the new suit is going to be the classic grey fabric or at least thin armor. If Morgan Freeman can make a fabric that can hold its shape when an electric current is run through it, why can't he invent a bulletproof fabric? Also, the Dark Knight candle seems to be getting dimmer. There isn't supposed to be anything major till December, but could the Joker have a Halloween trick or treat in mind (I know that was lame, but I couldn't help it.)? And by the way I love this marketing campaign, viral sites seem to be the new thing and I'm liking it. And the Jack-o-Lantern looks like the one in The Long Halloween, one of the best graphic Batman novels around. I can only hope that The Dark Knight picks up on some of the story lines.

Far more futuristic than they originally predicted.

Around last Christmas I heard about this new movie, Southland Tales, that Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) was making. An IMDB check showed the date of the movie as 2006, but I could find no information about an actual release. So I figured that it was lost in production somewhere and forgot about it. Boy was I wrong.

The trailer came out about a month ago and after first seeing it I was confused, amazed, and kind of disturbed all at the same time. I really wasn't sure if I would ever want to see it. But after watching it some more I have to said that I'm pretty excited to see it. The story takes place in the near future after America has been hit by a nuclear attack. This leads the government to beef up the patriot act so that it can basically follow anyone it wants. The rest of the story I'm no so sure of. Supposedly there's also something about creating power generators that run on the ocean's tide, which in turn screws up the ocean currents, disrupts Earth's orbit, which of course creates a rift in the space-time continuum. Of course. And I thought Donnie Darko was strange (yet awesome). But the craziest part of this movie might be the cast, which includes: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, John Lovitz, Amy Poehler, Cheri Oteri, and Kevin Smith, just to name a few. That is easily the most random cast I can possibly think of.

With corny dialogue, over dramatic acting, and the Rock's Mr. Burn's like finger tapping it looks like Kelly is making a satire. A satire of what? No idea. That's a lot to judge from just a trailer, but it's just my initial impression of it. I can't imagine where he came up with a plot like this. But then again Kelly supposedly did write an adaptation of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, which never got made. If Kelly's a Vonnegut fan that explains a lot. A story this weird could have come right out of one of his novels. Even Donnie Darko was Vonnegutish, especially due to the fact that nothing at all was explained in the movie. I know I should stop comparing Southland Tales to Donnie Darko, but how could you not? There is no other movie that fits into this category of science fiction. It's almost as if it was meant just to create meaning through a mood rather than letting you in on what was happening. But no matter what I will be awaiting the release of Southland Tales.

Amateurs.

I loved the idea for Be Kind, Rewind from the second I heard about it sometime ago. Jack Black somehow becomes magnetized and erases all the tapes in the video store where he works. Naturally, he and Mos Def remake the movies themselves in order to save the store. A couple months ago not so good reviews from test screenings began to show up online. I felt disappointed, let down, heartbroken and I gave up. But then this week I noticed that a trailer for the film had been released some time ago. I officially cannot wait for this movie.

I love the opening scene of the trailer where Jack Black discovers he's magnetized. I know studio's usually cut the trailers but that moment is perfect. The next thing to catch my attention was the montage of the duo remaking Ghostbusters. Some of the footage from the remake looks like it was shot on a regular old crappy VHS camera from circa 1995. That had me sold right then and there.

It looks like rest of the premise of the movie is that customers love these remakes, while the FBI comes to shut the place down for copyright infringement.

I can't find anything wrong with what I've seen of this movie so far. It does seem strange that there would still be a video store that has only VHS, but who cares?

Jack Black seems to play the same type of character that plays in most movies. That could become repetitive, but it looks perfect for this movie. The scene where he sings the Ghostbuster's "Theme Song" is proof of that. I don't really know a lot about Mos Def, but he seems to be a pretty good fit. Also, the director is Michel Gondry, from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. What else could you possibly want? Well I remember hearing awhile ago that their list of remakes includes Back to the Future. I hope that's true.

I'm just hoping that this movie is all that it appears to be.
"I'm pretty sure it is."

Has he lost his mind?

I don't really know much about Iron Man. And I didn't really care that much about the movie. But after contemplating the trailer, it's starting to peak my interest. I think including Sabbath's Iron Man in the trailer was a bold move. I thought it would be corny to put such an obvious reference in the movie. And it is, but it works. With jokes about Myspace and other lame wisecracks, Stark seems to enjoy a bit or corn, himself. But, why should that be bad? Comic books are ridiculous which is part of what makes them unique. Just as long as this movie doesn't go overboard on the ridiculous factor. Spider-man 2 & 3 are perfect examples. Sam Raimi definatly added some quirkiness to Spider-man 2 (as he did with Evil Dead 2) and made it the best of the series. Then in Spider-man 3 he stepped up that quirkiness (as he did with Army of Darkness). But where it worked for the Evil Dead trilogy, it didn't turn out so well for Spider-man, although it could have been worse had the original origin of the symbiote been used. Hopefully Iron Man will stay within that perfect range.

It should be interesting to see Iron Man fighting terrorists. As Frank Miller said about superheroes, namely Batman, fighting terrorists:

Superman punched out Hitler. So did Captain America. That's one of the things they're there for.

Which reminds me, where is Holy Terror, Batman!?