Does Extract stand a chance at getting a laugh out of you?
On a recommendation from my boss, I checked out Mike Judge’s Extract. I actually was quite jazzed to watch it, as I am a big fan of Jason Bateman and his work on Arrested Development, as well as Judge’s prior workplace comedy. Office Space was one of the funniest movies of the 1990s and perfectly encapsulated the tedium of cubicle life. Its cast was very well chosen, featuring an oft-overlooked, likable guy (Ron Livingston) and a beautiful female lead trying to break out of TV (Jennifer Aniston).
Extract has a similar formula, with Bateman and Mila Kunis headlining the cast. Judge managed to surround Bateman and Kunis with a stellar supporting cast including SNL standout Kristen Wiig, headliner Ben Affleck and top notch character actors JK Simmons and Clifton Collins Jr. With a great supply of human capital to work with, Judge tried to tap back into the winning formula he struck with Office Space.
Bateman plays Joel, the owner and operator of a flavor extract manufacturing and packaging company. Although he’s hardly the cog in the wheel that Livingston’s Peter Gibbons was at Inetech, Joel suffers from a sort of middle age malaise. He’s ready to sell and get out of the extract business, hoping to retire and be able to spend time filling his life with something to enjoy. Unfortunately, his home life is stale and his friendships consist solely of a relationship with local bartender Dean (Affleck). When Kunis’ Cindy, a serious bid on the business and various other pratfalls enter his world, Joel’s life gets turned upside down.
They played Official Trailer #2 for Tron Legacy at the Inception IMAX showing last weekend. It got me even more jazzed than the first; also, any movie with Olivia Wilde is gonna be worth seeing in IMAX.
Over at GeekTyrant, they’ve posted a player for six tracks by Daft Punk for the upcoming Tron Legacy soundtrack. I’ve embedded the tune from the first trailer. It’s got a great vibe to it. Along with the Sunshine soundtrack, I do believe I’ll be buying that one.
Daybreakers is really nothing close to The Matrix or 28 Days Later, even though it too rests on an interesting an unique idea.
Some movies just have not a whole lot going for them when I’m about to watch them. Daybreakers is one such movie. I watched it earlier in the week while (i) suffering from a crummy stomach virus which both left me miserable and unable to really appreciate popcorn and (ii) reading “The Passage” by Justin Cronin, which is a book that, quite simply, puts most vampire stories to shame. But this isn’t a review of that brilliant book (which ranks as Amazon’s top book of the first half of 2010), that review will follow shortly when I finish it (it’s “War and Peace” long… well, not really, but darn close).
Anyway, Daybreakers is a movie I should have really liked. It actually does meld a few different themes to create an interesting back story and milieu. The basic premise is that a viral outbreak of vampirism (not the neutered “Twilight” kind, but the more Stokerish Bladevariety) has led to a shift such that vampires have simply slid into and displaced humans in modern society. Humans have become farmed for their blood and those that run free are hunted, but never killed. The story somewhat expands on the idea from Blade of vampires as a back room clan with Catholic Church style resources, but no public face. This has expanded to vampires fully running the show. It’s actually a pretty interesting departure from the standard tale of viral apocalypse. Pretty much every interesting fiction about viral apocalypse (be it “The Passage”, “World War Z“, I Am Legend, 28 Days Later, or even Zombieland) involves a mindless destruction of the world as we know it. In Daybreakers, humans are really just displaced.
I kind of wish there had been a bigger media push for this film. It really could have taken off in theaters.
Quite simply, there are a handful of movies that manage to just make one laugh out loud uncontrollably. It’s more common that you run across those comedies in a theater when mob mentality has you rolling in the rows. I last experienced this with The Hangover and, before that, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It is that more rare comedy that can have you rolling with laughter when watching at home. I present to you one extraordinary example of that in In the Loop.
Based on the British TV show “The Thick Of It,” the political drama is one-third The Office (UK version), one-third Curb Your Enthusiasm and one-third The West Wing. In other words, it’s freaking brilliant, even though its not for the faint of heart when it comes to language.
The BBC program it was based on focused solely on the antics of Downing Street enforcer Malcolm Turner (Peter Capaldi, a veteran of Brit TV shows such as Torchwood: Children of the Earth, which I reviewed yesterday). Turner is the Machiavellian, potty mouthed king of communications and the show follows his interactions with the team at the Ministry of Social Affairs. There he deals with MP Hugh Abbot and his right hands Glenn Cullen, Terri Coverley (Joanna Scanlan) and Oliver Reeder (Chris Addison).
In the film, director and producer Armando Iannucci keeps Capaldi’s Malcom Turner in place and reshuffles a few actors like Addison into new characters who retain some of the characteristics, despite different roles. As impish aide Oliver Reeder, Addison plays Mr. Fix-It as a transfer into a dysfunctional foreign development ministry and its incompetent MP Simon Foster (Tom Hollander). The story follows Foster’s role in the run-up to a UN resolution to declare war in a situation that is a thinly veiled stand-in for Iraq. No Qumar here, either. They just don’t overtly reference the country.
Not every movie is made to be great. In fact, I’d say it’s not hard to argue that most zombie genre movies are not meant for greatness. Dead Snow, or Død Snø if you want to be German about it, is just that type of movie.
It’s weird to see this kind of flick come to America from the foreign ranks. Although you do see camp show up occasionally — think the awesome Shaolin Soccer or last year’s Bollywood kung fu comedy Chandni Chowk to China — it’s rare to really see a campy horror in subtitles.
The plot here is surprisingly easy to follow and having to watch the subtitles wasn’t actually that tough, even for a horror movie. Basically, you have seven medical student friends who arrive in a remote, Norwegian (or at least I think it’s Norway) locale, where they expect to meet one’s girlfriend, who owns a cabin in the mountains. They hike nearly an hour from the road to reach the rustic cabin.
When the girlfriend doesn’t arrive, they start to worry; tension is added by the visit of a local camper who warns of evil in the mountains which is descended from a Nazi crew that raped the land and eventually froze in the mountain cold. When the boyfriend heads off to find his girl, the zombie fun kicks off in full.
Primer is a complex and, at times, very confusing film that earns a hearty recommendation from me.
The best way to watch a movie is almost always when you have no idea what to expect. Going in with little more than a two line plot mini-summary leaves you open to surprise and, occasionally, that surprise is pleasant.
It was so with Primer, a 2004 independent film that was a darling of the Indie Film Circuit. It won the Grand Jury Prize and Alfred P. Sloan Prize at Sundance, the Best Writer/Director at Nantucket and the Best Feature at the London/Sci Fi. It was also nominated in all the major categories for which it was eligible at the 2005 Independent Spirit Awards. For a film made on a budget of about $7,000… well, let’s just say that newcomer writer, director, producer and lead actor Shane Carruth has got some game.
I do feel that going into the movie with very little background was important in my enjoyment, so I’m certainly not going to play too much of a spoiler herein. I’ll keep this review pretty high level and light on detail. And with a film that was as dense on the scientific jargon, keeping it high level is sometimes a necessity and not simply a luxury.
Primer is a mix between a sci fi feature and a thinking-man’s thriller. As a bit of a science nerd, I think the thing I appreciated the most was Carruth’s dedication to maintaining at least a modicum of scientific integrity in his draftsmanship. The film definitely has a gritty and perhaps even realistic feel.
Matt Damon and the team from the Bourne trilogy are joining up again for Green Zone, a thriller set in immediately post-invasion Iraq. It promises great action and intrigue.
Meanwhile, in the world of comic-book blockbusters, Robert Downey Jr. will be reprising Tony Stark for Iron Man 2. This one ain’t gonna be high art, but it should be balls-to-the-wall good in a Michael Bay style of filmmaking.
I bought some IMAX stock last month because I do think Avatar (which I reviewed here) has brought us forever into the era of the 3D blockbuster. I don’t think this will be something that fizzes out over time, though I’m hardly going to go rushing to buy a 3D-TV for my apartment. I think that IMAX likely will stake out its claim to super-high def 3D entertainment and that Hollywood will continue its current trend of producing blockbusters in both 2D and 3D.
Two of the more intriguing products coming out are the reboot of 1981 Harry Hamlin vehicle Clash of the Titans and the sequel vehicle starring newly minted Academy Award Best Actor Jeff Bridges, Tron Legacy. I admit a personal bias toward the Greek mythology bastardized by Hollywood, but I’m really pretty jazzed about seeing CGI neon in 3D. Both [should / could] be awesome.
I’ve linked their HD trailers, after the jump: Read more…
I honestly couldn’t really care much about the death of Corey Haim. Yeah, anyone throwing their life away on drugs is tragic, but Corey Haim’s death is really no more so than your local neighborhood crackhead. That said, he was in some kickass movies. Silver Bullet, Lucas, Lost Boys and, of course, that movie where Nicole Eggert got nekkid. [Pause... reflect... getting creepy so get back to typing]
Anyway, Lost Boys was freaking awesome, so in honor of Haim’s passing we will remember his best movie career scene… starring the most powerful stereo in the world:
Oh, and if they need someone to adopt Nanook, I’m totally in.
After the jump, the “Cry Little Sister” compilation and movie trailer. Read more…
is one such movie. I watched it earlier in the week while (i) suffering from a crummy stomach virus which both left me miserable and unable to really appreciate popcorn and (ii) reading 
by Justin Cronin, which is a book that, quite simply, puts most vampire stories to shame. But this isn’t a review of that brilliant book (which ranks as Amazon’s top book of the first half of 2010), that review will follow shortly when I finish it (it’s 
” long… well, not really, but darn close).
variety) has led to a shift such that vampires have simply slid into and displaced humans in modern society. Humans have become farmed for their blood and those that run free are hunted, but never killed. The story somewhat expands on the idea from Blade of vampires as a back room clan with Catholic Church style resources, but no public face. This has expanded to vampires fully running the show. It’s actually a pretty interesting departure from the standard tale of viral apocalypse. Pretty much every interesting fiction about viral apocalypse (be it “The Passage”, “
“, 
, 
, or even 
) involves a mindless destruction of the world as we know it. In Daybreakers, humans are really just displaced.
and, before that, 
. It is that more rare comedy that can have you rolling with laughter when watching at home. I present to you one extraordinary example of that in 
.
(UK version), one-third 
, or Død Snø if you want to be German about it, is just that type of movie.
or last year’s Bollywood kung fu comedy 
— it’s rare to really see a campy horror in subtitles.
, a 2004 independent film that was a darling of the Indie Film Circuit. It won the Grand Jury Prize and Alfred P. Sloan Prize at Sundance, the Best Writer/Director at Nantucket and the Best Feature at the London/Sci Fi. It was also nominated in all the major categories for which it was eligible at the 2005 Independent Spirit Awards. For a film made on a budget of about $7,000… well, let’s just say that newcomer writer, director, producer and lead actor Shane Carruth has got some game.