Film Fatale

[Book trailer directed by Anthony Orkin]

When I hadn't seen my friend Paula Bernstein in a while, I wondered what she'd been up to. We were neighbors in Brooklyn, she was a reporter for Variety and I figured she was busy with her first daughter. I ran into her in Park Slope a couple of years ago and go, "So, Paula, what's been going on?"

She had the most faraway look on her face. "You're not going to believe this," she says. "I remember you I haven't told many people this yet, but I remember you telling me your mom is an identical twin..I found out I have an identical twin sister, and we were separated at birth. She contacted me through the adoption agency and we've met. It's just -- incredible."

As in a movie, or a fairy tale - a rather dark one - Paula and identical twin, Elyse Schein, have gotten to know each other (this is the happy part) and explored the twisted circumstances of their separation. Together, they've written an extraordinary and moving memoir of sisterhood, blood and emotional ties called called IDENTICAL STRANGERS.

Continue reading "Separated at Birth: IDENTICAL STRANGERS" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Witness to a child's freakout: that was me, this weekend, when I took my seven year old nephew to see THE SIMPSONS MOVIE on Friday.

The boy is utterly traumatized. He got his first dose of apocalyptic horror in the form of the theatrical extended "making of" trailer for RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE. It's possible that my nephew will never sleep again.

The movie, with its legions of desert-fried Undead, does look extremely cool -- an update of the 1970s atomic horror/end days tales (PLANET OF THE APES, MAD MAX, THE OMEGA MAN) that RE-1 director Paul WS Anderson was raised on.

Star Milla Jovovich seems to relish the her role as a genetically enhanced MAD MAX-type heroine.

How scary does this movie look? Even the crew looks badass. In the behind the scenes interviews, producer Jeremy Bolt sounds like a normal British person, describing the effects, the locations, the new characters. But he looks like a shades- and Stetson-wearing, stubble-faced character out of THE WILD BUNCH.

This is what happens when men -- and sequels -- go to Mexico.

The theatrical trailer's smashing. But I was left with this thought: Kids, if you don't buy a ticket to RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION, the makers of this movie might just ride out to your house, all Man With No Name/Sam Peckinpah- like, and shoot your parents.

Continue reading "RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION's Apocalyptic Vision" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Will Cthulhu make an appearance in this movie? Rumors abound.

Watch the CLOVERFIELD trailer without having to see TRANSFORMERS.

Promise us, J.J. Abrams, that "Rob" -- if he's the hero -- is not stupid teenage son Robby from WAR OF THE WORLDS, who should have died when he walked into the alien blast zone.

And don't kill Roma Torre of NY1 news.

The peril from the sea movie's release date is Jan. 18, 2008 -- the title will be something other than CLOVERFIELD.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Think you can cut a great trailer. Or a totally cliched trailer? (thank you, late, lamented Modern Humorist)?

Cambridge's Brattle Theatre wants to hear from you. Inspired by South By Southwest's trailer competition for GRINDHOUSE, The Brattle Theatre Foundation is holding a TRAILER SMACKDOWN this month. The catch -- the trailer can't be for any old movie. To level the playing field, the contest requires that entrants create a trailer for an "as-yet-unmade movie called “MIRANDA.” Each filmmaker will be required to incorporate certain elements (genre, location, character, etc.) in their trailer which can be no longer than 2 minutes"

For more details, see the Brattle's website, brattlefilm.org.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 03:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Have you seen NASA's ominous promotion for its Back to the Moon project?

As Clive Thompson of Collision Detection writes, somebody's been watching too much Battlestar Galactica -- there's something strangely threatening about the trailer -- not just the booming, minor key music, but the text, too: "We took a giant leap...We stopped...Now we're going back" (To do what? Finish off whatever we didn't kill the first time around? Blow up the moon people if they get lippy with us?)

With all the robotic Rovers zooming across the CGI lunar surface, doesn't this trailer look an awful like the early promos for TRANSFORMERS?

Continue reading "NASA's Weird, Michael Bay-ish Back To the Moon Promo" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 05:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You talking to me?

This will not be an essay about the wrong bad billboards for CAPTIVITY, a horror movie whose advertising was aimed, as the mother of one traumatized girl told the Los Angeles Times, "directly at your subconscious." (Isn't that where ads ought to strike us?) And should it be a surprise, during this wave of idiot-teenager-in-peril movies, that a studio (or its subcontractor) would get desperate or careless in the selling of yet another undistinguished genre movie?

This is about another instance of marketing gone awry -- the selling of GRINDHOUSE, which despite hype, high awareness among movie fans, the charm of big name directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, and decent critical support, opened this weekend to a meagre $11 million, well behind sillier kid-oriented fare like BLADES OF GLORY and MEET THE ROBINSONS.

Variety's Anne Thompson cuts through the box office spin and gets to one problem: high costs and a longer than planned running time, which meant fewer showings per day. Despite a promise to the Weinsteins to deliver a double feature of sub-sixty minute mini movies, Rodriguez and Tarantino insisted that "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof" ought to be longer. As long as the directors wanted them to be. (Isn't it clear now who's running the show over there, when the director of the langourous, almost-great KILL BILLs puts his foot down twice in a row?)

But the studio, not the directors, that commissions the advertising.

That marketing campaign was downright nasty. Even if you account for the formulaic nature of movie trailers (stars! action! money quotes!) the message sent to me -- a Tarantino fan, an action fan, a horror fan -- was "This movie's not for you. You're not invited."

What did I see?

Rose McGowan, scantily clad and terrorized. Rose McGowan, prosthetic leg shoved onto her/into her by some guy. Rose McGowan, prosthetic leg/machine gun. (Um...hooray, Rose McGowan? Go get 'em?)

Continue reading "Where Were the GRINDHOUSE Girls? (How To Hate Away Half Your Audience)" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Stupidest outdoor ad campain ever.

The signs hung on a bridge support beneath I-93 north of downtown Boston, above a bridge in the South End, above a train station entrance in the Back Bay, on a Fenway Park stadium entrance, and at 34 other locations in Boston and Cambridge.

At night, the Lite-Brite style, battery-operated signdepicting AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE glowed cutely and distractingly above eye level -- yet another unstealthy street promo campaign waiting to be noticed or ignored.

Viewed from the sidewalk, and in 8:00am daylight, these signs their exposed wires and crude power packs (black electrical tape over a few C or D batteries) might have looked like vandalism. Or something more sinister. (Ray at MovieCityIndie has a shot of the sign with the electrical tape removed)

If the Massachusetts State Police Bomb Disposal squad and Boston Police response seemed to lack the edgy, larky underground/stealth spirit in which the Mooninite promos were erected, maybe they're still a bit mirthless about their colleague BPD Officer Jeremiah J. Hurley, who was killed in 1991 while attempting to defuse a bomb in the city's Roslindale neighborhood. (His untimely death was captured by local news cameras and then shown on national television, all in the interest of public safety, of course.)

As the Boston Globe reports:

For hours, police treated the signs, about 1 by 1-1/2 feet with protruding wires and batteries, as potentially dangerous until they found one in a darker area, where the cartoon character pattern was clearly visible, triggered by an absence of sunlight. A Boston Police analyst later recognized the cartoon, and it was proclaimed a hoax -- drawing far more publicity than Turner Broadcasting System Inc. ever contemplated.

Boing Boing broke the news around 3pm that the objects weren't a hoax or political statement but part of street/outdoor ad campaign for Cartoon Network's AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE, which airs late at night on Adult Swim block. (The animated series about a laid-back trio of friends -- a milkshake, a package of french fries and a hamburger meat patty - is also coming to cinemas; First Look will release a 86-minute feature film version of AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE on March 23.)

Continue reading "Sucky AQUATEEN Promo Nails Frylock, MasterShake, Cartoon Net" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From JoBlo via Cinematical:

For too long, the pasty-faced ghost girls of Asian horror have terrorized us by hanging lank hair in their faces. They send sent their castoff locks through the plumbing, clogging sinks and bathtubs. And we say, Use some product, girls. Flip it. Iron it. Get a nice blunt cut, some soft layers - they'll bring out your delicate features and frame your face...

Now nothing can prepare us for deadly power of EXTE: HAIR EXTENSIONS

Once a long-haired girl, always a long-haired girl. And her hair extentions are angry.

EXTE! Snarling Japanese cinema projectors Feb. 17.

JoBlo - Scott Carmichael

Thanks to Scott Carmichael for the updated link to the film site -- go there to view out the EXTE trailer (Windows Media, 512K) and what appears to be a music video tie-in (Scrunchy tie-in--you don't want to frazzle the extensions, girlfriend) (512K).

Cinematical
http://www.cinematical.com/2007/01/29/the-horror-of-hair-extensions/

Continue reading "The Deadly Power of Hair: J-Horror" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out Devin Gordon's Newsweek/MSNBC show and tell piece about movie trailers, good and bad--the ones that tell you all but the very ending (hello there, Kevin Costner in THE GUARDIAN) and those that intrigue (LITTLE CHILDREN) without dropping in a line of dialogue. THE GUARDIAN reveals every plot twist in this waterborne TOP GUN actioner -- and maybe that's how TOP GUN nostalgists want it.

The highbrow literary adaptation LITTLE CHILDREN has but little dialogue, yet it conveys a powerful mood. With attractive leads eyeing each other up--with desire, with suspicion--and the sound of an oncoming train, this picture perfect suburban setting seems strangely ominious. Interesting what else is suggested: anxiety over the innocence and safety of children (the implicit neglect of the solitary little girl pictured toward the beginning of the trailer--that entire unsavory plotline, a big one, is not mentioned. Probably because it's disgusting. Perhaps it's enough to tag LITTLE CHILDREN as the work of "the director of IN THE BEDROOM -- aka "Granola DEATH WISH -- to indicate that somebody's going to end up in the casualty ward. Or worse.

Most creepy, in this season of scary movies, is the preview for THE GRUDGE 2. Yes, it's a sequel to a remake of a Japanese chiller: Familiar stuff. But this clip from Trailer Park manages to unsettle with unpredictable sound effects and an offbeat rhythm. As Gordon writes, all the expected shocks arrive -- but they're half a beat before or after you expect them.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Salon's got a report on a surprising new theatrical trailer -- a recruiting advert-- produced by the Central Intelligence Agency. Moviegoers have seen plenty of military recruiting ads (the Army of One campaign, which made military service look like the ultimate fitness workout) and that cheesy with the dead-eyed dragonslayer turning into a U.S. Marine

The C.I.A. ad, says Salon's Stewart Lee Allen, is the agency's "first purely pop moment...a 30-second whiz-bang short that urges 'people of integrity and patriotism' who have a taste for 'ambiguity' to join the agency in making the world a safer place.'"
Language ability in Arabic, Pashto, Farsi is a plus.

A cool, adventure themed ad like this one is sure to play in front of action-thrillers like MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, but I wonder: how would it play in front of a movie like the upcoming birth-of-the-CIA drama THE GOOD SHEPHERD ("Get out while you still have a soul"--Yikes!). Or a dark, complex movie about US inelligence breakdowns like SYRIANA? (Or, God forbid, in front of UNITED 93?

That "taste for ambiguity" would leave somebody eating crow.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Does that creepy, eyeless little girl on the poster for THE WICKER MAN look familiar? Interesting that she, not the wooden idol of the 1973 original genre-bending shocker, ended up as the key art for the Neil La Bute remake. Nicolas Cage plays the cop obsessed with tracking her down. Any sensible person would run in the other direction.

Because there's nothing like an uncanny child to suggest weird goings on, here's an entire day care center full of horror movie moppets.

Continue reading "Does Wicker Man's Creepy Little Girl Look Familiar?" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Slate is running a startlingly true approximation of those pre-trailer, pre-feature slide shows of idiotic movie trivia and celebrity name scrambles.

The only entertainment in these low-tech time fillers will be waiting for the reaction to "LEM SIBGON."

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For everyone who thought the topless-asskicking scene in SHOWGIRLS didn't go on half long enough....

For all the PG-13'ers who knew D.E.B.S wasn't hard core enough...

There is now the most wicked awesome movie trailer (based on a fighting game) even. The story goes like...oh, Jesus, who cares? It's a non-stop chick fight directed by Corey Yuen and starring Holly Valance, Devon Aoki and Sarah Carter.

Visit the official site for D.O.A. (http://www.doa.film.de) and experience the promo clip in all its pervy glory. No need to sprechen Deutsch. The actress in the photograph has been given some choice dialogue to chew on (when she's not chewing on....whatever that is in the photograph). The fab line in the trailer is, of course, "Do me up."

D.O.A. is due August 25 in the U.S., Sept. 1 in the U.K.

The Official Site for D.O.A.
http://www.doa.film.de/

IMDB combined info page
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398913/combined

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sometimes I pity the people who create movie posters. They labor for weeks or months to come up with the perfect balance of image and text and movie-star billing. Then the movie will play a couple of weeks longer than its expected run, and maybe a holiday (say July 4th or Christmas) is coming up-- and someone in studio marketing thinks, "We'd better freshen up the marketing campaign."

But the best idea they can come up with is to slap a clip-art a firecracker and an Uncle Sam or Santa hat on the head of Garfield or a machine-gun wielding, zombie-killing Milla Jovovich and that market tested tagline will become "Jingle All The Way Into the New Year!" or "Who's Been Naughty?"

Al Gore's global warming documentary AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH debuted with an intriguing arty poster that showed an industrial smokestack beneath a sky that looked like Van Gogh's "Starry Night." Now that the doc's extended its run to more cities, the advertising art evokes an image from last year's hit nonfiction film THE MARCH OF THE PENGUINS...only the new poster's penguins are marching across a sandy desert.

Who cares about boring old industrial waste? There's nothing cuter than a bird in trouble.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)