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BE KIND REWIND - Viewed, Reviewed, And Returned To The Dropbox
film babble blog — When STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH - was the first in the series to not be available on the videocassette, many reported it as the death of the VHS format. Well ...

Trailer Park: Comic Book Connections
Cinematical — Filed under: Animation, Comedy, Trailer Trash, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Trailers and Clips When they work they can be awesome (X-Men or Sin City anyone?), but when things dont go so well (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comes to mind) comic fans everywhere will hang their heads in shame. Today's trailers aren't necessarily for comic book movies, but there's a connection for each one of them. Let's have a look, shall we? Coraline The idea of Henry Selick, director of The Nightmare Before ...

my top 100!
The Center Seat — I've been having a lot of fun lately with movie lists. First I posted the IMDB 250, then the AFI 100. For me, both these lists had a few flaws in common... For one thing, the number of films on each list which I had actually viewed was... pathetic. Secondly, neither list was complete: the IMDB 250 is arbitrary, driven by the Roland Emmerich/Michael Bay-loving masses; and the AFI 100 (being an American list), eliminates all foreign language films (some of which are truly great). So I decided to sit down and come up with the only top movie list that will ever be perfect. Of course, I'm talking about ...

Speed Racer (Andy and Larry Wachowski, 2008): B-
The Projection Booth — Speed Racer may very well give your brain diabetes, and I state that as compliment. Digital to the extreme, this adaptation of the popular 70's cartoon is sure to give detractors of the Star Wars prequels a whole new ball game to play at, as it doesn't so much ...

GO SPEED RACER. GO FAR AWAY.
Antagony & Ecstasy — [image] There is one way that it's possible to enjoy and respect Speed Racer on its own terms, and not have to go through any irritating "man, just shut off your brain!" hoops to get there: there are many places where the interplay of colors and shapes and movement is really quite beautiful. Maybe that sounds snarky, but it isn't meant to. The palette in the film is something extraordinary, and if you can ignore that part of your thinking mind that wants those colorful shapes to reflect back some kind of meaning, but just enjoy them for their form and texture, it's hypnotic. Not at all dissimilar, in fact, ...

10 Self Referential Or Crossover Moments In The Films Of Lucas and Spielberg
film babble blog — “I don’t know, I'm making this up as a I go.” - Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) A few months back I joked about doing a post about self referential moments in the films of George Lucas and Steven Speilberg and now in anticipation of the new Indiana Jones movie (only hours away!) I decided to really do it. I thought it really would be worthwhile to look at the touches that tied their films together as if all the characters and stories occured in the same cinematic world. So here I go with another patented Film Babble Blog list: 10 Self Referential Or Crossover Moments In The Films Of ...

COUNTDOWN TO INDY 4: KEEPING THE FAITH
Antagony & Ecstasy — Five reasons why, despite my good sense, I'm remaining hopeful about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull : 1) Since A.I. Artificial Intelligence in 2001, Steven Spielberg has produced a run of inventive and challenging movies unequalled since his his glory days of 1975-1982 - the same period that produced Raiders of the Lost Ark . 2) Though screenwriter David Koepp has both "on" periods and "way, way off" periods, one of his recent "ons" resulted in Spider-Man , one of the very best summer movies of the last ten years. 3) Swordfight. On the top. Of moving. Trucks . 4) No ...

COUNTDOWN TO INDY 4: THE SINGLE FACT THAT GIVES ME THE MOST HOPE THAT THE NEW FILM WILL BE GOOD
Antagony & Ecstasy — By far, the best reason I have for dreading Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls is the presence of George Lucas, the man who was able to make 2.5 completely awful Star Wars movies in the last nine years. Now, if you are like me, you consider that in the entire prequel trilogy, the one part that is genuinely great on the level of the first two films is the lightsaber duel at the climax of Revenge of the Sith ...

"The Dark Knight" Shatters Records - VIDEO
Film Gecko — The Dark Knight has set a new record for midnight movie debuts with $18.5 million (compared to Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith’s $16.9 million). The Dark Knight is expected to do over $100 million business this weekend alone. Wow! Well, I liked it, too. ...

"The Dark Knight" Hits $200M
Film Gecko — Do you get the feeling we’re just hungry for great movies? If box office numbers are any indication, that means The Dark Knight is one heck of a great movie. The Warner Bros. film broke another record today by becoming the fastest ever to cross the $200 million mark — in five days. The previous record of eight days was held by three films: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Spider-Man 2 and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight added $20.87 million today, pushing its total to ...

"Star Wars: The Clone Wars" Review and Trailer
Film Gecko — Movie: Star Wars: The Clone Wars * Official Site In Theaters: Aug. 15, 2008 Runtime: 98 minutes Directed by: Dave Filoni MPAA Rating: PG for sci-fi ...

EPISODE II.V
Antagony & Ecstasy — [image] Although Star Wars: The Clone Wars was born to be a whipping boy, I'd like to suggest that it's not wholly without merit; it has a certain honesty about its intentions to be nothing of any particular importance, and damned if it doesn't meet that goal. Besides which, it provides a solid argument that a Star Wars prequel is better, the less pretext it has to being anything like a video game. That's exactly what the film looks like, as everyone who's seen the trailer has mostly figured out already. It looks like the cut scenes from a video game, and not even a particularly state-of-the-art video ...

EVERYBODY WAS KUNG-FU BITING
Antagony & Ecstasy — Oh, how I'm going to hell for that post title. [image] The final vampire picture produced by Hammer Film Productions saw the studio going out with neither a bang nor a whimper, but a comic SPROING!!! noise. At least that is the sound it makes in my head, because wow is The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires ever a weird little movie. Not just weird in the "final vampire picture produced by the legendarily hidebound Hammer Films" sense. This film could have come out at any point in cinema history and ended up just as strange and inexplicable as it did. Here's what I expect the logic looked like: the folks at ...

MILLER'S TALE
Antagony & Ecstasy — [image] Once upon a time, Frank Miller was among the finest writers in the comics medium; that would be right around 1986, when The Dark Knight Returns was published for the first time, revolutionising the world of superhero literature. In the years that follow, Miller started to slide a bit into weaker and weaker stories, then into self-parody around the midpoint of his decade-long run on Sin City during the 1990s; that slide into self-parody turned into a full-on gallop to embrace self-parody starting more or less with The Dark Knight Strikes Again in 2001, and from this he has never recovered, best indicated, ...

Movie Diary
Antidisingenuousmentarianism — Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: Yes, indeed. It is slightly less shitty than the preceding two and sort of resembles an actual movie rather than merely a gigantic "I can make my dream real" fantasy fulfillment on the part of George Lucas. That is, things that have been hinted at with all the subtlety of a sneaky four-year-old do finally come to pass, and thank god for it. There are also a few more fights and a little less in the way of ten-minute scenes of dialogue (although there are still some of those and the fight scenes are still kind of boring in their own way). And Lucas ...