Category: Cinema
Borat: The Rest of the Story.
“It’s a very funny movie. You have to laugh at it now. But at the time, we were just glad to get rid of him.” Also in Salon, a handy guide to what’s real and what’s not in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
Sand in your Eyes.
The new Sandman-heavy trailer for Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3 is now online. To be honest, I think I preferred the teaser — this one doesn’t really grab me (and it seems to give away too many plot points.) Nevertheless, here it is.
Borat in Brief.
To be honest, for some reason or another, I don’t really feel the inclination to write the usual three-paragraph review for Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, so I’ll just leave it at this: It’s really funny. Yes, several of the best moments — the “war of terror” speech, the “Not” joke, etc. — are in the ads, but, really, those only scratch the surface of the madness here. (As an aside, why is it that people seem to laugh hardest at jokes they’ve already heard? Must be an inclusiveness thing. I saw the movie on Friday afternoon with a packed audience, so it’s not like these were folks who hadn’t caught the trailer 1000 times.) At any rate, unless you’re offended by ridiculously over-the-top anti-semitism or have a problem with truly grotesque displays of male nudity, you should find it verrry nice. (But leave the gypsys at home.)
One flood, many hitmen, and 23 23s.
Recent trailers: Jim Carrey goes bonkers for Joel Schumacher in the trailer for The Number 23 (Looks like MJ and LeBron have a lot to answer for), Steve Carell takes Carrey’s old job in the new teaser for Evan Almighty, and everybody — including Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Peter Berg, Ryan Reynolds, Common, Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia, and Alicia Keys — wants to kill Jeremy Piven in this look at Joe Carnahan’s Smoking Aces (I feel that way sometimes too.)
Sometimes there’s a man.
While writing up his set visit of The Golden Compass on his official site, author Philip Pullman inadvertently leaks that Sam Elliot is playing Lee Scoresby. That works.
Agent Smith, meet Racer X.
Um, ok. The Brothers Wachowski sign on to make Speed Racer, a highly unnecessary reimagining of the old Saturday morning cartoon. So if Chim Chim ends up being an androgynous leather-clad existentialist kung-fu master, you’ll know why.
The Lunatic is in the Hall.
“I knew what it was right away, because I remember Stanley talking about ‘Lunatic.’ He was always saying he wished he knew where it was, because it was such a great idea.” Apparently, there’s a movement afoot to make a “lost” Stanley Kubrick film, Lunatics at Large. Hey, this could be great news for thespian Brian Atene… (2nd link via Ed Rants/LMG.)
Kid and Kidman.
The first official pic from The Golden Compass is now online, featuring Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) and Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) in a tete-a-tete.
Krypton, Kumar, Halo, & Che.
Quite a bit of movie news lately: Bryan Singer’s next Superman achieves liftoff, as does Harold & Kumar II. (I didn’t think much of Superman Returns, but am willing to give Singer another shot, particularly given how much better X2 was over X-Men. As for H & K…yeah, I’ll see it.) Meanwhile, the Peter Jackson-produced Halo is off for now…probably not a great loss, I suspect. And, finally, Steven Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro’s Che is now two films: The Argentine and Guerrilla, to be shot back-to-back.