Earlier this year, I raved about the incredible international teaser for the Coens' new film, Burn After Reading, finding that even as a standalone one-minute film, it was fantastic. Of course, the movie itself was one of the best of the year.

Oliver Stone's W., a chronicle of America's not-so-esteemed 43rd president has been much whispered about since it went into pre-production. Until just earlier today, I was highly skeptical of the project. Then this afternoon, I saw its newest trailer, brilliantly scored to Talking Heads's "Once in a Lifetime."



It's a positively brilliant trailer. Full of bombast, it appears to be taking extreme subjective liberties to depict the Bush ascendancy and administration as the surreal and sometimes nightmarish experience that it's been over the last eight years. Even independent of its film, this trailer is excellent. One can only hope it will maintain enough energy and wit to sustain the whole movie. It looks like it could very well be there. On October 17th, I fully intend to find out.

Labels: babbling about films

Directed by Andrew Lau & Alan Mak. Written by Alan Mak & Felix Chong. 2002.



This film is slick. If features slick commercial stars that have ruled the Hong Kong box office for about two decades, ageless Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. It features a slick directing team that has brought us such slick films as the Young & Dangerous series. It's got Chris Doyle's slick and beautiful cinematography. It's got a slick, tightly written script. And it's got a slick, misleading American DVD cover. Damn, this film's slick.

It's very likely you've seen Martin Scorsese's The Departed, which was a pretty faithful remake of this film. However, I'd happily contend that what that film does, this film does pithier, with more resonance (compare the emotional weight of Sheen's disposition to that of Wong's), and, yes, slicker. It's interesting to watch both films deal with the same plot elements and introduce a lot of similar themes, but to read entirely different in its view on those themes. Strangely, the Hong Kong incarnation comes off as much bleaker, not indulging in such luxuries as moral justice. That this is the territory of a wildly successful (speaking financially, now) motion picture is a nice thematic callback to the heroic bloodshed films of John Woo (a scene atop a roof is even quoted directly from Hard Boiled, giving Little Tony much the same role) of old, with high tension and mistrust taking the place of the high octane gun battles.

The individual elements of filmmaking really all come together for this one to sing. Doyle's cinematography is claustrophobic and desolate at once. I've never seen the Lau and Mak team so on their game. There are several action pieces (particularly the warehouse scene) that rank with the best ever shot.

Labels: babbling about films, Top 100 Films

Perhaps our generation is spoiled. Last year, David Bordwell posted an entry on his and Kristin Thompson's ever-illuminating blog, describing the frighteningly recent pains a student or lover (or a student lover) of film had to endure to gain access to his or her texts. In a day we take for granted the fact we can readily acquire Jacques Tati's masterful Playtime at our more noble bookstores, that the works of Michael Curtiz can be nabbed On Demand, or that you can press a button to deliver almost any of Akira Kurosawa's films to your doorstep in a matter of days, the idea of trying to search out rare commercial or archival prints of a select number of arbitrated classic is chilling and just a bit unfathomable. If we're spoiled, that's okay, because with any luck, future generations will be even more spoiled. As it is, I don't have access to every movie I want and I'm going to whine about it.

Around the same time, Twitch posted an interview with mad Japanese auteur, Minoru Kawasaki, the director and co-writer responsible for films bearing titles such as Calamari Wrestler, Executive Koala, Rug Cop, and The World Sinks Except Japan (released in Japan at around the same time as a remake of classic disaster picture Japans Sinks). The man has a theme apparent in just the synopses of these works. A businessman... who's a koala! A wrestler... who's a squid! A goalkeeper... who's a crab! A cop... who wields his toupée like a flying guillotene!

Sadly, the only exposure he's had here in the West, outside of a couple of popular screenings at festivals like Toronto and Fantasia, has been his 2004 sophomore theatrical feature, The Calamari Wrestler. Is it a great film? Probably not. But it's a profoundly silly film, something that can't be said about the vast majority of modern comedies. Even Hong Kong's mo lei tau genre (literally, something like "makes no sense") has kind of washed up over the years. In America, we've had the Adam McKay and Will Ferrell collaborations in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby that have come close, but few films the world over seem to be willing to make themselves truly, unabashedly silly.



Thus, The Calamari Wrestler is a breath of fresh air. We have a squid (very obviously an actor in a pretty cheap costume) who shows up to defeat a wrestling champion. There are hints that he's there to avenge a disgraced wrestler who has disappeared. The struggle is unabashedly epic as he fills all the necessary underdog challenger requirements. He even is loved by the poor market owners. Things get even more absurd as he begins to fall in love with the missing wrestler's girlfriend and other anthropomorphic challengers begin to make headlines.

Some other anthropomorphic characters factor into the picture later. Soon, there's speculation that perhaps this wrestling calamari that's shaking up the professional wrestling world might, in fact, be a reincarnation of the reportedly dead, former champion. Gasp!

The picture wouldn't work so well if it didn't--while still being extremely silly--take itself extremely seriously. There's very little winking irony here. Everything that matters to these characters matters. Watching this movie was a minor revelation for me: It's okay to be this gol-danged silly.

If there's one scene that sold me on this movie, it's a very quiet one. The squid, now living in Japanese society, finds himself living in a friendly urban neighborhood. He goes grocery shopping at the sidewalk markets, a bag draped around one of his tentacles. As he walks down the street, children and old women wave hello to him, in the warmest, friendliest manner possible. The squid waves back. Truly, he is a hero of the people.

I've only seen one other Kawasaki film, The World Sinks Except Japan, which was a little lackluster, though enjoyable. Hopefully, someone decides to bring his other comedies over.

Labels: babbling about films

These days, I try not to let myself get too carried away with film hype. But these are the Coen brothers, who have yet to do any wrong, and this minute-long international teaser for Burn After Reading is already one of the best things I've seen in 2008.

Labels: babbling about films

Ghost Rider
Written & directed by Mark Steven Johnson. 2007.



NOTE: I'm going to spoil a bunch of stuff.

I have no idea what the hell kind of movie Ghost Rider was supposed to be, but even from that position, I still think I've got a leg up on writer/director Mark Steven Johnson. I never did see Johnson's Daredevil, but generally gave it the benefit of the doubt when people told me it was misjudged and underrated. Still, after its terrible flop status, I'd assumed he would never get another break like he did at a major studio picture, let alone adapting Marvel characters again. I'm much, much more wary of Daredevil.

The structure of the picture is a mess. Its first twenty minutes are spent before the story starts properly in a very broadly told story of teen angst and love. Literally, Johnny Blaze carves his and his girlfriend's initials in a tree, turns around, and she tells him she's leaving town. Wow. That was actually a little impressive.

Flash forward to the future. The first fifteen minutes of this segment are spent with ridiculous, golden flashbacks to stuff we saw as little as five minutes ago. A friend of mine likes to call this storytelling for "the slows." I don't know if I've met anyone that slow. Naturally, the love interest from his youth resurfaces as a tonally inconsistent world famous reporter that will shriek like a little girl, show the mature sympathy of la belle, and have her obligatory half-assed girl power moment. It builds this love interest, but it only really does that to have two breasts to stand around and motivate the protagonist into action he probably doesn't have control over anyway. Or does he? I could never figure that out.

The romance is so perfunctory, and it stands in sick contrast to Johnny Blaze's, uh, roadie or business manager or technical adviser or something... at any rate, his name's Mack and he's apparently Johnny's only friend. Mack is nonchalantly killed--with nary a wince from either the film or Johnny--about thirty minutes from the end.

That brings into sharp focus one of the many problems with the film: there are no stakes. Roxie and Johnny are going to survive because they're going to. Ghost Rider will always be Ghost Rider because he has to be. He can't lose a fight, because he can't. Every time one of the weird elemental side-villains seems to have our hero does something we didn't realize he could do that makes no goddamn sense. The rules are made up from shot to shot. If there's any internal logic in this film, I can't find it.

Back to the genre confusion: Personal drama is abandoned in the first hour. There's hardly enough fun for this to be even a dark, campy comedy. And it's certainly not an action film (thought that's where your local video store will shelve it). It's a problem with a number of American studio products posturing themselves as action films: there's no fighting. Battles are decided by our bad guy initiating an attack against Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider pauses, then retaliates with the aforementioned something we didn't realize he could do. What I would give to see some punches and some fight choreography.

Is it ludicrous to complain about the moral palette in a film like this? Ghost Rider employs a move called Penance Stare (visualized in the worst visual effects attempt at a trip I've seen in a while) on some random mugger. At this point, I thought he was under the devil's control (oh yeah, he works for the devil because he signed a contract by accident), but this was soon celebrated as a heroic task. Everyone is apparently quite neatly categorized into "innocent" or "guilty," and it's pretty simple to make the distinction. Hilariously, the only black character (or extra) in the film (and apparently in all of Texas or wherever this was set) is an "innocent" in the jail.

Part of the blame for this pathetic clusterfuck of a movie must belong to the source material. Superhero comics aren't my forte, but I can't imagine this character or his ill-defined universe working well, like, at all.

There are precisely three good things about this movie:

1. Nicolas Cage shaking and drinking from a martini glass full of jelly beans.
2. Nicolas Cage and his Carpenters dependency.
3. Nicolas Cage enjoying stupid monkey videos way too much.



These things are all well behind us in the first half hour, though.

Okay, Sam Elliot's always nice to have around (and in this movie, he's exactly who you think he is and it's so not a reveal that it made me kind of sad), but that's all he really is: around.

Labels: babbling about films, reviews

By the end of its first weekend, Spider-Man 3 had made $382 million dollars. Were Spider-Man 3 a country and were that the only week it bothered to make any money, it's gross domestic product would still be larger than the GDP of Samoa and a few other nations. By all accounts, it's the most expensive film ever made, costing Sony somewhere over 250 million US dollars.

It's telling, perhaps, that the apparent reason for all that money--the major action setpieces--were perhaps the most boring parts of the film. Unlike the second (best) film in the series, this one lacked any true standout action sequences (certainly nothing on the order of the magnificent operating room scene). Most of the villainy felt largely obligatory and merely seemed to be getting in the way of the plot.

Some critics have decried the film for being a touch too jokey, focusing more on the relationships of our twentysomething protagonists than on awesome, high octane superpower-on-superpower showdowns. But these character scenes are really where the film shines. James Franco, particularly, goes all out in painting a beautifully over-the-top distillation of Harry Osborne's arc. Dunst and Maguire's chemistry was also on target here.

There's a sequence midway through the film that actually bests the fantastic "Raindrops Falling on My Head" sequence in its predecessor. Truly, it's one of the greatest scenes these eyes have ever witnessed. Blunt, hilarious, and potent. Peter's dark side is a wondrous thing.

Despite a powerful introduction sequence, the Sandman is reduced to a very flat character of dubious motivations very quickly. Venom is rightly publicly denounced as an element that feels unnecessary, forced, and underdeveloped. Had the Eddie Brock character been better established, perhaps I could have forgiven it, but it was just too damned rushed. Too damned rush in a film that's too damned long. Again, none of the villains (except Harry's Goblin, which is the only of the trio of baddies that seems to have any real relevance to the backbone of the film) are nearly as compelling as Doctor Octopus from 2.

It's telling that in a movie with some ridiculously grand battles, the best scenes are all in what some call its digressions: scenes set in a coffee shop (O, the pie!), Peter's apartment complex (O, the landlord's daughter!), and an editor's office (O, the J. Jonah Jameson!). These are, of course, also surely the cheapest scenes in an unbelievably costly film. This is where the spine of the film is and it's glorious. Considering how slapdash and lacking in suspense the action scenes play out, one almost wonders if perhaps director Sam Raimi is making a statement about what real, awesome filmmaking is truly about.

Three stars, if you're curious.

Five years ago, when the first film was released, I made a SpiderWoman comic book. In case you missed it.

Labels: babbling about films

I was fortunate enough to receive a copy of Nobuhiro Yamashita's 2005 film, Linda Linda Linda, a couple weeks ahead of its May 8th, 2007 release date. I'd read some good things about it and was expecting a fun, poppy experience. Certainly nothing too weighty. I hadn't expected a minor masterpiece.

The story starts a couple days before the final culture festival in our protagonists' high school years. They're busy preparing their various functions. A recent hand injury and a falling out between friends has left a band in shambles. Kei, one of the founding members, assembles some friends to form a cover band for eighties Japanese punk act, the Blue Hearts.

None of the three girls in the band are willing to sing, though. So they enlist the help of Son, a Korean exchange student who doesn't fully grasp the language. This isn't played for cheap laughs (not that there isn't some fun had with it). Nor is it making any kind of overt political point. She's just a Korean exchange student. She's played by The Host and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance's Du-na Bae, who -- despite strong performances by the other three leads -- absolutely steals the show.



There's a great deal of subtext in this film. The long, elliptical scenes of the girls on their own and together intimate a lot of history and fill in the gaps the film doesn't show us explicitly. A glance here tells the story of an entire relationship. A lingering shot there reveals that, in this story, we're catching just one moment in a life story all its own.

Every character -- even the numerous minor ones -- painted delicately, warmly, and realistically. They communicate an amazing amount of their story just with a silent reaction. There's a lot going on here.

On its surface, the movie is a good deal of fun. It works on a number of levels.

Oh, and the music pretty much rocks. Check it out.

Labels: babbling about films

We're a third of the way into 2007 and I'm still not comfortable enough with the number of 2006 films I've seen to say that this, definitively and forever, is my final top list for 2006. I've come to really appreciate those critics who include films that they saw during a calendar year as opposed to those released in that year. Those lists still annoy me, though. So here it is. My trivial little listing of what I think the best films of 2006 were (I'm going off the dates of theatrical release in each film's native country).

1. Election 2 (Johnnie To, Hong Kong)

Genre stylist laureate Johnnie To's gangster epic comprised of this and last year's Election are the best thing he's done. In a career that also includes such films as The Mission and Running on Karma, that's saying something. Blasphemy though it may be, I found the combination of these two films more powerful and potent than The Godfather. It does what few sequels do and what more sequels should do: it builds on the already strong, articulate themes of the first film, imbuing everything with more meaning. To's utter emasculation of his characters despite all their triad posturing stands in stark contrast to such good-times glorification as A Hero Never Dies and Full-Time Killer.

2. Memories of Matsuko (Nakashima Tetsuya, Japan)

Over-the-top doesn't begin to describe the breathless, ornate style of Memories of Matsuko, one of the most visually gorgeous and heartrendingly tragic films I've seen. A musical, it is the story of Matsuko, a woman who pursues her happiness in the arms of men who treat her like shit through the decades. The visuals, calling on everything from teeth shining in the dark to animated birds right out of Snow White, serve to underscore the film's celebration of Matsuko's life and her perseverance in light of the awful tragedy of her reality.

3. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, USA)

An immaculately crafted film, from its unflinching violence to its imaginative (but not cloying) picture of the future, Children of Men works on a number of levels. It's an intense thriller of the highest class. It's a damning, precautionary political fable for our time. And it has Clive Owen and Michael Caine in it.

4. The Host (Bong Joon-Ho, South Korea)

Apparently mad genius Bong Joon-Ho deftly does just about everything in The Host. As Spielberg is often wont to do, he gives us a politically charged story of a catastrophic event (this time, a man-eating mutant from the Han River) from the viewpoint of an unspectacular family. Unlike the laughable War of the Worlds, though, there are no supermen here. And when someone dies, they stay dead. There are scenes that are funny as hell, scary as hell, and poignant as hell, and all these scenes are right next to each other, if not the same.

5. Half Nelson (Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden, USA)

Honestly, I avoided this one for a while. I'm wary of the white-teacher-redeems-a-bunch-of-black-kids subgenre of American film. It's been done. To death. And it usually isn't worth the trouble. However, Fleck and Boden's film is pretty much the refutation of the too-pat trappings of these films, and a wonderful, complex, an important allegory about race and class in today's society.

6. Inland Empire (David Lynch, USA)

David Lynch's ability to capture the hellish nightmare that is everyday living resonates in every second of the 10,800 seconds (approx.) in this film. It's thrilling, moving, disquieting stuff. And I don't know if I'll ever know exactly what it all means. Not every three-hour film can make me want to revisit it almost instantly. This one did.

7. Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, Mexico)

Del Toro's fairy tale was lighter on the fantasy than I'd anticipated. But that was no matter. Ofelia's real world surroundings and the brutal fascism of Franco's Spain was substantive, compelling stuff. Furthermore, it's open to a multitude of interpretations. I've heard a number of theories, most of which compliment the film a nuanced and deep film worth a good deal of consideration. Also? It kicks ass.

8. Volver (Pedro Almodovar, Spain)

A fabulous story about strongly drawn characters that allows the viewer to know what's going to happen yet still is fascinating to watch as it unfolds these events. Also, Penelope Cruz is almost distractingly beautiful in this movie. She's superhuman.

9. Brick (Rian Johnson, USA)

Juxtaposing the too-serious hallmarks of noir with the too-serious reality that is high school works so well under Johnson's sure hand that it seems perfectly logical.

10. Letters from Iwo Jima (Clint Eastwood, USA)

The film isn't flawless (some of its digressing backstories and barely-there frame story seem a little unnecessary), but by presenting us with the horrors of war in grotesque, unblinking detail from a consistent perspective of soldiers on the ground, Eastwood's admittedly obvious anti-war message is supremely effective.

The Next Seven

11. A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman, USA)
12. Stranger Than Fiction (Marc Forster, USA)
13. Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story (Michael Winterbottom, UK)
14. Happy Feet (George Miller, USA)
15. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Adam McKay, USA)
16. Exiled (Johnnie To, Hong Kong)
17. The Queen (Stephen Frears, UK)

Miscellaneous Notes

• I can pretty much guarantee that Kon Satoshi's Paprika would be near the top of this list if it weren't for the fact that I won't see it for another two months. Seriously, I haven't been this excited for a film since Kill Bill, Volume 2.
  
• The Departed was inferior to Infernal Affairs, which did not receive enough credit. And was also from Hong Kong. Not Japan.
  
• While An Inconvenient Truth may be an important movie, it's really not much of a film. If the Academy Awards wanted to award quality, the masterful Iraq in Fragments was much more deserving (though "Oscar-winner Al Gore" brings me some joy).
  
• I haven't seen United 93, The Fountain, and several other likely contenders. And that's not counting the stuff that I haven't even heard of yet. As I said, the requirements for a comprehensive best list will never be fully satisfied.

Labels: babbling about films

Last year, I posted a list of my requisite holiday viewing to my LiveJournal. In the interest of full dsclosure, I should admit that I forewent seeing "A Charlie Brown Christmas" in 2005. My holiday was just that much more deficient in cheer as a result. For -- and please, allow me to echo a sentiment that's far from new -- "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is the best holiday special ever.

Troubled by the prospect of indulging in this piece of nostalgia for two consecutive years, I popped in the DVD yesterday to accompany my gift wrapping. I didn't get very far with the wrapping; I was enthralled.

What impressed me most was something I'd never really noticed before. I feel a little foolish for missing it in the past, but often growing up with something can keep you from reexamining its meaning. Much is made of the boldness of Linus's speech (Luke 2:8-14), ending with "on earth peace, good will toward men." (Personally, I take comfort in knowing that Mr. Charles M. Schulz would eventually come to describe himself as a secular humanist.) Regardless of your religious views, "on earth peace, good will toward men" sounds nice (right, Ahmadinejad? Bin-Laden? Bush?).

However, what struck me as the highlight of the program was the intense humanism exhibited. This is, of course, all topped off by the blatant and beautiful metaphor of Charlie Brown's pathetic, frail tree that is saved when the kids observe that all it needs is "a little love." It's a simple analogy. But it's fantastic.

Perhaps I shouldn't have been as floored by this as I have been. But my heart was warmed. Seriously. As if it were in a pot on a stove. I found myself transported to that magical, impossible world where I give the awful dictators and leaders of the world a copy of this. They watch it come to a close, tears barely held back, and then give me a giant bear hug. "Aww," they'd sigh. Poof! No more genocide. No more poverty. No impending climate crisis.

So I place "A Charlie Brown Christmas" at the top of my holiday special pantheon. For reasons new to me.

Naturally, I can't finish this write-up in good conscience without at least a minor rave about Vince Guaraldi's score. It's phenomenal. One of the best albums I own. Period.

Labels: babbling about films

Over the weekend, two highly anticipated films which will forever be relegated to the "Cult Classics" section of your local DVD store: Clerks II and Snakes on a Plane.

Let's start with the last first. Snakes on a Plane, as I hardly need to inform the internets, has been hyped to hell. I doubt if any other film has ever had so many superlatives lobbed at it, let alone before its unveiling. But it's here now. And on Sunday evening, several friends and I sat alone in a theater in Provo (which is likely the ideal viewing circumstance for this film).

It's apparent that Samuel L. Jackson really enjoys acting in movies. I'm glad of it, because he's damn good at it. And he made this one actually watchable. From his very first line to the very end, everything Jackson said was gold. However, it'd be wrong to call it a good movie. There were some campy laughs to be had (especially in the exposition, which is hypercliché), but there was a lot of action movie bullshit in between to drudge through. And there's a lot. I was actually surprised at the amount of carnage in this film. At times it felt more like a zombie gorefest than a campy thriller, at one point prompting one of my friends to jokingly remark "Quick, kill her, before she becomes a snake!"

Oh, and just in case you miss them, there are snakes on the plane.

Now, onto Clerks II.

I like Kevin Smith. He isn't the most visually inspiring director, but his dialogue is generally fantastic. The original Clerks film is among my favorite comedies, largely because, with its extremely limited budget, Smith was forced to play to his strengths - characters and dialogue. Clerks II is his best film in the twelve years since Clerks. Returning us to the world of Dante Hicks and Randall Graves provides us with the same sort of limited canvas he was working with in 1994.

Not to say the film doesn't have its missteps. The character of Dante's fiancée, Emma, is obviously not meant for him. Kevin Smith will not allow us to fail to catch onto this. Subtlety isn't Smith's strongest suit. From the moment she appears on the screen, she's obnoxious. Perhaps this is a more general gripe about film that I'm taking out on this movie, but I wish characters like these weren't simply used as pawns. Allow us to feel a degree of pain for Emma when the inevitable happens. Make us a little conflicted.

Overall, though, the film succeeds. If I were the sort who assigned film ratings, this would be a three-and-a-half out of four stars film. It delivers much of what made the first Clerks great: dialogue. Dialogue in which one character's perceptions of the world and directly challenged by those of another, in which we witness a clash of two realities fighting for a claim to normalcy. It's a recurring theme in Smith's films, and one that I love to see explored.

Also, the movie's funny as hell. No fart jokes, even.

And a word needs to be said about Rosario Dawson. Not only was she her acting spectacular, but she was incredibly sexy. Seriously.

Labels: babbling about films

So, right now, I'm watching The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. During his monologue, he made a joke about combining Rocky VI with a newJaws sequel. I made the same joke into a Photoshop image three years ago. Not that I'm accusing him of cribbing or anything. I doubt I'm the first one to make such a joke. Regardless, it was a funny coincidence.

Over the weekend, I saw Akeelah and the Bee. While it fell into a few too many of the tired old plot devices of uplifting films, it was overall very well executed. Keke Palmer is a fantastic actress. She carried the film as deftly as any accomplished actor. I'd recommend checking it out. Not that I saw it, but I sincerely doubt Mission: Impossible III could possibly have been better.

There was a terrible omission in my post about the most anticipated films this year. Naturally, I'm referring to Snakes On a Plane. Initially, I found the craze amusing. Then New Line ordered reshoots so Samuel L. Jackson could say things like "motherfucking snakes" and "motherfucking plane." Now I actually want to see the damn thing.

I've rediscovered The Beatles. "Abbey Road" is a brilliant album. When I was a junior in high school, almost all I listened to was this compilation of early Beatles tracks. The next year, all I listened to was Frank Sinatra, with a little Dean Martin and Nat King Cole thrown into the mix. I had sworn off rock. A couple years later, Elliott Smith and the Velvet Underground would pull me out of that misguided conviction.

I'd better end this thing. Else who knows when it will stop?

Labels: babbling about films

The films in 2006 that I am most eagerly awaiting:

1. Isabella. Over the last year, I've become a huge fan of Hong Kong writer/director, Edmond Pang Ho Cheung. His is one of the freshest, most interesting voices in film today. Every work has been something different and he doesn't play into many conventions. Beyond Our Ken has become one of my favorite films of recent years and I can't wait to see what else Mr. Pang has up his sleeve.
   
2. Brick. Heard about this one at Sundance in 2005 and then forgot about it. Then the trailer surfaced. It's already been released in other cities, but it's still awaiting its opening in Utah in two weeks. Bringing a film noir sensibility to a modern high school setting should prove interesting at the very least.
   
3. Election 2: Harmony Is a Virtue. I like Johnnie To. I liked Election. And the buzz on this one is very good. Also, I'm looking forward to Exiled, the sequel to To's The Mission.
   
4. Marie Antoinette. Sofia Coppola's new film looks like an interesting take on an interesting character. I'm game.
   
5. Little Miss Sunshine. The Sundance buzz on this film was fantastic. Recently, I saw the trailer. It looks like the sort of film I can really get behind. The cast, at any rate, is stellar.

There's probably some that I'm missing here (in fact, I know I'm missing at least one - I swear I had it a moment ago), or films that I'm not even aware are in production, but this is what I'm most looking forward to at the moement. If Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox actually happens this year, add that to the list. I'm also looking forward to Goro Miyazaki's debut Tales from Earthsea, the American release of Lady Vengeance, the Coens' Hail Caeser (if it happens), and Tenacious D's The Pick of Destiny.

Also, despite not seeing the first two, I'm making a point of not seeing The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. What are you doing, Justin Lin?

Labels: babbling about films