Posts from — January 2008

Martin McDonagh, already an Oscar winner for the short film ‘Six Shooter’, wrote and directed In Bruges. It’s a story about two hitmen hiding out in Bruges.

Can Colin Farrell actually be funny? Hmm….I guess he can pull it off with those good lucks and charm. The trailer has some funny bits, especially when Farrell’s character complains about Bruges. It reminds of Grosse Pointe Blank (one of my favorite Cusack movies btw) or Lock,Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. All these stories are about killers/thieves and other various morally bankrupt characters. They focus on protagonists struggling with the choices they’ve made in life.

There was a ton of coverage for the film at Sundance. Of course, most of the camcorder lenses were focused on Colin Farrell, but at least some of the video interviewers saved time for McDonagh and co-star Brendan Gleeson.

Find a more in-depth review of the film on Cinematical.

This video is great! “Writers, who needs ‘em?” intertitle at the end of the segment really brings the point home. Seeing how I am a self-confessed Law & Order junkie, it was a special treat to see Chris Noth getting back to his roots for this procedural spoof.

These parody videos are a welcomed side-effect of the strike. It’s not that surprising they’re being made, seeing how these writers have a ton of unwelcomed free time. I’m sure it wasn’t difficult to produce these things. All you need to do is round up some actors and use any basic video camera. You could even take one of those hard disk camcorders and easily hook it up to a computer to save the footage, no dv tapes needed at all. Plus, since it’s already on your computer, it would be pretty simple to edit it together and put in those hilarious intertitles to further outline your message. The segments are simple yet creative, and it’s always good to use comedy to bolster your message.

There are all different kinds of satirical strike videos nowadays as the strike persists. Luckily most of them have been aggregated on the United Hollywood site.

“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is one of my favorite tv shows on air. It centers on four friends who own an Irish pub and get into some pretty hilarious hi-jinks. Some critics call it “Seinfield on crack” since the characters behave in selfish, crazy ways in each episode, never learning their lesson and paying the consquences.

The first season premiered on the F/X network in 2005 to fair ratings, not that big, but okay. Since the show is made pretty cheaply with digital camcorders, F/X gave them another season. They then added Danny DeVito and generated a fair fanbase.

I managed to attend a screening with the three creators yesterday where they explained how they made the show. Rob McElhenney (Mac) wrote and directed the pilot they used to pitch the show. He told us it all started out with him making a short film, using a simple camcorder. The film was based on an just this idea he thought was funny about a guy going to his neighbor’s house to borrow a cup of sugar and the neighbor ends up admitting that he has cancer. This makes the guy really uncomfortable and he struggles to just get the sugar and get out.

The creators luckily found success by sticking to this comedy motto for all three seasons. They said they don’t really worry about lighting and production design, but really focus on making the story as funny as possible. If a take isn’t funny, it’s cut. It’s not about featuring themselves but about making just good comedy. Glenn Howerton (Dennis), Charlie Day (Charlie), and Rob are the actors, writers, and producers of the show. Those three guys were just as hilarious in person as they are on the show. Kaitlin Olson (Dee) unfortunately couldn’t make it to the screening, but they had nothing but nice words to say about her.

Here’s a clip from my favorite episode from season three, “Sweet Dee’s Dating a Retarded Person”. In this scene, Dennis and Charlie have decided to start their own band. If Dee’s retarded boyfriend can be a rap sensation, then why can’t they be musical stars as well. This clip shows how the two characters wrote the song “DayMan”:

The music blogs are all abuzz about the 2008 Coachella line-up. Not to sound like a complainer, since I will in fact be going no matter what, the lineup does sound kinda weak with Jack Johnson headlining on Friday. I found many people with similar responses to the line up on stereogum. Nevertheless, I am stoked about Portishead, Vampire Weekend, Kraftwerk, and much of the small print bands.

Suspiciously, single day tickets are “sold out” according to ticketmaster. I call bullshit since they were labelled sold out after only being on sale for 3-4 days! This thing isn’t until April, so what gives? But like I said, I’m going and the three day tickets are still on sale for now. I see it being very unlikely that it will sell out before April even. That’s as long as no giant musical act is added like say Radiohead, The Smiths or what not.

If I can find a good deal on the panasonic pv gs31 online, I plan to make my own Coachella video journal. Since the birth of youtube, many music fans have begun recording live concerts and sharing them on the internet. I have about 30 clips from last year’s fest that I took with my Nikon digital camera. Watching them again definitely gets me hyped up for this year’s event.

So if I manage to buy my own compact camcorder, I’m sure to get better quality clips this year. And this way I don’t waste money on the Coachella movie, which btw never has a complete documentation of all the musical acts. The 2006 version was edited together okay, but I’d rather have a more personal video memory that I filmed myself.

Smart People, starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Dennis Quaid, is finally coming to theaters. I’ve been hearing buzz around this movie for quite some time. That’s probably because my friend Camille Mana, most notably from UPN’s “One on One” fame, has a pretty big part in the film. She plays one of Dennis Quaid’s students, as you can see in the trailer on Yahoo Movies.

It just premiered at Sundance, so I think it will be out pretty soon. Sundance is becoming pretty hollywood these days. They say there’s celebrities everywhere you look. If I was there, I’d carry a Sony HD camcorder and try to grab interviews and reaction shots the whole time!

Ellen Page also stars in the movie alongside Mana, Quaid, and Parker. Maybe the Juno buzz will carry over?

Well at least the Wall Street Journal is interested in this movie.