I have to admit, with the whole Indiana Jones IV thing going on (working title: Indiana Jones and the City of Gods), I haven’t been all that excited. I wasn’t even convinced that the film was actually being made. It still feels a bit like a dream.

     That all changed today when I saw this from IndianaJones.com:

     This feels good. It’s like an old shirt that you loved, found hiding in the attic; a warm cup of java on a rainy, Sunday morning; coming home after a long, gruelling trip. This image just feels so right.

     It seems that over half of the news that has popped up on the net about movies over the past month or two has been related to the upcoming Batman sequel The Dark Knight. And it’s not that I am sick of it it’s just I think it’s a tad on the overload side of things. But still it’s exciting to read and see new stuff.

     Well now we have something very excitng that has been reported. Please only click the unwrap link below if you are sure you want to know this piece of news aka don’t blame me or anyone at Movie Patron if the movie subsequently (in your eyes) is now ruined to an extent. You have been warned!:

UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

     Tonight on CBS, Morgan Freeman hosted the newest “100 Years . . . 100 Movies” series. It’s been 10 years since AFI released it’s last best 100 films of the last (of which I have a checklist and have seen exactly 55 of - you wouldn’t believe some of the 45 I haven’t seen and I’m not tellin’) and they’ve decided to update that with some new films of the last 10 years. Because I love lists and I love to analyze these lists, this is one of the best for discussions and analyzing.

     Star Wars moved up TWO spots! The two biggest jumps from the 1998 list, were Charlie Chaplin’s 1931 film City Lights jumped from No. 76 to No. 11, while the 1956 John Ford-John Wayne Western The Searchers took the biggest leap, from No. 96 all the way to No. 12. Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull bounding upward from No. 24 in 1998 to No. 4 on the new list and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo hurtling from No. 61 to No. 9 this time.

     Films that dropped out of the top-100 this time included 1965’s Doctor Zhivago, which had been No. 39 on the 1998 list; 1984’s Amadeus, which had been No. 53; 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which had been No. 64; 1990’s Dances With Wolves, which had been No. 75; and 1927’s The Jazz Singer, which had been No. 90.

     Close Encounters director Steven Spielberg had the most films on the list with five, while Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Billy Wilder each had four.

Here’s AFI’s Top 100 films of the last 100 years.

To see the rest of the list, click on the “unwrap text” link below:

UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

 Cinecast Episode 52 [155:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

this episode:
Day Watch, Ratatouille, Sicko.
…and as always our signature tangents.

Unwrap the complete Show Notes by clicking on this link…
UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

These are the show notes for Cinecast Episode #52

Bumper music from Tievery Corporation and The Appleseed Cast.

“Tracks” - -

Intro Music: 0:00 - 3:06
Opening Remarks/Announcements: 0:35 - 5:24
Air Guitar Championships: 5:24 - 10:37
Day Watch: 10:38 - 32:22
Ratatouille & Pixar: 32:23 - 1:09:02
Ranking the Pixar films: 1:09:02 - 1:20:57
Shymalan tangent: 1:20:58 - 1:28:50
More Pixar: 1:28:51 - 1:31:01
Sicko: 1:31:03 - 2:00:36
Trailer Talk: 2:00:37 - 2:16:58
– 3:10 to Yuma & the western genre: 2:00:37 - 2:11:44
– There Will Be Blood: 2:11:45 - 2:14:03
– No Country for Old Men: 2:14:05 - 2:16:58
DVD Picks: 2:17:00 - 2:30:19
Closing remarks: 2:30:20 - 1:59:01
Outro Music: 2:32:19 - 2:00:12

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In-House Announcements:

MoviePatron Forums - you can now purchase stuff in the forums using your credits.

     Join us on Facebook:
Join us on Facebook
- NOTE: Facebook will ask you to login or start an account to use this feature.

We’re also on MySpace

     You can post suggestions, comments, thoughts, even questions or topics you’d like discussed on the weekly Cinecast right here on the blog in the comments section (or on facebook or in the forum). You can also now leave audio comments. Leave as many as you like.

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Air Guitar Nation:
review from Filmstalker

Midwest Regionals (click for larger version):

ME

The Winner

Quote of the week:
KURT: “…man getting hit by football level of cinema.”

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Day Watch:
Day Watch (IMDb)
Andrew’s review
Kurt’s review

UNFORTUNATE third installment: Twilight Watch (IMDb)

Andrew’s Night Watch Review
Kurt’s Night Watch Review

Online DVD store mentioned:
allDVD.ca (apparently under construction)

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Ratatouille:
Ratatouille (IMDb)
Andrew’s review

Ranking the PIXAR Films:
Kurt:
8) Cars
7) Toy Story
6) Finding Nemo
5) A Bugs Life
4) Toy Story 2
3) Monsters Inc.
2) Ratatouille
1) The Incredibles

Andrew:
- - I can’t remember A Bug’s Life so I can’t rank it (I only remember it had funny outtakes).

7) Ratatouille
6) The Incredibles
5) Toy Story
4) Finding Nemo
3) Toy Story 2
2) Cars
1) Monsters Inc.

FORGOT to mention the trailer for Pixar’s Next film: Wall-E.
See our Blog post about it.
Hi-def trailer at APPLE.com

Kurt’s TOP 5 Films about food (from Cinecast episode #49)

5) Big Night
4) The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover
3) Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
2) Dumplings - Kurt’s review
1) Ravenous

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Shymalan Tangent:

Andrew’s Lady in the Water review (one of my favorite reviews I ever wrote)
- “…a conglomeration of ideas put together by a mad man”

Cherry Jones (IMDb) from Shymalan’s Signs and The Village:

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Sicko:
Sicko (IMDb)
Andrew’s review

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Trailer Talk:

3:10 to Yuma:

HI-quality trailer at Yahoo! HERE

There Will Be Blood:

No Country For Old Men:

HI-quality trailer at IGN HERE

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DVD picks:

KURT picks:
If… (Amazon)
Part of a trilogy:
O, Lucky Man (IMDb) & Britannia Hospital (IMDb)

and

36 Chamber of Shao Lin (Amazon)

ANDREW picks:
The Manhattan Project (sp ed) (Amazon)

The kid in The Manhattan Project is Christopher Collet (IMDB):

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Other Quick Things:
Miracle Mile (IMDb)
Kurt’s Review of Wierdsville
Mad About Movies - nice little film-related blog we visit often.

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This Week’s Homework:

Rank the Pixar films either in the comment section below or on Facebook

AND…

Watch Lady in the Water (IMDb) - If you like it, please tell me why in the comment section below. LOL

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Comments or questions?
Leave comments by clicking on the comments below - you can even leave AUDIO comments!
feedback@moviepatron.com (general)
andrew@moviepatron.com
kurt@moviepatron.com
- - Kurt’s BLOG - -this week: No screener this week; Kurt is migrating to America that day.

     It was announced today that Marc Forster is officially going to be directing the next Bond adventure, presently referred to as ‘Bond 22′. Forster has an impressive back catalogue of films such as Monster’s Ball, which Halle Berry won her Best Actress Oscar for, the highly-praised Finding Neverland, which was nominated for tons of awards including Best Picture, and the recent Stranger Than Fiction.

     Forster will begin working with screenwriter Paul Haggis on a draft of the script done written by Robert Wade and Neil Purvis. ‘Bond 22′ will begin filming at Pinewood Studios, London in December 2007 and is set to be released in November 2008.

 

     Having not seen all of his films that he has done thus far I can’t say with certainty that he will do a good job but with what I have seen I am extremely content with him at the helm of the next Bond film. Let’s just hope the next part in the franchise will be just as good as the latest one.

     Now this may seem a discussion better suited for the forums but since the day has been slow (with regards to both posts and just in general) I thought I would just post it in the blog. I was just thinking over the past day or so about movies and genres of movies. I was thinking to myself what is the best film from each type of genre. And then I thought it would be fun to see what the Movie Patron users think are the best of each genre. So what I would like you to do is post each genre as a heading and then proceed to put the three best films from that genre under that heading. It would be best just to copy my list below and delete/ammend accordingly. Now keep in mind it is the best films of the genre not your favourite (although they can be the same if that’s the case). So without further ado here is my list:

Action

Die Hard, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Matrix

Adventure

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Comedy

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Big Lebowski, Shaun of the Dead

Crime/Gangster

Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects

Drama

The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, American History X

Epic/Historical

Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator, Schindler’s List

Horror

The Shining, Alien, Psycho

Musical

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Wizard of Oz

Sci-fi

Alien, The Matrix, 2001: A Space Odyssey

War

Saving Private Ryan, Downfall, The Great Escape

Thriller

Memento, Seven, L.A. Confidential

Foreign

Oldboy, City of God, Pan’s Labyrinth

Romance

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Amelie

Animated

Toy Story, The Lion King, Spirited Away

Western

(Sorry, no films for this as I haven’t seen many aka not a fan)

     So there you have it my list of what I consider to be the best films of each genre. Now post yours, feel free to add any genres I have missed and happy discussion!

     Blockbuster has announced that they are going to start stocking High Definition DVD’s in almost 1,500 of their stores but only in the Blu-Ray format. It currently stocks both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD in 250 of their stores but the numbers show that over 70% of customers rent the Blu-Ray format. The company have said that they will continue to rent High Definition titles both in-store and online.

     This leads to the question - why are more people opting for Blu-Ray over HD-DVD? Is it the company that backs it? Or at a long shot just the name? What are your thoughts?

     Kurt just sent me the link to this story from The Hollywood Reporter about the 36th annual Key Art Awards. I’ve never heard of this ceremony before, but apparently these are the awards that recognize achievement in marketing in regards to film. It ties in really nicely with our recent discussions (both in the Cinecast and posts) about cool movie posters, but it also includes trailers, TV spots and web design.

     These awards break down marketing into several categories. There are awards for different genres in TV spots, posters and trailers, also DVD packaging and even an award for marketing that gets people to go to see a movie that has gotten poor reviews (winner: Step Up); just to name a few.

     Little Miss Sunshine (review) won best overall poster while the terribly underrated Little Children (review) was co-winner for best in show audio-visual along with Thank You for Smoking (review).

excerpt from the main article at Hollywoodreporter.com…

     In the main competition, 442 movie advertising and marketing professionals judged a record 1,452 entries. The eligibility period was January-December 2006. A judging event was held April 25 at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.

“The marketing has never been more stimulating,” said John Kilcullen, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. “The submissions reflect the great work the community is doing.”

     New categories were added this year to recognize work in animation, documentary and horror films. To present the animation awards, Nancy Cartwright — who provides the voice of Bart Simpson –arrived onstage with a Bart puppet, with whom she conversed in a comedic exchange.

     This year’s presenters also included Tobin Bell, Wes Craven, Rob Cohen and Dave Foley.

Click on this link to unwrap text of all the night’s winners and some images:

UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

     Kurt passed on the link to me for the 3:10 to Yuma trailer. This movie looks like a totally bad ass western and seeing how it stars Christian Bale and Russel Crowe I’m sure were in for a seriously good movie. This one is for all those people who say that all remakes suck. Watch the trailer and just try to tell me this movie is going to suck. You can watch the embedded youtube trailer here or check out a bit higher quality version.

     It seems that my, and many others, wishes for keeping the amount of pictures and info on The Dark Knight very low have gone unfulfilled as more have been released. This time of Batman’s newest vehicle the ‘Batcycle‘ or ‘Batpod‘. You can check out the pictures below by clicking on the unwrap spoiler link:

 UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

     Although I am against them releasing pictures, it is ultimately inevitable so considering that I have to say yet again I am happy. Everything, every picture and piece of info I have seen or read about The Dark Knight has left me content and happy. But what are your thoughts?

     I just came across some pictures on the net of Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gyllenhaal on set of the upcoming Batman sequel The Dark Knight. To view a couple of the photos click the unwrap link below:

 UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

(To view all of the pictures click here)

     These Bourne Ultimatum posters are damn cool. Kind of a 60s retro feel while at the same time, some modernization. Definitely nothing like any other film’s artwork that has been released at any time in the recent past. Click on the unwrap text link below to see the posters…

UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

     I‘m lucky enough to get to see the ONLY blockbuster film this summer that is a true original, (not a remake or a sequel) Ratatouille, two weeks early. Attached to that film apparently will be the newest Pixar idea called Wall-E. Apple has already released the trailer and although there isn’t much footage, the stuff that is there looks awesome. Johnny #5, meets Pixar? Works in my book; especially if Ratatouille is as fun as it looks. You can see the nice Quicktime version over at Apple.com. As soon as there are more versions available (YouTube), I’ll post them here asap. By the way, I really dig the sound of the robot’s voice at the end of this trailer. It’s my favorite part of the whole thing.

     According to RottenTomatoes.com, amongst others, there is going to be a spin-off movie involving the character of the Silver Surfer from the newly released film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (you can read my review here). Creator of the TV show Babylon 5 has said that he is most likely going to be writing the script for the film. The PG rating for both the Fantastic Four films meant that the action  had to be on the softer side but this spin-off film is reportedly going to be a bit darker (and possibly more violent?).

     Now after seeing the Silver Surfer in action in the cheesy sequel I have to admit I am kind of looking forward to this spin-off film. I liked the way they brought the character to screen, the special effects were the best thing about the film so a whole movie consisting of that eye-candy can’t be that bad. Or can it?

     I‘m not a huge fan of France; but I think I may move there so I can go to the Cannes Film Festival each year and see this amazing stuff before everyone else (I JUST saw Wind that Shakes the Barley last month, which won at Cannes a year ago now).

     Anyway, one of the films I am anxious to see, even more so now than Wong Kar-Wai’s film, is The Coen Brothers (Fargo, Lebowski, O Brother) newest effort, No Country for Old Men. This trailer was brought to my attention thanks to Cinema Fusion, and I can honestly say that this has maybe taken over as my most anticipated film of the year.

     This is Joel and Ethan doing something dark and evil (closer to their earlier work like Blood Simple or Miller’s Crossing) instead of their recent fun stuff - i.e. Lebowski. Apparently being praised fairly well at Cannes, which this blog failed to cover properly, I am most excited about this movie.

     The point of this post is that the trailer has been released online and I am most excited for this to get a theatrical release in North America SOON!

     I’m not exactly sure what the premise is based on the trailer, but ever since The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, I am a Tommy Lee Jones fan. Also, this is strangely devoid (at least in the trailer) of any signature Coen actors (like Turturro, Stormare, Goodman, etc.). Throw in slowly growing in popularity actor Josh Brolin, and this looks fantastic. Check it out and leave your thoughts in the comment section below…

     An article in this weeks issue of Entertainment Weekly (and thanks to ComingSoon.net for the picture) shows Christian Bale as The Dark Knight only this time donning a new and improved Bat suit. Take a look at the pic by clicking the spoiler link below:

UNWRAP TEXT or SHOW **SPOILER**

 

     So what are your thoughts on the new Batsuit? Good? Bad? An improvement? Or a step down? Personally I like it, they had to do something different from ‘Begins’ and personally I think it’s a step in the right direction.

     Check out this clip from the upcoming film, Captivity, starring Elisha Cuthbert. Remember before clicking over that the title of this post is “particularly nasty.” That might be a bit of an understatement:

HERE’re the goods

Thanks to Cinematical for letting me know about this.

     Thanks to FilmPub I think we may have the first four set pictures of Indiana Jones 4! Now take this with a grain of salt as it isn’t comfirmed at all that these are legitimate pictures. But just for a minute take it that they are in fact real pictures of Indy 4, check them out below:

     So I stumbled across this today while browsing for music. THIS is the myspace page for MuteMath. This is the band that claims (apparently rightfully so) to be the ones who recorded the new soundtrack for the much anticipated (yes, even by me) Transformers movie. I did a very little bit of research and I’ve found the Transformers theme out there performed by quite a few bands, but comments on various blogs and sites point to these guys as the official ones for the film. You can hear the song over on their myspace page or right here…

 Transformers Theme [2:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

     Not that the original was all that great in the first place, but is it just me, or does this suck ass? It seems like it should be much harder and rockin; but to each his own I guess.

     As for the rest of the soundtrack, I found it on Amazon.com, but with no track listing. So I did some more research (I have no idea why I care), and over at wiki-pedia, I found this track listing (no spoilers):

1 What I’ve Done - Linkin Park
2 DoomsDay Clock - Smashing Pumpkins
3 This Moment - Disturbed
4 Before It’s Too Late (Sam and Mikaela’s Theme) - Goo Goo Dolls
5 Pretty Handsome Awkward - The Used
6 Passion’s Killing Floor - HIM
7 What It Feels Like To Be A Ghost? - Taking Back Sunday
8 Second To None - Styles Of Beyond
9 End Of The World - Armor For Sleep
10 Retina And The Sky - Idiot Pilot
11 Technical Difficulties - Julien-K
12 Transformers Theme - Mutemath

     So, “Smashing Pumpkins?” Hell yeah.

     I just came across a new movie and trailer for that new movie on the net recently. That movie is called Joshua. The plot is as follows (thanks to About.com):

“ Joshua is the tale of Brad (Sam Rockwell) and Abby (Vera Farmiga) Cairn, perfect Manhattan parents in a perfect Manhattan apartment whose perfect life begins to crack after the birth of their second child Lily. Shortly after Lily arrives home, a dark side of prodigy son Joshua slowly begins to reveal itself.”

And the trailer:

     Now to me the story screams “The Omen“. It has the same basic storyline - seemingly perfect husband and wife have seemingly perfect child but slowly he starts to show a dark side. But still I have taken kind of a shine to the movie after seeing the trailer, it does look like it could be kind of interesting. I am willing to give anything that has Sam Rockwell in it a chance. What are all you guys thoughts on the movie?