A quick programming note: The podcast for last week’s double feature, “Breathless” and “Jules & Jim” has been canceled, and upcoming episodes will be produced based on the feedback received in the discussions. The remaining weeks have been restructured slightly to encourage greater community participation. Remember, the film fest is about community wide-discussion, and everyone is encouraged and welcome to participate. We don’t bite, I promise!

The Summer Film Fest is back in its penultimate entry, wherein we discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s incredibly overlooked Punch-Drunk Love and Michel Gondry’s modern masterpiece Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I paired these two films because they examine two different aspects of the the same theme: How we deal with love.

Punch-Drunk Love is in many ways about the incredible redemptive power of human connection (as many of Anderson’s films are, particularly Magnolia.) Adam Sandler’s stellar, subdued performance as Barry Egan went overlooked by many who expected more traditional Sandler fare, despite the film’s warm critical reception (even making several “best of the decade” lists). Egan is driven by anxiety stemming from his upbringing with seven bombastic sisters. Anderson films the world as chaotic and unpredictable, save for the calming presence of the enigmatic Lena, played by Emily Watson. Punch-Drunk Love is a beautiful take on the traditional romantic comedy. Unlike traditional romantic comedies, it isn’t about two broken people who come together and fix each other, who correct each other’s imperfections. Rather, it is about two broken people learning to be broken together, savoring the imperfections, and finding a link to their own brand of normalcy in a wildly erratic and unpredictable world.

In contrast, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is about memory, and how the pains and heartbreaks we suffer through ultimately make us who we are. The powerful, esoteric duo of director Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman craft a beautiful, resonant film that follows Joel, (Jim Carrey who, much like Sandler, turns in an unexpectedly poignant performance from a traditionally comedic performer) a reserved loner who falls Clementine (Kate Winslet), a manic pixie dream girl if there ever was one. Their relationship begins in a similar manner to most films with MPDG’s (i.e. Garden State), but carries on past that, showing the bitter dissolution of their once magical time together as their wildly divergent personalities ultimately tear each other apart. As the film begins, Joel has signed up for an experimental treatment to wipe all of his memories of the relationship from his mind. However, as the procedure is underway, Joel realizes his mistake; His memories of the relationship, while painful, are a part of him, and he sets out to save his memories from being destroyed. Although wild and dreamlike in grand Gondry/Kaufman fashion, at the core Sunshine is a glaringly honest and affecting look at love, loss and the things that make us who we are.

Both of these films are available on Netflix Watch Instantly, and on a personal note, are two of my favorite entries in the festival this year. If you liked or disliked either of these films, join in the discussion in the comments below. If we get enough feedback, then we will release a podcast episode incorporating your feedback into the discussion. And remember, you don’t have to be a film snob to discuss: Anyone and everyone is welcome to join!

By now it’s no secret: I love scary movies.  And when I saw the Halloween decorations up at a nearby drug store I couldn’t help but get excited as my favorite time of year is quickly approaching.  Now John and I have some exciting things planned for the month of October, but we’ll let you know about them when the time is right.  In the meantime, I thought I might get my scare on and check out the latest demon-possession extravaganza The Last Exorcism.  So with a big old bucket of popcorn I sat in a very dark theater and dared this movie, “C’mon scare me bitch!”  Sadly, I’m not sure the movie heard me.  For as interesting as parts of this film are, in the end I was hardly scared. 

The film follows an Evangelical minister Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian).  Cotton has been preaching since he was 10 years old, and is much more of a showman than a real minister; he uses magic tricks in his sermons and often gets his parish to say amen to the most absurd things.  His father taught Cotton to perform exorcisms and he did his very first one when he was a young boy.  Cotton is making a documentary of his exorcisms to prove a point; not that exorcisms are real, but that they are in fact a hoax.  Cotton admits that nearly every one of his exorcisms was a fake and that he felt his services were more like that of a shrink than a real man of God.  But after reading about a young girl who died during an exorcism Reverend Marcus wants to expose the industry for what it is in order to save lives.  So Cotton takes his small crew with him on a trip to the backwoods of Louisiana, documenting his last exorcism.  Of course, strange things happen and Cotton must deal with his waning faith as he deals with what appears to be something very real. 

Directed by independent filmmaker Daniel Stamm, the movie was shot entirely on a handy cam and is presented as “found footage.”  By now we have all gotten used to the gimmick that is the handy cam movie.  Last year’s hit Paranormal Activity showed us how effective this style can be when you leave it alone and let the audience fill in the blanks.  Other film such as June 09 and The Blair Witch Project have fallen short of the mark as these films tend to reach for things and present the audience with ideas and notions that aren’t quite there.  This movie seems to suffer from this same fate as it struggles with being “found footage” and a Hollywood film. 
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The Summer Film Festival makes it’s grand return with a French New Wave spectacular: Jean-Luc Godard’s classic Breathless and Francois Truffaut’s Jules & Jim. We’ll be doing something a little different for these last few episodes. We want to incorporate user feedback as much as possible. To do so, I’m posting the discussion thread now, and we will read your feedback on the show, which will be out early next week. So without further adieu, let’s discuss!

In the 1970s, Steven Spielberg made us all afraid to go into the water with his monster hit JAWS.  The movie was an amazing success and the American Film Institute ranks it as the #2 most thrilling movie in history, behind Psycho.  Its critical acclaim and box office success spawned several spin off movies and similar horror genres designed to both scare us and destroy the swimsuit industry.  Perhaps the most famous spinoff (aside from the JAWS sequels) was the Piranha series.  Directed by Joe Dante in 1978, Piranha centers around two idiots that accidentally release mutant killer fish into a stream near the Lost River Lake Resort.  Mayhem ensues and many people are eaten by the tiny little bastards.  Instead of the nail biting suspense found in JAWS, Piranha focused on providing the audience with a lot of laughs and some cheap gore.  And instead of a giant grey fin and scary music to alert the audience that bad stuff was going happen, Dante used an underwater camera to mimic what the fish were about to eat.  

There were some obvious thematic similarities between Piranha and JAWS, so many that Universal originally filed a law suit against New World for spoofing the film.  However, when Speilberg saw the comedy-horror flick he loved it so much that Universal decided to drop the suit.  Unknown Director James Cameron directed the Piranha sequel Piranha Part Two: The Spawning, which featured flying piranha.  The movie was dreadful, but it did give us one of the great directors of our time.  Later in the 90s Roger Corman would try to bring the nasty fish back in yet another movie, but by then the awful JAWS sequels had left moviegoers looking somewhere else for their scares.  Piranha was never a critical or box office hit, but it is considered by many to be a horror classic of that era.  

Fast forward to 2010, several decades since it was safe to swim again.  Director Alexander Aja (High Tension, and The Hills Have Eyes) brings his cast to Lake Victoria, Arizona where a pack of killer fish are waiting.  The story is simple enough: Lake Victoria is a hot spot for Spring Break and each yeah the population explodes as thousands head to the tiny little town to get drunk and show their boobies. Shortly before the festivities, a small earthquake opens up a crack beneath the lake unleashing swarms of nasty piranha.  Now these aren’t your normal garden-variety piranha, these are prehistoric killer fish who have laid dormant since the stone age. And man are they hungry. 

Sheriff Julie Foster (Elisabeth Shue) is off to patrol the Spring Break madness and tells her son Jake (Steven R McQueen…yeah, you read right: Steve McQueen) to watch his little brother and sister.  Jake has other plans, however, as he’s been asked to escort a Girls Gone Wild crew and their hot babes to the hot spots in the lake. (Oh yeah) The rest of the story you can guess right now: scientists show up to investigate, they discover the ancient piranha, and a lot of drunk spring breakers get eaten (or at least nibbled on a lot).

Okay, so Piranha 3D is not a movie for everyone and it certainly isn’t a movie for kids under the age of 13.  But if you are a horror fan like me, or a fan of the killer fish genre you will absolutely love this movie.  Let’s look at why.
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Remember first time you saw the concept of bullet-time in a movie?  For most of us, it was The Matrix that introduced us to slowing down time to gain a new visual perspective.  The Matrix left me feeling blown away at the fresh cinematic approach to visuals and storytelling.  But, if I’m honest with myself, it wasn’t this new cinematic approach that made The Matrix one of my favorite science fiction movies of all time; it was the deep narrative and tight script that pulled that movie together.  Since then Hollywood has used bullet-time in hundreds of action films, only to fall short when the story doesn’t live up to the visuals.

Like The Matrix, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World offers a completely new visual approach to telling the story.  And lucky for us, Director Edgar Wright doesn’t simply rely on the coolness factor of the film’s visuals to carry the picture.  Instead, beneath all the glitz and glam is a well thought-out portrayal of the awkwardness of young people in love.  How Wright weaves together his visual style with concepts in the film is simply stunning and makes it one of the must-see films of this summer.    

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is based off a comic book series by Bryan Lee O’Mally.  The story focuses on young Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) who like many young people is struggling with his own identity and self esteem.  He plays bass in a band called Sex Bob-omb (clever Super Mario reference there) and like many other garage bands, they aren’t all that good.  To enhance his self-esteem (and forget about his ex-girlfriend) Scott starts to date a high-schooler named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong).  Being much younger than he, Knives is enamored with Scott and thinks it’s cool that he plays in an indie rock band.  At first Scott is happy with the relationship, as it boosts his ego, but soon he discovers the reality that an age difference can bring. Knives just isn’t the girl for him. 

In a dream, Scott meets a young punk girl named Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).  When he later bumps into Ramona at a party, he is convinced it is destiny and he begins to pursue a relationship with her.  At first, Ramona is quite reluctant in any kind of relationship with Scott, but she soon gives in to his charm and they go out on a date.  Later, at a battle of the bands, Scott is confronted by Matthew Patek (Satya Bhabha) and he learns that if he wants to continue dating Ramona he must defeat her seven evil exes in a Mortal Kombat-style dual to the death.  The remainder of the film has us watch as Scott battles each of the seven evil exes, wondering along the way if love with Ramona is actually worth it. 
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Hey everyone, sorry for the extensive delay to the summer film festival. Between pneumonia, people being out-of-town and other scheduling conflicts, the festival has had to take some unexpected time off. But god willing, it will be back soon. We’ve scrambled things around a bit and come up with a brand-new schedule. Here’s when to look out for the podcasts:

• August 20 – Breathless and Jules & Jim (French New Wave Spectacular)
• August 27 – Harold & Maude and Punch-Drunk Love
• September 3 – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Triangle
• September 10 - Brick and 8 1/2

It’s a zombie movie, it’s a zombie game, it’s an advertisement for a Kiwi pizza chain. But most of all, it’s awesome!

Below is the first scene of a choose-your-own-adventure zombie flick about a pizza delivery guy trying to deliver a pie to a busty blonde who’s trapped by a horde of zombies. It’s up to you to make the decisions.

Enjoy!

You may remember Tony’s previous videos The Revenge with Lightsabers and The Sequel with Lightsabers. Well, the Hero is back, with more adorable-ness than ever before.

Enjoy!

In 1987, director John McTierman dropped Arnold Schwarzenegger, Karl Weathers, and yes even Jesse “The Body” Ventura deep in the jungle to do battle with what would become a modern-day movie monster, the Predator.  The movie featured some classic one-liners, tremendous action, and the most would-be-Governors in cinematic history.  Human-like in form and so very non-human under the mask, the Predator was truly bad-ass.  Grossing over 98 million dollars (and that was a lot back then) the Predator would appear again in subsequent sequels; first battling Danny Glover in the heat of LA, and then against a slew of Aliens in movies that I am sorry to say that I actually watched.  Having endured the later films, I actually thought that would be the end of our beloved cloaked villain. But I was wrong, and boy am I glad to have been wrong. 

This time, Director Nimród E. Antal and screenwriter Robert Rodriguez bring Adrianne Brody and a cast of eight others to a new jungle, although this time the jungles are not in South America, but rather a complex game reserve on an alien planet.  Royce (Brody) wakes up in a freefall high above the jungle.  His parachute opens at the last second dropping him amongst a cast of other nefarious individuals with similar backgrounds.   Mexican drug cartel enforcer Cuchillo (Danny Trejo), Spetsnaz soldier Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov), Israel Defense Forces sniper Isabelle (Alice Braga), Revolutionary United Front officer Mombasa (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), death row inmate Stans (Walton Goggins from The Shield ), Yakuza enforcer Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), and a doctor named Edwin (Topher Grace).  None of Royce’s new friends can remember how they arrived, so the mercenary takes charge as the crew of human predators looks for a way to get off the planet.  Can they survive long enough to not kill each other, or will they become prey for a group of Predstors?

I was a huge fan of the original film, and rightfully so.  As a piece of work the film continues to stand as a classic of modern sci-fi horror.  Phrases such as “I ain’t got time to bleed,” and “get to da choppa,” have become popular catch-phrases amongst geeks and non-geeks alike.  It is one of the films I believe every guy needs to see in order to fit in among men.  Despite a very strong presence in the comics (Batman vs. Predator = simply amazing) the subsequent films didn’t do much to advance the canon. 

Predator 2 was pretty good, but lacked the suspense that the original had.  Many complained that Glover couldn’t hack it as the lead and he lacked credibility as someone who could tackle the alien beast.  That film was on television just this past weekend, and while I enjoyed the nostalgia of Predator 2, I must say that the critics were right: Glover is no Arnold.  The film did have one cool geek moment when we see the Alien skull in the mother ship.  Sadly Fox would take this concept and almost destroy two franchises at once.   
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I was feeling rather let down by this years crop of summer movies.  Iron Man 2 came out way to early and it’s been kinda downhill since then.  Oh sure Toy Story 3 was awesome, but overall it’s been a summer movie season where I have felt let down.  Where is the movie everyone is talking about?  Where is something that I can enjoy and yet have a lively discussion afterwards?  Who can save us from the doldrums and lack of creativity in Hollywood?  No, not Batman, but you would be close.  For the movie gods have listened to our cries and brought us a savior, and that savior’s name is Christopher Nolan.  For the Director who brought us The Dark Knight and Momento has challenged us to rethink how we view movies yet again with his latest masterpiece Inception.  It’s stylish, well acted, incredibly well paced, lots of action, and best of all it makes you think.  For me I don’t know what else I could ask for in a film. 

The film centers around Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a wanted thief who enters the dreams of others to obtain information that is otherwise inaccessible.  Cobb and his team, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt from 3^rd Rock ), and his “architect” (someone who designs the world of the dream) Nash (Lukas Haas) are working a heist inside the mind of Saito (Ken Watanabe), whom is aware of their deception.  Cobb and his team fail the mission, but soon realize that Saito was auditioning them for something greater.  Instead of stealing evidence from an enemy, Saito would like Cobb to plant an idea into his head instead.  Such an activity is called inception, and it is not only very difficult to pull off, but dangerous as well.  As a reward Saito will pay his team very well and provide Cobb what he desires most, the ability to return home and see his children.  

Cobb accepts Saito’s offer and recruits a forger named Eames.  Forgers are capable of shifting their appearance within the dream world and a must for an act of inception.  Cobb must also find a replacement architect as his was captured by Saito’s men in the botched mission.  He finds a suitable student in Adrianne (Ellen Page) and while he explains to her the rules of the dream world, Adrianne begins to suspect that there is something bothering Cobb.  In his dreams she see’s visions of his deceased wife Mel and his inability to let go of what happened to her.  While Adrianne fears that Cobb is a threat to his own mission, she agrees to help him but with a watchful eye.  Can Cobb’s team plant an idea into the mind of Saito’s rival Robert Fisher (Cillian Murphy aka The Scarecrow) or will Cobb’s own insecurities and nightmares be the downfall of them all? 

The first thing you need to know about Inception, is it’s not a film you can passively enjoy.  You can’t decide to run to the bathroom or get a refill on popcorn and expect that when you come back you can just jump right back in.  Every frame in this film has something of value to it, something that can help explain what is going on, or a red herring as to what you THINK is happening.  It is literally a visual puzzle of your mind that Nolan helps you unravel in the span of two and a half hours.  Missing any pieces of this puzzle will inevitably sullen the experience for you.  It’s also an intricate enough puzzle that you may desire re-visiting to pick up on things you may have missed.  So unlike most Summer movies, you’ll WANT to have your brain with you when you enjoy this film. 

The next thing you need to know about Inception is the visual artistry is exceptional.  I’m not just talking about the special effects which are top notch, it’s how they are woven into the imagery itself to make you think or catch you off guard.  Every explosion, twist and turn of the minds eye in this film is painstakingly planted there for a specific reason.  Many times you won’t understand why something just happened until future narrative tells you why it was important.  This visual storytelling keeps you on the edge of your seat and your brain can’t help but ask for more.  

The acting in Inception is quite solid, and I am slowly becoming a DiCaprio fan.  He is meticulous about what scripts he chooses lately and I for one applaud his decisions.  We watch as this outwardly stoic and confident thief shows us the turmoil that races in his own mind, especially when he dreams.  In this way Cobb is like so many of us, trying to be tough when he is hurting on the inside.  The supporting cast is also quite good, but they are helped by a script that is extremely well written and mostly glitch free.  And for a story like Inception, continuity is a must.  It reminds me of when I first saw The Matrix and how nail tight it appeared to be.  Over the years I have noticed only a few small things in that film, but nonetheless the script was sound.  

I really can’t go into more detail on the plot or the ending as that would spoil the fun of the film.  All I can say is that as someone who frequents the theater, I am acutely aware of where a story is taking me.  So when a story goes in a direction that I did not expect, I am pleasantly surprised.  I found myself having this pleasantly surprised feeling through most of this film.  Plots would twist and things would happen that I didn’t see coming, and yet in retrospect these twists all felt right and not insulting to the audience.  Again, master storytelling at work.  I even heard that the end of this film was simply fantastic and I will admit that indeed it was.  Nolan ends his story in such a way that it naturally sparks debate, but remains true to the essence of the visual puzzle that is Inception.    

I can’t recommend this film enough.  Christopher Nolan has done it again and you owe it to yourself to go and see what everyone will be talking about this summer.  You can even be like me, and see it a few times, it’s that good.   (Oh and please use Spoiler Tags if you want to get deep into specifics of the film)