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Talk about redefining the English language in order to market things to put in our increasingly fatter faces…. Please to explain how the word “Homemade” belongs within 500 yards of this container of ice cream?  Talk about stretching the definition…. I don’t know about you, but I generally don’t keep Microcrystalline Cellulose or Cellulose Gel (both undigestible vegetable matter) on hand in my pantry. Am I the only one that gets pissed off when they see this sort of chicanery?  Writer-directors Jay (L) and Mark (R) Duplass flank actress Judy Greer at the home video release reception for the Duplass’ “Jeff Who Lives at Home.” The fun and festive reception for the home video release of Jay and Mark Duplass’ Jeff Who Lives at Home was held at Santa Monica’s Basement Tavern, located inside the Victorian (a great space, BTW), and the place was festooned with quotes from Kevin (Evan Ross) and even featured a Dartboard of Destiny:  Jay Duplass retrieves his “bullzeye!” Attendees ate (some insane mac & cheese and other tasty vittles), drank (the bartenders outdid themselves) and were indeed, quite merry! Jeff Who Lives at Home has a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the DVD and Blu-ray were released on June 19th. From LAist:
Read the rest here. The 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival kicked off a week ago tonight with the North American premiere of Woody Allen’s eagerly anticipated To Rome With Love. He’s going to have a tough act to follow, as last year’s Midnight in Paris won the best original screenplay Oscar and was Allen’s biggest box office performer to date (although adjusted for inflation, it doesn’t come close to Love & Death, Sleeper, Annie Hall, Manhattan and several others). While I haven’t seen it yet, word after the screening was pretty meh. Not bad, not great. That’s ok, really. The man has already made 42 features (!!!!). Out of those, I have seen 20 (I “missed” a lot of the bad ones but yes, that’s a poor percentage) and of those 20, I’d rate 15 of them 7/10 or better, with maybe six full-blown masterpieces. That’s a pretty decent success rate. So far I’ve caught 15 films at the festival, with not a stinker in the bunch. In fact, they’ve ranged from very good to superb! Top of the heap so far for the docs are Cosima Spender’s Without Gorky and Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching For Sugar Man. The latter has distribution via Sony Pictures Classics which will open in NY and LA on July 27th but the former is un-bought and deserves serious attention. A look at the emotional vacuum left by the suicide of the abstract impressionist master, Arshile Gorky. The absolute perfect example of a compelling personal documentary, Spender’s film is probing and revealing without being in the least bit exploitative of her subjects, which happen to be her family, as Spender is Gorky’s granddaughter. Far more than a biopic and far more than an art film, Without Gorky explores what was left behind by Gorky after his suicide in 1948 and how his survivors are still processing his death (and life) after 60 years. In the hopes that you go into Bendjelloul’s extraordinary film knowing very little, I’ll try and avoid spoiling too much. Suffice to say that even if you know the hook of Searching For Sugar Man, you’ll still find yourself not believing what you’re seeing. Trust me. This one you cannot miss. More from this special edition of the Los Angeles Film Festival later! Ok, this is the most exciting Blu-ray/DVD release I have seen in a while. Let me see if I can put into words how much I love this film: This was the first laser disc I bought. When I was a teen, I watched it every time it was on TV (rarely in those early days of cable), my friends and I probably wore out the local video store’s copy and definitely always saw it on the rare occasions it played at Film Forum or the like. I was a Mod in high school and this is one of the filmic holy texts for us. Not only is the Who’s rock opera of the same title fucking amazing (and my favorite Who album of all time) but Franc Roddam’s film is redolent of films like Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End, coming at the tale end of the 1960′s-1970′s period where teen angst and social unrest were presented in an almost vérité look and films were rife with improvisation. Yup. Can’t wait for this one!
I am sure I can’t add anything to all the professional obituaries of Adam Yauch, so I thought I’d add something a little more personal. Back in the early to mid-1980s, there were two musical movements happening in New York City that were important and influential to me and my friends (among many many others, of course). One, the Two Tone ska revival was destined to remain a subculture, albeit one that we embraced heartily. The second was Hip Hop. As soon as we heard Rapper’s Delight, we were hooked and in those relatively early days of the genre, as some clubs slowly morphed from the discotheque model to a more hip hop-centered experience, it wasn’t unusual to see blacks, whites and Latinos all in the same club. Not to digress too much into the economic and cultural makeup of New York in the early to mid-1980s, but it was certainly a different time and I found myself in a complicated social world that somehow merged my left-wing, hippy/socialist summer camp (Thoreau-in-Vermont) with the private school I attended (The United Nations International School, aka UNIS) and the NYC ska and hip hop communities. NYC was (and is) a large place, but if you were in certain high schools and of a certain mindset, your orbits were large, inclusive and on the surface or to an outsider, contradictory. Didn’t seem that way to us, though. Continue reading RIP Adam Yauch: Some Personal Memories  Up.
 Down. In what I plan on making a regular feature, here are a few upcoming video releases that I am looking forward to. They aren’t full reviews, because I don’t have my hands on copies (yet) but I know (or know of) the source material and I am damn excited to see them all! Included are: I, Claudius, Treme, Dark Shadows, A Dangerous Method, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (yay!) and (drum roll, please…) Sherlock!!!! Today brings The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and how I love it, let me count the ways! One of my top 10 films of 2011, this is going to be a regular view of mine for a long time. Its stunning visual and sound design make it perfect for a transfer to BD and I sincerely hope they don’t fuck it up. It’s loaded with extras as well, with the press release listing almost four hours of goodies, including Commentary by Director David Fincher, character profiles, location features and some very cool sounding post-production stuff, including “Main Titles (Multi-Angle) With Commentary by Tim Miller of BLUR Studio.” Sherlock, Season 2 (May 22nd)  Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in the BBC's "Sherlock." Continue reading Home Video Roundup: Some upcoming nuggets of goodness!
I mean, would you really want to see a Buffy/Twilight crossover? Not unless it was just so Buffy could kick Edward’s scrawny, gitter-covered arse. Harry Potter teaming up with the Halliwell sisters? Pass. Kirk and O’Neill, fighting the Goa’uld and Klingons? I think not. Just look at the ways the two shows treat time travel. In Star Trek, it’s a rare and dangerous occasion. In Doctor Who, well, it’s what he does. All the time. With ease. Imagine how annoyed Picard will get with The Doctor running around the bridge in a fez! I mean, if it’s going to be funny…. Word is, however, that it’s not going to be in the least bit funny. From the IDW press release:
My point is, teaming up characters in the same “universe” is fine but this one feels forced and seems like it has the potential to be a disaster. But I don’t wanna be a Scrooge and since I love both of these shows, if they can pull this off, I would be a happy geek. Lord knows, the Cybermen and the Borg have a lot in common and I bet The Doctor would get a real kick out of experimenting with the replicators to find the optimal recipe for fish fingers and custard… The series hits stores in May.
With a superlative cast of Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch (don’t get me started on how brilliant Sherlock is…), David Dencik, Tom Hardy, Ciarán Hinds, John Hurt, Toby Jones, and Mark Strong, TTSS easily made my top ten of 2011 [CNN.com and indieWIRE.com] and while I love (Oscar winner) The Descendants, I wouldn’t have complained if writers Bridget O’Connor & Peter Straughan had picked up an little gold man last month. Continue reading Home Vid News: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (x2) Coming to DVD/BD |
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