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A day late, a buck short, this update to the Cinescape (think of it as StumbleUpon for the movie buffs) is coming in just over a month since it’s maiden voyage, and there’s plenty of eye candy this time ’round. For starters you can check out The Many Faces Of… A spectacular website with great graphics and storylines. The best actors are able to adopt different accents, personalities and dispositions, as such it’s fitting that the first tribute is to Alan Rickman, one of the most talented and diverse actors around, as a villain a “bastard coated bastard with bastard filling,” you too can become an all-round evil nemesis, you need to get an adversary though (follow the step by step guide). Next we have the minimalist (like the design of this website, well, somewhat) tribute to Stanley Kubrick. I found this shortly after writing an article about Peter Sellers and the Dr. Strangelove poster would have been appropriate. In case you missed it, the trailer for Sucker Punch, the latest film from visual master Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) was released at Comic-Con. Last but not least, Anthony Hopkins is going to play Odin in Marvel’s Thor, everyone looks good in a breast plate – I expect this interpretation of Odin will be simpler than that of Valhalla Rising.
New Kubrick Posters, The Many Faces of Alan Rickman & More Eye Candy
A. J. Pennypacker or: How I Learned to Appreciate Peter Sellers
So it’s been a week since my last post, which is a Cardinal sin as a blogger, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been active in the world of film. For one, I wrote a review of Valhalla Rising for The Critical Critics. The more observant will notice that I used a different last name – others use aliases and I felt that I should too. Pennypacker, for those who don’t watch Seinfeld, is one of the alter-egos used in the Puerto Rican Day Parade episode, the scene is one of my absolute favourites. There are plenty of films out right now that I’d like to review (Inception, Predators), but while surfing I saw a story about how Peter Sellers tried to change his will before he died. Although a little before my time, I remember watching the Pink Panther films with my dad, who was a big fan, and not really appreciating it. I was too young at the time, but I’m a big kid now and figured that I should give it another look. I love comedians and actors who can do different accents and impersonations so I decied on Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Sellers plays three different parts and the humour is less slapstick than the Pink Panther series (not that there is anything wrong with that). If you didn’t know you might not even notice that Sellers played three of the main characters, but his role as German nuclear expert Dr. Strangelove made the film for me. Oddly enough, the character was partly based on Wernher von Braun, who was featured in the Pax Americana documentary. Anyways, I was so impressed I’ve started going on something of a Sellers tear – you have to see his impression of Michael Caine – which doesn’t necessarily make for the most up-to-date material on this site, but if you’re like me you don’t mind catching up on the classics, and when it comes to comedy, Peter Sellers is one of the greatest.
Wernher von Braun
Film Finders & Taste Engines
Back in March I wrote a short article about movie recommendations – anyone who has searched online knows that the ones you get from IMDB and Amazon are lousy, and film search engines are the way to go. These film finders, or perhaps more aptly put, taste engines, like the one from Jinni, allow you to find films based on mood, storyline, place, and pretty much whatever else might pop into your head. This is a godsend for anyone who has caught themselves walking up and down the same aisles at the video store, time and again. As such I’ve updated the article and written more about the refined art of film finding. Check it out.
The Cinescape: The Good, the Bad and the Irresistible
Granted, the title sounds like the name of a bad porn movie, but you’ll see it’s very appropriate. As a movie blogger, one spends a lot of time looking at the rest of the film blogosphere, the cinematical landscape, the cinescape if you will, in an effort to stay abreast of the news, catch the odd interesting tidbit in the rumour mill, read other good articles, take part in the discussion, and improve upon one’s own blog. Movie blogs, news sites and such are a dime a dozen, and constantly producing content ranging from informative, to bizarre, to unneccessary, to obscene and hilarious, and I’d like to make a regular segment out of highlighting the best and the worst of what the vast cinescape hast to offer. A task that will likely require some input, there is simply too much to digest out there, and so little time. But take a quick look around yourself and you’re sure to come by interesting stories – like the same prop newspaper being used in film and television. There is of course an endless amount of celebrity gossip, but you may or may not find Lindsay Lohan quoting the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights newsworthy. Of course there are a lot of news stories, and not so new stories – how does Bond 23 not get made in a big hurry? Other articles are written in such a way that you can’t pass them up. Now, I don’t want to give everything away in the first installment, but for the inaugural post I needed to add some of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best quotes, and in weighing it’s position amongst the best, worst and irresistible of the cinescape I think it’s obvious that it belongs firmly to both the formermost and the latter.
Stieg Larsson, Bitch
It’s annoying when everyone starts raving about something you already discovered and have been raving about for ages. This happened to me. I was a huge Dave Chapelle fan before he got his show, I loved his stand-up but after he got famous I wanted to sack anyone who said ‘Rick James, bitch.’ So allow me to apologize profusely to anyone who might have already discovered the adaptations of the Millenium Trilogy, and who has since been trying to get other people to notice them as well. To be honest I have seen advertisement for the books here in Germany and when I went to read what all the fuss was about I noticed the films were very successful. I usually prefer to read before I watch but the films came so highly recommended I couldn’t resist. Needless to say they are also worthy of the praise. I also figured I’d write about it because I find there is a lack of well done psycholigcal thrillers; Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon are some of my favourite movies of all time, and very few films have been able to reach the same niveau and mold a sophisticated and creative plot with bone-chilling suspense. For that reason I’ll highlight a few hidden gems for fans of murder mysteries and psychological thrillers.
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Space Nazis and Human Centipedes
You can find just about anything on the internet. Well you already knew that, but the barriers to entry on the internet are much lower than, let’s say, for a motion picture or a book, which means any schmuck with an e-mail address can start a blog and throw in their two cents (i.e. me). To be a published author is to have something you’ve written printed and distributed, and based simply on the financial resources associated with that it means (generally) that what you’ve written is of a certain standard. It’s the same for the movie business, if you have an idea for a film you have to convince a lot of people to get on board and make it happen. The internet has reduced the barriers to entry for books and movies, among other things. For instance, you can publish an eBook, and if that gets popular they might print it. You can also use the internet to fund and distribute your film. It can be good, non-established film creators have an opportunity to make it without a big studio. Take for instance Iron Sky, a comedy science fiction by Finnish filmmakers of Star Wreck fame(?). The premise is, well, unique: Nazis flew to the dark side of the moon from secret bases in the antarctic and their descendants return to conquer the planet in 2018.
This is Personal
This post is a little more personal than rest, and perhaps should have been my first post – you know, as a kind of introduction. I basically set this thing up and just started rattling out reviews and whatever else caught my attention. But here’s my attempt at distinguishing this blog from the millions of other movie blogs out there. First off, I updated the About page a little, outlining my ‘review philosophy.’ I’ll be refining that but all you need to know is that I try to avoid taking cheap shots: I read a lot of reviews that are snide and dismissive without even being funny and that’s BS. Aside from the fact that somebody may have poured their heart and soul into their work (or maybe they didn’t), it makes for bad reading. But that’s enough preaching. I have a lot of stuff I want to review and write about, but there are only so many hours in a day and I just downloaded my favourite band’s new album that leaked and I’m too busy being blown away. Once I get over it I hope to hammer out some reviews, on the blaster block we’ve got Dorian Gray (I know it’s been out for a while in the UK), along with HBO’s The Pacific. Aside from that there are a bunch of cool new movies coming out soon: Predators, The A-Team, The Expendables, After.Life and more. Those are just the movies, I want to expand the format a little bit beyond reviews and previews. Besides, blogs are meant to be platforms for discussions as well so I welcome e-mails and comments; I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
Film Finding – Movie Recommendations Done Differently
For anyone that has spent way too much time walking through the rows at their local video store, or been on the Internet Movie Database or Amazon searching for cinematic inspiration, they’re usually disappointed or often times baffled. I’m not sure how it works at IMDB, but on Amazon you get a list of products bought by customers who also bought the product you’re looking at. When you’ve bought a hot ticket item the suggestions are usually good but if there isn’t a critical mass of customers the recommendations are way off. Which means if only a few people have bought a book about say, the Stauffenberg plot, you’re left with whatever else was in their shopping cart, which may be a related book, or it may be Beekeeping for Dummies, who knows. An alternative option are film search engines like Nanocrowd or Clerkdogs, both return films similar to ones you enter with greater relevance, the former even lets you drilldown into nanogenres (a word which they copyrighted). Regardless, the reason you like a film or a book is often different from the reason another person does, wouldn’t it be nice if you could search for films, books and music based on the particular traits you liked? For instance you could look for films set in Victorian England, dealing with revenge – or comic bank robberies. Well the answer is Jinni, a movie suggestion site or taste engine. You can describe in your own words what it is you want to see and it workes like a charm.Another less known tool but one with similar functionality is the film finder from Movie Pilot. 
The site is based in Germany the English home page is crap but the finder seems to work. Other than that there are a number of sites that give you recommendations based on your ratings of other movies, which is another route but I think the best is as mentioned, Jinni. Searching based on mood, story line or whatever words come to your mind is truly a slick, easy way to get your fix, when you’re not sure exatly what it is your craving.
The Comedy Grindhouse
A while back I had to come up with a cute, short tagline for my site. I didn’t know what to write so in an attempt at humour I mentioned the fact that I’d sit through any movie, except Druids, which was awful. It turns out I lied – I stopped watching Epic Movie halfway into the opening scene. I had no idea who that sort of film was targeted at, or how they received funding for it, but I was sure that whoever made it probably wouldn’t be allowed near a movie set for quite some time. But after reading a review of Vampires Suck I realized it’s been the same duo that have been producing all of the spoof movies in recent years. I was aware that parodies had been drastically decreasing in quality since the second Scary Movie sequel, but I wasn’t aware that this had become a bad business model, turning profits despite terrible reviews, and boycotts. When it comes to reviewing these films it appears less is more, many critics using four words or less to write this film off. It’s understandable, it’s not even something you enjoy poking fun at. It’s simply uninspired, unadulterated trash. Not even stupid funny, not slapstick, nothing. The films don’t compare to Hot Shots, The Naked Gun, not to mention Mel Brook’s comedies like Spaceballs or Men in Tights. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have been described as symbols of Western civilization’s decline, you might find that extreme but they certainly represent the worst in the business, grinding out one bad comedy after the next and using marketing gimmicks to get enough assess in the seats to cover their costs, and then some. It’s a shame because of a lot of these movies need to be spoofed, why do they have to spoil the fun?