Mashup: Ocean's Eleven and The Great Muppet Caper

Movie Star in Town. I'm Swooning.

It's not unusual to see a film crew in San Francisco. Rare, but not unusual. But you don't usually see a major movie star at the center of the set. Spotted at the 280 on-ramp at 6th street in the city:


Sharukh Khan.
He's in town with Kajol. Jimmy Shergill. and Director Karan Johar (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham)

Pics from a Market Street shoot at Asian Outlook.

The movie, My Name is Khan, has Khan playing a Muslim man arrested as a terrorist in post 9/11 America for is odd behavior-- turns out he has Aspergers syndrome.

The Kornbluth Brothers: Movie Pitch for "Love and Taxes"

Josh and Jake Kornbluth pitch their latest movie, Love and Taxes, based on Josh's monologue of the same name, a sort-of sequel to Haiku Tunnel.

As an indie feature, they are shooting it bit by bit (as funding allows), and there's already a rough cut of one scene available: YouTube link

More info about the film at JoshKornbluth.com and the film's
fundraising page at IndieGoGo.

Perks for donors: methinks the $1040 level perk is a better deal than the $2500 appear in the movie: at the 1040EZ donation level you get a Case Name. In my book, being name checked in a scene about tax law would be even cooler than a walk-on.

Land of the Lost as a movie? They're not. Oh yes they are. Oh yes they did.

Directed by Brad "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" Silberling.

MDA: An Open Letter to the New York Film Critics Film Circle

Mike D'Angelo posts his picks for the year's best, and quixotically asks the New York Critics Film Circle voters to go beyond the usual award fodder hyped by the studios. And, as usual, a great reference tool for heading to the video store.

That is, if you have time to watch videos anymore.

And if you even have a video store anymore.

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

Finally got to see this, albeit with two boys clinging to me and the last reel with the sound turned down. (Oops. Didn't check to see that this was PG-13). Liam pointed out that the thing that made the scary parts scary was the sound. And sure enough, with no sound, no music and no screaming and yelling, the adrenaline levels went waaaay down. The sound came back up for the necessary post-duel exposition that wraps up the story ("this is the boring part," said Liam).

The boys were prepared for the plot, knew many of the characters and planets from library books and The Clone Wars tv movie from the Cartoon Network, although after so many explosions and light sabers duels it's apparently hard to remember that the infant Luke will be a young adult in the next movie and it's the same person ("Whose house is that? What planet are they on? What happened to Luke's father?")

Satisfying, partially since the movie was an improvement over the previous two prequels, but mainly because it puts into place the story details that set in motion the first movie.

Absolutely stunning visuals... although I kept thinking of Hawaii Five-0, with long tracking shots of cars driving down the highway, and parking in front of office buildings, just to remind everybody "Hey, we're in Hawaii!" Lucas has so many subplots he's juggling, he has to put in establishing shots to remind us what planet we're on now, and each planet has to be distinct, just to remind us how big and diverse the galaxy is and how hard his art department is working.

But I wondered if the critics, who had a nominal duty to pass judgement on the film for those who hadn't seen the other five, thought it worked as a standalone. Some of them did, some didn't.

And then I found one critic who absolutely lambasted it. Hated it with a fiery passion. I burst out laughing reading his review.

The general opinion of “Revenge of the Sith” seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, “The Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones.” True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.

Anthony Lane, The New Yorker.

Wait. This isn't a fake documentary?

(via Whack-a-Flick)

I watched this movie trailer, and wondered at first if it was a low-budget indie movie. Then, once the trailer revealed its premise, I thought it was a put-on. Like Christopher Guest doing a "Best in Show" take on the war in Iraq. (Warning: graphic images in the trailer)



Turns out, this is a straight ahead documentary.

There really is a fake town in the Mojave Desert where the military pays Iraqi refugees to play the part of Iraqi police and insurgents so that the army can conduct war games, complete with fake explosions and movie make up and funerals.

J. Hoberman's review in the Village Voice

David Edelstein in New York magazine

Make fun of "The Happening" without having to, you know, see it

Christopher Orr was scheduled to write a review of M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" for The New Republic. He found it so stupefyingly bad, however, that he instead compiled a list of its worst aspects.

Of course this list "spoils" the movie for anyone who had planned to see it (or who were expecting anything like "suspense"), in order that those who had planned never to see it would have plenty of material with which to mock the film without having to sit through it themselves.

Since the threat driving the movie is a colorless agent in the air, Shyamalan has nothing, really, to dramatize visually. He solves this by showing a strong wind every time the deadly agent appears.... [W]e get leaves blowing every time people are going to die, and a hilarious scene where Elliot et al. are running across a field trying to outrace the wind. It's like the climax of Twister, without the twister.

It's a fun read, once you get past the point where Orr acknowledges having a thing for Zooey Deschanel.

Via Kottke.