Repo Men – Cool Japanese poster

The Box, 2009 – Movie Review

Director: Richard Kelly
Starring: James Marsden, Cameron Diaz, Frank Langella

Score: 8 / 10

Richard Kelly was behind the phenomenal Donnie Darko and the confusing flawed epic Southland Tales. Both featured deep far reaching ideas and, although the execution in the latter was a bit out of whack, you were left thinking about them for a long time.

The Box is no exception to this. It deals with choice and the dark places they can take you. Based on Richard Matheson’s short story, “Button Button” and with a healthy dose of Philip K Dick paranoia, the film opens up in the Seventies were Cameron Diaz and James Marsden are a happy couple with a young son. She is a teacher, he is an engineer at NASA hoping to become and astronaut and that set up is based on Richard Kelly’s life.

To upset the apple cart comes a disfigured Frank Langella with the titular box. Inside the box is a button and he informs the couple that if they press the button they will get $1,000,000 (Dr Evil would be so happy), but someone they don’t know will die.

The first part of the film deals with their decision about what to do with the button and fleshing out their world. It is this aspect that I thought Kelly handled really well. You get the feeling of their family and events going on around them. My problem with lots of films, especially high concept ones like this, is that it takes place in a tiny place with just the people involved. You don’t always feel as if the world is moving on a around them. Kelly gets by this by having quite a large cast of good supporting actors and setting it in the Seventies may also help that. It puts you in mind of Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives.

The scarred face of Langella is just part of the strangeness that slowly creeps into the film. People stare at Diaz and Marsden before suffering nosebleeds, events turn against them meaning they current lifestyle is at risk, and elsewhere a man shoots his wife and goes on the run.

I can’t go into the plot of the film too much without spoiling it, but needless to say the button is just the first choice they are given.

Marsden does an excellent job and gets further away from the cardboard cut-out that was Cyclops. Diaz does okay, but the accent she puts on gets in the way, yet you feel her anguish very well in some later scenes.

The main praise goes to Kelly for the whole look and feel of the film. Some standout scenes are the ones in the library – Marsden walking between the desks – and all of the ones with Langella who is just superb. We don’t get given an explanation as to what exactly is going on or who is behind it all, but what information is dripped to us sets light to the imagination as you try and figure out the purpose of the choice and what it means to us all.

I could go on, but run the risk of spoiling it for you. Go and watch it, then think about it and watch some more.

Would you push the button?

The Box (DVD) – Amazon.co.uk
The Box (Blu-Ray) – Amazon.co.uk
The Box (DVD) – Amazon.com
The Box (Blu-ray) – Amazon.com

Adapt This: Bitter Seeds – Nazi Supermen vs Warlocks of Britain

This novel by Ian Tregillis sounds amazing and would make an amazing film.

Raybould Marsh is a British secret agent in the early days of the Second World War, haunted by something strange he saw on a mission during the Spanish Civil War: a German woman with wires going into her head who looked at him as if she knew him. When the Nazis start running missions with people who have unnatural abilities a woman who can turn invisible, a man who can walk through walls, and the woman Marsh saw in Spain who can use her knowledge of the future to twist the present Marsh is the man who has to face them. He rallies the secret warlocks of Britain to hold the impending invasion at bay. But magic always exacts a price. Eventually, the sacrifice necessary to defeat the enemy will be as terrible as outright loss would be.

“A major talent… I can’t wait to see more.”
—George R. R. Martin

“Mad English warlocks battling twisted Nazi psychics? Yes please, thank you. Tregillis’s debut has a white-knuckle plot, beautiful descriptions, and complex characters– an unstoppable Vickers of a novel.”
—Cory Doctorow

Could you imagine that on the big screen – German Ubermen going toe to toe with Warlocks controlling the very elements of Mother Earth.

Who would you cast in it?

Check out the official site.
Bitter Seeds – Amazon.co.uk
Bitter Seeds – Amazon.com

Kaboom – Gregg Araki’s sex horror comedy sci-fi film

One of the films that caught my attention in the 2010 Cannes film festival (see previous post) was Gregg Araki’s Kaboom. Check out the synopsis:

A hyper-stylized TWIN PEAKS for the Coachella Generation, featuring a gorgeous, super hot young cast, KABOOM is a wild and sex-drenched horror-comedy thriller that tells the story of Smith (Thomas Dekker), an ambisexual 18-year-old college freshman who stumbles upon a monstrous conspiracy in a seemingly idyllic Southern California seaside town…

Smith’s everyday life in the dorms – hanging out with his arty, sarcastic best friend Stella, hooking up with a beautiful free spirit named London, lusting for his gorgeous but dim surfer roommate Thor – all gets turned upside-down after one fateful, terrifying night. Tripping on some hallucinogenic cookies he ate at a party, Smith is convinced he’s witnessed the gruesome murder of an enigmatic Red Haired Girl who has been haunting his dreams

Twin Peaks, hallucinogenic cookies! How can it go wrong.

Source: Talking Films

Tree of Life – Brad Pitt discusses Terrence Malick’s new film

Terrence Malick makes lovely looking films. I love Badlands. Like most of his films actors fight over themselves to star in one and everything is very hush hush about plot. Tree of Life is no different.

There have been rumours that it is a coming of age story, then others stating that it features dinosaurs. Nothing clear cut has been said. Now Empire spoke to Brad Pitt, who stars in the film, about the possibility of the film being sci-fi. Here’s what he had to say.

“Well, in a way. It’s this little tiny story of a kid growing up in the 50s with a mother who’s grace incarnate and a father who’s oppressive in nature. So he is negotiating his way through it, defining who he’s gonna be when he grows up. And that is juxtaposed with a little, tiny micro-story of the cosmos, from the beginning of the cosmos to the death of the cosmos. So that’s where the sci-fi – or the sci-fact – comes in.”

The official synopsis -

Tree of Life is a period piece centered around three boys in the 1950s. The eldest son of two characters (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain) witnesses the loss of innocence.

We trace the evolution of an eleven-year-old boy in the Midwest, Jack, one of three brothers. At first all seems marvelous to the child. He sees as his mother does, with the eyes of his soul. She represents the way of love and mercy, where the father tries to teach his son the world’s way, of putting oneself first. Each parent contends for his allegiance, and Jack must reconcile their claims. The picture darkens as he has his first glimpses of sickness, suffering and death. The world, once a thing of glory, becomes a labyrinth.

Framing this story is that of adult Jack, a lost soul in a modern world, seeking to discover amid the changing scenes of time that which does not change: the eternal scheme of which we are a part. When he sees all that has gone into our world’s preparation, each thing appears a miracle precious, incomparable. Jack, with his new understanding, is able to forgive his father and take his first steps on the path of life.

The story ends in hope, acknowledging the beauty and joy in all things, in the everyday and above all in the family — our first school — the only place that most of us learn the truth about the world and ourselves, or discover life’s single most important lesson, of unselfish love.

It all sounds very confusing, but should look lovely.

Star Wars – Samurai style in Samurai Wars

Check out the cool Samurai style action figures by an artist called Sillof. Lucas based the original Star Wars on Akira Kurosawa’s classic The Hidden Fortress hence the reason for these figures and they look mighty cool.

Samurai Wars is a line of custom figures that imagines what a Star Wars movie directed by Akira Kurosawa would look like. George Lucas has said publically what a fan he is a Kurosawas and also the influence that Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress” had on Star Wars. At the bottom of the page is a fake write up that I did for a convention that claims this is a real movie.

Last year you may recall reading or hearing about a discovery that shook the cinematic world to its foundations. The famed Ekafama Auction House in Yokahama announced its astonishing discovery, pictures. However, these were no ordinary pictures, they were in fact stills from a movie a half a century old that was not supposed to exist.

The film was a movie that even the most wishful cinephile thought was an urban legend. The movie was Mononofu Woza: Ryu-Mikomi by acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Very little has been written about the film over the years as very little was known. The facts are hard to come by as the story and legends surrounding it grew substantially over the years until the entire project entered an ethereal state.

The facts that can be confirmed by the limited studio records that survive are few. It was to be something of mega project unheard of in its day. The film was budgeted to be the most expensive film in Japanese history and boasted a veritable who’s who of Japanese cinema and Kurosawa regulars (see inset table below). It began filming in 1955 and would have been released the following year in 1956. Most of the principal photography had wrapped when tragedy struck. A fire broke out in the offices at the famed Toho Studios. The arson investigation ruled newly installed faulty wiring as the cause of the blaze. The studio decided the project could not be restarted due to the numerous commitments of its many stars to other films, many of which Toho studios was also overseeing.

I love it when they come up with excellent back stories to go with the art. What do you think of the figures?

Source: Sci-Fi Wire

Source Code – On set photos from Duncan Jones’ new sci-fi

Another sci-fi film from Mr Jones (Moon). These don’t really show any of the sci-fi elements in Source Code, but we do get to see Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Monaghan (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) on set.

This is the film centered on a soldier who wakes up in the body of a commuter who witnesses a train explosion.

Jake plays the soldier who gets put into the place of someone on the train and has to keep going back to determine what happened.

Does sound intriguing and looking forward to seeing some footage from it.

More pics on Before the Trailer via io9.

Project London – Trailer for independently-produced, crowd-sourced, science-fiction, action-adventure, no-budget, effects movie

This looks amazing and even more so as they had no budget to make it.

After WWII, the Nalardians, an alien race, have brought their technology to Earth. Peace reigns under the world government they helped create, the Joint Command.

Nebraska Higgins plunges into a world of intrigue and struggle when Joint Command kills his father, a hero known by his exosuit, Arizona.

Seeing a prime opportunity, the London Underground, a rugged band of revolutionaries, recruits Nebraska to join the resistance against the Joint Command.

Can Nebraska deal with the loss of his father as interplanetary calamities threaten to destroy the world around him? Earth’s fate depends on the potential in a young man’s heart.

This clip explores the world of Project London and introduces the opposing forces, Joint Command and The London Underground. All 3D animated elements were created using Blender, open source software.

Check out the Project London official site.

Doctor Who – What do you think so far?

We are now two episodes in to Matt Smith’s run as the Doctor and Steven Moffat behind the scenes.

So far I have been impressed with Smith. He is more like a mad professor and the character’s scary intelligence comes across more than it did with Tennant.

Karen Gillan as Amy Pond is also a great actress and could well be a classic Companion.

Story wise the bad guys have been a bit week though, but early days. However, there does appear to be a bit of an increase in the budget or at least with what they are doing with it.

That’s all from me. Now over to you. What do you think of the show so far?

Discuss in the comments below.

Here is the trailer for next weeks episode.

Wouldn’t it be great if they could cross it over with the Empty Child episodes from Christopher Eccleston’s turn as the Doctor.

The Adjustment Bureau – First look at Damon and Blunt in Philip K Dick film

Been a while since I have heard anything about the adaption of Philip K Dick’s shot story, The Adjustment Team. Now we have a pic of Matt Damon and Emily Blunt looking at stuff.

Do we control our destiny, or do unseen forces manipulate us? Matt Damon stars in the thriller The Adjustment Bureau as a man who glimpses the future Fate has planned for him and realizes he wants something else. To get it, he must pursue the only woman he’s ever loved across, under and through the streets of modern-day New York.

On the brink of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, ambitious politician David Norris (Damon) meets beautiful contemporary ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt)–a woman like none he’s ever known. But just as he realizes he’s falling for her, mysterious men conspire to keep the two apart.

David learns he is up against the agents of Fate itself–the men of The Adjustment Bureau–who will do everything in their considerable power to prevent David and Elise from being together. In the face of overwhelming odds, he must either let her go and accept a predetermined path…or risk everything to defy Fate and be with her.

The Adjustment Bureau is written for the screen and directed by George Nolfi (writer of Ocean’s Twelve, co-writer of The Bourne Ultimatum). It is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick (”Total Recall,” “Minority Report” and “Blade Runner”).

Not read the short story, but Dick is always good (oh behave!).

The film is directed by George Nolfi. It also stars Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Michael Kelly and Terence Stamp.

Due out on 30th July 2010.

Source: Collider