Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Dark Knight Will Rise, Not Return


Director Christopher Nolan recently announced the official working title for his third outing in the Batman Begins (BB)/The Dark Knight (TDK) franchise. The movie will be called The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR). Following recent news that Nolan had cast Tom Hardy from Inception in an unspecified, large role for the movie, we now have a title and a little bit more news. Nolan confirmed in an interview with Hero Complex that the villain will NOT be The Riddler, so that puts the axe to that rumor mill.


Most fans were speculating that Hardy would be playing the Riddler, many fans were calling it a certainty, even though I never bought into it (I actually have never been of the mind that the Riddler was ever going to be the villain in B3, just saying). This recent confirmation certainly narrows down the list as to who Hardy could be playing, and that's assuming he'll be a villain. What's not to say he'll be Nolan's take on fan favorite, Detective Harvey Bullock? If Hardy were the villain, expect it to be who you would not expect. Sure the Joker was noticably gonna be The Dark Knight's villain because of the Easter Egg at the end of Batman Begins, and if you follow the continuity of The Long Halloween comic series, Two-Face's rise and the Joker's rise work so well together, it's almost a disservice not to have the two in conjunction. But looking at what Nolan did with Batman Begins, I'd say it is more likely with The Dark Knight Rises to follow a similar villain pattern.


Word is, like BB, that TDKR will be shot primarily on soundstages, and only the exterior shooting will occur in Chicago, where as almost all of the footage in TDK, both exterior and interior, was shot in Chi-Town. Not only will BB and TDKR share this similarity, but I believe Nolan will take a similar approach in terms of the villain. With BB, Nolan chose the Scarecrow, Carmine Falcone, and Ra's Al Ghul as villains, three villains that are major to comic book readers, but unknowns to non-comic bookies. Where as villains like the Joker, Riddler, Catwoman, and Two-Face, are knowns to those not affiliated with the comics. I'm expecting Nolan to throw a curve ball, so no, I do not think that the villain will be Catwoman, so the recent news that Nolan is meeting with young 20-something actresses for an unspecified female role should most likely not be taken as Catwoman is gonna be the villain. Whether or not Selina Kyle and her feline alter ego make an appearance is up to Nolan, but I think if Nolan rejects a character like the Penguin as being too fantastical, than Catwoman is in the same leagues. So whose that leave left for villains, and who is this unspecified female role?


As for who I think the villain will be, Batman has one of the greatest rogues galleries of any superhero, with so many memorable villains that you could make movies all about on their own. On this front, the gangster Black Mask is a popular guess for Hardy, some even mention the Mad Hatter, though I've wanted to throw someone like Killer Croc and Clayface into the mix. Even though Nolan is against the fantastical, I think these two could be done credibally and realistically if thought about in the right way. I mean, Killer Croc could be a circus freak who's real strong and feral with a bad skin condition, or Clayface be a man who uses clay to distort his appearance and uses hardened clay weapons to pull of crimes. Just examples of realistic takes on these characters that are deemed fantastical. As for the unspecified female role, it could tie into the villain. While I doubt Nolan will do Poison Ivy, I think someone like Talia Al Ghul, Ra's Al Ghul's daughter, could be a great love interest and villain for Bruce to face, and not to mention it would sort of round out the trilogy starting with a connection from BB to TDKR in terms of villain, and could also be a reason to bring back Liam Neeson as Ducard. Primarily though, I think that this female role will be a love interest good guy, most likely Vicki Vale.


Now what does this title mean, The Dark Knight Rises? I think Rises is the primary word. He's not having to Return from anything, so that would be stupid word choice, and we already know that he is The Dark Knight, thanks to the brilliant soliloquoy from Gordon at the end of the last movie. If you think on the events of TDK and how that movie ended, this title gives you an inkling not just to its significance, but how it will most likely shape the story.


From the Joker's arrival in Gotham to his capture in the end, he brought so much havoc upon Gotham City that when Batman finally managed to stop him, everything that Batman had worked for was destroyed. Batman tried to save Rachel, but saved Harvey instead (and yes, this is what I believe happened, I think the Joker knew he was gonna save Rachel so he tricked him telling him where Harvey was instead, as is evidenced by Batman's surprise and hesitation when he enters the room of barrels and sees Harvey, not Rachel). Back on track. That event scarred the White Knight of Gotham, Harvey, and ruined any further chance of Batman gaining public support through one of his greatest allies. Not only that, he intentionally framed himself as Dent's killer so that Dent's image would not be tarnished and Gotham would not fall into worse turmoil, assuming the mantle of the Dark Knight. We end the movie with Batman being chased by the police and Gordon destroying the bat signal atop Gotham PD. So Batman is a vigilante hunted by the law, and this is where The Dark Knight Rises will most likely start.


Batman is still hunted by the police, but by this movie being called The Dark Knight Rises, I think that this movie will be all about Batman's own redemption. One of the common themes of Nolan's Bat-movies has been, "Things were always gonna get worse before they got better," and I think that this final movie will be where they get better. TDK is where they got worse, now he must Rise, but not just in the eyes of Gotham's citizens, but in himself. Batman pretty much lost faith in himself after letting Rachel die and not being able to save her, not to mention the whole predicament with Harvey. While he brought the Joker to justice, there will just be another freak to take his place. I think Batman is coming out of his darkest moment as a hero, and he will be redeemed in TDKR, as noticed by the title.


Ultimately, most of this is just guesswork. I have no inside track on the villains or supporting cast that will be included, nor on the story that there will be, all I can do is make educated assumptions based on what I know and my knowledge of the Batman comic books. While I feel The Dark Knight Rises is sort of wordy for a movie title, it works. We'll just have to wait and see if any of my guesses come to fruition.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Movie Review: "Red"


Retired and Extremely Dangerous (R.E.D.), that is the acronym for Red, the story of retired CIA agents being hunted down by the agency because of the secrets that they know. As is usual with these espionage flicks, there are twists, there are turns, but this movie takes the usual tropes of a Jack Ryan-Tom Clancy movie and makes it all funny.


In this cartoonish action flick, Bruce Willis plays retired CIA agent, Frank Moses, who has fallen in love with the woman over the telephone line in charge of his government pension, Sarah (played by Mary-Louise Parker). But when CIA agents come knocking on Frank's door, Frank has no choice but to run and kidnap his love, who he has never seen. With Sarah at his side, Frank reassembles his old unit, consisting of vet actors like Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren.


The jokes fly between these veteran actors with so much ease, you would think that these consumate professionals have been working together all their lives, and that is the mark of a truly magnificent actor. John Malkovich gives probably the most memorable turn as a retiree who is constantly paranoid that the government is watching him, but Helen Mirren isn't far behind with her trigger happy, Grandmommy James Bond seductress, persona. I thought actor Karl Urban, playing the agent hunting R.E.D. down, was a nice foil to Bruce Willis's character, but Morgan Freeman actually had the most forgettable role in the whole movie, dying halfway through. While the movie has some missed opportunities in terms of exploring the proposed concepts of not having a life or love when part of the CIA, these few moments of proposal are never really explored which could have made this movie a more memorable romp.


Director Robert Schwentke directs the action sequences with a visual flare that many directors seem to lack when working in this genre, but the story is often vague. Why R.E.D. is being hunted by the CIA is never explained in full. We know all of this stuff they're fighting for means something to these characters, but we, as the audience, are clueless as to why. While the overall ride gives you just enough information to warrant you wanting to sit through to the next action sequence, this movie could have been so much more had this story been made clearer. Regardless, the movie is an enjoyable action flick with some slick visuals and a fair few laughs to warrant the time.


I give Red a C+!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Review Roundup: "Mao's Last Dancer" and "Endhiran"



**Mao's Last Dancer**

Communism vs. Democracy, interesting that a movie about ballet can present this issue in such a clear light. I guess one could say art always mirrors society. Mao's Last Dancer never really chooses sides, it's more about the freedom of the heart, the tolls and the triumphs associated with it.

The movie tells the true life story of ballet dancer Li Cunxin. Cunxin was born in Communist China to peasants, where at a young age he was handpicked by government officials to attend the Beijing Art Academy to learn dance. There he became a star and got the opportunity to study for three months in Houston, TX, problem is, once coming to America, Cunxin finally learns to "fly" and does not wish to return to Communist China.

The movie was competently directed by Driving Miss Daisy director, Bruce Beresford, though I feel some of the dance sequences could have been suited better if he didn't film them as if a spectator and rather as the dancer themselves. Never do you get the rush of exhilaration, or the stimulation of dance through the visuals. While this doesn't deter the emotional impact of the story, it could have added more, though many of the dances showcased, symbolically link to the story. The whole relationship between Cunxin's future wife Mary is never really explained through dialogue like the relationship between Cunxin and his first wife, Liz (Cunxin's marriage of convenience to stay in the States after getting defected from his home country). Unlike the relationship with Liz, the relationship with Mary is all done through dance, and dare I say it the way the dancers perform their dances, is sensual.

The beginning jumps around from flashback to modern day, from Li's childhood in China, to his time in Houston, and it is a touch jarring. No character is ever given a proper introduction, they're just thrown in there, which works more as a detriment than it helps. Regardless, once Li starts training ballet at the Beijing Arts Academy, the movie really finds its groove and excels from there on out. Professional ballet dancer Chi Cao plays the role of Li Cunxin well, but he is still a better dancer than actor, the real stand out being B-list actor Bruce Greenwood, who plays the artistic director of the Houston Ballet, selfishly wanting the best talent, unless that talent reflects poorly upon him.

Arching over the entire movie is Li's relationship with his parents and how Li cannot see or contact his parents after being defected. This, in fact, is the best aspect of the whole movie. Ultimately, Beresford makes you feel Li's yearning to return to his home country and see his family again that you actually soar alongside Li as he dances with Mary when they are finally allowed to return to his home village in China. Mao's Last Dancer is cinema at its finest, it transports you to another place and time, and even through a rocky start and maybe a too classical visual style, the movie manages to touch the heart and uplift the soul.

I give Mao's Last Dancer an A-!

(Mao's Last Dancer can currently be seen playing at the Edge 12 in Irondale, AL)

**Endhiran**

Endhiran roughly translates to "The Robot" and what you get in this Bollywood adventure is a big smashing together of nearly every trope ever associated to robotic androids in movies.

The story follows an Indian scientist who has created a robotic replication of himself. The robot named Chitti is designed to be a super soldier for the Indian government, but when Chitti starts to feel human emotion and courts the scientist's girlfriend, things begin to go awry.

The movie is part action, part drama, part comedy, part romance, part musical, etc. It is a lot of things, and like many Bollywood movies, it doesn't seem to work that well in the transitions. Really, the movie does try to deal with the heavy concept of human emotions and the dangers of them, but these odd transitions between different styles do not aid in accentuating this theme. For example, whenever the characters feel a rush of emotion they burst into song-and-dance to techno glory, but these scenes, much like the action scenes and the infamous mosquito scene (which was ridiculous and just plain weird, where Chitti converses with a pack of mosquitos), they all drag on for far too long, as if the filmmakers could not distill down the scenes to a reasonable length. And speaking of the bizarre, the change in the middle of the movie where Chitti goes from being the good guy to being the bad guy just makes little to no sense, and it feels as if there are two movies here rather than one. Focus on finishing one story before gearing up another.

Endhiran may appeal to fans of Bollywood, but to us others it leaves us scratching our heads after this visually stimulating, but unfulfilling ride of human emotion.

I give Endhiran an F!
P.S. I have to comment on the passing of TV and stage legend Tom Bosley, Mr. C from Happy Days. Bosley was 83-years-old and died from lung cancer. Bosley will be sincerely missed by all those who grew up and loved him as if we were a fellow member of the Cunningham family.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Movie Review: "The Social Network"


What's the point of being rich if you have no friends? The opening credits of The Social Network play over a scene of future Facebook co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) solitarily running across the Harvard campus, passing socializing college kids without a second glance from Zuckerberg. Mark has just been broken up with by this beautiful girl because Mark could not understand the concept of human relationships. All Mark wants to be is somebody, and he gets that wish, if nothing else, in the end.

The Social Network tells the story of the founding of the now famous social networking website, Facebook, and all of the lawsuits and broken relationships it took to create the source of friendships for the 21st century. In a way, writer Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher have crafted a modern day Shakespearean tragedy. No, there is no murder, but there is a ton of backstabbing. Nowadays, we don't need to kill to usurp power, we just need money, and more of it. Whether Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from some collegiate athletes wanting to make a Harvard dating website or not, this is all irrelevant, the bottom line is, Zuckerberg, like all great tragic heroes, made the wrong alliances (Sean Parker, founder of Napster) and allienated his only real friend (Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook and former CFO).

Actor Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo Saverin with such an emotional range, that I would say Garfield's performance is the heart of the movie. You feel for Eduardo being phased out of the company by his one and only friend and Zuckerberg's new "so-called friend" Sean Parker, played surprisingly well by Justin Timberlake in fantastic acting form. The true reason Eduardo is phased out is never really explained, maybe Mark was always jealous that Eduardo was more popular than he, or that Sean felt threatened by Eduardo's business prowess. The worst part is, and this is what really makes The Social Network a tragedy, is that Mark spent so many hours working on his computer with headphones on, tuning out the rest of the world, that he never listened to reason and lost his only legitimate friend. This turn towards pathos in the final scenes of the movie are played exceptionally well by Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg. With just one look, Eisenberg manages to convey a range of unsaid emotions, that while he is still talking like the world's biggest socially awkward jerk, he knows what he's lost.

I give The Social Network an A+!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Sky's the Limit

One thing I've learned recently is that there are so many facets to the entertainment industry in order for me to tell stories visually. Television, music videos, and commercials, are all examples of things aside from the big screen that I had never really put much thought into as potential career paths. I want to both write and direct when I get out of college, but I always had these odd illusions that I was just gonna get out, make this low-budget indie hit and launch my career and be the next Steven Spielberg, and that could still happen, but I've begun to open up to more ideas.

Example, a guy I greatly admire is J.J. Abrams. Make fun of me if you will, but the dude got his start when he was my age. The director of blockbusters like Star Trek actually sold his first script, Regarding Henry, as a spec (a script put openly out in the marketplace for bidding to commence, if it's any good). After that Abrams wrote a few movies, some from specs he wrote, others he was commisioned. Then he took to writing television, creating shows like Felicity and Alias, while still writing movies, but television gave him the ability to finally flex his muscles directing. He directed a few episodes of his shows here and there, and people began to realize, hey, this guy is actually good. After he directed the premiere of LOST, Abrams was courted to direct the third Mission Impossible, and then Star Trek, and now he's working with Spielberg on an original script that he wrote himself called Super 8. Sure, it took him longer to realize his dream of being a writer/director, but it's possible in so many different ways.

Other examples. Joss Whedon, director of the upcoming Avengers, got his start as a television writer. Frank Miller, co-director of Sin City, was the comic's writer and artist. Joe Johnston, who directed Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Jumanji, was a special effects artist at Industrial Light & Magic. Even people like Spike Jonze who did music videos, or Michel Gondry, are now realizing their dreams of making movies.

I always heard these stories of people slipping into the movie industry from these other visual mediums, but it wasn't until now that I finally started to take a look at it and realize that I can write and direct straight out of college, and I can make it. While I may not necessarily start off writing or directing anything that will win me Oscars, I'll be doing what I love. I can write scripts for spec, for both TV and movies, based off ideas that I don't even really care if I direct. I could meet up with a hot young band in somewhere like Nashville and do all of their music videos. And who knows, if I get just the right idea and some financing, maybe I could make that indie hit that will premiere at Sundance and take the industry by storm. I'm finally realizing the meaning to the old saying, "The sky's the limit," and maybe there's a place out there for me after all.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Review Roundup: "Let Me In" and "Get Low"


**Movie Review: Let Me In**

Most girls wear lipstick, but Abby prefers blood on her lips. In the new movie, Let Me In, 13-year-old actress, Chloe Grace Moretz, plays a pre-adolescent vampire named Abby, who befriends a 12-year-old boy named Owen (played by Kodi Smit McPhee), and they embark upon a puppy-dog vampire romance in this uneven, albeit fresh take on the vampire lore.

When we first meet Owen, he's a lonely kid, often picked on by bullies at school, but his life changes when Abby moves in next door. Over time, Owen realizes Abby isn't an ordinary girl. She doesn't get cold. She doesn't age. Her Guardian (played by character actor Richard Jenkins) is not really her father, but was a boy who once befriended her much like Owen does, and he goes out and kills people, siphoning their blood into milk jugs for Abby, so that Abby wont have to hunt. Of course, this draws the attention of the police, and a Detective (played by Elias Koteas) tries to follow the trail of these mysterious murders, and this is where the movie becomes uneven, in trying to balance these three storylines.

The pre-teen, first love romance between Owen and Abby is the heart and soul of this movie, and the young actors make you believe in their innocent love, but the stories involving Abby's Guardian and the Detective just never really congeal with the rest of the story. At times, the director Matt Reeves relies too much on subtlety, never giving us enough information about certain characters in order for us to understand who they are, and their motivations. While Richard Jenkins says that he doesn't wish to kill for Abby anymore, we never feel it cause we don't understand why he doesn't wish to do it anymore, thus there is no dramatic tension to his, nor the Detective's story arcs, making the overall product an uneven study.

What is fantastically brilliant about this movie is that it retains all of the characteristic tropes of vampire lore, but presents them in an unromanticized way (unlike Bela Lugosi). The way Abby hunts and kills is feral, like a lioness hunting a gazelle. When a vampire is exposed to sunlight, they spontaneously combust! Unlike many previous incarnations of Dracula, Let Me In presents being a vampire as a tragic curse and not a blessing, and Chloe Moretz is so marvelous as Abby. I have been a fan of hers since (500) Days of Summer, but here she takes another leap, playing this immortal vampire who looks 12, but is way older mentally, and she plays the role of an old soul in a young body marvelously. I really think Moretz has a future in this industry.

While Let Me In is a fresh take on the vampire lore, I cannot deny the unevenness of the other plot threads in the story aside from Owen and Abby's relationship, but if you're itching to see something different with vampires, this is it.

I give Let Me In a C!

**Movie Review: Get Low**

Every town has that folk legend that is a complete mystery. It's that person that lives in the secluded shack, who puts up all of the "No Trespassing" signs, and your parents are always telling you to stay away from this man. Problem is, it's all just rumors. Who is the real legend, not the folk legend, that is the examination of Get Low.

Get Low stars Robert Duvall as an old hermit in early 1900s Tennessee, where he is feared by all in the small town that he is a resident of, due to rampant rumors of questionable truth. We know from the very first frames that Felix (Duvall) has a dark past. We open on a burning house and a shadowed man running away in flames, then cut to Felix chasing some boys who tossed a rock through his window off his property. Now this is key, we see Felix corner the perpetrator in his barn, but he then lowers his shotgun and lets the boy go. If Felix were such a beast, would he have not killed this boy? Perhaps, some compassion beneath that hideous beard caked in dirt? The whole time you're wondering what Felix did to want a life of solitude, what significance does that burning home play in his story? It's that question that keeps one enthralled while watching Get Low, albeit when you find out the answer, the results are a touch melodramatic, or soap opera, so to speak.

The story takes off from there as Felix begins making preparations for his death, even though he's not sick. Felix goes to the local funeral home to plan his own funeral, talk circulates around town, but Felix doesn't want just any funeral, he wants to plan a funeral party where he will finally tell those in the town his story, rather than them telling their stories about him. Felix doesn't want forgiveness, and this is what is most brilliant about this movie, he simply wants people to know.

Duvall has gotten lots of recognition for this role, and he manages to play it with such aplomb that you understand why he is still one of the best leading men of the silver screen, but it was Lucas Black as the funeral home worker, Buddy, that managed to stand out to me. Black has been a fixture of teen romances for the past few years, but his natural Southern draw actually aided his performance in this movie to make it all the more believable, and when paired with material that actually matches his roots, he delivers a knock out performance, possibly the performance of his career, where he develops a heartwarming friendship with Felix. Other cast members, Bill Murray in particular, all play their parts how you'd expect of actors of their caliber, and it is the acting of Get Low that manages to sell the melodrama when it dips in the final act, but I must confess that Sissy Spacek is the one missing puzzle piece of this movie's success.

Sissy Spacek's character, while important to Felix and his arc in the story, there is never a proper set-up for her character. She just appears, and we have no clue as to where she really came from, or her relationship with the other characters in the movie. Just case and point, if she has been away from this town for forty years, how does she know all the young couples so well? Alas, her character is the weak link of the movie, not cause Spacek doesn't play the role well, but too much is held back for her character to ever have the emotional impact that it needs for the story.

When the final credits creep up the screen, you realize that Get Low had taken you on a journey into the backwoods of Tennessee, where "Beware of Mules" signs may have actually existed long ago. That is the greatest strength of Get Low, the examination of the small town folk legend and his impact on the town. That is what makes this movie worth seeing, cause we all want to understand Felix and why he is, the way he is.

I give Get Low a B+!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

What Will Zack Snyder's Superman Be...?


Director Zack Snyder (300 and Watchmen) has been tapped by Warner Bros. to direct The Man of Steel, WB's big reboot of Superman being produced by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) and written by Batman Begins and The Dark Knight scribes David Goyer and Jonathan Nolan. Now, I really had no reservations about the story, with such heavyweight screenwriters like Goyer and Nolan onboard, not to mention the older Nolan, director Chris producing. Word is the story wont simply be a retread of the origin, which is nice, seeing as how most know the basics of how Superman came to be. It's said that the story will simply pick up with Clark Kent already established as Superman in Metropolis, so that's that. Real question is, with Zack Snyder now onboard to visualize and bring The Man of Steel back to moviegoers, what will Superman be like when he is rebooted?

The easiest assumption I could make about what Snyder's Man of Steel will be like, is that it will be hard-hitting, action-packed, and visually stunning. Snyder's movies, while most of them often falter in the story department, are always packed with wondrous visuals, and it's safe to call Snyder a visionary. As well, Snyder has the right sense of epic scope to tackle a character as large as Superman. I truly believe that he could present Superman as this larger than life being, and one would only need to look at his work in stuff like 300 to understand these points. But what to expect from story? Well, we've gotta go back a few years...

Now, I was a fan of Bryan Singer's Superman Returns from a few years back, but many fans weren't. To them, the action was minimal, if almost non-existent, making it a superhero drama, but not really a superhero blockbuster; as well, it was a Superman movie still stuck in the world of the Christopher Reeve movies. Lots has happened in the Superman comics since the 1978 original, and making a 2006 sequel did not reflect the Superman that most viewers wanted to see done justice.

I'll try and make this simple, in the world of DC Comics, there are two Supermen. There is the Pre-Crisis Superman, and the Post-Crisis Superman. Pre-Crisis Superman is pretty much any Superman before the classic Infinite Crisis story arc from the mid-80s in which redefined every DC Comics superhero. Infinite Crisis is what ultimately gave us the Batman that we now see in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but Superman Returns, was still set within the Pre-Crisis world, which I believe was a large factor to its poor reception.

See, Pre-Crisis Superman is more cheesy, so to speak. Lex Luthor was a mad scientist, not the tyrannical businessman that most fans came to associate with the character in the Post-Crisis world. Post-Crisis Superman is also more hard-edged. He's not really darker, cause Superman still stands for, "Truth, Justice, and the American Way," but the challenges in which he faces as a character are more human, and at times more down to Earth. Superman's humanity is the key to Post-Crisis Superman, his relationships with his parents and Lois Lane, rather than the Pre-Crisis Superman which sort of presented Superman as this otherworldly Greek God of sorts. What the Post-Crisis Superman showed readers, was that Superman could be made vulnerable in more ways than just Kryptonite.

Now, as for Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, I think it's safe to make certain assumptions. Obviously WB would not be going ahead with the movie if it was a Pre-Crisis Superman story, seeing as how that was a major complaint with Superman Returns, so I think it's pretty safe to say that the Superman in Snyder's movie will be the Post-Crisis Superman. What does this mean? Well, I don't think it means we'll be getting a darker Superman along the lines of Snyder's own Watchmen or Nolan's The Dark Knight, but I do expect to see a Superman more troubled by his human relationships and the dangers of being a public figure in our modern time, and how those dangers may affect the humans in which he cares for. Thus, in a sense, the movie will be darker than any other Superman before it, purely because it will most likely have that character depth to it.

So what else to say? I really feel that in pairing Snyder with such terrific screenwriters like Goyer and Nolan, it will make the difference in beefing up Snyder's work in the story department. And the action is not an issue either, seeing as how Snyder always knows when to properly slo-mo a scene or have swells of musical emotion to make an action sequence all the more impactful for an audience member. So overall, I'm excited to see Superman throwing down with General Zod in the streets of Metropolis. A real, bona fide, Superman throw down has not been seen with modern day film technology, and with Snyder at the helm, the deal just gets even sweeter. Great choice of director WB! Holiday 2012 can't come fast enough!

Monday, October 4, 2010

Adventures of a Movie Theater

I recently got a job working at a new movie theater in Irondale, AL, called The Edge, and it has been an adventure so far. First customer to barf was the other night, which I knew was bound to happen eventually, but what has me most intrigued about having this particular job, is getting to see free movies, and lots of them, so expect lots more reviews in the near future. But what's very exciting about this theater, is that this particular theater is wanting to cater to all movie-going crowds, so the theater is not just showing crowd-pleasing blockbusters, but they're also showing little known Indies, foreign films, and maybe even some documentaries. The theater is already playing Robert Duvall-starrrer Get Low alongside movies like Easy A, Let Me In, and the foreign pic, The Girl Who Played With Fire. They're really trying to present a diverse slate of movies so that not just one kind of clientele frequents the theater, but all kinds. One key to this strategy is to show not just Indies, but stuff like Bollywood movies and other movies to try and market to a particular culture in the Birmingham area. It's really a brilliant strategy, but word needs to get out for it to work, so that's sort of what I'm doing. So come to The Edge, where the old Festival 16 was in Irondale, AL, and have a good time.