Wall E/Watchmen Trailer

I had to post this one too, I loved it.

Another Smooth Original

Another Smooth Original Stella ad. I liked this one more than Dial Hard, reminded me of Contempt. For the rest, go to smoothoriginals.com

Dial Hard

This is an ad campaign from Stella Artois called Smooth Original. It is supposed to be a Die Hard With a Vengeance 1960's French style. I found it on Slashfilm.

Roman Polanski's Repulsion

Ticking clocks, doorbells buzzing, phones ringing, isolation, fear, claustrophobia and paranoia. These are some of the things that make up Roman Polanski's Repulsion. This film, made in 1960's London, accomplishes so much with the use of so little. Most of the film is shot entirely in an apartment with one actress. Polanski is able to create a haunting vision of a woman falling into the depths of madness through surreal images, shots that make the audience "jump", sound effects, and a very impressive performance by Catherine Deneuve.

The story takes place in London and follows Carol, a young woman who works at a salon and lives in an apartment with her sister Helen. At first, it seems as if Carol is shy, she doesn't talk much, daydreams often, and disregards the advances of men. She seems lonely but happy to be living with her sister. But when her sister's lover comes around, she gets frustrated. She can't have her sister's attention all to herself, and without Helen to cook dinner for her or take care of her, she almost refuses to take care of herself. This creates the impression that she really can't do anything for herself. And when Helen and her lover go on vacation and leave Carol alone in the apartment, her entire world begins to fall apart.

Little things like cracks in the ground or on the walls of the apartment bother her so much that she sits staring at them. As a small sweat begins to build around her upper lip one can sense her fear building inside. This fear is what ultimately drives her mad. She becomes so claustrophobic, isolated and paranoid that she reacts with violence. She begins to distrust men in particular for fear of their sexual advances. She has nightmares of men grabbing her and being forceful with her. Its as if her character becomes "repulsed" by them.

Polanski's use of the camera in this film adds to the emotional intensity of Carol's character. The camera is delicately placed in such a way that it covers every inch of the apartment from the floor to the ceiling which makes it feel as if the building is closing in on her. The camera is used to reveal things that Carol is thinking and feeling whether surreal, fantasy, nightmare or reality to try and understand her character and add to the realistic nature of her condition. He uses close ups of eyes, images of rotting meat and potatoes, cracking walls, shadows under doors, people appearing out of nowhere, and hands coming out of the walls to create this claustrophobic world in which Carol exists.

Her progressive derangement is depicted with subtletly and suspense. The grainy black and white footage, even with the bad transfer to dvd with its random flashes of white lines across the screen add to the visual style of the film. This style is very much like Ingmar Bergman's Persona and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Those films of the same era, along with this one, began a tradition of directors whose visual style and narrative subtlety left the audience guessing and asking for more. This is the way horror films are meant to be done, not with excessive, gratuitous violence and gore, but with suspense and a growing fear inside the main character as well as the audience.

Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void

The NY Times reveiw of Gaspar Noe's new film, "Enter the Void", got me really excited about this film, but if it is anything like his last film Irreversible, I probably shouldn't be quite as excited. I did not like Irreversible. It was the most disgusting piece of shock cinema I have probably ever seen (and I have seen a lot of fucked up movies). There were definitely things about that film that I liked (the broken up backwards story line, some of the cinematography) but it was too brutally violent for me. This film looks to be a completely different beast. And according to the Times review of the showing at Cannes, looks to be a compilation of several techniques and methods used by some of my personal favorite filmmakers. I'll definitely see it, I just hope its nothing like Irreversible. Read the article on Nytimes.com:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/movies/23cann.html?partner=rss&emc=rsshttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/movies/23cann.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

The Room Trailer

This is the trailer for The Room, one of the worst movies ever made, yet it has developed a huge cult following because of how bad it is. It is playing at The Plaza next Tuesday May 23. Check it out, I listed the link for the Plaza below:

http://www.plazaatlanta.com/specialevents.html

Sherlock Holmes Trailer

The new Sherlock Holmes Trailer is now up, and I have to say I don't like the slow motion action during the fight sequences, or Downey's horrible accent, but besides those two things I like the trailer. I'll definitely go see it. Check out the link:

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/sherlock-holmes/trailer