Spiderman 3 Trailer

SPIDERMAN 3 NEW TRAILER - MARCH 23 2007

Zodiac "Film Review"

"The residents of the city’s Bay Area live in a permanent state of panic, as a serial killer prowls the streets. For 10 months the murderer – who calls himself the Zodiac – effortlessly manipulates the police force and the media by writing sinister letters featuring bizarre drawings that reveal snippets of his personality, his influences and his obsessions. As the body count stacks up, an atmosphere of fear and fascination sweeps the area.

Although it may sound like the premise for a Hollywood noir, Zodiac is actually one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. There were five known victims between December 1968 and October 1969, with many more thought to have died at his hands. But what makes this story so particularly compelling is that the killer’s identity remains unknown to this day, and this is undoubtedly why the case has inspired many movies over the years, from 1971’s The Zodiac Killer to murderers seen in the likes of "Dirty Harry" (1971) "and The Exorcist III" (1990).
One of its stars is Jake Gyllenhaal, who takes on the role of Graysmith, a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle at the height of Zodiac’s murderous campaign, and the actor is in no doubt as to why the events remain so intriguing three decades later. “The Zodiac was never caught, at least not to everyone’s satisfaction,” he says. “Because he was never caught and because the Zodiac left behind so many mysteries, in terms of the ciphers and the cryptograms, he’s become a myth, a ghost. Look at the BTK Killer [who murdered at least 10 people in Kansas between 1974 and 1991]. He was the same thing, until they caught him and you saw that he looked like your next door neighbour.”
Gyllenhaal reveals that it was director Fincher’s own memories of the case that led him to make the film. “David Fincher grew up in the Bay Area, in the early 1970s when the story was happening, and he said that the Zodiac was the ultimate boogeyman. He terrorized San Francisco. He wrote a letter where he said that he was going to attack a school, and so every kid thought that the Zodiac was coming to their school.”
Thanks to his involvement in the case, and his expertise that proved invaluable to the investigation, Graysmith has emerged as one of the leading experts on the Zodiac killer and Gyllenhaal is obviously very proud to have taken on this role. “He’s a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle, and he’s very mild-mannered and shy,” the actor says of Graysmith. “He likes working on puzzles in his spare time. He gets involved with the case when the Zodiac starts mailing ciphers, and Graysmith takes them apart. At the start of the film, he’s not involved with the case at all but then he makes himself a part of the case and it becomes his lifelong obsession.” -by Adrienne Curtis.
Read the full exclusive interview and more on Zodiac in Film Review (May). Source: www.visimag.com/filmreview

Male kisses

"I thought Heath had broken my nose while we were filming that scene,” says Gyllenhaal. “Both Michelle and Ang kept insisting the kiss had to be more fierce, more intense, more passionate so Heath pushed me against the wall and came in really hard for the kiss.” Source: http://calgarysun.canoe.ca

Michael J. Lee: "Can psychological problems be as great an enemy as gunfire to a solider?"

Jake G: "I think a soldier's mind is as great of an enemy in the field as bombs or bullets. I think that's probably what I feel like the movie is about--that when you use these techniques and you teach someone and you harness a period of time or an instinct in them, and then they're not allowed to express that, the mind is confused by that." Source: http://movies.radiofree.com
"In an interview in the March/April issue of Anthem magazine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is asked how he reacts to those who believe that the preponderance of gay roles (Sweet Jane, That 70's Show, Mysterious Skin) in his resume might cast some light on the actor's own sexuality: "This is kind of embarrassing, but I recently put my name into a search engine and someone posted, is Joseph Gordon-Levitt gay? and the answer posted was: Is he an alien? because I played [one on 3rd Rock]. Right now I'm in Toronto playing a psychopathic murderer. And recently I played someone who was in the U.S. army in Iraq. So it's like, what's harder? Kissing a dude or killing people? I would hope that I can feel at least a bit of the horror of what it must be like, when I was playing a soldier, how hard it must be, the hell they go through. So, kissing Topher Grace is like, whatever."
Source: www.towleroad.com

Secretary and Brokeback erotize

TOP 10 SCREEN SEX SCENES

1. Boogie Nights Between: Rollergirl (Heather Graham) and Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg)
Dirk, still young and endearingly innocent, arrives at his new boss’s house for a “try-out” and is greeted by the gorgeous Rollergirl. In a flash she is naked and on top of him, Dirk’s new boss watching all the while. As far as teenage fantasies go you don’t get much better, but it’s really the unexpected naivete of the scene that makes it so memorable.

2. The Dreamers Between: Matthew (Michael Pitt), Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel)
There are many memorable scenes, but the one in which the trio lounge in the bath together, titillating each other and the audience, is unforgettably erotic.

3. Secretary Between: E. Edward Grey (James Spader) his secretary Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal)
James Spader, n. defn: king of kinky sex. Combine that with Maggie Gyllenhaal in pussy-bow tops and pencil skirts, and sadomasochism has never looked so good. When Attorney E. Edward Grey tells his secretary Lee that there “are seven typing errors on this page”, you know she’s going to be punished for her sloppy work. And even better, you know she wants to be... No wonder spanking went mainstream after this film.

4. Monster’s Ball Between: Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton) and Leticia Musgrove (Halle Berry)
"Make ... me ... feel ... good" gasps Halle Berry in the build up to the most candid and disturbing of our choices. This is screen sex at its most raw and animalistic. But what really gives the scene power is the context – Berry’s character is having sex with the hard-drinking, racist prison guard that executed her husband. Gives the phrase “screwed up” new meaning.

5. Y Tu Mamá También Between: Zapata (Gael García Bernal), Tenoch Iturbide (Diego Luna) and Luisa Cortes (Maribel Verdú).
Take two gorgeous, sex-obsessed teenage boys, add one luscious 28-year-old Spanish beauty, place on a road trip to one of Mexico’s most beautiful hidden beaches and stir in a good helping of homoeroticism.

6. Mulholland Drive Between: Betty (Naomi Watts) and a mysterious brunette (Laura Harring)
Just how and why the gorgeous Naomi Watts ends up in bed with Laura Harring is never explained, but this is a David Lynch film, it’s not supposed to make sense.

7. American Pie Between: Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs) and a warm apple pie
Ok, ok, so it’s not a real sex scene, but who can forget Jason Biggs mounting that pie. Or the expression on his Dad’s face?

8. Brokeback Mountain Between: Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal)
This may be the sex scene where the least amount of skin is shown, but that doesn’t make it any less intense. Who knew two stinky, whiskey drinkin’ cowboys in a tent could be so sexy? Then again it’s got the whole “forbidden love” thing going for it.

9. Basic Instinct Between: Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) and Catherine Tramel (Sharon Stone).
Sure, it’s old. And sure, it’s cheesy. But damn if it isn’t the hottest girl-on-top scene ever filmed for the big screen. Watching Sharon Stone arch her naked body over Michael Douglas is as good today as it was 15 years ago. Pity she has to get out the ice pick and ruin the mood.

10. Unfaithful Between: Connie Sumner (Diane Lane) and Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez)
Intense, obsessive, seductive – Diane Lane shows us how even the happiest married woman can give in to temptation. Blushing and dishevelled on her train journey home, Connie has a flashback of Paul tenderly kissing her stomach, his lips moving down her navel as he carefully removes her panties, sliding them inch by agonising inch down her creamy thighs, while she gasps… " Source: www.24.com/entertainment/movies

Donnie Darko on stage

"Cult Film "Donnie Darko" to Hit the Stage for New American Repertory Theatre Season. A stage version of "Donnie Darko"
— based on the 2001 film — will highlight the new season at Cambridge, Massachusetts' American Repertory Theatre.
From the grandeur of Shakespeare's Rome to the intimacy of political cabaret, from a stage adaptation of the cult film 'Donnie Darko' to a pairing of Mozart operas, reimagined by the team that brought Carmen to the A.R.T. two years ago."
The 2007-08 season (subject to change) follows:
Donnie Darko (Oct. 27-Nov. 18) - Zero Arrow TheatreMarcus Stern directs the work based on the screenplay by Richard Kelly." -By Ernio Hernandez 22 Mar 2007. Source: www.Playbill.com

Images from the "Donnie Darko" stage production in Boston:



Pictures from the play in Boston, March 2004.
Source: http://Richard-kelly.net/multimedia/images/darko/darko-play

Heroes' Sweethearts

Following the analogies of the previous post "Fantasy and Noir", and since life is itself graded in fantasy and noir stages, the chemistry between these heroes and their sweethearts (Jake Gyllenhaal & Jena Malone in "Donnie Darko", Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Emilie de Ravin in "Brick") whom they court must be deservedly real.

Fantasy and Noir

"Brick’s tease and bite, lies within its lexicon. It is a film of language that originates somewhere within 2000s style of suburban US English, familiar from the John Hughes high school film template. Somewhere a massive yet obvious deviation has occurred, leading from the pretentious self important world of teenagers to some obscure caste system. This rigid social structure from a thousand teen movies, of jock, nerd and prom queen, has been warped and transmogrified into some inscrutable class system quite familiar to a writer from England. Except, didn’t we leave that all behind twenty years ago as we all became middle class? Shermer, Illinois, home of John Hughes’ hopeful suburban teen fantasises has been left far behind on a road trip with Anthony Burgess past wherever "Donnie Darko" happens to be set." Source: www.Sneersnipe.co.uk

"It’s not often a film comes along out of nowhere that makes an impression like "Brick". The last time, in my honest opinion, was maybe "Donnie Darko" Source: www.Empireonline.com

"Donnie Darko" is a fantasy sci-fi flick and "Brick" a high-school noir movie, but in both there are two teenager outcasts, a fact we cannot overlook.
And well, I consider one scene that never ceases to frighten me is when Donnie keeps seeing the evil bunny and for a second he seems to transfigurate into the same Frank, with the same unreal evilness visible in his smile.
In the end of "Brick" I realised that Brendan also smiled after Laura whispering to him an obscure sentence indecipherable to the viewer. In these moments I saw Donnie and Brendan as perverse. I think part of both films' cult comes from their respective literary-alike achievements that these scenes stand for. The scripts by Richard Kelly and Rian Johnson respond to Rick Moody's writing in his essay "Five Songs" (December 2003): "They articulate the passions, but they don't simplify them [...] allow feelings to stay insoluble, as they are in life -perceptible, but insoluble." Donnie and Brendan search for certainties, sometimes finishing in places of cataclysm. But as Rick Moody continues: "This is a place full of seductions, the allure of certainty, and if you turn aside the mephistophelean pact that is offered you, well, then everything is possible for you, and you are destined to be uncertain, sad, and scared". Donnie and Brendan exist in suburban scenarios apparently mass-designed and idyllic, but their worlds split open while indiferent and unreliable people try to reconduct them: the psychiatrist in "Donnie Darko", sometimes I think she really sees Frank, too, but she ignores it, she tries to teach Donnie one grows up ignoring the dark -in that case, another warning against hypocrisy by Kelly-, and Laura in "Brick" obsesses over Brendan wishing him to join her world. What makes both films being so affecting is an echo of the great American stories they share, as for example "The adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain, who had a recurring "real" dream throughout his life. He recounted these dreams, which he described as real, in the short story "My Platonic Sweetheart" (originally “The Lost Sweetheart”, 1898): "For everything in a dream is more deep and strong and sharp and real than is ever its pale imitation in the unreal life which is ours when we go about awake and clothed with our artificial selves in this vague and dull-tinted artificial world. When we die we shall slough off this cheap intellect, perhaps, and go abroad into Dreamland clothed in our real selves, and aggrandized and enriched by the command over the mysterious mental magician who is here not our slave, but only our guest."
"Donnie Darko" has echoes of "Tom Sawyer", as in the scene Gretchen and him go to visit Grandma Death, as well as Brendan wearing that mangled jacket in "Brick".
As colophon, one of my favourite passages from "Tom Sawyer" : For me, the moment Tom plays with Becky's inoccence and kisses her is so effective as the two scenes I've commented previously:
"He turned his face away. She bent timidly around till her breath stirred his curls and whispered, "I--love--you!" Then she sprang away and ran around and around the desks and benches, with Tom after her, and took refuge in a corner at last, with her little white apron to her face. Tom clasped her about her neck and pleaded: "Now, Becky, it's all done--all over but the kiss. Don't you be afraid of that--it ain't anything at all. Please, Becky." And he tugged at her apron and the hands. By and by she gave up, and let her hands drop; her face, all glowing with the struggle, came up and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and said: "Now it's all done, Becky."