In case you've not already seen this cinematic music video from director Ian Pons Jewell:

Frustrated by MAN OF STEEL? A funny summary of its shortcomings: 

Cancelled after just one season, the first four episodes of LUCK were directed by Hollywood heavyweights:
- Michael Mann
- Terry George
- Allen Coulter
- Phillip Noyce

PS - Love the Massive Attack ‘Splitting the Atom’ opening song.

Director-writer-producer-editor Alfonso Cuarón and visual effects supervisor Tim Webber talked on the 11th October about the making of GRAVITY.

Fifteen things we learned:

- Cuarón asked if he was happy with the hugely positive reception GRAVITY has received; he answered: Is a fox happy after being chased by hounds for four and a half years? The fox is happy playing with another fox, or frolicking with his cubs in the field.

- Cuarón and Webber worked together previously on CHILDREN OF MEN - specifically the digital baby.

- Alfonso hates roller coasters, but enjoyed the 'Vomit Comet' [the aircraft used to simulate zero gravity]. They tried it. He didn't want all computer generated imagery, because thought would suck, wanted it to be as practical as possible. Wires work for short periods but not the whole movie because:
·       There isn't full movement.
·       Long shots couldn't be done.
·       Only give you two axes of rotation.
·       Wires would get in the way of the camera.

[to read more, click here.]

You had me at “Jackie. Door.” Who wouldn’t want to buy frozen peas from Clarence the polar bear, mellifluously voiced by Willem Dafoe?

Here are some character names Jason Statham has played:
- Lee Christmas
- Chev Chelios
- Terry Leather
- Bacon

Here are some character names Arnold Schwarzenegger has played:
- John Matrix
- Jericho Cane
- Douglas Quaid
- Conan

The winner: Here are some character names Will Ferrell has played:
- Chazz Michael Michaels
- Jackie Moon
- Ricky Bobby
- Jacobim Mugatu
- Armando
- Mustafa

Spike Jonze has not put a foot wrong as director, in any medium, has he? Jonze might just be the most imaginative filmmaker working today. Check out his sublime Unkle music video:

…or his award-winning ‘Hello Tomorrow’ advert for Adidas utilising the music of Karen O:

Out to own today:

“We're going to see this through to the bitter end. Or... lager end,” Gary King (Simon Pegg)

The team up of writer-director Edgar Wright and actor-writer Simon Pegg is staring to get tired. From the lofty heights of brilliant television show SPACED, chronicling 20-somethings in London living their lives through films, to the first rom-zom-com in SHAUN OF THE DEAD, they were on a roll. However, THE WORLD’S END joins HOT FUZZ as another genre take down, apocalypse here as opposed to cops previously, adding hilarity but not much else to sink one’s teeth into. Wright is certainly improving when it comes to the portrayal of kinetic set-pieces. The action in HOT FUZZ was amateurish, while with SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD and THE WORLD’S END he found his mojo, delivering well choreographed, adrenaline-pumping fisticuffs. Overall though, the Wright-Pegg combo is on a downward trajectory of delivering a satisfying experience taken as a whole. [To read more, click here.]

“Kemosabe, I need you,” Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) to Frank Moses (Bruce Willis)

Comic book adaptation RED had an all-star cast, had elements of fun, but was ultimately forgettable. RED 2 on the other hand, is a total blast. The action sequences have bone-crunching kinetics, the harshness offset by spry banter and humorous asides. 

Opening on a Costco supermarket trip, Frank appears to be settling into the quiet lifestyle a little too much for girlfriend Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker). Her beau wants to wrap her up in metaphorical cotton wool, to shield her from the cavalier attitude to life and death that his former occupation is prone to. And that blasé response to killing has seeped into the fabric of RED 2. There is a gleeful shrug of the shoulders to the huge body count mounting up as we progress. Sarah, much to Franks’ chagrin, is craving risk and adventure and espionage. That comes immediately when Marvin rocks up to spoil the latter’s claimed idyll. At one point Marvin gives relationship advice to Sarah saying that her boyf is a simple creature needing just killing, eating, “sexting”, killing, eating. For all Frank’s vocalised reluctance at entering the fray again, when called upon, he is adroit at leaving a wake of carnage. [To read more, click here.]

“Yes, I have been recruited by a top secret agency to go undercover and save the world,” Gru

Slipping a political agenda into animated fare is nothing new. SOUTH PARK, WALL.E, THE SIMPSONS are soaked in liberal, establishment-baiting; holding a mirror up to societal hypocrisy and hatefulness. It is a shock then, to have a conservative influence writ large on a Hollywood product. For all the lowbrow divertissements that too frequently pour out of Tinsel Town, at least they often have the fragrance of broad-mindedness and some form of humanism (when multitudes are not being massacred in action flicks of course; or romantic-comedies that set back the Suffragette movement; or kid flicks geared towards selling merchandise). DESPICABLE ME 2 is shockingly retrograde. [To read more, click here.]

One of my films of the year. An intimate treatise on blinkered perfectionism, my review of the Coen brothers’ INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS: http://www.filmaluation.com/inside-llewyn-davis.html

My take on ladies quarter life crisis on a night out, POWDER ROOM, is up:
http://www.filmaluation.com/powder-room.html