Cameron's Brain

The FULL Batman Begins trailer

"A guy who dresses up like a bat clearly has issues."

Clark Kent hits Sydney

Yup, looks like Clark to me. Looks eerily like Christopher Reeve, don't you think? From Brandon Routh's site.

Star Wars Revelations

HOLY CRAP - the fan film genre just took a HUGE leap forwards. Check out this trailer and then go download the torrent of the whole film! There's got to to be a business model emerging quickly for this stuff. I'm more likely to watch fan films in the next few years than the crap coming out of Hollywood.

Star Wars XXX

The porn version of Star Wars coming soon to a cinema near you...

Speaking of Star Wars...

No it's not the new trailer... it is much, MUCH cooler...
I want one. Now.
Watch it Here.
Buy one (for me please) Here.

Sidney Lumet's filmography

I got one thing out of the Oscar's - watching the reel of Lumet's films, I realized how many of his films I haven't seen! I've seen many of them - Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Family Business, 12 Angry Men, The Verdict, Equus, Network, Murder On The Orient Express... but there are many I haven't seen.

How cool would it be if I could get all excited about watching Lumet films like this and then just kind of... browse over to some directory on my Media Centre and download them all to watch this week?

Reel Reviews does "Chopper"

Mike at Reel Reviews' latest podcast is a review of "Chopper". Great work! What an awesome film it is. I was just telling Michael recently about how I used to spot Chopper at my local café a few years back before he moved to Tassie. Check Michael's review out here. And Mike's agreed to come on G'Day World in the near future so we can get down and talk about our love of film for a solid hour. Yeahhhhh baby.

Finding Neverland

Belinda and I went to see "Finding Neverland" today. What a tear-jerker. Not what I expected at all. I went expecting to see a typical Miramax "Merchant-Ivory" production about Victorian England and a quirky guy who wrote the story of Peter Pan. What I got instead was perhaps the most subtle and nuanced performance of Johnny Depp's career, a delicate script, and breathtaking performances from the child actors, especially 12 year-old Freddie Highmore as the stoic and heart-broken Peter Llewelyn Davies. Also great to see Melbourne-born Radha Mitchell playing Depp's wife. Oh, and I didn't want to hack Kate Winslet to death with a blunt shovel, which is how I normally feel about her roles (not saying anything about her ability as an actor, just the roles she tends to inhabit). One test of a great film, for me anyway, is whether or not it inspires me to research the characters or events afterwards. Do I walk out of the cinema thinking "gee, that was 2 hours of my life I'll never see again" or do I spend even more time after the film wanting to learn about the characters and the film-makers. This film has left me wanting to read a biography on J. M. Barrie. That's about the highest praise I can give it. Oh, and thank god for Johnny Depp. I was wondering, you know how almost every film Johnny Depp has made in his career (I'm prepared to ignore "Nick Of Time" and "The Astronaut's Wife" as aberrations) has been unique and above average? Is that because he brings something to the film or is it because he chooses his projects carefully and they just happen to have great directors, scripts, cast and crew?

Team America made me cry

... with laughter. I went with Anita, my sister, tonight and we started howling with laughter (with the rest of the audience) about 2 seconds into the film and didn't stop until the credits (and even got a few laughs out of those). Matt & Trey are definitely the America's saving grace right now. I think that's probably the most I've ever laughed in a film since... There's Something About Mary. And maybe even more. If you haven't already seen them, the interviews with Matt & Trey over at the Team America site are great.

As Andrew Urban said in his review:

Here, at last, is America's answer to the question, can't Americans do political satire.

I'd add, "... as well as Jon Stewart".

Garden State review

I saw Zach Braff's "Garden State" today and, apart from an ending which was way too Hollywood and seemed like it was shot six months after the rest of the film, due I'm suspecting to test audiences saying "it's too depressing", the film was brilliant. It's Natalie Portman's best performance since "Leon" aka "The Professional" when she was 12. To me, Portman's always been in the same category as Leonardo and Dunst - brilliant performances as a child but grew up into doing Hollywood schmaltz. Anyway, this film could be her redemption as an actor. I like this quote from Braff:

"When you are writing a script, you can't help but stop and daydream about which actors are going to play the parts, and I kind of imagined Natalie Portman. Not just because she is beautiful, because obviously she is, but she is a wonderful actress who hasn't had a chance in a long time to show the world how talented she is."

Anyway, go see the film, you won't regret it.