So much to discuss here, so my approach is to take things on chronologically.... First and foremost, Prison Tatt's long-awaited debut vinyl from Creeplings is here! Click on the LP cover above for details, a track sample, and to purchase. Here's a favorite live clip of the duo from 2009 >>>
On to the subject of film, a promising Summer and Fall of releases awaits us (trailers linked within)...
The combination of director Michael Winterbottom and star Steve Coogan has always been a winning one, and their The Look of Love, a Coogan star-vehicle based on the life of Paul Raymond (the UK's sort-of Hugh Hefner) seems loaded with both laughs and pathos; we'll see.
I'm all for Hollywood horror, if done right, and Insidious Chapter 2 has all the earmarks of an amped-up sequel to what made for swell, unpredictable entertainment the first time around.
On that note, James Wan's long-awaited The Conjuring, charting the early career of real-life ghost-hunter-psychic-demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren has my fingers crossed. The Warrens have always commanded respect in the field, it's high time a film about them surfaced, preferably a documentary, but again we find ourselves in the "we'll see" dept.
Luc Besson's The Family, a comedy/drama about a witness-protection family relocated to France, starring Robert DeNiro, also looks promising. From Taxi Driver, to The King of Comedy, to Jackie Brown, to the modern day, DeNiro admirably reinvents himself and to this long-time fan is typically a pure joy to watch when at his best. Again, we'll see.
Most promising of all, to this viewer, are the following three: Fruitvale Station, produced by Forest Whitaker, and based on a true story that will hit close to any current or former Bay Area resident, about a man who was shot to death by police at the eponymous Oakland BART station in 2008. Something went very wrong that day, and hopefully this film will flesh out the story in the greatest-possible detail. Trailer and main site here.
The Act of Killing, a documentary produced by Werner Herzog and Errol Morris that looks like an amazing piece of film, where Anwar Congo, the perpetrator of Indonesian genocide in the middle 60s, said to have overseen the killing of over 1,000 people, is asked by the filmmakers to "recreate" his many acts of torture and murder for their cameras, as shocking and bizarre revelations surface. This film got the rare "100%" on Rotten Tomatoes, and looks to be a stirring, gut-wrenching, and oddly colorful documentary like no other. Trailer here.
Lastly, prepared as I am to "forgive" Adam Wingard for the cock-up of VHS 2's first segment (see last week's post), his "Quack" entry in The ABCs of Death was pretty amusing, and I'm hopeful for his new feature, You're Next—it's getting good advance reviews, which could mean nothing—but the trailer is exciting/enticing, and the film has the added bonus of starring AJ Bowen (star of The Signal and House of the Devil), a personal favorite of mine in indie horror, as well as Joe Swanberg (V/H/S), and Amy Seimetz, who starred opposite Bowen in Wingard's great A Horrible Way to Die (2010.)
Looking forward to the next chapters in our radio journey, and thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment