“Kill one, maybe save a thousand.”
The Scoop: 2008 R, directed by Timur Bekmambetov and starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Angeline Jolie
Tagline: Choose your destiny.
Summary Capsule: Guy discovers he’s a super-assassin, and doesn’t have much problem with that.
I like music videos. They’re tricky – They can enhance a song, or ruin it; they can be happy, fun, sad, scary, puzzling, topical, powerful, and, when done right, unforgettable. They’re like movies, but more expressive and a lot shorter. And I can watch them at 4 in the morning when I’m supposed to be writing term papers and looking for ways to procrastinate (which I’m totally not doing right now by writing this. Nope. Not at all.) I’ve decided to compile a list of the 10 most memorable music videos I’ve ever seen, all of which can be found on YouTube. Some of them have incredible concepts, some have great direction, and others just mean a lot to me personally. But for whatever reason, they all live up to the standard I judge all videos by. This might get long, so let’s get a-rollin!
We’ve wrapped up another great theme week — Noir Week — here at Mutant Reviewers, and as a special surprise, we’ve brought back our theme weeks page to the new format. So head on over and check it out!
General News:
After some cuts were made, comedy Year One has been rated PG-13.
Director Kevin MacDonald is prepping The Eagle of the Ninth. Says MacDonald: “It takes place in Roman Britain in the second century. All the Romans will be American, all the Celts will be Scots and it’s about the friendship between a Roman legionary and his Celtic slave. They go on a journey upriver, kind of like Apocalypse Now, crossing Hadrian’s Wall, looking for the Lost Legion in the wilds of second century Scotland.” Read the rest of this entry »
“It’s just like the first time I came here, isn’t it? We were talking about automobile insurance, only you were thinking about murder. And I was thinking about that anklet.”
The Scoop: 1944, Unrated, Directed by Billy Wilder and starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson
Tagline: It’s Love And Murder At First Sight!
Summary Capsule: An insurance salesman with a taste for someone else’s wife gets mixed up with a rotten dame that might be the death of him.
“Nobody knows anybody. Not that well.”
The Scoop: 1990 R, directed by Joel Coen and starring Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney and Marcia Gay Harden.
Tagline: Up is down, black is white, and nothing is what it seems.
Summary Capsule: Gabriel Byrne stretches his acting chops to play an Irish criminal who gets entangled in a complex web of deceit and betrayal.
It was a shadowy night of inky pitch black mirth. I sat back in my rickety office chair and made a bet with my liver over a fifth of scotch that rested in the bottle. The koala bears of my subconscious wrestled with the sheer pointlessness of my being, but I didn’t mind. At least they took a bath once in a while.
Suddenly, a knock invaded my privacy and jangled my nerves. I looked up, the weight of the world pressing down on my bloodshot eyeballs, and she walked in.
Some of these links may contain mature material, and MRFH is not responsible for their content.
Trailers: Read the rest of this entry »
”’I don’t care who’s fault it is; his, hers, or the milkman’s. If one of them comes to me, it means they’re both miserable. That’s my job-putting people out of their misery.“
The Scoop: 1990 R, directed by Jack Nicholson and starring Jack Nicholson and Harvey Keitel.
Tagline: They say money makes the world go round. But sex was invented before money.
Summary Capsule: The unloved little brother of Chinatown throws JJ Gittes into a world of money, murder, and mineral rights as the ghosts of his past come back to haunt him.
Just a scant week ago, I made the type of discovery that wouldn’t exactly spark off a successful noir film but would be an excellent start for a zany comedy: I found the film Brick in the $3 DVD bin at my local Big Lots.
At first, I was consumed with disbelief and minor rage. How could such a monumentally innovative and refreshingly well-made film end up consigned to the bargain bin at the most barginous of bargain stores? What shortsighted middle manager arbitrarily chose $3 as the ultimate value for this, one of the best films I’ve seen within the past decade? Should I logically infer by its presence here in the $3 bin that Brick’s popularity and influence had already reached its apex and would now languish in wire bins gathering dust from here to eternity?
