September, 2009

Ask any marijuana advocate about the transcendental qualities of smokin’ da herb and they’ll probably tell you it can overcome just about anything – culture, language, ideology, social/economic divide etcetera etcetera. Stoner flicks of the western world tend to reflect ganga’s global ubiquitousness in the casting of ethnically diverse characters: think Harold and Kumar, think [...]

In a sobering vision of things to come and another timely example of Hollywood’s lecherous determination to squeeze every drop of marketing clout out of well known brand names, let me announce boys and girls – and please don’t shoot the messenger – that after months of behind the scenes haggling Universal have obtained the [...]

In Looking for Eric director Ken Loach simultaneously serves up a grim urban drama and a hilarious genre-defying crowd pleaser with the story of a down-in-the-dumps mope approaching mid-life crisis who is visited, counselled and joined for smokos by his hero, soccer player Eric Cantona. Cantona – played by the real thing – is a [...]

Following on from my post a couple of months ago about the upcoming Michael Jackson documentary This Is It, helmed by High School Musical director Kenny Ortega and drawn from 80 odd hours of rehearsal footage from MJ’s ill-fated world tour, apple.com have a short exclusive clip available online as well as the theatrical trailer. [...]

In Pixar’s fab new feature Up helium balloons make a fitting metaphor for the big L word – BTW that’s love, not leprosy – but they also neatly symbolise the direction the studio has steered all-ages CGI animated movies: that is, up. With a 10-yip strike record of good features vs. duds, the Pixar whiz [...]

It’s been a while since the last Poster Watch so dig this sweet new one-sheet (left, click to enlarge) for Wes Anderson’s upcoming stop-motion animated Fantastic Mr Fox, which looks pretty adorable: funky, kitsch, cute. George Clooney and Meryl Streep (who voice Mr and Mrs Fox) share vocal strings with an A-list supporting cast including [...]

Director Ana Kokkinos charters 24 calamitous hours in the lives of a collective of disaffected youth and their disaffected families in Blessed, a heavy duty high-falutin’ character drama that seems to be built on proffering one timeless adage: it ain’t easy being a kid and it ain’t easy being a parent. The title refers to [...]

Fans of jet-black indie director Todd Solondz (pictured left) – the salty-tongued auteur of lewd, indecorous and acidic-funny comedy/dramas Happiness, Palindromes and Welcome to the Dollhouse – will raise an anticipatory eyebrow at the rabble rouser’s latest, Life During Wartime, which premiered last week at the Venice Film Festival. It is a sequel of sorts [...]

Angry knee-high aliens that look like Gremlins crossed with bodybuilding Munchkins hatch a nefarious plot for world domination in Aliens in the Attic, attacking a group of lamo American kids who while on a weekend away with their families become unwitting saviours of the world. No, this movie ain’t opting for social realism, though the [...]

Here’s a good idea: take a watershed moment in contemporary music history and recreate it for the big screen, minus the music! That’ll work, right? Actually yes – it works a treat in Taking Woodstock, an unprepossessing personal/cultural coming of age yarn told from the perspective of, er, event management and directed by the ever-unpredictable genre [...]