Hello Film Fans and Fanatics!
Welcome to Film Fan Fridays for Friday January 25, 2008! Here is another week of movie madness with not only Oscar nominations but ten new releases. Ten! But first a little about the Oscar nominations, the big contenders are:
No Country for Old Men and
There Will Be Blood both with 8 nominations closely followed by
Atonement and
Michael Clayton with 7 nominations each.
Michael Clayton is reappearing in theatres this week so if you missed it originally you will have a chance to see it now! Add
Juno to the list and those are the 5 nominations for best picture. Other multiple nominations go to
Ratatouille (with 5),
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (with 4) and
La Vie En Rose and
Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street both with 3 nominations. See various
lists of nominations here.
I'm thrilled to say that this weeks releases include three Canadian films. Out of the three I am most excited about
How She Move, set right here in Toronto and it's a dance movie. It's actually stepping, but I still consider that a dance movie. Very exciting! Additional Canadian releases include the drama/western
All Hat which played at TIFF in 2007, and the creepy horror film
They Wait.
Our limited releases outnumber the wide release by 6:4 this week. They include two highly acclaimed films:
Still Life and
The Rape of Europa - a documentary on what happened to works of art during WWII. We also have the black comedy
Waiter which looks quite funny, a live action 3D concert film
U2 3D as well as
All Hat and
They Wait.
The wide releases include
How She Move,
Meet the Spartans which is a parody on 300 with a gist of pop culture added in, Sylvester Stallone's latest revival project
Rambo and the internet thriller
Untraceable.
Touching base on last weeks releases: if you are considering seeing
Cloverfield I would recommend seeing it before you hear too much about it and also to seeing it in the theatre. I would not recommend it if you have trouble with shaky-cam style filming (a la Blair Witch Project), there were walk outs during the screening I went to and I've also heard people complain of nausea. I didn't have this issue myself but it was very obvious that it affected people.
Have a great week!
Shannon
Friday January 25, 2008 ReleasesAll HatDir: Leonard Farlinger (The Perfect Son, Collateral Damage)
Cast: Luke Kirby, Rachael Leigh Cook, Lisa Ray, Keith Carradine
Canada/UK/USA
Limited Release
Official Film Site,
IMDb Page,
TrailerTrailer shows a lot, safe to about the 1/2 way point
How She MoveDir: Ian Iqbal Rashid (Touch of Pink)
Cast: Rutina Wesley, Dwain Murphy, Tre Armstrong, Brennan Gademans, Shawn Desman
Canada
MySpace Page (autoplays trailer),
IMDb Page,
TrailerTrailer shows a fair amount, after 1/2 way point shows a lot of the film
Meet the SpartansWriters/Directors: Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer (Epic Movie)
Cast: Sean Maguire, Carmen Electra, Ken Davitian, Kevin Sorbo
USA
Official Film Site,
IMDb Page,
TrailerRamboWriter/Dir: Sylvester Stallone (Rocky Balboa, Staying Alive)
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Julia Benz, Paul Schulze
USA/Germany
Official Film Site (autoplays trailer),
IMDb Page,
TrailerTrailer doesn't appear to spoil the plot
The Rape of EuropaDir: Richard Berge & Bonni Cohen - feature film directorial debuts
Documentary on the theft of art during World War II, narrated by Joan Allen
USA
Limited Release
Official Film Site,
IMDb Page,
TrailerStill Life / Sanxia haorenDir: Jia Zhang-Ke (Dong, Unknown Pleasures / Ren xiao yao)
Cast: Zhao Tao, Han Sanming
China/Hong Kong
Limited Release
IMDb PageUnable to locate legit trailer
They WaitDir: Ernie Barbarash (Cube Zero)
Cast: Jaime King, Michael Biehn, Pei-pei Cheng, Terry Chen
Canada
Limited Release
Official Film Site and Trailer (disturbing images, autoplays trailer)
IMDb PageTrailer is pretty disturbing, I turned it of 2/3 of the way through which is pretty scary
U2 3DDir: Catherine Owens -debut & Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies)
U2 Concert film of the "Vertigo" tour, in "Live Action 3D"
USA
Official Film Site (including trailer),
IMDb PageThe trailer shows next to nothing and has 5 showings of sponsorship/ads.
UntraceableDir: Gregory Hoblit (Fracture, Hart's War, Frequency, Fallen)
Cast: Diane Lane, Billy Burke, Colin Hanks, Joseph Cross
USA
Official Film Site,
IMDb Page,
TrailerThe trailer is really long, and you get gist of film in the first half after which I think it shows too much
Waiter / OberWriter/Dir: Alex van Warmerdam (Grimm, Little Tony / Kleine Teun)
Cast: Alex van Warmerdam, Ariane Schluter, Jaap Spijkers, Mark Rietman
Netherlands/Belgium
Limited Release
Official Film Site (
English),
IMDb Page, for Trailer: go
here, select theatrical, search title 'Waiter'
**please note this list of releases reflects first run film released in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as of January 25, 2008**
Concrete proof of the devastating impact of this week's tragic death of Heath Ledger: Entertainment Weekly (which this time of year could easily be renamed Oscar Weekly) bumped the Academy Award nominations off its cover in favor of a tribute to the late actor.
