November 2008 Archives

This behind the scenes clip is from the classic DVD "Interview with a Vampire". Starts off very talking head but moves into a great character study with the director and Tom Cruise going back and forth. Good stuff and worth talking a look at below. Rent the DVD if you want to see the whole 20 minute feature.

As a sometimes jaded reviewer I was suspicious of "Noelle" for several reasons. The first was it was directed and written by the main star of the film, David Wall. The second was that it was produced by the American Bible Assocation. But I have to say this film was pretty good. It tells the story of a catholic priest who goes town to town shutting down catholic churches that have low attendance or that are not making enough money to support themselves. However when Father Keanne meets the people that make up this church and community it becomes a lot more difficult than he thinks to shut them down. Although this sounds a bit formulaic this is not the case. The film uses some pretty serious moral issues as fodder for the story without every getting too funny or too slapstick. Just a dash of humor here and there.



I think the only thing that kept this film from the A category was the editing. The acting is there (for the most
part) and the script has some good turns and twists however towards the middle of the film everything gets all
jumpy due to some weird editing. The main thing that really suprised me about this film is the cinematography.

Some of the shots in this film are simply amazing. I am not sure where this was filmed (maybe someone can leave the locale in the comments below) but it had some amazing landscapes. Some of my favorites were beaches covered in snow and the amazing stain glass windows at the church when they were framed in all black.

There were no Behind The Scenes Features on this DVD.

All in all I give it a B-. Something you should rent around Christmas and watch.

What can I say? I write for a Blog that prides itself in ripping away the Hollywood curtain to show you
how DVD's and Films are created. So when it comes time to review a film that is documentary about a group of actors making a film you know I am going to be excited. Add to this fact that the film is hilarious and has an amazing amount of behind the scenes features and you have a home run in my book. But putting all my fan boy excitement aside I sat down and watched Tropic Thunder this week with my emotions in check. Kinda.



Tropic Thunder is a film where through a series of freak occurrences, a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying. A documentary of the botched production is made from the hidden camera footage, and results in a multiple Academy Award-winning blockbuster film. Which the audience never gets to see. Sounds deep? Well have no fears it's hilarious and rarely deep. Full of inside film jokes and outlandish send ups of everything from Forest Gump to Rambo to the Weinstein Brothers, Tropic Thunder is simply one of the funniest films of the year.

What sets this DVD to A+ status is all the behind the scenes madness. The extra scenes were nothing really and should of stayed cut, but what was gold was all the behind the scenes footage. Including everything from a great Werner Herzog style behind the scenes documentary to something called Mag Reels. Where they basically would film a scene (improvising the whole way) until the film ran out of the camera. There are some simply hilarious scenes starring Ben Stiller and Downey Jr that will make you fall over laughing. This DVD is like owning two
films in one, that's how good the extras are.

All in all this one is must buy. An A+ DVD on all accounts.  

 

Well this just plain sucks. Futurama was never American Dad, which was never Family Guy, which was never Southpark, which was never The Simpsons. But this is not just some classic Futurama, this a rarely funny, hour long episode of Futurama. I will spare you the plot details but needless to say I was far from impressed. Something about Bender getting way into Dungeons and Dragons.

 

Which you think could be funny but was really just a wasted attempt. Here's hoping they do better next time as they release more and more of these episodes/DVD's from the Futurama team in the future. I have to give this DVD a C- for being barely funny.