LOL!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
A Movie is the Best Revenge
500 Days of Summer is opening in Great Britain after success in America. The movie opens with the usual disclaimer about it not being about anyone living or dead. "Especially you, Jenny Beckman." "Bitch." Those opening title lines have led to much speculation about the real Jenny Beckman. It turns out she's an English girl that writer Scott Neustadter met in England while attending school there. He fell head over heels, but the English girl, he's not saying if her name is really Jenny, never felt the same way. Once they broke up, he channelled his pain and wrote it all down in a screenplay.
Reliving every moment of my bitter-sweet, one-sided romance was a cathartic experience for me - and the end result, we were shocked to find, was pretty decent.He met the English "Jenny" once after writing the screenplay and he gave her a copy to read on her flight back to London from LA.
The finished film tells it all just as it happened, however embarrassing my puppy-like devotion and however aloof it makes her look.
Some time later she wrote me a letter. She loved the story, she said. It had surprised and moved her because she really related to Tom. Yes, incredibly, Jenny hadn't recognised herself as Summer at all.Read the whole story written by Scott Neudstater for the Daily Mail here.
Fantastic Fox Featurette
This is a cool featurette about The Fantastic Mr. Fox, but what I find most fascinating is that the voices were recorded outside on farm locations, instead of in the normal recording booths usually used for animated films.
Hostage: A Love Story
OMG. This is both deeply disturbing and very hilarious.
"How'd you get so sweet?"
"I have sisters."
I love Zachary Quinto. Get this kid another movie, STAT!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Sinead's Hand
In the same vein as Hubby Hubby ice cream, comes this cool ad from Ireland.
Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan
Hubby Hubby Ice Cream
In celebration of Vermont allowing same-sex marriages, Ben & Jerry's have renamed their ice cream flavor Chubby Hubby to Hubby Hubby for the month of September.
Ben & Jerry's CEO, Walt Freese, is speaking out. He says, “At the core of Ben & Jerry’s values, we believe that social justice can and should be something that every human being is entitled to. From the very beginning of our 30 year history, we have supported equal rights for all people. The legalization of marriage for gay and lesbian couples in Vermont is certainly a step in the right direction and something worth celebrating with peace, love and plenty of ice cream.”
Hurray! Although, it looks like Hubby Hubby may only be available in Vermont this month.
Before They Were Basterds
Scarecrow Video, which must be an incredible independent video store in Seattle, has compiled a list of movie references in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. They are still working on the list, but they are up to 149 movies so far. I told you this was a movie about movies! For instance, Les Vampires is on the list because the poster for the film is in Shoshanna's office. Here's another weird reference -- who would have thought Disney?!
Disney Treasures: On The Front Lines
This collection of rarely seen WWII era Disney animation is absolutely incredible. Be sure to watch Der Fuehrer’s Face (originally titled Donald Duck in Nutzi Land) where Donald has a nightmare about living under Nazi rule and Education For Death, possibly the darkest film ever produced by Disney.
They've compiled the list not just from films that Tarantino has mentioned in interviews, and all the films he used for soundtrack music, but films that are similar to scenes in the movie. Carrie is a favorite horror film of Tarantino's, the fiery end of Basterds certainly evokes the ending of that film as well.
I knew I was missing a lot of movie references while watching it, but holy moley! I learned a lot by reading through the references listed.
Hat tip: Rope of Silicon
District 9 Opens in South Africa
NPR covered the opening this past weekend of the US Blockbuster District 9 in South Africa. There are subtleties lost on American audiences that are obvious to people living in South Africa, and all the references to apartheid.
"In some ways, it was shocking," says Cape Town resident Christo Schutte, stopping to talk outside a local theater. "I'm a young South African, thinking of District Six."
District Six was a historically interracial Cape Town neighborhood that the government deemed a slum — and from which more than 60,000 residents were forcibly removed — in the 1970s, under apartheid laws.
Schutte, who's white, said watching South African security forces violently evict aliens from their homes in the fictional slum that gives the film its title made him reflect on the real-life forced removals in District Six.
"What happened there ... I never understood, because I never really experienced that," Schutte says. "So for me, that was a shock, as a white South African, to see that."
It's District 9's main character who initially leads the effort to evict millions of aliens and intern them in giant camps. It hasn't been lost on many in Cape Town that the character, Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), is an Afrikaner — a member of the Dutch-descended white minority that instituted apartheid.
"Generally, it's the Afrikaners who were the apartheid people," says Janet Daffy. Daffy isn't Afrikaner herself, but she says the evolution of the character — who goes from following orders to fighting on behalf of the aliens — is a fitting tribute to the post-apartheid South Africa.
It's worth listening to the whole 4 minute piece from yesterday's All Things Considered, and the article has links to a few scenes from the movie, like this one about the aliens arrival in Johannesburg.
WeBite 34 Vampires T-shirt
Chop Shop has come out with a very cool t-shirt with 34 famous vampires from film, TV and animation all in the shape of a bat. The shirts are only $20 and come in a wide range of sizes for men and women. Can you identify the vampires from their silhouettes (click on the image above to see it full size)? The closeup shot below spotlights one famous recent vampire!
I have to admit, most of the weirder anime looking ones have me stumped, but I can spot many of the film vampires.
Hat tip: /Film
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