You may ask yourself “why?” But then you’d deprive yourself the chance to just watch it again, and again. The excellent sound design is what makes this so worth the 100 seconds of your life spent watching it.
Month: September 2015
Trailer of the Year Awards – The Big Short
It’s Trailer Tuesday here at SCC and also time for another nominee in the Trailer of the Year Awards. Director Adam McKay (Step Brothers, Anchorman) takes a break from the Will Farrell comedies to take on the rather ludicrous true story of the events leading up to mortgage crisis of 2008 and those characters who predicted it and profited from it. Adapted from the best-selling book of the same name by Michael Lewis, the film looks to become the definitive answer when best explaining why you and your neighbor lost half the value of your home and watched your 401k vanish. Unfortunately, as Anthony Radanzzo points out in his 2010 review of the book for Reason:
Lewis falsely assumes that the perfect storm of failures at mortgage brokers, rating agencies, Wall Street firms, and regulators is the outcome of free market “hypercapitalism.” But in fact those problems are all symptoms of a government-manipulated market that didn’t allow for failure and had government subsides favoring housing investments over other sectors of the economy. One of The Big Short’s biggest shortfalls is failing to examine how federal policy drove investors to get things wrong while Lippman, Eisman, Burry, and the Cornwall Capital boys managed to get it right.
Still, with an all-star cast made up of Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt and Steve Carrell and McKay behind the lens The Big Short is sure to make a big gains when released this Christmas and heading into Oscar season.
While the trailer an obvious attempt to capture the same audiences that made The Wolf of Wall Street a hit, modeling your trailer after a Scorcese film ain’t a bad thing. It offers up the perfect blend of one-liners, set pieces, and a tone all in sync to the classic Led Zeppelin song “When The Levee Breaks.” For that alone, it deserves the nod.
2015 Trailer of the Year Award nominees so far:
Donuts and Bizarrely Unintentional Pop Art
It is 8:20 am, with a pile of messy hair on top of my head I lurch to the most glorious of all square electrical devices, the refrigerator. With just a brief look inside, it becomes quite clear that a half bottle of sriracha and a bag of carrots will not be sufficient for the breakfast of a champion. Donning on my usual Tupac t-shirt, I head outside to the streets. Since I live in LA, you must immediately be thinking “And now she gets into her car and drives to…” but you are missing one, fairly crucial, point—I live on Hollywood Blvd, essentially the Times Square of Los Angeles. It may very well be the only place in LA where it is more efficient to walk than drive. As I step out onto the pavement a car door slams to my left with Darth Vader exiting a Toyota Corolla.
“Good Morning” he says, breathing loudly, as he sweeps past me.
“Good Morning, how are you doing today?” I reply.
“Just heading to work, pretty good thanks.” He answers, already large steps ahead of me.
My sunglasses fall to the bridge of my nose as I duck out of the camera eye line taking a photo of a wax Marilyn Monroe (she is everything here-by the way). I zig zag through the crowd to the Dolby Theatre and down the piano staircase that always sounds out of tune. I finally step inside the corner market and grab my miscellaneous array of items including the Queen Mother of all victuals–the old-fashioned donut–and exit. It is a well-known fact that the minute-to-minute movements on Hollywood blvd are more complex and intricate than those of a Rube Goldberg contraption that routinely does the unexpected. So, I am not surprised when I am suddenly faced with a wall of Ohio state fans arguing with a large group of Halo Space Fighters. Normally, I could have slipped in through the piano staircase again but 15 toddlers and Shrek are having story time so you could very well say I’m in quicksand—the more I try to move the more stuck I become. So I do something that those of us in Generation Y have only done maybe once or twice, I stand still. And I look around. And I shut up.
Lightsurf in Iceland – Your Feel Good Video of the Week
Have you ever seen someone surf in subzero temperature water on a surfboard that lights up under the Aurora Borealis in Iceland?
Trailer Tuesday – Legend
The only thing better than a movie staring Tom Hardy is a movie staring two Tom Hardy’s. Emily Browning is his co-star and narrates this true crime story of London’s notorious Kray brothers. Twin brothers who ruled the world of organized crime in England in 50s and 60s. Their story has already been told in cinema including the excellent award-winning 1990 film The Krays, staring Gary and Martin Kemp, real life brothers (not twins) who, interestingly enough, were also members of the 80s rock band Spandau Ballet (the one-hit wonder UK band who gave us the song ““).
This go around, Tom Hardy plays both roles and with today’s visual effects artistry, the magic looks seamless. Let’s hope the story is as good as the terrific where you are so caught up in the story of madman Uday Hussein (Saddam’s son, “The Butcher of Baghdad”) and his reluctant double, Latif, both played brilliantly by Dominic Cooper, you forget that there is only one actor portraying both roles. Even if the story fails, it’s going to be a great bargain in getting two Tom Hardy performances for the price of one.
Movie Review: Straight Outta Compton
Though I normally would reserve my film reviews for SmashCut Culture, I recently got asked to do an in-depth review of Straight Outta Compton for Liberty Unbound and took the opportunity to dig a little deeper into the surprisingly libertarian messages in the movie.
Get the gist here:
There are very few movies I would describe as explicitly “libertarian,” but as unlikely as it may seem, F. Gary Gray’s Straight Outta Compton is high on that list.
The film interweaves the stories of legendary hip hop artists Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.), and Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) and chronicles their rise out of violence and poverty to fame and fortune as the groundbreaking gangsta rap group, NWA (“Niggaz Wit Attitude”). This is not, as you might imagine, a film for children or even most teens. It depicts a life experience steeped in drugs, gang violence, and police brutality in one of the poorest, most dangerous parts of Los Angeles in the 1980s. Against this backdrop, three teenagers looking for a way out created one of the biggest entertainment acts of the last three decades, and irrevocably changed the face of the record industry.
At its heart, Straight Outta Compton is a great entrepreneur story, but more in the tradition of The Godfather than Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Nearly all of the business dealings that occur throughout the film are built on threats and violence, and certainly not what libertarians would endorse. But contrary to what a lot of people might assume given NWA’s music, there is no glorification of gangs or gang culture in the film. In fact, a major theme is the drive to escape violence, even though it swirls around every character in the movie.
But the theme of commerce over violence was not the only libertarian quality to the film. It also depicts a fascinating period of American culture when actual government censorship (and threats of censorship) were on the rise. While the movie touches on the way censorship affected the growing gangsta rap scene around the country, I think few people today are fully aware of how extensive the governmental push against free speech really was back then.
Avenging the Fantastic, Part 7: The Fantastic Four Explore!
Continuing the read-through of as many Avengers and Fantastic Four–related Marvel comics as possible!
Books Read
Fantastic Four #44-51; Journey Into Mystery (starring Thor) #124, 125; Thor (Hey, look, he got promoted!) #126-130; Tales to Astonish (starring the Hulk) #75-79; Strange Tales (starring Nick Fury & SHIELD) #145; Tales of Suspense (starring Iron Man and Captain America) #73-78; The Avengers #25-29; year: 1966.
Fantastic Firsts
The Inhumans debut in Fantastic Four #45. Viewers of the Agents of SHIELD TV series have met this hidden, ancient society of super-powered people—but not the comic universe’s main cast of Inhumans, who I suspect are being saved for the upcoming movie, which is slated for 2019. In the comics, we’ve already met Medusa, but in #44 we meet Gorgon and in #45 we meet the rest: Crystal (introduced as a potential love interest for the Human Torch), Black Bolt, Karnak, Triton, and dog Lockjaw. In #47, we meet their nemesis, Maximus.
Immediately after that adventure, Galactus develops his first craving for the Earth in FF #48, during which the Silver Surfer debuts, initially as the herald of the world-devourer. Yes, this is where the second Fantastic Four movie, Rise of the Silver Surfer, draws its inspiration, but ignore that film and read these instead.
And then, because the FF are on such a roll here, Mr. Fantastic visits the Negative Zone for the first time in #51.
Peggy Carter, the character Hayley Atwell has made famous in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, debuts in a flashback Captain America tale in Tales of Suspense #77, though she is never identified by name.
Many of the Olympus gods debut in Thor #129, including Ares, who will join the Avengers a long, long time from this point.
The Collector (Benicio Del Toro in Guardians of the Galaxy) first fights the Avengers in #28 as a pretty basic villain who uses his vast collection as weapons (using magic beans to summon giants to fight Giant-Man, for example).
Rest In—oh, never mind
The Black Widow, briefly presumed dead, is back in action—but brainwashed this time so she’ll remain loyal to those wicked Soviets. Hawkeye remains stupidly obsessed with her, and the fact that this hasn’t killed him yet is miraculous.
The Revolving Door of Avengers Mansion
Retirement didn’t take for Giant-Man and the Wasp, so they’re back on the team—only now Giant-Man is calling himself Goliath, because Hank Pym needed a third superhero identity in the course of five of our years (starting with Ant-Man, for those just tuning in). Fortunately, the Scarlet Witch took the liberty of sewing a new costume for this man she hardly knows.
The Status is Not Quo
–In the Marvel Universe, secret identities are not forever. Happy Hogan learns that his boss Tony Stark is Iron Man. Thor finally says to Hel with his father’s wishes and tells his beloved Jane Foster that he and Dr. Donald Blake are one and the same (though Dr. Blake has been showing up less and less lately). Goliath and the Wasp reveal their true names to the new Avengers. And Rick Jones, thinking his buddy the Bruce Banner has died, blabs the secret of the Hulk to everyone. Clearly Rick hasn’t been a comic book character long enough at this point to have learned the big rule: No body, no fatality. Heck, even if there is a body, there might not be a fatality.
–Peggy Carter, however, has no idea who Captain America really is. (more…)
From Page to Screen: Bubba Ho-tep
This post introduces a new theme in addition to page to screen adaptations. That is: things you may have missed. In case you don’t know, Bubba Ho-tep is a movie, and a short story, where neither Elvis nor JFK are dead. They are both in a Texas rest home and have been robbed of their identities by fate and the powers that be. To make matters worse, an Egyptian mummy has started to raid the home and steal the soles of residents. Elvis and Jack are the only ones who know and therefore the only ones who can do anything about it. You can watch the trailer , though it doesn’t do the movie justice.
I think a lot of people view this movie as a silly B-movie send up, and I had a similar opinion before I watched it. Now, it might just be my lifelong affection for Bruce Campbell, but from my first viewing I was in love. Sure, it has a ridiculous premise and outlandish characters, but I have only ever seen a beautiful portrayal of aging and the struggle to maintain one’s identity and dignity. Why else would the cast feature such American icons as Elvis, JFK, and the Lone Ranger? When I found out the movie was based on an existing story I was the most excited to see more of the world.
This adaptation was interesting because I have more experience with novels being adapted into films and this was a short story. As such it means the expansion of the world as opposed to the reduction. The film allowed for more time with the characters and the introduction of the funeral home workers who pick up the bodies of residents. They, in particular, brought the “youth” perspective of the plight of the rest home residents and the lack of empathy and interest the rest of the world have for them.
Colin Quinn Unconstitutional is Ratified on Netflix
Veteran comic Colin Quinn’s one-man show, Colin Quinn Unconstitutional, debuts on Netflix and offers an often doting and hilarious look back on the creation of the U.S. Constitution by the founding fathers. Quinn never masks his love for the Constitution and is brilliant at placing himself outside of the traditional red-state vs blue-state mentality that, as he puts it, is tearing this country apart. The comedian has no problems using the 1st Amendment to go after the trigger warning crowd that , or reminding you that before it existed, talking crap about a king or dictator anywhere else in the world in history would get you killed. The bulk of the show deals mostly with the writing of the articles of the Constitution and why and how the government was intended to operate. Being the classic Irish-American that Quinn is, he uses a bar room analogy to explain how the government is supposed to operate. As mentioned, Quinn tackles 1st Amendment issues, as well as a bit on the 2nd Amendment, but leaves the rest of the Bill of Rights for another time.