Here’s the premise of Kidnapped (Secuestrados): “Three hooded Eastern-European criminals burst into a home in a Madrid gated community, holding the family hostage in its own home, and forcing the father to empty his credit cards. But the family fights back – brutally.”

Enough said! In theaters June 17, 2011. Trailer below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Post tags: foreign language, kidnapped, spain

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Summer movies are all about bigness and intrigue. But, for me a movie is always about quality. I love a good movie, regardless of when it comes out, what genre it is, (almost who’s in it) and within reason, what it’s about. I especially enjoy a really well thought, well done, well acted, and well written movie about the end of the world or a scientific experiment gone terribly wrong where you question how far is too far in scientific/technological advancement. Enter, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

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Read the rest of Rise of the Planet of the Apes might save my summer movie season (143 words)

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Post tags: james franco, mark wahlberg, rise of the planet of the apes, sci-fi, summer movies

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I’m not a huge fan of Lars von Trier, but did enjoy Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark. But, when I saw this trailer for his new “beautiful movie about the end of the world”, I thought, this is definitely a must see film for me. I’ve been waiting and wanting to get excited about film again. Not just a good film, but an engrossing, exciting film that inspires and bends my mind a bit. See for yourself:
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Read the rest of Looking forward to watching Melancholia by Lars Von Trier (3 words)

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Post tags: breaking the waves, dancer in the dark, keifer sutherland, kristin dunst, lars von trier

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Watching a movie in a movie theater will never go out of style in favor of social media entertainment on the Internet and despite an economic recession. Why? Because there’s something to be said about “escaping” or “engaging” in a dark, large room, with comfortable seating, snacks, and larger than our lives characters moving through story lines that make us feel and experience differently than what we think we could feel or experience in our everyday lives.

Watching movies, like letter writing sometimes seems archaic in this new world of quick and easily accessible electronic entertainment. However, unlike letter writing – which I wish would find it’s way back into our many modes of communication – watching movies hasn’t yet, thank bloody goodness, lost it’s potent effect on our ability to be moved by words. Probably because these words are strung together to tell amazing stories -whether well written or not – with characters whose shoes we want to walk in or burn with them in it. These stories are brought to life in largess and makeup and tricks of lighting, imagination, half truths or blatant lies.

Movies are spectacular still because they are spectacles. Like a fiction novel, the writing can’t always be great, or the characters three dimensional, or even the setting ideal. It’s the story, it’s the presentation, it’s the spectacle of dreams. It’s the way a really good movie, like a really good book can transport us into a world that’s not in anyway extraordinary, or whose characters are not simply villains or heroes. A really good film about a story we can each feel drawn to in our own relative ways. A story that is extraordinary to us, with characters who are villainous and heroic for us, for different reasons.

I think movies aren’t always about escape and disengaging, but reengaging with parts of ourselves, or maybe reimagining possibilities, or shifting our perspectives toward illuminationing and sometimes darker truths.

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Post tags: economy, internet, recession, social media

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Milk, November 26, 2008
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Read the rest of Winter 2008/2009 Films I’m Looking Forward to Seeing (19 words)

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I think those actors, TV or film, who don’t play the game and focus on the acting should be admired, not admonished. And yes, it goes without saying that there are unwritten rules that say actors should behave a certain way and kiss a little arse for reasons X, Y and Z, but staying true to the reasons you are an actor and to yourself in general is part of the risk and reality of living in this questionable modern, progressive world we live in now. And, most important to me, it’s reflected in the roles they choose and how well they play those roles. There is, to me, nothing worse than seeing a strong actor, let alone an exceptional one, have to regurgitate words from a thoughtless and poorly written script. Plus, solid acting and good writing makes even the silliest film more entertaining simply because I’m not distracted by writing that makes no sense or acting that’s painful to watch.
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Read the rest of Actors who speak their minds are the ones I want to watch (312 words)

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Post tags: katherine heigl

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I’ve updated the Looking Forward to 2008 Films post (sidebar). Visit here: Looking forward to 2008 films

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Besides designing blogs and websites and blogging, I work full time at a book publishing company. Yesterday, I saw a catalog page layout for one of the book publishers of our book distributor who happens to share the same office space as we do. I noticed one of the books for the Fall 2008 schedule was “Heath Ledger: Hollywood’s Dark Star” pending publication by Plexus Publishing in August 2008. I looked up the book on Amazon and noticed that there are also 2 other books pending about Heath Ledger later this year. Some weeks back I read that Ledger’s death has increased interest and anticipation for Batman: The Dark Night do out later this year. Then I thought about the book I recently read titled The Man Who Invented Hudson which reveals how much of a punk James Dean really was and which made me think about how legends are created. I wonder then, with Ledger’s death, do we have a new young legend about to be born? If Ledger is to go down in history as a legend, will it be in his own right?
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Read the rest of Are Film Legends Born, Created or Exploited? (254 words)

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Post tags: gary oldman, heath ledger, my own private idaho, river phoenix, The Dark Knight

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