Roald Dahl‘s book, Fantastic Mr. Fox, is now a major motion picture produced by Fox Searchlight.

Wes Anderson has written, produced, and directed films like Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and the recently released Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is indescribable except to say it’s worth seeing on the big-screen. Much like Where the Wild Things Are, the Fantastic Mr. Fox film is a children’s narrative told for adults.

                          

New Orleans is a great city, and they have an up and coming film festival to boot.

One of Digital Ink Los Angeles‘s favorite single-screen theaters in the country — The Prytania Theatre — is hosting a few screenings this year. Well worth a visit.

In particular, the Make Out With Violence screening on Monday, Oct 12th, at 9:45PM at the Prytania Theatre should be good.

Make a date with a New Orleans cultural gem, the NOFF, from Thursday, October 8th through Thursday, October 15th.

In the words of Louis Armstrong, “What we play is life.” And films are life. Get out and enjoy.

View BlogAds Here

Please take my Blog Reader Project survey.

                          

70s diabolical cinema gave audiences Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen, and Halloween.

The Millennial Age has given them Blair Witch Project, and now Paranormal Activity.

“A POTENT FRIGHTFEST that will fry your nerves and CREEP YOU OUT!”
– Peter Travers ROLLING STONE

The thing about Oren Peli‘s film — much like Blair Witch Project — is the viral nature of its marketing and the low-budget production’s ability to thrill audiences. Hand-held cameras, insufficient lighting, lack of dramaturgy, cliched storylines, and no-name actors make up the recipe for failure in Hollywood.

Not so with this flick, as the opening date business is already prompting Paramount Studios to initiate a “Demand Paranormal” ad campaign.

View the trailer below:

View BlogAds Here

Please take my Blog Reader Project survey.

                          

Sean Penn was barely a blip on the Hollywood radar when he played the timeless role of Jeff Spicoli for Cameron Crowe‘s Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Sean Penn sports a trophy from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and Jeff Spicoli is as popular as ever.
But the shoes, dude. The “check decks.” The two-tone style.

Vans Shoes have been around for thirty years, with some troublesome times, like the rest of the skateboard industry, during the 80s. The “Checkerboard Slip-On” is still around, and worn by more kids than ever on the beaches and boardwalks of Southern California.

The “primo” scene in the film, which perfectly fits this nod to the iconic sneaker:

Brad Hamilton: Why don’t you get a job, Spicoli?
Jeff Spicoli: What for?
Brad Hamilton: You need money.
Jeff Spicoli: All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I’m fine.

                          

There’s a very recognizable drum intro in U2‘s 1981 hit single, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, which makes the listener fix rapt attention for the song that follows.  Something about the way Bono and Edge want the audience to feel the Irish Republican Army‘s complaint asks the listener to halt and turn one’s ear.

The new Steve McQueen (no relation) movie, Hunger, about jailed Irish nationalist Bobby Sands, has a stirring quality very similar to this U2 song. If someone knows nothing of the IRA struggle with British authoritarian power, then this movie will pique their attention.

Hunger is a film of extremities, of taking the mind and shaping it for one’s purpose, and of a crude yet sublime vision. Actor Michael Fassbender lost almost 40 lbs. to effectively and purposefully fix the audience’s attention on the ravages of the Bobby Sands hunger strike that lasted 66 days. All does not end well.

The film is struggling for a full domestic U.S. release, even though it won the “Camera d’Or” for Best First Feature at 2008′s Cannes Film Festival. If Hunger doesn’t come to your town, look for a large DVD release, and more awards to come.

Take a peek at this stark film — think Midnight Express and Shawshank Redemption mixed with a dose of Gandhi. Here’s the New York Times film review for Hunger .

                          

Gomorra, what?  Gomorra, huh?

The guy who wrote the book, Roberto Saviano, has been in hiding since it was published. 

No doubt, the guys he’s exposed in his tell-all gangster-lore run-through include some of the rudest, crudest, meanest Mafioso on their side of the world — the Neapolitan mafia.

That’s Naples, in southern Italy.

Watch the trailer and review here: Guardian U.K. Trailer: Gomorra (2009).

You can see the film in art-house theaters, but it probably won’t find its way to the neighborhood multiplex.

That said, put it in your NetFlix queue, and mark this one up there with Scarface, Godfather, and City of God for shear audacity and unbridled underworld mayhem.

That’s enough hyperbole for one post.  Buono notte.

                          

In the April 2009 issue of Vanity Fair magazine, David Kamp writes an intriguing article about the state of the “American Dream“:  view article here.

The subject of much ballyhoo these days is the “Where do we go from here?” dilemma currently dogging our nation, with many Americans facing issues like bankruptcy, foreclosure, loss of healthcare, and unemployment — some are facing all of the above.

We’ve heard talk of legalizing marijuana, nationalizing banks, socializing healthcare, and, in California, many schools are at risk of closing for the ’09-’10 school year.

The amount of debt accrued by Americans over the last ten years is more than throughout the entire history of this nation.

The recent film Revolutionary Road, nominated for numerous awards, speaks to the traumatic loss of hope and stark reality a 1950s couple (Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet) face when the veil of American mystique is removed, leaving a shaded, moldy underbelly replete with anger, envy, misery, hatred and disgust.  What happens when we wake from the dream, and recognize our lives as less-than-stellar?  Can we accept what we see?

To address this problem as a nation, to begin to imagine a solution, we need to perform a task that every computer-owning citizen understands:  we need to reboot the system.

We need to re-imagine, conceive, enlighten, envision, invigorate, and enliven our cultural infrastructure, educational institutions, and social paradigms.

You ask, “Say What?“  I mean live simply.  Forget big cars, big houses, fast lives, and frenetic capitalism.

Focus on friends and family.  The notion of neighborhoods has all but disappeared.  Get it back.  Address the drug and prison dilemma in this nation truthfully.  Intensify the foundation and support for our “No Child Left Behind” mantra to make it truthful.  Embrace our returning veterans as a symbol of our strength, not shameful patriotism.

At the end of Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper‘s 1969 treatise on the nature of freedom, Easy Rider, Captain America announces his dismay for having lost the spirit of the “American Dream“.  That was thirty years ago, when the United States was in the midst of a racial, social, and military maelstrom.

Take a minute, pause, take a breath, and reboot.  Not just on an individual basis, but the entire American mythos, ethos, fabric and persona.  Ask the question, “Where are we coming from, and where do we want to go?“

When Dorothy gets to the Land of Oz, she realizes she just wants to go home.  What’s that mean to us in 2009?  This is one dream that will happen in technicolor, or plasma HD, if you’re one of the luckiest to have been spared the demise of the worst financial predicament in 80 years.  All we have to do is open our eyes, and life goes on.  Simply.

You can watch the 1969 trailer for Easy Rider here.