THE ONLINE AUTHORITY ON MOVIES

Anchorman 2 Poster

The world is about to meet Ron Burgundy. Again. Anchorman 2 hits theaters this Christmas, and even though there’s a second Anchorman movie already exists, this one still gets a “2″ in its name. 

This time, Ron, Brick, Champ and Brian are re-teaming to polyester their way through the 1980s with the prospect of a 24-hour news channel dangling overhead.

They’ve teased with images and one-liners and appearances on late night talk shows, but now the first trailer reveals that — just as he evolved for a world where women were empowered — Ron is learning a lot about race relations as his legend continues:

read more...

Code Black

What does Code Black mean? Most people think of codes in hospitals to mean someone is dying with shows like ER and Grey’s Anatomy often having their doctors yell, “He’s coding!” Which is not fictionalized medical jargon, but in this instance, Code Black refers to the volume of patients in a hospital waiting room. And for a doctor, seeing your hospital’s waiting room at Code Black makes you feel as though you have lost the battle to treat as many patients as you can before you even start your shift.

The documentary Code Black from first-time filmmaker Ryan McGarry focuses on the lives of a handful of doctors coming up through the residency program in one of the busiest emergency rooms in the country – that of the Los Angeles County Hospital. The LA County Hospital is considered the birthplace of emergency medicine and was best known for its iconic C-Booth. No one quite knows what the “C” in C-Booth stands for (Central? Critical?), but everyone in the medical community knew this was the place where medical triumphs and near miracles happened. But why? C-Booth was a slightly terrifying and chaotic place with doctors and nurses packed in to a small space trying to help and save as many patients as they could. There was no privacy, no standardized decorum, but this ability to band together and do their job was what made C-Booth so successful, and so well-known.

read more...

Alison-Brie-strange

What is Casting Couch? A rundown of the day’s most notable casting news, concerning actors as new to the film world as young Iain De Caestecker or as seasoned as the spicy Kim Basinger. No discrimination here.

Mad Men and Community beauty Alison Brie has once again found time in her schedule to do some work up on the big screen. Variety is reporting that she’ll be joining Justin Chatwin and Colin Hanks in the cast of a new indie called No Stranger Than Love. The story here is a weird one, as apparently Brie will be playing a small town art teacher who intends on starting an affair with the married football coach at her school, but whose plans get interrupted when he’s sucked into an inter-dimensional hole that appears on her living room floor. See? Weird.

read more...

the-blues-brothers

Movies that are able to effectively blend action and comedy tend to be real crowd pleasers. Large segments of the moviegoing public go to the cinema specifically to escape, and, really, what’s more escapist than laughing and being thrilled at the same time? From The General to Big Trouble in Little China to Shaun of the Dead, the best action comedies tend to become cult favorites that stand the test of time and get re-watched constantly. There’s one action comedy that has a giant cult following I’ve never found an inroad to appreciate though—John Landis’ 1980 hit, The Blues Brothers. It’s not hard to see why many find it memorable. It’s set in an exaggerated version of lower class Chicago that’s easy to romanticize, it gets to ride the coattails of John Belushi’s gone-too-soon legacy, and it features so many legendary musicians that you almost feel like you have to respect it by proxy. Putting all that aside though, the movie is really long and slow, it doesn’t contain many big laughs, and quite frankly I have a hard time finishing it without falling asleep.

One recent action comedy that doesn’t get any respect is 2011’s The Green Hornet, and seeing as its writers, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, released the impressive and seemingly well-liked This is the End over the weekend, it feels like an appropriate time to revisit it and ask why that is. The Green Hornet made a decent amount of coin, and was successful enough on an international level that it can’t really be considered a bomb, but it was so ravaged by critics and moviegoers that it seems people remember it as one anyway. Probably that has something to do with expectations. Seeing as it was directed by Michel Gondry, arthouse fans were likely expecting to be blown away by it visually. And seeing as it was written by Rogen and Goldberg, comedy fans were probably looking to get as many laughs from it as they did Superbad. The thing about The Green Hornet is, despite the fact that it’s not as visually interesting as anything else Gondry has done and it’s not as funny as anything else Rogen and Goldberg have done, it’s still a pretty solid action comedy when you put everything aside and view it on its own.

read more...

Rashomon

Looking for any excuse, Landon Palmer and Scott Beggs are using the 2012 Sight & Sound poll results as a reason to take different angles on the best movies of all time. Every week, they’ll discuss another entry in the list, dissecting old favorites from odd angles, discovering movies they haven’t seen before and asking you to join in on the conversation. Of course it helps if you’ve seen the movie because there will be plenty of spoilers.

This week, they take 4 different views on Akira Kurosawa‘s Rashomon because they think they’re clever.

In the #24 (tied) movie on the list, a bandit, a samurai, his wife, and a woodcutter each tell their version of a violent encounter on a forest road. With each new entry, conflicts and distortions arise, ultimately bending and challenging what we think of as the truth in storytelling and in life.

read more...

Illusions Part One

Why Watch? More than just a curiosity, this short film from Samm Hodges is a poetic blend of conflicting realities about existence and stunningly displayed images that confuse the pupils. The physical meeting the metaphysical.

It feels a bit like a 1950s instructional video by way of “Howl,” and it’s that sober recitation of condensed profundities laid over the beautiful imagery and overall tonal loneliness that makes this a complete package.

read more...

Pixar Character Logo

This week’s opening of Pixar’s latest film, Monsters University, a sequel starring fan favorites Mike Wazowski and James P. “Sulley” Sullivan, also signals the debut of another perennial Pixar favorite – the accompanying short film. Since the animation house’s second theatrical release, Toy Story 2, every Pixar feature film has kicked off with an all-new short. Some of them have been instant classics (like For the Birds, Day & Night, and my personal favorite, Presto) and some of them have fallen somewhat flat (I forgot about Geri’s Game, Boundin’, and Lifted almost immediately after watching them). Three of them even won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film (and of the twelve already released, ten of them were nominated for the award).

The short attached to Monsters University, Saschka Unseld’s The Blue Umbrella, is a different kind of short film for Pixar. Its use of photorealistic CGI is a departure from the more traditional animation styles that Pixar’s shorts have previously utilized, and one that teeters on the edge of the so-called Uncanny Valley. Putting it another way – realizing the entire thing is computer-animated is both obvious (it does focus on the love story between anthropomorphized umbrellas) and unsettling (it sometimes looks too “real” to be fake, though we’re not talking Mars Needs Moms levels of weirdness). It does, however, still have that Pixar charm and emotion (really, it focuses on the love story between anthropomorphized umbrellas), though the bulk of its creativity is focused on ancillary characters (like street signs, a mailbox, and drains) that make said anthromprophzed umbrellas seem uninspired.

The release of a new Pixar short seems as good a time as any to reflect on some of the company’s hits and misses when it comes to the tiny film genre, so here’s to looking back at twenty-seven years and thirteen game-changing shorts.

read more...

discs rectify header

Welcome back to This Week In Discs!

As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it.

Discs Section: Pick of the Week

disc rectifyRectify

Daniel Holden (Aden Young) is released from prison after serving 19 years on death row for the rape and murder of a teenage girl, but his return home opens up a world of troubled complications for everyone involved. The small, Southern community is divided on the issue of his innocence as the DNA evidence seems at odds with his own confession, and those doubts are just some of the issues he now faces.

Character actor Ray McKinnon moves behind the camera here as the show’s creator, and the result is easily one of the year’s finest and most affecting shows. The story shares some thematic similarities to the brilliant Boy A, but it quickly finds its own rhythms and strengths thanks to a smart ensemble filled with heartbreaking performances and characters. It’s not needed, but the show also features some suspense and mystery surrounding Daniel’s possible guilt. It’s a short season at only six episodes, but happily Sundance Channel has ordered an additional ten for season two. [DVD extras: Featurettes]

read more...

movie43-drinkinggame

Movie 43 was in essence an experimental film from the minds of the Farrelly Brothers. This raunchy, ribald sketch comedy film with two different wrap-around stories (depending on where it was released) featured fourteen different short films with an impressive cast. Unfortunately, the experiment did not perform too well during its release. However, there’s always life for these types of film on DVD and Blu-ray.

Loaded with inappropriate humor, Movie 43 found a few fans in its original run, while others declared it one of the worst movies ever. This is your chance to be the judge, but may we suggest you judge it with some spirits on your side?

read more...

Will Smith After Earth

We are living in a post-movie star era, but Will Smith was the last one to find out.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air-turned-21st-century box office king has enjoyed his time as perhaps the sole exception to the many articles that have discussed at length the death of the traditional movie star (including ones written here). Smith’s magnetic charm, family-friendly aura, and conventional good looks (coupled, more importantly, with an incredibly calculated, decidedly un-risky series of career decisions) made him a star with mass audience appeal – an increasingly rare commodity as studio films geared more and more toward dedicated niche audiences.

But Smith’s anachronistic career (even with two Academy Award nominations and 11 blockbusters under his belt in almost as many years) was growing ever more conspicuous even before his four-year absence from the silver screen. He came back with the serviceable (read: unremarkable) MIB3. However, it was this summer’s After Earth (whose opening weekend gross was $100K shy of, erm, Wild Wild West) that solidified the fact that even Hollywood’s “biggest star” no longer provided a guarantee that anybody would show up.

Six months ago, Scott Beggs and I argued that 2012 signaled, with certainty, the death of the movie star. If the movie star died in 2012, then 2013 is most certainly its wake.

read more...

Europa Report

Many films have tackled the question of whether we’re alone in the universe, but instead of having looming space ships hover over earth or astronauts coming into contact with terrifying beings from other planets, Europa Report presents the much more likely concept of signs of life on one of Jupiter’s moons. The Europa Report was a mission that brought together an elite group of international scientists, engineers, and a pilot who wanted to go further than anyone had before to explore that moon and see if there were signs of life developing on (or under) the surface.

When those in charge of the mission on the ground report that the exploratory crew went missing for nearly a year after all communication suddenly went dark, the mystery of what happened up there finds the spotlight. The narrative then switches perspective to the ship where those on board  decide to continue with the mission, even as those on the ground presume they’re dead. What they discover is a captivating mix of believable and beautiful elements, but when one of the crew members (Karolina Wydra) comments on the inspiring, undisturbed world, it quickly becomes clear that they should have left it that way.

read more...

Prometheus

Rejoice or groan, the sequel to Prometheus is moving forward. According to Variety, both Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender should return, and Jack Paglen – the writer of Wally Pfister’s directorial debut Transcendence — will be writing the script.

Hopefully  all the cohesive elements of the screenplay that help make sense of everything will end up being in the movie this time around.

But what else is there? Prometheus was so divisive that you’re either currently pumping your fist or pumping your fist with a sad look on your face. About the only general consequence is that it keeps Ridley Scott in this universe a little longer — theoretically preventing him from doing other projects. Although, presumably it’ll be holding him back temporarily from going back into other wells he’s drained before. So there’s that.

The only confusing thing about this news is that Variety is claiming that this entry will “feel more like its own film” as opposed to Prometheus, which served to tie things into the Alien universe. That doesn’t make sense. How can a movie, a sequel, sandwiched between a universe-building story and a franchise with 6 entries, feel more like its own film? These and more questions to be answered if Fox decides they like the script enough to flash the green light.

discuss...

Computer Chess

Many who have seen Computer Chess — either during its Sundance, SXSW or other festival runs — don’t seem to know what to make of it. On the surface, it’s a remarkably faithful recreation of a time three decades before nerd culture was co-opted as cool. On the surface, it’s a documentary-aping narrative that covers a chess tournament meant to hone the code that will see a system eventually beat a man at an ancient game. A little bit deeper than the surface, things get weird.

Written and directed by Andrew Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha) and starring Wiley Wiggins (which is apparently not the only Linklaterian element), maybe you can figure it out by watching the trailer:

read more...
next page  
Some movie websites serve the consumer. Some serve the industry. At Film School Rejects, we serve at the pleasure of the connoisseur. We provide the best reviews, interviews and features to millions of dedicated movie fans who know what they love and love what they know. Because we, like you, simply love the art of the moving picture.
Got a Tip? Send it here:
editors@filmschoolrejects.com
Publisher:
Neil Miller | Email
Managing Editor:
Scott Beggs | Email
Associate Editors:
Rob Hunter | Email

Kate Erbland | Email
Advertising:
Federated Media

All Rights Reserved © 2013 Reject Media, LLC | Site Credits | Privacy Policy
Design & Development by Face3