why does everything following in the wake of the return of the king seem so pedestrian now? the new trailer for the forthcoming king arthur movie by jerry bruckheimer came out today…and it looks so normal. granted, its supposed to take a historical look at the legend of king arthur, but all the imagery seems so mundane and uninteresting. is history really so boring? its like watching a discovery channel special. i love discovery channel, btw…but not on the big screen. feh…at least theres keira knightley. and why does merlin look like tim the enchanter? still…its antoine fuqua (training day)…and it has clive owen as king arthur. ill keep an open mind…
addendum | wow do people like linking to this moreso than the original post from aicn. hey der. to answer a few questions…no, i cant verify any of this (im just another aicn reader). yes, the return of the king rocks much. if you hear any new news, feel free to comment…b/c damnit, i want to know also.
some rumors emerged recently on aint it cool news about what to expect from the forthcoming extended version of the return of the king. one negative rumor (and hopefully its just a rumor) and the rest covering the coo content that was obviously left out of the theatrical trailer…including the aforementioned witch-king vs. gandalf beatdown. word. its spoiler material (for those who havent read the book anyway)…so its in the extended read below. > continued…
current selection | the avalanches – frontier psychiatrist feelin’ | christmas-y
aw…what the heck…ill post this too. the trailer for the stupidly rockin’ movie eurotrip is out. wooha! im sure alot of people wouldnt be expecting me to want to see a movie like this. but your wrooooong. see…lets list all the things eurotrip has going for it. to begin with, roadtrip movies just rock. thats a given. shit, i even paid to see the movie roadtrip in the theaters (that was not ithaca). the movie also has kristin kreuk in it, which in and of itself is a biiiiig boost. not to mention xena the warrior princess, matt damon (?!), and even tho hes not listed in the cast, that has to be goddamn vinnie “bullet tooth” jones popping off the bottlecaps with his eyeballs. and the final reason? it has mimes getting kicked in the groin. holy shit do those mimes scare me.
current selection | arrested development in the background feelin’ | lax
ok…first, the cinematic news, just because all i read up on are news on movies. m.night shyalman’s new movie the village is coming out next summer (alongside the sky captain), and like the sky captain, the new teaser trailer was released this weekend. like all of shyamalans past endeavours, this movie has a trailer thats all spooky and shit and only tells you the bare minimums. theres some quakers, a creepy forest, and emperor commodus. word.
friday was supposed to be split between two peoples bday celebrations…amys at truth in chelsea, and annas at verlaine in the les. amys was rsvp’d weeks ago, so that was up first. that…and i actually hadnt seen her since high school? shit…nearly a decade. i got to truth in chelsea around 11ish and walked into a crazy crowd of people i didnt know. since i couldnt even be sure what amy looked like after all these years, i was hoping to run into suzie, christine, and langa. i called suzie and was informed that they were actually on the second floor. theres a second floor? ok then…so i went outside and took an exterior freight elevator to the second floor of truth. they were all there…along with a crowd of asians…and no amy. fine then, on with the drinks. after a few rounds and still no bday girl, suzie and christine made some inquiries and found out that despite the ample amount of asians…we were actually at the wrong party. so we head downstairs to the first floor section and find the right party with the appropriate group of asians. we chilled with amy, along with some other people we recognized from yay years ago. the only problem was that i had another bday celebration to go to and it was nearly 2am…shit. this however was resolved when a second later, i got a call telling me that everybody at verlaine was heading home. poop…so i went home too. sorry anna!
after the return of the king, theres few movies im looking forward to in the near future. lucky for me tho, one of them just released their new teaser trailer this weekend. sky captain and the world of tomorrow is a rockin’ throwback to the days before dystopian cyberpunk, when gernsback science fiction ruled the pulp and air waves. sleek chrome exteriors, super-destructo rayguns, and useless fins attached to everything…very cool. sky captain has a pretty rockin’ cast…with jude law as the titular sky captain, gwyneth paltrow, and angelina jolie. it doesnt come out til the summer of 2004, but the movie already looks rockin’…
current selection | sting – if i ever lose my faith feelin’ | friday-like
blah blah blah the return of the king broke the movie debut record with $34.1 million…smooshing the previous record of $28.5 million set by the phantom menace. dont look too surprised. it was also sixth overall in single-day takes…which is pretty good for a movie nearly twice the length of the other 5 movies ahead of it.
in other news…the return of the king makes people want to pee really bad. huzzah! there havent been intermissions in the u.s. since the 80’s…and with more and more movies pushing running times, people are finding it harder and harder to hold it in. and with the return of the king, people are loathe to miss a single scene. but when nature calls, she takes a boot to your ass. some of these people were just asking for it tho…2 liters of coke and a 20 ounce vanilla coke? wtf. i personally dont care for intermissions…tho i suppose it would be a good idea for 3+ hour movies. the cinemas in italy had intermissions…which threw us completely off the first time it happened. we were like…”eh? what a shitty ending!” intermissions can sometimes make the film interesting tho. one movie (a portuguese movie? cant remember) the characters on screen were having a rather meaningful talk…cut to intermission…and then cut back to them bunny fucking all over the place. fascinating.
current selection | morcheeba – the sea (acoustic) feelin’ | tired
what an absolutely awful movie……that battlefield earth is. i was forced to see it on a flight once, right after millenium man. anyway, enough about bad movies. the return of the king destroys everything…as if stating that came as a surprise to anyone. the movie is still processing in my mind…because there are so many “big” moments in the movie that the mind isnt fast enough to absorb everything instantaneously without going into a vegetative state, not unlike an eggplant. the first hour or so starts calmly and rather slowly, but then proceeds to steamroll thru the next 2 hours til it calms again and slowly ticks down. the battle of pelennor field is some crazy shit. while its less hero-centric than the hornburg, the scale of it was exponentially larger and the events utterly awe-inspiring. the charge of the mumakils was absolutely ridiculous, the excessively cited badass legolas take-down (it does rock), not to mention the bitch-ass witch-king himself turned out alot better than i initially thought he would. as for the ending, i can see why the first (and sometimes the only) complaint people have are the multiple endings. most linear narratives would just give you a start and a stop. rotk starts and stops, then stops again, and then again, and again. narratively it might feel a little awkward, but i thought it was an appropriately slow wind-down from the crazy shit that you just saw. i personally had a different version in my mind…with dialogue-less cuts of everybodys futures (not unlike a visual version of stand by me). they instead focused on the hobbits, which is fine by me. the only other complaint i have…and probably the majority of tolkien fans, is that the movie feels pared down. alot. and im not just referring to saruman hitting the cutting room floor…faramir and eowyn, the path of the dead, the corsairs, and gandalfs fight with the witch-king (seen in the trailers). from a pragmatic standpoint, the cuts were understandable and necessary…a 4-5 hour movie is unrealistic. which is why the rest of us will be waiting for the “real” version to come out on dvd sometime next year. i forget which review i read this in, but they described the theatrical movie the best by saying that its “a three and a half hour trailer for the return of the king.”
current selection | toadies – possum kingdom feelin’ | sleepy
i think they should start bottling caffeine. can they do that? what does caffeine look like anyway? i figure you could just buy these bottles in supermarkets…called “caff-in!” or something snappy (its a noun and a verb!), and then basically caffeine-ate whatever the hell you want. take my hot cocoa for example…it tastes a hell of alot better than coffee, but it doesnt wake me up in the morning. with caff-in!, it can. or why not caffeine-ated oj? or inject that badboy into my morning bagel and bam! caffeine-ated bagel and cream-cheese. that udon lunch not waking you up? fuck, pour in the caff-in! the possibilities abound…watch as the whole world gets addicted to caff-in!, hyperactively run around and up the sides of buildings, then collectively dropping dead. fun times…
i was going to write a post about the new ign interview with ian mckellen, even tho there was an interview posted yesterday of ian mckellen on aicn. then i saw on ugo that they had a new interview with viggo mortensen, alongside the interview the day before with ign. so then i fig’d…fuck, do it yourself. im sure if people were to crawl from site to site today, they could get any number of varying interviews of each and every cast member from 10 different sources. ah well. today is trilogy tuesday btw. theyre showing the first two lord of the rings (special editions too…not the theatricals) back to back, which then lead up to the premiere of the return of the king. some of you are probably wondering to yourself, “shit…arent you geeky enough to go to something like that?” and id reply with, “youre a bugger.” and no actually…while i love the trilogy, i think just from a practical sense i could never do it. take the day off to sit in a theater for nearly 12 hours straight? its a bit excessive. id rather watch the first two from the comfort of my bed. so anyway, over on rotten tomatoes, the return of the king continues to retain its 100% freshness…which rocks alot. elvis mitchell from the new york times, in particular, wrote a nice review for the return of the king. 30 something hours til the movie for me…hoy.
current selection | ayumi hamasaki – surreal feelin’ | bagel-y
ah…foxtrot and geek humor. foxtrot rocks. the return of the king apparently still has a 100% freshness rating on rotten tomatoes…which is just ridiculous. ign also has a follow-up interview (after interviewing pj) with viggo mortensen, ugo has an interview with billy boyd and dominic monaghan, and aicn has an interview with ian mckellen about life, movies, and being in an airplane with his male co-stars. right-o. 3 days…hoy.
