'The Dark Knight' Marketing Campaign Was Intense

Only in America would people go to such lengths to prove their love for a franchise and we have to say, despite the cynical marketing motivation that spawned this idea, the execution and end results were impressive. If you've any interest in advertising, marketing or the huge success of the latest Batman film, this video is a must see.

Set Pants To Creamed - Gondry To Direct Green Hornet

We've made no secret of our hetero love for Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and we were extremely excited when they signed up the bonkers Stephen Chow to direct their stab at The Green Hornet. It suggested they were going to try something a little bit different and a large bit loopy. Then Chow dropped out for hazy reasons leading to scurrilous rumours that the project would go into turnaround.

But now, there is news that they have signed up the king of bonkers, Michelle Gondry to direct the piece, thus confirming our suspicions that this will be an ambitious, inventive and wholey original take on the superhero genre. Kudos to those guys. They didn't get half enough credit for what they tried to do with the stoner and action comedy genres in Pineapple Express (like it or hate it, they innovated - hey that rhymes).

With Rogen set to play the lead and Chow still signed on to play his sidekick Kato, working from a script by Rogen & Goldberg, this is literally going to be all kinds of fun.

Broken Embraces - Teaser

Anyone who enjoyed Woody Allen channelling Pedro Almodovar in Vicky Cristina Barcelona will enjoy the real thing even more. And it even has Penelop Cruz in it for good measure but then so do most Almodovar films. Good to see her getting the Oscar for what is essentially a comedic role. She was the best thing about the movie apart from staring at Scarlett. Anyway, this Looks like Almodovar's usual mix of stylish melodrama and scatological kitsch. Although based on this teaser the emphasis does seem to be on the stylish melodrama. He rarely makes bad film so who even needs a teaser? No jokes about prostitutes and fetishes please! Oh, that was just me thinking that? I'll get my coat.

Speaking Of The Wrestler (And Not The Oscars) Mickey Rourke Is Legendary

The Oscars happened and I suppose we should comment on it but it was all so boringly predictable and MOR that we decided to post this clip instead. See folks, this is how to make an acceptance speech. Take note A-listers. If viewership figures for the Oscars keep going South you may need to learn a thing or two from Rourke. The guy should give seminars on public speaking. Rule 1. Cursing is funny!

Oh and as far as The Oscars go, we have nothing to say other than we felt sorry for Mickey and were pleased for Danny Boyle. Otherwise this may have genuinely been the dullest Oscars ever.

*Disclaimer. We are some of the last few suckers who actually like the Oscars. Our dismissal comes from our disappointment in this year's ceremony not from the same old predictable dismissal of the maintream instituionalism of it. It's like being disappointed in an old friend who used to be funny and exciting and unpredictable, when he used to drink but is extremely boring now that he's sober. Come back fun Bobby! We miss you. We've got a shoulder of vodka with your name on it.

The Wrestler V's The American Economy = The Uncler

The Uncler w/ Uncle Sam and Alyssa Milano from Alyssa Milano

This is one of the most strained and contrived ideas for a trailer parody we've ever seen but it's so well done and so well realised that we can't help but give it a round of applause. We're clapping right now. You just can't hear us. How they recreated so many scenes so accurately is beyond us.And they have Alyssa Milano in it.Granted she's not exactly A-list but still, that's surely a bit of a coup for a parody that probably involved quite a bit of shooting.

Miss March Trailer

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by madatoms

This looks like an internet a cheap internet short but apparently it's a trailer for Miss March which stars Craig Robinson from The US Office. There might be a good reason why it looks so horribly digital and straight-to-dvd (should that be straight to download or straight to youtube?). It also stars some of The Whitest Kids You Know, a comedy group made popular through internet comedy shorts who's popularity saw them graduate to their own TV show. Now they're taking on the movies. Great to see and everything, but would it have been too much to ask to use a decent camera?

Tales Of The Black Freighter - Trailer

Anyone who hasn't read Watchmen won't know much about Tales Of The Black Freighter. Anyone who has, will be chomping at the bit to see this straight to DVD adaptation of the comic within the comic that is being released to compliment the Watchmen experience. This looks pretty faithful to the vision of the original comic (within the comic) and Gerard Butler hits the bulls-eye in terms of voice casting. It seems like it will be as dark and bleak as it should be so count us in.

Rumoured Line-Up For Cannes

Hmmmm. What's that smell? It smells a little like bullshit. We're not quite sure. The list of films that are rumoured to be debuting in Cannes are like a movie buff's wish list. Porn for film geeks. It all just seems a little unlikely especially since the festival is in May and last we heard Michael Moore's documentary was only beginning to shoot. Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces opens in Spain in March so won't be too enticing to the Cannes programmers. It just feels like somebody is playing with the hearts and minds of us poor buffs. Getting us all excited and whipping up an internet frenzy of anticipation. Anyway, here's the list. Is it too good to be true?

Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces,
Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant
Lars von Trier’s Antichrist
Cristian Mungiu’s Tales From the Golden Age
The Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man
Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void
Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock
The new Michael Moore documentary
Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen
Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon
Ron Howard’s Angels and Demons
Jane Campion’s Bright Star
Todd Solondz’s Forgiveness
Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control
Ken Loach’s Looking For Eric
Neil Jordan’s Ondine
Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus
Park Chan-wook’s vampire drama Thirst
Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourius Basterds.

Finally, A List Without Goldfish Memory

No we aren't talking about the ubiquity of a little Irish low-budget rom-com on movie lists (last time we checked it didn't quite make the Sight & Sound Top 10 movies of all time). What we are talking about is internet lists of Top 10 lists of movie lists about the top 10 death scenes involving a carrot as a weapon. Most of these lists have a cinematic memory akin to a goldfish or more likely, the exact length of the author's life minus about 7 years. In other words, the lazy list writers don't like watching those boring old movies in black & white. Eugh! Yuck! When's Michael Bay's next joint dropping? Anyone?

So here's a fairly inconsequential list of The Top Mind-fuck Movies Of All Time, which actually includes movies before 1982. The list probably isn't too exhaustive and I'm sure they left a number of key mind-fuckers off the chart (Un Chien Andalou anyone?) but we mainly posted it to bitch and moan about 'all-time' lists without a single black and white movie, not to mention the dreaded word 'foreign'.