Tag Archives: Zoe Saldana

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MOV070: “You may know kung fu… but you’re still a fairy.”

The boys head back in time to do a little Axe-Kicking with Stephen Chow’s “Kung Fu Hustle”. After watching the town defend themselves by beating up on some bad guys, it was time to head to the theater to see Zoe Saldana do some of her own ass-kicking as a killer for hire in “Colombiana”. In the end, they check out the trailer for Guy Ritchie’s 2nd offering from his series, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”. In news, they chat about “Source Code” becoming a CBS series, what it may be like not to have Ash in Evil Dead, follow-up on some recent Facebook posts, and chat about Time Out London’s Top 100 Comedies of All Time! In intermission, it’s time to really talk about the impact Netflix’s decision to hike up prices may have had on the company. It’s the 70th, yup…70th Reel of COL Movies where “You may know Kung Fu, but you’re still a fairy!”

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News:

The Past: Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

Rotten Tomatoes: 90% Fresh 86% Audience

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Director: Stephen Chow

Starring: Stephen Chow, Wah Yuen and Qiu Yuen

Trivia:

  • Surpassed Siu lam juk kau (Shaolin Soccer) in February 2005 to become the highest-grossing Hong Kong-made movie in Hong Kong.
  • As of 2005, this film had the widest cinematic release in the USA of a foreign language film.
  • Three scenes are not directed by Stephen Chow. One, the fight that reveals the three Pig Stye Masters, is directed by Sammo Hung Kam-Bo. The “Burly Brawl” parody where the One fights the thousand men in black suits, and the fight in the night, where the three masters face the two musicians were directed by Woo-ping Yuen.
  • Most of the names of the superpowers in the film are taken from the pulp novels of Louis Cha, a household name in Hong Kong often compared to Alexandre Dumas père and credited with the invention of modern martial arts swashbucklers.
  • The name “Pig Sty Alley” (Zhu Long Cheng Zhai) is a play on the Chinese name for the Walled City of Kowloon (Jiu Long Cheng Zhai), a Chinese ex-clave in Hong Kong for much of the 20th Century, and well-known as a breeding ground of crime, slums and disorder. It was torn down in 1993.
  • The literal translation of the name of “The Beast” is in fact “Dark God of the Fire Clouds”. The name was first used by the writer ‘Liu Canyang’ in his novels in the 50s and 60s, where his character was originally his protagonist’s mentor. Comparatively lax copyright laws in Hong Kong and the menacing sound of the name have since however, caused the name to be appropriated in many other films, novels and comics.
  • Bruce Lee Tribute: When the Landlady is seated between the Boss and his assistant, she faces the boss, and mimics the gestures Bruce Lee used while also facing a crime boss in Return of the Dragon. She wags her finger at him, then closes both fists, then just the right (while knuckles cracking can be heard), she jerks her head up, and the boss nods he understands, then she thumbs her nose, exactly like Bruce Lee.
  • The names of the Landlord and Landlady that they announce to the Beast are “Yang Guo” and “The Little Dragon Maiden” in the original Chinese, which is a joke nod to Louis Cha’s famous novel “Return of the Condor Heroes” that has been adapted many times for television and film. Part of the joke is that unlike the Landlord, the original Yang Guo was a handsome youth, and unlike the Landlady, the original “Little Dragon Maiden” was a beautiful, rarefied young woman.

Talking Points:

  • Kung Fu movie style…does this count?
  • Was it supposed to be funny?

What We’ve Learned:

  • The lion’s roar kinda rocks.
  • The “fat lady” isn’t really that fat in American culture.
  • Where can I get me one of those Bhuddist Palm manuals?

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: A comedy of martial arts awesomeness. If you haven’t seen this, you’re missing out.
Ray: The humor is lost on me. I don’t really get it. It makes me smile, but I don’t find much of it funny. I can’t personally recommend it.
Steve: Enjoyable…if you like the genre, it’s fun. Don’t expect it to be a serious kung fu movie – more of a spoof by the people who know how to make kung fu movies well.

Intermission:
Higher Netflix prices equals fewer subscribers

Horror show: Netflix losing more customers than expected on price hike, stock plunges 19 pct

The Present: Colombiana
Rotten Tomatoes: 28% Rotten 59% Audience

Director: Olivier Megaton

Starring: Zoe Saldana, Michael Vartan and Callum Blue

Trivia:

  • The film has been criticized for stereotyping the Colombian culture, the president of the non-profit group PorColombia, Carlos Macias, depicting it as a proof of a “total lack of creativity” of “Hollywood”.
  • Several groups have rejected the film on the basis of the hypothesis that it was of a defamatory nature, changing the film’s slogan from “Vengeance is beautiful” to “Colombia is Beautiful”.
  • Filming began around August 20, 2010 in locations including Chicago, New Orleans, and Mexico.
  • The film was produced by Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp company and the script was written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen.
  • Colombiana debuted in second place in its first week at the U.S. box office with $10,408,176 behind The Help. It stayed #2 until August 31, 2011, when it went down to #3 behind The Help and The Debt.
  • The film itself was not screened to most critics in advance of its release until the day before its release, preventing opening day print reviews, but nevertheless, some critics reviewed the film.

Talking Points:

  • Controversy.
  • Did Zoe do well as an action star?

What We Learned:

  • Smart Girls always get what they want
  • Chicago’s not just down the street
  • Always make sure your shark tank is secure.

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: Kind of a fun movie but didn’t feel theater worthy to me. Wait for the DVD.
Ray: I had high hopes for it, but it just sort of fell flat. I would recommend waiting for Netflix or Redbox.
Steve: It was a decent movie. Nothing truly original about it – mostly just rehashings of other similar movies. However, Zoe did well and it was enjoyable to watch.

The Future: Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

Director: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law and Jared Harris

Summary:

Sherlock Holmes and his longtime trusted associate, Dr. John Watson, take on Professor Moriarty, with the help of Holmes’s older brother Mycroft Holmes and a Romani woman named Sim.

Trivia:

  • Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Penn and Javier Bardem were considered to play Moriarty.
  • Both Robert Downey Jr. (Holmes) and Jared Harris (Moriarty) had acted in the Oliver Stone film Natural Born Killers.
  • Robert Morley and Stephen Fry have both played Oscar Wilde and Mycroft Holmes. In the Gyles Brandreth books where Oscar is a detective, his friend Conan Doyle states that Oscar was the inspiration for Mycroft.
  • Sophie Marceau, Audrey Tautou, Penélope Cruz, Juliette Binoche, Virginie Ledoyen, Eva Green, Marion Cotillard and Cécile De France were considered to play Sim before Noomi Rapace was cast.
  • Leslie S. Klinger, author of “The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes” and a consultant on this film, said in an interview that he suggested “Sherlock Holmes: The Grand Game” as a title.
  • Stephen Fry (Mycroft) and Jared Harris (Moriarty) share the same birthday.

Talking Points:

  • Bullet time? really?
  • The actors didn’t seem to fit in the first movie. Will it be any better in #2?

Trailer:

Excitement:
Jeff: SOLD!
Ray: I can’t say I’m excited for it. The first one put me to sleep, literally.
Steve: Eh. Still haven’t seen the original. This doesn’t make me want to see it or this one, in particular. Rather spend my money on something else.

Coming Attractions:

The Past
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The Present

The Future

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MOV057: “Mascara to Mangina”

The boys continue their Pride Month Movie-fest by reviewing Ru Paul’s “Starrbooty”. Can Ru and the ever-fabulous Candis Cayne save this movie…or should it shante’ away? They go to the theater to see the JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg joint project, “Super 8”. Was it worth all the hype? Finally, they review the trailer for Zoe Saldana’s “Colombiana”, a kick-ass chic flick coming out in August. All this, movie news, and we hit up Flickchart for a little bit of fun. So, join us for this exciting 57th Reel of COL Movies, Ka’bitch – Ka’Boom!

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News:

 

The Past: Starrbooty (2007)
Rotten Tomatoes: No Reviews; 60% Audience

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Director: Mike Ruiz

Starring: RuPaul, Lahoma Van Zandt, Candis Cayne

Trivia:

  • The movie is the fourth in a series of films starring the title character, a top secret government agent and supermodel.
  • The original three films were all made in the mid 1980s by RuPaul and his friends with a budget of around $100, and were sold out of shopping carts around gay bars in Atlanta, Georgia.
  • The film is an homage to blaxploitation and sexploitation films of the 1960s and 1970s. In an article for EdgePhiladelphia, RuPaul stated, “The goal was to make an exploitation film that was part Russ Meyer, part John Waters and part The Naked Gun.”
  • The film utilizes things like obvious vocal overdubbing, grainy footage and dramatic cuts to mimic these low budget films of the past.
  • The movie’s supporting cast is primarily made up of pornographic film stars, both male and female. It is unrated, and though there is no explicit sex, it does feature several of its male stars frontally nude and erect, and at one point RuPaul is depicted graphically fondling a man’s penis. Though this is primarily played for comic effect, it is a marked departure from the “Drag Queen Next Door” image RuPaul cultivated during the height of her fame.

Talking Points:

  • I know this is supposed to be an homage to blaxploitation and sexploitation films in the 60’s and 70’s but did it go too far?

What We’ve Learned:

  • “We’re hoes, haaaay”
  • CBT does not mean Cracker Barrel Taco
  • You have to use what you got to get what you want.
  • Always end a sassy comment with, “Ka-bitch, Ka-boom” to emphasize affect
  • Manner Tanner is made of PEOPLE!!

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: One of the world’s worst movies. If BearCity was next to a porn, this was just over the line. Why did we watch this again?
Ray: It took every bit of will power to not turn this off.
Steve: Alright…it’s a bad movie. But so gay!

Intermission: Flickchart

The Present: Super 8
Rotten Tomatoes: 82% Fresh; 85% Audience

Director: JJ Abrams

Starring: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Amanda Michalka, Kyle Chandler

Trivia:

  • J.J. Abrams named the film’s setting, Lillian, Ohio, after his grandmother.
  • JJ Picked Ohio because that is where Producer Steven Spielberg grew up.
  • Abrams and Spielberg collaborated in a storytelling committee to come up with the story for the film.
  • The film was initially reported to be either a sequel or prequel to the 2008 film Cloverfield, but this was quickly refuted by Abrams.
  • It is shot traditionally, and filming started in fall 2010. The teaser itself was filmed separately in April.
  • This film is the first original J. J. Abrams film project, produced by Amblin Entertainment, Bad Robot Productions, and Paramount Pictures.
  • Filming took place in Weirton, West Virginia, from September to October 2010.

Talking Points:

  • Did it feel like the kids were really unimportant to the story to anyone? like if they were not in it the movie would not have been changed much?
  • Was wishing for a better score.. something more John Williamsish
  • Homages to other movies/projects?

What We Learned:

  • JJ Abrams still loves Lens Flares!
  • It pays to always have film ready in the camera
  • Exploding Train’s = production value
  • Not fair is Africa
  • A walkman is a slippery slope
  • Drugs are bad
  • That was MINT!

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: Definitely an homage to the Amblin movies of the 80s. Brilliantly done and filmed. It even felt like it was made then. JJ Abrams did it again. Go see this now!
Ray: I had fun with this one, very much felt like an old Spielberg film, JJ Abrams is indeed the master of the “Mystery Box”, I wasn’t as impressed with the creature as I’d hoped to be.
Steve: A bit of Cloverfield, mixed with Stand By Me, with a dash of ET. Thoroughly enjoyed it, even more than I thought I would.

The Future: Colombiana

Director: Oliviet Megaton

Starring: Zoe Saldana

Trivia:

  • Filming began around August 20 2010 in locations including Chicago, New Orleans, Mexico, Colombia and Paris.
  • The film was produced by Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp company and the script was written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen.

Talking Points:

  • Unique or just a twist on other movies that are already out there?

Summary:

A young woman, after witnessing her parents’ murder as a child in Bogota, grows up to be a stone-cold assassin. She works for her uncle as a hitman by day, but her personal time is spent engaging in vigilante murders that she hopes will lead her to her ultimate target: the mobster responsible for her parents’ death

Trailer:

Excitement:
Jeff: Luc Besson movie with a kick ass woman? Sign me up.
Ray: Love femme fatale’s and I’m a big fan of Luc Besson action movies… ! I’d go see this
Steve: The trailer really grabbed me in the theater, which is why I suggested we look at it. Definitely looks like something I’d see! Who doesn’t love a great kick-ass chic flick!

Coming Attractions

The Past
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The Present

The Future

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MOV016: “Bunny, Ball Ball”

This shows recording bandwidth brought to you by Starbucks.  Jeff just turned 30 so he though we should review his favorite movie, Hudson Hawk, but did they all like it?  We also reviewed Takers and the trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.

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News:

The Past: Hudson Hawk (1991)

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Director: Michael Lehmann

Starring: Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello, Andie MacDowell, James Coburn

Trivia:

  • The tones that the handcuffs make are the same as the tones used in Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967) for the telephones. James Coburn appears in all three movies.
  • Coburn plays “George Kaplan”, which is the name of the fake agent from North by Northwest (1959).
  • Igg and Ook both mutter their own names as their last words.
  • Bruce Willis says, “Directions even your brother can understand,” to co-star Frank Stallone. On the script, this jab is directed at the character of Antony Mario, but it doubles as an off-screen jab at Stallone’s real brother Sylvester Stallone.
  • Nintendo humor abounds in this movie. “New Jersey’s third-largest crime family” is known as the Mario Brothers. Additionally, Hudson Hawk has been in prison so long he does not know what a Nintendo is.
  • Isabella Rossellini was originally cast as Anna Baragli, but when the movie was delayed because of scheduling issues, the part was re-cast with Maruschka Detmers. However, due to back problems, she had to leave after a few days of shooting, and was finally replaced with Andie MacDowell.
  • Michael Ballhaus was the original Cinematographer on the project, but due to delays and overruns in principal photography he left the project and was replaced by Dante Spinotti.
  • In the bar, Bruce Willis talks about “reindeer-goat cheese pizza”, which he also mentions in The Last Boy Scout (1991).
  • The Brooklyn Bridge tollbooth scene was actually filmed at the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, as the Brooklyn Bridge had no toll at that time.
  • In this film Danny Aiello plays the Italian ‘criminal’ Tommy Five-Tone . This could be seen as an in-joke at The Godfather: Part II (1974) where Danny Aiello’s character, one of the Rosato brothers, attempts to murder Frankie Pentanglis, a.k.a. Frankie Five-Angels.
  • The film generally received negative critical reviews and was overall a box office bomb. James Brundage of AMC filmcritic said the film was “so implausible and so over the top that it lets inconsistency roll off like water on a duck’s back.”[2] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said of the film, “A movie this unspeakably awful can make an audience a little crazy. You want to throw things, yell at the actors, beg them to stop.”
  • It received Razzie Awards for Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst Picture.
  • Part of the reason for the box office failure is that the film is clearly intended as an absurd comedy and yet was marketed as an action film one year after the success of Die Hard 2. When the film came to home video the tag line “Catch The Adventure, Catch The Excitement, Catch The Hawk” was changed to “Catch The Adventure, Catch The Laughter, Catch The Hawk”.
  • A video game based on the film was released in 1991 for various home computers and game consoles. It is a side-scrolling game where the player, as the Hawk, must steal the Sforza and the Codex from the auction house and the Vatican, respectively. Then Castle Da Vinci has to be infiltrated in order to steal the mirrored crystal needed to power the gold machine. On his journey, Hawk must face many oddball adversaries, including dachshunds that try to throw him off the roof of the auction house, janitors, photographers, killer nuns, and a tennis player (presumably Darwin Mayflower).

Talking Points:

  • Have we become the Bruce Willis Fan Club?
  • Could we put more genres into one film, please?

What We’ve Learned:

  • There are 673 Wong’s in the phone book
  • Swinging On A Star is 5 min 32 seconds
  • You dont have to be quiet to be a cat burglar
  • The Pope Watches Mr Ed.
  • Although we love her, Sandra Bernhardt cannot act
  • Bruce Willis is so cool he can turn a nun!
  • If Divinci Was alive today he’d be eating sushi naked in the back of a Cadillac

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: I love this movie and I actually do NOT agree with anyone that it’s a bad movie.
Ray: A bad movie, but I love it.. I can watch this over and over.
Steve: What did I watch? I’m still processing it…

The Present: Takers

Director: John Luessenhop

Starring: Chris Brown, Hayden Christensen, Matt Dillon, Michael Ealy, Idris lba, Steve Harris, T.I., Jay Hernandez, Zoe Saldana

Trivia:

  • The first film applicable under futures and option trading based upon box-office returns in the United States. The controversial proposal was approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in June 2010.

Talking Points:

What We Learned:

  • If you’re a Police Officer, don’t follow perps with your kid in the car!
  • T.I. is a bad MF, but could stand some more acting classes
  • If you’re a big-time criminal, be sure to live as extravagantly as possible – no one will notice.
  • Even thieves have things going on in their personal lives

Trailer:

Recommendations:
Jeff: It’s meh, See The Italian Job or the Real McCoy instead.
Ray: enjoyable, but an inferior and someone boring copy of previous heist movies.
Steve: As predictable and formulaic as it was, I enjoyed it. Worth seeing at least as a rental if you like the genre.

The Future: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Helen McCrory, Bonnie Wright, Tom Felton, Jason Isaacs

Trivia:

  • The seventh of eight movies based on the Harry Potter book series by J.K. Rowling.
  • M. Night Shyamalan was interested in directing this installment.
  • Guillermo del Toro expressed interest in directing this installment.
  • At first, this was meant to be only one film, but due to the size of the book, and the decision that nothing could be left out to squeeze into one movie, the producers decided to split it into Part I and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011).
  • David Holmes, 25, Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt-double, was seriously injured on the set at Leavesden Studios, near Watford, Hertfordshire. He was performing an aerial sequence when he fell to the ground following an explosion, which was part of the stunt, and sustained a serious back injury.
  • John Williams, who composed the scores to the first three films, has expressed interest in returning to score The Deathly Hallows.
  • Bill Weasley is played by Domhnall Gleeson, son of cast member Brendan Gleeson.
  • The character Griphook was played by Verne Troyer in the first film; making him one of the few Americans cast; but was voiced by Warwick Davis. In this film, Davis plays Griphook in both body and voice. Davis will also be playing Professor Filius Flitwick as he did in the previous six films.
  • Cast members John Hurt and Bill Nighy have both played prominent roles in adaptations of another well-known fantasy series, The Lord of the Rings. Hurt was the voice of Aragorn in Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 film. Nighy was the voice of Sam Gamgee in the BBC Radio broadcast.
  • Composer Nicholas Hooper turned down the opportunity to score the final two films, saying that working on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) took a toll on his family’s personal life.
  • Daniel Radcliffe developed a cold from having to be in mud and dirt while filming the movie.
  • This film along with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011) are the only Harry Potter films to be released in 3D in cinemas in their entirety (only select scenes were available for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) and only in IMAX).
  • Josh Herdman announced on 9 August 2009 that Jamie Waylett would not be reprising his role as Vincent Crabbe for this film. Waylett’s character will be written out with his role in the plot taken over by Herdman’s character, Gregory Goyle.
  • First time that Brendan Gleeson and David O’Hara have appeared in the same movie since Braveheart (1995).
  • Bruno Delbonnel declined to return for the final two films, saying that “I think I was scared of repeating myself.” Subsequently, the filmmakers hired fellow French-Portuguese cinematographer Eduardo Serra.
  • Despite having stated that she would not be returning as Professor Sybil Trelawney for this film previously, Emma Thompson recently reported that she had just finished two days worth of filming as the character after all.
  • Jason Isaacs originally considered not returning for this film, fearing that his character’s arrest and imprisonment at the end of the fifth book and film would mean very little if any screen time in the finale. Upon meeting J.K. Rowling, he begged to be let out of prison. She told him “You’re out. Chapter one.” This immediately convinced him to sign on for the film.

Summary:
Voldemort’s power is growing stronger. He now has control over the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, and Hermione decide to finish Dumbledore’s work and find the rest of the Horcruxes to defeat the Dark Lord. But little hope remains for them, so everything they do must go as planned.

Trailer:

Excitement:
Jeff: I’m so so excited.
Ray: Cant wait, wish there was less time between both parts
Steve: Looks good, but I’m kinda over HP.

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