[Trailer] Listen Up Philip
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There's something about Jason Schwartzman that I just don't like. Granted, I've never met him, and I actually think we'd get along very well, but the characters he typically portrays all have this air of pretentiousness that I can never look past. However, for better or worse, Schwartzman knows how to take that archetype and run with it, very successfully I might add. For Listen Up Philip, it seems like his character is magnified tenfold.
Written and directed by Alex Ross Perry, Schwartzman stars as the titular Philip, an ego-centric writer awaiting the imminent release of his second novel. However, with the relationship with his girlfriend (Elisabeth Moss) failing, he finds solace in taking a small vacation at his idol's (Jonathan Pryce) country home to get away from the rigors of the city and his public life to focus on himself, the one thing he may actually enjoy in life.
Listen Up Philip will be in theaters on October 17th. You can read the film's synopsis below.
A complex, intimate, and highly idiosyncratic comedy, Listen Up Philip is a literary look at the triumph of reality over the human spirit. Anger rages in Philip (Jason Schwartzman) as he awaits the publication of his sure-to-succeed second novel. He feels pushed out of his adopted home city by the constant crowds and noise, a deteriorating relationship with his photographer girlfriend Ashley (Elisabeth Moss), and his indifference to promoting his own work. When Philip’s idol Ike Zimmerman (Jonathan Pryce) offers his isolated summer home as a refuge, he finally gets the peace and quiet to focus on his favorite subject — himself.
[Trailer] Extraterrestrial
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You know what's lacking in films these days? Aliens. The industry has been over-saturated by zombies and Young Adult fiction novel adaptations for far too long. I feel like aliens need to make a huge return, bigger than what we've seen in recent years (Transformers, Super 8, Guardians of the Galaxy, Prometheus etc.). While we're at it, let's create an inherently scary alien film that doesn't rely on some type of military deliberation to take the forces down.
From this first trailer, Extraterrestrial at least attempts to get the horror part down. Like most horror films, the typical tropes are present: group of young adults go on a weekend vacation to a remote location, stumble upon a mysterious force, irritate/disrupt the mysterious force, get killed one by one. Reviews of Extraterrestrial, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, weren't very kind to the film. However, the directors of the film, the Vicious Brothers, received praise from some outlets based on the groundwork they're setting for their careers, so that's a positive note to take.
Extraterrestrial will invade theaters on November 21st.
[Trailer] The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
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I haven't seen The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, so I can't quite vouch for exactly everything going on in this first official trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1. Much like the Harry Potter films, the final book in the The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, is being split into two films. The first part, of which you can watch the trailer above, will be released this year with Part 2 set for next November. As we mentioned earlier in the year, Philip Seymour Hoffman's untimely death won't have much impact on the shape of the films. Still, it's a bit surreal to see the departed actor in a few of the trailer's shots.
Again, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 will be in theaters on November 21st.
[Trailer] Print the Legend
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3D printers are like the coolest thing in the world. With the proper materials and schematics, you could conceivably print anything in the world. During SXSW this year, I even had some 3D printed candy. How awesome is that? While they're not priced for everyday use, they're still relatively affordable for a few thousand dollars. As somebody who's really into technology, my eyes tend to light up every time I come across something relating to the relatively new technology.
Print the Legend, a documentary that premiered at SXSW and was acquired by Netflix, follows some of the pioneers in 3D printing, including MakerBot, a company and innovator in the 3D printing industry founded in 2009 that faced controversy two years ago due to consumers printing gun schematics with their machines. The documentary also sheds light on the more positive sides of the innovation of 3D printing, as well. Of course, controversy sells more than compassion...
Print the Legend will be available on Netflix on September 26th. You can read the documentary's full synopsis below.
“The Next Industrial Revolution” is coming to Netflix… Print the Legend, the newest Netflix Original Documentary, is a story of innovation and technology, of controversy and change. For the first time in history, the building of an industry and its inevitable social upheaval has been filmed. The result is Print the Legend, a documentary which chronicles the race to bring 3D printing to the forefront of society. It’s a compelling look at an industry in the midst of its “Macintosh Moment,” chronicling the infinite and unlimited potential of 3D printing… as well as the dark possibilities that could lie underneath.
[Trailer 2] Fury
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The new international trailer for David Ayer's (Training Day, End of Watch) upcoming World War II film, Fury, features new scenes not found in the original domestic trailer cut. The focus, once again, is balanced between sharing the film's story with a ton of action sequences. As excited as I am for the film (it's probably my most anticipated film of the fall), the tracer bullets take me out of the story too much with their green and red lighting, which is very reminiscent of Star Wars' lightsabers. For a film so rooted and grounded in World War II, seeing tracer bullets lit like that took me out of the film too much. Hopefully, the team will realize this and find an alternative way to showcase bullets.
Fury has been bumped up from its original November release date to October 17th. You can read the film's full synopsis below.
April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.
[Trailer] Starring Adam West
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Adam West has been experiencing a career revival of sorts over the past decade thanks to his hilarious role in Family Guy playing a highly-exaggerated caricature of himself. In a way, it's befitting considering he first experienced fame due to his highly-exaggerated depiction of Batman during the very campy '60s Batman TV series. Of course, with such an iconic role that grew all across '60s pop culture, West found himself typecast following the show's cancellation only three seasons in. The following years weren't so kind, yet West has been able to persevere through it all thanks in part to the aforementioned Family Guy role, but also the growth and widespread acceptance of the once taboo culture of comic book fandom. Starring Adam West is a documentary that appears to track all of the ups and downs in West's long-lasting career.
The documentary is available to watch on Starz Encore right now with a VOD release slated for September 16th. You can read the documentary's synopsis below.
In 1966 Adam West was on top of the world. The farm boy from Walla Walla was on a meteoric rise to fame as the star of the ABC series Batman. But after three seasons, the series was cancelled, leaving West typecast as the caped crusader. But Adam West never gave up. Through good years and bad he continued to follow his passion, pursue his craft, and fight his way back. “Starring Adam West” is the story of a Hollywood survivor, a family man, and the loyal fans who will stop at nothing to see their super hero justly rewarded with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
[Trailer] Cub
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I may be biased, but foreign films have always been more visceral and entertaining. Horror films, on that same note, are always more potent when not held back by Hollywood studios (or influence), especially when they're the perfect mix of gore, sudden scares, and psychological torture. Premiering as part of this year's Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness program is the Belgian horror film, Cub. Directed by first-time director Jonas Govaerts, the film follows a Boy Scout troop into the woods where a psychopathic killer has set traps to kill each of the scouts one by one. The trailer, which you can watch above, is dark in both lighting and tone, with the aforementioned troop's singing creating a disconnect from the violence that befalls them.
Cub premieres at TIFF on September 10th with no news of distribution. However, here's hoping it'll find a deal with one of the niche genre companies... Drafthouse Films, perhaps? You can read the film's synopsis below.
CUB is a horror adventure in which a young imaginative twelve-year-old boy named Sam heads off to camp with his Cub Scouts pack, leaders Peter and Chris and quartermaster Yasmin. Once they enter the woods, Sam quickly feels something is not quite right. He soon stumbles upon a mysterious tree house and meets a shifty, masked feral-looking child. When Sam tries to warn his leaders, they ignore him: the boy often tells tall tales and Sam’s mysterious past which he refuses to talk about makes his leader Peter mistrust him. As Sam gets more and more isolated from the other scouts, he becomes convinced a terrible fate awaits them: the Feral Child, it turns out, is the helper of the Poacher, an evil psychopath, who has riddled the forest with ingenious traps and is intent on slaughtering the scouts… one by one…
[Red Band Trailer] ABCs of Death 2 (NSFW)
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The horror anthology ABCs of Death is back with a sequel, the aptly-titled ABCs of Death 2, featuring 26 all new directors and 26 all new ways to die. For those unfamiliar with the series, various directors are given a letter of the alphabet in which they use a word beginning with that letter to represent the theme of their short film. The anthology is at both ridiculously scary and b-movie camp all at the same time, which should appeal to all types of midnight movie audiences. ABCs of Death 2 features directors Alejandro Brugues (Juan of the Dead), E.L. Katz (Cheap Thrills), Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado (Big Bad Wolves), and more.
ABCs of Death 2 will be available on iTunes and VOD on October 2nd, with a theatrical release set for Halloween. You can read the film's official synopsis below.
ABCs of Death 2 is the follow-up to the most ambitious anthology film ever conceived with productions spanning from Nigeria to UK to Brazil and everywhere in between. It features segments directed by over two dozen of the world's leading talents in contemporary genre film. The film is comprised of twenty-six individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet, beginning with the letter A and ending with the letter Z. The directors were then given free rein in choosing a word to create a story involving death. Provocative, shocking, funny and at times confrontational, ABCs of Death 2 is another global celebration of next generation genre filmmaking.