The Screengrab : in the name of the king

2008 in Review: Paul Clark's Favorite Movie Moments

Paul Clark — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Starting tomorrow, the writers of Screengrab will be unveiling their lists of the top 10 films of 2008. But before that begins, I’d like to post a different sort of list of highlights from the past year. For those of you who’ve only started reading recently, I used to write a bi-weekly column called “The Movie Moment,” in which I’d explore in depth some of my favorite scenes from movies both old and new. This past spring, I had to put the column on indefinite hiatus for various reasons, but I wanted to bring it back for this week only so I could celebrate some of my favorite Movie Moments of 2008. However, I had such a devil of time trying to narrow down my list that I’ve decided to simply list all of the moments that made me laugh out loud, cry like a baby, bite my nails uncontrollably, or which otherwise rocked my world this past year. This list is by no means meant to be taken as comprehensive, but merely were the moments which readily sprang to mind while I was writing the piece. So without further ado, I give you…

2008: The Year in Movie Moments:

(in no particular order)

The little boy’s confession notes- In Bruges

“No-no-no. I kill the bus driver.” - The Dark Knight

The security guard makes his rounds - Man on Wire

Sidney’s musical vows - Rachel Getting Married

The kiss that launched a thousand lens flares - Silent Light (only one of several transcendent moments in the film- the swimming-hole scene or the epic rainstorm might just as easily have qualified)

Mike’s late-night visit (or really, anytime Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” is played) - The Strangers

Peekaboo nudity - The Romance of Astrea and Celadon

Harry unveils the machine - Burn After Reading (honestly, who could possibly enjoy THAT?)

Madame Gaudens’ confession - A Girl Cut in Two

Incident at the race track - My Winnipeg

Most hilarious random line of the year: “When it comes to women, you’re Michael Jordan. I’m… Bill Laimbeer.” - Baghead

The new army suits up for battle - Role Models

Alex takes a shower - Paranoid Park

Brandi forgets her cell phone - Stuck

Black Kold Medina puts on a show - Trouble the Water

Runaway penguin - Encounters at the End of the World

Jung-rae Kim diagrams his neuroses - Woman on the Beach

Alex’s sex surprise, both inevitable and strangely erotic - XXY

The director’s big exit - Tropic Thunder

Most unlikely tearjerking moment of the year: Fred Knittle sings “Fix You”, Young@Heart

Three-way fist fight: Seth Rogen vs. James Franco vs. Danny McBride - Pineapple Express

The Richard McGuire segment - Fear(s) of the Dark

Ninjas! - In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (yes, really)

And finally, my five favorite openings and finales of the year:

Perfect openings: “Put on Your Sunday Clothes”, WALL*E; Sunrise, Silent Light; The piano, The Silence Before Bach; The Jean-Claude Van Damme Stunt Spectacular, JCVD; The Legend of Po, Kung Fu Panda

Great final scenes (no spoilers): Synecdoche, New York, The Duchess of Langeais, Shine a Light, The Visitor, Burn After Reading

I would invite all of you to share some of your favorites in the comments section. After all, I’m surely missing at least a couple of really good ones.

DVD Digest for December 16, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

One of this holiday season’s most in-demand gifts is sure to be a shiny new Blu-Ray player to go along with the mess of HDTVs that have flooded the market (what economic crisis?). Consequently, this week’s DVD Digest is heavy on Blu-Ray DVDs in titles both old and new, to serve as last-minute impulse buys for movie lovers of all stripes.

DVD of the Week: With all the new Blu-Rays that have hit stores lately, it seems only fitting that this week’s DVD of the Week be the first wave of Blu-Ray releases from everyone’s favorite DVD company, The Criterion Collection. Earlier this year, Criterion announced just over a dozen upcoming Blu-Ray titles, and today will bring four of them. Two are will be Blu-Ray editions of titles that were recently released by Criterion on standard DVD- Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express and Wes Anderson’s debut feature Bottle Rocket. But no less notable are the Blu-Ray releases of two old favorites from the Criterion vault, Carol Reed’s immortal The Third Man and Nicolas Roeg’s SF classic The Man Who Fell to Earth. As is the case with virtually all Criterion releases, the new Blu-Rays contain many special features, and the increased definition and sharpness that’s possible with Blu-Ray will undoubtedly make the films themselves look better than ever (Third Man and Chungking should be particularly eye-popping). If you own a Blu-Ray player and you don’t plan to buy at least a couple of these, you don’t have much business calling yourself a movie lover…

… In which case, you’ll probably be more inclined to purchase one of the other Blu-Rays that are hitting stores today. Paramount is releasing a quartet of their comedies- Hot Rod, Old School, The Heartbreak Kid, and the ever popular “Holy Schnike!” edition of Tommy Boy- along with the strange double feature of Coach Carter and Into the Wild, all in Blu-Ray only. And Fox is answering Paramount’s challenge rather feebly, releasing only Uwe Boll’s In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale in response. Gonna have to try harder than that, guys.

This week’s recent releases on DVD are highlighted by two late-summer hits that scratch some very different itches. On the one hand, you could watch the Golden Globe-nominated ABBA musical Mamma Mia! (Universal, also Blu-Ray). On the other, you could take a gander at The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Universal, also Blu-Ray), the latest in Universal’s effects-heavy franchise.

Heck, practically the only new DVD release not to be coming out in Blu-Ray this week is the acclaimed series Generation Kill (HBO). And while I won’t hold the lack of a Blu-Ray edition against the show, it nonetheless feels like the DVD-release version of bringing a knife to a gunfight. Unless, of course, you don’t have a Blu-Ray player in the first place, in which case the point is moot.

Trailer Review: Tunnel Rats

Paul Clark — Wed, 21 May 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Boll…

Is…

BACK!!! Twenty years after the heyday of Vietnam movies, Germany’s Mad Doctor of Cinema attempts to resurrect the genre in his own unique idiom. I was a little disappointed in the trailer at the outset when, just like every other damn Vietnam trailer out there, Boll cranks up the Buffalo Springfield to evoke the period. But after an inauspicious beginning, the Boll-ness of it kicks in around the time the soldiers descend into the tunnel. After the relatively sanitized lunacy of his PG-13 In the Name of the King, Boll kicks out the crazy again here, with plenty of gore and eviscerations in evidence. And is that a Michael Paré sighting? Awesome. I don’t expect the gum-chewing gamers to turn out for this, but you can bet your ass I’ll be there.

DVD Digest for April 15, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

For those of you looking to spend this year's tax refund check on DVDs, this won't be a particularly good week for you. But there is at least one exception...

Had you going there, didn't I? My well-documented soft spot for Dr. Uwe Boll notwithstanding, the real gem this week is The Criterion Collection's release of Blast of Silence. Criterion has long been beloved for its top-notch DVD editions of canonical favorites, but just as important in my mind is their tendency to unearth forgotten treasures. Allen Baron's Blast of Silence definitely qualifies, a grim, gritty noir about a hitman carrying out an assignment during the Christmas season. In many ways, the film feels ahead of its time, with Lionel Stander's narration- delivered in the second person- translating wonderfully to our post-Tarantino age. Blast of Silence is ripe for rediscovery by a new generation, and this Criterion release should ensure it reaches the audience it deserves.

Of course, if it's something new you're looking for, there are a couple of those this week. For people looking for indie quirk, there's two different versions of the Oscar-nominated juggernaut Juno (Fox, also Blu-Ray), the two-disc special edition of which includes featurettes called Diablo Cody Is Totally Boss, Jason Reitman for Shizz, and Honest to Blog! Creating Juno. But if you've already gotten all the Juno you can handle, or you simply craving characters who don't talk in grating sound bites, there's also MGM's Lars and the Real Girl, which isn't perfect but which I preferred to its better-hyped counterpart.

In addition, this week also sees the release of Sidney Lumet's "comeback" vehicle Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. I wasn't nearly as big a fan of the film as Scott von Doviak was, but it's good to see Lumet still making films that are worth getting excited about.

And I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the release of Dr. Boll's In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (Fox). After catching this in theatres, I remarked to my friends that it was "not good, but kind of awesome," exactly the kind of movie that I would have enjoyed when I was ten years old and fantasy movies weren't as popular as they are now. If nothing else, it's more entertaining than this week's other think-at-your-own-peril new release, Aliens vs. Predator- Requiem (Fox, also Blu-Ray).

As for classics, there's not much outside of our DVD of the week. Fans of late, logy Lean films can get their fix with the release of the A Passage to India Collector's Edition (Sony, also Blu-Ray). Also of note is MGM's two-pack of Mannequin and Mannequin 2: On the Move, for those who are so inclined. And for TV fans, there's The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection: Volume 2 (Universal), MGM's Alien Nation: Ultimate Movie Collection (which is missing the original theatrical feature), and American Dad, Volume 3.

Finally, we arrive at the moment where I turn over the column to my friend and yours, Mr. David Huddleston. Not too many condolences this week, only Warner Brothers' HD-DVD release of Bonnie and Clyde. Still, Mr. Huddleston wishes that his condolences weren't necessary, and that the DVD companies would take the hint and get on the Blu-Ray bandwagon so he could make other, more enjoyable plans for his Tuesday mornings.

Yes, I'm Serious: Paul Clark Defends Uwe Boll

Paul Clark — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Over the past week, Dr. Uwe Boll has gotten quite a bit of attention on the 'net, including a number of pieces right here on Screengrab. It seems all of this attention started with a little petition, one which read:

To: Dr. Uwe Boll

We, the undersigned, respectfully ask that Uwe Boll give proper weight to the wishes of the video game community, the horror community, and the film going community in general and stop directing, producing, or taking any part in the creation of feature films. His distasteful handling of the subject matter and lack of acknowledgement of his failures simply cannot be abided any longer.

Mr. Boll has repeatedly shown a complete lack of comprehension regarding the videogames he has dragged, kicking and screaming, to the silver screen and his ham-fisted approach to horror has soiled future possibilities for anyone else who may attempt to bring videogames to film.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

At this writing, the petition has gotten more than 150,000 signatures, and that total grows by the minute. But while I agree with some of the objections "The Undersigned" have to Dr. Boll's filmography, I have to take some issue with the aims of the petition.

Now, I wouldn't exactly consider myself a fan of his work- I was pretty mixed on his "best" film to date, this year's In the Name of the King, and the others I've seen aren't even that good. But I like the idea of Uwe Boll.

To be fair, I must concede his movies are, by and large, quite bad. Yet he's far from the only director who consistently churns out junk. So where are the online petitions calling for Stephen Sommers or the team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (the genuises behind Date Movie and its ilk) to be put out to pasture? Truth be told, I'd rather watch a Boll film than one of their movies, for the simple reason that Boll's movies, for better or worse, have real personality. To my mind, they're like mangy old dogs- they've got almost nothing going for them, but you can't help but like them a little.

Right now, there's a shortage of spectacularly bad movies out there, the kind of movies like Manos: the Hands of Fate or Robot Monster whose jaw-dropping ineptitude gives them a kind of charm. Most bad movies today (such as those by the aforementioned Messrs. Sommers, Friedberg, and Seltzer) are made with a certain level of polish and competence that gives them a glossy Hollywood veneer. Yet the professionalism of the films doesn't disguise their badness- it merely makes them boring and flavorless.

Boll's films could never be mistaken for their bland big-budget counterparts. For all their myriad faults, they carry within them the convinctions of their crazed auteur. Yes, he's a loudmouthed hack with a yen for self-promotion, but his enthusiasm for the films he's making bleeds through in every frame (also, his movies are usually full of hot chicks, which can't be ignored). You get the feeling that he geniunely believes that his movies are awesome, and that like the guy in Patton Oswalt's Death Bed routine, he's so jazzed about his brilliance that he's ready to reach up and high-five God.

For my money, I'll take that kind of enthusiasm over the workmanlike filmmaking of the studio toadies any day of the week. Like him or not, the good doctor is living the dream, and even if you hate his films, I'm not sure that calling for his retirement is the proper reaction. You don't have to see them, and if you do, you can always complain about them on the Internet. It's your right as a moviegoer. But making them is Boll's right, and as long as people pay him to do so, who are we to get in his way?

One Million Uwe Boll Haters Can’t Be Wrong

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Via Cinematical comes news that schlockmeister Uwe Boll either has a sense of humor about himself or at least would like us to believe he does. Boll, who specializes in brainless action and horror movies often based on videogames (House of the Dead, BloodRayne), is perhaps best known to those who avoid his movies like they’re radioactive for challenging his critics to fight him in the boxing ring. But is Boll finally tired of fighting?

After a screening of his latest exercise in videogame-based bad taste Postal (which opens with a scene of the 9/11 hijackers realizing there won’t be enough virgins for them in the afterlife as they hurtle towards the World Trade Center, and presumably only gets more hilarious from there), Boll chatted with FEARnet and proved he’s full of surprises. For one thing, he seems to take criticism more seriously than you’d guess. “I think the New York Times guy liked it,” he says, in reference to the Postal screening. “In all of the game-based movies, we got better and better. We took the critics and the Internet into account, and we got better with the script, and we got better with the characters and the stories. If you see Alone in the Dark, and later Bloodrayne and In the Name of the King, I think there is a quality difference in everything.”

We’ll just take his word for that. Boll goes on to call himself “a little Nazi pervert” and reveal that he is a PETA supporter (“one-hundred percent of my Seed horror movie goes to PETA”). But the most encouraging news is his response to the news that there’s an online petition with 18,000 signatures, demanding that Boll stop making movies. “Yeah, I know that. 18,000 is not enough to convince me…One million. Now we have a new goal.”

Here’s the petition. Do what you feel is right.