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Submarine

As you might be aware, we’re big fans of the IT Crowd (see our Tnetennba post) and also of quirky indie movies. So we’re getting quite excited by the new film “Submarine” directed by Richard Ayoade.

From the trailer it feels like the best of a Wes Anderson movie crossed with Sophia Coppola – but with a touch of dark British humour. The film was shown a few weeks ago at the Sundance festival and received some excellent reviews and should be released in the UK on 18th March 2011.

See the trailer:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IVFfiv6wpY[/youtube]

Some things I didn’t realise about Richard Ayoade, he’s already a well known music video director and has worked closely with the Artic Monkeys, directing their “The Arctic Monkeys at the Apollo” feature. View Richard Ayoade’s IMDB profile.

The best three years for movies

After spotting a few 25 year anniversay DVDs for great films I suddenly realised that not only am I getting old but also the greatest three years for movies ever was 1984, 1985 and 1986. I don’t think it’s just a case of misty eyed, childhood memories either. There’s a few films from that time that I didn’t get to see until much later.

I suppose a list of films to prove my point is needed:

1984

  • Ghostbusters
  • The Terminator
  • This Is Spinal Tap

1985

  • Back To The Future
  • The Goonies
  • Brazil

1986

  • Aliens
  • Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
  • Crocodile Dundee

These are just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t think there’s been a greater contribution to modern movie pop culture that the films released in those three years. 25 years later we’re still seeing adverts based on the Ghostbusters theme, t-shirts with Save Ferris on and everyone still wants a DeLorean.

So, what else made those years so great? It was the high point for the ex-Saturday Night Live team of Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd and Chevy Chase. Arguably the greatest films starring these comedians were released in those three years:

  • Ghostbusters
  • Spies Like Us
  • ¡Three Amigos!
  • Fletch
  • National Lampoon’s European Vacation

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHVpJGXZ21o[/youtube]

These three years brought the world the Police Academy movies, which is a good thing! And also the first installment of the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy – without which Eddie Murphy might only be remembered for The Golden Child (also released in 1986).

In 1984 the world got the first big glimpse of Tom Hanks in Splash, if only Big had been made two years earlier it would have been added to this list as the best Hanks movie to date. The Karate Kid was released in 1984 – can the new version compete? Also in this year we got to see Romancing The Stone, Gremlins and The Killing Fields.

1985 is the big year for epic movies: The Color Purple and Out Of Africa were both released this year. But what strikes me most is all the films that people still love today:

  • The Breakfast Club
  • The Sure Thing
  • Teen Wolf
  • Weird Science

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkX8J-FKndE[/youtube]

To be honest, things drop off a bit by 1986 but there are still some unexpected classics popping up: The Fly, The Name Of The Rose, Platoon, Top Gun. Not forgetting possibly the most important film release of the year (to my 10 yr old self) Tranformers: The Movie, starring Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, and Orson Welles!

So, I might have missed out a few of the more “important” movies of the time: The Muppets Take Manhattan, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Flight of the Navigator, Short Circuit etc. But I think I’ve proved that there’s never been a better three years of movies.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO68zwTXFWk[/youtube]

Fully Flared

I think I might have missed this somewhere over the last year but I love the intro to this skateboarding video. Directed by Spike Jonze with music from M83, it looks incredible and the music fits perfectly.

That final explosion was the most dangerous, apparently using napalm to create the effect.

More about Lakai (the company responsible) and the movie at the Lakai movie pages.

If you can get the DVD in the UK I’d like to see it – otherwise in the US You can see view it here.

Slusho!

You can’t drink just six apparently. So, this was thought to be a marketing plot for Cloverfield (see our 11808 update but now it’s appeared in Heroes and there are rumours of a Lost appearance this season.

This all looks like a bit of an in-joke to me but it’s all good fun. I haven’t been able to find those pictures of the Lost cast with Slusho’s and t-shirts yet, maybe it’s all building up to a massive Lost/Cloverfield/Heroes mashup?

Here are some of the Heroes cast with Slusho’s:

Slusho on Heroes

Slusho on Heroes

Slusho on Heroes

Pictures from Greg Beeman’s Heroes blog

Wikipedia has a bit more on Slusho and here’s the site that started it all Slusho!

Star Trek casting call

Ever wanted to be in Star Trek? Of course you have! Now’s your chance, if you happen to be in Burbank, California on the 10th November and are “Ages 18-70, any ethnicity: to play Cadets: young, fresh-faced, Military types”

In particular they’re looking for: “Talent with interesting and unique facial features such as: long necks, small heads, extremely large heads, wide-set eyes, bug eyes, close-set eyes, large forehead, short upper lip, pronounced cheekbones, over- or undersized ears and/or nose, facial deformities, ultra plain-looking people, ultra perfect-looking people, pure wholesome looks, twins, triplets, emaciated talent, regally poised and postured talent, or other visually unique characteristics.”

If you’ve read previous news stories you’ll know that I’m a bit of a J J Abrams fan and having him direct this prequel to the Star Trek series means that this is a film I’m quite looking forward to. And the choices for the starring roles: Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes), Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana (The Hulk), Chris Pine (Smokin’ Aces), Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings), Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead), Anton Yelchin (Charlie Barlett), Zoe Saldana (Vantage Point), John Cho (Harold and Kumar).

There might be a problem with having so many familiar faces as already familiar characters – they’re going to have to be very good to pull it off without the whole movie looking like a bad SNL Christmas Special sketch.

Star Trek casting details

Thundercats are on the move

According to Variety, Thundercats is being slated for a big screen outing. Famous for having the best theme tune of any cartoon from the 80s, Thundercats still manages to be quite good.

The big news most people are concentrating on is that Jerry O’Flaherty has been marked down as director – his previous career has consisted solely of computer games production. But I think that’s possibly a good thing: he’s obviously a nerd and probably already has all the episodes of the cartoon on DVD.

Variety article

This is what O’Flaherty has to say on the subject:

But the “Thundercats” story appealed to him, as well as the fact that vidgames are increasingly incorporating lavish animated sequences that mimic pics, making a toon a much easier transition.

“It feels like a natural thing for me to step into,” he said. “Games have come so far now. The last four years of my life have been about bringing the energy of filmmaking into the videogame experience.”

I’ve already mentioned the theme tune, but how good was it really?

Excellent!

11808 – Cloverfield update

Since I wrote the original news item linking through to the trailers we’ve had thousands of visits from people wanting to know more. So, here is a more complete story with the original trailer after the jump.

For those that don’t know, 11808 is the release date of the science fiction / monster movie, from producer J J Abrams, also known as Cloverfield.

Official site

The story so far:

Following the success of the Transformers viral campaign, Paramount decided to release the original trailer well before the release of the movie to create hype. It worked!

Lots of small, apparently interlinked, websites emerged soon after with supposed hints about the film (in a similar way to Abrams other big project Lost) most of these small sites have been revealed as fakes as Abrams himself stated “while a number of websites were being developed to market the film, the only official site that had been found was 1-18-08.com”

The trailer:

So far, that’s about all the information there is about the film.

Rumours we probably shouldn’t believe: It’s a Godzilla type film. There are Raptors like in Jurassic Park. It’s all shot on handheld / camera phones.

Fact: It’s not called “Monstrous”. There’s something in it related to “Slusho!” (whatever that might be…)

www.slusho.jp – you can’t drink just 6!

Official trailer at apple.com

DeLorean comes back…

…to the future?

According to the BBC DeLorean are considering starting a limited run of 20-25 cars a year of the classic car:

“There are guys who were in their teens when they first saw the movie, who are now in their late 30s or early 40s, who are at that point in life when they can get the car they wanted when they were a kid.”

I want one!

What is 11808?

Anything that J J Abrams gets involved with always gets a lot of internet hype and this is no exception. The film is codenamed Cloverfield and the trailer is looking very good!

Cloverfield trailers

Kwik-E-Marts

The Simpsons movie is just around the corner and 7-11 in the states has converted 10 or so of it’s stores to Kwik-E-Marts. It looks as though they’ve done a fantastic job – I want a pack of KrustyOs! check out the photoset on FlickR.

7-11 / Kwik-E-Mart photoset

Thankyou, please come again.