Alan Rapp

Quite Elementary Dear Holmes

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
  • IMDB: link

sherlock-holmes-case-of-silk-stalkingRupert Everett brings a certain savior fair to the role of Sherlock Holmes in The Case of the Silk Stocking.  Like Simon Brett, Everett doesn’t shy away from presenting Holmes as boorish and snobbish.  If only the writing and the mystery had lived up to his performance.

Dr. Watson (Ian Hart) has left Baker Street and is preparing for his wedding.  Sherlock Holmes (Rupert Everett) has removed himself from the mundane crime of London only finding solace in the prick of a syringe.  Lured out of his despondency by Lestrade (Neil Dudgeon) and Watson, Holmes tackles a case involving a serial killer who preys on the young daughters of the London elite.  Each victim is found dressed in clothes not her own, strangled to death, and with a silk stocking buried in her throat.

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Now That’s How to Market a Movie!!

/ / Uncategorized

We don’t often post trailers here on RazorFine, but this one just blew me away.  Now, I’ve never seen the broadway musical Rent or really know that much about the story or the music.  However, after viewing the trailer I wanted to get up and buy my ticket that second.  I have no idea how good the final cut of the movie will be (hey, the teaser trailer for Episode I kicked ass too), but this preview made damn sure I’d be in the theater to find out.  One of the best trailers I’ve ever seen.  Just click on the pic (Quicktime, links to other versions on the full post), enjoy, and let us know what you think.

Rent
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We don’t often post trailers here on RazorFine, but this one just blew me away.  Now, I’ve never seen the broadway musical Rent or really know that much about the story or the music.  However, after viewing the trailer I wanted to get up and buy my ticket that second.  I have no idea what the final cut of the moive will be (hey, the teaser trailer for Episode I kicked ass too), but this preview made damn sure I’d be in the theater to find out.  One of the best trailers I’ve ever seen.  Just click on the trailer, enjoy, and let us know what you think.

Quicktime

Real Player

Media Player

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Make Mine Marvel

/ / Uncategorized

Say goodbye to Marvel Comics boys and girls, we now have Marvel Entertainment, Inc.  Just one of many announcements coming from the house that Lee and Kirby built.  Seems they’ll be throwing comics on the backburner (judging from that Ultimate line might be the right decision) and moving on up to Hollywood and ten new movies to go into the works based off Marvel heroes.

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Say goodbye to Marvel Comics boys and girls, we now have Marvel Entertainment, Inc.  Just one of many announcements coming from the house that Lee and Kirby built.  Seems they’ll be throwing comics on the backburner (judging from that Ultimate line might be the right decision) and moving on up to Hollywood and ten new movies to go into the works based off Marvel heroes.

Due to the success of Hollywood film enterprise, Marvel Comics Marvel Entertainment, Inc.  announced the completion of a “$525 million non-recourse debt facility” which will finance ten theatrical films based off the Marvel characters in the next seven years.  Paramount has agreed to distribute the lot including the first film tentatively scheduled for Summer 2008. 

What makes the deal so interesting is Marvel retains complete creative control, final say, and a larger percentage of the profits than the films they have licensed to other studios (X-Men and Spider-Man franchises, Daredevil, Blade, The Punisher).  Marvel contends they will still stay closely involved in those projects in productions with other studios such as Ghost Rider and X-Men 3.  The move allows Marvel to cash in on the theater and DVD sales as well as a larger chunk of the merchandising done for each film, and allow the company to build its own film library.

Avi Arad, Chairman and CEO of Marvel Studios, commented: “The film slate financing enables us to evolve our entertainment operations into film production, an area where we have experienced past success with our partners and which offers significant profit potential for our company. The characters involved are some of the most valuable in the Marvel Universe, and we are excited to launch them as consumer brands via feature film releases under our direction.”

So what heroes are getting their own films?  Glad you asked.  Captain America, The Avengers, Ant-Man, Dr. Strange, Nick Fury, Hawkeye, Shang-Chi, Power Pack, and Cloak & Dagger are all being thrown up on the drawing board.  Interesting choices to be sure (Ant-Man?  Hawkeye?  Power Pack?!)  Each will get a budget of around $165 million (for Cloak and Dagger?!!) and will be either PG or PG-13, no R-rated films.

 

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The Ninth Gate

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Ninth Gate
  • IMDb: link

Roman Polanski at his best gave us Chinatown and at his worst gave us Pirates.  The Ninth Gate is a great suspenseful mystery as Johnny Depp is thrust into the world of the occult and dark knowledge.  One of Polanski’s, and Depp’s, best films.

The film opens with an older gentleman, Andrew Telfer (Willy Holt), just finishing his affairs one evening.  He then gets up from his desk and very matter of factly hangs himself from the chandelier of his study.  The camera pans to the books of his study for in this film knowledge can bring both power and death.

Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) deals in finding rare and expensive books, a book detective if you will.  His methods do not endear him to his competition as he will often sneak, lie, and trick his way into obtaining the object of his desire.  A very wealthy client Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) purchased Telfer’s copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows which was written in 1666 by Aristede Torchia before he was killed during the Inquisition for heresy and almost every copy was burned.

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The Weather Man

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Weather Man
  • IMDb: link

The Weather Man is an intriguing little piece of cinema.  It has wondrous, hysterical, moving, and thought provoking moments and yet the film is somehow less than all the great pieces put together.  It’s a hard movie for me to review, because so much of it I enjoyed, and yet not all of it fits together as well as I’d like.  It’s definatly worth taking a look at, and it’s one of those movies that will become highly quotable, yet I left feeling like it was just slightly unfinished.

David Spritz (Nicholas Cage) is on the fast track to success.  He works as the weather man for a local Chicago affiliate and has a good chance to snag the national job on hugely popular morning program with Bryant Gumbel (playing himself).

Yet with all this success David is unhappy.  He is separated from his wife Noreen (Hope Davis), who is dating a dildo named Russ (Michael Rispoli), and alienated from his two kids, Mike (Nicholas Hoult) and Shelly (Gemmenne de la Pena), who are both sliding into unhappy lives of their own.  David is also dealing with the poor health of his father Robert (Michael Cane) who is the paragon of success that David has never been able to measure up to his entire life.

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