Alan Rapp

This Week in Independent Film

Parker Posey stars as a New Yorker tired of her life and desperate for love.  She leaves the U.S. and travels to Paris to try to find love with a man she just met (Melvil Poupaud).  Gena Rowlands, Drea de Matteo, Lucy Gordon, Nadia Dajani, and Justin Theroux also star.  Check out the official site.  The film opens in select cities in limited release on Friday.

Broken English
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This Week in Film

John Cusack plays an expert who disproves the supernatural (haven’t we already seen this movie earlier this year?); when he checks himself into the legendary haunted room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel he will discover some ghost stories aren’t stories at all.  Samuel L. Jackson, Tony Shaloub, and Mary McCormack also star.  Check out the official site.  The film scares itself into theaters everywhere on Friday.

1408
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The Robot Chicken Star Wars Special

We love us some Robot Chicken, especially when they take a pointed, but affectionate, stab at our beloved Star Wars (check out two of our favs – “What the Hell is the Aluminum Falcon” and “And as I Child I Built C-3P0”).  Tonight Cartoon Network is premiering the brand-spanking-new Robot Chicken: Star Wars special as a part of Robot Chicken marathon which begins at 10:00/9:00 pm.  If you miss the first airing don’t worry, the special is scheduled to re-run at the top of the hour all night and into the wee-hours of the morning.  Hope you’ll be watching; you know we will be!

Robot Chicken Star Wars Special
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Not Craptastic, but Far From Fantastic

  • Title: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
  • IMDb: link

“All that you know is at an end.”

rise-of-the-silver-surfer-posterI love the Silver Surfer. He is one of my favorite Marvel Comics heroes (though not my favorite Marvel character).  When news broke that the team that created the suckfest known, at least by me, as Craptastic Four was getting a chance to ruin this character as well I started stocking up on ammunition.  The film is far from the total desaster I imagined, and in truth the makers have made some great strides from the first film (this one is actually watchable without raising my blood pressure to dangerous levels).  I guess I could give it a pass just on improvement and effort, but although it’s not craptastic, like its predecessor, it’s far from fantastic.

Things pick up some months (years?) after the last movie.  Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) are preparing to marry, Johnny (Chris Evans) is still a media-whore, and Ben (Michael Chiklis) is still made of what appears to be orange spray-painted foam.  To be fair, the look of the Thing is an improvement from the last film (they must have spent at least $50 on his costume this time), but what is up with Jessica Alba’s eyes?  Is she a scientist who can turn invisible or some weird alien creature?

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