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Drag Me to Hell

Though it my not always seem like it, redblog is a family blog. So allow me to choose my next words carefully.

Sweet holy, barkin’, somersaultin’, lovable, eyeball-poppin’, road-racin’, gum-drop Sally.

Now this is a horror film.

Sam Raimi’s been several different directors in his 28-year career. Wild-eyed genre enthusiast (The Quick and the Dead), somber studier of tragic characters (the absolutely fantastic, minimalist A Simple Plan), and, of course, most famously, kinetic slinger of webs in the blockbuster Spider-Man trilogy.

But for those of us who grew up on the horror films of the ‘80s, Raimi will always be the maniacal puppeteer of The Evil Dead trilogy—the original, grim, low-budget horror-in-the-woods flick; the brilliant laugh-scream slapstick of its sequel/remake The Evil Dead II; and the less horror/more camp follow up, Armies of Darkness.

As you may have heard, that Sam is back.

Drag Me to Hell is something a whole generation of horror-film fans hasn’t seen much: pure, gleeful, slapped-silly gross-out fun. No brooding Japanese ghost stories with pale faced, stringy haired phantoms. (Though Raimi did his part to spread that trend as producer of the American Grudge.) No anatomically grotesque torture-porn sessions, a la the Saw series (and the much better Hostel films). No teenagers hacked up by frustrated handymen.

Instead, Raimi has gotten behind the wheel of his second favorite muscle car and put the pedal to the metal. (And yes, longtime Raimi fans, The Classic is here, in its biggest supporting role since Armies of Darkness.) As written by Raimi and his brother Ivan, Drag Me to Hell is the story of sweet, ambitious, good-hearted Christine Brown, played with wide-eyed, almost-dreamy guilelessness by the terrific Alison Lohman (Where the Truth Lies). A bank loan officer (boo! hiss!) out to impress her boss (David Paymer), Christine turns down an old gypsy woman’s request for a payment extension and in return gets herself a helluva lot of grief.

This plot stuff is pretty thin—it could be covered in about eight pages of an old EC Comics Tales From the Crypt issue. And that's the point: no messing around, no lallygagging. Christine’s character is sketched out quickly and effectively, aided by Lohman’s pitch-perfect performance: she's one of those go-getters we all know—or are—who try to say and do all the right things, support the right causes, and wrap up their ambition and fierce self-interest in oodles of happy smiles and rationalizing Oprah-babble. Until a demon curse from Hell comes along and runs all those rainbows and unicorns right through the wood chipper. Then Christine will do anything to get that promotion, and anything to keep from getting hauled off to the land of fire and brimstone. ("Here, kitty, kitty...")

This Weekend's Threes: Freeze Frame

It's Friday, and you know what that means. Time for another game of Threes: Freeze Frame. Just take a gander at the screen captures below and then tell us what movies they're from. The first person to guess all three correctly will have the noble task of building themselves a marvelous trophy. Isn't that how you'd like to spend your time next week?

On your mark, get set... go!

Movie #1





Movie #2





Movie #3

Think you know the answers? Then enter them in via the Comments link directly below this post and remember to check back on Monday to see who claimed victory. We don't publish any of the guesses until that point, so don't be worried if you don't see your comment show up.

Good luck!

The Rocchi Files: An Open Letter to Pixar ...

Dear Pixar,

 Congratulations on your tenth film, Up; it's a heck of achievement for a movie studio that started as something George Lucas ran as a side project and Steve Jobs didn't quite know what to do with. Up's also your first 3D film, and the technical achievements in it are really amazing, too -- the people look like people, the real animals look like real animals. And, most importantly, you've still got your amazing eye for a tale well-told; I joke that the secret to Pixar's films is that they're so well written you could tell them with sock puppets and still have the audience riveted. So, congratulations, and, at the same time, I'm sorry.

I say "I'm sorry" because, frankly, guys -- and yeah, Pixar's pretty much all guys, which we'll talk about later -- you're sort of in that U2-Joni Mitchell-Johnny Cash zone of creative ability now, the problematic one where you've done so much right for so long that it's starting to be a little obvious where your weaknesses are even in the light of your amazing abilities. And, unless you do something to break out of the box -- which is a well-made box, but a box -- you've crafted for yourselves, all of the promise and progress that you've shown so far is going to be slowly defeated, tiny cracks growing to shatter the whole foundation. I'm not even talking about your formula -- the way so many of your films revolve around an outsider coming to a secret community of personalities, becoming one-half of an odd-couple duo and uniting their new friends against a common foe with a big, bustling action set-piece climax to close out the film.

Thursday Threes: The Answer

Long-time poster Kristin (with an *I*!!!) not only finally got an answer correct, she got it correct FIRST! It's also a bit ironic that she misspelled the actor's name slightly--something Kristin knows I do myself quite often. Including HER name.

That's right, Kristin, you are full of win! And that win includes a homemade construction-paper medal! Which I have a suspicion Kristin might actually go off and make. Congrats, Kristin! Justin and Dora came in second and third.

Still not sure what actor was in New York Stories, The Thin Red Line, and King of the Hill? No problem, do not fret. Just open your heart (and cursor highlighter) and embrace the Inviso-Text below:

No, it was not Nick Nolte--though Nolte was in both The Thin Red Line and New York Stories. It was Adrien Brody, co-starring this weekend in The Brothers Bloom.

Brody's very first feature film role was in the Francis Ford Coppola section of New York Stories, "Life With Zoe" (written by a very young Sofia Coppola). (Nick Nolte was in the Scorsese section, my favorite, "Life Lessons.") Sixteen-year-old Brody played Mel--he doesn't seem to have any lines, and fans are even a little unsure as to exactly which crowd scene the teenager pops up in.

A few years later Brody played Lester in Steven Soderbergh's lovely adaptation of A.E. Hotchner's childhood memoir, King of the Hill.

Brody has gone on to turn in great performances in films like Spike Lee's Summer of Sam and the recent Cadillac Records, win an Oscar (for The Pianist), and star in Peter Jackson's King Kong. But the story of his first starring role "break" is one of Hollywood legend. Brody starred in Terrance Malick's brilliant 1998 film The Thin Red Line, a meditative adaptation of Jame Jone's follow-up novel to From Here to Eternity. In the book and the shooting script Brody's character Cpl. Fife is a primary protagonist and Brody was in the center of Malick's film.

Until the editing room, that is. Malick, a famously intuative, kinda Zen director, began reworking the very long rough cut of the film, with it's cast of dozens of characters (and an equal number of terrific actors) and ended up completely refocusing the final version on James Caviezel's pacifist character of Pvt. Witt. Thing is, no one told Brody. He showed up with his family at the premiere, all set to see him in his first starring role. Instead, the character of Fife is regulated to the background of a few scenes, mostly standing around watching other characters talk.

Best Movie Title Ever?

Hot Tub Time Machine.

Do you love it, or do you love it? 

If I told you that it will star Chevy Chase, John Cusack and Rob Corddry as a trio of friends who actually get sent back to their glory days in the late '80s thanks to a jacuzzi, would you love it even more? 

Production begins soon and the film is currently slated for a February release; here's hoping that it lives up to the promise of its straightforward yet hilarious title.

By now I've come to realize, however, that when any original concept is greenlit in Hollywood, it must mean that at least one prequel, sequel, reboot, remake or adaptation has surely been added to the slate of upcoming films or else the universe might implode.  Sure enough, hot on the heels of the Hot Tub announcement comes word that Chevy is batting about the possibility of appearing in a third Fletch film. 

There's been talk of reviving the Fletch franchise (based on novels by Gregory Mcdonald) for years -- everyone from Kevin Smith to Zach Braff to Joshua Jackson has been rumored to be involved.  Before today, however, the last buzz about the project came two years ago when The Office star John Krasinski confirmed that he was being considered for the starring role in a remake.

Now it looks like The Weinstein Company has approached Chase to reprise his original role and have his character pass on advice and words of wisdom to his nephew, who's preparing his own investigative reporting career.  Since Chevy has also recently appeared on NBC's Chuck and commited earlier this month to starring in a comedy pilot called Community (alongside The Soup's Joel McHale), he certainly must feel popular.  In fact, he probably feels like... a hundred bucks.

Up

(With Up's nationwide release today, we at redblog are re-running our review of the film from the Cannes Film Festival)

Over the years and its previous nine films, the Pixar name became synonymous with quality -- and, more subtly, synonymous with a certain kind of story, one where a duo of heroes works alongside a larger group to save a community as fragile as it is special. Pixar broke out of that mold a little with The Incredibles, to be sure, but that template seems to lie at the heart of almost every one of their other films -- Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Cars and more. And while an unlikely friendship is onstage in Up, Pixar’s latest effort, it also feels both fresher and deeper than many of their other films. There’s nothing here with the playful crazy spirit of the Toy Story movies, nor does it create a dizzying universe like Finding Nemo or Monsters, Inc., but at the same time, Up has got the most heart of any Pixar movie; it may be the first Pixar film about actual people, and for all of its computer-generated visions and 3D inventions it’s always about human emotion and human experience.

Up tells the story of Carl Fredericksen (voiced by Ed Asner), who we meet as a boy; his love for explorer Carl Muntz results in his meeting another Muntz fan, Ellie -- and then, in a five-minute silent sequence backed by Michael Giacchino’s beautiful score, we watch as Carl and Ellie fall in love, get married, live life, grow old, move on. They always dreamed of going to South America, but life got in the way, and after Ellie passes, Carl’s got a house full of memories and a plan. Retrofitting his house with balloons, Carl takes to the air … with a stowaway, Russell (Jordan Nagai), a Wilderness Explorer hoping to earn his last Wilderness Explorer badge for public service who came by asking if he could help Carl across the street, or across the yard; now, Russell’s going to help Carl across the world. …

Best Foreign Language Film Finally Arrives

If you watched the Academy Awards® this past February, you might remember the upset in the Best Foreign Language Film category.  Most critics thought Waltz With Bashir was a lock (our own James listed it as one of his Top Ten Films of 2008), but then presenters Liam Neeson and Frieda Pinto announced Departures as the winner.  Director Yōjirō Takita scrambled on stage -- stunned -- to accept the honor.

Over three months later, the Japanese film that took home the coveted golden statue finally hits theaters in select U.S. cities after earning $61 million in its home country.  It tells the story of a cellist who must take a job at a funeral parlor after his orchestra is forced to disband.   Specifically, he's put in charge of readying bodies of the deceased by dressing them and applying make-up.  Although he's too ashamed to tell his wife exactly what this new job involves, he soon learns to find deep meaning in his work.  If you can get past the somewhat hokey music that runs for about thirty seconds after the opening clip, you'll probably be as intrigued as I was by the rest of this trailer. (I loved the piece that played for the final minute.)

Seth Cohen/Adam Brody Fans, Rejoice!

There are some actors and actresses I have a hard time accepting in any role other than the one that made them famous.  Adam Brody is the perfect example.  For four seasons he played the lovably sarcastic Seth Cohen on The O.C., and I highly doubt I'll ever be able to envision him as anyone else.  Even in his (admittedly small) parts in Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Thank You for Smoking, he was still that skateboarding geek from California (...Californiaaaaa.... here we cooommme!  OK, I'll stop now) to me.  Since I've been steering clear of Meg Ryan films lately, I can't comment on Brody's performance in The Land of Women. (Although perhaps I should make an exception and check it out as it also stars a pre-Twilight Kristen Stewart.)  But from what I remember of the trailer, he was still embracing an emo-guy persona.

The good news for Adam is that he has two big opportunities to break out of the Seth Cohen mold in the near future.  The role that may do it for him is that of Nikolai, a Satan-worshiping rocker in Jennifer's Body, Oscar®-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody's follow-up to Juno.  Nikolai assists in the demon possession of Jennifer (Megan Fox), a popular high school cheerleader.  That definitely doesn't sound very Seth-like.

Further, today it was announced that, along with Seann William Scott, Adam will be joining the cast of Kevin Smith's A Couple of Dicks (which Locke wrote about here when it was originally called A Couple of Cops).  He'll play a no-nonsense detective who doesn't want to cooperate with Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan's search for a stolen -- and very valuable -- 1952 baseball card.  Shooting begins on Monday, with a release date currently planned for January. 

As Jennifer's Body premieres this September, we'll probably get to see a trailer for it soon and can then judge whether or not Brody successfully pulled off his stint as a nefarious cult leader.  If I'm still feeling an O.C. vibe from him at that point, however, then all hope is lost that he'll come off any differently in Smith's buddy-cop film.  He will forever be Seth Cohen, self-proclaimed creator of the holiday "Chrismukkah."  There are worse things to be remembered for, right?

Your Thursday Threes

How goes your Thursday? Well, here's how the Thursday Threes go:

I give you three movies. You figure out what actor was in all three films. You type that name into the comments section below this post. And if you're the first person to get it right? You win a dazzling homemade construction-paper medal. All assembly required.

I won't post any of the guesses until tomorrow when I put the answer up.

What actor was in all three of these films?

The Thin Red Line

King of the Hill

New York Stories

My Bloody Valentine

If you're going to remake a movie, when all's said and done, you might as well remake a bad one. This is the secret behind My Bloody Valentine, the new version of an early-'80's slasher flick which looked both cheap and Canadian -- which it was, and which it was. Years after a catastrophic cave-in that took place on, yes, Valentine's Day, a small mining town is assaulted by a murderer dressed as a miner, slaying dozens of victims in spectacularly gory fashion while a small-town soap opera worthy of daytime television plays out.

See, Sheriff Axel Kerr and Jamie King are married now, but she used to be madly in love with Jensen Ackles, who's come home to sell the family mine, and all kinds of old feelings are being dragged up while plenty of innocent (and, in great horror film tradition, not-so-innocent) people are being slashed up. Director Patrick Lussiter clearly has a more capable hand with the blood soaked than the heart felt, though, and you can feel him and his actors straining with all their might to try and make us care about these character's inner lives while everyone around them is having their insides cut out.