Every great superhero needs an arch-nemesis, and Captain America’s got a particularly nasty one in the Red Skull, a Nazi weapons expert and terrorist leader personally trained by Hitler. Hugo Weaving dons the maniac’s mask in “Captain America: The First Avenger,” debuting on Friday. The Red Skull is one of the most dangerous of all comic-book supervillains but how would he get along with other bad guys from recent movies?
Originally published July 20, 2011 on msnbc.com. Read the complete article.
One of comics’ most iconic superheroes gets his first major movie appearance on Friday in “Captain America: The First Avenger.” But though the super-soldier has been around since World War Two, he’s probably not as familiar to the average filmgoer as Batman, who’ll return to theaters next year in “The Dark Knight Rises.” How do the two of them stack up against each other? Let’s count the ways.
Originally published July 19, 2011 on msnbc.com. Read the complete article.
Earlier today, I met with fans of the Harry Potter series for a live chat on MSNBC.com to discuss the final movie, the differences between the books and the films, and the future of the series. The chat’s over now, but you can see a transcript of it here.
Theres something missing from Color Me Obsessed, director Gorman Bechards new documentary about Minneapolis music legends The Replacements: the band itself. Bechard purposefully avoided putting Paul Westerberg or his bandmates in the film directlyno interviews, no music, no concert footage, no album covers. But what seems at first to be a self-defeating approach is perhaps uniquely suited to The Replacements, a band so infamously disinterested in its own fame that its members once tried to steal their master tapes and throw them in a river, and flipped the bird to the whole idea of MTV by making a music video consisting entirely of a speaker playing Bastards Of Young for three and a half minutes. As its title implies, Color Me Obsessed is about the bands fans as much as it is about the band itself. By not directly including The Replacements in the film, its subject broadens beyond simple biography into an exploration of what it means to be a fan, and to have your life changed by a song. Obsessed tells The Replacements story, from formation to early 90s flameout, through the words of fans, critics, and contemporaries from the Minnesota music scene, including HüDüant Hart and Greg Norton, The Hold Steadys Craig Finn, Kids In The Halls Dave Foley, and Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy. The A.V. Club talked with Bechard in advance of Color Me Obsesseds Minneapolis debut, 7 p.m. May 4 at the Womans Club, as part of Sound Unseen.
Originally published May 2, 2011 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.
Without access to a time machine, theres no way to see every film shown at MSPIFF, although this years expanded schedule means that, unlike previous festivals, each film will screen at least twice. A complete list of titles and showtimes can be found here, but if you need a little help making your own choices, here are 12 movies that seemed especially intriguing to us.
Originally published April 14, 2011 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.
In Jules Vernes day, going around the world took 80 days. The space shuttle does it in 90 minutes now, but you dont get to see much along the way. Luckily, theres a third option, which does not even require leaving the St. Anthony Main multiplex: This week, the annual Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival returns with an expanded lineup, marking its largest year ever. This years slate includes 170 films, with more than 100 feature-length movies and 10 collections of short films, a heavy contingent of Minnesota-made movies, and a wide array of films made in countries from Peru to Tibet to Cuba to Kyrgyzstan. The festival includes themed programs of experimental and French cinema, movies about music, the kid-friendly Childish series, and a late-night horror/sci-fi series. To hold all that, MSPIFF is expanding to three full weeks, April 14-May 5, followed by the audience-chosen Best Of Fest series the week of May 6.
Thursdays opening-night lineup includes a tent party and a trio of movies that all, in their way, should resonate with Minnesotans. The documentary Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times features former Twin Cities Reader editor David Carr, wholl be attending; Trollhunter is a Blair Witch-esque mockumentary about a team of Norwegian monster-chasers; and then theres the self-explanatory Score: A Hockey Musical. The closing-night film is equally Twin Citian: The romantic drama Stuck Between Stations stars locally born Josh Hartnett, was filmed in town, features a plethora of local bands, and even takes its title from a song by The Hold Steady.
The A.V. Club talked to festival programmers Ryan Oestreich and Jesse Bishopwho are part of a team led by venerable festival founder Al Milgrom and co-programmer Tim Gradyabout this years films.
Originally published April 14, 2011 on avclub.com. Read the complete article.
Recent films offer up some weird science, but believe it or not, some of it’s quite possible
When it comes to science-fiction movies, the fiction tends to trump the science. And that can be just fine movies are supposed to be entertaining, and nothing saps the joy out of them more quickly than complaining that there’s no sound in space, so the Death Star should’ve exploded in total silence. You’ve got to meet the movie halfway. But it’s also hard to do that unless the filmmakers give you some plausible reason to believe that tyrannosaurs could be resurrected, or Captain Kirk could beam himself up.
We looked at a half-dozen recent movies including the new thriller “Limitless,” out March 18 to see how their science stacked up, and whether their near-future inventions would be anything we’d actually want to see in real life.
Originally published March 7, 2011 on msnbc.com. Read the complete article.
Tags: msnbc.com
commentary, film, Hot Tub Time Machine, Inception, interview, Iron Man, Limitless, Never Let Me Go, science, science fiction, Tron | Christopher Bahn | March 7, 2011 1:10 pm | Comments (0)
‘Battle: Los Angeles’ is sure to round up some of our favorite alien-invasion cliches
Global warming and the occasional hurricane aside, the Earth is a pretty nice place to live. No wonder aliens are constantly trying to conquer it. The latest assault by hostile visitors from outer space comes in “Battle: Los Angeles,” debuting in theaters March 11.
If it seems a little familiar, well, it is the basic template of alien-invasion stories has been in place for more than 100 years, ever since novelist H.G. Wells created the definitive model in 1898′s “War of the Worlds.” Here’s a look at the time-honored traditions or, when done badly, the hoary cliches you’ll find in nearly every alien-invasion movie.
Originally published Feb. 24, 2011 on msnbc.com. Read the complete article.
A quick look at the nominees in the major categories for this years Academy Awards.
Originally published Jan. 25, 2011 on msnbc.com. Read the complete article.
Over the course of seven books and (soon) eight films, J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter series has become a rich and complex world populated by dozens of characters, each with their own personalities, histories, and agendas. Theres so much happening, you might need a scorecard to keep up. To get you up to speed before the Nov. 19 release of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, the first of the movie series two-part finale, heres a quick primer on the major characters in Harrys story. In these final two films, the evil Voldemort begins him final assault on the wizarding world. The key to his defeat rests on whether Harry can unravel the secrets of two sets of mysterious magic items. First, he must find and destroy the seven horcruxes into which Voldemort has sent his soul. And Harry must also discover the three fabled Deathly Hallows, which can make their possessor the Master of Death.
Originally published on msnbc.com Nov. 16, 2010. Read the complete article.