What a surprising delight Brigsby Bear was. This 2017 creation of SNL alum Kyle Mooney, while fitting neatly into the quirky/indy mold, pulls at the heart-strings in unexpected ways. Without spoiling too much, it centres around the character of James, who has spent his entire life locked away from the world with nothing but the cheesy TV show 'Brigsby Bear' to keep him company. When he eventually emerges into the real world, all he want's is to see the next episode of his beloved show, and if one doesn't exist, perhaps he'll have to make it himself. This emotion comes from the characters around him, working out how to relate to James as he tries to fit back into the real world. There are some great performances from the whole supporting cast, including Greg Kinnear and Mark Hamill (which will be overshadowed by his role in Star Wars episode 8 this year). Ultimately, the film is something of an ode to the creative drive, and will leave you feeling inspired to follow ...

This article in the LA Times is a great reminder of just how stupid Hollywood studios are. They are shocked to learn that DVD sales, one of their main sources of income is declining, and the more terrifying is that its the poor quality titles that are the ones with the steepest drop off in sales. You know despite the media blitz trying to flog crap, people seem to have better information from other sources about said crap and are refusing to buy it. "...alarming, especially for studios that have thrived on seducing moviegoers into seeing mediocre product, is the realization that audiences are becoming more quality conscious. In the past, if a forgettable action film hit pay dirt at the box office, it would perform correspondingly well in DVD, allowing studios in greenlight meetings to provide a conversion rate -- i.e. that if a movie of a certain genre made $100 million in the theaters, that would equal X millions of units in DVD. But judging from recent DVD sales figures, films ...

So I, err, 'obtained' a copy of S. Darko, and now aren't you glad that I did, because you don't have to wait your turn. I mistakenly presumed that Richard Kelly, written/director of the original Donnie Darko was involved somehow, I imagined that perhaps given the less then stellar performance of Southland Tales (neither a critical or box office success), that he had returned to the Darko universe for a little comfort. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, because I actually thought Southland Tales was good. Believing that when watching the film made for a strange experience above and beyond the self-consciously contrived actual strangeness of it. All of these 'Kelly-esque' were there, but it was like the film-maker didn't know how to put them together. Which would have been odd if Kelly actually had a hand in it, but he didn't. Not even some vague EP credit, nothing. He basically disavowed the thing that was created by the studio that owns...

Behind the scenes footage of the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace . Did someone say Daniel Craig...

Earlier this evening my mother gushed about the recently released Juno , and how it was imperative that I see it, particularly for the performance by Ellen Page. I've been browsing the net too, as I'm want to do, and of course there has been a deluge of Heath Ledger related news. Messages from Ledger's family in a Perth newspaper were halting, a brief glimpse into their tragedy and the real Heath. His father lamented never again playing chess with his son, whom he could never beat. As if this weren't maudlin enough, I was also reading about the Hollywood industry response to Ledger's death as well. As I mentioned before, Terry Gilliam was shooting a film with Heath, and the quote he gave at the end of the Variety article , just served to compound the melancholy. Gilliam tells us that Ledger was about to direct soon, and that had was keenly observant of all of his techniques on set. Gilliam was sure he was going a be a better director then himself. The movie that Led...

~ There's a great little piece at TV Guide by Michael Ausiello about watching Brokeback Mountain again after hearing of Heath Ledger's death. ~ Poor Terry Gilliam was in the middle of shooting " The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus " with Heath Ledger. Rather then recast and reshoot, there is some talk of Johnny Depp replacing the Ledger in the film. Read how here . ~ Latest Britney goss is that her crazy antics that fuel the paparazzi might be due some sort of deal where she gets a cut from the sale of the pics . Could explain why she shacked up with a pap... ~ The Warner Bros backed big-screen CGI adaptation of Astro Boy has changed has switched directors. It's now being helmed by Flushed Away director David Bowers. ~ As if you really need a good reason to post a pic of Daniel Craig, but the new James Bond movie, coming out in November, now has a title - Quantum of Solace . Plenty of new details about the plot and characters have been released too.

Cloverfield seems to have done quite well at the box office over the weekend, doing $46 million in the US, which is comparable to Peter Jackson's King Kong opening, reports the LA Times . I find it interesting in these sort of articles how the explanations for the success of films like this, are pretty meagre. Cloverfield only cost $25 million to make, so its already broken even in that respect, although apparently the marketing campaign cost more then production. The reasoning given by the Times for its success... it was pet project of the a studio exec, and the good 'buzz' generated on the Internet was reinforced by good reviews. Two important questions are not really answered. What made it a good movie? What made people think it would be a good movie before they saw it? Apparently its a good movie because people went to see it, and people went to see it because its a good move. And people say Hollywood isn't insightful! The other reasons given for it's succes...

After months of drooling over the clever viral campaign and teaser footage, I finally saw Cloverfield last Friday. Sigh. Sometimes I wish all Hollywood features would only be a maximum of five minutes long, then it might be possible for them to just be on par with their trailers. I think Manohla Dargis over at the New York Times summed Cloverfield up succinctly when she said, Like too many big-studio productions, “Cloverfield” works as a showcase for impressively realistic-looking special effects, a realism that fails to extend to the scurrying humans whose fates are meant to invoke pity and fear but instead inspire yawns and contempt. What disappoints me, and this isn't the first time JJ Abrams has disappointed me, is that the basis of this film is an excellent conceit, but it seems rushed and not very thought through. I will admit that I loved Shyamalan's 'Signs', and one of the best moments in that film is when Joaquin Pheonix's character, sitting in the closet, ...