100 words on Final Destination, V48 Hours and Aaron Eckhart

Final Destination 5

So they decided not to call it The Final Destination 2. Whatever, at least they didn’t go with Final Five. The trailer for the latest entry in the we’re-not-The-Omen franchise doesn’t show any signs of it being the “Final” nor does it look like it’s going anywhere new (a “Destination” if you will). Here’s a summary: massive bridge accident, guy foresees this (for reasons that will probably go unexplained yet again), lady who is too old for a teddy bear faces laser in-correction surgery, Candyman’s back and Chinese acupuncture puncture. In more important news, I bought some new socks today.

V48 hours

The 48 hour film fest has spread like Chlamydia, in which most of us knows someone who’s deep in it. This Friday (May 20), me and my Voltron squadron of film fanatics will combine to form a cinematic speed demon for a sixth year in a row, ready to regurgitate five minutes of artistic nonsense, or die trying. Like most, my ventures into the competition have been riddled with joy, failure, anger, success, frustration and every other facet of the emotional spectrum. If there’s no post from me next week, just assume one of my team-mates strangled me to death.

How The Usual Suspects was ruined for me

I caught The Usual Suspects a while back on Sky Movies. Or was it MGM? Can’t remember. I was hungover that morning. When you’re melted on the couch recalling the night before, only a certain category of movies will compliment your sloppy state of mind. The Usual Suspects is not one of those movies. Foolishly believing it’d be a straightforward action flick which I could pop in and out of, the ending flipped the whole thing on its head, causing me to blurt out “Wait, what!?” I quickly realised that a supremely intelligent film was wasted on my dumb ass.

The Five Obstructions

This obscure Danish documentary centres around director Jorgen Leth and long-time admirer Lars von Trier. Lars claims that Jorgen’s 1967 short The Perfect Human was the single most influential film he had ever seen. He challenges Jorgen to recreate the film five times under five different conditions, like “three frames per take.” It’s an intriguing experiment through creativity and expectations, an experiment that Lars is rumoured to repeat with Martin Scorsese and scenes from Taxi Driver. I’d love this to be true, as long as one of the obstructions isn’t “starring Keanu Reeves”. Actually, I do want to see that.

I <3 I <3 Huckabees

Mid-late into my teen years, I developed a keen interest in philosophy (which is still very present). Complimenting my growing passion for film, I bought I Heart Huckabees based on its synopsis alone. Coming off his success of Three Kings, David O. Russell’s existential comedy failed to capture many folks (a particular Family Guy Poltergeist episode comes to mind). Luckily for me, I fell in love with it faster than Descartes fell in love with his own existence. Viewing it four times within the month, I Heart Huckabees is filled with absurd awesomeness. Screw you Seth MacFarlane for thinking otherwise.

Aaron Eckhart, I love you

I love this man. Not as much as I love Kat Dennings, but I love him nonetheless. Aaron Eckhart injected himself into many aspects of film. He made a great Harvey Dent in Nolan’s Batman universe, he acted better than he really needed to in Battle: Los Angeles and he did his Oscar-winking best in last year’s Rabbit Hole. The recent buzz is that he’ll be taking the helm as Captain Hook in a real-world retelling of Peter Pan (titled Pan, because shorter is cooler). It sounds pretty absurd, but after Thank You For Smoking, I’ll trust Eckhart in anything.

Friedberg and Seltzer, I hate you

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, the Coen brothers of terrible “comedies,” are gonna slap you in the face once more. Responsible for Epic Movie, Disaster Movie and the unfortunately successful Vampires Suck, they’re prepping yet another distasteful reference-clad satire of every recognizable movie from the past two years. With the appropriately inappropriate title The Biggest Movie of All Time 3D, we can only speculate how far into the movie it’ll take before poo comes flying right at you. Considering how this dip-shit duo have been taking a dump in the face of cinema for years, it’d be kinda poetic really.