Except January Jones. (THR)

This is the same movie that also stars Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, and Roberto Benigni, so the chance of laffs are high, I’d say. For those keeping track, this will be Woody Allen‘s first appearance on camera since 2006′s Scoop, which I, and I alone, liked.

Ellen Page has always seemed like a Woody Allen character to me, so I’m interested to see how she fares when actually put in that neurotic world. Will she become super-sassy and verbose, or will she find a new gear that gets her outside of the cliche she’s built upon herself? I’m expecting the former, but hoping for the latter.

As for Eisenberg, he does a fairly good job of creating neuroses in any film he joins, so appearing in a Woody Allen film seems a little redundant, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. If we can get another gem like “Winklevii” out of it, then it will have all been worthwhile. (Variety)

If people think Super is just a comedy about the guy from “The Office” putting on a suit and fighting crime, they should be warned. Writer/director James Gunn not only wrote Dawn of the Dead and wrote and directed Slither, but he hails from the Troma world, where he wrote Tromeo and Juliet and inspired Terror Firmer.

So as Frank D’Arbo, Rainn Wilson does put on a costume to become The Crimson Bolt, but he beats people violently with a pipe wrench. Comic book store clerk Libby (Ellen Page) joins him, but she’s even more bloodthirsty. So it’s a gorefest. Let’s call it “cautionary.”

Gunn went there in the movie, and he was willing to go there with me in an interview about Super. I tried to keep the spoilers minimal this time, so don’t worry too much about plot details.

Q: Most superhero movies seem to ask: Why don’t people try to stand up to crime? And their answer is because it’s really difficult, but the hero ultimately perseveres. Is your point of view that it’s actually irresponsible to do what Frank does?

James Gunn: I don’t know if I’m saying anything. I think this movie’s more about asking questions than giving anybody any answers but that’s definitely one way of looking at it.

Q: That was a question you asked.

JG: Yes, absolutely. I think the question of is Frank insane, is he sane, where’s the morality in this? We see Batman who puts on a cape and cowl and starts beating people up who he thinks are wrong and says that he’s right. We take it for granted that he’s doing the right thing. When we see that really played out, it’s like I don’t know, where do you draw those lines? The world isn’t really black and white like that. It’s pretty gray and where do you decide what’s right and what’s wrong and who gets to decide that and why?

Q: Then he gets Libby involved too.

JG: She pretty much gets herself involved though. That’s the thing. She ups Frank’s ante. She’s crazy as hell. As much as we think Frank has some issues, I think Frank does have some moral beliefs about what’s right and wrong. Libby I think really is in it truly for the violence so it’s kind of fun to see them playing together in their own little weird crazy minefield.

Q: With Crimson Bolt, is the costume irrelevant? Isn’t it just the crazy running around with a wrench that’s scary?

JG: Well, I think in our story in some ways, Super is only a superhero movie because the guy puts on a costume. Other than that, it’s really just the story about this guy and his journey. So yeah, in that way the costume is sort of irrelevant but I think it’s very relevant to Frank because I think that within that costume, he finds the freedom to act out in a way that he’s afraid to when people can see his face. He’s not a very free guy and when he puts on that costume, he’s able to be who he really is a little bit more.

Q: I meant the criminals just see a guy coming at them with a wrench.

JG: Yeah, I think in some ways they’re probably laughing at first when he has a superhero costume on. The costume was a hard thing to get right because we needed to find the right tone for the costume in the film so it was a lot of work actually.

Q: Were there other blueprints that didn’t make it?

JG: Yeah, there were. The costume designer, Mary Matthews, drew a whole bunch of different version of The Crimson Bolt’s costume and I kept being like, “No, no, no, no, no.” Then finally I drew it to show her what I wanted it to look like and that’s basically what the costume is.

Q: What was she getting wrong?

JG: I really wanted that Frankensteinian component of it. When you see his costume, it’s all those little patches and things being sewn together. We need to have the concept that this is some obsessive guy who’s sitting in a basement trying to sew this costume together with absolutely no abilities to sew whatsoever. So he makes it too tight in one spot, needs to open it up and put in another patch. Then it’s too big so he needs to slit it open and sew it back together again and he’s just done that obsessively all over the whole costume until it comes out like this weird scary Raggedy Ann fucked up thing.

Q: Did you work out your own fantasies about who you’d want to hit with a wrench?

JG: I think it’s more about working my own fantasy out but in a way that’s questioning myself. I think that’s really what that scene is about because on the one hand, I love seeing that guy get hit in the face. But on the other hand, I’m going oh my god, why do I like this? What’s wrong with me? That’s extremely violent. I think that’s what the whole thing is about. We’re kind of rooting on Frank as he’s perpetuating these acts of violence and at the same time questioning that we’re rooting him on. It’s something that we sort of naturally do.

Q: Was Libby also working out some sexual issues?

JG: I think Libby has some sexual issues. I talked a little bit with Ellen but I think it’s questionable about what her past has been like in terms of sexuality and how she’s viewed. She’s also an adrenaline junkie that needs to be doing something every two seconds. We never see her not doing something. I think sort of her relationship to sex deals with that as well. At the same time honestly, I also think Libby and Frank are kind of good together. In terms of a romantic team, I think they have real feelings for each other. Frank isn’t willing to look at that because he’s married and he doesn’t want to, so I think there’s a number of different things going on.

Q: I gave Frank credit that playing into Libby like that wouldn’t be the right thing to do, even with her consent.

JG: Part of me is like you know what? He should’ve just gone with it and forgotten about the rest of it and just lived this great life with this little crazy chick and had fun, because look what happened.

Q: Will the violence shock even your fans?

JG: I don’t think what’s shocking is the violence. I think there are many movies that are more violent than super. What’s shocking is where the violence is. I think what’s shocking is what happens in the movie more than the actual violence itself. We’ve become used to thinking we know what’s going to happen in a movie and people find it somewhat comforting that they know what’s going to happen next in a movie. In Super you really don’t know what’s going to happen next and we try to subvert your expectations at every point. I think we do do that. At the same time, I think Super which is one of the weird things, is Super is much more violent than Slither because the violence in Slither was so over the top that Super’s just a little bit more graphic and grounded so it’s actually a little bit harder to watch at times.

Super bolts into theaters today.

Super may sound like a copy of Kick-Ass. It’s not, but so what if it were? Why wouldn’t you want to see Rainn Wilson put on a costume and fight crime? It beats having two asteroid movies or two volcano movies. In fact, there are lots of people I’d love to see put on a costume and fight crime. Keep doing it as long as it’s awesome.

Kick-Ass was more about how hard it is to be a superhero. The question is actually the same in both movies: Why don’t people stand up and be a hero? Kick-Ass’s reason is: because you could get killed. Then the heroes persevere anyway. Super’s answer is: because it’s crazy and irresponsible to be a vigilante.

And Frank Darbo (Wilson) is crazy from the beginning. He gets the idea from a Christian network superhero show, and has a hentai hallucination anointing him. He admits he’s had visions before, so this is not exactly coming from a socially responsible place. His wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) isn’t just a bitch who leaves him. She’s critical, disinterested and a drug addict. In a flashback you see her say she thinks Frank can save her. (To be clear, that’s an example of how it’s NOT a healthy relationship.)

Also, a crazy dude in a costume hitting people with a wrench would freak out street hoodlums. It doesn’t matter if Frank calls himself The Red Bolt. He’s just dangerous. At a point, he even wails on people for cutting in line, so you see he can’t tell the degrees of crimes and treats them all just as extremely. It’s hilarious and visceral, but you get the point it’s not condoned.

Comic store clerk Libby (Ellen Page) is sincere in helping Frank find his comic book motivation, and excited when she realizes he’s done it for real. She gets so excitable that she’s willing to kill people for even lesser crimes than line cutting. Page makes this character totally real between her genuine admiration and profane excitement. Libby also makes a pass at Frank, so you understand that she needs to be seen sexually.

That’s how you make an edgy movie. You take the story in directions just a little bit outside the conventional narrative. It’s got the underdo fighting big crime, but it goes to the extremely violent, sexual and tragic places (a crying love scene, Frank’s sobbing prayer, ouch!)

The tone remains even. It’s never random that these shocking outbursts happen. It’s more like this is the inevitable outcome for these characters. Late in the movie, words start appearing on screen, ‘60s “Batman” style. That seemed a bit out of character for the film but not too distracting. It’s never irresponsible with the violence. I mean, this is Punisher: War Zone violent, but that’s what happens when unstable people get big ideas.

Super is going to be hard for people to take. It’s darkly comical and it has something to say, but every time it goes someplace weird, it’s going to lose one of the four quadrants. The audience that’s already primed for James Gunn’s work may be better prepared, but it’s still a combination that leaves you unsettled, in an effective way.

I always wondered how The Punisher would have reacted if his wife up and left him, rather than being viciously murdered. Would he still feel the urge to take back the streets? Probably not. And the world would have to go without one sweet-ass skull design. But, that’s exactly what happens in Super.

Rainn Wilson’s wife leaves him for Kevin Bacon‘s smooth-talking drug dealer and a war on crime is born. And, honestly, it’s about time that someone was brave enough to step forward and tell crime to shut up.

PG-13, 148m., 2010
Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger with Cillian Murphy and Micheal Caine
Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan

Inception is this summer’s, if not this year’s, thrill ride. A film so tight and coiled in its storytelling you won’t even know what hit you.

After all these piss-poor big-budget movies to come out over the summer, Christopher Nolan returns to show that he is a master craftsman director, creating a treasure trove of an endless dreamscape. Within this world of endless worlds, Nolan beautifully and complexly exemplifies his love of philosophy, surrealism, and action cinema into a film richly layered with top notch performances.

Everywhere we go on this non-stop, action-packed journey, we are treated to a bubbling melting pot of cinematic moments containing sequences of James Bond adventure, thrilling brush strokes of action movies like Heat and Blade Runner, the encasing moody feeling of film noir, and mesmerizing zero-gravity fight choreography reminiscent of Fred Astaire footwork before the vacuum cleaner commercials.

Yet what is this movie really about? Well you have to see it to really believe it, most definitely in IMAX if possible. But for those who need a preface before entering the theater, let me try to explain a select portion of it without turning the whole premise upside down.

Taking place somewhere in the near future, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a mysterious man named Cobb, an extractor of dreams, who is hired by mega tycoon Ken Watanabe to implant an idea inside the mind of another tycoon played by Cillian Murphy. DiCaprio assembles an Ocean Eleven-like team of  Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, and Ellen Page, each person having vast capabilities of shaping and changing each other’s dreams. DiCaprio is also haunted by the memories of his dead wife played by Marion Cotillard, giving us one hell of a great femme fatale performance.

For the rest of the film as they enter the minds of one another’s character’s, going several layers deep with dreams within dreams sequences, trust in Nolan as your guide, he will not lead you down a path that is confusing or contrived, a very rare occasion for a film-going audience.

About 3/4th of the way into the film, one gets a feeling that while it’s a great ride with all of its amazing special effects and mind-bending storytelling, we wonder where is the heart of the film’s characters at? Then it comes to us in an tender scene between Cotillard and DiCaprio, cuts deep with Hans Zimmer‘s intense score, and shows us the kinder side of the usually dark Nolan universe.

The hope in seeing a film with this kind of original epic caliber is that it will find success with audiences. If this happens, it will hopefully spawn a real ‘inception‘ in the filmmaking industry, giving back the power to the filmmakers and creating movies that are original and not just more superhero adaptations, video games, or 3D gimmicks.

With all of this swirling in and around Inception, one must go take the ride that it offers you then kick yourself back into reality and take it all over again. A true mind-blowing experience.

Grade: A

A new trailer for Inception has star-wiped its way online, and features a lot of new footage. We also get a look at each of the characters (including Marion Cotillard‘s mysterious Mal), and see a bit more about what the hell this movie is about.

From this trailer it looks like Mission: Impossible set amongst the perceived reality created by stochastic neurons. Except there’s no Ving Rhames. Which is dumb. Usually the only way I know that I’m dreaming is when Ving Rhames appears. But whatever, I trust Christopher Nolan. I’m just disappointed there doesn’t seem to be a scene where Ellen Page dreams she showed up for work in the nude. Missed opportunity right there.

VIEW THE TRAILER AND BEND YOUR MIND AFTER THE JUMP…

(via The Playlist)

In case you don’t make it to the theater thirty minutes before your movie to secure good seats so you don’t have to sit next to a mouth-breather or texting addict, here’s some Inception pre-show entertainment for you. The featurette gives us a teeny-eency-weency more in depth look at Christopher Nolan’s upcoming mindf*ck of a film. In fact, if the MPAA and society allowed it, I’m positive the title of Inception would be Christopher Nolan’s Mindf*ck. I guess we’ll just have to wait for the porno version to be released the following day.

Check out the trippy featurette after the jump...

_{Just your average cab ride in NYC.}

Maybe you didn’t watch the last Inception trailer we posted because you want to save your entire load for when the movie comes out, but if you’re up for a little butthole tickle (cinematically speaking) the U.K. has a 60 second spot. It entices without giving away the farm.

I personally love how I’ve seen several one-sheets, trailers, and clips for the film and I still honestly have no idea what the movie is about. Sure, I realize it deals with dream interior designing and anti-gravity parkour, but I haven’t seen Leo’s business card yet. That’s really the only way to gain a true perspective on a man. Here, I’ll leave mine behind so you can follow up. **Slaps avocado pit down on table **

Check out the spot after the jump.

(/Film)

Inception set up a viral game called Mind Crime that if you beat it you could watch the new trailer for the film. Well guess what? Screw that noise! Someone else played that shiz and now we’re all reaping the benefits.

The new trailer looks downright awesome. I still have no idea what the F is going on, but I WANT to know, and someone once told me that’s a win on the marketing side of things. This film looks like a serious trip, and with Christoper Nolan behind the wheel I have no doubt the destination will be Giddyland. I’ll bring the diapers if you bring the Sour Patch Kids.

Check out the trailer after the jump. Inception gets inside theaters and your mind July 15.

Inception Trailer – Watch more Funny Videos

Inception continually insists on spitting in gravity‘s face. If Sir Isaac Newton laid eyes upon this new poster his powdered wig would spin round from pure outrage. What’s the floor?! What’s the ground?! City-dwellers have to spend most of the day just trying to maintain their balance. It’s the maintenance workers I feel the most sorry for, though. The high rise window washers must curse their existence with each rising sun. (IMPAwards)

Every young actress in Hollywood is vying for the lead in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It’s like their Captain America.

Executives at Sony insist that they are nowhere near casting the part, but Carey Mulligan, Ellen Page, Kristen Stewart, Mia Wasikowska, Natalie Portman, Keira Knightley, Anne Hathaway, Olivia Thirlby, and Scarlett Johannsen are actively campaigning for the role all the same. Mulligan has lunched with the screenwriter and Page has written a heartfelt note to the producer. Johannsen gave Hathaway an upper-decker and Kristen Stewart has just kinda stood around looking emo. Despite these sincere attempts, director David Fincher may cast at unknown for the part because he feels the material is strong enough to not require a name actress.

Although Brad Pitt has reportedly been offered the male lead. They should just cast Angelina. I’m sure she has a dragon tattooed on her someplace. (Deadline)

_{Leo emerges from a basin of amniotic fluid.}

The new trailer for Inception has hit, and even though this one’s in English I still have no idea what that f*ck is going on. Last week we showed you the French version which made a lot more sense in the sense that it was foreign and foreign things are weird. What I gather from this trailer is what we already know about the movie: Leo DiCaprio is entering people’s minds and stealing images/thoughts/dreams/wet dreams with a sleek, metallic vibrator. He also likes to spin a dreidel to work through problems. Can I surmise that his character is Jewish? Oh Nolan, why won’t you give me more! Oy vey!

Check out the new Inception trailer at Apple.  

Director: Drew Barrymore

Cast: Ellen Page, Kristen Wiig, Drew Barrymore, Juliet Lewis, Jimmy Fallon

Synopsis: Roller Girls movie.  Nuff said.