Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

Andrew Niccol doing sci-fi? Count me in! However I'm still unsure of what exactly does Justin Timberlake's "acting" bring to the movies...

Also this poster looks like a CK ad.

The next two posters are for the new Steven Soderbergh movies and ugh, this man is a genius. He hand picked the designers for his marketing campaign and chose some of the best in the business (the ones that make Criterion covers...)

The one for Contagion has a District 9 feel and truly what stands out in this poster, and also in the one for Haywire is that Soderbergh goes beyond the worshiping of the movie star...

...he has some of the greatest living actors in these two movies, also some of the most beautiful people. Yet on the posters he goes for an appraisal of graphic design as an art form. The one for Contagion has a very retro touristy feel. As if disease took over the mentioned cities. It's also important to mention how influenced by industrial design are these posters. The first one loves typography while the one for Haywire pays tribute to the great Saul bass and to iconic movie posters of the 70s without obviously ripping them off.

I have to admit I don't even miss seeing Fassy's gorgeous mug in it...

Excited about the new Soderbergh flicks?

Sheet-y Saturday

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

The poster for The Son of No One tells you nothing about the movie but boy is this a nice picture of Channing Tatum.

And is it me or does the inclusion with Katie Holmes, along with Juliette Binoche and Al Pacino in the cast, sound like Tom Cruise bought her a part in the movie?

Gregg Araki is by no means subdued and the poster for his new film Ka-Boom confirms it. But I think this is the first time I've ever read the word "horny" quoted and included in a blurb.

Any of these sound appealing to you?

Dear John *

Director: Lasse Hallström
Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Channing Tatum, Richard Jenkins
Henry Thomas, D.J. Cotrona, Cullen Moss, Gavin McCulley

Your knowledge of Nicholas Sparks' work doesn't need to be so extensive to know the kind of movie Dear John will be. His formula of doomed love, life threatening diseases and third act twists has been established in films like A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe and especially The Notebook.
This one is obviously not different but by now the formula is so established that this one isn't even fun.
The lovers this time are Savannah (Seyfried) and John (Tatum); she's a good girl who doesn't drink, smoke or curse and he's the former rebel now on army leave.
They meet when he rescues her purse after it falls on the ocean, she is so impressed by his lifesaving skills and pecs (after all her "whole life is in that bag") that two weeks later they're already declaring eternal love for each other.
During these two weeks they frolic in the beach, make out under the rain and Savannah even diagnoses John's coin-collecting father (Jenkins who obviously deserved better) as slightly autistic.
When John has to go back into service, they decide they will write each other and keep no secrets, which turns the film into a dull, uninspired version of a Green Day video. For almost half an hour Dear John takes on an epistolary form and the sun tinted, overlong montage that serves as background for the actors' readings, comes to a sudden end on 9/11.
John decides it's his duty to reenlist and their relationship enters a limbo that makes the film take a turn for the worse as it suggests that the evil war is responsible for the leads' tears.
Perhaps nothing about the movie intends to be fresh but little in it makes its existence justifiable. Tatum and Seyfried, while pretty to look at, have no chemistry and never evoke the angst and longing we're supposed to perceive from their tacky Now, Voyager redux quips about the moon.
The issue might not be the actors but the terrible writing which seems reasonable on the surface but might lead to some disturbing and complex realizations from anyone with the slightest analytical capacity.
In the time of instant gratification and e-mail, Savannah and John's love isn't only utterly fantastical but also fake; instead of breaking hearts the movie should serve to stimulate naive minds and make them realize that perhaps this so called love is nothing but fear of commitment represented through the perpetuation of a faux state of romance.
When the reasoning for a life altering decision is justified by saying "you think it was easy without you", it's fair to say that Dear John isn't an ode to the romantic but to the idiotic.

Public Enemies **

Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard
Stephen Dorff, Billy Crudup, Stephen Graham, Channing Tatum
Giovanni Ribisi, Lily Taylor, Branka Katic
David Wenham, Leelee Sobieski

"Public Enemies" gives away its biggest flaw just when it thinks it's making a point.
In one of the film's last scenes, bank robber, John Dillinger (Depp) sits in a movie theater watching "Manhattan Melodrama".
The Clark Gable gangster film, after which he met his demise at hands of the FBI. During the movie Dillinger's eyes shine with mockery and recognition.
He sees himself as the Gable character, a gangster coming to terms with his actions. If director Michael Mann was trying to point out the dicotomy of similarities and differences between movie and real life gangsters his intentions get lost in the process.
Because even if his movie is shot and styled like a docudrama, it still plays out like a Hollywood movie.
Filmed in high definition video by the brilliant Dante Spinotti, "Public Enemies" follows Dillinger's-short, but infamous- career as a bank robber during which he became America's number one public enemy.
The film also follows the rise of the FBI led by J. Edgar Hoover (played spectacularly by Crudup who gives the film's best performance) and agent Melvin Purvis' (Bale) interstate hunt for Dillinger.
The plot (or lack of it) extends languidly for almost two and a half hours during which nothing much happens. Dillinger goes to jail, escapes jail, robs a bank, is involved in a shootout. Purvis looks for him, thinks he's got him, he escapes...
Somewhere in the middle of this Dillinger is smitten by coat check girl Billie Frechette (Cotillard) and they become each other's anchors of sort.
But with this, as with almost everything else, "Public Enemies" fails in providing a sense of realism.
Ironic, thinking how the natural cinematography should by default give the movie a sense of honesty. Mann's biggest mistake was trusting movie precepts.
While Spinotti's work is commendable, most of the time the movie looks, and sounds, like a taped rehearsal. Hollywood hasn't gotten us used to watching gangsters look like real people, they have always possessed an aura of glamor (something highlighted in the "Manhattan Melodrama" scene) that makes them almost mythical creatures.
Now, if Mann's intention was precisely to bring the myth down to earth-which in itself would've been an admirable feat-why then does he insist on having them move, act and talk like movie characters?
Graham as Baby Face Nelson comes off looking like something James Cagney would've played while imitating Richard Widmark. It has been said that 1930's gangster copied their style from the way movies depicted them (a postmodernist stroke of genius by them) in order to justify their public behavior.
But Mann's gangsters act the same way in the comfort of their hideout places. Dillinger is given lines that make you cringe and while Depp gives the character a touch of vulnerability in the end once again it's Johnny Depp being Johnny Depp; an amalgam of mannierisms, quirk and "acting" trying to be passed off as non-acting.
Bale gives Purvis some affecting qualities and realism (augmentated by how magnified his pores look with the cinematography) but again he plays his character like a somber figure who speaks only when needed. Inside Purvis was Dillinger, inside Bale there's Jack Nicholson in "Chinatown".
It is Marion Cotillard who gives the most enigmatic performance in the movie, we do not for a single moment belive her love for Dillinger to be the stuff of "movies", but there is something buried inside her that make her behavior fascinating.
She is swept off her feet by the gangster like Jean Harlow-he needs only to use the perfect line-but in latter scenes when we see her loyalty towards him we wonder what is behind all this.
It's possible to say not even the actress is sure of what Frechette's psychology is (none of the characters in this movie provide the slightest glimpse of backstory).
But it is Billie who haunts us after we leave the theater. Perhaps because she represents everything the film could've been, but wasn't.
This is best summarized in the "Manhattan Melodrama" scene where Dillinger looks upon the screem at Myrna Loy.
Loy appears in several scenes looking stunning and magical, her eyes shining like cinematic diamonds and when we see Dillinger's face we're supposed to know he's remembering Billie.
And how wouldn't he, turns out even Dillinger knows best for the movie; he knows that Cotillard's eyelashes weren't made for shaky docudrama, they were made for celluloid.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra **

Director: Stephen Sommers
Cast: Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Sienna Miller
Rachel Nichols, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Lee Byung-hun
Saïd Taghmaoui, Ray Park, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Jonathan Pryce, Dennis Quaid, Christopher Eccleston

Not since the Bat nipples appeared on George Clooney more than a decade ago has a comic book/cartoon/toy inspired movie had such fetishist potential.
Inspired by the famous Hasbro action figures and the animated series about a group of elite soldiers from all over the world-fighting the evil M.A.R.S corporation-this film features a cast mostly comprised of models and exotically handsome men and women in tight fitting suits.
There isn't much of a plot, at least not one that matters. all you have to know is that the Joes are good and the Cobras-from M.A.R.S-are not.
M.A.R.S is led by James McCullen (Eccleston) a Scottish weapon mogul holding a three hundred year old grudge towards the French and somehow the entire world by default.
His company devices microscopic robots called nano-mites which can destroy people and world monuments and he plans to use them on several capitols to gain who knows what...
His team features a mad scientist called The Doctor (Gordon-Levitt in full Gollum mode), crazy ninja Storm Shadow (Byung-hun) and the Baroness (Miller) a former American socialite married to a French royal, who spends her free time killing people and stealing wmd-s.
That she has history with G.I. Joe Duke (Tatum) only adds to whatever little drama the film wants to introduce. Duke is the newest member of the Joes along with Ripcord (Wayans), the good guys also feature Heavy Duty (Akinnuoye-Abgaje), Breaker (Taghmaoui), silent ninja Snake Eyes (Park), Scarlett (Nichols) and team leader General Hawk (Quaid).
During 118 minutes members from each team fight each other in the midst of enormous action sequences, explosions and surprising weapons that appear out of nowhere.
They also have flashbacks-which are laughable-and constant hints at what the sequel will be about and even if it feels ethically incorrect to say so, it's slightly obvious that nobody comes to such movies seeking enlightenment.
Or do they?
With the state of summer blockbusters which now more than ever are requesting you leave your brain at home, is it then too much to ask for their kind of dumb entertainment to at least be actually entertaining?
If we have come to reduce movies to fulfill such primitive needs then "G.I. Joe" gets the job done. Absolutely nothing in the film makes sense, but most of it is fun.
Sommers' film takes place in the not so distant future where the USA actually cares for Russia and France and terrorism only comes in the shape of utterly deranged beings.
This sort of male fantasia will make sense to those who loved playing with the action figures (in the same way the first "Transformers" movie did).
This is the sort of movie where the heroes claim to be a secret unit, but have no problem destroying half of Paris in broad daylight. Someone else will clean this mess for them...like moms picking up their kids' toys.
In a postmodernist nod Sommers is also able to give the movie a postmodernist feel by structuring it like a cartoon; the cinematography is cheap to say the least, the effects never look or feel real and the quotes are epitomize cheese.
Now the question is, does anyone actually want to see a live version of the cartoon? Luckily by the time you start formulating questions like these you'll be going home and in the process of forgetting this average Joe.

Stop-Loss *

Director: Kimberly Peirce
Cast: Ryan Phillippe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Channing Tatum
Abbie Cornish, Ciarán Hinds, Tymothy Olyphant, Mamie Gummer

It took almost a decade for Kimberly Peirce to realize that boys do cry...a lot apparently.
Her sophomore film takes on the Iraq war with the same intentions films like "The Deer Hunter" (even casting Gummer who despite family ties is sadly no Meryl Streep) and "The Best Years of Our Lives" did for their respective time periods in the past.
And the one sad truth that can be extracted from her film is precisely the fact that war, not just the one in Iraq but the concept itself, has been going on for too long already.
The rest feels like "Dawson's Creek" goes to war as we see a bunch of pretty guys return to their Texas hometown and try to re-insert themselves into society.
Phillippe plays Brandon King, the leader of the group who is stop-lossed (some sort of contractual army thing that deems you can be called back to service despite your leave). This challenges all his notions on what he thought life would be and forces him to wonder if the war was worth fighting for.
Then again is there somewhere in the planet who thinks so? "Stop-Loss" never really says anything new and instead infuses its lack of purpose with melodramatic twists that make the story feel forced and redundant.
Arriving under the MTV Films banner, the movie tries its best to attract young people by relying on hunky men, quick edits and hard rock montages that only serve in alienating the heart the film so much wants to reveal.
The cast does a satisfying job, especially Tatum as the rebel of the group who shows promising range and Cornish (looking like a hybrid of Drew Barrymore and Charlize Theron) who gives the film its only moments of grace.
But the screenplay uses the characters indiscriminately as examples and archetypes instead of building interesting stories through which we can connect to them.
They often refer to events in Iraq as "this war", as if it was something completely external to them. Which somehow is considering this is a movie and the people are fictitious, but we need to believe they aren't!
Peirce's film comes at a moment where the world has become infected with apathy and her unaffecting characters never touch any sentiments in the audience.
One of the film's montages features a title card that reads "we will remember", the same can not be said of this film.