With many musicians/bands (Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Broken Social Scene to name a few) providing music to films recently, it would come as almost no surprise that a trend is starting to begin, or continue rather, of these high-profile collaborations between these two spectrums of entertainment. Whether it be complete film scores ala Arcade Fire with Richard Kelly’s The Box, or the surprising soundtrack collection of New Moon, it seems Hollywood is continuing to dip into a well that’s ripe with opportunity. There’s seemingly no end to the kind of talent that’s circling indie music right now, so I think it’s a great for many bands to expose their music to a larger demographic.
This latest bit of news comes via The Playlist that mentions Brooklyn-based indie-rock band Grizzly Bear will be providing music for the upcoming film Blue Valentine starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. It’s been a great year for the band as their latest album, Veckatimest, has garnered critical success as well as being a favorite around the blogosphere. The band also provided a track titled “Slow Life” for the previously mentioned New Moon soundtrack (so they’re definitely no stranger to this), which features guest vocals from Beach House vocalist Victoria Legrand.
From reading the synopsis, it seems to be the type of film that I can get behind:
“Blue Valentine” is an intimate, shattering portrait of a disintegrating marriage.
On the far side of a once-passionate romance, Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) are married with a young daughter. Hoping to save their marriage, they steal away to a theme hotel. We then encounter them years earlier, when they met and fell in love — full of life and hope.
Moving fluidly between these two time periods, “Blue Valentine” unfolds like a cinematic duet whose refrain asks, where did their love go? Framing the film as a mystery whose answer lies scattered in time (and in character), filmmaker Derek Cianfrance constructs an elegant set of dualities: past and present, youth and adulthood, vitality and entropy. The rigor of his process is visible throughout the film. Eliminating artificial devices, he has only the truth of the characters to work with. Because Gosling and Williams bring amazing intensity and emotional honesty to their roles, the experience of connecting to these two souls becomes truly moving.
Sounds to me like these two go hand-in-hand with one another. The Derek Cianfrance directed film will be premiering at Sundance on January 24th.
Once again, I admit to being a complete sucker for this type of thing. The following trailer for Charlyne Yi’s Paper Heart, a faux documentary directed by Nicholas Jasenovec that follows Yi on her journey to figure out why she doesn’t believe in love. In between seems to be a fictionalized love story between her and Michael Cera, who are actually a couple in real life. It also seems to be loaded with cameos from just the trailer alone, as we see appearances from the likes of Demetri Martin, Martin Starr and Seth Rogen. Apparently, the film screened at Sundance to mixed reviews, with some describing it as the “holocaust of Twee,” which just sounds awesome to me.
Paper Heart is set for a limited release on August 10th, which for most of us means we’ll have to wait for it on DVD. I have to admit though, I have felt a little bit of over-exposure with Michael Cera lately. But with this and Scott Pilgrim (which is currently filming as we speak), he seems to at least be picking the kind of films that I’m interested in.
The trailer for Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are premiered today on Ellen (yikes), but it’s been making its way around the internet since then, and damn does this film look gorgeous in motion. I wasn’t expecting to see a trailer so soon, as I was still drooling over a lot of the beautiful still images that had been released. With all of the problems that seemed to plague the filming of the Maurice Sendak children’s book adaptation, it’s just a joy to see this film come together.
As you may notice, this version of Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” looks to be slightly tweaked over the original. Regardless, listening to it sent chills down my spine as I watched it play over the trailer. This is Spike Jonze taking a gigantic step as a director, and even if you’re not familiar with the source material, it doesn’t take much to appreciate his vision at work here.
Films about childhood are extremely difficult to get right, and it’s rare to see this sort of filmmaking done for what is essentially a kid’s film. I’m hoping this is a taste of something genuinely great once this is released in October.
While the opinions on Watchmen have been decisively split down the middle, I think one thing we can all agree on the is the excellent opening credit sequence that plays over Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” The company who created those credits, yU+Co, have made it available online to view in glorious quicktime. Cheers to to the folks at CHUD for the heads up.
To be honest, this was one of the only sequences where a pop song worked perfectly. One of my major gripes with this film is that a lot of the choices of music feel completely out of place.
Check out the video after the cut below which I’ve embedded. My post seems to cut off some of the video size, so I have it set to auto-play.
Update: I think the video has been taken down. Sorry, folks.
A while back I posted the teaser trailer for the indie love-story 500 Days of Summer. The film is directed by Marc Webb and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a greeting card writer who falls for a young woman (Zooey Deschanel) and ends up having to deal with the subsequent break-up. The teaser, despite the horrid voice-over narration, had me hooked from the very first viewing, while The Temper Trap song, “Sweet Disposition” worked very well with the trailer.
A full-length trailer has been released, and it may seem a little too cute and sweet for some, but I can’t help but be completely powerless at this point after watching the new footage in the trailer. I mean, how cute does Zooey Deschanel look when she asks about The Smiths in the elevator? Come on now! Though, I imagine any film that portrays a connection over The Smiths sorta dooms any kind of relationship. You’re pretty much fated to be unhappy with each other; which seems to be a little bit of what this film is actually about according to an interview with Joseph Gordon Levitt.
“He’s a hopeless romantic, a lovesick young man who falls in love with [Zooey's character] Summer, and he gets dumped,” the actor said of the plot. “The thing is, the movie is all from the point of view of this guy, and this guy has watched way too many movies and listened to far too many pop songs. So his life becomes a pop song.”
Sounds like this could possibly be a mix of High Fidelity and crossed with a little Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Annie Hall. I guess we’ll find out when the film is released this summer on July 17th via Fox Searchlight.
I don’t keep up with film news too well, but this certainly caught my eye as Chud is reporting (via Upcoming Film Scores) that French electronic duo Daft Punk are set to provide the original score for Tron 2.0. I actually didn’t know they were making a sequel, though, I know they did make a video game sequel in 2003. This was strange news to me at first, but when you think about it, this makes a lot of sense that they would be doing this. The duo’s whole moniker for years now has revolved around Tron’s image, as you may remember their film-inspired outfits from their appearance with Kanye West at the Grammys last year.
This new red band trailer for Observe and Report was quite the surprise to watch this morning, as I wasn’t expecting this to be so dirty and absolutely filthy. It’s hilarious, though, and I think this is very much needed for Seth Rogen, as he’s begun to get a little stale in his films as of late. Can I also mention that it’s nice to see Anna Faris in something that’s not complete rubbish? The film opens on April 10th, and I sadly believe that this won’t make as much money as Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
One other thing, great musical choices to cut this trailer with. Anyone know what the second song is? I honestly have no clue.
This is an excellent little trailer for Tokyo!, which until yesterday I had not even heard about. The film will include three shorts from the likes of Michel Gondry (we all know him, yes?), South Korean filmmaker Joon-ho Bong (The Host) and French director Leos Carax. I’ve never seen any films from Carax (apparently, his last film was 1999’s Pola X), but just the involvement of Gondry getting back to flexing his creative muscles has set my excitement for this at an extremely high level.
Early word from the film had it pegged as a “nastier Eastern sibling to Paris, Je T’aime,” and called Gondry’s short, “arguably the best.” The trailer looks visually stunning, and anything that uses the city of Tokyo as its backdrop has me sold from the beginning. Also, the use of Tokyo Police Club during the trailer was a nice touch as well. Here’s a rundown (via Collider) of each of the three stories if you’re curious:
“Interior Design” by Michel Gondry: the surreal fable of a young couple who moves to Tokyo in search of a future. While the boy’s ambition is clear – be a movie maker- the girl drifts gradually apart. Both of them will be drowned in the imensity until the girl, feeling alone, discovers something strange.
“Merde” by Leos Carax: a mysterious man spreads confusion on the streets of Tokyo through a succession of irrational and provocative acts. ” The Creature of the Sewers ” as the media have dubbed him, arouse passion or repulsion. He will be captured, judged and then…
“Shaking Tokyo” by Bong Joon-Ho: He is a hikikomori – like many others in Japan, he has withdrawn from all contact with the outside world .When the pizza delivery girl faints during an earthquake, the unthinkable happens – the man falls in love. Will he take the unimaginable step : leaving the dead security of his apartment for the streets of Tokyo?
As i’m currently staying up to watch the Australian Open men’s final between Federer and Nadal, I can’t help but say a lot of my attention has been swayed towards the influx of Super Bowl spots for the upcoming summer flicks. I’m always a sucker for these high-budget tentpole movies, and hey, by watching these you possibly save yourself at least three hours of sitting through the Super Bowl.
The following videos I found via FirstShowing.net, which I initially found on Cable & Tweed (Boss Tweed can appreciate big, dumb summer flicks, too), as they’re the only site I could find with some decent quality embedded videos. There’s plenty of trailers to be seen, including a couple of others not shown here (Year One, Land of the Lost), but i’m sure there will be some more to actually watch during the Super Bowl tonight.
Clicky after the cut to see the goods, or non-goods?
This is a newscast from the Watchmen universe. I absolutely love that shot of Manhattan taking a photograph of Neil Armstrong on the moon. Nothing more to add, really. Carry on, folks!
With many musicians/bands (Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Broken Social Scene to name a few) providing music to films recently, it would come as almost no surprise that a trend is starting to begin, or continue rather, of these high-profile collaborations between these two spectrums of entertainment. Whether it be complete film scores ala Arcade Fire with Richard Kelly’s The Box, or the surprising soundtrack collection of New Moon, it seems Hollywood is continuing to dip into a well that’s ripe with opportunity. There’s seemingly no end to the kind of talent that’s circling indie music right now, so I think it’s a great for many bands to expose their music to a larger demographic.
This is an excellent little trailer for Tokyo!, which until yesterday I had not even heard about. The film will include three shorts from the likes of Michel Gondry (we all know him, yes?), South Korean filmmaker Joon-ho Bong (The Host) and French director Leos Carax. I’ve never seen any films from Carax (apparently, his last film was 1999’s Pola X), but just the involvement of Gondry getting back to flexing his creative muscles has set my excitement for this at an extremely high level.
“Interior Design” by Michel Gondry: the surreal fable of a young couple who moves to Tokyo in search of a future. While the boy’s ambition is clear – be a movie maker- the girl drifts gradually apart. Both of them will be drowned in the imensity until the girl, feeling alone, discovers something strange.
confusion on the streets of Tokyo through a succession of irrational and provocative acts. ” The Creature of the Sewers ” as the media have dubbed him, arouse passion or repulsion. He will be captured, judged and then…
“Shaking Tokyo” by Bong Joon-Ho: He is a hikikomori – like many others in Japan, he has withdrawn from all contact with the outside world .When the pizza delivery girl faints during an earthquake, the unthinkable happens – the man falls in love. Will he take the unimaginable step : leaving the dead security of his apartment for the streets of Tokyo?
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