After being completely absorbed in Wes Anderson's best film yet last week (when the credits rolled the packed audience stayed silent in their seats for a couple of minutes, it was like we were all decompressing after the journey. It was that good), I'm looking forward to what March (and I guess the beginning of April) has to offer. Well, we have Scarlett Johansson as an extremely dangerous alien prowling the streets of Glasgow, Scarlett Johansson as an ass-kicking expert Russian spy, and THE VERONICA MARS MOVIE. It's gonna be a great four weeks, guys.
UNDER THE SKIN
This must be one of the only films in the past few years to have a trailer that makes me feel like I know less about the movie than I thought I did after watching it. And that's a good thing. When the film premiered at the Telluride festival the twitter feeds of film critics were ablaze with superlatives. It seems to be a film you experience rather than watch, with several people describing wobbly legs and dry mouths after screenings. So, take water and a friend to lean on? I'm a big fan of Johansson, can't wait to see her get all strange and ethereal.
Speaking of films you experience, I really like the work of Terry Gilliam. I love it when people create worlds for their audiences to disappear into, which is what Gilliam has done with Brazil, 12 Monkeys and now TZT. The conclusion of his dystopian trilogy. For me cinema is all about being able to escape into another life, and I'm always impressed when I'm confronted by a world that is very far from the one we live in. Gilliam is a master of escape. And what's more, this time he's working with the eternally excellent Christoph Waltz, and I order you to Google pictures of Matt Damon in this film immediately.
In other news - I find it hard to spell "theorem" correctly.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
OK, first off, I really want Black Widow to have her own origin film. Why hasn't that happened yet? If anyone reads this who knows Marvel Studios/Disney, please can you tell them I think it's a good idea. Thanks. Secondly, I love a big fat blockbuster, it's just another glorious form of escape (I feel like there's a theme emerging here), and Chris Evans did a great job in his previous two appearances as Captain America. For those of you who haven't seen the first film, or The Avengers, Evans plays Steve "Normcore" Rogers, a man who used to be slight and not fit to fight, who then became (won't say how as I don't want to spoil it) an American faux-hero (as in he was a symbol of strength but didn't actually do any fighting), until he finally got the chance to prove himself as a badass and legend. He's a character that has existed in American pop culture since 1941 and I like that the writers didn't shy away from that - there's a great moment in The Avengers when Phil Coulson approaches Captain America with some vintage trading cards asking for them to be signed. It's directed by the Russo brothers who have won an Emmy for their work on Arrested Development so maybe there will be some *gestures to Black Widow* "Her?!" moments.
THE VERONICA MARS MOVIE
Hold my hands up, I'm not a big Veronica Mars fan, which isn't to say I don't like it, more that I've not had the chance to watch enough of it. When it came out in the UK I was at Uni and my TV didn't really work, and most weekends I was probably, like, asleep and being a student and eating pot noodles and stuff. 'Cos that's what students do, right? God I didn't even have access to the internet anywhere other than the library HOW DID I COPE? Oh, speaking of the internet, this movie was funded by the people who live there (that, my friends, is what we call a segue). I'm a bit biased when it comes to Kickstarter as it's how the documentary Beyond Clueless we've soundtracked was funded, but I know some people have doubts when it comes to crowd sourcing. I'm just going to leave this piece about Zach Braff's Kickstarter film by Charlie Lyne here and move on...But yeah, the funding of the Veronica Mars movie seems to have been Kickstarter at it's best, fans having direct contact with the makers and stars of a show they loved, a mutual affection culimating in a glorious creative project. They needed 2 million and they got 5, and that's just awesome (they're even refunding the people who couldn't watch the film on the download format, technology eh?). ANYWAY, the reviews look good for this, and I'm hoping it will inspire my next boxset binge.