New Releases for March 30th

Compared to last week, this is a pretty light bunch of movies, but some great stuff's coming out regardless, including a great Criterion set of Pedro Costa films including Ossos, In Vanda’s Room, and Colossal Youth, the excellent Oscar nominated An Education and the tons of fun Sherlock Holmes all drop today.

Check out all the trailers below and plan accordingly (get here early) if you're looking to get your hands on anything.

Afghan Star


Alvin & the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel


Baader Meinhoff Complex


Did You Hear About the Morgans


An Education


High Kick Girl


Letters From Fontainhas: Three Films By Pedro Costa (Criterion)
Ossos


In Vanya's Room


Colossal Youth


Sherlock Holmes


Under the Sea

best worst movie has a trailer!

FINALLY! been waiting for this to drop since i heard it actually had some legs. if you haven't seen troll 2, you kinda owe it to yourself to remedy that grievous error. majestic failure just begins to describe the WTF-HOW-DID-THIS-EVER-GET-MADE-ness of the film.

IT'S NOT EVEN ABOUT TROLLS!

Ever hope for a sequel to Solondz's 'Happiness?'

Solondz has revisited the characters from 'Happiness' with his new film 'Life During Wartime.' It is technically a sequel but also a re-visioning as he cast entirely different actors in the roles this time around. For instance Kenneth Williams, who played Omar on 'The Wire,' takes over for Philip Seymour Hoffman as Allen.

Read the full story and interview here.

"Pepsi would never give us clearance. Nor would Coke," he says. "When it comes to product-placement, I'm on everybody's blacklist. Nobody wants to give us anything." Is it because of the paedophile angle? "Well, I don't want to say. Just every angle. All I can say is, nobody wants to have their product or their brand contaminated by this movie."

Official U.S. Trailer for Jeunet's latest: Micmacs à tire-larigot

Jean-Pierre Junet's 6th film is finally getting a U.S. theatrical run, albeit a limited one, in May. Apparently the film is a sort of satire on the world arms trade and of course Dominique Pinon will appear. I personally plan on traveling as far as need be to see this on the big screen as it will be several years before Jeunet releases another movie, it took six years for him to release this one after 'A Very Long Engagement' so he doesn't work very fast.

Some quotes from Jeunet on what we can expect:

"You know Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," exclaims Jean-Pierre Jeunet, waving his arms around with excitement. "Well, I wanted to create something funny and imaginative like that: a stupid band of seven people. And also I wanted a story of revenge because I love Once Upon a Time in the West so much."

"I put everything I have into this film," laughs Jeunet. "There are no limits -- it's all of my influences at once. Guillaume Laurant, my writing partner, and I note down everything we hear. Then, when we write a script, we open the box of details and use them. Only when the box is packed full of ideas to we start to write. The principle of the Walt Disney Company is to have one idea per shot and I try to do that too."

Zombie Alert: Magnet picks up [REC]2

"Without a doubt, [REC] 2 is the scariest film of the year," said Magnolia SVP Tom Quinn. "Nobody does horror as terrifying as directors Jaume Ballaguero and Paco Plaza. It's a great fit for Magnet"

[REC]2 has been picked up for distribution by Magnet and I'm assuming it will be a part of their Six Shooter series but that has not been announced as of yet. For those who've seen the first [REC] this sequel follows directly after the events of the original with a new group of SWAT and medical officers preparing to enter the zombie infested building. Apparently a sequel has also been optioned for the U.S. remake, 'Quarantine,' but I can only imagine it will take an entirely different route as they changed (and ruined) the story entirely in the end.

This is another good move by Magnet, who've brought titles such as 'Bronson,' 'Let The Right One In,' 'Not Quite Hollywood,' et-cetera. They are quickly becoming this decade's Miramax, in all aspects. Along with their Six Shooter series they release more of the important independent & foreign titles that would otherwise largely go unseen in the U.S. But along with that they have issues, just like Miramax did, with their foreign titles with issues ranging from dumbing down the translations for 'Let The Right One In,' editing several hours out of 'Red Cliff' and defaulting every foreign dvd to a dub track. But all the same they do good work in getting the titles released and they'll never be as bad as the Weinsteins. I hope.

Exciting news from Roger Ebert

Although At The Movies has officially been canceled it seems as though Roger Ebert still has faith in movie review programming. He has announced plans to produce a new show along with his wife Chaz which will not only feature new Hollywood blockbusters but New Cinema as well which Ebert describes as "indie films, foreign films, documentaries, restored classics, the new Herzog, the new Bahrani, the new Almodovar."

For the full story go to his blog here.

check it out! we're on TWITTER!

we are now waist deep into web two-point videOH!! #SeeWhatIDidThere? direct your tweets towards @VideoHeaven and holler stuff at us that you think we should know!

we have some uber-neat stuff planned including random news, keeping you as up to date as possible about new and pre-viewed stuff hitting the shelves for rent and sale, some out there contests and other interactive fun as well, all in 140 characters or less!

Watch the Spike Jonze short 'I'm Here.'

Jonze, premiered his new 35 min short film 'I'm Here' at Sundance where it was heralded as many as one of the best of the films in the festival. You can now watch it online either in sections at the official site WWW.IMHEREMOVIE.COM or in three parts below via Youtube.

Enjoy!

selected new relases for 3/23

today we have tons, TONS I SAY, of excellent new releases that are bound to excite and intrigue madison's film-loving masses. in all seriousness, the scuttlebutt around the store is that this is the heftiest bunch of flicks we've ever had in the history of four star.

if you have a blu-ray player (see how i made the text BLUE?), prepare for us to make your week with a bunch of new and old criterions as well as some other high-def surprises (african queen!) coming at you from the new release wall.

point your interweb browsers over to the four star site for a more complete listing of the good stuff we have coming out starting at midnight tonight.

sorry for any formatting issues. the NEW and IMPROVED blogger interface leaves a LOT to be desired.

African Queen (BOGART! HEPBURN! Both standard AND BLU versions)

Bigger than Life (Criterion!)

Blind Side (Oscar best-pic nominated, best actress WINNING! Pretty sure we have the Blu of this too, but no guarantees)

Brothers (Maguire! Gyllennhaal! Portman! THREE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!)

Days of Heaven (TERRENCE MALIK IN STUNNING BLU-RAY!)

Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson! Stop-Motion! Also in Blu!)

Hachi (the TRAILER ALONE for this movie made people I know cry)

Mad Men: Season 3 (You've heard of this show, right?)

Men Who Stare at Goats (George Clooney! With a MUSTACHE! Also: Jedi jokes with Ewan McGregor! HAR! Also in Blu!)

Sanjuro (Kurosawa! Blu! ALSO note Yojimbo Blu below)

Seraphine

Son of Man

Taxidermia (Look at that poster and TRY to not want to know what's up with this movie!)

Toy Story (PIXAR Blu!)

Toy Story 2 (MORE PIXAR Blu!)

Yell for Cadel (Heads-up bike lovers!)

Yesterday was a Lie (Tons of little festival related olive branches(is that what they are?) all over the box for this one)

Yojimbo (More Kurosawa! Sanjuro's older brother! Blu!)

Zombies of Mass Destruction (Zombies! Mass Destruction!)

12th Annual Film Festival/ 14-18 April

The has been announced for the Wisconsin Film Festival and it's an impressive line up. Notable selections are:

• A Bong-Joon Ho retrospective consisting of 'Barking Dogs Never Bite,' 'Memories of Murder,' 'Host,' and his most recent film 'Mother,' all of which we have for rent at 4 Star and happen to be personal favorites of own.
  
• 'Police, Adjective' which also happens to be playing tonight March the 18th at 8 p.m. during the previously mentioned Romanian Film Festival located at MMOCA.
  
• Retrospectives of African, Asian-American, Brazilian & South Asian cinema.
• A 'Restoration & Revival' lineup which includes 'Duck, You Sucker,' 'The Magic Sword,' Quarry,' & 'Withnail & I' amongst others.
• 'Typeface,' the documentary about the wonderful Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
• 'OSS 117: Lost In Rio' which is the sequel to the immensely popular 'OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies.'

As of the time this is being posted the website has not yet been updated with the complete lineup but we do have the printed Film Festival lists included in the Isthmus which is always on stock at 4 Star.

Tickets are $7 general admission, $4 with student ID. Buying in quantity receives a discounted price (more info the site). Starting March 20, tickets will be available on this web site and at the Festival Box Office inside the Memorial Union at 800 Langdon Street

pay it forward

we've spread the word to lots of people we know, but there's tons of people we DON'T know that might be into reading the news/reviews/whatever else film stuff that we're posting up here, and if you're reading this, then it's likely you know some people who might be down with the stuff we're spewing out and we'd love it if you'd tappity tap them on the shoulder and linkitey link em to us.

ALSO: you can follow us on facebook and dump us into a RSS reader and generally get your occasional fourstar info in any number of formats. jus sayin' if ya didn't know.

CRITERION's June Release Announcement

"Directors from the world over will make June a truly eclectic month at Criterion. Get on track with Jim Jarmusch’s and Carol Reed’s Mystery Train and Night Train to Munich, an ode to Memphis and a spy thriller, respectively. Along the way, check out the much-anticipated release of Antonioni’s Red Desert (right), Kiarostami’s amazing Iranian fiction-doc Close-up, and Everlasting Moments, the lyrical latest from Swedish master Jan Troell. All this and Visconti’s divine The Leopard on Blu-ray disc!"

Most exciting, to me, are both 'Mystery Train' & 'Night Train to Munich' though I'm very curious about 'Everlasting Moments,' it's high time 'Red Desert' finally got a domestic U.S. release and 'Close-up' was very powerful and provocative look into Iranian culture.

Romanian Film Festival: March 18-20, Free Admission

It is time for the Romanian Film Festival again and in this their fourth year they've managed to acquire one of the most highly regarded Romanian films all year in 'Police, Adjective' which is playing on opening night.

All showings are free and will be located in the Lecture Hall at MMOCA.

The schedule is as follows:

Thursday

6:30 p.m. "The New Wave of the Romanian Cinema"

8 p.m. "Police, Adjective"

Friday

7 p.m. "The Other Irene"

9 p.m. "The Happiest Girl in the World"

Saturday

12:30 p.m. short film showcase

2:30 p.m. "Fox Hunter"

4:30 p.m. "Wedding in Bessarabia"

7 p.m. "Hooked"

cronenberg on warhol

thanks to the always excellent midnight radio i got turned onto this really awesome collection of audio from the andy warhol exhibition, andy warhol supernova: stars, deaths and disasters, 1962-64, curated by david cronenberg for the art gallery of ontario in toronto, canada.



if your interest has been piqued, swing by and check out one of the thirteen andy warhol films we have in stock (most on VHS only, natch) or any of our most likely complete collection of david cronenberg films.

touch of evil coming to the orpheum!

i spent a month and a half this winter stuck inside my house watching movies, and touch of evil was the best of the bunch that i saw. this is definitely the direction that i would LOVE to see the orpheum go in the future, so get out there and support this.

universal didn't like the cut originally submitted by welles in 1958 and recut the film into a terrible mess that led welles to write a 58- page memo upon seeing the studio's edit. it wasn;t until 1998 that the film was finally recut according to this detailed memo, and i can only assume that this is the version that we're gonna be seeing on the screen at the orpheum.



from the orpheum's page about the film:

"Generally considered as the ultimate Film Noir (and the last film of the genre), TOUCH OF EVIL is certainly one of the most macabre, bizarre poignant films ever produced in Hollywood. The director Orson Welles is of course the man who made CITIZEN KANE, but many Welles aficionados such as Peter Bogdanovich actually consider TOUCH OF EVIL better than KANE; as a matter of fact, the best film Welles has ever directed."

you should wander round the corner to four star and pick up the complete mr. arkadin, another welles film tat has been available in a number of versions in varying degrees of completeness, or the two-disc touch of evil set we have that includes both the 1998 cut and the original universal cut.

Notable selections from the upcoming March 16th new releases.

Dillinger Is Dead -Directed by Marco Ferreri

For Ferreri film was very much used as a continuation, or perhaps an advancement, of the theater of the absurd. 'Dilliger is Dead' happens to be one of the most meritorious of all art-house films but was somehow rarely ever screened and could have been forgotten if Criterion hadn't come along to save it. In my opinion this is the most exciting dvd they've put out all year.



Broken Embraces- Pedro Almodovar:

My favorite Almodovar in years and perhaps his most entertaining one ever, it covers some familiar territory for him but he handles the subject matter perfectly this time around. As with most of his previous work this is a film buffs wet dream with references from Hitchcock to Michael Powell with some Almodovar himself in between. Plus Penelope Cruz stars in it and I firmly believe she is one of the best actresses alive.



Fernando Arrabal Collection

Sometimes the best new releases are the ones we don't even have on our release list. Often they are customer requests and sometimes they are requested by the employees themselves. For those who aren't in the know, Fernando Arrabal, is a Spanis director, poet, playwright & novelist. His cohort, Alejandro Jodorowsky, is more well known but they founded the Panic movement together along with Roland Topor. Arrabal's own play 'Fando y Lis' was actually adapted into Jodorowsky's first movie. We already had 'I Walk Like A Crazy Horse' & 'Viva Muerte' in the store but this collection rounds out what work of his is available on dvd, most notably 'Car Cemetery' which was based on his own play. Also included is 'The Emperor of Peru' starring Mickey Rooney and a collection of his short films featuring 'Borges, Life of a Poet,' 'Farewell Babylon,' & 'Arrabal Panik Cineast.'

hitchcock humpday!

just found this great little collection of every hitchcock cameo, and it made my day, so now i pass it along to maybe make yours.

RIP to our favorite corey

movie title stills

i just stumbled onto the movie title stills collection, a site that exists to document (what else) movie title stills. for the life of me i can't stop scrolling through page after page of this thing. they've lovingly archived the title card from both the feature and the trailer, as well as the closing card from i don't know how many films from the 20s on up the present.







two of my personal favorite recent credit sequences both come from jason reitman films, thank you for smoking and up in the air. since the title sequence from up in the air isn't on the tubes yet (rent it from US as of TODAY!), you get the also very exceptional catch me if you can:

new release picks: march 9th

boondock saints 2



if you're gonna be renting this (and a lot of you are), then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE also rent overnight, the documentary about the up and down life of director troy duffy and the making of the first boondock saints movie.

capitalism: a love story



like a lot of people, i have some complex feelings about michael moore, and have less and less patience with his showboating antics, but dang if he isn't able to dig up some excellent illustrative narratives and weave them into a well-paced, consistently engaging documentary.

pirate radio (aka the boat that rocked)



this one's worth it for the soundtrack alone, and that it will make you think back to philip seymore hoffman as lester bangs in almost famous.

precious



i haven't seen this, and personally have very little interest to see it, but i can bet that there are a ton of people who are gonna keep this from being readily available for at least a couple of weeks. i'd say pick it up if only to see mildly mustachioed mariah carey make amends for her role in glitter.

up in the air



this was a really great film (my personal pick of the week), and i'm really happy with the way that jason reitman (juno, thank you for smoking) is shaping up as a director. george clooney is excellent in this, as is the rest of the cast, including danny mcbride in a subtle turn as the pyramid scheming brother in law. just an out and out great little film.

showing his shortcomings

let's follow one of the boringest oscars in recent history with a look back at one of the strangest, greatest things to happen on the AMPAS stage.

"Many people believe that the famous incident, where this naked man ran through the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion past David Niven at the 46th annual Academy Awards, was staged. This theory of planned spontaneity receives most of its weight from the fact that Opel wasn't even arrested for trespassing on Hollywood's most exclusive event, but instead got dressed (with clothes provided for him by the Academy) and had security promptly escort him to "winner's row" where he held a press conference!"

for the full, and surprisingly interesting story (and, i must warn you, one semi-tasteful image of a real human penis) head over to the WFMU blog and read all about it.

foregone oscar conclusions

this seems like one of the most sadly predictable oscars in recent memory. the odds are apparently heavily in favor of the following: sandra bullock is gonna win best actress, christoph waltz is gonna win best supporting actor, and monique is gonna win best supporting actress. but, everything else is, to make a terrible joke at the expense of a nominated film, up in the air (HAR!).

the real questions are whether or not avatar is gonna sweep best picture and best director (to say nothing of EVERY SINGLE TECHNICAL AWARD), or is it all gonna go the much more artistically deserving hurt locker? personally, i'm hoping for some kind of a split with avatar getting picture and bigelow getting the directing award, but that's just how i'm thinking things might go. we'll all have a nice tome tomorrow at the water cooler chatting about how it all went down.

don't get me wrong, i think avatar is a super-fun film and i had a BLAST watching it in the theater with those crazy glasses and everything, but best picture of the year? dream on. it's like the academy isn't even trying to hide the fact that the big awards are all given out according to politics.

in case you were wondering, up in the air and precious are gonna be available starting on monday night round the witching hour, and we got almost all the other best picture nominees here as well, including district 9, hurt locker, inglourious basterds (my personal pre-oscar viewing selection), a serious man, and up.

and lastly, i leave you with this: every time the camera cuts to jack nicholson, finish your drink. this is my plan for making the pain of an avatar win manageable.

happy birthday ron howard!

ron howard turns 56 today! personally, i would applaud his career if he was only known for putting his sorta creepy looking little brother, clint, in all his movies, but in fact he's given us a bunch of movies that are all really great (and the dan brown flicks, too!).

celebrate the man by watching splash, parenthood, apollo 13, or frost/nixon tonight.

here's the trailer to grand theft auto, howard's first feature, produced by roger corman, who was a mentor to a surprising number of current holywood insiders.

new release picks: march 2nd

Beaches of Agnes



excellent documentary about one of the most ingenious filmmakers, as made by said filmmaker. it's perfectly fitting since so much of agnes varda's work as been semi, if not outright, autobiographical. if, like many people, you enjoy the visual whimsy of directors like michel gondry or terry gilliam, this is highly recommended.

Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea



this has quickly become one of my favorite miyazaki films. that phrase alone "miyazaki film" should have you ready to go on this thing, but if you need any more prodding, it's a crazy japanese riff on the little mermaid story, and is visually stunning as well as out and out weird. even weirder than spirited away in many ways.

Tell Them Anything You Want

i don't know what happened with this, but it should have been a bonus feature on a beefed up where the wild things are dvd, cause that disc is kinda weak extras wise. anyway, this is yet another great release from adam yauch's oscilloscope laboratories, which has been batting a thousand as far as i can see.

what you see is what you get here: spike jonze interviews maurice sendak over the course of making where the wild things are, talking about everything from sendak's childhood to his obsession with death stemming from an experience with the lindbergh baby. great little documentary that highlights the deep friendship that has developed between spike and maurice. be sure to check the extra with james gandolfini reading the night kitchen.

This Emotional Life



know right now that this three disc set is hefty, clocking in at 6 hours. it's truly engrossing though and absurdly informative, using some exceptional first person narratives and clinical studies (lots of them originating from UW, oddly enough) to illustrate its points. also, the bits of interviews with chevy chase will forever change how you see the man.

Where the Wild Things Are



this is the big one of the week (other than 2012 i guess). much has been said about how this movie nailed the childhood experience, but i think it's worth noting that it also, perhaps more notably, gets the ways that children perceive adult emotions right too. excellent film that, like it or not, is quite thought provoking.

all these, and more are available for rent after 12pm on monday night/tuesday morning. that midnight thing always trips me up.