When you're talking about documentaries built around epic scale photography and a lot of time lapsing, Koyaanisqatsi and its Qatsi cousins speak in booming, serious tones. Baraka is a peaceful meditation… [more]
Top 5 Fridays :: Returning Fall TV shows
I recently spent some time on the internet researching the fall TV schedule. Much too my delight and dismay, I counted at least 31 shows that I will be watching in any given week. Is that too many? Not… [more]
Friday Nights in Red Riding ain’t for no Babies
Welcome to a special "Steve drinks 20oz of coffee on the air" edition of The Film Cynics - you can feel the intensity increase as the caffeine takes hold. We've got 3 DVD reviews this week, including the… [more]
Book of Eli
Post-Apocalyptic films may have taken many different shades & shapes over the years, ranging from the comedic (Brazil) to the family oriented (Wall-E) to the morose (The Road), but they all maintain… [more]
Top 5 Fridays – Christmas Movies… that aren’t about Christmas
Ah, Christmastime! Time to gather 'round the warm glow of the television and soak in some holiday classics. But why resign yourself to the "classics" like It's a Wonderful Life and Scrooged when you can… [more]
Unbreakable (2000)
As I struggle to make room on my buckling shelves for new DVDs to coexist with my old ones, my fingers took a stroll through my "Favourite Director" section and found that it was probably about time to… [more]
Backsliding?
I went out to HMV to pick up a copy of special edition Watchmen Blu-Ray with Zack Snyder doing running video commentary, and I found a copy of The Island (one of Michael Bay's unsung successes) for 7 bucks!… [more]
Top 5 Fridays :: Returning Fall TV shows
I recently spent some time on the internet researching the fall TV schedule. Much too my delight and dismay, I counted at least 31 shows that I will be watching in any given week. Is that too many? Not… [more]
From the Vault – Christmas Vacation
In sticking to our holiday theme for the vault picks this month, I was nothing more then ecstatic to get to kick it off with one of my favourite X-mas movies, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. In the… [more]
Posted by: Brian, on September 3, 2010, at 9:00 am
I recently spent some time on the internet researching the fall TV schedule. Much too my delight and dismay, I counted at least 31 shows that I will be watching in any given week. Is that too many? Not enough? Just right? Thank god I have a DVR and the HD time shift package so I can start watching some shows as early as 5pm local time. Which is Vancouver time incase anyone cares. So in honour of my unhealthy appetite for all things TV, here are the 5 returning shows that I have to watch this fall.
5. Dexter – Sunday, 9pm Showtime
What can I say? I love the look of this show and the acting is top notch. Also the concept is so dark and twisted yet thoroughly enjoyable that I can’t stop watching it. Michael C. Hall is amazing as the titular character and I find it weird and confusing that I am cheering for a serial killer. And after the events of last season, who knows whats going to happen.
4. Modern Family – Wednesday, 9pm ABC
Yes it won the Emmy for best comedy. Did it deserve it? No. Its a fine show but I know of two or three others that weren’t even nominated that are funnier. Having said that, Modern Family is a funny show and hopefully it can live up to all its recent hype and deliver on a solid second season. I am looking forward to finding out if it does.
3. Community – Thursdays, 8pm NBC
NBC had a surprise stroke of genius. Make a show about community college, cast virtual unknowns, and give Chevy Chase one last kick at the comedy can. Who would have thought that they would create a brilliant and progressive comedy show that managed to not only offer solid episodes each week but also push the limits of what a half hour sitcom can do. It has already created 2 episodes that will become the standard for half hour parody.
2. Friday Night Lights – Wednesday, 9pm Direct TV
My all time favorite scripted drama is back for its final season. I really wish Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton had won Emmys this year. They so deserve it. The work that they and the rest of the cast have been putting out for the last 4 years has been nothing less then spectacular. I am saddened that this will be the last year I get to spend with the town of Dillon Texas but also relieved that they didn’t drag it out for too long. Farewell FNL.
(This is a promo for season 4 cause it looks like they have given up on promoting it, but its still cool so enjoy)
1. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Thursdays, 10pm FX
On September 16th, the funniest show no one I know watches will return for its 6th season. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a half hour comedy on FX revolving around the exploits of the owners and employees of a rundown bar in South Philly. Sounds pretty simple right? Wrong. It is the most cutting edge, subversive, rude, crude and genuinely brilliant comedy show on TV. Modern Family may have won the Emmy, but it doesn’t come close to the pure creativity of Sunny.
Posted by: Steve, on September 1, 2010, at 3:45 pm
Yesterday I had the honour of coming out the big winner in 31 Days to a Better (Movie) Blog put on by Anomalous Material. By being the most prolific commenter I was awarded a free copy of Darren Rowse‘s book of the same name. But at the risk of sounding really lame, I came out a big winner because I followed just about every little bit of advice Castor had to offer. Those who pay attention to the goings on around the ol’ Cynical ranch will have noticed quite a bit of sprucing up around here over the last 31 days, and it can all be attributed directly to this month-long workshop. If you’re looking for a way to improve your own website, and maybe crank up your traffic a bit, I highly recommend checking it out.
Posted by: Steve, on September 1, 2010, at 8:08 am
When you’re talking about documentaries built around epic scale photography and a lot of time lapsing, Koyaanisqatsi and its Qatsi cousins speak in booming, serious tones. Baraka is a peaceful meditation on our relationship with the world through technology, religion and the environment. Directed by Ron Fricke, the director of photography on Koyaanisqatsi, a man who considers himself an expert on “humanity’s relationship to the eternal”, it features incredible vistas, haunting music, whirling Dervishes, Balinese monks, and Snow Monkeys floating in their Japanese hot springs – it is a beautiful film, simply sublime. The kind of filmmaker that someone like Tarsem Singhaspires to be, Ron Fricke is.
Shot in 70mm, double the size of traditional film stock, I recommend you see it in high definition to take full advantage of the footage shot in over 24 countries over the course of 20 years. Roger Ebert describes the blu-ray as the finest video disc he has ever viewed or ever imagined. I consider it closely related to Microcosmos, but only because I used to watch them as a double feature at the local theatre where we’d trip the light fantastic on the upper balcony. And unlike Microcosmos, that makes use of little bits of poetry throughout, nary a word is spoken in Baraka. But don’t let that keep you from chatting a little when you’re watching it, unlike me who sat awestruck when I saw it for the first time on DVD.
Ron Fricke is apparently in the process of making a sequel to Baraka, called Samsara. It’s being shot on large format film as well, with cameras that Fricke and his crew built themselves. It will apparently be released in 2011.
Question: Have you seen Baraka? Do you have any favourites that are anything like it?
I know this is not directly movie or TV related but after experiencing this for myself I felt I had to share it with all of you. Arcade Fire, the most important band to come out of Canada in awhile (sorry Boken Social Scene) have released a new wed based interactive music video.
Created by Chris Milk, this experience is unlike anything I have ever seen before on the internet. Its part music video and part personalized journey into your past. Thats right, each “viewing” can be focused solely on you and your life. It is really easy to get going, all it takes is the address of the home you grew up in. The rest I will let you see for yourself.
I am not going to tell you what to feel or expect and I am sure everyone will see it differently and react in a myriad of ways. I am just asking to take this trip and see what happens. Please feel from to let me know how it was for you, because I know for me it was the most intense and cathartic thing I have ever experienced on my computer. Good work Arcade Fire, you just solidified your spot in my top 3 list of all time favorite bands.
Welcome to a special “Steve drinks 20oz of coffee on the air” edition of The Film Cynics – you can feel the intensity increase as the caffeine takes hold. We’ve got 3 DVD reviews this week, including the first in our series on the Red Riding trilogy. And hey, the Emmy’s were on tonight. Who knew? Feast your ears this:
A brisk discussion in advance of Sunday night’s Emmy Awards. Did we get any right?
Brian reviews Season 4 of Friday Night Lights and Steve reviews the documentary Babies.
Our review of Red Riding 1974 as the first instalment of our series on the Red Riding trilogy.
Steve’s Top 5 Picks for the the fall slate of movies.
We break Boy A and Baraka out of the Vault and talk about the trailers for 127 Hours and The Walking Dead.
I had a long list of top 5′s to choose from this week, but because I’m doing a little guest appearance on the radio today to talk about the fall movie season I thought I’d back it up with some written documentation. With the summer season quickly coming to a close with many disappointments, and a few glowing successes, it’s time to look at where the stuff that was clearly not good enough to handle blockbuster season wound up. Does that sound like I’m establishing a set of lower expectations? Well, I am. The kids are all back at school, grown ups are taking in the changing leaves, and people are just biding their time until the Christmas movie season comes along. Fear not though, I think I might have dug up a few diamonds in the rough that’ll tide you over until December’s new slough of hits.
The hype is starting to build very slowly for the August 27th re-release of Avatar. There will apparently be some previously unseen footage added to the film to offer an added incentive to going to check it out. It having been a very successful film, even by James Cameron standards, it’s unliklely that there are many out there who would find this to be there first viewing – although I do count my wife as one of them. Are you feeling the need to don your 3D glasses and revisit Pandora? Does the film still hold wonder for you, or was it driven by the novelty of the new wave of 3D that has since worn off?
You can feel the love in this Family Guy tribute to A New Hope, but can you laugh at the humour? Brian and Steve examine what, defying all logic, can only be called an homage to Star Wars by the source of some of the more depraved elements of pop culture today, Seth MacFarlane.
As I struggle to make room on my buckling shelves for new DVDs to coexist with my old ones, my fingers took a stroll through my “Favourite Director” section and found that it was probably about time to make a change or two. My policy is to have the director section contained to a single shelf to ensure its special nature and for a long time it’s been: Terry Gilliam, Michael Mann, Cameron Crowe, Steven Soderbergh and M. Night Shyamlan. The thing is, its been a long time since M. Night has done something worthy of a spot on my shelf (I have everything up to and including The Village) and it strikes me that it’s time for him to ship off – I mean, I recently kicked David Fincher off my shelf too – now Fight Club, Seven and The Game have to mingle with the regular movies and I have to figure out what freakin’ genre Fight Club fits under… Sigh. Anyways, I’m thinking it’s time to switch out Shyamalan for Edgar Wright and as a way of sending Night off with some dignity I thought I’d offer a last tribute to the main reason he got his spot on my shelf in the first place: Unbreakable.
David Dunn (Bruce Willis, in what could be his best performance of the decade) is a mopey loser working as a security guard at the University Stadium – he’s in the midst of an indifferent divorce, and maintains a quiet arm’s length relationship with his son (Spencer Treat Clark). Just looking at him, you can see his soul has gone cold although it’s not exactly clear what has rendered it so. To accompany this hefty helping of pathos is a heaping dose of irony where the man with nothing to live for becomes the sole survivor of a deadly train crash. David Dunn can’t fathom why he would be the only one spared, but it seems that somebody has a theory: Elijah Price (a suprisingly reserved Samuel Jackson), an eccentric purple-clad comic book collector. He thinks that David survived because he has super powers, and that taking on the mantle of the superhero would probably bring the meaning to David’s life that he’s been so desperately seeking. What unfolds from here is David Dunn’s quest for self-discovery and revelations of his destiny.
…slow-paced narratives offer up a lot of room for great digital effects-free visuals…
I think that if this story were told today it would seem pretty tired and offering little in the way of discourse considering the vast array of superhero films out there, but this was made in 2000, before the comic book explosion – or perhaps on the verge of it. But while the story is compelling – Quentin Tarantino summed it up as saying “What if Superman existed, and didn’t know he was Superman” – what the most striking about this film was its photography, which has always been what struck me about Shyamalan’s films. Eduardo Serra was behind the camera for this particular outing, his other credits include What Dreams May Come and Blood Diamond. For The Village, M. Night somehow got the chance to work with the legendary Roger Deakins, my favourite cinematographer of all time. While Shyamalan’s hook endings are what he’s known (and now loathed) for, his slow-paced narratives offer up a lot of room for great digital effects-free visuals – and that’s definitely what you’ll find on display in Unbreakable – incredibly well thought out framing, great use of light and colour, and camera tricks nobody’s thought to use since Hitchcock.
So farewell, Unbreakable. I’m sure you’ll be happy in either my “Drama” section or maybe in “Superheroes”, it was nice to have you in my “Favourite Director” shelf, and you should take pride in being the reason why M. Night made it there in the first place.
PS: Those of you who are interested should definitely check out the special features: There’s some great deleted scenes.
With nothing on our DVD slate this week, we’ve got a bit of a mixed bag including organizing Steve’s movie collection and measuring the summer’s mercenary flicks against each other.
Brian is fresh from seeing The Expendables, so we take some time to see how it measures up against the other mercenary films of the summer. Apparently, casting isn’t everything.
With Steve’s DVD collection pushing the 530 mark, he’s reaching out for help and advice on how to organize everything. Alphabetical? Chronological? Autobiographical? Emotional? What kind of order should they go in?
Brian’s shares his top 5 favourite sketch comedy shows. Be ready for some show you’ve never heard of, and also be prepared for Monty Python to not be on this list.
Brian is tickled pink that Burn Notice is finally making it’s way to Canadian airwaves. Don’t know what Burn Notice is? Brian can explain it for you. He’s also got his impressions on The Good Guys – apparently the news is good.
Man on Wire and Unbreakable are broken out of the Vault, and then there’s just enough time for the trailers for Black Swan and I’m Still Here.
Thanks for tuning in, your feedback is always appreciated.
Yesterday I had the honour of coming out the big winner in 
When you’re talking about documentaries built around epic scale photography and a lot of time lapsing, Koyaanisqatsi and its Qatsi cousins speak in booming, serious tones. Baraka is a peaceful meditation on our relationship with the world through technology, religion and the environment. Directed by Ron Fricke, the director of photography on Koyaanisqatsi, a man who considers himself an expert on “humanity’s relationship to the eternal”, it features incredible vistas, haunting music, whirling Dervishes, Balinese monks, and Snow Monkeys floating in their Japanese hot springs – it is a beautiful film, simply sublime. The kind of filmmaker that someone like 
As I struggle to make room on my buckling shelves for new DVDs to coexist with my old ones, my fingers took a stroll through my “Favourite Director” section and found that it was probably about time to make a change or two. My policy is to have the director section contained to a single shelf to ensure its special nature and for a long time it’s been: Terry Gilliam, Michael Mann, Cameron Crowe, Steven Soderbergh and M. Night Shyamlan. The thing is, its been a long time since M. Night has done something worthy of a spot on my shelf (I have everything up to and including The Village) and it strikes me that it’s time for him to ship off – I mean, I recently kicked David Fincher off my shelf too – now Fight Club, Seven and The Game have to mingle with the regular movies and I have to figure out what freakin’ genre Fight Club fits under… Sigh. Anyways, I’m thinking it’s time to switch out Shyamalan for Edgar Wright and as a way of sending Night off with some dignity I thought I’d offer a last tribute to the main reason he got his spot on my shelf in the first place: 
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