News for
Michel Gondry More at IMDbPro »

2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

1-20 of 562 articles from 2009   « Prev | Next »

---

'The Green Hornet,' Ellen Page In 'Inception,' And The Minnesota Vikings In Today's Twitter Report

6 hours ago | MTV Splash Page | See recent MTV Splash Page news »

A few movie-related cheers and jeers got tossed around the Twitter Report's feed over the last 24 hours. Joe Hill seems to have been catching up on his "Green Hornet" news, and both Michel Gondry and Anvil have his approval. Bryan Lee O'Malley, meanwhile, sounded a little skeptical of Ellen Page's role in the new Christopher Nolan film "Inception."

In sports/comics crossover conversation, Brian Michael Bendis noticed the trending Vikings topic last night that was spurred by the Chicago Bears victory over Minnesota. He hoped that "Viking" writer Ivan Brandon would notice as well. Check out all of those retweets after the jump along with a birthday wish I endorse going out to Jeff Katz and a memorial shout out to Star Trek actress Majel Barrett, which I also support.

I'm @brianwarmoth, and this is your comics Twitterverse roundup for December 29, 2009.

@joe_hill I'm psyched to hear that The Green Hornet »

- Brian Warmoth

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Top 100 Tuesday: 100 Best Movies of the Decade

13 hours ago | WeAreMovieGeeks.com | See recent WeAreMovieGeeks.com news »

We are leaving Kubrick behind and fast approaching Hyams.  If you get that reference, go grab yourself a cookie.  It is time for us to reflect back on the decade that was.  On January 1st, 2000, Disney released Fantasia 2000.  On Wednesday, December 30th, 2009, The White Ribbon is set to bow.  Between the release of these two films, thousands of films came and went, and some of them were far more memorable than others.  It was a long trek getting this list together, but here are our collective top 100 films of the past decade.

Quick Year-to-Year by the Numbers:

2009 – 11

2008 – 11

2007 – 7

2006 – 14

2005 – 12

2004 – 8

2003 – 7

2002 – 12

2001 – 10

2000 – 8

100. Million Dollar Baby (2004) – Clint Eastwood

99. Juno (2007) – Jason Reitman

98. An Education (2009) – Lone Scherfig

97. Spider-man 2 (2004) – Sam Raimi

96. Munich (2005) – Steven Spielberg

95. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) – Wes Anderson

94. The King Of Kong (2007) – Seth Gordon

93. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’S Stone (2001) – Chris Columbus

92. Clerks 2 (2006) – Kevin Smith

91. Femme Fatale (2002) – Brian De Palma

90. Tasogare Seibei »

- Movie Geeks

Permalink | Report a problem

---

What are the best music videos of the noughties?

24 December 2009 3:07 AM, PST | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »

Let us know your favourite pop promos of the decade

What makes a great pop video? Explosive action? Mind-bending animation? Bling? Bottles of Cristal? Being ripped off in the latest TV advert? One viewer's masterpiece is another's dross, and they will never agree.

And there are simply more videos now than there used to be. In the 70s and 80s, quality videos stood out because there wasn't much else around – Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, Jacko's Thriller and Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer were events. Now videos cram every corner of YouTube, blogs and TV channels from Viva to MTV.

In the noughties, having a director for your video wasn't enough – they had to be a big name. Hype Williams was one of the busiest, shooting videos such as Kanye West's Gold Digger and Stronger, Beyoncé's Check on It and Coldplay's Viva La Vida. Other directors such as Mark Romanek »

- Dugald Baird

Permalink | Report a problem

---

The Notable Films of 2010: Part Four

19 December 2009 11:50 PM, PST | Dark Horizons | See recent Dark Horizons news »

Georgia

Opens: 2010

Cast: Val Kilmer, Andy Garcia, Rupert Friend, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Johnathon Schaech

Director: Renny Harlin

Summary: An American journalist, his cameraman, and a Georgian native get caught in the crossfire of the five-day Russia-Georgia conflict in August 2008, and then have to deal with their obligation to be impartial.

Analysis: A timely parable on war, or Hollywood propaganda filmmaking at its worst? Wherever it goes, especially in Europe and the former Soviet states, "Georgia" will cause a lot of talk and controversy as the incidents depicted are still so fresh in many's minds. Like all topics of the sort, it'll also have its strong supporters and detractors having opinions on the film long before a frame of footage is screened anywhere.

Shot on-location in Tbilisi, the project also marks a potential return to form for Finnish director Renny Harlin. Given the right material the skilled action director delivered three »

- Garth Franklin

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Cameron Diaz In “Bad Teacher”

15 December 2009 6:29 PM, PST | Filmofilia | See recent Filmofilia news »

Cameron Diaz will lead the cast of Columbia Pictures comedy “Bad Teacher.”

Story centers on a foulmouthed, gold-digging middle-school teacher (Diaz) who, after getting dumped by her boyfriend, competes with a colleague for the affections of the school’s model teacher.

Jake Kasdan will direct the movie from the script written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (”The Office”) which Jimmy Miller will produce.

Production is set to begin in the spring in Los Angeles.

Diaz can next be seen in Michel Gondry-directed superhero film “The Green Hornet,” “Knight and Day” and will voice Fiona in “Shrek Forever After.”

»

- Fiona

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Bunny and the Bull review

15 December 2009 12:13 PM, PST | ReelLoop.com | See recent Reel Loop news »

 

The Mighty Boosh is the epitome of a polarising comedy. Those who loves the series are insatiable for the adventures of Howard Moon, Vince Noir and the eccentric supporting cast that includes a tiny shaman and a talking gorilla. The camp who avoid the show are those left cold by the idea of a wild bear who is only scared by slap bass. What both parties should be able to agree on though is that The Mighty Boosh is a show consisting of almost train of thought flights of fancy so fantastically weird they could easily buckle under the weight of their own whimsy, leaving the show to crumble into free form anarchy. However, the good ship Mighty Boosh is held together rather masterfully by the stewardship of series director Paul King. Using an idiosyncratic visual, reminiscent of Michel Gondry’s most outlandish work, King was able to craft an »

- Kieron Casey

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Decade in Review: 2004 Top Ten

14 December 2009 6:56 PM, PST | FilmExperience | See recent FilmExperience news »

Moving on to 2004. What follows is my original top ten list, based on films released in NYC in 2004. If I have anything new to say that'll be in red after the original text.

Top Ten Runners Up (in descending order): Aviator, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Mean Girls, Maria Full of Grace, The Five Obstructions, Collateral, Goodbye Lenin!, Birth and Closer Yes, I'm absolutely horrified by the rankings now. Nothing about that ranking feels right now. I am most ashamed that Birth was only at number [cough] 19 in its year. In my self-flattering memory I "almost" put it in the top ten despite the then brutal reviews. I was ahead of my time! Oh well... at least I did actually name it the #1 most underappreciated film of the year. At the time I said...

Jonathan Glazer made a significant splash four years ago when his brilliantly acted heist film Sexy Beast »

- NATHANIEL R

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Lists and Awards, Part the Fourth

13 December 2009 6:17 AM, PST | The Auteurs | See recent The Auteurs news »

Updated through 12/13.

"You'd expect that when a decade essentially begins (towers fall) and ends (bubbles burst) with rude awakenings, with sudden bombardments of reality, that it would slow the drift of American movies into the realm of the private, the solipsistic, the computer-generated," writes David Edelstein in New York's big "00s Issue." But: "The most compelling films of the last decade, bad and good, suggested that globalization and instant communication have not brought us closer but driven us deeper into our dream worlds." And the movie of the decade? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. "The most marvelous, the most resonant, the best movie of the aughts isn't overtly political, but writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry weave together so many 21st-century fears that this truly screwball romance has the kick of a Philip K Dick paranoid fever dream." »

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Cameron Diaz to Star in Raunchy Comedy Bad Teacher

9 December 2009 9:55 PM, PST | Collider.com | See recent Collider.com news »

It looks like Cameron Diaz is going back to school and will be giving 13-year-old boys erections.  Variety reports that the actress will star in the raunchy comedy Bad Teacher, which “centers on a foulmouthed, gold-digging middle-school teacher who, after getting dumped by her boyfriend, competes with a colleague for the affections of the school’s model teacher.”  The script is by The Office (Us) writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky with the talented Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story) at the helm.

Bad Teacher is set to begin shooting in the spring.  Diaz has been keeping busy with roles in Shrek Forever After, James Mangold’s Knight & Day with Tom Cruise, and Michel Gondry’s The Green Hornet with Seth Rogen and Jay Chou.

»

- Matt Goldberg

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Catch A Buzz With "The Green Hornet"-December 22, 2010...

8 December 2009 4:48 PM, PST | SneakPeek | See recent SneakPeek news »

"The Green Hornet" is the classic crime-fighting character of film, television, radio and comic books, returning to the big screen in Columbia Pictures' new feature, starring Vancouver actor Seth Rogen as the disguised vigilante.

Production started in Los Angeles on the Michel Gondry-directed film, produced by Neal "I Am Legend" H. Moritz. Executive producers are Michael "The Accidental Tourist" Grillo, Rogen, Evan "Pineapple Express" Goldberg, Ori "Evan Almighty" Marmur and George W. Trendle, Jr.

"The Green Hornet" also stars Taiwanese actor-pop star Jay Chou as 'Kato', Cameron "The Mask" Diaz, Edward James "Miami Vice" Olmos, David "Revolutionary Road" Harbour, Tom "Valkyrie" Wilkinson and the villain 'Chudnofsky' played by Austrian actor Christoph "Inglourious Basterds" Waltz.

Academy Award-nominee John "Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian" Schwartzman is director of photography, production designer is Owen "The Matrix Revolution" Paterson and Kym "Speed Racer" Barrett is costume designer.

"The Green Hornet »

- Michael Stevens

Permalink | Report a problem

---

'Iron Man 2' Voted MTV Readers' Most-Anticipated 2010 Comic Book Movie

7 December 2009 12:31 PM, PST | MTV Splash Page | See recent MTV Splash Page news »

Well, that certainly wasn't much of a surprise. After we asked readers to pick the 2010 comic book movie they're most looking forward to, they voted "Iron Man 2" the overwhelming winner — but not all of the results were as predictable as Tony Stark and War Machine's victory.

In the end, "Iron Man 2" nabbed just over half the total votes, with Matthew Vaughn's "Kick-Ass" and Edgar Wright's "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" each taking home 11 percent of the vote and sharing the runner-up spot. Both "Jonah Hex" and "Dead of Night" also had decent showings, with the latter receiving 7 percent of the total vote via a big outpouring of fan support and an active write-in campaign. (I'd accidentally left the Brandon Routh-starring film out of the poll.)

Read on for the full results and some reader feedback about the results.

Poll Results

Iron Man 2: 53%

Kick-Ass: »

- Rick Marshall

Permalink | Report a problem

---

My decade: personal perspectives from key arts figures

7 December 2009 9:03 AM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Film-makers, musicians and more look back on their achievements and favourite works from the noughties

Kevin Macdonald, film director

Personally, it's been a fascinating decade. In the late 90s, I was struggling to make TV documentaries but work was drying up. I was a purist, with no interest in working with actors. I hated the idea of dramatic reconstructions because they look so cheesy. Then I worked with actors on Touching the Void and this led to dramatic features, though documentaries remain my first love.

The British film industry has always been about boom and bust. We start out with unrealistic optimism: "We're going to compete with Hollywood!" Then we have the collapse and the correction. We saw it with Alexander Korda in the 1930s, with Rank after the war, and with Gandhi in the 1980s. This decade it happened again.

The collapse of Film4 back in 2002 was part of this problem. »

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Spike Jonze: Master of the Wild Things

7 December 2009 1:28 AM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Once the hippest name in music videos, the 40-year-old director will this week terrify children with his adaption of Maurice Sendak's adored tale

A large rubber-band ball sits on the bedside table of the wilful young Max, hero of the new Spike Jonze film, while overhead, on a shelf, sits a bird's nest. Early shots of these odd objects cleverly prelude the virtuoso visual style of this audacious adaptation of a children's classic: the 1963 picture book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

In the hands of the Oscar-nominated Jonze the island of fearful monsters that Max discovers one night when he has been sent to bed without supper becomes a perilous wasteland dotted with spherical wickerwork huts, nest-like forts and rounded boulders. Although Max, along with his ugly, untamed group of new friends, is clearly recognisable from Sendak's book, any parent who returns to their nursery copy »

- Vanessa Thorpe

Permalink | Report a problem

---

John’s Top Eleven Films of the Decade

6 December 2009 3:47 PM, PST | ReelLoop.com | See recent Reel Loop news »

I was just under 11 years old as we entered the 2000s, and in the last decade I have made it my mission to fill the space in my mind that should be reserved for academics to remembering the details of far too many films. In looking back upon this decade, it seems that we’ve had quite a good chunk of time for movies — there are only two years absent on my top ten list: 2000 and 2005, while 2006 is represented by three films. I still cheated, though, by extending my list to eleven entries. Some were just too good to decide between.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. And before you start — don’t cry. The Dark Knight isn’t on here.

11. The Royal Tenenbaums – 2001

Spoiler: you’re going to find that comedy is slightly underrepresented on this list, with Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums »

- John Cooper

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Spike Jonze: 'I'm never going to compromise'

4 December 2009 4:15 PM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

The well-connected director is very good at getting his own way, hence his family unfriendly take on kids' classic, Where The Wild Things Are

Ten years after Being John Malkovich, there are still few people's heads you'd pay to spend 15 minutes inside as much as Spike Jonze's. It would be easy to imagine life from his perspective as a continual flow of way-cool experiences: "Here I am dashing off another era-defining music video. Here I am hanging out with Karen O/Kanye/Mia/the Coppolas. Oh look, I've got another bunch of Oscar nominations. I think I'll pop into Vice magazine and do some cool shit. Now I'm just scrolling through the contacts on my iPhone and thinking how phenomenally well-connected I am." That's the movie version, but real life hasn't been quite so straightforward for Jonze of late. Over the past five years, a random visit to Jonze's »

- Steve Rose

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Nic Cage Says 'Green Hornet' Exit Was 'A Disagreement About The Role, Not The Movie'

3 December 2009 11:01 AM, PST | MTV Splash Page | See recent MTV Splash Page news »

This past summer cinephiles, comic-book-geeks and Nic Cage fans alike were excited to hear the news that the Oscar winner was set to play a mobster in Seth Rogen’s movie version of “The Green Hornet.” It was an announcement that seemed to promise a return to the edgier, quirkier, over-the-top Cage that endeared himself to fans during the first decade of his career before movies like “The Family Man” and “National Treasure” came along. Oddly enough, that return to form would instead be marked by a different film — and Cage couldn’t be happier.

“It’s not more fun, but it’s kind of relieving,” Cage told MTV News of playing an over-the-top character in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” which has given the actor his best reviews in years and might just get some awards-season talk. “It’s relieving to get it out; you go through »

- Larry Carroll

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Director To Make Feature Film Debut

1 December 2009 2:11 PM, PST | Slash Film | See recent Slash Film news »

Keith Arem, director of Activision Blizzard's popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, will make his feature directorial debut on Frost Road, an action thriller that Cary Brokaw (Closer) will produce along with Steven L'Heureux. The film will tell the story of a small coastal Eastern town which is suddenly and inexplicably devastated by an invisible contagion. A young man awakens from a car accident to discover he is one of few survivors in the aftermath of a mysterious outbreak. Somehow immune, he tries to save the remaining survivors from themselves, as he desperately struggles to prevent the deadly wave from spreading across the entire planet. Years ago I thought that the next generation of feature film directors would be plucked out of music videos (Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Mark Romanek) but in these post Napster/Mtv times, that no longer seems to be the big training ground that »

- Peter Sciretta

Permalink | Report a problem

---

You review: Bunny and the Bull

30 November 2009 9:06 AM, PST | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Did the Mighty Boosh road-trip movie take you on a splendid journey? Or did it make you wish you'd stayed home?

The debut feature from Mighty Boosh director Paul King finds itself praised with one hand and damned with the other. Some compared its award-winning special effects work to the visual extravagances of Michel Gondry, while others dismissed it as another example of a big-screen Britcom failure to tack on the end of a long, long list. Somehow, this nervy road-trip comedy ends up being labelled both a wildly inventive, structurally adventurous piece of cinema, and a hugely disappointing damb squib whose screenplay could have done with a lot more work.

Bunny and the Bull centres on the uncomfortable-in-his-own-skin Stephen (Edward Hogg) as he recalls a disastrous trip across Europe in the company of his lothario best pal Bunny (Simon Farnaby), a journey so catastrophic our hero hasn't left his »

- Ben Child

Permalink | Report a problem

---

Advert. Subvert. Gonzo (Fake) Commercials within Films

24 November 2009 7:50 AM, PST | Twitch | See recent Twitch news »

"Can't get enough, of the Stuff!"  From the mid-1920s whereupon the eventual Oscar winning film Wings featured a Hershey Chocolate Bar prominently in the story right on up to the use of M&Ms in Steven Spielberg's E.T. and beyond to the modern James Bond films or Castaway (FedEx) or The Great Yokai War (Kirin Beer) or perhaps the worst offender ever:  I, Robot, product placement is simply a large part of big expensive movies.  And many filmmakers have either parodied product placement (ahem, sorry:  Brand Integration) or even invented their own fictional consumer goods that only appear in their movies.  Unlike television, which (in large part) relies on advertising to fund the creation of shows, there are rarely full commercials used explicitly in a film (before the screening of the film is another story, unfortunately!).  But filmmakers love to offer ads for fake products or services or »

Permalink | Report a problem

---

'Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans' Producers Want It To Spawn A Franchise

17 November 2009 10:00 AM, PST | MTV Movies Blog | See recent MTV Movies Blog news »

It should be understood that the new film "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" is not technically a remake. Filmmaker Werner Herzog has supposedly never even seen Abel Ferrara's original 1992 film, simply titled "Bad Lieutenant," and the only connections are the title and the fact that both films' protagonists are indeed bad police lieutenants.

Now, according to statements made to the Los Angeles Times in a piece about the second picture, producers Alan and Gabe Polsky hope to continue the "Bad Lieutenant" name as an ongoing franchise.

Initially, the Polskys sought to finance a straight sequel to Ferrara's cult classic, and they wanted both the director and his star, Harvey Keitel, to return. However, that plan didn't pan out due to disagreements over the script. So the producers tapped Herzog instead, and the project became something of a stand-alone sequel, now starring Nicolas Cage as a character unrelated to Keitel's. »

- Christopher Campbell

Permalink | Report a problem

---

2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

1-20 of 562 articles from 2009   « Prev | Next »

---