News Features
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Johnny Depp is #1 with a bullet as John Dillinger in Public Enemies.
DIRECTOR: Michael Mann
ACTORS: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup, Stephen Dorff, Jason Clarke, and Stephen Lang
SYNOPSIS: During the Great Depression, America’s most wanted—and celebrated—criminal, John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), pulls off bank robberies and prison breaks while being hunted by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) and agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale).
CLICK HERE TO READ AYO!’s REVIEW & WATCH THE TRAILER
TITLE: Breathless a.k.a. Ddongpari
COUNTRY: Korea
GENRE: (Violent) drama
SCREENING: Thursday, July 2 at 2 p.m. at the IFC Center, NYC as part of the New York Asian Film Festival
FUN FACT: Lead actor Yang Ik-June wrote, produced, and directed this independent movie, which has racked up awards at several international film festivals.
WHY COMPLEX IS CO-SIGNING IT: We’re all for consuming media via BitTorrent, Hulu, and YouTube, but nothing beats getting your mind blown by a powerful movie on the big-screen. Last week, we were lucky enough to attend the NY premiere of the Korean film Ddongpari (literally translated: “Shit-Fly”; American title: Breathless)—and honestly, we haven’t stopped thinking about it since. The movie follows the exploits of a debt-collector/thug named Sang-hoon whose first, second, and last resort is violence. After Sang-hoon crosses paths (violently) with an equally pugnacious high-school girl, the odd couple form a strange bond that provides glimmers of light in the dark chaos of their respective lives. Along the way, we learn how Sang-hoon’s past has marred his present and future…
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TITLE: Waltz with Bashir
GENRE: Animated/Documentary/War
DIRECTOR: Ari Folman
FUN FACT: At the 2009 Academy Awards, Israel’s Waltz with Bashir became the first animated film to be nominated for the “Best Foreign Language Film” Oscar. It lost to the Japanese nominee, Departures.
WHY COMPLEX IS CO-SIGNING IT: Few films capture the surreal, traumatic experience of war like Waltz with Bashir does. The fact-based animated documentary centers on its director, Folman, an Israeli veteran of the 1982 Lebanon War who can’t remember anything from that period in his life. When a fellow vet recounts a recurring nightmare he has from his days in Lebanon, it awakens a vision of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Folman, only he can’t tell if it’s real or imagined. By speaking to other soldiers whose minds are playing tricks on them to cope with their trauma, he attempts to piece together what really happened to him in Beirut. Animation, we find, is the perfect tool to express things so horrific that the human mind refuses to accept them as real. If there are winners in war, this film is one.
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: Director commentary, “Q&A with Director Ari Folman,” “Surreal Soldiers: Making Waltz with Bashir,” “Building the Scene: Animatics,” and the theatrical trailer.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE TRAILER!
Optimus Prime and the Trans-gendered robots are back!
Whether it’s movies or dome, Ayo! Scott enjoys good summer fluff. Both go down a little something like this: Ayo! reclines, Ayo! dumbs out to the action, Ayo! shifts around a couple times before an explosive climax, Ayo! promptly leaves, Ayo! repeats in another theater. Ayo! doesn’t ask for a hell of a lot, which is why it’s so baffling that Michael Bay, master of the mindless blockbuster, and his new sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, failed to pleasure him.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL REVIEW!
Autobot twins Skids and Mudflap strike a b-boy pose during their minstrel show.
According to a leaked memo, director Michael Bay is pissed off at Paramount Pictures for not putting enough hype behind his new sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Having seen it, we can’t help but wonder if Paramount is keeping quiet because his flick about warring alien robots transforms into a vehicle for racism.
As if black people didn’t catch a bad enough one from the Jar Jar Binks character in Star Wars Episodes I-III, Bay’s Autobot twins, the “black”-voiced Skids and Mudflap, are the 2009 version of the Amos n’ Andy minstrel show. It’s hard to believe a big-money director would show his ass like this in what projects to be a much-watched blockbuster, but maybe he’s gotten too comfortable hanging out with his boy Black-Ty. Whatever the rationale, it’s clear that Bay is violating. How can we be so certain? Check out 7 reasons why Transformers 2 might be racist…
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A best-of list at the year’s halfway point? Hell yeah, but ain’t a damn thing about it done halfway.
Blow the whistle—it’s halftime in 2009! All week long we’ve been listing our favorite things that floated into the Complex universe in the past six months. We already gave you our picks for the best sneakers, albums, style essentials, and video games; now, we close the week out with The Top 10 Movies. Fortunately movies haven’t sucked like rap has, so we had to really think about what deserved a spot and how it measured up to the rest. What we were left with is a legit list of must-see, worth-the-price-of-admission flicks (or at least the time it takes to download them illegally). Action, comedy, drama, romance, horror, sci-fi, sports, animation, documentary, blockbuster, indie—we’ve got it all. Find out which flick took the top spot and why as we count it down. As always, let us know if you have bad taste and disagree.
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John Travolta hates when people don’t give up train seats for pregnant women.
Ayo! Scott is like the MTA—only when he runs train he comes on time and doesn’t smell like a crazy shit-smeared hobo. Not that Ayo! is bitter about paying two dollars to get railed by NYC public transportation. Despite some rough riding, it does eventually get him from A to B. The same can be said of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, director Tony Scott’s remake of the 1974 movie based on John Godey’s book.
In the middle of the busy Manhattan workday, a team of criminals hijacks the 1:23 p.m. 6 local train out of Pelham Bay Park. Led by neck-tatted, biker ’stache-sporting ex-con Ryder (John Travolta), they demand $10 million ransom for a car full of hostages, and don’t think twice about blasting fools. On the other end of negotiations is Walter Garber (the transcendent Denzel Washinton), an MTA lifer who’s been humiliated and demoted to train dispatcher following allegations that he took bribes. Although a police negotiator and the mayor (played well by John Turturro and James Gandolfini, respectively) try to get involved, Ryder insists that the working stiff, who may once have been tempted to break the rules for some quick cash, stay on the line with him until the deal is done (similarities between them aside, Ryder says he thinks Garber’s voice is sexy enough that he’d have taken him as his prison bitch)…
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Don’t be mad, UPS is hiring…
Is the jig up for Will Ferrell? Seems like yesterday that Silly Willie was on top of the box-office world, but it appears his reign might be coming to an end. With his latest, Land of the Lost, flopping harder than Pau Gasol this past weekend, it may be time for Mr. Ferrell to reassess his film career. Dude’s already made a hundred thousand trillion playing the same role over and over again (even on our cover!), so there’s no reason he can’t parlay that character into other potential jobs. Here, then, are six new careers for Will Ferrell…
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If you can remember what happened in Vegas, your trip blew.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, ’cause there’s no way those hookers ever got out of the shallow grave Ayo! Scott dug for them, not bound with all that duct tape. But you don’t have to bury escorts alive to have a good time in Sin City—that’s just what Ayo! likes to do on a big fight night. The Hangover, the new comedy from Todd Phillips, director of Old School, shows there’s lots of other fun shit you can get into while getting smashed in the middle of the desert.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL REVIEW & SEE THE TRAILER…
This weekend, low-brow comedy fans will be coming out in droves to watch Todd Phillips’ The Hangover, a movie about a crew of guys who wake up in the aftermath of a booze and hooker filled night to a baby, a tiger, some missing teeth and wedding bands. The concept itself is whatevs, but having Zach Galifianakis in anything makes it a must see. We’ll have a full review of the film on Friday morning, so watch Galifiniakis’ Between Two Ferns while you wait (seriously, do it).
The Hangover reminds us of a few things: Vegas is awesome for the first 8 hours you’re there, bachelor parties can be the most awesome/most awkward few days of your life, and next time you play Best Man, there are a few things that are absolute musts: boobs, booze, drugs, and donkeys. The Hangover isn’t the first big screen banger to capitalize on these uber-American themes—hit the jump for our 5 favorite bachelor party movies of all time…
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