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Film Clips

Our Favorite Montages: Rocky IV

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:02:00 EST

Filed under: Classics, Sports, Fandom, Film Clips, Trailers and Clips

Naturally, when asked to pick a favorite montage I had to be painfully obvious and choose Rocky IV. If I could program Star Trek Holodeck adventures for myself, one of them would totally be set in Hollywood's version of the Cold War, where it was better to be dead than red, and nuclear war was just five minutes away unless Stallone or Schwarzenegger stepped in. This is the culture that spawned characters like Marvel's Black Widow, and I too want to be an agent provocateur for one side or the other. Preferably Russian. They always had the cool black outfits.

That's why I dig the Rocky IV montage. It's steeped in images of what America firmly believed the Soviet Union to be -- a country of superior technology and gigantic athletes that could totally crush us. This is the stuff of my Reagan era childhood, when my teachers told us we would inevitably fall to the hammer and sickle because the Soviets were just so relentlessly ruthless and badass. No one captures this better than Ivan Drago. To gaze on him is to look into Reagan's fear of the Evil Empire. Drago's the poster child for why we needed a lot of nukes in the 1980s. Even better, this montage also captures what we believed pre-Revolutionary Russia to be, which is clearly something out of Doctor Zhivago. Like Leo Tolstoy, Sylvester Stallone obviously believed that Russia lost its way when it strayed from its peasant soul, and he embraces its hearty lifestyle of serfdom in order to achieve true victory.

Watch the video after the jump

Continue reading Our Favorite Montages: Rocky IV

Exclusive Clip from 'Goodbye Solo'

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:32:00 EST

Filed under: Drama, New on DVD, Home Entertainment, Film Clips

Goodbye Solo -- which comes out on Lionsgate DVD on August 25 -- may seem like a fairly simple, lightweight indie movie, one of those quirky movies about a mismatched friendship. Hollywood loves movies about uptight misfits who need to be opened up and drawn out of their shell, and it loves movies about the loony, loopy oddballs who perform this service. At first glance, Goodbye Solo could have been just another forgettable formula entry. But under the gentle, wise, subtle direction of Ramin Bahrani, it becomes something special, a genuine sleeper. It may be the best DVD you rent this summer. (It will include a commentary track by Bahrani and cinematographer Michael Simmonds.)

In the film, Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane, in a terrific film debut) comes from Senegal and lives in North Carolina, drives a cab, is married to a Mexican woman (Carmen Leyva), and is expecting his first child. He dreams of becoming a flight attendant and constantly studies his manual. He also has a whip-smart stepdaughter Alex (Diana Franco Galindo) who likes to spend time with him. Solo is like somebody you might know and wish to be more like; he has lots of friends and seems to trade in favors more often than money. (His wife, however, sees him as dreamy and impractical.)

Read more and watch the exclusive clip after the jump ...

Continue reading Exclusive Clip from 'Goodbye Solo'

Credits Report: WALL-E

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:25:00 EST

Filed under: Animation, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Film Clips, Trailers and Clips

Wall-E is such a good, sappy, funny, adventurous, touching, and enjoyable movie, that by the time you get to the end you're exhausted. Plus you probably have a single tear sliding down your cheek like Iron Eyes Cody. So by the time the end credits roll, you're looking for something to bring you back down to Earth, no pun intended. Aw, who am I kidding -- that pun was definitely intended.

Thankfully that thing isn't a Randy Newman song, although it does come via his cousin Thomas Newman who thank all the stars above wisely lets Peter Gabriel sing the outtro song "Down to Earth." Hey, it netted him an Oscar nod. The song is slow, beautiful, and plays out against visual images depicting the "new" history of mankind on the planet: cave drawings, hieroglyphics, mosaics, sketches, pointilism, Van Gogh skies ... and when it finally slides down underground and turns into a traditional credit crawl, you've got 8-bit graphics closing things out. Great stuff.

To quote Rob Reiner, "But hey, enough of my yakkin'! Whaddaya say? Let's boogie!" Check out the full end sequence after the jump.

Continue reading Credits Report: WALL-E