The FilmJabber Movie Blog

We’re two episodes into Fox’s new sci-fi show Fringe, going on #3. The show, from the creator of Lost and with the fans of The X-Files in mind, is an interesting one, about genetic testing, mutations and some kind of conspiracy or invasion that is yet to be revealed. The season starts off with a bang, with a plane full of passengers getting subjected to some biological agent that causes the flesh to melt off their bones. From there, a crazy scientist is introduced, as well as an attractive federal agent and Joshua Jackson. I’m not a fan of Jackson and I don’t think I ever will be.

In the world of Fringe, brains can be hacked into using the electricity of brain waves, death does not mean that people are completely dead (can we really believe that the woman’s boyfriend, who was revealed to be a bad guy in the first episode, won’t return from the dead?) and women can give birth to a full-grown man who dies of old age an hour after being born. Behind it all: a company of great respect, or a government, or something else entirely. We know that Fox wants several seasons of this show, and clearly what we’re seeing here is only the beginning. It’s intriguing stuff.

Still, I’m on the fringe about Fringe. It’s entertaining and works, but it isn’t a great show. It’s no X-Files, that’s for sure, no matter how hard it wants to be. For starters, the characters aren’t particularly interesting or likable, save for John Noble, who plays the senile scientist who holds many of the answers the other protagonists are seeking. Anna Torv, who plays Agent Dunham, is attractive but a bit too mannish for her own good; in this day and age, they want to make her beautiful, sensitive and tough all at the same time, but she can only switch from one mode to the next, rather than embrace all of her character’s attributes and take true advantage of them. I expect this to be fleshed out in time, but Scully she is not. And if she’s not Scully, Joshua Jackson is surely not Mulder, as he seems to be around to add a “name” to the cast, throw in some pretty bad sarcastic one-liners and prove he can have a sustainable career beyond “Dawson’s Creek.” The dynamic between the two is stale and hardly captivating.

The show has a nice, glossy feel to it, but it’s almost too glossy at times. The direction and editing is also a little sloppy, as if the crew got 95% complete and then let their kids do the rest. It’s hard to be specific, but so far the show has failed to build tension or mystery despite the story arc that makes such a thing so easily attainable. Compared to Lost, for example, it fails to keep you curious commercial break to commercial break, and that’s a bit of a disappointment.

All in all, Fringe is decent enough that I’m going to continue watching for a while, but right now I don’t know if I’ll make it a season. I have high hopes that as I write this Fox is conducting focus groups to see what they need to do to improve over future episodes, but let’s just hope their tinkering isn’t too late.

At least it’s already better than this year’s X-Files movie.

My contacts over at Electric Artists alerted me to this ridiculously insane event: the

Netflix Movie Watching World Championship. What is the Netflix Movie Watching World Championship, you ask? Well, it’s a laid back event where all you have to do is watch movies, and lots of ‘em.

Easy peesy, you say, while chuckling and saying this is a great way to earn $10,000, a lifetime subscription to Netflix and the first-ever Popcorn Bowl. If you love movies, one can’t possibly think of a better way to make some quick cash.

But wait, there’s more! (said in the tone of voice that Matthew Lillard whines as he reveals the plot to murder teens during Scream) You don’t want to enter this event… at least I hope you don’t. You see… the point of the Netflix Movie Watching World Championship is to beat the world record of straight movie watching, which right now is 120 hours and 23 minutes. 120 hours and 23 fucking minutes. Are you kidding me???

I love watching movies. Absolutely love it. But I would pull my eyes out, slice them up into little pieces and then trickle the shavings back into my gaping, bloody sockets before subjecting myself to anything near that many hours. How or why anyone would want to do this to themselves is beyond me, but

Ashish Sharma of Mathura, India – who will also be competing in the event to defend his title for his country – watched for 120 hours and 23 minutes. Jesus Christ, Allah, Buddah and 1,000 Hindu gods! Let’s through in Ra and Zeus for good measure.

Netflix is also running a Facebook contests for people to submit video applications. I’m told to search for “Netflix Championship” on Facebook, but wasn’t able to find it. The World Championship runs from October 2nd to the 5th, 2008, and participants are not able to sleep or take their eyes off the screen, aside from 10-minute breaks between movies.

What a wonderful month September has been. I say that with all the enthusiasm, exciting and sincerity I can muster.

There have been successes. At work (no, not FilmJabber, but real work), I helped launch a new product and get a partnership off the ground. But the weeks leading up to it were busy. Real busy. I’m not complaining, as I love being behind on things because by being behind, I have no excuses to waste time or tinker around on the Internet. I put my head down and that’s that. At the same time, I don’t come up for air, and I just keep pushing, pushing and pushing some more.

Thank God my home computer – the computer I source my movie reviews, movie updates and everything FilmJabber related from – decided to go whacko on me months ago. Thank you, Lord, for giving man the knowledge of the computer and Internets, because only you know what animalistic monsters we would be without them. Thank you for creating devices that can work seamlessly for years and then decide one day to roll that big fat middle finger out and give their own the big “FU.” Hell, couldn’t mine have at least lasted a year?

For the record, I’m pretty good with computers, or at least I used to be. I can install my own parts and knew more than I should have about computers growing up thanks to a short-lived obsession with video games. Since I was little, I’ve never had serious computer issues. In fact, while my friends have pulled their hair out – and subsequently forced me to do the same as they turned to me for help – as their computers coughed, sputtered and clawed their way to destruction, my computers have always worked well. My latest, purchased and assembled only last year, continued that trend… until the beginning of the summer, when Vista or the hardware or something decided that karma had to come back around.

After months of on-and-off again problems that neither I nor my techie roommate could figure out, I finally gave in and made a deal with the devil: I decided to pay to get it fixed. Specifically, I took it into a store to get the battery checked. That turned into preliminary diagnostics, and then paid diagnostics. Paid diagnostics! Money! Crap. But slow down there, partner. You pay, they at least find the problem, right? Right! Wrong, biotch!

The tech guy spends two days “attempting” to find the problem, but his testing pretty much involves running a DVD and waiting for it to crash. He doesn’t see anything wrong, he tells me. Yes, I bet you do, you snarky bastard. The guy laughs about it and makes me sound like I’m some desperate idiot, and ignores my best efforts to explain that the guy who looked at initially was able to make the computer crash repeatedly within the first few minutes of looking at. Sixty dollars later and my computer is no more fixed, I’m pissed off and…

Oh, and I’m moving! In a rash decision, my roommate and I decide to upgrade apartments and move all our crap 15 miles from Bellevue to Seattle, Washington. The moving is pretty seamless, other than it taking longer than expected and us not being able to fit everything into the truck. Once all is said and done, and our friends are sitting in our apartment waiting to have some much deserved food, my roommate and I go to take the Uhaul back. The Uhaul dude, who clearly has nothing better to do than to waste our time, tells us that our attempts to refill the gas tank to its previous level was not good enough, and he sends us back out on the road to our second gas station in ten minutes. Son of a bitch.

To make matters worse, the next day, I wake up with a big, four-inch bite across my ribs and some pain to go with it. Over the course of the day, a headache develops, then a fever. By nighttime, my body aches all over, and by the time I climb into bed to sleep it off, I’m burning up real good and shaking like a supermodel in a hurricane, only a lot less pretty. When I wake up Tuesday morning, Peter Parker transformed I am not, but my alleged spider bite has spread, so now parts of my chest are pink and hard, but not in the muscular kind of way.

The brown recluse, some coworkers suggest, even though the brown recluse isn’t much around these parts. A tick, my mommy chimes in. Lyme disease, she warns, to look out for. I know it’s neither, but I go to the doctor anyway. By end of the week, things are fading, but the doctor, who barely looks at the bite and doesn’t have much of a clue about what attacked me, throws some antibiotics at it and sends me on my way.

Now I’m here, sitting on my floor because I don’t yet have a desk, watching Cool Hand Luke on my laptop while I lean uncomfortably against my bed frame to work on this desktop computer that could crash at anytime, writing this blog post to tell everything that I’ve returned and should pick up the pace with this movie blog. You can now rejoice and hold hands and hug and send praise, because the one true blog is back in action.

That is, at least, until I go to Cancun in two weeks.

Robert Bell, who shares his movie reviews on FilmJabber and who is also based in Toronto, somehow was admitted into the Toronto International Film Festival (known as TIFF) despite the chaos he caused last year. OK, he actually didn’t cause any commotion last year (that I know of), but regardless, he has weighed in on the festival in general and many of the films that screened there. Without further ado…

Thanks to some amazing Canadian PR firms and studios, I have been able to catch some Pre-festival screenings of selected films to play at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival.  While no films have stood out as particularly bad, only a couple of films have stood out as great.  Hopefully, some of the films I screen during the fest will have more of a lasting impact.

Strangely enough, I spend most of my daily life in the same building where a TIFF purchasing office and the main press theatre for the festival is so the impact of the festival on our community and how annoying it is to the locals isn’t lost on me.  Endless parades of accreditation-laden press and starfu**ers mill around the bay/bloor area giving our city some much appreciated tourism dollars, despite occasionally behaving with a manner of entitlement and ignorance.

I have little interest in celebrities and networking parties.  In fact, I have ignored invitations to several of them (but am appreciative and thankful for them regardless).  While I am sure there are a couple of wonderful people at them, I much prefer the comfort of my own living room with sincere and carefully selected friends.  This is why most of the mainstream (studio backed) films I will and have seen at the fest were pre-screening invites.  Thankfully, the fine folks at TIFF have managed to match their understandable need to populate the festival with commercially viable star-centric films with an impressive number of obscure foreign and independent films, as well as documentaries.

Below is a list of the films I have seen, from best to worst, with brief impressions of each.

A Year Ago in Winter

“The magic of A Year Ago in Winter is its ability to dabble in stereotype without becoming overwhelmed and its adroitness in exploring the external impact that suicide has on the living without extending naïve answers or solutions.  Categorization is thankfully eluded with skill regardless of each characters desire to simplify complex, unanswerable questions with adage.  The film is about the human desire to simplify perplexing and layered human emotions while coping with feelings of loss, guilt and isolation.  It is consistently powerful, challenging and unafraid to wear its heart on its sleeve.”

Burn After Reading

“The Coen Brothers follow-up their Oscar-Winning triumph with a decidedly kooky satire on human stupidity and exaggerated interaction with Burn After Reading, a consistently entertaining and entirely amusing, if slight, film.  Structurally similar to “Fargo” but far less reflective in its “Raising Arizona” comic sensibilities, it will likely be criticized mainly for its deliberate lack of depth.  This one suffers only from cartoonish performances from McDormand and Pitt, in addition to the folly of ostentatious hipness.”

Yes Madam, Sir

“Filming the documentary over six years whenever she had time among various editing gigs, Megan Doneman has assembled a cohesive and in-depth portrait of a complicated woman.  It is a testament more so to Doneman’s editing skills than her direction, as her point and shoot technique is not particularly visionary but given the conditions and limitations of her endeavor, the final product is rather impressive.

A sense of humour and an effort to avoid typical preaching and bias keep Yes Madam, Sir on just this side of television biography territory, which is much appreciated in an age of heavy-handed manipulation and self-satisfied “lefty” political hipness.”

Plus Tard

“Reliant on single tracking shots and claustrophobic interiors—specifically to reinforce underlying anxieties that stem from external forces and evils—and passive-aggressive suggestions, Amos Gitai’s translation Jerome Clement’s novel of a man trying to make sense of his Jewish parents declarations in wartime has the appropriate gravitas but lacks the emotional complexity it strives for and has nothing particularly cinematic about it.  Everything in Plus Tard, outside of a WW II flashback, feels and looks like a filmed stage play.”

Blindness

“Acting as a kind of erudite, art-house, zombie movie, which dumbs down potential profundity with hippie-dippy, New Age, pseudo-philosophical insights on the state of mankind, Blindness creates discomfort and despondency but glosses over central connectivity, leaving a void where emotional resonance is intended.  Don McKellar’s script reigns in the literary triumph cohesively on a structural level—which itself is no small feat—remaining within the sociophobic confines that were on display in his earlier success, Last Night.”

Happy-Go-Lucky

“Dealing with Mike Leigh’s trademark talking head sensibilities and class system introspection, Happy-Go-Lucky is essentially a romantic comedy that subverts mainstream sensibilities while questioning the affability of the sincerely well-intentioned.  Everything about the film is far too obvious but the overall impact is fairly affecting if surprisingly lackluster. “

Afterwards

“Likely to be criticized for its structural fallibility and its overly sentimental ruminations on the nature of existence and the anxieties involved with acknowledging mortality, Afterwards is a lyrical and occasionally beautiful visual poem that essentially crumbles under the weight of its own ambitions.

A lack of relationship and character development between the leads ultimately keep the film from having the emotional impact it strives for—especially in an epilogue that should, in theory, have been devastating—regardless of the occasional graphic and unexpected violence towards children and well-intentioned players.  On the upside, sincerity and a refreshingly ‘unhip’ atmosphere make these flaws substantially more palatable and forgivable.”

Sugar

“This seemingly standard sports story of a young Dominican Baseball player who is brought to America to play professionally is deceptively coy in its intentions and ultimately winds up as an examination of cultural difference and Western apathy towards foreigners who are treated mainly as acquisitions and useful only when viable.  While foreshadowing is used appropriately in the film, albeit slatternly, the formula never dips into the typical pattern of assigning blame.  Sugar is interested more in making careful observations about those who are seldom considered in a wholesome and genial manner. “

O’Horten

“Owing a lot of its “uniquely” Scandinavian vision to the dry-humoured and deadpan work of Aki Kaurismaki and the starkly satirical, single-shot obsessed Swede Roy Andersson, O’Horten is a slightly amusing satire of aging and retirement.  It is communicated in an almost somnambulistic and structurally repetitive manner that seems interested more so in being dryly quirky than truly exploring the directionless nature of retirement that the didactic implies.

The predictable nature of the formula based set-up eventually over-rides the element of surprise that each scenario relies on to create humour, but the initial impact of this structure succeeds in what it attempts to do, which is more than can be said for most intentionally sly comedies.”

Control Alt Delete

“From the moment that “Sock” from television’s Reaper and Amanda from Ready or Not are seen fully nude in the “69’er” position, it is clear that Control Alt Delete is out to shock the audience rather than titillate with any allusion or subtlety.  The film seems to be an investigation of sexual perversion and deviance in relation to perceived normalcy and how the desire to be socially accepted can cause repression and self-denial, however, it lacks the sort of cohesion necessary to communicate this point effectively.”

 

 

Dean Spanley

“Sure to moisten the panties of the bridge and knitting crowd, who will most certainly gasp when men of the cloth drink Imperial Tokay and other men exclaim “poppycock” during discussions about reincarnation, Dean Spanley is the sort of film that one would expect the Queen of England to watch while acting coyly offended and hiding her inappropriately erect nipples.  It is a comedy of manners and clever” wordplay that reeks of Oscar Wilde smugness but settles for lengthy analyses of canine customs and thought processes.  Limited scope and sincere emotions give it a nudge towards copacetic regardless of being entirely forgettable and often self-righteous.”

Skin

“Feeling more like an ethnographic biography than anything particularly cinematic, Skin tells an interesting story in a discerning, yet detached and glossed-over manner, which does little to make the film exciting or memorable.  While the story itself should theoretically make for an emotional and engaging experience, the television movie vibe and a tendency to rush through and oversimplify several serious life events that span over twenty-five-to-thirty years in the protagonists life, leave an overall feeling of expositional hollowness.”

As mentioned before, none of these films are actually bad, rather, most of them are simply “decent”, which itself is certainly not a bad thing.

This coming week I will be seeing: Appaloosa, Ghost Town, Deadgirl, Che, Revanche, Parc, Linha De Passe, White Night Wedding, Lymelife and Fear Me Not: check back for updates!

The movie trailer for Gus Van Sant’s Milk is online, and it looks like we could have an outside Oscar contender on our hands. The movie stars Sean Penn as the first openly gay elected official in – you guessed it – San Francisco and looks to have the right combination of grit, power and acting to propel it into awards season. Honestly, I haven’t heard any buzz about this film one way or the other, and in fact hadn’t even heard of the movie itself until the trailer was released. Milk is not exactly a title that stands out to me, though now that I know the film is about Harvey Milk – a person I’ve never heard about – it makes sense.

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Have you guys seen the new movie poster for the upcoming Seth Rogen/Elizabeth Banks movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno? Written and directed by Kevin Smith, the comedy has been skirting the MPAA’s limits for quite some time. First the movie was nailed with an NC-17 rating, but who can blame the MPAA? After all, the flick is about two lifelong friends who, to pay off some debts, decide to make a porno together. Since the movie is about sex – well, fake sex – it’s only understandable that it gets pegged with a harsh rating that limits its distribution and box office potential.

Unfortunately, those liberal bastards at the MPAA gave in and changed the rating to R, which means that a whole lot of little kiddies will be subjected to such Kevin Smith filth.

The latest atrocity out of the studio is the new movie poster, which is offensive, vulgar and completely inappropriate for any American to set their eyes upon. Seriously, the studios – and vulgar master Kevin Smith – should censor their material more before subjecting such items to the American public. After all, in the day of the Internet, nothing will stay hidden for long, even if those do-gooders at the MPAA say the poster is inappropriate.

Thank God the MPAA is here to tell us how vulgar this Zack and Miri Make A Porno movie poster is. I mean, look at it. Look at the sexual innuendo! The almost nudity! The passionate looks in their faces! I feel dirty for just posting this poster on my blog.

The Seattle Seahawks. Once again expected to win the NFC West and go to the playoffs for Mike Holmgren’s last season. Seattle sports fans have anticipated the beginning of football season for months, not because the Seahawks have consistently been our sole quality franchise over the last five or so years, but because we’ve already lost a basketball team and seen a potentially good Mariners team turn into the worst in the American League. Needless to say, I, along with many other fans, have been frothing at the mouth for this day.

I don’t follow football in the off-season too much, so I figured that the Buffalo Bills were going to be a pretty easy win for the Hawks. At the very least, going in, I expected an even-handed match. But Jesus Christ, the Seahawks looked like the Mariners: they were God-awful. Sure, the team has some excuses – Hasselbeck has been injured for weeks and has neither practiced himself or built up trust with his receivers; the receivers, of course, are a cluster, as both Branch and Engram are injured, leaving only Burelson and a bunch of rookies. But no one could have predicted a 34-10 ass raping.

Granted, the Bills look good. While they started off as poor as the Seahawks, they finally picked it up in front of their home team and went on to dominate in passing, running and defense. But the Seahawks looked downright terrible. When Hasselbeck had people open, he’d fail to convert. The receivers dropped what seemed like a hundred passes, and only so much can be blamed on rookie mistakes. The defense, understandably, got worn down as the offense failed to give them a rest, but things just went from bad to worse as the game went on. Ultimately, this was one of the worst Seahawks game in recent memory… what a way to start the season.

It was announced today that Tommy Lee Jones, who, ultimately, turned out to be a completely useless character in No Country for Old Men, is suing Paramount Pictures, the makers of No Country for Old Men, for over $10 million dollars from the film.

Jones is asking for “significant box-office bonuses” and other compensation he says are owed to him from the Oscar-winning movie, which went on to make over $160 million. Apparently, according to him, there were known errors in his contract as the film went into production, and he wants an external auditor to look things over and assess what he is owed.

How come every year lawsuits come up like this? Maybe it’s not that uncommon as there are plenty of B2B contracts that go to court, but it always seems like some big name actor or director (I’m thinking of Peter Jackson here) is suing a studio over money that wasn’t paid to them. You have to think that in the day and age of immediate visibility and legal scrutiny that major disputes – such as over millions of unpaid dollars – wouldn’t happen. How does this happen? Are the studios simply naive to think that people who are used to making millions of dollars a paycheck won’t notice if they aren’t paid? Or do the plaintiffs and their lawyers not examine their contract enough? Either way, isn’t the contract supposed to clearly define the amount or percentage an actor, writer, director or crewman is supposed to make?

It seems clear cut to me, but then again, I don’t work in Hollywood.

I just finished watching Child’s Play, as the new Chucky’s 20th Birthday Edition arrives on DVD September 9th. While the franchise has digressed into more humorous, satirical stories over the years, it’s amazing to see just how creepy and gritty the original was.

As everyone knows by now, Child’s Play is about a serial killer who, on his dying breath, transfers his soul into the body of a cheerful doll. The doll soon ends up in the hands of young Andy (Alex Vincent), and not soon after the murders begin. At first, Andy is blamed and taken into custody, but it soon becomes evident that Chucky – not Andy – is indeed a live and willing to kill. As his mother (Catherine Hicks) and an investigating detective (Chris Sarandon) frantically try to track him down, Chucky goes after Andy, his last hope at humanity.

So often, these horror movies fail to stand up to the test of time, but there’s something about the 1980′s that brought out the best in the genre. So many good franchises were launched in the decade, and while the sequels have perhaps made them rather routine, it’s always fun and rather surprising to look back at the originals. Child’s Play, about a killer doll, is a movie that should have never worked from the outset. The flick should have been cheesy and tacky, and given that it’s 20 years old, the visual effects should have been ridiculously bad. Instead, Child’s Play is an authentically creepy and violent film that takes itself seriously and pulls it off.

Unlike later iterations of the franchise, Child’s Play isn’t funny and never intends to be. The movie is dark and twisted, and would still give even the wisest of children nightmares. Twenty years later, the flick still works surprisingly well.

The DVD includes a variety of special features, including two audio commentaries – one with the cast and another with the crew. More interesting is the inclusion of several screen-specific Chucky commentaries, voiced by the doll himself. Additionally, there are several featurettes that examine the makings of the film, from the animatronics to casting and so on and so forth. These featurettes are quite good, as they aren’t promotional at all and really dive into the production of the films. All in all, it’s a pretty good DVD, though if you already own the film, it’s probably not worth purchasing this newer version.

Having just watched the movie trailer for Transporter 3, I’m quite amused by how cocky the B-grade Jason Statham franchise has become. The studio seems to be taking the film for granted, as it blatantly markets that the film is about the same as the last two. Of course, they’ve thrown in a Crank twist just to appeal to those fans, too (though I’m pretty sure there is only one kind of Jason Statham fan) – this time, Statham has an explosive device fastened to his wrist.

The Transporter 3 movie trailer is pretty weak; it has poor setup, shoddy editing and really is quite incoherent. I have it listed as the full trailer, but it plays like a teaser trailer, so maybe I just have it poorly named – but regardless, as a teaser trailer, it doesn’t do a good job of setting the stage. It just jumps right into the action and what’s done is done.

That being said, everyone knows what to expect from a Jason Statham action movie, so why beat around the bush, right? Everyone knows they are going to get a pretty silly and dumb action movie, but one that’s full of adrenaline and some snarky British dialogue. Frankly, that’s enough for me, though I could certainly wait until DVD and not be any worse for it.

The movie trailer for the upcoming Anne Hathaway flick Passengers is now online, giving us a look at the increasingly sexy Hathaway as a federal psychologist who is assigned to work with the only ten survivors of a fiery jetliner crash. While most of the passengers show the typical signs of post traumatic stress, one passenger (Patrick Wilson) stands out as curiously different. Specifically, the guy is in a great mood, but also appears to have developed special powers since the crash (apparently, some kind of connection to the next world). This doesn’t stop Hathaway from breaking her professional ethics and sleeping with the guy, of course.

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It’s September, which means that the summer movie season is officially over and the crap of Hollywood can make it to the big screen. September is historically a bad month for movies, as kids return to school, vacations end and people scramble for the remnants of good weather. This is also the perfect time for studios to dump the waste onto audiences.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean there will be nothing to watch this September. Below is a list of movies I’m looking forward to in September:

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It’s almost September, which means that network television is returning to us once again. The fifth season of The Office premieres on September 25th, which means that Season Four is coming to DVD… on September 2nd, to be precise.

The Office: Season Four starts off where Season Three left off – surprise, surprise – with Pam and Jim bringing their relationship into the public atmosphere of Dundler Mifflin. Engagement is hinted at, but will Jim actually propose? Meanwhile, Dwight is continuing his quest to become head of the office (or at least second-in-charge, now that Jim officially holds that title), while still annoyed by the progressing relationship of Andy and his ex, Angela. And Michael is finding his relationship with Jan strained to the brink. Also, young “Wunderkind” Ryan, who was promoted above Michael last season, is trying to take Dundler Mifflin into the 21st century, further creating tension between him and his former colleagues.

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Another one of Chuck Palahniuk’s books is being turned into a movie, and the world will be better for it. Assuming they do it right, of course.

Palahniuk has Choke, starring Sam Rockwell, coming to theaters this fall, but the author with the name that no one quite knows how to pronounce is best known for Fight Club. Take Fight Club, make it stranger and even better and you get Rant, one of my all-time favorite books.

I had received Rant, the book, as a contest giveaway last summer, and almost gave every copy away. Thankfully, my roommate is a Palahniuk fan and alerted me to the fact that the book may actually be good. So, I decided to read it. A weekend later, I set that book down, utterly amazed at what I had read. It was a frikkin’ masterpiece.

Rant, as described on the book cover, is about the world’s most lethal serial killer. That seems simple enough, right? Right? Wrong! The book is told as an oral history; that is, while fiction, it is told in an interview-style narrative with dozens of characters, all of whom have their own perspective and stories to tell about the infamous Buster Casey. Casey is an odd fellow… he likes to stick his hands down animal holes with hopes of getting bitten, and he also heads up an urban night game that involves smashing cars. He’s not exactly serial killer material, but when Palahniuk means serial killer, he may mean a whole spectrum of things. Trust me – until you read the book through to the end, you will not understand what this book is like, or what it is about.

As you can tell, I am excited at the prospect of a movie. At the same time, this is a book that, if done right – and it can be done right – could be made into an exceptional movie, but it also has a 95% chance of missing the mark. The director, writer and approach will all have a significant bearing on the film’s quality, more so than other, more standard pieces of work. It will be interesting to see how the project progresses.

It may be nothing… or it may be something. Twilight, only a couple months before its release, has returned some of its actors to shooting new scenes.

Peter Facinelli (Carlisle Cullen in the movie) told MTV that there’s nothing wrong with the current film, but that executives were so delighted with the wrapped film that they opted to make some more of it; in other words, make the film everybody is waiting for.  “They liked it so much, they are bringing us back for some encore time to beef it up. Add a little salt and pepper.”

That’s ominous, in my opinion. If the executives liked it so much, why add more to it? It’s not completely ridiculous – perhaps the movie is so good that the executives approved additional budget to film scenes that were originally cut – but highly unlikely. And when I hear quotes like the one provided above, it sounds like major PR spin bullshit.

Here’s some more from Facinelli:

“I wouldn’t be walking tomorrow if I spilled those beans, but I’m psyched, especially about the wardrobe. I can tell you that it’s a flashback scene. It gives us a little bit of history of the Cullen family. They are just shooting a couple of different added scenes, and the scene I’m in, I can tell you it’s me and Robert Pattinson. Rosalie and Emmett are in that scene.”

And from Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black in the film): “I am going to be in the prom scene now, at the very end of the film. At first we didn’t film that, and now some people are saying they want to see a bit more of Jacob, and they want him in the prom scene at the end.”