Upcoming

The Toronto International Film Fest starts next week.
It’s blockbuster time.

Burn After Reading

Directed by the Coen brothers this has probably the most Hollywood stars. It premiered in Venice yesterday with Bard Pitt, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton in attendance.

Miracle at St. Anna

The new Spike Lee movie. Two years ago, I went to see his 4 hour documentary “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts“. I was hoping he would give a little speech and Q&A but basically, he only said, here is my documentary, you should not take a break while watching it. Thanks.

Synecdoche, New York

Written & (first time) directed by Charlie Kaufman. The general release date for the film is October 24 but there seems to be no trailer yet.

Earlier:
Burn Miracle Synecdoche

And now something totally unrelated but unequally more important:

I’m That Chick

There are first rumors that my favourite track of E=MC, I’m That Chick, is the next Mariah single. Expect full coverage right here.

St. Anna

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ-XtII4SdQ&hl=en

You know me, I’m usually a fan of the light fare. Most of the time, I’m not excatly excited about WWII movies, but this is Spike Lee we’re talking about. This fall his new movie will be released, Miracle at St. Anna. The trailer has a Spielberg feel to it, including a child in dilemma and a 5 million dollar MacGuffin. I guess its deep.

More: MTV interview with Spike Lee on St. Anna
Earlier: spike me

Lovers and Haters

Lovers and Haters is a Spike Lee short. Or better, three vignettes shot for Mariah’s The Adventures of Mimi tour. The clips are featured on the soon to be released Mimi tour Dvd.

I love Vignettes

Mariah’s Vignettes

I never heard about vignettes until yesterday but I love them. Apparently Mariah is shooting vignettes for her upcoming Adventures of Mimi tour and Spike Lee is directing. For me, this is a dream come true. One of my favourite directors and MC. The vignettes will make fun of Mariah:

Mariah: It’s kinda like a play on the diva image.
Spike: You know, about her tight dresses, brests hanging out, she had a nervous breakdown, all that stuff.
Mariah: Yes, Jack (her dog) is part of the vignettes.
Download the clip (via)

Weeds

Mommy’s husband dies of a heart attack but she has to feed the kids and wants to keep the standard of living. She starts selling weed in the Californian suburbs.

That’s the set up for the tv series Weeds, of which I watched the first season on DVD recently. It has some cliches that I don’t want to argue about, still I love the humor and the stiffness with which the characters interact.
From the first episode on, I thought that Nancy (the mommy) was going to hook up with Conrad but to no avail.

Season one had its unexpected highlight when Conrad (Romany Malco, US born son of a West Indian family) stands topless in the kitchen. For no other reason than his immense level of handsomeness.

Ciara – Get Up

It sounds like 1, 2 Step and the video reminds me of Janet’s Rhythm Nation era with a bit of pumping skyscraper lights a la Kylie blended in. The clip is kind of long winded but I’m into it anyway. And I love how Cüara (that’s how I like to pronounce her in German) counts in Japanese during the break. Ichi, ni, san.

spike me

A couple of weeks ago I saw Inside Man. I thought it was thrilling, I liked the twists, his social commentaries and didn’t care about plot holes (maybe there weren’t any). When I see a good Spike Lee movie (like 25th Hour and Summer of Sam), I fall in love with him all over again.

It all began when I saw him as an actor in his debut, She’s Gotta Have It. As his alter ego, Mars Blackmon, he also appeared in the Nike commercials for Air Jordans (pictures below).

With my refreshed interest I went to my local videotheque, Queen Video, to rent She Hate Me, which I missed when it came out in 2004. It sounded like a promising flick with 18 lesbians and all, but it was too durcheinander for me. I only made it through the movie because of the very cute Hauptdarsteller and Q-Tip.

And now it seems Spike Lee goes German:

• In She Hate Me, David Bennet of Die Blechtrommel fame, plays a German Wissenschaftler, who commits suicide after a few minutes in the film.
• Inside Man has some kind of German background (won’t say because I don’t want to spoil it)
• According to this German interview, Spike’s next project is a film about Joe Louis und Max Schmeling. He just sent Franka Potente the script and wants her to play Max’s wife (and Martin Wuttke to play Hitler).

I’m probably as excited as Schranka Polente (sorry for that old Christian Ulmen joke). But I really am.