Hook, line and sinker I bit.

While driving home I saw a billboard that read “You Suck Sarah Marshall”.

At the bottom of the message I saw the URL www.ihatesarahmarshall.com so when I got home I jumped on my computer and checked out the website. As I write this post at 9:00 PM on a Friday night I am trying to convince myself my current actions represent professional curiosity and not those of a loser who had nothing better to do. But I digress.

The website is a blog that is currently being written by a loved obsessed 26 year old guy who is YouTubing videos about how infatuated he is with his hot TV star girlfriend.

Well, as it turns out this website is the launch of a new marketing campaign for a movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall“. I have no idea if this movie is any good although it is brought to us by the guys who gave us the 40 Year Old Virgin. On a quick side note I can not recall seeing the R rated warning on the billboard but if I had I would have known right away it was a movie.

The point of this post is to point out the way this movie is being marketed. They are utilizing a combination of vague yet somewhat shocking billboard ads to drive people to a Google Blog thats incorporating YouTube videos as a way to create buzz. It should be interesting to see how it works out.

Daniel Day-Lewis, the actor who made “Gangs of New York” somewhat entertaining has once again pulled of an amazing performance. This is a Paul Thomas Anderson film, the guy that made “Punch Drunk Love”, “Magnolia” and one of my all-time favorites “Boogie Nights”. Remember that scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mark Wahlberg, “I am such an idiot”?

Anyhow, the film was 2.5 hours long and I could have watched it for another 4. It has every element free market capitalists love; competition, greed, oil tycoons and religious nut cases. This movie deserves to sweep the Oscars for everything and was one of the best movies I have seen for a long time.

Spoiler – Don’t read this if you have not seen the movie.

There were a few moments when I thought the ending touched on DiCaprio’s performance of Howard Hughes in the “The Aviator”. Paul Thomas Anderson seemed to touch on that familiarity since both my wife and I made the same comment as we left the film, but Day-Lewis’s acting was so riveting, you did not care and you only wanted more.

American Gangster is one of the best movies I’ve seen for years. Go see it!

Check this cool trailer out. My wife picked the music for it…

I am really sad to report actor Peter Boyle has passed away. Peter, 71 years old, is probably most recognized as playing the father of Raymond, Frank Barone on “Everybody Loves Raymond” (more…)

Clint Eastwood has two back to back epic films taking what appear to be similar stories about the battle of Iwo Jima from the Americans perspective and the perspective of the Japanese.

From looking at the trailers I can’t wait to see both of them. The American version is titled “Flags of our Fathers” and the plot outline according to IMDB is “The life stories of the six men who raised the flag at The Battle of Iwo Jima, a turning point in WWII”.

The Japanese version titled “Letters from Iwo Jima” is about “The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.” (more…)

This past holiday weekend my wife and I saw the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale.

In case you’ve been stranded on a deserted island, after a ten year stretch of playing 007 Pierce Brosnan no longer has the rights to order his Martinis shaken, not stirred.

In this latest action adventure thriller we are introduced to a new double-o, Daniel Craig. If you’re scratching your head asking who in the hell is Daniel Craig, you’re not alone. He is most notable from the movies Munich and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. (more…)

What’s with the crush Scorsese has with Leonardo DiCaprio? I will get to that in a second.

This past weekend my wife and I saw Martin Scorsese’s new flick, The Departed and it was nothing more than brilliant.

The first thing I said to her when leaving the theater was, “this was Scorsese apologizing for making us watch Gangs of New York”. Now to be fair, the Aviator was a terrific movie but I love to watch movies like Goodfellas and Casino and I eagerly wait for these types of movies to be made.

(more…)

My wife and I were one of the first fans in line last night to catch the opening showing of Superman Returns. With her working in the “biz” we don’t usually get too excited about new movies but we had to make an exception for Superman.

Bryan Singer created a nostalgic action motion picture viewed through the clarity of the Hubble Telescope.

Okay, I so don’t write movie reviews for a living but Superman Returns has got to have been one of the most highly anticipated movies for me this decade as I was anxious to see what Singer would do.

I knew Singer had a history of making comic’s come to life in the modern age such as with the X2 series but in the back of my mind I was worried he may go Tim Burton on all of us and create a Batman type flick.

For all you real Superman fans I am pleased to report Singer does not offer any homage to Richard Pryor (Superman III) or Jon Cryer (Superman IV) but picks up where Superman III should have.

Superman Returns does offer tribute to all the favorite things we had come to love with the first two Christopher Reeve / Richard Donner episodes such as watching him fight crime in the streets of Metropolis and this time saving the destruction of an airplane carrying a space shuttle on its back.

The only negative I had about this movie was the lack of creativity for Lex Luthors master plan of destruction. This is nothing against Kevin Spacey, who played a great Lex Luthor but Singer stuck to Donner’s original version of Superman a bit much and it would have been nice to have seen an original story here.

Then again Singer had his hands full selling us on the idea Lois Lane had become a mother to “someone’s” baby!

All in all, I felt Singer pulled it off and I look forward to the “Untitled Superman Returns Sequel” due out sometime in 2009.

Trailers for Superman Returns

Other Reviews and Blogs