CINELATION | Film Reviews by Christopher Beaubien

More viral marketing for The Dark Knight has been found at Clowntravelagency.com to further elevate your anticipation. Having entered the site, you’re just a few clicks away from filling out your name and phone number. Once you submit this information, be on guard for a phone call. If you dare answer it, say the given password “needle”.

On the other end, you will hear Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon interrogate you as a found member of the Joker’s gang.

“Let’s get a smile on that face!”

The Dark Knight comes to theatres July 18th.

Yesterday, Ratatouille (2007) composer Michael Giacchino’s Roar, an eight-minute musical ode to 50s era Godzilla movies, has been made available on iTunes (only the US version). I couldn’t be happier. This was the only piece of an instrumental music to play over the entirity of J.J. Abrams’ produced Cloverfield, which was reserved for the end credits sequence.

There were only two elements of Cloverfield I enjoyed, in spite of how the filmmakers used their “hand held” camera like they were shaking a martini for 75 minutes. This brings new meaning to enjoying the end credits more than what preceded it. The music was like an award for enduring this tarnished hyped-up spectacle.

What I also enjoyed was really a who, Lizzy Caplan as Marlena. She was the only compelling character who had enough snark to go around the crowd of young, irritating drips surrounding her. To add insult to bug infection, she exited far too soon. With over a half-an-hour left, I was stuck the other survivors, too bored to cheer their deaths. At least, Marlena’s was kinda cool.

Followed by a strong cult following, the demand was as strong as the wait. Negotiations between iTunes over the release the Giacchino’s original cut of the score, which has been extended by five minutes, were met. Giacchino has said, “…there (were) a bunch of legal knots that need(ed) to be tied…”

Listening to the score again, I was reminded of Danny Elfman’s turbulently operatic score for Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks (1996). This main title sequence is so good that I could watch it forty-two times in the amount of time it would take to watch the actual movie.

The 2:06 mark is a killer.

1. There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
2. Once (dir. John Carney)
3. Zodiac (dir. David Fincher)
4. Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (dir. Tim Burton)
5. Brand Upon the Brain! (dir. Guy Maddin)
6. Black Book (dir. Paul Verhoeven)
7. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (dir. Sidney Lumet)
8. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (dir. Cristian Mungiu)
9. Ratatouille (dir. Brad Bird)
10. Michael Clayton (dir. Tony Gilroy)
11. Zoo (dir. Robinson Devor)

Ten Special Mentions:

1. Eastern Promises (dir. David Cronenberg)
2. Away from Her (dir. Sarah Polley)
3. No Country for Old Men (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)
4. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (dir. Andrew Dominik)
5. Starting Out in the Evening (dir. Andrew Wagner)
6. The Lookout (dir. Scott Frank)
7. Persepolis (dir. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud)
8. Lake of Fire (dir. Tony Kaye)
9. Waitress (dir. Adrienne Shelly)
10. The Mist (dir Frank Darabont)

Continuance in Alphabetical Order:

Atonement (dir. Joe Wright)
Bridges to Terabithia (dir. Gabor Csupo)
The Darjeeling Limited (dir. Wes Anderson)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (dir. Julian Schnabel)
The Great Debaters (dir. Denzel Washington)
Grindhouse (dir. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino)
with a nod to Thanksgiving (dir. Eli Roth)
Hairspray (dir. Adam Shankman)
In the Valley of Elah (dir. Paul Haggis)
Into the Wild (dir. Sean Penn)
Juno (dir. Jason Reitman)
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (dir. Seth Gordon)
No End in Sight (dir. Charles Ferguson)
Paris, Je T’aime (dir. 22 Filmmakers)
Romance & Cigarettes (dir. John Turturro)
The Savages (dir. Tamara Jenkins)
Sicko (dir. Michael Moore)
Snow Angels (dir. David Gordon Green)
Terror’s Advocate (dir. Barbet Schroeder)
La Vie en Rose (dir. Olivier Dahan)
You, The Living (dir. Roy Andersson)

1. Little Children (dir. Todd Field)
2. Pan’s Labyrinth (dir. Guillermo del Toro)
3. Children of Men (dir. Alfonso Cuarón)
4. Tristram Shanty: A Cock and Bull Story (dir. Michael Winterbottom)
5. Man Push Cart (dir. Ramin Bahrani)
6. United 93 (dir. Paul Greengrass)
7. Paprika (dir. Satoshi Kon)
8. The Lives of Others (dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
9. The King (dir. James Marsh)
10. The Descent (dir. Neil Marshall)
11. The Proposition (dir. John Hillcoat)

Ten Special Mentions:

1. Stranger Than Fiction (dir. Marc Forster)
2. Little Miss Sunshine (dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris)
3. The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu (dir. Cristi Puiu)
4. Flags of Our Fathers | Letters from Iwo Jima (dir. Clint Eastwood)
5. Inland Empire (dir. David Lynch)
6. Babel (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu)
7. The Departed (dir. Martin Scorsese)
8. The Illusionist (dir. Neil Burger)
9. Notes on a Scandal (dir. Richard Eyre)
10. Red Road (dir. Andrea Arnold)

Continuance in Alphabetical Order:

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
(dir. Larry Charles)
Brick (dir. Rian Johnson)
Bubble (dir. Steven Soderbergh)
Casino Royale (dir. Campbell)
Edmond (dir. Stuart Gordon)
Half Nelson (dir. Ryan Fleck)
Idiocracy (dir. Mike Judge)
Joyeux Noël (dir. Christian Carion)
Joshua (dir. George Ratliff)
Lassie (dir. Charles Sturridge)
The Last King of Scotland (dir. Kevin Macdonald)
Monster House (dir. Gil Kenan)
Manderlay (dir. Lars von Trier)
Marie Antoinette (dir. Sofia Coppola)
The Notorious Bettie Page (dir. Mary Harron)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (dir. Tom Tykwer)
The Queen (dir. Stephen Frears)
A Scanner Darkly (dir. Richard Linklater)
Sherrybaby (dir. Laurie Collyer)
Slither (dir. James Gunn)
Strangers with Candy (dir. Paul Dinello)
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (dir. Adam McKay)
This Film Is Not Yet Rated (dir. Kirby Dick)
12 and Holding (dir. Michael Cuesta)
Water (dir. Deepa Mehta)

1. Capote (dir. Bennett Miller)
2. A History of Violence (dir. David Cronenberg)
3. The Best of Youth (dir. Marco Tullio Giordana)
4. Schultze Gets The Blues (dir. Michael Schorr)
5. Sin City (dir. Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller)
6. Duane Hopwood (dir. Matt Mulhern)
7. Downfall (dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel)
8. Nine Lives (dir. Rodrigo García)
9. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (dir. Alex Gibney)
10. Mysterious Skin (dir. Gregg Araki)
11. Junebug (dir. Phil Morrison)

Ten Special Mentions:

1. Match Point (dir. Woody Allen)
2. Firecracker (dir. Steve Balderson)
3. The Weather Man (dir. Gore Verbinski)
4. Tokyo Godfathers (dir. Satoshi Kon)
5. Crash (dir. Paul Haggis)
6. Eve and the Fire Horse (dir. Julia Kwan)
7. Yes (dir. Sally Potter)
8. Good Night, and Good Luck (dir. George Clooney)
9. Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee)
10. Oldboy (dir. Chan-wook Park)

Continuance in Alphabetical Order:

Batman Begins (dir. Christopher Nolan)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (dir. Tim Burton)
The 40 Year Old Virgin (dir. Judd Apatow)
Hustle & Flow (dir. Craig Brewer)
In Her Shoes (dir. Curtis Hanson)
Jarhead (dir. Sam Mendes)
King Kong (dir. Peter Jackson)
L’enfant (dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
Lord of War (dir. Andrew Niccol)
March of the Penguins (dir. Luc Jacquet)
The Matador (dir. Richard Shepard)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (dir. Miranda July)
Millions (dir. Danny Boyle)
Munich (dir. Steven Spielberg)
The New World (dir. Terrance Malick)
North Country (dr. Niki Caro)
Pride & Prejudice (dir. Joe Wright)
Prime (dir. Ben Younger)
Saraband (dir. Ingmar Bergman)
Sky High (dir. Mike Mitchell)
Stay (dir. Marc Forster)
Syriana (dir. Stephen Gaghan)
Thieves of Innocence (dir. Paul Arcand)
Three Times (dir. Hsiao-hsien Hou)
Thumbsucker (dir. Mike Mills)
The Upside of Anger (dir. Mike Binder)
Walk the Line (dir. James Mangold)
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (dir. Nick Park)