Midweek movie notes for North Texas

by John P. Meyer

Stills from Drag Me To Hell

(Click photo to see entire gallery)

Let's start with a couple of the latest reviews out of Cannes.

It's a mixed bag of criticism for two movies we're anxiously awaiting: Brent Simon really liked Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell, while Mike Goodridge thought Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds was only periodically brilliant (and rather too disjointed).

(We're appending a photo gallery from Drag Me to whet your appetite for a bit of the ol' Evil Dead-era Raimi brilliance.)

And speaking of appetite, Korean director Chan-wook Park (Old Boy, Lady Vengeance) takes on the vampire genre in his typically understated and reserved filmmaking style (yeah, RIGHT) with a film called Thirst (Bakjwi). It's a tale of homicidal love revolving around a priest who gets a vampiric transfusion on the operating table with the predictable result. He starts up a Type O (for "Obsessive") love affair with the wife of a friend, and the blood just keeps on flowing. See for yourself:

Locally, Friday at 11:59 p.m. marks the start of Dallas' 24-Hour Video Race.

Somewhat less locally (at least for now), we got word that the people behind such film fest faves as Intimidad, Kamp Katrina and Woodpecker (which I really, really wanted to see at SXSW but didn't get a chance to) will be taking their film catalog on the road - with stops to include thusfar undisclosed locations (on undisclosed dates) here in Texas. Say Ashley Sabin and David Redmon of Carnivalesque Films: “We’re taking our collection of films on the road in carnivalesque style; eventually, our company will function as a traveling film festival.” Details will be forthcoming towards the end of summer, say the fearless filmmaking duo, one of whom - Mr. Redmon - hails from Texas originally.

Alex pointed me to the absolutely smashing trailer for the forthcoming Sherlock Holmes movie, which shapes up to be pretty dang thrilling, what with Guy Ritchie directing Robert Downey Jr. and all. (Elementary, really.)

And finally, I got a look today at the trailer for The Road, the film version of Cormac McCarthy's darkest novel ever - and that's pretty bloomin' dark, pardner.

(You can already tell the filmmakers - including Aussie director John Hillcoat - have lightened it up a bit, with the casting of Charlize Theron as the wife/mother; in the novel, that character is long dead and gone from the scene.)