Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 - The Motion Poster

It's safe to say that I'm not a fan of the recent trend for motion posters. I mean, what exactly is it meant to be, a trailer or a poster? It's in contention (along with the trailer for the trailer) for being the most useless piece of modern movie marketing. Having said that, what I do like is Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, so anything related to that is okay in my book.

After seeing the original on Blu-ray I instantly regretted not catching it during its theatrical run, as this charming, witty, brightly coloured food extravaganza was meant for the big screen. Yes, it's technically aimed at kids, but it helped make the point that Pixar don't have a monopoly on great animation anymore. Well, I don't plan on making the same mistake twice, so when the sequel (where the food created in the first film has evolved into "foodimals") arrives at the end of the year I'll be first in line. Okay, I might not be first in line, but I'll be pretty close to the front. Definitely not near the back.

Scheduled for release in late October and directed by Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn (after the directors of the original, Phil Lord and Chris Miller moved on to live action with 21 Jump Street), this very welcome sequel sees original cast members Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Andy Samberg, and Neil Patrick Harris as the voice of Steve the Monkey returning, as well as Terry Crews and Kristen Schaal being new additions to the cast.

SPRING BREAKERS review

Starring Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens as bikini clad bandits and James Franco as a gangster rapping drug lord, Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers is now in cinemas.

Obscurity Files - Don't Tell Her It's Me/The Boyfriend School

Starring Steve Guttenberg as Gus Kubicek, a lonely cartoonist in recovery from cancer, Don't Tell Her It's Me (AKA The Boyfriend School) sees his sister, Lizzie (Shelley Long), try to kickstart his life again by setting him up with journalist Emily (Jamie Gertz). The only problem is, Jamie isn't interested in Gus. She's interested in Lobo Marunga, the quasi-Aussie biker who just happens to be Gus in disguise.

The New Poster Tagline For Fast & Furious 6 Doesn't Seem To Understand The Basic Principle Of Great Britain Being An Island.

Obscurity Files - Dead Heat

Take one of Saturday Night Live's biggest stars of the '80s trying to break into movies and team him up with an up and coming actor with matinee idol looks and what do you get? A cop drama that slowly reveals itself to be a gore-filled zombie comedy. When downtown LA's jewellery stores are raided by a heavily armed gang of almost indestructible men, it's up to Detectives Mortis and Bigelow (Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo) to uncover what's going on.

Before Midnight - The first trailer for the return of Jesse and Celine

As all time favourite filmmakers go, Richard Linklater ranks very highly on my list. After first seeing Dazed and Confused as a teenager and then quickly digesting the rest of his filmography in a short space of time, it helped shape my cinematic tastes for the years that have followed and probably explains why the site you are currently reading is called Slacker Cinema. A major highlight of that filmography was 1995's Before Sunrise, the Vienna set romance that introduced the characters of Jesse and Celine, played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.

Linklater, Hawke and Delpy returned to those characters in 2004's Before Sunset and now, another 9 years later, are back once again with Before Midnight. Now married with kids, Jesse and Celine's relationship has reached a new completeness, the questions from the final scene in 2004's installment satisfyingly answered. Now, living within their own romantic legend, Before Midnight continues the ongoing love story.

Jesse and Celine seem to have found themselves a comfortable life (this time on a Greek island), and equally, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy seem even more comfortable in the roles that they are best known for. Also back on board as co-writers (along with Linklater, Delpy and Hawke received an Oscar nomination for Before Sunset) it's reassuring to know that they wouldn't have risked returning to these roles had they not had something relevant to say.

Receiving great word of mouth after its debut at Sundance in January, Before Midnight arrives in cinemas this summer.

The Good, the Bad and the Blu-rays

After a ridiculously long absence from the interwebs, here is the return of my weekly guide to the DVDs and Blu-rays you should be spending your money on, as well as the ones you definitely shouldn't.

Pineapple Express 2 Trailer

At long last, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco in the roles that defined their careers, it's the trailer for the sequel you've all been waiting for.



Poking fun at a previous film to promote a new one sounds like a strange move, but it is, of course, a joke, with today's date being the reason behind its release. Still, it's a pretty good joke that not only has me in the mood to re-watch the original Pineapple Express, it also has me further sold on the premise of the film it is really promoting, This Is The End.

Previously seeming a bit wanky (what with Rogen, Franco, Hill, McBride, etc, play themselves watching the end of the world from a celebrity party), this comedy is starting to look like the quintessential Seth Rogen film (high concept seen through a haze of smoke), and the ideal one for him to make his directorial debut with, alongside regular co-writer/producer Evan Goldberg.

Who knows whether this is purely a stand-alone joke made as a piece of viral marketing (quite expertly, I might say), or if this footage will actually feature in the film in some way. Personally, I could stand to see a bit more of Jonah Hill's Woody Harrelson impression.

This Is The End is released this summer. Sadly, Pineapple Express 2 will probably only ever exist in the hearts and minds of those too lethargic to make it.

Woody Allen - Stammer Time

There are few things in life that can be enjoyed more than a Woody Allen film, particularly those featuring the man himself. Sadly, those appearances are few and far between nowadays, so one must rely on his back catalogue to satisfy their need for a short, nervous, never really comfortable performer mumbling his way through the lines he has written himself. Well, some bright sparks at The Huffington Post have decided to revisit all of Allen's acting roles and picked through his distinctive dialogue to highlight that most important aspect of the Woody Allen persona; his befuddled, frantic stuttering.

I'm not sure whether it shows how prolific a filmmaker/actor Allen is, how erudite he can be, or how much he is essentially playing the same character (himself), but as loving tributes go (using footage from his almost 50 year-long career in front of the camera), this 45 minute long compilation of every one of his on screen stutters is useless and hypnotic in equal measure.

A Brief But Thought Provoking Explanation For My Prolonged Absence From The Internet

Hello.

As many of my loyal readers out there keep stopping me on the street to mention to me, it's been a while since I updated Slacker Cinema. To be honest, I'd go further and say that it's been a hell of a while since I posted anything of real merit at all. The life of a film blogger can be a cruel one, and I'm pretty sure we all go through this stage at some point, where the process of maintaining a blog becomes a bit of a chore rather than something that is done out of love for films. Well, I decided to give myself a little break to recharge my batteries. Did I mean for it to go on this long? No, I planned on giving myself a week off and it has turned into nearly two months.

A hiatus, a sabbatical, laziness. Call it what you will, but for while the thought of sitting down in front of the computer and actually writing something filled me with dread. Maybe I was spinning too many plates (metaphorically), burning the candle at both ends (metaphorically) and juggling too many balls (ahem), but I decided to give my keyboard a much deserved rest.

"So what have you been doing" I hear you not ask? For those who don't know, I "technically" work in the film industry, albeit on a rung pretty close to the bottom of the ladder. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure I'm doing the job I always wanted to do and I'm quite proud of what I've managed to achieve with a film degree that could be best described as a C- and a CV hampered by a five year stint at a possibly, probably soon-to-be-defunct DVD rental store. I'm just a long way from Hollywood is what I'm saying. Well, that job takes up a hell of a lot of my time, making sure people get to see the films they want to see (whilst I stand nearby and get to see very little myself) and I suppose something had to give, at least for a while. In the last two months I don't think I've been watching less films, per se (at least not on DVD; and I've recently been taking advantage of the obscurity mecca that is Netflix), and I have always been a diligent note taker when I think a film is worth writing about, but I've shied away from sitting down and formulating those notes into what I dare to call "reviews".

Anyway, what's the point in having a film blog if you don't make use of the cathartic pleasure of writing about random oddities, forgotten gems and (yeah, why not) the new big blockbuster stuff that everyone else is also writing about? Looking to the future I'm hoping to update this site with a lot more regular content including one or two blog projects that I'm kind of excited about starting (wait 'til you hear about my Dan Aykroyd fanboy project. You'll be wishing you'd thought of it first), continuing to tell you what to spend your money on with my weekly DVD round-up, hopefully visiting one or two film festivals that are coming up and also sorting out the way the site looks, once and for all.

But hey, whatever, I'm back now and I'm going to do what I do best. Watch and write about some shitty movies so that you don't have to. Unbelievably, I'm heading towards my third anniversary of writing Slacker Cinema in my increasingly sporadic ways, so I suppose I want to say thank you to those who bother to take time to read it, and I promise to put a bit more effort into making sure there's something new up quite regularly. Or maybe not. We'll see.

The clue is in the name, I suppose.