(Fake) Grindhouse Trailers

Here are some hilarious fake trailers made for the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse double feature.

Werewolf Women of the SS
Directed by Rob Zombie. the trailer stars Udo Kier and Nicolas Cage making fun of himself as Fu Manchu.

Don't
This sports quite the impressive cast, including Jason Isaacs, Rafe Spall, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Peter Serafinowicz, and....Katie Melua? Also, the most hilarious of the trailers in my opinion.

Thanksgiving
Eli Roth made this trailer while filming the first of the Hostel films. It features some of the cast and crew, including one of Hostel's lead actors, Jay Hernandez.

Which brings us to the two fake trailers that were made into real films.

Hobo with a Shotgun
Fake trailer with mostly unknown actors (unknown to me, anyway).

Real trailer with Rutger Hauer as the gun toting hobo.

Machete
Fake trailer with Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin. This one was made not only into a film but into a franchise....with Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin playing the actual roles from the fake trailer.

Anonymous

So, according to this film by Roland Emmerich (and from what I understand it reflects Emmerich's beliefs) William Shakespeare's plays where actually written by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, played by Rhys Ifans (in a surprisingly good performance, I only remember ever seeing him play idiots and druggies).

When the Earl solicits a lesser known playwright to stage plays that he actually wrote himself, the man agrees to do so. The play bill fails to mention any author name. When the performance is a great success and the audience cries for the playwright to come out on stage to be celebrated, the rather dimwitted William Shakespeare, an actor himself and always slightly drunk, hogs the spotlight and takes his bows.

Shakespeare is portrayed by Rafe Spall. This may actually be my favorite performance of the film, which is heavily populated by many a brilliant actor. One other wonderful portrayal is that of the (old) Queen Elizabeth I, by the great Vanessa Redgrave. Her younger self is played by her daughter Joely Richardson.

The film jumps back and forth in time, showing the story of the plays and the (alleged) rouse as well as Edward de Vere's younger years, during which he had an affair and a child with Queen Elizabeth I.

Do I believe that the story as told here has any merit? Not really. Do I care that Emmerich's (and the film's screen writer's) beliefs are probably wrong? Nope. The film is entertaining enough the way it is. You get war and intrigues, illicit affairs spawning bastards and the literary society in uproar.

7/10

I Give It a Year

Nat (Rose Byrne) and Josh (Rafe Spall) get married after a 7-month romance and a short time later realize that they are not really made for each other. Determined to make it through their first year (at least), they work on their marriage with the help of what is possible the most ill-equipped marriage counselor ever.

Anyway, Josh is really still into his former girlfriend Chloe (an unfortunate looking Anna Farris) and Nat falls for Guy (Simon Baker), who she flirts with, mostly to get his account for her company. (If you know Simon Baker's Patrick Jane, he appears weirdly under dressed in just regular suits...I'm used to seeing him in three-piece ones.)

It doesn't help that Nat and Josh are surrounded by less-than-helpful friends and family, like Nat's sister Naomi (Minnie Driver), who is predicting that they will never last and is constantly annoyed by her own husband, or Josh's best friend Danny (Stephen Merchant), who is one of those people that says the most improper thing at the worst possible moment.

Through all this amusingly weird things are happening in the background and slightly out of frame.

Love, Actually... this is not, but still amusing.

5/10

Life of Pi

If any of the films recently released (and recently nominated for a heap of Academy Awards) deserves the description beautiful, this is the one.

Life of Pi tells the story of young Pi Patel, who leaves Pondicherry, India, together with his family and an entire zoo for Vancouver, Canada. When the freighter sinks in the vastness of the Pacific, Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with an injured zebra, a hyena, an orang utan and Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger.

The situation is as bad as it sounds and the boy immediately has to start his fight for survival - not only surviving the sea, but also the two carnivorous animals on board. The zebra is the first to go. Easy target that it is, the hyena sets upon it almost immediately. Next is the orang utan. The most furious kill, however, is of the hyena itself. Richard Parker finally makes an appearance jumping out from below the tarp cover to end the hyena's reign of terror - and making everyone in the cinema jump out of their seats. The rest of the story is of Pi and Richard Parker having to find some sort of arrangement in order for both of them to survive - the tiger needing the boys help to get food and water, the boy kept alert at all times by the tiger's presence.

The ocean setting is a feast for the eyes, thanks to the magic of the cinematography department and the technicians bringing the tiger to life. I wasn't that taken with the visuals of a film since Hero.

I read a few reviews that complained about the ending (the tiger's departure, the second - less adventurous but more credible - story version) but having read the book, I didn't really have to bother with that. If anyone wants to take issue, they have to take it with the book and/or its writer, Yann Martel. It has been too long since I read it for me to say that this or that detail was different. Overall the story was as I remember from the original text.

I recommend both, book and film.

9/10