FilmMattic

I'll Be Blunt: Hollywood Smokes Everything       Let's face the facts. The last time we puffed a Spike Lee rolled joint, our lungs overflowed with toxins. Instead of smoking, you know, genuine marijuana, we were duped into K2 (for those not savvy with teenager's ways of getting high, it's a potent mixture of herbal and spice plant products, which is sprayed with a psychotropic drug and contaminated with a toxic substance). The end result of smoking K2, which is not unlike watching Spike Lee's last film: a horrid mutation comprised of equal parts streaking Will Ferrell from Old School and drug-riddled Jared Leto from Requiem for a Dream . Not healthy. Not pretty. And oh so reckless.

No, You're Gonna Tell Me Something Today, Tough Guy.        It's no secret. I'm a gluttonous sucker for gangsters. "Hans, *booby,* I'm your white knight." Kobayashi scoffs down Nathan's hot dogs. I scoff down bouts between criminal hotshots. It may be a subconscious byproduct of my Sicilian roots (the birthplace of "the Five Families"). Or, it may reflect my cinematic upbringing, by which, I mean, an adolescence regularly accompanied with countless trips to the theatre (the elitist spelling, I know), where my prepubescent eyes dovetailed into the real sensible kids stuff; you know, The Untouchables, Goodfellas, True Romance, Reservoir Dogs, Carlito's Way, Casino, Pulp Fiction, Heat, Donnie Brasco, Snatch. Perhaps, this tumultuous mobster childhood (criminality is in the eye of the beholder) explains my most recent dissertation: the one where I shamelessly professed my love for all that is De Niro and Pacino . Man, I love them gangsters. Al...

Hooked On Trailers       Is it just me or does every summer movie season feel like Hollywood's deliberate attempt to introduce moviegoers to a new Bond character: you know, trailers galore? The busy blockbuster-laden landscape of movies represents, for studios, what Christmas time means to retail/online merchants: BIG business. The influx of new and more polished looks at some future blockbusters is always met with great anticipation. The summer of 2011 is no different; Green Lantern, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Super 8, 3 0 Minutes or Less and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; Part 2 represent some of the studios' more hopeful attempts to draw hordes of moviegoers to the box office. Whether you want to see the breathtaking world of Oa, the nefarious exploits of an evil transformer/alien robot copy machine, ascertain the "secret" of Super 8 , watch Aziz Ansari mold the minds of young, impressionable kids or witness the final showdown between Harry Pot...