Archive for the 'Aaron Neuwirth' Category
April 27th, 2014 by Aaron Neuwirth
Saturday Night at the 15th Annual Newport Beach Film Fest was another challenging scenario, as a number of films were showing and I had to consider how to best spend my time. Fortunately, the two movies I was able to see were both quite good. Teacher of the Year is my favorite film of the festival so far (granted I have only seen a small percentage of what has been available), as it was funny and heartfelt in the right ways. Obvious Child was fine too, given that it fits in the realm of quirky indie comedy, but has a sort of truth to it that puts it slightly ahead of typical indie fare. There continue to be plenty of exciting options though and Saturday just fit as another strong night for the fest and what I have ended up choosing.
Continue reading ‘NBFF 2014 Reviews: ‘Teacher of the Year’ and ‘Obvious Child’’
April 26th, 2014 by Aaron Neuwirth
Friday at the Newport Beach Film Festival found me with a lot of options to choose from. While I had heard many good things about a number of the films featured and had considered attending at least four different films playing around the same time, I ultimately chose to go with Cheatin’ and The One I Love. One is an animated feature from famed cartoonist Bill Plympton, the other was a romantic comedy-drama with a unique twist that I do not plan to spoil here. I found both to be worth watching, especially those in the mood for something a bit off center from the norm.
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Continue reading ‘NBFF 2014 Reviews: ‘Cheatin’’ and ‘The One I Love’’
April 25th, 2014 by Aaron Neuwirth
Opening night at the 15th Annual Newport Beach Film Festival was a nice start to what should be an exciting festival to keep track of. Given the difficulty I have had at nailing down exactly which films to check out on what days, due to interest in so many, it seems like I am in for a lot of good, interesting, or at least entertaining features. With that in mind, I was happy to find the opening film, Lovesick, to be enjoyable enough, for what it is. I say this because the opening night film tends to be a more palatable feature, in an effort to please the general audience as a whole, given the crowded attendance in the Big Newport Theater on Opening Night. The film is simple enough, but the cast makes it a bit more appealing.
Continue reading ‘NBFF 2014 Review: Lovesick’
March 8th, 2014 by Aaron Neuwirth
The Grand Budapest Hotel is the latest film from writer/director Wes Anderson. The film recounts the adventures of Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel; and Zero Mustafa (Tony Revolori), the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves a caper, a prison break, battles over family fortunes, cross-country chases, and a love affair. It is a wild, yet delightful film (review HERE) and I had the pleasure of interviewing some of the cast and crew from the film. The following post contains a roundtable recap of our discussion with star Tony Revolori.
Continue reading ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel Cast & Crew Interviews: Tony Revolori’
March 7th, 2014 by Aaron Neuwirth
The Grand Budapest Hotel is the latest film from writer/director Wes Anderson. The film recounts the adventures of Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel; and Zero Mustafa (Tony Revolori), the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves a caper, a prison break, battles over family fortunes, cross-country chases, and a love affair. It is a wild, yet delightful film (review HERE) and I had the pleasure of interviewing some of the cast and crew from the film. The following post contains a roundtable recap of our discussion with star Jeff Goldblum.
Continue reading ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel Cast & Crew Interviews: Jeff Goldblum’
March 6th, 2014 by Aaron Neuwirth
The Grand Budapest Hotel is the latest film from writer/director Wes Anderson. The film recounts the adventures of Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel; and Zero Mustafa (Tony Revolori), the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves a caper, a prison break, battles over family fortunes, cross-country chases, and a love affair. It is a wild, yet delightful film (review HERE) and I had the pleasure of interviewing some of the cast and crew from the film. The following post contains a roundtable recap of our discussion with writer/director Wes Anderson and production designer Adam Stockhausen.
Continue reading ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel Cast & Crew Interviews: Wes Anderson And Adam Stockhausen’
February 19th, 2014 by Aaron Neuwirth
Thanks Jimmy Kimel? Those are not words I use often, but hey, the man (well technically his show) is responsible for releasing the debut trailer for the upcoming Marvel film, Guardians of the Galaxy. This obscure Marvel comic property is the biggest risk Marvel Studios has taken since basically Iron Man, when Marvel pretty much started making their own movies. ‘Guardians‘ may be a bit of a trickier feat to pull off, given the mixed amount of star power in this cast, the darkly comedic/quirky style of former Troma director James Gunn, and the very premise, which may not be as easy to stomach as Robert Downey Jr. building a metal suit in a grounded reality. All of that said, all of the ingredients in this film have me excited by said risk and the ambition involved. Now we have the first full trailer, which at least does a good job of teasing the tone of the film. We have several months to see the end results, but I am no less excited for this movie. Check out the trailer and some new images from the film by continuing on in this post.
Continue reading ‘The ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ Trailer Debuts!’
February 11th, 2014 by Aaron Neuwirth
I generally save the trailer posts for more high profile films, but Under The Skin seems very intriguing to me. The film first caught my attention during its run at various film festivals last year, where I kept hearing about the film and its lead performance from Scarlett Johansson. Some comparisons to Kubrick were being made with this latest film from Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth), which is a bit strong, but certainly gets my attention. Regardless, there is now a new trailer and poster available to view and it continues to make me excited to see the film. Continue on to view the trailer.
Continue reading ‘The Mysterious ‘Under The Skin’ Gets A New Trailer And Poster’
February 7th, 2014 by Aaron Neuwirth
It was a bit humorous that the party celebrating the upcoming release of the FX series, The Americans, was occurring on the same day as the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. For those unfamiliar, The Americans is a series revolving around undercover Russian spies in 1980s Washington D.C. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys star as a seemingly normal, suburban couple, who are actually lethal KGB agents. The first season revolves around these two working together to continue their mission, while staying hidden as spies in plain sight. It also takes a lot of time to expand on the lives these two have shared, making the audience root for these two to keep this fake, but not necessarily non-emotional, marriage alive. I very much enjoyed the first season and was happy to enjoy the festivities celebrating the upcoming Blu-ray and DVD release. This post details the event as well as the conversation I was a part of, with the producers of the series, who were very happy to talk about it.
Continue reading ‘‘The Americans’ Season 1 Blu-ray/DVD Release Party’
January 17th, 2014 by Aaron Neuwirth
I was seeing a lot of lists regarding people’s most anticipated films of the year and I figured I would post one too. Many directors, writers, and actors that I admire have films hitting theaters this year, so it was nice to dig into the upcoming release schedule of this year and really figure out what I am looking forward to. The problem then became how to rank these films. Given that I just struggled to put together a top ten list for 2013, I figured I would take a different approach with this list. The following is a list of films I am looking forward to, separated out by month, with mentions of a few other films as well. One must also keep in mind that I am going mostly by mainstream films with established release dates (that could potentially change). With all of that out of the way, here we go:
Continue reading ‘Aaron’s Most Anticipated Films of 2014 By Month’
December 31st, 2013 by Aaron Neuwirth
It was a big year, but somehow I managed to put together a list of my favorite films of 2013. I have to say that this was once again not the easiest list to put together. Theatrically, I have seen 150+ films this year, so there were a lot of films to consider and figure out how to reference in terms of their placement on this list. Some of these films certainly got a bigger response out of me than others, but at the same time, some stuck with me throughout the year and wound up turning into films I enjoyed even more than after my initial viewing. As a result, the only course of action was to do my best to give praise to not just the films in my top ten, but the other films of this year that I really enjoyed, by being sure to have honorable and special mentions for all the films that were in contention or worth mentioning. Still, I am very satisfied by this final list that I have put together, mainly because it is my list and it contains films that I really enjoyed the most this year, for various reasons. So here we go (by the way, lots of Easter Eggs hidden in the pictures).
Continue reading ‘Aaron’s Top 10 Films of 2013 And Other Odds & Ends’
December 23rd, 2013 by Aaron Neuwirth
This is not really a post of joy, but every year does see the release of films that are just not good. I do not try to seek out these films, with the majority being ones that I did think could have redeemable elements, but that just wasn’t the case here. This list contains what I think were the biggest misses of the year, which I watched in full and could not handle. I also have a list of disappointing films, which are not necessarily terrible, but certainly far from living up to their potential. I never actively seek out films to hate on and am happy to generally not see all of the truly terrible films that come out every year, but this is the time of year to reflect, so I have. Additionally, I did not see the supposed tragedy known as R.I.P.D. before the year ended, so I’m just going to have to call this the R.I.P.D. Memorial Worst Films List for now (and I just have nothing to say as far as Grown Ups 2 is concerned).
Continue reading ‘Aaron’s Top Ten Worst Films Of 2013’
December 21st, 2013 by Aaron Neuwirth
In an effort to be as fair as possible, this is less a “Top 10” list and more a list of games that I was able to play this year and heartily recommend. Despite being a big gamer, given that I specialize in movies and only have so much time to play video games (while trying to keep a balanced life), it just does not seem fair for me to attempt to rank ten video games, when I may have only been able to play a small portion of the big releases this year. The fact that I have resisted a lot of different genres only emphasizes my process for making this list further. With that in mind, I still wanted to make a post centered on some games that I thought were pretty stellar, so here we go.
Continue reading ‘Aaron’s List Of 2013 Video Games That He Thinks Deserves Your Attention’
December 19th, 2013 by Aaron Neuwirth
Here we go again. Kicking off my Top 10 year-end lists for 2013, here are my Top 10 Blu-rays. These are films that I have been able to really dig into and see them as easy recommendations for anyone with the greatest home media format currently available. The following list is a set of films that I consider to be some of the best that the Blu-ray format has had to offer for this year. Much like the previous years, I stayed true to some rules; I have to have actually watched the movie on Blu-Ray, recognize it for its quality video and audio transfers, delved into the special features, and attempt to keep off any film on this list that may also be on my “Top 10 Films of the Year” list. This year that may or may not be the case (with one big exception). I followed these rules for the sake of keeping my list interesting, so here we go:
Continue reading ‘Aaron’s Astounding Top 10 Blu-rays of 2013’
December 18th, 2013 by Aaron Neuwirth
Last week was busy with trailers for many big releases next year (posts can be found HERE and HERE) and this week adds one more hotly anticipated summer film: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. As I recall, the majority of us at Why So Blu were big fans the 2011 sci-fi prequel/reboot, which combined an interesting take on the Apes franchise with some fantastic visual effects work from Weta Digital. Details and images have been fairly light on this film, which no doubt comes from both preserving the surprise and because it takes so long to complete these effects, which look amazing. Now we finally have a trailer for the sequel, which arrives July 2014. From the look of things, nothing is about to get better for the human race, but at least Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, and Keri Russell are on hand to attempt to deal with Caesar (Andy Serkis) and the rise of his species. Continue on to check out the trailer as well as view some posters and big ape faces from the film. Continue reading ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Trailer Debuts’
December 14th, 2013 by Aaron Neuwirth
Some key terms come to mind when I think new Christopher Nolan film – dark, brooding, auteur, IMAX, Zimmer, nonlinear, and Michael Caine of course. Interstellar is the next film from Nolan and it arrives in theaters November 2014. Those who saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug were treated to a teaser trailer for the film that does exactly that – tease. The teaser is now online and in this post you will be able to view it. There are very few details regarding this film so far, but the basics seems to make sense: solid ensemble cast (McConaughey, Chastain, Hathaway, Caine), use of IMAX cameras, a Hans Zimmer score, and a very secretive attitude revolving around what is really going on here. Continue on to check out the teaser and see the official logo for the film.
Continue reading ‘Christopher Nolan’s 2014 Film – Interstellar Teaser Trailer’
December 11th, 2013 by Aaron Neuwirth
The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug is a big release for this time of year, with a likely gross ending up north of a billion dollars worldwide. Given the nature of this release, it only makes sense for Warner Brothers to debut trailers for a few of their potential blockbusters for next year around the same time, which is exactly what has happened. Along with several other recent and upcoming trailers, Warner Brothers has released trailers and teasers for 3 of their 2014 summer movies – Godzilla, Jupiter Ascending, and Edge of Tomorrow. Godzilla is a new update of the classic monster movie story/social commentary, with director Gareth Edwards (Monster) at the helm. Jupiter Ascending is a new science fiction film from The Wachowski Starship (The Matrix Trilogy). Edge of Tomorrow is a sci-fi war movie with a Groundhog’s Day-like twist, from director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity). Each of these films has the potential to be a big hit next summer. Continue on to view these trailers for these upcoming features.
Continue reading ‘WB Debuts New Trailers For Godzilla, Jupiter Ascending, and Edge of Tomorrow’
December 5th, 2013 by Aaron Neuwirth
Rhinos, Goblins, and Electro, oh my! Certainly plenty of threats coming Spider-Man’s way in the upcoming sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Arriving May 2, 2014, we now have a trailer to behold, which certainly emphasizes the kinds of things you see in trailers to sequels in big franchises. I had previously written a post regarding the Comic Con panel for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 this past July (which can be found HERE), but now there is a bit more for readers to chew on, as they are seeing the web head back in action, along with Max Dillon aka Electro (Jamie Foxx), Aleksei Sytsevich aka Rhino (Paul Giamatti), and Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan). The scale looks big, we have lots of new characters, and everything else seems to be moving full swing ahead. Personally, I enjoyed the first film well enough, even if it never really rose too far beyond being average, but at least the sequel has the benefit of having the origin story out of the way and can focus on new developments. I just hope it is not too saturated with villains. In this post I have embedded the new trailer and added a bunch of pictures from the film that have been released so far.
Continue reading ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Trailer Debut’
