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Don't Go in the... Never Mind: Sarah Paxton (left) and Pat Healy probe where novice ghost hunters shouldn't probe in THE INNKEEPERS.

There are compelling reasons why, when traveling, one should skip the chain lodgings and stay at one of America’s classic hotels. There’s the friendly and courteous staff, the opportunity to experience a true piece of Americana, and the chance that you’ll encounter a spectral manifestation that wants to rip your immortal soul from your still-screaming body. (Disadvantage: no wi-fi.) In THE INNKEEPERS, a pair of slackers (Sarah Paxton and Pat Healy) are put in charge of an aging hotel in its last days and — when not attending to the needs of such guests as Kelly McGillis as a sympathetic psychic and George Riddle as Quiet Creepy Guy — decide to play GHOST HUNTERS by investigating the myriad tales of hauntings that the institution has acquired. To quote a classic, American aphorism: “Big mistake.”

With films such as THE ROOST and THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, director Ti West has managed to deliver old-school, atmospheric chills on a limited budget, and he’s pulled the same feat off with THE INNKEEPERS, creating a ghost tale that’s both witty and scary, with a valuable lesson for us all (i.e. continental breakfast shouldn’t be the only consideration when choosing a hotel). Click on the player to hear my interview with him.

THE INNKEEPERS
Trailer

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Official Website
www.magnetreleasing.com/theinnkeepers

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Descending Into the Depths: Neil Maskell (left) and Michael Smiley get in over their heads in KILL LIST.

What starts out as common, garden-variety crime thriller turns… bizarre, and then frightening, in director Ben Wheatley’s twisty new film, KILL LIST. The tale of middle class hit-man Jay (Neil Maskell), who with colleague Gal (Michael Smiley) goes out for one more job and discovers blood oaths, strange rites, and disturbingly grateful targets have been thrown into the bargain, the film allows Wheatley to hook the rough-edged shooting style he explored in his debut effort, DOWN TERRACE, to a world that has room for both examinations of a tempestuous home life and the graphic shocks of classic horror. Think IN BRUGES meets THE WICKER MAN, then forget about all that and prepare to get righteously freaked-out.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Wheatley.

UNFORTUNATE TECHNICAL NOTE: Our usual podcast host has started giving us agita, apparently because we are just that popular, so we’ve temporarily switched to another service and had to downgrade our audio quality as a result. We’ll get this snag patched up and be back to the rich, beautiful sound you expect from MMP as soon as possible.

KILL LIST
Trailer

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Facebook Page
www.facebook.com/KillList

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Embrace the Po: Hong Kong action is celebrated in KUNG FU PANDA 2.

So, there, that’s one New Years resolution out of the way for me. A few months after the theatrical release of KUNG FU PANDA 2, I was able to score an interview with its director, Jennifer Yuh Nelson. With the home video release of the film (in just about every format available, including Amazon Instant Video and a Blu-ray boxed set that also includes the first KFP and a new short film, SECRETS OF THE MASTER), I felt it was time to raise some attention for this beautifully mounted, entertaining sequel.

KFP2 was, I felt, unjustly maligned in its original release. Thing is, what most critics seemed to feel was its greatest flaw — not enough focus on lovable doofus panda Po (Jack Black) — I saw as its greatest strength. Instead of the first film’s fish-out-of-water scenario, the sequel uses Po’s elevation to kung fu master to engage in a full embrace of Hong Kong action, casting him into a story that sees the panda facing off against a megalomaniacal peacock who has developed a weapon that may render martial arts obsolete: the cannon. It’s Jackie Chan enhanced with a lush, animation style — bridging over numerous formats, including 2D and shadow puppets — and highlighted with exquisitely choreographed battle scenes; exciting, funny, and a dazzling visual feast. For the love of martial arts, or pure, bravura animation, you need to see this.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Nelson.

KUNG FU PANDA 2
Trailer

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Official Website:
www.kungfupanda.com

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A Break for Books: Tintin (Jamie Bell) pauses amidst all the action in THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN.

Time to close the year off with some rip-roarin’ adventure, so why not throw in a little, continental flair in the process? Steven Spielberg has decided to take that route, and make his debut in the animation field, with THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, a cg-animated film using AVATAR’s performance-capture process and based on the charmingly audacious comic books by the artist Hergé. Starting with a mysterious message found in a model boat and spinning out into grandiose tapestry of action that includes pirate raids, fictional Arabian kingdoms, motorcycle chases, and talented opera singers, the story takes the classic boy reporter/detective (performed and voiced by Jamie Bell) and gives him the kind of adrenaline-filled exploits that only Spielberg can orchestrate.

Click on the player to hear the press conference featuring Steven Spielberg (who fields most of the questions), producer Kathleen Kennedy, stars Bell and Nick Frost, and WETA effects master Joe Letteri.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN
Trailer

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Official Website:
www.tintin.com

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You Can't Go Home Again - Worst-Case Scenario: Patton Oswalt and Charlize Theron in YOUNG ADULT.

Bless screenwriter Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman their twisted, little hearts. In a season rife with people bettering themselves through moody introspection, they introduce us to Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), author of young adult novels and a woman who looks within and comes away with all the wrong lessons.

YOUNG ADULT, isn’t season-specific, but it does serve as a healthy counterbalance to all that holiday growth and belonging. In it, Mavis — who generally lives on a diet of Diet Coke breakfasts and hard-liquor suppers — decides on a whim to go back to her hometown, to the bemusement of former high school nerd Matt (Patton Oswalt) and the befuddlement of her one-time sweetheart (Patrick Wilson), for whom she has returned to rekindle their romance, despite the fact that he’s now happily married and recently become a father. It’s going to take more than an Andy Williams holiday marathon to smooth out this homecoming.

Click on the player to hear the Jason Reitman press conference.

YOUNG ADULT
Trailer

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Official Website:
www.youngadultmovie.com

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There Can Be Only One: World Champion Judah Friedlander.

You’ve got to admire the man who, having reached the highest pinnacles of human achievement, still finds it within himself to make the occasional descent and spend time with us lesser mortals. God knows, comedian and actor Judah Friedlander doesn’t need to bother with our petty activities; as universally acknowledged World Champion, he exists on a more exalted plane. Yet he has deigned this year to once again make regular day trips out to Queens, New York, where he graces the set of NBC’s 30 ROCK in his role as sketch writer (and trucker hat model) Frank Rossitano. One can only hope his cast-mates appreciate the effort.

So when my sponsor, Samsung, began their own quest for excellence with their Stage competition, I knew that I had to find out, for the sake of the contestants, what life is like when one is bestowed with the highest of accolades. Judah was gracious enough to give me a glimpse into his illustrious life, as well as discuss how it led to the creation of his book, How to Beat Up Anybody. Click on the player to hear the interview.

MEET JUDAH FRIEDLANDER: WORLD CHAMPION

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THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE WORLD CHAMPION
BUT YOU CAN HELP TALENTED HOPEFULS ACHIEVE
THEIR OWN DREAMS
VOTE NOW AT SAMSUNG STAGE!

CHECK THE VIDEO!

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Spies spying on spies spying on spies: Gary Oldman explores an elaborate conspiracy in TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY.

Long for the heady, Cold War days of espionage, when spies were spies, ideologies were economics-based, and there wasn’t all this religious brouhaha muddying up the motivations? (Enhanced interrogation, though, was still pretty much the same thing.) Well, director Tomas Alfredson (LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) takes us back to that furtive, paranoia-laced era in TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, the big-screen adaptation of John le Carré’s celebrated novel.

Set in the early 70′s and centered on the search for a mole in Britain’s MI6, otherwise known as the Circus, Alfredson rallies a stellar cast — including Gary Oldman as le Carré’s canny spy George Smiley, John Hurt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, and Tom Hardy — to tell a tale deception and conspiracy, where friends may not be what they seem and secret masterminds may not be as secret as you might expect. It’s dark, it’s tense, it makes James Bond look like Maxwell Smart’s less-incisive brother.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Alfredson.

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY
Trailer

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Official Website:
www.tinkertailorsoldierspy.com

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Professional Behavior: Keira Knightley and Michael Fassbender take their relationship outside of the office in A DANGEROUS METHOD.

David Cronenberg is no stranger to exploring how people undo themselves by venturing into the boundaries of human sexuality. In A DANGEROUS METHOD, though, he delves into the historical figures who helped set those boundaries, and creates a drama where intellect and science are pitted against human passion and sexual politics.

The story — as adapted by screenwriter Christopher Hampton from his stage play, The Talking Cure, which in turn was based on John Kerr’s book, A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein — spins off the actual relationship between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), one of the fathers (and we use that term guardedly) of modern psychoanalysis, and Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a young woman who starts out as the doctor’s patient and eventually becomes his colleague and, as rumor has it, mistress. As Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortenson) is drawn into their orbits, the film becomes an intelligent and moving tale of people striving for the betterment of humanity, frequently against the pull of their own frailties.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Christopher Hampton.

A DANGEROUS METHOD
Trailer

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Official Website:
adangerousmethodfilm.com

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The Blank Generation Gets Filled In: NOFX's Fat Mike confronts the responsibilities of fatherhood in THE OTHER F WORD.

It’s a curious path that takes one from rock outcast to full fatherhood, yet many of the practitioners of that most confrontational of  musical forms, punk, find themselves following it. In THE OTHER F WORD, filmmakers Andrea Blaugrund Nevins and Cristan Reilly have tracked down the men who built lives upon artistic rebellion — prime amongst them their main subject, Pennywise’s Jim Lindberg, but also Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath, Blink-182′s Mark Hoppus, Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Flea, Everclear’s Art Alexakis, and Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, among others — and explored the effort that goes into reconciling one’s creative soul with shopping for school supplies.

The final result is a fascinating and occasionally moving exploration of men who confront not only careers that demand increasing amounts of time away from home just when it’s least advantageous, but who also have to face how their own rebellious and sometimes tortured youths might affect how they approach their responsibilities as fathers.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Nevins and Reilly.

THE OTHER F WORD
Trailer

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OFFICIAL WEBSITE
theotherfwordmovie.com