Strike a Pose! Films.com

As you all can see an exciting change has been made to the website! We have no unveiled our new theme and banner so that when you guys visit the website you can finally recognize it as uniquely ours- something that shows off some of the best moments in SAP history!

So I hope you all enjoy the new look, in terms of functionality the website is still the same, and forums will hopefully be upgraded to match soon enough!

In the meantime, I’m going to start posting EVERY DAY. Even if its something nostalgic or generally unimportant, best to post SOMETHING. I find it inexcusable that I have left our readers with empty mental stomaches for the better part of six weeks- its time to just start posting whatever our crew finds interesting!

So today I have a link to a video, a heads up on one of our biggest inspirations ever, and a quote from a famous actor that gives a glimpse into my upcoming personal criticism of The Dark Knight:

First off, the amazing TV show, Battlestar Galactica, is getting it’s prequel film, and Sci Fi has the first trailer here.

Secondly, we have news about Strike a Pose!!! Inspiration, RYUHEI KITAMURA is going to be making an American Version of his cult classic, VERSUS. Here’s the scoop, brought to you by DreadCentral.com:

Kitamura just announced that he’s working on an American version of Versus. He just finished a draft of the script and will do one more to polish it up. It’s going to be a few years before it’s made, as he’s doing an action film first, but he stated, and I quote: “The US Versus will be insane!”

And finally, Sir Michael Caine has cast his vote towards the making of a third Batman Begins film, and IMDB has the story! Check out the full article here.

“He tells WENN, “I think this one will be such a success it will be difficult to do a sequel because we’ve done one and we’ve topped it, obviously, and now we’ve got to top this.

“That is difficult. That is difficult because we’ve already broken the box office (record) in American movie history. We’ve got to break our own record. It’s hard.”

I’ll have more on my personal opinion of both The Dark Knight and WALL-E later this week.

For now though, enjoy the new update, and for those of you who don’t know what VERSUS is, check out this great fan video from UltimateVersus2005 on Youtube.

Yeah, that’s not like, the most ridiculously overly-long title EVER.

But hey, it’s Terminator, it’s just that epic.

So without further adieu, I bring you all a decently downloaded version of the trailer. After this we’ll be coming out with a player that will bring you some TRULY amazing stuff, stick around!

So what do you guys think about this? We’re going to have to have a debate on the necessity of THIS fourth film!

So much to talk about and so little time. But here’s the gist of it:

FUTURE FILM MAKERS UPDATES
We’ve been doing a LOT of hard work. Quite a few projects underway, including the previously mentioned Jasper Conroy: Salisbury Bounty Hunter, the recently completely Gullman: Defender of Salisbury (yes, there is a theme here), and the running of our amazingly soon-to-be-mega-successful FILM FESTIVAL!

We currently have about 3 feature length and 15 short entries, totaling at over FIVE HOURS of footage. Here’s a brief idea of what we’ve got:

FILM FESTIVAL SPRING 08
Starting at 3 PM we’ll be showing:
7even Days by Jay Szech (75 Minutes)
Panel with Jay (10- 15 minutes)
Short Break (5 minutes)
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Robert Cogdell’s Films (10 minutes total)
Short Panel with Rob Cogdell (5 minutes)
Hudson Harrison by David M. Demerest (7 minutes)
Conflict Now by Dylan Hintz (8 minutes)
War: A Documentary by Thomas England (20 Minutes)
Short Break (5 minutes)
Scott’s Worst Day by Scott Dotterwich (6 minutes)
Playing Games in Purgatory by Ryan Henry (45 minutes)
Short Discussion (5 minutes)
The L Files by David M. Demerest (8 Minutes)
Piano Man: A Documentary by Marc Gast (20 minutes)
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WAC Zombies (6 minutes)
Mean Boy and Bum by Ed Lauler (5 minutes)
I Don’t Live Today by Ed Lauler (15 minutes)
Man of Action by The Future Film Makers Club (3 minutes)
Gull Man by The Future Film Makers Club (4 minutes)
Hit and Run by Alexis Morrel and Lauren Depaul (60 minutes)
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Post show Previews:
Jasper Conroy by the Future Film Makers Club
An Old Hope and Option Ingredients by Dan Gvozden
Line of Sight and Clarity by Dylan Hintz
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This event will be ending around 10 or 11 PM

Other than that, good news: THE GALLERIES ARE BACK UP! Check out the new pictures here

New videos will becoming up soon, with Gull Man and Jasper Conroy, plus footage from the set of An Old Hope trip that I took last month.

I’m incredibly busy with this festival, as you can see, but hopefully it’ll all pay off! We’ve got a lot of entries and we’re making a big name not just for the club, but for film making in general through this amazing festival!

The FUTURE FILM MAKERS club went and saw this movie about a week ago. In Be Kind Rewind, Jack Black and Mos Def star as two New Jersey nobodies attempting to save their VHS-only video store through the action of remaking old films. Their only resources are their nostalgic memories of the films themselves and whatever random items they can find in their slum community. Its a great premise, highly inspiring in this age of do-it-yourself digital film making and distribution, and got us future film makers all really excited to see what Michael Gondry could come up with.

Unfortunately the film itself is somewhat forgettable. That’s a sad thing to admit considering its one of the more creative movies to come out of America in the last couple years, but the fact of the matter is that the pacing, the narrative, and the fun factor of a movie such as this was just way too…I dunno, WONKY to really recommend. Now I like strange things and I love outrageous cinema, but this one just really didn’t do it for me or my friends in terms of “laugh factor.” The conversations the characters have come off as disconnected, as if all the characters have rabid cases of ADD. While it isn’t unusual for a bunch of zero-budget film makers to behave in such a way, it doesn’t work for a narrative as deeply themed and potentially rich as this. The humor is also smart, but sometimes pretentiously so, that the only jokes the whole audience will tend to laugh at at once involve Jack Black’s physical comedy (i.e watching him be beaten and violated by the environment around him).

As the plot thickens and the community pulls together to help the aging and dying video store (And associated format, VHS), the story begins to congeal into something far more palatable and upbeat. One cameo by Sigourney Weaver takes a tad of a depressing turn, however, and the predictability of the film becomes apparent.

The ending is really marvelous though, and if you truly appreciate the art form of cinema then you probably should watch this film. This is one of the best displays of how film making has become the prominent art form of this generation and why it brings people together as it does. If the entire last third of the picture was used as a thesis for Film’s Power in Sociology, it’d probably get an A+. Somehow, sadly, I don’t think most viewers will get it. Hopefully you will.

If you are a mainstream viewer then a rental will be good for you. Its really hard for me to say whether or not I liked this movie, as I am sure my readers can tell by the indecisivenesses of this review, but heck, that’s why we’re allowed to have our own opinions, isn’t it? One thing is for certain- the movie was full of great performances and a couple of really truly memorable moments.

However, I think what this movie will be most remembered for is it’s impact on the internet film community. Filmmaking Frenzy did a contest based off of the “sweding” of films (Custom-to-order-film-renting-on-less-than-zero-budget) that takes place in the movie. Here’s one of the favorites I’ve seen on the internet, TERMINATOR 2:

Short and sweet, this video is funny as hell. David Lynch is the somewhat-well known cult director of such bizarre art thriller films as Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, so let’s just be clear that this is a guy that thinks really deeply about really important subjects, such as the viewing of feature films on portable video accessories such as iPod and their infamous iPhone. Here’s his take on it, keep the volume down if at work: