Browse: Home / Movies by the Fives: April 2010

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • The Friday Article Roundup: Writer's Blocks
  • Lunch Links: MOOMIN
  • Film on the Internet: BASKET CASE
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Taco Break: Overplayed But Still Funny

Movies by the Fives: April 2010

Posted By Julius Kassendorf on April 22, 2015 in News | 3 Responses

This segment of The Solute looks at 5 movies that came out this month in previous years by factors of fives. Today, we look at April 2010.


Top of the Box Office: Clash of the Titans

Clash of the Titans

Clash of the Titans is a remake of a Ray Harryhausen classic starring Jai Courtnzzzz. Again telling the story of Perseus, the illegitimate Demigod son of Zeus, who goes through a byzantine Grecian journey to defeat the Kraken, a monster sent by Hades to punish the mortals. Replacing Harryhausen’s kitschy stop-motion special effects with generic CGI, Clash of the Titans became a hyperactive modern take released in 3D as well as with D-Box technologies. I saw it with the overpriced D-Box chair (first and only time), and instantly forgot almost everything about it except the memetastic “Release the Kraken.”


Equal Opportunity Remake: Death at a Funeral

Death At A Funeral

Death at a Funeral might be the poster child for “Too Soon” remakes. Based on Frank Oz’s very British farce from 2007, Neil LaBute’s remake recasts the whole movie with American black actors. The story is about a family gathering for the funeral of the patriarch (father, uncle, etc). Complications ensue, including homosexuality, midgets, and psychotropic drugs. The big question of this remake might be whether remakes are OK if they are targeted at a different audience. For those who actually caught the original, LaBute’s version hewed too closely while the changes seemed just to make it louder and more American (as per all American remakes). Should we kick Death at a Funeral any worse than we kick The Man With One Red Shoe or The Birdcage for making similar adaptation changes? Probably not. But, like The Man With One Red Shoe or Traffic, the original is still better.


DisneyNature requirement: Oceans

Oceans

DisneyNature’s first documentary, Earth, was a re-edit/chop job of the HD television series Planet Earth. Replacing Sigourney Weaver with James Earl Jones (for America) or David Attenborough with Patrick Stewart (for UK), Earth crammed 11 hours worth of nature footage into 99 minutes, adopting a “respect the environment” message while exploring the range of environments our planet offers. DisneyNature’s theatrical followup, Oceans, was directed by Winged Migration directors Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, and shifted focus from above ground to the titular oceanic life. This is the second, and so far final, DisneyNature documentary that focuses on an ecosystem rather than a specific animal. It’s gorgeous if entirely too short.


Documentary Phenomenon: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Exit Through the Gift Shop

When there was a documentary about the notorious graffiti artist Banksy, interest was certainly piqued. People wanted to see him in action, and then wondered if it was a hoax. But, Exit Through the Gift Shop starts out as a documentary about Banksy and graffiti artists, and then the camera turns and becomes a film about the initial director Thierry Guetta. Thierry latches onto graffiti artists in his own search for coolness, and then, under the name Mr. Brainwash, becomes his own bullshit neo-cool art factory in the vein of Andy Warhol. Mr. Brainwash is a commercial artist that could only have happened in Los Angeles, and gets picked up by the hoi polloi. For proof, Mr. Brainwash even designed the cover of Madonna’s 2009 compilation, Celebration, 2-discs of singles which fails to live up to the singular genius of The Immaculate Collection. Exit Through the Gift Shop reflexively asks whether the pop-art scene is a bunch of elitist bullshit, and whether Banksy is a force that is actively being co-opted, or refusing to be co-opted.


Cult Phenomenon: The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

The Human Centipede

Has a movie that made so little at the box office ever become such a gigantic phenomenon? The Human Centipede made under $200k in the US Box Office, yet somehow it entered the American consciousness to the point that it became fodder for an episode of South Park. The concept of The Human Centipede is so outrageous and grotesque that we can’t help but be fascinated. A psychotic doctor physically sews three people together ass to mouth, so that feeding one person will inevitably feed all three. It combines our obsession with body horror with our fear of sex and bodily functions. As online discussions about outlandish sexual acts were accelerating (2009 saw the release of the horror movie Donkey Punch named after an internet approved sexual act), The Human Centipede grabbed our attention even though it provided a relatively tame film compared to our collective imaginations.

Posted in News | Tagged 2010, April, April 2010, Banksy, Clash of the Titans, Death at a Funeral, Exit Through the Gift Shop, First Sequence, Jacques Cluzaud, Jacques Perrin, Louis Leterrier, Movies by the Fives, Neil LaBute, Oceans, The Human Centipede, Tom Six

About the Author

Julius Kassendorf

Julius Kassendorf is the founder of The-Solute, and previously founded The Other FIlms and Project Runaways in 2013. There, he dabbled in form within reviews to better textualize thought processes about the medium of film.

Previously, he has blogged at other, now-defunct, websites that you probably haven’t heard of, and had a boyfriend in Canada for many years. Julius resides in Seattle, where he enjoys the full life of the Seattle Film Community.

Julius’ commanding rule about film: Don’t Be Common. He believes the worst thing in the world is for a film to be like every other film, with a secondary crime of being a film with little to no ambition.

Related Posts

I mean, how could you not trust this face?Broken Art for Sale: EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP→

Year of the Month: Losing Time in CERTIFIED COPY→

Year of the Month: Persia on INCEPTION→

Year of the Month: Miller on DON’T FUCK WITH THE APOCALYPSE→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    33852 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    27453 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    25068 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    20096 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    11141 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • Oh, to have the straight line just hovering over your shoulder for when you need it.

    The Friday Article Roundup: Writer’s Blocks

    March 24, 2023 / The Ploughman
  • This was a tough one to find a properly formatted header image for.

    Lunch Links: MOOMIN

    March 23, 2023 / The Ploughman
  • Film on the Internet: BASKET CASE

    March 22, 2023 / ZoeZ
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    March 21, 2023 / Greta Taylor
  • Taco Break: Overplayed But Still Funny

    March 20, 2023 / Tristan "Drunk Napoleon" Nankervis

Last Tweets

  • The Friday Article Roundup: Writer’s Blocks - https://t.co/3a4Sy0roVA, 11 hours ago
  • The witty and bittersweet short film MOOMIN doesn't require a smartphone to watch, but it helps. https://t.co/gMMYZWtxgb, Mar 23
  • Film on the Internet: BASKET CASE - https://t.co/ncsoMwqyRT, Mar 22

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!