This week’s pick is the final chapter of the Mad Max Trilogy, or at least it is until George Miller gets Fury Road out of the film can and into theaters after almost thirty years since the franchise dried up. Mel Gibson stars for the last time as the post apocalyptic do-gooder in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).

Thunderdome is my least favorite of the films for several reasons, mostly because of how soft Max has gotten in his old age. The film opens where it’s obvious that it has been several years (namely by Mel’s long 80s metal do) since Max helped the outpost settlers of the wasteland battle the Humungus and his barbarians.

As Max is trucking across the desert, he is knocked clear off his camel driven monster truck by a plane piloted by Jedediah (played by Bruce Spence from The Road Warrior). Jedediah steals Max’s rig and leaves him marooned in the desert with nothing. Following the tracks, Max arrives at what is known as Bartertown, a desert outpost where survivors of the nuclear holocaust come to trade precious materials.

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This week’s pick is The Road Warrior (a.k.a. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior) (1981). Mel Gibson dons his black leather uniform once again in this second installment of the franchise.

The Road Warrior begins with a narration sequence with an elderly man’s voice as it is shown to the audience the widespread pandemonium, which has steered the world towards nuclear Armageddon. Mad Max I shows the audience the beginning of the end. The Road Warrior picks up after the world has been destroyed and society hangs by a narrow thread.

Max roams the wasteland of Australia with his battle-torn black V-8 interceptor and his cattle dog foraging for supplies mainly food, and fuel for his gas-guzzling supercharger. Much like the first film, the first several minutes of the film offer an amazing chase sequence where Max is being pursued by a band of marauding punks led by the vicious Wez (Vernon Wells) who plan to kill Max and take his vehicle and what precious supplies he has left.

Max foils their attempt and wreaks two vehicles in an amazing crash sequence. Max commanders what fuel he can from one of the wreaked cars and fends off an attack by Wez who was shot in the arm with an arrow.  Collecting what he can Max sets off again with his dog and his even more damaged vehicle.

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This week’s Monday Pick is the 1979 action thriller Mad Max, a film that lunched one of the most lucrative franchises in film history. The Mad Max trilogy has spawned many imitations over the last thirty plus years, but they fail to add up to George Miller’s fantastic vision of the ultimate dystopian future.

Mel Gibson (who was virtually unknown at the time) stars as police pursuit man Max Rockatansky. He patrols the highways of the not too distant future Australia that is on the verge of complete anarchy and lawlessness. In the first installment of the series, Miller shows the audience that in this future, resources like food, water, and gasoline are becoming scarce and society is beginning to break down. The Main Force Patrol (MFP) is the uniformed highway safety enforcement whose main purpose is to stop marauding gangs who pose a threat to the society they are desperately trying to preserve.

The first ten minutes of Mad Max are filled with some of the most impressive and dangerous stunts ever performed in any film before or since. The MFP is in pursuit of an escaped convict who calls himself the Night Rider. Along with his girlfriend, the two take off in one of the force’s fastest V-8 pursuit vehicles and are successful in evading several pursuit units.

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Those who caught Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig get in all kinds of trouble in the American remake of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo probably left the theater wanting more. And even though the film didn’t do very well in theaters, they’ll be getting just that.

Entertainment Weekly brings us the exclusive.

According to Sony, the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire, is still moving forward despite the lingering perception that Dragon Tattoo has underperformed. “[Dragon Tattoo] continues to do strong business and nothing has changed with respect to development of the next book,” a Sony rep tells EW.

In November, Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal told us that The Girl Who Played With Fire was definitely a go, with a targeted late-2013 release date.

But Dragon Tattoo, which has grossed $60 million in the U.S. since its release on Dec. 20, is being perceived as something of a box-office disappointment (although moviegoers are enthusiastic — it received an A from audience-survey firm CinemaScore — and it seems to be holding up well over time as it chugs toward the $100 million mark).

So if you haven’t seen the film yet, you had better rush out while it’s still in your local theaters. And if you have, and don’t feel like waiting a year+ for more, check out the original Swedish trilogy on Instant Netflix today.

The third score from this year’s Golden Globe nominated set that I have the pleasure to review is from The Artist. The film is an interesting one, a silent film shot in black and white, set during Hollywood’s golden age. The film goes through great lengths to simulate the style of films the movie is about, and one of it’s biggest assets is it’s score.

Musically this could have come right out of the late 20s, it has a timeless quality, that allows it to feel fresh at the same time it transports you back to film music of a long passed era. Silent films used to rely heavily on music to help convey emotion, and as a result the music would often tell you as much of a story as the pictures did. It is exciting to hear that style of music in cinema again.

There is also a tremendous positivity abound in the music. Ludovic Bource has crafted a musical composition that damn near forces you to smile. One of the things that we too often hear these days is dark, monotone notes played for a mildly uncomfortable effect. This score excels at the exact opposite, and is incredibly fun.

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We feel bad for the people in charge of Will Ferrell’s next career moves. Between random commercials for the town of Davenport, Iowa, or his newest film, which is done entirely in Spanish, we can’t seem to pinpoint where the comedian is coming or going these days.

His upcoming film, the aforementioned Casa de mi Padre, stars Ferrell as a gun-slinging Mexican hero, who needs to save the day, while speaking poor Spanish and looking good. Here’s the synopsis.

Armando Alvarez (Ferrell) has lived and worked on his father’s ranch in Mexico his entire life. As the ranch faces financial strains, Armando’s younger brother Raul (Diego Luna) shows up with his new fiancee, Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez) and pledges to settle all his father’s debts. It seems that Raul’s success as an international businessman means the ranch’s troubles are over, but when Armando falls for Sonia, and Raul’s business dealings turn out to be less than legit, the Alvarez family finds themselves in a full-out war with Mexico’s most feared drug lord, the mighty Onza.

Starring alongside Ferrell are a collection of famous Spanish-speaking actors, who are probably best known outside these states. Take a look at the head-scratching new teaser after the jump and bring your laughing bone to the flick on March 16th.

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Just when you thought Michael Fassbender couldn’t get any more serious and awesome, the redband trailer for his new NC-17 rated film, Shame, hits the web. In it, Fassbender is staring down a young redhead on a train, letting his mind do the wandering, and things come across a bit creepy.

The film was just today nominated for a Spirit Award in the Best Foreign Film category, and has made tons of news in terms of how raunchy the film is (much like any NC-17 film gets). Here’s the premise of the film:

Brandon (Fassbender) is a New Yorker who shuns intimacy with women but feeds his desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his wayward younger sister (Carey Mulligan) moves into his apartment stirring memories of their shared painful past, Brandon’s insular life spirals out of control.

For the ladies, you’ll get tons of Fassbender in many different positions, and for the dudes, you’ll get Fassbender putting plenty of young ladies in many different positions. Take a look at the new trailer after the jump and catch the film in select theaters this weekend.

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The Skin I Live In is an immensely bold and engaging film of perfect gray. “Gray” in the sense that it’s certainly not white, or light, and yet, not black, either. At the core is a redemptive love, but the path that leads to that love is, if one steps back, wholly repugnant. That director Pedro Almodovar (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Talk to Her) is able to show us the chain of events in a plausible, sympathetic, and, not the least of which, compelling way, is a height of craft and human understanding.

If that description seems vague, it should be, because the film’s greatest strength is drawing you in with unexplained details only made clear after the events have transpired. An example: Early on we see a lab, with blood samples, high-tech equipment, and then bees.

Wait, what the hell are those doing here? And then beetles. Why are they there? To provide a tinge of intrigue, of course. The shots are quick, and the explanation comes seconds later, but it’s a moment that represents the whole of Almodovar’s approach. Of course, others like it range from just as casual to much, much more elaborate.

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It’s rare that we ever come across a film that crosses two very different genres so seamlessly as the Finnish film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Based on the series of shorts in which a Finnish shipping company explains the best and worst ways in dealing with renegade Santa Clauses, this story tells the tale of how that fictional company came to be.

Marketed as a horror, yet played as a Joe Dante-esque holiday adventure, Exports is able to both scare the crap out of you with hundreds of naked old men, as it is able to make you smile at the ridiculousness of hundreds of naked old men running through the snow.

If you’ve got the stomach for a film in subtitles, we recommend watching this one in its original tongue. Skip the dubs so you don’t get lost in some of the performances that make this playful horror film as fun as it is.

Some may consider the film to be a bit of a slow build for what is surely an epic and explosive ending, but if you relate with the two curious boys or any of the members of the search party then you will be along for every minute of the action here.

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Sequels are sometimes considered just an attempt at squeezing more money out of a franchise that studios or producers feel is possible after the success of a single film. That definitely isn’t the case with Tom Six’s upcoming sequel to Human Centipede: First Sequence.

This sequel, simply labeled Full Sequence, takes the premise and understanding of the first film and goes all meta and cerebral with it. Here’s the film’s premise.

Martin is a mentally disturbed loner who lives with his mother in a bleak housing project. He works the night shift as a security guard in an equally grim and foreboding underground parking complex. To escape his dreary existence, Martin loses himself in the fantasy world of the cult horror film The Human Centipede (First Sequence), fetishizing the meticulous surgical skills of the gifted Dr. Heiter, whose knowledge of the human gastrointestinal system inspires Martin to attempt the unthinkable.

Not only will this film follow a completely different story than First Sequence, but its toting itself as being “100% Medically Inaccurate”, which alone is a brilliant marketing strategy.

The film is currently making its way around the festivals, including making huge waves at Fantastic Fest, but you can expect it to hit everywhere but the UK early next year. Take a look at the first full trailer after the jump.

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Less than a week ago, we brought you a brand new trailer for an action-packed film out of Indonesia called The Raid about a SWAT group that has to make their way to the top of a crime-riddled apartment building. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones blown away by what the trailer had to offer, as Screen Gems is already vying to remake the film here in the states.

Since the film made so many waves at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it already had a distributor going into the fest, Screen Gems’ only reasonable plan was to remake the film for American audiences. Here’s what THR had to report.

Screen Gems is in negotiations on a remake, a move made possible for the label since sister arm Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions picked up North American distribution rights to the film during the Cannes Film Festival. The initial deal called for Sony to have an exclusive negotiating period and right of refusal on a remake in its deal with XYZ Films, the makers of the original.

So it seems that the new recourse isn’t to acquire films so that a wider audience can be privy to the art, but to remake it with young up-and-comers that will likely bring a completely different (possibly terrible) take on the film before we, the frustrated audience members, get to even see the original.

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Leave it to folks from Indonesia to put together one of the best action trailers we’ve seen so far this year. That’s exactly what we get with the red band trailer for The Raid, a new action flick from Welsh director Gareth Evans.

The premise is pretty simple, but when it comes to a “nonstop thrill ride” like this one you only need the visuals to get you where you’re going. For those who still need more, here’s the synopsis.

Deep in the heart of Jakarta’s slums lies an impenetrable safe house for the world’s most dangerous killers and gangsters. Until now, the run-down apartment block has been considered untouchable to even the bravest of police. Cloaked under the cover of pre-dawn darkness and silence, an elite swat team is tasked with raiding the safe house in order to take down the notorious drug lord that runs it.

But when a chance encounter with a spotter blows their cover and news of their assault reaches the drug lord, the building’s lights are cut and all the exits blocked. Stranded on the sixth floor with no way out, the unit must fight their way through the city’s worst to survive their mission.

The film stars up-and-coming young Indonesian martial arts star Iko Uwais and should  hit US theaters later this year. Check out the action-packed trailer after the jump.

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