By now you know that the list of songs eligible to be nominated for Best Original Song at the 85th Academy Awards is kind of mind-blowing. Not so mind-blowing is the generally risk-averse bent of the average Academy voter, which is why we should probably just send congratulations now to Brave, Les Miserables, and Adele, resting easy one of them will actually be the right recipient.
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As a member of the Jakarta police force, Rama (Iko Uwais) is one of dozens of SWAT agents about to be trapped within the concrete walls of a tenement building run by a nefarious slumlord, set upon by machete-wielding thugs and forced to fight his way out using knives, broken doorways, and at times, only his bare hands. The fighting style he uses to do so, leaving a trail of broken baddies in his wake, is silat -- a lightning-fast, bone-crunching Southeast Asian martial art that gets its best showcase in Gareth Evans’ festival sensation The Raid: Redemption.
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Despite the late addition of "Redemption" to the title of The Raid, there's little to no atonement to be had in this stripped-down action movie. These characters are not here to have some kind of emotional journey, they're here to kick ass. And so much ass is kicked over The Raid's 100 minutes that viewers may feel a little bruised themselves upon exiting, for the most part in a good way -- this is a film that serves as a remind of just how wonderfully cinematic violence can be.
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There was no shortage of stars coming through SXSW 2012, debuting films and projects as diverse as Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods to Lena Dunham's HBO series GIRLS. Take a look and see who else dropped in on Austin, Texas for the annual film festival, including: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, and their 21 Jump Street crew, Willem Dafoe, Al Gore, Johnny Knoxville, Melissa Leo, Matthew McConaughey, Jack Black, Aubrey Plaza, Gabrielle Union, Bobcat Goldthwait, new director (!) Matthew Lillard, two Broken Lizards, model-turned-actress Dree Hemingway, and more.
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This week at SXSW Movieline caught up with director Gareth Evans, whose Indonesian martial arts actioner The Raid: Redemption is set to knock your socks off later this month courtesy of Sony Classics. (Haven’t heard of the martial arts form silat? You will, come March 23.) With his film steadily collecting kudos left and right, Evans is already thinking ahead to his Raid sequel (working title: Berandal), and an insane, dangerous-sounding four-on-one car fight he plans on working into the mix.
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Expect Twitter to explode shortly with reactions to the Sundance premiere of Gareth Evans' The Raid, the Indonesian actioner that blew minds at Toronto but has been kept largely under wraps until now by Sony Classics, who smartly snatched up the pic and will distribute it this March. I caught The Raid last week at a pre-Sundance screening with its new score by composer Joe Trapanese and Mike Shinoda -- yes, of Linkin Park -- and can attest that the early praise was well-earned because holy crap, it's amazing. Everything you've heard about it? True.
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Park City was eerily peaceful early this morning with nobody around and last night’s dusting of snow on the ground. Soon enough – by this afternoon, or this evening, or certainly tonight – that will all change as filmmakers, press and industry folks roll in and the dreaded promoters (“leveragers,” Sundance founder Robert Redford called them in his inaugural address today) pimp out this snowy mountain town like a toddler in a tiara. Appropriately, Redford pointed to the current hardships for filmmakers, and the world at large. “Times are hard and grim,” he acknowledged, later offering optimism. “Independent film is healthy. That doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
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We're all gagging on Oscar bait at the moment, so free yourself (and your esophagus) with a glimpse at the film's playing in four Sundance out-of-competition sections, including Spotlight, Park City at Midnight, Next <=> and New Frontier. Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, the tantalizing, all black UK version of Wuthering Heights, and that amazingly harsh Indonesian film The Raid are all set up for their Utah debuts. Check out the full roster after the jump.
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Now, now: The word "Indonesian" should make my description of The Raid's red band trailer intriguing enough. Will there be expensive coffee? Komodo Dragons? Beautiful Sumatran supermodels? Even better: Gareth Evans's The Raid (Serbuan Maut) has the harshest, roughest, bloodiest, fastest-paced action of any trailer I've seen this year. It is a rush, and it is shocking as hell. It's the rare movie that warrants a "red band trailer;" type in your birthday, click play, and let your jaw drop.
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