CliqueClack

CliqueClack Giveaway: Free passes for Inside Llewyn Davis in Baltimore or DC

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CliqueClack has partnered with CBS Films and Allied Integrated Marketing to offer readers in the Baltimore and DC areas free passes to an advance screening of the critically acclaimed new film from the Coen Brothers, Inside Llewyn Davis starring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund and Justin Timberlake. Inside Llewyn Davis follows a week in the life of a young folk singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is at a crossroads. Guitar in tow, huddled against the unforgiving New York winter, he is struggling to make it as a musician against seemingly insurmountable obstacles — some of them of his own making. Living at the mercy of both friends and strangers, scaring up what work he can find, Llewyn’s misadventures take him from the baskethouses of the Village to an empty Chicago club — on an odyssey to audition for a music mogul — and back again.

Brimming with music performed by Isaac, Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan (as Llewyn’s married Village friends), as well as Marcus Mumford and Punch Brothers, Inside Llewyn Davis — in the tradition of O Brother, Where Art Thou? — is infused with the transportive sound of another time and place. An epic on an intimate scale, it represents the Coen Brothers’ fourth collaboration with multiple-Grammy and Academy Award®-winning music producer T Bone Burnett. Marcus Mumford is associate music producer.

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Crackle’s second season of Chosen brings it again

In January of this year I posted a short review of the first season of Chosen (or CH:OS:EN, if you want to get all technical about it), where I gave it high marks. The web series has definite high production value, with the acting chops to accompany it. The series is back for a second season, premiering tomorrow on Crackle.com, and so far it has more of the same level of quality or more.

Back this season are the main characters from the last. Milo Ventimiglia is back as Ian Mitchell, as well as Nicki Whelan as his wife, Laura, and Caitlin Carmichael as their daughter, Ellie. While the season doesn’t exactly pick up where it left off in season one — and the Mitchells not being the front-and-center main characters this season — we do get a sense of what they’ve been up to early on.

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Prisoners commits a bit of a crime on BluRay & DVD

When it comes to motion pictures, I typically tend to lean more towards comedies. What can I say? It’s just my comfort zone. It’s for this fact alone that it came as a bit of a surprise to my friends that I opted to watch a movie such as Prisoners, a film that’s not only gritty but damn near depressing — but depressing in a good way. Headlined by Hugh Jackman, whom we all know and love as Wolverine in the X-Men series, Prisoners is one humorless movie.

The film centers on Jackman who plays a determined father who must come to terms with the reality that his young daughter has been kidnapped and possibly murdered along with her best friend. As family members and friends deal with her tragic and mysterious disappearance, Jackman’s Keller Dover — what the hell kind of name is that? — launches an all-out war on the young man who he believes may be the culprit. Complicating things is the fact that this man, played wonderfully by Paul Dano, has the IQ of a 10-year-old and isn’t big on talking and sharing feelings. Things get a bit disturbing with some pretty frightening torture scenes and squirm-inducing images. It’s worth noting that the film was once rated NC-17 before being edited to earn an R rating. Still, it makes for some remarkably tough stuff.

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Win passes to see Walking With Dinosaurs in Baltimore or DC

*THIS OFFER HAS EXPIRED. PLEASE FOLLOW US @CLIQUECLACK ON TWITTER FOR ALERTS ON CONTESTS, NEWS AND REVIEWS.

CliqueClack has partnered with 20th Century Fox and Allied Integrated Marketing to offer readers in the Baltimore and DC areas the opportunity to attend an advance screening of the new film Walking With Dinosaurs which will be presented in Digital 3D. For the first time in movie history, audiences will truly see and feel what it was like when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Recent discoveries and a breakthrough in technology will introduce new and unique dinosaurs that are more real than ever before and put moviegoers in the middle of a thrilling prehistoric adventure, where an underdog dinosaur triumphs against all odds to become a hero for the ages.

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Get passes for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom in Baltimore

This offer has expired. Please follow @CliqueClack on Twitter for alerts on contests, news and reviews.

CliqueClack has partnered with the Weinstein Company and Allied Integrated Marketing to offer readers in the Baltimore area passes to an advance screening of the new movie Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, starring Idris Elba and Naomie Harris. The film is based on the late Mandela’s autobiography of the same name. The screening will take place on Wednesday, December 11, 7:30 PM at Landmark Harbor East in Baltimore.

To get your passes, just leave a comment on this post telling us you want to see the movie. You will receive two Admit One passes to the screening. Passes are first-come, first-served. Just print them out and take them with you for admittance. Please note that each pass contains a unique code that can only be used once. Duplicates will not be accepted. Passes do not guarantee seats at the screening, so please plan to arrive early. CliqueClack has no control over the number of passes distributed or seating at the theater.

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Get passes for The Punk Singer in DC

This offer has expired. Please follow us @CliqueClack on Twitter for alerts on contests, news and reviews.

CliqueClack has partnered with IFC Films and Allied Integrated Marketing to offer readers in the Washington, DC area passes to an advance screening of the new film The Punk Singer. Kathleen Hanna, lead singer of the punk band Bikini Kill and dance-punk trio Le Tigre, rose to national attention as the reluctant but never shy voice of the riot grrrl movement. She became one of the most famously outspoken feminist icons, a cultural lightning rod. Her critics wished she would just shut-up, and her fans hoped she never would. So in 2005, when Hanna stopped shouting, many wondered why. Through 20 years of archival footage and intimate interviews with Hanna, The Punk Singer takes viewers on a fascinating tour of contemporary music and offers a never-before-seen view into the life of this fearless leader.

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Throwback Thursday: George and the Christmas Star was ahead of its time

December is as good as a time as any for reflection, for it signifies the ending of a year and the impending transition into a new one. It’s a time when society has mandated that it’s okay to wonder whatever happened to the one you let slip away or to reminisce about holiday specials from your youth. While many of you out there are reminiscing about George Bailey, Scrooge or the Island of Misfit Toys, I can’t help but remember an obscure holiday special that I adored as a child because it was so different from the rest.

Have you ever heard of George and the Christmas Star? If you’re like the majority of the people I talk to, I’m betting you haven’t. Featuring the ever-cheerful and uplifting music of Paul Anka and steampunk-looking animation reminiscent of a Monty Python special, this was one of my favorite Christmas movies as a child that I continue to watch every year thanks to my trusty VHS copy. It was a made-for-TV animated Christmas special from 1985 that was released on VHS by Paramount Home Video in 1986. I’m not sure when I first saw it, but I’m betting it was late ’80s-early ’90s. My grandparents used to buy a lot of VHS, as well as record a lot of obscure cartoons and movies for me to watch over and over after we’d rent them from our local video store.

George and the Christmas Star tells the story of a man named George who lives alone with his cat. As George prepares to decorate his home for the holidays by trimming the tree, he begins to feel as if something is missing from his seemingly dull life. (How many of us can relate? I know I can, especially this year.) He wants something spectacular to top his tree this year instead of the same-old ordinary paper star. He humorously tries to put various objects atop the tree, including a boot, a bottle of wine, a frog and a pineapple, but nothing seems to be the right fit.

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Kickstarter campaigns we like: Video Watchdog

I have been a movie buff for pretty much my entire life and growing up in the 70s, especially after the success of Star Wars, I started collecting such film magazines as Cinefantastique, Cinefex, Starlog and many more (I still have boxes of mags in my attic from that period). Sometime in the 90s, I ran across a compact-in-size magazine called Video Watchdog. I was intrigued by the cover art and the lengthy film articles and reviews contained within. I liked the longer pieces about a specific film, director or actor and the plethora of reviews covering a wide range of films, from the familiar to the totally alien (to me) titles. I’ve been reading the magazine ever since. With the advent of the mobile tablet, many magazines have launched digital editions that you can enjoy anywhere without having to carry around the actual magazine. I had contacted Video Watchdog publisher Tim Lucas a few months ago about a possible digital edition, and not long after that email, low and behold there it was ready to be downloaded to my iPad.

That was a first step for the digital edition of Video Watchdog. Now, Tim and his wife Donna have launched a Kickstarter campaign to expand the app that is currently available to include not only new issues of the magazine, but a digital archive of every single issue across multiple platforms! Needless to say, this is a massive undertaking so Tim and Donna are asking fans of the magazine to help them make this dream a reality. I contacted Tim and Donna to ask them a few questions about the magazine for the newcomers out there, and what they hope to accomplish with the Kickstarter campaign.

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Irving Berlin’s White Christmas is merry and bright

If you’ve been alive for the past 71 years, then you are certainly more than familiar with Irving Berlin’s most popular song, “White Christmas.” You may even be familiar with the Christmas movie perennial White Christmas, but you may not know that the song was first sung by Bing Crosby in the film Holiday Inn (of which White Christmas is a remake), for which it won the Best Original Song Academy Award. In fact, Crosby sang the song again in 1946’s Blue Skies before turning it into a bona fide classic as the title song of the 1954 film.

Those other films may languish only in the memories of real movie buffs, but White Christmas is sure to turn up on classic movie networks and your local channels during the holiday season. But what if you could see the movie brought to life on stage with even more songs from the Irving Berlin catalog? You no longer have to dream of that white Christmas, because there is an all-new stage musical currently touring the US until the end of December!

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I’m dreaming of a pop culture relic-filled Christmas

I knew I wasn’t the only ‘90s kid in America who begged for a Talkboy like Kevin McCallister after watching Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. I recently looked at a list of the best-selling Christmas presents of all time and was left feeling more than a little nostalgic when I saw the Talkboy had made the grade. I adored my Talkboy, and I even remember attempting to trick a pizza delivery man after watching Kevin do it, although my prank just came across as ill-conceived and uncool when I did it.

But that’s all beside the point. The real purpose of this blog is I’ve been thinking of other items I’ve seen in TV and film that I wish I could acquire but probably never will be able to because somehow the marketing gurus have missed the boat. You might say I’m dreaming of a pop culture relic-filled Christmas just like the ones I used to know.

The most coveted item on my fantasy wish list is a Blues Brothers pinball machine as seen on the bizarre John Belushi biopic Wired. If such a thing really existed (even custom-made), shut up and take my money already. Seriously, I’d be on a mission from God to acquire that for my pop culture collection at all costs. Continue reading 'I’m dreaming of a pop culture relic-filled Christmas' »