Saturday, September 16, 2006
Review: The Black Dahlia
One of the challenges in reviewing a film is separating what you loved on screen from an objective assessment of whether the film works. As a pure fetish film, The Black Dahlia offers everything I came into it hoping for: sexy femmes fatale, dirty cops, black sedans, violent murders, and dizzying camera work. It's a hopped-up version of film noir that takes place in a hyperreality somewhere between author James Ellroy and director Brian DePalma's respectively dark worlds. Unfortunately, the story gets lost somewhere in the darkness.
The Black Dahlia is the nickname given by the press to Elizabeth Short (played by Mia Kirshner in flashbacks and photographic evidence), an aspiring starlet who was murdered in 1947, her body mutilated and bisected, her cheek cut from ear to ear, and abandoned in a field in Los Angeles. James Ellroy's novel, however, does not exactly center on the murder. It follows two cops, Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart), assigned to the case. As they obsess over the murder, Bleichert falls for Blanchard's girlfriend Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansen) while also becoming obsessed with Madeleine Winscott (Hillary Swank), a society dame who bares a resemblance to the murdered Betty Short.
The Black Dahlia seems such a perfect match for DePalma. It takes place in the Los Angeles of 1947, a mythical fairyland for film lovers, and it deals with the themes of obsession that have fueled so much of his career. Most of all, the novel hints at a wonderful visual motif: the macabre grin carved into the cheeks of the famous murder victim, reflected in a painting depicting a similarly mutilated character from Victor Hugo's novel The Man Who Laughs (further reflected in DePalma's movie by the 1928 silent film starring Conrad Veidt, which Blanchard, Bleichert and Lake are seen watching together in a theater), a grotesque motif that you would expect to recur throughout the film like the spiral designs in Vertigo, to convey the detectives' obsession with the murder.
In fairness to DePalma, many of the problems with the film originate in Ellroy's novel, which solves the murder mystery in a convoluted series of absurd twists and revelations about characters the reader has little interest in. These problems are further exacerbated by the reduction of the dense novel into a screenplay. There are plot points that are never quite explained, and the script seems to take it for granted that the audience has a familiarity with the lesser works of Victor Hugo.
These are problems we can deal with--the oblique narratives in The Big Sleep and Lady From Shanghai have done little to hurt their reputation over the years. Where I think the film drops the ball is in conveying the sense of obsession that is central to the novel, and how obsession with the dead Betty Short infects both Blanchard and Bleichert. The Dahlia case never seems all that important to Bleichert in the film. He's just going through the motions of detective work (and although I leave this movie convinced that Hartnett is a lightweight, I don't place the blame for this on his shoulders). Eckhart does a better job with what little he's given, but his character ends up receding so far into the background that he becomes more of a plot point than a character. This is more than a little surprising considering how central the idea of unhealthy obsession is to DePalma's work.
But the biggest problem, the Achilles' heel of the whole structure of the movie, lies with the casting of Hillary Swank and Mia Kirshner. Swank's character is supposed to bear a striking resemblance to Betty Short. This is referenced repeatedly, and is treated as an important plot point. Yet there is no resemblance. I understand that the casting of a name actor like Swank goes a long way toward getting a movie made in Hollywood, while Kirshner was cast because of some resemblance to the real life Betty Short, but this is a serious problem, especially for a story that hinges on visual connections.
Despite this long list of reasons why I think the film doesn't work, I don't want to discourage anyone from seeing it. The Black Dahlia is a full-on dose of gonzo filmmaking, with at least four great setpieces (including a bloody gunfight on a stairwell and an erotic musical number in a lesbian bar) and dozens of deliciously noir shots. Hillary Swank is as great as she's ever been, Scarlett Johansen is classically glamorous and does the best she can with what little she's given, and Fiona Shaw, best known as Harry Potter's bitchy Aunt Petunia, gives an absolutely insane, over-the-top performance that seems like it belongs in another movie entirely. As many complaints as I have about the film, the one thing I can not say against it is that I was bored.
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Friday, September 15, 2006
Trailer: Eragon
DragonOMGlawlz
That about sums up the new Eragon trailer.
Watching the new trailer for this flick reminds me of all the times I go to Borders and look in the science fiction and fantasy section. It is bloated with series that should have been stopped ten books ago and just terrible all around generics and ridiculousness. Pictures of dragons, half dragons, crab men, lizard gods, and ninjas wielding nun chuck flintlock pistols just fly at you from all directions. You want to weep, but you laugh instead.
The worse of these fantasy books, however, are usually the ones that are the tried and true depiction of the formula, often emulating your basic Dungeons and Dragons campaign with freshman high schoolers. There will be flaming swords, power bows, evil wizards, and big loud dragons. R.A. Salvatore is a perfect example of this, and like some sort of Michael Bay version of novelists, is allowed to continue his Drizzt Do'Urden series in much the same fashion AIDS has continued rampaging our world.
Eragon, both in film and novel, shows little detachment from this formula, which makes it in some ways worse than our beloved Dungeons and Dragons movie which was often just a giant ball of hilarity. Eragon doesn't have any particularly special appeal that Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter does, but does not shy from riding both of those films' coattails. In all actuality its popularity can simply be attributed to the fact that a 17 year old wrote it. Yes, the heartwarming story about a boy and his dragon and the forced sentimentality that lies within its theme is all nice and such, but Dragonheart did the same thing with an old and greasy Dennis Quaid, and that did not work out so well.
The trailer contains everything you'd expect from a story like this. A Jeremy Irons narration sets the stage over sweeping landscape shots and an evil John Malkovich looking quite hilarious while he annunciates every single word. A blonde boy (who is very gay I imagine) with a destiny, Jeremy Irons wielding a flame sword, and then finally the trailer's slow climax that bursts into the money shot of a screaming CGI dragon. From then on it quickens into all the action and big armies and such. Ultimately, the trailer seems to lovingly wallow in its own mediocrity.
Probably the most distressing thing is that I would not be surprised if this does well. The movie may already echo the stale cardboard taste of the conventional and dull, but the appeal of the epic fantasy movie has risen about ten fold, and people would gobble these up expecting another Harry Potter and probably being content with it ( I believe the same happened with Narnia, which was just a giant bowl of boring). It's the kind of movie your mother would want to go see and probably like.
Also, I feel sorry for Jeremy Irons. I think he's just confused now.
Eragon comes out December 15th. Please go see Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth instead.
Source: Moviefone
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WABAC To The Future
Another classic TV 'toon is heading towards cineplexes everywhere. This time, Hollywood has set its sights on the loveable duo of Sherman and Mr. Peabody, a timeless tale of a boy, his repressed homosexual talking dog, and their time machine.
Variety reports:
"DreamWorks Animation is developing a CGI feature based on the classic time-traveling duo, "Mr. Peabody & Sherman," with helmer Rob Minkoff on board to direct.
The bespectacled dog Mr. Peabody and his adopted pet boy Sherman were introduced in 1959 in a series of short segments as part of "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show." Together, they had more than 90 adventures, jumping into Peabody's "WABAC Machine" to travel back in time.
Minkoff developed the pitch for the film with longtime producing partner Jason Clark; the duo will oversee development."
Before you groan and roll your eyes about the rape of our respective childhoods, this one actually has a lot of potential to be a fun family movie. Peabody and Sherman's historical adventures were consistently some of the best, cleverest segments on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, thanks to a premise that lends itself extremely well to both silly adventure and sly gags. Now we can only hope that the film's plotline revolves around Sherman stepping on a butterfly, shuttling the two of them back to a grim, dystopian world where Adolf Hitler and Biff Tannen rule Hill Valley in an iron grip of cruelty.
Source: Variety
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Review: Right At Your Door
What would happen if terrorists exploded several dirty bombs during the rush hour of a major metropolitan area? What if you were safe at home but your wife was right in the middle of it? What if American movie makers stopped being so terrified of terrorism in this post 9/11 world and used an attack purely as a narrative backdrop? New film Right at Your Door tries to answer these questions.
Rory Cochrane plays 'Brad', newly wed and moved to Los Angeles with Lexi, played by Mary McCormack. They wake up, share some domestic scenes of coffee making, teeth brushing and small talk, then she goes off to work and he turns on the radio. Then the radio tells him there have been explosions downtown and he dashes off in his car to find her as the police attempt to quarantine the city.
He fails to find her, witnesses scenes of increasing panic and social breakdown, then heads back to his house to seal up all the windows and doors because people are being told the smoke spreading out over the suburbs contains a lethal virus. That gets us to about 30 minutes in, so I won't spoil any more of the story.
What is interesting about Brad is not his character, which is thinly sketched in the script and played well but without much individuality by Cochrane, but that he is us. He's in his late twenties/early thirties, he dresses casually, he sports a scuzzy beard, he's a musician, he listens to indie guitar rock. He's a fairly normal generation x'er, still holding on to the fashions of alternative culture but starting to settle down in the mainstream of Amercian society. He's not the suit wearing corporate schmoe. He's not the blue collar, rough but honest lunkhead. He's not a radical, rebellious type. He's not any of the other stereotypes that they put into disaster movies to represent the average American man. If the film does nothing else it is good for propagating a different kind of everyman - one that I actually meet from time to time.
But he is the everyman. The film is playing the 'what would you do?' card, and so have him be a little generic allows the audience to project on to his decisions, both when they seem reasonable and when they seem more desperate.
The film plays like Night of the Living Dead after it moves back to the house, with one small location, a sense of siege, a not entirely understood threat and a radio that he keeps on to tell him what is happening in the outside world. While that film, however, ups the sense of dread and danger, this one chooses to focus on the sadness and loss of the characters as Brad tries to deal with his safe but powerless position and his wife being out there in the toxic cloud, turning eventually into a 'how does it feel?' movie.
The film, which is obviously fairly low budget and 'indie' in style, is made well enough. Instead of going the route of most low budget movies, which is to make a high budget film only more craply, it is structured so as to put the sense of scale at the front of the movie (complete with some driving scenes and a few fx shots of the burning LA skyline), so the move to the house feels more natural and less like a cheat. The audience has already been shown what is happening in the wider world, and will accept just being told what is happening from then on (a tactic familiar to geeks from Star Trek battle scenes).
The movie is broken up into 10-15 minute sections, seperated by fades to black. This not only gives a sense of 'time moving on', which heightens the sense of doom around how long the wife has been out in the cloud, but also gives a sense of structure that first time writer/director Chris Gorak can use to paper over potential any failings in his cinematic storytelling.
Unfortunately, by ignoring the overarching story going on in the city, there's very little drama, and having the characters, especially Brad, be so reasonable, normal and everyman-y makes the emotional content, at best, only luke-warm. He cries, he feels angry, he feels lonely and so on, but he's so practical, co-operative and matter of fact about everything that it never really seems like the end of the world. Whatever happens, you get the feeling he'll go along with it. This, more than any problems with acting or direction, dilutes what should be some fairly heartbreaking scenes about accepting death towards the end.
The film is certainly watchable. It is intelligent enough, never strays from the point, never breaks its rules and doesn't outstay its welcome. The problem is that it never fulfills any of its potential. It is a movie dealing with a hot-button political issue but never explores it. It is an intimate character drama that is never all that emotional. It is a disaster movie flagrantly using a controversial topic that studiously avoids anything more controversial (or juicy) than a severed limb.
Now, the advertising in England mentions a twist several times, so I will assume they will mention it when it is released in America. One of the worst things you can do to a twist movie (beyond revealing the twist) is telling everyone to expect one, but oh well. Yes, there is a twist, it works well enough, and makes enough sense not to feel cheated. Beyond that I won't go into any more specifics. What the twist does do is reveal that the movie is structurally just another thriller, most similar to mainstream films like Panic Room, which also deals with enclosed spaces and has an episodic structure seperated by fades to black.
This shows up the lie of it pretending to be an 'indie' character piece, whose quiet drama is supposed to be relatable and realistic, when what it is actually doing is playing on your fears of terrorism to create tension. It is called Right at Your Door and the terror of the event is not the thousands of innocent people who died - these people are barely mentioned in the film - but that you yourself are in danger. Rather than focusing in on the actual tragedy, it plays up the fear-mongering spin that no-one is safe - a reactionary, selfish and distinctly neocon idea in a film who's main character and overall tone is far more liberal.
We can all argue after we've seen the film (if anyone does - none of the normal websites actually give a US release date yet) as to whether it shows up the reactionary in the seemingly liberal once a crisis turns up, or what the twist says about our fear/trust of the authorities but, as it stands, the film is slightly disingenuous underneath the surface.
Right at Your Door can be praised for finally bringing terrorism on American soil back into the mealstrom of popular culture after being an open wound too painful to even touch for too long (read me rambling on about this here). Just as a movie though, it is a solid but unremarkable effort, which always seems like the worst thing to say about a movie.
6 rolls of sellotape out of 10
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Thursday, September 14, 2006
DVD Invasion - Week Of 9/12/06
Ugh. It's a weird week for DVDs. There is not much to choose from (I'm not speaking to you, Star Wars fanatics). In the coming weeks, the Christmas shopping season will get cranked up, and the DVD releases will get juicier and more satisfying. Believe me, it's going to be much, much better then, but we must press on with our heads lowered for a little while. In that spirit, I present the following...
Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope (2-Disc Limited Edition)Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (2-Disc Limited Edition)
Star Wars Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (2-Disc Limited Edition)
I'm not sure I even want to get into this shit. How many thousands of bitter, vengeful words have been spent on Star Wars in just the past month? The movie saga is completed, and there are no signs that new ones are going to be made (yet). Why are we still donating emotions and currency to this juggernaut of a movie franchise? Very few people outside George Lucas' sphere of influence wanted to see their favorite films get a digital makeover, but it still happened.
Lucas set a potentially dangerous precedent by not only fixing some clunky special effects shots but also by making changes that altered the story. Is it respectful to do that to the fans who have memorized every shot and character? If you truly love movies, do you turn your back on the special memories of one generation in order to attract and profit from the next? There are no concrete answers to these questions, but can you imagine Fritz Lang, if he was still alive, throwing a bunch of CGI shots into Metropolis, just because the technology is available to him now? 
The official account is that there are no complete film sources left of the original theatrical trilogy to create a truly restored set of high definition transfers for DVD. The theatrical versions on these three sets (relegated to "special feature" status on disc 2) consist of non-anamorphic transfers from the mid-90's laserdisc releases, meaning that they won't look much better than the VHS versions you may have owned or rented. But don't be surprised if at some later date, maybe late next year when a box set containing the six Star Wars films is rumored to come out, or maybe when the films get ported over to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, a set of film masters are suddenly discovered so the restored theatrical trilogy everyone has been clamoring for can be created. Some things, when massive profits are at stake, never change.The 2004 Special Edition versions of the films contain the same special features that were present on the previous discs. Each set contains a commentary track by Lucas and others on the Special Edition disc and an XBox game demo and trailer for LEGO Star Wars II on the second disc.
Lucky Number SlevinThe only thing I can tell about this film at first glance is that it's packed with star power. After reading a quick synopsis, which I will attempt to further synopsize in a second, it sounds like a decent little crime film. Josh Hartnett stars as the title character, Slevin Kelevra, a guy who gets into a tight spot while trying to visit a friend in New York City. A crime lord named The Boss (Morgan Freeman of Unleashed) thinks Slevin IS the friend, and coerces him into killing the son of another boss (Ben Kingsley of Blood Rayne) or repay a large debt with his own blood. Lucy Liu (Kill Bill), Stanley Tucci (Shall We Dance?, The Terminal) and Bruce Willis (16 Blocks) co-star. Hartnett's presence is not the best reason to see a film, but how often do you get to see Morgan Freeman play a tough? And it's always nice to see Ben Kingsley not slumming for a paycheck.
7 + 11 = SLEVIN features include two commentary tracks by (a)Actors Josh Hartnett and Lucy Liu and Writer Jason Smilovic and (b)Director Paul McGuigan, a "Making Lucky Number Slevin" featurette, deleted scenes and an alternate ending.
I Am a Sex AddictFor some people, the notion of sex addiction comes into play when the afflicted person budgets for an extra hard drive to store internet porn. Seriously, what healthy person needs 1,500 pictures of Sandy Lightspeed? For Writer/Director Caveh Zahedi, the realization came after he lost two wives to his lust for prostitutes. Zahedi plays himself in this autobiographical trip through his carnal exploits, in which he often breaks from the narrative to talk directly to the camera. He describes in explicit detail how he lost the women he loved due to his insatiable urges. He eventually attended sex addicts anonymous meetings to help deal with his obsession, and he seeks to resolve his past sexual deviance by marrying for a third time. The frankness with which Zahedi talks about his problems, his wry wit and his penchant for subversive cinema draw comparisons to a young Woody Allen. Just as it takes a lot of courage to admit you have a self-destructive habit, it also takes a lot of sex to call yourself an addict.
Stop looking up Sandy Lightspeed.
I DON'T WANT YOUR SEX features include a "Shooting I Am A Sex Addict" featurette and three deleted scenes: "The Hotel Scene," "The Ecstasy Scene," and "The Mushroom Scene".
Bottoms UpThe only reason I'm giving this movie feature status is because it co-stars Jason Mewes of the Clerks movies and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which will make some of you happy. It's definitely not because it includes the acting prowess of Paris Hilton, because she's had more free publicity than most real, working celebrities and I don't wish to give her more. The girl is so overexposed, I'm surprised there aren't pictures of her internal organs floating around the net (yes, I said "internal"). Mewes plays Owen Peadman, a talented competitive bartender from Minnesota who travels to L.A. to take part in big contest. When Owen loses the contest, he must find a way to make some money, so he turns to his Uncle Earl (played by cult favorite David Keith, of An Officer and a Gentleman and The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck), who gets him a job as a tabloid journalist. I always wondered if being a competitive bartender would lead to a career in journalism, and I finally have the answer. Owen wants to get dirt on one of Hollywood's hot stars to get a high-paying scoop, so he tries to get to know a particular star's rich girlfriend, Lisa Mancini (played/embodied by Hilton). Owen soon realizes that he wants Lisa more than the exclusive. You can probably guess how it ends. If you can't, go watch Cocktail and forget that this movie exists.
This release contains no special features, but it has been rumored that some of Hilton's undies are hidden in random copies of the DVD. Not really, but she's been known to leave them in numerous places all over the world, so my little joke didn't shock you all that much, did it?
Beavis and Butthead Do America: 10th Anniversary Special Collector's EditionThe title of this DVD implies that there was a previous collector's edition for this film on DVD, and that there is now a better collector's edition because the film is 10 years old. The second part is true. There is now a better edition of this film on DVD, but we shouldn't have been made to wait for a 10th anniversary to get it (the movie first hit DVD in 1999 sans extras). Why do I sound upset about dates and editions and all that? Because this movie is no longer relevant. It's time has passed. The TV show Beavis and Butthead was funny and somewhat shocking for a few years, and the feature film starring the two animated dumbasses was even better because it took the characters out of their normal confines and let them spread their idiocy across the U.S. The problem is that we don't need to watch cartoon characters being stupid anymore. We now have shows like Jackass and Wildboyz and Viva La Bam with actual living stupid people doing dangerous and insane things to themselves and others. Can a couple of 2-D morons possibly match that real-life mayhem? Does the name "Cornholio" even elicit a giggle now? Not really, on either count. People may buy this DVD (or the recent TV box sets) for a bit of nostalgia, but I can't see uninitiated consumers giving it much play. Excess and perversity are no longer on the cutting edge. They are an integral part of our entertainment culture.
These special features are cool, therefore they do not suck:
* Commentary by Director/Creator Mike Judge and Animation Director Yvette Kaplan
* "The Big Picture" retrospective making-of segment
* "We're Gonna Score!" featurette with Mike Judge and Composer John Frizzell
* "The Smackdown" montage
* "Celebrity Shorts"
* TV spots
* Teaser trailers
Somethings else:
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Animation Station
The early 2000's have been good to feature length animated films. Sixteen of the top grossing twenty-five were made in this decade. Two of the twenty-five domestic top grossing films of all time were animated and made in this decade as well. Seems like we hear more every day about the latest animated project, and today is no different.
Above on the left you'll see a picture of the Mayor of Who-ville in Horton Hears a Who, an adaptation of the Dr. Seuss classic. He will be voiced by Steve Carell (The 40 Year Old Virgin). Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) will be the voice of Horton. Most will realize that this is certainly not Carrey's first Seussian project, though it is his first animated feature. Grinch and Cat in the Hat both got the axe from critics for several reasons, not the least of which being the choice to do it in live action. Hopefully this return to animation (albeit via computer) will give the wacky world of Ted Geisel its fun back.
Chris Meledandri, head of 20th Century Fox's animated division, recognizes this: "I certainly was aware of some fan criticism that had occurred" with the live-action films, Meledandri says. "But this will be all animated, and true to the style of Ted Geisel. I think our (animation) and our artists will transport an audience into this man's imagination in a way that hasn't been done before."
Source: USA Today
On the right we see Andy Warhol's famous print portrait of Mick Jagger. Production on Ruby Tuesday, an animated film built around twelve of the Rolling Stones' hits, starts this year and will be coming out in the winter of 2008. I don't believe that a cartoon version of the singer will be included (least, not one that looks like the Warhol), but it certainly wouldn't be difficult to do. All we know storywise at this point is that it will be "a Faustian tale" and concern "a single mom searching for happiness in New York". No word on which songs it will include, though we could certainly guess at one.
Source: Dark Horizons
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Termi-Namor 3
Namor, known to about three people as "that fish/Spock guy", continues to swim towards a feature film at Universal. The latest development comes with the netting of a new director. Helming the film now is Jonathan Mostow, the man most people will gladly claim killed the Terminator franchise.
Superhero Hype has a report from Variety on the new development, along with a handy introductory primer to our fishy friend:
"Variety says Mostow has cleared his schedule to make Sub-Mariner his next film. The comic, created by cartoonist Bill Everett in April 1939, centers on a young man who discovers he's actually a descendant from the long-lost kingdom of Atlantis. He turns out to be the key man in a brewing war between the underwater world and our own."
Before you get your green-scaled panties in a bunch, bear in mind that Mostow technically has some experience with Sub-Mariners, what with directing the not-all-that-terrible U-571. His other films, even Terminator 3, never really veer towards being all that bad, just safe and pedestrian. He'll probably end up turning in a perfectly serviceable film about a man with pointy ears and wings on his feet that lives underwater and can lift oil tankers, and the character probably doesn't deserve much more. It's Namor, after all. Even though he came first, he still somehow manages to be a ripoff of Aquaman.
Personally, I think it's characters like Namor that, if they must be filmed, Marvel and their partner studios should be taking the chances with. The fan-base for a guy like this is so much a niche that there's fewer reasons to aim for a dead faithful translation of the character. With the right director, maybe a talented newcomer, and the right vision for the character, they could be making something fresh and exciting, not chained down to pre-existing notions of the character.
But chances are they're just going to have him swim around and beat up fishermen.
Source: Superhero Hype, Variety
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Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Trailer: Apocalypto
While the media has recently been focusing on Mel Gibson's public displays of being, I don't know, human (gasp), the crazy drunken bastard (I'm no better than the media) has continued working hard on his latest epic project, Apocalypto. This is the latest trailer. And it seems we're finally getting a good glimpse into the film's once mysterious narrative.
Funnily enough, after writing "the film's once mysterious narrative", I see that IMDb has written down exactly what the trailer itself seems to be showing: "As the Mayan kingdom faces its decline, the rulers insist the key to prosperity is to build more temples and offer human sacrifices. Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), a young man chosen for sacrifice, flees the kingdom to avoid his fate." I'm not sure how long that breakdown's been there, but I'm going to guess the "mysterious narrative" thing was really just a mystery to me. I suck.
In any case, the new trailer is rife with great visuals. And only visuals. Which is a good thing because the film itself is going to be entirely in Yucatek, a dialect of the Mayan language. Much like Gibson did with The Passion of the Christ, the use of native tongue will likely create a more realistic and evocative portrayal of the world being depicted. Whether that same effect could've been achieved with English dialogue spoken in random Indian accents is arguable, but I'll leave that one for other minds to question. The trailer itself is intriguing enough. Be sure to catch this when it hits theaters later this year on December 8th.
Sugar tits. Hehe.
Source: Apple
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More Opportunities To Make "Suck" Jokes
The above is how I best love to see vampires portrayed. They have a long history as scary, blood thirsty, demonic forces and unfortunately they have been overly sexualized (though this isn't really a recent phenomenon). I could thank Lestat or White Wolf's role playing game for the current rash of overly dramatic, leather clad, martial artists with fangs, but this is neither the place nor the time. Instead I'll drop some news on two upcoming Vampire films.
I've heard quite a bit about "30 Days of Night", a graphic novel about a band of vampires that terrorize an Alaskan town. The only thing I've seen is some of the art and it gets my hopes up. Bloody, dark, and disturbing are three qualities that we should see in any vampire project. The movie adaptation, coming out next October if IMDB is to be believed, will be directed by David Slade (Hard Candy). Today's news though is that Danny Huston (The Proposition) will be playing the lead vampire. He will also has a part in Children of Men, Alfonso Cuarón's dystopic sci-fi film, coming out next year as well. I'm not familiar with his body of work, but hopefully Huston will play the character as a real monster and not as some goth reject, which has seriously been done to death at this point.Source: Reuters
In other blood sucking news Joel Schumacher is directing a movie called Town Creek for Gold Circle. It combines Nazis, vampires, and West Virginia.The Hollywood Reporter says, "the film centers on a West Virginia man who comes to terms with his moral qualms and helps his brother wipe out a family that had been protecting a Nazi vampire and who had kept his brother captive for him to feed off of for years."
Schumacher directed 8MM, The Lost Boys, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. All of those movies involved sucking (there's one!) to varying degrees and one was actually a vampire movie that I quite enjoyed. I guess we'll see what category of suckitude (that's two!) this falls into next year.
Source: MovieWeb, Hollywood Reporter
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DVD Review: End Of The Century - The Story Of The Ramones
If this world were perfect, the Ramones would be one of the biggest-selling artists ever. We'd be celebrating their popularity amongst the mainstream, and their recent Anthology CD would have gone triple platinum.
Unfortunately, the world we live in throws up people like Robbie Williams and James Blunt as the big sellers. The "popular" ones. But its endearing to know that despite not selling a huge amount of records - at least enough to make a splash - they're still known as one of, if not the best punk bands around, and the ones who really kickstarted punk and sent shockwaves to England, where the genre took on a whole new life. It's this kind of thing that End of the Century celebrates.
The Movie
On the surface, End of the Century is your standard "behind the music" band documentary. It has interviews with every single member of the Ramones - and christ, I didn't know there were so many - as well as childhood friends, record producers, music critics called Legs, and a ton of musical legends talking about the band, including Joe Strummer of the Clash, Debbie Harry, and others, interspersed with lots of footage from the tons of gigs they performed at, along with the usual childhood photos juxtaposed with their present day selves, thus displaying that Johnny Ramone hasn't changed a micron.
But the best thing is the testimony from the band themselves. Luckily, the documentary was produced before the untimely deaths of Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee (although you could kind of see it happening from the doc with him), so we get the dirt first hand, as opposed to the usual friends and others speculating on what happened.
I'll be honest, I'm kind of a late comer to the Ramones. When I was growing up, there was very much a kind of 'us and them' mentality to metal and punk, so when I had to choose, I chose metal, helped greatly by Metallica's ...And Justice For All record and a healthy dose of Slayer. So because of my stupid closed mind, I didn't get to check out the Ramones until later, when I discovered what a complete fucking fool I'd been. Don't get me wrong, I'm not and never have been a huge punk fan, and I'm sure if I said what I really think about the Sex Pistols in your average dirt club, I'd be lynched. But the Ramones are something else.
Like most music documentaries, End of the Century takes a chronological look at the band's career, from their teenage years in Forest Hills, Queens, NYC where, as usual, they didn't fit in, and goes into the depths of their career album by album. The movie never skimps out on dishing the actual dirt, although it'd be impossible to sugarcoat the Ramones' story because of everything that's happened. But one thing you always look for when these kind of pieces come up is new information, and while your die-hard Ramones fan will probably know most, if not all of what's presented here, for the more casual or newer fan, it's gold.
Where to start? "53rd and 3rd" being a reference to Dee Dee's days as a rentboy on the street corner of the same name, the various differences that for whatever reason have caused members to leave the band, and the bringing in of new members such as CJ and Marky Ramone, some of which now seem insanely normal. Like soccer dads. It also sheds great light into the dichotomy between Joey and Johnny, both politically and personally. Joey was very liberally minded, while Johnny was a staunch right-wing conservative, and the political opinions crossed many times, not least with the song "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg," written by Joey about Ronald Reagan and his dislike for his presidential activities.
But the thing that really changed their relationship was a girl named Linda. It's going a bit too far to suggest she was the band's Yoko Ono, but her defection from Joey to Johnny (who she later married) caused a huge schism between the two which was never healed up to their deaths. Indeed, the song "The KKK Took My Baby Away" was written about that very event, and followed on with Joey's obsession with airing his personal feelings in songs, like, well, pretty much every great artist out there (and a lot of bad ones).
One of the great thing about the Ramones is that they are, or were, so different. The brand of ferocious punk laced with the i-don't-give-a-fuck attitude way before it became a marketing point (or maybe it already was - Johnny seemed pretty smart about his ideas about how to sell the band), crossed with Joey's fascination with love songs, particularly the doo-wop style of the 50s and 60s, was mindblowing - and still is today.
End of the Century doesn't sugarcoat the career of the band - this isn't some huge supergroup who produced albums chocked full of great songs - and actually realized that they did some pretty average-to-bad stuff. The band themselves, or at least Johnny, Tommy and Dee Dee, recognize the mistake of working with uber-producer Phil Spector, whose gun obsession scared Dee Dee off and whose overly-harsh producing sent Johnny packing all the way back to New York. The resulting album, End of the Century, was not the greatest of records, even though it had some classic songs ("Rock N' Roll High School" "Do You Remember Rock N' Roll Radio?" "Baby I Love You"), and while being an attempt to revitalise the band and their biggest chance to be commercially successful, it instead became a huge sign around the band's necks that essentially said "We're just not meant to have a hit record."
Sadly, the film ends as the band's career really did - with the death of three of its fourth members, Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee. Joey was obviously ill in some of the interviews, and to be honest, you could always see Dee Dee overdosing at any one time, but Johnny hid his illness until the last moment, and you could never tell he had anything from his onscreen appearance.
Audio/Video
The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen is very good, although there's a lot of footage that's understandably scratched and old, so that's okay. The DD5.1 and DTS particularly are very good, but I only have one real issue: the difference in volume between the talking heads and the music. I know this is a music documentary and that the Ramones were a very loud band, but I literally had to turn the volume up and down every time it changed from music to talking, and vice versa. Not sure if it's an issue with the actual film or the DVD mix, but it's annoying.
Special Features
A whole ton of great shit. Best is the reels of outtakes, with more interview material with everyone who made the cut, and some people who didn't (for example, Metallica's Kirk Hammett). There's also an interview with Tommy where he reveals who exactly wrote the songs from their first three records, a deleted scene from Clem Burke aka Elvis Ramone, and an audio commentary from Danny Baker and Charles Shar Murray, both UK journalists working for the UK music paper NME at the time of the band's explosion. It's a good commentary, although they stray from the topic at times, and make fun of "Rock N' Roll High School," which is unforgivable. But overall, some great supplements.
Final Thoughts
Whether you're new to the Ramones, or a longtime fan, End of the Century deserves a place on your shelf. It's a great doc, it sheds a lot of new light on the band - at least for me personally, and has some wonderful old archive footage of their early gigs. Buy it now!
Bonus feature - My five favourite Ramones tracks:
1. Don't Come Close
2. Needles & Pins
3. Beat On The Brat
4. I Wanna Be Sedated
5. The KKK Took My Baby Away
Movie: 9/10
A/V: 8/10
Extras: 7/10
Overall: 8/10
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Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Turning Your Brain On At The Movies - Part 3
The Transporter (2002)
Written by: Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen
Directed By: Cory Yuen, Louis Leterrier
What the film thinks it is about: Ex-army hardman now lives a quiet life in the south of France, doing high risk ‘transporting’ jobs, consisting mostly of driving his black BMW very fast, for the thrill and for the money. His world is turned upside down when he is asked to transport a package that turns out to be a beautiful woman attempting to stop her father illegally trafficking people. He breaks all of his rules in order to save the woman and the 400 migrants suffocating in a storage container, leading to much fighting and explosions.
What it is really about: One of the more enduringly popular examples of film studies in geek circles is the idea that 80’s action movies are really, really gay. The hallmarks of these films were large muscular men, usually bare-chested, often oiled, shooting other men with very large guns. Character arcs focused on male bonding and brotherhood, and women were usually whores, wives-killed-in-the-first-act or untrustworthy seductresses. Sometimes the men would wrestle instead of using very big guns. Sometime they would use very big knives.
Essentially:
Hero = gay
The big baddy = the hero’s lover
Any weapon = the hero’s cock.
Fighting = sex (gay)
The Transporter, starring Jason Statham, took this one step further by taking most of the ingredients of the 80’s action movie and then making them actually gay, most notably in the ‘bus depot’ scene where an unnecessarily topless Jason wrestles with half a dozen men while covered in motor oil.
2006’s The Transporter 2 took the idea even further still by setting the action in the day-glo Miami, having Jason turn down the advances of an amorous house-wife repeatedly with lines like “no, not me”, having the one overtly sexualised woman, who spends most of the running time only wearing lingerie, be a despicable psychopath, and having Jason fight half a dozen men with a large hose.
It is easy to see why this idea is popular: the very broad, uncomplicated nature of 80's action films, as well as the complete lack of thought that often went in to making them, makes constructing a subtext for them something almost any idiot can do. Constructing a subtext the film-makers didn’t intend makes you feel really, really clever (see here, and here) and gives you a, mostly illusory, sense of superiority over them. Constructing a gay subtext from a very masculine film allows you to undermine the impossible paradigms of manhood, to be iconoclastic, rebellious and individual. It also allows you to say Arnold Schwarzenegger is gay.
And it’s here that the problem with the gay subtext shows itself. It’s too easy, too obvious and it allies itself a little too conveniently with most men’s latent homophobia. The basis of the mockery of these films is making fun of gays.
This is a symptom not so much of actual gay-hating but more of a general immaturity and suspended pre-adolescence. It’s in this that a far more fruitful reading of these films can be found.
The fetishising of weaponry makes them glorified toys, the predominance of male-bonding reflects the homosociality of 10 year olds, and the distrust of female sexuality is reflective of the fears a 10 year old has when faced with his own dawning sexuality, with all the complications and humiliations that entails.
These are playground games of movies, where simplistic scenarios of masculinity are played out and practiced, full of fighting, winning and destruction-as-solution. The pumped up physiques of the 80’s action stars are not the fantasy image of a gay man, but of the cartoonish ideal masculine form of a powerless 10 year old boy.
These are the little boy equivalents of all the princess fantasies (The Princess Diaries, The Ice Princess and Pretty Woman) aimed at little girls. They are not homosexual but, instead, pre-sexual fantasies.
Even The Transporter - an 80’s action film made after the fact, in full, gleeful knowledge of the genre’s gay reputation and willing to play those aspects to their full daffy potential - still reads best when seen as a story about a little boy.
The Transporter lives alone and lavishes all his attention on his amazing car, which is fitted out with cool gadgets like switchable number plates and secret access codes. He is a master of fighting, is an expert in weapons and has an almost preternatural ability to know what is going to happen next.
His is the fantasy of a little boy dreaming of being strong, being capable, being respected, being free of his parents and having the very best toys. No commitments, no emotional ties and no homework.
The Transporter has very firm rules that he lives by – no names, no questions, never look in the package, never break a deal - that stops him getting involved. Then he looks into a package he is transporting, it turns out to be a woman in the shape of Shu Qi, and everything goes to hell. His car gets blown up, then his house gets blown up and then he gets arrested, all while lots of bad people try and punch him to death.
The real, adult world is messy and confusing, there are no obvious ways to ‘win’ and there are these terrible things called emotions that you have to learn how to deal with. No wonder a kid would prefer those clear, simple rules that make everything safe and dependable. No wonder a kid would be terrified of the uncertainty and vulnerability that the ‘other’ – the woman – would bring.
By the end of the film, The Transporter has accepted this new world of emotional ties and dismissed his old values – best shown by him having to drive increasingly crappy cars, something that would have symbolised failure and humiliation before. He saves the day, saves the migrants, gets the girl (well, it’s a bit vague on that, but they do have sex about halfway through the film) and lives happily ever after, now he has finally become a man.
By themselves, films as little boy power fantasies are no bad thing. Many stories are about the act of growing up, of entering sexuality, of accepting responsibility and so on. Most superhero stories use superpowers as a metaphor for the changes adolescants go through while entering adulthood. 2005’s Fantastic Four was absolutely about turning from child to teenager. When the Four fall out towards the end of the movie they argue like impulsive ten year olds. This is because they are.
But once comic book movies get beyond that story of growing up, they tend to lose their way. After the origin story you've just got a lot of recycled punching. See the later entries in most superhero franchises (and pray that Spiderman 3 is awesome). See also the often painful attempts to make superhero tales 'adult'.
It is this that is the ultimate criticism of those 80's action movis. The protagonists stomp through their films like Godzillas, unstoppable and unbeatable. They are supermen without origin stories, without the ability to grow up, and stuck in this perpetual pre-adolescance of a fighty-punch-bang world.
The Transporter 2, which dumps all the 'growing up' subtext in favour of endless, ostentatiously absurd action, is showing up the stupidity of action-hero as super-hero. When they are made indestructible from the outset, there's nowhere for the film to go but towards ever more impossible feats of heroism with ridiculous, and sometimes camp, results.
An evil doctor asks the transporter at one point if he thinks he is superman. Then the transporter jumps out of a forth storey window to catch the vials of antidote that the evil doctor just threw out of it. Then the transporter fights on-coming traffic and wins.
Internet reactions to The Transporter 2 have been mixed. Some have dismissed it as being too silly and unbelievable, and that assumed belief in the believability of action heroes gives us a good idea of where these people are developmentally. Others have embraced it for its glorious over-the-topness.
And here's the final part of the 80's action movie equation: enjoying them ironically. The Transporter 2 is a knowing comedy just as The Transporter is, at times, knowingly homoerotic, but the problem with too much arch-knowingness is that, at some point, it becomes indistinguishable from that which it is pastiching. Equally, what is the difference between constantly ironically watching 80's action movies (or any other 'bad' movie) and simply constantly watching them? Finally, what is the difference between mocking these films for being gay and just mocking gays? If you do it all the time, you actions start to speak louder than your attitude.
The Transporter films are fun, but they still fall into this problem of irony. They are not particularly great films, fall into the 'just another fight scene' malaise of most other action movies, and their subversive agenda to free up the sexuality of the genre and undermine its cliches amount to little more than 'some of this action stuff is a bit gay, isn't it?'.
They can have fun with the gay stuff if they like, but they are still just 80's action films, and the ones they actually made back in the 80's often didn't interrupt the carnage with so much as a text.
With any game of movie-interpretation, the interpretation will usually say more about the interpreter than the movie itself. Ironically watching 80's action movies (or ironically making them) does not mean you are a secret homosexual/fascist/psychopath. It means you like really bad movies.
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The Big Screen: 9/12/06
After a much-needed and too-short vacation, I return with the rundown of what's being projected in your metropolis.
Los Angeles:
The Egyptian Theater is in the middle of a massive 3-D Festival! 3-D movies are being shown all week, but Sunday looks to have the best lineup, with the hilariously bad Robot Monster, Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, the gruesome 1974 version of Frankenstein, and and a program of 3-D animation that promises to include every cartoon made in 3-D from the classic era.
At the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, The American Cinematheque is finishing up their Pekinpah tribute, and gearing up for a Monty Pythonathon. Tonight, catch Pekinpah's Straw Dogs. Saturday night, laugh until your face hurts with a double feature of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail and Monty Python's Life of Brian, and on Sunday, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and And Now For Something Completely Different. But please do not recite lines from any of the movies before, after or during the screening.
At The New Beverly Cinema tonight, it's violence from Down Under, with Nick Cave's nasty western The Proposition and Eric Bana's incredible star turn as Chopper. Wednesday and Thursday, music documentaries on songwriters Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt. Friday and Saturday, enjoy two of the best screwball comedies from Preston Sturges, The Lady Eve and Palm Beach Story. And Sunday through Monday, do a few bonghits and go check out Richard Linklatter's animated headtrips A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life.
At LACMA, a Brian DePalma retrospective opens tonight with an advance screening of The Black Dahlia. It's already sold out -- Believe me, I tried to get a ticket! -- but this weekend, you can feast on Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise and Scarface.
The Nuart's midnight show this Friday is the legendary kung fu gore fest Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. On Saturdyay, at the Rialto in South Pasadena, Tim Burton's Ed Wood.
Down in El Segundo, The Old Town Music Hall hosts an "all-star comedy festival." No listing of what films will be playing, but expect onscreen appearances by the likes of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and WC Fields.
New York City:
At Film Forum, in addition to current films Paper Dolls and Mizoguchi, you can check out Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film from now through Thursday, Frank Tashlin's wacky rock-n-roll comedy The Girl Can't Help It from Friday on, and a Buster Keaton program on Monday that includes the feature Our Hospitality along with three shorts (including Cops, often cited as Keaton's best short feature).
At the MoMA, in addition to the ongoing Global Queer Cinema and The Huston Family programs, Thursday begins a program of French films that have won the prestigous Prix Jean Vigo award, and Saturday begins a tribute to queer filmmaker Jim Hubbard.
The Museum of the Moving Image has several screenings of upcoming films with the directors present: All the King's Men with director Mike Medavoy and The Ragin' Cajun James Carville, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints with director Dito Montiel, and The Last King of Scotland with director Kevin McDonald and actors Forrest Whittaker and James MacAvoy. Their retrospective of director Josef Von Sternberg continues with double features Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night's second feature, Underworld (1927) may be the first gangster movie ever made!Philedelphia:
At the International House on Saturday has a free screening of an odd-sounding independent film called The Guatemalan Handshake. From the website: "In the confusion following a massive power outage, an awkward demolition derby driver vanishes, setting in motion a series of events affecting his pregnant girlfriend, his helplessly car-less father, a pack of wild boy scouts, a lactose intolerant roller rink employee, an elderly woman in search of her lost dog, and his best friend – a ten-year-old girl named Turkeylegs."
Cleveland:
The Cleveland Institute of Art screens The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a profile of Austin's schizophrenic folksinger, on Thursday. Through the weekend, catch the Argentine roadtrip movie Rolling Family, Michael Winterbottom's political docudrama The Road to Guantanamo, Andre Techine's new film Changing Times, and Eurohorror flick The Ordeal, which is being compared to Last House on the Left, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Straw Dogs.
Madison, Wisconsin:
The University of Wisconsin has a great schedule of foreign films. An ongoing Godard series features screenings of A Woman is a Woman and My Life to Live on Friday, and on Saturday, a most promising flick entitled Werckmeister Harmonies. The program describes it as a 145-minute "post-apocalyptic tour de force" consisting of only 39 shots, and compares its imagery to early David Lynch.Austin:
As always, there are too many exciting things happening at The Alamo Drafthouse for me to list, but Saturday night looks like a classic: Quentin Tarantino will be hosting a double feature of rollerderby movies! The bodacious Racqel Welch in The Kansas City Bomber, followed by Playboy Centerfold/B-Movie Queen Claudia Jennings in one of my most sought-after films, Unholy Rollers. Gawd, I wish I could be there!
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Peter Jackson Loves Him Some Dragons
This is kind of a two-fer. We posted some news yesterday about the big budget films that MGM is putting out, one of those being The Hobbit with Peter "Geek God" Jackson. Today we have an update on that and another book he's adapting.
Quint at AICN just did a big interview with the man recently.
"(H)e woke up this morning to see that MGM says he's making THE HOBBIT with them, which was strange. He said that as unbelievable as it may be, he's never once talked to any studio, be it New Line or MGM, about doing THE HOBBIT. So, as of today Jackson has not talked to anybody about doing the movie, but he did say he'd like to do it, even though his schedule gets more crowded every passing week. So, if MGM wants to do this thing it might be a good idea to see if Jackson is up for it, no?"
He also went into the rights issues surrounding the book. "If I have it right, MGM owns the distribution rights, yet somehow New Line owns the rights to make the film. Meaning New Line could make the movie, but couldn't release it." Which is what the Variety article seemed to indicate. I don't care how it gets put out as long as PJ is making it. As I said though he is a busy man and the second piece of news tells us just what that might be with.
He is optioning "Temeraire" using his own cash. I don't think I've heard of this but it sounds pretty damn cool.
"The "Temeraire" saga reimagines the world of the Napoleonic Wars with the addition of an air force of dragons and valiant aviators. It centers on British naval Capt. Will Laurence, who captures a French ship, where he discovers an unhatched dragon egg in the hold -- a gift from the Emperor of China intended for Napoleon. When the egg hatches, he is forced to give up his naval career to become captain of the dragon he names Temeraire."
Naturally Naomi Novik, the author, was thrilled when she got the call. PJ told Hollywood Reporter that "These are beautifully written novels, not only fresh, original and fast-paced, but full of wonderful characters with real heart." God knows if he said that about my work my head would pop right off. More impressive considering that these books are her first novels and that she is in her early thirties. Prior to this she had a hand in developing Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide. Time for me to start hitting my fiction writing again, hard.
So it could be that over the next decade *sob* we will hopefully see what he can do with these properties. I would say that I can't wait, but I can and I'll have to. I'm sure it'll be worth it though.
Source: AICN, Hollwood Reporter
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News Round-Up: 9/12/06
All the news that's fit to tell (well, not always) in a single, easy to use package!
Kate Beckinsale is scorchingly hott. So, it pleases me crotchally to hear that she will be replacing former Sex in the City star Sarah Jessica Parker (who left the production on "personal reasons") and joining Luke Wilson in the upcoming Nimród Antal (Kontroll) directed horror thriller, Vacancy. And while I've yet to see a film where Beckinsale really did anything for me apart from simply being stunning to look at (maybe The Aviator and Laurel Canyon, maybe not), I guess it doesn't really matter (i.e. I don't really care). Kontroll was a pretty well lauded first-time feature by the Hungarian born filmmaker. Will Vacancy follow suit?From IMDB: "A young married couple becomes stranded at an isolated motel and finds hidden video cameras in their room. They realize that unless they escape, they'll be the next victims of a snuff film."
Hopefully!
Source: The Hollywood Reporter, IMDb
Shifting gears to slightly more boring news, The Weinstein Co. has acquired two films from the currently underway Toronto Film Festival: The comedy documentary Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show and the horror film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane.In Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show, "the show's MC, Vince Vaughn, and four stand-up comedians hand-picked by Vaughn, travel the country and perform in 30 cities. This film documents the interactions on and off stage along the way," says IMDB.
I couldn't dig up anything about All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, except for Mandy Lane herself, Amber Heard. Oh yes.
Source: Variety, IMDb
And finally, in a bit of news having little to do with movies, rock band The Killers have convinced Tim Burton (Corpse Bride, Ed Wood) to shoot their latest music video for the track entitled "Bones" from the band's upcoming album, Sam's Town."We were just kicking around ideas for the 'Bones' video, and we thought, 'Wouldn't it be great if Tim Burton could shoot this?' We reached out to his people and he came back and said he wanted to work with us, which was amazing," bassist Mark Stoermer told MTV News. "We've shot all our parts and now the video is being worked on. It's going to have computer graphics and models ... we're not really sure how it's going to turn out. Usually we go over the treatment with a fine-toothed comb and have a lot of influence, but this time we just let Tim do his thing."
Music videos are a strange arena. It's a perfect outlet for directors to really showcase innovation in visualization and simple storytelling, yet it's something that's actually pretty rare in the majority of videos flooding the airwaves of MTV and VH1. Not really a surprise, but still, too bad. The Killers are a pretty good pop rock band, and though Burton's involvment could yield predictable results (lead vocalist Brandon Flowers states, "It's Tim Burton... There are some skeletons, some darkness and some romance. What more could you want?"), the end result will at least be something fun to watch.
Hopefully the song won't blow.
Source: MTV
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Monday, September 11, 2006
Alain Delon Goes Toe To To
I love Alain Delon. Maybe it's my closet gayness creeping back into play or simply the fact that I've absolutely relished his performances in films such as Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge.
Either way, according to MonkeyPeaches, Delon (now 71) will apparently be working with acclaimed Hong Kong director Johnnie To (Breaking News, The Mission) sometime this winter.
From MonkeyPeaches by way of French reader "Ludaofu": I Just watch a famous program on the French channel "Canal +" and Alain Delon our Famous French Star said , That he will work on a movie with Johnnie To over in HK during the winter !! this is a great news for a French HK movie Fan I'telling you..this a "BREAKING NEWS"
He/she adds: "Alain Delon and Johnnie To met up in the last "festival de Cannes 2006". And As far as I do remember Johnnie To ,use to work with John woo who said many times in several interviews, that his favorite movie of all time is the French Movie of Jean-Pierre Melville "le Samourai" featuring Alain Delon ! and as you already know Delon is a Star as well in Asia So.."
The French are so crazy, no? The mythical French actor has even announced on Canal+: That he was contacted by the script writer from hongkong "Johnnie To" (BREAKING NEWS, ELECTION, THE MISSION) to play in one of his next projects. One knows neither the title yet nor the subject, but Alain Delon let believe that it could be a question of a disguised continuation of the legendary "Jean-Pierre Melville's SAMURAI" who had already strongly inspired John Woo for THE KILLER. Shooting could start this winter.
So... this all could just be the random misinterpretated ramblings of some French nut, or it could very well be legit. There's a link on the MonkeyPeaches website that leads to a French page where a lot of this was taken from, but since I only speak about five phrases in French (none of which have anything to do with movies, Alain Delon, or things not having to do with sex), I simply wouldn't know. But in any case, speculating on rumors is more fun anyway!
Delon, one of the great French screen presences of the post-war era, is probably best known to Americans for his work alongside director Jean-Pierre Melville in the late 60s/early 70s. Namely, in the role of Jef Costello, the detached and enigmatic hitman of Le Samouraï, arguably considered his best on-screen performance. Delon has also had the privilege of working with such great filmmakers as Luchino Visconti (The Leopard), Michelangelo Antonioni (L' Eclisse), and most recently, Jean-Luc Godard (Nouvelle Vague a.k.a. New Wave). I hate him.Delon, who called it quits back in 1997 after starring in the box office flop Half a Chance, has still taken the occasional role here and there since (Are you listening, Sean Connery?). He will next be seen in two French films none of us will probably catch: Asterix at the Olympics with Gérard Depardieu (!) and Public Enemy No. 1 with Vincent Cassel (IMDb is actually calling it The Death Instinct which sounds more akin to a Charles Bronson vehicle).
Johnnie To will next be at the helm of Man Jeuk and The Iron Triangle. I've skirted talking about To because I'm really not familiar with any of his work. Though, I hear The Mission is nothing to fuck with.
Source: MonkeyPeaches
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"Say cheese!"
The only thing better than starting your day with a boatload of zombie pics is ending your day the same way. Thanks to a Fangoria exclusive and tipster Doug, I got to do just that and so do you, with new pics from the upcoming Day of the Dead remake.
For a couple more pics of the undead pleasantries, click here!
Day of the Dead - starring Ving Rhames, Mena Suvari, and Nick Cannon - just recently wrapped shooting in Bulgaria and is currently set for release sometime next year.
Source: Fangoria, Doug S.
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When Cute Little Sheep ATTACK!
Here's a somewhat amusing bit of Kiwidom for you Fakers to chomp on, courtesy of Black Magic and One News.