Friday, September 29, 2006
"I've been waiting for this DVD, all my life, Oh Lord"
"Shoot me, she dies. Shoot me, go ahead. Fuck it, we can all go. That's cool."
"That's not what happens. What will happen is I will put a round at twenty-seven hundred feet per second into the medulla at the base of your brain. And you will be dead from the neck down before your body knows it. Your finger won't even twitch. So tell me, sport, do you believe that?"
Miami Vice. DVD. 12/5.
Yes, Universal have officially announced the digital media release of Michael Mann's Miami Vice, the best movie I've seen all year and one that was criminally ignored by the general public and seemed to leave a lot of people baffled, which generally backs up my hypothesis that a very large proportion of the movie-going audience are brainless mouthbreathers.
Like seemingly every DVD, the film will come in the R-rated theatrical and unrated director's cut flavours, and is being issued on both DVD, HD-DVD and also as a DVD/HD combo disc. No word on extras yet, but Mann always gives an interesting commentary so we can at least hope for that, especially with everything that went on during filming which is bound to make for a fascinating listen.
Miami Vice is released on December 5th, just in time for you to give it as a Christmas present to all your friends, and see which ones you should still talk to.
Source: The Digital Bits
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News Round-Up: 9/29/06
Seth Green likes Ice Cubes in his Guillermo Del Toro.
Perhaps Michael de Luca just asked someone at New Line for an ice cube to go with his bourbon as I can't imagine him actually requesting the cube, but in any case, the company have hooked up with Compton's ex-finest for "an untitled comedy." Apparently, "He'll play a social climber whose aspirations are threatened by a youth who shows up and calls him daddy." Unfortunately, there's very little chance that the child is Eazy-E reincarnated, which would be the only way I would ever watch this. Cube's real name is O'Shea Jackson, which is in no way as funny as Ice-T, real name Tracy Marrow. Or Busta Rhymes, aka Trevor Smith.
Source: Coming Soon, Variety
Seth Green has really found a niche for himself in the animated world, creating voices for Family Guy, Robot Chicken, and now will be putting that talent to good use on the big screen thanks to Dimension, who will be unleashing a stop-motion animation movie called Naughty or Nice on an unsuspecting public. The flick is apparently "a family-friendly holiday film with Seth Green directing the voice-overs and providing the voice of at least one of the main characters". I was recently turned on to the Chicken by one of the guys here and I think I ruptured my spleen while watching it. Since Stoopid Monkey Productions, the brains behind that smorgasbord of animated comedy, is at work here I think it will be worthwhile. Seth will also be appearing in The Brazilian Job in 2008.Source: Dark Horizons
Finally, a little news about my favorite Mexican. No, not Jose Cuervo, though he is a friend of mine. Guillermo Del Toro tells Sci-Fi Wire that we'll be seeing gorilla-sized killer robots in Hellboy 2. He clarifies "[They] won't be like the killer robotized gorillas in the comics. "There will be killer robots, period," del Toro said with a laugh. "Gorilla-sized, but not gorillas.". The always awesome DelToroFilms also drops the good news that we'll see Pan's Labyrinth in the US on December 29th in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago, in order to be eligible for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award. After that it will expand to 35 other markets in January. Seek it out!Source: Del Toro Films, Scifi Wire
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A Taste Of Things To Come...
Continue reading A Taste Of Things To Come...
The Best Trilogy Since Lord of the Rings?
Should Jackass: Poop & Pee Make 3 get made, it just might be.
With the current (and surely future) monetary success of Jackass Number Two, a "film" that's so brilliantly/stupidly awesome that I almost threw up twice while watching, it's no wonder that fans would speculate of a third one.
Unfortunately, iF Magazine spoke to Johnny Knoxville recently and it seems that a third film may NOT actually be in the cards. Not in the near future anyways.
Well, [JACKASS: NUMBER TWO] had a great ending to the movie; it's kind of tough to top that ending [the musical number],” he says. “There's some stuff I'm still wanting to shoot, and we might shoot in November,” he advises. “It's not for a three, it's just because it's something I really want to do, and I said I was gonna do it, and then I could not not do it."And forget about tinkering with the JACKASS format. There’ll be no plots in any future films, Knoxville says, dismissing the thought. Dave England, one of the cast of characters, interrupted, “JACKASS is what it is,” he proclaims. ”To turn it into something else would just bum people out.”
The ending of the film (as well as the intro, scored to of all things, Ennio Morricone) was certainly pretty great.
Considering that these guys probably have terabytes worth of footage of everything from shaving wild lions to mating with elephants while balancing on circus balls (not to mention the fact that it seems they shoot this shit anyways almost on a whim), I would totally not be shocked if a third film did at some point get cut together and tossed into the multiplex. These guys are either the luckiest sons of bitches alive or the greatest businessmen of my generation. Probably both.
Source: iF Magazine
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DVD Invasion - Week of 9/26/06
Lots and lots of very attractive titles arrive in stores this week. A couple are must-buys, several more are serious wants, and all but two or three others will go on that ever-growing wishlist no one will ever acknowledge. See what I mean below...
The Break-UpIt is a little pathetic that celebrity relationship gossip is being used for marketing purposes. This is not a new phenomenon. The rocky relationship of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton served to promote a few of their films, for instance. Still, they are/were Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton. The film at hand stars Jennifer "I Spent the Most Productive Years of My Career on Friends" Aniston and Vince "I Helped Piss on the Original Psycho" Vaughn, who are not Taylor and Burton. In terms of on-screen heat, they aren't even George Burns and Gracie Allen (a really old comedy duo, for the less aged readers among you).
Aniston plays Brooke Meyers, a woman who wants to break up with her boyfriend, Gary Grobowski (Vaughn). A problem arises when neither of them wants to move out of their shared condo, so each employs a number of drastic measures to try to get the other to move out. In the end, their horrible behaviour may draw them closer together. Because they each like and deserve a horrible mate, I guess. Maybe I'm being too hard on the likeable lovers. It's sort of comforting to know that some of the richest and most powerful among us have the same bullshit problems we have. That doesn't mean it's good entertainment, however. I wonder how many people went to see this movie expecting Brad Pitt to make a cameo as Aniston's fictional old flame?
RUN JENNIE RUN features include a commentary track by Actors Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston, an alternate ending, deleted and extended scenes, outtakes, an "Improv with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau" featurette and a "Three Brothers: A Tour of Chicago" featurette.
Lady VengeanceIt seems like this film has been out for a thousand years. People in other corners of the planet have seen it in theaters or on DVD already, the lucky stiffs. Those in the U.S. who saw and enjoyed Director Chan-Wook Park's first two revenge thrillers, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, have been eagerly awaiting a chance to dive into the third film of his trilogy. After a limited theatrical release, it finally arrives on DVD, courtesy of Tartan Video.
Yeong-ae Lee (featured in another of Park's films, Joint Security Area) stars as the vengeance lady of the title, Geum-ja Lee. Geum-ja is imprisoned for the abduction and murder of a child, crimes she was coaxed into accepting blame for by Mr. Baek (played by Oldboy himself, Min-sik Choi). When Geum-ja is set free after 13 years, she sets in motion a plan she has been putting together throughout her time behind bars to stick it to Mr. Baek for double-crossing her. What gives the movie added depth is that as much as Geum-ja wants revenge, she also wants to rebuild her shattered spirit.
I think at this point those of us who have not seen this film can have faith in Park's ability to weave an intricate story around his favorite subject. It's a smart move to make the vengeance-seeker a female in this one, even though it draws instant comparisions to the Kill Bill films. While Tarantino's films are great examples of how to salute the trends and character types of a by-gone era, Park doesn't appear to be interested in revisiting history. He seems to want to establish his own legend, and on that level his characters outshine Quentin's.
REAPING WHAT YOU SOW features include Korean Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks, English and Spanish subtitles, an interview with Director Park Chan-Wook, "The Making of Lady Vengeance" featurette, three commentary tracks by (a)Director Park Chan-Wook, (b)Park, Cinematographer Jeong-hun Jeong and one of the art directors and (c)Columbia University Film Studies Professor Richard Pena. Also included are the international and U.S. trailers.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: 2-Disc Ultimate EditionI find myself very happy to be offered yet another version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on DVD. This is not an offering solely meant to take more of our money, as the last two reissues have been. Before this week, I still owned the original Pioneer release with the theatrical cover art. I bypassed the two subsequent releases because they were the same material in new packages. That is not the case here. This ultimate collection is as meaty as any red-blooded Tom Chainsawyer could hope for.
Our review of this set is coming soon, so I'll avoid redundancy by skipping a wordy synopsis. The short version is this (for those who don't respect chainsaws): five young people take a day trip in Texas, pick up a hitchhiker who scares the shit out of them and go in search of gasoline in the wrong neighborhood. Sausage is served.
The special features begin with a newly restored picture from original 16mm negatives. The new transfer looks as good as any I've seen, but there is still plenty of grain to protect the gritty feel of the film. A flawless, crystal-clear picture is not something I need in this case. The second disc contains plenty of extras to justify the "ultimate" title. One documentary that isn't included is the vintage "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: A Family Portrait." That's about the only feature I can think of that would have made this set even more impressive. Check out these other features:
* Commentary by Actors Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Allen Danziger, and Art Designer Robert A. Burns
* Commentary by Director Tobe Hooper, Cinematographer Daniel Pearl, and Actor Gunnar Hansen
* Trailers
* TV and radio spots
* The vintage 73-minute documentary "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Shocking Truth"
* The newly-produced 74-minute documentary "Flesh Wounds"
* A tour of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house before and after remodeling, conduced by Gunnar Hansen
* Deleted scenes and outtakes
* A blooper reel
* Outtakes from "The Shocking Truth"
* Still galleries
Masters of Horror Vol. 10: Takeshi Miike's "Imprint"The first round of short films in the Masters of Horror series didn't turn out so good as a whole. Contributions by John Carpenter, Dario Argento and a couple of others helped lift up the lesser efforts of some of the other famous directors, but generally the series was mediocre at best. Some of the episodes seemed to indicate that the legendary horror creators involved forgot that they were producing a show for premium cable. There was no ratings board to contend with, so there should have been a lot more freedom to cross taboo lines in order to earn screams and winces from viewers.
But there were content restrictions placed on the series by someone at Showtime, because the entry that notorious Japanese Director Takeshi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) completed was not allowed to be shown on the channel. If the purpose of a horror film is to scare the audience, why would a company like Showtime allow any restrictions (barring situations that are legally pornographic) to be put on the director? Showtime plays with cotroversial material all the time in its other series. Miike is known for his ability to push the envelope further than any other director working today, so why was he even given the chance to participate? This situation throws cold water on the whole idea of presenting a progressive horror series. I've been waiting for this film to hit the video market, not because of the hype surrounding its banning, but because I know Miike can shock me, disgust me, or flat-out horrify me like a master of horror should.
I CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW features include a commentary track by Critic and American Cinmatheque Film Programmer Chris D. and Writer Wyatt Doyle, the "I Am the Film Director of Love: An Interview with Takashi Miike" featurette, the "Imprinting: The Making of 'Imprint'" featurette, the "Imperfect Beauty: The Make-up and Special Effects of Imprint" featurette, a Takashi Miike bio, a still gallery, trailers and DVD-ROM content that includes the original screenplay and a screen saver.
Down In The ValleyIt's difficult to pass up a movie if Edward Norton (Fight Club, American History X) is involved in it. He's still one of the most interesting actors working today, and no matter what the role is, even when he's wrong for the part, he always finds a way to make it special. I had not heard of Down in the Valley until very recently (like right about the time I scoped out the releases for this week), but I can tell just from the description of his character that it will be another solid performance from our boy Ed. He even sits in as a producer as well.
Norton plays Harlan, a man in present-day Southern California who thinks and acts like a cowboy, though there is no proof that he is or has been one. Despite his ambiguous identity, Harlan attracts the attentions of a teenage girl named Tobe (played by real teenage girl Evan Rachel Wood of Thirteen and The Upside of Anger). Tobe and Harlan develop a quick relationship, which makes her disfunctional family suspicious of Harlan's true intentions towards the much younger Tobe. When Tobe's abusive father tries to pull the couple apart, Harlan begins to show more obvious signs that he's not firmly in control of his senses. I'm afraid I will love this movie soon.
TRAVIS BICKLE IN A CHAMBRAY SHIRT features include a Q&A with Actor/Producer Edward Norton and Writer/Director David Jacobson, four deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer.
Paper and Plastic:
I was all ready to write up a preview of the Stephen King Collection when I realized that The Dead Zone is the only keeper in that box. Pet Semetary and Silver Bullet could have been better (like many of King's books), but Graveyard Shift is pure feces. Although the super-special edition of A Nightmare on Elm Street sounds nice overall, the most important feature to me is the newly restored picture and sound. The rest of this week's pickings would make your Netflix queue pleasantly bloated for a week or two.
Coming next week: special edition reissues of Point Break, 21 Grams, Body Double, Monty Python and the Holy Grail and an attractive 3-disc set of The Maltese Falcon. Also look for that Greatest American Hero collector's tin we reported on a while back and MXC: Season 1 (yay!). Oh, and X-Men: The Last Stand.
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Dragonsh
Hollywood has gone dragon crazy, optioning another yet-to-be released kids book, this time called Here, There Be Dragons. This joins last year's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the soon to be released Eragon, Peter Jackson's in development Temeraire (here) and the hopefully happening The Hobbit. And Dragonheart 1 & 2. And Reign of Fire. And Dungeons & Dragons. Fantasy nerds (one of the best euphemisms ever) love them some dragons, but always seem to complain about never getting any films about them. Perhaps even they realise that most of the films mentioned are total cock.
This new one, picked up by Warner Brothers for David Heyman and David Goyer to produce, is about three World War 1 veterans who become friends and come into possession of the Imaginarium Geographica - an atlas of places that only exist in fairy tales. Then they go visit these places and battle evil and stuff. The title comes from old maps where cartographers, faced with an area they knew nothing about, or where explorers had never returned from, just wrote 'Here, There Be Dragons' and then moved on. Easy job. Of course, back then dragons represented the dangerous and the unknown of a world still larger and more powerful than the proud, hubristic humans who sought to own it. These days dragons are a collection of hit points and +5 fire absorption.
The gag of the book is that these three friends are in fact famous fantasy authors J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, who actually really did know each other in real life! I will assume the hours long conversations about entymology, medieval religion and the minutiae of public school boy buggering will be left out of the books. I'll also assume that the author's research involved watching all three biographical docs on the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVDs.
More films with dragons in that were, basically, crap: Dragonslayer, Flight of Dragons, Willow, Godzilla (US) and the Bloodfist franchise.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
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Thursday, September 28, 2006
Iron Man Flies Out Of Rehab
Big news about the Golden Avenger! According to Ain't It Cool News, the man filling out those glorious metal undies has been cast. That man should be intimately familar with the inner workings of playing a desperate alcoholic. That man is Robert Downey, Jr.
Okay, all kidding about his past aside, Downey, Jr. is a pretty great choice for the part. He's a rock-solid, charismatic actor that's played across the board, from psychotics to debonair playboys, so he's got a lot to bring to the role of ol' Shellhead.Granted, Favreau has gone on record as saying that Tony Stark's alcoholism won't play into Iron Man's first cinema outing, but now I'm starting to wonder. Did they maybe cast Downey, Jr. because of his own personal experience with demons in a bottle? Probably not. Still, it's interesting to think.
My interest in this film just jumped up a few notches. We've got an interesting director tackling the project, and now a really great choice for the main lead. Maybe this won't be a cheap cash in like Daredevil, but might instead end up being Marvel's next breakout hit. Only time will tell. As for me, I'm going to take a cue from Tony Stark and drown my sorrows in a bottle of hooch.
Source: Ain't It Cool News
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Review: Cocksucker Blues
There aren't too many secrets left. Censorship has loosened enough to let all those eye-popping, turtle-chopping scenes out into the light of day and the DVD explosion has seen studios digging up every last deleted scene and alternative cut for a double or triple dip. Cocksucker Blues, Robert Frank's documentary of The Rolling Stones' 1972 American tour, remains one of the secrets because the band threatened to sue anyone that showed it. As Keith Richards puts it: 'if anyone in America saw it, we'd never be let in the country again'. It may not have the geek cred of the spider pit, or the cineaste cred of the original cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, but for any fan of rock'n'roll excess, or underground film-making, it's still a catch and, unlike the first two, actually floating around if you know the right people. The question with any tour film, though, is whether it gives you any reason not to just watch Spinal Tap again.
I caught it at a screening in an arts space just down the road from me where someone had a who-knows-how-many generation copy of it on DVD. It plays very much like Pennebaker's Don't Look Back, which followed Bob Dylan on his 1966 tour of England, except with a couple more spliffs, or lines, in its blood. It's mostly grainy black and white, shaky hand-held footage and the sound quality moves through varying degrees of terrible. This is possibly a result of the copying process, which only adds to the 'secret' (and the stoned) charm of it, but does make some of the dialogue difficult to make out.
There's very little sense of narrative driving the film forwards, possibly because nothing as iconically interesting as Altamont happened on this tour. Instead we get vaguely themed sequences showing the Stones and their entourage trying to talk to the press, or meeting famous people, or having sex with groupies, or taking increasingly harder drugs. Several people sitting near me, admittedly fairly stoned themselves, fell asleep by about half-way through. This does feel a lot longer than it is, and there's not much in the way of a statement or overall picture being made. If anything it tells us that touring is boring and, if a band is giving all their energy to the gig in the evening, they will either do very stupid things in the downtime between shows or listlessly do nothing at all.
Robert Frank was a photographer by trade, and his strengths lay in simply capturing what happened as truthfully as possible. As such, the joy of the film is in the small moments when the glamour of rock'n'roll lifestyle is put up against the realities of actually trying to live up to it.
There are hilarious moments of trying to order fruit from middle-american room service, of the careful, if wasted, preparations of trying to catch the spontaneous rebellious act of throwing a tv out of a window on camera, and of Mick Jagger trying to talk in sentences to various journalists.
The film is interspersed with concert footage shot in colour and mostly from the side of the stage. What I found most interesting was how rapidly they could change from being a truly elemental blues-rock band to being a bunch of English art school students playing with daddy's record collection. Also how quickly Mick could change from being a malevolent sex god to being an awkward twat with no co-ordination. Also how bad an idea the circus costumes were. It is telling that by far the best bit of music comes when Stevie Wonder joins them on stage for a medly of 'Up Tight, Out Of Sight' and 'Satisfaction'.
There is plenty of rock'n'roll excess shown, but it is mostly done by people surrounding the band, rather than Mick and Keith themselves. Mostly they are wondering around in a daze or collapsed in a corner while someone, either the saxophonist or keyboardist I think, molests the groupies. There is a scene on a private plane where he is ripping off the t-shirts of groupies and forcing himself on them that is fairly awesome/revolting, especially as everyone else on the plane is happily looking on. Are they egging him on or are they going along with it because they feel they have an image to act up to? We also get shots of a skinny backside pumping away at a groupie, of someone re-enacting the cover of Sticky Fingers, and of a wet but flaccid cock. It is not revealed who any of these body parts belong to. Impressive girth, though.
We get long stretches of everyone being entirely wasted. We get hipsters banging on about organising heroin users into an organisation for fair, quality distribution and educational field-trips and we get a groupie, legs wide open, rubbing something into her breasts while a man wonders where his room keys are.
There has obviously been a lot of editing going on, which can always lead to charges of manipulating the truth, especially in a film made by someone who makes claims of capturing 'how it is'. Keith Richards has said that, while he'll never allow it to be shown, it is his favourite music documentary as, yes, it was actually like that.
The problem is that there's nothing particularly surprising or shocking in any of it if you've seen Spinal Tap. Even if Blues was banned, the makers of that film obviously saw it and took notes. All the bases are covered there, only with pace and much better jokes. Even the seedier and more unpleasant aspects are shown, seediness intact, in the equally excellent deleted scenes on that DVD, which are cut together to almost make a film in themselves.
In terms of serious music documentaries, Gimme Shelter (which covered the tour ending in the infamous Altamont gig), Don't Look Back and The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years are all far more insightful.
Cocksucker Blues really only has going for it the fact that it has a real, iconic band in it and a lingering sense of tragedy from knowing that these are real people making messes of themselves. There is one fan shown trying to get a ticket explaining how bewildered she was her baby was taken away from her because she was permanently on acid for the pregnancy and declaring that she only lives for the Stones and would jump off a bridge if she didn't get to see the show.
It's impossible to rate Cocksucker Blues as it is more a piece of rock folklore than a film these days, but it is the real deal and it will also give you cred to have been able to see it. Ultimately, the most telling part of the film comes right at the beginning when it is explained they called it Cocksucker Blues too piss off a stuffy record executive, so proving that Mick and Keith were still just public school boys flipping their fingers behind the back of the headmaster. That said, it does have 70's style pubic hair.7 farewell tours out of 10
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DVD Review: Ultraman - Series 1, Vol. 1
Many Americans who grew up in the 70's have strange, foggy memories of a swirl of psychedelic colors appearing on the TV screen, giving way to a show about a giant spaceman who fought googly-eyed rubber monsters. Some may even wonder whether they actually saw this show or just dreamed it. They need wonder no more.
The first Region 1 DVD of Ultraman has finally arrived. Debuting in Japan in 1966, under the creative leadership of Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects man responsible for Godzilla's look, Ultraman became a phenomenon in Japan, where it has spawned generations worth of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs, and an empire of ancillary marketing that even makes George Lucas envious. The show centers around The Science Patrol, an elite group of government agents who get to carry rayguns and wear orange spacesuits and cool helmets made from amazing space-age polymers. Their primary job is to protect Japan from the constant onslaught of giant monsters invading their shores. They would, quite frankly, be hopelessly outmatched, except that one of their number, Hayata, was abducted by aliens and given the power to transform into Ultraman, a giant alien being who takes no shit from monsters.
Ultraman's fighting style is similar to that of a pro wrestler. He tackles, grapples, bodyslams and piledrives his rubber-suited foes without mercy. But there's a catch. When the light on his chest starts blinking (which always seems to be about one minute after his transformation), his power is running out, and he must rush through the fight quickly or "Ultraman will never rise again" (I can't figure out if that means Hayata will die, or just lose the power to turn into Ultraman). So he gathers what strength he has left and rallies his powers to defeat the giant lizard, fish or...What is that, some kind of lobster thing?
As for the transfer, it looks crisp on my TV screen, with the bright, dayglo colors popping out appropriately, although my attempts to get decent screencaps off the DVD may have revealed evidence of some cut corners in the process. For extras, you get the US opening credits that you remember from your childhood (the episodes have the Japanese credit sequence, which goes on too long if you ask me). A Kaiju Gallery, with pics and stats of all the monsters, provides useful information, such as that Balta is a "Space Ninja" with a "maximum flight speed of mach 5," Surfuran is "not considered a true kaiju monster by some scholars," and Gabon is the name of the monster in the episode that I always seemed to catch when I was a kid and never knew when Ultraman was on. The only major supplement is an interview with the team who dubbed the English voices (they also did Speed Racer and Astro Boy), which is about as interesting as that sort of thing could possibly be (the highlight is the Jewish guy who voices Ultraman relating a story of having dubbed a speech by the Pope).
Bottom line: I love Ultraman. It's perfect, from the swirling liquid effect that opens the show to the groovy theme song with its surf guitars and cheesy vocals, to the floppy rubber suits of the decidedly unfrightening monsters. I also know it's not very good. But I don't like it because it's "so bad it's good." That's a cop out if ever there was one. Yeah, Ultraman is bad, and so is a lot of the stuff I like, but I don't like it because I'm getting some ironic laugh out it. I like it because I have bad taste.
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Craven Craving Creation
While my love for horror predates my knowledge of Wes Craven by at least five years, the Elm Street movies are at that love's core. So I receive the news that he'll be back writing and directing films with mixed emotions.
The man himself said "It's appalling to me that you have to go back to 1994 to find an original that I wrote and directed, so this is very important to me." Why has he waited so long? Will he be able to get back into writing habit? Will he be able to break new creative ground? Does he think Scream 3 is as shit as we do?
The movie he's working on sounds very different from the slasher oeuvre he made his name with. "It is rooted in the supernatural with a 16-year old central character, but it's more Sixth Sense than a slasher film." Could be great, could be a screaming disaster. No word on who will be in it, but he wants to start it up next Spring.
As if that weren't enough, he will also be starting his own production company called Midnight Pictures that will focus on low budget horror flicks. Combine that with remakes of Last House on the Left, Shocker, and People Under the Stairs and I feel like I'm on a roller coaster. Of course even if this jumps the tracks I think it'll be fun or, at least, as good as Final Destination 3.
Source: Variety
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News Round-Up: 9/28/06
You should have read the news we couldn't be bothered putting in here.
For those of you waiting with baited breath for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, (I know I am (seriously (Ed. - yes, seriously))), you will now get to see it a WHOLE WEEK EARLIER!! Apparently it was too scared to go up against The Reaping (which actually sounds stupidly fun) on March the 30th of next year. Now it will stack up against Bean II, Mr. Brooks and Pride.Source: SuperheroHype/ComingSoon
In news slightly less tragic than people anticipating the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Edward "Son of Oliver Wendell Douglas" Albert died of lung cancer in his home. I saw this item and at first thought it was his father that had passed. I didn't realize that a) the Green Acres star died last year at the age of 99 and that b) he had offspring. It turns out that Albert the younger had quite a TV career and was very philanthropic. Digging deeper I found out that he was the villain in the 80's Beauty and the Beast tv series that first introduced me to the greatness that is Ron Perlman. That and over 120 entries on IMDB seem reason enough to mark his passing.Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Finally, Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon will be starring in Rendition, a political thriller set in the Middle East. "The multilayered story revolves around a CIA analyst (Gyllenhaal) based in Cairo who finds his world spinning out of control after he witnesses the interrogation of a foreign national by the Egyptian secret police. Witherspoon will play the pregnant American wife of the national." Jake makes this casting news worth writing about because he has such dreamy eyes. Also it marks the increased willingness of financiers to back films about relevant and controversial political topics. Let's hope Jake and Reese fuck. Gavin Hood's previous film, Tsotsi, recieved plenty of praise so this is one to watch out for. The movie will start filming next month.Source: Dark Horizons, Various Sources
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Lord Of The Halos
Peter Jackson is going to make a new Halo game.
There. Now that that is out of the way we can talk about how annoyingly clever the title of this news piece turned out to be.
"I'm getting a little bored with films."
The words of Jackson himself seem to seal the deal on his decision. The news, announced at Microsoft's X06 event, should not really come as a surprise to anyone, seeing as how for the last decade or so he's been working on films like a clockwork Kiwi straight out of genre hell. However, the move from video games to film is not particularly surprising to anyone who has played King Kong, the second movie to video game translation (next to Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay) that did not remind us that video game and movie dealings would always reflect the quality of Enter the Matrix or Path of Neo or The Matrix Online or anything to do with The Matrix (Hi, Andrew!).
Jackson explains further why he's going forward with the interactive market: "More and more I'm looking forward to the release of games and not movies. I am more aware and excited about games.
"I do not have to keep delivering stories as movies - there are other things I can do. Technology is at a point where we can blend a lot of film storytelling with interactive entertainment."
The storytelling part is true, however, I don't think many games have effectively presented the idea of cinematic storytelling and interactivity without making it either seem clumsy, forced, or boring. God of War kind of does it, and the RPG games that try often are either too pretentious to stand or have strong storytelling to it, but it's not cinematic (see any Bioware game). Certainly the King Kong game attempts to do this as it pulls away any semblance of a HUD and tries really hard to immerse you in the environment and experience. It succeeds rather well, but also suffers from short game syndrome making the entire experience bittersweet.
Starting his video game foray with the Halo franchise is a rather expected choice, seeing as how he's already the producer of the upcoming Halo flick. I myself find it disappointing, especially since Ensemble Studios is heading up a new real-time strategy game in the Halo universe entitled Halo Wars and I've had enough of the mediocrity that is Halo for awhile. Also, the thought of Jackson making a completely new and original game of some sort is far more enticing than dragging the Halo franchise through the fucking dirt. Master Chief has been around for a long time and he's very tired, people.Not surprisingly this stuff is going to be exclusive to the Xbox 360 and its live arcade and will all be made with a new interactive branch of Jackson's Wingnut company. Also not a big surprise is Peter Moore immediately jumping in front of Peter Jackson and swinging a giant phallic shaped Xbox 360 at the crowd while screaming his own quotes and slamming the PS3's launch difficulties for no real reason.
"We put the best platform in the hands of the best story-tellers."
"We promised a worldwide launch and we delivered."
Surprisingly, this is not as whoreffic as that time he got those Halo tattoos.
There is no set date for the game, nor do we really even know what kind of game it will be. It won't be a sequel to Bungie's Halo games, but Jackson will be working with the group of famed developers for it regardless.
Here's hoping I can sell a small child to buy my own Xbox 360 by then. Or that I care enough about Halo by the time it comes out.
Source: Collider, BBC
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Wednesday, September 27, 2006
DVD Review: Jigoku
In what must be the strangest film to enter the Criterion Collection this year, Japanese director Nobuo Nakagawa presents a confusing moral tale in which all the characters die at the end of the first hour. Then the film really begins.
Jigoku centers around Shiro (Shigeru Amachi), a young theology student who has just become engaged to his professor's daughter. Driving home with his friend Tamura (a Faustian presence played with diabolical menace by the Elvis-faced Yoichi Numata), he is involved in a fatal car accident. Although it was Tamura at the wheel, the guilt over the incident will haunt Shiro, and the guilt is compounded when everyone Shiro comes in contact with seems to die. Never mind that Shiro isn't directly responsible for any of these deaths. The weight of the guilt is crippling to him. This guy can't wait to get to hell and start burning.
The story continues down a twisty, confusing path (including a Vertigo twist that never seems to go anywhere), until arriving at a country retreat, where poisoned wine and rancid fish leaves all the remaining characters dead. The last forty minutes of the film are like Dante's Inferno as imagined by Mario Bava. People burn in lakes of fire, walk through fields of giant needles and are chopped to pieces by devils, while their sins are revealed. This should be much more horrifying than it is. The effect is more dazzling than sickening, a barrage of bizarre images seen through candy-colored filters and fog, a swirling cacophony of the screams of the damned.
Not to imply that Nakagawa's visual skills are only in evidence in the underworld. From the first frame, there are beautiful, trippy images. He seems to have a special affinity for the color red in the early part of the film: red roses, red dresses, red blood, red fire. Whether it is meant as a representation of sin and temptation or a foreshadowing of the flames of Hell (or both), there is more red in the living world than in the afterworld.
After kicking the film off with a disturbingly groovy title sequence (sexy girls posing while bombastic jazz and tortured screams play on the soundtrack), a title card introduces the concept that "religion dreams of a world where sins unpunished in life are punished in the afterlife." In Nakagawa's vision, it isn't the victims that are dreaming of justice for those that have oppressed them, it's the perpetrators who crave justice for the crimes they've gotten away with. And why not? After all, if you're being tormented by literal demons, you don't have to torment yourself.
The film, sought after for years by lovers of Asian horror, is presented in a new digital 2:35:1 anamorphic transfer that lets the colorful effects work pop out of the screen like an eyeball out of it's socket. There is a documentary, Designing the Inferno, which fills in the background on Nakagawa's career and the traditions of Japanese ghost stories on the screen as well as discussing the themes and production design of Jigoku. The interviews with Yoichi Namata, now sporting hippy hair and beard and bushy, grey eyebrows, are especially entertaining. The theatrical trailer is also included.
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News Round-Up: 9/27/06
"You punch like you take it up the ass."
Eliza Dushku (Bring It On) and Mike Vogel (Poseidon) are getting in on violence porn masking itself as a teen thriller in something that sounds like Jumanji meets Final Destination. Apparently when each surfer looses the game "Mamba" (which speaking as someone who grew up at the beach isn't a bad thing) they die a gruesome death. As long as it's got nothing to do with Dancing with the Stars that's okay. Me, I can't get enough grue or Dushku. It starts filming in Spain's Basque country next week and will shoot quickly.Source: Dark Horizons, Variety
As the great and ever powerful Merchan reported on our site (oh stop, I'm not THAT powerful - George) Herr Viggo will be playing a German professor in the movie Good. Jodie Whittaker will get the pleasure of starring opposite him. Good gig for a new kid.She will get to cut her teeth with Peter O’Toole and Vanessa Redgrave in Roger Michell’s “Venus,” a delightful romantic comedy due out in December, that made a splash at the Toronto Film Festival. She's either very lucky, very talented, or both.
Source: Production Weekly
Russel Crowe playing Steve Erwin? As interesting as the rumor is I'm glad that Crowe put the hammer down on it."There's no truth to that whatsoever," Crowe said adamantly. "That's one of those appalling pieces of sh*t that come out of the press. While my friend's body is still warm, I'm being accused of doing commerce over his grave, and it absolutely disgusts me."
I love this man. I agree with him that a movie should be done. If the life of any current dead star interests me it's this one and not INXS' lead singer. Good on ya mate!!
Source: Coming Soon
I accept that my taste in movies is shall we say... diverse, but even I agree that Rob Schneider needs to go away. And by go away I mean get hit by a runaway steamroller that I'm driving. Unfortunately there are folks that don't agree.In Juliana and the Medicine Fish, Schneider will play a father who is trying to save his troubled fishing lodge as well as his relationship with his 12-year-old daughter, who uncovers an ancient secret in the waters near the lodge. The film is based on the book by Jake MacDonald. Maybe if we're lucky he'll drown in Manitoba where it's filming.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
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Tuesday, September 26, 2006
The Big Screen: 9/26/06
And once again, we bring you our contribution to the war effort, a listing of interesting films playing at theaters throughout the country.
Los Angeles:
Tomorrow night, The American Cinematheque presents an advance screening of Marie Antoinette with director Sophia Coppola in person at The Aero Theater in Santa Monica. Too bad you won't be there--it's already sold out! Prevent this from happening again by becoming a member! And show up Thursday for the consolation prize, a sneak of Flyboys with producer Dean Devlin and director Tony Bill. This weekend, a tribute to Terry Zwigoff kicks off Friday with an ultra-rare screening of his first film Louie Bluie, a 70-minute documentary on blues singer Howard Armstrong, followed by Ghost World. Screenings of Badder Santa and the astounding Crumb follow on Saturday and Sunday. Meanwhile, at The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, "The National Geographic All Roads Film Project showcases breakthrough films and still photography from indigenous and under-represented minority cultures around the globe."
At The New Beverly Cinema tonight, Don't Knock The Rock presents The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a doc about the schizophrenic singer who actually writes good songs (ie, not Wesley Willis). Wednesday and Thursday, the rock keeps coming with the touching documentary New York Doll paired with The Ramones: End of the Century, which Charlie posted a great review of last week. Friday and Saturday, a great double feature of Bottle Rocket and The Big Lebowski. Dignan and The Dude--what a great combination. Sunday through Tuesday, a double-shot of urban adventure from Walter Hill: The Warriors and Streets of Fire! Man, whoever programs this place is a genius!
Tonight at LACMA, bogey and Bacall light up the screen in Howard Hawks' classic The Big Sleep. This weekend, their DePalma program continues with Obsession, Femme Fatale, The Fury and Body Double.
On Saturday night, Cinespia winds up their season of presenting films at The Hollywood Forever cemetery with George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Come on, now, what could possibly be a better way to kick off the Halloween season (and yes, ALL of October is Halloween season!) than watching NotLD in a graveyard?
Starting this Friday, American Hardcore, a document of the overlooked punk scene of the early 80's that features Black Flag, The Circle Jerks, Minor Threat, Flipper and many more opens at The Nuart. Also, the midnight movie this Friday is The Taking of the Pelham One Two Three (now impossible to say without slipping into Mike D's cadence), while The Rialto has Kubrick's The Shining on Saturday at midnight.
New York City:
At Film Forum, the Monty Pythonathon continues with screenings of The Holy Grail on Wednesday, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life on Friday and Saturday, and Terry Gilliam's Brazil on Sunday and Monday. To see Brazil on the big screen is one of the great pleasures of life. Also plenty of opportunities left to catch Army of Shadows this week.At the MoMA, the Made in NY series continues with Requiem for a Dream, Hannah and Her Sisters, and The Godfather, while The Personal Films of Su Friedrich sheds light on this groundbreaking master of avant garde queer cinema whom I've never heard of.
The Museum of the Moving Image continues it's Von Sternberg retrospective with The Scarlet Empress, Blonde Venus and Jet Pilot. On Monday, the always entertaining Terry Gilliam shows up in person with a print of his new film Tideland. You can also catch An Inconvenient Truth tonight through Thursday.The Brooklyn Academy of Music, in addition to running new films like Half Nelson, Little Miss Sunshine, The Prestige and Science of Sleep, is hosting an Alfred Hitchcock/Jimmy Stewart festival, screening the pair's collaborations in Rear Window, Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much and Vertigo.
Thursday night, a documentary that sounds intriguing to say the least, Forgiving Dr. Mengele, screens at The Makor.
Minneapolis/St. Paul:
This weekend, The Science of Sleep starts up at The Uptown, and This Film is Not Yet Rated at The Lagoon. And Saturday at midnight at The Uptown, put on your brown coat and go see Serenity (but please don't sing that folksong about Jayne. It's embarrassing).
And The Walker Art Center continues the Heroic Grace program with several masterpieces of Hong Kong Wuxia, including The Magic Blade and The Jade Tiger.
Don't see a listing for your city, or your favorite art house? Drop me a line or leave a comment. I want to make this column more inclusive, but it's much harder to find listings for theaters I don't know exist in places I've never been.
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10 Visual Effects We Never Need To See Again
Visual effects are cool and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. If you hear anyone say 'I only care about them if they serve the story', slap them, for they are Communists. Cinema has always held the carnival barker promise of seeing the impossible and a never before seen visual effect can still draw millions to the multiplexes. Unfortunately this leads to the popular new effect getting used by every other movie until all the novelty and thrill is gone. This leads to the worst of all things: the boring visual effect. Here are some examples of visual effects that have had their day.
1. Spaceships Landing
Back before Star Wars it was impossible to show spaceships landing. Mostly we got paper plates whizzing about on strings or the same three shots of The Enterprise circling a planet repeated every episode. With the creation of ILM and motion control cameras we suddenly had the Millennium Falcon taking off from Mos Eisley and landing in an Imperial hangar bay and the world was a good place again. Perhaps it wasn't completely necessary for the narrative, but we'd never seen it before and it connected the sfx to the real life sets in a viscerally satisfying way, making the whole thing much more excitingly believable. Then we had 20 years of more spaceships landing, culminating in the Star Wars prequels, in which spaceships land.
George Lucas may well argue that he was harking back to the old, pre-jump cut days when, if you changed location, you had to show the character driving off, arriving, getting out of their car and entering a building. But we don't need it now, and the CGI revolution has meant that we aren't impressed by having a spaceship interact with an environment, no matter how many particles it kicks up. Until you can show us the Death Star trying to parallel park, George, leave it alone.
2. Swooping Establishing Shots
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is guilty of making this one fashionable. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Peter Jackson had long swooping shots of Orthanc and Barad-Dur, as if filmed with virtual helicopters, which served as introductions to the villains by means of their spikey, evil fortresses, served to make the made-up Middle Earth feel more real, more dimensional and more immersive and, in one spectacular minute-long shot that followed a moth, swooped down from high above Orthanc, past an imprisoned Gandalf and into the fiery weapons factories deep beneath the ground, served to tie together several of the main themes of the story in purely, and breathtakingly, visual terms. They were great.
But then other big budget movies started doing the same. Pirates of the Caribbean is a particular offender. Is there any particular reason to have swooping shots of the prison at the start of Dead Man's Chest? It's only seen for two minutes and never heard from again (unless it is another bit of interminable set-up for the it-had-better-be-awesome At Worlds End), yet the grammar of the swoopy establishing shot it is given suggests it is something important, something we should be paying attention to. The shot was used because it is very fancy and because they had the budget to do it.
Even Peter Jackson, by The Return of the King, was committing the same mistake. The camera is still swooping past Orthanc even though the swooping is telling us nothing new. It has become habit, and it has become boring. We've done with the virtual helicopter, Hollywood, come up with another way to establish location. Thanks!
3. Running Away From Fireballs
This is an old one that I thought had all but disappeared but, with a little research, I found is actually still alive, well and as daft as ever. It usually consists of the hero in the foreground, escaping the exploding building by running down a narrow corridor while the explosion in the background chases him. The shot will usually end with the hero diving out of the way just in time as the fireball rushes past over their heads.
It was particularly popular with the 80's action gods like Schwarzenegger and Stallone (Judge Dredd has an entire sequence devoted to it) but seemed to stop in the mid-90's because A: we'd all seen it dozens of times, B: we all managed to figure out that explosions move faster than humans and C: we all knew that Stallone wasn't going to get burnt up by it (however much we may have wanted him too).
Independence Day took the idea as far as it could go by having entire cities trying to run away from intergalactic fireballs and (apart from the fucking dog) failing. Mission Impossible embraced the idea's stupidity by having Tom Cruise actually ride a fireball like a surfer does a wave so he could hitch a ride on the Eurostar.
But here it is popping up in the trailer of Jackie Chan's New Police Story. Also see the end of The Return of the King where Frodo and Sam jog away from an exploding volcano. Presumably the lava is quite cold in Middle Earth. Here's a shot from Starship Troopers where the heroes outrun a nuclear bomb:
4. Massive Armies
Lord of the Rings' fault again. Scale is one of the main weapons in the 'fuck me, look at that!' arsenal and film-makers have been using massive crowds since Intolerance, through Cleopatra and on to Ghandhi. But these traditional epics had died away by the mid 80's, being too expensive, too difficult and too boring to work anymore. Then 10,000 elves fought 10,000 orcs in the prologue to Fellowship of the Ring and the epic was back, ushering in Troy, Alexander, Narnia and a lot of other battles suddenly augmented by endless digital actors. The signature shot has the camera starting somewhere in the troposphere and rushing down past endless lines of warriors, possibly to finish up close on a commander, or on the first clash of steel.
But by the final battle in Return of the King, we all knew not only that we'd seen every permutation of the 'massive army' possible but also that we'd seen the very best version of them we were ever going to get. The effect went from breakthrough to cliche in the space of one (albeit reeeeally long) movie. Alexander's failure at the box office has signalled the end of the 'massive army' for the time being, but film-makers will always be scale-happy so be warned for the next time they try to break out their toy soldiers.
5. Bullet Time
The Matrix is a great example of building an entire film around a cool effect. The film has its defenders (I'm one of them) that will argue that the film is all deep and stuff, but almost very scene, from the dojo fight, to the endless simulations, monologues and tests, seems set up to justify having the camera swing round the actors while they move in slow motion. It was an awesome effect which then proceeded to be used in every sci-fi, kung-fu, comedy and shitty CGI animated film about ogres film for the next half decade.
The problem is that the effect is almost completely useless for telling a story unless the story is The Matrix. It is, in the end, just whizzy slow motion. Also, as it is so closely tied with the film that introduced it, the audience would always scream 'rip-off' at anyone else who used it.
As fast as it became cool, it became a joke, turning up in Scary Movie and that shitty CGI animated film about ogres.
Spiderman used a similar concept for Parker's spider-sense, but Sam Raimi was smart enough to leave out the Spidey-sense scene in the sequel. He knew the effect was done to death. Even The Wachowski Brothers played down Bullet-Time in The Matrix sequels.
The act of seperating the movement of the camera from the time axis is still a pretty cool concept, and maybe a film maker like Brian Depalma could use it well. He loves creating intricate set-pieces with simultaneous action involving several characters within complex, multi-layered environments. But then he loves doing everything practical, plus would never get the budget so we're left with the Wachowski's next film - currently an adaptation of fast-car cartoon Speed Racer - to see if this most high profile and short lived visual effect has any kind of future.
6. 3-D Effects
In which an object moves very quickly from he background to the extreme forground in order to demonstrate the often primitive 3-D technology hucksterish film-makers used to use. Thankfully those red and blue glasses are mostly a thing of the past now, but the 'rushing at the camera' effect is unfortunately still very popular. Peter Jackson uses the trick all the time - usually a monster rushing at the hero and snapping their toothy jaws shut an inch from the camera. The Matrix Revolutions has an hour that consists purely of very loud things rushing at the camera. Explosions will usually have a piece of debris (a door in the case of Con Air) that will conveiniently fly right towards the camera, often hitting it and leading to a thud and a cut to black.
They can be fun, but they are some of the lowest, most shameless techniques for getting a rise out of the audience and, now these film-makers have the budgets to fill their films with them, the effect becomes numbing and overwhelming.
Also, if we think about how much it is used now while the films are still in 2-D, and then think about the 3-D technology people like Lucas, Cameron and Jackson are pushing for, we should probably just stop the rot now, beore it is too late.
7. Impossible Camera Moves
There's a shot in David Fincher's Panic Room which moves smoothly all around Jodie Foster's house that's really cool until it passes through the handle of a cup. Then it turns from a staggeringly elegant way of setting up the geography and drama of the house and into just another 'look at what I can do!' bit of sfx wankery.
Pirates of the Carribbean is full of cameras moving through rigging, The Return of the King has the camera pulling up through the ring when Gollum finally gets his hands on it, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake has the camera following the bullet as it passes through a poor girl's head and out the other side.
Whenever the camera passes through a tiny space the shot calls attention to itself, becomes emptily flashy and takes you out of the story. Not that his is always a bad thing - the shot going right the way through Keith David in Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead plays in to the over-stylised over-the-topness of the film, the shot in Fincher's Fight Club rummaging through the trash feels nicely hyper-real and obsessive in true consumer style, and everything in The Return of the King is great, however cheesy it gets - but, exceptions aside, this was always a cheap gag and, now we've seen it dozens of times, one that isn't even funny anymore. Stop.
8. The 'Fix It In Post' Effect
There's a story that has Hayden Christensen turning up on the set of Revenge of the Sith without his wig. He is about to rush back to make-up when George Lucas says 'Don't worry, we'll just add the hair in digitally'.
Who knows if it's true, but Lucas is famous for constructing his scenes by pasting one actor from one take onto another take to mix'n'match line readings rather than work to get the best take on set. If the prequels seem stiff and lifeless, the reason might be right there.
Then there's the piece of fruit that Anakin flies across the dinner table to Padme In Attack of the Clones that looks amazingly fake, mostly because it is. Rather than set up complicated wires and props, he just had the actors mime badly and fixed it in post.
Now that digital technology allows film-makers to do anything, it is too much a temptation for some to simply not bother getting it perfect in the midst of very expensive and stressful production days and instead sort it all out in post. Equally the old ways of being creative to overcome shooting the impossible are gone, replaced with adding the difficult stuff in with CGI, leading to a lot of tremendously dull, plasticky movies and even more tremendously dull making-of docs.
Do it for real, people. It's more fun. And stop being so damned lazy.
9. Animated Animals With Human Eyes
If you watch any Disney cartoon, the animals will have large expressive eyes with whites around their corneas. It's done to allow the animals to emote and make them easier to understand, which is fair enough. The problem is that they are human eyes. They are human eyes staring out of an inhuman face. Is there a human soul stuck inside that animal's skull pleading to get out? Or are those big wet eyes lying at you as the animal lures you in with its empathy-filled expression ready to strip it back to the cold instinct-driven predator beneath when you are too close to get away? Maybe Disney is surgically implanting human eyes into squealing woodland creatures on a production line somewhere in Hollywood?
You try watching a cutesy animal movie now without obsessing about the human eyes staring out at you. It's creepy.
Anthropomorphism is just a fancy term for being a furry. Stop!
10. Lightsabers
Ssswwyysszzzzhhh!
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Monday, September 25, 2006
News Round-Up: 9/25/06
Rush Hour. Posh Spice. Cholera. Just a few of our favorite things.
Rush Hour 3 looks like it's finally getting revved up after more than five years since the last entry. It will start shooting on Sunday in Paris and Brett Ratner will direct as he did the first two. Max von Sydow (Minority Report), French hotness Noemie Lenoir (After the Sunset), and Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai) will no doubt also be under utilized in several ways in this film. Naturally, the beautiful model will be Tucker's gal pal. Pardon me while I ROTHMFFLMAO. Look for it in August of next year. Better yet watch the latest Potter movie... again.Source: Variety
Katie Holmes will be playing Victoria Beckham aka Posh Spice (but then you knew that) in what will probably be a hagiography of David Beckham."Holmes and her fiancé Tom Cruise are close friends with the British pair, but while movie bosses were keen to cast the Batman Begins star, Cruise will not be playing Beckham because of their 'marked physical differences.'"
No doubt the movie will do well overseas but I can't imagine that a movie about a soccer star, even one as famous as Beckham, will sell well over here. Of course since it's going to be a "poor boy does well" sort of story, that could sell it. Depending on the star. Also, LOL at "marked physical differences". The media has no shame.
Source: WENN, Hollywood.com
Liev Schreiber (The Omen 666), Laura Harring (Mulholland Dr.), Colombian actress Angie Cepeda, Ana Claudia Talancon (Fast Food Nation) and Rubria Negrao (Must Love Dogs) have joined the cast of Love in the Time of Cholera."The story, based on the novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, follows a romantic man named Florentino who loses Fermina, the girl of his dreams, to a wealthier suitor and spends the next 50 years building his life and reputation so that one day he might have her."
Based on the cast it looks like Mike Newell will be sticking close to the book and this definitely speaks to the romantic in me.
Source: Hollywood Reporter, Dark Horizons
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Continue reading News Round-Up: 9/25/06