Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

There is just some characters that can never be re-casted. One of those is B.A. Baracus of the 80's television series The A-Team, as performed by the one and only Mr. T. I'm not saying the bizarre popular culture icon deserves to be in the same category as Charlie Chaplin and his timeless little tramp bit or Robert De Niro's turn as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, but his eccentricities did make him a national treasure during that beloved decade. So, who is to step into the role in the upcoming big screen adaptation of the series? The Vancouver Sun reports that former UFC fighter Quintin "Rampage" Jackson will be taking the part, despite not having much of an acting career to speak of, excluding a few bit parts and cameos to promote his badassedness in the ring. Not only is the fact that the UFC ring probably isn't the best bet for a casting pool, but the little bit I know of Jackson is that he was arrested in a truck clad with a huge douchebaggish picture of his painted face on the side after driving on sidewalks, nearly killing several people, causing a victim to have a stillbirth and blamed it all on a binge of energy drinks after becoming depressed due to a loss against fellow fighter Forrest Griffin. It's not that I've ever expected the creators of this film to even attempt to make it good, probably setting the goal of "Starsky and Hutch quality". Still, after casting Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson, there was a brief moment where it looked promising, but I always knew the nail in the coffin would be the B.A. casting.

Cinematical alerted me to a very sad story today. A few days ago two film critics, partners in life, love and career, were killed in Manila. Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc focused on reviewing little known Southeast Asian films to English audiences that would not normally have heard of them. I never had read a piece by either of the writers, or heard much of any of the flicks they championed in their careers, but after reading the article linked from the jump up there, that Tioseco wrote for Rogue magazine, I had to repost it. It is a heartbreaking letter from Tioseco to convince his Nika to move from her native Slovenia with him in Manila, encompassing the publicized note with love for cinema, love for the Philippines and most importantly love for Bohinc. The article ends, and the next one I read regarding the couple, via The Hollywood Reporter, makes it clear that Nika took him up on the offer, as the two were shot dead for the theft of a laptop computer in Tioseco's adored home of Manila. Tragic.

An article on BleedingCool claims that Pixar Animation is already looking at the script treatment that Edgar Wright has given the Marvel property Ant Man with possible intentions for a film. The story claims to be from Entertainment Weekly although I could not find the source writing to back it up. However, we have been expecting Pixar to make a move, as it is obviously the only way a Disney/Marvel film can happen without the negative stigma that came after the announcement of Disney's acquisition of the comic giant last week. I am sure we will have more of this later on whenever it is debunked or confirmed.

The Final Destination continued to top the box office this past week. Does this make anyone else lose hope in humanity? I suppose 9 will at least dominate next week.

Collider has an article up stating that Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, made famous by Children of Men and Iron Man among other things, have been brought on board for the live action Leonardo DiCaprio-produced Akira remake. I can see reason to get excited about this eventually.

I'm a huge corn maze fan, but I think I just lost hope in the wonderful autumn event after Geekologie posted pictures of this Team Jacob/Team Edward mazes in Utah. Terrible.