Friday, November 6th, 2009

As an anecdote to the week that has preceeded us, Geekologie offered up the accompanying image to the blog, that I thought would be a nice place to begin... Carrie Fisher and her stunt double, Tracy Eddon, sun tanning clad in the legendary metal bikini on Jabba's sail barge during taping of Return of the Jedi. Now then, on to some actual movie gossip and whatnot...

In one of the more amazing stories I've read in some time, The Guardian is reporting that an antique dealer, Morace Park, bought an old film, sealed within its original tin off of eBay for roughly three euros. Eventually, the dealer opened the tin and realized that it was actually an unknown seven-minute lost short from Charlie Chaplin, entitled Zepped. What peaked my interest the most in this article is Park's description of a typical silent Chaplin film, mixed with Monty Python-esque animation sequences of terror. The Guardian also interviews David Robinson, author of Chaplin: His Life and Art (which is one of the books given a writing credit in Richard Attenborough's biopic Chaplin by the way), in which the Chaplin scribe gives his estimation of what the film is actually worth, and how it came to be lost. My big question though, as a huge fan of Chaplin, is will we, the general public, ever get to see this?

There is nothing that can make me cringe more than news of another one of my favorite childhood television series being bastardized with CGI. So, my first reaction when I read the title of this Variety article, was disappointment that Yogi Bear was next in line. Still, a little hope crept up when I read that the voices of Yogi and Boo Boo would be Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake respectively. This doesn't mean that I will enjoy it, just that it will pass without the anger that will surely accompany the newest Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel.

MTV has an interview with David S. Goyer up on how he plans on making Ghost Rider 2 darker. I know Goyer has done plenty of good, including the incredible The Dark Knight, but I don't really think darkness of tone was the problem with the last incarnation of Nicolas Cage's flaming skull. Sam Elliott was good, but that was about it.

A decent movie weekend begins today. The Men Who Stare at Goats is at the top of my must-see list. Close behind is Richard Kelly's intriguing The Box. A Christmas Carol also debuts tonight, but it just seems a little too early to be celebrating Christmas, but knowing how long this flick will stay out during the yuletide season, I'm not feeling stressed to see it before the aforementioned two. Finally, The Fourth Kind is also out today, which will probably be awful, but the trailer just barely raises enough eyebrows with its claims of being based upon true accounts, to put me in the seats.