Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

I wish I could say I've missed a few blogs this past week due to some kind of fantastical road trip or an adventure. Instead, I turned to the solace of Play Station to pass time whilst my Internet was out, because one of the prices for living in the serenity of the marriage grounds of meth labs and incest, is bad Internet connection, along with dreadful service with any piece of technology you can think of. Anyhow, I am back today, starting off with an interesting poster for Grant Heslov's upcoming film The Men Who Stare at Goats. I just loved the fact that the goat got a higher billing than Robert Patrick (the T-1000 for Christ's sake!).

The Independent has a story up that continues the trend of The Walt Disney Company stepping into the role of conglomerate bastardry that we have all come to expect from them. One of the biggest time honored yuletide traditions in England, the lighting of Christmas lights on London's Oxford and Regent streets, has been compromised to accommodate the British premiere of A Christmas Carol, moving the schedule of the event up by nine days. London mayor, Boris Johnson, has already received a shit storm of complaints. Kind of makes you forget about Marvel for a second, right?

Well, it would if I didn't directly blame the Disney/Marvel merger for Time Warner turning DC Comics into the competing DC Entertainment. And the new head of DC Entertainment, Diane Nelson, recently gave an unsettling interview to MTV. The linked article mainly focuses on the fact that Nelson pretty much confirms that any follow up to Superman Returns is completely dead. Of course, after a somewhat (undeserved) mixed response, I can kind of see why DC would pursue some of the more interesting, silver screen virgin characters on their roster. Still, with Nelson's first big interview in the big role garnering some negative fan reactions, I am just curious what is to come.

Jumping back to the Marvel boat, Variety has announced the official opening day of Spider-Man 4 as May 6th, 2011. The article also confirms that Gary Ross, most famous for Big and Pleasantville, will helm the script treatment of the film.

I keep reading these great reviews on The Informant!, but I've yet to really jump aboard based solely on the trailers. I'm sure it is a good movie, with the talents of Matt Damon and Steven Soderbergh, but I think I'm going in a bit more cautiously than the rest of the viewing audience. Nonetheless, I'm still intrigued at the news, courtesy of People, that Soderbergh and Damon teaming back up again for Liberace, a biopic on the titular eccentrically flamboyant pianist. Damon will play the lover of Liberace (played by Michael Douglas).

Geekologie has a troubling post of a visual aid picture of Yaddle, a female member of Yoda's species whom appeared briefly in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, along with a green fleshlight. It may be rather repulsive, but it is still leaps and bounds easier to take than another Twilight sex toy.

Finally, speaking of missing a few days due to my crappy Internet, I missed posting a short film on Sunday for the second week in a row a few days back. After the abysmal box office intake for an animated feature, as well as a somewhat luke warm response on RottenTomatoes, I figure that a drawn out introduction to Shane Acker's 9, the short film inspiration to his feature of the same name, isn't required. I have yet to see the extended version, but hopefully you'll be entertained by the little short so we can move on to something else this coming weekend.

Monday, September 14th, 2009

After reading about two years of depressing tabloids, I thought I would be more prepared for Patrick Swayze's eventual passing at the hands of pancreatic cancer. Instead, I'm a grown heterosexual man eating ice cream, near the stage of weeping, watching the 80's icon stand up to stodgy old Jerry Orbach. Swayze leaves behind a memorable body of work including Dirty Dancing, Next of Kin, Road House, Ghost, Point Break, Too Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, Black Dog, Donnie Darko and one of the better Saturday Night Live sketches of all time alongside Chris Farley among others. Swayze had the uncommon ability to balance carrying the Fabio complex of being manly to the point of comedy, self-parody and actual acting skills in a classy and memorable fashion. Rest in peace.

In an attempt to tear myself away from the proverbial tear-stained pottery wheel, a few decent news stories in the land of cinema to bring the spirits up comes our way... First, Access Hollywood interviewed Bruce Campbell recently in which the cult film icon spoke of the upcoming Spider-Man 4, which supposed to begin shooting early 2010. When asked about his role in this film, he responds that director Sam Raimi has a much bigger role in mind. The rumor mills have all been salivating at how plausible and obvious of a decision it would be to have Campbell play the villain Mysterio. One can only hope.

Also making rounds in the rumor circuit is Christoph Waltz of Inglourious Basterds fame. The actor, who has been heavily touted as a huge Academy Award contender, has been mentioned, via DeadlineHollywood, as the replacement for Nicolas Cage as the baddy in Seth Rogen's The Green Hornet. I said earlier in the week when it was announced that Cage would be dropping out of the picture that it could turn around to be a wondrous Stephen Chow to Michel Gondry type change, and if they can nab Waltz, who deserves all the praise he is getting from Basterds, Rogen's superhero flick will have pulled another good-to-great crew change.

I can't believe that 9 garnered just $10 million at the box office, landing behind Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All by Myself. At least it didn't flop as bad as Sorority Row, which landed a debut at the six spot with just slightly over $5 million.

Last night, despite the absence of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Ben Folds being nominated, the MTV Video Music Awards played a sinister trick in the pre-show on my heart by introducing the Muppets into the mix, as Kermit the Frog escorted Lady Gaga (clad in a costume fit for a background character in Hellboy, plus a performance that included dancing cripples, vaginal piano playing and Carrie-esque blood covered female, so I sickenly, disappointingly can't even call it a terrible happening). Anyhow, aside from the whole Twitter drama regarding Kanye West's douchebaggery, the award show focused on film a bit, by debuting trailer's for The Twilight Saga: New Moon and the Michael Jackson documentary This is It. Instead of displaying any of these trailers, I opted for a challenge to any readers that I have. In Janet Jackson's tribute to her brother that opened the show, much of the video for "Scream" was shown and I noticed that some anime is prominently displayed in the background. I can't find anywhere what anime it is, although the Answerman on AnimeNewsNetwork says that it is often claimed to be Akira, although there has never been confirmation. Happy hunting kiddos. Oh, on a side note that I find interesting about the VMA's, big names in film that have won in the technical awards include Steve Barron, David Fincher, Tarsem Singh, Mark Pellington, Spike Jonze, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Samuel Bayer, Dylan Tichenor and the Brothers Quay.

Finally, to close today's blog, a few of the most memorable Swayze moments.

Patrick Swayze - Chippendale
by tressage

Wednesday, Septermber 9th, 2009

Yesterday, I blogged about the first piece of good news to come from The Walt Disney Company and Marvel Comics huge merger in the form of Pixar giving some desirable eyes to Edgar Wright's script treatment of Ant Man. Well, today there comes the news of the vast implications that concerned us in the broad scheme of things, even outside of the world of Marvel. Via Variety, Warner Brothers is creating DC Entertainment in opposition to the Disney ran Marvel Entertainment. Will much change? The first major blow is to the comic world as former president and publisher of DC Comics Jeff Levitz has stepped down to become a contributing editor, writer and consultant to the new rebooted version of the company, under the tutelage of Warner's Diane Nelson. Obviously this news will strike readers a little hard, but what about the implications on DC's cinematic adaptations? Well, the first and most obvious is that the long secretive next step in the Batman film franchise is hinted at in the article of having a tentatively 2012 release. Is this good news, or is this just going to become a conglomerate race to see whom can ruin their respected comic company first? Only time will tell.

Speaking of Disney, a new trailer for their upcoming return to cel animation, The Princess and the Frog, has been released to much criticism online. Of course, as predicted in Disney's long history of alleged racism, the company's take on a black princess is being scrutinized. Also, IWatchStuff throws in the claim that there is a bit of bestiality for good measure. Watch for yourself and see what you think.

'Princess and the Frog' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

Fox News has a story on another bump in the road for Robert Rodriguez' Red Sonja adaptation as Rose McGowan had to endure serious wrist and elbow surgery after suffering an injury that will put production on hold until the actress heals. I just hope this doesn't kill the project completely as McGowan looks so much better than Brigitte Nielson's big screen turn as the character. Also, you have to love the fact that McGowan is doing her own stunts. So there, I said it, despite all the bad buzz, I am actually looking forward to this.

Yahoo! Movies has released the official poster for Columbia Pictures documentary on the last performances of Michael Jackson in This Is It. Nothing too special, probably to match the film, which will more than likely not be anything more than a money pump from AEG to capitalize on the death of Jackson.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Nicolas Cage has dropped out of the villainous role in The Green Hornet. It seems that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's version of the flick just can't keep anything going for long. But, if it is like other news, such as Stephen Chow's leaving the director's chair for Michel Gondry, it can only bode well for the little film. A piece of casting news we'll be keeping an eye open for.

9 is out today, snagging the interesting release date of 09-09-09. Looks pretty decent. We'll look more at this Sunday when I'll show Shane Acker's original short film that serves as the basis of the Tim Burton/Timur Bekmambetov-produced feature.

I was alerted that today is officially A Day Without Cats online. Of course, The Cheezburger Network and 4Chan are protesting the event pretty hard, and I was going to do my part by looking up some cute cat clips from cinema. Unfortunately, when you type that into Google, you get something like this... McBeardo's Top 100 Cult Movie Nude Scenes, which to be honest wasn't all that bad of a list, and gave me a reason to watch a few clips of Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead. When searching a similar query on YouTube, I came up with probably the only thing raunchier than the countdown up there, a red band trailer for Ralph Bakshi's X-rated cartoon Fritz the Cat. I was personally hoping to get a video of two adorable kittens re-enacting the entire "we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses" scene from The Blues Brothers in a cardboard box car. Watching animated cats have explicit group sex in a bath tub comes in at a close second I guess. (In case it wasn't implied, the aforementioned link and the video down below are NSFW.)

P.S. Here is a real fix of kitten fun if you need it.

Sunday, July 26th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Vincent)

Last week's short film, Treevenge, was directed by Jason Eisener, a director that I feel one day may become a big name. This week however, I am going to feature a filmmaker that most up and comers hope to emulate, the masterful Tim Burton. Almost everything the 50-year-old director has touched, has become something of a masterpiece, or cultural phenomenon. This past week has been no exception, as during the San Diego Comic Con, the trailer to his newest film, Alice in Wonderland, an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's whimsical novel, made its debut. Burton's official website also released a teaser gallery from his upcoming picture book, The Art of Tim Burton.

Burton had just as interesting of an early career years before he got to this point. His career began as a cell animator for the 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings, directed by Ralph Bakshi. Then, I have read rumors for years that he was an uncredited Muppeteer in 1979's The Muppet Movie, and the listing still exists on IMDb, as well as on Burton's Wikipedia page. Leaving the 70's behind, Burton got a job as an animator on the Disney film The Fox and the Hound. While working for Disney, we would also get our first look at Burton behind the camera, taking the helming role when he would shoot tonight's featured short, Vincent, about a young boy named Vincent Malloy, that was obsessed with Burton's real life hero, horror icon Vincent Price, who also narrated the story. The film saw a brief theatrical release running before the forgotten Matt Dillon film Tex, but the brilliant short went mainly unseen, as some of the more macabre references to Price's films wasn't very Disney-friendly, and the crowd wanting to see the badly received teen drama Tex didn't mesh with Burton's humor.

The film would lead to another Disney short called Frankenweenie in 1984, which would lead to Burton being fired by Disney for wasting the company's money and creating a film that was too scary for the audience in which it was intended. Both shorts would later find success and cult followings once they showed up on the special edition DVD for The Nightmare Before Christmas, and of course, the popularity of YouTube. They would also succeed in getting Burton noticed by Paul Reubens, a bizarre comedian that went under the pseudonym Pee-Wee Herman, who also famously created an act that looked like it should be targeting children, but kept an adult audience with its wit. He was impressed and got Burton to direct a screen adaptation of The Pee-Wee Herman Show, Burton's first feature film, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. This would be followed with a second huge cult hit in Beetlejuice, and rounding out the 80's, Burton would hit his first blockbuster gold with the film Batman.

The 90's would follow with another pairing with Price, this time in a small, and Price's last, on-screen role in Burton's masterful story Edward Scissorhands, a dark big budget sequel in the Caped Crusader franchise with Batman Returns, his return to stop motion animation in the classic Nightmare Before Christmas (a film that centered around the character Jack Skellington, whom made his debut as a background character in Vincent), his first flop that still has some following in Cabin Boy, creating a great homage to cult film icon Edward D. Wood, Jr. in Ed Wood, stepping down to producer in the moderately successful Batman Forever, returning to praise cult cinema with the star-studded Mars Attacks!, and rounding out the decade with another clever, dark adaptation in his first horror film, Sleepy Hollow.

In the new millennium, Burton gave us the only film of his that I have disliked, a re-envisioning of the classic Planet of the Apes, the very whimsical tale of growing old in his underrated Big Fish, another lavish and unique telling of a classic story in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, another return to the world of stop motion with Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, the horror musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and rounding out the decade by producing Shane Acker's upcoming film 9.

To think, such a grand career from roughly six minutes of animation, and a clever poem about his hero. Without further adieu, one of Burton's best, albeit short, works Vincent.