Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

Ever since I began this blog, one of the mainstays has become casting news for Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man 4. The latest batch, via Movieline, of news concerning Peter Parker's newest silver screen adversary contains the one and only John Malkovich being rumored to play the role of The Vulture. I don't really know anything about The Vulture, and personally am behind both the rumors for Dylan Baker to finally take his role of Dr. Curt Connors to the villainous The Lizard and Bruce Campbell to take over a larger role in some capacity against the web-slinging hero. Still, I can't say that I can be truly against anything that has Malkovich in it. What I can be against though, is with the plethora of baddies that Spider-Man has faced over the years, that Raimi is thinking of creating a new one, The Vulturess, played by Anne Hathaway, earlier rumored to take on the role of Felicia Hardy/The Black Cat. Does this ludicrous part two of Movieline's article tend to take this over the edge of believability? Probably.

On another casting note that seems to dominate my blog, The Hollywood Reporter has an article today stating that The Hobbit will begin casting this week for every role except Gandalf, which is being reserved for Sir Ian McKellen. In an interview with Peter Jackson, he vows to not bow under star pressure for the film, stating that the star of the series and his Lord of the Rings adaptation was J.R.R. Tolkien, not any of the actors. Jackson wouldn't comment on if Andy Serkis and Hugo Weaving was a lock to return to their respective roles of Gollum and Elrond. The producer also denies rumors that James McAvoy had been approached for a rather large role (a rumor I had actually not heard before reading THR's story) and that the production of the films had been put on a delay.

After the seemingly endless list of lawsuits that streamed from the aftermath of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, it has been kind of shocking to me that the same level of legal troubles hasn't plagued Sacha Baron Cohen's latest raunchy comedy Bruno. Yet, finally, according to The Daily Mail, a lawsuit seeking over $100 million has recently popped up. The lawsuit stems from the scene where Bruno supposedly interviews at real life terrorist in a refugee camp, claimed to be the Lebanese leader of a group called Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Turns out, the actual man interviewed, Ayman Abu Aita, is a grocer, a self-proclaimed peace activist, Palestinian and interviewed at a hotel outside of Bethlehem. Not only does this kill any comedy the scene had, but after Cohen's stories of how he actually got the clip with the terrorist, most famously during his appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, but it certainly makes us wonder that with the low key legal department, that most of this flick was completely scripted. I mean, some of the scenes, such as the parent interviews, or Paula Abdul's cameo, seems so outrageously unbelievable, that now we have to assume that we've been had. Is it still funny to see Cohen's flopping penis in the midst of a focus group or a black baby hanging from a cross? Yes, but if we wanted scripted raunch, we would pull out some old John Waters DVDs.

According to BoxOfficeMojo, the latest in the spoof craze of films, Transylmania, set the record for all time low box office gross for a film debuting in over 1,000 theaters. Thank God, now maybe this will discourage Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer from continuing their careers.

On a final note, Cinematical's Jenni Miller had an article today complaining on the continued use of the term "The Wachowski Brothers" since Larry Wachowski has recently came out to live his life as a woman, now being referred to as Lana Wachowski. First time I heard this, and I though rather interesting news to pass along.

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

There is never any shortage of arguments as the Academy Awards begin to loom closer. Although we are still about three months away from the 82nd annual ceremony's nominations to be revealed, the controversy cloud has already swirled up with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's official site's announcement of the fifteen films that have been shortlisted for the Best Documentary Feature Award. Why would this be controversial? Well, because the only film on the list that I'm really familiar with is Louie Psihoyos' The Cove. That may be a bad example, as I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about most films that have passed through the public radar during the past year, but it is easy to let some decent documentaries to slip under undetected. Still, two of the most prolific films of the genre this past year, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story and the surprise hit Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which boasts quite a high Tomato Meter rating on Rotten Tomatoes, are not present on the list. Not saying that the fifteen movies the Academy included on their list doesn't sound interesting, but none of them compare to Anvil!'s rating, nor do some of them even register a rating.

The above rant isn't to say that the Academy hasn't done anything right for this coming ceremony. In addition to adding five more nominees onto the ballot for the Best Picture category, as I covered yesterday, the cult film director Roger Corman garnered an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards last week. Of course, the exploitation master's sometimes lacklusting career isn't without its naysayers. An argument between two Cinematical writers have been brewing today, and I'm taking the side of Scott Weinberg, the supporter of Corman's massive body of exploitive fun.

The Spider-Man 4 rumors keep piling in. Monday, I wrote about how Rachel McAdams shot down the rumor that she would be filling the role of Felicia Hardy/The Black Cat. Today, Deadline Hollywood has already replaced McAdams role in the rumor mill, claiming that Anne Hathaway has been approached to take on the villain, or misunderstood love interest, or Marvel's answer to Catwoman or whatever the hell you want to call The Black Cat. There is no denying that Hathaway does look the part, but as many of the rumors coming in, I highly doubt there is any truth in this.

Finally, my patience is wearing thin with our local movie rental store, Movies to Go. There are a few others, but they're not even worth mentioning. Anyhow, void of newer releases Anvil!, Away We Go and Gigantic, but stocked with about twenty copies of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, as well as a few other flicks that make the second attempt at the video game franchise adaptation look like Citizen Kane, such as Sasquatch Mountain, several Girls Gone Wild selections and the straight-to-Nickelodeon George Lopez movie. Not only that, but I could spend days talking about how wrong the categorizations are, such as the Classics section, which is actually period pieces, or the fact that I noticed Into the Wild in the Comedy section. Also, we have the inability to alphabetize correctly, and the blaring sounds of The Pussycat Dolls emanating from the back, while the gaggle of harlotry that operates the cash registers have zero knowledge on basic movie information. Being a small store, I don't expect an academic lecture on Fellini or a section of exploitation rarities to rival Something Weird Videos' archives, but come on, I'm seriously thinking about committing the sin of starting to rent off of the Red Box. Come to PS3 Netflix.

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

We have basically seen the new poster for Avatar pictured here already, as the same still of the Zoe Saldana's computer generated character Neytiri was all over the Internet's coverage of the San Diego Comic Con. The only new thing about this to me is the title of the film is there, with a note telling us that James Cameron did, in fact, direct Titanic. So why really post this when it's nothing new? I feel that outside of bloggers and mildly hardcore cinephiles, not enough people care about Avatar, or can distinguish the title from M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender when you mention it in conversation. Not that my unread blog is going to alert the world about what many think will be a milestone in science fiction and computer graphics, but rather that I want to blog more about this film, yet I know nothing about it other than the bit of information of Moviefone, IMDb or Wikipedia.

Variety reports that Hugh Jackman has been cast as the wonderfully eccentric P.T. Barnum in Fox's upcoming "contemporary musical", The Greatest Showman on Earth, to be scripted by Jenny Bicks of Sex and the City fame. A musical biopic of Barnum sounds intriguing to me, as I have always been fascinated with the man, and a musical spin on what I'm sure will be a rather bizarre life story could just be weird enough to truly stand out. The article also mentions that Anne Hathaway is in talks to star opposite Jackman. This thing could possibly have potential, but like so many interesting projects, should we expect this to crash and burn? Especially with the scribe of Sex and the City?

The Hollywood Reporter announced today that Watchmen's Sally Jupiter, Carla Gugino, will team up with Zack Snyder once again in his upcoming film Sucker Punch in a supporting role.

Finally, you can't really go to any movie blog this week without hitting an overload of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, so it is kind of hard to ignore. Today, on Stephen Sommer's official site, we see some concept art for the character Destro, confirming him to keep the metal head he was known for in the cartoon and toy line. Also, in a preview to an interview with Sommers on Cinematical, the web site announces that Sommers is hopeful he will be able to put a sequel into development. There is no doubt in my mind that there will be a sequel, because the movie will kill at the box office, despite if the film is a complete train wreck or not. Also, I am personally shocked that the film currently holds a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. I have to admit that I actually somewhat enjoy Sommers. It doesn't matter that The Mummy and Van Helsing had awful plots, or that they were critically bashed, they were the epitome of a summer popcorn movie, being flashy, fast-paced, high energy, and entertaining enough to make us forget all the stupidities of the plot. However, I cannot see myself leaving G.I. Joe happy, with 1) the super suits and 2) the incredibly high chance that Kid Rock's "American Bad Ass" will pop up somewhere in the film.