Friday, September 4th, 2009

One of the few true gems of cult cinema that seems to not get ANY deserved attention, mainstream or no, is Richard Elfman's 1980 semi-musical comedy Forbidden Zone. The film itself is based upon the apparently bizarre stage act of performance group The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, which would later change their name to just Oingo Boingo, featuring brothers Richard and Danny Elfman. This would be Danny Elfman's first scored film, as well as his acting debut (as Satan). The film also served as Richard's first time in the directorial role. The somewhat enigmatic cast only has one paid actor, Herve Villechaize, of Fantasy Island fame, and former boyfriend of top billed Susan Tyrrell. Background characters would also feature the Warhol Superstar Viva and the contemporary artists, The Kipper Kids. The story itself is an incredibly trippy and original tale of Frenchy Hercules and Rene's (as played by screenwriter Matthew Bright) adventure in the Sixth Dimension and dealings with the midget King Fausto and Queen Doris (Villechaize and Tyrrell). To me, it seemed like the product of a John Waters, David Lynch and Richard O'Brien collaboration. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it. Anyhow, the point of explaining the film is to get to the news posted on Reuters today that Michael Holmes is currently writing an adaptation for the stage to be performed at the Sacred Fools Theatre in Hollywood, California. I seriously doubt I'll ever get to see the play as there is very few venues for such thing around my small town Bible Belt community (although Barter Theatre in nearby Abington, Virginia is about the start a run of Little Shop of Horrors), but I'm excited that this could endorse some well needed attention to Richard Elfman's masterful piece of weird cinema.

The Hollywood Reporter posted today that Disney has set Tron Legacy's release date as December 17th, 2010. Turns out that this is the exact same date for Columbia Pictures' The Green Hornet. I can't see both films being released on the same day, seeing that they are probably two of the most anticipated of the coming year. I picture The Green Hornet moving up a little, hopefully not back into 2011. Also, the fear over what Disney will do with Marvel Entertainment... dickish moves like this supplant such horrendous images of what will come.

Cinematical's best, Elisabeth Rappe, has an interesting column asking readers to what movie destinations have they travelled. I personally fell in love with the premise of the recent John Hughes inspired documentary Don't You Forget About Me, and can't wait for the DVD release, as it is just a few filmmakers going on a pilgrimage to find all the important spots in Hughes' films and ultimately meet Hughes himself. Rappe speaks of a church in London that had been the backdrop for Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love and the upcoming Sherlock Holmes. So it got me thinking about some possible goals for my next vacation. I have already scoped out much of John Waters' filming locations, being the streets of Hampden, a town in Baltimore, Maryland (though I would like to see more such as the now defunct Enchanted Forest park used in Cry-Baby, or the mountainous area the trailer was burnt in Pink Flamingos), as well as checking out Divine's grave. I have also been to the wonderful house used in A Christmas Story in Cleveland, Ohio on two occasions, once before it was turned into a museum honoring the wonderful holiday movie based on Jean Shepherd's writings and once afterwards. But what would be a good film pilgrimage? Any ideas? (Sad that I imagine people read this.)

Also, as suggested by the only reader, I checked out the trailer for Grant Heslov's The Men Who Stare at Goats. I first spotted the trailer on IWatchStuff, in which the author referred to as "Coen Brothers lite", so I kind of ignored it. Yet, it does look quite great. Hopefully, the inclusion of George Clooney will also get it noticed a little. Have a look and enjoy.

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

To say that Gavin Hood's X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a disappointment, even compared to the lackluster X-Men: The Last Stand, would be a vast understatement. It was nonetheless, met with a decent box office return, and right after the release, star Hugh Jackman talked openly on how he wanted a sequel that would cover Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's classic Wolverine story arc. With Jackman claiming that the plot was being actively pursued, it comes as a great surprise for all us comic-to-movie fans that Christopher McQuarrie has been signed on to direct the yet untitled sequel, via The Hollywood Reporter. McQuarrie is best known as the Academy Award winning writer of Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects. I mean, how could the man who created the brilliance of Keyser Soze go on to make something on the level of the last two films in the X-Men franchise? Also, it is to be noted that McQuarrie done some work on the original X-Men, directed by Singer in 2000, until David Hayter took over. With Hayter doing a decent amount of re-writes, he gained sole credit from the Writers Guild of America, with Singer and Tom DeSanto gaining credit for "story". So, he was associated with the franchise when it was still very much enjoyable.

One upcoming film that has yet to grab me, Legion, debuted a red band trailer today. The Paul Bettany-starring "Christian-themed fantasy-thriller" as Wikipedia puts it seems rather creepy. I love the old woman saying that the unborn child will "fucking burn" in a sweet voice. Anyhow, the loading for this thing was miserable, so I'm just going to link to IWatchStuff's page with the trailer. See what you think.

Neatorama has posted a video of a man who created the Batmobile tumbler from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight out of a go-kart.

Avatar's official site has updated to give information on what it is calling "Avatar Day", when the preview that supposedly wowed all the critics and spectators at the San Diego Comic Con will be available for the general public via a few select 3-D IMAX Theaters. Of course, this means for people like myself that live in a town that is getting Funny People as a new attraction tomorrow, seeing this is a little out of question unless I want to drive the distance of a short vacation.

Finally, I will end with promoting the John Hughes documentary Don't You Forget About Me... again. I recently found the trailer for the flick, and for the first time realized that Kevin Smith is in this thing. So, take a look and see if you are as impressed as I am with the story of a few fans going on a road trip to satisfy a cinephiliac urge. Enjoy.

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

So, for the past week, I've been keeping the passing of John Hughes as a major topic on the blog, and for more fuel for this ongoing topic, I find that it has been swept under the table on most news outlets, and I'm a bit perturbed that The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles hasn't been in heavy rotation on cable. I'm also shocked at how little coverage the documentary Don't You Forget About Me, which I spoke of yesterday, is getting. The film, which chronicles the journey of four young filmmakers attempting to find out what has become of the reclusive director, and possibly get an interview with him seemed like a great idea already, catching my interest when I read about it in Geek Monthly before the tragedy of Hughes' death. There's just something about a road trip to satisfy a passion of cinema that plucks at the ole cinephile's heartstrings. I've been reading further about the film today, and I've still not been able to spoil the ending and find out if they ever did actually get the interview with Hughes or not, but that will be a selling point of the film, however it is distributed. One of the interesting tidbits in the movie that I can't wait to see is the interview with Roger Ebert, as he retracts many of the disparaging comments he made during the initial reviews of some of Hughes' teenage fare of the 80's. I will be keeping an eye on the film as it progresses through trying to find a distributor, as well as the talents behind it, who will most certainly be taking to the media circuits to discuss the untimely death of Hughes. In fact, I found that they also share a blog on Blogspot, which I now follow, so any news, trailers, release dates or anything further I'll pass along.

For a bit more on Hughes, the picture accompanying my blog today is from an article out of the New York Times, written by Molly Ringwald, recounting her days as the iconic director's muse, very appropriately titled The Neverland Club. A good read.

Also, speaking of the Brat Pack, Cinematical uncovered a story that loosely deals with Emilio Estevez. One of the true cult classics of the 80's that starred the Breakfast Club alum, Repo Man may be getting a sequel. Actually, the director of the film, Alex Cox, claims it will be a "freestanding film", called Repo Chick, that shares the same mind as the original. Interesting, but is this really a good idea? At the very least, it gets Repo Man into the public spectrum again.

Variety reports that Universal Studios has partnered with 20th Century Fox for their annual Halloween Horror Nights event at the Hollywood theme park, meaning that they now have the rights to stage a short tribute version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. To me, there is no better way to spend Halloween than seeing The Rocky Horror Show live; however, when Universal does this festival, I hear they go all out, so I am a bit envious of those who will get to see their live version. Let's hope it will be among the adult only attractions during the festival, as the raunchiness is what the live show is all about.

Variety also has a story announcing that David Mamet will take on the directorial job of a new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank from Walt Disney Pictures. I'm not huge on Mamet like the rest of the blogsphere out there, so we'll wait to see what comes of this. With Disney behind it, I'm sadly picturing the Robot Chicken spoof of Hilary Duff in a modern day teen dramedy re-telling of this, actually happening.

Finally, I will end with more pirated footage of Kick-Ass from the San Diego Comic Con. IWatchStuff has four videos up, but the following excerpt, featuring Nicolas Cage shooting a little girl in the chest, may be the most entertained I've been in ages.

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

A while back, I read an article, that I can no longer find to link to, that stated that Paul Reubens' infamous man-child comic character Pee-Wee Herman would be returning to the big screen once again. I have always felt Reubens got a really raw deal when it came to his public image after the porn theater scandal. I mean, sure, he was the star of a children's show, but did the mothers' that kicked against his career ever care to look up the source material of his act, The Pee-Wee Herman Show, or the much viewed HBO special of it that was released to home video during his heyday. The generally subtle raunchy nuances was if anything, just a cliche in the very popular CBS morning show Pee-Wee's Playhouse. But since those days, we haven't seen much of the television personality with the red bow tie. Reubens, of course, went on to star in a few things like Mystery Men, Blow and a pretty funny guest spot on Reno 911! just off my memory, but the days of being the star of a feature film like Pee-Wee's Big Adventure passed long ago. So, with this thought of injustice over the misunderstood comic, I was devastated to read today, via Variety, that The Pee-Wee Herman Show was going to return for a special engagement in Hollywood, leaving many to speculate that plans for a new feature is a dead project. The article doesn't confirm it, but with no mention of a future for Reubens' creation, we cinephiles cannot expect much.

Just when it seemed that Michael Jackson would finally be out of, at the very least, the movie blogsphere, it was announced that a documentary of his final tour preparation would be released on October 30th, entitled This is It. The close to Halloween release date is fitting, as the article at Reuters states that some of the test footage was shot in 3-D, therefore we can only hope that this means a performance of "Thriller" in full, glorious use of the marketing gimmick. A Cinematical article also points out that the director of the documentary will be 80's choreographer Kenny Ortega, known from such great decade fare as Dirty Dancing and the late John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Speaking of which, with all the talk about one 80's icon being memorialized on screen with the King of Pop, when is all the blogs going to pick up and start talking about Don't You Forget About Me, a film chronicling a road trip to find the director before his death, by unknown filmmaker Matt Austin-Sadowski. I first read about the film in Geek Monthly, and just Google searched it for to find the directors' name for a reference point, and found an article on The Guardian stating that it had found a distribution deal. If some stranger happens up on this blog, and you do nothing else I implore you to do, look up this film, read a bit about, and if it pops up online, comes out to theaters, to DVD, jump aboard. It sounds very intriguing, and outside of a few blogs from Internet nobodies, it does seem that even in death, Hughes has been vastly overlooked.

Vulture has an interview with Bill Hader up, in which one of the topics discussed is the upcoming Saturday Night Live-inspired film MacGruber, including an apparent hard-R rating. For some reason, I've been gaining a bit of faith with the new cast of SNL after harboring some negative feelings by thinking they should do the impossible and live up to the likes of Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, etc. Yet, I've still never really gotten aboard the enthusiasm train for the MacGruber skit, but Hader and Will Forte are both decent enough comedians and a hard-R rating at their capable hands probably gives me enough reason to get in the seats for this.

Cinematical's Kevin Kelly has a story up on how J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof has bought the rights to Stephen King's epic series of novels The Dark Tower. The article declares that the pre-production wouldn't even begin until after the 2010 conclusion of Lost, so we're still some time away; however, Kelly does sell me on reading The Dark Tower.

Finally, a star-studded (Zach Galifianakis, Henry Rollins, Ben Stiller, Olivia Wilde, Billy Crudup, Julianne Moore, Alexis Bledel, Sargent Slaughter of WWF fame, Chuck Liddell and many more) video from FunnyOrDie has been released, in a bit of a mock-up of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Enjoy.

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde