Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

It seems like the news front of Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson's upcoming The Hobbit film adaptation keeps getting slower and slower, and slightly worrisome with the news of MGM's possible bankruptcy in the horizon. Still, Empire has given us a tiny morsel to quench our thirst for the time being with an interview popping up with Gandalf himself, one of the great actors of our time, Sir Ian McKellen. Among the things McKellen indulges us is his expected timeline of what is to come, that filming is expected to go 383 days, that he has serious doubts about the rumors of Viggo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom making cameos and almost a confirmation that Andy Serkis will be back to play Gollum. He also talks about the similarities between del Toro and Jackson, and defines both of their styles as "artistic autism". The article continues along to inquire about the long rumored X-Men Origins: Magneto, in which McKellen says he has yet to read a script.

In other news, the drama between Michael Bay and Megan Fox continues ever on, as PopCrunch covers a story that has been circulating around more on the celebrity gossip circuit than the blogs of cinephiles like myself, as many reports are saying that Bay wants to kill off Fox's character in the third Transformers in the first few minutes, via a gory death scene to get back at the actress for comparing him to Hitler. Why is this bogus? Fox will be paid millions, so regardless how much killing her character off in a floundering movie franchise, in what would surely be the best scene of the flick, would hurt emotionally, Fox would probably reap more benefits than the director, known largely to everyone as a douchebag, could.

A bizarre article on Cinematical that jumps in on the argument of children's films of the past few years carrying too left-wing of a message was posted today. One of the films covered is WALL-E (I suppose for the environmentalist mentality?). The article's author, Jette Kernion, sums up pretty much all of my thoughts, albeit a little cleaner, of how ridiculous it is to insinuate that WALL-E is pumping out the wrong message. Is it just me, or is Republicans getting crazier than ever lately? Then again, free health care, and family friendly cartoon-endorsed anti-littering and anti-laziness is how the Third Reich began also.

Every three days, I make it a point to read Cracked's top Internet picks, I would suggest everyone else that would find themselves bored enough to read my ramblings on cinematic happenings to do the same. Anyhow, pertaining to my blog, a great countdown from AskMen on the top 10 legendary movie guns is up, including Cherry Darling's prosthetic in Planet Terror, Ash's Boomstick from Army of Darkness and the .44 magnums toted by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry.

Sunday, July 19th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Treevenge)

Jason Eisener is a name most people does not yet know, but I predict will eventually be in the ranks of Sam Raimi, Edgar Wright, Rob Zombie, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino when it comes to being able to direct quirky exploitative horror/comedy meshes, and a huge figure among the cult film scene. So far, the Canadian-born director has only put his name on three shorts, the most famous Hobo with a Shotgun, appearing as a faux trailer in Rodriguez and Tarantino's brilliant double feature, Grindhouse. His first short was Discrimination of the Dead, a mockumentary PSA-styled film warning of zombie discrimination.

His latest short however, may put him on the map. It aired as a precursor to the Tommy Wirkola Nazi horror film Dead Snow at the Sundance Film Festival and gained widespread acclaim when all 15+ minutes was released to the Internet, circulating around most movie blogs. The film is called Treevenge, a gory, comedy/splatter film where Christmas trees strike back against the cruelties they were suffered. It may also be noticed that Sarah Dunsworth (who served as a producer in Grindhouse) and Jonathan Torrens, both of Trailer Park Boys fame, appears in the film.

So it is my pleasure to present to you, Treevenge. Enjoy. You can also familiarize yourself with Eisener's work here and here.


P.S. A few briefs before we go. An awkward story on Cinematical where Joel Silver, at a press junket to promote the upcoming Orphan, talked about what his version of Watchmen would have been like. Funny if you read the story, looks like complete shit.

I forgot to say anything about (500) Days of Summer on Friday, as it seems Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has completely overshadowed all other releases this week. From what I can tell, the film looks incredible, has had nothing but great reviews, and stars the wonderfully charming Zooey Deschanel. If you have a chance, and don't want to visit Hogwarts for the seventh time this week, it definitely looks to be a great alternative. Myself, probably have to wait for the DVD release.

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

After Righteous Kill, is it still okay to get excited when Robert De Niro gets casted into something? Well, the film in which he starred opposite Al Pacino was a rare miss for the actor, but when the film is a violent exploitation throwback from the hands of Robert Rodriguez, stemming from Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's brilliant Grindhouse, it is more than okay to get excited. Bloody-Disgusting is reporting a rumor that the Taxi Driver star will take a role in the film Machete, alongside the already announced Danny Trejo, reprising the role from the faux trailer the film comes from, as well as rumoring the casting of Michelle Rodriguez (whom despite starring in Fast and Furious, she is set to be in James Cameron's Avatar, which if the film lives up to my expectations, will redeem the aforementioned atrocity, and make this a good thing.), and an as shocking addition as De Niro, Judd Apatow regular Jonah Hill. What a motley crew. Will it work? I have hope on this one.

Empire interviews Peter Jackson in the new issue and verifies that there will be no casting news for The Hobbit at the San Diego Comic Con. The article goes on to mention that Jackson may keep the possibility open to direct the adaptation of Temeraire, a 2006 fantasy novel by Naomi Novik as his next project following The Lovely Bones. So, the article gives us a bit of news, although not the piece we were wanting.

Check this out, via Geekologie, I found this replica of Batman's leather motorcycle get-up from The Dark Knight. Quite impressive.

MovieWeb posted the Italian dubbed trailer to Walt Disney's upcoming motion capture, Robert Zemeckis directed, A Christmas Carol. I, myself, can wait for the English trailer, but it is Saturday, and not really much to blog about, so have it.

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

Over the past few days while I've been away from the computer, the blogsphere has been buzzing about the three finalists for the role of Hal Jordan in the upcoming Green Lantern movie. None of the three seemed to give off the vibe that they would be safe from thousands of rants and petitions from fanboys of the Bill Finger/Martin Nodell created DC hero. First, is the guy that is too known for his comedy to allow fanboys to hope for a serious adaptation in Bradley Cooper. Secondly, we have the complete surprise in Justin Timberlake, whose previous mass popularity would almost make it impossible to watch the film without imagining that the real Justin Timberlake happened by a power ring, and causing all moviegoers to lose sight of the actual character of Jordan. And finally, the best of the three, and today announced as the winner of the race, Ryan Reynolds. Although Reynolds has still had his fair share of cinematic misfortunes (i.e. the currently playing The Proposal), and is already submersed in the comic-to-film world as the character Deadpool in the horrific X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the rumored solo film for the 90's Marvel hero, as well as Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity (Should we just hope that Marvel really hated Reynolds?) . So, are we happy over this? Well, keep in mind that the film is to be directed by Martin Campbell, who made James Bond watchable again in Casino Royale. So, at least there is hope, and maybe Reynolds could actually come out of this thing a nice surprise; however, I'm mostly seeing bitching fuel for cinephiles like myself in his future.

Other things in brief, as there is a lot to talk about. Bruno came out yesterday. Although, since I live in a small town, I don't get to see it yet, even though the aforementioned Proposal is in its third week. I'll talk more about Bruno next week if it becomes available. Also, it got a great review by Roger Ebert saying that John Waters should pass the torch of trash cinema to Sacha Baron Cohen. Maybe a bit of an overstatement, but one of the highest praises I have heard in the cinema world for some time. Also missing my small Kentucky town this weekend... I Love You, Beth Cooper and Blood: The Last Vampire.

In an interview to promote Inglorious Basterds with Cinematical, Eli Roth said that an extension of the faux trailer Thanksgiving from Grindhouse, a la Robert Rodriguez' Machete is in the works.

Variety reports that Raja Gosnell (the man behind Beverly Hills Chihuahua) will be behind a live-action version of The Smurfs. So it is official... God hates Hanna-Barbera.

So, on Thursday I went to Comedy Off Broadway in Lexington, Kentucky to see Hal Sparks do stand-up. I do quite enjoy Sparks, being an alum of Talk Soup, but despite the extreme lustful giddiness and quality reassurance of the friend that put the idea on the table, I was still shocked over how funny he actually was, so I was going to share a stand-up YouTube video as an apologetic offering for not blogging (isn't it weird that I pretend I have readers?), but none could be found that wasn't obviously shot with a camera phone, so instead, here is a more appropriate video for a movie blog, Hal Sparks' cameo in Spider-Man 2, over-dubbed with Japanese.

And finally, one more surprise! Cinematical, via Vimeo, has a great video from David Berry, a rotoscope and animation artist from Star Wars has released some home videos to us collective movie nerds on the Interwebs. Enjoy.