Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Yesterday, whilst blogging about the first shot of Sigourney Weaver in James Cameron's upcoming science fiction opus, Avatar, I spoke briefly on how we were yet to get to a complete media onslaught. Perhaps, I was wrong, as two major stories come from the film today. First is the unprecedented news that fifty IMAX theaters have already began pre-sales to the midnight showing of the flick that is rumored to revolutionize the medium of 3-D, on December 18th, a full four months and some odd days away. Even more shocking that 20th Century Fox has already started pre-sales is the fact that, via an article at Variety, MovieTickets and Fandango have already reported "healthy" sales for Avatar. This means another day I have to request off of work tomorrow.

Secondly, and quite possibly the stupidest story I've reported in some time, Fathom Studios, according to Movieline, is threatening to sue Cameron and Fox over the similarities between one of the biggest flops in cinematic history, the animated Delgo, and Cameron's upcoming Avatar. This whole story began last week after the debut of Avatar's trailer, when some of the more underwhelmed fans didn't buy into all the hype that had been generating over Cameron's supposed masterpiece, found a few stills that looked similar to the horrendous Delgo, posted a side-by-side comparison, and let the ridicule flow. I find it hard to believe that anybody at Fathom Studios, who more than likely lost personal money on this, could believe that one of the modern masters of the science fiction genre would steal an idea from an animated flick aimed mainly at children, that holds the record for worst box office intake for a film opening in 2,000 or more theaters. In fact, with the little independent CGI picture having a budget of roughly $40 million, and a gross of just under $695,000, the film took home an approximate loss of $39,305,000. As for what the critics thought, Delgo currently holds a 14% on Rotten Tomatoes. To make the entire fiasco even more confusing, Fox currently holds the home video distribution rights to the 2008 disaster. Although, on a side note, the last Cameron film to face a frivolous lawsuit was The Terminator, after Harlan Ellison sued Cameron for a writing credit after the director claimed to have been influenced by two episodes of The Outer Limits that Ellison had wrote. Ellison now holds an "acknowledgment to the works of" credit on the home video/DVD versions of Terminator, let's just hope that while sitting in the IMAX in four months, we don't have to read a credit to Marc F. Adler. Who? Exactly.

In other news, USA Today reported that Steven Spielberg is going to team up again with the late Michael Crichton, in an adaptation of his upcoming posthumous release of Pirate Latitudes. Of course, the team is best known for collaborating on the visually stunning 1993 movie Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World. The article also states that DreamWorks has tapped the talent of David Koepp, the screenwriter that adapted the aforementioned Crichton novels into Spielberg films will be returning. With a lot of Spielberg news going here and there lately, including a remake of Harvey and the big screen version of XBox's Halo, we are yet to learn if he will direct or just produce the film. Either way, possibly something to look forward to.

I've mentioned Werner Herzog in the last few blogs after seeing that he has an upcoming film with My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. One thing I have yet to mention though, is one of the more entertaining aspects of the director's personal life, was his estranged friendship with the ever-so bizarre actor Klaus Kinski, most notably highlighted in the unique documentary My Best Friend. Therefore, it is perfect timing that Cinematical has a good compilation of behind-the-scenes blow-ups from Kinski, including his work in two Herzog greats, Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo.

Finally, Geekologie led me to an interesting site called ThreeFrames. Simple, entertaining concept. A preview...

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe)

On Wednesday, I featured the new trailer for the film My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done on the blog. Upon watching it though, I was slightly disappointed. Was it bad? Did it look like a terrible movie? Not at all, but coming from director Werner Herzog and producer David Lynch, I feel a little let down if I'm not completely mindfucked in a groundbreaking event of cinema. Also, regardless of how good the film turns out, it has given all of us movie bloggers a reason to talk about the two ingenious, truly original directors, in particularly Herzog's antics as director since he is helming the upcoming feature.

I'll start by saying, if the chance ever presents itself to watch a Werner Herzog interview, you'll be doing yourself a favor by doing so. Not only is most of his classic films engaging, the stories behind the camera is usually as fascinatingly entertaining as anything the visionary puts on screen. One great story he often tells when interviewed is about his somewhat bizarre 1970 film Even Dwarfs Started Small. In the film, to make the dwarfs feel more comfortable with his stunts and not feel exploited, Herzog jumped into a cactus for the sole entertainment of his mostly unknown cast of smaller actors. Yet, maybe his best behind-the-scenes story comes courtesy of two films in which he didn't take the director's chair.

The story begins in 1978 with documentarian Errol Morris and his very critically acclaimed movie, Gates of Heaven. The low budget documentary from newcomer Morris chronicled the daily lives of those involved in the pet cemetery business. The seemingly unmarketable film was eventual released and was even at one time on Roger Ebert's top ten films of all time in any genre. Morris' vision will be remembered for many things, but quite possibly more than all, it will be remembered for a wager that Herzog made with him, claiming he would eat his shoe if Gates of Heaven could be completed and secure a release in a public theater.

Being a man of his word, Herzog would fly in from Germany to the premiere of Morris' film at the UC Theater in Berkeley, California, and would prepare and cook the shoes he was wearing when he originally laid down the challenge. Herzog chose to eat the shoe in front of an audience in order to bring some much needed publicity to Morris' film, and would also invite another documentary filmmaker, Les Blank, along to keep the lenses on Herzog's entire adventure, ultimately making a short film that would be as fondly remembered as anything in any of the three men's careers, the twenty minute featured short tonight, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.

The short highlights Herzog's entertaining personality, as well as being the first time Blank and Herzog would work together. Blank would go on to direct his most successful and popular feature-length film, Burden of Dreams, documenting the difficulties in the making of Herzog's highly praised Fitzcarraldo. I've never heard exactly why Blank was chosen as the director of this particular short, but I would personally expect it to be because at the same time he was working on a documentary Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers, focusing on cooking with garlic, one of the major preparations by Herzog and famed chef Alice Waters used on the shoe in the film. Maybe that in itself will be another great story to hear the director tell in an interview I've yet to see.

So without further adieu, enjoy the wonderful 1980 short, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Well, I said in the last blog that I would be back on Sunday, yet somehow in the past few days I've actually found something to do to keep me out long enough so that sleep is more important than blogging. Luckily, there hasn't been much movie news. Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson's District 9 took the box office, and a few other trivial things that I'll get to later.

Firstly, we'll bring Jackson back into the picture, as MarketSaw, a fellow Blogger member, has a post circulating three rather huge rumors on the upcoming film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic tale The Hobbit, which got reported on several other major blog sites as well. To begin with, the most believable of the rumor mill, is that the films will be shot in 3-D. This really comes as no surprise seeing that Jackson was vocal during the San Diego Comic Con on converting The Lord of the Rings over to the format a few weeks ago. Another believable piece of the story is that Jackson and director Guillermo del Toro will be making the fantasy book's characters a little darker. This really comes as no surprise, especially an emphasis on Smaug, which I feel was rather dark in the first place. At the same time, I love the difference of tone from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings, so I hope that in connecting the films in the franchise, the unique tone of the book isn't lost. Lastly, the article mentions that there will be a third film, bridging the two works, and that Jackson will return as director for the bridge movie. This gets to a point that is debatable, no matter how capable Jackson's hands are. What do you think? Also, should we trust a Blogspot? Without looking further into the MarketSaw subsite, I could easily assume it is a fledging college student/grocery store bag boy/cinephile like myself that created a massive rumor to stir up site traffic.

A story that I missed over the past few days of absence was that Robert Downey, Jr. was being rumored to play the vampire Lestat in a new film based on Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series. Today, BSC has a few quotes from Rice herself on the topic of Downey becoming the third actor to take on the role of the lead vampire. The article still doesn't confirm or dismiss the original speculation.

Speaking of vampires, I found a rather odd item circulating the cinema blogsphere... a Twilight themed dildo. From the tiny bit of the description I could bring myself to read, I understand that it sparkles like Edward's skin, as well as having the "pale flesh tone reminiscent of a new moon's glow". Feeling left out of the apparently new "hip" thing of masturbating to Twilight, I looked up the more appropriate topic on Google search of a Star Wars sex toy. What I ended up finding was this terribly unsettling article from Landover Baptist Church's web site, about a boy having carnal relations with a seven foot replica of Jar Jar Binks.

ComingSoon has a story up that Lionsgate is developing a remake of the 1987 classic Dirty Dancing. Now, I bitch and moan a lot, but there's very few news items I report on here that would cause me to go out and protest, and I'll be damned if Lionsgate didn't pull one of those scenarios out of the hat when I just imagined someone other than Patrick Swayze saying "Nobody puts Baby in a corner".

Finally, the other day, a new trailer for the David Lynch produced, Werner Herzog directed flick My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done debuted. I have to admit, it looks watchable, but coming from the minds of Lynch and Herzog, as a team, I am quite disappointed that I'm not blown away watching this. Still, I think it is worth your time.


P.S. As an added bonus for my absence, here is the more than likely illegal way I spent an afternoon the other day, watching Martin Scorsese's 1976 masterpiece Taxi Driver on YouTube.