Nicolas Cage is a good actor... sometimes. In the underrated The Weather Man he was decent, not to mention Spike Jonze's Adaptation. and his memorable turn as a drunk in Leaving Las Vegas are both milestones. Yet, he has become almost an Internet meme is his choice of bad movies in the past few years, including the worst possible written adaptation of Marvel's Ghost Rider or the remake of The Wicker Man. So building upon the more recognized comical version of Cage, is a great fellow Blogger account, NicCageIsEveryone. Enjoy.
Many actors end up doing side projects in music. Some fail terribly, others end up doing it quite successfully. Case in point, I can't help but fancy Scarlett Johansson as a musical artist in her team-up with Pete Yorn. Praise aside, regardless of how natural Johansson sounds behind the mic, her crossover doesn't hold a candle to Christopher Lee. Yes, the 87-year-old accomplished actor that has portrayed Count Dracula, Count Dooku and Saruman. And it just isn't any light pop fare, the noted genre in the Topless Robot article is "symphonic metal", a rock opera-ish account of the life of the King of the Franks, Charlemagne. You must click the link and listen to the samples for your own benefit.
Is there a worse award show than the People's Choice Awards? The Twilight Saga: New Moon took home Best Movie by the way, just in case you weren't sold on the aforementioned statement just yet.
A happier post to reflect the normalized view of the yuletide season. So I will begin with one of the better rumors that I read this past week. Via Hollyscoop, bubbly country music superstar Taylor Swift has been reported to be in talks to star as the titular character in a new Supergirl film. For some reason, this works for me. First off, Taylor Swift already looks more like Kara Zor-El than Helen Slater did in full costume. Secondly, in almost every incarnation of DC's superheroine, the work is pure fluff. And in spite of all the "Yo Taylor, Imma let you finish..." Supergirl YouTube entries we would have to endure, Swift is undeniably likable. Nonetheless, we're still probably looking at a terrible movie here, just a reasonably casted lead in a terrible movie.
So, I also missed the week of Avatar. Well, the film, as predicted by everybody, took the weekend box office, and has raked in the incredible reviews that many had counted on. Still, I saw the film in 3-D and I didn't see it as a game changer. In fact, I left still hoping that the entire 3-D phase would fade back into an exploitation gimmick that we would see maybe once or twice a decade in a decent film. But, the good things about the movie outweigh the bad (including Leona Lewis' atrocious love theme), considering that James Cameron is a much better filmmaker than the typical post-William Castle user of the 3-D medium. First, the effects are stunning. Pandora and the creatures that inhabit the land are unusually breathtaking. Second, Sigourney Weaver. Third, Sam Worthington, whom I have generally considered a sub-par actor puts on a hell of a performance, considering he is competing with one of the more impressive backdrops in cinematic history. Giovanni Ribisi is also in there. Also, can you imagine the cosplay based on this thing come convention season? The movie was far from the best though, as the plot involves way too much Native American allegory in a world where we have already and unfortunately been acquainted with the Quileute tribe. Not to mention the uncomfortable scene where (*SPOILER ALERT*) the two blue cat people fuck in the holiest place in the movie. Still, I would highly recommend it, just with the warning that you will not take a full on nerdgasm as promised by Harry Knowles and the rest of the Internet blogging elite.
Another thing that crossed my radar this week was this seven part review on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I've not finished the entire thing yet, but thus far it is very entertaining.
Finally, the newest trailer for Kick-Ass is out, featuring the character Hit-Girl, making it my most anticipated film of the next year. Young Chloe Moretz saying cunt may be the highlight, but the entire trailer is, for lack of a better phrase, truly kick ass.
It seems that every time I notice The Hobbit in the news, it is always something disappointing. This time, in a German interview transcribed by TheOneRing with Peter Jackson, to promote his upcoming, critically appraised film The Lovely Bones, announced that filming would be pushed back to July-ish 2010. The producer of J.R.R. Tolkien's predecessor to the epic The Lord of the Rings did not elaborate on if it would affect the projected release dates of December 2011 and 2012, but we have to assume it will. This just adds to the turmoil that is MGM's financial troubles swirling just over the head of the films' pre-production. For something to perk you up after reading that, here is a link that I've been stuck on since reading the article on TheOneRing... New Zealand's Red Carpet Tours, taking us to the filming locations around the beautiful country. The 12 night tour is actually only $180 U.S. dollars, while the one night tour from Auckland to Hobbiton is $140. After blogging, I will probably spend the rest of the night, wishingly searching Orbitz for cheap flights.
I was going to make a joke about the economy to segue into this Variety article on how the box office this year will probably break the record for raking in some $10 billion, topping last year by 8%, but I find most of the economy talk rather insipid. Anyhow, those estimates come before the releases of Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel, which despite the horrendousness that will surely be contained within the hour and a half run time, will bring in the bucks from the kiddies out there, as well as potential blockbusters Sherlock Holmes and James Cameron's Avatar, not to mention a box office sleeper, the Oscar hopeful Invictus.
Invictus' Oscar dreams is another decent segue as the National Board of Review named their film of the year today, via Cinematical. The winner of the honor is Jason Reitman's latest, Up in the Air, starring George Clooney, whom also took home the NBR honor of Best Actor, tied with Morgan Freeman's Invictus performance. Taking home honors in the NBR's Ten Best Films were also good movie nerd fare such as (500) Days of Summer, Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man, Up, Star Trek and Where the Wild Things Are.
Pajiba reported today that a rumored remake of Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds is back up and running with a new director attached, Dennis Iliades, the man behind the remake of Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left. I think somewhere in there I saw Michael Bay's name as producer, which almost assures that this already bad idea of trying to recreate the genius of Hitchcock by "modernizing" it, will be a total disaster.
Check out the new site MovieClips.com. The site boasts some 12,000 movie clips, with some good categorizations (I appreciate that at least) and even a bit of trivia. Anyhow, I'm not really sure why I chose the "Snap Out of It!" scene of Moonstruck as a demonstration, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless.
The blogging has been nonexistent this week. Not for lack of news, as I have broke away from all my finals work to read around the cinematic blogsphere; however, I have not thought it wise to really blog for myself. I'm also rather tired today, as I've been waking up a bit early here and there to finish up papers, but I thought I would drop an extremely quick blog to allow any readers (ha!) that the blog still goes on. So, for now, here is a great video that puts my stress at ease, Nicolas Cage's terrible acting displayed via out of context clips from The Wicker Man... enjoy.
Occasionally, I'll feel the need to stop watching or reading about movies online long enough to bitch at the ol' telly during an episode of Glen Beck's Fox News program. I've often wondered exactly how the entire "death panel" thing he harps about all the time would work. The accompanying picture there, via Geekologie, says it all. On a side note, I'm sure most African Americans have to be disappointed after Barack Obama came out as a fan of The Amazing Spider-Man comics, and now wielding a light saber, he's way whiter than even Jimmy Carter.
I just read an article on Yahoo! News Canada, while covering the Toronto International Film Festival, that Nicolas Cage gave an interview and claimed to had dropped out of The GreenHornet's villainous role due to the character not having enough humanity in the script, even having the audacity to point out that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's treatment had a different take on Chudnofsky. Before I join the ranks of bloggers that are building a tower of bitch around Cage for taking basically any role given to him, be it something genius like Charlie and Donald Kaufman in Spike Jonze's Adaptation., or ill fated attempts at a Ghost Rider movie, a remake of The Wicker Man and so on and on, I do have to admit that I enjoy Cage a little and despite his inability to choose a good role, do not necessarily agree with the majority that casting the former Academy Award winner (for Leaving Las Vegas) to be the cinematic equivalent of drinking poison. Still, how much do you think Cage was kicking himself to find out that Christoph Waltz, fresh off of the huge success of Inglourious Basterds, is rumored to be filling his shoes.
Of course, Cage was at TIFF promoting Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Werner Herzog's remake of Abel Ferrara's 1992 cult classic. I have attempted not to blog much about this flick as I love Herzog and hate to talk about what is sure to be a huge failure (Cage is joined by Eva Mendes and Xzibit, need I say more). Anyhow, I ran across this older article from Vulture, indicating how much Ferrara hates Herzog for the film, and how little Herzog knows about his fellow director or the film that he is remaking. Interesting read, and despite how terrible the film looks, as always, Herzog is more of a story than the film itself.
Before we can even get over the passing of Patrick Swayze as a nation, Henry Gibson has now passed along. Among other things, Gibson starred in The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis, not Eddie Murphy), Nashville, The Kentucky Fried Movie, The Blues Brothers, Innerspace, Magnolia and Wedding Crashers. IWatchStuff has a decent little article about him, including a clip from Magnolia.
Variety reports that the University of Southern California will now be offering a stereoscopic 3-D course. I hate that 3-D is taking over, and want to believe that it is a fad, but most of all, I still just hope that My Bloody Valentine doesn't go down in history as the movie that changed everything.
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.
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.
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.
Varietyalso 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.
Yesterday, I blogged a bit about DC Comics' upcoming film adaptation news, and after reading through that story, I think a collective fear of fans of the superhero subgenre of films is that, especially after the massive success of last year's incredible The Dark Knight, that most of these films will just be attempts to copy and collect the reward, instead of bringing the beloved characters to life. Enter The Green Hornet, a comic film that will most certainly break the mode that has been set. The history of a Green Hornet film has always been interesting, as a 1990 re-edited group of episodes of the television series showed up as a feature film, via GoodTimes Home Video, to cash in on a resurgence of Bruce Lee fandom. Then, we saw the huge comic fanboy Kevin Smith jump aboard the wagon writing a script that was eventually abandoned. A real Hollywood movie eventually began to be realized though, when Seth Rogen, of all people, jumped on board to fill the spot of The Green Hornet role and write a script with screenplay partner Evan Goldberg, and attaching Stephen Chow as director, and star in the role of Kato. Recently, Chow dropped out of both roles, but the director slot was filled by Michel Gondry. A comic book film by Gondry? Starring Rogen? Written by the team behind Superbad? Definitely sounds like a good, original direction to be headed, even in light of the comic, that likes of which has transformed well into different genres and styles since its conception as a radio serial in 1936. The latest news however, is that Variety reports that Nicolas Cage is in negotiations to play the villain in the film. Now, some may recall the tragedy that was Cage in Ghost Rider, but we have saw what Cage can do while under a quirky director in Spike Jonze's Adaptation., which was a performance that actually doesn't deserve the "terrible actor" moniker that has befell him recently. There is also rumors about Cameron Diaz joining the cast as a love interest. Good or bad? As long as it is under Gondry and Rogen's tutelage, I can't really say anything bad about it, Diaz has actually been quite great in a few select films, such as one of my all time favorites Being John Malkovich, as well as Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York.
More pictures are up for The Fantastic Mr. Fox, via The Rushmore Academy. It looks brilliant.
Although it pops up on every other blog on the Internet, I have been trying to avoid covering anything related to The Twilight Saga: New Moon. However, in a recent interview with RottenTomatoes, Chris Weitz takes the conversation towards music and the possibility of Radiohead's Thom Yorke working on the soundtrack. Anything to pull in a normal person, eh Twihards? I think I'll just watch "Paranoid Android" on YouTube to get my fix, and Chris Weitz can go to hell!
One of the better days for DVD releases I can ever remember. The Watchmen director's cut is out today, including Amazon's exclusive Nite Owl ship and digital bundle that I may put in a few extra hours of work and/or prostitution to get enough money to buy. Also, my long wait for a theatrical release of Jared Drake's Visioneers, starring Zach Galifianakis, was never realized, but after a short festival run, it is finally available for purchase today. To add to my list of things I didn't get to see theatrically, despite getting a limited release, The Great Buck Howard came nowhere near a local theater, so today is the first official day I will get to see the quirky looking Sean McGinly film that features the talents of John Malkovich, Tom Hanks, Colin Hanks and Emily Blunt among others. And finally, Coraline, a great piece of animation from the hands of Henry Selick that is already on a short list of the year's greatest rounds out a list that will take most of my paycheck.
I will leave you today with a video from Cinematical, which combines my love for Japanese television that I don't fully understand with a bit of a shot of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The video doesn't tell us much about the upcoming film, yet the scene where Daniel Radcliffe peeping around the door framing in the first few seconds is worth watching. After all these years of women having creepy pedophilic magic filled dreams, Harry Potter finally nails the look of the rapist himself.
Nicolas Cage is a good actor... sometimes. In the underrated The Weather Man he was decent, not to mention Spike Jonze's Adaptation. and his memorable turn as a drunk in Leaving Las Vegas are both milestones. Yet, he has become almost an Internet meme is his choice of bad movies in the past few years, including the worst possible written adaptation of Marvel's Ghost Rider or the remake of The Wicker Man. So building upon the more recognized comical version of Cage, is a great fellow Blogger account, NicCageIsEveryone. Enjoy. 
