Monday, January 11th, 2010

The past year, this blog has been littered with casting rumors for Spider-Man 4. I woke up this morning to an AICN post where John Malkovich had supposedly confirmed that he would be playing the role of the villainous Vulture in the upcoming installment of Sam Raimi's Marvel franchise, a story I was sure would head the blog. That is until Sony's official Twitter feed announced that when the web slinger returns to the silver screen in 2012, he would be going back to high school, signaling a reboot. Then, later, Harry Knowles posted the official Sony press release announcing that Spider-Man 4 is officially dead and that Raimi, Tobey Maguire and all the old players are out. I can see canning the fourth installment of the series, but making a reboot of a fairly new, pretty well received series? I know that Spider-Man 3 has its enemies, but are we to say that this was so cataclysmically bad, like Batman and Robin bad, that it deserves to reboot the entire franchise, throwing the brilliant Raimi and the fitting Maguire to the wayside? Ridiculous.

Some better comic book news coming from the DC side of things as The Hollywood Reporter announced that Blake Lively has been cast as Carol Ferris/Star Sapphire in The Green Lantern film. I've not heard, but I doubt that Lively will take on the transformation into the Star Sapphire role that Ferris eventually plays in the comics. Still, I've not really watched Lively in anything other than her Saturday Night Live appearance, so this could be as terrible of an announcement as the above Spider-Man disaster.

The Writers Guild of America announced the nominees for their two major awards. There was really no surprise, especially with Inglourious Basterds and Up being disqualified for the writers not being part of the WGA, that (500) Days of Summer, A Serious Man and the much lauded The Hurt Locker would gain a nod for original screenplays, but two shocking picks popped up. First, James Cameron's screenplay for Avatar, which has its fair share of detractors. Even more shocking however, is the raunchy Todd Phillips comedy, The Hangover, to the delight of myself, but the chagrin of Erik Childress of Cinematical, whom broke the story for me. The category of adapted screenplay wasn't nearly as exciting, except keeping the fanboys happy with a nod for Star Trek, with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci's script competing against Up in the Air, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, Julie and Julia and Crazy Heart.

For a small note, I am going to try my damndest to expand my convention-going this year to visit Dragon*Con in Atlanta if my school schedule allows, but AdventureCon in Tennessee is an almost confirmed event, so I am happy to say that the tiny convention announced today that Billy Dee Williams, Lando fucking Calrissian, the black Harvey Dent and some memorable spots on Robot Chicken, will be a guest for the event.

On a final note, I saw this gallery of Star Wars burlesque featured in L.A. Weekly all over the Interwebs from a place called the Bordello Bar. Enjoy, some decently bizarre pictures.

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

After an unwelcome dose of Brett Ratner, and then the cinematic abortion that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the Marvel Comics' franchise would gladly welcome any director with somewhat capable hands, seeing that the only way it could spiral further downwards would be if they let Uwe Boll take the reins. Cinematical reports that the director of X-Men and X2: X-Men United, Bryan Singer, will return to helm X-Men: First Class. I would still like to see Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's version of Wolverine make it to the big screen, but with the damage that Gavin Hood did with Origins, moving to an adaptation of First Class seems like the best possible scenario.

Keeping on topic with Marvel, we get some more Spider-Man 4 news flooding in, courtesy of IESB. This time, it isn't involving rumors on whom director Sam Raimi will be casting in the top villain role, but that there is rumors swirling that Sony Pictures has put production on the project on an indefinite delay due to disagreements between Raimi and the studio heads. Although, the article also reveals that the working title for the film is SPIDER-M4N. So yeah, maybe it's a good thing it has been temporarily cancelled. Although, if this story is on par with 80% of the casting tidbits that has come our way, it will be entering pre-production in a week.

And finally, to keep in a complete Marvel theme today, Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2 had its trailer debut today. In it, we get the first really good look at Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, and the War Machine suit in action. Enjoy.

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.

Monday, November 9th, 2009

I've been following the rampant rumor mill that is speculating on whom will be Peter Parker's next villainous foe in Sam Raimi's looming Spider-Man 4. First, after it was announced that Bruce Campbell would return to the film franchise with a bigger role, fans instantly expected/wanted him to portray Mysterio. Next, Dylan Baker announced that the role of Dr. Curt Connors would return, giving many fans reason to believe that he would finally get to take on the transformation into The Lizard. However, Mania has thrown another villain into the pot today, saying that Rachel McAdams is up for the role of the Black Cat. The article also goes on to say that Raimi and company are currently looking to cast another male villain, possibly debunking the aforementioned two rumored, or at least adding a bit of confusion as the general consensus has been that a scaling down on the amount of villains occupying screen time would be cut back after the clusterfuckedness of Spider-Man 3's ending. Also, it was rather hard to get an image for the Black Cat, as Google Image returned back more pornography tributes for Felicia Hardy's alter ego than any other comic femme on the net. So, yeah, if you're into that, knock yourselves out. Anyhow, the picture I eventually found is courtesy of Kevin Smith's product site, Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, as an avatar used for a signed copy of Spider-Man/Black Cat.

Three films debuted in the top five at the box office this week, with Robert Zemeckis' 3-D holiday film A Christmas Carol taking the top spot, and The Men Who Stare at Goats and The Fourth Kind garnering third and fourth respectively. This week also serves as the first time that Oren Peli's smash sleeper Paranormal Activity dropped in sales, landing at the five spot.

Fellow Blogger account Entertainment Web posted a massive gallery of a LEGO diorama of the ice planet Hoth as seen in The Empire Strikes Back.

Finally, with the ridiculous hysteria of The Twilight Saga: New Moon surely to take over the blogsphere in the coming weeks, it was refreshing to see a decent parody (replacing vampires with Frankenstein's monster[s]) of Twilight on Saturday Night Live the other night, that has been posted all across the Interwebs, our link coming the way of I Watch Stuff. Also, a decent job by Taylor Swift spoofing Kristen Stewart's constant lip biting.

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

When Sam Raimi announced a few weeks back that Bruce Campbell may play a bigger part in Spider-Man 4 than what he has previously done during the film franchise, the rumor mill began to circulate on what villain Campbell could play, most Internet bloggers settling on Mysterio as the most popular possibility. As much as I think this would be a great idea, and would be a step in the right direction to save Raimi's big screen saga of Marvel's web blaster after Spider-Man 3 was met with lukewarm reviews, I have to admit that I was a little disappointed that this news probably meant Dylan Baker and his character of Dr. Curt Connors, was going to be denied the transformation into The Lizard and a major part. Maybe I'm more biased when it comes to Baker than I am the character of The Lizard. Sure, Campbell is awesome, but ever since watching Todd Solondz' dark comedy Happiness, I have felt that Baker is one of the more underrated actors in the cinema industry. But according to an article at Ugo, I may be wrong as Baker confirmed that he will be returning to play Connors once again, although he wouldn't say if he would be receiving a larger part this time around. Of course, I would like to see both characters, but with the biggest complaint of the third installment being villain overload, one would have to expect that changes will be made, and only one main villain, a la Dr. Octopus and the most critically-acclaimed entry, Spider-Man 2.

Yesterday I gave a link, via SlashControl, to watch The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas for free. Despite being on the SlashControl web site, the video was hosted by Hulu, the best, and possibly only legal way to watch good quality, free films online. Well, that is until next year, as Entertainment Weekly broke the news today that Hulu will eventually start charging for services. Honestly, like Hulu doesn't make enough money off of advertising sales.

If you never go, 80sTees.com is one of the better sites on the Interwebs to purchase clothing. Anyhow, I found a link to this awesome "Three Teen Wolf Moon" shirt. Great.

On Cinematical's Shelf Life column today, author Todd Gilchrist took a look at Robert Zemeckis' 1997 science fiction film Contact. I'm kind of shocked to say, not only have I never see the movie, but until tonight after reading Gilchrist's appraisal of how the film holds up nearly thirteen years down the line and searching some reviews on RottenTomatoes and Roger Ebert's web site, I didn't really even know much about it. Despite enjoying Zemeckis and Jodie Foster, the face value of a science fiction flick co-starring Matthew McConaughey is just off-putting enough to not be interested in. Still, I just watched this opening sequence, and now I think I'll put this as top priority to rent. Anybody ever see it? Worth watching? Overrated? Underrated?

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

During the Halloween season, there is always a plethora of places I want to go, including and not limited to, Halloween film festivals, corn maizes and supposedly haunted places to do a ghost investigation. One thing that I never really think of, especially seeing that I'm in the part of the world that cinema usually overlooks, is filming locations to classic horror fare. Turns out that in Morristown, Tennessee, roughly an hour and half away, was the site of Sam Raimi's classic 1981 The Evil Dead. Sadly, the site has a no trespassing sign up, but you can visit this web page to see pictures of the remnants of the burnt cabin if you would rather set online and look over risking jail time. They're also selling vials of earth and burnt cabin remnants. Anyways, this may warrant a stop on the next trip through the area.

Cinematical has a great countdown today of the seven best horror themes. A fitting countdown for the month that includes The Exorcist, Halloween and Psycho, among others.

Collider recently interviewed Jackie Earle Haley to debunk rumors that the actor will return to the DC Universe, this time to play Sinestro in the feature film adaptation of The Green Lantern. The good thing though, Haley didn't say he was uninterested, just was without invitation. So, we know Haley is a great actor, but with Haley being known to comic fans as Rorschach, would this be seen negatively? I mean, sure the man playing Hal Jordan, Ryan Reynolds, is also known as Deadpool, but that was in the horrific and very forgettable X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Still, I think Haley may be the best name I've heard thrown around for the role, so hopefully if casting hasn't already gotten underway, the folks over at Warner Brothers/DC will take a look at the positive buzz and consider this.

Speaking of superhero casting, until a sequel to The Dark Knight is either in theaters or completely confirmed to be dead, rumors will run rampant on who will be casted as the new villains. Well, this has been on my mind today as I had an off day from work and school and spent the entire day not moving from playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. Sure, I may have jumped aboard a bit late on this, but I can't get over how brilliant the character of Harley Quinn is. There is a overabundance of message boards you can go to in order to find who the public wants to play the villainess if she were to ever hit the big screen, such as this one from Newsarama, showing how truly terrible casting directors the general public would be. Anyhow, who do you think would make a good Harley? Of course, there is the veterans to the role, Arleen Sorkin, who voices The Joker's stalker-esque female companion in the aforementioned game as well as Harley's most widely known incarnation in Batman: The Animated Series. I also didn't think Marielle Guerber was a slouch in her version of the role in the dark French short Ashes to Ashes. The perfect voice, and possibly the perfect look if it had been shot right after the Wachowskis' Bound would have been Jennifer Tilly. Still, I can't really think outside the box on this one as reading down any list, they all seem absurd. Conversely though, I originally thought the same when I heard Heath Ledger's name mentioned, and that is now the reason that the future of Christopher Nolan's incredible reboot of the franchise is now in question... because he could never be duplicated. Anyhow, I'm going to get back to the game.

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Have you ever been really excited by the upcoming release of a film, yet think you will hate it? That is kind of how I feel about next year's remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. I was the same way with Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween, as I was sure it wouldn't be anything like the original John Carpenter version that I loved so much, yet I couldn't wait to see it. This newest picture that I found on MySpace Trailer Park, giving us the first, albeit unrecognizable, shot of Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger, furthers my excitement, yet doesn't show enough to distill the dread of probable disapointment.

The teaser trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland went online today, but before I could get home from work, was pulled until tomorrow. Still, if you can't wait, I'm sure there is still somewhere that has yet to pull it out there.

Yahoo! Movies has another look at Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2. We've still yet to see a quality picture of Johansson in full Black Canary get up. I'm sure that will be saved for the trailer.

AICN dropped the bomb today that Sam Raimi is on board as the director of a film adaptation of World of Warcraft, which will begin to shoot after Spider-Man 4. I have still yet to delve into the fandom of WoW, so I can't be too excited, but can you imagine the following this movie will obtain?

All movie blogs of the Interwebs will be buzzing this week due to the San Diego Comic Con getting under way. Although I am excited to receive all the nerdy spectacular news that will flow forth, envy for the cats in attendance is really the weightiest emotion I'll have this weekend.

SciFiSquad has a story saying that the F.W. Murnau Foundation of Germany has gotten their hands on some footage of Fritz Lang's epic 1927 science fiction masterpiece Metropolis, which up until now has been presumed to be lost. The footage, found in the archives of an Argentinean musuem, will be cleaned up by the Foundation, and will be released sometime in the future. The linked article tends to think the release will be in 2010 at the earliest, but it will definitely be an event, as it will be the most complete version shown, since probably the late 20's.