Wednesday, Septermber 9th, 2009

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.

'Princess and the Frog' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

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.

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

There is just some characters that can never be re-casted. One of those is B.A. Baracus of the 80's television series The A-Team, as performed by the one and only Mr. T. I'm not saying the bizarre popular culture icon deserves to be in the same category as Charlie Chaplin and his timeless little tramp bit or Robert De Niro's turn as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, but his eccentricities did make him a national treasure during that beloved decade. So, who is to step into the role in the upcoming big screen adaptation of the series? The Vancouver Sun reports that former UFC fighter Quintin "Rampage" Jackson will be taking the part, despite not having much of an acting career to speak of, excluding a few bit parts and cameos to promote his badassedness in the ring. Not only is the fact that the UFC ring probably isn't the best bet for a casting pool, but the little bit I know of Jackson is that he was arrested in a truck clad with a huge douchebaggish picture of his painted face on the side after driving on sidewalks, nearly killing several people, causing a victim to have a stillbirth and blamed it all on a binge of energy drinks after becoming depressed due to a loss against fellow fighter Forrest Griffin. It's not that I've ever expected the creators of this film to even attempt to make it good, probably setting the goal of "Starsky and Hutch quality". Still, after casting Bradley Cooper and Liam Neeson, there was a brief moment where it looked promising, but I always knew the nail in the coffin would be the B.A. casting.

Cinematical alerted me to a very sad story today. A few days ago two film critics, partners in life, love and career, were killed in Manila. Alexis Tioseco and Nika Bohinc focused on reviewing little known Southeast Asian films to English audiences that would not normally have heard of them. I never had read a piece by either of the writers, or heard much of any of the flicks they championed in their careers, but after reading the article linked from the jump up there, that Tioseco wrote for Rogue magazine, I had to repost it. It is a heartbreaking letter from Tioseco to convince his Nika to move from her native Slovenia with him in Manila, encompassing the publicized note with love for cinema, love for the Philippines and most importantly love for Bohinc. The article ends, and the next one I read regarding the couple, via The Hollywood Reporter, makes it clear that Nika took him up on the offer, as the two were shot dead for the theft of a laptop computer in Tioseco's adored home of Manila. Tragic.

An article on BleedingCool claims that Pixar Animation is already looking at the script treatment that Edgar Wright has given the Marvel property Ant Man with possible intentions for a film. The story claims to be from Entertainment Weekly although I could not find the source writing to back it up. However, we have been expecting Pixar to make a move, as it is obviously the only way a Disney/Marvel film can happen without the negative stigma that came after the announcement of Disney's acquisition of the comic giant last week. I am sure we will have more of this later on whenever it is debunked or confirmed.

The Final Destination continued to top the box office this past week. Does this make anyone else lose hope in humanity? I suppose 9 will at least dominate next week.

Collider has an article up stating that Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, made famous by Children of Men and Iron Man among other things, have been brought on board for the live action Leonardo DiCaprio-produced Akira remake. I can see reason to get excited about this eventually.

I'm a huge corn maze fan, but I think I just lost hope in the wonderful autumn event after Geekologie posted pictures of this Team Jacob/Team Edward mazes in Utah. Terrible.

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

On a few occasions on a newsless Saturday, I've turned to pictures of John Waters' MySpace Fan Page, or some of his art, but today he actually made a bit of news, via Movieline and Monika Bartyzel's related column on Cinematical (with reference to Cecil B. DeMented). The articles report that in a recent interview with Modern Painters magazine, Waters claims that he only has two films left. One of the two films will be a children's holiday flick called Fruitcake that has been in development hell for some time. I agree with the Movieline article that if he co-writes Hairspray 2, it doesn't count as his other 50 percent. I personally would love for Waters to pump out one more golden piece of trash cinema, but if he doesn't, I think he has already done enough for the movie industry. It would be a sad day when the official retirement comes, but as of now I am taking it as good news as a possibility of seeing the king of filth in action one last time. Speaking of a new Waters movie, I just found the book, Trash Trio: Three Screenplays (Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living, Flamingos Forever) on Amazon for just a little over a dollar.

So, what else could I possibly have to say on Labor Day Weekend when most of the bloggers are barbequing, raving or whatever the hell people actually do on Labor Day other than watch the Dirty Jobs marathon tomorrow and possibly schedule out a time to eventually see Inglourious Basterds after a very late debut at the local Carmike (if you have another cinema in your town, please don't go to a Carmike) and in my unforunate case, attend a funeral? Well, a few random thoughts... A great countdown of the worst 80's film posters is up at 11Points. Enjoy it.

Adult Swim is currently showing Bleach: Memories of Nobody, the film from the popular anime series. The trailer that has been showing on the programming block over the past few weeks looks absolutely incredible, so it will more than likely be the way I spend the rest of my insomnia-ridden night.

Lastly, I spent most of the day in a mind-numbing seven hour, note-intensive lecture class on substance abuse, a topic that is most off-putting filled with countless stories of people senselessly ruining their lives. Fortunately though, I lucked up and got one of the better professors of my rather long student career thus far. The guy wrote his dissertation on horror films and works about as many movie references into the class as possible, even fitting in to a story about how bitchin' Re-Animator would be under the influence of a hallucinogen. Anyhow, I thought I would share the only decent story of my long fourteen hour day of the dreaded school/work combination by showing a clip of the H.P. Lovecraft adapted 80's horror flick's goriest scenes. The video is obviously NSFW and will probably be taken off of YouTube eventually after somebody with more dignity than I watches, although it does skip over the decapitated oral part. Enjoy.

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, September 3rd, 2009

I thought I would start out the blog today by posting this awesome cover of the upcoming Filter, which prominently features the art and music of Spike Jonze's brilliant-looking upcoming children's flick, Where the Wild Things Are. Among other interviews, I'm informed by WeLoveYouSo that the magazine will conversate with Jonze, Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, whom will be contributing some original music to the film as well as two of my favorite actresses Catherine Kenner and Catherine O'Hara, among others.

Away from that piece of eye candy however, the big news for me today was a small trailer posted on Cinematical for a movie I've not heard very much at all about, Defendor, set to make its premiere showing at the Toronto International Film Festival. The original and quirky superhero dramedy looks absolutely perfect to me. The film stars the intriguing combination of Woody Harrelson and Kat Dennings and is written and directed by Peter Stebbings. Personally, I've never heard of Stebbings and after looking over his IMDb page, I am not familiar with anything he's directed, although he has got some starring credentials in a few bit parts of good television series including 21 Jump Street, The X-Files, The Outer Limits and Stargate SG-1. Also, where the hell has Harrelson came from all of a sudden? The sometimes estranged actor I have always felt was a bit underrated, but after this Canadian gem and the upcoming horror/comedy Zombieland, not only is Harrelson bordering on having a respectable career again, but may actually become "hip", as the kids would say, amongst young cineastes, going on eighteen years after the last episode of Cheers. That is actually quite impressive. But all of my raving aside, see if you enjoy this trailer as much as I do.


I always have to follow good news with something that brings all of our cinematic hopes and dreams crashing to the ground. Variety announced today that 20th Century Fox has hired Randi Mayem Singer to write a third installment to the Big Momma's House series. Not that I would enjoy or look forward to the film if Martin Lawrence came back to the series, but who sees Ice Cube doing this and it being straight-to-DVD?

I've always been amazed at the cult success of The Boondock Saints, the off-beat, critically based action movie from director/writer Troy Duffy. Despite bad reviews, the flick continues to have a massive fanbase that goes outside of the normal action movie crowd, that's what I'm surprised that this trailer came up to surprise me. I've heard rumors of a sequel for some time now, but I had no clue it had ever actually gotten off the ground, so here is the new trailer for The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, with Duffy returning as well as the original main cast, sans Willem Dafoe. Sure, Dafoe is a huge loss, but the trailer looks decent enough. Yet, I still don't think I'm going out on a limb by saying that this will not equal up to its predecessor's status at all. (Note: The damn IGN player isn't cooperating, so here is the link, via IWatchStuff. Still, enjoy.)

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009: The 50th Post

Wow, fifty posts. I would be proud if anybody read this, but now it stands as one of the many monuments of my lowly stature in society, an insomnia-ridden cinephile blogger. I still quite enjoy the blog, so let's just dive right in. Mike Judge's latest film Extract premieres on Friday, and in honor of the occasion, Judge has released a new clip from the upcoming flick to the Interwebs, with an introduction courtesy of the characters that made Judge a household name for slacker, perverted children that enjoyed Metallica and AC/DC, Beavis and Butt-head. The clip makes the movie actually look funny, but watch it mainly to have an excuse to pull out your Beavis and Butt-head DVDs.

'Extract' Film Forum with Beavis and Butthead @ Yahoo! Video

So, who's ready for today's dose of 3-D overkill? First, AICN reports that Iron Man 2 could possibly be 3-D next summer. Harry Knowles tells us that there is currently a one minute snippet of film that Marvel and Fox are looking over to decide if they want to turn the entire thing into 3-D. (Note: if you choose to click the link, Knowles uses the frightening analogy of Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger's 9 1/2 Weeks sex scene to describe this entire ordeal). The article also ends with the factoid that the original Iron Man film could possibly be up for a 3-D transfer to be re-released before the sequel. Don't get me wrong, Iron Man in flight, Scarlett Johansson and the cockatoo that was casted to keep Rourke company all have wonderful possibilities when put into the 3-D medium, but if we keep this up, (I'm talking to you Jon Favreau) there will eventually be weird films in the third dimension, like a new modernization of The Three Musketeers by somebody a few steps below Uwe Boll... like say Paul W.S. Anderson.

Damnit... via The Hollywood Reporter, that is exactly what will happen. I'm not saying it can't succeed, as The Three Musketeers is a tried and true formula, and if the adaptation is mindless, at least it could be swashbuckling fun. But does everything have to be in 3-D for Christ's sake? I just hope that Avatar is ground-breaking, and we don't look back years from now and take the academic stance that My Bloody Valentine was the big game changer in this new age of 3-D.

DreadCentral has some stills up from a new horror flick called Human Centipede: First Sequence, which looks terrible. However, the pics are to a level of disturbing that requires checking out.

Courtesy of TheSuperficial, Megan Fox is the cover girl for the latest edition of Wonderland magazine, and among other topics discussed, compared her two-time collaborator, Transformers director Michael Bay to Adolph Hitler. Not trying to shine a forgiving light on Hitler or anything, but I'm pretty sure the Fuhrer could have made a better film... just saying. Oh, and he wouldn't even consider making a Bad Boys 3, even he would have known that is just too much.

Cinematical linked to the best guessing game on the web, based on entertainment characters in movies, television, comics and videogames (at least that I've attempted so far). The site, Akinator, has guessed almost everything I've thought of correctly, except things I've pulled out of my hat so far into my childhood subconscious that I couldn't remember enough about it to properly answer the questions.

Finally, a pretty awesome featurette from The Fantastic Mr. Fox, narrated by Jason Schwartzman. Unfortunately it won't embed, but here is the link, via Apple. Enjoy.

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

I find it difficult to blog today, because no matter what news I can dig up on the entertainment sites, it will ultimately pale in comparison to yesterday's earth-shattering announcement that The Walt Disney Company had purchased Marvel Comics. Still, the biggest news story of the day does come courtesy of the comic distributor, as 20th Century Fox announced, via Variety, that they will be starting production on a re-boot of the Fantastic Four franchise, with Akiva Goldsman being named as producer. The story apparently confirms that Disney is going to honor the deals that Marvel had made previous to yesterday's merger. Still, you almost have to wonder, as much as any of us like the comic book versions of the superhero team, if a great cinematic incarnation is even possible. Of course Tim Story's recent Fantastic Four films seems great in comparison to the Roger Corman-produced 1994 version, but it still didn't make the waves that such Marvel fare as Spider-Man, X-Men or Iron Man generated. It still gives us a reason to be excited, no matter how terrible it will be, and a reason to hope that it will turn around for the heroes. Oh, the reason for that particular picture accompanying the article today, coming from Marvel Zombies, I included because it went with the big story, but also because it brings up another question of Disney's acquisition, can the family friendly company really produce something as senselessly gory as Marvel Zombies? One of the many questions.

On to some more links of the huge Disney/Marvel story, my favorite Cinematical author, Elisabeth Rappe has attempted to calm some of our fears through her Geek Beat column, including some reassurance in the form of quotes from Joe Quesada's Twitter account comparing it to the relationship betwixt Disney and Pixar. Also, MSNBC has a story up giving us Stan Lee's first public thoughts on the deal, which he believes is great. The article also gives a decent link to Lee's other business with Disney, a motion comic he wrote entitled Time Jumper to be available on the iPod and debuted at this past San Diego Comic Con. So after a collective deep breath, maybe the scare is settling. Or maybe at 86 years of age, Lee was brainwashed by the enchanting anti-Semite conglomerate with promises of a trip to Space Mountain.

In further comic-to-film news, according to Variety a DC property I'm not very knowledgeable of, Deadman, will be brought to the screen courtesy of producer Guillermo del Toro and to be directed by Danish director Nikolaj Arcel, whom after looking over his IMDb isn't that known to me either. The character has always seemed fascinating to me, despite my lack of knowledge, added with the fact that anything del Toro touches turns to gold, will keep me looking out for this one.

Also, The Hollywood Reporter announces that Robert Downey, Jr. will star and Jon Favreau will direct a big screen adaptation of the graphic novel Cowboys and Aliens. Also, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, screenwriters on the other little Downey/Favreau collaboration Iron Man, wrote the initial screenplay, which was later given a script-tune up by producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman of Star Trek fame. Haven't heard of the comic? Well, no problem because Cinematical gave us the great link to DrunkDuck.com, a site for reading webcomics where you can read the entire thing online for free. I know what I'm doing for the rest of the night.

Finally, ComingSoon has the first look at Raja Gosnell's CGI The Smurfs with the teaser poster debut. Kind of bland, but enjoy.