BLOGS
May 2008 Archives
Yesterday we told you how Heath Ledger action figures were becoming collector's items. Well, the upcoming Watchmen movie action figures from DC Direct should make it to collector's item status without any of the cast members dying. Not because the toys look so damn good, although they certainly do, but because comic book fans have been waiting for them since long before the movie was ever a reality, and Watchmen was just a little thing called one of the best goddamn graphic novels ever created. (People who post on message boards saying that they "weren't impressed" by Watchmen? Stop embarrassing yourselves. Your opinions are wrong.)
As reported in yesterday's Moviefile, Michael Bay will be bringing that old sleepover standard, the Ouija board, to the big screen as a feature film. What other board "games" could filmmakers call upon for movie inspiration? Here are just a few ideas to toss out into the universe:
For the record, I was totally cool with this whole Donnie Darko sequel thing. It's going to be called S. Darko and it's going to follow his younger sister, Samantha, who is also plagued by strange visions, possibly of the creepy-bunny-rabbit variety? Great. I love it. I didn't go see Southland Tales, but I'll go see this, even though (because?) (I don't think I'm seeing The Box, either.) Richard Kelly isn't involved. But now I'm seriously beginning to question my commitment to Sparkle Motion. The cast has gained two actresses, both of whom come from movies or TV shows that involve stepping up and/or dancing. If this movie doesn't involve Samantha's junior-high dance group blowing up and making it big, then I'm going to be sorely disappointed.
Top Cow Productions and Platinum Studios are really excited about their planned Witchblade movie, and they want you to get excited, too. How excited are they? They've created a teaser site, and a teaser image, and a teaser naked woman to promote it, and not a thing has been written, cast or filmed yet. Am I complaining about unnecessary naked women, who serve no discernible purpose? Not at all. But don't you at least want that naked woman to be the actual naked woman who's going to be naked in the film? Just for continuity's sake?
It seems that Disney is tired of not having a superhero to call their own. What's Darkwing Duck, chopped goose liver?
Looking to get in on the comic-book-adapting game, the Mouse has hired a comic writer, a businessman and a Zappa to form Kingdom Comics, at once a clever play on Disney's own Magic Kingdom and the Biblical end of the world. (Nice!) It seems the new division will scout out graphic novels to publish that can be adapted into feature films, as well as creating graphic novels from Disney properties, which they can then turn back into feature films, thereby starting the cycle anew.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian has made $151 million in not quite two weeks, and Disney is totally pissed. Disney CEO Robert Iger said on Wednesday that Prince Caspian wasn't performing as well as had been expected and blamed the fact that its release date -- May 16th -- was too competitive. Disney had originally set the film for release in December of 2007, but the film would have competed with Caspian producer Walden Media's other fantasy film The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, which was shooting for the same audience. And for all the bitching about the release date harshing Narnia's box office buzz, The Hollywood Reporter points out: "It's an interesting thesis, considering Disney purposely moved the film to that date and, in doing so, turned the seemingly natural Christmas franchise -- the first installment featured a cameo from Santa Claus -- into a springtime experience." And truly, it's not as if anyone expected Indiana Jones 4, which opened just six days after the Disney film, to do poorly.
My love for Rainn Wilson, and by extension his Office character Dwight Schrute, knows no bounds. Nor does my love for -- I won't lie -- The Transformers' Bumblebee (and, okay, pretty much everything about The Transformers). So it's been an exciting day in Kaseyland, as it was announced today that Wilson will have a role in DreamWorks' upcoming TTransformers 2. With the full cast of stars -- Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and John Turturro (and Bumblebee! And Optimus Prime!) -- returning, the addition of Rainn Wilson certainly does a happy Kasey make.
As a kid, Michael Bay must have loved scaring the crap out of his friends at sleepovers until someone's mom came into the room and yelled at everyone. (Turns out, he's more like me than I ever would have thought.) Bay's production company, Platinum Dunes, and writer David Berenbaum have been tapped by Universal to bring Ouija Board to the big screen. The production company -- which brought ups 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2005's The Amityville Horror and 2007's The Hitcher -- will be taking inspiration from the popular game to make a blockbuster comedy. Kidding! According to The Hollywood Reporter, "The film will be a supernatural adventure with the Ouija board playing an integral part of the story. The movie is not taking a Jumanji-like approach, which involved a game coming to life." Summer campers across the country are breathing a collective sigh of relief. 
Someone call Harold Faltermeyer and tell him to break out his Casio keyboard, 'cause Axel F. is coming back to town. Fresh on the heels of an insanely successful opening weekend for the fourth installment of Indiana Jones, Paramount announced today that Eddie Murphy would be back for a fourth Beverly Hills Cop. No word yet on what Axel Foley has been up to these last 14 years; whether he's still on the beat in Detroit or riding through the Tunnel of Love with Janice Perkins in Wonder World. (Everyone saw Beverly Hills Cop III, right? Right?) The film, which does not yet have a script, or even a writer, is slated to begin shooting in 2009 for a summer 2010 release. 
The Watchmen movie is quickly becoming one of the most buzzed-about films of 2009, what with the amazing in-costume photographs that have been released, as well as its potential to save the DVD industry, apparently. But it's little nuggets like this that really get fans excited, even though someone with less informed eyes might look on this and wonder what the hell they're spending their money on. Bill Murray's line from Ghostbusters 2 springs to mind: "Boys, boys -- you're scaring the straights!"
Almost every single person who lives in Los Angeles has at some point in his life rolled his eyes, shaken his head and sighed, "Actors ..." Today, a few of us are doing something quite different. It's more of a look of inspired surprise, with an intake of breath and an impressed "...Actors!" (head-nodding implied). With the possibility of another Hollywood strike looming over the city, AFTRA (that other actors' union) went and cut a deal with the AMPTP, leaving us all rather impressed and hopeful that SAG will do similarly and we can avoid an actors' strike altogether. You can't imagine the city-wide We Support You car honking that goes on with these strike -- not to mention, you know, the job and revenue loss. 
Filmmakers face many problems when trying to translate a TV series into a full-length feature film, and the folks who made Sex and the City stumbled on each of them.
First and most importantly, there's that whole issue of trying to make it bigger than an episode of the series, in length and in the weight of the story it's telling. Sex and the City definitely succeeds in length, ballooning it to nearly 2 1/2 hours, but for what reason, exactly? Nothing in the movie seems to carry any more weight or, really, advance the story of these four single gals beyond where they were when the series ended. And that's unfortunate, considering that main character Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) was acting like a nearly-40-year-old baby when the show last aired.
Now that Clint Eastwood has broken my heart by dismissing his return as Dirty Harry, I must turn my fetish for senior citizens with guns toward this week's DVD releases. The writer of 1976's Best Picture winner shows off his penchant for steroids and graphic violence in the Rambo DVD box set. The set includes First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Rambo III and just plain old Rambo. Harrison Ford may have taken 19 years to put his fedora back on, but Sly has him beat: It took Rambo 20 years to tie on his headband and rediscover his taste for a little of the old ultraviolence. I bet the box set has one of those old McDonalds sign counters: "Over One Billion Killed!"
The rumor mill is grinding in the Marvel Universe. Latino Review broke the story that the next two installments of the Spider-Man franchise are a go. They apparently are in the works sans original stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst and their director Sam Raimi. Unlike the grumblings over Terminator 4, the news that Maguire won't be returning is being met with little resistance from the Internet. "Indeed, fans may not want him back," says Comics2Film. [Nor do we want Kirsten Dunst back! - Zach] Instead, the buzz is on guessing who the next Peter Parker will be. Latino Review has narrowed it down to two choices: Patrick Fugit from Almost Famous and Michael Angarano from The Forbidden Kingdom.
Over the past few years, fast-food joints have gotten into major trouble marketing their fattening products to children, but when summer arrives, the movie and food tie-ins kick into overdrive and children beg their parents for the toys. I still have my stuffed Tazmanian Devil in Space Jam doll, courtesy of McDonalds circa 1996. While contemplating how disturbing a grown man buying a kids' meal just so he can get the toy is, I thought of a way the fast food places can avoid being harassed by child obesity groups: Market this summer's movie tie-ins to adults. Who gives a crap if the over-18 crowd eats itself to oblivion? They should know better. Taco Bell tried this once, with a Demolition Man tie-in, and while that failed miserably, I guarantee that these will sell.
McG speaks! The inaugural post in the Terminator: Salvation blog has been posted, along with an artist's conception of post-apocalyptic Los Angeles where the film is set. The artwork is far from intriguing, except to note it features the latest indignity perpetrated on the Capitol Records building. It always seems like, whenever the cinematic Apocalypse shows up, the Four Horsemen make a beeline for the Capitol Records building. Those Four Dudes may be upset with their record deals, but Terminator fans are far more upset that a fourth installment of the series is being mounted without its creator or stars. The Terminator without Ah-nold or tough as nails "Seer-uh Conn-uh" is not a Terminator movie, no matter who they cast in the lead.
Collectors and speculators everywhere are apparently snapping up Heath Ledger action figures left and right from Mattel's toy line for The Dark Knight. According to a (kinda) recent New York Post article, toys of Ledger as The Joker are hard to find, and go for double the price or more on eBay. Granted, this happens every time a new wave of Batman toys gets released, because there are always more Batmen than villains, but the frenzy over Mr. Ledger's likeness -- his only action figure so far - seems especially feverish. Which gives us a great idea for a successful toy line...
It used to irritate me to no end when I'd hear people saying that Hollywood celebrities should keep their political and world views to themselves. After all, they're regular people, too...under all the makeup, lighting, Botox, sex tapes, assistants and money. They have an opinion and the right to share it with whomever they choose. I would further lecture those who wish to silence the celebs, but Sharon Stone has basically ice-picked my position to death. Ms. Stone somehow managed to recast herself as some kind of Magic 8-Ball, dispensing absurd answers to a question only Mother Nature can explain. Maybe her massive brain fart resulted from an unusual case of too-tight panties cutting off the circulation to her brain? Perhaps that's a bad explanation; we've all seen Basic Instinct.
There's apparently a growing market these days for "dorky guy" movies. Movies like The Forty Year Old Virgin, Superbad, and last month's Forgetting Sarah Marshall take characters who might normally be laughed out of online dating services and turn them into big-screen heroes and romantic leading men. Guys who were once relegated to the roles of sidekicks, best buds, and jokes are taking the forefront of stories as the stars. One of the latest entries in this reborn genre is A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, about a thirty-year-old man who throws a sex party when he's forced to move out of his parents' vacation house. (Another article even describes the character as an "Apatowian manchild.") But it's not just the dorky guys having all the fun this time; The Hollywood Reporter reports that Lindsay Sloane has just joined the comedy cast.
Over the next few weeks, you may be lucky enough to spend time with a hardcore Indiana Jones fan, one who will tell you endlessly, over and over, that the new Indy movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is terrible. Do not listen to them. It is an incredibly entertaining movie, with many exciting action sequences and plenty of footage of that dreamy Shia LaBoeuf combing his hair. But is it an Indiana Jones movie? Because despite the presence of Harrison Ford, the involvement of John Williams and the use of a prepositional phrase in the title, it sure as hell doesn't feel like one. Let's break the movie down into its component elements and see where the disconnect lies.
British filmmaker Peter Greenaway once said, "Works of art are never finished, just stopped." That statement may turn out to have been prophetic on his part, as his latest project is "at risk of being cancelled by Italian authorities," according to an article in The Guardian. What's got the Italians up in arms? Greenaway has plans to use Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" next month as a backdrop for a light show, which the authorities worry could damage the 500-year-old masterpiece. Milan's mayor Letizia Moratti wants to cancel the show to protect the art, even though, according to the article, a scientific committee "has concluded [the painting] would not be damaged by the light show."
Many segments of the retail market are facing financial difficulties these days, and entertainment sales are no exception. After two flat years, 2007 saw the first real decline in DVD sales "since the disc format debuted in 1997." Maybe it's because of the advent of cheap, home-delivered rentals, or maybe people just finally filled up their wobbly DVD racks and ran out of room. Whatever the reason, an article in The New York Times says that Warner Brothers Entertainment recognizes the trouble it's in. But who can they turn to when they're up against a faceless, powerful enemy? Why, superheroes, of course!
Who'da thunk it -- an Indy movie at the top of the box office. By "Indy," of course, we mean Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, not a low-budget heartwarmer a la Juno. No, the long-awaited fourth entry in the beloved franchise easily took the top spot this Memorial Day weekend, giving it the tenth-best three-day total ($101 million), the eighth-best four-day total ($126 million), the fifth best five-day total ($151.1 million) and the second-best Memorial Day weekend take ever, after the third Pirates of the Caribbean film. Damn you, Jack Sparrow! Is there no defeating your swashbuckling, short of having Harrison Ford put on some eyeliner and go on some sort of South Seas adventure? (Hmmm...)
Edward Furlong is going to jail, but this time it's not for aiding and abetting lobsters. Instead, the actor will be starring in a brutal prison flick called Stoic, according to The Hollywood Reporter. What's so "improbable" about that? Our old pal Uwe Boll is behind the project, and he doesn't seem to be blaming anyone for anything in the process. But instead of finding a good script, he's leaving it up to the actors to improvise their dialogue. The MTV Movies Blog is reporting that the same will also be true for Janjaweed, Boll's movie about the Darfur massacre. "Everybody should be based on his own research of creating that character," says Boll. Plus, I imagine he doesn't have to waste any of his slim budget on a script this way.
Everyone seems shocked that Madonna is turning 50 this year. Fifty! And she looks so good! Well, duh. She's a bazillionaire. Recording and touring are gruelling affairs, but it's not like she's been carrying 50-pound sacks of rice on her back in the blazing hot sun all of her life. During an interview last night, Cynthia McFadden even compared her to geezer rockers Mick Jagger and David Bowie. (She meant it in a good way, but still. Cynthia.) But it seems the focus is -- for the moment -- turning away from the relentless march of time and toward Madonna's Malawi documentary, I Am Because We Are.
The thought of all that weed on the set of the authorized Bob Marley documentary has apparently been "Jamaican" Martin Scorsese a little crazy. (Rim shot!) Luckily for the film's sake, Jonathan Demme doesn't seem to mind a little ganja. According to Variety, Scorsese has dropped out due to scheduling reasons, with Demme, who's helmed more than his fair share of music-related films, taking over.
Uwe Boll is at it again, and this time he's blaming political correctness. The director, who's already on our collective shit list for being one of those people who won't take responsibility for their failures and constantly blames everyone else, has taken to blaming a culture that indulges in too much PC for the fact that almost no theater wants to show his new film Postal. The black comedy, starring Dave Foley and Verne Troyer, which makes references to September 11, President Bush and Osama bin Laden, will open this weekend on just 13 to 15 screens across the country. Though Boll had originally had the target of 1,500 screens on Friday, theater chains didn't cooperate.
Good news, bad news, casting news. Some actors will be working in the near future, and some won't.
- Helping out those who will is Shakespeare, with King Lear coming back to the big screen. For those of you who didn't have to read it in 10th grade, the tragedy tells the story of an aging British monarch who decides to abdicate the throne and divide his kingdom between his three daughters, based on how well they declare their love for him. Anthony Hopkins is set to play Lear, with Keira Knightley and Gwyneth Paltrow as two of his daughters. For those keeping score at home, that puts Paltrow's Characters with British Accents vs. Characters with American Accents at about 3 to 1.
Don't you hate it when one of your favorite movies ever, a movie that already has a couple of sequels from a few years ago (at varying degrees of Awesome) suddenly gets looked at by some studio exec and they say "That was fun! That made money! Let's do it again!" And you just know that they're totally going to ruin it? You can put down your whips, Indy fans, I'm talking about The Terminator.
So, remember that part in The 40 Year Old Virgin where Steve Carell got his chest waxed and was all "Kelly Clarkson!" and you could tell he was in serious pain and that the waxing was real? CNN does. They're reporting that Harrison Ford is waxing his chest for the environment, and one of their story highlights, I shit you not, is "Similar scene originally appeared in a movie: 2005's The 40-Year-Old Virgin." I'm letting the fact that CNN is wasting its resources on fluffy crap and not reporting the real news slide (this time) because the article is ostensibly about the state of the environment, even if it's mostly about a movie star--there's News and a Message in there somewhere, even if I can't quite find it.
They say life begins at 40. A lot of groundbreaking movies are turning forty in 2008, including a controversial film that broke new ground by showing something that had never been seen before. It was unbelievable what people were doing in this movie! To moviegoers in 1968, the graphic imagery and nihilistic plot was like a bucket of ice water to the face. Forty years later, the movie still has the ability to shock and scare, despite being relatively tame in comparison to today's gratuitous gut-fests. What is this horror masterpiece that's getting a new release on DVD this week? I'm talking about Otto Preminger's Skidoo. Just kidding.