BLOGS
June 2008 Archives
About 300 people turned out to watch a movie on an outdoor screen (because there's no theater in town) in a football field in Crawford, Texas, the famous home of President Bush -- and around 788 other folks.
It's never exactly a shock when a kids movie (which are known to be big box office draws) and the weekend's widest release is the top movie at the box office, so there were no big surprises this weekend: Kung Fu Panda chop-sockied the competition with $60 million on 4,114 screens to top the weekend box office. [That's no dim sum! Get it? No? Sigh. - Z]
The full title of Transformers 2 has been revealed! Since part of the movie was being filmed in Pennsylvania, I was hoping it would be called Transformers 2: Amish Paradise, but that is not the case. (Also, Pennsylvania is apparently standing in for China.) No, the movie is called Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, thereby guaranteeing that Megatron, who we last saw at the bottom of the Dino de Laurentian Abyss, will be making a return. The film also has the distinct honor of being the 27th sequel to have the word "Revenge" in the title.
Will it be able to live up to the legacy of other great "revenge" movies? Let's compare:
Like a lady going through the seemingly endless agony of contractions and finally squeezing out a ten-pound screaming baby, filmmakers are finally birthing Labor Pains. The film had encountered trouble when Capitol Films faced a "cash crunch," according to Variety, placing it in "limbo" for a time. This is the same difficulty that affected Nailed last month, but Labor picked up new financing at Cannes thanks to Nu Image/Millennium Films Overnight Productions. (The name just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?) Now with production set to begin next week, they've announced that Lindsay Lohan has signed on to star.
Witchblade Gets One Step Closer to Reality, Nudity
Last week we reported on the revelation of the first teaser poster for the 2009 Witchblade movie, depicting a bare-assed model wielding the superheroine's mystical gauntlet. While no actress has yet been cast in the sure to be boob-licious role, they have chosen a director and a writer! And they're actually pretty experienced, too -- none of those two-credits-on-IMDb fellows here. Only one problem -- they're Australian. I don't trust anyone whose toilet flushes clockwise.
Seems like lately you can't swing a cat without hitting a new horror movie. (Watch, now someone will make a horror movie where the villain's weapon of choice is a cat he swings around like a lasso. Screw knives and chainsaws. Have you ever been on the wrong end of a pissed-off Siamese?) An editor once told me, "The worse the economy is, the more people flock to horror stories." Maybe it takes their minds off their problems, or helps to put things in perspective. Sure, variable interest rates suck, but at least they don't hack you into bits and wear your face like a Halloween mask. Adam Sandler seems to agree: He's just launched a new label called Scary Madison to produce genre projects, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Shortly after it was reported that last Sunday's fire on the Universal back lot destroyed the studio's video vault, some sets and that archaic King Kong ride, studio brass came out assuring film buffs everywhere that nothing they lost was irreplaceable. Now there is some indication that that may not be entirely true. So you say you've been waiting for a sequel to Zack Snyder's fast-zombie remake of Dawn of the Dead? Too bad! Seriously though, Zack Snyder is producing a movie called Army of the Dead, but it apparently has absolutely no narrative connection to Dawn of the Dead. Also, he's not directing it. Sigh. Watchmen had better be totally awesome, or I'm gonna be pissed.
Look out, Hollywood -- it's about to get all Clammy up in here. Wayne McClammy, which is not a pseudonym, as far as we know, was the director behind both the "I'm Fucking Matt Damon" and "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck" music videos that ran on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and now he's gonna make a feature film. The movie, called Cool School (uh, really?), will center on advertising executives in their early 30s who are sent back to high school to find out what it means to be cool. Now, as hilarious a premise as that sounds, McClammy has some big shoes to fill -- there have been many great "adults going back to school" movies, and unless he wants it to be just another Old School, he should go back and learn from the masters. Here are six "adult education" movies worth copying notes off of.
McG is seriously over people making fun of his name, you guys. Oh, and he also totally wants you to know all those Terminator spoilers you've been reading about all week aren't true. I'm serious. He blogged about it. Kthxbye! Blog Categories
A Festival for the Rest...ival
20 Entries
Accidents Do Happen
46 Entries
Adventures in Fakery
77 Entries
Alien Nations
3 Entries
Animation Desensitization
79 Entries
Awards Schmawards
17 Entries
Box Office Tally
79 Entries
Burning Questions
4 Entries
Coming Soonish
9 Entries
Cool Nerds Guide
6 Entries
Cop Rick
4 Entries
Crazy In Love
2 Entries
Director? I Hardly Knew Her!
154 Entries
Disease of the Week
1 Entries
Doc Watch
1 Entries
DVDs Unwrapped
24 Entries
Footage Lost (And Found)
2 Entries
For Your Amusement (Park)
10 Entries
Foreign Relations
49 Entries
Future Tense
1 Entries
Galleries (and Other Picture Postcards)
23 Entries
Gangster's Paradise
4 Entries
Getting Dramatic
3 Entries
Girls on Film
75 Entries
Happy Anniversary
9 Entries
Hi, High School
1 Entries
Hollywood To TWoP: Hello There!
36 Entries
I Voted for GORE!
101 Entries
I Want My DVD
221 Entries
I Want My VOD
20 Entries
I've Got Two Tickets to Merchandise
33 Entries
IMDb Fun Times
6 Entries
Indie Snapshot
41 Entries
Indie, Indie, Come Back Home
38 Entries
It Came From New York
6 Entries
It Came From San Diego
14 Entries
It's a Major Award!
75 Entries
Legal Eaglese
21 Entries
Let's Blame the Media!
49 Entries
Let's Go To The Video!
29 Entries
Letterbox of Recommendations
22 Entries
Lights, Camera... Action Jackson!
177 Entries
Little TV Shows That Done Hit the Big Time
71 Entries
Martial Artistry
11 Entries
Momentous Occasions
25 Entries
More On Movies
37 Entries
Movie Merchandise
4 Entries
Musicalifornication
47 Entries
Name That Tune
2 Entries
Obituaries Without Pity
23 Entries
On the Frontlines
1 Entries
Oscars and Grouchery
11 Entries
Politicking
3 Entries
Pros and Controversy
26 Entries
Read All About It
4 Entries
Real People, Fake Movies
21 Entries
Remakes R Us
7 Entries
Reviews of Movies We Haven't Seen Yet
42 Entries
Reviews of Movies We've Actually Seen
485 Entries
Scary Monsters & Super Creeps
103 Entries
Sci-Fidelity
147 Entries
Script From the Headlines!
56 Entries
Separate but Sequel
246 Entries
Sequelitis
19 Entries
Shameless Self-Promotion
27 Entries
Sing Out, Louise
3 Entries
Sports in Our Shorts
6 Entries
Strike Watch
14 Entries
Stupid Cinematic Celebrity Sayings
34 Entries
Sundance Sundance Revolution
13 Entries
Swords and Sorcerers
2 Entries
Taste the Reading Rainbow
93 Entries
Tears in Heaven
1 Entries
The Art of the Cannes
6 Entries
The Biz
122 Entries
The Casting Conch
192 Entries
The History, Booooyyyyy!
79 Entries
The Kongs of Comedy
199 Entries
Theatre With an "R" and an "E"
11 Entries
Things to Know
1 Entries
Things We Learned
1 Entries
Time Tripping
1 Entries
Top of the
1 Entries
Top of the MWoP
5 Entries
Trailer Trashing
72 Entries
Trailers Without Pity
37 Entries
Video Games Killed the Movie Star
23 Entries
Watching Movies With Kids
4 Entries
We Call Do-Over
177 Entries
We Watches the Watchmen
33 Entries
What's Up, Documentary?
17 Entries
When Animal Movies Attack
13 Entries
YA Wasteland
3 Entries
You Got Comic Book in My Movie
249 Entries
You Know, For Kids!
132 Entries