There's a really neat-sounding small-scale sci-fi project in development at Overture Films called Pandorum. But for the news that Paul W.S. Anderson is involved, I'd be really excited. Pandorum will be about two spaceship crewmen who wake up on their ship with no idea who they are or what they're supposed to be doing. Soon, they "make a discovery that threatens the survival of mankind."
Anderson didn't write and won't be directing the film -- those tasks both fall to relative unknowns -- but he is reteaming with his Resident Evil cohorts to produce it. He's not exactly on my must list these days, since the Resident Evil franchise has pretty much died under his supervision and AvP isn't exactly a venerable addition to the list of ongoing big-name series. Pandorum's premise sounds cool, but then so did Event Horizon's until you actually learned what was going on. In any case, Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster (in a possible rare non-psychopathic role?) have signed on to star as our heroes, which is good news. I guess the big question is what exactly the two of them "discover" on that spaceship.
Pandorum is supposed to start production in August in Berlin, according to the Variety piece; no word on a release date. Sci-fi fans, make a note of it.
Jackie Chan has been leaning hard on cheesy American comedies and adventure flicks recently, but of course that's not how he made a name for himself. The video above won't have anything new for Chan and Hong Kong martial arts aficianados, but to everyone else it's a great reminder of what he used to be capable of. I hadn't seen many of these scenes before (and hadn't even heard of Chan playing Chun Li in a Street Fighter spoof), and while the clips are short and the voiceover is at least as annoying as informative (watch for mild foul language), it's still a really nifty best-of. If you're not intimately familiar with his filmography, this will give you some Netflix recommendations.
You know, it's common knowledge that Chan is renowned for doing his own brutal stunts, but if you haven't seen his older stuff, it's hard to conceptualize how brutal they were. I had never run across this video's pick for the #1 Chan fight scene -- the climax of Dragons Forever-- and OOOOOOW! Just watching it is painful. If you want a more detailed view of Chan hurting himself through the years, there's this older compilation of the actor's best stunts from the same YouTuber.
Warning: This post contains excessive grasping at straws.
Most knowledgeable folks seem to think that the upcoming Wanted looks like a piece of junk. I can understand their position: the trailer was kind of a sensory assault, and didn't exactly make the film seem original. For my part, I'm not ready to write it off. I like James McAvoy, director Timur Bekmambetov is a fellow Russian, and I tend to enjoy the wildly implausible brand of action that the film seems to be going for. So I'm happy to report a piece of news that kind of surprised me: Wanted has been rated R by the MPAA for "strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language and some sexuality." That elaboration makes it seem like they won't be trying to trim the bad parts to earn a PG-13.
Now, okay: obviously that doesn't mean much. I mean, the similarly (identically?) themed Hitman was rated R too, and look how that turned out. But for me, the R rating speaks not directly to quality, but to the kind of film Wanted is likely to be. Seeing the trailer (and not knowing the source material), I thought that while it looked kind of cool, it also looked like a broad, inoffensive, second-rate action romp -- my first association, probably due to the presence of Angelina Jolie, was with Lara Croft Tomb Raider. But maybe it won't be. Maybe it'll turn out to be harsh, and sexy, and over-the-top in ways that are actually interesting. Maybe it'll be more like Running Scared or Shoot 'Em Up than like Ghost Rider.You might think that those comparisons don't help and that it still looks like crap, but it seems to me that an R rating for a movie like this increases the odds of it being worthwhile. Or am I off my gourd?
Both of the upcoming animated releases that aren't Wall-E or Space Chimps got new trailers yesterday. Here's one for Igor (and here's a link to the poster we premiered a few weeks ago), and here's one for Kung Fu Panda.
Kung Fu Panda looks like it'll be just a step or two above -- *shudder* -- Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Igor, on the other hand, looks like a charmer: the premise is inherently nerdy, requiring viewers to think back to the original Frankenstein films (or at least Young Frankenstein, or Van Helsing in a pinch) to get the joke, and the trailer has a few big laughs.
The biggest upside of Kung Fu Panda coming out on June 6th: those of us who frequent AMC Theaters will no longer have to endure the Kung Fu Panda-themed pre-movie interlude exhorting viewers to shut up. I'm not sure how many more times I can listen to Jack Black tell me that he can hear me texting before I have an aneurysm. But I guess I should be grateful AMC is no longer airing that horrid Three Doors Down "Citizen Soldier" video pimping the National Guard (because no one screams "role model" to teenagers like the lead singer of Three Doors Down). That thing gave me nightmares.
You may never have heard of Henry Bean, but he made a movie called The Believerback in 2001 that single-handedly catapulted Ryan Gosling to prominence (if not stardom) before The Notebook was a twinkle in anyone's eye. (He also wrote Internal Affairs and some other, schlockier early-90's thrillers, but you probably don't remember those either.) Gosling played a Jewish young man who became an increasingly fierce Neo-Nazi, at one point donning a tallis while executing Nazi salutes. It wasn't just difficult material, it was impossible material, and the fact that Bean managed to make something coherent out of it is, I think, one of the more impressive accomplishments in indie cinema this decade.
Bean waited seven years before delivering his directorial follow-up, a dark comedy called Noise, and there's a new trailer for it up top for you to watch. (We also ran a piece on the movie last October.) It looks like a new take on Falling Down, except funnier, and with a faux-superhero twist: Tim Robbins plays an urban professional who is so incensed by the incessant noise of car alarms that he names himself the Rectifier and starts smashing up offending cars to shut them up. This causes a political brouhaha, getting the attention of the mayor (William Hurt). Oh, and it's autobiographical: apparently Bean got himself arrested breaking into cars to turn off the alarms. They are annoying, aren't they?
The movie logically gets a New York-only release on May 9th. Early reviews have been mixed, but the trailer is nifty, and the pedigree piques my interest. I hope it manages to expand.
After presenting The Spirit at last month's New York Comic-Con, Lionsgate feels good enough about Frank Miller's solo directorial debut to move it from its January 16th dead zone of a release date to Christmas Day, 2008. So instead of going up against Mall Cop, starring Kevin James as a wacky security guard, and the Notorious B.I.G. biopic, The Spirit will face off against Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories, the supposedly ultra-heartwarming Marley & Me, The Tale of Despereaux, and the aftershocks of Twilight and The Day the Earth Stood Still.
"Adult" Christmas counterprogramming has not traditionally fared too well. Last year's Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem actually did okay, but remember Black Christmas? No? What about Darkness? The move is indeed a vote of confidence, but it might up throwing the film to the wolves. The key is to position it as a prestige picture rather than a throwaway. There's been enough fanfare around the promotional materials released thus far to make that look like a possibility. If Lionsgate can put it on people's radar in advance as a Christmas Movie to See, rather than have it randomly show up to compete against the holiday heavy-hitters, it could work.
No, no, there's not going to be a remake of A Clockwork Orange starring Mick Jagger. At least I don't think so. This is just a fun bit of what-could-have-been. We like to play around with alternate-universe casting here once in a while, and this one's a doozy. Someone found a letter from producer Si Litvinoff to legendary director John Schlesinger, urging him to consider directing an adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel. And part of the pitch was that Mick Jagger wanted the role of the psychopathic Alex, and that the Beatles "love[d] the project" and wanted to provide the musical score. Fortunately (?) Schlesinger wasn't interested and the project eventually wound up falling to good old Stanley Kubrick.
The Clockwork Orange we got was -- like all of Kubrick's work -- too singular a film to even try to imagine how someone else's version would have been different. But I admit I'm amused (and intrigued) by the notion of Jagger taking on the Malcolm McDowell role. Hell, after watching the manic two-hour stage show he put on in Shine a Light at age 63, I'm kind of convinced that he's actually omnipotent. As for the Beatles? That's just creepy. I'll stick with Kubrick's classical selections.
Even with The Golden Compass sort of flaming out last fall, kids' fantasy continues to be a hot commodity. Witness the treatment that Brian Selznick's highly acclaimed illustrated novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret is currently receiving. The adaptation is being ushered into production by GK Films, whose last project was The Departed. They've recruited in-demand screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator, Sweeney Todd) to write the screenplay. And the film will be directed by Chris Wedge (Ice Age, Robots), trying to make an Andrew Adamson-like break into live-action having mastered CGI animation. The plan is to start filming this fall, presumably with an eye toward getting the movie out by Christmas of next year.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret isn't just any old children's book. Its author says that it's "not exactly a novel, and it's not quite a picture book, and it's not really a graphic novel, or a flip book, or a movie, but a combination of all these things." The New York Times called it "a silent film on paper." It's about an orphaned boy working as a clock cleaner in a Paris train station who gets embroiled in a mystery involving another of the train station's denizens. Sounds like fun, and also like an opportunity to make something generic out of something unique. Ah, but that's unfairly pessimistic (even if Robots was awful) -- I'm actually a sucker for this tyke-fantasy stuff. Another one for the ole' reading list...
Well, as probably the biggest Speed Racer booster on this blog (I see the movie Tuesday night, and James's review was music to my ears), I guess it falls to me to report the bad news as well. If you believe tracking numbers -- and you might justifiably be skeptical about them (David Poland likes to hammer on the point that they don't capture the teen demographic) -- then there's good reason to think that the movie might come in a distant second to Iron Man when it hits theaters this Friday. The Hollywood Reporter's sources peg it at $25-35 million for the weekend, which would be perfect positioning for it to eat Iron Man's dust. Warner Bros.' efforts to control expectations notwithstanding, it would also be a pretty big disappointment for one of its major summer tentpoles.
I can't say I'm surprised -- as I warned a couple of weeks ago, this is an expensive brand-name release where the target audience has never heard of the brand name. As someone with a soft spot for the Wachowskis (I only abandoned ship on The Matrix after Revolutions rather than Reloaded, and one day I'll write up a defense of the latter film), I was hoping to see them return to the top of the A-list. But if we're being honest, the Hollywood Reporter's estimate seems right to me. So I'd settle for a bow that isn't embarrassing.
If someone were to get caught illegally recording a movie in New York City today, he would get charged with a violation (like a speeding ticket) and hit with, at most, a $250 fine. Not much of a deterrent, I daresay, for folks who make a criminal enterprise out of making and selling bootlegs. Furthermore, only the folks actually in the theater with the camcorder would get in trouble -- everyone else, like the people doing the selling, get off scot-free, assuming they're not breaking any other laws.
New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was joined Monday by Tina Fey and a couple of other movie types for the unveiling of the "Piracy Protection Act," which would make piracy either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on whether you're a first-time or repeat offender, and punish it with actual, y'know, jail time (up to a year for first-timers). They're hoping to have the law in place within the month. So, uh, if you're in New York City and you're planning to bootleg something, I'd recommend doing it now.
This law is obviously a result of movie industry lobbying, as evidenced by MPAA president Dan Glickman standing by Cuomo's side at the press conference. Does the new punishment fit the crime? Will harsher punishments make a difference? (I'm not so sure -- especially not if New York law enforcement doesn't dedicate more effort to actually ferreting out the bootleggers.) And are you surprised to hear that up until now people could record movies with virtual impunity, even if they got caught? ed note: Corrected Attorney General's name
Screw this; I'm going home. On the first day of production, the people footing the bill for Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins have announced that the future is actually ending prematurely, as the violent, perennially R-rated franchise is going PG-13 for its fourth installment. The reason? I'll bet you can guess. In addition to "broadening the audience base," the producers are hoping for (or have already signed; it's not really clear) a merchandising deal with Playmates Toys. Dear God. Clearly, they're trying to bring about a fanboy mass suicide.
Maybe it's not yet time to panic. After all, I still managed to have a blast with last year's PG-13 Live Free or Die Hard, and that franchise, what with John McClane's penchant for the f-bomb, was arguably even more dependent on the freedom of the R than Terminator. And with a few exceptions (that unforgettable shot of the T-1000 disguised as John Connor's mom impaling Xander Berkeley on its pointy metal arm comes to mind), the reasons the Terminator films -- Judgment Day in particular -- are so disturbing have little to do with heavy violence; Robert Patrick rising out of the linoleum floor is scarier than any amount of gore could be. The MPAA is surely tone-deaf enough to censor the blood but let the really scary stuff through. And anyway, as the producers point out in the article, the PG-13 ain't what it used to be.
We wouldn't have it any other way: just a few weeks after the Wachowskis' Speed Racer hits theaters, the Asylum will unleash its knock-off-of-the-month: Street Racer! (To read up on what Asylum is all about, take a look at my post about Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls from a month or so back.) The plot: "After serving time for a tragic accident, in which a young boy is crippled, an illegal street racer finds himself dragged back into the world of high speed competition on the side streets and highways of Los Angeles."
If you thought that the company's efforts to make spartan, homemade versions of studio blockbusters were lovable, or in some other way admirable, take a look at their Street Racer trailer and you may change your mind. Obviously unable to come up with anything resembling the Wachowskis' blue-screen fireworks, the Asylum opted to essentially make The Cheap and the Furious and cynically tie it in to Speed Racer. Of course whether it's actually any more cynical than I Am Omegaor Transmorphers is an open question. And the film's tagline, which the Asylum is clearly proud of -- "You're never more alive... Or closer to dead!" -- is kind of awesome, in a horrible way.
The director, Teo Konuralp, made a no-budget sci-fi thriller called Feedback a few years ago that actually got some good reviews. If Street Racer represents "selling out," then he's sure found an odd way of doing it.
This isn't exactly earth-shattering news, but hey: it's the weekend. According to a SlashFilm tipster, Michael Bay and Team Transformers will be spending parts of the summer at the University of Pennsylvania, which happens to be where I've just completed a far-too-long six-year stint. It sounds like Penn will be hosting Sam Witwicky's fraternity -- a good choice, because there are a bunch of beautiful old fraternity houses around here. Dollars to donuts they'll be using a particularly remarkable one called The Castle, which looks just like, well... a castle. You can see a picture over on the right. It's a major controversy magnet on campus, but the student tour groups love it.
Anyway, it'll be exciting to see my (by then, old) stomping grounds on the big screen next year -- the only comparable experience I've had came when M. Night Shyamalan used my hometown of Newtown, PA for a sizable segment of Signs. I guess I wish it were something other than Transformers 2, since I thought the first one was among last year's worst summer movies. But if you'll be at Penn this summer and want to be an extra in a blockbuster, keep your eyes peeled -- you might get the opportunity.
Well, Grand Theft Auto or no Grand Theft Auto, Iron Manwins at life, raking in somewhere from $32 to 35 million on Friday, depending on whom you believe. That puts it on track for an opening weekend between $90 million and $100 million, ensuring a string of sequels and a big champagne bash over at Paramount. But it may also mean a great deal for the future of one Robert Downey, Jr., who tackled the title role with spectacular wit and charm. If an über-lucrative mainstream career is what he wants, it's probably now his for the taking. His role as a blackface-donning thespian in Tropic Thunder later this summer should help even more.
All this is by way of introduction to the fantastic long-player on Downey that is this month's GQ cover story. It covers the bases of the actor's famous checkered past -- the arrests, the tumultuous rehab stints, Matt Palmieri's violent intervention -- but also his slow-and-steady return, and his current precarious, drug-free perch at the top. Matthew Klam spent the day with the actor, hanging out at Downey's Brentwood Mansion, going indoor skydiving, and having a kung fu training session during which Downey punched him in the face. He lets loose with all sorts of candid details about the man's life and recovery (endless health shakes and vitamin pills, a butler-slash-best-friend), but it's more than just a piece of celebrity gossip -- it's a genuinely interesting look at a multifaceted, one-of-a-kind talent who's been through a lot. Take a look.
Oh, this is going to be huge. There's a new 3-minute trailer for Will Smith's Hancock available here and ... well, go see for yourself. I recommend the Quicktime version.
I know the all-too-common criticism that "all the good parts are in the trailer" makes this less meaningful, but: Every frame of that thing is gold. The first minute or so, with Will Smith as a sarcastic, rude, drunken superhero, is simply brilliant; I've watched the five-second exchange between Hancock and the indignant bystander ("I can smell that liquor on your breath!" "'Cause I been drinkin'!") a half-dozen times now and giggled every time. Smith deserves an Oscar just for his delivery of that line, and we don't even get to hear the whole thing (I'm guessing the next word is "b*tch"). The second half of the trailer, giving us a glimpse of Hancock's attempted PR comeback with the help of an opportunistic publicist (Jason Bateman) isn't as incredible, but I love the focus on what it's like to be a superhero not in a universe where you can do whatever you want, but in the American bureaucratic state. Hancock's canned press conference apology is priceless.
The special effects look seamless, and I'm particularly curious to see a full-on summer blockbuster done in director Peter Berg's signature volatile shaky-cam style. From what I can tell, it's a bit toned down but still unmistakably present; look at the SUV scene in the opening seconds, and the introduction of Jason Bateman about a minute in.
This looks like a summer movie made by a bunch of very smart, very talented people. And that's something to look forward to.
There's a really neat-sounding small-scale sci-fi project in development at Overture Films called Pandorum. But for the news that Paul W.S. Anderson is involved, I'd be really excited. Pandorum will be about two spaceship crewmen who wake up on their ship with no idea who they are or what they're supposed to be doing. Soon, they "make a discovery that threatens the survival of mankind." 
Warning: This post contains excessive grasping at straws.
Both of the upcoming animated releases that aren't Wall-E or Space Chimps got new trailers yesterday. 
After presenting The Spirit at last month's New York Comic-Con, Lionsgate feels good enough about 
No, no, there's not going to be a remake of A Clockwork Orange starring Mick Jagger. At least I don't think so. This is just a fun bit of what-could-have-been. We like to play around with alternate-universe casting here once in a while, and this one's a doozy. 
Even with The Golden Compass sort of flaming out last fall, kids' fantasy continues to be a hot commodity. Witness the treatment that Brian Selznick's highly acclaimed illustrated novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret is currently receiving. The adaptation is being ushered into production by GK Films, whose last project was 
Well, as probably the biggest Speed Racer booster on this blog (I see the movie Tuesday night, and James's 
If someone were to get caught illegally recording a movie in New York City today, he would get charged with a violation (like a speeding ticket) and hit with, at most, a $250 fine. Not much of a deterrent, I daresay, for folks who make a criminal enterprise out of making and selling bootlegs. Furthermore, only the folks actually in the theater with the camcorder would get in trouble -- everyone else, like the people doing the selling, get off scot-free, assuming they're not breaking any other laws. 
Screw this; I'm going home. On the first day of production, the people footing the bill for 
We wouldn't have it any other way: just a few weeks after the Wachowskis' Speed Racer hits theaters, the Asylum will unleash its knock-off-of-the-month: 
This isn't exactly earth-shattering news, but hey: it's the weekend. According to a 
Well, Grand Theft Auto or no Grand Theft Auto, 
_thumbnail.jpg)
Cinematical Seven: When an Animated Series Goes Live Action ... and Gets it Right_thumbnail.jpg)
Full 'G.I. Joe' Cast Photos!
Fan Rant: The Selling Out of Heath Ledger
