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It's time for another cult classic flick to hit the stage. In 1980, the world entered the Forbidden Zone. The cult classic was written and directed by Richard Elfman. It marked the first appearance of '80s band Oingo Boingo, which was led by Danny, Richard's brother. (Yes, this is the Oscar-nominated composer Danny Elfman.) Now, in conjunction with the classic's 30th anniversary, the Zone is going live and following the film-to-stage trend. After a lot of murmuring in the blogosphere, Hollywood's officially getting Forbidden Zone: Live in the 6th Dimension -- "a surreal bawdy musical" adapted by playwright and actor Michael Holmes (Det. Miller in the online series Duck 'n Cover).

One look at the trailer for the film (you can see it after the jump, NSFW, some nudity) shows that it's almost futile to try and describe this insane flick. At its simplest, The Forbidden Zone is the story of a house in Venice, California that has a door in the basement leading to an insane world where King Fausto reigns (played by Fantasy Island icon Herve Villechaize). When the mom of the house gets captured in the other dimension, her family and friend strive to save her.

We've had Rocky Horror for a good long time, so are you ready to travel to the Zone and sing along to Oingo Boingo?

The production will kick off in May 2010 at Los Angeles' Sacred Fools Theater.

You've got to admire a festival that attracts hordes of particularly picky movie fiends with a secret lineup year after year. If you're not aware, Colorado's Telluride Film Festival does things a little differently than the other biggies. Rather than releasing their film list early, and allowing attendees to peruse and ponder the choices, they release it as the fest kicks off, banking on blind faith and great movie taste -- a risk which seems to always pay off.

Telluride runs through Labor Day, and the lineup has finally hit. This year, it's led by John Hillcoat's Proposition follow-up The Road, which Variety just pummeled. Star Viggo Mortensen is being honored with a tribute, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. We've got films that include Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Coco Before Chanel with Audrey Tatou, Todd Solondz's latest -- Life During Wartime, the Red Riding Trilogy (four novels adapted by Julian Jarrold, James Marsh, and Anand Tucker), Jane Campion's Bright Star, and maybe even Jason Reitman's Up in the Air.

How's that for a festival? It's a nice reminder of the worthy fare that exists between the cracks of mainstream mediocrity. Check out the whole lineup over at indieWIRE.

James Gray (Two Lovers) remembers going to see Walter Murch talking about his groundbreaking sound and editing work on The Conversation. John Landis (An American Werewolf in London) remembers seeing the original King Kong, a "life-changing experience." Allison Anders (Gas Food Lodging) remembers seeing an obscure Bette Davis movie with a packed house. Rian Johnson (Brick) one time just simply walked in without even knowing what was playing (it turned out to be Fellini's And the Ship Sails On). Those four, plus six other directors, shared their feelings with the Los Angeles Times on the uncertain fate of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and especially its beloved Bing Theater.

But some of the others aren't in the mood for reminiscing. John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood) says, "seeing a film like How Green Was My Valley and Duel in the Sun on the wide screen is a whole other thing. If TV babies don't understand what cinema is then cinema will become TV. That's the travesty." And Bertrand Tavernier adds, "instead of conceding defeat, we have to mobilize ourselves. Let's bring in students and alert teachers. Culture has a price, it's true. Has someone already calculated how much the absence of culture will cost a country? How much does the death of curiosity cost?"

The legendary Roger Corman, who is responsible for launching as many careers as the LACMA, simply had this to say: "LACMA is dedicated to showing art to the people. The only true art form of modern times is motion pictures. If they do not show the only modern art form, they are not showing art." Nuff said.

Nothing can really compare to the craptacular showing of ZYZZYX Road, the film that brought in a whopping $30. That's no typo -- it didn't bring in $30 million, not even $30 thousand. I'm not sure any film could ever compete with that, except for maybe a For Justin & Kelly sequel, but there is a stinker this summer that comes sort of close.

It was set to be her big comeback. Two films, one she was headlining, and one that she wrote, directed, and starred in. The first made the rounds, but the other didn't go much further than a blog post or two. Figure out who I'm writing about yet? Yes, it's Nia Vardalos and her feature I Hate Valentine's Day. Gordon and the Whale dug into the little feature that couldn't, revealing that after spending $5 million and making well over $200 million on My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Valentine's Day only brought in eleven thousand dollars in the U.S., from three theaters. Sure, the film hit almost a million with its foreign run, but that doesn't even cover the film's estimated $3 million price tag. Ouch.

Nevertheless, Tom Hanks' Playtone loves her. The TV show might have tanked, as well as her long-awaited follow-up feature (and disappointing showings on the rest of her post-stardom work), but she's in line for two more Playtone productions -- one writing, and one writing and acting. Will they bring more success? It'd be nice, but at this point, it'd also be a shocker. Maybe they should have waited until February 14 to release this puppy. At least then they'd have gotten the coupley audience.

As if a tsunami in Korea weren't bad enough, now it's leaking onto the Internet! Fortunately, it's only a disaster of a cinematic kind; Haeundae, Korea's first-ever disaster movie, has been making waves (har har) at the box office since its release on July 22, selling more than 10 million tickets, which makes it the most popular local film of the year. Over the weekend, an illegal copy was "briefly" leaked across local peer-to-peer sites, according to JoongAng Daily, and distributor CJ Entertainment plans to request a police investigation this week.

This might sound like a case of 'too little, too late,' as far as the timing of the leak is concerned. After all, one of the reasons that the leaked copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine caused such an uproar was that it happened more than a month in advance of its theatrical release. Most people want to see a movie before (or shortly after) it's released, not weeks later, don't they? Korean movie piracy is reportedly "rampant," though they don't seem to be in as big a rush as in other parts of the world. According to JoongAng Daily: "What makes this case different is the movies involved have usually finished their runs. Haeundae, though, is playing and ticket sales are growing."

CJ Entertainment, one of the heavyweight distributors in Korea, has already sold the film in 24 territories, including the United Sates, and doesn't want to jeopardize the profit potential, especially with an 800-pound gorilla in Roland Emmerich's 2012 waiting to take over the the disaster spotlight in November. Derek Elley of Variety called Haeundae (named after a beach in Busan) a "thoroughly entertaining, tightly cut slice of hokum." Sound familiar?

Watch the apocalyptic trailer for Haeundae after the jump!

Ratings History: Opening in theaters in Thailand this past weekend, Yuthlert Sippapak's Buppah Rahtree 3.2: Rahtree's Revenge made history as "the first Thai film to be classified under Thailand's new motion-picture ratings system," reports Wise Kwai at his Thai Film Journal. The latest installment of a series that began with one of my favorite comedy / horror films of all time, Rahtree's Revenge is "suggested only for viewers aged 18 and older." Wise Kwai points out that Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds probably has the honor as the first film from any country to be rated under the new Thai system.

Classic Film Noir on DVD: The next edition of Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, is fast approaching; meanwhile, one of my personal highlights from two years ago will finally be released on DVD tomorrow. Eclipse Series 17: Nikkatsu Noir, a five-disc box set from the Criterion Collection, features Takashi Nomura's A Colt is My Passport, "a vivid hitman drama that anticipates [Seijun Suzuki's] Branded to Kill," as I wrote previously. It's "not as brassily discordant as the Suzuki film, yet it too stretches the limits of its genre framework ... the action is staged in such dynamic bursts that it provoked giddy laughter and applause at the screening."

Nikkatsu Noir also includes Suzuki's Take Aim at the Police Van, Toshio Masuda's Rusty Knife, Koreyoshi Kurahara's I Am Waiting, and Takumi Furukawa's Cruel Gun Story, all released by Japanese distributor Nikkatsu between 1957 and 1964. Few have seen the flicks since their release, since they've been languishing in film vaults for many years, but this is one fan who's eager to catch up. You can't see my heart bursting out of my chest with joy, but I assure you that it is.

It was a roundabout trip that led me to my local IMAX for Avatar day. For starters, I'm not a big fan of 'sneak peeks' -- I'm all for teasers and trailers, but I'm a firm believer in going in to a movie with as much as a blank slate as possible, and that's not always easy in this job. But the thing is, I love a cultural phenomenon, and brother -- Avatar is one of 'em. So I decided to put up with stalled servers at Fox and multiple confirmation emails with threats of everything short of a cavity search to watch a 16 minute commercial. Add to the fact that while I admire the technical stylings of James Cameron, I've never counted myself as one of the devoted. So as you can see, I was hardly the perfect audience for his experiment and I went in to that theater with an open mind, but very few expectations.

Now, thankfully, I tend to be little high strung about these things, and so I showed up an hour early with email and ID in hand -- and judging by Elisabeth's experience with Fox flacks, boy am I glad I did. So there I was in my seat, and as I looked around I kept thinking: what was with the half empty theater? After listening to horror stories of line-ups and sold out shows this made no sense to me. So I have to wonder if all that talk of sold out showings were an attempt by Fox to limit 'exposure' of the film (and piracy). Maybe they just wanted to beef up the hype surrounding the event by touting sold out tickets. But if that was their plan, then it might have backfired because to me, a half-empty theater made the movie look like the bloated, over-hyped flick that some detractors were calling it in the first place. That said, after a brief intro from the man himself (and in 3D no less!) it was time to get on with the show.

After the jump: my two cents on what I saw...

I love seeing movies in theaters rather than on my TV or computer. I like the communal experience, the big screen ... well, not the commercials they show before movies, but I try to avoid those theaters. But lately, at least where I live, I'm finding increased technical problems in theaters that make it difficult if not impossible to enjoy a movie.

Last week I went to a matinee of Spread at a multiplex owned by a large national chain. I was watching the movie to review. About 20 minutes into the film, the right speaker started shutting off and on sporadically. It was still possible to understand the dialogue, in a mushy way, but the movie sounded terrible at times. I was torn. If I left to find a theater employee, it would take at least five minutes and I might miss important plot points. On the other hand, the sound problem was extremely annoying, and I hate paying for a movie in a faulty theater. No one else walked out, so either it didn't bother them or they didn't want to miss any of the movie either.

Do not be confused by the title of the film Five Minutes of Heaven, as it does not refer to the game you played as a middle-schooler where a boy and girl were chosen at random and locked in a closet together. (I believe that was "Seven Minutes in Heaven.") Five Minutes of Heaven is, rather, a thriller from the U.K. in which a man confronts the guy who killed his brother many years ago. James Nesbitt plays the bereaved, and Liam Neeson plays the killer.

The film debuted at Sundance this year, where it won awards for its director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, and screenwriter, Guy Hibbert. Cinematical's Scott Weinberg gave it a rave review, saying it's "bolstered by a smart, insightful screenplay, directed with low-key style and restraint, and supported by two fantastic performances." Hirschbiegel's last film was the Nicole Kidman flop The Invasion, but before that he made the Oscar-nominated Downfall, about the final days of Hitler.

Five Minutes of Heaven opens in New York this Friday and is already available on demand through the IFC in Theaters program on some cable and satellite providers. Check out the full version of the poster below.

The neverending web of Twlight continues to be weaved:

New Moon hasn't even hit screens yet and Eclipse has already started filming, which means the final casting nibbles have been released. After Xavier Samuel as Riley and Bryce Dallas Howard as the new Victoria, Jack Huston grabbed Royce King II (Rosalie's evil human ex), the super-cute and creepy Jodelle Ferland grabbed Bree, and finally, we've got the wolfy Clearwaters. Vanessa Hudgens aside, the LA Times reports that Julia Jones will play Leah, while BooBoo Stewart grabs Seth. Jones most recently played Dr. Kaya Montoya on ER, and the ridiculously named BooBoo (who will hopefully put aside the Boo soon) is an ex member of Disney's T Squad, and has popped up in recent films like The Last Sentinel.

Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter posts that the series' fan conventions are going on tour. Methinks they want all those fans to save on travel costs so that they may save their first born for the autographs and photos. What cities will soon be trampled by Twihards? The tour kicks off in Parsippany, New Jersey, before heading to cities like: Chicago, Toronto, Miami, Seattle, Minneapolis, Nashville, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Charlotte, Boston, Phoenix, and Atlanta. No city is safe!