Robert Rodriguez »

To survive in this business you must have confidence and be resilient -- an agent told me this four years ago and I live by it each day. To survive in the film industry, resiliency will help you persevere even during the toughest of times. This advice works at any level in this business, even Hollywood's top agencies abide by it. ICM took a hard hit on Wednesday when two long-time agents Robert Newman and Matt Solo became partners at Endeavor talent.

A spokesman at ICM told Variety that the departure was a kind one, but despite this fact, they've still lost their head of motion pictures and TV lit department. The client roster that Newman created contained huge names such as Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) and Robert Rodriguez, whose double horror feature with Quentin Tarantino has people talking and anticipating its release.

Why would an individual who has worked so long with a company choose to leave for another high profile agency position? Newman's reason was simple: he desired "a change in scenery" while Solo looked forward to reconnecting with former ICM agents and partners who left the agency before he did. Other rumors have spawned from the shift but none of which are worth repeating as they bear no fact whatsoever.

As I mentioned not long ago when I wrote about the launch of the Grindhouse website, and the film's newest trailer, that April 6 release date just can't come fast enough for me. Anyone out there got a time machine ready for beta testing? This double feature pastiche of 70s exploitation films promises to be one of the most exciting releases of 2007.

Fangoria.com has an interesting bit of news regarding the fake trailers that will be inserted between Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. According to a "source," Rob Zombie, who will of course be directing the upcoming re-imagining of Halloween, is directing a trailer for a fictitious film tantalizingly titled Werewolf Women of the SS. Oh, man. Sounds like a blending of the 70s nazi-sploitation genre (the best-known example of which was Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS) with a good old-fashioned werewolf movie. Sweetening the deal is the fact that Nicholas Cage will be appearing in the trailer as Fu Manchu (the evil genius who originated in a series of novels by Sax Rohmer, and has been played onscreen by several actors including Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee and Peter Sellers). That sound you hear, by the way, is my mind boggling. Interestingly, the title also brings to mind a very real upcoming film called Werewolf in a Women's Prison.

Furthermore, Hostel director Eli Roth will not only be making a cameo appearance in Death Proof, but he will also direct a faux trailer for a slasher film called Thanksgiving. All the other holidays have their own slasher films, so it's time Turkey Day got its due. Now that I think of it, though, Arbor Day has a lot of potential too. How does Saplings of the Damned sound?

I am seriously looking forward to Grindhouse, the forthcoming collaboration between Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. The initial news of this modern day homage to low-rent double features of yesteryear got my movie geek blood percolating from the word go, and every time the film takes another step towards completion I find myself on the verge of a veritable geek-gasm.

The film's official website has launched, making good use of Macromedia Flash to emulate the look and feel of a cheesy 70's B-movie, much like Grindhouse itself. It runs pretty smoothly over my DSL line, but if you're using a dial-up connection I suspect the patience of Job will be required. There's a link to the teaser trailer which Scott Weinberg mentioned not too long ago, as well as character descriptions, a story synopsis and most of the stuff you see on this type of site. Click on "downloads" and you'll find jpegs of retro posters from the films two features Planet Terror and Death Proof fitted to wallpaper size. The Grindhouse 101 section contains excerpts from the book Grindhouse: The Sleaze-Filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature, written by the directors and available on February 28. Amping up the site's cool factor is an interesting Flash game. I haven't quite figured it out, but it involves wandering around a grindhouse theater and picking up automatic weapons. If anyone's got suggestions on how to navigate this, please feel free to post them in the comments.

The film releases on April 6, and though it's not yet rated, the smart money says it gets an R.

[via Film ick]

Roger Corman is well-known for being a director and producer of over 300 low-budget films, many of them in the horror category. He is probably most famous for his adaptations of nine different Edgar Allen Poe stories. Between 1960 and 1964, Corman directed House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, The Premature Burial, Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Terror, The Haunted Palace, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Tomb of Ligeia. Seven of these films also starred the late, great Vincent Price, and established both Corman and Price in the genre.

Even more impressive is the fact that he churned out five other films during those four years. He's a movie-making machine, folks. Even today Corman continues to produce tons of "schlock" films, and is king of that genre even though he has only directed two films since 1971. He was an enormous influence on directors like Quentin Tarantino, who thrived on the many "Roger Corman presents" films that came out while he was growing up. Tarantino even has his own line of "Quentin Tarantino presents" films, and the upcoming Grind House owes part of its lineage to Corman's own Death Race 2000.

The Drkrm Gallery in Los Angeles hosts a special exhibition celebrating Corman's Edgar Allen Poe films, and will be open October 21st through November 18th. As a fan of bad puns, I had to use the tagline from Drkrm's page about the event: "We pay tribute to them, the legendary Roger Corman and the late Vincent Price with this exhibition of their greatest work together, the likes of which we will see ... NEVERMORE!"

[Thanks John]


Related stories:

Roger Corman on Death Race Remake

Disney Awash in Corman

Roger Corman Honored in Hawaii

Odds and ends from Friday and the weekend:

• In finalizing the cast for his part of Grind House (titled Death Proof), Quentin Tarantino has brought on Michael Bacall, newcomer Omar Doom and Eli Roth. Labeled a "slasher flick" and currently shooting in Austin, the three will star alongside Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson and Rose McGowan, among others. Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror wrapped its production recently and Grind House (as a whole) is expected to invade theaters on April 6, 2007.
• 20th Century Fox has gone ahead and snatched up Adam Sztykiel's spec script Matchbreaker, with Shawn Levy to produce the comedy through his 21 Laps Entertainment. Though the plot is being kept a secret for now, it's vaguely being described as a "high-concept comedy about two guys and a girl set against a vibrant cultural backdrop, which we haven't seen in a movie before."
• Looking to add a bit more funny to their repertoire, the Weinstein Co. has signed a one-year, first-look deal with Underground Films and acquired the comedy pitch Rising Son for Underground to produce. Pic revolves around a "young American who proposes to his Japanese-American girlfriend just as they are traveling to visit her estranged family." While there, he must compete in a bunch of challenges in order to win the respect of his future father-in-law, a la Meet The Parents.

I remember when Steven Spielberg's Jaws first hit DVD, and one of the supplemental materials was a fantastic one-hour "making of" documentary that all the shark nerds were trashing. Why trashing? Because the doco was originally over two hours in length, but was trimmed in half for the DVD release. And then, five years later, Universal unleashed a 30th Anniversary Edition of Jaws that contained the entire documentary ... and it was good. (Very good, actually.)

But apparently not good enough for one particularly passionate group of Jaws fanatics, so after spending some time at the 30th Anniversary celebration at Marth'a Vineyard last year, they went out and decided to make their own Jaws documentary. And not only is the flick almost finished, but it's reported to clock in at about 3 hours in length! Yowza! What could a bunch of Jaws junkies use to fill three whole doco hours?

The first posters for Grind House have been popping up around the web for the past week or so, and whether you like them or not, it's hard to deny that they fit perfectly into the pulpy tone that's been created around the movie. So far there are three posters in the wild, two for Planet Terror (the Robert Rodriguez, zombie half of the film) and one for Death Proof (Quentin Tarantino's killer-car extravaganza); nothing has yet surfaced that promotes Grind House as a whole.

The two for Planet Terror are pretty fantastic, in an over-the-top sort of way. One features the previous-discussed image of Rose McGowan with a machine gun for a leg, and proclaims her "Fully loaded."; the other offers a shot of Marley Shelton with runny eye-liner, holding one of those scary-looking, old-school syringes by its metal grip, accompanied by the tagline "You might feel a little prick." On the other hand, rather than actually featuring imagery from the film, The Death Proof poster is a mock advertisement for a screening of ... itself (Oooh, meta!) at Austin's now-defunct Burnet Rd. Drive-In.

While I think all three posters are cool and all, they're really just another indication of how good Tarantino is with hype, and building expectations. As I've said in earlier posts on Grind House, the longer we go on with the vaguely troubled rumors, and without seeing any actual footage from the movie, the more worried I get about its quality. I'm hopeful, understand, just concerned.

According to Quentin Tarantino himself, Kurt Russell signed a contract last night to replace the AWOL Mickey Rourke (Word on the street is that he simply failed to show up for the shoot -- that's sure to help the career, Mick.) as Stunt Man Mike in Death Proof, QT's killer-car laden half of Grind House. (While this is certainly big news, imagine the movie for a second with Russell Simmons in the role. Because that's what my brain pictured when I first saw the headline -- tell me that wouldn't kick all kinds of bizarre ass.) Tarantino, not surprisingly, is characteristically excited about the deal, telling the assembled ComicCon masses, "Snake Plissken is one of the most iconic characters in the last 20 years, it's f*ckin' balls man. I think Stunt Man Mike is one of the best characters I've ever written." Balls, man! Balls.

In further Grind House news, fans were shown a clip of Planet Terror (for the two of you hearing about this for the first time, that's the Robert Rodriguez half of the movie) featuring, and I quote, "Rose McGowan wearing a machine gun leg." Needless to say, the crowd went bonkers.

Former Cinematical editor Karina Longworth is on the ground at ComicCon with her Netscape cohorts and, in addition to her posts from the event, she'll also be passing along interesting tidbits she picks up from the mouths of various horses. What follows are the bits and pieces from day one.

• As was rumored, Sin City 2 was, in fact, on hold, awaiting the birth of the sainted Jolie spawn. Now that little Shiloh has arrived, a start date of early 2007 has been penciled in.
• Planet Terror, the Robert Rodriguez-helmed half of Grind House, has wrapped; Quentin Tarantino's section, Death Proof, will start shooting in October. As expected, Rosario Dawson is appearing in both parts.
• In further Dawson news, in addition to a movie based on her comic books appearing about 12 months from now, we can also expect a video game within three years. Fanboys, commence the freak-out.
  

Stay tuned here for more updates, geek and otherwise; a Dawson interview will go up at Netscape tomorrow night.

Seven years ago, I showed up to my first day of work at a brand new job with sh*t smeared up and down the back of my clothing. Yes, sh*t. The real kind. The smelly kind. Till this day, I have no idea how it found its way onto my clothes. Did I lean up against something on the train? Did someone smear it on me as part of an elaborate practical joke? I don't know. However, I didn't notice it until five minutes before the start of the work day. In five minutes, the office would be filled with people I had never met in my life. In five minutes, my new boss would arrive to show me around and introduce me to the staff. In five minutes, life as I knew it could come to an end.

Everyone has an embarrassing story to tell. More often than not, these stories end with you brainstorming several different excuses to somehow justify whatever humiliating event just slapped you across the face. Yes, it sucks. And for a brief period of time, you want to hide. You want to disappear. You want so badly for a time machine to exist -- rewind the clock, avoid everything. However, life doesn't work out that way. We have to accept things. We have to move on. Sh*t happens.

In an instant, I ran to the bathroom. There I was, on my first day of work right out of college, standing over a sink in my boxer shorts, feverishly trying to wipe sh*t off my clothes. I wouldn't wish this situation upon even my worst enemies. So, I did the best I could do and used a lot of soap. I spent the remainder of the day meeting several managers and employees, with the first words out of mouth being, "Oh, by the way -- if you smell sh*t, it's me." True story.

Thanks to everyone for sending in shorts for this week! Without your help, I'd feel so alone and scared. Oh, and speaking of feeling scared, next week I am going to focus on the horror genre. Your assignment: Find me some spooky scary short film, tell me why you think it rocks and send all links to shorts at cinematical dot com. If I sh*t my pants, perhaps I'll throw it into next week's edition of Eat My Shorts. Got it? Good. Let's go watch some shorts ...