White Dog
Samuel Fuller's follow-up to The Big Red One was shelved by Paramount Pictures before its scheduled release in 1982 because of fears that its premise -- a white dog has been trained to attack black people -- would stir up more controversy than box office. Fuller was understandably outraged; in his autobiography, A Third Face, he wrote: "The studio has used me as a scapegoat for their lack of determination and courage." The film, co-written by Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential), with a score by the legendary Ennio Morricone, later received acclaim when it was released in Europe but never received a home video release in the US and has rarely been seen here. Kristy McNichol plays an actress who adopts the dog; Paul Winfield is as an anthropologist who tries to reverse the training. The Criterion Collection DVD includes a featurette with Hanson, producer Jon Davison, and Fuller's widow, plus a print interview with the dog trainer and essays by J. Hoberman and Armond White. I'm buying, but even if you're not a huge fan of Samuel Fuller, you'd want to check it out. Rent it.

Step Brothers
Combining Will Farrell, John C. Reilly, Richard Jenkins, and Mary Steenburgen under one roof, Step Brothers mines familiar territory with sharp timing and plenty of belly laughs. Mine is, admittedly, a distinctly minority opinion. Available on DVD (single-disc rated, single-disc unrated, two-disc unrated) and Blu-ray, with an audio commentary by Farrell, Reilly, director Adam McKay, and a score by Jon Brion. Other features include deleted scenes and alternate takes, a gag reel, 'making of,' and a couple of gag featurettes. Rent it.

Much more on Wanted, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian after the jump, plus Indies on DVD, Blu-ray Picks, and Collector's Corner.

Silly us X-Files fans trying to rationalize why The X-Files: I Want to Believe crashed and burned so badly this summer. It was too thoughtful! Too character-driven! Too focused on giving fans emotional closure, and not enough on slam-bang summer excitement! Long-time franchise producer Frank Spotnitz has a much easier and quicker answer: It was The Dark Knight's fault.

His theory goes thus: The X-Files opened a week after The Dark Knight broke all sorts of records and began its domination of the summer box office. What's more, the dark and brooding film was similar in tone to the caped juggernaut, and not the sort of counterprogramming that might nonetheless have had a chance in its wake. And so you get $21 million domestic.

Look, I'm probably as big a fan of I Want to Believe as you'll find around these parts; for fans of the show it was a lovely, moving conclusion. For fans of the show. The commercial problem with the film wasn't that it was too dark or that it followed The Dark Knight, but that it was too small, and its appeal too narrow. A bigger, flashier X-Files, with more explosions and flying saucers, would have done better, Batman notwithstanding. As it stood, people who didn't grow up on Mulder and Scully didn't see a reason to go. And -- speaking, again, as someone who loves the film -- they probably made the right choice. There wasn't much there for them.

Oh, and as to the possibility of another film that Spotnitz vaguely suggests: no thank you. This was a graceful, satisfying finale.

[via Movie City News]

It's been almost a week since The X-Files: I Want to Believe hit the big screen with a dulled thump, making only $10 million in its first weekend. The film has managed to get a couple million more since, but it's going to take a lot more for it to hit its $30 million production budget, let alone surpass it. Still, in a talk with IGN, Chris Carter is itching for more.

Carter said: "We had really good fun doing this movie - we have high hopes for it and we just want people to like it. If people do want to come and see it we'll certainly be talking about another movie." He then went on to discuss aliens, and how if more movies get made, that's something he would "definitely want to get back to."

Honestly, that doesn't sound too intriguing to me on its own, but I definitely could be swayed by this: "There's a date in the X-Files mythology -- 2012 -- that is very important. We'd certainly love to do something with that!" That's 12/22/2012 -- alien invasion day. So, while I'm not sure a run-of-the-mill X-Files would be a great idea, answering a long-pondered curiosity might. It'd be easy enough to increase interest -- show references to the date, get television stations to re-air eps and show them online.

But what do you think? Would 12/22/12 bring you back to the theater?

Six years have passed since "The X-Files" went off the air after nine seasons; fans agree that it left with a whimper rather than a bang, and ten years have passed since the first and only feature film. So the question of the day is: why a sequel? Why now? But perhaps a better question is "why not?" The fact is that FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) always had vats of chemistry; they arguably outstripped and outranked any other male-female couple in the history of television. Their pairing was perfect: Mulder believed -- or wanted to believe -- in the supernatural while Scully was a scientist, a doctor and a Catholic who believed in God but looked for reasonable, logical explanations in everything. In each episode, the team was called in to investigate some kind of paranormal activity, and they debated and discussed the various possibilities behind each. In the end, hardly anything was ever proved or disproved.

Last weekend, the box office exploded with The Dark Knight, which broke the opening weekend record, while Mamma Mia! did what it could in the shadow of bat wings and Space Chimps couldn't reach the top five with its $7.2 million. Matt was almost spot-on with his predictions last week, but I'll try to hold down the fort this week while he's away.

The top five totals:

1. The Dark Knight: $158,411,483 *
2. Mamma Mia!: $27,751,240
3. Hancock: $14,040,178
4. Journey to the Center of the Earth: $12,340,435
5. Hellboy II: The Golden Army: $10,117,815

There's two new wide releases this week -- one for laughs, and one for those who yearn to believe.

Step Brothers
What It's All About: It's the typical new-family scenario with a much older twist. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly star as spoiled adults who live at home and are less than pleased when their parents meet and get married. Quickly, however, they become best friends who indulge in all the fun things kids do. You know, whispering after lights out, making things... But then their folks have had enough and want to kick them out, spoiling their fun.
Why It Might Do Well: It's Ferrell and Reilly acting like kids, the bunk beds scene is flipping hilarious, and the two actors have a solid following.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The duo's shtick could be getting old, and it still has to face the roaring-forward Dark Knight.
Number of Theaters: 2,800+
Prediction: $23 million

A whole crop of new images have hit the net as of late, including nine brand new stills from the upcoming thriller Eagle Eye, starring Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson. The film, directed by D.J. Caruso, follows a young slacker (LaBeouf) and a single mom (Monaghan) who somehow get tangled up in a terrorist cell plotting a political assassination. Check out our brand new Eagle Eye gallery below, and keep an eye out for the film when it hits theaters on September 26.



In addition to Eagle Eye, a few more images from the The Pineapple Express were released (see updated gallery below). I'm not sure how to classify Pineapple -- is it a straight-up comedy, a stoner comedy, an action/comedy or an action/stoner comedy with dramatic elements? Either way, I keep hearing excellent things about the flick (which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco) -- and so like Superbad did last August, I'm sure Pineapple (due out August 8) will swoop in and leave us smiling as we hit summer's final stretch.



X-Files after the jump ...

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Since Fox has refused to reveal virtually any plot details about this summer's The X-Files: I Want to Believe, I've endeavored to translate the still-cryptic but slightly more informative Russian trailer that hit the interwebs yesterday. It would seem that the story will involve a priest named "Father Joe" (that's the Billy Connolly character) who has nightmarish visions of a woman in trouble that he claims come from God. (In other words, this unofficial summary seems to have been on the money.) We also learn that Mulder is roped into the investigation by Amanda Peet's character, Dakota Whitney.

I had fun translating the cheesy dubbing; you hear bits of this dialogue in the American trailer, but a lot of it is new. Check out the translation after the jump.

This week's Sex and the City movie is hardly the first cinematic continuation of a TV show, but there really haven't been that many. Usually when we think of film adaptations of TV series, we're thinking of remakes. But there are a few movies that pick up where their respective show ends, whether as a resuming story, a prequel or something totally random and barely connected.

And of course, we keep hearing about other possible series-to-film resumptions: Lost, 24 and Arrested Development movies have all been discussed, and they may indeed happen. So, while there isn't a long list of predecessors to model their transitions on, I've compiled seven titles that did it right in some way or another. Hopefully, for the sake of the fans of Carrie and co., Sex and the City will be enough of a success to make number eight.


Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

People may enjoy the second installment best, but this is the one that started the film franchise, officially reigniting a series that had been canceled ten years prior. Though the original show had its share of fans, enough to eventually get this film produced, it wasn't initially considered a success. And interestingly enough, neither was the movie thought of as a complete hit, despite its $80 million gross and the fact that it spawned another ten film installments (and additional series).

In the event that an Arrested Development movie gets made, it could be seen as similar to Star Trek, since the TV show was initially a failure yet it has gained a larger following since its cancellation, enough to call for production of a feature follow-up. However, there's also a good chance that it will also be a failure on the big screen, like was Serenity, the cinematic continuation of the TV series Firefly.
tion more than simply an adaptation.

This just in off the AP: This summer's X-Files flick has finally been given a proper title. Wanna know what it is? Of course you do -- it shall be known as The X-Files: I Want to Believe. 20th Century Fox signed off on the title today, and that's what they're going with. Fans of the television series will recognize the slogan 'I Want to Believe' from a poster Mulder (David Duchovny) had hanging in his basement office where he and Scully (Gillian Anderson) worked.

On the title, director Chris Carter said, "It's a natural title. It's a story that involves the difficulties in mediating faith and science. `I Want to Believe.' It really does suggest Mulder's struggle with his faith." It's an appropriate title on many different levels; ever since the show went off the air, fans wanted to believe it would make a comeback on the big screen. And it did. The first film came and went, and since then fans have wanted to believe that Mulder and Scully would one day reunite -- either on the small or big screen. That day will finally come on July 25th, when The X-Files: I Want to Believe arrives in theaters.

What do you think of the new title? Speak ya mind folks -- speak it!