deep impact Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Our Favorite Summers: 1998
Filed under: Fandom », Summer Movies »
Believe it or not, I wasn't yet a full-blown movie geek in 1998. I didn't even start saving my ticket stubs until the summer of '99. In all fairness, I hadn't been quite old enough to go to the movies by myself yet -- not much younger than any of my colleagues in the summers they covered, but young enough to spare you the math.
Every third weekend, my younger brother and I spent with our father, and a reliable way to spend time together was often to go to the movies or rent something and stay home. So by only (probably) going to the movies every third weekend, I only saw maybe six movies theatrically over the course of those eighteen weeks. I'll bold those that I remember going to see as I go along, and then touch upon the rest of the releases in between.
(By the way: the weekends in the summer of 1998 happen to line up with those of this summer. Let's see just how far we've come...)
Another 'Valkyrie' Film to Challenge Cruise Film Prospects
Filed under: Action », Casting », Deals », New Releases », Cannes », Celebrities and Controversy », Box Office », Distribution », The Weinstein Co. », Tom Cruise », Movie Marketing »
When two movies with similar plots hit theaters around the same time, it usually just reveals the vapidity of Hollywood formula (as was the case when Deep Impact and Armageddon came out a few months apart). The situation changes, however, when the subject matter has far more thematic weight. Defamer's S.T. VanAirsdale points out the potential conflict brewing now that The Weinstein Company has picked up U.S. theatrical, DVD and television rights to the 2004 German film Operation Valykrie, a dramatization of the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hilter during World War II. Sound familiar? That's because Bryan Singer's upcoming 2009 release, Valkyrie, tells precisely the same story, with Tom Cruise in the role of would-be assassin Col. Claus Von Stauffenberg. In the German movie, the character is played by Sebastian Koch, the debonair star of The Lives of Others and Paul Verhoeven's Black Book. In addition to the overlapping content, VanAirsdale points out another potential conflict: Koch's female co-star in Black Book, the alluring Carice van Houten, stars opposite Cruise in Valkyrie, creating the sort of meaty overlap that money can buy. Harvey Weinstein's no slouch when it comes to instigating controversy, but his company hasn't exactly had the best of luck with its recent daring titles (few turned out for Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?). Personal drama has impacted Cruise's films before, but this might be the rare case where he would have nothing to do with it.
Next Terrible Spoof Film -- 'Armageddagain: The Day Before Tomorrow'
Filed under: Action », Comedy », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Sony », Distribution », Comic/Superhero/Geek »
Here's an idea that seem a bit late: a disaster movie spoof. Not only would it have been more fitting nearly a decade ago, when Armageddon and Deep Impact faced off at the box office, and when we'd already seen Independence Day, Twister, Titanic and the dueling volcano movies, but we hardly need a parody of these movies after seeing unintentional spoofs like The Core, The Day After Tomorrow and Poseidon. Still, the cheaply made cheap laughs of the modern spoof trend need something to make fun of now that scary movies, date movies and epic movies have been taken care of. So, thanks to Screen Gems, we are about to get Armageddagain: The Day Before Tomorrow from director Robert Moniot, who co-wrote the movie with voice-actor Travis Oates.
Moniot apparently already has experience spoofing Armageddon -- or at least its title -- having previously directed a short film called Pearl Harbor II: Pearlmageddon. That 11 minute short seems to have been popular enough (based on the IMDb user ratings), but then again shorts and skits are much more tolerable when it comes to silly spoofs. The current model of spoof features is unfortunately like a bunch of these shorts linked together by some forced, incoherent plot. Interestingly, Armageddagain is being produced by actor Noah Emmerich, though as far as I know, he isn't related to Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. In addition to spoofing the long-passed disaster movies of the 1990s, the movie will reportedly feature parodies of upcoming pics like Transformers and The Bourne Ultimatum.
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Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
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