ebay Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Time is running out! But if you act fast, you can be the proud owner of a Starbucks cup that George Lucas himself slurped mediocre, overpriced coffee out of! Bid on it now on eBay. You have about 3 hours and change to own this monumental piece of history! Right now it's only $8.07 -- what a steal.

As per the description:

This is an extremely rare item, and no it's not a joke. I was at a press event at Skywalker Ranch earlier this year, where George Lucas was drinking from this very cup. I have a photo of him drinking from it, where the name on the cup is very visible and is the same as in this photo. I'll include the photo with the auction for the winner. It includes the sleeve, which has his secret magical coffee mixture written on it, so you'll be able to order what George does, and the lid that his lips actually touched! In the future you might be able to snag some DNA off of this and clone him. You never know.

Yes, this is an extremely crazy auction. Yes, I actually took his coffee cup when he left it behind as trash, and yes, I even flew with it on a plane. It's ridiculous, I know it. I meant to frame this in a lucite square, but I figured there has to be a bigger Star Wars fan out there than me who would probably want this thing. Check it for midichlorians, frame it, put it in your Lucas altar, what have you.

May The Force Be With You.

If you purchase this, please let us know ASAP. Especially if you do, in fact, clone Lucas.

Update: The guys at ReelGuyz.com won the cup for $51, plus shipping. They have a few ideas of what to do with it, but are looking for suggestions from readers too. Personally, I'm down with a Viking funeral, but that's just because I like a good excuse to wear my helmet with horns.

Love Iron Man? Hate cancer? Have a lot of money? (I knew that third one would be the toughie.) If you can answer YES to all three questions, then you just might stand a chance of walking through a scene in Marvel's Iron Man 2. Seems that the Stand Up to Cancer organization (you've probably seen their promo at the movies) is auctioning off one HELL of a slick Iron Man 2 package. And here's what the winner shall receive:

A visit to the set (complete with photo tour), a meet & greet with cast and crew members, a "walk-on / extra" role in the sequel, and two tickets to the world premiere of Iron Man 2. And you'll even get to walk down the red carpet at the world premiere, completely geeked out and feeling justifiably heroic because YOU donated the biggest chunk of change to a powerful new cancer research foundation. It all sounds so great ... but who knows how much this package will go for?

You can see the full details over at ComicsPriceGuide.com, and then you can check out the eBay auction page right here. (As of September 7 the bidding stands at $5,100.) Anyone want to lay a friendly bet on how high this auction will go?

(Thanks to my pal Ed and his Marvel Movies! Facebook page for this win-win news item. To the eventual winner, I say this: Well done, sir. Or madam. Well done.)

First off, a little business: Yesterday morning, I wrote a post regarding Edward Norton's involvement (screenwriting-wise) on next summer's The Incredible Hulk. For certain reasons (which I can't really go into), I've had to pull back the post. Sorry for the inconvenience, and I promise to update you as soon as I can.

But speaking of people who like to crush and ruin things, Brett Ratner has a new movie coming out this weekend. Rush Hour 3, you may have heard of it. I've already seen Rush Hour 3 (my review will come later this week), and it's pretty much what you would expect from an installment in the Rush Hour series. Will it entertain the hardcore fans? Most certainly. But I'd expect most critics to chalk it up as yet another uninspiring, unoriginal Ratner gem. The LA Times recently ran a story (in which yours truly was asked to contribute -- plug! plug!) asking one simple question: Why does the web hate Brett Ratner? I provided them with an answer that had to do with Ratner's consistent need to sex-up his off-screen life and then share it with the world. I don't think anyone cares how many girls Ratner sleeps with, or how many times he's visited the Playboy Mansion -- all we want from the guy is a good movie. And when we'd rather look at Ratner's newest flavor of the week over watching his latest film, that's a problem.

When I asked Cinematical's Scott Weinberg what he thought of Brett Ratner and why "the web" hates the guy so much, he said: "I don't get the praise or the hatred either way. The guy's made a bunch of profitable, mainstream, pretty bad films. If that's a crime against humanity, Ratner should be punished in line behind another 45 directors I could name. Regarding his personal life, I couldn't care less. Make good movies and I like you." But why can't Ratner make a good film? Some liked The Family Man, but I thought it was just another one of Ratner's attempts at a genre he truly didn't understand. Has the guy simply mastered the art of fast food entertainment? Case in point: Twenty minutes after Rush Hour 3 ended, I was hungry again for another, more satisfying film. He's obviously a bankable director box office-wise, but shouldn't we expect more for our dollar? Shouldn't we expect more from our directors?

Note to Brett: Stop pimping yourself out on eBay as if you're a f**king collectible Star Wars figurine, and start figuring out a way to make a compelling motion picture. It's great that you're doing stuff for charity (although 70% is kind of lame -- why not make it a full 100%?), but how about doing something for your audience too? And no, Rush Hour 4 is not an option.

I don't know whether to laugh at how ridiculous this is, or cry because pieces of my childhood are now being auctioned off! MTV Movies Blog has found none other than Johnny Five up for sale on eBay. In case you slept through (or had discerning taste during) the 1980's, Johnny Five is the lovable, wisecracking robot from 1986's Short Circuit and 1988's Short Circuit 2 (which had a hilarious robot chase scored to Bonnie Tyler's "I Need A Hero"). You can head to this link to bid on the item, just be aware that the bidding starts at $100,000. And I'd imagine shipping and handling is going to be a real bitch! But hey, isn't that a small price to pay for probably the best conversation piece you could ever have in your home? "Love what you've done with the place, Janet! Is this coffee table from Pier 1 Imports? Hey...uh...is that the robot from Short Circuit?"

The robot is five feet tall, cost over $175,000 to construct in 1983, and it looks like it's been kept remarkably clean and free of rust. Fifteen different robots were made for Short Circuit and its sequel, but according to the bid page "most of these were mock-ups, half-robots and other non-animatronic pieces." The model being auctioned is "the only complete Johnny Five that survived, and is the only one known to exist." Should you have concerns that this is some imposter giant talking robot and not a movie star, the package "is accompanied with a letter of authenticity from Eric Allard, the robotic special effects supervisor who made this robot for the film." And the sweetest feature is that you get "a specially designed exo-skeleton apparatus (that) was made to control all of the mechanical features of the robot during filming." If I'm reading that correctly, that means you might just be able to make Johnny Five come alive in your own home! It all sounds really cool, but for the price they're asking, I hope it comes with Steve Guttenberg.

If you guys could own any piece of movie memorabilia, (other than Johnny Five of course), what would it be? Thinking small and since all this Short Circuit talk has me nostalgic for the 80's, I'd love to have the original Gizmo from Gremlins in my apartment. I'd keep him far away from the bath tub, of course.

This isn't the most amazing news I've ever heard, but it got me thinking about auctions and Ebay and what not (plus it is a slow news day), so I thought I'd mention it. Yesterday at an auction in L.A., a hat and cane set once used by Charlie Chaplin was sold for $139,250, the new record for such a set. I'm not sure how many sets there are -- surely he went through quite a few in his many years as the Tramp -- but that is a lot of money for something that isn't a one-of-a-kind. I'm surprised that things like this can net such prices, particularly give how much the market for auctions has widened since the internet and Ebay came along. (Maybe I'm just bitter because I could sell an old comic book or a signed copy of a book for a lot more before online auctions made everything a lot less rare.) I'm also shocked that people still trust or care about authenticity when scandals like the Queen Mary Marilyn Monroe exhibit happen.

I guess I'm just not a big enough fan of anything to buy expensive props or merchandise or souvenirs or whatever. Once in awhile, I will purchase movie-related clothing, like my The Fisher King t-shirt and my Adaptation long-sleeve with script excerpt on the back, provided they are relatively cheap. But then, I'm not the geek that some people are. The only thing of this sort that I would spend a lot of money on is a painting commissioned for the original Star Wars poster, which was never used, only because it was done by my father.

What is the most you've ever spent on Ebay or at an auction for something movie-related?

 

Without ruining Brokeback Mountain for those who have not seen it yet, there are these two shirts (Old Navy, maybe?) that play a pretty important role towards the end of the film. Well, hoping to make a little cash for charity, Focus Features put the two shirts on eBay and a man by the name of Tom Gregory bought them for $100,000. No, I did not add any zeros to that number - the guy really did shell out a hundred grand for two shirts worth, maybe, 30 bucks.

Oh, but these were the Brokeback Mountain shirts! According to Gregory, "They really are the ruby slippers of our time." Really? Seriously? I'm sure, to some, these shirts represent the struggle many gay citizens face in a world that still hasn't accepted them...or they're just two shirts on a hanger. Regardless, isn't that bit much to spend on a movie prop from 2005? Is it worth it, or will this whole Brokeback Mountain thing fade come a few months from now... just like any other amusing trend? Think about this and come back to it after we see whether or not Brokeback takes home Best Picture next month.

MPAA lead man Dan Glickman had a "get me out of here" look on his face for most of Saturday afternoon's Brave New World: Entertainment and Social Change panel. And can you blame him? A sometime congressman and former Secretary of Agriculture, Glickman was nothing but humble upon his turn to speak. "I came here as the least qualified person to speak about movies," he admitted. "Here I am representing what I believe is the most powerful industry in
America ... [and] I have a lot to learn about this business." Cue poor agriculture metaphor in 3 ... 2 ... 1: "Indie film is the intellectual fertilizer of America," Glickman said. Presumably, this was his way of beslavering the assembled masses, but it hardly came off.

By that point in the panel, Glickman had already dug his own grave with an opening gaffe that pretty much stripped him of what little credibility he had as even a film fan, let alone as the enforcer o fpolitics over content. Earlier, moderator Pat Mitchell got the following all-in-fun jab in the ribs whilst introducing panelist/God of Sundance Robert Redford:

Mitchell: [Redford's] body of work includes, from the very begining ... films about so much
more than enjoying ourselves– they were about changing the world. The Candidate actually led to some people running for office –
Redford: Yeah – the wrong people.

About twenty minutes later, after his own introduction from Mitchell, Glickman tried to improv-riff on that little exchange, with the worst possible results.

Glickman mumbled, so I'm paraphrasing, but his opening statement went something like, "I may have been the wrong person to run for office, but I did it long before The Graduate." It's not just that Hollywood's most powerful government representative managed to accidentally insult the most important independent film advocate in (maybe) the world whilst enjoying said advocate's hospitality – he did it by referencing a film that then-pretty-boy Redford was famously up for the lead in, only to be passed over for Dustin Hoffman. The reaction? Darts from Redford's eyes, a murmur from the crowd, and an interruption from Mitchell: "The Graduate?"

Glickman is a convenient scapegoat in this crowd – probably everyone on the panel (which also included producer Jeff Eberts, founder of eBay and Participant Productions Jeff Skoll, and indie distribution master Bingham Ray) has had a ratings scuffle of some kind, and surely a good portion of the audience lives in fear of his determination to brutally prosecute any and all piracy that appears on his radar. But other than a few moments of minor humiliation for a guy who was probably asking for it by showing up in the first place, the panel was smoothly engaging, if not revelatory. The remainder of my notes follow, below the jump. I think, beyond Glickman, they really key stuff here comes from Jeff Skoll, who broke down exactly why his Participant Productions can justify putting out two potentially incediary George Clooney films in a single year without every worrying about using the star to turn a profit.

Ray Pride at Movie City Indie has unearthed this gem from the bowels (no pun intended) of eBay: someone is selling a Medicare ID card once belonging to silent screen legend Louise Brooks.

Brooks started out as a Zeigfeld girl. Exquisitely beautiful, with big, sexy brown eyes and a delicate dancer's frame, she made a small splash in Hollywood in the late Teens, working with hired hands/future auteurs such as Howard Hawks and making 21 now-forgotten silent features. When her five year contract with Paramount expired in 1929, the studio tried to lowball her on the extension, expressing doubts over her ability to transfer into sound. Brooks took one look at the offer on the table and walked out. Soon she was contacted by the great German director G.W. Pabst, with whom Brooks went on to make her two most memorable films: Pandora's Box (in which she plays a "free spirt"/sex kitten who meets her untimely death at the hand of Jack the Ripper) and the abstract Diary of a Lost Girl. though now considered classics, both films flopped, and Lulu (as history remembers her, after the character she played in Pandora) returned to Hollywood, made a few crap b-movies and retired in 1938. She eventually moved to upstate New York, where in her older days she cranked out a stunning volume of memoirs called Lulu in Hollywood before dying alone in the mid-80s. She also is credited with popularizing the black bob, thereby practically inventing hipster couture.

Anyway – the Medicaid and Blue Cross/Blue shield cards on eBay date back to the early 70s. They include Brooks' signature, as well as evidence of her wicked sense of humor – under "next of kin" on the back of one of the cards, Brooks entered, "emphysema". Bid now - the auction ends tomorrow, and the lot is currently going for about $370.