peter fonda Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The great opportunity with new presentation formats for established forms of entertainment is that newcomers can be introduced and experience them for the very first time; the burden with them is that longtime fans have to forage through multiple editions and decide which one is best. Enter "Making The (Up) Grade," Cinematical's examination of these new, alternate, special editions of films that have long since become favorites. This week's selection, Easy Rider, is one of those cases where people may or may not have purchased the film before, but because it's been so thoroughly discussed and dissected in cinematic culture for the past forty years, it seems almost a redundant choice for any person who considers him- or herself a cinephile.

Is this new 40th Anniversary Blu-ray really better? Let's take a look and see.

Just what would you expect from a white, cutie student from The Jane Austen Book Club (or the dysfunctional son from Transamerica) and Spike Lee? Believe it or not, Lee is executive producing a new indie film called The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll, and Variety reports that Kevin Zegers (the cutie student) and Jason Ritter (The Education of Charlie Banks) will star.

Written by Scott Rosenbaum, who is also directing, the film focuses on "a rock star (Zegers) who retreats to his Long Island hometown after his sophomore album flops." Oh, the woes of stardom. So, in this story, we'll also see the likes of Peter Fonda, Taryn Manning, Lauren Holly, Aimee Teegarden, and James Ransone -- plus, appearances by music names like Billy Morrison, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, and Sugar Blue.

There's not enough information to really get a handle on the story, but I'm in just to see who Peter Fonda will play. Production on the film has already begun in New Jersey, New York, and Los Angeles, so we should know more soon.

This year alone, you can see Peter Fonda as Mephistopheles in Ghost Rider, Damien Blade in Wild Hogs, Byron McElroy in 3:10 to Yuma, Alfred in Japan ... plus a role in a miniseries called The Gathering. Now MTV has heard that he is going beyond the likes of Wild Hogs, which is a logical jump considering his love affair with roaring bikes, and even further into the realm of family fare. The Easy Rider star told the site that he's getting ready for a role in a family film this October called A Handful of Beans -- a movie that he describes as "sweet, wonderful and bizarre."

According to Fonda, "It's a fairy-tale fable type of a story, a G-rated film. I like the fact that I'll do a G-film." A Handful of Beans will be a modern-day take on famous fables and borrow from films like Shrek, but in a live-action setting. Unfortunately, he has no idea who is in it with him: "I haven't the foggiest idea. But I'm in it." Nor did he share what sort of role he has. While Fonda says there's an allusion to Jack and the Beanstalk, it seems this is not the adaptation that Erik Davis told us about at the beginning of August. If you had to cast the actor as a famous, fabled figure, who would it be?

James Mangold's Cop Land is a stellar example of an "urban western," a contemporary film that beautifully updates the genre's plots and themes -- without the saddles n' spurs that Hollywood seems to be so afraid of these days. You could tell by watching that wildly underrated flick that Mangold had studied a lot of the classic westerns, and I can't wait to see his take on the real deal. 3:10 to Yuma stars Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, a potentially explosive acting duo. It's a remake of the 1957 Glenn Ford/Van Heflin film. The plot's a simple one: Outlaw leader Ben Wade (Crowe) is captured and awaiting the 3:10 train to Yuma for his trial. "Small-time rancher" Dan Evans (Bale) agrees to hold the outlaw, a battle of wills ensues, and in true western style, the whole thing culminates in a shootout, which Mangold says "has the potential to be one of the great movie gunfights." Ben Foster, Peter Fonda, and Alan Tudyk will costar.

Here we have the first two official pictures from the film. As you can see, Crowe and Bale are in full-on intense mode, and I would imagine these shots are taken from the climactic showdown. If you want to really have some fun, put the pictures up so they're facing each other and make your own gunfight. Feel free to add voices and sound effects, I won't judge. You can take the 3:10 to Yuma this October.

When not performing one of his death-defying stunts, like jumping over six Black Hawk helicopters with blades whirling, Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) rides without a helmet. Riding without a helmet is dangerous, but cool and sexy. Figuratively speaking, Ghost Rider the movie rides with a helmet. In fact it rides on one of those trick motorcycles, hooked up to a trailer so that actors can ride safely and still look cool. Whatever financial forces finally allowed the Marvel Comics heroes to make the transition to celluloid these past few years has had a strange effect. Some of the heroes have been treated with respect and passion, such as in the first two Spider-Man movies and the first two X-Men movies. Others have been tossed off as if some kind of deadline loomed: make these movies now or lose them forever. Daredevil (2003) and The Fantastic Four (2005) had a slapdash feel with haphazard casting and a careless choice of directors.

Whatever convinced producers that the guy who made Barbershop (2002) would be a good choice for The Fantastic Four? Or worse, that the guy who made Simon Birch (1998) could make Daredevil, and that even after Daredevil stunk up the joint that he could be trusted with Ghost Rider? Mark Steven Johnson may have learned something from those previous duds, because Ghost Rider is cleaner and lighter, and doesn't feel as if it's desperately striving for a coolness factor. It almost succumbs to its silliness. As a teenager, Blaze (Matt Long) is about to run off with his sweetheart, Roxanne Simpson (Raquel Alessi), when he finds out that his father has cancer. He makes a deal with the devil, or if you prefer, Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda), to save his father's life. But the deal also causes him to lose Roxanne.

This just might turn out to be a remake of The Little Engine that Could. First, Sony Pictures dropped director James Mangold's proposed remake of 3:10 to Yuma for unknown reasons, even with Russell Crowe attached to the project, and Tom Cruise and Eric Bana reportedly interested in separate roles in the film. Then the picture ended up at Lionsgate, who trimmed the budget from $80 million to $50 million, and added Christian Bale in the process.

Lionsgate announced today that Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol and Dallas Roberts have been added to the cast, and shooting (literally) is expected to start in October. Crowe will never be able to replace Glenn Ford in the lead role, but it will give him a chance to atone for his turn in Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead. Okay, that was a cheap shot (no pun intended), because I actually really liked that movie. No word on whether Crowe will be wielding a telephone handset or a shooting iron in his holster, but he's deadly with either one.

• Firewall - Like Rip Van Winkle with a $25 million per picture deal, nap-addled gruff boy Harrison Ford has seen his career hibernate for more than a decade now, scoring hit upon forgettable hit. Ford's latest variation on a theme is, like the bulk of his post-Indiana Jones filmography, predictable formula fare, and therein lies its broad appeal. In what ultimately feels like a diluted remake of Ron Howard's 1996 thriller, Ransom, he plays a bank security expert whose family is held captive in exchange for his aid in electronically liberating $100 million. Bad guy Paul Bettany sneers and jeers so much that we know from the moment he turns up that Ford is going to heroically beat him and his dirty, dirty bastards, and our belief that goodness triumphing over ee-vil will be renewed. Able British stalwart Richard Loncraine, who directed Bettany in Wimbledon, paints this one by-the-numbers, and anyone looking for what might be their last Harrison Ford fix before Indy 4 (and presumed retirement) will get what they paid for, though very little more.