Archive for October 16th, 2008
October 16th, 2008
Yes, really.
Here’s the (bloody, rusty, serrated) scoop from Leonard Pierce over at Nerve.com:
“No, we’re not kidding: there really is going to be such a thing as SAW: The Ride. Based on the depressingly popular torture-porn horror series, it’s set to open at Surrey’s Thorpe Park in Britain in March of 2009. Alleged to be the first roller-coaster to be based on a horror movie, the ride features a 100-foot vertical drop in free fall, which is so scary that it induced SAW producers Lionsgate to release a suicide-inducing press release claiming that ” SAW: The Ride is a reflection of how thoroughly the Saw franchise has crossed over into pop culture at large.” The rides will evoke the nausea-inspiring horror caused by serial killer Jigsaw as he systematically murders people for your amusement. Bring the kids!”
October 16th, 2008
The new issue of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY offers the first glimpse of the upcoming STAR TREK movie, directed and produced by J.J. Abrams. I’ve enjoyed the TREK movies, but never watched the TV show much — and yes, I realize that severly diminishes any geek cred I may have. See, I’ve always been a STAR WARS fan first and foremost … and so, it turns out, has Abrams:
“I preferred a more visceral experience,” he tells Entertainment Weekly in its latest issue, on newsstands Friday. Abrams took on the “Star Trek” project in hopes of creating a film “that grabbed me the way ‘Star Wars’ did,” he says.
Though the movie (due in 2009) focuses on the Enterprise crew during their early days, Leonard Nimoy will make a cameo as an older Spock. William Shatner, however, will not appear as Kirk. Abrams said the scene they wrote didn’t feel right, and Shatner nixed the idea of a mere cameo. Oh well.
Here’s the cover of the issue, with Zachary Quinto as Spock and Chris Pine as Kirk. I’m not sure if it’s the makeup, the printing or some behind-the-scenes Photoshopping, but don’t they look way too smooth?
October 16th, 2008
With Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic W. opening in theaters this weekend, a number of Web sites have Stone-related content. The Onion AV Club has an interview with the man himself, and the Museum of the Moving Image site has thoughtful essays on three of his films: BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, JFK and NIXON.
As someone who considers JFK one of the very best films of the 1990s but doesn’t necessarily agree with the conspiracy thesis at its heart, I especially enjoyed this point made my Kevin B. Lee and Matt Zoller Seitz in their piece:
From the opening newsreel Stone presents a myth, one that pervades this stage of his career: government as oppressive patriarch, motivated largely by military and capitalistic interests and operating largely out of view of a public blinkered by patriotic propaganda. This government, Stone asserts, treats its subjects like children. But JFK goes further to reach a darker conclusion concerning the effects of a nation denied access to reality. When the government hides the true story and treats its citizenry like children, the children are bound to make up their own stories.
People who dismiss JFK because they think Stone’s conspiracy theory is the bunk are missing the point: The movie is a collection of theories, with Costner’s character descending deeper and deeper into the dark side of modern American history. He’s like a classic film noir detective character who keeps learning things he’d be better off knowing as he tries to solve a crime (in this case, a very big crime.) As directed by Stone, JFK is a brilliant collage of images that creates a nightmarish funhouse full of mirror images, hidden passages and dead ends.
Is it true? Probably not. But then again, neither is the Warren Commission report.
