Archive for May, 2009
May 22nd, 2009
Over at Hitfix.com, blogger Drew McWeeny “celebrates” the 10th birthday of Jar-Jar Binks. (Yes, believe it or not, THE PHANTOM MENACE arrived in theaters a decade ago.) But he does more than mock the worst thing George Lucas was ever involved with (and yes, I’m including HOWARD THE DUCK in my assessment). He explains why STAR WARS fans — who, for the most part, thought Lucas walked on water (and yes, I’m including myself in that assessment) turned on him viciously when PHANTOM MENACE was released…
Jar-Jar Binks, perhaps the most reviled character in the entire “Star Wars” mythos, has become a symbol of everything that went wrong with the prequels. You want to make a “Star Wars” fan mental, just tell them, “Meesa wuv Jah- Jah!” Even now, I’ll bet you see a twitch. In another way, though, Jar-Jar isn’t just a symbol of how Lucas failed… he’s a symbol of exactly where fandom lost its way.
Read the whole thing here.
And here, for your viewing “pleasure,” is virtually ever Jar-Jar Binks moment from THE PHANTOM MENACE edited into one 10-minute montage. Some one was brave enough to post this You Tube — are you brave enough to watch it?
Check out the seven-minute mark for the worst moment in any of the STAR WARS films.
May 21st, 2009
Be honest: It’s still kind of hard to believe this guy is the governor of California, isn’t it?
Over at Cinematical.com, Todd Gilchrist tries to sort out the confusing timeline of the TERMINATOR movies. Here’s the conclusion he reaches:
The bottom line is we’ve been thinking about TERMINATOR for a long time now, and we’re thoroughly confused. What’s new? What’s old? What happened when? Who should exist and who shouldn’t? Presumably there is someone who can verify some of these ambiguous details or explain how this unwieldy mess of dates, timelines and thrilling action scenes comes together cohesively. But we suspect the explanation would require a time machine, a professor of quantum physics, and a suspension of disbelief. And really, as long as stuff blows up real good, the rest doesn’t matter. Or does it?
Check out the whole tangled timeline here.
May 21st, 2009
Can you picture kids playing with this John Travolta monstrosity? How about a Kevin Costner WATERWORLD toy? Or an Alec Baldwin action figure from THE SHADOW? Maybe an Adam Sandler figure from LITTLE NICKY?
You can’t? Well, neither could the kids themselves, which is why those toy lines bombed big time. Merchandising execs, however, thought every child in America would be eager to tear open the packaging on a Warren Beatty DICK TRACY action figure, which is why they OK’d such a bad idea in the first place.
Read about these and other fiascos in “The Top 10 Toylines Based on Blockbusters Movies Nobody Wanted.”
May 21st, 2009
Over at the Guardian’s TV Blog, writer Ben Child considers the possibility of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman — the genius behind ADAPTATION, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND and SYNECDOCHE, NY — creating a TV show, based on a quote Kaufman gave recently:
“I would want my own show. I like the idea of telling something over time. It might be a fun challenge. The movie business has changed, and with the stuff I do, it would be an interesting place to go.”
Trouble is, Kaufman’s movies, as great as they are, don’t aim for the same audience that devours episode after episode of AMERICAN IDOL, DANCING WITH THE STARS and other drek. Even critics who liked his latest movie, SYNECDOCHE (like me) admitted it’s pretty tough going and requires careful thought and attention to detail. And, as Child points out, even David Lynch, who had some success with TWIN PEAKS back in the early 1990s, wasn’t able to get ABC to turn his MULHOLLAND DR. pilot into a series. (Instead, Lynch turned it into one of the best movies of the last 10 years.)
I don’t know if it would succeed or not, but I do know that I’d watch every episode of a Charlie Kaufman TV series, no matter how strange it was. And besides, Kaufman does have some TV experience — he wrote episodes of NED AND STACEY, THE DANA CARVEY SHOW and Chris Elliot’s wonderfully weird Fox sitcom, GET A LIFE.
Read Child’s article here.
May 20th, 2009
AVATAR, the huge-budget sci-fi film coming from James Cameron (who hasn’t directed a feature film since 1997’s TITANIC — incidentally, the biggest moneymaker of all time), doesn’t hit theaters until Dec. 18, but apparently owners of Imax theaters are expecting big things. Very big things.
From a posting on Carpetbagger (the New York Times Movie Blog) by Michael Cieply:
How hot is James Cameron’s AVATAR? Hot enough that Imax so far has not lined up any other Hollywood movies for its ultra-big screen theaters between Fox’s release of Mr. Cameron’s 3-D science fiction thriller on Dec. 18 and the arrival of Tim Burton’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND on March 5.
As Cieply points out for comparison’s sake, STAR TREK — not exactly an obscure arthouse film — only got a two-week window on those same Imax screens. Three months — in a time when there’s a new No. 1 movie at the box office almost every week — is a big commitment. Then again, TITANIC opened on Dec. 19 and dominated the box office until late spring. Maybe they know what they’re doing.
Read the whole thing here.
(And yes, the date in that poster is no longer valid.)
May 20th, 2009
Todd McCarthy of Variety saw Quentin’s new movie at Cannes, too, and he filed this review. Apparently, he likes it — but warns there are more than a few subtitles…
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is a violent fairy tale, an increasingly entertaining fantasia in which the history of World War II is wildly reimagined so that the cinema can play the decisive role in destroying the Third Reich. Quentin Tarantino’s long-gestating war saga invests a long-simmering revenge plot with reworkings of innumerable genre conventions, but only fully finds its tonal footing about halfway through, after which it’s off to the races. By turns surprising, nutty, windy, audacious and a bit caught up in its own cleverness, the picture is a completely distinctive piece of American pop art with a strong Euro flavor that’s new for the director. Several explosive scenes and the names of Tarantino and topliner Brad Pitt promise brawny commercial prospects, especially internationally, as the preponderance of subtitled dialogue might put off a certain slice of the prospective domestic audience.
Read the whole review here.
May 20th, 2009
Quentin Tarantino’s World War II film, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, had its first screening at the Cannes Film Festival this today, and according to Eric Kohn over at IndieWire, it’s not his best — or his most ambitious…
Talked about for years by the filmmaker as his epic “guys-on-a-mission” movie, the final product, unveiled this morning in Cannes, certainly meets those standards. The story of Nazi-hunting Jewish soldiers delivers on the colorful brand of unserious entertainment implied by the plot, but no matter how much extreme contextualization and heavily stylized techniques Tarantino introduced to the production, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS feels like a bubblegum sidedish to the heavy dinner plate of his career. While not intentionally a rudimentary project, it automatically becomes one by the limits of its design.
Read the rest here.
And here’s the movie’s official site.
May 19th, 2009
Here’s the trailer for the new SHERLOCK HOLMES movie, directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Robert Downey Jr. (as Holmes) and Jude Law (as Watson). It’s, er, a bit different than the Holmes movies we’ve seen before. For example, I can’t remember seeing Basil Rathbone’s bare chest…
Though, you know, the classic Rathbone version of HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES does end with Holmes saying “Watson — the needle!,” which is a reference to Holmes cocaine habit (something mentioned more in the books).
May 19th, 2009
Director Sam Raimi, who is going back to his crazy horror movie roots with his latest film, DRAG ME TO HELL, speaks with Cinematical about his slightly higher-profile next project, a little indie film called SPIDER-MAN 4. And he says he learned a few lessons he’ll apply this time around…
As far as SPIDER-MAN, I’ve learned a lot of lessons about what people didn’t like and missteps that I’d made. But I learned those lessons on the previous two, I was just a little quieter about them. I made a lot of mistakes, and it’s part of the reason I so want to make this next story of Peter Parker.
Sounds good. I didn’t think SPIDER-MAN 3 was as out-and-out terrible as some people did, but it was nowhere near the glory of part 2. Maybe the SPIDER-MAN series will follow the STAR TREK movie model, and the even numbered ones will be the best films.
Read the rest of the Cinematical interview here.
May 18th, 2009
Here’s a fun summer preview article from Dennis Cozzalio over at his excellent movie blog, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. He includes some of the basics we’re all looking forward to — UP, LAND OF THE LOST — but throws in some very imaginative choices, like the fake-doc BIG MAN JAPAN, which is going into limited release soon. I’ve seen this movie, and it’s great, but also very different from the usual mindless summer fair (which is one reason why it’s so good.) Here’s the trailer. It’ll never be shown in a Rockford theater, but keep an eye out for it when it hits DVD…
Dennis does put THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3 on his list, but he’s with me in thinking that the Walter Matthau/Robert Shaw original is so well done it doesn’t need a big-budget, flashy remake with Denzel Washington and John Travolta in the lead roles. If this version is one tenth as funny, suspenseful and wonderfully gritty as the original, I’ll be stunned. (Plus, the original has Jerry Stiller — George’s dad! — in a major role. Serenity now!)
Here’s the trailer for the original (you can see the trailer for the remake everywhere you look these days)…
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