Archive for June 26th, 2009
June 26th, 2009
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal has cut a Michael Jackson-related scene from BRUNO for the comedy’s Los Angeles premiere today.
In the scene, Bruno (Sacha Baron Cohen) interviews an unsuspecting LaToya Jackson and asks several questions about her brother, Michael. The scene had been shown at recent press screenings, and critics hadn’t singled it out as being especially offensive — but that was before Jackson died Thursday.
From the article:
“We decided to take it out for tonight, and we’ll reassess before the release whether to keep it out,” director Larry Charles said at the premiere’s afterparty. A spokesperson for Universal also confirmed that it had not come to any decision on future showings.Â
The studio hasn’t announced whether or not it will include the scene in all prints of BRUNO.
June 26th, 2009
If you’ve got plenty to time to play around on the Internet today (and you’re tired of reading about Michael Jackson), here’s a link that will kill several hours: IFC.com has compiled its list of the 50 greatest movie trailers of all time, and thanks to the miracle of You Tube, you can both read about them and watch them.
Thing is, it’s one of those list where every trailer has its own page, so it takes a while just to click through them, even if you don’t watch every one. Here, to whet your appetite, is one of my personal favorites, which earned the No. 25 spot: Albert Brooks’ REAL LIFE. I especially like it when champion paddle ball player Randy Brown makes a guest appearance for no reason except the most obvious, shameless one imaginable.
The real joke, see, is the movie is not in 3-D.
June 26th, 2009
Michael Jackson didn’t make many movies, but his influence on the art of cinema is still being felt. That’s because music videos changed the way movies were made (and consumed) in the 1980s, and no single person did more to popularize the artform of music videos than Michael Jackson.
He’s been considered an out-of-touch weirdo so long it’s hard to remember when he was, in fact, the biggest star in the entire world. Premieres of his videos on MTV used to be accorded the same level of press coverage as a coronation. I still remember my family gathering around the set to watch the first showing of “Thriller,” Jackson’s extra-long video narrated by screen legend Vincent Price and directed by (then) big deal director John Landis.
Years later, with his “Black and White” video, he brought major-league morphing to the viewing audience. The same year TERMINATOR 2 wowed theatergoers with its computer-generated effects, Jackson’s video included a memorable sequence where one lip syncher changed into another (including a young Tyra Banks). Here’s the video, the morphing starts around the 5:27 mark. (And I should warn you, the video itself is painful to watch thanks to all its incredibly dated elements — little kids rapping, Macauley Culkin, the whole tough guy pose Jackson attempts and a psuedo documentary ending where you get a glimpse of director John Landis):
His only major actual movie appearance, though, was in the musical THE WIZ. He played the Scarecrow and was virtually unrecognizable under all that makeup. Back then, though, we couldn’t imagine just how unrecognizable he’d become.
