Obsessed With Film

Is It Still Too Soon?

Ray DeRousse — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:22:29 +0000

Much caterwauling has erupted over Remember Me, the Robert Pattinson romance flick opening today in America. In it, Pattinson unleashes his typical performance as Tyler Hawkins, a moody drifter with a penchant for posing and imitating James Dean. This blandishment, however, is not the cause of the critical backlash against Remember Me. Almost all critics are screeching in horror over the last ten minutes of the film. Yeah, we're going there. So consider this a spoiler alert. After an hour and a half of Pattinson's moping, his character lands an important position in a new job. He goes to work on a Tuesday after mysteriously visiting his father at 8:30 in the morning. He enters the elevators, presses the floor, and up he goes ... and goes ... and goes ... until he finally reaches his destination at the top of the building. Then the planes hit. Yes, Pattinson has just gotten a job at the top of one of the World Trade Towers on the day it was attacked. And so he dies on the very day he finally got his life in order. Cue music. Yeah, that ending sucks. It's really overly dramatic for the film that preceded it. It also manipulatively plays on ...

EXCLUSIVE: Clip from A SERIOUS MAN DVD

Matt Holmes — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:45:36 +0000

When it comes to bestowing a motion-picture with the golden honour of being Best Picture for a particular year, I always look for what I call a "perfect film". I define a "perfect film" as one that is absent of any scenes or moments that could have been improved on because the direction is so controlled, the story told so tight and the actors so utterly convincing in their roles that they were irreplaceable. Perfect films suggest the cinematic medium has been used to fully transcend the meaning of an author's intention, usually with multiple layers upon layers of engaging interpretation for every shot and idea. There are no filler, or exposition moments in a perfect film and they don't come around very often. The last was No Country For Old Men in 2007, which I firmly believe was why it won Best Picture over the more ambitious There Will Be Blood. The closest we came in 2008 was probably Let the Right One In. However, we did have a perfect film this year and no it wasn't James Cameron's eye-ball orgy blockbuster Avatar. As much as I championed the movie on Oscar night as being the very one that should take home the ...

CAESAR of the Apes has a director

Matt Holmes — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:05:14 +0000

(article co-written by Matt Holmes & Owain Paciuszko) Correct me if I'm being an old fuddy duddy, but SIX Planet of the Apes movies (including one remake/reboot), a 14 episode live action and a separate animated t.v. series, hundreds and hundreds of comic books and novels; isn't it time to let this franchise die? Is there really anything left to be said that hasn't already been said in the man vs. apes saga? Mike Fleming at Deadline reports that Caesar, 20th Century Fox's un-mainstream attempt at resuscitating the franchise (it's kind of a remake of Conquest of the Apes) with it's second reboot in ten years, has found a director in the form of Brit Rupert Wyatt. He co-wrote/directed the 2008 Sundance thriller The Escapist which I haven't seen but heard good things. In January, Scott Frank, who penned Out of Sight and Minority Report had turned in a draft that was deemed too costly by Fox. He was soon booted off and Jamie Moss (Street Kings, X-Men: First Class) hired to improve earlier writers Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver (The Relic) structure. Frank's take on the material focused on a genetically modified chimpanzee doing a Bub from Day of the Dead, and would have ...

Hugo Weaving is Marvel’s superhero version of Joseph Goebbels – “The Red Skull” in CAPTAIN AMERICA!

Matt Holmes — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:35:17 +0000

Joe Johnston, a safe, predictable and rather unstimulating director who probably checks both ways no less than four times before crossing the street - is taking no risks with his casting of The Red Skull, the lead villain in The First Avenger: Captain America which films in June. The Hollywood Reporter say iconic screen villain Hugo Weaving is in talks, and I guess we all know what we are going to get from him. The iconic voice, the expressive angry dog-growl face, the slight smirk of confidence and no doubt, a little bit of baggage that still haunts his roles even a decade on from The Matrix. If he agrees to the low-ball Marvel offer ($300,000 is all the lead is getting), Weaving will play Hitler's right hand man, the Nazi propaganda mastermind, the great military strategist and sadistic genocidal villain who covers his face with a red mask. Think - The Joseph Goebbels of the Captain America universe, his version of The Joker. [poll id="188"] He pre-dates Captain America and is well established as a terror of Europe before the U.S. enter World War II in Dec 1941. In fact, I believe the super serum soldier is created, in part, to combat The ...

Ray Gets Caught In The GREEN ZONE

Ray DeRousse — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:12:33 +0000

America's misguided war on terror in the streets of Iraq over the last several years has proven to be fertile ground for several gritty box office failures. Out of these films, The Hurt Locker finally broke through last week to earn a hefty payday, if only in Oscar gold. It managed such widespread acclaim thanks to sharp, stunning direction and a script that played the middle ground with a story that didn't take a clear position on the war. In Green Zone, director Paul Greengrass and screenwriter Brian Helgeland attempt to circumvent the box office failures of previous Iraq war films by grafting a spy subplot onto the conflict, making the film more or less Jason Bourne in the desert. To that end, Greengrass employs Bourne himself, Matt Damon, as warrant officer Roy Miller, who is leading one group of soldiers through the streets of Iraq looking for weapond of mass destruction. As they hop from lead to lead, it suddenly becomes clear that the intelligence they're receiving leads into dead ends, and men are dying needlessly. So Miller takes matters into his own hands to discover the truth. The film is shot in typical Greengrass style, with a camera that never ...

SHREK FOREVER Trailer Promises Neverending Boredom

Ray DeRousse — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:35:48 +0000

Who is actually still supporting this franchise? I literally refused to watch any of the Shrek films after a disastrous screening of the first film way back in 2001. I sat there in the theater that day, surrounded by little kids, appalled by the masturbation jokes playing out onscreen. As anyone knows, I enjoy dirty jokes and outright nastiness as much as the next red-blooded American male, but there happens to be a tiny, molding crumb of morality inside me that thinks such things shouldn't be marketed to kids. Besides the obvious dirty jokes laced like cyanide throughout the film, the animation itself was ugly and drab, and the characters visually unappealing. I couldn't stand the use of one of the three international voices "comedian" Mike Myers specializes in (this time Scottish, for some reason) for the title character, either. In other words, I absolutely despised the film. The other Shrek films came and went without me seeing them, and my life gradually eased into a blissful ignorance of the Shrek franchise. Until now. Another Shrek movie is headed our way, and a new trailer promises to bore the hell out of everyone who pays to see it. My first reaction involved the look - have they ...

Scorsese talks cinema & SINATRA!

Matt Holmes — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:54:03 +0000

On the eve of Shutter Island's U.K. release, Short List have published a substantial interview with Martin Scorsese (found via The Playlist) in which the veteran director re-tells a topical conclusion he came to with his Taxi Driver & Raging Bull screenwriter Paul Schrader recently; “You know, we took cinema seriously." We’re afraid that for the younger people today, cinema is just something to be seen for an hour or two, a lot of noise and forgotten about. If blockbusters overbalance the marketplace, we’re going to lose something culturally. That’s very dangerous. Scorsese's comments come in the week that Alice in Wonderland, a movie that was definitely something to forget about and I can't imagine ever seeing it again; has crossed the $233 million barrier worldwide in less than seven days and a big budget Warner Bros. tentpole re-imagining the life of Leonardo Da Vinci as biblical code-cracking demon slayer is greenlit. I guess that's the kind movie he is talking about? Aside from a nostalgic evocation of 70's cinema, Scorsese also discusses his Frank Sinatra biopic which he claims is still at the writing stages and "will have three or four different Sinatras. Younger. Older. Middle-aged. Very old. You cut back and forth ...

Please Turn ON Your Cell Phones For LAST CALL

Ray DeRousse — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:02:47 +0000

There have been lots of attempts to make the movies more involving for audiences lured away from theaters by other mediums. In the fifties, audiences entranced by television were lured into theaters by vibrating seats called Percepto vision, as well as cardboard 3D glasses. Today we still have the vibrating seats - now called D-Box Seats - and we still have crappy 3D to distract us from the pleasures of video games and streaming torrents. But a German company has decided to make such interactive gimmicks look like the least noticeable annoyance in the auditorium with its new invention. Called 13th Street, the idea is similar to those interactive books we all explored as children in which the reader chooses what the hero does throughout the story. In the movie version, audience members give out their cell phone number when they buy a ticket. During the film, a random audience member receives a call from one of the onscreen characters, asking that audience member what to do next. Their response is fed back to a computer, which recognizes the command and then orders the theater to play the next scene that corresponds to the answer. This sounds like a nightmare of monumental proportions. Can you imagine ...

Can Insurge Start A Film Revolution?

Ray DeRousse — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:37:59 +0000

Following the blinding success of last fall's Paranormal Activity - which cost approximately as much to make as a Honda Civic - Paramount announced that it was intending to create a subdivision of the studio specifically designed to create micro-budgeted films. The rest of Hollywood and the moviegoing fanbase shrugged and cynically mumbled, "I'll believe it when it happens." It looks like it's actually happening, and I, for one, am really excited. Indiewire and SlashFilm both announced the formation of Insurge, a new division of Paramount that will craft films from budgets thought to be around $100,000 per picture. The curious name derives, of course, from the word "insurgency," which hints at the uprising Paramount is looking to start in Hollywood. The division will have a $1 million dollar budget to wisely utilize in the creation of approximately ten films a year. This is wondrous news. Paramount and the geniuses who cooked up this plan are to be commended for this long-overdue attempt to revitalize the film community. As anyone with any sense already knows, a successful film does not necessarily require massive budgets, hundreds of special effects, and ads playing during the Super Bowl telecast. Craft a tight script, cast intelligent actors, ...

Ready For A Hollywood Bailout?

Ray DeRousse — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:52:32 +0000

Mike Fleming over at Deadline Hollywood Daily has posted a terrific little article describing a new betting arena for studio heads who want to risk studio wealth betting on box office receipts. According to Fleming, Cantor Fitzgerald is readying a system through which people can purchase contracts for $1 for each $1M of box office business, and making advance over/under bets on the box office receipts. In this peculiar scenario, studio heads can place wagers against their own film's receipts in order to recoup losses they expect from some of their product. Or, conversely, these same moguls can make enormous sums of money by keeping certain potential moneymakers under the radar, thereby increasing their "winnings" if the movie becomes enormously profitable. As Fleming points out, this is similar to the scheme that got Pete Rose banished for life from baseball. Even worse is the comparison to the recent stock market schemes that collapsed the worldwide economic system in the last two years, in the process destroying the housing market (I've lost at least $20,000 in my own house in the last year) and putting millions of people out of work. Cantor Fitzgerald, located in Manhattan, is closely tied with these bailout companies and the power structure of the government, ...

The New ECLIPSE Trailer Will Wet Your Panties!

Ray DeRousse — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:24:31 +0000

I was talking to a buddy a few days ago. He was having a problem with a woman at his job, and, apparently desperate, turned to me for advice. During the conversation, he turned and gave me that look that men often give one another while dealing with the female species. Under his breath, he mumbled, "Ray, what's wrong with them? Why don't they make any sense?" Girls make men say things like this because they are deranged, hormonally-challenged sociopaths. They might be the best evidence against the existence of God, since no rational, intelligent being would dare construct such a hyperventilating, exasperating, and deeply illogical creature. Women should cherish their vaginas, since that mysterious wonderland is the only thing that has prevented men from rising up and slaughtering them all. Studio heads and other cash mongerers have repeatedly exploited the feminine weaknesses for puerile romantic yearning, vapid pretty boys, and chaste petting. The seventies had Leif Garrett, the eighties had Corey Haim, the nineties had the Saved By The Bell guys, and the Aughts have brought us The Jonas Brothers and the Twilight franchise. Women - grown women - squeal loudly at the sight of a 2D picture of charisma-free Taylor Lautner. Robert Pattinson reduces entire auditoriums of females ...

Leonardo Da Vinci – Action Hero?

Ray DeRousse — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:33:38 +0000

There have been some strange film announcements in recent weeks. We've heard about a new Gilligan's Island film, a film based solely around a thirty year old Space Invaders video game, and a film re-imagining Abraham Lincoln as some sort of vampire killer. Mind-blowing stuff, indeed. Breathlessly, the weird movie news continues from Warner Brothers, the unofficial Hollywood home of psychotic, emotionally-incompetent studio heads. They have announced that they will be making a film tenatively titled Leonardo da Vinci and the Soldiers of Forever. The film will pit da Vinci and a secret society against demons for control of the world (again). The film will be an action-adventure film along the lines of National Treasure and (of course) The da Vinci Code. Strangely, I'm not entirely against this idea. Leonardo da Vinci was clearly a man who had much going on in his life. Although mainly known for his paintings and sculptures, he was also a brilliant, visionary inventor whose technical drawings were hundreds of year ahead of their time. In such a re-imagining, it might be fun to see da Vinci wield some steam-punkish weapons and gadgets in his fight against the underworld. He could be like a Renaissance-era James Bond. ...

Clint Eastwood to direct J. Edgar Hoover’s coming out movie!

Matt Holmes — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:22:03 +0000

Clint Eastwood is in post on his supernatural December opening thriller Hereafter, and according to The Hollywood Reporter is gearing up to begin work on his next movie - a biopic of the first F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover. A biopic which is almost certain to carry a fascinating agenda. You see, there's an awful lot of speculation in various Hoover biographies to suggest that the man was a closet homosexual and cross-dresser. Although the point was mute in Billy Crudrup's great supporting gig in Public Enemies last year, it was most certainly hinted at in the Bob Hoskins portrayal of the complicated man in Nixon. When we see that Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar winning screenwriter of Milk and an openly gay man himself has wrote the screenplay for the movie Eastwood has become attached to, it doesn't take Columbo to conclude that his biopic will touch on this subject in a big way. It just seems so likely. Of course there's an awful lot to cover with a re-telling of Hoover's life story and it could focus on many different avenues. His creation of the F.B.I. of course, his obsession with John Dillinger (though we've been there done that), his secret files on U.S. subversives and radicals, his ...

Final epic ROBIN HOOD trailer

Matt Holmes — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:57:25 +0000

Gladiator by the way of Saving Private Ryan, directed by the Kingdom of Heaven version of Ridley Scott? Sure it's all there but I'm not going to cover old ground (even if Scott is) because I actually enjoyed this trailer and it's the best barometer for the heavy action the new movie is likely to deliver. PG-13 action though, unfortunately. If I'm being honest, the story feels a little one-note, even for a Robin Hood redo but I'm somewhat interested in seeing how the movie turns out. I just wish it had a bit more sense of fun about it, but I love Russell Crowe and Gladiator as much as the next guy, and if this is to be the sequel we never got (or asked for) then so be it. Still, I mourn the Nottingham movie (from the p.o.v. of the Sheriff of Nottingham) which was originally promised... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8KzZLlG_lY Robin Hood is set for a May 14th release.

Money does sleep? WALL STREET 2 delayed

Matt Holmes — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:55:09 +0000

It was originally only six weeks away from release but this evening Variety report that in actuality we will have to wait six months to see Michael Douglas reprise his Oscar winning role of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. The sequel has been bumped from an early summer April 23rd date, to a more fitting awards-season September 24th spotlight. A place at the Cannes Film Festival for Oliver Stone's movie is being speculated as the reason why 20th Century Fox have made the change, going the slow-burning momentum route to next year's Oscars. Naturally this is a wonderfully optimistic sign for the quality of the picture and maybe it has more on it's mind than we previously thought. The release change comes just days after Stone announced his next picture; a drug cartel buddy-kidnap thriller based on Don Wislow's July published novel Savages, which the author will adapt for screen.

If you love 500 DAYS OF SUMMER & Zooey Deschanel…

Matt Holmes — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:04:56 +0000

The Peyton Reed (The Break-Up, Yes Man) directed music video to her band She & Him's new single; "In The Sun", from their forthcoming album "Volume 2" is charming and uplifting, and extremley catchy. It holds the same power of putting you in a really good mood as the Joseph-Gordon Levitt dance sequence from 500 Days of Summer, or that Sid & Nancy music video they shot together during filming. Why I am posting this? Well I have an unhealthy obsession with Zooey Deschanel for one ever since Almost Famous (the little jump she does at the very end of this music video kills me) and well, I need some validation that M.Ward (the Him from "She & Him") looks a lot like Robert Downey Jr. And I'm also wondering if Zooey Deschanel will ever get over the role of Summer? That part was so perfect for her, I wonder if I'm going to struggle seeing her play anyone else. Her next role is in the stoner-comedy fantasy from Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green titled Your Highness (haha, get it) and in a blending of Summer and her music profession - leading the HBO show I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie.

Chris Nolan talks SUPERMAN & BATMAN 3 – A lot!!!

Matt Holmes — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:53:05 +0000

Finally, someone got Chris Nolan to talk! Good old Geoff Boucher at the L.A. Times - just about the only guy the mysterious Nolan speaks to these days and I guess this will have to keep us going until Inception is released this summer. Still there's alot to chew on, including the first official quotes on his Superman take, so let's get straight to it. First up, Nolan confirms he is the "Godfather" of the new Superman reboot; “It’s very exciting, we have a fantastic story... And we feel we can do it right. We know the milieu, if you will, we know the genre and how to get it done right.” He goes on to confirm that David Goyer, his Batman Begins scribe is writing the screenplay for The Man of Steel right now... “We’re approaching it... in terms of trying to find an incredible story in a way that audiences can engage with it the way they engage with contemporary action films...I think David’s approach is a very good way of doing just that.” MUCH MUCH MORE ON SUPERMAN & BATMAN 3 - including who is writing what, and which major villain won't appear in what sounds like the end of Nolan's Bat-story... Goyer is actually the ...

Corey Haim Dies

Ray DeRousse — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:34:48 +0000

I doubt if anyone who saw Corey Haim on the disastrous-but-addictive reality show The Two Coreys is surprised to learn this morning that the former Lucas was found dead of a drug overdose. He spent much of two seasons on the show slurring, throwing tantrums, and crying uncontrollably. The guy was obviously on the edge from something. Now we can confirm it was drugs. And what a waste. Haim was absolutely adorable in the role of Lucas, a nerd who falls in love with a girl out of his league. Haim had the looks and talent to completely dominate films for years. Unfortunately, Haim found drugs at an early age. Haim was even doing drugs during the shoot for The Lost Boys, his biggest role, and he was what ... sixteen years old? Drugs completely evaporated that talent, and left the kid a conceited, hollowed shell that Hollywood quickly discarded. Here he is at this time, denying the drugs that he was obviously on while making this horrible promotional video: He mostly disappeared for several years before turning up on E! in 2001 completely wasted: He still had the looks at this point, but his brain was pickled and useless. But as time ...

Cinema cell-phone complainer gets it in the neck

Matt Holmes — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:14:04 +0000

The L.A. Times yesterday finally got around to reporting on a two-week old gruesome stabbing of a guy in the Cinemark 22 theatre in Lancaster, California. A guy had complained about a nearby woman talking on her cellphone during a full-house 9pm screening of Shutter Island. The offender left along with two men, but came back a few minutes later with a meat therometer and stabbed the complainer in the neck. Ouch. The victim was hospitalized with serious injuries but it sounds like he is still with us. If I were the owner of that particular Cinemark, I would try to begin a nationwide movement of cinema-goers being forced to leave their mobile phones with designated cinema staff-members before showings. I've had to do it a few times for fear of piracy at advanced screenings, and it's been a perfectly safe and civilised solution. This would solve idiots playing with their phones during the feature. Even the luminous light of people texting or checking their phone for messages is distracting enough. Nobody is that important they need to take a phone call during a feature, or text their friends. If you are - don't have the arrogance to distract everyone else. Thanks to Hollywood Elsewhere for the heads-up.

Ritchie’s KING ARTHUR not with Ellis?

Matt Holmes — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:37:57 +0000

Variety has confirmed that Guy Ritchie is attached to a King Arthur adaptation at Warner Bros. They say John Hodges (Trainspotting, The Seeker) is writing the screenplay but there's no mention of Warren Ellis' Excalibur treatment, or even the title Excalibur at all. I find that strange. Do we presume it's bad reporting from Variety, or is this a separate project all-together and WB have dumped Ellis' pitch? The story says it'll be a "re-imagining" of the Arthur mythology, which doesn't help us. Here's my original story.