list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Indiana Jones [Film Series] on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Indiana_Jones_Film_Series/114405/default.aspx Title: Indiana Jones [Film Series]
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]]>Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:01:20 GMTIndiana Jones [Film Series]5Slightly Tagged (1-5)111314http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s114405.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Indiana_Jones_Film_Series/114405/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/2/5/40271.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
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Post Date: 2/5/2009 12:01:20 PM
Body: Are you one of the many sci-fi and comic book geeks who’d be more interested in Push were it not for Dakota Fanning? Sure, the precocious child star is now a teen actress (she’s about to turn 15), yet that probably makes you even more worried about her appearance in the movie. But what can you do? She’s literally everywhere this week – voicing the title character in the animated Coraline and starring in two new video releases, Hounddog and The Secret Life of Bees, both of which were released Tuesday. In the tradition of child actors continuing careers into adolescence, it’s only a matter of time before she ruins a movie that would have been better without her. We’ll have to wait until this weekend to see if that time is now, with Push, but in the meantime let’s take a look at some of the past offenders in this tradition. Most of the following former child actors (our definition: actors that began their career below the age of 13) have done great things in their adulthood, but each has done at least one film that could have been better without him or her. You may disagree with some of these picks, and you may think we’ve forgotten some (was Christian Bale really the worst part of The Dark Knight? did Mary-Kate Olsen’s disturbing kiss with Ben Kingsley take away from The Wackness?), so do share your own thoughts on former child stars below. We just ask that you keep your comments somewhat tasteful and law-abiding. BUtterfield 8 (1960) Elizabeth Taylor won her first Oscar for her performance in this film, and that’s basically the problem. Everyone knew then as they know now that she only won the award because she came down with a near-fatal illness weeks prior to the ceremony. Of course, she was nominated without such sympathy being the reason, so shouldn’t that mean the performance is still great? Well, that’s certainly debatable, but many critics today claim this to be one of the worst best actress wins of all time. So, if you go into BUtterfield 8 expecting an Oscar-worthy film, it’s going to be ruined for you. The Cat’s Meow (2001) Kirsten Dunst, who made her debut at age 7 in Woody Allen’s segment of New York Stories, got to work with another ‘70s cinema great, Peter Bogdanovich, in this comedic telling of an infamous Hollywood scandal. She portrays silent film actress Marion Davies, who becomes the catalyst in the scandal when her boyfriend, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (Edward Herrmann), discovers she’s having an affair with Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard). The irony is that Dunst is so annoying in the role that it’s hard to believe any guys would fight over her. Many Dunst fans continually defend her performance in the film, but if it’s not her acting that ruins The Cat’s Meow, it’s at least her singing, which can be heard during the closing credits. Donnie Darko (2001) Drew Barrymore may be the most adorable thing to happen to romantic comedies since Jean Arthur, but occasionally she tries to make us believe she can do other roles. Unfortunately, she’s just not fit for most jobs, and English teacher is certainly one of them. Somehow in Donnie Darko her awkward speaking voice is even worse than usual, and she comes off sounding like she knows this and is attempting to enunciate as best she can in spite of the problem. Well, Drew, there’s a reason Spielberg hasn’t cast you in a sci-fi flick since E.T., you simply can’t pull off the dialogue. Garden State (2004) Natalie Portman didn’t make her film debut until she was 13 (in Leon, aka The Professional), but she did begin acting three years earlier, so we’re allowing her to make the list. How can we not? There isn’t a Garden State hater out there who doesn’t blame Portman and her obnoxious, flaky love interest character for ruining the film. Yet she was once the young girl that made tons of these cinephiles relate to a questionably friendly Timothy Hutton in Beautiful Girls. A year after Garden State, fellow former child starlet Kirsten Dunst (see above) played a similarly obnoxious and flaky love interest in the similarly plotted Elizabethtown. But at least Dunst had Orlando Bloom to make her seem talented by comparison. Portman is all alone in her ruination here. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) Ron Howard, child star-turned-Oscar-winning filmmaker, has a special circumstance that warrants his inclusion on this list. Unlike the other nine, he managed to ruin a movie he wasn’t even involved in. Notice both the title and the date above. Or click on the link. That’s the old animated adaptation of the Dr. Seuss holiday classic, which Howard ruined by directing his live-action version. You could also say that he ruined the book, and you could say that he ruined his own movie by making the latter so terribly horrendous. But it’s Chuck Jones’ earlier film that was most adversely affected by the release of 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas (often listed simply as The Grinch), because how many children will now grow up with the ugly Jim Carrey-starring version instead of the wonderful Boris Karloff-narrated one? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) Shia LaBeouf, like Natalie Portman, barely makes the child actor cutoff, but he needs to be included because we need to keep chastising him for ruining not only the latest Indiana Jones movie, but also the whole franchise. Maybe there were indeed other faults with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Plenty of people credit the “nuke the fridge” scene as the downturn in both the film and the series, for instance. But most of us were forgiving up until Shia swung through the trees like Tarzan. So, he’s clearly to blame. It’s quite a shame, too, because he’s pretty much the only thing that really saves the Transformers movies. Inside Man (2006) Jodie Foster has often seemed out of place in movies. She doesn’t feel right in period romances, such as Sommersby and Anna and the King, but she’s a good enough actress that she’s forgiven for such casting faults. As for Inside Man, well, even her Oscar-winning talent couldn’t keep her from appearing ill fit for her role. Part of the problem is the character itself, that of a woman who comes off far less intelligent and tough than she should (the same kind of character ruined The Bourne Supremacy a year earlier). You want Foster, a smart and strong woman in real life and typically on screen, to be more and do more. But she hardly contributes to the film and if anything slows it and dumbs it down too much. Hopefully the rumors are correct that her character will not return in Inside Man 2. Monster (2003) Christina Ricci is not really a good actress to begin with, but if you cast her opposite a great performance she comes off as seeming a downright terrible actress. This is what happened with Monster, in which Charlize Theron does her Oscar-winning best at becoming unrecognizable. Next to that transformation, Ricci just looks like Ricci, and a really untalented Ricci at that. For the amount of screen time Ricci’s lesbian love-interest character is allotted, Patty Jenkins really should have gotten someone better. Because not only does the performance end up awful next to Theron’s, it ruins a film that is otherwise worth watching for the acting. Silver Screen Confidential (1996) Scott Schwartz actually won an award for this adult film, in which he gives a non-sex performance. It wasn’t his first porn nor was it his last, but because of the recognition he received for this one, it’s being used as the exemplary title. While creepy people out there tend to count down to the day that female child stars reach the age of 18, probably in the hopes that the girls will quickly appear in their first legal nude scene, it is unlikely that anyone was waiting for the day the kid from The Toy, A Christmas Story and Kidco would enter a career in porn. To be honest, we haven’t actually seen any of Schwartz’s adult titles, but we can imagine his appearance is quite distracting to anybody who recognizes him as “Flick” while otherwise trying to get off watching Jenna Jameson. Still, Schwartz does star in his very own title, Scotty’s X-Rated Adventure, so maybe he’s somehow a draw? X-Men (2000) Anna Paquin is the prime reason why the Academy needs to stop allowing child actors Oscar nominations. Yes, Paquin was terrific in The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. But then look what happened: she grew up to be an irritating starlet who could ruin a film by Spike Lee, Cameron Crowe or Gus Van Sant with just a single whiny-voiced line while playing the same nymphet character over and over and over. So what if she can claim to have confirmed her talent with a recent Golden Globe win (for TV work)? That still doesn’t take back the fact that she stunk up the first X-Men, one of her rare deviations from her typecast Lolita roles, enough to make it a huge disappointment. Fortunately with the sequels, not even her lack of talent could depreciate X2, and she was far from the worst thing about X-Men: The Last Stand. Thankfully she won’t be in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, nor will she likely be given her own spin-off. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:01:20 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com2/5/2009 12:01:20 PMAre you one of the many sci-fi and comic book geeks who’d be more interested in Push were it not for Dakota Fanning? Sure, the precocious child star is now a teen actress (she’s about to turn 15), yet that probably makes you even more worried about her appearance in the movie. But what can you do? She’s literally everywhere this week – voicing the title character in the animated Coraline and starring in two new video releases, Hounddog and The Secret Life of Bees, both of which were released Tuesday. In the tradition of child actors continuing careers into adolescence, it’s only a matter of time before she ruins a movie that would have been better without her. We’ll have to wait until this weekend to see if that time is now, with Push, but in the meantime let’s take a look at some of the past offenders in this tradition. Most of the following former child actors (our definition: actors that began their career below the age of 13) have done great things in their adulthood, but each has done at least one film that could have been better without him or her. You may disagree with some of these picks, and you may think we’ve forgotten some (was Christian Bale really the worst part of The Dark Knight? did Mary-Kate Olsen’s disturbing kiss with Ben Kingsley take away from The Wackness?), so do share your own thoughts on former child stars below. We just ask that you keep your comments somewhat tasteful and law-abiding. BUtterfield 8 (1960) Elizabeth Taylor won her first Oscar for her performance in this film, and that’s basically the problem. Everyone knew then as they know now that she only won the award because she came down with a near-fatal illness weeks prior to the ceremony. Of course, she was nominated without such sympathy being the reason, so shouldn’t that mean the performance is still great? Well, that’s certainly debatable, but many critics today claim this to be one of the worst best actress wins of all time. So, if you go into BUtterfield 8 expecting an Oscar-worthy film, it’s going to be ruined for you. The Cat’s Meow (2001) Kirsten Dunst, who made her debut at age 7 in Woody Allen’s segment of New York Stories, got to work with another ‘70s cinema great, Peter Bogdanovich, in this comedic telling of an infamous Hollywood scandal. She portrays silent film actress Marion Davies, who becomes the catalyst in the scandal when her boyfriend, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (Edward Herrmann), discovers she’s having an affair with Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard). The irony is that Dunst is so annoying in the role that it’s hard to believe any guys would fight over her. Many Dunst fans continually defend her performance in the film, but if it’s not her acting that ruins The Cat’s Meow, it’s at least her singing, which can be heard during the closing credits. Donnie Darko (2001) Drew Barrymore may be the most adorable thing to happen to romantic comedies since Jean Arthur, but occasionally she tries to make us believe she can do other roles. Unfortunately, she’s just not fit for most jobs, and English teacher is certainly one of them. Somehow in Donnie Darko her awkward speaking voice is even worse than usual, and she comes off sounding like she knows this and is attempting to enunciate as best she can in spite of the problem. Well, Drew, there’s a reason Spielberg hasn’t cast you in a sci-fi flick since E.T., you simply can’t pull off the dialogue. Garden State (2004) Natalie Portman didn’t make her film debut until she was 13 (in Leon, aka The Professional), but she did begin acting three years earlier, so we’re allowing her to make the list. How can we not? There isn’t a Garden State hater out there who doesn’t blame Portman and her obnoxious, flaky love interest character for ruining the film. Yet she was once the young girl that made tons of these cinephiles relate to a questionably friendly Timothy Hutton in Beautiful Girls. A year after Garden State, fellow former child starlet Kirsten Dunst (see above) played a similarly obnoxious and flaky love interest in the similarly plotted Elizabethtown. But at least Dunst had Orlando Bloom to make her seem talented by comparison. Portman is all alone in her ruination here. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) Ron Howard, child star-turned-Oscar-winning filmmaker, has a special circumstance that warrants his inclusion on this list. Unlike the other nine, he managed to ruin a movie he wasn’t even involved in. Notice both the title and the date above. Or click on the link. That’s the old animated adaptation of the Dr. Seuss holiday classic, which Howard ruined by directing his live-action version. You could also say that he ruined the book, and you could say that he ruined his own movie by making the latter so terribly horrendous. But it’s Chuck Jones’ earlier film that was most adversely affected by the release of 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas (often listed simply as The Grinch), because how many children will now grow up with the ugly Jim Carrey-starring version instead of the wonderful Boris Karloff-narrated one? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) Shia LaBeouf, like Natalie Portman, barely makes the child actor cutoff, but he needs to be included because we need to keep chastising him for ruining not only the latest Indiana Jones movie, but also the whole franchise. Maybe there were indeed other faults with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Plenty of people credit the “nuke the fridge” scene as the downturn in both the film and the series, for instance. But most of us were forgiving up until Shia swung through the trees like Tarzan. So, he’s clearly to blame. It’s quite a shame, too, because he’s pretty much the only thing that really saves the Transformers movies. Inside Man (2006) Jodie Foster has often seemed out of place in movies. She doesn’t feel right in period romances, such as Sommersby and Anna and the King, but she’s a good enough actress that she’s forgiven for such casting faults. As for Inside Man, well, even her Oscar-winning talent couldn’t keep her from appearing ill fit for her role. Part of the problem is the character itself, that of a woman who comes off far less intelligent and tough than she should (the same kind of character ruined The Bourne Supremacy a year earlier). You want Foster, a smart and strong woman in real life and typically on screen, to be more and do more. But she hardly contributes to the film and if anything slows it and dumbs it down too much. Hopefully the rumors are correct that her character will not return in Inside Man 2. Monster (2003) Christina Ricci is not really a good actress to begin with, but if you cast her opposite a great performance she comes off as seeming a downright terrible actress. This is what happened with Monster, in which Charlize Theron does her Oscar-winning best at becoming unrecognizable. Next to that transformation, Ricci just looks like Ricci, and a really untalented Ricci at that. For the amount of screen time Ricci’s lesbian love-interest character is allotted, Patty Jenkins really should have gotten someone better. Because not only does the performance end up awful next to Theron’s, it ruins a film that is otherwise worth watching for the acting. Silver Screen Confidential (1996) Scott Schwartz actually won an award for this adult film, in which he gives a non-sex performance. It wasn’t his first porn nor was it his last, but because of the recognition he received for this one, it’s being used as the exemplary title. While creepy people out there tend to count down to the day that female child stars reach the age of 18, probably in the hopes that the girls will quickly appear in their first legal nude scene, it is unlikely that anyone was waiting for the day the kid from The Toy, A Christmas Story and Kidco would enter a career in porn. To be honest, we haven’t actually seen any of Schwartz’s adult titles, but we can imagine his appearance is quite distracting to anybody who recognizes him as “Flick” while otherwise trying to get off watching Jenna Jameson. Still, Schwartz does star in his very own title, Scotty’s X-Rated Adventure, so maybe he’s somehow a draw? X-Men (2000) Anna Paquin is the prime reason why the Academy needs to stop allowing child actors Oscar nominations. Yes, Paquin was terrific in The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. But then look what happened: she grew up to be an irritating starlet who could ruin a film by Spike Lee, Cameron Crowe or Gus Van Sant with just a single whiny-voiced line while playing the same nymphet character over and over and over. So what if she can claim to have confirmed her talent with a recent Golden Globe win (for TV work)? That still doesn’t take back the fact that she stunk up the first X-Men, one of her rare deviations from her typecast Lolita roles, enough to make it a huge disappointment. Fortunately with the sequels, not even her lack of talent could depreciate X2, and she was far from the worst thing about X-Men: The Last Stand. Thankfully she won’t be in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, nor will she likely be given her own spin-off. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/1/27/39987.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 1/27/2009 5:01:13 PM
Body: Both are broadly classifiable as science fiction, but Alien is basically a horror flick and Aliens has all the conventions of a war film. That’s a pretty slick transition from one type of movie to another, especially since the switch was so immediate within the series. Most movie franchises don’t play with genre in such a way until they’ve gone through a number of sequels, and even then the series usually just simply takes its characters into outer space, a la Moonraker, Jason X and Leprechaun 4. Genre jumping isn’t that easy, though, unless a franchise inhabits a whole universe in which to expand through. Like Star Wars, for example. Originally a film series, the Star Wars franchise spread out into novels, which has allowed for dips into the romance genre and now horror. That’s right, an upcoming novel by horror author Joe Schreiber, titled Deathtroopers, takes the Star Wars universe into frightening territory described by Schreiber as “in the vein of The Shining and Alien, with a little dose of William Gibson mixed in.” So, if Star Wars can venture into the horror genre, what other movie franchises should attempt a genre jump? To toy with the idea, we’ve selected five film series in need of a change and suggested a possible redirection of genre for each. Franchise: Indiana Jones New Genre: Spy Film With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the franchise already made a slight genre leap, turning an adventure series with minor fantasy elements into a lame science fiction tale. In a way, George Lucas pretty much did for Indy what past producers did with James Bond, Jason Voorhees and the Leprechaun. Only, this time, the outer space came to the characters instead of the other way around. That installment was quite a disappointment and now the only way to save the series is to head in a more serious direction and cut out all sci-fi/fantasy material altogether. Set in the 1960s, Indiana Jones and the Bay of Pigs will be more C.I.A. thriller than mystical archaeological adventure, but while Harrison Ford will get to bring a piece of his Jack Ryan portrayal into the franchise, it won’t completely abandon the elements that make it an Indiana Jones movie. He’ll still be in search of an ancient object, this one located in the Cuban rain forest, but he’ll also be battling Communists in more of a Jason Bourne and Daniel Craig as 007 style. No flying fridges, no swinging Shias and definitely no aliens. Just pure Cold War-era suspense. Franchise: Harry Potter New Genre: Teen Sex Comedy The Harry Potter series has evolved throughout its novels and films to darker and more mature themes, but the next step, if Warner Bros. decides to continue the franchise after the last J.K. Rowling adaptation, is to regress into a lighter and more immature genre. Along the lines of the teen sex classic Zapped!, as well as the hilarious fantasies/screenplays of actor Patrick Stewart (as depicted on Extras), Harry Potter and the Clothes That Magically Fall Off, would involve Harry’s days at university, during which he uses his powers to see female classmates naked and win basketball games (because it’s an American “Muggle” college and so there’s no Quidditch team). But in the end, he realizes that he doesn’t need to use magic to win the girl of his dreams (really just his college fling since he later settles down with someone else) or the championship game. Franchise: Ocean’s Eleven New Genre: Western There aren’t many places left for Steven Soderbergh to go with this series, which kicked off with a remake of the Rat Pack film Ocean’s 11. So, instead of moving ahead with Ocean’s Fourteen, he should move sideways and do a remake of Sergeants 3. Itself a loose remake of Gunga Din, the western comedy was the only other movie to feature all of the Rat Pack guys. Technically, this new version won’t be another sequel to Ocean’s Eleven, but it would surely be considered part of the franchise, as it will still star Clooney, Pitt, Damon, Affleck, Caan, Jemison, Qin, Gould, Reiner and Cheadle (sadly, Bernie Mac can not join them). Who wouldn’t love to see that cast playing tongue-in-cheek in the old west? In any genre those actors together would make an enjoyable piece of blockbuster fluff. Franchise: Die Hard New Genre: Marital Drama Weren’t you disappointed to learn that John and Holly McClane are divorced by the fourth Die Hard installment, Live Free or Die Hard? After all, the original movie wouldn’t have happened were it not for the main character’s attempt to save their marriage. And the events of Die Hard 2 also pretty much revolve around the status of the relationship. So, let’s go back to the beginning and look into the cracks between the four action flicks. We know John can thwart terrorists in any given scenario, but how does he function on a normal day? How does he deal with the threats of separation and divorce when he doesn’t have the distraction of action and the benefit of coming off a hero? This prequel/concurrent drama, titled Die Slowly, would depict marital dysfunction and collapse similar to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Revolutionary Road, except that in this film, whenever the couple goes at it, the husband gets to shout, “I saved you from terrorists. Twice. Give me a f—ing break!” Franchise: Friday the 13th New Genre: Romantic Comedy We’ve seen Freddy Vs. Jason. Now it’s time for Jason , a romantic pairing of Jason Voorhees, of the Friday the 13th series, and Angela Baker, of Sleepaway Camp. The two meet-cute when they both attempt to kill the same camper, accidentally stabbing each other instead. Rather than uniting to kill more kids, the new lovers realize that they’ve only been slashing people because they’ve never been hit with Cupid’s arrow (Jason actually had encountered the little cherub once, but he mistakenly decapitated him, stole his arrow and used it to impale a naked teen). But the movie isn’t all happy lovey-dovey montages. Like all romantic comedies, this one features a misunderstanding, and here it comes about when Jason and Angela first become intimate and the former discovers that the latter is in fact a boy. The result, though, is tragically more Boys Don’t Cry than The Crying Game, and ends with Jason killing Angela and returning to his old murderous ways. It’s a harsh conclusion, sure, but some genre jumps must be expected to be only temporary. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:01:13 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com1/27/2009 5:01:13 PMBoth are broadly classifiable as science fiction, but Alien is basically a horror flick and Aliens has all the conventions of a war film. That’s a pretty slick transition from one type of movie to another, especially since the switch was so immediate within the series. Most movie franchises don’t play with genre in such a way until they’ve gone through a number of sequels, and even then the series usually just simply takes its characters into outer space, a la Moonraker, Jason X and Leprechaun 4. Genre jumping isn’t that easy, though, unless a franchise inhabits a whole universe in which to expand through. Like Star Wars, for example. Originally a film series, the Star Wars franchise spread out into novels, which has allowed for dips into the romance genre and now horror. That’s right, an upcoming novel by horror author Joe Schreiber, titled Deathtroopers, takes the Star Wars universe into frightening territory described by Schreiber as “in the vein of The Shining and Alien, with a little dose of William Gibson mixed in.” So, if Star Wars can venture into the horror genre, what other movie franchises should attempt a genre jump? To toy with the idea, we’ve selected five film series in need of a change and suggested a possible redirection of genre for each. Franchise: Indiana Jones New Genre: Spy Film With Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the franchise already made a slight genre leap, turning an adventure series with minor fantasy elements into a lame science fiction tale. In a way, George Lucas pretty much did for Indy what past producers did with James Bond, Jason Voorhees and the Leprechaun. Only, this time, the outer space came to the characters instead of the other way around. That installment was quite a disappointment and now the only way to save the series is to head in a more serious direction and cut out all sci-fi/fantasy material altogether. Set in the 1960s, Indiana Jones and the Bay of Pigs will be more C.I.A. thriller than mystical archaeological adventure, but while Harrison Ford will get to bring a piece of his Jack Ryan portrayal into the franchise, it won’t completely abandon the elements that make it an Indiana Jones movie. He’ll still be in search of an ancient object, this one located in the Cuban rain forest, but he’ll also be battling Communists in more of a Jason Bourne and Daniel Craig as 007 style. No flying fridges, no swinging Shias and definitely no aliens. Just pure Cold War-era suspense. Franchise: Harry Potter New Genre: Teen Sex Comedy The Harry Potter series has evolved throughout its novels and films to darker and more mature themes, but the next step, if Warner Bros. decides to continue the franchise after the last J.K. Rowling adaptation, is to regress into a lighter and more immature genre. Along the lines of the teen sex classic Zapped!, as well as the hilarious fantasies/screenplays of actor Patrick Stewart (as depicted on Extras), Harry Potter and the Clothes That Magically Fall Off, would involve Harry’s days at university, during which he uses his powers to see female classmates naked and win basketball games (because it’s an American “Muggle” college and so there’s no Quidditch team). But in the end, he realizes that he doesn’t need to use magic to win the girl of his dreams (really just his college fling since he later settles down with someone else) or the championship game. Franchise: Ocean’s Eleven New Genre: Western There aren’t many places left for Steven Soderbergh to go with this series, which kicked off with a remake of the Rat Pack film Ocean’s 11. So, instead of moving ahead with Ocean’s Fourteen, he should move sideways and do a remake of Sergeants 3. Itself a loose remake of Gunga Din, the western comedy was the only other movie to feature all of the Rat Pack guys. Technically, this new version won’t be another sequel to Ocean’s Eleven, but it would surely be considered part of the franchise, as it will still star Clooney, Pitt, Damon, Affleck, Caan, Jemison, Qin, Gould, Reiner and Cheadle (sadly, Bernie Mac can not join them). Who wouldn’t love to see that cast playing tongue-in-cheek in the old west? In any genre those actors together would make an enjoyable piece of blockbuster fluff. Franchise: Die Hard New Genre: Marital Drama Weren’t you disappointed to learn that John and Holly McClane are divorced by the fourth Die Hard installment, Live Free or Die Hard? After all, the original movie wouldn’t have happened were it not for the main character’s attempt to save their marriage. And the events of Die Hard 2 also pretty much revolve around the status of the relationship. So, let’s go back to the beginning and look into the cracks between the four action flicks. We know John can thwart terrorists in any given scenario, but how does he function on a normal day? How does he deal with the threats of separation and divorce when he doesn’t have the distraction of action and the benefit of coming off a hero? This prequel/concurrent drama, titled Die Slowly, would depict marital dysfunction and collapse similar to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Revolutionary Road, except that in this film, whenever the couple goes at it, the husband gets to shout, “I saved you from terrorists. Twice. Give me a f—ing break!” Franchise: Friday the 13th New Genre: Romantic Comedy We’ve seen Freddy Vs. Jason. Now it’s time for Jason , a romantic pairing of Jason Voorhees, of the Friday the 13th series, and Angela Baker, of Sleepaway Camp. The two meet-cute when they both attempt to kill the same camper, accidentally stabbing each other instead. Rather than uniting to kill more kids, the new lovers realize that they’ve only been slashing people because they’ve never been hit with Cupid’s arrow (Jason actually had encountered the little cherub once, but he mistakenly decapitated him, stole his arrow and used it to impale a naked teen). But the movie isn’t all happy lovey-dovey montages. Like all romantic comedies, this one features a misunderstanding, and here it comes about when Jason and Angela first become intimate and the former discovers that the latter is in fact a boy. The result, though, is tragically more Boys Don’t Cry than The Crying Game, and ends with Jason killing Angela and returning to his old murderous ways. It’s a harsh conclusion, sure, but some genre jumps must be expected to be only temporary. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/1/2/39050.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 1/2/2009 5:00:51 PM
Body: It is a crime in this day and age not to occasionally check in on Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere, with topics ranging from billboard photos, blind item brunches and oddly angry political rants against apathetic teenagers. Wells is a classic mix of online reactionary and keen insight, peppered with various “what the fuck” moments and the occasional non sequitur involving Paris Hilton and Al-Qaeda. To ring in the New Year, let’s take a quick look back at our favorite blogged remarks from the man who confused Mike D’Angelo with Ed Gonzales, and whose random photos of restaurants and lawns oddly resemble–for lack of a better term–art. Also, any use of bold is for emphasis and my own editorial comments are in italics. Happy New Year, Elephants On New Year’s Eve, it sounds like Jeff was staying at a raucous party house in one of the Boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn? Who can tell these days.) Conditions were so bad that he was sadly driven to bar-hopping due to his neighbors: I live below a family of animals — Hispanic party elephants — who stomp around and play music so loud that the building throbs and the plaster cracks. It’s a fairly safe bet they’re going to lose their minds tonight so I may as well just huddle down in the city and bounce around from bar to bar. Follow-up in the comments from Wells: People with a little class and breeding and a college degree don’t tend to be as noisy or boisterous or loutish as the commoners, cretins, galumphs, bad dressers, etc. The lower end of the gene pool. T’was ever thus. Wells on Sundance: Dagnabbit Kids Be Knockin’ Boots! One of the subjects dearest and most familiar to Wells is Sundance. His dispatches? Legendary. His mocking of “road to Sundance” articles? Acidic. But the real fun starts when he complains about never getting laid at this supposedly hedonistic festival: For journalists, Sundance is pretty much synonymous with tight accomodations[sic] and shared bathrooms. O give me a bunk and a shower and a table and a chair and some good wifi, and it’s all cool. Not only do serious festivalgoers make do without outdoor hot tubs or crackling fireplaces or nouveau riche Deer Valley chateaus with 22-foot-high ceilings or those bullshit Utah buckaroo king-size bed frames. It’s kind of against the mindset (the religion, if you will) to stay in a lavish place. Pricey McMansion digs are for the dilletantes[sic] and lookie-lous and — the absolute dregs of Sundance Film Festival visitors — skiiers[sic]. I’m a loyal fan of Carol Rixey’s Star Hotel [Remember this name], easily the warmest and homiest place in town. And it has great wifi, and an excellent living room with soft easy chairs and fat sofas, and a dining room with nice long table to have a nice warm breakfast in. (Comes with the room.) … I can tell you something — it’s the volunteers and the assistants sleeping in those Cider House beds who get all the nookie. In the mid ’90s I asked an assortment of festival veterans if they’d ever gotten lucky during Sundance, and all but one said “nope.” The exception was Usual Suspects and Valkyrie screenwriter Chris McQuarrie, who said yes, good things have personally happened to him in Park City but “only with an import.” Wells on Sundance, pt 2: Fear and Loathing in Park City It’s a post that could have simply consisted of, “I have arrived at Sundance. Huh. Time to go to bed. Actually, I don’t need to post this.” In Wells’ hands, it’s a literary masterwork: Nobody’s here. That I recognize. Empty streets, idle merchants, half-filled restaurants…the last quiet that Park City will know for 10 or 11 days. It all cranks up starting tomorrow. I shared a $34 dollar airport shuttle into town with Hollywood Reporter guy Gregg Goldstein — that’s the single most noteworthy thing that’s happened over the last eight or nine hours. It’s now about 3 or 4 degrees outside. Ice crystals in my nostrils. A big storm is coming on Sunday, the shuttle driver said. Challenge:Link Shitty CGI-Monster Movie to a Katrina documentary Ask yourself: how would you link Cloverfield to Trouble the Water? One’s an over-hyped J.J. Abrams joint, the other an award-winning documentary about surviving Hurricane Katrina. But if you’re Wells, comparing the two is easier than snapping a cell phone shot of your dinner: I’ve almost never felt queasy from jiggly, hand-held photography (I eat films like Dancer in the Dark for breakfast), although I’ll admit that Cloverfield has more than its share. Yesterday, however, I saw the King Kong of hand-held nausea jiggle movies — Tia Lessin and Carl Deal’s Trouble The Water, a doc about the Katrina disaster. Half of it was shot by Lessin and Deal in the usual fashion and is no big challenge, but the other half is shakycam footage of Katrina’s devastation shot by one of the film’s main subjects, Kimberly Rivers. (The other is her husband Scott.) The footage is so scattered and whip-panny that I was starting to think about bolting less than ten minutes in. Show Trouble The Water to those Cloverfield sufferers in Pheonix[sic] and they’d spew in their seat. In Which Glenn Kenny Becomes a Platform for Obama Originally a blind item from Glenn Kenny, Wells added his own spin to it: mainly, the names of all parties involved—including the NY PR guy. (Spoiler: Alex Rivera got harassed by a racist swag shop chick accompanying two actors from his film, Sleep Dealer.) Note: Kenny doesn’t identify the players by name in his piece. I was given the lowdown last night after a showing of Patti Smith: Dream of Life. Followup: In a world of my own devising an organized demonstration would be held outside the photo shoot/swag sometime late this afternoon. The chant could be something along the lines of “Hey hey, ho ho, swag racists have to go!” An all-media advisory would be sent out this morning. The usual pitchforks and torches would be handed out of the back of a pickup truck on Swede Alley 30 minutes prior to the start of the demonstration. Flyers with a photo of swag girl who uttered the racist remark would be wild-posted all over town alongside a slogan that reads, “Who are we? Does Barack Obama have reason to be concerned?” YAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW Rambo came out earlier this year. It was supposed to be…well, we’re still not sure what. But Wells was excited about it. How excited? Howard Dean Death Yell excited. Every time a head got sliced or blown off, I laughed or let go with a big “yawww!” So did the mostly-male audience which applauded at the end. Everyone had a great time. I felt relaxed with these guys…bonded. … This is the second best Rambo film after First Blood, and although it’s obviously not meant to be “funny,” it is at times, wildly so. I laughed out loud on a good five or six occasions. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are going to love this thing. You could even make a case for Rambo being an instant porno-violent classic in the vein of Ron Ormond’s The Monster and the Stripper, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre, Herschel Gordon Lewis’s Blood Feast…that line of country. Kicker for a Jack Matthews Tribute or Obscure Reference to Self-Masturbation: You Decide. Ok, this was the kicker to a post honoring Jack Matthews, formerly of the New York Post. But take it out of context, and it may cause you to question what the hell is being honored here. I will never stop banging it out. One is either busy being born or busy dying. I know where I stand. Die at your desk. Honest Injun Gayness Remember that “Full Retard” line from Tropic Thunder? Well, this is like that, but praising an actor for being “Full Gay” and “Full Dick.” Honest Injun. I felt a genuine gayness from Sean Penn, who plays the title role of the late San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, that I didn’t think he had in him. … And Frank Langella’s performance as Richard Nixon is naturally and necessarily more toned down than it was on-stage, and that, Honest Injun, makes it a fascinating, moving (as in genuinely sad), award-level effort. No. Fucking. Idea. This is supposed to be a either joke or an insidery snark attack against film catch-phrases. To be quite honest, I’m still convinced this is a secret code to…something. Do I look like I’m negotiating, friendo? I’m already pregnant so what kind of milkshake-slurping could I get into? Except for ruining the love life of my older sister and her lower-class boyfriend by bearing false witness? I am Sheba, the reincarnation of Shirley Booth! [No, really. That's the entire post.] No Fatties, But… Apparently one of Wells’ great fears is to sit near fat people in a confined space. He shares this with us, followed by the strangest blog update I’ve ever seen. And trust me, I’ve read Hollywood Elsewhere. Before every flight, I cross myself and ask God Almighty not to seat me next to a morbidly obese person. There are at least two whales in line right now, and I’m feeling a very slight apprehension about this. There are thousands of people in Paris who look well-fed or stocky or fat, but I’ve seen no Jabbas. You might expect otherwise in a foodie city like Paris, but nope. Update: No fatties but Doug Liman is on my plane. Live-Blogging is like Swimming After Eating, We Guess Eric Kohn live-blogged Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulll for IndieWire. Many were not amused by this. Mainly because they’re twits–something about “herp derp critic integrity!” Mainly because Eric scooped them and wasn’t doing anything that off from the rest of the Cannes crowd. Devin Faraci–a frequent HE commenter, natch–took offense with this. And of course, Jeff agreed. Sort of. I agree totally — it’s doggerel. Lame. Kohn and Indiewire were simply looking to be first to provide the very first commentary on the film anywhere in the world — except it wasn’t commentary but rudimentary (i.e., quite crude) descriptions of scenes as they happened. There’s an internet audience for this kind of stenography, of course, but to what end? A movie deserves a little thought before before commented on. I tapped out an instant hand-held judgment after Indy 4 ended, but at least I’d thought it through for an hour or two. Remember that Hotel in Park City? Fun fact: if you leave a piece of clothing somewhere, that’s as good as a down payment, credit card or loan. From now on, I’ll be paying my bar tabs with socks. [Jeffrey Wells] to Star Hotel proprietor: “I found a place in Park City but I can’t move in until Friday the 16th. Would you let me crash on the living-room couch for the first two nights (1.14 and 1.15)? Which I’ll pay you for, of course. It would be greatly appreciated if you could grant me this small favor, as you left me in the lurch this year. I thought I’d made it clear as a bell that I intended to return, having stayed in your wonderful abode the last two years and leaving my cowboy hat there and telling you I’d wear it when I returned in ‘09 and so on. Anyway, can ya do me this one?” When pressed to explain, Wells continues in the Comments: Yes, yes…if I’d left a cash deposit or a credit-card number then the room would have been assured. I’m not an idiot. But leaving the cowboy hat and plainly stating to the proprietor that I’d come back and wear it the following year (especially after having stayed at the Star in ‘07 and ‘08 and been part of the family there, in a sense) was a very emotionally vivid and pronounced way of stating my intentions. It was a message that is recognized by everyone all over the world. It’s even recognized in the animal kingdom (i.e., leaving your scent on a piece of turf). If you go out with a girl and she comes home with you and stays the night and she leaves her underwear or bra or socks in your bedroom after she leaves the next morning, we all know that’s a universal message that says, “I want to come back and get to know you better and probably have sex with you again.” Everyone knows that. Leaving an article of clothing, something with your scent and paw-prints and sweat residue on it, means that you intend to come back and spray your scent around some more. If you were to see a 1930s Gary Cooper western and hotel manager Frances Farmer, giving him the old twinkle-eye, asked him if he was coming back after taking his cattle to market, and if he faintly grinned at her and took off his cowboy hat and left it hanging on the wall as he walks out the door, everybody watching the film in any country in the world would know exactly what that means. It would be crystal clear. So don’t tell me. Credit cards are well and good, but to say left-behind cowboy hats and such mean nothing is to be way too “dollars and cents” about this matter. Sadly, it looks like the hotel gave his cowboy hat to the police–Jeff then posts the phone call as an audio file. So Jeffrey, we wish you a happy new year and can’t wait to see what sort of insanity you give out this year. If you’ve got your own favorite Wells-ian moments, leave them in the comments. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:00:51 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com1/2/2009 5:00:51 PM It is a crime in this day and age not to occasionally check in on Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere, with topics ranging from billboard photos, blind item brunches and oddly angry political rants against apathetic teenagers. Wells is a classic mix of online reactionary and keen insight, peppered with various “what the fuck” moments and the occasional non sequitur involving Paris Hilton and Al-Qaeda. To ring in the New Year, let’s take a quick look back at our favorite blogged remarks from the man who confused Mike D’Angelo with Ed Gonzales, and whose random photos of restaurants and lawns oddly resemble–for lack of a better term–art. Also, any use of bold is for emphasis and my own editorial comments are in italics. Happy New Year, Elephants On New Year’s Eve, it sounds like Jeff was staying at a raucous party house in one of the Boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn? Who can tell these days.) Conditions were so bad that he was sadly driven to bar-hopping due to his neighbors: I live below a family of animals — Hispanic party elephants — who stomp around and play music so loud that the building throbs and the plaster cracks. It’s a fairly safe bet they’re going to lose their minds tonight so I may as well just huddle down in the city and bounce around from bar to bar. Follow-up in the comments from Wells: People with a little class and breeding and a college degree don’t tend to be as noisy or boisterous or loutish as the commoners, cretins, galumphs, bad dressers, etc. The lower end of the gene pool. T’was ever thus. Wells on Sundance: Dagnabbit Kids Be Knockin’ Boots! One of the subjects dearest and most familiar to Wells is Sundance. His dispatches? Legendary. His mocking of “road to Sundance” articles? Acidic. But the real fun starts when he complains about never getting laid at this supposedly hedonistic festival: For journalists, Sundance is pretty much synonymous with tight accomodations[sic] and shared bathrooms. O give me a bunk and a shower and a table and a chair and some good wifi, and it’s all cool. Not only do serious festivalgoers make do without outdoor hot tubs or crackling fireplaces or nouveau riche Deer Valley chateaus with 22-foot-high ceilings or those bullshit Utah buckaroo king-size bed frames. It’s kind of against the mindset (the religion, if you will) to stay in a lavish place. Pricey McMansion digs are for the dilletantes[sic] and lookie-lous and — the absolute dregs of Sundance Film Festival visitors — skiiers[sic]. I’m a loyal fan of Carol Rixey’s Star Hotel [Remember this name], easily the warmest and homiest place in town. And it has great wifi, and an excellent living room with soft easy chairs and fat sofas, and a dining room with nice long table to have a nice warm breakfast in. (Comes with the room.) … I can tell you something — it’s the volunteers and the assistants sleeping in those Cider House beds who get all the nookie. In the mid ’90s I asked an assortment of festival veterans if they’d ever gotten lucky during Sundance, and all but one said “nope.” The exception was Usual Suspects and Valkyrie screenwriter Chris McQuarrie, who said yes, good things have personally happened to him in Park City but “only with an import.” Wells on Sundance, pt 2: Fear and Loathing in Park City It’s a post that could have simply consisted of, “I have arrived at Sundance. Huh. Time to go to bed. Actually, I don’t need to post this.” In Wells’ hands, it’s a literary masterwork: Nobody’s here. That I recognize. Empty streets, idle merchants, half-filled restaurants…the last quiet that Park City will know for 10 or 11 days. It all cranks up starting tomorrow. I shared a $34 dollar airport shuttle into town with Hollywood Reporter guy Gregg Goldstein — that’s the single most noteworthy thing that’s happened over the last eight or nine hours. It’s now about 3 or 4 degrees outside. Ice crystals in my nostrils. A big storm is coming on Sunday, the shuttle driver said. Challenge:Link Shitty CGI-Monster Movie to a Katrina documentary Ask yourself: how would you link Cloverfield to Trouble the Water? One’s an over-hyped J.J. Abrams joint, the other an award-winning documentary about surviving Hurricane Katrina. But if you’re Wells, comparing the two is easier than snapping a cell phone shot of your dinner: I’ve almost never felt queasy from jiggly, hand-held photography (I eat films like Dancer in the Dark for breakfast), although I’ll admit that Cloverfield has more than its share. Yesterday, however, I saw the King Kong of hand-held nausea jiggle movies — Tia Lessin and Carl Deal’s Trouble The Water, a doc about the Katrina disaster. Half of it was shot by Lessin and Deal in the usual fashion and is no big challenge, but the other half is shakycam footage of Katrina’s devastation shot by one of the film’s main subjects, Kimberly Rivers. (The other is her husband Scott.) The footage is so scattered and whip-panny that I was starting to think about bolting less than ten minutes in. Show Trouble The Water to those Cloverfield sufferers in Pheonix[sic] and they’d spew in their seat. In Which Glenn Kenny Becomes a Platform for Obama Originally a blind item from Glenn Kenny, Wells added his own spin to it: mainly, the names of all parties involved—including the NY PR guy. (Spoiler: Alex Rivera got harassed by a racist swag shop chick accompanying two actors from his film, Sleep Dealer.) Note: Kenny doesn’t identify the players by name in his piece. I was given the lowdown last night after a showing of Patti Smith: Dream of Life. Followup: In a world of my own devising an organized demonstration would be held outside the photo shoot/swag sometime late this afternoon. The chant could be something along the lines of “Hey hey, ho ho, swag racists have to go!” An all-media advisory would be sent out this morning. The usual pitchforks and torches would be handed out of the back of a pickup truck on Swede Alley 30 minutes prior to the start of the demonstration. Flyers with a photo of swag girl who uttered the racist remark would be wild-posted all over town alongside a slogan that reads, “Who are we? Does Barack Obama have reason to be concerned?” YAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW Rambo came out earlier this year. It was supposed to be…well, we’re still not sure what. But Wells was excited about it. How excited? Howard Dean Death Yell excited. Every time a head got sliced or blown off, I laughed or let go with a big “yawww!” So did the mostly-male audience which applauded at the end. Everyone had a great time. I felt relaxed with these guys…bonded. … This is the second best Rambo film after First Blood, and although it’s obviously not meant to be “funny,” it is at times, wildly so. I laughed out loud on a good five or six occasions. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are going to love this thing. You could even make a case for Rambo being an instant porno-violent classic in the vein of Ron Ormond’s The Monster and the Stripper, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre, Herschel Gordon Lewis’s Blood Feast…that line of country. Kicker for a Jack Matthews Tribute or Obscure Reference to Self-Masturbation: You Decide. Ok, this was the kicker to a post honoring Jack Matthews, formerly of the New York Post. But take it out of context, and it may cause you to question what the hell is being honored here. I will never stop banging it out. One is either busy being born or busy dying. I know where I stand. Die at your desk. Honest Injun Gayness Remember that “Full Retard” line from Tropic Thunder? Well, this is like that, but praising an actor for being “Full Gay” and “Full Dick.” Honest Injun. I felt a genuine gayness from Sean Penn, who plays the title role of the late San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, that I didn’t think he had in him. … And Frank Langella’s performance as Richard Nixon is naturally and necessarily more toned down than it was on-stage, and that, Honest Injun, makes it a fascinating, moving (as in genuinely sad), award-level effort. No. Fucking. Idea. This is supposed to be a either joke or an insidery snark attack against film catch-phrases. To be quite honest, I’m still convinced this is a secret code to…something. Do I look like I’m negotiating, friendo? I’m already pregnant so what kind of milkshake-slurping could I get into? Except for ruining the love life of my older sister and her lower-class boyfriend by bearing false witness? I am Sheba, the reincarnation of Shirley Booth! [No, really. That's the entire post.] No Fatties, But… Apparently one of Wells’ great fears is to sit near fat people in a confined space. He shares this with us, followed by the strangest blog update I’ve ever seen. And trust me, I’ve read Hollywood Elsewhere. Before every flight, I cross myself and ask God Almighty not to seat me next to a morbidly obese person. There are at least two whales in line right now, and I’m feeling a very slight apprehension about this. There are thousands of people in Paris who look well-fed or stocky or fat, but I’ve seen no Jabbas. You might expect otherwise in a foodie city like Paris, but nope. Update: No fatties but Doug Liman is on my plane. Live-Blogging is like Swimming After Eating, We Guess Eric Kohn live-blogged Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulll for IndieWire. Many were not amused by this. Mainly because they’re twits–something about “herp derp critic integrity!” Mainly because Eric scooped them and wasn’t doing anything that off from the rest of the Cannes crowd. Devin Faraci–a frequent HE commenter, natch–took offense with this. And of course, Jeff agreed. Sort of. I agree totally — it’s doggerel. Lame. Kohn and Indiewire were simply looking to be first to provide the very first commentary on the film anywhere in the world — except it wasn’t commentary but rudimentary (i.e., quite crude) descriptions of scenes as they happened. There’s an internet audience for this kind of stenography, of course, but to what end? A movie deserves a little thought before before commented on. I tapped out an instant hand-held judgment after Indy 4 ended, but at least I’d thought it through for an hour or two. Remember that Hotel in Park City? Fun fact: if you leave a piece of clothing somewhere, that’s as good as a down payment, credit card or loan. From now on, I’ll be paying my bar tabs with socks. [Jeffrey Wells] to Star Hotel proprietor: “I found a place in Park City but I can’t move in until Friday the 16th. Would you let me crash on the living-room couch for the first two nights (1.14 and 1.15)? Which I’ll pay you for, of course. It would be greatly appreciated if you could grant me this small favor, as you left me in the lurch this year. I thought I’d made it clear as a bell that I intended to return, having stayed in your wonderful abode the last two years and leaving my cowboy hat there and telling you I’d wear it when I returned in ‘09 and so on. Anyway, can ya do me this one?” When pressed to explain, Wells continues in the Comments: Yes, yes…if I’d left a cash deposit or a credit-card number then the room would have been assured. I’m not an idiot. But leaving the cowboy hat and plainly stating to the proprietor that I’d come back and wear it the following year (especially after having stayed at the Star in ‘07 and ‘08 and been part of the family there, in a sense) was a very emotionally vivid and pronounced way of stating my intentions. It was a message that is recognized by everyone all over the world. It’s even recognized in the animal kingdom (i.e., leaving your scent on a piece of turf). If you go out with a girl and she comes home with you and stays the night and she leaves her underwear or bra or socks in your bedroom after she leaves the next morning, we all know that’s a universal message that says, “I want to come back and get to know you better and probably have sex with you again.” Everyone knows that. Leaving an article of clothing, something with your scent and paw-prints and sweat residue on it, means that you intend to come back and spray your scent around some more. If you were to see a 1930s Gary Cooper western and hotel manager Frances Farmer, giving him the old twinkle-eye, asked him if he was coming back after taking his cattle to market, and if he faintly grinned at her and took off his cowboy hat and left it hanging on the wall as he walks out the door, everybody watching the film in any country in the world would know exactly what that means. It would be crystal clear. So don’t tell me. Credit cards are well and good, but to say left-behind cowboy hats and such mean nothing is to be way too “dollars and cents” about this matter. Sadly, it looks like the hotel gave his cowboy hat to the police–Jeff then posts the phone call as an audio file. So Jeffrey, we wish you a happy new year and can’t wait to see what sort of insanity you give out this year. If you’ve got your own favorite Wells-ian moments, leave them in the comments. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/12/29/38928.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 12/29/2008 3:00:53 PM
Body: When it comes to lazy film clichés, Nazis are one step above slow-motion gunfights and barely underneath “the hero must get the girl and save the day.” It’s fitting that Nazis manage to encompass everything  from being the symbol for the Big, Bad Guy to perversion, occult beliefs and Holocaust Porn. Pop a swastika on someone and it becomes abundantly clear he’s the bad guy, whether it’s Samuel L. Jackson ripping through shoddy green screen in The Spirit or the lit-deviant prison guard Kate Winslet tackles in The Reader. But sometimes, there are types of films that need to go “Full Nazi.” These select few films embrace the red, black and white because they’d have no other claim to fame otherwise. The eight films below have merit on their own, but it is through their use of the Nazi symbols that they remain on the cultural brain. Apt Pupil The effective start of Bryan Singer’s ode to the Reich involves Arthur Denker (Ian McKellen), a Nazi war criminal masquerading next door to Todd Bowen (Brad Renfro), who discovers his neighbor’s previous life. Being an obsessive sociopath in progress, young Todd demands Arthur (neé Kurt Dussander) regale him with tales of World War II and Nazism in general. He goes so far as taking a uniform from the attic and demands Arthur march for him. Pupil embodies the sadomasochistic nature that the fetish community places on the Nazis along with the concept that only scary, evil people ever want to learn about history. The duo develop a creepy grandparent/child vibe, as Arthur threatens to rat out Todd if his grades don’t improve, and both become encouraged to torture small animals and get some small pleasure out of it. Hellboy Though Mike Mignola’s series owes more to H. P. Lovecraft, he bridges the gap by riding on the occult coattails of Nazis and even Russian historic figures. Set against World War II, an American commando squad raid a secret Nazi location where Rasputin (yes, the same one) intends to awaken a group of inter-dimensional beings to destroy the world. By his side, Karl Kroenen, leader of the Thule Society, personal assassin for Hitler and dressed by a leather fetishist. The U.S. troops foil the portal, Rasputin is sucked into a distant dimension and the film’s titular red ape-demon remains on our side for the U.S. of A. Utterly overshadowed in Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptation for whimsical creature design, the zombie-like Kroenen remains a constant example of Nazi-ism surviing into the modern era. Initially a mere scientist, the film re-imagines him as the Reich’s top assassin—he’s quiet, lethal and horribly deformed underneath the premise of his gas mask. You may also question this video choice. That’s simple: I really like this duet. Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS Perhaps the best known take of “Holocaust Porn,” Ilsa takes the women-in-prison theme and turns it around with its sadistic titular scientist (Dyanne Thorne), who runs a stalag devoted to proving women can endure more than men–thus being better soldiers for the Reich–through torture and campy experiments. She also proves her statement that men are weak by taking a nightly lover and castrating him if he finishes before she can. Her downfall comes once an American soldier (”Wolfe”) arrives, who learns of her kink and proves himself more than capable of his porn star stamina. And hey, Ilsa even gives a Golden Shower while wearing an S.S. Major’s uniform. Of course, there’s a revolt, Ilsa is defeated and shockingly murdered–along with other guards and inmates–by a German commando team. While clearly skirting the “B”-level of film, this remains rather unnerving on the level of “why am I watching this?” Saló o le 120 giornate di Sodoma Mundane title credits aside, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s ‘modern’ retelling of The 120 Days of Sodom occurs in 1944 Italy in the Republic of Saló. Four high-ranking members of the community decide to marry each others’ daughters–and then consummate the event with an incredibly horrid ritual. They kidnap 18 men and women, bring out four prostitutes to “tell of” the events and proceed to create lavish, perverse torture to enact. Jewish women are (literally) consumed; shit is served as a last meal; men and women are raped and/or murdered if they can no longer stand their confinement. And then comes the voyeuristic thrill of watching those slaughtered through the binoculars. But the end does it, as two soldiers gaily dance with one another after the film’s events, questioning just what will happen to those that stand by this. Il Portiere di notte/The Night Porter You may be noticing an S&M theme, but you’ll get one better with Charlotte Rampling’s near-historic cabaret performance.  Dirk Bogarde plays a former Nazi officer who finds himself as a night porter at a Vienna hotel, catering to his guests while conspiring with his former Nazi superiors to prepare for their upcoming trials. While serving at a concentration camp, he entered a twisted relationship with Lucia Atherton (Rampling), who coincidentally returns to his life when she comes to the hotel. Most famous for the twisted cabaret performance where Bogarde presents his lover with the head of a man who gave her trouble. Breathlessly toying with lines like, “’If I could wish something for myself/If could wish for a good time or a bad time - What should I wish? I can’t decide,” Rampling struts in the bare minimum of an officer’s uniform among a crowd of lounging individuals. Then again, Porter evokes the Holocaust while trying to present a sadomasochistic love story that–in context–seems utterly insane without its’ back story. Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Arc/Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Steven Spielberg has such an incredible hard-on for Nazis, killing Nazis and doing god-knows what else to Nazis that it becomes self-parody. Jones (Harrison Ford) is the epitome of a rugged adventurer searching for myths and buried treasure. On his first and third outings, he deals with the Nazis, particularly those at the same Thule Society that relied on the Ark of the Covenant or Holy Grail to continue the Fürher’s work. But as Indiana knows, you can’t be a Nazi without being thrown off a zeppelin, shot, stabbed, torn up by an airplane propeller or have god knows what other awful fate waiting for you. Jones tried to work out the Nazi angle in Temple of Doom, but ultimately Spielberg came running back to it because it makes for a better villain. Even in the fourth installment, the foil villains are the communist Russians. Hate to say it, but without the Nazis, Herr Doktor Jones wouldn’t be doing a whole lot of whipping. The Boys from Brazil Maybe we just felt like including this because Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck have an epic fight that ends with bloodthirsty Dobermans who react to the command, “Kill.”  Maybe this perfectly embodies the myth that Hitler had thirty some clones from Brazil spread into the world.  Regardless, this pseudo-sci-fi thriller from Franklin J. Schaffner (who also did Lionheart) got an Oscar nod for Olivier’s portrayal of Ezra Lieberman and offers Peck’s hokiest line ever: “A Hitler tailor-made for the 1980s, the 1990s, 2000!” Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler! I assumed it was a joke, but actually this is an Italian “Nazisploitation” film that made a wild gambit on two things: 1)    People would like Tinto Brass’ Caligula. 2)    Imagine how hot it would be to see a naked woman strung up, vomiting, as she’s lowered into a crate of rats. Not a big crate—more like a shoebox or an  ottoman. Released in 1977, there is no parallel to Caligula aside from copious sex, poor plot pacing and a desperate attempt to appeal to the inner philosopher in us all.  Director Cesare Canevari does us one better by having a woman devoured by ‘rats’ (read: they’re gerbils). This may be as shlocky as Nazi films get, but just imagine the looks on your friends faces when you say, “I spent time watching Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler. Well, he wasn’t in the film, but how awesome does that sound!” Worse still is this film literally misses a plot: it has events and actions, but not real structure. At all. It merely stops like a bad home movie that makes everyone who saw it question their own sanity. In fact, the only inspiration this sleaze inspires is to add “Caligula Reincarnated” to a film title as some type of drinking game or mild amusement. Because without Nazis or Hitler, this would just be called Hostel 3. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:00:53 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com12/29/2008 3:00:53 PMWhen it comes to lazy film clichés, Nazis are one step above slow-motion gunfights and barely underneath “the hero must get the girl and save the day.” It’s fitting that Nazis manage to encompass everything  from being the symbol for the Big, Bad Guy to perversion, occult beliefs and Holocaust Porn. Pop a swastika on someone and it becomes abundantly clear he’s the bad guy, whether it’s Samuel L. Jackson ripping through shoddy green screen in The Spirit or the lit-deviant prison guard Kate Winslet tackles in The Reader. But sometimes, there are types of films that need to go “Full Nazi.” These select few films embrace the red, black and white because they’d have no other claim to fame otherwise. The eight films below have merit on their own, but it is through their use of the Nazi symbols that they remain on the cultural brain. Apt Pupil The effective start of Bryan Singer’s ode to the Reich involves Arthur Denker (Ian McKellen), a Nazi war criminal masquerading next door to Todd Bowen (Brad Renfro), who discovers his neighbor’s previous life. Being an obsessive sociopath in progress, young Todd demands Arthur (neé Kurt Dussander) regale him with tales of World War II and Nazism in general. He goes so far as taking a uniform from the attic and demands Arthur march for him. Pupil embodies the sadomasochistic nature that the fetish community places on the Nazis along with the concept that only scary, evil people ever want to learn about history. The duo develop a creepy grandparent/child vibe, as Arthur threatens to rat out Todd if his grades don’t improve, and both become encouraged to torture small animals and get some small pleasure out of it. Hellboy Though Mike Mignola’s series owes more to H. P. Lovecraft, he bridges the gap by riding on the occult coattails of Nazis and even Russian historic figures. Set against World War II, an American commando squad raid a secret Nazi location where Rasputin (yes, the same one) intends to awaken a group of inter-dimensional beings to destroy the world. By his side, Karl Kroenen, leader of the Thule Society, personal assassin for Hitler and dressed by a leather fetishist. The U.S. troops foil the portal, Rasputin is sucked into a distant dimension and the film’s titular red ape-demon remains on our side for the U.S. of A. Utterly overshadowed in Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptation for whimsical creature design, the zombie-like Kroenen remains a constant example of Nazi-ism surviing into the modern era. Initially a mere scientist, the film re-imagines him as the Reich’s top assassin—he’s quiet, lethal and horribly deformed underneath the premise of his gas mask. You may also question this video choice. That’s simple: I really like this duet. Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS Perhaps the best known take of “Holocaust Porn,” Ilsa takes the women-in-prison theme and turns it around with its sadistic titular scientist (Dyanne Thorne), who runs a stalag devoted to proving women can endure more than men–thus being better soldiers for the Reich–through torture and campy experiments. She also proves her statement that men are weak by taking a nightly lover and castrating him if he finishes before she can. Her downfall comes once an American soldier (”Wolfe”) arrives, who learns of her kink and proves himself more than capable of his porn star stamina. And hey, Ilsa even gives a Golden Shower while wearing an S.S. Major’s uniform. Of course, there’s a revolt, Ilsa is defeated and shockingly murdered–along with other guards and inmates–by a German commando team. While clearly skirting the “B”-level of film, this remains rather unnerving on the level of “why am I watching this?” Saló o le 120 giornate di Sodoma Mundane title credits aside, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s ‘modern’ retelling of The 120 Days of Sodom occurs in 1944 Italy in the Republic of Saló. Four high-ranking members of the community decide to marry each others’ daughters–and then consummate the event with an incredibly horrid ritual. They kidnap 18 men and women, bring out four prostitutes to “tell of” the events and proceed to create lavish, perverse torture to enact. Jewish women are (literally) consumed; shit is served as a last meal; men and women are raped and/or murdered if they can no longer stand their confinement. And then comes the voyeuristic thrill of watching those slaughtered through the binoculars. But the end does it, as two soldiers gaily dance with one another after the film’s events, questioning just what will happen to those that stand by this. Il Portiere di notte/The Night Porter You may be noticing an S&M theme, but you’ll get one better with Charlotte Rampling’s near-historic cabaret performance.  Dirk Bogarde plays a former Nazi officer who finds himself as a night porter at a Vienna hotel, catering to his guests while conspiring with his former Nazi superiors to prepare for their upcoming trials. While serving at a concentration camp, he entered a twisted relationship with Lucia Atherton (Rampling), who coincidentally returns to his life when she comes to the hotel. Most famous for the twisted cabaret performance where Bogarde presents his lover with the head of a man who gave her trouble. Breathlessly toying with lines like, “’If I could wish something for myself/If could wish for a good time or a bad time - What should I wish? I can’t decide,” Rampling struts in the bare minimum of an officer’s uniform among a crowd of lounging individuals. Then again, Porter evokes the Holocaust while trying to present a sadomasochistic love story that–in context–seems utterly insane without its’ back story. Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Arc/Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Steven Spielberg has such an incredible hard-on for Nazis, killing Nazis and doing god-knows what else to Nazis that it becomes self-parody. Jones (Harrison Ford) is the epitome of a rugged adventurer searching for myths and buried treasure. On his first and third outings, he deals with the Nazis, particularly those at the same Thule Society that relied on the Ark of the Covenant or Holy Grail to continue the Fürher’s work. But as Indiana knows, you can’t be a Nazi without being thrown off a zeppelin, shot, stabbed, torn up by an airplane propeller or have god knows what other awful fate waiting for you. Jones tried to work out the Nazi angle in Temple of Doom, but ultimately Spielberg came running back to it because it makes for a better villain. Even in the fourth installment, the foil villains are the communist Russians. Hate to say it, but without the Nazis, Herr Doktor Jones wouldn’t be doing a whole lot of whipping. The Boys from Brazil Maybe we just felt like including this because Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck have an epic fight that ends with bloodthirsty Dobermans who react to the command, “Kill.”  Maybe this perfectly embodies the myth that Hitler had thirty some clones from Brazil spread into the world.  Regardless, this pseudo-sci-fi thriller from Franklin J. Schaffner (who also did Lionheart) got an Oscar nod for Olivier’s portrayal of Ezra Lieberman and offers Peck’s hokiest line ever: “A Hitler tailor-made for the 1980s, the 1990s, 2000!” Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler! I assumed it was a joke, but actually this is an Italian “Nazisploitation” film that made a wild gambit on two things: 1)    People would like Tinto Brass’ Caligula. 2)    Imagine how hot it would be to see a naked woman strung up, vomiting, as she’s lowered into a crate of rats. Not a big crate—more like a shoebox or an  ottoman. Released in 1977, there is no parallel to Caligula aside from copious sex, poor plot pacing and a desperate attempt to appeal to the inner philosopher in us all.  Director Cesare Canevari does us one better by having a woman devoured by ‘rats’ (read: they’re gerbils). This may be as shlocky as Nazi films get, but just imagine the looks on your friends faces when you say, “I spent time watching Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler. Well, he wasn’t in the film, but how awesome does that sound!” Worse still is this film literally misses a plot: it has events and actions, but not real structure. At all. It merely stops like a bad home movie that makes everyone who saw it question their own sanity. In fact, the only inspiration this sleaze inspires is to add “Caligula Reincarnated” to a film title as some type of drinking game or mild amusement. Because without Nazis or Hitler, this would just be called Hostel 3. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/12/23/38761.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 12/23/2008 12:00:52 PM
Body: Should special effects only be used to service a film’s story, or is it perfectly fine for movies to feature extraneous spectacle? That’s a debate that comes up often among cineastes, but ultimately there’s room for both functions. Sometimes, in cases like Jurassic Park and The Matrix, both categories of effects may even faultlessly coexist in the same film. Yet there is one kind of effects employment that’s intolerable to all film-loving parties: the gratuitous exploitation for the sole purpose of brazen gimmickry. It’s this kind of effects work that goes beyond spectacle. It’s not so much a show as a show off. For one example of this cinematic sin check out Karina’s review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which she references a scene featuring an inessential and irrelevant rocket launch in the background of an otherwise intimate moment between two lovers on a sailboat. Actually, that’s apparently only a minor citation in a “a film about the feat of its own whiz-bang, Frankensteinian digital imagery, drunk on its own accomplishment to an extent that feels quasi-ethical.” Hardly the first movie to commit such a crime, sure, but Benjamin Button seems to be the most thoroughly guilty exploiter since Forrest Gump (both films, incidentally, were scripted by Eric Roth). So, in (dis)honor of Roth’s repeat offense, let’s take a short look at the worst exploitations of special effects in the last 15 years: Forrest Gump (1994): digital erasure of Gary Sinise’s legs Only a year earlier, we had marveled at Jurassic Park’s showcase of computer effects as the ultimate in movie magic. Then, Robert Zemeckis crushed our imaginations by turning CG into a means for mere tricks. The composites were cool enough, but Zemeckis had to go one step further and flaunt Lt. Dan’s lack of legs, just because he could. Was the effect neat? Yeah, for a minute, but it was also completely unnecessary. Star Wars prequels (1999-2005): computer-generated Yoda Some people believe George Lucas’ greatest effects foul to be Jar-Jar Binks. Others cite his awful CG Jabba in the 1997 special edition of A New Hope. Both were cheap exploitations, no doubt about it, but Lucas’ worst employment of CG was turning Yoda into a digitally rendered character. This isn’t just another excuse for us to defend and celebrate Muppets, either. Rather, it’s a defense and celebration of The Empire Strikes Back, which is a perfect film and is such despite its inclusion of a puppet version of Yoda. Why didn’t Lucas go the extra yard and turn the droids and Wookies into CG characters? Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004): computer-generated werewolf One of the most hated uses of CG, particularly to horror fans, is for werewolf effects. After all, the greatest-looking werewolf of all time, from An American Werewolf in London, was achieved with makeup rather than a computer. Yet just because computer effects exist, filmmakers seemingly attempt to better Rick Baker’s Oscar-winning technique with CG werewolves in movies like Van Helsing, Cursed and this, the third installment in the Harry Potter franchise. Or, is it that computer effects are just cheaper than makeup? Because they do indeed look cheap. Prisoner of Azkaban may have been nominated for a Visual Effects Oscar, but it probably lost because of Professor Lupin’s cartoonish transformation into a werewolf. Even if you believe Azkaban to be the best film in the franchise, you have to admit it could have been all the more exceptional had Alfonso Cuaron only put David Thewlis in the makeup chair and not into the hard drive. The Day After Tomorrow (2004): computer-generated wolves If there’s one thing even lamer than using CG for werewolves, it’s using CG for wolves. The former is at least an imaginary creature that requires some kind of effects to fabricate its existence. The latter can be found at a zoo, in the wild, or through an animal wrangler. It’s not even like the three wolves in The Day After Tomorrow, which appear in one minor sequence, had to seem preternatural like the dogs in Hulk. Apparently there were actually real wolves initially used, but they weren’t acceptable to Roland Emmerich, and so digital wolves were added later in post production. But did they have to be entirely substituted for? Or was Emmerich on a computer-generated power trip? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008): computer-generated monkeys You’re probably not shocked to see another George Lucas production here. There’s some disagreement over which was the worst part of this latest Indiana Jones film, the “nuke the fridge” sequence or the moment when Shia LaBeouf swings through the jungle with a bunch of CG monkeys. The former scene (pictured, since the internet seems to be pretending the monkey scene doesn’t exist) was certainly the downturn of the franchise, but the latter was its greatest offense. Had it not been in the film — and it truly could have been avoided — a lot of people might have forgiven Lucas and Steven Spielberg for the movie’s other faults. But as South Park bluntly put it, those guys raped their character. And they also raped and exploited the whole visual effects industry while they were at it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:00:52 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com12/23/2008 12:00:52 PMShould special effects only be used to service a film’s story, or is it perfectly fine for movies to feature extraneous spectacle? That’s a debate that comes up often among cineastes, but ultimately there’s room for both functions. Sometimes, in cases like Jurassic Park and The Matrix, both categories of effects may even faultlessly coexist in the same film. Yet there is one kind of effects employment that’s intolerable to all film-loving parties: the gratuitous exploitation for the sole purpose of brazen gimmickry. It’s this kind of effects work that goes beyond spectacle. It’s not so much a show as a show off. For one example of this cinematic sin check out Karina’s review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which she references a scene featuring an inessential and irrelevant rocket launch in the background of an otherwise intimate moment between two lovers on a sailboat. Actually, that’s apparently only a minor citation in a “a film about the feat of its own whiz-bang, Frankensteinian digital imagery, drunk on its own accomplishment to an extent that feels quasi-ethical.” Hardly the first movie to commit such a crime, sure, but Benjamin Button seems to be the most thoroughly guilty exploiter since Forrest Gump (both films, incidentally, were scripted by Eric Roth). So, in (dis)honor of Roth’s repeat offense, let’s take a short look at the worst exploitations of special effects in the last 15 years: Forrest Gump (1994): digital erasure of Gary Sinise’s legs Only a year earlier, we had marveled at Jurassic Park’s showcase of computer effects as the ultimate in movie magic. Then, Robert Zemeckis crushed our imaginations by turning CG into a means for mere tricks. The composites were cool enough, but Zemeckis had to go one step further and flaunt Lt. Dan’s lack of legs, just because he could. Was the effect neat? Yeah, for a minute, but it was also completely unnecessary. Star Wars prequels (1999-2005): computer-generated Yoda Some people believe George Lucas’ greatest effects foul to be Jar-Jar Binks. Others cite his awful CG Jabba in the 1997 special edition of A New Hope. Both were cheap exploitations, no doubt about it, but Lucas’ worst employment of CG was turning Yoda into a digitally rendered character. This isn’t just another excuse for us to defend and celebrate Muppets, either. Rather, it’s a defense and celebration of The Empire Strikes Back, which is a perfect film and is such despite its inclusion of a puppet version of Yoda. Why didn’t Lucas go the extra yard and turn the droids and Wookies into CG characters? Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004): computer-generated werewolf One of the most hated uses of CG, particularly to horror fans, is for werewolf effects. After all, the greatest-looking werewolf of all time, from An American Werewolf in London, was achieved with makeup rather than a computer. Yet just because computer effects exist, filmmakers seemingly attempt to better Rick Baker’s Oscar-winning technique with CG werewolves in movies like Van Helsing, Cursed and this, the third installment in the Harry Potter franchise. Or, is it that computer effects are just cheaper than makeup? Because they do indeed look cheap. Prisoner of Azkaban may have been nominated for a Visual Effects Oscar, but it probably lost because of Professor Lupin’s cartoonish transformation into a werewolf. Even if you believe Azkaban to be the best film in the franchise, you have to admit it could have been all the more exceptional had Alfonso Cuaron only put David Thewlis in the makeup chair and not into the hard drive. The Day After Tomorrow (2004): computer-generated wolves If there’s one thing even lamer than using CG for werewolves, it’s using CG for wolves. The former is at least an imaginary creature that requires some kind of effects to fabricate its existence. The latter can be found at a zoo, in the wild, or through an animal wrangler. It’s not even like the three wolves in The Day After Tomorrow, which appear in one minor sequence, had to seem preternatural like the dogs in Hulk. Apparently there were actually real wolves initially used, but they weren’t acceptable to Roland Emmerich, and so digital wolves were added later in post production. But did they have to be entirely substituted for? Or was Emmerich on a computer-generated power trip? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008): computer-generated monkeys You’re probably not shocked to see another George Lucas production here. There’s some disagreement over which was the worst part of this latest Indiana Jones film, the “nuke the fridge” sequence or the moment when Shia LaBeouf swings through the jungle with a bunch of CG monkeys. The former scene (pictured, since the internet seems to be pretending the monkey scene doesn’t exist) was certainly the downturn of the franchise, but the latter was its greatest offense. Had it not been in the film — and it truly could have been avoided — a lot of people might have forgiven Lucas and Steven Spielberg for the movie’s other faults. But as South Park bluntly put it, those guys raped their character. And they also raped and exploited the whole visual effects industry while they were at it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/usesoap/archive/2008/8/4/33539.aspx Post By: usesoap
Post To: usesoap Blog
Post Date: 8/4/2008 10:22:55 PM
Body: During a climactic battle scene in “The Mummy: Curse of the Tomb of the Something or Other,” Brender Fraser's charactrer, What's His Name, bellows: “I really hate mummies.”(At least, I'm pretty sure he said, “mummies,” as there was nothing prior to this that would suggest he said “mommies,” as there was no strained parental issues of his discussed in this film.) Regardless, I could not agree agree more, Brenden. “The Mummy” is not so much a film as it is a marathon for the senses, testing the threshold your eyes and ears can endure. When it's not busy reminding you of earlier, far better films, it's pounding your peepers and pummeling your drums into submission. It's difficult to look past its flaws, for the mere conception of this film is one – a story as lifeless and dry as an empty sarcophagus, this third “Mummy” can't even muster enough credibility to pass its non-computer-generated cast as believable. For example, the 27-year-old actor Luke Ford is apparently the college-aged kid of 39-year-old Frasier and 41-year-old Maria Bello, who plays Fraser's wife. The younger actor's rather difficult time trying to squelch his Australian accent only adds to the fact that he does not bare even a passing resemblance to the other actors. Except, of course, he shares the same crow's feet. The film opens heavy on exposition, as if anyone really cared about that going into a “Mummy” movie. Talk of “collections of mystical secrets,” “the Eye of Shangri-La” and “eternal youth” are stiltingly read while generic shots of battling armies flash before us. Then, we are treated to a shot of our now-retired hero, Indi... er, Rick O'Connell (played by Fraser), unsuccessfully fly fishing in one of those sad, slapsticky, I-can't-deal-with-retirement montages that serve as filler in films such as these. “The Mummy” films have always been a pale copy of the “Indiana Jones” franchise, but in a summer in which Dr. Jones himself makes a (rather flat) return to the screen, Rick's re-entry into the adventure fray seems superfluous. There's even a shot where he stares at his old leather adventurin' jacket that's supposed to echo the iconic sight of Dr. Jones picking up his dusty fedora again. While watching, all we can think was, “Oh, is that what he wore?” A car chase, countless bad puns, an army of undead, CGI- rendered (CGI standing for crappy, generic images), a countless loud, bland scenes later, and all is wrapped up and forgotten before pushing open the theater's exit door. Fraser, as always, is a champ, completely comfortable with the fact that the majority of his co-stars are mere pixels, and he still manages to make the most of his “Raiders” - light role. Rachel Weitz, who smartly bailed on this outing, has been replaced by Maria Bello ( “A History of Violence”) as Rick's British wife. While some critics have bemoaned the former;s absence, can they really say “The Mummy” films were such paragons of adventure solely because of her textured performance? At this point, I think she could have been replaced by a Colorform with little difference. As mentioned earlier, the decision to advance the age of the son, last seen as a precious scamp in “The Mummy Returns” seven years ago, is rather awkward and jarring any time he shares the screen with his “dad.” Action sequence after action sequence lifts bits from other films and appears edited with a ceiling fan, allowing shots strewn about in random order. The final battle with an ancient undead terra cotta army (really, how threatening can an army be when its mere name suggests patio furnishings?) is routine and uninspired. The weapon-weidling skeletons only harken back to Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation of “Jason and the Argonauts.” But in the caffeinated hands of director Rob (“The Fast and the Furious”) Cohen, the memories are fleeting before it's on to the next strained attempt at humor or peril. With the sun setting on summer cinema, we can only hope that we've seen the last of this sort of generic, bombastic, seizure-inducing form of film, and we can wrap this “Mummy” up and entomb it with its anxiety-inducing box office brethren as we await the more deliberately paced films of the fall.
]]>Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:22:55 GMTusesoapusesoap Blog8/4/2008 10:22:55 PM During a climactic battle scene in “The Mummy: Curse of the Tomb of the Something or Other,” Brender Fraser's charactrer, What's His Name, bellows: “I really hate mummies.”(At least, I'm pretty sure he said, “mummies,” as there was nothing prior to this that would suggest he said “mommies,” as there was no strained parental issues of his discussed in this film.) Regardless, I could not agree agree more, Brenden. “The Mummy” is not so much a film as it is a marathon for the senses, testing the threshold your eyes and ears can endure. When it's not busy reminding you of earlier, far better films, it's pounding your peepers and pummeling your drums into submission. It's difficult to look past its flaws, for the mere conception of this film is one – a story as lifeless and dry as an empty sarcophagus, this third “Mummy” can't even muster enough credibility to pass its non-computer-generated cast as believable. For example, the 27-year-old actor Luke Ford is apparently the college-aged kid of 39-year-old Frasier and 41-year-old Maria Bello, who plays Fraser's wife. The younger actor's rather difficult time trying to squelch his Australian accent only adds to the fact that he does not bare even a passing resemblance to the other actors. Except, of course, he shares the same crow's feet. The film opens heavy on exposition, as if anyone really cared about that going into a “Mummy” movie. Talk of “collections of mystical secrets,” “the Eye of Shangri-La” and “eternal youth” are stiltingly read while generic shots of battling armies flash before us. Then, we are treated to a shot of our now-retired hero, Indi... er, Rick O'Connell (played by Fraser), unsuccessfully fly fishing in one of those sad, slapsticky, I-can't-deal-with-retirement montages that serve as filler in films such as these. “The Mummy” films have always been a pale copy of the “Indiana Jones” franchise, but in a summer in which Dr. Jones himself makes a (rather flat) return to the screen, Rick's re-entry into the adventure fray seems superfluous. There's even a shot where he stares at his old leather adventurin' jacket that's supposed to echo the iconic sight of Dr. Jones picking up his dusty fedora again. While watching, all we can think was, “Oh, is that what he wore?” A car chase, countless bad puns, an army of undead, CGI- rendered (CGI standing for crappy, generic images), a countless loud, bland scenes later, and all is wrapped up and forgotten before pushing open the theater's exit door. Fraser, as always, is a champ, completely comfortable with the fact that the majority of his co-stars are mere pixels, and he still manages to make the most of his “Raiders” - light role. Rachel Weitz, who smartly bailed on this outing, has been replaced by Maria Bello ( “A History of Violence”) as Rick's British wife. While some critics have bemoaned the former;s absence, can they really say “The Mummy” films were such paragons of adventure solely because of her textured performance? At this point, I think she could have been replaced by a Colorform with little difference. As mentioned earlier, the decision to advance the age of the son, last seen as a precious scamp in “The Mummy Returns” seven years ago, is rather awkward and jarring any time he shares the screen with his “dad.” Action sequence after action sequence lifts bits from other films and appears edited with a ceiling fan, allowing shots strewn about in random order. The final battle with an ancient undead terra cotta army (really, how threatening can an army be when its mere name suggests patio furnishings?) is routine and uninspired. The weapon-weidling skeletons only harken back to Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation of “Jason and the Argonauts.” But in the caffeinated hands of director Rob (“The Fast and the Furious”) Cohen, the memories are fleeting before it's on to the next strained attempt at humor or peril. With the sun setting on summer cinema, we can only hope that we've seen the last of this sort of generic, bombastic, seizure-inducing form of film, and we can wrap this “Mummy” up and entomb it with its anxiety-inducing box office brethren as we await the more deliberately paced films of the fall. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/7/2/32027.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 7/2/2008 1:01:05 PM
Body: Who needs Will Ferrell’s impersonation when the real James Lipton is willing to do stuff like this. It’s short, it’s sweet and it’s helping me maintain my excitement for Hellboy II: The Golden Army. And I wasn’t even a fan of the first movie. In fact, I can’t remember a darn thing about Hellboy except for the Nazi-heavy prologue, which gave me the first impression of Indiana Jones knockoff (the subsequent plot made me think Indy meets Men in Black). Fortunately, the follow-up looks more like Pan’s Labyrinth, which was at least directed by Hellboy helmer Guillermo Del Toro. To get me back up to speed before Hellboy II drops next Friday, I’ve rented the DVD of the original. And I’ve also watched this animated prologue, which gives us background info regarding the Golden Army. Personally, I’d be OK with the whole film being in this style. I just have lots of love for minimal animation. I definitely need to check out Broken Saints, the web series directed by this prologue’s animator, Brooke Burgess. Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens nationwide July 11. [Inside the Actor's Studio spot via Fark.com; prologue via Chris Albrecht] Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:01:05 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com7/2/2008 1:01:05 PM Who needs Will Ferrell’s impersonation when the real James Lipton is willing to do stuff like this. It’s short, it’s sweet and it’s helping me maintain my excitement for Hellboy II: The Golden Army. And I wasn’t even a fan of the first movie. In fact, I can’t remember a darn thing about Hellboy except for the Nazi-heavy prologue, which gave me the first impression of Indiana Jones knockoff (the subsequent plot made me think Indy meets Men in Black). Fortunately, the follow-up looks more like Pan’s Labyrinth, which was at least directed by Hellboy helmer Guillermo Del Toro. To get me back up to speed before Hellboy II drops next Friday, I’ve rented the DVD of the original. And I’ve also watched this animated prologue, which gives us background info regarding the Golden Army. Personally, I’d be OK with the whole film being in this style. I just have lots of love for minimal animation. I definitely need to check out Broken Saints, the web series directed by this prologue’s animator, Brooke Burgess. Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens nationwide July 11. [Inside the Actor's Studio spot via Fark.com; prologue via Chris Albrecht] Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/minerwerks/archive/2008/5/23/29798.aspx Post By: minerwerks
Post To: minerwerks Blog
Post Date: 5/23/2008 12:25:45 AM
Body: About 20 minutes into 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,' there is a humdinger of a chase that glides and slides through the streets and corridors around the campus where the legendary Dr. Jones (Harrison Ford) is a Professor. I'm not sure exactly how the conclusion of the chase affected the plot, but I do remember that it ended with a punchline - and nobody in the theater laughed. It's sad to say, but a heck of a lot of this new adventure plays like a parody of the (much better) films that have gone before. I'd like to think I gave the film a fair shot. As with the previous Indiana Jones adventures, we open on something natural that resembles the Paramount logo, followed by the credits in the elegant typeface that has graced each film (save 'Temple of Doom'). A simple, fun sequence orients us that this story takes place in 1957, and we end on a military base hidden in the middle of the desert. So far, so good. It's even exciting to get our first glimpse of Indy's fedora, coming to rest on its familar head in sillhouette. But then people start speaking, and it's all downhill from there. Harrison Ford seems more than happy to be here, but I really question whether his choice was more dependent on the payday rather than any allegiance to the beloved character he personifies. There is the occasional spark of the Indy we love, but too much of this performance feels unfamiliar, contradictory and (dare I say it) lazy. There is a plot here, too, but I'll be damned if I couldn't make heads or tails of it. But see, it doesn't matter because (SPOILER ALERT) there's a nuclear blast, a chase through the forest that includes a travelling swordfight, a boat that plummets down three waterfalls, giant ants, and ultimately, an alien ship. Excuse me, an "interdimensional being" ship. I hope H.R. Geiger got some royalties on these updated Crystal Skulls - that should tell you a lot. Forgive me for laying it all out, but I don't have much allegiance to protecting a story that so assaulted my intelligence. It truly does play like a Sci-Fi Channel original movie but with Indiana Jones instead of some twenty-something hack. Along the way, we are reintroduced to Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Indy's love interest from the 'Lost Ark' adventure. Evidently, Marion was always the love of his life, and with a tossed-off line worthy of a Lifetime movie, those years spent split apart are forgiven and they get all pie-eyed over each other. They are brought together again by Marion's son (Shia LaBeouf), who enters the story trying to locate a missing colleague (John Hurt). All these characters are underwritten and underplayed, and their interactions don't amount to a hill of ants in the plot. Even the requisite baddie, a Russian agent played by Cate Blanchett, is severely underutilized. I was bored and distracted, and I lost track of who these people were and what they were trying to accomplish. My theory on what went wrong here is that Spielberg and Lucas have unwittingly given in to their worst instincts. A large chunk at the front of this film plays an awful lot like Spielberg's misbegotten attempt at comedy, '1941,' even coming awfully close to copying a couple of the overblown setpieces in that film. The tail end, sad to say, has all the coherency and sense of 'Howard the Duck.' Maybe the idea was to run with the times, and instead of making a WWII-era serial pastiche, they wanted to make a pastiche of nuclear-age B-movies. Either way, the choices are so ridiculous because they don't respect the integrity of the Indiana Jones character. When they first announced Ford would be coming back as Indiana Jones, many wondered if they would address how Indy has aged. The resulting film proves that the age isn't really that big a deal. The real missed opportunity here is that Jones is a man out of his own time. He's still an archeologist and a professor, but the word around him is different. There's a bit of humor up front that plays on this idea, but the idea never resurfaces, left in the dust of some broad and ridiculous setpieces with hollow ciphers in place of characters.
]]>Fri, 23 May 2008 04:25:45 GMTminerwerksminerwerks Blog5/23/2008 12:25:45 AMAbout 20 minutes into 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,' there is a humdinger of a chase that glides and slides through the streets and corridors around the campus where the legendary Dr. Jones (Harrison Ford) is a Professor. I'm not sure exactly how the conclusion of the chase affected the plot, but I do remember that it ended with a punchline - and nobody in the theater laughed. It's sad to say, but a heck of a lot of this new adventure plays like a parody of the (much better) films that have gone before. I'd like to think I gave the film a fair shot. As with the previous Indiana Jones adventures, we open on something natural that resembles the Paramount logo, followed by the credits in the elegant typeface that has graced each film (save 'Temple of Doom'). A simple, fun sequence orients us that this story takes place in 1957, and we end on a military base hidden in the middle of the desert. So far, so good. It's even exciting to get our first glimpse of Indy's fedora, coming to rest on its familar head in sillhouette. But then people start speaking, and it's all downhill from there. Harrison Ford seems more than happy to be here, but I really question whether his choice was more dependent on the payday rather than any allegiance to the beloved character he personifies. There is the occasional spark of the Indy we love, but too much of this performance feels unfamiliar, contradictory and (dare I say it) lazy. There is a plot here, too, but I'll be damned if I couldn't make heads or tails of it. But see, it doesn't matter because (SPOILER ALERT) there's a nuclear blast, a chase through the forest that includes a travelling swordfight, a boat that plummets down three waterfalls, giant ants, and ultimately, an alien ship. Excuse me, an "interdimensional being" ship. I hope H.R. Geiger got some royalties on these updated Crystal Skulls - that should tell you a lot. Forgive me for laying it all out, but I don't have much allegiance to protecting a story that so assaulted my intelligence. It truly does play like a Sci-Fi Channel original movie but with Indiana Jones instead of some twenty-something hack. Along the way, we are reintroduced to Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Indy's love interest from the 'Lost Ark' adventure. Evidently, Marion was always the love of his life, and with a tossed-off line worthy of a Lifetime movie, those years spent split apart are forgiven and they get all pie-eyed over each other. They are brought together again by Marion's son (Shia LaBeouf), who enters the story trying to locate a missing colleague (John Hurt). All these characters are underwritten and underplayed, and their interactions don't amount to a hill of ants in the plot. Even the requisite baddie, a Russian agent played by Cate Blanchett, is severely underutilized. I was bored and distracted, and I lost track of who these people were and what they were trying to accomplish. My theory on what went wrong here is that Spielberg and Lucas have unwittingly given in to their worst instincts. A large chunk at the front of this film plays an awful lot like Spielberg's misbegotten attempt at comedy, '1941,' even coming awfully close to copying a couple of the overblown setpieces in that film. The tail end, sad to say, has all the coherency and sense of 'Howard the Duck.' Maybe the idea was to run with the times, and instead of making a WWII-era serial pastiche, they wanted to make a pastiche of nuclear-age B-movies. Either way, the choices are so ridiculous because they don't respect the integrity of the Indiana Jones character. When they first announced Ford would be coming back as Indiana Jones, many wondered if they would address how Indy has aged. The resulting film proves that the age isn't really that big a deal. The real missed opportunity here is that Jones is a man out of his own time. He's still an archeologist and a professor, but the word around him is different. There's a bit of humor up front that plays on this idea, but the idea never resurfaces, left in the dust of some broad and ridiculous setpieces with hollow ciphers in place of characters. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/5/16/29302.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 5/16/2008 4:01:10 PM
Body: With the fourth installment of the adventure series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, hitting theaters in a week, there’s too much debate going on as to the real-life relevance of Dr. Jones. Is he a crook, as was suggested last month? Or is he a model archaeologist, enough to be granted leading membership into the Archaeological Institute of America? Apparently Indiana Jones portrayer Harrison Ford has been elected to the AIA’s board of directors, as a way of honoring the fact that his iconic character has “played a major part in stimulating interest in the field of archaeological exploration.” Yet in the same week, ABC News has another report on how archaeologists view the guy most associated with their profession. And somehow one member of the Archaeological Institute is quoted as contradicting the organization’s inclusion of Ford as a member. Mark Rose, AIA’s online editorial director, told ABC, “There are codes of ethics in archeology and I don’t think he would be a member. Not in good standing, anyway.” Read on through the article, though, and you’ll discover Rose is used to walking about in Midwest cornfields, so he sounds like the person least likely to come in contact with a colleague resembling Indy. Another guy, SUNY Stony Brook professor Paul Zimansky claims some familiarity with Indiana Jones-like moments, whether they involve “breakneck speed” drives to the hospital or simply students who play dress up. Another professor says he screens the Indiana Jones movies for students to show them examples of what not to do. The Smithsonian Institute’s Jane MacLaren Walsh, though, sees at least some people doing the job correctly in those films, and she gets my recognition for the best movie-related statement I’ve read all week: “Not a whole lot of what we know as archeology goes on in these movies, except what the Nazis do. They seem to be doing some real archeological work,” said Walsh, who wrote the cover story in the May-June issue of Archaeology magazine examining the real history of crystal skulls featured in the new “Indiana Jones” movie. I know cinema really loves Nazis, but to sorta claim they’re actually the good guys in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? That’s going just a bit too far. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 16 May 2008 20:01:10 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com5/16/2008 4:01:10 PMWith the fourth installment of the adventure series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, hitting theaters in a week, there’s too much debate going on as to the real-life relevance of Dr. Jones. Is he a crook, as was suggested last month? Or is he a model archaeologist, enough to be granted leading membership into the Archaeological Institute of America? Apparently Indiana Jones portrayer Harrison Ford has been elected to the AIA’s board of directors, as a way of honoring the fact that his iconic character has “played a major part in stimulating interest in the field of archaeological exploration.” Yet in the same week, ABC News has another report on how archaeologists view the guy most associated with their profession. And somehow one member of the Archaeological Institute is quoted as contradicting the organization’s inclusion of Ford as a member. Mark Rose, AIA’s online editorial director, told ABC, “There are codes of ethics in archeology and I don’t think he would be a member. Not in good standing, anyway.” Read on through the article, though, and you’ll discover Rose is used to walking about in Midwest cornfields, so he sounds like the person least likely to come in contact with a colleague resembling Indy. Another guy, SUNY Stony Brook professor Paul Zimansky claims some familiarity with Indiana Jones-like moments, whether they involve “breakneck speed” drives to the hospital or simply students who play dress up. Another professor says he screens the Indiana Jones movies for students to show them examples of what not to do. The Smithsonian Institute’s Jane MacLaren Walsh, though, sees at least some people doing the job correctly in those films, and she gets my recognition for the best movie-related statement I’ve read all week: “Not a whole lot of what we know as archeology goes on in these movies, except what the Nazis do. They seem to be doing some real archeological work,” said Walsh, who wrote the cover story in the May-June issue of Archaeology magazine examining the real history of crystal skulls featured in the new “Indiana Jones” movie. I know cinema really loves Nazis, but to sorta claim they’re actually the good guys in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? That’s going just a bit too far. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/5/5/28209.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 5/5/2008 5:00:56 PM
Body: Indiana Jones’ adventures may be both work-related and dangerous, but you know he’s having fun. And now you can experience some of that fun thanks to Expedia. The travel company has planned ten different vacations inspired by the four Indiana Jones films, including this summer’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, of course, plus the series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. It’s doubtful that you’ll run into any Nazis or booby traps or any other sort of trouble, but considering you’re not Indy, you’re better off as safe as possible. Expedia has itineraries in nine countries, including the U.S., in which a trip to the Southwest is tied into the Young Indy prologue of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Other vacations related to Last Crusade include Italy (specifically Venice) and Jordan. The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles inspired a trip to Mexico, Raiders of the Lost Ark has inspired trips to Peru, Egypt and Nepal, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom inspired trips to India and China, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull inspired a slightly different trip to Peru. All of the vacations cost somewhere between $1500 and $3500 (surprisingly, the highest priced is the Southwest adventure), but if you happen to find any mysterious treasures, your trip could pay for itself. Of course, if you’re short on both dough and luck, you could always just become an archaeologist, as many other Indiana Jones fans have. For more details, as well as a video showing clips of the trips mixed with clips from the movies, and a chance to win two of these vacations, visit Expedia.com. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 05 May 2008 21:00:56 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com5/5/2008 5:00:56 PMIndiana Jones’ adventures may be both work-related and dangerous, but you know he’s having fun. And now you can experience some of that fun thanks to Expedia. The travel company has planned ten different vacations inspired by the four Indiana Jones films, including this summer’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, of course, plus the series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. It’s doubtful that you’ll run into any Nazis or booby traps or any other sort of trouble, but considering you’re not Indy, you’re better off as safe as possible. Expedia has itineraries in nine countries, including the U.S., in which a trip to the Southwest is tied into the Young Indy prologue of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Other vacations related to Last Crusade include Italy (specifically Venice) and Jordan. The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles inspired a trip to Mexico, Raiders of the Lost Ark has inspired trips to Peru, Egypt and Nepal, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom inspired trips to India and China, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull inspired a slightly different trip to Peru. All of the vacations cost somewhere between $1500 and $3500 (surprisingly, the highest priced is the Southwest adventure), but if you happen to find any mysterious treasures, your trip could pay for itself. Of course, if you’re short on both dough and luck, you could always just become an archaeologist, as many other Indiana Jones fans have. For more details, as well as a video showing clips of the trips mixed with clips from the movies, and a chance to win two of these vacations, visit Expedia.com. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/history/MemberTagFilms.aspxhistory
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