Posted Dec 2nd 2008 12:15PM by Peter Martin
Filed under: Action, Animation, Classics, Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New on DVD, Family Films, Home Entertainment, Cinematical Indie
White Dog
Samuel Fuller's follow-up to The Big Red One was shelved by Paramount Pictures before its scheduled release in 1982 because of fears that its premise -- a white dog has been trained to attack black people -- would stir up more controversy than box office. Fuller was understandably outraged; in his autobiography, A Third Face, he wrote: "The studio has used me as a scapegoat for their lack of determination and courage." The film, co-written by Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential), with a score by the legendary Ennio Morricone, later received acclaim when it was released in Europe but never received a home video release in the US and has rarely been seen here. Kristy McNichol plays an actress who adopts the dog; Paul Winfield is as an anthropologist who tries to reverse the training. The Criterion Collection DVD includes a featurette with Hanson, producer Jon Davison, and Fuller's widow, plus a print interview with the dog trainer and essays by J. Hoberman and Armond White. I'm buying, but even if you're not a huge fan of Samuel Fuller, you'd want to check it out. Rent it.
Step Brothers
Combining Will Farrell, John C. Reilly, Richard Jenkins, and Mary Steenburgen under one roof, Step Brothers mines familiar territory with sharp timing and plenty of belly laughs. Mine is, admittedly, a distinctly minority opinion. Available on DVD (single-disc rated, single-disc unrated, two-disc unrated) and Blu-ray, with an audio commentary by Farrell, Reilly, director Adam McKay, and a score by Jon Brion. Other features include deleted scenes and alternate takes, a gag reel, 'making of,' and a couple of gag featurettes. Rent it.
Much more on Wanted, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian after the jump, plus Indies on DVD, Blu-ray Picks, and Collector's Corner.
Continue reading Spin-ematical: New on DVD for 12/02
Posted Dec 2nd 2008 10:03AM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Box Office, Fandom, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
Silly us
X-Files fans trying to rationalize why
The X-Files: I Want to Believe crashed and burned so badly this summer. It was too thoughtful! Too character-driven! Too focused on giving fans emotional closure, and not enough on slam-bang summer excitement! Long-time franchise producer
Frank Spotnitz has a much easier and quicker answer: It was
The Dark Knight's fault.
His
theory goes thus:
The X-Files opened a week after
The Dark Knight broke all sorts of records and began its domination of the summer box office. What's more, the dark and brooding film was similar in tone to the caped juggernaut, and not the sort of counterprogramming that might nonetheless have had a chance in its wake. And so you get $21 million domestic.
Look, I'm probably as big a fan of
I Want to Believe as you'll find around these parts; for fans of the show it was a lovely, moving conclusion.
For fans of the show. The commercial problem with the film wasn't that it was too dark or that it followed
The Dark Knight, but that it was too
small, and its appeal too narrow. A bigger, flashier
X-Files, with more explosions and flying saucers, would have done better, Batman notwithstanding. As it stood, people who didn't grow up on Mulder and Scully didn't see a reason to go. And -- speaking, again, as someone who loves the film -- they probably made the right choice. There wasn't much there for them.
Oh, and as to the possibility of another film that Spotnitz vaguely suggests: no thank you. This was a graceful, satisfying finale.
[via
Movie City News]
Posted Dec 1st 2008 7:02PM by Jessica Barnes
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Deals, Warner Brothers, Scripts, Family Films, DIY/Filmmaking
It never fails to amuse me whenever parents get all worked up about an occasional f-bomb or a flash of boob, but show 'em a story about child genocide peppered with mild misogyny and presto -- you've got a children's classic! Almost two years ago, it was announced that Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón would be taking on an update of Roald Dahl's The Witches, and it was originally reported that Cuarón was going to direct. Now, though, it seems like things have changed, and Empire has broken the news (in an interview with Cuarón) that Del Toro has not only finished the screenplay, but will also be taking the helm for the fantasy update.
Dahl's original story centered on a conspiracy of witches looking to rid the world of children (great bedtime story, huh?), and received the feature film treatment once before. But, that hasn't stopped the studio from going ahead with a brand new version of the dark children's tale, and by the sounds of it, there are going to be plenty of changes in Del Toro's update. Cuarón told Empire, "It won't be like the original Nicolas Roeg version, which was a beautiful film," because (and this is the very exciting part), Del Toro plans to "do it completely in stop-motion animation."
When Nicolas Roeg's version was released back in 1990, a few changes were made to make the story a little less disturbing for the kiddies (including a much lower body count). But for you purists out there, at least we can rely on the fact that at least Del Toro isn't afraid to play rough with kids on the big screen.
Sound off below, and tell us what you think about Del Toro's plan for the 'kiddie-killing' update...
Posted Dec 1st 2008 2:40PM by Scott Weinberg
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Remakes and Sequels
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A few months back I was discussing Fantastic Fest with Sir Devin Faraci, and he professed to me that one of the films he was most looking forward to -- was something 25 years old! Yes, Devin is a HUGE
Planet of the Apes fan, so he was elated to see
the "unseen cut" of J. Lee Thompson's
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Mega-geeked, in fact.
So when it comes to new info on this long-running franchise, I put much stock in
Faraci's ravings. Here's the short version: It looks like there
will be an
Apes prequel that starts off before the original film. And by "original film," I assume they mean the 1968 one. And then we hear from
Cinema Blend (who got it from
Production Weekly) that not only is the prequel a go, but also that Fox has hired a director. Namely,
Scott Frank, who wrote
Get Shorty and
Minority Report before hitting the director's chair on
The Lookout. The movie will cover the pre-Apes tale of how the primates overtook the planet. So this isn't only a prequel, it's a sort of a
Conquest remake, too. Geez, this is getting confusing.
More on this project as it arises, but please do share your thoughts. Like ... do we really NEED a new version of this oft-exhumed tale? Frankly no. But given Mr. Frank's track record, I find myself feeling a little more optimistic than usual.
UPDATE: Mr. Faraci has spoken with Scott Frank, who has cleared up the fact that he's
not remaking
Conquest. From
CHUD: "[Frank's] film will not feature talking monkeys, and it will not end with chimpanzees running wild in the streets, taking over the world. But it isn't entirely divorced from the world of Planet of the Apes, either. In fact, Frank sees his movie as the opening chapter in a saga that could span the thousand years between today and a world where apes rule."
Posted Nov 30th 2008 12:32PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Remakes and Sequels
Looks like Summit Entertainment isn't wasting any time with the next
Twilight movie,
New Moon, based on the second book in Stephenie Meyers' ultra popular series. Not only has it been reported that both
Kristen Stewart and
Robert Pattinson are receiving a giant pay raise for the sequel (somewhere around $12 million each), but while appearing on Ryan Seacrest's radio show, Stewart said
New Moon would start shooting in March, 2009. Is Summit trying to turn the next flick around in time for Christmas, 2010 ... or do you think they're eying a major Summer 2010 spot?
As far as budget is concerned, according to Stewart the production value should be going up. She says, "A lot of the book takes place in Italy, and I think we're going to get to go to Italy, which is so cool. For a while there, they were like, Oh, we don't know if we have the money, but now I think we may have the money!" Um, yeah, I think they have the money.
For those who saw
Twilight, what would you like to see the sequel do differently?
[via
Shock]
Posted Nov 29th 2008 9:02AM by William Goss
Filed under: Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Holiday Movie Junk
At a recent horror convention -- admittedly my first -- I almost exited the merchandise room that had already put a regrettable dent in my wallet (and I say this having not bought anything all that shameful), and yet, there it was, something to give my geeky heart pause, shorten my breath, tighten my pants, all that jazz.
It was a cookie jar modeled after the egg(s) from Ridley Scott's ever-awesome
Alien, and as sure as the sun shines, it was gone the very next day. However,
an Amazon.com vendor appears to still have a handful left, at the 'ooh-maybe' price of $49 USD. I can also tell you that
a handy Google search will show other sites with them available, though most seem to have it at a steeper cost.
Anyway, the film is approaching its thirtieth anniversary, the holiday season is under thirty days away, and every cookie consumed is a new excuse to trot out the line "What's the matter, the food ain't
that bad!" As you mull that over, the rest of our Holiday Movie Junk series can be checked out at
this link; as far as making your final decision is concerned, though...
You have my sympathies.
Posted Nov 28th 2008 1:32PM by Monika Bartyzel
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Scripts, Remakes and Sequels
When
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended its run in 2003, it didn't just fade away. Sunnydale might have been obliterated, but the
Joss Whedon universe was buzzing with the possibility of other spinoffs, television films, and big screen appearances. Over the last five years, that has become increasingly less likely, especially in the wake of the popular comic continuation. So I am sharing the following only in the interest of keeping up on rumors, not because I believe it.
According to
Moviehole, the Herald-Sun Newspaper had a small blurb on
Buffy, which said: "Rumours are circulating in Hollywood that Whedon has a feature-film script based on his hit TV series ready to roll as soon as a studio is prepared to commit." While it's entirely likely that he does have some Buffy scripts floating around, I'd be wonderfully surprised to hear that one is all ready. Besides his busyness with the new television show, there's the comics, and more specifically -- a storyline that has continued beyond the show.
Would Joss somehow pull Angel and LA out of hell and have Buffy round up the Scooby gang? The only scenario I can imagine would be Buffy bringing Angel and LA out of hell. It would be epic enough for the big screen, and be an endeavor that would bring back all of the cast (except Anya... boo hiss!). But that's just a dream, and while this rumor sounds swell and I could go for many more years of live-action Buffy, I ain't buyin' it. Are you?
Posted Nov 28th 2008 12:03PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Poor Hulk! Batman, Iron Man, even Wolverine get more sequel press than he does. But late last week,
Tim Blake Nelson revealed to
MTV that he had signed for Hulk sequels, with every intention of taking the villainous center stage as The Leader. But like the rest of us, he has no idea whether or not they'll come to be, or whether or not
Edward Norton will return. "It's all good, and I really do hope [the sequel] happens, for all sorts of reasons. But yeah, we did, we had a great time on
Hulk together. I'm eager to do
Hulk 2 if they make it ... I'm signed on to do
Hulk 2 and 3 whether Edward's there or not, so it's not even up to me ... I certainly hope Edward is on the sequel - but that's up to Marvel and Edward."
Meanwhile, over in Avengers land, Robert Downey Jr.
mentioned again that Hulk is going to show up in that crown jewel of superhero flicks. It's a strange place for the green giant to be in, because he's going forward, yet lost in a land of sequel rumor and leading man drama.
It's a question
we've thrown out to
Cinematical readers before, but with all this additional info, where do you want Hulk to go from here? Do you think that he should get his planned trilogy, then land with a thunderclap in
The Avengers? Should they just leave well enough alone with
The Incredible Hulk? And how do you feel about yet another Hulk recast?
My personal take is that if Marvel can't make up with Norton, they should just give up franchising Hulk, and just leave him off the big screen until
The Avengers. Theoretically, you
could have an all-CGI Hulk in that, thereby sidestepping the need to replace Norton. It would be clunky, though, and might "really really suck." Sigh. Why does there have to be so much drama in the world of Marvel? Earth's mightiest heroes should have a much easier time uniting than this.
Posted Nov 28th 2008 9:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Every bit of
X-Men Origins: Wolverine news erodes my dignity a little bit more. Okay, I don't actually have any dignity ... but I really should be more patient before posting. Just a few days ago, I wound myself up over Jeff Katz's "last time I talked to
Hugh Jackman, this is
the Wolverine sequel he wanted" quote.
And now, Jackman himself sat down with
MTV and confirmed that he really would love to take Wolverine to Japan. "The most intriguing thing to me was the Japan story. I love the Japan story. I wanted to do the Japan story from around
X-Men 2. Can you just picture Wolverine in Japan with the triads and the samurai? It's just genius."
Now, I used to mock Wolverine's Japan adventures as being a way to cash in on
Karate Kid fever (mostly to annoy other comic devotees), but Frank Miller's vision of him as a ronin
is genius. With a single book (which you need to read if you haven't already), Miller and Chris Claremont deepened Wolverine from a beer guzzling thug to the poetic badass we all know and love today. Of course, now every
Wolverine comic writer gives him a doomed Japanese bride, but there
was a time when it was novel, romantic, and tragic.
So, why didn't Jackman & Co. do that story instead of the mutant extravaganza that
Origin is rumored to be? "How can you do that before you explain his origins? If we tried to mix the origin and Japan together, it wouldn't do justice to either. So you can tell by the answer where I'd like it to go." Darn you, Jackman. You're right, of course, but this just means I have to wait
that much longer, and hope that
Wolverine is good enough for it to happen.
Oh, and check out yet another new
Empire photo after the jump. Looks like he fills out his jeans as nicely as his tanktops.
Continue reading Hugh Jackman DOES Want Wolverine in Japan!
Posted Nov 26th 2008 4:40PM by Eugene Novikov
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Noir
When Scott, my editor here at
Cinematical, sent around an invitation to write a brief blurb about a movie each of us is Thankful For this holiday season, I decided to take the prompt as literally as I could. It's easy enough to churn out 250 words on what one thinks is a great film. But no: the question is what movie I'm
thankful for. What seems most like a blessing, or a gift? What movie feels like it was made specifically for me?
I'm thankful for
Dark City. I don't think there's another movie out there that's so in tune with my sensibilities. It mixes elements of fantasy, science-fiction and noir into something wholly original -- and frightening, and beautiful. It has a boundless imagination, with a story that expands from compact and eerie to mind-blowing and huge. The world it creates lives and breathes and has no limits. At the same time, I'm thankful for the details: everything down to the villains' names -- simultaneously prosaic and otherworldly -- is thought out and thought through.
Both fans and newcomers should favor the
director's cut, which, among other things, excises the expository voiceover narration. In doing so, it turns
Dark City into a genuine mystery and brings it even closer to its noir ancestors. The movie looks awesome on Blu-Ray, too.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Posted Nov 26th 2008 11:45AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Images
Well, Happy (Almost) Thanksgiving
indeed. Between
Australia and the flood of
X-Men Origins: Wolverine news, you can't turn around without seeing
Hugh Jackman's biceps somewhere this week ... not that I'm complaining. How did it take so long for him to be dubbed Sexiest Man Alive, anyway? The physique should have earned it twice over.
Anyway, get a peek of
Empire's new Wolverine cover, which will be on shelves in December. Click on him to get the whole thing, and tidbits like this from the magazine's tell-all set visit: "There's a scene in the first
X-Men movie," says Jackman, "where Wolverine's introduced in a bar, fighting in a cage, and you felt that he did this every night of his life. If this movie is successful, you should feel that this guy can walk straight off the end of this film and into that bar. "
And in other
Origins news,
ComingSoon has confirmed that the film's trailer will be seen on December 12th, attached to
The Day the Earth Stood Still. Some say that means the sci-fi remake isn't very good, and Fox is counting on the trailer to bolster ticket sales. But do people really do that, particularly in these tough economic times, and with bootlegs providing instant gratification? I doubt it. We'll post it as soon as it appears online, though, count on that.
Posted Nov 26th 2008 10:02AM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, RumorMonger, Fandom, Scripts, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Robert Downey Jr. is, quite simply, a god of geekdom. If there's a holy trinity, he shares it only with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman because it is so rare that actors just
get it, and even rarer that they'll say it. Witness Downey's thoughts on
The Avengers to
MTV: "If we don't get it right it's really, really going to suck. It has to be the crowning blow of Marvel's best and brightest because it's the hardest thing to get right. It's tough to spin all the plates for one of these characters."
He also may have let slip who The Avengers might be battling in his concerns that Iron Man remain in a real-world setting: "The danger you run with colliding all these worlds is that Jon was very certain that
Iron Man should be set in a very realistic way. Nothing that happened in
Iron Man is really outside the realm of possibility. Once you start talking about Valhalla and supersized super soldiers and jolly green giants, it warrants much further discussion." This could mean
Giant Man, or Captain America could be looming big in Downey's thoughts.
Continue reading Robert Downey Jr. Warns 'The Avengers', Talks 'Iron Man 2'
Posted Nov 25th 2008 1:45PM by Erik Davis
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fandom, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Images, Trailers and Clips, Posters
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A new trailer for J.J. Abrams'
Star Trek has just debuted over at
AICN, but be warned that it's exactly like the other trailer save for one particular scene that comes right at the end. Yup, I won't tell you exactly what happens, but one look at the image above and you can imagine what you'll see. This particular scene was part of the four
Cinematical screened last week, and it takes place on the icy planet where Kirk (Chris Pine) gets sent to. It's there where he meets an older version of Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy) and a younger version of Scotty (Simon Pegg). Check out the trailer over at
AICN.
Star Trek hits theaters on May 8.
Also, a brand new motion poster for
Terminator: Salvation just arrived online (check it out at
this link). Really digging these flash posters -- this particular one begins on an overhead shot of Los Angeles before slowly transforming into the face of our favorite robot via explosions and fire. Oh, and don't forget that memorable score. Sweet.
Terminator Salvation hits theaters on May 22.
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Posted Nov 25th 2008 1:15PM by Elisabeth Rappe
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Paramount, Fandom, Remakes and Sequels, The Geek Beat
I think last week was one of the most passionate ones I've seen in my months of Geek Beatdom. We had competing frenzies, for one, as
Twilight and
Star Trek battled for news supremacy all across the Internet. It was fandom at its most defining. If aliens came down tomorrow and said "What is this fandom of which you speak?" and I only had ten minutes to explain it before they blew up the Earth, I'd just pull up our archives for the week of November 17th, 2008.
First, I have to say ... way to go,
Trek fans. Society has labeled Trekkers/Trekkies the worst and weirdest of the lot. From my own experience, that's never been true. I hope the critics were watching the reaction to
Trek because honestly, I saw a lot of intelligent and rational discussion on both sides of the fence. I've written a lot of stories on a lot of geeky topics, I expect to be flamed about 99% of the time, and
my Trek guide was one that saw me bracing myself as I handed it over to our editors. I hadn't slept the three days prior to writing it, so I'm surprised it was coherent at all – but I was even more surprised by the pleasant reaction it garnered. (It was a stark contrast to a
Twilight piece I did for our Moviefone friends.
Yikes.)
For all the passion flying around
Trek, I find myself in the rare position of having no opinion whatsoever. It doesn't thrill me, but it doesn't bore me, and I had so little expectation that it didn't disappoint me. In theory, I liked the idea of rebooting Trek, but it's a different thing altogether to see it in action. It doesn't feel right – and that has nothing to do with J.J. Abrams and the Enterprise crew he's assembled. I'm just not sure it should have been done at all.
Continue reading The Geek Beat: To Boldly Go
Posted Nov 24th 2008 7:32PM by William Goss
Filed under: Horror, Independent, Music & Musicals, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Lionsgate Films, Fandom, Distribution, Exhibition, Fantastic Fest
Back in September, standing outside of Austin's Paramount Theatre, myself and a couple of others listened to
Darren Lynn Bousman as he talked about the challenges he was facing in getting Lionsgate to properly release his
Repo! The Genetic Opera. The studio had taken down rave after rave after a select screening several months before, and now the next night's Fantastic Fest screenings were as good a chance as any to prove the film's worth.
Well, I saw the film the following night amidst an impressive turn-out of die-hard fans, so while I may have already made
my own thoughts clear, I cannot deny its growing (and all but inevitable) cult following, and it seems that neither can Lionsgate. Following a limited release and successful road tour,
Bloody Disgusting reports that each will be expanded in the weeks to come to include the likes of Phoenix, New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, and Houston.
As for everyone else, you can either keep your fingers crossed for a third tour (though Bousman and co-creator Terrance Zdunich may want to see their families for the holidays, who knows) or just wait for the DVD, which will apparently still hits stores in January.
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