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From Bad Boys to Barbarella, BioShock, and Bourne:A Slew of Sequels and Remakes!

Look, I know I stick it to Mr. Bay for the Transformers movies, but as I've said many times, I'm the guy who enjoys The Rock and weirdly, shamelessly loves Armageddon. (It's partly due to my sorta man-crush on Ben Affleck, which I realize as I type it, in no way makes any of this any less shameful.)

So when word came down that Columbia is developing Bad Boys III, I didn't automatically throw up in my mouth a little. Not that I like either BB I or II all that much, but I do agree with bloggernet filmsters, such as Drew McWeeney at Hitfix, who say Bad Boys II is the perfect expression of "The Michael Bay Thing." The problem with the Transformers flicks is that giant fighting robots is such a cool idea you wish it were better handled with less crassness. But Bad Boys? That's where Bay gets to be Bay; R-rated, obnoxious, crude, sexist, morally empty, blow-em-up/shoot-em-up ugly Bay. (It should be noted that at this point BB III is only in development: a screenplay is underway, but Bay, producer Jerry Bruckhiemer, and stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence do not yet have threequel deals in place.)

-- Meanwhile, Smith has other potential sequels on the burners. Screenwriters have been hired to come up with a Hancock 2, presumably picking up where last summer's "redeemed alcoholic superhero" movie left off. (Or maybe a prequel?) Hancock didn't make much of a cultural splash last year, lost amidst the rapturous praise for both Iron Man and The Dark Knight, but it did do good box office and as directed by the sometimes uneven Peter Berg, it was a decent enough film. Smith was his usual matinee-grabbing, charming self, and it was only the Charlize Theron business that gunked up an otherwise enjoyable story. Sans Theron's character, a Hancock 2 could be that rare sequel that shakes off the original's weaknesses and soars.

-- Of course, other than Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, one of the greatest sci-fi sequels is Aliens. And after some pushing and shoving between producer and studio camps, it has been decided that Ridley Scott, director of the original Alien, is on board to direct the prequel announced earlier this year. (See how I did that? Those kinds of smooth segues between topics are why I get paid the big redblog bucks! Now if only I could get them to pay me in U.S. currency instead of "redblog bucks.") You'll recall that originally producer Scott wanted German commercial director Carl Rinsch to helm the prequel--but then it was revealed that Rinsch is dating Scott's daughter and the whole thing took on a nepotistic air. Bottom line, Twentieth Century Fox wanted Scott directing or no go. 

-- Think I've run out of smooth segues? Oh ye of little faith! You see, when Scott's original Alien made a gooey splash in 1979, Hollywood rushed to make more gritty outer-space thrillers. One of which was Peter Hyams 's Outland, starring Sean Connery as the sheriff on a mining moon facing off against evil corporate tools in a sort of High Noon in Space. Now Warner Brothers is set to remake the 1981 space flick. Tapped to direct is Michael Davis, director of the almost-so-wacky-it-works Looney-Tunes-esque Shoot Em Up with Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti. I don't hold any special place in my heart for the original Outland, but while I kinda got a sick kick out of Shoot 'Em Up, I have a bad feeling Davis's remake is going to be long on space violence and short on character and story.

The Freeze Frame Answers... and Some Big News

Friday was our twentieth round of Freeze Frame, so who better to take (er, make) the Victory Cup than long-time player Millar74?  This will be her fourth FF win, so she's gotten aluminum-foil trophy construction down to a science.  In second and third place we had newcomers Paul N and Calvin Hsu, so congrats for securing a spot on the infamous Wall of Winners (in my condo).  What movies were these redblog readers able to identify from Friday's post?  Why, those would be Little Miss Sunshine, No Country for Old Men and one of my favorites from the mid-nineties, Speed.

Speed was the film that shot Sandra Bullock to superstardom, and fifteen years later she's still going strong.  This weekend you can find her in the rom-com All About Steve with It Guys of the Summer Bradley Cooper and Ken Jeong, as well as the perennially awesome Thomas Haden Church.  But, it's the woman playing Bullock's mother in the movie, Beth Grant, who was the common link between our featured trio of movies.  She was a pageant official in Little Miss Sunshine, Josh Brolin's mother-in-law in No Country for Old Men, and an unlucky bus passenger in Speed.

Grant definitely qualifies as a "That Gal" -- she's been in a slew of big movies and TV shows, but unfortunately most people wouldn't know her by name.  Check out the All About Steve trailer (once again, she's Bullock's mom) -- do you recognize her in all of her blonde glory?

Our Common Thread Button o' Pride winners were obviously familiar with Grant's work.  And those winners (who get to make fashionable pins for themselves -- they can go on shirts! backpacks! hats! The possibilities are endless!) are: Paul N, Donna, NonnaKobra and Sam.

Now, I mentioned in the title of this post that I had some important news, so here it is:  starting tomorrow and continuing throughout the month of September, we are going to award honest-to-goodness real-deal can-you-believe it prizes to two Threes winners per game (Tuesday, Thursday and Friday's Threes games).  That means you'll have twenty-six chances to win over the next 4.5 weeks (because no one will be allowed to win twice during this promotion) -- simply from Threes games!  We're going to be running all sorts of other fun contests, too.

More details with the Tuesday Threes post tomorrow, stay tuned...

Got Your Goat!

Last fall I expressed my jealousy of Lost actress Rebecca Mader, who landed a role as Ewan McGregor's wife in The Men Who Stare at Goats, an adaptation of Jon Ronson's nonfiction book about our country's alleged use of New Age mind-control techniques in the war on terror.   George Clooney plays a reactivated "psychic soldier" who McGregor--as reporter Bob Wilton--follows around in order to bag "the story of a lifetime." 

When I first learned what this book was about, I failed to see how it could be made into a film.  Thank goodness for trailers...

I'm loving it! Especially since it's based on a true story -- I mean, how wild is this stuff? It looks like Jeff Bridges is going to steal the show, although Kevin Spacey's dry wit and trademarked condescending sarcastic-ness look to have been put to good use as well.

Oh, and did you see Mader?  What? You missed her glorious mane of red hair at the 1:33 mark?  How is that possible, she was on-screen for all of one second!

Despite the fact that it's pretty obvious she won't be in the film all that much, I'm still green with envy.  Forget all of the incredible actors she got to pal around with on set -- this movie uses Boston's "More than a Feeling" in its trailer, so you know it's obviously destined to be a blockbuster once it opens on November 6.  Rebecca Mader will be a household name before you know it, mark my words. 

(Inspired by this film's premise, I'm trying out some not-so-subliminal messaging techniques on you guys.  Are they working?)

Death Takes No Holiday at the Box Office

Like the over-achieving, kinda obsessive-compulsive Death that stalks characters in the Final Destination series, the latest entry--THE Final Destination--did not rest until it had claimed the top spot at the box office this weekend. The Final Destination's $28 million haul was heavily boosted by the fact that half of the screens it debuted on were showing it in 3D and therefore charging higher 3D ticket prices.

In second was Inglourious Basterds, impressively slipping only 47% in its second week--a sign of very positive word of mouth for Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt, and their Nat-zee-scalpin' Basterds. The WWII "fantasy" (one of my favorite films so far this year) earned another $20 million, bringing its total gross so far to $73 million, edging past its $70 million budget. It still, however, remains to be seen if Basterds' success will be enough to save the struggling Weinstein Company.

Harvey and Bob's fortunes weren't helped much by Halloween II this weekend. Released by Bob's Dimension offshoot from the Company, Rob Zombie's sequel to his remake came in third with $17 million. Like many gory cultish horror films that don't have much date-night appeal, Michael Myer's latest outing did better on Friday night as all the die-hard fanboys flocked to it, then trailed off on Saturday.

The weekend's other wide release, Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, came in below industry expectations, earning less than $4 million to land in ninth place.

District 9 hung in at fourth place--the scrappy SF action film is now a bona fide financial success, having earned more than three times its $30 million budget. On the other hand, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra was in fifth--after four weeks in release it has not yet domestically earned back its $175 million price tag, although with steady overseas cash factored in, Joe has earned $265 million. (By comparison, in two weeks Basterds has earned a total of $133 million worldwide. That does not however help the Weinsteins, as they had to give Universal overseas distribution rights in order to get Basterds funded.)

The rest of the top ten was filled out by Julie & Julia, The Time Traveler's Wife, Shorts, and G-Force.

Next weekend Labor Day marks the official end of the summer movie season with Sandra Bullock's stalker comedy All About Steve, Mike (Office Space, Idiocracy) Judge's Extract with Jason Bateman and Mila Kunis, and Gerald Butler in the action flick Gamer. I expect Gamer to top a weak weekend, with the Basterds probably still hanging tough.

Taking Woodstock

Ang Lee’s gentle sideways dance with the defining cultural event of the hippie generation doesn’t really hold up as some sort of authoritative insight into Woodstock—the film never even gets to the main stage. Nor does it stand up to the sort of scrutiny you might bring to bear on Lee (Sense and Sensibility, Brokeback Mountain) and his long-time screenwriting collaborator James Schamus (The Ice Storm, Ride With the Devil) as thoughtful, dramatic filmmakers.

But Taking Woodstock—which follows young Elliot Teichenberg (deadpan Daily Show regular Demitri Martin) as he helps bring the famous festival to the sleepy Catskills town where he’s trapped running his parents’ failing motel—is so sweet in its intentions, so seduced by the iconic trappings of The Event and the people it engulfed, that you forgive it everything it doesn’t do and embrace what it does.

This is not really a film about Woodstock the Concert—that already exists magnificently in the 1970 Michael Wadleigh documentary from which Taking Woodstock draws some of its imagery. Nor is it some sort of definitive cultural assessment of What Woodstock Meant to a Generation. Based on the real Teichenberg’s memoir (written as Elliot Tiber), it’s a film about how Elliot almost accidentally backed into becoming the linchpin that kept the festival alive (after the promoters and their ambitious “Aquarian Festival of Peace, Love, and Music” had been turned away from earlier locations) and how, in doing so Elliot found out who he was.

Sure, that sounds sappy, but—like the festival itself—Lee does a deft job of tiptoeing right along the line between corny and magical, and it helps that Martin’s bemused, almost back-peddling performance draws you in. At first, Martin in his first leading role seems too slight, too passive to hold the center of a film about the cosmic chaos of Woodstock, but that’s Lee’s trick: You connect with Elliot’s nervous hesitation, his confusion and slight fear at what is slowly exploding around him.

That said, ironically the first half of the film—as deals are cut and preparations are made—is the more compelling. Eugene Levy (the SCTV and Christopher Guest improv vet best known these days for gamely muddling through the American Pie franchise) shines early on as Max Yasgur who first kindly, then shrewdly welcomes the festival into his cow fields.

And newcomer (via Broadway) Jonathon Groff is one to watch: he Zens onto the stage as Michael Lang, the leather-vested, hippie-fro’d creator of the fest, and quietly, calmly makes off with every scene. Lang as played by Groff is a delight: utterly unflappable in his karmic self-actualization, but also in full possession—by way of a sly smile—of exactly the sort of sharp business acumen that is needed to get things done.

In fact, Taking Woodstock is chock full of small, pleasing performances. For starters, there’s a loopy troupe of hippie actors working out of the Teichenberg barn, led by wide-eyed Dan Fogler. Sure Emile Hirsch might be playing a bit too much to intense type as a shell-shocked Vietnam vet (he sometimes seems to be acting in a different film), but it’s fun to see how two such contrasting acting styles as his and Martin’s mesh nicely. And while British actress Imelda Staunton runs very close to ethnic stereotyping as Elliot’s penny-pinching, guest-abusing mother; her often-riotous excesses are softened by an engaging and endearing turn by fellow Brit Henry Goodman as her long-suffering husband.

Saturday Night Drive-in: Born

As I’ve said many times, the whole point of the Drive-in is to find movies that are so wildly over-the-top bad that not only are they best enjoyed with adult beverages, fast food, and snarky friends, but they actually make such gatherings better—a sort of alchemy of awfulness. Sadly, not every bad or mediocre movie rises to this level of sublime terriblocity. Too often a cheap slasher film is just that, a cheap slasher film.

But every now and then there is a Born: A straight-to-DVD horror movie that comes roaring out of the chute tossing eight different kinds of crazy at you.

From opening to close, Born never once lets up with its powerful combination of filmmaking ineptitude; bad acting; cheap effects and make up; and most of all the sort of bat-snot, double-the-voltage, lock-Aunt-Sally-in-the-basement insanity that sets the Drive-in night afire.

Now I’ll be honest with you good people, I watched Born a month or two ago, but it’s taken me that long to just sort of sit with it, feel it, process it, come to grips with it. As a result, I’m left with vague memories—flashes here and there of demonic baby hands coming out of pregnant stomachs… of tan naked blonde bimbo Satanic midwives… of Denise “Tasha Yar” Crosby turning into Louise Fletcher before our eyes… of the kinds of things you’d normally see only at the worst sort of banned-in-28-states carnival midways, or at a the first freshman kegger of the season.

Lest you look at the title and the giant pentagram on the cover and think this is some sort of Dark Baby Einstein DVD, I'm going to drop a little of Born’s plot on you. Let me first consult my notes… “Hulking demon… psychiatrist… virgin… gun-toting ex-military priest… human hearts in a handbag… albino handyman Igor… ‘Baby hungry!'”

That make any sense? Trust me, it makes about as much sense as Born does. There’s this nice girl who gets demonically impregnated in a graveyard, then she has to go out and have sex with drifters and milkmen, but instead of leaving an earring behind she tears out her lovers’ hearts and eats them to feed her growing demon fetus—with a fork and a knife, mind you… she’s a nice girl, she has manners. Glowing with the sort of garish, gaudy lighting that makes you think of only the finest cat houses (cat homes?), the final product looks like Rob Zombie directed Charles Manson’s Guide to Home Birthing.

I’m always curious what one of those Family Film Rating sites would do with a flick like Born. You know where they go into great detail about what parents should know is in a movie, such as language, violence, nekkidness, sex, drugs, blasphemy, poor moral values, and anti-authority attitudes. What do they say for Born? “Well, yeah, everything. All of it. Runs the table. Um, Yahtzee?”

Sorry, We've Run Out of Cheesy, Piratey Headlines(Yo-ho, Ahoy, Arggh, Etc!)

Yesterday it was zombies, today we turn our attention to pirates. Because you know that old rule in Hollywood: all movies are either zombie movies or pirate movies. Or, in the case of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, both!

Spielberg + Crichton + Pirates

Steven Spielberg has gotten the rights to adapt Michael Crichton's final novel, Pirate Latitudes, due to be published posthumously this November. It seems it is about pirates. Specifically pirates in Port Royal, Jamaica in 1665. It's not clear yet if Spielberg would direct--it makes a catchier news story to say he will, but as we know, The Beard always has a lot of projects in development and obviously he doesn't end up directing them all.

And while the part of me that loves Jaws and Raiders would die to see a rollicking Spielberg pirate movie, there's another part of me that remembers Hook. (Though to be fair, the pirate parts of Hook worked fine--it was the gang of Flashdance-attired Lost Boys that sunk that ship.) Spielberg has, of course, adapted Crichton books before: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: The Lost World. And right now David Koepp is set to write the Pirate Latitudes screenplay--Koepp, as you may know, is a pretty big hitter: his resume includes JP I, Spider-Man I, War of the Worlds, Indy 4, and Angels & Demons.

A New Director for POTC 4?

Meanwhile, over on that other pirate franchise, Rob Marshall, director of the musicals Chicago and the upcoming Nine, is in talks to direct Pirates of the Caribbean 4. As we've mentioned before, the new Pirates will still star Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow, but is unlikely to include Orlando Bloom or the Sexiest Tomboy Beanpole on the planet, Keira Knightley. The plot is rumored to revolve around Jack's search for the Fountain of Youth, as suggested at the close of POTC 3.

Now, offhand Marshall might seem an odd choice for Pirates, but I'm on board with the idea. We've learned in the past decade that some of the best big, fun action movies come from directors who you'd normally not connect to the genre. Peter Jackson had done zombies and ghosts, but nothing to suggest he knew how to make a big fantasy adventure film. Christopher Nolan was best known for psychological thrillers, not superhero flicks. And the Harry Potter films have been very nicely handled by directors much more attune to human dramas than wizard battles.

Even Gore Verbinski, director of the first Pirates trilogy, didn't have anything on his resume to suggest he could conduct such a sprawling, funny action-adventure romp. (Okay, maybe there was an inkling of his knack for kinetic slapstick humor in Mousehunt.)

Especially with an established franchise, all the special effects and stunt work and how they are directed is pretty much running on automatic. A good action director might be able to inject some fresh ideas, but sometimes a non-actioner comes at things with an even more innovative eye. It's not a matter of knowing how to do all that stuff--you have a huge crew of people who've done three of these films. You tell them what you want and they'll make it happen for you.

Instead of an action hack, it's often best to bring in someone who is more about tone and style. For example, Verbinski allowed Depp to run with his mad, slurring Kieth Richards impersonation and defended it even when Disney very much wanted to scrap the footage and reshoot all of Capt. Jack's scenes. Likewise, I'd hope that Marshall would bring something of a theatrical, musical vibe to a new POTC film--after all, in some ways the lilting, lyrical, listing Capt. Jack is a creature of the broad musical-theater tradition.

Space Pirates!? Say No More!

Finally, the Spierig Brothers Peter and Michael, the directing team responsible for the next year's vampire film Daybreakers (Willem DaFoe and Ethan Hawke) have been tagged by Warner Brothers to make a new version of Captain Blood. In space.

Based on Rafael Sabatini's 1922 novel, the famous 1935 film version starred Errol Flynn as a British doctor who is wrongly accused of treason and sent into slavery in Port Royal. He escapes, takes over a Spanish galleon and becomes-da-ta-da!--the dread pirate Captain Blood!

Sure, talk of an outer-space pirate movie conjures up snark about Disney's 2002 animated Treasure Planet, or, worse, 1984's Ice Pirates. But again I'm more than okay with this notion. We know I love me the sailing ship movies, and I love the big, epic spaceship flicks. So if Ice Pirates and Treasure Planet had their faults, I blame that on their execution, not the premise. As much as I like "hard" SF that tries to take a realistic, science-based look at the future, as a Star Wars baby I also go ga-ga for big, fun adventure sci-fi. Pirates and pirate-ship battles in space; that's peanut butter and chocolate--space chocolate--to me.

Mmm Zzzombie Treats... Now With Blobby Desserts!

Here's a little Friday evening joy for our loyal readers, especially kristYn from cali (though I can never remember, kristYn, are you for or against zombies?) and my good friends Jane and Brian who helped inadvertently launch the Drive-in reviews years ago when they started inviting me over on weekends for food, booze, and--quite often--braaaiiins.

First up, with both fast-moving and slow-moving zombies lurching their way into movies, comic books, pub crawls, and even classic literature, it was only a matter of time before someone opened a zombie bar. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported a few weeks ago on Donny Dirk's Zombie Den. This new Twin City bar not only features brain-devouring drinks and anti-zombie decor (such as a chainsaw in a glass case that reads "In case of zombie attack, break glass"), but even the bartenders are dressed as... no, not zombies, but as Simon Pegg's character Shaun in kristYn's favorite zombie movie, Shaun of the Dead.

The bar itself has a delightfully notorious history that fits right in with its new undead resurrection: it used to be local legendary hang out Stand Up Franks, a very old bar that in recent years had become a constant presence on police blotters for its parade of fights, prostitution, drugs, stabbings, and shootings. Franks closed in April of this year, and the new owners of the Zombie Den promise their goofy fantasy horror theme should keep things from reverting back to real-life horrors. If not, there's that chainsaw...

And while this is not exactly movie news, zombie fans and fans of fine SF/horror television should be thrilled to learn that Frank Darabont, director of The Shawshank Redemption and the much-overlooked The Mist, has signed with AMC to create, write, and direct a cable series based on Robert Kirkman's amazing zombie comic book, The Walking Dead.

We're always talking about how really ambitious genre stories would be better served by a really well-done cable series rather than crammed into two-hour movies... well, we're getting our wish here. Kirkman's Walking Dead is a must-read. It is not your average zombie yarn--it's full of all sorts of thoughtful things like character development and logical, suspenseful storytelling. Despite the title, zombies are not the point of The Walking Dead; it's about how real humans would respond and survive, and connect and clash following a zombie collapse of civilization. There's still tons of stomach-clenching suspense and action, and best of all, anyone can die at anytime. 

Most of all, Kirkman is telling a long-form story--you can't break it down, chop it up, and fit it into a neat three-act arc in under two hours. An ongoing cable series--along the lines of Battlestar Galactica--is the way to go. And while I've never been one of the Shawshank fanatics (you know who you are), I've always respected Darabont's integrity and devotion to character and story. And if you think he can't do end-of-the-world horror and despair and its psychological ramifications for survivors, well bruddas and sistas you need to see The Mist. Come for the fun comic-book creatures and gore, but be prepared for one of the most harrowing, cruel, horror-show endings in a long time. Darabont may be all about humanism in his films like Shawshank, The Green Mile, and The Majestic, but in The Mist Mean Frank comes out. That mix makes him perfect to adapt The Walking Dead, a book that knows a little bit about inflicting cruelty on realistic characters you've come to know and love.

Don't go away! There's special Blob news--and music--over the jump!

Time to Freeze

You guys know the drill, right? 

Below are images from three movies.  If you're the first to tell us their titles, you'll get your name in bold on Monday... in addition to the pleasure of creating yourself an insane-in-the-membrane Victory Trophy.

It's go time!

Movie #1

Movie #2

Movie #3

 

If you think you know what these films might be, enter your guesses into the comments section.

Telling us the link between the three titles will win you a Common Thread Button o' Pride (it's an imaginary button, unless you want to make one for yourself, which we wouldn't hold against you), even if you're not the first to respond.

I'll hold all of the submissions until Monday, as always.

Good luck!

Lost... and Found on the Silver Screen

When ER's season finale aired in April, I wrote about how many of its cast members had either gone on to movie careers (hello, George Clooney) or had actually started out in film before scrubbing in at County General (hello, Anthony Edwards).  Back in January, I did a similar piece about my favorite show, Lost, even though its run hasn't come to an end just yet (eighteen precious hours are left beginning in early 2010).   There have since been several updates on Oceanic Flight 815 survivors and other Craphole Island inhabitants invading Hollywood, so here's the latest for you (and I'm not going to say who's no longer be on the show out of respect for those who are catching up on DVD):

Maggie Grace (Shannon):  She played Liam Neeson's kidnapped daughter in the surprise hit Taken, and last night news broke that she's in negotiations to join Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in James Mangold's (Walk the Line) as-of-yet-untitled thriller (though Wichita is being thrown around), in which Diaz plays an unlucky-in-love single woman who goes on a blind date with Cruise... who just so happens to be a super-spy.  Grace will play Diaz's younger sister.  On a non-Lost-related note, can anyone else not see Diaz and Cruise as a couple?  Anywhooo, Maggie just finished production on The Experiment with Adrien Brody, Forest Whitaker and Twilight baddie Cam Gigandet, and will soon be filming the indie Flying Lessons.  Busy, busy!  But I don't think she's complaining.  She'll let her Lost character Shannon do all the complaining.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko): Adewale had been in The Mummy Returns, The Bourne Identity and several other not as well-known films before heading to Lost's mysterious island to play the even more mysterious Mr. Eko.  Most recently he can be found in G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra as "Heavy Duty."