In celebration of March Madness — and more specifically, at least I like to think, this dunk — top-shelf DVD distributor Criterion is offering up a special 30% rate cut on Steve James’ superb documentary Hoop Dreams, as well as their collected Eclipse titles.
The discount ends April 7 at midnight; to take advantage of the offer, click here, and enter the code “NCAA.” Or tell them “Earl” sent you. That’ll confuse them…
The web site for Bloodline, Bruce Burgess’ documentary investigation about the controversial assertion that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, who subsequently fled to southern France with their child, has gone live, and it looks to be a pretty slick and smart affair, with talk of how it will peddle out “insider tips” and other info leading up to the movie’s May theatrical release. Expect the crazies to start coming out of the woodwork in about two weeks, I’d say.
The movie’s stained-glass poster, meanwhile, is a
simple, straightforward and… classy? No, that’s not the right word. Effective, let’s say that. It’s an effective and evocative selling of its controversial subject matter… even if Jesus isn’t really halfway up the line to first base. You want real shitstorm-style controversy, show him heading hard for second. The only strikes? I know you want to sell that it’s a theatrical release, but that can be done with a smaller type size on a solid black background. Oh, and the font on the bottom is all wrong — too straight-to-video. For more information, click here.
In advance of the 17th annual Philadelphia Film Festival in April, boutique distributor TLA Releasing has acquired the rights to Epitaph, a lush, Korean, supernatural, psychological horror flick, for its “Danger After Dark” label.
The directorial debut of the Jung brothers, Epitaph is scheduled to play New Directors New Films in New York, as well as the aforementioned Philadelphia Film Festival on April 9 and 10, with a domestic release in late 2008 through TLA. The film opens in 1942, with the Korean capital of Kyung Sung occupied by the Japanese. The Anseng Hospital, in the center of the city, represents the twin glories of Japanese Imperialism and western modernization, but mysterious things are happening there. An intern bound by his parents to marry a girl whom he never met instead finds himself romantically drawn to a corpse; a traumatized little girl, the lone survivor of a horrific car crash, is tortured by bloody visions; and a married couple, both doctors, desperately try to manage their colleagues’ behaviors, yet find themselves investigating a series of brutal murders. To watch the movie’s trailer via TLA Releasing’s YouTube Channel, click here; there are unfortunately no English subtitles, though. Still, better than this week’s Shutter, one has to imagine.
Veteran character actor Michael Madsen will be honored at the ninth annual Malibu Film Festival, it was announced today. “Like many filmmakers, I started my adventures in independent filmmaking writing charters into my screenplays in hopes that Michael Madsen would be in the cast,” said festival founder David Katz. “Michael is an inspiration to the independent film world and we are proud to honor one of Malibu’s own.” As part of the ceremonies, Madsen’s Strength and Honour will close the festival, screening on Sunday, April 6 at 5 p.m. For more information, click here.
This DIY ad campaign, “Obama in 30 Seconds,” with the winner getting guaranteed national rotation and some free loot, seems like both a very good and very bad idea at the same time — the latter mainly because of the loons it will bring out. I was swayed a bit, however, by looking at some of the entries for the previous contest from 2004, “Bush in 30 Seconds” — especially the winner, which is thoughtfully restrained. The submission period runs March 27 through April 1 (a bad end deadline), and in addition to first-round online voting, final entries will be judged by an intriguing 24-person panel that includes Ben Affleck, Moby, Matt Damon, Naomi Wolf, Julia Stiles, Eddie Vedder, Oliver Stone, Jesse Jackson and Ted Hope. So have at it, all you politically agitated aspirant filmmakers. One question, though — whither the DIY John McCain ad campaign?
Digital Playground, the same folks that produced the X-rated send-up, and its impending sequel, of the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks, has announced the April 4 release of Cheerleaders (below) on both DVD and Blu-ray formats, crowning it, per its press release, “the first adult studio to accomplish the assiduous task of producing dual masters, in competing formats, within a designated deadline” — a fact that I’m certain won’t be lost on first-week buyers and dedicated pre-purchasers.
The DVD version of the title will be released as a two-disc set, while the Blu-ray disc will be available in full HD 1080p. For more information, click here.
So a warrant for the arrest of Shia LaBeouf has been recalled a day after the young actor failed to show up in court to face an unlawful smoking charge. Authorities issued a $1,000 bench warrant for his arrest earlier in the week, but on
Wednesday the court discarded the warrant after
LaBeouf’s attorney turned up to plead not guilty on behalf of the 21-year-old. Small potatoes, sure, but why even bother with a non-guilty plea? A good friend of mine has the right idea: “If I were his lawyer, I’d say they were those sticks of gum coated with powdered sugar that look like cigarettes from the 1980s — you put them in your mouth, inhaled the sugar and blew them out to make it look like you were smoking. I think they stopped selling them because they claimed it marketed cigarettes to kids. But Shia’s got Spielberg money now, so he can afford to buy some of those off eBay and ‘smoke’ sugar wherever he wants.”
Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella is dead at 54, from a hemorrhage, after what is being described as a routine operation on his neck. It’s a completely different situation, but one in its own way every bit as shocking as the death of Heath Ledger.
In 1996, Minghella’s The English Patient won nine Academy Awards, and it remained his signature piece, for better of worse; he got trapped in the gauzy-lit lock-box, it seemed. Those who found The English Patient sludgy and unrewarding might have taken out those feelings — though not completely undeservedly — on Minghella’s somewhat thematically similar adaptation of Charles Frazier’s bestselling Cold Mountain, starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellweger. For those interested in reaching a bit deeper into Minghella’s canon, check out 1990’s underrated Truly, Madly, Deeply, and of course The Talented Mr. Ripley, which to me is his most uniformly involving work.
It used to be only gory horror flicks or willfully stupid, stoner-friendly comedies (think Grandma’s Boy), but studios now play shell games with even their downmarket genre fare, refusing to screen for critics movies that they think they can bypass traditional press and reach audiences with via direct-marketing napalm campaigns. The latest example of the trend? 20th Century Fox’s PG-13 paranormal horror flick Shutter, starring erstwhile Dawson’s Creek pin-up Joshua Jackson, which opens this Friday, March 21. It’s their product and totally their prerogative to follow this tack, naturally, but I always do feel there should be reportage on this fact, for the image it projects, rightly or wrongly.
I’ve linked some of my adventures in punditry previously, and I recently submitted to an interview regarding the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski, which ran this past week as part of a 10th anniversary retrospective cover story by Roger Yale in the Weekly Surge, the preeminent free weekly entertainment paper in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. My Blogcast software isn’t feeling a direct link, so if interested in taking a spin click here, and select from “Looking Back at Lebowski” from the drop-down “Main Story Archives” tab.
It’s an interesting and amusing piece, and I was especially heartened that it got into a bit why the film has spawned eponymous bowling festivals and the like. My take? “Each generation goes through a period of ‘creative loafing,’ where
you have your interests, [but] the real world is starting to encroach on
you with responsibilities and obligations, demands on your time. So you’re trying to find out… how much of
these interests and enjoyment you can hold onto. You want to carry it
all, but how much can you realistically take with you? For that
reason, The Dude remains a really appealing character and always will,
hence, ‘The Dude abides.’ The phrase is simple but it’s shorthand for a
character that is a little bit older and [yet still] free from a lot of these
responsibilities.” Again, for more click here.
Not my bag, really, in several ways, but Lost fans can now enter a contest to delve even further into their already-labyrinthine favorite show. Copies of the new Lost: Via Domus videogame and the third season of the series will be given away, along with a grand prize of both the aforementioned titles and an XBox 360 Pro. What’s next — a tie-in cookbook? Damn… that’s actually a pretty good idea. At any rate, for more information, click here.
In addition to a private event party for
their forthcoming Tropic Thunder,
where Paramount Pictures Vice
Chairman Rob Moore introduced the debut of the action comedy’s
trailer and brought out two of the film’s stars, Ben Stiller and Robert
Downey, Jr., to introduce a couple scenes from the August 15 release, Paramount/DreamWorks used ShoWest to debut art for another film. A keynote address
from DreamWorks Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg announced the voice
cast for the upcoming 3-D animated feature Monsters vs. Aliens, slated for theaters on March 27, 2009.
Looking, at least courtesy of the single shot above, very much like Monsters, Inc. crossed with The Incredibles, Monsters vs. Aliens is the studio’s first film produced in Ultimate 3-D technology, and will be co-directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon. According to Katzenberg, the movie “reinvents the classic ’50s monster movie into an irreverent modern day action comedy.” With Earth under attack by an unstoppable alien, it’s up to the monsters (top to bottom, Insectosaurus; Ginormica, voiced by Reese Witherspoon; Dr. Cockroach, voiced by Hugh Laurie; the Missing Link, voiced by Will Arnett; and B.O.B., voiced by Seth Rogen) to overcome their misfit status and save the world from the pending imminent destruction. In addition to the aforementioned stars, other members of the voice cast include Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert, Kiefer Sutherland and Paul Rudd.
It’s the year of Jack Black over at Paramount, where the whirling dervish comedian has both Tropic Thunder and the animated flick Kung Fu Panda on the release schedule. The latter hits theaters June 6, and saw the release of this new photo at ShoWest.
Man, it’s too bad pandas can’t make films about humans. I’d love to see what they’d come up with…
On the heels of its first photo and red-band teaser trailer releasing in the past week, Paramount/DreamWorks’ Tropic Thunder has released a couple more pictures, courtesy of its big promotional unveiling at the annual ShoWest exhibitors convention in Las Vegas, where footage from the movie was screened at a private event hosted by two of its stars, Ben Stiller and Robert Downey, Jr.
The film’s story centers on a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie who, through a series of freak occurrences, are forced to become the soldiers they are
portraying. Left to right, above, Jay Baruchel plays novice actor Sandusky; Brandon T.
Jackson portrays rap star Alpa Chino; Stiller plays pampered action superstar Tugg Speedman; Downey, Jr. plays Kirk
Lazarus, an over-the-top, Australian-born method
actor who goes to extremes getting into character; and Jack Black portrays gross-out comedy
star Jeff Portnoy. Steve Coogan (far right), meanwhile, plays the film’s director, Damien Cockburn.
So I don’t feel bad at all about erstwhile Republican kingmaker Karl Rove being fairly righteously taunted during a speech yesterday
at the University of Iowa (a speech for which he was paid $40,000, incidentally), but I do give him solid smack-retort credit for part of his response — “Worse than the person who introduced aluminum
baseball bats?” — after being told by an audience member that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann named him the “worst person ever.” Well played, Karl. Though I don’t know if this guy, on the left, finds it quite as funny…
Oh, it is on, Dook. And no amount of gouda or mind games can save you…
It’s a happy birthday to The Office‘s Jenna Fischer, who turns 34 today, and probably doesn’t celebrate by watching Lollilove. It seems a bit dismissive to call a grown women cute, but that’s the nut of her appeal, since Fischer so robustly embodies the wry-perky-cool high school girl for whom guys wistfully pine when they hit their late 20s or 30s. Women may not like to hear it, but it’s the truth. Having tried in vain to hip-pocket said girl while chasing hotter (read: looser) tail in their oat-sowing days, and then subsequently having fallen out of touch with her after college, a lot of men will try to work their way back to this ideal, in either idealized or actual form — women with high-but-not-off-the-charts marks in relatability, intelligence, humor and attractiveness, and super-low maintenance requirements. Settle for the highest aggregate score, in other words. That’s Fischer. Of course, shots of her rocking out in lingerie in Blades of Glory don’t hurt, either. For some of that, click here.
So Doomsday, director Neil Marshall’s follow-up to The Descent, opening March 14 from Universal and starring the lovely Rhona Mitra, apparently isn’t screening for critics, though we’ll see if advance reviews pop up online for friendly (i.e., persuadable fan-boy) outlets. If so, maybe I’ll just go with a reprinted review of 1996’s Escape From L.A., and do a find/replace search on some names/settings.
A friend of mine tipped me off to this hilarious advert for Verizon FiOS, in which director Michael Bay “demands things to be awesome,” and then blows up all manner of stuff at what might well be his real house. Briskly paced, embracing from the get-go his ego-centric rep, well done… I’d argue this has a more compelling narrative than Transformers, actually. One question — why, though, doesn’t the tiger explode?
So after just baring all for New York Magazine, Lindsay Lohan has followed that up by having her latest film, I Know Who Killed Me, “win” eight of the nine prizes for which it was nominated this past weekend at the annual Golden Raspberry (aka “Razzies”) awards, in which a spotlight is shone on some of the worst films of the year. Lohan alone managed to win two, for both Worst Actress and
Worst Screen Couple, for a scene in the movie in which she appears
alongside herself. With its eight victories, I Know Who Killed Me smashed the unenviable record set by John Travolta’s sci-fi epic Battlefield Earth and the NC-17-rated Showgirls,
which each scored seven wins at previous ceremonies.
Eddie Murphy, meanwhile, was awarded
three of the four prizes in the worst acting categories, for a trio of
characters, both male and female, he played in Norbit. With Murphy and Lohan’s pictures, ahem, sucking up all the oxygen at the ceremonies, Daddy Day Camp, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., was the only other movie to be humiliated with a Razzie award, for Worst Prequel or Sequel. Sadly, no one was on hand to attempt to one-up Halle Berry’s surprise in-person acceptance of her award for Catwoman.
More than three years in the making, a new documentary that takes up where Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code left off has purportedly uncovered some remarkable evidence that may prove a Jesus Christ-Mary Magdalene bloodline did exist. The film, Bloodline, has been acquired by Cinema Libre Studio for worldwide distribution, and will premiere theatrically in the United States in May 2008.
The idea of this bloodline, first set out in the 1982 international bestseller Holy Blood, Holy Grail, has captivated the world. However, although many experts and amateurs alike have painstakingly explored the subject, none have produced new substantiation. Bloodline reignites the debate with what it claims is groundbreaking new archeological evidence. “Filmmakers Bruce Burgess and René Barnett have turned up some fascinating findings and connections that will cause even the strongest skeptic to take notice,” says Philippe Diaz, Chairman of Cinema Libre Studio.
Working together, a joint British and American team analyzed historical records, regional legends and clues culled from interviews with spokespeople from the controversial secret society The Priory of Sion. Their efforts led to the discovery of artifacts dating from first century Jerusalem and a tomb with very unusual features. Located in the Languedoc region of southern France, the site was triangulated by an amateur British archaeologist, allegedly based on clues he found embedded in and around the renowned Church of Mary Magdalene at Rennes-Le-Chateau. The area, which has yet to be officially excavated, contains parchments and texts, religious artifacts, a cache of coins and, most significantly, a mummified body draped with a white shroud emblazoned with a red cross, reminiscent of the Knights Templar. For further information on the film, and its teased secrets, visit the movie’s official web site by clicking here.
So Lindsay Lohan has bared all for New York Magazine and photographer Bert Stern, who snapped the last pictures of Marilyn Monroe, six weeks before she was found dead. To that end, the shots — taken February 5, at the Hotel Bel-Air — are a recreation of those photographs, with Lohan posing with little to nothing, save see-through fabrics and strings of diamonds, like the photographs below.
In the interview accompanying the spread, penned by Amanda Fortini, Lohan dismisses talk that the pictures are part of a gambit to restore any shine to her big screen career, after last year’s lackluster grosses of Georgia Rule and I Know Who Killed Me, and a couple well-publicized run-ins with the law and stints in rehab. Rather, the actress offered a more straightforward explanation: “I didn’t have to
put much thought into it. I mean, Bert Stern? Doing a Marilyn shoot?
When is that ever going to come up? It’s really an honor,” she says.
In laying out some of the particulars of the air-quote closed-set shoot, Fortini delivers a compelling thumbnail sketch of the “celebrity industrial complex,” but also raises questions about who is giving Lohan advice, if anyone. Part of her rationalization, given the next day by phone (“Here is a woman who is giving herself to the public,” says Lohan about the Monroe photos, “she’s
saying, ‘Look, you’ve taken a lot from me, so why don’t I give it to
you myself?’ She’s taking control back”) doesn’t really pass the smell test, particularly when Lohan has to battle newly forged ridden-hard-and-put-away-wet tabloid problems largely of her own creation. It’s great for the hornball set, naturally, these pictures, but what does it accomplish, other than remind folks, “Oh yeah, I guess we haven’t really heard anything about Lohan the past eight or nine weeks?” Does it help make her one iota more bankable, or land a film of gimme-put substance, either commercially or artistically? No, it doesn’t; it merely reinforces the notion that she’s only suitable for wild-child and/or other dinged, reckless parts.
The Crystal Light beverage brand has partnered with actress and musical artist Mandy Moore to launch uPumpItUp.com, a new social networking Web site that will allegedly “help women harness the power of the Web” by encouraging them to empower, inspire, challenge and sustain each other to achieve unique personal goals.
Chaired by Moore, uPumpItUp.com invites women to embark on a series of fun and engaging challenges in four wellness areas, supported by fashion guide Bobbie Thomas, entertainment guru Erika Lenkert, celebrity yoga instructor Mandy Ingber and award-winning journalist Cynne Simpson. Moore welcomes women to uPumpItUp.com with a video message, encouraging them to visit the different wellness areas. Once there, they can choose from one of the recommended challenges or create their own. “Finally, there’s a place for women to turn to that allows them to focus on the things that are personally important,” said Moore. “uPumpItUp.com is specifically designed to help women truly better themselves, as opposed to just learning how to dress better or lose more weight. It’s a place where women can visit when they need some ‘me time’ — and not feel guilty about it. Women will feel celebrated and rewarded, and I’m honored to be part of this endeavor.”
Telly Davidson has up an interesting postmortem of the recently wrapped NATPE Convention over on FilmStew, and if you want to buy his book, by golly, you can do that too. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.
Dining last night with some friends, including one in the know, there was some information gleaned about The Wolf Man, the Andrew Kevin Walker-scripted project, starring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt, from which director Mark Romanek walked away. While he indeed quit over budget concerns and considerations (he refused to commit to a production kitty that had already ballooned from $100 million to around $120 million-plus), Romanek was also on the verge of being fired before he chose to walk. Universal called in the director over the weekend several weeks back, in a last-ditch, ass-covering effort to get him to toe the line; by quitting, he voided his contract, and made things a lot easier.
Jurassic Park III and October Sky helmer Joe Johnston has already officially been tapped as The Wolf Man‘s new director, as announced by Variety last week, but this after both Brett Ratner (who of course jumped into the driver’s seat on X-Men: The Last Stand when Bryan Singer abandoned the franchise he originated to take the reigns on Superman Returns) and Frank Darabont (who most recently directed The Mist, an adaptation of Stephen King’s source text of the same name) were each given hearty consideration. One of those names is entirely expected, one decidedly less so, in my opinion…