Category Archives: Ephemera

The Lair Offers Up Fang Bang Fun

October 10, 2007EphemeraBrent

Following the success of Dante’s Cove, here!,
America’s premium gay television network, jumps into more soapy, blended horror
and tongue-in-cheek melodrama with the spin-off The Lair, which unapologetically sprinkles tropes of the vampire subgenre
with some GLBT pixie dust and just the right balance of camp and sex appeal.

Set in a small island town, The Lair kicks off with bodies of young men turning up dead with
gruesome wounds on their necks. The mysterious murders draw the attention of
Thom (David Moretti), a young journalist who decides to investigate, much to
the dismay of his jealous boyfriend. Thom’s search leads him to a private
gentlemen’s club called The Lair, where even the darkest of desires are
fulfilled. While closing in on the truth, Thom is captured by Damian (Shortbus’ Peter Stickles), the leader of
the titular club, and his legion of vampires. Thom soon realizes that his quest
to solve these murders may lead to his own demise.

Co-starring Colton Ford (Naked
Fame) and Beverly Lynne,
among others, The Lair: The Complete
First Season is directed by Fred Olen Ray, the man behind of such cult
films as Prison Ship, Terminal Force, Bad Girls From Mars, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers
and Bikini Chain Gang. Available for the first time on DVD through Genius
Products, Liberation Entertainment and here! just in time for Halloween, the
two-disc, widescreen set includes all six episodes of the show, a backlot featurette, bloopers, a racy photo
gallery (hint: shirts quite optional) and a couple trailers for the show. To
take a sample bite, click here, and select The Lair under “Watch It” on the
home page.

AFI Fest Sets Slate

October 10, 2007EphemeraBrent

AFI Fest 2007 has finalized its full slate. The festival, which kicks off November 1 with Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs and runs through November 11, includes seven world premieres, 18 North American premieres, and tributes to legendary French actress Catherine Deneuve and America’s own Laura Linney. Deneuve will receive her tribute before the screening of Marjane
Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s beautifully animated Persepolis, to
which she lent her voice. Linney’s tribute comes before Tamara
Jenkins’s The Savages, in which she plays a woman who has to care for
her sick father along with her brother (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

The lineup of films at this year’s AFI Fest is as diverse as
the cultures of the 37 countries represented at the festival. The 148
films cover everything from the current political climate,
international events and cultural revolution to well-made and
entertaining dramas, comedies and horror films. For more information, click here.

Kevin Costner, Wonderfully Zonked

October 10, 2007Amusements, Ephemera, InterviewsBrent

I was breezing through a working Word file last night and stumbled across this pulled, set-aside tidbit below from Kevin Costner, from the press day for this summer’s Mr. Brooks. His response is to a question about whether he thinks there’s a “killer gene,” or a predisposition to
serial killing that is passed on from parent to child. What’s notable, really, and got me laughing, is that in a straight reading of the quote Costner almost sounds bat-shit crazy, but I distinctly remember it not coming off as such. To wit, though, his reply:

“I don’t really know, I think I don’t really know.
You hear of alcoholism being passed on in genes and stuff like that. I think we’re
the generation that’s just learning about what gets passed on. I mean, our eyes
are opening every day as to what… We go, ‘Oh my God’ …I mean, just about the
time we think a protein diet is the right one, somebody goes, ‘So wrong! So
wrong!’ I mean, every diet, everything’s got something — somebody goes, ‘Wrong!’ you know, four years later. What’s clear is people live under enormous pressure.
There’s too many of us in the city. There’s too many of us… Look, it’s weird
out there, it’s weird out there. I mean, we’re all like some number, you know?
One out of every somebody gets assaulted, and women have it worse. It’s like, ‘What
the fuck?’ I mean, we’re like a percentage of something going bad somewhere. It’s
terrible.”

LA Femme: The Fairer Festival

October 9, 2007Ephemera, ScreeningsBrent

The third annual LA Femme International Film Festival kicks off in Beverly Hills
this Thursday, October 11, and concludes with star-studded closing ceremonies on
Sunday, October 14, hosted by Melissa Rivers at the Fine Arts Theatre, with a cocktail
reception following immediately afterward at Nirvana.

Founded by Leslie LaPage, LA Femme is dedicated to
creating and inspiring talented female artists who desire to create
entertainment for the masses. Exhibiting the diverse talents of emerging
artists to wider audiences by showcasing new work to industry professionals, up-and-coming
filmmakers and film fans alike, the festival will unfold at two theaters — the
Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills, at 8556 Wilshire Blvd. and the Wilshire
Screening Room, at 8670 Wilshire Blvd. “After more than a decade of working as
a producer in the industry, I have seen women filmmakers rise to the top, and I
wanted to create a specific forum in which our stars of tomorrow could be
championed,” says LaPage.

LA Femme includes film screenings, seminars with industry
experts, networking events, an awards ceremony and a benefit gala. Panels
topics include “How to Write Genre Films and Get Produced,” “Film Financing: How
to Get the Money” and “Marketing and Distribution: How to Get Your Film Sold.”
Festival winners will receive prizes including merchandise valued at over $1,500,
as well as priceless exposure for their films. The festival is open to the
general public and tickets, a full screening schedule and more information are
available online, by clicking here,
or by calling (310) 441-1645.

Napoleon Dynamite Goes Gaming

October 5, 2007EphemeraBrent

Handheld gaming might have a totally different definition for the title character of Napoleon Dynamite, but the game version of the hit indie film hits the DS and PSP soon, shipping October 23.

click here.

This Man Is Creepy…

October 4, 2007EphemeraBrent

the man arrested at actor Nicolas Cage’s home in Newport Beach in the early hours of the morning on October 1, was naked except for the purloined leather coat he was wearing. Yikes. That really puts a damper on any sort of barked communication which includes the phrase, “Put. The Jacket. Down.” Furo, who
has pleaded not guilty to felony burglary in the first degree, remains in custody until a pretrial hearing currently scheduled for Oct. 10.

Alicia Silverstone Goes Naked for PETA

October 4, 2007Ephemera, MusingsBrent

So it’s a happy 31st birthday to Alicia Silverstone, who I gather caused something of a stir a few weeks back with this combo print/cable ad, which was pulled from rotation in beef-centric Houston, and maybe even some other spots.

Michael Lynton Inks Sony Extension

October 4, 2007EphemeraBrent

Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer Michael Lynton has had his contract extended to 2012, it was announced
today by Howard Stringer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sony
Corporation.

Spider-Man 3
holds the crown for biggest domestic box office performance of 2007, and last
week the studio crossed the $1 billion domestic box office mark for the sixth
straight year, a feat accomplished by only one other studio in Hollywood.

“Michael Lynton’s financial acumen and firm grasp of content
in the digital era is exactly what’s needed to lead a studio in the 21st
century,” said Stringer. “Together he and Amy have become a forceful and
dynamic team, guiding the studio to even greater heights than I could have
hoped. I am delighted that they will both continue on in their roles for
years to come.”

Sean Penn on The Late Show

October 3, 2007Ephemera, MusingsBrent

I caught Sean Penn on The Late Show last night, decked out like the extra Reservoir Dog in a white shirt, black suit jacket and tie. He was low key and at his most gloriously disheveled; I swear, looking at this guy makes me immediately want to destroy every comb, brush and mirror in sight. It’s a look that somehow really works for him.

Penn talked in erudite fashion about Into the Wild, and the real-life Chris McCandless’ trip-the-soul-fantastic journey, saying that we live in “a comfort-addicted society,” which is an interesting turn of phrase that I don’t believe I’d heard before. David Letterman tried to make Oscar small talk, looking back on Penn’s Mystic River victory, but Penn kept his reminiscences brief, noting that “any social gathering of more than five people, without alcohol” makes him uneasy.

Interestingly, the typically politically-averse Letterman then segued into Penn’s recent trip to Venezuela, asking why he went there. Penn’s classic response: “I felt almost invited to go by Pat Robertson when he encouraged the assassination of Hugo Chavez, because I always can assume that whatever he says, it ought to be the opposite.” When Letterman went on to say that he’d heard Chavez was “wacky,” Penn paused and offered forth a perfectly hollow smile before replying, “If people have oil under their ground, they’re called wacky.”

A Weekend Love-In

September 29, 2007EphemeraBrent

Robert Benton’s Feast of Love opens today, September 28, and while I didn’t get to tap out a full-fledged review, it is worth pointing out that it’s a frank movie, about adult problems and told at a deliberate
pace, and yet it still has a sheen of positivity to it. All of which means it will probably completely bomb at the box office — sacrificed at the altar of The Game Plan.

Movie Ads Don’t Talk Good

September 29, 2007Ephemera, IrritationsBrent

FilmStew has up an amusing piece today about the increase in grammatical laxness with respect to critics’ quotes and blurbs on movie ads. Among other bits, it rants about misplaced hyphens, ampersands, generally mangled sentiments and of course, words that don’t exist. I heartily second a lot of their points, and also would like to add that the recent poster for The Kingdom baffled me a bit, because of its mixture of fragment and sentence: “An elite FBI team sent to find a killer in Saudi Arabia. Now they have become the target.”

Alfred Hitchcock Gets Blocked

September 27, 2007Ephemera, ScreeningsBrent

For those in and around Chicago, the Block Museum of Art is hosting a special exhibit on Alfred Hitchcock entitled Casting a Shadow, from September 28 through December 9. In canny fashion, Hitchcock (and certainly his Hollywood financiers) presented himself as the sole author of his films. In reality, however, Hitchcock was a deeply collaborative
artist, working intensely with actors, producers, cinematographers,
screenwriters, editors and production and sound designers to feed the myth of what the public knew only as “an Alfred Hitchcock film,” sometimes even crafting storyboards after the completion of principal photography.

This exhibition — presented in collaboration with the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — makes use of drawings,
storyboards, paintings and other production documents, showing that the
director’s colleagues often contributed critical ideas frequently credited solely to Hitchcock. For more information, click here.

Jamie Foxx on The Daily Show

September 27, 2007Ephemera, MusingsBrent

I just put a bullet in an episode of last night’s The Daily Show, which featured Jamie Foxx as its guest, promoting The Kingdom. Foxx has descended into full-fledged slap-happy celeb-promo mode, which means pretty much shamelessly milking the crowd everywhere he goes. Last night, that meant plenty of dancing in place before sitting down, playing with his own nipples, and an extended bit talking about the astrological sign he and host Jon Stewart share (that would be Sagittarius). Stewart had the best bit of the interview, when he asked Foxx what part of Toronto stood in for Saudi Arabia during The Kingdom‘s shoot; he also asked Foxx to come to the Oscars next year, saying of his previous hosting gig, “Your laughter was the only thing that sustained me during the first 10 minutes.”

Grace Is Gone Re-Slated for December

September 21, 2007EphemeraBrent

The Weinstein Company has repositioned writer-director James Strouse’s Grace is Gone, starring John Cusack, for release on December 7, in an effort to jump on the train late in a battle for a Best Actor nomination. The movie, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, is a weepy road trip drama about a father of two who learns that his wife has been killed while serving in Iraq, and must then cope with the dilemma of breaking the news to his daughters.

TWC, Exodus Draw Up Navy Seals Plan

September 21, 2007EphemeraBrent

The Weinstein Company and Exodus Film Group announced today
that Navy Seals, a story concept developed in-house at Exodus, will be the
first film under the two companies’ recently announced CG-animation co-production agreement.
Under the strategic partnership, unveiled at this year’s Cannes Film Festival,
TWC and Exodus will jointly develop, produce and finance a multi-picture slate
of CG-animated feature films, DVDs and television series. This new initiative
first began a year ago when TWC picked up worldwide distribution rights to Igor, Exodus’ debut animated offering.

Navy Seals, an
adventurous family comedy, tells the story of an elite group of U.S. Navy dolphins who are captured; their only hope for rescue lies with a band of misfit seals. “Our goal has been to develop ideas in-house that are
original and dynamic, and will resonate with audiences of all ages,” said Exodus
CEO John D. Eraklis. “Navy Seals is a hilarious adventure comedy inspired by
the very real heroics that marine mammals have played in the defense of our
country.”

100 Alices Fulfill Geek Wet Dream

September 21, 2007Amusements, EphemeraBrent

Resident Evil: Extinction, Screen Gems’ corporate master Sony pulled a page from Eminem’s MTV Video Music Awards playbook from a few years back, decking out 100 models in the same red-slip-and-combat-boots get-up sported early in the movie by the franchise’s main character, Alice, played by Milla Jovovich. This is much better than the alternate plan, which called for 100 Oded Fehrs.

Jovovich was on hand, of course (below center, getting groped), but could hardly squeeze back into such a costume given that she’s expecting her first child, with fiancé and Resident Evil screenwriter Paul W.S. Anderson, in just under a month. The 100 Alices, meanwhile, were just happy that O.J. Simpson was out of town. Actually, probably pretty much everyone was happy that Simpson was out of town.

Jessica Alba Is Bikini-riffic!

September 18, 2007Ephemera, MusingsBrent

Atta boy, Paul Walker! I’d originally grabbed this photo as part of a longer and almost serious piece meant to highlight the work of John Stockwell as Hollywood’s preeminent modern-day butt fetishist, but with Good Luck Chuck just around the bend, it seems as good a time as any to just slap this up in half-assed fashion (pun embraced, if not originally intended).

Turistas. I’m just wondering — and a little nervous — about how this predilection is going to get folded into Stockwell’s next film, Middle of Nowhere, starring Anton Yelchin and Susan Sarandon. It better come in the form of Eva Amurri, Sarandon’s real-life daughter. Fingers crossed, y’all…

Aronofsky Offers Up Fountain Commentary

September 18, 2007Ephemera, MusingsBrent

So Darren Aronofsky is not particularly happy with Warner Bros., or their DVD treatment of his most recent film, The Fountain. Apparently they flat-out wouldn’t let him record an audio commentary track. Still, he doesn’t broadcast his displeasure in arm-flapping fashion. Instead, he’s merely done his own commentary track, and posted it on his web site. Score!

Recorded on May 10 in his living room in New York City, the track is a pretty fascinating listen, regardless of what one might think of the film. In talking about the feeling that the science-fiction genre has been hijacked by techno-lust, Aronofsky promises “not to talk too much about what the film is about and clear up any of the questions people have,” but instead just about some of the experiences of making the movie, and its inspiration, from Mayan subculture to enlightenment and reincarnation. Extra great news — you can download the track, save it to desktop, import into iTunes, etcetera. Clearly this, along with a tip of the cap to something like Cameron Crowe’s Led Zeppelin play-along instructions on the “Untitled Bootleg” (commercially available) cut of Almost Famous, augurs great things for the future of artist-audience interactivity, and circumventing corporate gate-keepers.

Dennis Locorriere Hooks Boomer Music Fans

September 18, 2007EphemeraBrent

Dennis Locorriere was a founding member of psychedelic pop
group Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, and the lead singer of almost all of the
group’s hit records and most memorable songs. As one of the biggest bands in the
world in the 1970s and early ’80s, Dr. Hook’s plaudits are impressive — a slate
that includes more than 60 gold and platinum albums for Locorriere. Now boomers can relive some of those magical nights with Dennis Locorriere: The Unique Voice of Dr. Hook. Years on, he still has one of the
finest voices around, and impassioned heartbreak and lost innocence are his memes, which he trades in without reservation.

Directed by Robert Garofalo, this two-hour concert disc features
all the hits fans know and love. Recorded at the first British Acoustic Festival
held in Shrewsbury in the summer of 2006, its track listing is as follows: “Walk Right In,” “Only Sixteen,” “Sharing the Night Together,” “A Couple More Years,” “I Don’t Want to Be Alone Tonight,” “Freakin’ at the Freaker’s Ball,” “Better Love Next Time,” “Sleeping Late,” “Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk,” “When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman,” “The Millionaire,” “A Little Bit More,” “More Like the Movies,” “Hearts (Like Yours and Mine),” “If Not You,” “The Cover of the Rolling Stone,” “Sexy Eyes,” “Sylvia’s Mother,” “You Make My Pants Want to Get Up and Dance,” “Queen of the Silver Dollar,” “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” and “Years From Now.” Special bonus features, running just over 35 minutes,
include behind-the-scenes footage, a photo gallery, a glimpse at an exclusive acoustic
studio recording session from Shepperton Film Studios earlier this year, and a backstage interview with Locorriere. For more information, click here; to purchase the DVD title via Amazon, click here.

Jamie Foxx Receives Walk of Fame Star

September 15, 2007EphemeraBrent

So Jamie Foxx, né Eric Marlon Bishop, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday. Somewhere, Carrie Ann Inaba, DJ Twist and T’Keyah Crystal Keymah are saying, “What about me? Seriously… there are bills to be paid.”

Germany Reverses Valkyrie Ban

September 14, 2007EphemeraBrent

BBC News is reporting that the German government has reversed a decision to ban Tom Cruise’s new movie from filming at a key World War II memorial site. Named after the coded, secret plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, director Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie stars Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who was put to death for plotting to kill the German leader in 1944. A previous request to film at the site of his execution was initially rejected, but defense ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said the change of heart came after officials were convinced the film would portray post-war Germany in a good light, and underline the fact that “barbarism did not win, but rather a democratic Germany finally arose.”

Jodie Foster on The Daily Show

September 14, 2007Ephemera, MusingsBrent

I just last night polished off an episode of The Daily Show from September 11, with guest Jodie Foster on hand to promote The Brave One, and if anyone needed reminding that she’s a great personality and totally a movie star, they should flag their TiVo for reruns of this episode.

The formidable intelligence and almost otherworldly sense of focus — I think that comes through in her work, and people remember that. But I guess it’s because Foster does relatively few films, does sparse TV interviews to promote them, and then totally stays out of the public spotlight apart from these projects that people tend to sort of forget just how funny and witty she is. Hers is a low-key wattage, but one that shines sincerely, as her banter with Jon Stewart proved. Talking up her film’s Death Wish roots, she says, “It’s a very sophisticated movie — there’s a lot of polemic, a lot of political overtones — but it’s also a really unsophisticated movie that works in a very primal, elemental way.”

Alien vs. Predator vs. English

September 13, 2007Amusements, Ephemera

In 2004, franchise mash-up Alien vs. Predator grossed over $170 million worldwide (seriously), but rankled longtime fans of each series with its PG-13 rating. Now, in an attempt to keep the merged franchise alive, 20th Century Fox is turning to a cast headlined by people with the last names Pasquale, Aylesworth, Paetkau and Horsdal for this holiday season’s follow-up, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. (I’m not sure about the size of parts, but the most notable casting addition may actually be Shareeka Epps, the young girl from Half Nelson.)

Stepping behind the camera for departed and disowned AvP director Paul W.S. Anderson are Colin and Greg Strause, brothers with visual effects backgrounds who grew up in Illinois, where apparently English was not spoken as their first language. After confirming to Dark Horizons that the movie will be rated R (insert fan-boy cheers here), older brother Greg says of the prospects for a sequel: “I’d like to do another one but I’d like to do it in
space. The next one either has to be more of the bridge after this and
before Alien, or you could do something after Aliens. We have a
pretty finite ending to this, but we have a cliffhanger per se; it’s a
setup.” Good to know…

Still More Than Meets the Eye?

September 13, 2007Ephemera, IrritationsBrent

So I (blissfully) missed this news from a few weeks back, but a friend informed me that an extended cut of Transformers will actually hit IMAX screens later this month, on September 21, just a few weeks in advance of the summer action hit’s DVD bow on October 16.

As my friend rightly pointed out, we can only hope that this means there’s a lot more footage of Shia LaBeouf trying to hide the robots while his parents think he’s masturbating — because that scene didn’t go on long enough. Either that or, alternately, John Turturro getting mock-urinated on by robots and a detailed explanation of the ridiculous cover-up that preserves the franchise prerogative of a sequel in which Transformers still somehow exist in secret.

Keira Knightley Smells Good

September 12, 2007Ephemera, MusingsBrent

In advance of the gathering buzz for this fall’s Atonement, Keira Knightley headlines the new campaign for Coco Mademoiselle, a fresh oriental scent created by Chanel master perfumer Jacques Polge in 2001. Starring in the same-named short film/advert, Knightley plays the role of a modern day Coco Chanel — a mysterious and independent woman who takes destiny into her own hands — and in doing so joins a list of iconic faces featured in Chanel fragrance campaigns, including Nicole Kidman, Ali McGraw and Catherine Deneuve.

Knightley and her Atonement director, Joe Wright, and thus a savvy, very smartly timed piece of flirty parallel promotion for a romance that is being described as devastatingly well-made, but still has to overcome certain period piece prejudices. The production was overseen by Chanel Artist Director Jacques Helleu, and it features a soundtrack tune performed by Grammy-winner Joss Stone. “Coco Chanel’s strong personality, bold temperament and charisma were impressive,” states Knightley in a press release on the matter. “There was no one like her in the world… her impact went beyond fashion and transformed society by liberating women in both a real and figurative sense.”

No doubt Knightley’s Chanel impact — particularly in the above photo, much more so than the relatively chaste ad — will help, umm, liberate young guys everywhere. National cable television 30- and 60-second spots will debut September 24 and run through October 7. Atonement, previously scheduled to open Stateside on October 12 from Focus Features, will now release on December 7, the better to capitalize on awards buzz.

Shared Darkness

A Communal Life in Film, Examined