The Screengrab : robocop

Frank Miller Gets Into the Spirit at Comic-Con

Phil Nugent — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:04:00 GMT

Frank Miller, writes Kevin Scanlon in The New York Times, "exudes comics cred." This week, Miller will be at the opening of the San Diego Comic-Con International, where comics professionals will be honored with the presentation of the annual Eisner Awards, named for the legendary writer-artist Will Eisner. According to Scanlan, "few outside fandom have any idea" who Eisner-- who died three years ago at the age of 87, though he seemed to have been around for much longer than that and to have been active in his field for most of that time--was, and I will take his word for it, since I've spent most of my life in the company of people, myself not excepted, who were more likely to be able to recite Eisner's bibliography chapter and verse than to know how to add fractions. As the creator of the urban detective strip The Spirit (and, later, one of the first producers of a "graphic novel"), Eisner was always hailed for his "cinematic" style, his way of bringing the mood and feel of an action-packed film noir to the four-color page. So was Miller, when he first made a splash with his own take on the crime comic disguised as a superhero comic, Daredevil. (It was to humor those publishers who thought that a comics hero had to be a costumed crimefighter that Eisner drew two horizontal lines across the Spirit's face and called that a mask.) However, Eisner, who spent the last thirty years of his life trying to make a case, through his own work, for the artistic validity of comics, never made the leap to actual filmmaking. Miller did, when he collaborated with Robert Rodriguez on the 2005 big-screen version of Miller' Sin City. At that time, Rodriguez would up resigning from the Directors' Guild after they refused to let him share full credit with this uncredentialed, pen-wielding upstart. Several million dollars at the box office later--both from Sin City and the movie version of Miller's 300, a movie that is its look, and whose look was transferred complete and intact from the paper version-- Miller had little difficulty getting the go-ahead for his first solo directing project, and that project is The Spirit.

Another connection between Eisner and Miller is that, having made their names telling stories in a medium over which they had more or less complete control, neither readily took to Hollywood's free-and-easy approach to intellectual property, or its dismissive attitude towards whoever does the writing. Miller, whose Daredevil comics and origin reboot Batman: Year One are drenched in the spare imagery and dark, tilted shadows of basement-budget noir, and whose Dark Knight miniseries gave the world an older, crustier Batman recast in the mold of a Clint Eastwood hero, first dallied with Hollywood in the late 1980s, when he worked as a screenwriter on some RoboCop sequels. That experience sent him screaming back to his drawing board unti Robert Rodriguez showed up at his door, on bended knee. Now Miller is in the driver's seat, and out there selling his baby. (Also at Comic-Con this year are the movie's star, Gabriel Macht, and co-star Samuel L. Jackson. (Those who know the comic will be either relieved or sorely disappointed to learn that Mr. Jackson does not play the classic strip's most prominent African-American character, Ebony White, the Spirit's biggest male fan, and a constant source of embarrassment to contemporary readers: in keeping with the standards of the time, Ebony looked like a blob of ink with big rubber lips. He is not featured in the movie, having been cast into P.C. oblivion to keep the cast of Bob Clampett's Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs company.) As for Eisner, he fought to maintain control of his characters rather than score a payday by selling them off to the movies, and reportedly had to be talked in off the ledge after seeing a 1980s TV movie allegedly based on The Spirit. Producer Michael Uslan pitched the idea of a Spirit movie to Miller, and recalls that at the suggestion, "Frank looked at me like I was out of my mind. He said: ‘Touch the work of the master? How could I do that?’ About 10 minutes later he tapped me on my shoulder and said, ‘I can’t let anyone else touch it.’ ” Early trailers for the movie have done their best to make it look like Sin Cty 2--which is coming, and which Miller hopes will ultimately be the second film in a trilogy--but Eisner's world was very different than the bleak, monochrome vision reflected in the recent Miller comics that have made it to the movies, and Miller knows that. “The only ways [Sin City and The Spirit] resemble each other," Miller says, "are the ways that I learned from Will Eisner: the use of black and white, certainly the rapturous approach to women.” Visually, Sin City, with its hyperbolic black and white design, certainly represented some kind of apotheosis of such performers as Rosario Dawson, Carla Gugino, Jessica Alba, and Jaime King, and the cast of The Spirit includes King, Eva Mendes, Paz Vega, upcoming Bond girl Stana Vatic, Sarah Paulsen (as the daughter of Police Commissioner Dolan, which means that in this company, she's the closest thing to the girl next door), and the future Mrs. Ryan Reynolds. So, you know, let the rapture begin.

Morning Deal Report: Wolverines! “Red Dawn” Remake Rising

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

As always, a reminder that we don’t make this stuff up, except once a year on April Fool’s Day. And surely there must be some fools behind the idea of remaking the Commie-baiting camp classic Red Dawn, perhaps the most genetically pure ’80s movie in existence. Yet here it is in the Hollywood Reporter: “Red Dawn will be redone. Screenwriter Carl Ellsworth has been hired to recraft the ultimate homeland invasion story about a new generation of besieged high schoolers…‘The tone is going to be very intense, very much keeping in mind the post-9/11 world that we're in,’ says Ellsworth, who was 11 when the original was released.” But amusing/befuddling/horrifying as this may be to contemplate, the Reporter has buried the lead. Tucked into the third paragraph is an offhand mention that MGM is also developing “a big-budget rebuild of RoboCop, which director Darren Aronofsky among others has recently been in to discuss.” If Aronofsky is remaking an '80s movie, shouldn’t it be this one?

MGM has been busy, as Variety reports the studio has greenlit the Joss Whedon thriller The Cabin in the Woods. Whedon has co-written the script with Drew Goddard, “with Goddard signed to make his directorial debut and Whedon producing.” Not much more is known about the project, but our sources tell us it involves a cabin in the woods.

And in keeping with the “everything old is new again” theme, Hulk history is repeating itself. “After four weekends, the Louis Leterrier-directed The Incredible Hulk has earned $125 million, the same as what [Ang Lee’s] Hulk had pulled in at the same time in its run,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. “Hulk finished with $132 million, and its successor is unlikely to do much better." Fans looking forward to seeing Tim Blake Nelson as The Leader may be out of luck, as Marvel has yet to greenlight a sequel.

Related:
Aronofsky Takes Up Residence in Riverview Towers
Hulk Smash?

That Guy!: Miguel Ferrer

Peter Smith — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:00:00 GMT

Miguel Ferrer had some big shoes to fill before he was even old enough to walk. His father was the Oscar-winning actor José Ferrer; his mother was recording star Rosemary Clooney. His oldest childhood friend is Carrie Fisher, his sister-in-law is Debbie Boone, and his cousin is George Clooney. With expectations that high, it’s probably no surprise that he shied away from the intense pressures of film work and found his niche as a television actor; he’s just signed on to a recurring role in the Bionic Woman remake, but he’s also turned in memorable TV roles in Miami Vice, Twin Peaks, Tales from the Crypt, Crossing Jordan and LateLine (as well as, er, less grand projects like Kung Fu: The Next Generation). He’s also won acclaim as a voiceover actor, doing everything from Disney (he was a featured actor in Mulan) to superheroes (a lifelong comics buff, he’s been in several Superman animated episodes and will play a prominent role in the upcoming New Frontier Justice League cartoon) to video games (he plays the lead in BioShock, one of the moodiest, most dramatic, and immersively cinematic games in history). Ferrer didn’t initially want to be an actor at all; turned off by the hyper-competitive nature of the film industry, he was originally a respected studio drummer (playing alongside the legendary Keith Moon in one memorable session) and took his first acting job only because childhood friend — and current bandmate, in the Jenerators — Billy Mumy talked him into it. Twenty-five years later, Ferrer, whose reputation for playing short-tempered, hotheaded jerks belies his abilities as an extremely versatile actor who can handle as much emotional range as he’s given, has become one of an elite group of television actors whose very appearance in the credits is good enough cause to give a show a chance. But despite his infrequent big-screen appearances, he’s still done enough with his few and far-between movie roles to make him a That Guy! favorite.

Where to see Miguel Ferrer at his best:

ROBOCOP (1987)

If it weren’t for the presence of Kurtwood Smith (with whom he’d co-starred three years earlier in the deeply weird JFK assassination caper Flashpoint), Miguel Ferrer would have entirely stolen this highly subversive, hugely entertaining Paul Verhoeven satire right out from under leads Peter Weller and Nancy Allen. As corporate sleazeball Bob Morton, he gets off some of the movie’s best lines before being outflanked by Ronny Cox, who’s an even bigger corporate sleazeball than he is.

TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992)

Cursed with a convoluted production history, a number of studio compromises, and a difficult continuity, David Lynch’s big-screen prequel to his classic cult TV show is worthwhile if for no other reason than it gives Miguel Ferrer to reprise his finest role, as the intolerant and exacting FBI forensics specialist Albert Rosenfield. Ferrer doesn’t get as much screen time here as he did in the series, but every second of it is enjoyable as he plays this watchable combination of righteousness and insufferability to the hilt.

TRAFFIC (2000)

Not surprisingly, given its sprawling multiple storylines, Steven Soderbergh’s sweeping drama about the repercussions of the international drug trade features plenty of juicy roles for character actors (including a terrific turn from previous That Guy! Luis Guzmán). Miguel Ferrer puts in an excellent performance as the cynical drug trafficker Eduardo Ruiz, who engages in a memorable battle of wills with Guzmán’s drug agent Raul Castro, and makes the pithy observation that "In Mexico, law enforcement is an entrepreneurial activity."

— Leonard Pierce

Conglomerated Baddies: The 22 Most Evil Corporations in Movie History, Part 3

Peter Smith — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:00:00 GMT

Engulf & Devour, SILENT MOVIE (1976)

Mel Brooks's generically titled comedy stars Brooks as a movie director who plans to save the troubled Big Picture Studio with a star-studded silent picture. This makes him the target of Engulf & Devour, the monstrous corporation (whose motto is "Our Hands Are In Everything") planning to gobble up the studio. Their methods of sabotaging the film's success range from sending Bernadette Peters to vamp the director, a former drunk, and knock him off the wagon, to stealing the picture itself before its grand premiere. Weirdly, all this is said to have been partly inspired by the actual takeover of Paramount Pictures by Gulf & Western, which was probably a lot noisier.

Union Broadcasting System (UBS), NETWORK (1976)

In screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's attack on television, new anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is saved from cancellation and becomes a major star — "the mad prophet of the airwaves" — after he reacts to news of his firing by flipping out and promising to kill himself on the air, a spectacle that the mass audience finds entertaining. With Beale's ratings on the rise, the head of the entertainment division (Faye Dunaway) takes over the news department, a speculative joke that some thought came to fruition one year later when the ABC news division was handed to sports-broadcast head Roone Arledge. Unfortunately, Beale's diatribes against the loss of individuality and free will are regarded by Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), the head of the company that owns the network, as a threat to corporate power, so he summons the prodigal newsman to his office for a lecture on "the primal forces of nature." ("There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.") Beale is so impressed with this wisdom that he agrees to "preach" Jensen's philosophy to the television audience, which finds it so demoralizing that they tune out in droves, which leads to Beale's on-camera assassination. In the years since Network came out it has become customary to salute Chayefesky for having been clairvoyant, though it's hard to think of an easier way of predicting the future accurately than guessing that TV is always going to keep getting worse.

The Phone Company, THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST (1967)

At one point in this spy spoof, a globe-trotting KGB agent observes that no matter where he goes, everyone he meets there hates the phone company. It turns out they have good reason. In a movie that features assassins of many lands picking each other off while trying to kill or kidnap the title character (James Coburn), the ultimate force of evil revealed at the climax is The Phone Company, whose android spokeman (William Redfield) unveils a diabolical plan to force all Americans to have a call-receiving device implanted in their heads. Of all the evil corporations in movie history, this one is almost certainly the funniest, though it must be conceded that the movie's depiction of the phone company as a sinister, monolithic force is dated in certain ways. For one thing, it turns out that most Americans today would probably be happy to sign up to have a chip put in their heads if it enabled them to download free movie trailers and video clips.

OMNI Consumer Products, ROBOCOP (1987)

Screenwriter Edward Neumeier was reportedly inspired to pen the script to Paul Verhoeven’s classic cyberpunk satire of American capitalism run amok after spending time on the set of Blade Runner. Like the Tyrell Corporation, OCP is a monolithic enterprise that virtually controls the police, and likewise has a run of bad luck with a series of robotic creations that do their jobs a bit too well. (If only Tyrell had the good sense to hire Miguel Ferrer.) Back in 1987, Omni Consumer Products’ stated intention to fully privatize organizations that had previously been thought of as the purview of government — "hospitals, prisons, space exploration. . . we practically are the military," says CEO Ronny Cox — seemed like absurdist comedy at best. Now, in the era of privately-run prisons, for-profit hospitals, billionaires in space, and Blackwater, the joke’s not quite so funny anymore.

Cyberdyne Systems, TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991)

Most of the companies covered in this week’s list are up to no good — a little profiteering here, some inside trading there, maybe even endangering a few people’s health to turn a profit. But only Cyberdyne Systems, a second-tier Silicon Valley B2B manufacturer, brings about the destruction of the entire human race. Through convoluted events of the sort that only take place in movies involving time travel, Cyberdyne is responsible for the development of SkyNet, the nuclear defense computer network that eventually becomes self-aware and decides that we humans are too troublesome for our own good. From then on, it’s nuclear holocausts, killer robots, and grim, inevitable doomsday for everybody. We’re pretty sure that, despite their cunning manipulation of the situation and determination to put profit over safety, this isn’t the way that Cyberdyne’s managers would have wanted things to turn out; a global atomic extinction can’t have done much for their stock value.

The Tyrell Corporation, BLADE RUNNER (1982)

The very model of the 'megacorp' that constituted the primary villains in the cyberpunk fiction Blade Runner helped create, the Tyrell Corporation’s gigantic, pyramid-shaped arcology looms over a ruined polyglot Los Angeles. While the ‘little people’ are sold a steady diet of drugs, sex, cheap food and promises of off-world salvation, Tyrell (and its founder, the oleaginous Eldon Tyrell, brilliantly portrayed by Joe Turkel) controls the police, using them as hired goons to hunt down rogue replicants. These artificial life forms were created by the brilliant and unscrupulous Tyrell to serve as soldiers, sex slaves and workers in highly dangerous conditions, but he designed them too well; some achieved self-awareness and sought to eliminate the built-in expiration date that kept them from becoming too human. Tyrell’s desire to create the perfect being and then destroy them shapes this brilliant film's central conflict.

— Paul Clark, Pazit Cahlon, Bilge Ebiri, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce, Vadim Rizov, Bryan Whitefield