The Screengrab : the da vinci code

DVD Digest for April 28, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

This week, Hollywood January-doldrums releases start finding their way to DVD, while the studios continue to flood the market with tie-ins to their upcoming summer blockbusters.

Hey, remember three months ago when Bride Wars (Fox, also Blu-Ray), Hotel for Dogs (Disney, also Blu-Ray), and The Uninvited (Paramount, also Blu-Ray) all got released in theatres? If not, they’ll all be hitting DVD today to remind you of their existence. Other recent releases hitting stores this week: Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke in What Doesn’t Kill You (Sony, also Blu-Ray); Van Damme goes arthouse in JCVD (Peace Arch); Rod Lurie’s Valerie Plame-inspired drama Nothing But the Truth (Sony); and the documentary Stranded: I’ve come from a plane that crashed in the mountains (Zeitgeist), about the same plane crash that inspired the book and movie Alive.

This week’s biggest classics release is a pair of films from the great, controversial Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, In the Realm of the Senses (Criterion, also Blu-Ray) and Empire of Passion (Criterion). Both films, originally released during Oshima’s fertile mid-1970s period, will be released with plenty of extras, including documentaries, interviews, and even cut (sorry) scenes on the Realm disc. Also today, Criterion will be releasing a new edition of Stephen Frears’ British gangster drama The Hit, and Jim McBride’s semi-forgotten cult classic Glen and Randa (VCI) will hit stores as well.

New TV on DVD releases hitting stores today include: Seth McFarlane’s American Dad vol. 4 (Fox), and the animated series Marvel X-Men vol. 1 and vol. 2 (both Disney).

And just in time for their new big-screen counterparts to arrive in theatres, Star Trek: The Original Series vol. 1 (Paramount) and The Da Vinci Code (Sony) will arrive today in Blu-Ray only releases.

Finally, with this week’s Plot Synopsis of the Week, I’ve decided to spotlight something other than a Japanimation title this time. There are plenty of movies like Fox’s new direct-to-DVD feature Legally Blondes dumped into the market every week, but this one caught my attention mostly because it hits all the expected marks for a movie of this kind. It almost sounds like a parody. Don’t believe me? Check it out:

Elle Woods may have moved upward and onward through law school, but her pink and frilly spirit lives on in her young, adorable cousins Annabelle and Isabelle (Camilla and Rebecca Rosso). Fresh from England, the blond twosome assume their fashion savviness will help them make friends at their new California prep academy in no time flat. One can imagine their frizz-inducing horror, then, when they discover that their new place of learning is run by uniform-loving, junior-capitalist snobs! After the most influential students at school frame Anna and Izzy for a crime they didn’t commit, it’s up to the girls to prove not only their innocence but their capabilities. Reese Witherspoon presents this spin-off of the beloved franchise that helped make her a superstar. LEGALLY BLONDES is helmed by Savage Steve Holland, the quirky director of BETTER OFF DEAD and ONE CRAZY SUMMER.

Translation: Reese Witherspoon got sick of playing Elle Woods after installment #2, but she was still contracted for one more movie. So instead of shelling out to make her happy, we’ll have her “present” a cheapo version to polish off the trilogy, thereby allowing us to plaster her name in big letters above the title in order to fool those who don’t look too hard at the DVD boxes. No mention of siblings in the original films, but we can always do the “cousin” connection, since it worked for the American Pie spinoffs, right? The twist this time is that there are two of them- twins, even! No name twins, but what can you do? From there, the plot practically writes itself. Fish-out-of-water comedy, snobbish baddies, little dogs, and blonde jokes out the derriere! How could it miss? Oh, and why not get a comedy director from the eighties who needs the work?

See what I mean?

Screengrab Predicts Summer 2009: The Toss-Ups (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:30:00 GMT

So, now that you’ve seen our consensus picks for the Top 5 Hits & the Top 5 Bombs of Summer 2009, here are the films that we didn’t know quite what to do with...

Andrew:

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (August 21)

This one hits theaters closer to Labor Day (and the start of the “quality” awards-bait season) than Memorial Day -- assuming QT actually finishes his grindhouse WW2 epic on time -- and the theaters it hits will probably be art houses rather than multiplexes, where nobody will be expecting the confusingly titled Basterds to rack up Pulp Fiction-esque "national sensation" numbers...but Tarantino’s latest seems like quite the odd duck nonetheless, with a promised ultra-violence sensibility that may have trouble finding its artsy splatter audience even WITH all the ass-kicking Jews and Brad Pitt’s funny southern accent.

BRÜNO (June 10)

Oh, sure...Borat was a national sensation, and the annoying guy in your office still says, “Niiice!” on a daily basis. But I’m guessing it was a lot easier for most Americans to feel “in” on the joke when Sacha Baron Cohen was making fun of them funny furriners than it will be to laugh at their own homophobic prejudices or their own knee-jerk PC responses to the heterosexual Cohen’s flouncing, mincing gay character. But then again, you know what they say about that whole “no such thing as bad publicity” thing...

Nick:

1) Public Enemies, because Michael Mann has yet to make an out-and-out summer blockbuster.

2) UP, because eagerness for Pixar’s latest has been especially muted.

3) Angels & Demons, because The Da Vinci Code craze seems to have subsided.

4) Julie & Julia, because its August release date implies that the studio thinks it has more limited appeal than Meryl Streep’s The Devil Wears Prada or Mamma Mia!

5) The Ugly Truth, because even though it’s the summer’s chief rom-com, it’s hard to imagine Katherine Heigl continuing to be a serious box-office draw.

Paul:

Drag Me to Hell- Sam Raimi fans are pumped for his return to horror, but will anyone else care? Will this be the film that finally lifts the box-office curse on summer horror movies?

Terminator Salvation- is there life for Terminator after Arnold? Will people pay to see the movie when they can just as easily watch the Terminator TV series at home? And can Christian Bale still reel in audiences now that his profanity-filled tirade has been heard by millions?

The Taking of Pelham 123- in a summer full of epic effects-driven movies, can audiences be bothered with an old-school hostage-negotiation thriller? And will MGM release a super-sweet new DVD edition of the original film just in time for the remake? Because they really should.

Year One- will a high-concept caveman comedy, even one starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, play in this age of improvisational laffers? And will there be zug-zug like in Caveman?

Public Enemies- is Johnny Depp really the box office draw Hollywood thinks he is after the Pirates trilogy? Can Michael Mann become bankable again after the subpar returns for Miami Vice? And in this era of Grand Theft Auto, will ticket buyers get excited for a fedoras-and-tommy-guns gangster shoot’em’up?

Bruno- can the least funny character from Da Ali G Show actually carry a film? Will people flock to laugh at the strange misadventures of a flamingly gay Austrian, or will they be scared off by the homosexuality factor?

Bandslam- is Vanessa Anne Hudgens still a draw even when she isn’t starring in High School Musicals? Will tween-friendly fare still do solid box office even during the summer movie season?

Taking Woodstock- is the August 14 release date occasioned by the 40th anniversary of Woodstock simply a symbolic gesture, or will nostalgia for the Summer of Love turn this into an unexpected late-summer hit?

Click Here For The Hits (Parts One & Two), The Bombs (Part Three) and The Honorable Mentions (Parts Five & Six)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Paul Clark

Screengrab Predicts: The Top 5 Hits of Summer 2009 (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Yes, it’s that magical time of year once more...as my late lamented Grampa Joe would say, quoting his favorite Brooklyn poet: “Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the flowers iz? All the boids is the on the wing...isn’t that absoid? I thought the wing was on the boid!”

All of which is neither here nor there...but the real point is we’re just days away from the start of the Summer Blockbuster Season (which, like the Christmas season, keeps starting earlier and earlier each year, what with the upcoming May 1 release of Wolverine, the May 8 release of Star Trek...heck, even Vin Diesel’s already had a summer blockbuster, and we’re barely into baseball season!

And, since Hollywood now refuses to wait until Memorial Day Weekend to start firing off its big guns, your pals here at the Screengrab have no choice but to launch into the fray with our second annual attempt to prognosticate the Top 5 Biggest Hits & Bombs of 2009!

Now, for those of you playing along at home, the rules are simple: the following “HIT” and “BOMB” predictions aren’t necessarily based on the sheer volume of money we think the following films will amass, but rather how their performance will ultimately be perceived by the Suits in Hollywood and the public at large. So, for example, last year we predicted Prince Caspian would be a hit...but it cost more and took in less than The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, so it was ultimately considered a disappointment. Meanwhile, Sex & The City, which...ahem...some Screengrabbers thought would bomb took in about the same amount of money as Caspian and was ultimately considered a hit because all the wimmenfolk liked it so much (and also because it didn’t cost a zillion dollars to produce, despite all the CGI required to bring the eerie Kim Cattrall character to life).

And so, without further ado...our picks for THE TOP FIVE HITS OF SUMMER 2009!

5. UP (May 29)

Paul:
There were several strong possibilities for the #5 spot, but in the end I kept coming back to Pixar, who has managed to balance high-quality output with great box office better than just about anyone else in Hollywood. Consider that all but one of their summer releases has finished among that summer’s top five, and that the one that didn’t -- 2007’s Ratatouille, probably the least kid-friendly Pixar production to date -- landed at #6. So yeah, they’re a pretty good bet, and this family-oriented film should continue their hot streak. The opening weekend for Up could be tight, considering that it’s competing with the second weekend of Night at the Museum 2, but it ought to prevail in the long run given the thin June slate and the expected strong reviews.

Andrew:
This one didn’t make my list because it's got a meh title, I can’t figure out what the movie’s supposed to be about, and I don’t sense a lot of Up excitement in the ether...but then again, I thought Wall-E would tank, too, so what the hell do I know?

Scott:
The pundits are fretting that the new Pixar movie will turn off the kiddies because it’s about an old person. (shudder) How are they going to sell Old Guy action figures? Well, I seem to recall these same pundits wringing their hands over the nearly-silent first half of Wall-E, too, so I’m sticking with the assumption that Pixar knows what they’re doing.

4. ANGELS & DEMONS (May 15)

Paul:
Here’s where things get a little more iffy. A big-budget, star-studded adaptation of a Dan Brown bestseller would seem to be a can’t-lose proposition, especially given the blockbuster grosses of The Da Vinci Code in 2006. Yet so far, the buzz on this one has been surprisingly muted, perhaps because it’s hard to imagine too many people getting worked up over a follow-up to its ponderous predecessor. Nonetheless, expect advertising for this to ramp up over the next month, leading to a big opening weekend followed by strong grosses over Memorial Day, as people line up for this almost out of obligation.

Andrew:
Considering people keep going to see those fake Nicolas Cage Da Vinci Code knock-offs, I expect there’s gonna be an audience for the genuine article. Plus, I’m told everyone and their mother (especially their mother) digs Tom Hanks, and devout filmgoers and atheists alike can all get behind a conspiracy thriller about all the creepy, weird stuff going on behind closed doors at the Vatican, right?

Click Here For The Hits (Part Two), The Bombs (Part Three), The Toss-Ups (Part Four) and The Honorable Mentions (Parts Five & Six)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Paul Clark

Blasphemy Isn't What It Used to Be: Ron Howard and "Angels & Demons"

Phil Nugent — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:30:00 GMT

Ron Howard's new movie, Angels & Demons, starring Tom Hanks as symbologist super sleuth Robert Langdon, is a follow-up to their 2006 piece-of-shit movie The Da Vinci Code, which was based on Dan Brown's bestselling 2003 pice-of-shit novel of the same name. (Angels & Demons is actually based on an earlier novel that Brown published in 2000, which marked the first appearance of the Langdon character.) I couldn't quite follow the thread of The Da Vinci Code, but I think it had something to do with clues hidden in the Mona Lisa that Amélie is Jesus Christ's great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter. (I think there was also something about how "the Holy Grail", legendary for being Jesus's favorite thing to drink from, was actually his pet name for Mary Magdalene, but that's so unbelievably filthy that I must have imagined it. We are, after all, talking about a movie made by Opie, starring Forrest Gump.) The new movie reportedly has to do with the return of the Illuminati, which (in Brown's conspiracy-fantasy mythology) was murderously wiped out by the Catholic church some three thousand years ago for being too scientific and artistic and progressive and all. As before, the new movie is being threatened with organized protests from Catholic groups who take offense at seeing their church portrayed as Murder, Inc. with funnier hats. Faced with these complaints, Howard has done what any serious religious history scholar would do: he's gone to the Huffington Post to deliver his Sermon on the Mount.

Howard's bete noire is William Donahue of the Catholic League, who, in Howard's words, "writes that I and the people who made this thriller 'do not hide their animus against all things Catholic.'" (Apparently all things Catholic include basic grammar.) "Let me be clear," writes the director of Frost/Nixon: "neither I nor Angels & Demons are anti-Catholic. And let me be a little controversial: I believe Catholics, including most in the hierarchy of the Church, will enjoy the movie for what it is: an exciting mystery, set in the awe-inspiring beauty of Rome. After all, in Angels & Demons, Professor Robert Langdon teams up with the Catholic Church to thwart a vicious attack against the Vatican. What, exactly, is anti-Catholic about that?" As to the details, "Mr. Donohue's booklet accuses us of lying when our movie trailer says the Catholic Church ordered a brutal massacre to silence the Illuminati centuries ago. It would be a lie if we had ever suggested our movie is anything other than a work of fiction (if it were a documentary, our talk of massacres would have referenced the Inquisition or the Crusades)...Mr. Donohue's op-ed [in the New York Daily News] and booklet also suggest that we paint the Church as 'anti-reason.' There is plenty of debate over what the Church did or didn't do with Galileo, but I for one do recognize that the Church did much throughout the ages to encourage and preserve education, the arts and the sciences." As Jesus used to say to Pontius Pilate, passive-aggressive much?

Unmollified by these and other valuable points made by Howard (ranging from "And if fictional movies could never take liberties with reality, then there would have been no Ben-Hur, no Barabbas, The Robe, Gone With The Wind, or Titanic. Not to mention Splash!" to "Even the current 'faith vs. science' debate over embryonic stem cells is briefly depicted in Angels & Demons in a balanced way."), Donahue has struck back in his latest press release: “Dan Brown says in his book that the Illuminati are ‘factual’ and that they were ‘hunted ruthlessly by the Catholic Church.’ In the film’s trailer, Tom Hanks, who plays the protagonist Robert Langdon, says ‘The Catholic Church ordered a brutal massacre to silence them forever.’ Howard concurs: ‘The Illuminati were formed in the 1600s. They were artists and scientists like Galileo and Bernini, whose progressive ideas threatened the Vatican.’ All of this is a lie. The Illuminati were founded in 1776 and were dissolved in 1787. It is obvious that Galileo and Bernini could not possibly have been members: Galileo died in 1647 and Bernini passed away in 1680. More important, the Catholic Church never hunted, much less killed, a single member of the Illuminati. But this hasn’t stopped Brown from asserting that ‘It is a historical fact that the Illuminati vowed vengeance against the Vatican in the 1600s.’" Perhaps sensing how many readers stepped out into the hallway for a smoke while he was rattling off dates, Brown adds, "Moreover, we know from a Canadian priest who hung out with Howard’s crew last summer in Rome (dressed in civilian clothes) just how much they hate Catholicism.” Personally, I have no plans to see Angels & Demons, but I would pay half my body weight in gold bullion to see a movie based on the true-life adventures of an undercover Catholic, dressed in a Canadian priest's idea of "civilian clothes"--I'm picturing Disco Stu with a cross around his neck--who hangs out with Opie and Forrest to listen to them express the true, hateful feelings they have about Catholics when they think all the Pope's children are in the bathroom. ("And the rhythm method--what's that all about!? You look at the size of some of these families, I guess maybe Mel Gibson's had a little trouble finding the backbeat, y'know what I'm saying? Cheese it, here comes Coppola!")

Now, we don't really have a dog in this race. And make no mistake about it, we here at the Screengrab are just crazy about blasphemy and try to encourage it whenever we can. What's discouraging, though, is Howard's good-natured, reasonable tone: yeah, we kind of dis your church's history and make your guys look like nut jobs and gangsters, but we don't mean anything by it! It's just necessary to the plot of a good thriller. What are you saying, that you don't like good thrillers? Go dig Hitchcock up and blow shit at him! Some real moviemakers like Bunuel risked their careers, their standing in the community, and maybe even their lives to make blasphemous movies, and somebody like Howard flirts with it, out of commercial necessity--somebody is going to make movies out of Dan Brown's bullshit--and expects everybody to understand that it doesn't really mean anything to him, so it shouldn't give offense to anyone. I myself am no fan of Oliver Stone's JFK, either as a movie or as an historical argument, but I'll give it this much: I'm willing to believe that the murder of John Kennedy is something that Stone is, or was, genuinely freaked out about. it's understandable that Howard would be baffled and even offended by William Donahue's assertion that he's actually a hater and propagandist against the Catholic church instead of a guy trying to make a buck with a pre-sold property, but if he would open his mind up a little, he might be able to see that, in his way, Donahue is paying him a compliment by suggesting that he's a serious enough man to believe in his own crap. As Al Pacino put it in Dog Day Afternoon, if somebody's going to blow my brains out, I hope it's somebody who does it because he hates my guts, not because it's his job.

Morning Deal Report: David O. Russell and Christian Bale Get in the Ring

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:30:00 GMT

In recent weeks we’ve told you about two David O. Russell projects in the works, The Silver Linings Playbook and Aaron and Sarah. Now there’s a third, and this one is scheduled to go ahead first: The Fighter, with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale. “Pic tells the story of Boston fighter 'Irish' Mickey Ward and how he was helped to the world lightweight championship by half-brother Dicky Eklund. Eklund once decked Sugar Ray Leonard and went the distance against the boxing legend before forfeiting his career to drugs and crime,” Variety reports. But who cares about the plot? Russell and Bale on the same set! Alert TMZ!

Steven Soderbergh’s adaptation of Moneyball is coming together. Steve Zaillian has rewritten the screenplay and Demetri Martin has been cast as Paul DePodesta, the Robin to Billy Beane’s Batman in the Oakland A’s front office. (Brad Pitt has already been cast as Beane.) “Martin, a rising actor and comedian, headlines Comedy Central's Important Things With Demetri Martin, which sees him wearing actor, writer, composer and executive producer hats. Last year, he scored a role in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, an ensemble drama starring Liev Schreiber, Emile Hirsch and Jeffrey Dean Morgan,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Columbia Pictures is moving quickly on the follow-up to Angels and Demons. “Author Dan Brown has announced that his next installment in the Da Vinci Code series will be The Lost Symbol, which Doubleday will publish in the U.S. and Canada on Sept. 15…Sony has the rights to the Robert Langdon character, which gives the studio the right to negotiate a deal for the new title. The studio will be bullish,” Variety assures.

Related:
Christian Bale Goes Apeshit
Soderbergh Plays Moneyball

Precursors: Next (2007)

Nick Schager — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Nicolas Cage learns that a piece of paper buried for years in a time capsule holds clues to impending catastrophes in this Friday’s Knowing, but it’s not the first time the Academy Award-winning thespian has had insight into forthcoming events. Just two years ago, Cage headlined Next, a loopy sci-fi saga in which his Cris can see two minutes into the future, a superpower that the government (here in the form of an out-of-place Julianne Moore) seeks to utilize in their efforts to locate a nuclear device hidden somewhere in downtown L.A. It didn’t take great prescience to see that this Lee Tamahori-helmed saga wouldn’t resuscitate Cage’s reputation as an overacting ham, as one look at his Da Vinci Code-long hair in the trailer made clear the film’s general lack of quality control. Yet anyone interested in an unpretentious B-movie could do far worse than this genre flick, despite the fact that the CG effects are so subpar they suggest that Paramount tightened the purse strings after watching dailies of Cage and love interest Jessica Biel attempt to generate (non-existent) romantic chemistry. Tamahori is reasonably adept at orchestrating action and his set pieces, especially one of Cris evading giant logs as he races down a hillside, are equal parts cheesy and thrilling. Cage, meanwhile, is his typically mannered, overwrought self whether in tense or quiet moments, which is another way of saying he’s consistently awesome-bad.

Trailer Review: Angels and Demons

Paul Clark — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

The key to the success of Dan Brown’s novels is less the quality of the writing than the enduring fascination people have with ancient, secretive institutions, which gives his narratives a page-turning pulpy energy that causes many to overlook any deficiencies in his writing. Unfortunately, what made the Da Vinci Code movie such a chore to sit through was the portentous storytelling and leaden filmmaking from Ron Howard, which drained the story of any charge it might have had (it’s one reason I prefer the National Treasure movies, which are just as silly but at least know that they are). But in Hollywood, money talks, and the huge haul taken in by Da Vinci gave the studios the mistaken impression that people wanted more of the same, and it looks like Angels and Demons picks up where its predecessor left off, with Tom Hanks, his ridiculous haircut, some Catholic conspiracy fun, and a female star to serve primarily as windowdressing- with all the dialogue in the trailer, couldn’t they have Ayalet Zurer do anything besides look worried? Everything is in place for a big summer blockbuster- everything, that is, but the fun. And aren’t movies like this supposed to be fun?

Unwatchable #70: “Epic Movie”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

How could you do this to me, IMDb Bottom 100 list? After all we’ve been through together, how could you make me sit through two Friedberg-Seltzer spoof movies in a single week? It was only last Friday that I took on #72 Meet the Spartans, and now you present me with the diarrhea duo’s previous exercise in pop culture regurgitation, Epic Movie. Look, I was patient and understanding when you made me watch two Kickboxer sequels. At least you gave me a few weeks to recover between them. But now you’ve crossed a line, IMDb Bottom 100 list. We’ll continue to do business together, but we’re no longer speaking.

The only good news is that, much like Spartans, Epic Movie barely crosses the 60 minute mark before the extended credits, complete with dance sequences and hee-larious outtakes, begin. Also, the word apparently had yet to reach the top Hollywood agencies that they would serve their clients best by destroying all query letters from Friedberg-Seltzer Industries; there are actual recognizable faces on display here in addition to the usual sort-of-look-and-sound-alikes. Kal Penn, Jennifer Coolidge, David Carradine, Crispin Glover (!) and perhaps most dishearteningly, Fred Willard, all show up and do their best to survive with their dignity intact.

The best I can say about Epic Movie is that it’s not quite as slapdash as Meet the Spartans. (I’ll dismiss the fact that it’s actually ranked higher on the list as a statistical quirk.) There’s a sort of plot, at least for a while, involving four orphans, each of whom secures a golden ticket entitling them to a tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. (Wonka is played by Glover, doing a twitchy but uninspired take on Johnny Depp’s version.) Wonka takes the orphans prisoner in order to use their organs as the secret ingredient in his candy, but they escape through the wardrobe into Gnarnia. (The ‘G’ is what makes it a parody, right up there with those Cracked issues of the mid-70s featuring “The Fonze.”) There they battle The White Bitch (Coolidge), enlist the aid of Captain Jack Swallows, and get Punk’d by an Ashton Kutcher-alike in a trucker hat.

There are fleeting indications in Epic Movie that Friedberg and Seltzer have some dim awareness that making a pop culture joke involves putting some sort of twist on that which is familiar. For instance, turning the Mutant Academy into a high school where the X-Men are the cool kids is an amusing notion. Turning the Da Vinci Code phrase “So dark the con of man” into “So lame the hair of Tom” as a poke at the follicular follies of Tom Hanks in that particular movie – that’s moderately chuckle-worthy. Having the characters break into hip-hop musical numbers every ten minutes, however, is not funny. It’s not funny the first time, it’s not funny the fourth time, and it only calls attention to the fact that you’re desperate to pump up the running time.

There are indications that the game is up for our friends Iceberg and Salsa. (See what I did there? I spoofed ‘em! I spoofed ‘em good!) Their latest atrocity Disaster Movie did not approach the box office success of its predecessors, and it became the first movie ever to score a perfect 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Now that’s funny.

Previously on Unwatchable:
71. Gigli
72. Meet the Spartans
73. Fascination
74. You Got Serve d
75. The Last Sign

Cannes 2008: Late-Breaking News!

Paul Clark — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:19:00 GMT

One week ago today, the Cannes Film Festival powers that be unveiled this year's selection of films in Competition. But while there was plenty on that list to get excited about, it seems they weren't finished, as today they announced three more selections in the official Competition lineup.

True to form, one of the latecomers was a French entry, and it proved to be a pretty interesting choice: Entre les murs, the latest film by celebrated filmmaker Laurent Cantet, whose previous works included the 2000 film Time Out. Another American film was added today as well- Two Lovers, the latest from We Own the Night's James Gray, a Cannes favorite. Two Lovers, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow, is said to be a romance, making it something of a change of pace for Gray, who has to date specialized in crime stories.

But the big news today was the announcement of this year's opening-night film, Fernando Meirelles' Blindness. The film, which stars Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, will screen in competition, with its pedigree the hope is that it improves on the dicey precedent set by recent Cannes openers such as Fanfan la Tulipe and The Da Vinci Code.

Added out of competition was the opener of the festival's Un Certain Regard sidebar, Hunger, directed by Steve McQueen (no, not that one). Finally, the closing film of the festival was officially announced as being Barry Levinson's What Just Happened?. Sadly, this star-studded film (the cast includes Robert DeNiro, Bruce Willis, and Robin Wright Penn) is a Hollywood satire, not a big-screen adaptation of the long-forgotten sitcom Wha'Happened?. So all you Mike LaFontaine fans in the audience will be sorely disappointed.

But wait, there's more! Two more names were added to the Official Competition Jury (also announced last week), which brings the jury up to nine members. The additions were French actress Jeanne Balibar (who worked with fellow jury member Sergio Castellitto in Va Savoir)...

... and Iranian writer/director Marjane Satrapi, who directed last year's Jury Prize-winner Persepolis and collaborated with jury prez Sean Penn on the English-language version of the film.

The Cannes Film Festival will be held from May 14 through the 25th.

Strike 2: Electric Boogaloo

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Hollywood is always up for a fast-tracked sequel, but this is ridiculous. The dust has barely settled from the WGA strike, but that won’t stop the Screen Actors Guild from hitting the picket lines on June 30 if a new agreement can’t be reached by then. Producers are "cautiously optimistic" that the walkout won’t happen, but what tragedies might be in store for you, the movie fan, if it does?

Already Steven Spielberg has put the brakes on The Trial of the Chicago 7, which was set for an April start date. According to Variety, Spielberg will instead polish the script with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin while waiting to see if the actors’ strike develops. Other high-profile pictures are going ahead with their shooting schedules and making contingency plans should they suddenly find themselves without a cast. Terminator Salvation is proceeding under the following arrangement: "in the event of a strike, the paychecks stop, but nobody will be force majeured and everyone will get a plane ticket home from the Albuquerque set." (Force majeure is contractual gobbledegook for a clause that releases the studio from obligation in the case of natural disasters, Acts of God and, of course, strikes.)

The Da Vinci Code sequel Angels and Demons is set to roll cameras on June 5. "Director Ron Howard will spend three weeks shooting all of the film's exterior scenes. The rest of the film will be shot on Sony soundstages, where sets will wait, if necessary, until an actor's strike is over. That allowed Sony to somewhat contain the costs to halt and re-start the picture."

Michael Bay’s Transformers sequel is on the fast track, but have no fear that the script will suffer; Bay has hired three writers to handle all the plot complexity and character development such an enterprise entails. "They did a detailed outline before the writer's strike, and now they are in Michael Bay jail, holed up in a hotel and working feverishly," Bay said. "We're paying for a beautiful suite and they are getting a lot of work done. Hiring three writers was unusual, but it has been a godsend in getting us to where we need to be. Somehow you find a way to get it done."

From the picket lines to Michael Bay jail. Ah, the writer’s life.

Morning Deal Report: Bruce Willis to Play Robot

Peter Smith — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Well, the unthinkable has happened. The Writer's Guild strike has pushed back the start of production on the Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons and Oliver Stone's Vietnam drama Pinkville.

Bruce Willis will star in The Surrogates, a sci-fi thriller directed by Jonathan Mostow, about a future where people stay indoors all the time and only venture out to interact in the form of robot doppelgangers better-looking than they are. That sounds almost metaphorical.

Gus Van Sant's Harvey Milk biopic, Milk, has beaten Bryan Singer's Harvey Milk biopic, The Mayor of Castro Street, to the punch.

— Peter Smith

Morning Deal Report: Scott's Stones

Peter Smith — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Ridley Scott will direct Stones, a big-budget thriller with a new-agey, Da Vinci Code-y premise — suffice to say that the stones in question make up a kind of henge, if you will.

Breathe a sigh of relief, everybody: Transformers 2 should be unaffected by the writers' strike unless the strike lasts for several months. (Balance returns to my personal universe.)

On the other hand, Brian De Palma's Untouchables sequel may be in a bit of trouble. Well, you win some, you lose some.

Michael Paul Stevenson, the star of the legendary Troll 2, has made a documentary about its cult following called Best Worst Movie. Awesome.

— Peter Smith

STEE-RIKE!

Peter Smith — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:00:00 GMT

With a potential strike by the Writer’s Guild of America only days away, studios are scrambling to finish up their existing projects before they have to resort to desperate measures. As is often the case, a pro-labor standpoint isn’t easy to find in press coverage of the strike, and in the grand tradition of writers getting the shaft in Hollywood, far too many stories resort to old jokes ("TV shows have writers?"). Still, with the Da Vinci Code sequel being the first potential casualty of the strike, and NBC thinking about airing the original British version of The Office as a replacement program, it’s hard not to think of the strike as a possible blessing in disguise. . . — Leonard Pierce

Morning Deal Report: Angels & Demons Fasttracked

Peter Smith — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:00:00 GMT

Ron Howard rushes through a dark corridor, clutching his side. He seeks a final script for the Da Vinci Code sequel adaptation — but will he find it before the Writers' Guild strike?! OH THE SUSPENSE!

Michael Mann will direct Robert De Niro in the mob story Frankie Machine. Scorsese was looking at the script too, but bowed out.

Guy Ritchie is remaking The Dirty Dozen.

— Peter Smith