Video of the Day 2: Donut by Gary Oldman
4/16/2007 5:30:00 PM
Apparently Nokia enlisted their spokesman Gary Oldman to make a short movie using his N Series phone. Apparently this is what he made.
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Forgotten Films: THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (dir. William Peter Blatty, 1980)
4/16/2007 4:45:00 PM
William Peter Blatty is best known in Hollywood as a collaborator of Blake Edwards and the author of The Exorcist; if he is known as a director at all, it's for the disastrous third installment of that series. Very few know that ten years before The Exorcist III: Legion, he wrote and directed one of the most original, audacious and fascinating films of its day, a movie that deserves a far greater audience than it's ever received, even after a long-overdue DVD release in 2002. The Ninth Configuration had a curious journey to the screen; it was originally an early novel of his entitled Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane. Blatty felt the book was the most important story he had to tell, but that the first version was too raw and unformed; he rewrote it in 1978 as The Ninth Configuration and sunk a considerable amount of the money he made off The Exorcist into making a filmed version immediately afterward.
The Ninth Configuration didn't make much of a stir at the time of its release. It inexplicably won a Golden Globe for best screenplay, but made no impact at the Oscars and was a flop at the box office. Audiences and critics seemed to alternate between finding its serious side too gloomy and heavy, and finding its humorous aspects too surreal and misplaced. But the video release received a great deal of word-of-mouth recommendations, and throughout the late 1980s, it developed a substantial cult following that wasn't fully rewarded until the DVD was released, over 20 years after the film was completed. By that time, many of its cast members had gone on to bigger and better things, and it's hard to imagine why more people didn't catch on to the astounding repertoire of acting talent on display, if nothing else.
The plot of The Ninth Configuration is deceptively simple, and somewhat reminiscent in its humor of Heller's Catch-22 and in its drama of Hitchcock's classic Spellbound. In an eerie gothic mansion in the Pacific Northwest, the U.S. military runs an experimental psychological rehabilitation program for decorated Vietnam veterans who have gone insane in particularly flamboyant and unusual ways. Unable to determine whether many of the men are genuinely mad or simply goldbricking, the men who run the program send in a new director, Colonel Kane (Stacy Keach), to run the asylum. As time passes, a number of the inmates — most especially Capt. Billy Cutshaw, an astronaut who aborted a moon mission just prior to launch — begin to suspect that Kane is madder than any of the men he is attempting to cure.
The film begins on a strangely elegiac note, with Cutshaw gazing out a window to the strains of a country tune, before taking a truly creepy turn as he dreams of a moon the size of the sun rising over his launching pad, blotting out the horizon. In the scenes following Col. Kane's arrival, the movie seems as if it will develop into a sort of demented psychological comedy, with many of the inmates delivering hilarious, endlessly quotable dialogue that showcases their particular neuroses. The late Jason Miller is phenomenal as Lt. Reno, a Medal of Honor winner who's attempting to put on an all-canine version of Hamlet; George DiCenzo plays the seething schizophrenic Capt. Fairbanks, who tries to walk through walls; and Blatty himself plays an inmate who poses as the resident MD, much to the chagrin of Ed Flanders as the actual camp doctor. There are constant and unexpected laughs — albeit nervous ones, and sometimes, as when we see examples of the inmates' terrifying artwork, with an edge of horror — in the early goings of The Ninth Configuration.
Soon enough, though, it veers in an entirely unexpected direction: a blend of deep and dark psychological study and tortured theological speculation. Blatty has stated that he intended The Ninth Configuration to be the true sequel to The Exorcist, and Linda Blair's menacing line to the astronaut — "You're gonna die up there!" — is echoed in Billy Cutshaw's mortal terror of dying alone in space. His unspeakable terror at the notion of perishing so far away from home, and truly alone if there is no God, forms the movie's central conflict, as the deeply conflicted Kane (who, indeed, is not who he appears to be) echoes the guilty-Catholic themes Blatty inherited from Graham Greene and tries to convince the frightened atheist Cutshaw that God is real and redemption is possible.
But just as the movie progresses and develops, it never fully loses any of the elements that work together to make it such an amazingly rewarding piece of work. Blatty is a much better director than his other work might indicate; he's usually quite competent behind the camera, and his screenplay is watertight, blooming into a dark exploration of the need to believe and a strange, bloody theodicy while never losing its crazed sense of humor. While it's overlong, marred by long stretches of silence that seem more meaningful than they are, and probably a bit less profound than it wants to be, it's still remarkably funny, directed with a sure hand, moody, gripping, complex, stark, and a lot more profound than it has any reason to be. The VHS version was released with a confusing ending that made Kane's ultimate course of action (which, by the way, comes after an absolutely incredible barroom brawl, as if Blatty wanted to prove that, as well as all the other eclectic accomplishments of the film, he could also stick in one of the greatest fight scenes ever just as a lark) difficult to comprehend, but the DVD release includes Blatty's original cut, which makes it sensible, inevitable, and deeply affecting.
One of the most curious aspects of The Ninth Configuration is that very few of its lead actors were Blatty's original choices for the roles. Stacy Keach, who has never been better (the very first scene where it becomes obvious how unhinged he really is stands as a shocking masterpiece of controlled fury), was a last-minute replacement for Nicol Williamson, and the always-excellent Scott Wilson, in the first role in which I ever saw him, stood in for Michael Moriarty. Both replacements seem far superior; it's hard to imagine anyone doing a better job in the diametrically opposed roles than the men who played them. Jason Miller shows an adept comic touch, and Ed Flanders is revelatory, displaying a great deal of cynical wit early on before it's revealed that his may be the most tragic character of all. The smaller parts are also extremely well-cast, with a fine turn by cult fave Tom Atkins as a Marine guardsman, and a laconic Joe Spinell delivering some of the movie's most scene-stealing lines as Miller's assistant. Neville Brand is outstanding as the long-suffering drill sergeant, determined to bring discipline to the "slimy snakes" he sees as no-good college punks having a ball at the military's expense; ten years later, this part would have gone to Lee Ermey, but Brand's Major Groper is one of the movie's most memorable creations.
 | | William Peter Blatty |
The DVD of The Ninth Configuration includes a brief making-of documentary and an oft-enlightening commentary track by William Peter Blatty. But the main reason to recommend it is that it's the best way to enjoy a truly unique movie, a little-seen film that, once seen, stays with you forever, a movie that, like the asylum it portrays, contains so many eclectic and disparate elements that there's no way they should work together. But, like the random configuration of molecules that somehow form life (and which gives the movie its title), they do.
— Leonard Pierce
Previous Forgotten Films Columns:
- April 2, 2007 -- PRIVILEGE (dir. Peter Watkins, 1967)
- January 16, 2007 -- GONE TO EARTH (dir. Michael Powell, 1950)
- December 26, 2006 -- SHOCKPROOF (dir. Douglas Sirk, 1949)
- December 11, 2006 -- THE DION BROTHERS (aka The Gravy Train) (dir. Jack Starrett, 1974)
- November 28, 2006 -- RACHEL, RACHEL (dir. Paul Newman, 1968)
- November 15, 2006 -- LEO THE LAST (dir. John Boorman, 1970)
- October 30, 2006 -- 7 WOMEN (dir. John Ford, 1966)
- October 16, 2006 -- REIGN OF TERROR (aka The Black Book) (dir. Anthony Mann, 1949)
- October 3, 2006 -- MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON (dir. Bob Rafelson, 1989)
- August 18, 2006 -- LUNA (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci, 1979)
- August 28, 2006 -- OUR MOTHER’S HOUSE (dir. Jack Clayton, 1967)
- August 14, 2006 -- THE CHOCOLATE WAR (dir. Keith Gordon, 1988)
- July 31, 2006 -- THE STRANGER (dir. Luchino Visconti, 1967)
- July 17, 2006 -- WALKER (dir. Alex Cox, 1987)
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They Made a Sequel to What???
4/16/2007 4:00:00 PM
Woody Allen once commented that show business is still a business, and that it’s the second word that is of primary importance. So when one makes a successful film, a producer could ask for something similar, a follow up or a sequel. Sometimes this is to be expected, or even designed from the inception of the first film, as with the James Bond series. There have been plenty of stories about an Easy Rider sequel, and a lot of studio money was poured into Godfather Part III by Paramount before Coppola decided to revisit it. (Check out this 1979 script by Dean Reisner.)
But it’s another thing to expect a sequel for a film that clearly doesn't need one. A couple of weeks ago, Screengrab had an appreciation of Belle De Jour, the Luis Bunel film starring Catherine Deneuve. Well, veteran Portugese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira has come up with a sequel, Belle Toujours, starring all the original cast except one — Catherine Denevue, who has now been replaced by Bulle Ogier, once a staple of Jacques Rivette’s films. Let’s not write this attempt off as a simple cash-in, however; Manoel has been working for decades in the industry (he was 97 when he directed this), but it’s certainly an interesting way to continue a story that was considered complete in the first film.
— Faisal Qureshi
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The Other Peterson Case
4/16/2007 3:15:00 PM
On Sunday night, April 15, the Lifetime channel broadcast The Staircase Murders , a docu-drama about a Jeffrey MacDonald-Fatal Vision-style murder case, this one set in Durham, North Carolina. Treat Williams played Michael Peterson, a prominent Durham resident, a Vietnam vet, a novelist, a local newspaper columnist, a political activist who ran for mayor, and the apparently happily married spouse of the former Kathleen Hunt Atwater, an executive at Nortel, the telecommunications firm. He was a pipe-smoking yet manly intellectual, who by all accounts deeply loved his wife. But on the night of December 9th, 2001, Kathleen was found dead at the bottom of the staircase in their palatial Durham estate.
Suspicion almost instantly fell on the shoulders of Peterson, who had, among other things, pissed off the local establishment with his newspaper columns in the Durham Herald. Within three weeks of the death, French documentarian Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, who won an Oscar for his film Murder on a Sunday Morning , was on the case, acquiring complete access to the defense half of the case. Three years later, after the court case, his six-hour documentary aired on the Sundance Channel.
It is as fascinating a documentary as you are likely to see. For one thing, every time you turn around, there is yet another shocking revelation about Peterson or the case. It's the Capturing the Friedmans of Court TV tales, and at any given moment you don't know what to think. With each revelation — about Peterson's sexuality, or about a similar case 18 years earlier in which he was, once again, the last person to see alive a woman who ended up at the bottom of a staircase — the tale springs new surprises on you. If you have a jones for another miscarriage of justice tale like Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, this could be it.
But like a twist right out of the movie, it turns out that the Peterson affair is a lot more complicated than even Lestrade presents it. Anyone fascinated by the case may stumble upon, as I did, Matt Cale's review at his website Ruthless Reviews. His account of the shock he felt upon looking up the real facts, as found at sites such as Behind the Staircase, suggests that Lestrade distorted the case in order to promulgate his thesis, which is that if Peterson hadn't been "bisexual," the town of Durham and its potential jurors would not have turned against him despite what appears in the doc to be a lame case by the prosecution. Cale discovered that a great deal of incriminating forensic evidence had been left out of the film, along with potential motivations. "Never before had I found a film nearly perfect one moment," writes Cale, "only to declare it thoroughly bogus the next. It’s a masterpiece alright, though of calculated bullshit, rather than artistry." Lestrade, it turns out, may rush to judgment with all the speed of his namesake, the incompetent cop who befouled Sherlock Holmes's cases.
Now comes the Lifetime movie (which, given the physical resemblances, should have starred John C. McGinley), which incorporates the filmmakers into the narrative (the case was already fictionalized in the first episode of the short-lived Fox series Justice). I haven't managed to see this TV movie, but having become a Peterson case obsessive in the last 24 hours, I will. Until then, I must console myself with the Wikipedia article and its links, and eventually, the two or three books on the crime.
— DK Holm
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The View from Across the Pond: Tackling Danny Boyle’s Sunshine
4/16/2007 2:30:00 PM
It's a surprise to discover that we in the UK got a first look at Danny Boyle's new movie Sunshine way before it hits US shores in September. Scripted by Boyle's new writing collaborator Alex Garland, we follow the crew of the spaceship, Icarus II, as it journeys to a dying Sun, to deliver a nuclear payload that will hopefully kick start the nuclear fusion process. (Meanwhile on Earth, I presume anyone with a slightly environmental agenda is being lynched, carbon dioxide is being pumped out at an increased rate, and George W. Bush has written an autobiography entitled I Told You Going Green Sucked).
Before its release, I had to listen to radio traffic claiming Sunshine was the best British film in a decade of very bad releases. Far be it for me to point out to these cretinous pundits that the millennium has so far brought us 28 Days Later, 24 Hour Party People, The Constant Gardener and more. Whenever a British film of some promise emerges, Radio DJs seem to vomit out some opinion about this being the BEST BRITISH FILM EVER, presumably because a very pretty PR girl with figure hugging jeans came in and gave them a few promotional T-Shirts and the promise of a sexual liaison that will never ever happen (Yes, I am talking about you, Virgin Radio).
(I should, at this point, admit to having a potential conflict of interest, as during 2000-2001, one of the film’s production companies, DNA Films, supported a script I was writing, which they eventually passed on.)
Is Sunshine really that good? I would advise that you watch it. The film has a pretty understated sense of exposition at first: a massive disaster is currently inflicting mankind, but we don't see loads of shots of the Sahara being a snow-covered wasteland, or anything like that. We also don't get a large tour of the spaceship, with an explanation of how certain areas are important to the mission. When we see a garden being grown in the spaceship, the audience is assumed to understand why it’s the case.
It's enjoyable, but, like so many recent films, at the end it kind of falls apart. What appears to be an interstellar Wages of Fear suddenly becomes a slasher movie before focusing back on what’s really important. It just seems a bit of a downer after acres of verbiage on the importance of the mission that a guy decides he's going to be doing some interstellar butchery.
The cast is uniformly quite good, with some of them being given very brief screen time — but some of the characters are so poorly introduced that it just becomes confusing when one minor actor with barely any lines suddenly becomes important a third of the way through the flick. (It’s never good when the audience starts asking, “Who the fuck is that?”) I've got a suspicion that a lot of character building footage was left on the cutting room floor, and in some case, it wouldn't have hurt to put some of it back in. Chris Evans appears at the start with a month-old beard and a mop of hair, and then mid-way through he's suddenly got a skinhead. (Audience reaction repeated: "Who the fuck is that?")
A lot of comments have been made about the filmmakers paying visual homage to 2001, Solaris and other notable science-fiction films, and it does look superb. I would go further and say the film’s two major influences are Event Horizon and The Black Hole, proving that if you want to remake a film, make sure it’s a bad one which badly used good ideas. Unfortunately Sunshine doesn't manage to hold it all the way through, though it does redeem itself in the final few minutes with a gloriously simple visual idea. It’s certainly not a write-off and should be congratulated for its ambition — even if, at the climax, it fails to get there.
— Faisal Qureshi
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Au Revoir, Les Video Clerks
4/16/2007 1:45:00 PM
The New York Observer has a longish article this week by Christine Smallwood entitled “But Where Will the Video Clerks Go?” Basically, her point is that, as video stores close in New York (and across the country), we’re also having to goodbye to the beloved video store clerk, the young dude or gal behind the counter who can offer movie recommendations at the drop of a hat, with the extra condescension free of charge. The article eventually becomes more about the difficulties today’s 20-something slacker culture is facing, as the cost of living becomes more expensive in places like New York:
”[I]t’s getting harder for New York’s slacker tastemakers to get by. Ten years ago, young musicians and aspiring novelists could scrape by — like the Ugly Video Store Guy in Walking and Talking or Parker Posey in Party Girl — but today it takes two or even three jobs to make ends meet. Rent party? Forget it. Who has enough friends to pay the rent? As stores like TLA fall victim to Netflix, BitTorrent and rent increases of their own, clerk jobs don’t just pay crap: They pay crap, and they’re harder to find. Even a behemoth like Blockbuster can’t survive to employ the castaways from indie shipwrecks — stores on Third Avenue in Manhattan and in Carroll Gardens and Greenpoint in Brooklyn have all closed.”
While Smallwood’s financial lament for this small corner of slacker culture is well taken, I’d say that the greater loss will be cultural. For starters, working at a video store was a great way for budding filmmakers to educate themselves. (It was where Quentin Tarantino famously honed his cinematic knowledge.) It was also a place for consumers to learn more about film. Indeed, the storied, and much-mocked condescension of the video store clerk, I’d say, played an important part in taste-making: he (or she, though usually he) did not play down to the viewer’s tastes. Netflix might have a great recommendation service; but their service basically consists of telling you what other movies are like the ones you already like. That’s great, too, but I think that there’s something to be said for the snot-nosed kid behind the counter who tells you that you should forget about watching that Bruce Willis movie and check out The Killer instead. I suppose all of this, and more, is available on the Internet nowadays, hidden behind an increasingly apocalyptic signal-to-noise ratio. But it’s hard not to feel like something important is being lost. It’s also hard not to feel like it’s going to be weird when, a generation from now, we’re going to have to explain to our kids what a video store clerk was, and why they appear in so many damned movies.
(Hat tip: Movie City News.)
— Bilge Ebiri
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Video of the Day 1: Will Ferrell in “The Landlord”
4/16/2007 1:00:00 PM
This one’s making the rounds now. A one-joke premise, sure, but it’s a lot funnier than it should be, mainly because the kid is pretty good, and Ferrell, as usual, sells the concept pretty well.
I think the video originated at this site, btw. But when I embed that clip it begins playing automatically, and that's, like, really annoying, man.
— Bilge Ebiri
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Le Sex Shop Just Ain’t What It Used To Be
4/16/2007 12:15:00 PM
The changes in viewing habits that have been affecting the film industry in recent years are affecting the bottom lines of more than just studios and regular video stores. Indeed, they’re forcing Europe’s sex shops to go upmarket and legit, in search of new customers and products.
”Europe's biggest chain of sex shops is turning its back on sleazy red light districts by moving uptown and up market in search of new customers. Beate Uhse, which dominates Europe's erotica market, is establishing a range of city centre boutiques that aim to attract a wider clientele.
"’The traditional sex shops will not survive as they are,’ said Otto Christian Lindemann, the German group's director. Beate Uhse's flagship products, porn films and special film screenings, are no longer making money for the company. These days, clients prefer to surf the Internet where they can often download films for free. As a result, DVD prices have tumbled.”
— Bilge Ebiri
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Notice Anything Odd About The Martian Child?
4/16/2007 11:30:00 AM
A few weeks ago, the first trailer of Menno Meyjes’s new film, The Martian Child, was released. Adapted from a biographical novel by Science Fiction writer, David Gerrold, it’s the story of John Cusack as he adopts a child who believes himself to be a Martian.
If you check the trailer, you’ll see that John Cusack is single and that Amanda Peet seems to be his long-term girlfriend. Nice trailer with heart warming friendly stuff, obligatory piano music and a heartwarming message about... well you know, being yourself.
Except in David Gerrold's novel, the lead character, like the author, is a single gay man. Gerrold himself has said in the past that he's happy to take the money and let the film company do with the property what they will. Given the imminent release of the film, Gerrold has now posted a more detailed explanation on why he let them change his lead character’s sexuality from gay to straight.
Interestingly, Gerrold has been here before, when he quit Star Trek: The Next Generation over the producers’ refusal to shoot a script of his, which focused briefly on a supporting character’s gay relationship.
— Faisal Qureshi
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Another Double Feature: Two Grindhouse Books
4/16/2007 11:00:00 AM
Does anyone really care about Grindhouse anymore? Well, Weinstein Books thought we still would, for it went to the trouble of publishing two Grindhouse-related volumes. Now they arrive in the stores just as the juice has run out of the enterprise.
Grindhouse: The Sleaze-filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature (Weinstein Books, 256 pages, $29.95, ISBN-13: 978-1 602 86014 8) is credited to Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, but is really written, as a careful reading of the title page makes clear, by Kurt Volk, a visual effects coordinator with Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios. If you love the film, the book is a must have. It is filled with illustrations mostly unavailable elsewhere, including the original Corman double bill poster that inspired the whole thing.
The book contains two introductions, credited to Tarantino and Rodriguez in order, and an interview with the duo. In the opening Q&A, Tarantino gives one of the clearer definitions of exploitation. "Part of the reason a movie was called an exploitation move was because it couldn't afford a Barbra Streisand or Paul Newman to sell it. So they had to have exploitable elements, like sex, action, violence, horror, blood. So the posters were these really graphically drawn, very exciting images of mayhem."
After that, there is the full script to Planet Terror followed by what is in essence the print version of DVD supplements about the film: previsualization, production design, how the monsters were created, the making of Cherry Darling's gatling leg, stunts and FX, props, wardrobe, vehicles, the damaged films effects (apparently to be removed from at least one of the many planned DVDs), and the film's extensive credits. The shorter section on Death Proof launches with another interview with the pair, and chapters on production design, costumes, and the cars, their creation and crashings.
The book wraps up with smaller sections devoted to Machete and Thanksgiving, including the scripts, the one for Thanksgiving slightly different from the finished product. The other two trailers were presumably not done by the time the book was under preparation.
As with the movie itself, one of the best parts of the book is the section on the trailers. Machete even has a two-page spread of color lobby cards. And it may come as a surprise to you that the all-American street in Thanksgiving that poses as a parade route in Plymouth, Mass., is really in Kladno, Czech Republic. Though short, the section on Thanksgiving tells you practically everything you want to know about the film — that the biker running through the parade is KNB FX guy Mike McCarty, that the guy with Michael Biehn is Hostel II's production accountant, Mark Bakunas, what the guy is doing to the turkey head in the final shot — all except the identity of the trailer's bassoon-voiced narrator.
[An interesting avenue of exploration for future scholars of the film might be its "doubleness." Since it was originally intended to be a double bill, it's possible that both Rodriguez and Tarantino agreed to insert as many doubles into each of their films as possible. Tarantino's film is, in a sense, a whole double bill on its own, telling two wholly different but loosely aligned tales. In Rodriguez's film, everything happens twice; all the locations are visited at least twice; each person has a mirror image; and there is a pair of twins in the story. Plus, the plot revolves around a person who loses part of her physical symmetry by having one of her legs eaten off. ]
Presumably, Tarantino really did write Death Proof: A Screenplay (Weinstein Books, 129 pages, $13.95, ISBN-13: 978-1 602 86009 4), which consists of the screenplay with an intro by Elvis Mitchell, who, by Mitchell's own testimony, has become something of an unpaid advisor to the director. Dedicated to Charles B. Griffith, it appears to be the same script that has been available on the internet for the past month or so, which is 127 pages long. Being able to read it in the comfort of one's bed or bath, one finds that the script contains more dialogue among all the girls than the finished film. I don't know if it is any more illuminating, but it is clear from just reading it that Rosario Dawson is a brilliant natural interpreter of Tarantino's dialogue, the Kenneth Branagh to his Shakespeare.
The script sets the mind to further contemplation of a film which one may have already reviewed and been done with. For example, there is no signature "trunk shot," found in all of Tarantino's previous films — and this is a whole movie about cars. And it is also clear from the last few pages of the script that this is Tarantino's most "edited" movie (and don't get me wrong; Sally Menke is a brilliant editor, and Tarantino has been wise to hold onto her through every single one of his features). The climactic chase scene takes up about nine-and-a-half pages in the script, but 15 minutes of the movie. In the script the chase scene is skimpily written — just a blueprint really, with some details changed.
Some posters at Mobius have suggested that Tarantino's narrative time shifting tricks extend to Death Proof being in counter-chronological order. In other words, they claim, the Zoé Bell half happens first, and the Ferlito section happens next. The argument for this is that Stuntman Mike doesn't seem to want to kill the girls in the Dawson section, but does in the Ferlito section, perhaps "turned" into a serial killer by his experience at the hands of the Dawson gang in the second half. Another argument is that he lacks his scar in the second section. There are a number of arguments against this. First off, Stuntman Mike does have his scar in the second half. Also, the script states clearly that the events of the second half occur "14 Months Later," and the final text of the screenplay announce that the film freeze frames at the moment of Mike's death. Finally, and more theoretically, the thrust of the narrative is to bring together Stuntman Mike and Zoé Bell in a death match, the film's first section being a Psycho-esque tributary into the main narrative stream.
What I'm finding curious is that there seem to be different versions of the film in distribution. I've seen the movie twice. The first time there was no "title change" from Thunder Bolt to Death Proof at the very start of the film (as there was in the second viewing), and missing from the second viewing was the final cowboy boot death kick of Russell by Dawson. Meanwhile, a friend of mine pointed out that a second viewing was missing a placard saying Intermission. Intentional mistakes, or user error?
— DK Holm
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News of the Weird: Mike Tyson Goes Bollywood
4/16/2007 10:30:00 AM
Bollywood is notorious for tossing in all sorts of weirdness into its films, but this one bears special note: Former heavyweight champion and regular prison fixture Mike Tyson “is set to groove to Indian pop music in a promotional video for Fool and Final, an upcoming Bollywood comedy…The 40-year-old boxer will shoot the promo in India, said N. Chattani, who is in charge of publicity for the movie's producer, Firoze Nadiadwala…Why Tyson? Aside from instant publicity, action hero Sunny Deol stars as a boxer in the film, directed by Ahmed Khan. ‘The movie is a laugh riot, and the filmmakers thought Tyson would be great in the promo,’ Chattani said.”
— Bilge Ebiri
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Morning Report: Moore Stunts, Ed Norton IS The Hulk, Aussies Not As Laid Back As Previously Thought
4/16/2007 10:00:00 AM
- As part of his upcoming documentary Sicko, which takes aim at the US health-care system, Michael Moore apparently took some ailing Ground Zero responders to Cuba, in order to prove that that country’s health-care system was better than America’s. Needless to say, the usual suspects are pissed.
- Edward Norton will star in The Incredible Hulk, the sequel/revamp of the Marvel franchise by director Louis Leterrier. I guess this means that this one won’t be going straight to DVD, as rumored.
- Australia is tightening laws that will help them ban “films that present a pro-terrorism point of view.” Or, at the very least, give them higher ratings.
- See if you agree with the Daily Telegraph’s list of the Top 21 British directors of all time. We’re not really surprised at the exclusion, but it would have been great if they had found a place for The Innocents and Room at the Top director Jack Clayton in there, seeing as how he’s head and shoulders above most of the names on that list.
- Dude, they’re remaking Clash of the Titans. And they just hired Lawrence Kasdan to write it. It’s like 1981 all over again.
- Michael Bay’s next project may be a film adaptation of the videogame Prince of Persia. Sounds about right.
- Inspired by Aqua Teen Hunger Force, MSNBC.com looks at the history of fast food in film.
— Bilge Ebiri
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