Jan 15 2010 'Tekken' Trailer Makes Notion of Fighting Boring
You know how movies based on fighting games, like all the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat movies, are notorious for being embarrassing, nearly unwatchable feats of cinematic disaster that leave your brain feeling like your mouth would feel after eating a platter of chalk? No reason to reassess that view:
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Dec 8 2009 [Genre] Movie Series Goes International
It took some time and a lot of Juno references, but we finally have an internationally-adopted American export worse for health than fast food: there's a Spanish version of the [Genre] Movie series. As you'd expect, it's a full dinner's worth of spoof tapas, including arbitrary references to The Orphanage, [REC], Pan's Labyrinth, Volver, and whatever other Spanish films could be remembered in the half-hour typing session that produced the final script.
Written by Paco Cabezas and Eneko Lizarraga (clearly Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer using what they think are hilariously Spanish-sounding pseudonyms), the film is called, what else, Spanish Movie. And no, I'm not translating that from Spanish Película. They're literally just calling it Spanish Movie. Thanks to Scary, Date, Epic, and Disaster Movie, "movie" is now a loanword that means not "film" but "reference-filled pseudo-comedy."
Here's the trailer. Keep an eye out at 1:30 for Spanish Leslie Nielsen! (It's seriously fucking Leslie Nielsen.)
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Dec 4 2009 I Believe This Film Might Parody Judd Apatow Movies
You know what the problem with Not Another Teen Movie, Epic Movie, Superhero Movie, Disaster Movie, and the films of that ilk is? "That they use reference to current pop culture phenomena as tragically bad pseudo-humor"? What? No. Did you not see when a girl was dressed up like Juno in one or more of those? It was a riot. Don't be stupid. The issue is just that they just aren't specific enough.
The concept of an "Epic Movie" is so broad. How could we get more refined? Hmmm... The Films of Ingmar Bergman Movie? Nah, too esoterically high-brow. Paranormal Activity But Executed By People Impersonating Paranormal Activity and Adding Penis Jokes? Mmmm, probably too specific--though the scene when someone would disrupt the flour on the floor with a fart would be pretty great. The 40 Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It? PERFECT:
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Nov 5 2009 Roland Emmerich Working on 2012: The Television Series
Titled 2013, naturally:
“The plan is that it is 2013 and it’s about what happens after the disaster,” Emmerich told EW while walking the red carpet for the 2012 premiere Tuesday. “It is about the resettling of Earth. That is very, very fascinating. (2012 writer/producer) Harald Kloser and I came up with the idea and we have the luxury of having a producer on the film who is a big TV producer, Mark Gordon. We said to Mark, ‘Why don’t you do a TV show that picks up where the movie leaves off and call it 2013?’ I think it will focus on a group of people who survived but not on the boats … maybe they were on a piece of land that was spared or one that became an island in the process of the crust moving. There are so many possibilities of what they could do and I’d be excited to watch it.”
There are so many possibilities for what they could do in post-disaster-ravaged Earth! The characters could search through rubble; give the millions of mutilated bodies proper burials; futilely forage for nourishment in the scorched, barren landscape; turn to cannibalism, eating former friends and family out of desperation; eventually starve to death; build a hut--the options are limitless! Well, I suppose limited by Earth's delicate ecosystem being utterly destroyed, but otherwise limitless.
Oct 6 2009 '2012' Has Some Great Performances
What happens when you cut out all the effects shots from a five-minute clip of Roland Emmerich's newest disaster film, 2012? You get a sad, shouty minute-and-a-half acting reel composed of John Cusack doing a Conan-driving-his-desk Late Night sketch:
Jul 23 2009 '2012' One-Sheet Guarantees Sinking Landmasses!
Finally, a movie involving a global catastrophe of some nature! I was getting worried I'd have to go back to the first half of the decade, or to NBC's recent television event Meteor, starring Christopher Lloyd and Seinfeld's Jason Alexander, to see fictional disasters happening. But no, there's also this.
'2012' Poster [Yahoo]
Jun 1 2009 Heathcliff, Heathcliff, No One Should, Give Your Rights to Hollywood
Terrorizing neighborhoods since 1973, Heathcliff, the irreverent, obese, striped, orange cat that isn't Garfield, has thus far been notably, fortunately absent from the cartoon-to-CGI-hybrid-disaster genre that has included mockeries of such childhood favorites as Alvin and the Chipmunks, Underdog, and Scooby Doo. But with adaptations of Tom & Jerry and Heathcliff's once-pound-evading-partner Marmaduke in the works, we should have guessed such relief would be short-lived. From Variety:
Irascible orange housecat Heathcliff will be getting a second life on the screen courtesy of a joint venture between family toon studio Magic Lantern Entertainment and rights holder FitzRoy Media.The two companies have pacted to develop a range of properties, from direct-to-DVD toons to a potential live-action theatrical feature, around the flabby tabby, updating the popular comicstrip character for the 21st century.
Created by George Gately in 1973, Heathcliff remains in print today, written and drawn by Gately's nephew, Peter Gallagher.
The sarcastic cat previously starred in two, early-'80s animated skeins; FitzRoy and Magic Lantern are re-evaluating Heathcliff's TV potential, though their hope is to create a live-action/CG hybrid similar to "Alvin and the Chipmunks" or "Garfield: The Movie."
Here's hoping the film takes a cue from the DiC-produced Heathcliff series of the '80s and, half-way through, abruptly switches its focus to the story of a squat, congested cat, his unnaturally-hot-for-a-cat girlfriend, and his gang of absurdly-voiced junkyard miscreants.
May 15 2009 Here Comes a 'Lost in La Mancha' Sequel
If Terry Gilliam's 2000 attempt at filming a Don Quixote movie were a dog, you would have just put it to sleep. Production was riddled with problems--tight budget constraints, constant jets overhead, Biblically disastrous weather, and an actor with a double-herniated disc trying to ride a horse, to name a few--and eventually canceled, resulting in the 2002 documentary Lost in La Mancha, a chronicle of the disaster.
But Gilliam isn't one to let setbacks get to him--he just completed a film in which his lead actor died part-way through shooting, and he bothered releasing The Brothers Grimm on DVD--and Variety reports he's going to give this Quixote thing one more shot:
The director is reviving his passion project "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" nearly a decade after his first attempt was derailed.Gilliam and screenwriter Tony Grisoni, who also wrote the first version, have rewritten and updated the script. The new film will revolve around a filmmaker who is charmed into joining Don Quixote's eternal quest for his ladylove, becoming an unwitting Sancho Panza.
"I'm not so much a filmmaker as someone who gets possessed by an idea and it doesn't leave me until I make the film," Gilliam told Variety. "I commit myself to it so fully."
Gilliam is also in talks with Johnny Depp, who had been set to star in the first ill-fated attempt as a modern-day ad exec who travels back in time and is mistaken for Sancho Panza by Don Quixote. Scheduling concerns are seen as the biggest obstacle to Depp's participation this time.
Already we're having scheduling issues with Johnny Depp? So we have about a month before a rogue scientist claims a meteor is heading straight for wherever Gillian plans to shoot?
I wish the best for you and this project, T.G., but right now I'm going to try to restrain my enthusiasm and just hope for another good but tragic documentary.
May 14 2009 'The Road' Trailer: Apocalyptic Disasters Have Really Messed Up Our Roads
Ready to follow Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, and their fictional son on a post-apocalyptic Homeward Bound: Incredible Journey? Then it's time to watch this new trailer for The Road, John Hillcoat's upcoming film based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy.
If you take one thing away from this, let it be the knowledge that even after a worldwide disaster that leaves few human survivors, hill-jacks will still act pretty much the same way they always have:
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May 5 2009 Nicolas Cage Film Takes Out an Institution
Disaster on the set of The Sorcerer's Apprentice! While shooting a car chase sequence in Times Square yesterday, a stuntman in a Ferrari lost control and crashed into the front of a Sbarro's, injuring two and temporarily shutting down the one place in the city to get a genuine New York slice:
A movie chase scene got too realistic early today when a car jumped a curb during a film shoot and smashed into the entrance of a Times Square restaurant, injuring two people, police and witnesses said.The action scene gone awry unfolded at the Sbarro at 47th Street and Seventh Avenue shortly before 1 a.m.
Street closing notices posted by the police indicated the shoot was for the Nicolas Cage film, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."
(via Digg)
Oh, good, Jerry Bruckheimer and National Treasure-director Jon Turteltaub managed to squeeze a high-speed Ferrari chase into The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Sounds like they might have slightly tweaked the original 1797 Goethe poem. Who would have thought?
Well, regardless, let's hope no one else gets injured during shooting. They still have to shoot the big scene where the apprentice fires a rocket launcher while hanging one-handed off the wing of a Harrier.
Crash video below the cut.
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Feb 12 2009 'Knowing' Trailer: Treat Yourself to More Nic Cage Face
I don't care enough to watch the old ones and check, but I think this is new, international trailer for Knowing. Even if it's not, this is a good chance to re-watch and try to figure out what the big reveal at the end is going to be. We know the series of seemingly-random numbers some girl wrote in 50-year-old time capsule predict the dates of future disasters, but HOW!? And what is Nicolas Cage going to do about it!? I'm guessing he somehow sacrifices himself to make the numbers not add up, thus saving Earth. Then we flash back to 1958 and see the girl scratching out the last date, and we all breathe a sigh of relief, but then she writes a new disaster date that's set for like 2012, and we're like, "Shit, sequel!" Or maybe it's just ghosts or aliens or something.
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Jan 16 2009 'Alien Grey: Zone-X' Exposes Aliens as the Nuisance They Are
There are too many jaw-dropping, laughable things happening in this clip to bother trying to explain them beforehand. Just watch. Even the production company logo is great:
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Dec 12 2008 Nicolas Cage Makes Nicolas Cage Faces in 'Knowing' Trailer, Stills
In Knowing, Nicolas Cage has found a pattern of numbers that predicts every major disaster that has or will happen, and you can really tell he's concerned about this discovery. Just look at the Nicolas Cage expressions in these new production photos. Such intensity. Could this simple door (above) be one of the disasters foretold in the numbers? With such a look of chiseled consternation, you can tell Nicolas Cage isn't going to dismiss the possibility.
Here's a new, acting-filled trailer for the film:
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Dec 8 2008 Christmas Movie Continues Success in Christmas Season
The weekend box office:
1. Four Christmases - $18.2 million. That really is an absurd number of Christmases.
2. Twilight - $13.2 million. After falling to third last week, the film spiked in sales this weekend when a lot of kids happened to have Twilight book reports due today.
3. Bolt - $9.7 million. Bolt is probably one of our best animals named after hardware. Am I right?
4. Australia - $7 million, climbing from fifth place as some husbands decided to take their wives out to pretend they still care.
5. Quantum of Solace - $6.6 million. Ut oh, Punisher, that means you were the only widely-released new film and still didn't crack the top five. What a disaster!
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Nov 13 2008 '2012' Teaser Trailer is a Documentary from the Future
Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow, has made another movie on his favorite subject: some kind of disaster destroying Earth. The trailer suggests doing a "Google search" on "2012" (the trailer's main goal is confusing grandparents with terms they don't understand), so I did that. Results reveal that Sarah Palin is stoking speculation she'll run again in 2012 (that's a real apocalypse, ya know!?), AND THAT THE MAYAN CALENDAR WILL END ITS 13th CYCLE, which many crazies interpret as meaning humans will die, be elevated to a higher level, or "that Biaviian aliens will allow passage aboard their Great Mother Ship." Ancient civilizations and crazy people have never been wrong about anything before, so we should probably just take this movie a fact. However John Cusack survives is how we will survive as a people.
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Nov 10 2008 'Dance Flick' Poster: Wayans Bros. Answer to 'Disaster Movie'
From MTV Movies Blog, here's a grim portent of our bleak, parody-filled future. At least we can find some solace that, unlike some other parody movie posters, at least this one mostly sticks to the movie genre it's supposedly spoofing--even if one of those "dance movies" is a decade-old internet video of a 3D dancing baby. Nothing is off limits for these guys, no matter how irrelevant. I hear Thomas Edison's 1894 film of Native Americans performing a Buffalo Dance is recreated with Amy Winehouse impersonators to great comic effect.
Sep 26 2008 George Clooney Playing 'Lone Ranger'? Why Not
Following yesterday's announcement that Johnny Depp will be playing Tonto in Jerry Bruckheimer's The Lone Ranger, rumor is spreading that George Clooney will be taking the role of the masked hero himself. Of course. Why wouldn't he be? From AICN:
Word as of now is that George Clooney has shown a lot of interest in the role of the Lone Ranger, and the studio's been talking to him about it. Previously it was rumored that Nic Cage was up for the role, but that rumor died a long time ago. Clooney's name has come up quite a number of times since.
There was once a time when news of a Lone Ranger movie would lead to me say something like, "Yikes, let me guess, you get Clooney to play the goofy-but-handsome lead, Johnny Depp as Tonto, and you have Jerry Bruckheimer add some explosions," and everyone would say, "Laugh out loud! You're a great satirist! That is so what Hollywood would do--only they obviously won't really do that because it's too typically "Hollywood" even for them. The only way it would be more ridiculous is with Nic Cage in the lead." But if they're going to actually do that, even to the point of considering making it a Nicolas Cage vehicle, where can I go from there? Suggest Michael Bay direct? Offer that they make it a cross-over with the upcoming disaster/action/awesome-shit take on Moby Dick? Ponder how Bruckheimer somehow beat Judd Apatow into putting Seth Rogen and Kal Penn in the saddles? It's getting really hard to parody Hollywood when they've already drawn such an accurately grotesque caricature of themselves.
Sep 15 2008 'Four Christmases' Trailer is Pukable
In the grand tradition of Meet the Fockers, The In-Laws, Monster-in-Law, et al, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen, and Jon Voight join the ranks of aging celebrities exploited as wacky in-laws in Four Christmases, a movie you'll probably be forced to watch with your family this Christmas. In this grating ensemble comedy, Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn play a couple forced, for reasons not entirely explained, to consecutively visit each of their zany divorced parents over the holidays. Like the presence of the word "disaster" in the title of Disaster Movie, I feel the decision to include an "I'm going to puke" scene in Four Christmases will be a regrettable one that makes the inevitably lackluster reviews almost too easy to write.
Sep 11 2008 Michael Douglas Playing Liberace, Who Apparenly May Have Been Gay!?
Steven Soderbergh has announced plans to direct a Liberace biopiic with Michael Douglas in the starring, glittering-caped role. From Variety:
Steven Soderbergh is in the early stages of developing a biopic about Liberace for Warner Bros., which he will direct.The filmmaker said he has drafted his "Traffic" star Michael Douglas to play the flamboyant pianist.
Soderbergh is in discussions with Matt Damon to play Scott Thorson, who sued Liberace in 1982 for $113 million in palimony, claiming he was the entertainer’s companion for five years. Even though Liberace never wavered from career-long denials that he was gay, Thorson reportedly settled for $95,000 in 1986.
Oh man, how is this going to affect the Nicolas Cage-starring, Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg-written Liberace picture we heard about in '96 '06? At the time I didn't really care about it, but now that I know Seltzer and Friedberg did Meet the Spartans/Disaster Movie/Other Terrible Pseudo-Parody Movies, I really want to see how amazingly offensive that could be. And how will it affect when Bugs Bunny plays him?
Sep 2 2008 'Disaster Movie' Unsuccessful, 'Tropic Thunder' Still Successful
Here's your weekend box office report. Congratulations, society, for not seeing Disaster Movie that much.
1. Tropic Thunder - With Ben Stiller's comedy topping the box office for the third week in a row, I'm almost starting to think of the guy as more than just The Heartbreak Kid. Almost. ($11.5 million)
2. Babylon A.D. - $9.6 million--that's almost $2.5 million for each percentage point its earned on Rotten Tomatoes.
3. The Dark Knight - $8.6 million, bringing the domestic total to over $500 million. The Warner Brothers finally have enough money to invest in themed crime-fighting gadgets to avenge their murdered parents.
4. The House Bunny - Fine, keep seeing this movie, but please, don't buy an actual bunny for the home. They're horrible pets. ($8.3 million.)
5. Traitor - What the hell is Traitor? Oh, right, that Don Cheadle thing. That made $7.8 million.
Weekend Box Office [Box Office Mojo]