By Jason Apuzzo. MTV News is showing a clip today (see above) from The Taqwacores, a film which opens this Friday in New York – and travels to art house theaters nationwide in subsequent weeks. The movie – which was a hit at Sundance – deals with the new Muslim punk scene here in the U.S.
Indiewire is actually showing a much more interesting clip from the film here, although the clip can’t be embedded. Take a look …
Posted on October 20th, 2010 at 2:47pm.
By Jason Apuzzo. • Red finished only second at the box office this past weekend, and I would be more pleased about that if it weren’t for the fact that Jackass 3D finished at #1, taking in some $50 million. I can’t even begin to describe how depressing that is. Silver lining: at least we won’t have to hear more bloviating about how Willis and Stallone have ‘revived the action genre.’
• Easily the juiciest rumor out of Hollywood late last week was the potential pairing of Angelina Jolie and James Cameron on a huge, 3D Cleopatra biopic epic – with the project to be based on Stacy Schiff’s book, Cleopatra: A Life. There are about a thousand different things I could say on this subject, but here’s what holds me back: the fact that James Cameron (or one of his many doubles) is currently attached to about a 1000 different projects right now, so who knows whether this particular one will ever happen? I’ve otherwise embedded a video above of Stacy Schiff describing her biography of Cleopatra. There are several concerns I have about her approach – perhaps you can guess them? – but there’s not much more to say, really, until this proposed Jolie-Cameron pairing becomes an actual, going concern. [Jolie, incidentally, just got her film permit back to shoot her indie film drama in Bosnia.] Also: I can only imagine how impatient Fox’s executives must be right now regarding their Avatar sequels …
• Brigitte Bardot is back in the news. Bardot is thinking of running for President of France, because Nicholas Sarkozy apparently hasn’t kept his promise to crack down on the ritual Islamic practice of slaughtering animals for halal meat (!). She also thinks Carla Bruni is “as beautiful as she is badly brought up,” and that Sarah Palin is “disconcertingly stupid.” Ouch. I’ve always been a big fan of BB – what male isn’t? – but there’s such a thing as retiring gracefully, and BB perhaps should think about more elegantly easing her way off the stage …
In the spirit of 3D film projects centered around glamorous women, however, I’ve put up a 3D picture of France’s great blonde for our readers’ general delectation. You’ll need your red/blue anaglyphic 3D glasses to enjoy this picture properly.
• In other news on the Political front, Oliver Stone does another interview about Wall Street 2; Shia LaBeouf is apparently interested in playing Lee Atwater in College Republicans; Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s The Accordian just opened the Abu Dhabi Film Festival; and McG apparently wants to do a movie about Christopher Columbus. McG?! This improbable project would apparently be done “300-style” and would be funded by Virgin’s Richard Branson, who must a lot of money to burn. [Sigh.]
• It now seems that the Christian audience did not go out in droves to see Disney’s Secretariat. This doesn’t surprise me, because there’s actually very little Christian content in the film. As I’ve said before, Disney really should’ve marketed this film more to women.
• Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films have finally been greenlit, and there are already casting rumors floating around. You know what I’m even more interested in seeing, though? A little Norwegian indie flick called The Troll Hunter that just got picked up for distribution by Magnolia and is getting all sorts of buzz. I’ve embedded the trailer below – it’s looks cheeky, provocative and thrilling.
We’ve been covering these little indie sci-fi bootstrap projects for months here at Libertas – whether it’s Monsters or Skyline or Iron Sky or The Mercury Men or The Third Letter or Pioneer One. This is clearly the new wave, the next mode in which indie filmmakers are breaking through to the mainstream, and sometimes dealing with controversial subjects. Check out the trailer below – it’s a hoot.
• On the Superhero front, the new Christopher Nolan/Zack Snyder Superman will apparently be an ‘origins’ story (yawn), and there’s no confirmation that General Zod will appear at all. Snyder is also talking about some of the boffo action sequences planned for his latest project with Frank Miller, Xerxes, which is the 300 ‘prequel.’ Also: The Lizard will apparently be the new villain for Spider-Man, and there are some new stills out for the forthcoming Conan movie that’s currently being retro-fitted into 3D.
• I’m very excited about Apocalypse Now coming to Blu-ray. Check out this LA Times article for some of the interesting new elements included in the set.
• As usual there’s a lot of news on the Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion front. We may have a Cowboys & Aliens trailer by Christmas; Luc Besson says his massive new sci-fi project will be like The Fifth Element “to the power of ten”; Sigourney Weaver may be back for Avatar 2; there’s another new behind-the-scenes look at Skyline; someone’s now going to be doing what’s described as an ‘Area 51 comedy’; there are interesting rumors circulating about Guillermo del Toro’s potential involvement in a huge, creature-invasion project (a lá Monsters) called Pacific Rim, which may or may not morph into the Godzilla reboot; a new poster for the Disney/Robert Zemeckis Mars Needs Moms is out; some great pictures from the new The Making of the Empire Strikes Back book are now online; and, unfortunately, Alec Baldwin has just been cast in Men in Black 3D – making it even less likely that I’ll be seeing that film. [When will people in Hollywood understand how roundly despised he is?]
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … there were some big developments on Mad Men this past weekend – which we won’t spoil now, but will deal with later on in the week here at Libertas – but for now we wanted to take a look at actress Jessica Paré, who apparently will be a very busy woman on the show next season …
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood.
Posted on October 18th, 2010 at 8:09pm.
By Jason Apuzzo. Am I the only one who finds this a bit odd? The White House recently released this video (see above) of the President meeting with the Waiting for Superman kids (see LFM’s review of the film, by Patricia Ducey), and most of the video simply consists of the kids watching Obama leave.
This seems like an odd way for the White House to reassure us Obama is on the ball, and that the problems associated with our miserable education system are being fixed. I was waiting for something more – some sort of indication from the President that he is aware of the crisis that the film is depicting, and that he’s going to move mountains to fix it. Instead, we merely get to see Obama deliver a few stiff blandishments to the kids and parents (I think I see Davis Guggenheim in there, as well) and then wave good-bye as he heads toward his helicopter.
Was anything else said? Because the rest of us would like to hear it. As p.r. from an already-embattled White House, this is a bit weird.
Posted on October 18th, 2010 at 2:20pm.
By Jason Apuzzo. THE PITCH: Ex-CIA operative Bruce Willis reunites with fellow Agency veterans Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich (?) and Helen Mirren (?!) to take on a ruthless band of CIA bureaucrats, defense contractors and a murderous U.S. Vice President – all while trading gunfire and inane, TV-level banter.
THE SKINNY: What does one say about a film that climaxes with the ‘heroic’ shooting of: a female CIA official, a U.S. Vice President, and a defense contractor (played with smug brio by Richard Dreyfuss)? Red is an ugly, puerile, unfunny, ham-fisted pastiche of every straight-to-video/garbage action film ever made during the 80s-90s – except this particular film is lacquered with a sickening anti-Americanism that most of those films lacked. Only attend this film if the idea of watching Bruce Willis mug at the camera for two hours sounds appealing to you, and your politics are somewhere to the left of Édgar Ramírez’s.
WHAT WORKS:
• The cameo by Ernest Borgnine.
• Absolutely nothing else.
WHAT DOESN’T WORK:
• Watching Bruce Willis mug at the camera for two hours, acting as if we’re back in the late 80s and there’s still something manly and charming about him.
• Depicting the CIA as more murderous and amoral than the KGB, Al Qaeda and the Waffen SS combined.
• Watching Richard Dreyfuss – looking bloated and with a fake tan – preen and strut in a snarky caricature of an American defense contractor, when really he looks like a guy who should just be pushing a broom at a Miami deli.
• Watching an American Vice President – with ambitions for even higher office – depicted as a murderer of women and children, a self-absorbed swine who uses the CIA as a personal assassin squad. Not even Biden deserves that.
BOTTOM LINE:
My understanding is that a new technology has been developed whereby celluloid film prints can be recycled into polyester clothing. My strong suggestion would be to use the 3,500 or so existing prints of Red to clothe the children of Guatemala – assuming they don’t mind wearing polyester. If not, it seems to me that the film could perhaps be re-printed onto soft tissue rolls, and used for other purposes.
One final point: with ‘Hollywood conservatives’ like Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone so eager to knock their own country in this way, who needs Hollywood liberals?
Posted on October 15th, 2010 at 4:09pm.
By Jason Apuzzo. New York Magazine’s Vulture blog is becoming the place for scoops these days, and today they’ve got a whopper. Apparently Larry Ellison’s son David wants to finance a reteaming of Tom Cruise (in a limited, cameo-esque role), Tony Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer on a Top Gun sequel. The screenwriter on this would apparently be Oscar-winner Christopher McQuarrie, who just wrote The Tourist and also wrote Valkyrie for Cruise. As a side note, David Ellison is currently helping to finance Cruise’s Mission: Impossible 4.
I think this is a great idea, if executed properly. For those of you who weren’t around back then, Top Gun was the the movie from the 80s that romanticized American military life (without having to demonize any particular enemy nation). I personally know a guy who, I strongly suspect, was pulled into life in Naval aviation – and beach volleyball – at least in part due to this film. And who could blame him? Between the girls, the Kawasakis and the volleyball, it painted a pretty appealing picture of serving your country while flying jets in San Diego. [Whatever happened to Berlin, by the way?]
If it isn’t already obvious, folks, the 80s are mounting a major comeback these days – with Obama’s indirect help, I strongly suspect. A Wall Street sequel just came out; even Back to the Future is getting re-released this month, for goodness sake.
As a side note here: this is the Tom Cruise I miss, the guy in the shades on the motorcycle flying jets for his country – not the couch-jumping oddity we’ve come to know.
Obviously we’ll be keeping an eye on this one. Fun footnote here: years ago when I was in high school I was hanging out on the Paramount lot one day while Tony Scott was in post-production on one of his films. His Kawasaki – the one Cruise rides in the film – was parked in the lot. When nobody was looking, I hopped on. 🙂 Awesome.
I’ve just got to know just one thing about this sequel: will they be bringing back Iceman?
Posted on October 14, 2010 at 10:57am.
By Jason Apuzzo. The Wrap is reporting today that the anti-Islamic terror documentary Killing in the Name has been shortlisted for Academy Awards consideration. I’ve embedded the trailer for the film above – take a look.
Here below is how the film is described on its Facebook page:
“Four years ago, Ashraf Al-Khaled and his bride were celebrating what was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives, when an Al-Qaeda suicide bomber walked into their wedding and blew himself up, killing both of their fathers in front of their eyes. The couple lost 27 members of their family that day.
“It’s a sad fact that stories like Ashraf’s pepper the news almost daily. In the last 5 years, over 88,000 people have been killed or injured in terrorist attacks worldwide. The majority, like Ashraf, were Muslims.
“How can someone be so robbed of their humanity that they happily commit mass murder and suicide? It’s one of the fundamental human questions of our era, one that has haunted Ashraf since his wedding day, and what is now driving him to rise from horrific tragedy to take an unprecedented step – breaking the silence in the Muslim community on this taboo subject by speaking out against terrorism.
“KILLING IN THE NAME follows Ashraf in his quest to speak with victims and perpetrators, and expose the true costs of terrorism. From a jihadi recruiter for Al-Qaeda, the group responsible for bombing his wedding, to an Islamic militant behind one of the world’s worst terrorist attacks, to a madrassa filled with young boys ready to fulfill the duty of jihad, Ashraf takes us on a harrowing journey around the world to see if one man can speak truth to terror, and begin to turn the global tide.
“At times chilling and moving, terrifying and hopeful, KILLING IN THE NAME is a far- reaching and necessary first step in tackling what is arguably the most pressing issue of our age. As Ashraf puts it, ‘If we can’t even talk about it, this terror will never end.'”
We’ll keep an eye on this story, and we wish the filmmakers the very best with this project.
Posted on October 14th, 2010 at 9:34am.