One of the stories we’ve covered for THUD is the ongoing controversy with Ken Burns’ The War – the upcoming PBS documentary series about World War II that neglected to highlight the achievements of Latinos or Native Americans. The Hispanic community, from Congressmen on down, responded by urging Burns and PBS to reconsider re-editing the documentary to contain segments on Latino veterans – although they had to threaten a boycott to do it. (Smooth move, PBS.) 

One of the more prominent speakers on this issue has been Raquel Garza, a Project Manager at the University of Texas at Austin’s U.S. Latinos and Latinas & WWII Oral History Project. She’s been quoted in Newsweek, as well as working alongside the Oral History Project’s founder, Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez in the grassroots organization Defend The Honor, which was formed as a response to Ken Burns’ initial cut of The War. 

Ms. Garza recently took the time to talk to THUD about The War, as well as the World War II Oral History Project and Latinos in entertainment. 

Ken Burns has finally agreed to re-edit portions of The War to include stories of Latino veterans. How are you feeling about his decision? And do you think that the July deadline for Burns to deliver a cut of The War for DVD distribution is enough time to correct his mistakes? 

At this point, we’re still waiting to see how the additional footage will be included. If it’s not done in a meaningful way, what’s the point? As for the July deadline, I hope they work well under pressure. That seems a very short time to try to get something like this done.

Let’s go back to the beginning. Can you talk about the first time you became involved with The War, and when you realized that Burns had initially ignored the contributions of Latinos in World War II? 

I first saw a preview of the documentary in New Orleans at the International Conference on WWII hosted by D-Day The National WWII Museum. From the hour that I got to see, the documentary looked great. But then, during the Q&A session, it became clear that this wasn’t the documentary I was hoping it was. Carmen Contreras Bozak, a WAC who served overseas and a Project interview subject, asked if women in the military had been included and was told that they were not. Samuel Sandoval, a Navajo Code Talker, asked if Native Americans had been included and were told that they had done those interviews, but in the end decided to structure the documentary by cities and now the interviews didn’t fit. After the Q&A, I spoke with Lynn Novick and asked if Hispanics had been included and were told they hadn’t.

How did you decide this was an issue that needed pursuing, and what can you tell me about the development of this campaign to get The War amended? Was it something that started small and became this huge story? 

Dr. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, the project director and founder, was alerted to the problem she decided that something needed to be done. She, along with Gus Chavez and others, decided to form the Defend the Honor campaign. It’s a grassroots movement more than 7,000 strong that is pushing for the inclusion of Latino/a veterans’ and civilians’ stories. 

They met with PBS in March and were not taken very seriously. But the Defend the Honor campaign was not so easily deterred. They started organizing letter writing, emails, and phone calls and PBS finally took notice. So did the media. 

Obviously, one of the things that put pressure on PBS and Burns was the involvement of several Latino members of Congress. While I agree that The War needed to be changed, it seemed like another example of the federal government impeding on what should be considered “free speech.” Can you discuss the involvement of these members of Congress? 

I can’t really speak to the congressional efforts, as that is something I am not involved in. But I think it’s important to note that if tax dollars are being spent on something, then tax payers/their representatives should have a say. 

One of the things that struck me about this is that Burns said that he and his researchers couldn’t find any compelling stories or Latino veterans to interview, but part of The War’s narrative centers around Sacramento, California. Do you think that was laziness on his part, or was this an honest mistake? 

I hope that it was an honest mistake. And while I don’t want to accuse any one of laziness, it looks that way. If he relied on veterans coming forward to talk to him, then yes, it was lazy. Any good reporter (and I was a reporter once, I don’t know about how good…) knows that you have to dig and work hard to find the truth of things. If you’re relying on people to give you the story, you will never know the whole story. 

Obviously, documentary filmmaking is a subjective art form with its own point of view. However, Burns is a documentary filmmaker who frequently paints his features as “definitive” statements on a single subject with names like Baseball, Jazz, and The War. Do you think it’s the responsibility of a documentary filmmaker to offer the most complete portrayal of a subject as possible? And should this only apply to filmmakers like Burns who set their work up as the definitive film on the subject? 

This is difficult because with these subjects they are so big and there is so much to talk about that something is bound to be left out. I think his “titles” are too big, too general. Of course a viewer would think “THE WAR” is definitive—with a title like that, how could it not be? I think everyone needs to be careful with how things are worded. If we called ourselves The WWII Oral History Project, wouldn’t you think we would interview everyone and have stories about everything? 

Can you talk about the history of the U.S. Latinos and Latinas & WWII Oral History project? What are its goals, and how did you get involved with this project? 

The Project began in 1999. Dr. Maggie was inspired to learn more and record this history after speaking with frontrunners of the Hispanic Civil Rights Movement – like Pete Tijerina, who helped found MALDEF– most of them had been veterans and used the GI Bill to pursue their education and fight for civil rights. 

The Project’s initial goal was to capture 200 interviews; we’ve since recorded more than 550. Right now we’re in the process of getting them onto our new Web site, which is being built. Most importantly, the goal is to create an awareness of the contributions made by the men and women of the WWII generation. 

I began with the Project when I was a student of Dr. Maggie’s. I started writing stories from interviews other people had done and then did interviews of my own. I know this is going to come across as incredibly cheesy, but I really felt this was a great opportunity to do something meaningful. 

What’s one story from your work with the Oral History project that you feel is particularly moving or notable? Are there any stories of characters or figures that deserve their own documentary? 

There are so many stories that are moving and notable. I have many favorites – some of the most touching are the tributes provided for those who were KIA. One that particularly struck me was that of Johnnie W. Flores, who was KIA in Germany. His nephew compiled all the information he could on his uncle. “My generation is the last to have seen or known Johnnie, though only through short, fleeting, youthful memories,” said Fred Flores, who was 7 when he received news his uncle died. The photos they sent us are great. 

Some of our subjects have had movies made about them, such as Guy Gabaldon, who served in the USMC. He’s known as the “Pied Piper of Saipan” because he would use the Japanese he learned as a child to round up Japanese soldiers, women and children that were on the islands where he served. 

Of course, he was turned into an Italian American for the film and was played by tall, blond Jeffrey Hunter. Mr. Gabaldon, who passed away last year, had a sense of humor about it though. In a letter he wrote to the Project, he said, “But Jeffery was jealous that he didn’t have my good looks – hijole!” 

From a historical perspective, how important was World War II to the Chicano Movement of the sixties and seventies? Is this one of the reasons why you felt Burns should have included Latino and Latina stories in The War – because the repercussions from Latino contributions wound up having a tremendous impact on American culture? 

In my opinion, because of these guys, the Chicano Movement had the opportunity to protest so loudly. These were the guys who got the ball rolling, who came back after serving with white men and women and realized that they were just as good as anyone else. They weren’t going to be treated like second-class citizens again. So yes, WWII for Latinos was a huge catalyst. 

I want to be fair to Ken Burns, but I think there is a lot about that time period that he never stopped to think about. In the Indianapolis Star, he said “We weren’t looking for that which makes these groups distinct. We were looking for that which makes human beings the same.” 

But at the time, human beings were not the same. Ask the Japanese citizens interned in the civilian camps; ask the African American soldiers who were segregated; ask the Mexican American soldiers who, even though they were not segregated in the military, had been segregated every where else. History is subjective. It’s time that history is told from someone else’s point of view. 

It seems that Latino and Latina characters on television are still very stereotypical, if not in their mannerisms, then certainly in their professions. Beyond this controversy over The War, what are your thoughts on how Latinos are currently portrayed in television? 

I think some shows do a pretty good job of including Latinos in a meaningful way and not just as a punchline. 

I think they’ve done a pretty good job on “Grey’s Anatomy” of creating characters who are just “people” – Christina isn’t eating stir fry and Callie isn’t coming in with pan dulce for everyone. But, really, there’s so much going on in there “personal lives” that there’s no time for stereotypes. I wish more TV was like that. 

We’ve come a long way from the Frito Bandito, but there’s still a long way to go. 

The War airs in September on your local PBS station, and the website for the US Latinos and Latinas & WWII Oral History Project is here. I definitely recommend checking it out.

In Knocked Up, the already classic Judd Apatow comedy opening tomorrow, Martin Starr has sort of the exact opposite role of Gerry Bednob’s Mooj in The 40-Year Old Virgin: where Mooj would show up to say something hilarious at intervals throughout the film, Starr shows up to have hilarious things said about him. He’s engaged in a one man beard growing competition, and his friends’ attempts to find the right description for his hairier and hairier face supplies terrific jokes throughout. Starr’s a killer straight man, something that’s been evident since Freaks and Geeks, where he played the uber-dorky and sort of un-self aware Bill Haverchuck. Starr could steal a scene with an almost blank look on that show, and as a tremendously burnt stoner he gets the same opportunities in Knocked Up.

Does it have a director?

Yeah, Andrew Cohen and Brendan O’Brian wrote it and Andrew Cohen is set to direct right now. But they don’t have a history… We made a short, which Paramount Vantage saw and liked and bought the script and now it’s slow going to get it greenlit. But it’s an amazing script, and I don’t know how anyone could have been at the table read and not enjoyed it, but I think it’s the first movie they’ve made on their own, so they’re skeptical. They don’t want a flop right off the bat.

I’m pretty proud of myself — I made it through May without seeing Shrek. Even with it being the only movie I haven’t yet seen at my favorite local theater, I’ve resisted the occasional urge to see it just so that I can go to the theater and not see 28 Weeks Later or Pirates a third time. Or Pathfinder a second. By the blackheads of Loki, Pathfinder almost killed me.

Mr. Brooks

Micah
Says:
The (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Kevin Costner and Dane Cook
should’ve been reserved for a torture porn flick or something uplifting like
that. Instead, Costner goes to the dark side to play a split
personality-stricken killer who is forced to take on an apprentice (Cook) who
exacerbates matters by taping the entire ordeal and selling it to HBO for a
weekly series.

Prognostication: Absolute utter failure. There’s no buzz on the film. The
only reviews have been rather “ehhh.” It’s coming out in the shadow of a big
and genuine mainstream-appealing comedy (Knocked Up). Worst of all, Costner
lost the ability to really open films some time ago, and this will be yet
another grim confirmation of that fact. I take no joy in this because I usually
find myself irresistibly drawn to films like this with such a weird cast (e.g.
Demi Moore, Jason Lewis, Matt “Wall Street” Schultze). I’ll probably have to
move quickly, however, as I expect this to get swept out of theaters fairly
quickly despite the wide release.

Gracie

Jeremy Says: Devin says: "Carly Schroeder is Gracie, and she makes the film. She’s unusually beautiful – her hair is so blonde as to be almost white, and her skin seems translucent. She has a stronger jaw and a wider nose than you might expect from a teen starlet, but it works for her. Her face is distinctive, not like the cookie cutter girls who roll off of sitcoms and tween films, and I hope that she never goes under the knife to tweak that nose into a tiny button."

Day Watch

Devin says: After the events of Night Watch,
the armies of the Others are ready for something bad to happen. Both
the Dark and the Light Others now have a Great Other, and perhaps a
Capitalization Other on staff. There are conspiracies within
conspiracies as each side jockeys for position in the days leading up
to what looks more and more like the Apocalypse itself. The only thing
that can maybe save the world: The Chalk of Fate. But in Soviet Russia,
Fate Chalks You!

Prognostication: I’ve already reviewed this sucker, right here. But let me recap for those of you in the cheap seats: Day Watch
is a big improvement over the incoherent but visually interesting Night
Watch. The story makes more sense, the narrative flows more smoothly
and the production values are much higher. Just be prepared for an
ending so frustratingly bad that you’ll wish for me doing more rotten
Yakov Smirnoff jokes.

I’m Reed Fish

Russ Says: Reed Fish is both the real writer of this indie and the semi-real title character, whose high school flame returns home to the little town of Mud Meadows just as Reed is about to marry the daughter from Gilmore Girls. If that’s not Blowing Charlie Kaufman enough for you, there’s a meta plot with the ‘real’ Reed as he makes his movie and grooves on indie bands that aren’t so obscure that he can’t use them to score pussy.

Prognostication: In the year since it hit festivals, Reed Fish has had plenty of opportunity to be branded the next Garden State, but not in a good way. And it does sound like a pastice of saccarine indie tropes: heartfelt music, ironic story layers and an official webpage that’s been replaced by one on MySpace. There is hope in Alexis Beidel, however. With Gilmore Girls gone, are her fans hungry for anything, or wary of being burned again?



Crazy Love

Prognostication:
This documentary is not a strong first date movie, and it’s an even
worse break-up movie. You don’t want to give her any ideas. This
documentary is intermittently fascinating but a little too long; still,
it’s hard not to marvel at the bizarre way the blinded woman just
accepts her attacker back into her life. Weirdly, this movie feels like
it would have made a better narrative film, where dramatic license
would have allowed us to go into the heads of these people, as opposed
to being stuck with their old time New York nonchalance.



Rise: Blood Hunter

Micah
Says: Despite
chasing away 95 percent of the fan audience from Ocean’s Eleven with the brilliantly
lackadaisical pacing and plotting of Twelve, Clooney and gang know they
have a solid property with this film series, and they’re wisely sticking with
it. This time, the super duper double cross switcharoo story has been
jettisoned in favor of a more straightforward revenge narrative, and Al Pacino
will probably get to yell and gesticulate wildly for a few spare moments
whether it’s in the script or not.

Prognostication: As one of the five percent of peeps who loved (not
liked, loved) Twelve, I am personally
disappointed that they seem to be reacting to the grumbling over that film with
this one rather than building on the bizarrely stylish fun of that film. I
understand that even Clooney and Soderbergh claim disdain for Twelve,
but even they’re mistaken. Still, even with them throwing it under the bus and
trying to make an audience-pleaser, I think this will be a fun heist flick, and
I’m happy that Matt Damon’s Linus gets a more prominent role, as he’s been my
fave throughout the series. Hopefully, the audience is still there.

Surf’s Up

Dan Says: Penguins continue their unholy quest to build themselves into
a worldwide brand intent on total film and merchandising domination. I
missed the allure kicked off by March of the Penguins but Sony
Animation is falling in line with the Penguin’s grand design and taking
a whack at the cuter, less oozy side of Danny Devito’s alias, this time
focusing on a surfing penguin (voiced by Shia LeBouf), the championship
he’s intent on entering and the lessons he learns along the way via a
bunch of quirky characters including Chicken John Heder, promoter James
Woods and aging surf legend penguin Jeff Bridges.


Prognostication: Sony had a fair share of success with last year’s Open
Season (thanks for the push past $100 million, International!), but
without a name like Disney or Shrek, who knows how this one will be
received as monster success and plain ol’ success usually take sides
along those lines. I like the aesthetic look of the thing (thanks to
the camera crew angle as seen in the trailers) and penguins and surfing
should make a decent showing. Combine that with the fact about
everything coming down the pike with CG animation sites set on ankle
biters and the families who foster them draw crowds, I’d say Surf’s Up
won’t be huge, but it’s going to do well.


You’re Gonna Miss Me

Fantastic Four

Prognostication: Based on the classic, classic Fantastic Four
stories by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver
Surfer has a lot of expectations, even from people who hated the first
one (fools). I really dug the first movie, and have watched it a couple
of times on DVD since, and I’m excited about FFROTSS, but also worried;
I really don’t know if Tim Story can pull this one off, and the rumors
about Galactus appearing as a big storm cloud… oy vey. Maybe he’s
INSIDE the storm cloud.


DOA: Dead or Alive

Micah
Says:
Straight from the dusty video shelves in pretty much every other country in the
world comes this last gasp to make some money off this low-budget
martial arts monstrosity in the United States. Even though it’s based on the
video game, this mostly eschews what people (read: adolescent boys) love about
the game (tits) in favor of what people barely notice in the game (martial
arts, narrative). And it’s packed with a grab bag of Z-listers (Eric Roberts,
“Big Sexy” Wrestler Kevin Nash, Robin “Mortal Kombat” Shou) in a remake of
pretty much every other martial arts film featuring a tournament on an exotic
island and lead characters with something to prove. Unfortunately, Enter
the Dragon, this aint.

Prognostication: Seeing this popup randomly on Google Video a little
while back was good for a laugh or two and a waste of an afternoon. But having
to go to a theater and actually concentrate on this gah-bage for 80 minutes?
Um, no. I respect the attempts to trick out this pig with lipstick and blush.
Hell, the trailer I saw creep up in US theaters a month ago almost fools you
into thinking you’ll see some interesting low-budget wire-fu. But that stuff’s
TV-level at best in this film, and it indeed plays like a pilot for one of
those syndicated Sunday-at-3AM travesties like Cleopatra 2525 or She
Spies. Besides, you can wait four weeks for this to finally show up on
video here in the US,
can’t you?

Nancy Drew

Dan Says: Why waste a perfectly good zombie (or Grampa for that matter)
when you can put a collar around his neck and turn him into a perfectly
functional subserviant? Fido plops the audience in the middle of a world stuck in 1950 where a comet has sprinkled a little pixy
dust enabling all dead to become undead. Suburbia still exists in gated
communities where science has given the zombie problem the upside of
cheap labor, which has everyone keeping up with the Joneses in getting
the latest moaning, teeth-gnashing flesh-eating appliances. Enter Timmy
and his slightly dysfunctional family who grab themselves a late-model
zombie. Timmy names the zombie Fido and endearing bonding ensues, only
to go awry when Fido samples the drumstick on a grumpy old granny.


Prognostication: I caught this cute little number at Sundance earlier
this year and as long as the film’s been in circulation (which has been
almost a year at various festivals and international releases) there’s
been lots of people who have seen it. And it’s a film worth seeing,
playing on the whole straight laced and pomaided suburban 50’s schtick
while throwing in delicious bits of dark humored pulp and spin on
zombie lore to remind you the film you’re watching isn’t necessarily
for the kids. Billy Connelly plays Fido, the zombie with a heart and Tim
Blake Nelson gives a fun performance as a lecherous but friendly
neghbor. In fact, performances (including Carrie-Anne Moss, Dylan Baker
and Henry Czerny) are fun and breezy all around. While a little flat in
some places thanks to obvious gags, Fido is still a breath of fresh air
that I don’t think will explode at the box office, but will certainly
create a lot of good will with those who see it.



June 22

Micah
Says:
From the increasingly feeble imagination of Stephen King and the unendingly
accepting agent of Samuel L. Jackson comes this rather bland-looking horror
flick featuring a skeptical schlub (John Cusack) who checks into a sinister
hotel room to debunk the dark mystique surrounding it. He don’t know it very
well, do he?

Prognostication: Like a lot of people probably did, I thought this thing
came out already as it’s been previewed for some time. Its random summer
release does not bode well for the confidence behind it, but moreso than that,
what’s the appeal? Cusack can make trash interesting, at least initially, but
is that really enough to get you or anyone else into theaters to see this? Sam
adds nothing, at least from the look of the trailer, so we’re left with another
humdrum ghost story which is increasingly falling out of vogue for more
visceral horror films. I suppose you could try to pass this off as more of a
suspense/thriller-type film, but you’d need some…oh, I dunno…actual thrills in the trailer to pull that off,
wouldn’t you?

Captivity

Prognostication: The trailer looks downright awful. Carell’s audience is generally too smart for Tom Shadyac’s brand of feel-good pap, so expect them to stay away. That means Universal is going to have to sell the rest of America on Carell filling in for Carrey in a kinda-sorta sequel to a movie they may not have liked in the first place. Evan Almighty has June 22nd pretty much all to itself (unless you think Captivity or 1408 pose a challenge), but negative buzz and a telltale 89-minute run time indicate that this could be the bomb of the summer.

You Kill Me

Devin says: He’s
a drunken Buffalo mob hit man sent to San Francisco to dry out. She
works at a mortuary and has no boundaries. Together they make an odd
pair, but it gets even odder when a war erupts back home and his deadly
services are needed again… and she comes with him.

Prognostication: Remember
when Ben Kingsley’s name in the credits of a movie meant something?
Those days are long gone, as he has spent too much time slumming with
the likes of Uwe Boll. Sadly his co-stars – Tea Leoni and Luke Wilson –
don’t elevate You Kill Me
into ‘must see’ territory. But there’s hope: the movie is directed by
John Dahl, who has been floundering since the unappreciated Rounders back in 1998. Could You Kill Me be his return to form, circa Red Rock West or The Last Seduction? Our fingers are crossed.

Broken English

Jeremy
Says: The feature debut from Zoe
Cassavetes (daughter of the great John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, and sister
of the cool-as-shit Xan Cassavetes) is about Nora (Parker Posey), a woman in
her thirties desperate for a stable relationship. Outside pressure from her friends and her
mother (Rowlands) only helps to unnerve her more. But Nora’s life changes when she meets Julian
(Melvil Poupaud), "a quirky Frenchman" who does what quirky Frenchmen
do, which means he probably fucks her silly.

Prognostication:
I love the Cassavetes family. Love
’em. Even when Nick hauls off and makes
a big sappy embarrassment like The Notebook, I explain it away. That’s what these movies, this interview with
Xan, and way too many childhood viewings of Gloria will do to a guy. In fact, it’s my lifelong dream to be named
an honorary Cassavetes. What this bodes
for the critical or commercial prospects of Broken English, I have no idea. All I know is that I will see it and continue
to celebrate the Cassavetes family for being so damn cool.

A Mighty Heart

Micah
Says:
Angelina Jolie pisses off every Latina
actress in her 30s to snatch up the role of Mariane Pearl, the widow to kidnapped
and murdered reporter Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman, not part of the esteemed
peanut butter-making family). Rather
than firmly stepping in one side of the political spectrum or the other, this
is more of an emotional, personal tale, as it should be, I think.

Prognostication: I think curiosity is going to drive the viewership here
as Daniel Pearl’s story is fairly recent and this film promises no new
revelations or insight into the Middle Eastern maelstrom that it took place in.
That just leaves you with Angelina’s altered appearance and little else, as
she’s the only person of note here. I’m hoping that having Michael Winterbottom
as director means that there’s some meat to this film, but I get the feeling
that it just isn’t he case. The summer release date is also a troublesome sign
for this sort of material, but perhaps the studio thinks could actually work as
counter-programming with legs. Don’t count on it.

June 29

Prognostication: This kind of material always has a chance to strike a resonant chord with art film audiences who like to pretend they’re adventurous but really just want to watch commercial movies in more respectable settings (e.g. The Full Monty, Amélie and Timerider). Its success depends on Sony Classics’ release strategy and how aggressively the film mugs your emotions. It could be effective late June counter-programming to the blockbuster onslaught. Or it could be in and out of theaters before mid-July.

Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid is not only a classic romantic comedy; it’s also one of the few Neil Simon scripts that isn’t undone by his gag writing instincts. There are real characters in The Heartbreak Kid, and they’re really unlikeable in a lot of ways, none more so than Charles Grodin’s Lenny, who, while honeymooning in Miami with his awkward young bride Lila (Jeannie Berlin), falls in love with the beautiful Kelly (Cybil Shepherd). The tenaciousness with which Lenny pursues Kelly is both amusing and unnerving; clearly, May’s more fascinated by her protagonist than charmed by him (which may be why she cast her own daughter as the jilted newlywed). If you’ve never seen it, I can’t recommend it enough.

The Heartbreak Kid opens October 5th, 2007.

Since every summer juggernaut film these days – especially sequels – is swinging for the fences in terms of weekend and revenue records (“OMG! Evan Almighty is on track to have the biggest St. Baptiste Day weekend opening ever!!!!1111!!”), we’re increasingly seeing films moving the traditional Friday release date up to squeeze every last dollar into the opening frame. First, it was Thursday midnight screenings. Then, we got Thursday 8PM screenings. It’s just a matter of time before we hear Spider-Man 4 will be coming out on a Tuesday morning in May 2011. Until that fateful day, we’ll continue to see films inch up incrementally for the love of that almighty dollar.

The latest culprit is Warner Bros., having just announced that they’re moving Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix up two days to Wednesday, July 11. Presumably, this is so that black people will go see the movie, talk to the screen, and act up then so that white moviegoers can enjoy it in peace on the weekend. Whoops. Wrong article. What I meant to say is that I presume this is simply to try and make a few bucks before succumbing to the real wide release that weekend, the Liv Tyler/Scott Speedman license to print money known as The Strangers (best pre-order your opening night tickets while you still can, kids). What? No sale?

Truthfully, it’s a fairly transparent ploy for profitability and bragging rights for whatever records they hope to break that week(end). There’s no real downside for Warners other than the fact that Transformers arrives the weekend before and may still be doing gangbusters business during the week. Aside from that, they should enjoy clear sailing for the remainder of July. The remaining weeks are capped by the likes of I Know Who Killed Me, Hairspray, and No Reservations, all of which should be easy pickings in the race for number one.

There’s something so appealing about the stale, outdated (They list The Black Dahlia as an upcoming movie of theirs) and old-fashioned feel of Millennium Films’ website. You jump over there and you get pixilated posters, sleep-inducing, low-res design, plus poster after poster of giant heads and uninspiring film titles (Seriously, go to their “Library” link and look up Homeland Security or The Contract. With descriptions and posters like that, do these films actually even need to exist?). While other studios and production companies are heavy on the pizzazz for their web portals, Millennium’s too busy pre-selling their next flick to foreign and video markets based on the poster alone. I love it.

But while their low-rent appearance may inspire chuckles of derision, they continue to produce and release films featuring fairly big name talent with a hole in their schedule and mortgage payments to make. This isn’t an exactly new phenomenon (Franchise Pictures, anybody?), but Millennium is one of the few that continues to make bid after bid for legitimate mainstream success and respect with US theatrical releases. They just unloaded 88 Minutes – starring Pacino and…heh heh…Deborah Kara Unger, William Forsythe, and LeeLee Sobieski – onto Sony, and they’re making the DeNiro/Pacino reunion flick Righteous Kill. Now comes word that they are doing a live-action Hercules film. While I wish it was a spinoff of the Klumps character featuring the young man pictured above, it’s strictly about the legendary character and his sword-and-sandal adventures.

True to the nature of these guys, the script is already a done deal courtesy of Sean Hood, the master scribe behind the liked of The Crow: Wicked Prayer, Cube 2: Hypercube, and Halloween: Resurrection. I’ll give you a few moments to finish laughing. Now then, there’s no director or star attached as of yet, but with Millennium’s track record, they’ll have no problem roping in a once-notable name with bills for either slot. There’s a .0000000000000000002782 percent chance of this being anywhere near good, but I’m sure they can at least hit their typical entertainingly mediocre comfort zone, if nothing else.

As he prepares for Hostel Part II to hit theaters next weekend (they finally set up a critic screening, so I will actually have a chance to see the movie before it opens), Eli Roth is saying that this is the end of the road for this franchise.

Of course no one has driven that dump truck full of money up to Roth’s house yet, but much like Matt Damon preemptively eschewing a fourth Bourne film, it’s refreshing to hear Roth claim that he won’t let his franchise get milked to death. He’s moving on to Cell next, and after that? Not Hostel Part III apparently. Although I wonder if Sofia Coppola becomes available to play the daughter of the torture guy from the first film, will Eli change his mind?

Despite the rash of projects that Robert Rodriguez has been associated with lately, there was still a considerable hope that Sin City 2 would see the light of day sooner rather than later due to casting rumors (Banderas. Antonio Banderas) and other assorted rumblings. But fans of the film (of which, I am not one, actually) are going to have to take it and like it this morning because Rodriguez’s partner-in-noir, Frank Miller, has confirmed that their respective new projects are going to jump the line and go into production first, despite the fact that Sin City 2 appears to be completely ready to shoot, save for a complete cast.

In talking to Rotten Tomatoes UK, Miller said that “Sin City 2 is still likely to happen…just not right away. The script is written and Robert and I are raring to go, but it looks like I’m going to be doing The Spirit first and Robert’s going to be doing Barbarella first.”

I’m actually kind of glad that Rodriguez is going to be putting in a little distance between installments, but it’s not because I wasn’t crazy about the first film. I think the guy is going through some stuff now (and by “stuff”, I do not mean Rose McGowan. You know what? Fuck it, I do) and with Grindhouse having ground to a halt financially, this might be a good time for him to step back, take a breath, do these sillier projects for outside studios where he doesn’t control everything down to the napkins offered at craft services, and then come back to the Sin City franchise recharged and ready to go. I doubt any amount of outside filmmaking will fundamentally change his perspective or skill set, but his career could use a mainstream hit or two to bolster his cult status. Hopefully, that’ll put him in a better place for part deux because the bar for digital backdrop filmmaking was raised pretty goddamn high by 300, and Rodriguez is going to have to step his game up to match it.

Not only was that a major hit, but rappers have completely co-opted the unique look of Sin City for a number of videos and mixtape covers, the worst being the new Timbaland video featuring a bunch of WWE wrestling chicks. It’s kinda become part of "urban" canon like Scarface or Carlito’s Way, and that just makes it all the more generic. By the time, the second installment actually rolls around, the digital film landscape will be quite different, and I’m not sure if Rodriguez will keep up. Here’s hoping.

So Pirates underperformed, but still made shitloads of money. In that way, it’s good to be Knocked Up. Nobody’s summer rests on your shoulders, and if you only make $60 million then the only people disappointed are those with good taste. In Hollywood… they are few and far between.

And Sunday, I’ll hope that Apatow and Co. cleaned up.

In the past fifty years, pretty much everyone who’s tried to strike gold with a screwball comedy has just struck out. It’s like the genre vanished with Bowery flophouses and sidewalk apple vendors and literally can’t be recreated. Equal parts phsyical slapstick, razor verbal wit and satiric social commentary, the screwball comedy might be the most demanding form of film, at least after Faces of Death. You’ve got to talk fast, fall hard and be one step ahead of everyone else the entire time.

None of that stops people from trying. Fuggin’ bully for them, I say. But still, Michael Arndt wins an Oscar for his Little Miss Sunshine script and now he wants to be Billy Wilder? I guess I can’t blame him, and I know they only sell hubris in that one giant size, but really, guy. Take a step back.

Arndt wants, in addition to another vowel, to pen a remake of Midnight. Co-written by Wilder and released in 1939, Midnight is one of the great screwball comedies, and perhaps the best moment in Claudette Colbert’s career. Since Colbert is just a little too dusty to reprise her role, Arndt is writing with Reese Witherspoon in mind. I can actually see Reese as a Colbert figure. After her movie-ed up version of a tough biker/punk chick in Penelope, I can see that she’s got the inner core of walled-off indifference to play Eve, a penniless showgirl (or model, more likely) who rejects a cabdriver’s advances, appropriates his name and infiltrates Parisian society as a fake Baroness.

You know, the more I think about the plot of this movie, the more I can see the remake ‘angles’, and they all make me want to put a bullet in my forehead, so I’m just going to be over here, finishing the Prognosticator.