It’s hard to believe it’s drawing close to a decade since Alan Ball has seen one of his original screenplays on the silver screen. You may have heard about the last one, you know, a little number called American Beauty, which annihilated the competition at the Oscars and bagged a golden goodie for Ball.

Sure, Ball wrote and directed Towelhead/Nothing is Private, which finally saw a limited release earlier this month, but that was an adaptation of Alicia Erian’s novel, so as talented as Ball is he wasn’t the initial creative seed on that one. Additionally, as I’m sure you’re aware, Ball’s been focusing his talents on the boob tube for most of the new millennium a la Six Feet Under (finally someone appropriately ends a show when the story is over and doesn’t milk it for two or three seasons, only to see the quality diminish) and this year’s True Blood.

Well, it seems Ball has a couple of original scripts that have been collecting dust for some time now, and the good news is one of them sounds like it has the potential to be a horror film!

Ball chatted with the folks over at MTV yesterday and had the following to spew on his possible impending projects:

“I have two scripts that I wrote years ago, both of which I still believe in. I’m actually thinking of trying to produce one and not direct and there’s another one that I’d like to direct,” he revealed to MTV News.

“The one I want to direct is a screwball comedy. It takes place in the 30s. It’s kind of a romantic farce about two very bullheaded people negotiating their sexual relationship within standards of that time, with that language, and with all the trappings of 1936,” he said.

“They’re both incredibly wealthy at a time when the rest of the world is going hungry, which I find incredibly timely.

“The other one is harder to pitch in a high concept way – it’s a dark, dark comedy about a woman who just gets fed up with being a doormat,” he continued, letting slip details on the otherwise secretive project. “And it’s got a body count!”

Sounds like a female Lester Burnham-type with a serious penchant for knocking off those that piss her off. Could be cool with Alan Ball penning it. At the very least you know it won’t be conventional.

But come one, Alan, direct the body count script instead, let someone else direct the screwball comedy.

Steven Soderbergh’s two Che Guevara films (The Argentine and Guerilla or, collectively and unofficially, Che) continue to make the festival rounds. They’ve just run as part of the New York Film Festival, where Soderbergh took part in a post-show Q&A. (Actually, the Q&A might have been on its own, as at least one NYFF screening is yet to come.) The Playlist was there, and so got to hear the director talk up a potential third film about the famous figure. This isn’t the first time he’s mentioned a third movie; he first broached the subject during Cannes.

“Even though we’ve made two parts we still haven’t shown everything. There’s actually another movie, I think, to be made about what happens between these two parts but we didn’t have enough money.”

And with Che not likely to make a boatload of cash, money remains the rub. At the NYFF Q&A Soderbergh joked that he’d make the third film if the other two made $100m, which is staggeringly unlikely.

“We (writer Peter Buchman and I) talked about [the third film]. The story of Che in the Congo was absolutely fascinating. We actually sort of sketched an idea for a small film, that would take place in the Congo and Prague, where he went after fighting in the Congo to sort of lick his wounds and write a very self-critical book on what happened [there].”

“The [real] answer is that we didn’t have enough money to do that. Also, it’s a fascinating chapter, but it didn’t really fall into the bookend idea we ended up with.”

Head over to The Playlist to read more about how the films developed from one idea meant only to be Guerilla, and how Soderbergh & Co. realized they needed to tell a lot more of the story to have any of it make sense.

When all this is said and done I’d love to see a book about the film(s) emerge from Soderbergh’s camp; not even having seen the current films yet, I get the feeling that this is a master class in working within economics and film technique to adapt history to the screen.

I’m still on the minority team when it comes to Another Way to Die – the theme for new Bond film Quantum of Solace – in that I like the song. Now I get to have the distinct weird pleasure of seeing Jack White and Alicia Keys sharing the screen in the video for said song. If you’re looking for a peek at the new Bond, give up now – the video is unique in the annals of tie in song videos in that it contains no footage from the film it’s for. It also looks like it was shot on a green screen stage with the aesthetic of ‘We have no idea what we’ll do with this footage, we’ll just drop it on some kind of background later.’

Enjoy.

BUY IT AT WILLIAMS STREET: CLICK HERE
STUDIO: Warner Brothers
MSRP: $19.98
RATED: PG
RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Table Reads, Raw Interviews, and More
Mommentary – episode commentary from the creators’ mothers
Commentary on Mommentary – from creators on their mothers’ aforementioned commentary
Mommentary (Jellybean) – commentary on the commentary of the commentary
 

The Pitch

The universe’s greatest talk show host broadcasts from the Ghost Planet.

The Humans

George Lowe, Andy Merrill, Dave Thomas, Bjork, C. Martin Croker, Thom Yorke and Willie Nelson

The Nutshell

Space Ghost was once a super-hero that patrolled deep space with two teenage sidekicks. Things change and he’s now hosting a talk show from the depths of space. Thrill to his fifth season, where he interviews the likes of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Willie Nelson. There’s product placement and even an appearance of Ol’ Kentucky Shark. This was Adult Swim’s humble beginnings. Enjoy them for all time.

You spent how much on In Rainbows?

The Lowdown

The modernization of Space Ghost started the push to Adult Swim. After a couple of celebs trying to carry on an interview with re-animated Space Ghost clips proved fruitful, the push for adult cartoons was on its way. A million dollar industry was born and potheads were given something to watch between the hours of 11pm and whenever the queer Anime shit started. But, is it funny? Well, it’s not funny as much as it gives you funny moments.

Iceland is apparently clothed by the Salvation Army.

Since I don’t have the aid of narcotics to help get me through this viewing, I was left pondering the affinity of the Space Ghost episodes. The Kentucky Nightmare episode with the shark is funny to a point. But, it comes across as a little stupid and drawn out upon repeat viewings. This disc made the bits fresh again with such things as the mom commentary on the special features. But, should you rely on the novelty of old women discussing the episodes to help you get through them?

Harlan County U.S.A 2099

Adult Swim and its shows have been plagued with that downside. The fun works in extremely small doses. If it’s stretched passed those comfort limits, it turns boring. A joke can be only so funny after going past the 15 minute marker. Still, I don’t watch the show for the dialogue. Unless, it’s Brak. I love Brak so much.

This DVD is going to be exclusively available from Williams Street. The Buy It link at the top of the review has been adjusted to take you directly to that site. I don’t get why Adult Swim or Warner Brothers didn’t feel strong enough in launching this title like they did the past four seasons of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. Maybe the economic hit of Speed Racer and The Golden Compass hurt the company in ways that I never thought. Ways that include stoner comedy and adult animation.

Throw in a bottle of lube and we’ve got ourselves a party.

The Package

Space Ghost: Coast to Coast – From the Kentucky Nightmare comes
to
DVD
with a bizarre offering. The A/V Quality is a lot better than I
expected. There’s quite a bit of clean-up between the original airing of Season 5 and what we have here. What I don’t get is how odd the marketing of Space Ghost Coast to Coast has been. I don’t see a lot of folks going online to buy a cult show from a decade ago.

The special features are fun. Especially, when you consider the sheer amount of commentaries featured on this DVD. You get creator commentary and then you get commentary from the creators’ moms. Then, the creators have a commentary for that mommentary. There’s also some table reads featuring the legendary George Lowe and other actors. It’s a pretty packed disc. Well, it’s a pretty packed disc that Warner Brothers didn’t feel comfortable enough distributing to stores. That’s just cheap.

The D was always excited when people mentioned their tour-de-force performance in Cradle Will Rock.

I’m working on my review of Let The Right One In, the Swedish vampire movie I saw at Fantastic Fest, and I’ll let you in on my first line:

Let The Right One In is a masterpiece.

Boo ya! Anyway, I fucking loved this movie and I’m going to be interviewing the director in a few days, but now there’s a question I don’t need to ask him: what he thinks of the remake. Talking to MovieZine (via Shock Til You Drop, who translated), Tomas Alfredson said:

Remakes should be made of movies that aren’t very good, that gives you the chance to fix whatever has gone wrong… I’m very proud of my movie and think it’s great, but the Americans might be of an other opinion. The saddest thing for me would be to see that beautiful story made into something mainstream.

Some commenters took me to task for my last article about this film, where I bemoaned Matt Reeves of Cloverfield directing the remake. They pointed out statements I’ve made in the past about remakes, where I said that the original still exists. Here’s the difference between a remake of an old movie and a remake of a new foreign movie, though: nobody sees the original. With an old movie, which is owned by some studio or other, there’s a push to rerelease it on DVD or otherwise tie in the remake. It’s all about the money. But for the remakes of the new foreign films, the impetus is to suppress the original so that the remake – which will not be sold as a remake – seems fresher and more original.

And here’s the other thing: Reeves cannot improve upon this film. I am depressed by the idea of Nacho Vigalondo’s Time Crimes being remade, but the fact that a genius like David Cronenberg has expressed interest make me less afraid. At least we’ll get a film with a personality. But hiring the Cloverfield guy to remake a movie about a 12 year old falling in love with his (pyhsically) 12 year old vampire neighbor – this is lose/lose. The remake will suck and the original will not get seen by the masses as it should.

Let The Right One In opens in New York and LA on October 24, followed by a multi-city rollout. I don’t know how wide this is going, but I will tell you that I believe this movie is worth a trip to see on the big screen. Do yourself – and the movies – a favor by making an effort to catch this film.

UPDATE: It’s playing tonight in LA. Go see it!

Brett Ratner certainly has no shortage of projects he’d like to get off the ground. In fact, he’s been attached to so many things in the last year (usually not as rumors but as statements from his own mouth) that I’ve lost track of what the hell he is supposed to be working on.

UGO caught up with Ratner at some event or other this week and asked him the probing ‘What are you doing next?’ question, and in addition to that Playboy movie and Beverly Hills Cop IV, he name dropped a God of War movie. I don’t think this is ‘news’, but neither was that ‘Ratner wants to do a Guitar Hero movie’ thing that came from the Walter Cronkites at MTV News a month back. Sometimes you gotta fill space.

Ratner’s talked about God of War before, and I’m sure that some people will get up in arms about it, but I’m officially at outrage fatigue when it comes to video game movies. Who cares, essentially. God Of War is a good game, but it’s relentlessly shallow in its 14-year old boy fascination with sex and violence, so I think Ratner would be kind of an ideal director for it. This is a movie that would be served best by a chugging electric guitar soundtrack, as well as some hip hop beats, and Ratner is just the guy to figure out which needledrops work best in ancient Sparta.

See the video interview with Ratner here.

One of the best things about the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is that the guy in the wheelchair is an asshole. Too often the disabled are presented in entertainment as saints or wonderful people, and since they’re just regular people like the rest of us, I have a hard time believing that to be the case. I bet crippled people are just as horrible, rotten, mean spirited and selfish as everybody else you’ve ever met. So why can’t they be serial killers as well?

Late Bloomer is a Japanese film from 2004 (still without US distribution) that posits that question, but with surprising empathy and emotion. Masakiyo Sumida, a severly disabled mute, plays himself as a man whose sexual frustration and loneliness lead him to commit murder, first against those close to him and then absolute strangers on the street. There’s an exploitation element to having this guy, whose palsied frame is mostly confined to a wheelchair and who can only talk through a high tech Speak n Spell, exposing what seems to be his darkest inner moments of agony and doubt. Watching him squirm in his wheelchair, spastically gulp down beer, sloppily shove food into his crooked mouth, you’re both repulsed and fascinated. But the sense of exploitation falls away as you realize how the film brings you into his world and eventually into his head.

Shot in black and white on what looks like consumer digital, Late Bloomer‘s handheld camerawork almost makes the movie take on documentary proportions. The fact that characters in the film video tape themselves and Sumida, and that these tapes are mixed in with the footage, and that Sumida is playing ‘himself’ makes the boundaries even fuzzier. The camera itself sometimes seems as palsied as Sumida, jerking around, not qute finding focus, especially as the movie goes on towards the series of murders. This is what it must be like to see out of Sumida’s eyes.

Late Bloomer has a great build up to the first murder, but then it takes a bizarre turn that left me unsatisfied. Sumida’s psychosis sets in when a university student becomes one his helpers and he falls in love with her. It’s obvious that she can never reciprocate, and the fact that he has a stash of porn films disgusts her (‘You’re just like the others!’ she yells, pointing out that the desexualization of the handicapped is part of the sainthood we try to impose upon them). She abruptly leaves the film, and then for the last half the focus shifts to her undeveloped housemates as Sumida begins his rampage. This sudden change left me feeling completely narratively disengaged from the film; maybe that was the point, as Sumida found himself alone in his madness, but it served only to make me wonder when the hell the whole thing was ending, since it felt like a final reel gambit.

Sumida’s performance is almost the definition of fearless. The camera lingers on his misborn form as he lolls about, making noises as his wet, rubbery tongue slips seemingly involuntarily from his mouth. There’s no doubt that frustrations the filmic Sumida feels are similar to the ones that the real life Sumida feels, which makes every ugly, uncomfortable moment hit the audience like a punch in the gut. There’s no veneer, no artifice (except once we get to the murders… I assume), so we’re never kept at a distance. We’re let painfully close in, closer than many people might like to go.

If there’s one reason that Late Bloomer seems to have disappeared after its initial festival run a couple of years ago is that the seemingly exploitational elements of the film – having a real crippled mute playing a serial killing crippled mute – distance the mainstream while the movie itself never gets as gonzo as the description ‘A Japanese film about a serial killing crippled mute’ might lead you to expect. This isn’t Miike territory, and it’s not My Left Foot territory either. It’s in a strange area in between, a movie whose extremity is emotional instead of visceral, but whose unflinching gaze on a wrecked human body will alienate many. As will the film’s soundtrack, which veers between hardcore Japanese punk and extreme noise.

Late Bloomer is a highly experimental film, so I understand writer/director Gô Shibata’s decision to unlatch from the obvious narrative direction, but it was a decision that left me behind as a filmgoer. Shibata goes to so many edgy places in style and form that I think he could have afforded to keep his story structure a touch more conventional, but any time I’m critiquing a film for doing things in unexpected ways I have to also admit more than a little admiration for that courage.

If you seek out Late Bloomer for sick midnight movie thrills, you’ll be resoundingly disappointed. If you seek it out for a sometimes harrowing examination of the real tolls of isolation and loneliness, you’ll be rewarded with a movie that never blinks.

When I heard that Rob Schmidt (Wrong Turn) was making a film entitled The Alphabet Killer, my first response was one that many people probably had. Do we really need another movie about George W. Bush?

But apparently, the film has nothing to do with Bush or his failed education policies.

The Alphabet Killer, which reunites director Rob Scmidt with Wrong Turn star Eliza Dushku, is a fact-based film about a serial killer and has been picked up by Anchor Bay for distribution in North America, according to Fangoria. The film debuts at Screamfest in Los Angeles on October 18 and is loaded with genre vets including Bill Moseley (The Devil’s Rejects), Michael Ironside (Total Recall, Starship Troopers), Timothy Hutton (The Dark Half), and Cary Elwes(Saw).

“THE ALPHABET KILLER turned out to be an incredible film—scary, intense and riveting,” adds scripter Tom Malloy, who’s also part of the cast. “It’s very much like David Fincher’s ZODIAC, but a lot tighter—and we have a payoff! Rob Schmidt was really able to make a mood come across, and he also got dead-on performances from all the actors; I’m happy to be one of them!. I hope the fans get behind it when it comes to theaters, but no matter what happens, I will always be proud of this kick-ass film!”

Fangoria also reports that, in addition to its Screamfest debut, The Alphabet Killer will receive a limited theatrical release this December before hitting DVD sometime after that. No release date for the DVD has been set but check out the film’s official site for more details.

I’d imagine that anyone who has ever thought about online movie marketing knows that studios (or their hired guns) put together reports detailing the prevailing online buzz about any given film, especially when new materials are released. Most of the time we don’t get to read this stuff. The reports are usually pretty entertaining when they do crop up.

That’s the case with this memo concerning the current online perception of Valkyrie, as released by Nikke Finke on Deadline Hollywood Daily. This is just part of a larger picture, though, in which a film is anticipated, then anticipated to be a major disaster, then makes strides to swat away the negative buzz by releasing some materials that, true to good old-fashioned showmanship, actually look entertaining.

Finke suggests that MGM is deliberately misinterpreting online buzz to give the film a more positive spin. But while I’m not evangelizing the movie by any means, and still don’t really know what to expect from Singer, I think she’s being unduly harsh. Taking responses here and on other sites as a gague, Valkyrie‘s profile seems to be improving.

I do like this memo’s particular attention to accents. (Though not as much as the Fan-Boy tags.) As the primary actors are not speaking subtitled German, which would (I hope) be the first choice, I hope that audiences won’t care about the lack of accents. Wouldn’t actors who are obviously not German but speaking with Deutch-accented English be far more conspicuous than actors who simply speak as they do, or in some neutral English accent? I hate to think that obviously fake accents would make the film more palatable (or, god forbid, ‘real’) to average audiences, but I suspect that’s actually the case.

Read the whole memo at Deadline Hollywood Daily. Unfortunately, the linked PDF is no longer available, and I didn’t save it when I originally read the story last night.

Favorable Tone Dominates Trailer Buzz – Currently, reactions to the Valkyrie
trailer are significantly favorable (approximately 80%) within
Entertainment, Fan-Boy, Video Sharing, Social Networks, Social
Bookmarks, and Fan communities. Fans deem the trailer “fantastic,” often praising the “stylistic” way that the footage was cut and asserting that it is “way better” than the initial teaser. Enthusiasts also note that the “intriguing”
trailer has furthered their anticipation for the film’s release and
anticipate that it will feature many great performances from the
ensemble cast. Additionally, many viewers share avid excitement to see
Bryan Singer’s “distinctive work” in the film and, while others admitted that they “aren’t fans” of Tom Cruise, they stated that the trailer has “sold”
them on seeing Valkyrie in December. Neutral reactions (15%) arise from
viewers sharing mixed reactions to the trailer, often asserting that
while the film has the potential to be “awesome”
they still have their doubts based on the initial critical buzz. The
limited amount of unfavorable discussion (5%) stems from critics
expressing general disinterest in the film, contending that the trailer
makes Valkyrie look like “another Hollywood action movie.”

Before we go any further, pay attention to this: so far, this movie is NOT happening. OK? OK. I’ve contacted an excellent source who knows nothing about this actually moving forward at the present, so don’t get too worried.

Travis Wright and John Glen, co-writers on the original draft of Eagle Eye, once worked on a Blade Runner sequel script. This was a while back, and at one point they were even working with original Blade Runner producer Bud Yorkin to get the thing off the ground. But like the Blade Runner Down project from the late ’90s, it died.

Or so we thought. Though Wright and Glen are no longer partnered at the keyboard, Wright is still talking about the project as if it is a going concern. /Film has the exclusive about Wright speaking at a recent Q&A, where he mentions the sequel script and the fact that he’s talked to producers, etc. about getting the film off the ground.

/Film originally reported that Wright and Glen were actively working on the project, but Glen wrote to clarify, as follows: “There was a point where Travis and I were working with Bud Yorkin on a sequel to Blade Runner, but that was years back. It never got too far off the ground because the movie is so perfect, so the more we thought about it, the more uneasy we became with the idea.”

Hopefully that means that /Film’s original scooper mis-characterized Wright’s comments at the Q&A, and that the screenwriter remains uneasy with the idea. Regardless, can you imagine the effort he’d have to put forth to get a Blade Runner sequel made? We may live in a Simpsons-like universe where an I Am Legend prequel seems like a good idea, but I don’t yet believe that even a studio head is dumb enough to think audiences want a sequel to this film.