Nineteen-year-old Canadian-born actress, Kirsten Prout, can next be seen in the third installment of the highly popular vampire franchise The Twilight Saga in Twilight: Eclipse (June 30, 2010).  In the movie Kirsten will play the small supporting but pivotal role of “Vampire Lucy.”  In the film, her character is seen in flashbacks and gives insight into the back story of “Jasper” (Jackson Rathbone) and how he was created.  The film is directed by David Slade (30 Days of Night) and stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner and is currently in production in Vancouver.  Kirsten’s previously been known for her work on both the film Elektra, as Abby Miller, and TV show, Kyle XY, as Amanda Bloom.  I had the chance to interview her about her role in Eclipse and the entire Twilight experience, including being recognized by a fan for something she hadn’t even done yet.

David Oliver: Congratulations on landing the role of Lucy in the upcoming Twilight: Eclipse.  Can you tell us about her?

Kirsten Prout: To get Lucy was an absolute shock.  It was so exciting because the entire Twilight culture is so interesting because we have so many fans.  So getting the part was a real honor for me.  [Lucy’s] a vampire, she’s with Maria when Jasper becomes a vampire.  The part of the movie it occurs in is when Jasper was still a soldier.  Essentially he sees these three women walking.  And it’s Catalina and I…and we’re walking through the desert and we look vulnerable because back in the day, women were always chaperoned.  And Jasper, being the gentleman that he is, comes up and yeah, he gets a surprise.  And that’s all I can really tell you.  But yeah, it’s a fun part, very predatory…it was great playing a vampire because I love shows like True Blood and…back in the day, Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

David Oliver: Were you a fan of the books before you got the part?

Kirsten Prout: Yeah, I read them all.  My sister, who’s not a big reader, was sitting on the couch one day and could not put this book down.  And I was like, “What are you reading?”  And she said Twilight.  And I said, “Really?”  And I was fascinated by the fact that she was into this book when she’s never usually into books.  I borrowed that copy from her and I read it in a day.  I actually read every single book in a day.

David Oliver: Does your character transition into the next book (Breaking Dawn)?

Kirsten Prout: No, I don’t think so.  Lucy…she has…

David Oliver: She has an untimely occurrence.

Kirsten Prout: Yeah.  She’s a bad guy and bad guys have to meet their maker at some point.

David Oliver: I’m sure you’ve got a fan base already with your work on Kyle XY.  Do you think you prepared for the potential fan onslaught of becoming part of the Twilight saga?

Kirsten Prout: Oh my gosh, I’ve already kind of, it’s strange because I’m not used to being recognized from anything except Elektra and Kyle XY, right?  And I was at the Gap, I was just at the till and I actually had a woman recognize me as Lucy.  Even though the film hasn’t come out yet.  That’s how extensive the fans are, the network for fans.  She looked at me and said, “You’re Lucy.” And I thought she was mistaking me for one of her friends.

David Oliver: That’s a little freaky to get recognized for something that you haven’t even done yet.

Kirsten Prout: Exactly.  It’s very strange.  

David Oliver: Was she like, “Oh, you should come meet my friends; we’ll go out drinking…you should meet my vampire coven!  It’ll be great!”

Kirsten Prout: Yeah, well, she wasn’t wearing fangs or anything.

David Oliver: Do you get caught up in any of the other young adult franchises like 90210 or Vampire Diaries, etc.?

Kirsten Prout: No, I don’t watch either show.  The shows I usually watch are Dexter, True Blood…I watch Bones.  I don’t watch 90210, Melrose Place.  I’m an absolute freak over True Blood, actually.  Before I got this part, I was like, “I want to play a vampire” when the show first came on because it’s sooo well-written.  And one of my girlfriends and I would have a True Blood night.   You know, we’d sit on the couch, order some sushi or something.  It was like a tradition with us.  I’m a big fan of True Blood for sure.

David Oliver: You were part of the cast of Kyle XY, which recently wrapped production this year after a three-year run.  Were you good with how the show ended or did you feel there were still stories to tell?

Kirsten Prout: Oh man, in my opinion, the show ended like, it was like reading a book and tearing out the last few pages.  Unfortunately, the show ended on a cliffhanger…sometimes that’s just the way TV works.  You don’t realize you’re giving it a cliffhanger for next season and then when the show ends, you’re left with a cliffhanger.  I loved doing the show and I loved the run of the show and I put so much into it.  And it’s sad that you won’t get that resolution.  But I think we gave it a really good run and it was a great show to work on.

David Oliver: You had some television work prior to getting Elektra when you were 13.  Do you see that film as the big jumping off point for your career?

Kirsten Prout: Yeah, I’d say that it would be…it was my first brush with having to grow up in the film industry.  I started when I was ten years old…and I did it for fun initially.  My mom and dad didn’t even want me to go into the industry.  But I’ve always had this fascination with storytelling.  Finally my mom kind of acquiesced…she gave in.  So when I’m 10 years old, I started booking jobs.  And it was something that I worked on and had so much fun doing, and I never really grasped the enormity of when you get a movie like Elektra.  And I remember I had the same attitude when I went in for Eclipse as I had for Kyle XY: “Maybe they’ll see my tape, they’ll see my work, and I can make an impression for the future.”  And I went into that audition for and I had three subsequent callbacks and I was just sort of blown away when I got it because it was a nationwide search.  And the same with [Eclipse], I just feel so honored to be chosen.  I think Elektra was my first introduction to red carpets, and interviews, and the whole culture of the film industry.

David Oliver: Did you do Comic Con for it? Or have you ever done any kind of convention?

Kirsten Prout: Yeah, for Kyle, definitely for Kyle.  We had a junket kind of thing.  I would love to go to a Comic Con, but it always works out that I’m working the weekend of, or I have something else going on.  But in the future I do hope to make it to some kind of convention.  I love them.

David Oliver: Eclipse is shooting in your home town of Vancouver isn’t it?  

Kirsten Prout: Yeah.  It was really convenient to get the job.  My first day of shooting was the first day of production.  So it was pretty cool, not having to get on a plane and just getting in the car…which, by the way, it’s so impossible to find that set because of the security.  And I’ve been on a lot of film sets, but I’ve never been on one that’s so closed.  I mean, it’s crazy, you drive up and there’s no signage to it, because otherwise, paparazzi would get in.  There’s like this entire semicircle of…black fabric surrounding all of the set.  The paparazzi can’t get in.  It’s like a frickin’ fort; and there are two police officers in the front.  You walk in and you have to wear a bathrobe over your wardrobe.  The security when it comes to paparazzi is really, really intense.

David Oliver: Do you think that you’ll start to have more trouble with the paparazzi once this film comes out and you’ll get recognized even more considering it’s pretty much the hottest thing going for anyone under 20 right now?

Kirsten Prout: Well, I mean, honestly, I hope not.  That’s kind of part of the job, part of the game I guess.  In a lot of ways though, there are ways to get around the paparazzi…and sometimes, you know, celebrities are asking to be photographed.  Like, you go to a certain hotspot, you go to the Ivy for lunch, or you go to certain places, you will get photographed.  That’s where the paparazzi are.  So it’s all a matter of balancing it out.  But in Vancouver, we never used to have paparazzi. It used to be a place where celebrities went.  

David Oliver: Yeah, and now everything shoots up in Vancouver.  

Kirsten Prout: Everything’s always shot up in Vancouver.  We always had lots of productions.  I filmed Elektra in Vancouver, we had the Fantastic Four filmed in Vancouver, X-Men, and you know a lot of big movies.  We never had problems with paparazzi really.

David Oliver: A lot of your contemporaries, actresses around your age or slightly older, it seems like the only way they can keep their fame going is to end up on TMZ every week or have a wardrobe malfunction or just get out of rehab.  I did some looking around and didn’t find anything too scandalous about you.  So I’m wondering how it is that you stay out of those negative aspects of the career?

Kirsten Prout: Well…I was raised in a family totally removed from the film industry.  And the reason I’m in this industry is not to get attention, I do this work because I love the work and I love being a character and transforming myself.  And to me, I’m extremely disinterested to parade around getting wardrobe malfunctions because…I like to stay home, I like to cook, I like to garden and enjoy very much just getting in touch with myself.  Because I find that when you give yourself to a character on set, and you’re there all the time and you’re playing that character, sometimes you need to just come home and get in touch with yourself.  So I try to connect with the simple things in life, versus “Oh, am I going to drop 2% in popularity on IMDB?”  The reason that popularity would be important to me would be to open doors to projects and characters that I really love.

David Oliver: What’s in the future for Kristen Prout?  What would you like to say to your fans?

Kirsten Prout: Well, I always keep in very close contact with fans through KyleXY.net. and I’m always talking to them.  But I really just feel so lucky to have a wonderful group of people supporting me.  And I feel so honored to have the kind of people who e-mail me and write and send me so much love.  I’m so appreciative of that.  So a message to my fans: Thank you.  And in the future for me, I’m just going to go after roles that I love.  I love to get into dark stuff.  To explore a dark comedy….  So I mean, in the future I hope to just find those projects that make me happy as an artist.  

David Oliver: You said that you were a fan of vampire projects.  Do you think that by getting Eclipse that will help you to get another vampire role if you would want one or would that be something that you’d want to stay away from?

Kirsten Prout: Vampires are fascinating and, let’s be honest, I’ve got the skin for it.  And – told this story so many times before – but the week before I got the part, I was in LA and I bought SPF 70…because I terrified that I was getting so brown. [Later,] I was sitting down for the airbrushing process on set [with the make-up artist], which usually takes a long time and the airbrushing wasn’t working and it turns out that the airbrushing was the same color as my skin.  So I think I’ve got the vampire look pretty down. 

The real possibility of a Who Framed Roger Rabbit? sequel began floating around earlier in the year when Zemeckis mentioned being inspired by his new tools and toys. He has since steadily teased the idea of follow-up, and even clarified at Comic-Con that he wouldn’t be Polar-Express‘ing any formerly 2D characters. Just what relationship live action, 2D, 3D, and performance capture would have in this proposed film is unclear. I’d bet a limb or two that even Zemeckis hasn’t quite figured that out.

All speculation aside, Bob has more concretely revealed to MTV that original screenwriters Peter Seaman and Jeffry Price are working on the sequel. More specifically, “there’s a script that’s being developed.”

This is little more than another tease, but it does at least indicate that it will be a new concept and that perhaps Zemeckis does have intentions to somewhat stick with the old approach.

Expect the vague mentioning to continue- Zemeckis is always a busy dude with lots of projects. One of those projects happens to be a 3D Animated remake of Yellow Submarine that intends to hit by 2012, so any new Roger Rabbit is still a long long way off.

Flashes Before Your Eyes (S3, ep. 8)

Desmond: I’ve tried, brother. I’ve tried twice to save you, but the universe has a way of course correcting and — and I can’t stop it forever. I’m sorry. I’m sorry because no matter what I try to do you’re going to die, Charlie.

Thoughts:

• Great Hurley/Charlie Exchange:

Hurley: “Dude, I don’t know about this.”
Charlie: “See, you’re looking this all wrong. He would want us to do this.”
Hurley: “He would want us to ransack his tent and take his stash? Yeah, that sounds exactly like Sawyer.”
Charlie: “Well, he stole all this in the first place. I mean, people need food. They need medical supplies. They need…shocking amounts of pornography.”

• Locke tells Charlie and Hurley that ‘the Island’ killed Eko. When Charlie asks what that means, Locke responds by saying “you know what that means.” Uh, actually, I suspect he doesn’t. I sure as hell don’t.

It’s still a verrry open question: is the Island sentient? Does it ‘think’? Does it have ‘plans’? Are the Smoke Monster and/or the MiB somehow extensions of the Island itself? I’ve theorized that this may be the case – that the person we know as the Man in Black, glimpsed only briefly in the finale for Season 5, is a personification of the Island’s power/intelligence. I’ve also suggested, in the alternate, that the Island and the MiB may metaphorically resemble the Gnostic conception of an Ultimate, Remote Deity and a corrupt-seeming Demiurge, respectively. But we’re a full season away from knowing the answer(s) to any of this, and your guess, frankly, is as good as mine.

• Needy Charlie really bothers me. I get it, and it works, but he still irritates me.

Hurley: “Locke doesn’t know about anything except knives and fishing.”

• That’s a pretty insightful observation from good ol’ Hurley, who tends to be very good at seeing the truth in people. It’s little wonder, given his gift in this area, that Hurley is also able to see Jacob’s cabin.

Desmond: “What kind of whiskey is that?”
Charlie: “It’s, uh — it just says MacCutcheon.”
Desmond: “Alright then, let’s have it. No, the bottle, brother. I mean, if you’ve come to drink, let’s drink.”

• First of all, I heartily agree with Desmond’s drinking philosophy. Secondly, I love the detail lathed onto this fictional whiskey during the course of this episode.

• More Hurley/Charlie(/Desmond) greatness:

Hurley: Hey, do you know any songs about drinking and fighting and girls with one leg?
Charlie: Well, girls with (Desmond joins in) one leg and a heart of gold!

• I’ve come to the conclusion that, as an audience member, I enjoy being fucked with. A perfect example of this: When Desmond turns the failsafe key and we suddenly see him lying in a pool of what looks like his own blood. Only it isn’t blood – its paint, and he’s….in an apartment with Penny?

And with that, Lost drops time travel straight into our laps. Desmond appears to ‘consciousness-travel’ in this episode – his mind slipping back into his past body in a manner similar to the way we’ll see consciousness-travel described and portrayed in later seasons.

• I love the way in which the ‘present’ reality of the Swan Station, with it’s 108 minute countdown and alarm, intrudes on the ‘past’ reality of Desmond’s experience with Penny.

• Widmore’s character has grown so much in importance both on a character level and on a show-mythology level that I can’t help but view his appearance here in a new light as well. For instance: Widmore openly displays a painting in his office which prominently features a polar bear, a Buddha and the word ‘Namaste’ scrawled backward. I’m not clear on when Widmore leaves the Island, but he’s around when Dharma establishes itself on the Island. Is this a hint? Was Widmore instrumental in bringing Dharma to the Island? Is that why Dharma was grudgingly tolerated by Richard and the Others?

• Desmond’s encounter with Widmore is a mirror of Jin’s similar encounter with Paik. Only, instead of eagerly agreeing to a job, Desmond simply steps up and asks for Widmore’s permission to marry his daughter. It’s a noble gesture, as Widmore notes, but…

Widmore: “This is a 60 year MacCutcheon, named after Anderson MacCutcheon, esteemed Admiral from the Royal Navy. He retired with more medals than any man before or since — moved to the highlands to see out his remaining years. Admiral MacCutcheon was a great man, Hume. This was his crowning achievement. This swallow is worth more than you could make in a month. To share it with you would be a waste, and a disgrace to the great man who made it — because you, Hume, will never be a great man.”
Desmond: “Mr. Widmore, I know I’m not…”
Widmore: “What you’re not, is worthy of drinking my whiskey. How could you ever be worthy of my daughter?”

Damn.

Just….damn.

But let’s consider something here – it’s possible that Widmore’s attitude toward Desmond is purely motivated by his disdain toward Des’ (lack of) social station. But it’s also possible, given what we’ll learn about Ms. Hawking in this episode, that Widmore is motivated by something else. More on this below.

Charlie (singing): “I said maybe, you’re gonna be the one who saves me…”

• That’s such a wonderful moment. Charlie, busking on the street, crooning a tune by the band Oasis – which was the ‘real world’ inspiration for Charlie’s eventual band, Driveshaft – that’s also, simultaneously, a big hint regarding Desmond and Charlie’s evolving Season 3 relationship.

Donovan: “Your thesis is a bit neat. The wild card part is unpredictability — run the same test ten times, you’ll get ten different outcomes. It’s what makes life so wonderfully…”

• Desmond’s physicist buddy Donovan may be addressing some random grad student in a bar, but his comment would seem to have some serious relevance to Lost’s storyline. Recall the opening scene from the Season 5 finale: Jacob, awaiting the arrival of a ship to the Island, and the MiB asking him why he bothers, because it always ends the same way. “It only ends once,” Jacob responds, “everything before that is just progress.” The unpredictability that Donovan obliquely refers to above is, I’d think, a large part of the reason for Jacob’s seemingly-optimistic statement. It’s also, I think, what Daniel was emphasizing at the end of Season 5 – the possibility of unpredictability within a deterministic system.

• During the game that Desmond watches, you can see ads for Apollo bars, Buttie diapers and the Hanso foundation.

Desmond: I don’t think my failure to impress your father is any occasion to celebrate. Penelope: Well, the occasion is I love you.
Desmond: Why? Why do you love me?
Penelope: Because you’re a good man. In my experience they’re pretty hard to come by.

• Maybe I’m just an irredeemable softie (I am), but that exchange is one of the sweetest bits of dialogue in the show as far as I’m concerned. It’s natural, I think, to feel unworthy of your partner’s love at times – I’ve certainly wondered to myself why it is that my wife chose me  instead of someone with, say, access to large yachts with built-in pools.  Penelope’s reassuring words here are the sort of words I think we all want to hear – that we’re loved because we love – because we try, over and over, to be good, to do right. And despite those reassurances, there’s still that nagging voice, whispering, telling you that, as Desmond claims, “Love’s not enough. Being a good man is not enough.”

MS. HAWKING: Well, I know your name as well as I know that you that don’t ask Penny to marry you. In fact, you break her heart. Well, breaking her heart is, of course, what drives you in a few short years from now to enter that sailing race — to prove her father wrong — which brings you to the island where you spend the next 3 years of your life entering numbers into the computer until you are forced to turn that failsafe key. And if you don’t do those things, Desmond David Hume, every single one of us is dead. So give me that sodding ring.

• Welcome aboard, Ms. Hawking, aka, Evil Angela Lansbury. It’ll be two seasons before we discover who your son is, but already Lost’s writers are laying the bricks down on this particular foundation. Hawking’s appearance here sort of blew my mind the first time I watched this episode, and revisiting it now with the knowledge of what’s to come makes some (but not all) things clearer. For instance, we now know (or suspect, at any rate) that Hawking’s awareness of Desmond’s importance is linked to her son’s conversations with Desmond (which hasn’t happened yet, but simultaneously has happened, as if things weren’t confusing enough) and that her knowledge of time travel shenanigans is due in part to the fact that she comes into possession of her son’s journal upon his death. But the specificity of knowledge that Hawking has about Desmond, about this particular day and these particular events, seems above and beyond what she could learn from that journal. How has she gotten this information?

I’m going to suggest that she’s gotten the information from Widmore, and that she and Widmore have conspired to send Desmond on to the Island at all costs. Whether this is because he wants Des out of his daughter’s life, or because he’s aware that it is Desmond’s ‘destiny’ to go to the Island isn’t clear – but we’ll find out that Widmore has Hawking’s contact info, and he’d certainly be in a better position to inform Hawking about Desmond’s activities during this time period. On top of this, we’ve watched Widmore emphatically underline to Desmond that he isn’t a ‘great man’ like Admiral MacCutcheon – and what is it that Hawking claims?:

Ms. Hawking: You may not like your path, Desmond, but pushing that button is the only truly great thing that you will ever do.

• Two other things worth noting about this conversation: (1) Desmond’s full name is Desmond David Hume. David Hume was a Scottish philosopher and historian who counted John Locke among his major influences. Hume was, famously, a compatibilist – he believed that determinism and free will were compatible, that our free will is shaped by what we’ve already experienced, and this stance is arguably what Lost has settled on in terms of its own storyline. Hume believed that liberty and necessity (free will and determinism) were dependant on one another to give the other meaning; that, like the black and white of the Dharma bagua or the Yin/Yang, the two seemingly-opposing concepts were symbiotic. (2) When Hawking claims that ‘every single one of us is dead,’ I believe she’s referring not to the entirety of humanity (though that’s certainly possible) but to those people who have been, or will be, on the Island.

Ms. Hawking: The universe, unfortunately, has a way of course correcting. That man was supposed to die. That was his path just as it’s your path to go to the island. You don’t do it because you choose to, Desmond. You do it because you’re supposed to.

• On another equally important note: Hawking sets up the basic rules of ‘course correction’ here – the idea that events in time aren’t really malleable – that ‘whatever happened, happened.’ This basic deterministic concept will carry forward into the remaining seasons and bloom fully in Season 5. But the idea of course correction, and the way in which Desmond is shown altering events in an attempt to keep Charlie from dying, also serves as a basic primer on free will and the ability of determined people to change some events in the time stream (even if the ultimate result ends up the same). Lost’s concept of time, as mentioned, appears to be a compatibilist one.

• The pin that Ms. Hawking wears during her scenes appears to be an Ouroboros, an ancient symbol representing the cyclical nature of things, and the concept of an ‘eternal return.’ Gnostic belief holds the symbol’s meaning as ‘eternity,’ and/or ‘the soul of the world.’ Only, this particular pin appears to be a modified Ouroboros, where the snake has let it’s own tail go. A symbol, perhaps, of disunity? Of the breaking of eternity? We still don’t know where Hawking’s allegiances truly lie…and she’s instrumental in getting Jack and Co. to bring Locke’s body back to the Island…

• The shot of Desmond’s ring being dropped into the water is really nice.

• As the episode ends, we learn Desmond’s secret, and the terrible truth – Charlie is scheduled to die, just like those damned teenagers in a Final Destination film, and Desmond’s attempts to save his life may simply be prolonging the inevitable. Lost may be advocating for a compatibilist view of time overall, but Charlie’s ultimate fate looms just over the horizon like a yawning, waiting coffin, putting lie to all these fancy notions of free will, of hope, of escape.

*****

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Season 3

• Not In Portland (S3 ep. 07)
• I Do (S3 ep. 06)
• The Cost of Living (S3 ep. 05)
• Every Man for himself (S3 ep. 04)
• Further Instructions (S3 ep. 03)
• The Glass Ballerina (S3 ep. 02)
• Season 3 Premiere

Season 2

• Season 2 finale
• Three Minutes (S2 ep. 22)
• ? (S2 ep. 21)
• Two for The Road (S2 ep. 20)
• S.O.S. (S2 ep. 19)
• Dave (S2 ep. 18)
• Lockdown (S2 ep. 17)
• The Whole Truth (S2 ep. 16)
• Maternity Leave (S2 ep. 15)
• One of Them (S2 ep. 14)
• The Long Con (S2 ep. 13)
• Fire + Water (S2 ep. 12)
• The Hunting Party (S2 ep 11)
• The 23rd Psalm (S2, ep. 10)
• What Kate Did (S2, ep. 9)
• Collision (S2, ep. 8)
• The Other 48 Days (S2, ep. 7)

I figured in addition to the large List of Dumb
columns that run a couple of times a month it’d be good to give folks a
daily dose, since there’s absolutely no shortage of dumb shit out there
in the world. Help keep this thing going by sending your DUMBS to me
through THIS LINK.
Also, please spread the word through your Tweets and Facebook and
MySpace updates. Though CHUD.com’s not for everyone, stuff like this is!

10/30 – Especially if there’s a toilet in it!

Photo by Clay Young.

Seems to me the door, ceiling, walls and floor make the fuckin’ sign moot. It not ours to question the place a room has in the cosmos. We must only enter it, treat it with respect, and if at all possible leave boom sauce all around it.

A Dumb a Day message board thread.

The Film: State of Play.

The Principals: Kevin Macdonald (director). Matthew Michael Carnahan. Tony Gilroy. Billy Ray. Paul Abbot (writers). Russell Crowe. Ben Affleck. Rachel McAdams. Helen Mirren. Jason Bateman. Harry Lennix. Robin Wright Penn. Jeff Daniels (actors).

“Your shoulder smells like knee.”

The Premise: Political intrigue marries with hard reporting and Helen Mirren gets pissed at all of it.

Is it Good:
Good? It’s almost great.

The British miniseries State of Play
is based upon is a classic bit of work, and an awakening to some of the
greater talents working across the pond, many of whom have already
staked their claim in America with mixed results. It is graceful,
elegant, and loaded with depth. It also has the benefit of
three-hundred and fifty minutes to tell its story, something which is
nearly impossible to do on the big screen in thousands of multiplexes.
It’s a classic.

The feature version, pared down and Americanized with big stars and a
glossy sales pitch softens some of the edges, removes some of the
characters, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t really close to being as
effective as the original. Is it a classic? No, but it is an
intelligent, strong, well-acted mainstream motion picture that favors
suspense over action and luckily has more in common with films like All the President’s Men than Enemy of the State. So much so in fact that it features a scene in the Watergate building and a memorable parking deck confrontation.

Sex with Sandahl Bergman left him pretty much as he expected.

The
film
begins with a murder, a seemingly minor one of a two-bit thief in
a darkened alley, an act which escalates, involving an unfortunate
witness and eventually resulting in the revelation of a massive
conspiracy where billions of dollars are at stake. The core situation
is different than in the British miniseries, taking the now-overused
oil business plotline and replacing it with something nearly as
important but less covered in mainstream film. That murder is tied to
another, the death of a young woman who seemingly fell in front of a
train. A woman who happens to work for a Congressman (Ben Affleck), the
person in charge of a rather large investigation. The person who
happens to be having affair with the Congressman. It’s just the
beginning of things that have hidden layers in a plot rife with them.
before all is said and done, sex and scandal are only a small part of
an issue that involves the privatization of the military, the role the
media has in big business and politics, and where the bond of
friendship finds its limits.

It’s a really solid movie. Smart. Unafraid to skimp on action (and what action it does have is tacked on). Definitely cut from a better cloth than many of the studio releases calling themselves dramas.

“What?”                         
“Fucking Red Eye, that’s what!”

Is it Worth a Look: Most definitely. It’s the kind of movie we need more of, especially with Lumet fading, and Alan J. Pakula an ex-alive man. Also, Ben Affleck
has improved greatly as an actor since stepping behind the lens.
There’s a new patience to him and a little gray hair and more defined
creases in his face help alleviate the still square-jawed All-American
look. Though he certainly doesn’t feel the same age as Russell Crowe,
age and experience is paying dividends for Mr. Ben Affleck.

Random Anecdotes: The end credits serve as a poetic postmortem on print news journalism as we see the printing process laid before us. Robin Wright Penn has aged well. The same weird energy that fuels Robert Downey Jr. is infused in Jason Bateman, and there are little moments where you see it bubbling. Someone needs to uncork that guy. I love when comatose people get sniped.

Cinematic Soulmates: All the President’s Men. The Parallax View.

“Stop calling me Collins. My name is Matt Murdock and… did that fucker switch nameplates again?”

Movie of the Day Message Board Discussion.

Who steps in for This Is It director Kenny Ortega on the remake of Footloose, starring some femmey dude from Gossip Girl and shooting early next year? Paramount would like it to be Craig Brewer.

Yes, the Craig Brewer who directed Black Snake Moan, the film that has Samuel L Jackson chaining a half-naked Christina Ricci to his radiator. See, Paramount wants to make Footloose an edgier drama, and they like how Brewer mixed the drama with the music in his terrific debut, Hustle & Flow.

This doesn’t mean that Brewer wants to do Footloose. Somehow I suspect this isn’t up his alley, but if Paramount were to really let him go, I think he could make one of those rare remakes that actually brings something new to the table. Brewer would bring the sexuality to the dancing that the saccharine original only hinted at, and I think he’d push right up against a PG-13 rating (which is what we must assume Paramount is going for). He’d also likely have a better soundtrack than High School Musical 1-3 director Ortega.

I doubt that Brewer will end up on the picture, but in a lot of ways it’s heartening – Paramount might be interested in making a real movie, not just something aimed at the So You Think You Can Dance crowd.

via the Risky Biz Blog

If you were hoping to see John Rhys-Davies show up in The Hobbit playing the father of his Lord of the Rings character Gimli, I have something to tell you. Take a seat, and have some of this peppermint tea. It’ll calm your nerves.

Phew. OK. I guess I should just say it. Ugh, this is just as hard for me to say as it is for you to hear, believe me.

John Rhys-Davies won’t be playing Gloin in The Hobbit.

Look at you. So brave. You’re really handling this better than I would have. Jesus, I remember when I heard that Stuart Townsend was out of the role of Aragorn I just threw up for hours. Weeping and puking. A whole day of that, mostly.

Hey, I know it’s easy for you to think that Rhys-Davies is turning down a role – one that was offered to him by the production – because of you. Don’t blame yourself. This isn’t because you didn’t buy enough Gimli toys or because you laughed at the picture of the girl with a hairy vagina that had been Photoshopped to include his helm and the words “And my axe!” This was a personal decision for Rhys-Davies – it’s about him, it’s not about you.

More specifically, it’s about his skin. The actor was famously tortured by the dwarf make-up when shooting Lord of the Rings, and he tells Empire that he doesn’t think he can handle more of that. But bright side! Rhys-Davies wants to still be friends, and he’s open to another role in the movie. Maybe as an elf.

Yeah, an elf. No, it’s good for you to laugh – it’ll help you get past this.

We knew in April that Colombia was putting their intentions to produce a third Men In Black film out there. The sequel might actually be becoming corporeal as the studio has hired Etan Cohen to put together a screenplay with hopes of Smith and Jones returning.

Frankly, Men In Black is among my favorite comedies. It hit at the perfect time in my childhood and is just clever and well-done enough to remain a favorite as I grow older.  There are certainly some 90s-as-fuck moments that don’t sit well, but the film is heavy enough on the Sci Fi and light enough on the pretension to remain timeless- plus the core dynamic between Smith and Jones simply fucking works.

My hatred for the sequel doesn’t burn as bright as it once did simply because I remember almost nothing about it. I watch it once on tape as a teen and remember being disgusted, but have no recollection at all of the film itself. Men In Black remains a singular film to me, one that is unfriendly to the idea of a sequel conceptually, because the fun depends so much on the introduction of a new world. You can’t return to the shadowy mystery that drives so much of the original, so any sequel is going to be hamstrung by the insurmountable obstacle of recapturing that spark of discovery. This is a problem that plagued The Matrix sequels from the start, and is painfully present in Ghostbusters II (which Colombia is trying to similarly resurrect, with even more conceptual issues to deal with).

Be that as it may, the fact that Etan Cohen, writer of Tropic Thunder and Idiocracy (and short film My Wife Is Retarded– where can I see that?) is genuine clever and funny makes this unnecessary move easier to swallow. I wish him the best of luck making this work, and if it does come to fruition, hope I don’t have to neuralize another sequel out of my brain.

Source | Variety

That’s the new trailer for The Road, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel, coming to brighten your holidays. I think it’s too big for our layout, but Yahoo! doesn’t seem to offer scalability. Still, at least they’re finally offering embedding. Taken them forever.

This trailer is weird because it’s the hopeful trailer. It plays the movie up as an inspirational film where Viggo and the kid overcome adversity, which I guess is one way of looking at it. It also makes it seem like Guy Pearce is in the film for more than about twenty seven seconds. And it shows almost the entirety of Garrett Dilahunt’s role.

You can read my review of The Road right here.

I figured in addition to the large List of Dumb
columns that run a couple of times a month it’d be good to give folks a
daily dose, since there’s absolutely no shortage of dumb shit out there
in the world. Help keep this thing going by sending your DUMBS to me
through THIS LINK.
Also, please spread the word through your Tweets and Facebook and
MySpace updates. Though CHUD.com’s not for everyone, stuff like this is!

10/29 – The Family of Nuke ‘Em High.

Photo by Christopher Drake.

“Matt’s hoagie’s, bricklaying, and tattoo shop, how can I help you?”

“I need eyes in the back of my head.”

“Don’t we all? I almost got bum rushed by some dude who could read the other day.”

“No I need a tattoo of eyes in the back of my head, but not realistic eyes.
Shitty eyes that wouldn’t make it past the first wave of concepts
for an Insane Clown Posse sticker book.”

“Is this Lyle, the dude I did the Daisy Duck stricken with polio for?”

“None other. You also did my Tawny Kitaen tramp stamp and the Muffit on my belly.”

“Howdy, how’s your wife’s new tat I did?”

“The one of the Greenhouse Effect around her cooch or the
mixed deck of Tarot and Uno cards on her sleeve?”

“Both.”

“The school nurse said you spelt ‘Uno’ wrong, but otherwise…”

“What can I do you for today?”

“Well my kid’s about to be eight and I think it’s about time we cut his ambition and potential in the bud. Can you do a gigantic carnival clown kicking a motor home through goal posts on his chest?”

A Dumb a Day message board thread.