According to a report from the folks over at AICN, Kick-Ass has done so well on home video that the sequel has been officially given the greenlight.

Which is interesting, since the film pulled in just under 100 million bucks globally. And since the most bankable actor in the film is uh, BUSY in the wake of the first story arc. And because the film feels just fine as a one-off. At least to me.

But it killed and continues to kill on home video. And it should, because it’s pretty damn good. Disjointed, yes. But very good.

Mark Millar, the man who wrote the kinda crappy graphic novel the film is based on is apparently working on a sequel that features “criminals taking on supervillain personae to counter the superheroes, and Hit-Girl trying to lead a normal life”, and one would assume that if director Matthew Vaughn returns that’s the path he’ll take.

A lot of red flags go up with the comments above and the whole idea of more stories set in this universe with these people. As cute as Hit Girl was, I got my fill. How do you keep this interesting without killing the swagger of the first film. Not all comic book movies need to be sagas.

What I am thrilled to see is that studios realize that the cinemaplex is only the tip of the iceberg and that the jury on films on the cusp is never really out until the film has really had a chance to sink into the marketplace through all the fun ancillary means available now.

I personally don’t know if we need another Kick-Ass, but good on them if they can get the chance.

There are 365 days in a normal non-freaky-leap year. Each of those days marks the anniversary of all sorts of crazy shit. Some of that crazy shit has been made into movies.

August 31

It was 207 years ago today that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked on their historic search for an uninterrupted water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Along the way they “discovered” the prairie dog, shot tons of buffalo, and needed to get directions from a pregnant teenager who we’d put on a $1 coin one day.  

But they failed to find that water route, leaving it up to Teddy Roosevelt to literally dig a waterway connecting the two oceans a century later. So fuck them. Let’s reward a guy who actually succeeded in his goal.

It was in the wee hours of the morning on this day in 1888 that Jack the Ripper killed the first of his canonical five victims, Mary Ann Nichols, in the Whitechapel district of London. Nichols’ throat was slashed and her abdomen was ripped open by a deep, jagged wound… where her uterus had been removed. Four more murders, some creepy letters, and a global media storm followed. As we all know, Jack the Ripper was neither caught nor identified, though theories and rumors have fueled popular fiction in every medium since. Let’s take a look at some highlights from Mr. Ripper’s filmography.

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
Alfred Hitchcock’s silent classic, based on Marie Belloc Lowndes book (which was adapted into a film five times; most recently, and forgettabley, in 2009 starring Simon Baker), made waves at the time when Hitchcock cast popular romantic actor Ivor Novello as the lead. It was a choice Hitchock would regret, as the studio demanded Hitch alter the script to make Novello more sympathetic, so as not to upset the audience. This also necessitated a change to the film’s ending, which had originally left things ambiguous as to whether Novello was or wasn’t a vicious murderer of ladies. As Hitch later told Donald Spotto, who related it in his book, The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, “They wouldn’t let Novello even be considered as a villain. The publicity angle carried the day, and we had to change the script to show that without a doubt he was innocent.” Nice to know studios have always been pussies. Novello actually remade the film in 1932, with a new, even more Hollywood ending, where he now fought and defeated the real killer.

The Hammer Films
Hammer studios was responsible for several Ripper related films, starting with Room To Let (1949), which told a very Lodger-like tale, and was one of Hammer’s very first productions. Decades later, during their kickass stride as a genre super-machine, they churned out Hands of the Ripper (1971), about Jack’s murderous daughter, Terror in the Wax Museum (1973), where a murderer disguises himself as Jack the Ripper in the titular wax museum, and of course we cannot forget, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), where the good Dr. Jekyll transforms into a sexy evil lady who ends up being responsible for all the Ripper killings.

Murder by Decree (1979)
Here the late-great Bob Clark pitted the late 19th Century’s most famous murderer against the late 19th Century’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. Christopher Plummer and James Mason make a dandy pair as Holmes and Watson, respectively. The film was based on the then hot-new theories presented in the non-fiction book, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, by Stephen Knight, which put forward the argument that the Ripper murders were all an elaborate conspiracy constructed by the Royal Family to cover up a secret marriage between the heir to the throne, Prince Albert Victor, and Annie Elizabeth Crook, a working class girl. This was not the first film to pit the Ripper against Holmes. A Study in Terror (1965), starring John Neville, beat them to the punch. Oddly enough, Frank Finlay plays Inspector Lestrade in both films.

Time After Time (1979)
Apparently ’79 was the year for high-concept Ripper pairings. This Nicholas Meyer early work upgrades Jack’s foe from a literary character to a literary author. Now Jack (character actor demigod, David Warner) finds himself being hunted through time by the godfather of science fiction, H. G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell), using his own time machine, of course. They arrive in modern day San Francisco, some Mary Steenburgen happens, David Warner is awesome, and Meyer later wins the Saturn Award for Best Writing.   

Jack’s Back (1989)
This 80’s non-classic comes from the incomparable Rowdy “Road Rouse” Herrington. The story takes place in Los Angeles, in 1988, one hundred years after the original Ripper murders. Some hookers mysteriously find themselves getting murdered, copycat style. Police suspect a young doctor, played by none other than James Spader. Then midway into the film the doctor dies. Aww. No more Spader? Wrong. Spader’s identical twin brother shows up on the scene. He sees a shrink and has strange dreams revealing things only the killer could know. Is he the killer or isn’t he? And is the film Spaderlicious or Spadertastic?

From Hell (2001)
The nice-to-look-at film that killed the Hughes Bros career for almost a decade, it is based on Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel, which dug further into the theories presented in Stephen Knight’s book – a conspiracy running through the Royal Family, the Freemasons, and the painter Walter Sickert. Taking leave of Moore’s graphic novel, the film smooshes together two interesting historical figures to make a single less interesting movie character for Johnny Depp to play, pitting him against a certain Hobbit as Jack the Ripper. Heather Graham’s huge eyes and breasts co-star. This was to be the first of several films that Alan Moore disavowed. Fun fact, the Hughes Bros originally approached Daniel Day-Lewis to play Depp’s part.  

Well, that’s it folks. See you next time. Still plenty of history and plenty of films left.

I left off countless movies here, so please chime in with your Ripper films and Ripper thoughts below or on our message boards.

Apologies for getting this out at the 11th hour, especially to our readers living where it’s already September. What’s the future like?
Send me stock tips.

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE
STUDIO: Marvel Knights Animation & Shout! Factory
MSRP: $4.97
RATED: N/A
RUNNING TIME: 80 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
– A Conversation With Joe Quesada and Neal Adams
– Behind-The-Scenes Look At Marvel Knights Animation
– Visual History Of The Characters
– Marvel Super Heros, What The–?! Shorts   
– Music Video
– Trailers

The Pitch

That Joss Whedon X-Men run you loved back in like, 2005? Shit moves now, man.

The Humans

Joss Whedon and John Cassaday

The Nutshell

The now-classic, Eisner Award Winning Astonishing X-Men storyline Gifted is used as the launchpad for Marvel’s release of Marvel Knights Animation Motion Comics. Using modern computer graphics technology, the art and stories of the comics are brought to (sometimes creepy, sometimes convincing) life in a form that retains the original detail and composition. The intention is to bring the energy and and dynamism of animation to the complexity and richness of a comic book. It mostly works.

The Lowdown

In their brief history, motion comics have traditionally been used as gimmicky promotional tools and one-off cash-ins, but Marvel believes the technology has reached a point where they can start unloading some of their popular stories in the format. Really hitting the scene around 2005 with its use as a promo tool for Saw and some Stephen King novels, the biggest popular breakthrough for the medium came with DC’s long format adaptation of Watchmen and Batman: Mad Love. Reactions (as far as I have seen) to the comics have varied, and it’s not hard to see why. So far, the vast majority of the releases have been re-purposed from well-known properties, with questionable motives and a presentation that is, at its best, in its infancy.

So does it work here?

It’s better, that’s for sure. More than just slicing and dicing the images for elaborate “Ken Burns effects” (scaling graphic elements up and down while keyframing their position on screen), this Shout! Studio take on the technology involves mapping the original art onto 3D models. This gives the animators greater control to warp faces and create more dimensional movement to the point where they could be said to be engineering legitimate performances. Depending on the angle and composition, the effect is shockingly effective and takes on the feel of a cel-shaded CGI animated film. Just as often though, the effect is silly and distracting as a characters face contorts and twists in ways that have no relationship with real-world movement. It’s a simple fact that some of this art can’t be forced into a motion paradigm and hold up- the effect never looks right when it’s fighting with the original comic artists rendering of space and dimension on a flat plane. There is also the unfortunate effect of quality degradation and loss of image sharpness when they pull extreme zooms and close-ups from the art.

What about the story itself?

The comic being adapted is certainly a winner, having garnered itself an Eisner Award, and bringing with it Joss Whedon’s horde of fans. While it take place in a degree of continuity, it endeavors to be accessible no matter what level X-verse knowledge (classic, contemporary, or otherwise) you’re bringing to the table. Centering around a 6-issue, classic “cure” scenario, the X-men team lead by Cyclops and a reformed Emma Frost are looking to improve their public image, when a vicious extraterrestrial and a scientist with a new Mutant-Gene suppressant complicate their world. The roster is extremely streamlined, with the key players reduced down to just Cyclops, Emma Frost, Kitty Pride, Beast, and Wolverine (naturally other familiar faces enter in and out of the story as well, in cameos and side roles).

Even in paced, motion form the comic works well, and Whedon’s firm grasp on character dynamics shines through. There are points, namely the action climax of the arc that don’t necessarily translate to the medium very well, and end up feeling shortchanged. Whether it’s Whedon’s TV sensibilities bleeding through into the comic, or the friction between sequential art and video pacing, something feels off with the storytelling.

Ultimately the film functions as a collection of short episodes, and is entertaining to watch, but like an aging car that violently slips gears, the technology can’t help but jerk you out of the flow of the story more often than is really acceptable. If you’re a huge fan of the original comic, or simply can’t get enough of the Marvel U, then this might be up your alley. There is the inescapable feeling of a company discovering a fast, cheap way of re-purposing content here though*.

The question is- will comic fans respond if
they can’t slowly consume the art and story, before quickly flipping
through an exciting climax? Considering our increasing interest in the web and other forms of entertainment that require active engagement, it will be interesting to see if Marvel finds much success pushing comics into a more passive medium, with forced pacing.

*Joe Quesada blatantly admitting just that in the special feature doesn’t help either.

The Package

Tech specs are standard- NTSC Widescreen presentation with suitably standard sound. The disc allows you to play the 6 episodes individually, or all at once. Special features include a conversation with Joe Quesada and Neal Adams (a truly hyperbolic evangelist for the motion-comic medium), a music video for, a run-down of the history of the X-Men,  a behind-the-scenes of the animation studio (people at computers), and 3 episodes of the embarrassingly cheesy Marvel Super Heroes: What The–?! shorts (Robot Chicken rip-off cartoons with stop-motion Marvel action figures).

BUY FROM AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
STUDIO: Lions Gate
MSRP: $19.98
RATED: R
RUNNING TIME: 101 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
    
• Finding Tenderness: Bringing the Novel to the Screen

The Pitch

Anti-depressants are bad.  So is pedophilia.  And murder.  And being a vegetable.  Let’s put them all into one movie so it’ll be extra good!

The Humans

Starring Russell Crowe, Jon Foster, Sophie Traub, Laura Dern
Written by Emil Stern, based on a novel by Robert Cormier
Directed by John Polson

The Nutshell

When Eric (Foster) gets released from prison, Lt. Cristofuoro (Crowe) is there to greet him and remind him that he will be watching his every move.  You see, Eric slaughtered both of his parents a couple years ago but was exonerated of the charges once he turned 18 because he was on anti-depressants at the time, which altered his personality. (Scientologists shake their heads and say “I told you so.”) Once out, Eric decides to drive across the state of New York to visit a girl that he saw once, briefly, while in the slammer.  On the way, he’s joined by Lori (Traub), a completely different troubled 16-year-old girl who is even more obsessed with Eric than Cristofuoro.  Brooding, crying, and lots of talking ensue.

“Jesus.  I just had the worst nightmare.  I dreamt that I was back at the beginning of my career, making crap movies for a few bucks a day just hoping I’d get my brea-“
“Yo, Russ!  We’re ready for your crying scene!”

The Lowdown

It’s hard to write about completely forgettable movies.  They’re not so bad that you have a laundry list of gigantic plot holes, laughable acting, and incompetent shot framing.  Those movies are easy to tear apart.  The thing about forgettable movies is that you never get involved enough with the story to care, even when they outright suck.

Such is the sad plight of Tenderness, which plays out as your stereotypical indie movie that one would’ve expected to find back in the early 2000s.  You’ve got your introverted, emotionless kid who may or may not be a cold-blooded murderer at heart.  And your damaged, teenage girl coming from a dysfunctional home who likes herself some bad boys.  And an obsessed, tortured cop who is grieving over his wife who lies in a vegetative state.  Each one on their own would be fodder enough for a small, character-driven flick — but, we get all three in this one!  Should be thrice as good then, right?

Not quite.

Dear Ridley: please, for the love of God, never, EVER stop making movies.  And never die.  Love always, The Crowe.

One of the rules of screenwriting and storytelling in general is that you only get one major “what if” before you risk losing your audience.  People are willing to suspend their disbelief once, and in a big way, to establish the rules of the world they’re going into. But after that, you’d better stick within those guidelines otherwise there’s no more believability.  That’s how we can get sucked into movies about people turning into werewolves, but not necessarily movies about people turning into werewolves who also can travel through time.  (Although, please someone make that movie because I’d be there in a heartbeat.)

Usually this ends up being more of an issue with high-concept movies, because by definition they require us to swallow a larger pill off the bat.  But, these smaller, character-based flicks can jump the shark, too, if they’re not careful.  In the case of Tenderness, it’s not so much about the plot — a cop stalking a just-released convicted killer out of obsession isn’t much of a stretch — but, it’s about the motivations of the characters.  And my main issue with this movie is with the entire character of Lori, who ends up being our guide into this world.

Damn, that chick from Scrubs sure took a turn for the worse after cancellation.  Yeesh.  Oh, and something about a teenage murderer, blah blah blah.

Lori is a 16-year-old girl whose mother has always picked the wrong men to date.  Not just like, “oh, we don’t quite click,” wrong either.  We’re talking child molester, total pieces of shit kind.  As a result, which you might expect, Lori doesn’t end up seeking out the healthiest of relationships.  Which I suppose explains why she becomes obsessed with Eric, the 18-year-old who spent time in juvy for killing his parents but gets his entire record expunged because he had been on anti-depressants at the time and is now free to re-enter society.  I suppose the “I was on prescribed mind-altering drugs” is the new insanity plea for the medicated generation.

Backstory-wise, this is fine and I buy it.  The problem is the entire set up.  The first fifteen to twenty minutes of the movie is essentially a montage.  Montages are great, especially for ’80s action comedies, but even then they didn’t start movies with them.  You need some meaty scenes in the beginning to set up the conflict through action, not reading over a character’s shoulder, which is exactly how we learn about Eric while Lt. Cristofuoro (Crowe) reads over his book of newspaper clippings for the umpteenth time in a bar.  I’m sure the idea here was to show, rather than tell, which is the goal of the cinematic arts, but while it may seem like showing us a piece of paper is better than just telling us through expositive dialogue, it’s not.  At least in the latter situation, you can get creative and let us get to know the story along with characters through their voices, accents, language, and mannerisms which all help pull us into the movie.  Just showing us something to read is merely another form of lazy exposition.

Sure, I smoked some fake cigarettes back in the day.  Who hasn’t?  But, I did NOT inhale.

And that lack of true character development — sure, the characters all have their full arcs by the end as is required by the standard, three-act screenplay rules — is what causes the suspension of disbelief to get smashed to bits.  When you don’t establish the characters well enough in the beginning, nothing they do feels real.  In the case of Lori, everything can be blamed on the fact that she’s a messed-up kid because her mom’s latest boyfriend raped her.  That means we should just accept that she’s obsessed with a known killer, forces her way into his life, hops along with him on his road trip unannounced and uninvited, is completely oblivious to the fact that he’s tried to kill her and should take the fact that he wants her to just leave – alive – as a strong hint that she’s not safe, breaks into creepy, abandoned mobile homes, cracks wise about an Asian police officer, and then even asks Eric to kill her. 

At some point, she just stopped being a real person to me and only existed as a fictional character in this movie whose sole role was to advance the plot toward some profound statement about death and the inner workings of the mind of a murderer.  And once that happened, the movie fell apart completely for me.  I couldn’t latch onto Eric because his character is emotionless by nature — which is neither chilling nor pathetic.  Just boring.  And I couldn’t identify with Lt. Cristofuoro (whose name we never hear, by the way, so you only get to know his name by the end credits), either, because we never get to know him.  His wife lies unresponsive in a hospital bed for reasons unknown and unrelated to everything else happening in the movie, yet here he is, obsessed with Eric and determined to catch him in another murderous moment.

You know, on second thought, maybe the guy does need some prescription medicine after all.

In the end, John gets what he wants, but in a way unexpected to everyone involved except for Lori.  But since I’d already checked out with regard to Lori being the driving force of the movie, the finale carried no emotional weight for me whatsoever.  Which is too bad because on paper, I think it just might have been pretty good.

The Package

The movie is shot well enough.  It’s perfectly fine to look at — nice outdoor shots and well lit scenes.  The only extra feature you’ll find is the short featurette Finding Tenderness: Bringing the Novel to the Screen, where the producers pat themselves on the back for being able to get this incredible director who finally was able to see the movie their way.  Makes you wonder if he was just the only decent director who would shoot the movie as they saw fit, no questions asked.  Also, I’m sure it didn’t hurt that he was friends with Russell Crowe.  If you want to know the level of talent we’re dealing with here behind the scenes, enjoy the part of this behind-the-scenes where actor Jon Foster says that director John Polson gave him this direction during a diner scene: “Eat the burger like you’re eating her flesh.”  And that just about sums it up.

I know what would’ve made this movie way better:  3D

What is this? Every single day of the week (almost), a new “Graboid”, a single moment grabbed from a random movie, appears on this site for you to guess the name of the film, share with your officemates, or discuss on our message boards. Sometimes the Graboid will be very easy and sometimes it’ll be as obscure as obscure gets. So read the news, read the reviews, and enjoy a screencap each and every day for your guessing pleasure.

It’s all over the internet by now, but the story that started with James Cameron besmirching Piranha 3D
has dropped the other shoe with the response from producer Mark
Canton.  The nice way to put it is to say that he wasn’t happy
with the King of the World.  Not too much need to say more,
because Canton says plenty.  Here’s a transcript of his
response, via Deadline:

Cameron told VanityFair.com while publicizing his Avatar re-release: “I tend almost never to throw other films under the bus, but [Piranha 3D]
is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3D. Because it
just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3D horror films from
the ’70s and ’80s, like Friday The 13th 3D. When movies got to
the bottom of the barrel of their creativity and at the last gasp of
their financial lifespan, they did a 3-D version to get the last few
drops of blood out of the turnip. And that’s now what’s happening now
with 3D. It is a renaissance. Right now the biggest and best films are
being made in 3D. Martin Scorsese is making a film in 3D [Hugo Cabret]. Disney’s biggest film of the year — Tron: Legacy — is coming out in 3D. So it’s a whole new ballgame.”

Canton
issued this rebuttal via Dimension’s PR department: “As a producer in
the entertainment industry, Jim Cameron’s comments on VanityFair.com are
very disappointing to me and the team that made Piranha 3D. 
Mr. Cameron, who singles himself out to be a visionary of movie-making,
seems to have a small vision regarding any motion pictures that are not
his own.  It is amazing that in the movie-making process –
which is certainly a team sport – that Cameron consistently celebrates
himself out as though he is a team of one.  His comments are
ridiculous, self-serving and insulting to those of us who are not caught
up in serving his ego and his rhetoric.

Jim,
are you kidding or what? First of all, let’s start by you
accepting the fact that you were the original director of Piranha 2 and
you were fired.  Shame on you for thinking that genre movies
and the real maestros like Roger Corman and his collaborators are any
less auteur or impactful in the history of cinema than you. Martin
Scorcese made Boxcar Bertha at the beginning of his career. 
And Francis Ford Coppola made Dimentia 13 back in 1963.  And
those are just a few examples of the  talented and successful
filmmakers whose roots are in genre films.  Who are you to
impugn any genre film or its creators?

Having
been deeply involved, as either an executive or as a producer, on Tim
Burton’s original Batman and the first Men In Black, as well
as 300, and now Immortals, one of the things that has been consistent
about all  of the filmmakers involved in these
landscape-changing global films is that, in each and every case, all of
the directors were humbled by their predecessors, their colleagues and
by their awareness of the great history of film that came before
them.  The enjoyment and the immersion of an audience in a
movie theatre, as they had and will have with the above-mentioned films,
and as audiences are experiencing with Piranha 3D now, comes from the
originality and the vision of the filmmaker, and not just from the
creation of the technology.  You as much as anyone certainly
knows that there are many pieces to the puzzle. Going to the movies
still remains, arguably, amongst the best communal experiences that
human beings can share.

My
sense is that Mr. Cameron has never seen Piranha 3D… certainly not in
a movie theatre with a real audience.  Jim, we invite you to
take that opportunity and experience the movie in a theatre full of fans
– fans for whom this movie was always intended to entertain. Does Mr.
Cameron have no idea of the painstaking efforts made by the talented
young filmmaker Alex Aja and his team of collaborators? 
Clearly, and this one is a good bet, he has no clue as to how great and
how much of a fun-filled experience the audiences who have seen the film
in 3D have enjoyed.  Those of us who have tried to stay in
touch with the common movie audiences – the ones who really matter, the
ones who actually still go to the theatre, put on the glasses, and eat
the popcorn – take joy and pride in the fact that movies of all kinds,
including Piranha 3D, have a place in filmmaking history – past, present
and future. 3D unto itself is not a genre Jim, it is a tool that gives
audiences an enhanced experience as they experience all kinds of movies.
I believe  Mr. Cameron did not see Piranha 3D either with any
real audience or not at all. On opening weekend, I was in a Los Angeles
theatre with a number of today’s great film makers
including  JJ Abrams, who actually had nothing short of the
fabulous, fun 3D experience that the movie provides. I am fortunate
enough to have worked on, and continue to work on, evolutionary movies
in all formats from just simple good story telling, which still matters
most of all, to CG movies to tent-pole size 3D movies, and genre 3D
movies like Piranha 3D.  What it comes down to, Jim, is
–  that like most things in life – size doesn’t
really matter.  Not everyone has the advantage of having
endless amounts of money to play in their sandbox and to take ten years
using other people’s money to make and market a
film….like you do. Why can’t you just count your
blessings?

Why
do you have to drop Marty Scorsese’s or Tim
Burton’s names, both gentlemen who I have personally worked
with, and who have enjoyed great joy and success with movies of all
genres and sizes well before the advent of modern 3D?  Then as
now, they were like kids in a candy store recognizing, far beyond your
imagination, the possibilities of storytelling and originality. For the
record, before you just totally dismiss Piranha 3D and all, in your
opinion, worthless genre movies that actually undoubtedly gave you the
ability to start your career, you should know that Piranha 3D had an 82%
“fresh” (positive) ratting on Rotten Tomatoes on opening day – a web
site that all the studios, filmmakers and the public use as a barometer
of what makes a quality film.

We
know that Piranha 3D has not achieved a boxoffice that is on the level
of many of Mr. Cameron’s successes.  To date, Piranha 3D has
earned over $30 million around the globe with #1 openings in several
countries.  And, as the “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes
indicates, critics and many, many others have embraced and celebrated
Piranha 3D for the fun and entertaining – and even smart – movie-going
experience that it is. Let’s just keep this in mind
Jim….you did not invent 3D. You were fortunate that others
inspired you to take it further. The simple truth is that I had nothing
but good things to say about Avatar and my own experience since I
actually saw it and didn’t damn someone else’s
talent publicly in order to disassociate myself from my origins in the
business from which we are all very fortunate. To be honest, I found the
3D in Avatar to be inconsistent and while ground breaking in many
respects, sometimes I thought it overwhelmed the storytelling. 
Technology aside, I wish Avatar had been more original in its
storytelling.

We
have to inspire, teach and mentor this next generation of filmmakers.
It is garbage to suggest that any film or any filmmaker who cannot
afford to work to your standards should be dissuaded from following his
or her craft by not making 3D movies or not making movies like District
9, for example, which probably cost the amount of Avatar’s
craft services budget, but totally rocked it in the movie theatre and in
the marketplace. In that case, it was not a 3D movie.  But had
it been, it certainly would not have been any less original or
impactful. The enormous worldwide success of Avatar has been good in all
respects for you, your financiers, your distributors and the industry,
as well as for the movie going public. Jim, there is a difference
between Maestro which is a word that garners respect, and Dictator or
Critic which are words better left for others who are not in our mutual
boat or on our team. You are one of the best, it is reasonable to think
that you should dig deeper and behave like it.  Young directors
should be inspired by you, not publicly castigated by your
mean-spirited and flawed analysis.

While
we are all awed by your talents and your box office successes – and I
compliment you on all of them – why don’t you rethink how you
address films with which you are not involved?  You should be
taking the high road that is being travelled by so many of your peers,
and pulling with them to ensure that we, as an industry, will have a
continuum of talented filmmakers that will deliver a myriad of motion
pictures both big and small, with 3D or any other technologies yet to
come that will entertain audiences throughout the world. That is the
challenge that we face. That is the future that we should deliver.
Please go see Piranha in a theater near you.”

Basically I thought The Final Destination was lazy.  A lackluster entry that was hoping that it was in 3D would hide the fact that it had absolutely nothing new nor interesting going for it.  Supposedly it was to be the last entry in the series.  But then $181 million in gross happened and now we’re barreling headlong into 5nal Destination.  On a total side note, it would’ve been funny if they had done that for this fourth film so that it would have been 4nal Destination, just so that it looked like Anal Destination.  It wouldn’t have made any sense to do that of course, but like 5nal is any less retarded.

Anyway, word has come from THR.com’s Heat Vision that there are four new names attached to the upcoming film: David Koechner (The Perfect Game), Nicholas D’Agosto (Fired Up!), P.J. Byrne (Dinner For Schmucks) and relative newcomer, Ellen Wroe.  Koechner is playing a clueless executive; D’Agosto is playing a guy who doesn’t
make fast decision in his own life. Byrne plays an obnoxious kleptomaniac and Wroe plays the daughter of a
company executive, a woman with gymnast training who is a little snobby
and for whom everything is a contest.  They join the previously-cast Miles Fisher and Arlen Escarpeta.  Steven Quale is directing the project, which has its all-important
beginning taking place on a suspension bridge that collapses. 

Good news: Tony Todd is returning as Mr. Bludworth, which is definitely a step in the write direction.  Let’s see if they can work him meaningfully into the mythology rather than satiating fanwank with a cameo.  And how about getting back to that preemptive, temporary death to avoid permanent death concept introduced in FD2?  Or that people’s non death’s affect other people’s deaths?  Good stuff that died just as surely as everyone in these films do.

5nal Destination is set to shoot in 3D again in September for an August 26, 2011 release.

There are some new behind-the-scenes photos from the upcoming Rise of the Apes over at TheMPPC and i09 (caught ’em over at Blastr).  They feature either a mo-cap stunt actor (Andy Serkis is playing Caesar, the Wonder Chimp) or the guy with the most inventive way to get next to James Franco I’ve seen yet (although personally, I’d slap that get up on too in order to get within restraining order violation distance of Freida Pinto). 

The synopsis for the film: An origin story set in present day San Francisco, where man’s [Franco] own
experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of
intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.  John Lithgow, Tom Felton, Brian Cox and David Hewlett co-star.    You can click the images to enlarge.  Rise of the Apes is set for a June 24, 2011 release.

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The Set Up.

Seeya Devin!

You as a readership has lost a very strong voice and writer for this site, for now. Devin’s words will ring loud again in the coming months and in the meantime he’s all over Formspring and Twitter like an animal. He won’t be back here, but he’ll be somewhere and when he announces where you’ll understand. This is a special place of magic and stardust, but where he’s going he’ll get to do similar stuff and not have to deal with trolls and news and me [though I think I was a very good boss].

You lose a Devin, but you gain a Nick. Not a fair trade if you want deep and insightful film journalism but I have my strengths and some would say the site’s been missing some of them for a while. I’m back and very driven. And I’m bringing some friends with me, some old, some new, and some that are young and lucky as hell to be thrown right in the fire.

All hail the new CHUD.

We’ve been busy. We’re launching a new site in November that is much more mainstream and diverse, but still bursting with personality and opinion. I’d call it a sister site but it has so much weight behind it and actual funding that if it’s a sister site, we’re Eric Roberts and it’s Julia Roberts.

And this site ain’t chopped liver, as we’re currently working on a redesign that will take good care of you for the next few years. To make these two sites really fly, we’ve opened an office in Alpharetta, Georgia. Over the next two months I will be joined by Renn Brown (who you know and love from CHUD, he’s the young), Stephen Murphy (who you know and love from the podcasts and from the one article he did that one time, he’s the old), Andrea Rothe (who you know and love from her Gash Wednesday blog, she’s the new), and a few great part-timers. Here we will plan, plot, make videos, and bust our ass for you in hopes of taking this site to a new and delightful level. We’ll even have coffee meetings here, show a few movies for a tiny group of folks on our little projector, have a few HALO matches with the system linked systems here.

You are welcome to send us boxes of Red Vines, movie posters, gold bullion, flowers, or a postcard from your town (I plan to build a showcase of Chewer Postcards), or Clash of the Titans figures to our new home:

CHUD.com
c/o Nick Nunziata
12600 Deerfield Parkway
Suite 100
Alpharetta, GA 30004

We’re energized. We’re getting very organized. We’re getting ferocious and sensual. All for you. Enjoy!

Oh, welcome to the new Steady Leak.

Who Dat? #1

Hint: He takes better care of himself now.
Last
Installment Answer:Austin O’Brien!

Guess
Right Here.

Midnight is the Garden of Good

Earlier this year I whined and bitched about a botched midnight screening of the piss poor movie Legion. In retrospect I may have gotten a little too hot under the collar but it led to change within the company I was complaining about so that’s good. But ultimately what I keep coming back to is this:

Midnight Movies are essential. You look at how our days are (at least mine), they’re packed to the gills with obligations and chores and responsibilities and that’s before you factor in grooming, transportation, eating, shitting, and simply zoning out to clear your mind. It’s hard to fit movie showtimes into that spectrum and since most movies open on a Friday there’s the task of making the room even during weekend time.

Midnight movies solve a lot of those problems, even though there’s a hit that one has to take in their sleep cycle. Then again, a lot of the people I know who talk about how busy they are and how they need to get home early are the same ones who mindlessly watch TV late into the night or are able to put in 100 hours into a video game. Sleep is important but pulling into the driveway at 2am now and then isn’t going to kill anyone.

UNLESS THE DRIVEWAY IS EXPLODING!

Midnight movies are blissful, even if they’re dogshit. Lately, they’ve also allowed us to review films we may not have been able to on time. This coming Thursday at midnight I’m seeing The American so CHUD readers can have a timely review (I found out about the screening eleven minutes after it started). I know they’re hard to justify in the corporate world during this time of the season with films that aren’t tentpoles. Employees are grumpy. The crowds are unpredictable. There are a lot of reasons not to do them, but keeping alive one of the great things about movies outweighs them all.

Here’s hoping that enough of the big box theaters companies realize their responsibility in this, since there are always things trying to keep us from watching movies in theaters but less and less reasons for us to want to make the effort with the prices, indifferent employees, and lack of policing on annoying theater patrons.

See you at 12:01.

Screw the bad buzz on Tron: Legacy

It’s funny how things change. For over a year there was not an ounce of real thick negativity regarding Disney’s upcoming Tron: Legacy. Two San Diego Comic Cons went by and it was a darling to all. This sneaky juggernaut of awesome and weird.

This past Con, everyone knew it was coming and expected what had happened before simply to be the build-up to some amazing payoff. And there wasn’t some big payoff, though anyone who wasn’t blown away by Flynn’s Arcade and the secret party room behind it is a fool. It was just more stuff.

What folks seem to forget is that the original film is an odd little animal. For the sequel to be some piece of crowd pleasing hokum would betray that. It still may end up being that but the vibe I get from all of the footage I’ve seen is that this movie is odd too. Shinier. Much more expensive. But odd. Eerily so at times.

That doesn’t bother me. It comforts me.

We have a sequel to Tron. And it’s not a slam dunk. And a lot of people are nervous about it. Just like the first one. Just how I like it.

I can’t wait until December.

Give
me
a hand. What’s more depressing, seeing everyone you love eaten by
insects
or watching the nightly news? For me it depends on if the
insects
are arboreal. To save you the heartache, I browsed the US news
section
of CNN for material and all I got was this lousy column. Here’s a quick
rundown…

1. The Headline: ‘Silly Bandz’ could be health danger for kids, family warns (link)

Nick’s
Take: A four year old boy wore so many of those Silly Bands that he cut his little arm. Oh, poor little future Darwin Award winner. Apparently the little rubber-living gentleman just piled them colored rubber bands onto his limb until the ripped away at his tiny flesh thanks to physics, nature, and the blindness of parents. Our human forms need to be free, miniature sir! Don’t cut off the blood flow or cause trauma to your bitsy skins! Something tells me this boy is somehow the latest in a long string of natural selection-types. Maybe he’s a 70’s Battlestar:Galactica choking victim or Jarts head wound reincarnated. Imagine dying because of Silly Bands.

2. The Headline: Rocklin “I heart boobies” bracelet controversy leads to boy’s suspension (link)

Nick’s
Take: Imagine the kind of individual that would be offended by the word ‘Boobies’. Imagine what kind of stuffed animals they must have all over their bed. A little boy was reprimanded hard because he was wearing a breast cancer bracelet. While I am the first to say that bracelets on your wrist or ribbons on your car are dumber than a Sidaris film, to each their own. While I am sure he wasn’t wearing the band as a tribute to his breastkilled grandmother (as he says in the article he was) and that he was a 15 year old boy thrilled to have something titty on his arm, it’s such a non-issue that it sucks that this is how administrators use their time. Everyone should wear ‘Boobies’ bracelets, if nothing else as a reminder of why we work hard. Imagine if the bracelet had said ‘Man Ass’. He’d have been executed.

3. The Headline: Rare whale flown to treatment facility dies (link)

Nick’s
Take: A feel good story about a whale rescue became a feel bad story about a whale’s long, prolonged, dry death.

4. The Headline: 2 Pit Bulls Killed Puppy (link)

Nick’s
Take: The most defensive and loyal group of pet owners on Earth are Pit Bull owners. I don’t have much personally against Pit Bulls, other than the fact they look like they hate the living and are channeling the irritated ghosts of Anton LeVay and Don Ameche. The owners of Pit Bulls hate that the animals have a bad rap simply because they maul, kill, and dismember people and other animals all the time everywhere. You’ll hear of owners talking about how loving and docile their Pit Bull is, and it’s heartwarming. Then you’ll hear about a Pit Bull who learned the art of locksmithery just so it could break into an orphanage and eat the daylights out of an Armenian kid. Today’s story features a subtle pair of Pit Bulls who weren’t doing anyone any harm while riding in their owner’s car, the wind flapping their ears all cute and their drool streaking down the master’s trunk. Not a care in the world. Until they jumped out of a moving car to taste and eviscerate a Jack Terrier puppy named Pebbles while the horrified owner tried to hold it away from them. They jumped out of a moving car and then wrenched a squealing delight from a human being and then killed it six or seven times while the owner shrieked like a little girl.

But seriously, Pit Bulls have a bad rap. We should just drop nine or ten Pit Bulls into Afghanistan. Six weeks go by and all of a sudden there’s like six Dave and Busters, a few IHOP’s there, and not one terrorist. Just smiles and dogshit.

5. The Headline: 6 trapped in rip currents off Salisbury (link)

Nick’s
Take: A rip current’s job is to find you and drag you out into the depths where you grow tired, drown, and then are dragged away by sea-beings to Neptune’s den where he fucks you to pieces. That’s a best case scenario. Looks like a rip current is earning its wage.

Who Dat? #2

Hint: I’m sure by now he’s collected.
Last Installment Answer: Anna Chlumsky!

Guess Right Here.

I Hope They Invent 8-D

Can you imagine how much whining and bitching there would be by people who are supposedly film lovers?

“I just saw Labyrinth 8-D and it was so gratuitous when the minotaur jumped into my lap and slapped my face. I could smell its breath and it knew my name and called me by it before reaching into my popcorn and eating it. It was so real. But it was dark. FUCK THIS MOVIE!”

Who Dat? #3

Hint: Enjoys a frank now and then.
Last
Installment Answer: Dana Barron!

Guess Right Here.

REVIEWING YOUR TWIT!

Here I’m going to give my two cents on a few Twitter feeds, some celebrity and some not:

http://twitter.com/TheSlyStallone: I don’t know. I am huge fan of Stallone, but of the very few people follows, Bill O’Reilly is included. Is that a know your enemy thing or is Sly the recipient of one too many of Clubber Lang’s clubberlangs? Also, so far the tweets have echoed some of his work. Heart on sleeve. Motivational but clunky. But consistent with the star. A few tweets:

the hardest part of making action films is attempting to inject heart and soul.. bullets are easy , emotions are hard. LIKE LIFE ITSELF.

I eat healthy monday to friday ..pig out on the weekend ,gain pounds,than lose it again monday to friday .no need to starve, or suffer!!!

If you not breaking things get a skirt and take up ballroom dancing …you men get it. we break things or get broken.

(out of a possible 4 Jims)

http://twitter.com/pennjillette: A smart, opinionated guy. His tweets tend to be smart and opinionated. He also responds to a lot of fan questions, which is nice. He’s a class act and his tweets enhance that. Funny anecdote, we were at the same hotel in San Diego. I was sitting and eating on the Saturday near the end of the con and watched him sit down with some folks near me. A few seconds later I went on Twitter and saw that he’d just tweeted about it. I wanted to reply and tell him I was watching him and to watch himself. A few tweets:

The book will be out Father’s Day 2011 and it’s now called, “god, No! Signs You May Already be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales.”

Going to have a big hairy Vegas steak with Chris Kenner who I would call Copperfield’s Director of Covert Activities, and his groovy wife.

35 years ago today, Teller and I did our first show together at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. We drove out together but worked solo.

(out of a possible 4 Jims)

http://twitter.com/johncusack:
I love him as an actor. Have loved him since the early 80’s. I will defend him until the end. Many people in the business have told me he’s a jerk and I don’t care. Unfortunately his Twitter stuff doesn’t do anything for proving them wrong. He intentionally doesn’t pay attention to spelling, oftentimes doesn’t make much sense, and when he writes something intriguing, it’s sorta cryptic. I want to like these, but not yet. A few tweets:

I type with I phone fast and loose with no spellcheck — so if spellling is your obsession I will block u –u will receive no quarter here

Ii ave been nomintated as stoner of the year at the stony awards– for my gripping and tragic portrayal of adam in hot tub tme meachine

Ithe gop establishment has been in a shamfull cycle of fear mongering for years in my opinion.

(out of a possible 4 Jims)

Today’s
CHUD Fact

Even God makes fun of Kirk Cameron.

If CHUD.com Ran the Movies

Bastardization by
Nick Nunziata. All apologies to the makers of The Accidental Tourist.

And that is a wrap on this
Steady Leak.

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Coming Soon has the new poster for Secretariat, via Disney.  Looking at this thing, as someone who grew up in Louisville, I wouldn’t make a bet on it that’s for sure.  It’s dogshit, actually.  Especially for a biopic of one of the greatest horses in American racing history. 

I was checking out the entry on Wikipedia and came across an alternate poster that looks much better (plus it appeals to my Churchill Downs sensibilities):

A poster looking something like this would have said it all:

Or hell, just go the floating head route if you must:

Anyway, Secretariat opens on October 8th and stars Diane Lane, John Malkovich, Graham McTavish, Kevin Connolly, Amanda Michalka, Scott Glenn, James Cromwell, Nelsan Ellis, Dylan Walsh and Fred Dalton Thompson. 

Anybody else feel like renting Zoo all of a sudden?