The later period novels of Stephen King have been marked with an overblown quality, as well as a tortured attempt to link them all together in a fairly lame mythology. While he’s gone back and included many of his older books in that mythology, he really began going down that road with The Talisman, which … Continue reading
I spent some time drinking and gambling with Narc and Smokin’ Aces director Joe Carnahan in Lake Tahoe about a month back and I learned some things about the guy: he’s got great taste in movies, he’s funny as hell, he gets infectiously excited about his films, and he doesn’t pull his punches. This guy … Continue reading
Does the Ghost Rider have a catchphrase? Something he says when he turns from Johnny Blaze, stunt bike rider, into a flaming skulled demon? I know “Flame on” is taken, but you would think that a 1970s Marvel Comics character would have a catchphrase of some sort. I only ask because the site for the … Continue reading
Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, starring a bunch of nobodies who speak only in Mayan with subtitles, ended up being much more of a standard Hollywood movie than I had anticipated. What wasn’t standard was the film’s production, which was self-financed and shot on location in Mexico. If the DVD of Apocalypto contains a frank behind the … Continue reading
This week NBC’s surprise smash hit Heroes turned a big corner – it got rid of the shitty opening and closing voice over. I don’t know how that decision got made, but I hope it sticks. The show sports some of the worst writing on network TV, and the terribleness of it is only highlighted … Continue reading
Hardcore fanbases creep me out. Whether it’s the Browncoats or Star Wars nerds or the socially stunted emotional infants who get upset about changes to the designs of Transformers, I have time and again decried these easy targets and ridiculed their possibly birth defect-related levels of obsessive love for marginally interesting entertainment properties. But none … Continue reading
The release of the first season of Saturday Night Live on DVD is something I never thought we would see. After all, they could milk endless “Best of” collections out of the show without ponying up the bucks to pay for the rights to the various musical acts who have appeared on the program. But … Continue reading
I have not run a weekend box office report for the last two weeks for two reasons – one, I have been away from the computer for large chunks of the last two weekends doing junkets and other things (which will continue next weekend, by the way). The other reason was that box office reporting … Continue reading
The screenwriter for Deadman, based on the very strange DC Comics undead superhero, has been announced – it’s newbie Gary Dauberman. He caught the attention of producers Don Murphy and Guillermo del Toro with a spec script he had done for a zombie Western, and now he’s chronicling the origin of Boston Brand, a murdered … Continue reading
It’s not unusual for prettyboy actors to try and ugly themselves up for credibility. Brad Pitt chipped a tooth on purpose for Fight Club. Jared Leto gained a bunch of weight for Chapter 27. Marlon Brando became a grotesque slob for every role after the mid-70s. I’m not pretty, but I can imagine the frustration … Continue reading