Category: Action Movies (Page 117 of 165)

The best unsubstantiated rumor I’ve read all week

Bloody Disgusting is reporting, if that’s really the word for more or less passing on rumors, some potentially huge, or at least hugely interesting, casting news. According to one of BD’s “regular scoopers who enjoys remaining anonymous” (because he “enjoys” being employed?) mega-thesp Robert DeNiro and Apatow-hilarity-bringer Jonah Hill will both be accompanying mega-macho character actor Danny Trejo on a trip to possible cult nirvana in the long-rumored feature-length film version of “Machete.” (H/t AICN)

“Machete,” for those less fortunate amoung you who did not see Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s mostly hysterical “Grindhouse” in its original theatrical form, was the first of a number of rather brilliant gag trailers featured in the film. It’s your basic tale of an assassin getting double-crossed and taking his revenge, in this case with the help of his priest brother (Cheech Marin, a deity who walks amongst us who I pray will be in the feature as well). Except it wasn’t really such a gag in that Rodriguez said he had hopes of doing the tale as a feature all along.

Rodriguez has a gift for achieving a kind of greatness out of complete silliness, though he also has a problem with writing/presenting coherent stories (Jason Zingale loved “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” but I couldn’t make head or tail out of it). Still, as in the original “Spy Kids” and his “Planet Terror” segment of “Grindhouse,” things can come together — assuming he doesn’t let Hill or that scamp De Niro camp it up too much.

If you’ve never seen the “Machete” trailer, below is your chance. However, due to violence, language, and the appearance of six nipples, only two of which belong to Danny Trejo, this would qualify as NSFW…and it’s Rated X!

And the geek overload begins in earnest…

And why would that be? Well, next Wednesday night is the kick-off of San Diego’s now humongous Comic-Con, an event I’ve been attending off and on, but mostly on, since I was a barely pubescent geekling, and both me and the con have changed a little over the years.

The con has grown into something truly enormous and become less fun, and I’ve definitely grown (a little) bigger. I’ll leave the “fun” judgment to others. Like the con also, I’ve also definitely grown less comics-obsessed and more exclusively film/television focused — partly as a function of cost and partly of time. I’m not sure what the con’s excuse is.

In any case, I find myself unable to focus on any one topic right now and am fretting about things like whether or not there will be free wi-fi again this year, but as the event I call “Cannes for geeks” grows ever closer, we’ll be visiting with our old family friends, the Asterisks.

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The lost art of opening credits: “El Dorado”

As I wrote exactly one month back, I quietly long for a return to traditional opening credits where you learn who made the movie before it actually starts.

Below is a classic example of just how much a credit sequence can do to take you to set up the mood for what is to come. In this case, Nelson Riddle’s tuneful but slightly corny title song of Howard Hawks’ “El Dorado” (which I recently reviewed for Bullz-Eye) is matched with some nicely evocative western paintings by Olaf Wieghorst that promise a rip-roaring, slightly poetic, tale of good guys fighting bad guys. If this doesn’t get you in the mood to “ride, boldly ride,” well, then you just haven’t got any cowboy in you.

And in other movieland news….

* MGM is looking more solvent than before, with the help of its significant library. La Finke toldja.

* Willem Dafoe has been cast as sympathetic Martian Tars Tarkas in Andrew Stanton’s upcoming “John Carter of Mars.” It’s been a very long time since I read the books, but the character description reminds me of his “Platoon” character, just a little.

* Where does an actor for whom the ladies swoon go in the masculinity department after playing the hirsuite badass Wolverine and the heroic Gable-esque lead in “Australia“? Well, if you’re movie star/Oscar host Hugh Jackman, you play an Avon cosmetics sales person. I had an aunt who did that; I got aftershave for my tenth birthday.

* After the news of Harry Potter’s big haul (see the post just below), we’ll be seeing more like this, I’m sure.

* Not coincidentally, the blogger-boy cause celebre del dia boils down to a Hogwartsian architectural design and a suspiciously Potter-esque font, and basic concept, in the trailer for something called “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.” My reaction: Chris Columbus is directing, so I’m not sure why anyone even cares. See for yourself…

Harry Potter and the ginormous filmgoing hordes (updated)

We’ve got an early and rather light box office preview this week because only one new wide release is coming out. However, it’s already looking to be a doozy. Yes, it’s time for another highly profitable trip to Hogwarts with today’s (actually early as possible this morning’s) release of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

Anyhow, word of highly boffo early ticket sales outpacing the midnight opening of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” has proven out. Estimates of the Wednesday morning midnight take are roughly $20 million, says Variety and Nikki Finke. THR‘s Carl DiOrio wrote yesterday of roughly a $140 million five day gross and $100 million weekend. However, perhaps taking the fact that the $20 million figure beats both the Wednesday midnight opening of “The Dark Knight” by $2 million and “Transformers” by $4 million, the diviners reporting to Finke are telling her to expect $175-190 million, but with a $90-$100 million weekend a la DiOrio.

[UPDATE: The midnight gross turned out to be an even more whopping, more record breaking $22.2 million. Nikki Finke is now talking about the possibility of the fantasy flick breaking the $200 million mark in its first five days.]

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