Category: Actors (Page 152 of 343)

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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Nickelodeon/The Last Picture Show

This two-disc set is basically the agony and the ecstasy from the collected works of film critic/scholar turned boy wonder writer-director-actor Peter Bogdanovich. Placed in reverse chronological and quality order, Disc One is 1975’s agonizing “Nickelodeon,” one of a series of box office and/or critical failures that ended the young director’s early career hot streak. A forced slapstick comedy drawn very loosely from the silent era reminiscences of Hollywood greats Leo McCarey, Raoul Walsh and Allan Dwan, it’s a good-natured but entirely unfocused bore despite the strong efforts of an all-star cast led by Burt Reynolds and Ryan O’Neal, and featuring Tatum O’Neal (“Paper Moon”) and John Ritter (“Three’s Company”), among many others. The disc includes both a brand new black and white director’s cut alongside the original color theatrical version, but it will take more than the majesty of monochrome to save this one. Bogdanovich’s DVD commentary provides better movie history and better entertainment.

“The Last Picture Show” is, of course, something completely different. On his second feature, Bogdanovich blew the 1971’s cinema world’s collective mind and drew comparisons to his friend and mentor, Orson Welles, with this crisply wrought black and white adaptation of an early Larry McMurtry novel. Nominated for eight Academy Awards, it details the late teen years of two high school football players (Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges) and a manipulative beauty (Cybill Shepherd) following in the footsteps of her unfaithful mother (Ellen Burstyn) in a rapidly dying Texas town. A minor cause celebre at the time because of its nudity and blunt sexuality, its glory is its acute visual storytelling and Robert Surtees’ masterful photography, a biting and heartbreaking script, and a large number of genuinely tremendous supporting performances. In particular, Cloris Leachman as a deeply lonely housewife who falls for a high school boy and Western mainstay Ben Johnson (“The Wild Bunch,” “Wagon Master”) as the charismatic walking embodiment of the town, Sam the Lion, won entirely deserved supporting acting awards. A sardonic yet humanistic exploration of fractured relationships and poor choices, it remains a riveting and moving work of cutting edge movie-making from a true cinematic reactionary.

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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