With “Public Enemies” entering its second weekend in theaters, and inspired by a brief but typically wonderful post on Myrna Loy by cinephile superstar Campaspe, a vintage trailer for the legendary last movie seen by John Dillinger just prior to his death seems fitting.
“Manhattan Melodrama” starred thirties A-listers Clark Gable and William Powell, in the first of his many films opposite Loy, but is not often seen these days in comparison to later films featuring any of the three. Nevertheless, it’s grand, ultra-corny Hollywood entertainment of the most egregious sort. (Glenn Erickson suggested the title should really be “Manhattan Fairy Tale,” and he’s not wrong.) MGM was always the studio of excess glamor and wholesome values, and they brought that even to a gangster picture. Abandon cynicism, maintain your irony, and check it out some time.
Whilst I dither over just what kind of “Bruno” related pun to put in my headline for tomorrow morning’s box office preview, Steven Zeitchik has an item that sort of defies belief in the possibilities it offers for of the potential for ribald and/or truly offensive jokes and puns, and not just the innocent fur-bound animal and classic TV sitcom-based gags Zeitchik mentions.
The script has been floating around for some time and been associated with such funnymen as Jim Carrey and Steve Carrell, but now it looks as if Mel Gibson may play the not-quite title role in “The Beaver.” It’s an edgy comedy about a man whose (presumably imaginary) friend is a beaver hand-puppet. Gibson might be a walking disaster area in many respects, but does have an underused gift for antic comedy. This could work.
Written by newcomer Kyle Killen, the comedy will team the sometimes blatantly homophobic Gibson with another director-actor, Jodie Foster, who will also costar. Did I mention I have tremendous amount of respect for Ms. Foster, as well as lifelong crush. (I like my film star infatuations on the unattainable side.) I now respect her sense of humor more than ever.
* Quentin Tarantino talks to Mike Fleming about, what else, “Inglourious Basterds” — the movie made simply to confuse my spell checker. And, yes, once again, Harvey didn’t tell him to cut it by forty minutes and it’s actually slightly longer now than it was when it screened at Cannes to all-over-the-place reviews. He made suggestions, however.
* Gary Ross has been brought in to do a new draft of Sam Raimi’s “Spiderman 4.” Ross is a solid writer, and an okay director in his own right. He’s done wonders for Tobey Maguire’s career previously on both the career launching “Pleasantville” and the entertaining but kind of unremarkable “Seabiscuit.” So, perhaps it’s just an attempt to get a script that will work better than the highly problematic Spidey 3. Josh Wigler, however, has some concerns involving Ross’s upcoming Lance Armstrong project.
* They have a director for the big, huge, enormous 3-D Smurfs movie. Do I give a smurf? No mother-smurfing way.
We here at Bullz-Eye always knew that we wanted to run a piece in conjunction with the release of “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince,” but what we didn’t know was what kind of piece it would be. We considered the matter, and we came to the conclusion that it would’ve been a little too easy to whip up a list of our favorite Hollywood wizards. In the midst of the discussion, however, an observation was raised about the film itself: what’s going to happen to these kids – Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson – after the last of the “Harry Potter” books has been adapted for the silver screen? Will they be able to rise above their roles and find work elsewhere, or are they destined to be remembered solely as Harry, Ron and Hermione? From there, we quickly began to bandy about the names of other folks who have and haven’t been able to score success in other cinematic identities, and the piece began to write itself. Ultimately, only one of our selections seemed impossible to pigeonhole as either “Forever Typecast” or “Escaped Typecasting,” and when you see that actor’s name, we think you’ll nod your head knowingly and understand exactly why we had that problem.
Here’s a sample of the piece, to hopefully tempt you into checking out the whole thing:
Mark Hamill, AKA Luke Skywalker:
Mark Hamill may not have had much in the way of cinematic credits when he was introduced to the world as Luke Skywalker, future Jedi, in “Star Wars,” but he’d sure as heck done his time on the TV circuit, appearing on everything from “The Partridge Family” to “The Streets of San Francisco,” even playing a guy named Doobie Wheeler on “The Texas Wheelers.” But when you’re the star of the greatest space opera of all time ,you’ve got to expect a certain amount of blowback, and Hamill got it in spades. Despite starring in the fondly remembered “Corvette Summer” with Annie Potts and being directed by Samuel Fuller in the critically acclaimed “The Big Red One,” things just weren’t happening for the guy outside of the “Star Wars” universe…well, unless you consider being third-billed to Kristy McNichol and Dennis Quaid in “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” to be happening, that is. Post- “Return of the Jedi,” Hamill did a few straight-to-video features before realizing that he might well find more luck off the camera and in the recording booth. Having already worked for Hanna-Barbera in the early ’70s, it was a quick transition for Hamill to return to the world of voiceover acting, and it was a move that paid off in a big way. Whether you’ve known it or not, you’ve heard his dulcet tones providing voices for “The Adventures of Batman & Robin” (The Joker), “Spider-Man” (Hobgoblin), “Avatar: The Last Airbender” (Ozai), and “Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!” (The Skeleton King), among dozens of others. Good for him, we say. But the truth of the matter remains: when you see his face, Mark Hamill is still Luke Skywalker.
Got the idea? Great! To see the rest of the feature, either click right here or on the big ol’ image below:
Saul Rubinek is one of the most versatile characters actors in Hollywood, able to move from sitcom to serious drama without a moment’s hesitation. As a result, he’s one of the busiest guys in the business, a fact which is easily proven by taking a gander at his IMDb listing. It’s been awhile, however, since he’s taken on a role as a series regular, which should give you an idea of how special he believes his new gig, Sci-Fi’s “Warehouse 13” (premiering July 7th), to be. Bullz-Eye spoke with Rubinek about how he came aboard the series and what we can expect from his character, and we also chatted with him about his experiences on “Frasier,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and “The Outer Limits,” and the legacy of “True Romance.”
*“I adore (‘Warehouse 13’), and it’s a pleasure to be able to talk about it. I’ve had so many times in my life where I’ve had to sell a show, you know, and do my due diligence as an actor and try desperately to look for something positive to say. Here I am in a kind of heaven.”
* On doing “Frasier”:“I had to pinch myself. That was one of the most amazing times I have ever had, where you feel like you are doing this little one act play, no interference from anyone, anywhere. We’re just doing this little one act play, and then 23 million people showed up.”
*“That world of Lewis Carroll, Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson is a world that I threw myself into as a kid. And also, even darker, into the world of Lovecraft and Poe as well. I loved that. As a child, I was able to throw myself into a world of make believe where I actually was in that world, because as a kid, boy, it was really easy to believe it when I was doing it.”
To read more, click here…or, if you’d rather, there’s the big graphic below that’s a bigger target:
And as a Premium Hollywood bonus, here’s Saul’s death scene from one of his very first films, one which he discusses in the interview:
