Category: Movie Comedies (Page 118 of 195)

Friday night news dump (updated)

November 7, 2009 /

Time for our usual week-ending grab bag of left over and end-of-week movie stories…

* Two executive deaths today. First was 76 year-old nearly lifelong Paramount executive Gino Campagnola. That was followed by Nick Counter of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. As Nikki Finke recounts, he was the guy whose job it was to negotiate with unions in the recent negotiations and strikes with the guilds. Not surprisingly, there are some hard feelings, as evidenced by some of her commenters who really crossed the line in terms of simply being mean about the man’s death.

As a liberal, I’m always going to tend to side with unions, but the man is dead and making the best deal for the bosses was kind of his job. You don’t have to like him, but calling him a “scum bag” or talking about karma on the day of his death is not cool. I wonder if Finke, who is known for zealously controlling her comments and once removed an entirely innocuous, on topic, comment about “Mad Men” by me after an unrelated exchange with me here, will leave those comments up. She has also posted official reactions from SAG which are, of course, much nicer.

* As “This Is It” passed the $100 million mark domestically and is at $144 million worldwide, the Jacksons as a whole make a mark at AFM (American Film Market) with some intriguing sounding seventies footage. [Update: I obviously got confused a bit by the headlines on this piece. As of Sunday 11/8/09, the music doc is estimated to have made “only” $57, 855 in the U.S. market.]

This-is-it-Film-Michael-Jackson-small

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Documentaries, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movie DVDs, Movies, News

A “Kick-Ass” marketing campaign?

November 6, 2009 /

What’s looking to be almost certainly the most controversial comic book movie of 2010 is starting to take its marketing campaign into high gear with the release of posters for “Kick-Ass.” For those of you not in the know, it’s Mathew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr.’s comic book about a teen (Aaron Johnson, who’ll also be playing the young John Lennon in “Nowhere Boy”) who decides out of the blue to be a superhero — only he doesn’t get bitten by a radioactive animal, nor does he spend 10 years turning himself into the ultimate ninja. Following his lead, a few presumably less than stable “heroes,” to be played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse (“Superbad“), Chloe Moretz (“(500) Days of Summer“), and Nicolas Cage, get into the act. Ultra-violent hijinks ensue.

KickAss_WildPost_4UP_NoURL

As you can see, we have four separate posters here that might be together on large billboards (those of us who live in L.A. may well see some huge version of this on the Sunset strip) and can also be displayed separately.

I don’t know the comic book, but as mentioned here before, there’s been definite buzz around this project based on some clips that showed this year at Comi-Con. Moreover, director Matthew Vaughn was once best known as Guy Ritchie’s producer, but he stepped confidently out of his shadow and emerged, in my opinion, the less showy and better director with the 2003 crime thriller, “Layer Cake.” As with 2007’s underrated/underseen romantic fantasy-comedy, “Stardust” the screenplay is credited to Vaughn and English TV presenter Jane Goldman. I also like the fact that so far Vaughan has made three very different movies in three different genres.

According to Peter Sciretta of /Film, comparisons are flying with this one, particularly to “The Matrix” and also, according to a unnamed friend who saw it, “Shaun of the Dead” — presumably in terms of the sense of humor. Still, considering the possibility for social satire and the touchy spectacle of young people and ultra-violence, my mind is going towards Kinji Fukasaku’s film of “Battle Royale.”

I understand a trailer is coming next week. Also, according to Rick Marshall of MTV, there is a web site (iamkick-ass.com), but what I’m seeing there right now is just pure whiteness. Not terribly kick-ass. Stay on the lookout, I guess.

Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, Comic-Con, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News

Xmas ghosts, a dead popster, goat starers, aliens, a box, and some demons

November 5, 2009 /

Yes, it’s a real mishmash this weekend at the box office and I’ve got less time than usual — but let’s just see how it goes.

A Christmas Carol

Anyhow, the clear winner over the next few days will almost certainly be yet another version of Charles Dicken’s constantly remade and revisited holiday perennial, this time from Disney, “A Christmas Carol.” Jim Carrey stars as Scrooge, who won’t hurt at the box office and Robert Zemeckis, in his “Polar Express” mode, is at the helm. Personally, while I found the earlier motion-capture movie a fun visceral thrill ride in Imax 3-D, despite a story that was the very definition of treacle, I personally find this style of animation extremely ugly; it’s as if it’s always stuck in the armpit of the Uncanny Valley. Moreover critics, including our own David Medsker, complain that Zemeckis gets carried away with the effects and makes things a bit too visceral and scary for the film’s own good. Still, if it worked even for Mr. Magoo, there’s no reason to think it won’t work well enough for some fiscal redemption. THR‘s Carl DiOrio, whose nearly as jolly as an way-too-early St. Nick, is guessing it’ll grab about $40 million in premature yuletide cheer. A split decision by critics is, I suppose, neither here nor there.

After that, we have four films that will be duking it out with two extant strong releases, Michael Jackson’s ghostly final bow, “This Is It,” which may benefit from better than expected word of mouth and, of course, the horrifyingly profitable “Paranormal Activity.” Intriguingly, all these new major releases have a slightly spooky and/or “paranormal” spin and trying to guess which will do best is probably about as wise as playing with a Ouija board at a demon-infested San Diego townhome.

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Actors, Actresses, Documentaries, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

Tales of cinema survival

November 5, 2009 /

* Flicks are a tough business which frequently requires great sacrifice. Still, I can’t think of a single creative or suit whose had to saw off a limb to stay alive. However, that’s exactly what mountaineer Aron Ralston had to do and now director Danny Boyle plans to film Ralston’s story, perhaps or perhaps not with actor Ryan Gosling in the lead. Fun, fun, fun.

Cast Away

* Demon-plagued Katie and Micah of “Paranormal Activity” live (and hopefully have good agents). Also, those with a high tolerance for low humor will want to check out my friends, the Perry Boys, in “Perry-Normal Activity.”

* RIP comic actor, vaudevillian, and magician Carl Ballantine aka “The Great Ballantine, who survived very nicely until age 92.

* Roadside Attractions has picked up “The Joneses,” a comedic social satire with two career survivors, David Duchovny and Demi Moore.

* “The Tourist,” a remake of a 2005 French thriller little seen in the U.S. has lost Sam Worthington and the very good director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (“The Lives of Others.”) However, it lives to tell the tale as it’s gained Johnny Depp and, perhaps, and an even better director in Alfonso Cuaron (“Y Tu Mama Tambien,” “Children of Men“).

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News

Serious offers and old gossip

November 2, 2009 /

Just another sane Monday in movieland.

A robot* Halcyon, a somewhat odd firm with an all but empty website, has officially put its one and only asset and reason for being, the rights to “The Terminator” franchise, on the auction block. So reports Variety and Nikki Finke. Suddenly, over at Whedonesque — yes, the Joss Whedon fansite where the beloved cult TV and occasional film creator occasionally posts  — Whedon links to it and posts a very serious offer. So serious, in fact, that Finke — who occasionally claims she “doesn’t do geek” runs the item. Meanwhile, back at Whedonesque, the Whe-man and a commenter who appears to be both a fan of the Joss and the late singer-songwriter Warren Zevon (some folks are just blessed with too much taste) note an earlier serious offer.

Quote of the week (probably):

Well, here’s what I have to say to Nikki Finke: you are a fine journalist and please don’t ever notice me.

* Sony Classic has picked up the rights to “Mother and Child,” the latest film from arthouse/cable director Rodrigo Garcia, still probably best known to a lot of people as the son of Columbian literary great Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s not too surprising a pick-up, even in this tough market, given that the cast includes Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, up-and-comer Kerry Washington (“Ray,” “The Fantastic Four”), and Samuel L. Jackson.

* The box office “actuals” for most of the big releases turned out to be a couple of million higher than the estimates I reported yesterday. Sorry MJ’s ghost.

* Thinking about “The Men Who Stare at Goats” which comes out this Friday, Jeff Bridges gets appropriately trippy but not in too dudish a way.

* This is a few days old, but for those of us who find ourselves unduly fascinating by the Church of Scientology, via Kim Masters, here’s an interesting new story opened up last week. Writer-director Paul Haggis (“Crash”) announced he’s leaving the church.

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Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

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