With the super-hum0ngous Cannes Film Festival opening today — with Tim Burton heading the festival jury, btw –the movie news is in a kind of hyper-drive. Also, it’s been a few days since I’ve done one of these newsy posts. So, you’ll have to excuse me as I merely skim the surface.
* Is it that no one’s writing books or plays anymore, or do we really need to keep making movies based on games? Tim Burton, it so happens, is the next to contemplate the matter. Will “MONSTERPOCALYPSE” be the first game-based film to screen at Cannes, or will that be “Checkers: the Movie”?
* Here your fix of Cannes-related glitz, and also details on the rather big film-making names. Meanwhile THR takes a moderately bullish look at the market-side of the event.
Getting a bit of an early start and catching up with some news we didn’t discuss yesterday.
* In terms of raw cash, the movies had a record March this year, largely thanks to those inflated, and then extra-inflated, ticket prices for “Alice in Wonderland” in 3-D. We’ll see how long this lasts.
* Reading this Nikki Finke item about what sounds like the increasingly fraught auction of MGM, it really does make it seem like a million years ago when MGM was the absolute epitome, for better and for worse, of Hollywood power.
* Universal, which hasn’t exactly been rolling in cash lately, has pulled the plug on “Cartel.” It would have been a remake of the fact-based Italian mafia thriller from 1993, “La Scorta,” set admidst Mexico’s drug wars. Josh Brolin was set to play the lead. Mike Fleming doesn’t specifically mention insurance or the cost of security, but considering the topic and what’s been going in throughout Mexico — apparently including Mexico City where the film was to be shot — it must have been through the roof.
* Master cinephile blogger Dennis Cozzalio checks in and brings word of some cool film fests.
It’s kind of a slow movie news day, but we do have some items that all have a sort of poignant yet upbeat feeling to them with a united theme of love and death: perhaps the things in the world that give life its meaning.
* It’s official: Quentin Tarantino has bought himself a movie theater. Specifically, the New Beverly Cinema where I and countless other L.A. cinemaniacs first encountered many of the greatest movies of all time and where, more recently, I had a grand time meeting some of the folks behind “Inglourious Basterds.” This all comes courtesy of L.A. cinephile extraordinaire Dennis Cozzalio, who explains how word of Tarantino’s involvement, which preceded the sad and unexpected death of ShermanTorgan, became known. This one makes me all misty.
UPDATE: CHUD-man Devin Faraci has more, as it turns out. I wasn’t even sure he lived out here. (The bar at the Yarrow, located conveniently to where most of the press screenings are, is probably my fondest memory of my one hectic Sundance. Good beer, yes, but I practically lived on their cheeseburgers and coffee.)
* Roger Ebert‘s further reflections on the moving Esquire piece from earlier in the week. Nice to know he might not be “dying in increments” any more than you and I might be.
* RIP Kathyrn Grayson. Her operatic voice makes her singing something of an acquired taste for non-opera lovers like myself, but Ms. Grayson made it a taste worth acquiring with solid acting chops and a darned amazing voice in countless MGM musicals. Unfortunately, the gods of YouTube aren’t providing anything usable from her best and sexiest film, 1953’s “Kiss Me Kate.” Instead I found this fascinating moment from the patriotic 1943 wartime propaganda musical, “Thousands Cheer.” This is probably not Pat Buchanan‘s favorite movie moment, but it’s the kind of patriotism I have no problem supporting.
She was charming, she was graceful, she had the voice of an angel, and—not too put too fine a point on it or come off as loutish or anything—she was supes hot, in a way that still retains its impact for contemporary sensibilities.
Like many in the film blogosphere, I owe a lot to the cite’s proprietor and sole contributor, Dennis Cozzalio, for his support and encouragement when pretty much no one was paying attention. And the weird part came when we both figured out that we’d actually probably met about ??? years back through some kind of bizarre web of L.A.-based film nerd synchronicity. But, who cares.
Really, this is a day to celebrate that great site where the seemingly inexhaustible Dennis, whose subject matter really does include baseball and the great director of Italian-made westerns but also genre films (with an emphasis on the grungier side of the street, particularly horror but also, because he’s a family man, the cleaner and brighter side of things as well) and thoughtful exploration on this thing we call cinema in pretty much every single one of its facets.If you’ve never been over to his place before, now’s as good a time as any to start. Much good film-geek reading awaits you there.
In the meantime, just a few movie moments with a twist of SLIFR. (Okay, this is mainly just because I’m in a Roger Corman mood at the moment.)
Some continuations of ongoing tales in the never ending movie wars…
* Naturally, Nikke Finke has more on the Disney-Marvel deal. Of course, there’s a discussion of Universal’s currently existing use of Marvel licensed characters at theme parks, which Finke points out is pretty much a job security plan for lawyers. Disney may spend decades slowly bringing the characters fully on board. Much more interesting to me is another post on the background of the deal. It’s been brewing for nearly a decade, but she reminds us of the genetic link Iger has to the history of comics.
His late great-uncle (his grandfather’s brother) was illustrator/cartoonist Jerry Iger, who partnered with illustrator/cartoonist Will Eisner back in the 1930s to create — you guessed it — the comic book packager Eisner & Iger Studios...And their first hire was Jack Kirby, who as you know later became the co-creator of many of Marvel’s best known characters with Stan Lee.
Kirby almost needs no introduction. Eisner, for those of you with less than obsessive old school comics knowledge, is probably the comic book equivalent of John Ford with a dash of D.W. Griffith in terms of his influence on the medium as an artist/writer. He was also a very successful entrepreneur on various ends of the comic book industry for decades. (He’s best known as the creator of “The Spirit,” a great series which may take years to recover from the damage done to its memory by Frank Miller’s reprehensible film version.)
* I haven’t really had the chance to geek out with either friends or even online about how much I loved “Inglourious Basterds.” If you were similarly entranced and want to read more, more, more about the movie, you need to check out last week’s ‘net colloquy between Dennis Cozzalio of Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule and Bill R. of The Kind of Face You Hate. It’s an involved discussion that went to some surprising places as it addressed some explosive comments by film historian/critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who eventually was mensch enough to join the discussion.
It’s a lengthy three part discussion at two sites, but probably the easiest place to start is the final post, because it has links to the previous three. Got it? There are some fairly significant spoilers hidden here and there, for sure, but if those don’t bother you too much and you haven’t gotten around to seeing the movie, you still might want to check it out. I was already spoiled on the main ones before I saw the movie, and it didn’t harm my enjoyment of it.
* One of the main villains of “Inglourious Basterds,” who has recently been making a name for himself one of the more recognizable ‘net commentators on geek matters, weighs in on last weeks “Avatar Day.” (H/t Den of Geek.)
