A segment from an English TV documentary about director Sergio Leone and composer Ennio Morricone’s collaboration on “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” and “Once Upon a Time in the West” and more good stuff, including Claudia Cardinale and food, and Rudy Giuliani-loving Republican actor James Woods’ apparent semi-agreement with the European Marxist interpretation of American history back in 2000. Interesting stuff all around and, of course, Quentin Tarantino is in it. Like they could keep him out of it.
Tag: Quentin Tarantino (Page 8 of 13)
I have to admit I was a little surprised when Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers” was released on Blu-ray before some of his other films, but for Warner Bros. to release another version one year later is just plain unnecessary, not to mention a pretty shitty way to treat your fans. You’d think that if Warner Bros. was going to release an unrated director’s cut, they would have done so the first time around. Instead, those that purchased the R-rated Digibook version last year are going to have an awfully tough decision to make.
Personally, I’ve always found “Natural Born Killers” to be extremely overrated. It’s not that Stone’s satirical message about the media is beyond my understanding, but rather that I think he goes about it in the wrong manner. There’s just nothing to like about the movie (except maybe Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as Australian journalist Wayne Gale), and it really makes me wonder how much better it could have been if the film’s original scripter, Quentin Tarantino, had made it his way instead.
That doesn’t change the fact that “Natural Born Killers” has its share of admirers, but even if you are a fan of the film, it’s difficult to recommend this latest release. Though some people will be insistent about owning Stone’s original vision, the added violence doesn’t really add anything new to the experience. Additionally, with the exception of a new introduction by the director, the only other new extra is a 22-minute documentary on how the media would react to Mickey and Mallory’s killing spree today. Some predict they would be using social media sites like YouTube and Twitter, but I find that hard to believe. After all, wouldn’t it be pretty easy to track them down if they were posting videos and images for everyone to see?
All of the other extras from the previously released Blu-ray also appear, including an audio commentary by Stone, a retrospective documentary about the making of the film, and a handful of deleted scenes that don’t amount to much. The scene featuring Denis Leary going off on one of his trademark rants is definitely worth checking out, but unfortunately, it really has no place in the film. Then again, neither does a lot of the stuff that’s in “Natural Born Killers,” but for those that want to pretend it’s some kind of masterpiece, you’d still be better off sticking with the original Blu-ray.
There was a time in this world when young people were frequently slightly ashamed of being bigger than average fans of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and especially comic books. I, personally, wasn’t embarrassed …and I paid a price. Those days may be over. In any case, the capacity crowd that showed up for Spike TV’s Scream awards, largely in costume and largely dramatically over- or under-dressed for a nighttime outdoor show after a very warm day, seemed more like club kids and less like the kind of uber geeks who become entertainment bloggers and film critics and stuff like that.
The Scream Awards are, in their fun/silly way, a big deal. Big enough to attract a good number of stars and even a few superstars like Tobey Maguire, Jessica Alba, Morgan Freeman, Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp and his living legend “Pirates of the Caribbean” muse, Rolling Stone Keith Richard.
I, however, am not such a big deal and was reminded of that fact when, prior to the show I found myself with the less fashionable members of the not-quite paparazzi on the “red carpet” (actually a checkered walkway) with my little digital camera and even smaller digital recorder device, wondering whether I’d really get a chance to ask a question of one of the super-famed folks, knowing that the only question I could think of at the time would be something in the nature of “What’s it like be the most notorious rock and roll star in the world, having your blood changed, and snorting your late father’s ashes?” That probably would have been inappropriate, especially if I asked it of Jessica Alba.
What actually seems to happen at events like this is that, if you’re a small-timer especially, most of the big stars either go through another entrance or walk right by you at warp speed. Meanwhile, folks who are a bit more anxious to meet the press find their way to you with the help of PR types. As an example, for about half a second, I was almost able to talk with actor Karl Urban, who did such a great job homaging DeForest Kelly while putting his own hilarious stamp on “Bones” McCoy in “Star Trek.” However, within a nanosecond he remembered he was in a big hurry and politely scurried off.
After a few odd reality show people I didn’t recognize, and the pretty young actress who assays the part of “Female Addict” in “Saw VI,” our first actual notable was statuesque model turned actress Tricia Helfer. Helfer is, make no mistake, a true superstar to TV sci-fi fans and is best known as Number Six, aka “the hot blonde cylon” on “Battlestar Galactica.” The actress appeared with her significant other, the owner of a British accent and a Giaus Baltar-style beard, but I’m sure that’s a total coincidence. I had a not terribly consequential discussion with her — lost because I apparently forgot to press the “on” button on my digital recorder. One would expect no less an effect from Number Six. UPDATE: Yeesh! As pointed out by my PH compatriot John Paulsen, the actress was actually Kate Vernon, who played the lady-MacBeth-like Ellen Tigh. It is true, all statueseque blonde women in shiny dresses look alike to me! My apologies to all concerned or unconcerned.
I keep reading that the studios are reducing their outputs and that we’ll be seeing fewer new movies, but there’s sure no sign of it lately as we have another complicated week where, at least in theory, anything can happen. Still, the prognosticators agree that the latest entry in the first and longest running franchise in the sub-genre of torture-heavy horror, “Saw VI,” will likely win the week for Lionsgate.
On the other hand, there is also a consensus that the low-violence yet entirely potent chills of “Paranormal Activity” will be cutting into the Saw-bucks some also. Obviously, there is some audience crossover but, just as obviously, the most jaded gore hounds may find it beyond tame. I’ve already noted online the start of an inevitable backlash. I doubt this reaction will have the same angry potency that afflicted “The Blair Witch Project” so many moons ago. In that case, Lionsgate’s attempt to persuade less-savvy audiences that it might actually be real probably backfired later on, as did the over-hype of some of the early write-ups.
This time, Paramount has been more cleverly circumspect than the “Blair Witch” marketers, simply making the case that the modest video-movie can really scare the bejesus out of an audience. I’m here to tell you it can, even though I feel sure that not a single person I saw it with was under any delusion that what we were watching was not staged. Still, you see the violence-loving fanboys complaining at certain sites. I mean, how can a movie be scary if it lets you imagine the worst of it? How is that ever going to work?
It’s probably pretty obvious by now, especially from my post just before this one, that I prefer the “Paranormal” approach and will be rooting for it but, despite the still growing excitement around the movie, it’s the definite underdog as “Saw VI” will be opening in 3,036 theaters, while it’s competitor will be expanding to a mere 1,900. However, the outstanding per-screen averages that the film has been nailing could compensate if some horror audiences find the prospect of yet another ultra-brutality fest less than ultra-appealing.
Though it’s yet another family-friendly CGI animated film, this one based on a property at least some of us remember from our childhoods, hopes are not all that astronomically high for the next film. Summit’s “Astro Boy” is based on the best known creation of Japan’s “God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka, who basically invented both manga and anime as we now know them and who created some of the best comic books for adults that I’ve ever read. Of course, you’d never know from the horrendously lame gag at the end of the trailer or the often ugly CGI animation that ruins the beautiful 2-D (black and white, too!) of the early Tezuka cartoons as scene in the trailer. This appears to be another case of a studio adapting a property and missing what made the original work.
If you’ve seen “Inglourious Basterds,” you may get a slight feeling of déjà vu here, but even Mr. Tarantino hasn’t quite gone to this place yet.
The man who embodied manly virtue as Tom Joad, Mr. Roberts, Wyatt Earp and young Abraham freaking Lincoln discusses how he came to take the part of the seriously unpleasant Frank in Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West.”
I’m dead serious in my title for this post, by the way, I’d love to see Tom Hanks or, I don’t know, Tobey Maguire, play a complete and total SOB. And I don’t mean merely “flawed,” characters — complete SOBs. James Bond villains, if need be! Actors love this stuff and it usually works.
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