Apparently it wasn’t just the Cold War that made John F. Kennedy so anxious to reach the moon. He apparently wanted some big, ugly toy robots even more than he wanted sex with Marilyn Monroe.
Boy, I’m already so not a fan of this franchise and then they go and mess with both Apollo 11 and my man Walter Cronkite, whose too seriously dead to complain that they used him to advertise a (most likely) crappy science fiction film from Michael Bay. Of course it’s in 3D.
Oh, and the first person to post a Pink Floyd joke in comments gets an extremely special No Prize. (Note: I don’t like Pink Floyd very much either. I just felt like mentioning that.)
As the madcap summer movie series ends, just a few items to wrap up the silly season.
* Not silly at all and quite possibly tragic. It appears there was a very serious stunt-related accident on the set of “Transformers 3,” or perhaps it was a not so stunt-related “freak accident,” says Nikki Finke.
* The concept art from the canned Pixar film, “Newt,” is beautiful. Maybe someday we’ll get to see the abandoned footage. Their discards are probably at least twice as good as most finished films.
* I have a feeling we’re going to hear a lot about “The Black Swan” through Oscar season. It apparently wowed them in Venice though the thoughtful and quirky cinephile critic emeritus J. Hoberman of Village Voice finds it “borderline risible.” To me, remaking “The Red Shoes” with a dash of Dario Argento and even DePalma (not my favorite) sure sounds pretty cool.
* Director Tomas Alfredson, who did such a great job on “Let the Right One In,” is shifting genres from very young vampires to depressive real-world style spooks like George Smiley (Gary Oldman this time ’round) in “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” Michael Fassbender, however, left to be a superhero so now Tom Hardy of “Inception” is stepping in. That should work okay, too. (I finally saw “Inception,” by the way, and…I’m too tired to talk about it now, which is sort of how I felt as I was watching it, actually.)
* Is “Hunger Games” really “The Running Man” with teens or more like “Battle Royale” made safe for an American audience? Sam Mendes, Gary Ross and David Slade duke it out to see who’ll realize whatever it is. Interesting to see the name of the talented writer Billy Ray involved here.
Do not replace Megan Fox with Hayden Panettiere. Nothing good can come of it.
I had only halfheartedly followed the whole “Megan Fox is out of ‘Transformers 3’ story,” mostly because I didn’t grow up playing with Transformers toys and therefore have no particular affinity for the film franchise beyond the “it looks cool” factor, but when Bullz-Eye’s beloved CEO called me today during lunch and casually mentioned how he’d heard that former “Heroes” cheerleader Hayden Panettiere was one of the names being bandied about as one of the many possible replacements for Fox, I almost gagged on my PB&J.
I don’t know that you’ve followed my feelings on Ms. Panettiere over the course of my three encounters with her at the TCA Press Tour, but let’s just say that she necessitated the institution of a Three-Strikes-And-You’re-Out rule…and I don’t even have anyone else on my list with two strikes!
In 2007, I managed to ask her precisely one question, which she answered lazily before wandering away.
In 2008, I waited patiently for an interview as she finished a casual conversation, and although both she and her publicist clearly saw me, they both turned and walked in the opposite direction when the conversation was over. I unintentionally but audibly said, “Oh, no, you didn’t,” at which point her publicist attempted to pacify me by assuring me that she had to go to the ladies room and would be back. (She wouldn’t be.)
This year, I decided I’d give it one last shot.
As I was steeling myself for her impending indifference, a colleague came up and said, “Do you want to double-team her?” Just as we were heading her way, another critic beat us to the punch by calling Hayden’s name…and I saw Hayden’s eyes roll as far back as she could muster, then turned and offered about the most fake smile imaginable, in no way hiding the “I don’t want to be here, let alone answer your questions” look in her eyes. My colleague and I approached nonetheless, and we watched as several other writers entered the newly-created scrum. After the fourth or fifth time Hayden reacted to a new tape recorder as if someone was thrusting a knife at her, I finally just said, “Screw this” (albeit under my breath), and bailed out.
Seriously, Michael Bay, you don’t want Hayden Panettiere in your film. You’ve just gotten rid of one moody coquette. You don’t want to replace her with another one.
With Cannes starting to wind down — or with people probably starting to leave in the manner of Hollywood folk at lengthy fests much in the way Los Angelenos leave sporting events early — maybe the news will start to slow down a bit as well. In any case, it’s looking like I won’t be around to cover it tomorrow, and then comes the weekend movie preview, so this will have to tide you over for a bit.
* Our top story tonight, however, is far away from anything likely to screen in, or even out of, competition at the world’s most famous film festival. Seems that Megan Fox, who you might remember compared director Michael Bay to Hitler some time ago, will not be returning in “Transformers 3.” Apparently Bay has finally realized there are lots and lots of unnaturally attractive young women in Hollywood and some of them can act a little.
In any case, Nikki Finke brings you a crash course on the apparent Fox/Bay hate affair, while AICN’s Merrick reminds you of some of those other unnaturally attractive women.
* The big breaking news around the film geek blogosphere is that THR’s Heat Vision blog is reporting that Chris Evans will, indeed, play Captain America. I’ve only seen Evans in the first half-hour of “The Fantastic Four” (that was as far I made it through that one) but let’s say that, for the time being, I’m having a very hard time getting excited about this news.
* Moving from a project I’m interested in with some casting I’m not finding so interesting right now, we move on to some very interesting casting for a project I’m really not that personally interested in except to root for it to do as little business as possible because of the kind of filmmaking it symbolizes. It appears that John Malkovich, Francis McDormand, and Ken Jeong will all be in…wait for it…”Transformers 3.” Christopher Campbell has the predictably cynical and amusing blog reactions. I should add that I have absolutely no criticism of them for being in it. If Michael Bay wants to give me a few hundred thousand to do something connected to one of his films, I’m taking it. Now, if he wants me to say something nice about the flick, that’s going to cost a whole lot more.
* The bidding deadline has been extended a bit for the sale of MGM to make room for an offer from Time Warner. I imagine that would put the classic-era and later MGM library all under one corporate umbrella, which could make life a bit less confusing for us film buffs.
* I love spy movies. Also, in theory, I have no problem with movies based on video games — apart from the fact that I can’t think of one that people actually like very much, much less that I’ve personally seen and liked. Still, with all the great spy novels of all shapes and sizes that there are, the thought of a spy movie based on a video game does not make me very happy.
* I’m confused, is “Everything Must Go” starring Will Ferrell, which starts production this week with financing direct from its producers, really going to be an entirely non-comedic film, or is it being billed as a “drama” simply to distinguish it from Ferrell’s usual ultra-wacky comedies? To me, the premise sounds laden with a potential for dark humor, though I don’t know the Raymond Carver story, I do know he occasionally indulged in that.
* Previews begin the day after tomorrow on Broadway of the new stage musical, “American Idiot.” With a book by Green Day singer and lyricist Billie Joe Armstrong, the show’s “dialogue” is, as I understand, almost entirely sung. It ran to mixed-to-positive reviews last year in the main theatrical venue of the Green Day’s California Bay Area hometown, Berkeley Rep. While not all the critics were high on the NoCal edition of the show, apparently Tom Hanks and his producing partner Gary Goetzman like it and are “in talks” to turn the production into a feature movie. I love some of the music on the highly acclaimed original album, so I’m intrigued by this one, though I could easily see it turning out horribly. (The music video featured by Kevin Jagernauth of the Playlist shows one way example of how a film version could go rather badly wrong.)
One thing this is not is a “jukebox musical” along the lines of “Mamma Mia!” but a concept album adaptation closer in spirit, I imagine, to “Tommy” and “Pink Floyd’s The Wall.” Still, one hurtle all these movies rarely overcome is the difference in energy between a live performance of a great rock and roll tune and the inevitably more packaged version you’ll get in a movie. Personally, I’ll be impressed if anything in the film version, if there ever is one, matches the intensity of the performance below.
