Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Politics

Whether you liked or hated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, you now have to admit that it was good for something. Specifically, members of the Russian Communist Party have called for a nationwide boycott of the film, because it lies about history and aims to undermine Communism. They've objected that the Soviet Union in 1957 was launching satellites instead of "send[ing] terrorists to the States," and are wondering whether "talented directors want to provoke a new Cold War."

First, it's important to note that the Russian Communist Party isn't a tiny cabal of pamphleteering loonies à la the American Communist Party. The Russian Party got 11.6% of the vote in 2007's parliamentary elections (that's about 8 million votes), and its representatives actually hold seats in Parliament; it's the largest opposition party in the country, and the Communist presidential candidate tends to be competitive. Second: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. An Indiana Jones film is an attempt to provoke a new Cold War? Really? If anything, it's proof -- as if any were needed -- that America doesn't take Communists seriously as adversaries. And if anything else, it's flattering: I seriously doubt that the modern Communist Party has any leaders as brilliant and ambitious as Cate Blanchett's Irina Spalko.

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Filed under: Comedy, Independent, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy

Nailed is one film that is not going to catch a break. It was already shut down once by SAG because the movie's funding had not set enough money aside for the actors. That was cleared up, only to have it shut down a second time when IATSE members (solid, behind-the-scenes people like stagehands and technicians) revealed they weren't being paid.

Now, Nikke Finke is reporting the film has been shut down a third time, again by the IATSE who have ordered their members off because they still aren't being paid.

Of course, the longer the film is shut down, the more money it loses. A vicious cycle, really. But if it makes Russell feel better, there are several indie films suffering. Capitol Films is apparently going through a financial upheaval and several films have met the same fate as Nailed.
Who knows which indie flicks could bite the dust in the following weeks?

At this point, all the actors are bravely hanging in, although production will probably be delayed about two weeks. Even though I haven't been 100% behind the concept, even if it is Russell, I hate to see little films die off. Plus, this is being filmed right next door to where a good friend of mine resides, and he promised to keep me (and you guys) updated. So here's wishing the best.

[via CHUD]

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Photo by David James/Paramount Pictures

Tom Russo here from the Sunday DVD page, stopping by the blog for a visit. After catching Sunday?s Boston media screening of ?Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? ? my personal movie-going holy grail ? I ran home all anxious to take a look back at a piece I had written years ago for the late, hopefully lamented Premiere magazine.

It was a roundup of various never-produced screenplays with a notable fanboy pedigree. The best one of all? (BE WARNED ? SPOILERS START HERE.) ?Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men From Mars,? written way back in 1995 by Jeb Stuart, who presumably got the gig partly thanks to his then-recent work on Harrison Ford?s ?Fugitive? remake. (Stuart shared the broader Indy ?story by? credit with George Lucas.)

Doing my own archaeological dig through dusty files, I located my copy of the script ? and sure enough, you could see the roots of various story ideas that wound up in ?Crystal Skull.? There was Indy, now a Cold War spy, tangling with the Commies. There was a wedding. There was our hero stumbling, explosively, right into the middle of a desert A-bomb test, a scene that ultimately survived very much intact. Ford even name-checks the term ?saucer men from Mars? in the new movie as the action moves firmly into ?X-Files? territory.

But memory is a funny thing. Going back over my Premiere text, I was a little thrown to realize that I hadn?t actually included ?Indy IV.? And then, vaguely, it came back to me ? my editor and I had instead placed a safer bet, going with an ?Indy III? variation purportedly by Chris Columbus (?Harry Potter?) that featured a set piece recognizably incorporated into ?Last Crusade.?

Our rationale for cutting ?Saucer Men,? I think, was that the idea of Indy hunting for little green guys was entertaining and all ? but clearly just too far out there to be trusted. Go figure. Makes it all the more apt that our headline on the piece was ?Would Have, Could Have?Should Have??

Filed under: Deals, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand

I hesitated before writing this post. There's been quite a bit of Uwe Boll on this blog lately, and I share the opinion that Boll-haters have inflated the man's importance out of all proportion. Had this been a story about Boll adapting another stupid video game, I'd have let it alone, but it's at least interesting in a howling, head-clutching sort of way.

Boll is moving away from his stock-in-trade to make two films for a more limited audience. (I snickered a little as I typed that last part.) The first, called Stoic, has already wrapped and is about a 2006 incident in which three German inmates, incarcerated for minor offenses, raped and tortured a cellmate for 10 hours before inducing him to commit suicide. The film stars Edward Furlong, Sam Levinson, and Shaun Sipos, the latter of whom has a scene in which he licks his own vomit off the ground. Boll, speaking like a proud father, explains that "[w]hen the actor licks his puke off the ground, he will be seen eating it for a minute, not just a little bit." The puke Sipos consmes will be fake, but the actor did, apparently, eat a real tube of toothpaste. Though Boll hopes the film will squeak through with an R rating "for [its] social commentary," he suspects it might merit an NC-17 and have to be released unrated.

Continue reading Uwe Boll Bringing "Arthouse" Pain

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When I was 14 years old, I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and fell in love with Indiana Jones. As I grew up, this crush evolved into a more than passing interest in historical sites and digs, slight proficiency with a bullwhip (although Batman Returns is in part to blame for that one) and a fondness for movies. Or so I thought. Because I just saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and realised something: despite my growing up into a well balanced historically interested bullwhip wielding movie buff, I am still very much in love with Indiana Jones. (more…)

Filed under: Drama, Foreign Language, Cannes, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports, Celebrities and Controversy, Politics

Plenty of people are going to be talking about Steven Soderbergh's Che Guevara biographical films -- The Argentine and Guerrilla, screened at Cannes tonight as one presentation simply called Che -- over the next few months. There will be arguments about the politics of the films; there will be discussions of whether or not the films have any emotional center; there will be questions of if, when the film gets some kind of U.S. distribution deal, exactly how they should be released -- two films released staggered throughout the last half of the year or cut down to one three-hour film or shown as a long, big double bill that presents the separate films back-to-back. There will be talk of if Benicio Del Toro deserves a Best Actor nomination for his work as Guevara, or if Soderbergh's portrait of Che is too flat to engage us; I can easily imagine discussions of the look and feel of the film, shot in high-resolution digital with all the craft and care Soderbergh usually brings to shooting on film. I can't predict how all of these questions and possibilities will play out, but I can say -- and will say -- what a rare pleasure it is to have a film (or films) that, in our box-office obsessed, event-movie, Oscar-craving age, is actually worth talking about on so many levels.

Continue reading Cannes Review: Che

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Filed under: New Releases, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom

I loved the drinking and the waking up in the morning and finding I was in Mexico. It was part and parcel of being an idiot. -Peter O'Toole

Todays "idiots," so to speak, lack a certain finesse. There are lots a tabloids that capture their every move, but they don't really create the stories we'd want to read about later. Some of the old-school rabble rousers, however... Reuters reports that Robert Sellers is releasing a book on May 29 called Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, and Oliver Reed.

In the description on Amazon, it says: "It's a story of drunken binges of near biblical proportions, parties and orgies, broken marriages, drugs, riots, and wanton sexual conquests." Of course, I want to read it. It's funny how some talent and far-reaching charisma can make risque stories all the more intriguing. Perhaps that's the gauge of true talent -- will we still like them after they mess up? Again? And again?

Then again, the stories are also a little bit more interesting than racial slurs to cops or ladies showing their glory boxes to the world at large -- although the old tales are not all charming. But still, I can't resist a book full of My Favorite Year.

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Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Celebrities and Controversy, Movie Marketing

Not the act, or even the movie about performing the act in the city, but the word "sex" from advertisements in Jerusalem and Petah Tikvah (which is where the Egyptian musicians were trying to go in The Band's Visit, remember?). Apparently the large religious population of both cities isn't comfortable with the word appearing on ubiquitous billboards, which puts the Israeli distributor of this summer's Sex and the City in a tough spot. Advertising that includes the film's title is out.

Now, it is kind of funny that while the movie can be shown anywhere, ads for it are banned in certain cities because they include the word "sex." But it might not be as petty as it seems at first glance. After all, people have to make an affirmative choice to go see the movie in a theater, or rent it on DVD; billboard and poster advertising is invasive and inevitably confronts unwilling audiences. It's not necessarily irrational to let theaters show the film but ban certain forms of promotion that everyone will see. This sort of thing isn't unprecedented in the United States: we permit sales of tobacco, for example, but ban television advertising and, in many communities, billboards near schools; we permit pornography, but not always graphic advertising for same. The ban on "sex" strikes me as the same sort of thing. You can still argue that a sensibility that is offended by any mention of the word "sex" is itself silly, but that's a can of worms.

[story in USA Today, via Movie City News]

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Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, War

At a Cannes press conference for his WWII drama The Miracle at St. Anna, controversy hog Spike Lee took some swipes at Hollywood darlings Clint Eastwood and the Coen Brothers. Talking about the way he treated death in his first war film, Lee said: "I always treat life and death with respect, but most people don't... Look, I love the Coen brothers; we all studied at NYU. But they treat life like a joke. Ha ha ha. A joke. It's like, 'Look how they killed that guy! Look how blood squirts out the side of his head!' I see things different than that." And he targeted Eastwood for failing to put any black soldiers on screen in Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima: "If you reporters had any balls you'd ask him why. There's no way I know why he did that -- that was his vision, not mine. But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It's not like he didn't know."

Continue reading Spike Lee Throws Punches at Coens, Clint Eastwood

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