Friday, July 31, 2009

Did This Face Ruin Vampirism Forever?

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That's what Neil Gaiman thinks! EW chatted with the author about the (d)evolution of the vampire myth through the ages and he goes from Stoker to King to Rice and then drops this big ol' shit-bomb right onto The Count's stuffed head:

"Finally, of course there’s Sesame Street, which I think may well have created the sympathetic vampire for the world in Count."

Man alive, Neil Gaiman: why do you hate puppets?
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Brando Ten Times

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"I guess that's where everyone meets Mitch."

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I Suppose It's About Time...

... that I admit I'm fucking dying here, waiting for the movie District 9. Hard to believe I've made it this far without having posted on it once - it's out in just two weeks - but to be honest it wasn't until everbody's heads exploded watching it at ComiCon last week that it really came onto my radar.

Sucker came out of nowhere, didn't it? I mean, the "alien target" posters had been all over the city here, so I'd seen them, and I knew Peter Jackson was the film's producer so that certainly added a bit of intrigue... I guess maybe part of my relative lack of enthusiasm up until now has maybe been the fact that I've somehow avoided all the trailers, too? I'd heard people cawing about how cool it looked but I kept forgetting to watch any of them...

And now I'm glad that I haven't watched the trailer and unless they play it in front of something I see in the next two weeks - which is entirely possible of course, and I'm far too weak to close my eyes in that sort of a situation - well I hope I can avoid as much info beforehand as possible. Because the slight bits of reviews I've read from the screenings it's had so far have got me more than amped-up enough. I WANT THIS MOVIE NOW.

But what about y'all?

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I Had A Dream Last Night...

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... that I was running through the jungle with Hurley from Lost away from a group of threatening Others-types. We came up to a giant cliff, which I tried to slide down the angle of slowly... Hurley jumped. And I caught him. Then thankfully I woke right up. Jorge Garcia flying through the air at me like that gave me a start.
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I Am Link

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--- You Mean Really Real - We've got confirmation - Ridley Scott will really direct an Alien prequel. Variety confirms this and gives us the name of the new young Hollywood hot-shot who's writing the script. Like I've admitted several times as this news has slowly slinked forward, I've got mixed feelings about this: the original Alien is an amazing, amazing film, but Ridley hasn't made a movie I've liked in 20 years, so I just don't know if he's got it in him again. And the whole prequel thing eliminates Ripley, which = sadness. At the very least we can hope that this will resurrect the still scary Alien creature from the "Versus Predator" purgatory it's been in.

--- Get In The Game - Nacho Vigalondo, the Spanish director of the great flick Timecrimes - a movie I've had on my mind ever since watching it a couple of months ago; I liked it when I watched it but it's really just carved out space in my brain ever since, in a good way - has lined up his next project and it's gonna be an American production. It's called Gangland and it's a "blurring the lines between video-game and reality" movies. Which has failed more often than not so normally I'd shrug at the news, but Vigalondo made something so new and fresh out of the well-worn time-travel trope that this is definitely something to pay attention to. I also see they're developing a remake of Timecrimes for here in the States which... duh.

--- AKA The Lord's Day - Slash/Film has word on when the world will get its first glimpse at the trailer for James Cameron's Avatar - and in his usual humble way, JC's only taken an entire day of the calendar and renamed it after his film. August 21st is now Avatar Day - that's the day those 15 minutes will screen in theaters across the country and that's the day the trailer will make its way online. And that's the day a new savior will be born, and he will be good and righteous, amen.

--- Maybe The Final Final - There's a great chat - especially if you're as big a fan as I am of the series - with Craig Perry, the producer of the Final Destination films, over at BD. He talks about keeping the series fresh while remembering that all it's really about it the death set-pieces (and bless them for remembering this), about the title change - he amusingly admits:

"... FD3 we were exploring shooting in 3-D, but there weren’t enough 3-D screens to make it economically viable to do. Now we get to FD4 and were like, ‘ehhhhh FD4 3-D, WTF does that even mean? It doesn’t make any sense.’"

Indeed. And he talks about how the third film was New Line's most profitable film for the year but that the films get more expensive each go-around so this could be the last one... but maybe not, he's got an idea for where it could go next. I want new ones of these movies until I'm catatonic in a nursing home so I hope they keep going! And finally he talks about the fact that Rob Zombie's second "Halloween" movie will be out the same day and how they ain't worried. Good stuff.

--- Best Brains - Y'all oughta go check out Final Girl's hugely entertaining list of her favorite and most memorable zombies, and add your faves to the comments there. There are so many to love... I think that gal there to the left is maybe my favorite ever, if only because it's the one that I think I found the most emotionally affecting from any zombie movie ever. Sadness.

--- Re Programmed - Over at io9 they're telling us the ways we can and should re-experience Joss Whedon's first season of Dollhouse now that it's on DVD. I'm gonna be all up in those commentaries soon.

--- And finally, you need to head over to Only Good Movies where they've got a tremendously comprehensive list of the Top 100 Movie Killers. Yay killers! They're wonderfully divided up into categories, like Sophisticated, Foreign, Mask-Wearing... so many names to see and love anew. It's like going to a high school reunion or something, only this reunion falls on the anniversary of some horrific event and the lights have gone out and the doors have all mysteriously gotten themselves locked...
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Thursday, July 30, 2009

Hey Look!

Have I been overdoing the "Hey Look!" exclamation this week? I feel like I have been. It's been everywhere! I've even spent the better half of this week scribbling in my notebook, "JA + Hey Look 4-ever" and "JA Look"... good grief I need to get some more sleep. ANYWAY. What's this I see? Why it's the trailer for Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, is what it is (via). Well crap.

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Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...


... heading Emile's way. (pic via)
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Ashton Six Times

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Another photo-shoot of Mr. Kutcher, another opportunity for me to feel filthy and wrong about my continuing attraction to him. Hooray! (more pics at Parade)
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Tahmoh Takes It Off For His Art

There are a lot of reasons to complain about the world we live in today. Lord knows I've done my share (ha ha ha, if "my share" equals "the shares of a hundred Somalian refugee families" then yes, that's the truth). Anyway, one (unsurprising, you will soon see) thing I like about this here New World Order we're living in today is that it's generally become accepted that if you've hired an actor like, say, Tahmoh Penikett, for your SyFy (ugh) miniseries, then you're gonna just go ahead and release pictures of Tahmoh half-naked to sell your project as soon as you can get them out there. With that in mind I give you a couple of the first images released (via io9) for Riverworld, SyFy's (ugh) upcoming miniseries event:

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I Am Link

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--- Once Upon A Time I gave a shit about Ben Affleck. We all did, didn't we? That was weird. Although now that he's lined up both Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner (not to mention the terrific Rebecca Hall, aka the Vicky in Vicky Christina Barcelona) to act in his next directing effort (called The Town) well maybe I can see us starting something up again. He's teasing my happy places with those folks, he is.

--- Begging For Brad - Oh Eli, I love you I do, but until you are actually making this movie I wish you'd shut up about it. I've been burned by your yapping blather before too many times. It's been two and a half years since your last film (a fake trailer for Grindhouse, however enjoyable, does not count) and it's time for you to put out or shut up. Telling me you want Brad Pitt and Josh Brolin to star in your giant sci-fi movie that you haven't even finished the script for is not what any of us need right now.

--- Using His Power For Good - Good on Judd Apatow for taking a smidge of his Hollywood super-power right now to get some cool people's movies off the ground. First up, Kimberly "Boys Don't Cry" Pierce's next flick! Lady Filmmakers don't get enough goddamned breaks, ya know? Anyway there's no title yet but the film's described thusly:

"... in the vein of Pedro Almodovar and Woody Allen in which a ‘guy’s’ group of friends resuscitates him from the worst possible breakup, and trains him to find true love in this gender twist on the classic romantic comedy."

And secondly, Apatow's producing the next flick by the director of Once (aka my 2nd favorite movie of 2007). Cool beans all around.

--- Hey look, it's the French poster for The Final Destination (click to embiggen; via). Man these movies have all had just straight-up lousy posters. All around. Worldwide. But the movies are so wonderful that they make up for everything! And I do mean everything: famine, disease, war, bad posters, Ann Coulter... they all shrivel up into nothingness in the presence of this franchise. TFD is out in 29 fuckin' days, yeehaw!
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Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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The Stepford Wives (1975)

There's never been a film more devoted
to the terror of frilly white dresses, has there?

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Previous Ways Not To Die: Drown In A Sink Before The Opening Credits Even Roll -- The Dog Who Knew Too Much -- Don't Die Over Spilled Milk -- Inviting the Wrath of Aguirre -- An Inconceivable Outwitting -- The Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique -- Nipple Injected Blue Junk -- Your Pick Of The Deadly Six -- Thing Hungry -- Don't Fuck With The Serial Killer's Daughter -- DO Forget To Add The Fabric Softener -- Any Of The Ways Depicted In This Masterpiece Of Lost Cinema -- Rode Down In The Friscalating Dusklight -- Good Morning, Sunshine! -- Mornin' Cuppa Drano -- The Cylon-Engineered Apocalypse -- Tender-Eye-zed -- Martian Atmospheric Asphyxiation -- Maimed By A Mystical Person-Cat -- The Sheets Are Not To Be Trusted -- Handicapable Face-Hacked -- I Did It For You, Faramir -- Summertime In The Park... Of A Pedophile's Mind -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 3 -- Strung Up With Festive Holiday Bulbs By Santa Claus Himself -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 2 -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 1 -- Decapitated Plucked Broiled & Sliced -- Head On A Stick! -- A Trip To The Ol' Wood-Chipper -- Pointed By The T-1000 -- Sucking Face With Freddy Krueger -- A Pen-Full Of Home-Brewed Speed to The Eye -- Motivational Speech, Interrupted -- A Freak Ephemera Storm -- When Ya Gotta Go... Ya Gotta Go -- Hoisted By Your Own Hand Grenade -- Having The Years Suction-Cupped Away -- Criss-Cross -- Turned Into A Person-Cocoon By The Touch Of A Little Girl's Mirror Doppleganger -- Satisfying Society's "Pop Princess" Blood-Lust -- Done In By The Doggie Door -- Tuned Out -- Taking the 107th Step -- Rescuing Gretchen -- Incinerated By Lousy Dialogue -- Starred & Striped Forever -- Vivisection Via Vaginally-Minded Barbed-Wire -- Chompers (Down There) -- Run Down By M. Night Shyamalan -- Everything Up To And Including The Kitchen Toaster -- Sacrificed To Kali -- Via The Gargantuan Venom Of The Black Mamba Snake -- Turned Into An Evil Robot -- The Out-Of-Nowhere Careening Vehicle Splat -- "Oh My God... It's Dip!!!" -- Critter Balled -- Stuff'd -- A Hot-Air Balloon Ride... Straight To Hell!!! -- Puppy Betrayal -- High-Heeled By A Girlfriend Impersonator -- Flip-Top Beheaded -- Because I'm Too Goddamned Beautiful To Live -- By Choosing... Poorly... -- Fried Alive Due To Baby Ingenuity -- A Good Old-Fashioned Tentacle Smothering -- Eepa! Eepa! -- Gremlins Ate My Stairlift -- An Icicle Thru The Eye -- Face Carved Off By Ghost Doctor After Lesbian Tryst With Zombie Women -- Electrocuted By Fallen Power-Lines -- A Mouthful Of Flare -- Taken By The TV Lady -- Bitten By A Zombie -- Eaten By Your Mattress -- Stuffed To Splitting -- Face Stuck In Liquid Nitrogen -- Crushed By Crumbling Church Debris -- Bitten By The Jaws Of Life -- A Machete To The Crotch -- Showering With A Chain-Saw -- In A Room Filled With Razor Wire -- Pod People'd With Your Dog -- Force-Fed Art -- Skinned By A Witch -- Beaten With An Oar -- Curbed -- Cape Malfunction -- In The Corner -- Cooked In A Tanning Bed -- Diced -- Punched Through The Head -- Bugs Sucking On Your Head
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Happy Birthday, Lisa Kudrow

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Hopefully where ever you are today there is no man with scratches across his forehead trying to stick things down the front of your shirt. That's my generous birthday wish for you today! Well... unless you'd like that sort of thing in real life. But I think, at least in this instance, you're probably a lot like Valerie Cherish. At least I hope so. Cuz dude. That'd be a fucking weird fetish. Very specific. Hmm.
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Far Be It From Me...

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... to suggest you go either way in the final round of voting in Low Resolution's Trailer Tournament. No... really. I actually do mean that, unlike the last time when I beckoned y'all to swamp ever so gently nudge the vote in one direction. Yes, the trailer to which I guided you last time is one of our final 2. But I actually really love both of these trailers and whichever way this goes I think would be marvelous. So go vote! Vote and win! We're all winners, you know. In the game of life. And Life. The game. Huh? Exactly.
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From "Off The Radar" To "Must See"...

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... in a single trailer's fell swoop. Y'all, go and watch the trailer for the Coen Bros' new flick, A Serious Man. Now! Do it. Now!

Alright, you back? Looks good right? It's out on October 9th. I cannot wait. I knew they had a movie coming up but it wasn't really on my radar at all, but now? Yessirree.

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Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Four More Fox

Hey look, it's four more pictures from Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox (via). And here's me keeping good on my promise/threat to post every single one I see. Hooray for humanity!


There's also a pretty extensive chat with Jason Schwartzman over at AICN today where he talks about doing voice-over for the film; he says that he's already seen it and loved it.

"... I'm proud to be a part of it. I think it looks really beautiful. Wes didn't change his style of filmmaking and writing to suit the genre or the concept of the film. He brought it to him. It's just the new Wes Anderson film, but with puppets instead of live actors."
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"Now, that is a big trunk."

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"It holds a tuba, a suitcase, a dead dog,
and a garment bag almost perfectly."


"That's just what they used to say in the ads."
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