Bryan Singer loves the X-Men almost as much as he loves making out with Frank Langella. And that's A LOT.
Well, okay, he doesn’t say that exactly. But when asked about the third X-film, which Brett Ratner directed while he was doing Superman Returns, Singer replied “It’s weird for me to watch it, because I’m so close to the universe. And also Brett is a good friend of mine. But, of course, I would love to return to that universe.” That sounds like disappointment to me.
He goes on to say he’d be interested in doing another X-Men film. To which I said, in a recent interview, “Yes please.” Too bad all the interesting characters are dead, depowered, or wussies now. Thanks, Ratner.
It’s attached to Up, as everyone expected, and it’s looking good, as everyone also expected. No word on who’s doing Slinky Dog now that Jim Varney’s no longer with us. Maybe he’ll be mute like Rowlf was for years after Jim Henson died.
But the biggest question mark for me is the plot. Apparently it’s something about the toys being sent to a daycare when Andy goes to college. So they’ve done “Woody feels unloved” and “Buzz feels unloved” and now they’re just doing “Everybody feels unloved?” Eh, it’s Pixar. It’ll still be awesome.
The same handful of Aykroyd quotes about the third Ghostbusters film have been floating around for a month or two, but this /Film article adds a new wrinkle to the saga. Apparently, Bill Murray finally agreed to do the sequel (after years of refusing) on the condition that Ernie Hudson gets more screen time.
Now, we here at Critical End! are fans of Mr. Hudson, as any right-thinking individual should be. We thrilled at his out-of-nowhere appearance in Dragonball Evolution. But does anyone actually believe that this was the reason Murray was holding out? It’s one thing to go all reverse Steve Martin and start pretending you’re too artsy for any comedy without “A Film By” somewhere on the poster, while somehow deigning to do TWO horrendous CGI Garfield movies. But it’s another thing to claim you’re standing up for your pal by standing in the way of the most high profile job he’s had in years.
To be fair, this info comes secondhand from Aykroyd rather in a statement by Murray himself. But c’mon. Ernie Hudson doesn’t need your charity, Bill. Shut up and go back to making fun movies.
But I kid. Here’s a clip from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Heath Ledger’s final film. Looks to be the usual Gilliam oddness, made all the odder by the knowledge that Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law will all show up at some point to pretend they’re Heath Ledger and that really everything’s fine, and not all of Terry Gilliam’s movies are cursed by some vengeful movie God bent on punishing him for Baron Munchausen.
Christmas movie that will be gone from theaters before Thanksgiving? (No really, look at the date on the poster.)
But ignoring all that, Disney is going to promote this thing by carting props and marketing around to 40 cities in a vintage train. At each stop they plan to unload a giant inflatable 3D theater and do sneak previews of the film. I hear about these train tours from time to time and I’m always left wondering, “Are there still trains? Are trains still a thing?”
Where, within these 40 cities, is this train going to stop? Is it like Harry Potter where you have to find the magical entrance to some hidden anachronistic train platform? Or is Disney building an entire rail system solely for the promotion of their poor man’s Grinch?
Either way, I look forward to similar stunts in the future. Perhaps a cross-country hot air balloon tour for Up, a Romanian caravan tour for the Pinocchio Blu-ray, or a sewer-traversing exercise ball tour for G-Force. Speaking of which, this is exquisite.
It’s hard not to like Joe Dante’s 1978 film Piranha. Sure it was just a lame Roger Corman produced rip-off of Jaws, but in Dante’s hands it became a cult classic. How can you not like a film that’s got mutated killer fish eating a group of elementary school kids, Dick Miller in a huge cowboy hat, and one of my favorite horror movie lines, “Terror, horror, death. Film at eleven.”
But enough about how much I love Joe Dante and how some day he’ll have all my little Logan Jr.’s. You see, Hollywood is remaking Piranha…in 3D…with Elisabeth Shue. Some of you may recall that it was already remade in 1995 as a made for TV movie (which was completely forgettable except for the fact that it starred a young Soleil Moon Frye AND Mila Kunis), but it seems that what Hollywood really thinks it needs is a gory 3D update from that loony French guy who made the pretty bland High Tension. What was his name? Alexandre Aja or something. Crazy French and their crazy…Frenchness. As far as the remake goes, I feel like it could work. We’ll have to wait to find out, so until then why not rent the original this summer?
Anyway, what I really want to talk about is span style=”text-decoration: line-through;”>Joe Dante some more the recent news I read about Richard Dreyfuss shooting a cameo in the new remake. It turns out that the cameo will be an homage to his role in Jaws. So, if I’m understanding this correctly, Dreyfuss is doing an homage to his classic character in a film that is a remake of a rip off of the original film that featured his classic character. Does that sound about right? I was never great at math.
It’s no secret that Eli Roth is my favorite horror director of recent years (cue hate mail), so I was both extremely happy and extremely all like “Huh?” when I read this story over at MTV movies. I know you don’t have time to read it, what with your busy online schedule of keeping up with everything that your ex is doing on Facebook (that slut).
I’ll hit the three highlights:
1. The “Huh?” news? Roth is trying to get his first big honkin’ budget movie made. So, what’s it about? I’ll let him take it from here:
“I don’t want to give away the title yet, because I have to make sure I own it 100%, but it’s going to be something that is really fun with lots of mass destruction. I wanted to do something along the lines of Transformers or Cloverfield that was a little more science fiction-based, and with lots of chaos and mass destruction. I don’t want to say what [the monster is] yet. Once it gets set up, I will let everyone know. It is not aliens or robots or a virus – it’s a little more grounded. But when people hear it they are going to be like That is going to be insane!”
Okay, Roth, I’m intrigued. I can only hope that it’s better than, well, Transformers or Cloverfield.
2. Okay, so this isn’t really a highlight so much as a comment: When did MTV start scoring all the good movie scoops? This is the third time that your pals at Critical End! have linked to their site and I’m kinda getting tired of it. Each time I feel like I lose a bit more of my soul. Where was I? Oh, yes…
3. The extremely exciting news: It also would appear that Roth is finally getting around to making Thanksgiving! Roth again:
“The plan is this: I want to do a huge budget movie, but tack on three weeks to the end of it and shoot Thanksgiving. I want to do an $80 million dollar movie, and then schedule three weeks at the end to quickly shoot a $5 million dollar movie.”
What’s all this hooplah? Some of you may recall Roth’s way way way over the top faux trailer to Thanksgiving in the mediocre Grindhouse. If so, you may realize why I’m so excited. In little under three minutes, Roth managed to parody and pay tribute to the slasher genre in such a way that I wanted to stand up and cheer after it was over…but then Tarantino’s Death Proof came on and I fell asleep.
Anyway, in case you missed it, check out the awesomeness below. That is all.
Jackie Earle Haley is not locked in your dreams with you. You are locked in your dreams with Jackie Earle Haley.
The Wes Craven remake train is once again pulling into the station and look who’s clinging to the smokestack, cackling maniacally! Â Rorschach is the new Freddy and I’m pretty jazzed.
The rumor that Robert Englund might direct, write, or be involved in some way other than the expected fan-service cameo seems to have been just that. Still, if they’re going to reboot Nightmare, Jackie Earle Haley is a solid choice.
So, the question is:Â will they go grim and gritty (a la New Nightmare) or will Haley be treating us with some patented Freddy post-murder bon mots?
Rodriguez with that guy from "Lord of the Rings" Wait, Frank Miller? I mean, Frank Miller. Sorry.
Remember when Robert Rodriguez once made awesome movies that involved things like gigantic explosions, casual nudity, guitar cases with guns inside, and Quentin Tarantino’s weiner melting off? Awesome, right? Okay, now remember when you paid all that money to see three, count ’em, THREE retarded Spy Kids movies? I mean, they just kept getting worse, didn’t they?
Well, it would seem that three Spy Kids films weren’t enough to satisfy Rodriguez’s need to entertain nobody but his kids. Case in point: The trailer for his newest film, Shorts. I’m starting to think that his trademark cowboy hat may be on a little too tight…that or he’s trying to cover male pattern baldness. You never know.
Between films Ramis loves to dress up as "that dude from Cast Away"
The ink hasn’t even dried on the first draft of Ghostbusters 3 yet and it’s already sucking. Granted, it’s hard to judge a movie that at this point isn’t even fully on paper, but from what HAS been confirmed, this is most likely going to suck. I can think of three reasons right now:
1. According to an interview that Harold Ramis gave MTV, “there will be young ghostbusters.” I hate the whole sequel where the awesome people from the first films now play old fat people who sit in a room and give advice until the third act when they finally put the uniform back on thing. I mean, why even bother? In my own happy little world (Loganland, if you will) the original Ghostbusters are ageless and Bill Murray never became a hipster icon (more on that in a sec).
2. Judd Apatow is producing. I think this one explains itself. I’m kind of surprised that he isn’t producing Crank 2 as well. I’m sure he’s working on it.
3. You knew it was coming…ahem…a few words on Bill Murray: I’m not quite sure when (I’m thinking after he didn’t get an Oscar nom for Rushmore), but at some point Hollywood and the movie going public finally begin to realize that Bill Murray is, quite frankly, a complete asshole. On top of that, his entire “I only do films where I get to look at the camera and be depressed” schtick got old about fourteen films ago. The only people I know who still like the man all wear skinny jeans and love to use the word “indie” to describe every DVD and CD in their collection. Oddly enough, these same people have never seen or heard of Caddyshack.
My favorite scene in "Broken Flowers"
Even Ramis himself is getting in on some of the Murray bashing. In the same MTV interview, Ramis joked that “Bill Murray is just waiting for the truckload of money to arrive to get him out of his office.” He went on to say that while he has talked exclusively to Aykroyd about the film, he has yet to speak to Murray. He must be too busy working on Wes Anderson’s newest film Depressed Brothers With Daddy Issues.
What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, Ghostbusters 3. I can’t wait.
Yes, I am aware that most people know what Star Trek is at this point, but if you cut the title off of Paramount’s latest poster, this thing would look like an ink blot test. That being said, am I the only one who sees a bunny wearing a silly hat? Yeah, I thought so.
Less than 24 hours after my last post about how unfortunate it was that the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ The Informers was heading straight to DVD, I received an email from the fine people over at Senator Distribution assuring me that I needn’t fear. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it would seem that your ol’ Uncle Logan shouldn’t believe every fanboy rumor that he reads on the Internet.
What I should have said:
Hey, kids! The Informers looks like it’s going to be completely awesome! And you know what? It’s going to be in theaters April 24th, which is less than a month away! I read some rumor online about it going straight to DVD. Luckily, I was smart enough to fact check a few things first before I ran that unbelievable story. How dumb would it be if I didn’t take the time to do that, huh? Blah blah blah I’m Logan and I like movies blah blah blah…
Senator Distribution was also kind enough to send over some great EPK material, including clips and stills from the movie. In the days leading up to the release, I’ll make sure and throw some of that up as a teaser to try and get more of you into the theater seats. Until then, here is what you need to know:
1. None of that straight to DVD nonsense. It’ll be in theaters April 24th.
2. I can not apologize enough for the mistake.
3. According to a great website I just found, Big Foot is being held in a military prison base outside of Dalton, GA. Release the Foot!
Bret Easton Ellis. Don't worry. He's never heard of you either.
NOTE: This article is slightly inaccurate, specifically the news that The Informers is going straight to DVD. The film will actually be in theaters April 24, 2009. More information can now be found here.
Is it wrong of me to think that Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho is one of the funniest novels ever written? Wait. You know what? I’ll even take that a step further: American Psycho is the funniest AND most important novel of the nineties. That’s right, I said it. So why is it that most people still have no clue who Bret Easton Ellis is? Maybe it’s because nobody quite understands him, myself included.
And nobody misunderstands him more than Hollywood. Granted, the film versions of American Psycho and The Rules of Attraction have both been beyond excellent*, but we can’t forget about the Ellis disowned double feature of Less Than Zero and (sigh) American Psycho 2: All American Girl. Like many of the best authors, his work has been called unfilmable, but hey…that’s never stopped Hollywood before.
Christian Bale in a scene you didn't see in Newsies.
Enter The Informers. Based on the 1994 book of linked short stories by the same name, The Informers has always been my least favorite of Ellis’ novels. It’s still worthy of a fine 7 out of 10, and I could spend all day telling you why, but this isn’t a book review site, so let’s just cut to the chase. No other Ellis novel screams “movie adaptation” more than The Informers. The stories are short, easy to understand (kinda), and feature some of his best satire of none other than the city of Los Angles itself. I’m kind of surprised Hollywood didn’t make this movie three years ago.
Except they did. See, The Informers has been sitting on the shelf for over three years and I can’t quite explain why. With a cast that features Kim Basinger, Billy Bob Thornton, Winona Ryder, Chris Isaak, and the now bankable again Mickey Rourke, it should have been a sure thing. Maybe it’s the fact that the novel also features club hopping vampires and gay aliens that scared the studios away.
Whatever the reason, it was announced last week that The Informers is now going straight to DVD, which must be both pleasing and insulting to Bret Easton Ellis. Despite all the drama, I have to admit that I can’t wait. Check out the trailer for yourself below and let me know what you think. In the meantime, if you read this far than you now know who Bret Easton Ellis is. That makes me happy.
(Note: This trailer is HIGHLY uncensored, so you might want to remove any children or small pets from the room now)
*As crazy as this may make me sound, American Psycho is one of three films in my top ten favorites that has the word “psycho” in the title. It is joined by Hitchcock’s Psycho and Charles Busch’s hilarious Psycho Becah Party. Needless to say, I’m a hit at parties.
