Public Enemies - What Did You Think?
Right now, geeks are having difficulty formulating their conflicted emotions about pics of a 15-year-old Dakota Fanning on the set of The Runaways, the 2010 girl-punker biopic. At times like this, I think the guttural proclamation, “Um, that’s racist like a robot!” will suffice. But yeah, Just Jared via Chud has posted a bevy of publicity-stunt pics of Fanning, as jail-bait lead-singer Cherie Currie, tangling around with Kristen Stewart, as leather-clad guitarist Joan Jett. Like a bearded Michael Musto, writer Devin Faraci predicts the movie could spark a fashion revolution amongst teen girls. I could see that happening. Maybe. I mean, the cover of Nylon magazine and exposure in Urban Outfitters is prob a lock. And Warped Tour would definitely be up for a lame “interactive” meet and greet. A new, recommended pic of Stewart, in a Stooges tee no less, after the jump…
Every time Winona Ryder does something that interests the movie press (something that doesn’t involve getting arrested) she talks about a Heathers sequel. Listening to Ryder, you’d think there was a packaged project all ready to go, waiting in a studio exective’s office with a white sheet thrown over it, just waiting to be revealed like a classy sculpture. Not so, said original director Michael Lehmann when interviewed by Movieline. Read More »
Kristen Bell Doesn’t Think a Veronica Mars Movie Will Ever Happen
Posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
In March, show creator Rob Thomas gave an update on the developing Veronica Mars movie, stating that “while the pitch went well and I don’t think the movie’s dead, right now it’s looking depressing.” We haven’t heard anything since, and assumed that it’s fallen into the deep dark depths of development heck. Ad now the star of the series, Kristen Bell, is finally conceding that a film will probably never happen.
Assassination of a High School President Movie Trailer
Posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta
At the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Yari Film Group premiered Brett Simon’s Assassination of a High School President, a film noir mystery set inside the world of a John Hughes-style High School comedy. (half way between Rian Johnson’s Brick and Veronica Mars) It quickly emerged as one of the underdogs on the schedule to become one of the most buzzed about films at the festival (read some of the review quotes here).
Unfortunately, Yari Film Group was forced into involuntary bankruptcy, and the film has been sitting on the shelf ever since. This has presented a very serious problem for theatrical distribution, and because of the legalities of bankruptcy court, the timing of this economic downturn and a whole slew of other worst-case-scenarios, Assassination might be going direct-to-DVD. Hope isn’t lost quite yet, the bankruptcy court meets in late-July, and the fate of the Yari-owned films will be decided at that time. I hope someone comes to their senses and gives this movie a theatrical release of some kind.
A trailer for the film has finally been released online, but you should be warned… this is far from a good representation of the movie. Actually, it’s quite bad. But with all this legal mess going on, I’m surprised there is a trailer at all. It’s presented in full screen aspect ratio, the sound seems a bit off, and is cut with low royalty soundtrack music. Hopefully those of you who have been interested in this film will be able to see between all the unfortunate trailer production issues. The film is really so much better than this. Read the reviews, a lot of people really loved this film. This trailer cut is a butcher job. Watch the trailer embedded after the jump.
FilmSchoolRejects has posted some new photos from the Diablo Cody-scripted teen horror film Jennifer’s Body. The photos were were apparently scanned from Empire Magazine. After the jump I’ve included the new images which feature Megan Fox as a cheerleader and a man eating blood covered possessed demon, along with a dirty and bloody Amanda Seyfried. Head on over to FSR for the high res scans.
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A couple weeks ago it was announced that Buffy movie director Fran Rubel Kuzui was developing a new Buffy The Vampire Slayer film without the involvement of Buffy creator Joss Whedon. The movie would be darker, and would follow a new vampire slayer who must step up to protect this new generation. The Whedon fan community were shocked. Making a new Buffy film without Whedon’s involvement seemed rather pointless.
The good news: Apparently the new Buffy producers did reach out to Whedon after all. Whedon tells EW: “I believe [the producers] did ultimately reach out to my agent after the news broke.”
The bad news: Whedon wants no involvement. Whedon says, “I think that’s something better left untouched by me. So, I wish them luck.”
Bo Burnham and Judd Apatow’s Anti-High School Musical Wants Your Help
Posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
A couple of weeks back I cried out for more info on Bo Burnham and Judd Apatow’s upcoming feature film collaboration, a high school musical that Burnham has pitched as an answer to… er… High School Musical. Last night, one of you answered my cry when @forceofelroy tweeted me the following:
@boburnham is asking twitter for help with ideas for his judd apatow high school musical.
That’s the stuff. So, after the break, my best attempt at sorting the chaff from the wheat. And there was, of course, a lot of chaff, and much of it revolved around bodily fluids.
Winona Ryder Promises A Heathers Sequel… Again
Posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
Talking to Empire magazine for their new, 201st issue, Winona Ryder has once again jumped onto the topic of a Heathers sequel. For years she’s been promising one, but for years Michael Lehman and Daniel Waters, the director and writer of the original, have been hemming and hawing. While not calling her crazy, sending out the message that, actually, this sequel is probably never going to happen. But Ms. Ryder maintains that Heathers 2 is not only coming, but that it is actively being developed. Judge her comments for yourself with the quote barrage after the jump.
In conjunction with the MTV Movie Awards, which are pushing the series like mad, the full trailer for The Twilight Saga: New Moon has debuted online at MySpace. This is the first good look we’ve had at the work being done by director Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass, About A Boy) who took over after Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke departed the franchise.
The clip opens with the sort of drama between Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Bella (Kristen Stewart) that is the lifeblood of this ’saga’ before moving on to some classic human/vampire conflict and a look at werewolves as envisioned by this series. Watch the embed and get more details after the jump. Read More »
Joe Cornish is lining up his directorial debut for Film4. Attack the Block is going to be a “teen action film” about South London hoodies forced to set up to save the day when aliens attack”. Film4 previously developed Shaun of the Dead, before the film was eventually carried into production by Working Title, and I can imagine this film will have a similar tone in many respects.
Indeed, Cornish has written with Shaun’s Edgar Wright before, on both the Tintin screenplay and Wright’s in-development Ant Man. His day job, or at least the role for which he is still best known in the UK, is as the Joe half of Adam and Joe, teaming up with Dominic Frisby-alike Adam Buxton to present radio shows and, back in the day, spoof movies with stuffed toys and the like.
Lily Cole and Scott Speedman to Star In Mary Harron’s The Moth Diaries
Posted on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 by Brendon Connelly
When I last reported on Mary Harron’s big screen adaptation of Rachel Klein’s vampire novel The Moth Diaries, the writer-director was in London for a retrospective of her work at the Birds Eye Festival and the Diaries info only came up incidentally. Back then in March it wasn’t obvious to me who had scripted the film, or indeed who was going to star but that’s all come clear in a new Screen Daily report from Cannes.
The story takes place in a boarding school for girls. The narrator of the novel is a diarist who begins to suspect that a newly arrived pupil is a vampire. This character, the enigmatic Ernessa, is specifically pale - a none too obscure plot point in a vampire tale - so while there’s no specification in Screen Daily’s post as to who Cole would be playing, she’s got the complexion for the suspected vampiress. Speedman will be playing the literature professor who gives the girls their grounding in gothic literature.
Rob Zombie Interview Part 2: H2 (Halloween 2), Tyrannosaurus Rex, El Superbeasto, and Dumb Teens
Posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 by Hunter Stephenson
In the second installment of /Film’s in-depth chat with Rob Zombie, we discuss the limp yet horny state of the American horror film. Zombie also rants on why getting original projects made in Hollywood has become a lamer development hell. Given that his last theatrical movie as a writer/director was a remake (Halloween), and that this summer’s H2 (Halloweeen 2) is a sequel, it’s interesting to hear Zombie get the lead out in such bold fashion. But consider that a release for his $10m animated film with Paul Giamatti, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, is on the burner indefinitely; and that his T-Rex—a violent ’70s-set flick about a heathen war vet/boxer—now revs at a yellow-light. The status of both projects is discussed below.
While Zombie’s vision for Michael Myers has proven divisive, the privilege to re-shape one of the top three monsters of modern horror was well-earned. His directorial debut, 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses, has held up nicely in the years since; a fun-house experience akin to falling down a broken disposal, Corpses wallows in the slime of decades’ worth of deranged genre influence. 2005 brought his signature film, The Devil’s Rejects, arguably the most nefarious celluloid celebration of murder and nihilism set loose in theaters this decade. Four years later, even he’s a little surprised that it exists. But exists it does; a major studio picture that feels like the extroverted, distant Southern cousin to William Lustig’s ode to the NYC lurker Maniac.
Rejects solidified Zombie as the rare, talented filmmaker sitting high on the pop-cult ladder whose work craps on any and all moral barometers. And after speaking at length, we’re convinced that there isn’t a working director in the U.S. more dedicated to the hard-R picture-show. (Click here for Part 1)
Hunter Stephenson: How you depict violence on film sets you apart. It seems like much of the violence in American horror films these days, it’s very routine and mundane. A lot of the violence in your films seems flat-out wrong, but in a really good way. [Zombie laughs] You were never part of the torture-porn trend, when Hostel and Saw came out, and what not.
When you show violence on screen, it serrates but then you move on, and I think it’s very effective. I’m wondering, what films do you watch to get your kicks for violence? What films do you draw on when you’re making them?
Rob Zombie: Well, I like when violence seems real and I like when it seems ugly. I like when the act doesn’t seem fun. I was never a fan of ‘80s slasher movies. I think they are cartoony and silly. I was more into the violence in movies like Taxi Driver, The Wild Bunch, and Bonnie and Clyde. The violence in those films makes a statement in some way. You know what I mean? It’s saying something. And it’s either brutal, or depressing, or it’s real. But it’s never fun.
