One of the most exciting pieces of news to emerge from Cannes this week was the announcement of Jodorowsky’s Dune, a documentary about the failed attempt by ambitious and very possibly insane Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky to film Frank Herbert‘s novel Dune in the mid-’70s. The project has long stood as one of the great ‘films that never were.’ Just the idea of seeing the surviving participants talk about what the film might have been is exciting, and that’s what the doc offers — hopefully we’ll also see art and designs that have not previously been released.
So here’s the first promo video for the film, in which Alejandro Jodorowsky explains just how ambitious his plan for the movie really was. Read More »
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It seems like this year’s Cannes festival is providing a more bountiful crop of new projects than normal, and this film might be one of the best, or at least one of the most exciting for sci-fi nerds. Emerging at the fest is a doc called Jodorowsky’s Dune, which seeks to tell the story of the attempt by wildman Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky to adapt Frank Herbert‘s novel Dune in the mid-’70s.
Production designs (by artists like H.R. Giger and Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud) have floated around for years, but the full story of the film that never was has never quite been told. If you have even a passing interest in Dune or the development of sci-fi films, this doc should go on your watch list. Read More »
It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies, sans The Tooth Fairy, that offer proof. /Film’s Weekend Weirdness examines such flicks, whether in the form of a new trailer for a provocative indie, a mini review, or an interview…
For all of the world’s fireplaces used to stack skateboard videos and DVDs, it’s increasingly strange how few, if any, feature films exist to directly reflect the ubiquity of the sport and lifestyle in pop culture. The new indie film, Machotaildrop, might be the only across-the-board example. Not only does it have a skateboarder named Walter (played by skater/actor Anthony Amedori) as its main character, the movie’s plush fantasy world serves as a metaphorical backdrop for a modern skater’s journey from passionate amateur to paid-and-jaded pro. After Walter is recruited to the hedonistic dream estate of a major skateboard corporation called Machotaildrop, he’s soon ordered by its shady overseer, The Baron, to tour the base of an outlaw skater gang called the Manwolfs. Herein lies a moral dilemma and awakening: help Machotaildrop establish its kooky skater theme park on the Manwolfs’ sacred turf and “fulfill the dream.” Or bail.
Machotaildrop is already stirring curiosity online for its attractive cinematography and for surreal imagery that evokes the prim-and-proper stylings of Wes Anderson, the offbeat humor of Spike Jonze, and the acid-tab abstraction of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Accessible to fans of those directors, Machotaildrop still glows with the esoteric yet stonerish attitude synonymous with a lot of skate culture. Veteran and current pro’s like Steve Olson (as a baker-skater) and Rick McCrank (as a snobbish, injured icon) get laughs in supporting roles and the plot lends itself to well-shot bouts of skate tricks. I interviewed writers/directors, Corey Adams and Adam Craig, about what they wanted to accomplish, their film’s themes, and all of the skater-and-cineaste history that inspired it. Trailer and images included after the jump.
Hunter Stephenson: We are seeing skate video culture assimilated into indie films more and more, as seen in the work of directors like Spike Jonze and Jody Hill. Do you agree? And what discussions did you and Alex have before making the film in regard to contributing to this cinematic/cultural bridge?
Corey Adams: Well the one discussion we kept having was that we didn’t want the film to look anything like a skateboard video, that all the skateboarding we shot in the film was done so in a way that it didn’t over glorify it. No wide angle lenses or handheld shots—except for some of the skateboard video elements, which we had no control over as it was all actual footage from the kid.
Alex Craig: Even though we both come from a skateboarding background, it was always our intention to approach this project cinematically as opposed to using skate video conventions. I think it would have been foolish to try and recreate a skate video vibe in the film mainly because it wasn’t appropriate to our idea but also because we could never do it justice. We wanted the film to stay in a farcical world.
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It’s a crazy, mixed up world and we are thankful for movies, sans The Tooth Fairy, that offer proof. Weekend Weirdness cocks its disoriented head to examine such flicks, whether it’s a new trailer for a provocative indie or an interview. In this installment: An exclusive trailer for TV Carnage‘s Let’s Work it Out and a chat with its ski-masked creator, Pinky; an equally cool chat about movies and Hollywood with The Arab Parrot, one of our favorite people and photographers out there capturing bleary eyed L.A. and N.Y.C. culture.
In college, it was unwritten law that a house party wasn’t worthy of House Party unless you woke up and stumbled past a TV turned upside down in a puddle of fluids as it resiliently played a TV Carnage DVD. Such DVDs were the new late night color test for stupid-smart wasteoids, an aughts cult sensation that arrived in the shape of legit packaging and artwork with names like Casual Fridays and A Sore For Sighted Eyes. All anyone knew, or cared to know, was that the DVDs were the obsessive, homemade works of a guy named Pinky; a person who didn’t seem to grasp “copyright” while composing and editing hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of bad TV/VHS into hilarious masterworks of sublimation.
As TV Carnage’s popularity grew, the signature ski mask of Pinky was lifted. An online search today will inform that Pinky is Derrick Beckles, the filmmaker and actor whom /Film readers might recognize from Truth Campaign commercials. One of the founders, alongside Gavin McInnes, of the irreverent Brooklyn site, Street Boners and TV Carnage, Beckles recently directed a music video for the song, “No You Don’t” by the band Islands. It just so happens to star TV Carnage mega-hearter Michael Cera. With his latest DVD, Let’s Work It Out, due mid-January, TV Carnage is going full-cardio. Imagine the neon sweat from ’80s work-out videos by celebs ranging from John Travolta to O.J. Murderer blasted into a hall of mirrors, sucked into a syringe, and then stabbed into your brain’s abdomen. Beckles chatted with /Film and exclusively gave us the first trailer. It’s all splattered below for your weekend enjoyment.
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When I first glanced the news, I envisioned Nick Nolte shelling out the kind of maniacal just deserts that Tropic Thunder unforgivably withheld. Alas, it sounds nearly as choice. In the newly announced flick, Warrior, Nolte will play “an ex-Vietnam vet boxer-turned-steel mill worker whose family was torn apart by his alcoholism.” In summation: Nolte. Enter chop-socky action when Nolte makes amends with a son, to played by Tom Hardy (Bronson, RocknRolla), and schools him in the ways of battle so that he may defeat his brother (Joel Edgerton, Smoking Aces) in a martial arts tournament. Remember those?
The film will be directed by Gavin O’Connor (the middling Pride and Glory, Miracle) and is due in 2010. Alongside three other films set for release this year, Nolte is co-starring with Mickey Rourke and Marilyn Manson in King Shot, a “metaphysical gangster movie” from Alejandro Jodorowsky, the enemy-of-the-complacent visionary behind The Holy Mountain and El Topo. It’s currently in production. Polish off that and call it a Monday.
via Variety
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