On August 8, 1986 director Rob Reiner began an incredible five film run by releasing a seemingly simple adaptation of a Stephen King novella called The Body. Reiner’s film was called Stand By Me and starred River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell as four young friends who, in 1959, set out on a journey to see a dead body. After initially opening in limited release, the film expanded a few weeks later and became a box office hit, raking in just over $50 million.
As a young boy, though, none of that was important. What was important is when I finally saw Stand By Me, I was at an impressionable enough age that Reiner’s film, so expertly crafted and filled with perfect dialogue and performances, taught me things my parents never would have thought of. I was schooled in the ways of Fifties pop music. I learned what a leech was. I learned how to use “dodge” as verb and I learned how many you got for flinching. What was, on the surface, a seemingly simple adaptation was obviously much more than that and has stood the test of time.
After the jump, read fifteen silly and serious things Stand By Me still teaches us 25 years after its initial release. Read More »
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Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers?
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With all the 25th anniversary Back to the Future hoopla recently, one film that has been grossly overshadowed is The Goonies. The classic Richard Donner directed, Steven Spielberg produced adventure story is also celebrating its silver anniversary in 2010 with a brand new Blu-ray release on November 2. To commemorate the occasion, Warner Brothers held a special anniversary event on their lot in Burbank, CA and stars Corey Feldman, Jeff Cohen, Jonathan Ke Quan, Robert Davi, Lupe Ontiveros, Joe Pantoliano as well as casting director Mike Fenton and Donner were on hand to discuss the film. Of course, much of the talk centered on the possibility of a sequel and then Donner mentioned that not only might The Goonies become a musical, there’s actually already a treatment out there. We’re got more after the jump. Read More »
Okay, I’ve grown to accept that we’ll never get a real sequel to The Lost Boys. The 2008 straight-to-DVD sequel Lost Boys: The Tribe was beyond horrible. Warner Home Video has produced a third film, and this time around it looks like it focuses on the return of the Frog brothers. I’m not saying Lost Boys: The Thirst looks good, but at least it puts Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander back in the spotlight, instead of just assigning them to secondary characters.
The first trailer has been released online, and can be watched after the jump. If anything, this trailer makes me want to revisit the original again. But it doesn’t look entirely horrible, does it?
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Let’s throw a wrench into this Lost Boys assembly line, shall we? Filming on the second sequel, Lost Boys: The Thirst, is set to begin in early November (in Capetown, South Africa, no less) with Corey Feldman reprising his role as the moody vampire slayer, Edgar Frog. If you managed to fall into a sewer over the last year, the Crack Fox no doubt introduced you to Lost Boys: The Tribe, the worst vampire film to feature “extreme” skateboard stunts and tribal tatts in history. Death by direct-to-DVD. But wait! Based on the plot of Lost Boys 3, which contains a sparkly nod to Twilight, the next installment sounds even worse…
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BloodyDisgusting has learned that Fearless scribe Evan Charnov is writing the screenplay for Warner Direct’s direct-to-dvd threequel, The Lost Boys 3. Corey Feldman has signed on to return to reprise his role as Edgar Frog, vampire hunter. Moviehole is reporting that Jamison Newlander has signed on to reprise his role as Alan Frog from the original 1987 film. Newlander filmed a sequence for the 2008 direct-to-dvd sequel, but his scene ended up on the cutting room floor. Lost Boys 2: The Tribe ended with a set-up teasing a possible battle between Edgar Frog and Sam Emerson (Corey Haim), but as of fight now, Haim isn’t expected to return for the third film.
If Warner Bros asked us for a pull quote for the DVD to Lost Boys: The Tribe, it would say, “Corey Feldman can’t be felled, man. -/Film.” The most prominent Corey, in this sequel and IRL, manages to endearingly synopsize and upstage this laughable production in a single scene. Feldman cracks open a raw egg into a glass, a la Rocky Balboa, filled with garlic and holy water and swallows it. Then he wipes his mouth and the camera lingers on his face, this still youthful lake of resilience, resourcefulness and 1980s radicalness. Feldman’s character, Edgar Frog, labels his novelty cocktail “Frog Juice,” but in my sore eyes, Feldman just took one for the team. This sequel is an all-out war for Corey’s soul, and the souls of all Eighties Babies.
Not only is Feldman stuffed far in the background on the DVD’s terrible box art—he’s trapped under the bodies of OC star Autumn Reeser, Kiefer Sutherland’s half-brother and Stifler’s lil’ bro—but if you move the box ever so slightly, he’s wiped out by a fucking hologram! The film itself is a similar travesty. Feldman is barely in it. Replace the plebe-luring hologram with the most atrocious half-vampire-on-skateboard climax imaginable. This “highly complex” action centerpiece plays as if one of the Lost Boys from Steven Spielberg’s Hook gave a slo-mo pill to Gleaming the Cube‘s Christian Slater and together they made a subpar contribution for YouTube. On the special features, the producers (going to hell, for sure) boast that the film gets at the core of “real extreme sports” in 2008. One of them excitedly says, “these vampires ride bikes, they skate, they skateboard!” But none of the countless vampbrahs here rollerskate. The producer is a fucking liar. And then there’s director P.J. Pesce. This visionary/hack chomps on a cigar with an elated, nutty look on his face. Watch your back, Patton.
And how about the hilarious scene in which a Dianne Wiest-knockoff holds up a DVD of The Goonies and makes a “hip fuss” about it to the kids for a few minutes? Okay. So, rather than allot more time to a stoked Corey Feldman stabbing bloodsuckers (ones that resemble rejects from Sega Genesis’s Altered Beast, but whatevs), I’m watching a Jason Patric-knockoff (a first?) named Tad Hilgenbrinck eyeball an old Feldman flick as I stopwatch his face for a nervous twitch to register as poor acting ability? Later, as Hilgenbrinck and Feldman drive to an underground lair and Feldman explains the workings of a garlic bola, Hilgenbrinck looks higher than Saul Silver’s kite. Feldman finally gives up on the guy and stares down in defeat at his wooden, carbon and metal stakes. Something tells me this was improvised.
After more than 20 years, it’s really cool that the filmmakers called up Jamison Newlander to reprise his role as Alan Frog. Too bad he was cut from the film. LoL. I suspect he was called (his involvement was well publicized) just to get fans interested. But it makes complete sense that Corey Haim wouldn’t show up until after the end credits, after we’ve observed Feldman endure this softcore Cinemax/X-Games raping of their horror comedy classic. I imagine Haim utilized his patented Corey Haim Logic to voluntarily choose this post-credits shortcut—as an allegory, it’s the VH1 equivalent of the tortoise and the hare. Not only is the lone scene between the Coreys—which feels like a one-take deal at that—the best scene in the movie, it’s more satisfying than Freddy vs Jason (which was pretty good). Maybe this is due to Corey Feldman and Corey Haim surviving horrors together in real life (and reality TV). Maybe it’s because, in their lone scene, Feldman sounds like Christian Bale’s Dark Knight and Haim, Heath Ledger’s Joker. Maybe it’s because the DVD contains two more amazing alternate “they’re back!” endings. Maybe it’s because Coreys never say die.
3/10 (yes, the 3 is for the Coreys’ Lost Boys 3 aka Lost Boys 2: No Skateboards)
Discuss: What did you think of Lost Boys: The Tribe. Should a third film be made focusing on the original crew?
At Comic Con, /Film’s Adam Quigley got the chance to sit down one on one with Corey Feldman and talk about the release of The Lost Boys 2: The Tribe.
/Film: So, what was it like for you to go back to this world a few years later?
Corey Feldman: Well, it was fun and scary at the same time. Obviously when you’re doing something like this, you don’t want to disregard the fan’s perception of what the original was supposed to be, and it’s very important that you kind of work it up from the highest level of authenticity when you’re creating a character like this, so it was challenging at the same time. I like to do something that’s a challenge for me as an actor. Being in business as long as I have, you want to make sure that you’re constantly challenging yourself and setting obstacles and I think this certainly was one of those going back to the character and making his evolve but yet not evolve was the trick, and I think that you’ll see that in the film. I mean there are certain things that have grown in his character but for the most part he’s exactly as we left him 21 years ago.
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