At the time this was published, we’ve already posted a total of 25 overwhelmingly positive reader reviews of an early cut of Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World from test screenings (you can read part one here, part two here). Beyond that, we’ve posted mini reviews from filmmakers Jason Reitman and Greg Mottola.
But what about Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino? Smith is usually one of the first filmmakers to weigh in on all the geek movies (Watchmen, The Dark Knight…etc), and Tarantino… was apparently at the same screening. So what did they think?
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If the ’80s gave a sniffling speech at the Decade Achievement Awards, Harold Faltermeyer and his scores would be thanked somewhere after Shigeru Miyamoto and Super Mario Bros. and Magic Johnson’s Lakers. A classically trained German composer with an affinity for rock and disco, Faltermeyer got his start in Hollywood assisting mustachioed electro-don Georgio Moroder on soundtracks for Oliver Stone’s provocative Midnight Express and Adrian Lyne’s jail-bait fave Foxes. With the release of Beverly Hills Cop in 1984, everyone acknowledges how Faltermeyer’s theme song, “Axel F,” hopped into bed with America’s zeitgeist like few songs before or since. The track’s equation of urgent nightlife synths plus cool-black-dude drum effects, then buffered to an upbeat Cali finish, not only paralleled the confident, crowd-pleaser m.o. of sure-shot producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, it embodied and celebrated it.
Soon following “Axel F,” Faltermeyer crafted incredibly memorable and fun themes/scores for Fletch and Top Gun, rising to the occasion by sonically matching the unmatched charisma of Chevy Chase and Tom Cruise on screen in the mid ’80s. Reflecting on the three themes today, not to mention his work on actioners The Running Man and Tango & Cash, it’s difficult to express how Faltermeyer shaped the way audiences then and now remember the ’80s as a time of just-plain-exciting innocence and excess, a time when the buddy-cop formula and toothy superstar grins felt fresh. It’s this feeling and nostalgia Kevin Smith is paying pop-homage to with Cop Out, another bid for a mainstream hit from the ’90s slacker auteur starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. Smith personally requested Faltermeyer—who’s remained inactive on major soundtracks since the ‘92 copper Kuffs—score the film with his signature sound. The catchy result is felt by several critics to be the best thing about the action-comedy. (Stream it here.)
In an interview with /Film, Faltermeyer talked about his creative process and about “crazy shit” including the late Don Simpson’s finesse with a Ferrari.
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Kevin Smith has exclusively told NHL.com that Seann William Scott will be taking the lead role in his Ice Hockey picture, Hit Somebody.
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Warner Bros Pictures has released 30+ high resolution photos from Kevin Smith’s buddy cop comedy Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Adam Brody, Kevin Pollak, Guillermo Diaz, Ana de la Reguera and Seann William Scott. Check them out after the jump, along with the production notes from the film. Click on any of the images to enlarge.
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Last week some quotes came out of a Cop Out roundtable interview where Kevin Smith talked about the notion of accepting money donated from fans to finance his movie Red State. Smith said that he would match donations based on the plan that had been considered so far (a point I think a lot of people missed) to bulk up the financing.
I thought the idea was interesting, though possibly so difficult to pull together from a legal perspective that it could never really work. Astoundingly, a lot of the other reactions to this idea were vehemently negative. There was a range of angry response, much of which boiled down to “how dare he ask for money?” based on the idea that Smith would get paid to make the film and would own the final product.
Smith was understandably less than happy with the negative reaction and has addressed the idea and the response to it in a blog post. Read More »
Kevin Smith has been talking about the film Red State for a couple of years now, and his description has been enough to keep the project high on fan wishlists. “It’s this weird fucking dark little seventies horror movie that nobody wants to make,” Smith says. Despite the difficulty in getting funds for the film, Smith is determined to make it, ideally after he knocks out his hockey film Hit Somebody. The financing problem persists, but a suggestion originally transmitted via Twitter could provide some of the answer: get fans to donate the money themselves. Read More »
I’m a huge fan of Kevin Smith, and have loved every movie he’s released thus far (yes, even Jersey Girl). But the first trailer for his new film, a buddy cop comedy which he didn’t write, Cop Out, had me worried. I’ve read the script, and thought it was mildly entertaining, and I was hoping that Smith would elevate it to something more. The first trailer had me disappointed, and I wasn’t the only one. The only person I’ve talked to that was excited about the trailer was Alex from FirstShowing, and that’s not a joke at his expense, that just happens to be the truth. It just didn’t feel like a Kevin Smith film, but maybe that’s the point?
Kevin Smith’s red band internet-only movie trailers are notoriously better than the green band counterparts. So when I was informed that the red band trailer for Cop Out was available on MySpace, I was excited and nervous. Could this cut of the trailer do what the previous version failed to do? Or is the the dud that some people feat it will be?
Okay, so it isn’t a home run. It didn’t hit it out of the park. It is no Last Airbender Superbowl tv spot. But this trailer was enough to restore my faith in the film. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Watch the trailer after the jump and leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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Kevin Smith has been talking up the hockey drama Hit Somebody as his next project for some time now, and it looks like he’s finally begun pitching the film to studios. A few days ago Smith tweeted that he was heading to WB to pitch the film. If they don’t bite, surely someone else will — but given how much he’s praised WB lately, I’d be surprised if they didn’t take it on. Smith seems to have a lot more confidence in this project than he’s had in recent years, and I think that’s for the better. Just two days before he announced that he was headed to WB, he tweeted the following:
13 years ago today, CHASING AMY had its world premiere @ Sundance97. Been trying to make as good a flick ever since. That’ll be HIT SOMEBODY
Count me in as a believer.
[via News Askew]
There are a bunch of new posters this week, and easily the most striking of the bunch is the painted image for The Wolfman, created by legendary Famous Monsters of Filmland cover artist Basil Gogos. CHUD got the image as an exclusive; you can see part of it above, and click through for the full thing. It’s not my favorite Gogos by a stretch, but like his best paintings it is grotesquely colorful in a way that points a direct line to the cinematography in films like Suspiria. The fact that Universal got him to work with their remake is a great thing.
After the break, the poster for Kevin Smith’s Cop Out, a new domestic poster for Mother, character sheets for Percy Jackson and The Crazies, and a great poster for a tiny, weird Danish post-apocalyptic Western called Connected. Read More »
Disney has released the first official photo of Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter from Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, and Warner Bros has released a high resolution version of the Entertainment Weekly preview photo for Kevin Smith’s Cop Out the we previously featured on the site in low res. Both photos can be viewed after the jump.
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