In 1970, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?," about Great Depression marathon dancers, received nine Oscar nominations, including one for Pollack's direction. He was nominated again for best director for 1982's "Tootsie," starring Dustin Hoffman as a cross-dressing actor and Pollack as his exasperated agent. As director and producer, he won Academy Awards for the 1986 romantic epic "Out of Africa," starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, which captured seven Oscars in all.
He was a talent both in front of and behind the camera.
As if placing his wife into the key position in the remake of "Barbarella" wasn't enough to make you roll your eyes, Robert Rodriguez pimps Rose McGowan out again.
To help her career along, (read: to get her any kind of work, since the studios don't seem to want to touch her with a rented stick) Rodriguez giving her one of the lead roles of a new women-in-prison, exploitation-themed television program called "WOMEN IN CHAINS!" (including the exclamation point)
Rodriguez really seems to want to bring the grindhouse theme back into American culture. Its a fun, silly little ride, and it will be interesting to see how a genre like this can make in onto television sets.
According to Harry from Aint it Cool news, the producers are shopping the spec script around in hopes that the networks jump on it. I have to agree with Harry and feel that something like this would be really fun to see on a network like HBO.
Despite the obvious nepotism for an otherwise forgettable bimbo actress, I'd love to see what can be done to bring back this strange genre of entertainment.
As soon as I find out something else about this, I'll report here.
The allure of seeing Indiana Jones return to the big screen made Paramount very happy this weekend (which was measured starting on Thursday).
Prince Caspian sank 58% in its second weekend and took second place.
Iron Man has been in the box office for 24 days and and made over $252 million. So the question everyone is asking is, "Will Indiana Jones make or break this current reining Summer record?"
Who cares?
Seriously, kids, it's millions of dollars going to huge corporations who will then inflate their already over-inflated salaries and churn out un-interesting, contrived garbage the rest of the year.
Its just fun to see which film is the most popular one.
Here's the top ten for this weekend.
1 (new) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull $101,000,000 2 (1) The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian $23,032,000 3 (2) Iron Man $20,147,000 4 (3) What Happens in Vegas... $9,025,000 5 (4) Speed Racer $3,975,000 6 (5) Made of Honor $3,350,000 7 (6) Baby Mama $3,323,320 8 (7) Forgetting Sarah Marshall $1,751,750 9 (8) Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay $940,000 10 (10) The Visitor $723,000
Because I consider the fondant-filled, chocolate covered confection known humbly as the "Cadbury Creme Egg" to be the closest thing to nirvana or heaven, or the utopian paradise of whatever dogma you choose, I consider this rube-goldberg contraption - incredibly well designed as it may be - to be utterly blasphemous:
This is an example of the power of the internet. About a week ago, no one in the world knew who Amy Walker was.
Now we know she's 25 and will resort to embarrassing herself on a global scale in order to show jaded casting agents that she's not just another actress trying to be discovered. At the very least, she's an actress that can cover a wide range of accents.
Who knew that people from California had a dialect?
Actually, the video has made the rounds, gone viral (been viewed on YouTube over half a million times) and Amy has been interviewed by NPR. I'm not sure how I stumbled across it, but in a drunken stupor, it might make you wonder what the heck is going on.
Does this mean that she's going to be listed by Time Magazine as one of the top ten internet videos of the year?
I knew it was only a matter of time before we dragged this sci-fi, sword-swinging, pissing contest back into the mainstream, cgi-laden, money hungry, modern cinematic abyss and now it has happened.
"Iron Man" co-writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway have signed up with Summit Entertainment to write a revision/ re imagining/ remake/ rehash of the 1986 sci-fi cult classic, "Highlander."
Yes, "Highlander," where, for some reason they cast an unknown New Yorker as an Irishman, a well-known Scott as an Egyptian and Clancy Brown as a melodramatic freak.
The Hollywood Reporter (does anyone even read that rag anymore?) says that Summit Entertainment purchased the rights to remake the flick from Davis/Panzer Prods and Peter Davis, one of the original producers of the 1986 film, has agreed to come on board to help produce the new film.
We'll keep an eye on this and report back when news of casting starts happening.
You’d hear that it sucks to work for Disney. They’re Nazis in Mickey hats. But I’d thought, “How bad could it be?” By the time I got fired, half of me was relieved.
This is the weekend (starting today, of course) that Hollywood dusts off and shines up a little bit of its long-tarnished golden age and brings back some of that charm that has been lost for the past few decades.
This weekend, dear readers marks the triumphant return of Indiana Jones. As long-time readers of Media Morgue know, I have been pretty critical of the steps taken to bring this to the big screen. From numerous script re-writes and frustrated directors, to cast editions (and more importantly casting omissions) title decisions and blabbermouth bit-part extras, this has been a long road to home. So now that it's finally here, Its safe to say that I'm more than just a little excited (and nervous) at the possibilities.
I can remember walking into my local flea-bag, one screen, sticky-floored theater, leaning into the squeaking, velvet-lined, uncomfortable as-all-Hell seat and being transported away, watching the intrepid hero frantically outrun a tribe of dart-blowing natives in some Amazonian jungle. To me Indiana Jones epitomizes the stereotypical action hero. Someone you wanted to be (and I have a few bullwhip scars to proove it) or at the very least have as your next door neighbor. So to have Lucas and Speilberg (Lucasberg?) crack open the dusty books one more time for our reluctant, square-jawed explorer, I am mixed with both excitement and trepidation.
My first thought when hearing about bringing back Dr. Jones one more time was, "Oh god, please don't screw this one up, fellas." For far too long my dreams and aspirations of what I consider entertainment has been dashed upon the rocks of mediocrity. Far too many times have I hoped for something fantastic, only to be supremely disappointed by the images flickering on the screen ("Speed Racer," is but the latest glaring example of this). So it is with a certain, justifiable amount of paranoia that I approach what I consider to be one of my most cherished childhood memories.
But from what I can tell from the trailer and from the early reviews I have been feeverishly devouring as soon as they are posted online, is that this film delivers.I have a feeling that Lucasberg (I'm coining that name from now on) are playing to audience members nostalgia for the previous films, but frankly as long as it delivers the way it looks to in the trailer, I'm OK with it.
Look, Indy is not for everyone. Some people think that its too comic book. That its too far-fetched. But that is precisely why it works. Of course its comic book! But its done in a way that actually relies on story, character development and pacing that Lucasberg historically know a thing or two about. Its camp. Its adventure. And its pure, unabashed, cinematic fun.
Will this film be bigger than Iron Man? I dont know. All I DO know is that all you have to do is play John Williams theme and I'll be there, a box of red vines and large Sprite in hand, sitting in a darkened theater, impatiently waiting to be transported one last time.
I may even wear my fedora in the theater just to annoy the people behind me.
Thanks to the power of the internet, television and movie producers no longer need to spend as much money on market research as they used to. They can instead use fan websites (fansites) and online message boards to detect the general consensus about a film or program.
The Internet has given everybody in America a voice. For some reason, everybody decides to use that voice to bitch about movies.
-Holden from "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back"
Fansites have become valuable and unwitting tools for the Hollywood machine. They act as an accurate barometer for the relative health of a project and can deliver an oftentimes frighteningly unbiased opinion with complete anonymity. As a result, their usefulness to the creators of content increases, which creates a symbiotic relationship that helps both creator and critic to increase in popularity. Take for example "Aint It Cool News:" once derided by Hollywood to be nothing more than a bunch of over-opinionated morons. But now, because of their popularity, they are carefully manipulated pawns at the disposal of online marketing departments everywhere. (they're still over-opinionated morons, but now they are over-opinionated morons with power.)
Jennifer over at "Connect with your Teens through Pop Culture and Technology" attended a program at the Paley Center for Media about fan websites. In attendance were a mix of more notable webmasters who discussed their niche and how it has changed the face of modern entertainment.
Well it looks like that image of Harvey Dent, AKA Two-Face was indeed the actual picture from the upcoming Dark Knight film, as Media Morgue has just received an official cease and desist demand to remove the image.
Back when we posted the pic, I said that there was no way that Warner Brothers could attempt to put the genie back into the bottle now that the image has been posted online. However I clearly underestimated the sheer brute-strength power of the Warner Brothers Legal Stormtroopers. Right now, any web search appears to be completely devoid of the offending makeup work.
You can still find it if you dig around, but we'd like to stay in Warner Bros good graces, so we humbly oblige to the esteemed litigators and expunge any reference we may have had with the alleged offensive image.
