Back Seat Producers

Gonna Change Your Way of Thinking

Joel Gilbert’s documentary on Bob Dylan’s sudden conversion to Christianity is an authentic, detail-oriented and thought-provoking work. It is a must see for fans and casual viewers alike. The subject-matter alone is fascinating and remains, thirty years from its occurrence, a little told story about the already mythic and mysterious artist. 

On November 9, 1979, Bob Dylan shocked San Francisco (and America at large) by performing nothing but new songs from his gospel album titled “Slow Train Coming,” and other then-unreleased gospel songs written by the rock poet. The fans, expecting his hits, classics, or the man they have created in their mind as a result of all of his previous records, is nowhere to be found.

When presumably being asked something about why he didn’t play any of his old songs at the concert or why he may have changed his music’s message, Dylan speaks in archived footage from the era “The old stuff’s not gonna save them and uh… I’m not gonna save them. Neither is anybody else gonna save them. They can boogie all night. It’s not gonna work.”

The purpose of the first-half seems to be orienting the viewer with the world Dylan was entering at the time: The Vineyard Movement, a decentralized and individualistic approach to Christianity—progressive at the time. This viewpoint, coupled with the perspective of Messianic Judaism, or, Jewish believers in Jesus as the foretold Messiah, frames the manner in which Bob Dylan, of Jewish descent, considers and then pursues his own journey to Jesus Christ.

The second-half of the film covers the most controversial music Dylan had made since he went electric in 1965.  Alienating his fan base once again, Dylan pursued this journey of personal discovery as his primary artistic expression for two and a half full-length albums and four years of touring, after which fans and critics alike remain, I would argue, mostly confused about where his belief system stands today. We are treated to samples of Dylan’s preaching at the concerts, and interviews with the band, and there is, at the heart of the film, a serious discussion of the seemingly contradictory dichotomy between religion and rock ‘n’ roll and whether Dylan was able to reconcile the two.

The film is helmed by Joel Gilbert, and released by the company Highway 61 Entertainment. Gilbert and the company seem to be offshoots of a professional Dylan tribute band called “Highway 61 Revisited.” Gilbert dresses like Dylan, and passes as a shadow of someone who might have been a version of Dylan in “I’m Not There.”  Gilbert’s appearance is a bit distracting—it makes the film seem wholly subjective from the jump. But Gilbert asks the right questions about this period of life, challenges his interview subjects from different perspectives, and is a competent and informed interviewer.  It also does an excellent job of bringing in voices of contempt for Dylan’s work during that period, most notable of which apparently was Joel Selvin, writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Selvin really gives the music industry, critics, and disenchanted fans, a voice in this film.

I would argue that the only weakness of the documentary is that the entire affect of the film, in the aggregate, seems to be sympathetic to Dylan’s conversion. But, in truth, the film spends a lot of time trying to understand what Dylan was converting to, rather than promoting or discouraging why he converted.

In the end, the film ends on a different type of note than it began, takes a somewhat surprising turn, and attempts to reveal what the film feels Dylan has always been trying to get at in his never-ending search.

As a fan of Dylan, my greatest acclaim for this film is that it covers a great deal of unchartered territory, to my knowledge, for the very first time on film and uses primary sources. It may be the most important source on Dylan’s Christian music to date, period. Only “Behind the Shades Revisited,” a book on Dylan’s life, has adequately shed some light on Dylan’s work in this period to my knowledge, besides the few interviews Dylan has given himself.  For enthusiasts and analysts of Dylan’s work, that makes this film very important.

I highly recommend this film for both people who love Dylan and casual viewers who may not have even been aware that this period of Dylan’s music existed.

No matter what conclusion one draws about what Dylan’s life or music means, your perspective is limited prior to having seen this documentary if you had not been deeply involved in Dylan’s music during this period or are not a huge fan of it. It will change the way you think about Dylan’s music, and perhaps his life. If you’re measuring Dylan’s artistry through metrics that do not include an analysis of this period, it will create a different set of rules to do so.

With the events of Saw IV now past, it’s believed that the killer known as Jigsaw has finally been put to rest, but those of us who’ve seen the movie know better because of another protege of the famed killer. One lone FBI agent, Peter Strahm (also seen in Saw IV) believes he’s still out there as well, and after surviving his own Jigsaw deathtrap, Strahm is believed to be unsuited to continue the investigation, but he continues on his own. Now, as five new people are put through the Jigsaw paces, Peter Strahm seeks to find the truth, and we’re given insight as to how this new Jigsaw came to be…

Saw V continues what I believe anyway is your genuine horror epic, and while this film seems a little more sedate than the previous entries, it still delivers the goods in it’s own way, and basically, I tend to think that if you’re a fan of the series, and appreciate all of what it does, then you’ll like this one as well.

But also, much like the previous entries, you can’t go into this one as a virgin to the material and hope to get it all. The creators behind the series have pretty blatantly made it so that you need to see the other chapters, and for me anyway, that’s part of the fun of the series. There’s always things left open with each previous film and each new film pulls some retroactive continuity moves and answers those questions, and they do it in a way that really works. There’s a formula to the whole thing, but yet there’s always something new added, but still working in the formula.

This time around, there’s a new director on board, David Hackl, and Hackl does a decent enough job filling the shoes of both James Wan and Darren Lynn Bousman before him, though he doesn’t quite have the same flash that Bousman has, this still fits visually with what’s come before. And more importantly, so does it’s story.

Tobin Bell returns to the series yet again, and really it wouldn’t be Saw without him in some way, also returning from the previous film are actors Costas Mandylor os Detective Mark Hoffman and Scott Patterson as FBI Agent Peter Strahm and Betsy Russell as Jill Tuck, John Kramer’s wife. New faces to the series this time includes actors like 24’s Carlo Rota, Julie Benz, and veteran character actor Mark Rolston. The entire cast does a great job here, and much like I did with Saw IV I have to give high marks to Scott Patterson again, and would just love to see this guy break out into some bigger stuff.

There’s still lots of questions, including one very big one, to answer from this film, and of course Saw VI has already been announced. As a huge fan of the series, I can’t wait to see it, and so next year at this time, I no doubt will. In the meantime though, there’s a lot of fun to be had with Saw V as long as you’re a fan of the series.

Steven Soderbergh is developing a 3-D live-action rock ’n’ roll musical about Cleopatra to be called “Cleo” and he is asking Catherine Zeta-Jones to play the Egyptian queen and Hugh Jackman to play her lover, Marc Antony.
Projected to cost $30 million “Cleo” will be shopped for financing and distribution within the next two weeks. Greg Jacobs is producing with Casey Silver.
The music has been written by the indie rock band Guided by Voices, and the script is by James Greer, a former bass player for the band and writer for “Max Keeble’s Big Move“.
While Soderbergh’s recent history includes a spate of wildly different projects, this one will be his first full-blown musical.
Soderbergh, who’s about to release the Benicio Del Toro vehicle “Che” and wrapped Matt Damon vehicle “The Informant,” is also prepping a Richard LaGravanese (P.S. I Love You, The Bridges of Madison County) scripted Liberace film at Warner Bros., with Michael Douglas attached to play the entertainer and Damon to play his companion, who sued him for palimony.
Before “Cleo,” Soderbergh’s directing “The Girlfriend Experience,” setting porn star Sasha Grey to play a $10,000-a-night call girl in a film that will be simultaneously distributed in theaters, on DVD and on the HDNet movie channel by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s HDNet label.

Sources:
Variety
IMDB

Yeah, so we talked about the Count of Monte Cristo. We probably talked almost as much about Man in the Iron Mask.

This episode also features a Booster Seat Producer review of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Don’t forget to join us on Wednesday nights at about 9:00 PM Central on Ustream.tv (Follow BetterintheBack or TonyMast on Twitter to be updated when we go live.)

Sorry this one is late, It’s all my fault. If we crank things up we could see 2 or three more episodes drop by the end of the week.

#1 Max Payne from Fox takes #1 this weekend bringing in $18 million. Hills showed in 3376 theaters. Budget is $35 million.

#2 Beverly Hills Chihuahua from Disney drops to #2 this weekend bringing in $11.2 million, bringing its total earnings to $69 million. Chihuahua showed in 3239 theaters, up 21. Budget for Chihuahua is unknown.

#3 The Secret Life Of Bees from Search light debuts at #3 this weekend bringing in $11 million. Bees showed in 1591 theaters and cost $11 million.

#4 W from Lions Gate debuts at #4 this weekend bringing in $10.5 million. W showed in 2030 theaters and cost $25 million.

#5 Eagle Eye from Paramount. drops to #5 this weekend bringing in $7.3 million, down 32% and bringing its total earnings to $81 million. Eye showed in 3326 theaters, down 288. Budget is $80 million.

Rounding out the top 10 are:

#6 Body Of Lies : Weekend Gross: $6,880,000, down 46% / Theaters: 2714, up 4 / Gross:$24,481,000 / Budget $70 million

#7 Quarantine : Weekend Gross: $6,300,000, down 55% / Theaters: 2463, up 2 / Gross:$24,687,000 / Budget $12 million

#8 Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist : Weekend Gross: $3,900,000, down 39% / Theaters: 2241, down 180 / Gross:$26,707,000 / Budget $10 million

#9 Sex Drive : Weekend Gross: $3,566,000 / Theaters: 2421 / Gross:$3,566,000 / Budget $19 million

#10 Nights in Rodanthe : Weekend Gross: $2,680,000, down 41% / Theaters: 2115, down 460 / Gross:$36,892,000 / Budget unknown

A note on “Gross”: On average, studios will earn approximately 55 percent of the final gross.

Sources:

Box Office Mojo

Detective Max Payne lost his wife and child to a brutal killing. And though now, Payne is bound to a desk, he still continues to try and solve the murder himself and soon he finds the clues that leads him to the pharmaceutical company that his wife had worked for, currently trafficking in a super-soldier drug called Valkyr, that has hallucinatory effects on most who take it…

Max Payne is the latest video-game to movie conversion and it comes to us from the hands of director John Moore, who was wonderful with the film Behind Enemy Lines but less so with some more recent efforts. The game itself was really quite fun, bringing with it the mechanic of “bullet-time” allowing you to slow time for some really cool effects a la John Woo movies or more recently, The Matrix.

The movie is certainly an earnest effort and above anything else, absolutely has a fantastic look to it, but what it lacks is the fun factor which comes way too little and too late into the film.

The first hour has it’s moments, but for the most part is just so dry that I just didn’t really care about anything that was happening in it. Max himself, at least in this movie, is a one-note character, just driven to the point of being the atypical “cop on the edge” character. Now that would’ve been fine had there been a little more wit about everything else going on, and that doesn’t necessarily mean having to have humor about it, but just something else to it that would’ve at least made it much more fun to get into. Unfortunately, it lacks this, and as such, it’s pretty boring until about it’s last half hour. And even though things pick up then, they don’t pick up enough, at least by what’s promised in the trailer.

Pretty much, the trailer has all of the best parts of the film in it.

Mark Wahlberg plays Max, and he’s certainly got the look and the intensity, but little else, but then as I said, if this had a little more wit about it, he wouldn’t have needed anything else. He’s backed up with actors like Mila Kunis, Amaury Nolasco, Donal Logue, Chris O’Donnell, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Kate Burton and Beau Bridges, and all do a decent enough job, but again all are hampered by a pretty pedestrian first two acts.

I’d recently watched the movie Shoot ‘Em Up again and had a pretty good time with it and actually think that what Max Payne needs is just a little of what Shoot ‘Em Up has in abundance, and that’s more of a wilder over-the-top and somewhat self-aware fun factor, primarily during it;s first hour… had it done that, this could’ve been a whole lot of fun, but as it is, it looks great but doesn’t have anything really cool or fun in it that you haven’t already seen played out over it’s trailer. Not one of the worst that I’ve seen for the year, but certainly a big disappointment.

#1 Beverly Hills Chihuahua from Disney takes #1 again this weekend bringing in $17.5 million, bringing its total to $52.5 million. Hills showed in 3218 theaters, up 3. Budget is unknown.

#2 Quarantine from Screen Gems debuts at #2 this weekend bringing in $14.2 million. Quarantine showed in 2416 theaters and cost $12 million.

#3 Body Of Lies from Warner Bros. debuts at #3 this weekend bringing in $13 million. Lies showed in 2710 theaters and had a budget of$70 million.

#4 Eagle Eye from Paramount. drops to #4 this weekend bringing in $11 million, down 37% and bringing its total earnings to $70 million. Eye showed in 3614 theaters, up 98. Budget is unknown.

Rounding out the top 10 are:

#5 Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist : Weekend Gross: $6,500,000, down 42% / Theaters: 2421, unchanged / Gross:$20,810,000 / Budget $10 million

#6 The Express : Weekend Gross: $4,731,000 / Theaters: 2808 / Gross:$4,731,000 / Budget $40 million

#7 Nights in Rodanthe : Weekend Gross: $4,610,000, down 37% / Theaters: 2575, down 127 / Gross:$32,366,000 / Budget unknown

#8 Appaloosa : Weekend Gross: $5,015,000, down 33% / Theaters: 1290, up 245 / Gross:$10,886,000 / Budget $20 million

#9 The Dutchess : Weekend Gross: $3,322,000, up 217% / Theaters: 1207, up 1080 / Gross:$5,620,000 / Budget unknown

#10 City Of Ember : Weekend Gross: $3,200,000 / Theaters: 2022 / Gross:$3,200,000 / Budget $38 million

A note on “Gross”: On average, studios will earn approximately 55 percent of the final gross.

Sources:

Box Office Mojo

It’s 1882, and the small town of Appaloosa in the New Mexico territory has fallen under prey by a ruthless rancher by the name of Randall Bragg. After Bragg cold-bloodedly kills the sheriff and two deputies while they try to apprehend two of his men for crimes committed against the townspeople, the town is in a state of desperation. They choose to hire two roving peacekeepers, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch to come in and clean up their town, with one catch: they literally have to turn control of the town over to them. Soon though, a young widow, Allison French, moves into town and further complicates their situation.

Appaloosa is the new movie from star and director Ed Harris based on the novel by Robert Parker (best known for the Spencer series) and it’s just a brilliant movie, another western that joins the likes of 3:10 To Yuma (though I have a bit of an issue with the ending of that film, I still recognize it’s extreme high quality getting there), Open Range and less recently, Unforgiven showing that there’s still life in the classic Western genre in film, if it’s handled just right.

Harris’ film is authentic as can be, shot against some really beautiful landscapes, and looking at the end credits, he’s even hired enough extras to actually be the populace of this town at the time. Everything just feels really right. But where this really excels is in the relationship between Cole and Hitch, a very deep-rooted friendship with both men as a compliment to each other making them a great team for the job they have to do.

Ed Harris plays Cole and Viggo Mortenson plays Hitch, and obviously after working together in a movie like A History of Violence, these guys obviously “get” each other and have chemistry that’s just totally natural. They’re backed up by Jeremy Irons as Bragg and a rougher than normal looking Renee Zellwegger as Allison, who both do really fine work here. Further welcome in the cast is Lance Herikson as a rival gunman to Cole and Hitch, brought in later in the film, Henrikson is just a natural for something like this.

Obviously, I had a great time with this film. It is leisurely paced, but nothing seems out of place or wrong to how everything plays out in the end. It’s easily followed and yet has it’s own complexities as well as some subtle humor. And if you do decide to see this, stay through the end credits. No there’s no extra scene at the end, but through the credits, there’s a little song sung by Ed Harris himself that’s a really nice and knowing end punctuation to the life ahead for his character, Virgil Cole. Appaloosa is just brilliant and of course, highly recommended…

In New York City, a fluff news TV reporter and her cameraman are assigned the task of riding along with a group of firefighters for an evening. As things are looking to be a routine evening, an alarm goes off and the fire crew and the TV people head in, along with a couple of NYC police officers. They go to an apartment building, where a woman has been screaming like she’s being tortured to death. Once there, they discover that something horrifying has happened to the woman, something disgusting that sends her into a flying rage and makes her attack her would-be rescuers, and just as immediately, the building is closed off to everyone, with various law enforcement, military and the CDC on the case, and a night of brutal horror is set to begin…

That’s the premise of Quarantine which itself is a remake of a Spanish horror film called [REC], which unfortunately I’ve not seen, and it also looks to be the big break for a little known director by the name of John Erick Dowdle. And unfortunately, this looks to be a film that I can’t quite give the type of review for that I’d really like to hand out primarily because we saw it with the worst audience that I’ve seen a movie with since Hard Candy from a few years ago. The thing is, it actually seems like the kind of film that is my kind of horror film, and objectively, I can tell you that it is well made and lis quite effective with just one major complaint, and that complaint isn’t due to the film itself but rather it’s marketing.

But first, yeah, our audience was just horrendous for this- primarily mostly composed of late teenagers and know-it-all twentysomethings that were there more to entertain themselves than to see a movie and really just making this the worst movie-going experience that I’ve had in years, and it’s a shame because I do think this can be quite effective under the right circumstances, but so far those circumstances are calling for me to recommend this as something that you wait for on DVD rather than go out to the theatre to see. As I’ve said about audiences like this before, I can only hope there’s a special place in hell reserved just for them for being assholes. It really makes me yearn for the days when ushers would walk the theatre with flashlights, ready to boot out anyone making a disturbance.

Now with that out of the way, the film itself is made the same way as movies like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield all done from a handheld video camera operated by one of the cast. So if you’ve already got an aversion to these type of films, then straight up, this won’t be for you. I think this is pretty well told though, considering the circumstances I saw it under, with the camera work being a little more straightforward as the film starts and then getting extremely chaotic as things progress.

The cast is filled with lots of “those guys” who you see in other films as mostly support. It’s headed up by Jennifer Carpenter who was extremely effective in The Exorcism of Emily Rose playing this overly bubbly and annoying, but again I hope I’m being objective enough to say that my own perception could certainly be colored by the conditions I saw this under, and that whole perception might change later on. Other cast members include Steve Harris as her cameraman, Jay Hernandez and Johnathan Schaech as the firefighters she’s assigned to cover, and veteran character guys like Rade Serbedzija and Greg Germann as a couple of the residents of the apartment house. And really everyone does a fine job for this type of movie.

My biggest complaint though, other than that of the a-hole audience we saw it with, is the fact that the marketing of the film blows the final shot of the piece. That shot, and I won’t say what it is, is a key part of the trailer for the film and if you’ve seen it, then once it gets to that point, you’re just waiting for it to happen as opposed to letting it shock you the way it should. And it’s a real shame, because the climax is pretty good here, leading you to an area that I certainly didn’t consider as being the root cause of what has transpired through the film.

So here’s the deal- I certainly do recommend this, but really you just might want to wait until some time has passed and it comes out on DVD, doing that will most certainly let you see it under better conditions. Just wait for this to come home, and turn off all the lights as you watch it and hopefully the trailer won’t be too fresh in mind as everything plays out. And then… then, if you like this type of horror film as I do, then you’ll probably have a great time with this, but for now, avoid this like the plague in the theatre…

Studio Briefing reports that Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua has racked up Disney’s best October opening ever bringing $29.3 million in tickets.

David Cronenberg is currently in talks with the MGM to direct The Matarese Circle, reports Variety, from a script penned by “3:10 to Yuma” writing duo, Michael Brandt and Derek Haas. Denzel Washington is attached to star in the film. Based on a Robert Ludlum novel, Matarese Circle is set during the period of Cold War. It tells the story of two conflicting secret agents who team up to bring down an international group of killers known as the Matarese. MGM reportedly are expecting to start Production in spring ‘09

Iron Man 2, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America and The Avengers are now scheduled to film at Raleigh Productions in Manhattan Beach, California reports Comicmix.com. The facility has 14 soundstages and 300,000 square feet of office and support space, making it perfect to mount the four films over the next three years given the shared personnel and even props and cast if all goes as anticipated. Louis D’Esposito, Marvel’s president of physical production, told Variety that Raleigh had been “incredibly accommodating in terms of financial structures”.

Ridley Scott recently talked to io9 about his big-screen adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Good to know he’s definitely going for it. Currently, the project is only in an early developmental stage, and a script is not quite ready yet, according to Scott. “No, no no we’re still struggling with that one. I have 40 things on the go at once. But that’s a very important one. And sometimes, some surface faster than the others. It’s partly luck of the draw,” he told io9.

Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway to Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton is directing for Disney, says The Hollywood Reporter. The movie, which stars Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, will use a combination of live action and performance-capture technology to tell the Lewis Carroll story. Hathaway is playing the White Queen, a benevolent monarch who is deposed and banished by her sister, the Red Queen (Carter), who has an affinity for crying out, “Off with their heads!” The White Queen needs Alice to slay a creature known as the Bandersnatch. Richard Zanuck, Joe Roth and Jennifer and Suzanne Todd are producing.

The Daily Mail in the Uk is reporting that Johnny Depp is being paid $56 million to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates Of The Caribbean 4. The payout will reportedly makes him the highest paid actor in history (for an upfront fee). The same article says that Disney are likely not to ask Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom to return for the fourth outing, thus making Pirates 4 a Jack Sparrow spin-off. The first three Pirates Of The Caribbean films earned over $2.6 billion in worldwide ticket sales.

Sources:
IMDB
Variety
Comicmix.com
THR
The Daily Mail
Io9
Studio Briefing

As a site and podcast that 98% managed and produced by men, it would be easy to say we are doing this to save boobies.  National Breast Cancer Awareness Month not just something to snicker about though.  Too many people are affected and afflicted by this disease.

Women are made aware of the disease and how to look for the signs from an early age.  While not all of them heed the doctor’s advice, they are at least aware of their risks.  Guys are at risk of this too.

Guys we need to be supportive of our women and we need to make sure that we are healthy too.  It’s not enough that encourage our partners to do regular exams, but we should be checking out ourselves too.

Seriously, if you get breast cancer you could die.  As in dead.  As in six feet under.  That is serious.  So what if you get embarrassed having to admit why you have to go to the doctor, or take time off work, or have the scar.  You are alive.   You are alive AND you get to wear one of the special survivor shirts and walk arm in arm with some of the coolest, toughest, most bad-ass women you’ll ever meet and be fortunate enough to call yourself equal to them.  Not a whole lot of men can do that.

We are going pink for the month of October.  For our mothers, our girlfriends, our wives, our daughters and also for ourselves.

Further information from people who really know what they are talking about can be found at the links below:

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month http://nbcam.org/

American Cancer Society Breast Cancer Resources http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PAR/Content/PAR_2_3_Breast_Cancer_Resources.asp

National Cancer Institute http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/breast

#1 Beverly Hills Chihuahua from Disney takes #1 this weekend bringing in $29 million. Hills showed in 3215 theaters. Budget is unknown.

#2 Eagle Eye from Paramount drops to #2 this weekend bringing in $17.7 million, down 39% putting total earnings at $54.6 million. Eye showed in 3516 theaters, thats up 6 over last and cost $80 million.

#3 Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist from Sony debuts at #3 this weekend bringing in $12 million. Nick showed in 2421 theaters. Budget is unknown.

#4 Nights In Rodanthe from Warner Bros. drops to #4 this weekend bringing in $7.3 million, down 45% and bringing its total earnings to $25 million. Nights showed in 2702 theaters, down 2. Budget is unknown.

Rounding out the top 10 are:

#5 Appaloosa : Weekend Gross: $5,015,000 / Theaters: 1045 / Gross:$5,015,000 / Budget $20 million

#6 Lakeview Terrace : Weekend Gross: $4,500,000, down 35% / Theaters: 2574, up 107 / Gross:$32,140,000 / Budget $20 million

#7 Burn After Reading: Weekend Gross: $4,083,000, down 34% / Theaters: 2397, down 252 / Gross:$51,641,000 / Budget $37 million

#8 Fireproof: Weekend Gross: $4,069,000, down 40% / Theaters: 852, up 13 / Gross:$12,491,000 / Budget Unknown

#9 An American Carol : Weekend Gross: $3,810,000 / Theaters: 1639 / Gross:$3,810,000 / Budget $20 million

#10 Religulous : Weekend Gross: $3,500,000 / Theaters: 502 / Gross:$3,500,000 / Budget unknown

A note on “Gross”: On average, studios will earn approximately 55 percent of the final gross.

Sources:

Box Office Mojo

In what is an undisclosed city in maybe a near future time period, traffic is stopped as one young man is in his car and all of a sudden finds that he cannot see. This incident begins a chain reaction of events leading to all who come into contact with the young man also getting the affliction. When the eye doctor who has been working with him comes under with the disease, that’s when a movement is begun to quarantine those afflicted. The doctor’s wife, who herself isn’t blind, feigns being blind to be with her husband. Both are brought to a center where they and the few others that are with them are left to fend for themselves within their ward. And from there, events multiply, literally sending the world into chaos.

And that’s the premise of Blindness the new movie from director Fernando Meirelles, who previously gave us the movies, The Constant Gardener (haven’t seen it) and City of God (I have seen this one and it’s one hell of a movie). I was sorta hoping that this movie would be what M. Night Shymalan’s The Happening wasn’t, but instead it devolves to what seems more like contrived film school third world allegory that asks you to swallow a lot in order to follow it.

Where this falls apart is in the idea of the quarantine, because basically these people are thrown into this building with literally no one to watch out for them, other than the military standing guard making certain that no one gets out. It just out and out ignores the idea that these people would be in reality under a microscope to figure out what was causing this, especially as the blindness continues to escalate. Later in the film, another character is brought into the ward who begins to explain what is happening in the outside world, and how the process of investigating the source has broken down, but unfortunately, this process feels like something tacked on later (and according to reports of some re-shoots after an exhibition in Cannes, it very well could be) as an afterthought, but not the point that the director is trying to make.

And that point is basically all it takes is one event to send people who have comfortable lives into a life of utter squalor. Now really, I don’t have a problem with this being the point of the film, it’s just that getting there is incredibly contrived. And through it all, one woman, the doctor’s wife, still has the ability to see, which she’s hiding from everyone, except her husband, and due to the script, she does things that a sighted person just wouldn’t do in this situation.

Meirelles has a good cast at work here, including Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal and Alice Braga and they certainly do what’s asked of them, but as I said above, what’s asked is horribly contrived.

This isn’t a movie for the faint-hearted as there is a lot of unpleasantness here- specifically around scenes within the ward- so consider that a warning if you’re planning to see it. The thing is, I’d almost expect that most might be more tempted to walk out halfway through it, I know I certainly was, and not due to it’s unpleasantness, but more to it’s contrived and forced quality to shove a message down my throat. I give Meirelles credit though for a well done first quarter of the film as the outbreak is happening, with some inventive and stylistic camera work, and also by it’s quality there’s really nothing out there quite like this right now. But at the same time, it just doesn’t hold up, and I tend to think that if you want to see something like this that explores some of the same themes, but played out better, maybe re-watching Children of Men is the way to go, or an even better playing out of these themes in Oliver Hershberger’s excellent film The Experiment. Right now, the only way I could even want to see this one again would be just to play Mystery Science Theatre 3000 with it. Not as bad as The Happening but damn near close and certainly outweighing it on the pretentious side…

As our story starts, on the Fourth of July, a kindly old grandfather is sitting down to tell his grandchildren a story during a family picnic- the story is about a filmmaker named Michael Malone, who’s famous for his highly liberal documentaries, to the point where to the grandfather is anti-American. And so this story that the grandfather unweaves is a retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but with Malone as Scrooge and visited by the ghosts of JFK, George S. Patton, and George Washington…

… and it’s also the latest movie from director David Zucker, best know for being part of the team that gave us Airplane! and The Naked Gun movies and also one of the few Hollywood Conservatives who’s obviously pretty proud of it.

Now I’ll go ahead and tell you right up front that I expect that there’ll be few out there that will really give this too much of an even break- as an admitted conservative my own self (but with some liberal leanings), I had a pretty good time with this, even though I’d also be the first to tell you that this isn’t as funny as the movies mentioned above. If you’re a die-hard liberal, or even a casual one, I seriously doubt that you’ll have too much pleasure with this, though I suppose that could also hinge on the real subject of it’s lampooning, filmmaker Michael Moore.

An American Carol is made with the same abandon that the above films are, obviously more on the side of cartoonish frivolity more than anything else. But Zucker gets his beliefs in there as well, and for that, I have to give him credit anyway on making a movie that bucks the normal Hollywood trend (though, I do think that Moore gets a more harsh lampooning in Parker and Stone’s Team America World Police.

Kevin Farley plays Malone, and he’s pretty much a cartoon character doing it, and that’s fine, that’s what the movie is asking of him. And in other parts, you’ll find other Hollywood conservatives including Leslie Nielsen, Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, Robert Davi and country music star Trace Atkins amongst others with just a little sermonizing along the way… but really, not any different from some of the more serious movies that some would see to be carrying a very highly liberal message.

I enjoyed it, I laughed quite a bit at some parts and others just fell flat, but still I had a pretty good time. This is out there pretty much independent of any sort of any major studio release, and as such, we didn’t have a single trailer for any other movie during it, which was surprising. And also surprising was the fact that we had a larger audience for this than I would’ve figured- at best, I was figuring maybe 20 people in to see it, but that number was easily doubled. Like I said above, not for everyone, but I figure if you’ve got conservative leanings and are tired of the normal Hollywood message, you might have a good time with this…

Studio briefing reports Director Spike Lee and Miracle at St. Anna screenwriter James McBride fielded questions and comments Monday from Italian journalists who accused the pair of presenting historical inaccuracies. Writer McBride sounded apologetic as he reminded reporters at a Rome news conference that the story was fiction and then remarked, “I am very sorry if I have offended the [anti-fascist] partisans. I have enormous respect for them. As a black American, we understand what it’s like for someone to tell your history, and they are not you.” Lee took a different tone, saying “I am not apologizing for anything,” “I think these questions are evidence that there is still a lot about your history during the war that you [Italians] have got to come to grips with. This film is no clear picture of what happened. It is our interpretation, and I stand behind it.” The movie has fared no better with critics in Italy, where it is due to open on Friday, than it did with critics in America. Marcia Yarrow, writing in the English-language The American, calls the plot heavy-handed and suggests that it caricatures the Italians, especially the character played by Valentina Cervi, whom Yarrow describes as the “I’m Italian, so just-let-me-just-take-off-my-clothes partisan.”

Also from Studio Briefing: In an open letter sent to the AMPTP and the news media on Monday and published as an advertisement in today’s Daily Variety, SAG President Alan Rosenberg and National Executive Director Doug Allen proposed that the two sides focus on three issues, one involving “force majeure” protection and the two others involving new media. The letter warned, “If your intransigence continues, however, our choices become harder and fewer.” Late in the day, AMPTP President Nick Counter responded, saying that talks would not be productive unless SAG is prepared to change its position on those issues, essentially tossing the “intransigence” accusation back into SAG’s lap. “We do not believe that it would be productive to resume negotiations at this time given SAG’s continued insistence on terms which the companies have repeatedly rejected.”

HBO has announced the development of Americatown, a new drama series project from writer Bradford Winters and producers Tom Fontana, Barry Levinson, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy says Comicmix. Americatown is “set 25-40 years into the future when the precipitous decline of the U.S. leads to a mass exodus of its citizens,” says The Hollywood Reporter. The show focuses on newly arrived American immigrants in a large foreign city. “By presenting Americans as immigrants in the near future, as both underdog and hero in the drama of global dislocation, we substitute a mirror for the rancor that informs much of the partisan debates on immigration,” Winters said of the series. The show focuses both on immigration and on potential financial meltdown, which is quite topical given current circumstances.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Bond’s latest adventure, Quantum Of Solace, will open in India before the film has even had its U.S. red carpet premiere. Solace, which first shows in the U.K. on Oct. 31, hits Indian theaters a week later on Nov. 7 and then bows in North American theaters on Nov. 14. The move by Sony marks the first time that a major U.S. film has opened in India before hitting theaters Stateside. As you may remember, Solace was initially set to storm into theaters across America on Nov. 7, but Sony pushed the release date back a week when Warner Bros. decided to give a certain boy wizard the year off, pushing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to summer.

BloodyDisgusting says that Michael De Luca announced that the he has partnered with Alison Rosenzweig and Michael Gaeta to develop a bigscreen remake of the film Angel Heart. Producers optioned remake rights from a private U.K. firm, which owns the rights to the original film, which was produced by Carolco and distributed by TriStar. De Luca, Rosenzweig and Gaeta also optioned the underlying book rights to William Hjortsberg’s novel “Falling Angel,” from which original film was adapted.

Ridley Scott’s Nottingham project has taken an odd turn according to Comicmix as Russell Crowe confirmed for MTV that he remained not only committed to the film but was likely to play both Robin Hood and the Sheriff as  “a good old clever adjustment of characters. One becomes the other. It changes.” As development got bogged down, production was delayed an entire year, derailing Universal’s plans for a major film for 2009. The studio acquired the rights to Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris’s spec script in an aggressive bidding contest then assigned it to Scott. Early rumors had Christian Bale to play Robin Hood to Crowe’s Sheriff with reports indicating the Sheriff’s role was actually the heroic one. Crowe playing both roles apparently is causing massive script rewrites, according to Chud, so no production dates have been set.

ToxciShock says Kirsten Dunst recently leaked to MTV that she will return for both Spider-Man 4 and Spider-Man 5. “I’m in” is all she said, before quickly changing her response to, “I’m not saying anything.” Dunst in the past has been the most difficult actor in the series to bring back to film additional installments, including the recent sequels. Director/Producer Sam Raimi and Spider-Man himself, Tobey Maguire, announced the fourth and fifth Spider-Man films back in early September. Maguire has signed a contract deal for $50 Million for both sequels. Actress Bryce Dallas Howard was added to the cast, playing Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker’s “first true love” in the comic series. Worldwide, the Spider-Man series has earned over $2.5 Billion.

Big-screen newcomer Danielle Panabaker has signed on to join Chuck Russell’s upcoming action flick Prodigy, according to the Hollywood Reporter. In the film, an elite school promises to turn teenagers into geniuses via an unconventional treatment. The school’s methods and program, however, comes into question when a rebellious student is linked to the sudden deaths of several alumni. Panabaker is set to play the gifted daughter of a senator who starts to criticize the head of the school. Also on board in the role of the disobedient youngster is Max Theriot, whose credits include Nancy Drew, Jumper and the recent Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. Russell is directing a script by Dave Kalstein, who adapted his own novel. The project is set to kick into production gear in October. Panabaker kicked off her big-screen career in 2005’s Sky High. She also recently starred in Yours, Mine and Ours and Mr. Brooks.

Firstshowing.net says that Kenneth Branagh has been hired to direct J. Michael Straczynski’s Thor for Marvel Studios and Staczynski seems to approve saying “Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone better suited to this.”

MTV spoke to Barry Levine who gave a little bit of info about Peter Berg’s upcoming movie, Hercules: The Thracian Wars. “It’s a whole lot darker,” says Radical president and publisher Barry Levine. He expects this version, to be produced and directed by Peter Berg, to be more “300? than “Troy” or “Alexander.” “It’s all about taste,” Levine said.

According to Screeninglog Universal’s Mamma Mia! is still dominating the big screen overseas, clinging to the top spot for the fourth consecutive weekend with an estimated $15.3 million in ticket sales, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The hit musical starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth, among others, lifted its international total to $356.4 million, a far better performance than its $142.2 million domestic take. 

Joblo.co sayas that Jack Black has decided to re-team with Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, the writing team behind KUNG-FU PANDA. This time around, the film will be a live action parody of the Bourne films, in which Jack will play an American who finds himself washed up on the shores of Cuba with complete and utter amnesia. He comes to the conclusion that he must be a superspy, which is exactly what he is not. A director or release date are yet to be announced.

George Lucas has found a director for his long talked about fighter pilot movie according to CinemaBlend. Red Tails is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen overcoming racism in World War II to become the first black fighter pilots in American history. At one point Lucas was actually rumored to be considering Samuel L. Jackson to direct it. Instead Variety says he’s hired Anthony Hemingway. Hemingway’s directorial career has been spent entirely on television, behind episodes of shows like CSI, ER, and Battlestar Galactica. He only did one episode of BSG, but perhaps that gives him at least a little experience dealing with fighter pilots, of a sort. Whether it’s in outer space shooting robots or flying through cumulous clouds on Earth to shoot Nazis, fighter pilots are all the same amped up adrenaline junkies. The movie’s title comes from the paint job on the planes of the Tuskegee Airmen.

Sources:

Comicmix

THR

Studio Briefing

MTV.com 

ToxicShock

Filmonic

Joblo

Cinema Blend