Robert Pattinson is The Batman in director Matt Reeves's take on the dark knight.
Cinematography by Greig Fraser and score by Michael Giacchino. Costume design by Jacqueline Durran, Glyn Dillon, and David Crossman.
Release date: June 25, 2021. Read the rest
I've just watched a trailer for The Iron Mask, a forthcoming Russian/Chinese movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger appears to be playing the chief beefeater at the Tower of London with Jackie Chan as his prisoner. Jason Flemyng, Charles Dance and Rutger Hauer (his final performance!?) are also in it. And now you will watch this trailer also. [via Syfy]
The Iron Mask sees action legends Jackie Chan and Arnold Schwarzenegger team up in a high concept fantasy historical epic featuring breath-taking fights and stunning visuals. Set in the 18th century, The Iron Mask follows English traveller Jonathan Green as he journeys from Russia to China encountering dragons, black magic wizardry and a dragon king during an incredible but deadly adventure.
The movie was released in 2019 in Russia and China as Viy 2, the sequel to an earlier fantasy adventure also starring Flemyng and Dance. It only got a limited release in the west but they're giving this one the blockbuster rollout thanks to the beefed-up cast. I get the feeling the Flemyng-in-China stuff is the actual movie and the Schwarzenegger-Chan thing is a brief frame story around it. Read the rest
The incredible Julia Garner stars in the upcoming horror movie, The Assistant, which Vanity Fair says, "tracks a day in the life of Jane (Julia Garner), a recent college graduate working as a junior assistant to a powerful, abusive (and unnamed) movie mogul in Manhattan." Vanity Fair has a brief exclusive clip from the movie. Above, the trailer. Read the rest
The recently departed Kirk Douglas was 75 when he appeared on The Dick Cavett show to promote his autobiography. Douglas told Cavett that his friend John Wayne thought he was a "sissy" for playing Van Gogh in Lust for Life. "Kirk, how can you play this sniveling weakling who commits suicide," Wayne told Douglas after they watched a screening of the movie together. Douglas also told Cavett that Brando ruined many actors who tried to imitate Brando, who was, of course, inimitable. All in all, Douglas comes off as a delightful person in this interview. Now I want to watch Ace in the Hole again.
Image: YouTube Read the rest
Cubicall, makers of contemporary telephone booths like those you might see in the offices of momentarily flush startups, have created an official replica of the time machine phone booth from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989). It is $8,495. For that price, perhaps it provides the same functionality as the one in the film. From Cubicall:
The limited-run phone booth features a design inspired by the original film, including an authentic payphone retrofitted for VOIP/landline service, an umbrella antenna, and all of the same stellar features of Cubicall phone booths. Made in USA. Excellent!
I've watched Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time In Hollywood twice, and I appreciated more even the second time. So I enjoyed this "making of" documentary that Sony released to YouTube last week. It has interviews with all the principle actors and Tarantino himself, along with behind-the-scenes footage.
Image: YouTube Read the rest
I'm really loving these old clips from The Dick Cavett Show on YouTube. Here's a 5-minute clip of Paul Simon telling Cavett about his music making process, his involvement in The Graduate, and how he wrote "Mrs. Robinson."
This is as good a time as any to share a theory about The Graduate that my late friend Mike Vodneck told me his high school teacher had about why Mrs. Robinson was willing to destroy her marriage to keep Ben from dating her daughter, Elaine. It's because Ben and Elaine were half-siblings. Try watching the movie with that in mind and see how it holds up. Read the rest
Carnage-Boy asks: "What if Sam Mendes' latest badass movie was set in Bikini Bottom instead of Pas-de-Calais?"
Here's the original trailer:
Brothers Morgan and Mason McGrew were teenagers when they embarked on an 8-year-quest to remake Toy Story 3. The full length movie is on YouTubeand according to Gizmodo the project has Disney's blessing.
From Gizmodo:
If you’re interested in how the McGrew brothers actually made this fan film happen, you can head over to their Facebook page which features a series of behind the scenes looks at what went into their amateur production which started back in 2011. The British website Joe also published a fascinating interview with the brothers last year after the trailer for their film was released back in June of 2019. Be forewarned, though, it might leave you questioning how you spent your teenage years. The McGrews aren’t going to rake in billions of dollars from their fan film—that would certainly have Disney changing its mind about giving its blessing—but there’s little doubt this pair is going to be embraced by Hollywood, assuming they’re now not sick of filmmaking.
Image: YouTube Read the rest
In memory of Monty Python co-founder Terry Jones, who died this week, please enjoy "Monty Python and the Holy Grail in LEGO." Read the rest
Lee Steffen's glorious Twitter thread about "the ten types of movies" (as determined by similarities in their poster art is quite the little design project, building on similar work from the likes of Christophe Courtois and others. (via Kottke) Read the rest
Cartoonists Ed Piskor and Jim Rugg take a look at the booklets that come with Criterion Collection's Crumb and Ghost World DVDs and Blu-rays, both directed by Terry Zwigoff. I've seen both films multiple times and already have the Crumb DVD, but I wasn't aware that Criterion did one for Ghost World. Sigh *pulls out wallet* Read the rest
Not to be confused with that painfully mediocre Dave Eggers novel, Netflix's new reality show The Circle is basically the IRL version that Black Mirror episode where Bryce Dallas Howard obsessively ranks everything on social media to the point of extreme isolation. Read the rest
(SPOILER ALERT)
On this episode of the Fatman Beyond podcast, Kevin Smith claims that Todd Phillips' Joker originally had a much darker ending written for it. From Hypebeast:
While the final release of the film ended with Arthur Fleck being locked up in a psychiatric hospital with a scene suggesting he killed his new therapist, Smith says around the 16:35 mark in the video above that a source close to the project revealed an alternative ending featuring a flashback at the hospital. The flashback would’ve taken the audience back to Thomas and Martha Wayne’s murder scene in the alley, and reveal that it was actually the Joker who killed them. Even more shocking is the fact that the Joker then also shoots Bruce Wayne, effectively killing Batman in that particular universe.
“Originally, the ending in the hospital was different,” Smith said. “He’s in the hospital and he laughs, chuckles, and he says, ‘I was just thinking of something funny.’ What was supposed to happen was you flashed back to the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne and it was him killing Thomas and Martha Wayne and the boy was screaming and crying and he turned to walk away and he turned back, shrugged, and shot the kid. Credits.”
Jason Satterlund directed this short film, "Kenobi." Not canon.
Tammy and the T-Rex features Denise Richards (Tammy) and Paul Walker (Michael) as young loverbirds. After Michael is badly wounded by Tammy's ex-boyfriend, a mad scientist seizes his brain and inserts it into a robotic T-Rex.
The movie was filmed with an R rating in mind, but the violence was removed for its initial release. That missing footage has now been reinserted to form the "gore cut." Birth Movies Death explains:
While the body count in the kids’ version is (and I suspect I’m recalling correctly here) zero, the “Gore Cut” sees nearly ten minutes of additional footage added to the film, dotting the running time with deaths but mostly contributing two absolutely wonderful added/extended sequences. The best is a sublime bit of surgical slapstick in which Michael’s brain is profoundly mishandled on its way to its dinosaur housing, creating a surprising amount of chaos in a surprisingly small operating theatre. The other comes mid-film, as Michael’s Rexed-out rage increases and he rampages through a high school kids’ party. High schoolers get stomped on, chomped, and killed in more inventive ways I won't spoil, with a surprising quantity of blood spilled and laughter released. It’s amazing this material was cut, given how expensive it must have been, but on the other hand, it’s amazing the movie was even produced in the first place.
The gore cut will be streaming on Shudder in January. Read the rest
Knives Out is currently sporting a well-deserved 97% fresh score at Rotten Tomatoes, and now there's a solid reason to see it again in the theater--Rian Johnson created a director's commentary track:
Read the restI’m thrilled to announce the #KnivesOut in-theater commentary! Yes, now you can enjoy another round of whodunnit goodness with me squawking in your ear. Did this on Bloom & Looper, happy to try it again. Audio file and instructions here.
