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THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WTF: Beards, Sequels and Gundam Weddings
Written by Arya Ponto
Sunday, 06 September 2009   

thegoodthebadthewtf

Oliver Stone and Hugo Chavez, sitting on a tree... S-P-I-N-N-I-N-G. Back again with the best, worst and weirdest updates from the movie world, including director Oliver Stone's trip down to South of the Border, being buddy-buddies with controversial heads of state. That gave me an idea. How about a new Rambo movie where he rescues lefty filmmakers from mad dictators? What's that, you say? There's already a new Rambo movie in the works?

 

THE GOOD

gundamwedding• After three months of gracing the Tokyo skyline with awesomeness, Japan's life-size Gundam statue was supposed to be dismantled as scheduled last Wednesday, but a nasty typhoon is delaying the deconstruction for a few days (Police should start looking if there aren't any otaku convention with a giant wind machine). A little over a week ago, a Japanese couple managed to celebrate the most epic wedding ever by getting married in front of the statue and in costume, with the groom dressing up in Mobile Suit Gundam protag Amuro Ray. Check out their photos here.

• There's no doubt that Disney's purchase of Marvel Comics was the biggest news in entertainment this week, but what's the biggest news of that deal? As far as I'm concerned, nothing is more exciting than this bit of update from ComingSoon.net:

John Lasseter met with Marvel last week about a possible team-up between Marvel and Pixar and got "pretty excited, pretty fast." They say there's definitely an opportunity there.

• South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's Mother, which premiered at Cannes earlier this year, is a return to the murder mystery he expertly conquered in the phenomenal true crime drama Memories of Murder, after going big with monster movie The Host. The past week saw not only an English-subtitled trailer for it, but also the announcement that Magnolia Pictures (who distributed The Host) has acquired it for the US release. Ten dollars say it'll be less than a month after the US release when we hear the news that Hollywood is going to remake it with Kate Winslet and Casey Affleck.

• Rambo #5 (that's not a Lou Bega song) is coming, with the working subtitle The Savage Hunt. Unlike previously reported by Variety, the plot will not see John Rambo duking it out with real-life Mexican druglords. Instead, Rambo is going back to the Pacific Northwest woods to track down a "feral beast," as Sylvester Stallone himself described in a voicemail he left to AICN's Harry Knowles.

I don't think it's Rambo vs Sasquatch/Predator as people seem to think it is. It's more likely that what Sly meant is a soldier conditioned to be a killing monster running loose. Why is this a neat idea? Because if this is going to be the last Rambo movie, it's a good idea to bookend First Blood the way Rocky Balboa did to Rocky (simultaneously making the cartoony middle chapters void). Here, we'll have a soldier very much in the same position Rambo was in First Blood, and this time Rambo is the hunter instead of the hunted.

• Out of seemingly nowhere comes this mysterious trailer for a thriller called The Killing Jar. It's a one-room-hostage-situation independent ensemble film, but writer/director Mark Young is the man behind horror films like Tooth & Nail and Southern Gothic, and the official synopsis says that one of the diner patrons "may be even more dangerous than their captor." Does that mean one of them is a badass hero, or is this secretly a horror movie? Either way, the film looks pretty interesting, but the draw here is the pretty great ensemble cast. Michael Madsen, Harold Perrineau, Danny Trejo, and Buffy's Amber Benson. I love the fact that it just looks like Mr. Blonde: The Movie.

• Terry Gilliam reveals in a Total Film interview that Tom Cruise's people tried to get him to cast Cruise as Heath Ledger's replacement in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus when he died, but Gilliam refused. While that would be... interesting... I think it's really cool that the three that Gilliam hired to "play" Ledger (Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell) were friends of Heath.

 

THE BAD

I'm surprised to learn that the aliens in District 9 were real and not computer-generated. That's why the poor treatment of them on screen were so inhumane that they had to cheat their "No Animals Were Harmed(R)" credit. Actually, no, they were CGI... but it's just that the phrase belongs to American Humane and District 9 (as well as 4 other recent movies) used it without any authorization, which would require verification from them that it's true. For all we know, the crew fried some extraterrestrial scallops.

• I think Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke's Hamlet adaptation starring Emile Hirsch really is a sequel to Hamlet 2 (or at least was inspired by it). First we have the title, Haml3t, which is really just obnoxious if it's not the 3rd movie in something. It's also apparently some kind of musical, according to MTV, with Hirsch channeling Kurt Cobain for the role.

"It's a modern-day film, set at a liberal-arts college where words matter — so people are careful and talk in beautiful language, and Hamlet tries to express himself through music," says Hardwicke. "So, we're using some of the cooler Shakespeare language, in a musical way. [My Hamlet] is like an [aspiring] rock star. He's got six people that go to his performances, go to clubs and listen to him. It's like an early Kurt Cobain."

• Speaking of Bong Joon-ho, a CG test image from The Host 2 has appeared online, confirming that the sequel to the South Korean monster hit (wink wink) is well underway. What's the bad news? Bong will not be returning as director, neither are the original cast and writers. Maybe they all agree with me that it's completely and utterly unnecessary, but given its record-breaking box office, it is to be expected. Plus, it's being funded by the South Korean government.

Another bummer is that the excellent CG company The Orphanage—who handled the CG monster in the original—closed their doors earlier this year presumably due to the current economy. For the sequel, the CG will be done in Korea.

• And speaking of unnecessary sequels, here's another one that also doesn't have its original director. Check out the trailer for The Descent Part 2 courtesy of IGN, which really looks like it's going to be all kinds of dumb. I'm just going to pretend this does not exist and go on believing that the last few bleak minutes that was cut out of the American release still counts and is the final say on what happened to these characters.

• Director Nick Cassavettes is suing New Line Cinema over the script for Peaceable Kingdom, the biopic about animal conservationist Dame Daphne Sheldrick's efforts to save elephants from extinction in war-torn Kenya. THR reports that the Notebook director claims he was promised millions of dollars to direct the film, but was then booted off the project. The problem is, this was right after Cassavettes finished a full rewrite (typically called a "page-one") for no pay, believing that he will end up directing it himself anyway. Never do anything for free in Hollywood, kids.

 

THE WTF

In the new issue of Wonderland mag, Megan Fox says Michael Bay is Hitler on set and a complete dork off the set. Apparently she thinks she's now in enough big movies to not need to work with Michael Bay ever again. That is, without washing his car as an audition again.

"[Michael] wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he's a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he's not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he's so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. It's endearing to watch him. He's so vulnerable and fragile in real life and then on set, he's a tyrant."

Oh, is it about due time for Oliver Stone to jump on board another controversy and get America to hate him? I'm assuming that's not his end goal, but his new documentary South of the Border is going to rustle up some sticks and stones. Stone went to Latin America to interview the Presidents of Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Cuba, Paraguay, Brazil, and Venezuela—talking about their negative portrayal in the US media.

You want merchandise? We'll give you merchandise. These guys are selling a fake beard reminiscent of Zack Galifianakis', which they are selling as "The Hangover Beard" because Zack didn't shave for the biggest comedy hit of the year.

Below is a trailer for an Aboriginal stoner comedy. Yessir, cultures may be different from all over the world, but pot culture is universal. In Stone Bros., two Aboriginal Aussies decide to leave city life and go on a Harold and Kumar-esque trip to find their roots in the outback, armed with a big bag of joints. It might sound aboriginal, but it doesn't look original (don't blame me, that pun is in the trailer).

The following is actually a pretty sad situation, but I can't help being amused by how truly bizarre this is. A family doctor in St. Louis had just lost his medical license in July because he is suffering from mental illness. The signs were not unnoticed: back in 2006, the doctor took out at ads in the local newspaper comparing himself to a Jedi, Neo, and... a couple of stoners who lost their car?

doctor-ads

Check out the ads in detail at The Daily RFT.

 

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