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THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WTF: Latverian Comedy, the Cure for Sci-Fi Racism
Written by Arya Ponto
Sunday, 20 September 2009   

thegoodthebadthewtf

Let me ask you something. Given the opportunity, would you decline to work on a franchise you think is silly, or would you bite the bullet and try to start a revolt from the inside? That's something I wonder about David Slade directing the third Twilight movie, which apparently promises to be a little different. In this edition, we'll also take a look at the latest District 9 controversy, a Mamma Mia! without ABBA, and the zombie Patrick Swayze that never was.

 

THE GOOD

• Roger Corman is getting an Oscar! Can you believe it? The Academy has decided to give the King of B-movies an honorary award for his memorable works, alongside actress Lauren Bacall, producer John Calley and cinematographer Gordon Willis. Maybe next year, they can give one to Russ Meyer.

One of my most anticipated films at the moment, The Prophet, has just been picked as France's entry for the 2010 Academy Awards. The intense prison film premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival and became a darling among the critics in attendance. It won the fest's second most prestigious title, the Grand Prix.

• Is David Slade doing some vampire infiltration after all on the set of Eclipse? The 30 Days of Night director started a row a while back when he was caught trashtalking the Twilight series before signing on to direct the third movie, which has been shooting for the past month. This week, three of the film's stars—Taylor Lautner, Ashley Greene and Justin Chon—came out separately saying that Eclipse will be more "guy friendly," as in it will be less lovey-dovey-angst and more bloody violence. There's zero chance that Twilight would ever go R-rated, but this seems like a decent compromise. Would upping the action really bring in more dudes? Take a hint from True Blood, people. If you want Twilight to be guy-friendly, get some naked boobs in there.

My new favorite writer-director duo, directing one of the funniest people on the scene right now? Yes, please. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Zack Galifianakis is in negotiations to star in the coming-of-age dramedy It's Kind of a Funny Story, the new project from Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, the team behind the gutwrenching Half Nelson and the underappreciated Sugar. The story is about a depressed teen sent to a mental institution and ends up in the adult ward, where he meets several kooky characters, one of whom is played by Galifianakis.

• Remember when we told you about an epic new Ultraman movie coming out and posted the teaser trailer? Now we have a full-on trailer to go along with it. It's looking pretty badass. Better production value than any Ultraman I've ever seen, too.

• After going down a detour to make a football comedy, George Clooney is back on the director's chair for another political drama, this time a about the real-life Supreme Court case of Osama bin Laden's chauffeur who was detained in Guantanamo Bay. Clooney's pally-pal Matt Damon will play Hamdan's fastidious lawyer.

 

THE BAD

Guess whose ire District 9 raised this time. No, not some blogger, film critic or internet commenter accusing it of racism. It's the Nigerian government, yo. BBC News reports that the government has asked theaters to stop showing the film and for Sony to issue an apology. Their problem is with the portrayal of Nigerians in the film as gangbanging cannibals and alien-humping prostitutes, translating that as an attack on the whole country.

Supporting this theory is the fact that the Nigerian gangleader in the film is named after Olusegun Obasanjo, who was President of Nigeria (for the second time) from 1999-2007. The actor playing said gangleader offers a hilarious defense:

"It's not like Nigerians do eat aliens. Aliens don't even exist in the first place."

• Someone's making a CG "American-style anime" origin story for Night of the Living Dead. What is this, like the 26th remake of this movie? Since the the movie is in public domain, it seems like anyone with a decent budget can just nab the property and make their own version. There was Savini's, of course, and then there was a terrible 3-D remake a few years back, and there was also the cool collaborative one I wrote about some time ago. I don't necessarily have anything against someone adapting the movie into a quote-unquote anime, but an origin story seem to miss the point entirely.

• More sad than bad, really: the writers of Zombieland originally wrote a cameo specifically for Patrick Swayze that would have a zombiefied Swayze parody scenes from Ghost and Dirty Dancing. This was before he was diagnosed with the cancer that eventually killed him last Monday. Head over to ShockTillYouDrop to read a description of the scene.

• SHOCKER! John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road has its release date pushed back yet again. The new opening date is now November 25th. I've already accepted the fact that at this point, we're going to see the film open three days after the actual apocalypse.

• Were you looking forward to see an R-rated cut of Terminator Salvation? You might not want to get your hopes up too high. First of all, you're going to need a Blu-ray player because the Director's Cut is not going to be released on DVD. Secondly, it's only 3 minutes longer, most likely consisting of a few extended shots with more blood, and that scene with Moon Bloodgood taking her top off. On the bright side, if you enjoyed the Maximum Movie Mode in the Watchmen Blu-ray that had Zack Snyder "host" the movie, WB is doing the same with Terminator Salvation and McG.

• Remember when I put the photos from Harmony Korine's new movie Trash Humpers under WTF? I was hoping that the trailer would be so bizarre that I can file it under the same category. Alas, the first trailer released just looks terrible instead.

 

THE WTF

Did you know that Joel Schumacher's new movie came out last Friday? No? Don't feel too bad. It's not your fault. The horror film Blood Creek—starring Dominic Purcell, Henry Cavill and Michael Fassbender—was dumped Friday in a handful of second-run dollar theaters by Lionsgate purely out of contractual obligations, not unlike Midnight Meat Train last year. To give you an idea of how under the radar this movie is, it's still listed by the wrong name on IMDB. There's been no promotion, no trailer, no website, no mention on either the Lionsgate website or the publicity site for press. The only footage you can see from the film online is from this leaked reel below. How the Shoe has fallen.

Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, screenwriter Catherine Johnson, Universal and the fans all want a Mamma Mia! sequel. Great. You know who doesn't? ABBA. Benny Andersson told The Telegraph that he would not allow another movie to license their music, so if they go through with a Mamma Mia! sequel, they would have to use songs by other artists. So... A Mamma Mia! without ABBA, huh? Does that even make any sense, or should we just consider this project officially dead?

What's the most unethical viral marketing strategy you can think of? The guys distributing the action film Reckoning Day threw their hats in the ring, by releasing videos of real people getting high on salvia. The movie is an old low-budget shoot-em-up having a DVD release for the first time in the UK, about an experimental drug that turns people into supersoldiers, so it really has nothing to do with salvia use. The idea behind it, I suspect, is to create a controversy surrounding the film using the debate surrounding salvia's current legal status in the UK.

• Apparently you can find the actual Quick Stop store from Clerks on Google Maps. Here it is.

• Professional asshole satirist Tucker Max is throwing a hissy fit that ads for his movie I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is banned by Chicago Transit Authority from appearing on their buses. As much as I abhor everything about this man, I agree that it's ridiculous to ban ads for a movie just because the movie is offensive (censorship is never cool). Still, it's hard to be on Tucker Max's side when his issued press response is full of delusional stupidity with truly WTF statements like these: "This is the perfect example of a ridiculous group of kooky activists bullying the media into propagating a minority viewpoint."

If that's not enough, he tries to argue that his misogynistic bullshit is, in fact, pro-women:

"That's the question I have constantly asked that the protestors have never addressed, because they can't: 'If my art is misogynist and promotes violence against women, then why are half of my fans women?' They don't answer the question because they can't. Women are not stupid. They would not support me if I hated them, and the fact that they come out in the hundreds of thousands to buy my book and go to my movie is proof that I not only love women, but my art is in fact pro-woman. The facts are on my side because I am right."

• Comedian Jim Meyer, for some reason, decided to do a comedy act copying Gallagher's schtick... as Dr. Doom. Huh? Watch this hilarious performance of Latveria's greatest comedian. Applaud or suffer your end at his immutable eminence.

 

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