We won’t have George Lucas to kick around anymore. Maybe.
Lucas, who produced and financed Red Tails, the just-opened drama about the Tuskegee Airmen, says he is through with the blockbuster movie business. One of the men most responsible for the ascendancy of expensive, high-concept, comic book-style action fare says he wants to make small, independent films now. (more…)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the most objectionable kind of manipulative and sentimental Hollywood exploitation, but because it deals “sensitively” and “respectfully” with a large and noble subject – New Yorkers dealing with the aftermath of 9/11 – the movie all but begs to be treated as a sacred object. (more…)
How sweet. As you no doubt know (I didn’t) Justin Bieber attached his name last year to a “prestige fragrance” for women. It’s called Someday. Now, for Valentine’s Day, the Biebster is releasing the perfume in limited edition bottles. Net profits from sales will go to two charities – Pencil’s of Promise and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
How interested are you in learning about Norman Bates’ life before Alfred Hitchcock caught up with him at the Bates Motel in Psycho?
Universal Television is developing a possible series for the A&E network that focuses on how Norman Bates turned into a warped murderer. Planning is in the early stages, but the series would show how Norman’s mother and her lover damaged the young Norman, turning him into the serial killer we meet in Psycho, according (more…)
Relativity Media is presenting the first five minutes of Haywire, Steven Soderberg’s new action film, at Hulu.
Haywire stars the mixed martial arts star Gina Carano in her feature debut. Carano plays a coverts ops specialist who strikes back after she’s double crossed by someone in the agency.
Haywire opens nationwide Jan. 20th. It also stars Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Michael Douglas and Michael Angarano.
A friend called me yesterday to read to me from the full-page ad that Kim Novak took out in Variety to lash out at the creators of The Artist for using part of the score from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 movie Vertigo.
“I want to report a rape,” Novak began. “My body of work has been violated.”
Putting aside for a minute that Novak, who starred with Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo, did not compose the score (Bernard Herrmann did), her complaint struck as ludicrous on its face. Isn’t The Artist supposed to be an homage to old Hollywood movies? Didn’t Novak realize that
After earning just short of $17 million on its opening day (confounding prognosticators who thought Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol was on its way to a third weekend win), The Devil Inside finished the weekend with an estimated $34.5 million gross.
Considering that the faux found-footage horror film cost less than $1 million to make, that’s a pretty astounding number.
If the figure holds when final numbers are released Monday, The Devil Inside will rank third on the list of all-time January opening weekends, according to Box Office Mojo.
Cloverfield ($40.1 million) and the Star Wars (Special Edition) re-release ($35.9 million) rank second and third.
Only two weeks after complaining publicly last year about how Hollywood doesn’t show him any love, Spike Lee landed the plum assignment of directing an American remake of Oldboy.
That looked like a sure fire hit for a director that definitely needs one.
Now, five months later, Lee still is having casting problems with the movie, which is based on a celebrated manga-inspired Korean film.
This isn’t a movie – yet – but this new Marvel production should be of interest to X-Men fans and to anyone who has been following the roll out of Marvel superhero movies such as Iron Man and Captain America, all done in anticipation of the May 4 release of Marvel’s The Avengers movie.
Marvel Comics is getting ready to unleash Avengers vs. X-Men, a 12-issue comic book miniseries that pits the two Marvel superhero teams against each other. AvX, they’re calling it. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Wolverine, Magneto, Cyclops, Black Widow, Storm and all the rest – even Spider-Man – will come together in one massive, explosive storyline.
This superhero crossover series is only available in the comics. But you can read the pages and dream about what the movie might look like. During the month of January, you can get the first issue of for 35 percent off at TFAW.com.
We’ve had a rough and strange December (for reasons that we won’t bore you with). Come to think of it, November was no picnic, either. It all was out of my control for the most part, but I made matters worse by choosing now to undertake major changes in the InsideMovies.net website.
I would’ve been out of commission pretty much, even without relaunching the website. The die had been cast before I started this project. It’s ironic – the end of the year is the absolute best time to be either a film goer or a film critic. And I had to sit it out.
We’ve mostly got things under control, though for the time being you will have to go here to find older material. I hope to find a way to transfer all of those posts eventually, but as of now it’s almost like starting over.
Strangely, I’m sorta OK with that. It’s like having a clean slate. InsideMovies.net has a history (it’s had several iterations since I founded it in 2008), but right now, today, let’s pretend we’re starting from scratch. (more…)
