After being on track to be as perfect as the first film, Iron Man 2 has received a monkey wrench in the form of a recasting: for unspecified reasons (money), Terrence Howard will not reprise his role of Jim Rhodes, aka the future suited-hero War Machine, allowing Don Cheadle to replace him. While the same (or better) level of actor will be involved, the remodeling of the part is sure to be a little discomforting.
Universal will be the new distributor of DreamWorks films in a deal that everyone expected to happen. But just because it was inevitable doesn’t change how perfect the relationship is. For one thing, their Earth and moon logos fit together so well. And as a team, they’re like Elliot and E.T. riding that bike across the sky (but which studio is in the basket?). Sorry if that only makes sense to me.
Who knows what the markets will be like when the film is released, but Fox appears to be fast-tracking the sequel to Wall Street, titled Money Never Sleeps, which will see Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko released from prison into an unrecognizable financial world. 21 screenwriter Allan Loeb will be rewriting the film so expect the world to also be unrecognizable to most on Wall Street, as all the Asian traders will presumably be replaced by whites.
The Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading, which made some snippy headlines last month after Focus gave the film an undesirable September release date, has been selected to open the Venice Film Festival. For those keeping track: the last film Focus landed in that slot at that festival was Atonement; three years ago, they used the ame method to launch Brokeback Mountain.
There’s a long piece in this morning’s Hollywood Reporter on Sex and the City––the show, the movie, the brand––as a New York City tourist attraction. Says Michael Patrick King, director of the film: “The amount of girls coming to New York to have a $17 cosmo — everybody benefited in a great way.”
2929 Productions have bought in to two projects from producers Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti and Ben Mezrich––AKA the creative team behind the hit 21. Brunetti sums up the appeal of working from a Mezrich literary source: “Guys that normally aren’t readers will dive into a Ben Mezrich story and read it quickly, and then pass it around to other guys. It’s chick lit for men.”
Predictions that Leatherheads would take the top spot at the weekend box office in spite of middling reviews and virtually no hook for young viewers proved to be unfounded. The Film That Turned George Clooney Fi-Core made just $13.5 million, barely enough for second place behind the still strong 21.
Sundance vets Trouble the Water and Man on Wire both took jury prizes at the Full Frame Film Festival this weekend. In a Dream and The Betrayal also left Durham with awards.
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Director’s Fortnight sidebar, this year’s Cannes Film Festival will screen a number of retrospective titles from past years, including Stranger Than Paradise and Aguirre, Wrath of God. The program will then travel to Rome and Buenos Aires.
As expected, 21 came in at the top of the box office this weekend, with a not-huge $23.7 million. And as hoped for by many––maybe even Paramount, who opened the thing on suspiciously few screens––Stop-Loss tanked with $4.5 million.
Just three months before their mutual contract expires, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have severed ties. AFTRA president Roberta Reardon said the move was prompted by her former sister union’s dirty dealings in the contract negotiation process. Actual quote: “We can’t trust SAG.”
A group of British directors has formed their own union of sorts, called Directors U.K. The goal, according to Variety, is “securing a standard collective bargaining agreement with British employers.”
I’m going to spend about four hours this weekend with my celebrity boyfriend, Young Albert Brooks, at Anthology Film Archives‘ double feature of two of Brooks’ early, still super-relevant films, Modern Romance and Real Life (see above). But if you’re not lucky enough to be in New York, there are three films opening in general release that we covered at SXSW.
Chris already mentioned Run Fatboy Run today. He also reviewed Robert Luketic’s gambling porn thriller, 21: “[I]t’s basically Little Caesar set in the world of card counting, which in fact isn’t illegal, yet in Vegas is viewed as being just as criminal as bootlegging was during Prohibition…[but] nerds just aren’t as entertaining as gangsters and blackjack and brains just isn’t as cool on screen as bank robberies and machine guns.” And then, of course, there’s Stop-Loss. Michael Lerman said MTV/Kimberley Pierce’s Iraq PTSD movie is too centrist for its own good: “Perhaps the performances and plotting would’ve worked better as less of an unbiased study of aggression and more of a critique of the current political situation, as the script seems to be. It’s as if the two things are working against each other and the actors are veering off in a different direction from the themes.”
Paramount is putting together a new division designed to craft new video games based on both current and classic Paramount films. You know what that means…”I Drink Your Milkshake” for the Wii!!!
New York’s state Senate and Assembly are expected to soon announce a compromise on the tax credit issue that was left in the lurch when governor Eliot Spitzer resigned to spend more time with his soul-crushing self-hatred. The new deal will favor the Democrat-led Assembly’s plan, which aimed to increase tax credits on below-the-line costs, thus supporting the state’s filmmaking infrastructure over luring flashy out-of-town productions.
2008’s total box office is so far 3 percent above 2007’s, but that’s mostly due to that 3D Hannah Montana thing, and 2007 holdovers like Alvin and the Chipmunks––not a single action film has grossed over $100 over the past three months. And that’s not going to change this weekend, although both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter seem confident that 21 will do well, and Stop-Loss will not.
Director Alexis Spraic, producer James Scurlock, and Bunim-Murray Productions are joining forces on a documentary about the “globalization pioneer” who founded DHL.
Here is a master guide to all of our reviews, interviews and assorted other coverage from the 2008 SXSW Film Festival. You can also revisit all of our SXSW previews here.
It’s fitting that the last film I saw at SXSW was Nerdcore Rising. I’d begun my experience of this year’s festival with a screener of We Are Wizards(review here), a documentary that mostly focuses on the Harry Potter-based “wizard rock”, which I’d then assumed was the nerdiest music genre in existence. And now I’d finished my experience with this doc, which is actually about the nerdiest music genre in existence, “nerdcore hip hop”.
The proof is not in the artists, though. It’s in the fans, which director Negin Farsad is right to concentrate on and showcase so significantly here. The film may center on one specific nerdcore hip hop artist, MC Frontalot, and his band’s first tour, but Nerdcore Rising is really, ultimately, about the freaks and geeks who make up the audience at each show along the way. Not since the height of the ska scene ten years ago has there been a genre so well defined by the character of its fanbase.
The true-story-based 21comes off as an extremely interesting, though likely unintended concept: a gangster/crime film for nerds. In structure, it’s basically Little Caesar set in the world of card counting, which in fact isn’t illegal, yet in Vegas is viewed as being just as criminal as bootlegging was during Prohibition. There are a number of moments that exactly fit the mold of the crime genre and some moments that even seem specific to individual films (a short scenario involving new identities feels like a wink at a similar scene in Reservoir Dogs if you’re already thinking about gangster movies). But as interesting as the concept sounds, nerds just aren’t as entertaining as gangsters and blackjack and brains just isn’t as cool on screen as bank robberies and machine guns.
Coinciding with the crime genre structure are the conventions of the geek-gets-popular genre (I guess as social climbing stories, they’re basically the same thing). The story centers on an MIT student (Jim Sturges) who works on robotics in his spare time with his nerdy friends. He’s recruited into a group of mathletes, headed by a behind-the-scenes professor (Kevin Spacey), who spend their weekends in Las Vegas getting filthy rich by counting cards at blackjack tables and playing accordingly. Like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girlsor Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar, the popularity and power takes control over the new recruit. But it’s a weird twist, because here the popular kids are actually ubernerds, which is fitting in the world dominated by Bill Gateses and Steve Jobses.
Friday night, the movie 21 had its big red carpet premier at SXSW 2008. It’s a true story about an MIT student who bamboozles the Vegas blackjack tables until he gets caught. For me, I thought it’d be fun to hang out on the red carpet here in Austin, which is not known for its red carpets (the one I was standing on was about eight feet long), and see what happens. My story is as follows:
8:30 pm - An hour before the premier - The fidgety reporters and photographers around me are yucking it up about lenses and such when I see a group of kids wearing professional make up and hear shutters start to snap. “It’s the guy from Friday Night Lights!” Someone exclaims, then, “… it’s a show on NBC.” I wait for the flash to charge on my $99 point-and-click camera…
Two girls wearing tiaras take a picture of him…
But my attention turns to this guy–who I’m developing a little man-crush on–and I think he’ll step on the carpet, but he’s apparently just checking text messages…
Then these two step in front of my camera (more after the jump)…
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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The Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading, which made some snippy headlines last month after Focus gave the film an undesirable September release date, has been selected to open the Venice Film Festival. For those keeping track: the last film Focus landed in that slot at that festival was Atonement; three years ago, they used the ame method to launch Brokeback Mountain.
Predictions that Leatherheads would take the top spot at the weekend box office in spite of middling reviews and virtually no hook for young viewers proved to be unfounded. The Film That Turned George Clooney Fi-Core 
As expected, 
Paramount is putting together 
