People often say that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But what if the government, along with a vast majority of the population, were suddenly obliterated? What are the certainties of life in a post-apocalyptic world? Death keeps its hold, but in a desert world scorched by nuclear holocaust or a zombie plague, death has a new partner in inevitability: sex.
Sure, sex is already as ubiquitous as taxes, but plenty of post-apocalyptic movies point out that sex gains a renewed importance in a world devoid of order. Even in films that are not specifically about sexuality after the implosion of society, sex is still an important linchpin. In the modern-day zombie classic 28 Days Later (mild spoilers follow), our heroes-on-the-run, Jim, Selena, and Hannah, find relative safety in a mansion fortified by a small band of soldiers. Before long, the all male band of troops begin making not-so-subtle overtures to the two young women. Their captain, in a futile attempt to persuade Jim to disregard the well-being of his friends, pleads, “But I promised them women!” Jim’s refusal to condone this flesh trade nearly gets him killed, but the potency of the zombie plague has a poetic way of enacting revenge on his behalf.
After the jump, “carnal desire” gains a whole new meaning…
The weekend box office went just as expected with Beverly Hills Chihuahua unfortunately coming out on top with $29 million and Rachel Getting Married earning the best per-screen average ($33,667) with an impressive $303,000 gross from only 9 locations. Also, with so many new films debuting, Flash of Genius, Blindness and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People couldn’t even open in the top ten — the latter placed as low as #19 — and An American Carol and Religilous only placed ninth and tenth, respectively. Still, for a documentary, Religilous‘ $3.5 million debut and $6,972 per-screen average are both honorable achievements. The film had the highest non-fiction debut of 2008, and it’s sure to be the highest-grossing non-concert doc of the year.
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist also debuted relatively well this past weekend, which made it a perfect time for Mandate Pictures to annouce that the film’s screenwriter, Lorene Scafaria, will make her directorial debut with the romantic comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.
For awhile now I’ve noticed the headlines about Mamma Mia!’s incredible overseas business, but I’ve so far ignored them. Well, here’s the latest off-balanced tally: compared to its already hit-qualifying $143 million domestic gross, the musical has taken in close to $400 million extra from international markets. That’s nearly three-fourths of its total take, for those who like fractions.
200 projects developed by DreamWorks while living under Paramount’s roof will be divided up rather fairly between the two studios now that they’re separating. About one-fifth of those will remain joint efforts, of which one-half will be primarily developed by DreamWorks with Paramount having an option to co-finance and co-distribute. While some of these special-circumstance projects are rumored to be Spielberg’s directing and producing gigs, there’s still no news on what’s going on with the Tintin trilogy.
You could fill a small multiplex just with new releases this weekend, as eight movies either open nationwide or significantly expand today. And yet most moviegoers will still likely choose Beverly Hills Chihauhua over everything else. Meanwhile, Michael Moore fans are sure to go for Bill Maher’s first-person doc Religilous, Michael Moore haters are sure to go for the conservative fantasy An American Carol and teens who are too cool for talking dogs are certain to put Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist at #2 on the box office chart. Will adults just stay home rather than have to choose from the rest, which includes Appaloosa, Blindness, How to Lose Friends and Influence Alienate People and Flash of Genius?
A little bit JFK, a little bit Veronica Guerin: producer John Davis (I, Robot) will make a film about the conspiracy theory surrounding the death of columnist and TV personality Dorothy Kilgallen, who dug deep into the JFK assassination before she died mysteriously and suspiciously from a combo of drugs and alcohol.
If the titles of the three films mentioned in the title don’t evoke a sense of anxiety about the present, I’m not sure what will. At the same time, they’re all immensely different films. Fernando Meirelles’s new film, Blindness, opens tonight. Will it replace Children of Men as our favorite recent film about societal collapse?
Karina joins us to talk about one hit and one miss from the New York Film Festival thus far. While Happy-Go-Lucky inspired homicidal thoughts, I’m Gonna Explode did not disappoint.
The financial mayhem of the day made us remember a little known documentary from 2006, In Debt We Trust (which can be viewed for free on SnagFilms.com). We call director Danny Schechter to talk about what’s been going on in the two years since his nearly prophetic film was released.
The doomsday scenarios in movies can be pretty outlandish, but some of them are actually plausible. After all, in world where pirates have tanks, Hollywood doesn’t need to stray far from reality for a good yarn.
Below the jump, we put five doomsday movie scenarios to the plausibility test. If you’ve always secretly thought Waterworld was a work of dead-on global warming prophecy, read on.
Confirmation came yesterday afternoon that the films long expected to open and close the Cannes Film Festival, Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness and Barry Levinson’s What Just Happened?, will in fact do so, despite recent rumors that the latter film had been nixed due to its post-Sundance loser taint.
Magnolia has purchased Wayne Wang’s A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, which premiered last fall at the Toronto Film Festival.
At Tribeca, IFC has selected the “Spanish-language psychological thriller” Fermat’s Room for its Festival Direct video-on-demand only program.
Here is the new teaser trailer for Blindness, the latest film from Fernando Meirelles (City of God; The Constant Gardener). Normally I wouldn’t be so excited about something that reminds me of Val Kilmer’s post-eye-surgery point-of-view shots from At First Sight, especially when such visuals are accompanied by generic outbreak plots, but I’m so excited about Meirelles’ work that I’d have seen Alvin and the Chipmunks– poop-eating included — if he’d been behind the camera. All this despite the fact that I was extremely disappointed with The Constant Gardener the first time I watched it on account I had such high expectations. Maybe I should calm down my anticipation before Blindness hits theaters this September.
Anyway, I know there are some other outbreak films coming out soon, including M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening and the enticingly titled Zombie Strippers, but neither of them come from a Nobel Prize-winning novel, like Blindness does. Of course, the greatest novels are often those which cannot be adequately adapted into films, so maybe Zombie Strippers (which is merely based on, loosely, the non-Nobel-winning play Rhinoceros, by Eugene Ionesco) will actually be better. Which should make Meirelles, the producer, realize: the Rio favelas would sure be a good setting for a zombie movie. May I suggest the obvious title City of Zombies? It fittingly fills out an unintended trilogy.
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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Confirmation came yesterday afternoon
