Earlier this week we got our first look at Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, including character portraits of the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) and Tweedledee and Tweedledum (both played by Matt Lucas). And like most people who saw the images, we believe that this version of the Lewis Carroll classic may end up being too creepy for moviegoers in general, let alone for children.
In response to the promotional pics, a number of people (and blogs) began discussions of disturbing and scarring kids’ movies. So, to join in the fun we’ve compiled a list of our own picks for creepiest flicks made for children. It took a lot for us to be freaked out by a film when we were young (most horror movies didn’t phase us), but each of these titles gives us nightmares still. …Read more
Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army hits theaters this Friday. Del Toro is a rare filmmaker who, despite his unique vision, often works on projects based on material from an outside source (Pan’s Labyrinth being a notable exception). Assuming all the legal issues get ironed out, he’ll next direct a two part film adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the most prestigious property to date to get the del Toro treatment. Here are seven either failed or unjustly obscure movies ripe for being remade by Hellboy’s father.
1. Spawn - Todd McFarlane’s comic about a Hell-trotting anti-hero indebted to the Devil opened my young eyes to genuinely dark storytelling. While the 90s were a simpler time in terms of comic to movie adaptations, I was already dreaming about a big screen adaptation after reading the first issue. Unfortunately, my dream came true in 1997, when Mark A.Z. Dippé’s god-awful Spawn slumped into theaters.
Here is a film from 1965 of a young Jim Henson and friends lampooning their process of making commercials for Wilson’s Meats. It only goes to show how far downhill the Muppets have come. And how much more mature they were in the beginning.
I present it to you now, because in anticipation of the next project from Jason Segal and Nicholas Stoller (respectively thewriter and director of this week’s new release Forgetting Sarah Marshall), which happens to be a Muppets feature, I hope there is some pre-Muppet Moviestuff taken into consideration as possible inspiration.
This particular film is a sort of sequel to this other one, which features more actual Muppets on screen, but I kind of prefer the Monty Pythonesque feel of the one I’ve featured above. But definitely watch both.
Empire reports that a Jim Henson biopic is on the way, and few people could be more excited than yours truly. However, like Empire, I would hate to see a generic biography directed by somebody like Penny Marshall. Yet I’m not so sure if I like their idea of getting Michel Gondry any better. Maybe Spike Jonze, but not Gondry. No matter what, though, this movie has got to have a creative edge. It doesn’t have to be too crazy. It doesn’t even have to confuse the real world with the Muppet world in a Dreamchild sort of way. Of course, it should feature Muppets playing real-life people from Henson’s life. Maybe take Robert D. Slane’s already completed screenplay for the biopic and cast all the parts with Kermit and the rest. But have a real actor portray Henson.
That would be the most logical and appropriate way of making a Henson biopic, but here are some other ideas, just in case Empire Film Group wants to throw out Slane’s script and start fresh: follow just one night in the life of Henson, specifically the night he went through hundreds of takes of a seemingly simple shot for Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas (see the blooper reel above to see what I’m talking about); follow Henson’s after-life, specifically giving us two-hours of him spinning in his grave due to the poor handling of the Muppets since his death; follow my conspiracy theory that Henson was killed by a CGI assassin; or just have Jonze loosely remake his own puppeteer-based Being John Malkovich with a Henson portrayer in the Cusack role and Kermit in the Malkovich role. OK, I’ll stop before I get any sillier/stupider. Anyway, you see what I’m getting at. Henson really deserves something more than your typical everyday biopic. And it has to be anything but serious.
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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