We feel really bad about spotlighting Michael Jackson in three spots on our “Creepiest Kids’ Movies List” yesterday. If we had known he was going to die of cardiac arrest within hours of that post’s publication, we would have maybe limited his presence to one included film, if any at all.
To make up for the dishonor, we now would like to spotlight the connection he had to cinema through his collaborations with great filmmakers. Due to his talent, success and financial status, he was able to work with a number of important directors, both in movies and in music videos. Some were already prominent when MJ hired them; others were strictly music videomakers who would go on to significant feature filmmaking careers. Some collaborations were also better than others, so we’ve ranked them in order from worst to best. …Read more
Throwing a wrench into the WGA talks that neither side really needed, SAG has started talking shit about the recently-cemented DGA/AMPTP deal. SAG’s Alan Rosenberg wrote a letter to his guild warning them that the publicized details of the DGA pact were too vague to put much faith in, and that the pact may not actually be a victory on the digital download front. The DGA’s Michael Apted responded (and I’m paraphrasing), “If you don’t know the details, how come you’re sending letters, gettin’ all up our shit?”
Variety has scant new details on Mark Romanek’s exit from Universal’s Wolfman remake: in this case, “creative differences” seem to translate to “money.”
Oliver Stone’s not just talking about making a George Bush movie––he’s now found someone to fully finance the thing, so that it can be fast tracked into production by April, and possibly in theaters in time for the November election. Chris previously did a double take on this project here.
Bloody-Disgusting is passing along the rumor that Emily Blunt has signed on to star opposite Benicio DelToro in a remake of the 1930s Universal horror classic, The Wolfman. I guess I should be really upset about this. As I’ve said before, I’ve got a huge weakness for the monster movies of the 1930s, which, for me, hold up as well as they do primarily as star vehicles. I’m the biggest fangirl for Boris Karloff, but Lon Chaney Jr, who played the original Wolfman, is my second favorite. Karloff and Bela Lugosi could be inhumanly creepy, but Chaney had a regular-guy thing which is maybe more interesting in retrospect–– his transformation into the monster is less campy and more legitimately scary, and as a whole, the film feels much more modern than many from the era. I think Benicio will probably bring something very different to the table, which may not be a good thing.
***Music video icon Mark Romanek (see his infamous clip for Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” above) is set to direct Ben Stiller in a comedy called In Deep. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Dreamworks is resurrecting the project, which crashed and burned in the late 80s (!) when the prodution company behind it went bankrupt. Steve Conrad has been hired to do a “Page One rewrite/reconceive” on the ancient script, which has something to do with unpaid parking tickets.
***In another high-profile partnership, Frank Miller is turning Raymond Chandler’s noir Trouble is My Business into a star vehicle for Clive Owen. Miller and Owen are apparently BFF since Sin City, and with Trouble Miller will be taking cues from that project, shaping the script around narration to be delivered by Owen.
***Michael Apted, the mastermind behind the 7 Up documentary series, will direct the next Narnia pic.
***The Los Angeles Film Festival will screen a program of celebrity-directed shorts this Sunday to celebrate Live Earth Day, including clips helmed by Casey Affleck and Madonna.
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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Throwing a wrench into the WGA talks that neither side really needed, SAG has started talking shit about the recently-cemented DGA/AMPTP deal. SAG’s Alan Rosenberg wrote a letter to his guild warning them that the publicized details of the DGA pact were too vague to put much faith in, and that the pact may not actually be a victory on the digital download front. The DGA’s Michael Apted responded (and I’m paraphrasing), “If you don’t know the details, how come you’re sending letters, gettin’ all up our shit?”
