Kevin Spacey was on hand to introduce the movie he produced two years ago, and which has become the film that won’t come out, and the movie that wouldn’t die. Spacey joked during the introduction, “I’d like to welcome you to our third annual Comic-Con screening… and wait until you see what we have for you next year! More footage! Then we’ll have a DVD release with more extras! And then… we’re going to series!”
It ain’t too far from the truth. This little movie about friends who take a roadtrip from Ohio to Skywalker Ranch in Northern California in order to steal a copy of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace for their friend who is dying of cancer has had two major bonuses that have turned into setbacks. First, George Lucas saw the movie, basically gave his blessing to the film and offered up the chance to use actual Star Wars sound effects. Then the filmmakers got more money, and decided to add some scenes which required reshoots. However, the actors weren’t available, so that affected the setback even more.
One of the many fads for cinephilic YouTubers, perhaps next in popularity after mashups and sweded remakes, is the condensed movie. Actually, thanks to a recent Empire contest, the art of sweding and the art of fitting features into a 60-second time frame is now also a mashed-up fad (though I guess sweding has always involved shortened versions). But while in this day and age any fanboy can do a shortened remake of his or her favorite movie or an abridged recut that breaks a film down to its bare essentials (i.e. its use of the f-word), condensing a film is not necessarily a low art.
Just look at the 76-minute video Academy by R. Luke DuBois, a conceptual artist who works with both audio and visual mediums. A couple of years ago, using a time-lapse process, DuBois crafted this compilation of sped-up versions of Best Picture Oscar winners, which he says “allows us to explore the temporal, formal, and aesthetic progression of the first seventy-five years of the Academy awards by taking each film and compressing, sound and picture, into a single minute.”
Earlier this year, I thought that it was way too late for a Sex and the Citymovie. But then it made a ton of cash, so I guess I was wrong. Still, I’m going to continue similarly thinking it’s too late for another X-Filesmovie. And even if I’m proven wrong and the masses get out to theaters this weekend in search of the truth, I’ll keep on believing that X-Files: I Want to Believeis way past its time.
To celebrate Mulder and Scully’s tardiness, here are 10 other movies that came out too late:
The Godfather Part III(Released in: 1990; Should have been released in: 1976) - Never mind the fact that had this third installment been made years earlier, Sofia Coppola wouldn’t have been cast and therefore wouldn’t have given her terribly infamous performance. The more important matter is that sequels arriving more than a decade after the previous installment are almost always doomed. The longer the wait, the higher the expectations, and the greater the disappointment. Of course, not everyone agrees that it was also too late for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Live Free or Die Hard, Rambo, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, etc. …Read more
You know a once-subcultural event has fatally passed over the point of capitalist no return when a U.S. government agency tries to get in on it. And so, in a far, far corner of the San Diego Convention Center, the U.S. Postal Service has set up a booth, in order to peddle wares to the ever-growing contingent of fanboy stamp collectors. I’m not kidding––Star Wars stamps are a huge deal. The gentleman I spoke to at the booth told me that when this series of stamps were released last year, they almost immediately sold out.
Whilst, technically, you could use a Luke or a Leia to mail your gas bill, due to the shortage of supply these 41 cent treasures are regularly selling for $12-15 on eBay. The booth also displays a number of comic and superhero themed stamps, including a box set of DC comic characters immortalized in postal currency.
Remember how amazing Carrie Fisher looked in that metal bikini when she was chained to Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi? Have you ever thought about the how she looks extra good because her body is in every conceivable way the total opposite of Jabba the Hutt’s body? That’s all I have to say about this photo.
When I found this manga-style Playboy bunny figure on the convention floor at Comic-Con, I had to ask myself, who would actually buy it? Then I realized the answer is someone not all that different than the type of person who would take a picture of it, i.e., me.
I’m not a toy collector, or at least I haven’t been for the past 15 years. So while I have no interest in spending inordinate amounts of money on toys you’re not supposed to play with, there is still something very intriguing about them. I think it might have something to do with the glass case. It’s like those plastic sleeves old comics come in, but times ten. And they’re always really well lit. And, I’ll admit, they’re just sexy.
We will shortly have a bunch of photos from tonight’s Comic-Con show floor preview on our Flickr stream. Stay tuned for a number of detailed posts on various things (Toy porn! Star Wars porn! Lego porn! Vintage poster porn! Postal service porn! Hentai! A couple of things that aren’t porn at all!) that especially turned us on. Above: in a pretty typical example of Comic-Con commerce, a smart man finds a way to milk money from a stupid joke.
Yes, I could have embedded the cool new Watchmentrailer, but the YouTube clips I saw just didn’t do the visuals justice (watch it on Apple.com instead). And sure, I could have shared the long-awaited Twilighttrailer, but it doesn’t actually look all that appealing — I know the books are popular, but the adaptation just looks like The Lost Boysmeets Dawson’s Creek (if you must, view it on Yahoo!). Anyway, I’m sure you’re seeing The Dark Knightthis weekend (unless you have a really lame excuse not to), so you’ll likely see both those trailers, as well as the one for Terminator Salvation, ahead of the film.
So, here’s something better, or at least cuter. It’s also very, very silly. Almost to the point of not being worth its time. Fortunately, that Bat-kid riding around on his Bat-tricycle is a real gem. And the outtake at the end with him running after the junior Joker is even more precious. I’m a sucker for anything involving little kids and movies (unless it’s little kids at the movies or, often, little kids in the movies), in case you couldn’t tell from that Star Wars review I embedded awhile back (and yet, no, I still haven’t seen either Son of Rambowor the kid-made remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark).
For more with kids and Batman costumes, also check out this video, which, if a comment made on this week’s Project Runwaypremiere is true, might actually be of Heidi Klum’s son. And for more videos made by the people who made the one above, check out Wizard Universe.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army has no bad scenes and about five great ones, the best of them as memorable as anything in sci-fi & fantasy cinema. It’s a far out fairy tale, more fun (and more weird) than the first Hellboy, but it lacks the satisfying coherence of a great start-to-finish story like Pan’s Labyrinth or the original Star Wars.
The tone of Hellboy II is set as the film opens with our hero’s adoptive father reading a fairy tale to him. Say goodbye to demons, say hello to elves, trolls and fairies. In this way Hellboy II feels more like Pan’s Labyrinth than the first Hellboy.
There’s a Troll Market scene, which is a long, cool drink of distilled joy. As Hellboy and friends explore the market nestled beneath the Brooklyn Bridge (where else would trolls hang out?) every monster, every activity, every backdrop is eye-popping. It’s reminiscent of the Mos Eisley cantina scene in Star Wars (”I don’t like you either!” and Ben Kenobi cuts off a guy’s arm), but the Troll Market is even better than Lucas’ Mos Eisley. Hellboy’s essentially Han Solo and Chewbacca in one guy, as dangerous as he is funny. …Read more
Whilst, technically, you could use a Luke or a Leia to mail your gas bill, due to the shortage of supply these 41 cent treasures are regularly selling for $12-15 on eBay. The booth also displays a number of comic and superhero themed stamps, including a box set of DC comic characters immortalized in postal currency.
