I’m going with a continuation of yesterday’s Bloggery, because the death of John Hugheshas hit my generation very hard, and on the day after we’re getting more lists and more memories, including one particularly popular eulogy from the filmmaker’s pen pal, which is shedding some light onto Hughes’ reasons for leaving Hollywood.
One thing that I’m finding interesting about the reactions to Hughes’ death is that he’s yet another example of how, as David Poland wrote back in June, “death is the ultimate disinfectant.” Not that many people stopped loving his ’80s teen movies after the man stopped directing, but the world didn’t quite respect him as much after he focused on writing and producing such family fare as Baby’s Day Out, the Beethovenmovies and some unnecessaryremakes for Disney.
Hughes’ death may not be the huge media story that Michael Jackson’s was, but given his contribution toward the definition of the ’80s, his decline in the ’90s and his association with Macauley Culkin, it’s not a huge stretch for all those “first MJ, now…” comments going around. When you think of ’80s music, you likely think of MJ. Likewise, when you think of ’80s movies, you think of JH. At least we still have the most important ’80s TV icon. But we might want to say our prayers for Bill Cosby…
Check out the further tributes and such from the film blogosphere after the jump:
Meanwhile, Dimension head Bob Weinstein admitted at the Media and Money conference yesterday that he and Harvey would pretty much be shit out of luck if they were trying to fund The Weinstein Co. today. Fortunately for them, they borrowed enough when they could and will continue to make it last for awhile. He also fueled the Weinstein vs. Rudin fire by taking a shot at Rudin’s Oscar chances now that he’s off The Reader.
20-year-old porn star Sasha Grey (Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge) has been cast as the lead in Steven Soderbergh’s prostitute pic, The Girlfriend Experience. A fan of the films of Godard, Bertolucci and Breillat, she reportedly told Adult Video News that she’s honored to get to work for an “auteur” like Soderbergh.
Steve Carell has been typecast into another “clueless-man” role, this time as the titular French soldier in Brigadier Gerard, based on the Arthur Conan Doyle stories set during the Napoleonic wars.
Marvel Studios has signed a three-year deal with Raleigh Manhattan Beach Studios to shoot Iron Man 2, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America and The Avengers at the Southern California facility’s soundstages. But hopefully it’s only the interiors of the latter two movies that will be filmed there. Despite my support for Hollywood productions to shoot locally in the Los Angeles area, particularly in these hard economic times, The Avengers better be set in New York City or else feature a team led by Hawkeye.
Steve Carell will officially be back as Maxwell Smart in a Get Smart sequel for Warner Bros., where the actor has just signed a first-look deal to develop projects he’ll produce, write and/or star in under the name Carousel Productions. Partnering with him are a couple of old friends and collaborators, including fellow former Daily Show correspondent Vance DeGeneres.
For those Americans becoming impatient with the wait for Election Day, the president of Lionsgate suggests they “vote with their box office dollars three weeks before they vote at the actual ballot box” by seeing Oliver Stone’s W when it opens October 17.
After disappointing at the box office, TV’s episodic continuation of Star Wars: Clone Wars seems to be a hit for Cartoon Network. Yet the viewership for the series was technically less than the amount of people who saw the movie (not taking into account all the multiple tickets purchased by hardcore fanboys) and contrary to what Variety’s headline seems to indicate, it didn’t even give Cartoon Network its best ratings ever.
The best time for a Get Smartmovie would have been the late ’60s, when the original television series was still on the air. In fact, there was a theatrical Get Smart film in the works during the run of the show, but it was canceled when the theatrical release of Munster, Go Home!bombed at the box office. Many years later, in 1980, a Get Smart feature titled The Nude Bomb was released to theaters, but it also performed poorly.
Now we’re getting a remake version starring Steve Carell in the role that was so iconically defined by the late Don Adams. Will it do the show justice? Reportedly the budget was $80 million, a significant amount of which was probably put towards pointless effects. But the best thing Warner Bros. could have done with that money is to give a large amount to series creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, who probably even today could churn out a better script than Failure to Launchscribes Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember.
Despite its lack of original Get Smart talent, though, it could still be marginally funny. Yet the real problem is that it may be too outdated and obsolete for audiences to care. In the four decades since the show went off the air, there has been plenty of similar-themed movies, from spy spoofs to films with bumbling heroes. The following ten titles are the best evidence of why this new Get Smart movie is completely unnecessary:
The first half of this week saw a drought as far as new trailers are concerned. But when it rains it pours, and by the end of day Thursday the internet had received a relative monsoon of debuts, including the now-official release of the Sex and the City trailer, which Karina prematurely peeked at last Friday, and another awesome ad for Iron Man.
But the truly noteworthy trailers had to be those for three eagerly anticipated comedies, two of which we are seeing for the first time. First, there’s The Love Guru, which stars Mike Myers as his first originally created comedic character in more than ten years. Unfortunately, it kind of makes me wish he would just keep making Austin Powers movies. Maybe I just don’t get it, and maybe I should just accept that a Myers comedy is less about it and more about him. But it doesn’t look that funny. And I’m a person who can appreciate the making fun of Extreme and the parodying of Bollywood and the ridiculing of little people.
With Steve Carell hitting theaters today as a modern-day Noah to Morgan Freeman’s God in Universal’s biblical gamble Evan Almighty, I thought it would fun to look back on a time when Mr. Carell made a living by playing devil’s advocate … almost literally. In this clip of Carell and Stephen Colbert’s recurring Daily Show segment Even Stephvens, the two breakout stars debat Islam vs. Christianity. Colbert, who is a practicing Catholic in his personal life, argues for the Christian God. Carell’s response? “Stephen, what part of ‘there is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet’ don’t you understand?”
With all of the effort to sell Evan to faith-based groups, you’ve got to wonder why this little artifact hasn’t sparked a totally overblown backlash.
***Proving that anyone who’s ever had a beer with Judd Apatow is going to have no trouble finding work this summer, Freaks and Geeks star John Francis Daley (seen above) has sold a script to New Line called The $40,000 Man. Per Variety, it’s about a “legendary astronaut and true American hero who finds himself horribly injured in a car accident and rebuilt by the government to be a bionic man, on a budget of $40,000 — which makes him not that bionic.”
***In other dude-com news, Jack Black and Todd Phillips are teaming up to develop something called Man-Witch for Warner Brothers. The pitch sounds something like School of Rock meets The Craft, but with Jack Black in the Neve Campbell part. Sexy!
***Steve Carell, Daniel Craig, and J.J. Abrams are among the notables who have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for 2007.
***Oh good! A Wild Hogs sequel is on the way! Your dad’s half-wit friend will be so pleased.
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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I’m going with a continuation of 
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