Earlier today I got a takedown notice for a certain image, that I found by searching Google, that I believed to be the Special Edition DVD set for the Dark Knight. I thought I’d share the text of the take-down notice with you. enjoy:
VIA ELECTRONIC EMAIL
Dear Abuse Manager,
Screenhead is offering images from The Dark Knight consisting of the Batpod, and DVD case art work. I have a good faith belief that such content is not authorized by Warner Bros., its agent, or the law and therefore infringes Warner Bros.’ rights.
I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Please confirm that you have taken the appropriate action at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter and please advise should you have any questions or require any additional information.
Thank you.
I’ll leave it up to you to determine whether that confirms the existence of a Batpod DVD set or not…(the bold words were not bold in the original email if that helps.)
It is a little strange that a person working for such a huge production company would make such a mistake as claiming that I was associated with both of the sites in question though.
He was nice about it though, that’s a nice change.
(The above image is not the one previously posted here…this one is legit)
The typographer in me is jumping for joy over this Bell-font teaser poster for Oliver Stone’s W. I hope to see them lined up across the marquee walls soon. The Bushisms are also a great send up of the commander in thief.
Do you think this type of all-type movie advertisement sheet could set a trend for future movie posters? No pictures, but with more font-laced words dedicated to more than just the film’s title and a tag line.
Fun Extra:You can download the font regularly used for movie poster credits here.
Distributed by QED International andLionsgate Films, Oliver Stone’s W. starring Josh Brolin - George W. Bush (In the Valley of Elah, 2007), Elizabeth Banks - Laura Bush (Catch Me If You Can, 2002), James Cromwell - Bush Sr. (The General’s Daughter, 1999), Ellen Burstyn - Barbara Bush (Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, 1974), Thandie Newton - Condoleezza Rice (Flirting, 1991), Jeffrey Wright - Colin Powell (Syriana, 2005), Scott Glenn - Donald Rumsfeld (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991), Toby Jones - Karl Rove (Nightwatching, 2007) Ioan Gruffud - Tony Blair (Black Hawk Down, 2001), and Richard Dreyfuss - Dick Cheney (Jaws, 1975) will be released this October.
We’ve all heard the over-used “discussion topic” of Grape-nuts: Neither Grapes nor Nuts. Here is what it looks like in movie form.
Thomas McCarthy’s The Visitor is categorized as comedy/drama; a binary genre for a film that does not quite qualify as comedy, but isn’t as gut-wrenching as most dramas.
The plot synopsis could easily go either way. Richard Jenkins plays an unmotivated college professor in Connecticut who comes home to his New York apartment to find illegal immigrants have taken up residence. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? A director could do wonders with a situation like this. But it isn’t funny at all. Instead we glimpse the careful steps and constant worry of non-citizens trying to build a life in the U.S. Haaz Sleimann and Danai Jekesai Gurira play the trespassing couple, and while the three characters establish the awkwardness of the situation well, the anxiety beneath it creates a tension throughout the film.
The audience must confront the hotly-debated controversy of immigration from the perspective of immigrants and those who care for them. This character-driven drama beautifully develops Walter, the slacker college professor, into a passionate, caring individual who breaks away from his black and white view of the world to embrace his own hypocrisy and weakness.
In spite of the emotional overtones and controversial topics, don’t expect to cry too hard. McCarthy keeps things light and bearable. The actors are mighty, but this was not the heavy tearjerker I expected.
Funny. Moulin Rogue! (2001) is playing in the background and lo and behold the first trailer for the new film by Baz Luhrmann after seven years is right HERE!
It looks like a cross between Tarsem’s The Fall (2008) and the Nicolas Roeg masterpiece Walkabout (1971- “Just about the most different movie you’ll ever see.”) Throw in some sensational romance with Hugh Jackman (The Prestige, 2006 - currently at #88 in the IMDB) and Nicole Kidman (Dead Calm, 1989), add operatic music, shake it up, and I’m there!
“We should be lovers!”
“We can’t do that…”
Whoops…got carried away. AUSTRALIA opens November 14th.
Columbia Pictures and Neal Moritz, the producer of Cruel Intentions (1999) and I am Legend (2007), have secured the rights with Scholastic Media’s Deborah Forte to make the R.L. Stine penned Goosebumps franchise into a theatrical feature. It’s like Rod Serling’sThe Twilight Zone for kids. Executive Producer Andrea Giannetti (Vantage Point, 2008) will oversee the production. The release date is set at 2010.
The popular Goosebumps book series, much of it written and sold throughout the 1990s, holds second place as the most financially successful in the young adults demographic. It was published in over 32 languages and has sold more than 300 million copies worldwide. It was beaten by another youth-oriented serial written by some Brit named J.K. Rowling who specialized in wizards or something (supposedly 5 out of 8 blockbuster films were also adapted).
My reservations on an adapted Goosebumps movie is that it will be based on a Horrorland revision (unread by me) that includes many characters from previous plots. Between evil ventriloquist dummies, a preordained picture-taking camera, possessed Halloween masks, plant zombies, mutating green blood, and a summer camp that enslaves children to wash down a blob with teeth; I hope the filmmakers don’t bloat the film with too many creatures.
Why the invested interest? As a kid, I had difficulty being engaged by less than compelling material outside of Beverley Cleary’s Ramona serial. Unless the characters were personable and a real sense of doom was preordained, my mind drifted to more haunted thoughts of my imagining that proved more enticing. At the age of 7, I was introduced to the Goosebumps series, the closest in horror literature I could obtain at the time, by an antique dealer who I never saw again. As an early reader, I am in debt to R.L. Stine. Throughout grades four and seven, I read front to back over seventy Goosebumps novels. My father used to bribe me with a new Goosebumps book ($5.50 each) every week I completed all of my homework.
The covers of the books were a wonder to behold. A vibrant, ominous painting visualized what was just as immediate and unnerving as when I ventured the horror shelves at the video store (Images of the grinning Chucky Doll entranced me at the age of five). The Goosebumps cover illustrations were all by Tim Jacobus. You can read about his process in this short illustration tutorial.
While I’m on the subject of illustration, it has come to my attention that the U.S. House and Senate is introducing an Orphan Works Act of 2008 and the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008, which deprive copyright ownership from working illustrators whose livelihood depends on acquiring paid permission to use said images. I am calling out to U.S. citizens to take action and oppose this thieving atrocity by e-mailing this form to congress. As a practicing illustrator myself, you’d be doing me a favor.
Back to Goosebumps. In the mid-nineties, the Fox Kids Network in collaboration with Scholastic Publishing produced a Goosebumps television series featuring an adapted episode in a half-hour format. Another like-minded show released much earlier was Eerie, Indiana (1991) that included episodes directed by Joe Dante (Innerspace, 1987). Being a hardcore Goosebumps fan at the time, I taped almost every episode and now return to favorites as a rare guilty pleasure. Perhaps the upcoming film could be made in an episodic fashion - it’s Creepshow for kids!
The first season of the show was effective because it focused on character development (sometimes performed well by child actors - Kathryn Long as Carly Beth comes to mind - and sometimes not) and executed subtle special effects within a reasonable television production. Even future stars like Ryan Gosling (from Say Cheese and Die! to Half Nelson, 2006) and Hayden Christensen (from Night of the Living Dummy III to Shattered Glass, 2003) cut their teeth into the series. Enter seasons two and three as the faithfulness to the original stories and production quality gradually ebbed to a pitiful low. The second the show introduced CGI effects, it was all over.
Cartoon Network brought the show back for a limited time last year. Check out the awesome Grindhouse-inspired tv spot. I wish the original episodes were shown in this rough, scratchy format.
Once in every four months, I google to see whether a Goosebumps: Season One Box Set is on the horizon. Unfortunately, Fox sold the rights to Buena Vista who have peddled out some of worse Goosebumps episodes individually on separate DVDs. Sometimes Disney is pure evil. Hopefully the upcoming film will bring the franchise back to public conscious and the damned series will be released properly. I read that Columbia is looking for a writer for their Goosebumps movie: I nominate myself.
Watching the movie theater screen compress vertically before Standard Operating Procedure began, my heart quickened: this is the first time one of my top three documentary filmmakers has shot a film with an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio. S.O.P. follows the best examples of documented journalism from last year from Charles Ferguson’sNo End In Sight to Tony Kaye’sLake of Fire. The film has also won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Detective-Director Errol Morris (Gates of Heaven, 1978 and Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leutcher Jr., 1999) examines the shocking exposé of the Abu Ghraib torture-photography scandal with a dogged determination to simply analyze and discover the limited truth of the photos themselves. By taking the photographs, former MP Ken Davis figures that “(the soldiers) weren’t trying to hide anything”. G.I. Javal Davis reasons that “if you consider yourself dead, you can do all the shit you have to”.
The interviewed subjects, photographed harmoniously by Robert Chappell, are young American soldiers, underlings dominated by a handful of superiors in the Army division. The most photographs taken (as well as staged) were by Sergeant Charles Graner who was not allowed to participate in the interviews while being serving his sentence. Described, sometimes in awe, by others in his unit, Graner, seen in odd photos and video clips, comes across as a depraved and vile bully. So manipulative was Graner that he directed his impregnated girlfriend G.I. Lynndie England, who in interviews is surprisingly articulate and even empathetic, to pose with the abused imprisoned men in photos that sealed her infamy. Lynndie’s situation reminds me of an episode from Morris’ short-lived First Person series (2000) about Sondra London, a woman deeply in love with a serial killer. Despite the NO PHOTOGRAPHY signs, the presence of cameras instigated the acts of human degradation: why leash a man if it wasn’t a photo opportunity?
Many of the grotesque scenarios such as the human pyramid, the leashed man, and Gilligan (nicknamed by Graner) standing on the box with electric wire attached to his fingers came to be are testified, debunked and measured by evidence. Specialist Sabrina Harmen, one of the photographers, explains that the wires connected to Gilligan were not connected to electricity. Gilligan was told otherwise as a psychological means of depriving the man sleep. The motive for Sabrina’s picture-taking is explained away as the gathering of damning proof: “No one would believe the shit that goes on here”. Sabrina, at one point, contradicts herself when she recalled, “(getting) to laugh and throw corn at (the prisoners). We (didn’t) hit them, that’s a plus.”
These kids fresh out of high school were ordered by decorated superiors to follow remorseless commands that included, “You are not to release anybody”. Fathers, sons, and nephews were abducted, mostly on false charges, in the Abu Ghraib prison where the cell block population (6000) had overrun maximum capacity.
Morris uses highly elaborate dramatizations that emphasis the journalistic inquiries visually. Going the extra mile, he employs nightmarish production designs by Steve Hardie inside the prisons with ever changing harsh lighting and lens filters, saturated colors, dutch angles, and thoughtfully-composed cinematography by wunderkind Richard Robertson (Natural Born Killers, 1994 and The Aviator, 2004). Some critics (I’m looking at you, Michael Philips) have complained that these stylistic choices detract from the grounded journalistic intent. I found the surrealistic depictions do not distract, but enhance the emotional reality of the Abu Ghraib horrors more deeply. The imaginations of viewers are more lucid and strange than images that depict reality unfiltered. Morris contrasts the central-aligned photographs with blown-up and moving interpretations of the events to arrest the subject matter more vividly.
The hell of Abu Ghraib is shown with close-ups of rats, snarling dogs with sharp teeth, walls and floors awash in blood scraped out of hands and knees, nightmarish large bags for prisoner’s heads, a bouncing Nerf football, and ants so large Sabrina claims, “(they’ll) carry the family dog away and give you the finger”. Images are hard to forget such as a dirty puddle that reflects upside-down a beaten, masked Iraqi prisoner cowering as a large military steps and lifts off the liquid menacingly. The video made of the naked Iraqi prisoners being positioned as the human pyramid is presented through a hazy vertical slit of darkness as though we were peering through a keyhole.
The only attacks made to the commanders in higher office who designed the means of torture are the accounting for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s slipshod inspection of Abu Ghraib. The fact that the U.S. soldiers involved in the debacle get reprimanded and the powers that be go unpunished. There’s a subtler jab when a recreation of Saddam Hussein’s fingerprint are recorded; seen slightly out of focus is hanging the infamous portrait of Ghoul W. Bush grinning dumbly. Morris’s The Fog of War (his long overdue Oscar win in 2003) slyly juxtaposed Robert Strange McNamara’s account for the unnecessary and brutal war in Vietnam with the unspoken one taking place in Iraq now.
Over his career, Morris has tapped into some of the most influential composers of the last few decades. Having worked with Philip Glass on numerous occasions, Morris has remarked that Glass does “existential dread better than anyone”. Caleb Sampson, who collaborated brilliantly with Morris until he tragically took his life, composed some exhilarating tracks that were simultaneously enthusiastic and laced with despaired. S.O.P. marks Morris’ first collaboration with Danny Elfman whose contribution to defining the term Burtonesque is without parallel. After venturing in the experimental and classical music venue with his opera Serenada Schizophrana, Elfman has grown aesthetically as a musician. His score, like all of Morris’ films, is cold, sad, and somewhat celebratory. Most of all, it is chilling.
Errol Morris has written at length about the nature of photographic truth in essays for The New York Times. The objective is to reason with what a photograph depicts and ignore what can only be assume exists outside the frame, which is unknown. During the testimonies, Morris allows us to hear his inquiries sparsely. Specialist Megan Ambuhl, who is now married to Graner after he sold-out Lynddie like Ivan Nagy to Heidi Fleiss, describes her following of the torture methods meant to soften prisoners before interrogation such as sleep deprivation, vocal humiliation in the showers, and burning with cigarettes, Morris then asks sincerely, “did any of this seem weird?”
Heroism is hard to muster whether in its in a foreign war zone or trapped in an enclosed space with corrupt comrades upon whom you depend for survival. MP Jeremy Sivits, a self-described “nice guy” who was cornered by Graner to take the human pyramid photo and did so because “(he didn’t) want to get people angry at (him).” Sivits was one of many soldiers who served time in prison for the debacle. Many note-worthy details in photos publicly seen and unseen before S.O.P. premiered include the following text written with a black marker on a naked prisoner’s thigh: “I AM A RAPEIST.” Watching the film made me recount a fact that is as enraging as it is not sensational: Had the Bush Administration not coerced the US into occupying Iraq, none of this would have happened.
UPDATE (May 15, 2008):
George W. Bush just said in an interview with Politico writer Mike Allen:
“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”
The psychopath in office should have also appeased the Iraqi victims with his pathetic sacrifice.
Some movies have one great scene lost in a bunch of not so great ones. Then there are some movies where it is a challenge to pick one over the others. Matinee falls in the latter category. It was directed by Joe Dante (Yes! I made three references to Gremlins all in one week!) who specializes in unveiling very dark things under the guise of campy B-movies. This is perhaps the most idealistic autobiography that Dante has ever realized.
Set in Small Town America - 1962, the film affectionately follows Lawrence Woolsey played by the versatile John “This is what happens when you fuck someone in the ass!” Goodman as a schlock independent filmmaker who showcases gimmicky monster movies with great bravado. He is a low-rent version of William Castle, the mastermind behind Vincent Price vehicles like House on Haunted Hill (1959) and The Tingler (1959), a movie that shocked theater patrons with electric buzzers in their seats courtesy of Castle.
Woolsey’s next science fiction film MANT!, a loving homage by Dante to Kurt Neumann’s The Fly (1958), uses the Tingler Effect and other tricks to offer his audience a unique experience. Releasing an exploitation film about atomic radiation mutations when Americans feared the dropping of the bomb at the peak of the Cuban Missile Crisis is to Wollsey’s mind “what better time to release a horror movie!” Wollsey is not a cynical man; he genuinely loves making movies and entertaining people, within the confines of his capacity as a showman (the term ‘hack’ should be reserved for Michael Bay).
Here is the cheerfully made preview of Woolsey’s upcoming MANT! Profiled like Alfred Hitchcock, the cigar-chomping Woolsey presents his film with the same dry humor and zest that The Master of Suspense did with his trailers. The way Woolsey presents the magazines that prove his cheap horror film is based on scientific fact is priceless. Watching this scene, compared to the bottom-line advertising tactics of films over the past few decades, one realizes filmmakers like Woolsey, whose gusto approach to making movies fun, are a dying breed. The only recent example I can think of is Rodriguez and Tarantino’s Grindhouse (2007). Dante never condescends but celebrates Woolsey the same way Tim Burton did for Ed Wood (1994) - Ed D. Wood Jr., director of Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) and Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love (1971), was recognized as the ‘worst filmmaker of all time’, which does deserve some reverence.
When I wrote that some films with great scenes are hard to choose from, case in point, here’s another one from Matinee. Woolsey is accompanied by Gene, a young man not a mile away from myself, and learns some of the showman’s philosophy of movie-making. I still remember by heart the story told by Woolsey about the caveman who paints a Woolly Mammoth on his wall and figures: “Wait a minute! People are coming to see this thing! Let’s make it good!” A prime motive for how going for the jugular is more effective than subtlety (sometimes!). The scene continues as Woolsey projects the point of view of any enthusiastic filmgoer’s journey through the matinee lobby and into the movie theater. Sometimes when I open the doors of a movie house with great anticipation I am inclined to call out, “Here I am! What have you got for me!”
For me, Woolsey represents a life path that is in considerable reach: an enthusiastic moviemaker touring far and wide in the pursuit of entertaining people. Another bonus is being accompanied by a sexy dry-wit like the one Woolsey takes along for the ride played by Cathy Moriarty (Raging Bull, the REAL Best Picture Winner of 1980). Other idealistic life paths include being a productive yet reclusive painter living in a New York apartment I could barely afford, or becoming a womanizing journalist who drinks too many highballs. This charming comedy about young love and B-Movies is highly recommended. Though I have been deprived of the experience for now, I figure, like Lawrence of Arabia and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Matinee would benefit viewing on the big screen.
The second trailer from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has somehow founds it’s way online. And by the looks of it, this could wind up being the best yet. Indy 4 hits theaters on May 22.
The movie adaptation of the hit US TV Show will be shown for the first time in Leicester Square on May 12, more than two weeks before it gets its premiere in the Big Apple.
All four of the protagonists of the TV show will be at the London launch.
As to why the film would launch in London instead of New York? Columnist Elizabeth Snead says “There are so many fashion merchandising tie-ins with the film that I guess London is seen as vital to the success of the campaign. The American economy and dollar are so weak right now that the studio seems to realise that London was the place to be.”
New Line, however says that the New York launch is just as important as the London launch… Duh! The movie is based there, and it is a hit “US” TV show after all. It still doesn’t answer why New York comes second.
I guess it’s just another case of how money can influence nuances in movies as well as the way they are marketed.
Entertainment Weekly has published an article which covers the apparent dispute between Edward Norton and his director Louis Leterrier with Marvel over the length and direction of the movie. Marvel wants a 120 minute action-packed hit, and Norton and Leterrier want a 135 minute thoughtful epic. Marvel won and stories of the dispute leaked.
Here’s Norton’s official statement (in part) :
“Every good movie gets forged through collaboration, and different ideas among people who are all committed and respect the validity of each other’s opinions is the heart of filmmaking.
Regrettably, our healthy process, which is and should be a private matter, was misrepresented publicly as a ‘dispute,’ seized on by people looking for a good story, and has been distorted to such a degree that it risks distracting from the film itself, which Marvel, Universal and I refuse to let happen.
It has always been my firm conviction that films should speak for themselves… our focus has always been to deliver the Hulk that people have been waiting for and keep the worldwide love affair with the big green guy going strong.”
Funny. Moulin Rogue! (2001) is playing in the background and lo and behold the first trailer for the new film by Baz Luhrmann after seven years is right 
