The art of movie posters

Louis B. Parks has a fun piece on collectible movie posters in the Sunday edition of The Houston Chronicle. Money quote from Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne: "I think the interest (in art posters) has been triggered by the fact they have replaced masterworks... There was a time when many people could buy traditional artists, like a Renoir. Now the prices are prohibitive. So movie posters have taken up some of that role. Especially the Italian and French posters, because they are so beautiful. The artwork on the Italian posters is so stunningly beautiful, they are artworks in themselves."

Mockbusters

From the folks who gave us Snakes on a Train, more of the same, according to The New York Times. Money quote: “I’m just trying to get my films watched. Other people do tie-ins all the time; they’re just better at being subtle about it. Another studio might make a giant robot movie that ties into the Transformers release and call it Robot Wars. We’ll call ours Transmorphers. ”

Heartbreak ahead for The Heartbreak Kid?

According to Nikki Finke, the mega-hyped comedy will post an opening-weekend gross much lower than anyone predicted. On the other hand, it probably will sell more tickets than Feel the Noise.

Not about movies, strictly speaking, but...

As William Goldman told me a few years back: It's very hard to be a satirist at a time when the real world has loonier stuff than you would ever dare make up.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Received a very gracious letter the other day from Russell Crowe, thanking me for the 3:10 to Yuma piece I wrote for Cowboys & Indians magazine. In the same note, however, he politely pointed out that… that… well, that I had screwed up.

Or, as he diplomatically phrased it, that I had included stuff in the article “that was a little askew.”

Specifically: Based on outdated and/or incorrect information I had obtained elsewhere, I made passing reference “the 100-acre spread [Crowe] maintains five hours from Sydney, along the coastal flats of New South Wales, where he raises Brangus cattle.”

Not quite, I’m embarrassed to admit.

“My property,” Crowe wrote, “is now 1360 acres in the main block – with 180 acres of grain land down the river one way and 360 acres of finishing land down the valley the other way. We aren’t what you would call coastal flats, being some 18 to 20 miles inland from the ocean at about 109’ above sea level. Over time what we do on the farm has been refined. We now run a herd of 500 breeders and bulls, having gone into straight Angus about five years ago. We haven’t achieved full certification yet but we follow an organic regime. This month we are turning off about 250kg of restaurant cuts. It’s not a lot, but it’s all hand raised, home range 150 day grain fed or true home range beef and it tastes great.”

I have received letters reporting errors that have made me angry – at myself, not the sender – and I have read others that have made me laugh. But I must admit: This is the first letter of its kind that has made me hungry.

I apologize profusely for the misinformation, Mr. Crowe. But do you think that, next time I’m in Australia, I could cadge a free meal at your place?

The Fast and The Furious, Part 4

According to the Associated Press, a new sequel will reunite Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, who starred in the original 2001 flick that kicked off the franchise. "The story line of Universal's as-yet-untitled installment is being kept under wraps," Borys Kit reports, "but fast cars are involved." Gee, you think?

Episode 4

Here I am talking about Resident Evil: Extinction and 3:10 to Yuma. Not bad.

Good news, bad news for Western fans

The good news: Comanche Moon finally has a definite air date on CBS. The bad news: The six-hour miniseries will be broadcast from 9-11 p.m. ET Dec. 30, Jan. 1 and Jan. 2. Not exactly the sort of showcase you'd expect for a star-studded prequel to Lonesome Dove.

On the other hand, there's nothing but bad news for loyal viewers of Deadwood.

Worst film critic in the world

Worst person: Michael Medved
What? You were expecting maybe David Manning?

More me on YouTube

This actually is the first movie review segment I taped for the Houston Community College cable TV channel. But I delayed posting it until now because, well, it's not that good. Or, to be more accurate, I'm not that good. The student production crew performed far beyond the call of duty, but I'm a real stiff here, wearing a coat that appears two or three sizes too large -- trust me, it looks somewhat better when I'm standing up -- and holding a microphone like I'm ready to launch into a medley of my greatest hits. ("Therrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre'll be no white flag aboooooooove my door.... And I know that my heart will go oooooooooooooooooooooooon....") But what the hell, at least I get to say some more nice things about The Bourne Ultimatum.

Tony Kaye + Johnny Cash + God = Great video

Caught this last spring at the Nashville Film Festival, and should have posted it then. Better late than never, I guess. Director Tony Kaye worked some magic here with Johnny Cash and several of The Man in Black's admirers. And while it's not the best music video ever to showcase Cash, it's mighty damn close.

Darth Vader plays the blues

Another tip of the hat to New Orleans-based pop-culturalist John Guidry for locating yet another mondo-bizzaro video. And let's face it: This is how we really wanted Return of the Jedi to end.

They can smell what The Rock is cooking

According to Steve Mason at Fantasy Moguls, The Game Plan is bodyslamming The Kingdom in the smackdown for the North American box-office title this weekend.

Brain-eating amoeba on the loose

I know this is a seriously tragic story -- but, I'm sorry, I can't help thinking: If Uwe Boll hears about it, we're in for another lousy movie.

At long last: Toronto wrap

Three of my favorite movies at my very favourite film festival.

Solving the mystery of Kiss Me Deadly

Glenn Erickson has sleuthed out the story behind the story of the apparent apocalypse at the end of Kiss Me Deadly, Robert Aldrich's 1955 film noir classic (which influenced, among many other movies, Repo Man and Pulp Fiction).

Bloggus Interruptus

Sorry about the recent lack of postings. The motherboard of my PC went to live with Jesus last Sunday, causing a crash that has left me playing catch-up ever since. Hope to resume regular posts this weekend.

Across the Universe bestrides a generation gap?

I'll be curious to see if there's a generational divide in the critical and audience reaction to Across the Universe as it progresses along its post-Toronto Film Festival platform release. That is: If, like me, you're old enough to have bought Beatles albums when they were first released, while you still were in your teens, will you respond to the film more passionately, more approvingly, than twenty- and thirtysomethings? If you’re not among those of us with a living memory of that music as, quite literally, the soundtrack of what was going on in the world during the turbulent 1960s -- will you love the movie as much as I do, and Roger Ebert does? As Stephen Holden does?

Director Julie Taymor – who, at 54, is scarcely four months younger than I am -- does a magical mystery tour through the Beatles catalogue to fashion an impressionistic musical fantasy about wild times, civil unrest, tradition challenging, envelope pushing and political radicalization at time when Americans were polarized by disparate attitudes about race, sex, drugs and the Vietnam War. And while tight-assed naysayers might be turned off by the very notion of a musical using Fab Four songs to underscore and illuminate both the giddy exuberance and angry discordance of the ‘60s, Taymor, to her credit, is sufficiently smart and serious to give epochal events their full weight, even while offering an audaciously stylized and optimistically celebratory extravaganza that leaves you joyous and grateful. To be sure, some critics are spot-on when they complain that some of Taymor’s matching of music and imagery is literal-minded at best, heavy-handed at worst. Ultimately, however, Across the Universe commands the same response as The Borg: Resistance is futile. It’s a happening, baby, and you should allow it to happen to you.

Westerns rope Emmys

Maybe Westerns really are back in fashion. On the same weekend that 3:10 to Yuma managed to sustain its opening weekend momentum at the theatrical box-office, Broken Trail lassoed a passel of prizes, including the award for Best Miniseries, during the Emmy Awards extravaganza. Robert Duvall was honored as Best Actor in a miniseries, and Thomas Haden Church received the Best Supporting Actor prize. But wait, there's more: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee -- the HBO adaptation of the Dee Brown best-seller -- was honored as Best Made-for-Television Movie.

Life imitates art?

From Variety: Gone Baby Gone -- Ben Affleck's directorial debut, based on the novel by Mystic River author Dennis Lehane -- is gone, gone, gone from the line-up of next month's London Film Festival, due to some unfortunate similarities between the movie's fictional plot and the ongoing case of missing British youngster Madeleine McCann, who disappeared from her Portuguese holiday apartment in early May. It doesn't help much that Madeline O'Brien, the actress cast as the kidnap victim in Affleck's movie, bears a physical resemblance to her British namesake.