Turns out, Ferris wasn’t lying. And not only was he actually too sick to go to school, he was terminally ill with only days left to his life. So, he went out with his best friend and his girlfriend and had as much fun as he could before he died. Meanwhile, his whole community attempted to cure him with the Save Ferris collection campaign. Does the film have a tearjerker of an ending with Ferris in his last moments? Probably not, because Ferris Bueller’s Day Offis not another depressing movie about dying; it’s a positive movie about living life to the fullest.
Man, how shitty would Rooney be feeling now if it turned out Ferris was indeed really, really sick? After watching this recut trailer, I’m wondering if you can actually watch the whole movie as is with the idea that Ferris is secretly terminal. Though it was once my favorite movie, I haven’t seen Ferris in its entirety in a long time, so I can’t be sure. Ignoring certain bits of dialogue about Ferris going off to college and any other hints that he’ll be continuing with his life may be dismissed as either denial or a case of other characters not knowing — a la My Life Without Me. And maybe that post-credits epilogue in which Ferris tells everyone to go home is really the guy trying to get rid of us so we don’t see his demise. …Read more
I’m not expecting to learn anything from Oliver Stone’s Bush biopic, W., but it’s possible that I will. After watching this clip depicting the first encounter of the future President (played by Josh Brolin) and the future First Lady (Elizabeth Banks), I’ve already learned something I didn’t previously know: that Laura was a Democrat, one who even campaigned for ‘68 Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, before meeting the conservative, Barry Goldwater-reading man of her dreams at a backyard barbecue.
Surprisingly, Stone’s portrayal of how George and Laura met is accurate. At least, it is if Wikipedia is to be believed. And I guess that only guarantees me that the setting is correct. The dialogue is probably only based on speculation. Not that I mind. I still love Stone’s The Doors and have no problem with the romantic fabrication of how Jim Morrison and Pam Courson meet in the film, and as a Doors fan, I know how ridiculously false it is.
“Lee Atwater destroyed the business of politics by going negative,” said Terry MacAuliffe yesterday, introducing an Impact Film Festival screening of Stefan Forbes’ Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story. “Democrats don’t fight hard enough. They play tougher on the other side. The bottom line is that these guys will do anything to win.”
Forbes’ film, which caused such a ruckus at its premiere in June at the Los Angeles Film Festival, essentially functions as an ideological ink blot––people see what they want in it. It’s possible (and, based on the director’s comments after the film, probably preferred) to see Boogie Man as a vicious indictment of the political operative who mentored Karl Rove and George W. Bush whilst helping the latter’s father overcome the Iran Contra scandal to win the presidency, destroying Michael Dukakis’ political career in the process. But Forbes, to his credit, also clearly explicates Atwater’s appeal. You might need to put blinders on a bit, but it would be possible to walk away from this film cheering McCain to turn Obama into the new Dukakis
In fact, after the screening, Forbes acknowledged that there are lessons the left could learn from the enemy. “When a fight gets dirty, do you have to join? If you just play defense, you end up looking guilty. You have to turn the attacks into a referendum on the other party.”
It’s been awhile since I put the spotlight on a trailer mash-up, but I haven’t seen too many good ones lately. Have they gone out of fashion? Are internerds tired of watching such and such drama made to look like a comedy and such and such comedy made to look like a thriller? I don’t know, but this fake promo for Home Alone,recut to ape the I Am Legendtrailer, is a evidence that the art of the mash-up should not be lost just yet.
I have one problem with it, though. While it’s as good an idea as the Kill Yoda spot from earlier this year, and it’s initially executed rather successfully with the captions and voice-over, it kinda loses me when Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern show up. And the shot of Kevin where there’s a bunch of people in the background completely ruins the whole idea. Some of the image/audio match-ups are perfect, at least, like the iconic aftershave gag.
I admit it. I loved Steve Guttenberg when I was a kid. And I’ve been anticipating a respectable comeback from the Police Academystar for almost two decades now. But after watching this video from Funny or Die, I’m finally ready to close the door on any hope I might have had for the guy. The faux commercial for “Guttenberg’s Steak House” is lame and unoriginal, and not only did I not laugh, I don’t even understand what’s supposed to be funny about it.
Until now, I kind of believed there was an almost win-win benefit to the viral marketing of oneself. A site like FOD is a perfect venue to showcase whatever talent we’ve been missing from a fallen star who otherwise has been trapped within the confines of the Hollywood system. Someone like Guttenberg, who has been stuck bottom feeding in the lowest of low-rent roles, could use this opportunity to be as brilliant as he can be. Unfortunately, maybe this is as good as he gets these days.
Forty years after the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, protesters are looking to repeat history in Denver this week. In fact there’s even a group calling itself “Recreate ‘68″, and if you’re a true internerd, you’ve already seen the popular YouTube clip of the crowd chanting “Fuck Fox News” at a Fox News correspondent (check out the other side here).
After so many attempts at making parallels between ‘68 and ‘08, I’m a little bored of the nostalgia, and I think the retro attitude is past the point of showing its ineffectiveness. Earlier this year, I groaned at the use of a modern (though really, mostly decade-old) soundtrack in the ‘68 DNC-set animated documentary Chicago 10. Yet two years prior to that film’s 2007 premiere at Sundance, I had already seen a failed attempt to callback ‘68 with the Medium Coolhomage This Revolution, the trailer for which is today’s clip of the day.
Originally, today’s clip was to be of Tom Cruise’s dance from Tropic Thunder. But, because the internet is not the utopia we like to think it is, the leaked footage has been removed from all formats that I’m aware of.* So, instead, let’s have a retro moment and remember what it was like when Tom Cruise had enjoyable dance sequences. When he wasn’t trying too hard to be funny and failing miserably in the process.
Of course, as I’ve seen with some recent comments to an old post about Cruise’s supposed scene stealing role in Tropic Thunder, there are people enjoying his new dance moves, too. But I have to agree with the guys at Vulture who stated right away that he’s just not that funny in the movie. And not only that, but I’ve now seen Tropic Thunder twice, and Cruise’s over the top swearing and dancing only gets worse the more times you see it (fortunately Robert Downey Jr. gets funnier each time). Not only am I shocked that anybody would let him do an encore of the dancing, I’m amazed that it’s the last thing we get from the otherwise decent movie — if ever there was a missed opportunity for a post-credits sequence, this was it.
Sing it with me: Still like that old time Tom Cruise dance. That kind of scene in which he wears no pants. I reminisce about the days of “Joel.” With that “Old Time Rock and Roll.”
*UPDATE: Oh, wait, I found another copy for the curious. Check it out after the jump (spoiler alert).
It seems appropriate to follow yesterday’s footage of Oliver Stone’s W.with the international trailer for Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon. Both films are about leading candidates for worst U.S. President of all time (well, after we discount Harding, Buchanan, Jackson, Pierce and a number of others). And each has a subject that apparently inspired the year’s biggest blockbuster, The Dark Knight.
Weeks ago, in an opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal, mystery author Andrew Klavan basically stated that Batman is George W. Bush in the comic book adaptation. Today, Gabe at Videogum jokingly wrote, “just from watching this trailer, I learned that Richard Nixon was the inspiration for Batman’s voice in the Dark Knight.” Now, the question is, will either of these comparisons help their respective films ride the success of TDK? Oh, and how does Entertainment Weekly’s caricature of McCain as Batman figure in?
After watching the trailer for Oliver Stone’s W. a few weeks ago, I had the impression that the George W. Bush biopic wasn’t going to be an impersonation fest. Of course, we only really got to hear James Cromwell as George H.W. Bush, and he didn’t seem to be bothering to sound like anything other than himself — not that I was expecting him to do Dana Carvey doing the senior Bush, but a bit of a change in voice, in order to make me not feel I’m watching the junior Bush getting yelled at by L.A. Confidential’s Captain Smith, would have been appreciated.
Fortunately, as we can now see in some new behind the scenes footage courtesy of Access Hollywood, Josh Brolin is making an effort to sound like the man he’s portraying. Maybe it’s not so perfect that he’s mistakable for the real deal when you listen to the audio alone, but at least he doesn’t just sound like Josh Brolin, either. The video also gives us additional glimpses of Toby Jones as Karl Rove and Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush. The latter can be seen studying actual footage of the President (and likely the First Lady) and practicing mannerisms, and thankfully providing a tiny bit of playfulness to an otherwise too-serious looking set.
Now, when do we get to hear Banks speak? And, for that matter, when do I get my anticipated impersonations of Condi, Colin, Karl, Don and Dick?
The Wholphin Blog alerts us to the news that Carson Mell will be screening a program of his animated shorts and music videos a week from tomorrow in San Francisco. Mell is producing some of the most cinematic (in terms of narrative scope and point of view) indie animation around right now. His Chonto, a former Wholphin DVD pick, screened at Sundance this year. I saw it when I was on the shorts jury at CineVegas and absolutely loved it, but my fellow jury members had their own favorites and compromise was inevitable. You can watch a trailer for Chonto above. The Chonto issue of Wholphin was also a topic of an episode of FilmCouch.
Bill Murray jumped out of a plane last Friday as part of the opening of the 50th anniversary Chicago Air & Water Show. Surprisingly, there was apparently no kind of self-promotion involved. He wasn’t holding a sign advertising his villainous turn in this fall’s City of Ember, and he didn’t use the opportunity to announce being cast in The Bucket List 2 (which he’s not really in, and which hopefully isn’t even in the works). As far as I can tell, the only reason for Murray’s participation was that he’s originally from the area and he wanted to experience skydiving — even if strapped to an Army parachutist.
So, while there is seemingly nothing necessarily movie related about the jump, the video of Murray soaring through the air (check out the extended footage, lasting almost 6 minutes, here) did make me want to re-watch one of my favorite of his movies, the underrated What About Bob? I’m not sure if the audio on the camera would have picked it up, anyway, but I was hoping Murray would start screaming, “I’m flying! I’m flying!”
What would you do if the Death Star and a bunch of other Galactic Empire vehicles showed up in your city? Obviously, you’d just go about your business. Continue jogging, or flying your kite, or protesting against China. Maybe you’d get out your video camera and observe the invasion, as if the spacecraft or AT-ATs were Goodyear blimps or a Cloverfield monster.
I almost feel guilty asking what the point of this video is, because it’s done so well. It looks real enough that I actually kind of fear for my friends in the Bay area. I love this explanation from Topless Robot: “Over the weekend, the Empire invaded San Francisco. I assume that they were looking for the semi-nearby Skywalker Ranch, in order to kill George Lucas after seeing Clone Wars.”
We lost two great men last weekend, Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes. So, in a timely promotion of the upcoming film Soul Men, which costars Mac and features Hayes in a cameo, MTV has posted four new clips, including the one seen above of Hayes’ appearance (the clip won’t embed properly, so head to MTV to watch). Seeing the two late stars together (with Samuel L. Jackson) somehow doesn’t bring tears to my eyes, but I guess their deaths still haven’t hit me. Perhaps when Soul Men actually arrives in theaters November 14, or maybe when they’re included in the memoriam montage at the Oscars, I’ll appreciate this scene more.
While this clip is relatively short, the other three at MTV.com are pretty substantial, especially considering The Weinstein Co. (via Dimension) still haven’t released a trailer for the movie. My favorite is the first clip, which features an entire performance from Mac and Jackson at a country western bar. Of all the cool scenes that Samuel L. has been in, this one of him line dancing takes the cake. He may not be swearing or beating the crap out of anyone, but he’s the only person I’ve ever seen that doesn’t make the dance seem lame. It almost makes up for his other clip this week, in which he makes The Spiritlook really lame.
Trailer remakes seem to be all the rage now — the Dark Knightwith kids clip I posted last month is getting a lot of mileage lately — and this week Indy Mogul premiered its parody of the full Pineapple Expresstrailer, for a fake movie titled “Banana Express.” Here’s the quick synopsis: a gorilla (Seth Rogen) and his banana dealer (James Franco) go on the run after the former witnesses a zookeeper murdering a fellow gorilla.
It may not be the funniest thing you see this week, but you have to give them credit for attempting to “ape” the Pineapple Express trailer shot for shot (Indy Mogul links to the original trailer and welcomes you to compare the two videos) and for including their own parody of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” titled “Banana Peels & Bombs”, which can be downloaded from Indymogul.com. Think you could do better? In 36 hours? I’m anxious to see other trailer remakes and parodies, so bring ‘em on.
Despite my negative review of Jay Delaney’s documentary Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie, which screened earlier this year at SXSW, I can’t help but feel bad today for the film’s subjects, Bigfoot enthusiasts and would-be hunters Dallas Gilbert and Wayne Burton. They’re the ones who wanted to go down in history as a famous research team. As Wayne says in today’s clip, they even had a joke that God put Bigfoot on this earth strictly for them to try to catch him.
Unfortunately, Dallas and Wayne seem to have been beaten to the punch. Reportedly, two men have found the body of a Bigfoot in Georgia, and they’re set to prove their discovery at a press conference this Friday to be held in Palo Alto, California. Last weekend, Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi (who appears in Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie, investigating the findings of Dallas and Wayne) went down to Georgia to see the body and since that time it has been undergoing DNA tests and other scientific study. For Dallas and Wayne’s sake, I hope the find isn’t legit, and the guys can keep on holding onto the American Dream.
In this episode: TIFF 08 highlights, is The Fall too weird (or not weird enough?), and Michelle Byrd of IFP tells us what to look forward to at Independent Film Week.
