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Pogledao sam sinoć u Koloseju KNIGHT AND DAY Jamesa Mangolda, sa Cruiserom i Cameron Diaz. Moram da priznam, spadam među one koji misle da Cruisera nikada ne treba otpisati ali ovaj film bi se mogao smatrati njegovim najvećim promašajem u karijeri. Kad kažem promašajem, ne mislim da mu je ovo najgori film, daleko od toga, čak moda neće biti komercijalno najpropaliji, no bez ikakve sumnje ovo će biti u kreativnom smislu najimpotentnije delo koje je snimio od trenutka kada j postao jedna od najvećih zvezda u istoriji Holivuda.

Još od kraja osamdesetih, Cruise je snimao filmove koji su bili event movies prvog reda, uvek sa zanimljivim konceptom ili rediteljem, jasnom ambicijom da se izdvoje po nečemu od ostatka ponude a KNIGHT AND DAY pre svega ne nudi ništa od toga. Štaviše ove godine, ima i rivala Luketicev KILLERS sa Ashtonom i Katherine koji je paradoksalno maltene duplo jeftiniji i bolji, iako nije ništa naročito.

KNIGHT AND DAY ni u jednom svom aspektu osim kastovanja Cameron Diaz koja izgleda zaista zastrašujuće nije partikularno loš, iako se Diazici po problematičnosti približavaju akcione sekvence koje su u najboljim deonicama neupačetljive a u najlošijim toliko opterećene CGIijem da devalvuiraju čak i neke dobro zamišljene ideje.

Cruise je u principu kroz ceo film na nivou, i šteta je što ne igra u nekom boljem materijalu jer iako ne pokazuje ništa novo, ovaj film pokazuje da i ono što je njegov uobičajni schtick još uvek može da prođe ako je smešteno u dobar materijal.

Ipak, manje važan apsekat filma KNJIGHT AND DAY je to što je bezveze, suvišan, nekonkurentan.

Mnogo je zanimljivije to kako se Cruise opredelio da baš njega radi i kako je u izboru između SALTa, LOST FOR WORDS i ovoga izabrao. SALT je takođe sada u bioskopima, i baš me zanima kako će stajati u poređenju sa KNIGHT AND DAY (inače sudeći po trejleru oba filma imaju jedan potpuno identičan stunt). Kakav god bio, što ću znati uskoro, SALT deluje kao potentniji high concept od ovog ponovnog tumačenja MR AND MRS SMITHa.

Kao što me Cruiser čudi, čudi me i studio koji je sa ovakvim nekonkurentnim filmom ušao u letnju arenu koja je donela dosta mlake filmove i samo nekoliko pravih hitova (mahom namenjenih deci) ali i poneke kao što je INCEPTION koji su se značajno izdvojili kvalitetom, pa na kraju i gledanošću.

Besmislenost ovog filma u najavi se ne može prikriti čak ni time što ga je režirao James Mangold koji spada među "ozbiljne reditelje" ali je među njima ipak drugopozivac i teško je verovati da je Cruiseu na bilo koji način impozantno da radi sa njim, naročito kad je do sada već overio Kubricka, Scorsesea, Stonea i Tony Scotta.

No, najtužnije od svega, iako nije reč o nekom sramotnom ostvarenju, narod je masovno izlazio sa ionako prilično prazne projekcije, i to koliko mi se čini bez namere da se vrate unutra. To me je malo zbunilo jer film uprkos svemu nije dosadan, nepodnošljiv i sl. ali verovatno je bio do te mere rutinski publici da su morali da odreaguju i odu da rade nešto zanimljivije.

* * / * * * *

Salt je za dve-tri klase ispod Knight and Day. Jer, dok je Mangold ipak ozbiljan holivudski rezhiser, kod Nojsa je uvek prisutna chinjenica da je ispisnik akcijasha 80ih/90ih, a ipak smo se mi u medjuvremenu svachega nagledali i ta vrsta filmskog jezika je toliko napredovala da Salt izgleda kao relikvija. Shto reche moja devojka, ceo Salt bi stao u oko 5 minuta Wanteda.

Možda... Mada, ja i dalje imam veću želju da pogledam Salt nego Knight and Day, iako je sve to (pa i Predators, slutim) tek ubijanje vremena dok ne stignu The Expendables...

Nego, da li se još nekom osim meni svideo A-Team? Liči na film Majkla Beja, samo što je zabavan...

Hipertrofija akcije u najpozitivnijem smislu. Verujem da ce mi Expendables teshko nadmashiti uzhitak koji sam iskusio gledajuci A-Team.

Overkill is underrated.

Ma dobro, THE EXPENDABLES je po meni čisto glumljenje geekasma. Nema tu te neke prave žive akcijaške materije koja je ipak krasila akcijaše 80ih. Jer akcijaši 80ih su bili živa stvar, relevantni na ulicama, radili su ih ozbiljni reditelji. Ovo je film koji meni deluje kao neki polukompetentni pastiš.

Mel Gibson  allegedly told ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva tranquillizers made him "nuts". The "Lethal Weapon" star, who has been accused of domestic abuse by the Russian singer during an alleged violent row on January 6 and is currently being investigated over the incident, reportedly sent an e-mail to his former lover after the apparent confrontation to explain his behavior.

He wrote, "The tranquillizers only make me nuts. (sic)" Tranquillizers are depressant drugs that are used to help anxiety, insomnia as well as alcohol withdrawal. During the alleged attack, Oksana claims Mel hit her in the face, breaking her teeth, and threatened to kill her. As well as sending the e-mail, the 54-year-old actor reportedly sent another message, saying "how unspeakably sorry" he was and pleaded with her to call him.

Minutes later he sent another one asking how her tooth was. The following day when Oksana, who also has a 12-year-old son Alexander, known as Sascha, from her relationship with actor Timothy Dalton, failed to respond, Mel sent a text message apologizing again for his actions.

According to Radar Online, he reportedly wrote, "Oksana, I wasn't safe for you last night. I spent two hours with a therapist today and have regained some perspective. What I'm telling you know if I am safe & would like to come by and make amends to you, Sascha and Lucia. I won't stay just let you say your peace and I'll say mine. Let me know if it's alright! (sic)"

After sending another five brief messages, Oksana responded, saying, "I have two broken teeth and a concussion. I can not c u today, I'm hurting. U can apologize to Sascha some other time. (sic)"

Argh. Ako ovako piše poruke, malo je što joj je slomio dva zuba.

Šali se čika Meho, nego

Quote from: crippled_avenger on 04-08-2010, 21:11:14
Ma dobro, THE EXPENDABLES je po meni čisto glumljenje geekasma. Nema tu te neke prave žive akcijaške materije koja je ipak krasila akcijaše 80ih. Jer akcijaši 80ih su bili živa stvar, relevantni na ulicama, radili su ih ozbiljni reditelji. Ovo je film koji meni deluje kao neki polukompetentni pastiš.

Taj rad.

Mda, voršipujete Beja a Stalonea otpisujete unapred, pozeri...

Samo da javno obznanim da se odričem Kripla i Meha zbog nedopustivog huljenja. Nastavljam komunikaciju sa njima tek nakon njihovog multiorgazmičkog oduševljenja prouzrokovanog filmom The Expendables.  

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD... 'Nuff Said, Says The Enemy!!!

Hey there people,

Last week I had the opportunity to take in an early screening of this film. Instead of calling myself "press" and showing up about an hour and a half early, bypassing the folks who've been waiting all day, I switched things up. I joined a friend who'd invited me to wait nearly eleven hours for a free showing of the movie.

The last movie for which I did such a thing? Spending the night waiting for THE PHANTOM MENACE when I was 5 years old. I despised that movie and asked my dad to take me home during the first Jedi Council sequence (he didn't). Though I didn't spend the night outside of the legendary Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar (in Austin), an 8:30 AM arrival for a 7:30 PM screening of a movie I knew little about (not having read the comics) was still a daunting a notion .

Here I'll cut to the chase and say that every second of SCOTT PILGRIM was worth the eleven hour wait. It was one of the most unexpected and completely satisfactory films I've seen in a while. Even at its worst, PILGRIM is filled with cinematic artistry and is brilliantly executed. Its smooth combination of romantic comedy, action/adventure, American/Japanese comic style, and its themes and story telling make for one hellava experience. The closet comparison would be KICK-ASS, if it were Asian made. Disappointingly enough, like KICK-ASS, this is a hard idea to sell to an audience. Both films are fantastic, but the trailers just don't do the deed; thus making it hard for either to succeed at the box office. That is why I fully encourage everyone who is going to see this movie to tell your friends, family, colleagues even your neighbor's dog.

At its heart, SCOTT PILGRIM is a romantic comedy - there's no denying it. Boy (Michael Cera) meets girl (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and, as in many movies, boy attempts to get the girl. As shown in the commercials, she has "seven evil exes" who challenge the guy from Superbad to fights - action and adventure come into play during their frequent battles. These scenes vary from Street Fighter like combat to Scott Pilgrim's band fighting a two man DJ group (the soundwaves from their music makes animals that brawl with one another). All of these fights are unique in their own way, there's little repetition and a constant sense of organic-ness and freshness.

Much of the movie is heavily influenced by the style we'd see in video games, comics and television from both North American and Asia. Characters are introduced with different graphical pieces of information - i.e. social statistics, personal rating, and skill level. Depending on the scene, even small things like knocking on a door will show up on-screen in word form. During intense battles, characters run towards each other amidst huge, flash like graphics. Other times you'll see 'life meters' and 'side scrolling' shots with the words "KO", "FIGHT", or "SUDDEN DEATH". If you're epileptic, I would avoid watching this - there are many bright colors and a lot of fast flashing throughout the film. But it's little details like this that allow director Edgar Wright (SHAUN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ) to really immerse you in his style and vision - you feel you're in a video game or comic book for the duration of the movie.

I counted a little less than two dozen characters in SCOTT PILGRIM, all of whom have some amount of dialogue. Obviously, some of them speak more than others, but all of the cast is at the top of its game - they feel as believable as they can considering the craziness surrounding them. Even Michael Cera, who doesn't stray too far from the 'nerdy kid trying to get a chick' gag, is still enjoyable to watch. What he does with his Scott Pilgrim character helps him to stand out more here than in his previous films. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is exceptional as Ramona Flowers - she's a very intimate, mysterious, yet comedic person with connections to many of the other characters.

The score is one of coolest in recent memory, and is as badass the movie itself (the Universal Studios logo has an 8-bit introduction for example). Small things like the baseline from SEINFELD make a musical cameo, and Scott Pilgrim's band "Sex Bob-Omb" plays a vital and entertaining roll in the movie - you'll hear their original work, and (as mentioned above) the group is critical in Scott's smackdown against Evil Exes. The skillful use of (and understanding of) music in this film is as important as the movie's propulsive visual style. Creatively, this movie worships many, many of the things that are cool about being young, or being tuned in to pop culture in general. It does this well, and makes Geekiness not only something to be proud of...it makes it seem exciting.

So there you have it. An eleven hour wait in the Texas Summer heat, through about five or six rain showers and a disastrous donut run. Absolutely worth it. This is definitely worth seeing several times over. With THE EXPENDABLES releasing on the same day, it'll be a decidedly rare and awesome weekend at the movies.

In a cinematic abyss of cookie cutter unoriginality, SCOTT PILGRIM truly does stand out from the crowd, amidst only a small handful of other noteworthy titles this year (TOY STORY, KICK-ASS, INCEPTION, and hopeful TRON LEGACY and EXPENDABLES). I've said this several times before in this review and I'll end by saying it again: go see this film.



e-mail The Enemy!

Miloshe, mislim da je razumevanje za Baya najdalje od pozerstva što postoji. Kao i razumevanje za Stallonea čije se režije prvi put odvijaju kao tragedija, drugi put kao farsa. Činjenica da glumac režira film (i u njemu glumi) u najvećem broju slučajeva znači da će taj film biti prepušten na milost i nemilost ostatku ekipe da ga sklopi. U vreme kad su Stalloneovi poslušnici bili ljudi poput Peter MacDonalda ni po jada, ali čak i tada njegove ključne filmove radili su maheri poput Cosmatosa, Kotcheffa, Avildsena, Harlina itd.

Ja u EXPENDABLESu najviše polažem nadu u DPa Kimballa koji je stari saradnik Tony Scotta. Ali pomalo brine što ni sam Tony odavno ne radi sa njim.

Što se podele tiče, ona je impresivna, ali samo majstor režije, i to ne samo na planu inscenacije akcije već i na planu karakterne interakcije može da vodi toliki broj likova. Poznata je priča da je Cameronu na ALIENSu najteža za režiranje bila scena dijaloga između nekoliko likova. Otud u akcionim filmovima i kad imamo ekipe znamo ko kosi a ko biva ostavljen ranjen sa bombom da dočeka okupatore i smeta im u napredovanju prema heroju.

Stallone nema puno iskustva u režiji takvih filmova sa ansamblom likova te je vrlo moguće da će prisustvo Lija, Lundgrena i ostalih delija biti više iz domena freakshowa nego neke ozbiljne multiplayer akcije. Već i prve kritike nagoveštavaju da je Li ispušten lik i da film svodi na buddy film Stallonea i Stathama. Plus film sa tolikim brojem likova koji treba da se istaknu traje stotinak minuta. Setimo se maksime starog Trippa koji kaže da "nema akcijaša bez trajanja od preko 120 minuta" a naročito kad govorimo o ovom tipu filma.

Dalje, likovi kao Crews i Austin su treća liga i ne uklapaju mi se u ceo koncept akcionih velikana. Oni su realno nusproizvod sadašnjeg potpunog sunovrata akcionog filma i njegovo ruglo.

Ne baš suptilna antičavikstička poruka, sa kao nekakvim diktatorom sa crvrnom beretkom koji narušava ljudska prava mi je odvratna sa ideološke strane. Stallone je oduvek bio ideološki instrumentalizovan, ali ono je barem bio Hladni Rat i nad svetom se nadvijao nuklearni holokaust a ovo danas su pilićarska podmetanja južnoameričkom ružičastom talasu kojih će se uskoro stideti.

No, naravno voleo bih da me Sly opovrgne. RAMBO koji se od ostatka konkurencije pre par godina izdvojio po tome što se puca velikim kalibrima i kidaju se udovi, nije imao neke adute kojim bi se mogao podičiti ozbiljan akcioni film. EXPENDABLES je ambiciozniji pa će nadam se biti i bolji.

Za moj groš, Bej je ispravno nanjušio da u akcionom filmu onaj politički podtekst koji ga je nosio osamdesetih godina (to jest do početka Klintonove vladavine) naprosto ne može da opstane u svetu koji se promenio. First Blood, Die Hard, Predator, Marked for Death, Out for Justice, Lone Wolf McQuaid, Death Wish III i IV svi danas izgledaju kao politička satira dopremljena sa druge planete, ali u kojoj je sjajno pogođena naša planeta. Danas naprosto nema takvih filmova, od Universal Soldier Regeneration, preko Crankova pa do Bad Boys II, akcioni film se praktično ne događa na istoj planeti kao naši životi, nema političkog podteksta niti (nesvesnog) dijaloga sa našom povijesnom zbiljnošću.

Naravno, ovo malo generalizujem ali je u biti to negde tako. Bej je uspešan jer se ni ne pretvara da mu filmovi imaju sponu sa realnošću i režira ih kao crtane filmove gde su karakterizacija i dijalozi upotrebljeni na isti načn kao i akcija, da se distanciraju od realnosti i kreiraju ambijent za situacije u kojoj se prkosi našim fizičkim (i duhovnim) zakonima.

Ne vidim da Stallone išta slično ume da uradi, Rambo je bio manje loš film nego što sam se nadao ali je bio zamišljen pokušavajući da se priseti hladnoratovske binarnosti sveta i u tom smislu prilično unremarkable. Njegove intelektualne i moralne dileme su mi delovale prilično nedopečeno i nebitno za film. Kad bolje razmislim, otvoreno crtanofilmovski akcijaši poslednjih nekoliko godina, poput Shoot 'em Up ili G.I. Joe su mi znatno bolji od bilo čega što je Stallone uradio dugo dugo vremena jer se bave jasno profilisanim stereotipovima i blistavom akcijom. Stallone je čovek vremena kada su jasno profilisani likovi imali dubinu koja je iznosila akciju ali danas nije to vreme, niti je on režirao svoje najbolje filmove. Naravno da ja žudim da The Expendables bude divan doživljaj za sve nas, ali nekako sam mnenja da bi za potrebe ovakvog filma sa ovolikim ansamblom bio potreban režiser poput Majkla Vinera ili Roberta Oldriča...

BAD BOYS 2 ima dosta zabavan poltički podtekst. Reč je o prebacivanju GTA ksenofobije na veliki ekran, sa etničkim stereotipima koji definišu da je neko badass ali realizovani sa živim ljudima deluju kao nešto ozbiljnije u političkom smislu.

Ja sam BB2 repriziro baš nedavno (pre možda 5-6 nedelja) i nisam stekao utisak da je i jedna od njegovih potencija za sociološki ili politički podtekst (crni i latino policajci, latino bande) uopšte realizovana, niti da je Bej imao i najmanju nameru da to učini. Naravno, namera nikada nije nužna u ovakvim slučajevima ali meni je prevashodno prepoznatljiv element filma u tom političkom/ sociološkom smislu onaj o čarima superherojske anarhije, o slobodnom čoveku koji štiti pravila u društvu time što ih stalno krši jer mu se može - obdaren je talentima koje ostatak populacije nema. Nije da ovo nije nekakav podtekst ali ga ne doživljavam kao aktuelan u smislu kako je to osamdesetih godina bilo pravilo. Ksenofobija je karikirana i iz druge ruke, zaista, kao da je prepisivana iz GTA ali je i unekoliko izbalansirana latino pandurima, ali i playboy-cop arhetipom koga dva glavna junaka provlače. Bar za mene.

Film nije rasistički, daleko od toga, ali to kršenje pravila je veliki politički statement (ne mislim da je Bayu bilo do statementa) ali naravno da je sve politika, naročito onda kad je nesvesno i/ili spontano.

Plus invazija na Kubu i Guantanamo koji junacima donosi spas...

BTW, ti nikada nisi komentarisao HANCOCKa?

Nisam, da, gledao sam ga jako kasno tako da nije bilo svrhe. Henkokov problem je jasan: nije smešten u postojeći superherojski univerzum pa otud njegova interesantna istraživanja na polju morala i odnosu nadljudi prema ljudima gledaocu deluju kao maltene esejistička (uprkos Šarliz Teron na ekranu). Smeštanje te priče u postojeći univerzum bi pomoglo jer ti univerzumi imaju readymade mitologiju koja bi Henkokovoj priči dala znatno više težine.

    * Culture
    * Film
    * Knight and Day

Tom Cruise or Leonardo DiCaprio: who is king of Hollywood?

Once upon a time, Cruise was the world's undisputed alpha movie-star. But then he lost his crown to DiCaprio. So just what went wrong for him - and can he get back on top?

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          o Ryan Gilbey
          o The Guardian, Thursday 5 August 2010
          o Article history

Head to head: Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio Head to head: Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio Photograph: KIYOSHI OTA/REUTERS

There is a story playing out right now in Hollywood that epitomises the perils of fame, the precariousness of success and the dangers of celebrities left unguarded. You can imagine it framed in the blockbuster vernacular, the voiceover delivered in the gravelly, portentous boom that comes as standard in every trailer: "Two men. One dream: to be the king of the multiplexes. But they dared to want more. They dared to want . . . integrity." Then the names and faces of two Hollywood behemoths would flash up on screen. Tom Cruise. Leonardo DiCaprio. Who will prevail?

   1. Knight and Day
   2. Production year: 2010
   3. Country: USA
   4. Directors: James Mangold
   5. Cast: Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Tom Cruise
   6. More on this film

Barring some dramatic turning of the tide, DiCaprio is now secure in his place as Hollywood's unimpeachable golden boy, while Cruise, the previous incumbent, is in danger of resembling the court jester. On paper, the pair still occupy similar territory. They aren't separated by much more than age (Cruise is 12 years older than DiCaprio) and a few million dollars. With two legitimate recent hits behind him in Shutter Island and Inception, DiCaprio can expect $28m per movie, while Cruise is still able to command $22m a throw. (Forbes magazine notes that "Cruise's career has been rocky lately", but attributes his ongoing fortune to revenue from "a string of older hits that constantly play on TV".) Both men have sought out many of the same directors including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg; DiCaprio is also close friends with Michael Mann, who cast Cruise in a rare bad-guy role in Collateral.

But it is in the management of their image that the stars begin to diverge. DiCaprio has policed himself efficiently, keeping his life largely private and expressing himself through his work. But with Cruise you never know what you're going to get next; and audiences cannot help but drag the baggage of his off-screen life to the cinema with them, which is the worst possible outcome for any actor.

Two revealing Cruise moments, both screened on British television in the last fortnight, testify to the extent to which his image has been corroded. The first was on BBC2's Top Gear last week. Cruise and Cameron Diaz, his co-star in the very poor shoot-'em-up comedy Knight and Day, consented to be interviewed mere metres away from the great unwashed, or Jeremy Clarkson as it says on his passport. To the casual observer, this appearance represented nothing more than a pair of A-listers unafraid to appear to be slumming it if it means spreading the word about their new movie. But to Cruise-watchers, the Top Gear gig was the latest desperate attempt by the star to rehabilitate a persona that has fallen starkly into disrepair over the last five years. He's trying to be seen as the guy next door whose dental work just happens to cost more than your house.

There have been numerous factors that have driven a wedge between the star and his public, but few of them date back to BC – that is, Before Couch. The notorious "couch-jumping" incident on Oprah Winfrey's chat show in 2005 is where the trouble really began. In the wake of a newspaper poll, which had expressed scepticism about his relationship with the actor Katie Holmes, Cruise sought to demonstrate his love for his then-fiancee (now wife, and mother of his daughter Suri) by leaping up and down on the most sacred couch on US television, and generally causing untold distress to Oprah's upholstery.

That brings us to the second Cruise moment of recent days, when appearing on Alan Carr's talk show, David Walliams professed his love for his own bride by performing a personal take on the Cruise episode. So ingrained is Cruise's Oprah appearance in our collective memory that no explanation was needed.

Watch the original clip again and it is clear that Cruise fully believed himself to be staging a winning display of devotion. What the world saw was something else entirely. "What happened, happened," Cruise told Esquire magazine earlier this year. "Afterward, wild things were being said about me, and once they're in the ether, there's nothing you can do about it. It felt like being the new kid in the schoolyard again and the other kids are whispering and whispering about you and suddenly you hear what they're saying, and you think, 'What? That didn't happen. Look at the reality of the situation.'"

At the same time that Cruise has suffered a steep, nosebleed-inducing depreciation, Leonardo DiCaprio has risen to fill the space vacated by him. DiCaprio has never really belonged to the same species of performer. At 36, he is 12 years younger than Cruise; and whereas the Top Gun pin-up always had his sights set on stardom, DiCaprio was an actor first, and a superstar entirely by accident. (Blame Titanic. He does.) However unconvincing some might find him as a grizzled adult in the likes of Blood Diamond and Shutter Island, there is no mistaking his relief now that he has traded in his pin-up status for a face that looks like it has been around the world a few times, even if just on a student visa.

In his earliest films (This Boy's Life, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?), DiCaprio was as full-blooded and fearless an actor as it was possible to find. He was also a natural. The young Cruise, on the other hand, had the motivation to succeed, but not the dramatic alchemy of a DiCaprio. In Richard T Kelly's oral biography Sean Penn: His Life and Times, Penn recalls some illuminating first impressions of the teenage Cruise when they worked together on the 1981 drama Taps: "This was a guy who was ready for his chance, no question about it. He wouldn't have known that himself – he was second-guessing everything all the time. But that didn't stop him from committing when it was time. Cruise was so . . . like he was training for the fucken Olympics. I think he was the first person I ever said 'Calm down!' to."

Cruise went on to do some nimble comic work as a rich kid out of his depth in the bawdy comedy Risky Business, and had a dignified flirtation with the brat pack in Francis Coppola's The Outsiders, but it was Top Gun in 1986 that both ratified him as a star, and eclipsed his potential as an actor. Not that being a star is easy. But for a long time, that's what Cruise was. Learning to be an actor again in films such as Born on the Fourth of July and Magnolia seemed to demand of him the gruelling development of an extra muscle, whereas the daily grind of celebrity – cranking up the charm, gladhanding fans and smooching babies, manipulating his public persona – came naturally.

It doesn't look so natural now. The more Cruise tries to avert continuing disaster, the more vulnerable he appears. After a series of damaging PR disasters, he is in danger of becoming a laughing stock. Knight and Day was a relative flop on its recent US release, pulling in just over $20m on its opening weekend – a fraction of its $107m budget. It's the lowest gross of any of Cruise's action films since Days of Thunder 20 years ago, and an unambiguous sign either that audiences are growing weary of the star's extravagant confidence, or that his extra-curricular tomfoolery has undermined his formerly palatable on-screen persona.

Meanwhile, DiCaprio is riding high. Christopher Nolan's Inception, in which he plays an "extractor" who enters the dreams of others, has dominated the world box office since its release last month; at the time of writing it has amassed a worldwide total of $363m and shows no sign of waning, with research indicating that audiences are making repeat visits to untangle its mysteries, however threadbare. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, DiCaprio admitted that he hadn't acted in the nine months since completing the film – he simply hasn't found the right project yet. And while he is scheduled to play J Edgar Hoover in a forthcoming biopic directed by Clint Eastwood and scripted by Dustin Lance Black (the Oscar-winning writer of Milk), he doesn't need to lift a finger until he's good and ready.

Cruise, on the other hand, hasn't got a moment to lose. Last month, David Thomson wrote in this paper that Inception was the sort of film that Cruise might have made a decade ago. And while the age difference, and disparity in acting styles, between the two performers means that they can't often have been rivals for the same parts, it's true that Cruise had his shot at Inception-style material with Vanilla Sky (a remake of the Spanish thriller Open Your Eyes) and Minority Report (a philosophical thriller far superior to Inception). But thanks to the decline in his image, he now lacks even the gravitas to solicit an audience's goodwill for an undemanding blockbuster such as Knight and Day.

The couch-jumping incident may have contributed to being dropped by the studio Paramount, which made the Mission: Impossible trilogy, but the general mistrust of Cruise has long been bound up with his vehement promotion of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard's extra-terrestrial-based religion. "As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal," said Sumner Redstone, chairman of Paramount's parent company Viacom, when news broke of the studio severing its ties to the star in 2006. "His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

That euphemistic phrase "recent conduct" covered not just the couch-jumping but Cruise's messy public spat with Brooke Shields (the star of the 1981 film Endless Love, in which Cruise had an early, supporting role), during which he berated her for fighting post-partum depression with psychiatry and anti-depressants, both bugbears of any card-carrying Scientologist.

He later apologised to his former co-star, but other rapprochements were longer in coming. Shortly after his outburst at Shields, he got into a verbal tussle about Scientology with US television host Matt Lauer on The Today Show. Part of Cruise's delayed damage-limitation campaign in recent times has involved returning to The Today Show to reflect on his behaviour. "I went back, and looked at [the interview]," he told Lauer in December 2008, "and it was interesting . . . I came across as arrogant. . . I didn't communicate it in the way I wanted to communicate it. Also, that's not the way I am. That's not the person I am."

Cruise has since resolved not to discuss Scientology in interviews – "I think there's a time and place for it," he told Lauer – but there is no disentangling him from the subject. In any word-association game, you will invariably find that the words "Tom Cruise" are followed by "Xenu, dictator of the Galactic Confederacy." His PR representatives seem to have been disappointingly slow to realise that, if you're an actor hunting for widespread approval, you don't do Scientology.

Even here, on the subject of public proclamations, DiCaprio has the edge over the older man. Where Cruise has been aggressive and passionate only in his promotion of his chosen religion, DiCaprio reserves his soapbox moments for selfless causes that most of us can get behind – he has campaigned on environmental matters (he co-produced and narrated the environmental documentary 11th Hour), worked with orphaned children in Mozambique, given $1m to relief efforts in Haiti. Cruise couldn't look much worse if he were to speak out against composting, or be snapped in a clinch with Sarah Palin.

Despite all the strikes against him, Cruise still has certain things in his favour. On the plus side, he isn't Mel Gibson. And he has plenty of chums willing to spring to his defence. "He's a friend of mine and I find it very unfair," James Mangold, director of Knight and Day, said recently. "I think there are wildly unrealistic expectations placed upon him. Tom's an intense guy. He's very physical but there's something really funny about him and joyous and also, to be honest, something eccentric about him; how hard-working he is, how intense he is . . . The part of it that is most concerning for me is I just think he's a phenomenal actor and some people deal with him as if he's a lightweight. The reality is that he has delivered some of the best performances in movie history."

The pressing question is how can Cruise recast himself in the public imagination, and can he recover his Hollywood crown? He has tried to kill off his old persona before, notably in Cameron Crowe's film Jerry Maguire, which began with the sports agent played by Cruise undergoing a humiliating sacking. Even Knight and Day seems to acknowledge that the days of the old Tom Cruise are numbered; in his first scene in the movie, he is shown at the controls of an arcade game which tells him: "You're dead."

When he appeared in a cameo role as the monstrous studio boss Len Grossman in Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder, audiences responded enthusiastically to the spectre of a star renowned for his seriousness ditching his looks and lustre to play an outlandish comic caricature. His recent reprise of the role at the MTV movie awards, where he danced lasciviously in-character with Jennifer Lopez, preceded an announcement that Grossman would get his own spin-off movie. Even those of us who feel that the potential comedy of Cruise as Grossman is undercut by the actor's transparent need to be seen to have a sense of humour would be hard pressed to argue against this strategy.

Simon Pegg, who starred in Mission: Impossible III told me last month that he is rooting for Cruise. "It all started with that couch-jumping thing, didn't it? It just seems so stupid. Having worked with him, I know he's a very friendly and professional guy. I hope people give him a break. I want to see him carry on making movies for a long time to come."

Trejleri za PILGRIMa postaju dekadentni!

http://dobanevinosti.blogspot.com/2010/08/novi-trejler-za-scott-pilgrima.html

Seksi. Možda sad dočitam i strip.

Pogledaj sve komentare i inserte. Imaš masu stvari.

Konačno se vratio Mark L. Lester sa filmom GROUPIE. Naravno, u ovom slučaju nema ni govora o comebacku bilo gde. Štaviše, GROUPIE verovatno spada u onaj deo DTV ponude koji neće uspeti da privuče veću pažnju filmske javnosti, Ipak, nije reč o sasvim bezvrednom filmu i u njemu Lester u nekoliko aspekata pokazuje da je reč o ozbiljnom reditelju koji je naprosto skliznuo u opskurrnost u svom pokušaju da bude Corman za devedesete.

GROUPIE je rokenrol film koji je baziran na jednostavnoj karakterizaciji i pomešanim konvencijama filma putovanja, u podvrsti filmova o turnejama rokenrol bendova i home invasion trilera sa početka devedesetih. Onop što je u ovom filmu zanimljivu jesu zapravo vrlo efikasno i valjano izloženi karakteri kojima scenario ne nudi puno toga novog ali su u tom trouglu traumirani rok pevač - opsesivna obožavateljka - zabrinuti menadžer ostvareni sasvim solidni odnosi i film je zapravo zanimljiv kao jedna rudimentarna ali pristojna priča o karakterima koja pada u fazi iskoraka u triler koja je istovremeno bazirana na previdivim premisama i nedovoljno je razrađena, kako u dramaturškom tako i u psihološkom smislu.

S druge strane, koliko god film baratao stereotipima, najbolji je upravo u toj interakciji između stereotipnih karaktera koji ne mogu verziranijem gledaocu da pruže ništa novo ali nisu neprijatni za gledanje dočim televizijskoj publici mogu biti čak i zanimljivi u nekom popodnevnom terminu.

Film je producirao Lester u saradnji sa Eric Robertsom i Taryn Manning. Tyrin je ostvarila odličnu ulogu pokazavši da je bila B-preteča Emme Stone, dok je ER na svom standardnom nivou u klasičnom smirenom pimp modeu. Ako imamo u vidu da su Lester i ER stari saradnici lep je gest što je ovaj pomogao u produkciji, naročito sada kada je počeo pomalo da se vraća i u A-vode.

Glavnog junaka igra Hal Ozsan koji i peva generic ali za potrebe filma sasvim pristojan rokenrol svog benda. Ozsan ima trenutno nekakvu TV karijeru i on se takođe može smatrati određenim adutom ovog filma.

Izvan ove trojke međutim nema značajnijih glumaca, lokacije su vrlo low key, sve je mahom vezano za enterijere i hotelske sobe što u izvesnom smislu i dosta verno pokazuje život benda na turneji.

Scenario je takođe pisao jedan živopisan lik, Randall Frakes koji je bio ko-reditelj XENOGENSISa, ali je imao dijametralno suprotnu sudbinu od svog saradnika. U ovom filmu međutim, ovaj plodni C-scenarista se baš i nije pokazao tako da je na Lesteru i glumcima ostalo da izvade film.

GROUPIE nema kapacitete da se nametne kao važan film čak ni u DTV okvirima ali sasvim dostojanstveno može uzeti svoje mesto među rokenrol filmovima, između ostalog i cormanovskog tipa. Iako je činjenica da Ozsan peva zanimljiva. šteta je što u ovom vremenu nema bendova koji bi bili zainteresovani da ovakva jedna eskapada bude showcase.

GROUPIE je u tom smislu old-school rokenrol sa neuobičajeno velikim akcentom na karakterima i minimumom exploitationa.

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zahvaljujući lou bennyju došao sam do linka za ovu pesmu koja je zanimljiva po tome kako u njoj grupa mladih ljudi kritički prilazi srpskoj kinematografiji. obratite pažnju

ill G/ Skubi/ DJ Rokam - Ti Nisi Odavde

Chinese missile could shift Pacific power balance

QuoteBy ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer Eric Talmadge, Associated Press Writer – Thu Aug 5, 5:43 pm ET
ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON – Nothing projects U.S. global air and sea power more vividly than supercarriers. Bristling with fighter jets that can reach deep into even landlocked trouble zones, America's virtually invincible carrier fleet has long enforced its dominance of the high seas.

China may soon put an end to that.

U.S. naval planners are scrambling to deal with what analysts say is a game-changing weapon being developed by China — an unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles).

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EDITOR'S NOTE — The USS George Washington supercarrier recently deployed off North Korea in a high-profile show of U.S. sea power. AP Tokyo News Editor Eric Talmadge was aboard the carrier, and filed this report.

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Analysts say final testing of the missile could come as soon as the end of this year, though questions remain about how fast China will be able to perfect its accuracy to the level needed to threaten a moving carrier at sea.

The weapon, a version of which was displayed last year in a Chinese military parade, could revolutionize China's role in the Pacific balance of power, seriously weakening Washington's ability to intervene in any potential conflict over Taiwan or North Korea. It could also deny U.S. ships safe access to international waters near China's 11,200-mile (18,000-kilometer) -long coastline.

While a nuclear bomb could theoretically sink a carrier, assuming its user was willing to raise the stakes to atomic levels, the conventionally-armed Dong Feng 21D's uniqueness is in its ability to hit a powerfully defended moving target with pin-point precision.

The Chinese Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to the AP's request for a comment.

Funded by annual double-digit increases in the defense budget for almost every year of the past two decades, the Chinese navy has become Asia's largest and has expanded beyond its traditional mission of retaking Taiwan to push its sphere of influence deeper into the Pacific and protect vital maritime trade routes.

"The Navy has long had to fear carrier-killing capabilities," said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the nonpartisan, Washington-based Center for a New American Security. "The emerging Chinese antiship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post-Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection and deliberately designed for that purpose."

Setting the stage for a possible conflict, Beijing has grown increasingly vocal in its demands for the U.S. to stay away from the wide swaths of ocean — covering much of the Yellow, East and South China seas — where it claims exclusivity.

It strongly opposed plans to hold U.S.-South Korean war games in the Yellow Sea off the northeastern Chinese coast, saying the participation of the USS George Washington supercarrier, with its 1,092-foot (333-meter) flight deck and 6,250 personnel, would be a provocation because it put Beijing within striking range of U.S. F-18 warplanes.

The carrier instead took part in maneuvers held farther away in the Sea of Japan.

U.S. officials deny Chinese pressure kept it away, and say they will not be told by Beijing where they can operate.

"We reserve the right to exercise in international waters anywhere in the world," Rear Adm. Daniel Cloyd, who headed the U.S. side of the exercises, said aboard the carrier during the maneuvers, which ended last week.

But the new missile, if able to evade the defenses of a carrier and of the vessels sailing with it, could undermine that policy.

"China can reach out and hit the U.S. well before the U.S. can get close enough to the mainland to hit back," said Toshi Yoshihara, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College. He said U.S. ships have only twice been that vulnerable — against Japan in World War II and against Soviet bombers in the Cold War.

Carrier-killing missiles "could have an enduring psychological effect on U.S. policymakers," he e-mailed to The AP. "It underscores more broadly that the U.S. Navy no longer rules the waves as it has since the end of World War II. The stark reality is that sea control cannot be taken for granted anymore."

Yoshihara said the weapon is causing considerable consternation in Washington, though — with attention focused on land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — its implications haven't been widely discussed in public.

Analysts note that while much has been made of China's efforts to ready a carrier fleet of its own, it would likely take decades to catch U.S. carrier crews' level of expertise, training and experience.

But Beijing does not need to match the U.S. carrier for carrier. The Dong Feng 21D, smarter, and vastly cheaper, could successfully attack a U.S. carrier, or at least deter it from getting too close.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned of the threat in a speech last September at the Air Force Association Convention.

"When considering the military-modernization programs of countries like China, we should be concerned less with their potential ability to challenge the U.S. symmetrically — fighter to fighter or ship to ship — and more with their ability to disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options," he said.

Gates said China's investments in cyber and anti-satellite warfare, anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, along with ballistic missiles, "could threaten America's primary way to project power" through its forward air bases and carrier strike groups.

The Pentagon has been worried for years about China getting an anti-ship ballistic missile. The Pentagon considers such a missile an "anti-access," weapon, meaning that it could deny others access to certain areas.

The Air Force's top surveillance and intelligence officer, Lt. Gen. David Deptula, told reporters this week that China's effort to increase anti-access capability is part of a worrisome trend.

He did not single out the DF 21D, but said: "While we might not fight the Chinese, we may end up in situations where we'll certainly be opposing the equipment that they build and sell around the world."

Questions remain over when — and if — China will perfect the technology; hitting a moving carrier is no mean feat, requiring state-of-the-art guidance systems, and some experts believe it will take China a decade or so to field a reliable threat. Others, however, say final tests of the missile could come in the next year or two.

Former Navy commander James Kraska, a professor of international law and sea power at the U.S. Naval War College, recently wrote a controversial article in the magazine Orbis outlining a hypothetical scenario set just five years from now in which a Deng Feng 21D missile with a penetrator warhead sinks the USS George Washington.

That would usher in a "new epoch of international order in which Beijing emerges to displace the United States."

While China's Defense Ministry never comments on new weapons before they become operational, the DF 21D — which would travel at 10 times the speed of sound and carry conventional payloads — has been much discussed by military buffs online.

A pseudonymous article posted on Xinhuanet, website of China's official news agency, imagines the U.S. dispatching the George Washington to aid Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

The Chinese would respond with three salvos of DF 21D, the first of which would pierce the hull, start fires and shut down flight operations, the article says. The second would knock out its engines and be accompanied by air attacks. The third wave, the article says, would "send the George Washington to the bottom of the ocean."

Comments on the article were mostly positive.

Staro dobro asimetrično ratovanje...

Mehmete, nadam se da se spremaš da pomažeš interno raseljenim licina iz San Fernando Valleya. Već vidim Jennu Haze kako se otima sa Ninom hartley oko džaka brašna.

Pazi, Interno Raseljena Lica moraju biti raseljena unutar države kojoj su građani. A ne verujem da će mene da pošalju u USA da im pomažem. Ako, pak, pređu u status izbeglica, dođu u Evropu i završe u Srbiji, a sa ovim kineskim projektilima sve je moguće, to će mi već omogućiti da im se nađem u nevolji.

Pogledao sam OPERATION ENDGAME Fouada Mikatija, jedan izuzetno grozan i bezmalo negledljiv film koji će možda imati mali theatrical run ali je realno pravi DTV. Možda je u nekoj fazi svog nastanka ova produkcija Richarda Kellyja, autora kome promašaji ne da nisu strani, nego čine veći deo njegove karijere, imala neke bioskopske ambicije, ali na kraju je završila kao i većina preambicioznih All-Star extravanzi.

OPERATION ENDGAME je akciona komedija, smeštena u kamerni prostor nekakvog tajnog CIA štaba u kome se najtajniji opd svih tajnih agenata skupljaju da rade najprljavije stvari za državu. Te agente glume likovi poput Jeffrey Tambora, Rob Corddryja, zacha Galifianakisa, maggie Q i Ellen Barkin, dakle komičari koji najveći akcenat stavljaju na OFFICE-like atmosferu u tom kao špijunskom gnezdu.

Akcija je energična i dosta krvava, bazirana na upotrebi kancelarijskog materijala kao oružja (da, vrlo jasna metafora) ali je isto tako jednolična i nema naročitu težinu jer likovi ne komuniciraju su publikom.

Scene razvoja karaktera postavljene su između akcionih i baziraju se na beskrajnim glupim dijalozima punim ispraznih vulgarnosti.

Podela puna manjih ili većih zvezda potpuno je ispuštena i protraćena, a jedina vredna pažnje je Ellen Barkin koja je već respektabilan GILF.

U svakom slučaju, OPERATION ENDGAME je onoliki užas koliki bi se i očekivao od filma sa ovoliko zvezda za koji niko nije čuo. To je sada i verifikovano.

Inače zanimljivo je da je Chadwick Clough sa sajta Script Pimp potpisan kao izvršni producent. Dakle moguće je da se radi o scenariju sa nekog od njhovih godišnjih takmičenja.

Pogledao sam SALT Phil Noycea, film snimljen po scenariju Kurta Wimmera koji je svojevremeno trebalo da bude vehicle za Cruisera a sada se nalazi u direktnoj konkurenciji sa njegovim KNIGHT AND DAY i u toj borbi zapravo bolje prolazi. Wimmrov scenario je u međuvremenu adaptiran za Angelinu Jolie i tu adaptaciju je radio Brian Helgeland, a zanimljivo je da na samom filmu Helgeland nije potpisan na špici a jeste na stendiju u bioskopu. Očigledno da njegov rewrite nije prošao u WGA ali da ga studio jeste smatrao značajnim, uostalom Helgeland je i dobitnik oskara.

Kako god bilo Wimmer se u ovom scenariju više oseća od Helgelanda. Helgeland je naime ekspert za trilere i imao je svojih uspeha u takvim filmovima poput Donnerovog CONSPIRACY THEORY (koji mu je možda i ponajbolji scenario izuzev LA CONFIDENTIAL) a zapljunuo se i na filmovima o BOURNEu i na GREEN ZONE. Međutim, Wimmer se daleko više oseća u ovom scenariju pre svega zbog toga što ne nudi helgelandovske domišljate dijaloge i situacije i mahom je oslonjen na nepatvoreni treš i prenaglašenost izražajnih sredstava na nivou drqamskog predloška u svakom smislu.

Nimalo ne čudi zašto je SALT stekao tako visoki profil kao scenario jer Wimmer ga je natrpao ogromnom količinom elemenata, motivacijama, političkim i pseudoistorijskim detaljima kako bi motivisao jednu krajnje B-priču, a to je nešto što u post-JAWS Holivudu najbolje prolazi.

Phil Noyce se manje više dobro snašao u tom miljeu jer je i sam imao iskustva u radu na filmovima po Tom Clancyju koji je upravo taj tip književnika oslonjenog na spajanje tehničkih podataka, istorijsko-političkih detalja i prilično banalnih zapleta. Ipak, SALT nema snagu da dostigne PATRIOT GAMES pošto je ono ipak bio film a SALT je prevashodno ipak cirkus koji želi da se pozicionira negde na ničijoj zemlji između WANTEDa i Bournea. Iz WANTEDa preuzima neke prenaglašene akrobacije i slo-mo detalje a iz Bourtne preuzima impact u akcionim scenama, brze rezove na krupni čak i posle najbizarnijih vratolomija kako bi se gledalac što pre ubacio u iluziju da to sve radi glumac (što je klasičan 80s touch) i veće insistiranje na stuntovima i bolje prikrivanje CGIa nego što smo retali u poslednje vreme.

Noyce već godinama nije radio akciju i dosta otvoreno je pokazao da ga to više ne zanima. Ipak ovaj povratak u mejnstrim pokazuje da on više nije onako podmazana akciona mašina kao što je bio ali da je isto tako reditelj koji ipak ume da unese izvesni smisao u ovako prekempiran materijal.

U ideološkom smislu, SALT je povratak hladnoratovskom filmu u najkanonskijem smislu. Kao što je u hladnoratovskom filmu, poziciju negativca uvek imala grupa komunističkih ekstremista, dakle ne sovjetska vlast već ekstremisti u njenim redovima koji žele da izazovu Treći svetski rat, tako je i ovde reč o staroj sovjetskoj frakciji koja želi da zavadi Ameriku sa svetom. Naravno, SALT polazi od naivne pretpostavke da Amerika još uvek nije zavađena sa celim svetom.

Wimmerov scenario ne nudi ništa novo i u pojedinim detaljima on se najdirektnije nadovezuje na filmove poput TELEFONa Dona Siegela ili FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, a ovi naslovi su ipak paradigmatični hladnoratovski radovi.

Za razliku od Siegelovog TELEFONa, SALT nudi mogućnost da se neko ko je brejnvošovan popravi, i to onda kada odustane od borbe i prepusti se "životu" u Americi. U tom smislu zanimljivo je da se junakinja čeliči u severnokorejskom kazamatu na početku filma, slično kao Brosnanov Bond u DIE ANOTHER DAY, samo neuporedivo skromnije realizovano.

Inače, kada je reč o superherojskoj anarhiji filmova poput BAD BOYS, u SALTu je to dovedeno do paroksizma. Saltica krši apsolutno sva moguća pravila kako bi odbranila američki way of life. U pojedinim situacijama čak ne preza ni od ubijanja nevinih ljudi iako to načelno izbegava.

SALT je eskapizam koji po svojoj prenaglašenosti u pojedinim momentima pomera granice onoga što holivudski studiji dozvoljavaju sebi u današnje vreme kada se trude da prave koliko-toliko respektabilne filmove. U godini INCEPTIONa baziranog na preteranom insistiranju na dubljim značenjima, SALT je film koji beži od toga.

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Pogledao sam BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD Brandona Viettija, Warner/DC animaciju pravljenu za DTV po stripu Judda Winicka u kome se raspliće jedan od vrlo bitnih storylineova u Betmenovoj mitologiji a to su život i smrt Jasona Todda.

Animacija počinje u Sarajevu na poprištu finala epizode u kojoj je glasanjem čitalaca odlučeno da Jason Todd strada. Poznato je da je njegova smrt bila bitan motivator i u Millerovom nekanonskom stripu, međutim kod Winicka, iako je Batman nasilniji nego inače, ipak on uspeva da se uzdrži od ubijanja Jokera, štaviše iza svog tog nasilja emituje izvesnu smirujuću energiju - na kraju čak ne želi ni da iskoristi sukob Red Hooda i Black Maska da se Gotham malo raščisti.

Dok je za minorne strip-heroje film pravo mesto da se iskažu, za velike heroje čini se da animacija ima više potencijala. U konkretnom slučaju UNDER THE RED HOOD, ova forma omogućila je da se snimi film za čije je puno razumevanje ipak potrebno nekakvo predznanje a priča se slobodno razvija i u nekim pravcima koji se mogu istraživati kada ne postoji potreba za pričanjem origin storyja.

Što se animacije tiče, meni JLA film THE NEW FRONTIER deluje kao bolje animiran, i RED HOOD mi je po tome bliži PUBLIC ENEMIESu s tim što mislim da su borbe energičnije i življe postavljene. U pojedinim sekvencama Batman zaliči na Spider-Mana po količini korišćenja raznih sajli sa kojima leti između zfrada ali priroda akcije je takva da ovaj film definitivno nije za decu jer je dosta brutalan, ne u onom smislu kako bi gorehoundi voleli već na nivou suštine sukoba.

Odnos između Bruce Waynea i Jason Todda uvek ima izvesnu homoerotsku dimenziju i ona postoji i u ovom filmu premda nije osvešćena. Ipak Bruceov odnos prema ovom dečaku svakako da ima neprikrivene konotacije.

UNDER THE RED HOOD je održavanje visokog nivoa DC animacija što je važno pred aktiviranje kultnih strip naslova iduće godine - pre svih Morrisonovog Supermana u animiranoj formi.

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Paul W.S. Anderson's 3D "The Three Musketeers" is one of Europe's biggest productions this year. But it's not just the scope of the film that's of interest to a funding-challenged international film biz, it's the financing.

"Musketeers" underscores one new direction for indie financing as companies seek more upside from the U.S. by bringing fully financed movies to the table. The film -- which begins lensing Aug. 26 in Bavaria and is being produced by Germany's Constantin, has four key fiscal elements.

n U.S. coin. Summit Enter-tainment, which sold the pic worldwide, is making "a major U.S. distribution commitment," says Rob Friedman, Summit co-chairman/CEO. But Constantin hasn't had to call on that commitment to fund "Musketeers": Despite a sizable budget of $80 million-$100 million, "Musketeers" has been fully financed from outside the U.S.

Summit is aiming for an April 15 release Stateside, but it's the international audience that really matters for big-budget epics, which can take in two or three times their domestic gross overseas (U.S. auds haven't been as receptive as overseas fans to recent period actioners like "Robin Hood" and "The Prince of Persia.")

n Subsidies. "Musketeers" is a testament to the continued strength of German subsidies.

Shooting two-thirds on location in Bavaria, the rest at Berlin's Studio Babelsberg, the production has drawn $1.31 million from the German Federal Film Board, $2.1 million from FFF Bayern (Bavaria's regional film fund), and $522,800 from the Bavaria Bank Fund.

Though subject to approval, "Musketeers" can hope for up to $2 million from the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, and some $10 million from a DFFF German Federal Film Fund, which offers 20% rebates on movies' German spend, says Martin Moszkowicz, Constantin head of film and TV.

Adding a Canadian tax credit triggered by vfx work carried out by Mr. X in Toronto, subsidies will cover about 20% of the "Musketeers" budget, he estimates.

U.K.'s New Legacy and France's Nef co-produce.

n Gap financing. Constantin taps a revolving credit facility with a German banking consortium, led by DZ Bank.

n Presales. With a trans-Euro cast including Orlando Bloom, Christoph Waltz, Logan Lerman, Matthew MacFadyen, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Milla Jovovich and Mads Mikkelsen, "Musketeers" was one the few high-profile titles at Cannes that sold quickly to virtually every major territory -- even hard-to-convince Japan, where it went to Gaga Communications.

That's "symptomatic of the whole market at the moment," says Summit Intl. prexy David Garrett. "Everybody needs and wants potentially big theatrical titles. Anything marginal is too risky, because you're not able to mitigate the risk anymore through DVD and TV sales."

Moszkowicz explains that on the right project, the U.S. can still bring in 40% to 50% of revenues worldwide. These days, however, advances for the U.S., are rarely more than 25% of a budget: The U.S. P&A expenditure is so huge that U.S. distributors have tended to reduce their advances.

"You can always try to get an advance and a lot of money out of the U.S. and finance the movie with it," Moszkowicz says, though he cautions it's unlikely the producer would see any overages out of the territory in that scenario.

Friedman agrees: "It is a tribute to the way that Constantin has financed this movie that it allows them to benefit in the upside in such an enormous market."

Of course, those benefits will come only if the pic scores big-time at the U.S. box office. And few companies are able to assemble such high-profile elements.

But Constantin's ambitious effort gives hope to German film orgs.

"Constantin is one of the biggest film production companies that can actually develop and realize such a project -- and on location, not in a studio, says Bavarian Film Commissioner Anja Metzger, adding that it's the biggest film project to be shot in Bavaria in years.

With questions still hanging over the future of companies like Apparition and Miramax, it's likely foreign producers will increasingly look to fully finance films before addressing U.S. distribution.

That approach has worked well for StudioCanal on the low-budget, Eli Roth-produced verite-style horror pic "The Last Exorcism," which bows Aug. 27 Stateside. In February, Lionsgate took U.S. distribution rights on the completed film for a high-six-figure advance. But it reportedly made a $16 million P&A commitment.

While the international box office continues to expand, the U.S. is still the single biggest territory. So companies spending millions on U.S. P&A are hoping that the effort multiplies box office around the world. Or, as the Three Musketeers say, One for all and all for one.

This is a team-up I could have only dreamed of, but even then, I don't know that I would've. Are J.J. Abrams (Star Trek) and Bong Joon-ho (The Host), two of the most intriguing filmmakers working today, going to be working together?

We heard a rumor that this is indeed the case. Learn more about this mystery project after the break.

Our source claims that Abrams visited Korea last year and had extensive meetings with Bong, and will soon be collaborating with him on an undisclosed film. Bong will direct, and Abrams will produce. Once Bong finishes work on his next film Snow Piercer (based on a French graphic novel), the film will most likely shoot in Hollywood, making it the first film he's made in the US.

File this as an unconfirmed rumor for now, but the possibilities this pairing suggests are almost too overwhelming for my geek mind to fathom. I've always felt that Bong's off-kilter approach—blending elements of morose drama and physical comedy—would be impossible to replicate in American cinema, but coupled with the more palatable, audience-friendly stylings of Abrams, this may just work.

If the film actually pans out, it'll be interesting to see how these two filmmakers' visions mesh together. Both Bong and Abrams are very visual directors, but the sort of imagery they use in their films couldn't be more different. Then again, it's possible that Abrams plans to take a back seat on this one, and simply allow Bong to do his thing. It's easy to see why Abrams would be attracted to Bong's work, as all of his films (Memories of Murder, Mother) bring a unique, weirdly entertaining spin to otherwise small, intimate stories. The Host in particular is right up Abram's ally, with a mysterious, monstrous creature rampaging a city, and a tight-knit group of people venturing through it to save someone close to them. (Sound familiar?) It also helps that Bong always has a very strong emotional core embedded in his films, something that Abram seems slightly less concerned with. Maybe this will be the movie to bring a touch more humanity to Abram's filmography.

And for those that haven't seen it yet, Bong Joon-ho's Mother hit DVD and Blu-ray a couple of weeks ago, and it's absolutely worth the watch. You can listen to our laudatory /Filmcast review of the film here.

HBO ends 'Entourage' in 2011, 'Curb' continues and 'Boardwalk' hopes are high
04/05/2010 - Steve Buscemi and wife Jo Andres - New York City, NY, USA © Charles Norfleet / PR Photos

04/05/2010 - Steve Buscemi and wife Jo Andres - New York City, NY, USA © Charles Norfleet / PR Photos

By April MacIntyre Aug 9, 2010, 6:02 GMT

The last day (Saturday, August 7) of the Television Critics Association had HBO wrap up the show in a three hour-panel extravaganza that featured Scorsese, Buscemi, Fisher, Morgan, and Sheila Nevins introducing her pal Spike Lee.

The network knows they have to up the ante, FX has "Sons of Anarchy" coming back September 7, AMC continues to stomp with "Mad Men" (HBO passed on that one) and now the long-running "Entourage" will end next summer.

HBO executives Michael Lombardi, HBO programming president, and co-president Richard Plepler were on panel after the "Boardwalk" session, and Lombardi said the final "Entourage" season ends in 2011, and may only be six episodes.

"The plan right now is we'll finish up this season, we'll do a shorter order for next season, we've talked about six," said Lombardo, "[Creator Doug Ellin] wants to write a film, but wants to do it when the story will make sense. He's pitched other shows to us. I will expect that within the next couple years [he'll have another show on HBO]. But 'Entourage' next summer will definitely be the final season."

However, fans of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," according to the HBO execs, can breathe a bit easier, as the show "has no end in sight provided Larry David wants to continue the show, which should return next year."

High hopes were expressed for the Scorsese series, "Boardwalk Empire," Scorsese spoke about working with "The Sopranos" writer Terence Winter, and directed the pilot episode of "Boardwalk Empire," and he told the TCA via satellite from London that he would "very much like to" direct more if his schedule allows.

"Boardwalk Empire" is based on a nonfiction book by Nelson Johnson, The year is 1920, as the life of Enoch "Nucky" Johnson (Steve Buscemi) plays out on New Jersey's Atlantic City as World War One ended, the Suffragette movement and the Temperance movement converged and all liquor was prohibited throughout the United States under federal law.

Pogledao sam DOWNHILL RACER Michaela Ritchieja, adaptaciju romana Oakley Halla. U ovom filmu Ritchie je do maksimuma iskoristio svoje dokumentarističko iskustvo i stvorio je film koji se koristi naracijom baziranom na upadanju u sred scena, bez klasično postavljene drame, sa detaljima koje gledalac sam sklapa u celinu. To je tehnika kojom su se tokom sedamdesetih dosta služili reditelji a Ritchie je u svojim filmovima poput RACERa i CANDIDATEa otišao možda i najdalje u toj tehnici. Pored ove novoholivudske dimenzije naracije, DOWNHILL RACER je jedan od najznačajnijih sportskih filmova u istoriji.

Značajan je iz više razloga, najpre zato što ovo nije rags to riches priča. Ovo je priča o ceni pobede koja je visoka i nije isključuvo bazirana na trudu, talentu i sličnim idealističkim atributima već i na tuđoj nesreći, žrtvovanju mnogih stvari uključujući lično sazrevanje ne bi li pojedinac postao savršen u toj jednoj oblasti kojom se bavi. U tom smislu glavni junak kog igra Robert Redford nije harizmatičan, on je vrlo hladan, polu-obrazovan, distanciran od okoline i diskretan, spreman da se obraduje tuđoj nesreći, doduše ne da je i izazove. Redfordov lik je redak u sportskom filmu i po stepenu ambivalencije ANY GIVEN SUNDAY Olivera Stonea je naslednik DOWNHILL RACERa a i narativne tehnike im se u priličnoj meri poklapaju. Naravno, Ritchie pripada elegantnim šezdesetim/sedamdesetim i govori o sportu kojim se bave situirani belci po Alpima dočim Stone uranja u svet kiča i steroidnomg mačizma svojstvenog NFLu.

Redford je napravio atipičnu ulogu, kao i kod Ritchieja u CANDIDATEu, dakle on je napravio karakter koji nema movie star harizmu, uzdržao se od unošenja ličnog šarma u celu priču i ostvario je jednu od najsolidnijih uloga svoje karijere.

Pored Redforda i Ritchieja, važno je naglasiti izuzetno realizovane skijaške scene, koje pokazuju da je Ritchie uz specifičan rad na karakterima iz dokumnetarizma doneo i tradiciju izvanrednog location shootinga. Dokumentarni footage, televizijski snimci su sjajno integrisani a Redforda ima sasvim dovoljno u tim scenama da se ne stvori distanca usled svesti o tome da skija dubler.

Mnogi se žale da je DOWNHILL RACER studija karaktera koji nije mnogo zanimljiv. ja mislim da je to upravo najveća snaga ovog filma, što pokazuje zapravo blagu duhovnu hendikepiranost vrhunskog sporta. I što je još važnije DOWNHILL RACER je sportski film za koji zapravo nije potrebno poznavanje sporta kojim se bavi da bi se razumeo.

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Film
Cult Director Courts the Mass, Keeps the Crazy
Stephanie Diani for The New York Times

The British director Edgar Wright on a Universal back lot.
By DAVE ITZKOFF
Published: August 5, 2010

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AS he prepared to board another in a series of Virgin Atlantic flights from London to Los Angeles that have lately defined his life, Edgar Wright was presented with a quandary: Should he spend the 11 ½-hour trip getting some much-needed shut-eye or playing Super Mario Bros. on an in-flight video-game system?
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Trailer
'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World'
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Universal Pictures

Mr. Wright's latest film, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," is his first major-studio production.

Mr. Wright, a 36-year-old British filmmaker, chose the Nintendo-induced nostalgia. "The music and sound effects in those games are incredibly reassuring," he said in a telephone interview a few weeks ago. "These are the little eight-bit sounds that soundtracked our lives."

Though he may not have played the game much since he was a boy, Mr. Wright said, "you can get on it right now and get straight back to where you were in the early '80s."

"And," he added with a laugh, "I will probably do so when I get on the plane."

The emotional yearning stirred up in certain young men — and sometimes women — by the cultural artifacts of their not-too-distant childhoods is a phenomenon that Mr. Wright is fluent in.

He has harnessed it in his horror-comedy hybrid "Shaun of the Dead" and his action-comedy cross-breed "Hot Fuzz," and used it to propel himself from a sleepy British suburb to his first big-budget Hollywood movie.

That film, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," which Universal will release on Friday, may be the ultimate expression of Mr. Wright's pop sensibilities, synthesizing comic-book, video-game and indie-rock influences into a romantic comedy about lovelorn Canadian 20-somethings.

It is also a test of whether Mr. Wright's tastes can reach beyond the cult fan base he has already cultivated, and whether he even seeks to reach a mass audience — or if simply getting the movie made is accomplishment enough.

"It's a reasonably insane film," Mr. Wright said, "and it's a studio project. This is my first proper Hollywood film, and it couldn't be more crazy."

Adapted from comic books written and illustrated by Bryan Lee O'Malley, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" chronicles a Toronto slacker (played by Michael Cera) who, in order to win the heart of Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the hip, wild-haired girl of his dreams, must defeat her seven ex-lovers in a series of fights.

Mr. O'Malley's comics borrowed their clean, dynamic designs from Japanese manga, and Mr. Wright's film pushes those influences even further: dialogue and actions are embellished with sound effects spelled out on screen — a '60s-"Batman"-style "SMAK" to convey a punch to the face or a stream of "DDDDDD" to signify a strumming bass guitar — as well as noises and musical cues sampled from old Nintendo software. Scott's nightly outings to mundane bars and rock clubs culminate in fantastical showdowns meant to evoke the frenetic pugilism of video games like Street Fighter II.

As Quentin Tarantino, who befriended Mr. Wright after seeing "Shaun of the Dead," described the mix of sincere young angst and cartoonish mortal combat in "Scott Pilgrim," "It's like 'Say Anything' meets 'Five Deadly Venoms.' "

For the shaggy-haired Mr. Wright, with a stubbly beard and a youthful, exuberant voice, the film is the culmination of an already rapid ascent. Raised in the hamlet of Somerset, about 140 miles west of London, he grew up less a game geek than a film geek, graduating from the early blockbusters of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to the comedies of Joe Dante and John Landis to, most crucially, the early splatter movies of Sam Raimi.

"I assumed that maybe most people who got into films came through nepotism," Mr. Wright said. "Then hearing about an 18-year-old in Michigan making horror films, that was the real epiphany of, like, that's what I'm going to do."

Mr. Wright became a directing wunderkind himself, tackling his own short films and several British television comedies in his early 20s. In particular, the Channel 4 series "Spaced," in which Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes play residents of a deeply bizarre apartment building, let Mr. Wright perfect a directorial style modeled on the rapid camera movements and smash-cut edits he had seen in films like the Coen brothers' "Raising Arizona" and Mr. Raimi's "Evil Dead" movies.

"I think he's a frustrated celebrity," said Mr. Pegg, who became Mr. Wright's frequent collaborator. "He stamps himself on his movies. That visual technique is him being on screen."

After two seasons of "Spaced" were shown in 1999 and 2001, Mr. Wright and Mr. Pegg spent three years working on "Shaun of the Dead" (and finding new producers when its original studio went into receivership). In that 2004 film Mr. Pegg stars as the unlikely hero of a zombie onslaught, who at first cannot distinguish the damage wrought by undead hordes from a typically dreary London day. It earned them international acclaim, at least from viewers who understood its references.

J. J. Abrams, director of the "Star Trek"-reboot, said of Mr. Wright: "He's got a real knack for not just comedy and action, but for capturing the truth about characters at the same time. That's a really delicate balancing act."

The financial success of "Shaun of the Dead" (which earned $30 million worldwide on a budget of about $6 million) presented Mr. Wright with numerous opportunities, including his 2007 follow-up, "Hot Fuzz," a satirical homage to the over-the-top action of "Point Break" and "Bad Boys II," set in the director's rustic hometown. (It made more than $80 million worldwide.)

He also began developing "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," having been sent the comics by American producers. But if that film did not come together as rapidly, it was, in part, because no one could imagine what it would look like.
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Rogue Pictures

His cult favorite "Shaun of the Dead," with Simon Pegg (wearing tie).
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Trailer
'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World'

In his meetings with executives, Mr. Wright said, he was wary of citing the movies he saw as the true antecedents of "Scott Pilgrim" — Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle," Brian De Palma's "Phantom of the Paradise" — because, he said, "you don't want to reference things that are way too obscure."

"A director will rattle off his favorite films," Mr. Wright said, "and you can hear the executive in their head going: 'Flop. Flop. Flop. Flop. Flop.' "

His voice starting to rise, Mr. Wright said, "If you're trying to make something that's unique and fresh, that's a completely unique gender bender, how can you give examples of similar films?"

Then his brain caught up to his tongue and he chuckled. "Genre bender, rather, not a gender bender," he said. "Brilliant."

Instead, in the summer of 2008, Mr. Wright spent several weeks making a test film for Universal to showcase the special effects for "Scott Pilgrim" and its elaborate, gamelike fight sequences.

That too baffled some viewers. ("I'm a cartoonist," Mr. O'Malley said. "I draw this crazy stuff, but it was very strange to see it in blinding color.") Still, it helped Mr. Wright persuade the studio to provide him with a $60 million budget, easily the largest of his career.

On the verge of its theatrical release, "Scott Pilgrim" has won praise from some elite filmmakers. In an e-mail Peter Jackson wrote that the movie is "just like its director — it's funny and quick and irreverent without being full of its own cleverness."

Mr. Wright's friends are more reluctant to predict if its purée of influences will play to big summer crowds. But Mr. Cera said the film would resonate not for its cultural pedigree but for its spirited depiction of a British director channeling his affection for American pop through a Canadian youth scene.

"It doesn't really have to be realistic, because it's portraying a certain idea of a kind of culture," said Mr. Cera, who grew up into Brampton, Ontario, just outside of Toronto. "It feels like when you read the graphic novels, like; 'Oh, I want to go and hang out with those people. They seem to be happy in that world.' "

Donna Langley, the co-chairwoman of Universal Pictures, said "Scott Pilgrim" was the kind of film that could lead Mr. Wright out of genre filmmaking and toward more mass entertainment.

"He is absolutely capable of taking on a big mainstream movie," Ms. Langley said. "But whether or not his tastes will lead him in the direction of all-audience fare? I think the jury's still out."

But Mr. Tarantino argued that Mr. Wright's multi-genre mash-ups were not anything he needed to move beyond.

"I think his movies are wholly his own," Mr. Tarantino said. "I mean, you're talking to me, so, obviously, genre is not a bad word, all right? It's not like, oh, you're messing around with genre, and when you grow out of that, you do 'Scenes From a Marriage.' That's not my way of thinking at all."

Mr. Wright's career could still follow any number of trajectories. He has plans to direct a film based on the Marvel Comics superhero Ant-Man, but also to reunite with Mr. Pegg to make another low-budget comedy called "The World's End" (a film they happily concede has a title but, as of yet, no plot).

Speaking by phone the morning after "Scott Pilgrim" made its debut at Comic-Con International in San Diego, Mr. Wright said his only goal was to "create films that would have blown my mind when I was a 13-year-old boy."

At that Comic-Con screening Mr. Wright said there were several positive indicators of an audience that already speaks his language.

"They cheered when Ramona and Scott first kissed, they cheered the flaming swords," he said. "To hear them cheering when people explode into coins is very gratifying."

Quote from: crippled_avenger on 07-08-2010, 02:56:35
SALT je prevashodno ipak cirkus koji želi da se pozicionira negde na ničijoj zemlji između WANTEDa i Bournea. Iz WANTEDa preuzima neke prenaglašene akrobacije i slo-mo detalje a iz Bourtne preuzima impact u akcionim scenama, brze rezove na krupni čak i posle najbizarnijih vratolomija kako bi se gledalac što pre ubacio u iluziju da to sve radi glumac (što je klasičan 80s touch) i veće insistiranje na stuntovima i bolje prikrivanje CGIa nego što smo retali u poslednje vreme.

mislim da je u wantedu angelinina trenutna fizionomija daleko uspešnije korišćena; praktično je stasala kao akciona zvezda otkako se pretvorila u vreću kostiju i u tom smislu najbolje scene koje salt nudi su one kada treska o kamione u tankom kaputu. bekmambetov je shvatio da te izbočene zglobove i golenice gledalac neće propustiti da zapazi, te ih je sjajno podvukao u sceni pucnjave u supermarketu, pridodavši joj onaj veliki rotirajući pištolj čija inercija čini da se zapitamo hoće li joj se ruka prelomiti kad se cimne pri okidanju. kada se to ne desi, shvatimo da te koske nisu krte. činilo se da nojs to kapira, pored tumbanja po autoputu tu je bila i scena pravljenja raketnog bacača od nogara stola i hemikalija, bosonogo grabljenje po hladnom betonu, grčevito držanje za erkondišn ali su onda krenule da se ređaju scene u kojima žena od 40 kila nogicama razbacuje sikjuriti rmpalije... i ja sam razočaran. ako dođe do drugog dela ipak bih se pre rešio vimera nego nojsa, lakoća s kojom njegovi likovi prolaze nemoguće perimetre je teška za gledanje.

inače, prilično sam siguran da je bioskopski trejler imao sekund nečega što je ličilo na seks; ko bi pretpostavio da će salt ponoviti grešku (ne)viđenu u playing god.

Mislim da realno neće biti nastavka. Možda DTV ali bez Angeline. I možda tada film bude dobar.

Pogledao sam SOLITARY MAN Briana Koppelmana i Davida Leviena, jedan od najočekivanijih filmova prošle pa sad i ove godine. Ovaj film je definitivno bookend naslov u kome Doiglas zaključuje svoje japi likove iz osamdesetih i devedesetih, i to što izlazi i nastavak WALL STREETa ove godine samo pokazuje koliko su to bitni likovi za definisanje jedne ere i to ne samo kroz prikaz sveta biznisa već i libidinalne energije koju je taj svet nosio.

SOLITARY MAN je indie film koji samim tim ima priliku da bude "ozbiljan" i da se pozabavi karakterom na način na koji bi to svojevremeno nešto češće radili holivudski filmovi. Iako se to i njima potkrade, poslednjih sezona karakterom se bave samo high concept melodrame, ili istinite priče, a nema nekih manjih, nepretencioznijih filmova sa ozbiljnijim preispitivanjem kako karaktera u psihološkom smislu tako i u filmskom. Naime, SOLITARY MAN jeste prilično zanimljiva studija muškarca u klimaksu i njegovog suočavanja sa činjenicom da ga je pregazilo vreme ali nije samo to, ona se najdirektnije bavi Douglasovom filmskom personom, i smešta je u jedan vrlo precizan melodramski kontekst u kome se dešavaju ozbiljne scene ali se nikada ne odlazi u indie raštimovanost, ne zaboravlja se thre-act struktura i precizan razvoj drame sa dosta šarma.

Douglas je naravno centar ovog filma i nema problem sa tim da čak i bukvalno odigra truljenje svog junaka. Tome mu pomaže i faktička dotrajalost tela. U filmu hramlje jer mu je koleno bilo u fazi pred operaciju i čini se da su se glumac i lik proželi kao u vreme osamdesetih kada je on svojom poslovnom promućurnošću i privatnom nezasitošću parirao svojim junacima.

Okružen je zvezdama tako da se u manjim ulogama pojavljuju Susan Sarandon, Danny De Vito, Mary Louise Parker, Jesse Eisenberg, Jenna Fischer, no centar priče je jasno definisan i SOLITARY MAN se nikada ne degeneriše u indie dramu sa All-Star podelom koja nije ravna čak ni zbiru uključenih talenata. Ovaj film po svom efektu prevazilazi zbir i stoji kao pravi pogodak.

Film su režirali Soderberghovi scenaristi-miljenici Levien i Koppelman koji imaju karijeru i mimo njega, setimo se ROUNDERSa, ali on im je kao producent omogućio da se izbore za ovaj projekat i konačno je reč o filmu u kome su Avi Lerner i ekipa iz Millenniuma uspeli da se sasvim uspešno plasiraju u indie vode. Očigldno im je saradnja sa Douglasom dobro polazište jer su sa njim radili i izvanredni KING OF CALIFORNIA.

za razliku od Soderbergha, njegovi scenaristi se drže vrlo konvencionalnog, preciznog pripovedanja i uz veliku pomoć DPa Alwina Zuchlera koga znamo po saradnjama sa Roger Michellom isporučuju slick melodramu major kalibra, na vrlo skromnom ali odlično iskorišćenom indie budžetu.

SOLITARY MAN je film koji je do te mere oslonjen na Douglasa da uživanje u njemu jeste direktno proporcionalno gledaočevoj toleranciji prema ovom glumcu, a isto tako ugođaju doprinosi, premda nije nužno i poznavanje njegovog glumačkog opusa. Međutim, mislim da čak i oni koji ne vole Douglasa i ne smatraju njegov opus značajnim, mogu lepo da se snađu u ovom odličnom filmu.

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SPLICE Vincenzo Natalija je pre svega značajan kao podsetnik zašto je David Cronenberg veliki reditelj i genije. Naime, iako SPLICE sadrži niz elemenata koje možemo u osnovi smatrati cronenbergovskim, i formalno više podseća na njegove filmove od njegovog vlastitog rada u poslednje vreme, suštinski ne može biti dalje od tih klasika. tematizacija tela, seksualnosti, poigravanja sa pšrrodom koje mora biti kažnjeno, ideja pravljenja sofisticiranog creature featurea, racionalan tretman iracionalnih pemisa - sve su to cronenbergovski zahvati za kojima Natali poseže. Međutim, on je u svojoj suštini napravio jedan budalast film jer polazi od premise da su materinski instinkti i seksualni nagoni nešto što može biti izazvano bilo čim, kao da su ljudi idiotiu vođeni isključivo nagonima, bez ikakve kontrole, i kao da se ti sami nagoni ne mogu malo sofisticirati već je svako biće u okolini potencijalni mezimac ili seksualni objekat. Naročito je apsurno imati naučnike, samoproklamovane nerdove u glavnim ulogama čije je ponašanje veći deo vremena nespojivo sa njihovim intelektualnim kapacitetima i društvenim položajem.

Dakle, kao drama i neka vrsta moraliteta, SPLICE je preglup da bi funkcionisao, dočim kao zabava nema previše smisla jer je prespor, previše ambivalentan u svojim ambicijama i prosto ne nudi dovoljno zahvata koji bi imali zabavan rezultat.

U žanrovskom smislu, ono što je najpozitivniji aspekt ovog filma jeste to što je došao do bioskopa i to tako što ga je primetio Joel Silver i kupio za Warner Bros. Objektivno, SPLICE i ovakav - kakav je, zanimljiviji je od većine horora koji dospevaju u američke bioskope, naročito kroz mejdžor mrežu. Šteta je samo što ovaj film nema kapacitet da se pred publikom potvrdi kao ispravan potez.

Nedovoljno pametan da bi bio izazovan SF, nedovoljno napet i krvav da bi bio horor, nedovoljno ingeniozan da bi bio cronenbergovski genrebender, SPLICE je verovatno ostao zbunjujuće iskustvo za one koji su ga gledali u bioskopu u vreme premijere. S druge strane, sam kontekst u kome SPLICE postoji na savremenoj sceni, opravdava gotovo unisonu podršku koju je dobio u vreme premijere.

Šteta je samo što još od krajnje trashy animimirane špice, SPLICE neprestano sugertiše da nije na onom nivou na kom bi trebalo da bude.

Izvan konceptualnih dvoumljenja i stranputica, SPLICE je prilično kompetentno realizovan film koji po svojo zrelost nadilazi Natalijeve ranije projkete. Adrien Brody i sarah Polley su odlično izabrana indie podela koja bi trebalo da podigne film za klasu a creature efekti su vrlo interesantni.

Imajući to u vidu, ljubitelji žanra svakako treba da ga pogledaju jer će im i vrline i mane ovog filma biti vrlo poučne.

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The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Business Blog  has a story that Todd Phillips and Pursuit of Happyness writer Steven Conrad have acquired the rights to develop a John Belushi biopic for Warner Bros.

The story underlines that the flick will have little if anything to do with the famous biography, Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi, written by Bob Woodward and decried by friends and family of Belushi for is less-than-accurate portrait of Belushi.

Right now Phillips is producing, but may step in to direct. No one has been cast yet, although there is strong speculation that Zach Galifianakis might be in consideration. I'd bet that's more due to his recent work with Phillips (Hangover and Due Date) than anything real.

I love Galifianakis, but other than a similar figure he's totally wrong for the part. Is there anybody out there like Belushi? Not really. They're going to have to find an unknown or cast somebody radically against type, I think, if this stand any sort of chance of working out.

ORLD, and it's pretty fucking spectacular. In many ways, it's a step down a very different path for director Edgar Wright, and in other ways, it's right down his alley. As universally loved and regarded as SHAUN OF THE DEAD, HOTT FUZZ, and the "Spaced" TV series are, they are definitely aimed at an audience slightly older than the readers of the Scott Pilgrim comics. At the very least, those previous projects were best appreciated with a knowledge of and passion for '70s and '80s film that Wright and his partners in crime, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, have always made a part of their work. So whether you see Wright as growing up or perhaps getting younger to make SCOTT PILGRIM, there's a real shift in his visual sense, pacing, and just pure adrenaline-fueled joy.

I ran into Wright briefly at Comic-Con, and the first thing he said to be was, "Am I seeing you in Chicago?" At the time, I wasn't even aware he was coming, let alone bring the star of his film, Michael Cera, who I'd just interviewed late last year for YOUTH IN REVOLT, with him. And while I had a great time talking to Cera in December, placing him in close proximity to Wright seemed to ignite something in his persona that I'd never seen before. He seems genuinely excited to be out talking about this movie.

First off, you should read Quint's fantastic interview with Scott's lady love Ramona Flowers (aka Mary Elizabeth Winstead). And if what I'm hearing is correct, you'll be getting an extensive one-on-one interview with Edgar Wright from another one of our writers fairly soon, but since he and Cera were paired in Chicago, I thought I'd have a little fun with them and still get some insight into the movie. Hope you enjoy, and in the name of all that is holy, go support the most original film released this weekend, hell, this month. Enjoy Edgar Wright and Michael Cera...

Edgar Wright: Hey, man, how are you doing? Seems like only yesterday...

Capone: Exactly. Hi, Michael, good to see you again.

Michael Cera: You too! How are you doing?

Capone: Good!

[Michael Cera spots a table filled with SCOTT PILGRIM promotional buttons, some of which made their way into my pocket before the interview.]

MC: Cool, free stuff!

EW: Lots of stuff.

MC: Are these magnets?

Capone: I haven't even looked at these. They look like bookmarks. Actually, I would love one of these.

EW: You've got all the pins there. I'm not sure I've got all the pin, actually.

MC: Who are you missing?

EW: We made one for... It's Anna Kendrick's birthday today, and she complained that there were no Stacey pins, so we made her a special one-off Stacey button.

Capone: That's nice.

EW: Yeah.

Capone: Anyway, so now that you are sort of out of the Comic-Con bubble as it were and taking this film out into the real world, is it a different experience? How does it feel?

EW: I don't know, I think people seem to have the same reaction. Like I think--whether it's the sort of more conventional elements of the love story or comedy or even the geekier aspects of it--it still seems to hit home to people who have never been to Comic-Con or read the books.

MC: People are just a little more off guard going in I guess, right?

EW: Yeah. That's the thing, I think maybe it's more of a revelation for people who haven't seen the books, which is kind of nice, so from the press that we have spoken to, we have people several times a day saying "I have never seen anything like that before, where did it come from?"

MC: "I did not expect that!" "I had no idea what to expect," is what a lot of people are saying.

Capone: Yeah and I mean I'm not a video game person at all, not since I was much younger.

EW: Me too.

MC: Never?

Capone: I can literally only really afford one or two major passions in my life to just throw all of my money at and that's movies, and music to a certain degree, but movies are the main thing.

MC: You throw all of your money...?

Capone: Money and time, yes.

MC: Yeah, I got you.

EW: I agree with that. I'm always envious of those people who can somehow kind of hit all bases and I find that, like SOPHIE'S CHOICE, I've found I have to pick two of the five. If it's like books, comics, video games, films, and music, I have to concentrate just time and money wise on films and music.

Capone: Same here, exactly. So video games have been sort of a mystery to me for a while. I've got friends who play them, so I'm aware, but what's funny is that all of the video game references in this movie I recognize. They are so old-school-arcade game kind of video game references that I'm like "Oh, that graphic looks like something out of a game I used to play in high school."

MC: It's almost even just more of a feeling than any specific reference that people recognize, like even just hearing a [video game theme] song, and you might not even know what it's from, but you just feel it. It just feels like childhood.

EW: Yeah, I think that's the thing. I'm a lapsed gamer in that I haven't really had a console in my house for ten years, since "Spaced." aAnd "Spaced" in a weird way was like having a Viking funeral for my PlayStation.

[Everyone Laughs]

EW: I had to get it out of the house. With this actually, I feel... When I read the books and a lot of the game references that were in the books kind of induced a sense of nostalgia, and I think also it taps into like... Even just having those more primitive kind of 8-bit musical motifs, it kind of keys into the fact that Scott Pilgrim is immature as a character, like he's 22, but sometimes he acts like a 12 year old, you know? Hopefully, it works as a theme, so it was as much a character theme as much as a stylistic flourish. Sometimes I think some people have gotten bogged down in the video game references a little bit, because it's not the first thing that I think of when I think about the film, I think "Oh yeah, we do that."

Capone: Yet you open the film with the Universal logo and that 8-bit music, so...

[Everyone Laughs]

EW: That's true.

Capone: So you're already priming us to view what we're about to see through very specific filters.

MC: That's true. It's like Tetris and Zelda mentioned in the first two minutes...

EW: Yeah, I guess so. I think so in a weird way it's establishing that kind of... I guess I felt the same way about "Spaced" when I did it, like, I didn't think too much. Some of the pop-culture stuff that's in there to me just kind of felt like it was air to the characters, do you know what I mean? I feel like what's interesting about the film--and in the books as well--you are dealing with that point in your life where it's like post school or college, but pre-knowing what the fuck you are going to do with your life, and so there's that sort of moment which, for some people is a year, for some people it's 10 years or like being slightly directionless.

And if it's a rite-of-passage film, it's about Scott Pilgrim. It's not just about Scott Pilgrim trying to have his first adult relationship, but it's also about him just kind of learning to take on the responsibilities for his action and not be like in his own little playground.

Capone: Although I think the over-30 crowd is going to gravitate toward that adult relationship story more. That's certainly the stuff that I was enjoying the most, that grand metaphor of working your way through the hormones, the energy, and the overbearing emotion of those younger relationships, all through Scott's filter of pop culture. I want to talk a little bit about your editing, actually, because this is edited in such a way that you forego classical approaches to character development and story progression in favor of these small moments that add up to something. Can you talk a little bit about that?

EW: I guess with the editing, I think I've always done things that were sort of edited in a way that certainly isn't naturalistic in its style. I guess in this case I was trying to get the feel of the books across, so even in a comic-book movie, there's one thing about doing onomatopoeic sound effects or transitions, but also, I felt reading the books, even just in the way that it's edited and the shot structure is that every shot had to feel like a different panel, because usually in comic books, and in Brain's [Lee O'Malley] art work, you maybe get like two bubbles per panel. So it's always moving forward, and I felt like I really wanted to capture the feeling you have of reading a comic book really fast.

I remember when I used to read Marvel comics, I used to have a Marvel comic and I would read the whole thing in like 20 minutes, and when it would get to the action, which I would actually read through the action much faster, because I would kind of read the sound effects as quick as they would appear, so it would be like you are reading dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, and then you get to the action scene, it's like "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" Next bit. So I finished the comic and I would go back and pour over the action artwork. I would try to read the action as fast as it should be occurring in reality and then I would go be and sort of luxuriate in Frank Miller's artwork or Todd McFarlane's artwork, so I tried to get that rhythm to it, as well.
And also even in the dialogue in the books is very laid back and dead pan. I liked the idea of keeping that screwball pace to it in a way like it never slows down for the audience or it never talks down to the audience. It's not like the dialogue is too smart for the room, but it's more that it just doesn't ever slow down for people.

MC: It's too dumb for the room.

[Everyone Laughs]

EW: "The dialogue that was too dumb for the room." Don't use that for our pull quote, please.

Capone: I'm always a huge fan of when music is not just used as a soundtrack, but as it being a integral part of the film. Talk about the importance of the band in this movie, because this is almost as much a story of the band's rise as it is of Scott's changing life. Can both of you talk about that?

MC: It's almost like the band's journey is what's happening in reality, and the rest of it is kind of in Scott's mind.

EW: Yeah.

MC: That's all his world, and they're trying to get him to focus.

EW: Yeah, he's the guy in rehearsal who is staring out of the window. It's like [smacks hands together] "Scott! Come on!" Stills and Kim have a different version of this film playing that's more like an ALMOST FAMOUS sort of version, where Sex Bob-Omb rise through the ranks.

[Everyone Laughs]

EW: In terms of the band, we tried really hard to make the band's scenes feel real, because even within the scenes that are kind of stylized, because a lot of fictional bands in film feel slightly off, and so myself and [music supervisor] Nigel Godrich kind of worked really hard to try and ascertain why that happens in other films and part of it is just the actors learning how to play their instruments. Michael already knew how to play guitar and bass, but Allison Pill and Mark Webber had to kind of learn from scratch and Brandon Routh had to learn from scratch.

MC: And Mark did his own vocals.

EW: Yeah.

MC: And it sounds great.

EW: And Allison and Michael do backing vocals as well, so Beck had written these songs and Beck had deliberately recorded them in a very short space of time, so they had the feeling of like being raw 8-track demos. Basically once he laid them down, we didn't ever ask him to polish them up, because I was thinking "This sounds real and raw," and it sounds like the songs that a band would knock out with their first EP.

Capone: I've been a huge fan of Mark Webber's for years, but I don't know if I have ever seen him do comedy or anything other than the heaviest of heavy dramas. How did you think of him for that particular role?

EW: You know what? I can't claim credit for that. I had seen him in other films, like BROKEN FLOWERS and HOLLYWOOD ENDING even. I had seen him in other stuff like DEAR WENDY....

MC: STORYTELLING.

EW: STORYTELLING, yes, of course.

Capone: You should see a movie that he's in called THE HOTTEST STATE that Ethan Hawke director.

MC: Oh yeah!

EW: He's one of those guys, he's a bit of chameleon. I must admit, I'd say about 50 percent of the cast I had in mind before or I was aware of and was fans of. And then there were other people who I had seen in things or I knew I liked them, but I've got to give credit to the casting director and Mark Webber was one of those people.

And usually when people come in to read, I don't pour over their resume until they have left the room, I kind of just see who's coming in and just let them read. So actually Mark Webber was one of those people that I saw. You know there's that kind of cliché saying where "You know when somebody walks into the room whether they are right for the part or not," and I don't think that's usually true, except for Mark Webber. Somehow when he came in, he had this kind of like, this infectious beaming grin on his face and he totally looked like the character. And he reminded me a lot of Kevin Drew from Broken Social Scene, who I have become friends with through this process.

So when Mark came in, I was thinking "Oh man, it looks like Kevin's brother," and he was brilliant in his first audition--his first and only audition I think actually and then I looked at his resume thinking, "Oh shit, it's the kid from STORYTELLING!" Then the next time I saw him, I was like "You worked with Mike Shank? Tell me about working with Mike Shank!" So I would love to claim credit for saying, "Mark Webber was mine," but he just came through the audition process and he was amazing.

Capone: Michael, you have done a succession of films where you are dealing with your first serious love. Why do you think people look to you for that kind of character dealing with that specific life event?

MC: I scream "inexperience."

[Everyone Laughs]

EW: You literally do that.

MC: I go around the streets screaming "Inexperience!"

EW: But that was your mantra on set before every take. "Inexperience!"

MC: I would scream "Inexperience" and "Shut up you idiots, we're trying to rehearse!" Those were my two mantras on set.

Capone: Do you ever envision a time in your career where you will play someone who is married?

MC: Or maybe like giving a young man advice.

Capone: Yes, exactly.

MC: I do. I envision that. Down the road.

EW: We'll jump 60 years ahead for the GRUMPY OLD MEN remake. Start the rumors now. Michael and me are doing a GRUMPY OLD MEN reboot in 2050.

MC: That's funny. Somebody said that in an interview, "You always play young people."

[Everybody laughs]

Capone: Another cast member I wanted to focus on, because he kind of just blew me away and I have seen him before and always loved him, is Kieran Culkin. I love that his character sits outside of the movie a little bit, like observing; he's like a walking breathing commentary on everything else. To me, he's the reality in a lot of ways, because we are seeing Scott's other non-reality.

EW: It's funny, I would sort of refer to the characters as the ladies in Scott's life that play like a Greek chorus, and I include Kieran in the ladies, but it's like Stacey, Scott's sister, Kim Pine, and Wallace Wells are like the people who are the grounding, constantly being that kind of mental stroke--somebody who needles you, both loves and hates you at the same time. And he's such a great part of the books, Wallace Wells is great. Weirdly, two days ago in Toronto, Kieran met the real Wallace for the first time, because Brian based it on a friend of his.

MC: His former roommate actually, right?

EW: His former roommate, yeah. So a lot of that stuff, and then the guy, Chris, who works at [comic book store] The Beguiling in Toronto, watched the film for the first time and loved it, but the scene in the film where he comes home drunk and flops on the bed is based on a real incident. But Kieran is amazing. My note to Kieran was I said, because he's playing a very out gay character and a very predatory gay character. He turns straight men like that [snaps his fingers]. My note to him in the first audition that he did, I said, "Wallace Wells should appear more straight than Scott Pilgrim." How I feel in the books is like--and I think it's a really great way that he wrote the characters in the book--and it's also nice for like a PG-13 comedy to have gay characters where there is absolutely zero stigma about it, you know what I mean?

Capone: You don't even call attention to it, even though he's this hyper-sexual guy.

EW: He turns Stacey's boyfriend in seemingly 10 seconds flat.

Capone: So Michael, have you retained any of your fight training? Could you go out on the street and just kick some ass?

MC: I couldn't do a thing. Even if I had retained it, I couldn't kick ass. It's just like a ballet you know? I could do it if the opponent was Satya [Bhabha, who plays evil ex- Matthew Patel], and if he happened to remember his part.

EW: Didn't you do that late at night in a street?

MC: Yeah, we did actually. We were in L.A. and me and Satya were trying to remember our fight sequence, like this was like a couple of months ago and somebody screamed, "I'm calling the cops!"

[Everyone Laughs]

MC: I don't know if she thought we were really fighting, or maybe we were just being too loud.

Capone: Was this the most preparation--I'm talking about the music and the fighting--that you ever done before shooting?

MC: By far. Yeah, I mean we did band rehearsals and two months of training and rehearsing with other actors and just constant preparation. It was kind of nice.

EW: That was something that was kind of built into everybody's contract, as well, in terms of like "We have to have everybody in Toronto for like eight weeks before we start shooting."

MC: It was smart to do that.

EW: I remember I talked to Quentin Tarantino about the prep on KILL BILL and he had said "Minimum eight weeks training for the actors," and it was actually really good, because I think--and hopefully it comes across in the finished film--that the actors became really close, especially for the ones who didn't know each other already, a couple of them already knew each other. Allison Pill and Mark Webber had been in DEAR WENDY before. But what was great is it really, we all trained together, like me and [Wright's co-writer] Michael Bacall trained with the actors every morning as a sort of solidarity thing, but also as a way for me and understanding what they had to go through.

We are working... like they were trained by one of the fight trainers, Max White, who was a stunt double for HELLBOY. We were talking about this in the car on the way here, both of us were saying, "Man, I would pay Max White to be my trainer everyday." I said, "I really miss the fight training." We did it for two hours every morning during prep for like two months and it was amazing. And then lots of other actors who aren't in the fights came and trained as well. Suddenly Kieran Culkin and Brie Larson were training even though they don't actually appear in any fight scenes. Then people really start to feel left out, like there was this kind of, almost like a networking thing.

MC: Like a speakeasy.

EW: Yes, a speakeasy. It's like there's a poker game going on at 8 in the morning, like "Aw, I want to play too!" "I want to be in fight club!"

MC: A "speak difficult."

Capone: Real quick, what is next for both of you? What do you have lined up?

EW: We can answer for each other on ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and ANT-MAN.

[Everyone Laughs]

Capone: I wasn't even going to ask about ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT this time. I asked you about ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT before, and I just spent a couple of days on Ron Howard's set here in Chicago, so I kind of know what's going on with that.

MC: I don't know what my next job is. I don't know if I really have anything lined up. I really want to do this play with Kieran Culkin that I'm hoping will work out.

EW: That's cool.

MC: I don't know if it's going to, but if it does I would be so happy.

Capone: In L.A.?

MC: In New York.

EW: Oh wow, that would be amazing. I didn't know about that.

MC: It would be amazing. We will see.

Capone: You can't say what it is?

MC: THIS IS OUR YOUTH [written by Kenneth Lonergan]. Do you know of it?

EW: Oh yeah.

MC: It's a great play, but I really don't know if it's going to work out, but that's what I want to do the most right now.

EW: That'd be cool.

EW: I don't know when the last time you interviewed me, but it's probably still exactly the same. I've got like three things that I still need to finish writing, including ANT-MAN and one with Simon [Pegg] and Nick [Frost] and one solo project. At some point, I want to kind of collapse, even just a couple of days would be nice--maybe longer--but then get back into writing. I'm a really bad multi-tasker and pretty much, I've been working on the script for like five years, but in July of 2008 I started working on [SCOTT PILGRIM] full time and didn't stop until, well it's happening now and still going.

Capone: There was a part of me that thought that you might have secretly cast your Ant-Man already and that would have been part of the AVENGERS lineup, because I can't imagine an AVENGERS without Henry Pym. He's always been there.

MC: Ant-Man? He's part of THE AVENGERS?

EW: Yeah.

MC: Oh, I didn't know that.

Capone: He was always...

EW: He was in the original... Well the original issue of THE AVENGERS is like sort of, by Stan Lee's own admission, was just like "How can we get all of the heroes into one comic?" They team up to capture the Hulk in the very first issue.

MC: Wow.

EW: But the thing is that the script that I had written for Marvel, if we end up doing it, is actually wouldn't work with that timeline the way that I've written it. So I actually had a talk with [Marvel Studios] Kevin Feige a couple of months ago--I think before Joss [Whedon] got involved--about "Is Ant Man going to be a part of THE AVENGERS?" and we kind of both agreed that maybe he shouldn't on this first one, because of the way that my origin script works. And I think also because they are going for more like the Ultimates kind of version of The Avengers, but I hope I get to do the script that we did for Ant-Man, because it's pretty...

MC: Is it funny?

EW: Yeah. It's a different kind of origin film. I kind of figured you had seen every different variation of mad scientist creating a formula and stuff, so this is something a bit different.

Capone: Okay, well looking forward to it. Good to see you both again.

EW: Are you going to the screening tonight?

Capone: No, I'm not going to the one tonight, although I will see it again.

EW: But some Ain't It Cool readers are going, right?

Capone: Yeah, we did give away a bunch of tickets.

EW: That's cool.

Capone: Too bad you wont be able to make that.

EW: We'll do it again in a couple of years. [laughs]

Since the redistribution of Nielsen tracking details from person to person was severely curtailed earlier this year, it's harder for some to get an angle on just how movies are going to open in the States. But information longs to be free...

One common conversation at San Diego Comic Con was over just how well Scott Pilgrim Vs The World would do when it was, well, versus the world. Because at Con, it was the star. My hotel was covered in it. I picked up the final volume and dove into it every second I could get. And the Scott Pilgrim parties, queues and crowds were the talk of the show.

But that's us. What about... them? The "not we"? Kick-Ass was mentioned quite a lot – that was expected to get a $30 million opener, and it came far short, slinking into first place through some dodgy statistics. Now, that film was in no way a flop, it made a stack of cash, but more was expected of it. And now here comes Scott Pilgrim with a much bigger budget and, after Kick Ass and The Losers, some fear it could kill the more esoteric comic-based movie. Brendon Connelly's just seen it, and seems pretty pleased on the phone, we'll read about that later I'm sure. But the audience...?

Now my wife loves Edgar Wright's Spaced, Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. But seeing the trailer to Scott Pilgrim vs The World made her less likely to see the movie. And there's evidence of that happening wider, Nielsen tracking reports leaking that intention to see the film amongst the female audience is actually dropping as they are exposed to more marketing. The more they see and hear about it, the less likely they are to want to go. And as we learnt with Kick Ass, that female audience is more likely to make the decision in a date movie scenario, which is why Date Night did better than Kick Ass on the previous weekend, despite having similar tracking statistics if you didn't take gender into account.

From the amount of marketing spent and the press attention gathered, this should be a $30 million opener, like Kick Ass was meant to be. Tracking indicates it won't. It may fall well short into the same sub $20 million bracket. Well in, if tracking trends continue. And as, it opens with macho block buster The Expendables, it is likely to get squashed. Expendables has much greater awareness across the demographics. And while it still skews male, it still has a sizable female intent to see. There are after all, muscles. Something Scott Pilgrim lack a little.

There is of course the international market. However, as terrible as it is, The Expendables is going to stomp all over that as well, with it's macho arms, cigars in teeth and semi-automatic weaponry. In fact there's never been a film which has "intended for the international market" written over it in as big a black marker pen as this one. Contrast that with a fey computer game/comic/music self-deprecatory whining movie? No.

But there is one thing. One hope to pin all your other hopes on. It is that Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is a very good movie indeed. And the hope is, and why there were just so many screenings at San Diego to thousands of people who would have happily paid their $15, is that they all will go back to their own communities and sub cultures across America and tell people. Drag them screaming into the cinema (just as I am going to do with my wife).

But that's not an opening weekend screening strategy however. That' a second weekend strategy. And if the film doesn't well that first week, cinema owners start pulling cinema screens and giving them to The Expendables. So you'll get full screens the next week for Scott Pilgrim – but less of them. It will suddenly be running a losing race.

Scott Pilgrim will make money of course. Lot of money. It will be seen by people who love it a lot of times, it is terribly licensable and I can see Scott Pilgrim clothing selling for a long time, and DVD and Blu Ray sales should be through the roof, fuelled by some very innovative Edgar Wright extras. But it won't make its money straight away. And someone somewhere is going to pick up a copy of the comic, wave it around and say "what do you expect, if you base a blockbuster movie on some cheap black-and-white indie filth."

At which point I will kill them.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World opens today in the USA. Go do your duty.

Iskreno, i ja se plašim ovoga. KICK-ASS je bio žestok underperformer. A imao je manju konkurenciju jer žene će ići i na ovaj EAT PRAY LOVE koga ja ne bih potcenio kao učesnika u otimanju para od naroda ovog vikenda.

Sinoć sam se podvrgao PREDATORSu Nimroda Antala. S jedne strane, potreslo me je to kako Fox na jedan surov, potcenjivački način gleda na izuzetan serijal, ali to me ne čudi, pošto za razliku od ALIENa, PREDATOR nikada nije stekao status umetničkog dela već se McTiernanov film smatra tek vrhunskim žanrovskim ostvarenjem, premda naravno on to svojim izrazom daleko nadmašuje, kao uostalom i Hopkins u PREDATOR 2. Međutim, realno, PREDATORS nikada nije bio prestižan kao ALIEN gde su za nastavke angažovani perspektivni, umetnički dokazani reditelji, ponekad i na štetu samog serijala.

U PREDATORSu, franšiza je prepuštena Robertu Rodriguezu koji je potpuno zastranio sa svojim viđenjem niskobudžetnog žanrovskog filma i pretvorio sve to u jednu posebnu vrstu aljkavosti u kojoj reditelj sasvim prosečnih mogućnosti kao što je Nimrod Antal, trećepozivac američkog repertoarskog filma zaista nije mogao da pruži išta.

PREDATORS izgleda kao da je snimljen sa srpskim budžetom u Srbiji. Planeta na kojoj je predatorski rezervat izgleda kao Boleč, nema apsolutno nikakva atrakcije na lokaciji, ne samo u smislu nekih vanzemaljskih biljaka, nego ni na nivou pukog geografskog fenomena što imamo danas čak i u drugorazrednim projektima gde ekipa nema puno prilike da se istakne ali bar izabere zanimljivu livadu za snimanje. Ovde nažalost nema ni toga. Ni livada nije zanimljiva, štaviše, film izgleda kao da je sniman na nekoj otrcanoj periferiji gde niko ne bi snimao jer je upadljivo nezanimljivo.

Rediteljska rešenja povremeno sežu u doment DOCTOR WHOa tipa uvodno padanje sa neba i sl. su malo iz fazona "aj kao igramo se sad mi smo kao ispali iz predatorskog aviona". U boljim delovima, ima kadrova koji podsete na opsamdesete ali nažalost ne na briljantnu koreografiju McTiernanovog PREDATORa već više na neke jeftnije italijanske kopije filmova o plaćenicima u kojima reditelj povremeno nekim crvenim osvetljenjem malo kao oneobiči produkcionu bedu svog filma.

Zauista ne mogu da se stim američkog bioskopskog filma koji mi je pružio manje na na planu production valuea.

Priča je slaba da slabija ne može biti. Na planetu gde se Predatori uče lovu bačena je ekipa generic badassova, najzajebanijih lujudi iz svoje ekipe, tipa ruski Spetznaz, izraelska komandosica, Japanac jakuza i sl. Glumačku podelu predvodi Adrien Brody u ulozi akcionog heroja što je ridikulozno. Brody u svojim najmuževnijim trenucima izgleda kao Đurov Palica iz KURSADŽIJA, a ceo film glumi sa nekim kao usiljeno ogrubelim glasom koji bi izazvao parodije darkknightovskih razmera samo da je neko gledao ovaj film. Rusa koji bi trebalo da bude kao Jesse Ventura iz prvog dela igra Oleg Taktarov. Činjenica je da Jesse nije bio glumac, ali zaboga Oleg je šibadžija iz filmova sa Seagalom, statista sa zadatkom, i u ovoj ulozi čak i nije loš, ali nema  on harizmu da igra bilo kakvu ulogu. Alice Braga i Topher Grace su na nivou s tim što su im likovi jezivi no posebno mesto od relativno uglednih glumca zauzima Larry Fishbourne koji igra čoveka koji je već godinama na planeti i opire se Predatorima usled čega je izgubio razum. Problem je što Fishburne više ne izgleda kao neko ko bi sa svojom telesnom težinom mogao da se odupre bilo kome, naročito ne superiornim vanzemaljcima i delovi sa njim su tragikomični.

Najveća ironija je što u PREDATORSu u suštini govorimo o borbi sa tek nekoliko Predatora, bez naročitog identiteta. Dok su kod McTiernana ai Hopkinsa oni bili pretnja jer su nevidljivi, ovde se pojavljuju samo onda kada zatreba zapletu i mahom kada su junaci spremni. Upadljivo su ranjiviji nego pre i gluplji. Iako ima pokušaja mano-a-mano borbe, nema tu pravog žara.

Međutim, ako je ovo ironično, smešno je što Antal prvih petnaestak minuta pokušava da gledaoci podele konfuziju sa karakterima gde su se to našli, o čemu se radi, ko li je pobio te ljude pre njih. To je za ovu vrstu nastavka ili doticanja već poznate mitologije zaista nedopustivo traćenje vremena i strpljenja publike.

Antalov PREDATORS spada među najgore bioskopske filmove koje sam gledao u poslednjih nekoliko godina.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c8ad4aa802/wax-on-f-ck-off-with-ralph-macchio?rel=player&playlist=310727

In his new movie, Ralph Macchio faces his toughest challenge yet; to become a Hollywood bad boy. With Karate Kid returning to the big screen, his career fading his friends and family are forced to stage an intervention. In order to re-establish himself in the entertainment industry he hits the streets of Los Angeles to show everyone how tough he can be. Coming soon, "Wax On, Fuck Off"

Ovo nešto na moj račun...

Quote from: crippled_avenger on 08-08-2010, 22:23:07
Pogledao sam BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD Brandona Viettija

Kripi, 'si gledao iz tog DC Animated paketa Green Lantern: First Flight i Wonder Woman?

Gledao sam JLA NEW FRONTIER pa tu ima i Lantern...

Reprizirao sam RANSOM Rona Howarda, rimejk jednog potpuno zaboravljenog filma sa Glenn Fordom u odnosu na koji predstavlja samo napredak, ne samo estetski već i zato što pomera tu priču iz domena B u A produkciju.

RANSOM je film za koji je maltene nemoguće poverovati da ga je režirao Ron Howard. I to kažem ja kao neko ko zaista jako voli barem dva njegova filma - APOLLO 13 i RANSOM a nekoliko su mi krajnje simpatični. Međutim, RANSOM kao i APOLLO 13 nudi nešto više od njegovog uobičajenog vrhunskog mejnstrim profesionalizma u kome paralelno pokušava da bude vrhunski repertoarski i vrhunski umetnički istaknut/društveno angažovan reditelj. APOLLO 13 i RANSOM su filmovi u kojima je stvari odveo preko ivice mejnstrim očekivanja, u jednom stvarajući izvanrednu tenzijua u drugom spajajući tenziju sa vrlo razvijenim idejnim planom i centralnom glumačkom kreacijom koja iskoračuje.

RANSOM je efektan kao vrhunski realizovan suspense film. Howard u saradnji sa Piotr Sobocinskim nudi sebi nesvojstven prilaz kadriranju sa dosta pokreta kamere, dosta situacija rešenih na bazi pokreta, švenkovanja sa lik na lik, rešavanjem tenzije u sceni kroz pokret kamere a ne kroz dijalošku razmenu. Zatim, scene nasilja su vrlo uzbudljive, efektne i krvave, atipične za film koji se bavi otmicom deteta i porodicom u središtu cele priče. Dosta akcije se odvija bez dijaloga, sa junacima koji ćute i rade što danas polako postaje standard ali sredinom devedesetih od kada datira ovaj film nije bilo.

U nekoliko navrata, Howard je spreman da se poigra očekivanjima publike i osim bazičnog preokreta na kome je baziran ceo film, u nekoliko navrata vrlo brutalno dovodi publiku u nedoumice. Primer takve sene je trenutak kada se pomisli da je dete ubijeno. To je jedan od onih "krajeva filma" kada autor stavi do znanja da bi to po njemu bio kraj filma, ali da sada priča mora doći do katarze i barem formalnog hepienda, i Howard nudi takav momenat koji je vrlo čitljiv.

Zatim tu je Firerova centralna uloga koja nosi ceo film i koja je fantastična. Naravno, znamo da je osveta jača strana ovog glumca, međutim u ovom filmu on ima situaciju u kojoj praktično osvetu spaja sa narcizmom, i u izvsnom smislu ovo je film o tome kako sujeta predstavlja osnovnu pokretačku snagu jednog nepokolebljivog filmskog heroja. Gibsonov fokus je u u ovom filmu i fizički i mentalni, ne samo da ubedljivo glavnog junaka, poslovnog čoveka kome otimaju sina i koji osim toga što je fit u suštini nije čovek od akcije, nego uspeva da prenese svosjstva tog karaktera i u fizički aspekt te role.

U drugom planu, prisutna je idejnost filma koja je čitljiva na više nivoa. Prvi nivo je ono što je Richard Price uneo u scenario a to je klasna tenzija, opsesivni narativ otmičar kako oni imaju pravo da otmu dete bogataša, i tu su već čuveni monolozi iz H.G. Wellsa. Međutim, tu je i dopunski plan, Gibsonovog "prakapitalističkog greha". On je prikazan kao self-made man, ali self-made man sa senkom, sa grehom koji ga progoni a to je potplaćivanje sindikalnog vođe. iako je on to racionalizovao svojim self-made statusom, to jeste greh sa kojim se on suočava i koji priznaje/okaje kada mu je sin otet. Jedini odnos koji glavni junak kao bogati kapitalista ima da zaleči usled dramatične situacije je vezan za neetičku, i po svojoj sindikalnoj suštini klasnu odluku.

Zatim odnosi u porodici su zanimljivi. Tu muž donosi sve doluke, a žena iako se sa ključnom odlukom ne slaže nema šansu da je preokrene niti se trudi da to postigne. Dakle, ovo je kuća u kojoj se ne samo poštuje muževljeva reč nego je ona verifikovana novcem koji je on obezbedio porodici.

U tom smislu RANSOM donosi jedan upečatljiv i atipičan prikaz psihologije bogatog/moćnog poslovnog čoveka u američkom filmu, koja je dosta daleko od relaksirane new agey varijante sa kojom se inače često srećemo. Gibsonov junak nije humani kapitalista kao Bill Gates, on je zapravo starovrsmki čovek zarobljen u svetu mobilnih telefona i kompjutera.

Otud, ako imamo u vidu aktuelne događaje, moguće je da RANSOM možda i najbliže prikazuje Gibsonov lični svetonazor.

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Već godinama planiram da pogledam Ransom. Nekad davno sam imao nesreću da na TV-u naletim upravo na prokleti plot twist

Inače, MekTirnanov Predator je prokleto REMEK DJELO.

PREDATOR je film koji je toliko remek-delo da bi ga trebalo staviti u muzej savremene umetnosti. A PREDATOR 2 je remek-delo koje svakako zaslužuje mesto u svakoj kolekciji.

Iz nekog razloga, ljudi iz Foxa ne misle tako...