Day: June 22, 2010

Hollywood Round-up, 6/22

Does "Twilight" feature a pro-life, Mormon subtext?

By Jason Apuzzo. • The new trailer for The Green Hornet is out, and I agree with The New York Post’s Lou Lumenick that it is so transcendently awful, so smugly idiotic, as to be almost indescribable.  Why was Seth Rogen allowed within 3,000 miles of this project?

• Fans are already lining up, waiting for the next installment of the Twilight series … and some are now asking whether Twilight has a pro-life, pro-Mormon subtext to it.  I’m not going to even pretend to know the answer to that, but if I was 18 and female I’ll bet I would.

• Disney’s first Marvel superhero franchise picture will apparently be Dr. Strange, probably because that’s the only available character left.

• More 3D digital screens are being made available all the time, but fewer audiences are flocking to them due to higher ticket prices.  This is a completely predictable development, mimicking certain tendencies from the short-lived 1950s 3D craze.  I believe it was Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times who recently warned the industry that it was, in effect, killing the goose that lays the golden egg by prematurely raising 3D ticket prices.  Well, the goose has now left the building.  With Elvis.  Or something.

• Disney is debuting its Tron products/swag line, including toys, video games and apparel. Seth Rogen’s not in this film, right? Just checking.

The new "Tron" couch. Babe not included.

• Oliver Stone is now saying that neither Castro nor Hugo Chavez are really dictators, as his South of the Border documentary gets ready for its (not so) big U.S. release.  We may go on a hiatus from commenting on Oliver for a while, as his remarks become increasingly calibrated to: 1) court cheap publicity; 2) land him a detox booking at Passages Malibu.

Olga Kurylenko.

• Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe is attached to star in All Quiet on the Western Front, an adaptation of a classic war novel that has little relevance to the current war we’re fighting – yet will be ceaselessly promoted as ‘relevant’ once it’s released.

• The remake of Footloose has a new star, as well as an April 1st release date for next year and no, I’m not kidding about that.

• Jon Voight criticizes President Obama today for selling out both Israel … and Arizona. Btw, is Deliverance on Blu-ray yet?  That would be awesome.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Rotten Tomatoes is featuring a behind-the-scenes early first look at Centurion, the new sword-and-sandles film starring former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko.  Ancient Rome gets such a bad name these days – it’s nice to see the Romans finally get a little love thrown their way on the big screen.

And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood.

Posted on June 22nd, 2010 at 6:35pm.

New Film Please Remove Your Shoes Asks: Are We Really Safe From Terrorists?

By Jason Apuzzo. The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog reports today on a new documentary called Please Remove Your Shoes, about the troubled state of the Transportation Security Agency (TSA).

Please Remove Your Shoes follows the efforts of six whistleblower employees trying to fix what has obviously become – particularly in the wake of the Christmas bomber episode – an increasingly porous security situation at our nation’s airports.

According to the film’s website, the documentary “examines the period before 911 and the current situation nine years later and asks the questions that makes Washington squirm: ‘Are we really any better for all our money spent? Or is it safe to say that nothing has changed?'”

The driving force behind the project is retired pilot Fred Gevalt, who was himself flying a plane into New York on the morning of 9/11 – and was apparently 20 miles out of LaGuardia airport when the attack took place.

According to Speakeasy:

The final production, which Gevalt is self distributing July 1, asks viewers to evaluate if the TSA has truly made flying the friendly skies any safer post 9/11, and features interviews with Congressmen James Oberstar and John Mica (both of whom are on the Committee of Transportation and Infrastructure), as well as a number of former TSA and FAA employees. Gevalt adds that it wasn’t easy finding enough subjects to speak about their relationship with the TSA on the record, but as one interview beget another, “the business of access became less difficult.”

Does this make us safer?

In a review of the film by Manhattan Movie Magazine, Lita Robinson writes: “Through extensive interviews with ex-Air Marshals, government officials and reporters, this documentary examines the advent of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) in the wake of 9/11, painting a disturbing picture of waste, inefficiency, and abuse of power.  The former Marshals, several of whom have specific expertise in aviation-based terrorism, describe a ‘nonexistent’ security system before 9/11, and a bureaucratic nightmare after.”

We’ve all become accustomed to the bizarre situation at our nation’s airports – a situation in which passengers are asked to perform something akin to a highly ritualized Japanese tea ceremony of removing our shoes, bowing respectfully before our superiors, and speaking in low, formalized tones professing our innocence (“No, I’m not carrying plastic explosives in my contact lens case”) … all the while never feeling that we’re any safer.  If Mr. Gevalt’s film can in any way improve this situation – and improve our security – then we wish him the very best with it.  It’s a pity to me that this documentary is being self-distributed, due to the extremely important subject matter – and the fact that the film appears to have good production values and feature credible experts on the situation.  But such is typically the fate of whistleblowers who buck the system.  Feel free to visit the film’s official website for more information.

Posted on June 22nd, 2010 at 3:25pm.

Passion Producer McEveety, MPower to Produce C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce

C.S. Lewis.

By Jason Apuzzo. MPower Pictures, the people behind Bella, The Stoning of Soraya M and American Carol, are apparently joining Beloved Pictures in an adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Christian allegorical novel, The Great Divorce.  MPower’s Steve McEveety, one of the producers of The Passion of the Christ, will be leading the production team according to Variety.  Children’s book author N.D. Wilson (100 Cupboards) is attached to write the screenplay.   John Shepherd is reported to have brought the project in for MPower.  Beloved Picture’s team includes CEO Michael Ludlum, president Caleb Applegate, and VP Bob Abramoff.

I have not read The Great Divorce, but the story apparently involves a narrator who finds himself in a dark, gray metropolis – a city that serves as a kind of metaphorical stand-in for Hell.  He eventually boards a bus bound for Heaven, discovering along the way that he and his fellow passengers are actually dead. The passengers are given the opportunity to enter the verdant, elysian fields of Heaven – although, ironically, most choose to cling to their past and return to their hellish metropolis.  The novel apparently probes the many reasons that people resist the better life Christ has waiting for them.

Lewis’ novel was also apparently intended as a response to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, hence the title.

Due to the Narnia series, we all know that C.S. Lewis is hot right now in Hollywood circles – particularly in the Christian community.  My sense from reading the internet write-ups on The Great Divorce (see the Wikipedia entry), is that there are significant opportunities for CGI here both in the depictions of the dark, hellish metropolis – and in the depiction of heaven.  The bus, given the environmental sensitivity of our times, will probably need to be an electric bus.  Just kidding.

We will continue to monitor this story.  We’ve had Steve McEveety as a guest at several Liberty Film Festivals, and we want to wish him and his entire team the best on this ambitious project.

Posted on June 22nd, 2010 at 12:14pm.