By Jason Apuzzo. By some cosmic irony, yesterday was the day I’d finally worked up the fortitude to write about Jane Russell – the warm, glamorous and iconic 50s star whom Govindini and I had the pleasure of spending time with several years ago, before she passed away recently at her home in Santa Maria. I wanted to share with Libertas readers some of the things she’d told us about her life and career, although I would be doing so with a heavy heart as she is now no longer with us.
Then came news yesterday that Elizabeth Taylor had passed away.
This is very sad news, indeed. Although Taylor had been in failing health for some time, and word of her passing was not altogether surprising, I must confess to still being stunned by the news. Elizabeth Taylor had overcome so many crises and health scares in her life that she seemed utterly indomitable – and I had assumed that her recent health scare would, like so many others, pass away into legend as another one of her epic brushes with misfortune. Alas, her many health problems have apparently taken their toll over the years, and so mortality has now folded even over Elizabeth Taylor, the great survivor.
Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Russell both deserve their own posts and remembrances, frankly. Both of them loom large as entertainment personalities of the 20th century, and as people for whom – for different reasons – I’ve developed an affection over the years. At the same time, many of the the things I’d intended to say about Jane can also and should also be said about Liz – and more generally about the women of their generation. We’re all missing these women terribly right now, and missing what they represented. Everything I’m seeing written about Liz at the moment resembles what was said about Jane just a few weeks ago: that women of their sort are no longer with us, and that the women who’ve replaced them in the intervening decades since their heyday haven’t made up for the loss. Fundamentally, we all know this to be true but are so often restricted for various reasons from saying it.
Now is not the time for such restrictions, however. Now is the time to be emotional and passionate about the women on our big screen. So I have a few thoughts today about Elizabeth Taylor – arguably the greatest female star of all time – and also about Jane Russell, the girl-next-door who became an icon of her era. And you’ll forgive me, but I will be wearing my heart way out on my sleeve. These women deserve that. Continue reading LFM SPECIAL: Elizabeth Taylor, Our Time with Jane Russell & Why We Miss the Women of the 1950s
By Jason Apuzzo. A very provocative new trailer is out for The Kennedys, the new eight-part miniseries from 24‘s Joel Surnow that will be appearing on the ReelzChannel beginning April 3rd. I would normally wait to put this trailer in a Cold War Update!, but since I just did one of those on Friday I didn’t want you folks to have to wait.
From "The Kennedys."
The series looks like a lot of frothy fun, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m also understanding why the major networks were so aghast by this series; this is most certainly not the sort of depiction of the Kennedy family we’re accustomed to seeing on TV. Besides potentially out-sexing Mad Men, the series also seems to make Joe Kennedy look like Chancellor Palpatine.
Joel did an interview recently with the LA Times in which he talked about the pressures he thinks the series was under from higher-ups at The History Channel, the series’ original home. We all know what those pressure were, don’t we? Thou Shalt Not Offend the Kennedys, liberalism’s Holy Family. Frankly, you’d think the Kennedys would be glad anyone even remembers them, at this point. Decades of Teddy in the Senate took a lot of lustre off that family’s image, and memories of Camelot are growing old, indeed.
My sense is that the ReelzChannel got themselves a bargain with this series – which may end up putting that channel on the map. I would also expect this series to do excellent DVD business, and potentially revive pill box hats.
However, I wanted to follow up today by noting that MGM’s decision to alter the film – and digitally remake the villains into North Koreans – has been received poorly just about everywhere. The reason for this is obvious: there is absolutely no narrative reason to re-cut the film along such lines except to satisfy China’s market gatekeepers. There is certainly no real-world reason to depict such an invasion as being spearheaded by an impoverished prison-state like North Korea, particularly when the basic premise of the film is supposed to be our financial ‘indebtedness’ to the invaders. The last time I checked, we’re not indebted to North Korea.
The current spin we’re hearing behind the scenes is that the film is being re-cut to now depict the invading force as a ‘communist coalition,’ an undefined ‘red menace’ of nations, with the North Koreans featured prominently. What nobody seems to be asking is what such a coalition would be worth without the sponsorship of China. Or are they expecting Transnistria to do the heavy lifting here? Or maybe Vietnam?
By Jason Apuzzo. Last August, Libertas was the first and only media outlet invited to see MGM’s new version of Red Dawn, a remake of the original 1984 film written and directed by John Milius. We were invited to see the film by MGM executives due to our ongoing coverage here at Libertas of pro-freedom films – and of our coverage of the many recent films specifically dealing with the subject of communism (Salt, Mao’s Last Dancer, Farewell, Peter Weir’s recent The Way Back). Red Dawn screenwriter Carl Ellsworth was in attendance at our screening.
We postponed commenting on Red Dawn until this time due to the complex and delicate situation at MGM, and also due to the fact that the film as yet has no release date. MGM is under new management, however, and recently the LA Times broke the story that the film – which features the communist Chinese invading the mainland U.S. – is currently being re-edited and digitally altered by MGM’s new management team in order to make North Korea into the primary invading force. References to the Chinese military are, according to the LA Times, being minimized wherever possible. The film has apparently become a political hot potato, with MGM looking to sell the film – or perhaps not release it at all.
We had been aware since last August that this was a possibility, in so far as the Chinese market represents a highly lucrative one to American film distributors – and that China would likely penalize any company distributing this new Red Dawn. It now appears that the fears expressed to us at the time by several MGM executives are becoming a reality, and that the film is, in effect, being politically censored due to pressures coming from potential distributors.
Needless to say, we find this kind of political re-editing of a film appalling – as well as unprecedented. In the case of Red Dawn, it’s also perversely ironic, in so far as the basic premise of the film involves the Chinese invading American in order to ‘collect’ on an economic debt America owes to them – a debt that in the real world, as it turns out, China will now be ‘collecting’ by MGM’s film simply being re-edited.
The cast of the new "Red Dawn."
As a further note, there is a certain racist crudeness in equating Chinese with Koreans (i.e., ‘Asians all the look the same’) of which MGM seems unmindful.
Here at Libertas we are committed to positively promoting films that celebrate freedom, democracy, and the dignity of the individual. Of late, for example, we’ve promoted a whole range of dissident, ‘D-Generation’ Chinese documentaries such as Disorder, Petition and Crime and Punishment that depict the full brutality and authoritarianism of China’s current regime.
We had hoped and intended to promote Red Dawn in the same light, because the original, ‘uncensored’ cut of the film we saw in August was one we liked – and we suspect American audiences would’ve liked it, as well. (Chinese dissidents would’ve loved it – watching it on pirated copies.) It was a rousing and patriotic film that in some respects resembled Battle: Los Angeles, currently in theaters, in terms of depicting a plucky and outnumbered group of Americans (teenagers, in this case) gamely taking on a vastly superior and oppressive invading force. Continue reading EXCLUSIVE: Libertas Sees the ‘Uncensored’ Version of MGM’s New Red Dawn
Aaron Eckhart as Marine Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz.
By Jason Apuzzo. While watching Battle: Los Angeles, which is an intense, stirring and highly patriotic ode to America’s fighting men and women – and in particular to the Marines – I was reminded of that great line from Casablanca, in which café owner Humphrey Bogart drily informs Nazi Conrad Veidt: “There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.”
As a long time resident of Los Angeles, I can similarly assert with conviction that there are certain areas of Los Angeles that I wouldn’t advise any foreign power to invade – not even aliens – especially if those areas happen to be held by Marines. Battle: Los Angeles explains why.
Those of you who read Libertas regularly, or who are familiar with our regular Invasion Alerts! here, know that we’ve been following this massive new wave of ‘alien invasion’ movie projects for some time now. There was even some major news on the ‘alien invasion’ front today, because the first full trailer for J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 was just released (it’s great) – and that trailer is apparently running in front of Battle: Los Angeles in theaters. Continue reading Send in The Marines! LFM Reviews Battle: Los Angeles
By Jason Apuzzo. • The most striking news on the Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion front recently was without doubt the announcement from Warner Brothers/Alcon that they’re going to reboot Blade Runner as a franchise of prequels and/or sequels. As electrifying as the news was, I was not altogether surprised to hear it given the current sci-fi craze and mania toward rebooting older franchises.
The big question, of course, is what precisely ‘is’ a Blade Runner franchise without the involvement of Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford or Philip K. Dick – none of whom are currently attached to any of these future ‘Blade Runner’ projects? (Dick being, of course, long deceased and not having furnished any ‘franchisable’ sequels to his original story). The answer, I’m afraid, is that such a ‘franchise’ is worth very little.
Having read several interviews with the Alcon people (see here and here), three points emerge: 1) they haven’t even contacted Ridley Scott yet; 2) they’d apparently like to work with Christopher Nolan (with whom they have a prior relationship), whose work on the Batman franchise represents the “template” they’re working from (i.e., it made a lot of money), and; 3) they apparently have no idea where precisely they want to take the story.
I’m groaning at all of this. It’s looking like the usual sort of thing: an ambitious group of producers grabs a lucrative ‘property’ they like, without a clue of what to do with it. They flail around looking for a ‘visionary’ (i.e., trendy) director to come in and do the actual work of figuring out what to do, because they never bothered to figure that out for themselves. Years get spent in ‘development,’ nothing happens – or worse, something like the 2010 Clash of the Titans remake happens. And memories of something precious get spoiled.
I have my doubts about this project, in other words. Indeed, I have doubts about whether it’s even going to happen. The likelihood is that neither Ridley Scott nor Christopher Nolan will be interested in doing it, and so who are the producers going to go to? Zack Snyder? Bryan Singer? God help us – I’d rather not learn what those guys think ‘The Tannhauser Gate’ really looks like. [Sigh.]
• Speaking of rebooted 80’s franchises, George Miller is assuring everyone that Mad Max: Fury Road will be back up shooting in January 2012, albeit apparently now without I Am Number Four‘s Teresa Palmer. Bummer! I’m otherwise looking forward to that film, which will be photographed in some new Miller-designed form of 3D. Also: a trailer has just been released for Tron: Uprising, an animated series that’s part of Disney’s ongoing Tron reboot. The trailer for this series actually looks better than Tron: Legacy, itself – but that may just be because there’s no Garrett Hedlund in it.
"Star Blazers" concept art.
• Some other big news of late on the Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion front was that Space Battleship Yamato (or Star Blazers, in its American incarnation), the classic Japanese TV series from the 1970’s and an old favorite of mine, is going to be adapted with Christopher McQuarrie writing the screenplay and David Ellison (True Grit; son of Larry Ellison) producing. This is another project, incidentally, that can be filed away as an alien invasion project – as alien invaders are an important part of the storyline. (Btw, Ellison and McQuarrie are currently the main guys behind the potential Top Gun sequel.)
I like the sound of this project – although admittedly it’s seeming a bit like Battleship in outer space – and on an even bigger budget. Here’s the key thing to understand about Battleship Yamato, though: it’s almost a kind of anti-Avatar, featuring blue-skinned aliens (the “Gamilons”) out to destroy human life on Earth (by way of radioactive meteorite bombs) so that they can repopulate the planet themselves. Earth’s forces have to rally around an enormous space cruiser, built out of the hulking wreckage of the original WWII Japanese battleship Yamato – although at this point, they might want to instead use something like Larry Ellison’s yacht. Anyway, my only requests here would be to re-name the “Gamilons” the “Na’vi,” cast Brooklyn Decker or Megan Fox, and otherwise we’re good to go.
• Check out this new trailer for Attack the Block, a cheeky indie alien invasion project from the UK that’s about to unspool at the SXSW Film Festival. The trailer features one of the better taglines in recent memory: “Inner City Versus Outer Space.” Also on the indie alien invasion front: a new film called Invasion of the Alien Bikini recently won the Grand Prix at the 21st Yubari Fantastic Film Festival, in Japan. Now that film I’d like to see … anybody know if it’s in 3D?
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace will be coming to theaters in 3D on February 10th, 2012. Killjoys of the world now have something more to complain about; I personally, however, am very much looking forward to seeing Darth Maul, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon go at it in 3D.
From "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace."
I thought I would take the opportunity here to share with Libertas readers what I thought about The Phantom Menace: which is that I loved it. Not every aspect of it, perhaps, but on balance it holds up as being a very satisfying epic adventure in the Errol Flynn-swashbuckler mode, with an intriguing storyline that’s like something out of The Fall of the Roman Empire. It also happens to be one of the most visually sumptuous films ever made – sweeping you along from Italy’s Caserta Palace, to the deserts of Tunisia, to the beautiful (digital) cityscapes of Coruscant. The costumes on Natalie Portman are gorgeous, Liam Neeson is really theepitome of what a Jedi Knight should be, John Williams’ score is one of his best … and then, of course, there’s Ray Park’s Darth Maul – easily one of the greatest movie villains of all time, a rival to the best villains ever played by Basil Rathbone in swashbuckler films of this kind.
So with all that, who cares about Jar-Jar Binks, thin dialogue, or a little too much cutesy-pie time with young Anakin? The movie’s a blast – a huge box office hit (adjusted for inflation, it would’ve made about $680 million domestically in 2011) – and you’re all going to be there next February, anyway. So stop whining.
• More to the present, Battle: Los Angeles is coming next week – and I’ll be saying a lot about that in coming days. In the meantime, many new clips of the film have been released on-line (see here), as well as some behind-the-scenes pics (see here), images of the aliens (see here), the film also has a new poster out, and we’re also learning that the film was not, for the most part, shot in Los Angeles – but instead in Louisiana. So I suppose the title Battle: LA has a double meaning. (This reminds me: why do movie aliens always look like seafood these days?)
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … the pretty and slightly strange Jennifer Lawrence is apparently the leading candidate to star in The Hunger Games, which, for brevity’s sake, you can imagine as something like The Running Man for teens – i.e., a sci-fi future dystopia featuring televised gladiatorial-style games. Since the story takes place in a world plagued with food shortages, it seems like perfect Obama-era sci-fi – doesn’t it?
And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion front!
