Category: 1. Jason Apuzzo

By Jason Apuzzo. • SCI-FI GETS POLITICAL. Some of you may recall my recent exchange with the LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein on the political/ideological overtones of Hollywood’s current sci-fi craze.  I think the new trailer (see above) for the forthcoming alien invasion pic Skyline makes this point more vividly than anything I’ve seen, although the poster for Battle: Los Angeles certainly comes close.  [Is there some reason aliens are targeting LA, these days?  Is it the traffic?]

The trailer basically associates the film’s frightening alien invasion of Los Angeles with the ‘invasion’ of the New World by Europeans in the 15th and 16th centuries.  And these associations are spelled out in the trailer by … Dan Rather, and MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell!  [By way of quoting Stephen Hawking’s recent comments on the dark possibilities associated with alien contact.]  Talk about ‘on-the-nose’ filmmaking.

So it looks like Skyline will thematically be taking us directly into Avatar territory: i.e., sub-rosa critiques of White European Invaders as the metaphorical ‘aliens’ we really need to fear.  [Sigh.] That’s too bad, because the trailer otherwise looks promising … except for the fact that I’ve already seen this film before, when it was titled War of the Worlds.

One might potentially interpret Skyline as a reverse-riff on the theme of Christian ‘rapture,’ by the way.  Just a thought.

• In other sci-fi news, Disney/Pixar’s John Carter of Mars has a release date (June 8th, 2012, in 3D); Scarlett Johansson and Blake Lively are currently tussling over a role in the Robert Downey, Jr. sci-fi thriller Gravity (a role turned down by Angelina Jolie after they wouldn’t pay her $20 million fee); and there’s some colorful casting news for George Miller’s forthcoming 3D-native Mad Max: Fury Road – about which I’m getting quite excited.  It turns out that Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, model/actress Riley Keough, has been cast in the film – along with other babes like Zoe Kravitz, Teresa Palmer , Adelaide Clemens and Charlize Theron (of whom I’m not a fan, however).

By the way, according to Hollywood Reporter’s HeatVision blog, here’s Fury Road’s storyline: “Keough will play one of the ‘Five Wives,’ a group of women that [Mad Max] must protect from the bad guys.  Zoe Kravitz, Teresa Palmer and Adelaide Clemens are three of other wives.”  This film is looking better by the day – much more enticing than what I was expecting.  Book me in.  Incidentally, since Mad Max is actually protecting women in this film, it’s now obvious to me why Mel Gibson won’t be playing Max anymore.

• The Expendables is coming out soon, and Stallone says he’s already got a ‘radical’ idea for a sequel – provided this first film does well.  I’m guessing Stallone sends his team after Bin Laden.  You heard it here first.

• Actor James Caan tells Fox News that he’s an “ultra conservative” – which is ironic, given that Caan is currently in the news because he’s starring in a movie that more-or-less glamorizes the porn industry.  Just sayin’.

While on the Fox News front, incidentally … the network really earned its name today by having 3 Victoria’s Secret models on as part of a hard-hitting, investigative segment on a new line of brassieres.  It really was a great segment – I learned a lot.

• In a recent post entitled, “Christopher Nolan’s Dead Women,” Culture Snob’s Jeff Ignatius notes something that I’ve detected, as well:

In at least four of Christopher Nolan’s seven feature films, the plots and/or fixations are initiated or propelled by the death of a man’s spouse or girlfriend. Considering that Nolan’s primary thematic interest is obsession, isn’t this a little strange?

Yes, it is.  Ignatius later dances around the obvious question: namely, whether some, dark misogynistic impulse is at the imaginative core of Nolan’s work.  I wish more people would take note of this, because it’s a deeply disturbing aspect not only of Nolan’s work, but of the fandom that worships him.

• Want to see the Hollywood breakdown of who’s donating to Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown? Interesting oddity: Anschutz Entertainment giving $45,400 to Jerry Brown.  Also: Haim Saban giving $25,900 to Whitman, even though Saban’s perhaps the Democratic Party’s biggest donor.

• Nikki Finke talks with Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks today. Best exchange:

DH: Is it weird to be a sex symbol?

CH: You know, the good part about that is maybe I’ve contributed to helping women appreciate themselves the way they are, that we don’t all have to be a Size 2 to be beautiful. Anything I’ve done to help change people’s minds about that is something to be proud of, I think.

We share her pride.

• The new trailer for the Christina Aguilera/Cher/Stanley Tucci Burlesque runs through about every biopic cliché in the book, but the funniest part to me is the ending when you learn that Burlesque is going to be out in time for Thanksgiving!  Yes, perfect Thanksgiving fare! I know I’ll be there, right after passing the gravy boat.

In related news, Katy Perry also has a new video out today for Teenage Dream, which somehow manages to be both racy and dull at the same time.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Piranha 3D’s Kelly Brook has a new interview out today in which she reveals that Piranha 3D’s French director Alexandre Aja discovered her in an LA restaurant … while she was eating fish and chips.

The fish get their revenge on August 20th.

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

Posted on August 11th, 2010 at 3:52pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. Does the poster on your left grab your attention?  It certainly caught mine, although perhaps that had to do with the fact that there was an approximately 100 foot high version of it draped over a building I drove by recently here in LA.  I have a great interest in firearms, you understand, and seeing an automatic rifle that large immediately caught my attention.

I’m being facetious, of course – at least with respect to the relative appeal of firearms.  Nikita, for those of you who may not have heard, is the CW’s reboot of a TV show – La Femme Nikita – that was actually once run by an acquaintance of mine, 24 producer Joel Surnow.  And Joel’s show, in turn, was based on the 1990 Luc Besson film of the same name, about a young criminal babe recruited to work for French intelligence – and to otherwise fire guns while wearing 4-inch heels.

There was a so-so American remake of Besson’s film that followed in 1993, called Point of No Return, starring Bridget Fonda.  Then came Joel’s gritty, noirish and very successful show in the late 90s – until that show ran its course, roughly around the time he was developing 24.

And whereas the specific plotlines of these various Nikitas have changed, one element has remained constant: a sexy young misfit woman, who must be able to fire semi-automatic weaponry while wearing cocktail dresses, is recruited by mysterious intelligence forces to fight … somebody.

Perhaps you already see where I’m going with this.

In Joel’s version of La Femme Nikita, sexy young Nikita (played by Peta Wilson) is recruited by a shadowy government organization to fight terrorism.  [Bear in mind that this anti-terrorist plotline was developed prior to 9/11 – as was 24‘s original plotline, incidentally.]  Some of La Femme Nikita’s basic plotline and vibe eventually got rolled into 24 – with fantastic results, of course.

Now would seem to be a good time to go back to that anti-terror storyline, what with Al Qaeda still lurking around, right?  With, for example, young terrorist guys trying to set off bombs in Time Square, or gals like Jihad Jane trying to recruit young people into Al Qaeda.

And incidentally, let’s not forget Salt in this context.  In that very recent film, sexy spy Angelina Jolie battles retro-communist sleeper agents here in the U.S. – in a clever, Rubik’s Cube storyline seemingly ripped from current headlines (i.e., the capture of Russian spy babes like Anna Chapman and Anna Fermanova).  The worldwide grosses on Salt are currently topping $150 million, so now would seem to be a good time to send Nikita after some infiltrating, ideologically driven baddies, yes?  Russian agents … Al Qaeda moles … perhaps even a Chinese communist superspy or two (cue Hawaii Five-O theme).

Wrong!  In the new Nikita series, we’re the villains.  Or at least, the C.I.A. and American intelligence services are the villains (see here and here or the video below).  Angry, pinch-faced W.A.S.P. bureaucrats in cheap suits are the villains.  [And I’ll bet they have bad aftershave, too!]

This irritates me.  I would like to be able to watch this show, for reasons I presumably don’t need to explain (at least to the male readers of this website).  Doing a series like this should be so easy – a breeze, actually.

You find some good looking gal, and have her hunt down, say, a snarling member of the A.Q. Khan smuggling network who’s trying to get nuclear materials into Miami … while he enjoys a few martinis at the Skybar.  Maybe he’s a Russian mobster with a weakness for Incan quinoa and Fantasy Football.

Our delectable heroine pulls up to the club in a Lamborghini Murcielago (CUT TO: camera capturing her shapely leg as the doorman helps her out of the car); after some perfunctory banter, and few snappy and/or inane quips (“Next time, make sure my salmon is served cold!”) she pulls a Glock out of her garter and has a shootout with the Russian and his gang, and escapes from a fireball or two – just in time to make it back home to her charmingly oblivious boyfriend in the suburbs, who just got back from a sale at Ikea.

I mean, the story writes itself.

Instead, the CW has decided to make us the villains.  What a drag.  These kinds of shows are being made all the time (e.g., Alias, Dark Angel, Painkiller Jane), and there are many different ways to go with the material.  CW is making the most idiotic decision imaginable by making our own intelligence services into the bad guys.

Why idiotic?  Because your garden variety Hollywood liberal – one thinks here of, say, Jeffrey Wells – isn’t going to watch this series anyway just because there’s a snarky, leftie-conspiratorial plotline. They’ll consider this show too déclassé to begin with … while potential viewers like me get alienated.  And again, why?  What’s the purpose?  Because the producers want to make some asinine point about U.S. foreign policy?

Is that really why they think we watch this stuff?

Posted on August 10th, 2010 at 1:57pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. • Patricia Neal has passed away, at age 84. What a great star she was.  I actually just saw her recently on the big screen at the Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, where they were showing The Day the Earth Stood Still.  Patricia Neal appeared in so many of my favorite films, including In Harm’s Way, The Fountainhead, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, A Face in the Crowd, Operation Pacific and on and on … and of course, everybody remembers her (rightly) for Hud.  Neal had the same kind of urbane, sexy, flinty-yet-romantic persona that Betty Bacall had in her prime, and she will be deeply missed.

We don’t have women nowadays on film, so much as overgrown girls.  Neal and Bacall are arguably the last of their kind.

• We’ve been talking a lot about science fiction here lately, and now some interesting news comes out today from George Lucas about the ultimate sci-fi franchise: Star Wars.  Apparently work on the much-anticipated live action Star Wars TV series has ground to a halt due to challenges associated with the sheer scale of the series.

According to George:

The live action TV show is kind of on hold because we have scripts, but we don’t know how to do them.  They literally are Star Wars, only we’re going to have to try to do them at a tenth the cost. And it’s a huge challenge, a lot bigger than what we thought it was gonna be.

On the one hand this is disappointing, because this is a series that a lot of us have been looking forward to.  On the other hand, I’m glad that they’re being ambitious with the storyline.  Knowing the way the folks at Lucasfilm are, they will probably be developing an innovative new palette of technologies in order to make this series affordable.  We’ll be watching this story as it develops in months to come.

• In other sci-fi related news, James Cameron talks to MTV about the future of the Avatar series (he’s working on the Avatar novel right now, and may shoot Avatar 2-3 back-to-back; it’s extraordinary to me that he believes the fans of Avatar actually read); the indie sci-fi invasion film Skyline has a new teaser website; Cloverfield director Matt Reeves says Cloverfield 2 is still a possibility (the first film had strong 9/11 overtones, incidentally, and was one of the first films – along with Indy 4 – to kick off the latest alien craze); the alien invasion thriller The Darkest Hour has had its shooting shut down due to ongoing fires outside Moscow; and there’s some fun casting news today concerning the ongoing alien invasion series V.

I can hardly believe that in my recent writings about the new wave of alien invasion films/TV shows, I actually forgot to mention V! One of the reasons this is such a glaring omission is that V (both in the original and the new miniseries) manages to harness the alien invasion theme to political commentary about America’s potential drift toward authoritarianism.  I’ve actually read Kenneth Johnson’s 2008 V novel, which could not be more obvious in its criticism of current trends in liberal governance.  (The novel even features a hilarious, narcissistic San Francisco mayor based quite blatantly on Gavin Newsom … who has an affair with a Beyoncé look-alike.)    I haven’t seen much of the new TV series – which was thought by many to offer a sub rosa critique of the Obama Administration – but the series seems to depart rather dramatically from the novel in its plotline, and appears to be more along the lines of a straight-forward reboot of the original TV show.

In any case, these trends in sci-fi continue, and we’ll be keeping an eye on them here at LFM … especially when the new season of V revs up later this year.  Btw, if more aliens looked like Laura Vandervoort, would we really mind being devoured by them?

• The Other Guys won top honors at the box office this past weekend. There was recently a debate over whether The Other Guys offers a critique of Wall Street crony capitalism.  Unfortunately the price of my entry into this debate is too high: namely, having to actually see the film.

• Recently freed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi will be on the jury for the forthcoming Venice Film Festival, which is very good news.  I’m wondering what he’ll think of The Black Swan.  Talk about a film that couldn’t be made in Iran …

• Are we tapped out on superhero movies? [Answer: yes.]  That’s the question asked in the LA Times, ironically enough, by the director of the forthcoming X-Men: First Class.  [This is the one featuring Jennifer Stewart as Mystique, btw.]  Whether we are or aren’t, of course, we’re going to get more such films thrown at us.  Today comes news that Green Lantern 2 already has a screenwriter, and Batman 3 may be shooting extensively in New Orleans.  In related not-so-super hero news, Tom Cruise is going to be taking a paycut for Mission: Impossible 4, and Ving Rhames has confirmed his participation in that film, as well.  Yawn.

• There’s a new poster out for Piranha 3D.  Yummy.

• There are some fun pictures out today of Rachel Zoe, riffing off her endless repetition of the phrase “I die.” Click on over to Harper’s Bazaar for more.  LFM is, like, absolutely beyond being in favor of The Rachel Zoe Project.

• DAILY PSYCHO REPORT: The new Maggie Thatcher biopic with Meryl Streep is apparently going to be a full-on, unvarnished hit job on The Iron Lady, exploiting even her recent dementia … and I’m totally disgusted with Streep and her participation in what appears to be an ugly, nakedly propagandistic project.  I can only assume Streep has no conscience whatsoever, and like so many recent celebrities is simply surrendering her career – now that it’s on the down side – to tendentious partisan hackery.

Somewhat related, Keith Olbermann is apparently out of NBC’s Football Night in America (hooray!) … ironic in that he’s been forced into retirement sooner than Brett Favre; the Wachowski brothers’ bizarre new Iraq war project will apparently be titled Cobalt Neutral 9; and Spike Lee is now peddling more conspiracy theories … this time about the BP oil spill.  Personally I think all the oil from that spill’s been channelled into Adrian Grenier’s hair.  Which reminds me, there will probably be an Entourage movie once that series is over.

• The great Debbie Reynolds has been cast as Katherine Heigl’s grandmother in One For the Money, in which Heigl will be playing … a bounty hunter.  [Sigh.]  Is Heigl choosing her roles by way of a Ouija board these days?

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Carla Bruni has been offered a role on CSI, which would be just about the only reason to watch that show, nowadays.

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

Posted on August 9th, 2010 at 2:40pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. • The Expendables had its premiere yesterday. I certainly hope it does well – but I think I’ve figured out why my enthusiasm is muted with respect to this film: the apparent lack of a major star villain.  The problem with having all these action dudes lined up together is that they need a formidable foe, and I haven’t a clue from the marketing who that might be.

I think it’s great that Stallone uses his wife’s skin care products, by the way.  He should convince Mickey Rourke to do the same thing – Rourke’s currently looking like a mummy from one of those History Channel specials.

• Revenue on 3D movies is dropping like a stone (see here and here).  I hate to sound like a broken record, but for the umpteenth time I repeat: this is the result of the cheapening of an otherwise legitimate and exciting new technology by bad, overnight conversions.  This is so frustrating, because we’re watching something novel and exciting – a technology that is the product of years’ worth of expensive, complex R&D – be ruined by greedy executives looking for short-term cash-ins.

• Did Christopher Nolan steal the idea for Inception from … Scrooge McDuck? Oh is this funny, if true!  Someone’s apparently dug up an old comic in which the Beagle Boys break into a sleeping Scrooge McDuck’s bedroom and use a small machine to tap into his mind … in order to invade his dreams and steal the combination to his vault!  Well, how about that?

This must be a tough story to take for all those critics who’ve been telling us what an original thinker Nolan is, how he’s rewriting the history of philosophy, etc.  Besides, if Nolan had been half the genius he’s supposed to be he would’ve stolen from Elmer Fudd instead.

• A lot of critics continue to rave over Salt and Angelina Jolie’s performance in it. These critics include Kathleen Murphy, David Edelstein and Charles Taylor, all of whom have interesting things to say about Jolie and how the film cleverly uses her star persona.  Salt does really take the whole ‘movies don’t need stars’ argument and renders it laughable, as I indicated in my review.  I mean, is anybody under the impression that Maggie Gyllenhaal could’ve played Jolie’s role as well?  Or Amy Adams?  Please.

Here are some delicious, choice quotes from Charles Taylor’s piece “Deconstructing Angelina Jolie”:

I’m not the first critic to note that director Phillip Noyce puts the public’s distrust of Jolie to use in his ace spy thriller “Salt.” For most of the picture, we don’t know whether Jolie’s Evelyn Salt is a CIA agent or a Soviet mole. The question of Salt’s allegiance is finally answered, but Noyce’s masterstroke is that he makes the answer irrelevant to the pleasure of watching the splendor of Jolie in her full leonine regality …

The twists and turns of the plot allow Jolie to remain a solitary being. With Salt’s allegiance constantly in question, Jolie can stride through the movie with no allegiance, except to the camera regarding her. Noyce and cinematographer Robert Elswit realize they’re dealing with one of those rare performers comfortable with allowing the camera to drink her in (a quality often mistaken for narcissism). And since the audience is there to drink her in, we bond with her …

It’s not simply that “Salt” gets us on Jolie’s side. It’s that by forging our allegiance to Salt and keeping it firm no matter what side she appears to be on, Noyce affirms the truest values of movies: beauty, style, charisma. If virtue was what we craved from movies, then the heroine of “Gone With the Wind” would be Olivia de Havilland. When, in “Salt,” Jolie starts roughing up cops and Secret Service agents, it takes us a few beats to ask why she’s doing it. The truth is, at first, we really don’t care. All we know is that they’re somehow in the way of the person we’re there to bask in, and we just want to watch her stride and fight, and to look at that extraordinary face, some more … Jolie’s appeal is about the movie aristocracy of beauty and charisma …

What Jolie does in “Salt” goes far beyond the now-clichéd move of putting a woman in a male action role. The picture is, as few recent movies have been, a demonstration of the sheer power of star power. That the star in question feels like such a solitary being may be proof of just how small the pictures have gotten.

I could not agree more.  Click on over for the rest of Taylor’s drily amusing article.

• The CHiPs TV series is getting re-booted … with Topher Grace? Whatever.  Good luck doing this without Estrada.  [Also: does this mean freeze-frames are back?]

• G.I. Joe 2 is going forward, apparently with Stephen Sommers helming. I assume that’s because of the overseas grosses because nobody stateside really cares about this franchise, given it’s newly neutered/neo-globalist configuration.

• If you want to know what vacuous L.A. entertainment culture is actually like behind the scenes, the best thing you can do is watch The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo.

RZP is a completely hilarious show that Govindini and I catch whenever we can; it’s essential viewing if you want to understand the ditzy, narcissistic and mostly harmless people who inhabit the industry.  The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog today gathers some of the best lines from the show’s season premiere, and there’s also a new controversy brewing over at The New York Post about why Rachel’s blonde assistant Taylor really got fired! My favorite line from last night’s show: “My Blackberry is at another level.”

• The whole Katy Perry vs. Lady Gaga thing is heating up. The shapely Ms. Perry just posed for Rolling Stone, and she also amplified on her recent accusation that Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” video was “blasphemous.” Here’s Perry:

“I am sensitive to [boyfriend] Russell taking the Lord’s name in vain and to Lady Gaga putting a rosary in her mouth. I think when you put sex and spirituality in the same bottle and shake it up, bad things happen.”

I think there’s some truth to this.  The fine, razor’s edge line connecting (and separating) spirituality and sexuality is the line that, for example, Federico Fellini treaded artfully over his entire career; and it’s the boundary that dolts like Lady Gaga and Madonna stumble over bafoonishly every day.

It’s entirely possible for entertainers to be sexy and playful without crossing the line – provided they have the talent, of course.  And I think that’s what bugs me about Gaga: she doesn’t have the talent, so she makes up for it with cheap theatrics.  By contrast, Perry’s goofy, playful “California Gurls” video plays like a campy, fun burlesque show – but at no point does it make you feel that you’re watching something ugly or sacrilegious (quite the contrary, actually).  We’ll be watching this Perry-Gaga catfight as it unfolds.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Contrary to what you may think, LFM is not morphing into a Christina Hendricks fansite, but – like Angelina Jolie last week – she’s certainly got our attention!

Today the va-va-voom Mad Men star does this fun interview with The New York Post, and then you’ve also got to see this hilarious video from yesterday of an interview with Hendricks in which she renders a local LA news anchor speechless and blubbering by matter-of-factly mentioning that she was preparing a bath when she heard about her Emmy nomination.  The poor sap is just smitten.

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

Posted on August 4th, 2010 at 6:15pm.