Category: 1. Jason Apuzzo

By Jason Apuzzo. • The full Captain America costume has been revealed – in hi-def, multi-angled detail. And, thankfully, there appear to be no UN markings or indications of one-world cooperation.  Also: there’s some Captain America casting news coming down the pike.  Inquiring minds want to know: are Iron Man and Captain America going to suck the life out of Superman and Spider-Man?  May be too late for re-boots on those.

• In related news, Rush Limbaugh biopic being shopped around Hollywood. It’s tempting to say something political here, but you know what the problem is?  Hollywood isn’t doing good biopics on anybody these days.  They’ll miscast this (my prediction: Philip Seymour Hoffman), spend too much, take snarky liberal pot shots, and make it 3 hours long.  [Still reeling from how Amelia Earhart’s story was botched last year.  How do you botch that?]  Important question here: who gets to play Ann Coulter?

• You can’t stop James Cameron, you can only hope to contain him. Cameron going around everywhere griping about BP, the oil spill, how he and his team of experts need to clean the thing up … Plus he’s going to re-release Titanic in 3D in 2012 (100th anniversary of ship’s sinking), and probably his next project will be the Avatar sequel.  If you’re Michael Moore or Oliver Stone right now, you’ve got to be hating life.  How did Cameron so quickly steal their gig?  Maybe Moore can re-issue Roger & Me in 3D.

• The Sex and the City 2 controversy rolls on, and now there’s word that a “Sex and the City” prequel may be in the works in order to import young babes into the franchise.  (Maybe a few hunky vampires while they’re at it?)  There’s no way they’re going to let this franchise go, given the money it’s making.  Film’s snarky p.c./misogynist critics looking irrelevant right now.

• Actress Q’orianka Kilcher ties herself to White House fence in support of indigenous peoples worldwide, gets arrested. I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen in the Obama era.  Her mother is also described as having “poured a black substance over her.”  [BP oil?]  Brando spent half his adult life impregnating chicks like this, without having to pour anything over them. By the way, it’s nice to see that Obama’s got to deal with this stuff now, instead of just Bush.  Hope you enjoy this stuff, Barry!

• Sean Penn featured in Vanity Fair, picturesquely helping out Haitians. It’s great that he’s helping, but can this guy go anywhere without a camera crew?  Is that even possible anymore?

• Rock band Rush tells Rand Paul to stop playing their music at his events. Battle of the Libertarians.

• Bret Ratner to do new, ‘edgy’ version of Snow White legend. Snow White to be deflowered?  Ratner should stick to what he knows best, which is … actually I’m not coming up with anything here.

• Comedy Central has a new comedy show mocking Jesus, which they’re able to broadcast in perfect freedom and legality because American Christians aren’t threatening to chop Comedy Central executives’ heads off, despite what Rachel Weisz may tell you.

• FINALLY, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY … Fox News is currently featuring an on-line American flag bikini show, perfect for a Friday afternoon in June.  Click on over to see precisely how much – and in what proportions – God has so generously blessed this country of ours.

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

By Jason Apuzzo. We’re all looking for signs of hope in the Islamic world – signs of liberalization, of Westernization, of modernity seeping its way through the cracks.  Some of the most hopeful signs in this regard are starting to appear in the arts – and particularly in film.  Recently here at LFM we’ve talked about films like Four Lions, The Infidel, No One Knows About Persian Cats, and the striking web series Living with the Infidel (my personal favorite).  These are all projects that have either received mainstream distribution, have screened to critical acclaim at festivals like Sundance and Cannes, or have in some cases – particularly Four Lions – done killer business at the indie box office.  [The weekend it opened in the UK, Four Lions actually had a better per-screen average than Iron Man 2, which opened that same weekend.]

Of all these films, No One Knows About Persian Cats may have surprised me the most (see my review) – in part because it revealed how deeply Westernized today’s Iranian youth already are.  I hadn’t been aware that Iran’s young people already have a sound – a kind of pop music signature – around which they are rallying against the oppressive forces of religious conformity in their society.  This is an extremely encouraging sign that leads me to believe that revolutionary change is coming to Iran sooner rather than later.

And now another new film is coming down the pike – not specifically dealing with Iran, but more generally with Islamic young people in America for whom music is their vehicle of protest.  The name of this film is The Taqwacores (the title combines “taqwa” – the Arabic word for “piety” – with the English word “hardcore”).  You can catch the trailer for The Taqwacores above – the film premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and also ran at the South by Southwest Festival.   The Taqwacores is about an imaginary punk rock band made up of disaffected young Islamic guys in Buffalo.

Does the subject matter sound obscure?  It might, except for the fact that as The New York Times reports, The Taqwacores is based on a popular and influential novel – written by 32 year old Michael Muhammad Knight – that’s already become a kind of Catcher in the Rye for young American Muslims.  Indeed, an entire music/youth sub-culture has apparently grown up around Knight’s novel in Islamic communities all across America – communities that are now eagerly anticipating the release of the film this autumn.

Here’s a synopsis of the film, provided by the Sundance film festival:

Yusef, a straitlaced Pakistani American college student, moves into a house with an unlikely group of Muslim misfits—skaters, skinheads, queers, and a riot grrrl in a burqa—all of whom embrace Taqwacore, the hardcore Muslim punk-rock scene. They may read the Koran and attend the mosque, but they also welcome an anarchic blend of sex, booze, and partying. As Yusef becomes more involved in Taqwacore, he finds his faith and ideology challenged by both this new subculture and his charismatic new friends, who represent different ideas of the Islamic tradition.

Just because these young Muslims embrace America’s punk-rock subculture, and reject more traditional modes of Islamic observance, don’t expect that they’re watching Fox News or attending Tea Partys.  That’s not quite the vibe, if you know what I mean.  It’s obvious from the reporting on this film that post-9/11 Islamophobia is a still a concern among young American Muslims, although one would hope that the election of an American President with the name ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ – with roots in the Islamic world – would have at least comforted them somewhat on this point.  In any case, one senses that such anxieties will probably ease over time.

First time Director Eyad Zahra struck a very positive note in an interview he did several months ago:

Ultimately, we hope that this film can generate new kinds of discussion within America, for both non-Muslims and Muslims.  This film is trying to crush all social barriers that have been thrown up in recent years.  The hope is that Americans can truly see Muslims as Americans, and that Muslims can truly see themselves as American.  We are tired of the ultra politically correct, sugarcoated community bridging that been going on lately, and obviously, we aren’t fans of the disgusting Islamaphobia that has been projected on the other side of the spectrum either.  We want things to have more honest discussions about this kind of stuff, because that how things will really change for the better.

I think that’s just the right tone.  And something that would really help matters in this regard would be if America’s more conservative-leaning media outlets would give this film a chance when it comes out this fall.  Although I haven’t had the pleasure yet of seeing the film myself, The Taqwacores has gotten positive reviews, and could use the extra attention such media outlets would bring.  It’s sometimes difficult to take seriously the incessant complaining about Hollywood from America’s right wing, when so little effort is ever made by them to positively promote the work of brave filmmakers who break from conventional Hollywood liberalism.  We’ll see if this film gets the chance it deserves.

By Jason Apuzzo. • Frank Miller releases first artwork for Xerxes, his follow-up to 300; also discusses 300 controversy with the LA Times. 2007 film 300 was a watershed film in much the same way Mel Gibson’s Passion had been three years before.  Xerxes begins 10 years before 300 and kicks off with the Battle of Marathon.  The new story’s POV shifts from Spartans to the Athenians.  More from Miller:

“This is a more complex story. The story is so much larger. The Spartans in ‘300’ were being enclosed by the page as the world got smaller. This story has truly vast subjects. The Athenian naval fleet, for instance, is a massive artistic undertaking and it dwarfed by the Persian fleet, which is also shown in this story. The story has elements of espionage, too, and it’s a sweeping tale with gods and warriors.”

Story’s lead characters are Themistocles (builder of Athenian navy) and Xerxes, whose quest for godhood drives the story. Xerxes climaxes with massive naval confrontation between Greeks and Persians, ends on the same day as the events of 300.  It sounds fantastic.  Best wishes to Frank on this.

• James Cameron meets with feds to brainstorm over oil-spill cleanup. Cameron has, admittedly, spent a great deal of time at the ocean depths working on The Abyss, Titanic, Aliens of the Deep, Ghosts of the Abyss – not to mention the ‘seminal’ film Piranha 2: The Spawning, which finally gets a Criterion DVD and Blu-Ray release next month.  Just kidding.  [But you weren’t sure there for a moment, were you?]

• Transformers 3 filming extensively around LA, according to the LA Times. It’s amazing that having a major film shoot in Los Angeles is actually a news story these days.  That’s how bad it’s getting, folks.

• The Hollywood Reporter asks whether moviegoers may be getting tired of sequels. Um, yeah.

• Samuel Jackson/Carrie-Ann Moss terrorist thriller Unthinkable does the unthinkable and goes straight to DVD. Very surprised by this.  The trailer certainly looked compelling in a 24 sort of way.  Why does this film get canned, but The A-Team gets released?

• Blogger Vadim Rizov discovers that the latest way for actresses to prove they’re ‘serious’ is to take their clothes off.

Paz da la Huerta is apparently the latest actress to figure this trick out, both for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and the Sundance hit Enter the Void and a string of other films. Extraordinary that these long-hidden secrets of showbiz success are finally getting some attention!

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

By Jason Apuzzo. • JoBlo.com got an early look at the Captain America costume for the forthcoming film adaptation. Hint: Captain America won’t be working for the U.N.  (Are any of the people who made G.I. Joe noticing?)

• The Washington Examiner asks: did CAIR ruin 24? Answer: not really.  24‘s right-wing audience was already tapped-out by the show’s 3rd season, so producers appeared to make move to political left to broaden show’s appeal.  Result? 24 became season 4 of The West Wing.

• Original James Bond Aston Martin up for auction. Why do I have the feeling Nic Cage will be buying this?

• Obama praises new Islamic superhero comic book series, but demurs on whether to send these superheroes to clean up the oil spill.

• Meanwhile, Pam Anderson declares the Gulf oil spill to be ‘the end of the world,’ which means that Obama is effectively presiding over the end of the world.  Pam’s also volunteering to help with the clean-up effort, probably by donating some of her flotation devices.

• An MTV reality show is causing controversy in Saudi Arabia … close on the heels of a similar show causing controversy in Pakistan.  MTV re-asserting itself as major American weapon in war against global stuffiness.  I still wish they would re-boot Aeon Flux.

• Surprising Shrek has better legs than Sex and the City and (non-) Persian Prince, takes weekend box office prize for 2nd straight week. Overall biz lackluster for industry, though.  Audiences getting spoiled by 3-D and IMAX?

• With chaos brewing at MGM, Guillermo del Toro exits The Hobbit and another franchise is about to be botched.  More desperate phone calls to Christopher Nolan forthcoming.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Victoria’s Secret has put together a congratulatory video over VS model Rosie Huntington getting the Transformers 3 gig. As LFM readers know, we led the way here at LFM in guessing that it would probably be a Victoria’s Secret model who would replace Megan Fox.  [In fact, we apparently beat Variety, who just picked up on this story today.]  Why were we ahead of the game on this story?  Because at LFM we keep our eyes on women.  All the time.

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

By Jason Apuzzo. We hope everyone is enjoying this Memorial Day Weekend, and that we’re all remembering the reason for this extended summer holiday: the bravery and sacrifice of the countless men and women who have fought and died for America’s freedom.

It’s a pleasant coincidence that this Memorial Day, May 31st 2010, also happens to be the 80th birthday of Clint Eastwood – a coincidence that puts a cheerful cast over what should otherwise be a sober day.

As the most popular and enduring movie star since John Wayne, Clint needs little introduction – particularly to longtime Libertas readers.  If for some reason, however, you happen to not be familiar with Clint’s incredible body of work, Turner Classic Movies has been showing his films all day long during its 24 hour tribute.  They’ve certainly chosen well, as Clint’s extraordinary ‘Man With No Name’ trilogy of films (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) directed by Sergio Leone is on the list, as well as Where Eagles Dare (a personal favorite of mine), Kelly’s Heroes, and the first two ‘Dirty Harry’ films (Dirty Harry, Magnum Force).  If you miss any of the screenings, you can pick up copies of all these films in our store below.

I will confess to having mixed feelings about the type of films Clint has been making over the past 15 or so years – essentially since he left the Western genre after the masterful Unforgiven.  This isn’t the day for such quibbling, though.  Clint’s had an extraordinary and iconic career, and with a handful of exceptions like Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, no male star of his generation has approached his popularity.  Our congratulations to Clint on this milestone birthday.

When I was a young kid first exploring movie history on home video, the stars who made a big impression on me were Eastwood, Humphrey Bogart, and Errol Flynn.  Is it a coincidence that they were all Warner Brothers men?  Perhaps not.  Richard Schickel explores Eastwood’s career at Warner Brothers (Eastwood’s home from the 1970’s forward) in his new documentary, The Eastwood Factor, which is also showing on Turner Classic Movies during the 24 hour tribute – and the documentary is also available in the LFM Store above.

It was a pleasure having Richard Schickel at the Liberty Film Festival a few years ago – and we congratulate him on this latest collaboration with Clint.  Richard also wrote what is the essential biography of Clint, Clint Eastwood: A Biography – which is also available in the LFM Store above, along with Richard’s new book, Clint Eastwood: A Retrospective.

Happy 80th, Clint.

By Jason Apuzzo.  Actor Dennis Hopper died earlier today at age 74.  Hopper will be remembered for many things, but I wanted to say just a few brief words in his honor with respect to what seems to me to be his most singular achievement: his film Easy Rider.  Every filmmaker today who turns to independent filmmaking to express a personal and uncompromising vision, every filmmaker who seeks to reach young people, every filmmaker who plays the role of David to Hollywood’s Goliath, owes Dennis Hopper thanks for Easy Rider.  Easy Rider was genuinely the film that changed the entire landscape of Hollywood during the late 60s-early 70s, and allowed the New Hollywood generation to get its big chance.  And it was Hopper – as Easy Rider‘s director, writer and star – who was primarily responsible for the film getting made.  Seen today, I think Easy Rider has stood the test of time, and has become its own genuine piece of Americana – a kind of wild, bacchic ode to freedom.

Hopper will be missed.  He was an extraordinary performer on-camera; one thinks in particular of his electric appearances in Apocalypse Now and Blue Velvet, among many other films.  We want to wish his family and friends our condolences.