Category: By Author

By Jason Apuzzo. • Brit actor Andrew Garfield has been chosen as Spider-Man, in what’s regarded by many as a surprise. I’m not even going to pretend I know who this guy is.  Bigger question: does the Spider-Man series have any gas left in the tank, with new superhero franchises sprouting every day like weeds?

• Twilight: Eclipse cast members will apparently be mingling with theatergoers around the country. This is a great idea … and also a security nightmare, which is why star Kristen Stewart has been worrying about her safety of late.  Actually, if they really want to thank fans they should just pay for their popcorn.  [$7 a bag?]

• IMAX is expanding into Russia. It’s amazing how IMAX has become a viable distribution option, especially given that nobody shoots in that format anymore.  I once was on a balloon ride in Africa with some guys shooting in IMAX and the camera package alone nearly sank the balloon.

• Restrepo‘s Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger talk to The Wrap today about their non-political approach toward their documentary on the Afghan war.  There was a time when this was the normal approach taken by documentarians.  I actually wish more filmmakers on both the left and right took that approach today …

• … unlike Oliver Stone.  And so Maria Conchita Alonso, who seemed to appear in every film made during the 1980s, will be leading a protest outside a screening of Oliver Stone’s South of the Border tonight in Santa Monica.  I have mixed feelings about things like protests and boycotts, because they basically just deliver free publicity to the people you’re protesting – and does anybody really care about Stone anymore?  So I imagine he’s thrilled by this.  But it doesn’t change the fact that what he’s doing in this documentary glorifying Hugo Chavez is repulsive and dishonest.

• Mel Gibson’s life and career have now officially imploded. Don’t believe anyone who tells you he can recover from this.  He’s done.  And while we’re at it, Kelsey Grammar has got some major p.r. headaches coming his way, as well.  Very sorry to read all this.

• In separate incidents, Kim Kardashian recently posed next to a wax figure of herself, and Megan Fox posed with a mannequin of herself.  Our challenge to LFM readers: pick out the fakes!

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Dolly Parton is defending Miley Cyrus’ new ‘sexy’ persona, saying “we need to let her spread her wings.”  Dolly would know. 🙂

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

Posted on July 2nd, 2010 at 12:20pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. Afshan Azad, the British actress best known for her role as Padma Patil in the “Harry Potter” films, has accused her Islamic father and brother of trying to kill her.  Azad is claiming she was attacked because her father and brother apparently didn’t like her boyfriend, whom she refused to stop seeing. She claims she was left beaten and bruised.  According to CNN the family is Muslim, and of Bengali descent.

Her father Abdul Azad, 54, and brother Ashraf Azad, 28, have been arrested and charged with threatening to kill her.  Ashraf Azad is also accused of assaulting his sister causing her actual bodily harm.

As part of their bail conditions, the two men are required to abide by a curfew, and not travel to London or contact an unnamed man.  You can read more about this on the Fox News website.

This is incredibly disgusting behavior, and there should be an immediate condemnation from the Hollywood filmmaking community.  As of right now, though, I’m not seeing this story mentioned anywhere in the trades.  Why do I think I know why?

LFM readers have probably noticed that we spend a lot of time here covering what might be termed ‘women’s issues,’ or otherwise spotlighting women in film and the media.  One of the reasons we do this is because the battle lines in our current War on Terror are different from where they were, for example, during the Cold War.  The War on Terror is as much a war over the freedoms of women as anything else, and these freedoms need to be asserted over and over again.  These freedoms include, but are obviously not limited to, the right of women to make choices about their romantic and sexual lives.

We will continue to follow this story as it unfolds.  By the way: we’d love to hear from all you readers right now who thought Sex and the City 2 was ‘unfair’ in its portrayal of women in Islamic society.  In the comments section of her review of Sex and the City 2, Govindini debated several readers (one a Muslim female, another a Western feminist) on this point … and we’d love to hear back from these gals now about how tolerant and open Islamic society is toward women and their ambitions.

Posted on July 2nd, 2010 at 10:32am.

By Jason Apuzzo. There’s a budding controversy right now that DC Comics’ newly redesigned look for Wonder Woman has ironed-out her All American look, all in preparation for the inevitable debut of a Wonder Woman movie franchise.  Fox News is fueling the controversy, and even Nikki Finke doesn’t like the new look for the character – and is furious at DC head Diane Nelson for letting it happen.

Fox News is calling the new Wonder Woman look ‘globalized’ (!), citing the replacement of her signature American flag briefs with skintight black leggings.  Here’s what DC Comics says about dropping the flag motif from Wonder Woman’s iconic briefs [my new favorite phrase: ‘iconic briefs’]:

“We at DC Comics are exceedingly proud of Wonder Woman’s heritage and Superman’s heritage as iconic symbols of American patriotism … Suggestions that any costume changes within their 70 plus years of rich storytelling come at the expense of this heritage are unfounded. The latest evolution of Wonder Woman’s iconic costume is a central part of the latest comic book storyline.  All of the classic symbols – patriotic (stars, eagle) and heroic (lasso, bracelets) – are ever-present. We encourage Wonder Woman fans to stay tuned.”

Pretty good corporatese, there.  Translation: We’re keeping our options open, fearing a backlash but also eager to open our future Wonder Woman franchise in Beijing and Dubai.

I must admit that when I first saw this redesign yesterday in The New York Times, it did not immediately scream out ‘un-American’ to me.  Actually what I noticed the most was the impressive size of Wonder Woman’s … well, let’s just leave that alone.  [For what it’s worth, Lynda Carter was apparently a 36C-25-35.]  Otherwise I think the leggings look sleek, dangerous, and will keep Wonder Woman from getting scuffed-up when she’s tangling with … evil American defense contractors?  BP executives?  Wall Street hedge fund managers?  Or whomever politically correct evildoers DC has in mind for her to fight.  Certainly we know that terrorists will not be on that list.

The key thing to understand about the new wave of superheroes – whether Superman, Batman, the X-Men, or whomever – is that they don’t really fight for “truth, justice and the American way” any more.  We all know how retro and passé that’s become in enlightened Hollywood circles.

Proper superheroes nowadays fight for themselves.  They fight in order to fulfill their own personal destiny – and to look cool in their costumes while showing off their powers.  Basically they’re narcissists.  The key thing for superheroes to do in the modern era is to look fabulous, and advance their careers.  And that’s why we already know where this new Wonder Woman series is going, don’t we?  [See fan-generated Megan Fox poster to the right.]

By comparison, let’s take a long, loving look at the costume worn by Lynda Carter when she was breaking fanboy hearts back in the 1970s as Wonder Woman on television.  [I may be looking at this picture for hours, actually.]

Do we have any doubts whatsoever about where this Wonder Woman stood on country on patriotism?  I don’t think so.

Note to LFM readers: I absolutely love this controversy, and will be following each line and curve of it closely.  Symbols do matter, especially when they’re clothed in patriotic bustiers. [On this point, by the way, I want to recommend Govindini’s recent post on the new ‘military chic’ trend in fashion.]

Wonder Woman is an interesting superhero – perhaps the most interesting from a psychological point of view.  Bringing this bullwhip-cracking supervixen to the big screen is going to be an interesting process for DC, one that will force them to confront some provocative issues, not all of which are political.

In order to make this character work, and to ensure a long-running and profitable film series, the creators of the inevitable Wonder Woman film franchise are going to need to explore female psychology with at least a fraction of the energy they typically spend on male psychology – something I have doubts about them being able to do, frankly.  [Otherwise they’re just going to be left with vacuous titilation – so to speak – which is basically all Catwoman was.]

And, of course, the new Wonder Woman is going to have to look fabulous – and probably change her outfits a few times … because that’s what women do.

We’ll be watching here at LFM.

Posted on July 1st, 2010 at 11:35am.

By Jason Apuzzo. • Twilight: Eclipse netted $30 million last night at the domestic box office, and I am now really angry at Congress for nixing movie futures trading.  My retirement would’ve been set by this morning.  And just imagine if I’d rolled my winnings into a double-down bet against Last Airbender?  Fat city.

We’ll have our Twilight review up soon. The film is apparently headed for about a $180 million haul by Monday, which is genuinely astonishing.  The long-term, macro-significance of the Twilight franchise is going to be to eat away at the current fanboy dominance of the cinema – and it’s about time, frankly.

• Talk about an odd career niche: Andy Serkis has been ‘cast’ as the lead ape in the Planet of the Apes prequel/reboot/preboot.  Serkis played Kong and Gollum for Peter Jackson.  The man has absolutely locked down all major simian roles for himself, and apparently has no competitors.  Can a Curious George reboot be far off?

• A teaser trailer for Paranormal Activity 2 is out. News flash: this stuff works only once, guys.  You’ll need to deliver more than a barking dog by the time this one comes out.

• Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski will apparently be taking a crack at a remake of Danny Kaye’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Just don’t cast Adrien Brody.

• Now The Last Airbender is getting hammered for its bad 3D conversion. Btw, is Larry King available in 3D?

• A new movie about the young Barack Obama has opened in Indonesia. According to the director, audiences will have the opportunity to “see Obama eating chicken satay.”  I love chicken satay.  I might see this film.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … the key line of Christopher Nolan’s recent, lengthy interview with The New York Times comes from actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt : “It’s just not that common that someone as creatively inspired as Chris just gets carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wants … Anything he can think of — anything — he got to do it.”  Those are not lines one wants in print if a film fails.

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

[UPDATE: The Hollywood Reporter is saying today that Meryl Streep is in talks to reteam with her Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd for Thatcher, a biopic of Margaret Thatcher.  Jim Broadbent is apparently also in talks to play Margaret Thatcher’s husband, Denis.

The film is being developed by Pathe and BBC Films. Mamma Mia!, by the way, did a whopping $600 million worldwide in 2008.  We’ll keep an eye on this story as it develops.

The Iron Lady was of course one of Britain’s greatest Prime Ministers, and a genuine hero of the Cold War.  So we hope they don’t screw this one up.]

Posted on June 30th, 2010 at 5:19pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. We know that actor Josh Hutcherson is in the forthcoming remake of Red Dawn … but has Hutcherson also been just cast as Spider-Man, for Sony’s forthcoming reboot of that franchise?   Blue Sky Disney is reporting that Hutcherson has already accepted an offer from Sony to take the role.

Meanwhile, in an interview today with ComingSoon.net, Hutcherson had a few interesting things to say about Red Dawn:

“I don’t know when it’s coming out, but it was such an amazing shoot and the action is so good, but MGM is just making sure they have everything set and ready before they release it, which is good actually. They really care about this movie, which is nice to see, and they want to make sure they have all their ducks in a row before they just throw it out there. They want to make sure they have the right marketing campaign set up and everything.”

“It’s definitely more modern,” he said of the remake, which is following the current summer trend for ’80s remakes. “It has the same idea about a group of teens fighting against an entire army, which is hard and definitely fictional, but they have the same characters and the same heart that the original had. This time, the Chinese are invading instead of the Russians to modernize it a little bit, so yeah, it’s just a modernized version of the original.”

This certainly confirms what we’ve been told about the project by an executive at MGM.  Spider-Man and Tom Cruise’s son Connor fighting Chinese communists in the Pacific Northwest(!).  This really should be something – at least it will be more interesting than The Last Airbender, right?  We’ll keep you updated as we learn more.

[Major update to this post here.]

Posted on June 30th, 2010 at 3:22pm.