Category: Articles

The Red Dawn Remake: The Return of the Red Scare?

By Jason Apuzzo. A $75 million movie from MGM about a Chinese communist invasion of the United States. A brazenly patriotic smack-down of Obama-era socialism.  Centering around an Afghanistan war vet.    Starring Tom Cruise’s son. Featuring music by Toby Keith. With a plot devised with help from the RAND Corporation.

A hard-core remake of Red Dawn.

I know what you’re thinking – because it’s what I’ve been thinking since I first heard details about all this several days ago.  This is all some sort of gag, right?  Hollywood doesn’t do this sort of thing.  This isn’t the 1980’s anymore.  Wake up!  This is the era of Avatar, of Fahrenheit 9/11, of Sean Penn hanging with the mullahs in Iran.  The communist Chinese aren’t our enemy – they’re our friends!  They make our TVs and T-shirts and disposable ink cartridges.  Our real enemies are American corporations, environmental polluters, and all those blonde chicks on Fox News.  Get your head in the game, Apuzzo.  You’re daydreaming again!

Apparently not.  Difficult as this is to believe, MGM is indeed now in post-production on what appears to be an extravagantly hardcore remake of John Milius’ 1984 film, Red Dawn.  Details of the project are starting to emerge from people who’ve read the script (see Latino Review’s synopsis of the plot here, or The Awl’s account here), and to say that the new film’s creators are ‘pulling no punches’ would be an understatement.  The new Red Dawn looks to be one of the most intensely anti-communist films since My Son John from 1952. Yet it’s set in the world of today.

First, let’s back up a bit.  If you’re not familiar with the original Red Dawn – a minor film in its day that’s become something of a cult classic – the film depicted an all-out invasion of the United States at the height of the Cold War by the combined forces of the Soviet Union and communist Cuba.  We never really see much of the invasion, however, or learn a great deal about its immediate provocation.  Almost the entirety of the film is spent following a spirited resistance group made up of high school kids played by then up-and-coming stars Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey.  Basically, the kids get hold of some weapons, fight the Russkies in the Colorado hills, kick a lot of commie-Spetsnaz ass, and otherwise shout “Wolverines!” (their high school mascot) about every 5 minutes when they aren’t speeding away in a pickup truck.

Meet your liberator.

The film came out while I was in high school, and I thought it was a hoot – although one sensed at the time that the filmmakers were struggling somewhat against their modest budget.  Like a lot of high school guys at the time, I had the hots for Lea Thompson – I was a lot more interested in her than in the AK-47s and RPGs, frankly – but still I liked the concept of fighting commies on American soil, and Red Dawn delivered on that score like few films I’d ever seen.  [Chuck Norris’ Invasion U.S.A. raised the ante on that scenario  the following year – the 80’s were really something.]

In the new Red Dawn, the invading Chinese army apparently uses the pretext of America’s current economic decline to invade.  Here’s how AOL’s Daily Finance site summarizes the plot:

Set against the backdrop of contemporary politics, the film begins with an American withdrawal from Iraq. The President decides to redeploy troops to Taiwan, where escalating Chinese militarism is threatening America’s ally. At the same time, he also welcomes the former Soviet republic of Georgia into NATO, unleashing Russian worries that America is spreading its sphere of influence deep into Eastern Europe. Having destabilized relations with two of the world’s largest powers, the President then claims that the U.S. is only partly to blame for a global economic meltdown, further escalating tensions with China and ultimately leading to the invasion of the Pacific Northwest.

The RAND Corporation apparently had some input on this scenario.  And as invasion scenarios go, this is a reasonably plausible one – for a Hollywood thriller, at least.  What’s more interesting to me are the actual details of the Chinese-communist occupation.  While details are still a bit sketchy, a lot is given away from behind-the-scenes photographs from the set.  I’ve put together a little collage below of what are apparently propaganda posters spread by the film’s Chinese invaders:

Are we getting the picture here?  Is it just me, or is there something distinctly Obama-esque about these posters?  What these posters reveal is that the Red Dawn remake may actually go where the original film did not go (largely due to the fact that the original was made during the Reagan Administration), which is in equating certain tendencies in contemporary American liberalism with Chinese-style communism (!). That would be an extraordinary thing for a Hollywood studio to do nowadays. The UK’s Guardian reports, for example, that the Chinese have American ‘collaborators’ who help them in their occupation.  [Shades of V here.]  I wonder who those ‘collaborators’ would be?

To reiterate, I’m still stunned by all this.  I’m expecting to wake up and find it’s all a dream – that I’ve been floating in one of those alternate-reality tanks from Avatar, believing that I’m still living in 1985 and reading a Tom Clancy novel after football practice.  I have a million questions, all of which boil down to: how did this movie get greenlit?  How did this one slip by?

All the right people are getting angry about this film: specifically, the state-controlled Chinese press, and The New Yorker.  The Awl is absolutely furious over the film, and you can sense the familiar rhetorical patterns forming: that the film is ‘racist,’ ‘paranoid,’ ‘Sinophobic,’ ‘provocative,’ etc.  Of course, it might be interesting for someone to ask the Tibetans or the Taiwanese what they think of all this.

For more details about this film, visit the MGM website or this Red Dawn fansite, and we’ll otherwise keep you updated on all this as more information becomes available.  Here is some behind-the-scenes footage of the film’s shoot in Michigan.  The film will be released November 24th, 2010. It’s being directed by Dan Bradley, a stunt coordinator and second unit director who’s worked on some of Hollywood’s biggest productions (Independence Day, the Bourne films, the Bond films, the Spider-Man films, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, etc.) The film will star Connor Cruise (son of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman); Chris Hemsworth of Star Trek, and Isabel Lucas of Transformers.

Final footnote: the one time I met John Milius a few years back, we spent about three hours talking about the White Rajah of Sarawak … and about Mao.  Although John wasn’t involved in writing this new film, I’m wondering what he thinks of all this.

[UPDATE: Special thanks to Michelle Malkin’s site for linking to this post.]

[UPDATE #2: I just spoke to an executive at MGM, and he provided us with some exciting details about the film.  Additionally, he confirmed a few basic points about the film: 1) the negative cost for the film is actually around $42 million; 2) Red Dawn as yet has no release date due to the complex situation at MGM; 3) Connor Cruise appears in the film, but is not actually the film’s main star.  We’ll have a lot more to report about Red Dawn down the line.]

[UPDATE #3: Special thanks to the LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein for linking to this post, and for his very kind words about our site.]

[UPDATE #4: And thanks to our old friend Greg Pollowitz at National Review and Kyle Smith for linking to this piece.]

Hollywood Round-up, 6/7

In the future, computers will play frisbee: the new billboard for "Tron."

By Jason Apuzzo. • Shrek takes top prize at the box office for the third week in a row, amidst an otherwise tepid weekend.  Shrek euphoria tempered by new report that Shrek glasses sold by McDonalds may kill you.

Moviegoers obviously not digging this summer’s offerings.  Also: a new report suggests just how much Avatar is saving Hollywood this year.  Subtract Avatar, and movie attendance would be down a whopping 12.9 percent this year, and revenue would be off 7.1 percent.  If that isn’t alarming enough,  James Cameron is still too busy cleaning up the BP oil spill to hunker down to his next Avatar sequel – which is not due out for 3-4 years, and other major franchises are currently in shaky condition.  Hollywood has the reverse problem of BP: not enough money gushing anywhere.

• … which is why eyes are currently turned to Christopher Nolan, whose Inception is hoped by many to rescue Hollywood’s summer.  In a new interview Nolan is calling Inception his On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which is apparently his favorite Bond film.

This is a problem.  Why?  Because On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is easily one of the worst films of the Bond series.

The new George Lazenby?

Let me be the first – apparently anywhere on the internet – to express some doubts as to whether Inception is going to be the success everyone thinks it will be, either artistically or financially.  There are reasons to doubt this film will play well beyond the fanboys; suffice it to say for now that Inception is looking a lot like The Matrix: Reloaded … long on hype, but probably with short legs.  Outside the Batman franchise (i.e., someone else’s storyline), Nolan hasn’t shown he can really connect with large audiences yet, chiefly because his themes are too obscure and off-putting, and because he apparently has no sense of humor.  [Can DiCaprio implant that, too?]

• Vadim Rizov asks whether misogyny is what made so many critics hate Sex and the City 2. Answer: yes.  Govindini has more thoughts on this in response to her readers.

• Joel Silver says the new version of Logan’s Run will be shot in 3-D. At this point I would cast Megan Fox.

• Controversy still raging over whether Robert Rodriguez’s pseudo-controversial Machete should receive Texas tax credits. There’s always carbon credits.

• The Wall Street Journal complains that Hollywood demonizes capitalists. It’s called ‘biting the hand that feeds you.’

• Hollywood currently weighing in on the Prop. 8 court battle. Is that why Miley and Sandra are now kissing girls?

Hollywood's 'new domesticity.'

• If you missed the MTV Movie Awards, here’s what you missed: griping about the oil spill, a deluge of f-bombs, Sandra Bullock kissing Scarlett Johansson, Lindsay Lohan wearing a low-cut top to distract from her alcohol-monitoring anklet, and Jennifer Lopez spanking a bald Tom Cruise.  Sounds like a pretty tame night, to me.

• Tired of celebrity ‘placement’ at Lakers games?  You’re not the only one: see here.  Can we go back to real celebrity fans at Laker games, instead of fake ones?

• New billboards are out for Tron.  See above.

• Elton John receives $1 million to play at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding. For the same price, it actually would’ve been more entertaining to watch Jennifer Lopez spank a bald Tom Cruise.  [While Lopez covers Sir Elton’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”?]

• AND FINALLY … Sir Ben Kingsley spoofs Heidi Montag today, recording his own audition video for Transformers 3. File this under ‘things to do after your knighted.’

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

Classic Movie Update, 6/6

By Jason Apuzzo.  • The original King Kong is coming to Blu-ray.  The ‘Heat Vision’ blog at Hollywood Reporter says that Kong will make its Blu-ray debut Sept. 28th.  Warner Brothers is releasing the disk, and it will essentially be a re-issue of the two-disc DVD special edition put out in 2005 that coincided with Peter Jackson’s remake.  This new Blu-ray edition will come with a 32-page booklet written by film historian Rudy Behlmer that will also feature rare photographs.  Behlmer himself actually interviewed Kong‘s director, the great Merian C. Cooper, back in the day.  I thought that two-disc edition from 2005  was extraordinary – especially the very detailed documentaries done on the making of this landmark film.  Kong was an entirely revolutionary film that changed not only motion picture visual effects, but also the development of motion picture sound.  I’m very much looking forward to this disk.  You can buy King Kong on DVD in the LFM Store below, and you can also pre-order the Blu-ray.

• Capone over at Aint It Cool News as seen the new, restored version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (currently billed as ‘The Complete Metropolis’).  You can see what he has to say about it here.  The film will be embarking on a nationwide tour before hitting DVD in November.  Some years back I wrote an article about Metropolis for the journal Neurosurgery, which you can read here.  Metropolis is easily one of the most important films in the history of cinema, and its influence can be felt all the way down to the cinema of today.  [Even projects like the recent indie feature Metropia – about a near-future urban dystopia – are impossible to imagine without Lang’s earlier film.]  Of all the forthcoming DVDs for this year, Metropolis ranks right at the top of my ‘to buy’ list …

• Turner Classic Movies will be showing several Dennis Hopper films this Tuesday June 8th, in honor of the late actor-director.  The selections will include: The Sons of Katie Elder, True Grit, Rebel Without a Cause, Easy Rider and Night Tide.  Visit the TCM website for further details.  If you miss the screenings, we’ve got these films available in the LFM Store above.

From "Easy Rider."

• In related news, there’s a rumor circulating (see here at The Criterion Cast) that Criterion may be putting out a special ‘New Hollywood’ DVD box set, to include Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, among other classics from that period.  Follow the link for more about that rumor.  Antonioni’s Red Desert also just came out on Blu-ray from Criterion this week.  It’s available in the LFM Store above.

• Kimberly Lindbergs over at TCM’s Movie Morlocks blog has a great review up right now of the Ishiro Honda classic, Dogora (1964) – a film which features a giant jellyfish from space with an appetite for diamonds, a giant tentacle attack on Tokyo, and a sexy Japanese femme fatale.  How could you ask for more?  Dagora is available (in ‘Tohoscope’!) in the LFM Store above.

• Excerpts from the forthcoming book on the Liz Taylor/Richard Burton romance, Furious Love, will soon be appearing in the July issue of Vanity Fair.  For more details, click on the link.  Liz and Dick probably are the all-time screen couple, and were personal favorites of mine growing up.  As a side note, I’ve grown tired over the years of hearing what a ‘disaster’ Cleopatra was – their work on that film being, of course, the catalyst for their relationship.  Cleopatra is actually a magnificent and literate film, arguably the last large-scale epic (other than perhaps Titanic) Hollywood has ever done centered around a woman.  If Liz is a bit strident in the film, one never gets the sense that the role is to big for her – arguably it was too small.  In any case, rumors of Cleopatra being a ‘financial disaster’ are as ridiculous now as they were back in 1963.  In today’s dollars, Cleopatra would’ve grossed $534 million at the domestic box office (i.e., roughly what The Dark Knight made), making it a strong hit for Fox – even when factoring in costs.  In any case, if you’re a fan of Liz Taylor or Richard Burton, feel free to pre-order Furious Love in the LFM Store above.

From "Double Take."

• Finally, one classic film related project to avoid is a new pseudo-documentary on Alfred Hitchcock called Double Take.  Double Take, directed by Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, essentially treats Alfred Hitchcock and his films as hieroglyphs of the Cold War era, an era ostensibly marked by paranoia and an existential uncanniness echoed in Hitchcock’s thematics of ‘doubling’ (one thinks here of Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, Vertigo, etc.).  The film intersperses clips of Hitchcock from his television series with archival Cold War footage and staged interviews with Hitchcock impersonator Ron Burrage.

But as film critic and LFM contributor Joe Bendel writes in his review of the film, “[w]hile there is an ostensible storyline involving Hitchcock’s encounter with his doppelganger, the film is more concerned with scoring revisionist points against easy targets from American Cold War history, like Richard Nixon.”  Apparently the film glibly ‘samples’ or ‘remixes’ footage of a body falling from a building in a manner highly evocative of the 9-11 attacks.  Do we really need this sort of thing, just to understand Hitchcock?  You can read more about this film in The New York Times, but even more recommended is LFM contributor Joe Bendel’s review.

And that’s this week’s Classic Movie Update …

Classic Cinema Obsession: Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie

[Editor’s Note: A restored version of Jean-Luc Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie has just been released by Criterion on DVD and Blu-ray, and is now available at the LFM Store below at the end of this post.]

By Jennifer Baldwin

A CLASSIC CINEMA OBSESSION in 4 TABLEAUX

1
JENNI COMES IN LATE — THE FACE OF MARIA FALCONETTI –CONVERTED — PEOPLE WALK OUT EARLY
I was late to the screening. It was French New Wave Week in World Cinema 340 and we were watching Godard’s MY LIFE TO LIVE (a.k.a. VIVRE SA VIE). It was my first Godard. I was a lazy undergrad. I came in about 15 minutes late, an intruder bringing a squeaky door and too much light into the darkened, cavernous auditorium. I felt hot and embarrassed at my intrusion. I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the back, hiding from all my fellow students. The first thing I saw was a face. It made me cry. It always makes me cry.

THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC is one of my favorite films. Seeing it for the first time, I had a (re)conversion to Catholicism/cinema. Seeing it every time since, I am continually reconverted. And always crying at the face of Maria Falconetti.


I am Nana. She sees the face of Maria-as-Jeanne D’Arc and she cries too.

We are all crying, we three faces. I have a feeling no one else in the auditorium is crying. Before the screening is over, half the students have walked out. Perhaps they were disappointed at the lack of sex and the one bit of sterile nudity in a picture about prostitution. Perhaps they couldn’t feel anything when they looked at Anna Karina’s face. Perhaps they didn’t like lengthy philosophical discussions about the meaning of language and speech. Perhaps they thought the French New Wave weird and pretentious and Godard’s film most of all.

But not me. I was converted that night while watching VIVRE SA VIE. I was converted to Godard. He was my first New Wave love (Truffaut would come later, but Godard was always stronger).

It’s been almost eight years since I watched VIVRE SA VIE in college, but I have never forgotten the images or the effect the film had on me. I have never forgotten it. I recently watched the new Criterion Collection remastered DVD of VIVRE SA VIE — now my second time seeing the film. I still can’t explain my thoughts on it. It is a religious experience in that way. It is a spiritual/emotional thing, not an intellectual one. I have thoughts and feelings, but I cannot put them into words. If words were enough, I wouldn’t need the pictures.

“She sells her body but keeps her soul.” Continue reading Classic Cinema Obsession: Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie

Hollywood Round-up, 6/3-6/4

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!

The newer, 'edgier' Snow White?

• 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 …