A rare glimpse into Libertas Global Headquarters (LGH).
By Jason Apuzzo. Just a quick note to our readers that posting will be light here at Libertas until after the New Year. The reason for this is not because we need a break – we never do, as our efforts are tireless, our commitment unwavering – but in order for you, the reader, to recuperate fully in preparation for everything Libertas will be providing you in 2011.
So prepare yourselves, rest up, and ready your mind and senses for the the new round of thrills and excitements we are preparing for you in the coming year … and Happy New Year to everyone.
By Jason Apuzzo. Those of us here at Libertas want to wish everyone in advance a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and the very best for 2011.
I’ve embedded a clip above from a film that really captures the Christmas spirit, John Ford’s 3 Godfathers starring John Wayne. In this touching and poetic film, three outlaws on the run from the law risk their lives and their freedom to preserve the life of a new-born, orphaned baby boy.
In the clip above, Harry Carey, Jr. as The Abilene Kid sings a lullaby out in the desert to the baby. The song is “Streets of Laredo,” as only Harry Carey could sing it.
By Joe Bendel. Rooster Cogburn is not just a familiar character, he is an icon. Considering the critical drubbing the Coen brothers’ last classic movie remake (The Lady Killers) received, taking on such a storied figure of Americana certainly was gutsy. Yet thanks to their satisfying command of the western genre, the Brothers Coen’s True Grit is able to establish its own identity while keeping faith with the spirit of the original film and source novel. Considered to be a major player for Oscar campaigning (despite being blanked by the Golden Globes), Grit recently opened in select theaters nationwide.
Of course, Grit has an Academy Award winning lineage. John Wayne won his only Oscar for playing the one-eyed, cantankerous old Cogburn. Given the large shadow the Duke casts, it is quite impressive how comfortably Jeff Bridges eases into the role. In a weird way, there might be a similarity between Cogburn and Bridges’ “Dude” from the Coens’ Big Lebowski. Both have a healthy disregard for social convention – however, Cogburn is not exactly what one might call laidback.
As in the Henry Hathaway classic, young Mattie Ross is looking to avenge her father, so she hires the grizzled old Cogburn to track down the killer, Tom Chaney. La Boeuf, a Texas Ranger, is also on Chaney’s trail in hopes of collecting the reward offered for another murder the fugitive committed. Ross is not looking for courtroom justice though, but justice of the frontier variety. Despite Cogburn’s questionable commitment, they press on into forbidding country, in a halfway alliance with La Boeuf.
Hailee Stenfeld as Mattie Ross.
Though Grit is a tad slow out of the blocks, the Coens show a deft touch staging old school western shootouts. Genre purists will be happy to know that not only is Cogburn’s famous battle cry still in the film, Bridges totally nails it. And exhibiting assurance on-screen beyond her years, Hailee Stenfeld invests Ross with considerable grit as well. Unfortunately Matt Damon often seems distractingly off target as La Boeuf, almost portraying the Texas lawman as a caricature of Talladega Nights’ John C. Reilly. Still, Cogburn is the key to the film and Bridges really does pull it off.
Slightly more wistful than the original, the Coen Grit will pleasantly surprise diehard fans of the John Wayne film, nevertheless. Indeed, Bridges ought to be in contention for Oscar consideration. Executed with the gusto the filmmakers are known for, Grit represents a welcome big time return of the western genre to the American film industry. Definitely recommended, it is now playing in select theaters around the country.
Too much of a good thing? Tron girls at the "Tron" premiere.
By Jason Apuzzo. • Tron: Legacy opened reasonably well, although well enough to launch a franchise? I have doubts. I can’t escape the feeling that Disney blew a major opportunity here – that a film which could’ve been a major ‘tech noir’ classic slipped away into something frivolous … something that audiences really weren’t pining for to begin with (an over-merchandized sequel to an almost 30 year old film, featuring an extreme overdose of Jeff Bridges). I bought the Daft Punk soundtrack over the weekend, loved it (read interviews with Daft Punk here and here), and was left with the sense that what Disney could’ve had here was the anti-Avatar: i.e., a large-scale, humanistic sci-fi epic with the style and design of Blade Runner, and the heart of the original Star Wars. It’s too bad they settled for so much less.
Sci-fi’s Big Three – Lucas, Spielberg and Cameron – get a lot of criticism, especially in the overheated world of the internet. The reason those three are such indisputable masters of their craft, however, is that they focus attention on their lead characters – who typically are broken or otherwise unfulfilled young people with major challenges in their lives. I never had the sense that the spoiled-rotten billionaire kid in Legacy had really ever had his teeth kicked in; everything in life was just a little too cozy for him – and neither Lucas, Spielberg or Cameron would’ve allowed their lead character to have such an easy time of it.
By the way, the LA Times just ran this interesting piece on whether Tron‘s world reflects the way the schizophrenic mind works. It’s an interesting question, actually, and one that I was ruminating on myself while watching the film; Tron really does present quite a paranoid vision of the digital/virtual world we ‘live’ in nowadays.
• The trailer for the new Transformers movie is out, and it’s actually a good deal better – and more epic in scale – than I would’ve expected a trailer for one of these films to be. The only question I have is how representative the trailer is of the rest of the film, as the trailer feels like something designed to capture the first 5-10 minutes of the movie in which the plot’s set up. I assume the rest of the film will involve watching Shia and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley run around, which I’m not necessarily looking forward to. In any case, the trailer is a nice start so far. Here‘s another new interview with Michael Bay, incidentally.
• A new poster for Battle: Los Angeles is out. I have the feeling this film is going to be the cream of the Alien Invasion crop, so to speak.
• First it was Rose McGowan, and now word has it that Anne Hathaway may be attached to the on-again/off-again remake of Barbarella. I generally have nothing against Ms. Hathaway, but she’s a bit gawky and a poor choice for this role – as I suspect she would ultimately push the film too much in the direction of Austin Powers-style comedy. With that said, she’s certainly fetching, sympathetic, and she meets the ABF Standard (Anybody But Fonda).
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Brazilian model Sasckya Porto adopts the Tron look, which more women should really should adopt in their everyday life – don’t you think?
And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion Front!
• One of the recently leaked WikiLeaks cables reveals that diplomats from 14 Arab states voted to ban Steven Spielberg’s films in response to his $1 million donation to Israel during Israel’s 2006 confrontation with Lebanon. (As a side note, the Arab League also apparently didn’t like the depiction of Arabs in Raiders of the Lost Ark.)
I’m pressed for time, and would otherwise like to say more about all this, but let me confine my remarks to these: that it is axiomatic, in my opinion, that there will be no peace in certain parts of this world until there is also freedom. In a time of year when thoughts of peace are on everyone’s minds, and justly so, we should never forget that freedom is the vital force that nurtures peace.
Final note: on the Panahi front, here is his Facebook page, and here is an on-line petition demanding the lifting of his sentence.
By Jason Apuzzo. • One of the most intriguing things I’ve seen recently is the promotional trailer (see above) for director Renny Harlin’s new, $20 million Russian-invasion-of-Georgia thriller 5 Days of August, which is set for release in March.
Andy Garcia as Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
The film stars Val Kilmer, Andy Garcia (as Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili) and Heather Graham among others – and deals with a group of war correspondents caught behind enemy (i.e., Russian) lines when the Russians invaded Georgia back in 2008.
When the journalists videotape a series of horrific Russian war crimes, they have to fight to get the footage out of the country. The film was apparently shot on-location in Tbilisi, with the approval of the Georgian government.
From the look of the promotional trailer (which does not appear to be the final, theatrical trailer), it looks like Harlin is going hard-core in his criticism of the Russians – so this is going to get very interesting come March. Bravo to everyone involved for their courage in doing this, and please do try to avoid assassination.
Harlin (Die Hard 2) also seems to have squeezed a lot out of his $20 million budget, as the scale of the project seems impressive. We’ll be keeping an eye on this project here at Libertas. Val Kilmer really needs to drop some weight, by the way.
• Angelina Jolie’s The Tourist opened poorly (see the LFM review here), but fortunately there’s always Salt – which just hit Blu-ray and DVD. The new Salt disks apparently contain several different cuts of the film, including an ‘extended’ cut and also a ‘director’s’ cut – the differences between these cuts are explained here – and the cuts actually seem to represent legitimately different visions of the film, particularly with respect to the film’s ending. Without giving anything away about the new scenes, suffice it to say that sequels were definitely on everyone’s mind at the time of the production.
So will there be sequels? It’s too early to say, but director Phillip Noyce – who’s out doing media for the new DVDs – probably won’t be doing them himself (see here) as he seems to have moved on to other ventures.
We liked the retro, commie-hunting vibe of Salt here at Libertas (see our review here), and we’re hoping this film gets its franchise. If it does, it will be noteworthy for having done so without the aid and assistance of the talking heads on either Fox News or talk radio, ironically enough.
• The new Bond film is currently scheduled for a November 2012 release, incidentally.
• Take a few minutes to enjoy this animated short below, called Pigeon: Impossible from Lucas Martell. It’s about a rookie CIA agent who gets into hot water after a pigeon gets trapped inside his nuclear briefcase and sets off an ICBM toward Moscow. It’s a cute little story, and the quality of the animation is quite high.
• … and speaking of Tom Cruise, by the way, some incredible set footage from Mission: Impossible 4emerged recently of Cruise swinging around outside the upper floors of the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai, where he’s roughly 2,000+ feet up. He even waves and smiles at the tourists watching him. I’ll say this for the guy, he always gives people their money’s worth. One other bit of related news: Ving Rhames may not be back for Mi4 – although, weirdly, he may be returning for the next Piranha film (didn’t he get chewed to pieces?).
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … January Jones – who will be playing Emma Frost in the swingin’ 60s/Cold War-themed X-Men: First Class – just did a series of provocative handbag ads for Versace, which is odd because she herself really doesn’t look like a bag at all.
And that’s what’s happening today in the Cold War!
