// December 14th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Film & Script Reviews
My good friend Michael Del Rio passed away yesterday of a heart attack. I was called by my good friend Sixto Ramos to be told of this news. I am going to post more info on his funeral arrangements in the next few days. For Now I just want to let all our friends that this tragedy transpired yesterday afternoon. As soon as I get more details I will pass it along.
// December 11th, 2009 // No Comments » // Film & Script Reviews
J.J. Abrams is working out a rights deal to spin a feature from McCann’s sprawling period piece. Abrams would produce — with McCann adapting the screenplay — at Paramount, where his Bad Robot production company resides.
“Spin,” McCann’s fifth novel, was published in June by Random House. Built around Philippe Petit’s real-life “artistic crime of the century” — when the Frenchman illegally walked a tightrope strung between the World Trade Center towers in August 1974 — “Spin” follows an ensemble cast of characters struggling in New York.
Geeks rule Biatches
The book’s characters include a young Irish monk living among prostitutes in the Bronx; a group of Park Avenue mothers mourning their sons, killed in Vietnam; and a 38-year-old grandmother walking the streets with her teenage daughter. McCann’s novel, which has drawn comparisons to Don DeLillo’s work, serves as an allegory of 9/11 and its aftermath.
“Spin” joins a handful of other projects Abrams has in the works as a producer that spring from literary source material and do not feed his typical genre obsessions. Also at Bad Robot and Paramount are an untitled diamond-heist project derived from a Joshua Davis article in Wired and “Mystery on Fifth Avenue,” from a New York Times article about a family’s Manhattan apartment that was designed as a giant puzzle.
The Dublin-born McCann co-wrote with director Gary McKendry the short film “Everything in This Country Must,” which was nominated for the best live-action short film Oscar in 2004. The author teaches at Hunter College in New York.
McCann also is the author of “Zoli,” “Dancer,” “This Side of Brightness,” “Fishing the Sloe-Black River” and “Songdogs.”
// December 10th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Film & Script Reviews, Where's the Beef
The line between fantasy and reality has been put in a wrist lock and ripped out of its socket. There is now a reality show about Steven Seagal being an actual policeman.
Without a doubt, this idea is as incredible as it is insane. All that time we watched him play a cop, he was training to be a real cop.
Being half movie cop plus half regular cop equals all cop, but there’s more to Steven Seagal than that. He’s Steven Seagal and that brings with it some real-life super powers.
The martial arts training that he mentions every five seconds have granted him abilities you won’t believe. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Crime-Vision:
Martial arts have given Steven the ability to predict your actions before you make them. He can look at you and know if you’re getting ready to run, pull a gun or get your heart torn out. Spoiler alert: You’re always getting ready to get your heart torn out.
When Seagal is on patrol, darting his head around like a 250-pound bird of prey, he may suddenly see a 107. This is the police code for “suspicious person.” It’s also when Steven Seagal’s aikido-trained eyeballs turn on their Crime Vision.
Two things happen the camera zooms in and white light fills the screen. This allows viewers to then see the black people, I mean 107s, as Steven Seagal does– digitally zoomed and pulsing with crime! If I didn’t know any better, all these visual effects would make me think that Steven Seagal was transforming into the Hulk. And I don’t know any better, so look out!
Steven Seagal is the Hulk este tipo esta cabron.
Does it really work?
Besides being racist, the biggest problem with “crime vision” is that it doesn’t do a lot to stop people.
Even if it detects that your shirt is too baggy and covered in the word FUBU for you to not have a gun, Seagal and his fellow deputies still have to catch you.
And when Steven Seagal was in his prime, he ran like a penguin with ankle weights. Today, I can out-distance him in an elevator. Steven Seagal is so slow that they film most of his chase scenes with drawings. He’s so going to kick my ass for saying that.
Let’s move on.
Tasers:
Steven Seagal’s martial arts mastery has granted him no special abilities with tasers, but he loves them. Loves them. If you give him the opportunity, he will violate every part of your body and every part of the warranty on his taser at the same time. If I were to take a drink every time Seagal says the word “taser,” I would wake up to the smell of Steven Seagal electrically searing my nipples for public intoxication. It could happen.
Does it Work?
Yes. In one scene, he’s arguing with guy who has such a deep voice that if you close your eyes, it sounds like Steven Seagal vs. Andre the Giant. And when he threw a tantrum and kicked out the back window of the patrol car, Steven Seagal went over to it, implanted the suspect’s balls with an electric barb and, for what must have been 80 percent of the episode, leaned on the taser trigger.
As Seagal used his martial arts zen to blast his guy’s nuts, he started to sound less like Andre the Giant and more like a soprano Ironically, he got tasered for breaking a window, and now he shatters glass every time he tries to talk.
Steven Seagal’s taser uses more electricity in a day than a Texas prison. Where you and I leave a carbon footprint, Steven Seagal pounds his foot into the Earth’s ass, and activates his coal-burning boot taser.
And Steven Seagal’s most awesome-est Super Power
Being Steven Seagal:
Starring in five, possibly six completely awesome feature films gets you some respect. No one is going to start shit with a man twice their size who is famous for tearing people’s arms in half. Plus, there’s an unwritten rule that says if you make Hard to Kill, you can do whatever you want one time to everyone who’s ever seen it. Steven Seagal could walk up to your table at a restaurant and put his dick in your salad, and you’d be even. In fact, you’d have to clean it for him since he also gave you Under Siege. Although I think you get to stab your fork into it for On Deadly Ground.
Does it Work?
Yes. Honestly, if I got stopped by a cop who was also Steven Seagal, I’d shit my pants right then and the first 25 times I remembered it. Meeting Steven Seagal is so exciting that you would forget you’re holding a murder weapon.
This is the man who wrote and produced the folk/country album Steven Seagal: Songs from the Crystal Cave! I mean, fuck.
// December 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Film & Script Reviews
Entering its third weekend, the inspirational drama “The Blind Side” has done what few movies do — it has climbed to the top spot in the boxoffice rankings after two weekends in second place.
On Friday, the Warners release, directed by John Lee Hancock and starring Sandra Bullock, took in an estimated $6.8 million in North America.
In the process, it elbowed aside Summit’s “New Moon,” the top film at the boxoffice for the past two weeks. The supernatural teen romance claimed $5.2 million for the day.
As for the weekend’s new wide releases, Lionsgate’s R-rated “Brothers,” the drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire and directed by Jim Sheridan, picked up 3.6 million in 2,088 as it checked in in third place.
Arriving in the fourth spot was Sony’s R-rated heist tale “Armored,” directed by Nimrod Antal and starring Matt Dillon. Playing in 1,915 theaters, it grabbed $2.4 million.
Audiences were more resistant to Miramax’s holiday-themed family drama “Everybody’s Fine,” starring Robert De Niro. Opening in 2,133 theaters, the PG-13 film ranked ninth for the day with an initial haul of $1.3 million.
Full Circle’s “Translymania” lagged behind in 13th place with $103,000 from 1,007 playdates.
Disney’s comedy “Old Dogs” rounded out the top five, taking fifth place
with $2.1 million.
// December 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // Film & Script Reviews, What's Poppin
For a second, you might think this is a horrible prank from the man-children that brought us [ADJECTIVE] Movie franchise. But it oh so isn’t, and is the perfect type of parody if you were obssessed with Spanish cinema in the mid 90s til recent. It’s actually refreshing to see that Spanish comedy is really evolving, well in cinema the Spanish market has always come up with some great stuff it’s their tv side that needs work. Here is a poster of “SPANISH MOVIE”
From my own quick count, we’ve got parodies of [REC], Abre Los Ojos (which Cameron Crowe remade as Vanilla Sky), The Orphanage, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Others and Volver. I am so excited for this.
