http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/ Copyright 2010 Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:58:28 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=4.23-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss The word is out among lightweight "entertainment"-seekers everywhere -- don't go see Greenberg! Too well reviewed (the highest-rated opener at Rotten Tomatoes), too smart, too psychologically recognizable, too neurotic, etc. It was in the low 80s earlier today, and is now sitting at 74 thanks to naysayers Kyle Smith, Katey Rich, Nick Schager, Mary F. Pols, Stephen Whitty, Betsy Sharkey, etc.... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/eloi_shieldsup.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/eloi_shieldsup.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:58:28 -0800 "As any video clerk can attest, movies with the same or similar titles can wreak havoc," writes Philadelphia Inquirer critic Carrie Rickey. "After a preview of Repo Men (Universal, 3.19), the Jude Law sci-fi thriller about organ hijackers, a perplexed filmgoer friend asked, 'Was I wrong to think this was a remake of that Emilio Estevez comedy?' "What a difference a vowel makes! "Miguel Sapochnik's Repo Men (2010) is hard-core gore sci-fi starring Law and Forest Whitaker, and based on the sci-fi novel by Eric Garcia. Repo Man (1984) is a punk sci-fi comedy starring Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton, written and directed... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/forget_the_newb.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/forget_the_newb.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:27:49 -0800 Alan Poul's The Back-Up Plan (CBS Films, 4.23) is obviously a J.Lo rom-com -- her first starring role in a mainstream comedy since '02's Maid in Manhattan. It's also the sophomore offering from Les Moonves' nascent feature film division following Extraordinary Measures. Obviously cut from the same formulaic cloth as 89 other films of this type. The marketing obviously invokes Sex & The City -- same fonts, color scheme. I'm getting a bit of a small-screen feeling from the dialogue.... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/back-asswards.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/back-asswards.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:11:37 -0800 HE was attacked by a D-Day-level spam invasion yesterday and this morning. I had to spend about 90 minutes this morning deleting over 300 spam posts, and not just recent ones but in threads reaching back to January and February. Manage comments, ban the poster, delete "comments." I may have accidentally deleted one or two legit postings.... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/overlord.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/overlord.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:57:42 -0800 TMZ has posted a year-old Nazi-garbed photo session with Michelle McGee, the lady who had a thing with Jesse James (Sandra Bullock's estranged husband) and then ratted him out to In Touch magazine for $30 grand. I don't particularly care about this -- James got what he deserved -- but the photos took me back to a 1973 industrial-design photo piece in the old National Lampoon called "Nazi Regalia for Gracious Living." The article was written by Bruce McCall with photographs by Dick Frank. The product was "manufactured" by Harry Fischman, Alan Rose, Celia Bau, and David Kaestle. Elizabeth Benett did the illustrations.... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/when_nazis_were.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/when_nazis_were.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:31:06 -0800 Jett went to see She's Out of My League with a friend last night, and says that any critic who gives it a pass is out of their mind. "It's as bad as The Ugly Truth, that Gerard Butler-Kathryn Heigel movie," he says. "It's a one-joke thing -- she's hot and you're not." And yet it has a 51% positive Rotten Tomatoes rating. That's the easy-lay contingent in action. I decided months ago that I wouldn't see She's Out of My League with a gun at my back. Unless...you know, Scott Foundas or some other tough critic went to bat for it.... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/excessive_vulga.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/excessive_vulga.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:43:38 -0800 Nash Edgerton's The Spider, a nine minute and 11 second short, will be shown with The Square when it opens in early April. It's been on the festival circuit for quite some time, but whatever.... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/traffic_1.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/traffic_1.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:53:05 -0800 Last night I saw Joel and Nash Edgerton's The Square (Apparition, 4.6), a James M. Cain-like noir in a low-rent, not-terribly-bright, mullet-wearing Australian way. The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mate. I'll hold my review for now, but the timing of the release is fair game for discussion, I think. The Square was shot in '07 and released in Australia in the summer of '08. Apparition picked it up at last year's South by Southwest and then waited for the right moment. I don't want to sound like a jerk in Apparition's eyes, but I think that an audience is missing something when watching... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/wine_after_its.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/wine_after_its.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:59:46 -0800 I agree with the guy who says "no handouts...you have to work for everything you get in life." Damn straight. But the guys in this video are vermin -- the absolute antithesis of the compassionate behavior that a certain wandering Hebrew advocated in his sermons.... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/heartland_scum.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/heartland_scum.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:28:24 -0800 It's a given that the elite tend to live healthier lives than the bottom-of-the-barrel K-Mart crowd. And yet by today's standards, Clark Gable -- the one-time King of Hollywood -- lived a much more self-destructive life than your typical 2010 addict of whatever social class. For most of his 59 years Gable smoked tens of thousands of unfiltered cigarettes and swilled enough booze to kill a bull elephant. It's a miracle that he lasted as long as he did. "Gable died in Los Angeles, California on November 16, 1960," his Wikipedia bio says. "It happened from a heart attack ten days after suffering... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/monroe_didnt_ki.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/monroe_didnt_ki.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:58:23 -0800 How is this just-released Predators trailer substantially different from the short teaser reel that producer Robert Rodriguez and director Nimrod Attal previewed at South by Southwest on 3.12? More Predators Info My 3.13 commentary, to also repeat: "I'd be into Predators (20th Century Fox, 7.9) if I was even half-persuaded that it'll be to the original Predator what James Cameron's Aliens was to Ridley Scott's Alien -- i.e., faster, more intense, emotionally grounded, a general uptick. But of course, that can't be. Not with Rodriguez's B-movie aesthetic defining the perimeters."... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/re-run.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/re-run.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:00:01 -0800 http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/you_axed_for_it.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/you_axed_for_it.php Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:49:30 -0800 Thursday, 3.18, 9:05 pm. Same neck of the woods, sometime in late April or early May of 1958.... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/titans_teeth.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/titans_teeth.php Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:44:05 -0800 If anyone has scripts of The Voices, L.A. Rex, By Way of Helena, The Days Before When Corruption Was King and Motor City, please send 'em this way. Thanks.... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/black_list_pick.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/black_list_pick.php Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:52:40 -0800 Fess Parker of the soft and kindly voice died today at age 85. Playing Davy Crockett made him a legend among boomers, and made him rich (or at least started him on the road to more riches), and cast an easy, friendly glow upon everything he said and did for the rest of his life. Some guys have all the luck and the modesty. Parker became a political conservative and a friend of Ronald Reagan's when he got older, and that's not cool in my book. But he projected such a soothing vibe that it was hard to think of him in a... http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/a_good_life.php http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2010/03/a_good_life.php Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:04:16 -0800