Rolling Locomotives

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At the end of David Grubin‘s LBJ, the landmark 1991 documentary about the tragic story of Lyndon Johnson, historian Ronnie Dugger says that Johnson “was just interesting as hell. I mean, you know, compared to most people who kind of go through life vainly, making their dreadful moral points of condemning this or hoping for … Read more

Do The Right Thing

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Last night I finally read Patrick Goldstein‘s 8.12 story about Warner honcho Alan Horn‘s lack of interest in releasing anything but tentpolers, and particularly his willingness to sell off three mid-range Warner Bros. films — Gavin O’Connor‘s Pride and Glory, Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire and Guy Ritchie‘s RocknRolla. As Goldstein put it, Horn is “open … Read more

The Channelling?

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In Contention‘s Kris Tapley has dissed the casting of Mike Myers in Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglorious Bastards as British Gen. Ed Fenech, “a military mastermind who takes part in hatching a plot to wipe out Nazi leaders.” As Tarantino’s script is essentially a jape, Myer’s performance will almost certainly be a “bit.” My guess, since Myers … Read more

Pig in a Poke

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Jerry and David Zucker have a rep for borrowing material from old films to make new ones. So it should come as no surprise that David’s forthcoming An American Carol, the conservative fantasia opening on 10.3, is, according to a certain guy in the loop, based on a 69 year-old Porky Pig cartoon called Old … Read more

Dust Settles

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Reason.com‘s David Weigel saw a trailer for and some clips from David Zucker‘s An American Carol, a right-wing satirical fantasy in which a Michael Moore-like documentarian, called Michael Malone (Kevin Farley), undergoes a catharsis not unlike Ebenezer Scrooge’s in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, except Malone comes to see the light of reactionary conservatism. In one … Read more

Call ‘Em

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Mystery sound clip #1 isn’t from a main-title sequence, but a wordless passage from the third act of a well-known classic involving…uhh, memory and machinery. Mystery sound clip #2 is from a main-title sequence.

Good God

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This is a sad occasion for anyone who’s ever savored Ernest Borgnine‘s performance as Fatso Judson in From Here to Eternity or Ragnar in The Vikings. With one remark, a respected actor has tainted his reputation for all eternity. I’ll never be able to watch The Wild Bunch ever again with the same attitude I … Read more

Calling All Righties!

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The Center for Responsive Politics has found that Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much contribution money from troops deployed overseas as John McCain. Even Libertarian Ron Paul, who ended his campaign for the Republican nomination eons ago, “has received more than four times McCain’s haul,” claims Matthew Mosk on the Washington Post … Read more

What Doesn’t Kill You

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One of the 19 films in the Toronto Film Festival’s Discovery program, announced earlier today, is What Doesn’t Kill You, an real-life crime drama set in Boston with Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke. Director and cowriter Brian Goodman (otherwise an actor who mainly works on TV series) based Ruffalo’s character on his own experiences with … Read more

Saver

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“After reading erroneous reports about Tom Cruise and United Artists, I would like to clarify that we are honored that he will continue as our full partner in control of UA. He is in the middle of one of the greatest careers our industry has ever seen and one that will continue at the top … Read more