Michael Myers Inc. Shut Down At Last? Nope.

I just read over at /Film that the Weinstien company just pulled the plug on the recently announced Halloween 3D citing concerns over the small window of time they would have to make the film and hit the annoucned release date. It's interesting to note that the film has been shutdown though the plug hasn't been officially pulled, it's just no longer slated for next October. Halloween 3D was to be directed by My Bloody Valentine 3D director Patrick Lussier and scripted by that films writer Todd Farmer. (Farmer also scripted Jason X, the Friday the 13th sequel that sent Jason to space. Shudder.) I think it's funny that after putting out a string of really shitty sequels and then a crappy remake followed by lousy sequel, now the production company is suddenly concerned about the quality of the films being compromised?

I absolutely adore John Carpenter's Halloween. I think it's a brilliant horror film that was very influential and holds up very well today and also it's undeniable that Michael Myers is a true icon of horror films. But really, enough is enough. Let's just shut the series down altogether, once and for all. There hasn't been a decent Halloween film since 1988's Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. The first batch of endless sequels at least stemmed from a really good, classic horror film. But Zombie's lame reboot doesn't warrant even a fraction of the same respect in the horror world, so let's stop beating this dead horse, okay? It's over.

Well, no, they won't. Halloween II, which didn't exactly set the world on fire when it was released at the end of this summer, is being re-released in October (gee, what a novel marketing idea!) to see if it can round up a few more bucks for the embattered Weinstein Company. Maybe after that Michael Myers can finally rest in peace.

Tucker Max Is A Massive Douchebag

A couple of months back I had a business trip to Vancouver that required me to return to Toronto on the same day. The ol' east coast/west coast/east coast day isn't a fun day of travel. After my day in Vancouver, I was deposited at the airport about three and a half hours before my flight so I decided to grab a book to help me pass the time. I stumbled upon the book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max and was suitably intrigued by the blurb on the book. To paraphrase, Max essentially acknowledges that he's an asshole, and a drunk, and that he lives his life in an entirely selfish manner, says whatever the hell he wants devotes much of his time to the bedding an endless stream of bimbos. The book has made the New York Times Best Seller list three years in a row, and I thought to myself, "Well, I'm an asshole, so perhaps I will like this."

Now, I should point out that I didn't have a clue who Tucker Max was when I stumbled upon his book. I've subsequently discovered that this book is a collection of his allegedly autobiographical blog entries, that Max says has had millions of hits since its launch in 2002. His countless stories of drunken debauchery and (suspicious) sexual indiscretions made him a celebrated internet figure and the books success has now elevated Max - according to him, of course - to celebrity status.

What confuses me, however, is why he is successful at all. The book is an utter piece of shit. Everybody knew that guy in high school who would shamelessly embellish his stories to the level that would require having been kicked in the head by a donkey in order for you to believe. That is Tucker Max. And like a 17 year old boy, the things he thinks are "cool" are things like drinking sooooooooo much beer and totally scoring the hottest chick and telling people how lame they are compared to him. This happens in story after story ad nauseum. You can almost picture him high-fiving an endless stream of frat-boy assholes then chugging a beer at the completion of each tall tale.

Is it just me or is a 33 year old man that tells stories that include things like "then I had six shots in the next ten minutes and got 'Tucker Max Drunk'" kind of sad? I mean, not only does he have an official autobiographical name for when he gets really loaded, but he has actually thinks it's cool, at age 33, to pound six shots in ten minutes. While a lot of his sophomoric adventures, are, in the end, painfully lame, and in a lot of cases similar to things that pretty much any guy did in high school the really painful thing about his writing is that it's simply not nearly as funny as he seems to think it is. A 'comedic' story by someone who's not particularly funny becomes a bit of a chore, and even sadder is that Max clearly thinks he's the smartest guy in the room. What you're left with, as a reader, is the pathetic ramblings of an alcoholic who thinks he's smart and funny while everything he does and writes seems to contradict that. This is the recipe for disaster, not entertainment.

After landing and doing some research on Tucker Max, I learned, to my disbelief, that his book was being made into a movie. Max himself co-scripted and produced the film, also titled I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell with the legendary Bob Gosse attached to direct. If you don't know who Gosse is, join the club. The film focuses on one of the books many stories, and is essentially a guys road trip 'lets get laid' story. How original! If it was titled American Pie Presents: I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell it wouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. In fact, if it was titled National Lampoon's Boners, Booze & Barf and starred Corey Feldman and Paulie Shore it would, in no way, reflect poorly on the source material. It just screams "straight-to-DVD." The trailer for this movie was so bad I actually felt sorry for Max, and I'm about as big a fan of him as I am of prison rape, so that says a lot about how truly amateurish and lousy this trailer really is. In fact, it's so bad that I won't post the trailer here as a favour to anyone reading this. Max, who's a massive fan of himself, clearly didn't realize what a stink-bomb he had on his hands back in June when he was quoted as saying "Anything The Hangover can do at the box office we can beat. Easily."

Sorry, what was that? The Hangover, of course, is now the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time with $273,863,000 and counting in box office receipts. Max's prediction was idiotic in June but now it's gone from funny to just plain sad. I was awaiting the release of the his movie just to see what kind of numbers it put up in order to see exactly how moronic Max would look, so I decided to look his film and find out when it was getting released.

I was amazed - and delighted - to find out that the film has already been released! The film hit theatres (or was it theatre? I literally heard nothing about this movie coming out) on September 25th and has earned an impressive 24% fresh rating at rottentomatoes.com. The flick ranked 25th at the box office its opening weekend. The Hangover, which opened on June 7th and is still hanging around in handful of theatres, was in 20th place. Yes, the film that Tucker Max claimed he could "easily" beat at the box office actually finished higher then his film despite already being in theatres two and half months. Such a shame to see a privileged, misogynistic blow hard fail.

The New Nightmare on Elm Street

Here's the first teaser trailer for the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake that's slated to hit theaters on April 30th, 2010. This remake, like most of the "re-imaginings" of 80's horror classics, comes from Platinum Dunes, the production shingle of uber-hack director Michael Bay. Thankfully Bay's involvement in this movie doesn't include him going behind the camera. The movie will be the directorial debut of Samuel Bayer, a long time video director who's done spots for Garbage, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Green Day and Smashing Pumpkins, among others.

Platinum Dunes brought us the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (and a prequel) The Hills Have Eyes remake (and a sequel) a reboot of The Hitcher, and last years Friday the 13th do-over, among others. Of that list of films, only the remake of Chainsaw registered as even mildly successful in my eyes. For the most part, the horror films from Platinum Dunes seem too glossy, too slick and too over-produced to be effective. There were scenes in the Friday the 13th remake that while set deep in the woods of Crystal Lake looked as if the doomed victims were about to run smack into the middle of a little league game because only a baseball diamond could have required the incredible amount of light pouring out from behind the trees. Then there was Jason's underground lair, that looked like it was left over sets from The Goonies, or perhaps Mr. Voorhees' had inadvertently stumbled into Duran Duran's "Wild Boys" video.

That being said, I'm interested in Elm Street redux not because I think the film could use a remake (the original is still an effective and scary horror flick) but because of the casting of Jackie Earle Hayley in the role of Freddy Krueger. Hayley, in the past, has shown an uncanny ability to deliver dark and creepy performances, and this role definitely requires that. Krueger, after all, is a pedophiliac child killer, something often forgotten in the sequels where the character was played for laughs. Hayley's performance will have to step out of the shadow of Robert Englund, the man who owned the character for the better part of twenty years, if the film is going to be successful in its own right.

There's not a lot of Freddy in the trailer, but it's interesting to see Hayley's taken the voice in a totally different direction and the burn makeup seems to also be a total re-invention looking nothing like the previous incarnation. It's also nice to see that this remake seems to actually follow Wes Craven's original script - some of the images, the claw rising out of the bathtub, the girl being pulled up to the ceiling, the boyfriend cautioning his girlfriend "Whatever you do, don't fall asleep" is right out of the original script. What gives me the most hope about this reboot is the total lack of humor in the trailer. Freddy, in the sequels to the original film, developed into a wise-cracking serial killer, always quick with a one-liner, but it's worth noting that there was certainly nothing funny about Mr. Krueger in the first Nightmare. There are some promising signs here; though I must admit the Friday the 13th trailer also looked promising and that film ultimately disappointed; so I'll remain cautiously optimistic.

Will Ferrell Comeback?

Last week on the MTV News segment Movie News, we talked about Will Ferrell's new project The Other Guys. We speculated this this might be the 'comeback' vehicle for Ferrell. Ferrell seems to have fallen into a rut. He keeps working with the same, comfortable creative team, and the results are essentially the same movies, slightly re-packaged. How many variations on the painfully dimwitted guy with a massive ego can he play? What's the difference between Ron Burgundy and Ricky Bobby? For that matter, Jackie Moon from the woeful Semi-Pro is an awful lot like Blades of Glory's Chazz Michael Michaels. Enough is enough, Ferrell is way too talented to go down like this. This is Frank the Tank we're talking about!

Ferrel's new flick sees him playing a New York cop with Mark Wahlberg as his partner.

However, they're stuck on desk duty while the guys at the next desk over, played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson are the glory boys of the NYPD. This set up has Ferrell playing the beat down, downtrodden character (like Old School's Frank the Tank) instead of the blustery ego maniac. The movie is co-written and directed by Adam McKay, a long time Ferrell collaborator who brought us Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, as well as the popular Funny or Die video "The Landlord." (McKay appears in the beginning of the video and his daughter, Pearl, plays the landlord.) The Other Guys, while still a comedy, will be a departure as McKay vows that this film will be more "reality based" and have less of the absurd, surreal tone of his earlier pictures. (Let's not forget their was a gory, over the top battle sequence that saw people losing their limbs in the middle of Anchorman.) Now I don't want to spoil this for anybody, but I think Ferrell and Wahlberg might get thrust into some big case, where they will appear to be way over their heads, but in the end, they'll rally, dig deep, solve the case and step out of the shadow of their co-workers.

While I can't say I'm a fan of McKay, I'm willing to give him a chance to grow as a story teller, and I love the casting of this movie. I think Wahlberg cast opposite Ferrell has the potential for some great comedic chemistry, and Samuel L. Jackson and The Rock should make a pretty solid pair themselves. Also in the cast are Michael Keaton (who I'm a huge fan of) and the beautiful Eva Mendes. Playing the "villain" is the hilarious Steve Coogan.

Over at /Film they've posted the first pics from the New York set of the film, (two of which i've posted here) and I already got a good laugh out of them. Take a look at the pic of Wahlberg and Ferrell standing on the street. Notice Wahlberg's shirt? Bayside Pride with the Bayside Tiger? Nothing says tough street cop like a Saved By the Bell throw back shirt.

Ferrell needs a solid comeback picture, I hope this is it.

Cronenberg Jumps the Shark

Confession time: I'm not really a big fan of David Cronenberg. Despite being a closeted horror film fan and, of course, a proud Canadian, I've never really gotten into his films; particularly the earlier chapters of his career dominated by grisly, goofy genre films.

All of his late 70's early 80's tax shelter movies - "classics" like The Brood, Scanners and Videodrome - struck more as confused messes then exercises in horror. His 1986 remake The Fly, starring Jeff Goldblum was a rarity for me as a kid; a movie that was covered in Fangoria magazine, my gore bible in my younger days, and yet also a movie that got great reviews and praise from the mainstream media. The only problem was, when I finally saw the film, it left me unimpressed. There's something maddening about the absurdity of the situation that Jeff Goldblum's title character finds himself in - he's literally turning into a fly - and the idiotically calm and rationale way that Geena Davis' love interest character reacts to the increasingly insane process of him morphing into a giant fly.

Any time I'm talking about a film from the 1980's here, it's inevitably because the movie is being remade, and this is no exception. A successful genre flick from the mid-80's going the remake route wouldn't even register a blip on my pop culture radar because of its utter predictability; but this one is unique. The Fly was a springboard movie for Cronenberg, taking his career to the next level and establishing himself as a director that could make interesting, unique genre pictures, but also a guy who could deliver a studio picture and turn a tidy profit. Within three years, it had spawned a sequel, creatively titled Fly II and it was also adapted into, of all things, an opera that was staged in Paris and Los Angeles, with creative input from Cronenberg himself. In recent years, when talk of some of his earlier films being remade - including The Fly - Cronenberg dimissed the idea, telling MTV, "I've heard of remakes of everything from The Brood to The Fly to you name it. There's such a desire to have some kind of comfort level amongst producers. So I guess it's inevitable that they'd be trolling for remakes." And now, The Fly is being remade with a writer/director on board to re-invent this property yet again. That man is David Cronenberg.

Amazingly, he's signing on to remake his own movie. This isn't precedent setting - Alfred Hitchcock remade The Man Who Knew Too Much years ago; but it seems like an awfully strange choice for Cronenberg to make at this stage in his career. Directors have remade their own movies for a variety of reasons; the original was in a different language; the original was a short; the original was made on a micro-budget; the original was silent. But Cronenberg would be remaking a film he made in 1986 with a generous $15 million budget and established Hollywood stars in the lead roles. It is also worth noting that he would also be remaking his remake of the original 1958 film. What's the point?

Cronenberg, who in the last decade has matured into a filmmaker who's work I've enjoyed very much - both of Eastern Promises and A History of Violence were interesting, well made films - could surely spend the time and energy he would put into making another version of The Fly to do something fresher and more interesting. At the very least, he could make a movie that, you know.... he hasn't already made. That doesn't seem too much to ask.

Best Movie Junket Ever!

This is a brilliant movie junket. As someone who's done a lot of junkets; I have mad respect for this guy being able to pull off not just ignoring Megan Fox during a junket for her movie, but taking it to the next level of calling her out for being "distracting" and having her wear a bag over her head.

Even better, not only do they not talk about Jennifer's Body, but toward the end of the interview, he asks them "what movie is this for?" And when he's told it's Jennifer's Body, he casually looks over his shoulder at the movie poster as if he's never even hear of it. Bravo sir, well played.

Amazingly, despite this excellent promotion, the film totally tanked this weekend at the box office opening in fifth place with just $6.8 million. Ouch.

A Little Love for Green Day

In the past here at AWASOS I've made it clear that I'm not a big fan of Green Day. I just find their brand of pop-punk a bit generic and a little disingenuous. Now, that being said, if I'm willing to take a shot at them when they act like douchebags I should, in the interest of fair play, throw them a little praise when they deserve it.

Last weekend I was down in New York City covering the MTV Video Music Awards and the day before the event we were inside Radio City Music Hall shooting some "behind the scenes" stuff for MTV News when Green Day took the stage to soundcheck. While I'm far from being a fan of the band, I'm certainly a fan of live music, and I'll never pass on the opportunity to watch a band perform. There were maybe 100 people inside the cavernous - and beautiful - Radio City Music Hall when the guys took to the stage and we settled into our seats to watch them play.

One of the great perks of working at MTV is that we have a world class Concert Hall in the building that houses the set of MTV Live and I've been fortunate enough on many occassions to wander upstairs from my desk and watch amazing musicians soundcheck. It's always very cool, but you also realize that in most cases, the band is essentially mailing it in, simply making sure their guitar is tuned and the levels are right. On many occassions, they'll get to the third verse and then say "yeah, we're good." Green Day was not like that.

I was impressed right away by the intensity of their performance. Despite playing to a sea of empty seats, it seemed pretty clear that the band was aware that the handful of people in the building had grown quiet and were excited that Green Day was on the stage. So they played a song, then another, then another and then another. And these weren't the usual low-energy performances I have grown accustom to from watching many soundchecks. The band was clearly bringing it, and frontman Billie Joe Armstrong had cranked up the charisma and pounced around the stage like it was a sold out Madison Square Garden. What was even more unusual was none of the songs they played were the song they were performing for the VMAs, instead, they put on a mini concert for the people there, after the fourth song, with louder and louder hoots and hollers from the crowd after each tune, Billie Joe leaned into the mic and said "Now this is a fucking Green Day show!" Right as they were about to tear into a fifth song, a killjoy production assistant ran out on stage and got his attention. Armstrong sheepishly walked over to the microphone and told the assembled masses that they now had to play the song for the show.

In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, this was a pretty fucking cool thing for them to do.

U2 Create A "Spectacle"

Three years ago, when I decided to accept a job offer to come work at MTV, which then was just launching in Canada, one of the things that factored into my decision making was that working at the network would afford me my best opportunity to meet U2. I've been a massive fan of the band since the mid-1980's when I found a copy of War on cassette in the sleeper cabin of my friends cottage and listened to the tape non-stop for the entire drive home.

Since then I've seen the band play live many times; checking them out at Maple Leaf Gardens, Exhibition Stadium, Olympic Stadium, Air Canada Centre, SkyDome and Copps Coliseum. The 1992 Zoo TV tour absolutely blew my mind. The mix of outstanding live music performed by a band that is literally designed to play anthemic stadium rock and the over-the-top production design of that tour (which I saw three dates of) was the pinnacle for me as a fan of the band.

Full disclosure: While I'm still an enormous fan of the band, I'm also a realist, and I certainly didn't think there was much chance in 2009, nearly twenty years removed from that iconic tour, that U2 could still deliver a live performance that I would mention in the same breath as that tour. Obviously, they were still the hottest ticket for me, but now, when I go see a concert it's about nostalgia as much as it's about how great they're gonna be. The days of their live performances absolutely flooring me had faded as the band (and I) had greyed. When the 360 Tour was announced, I dutifully secured my tickets and hoped that not only would I see them live, once again, but also that they would grant MTV an interview so, at long last, I could meet the four Irish lads that have provided the ever-evolving soundtrack to my life. In fact, when their latest CD No Line On The Horizon failed to chart a single, I thought to myself, "perhaps they will feel the need to do a little publicity." The request went in for an interview but I was told right out of the gate that it was a tremendous long shot. Then, a few weeks back, came news that gave me hope that perhaps this long shot would come in.

Elvis Costello, a musician I have a ton of respect for, last year began hosting a show called Spectacle. For those unfamiliar with the show, Costello brings on a musical guest for what amounts to an hour of interviews interspersed with a jam session between the guests and Costello and his excellent band The Impostors. Season two was gearing up, and the first episode was going to be shot at MTV headquarters, the Masonic Temple. The first guests would be Bono and The Edge.

The interview, suddenly, seemed less important. Now, the focus would be how to get myself a seat for this incredibly intimate, unique nearly-U2 performance. Despite the taping happening literally steps from my desk, the scarcity of seats and ravenous demand for those tickets made the task difficult. When I learned that tickets had been requested for the on-air personalities at MTV and denied, I grew concerned. The day of the taping arrived and my beloved supervising producer, who was attempting to procure me a seat, just looked at me with shrugged when I asked about the ticket. To make matters worse, as I sat at my desk preparing an edit, I listened as Elvis Costello sound-checked upstairs playing U2 covers. The concert hall, however, was closed to the MTV staff. A few hours later, Bono and the Edge arrived, and soon, I was listening to them soundcheck as well. Knowing my favorite band on the planet was upstairs casually running through a few of their classic songs but I couldn't watch was killing me. It didn't help that people kept coming by my desk and saying things like "I was just in the kitchen and Bono was in there." What am I supposed to say to that, exactly?

In desperation, I added my name to the "seat warmer" list. In the unlikely situation that one of the ticket holders didn't show up, I could warm that person's seat, that, sadly, was where I was at. Even more sad was that I was happy to at least have that, though it certainly didn't sound like a sure bet. As my work day wrapped up, I headed outside to sulk my way over to the "seat warmer" line and any hope that I had of getting in quickly dissipated. I was faced with a lane of traffic on Yonge Street closed down to house a quickly growing mob of people waiting to get into the building. Shortly after the doors opened, however, I learned that the "seat holder line" was really the "fan line." For the taping, the producers of the show wanted to have some big U2 fans in the building so they didn't risk having having a house full of people sitting on their hands. I was led into the concert hall and was shocked to be seated in the 2nd row, right in the middle. A few of my co-workers seated to my right were paranoid that we would be turfed from these prime seats before the show started so they literally avoided eye-contact with anyone they didn't know but it soon became clear we had just hit the musical jackpot.

What unfolded over the next few hours was a musical experience like nothing I've ever seen before. Costello opened the show with a cover of U2's "Please" followed by a rousing rendition of "Dirty Day" from Zooropa. As a nod to the Edge, Costello littered both songs, particularly the latter one with a lot of pedal work and distortion guitar. It was nothing short of fantastic. A cover of "Mysterious Ways" morphed into an introduction of the evenings special guests and soon the capacity crowd were on their feet to welcome Bono and The Edge

who settled into their stools just ten feet in front of me. What makes Spectacle such an interesting show is that because Costello himself is such an accomplished musician, his interviews are always very inside, and he asks questions - and gets answers - that a regular music journalist wouldn't. The usual stage of feeling out the interviewer to see what their agenda is is not a part of his interviews, and instead it feels more like you just slid into a booth at a little pub only to discover that at the next booth over Elvis Costello, Bono and the Edge are sitting there chatting about music and bullshitting each other. I sat in rapt attention with a stupid grin on my face. After a lengthy chat, Costello shared his admiration for the song "Stay (Faraway So Close!)" (also from Zooropa) and he asked the boys to play it. One of the truly magical things about U2 performing live is that they are able to create such a connection with their audience; they create the illusion of intimacy in a 55,000 seat stadium. And here they were, literally feet from me, playing this song. My fanhood of the band came full circle. The illusion of intimacy became actual intimacy. As they finished the song, I realized I was wrong. In 2009, they were able to deliver a performance that left me slack-jawed and awe-struck.

Though no official release date has been revealed, it's rumored the show will air in December on CTV in Canada and The Sundance Channel in the United States. I should be easy to spot: I'm the big idiot with a stupid smile plastered on my face for the entire show.

TIFF: Up in the Air

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in their dubious wisdom, have decided their annual ceremony of self congratulation isn't quite bloated enough, so they've decided this year to double the Best Picture category to ten nominees.

Even without this new format, Jason Reitman's new film Up in the Air would be an easy choice as a shoe-in Best Picture nominee. The movie stars George Clooney as a corporate bagman who spends his time commuting from one anonymous US city to another while laying off corporate schmo's who's former employers would rather avoid the uncomfortable reality of terminating their staff. His job is to deliver this devastating news; sprinkle in some generic "this is the beginning of your new life" pep talk, get in his rental car, check into his hotel then fly to the next city and repeat. The movie is incredibly timely. Not only does it reflect the current climate of layoffs, downsizing and economic uncertainty, but it has some interesting things to say about the slippery slope of "digital" communication trumping true human interaction. The performance from George Clooney is perhaps the finest of his career. There's a little bit of his real life in the character of Ryan Bingham. Clooney lives the life of the happy bachelor, so when his character preaches about the benefits of not encumbering oneself with the trappings of relationships and the emotional toll and drain allowing people into your life can be, it's easy to think of the Clooney smoking a cigar with his feet up in his Italian villa without a care in the world. We recently spoke to writer/director Jason Reitman - who does an incredible job with this film perfectly handling the tone and the pacing of this story - for MTV News, and he spoke of the vulnerability that Clooney displays in his performance and how he considered his performance "a gift" to him as the director of the film. It really is a different side to him as an actor and he effortlessly carries the film. It requires a lot of charm and a fair bit of charisma to play such a character; a man who rejects the politics of the heart and the comforts - and madness - that come with being an active member of a family, and still make him likable and someone you root for. Clooney and Reitman manage to do it though, and it's the heart of Up in the Air. I would be shocked if George Clooney wasn't nominated for Best Actor for this role.

Despite having just two features to his credit when he began this film, Reitman has managed to build such a solid reputation with those two films, Thank You For Smoking and Juno, that he was able to populate his newest film with a lot of tremendous actors. Joining George Clooney are Anna Hendrick - who does a fantastic job as the young co-worker who tries to figure why Clooney has elected to live such a disconnected life and Vera Farmiga (who was brilliant in The Departed) as the woman that makes him consider the option of a life off the road. In supporting roles actors like Jason Bateman, Zach Galifinakis, Danny McBride and J.K. Simmons and the incomparable Sam Elliott deliver high-end performances.

Reitman is really on a roll with three solid films to start of his directorial career and this movie could see him with an nomination for Best Director at this years Academy Award marathon. And maybe having him to root for will give me a reason to sit through it.

Who Likes Boobs?

So my friend Aliya-Jasmine Sovani, the host of MTV News, wrote, produced, directed and starred in a viral campaign for "The Boobie Ball" an annual fund-raiser for Breast Cancer awareness... And it's online now.

If you like boobs - and I know you do - check this out.

Megan Fox: Not Just a Pretty Face

Megan Fox is a very good looking woman. Let's just get that out of the way right off the top. But as an actress, I really knew very little about her, until seeing a press screening of her new film, Jennifer's Body this morning. I've not seen either of the Transformer movies and have no intention of ever watching them, so while she's been on my pop culture radar for awhile now, thanks in part to several magazine articles - say what you want, the girl is a fantastic interview - I've never seen her "work."

She picked up a lot points from me earlier this summer when she took on uber-hack Michael Bay in the press when she spoke dismissively of the "role" she was given in the Transformer films. "Working with Michael Bay is not about an acting experience," she commented, adding, "I don't want to blow smoke up people's ass. People are well aware this isn't a movie about acting. 'All right, I know that when he calls Action! I'm gonna either be running or screaming or both.'" As someone who loathes the work of Michael Bay, these comments endeared Ms. Fox to me. However, the fact remained, while she's quickly become a household name, it really wasn't known whether or not she could act.

Her new film, Jennifer's Body sees Fox in the lead. I was interested in this movie because it was screenwriter Diablo Cody's follow up to Juno, a film I enjoyed, and it was a genre film. When the trailers (regular and red-band) were released, my enthusiasm for the project dimmed. Neither seemed very interesting, funny or scary and I soon discovered the films director, Karyn Kusama had the Charlize Theron clunker Aeon Flux on her resume following her promising debut Girlfight. So as I settled into my seat this morning with my TIFF partnerJohnny Hockin I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

This movie charmed me pretty early. I must confess to being a fan of Cody, who is a very divisive writer; I certainly heard a lot of people ripping on her stylized dialogue in Juno, and if you didn't like that, you won't like this flick either. From page one of the screenplay, this is a Diablo Cody film. It also became pretty clear why the trailers didn't do the film justice: it's more about tone then it is about the one-liners. And while there is some pretty bloody splatter stuff in a few of the scenes, the movie never even attempts to be scary. As I was watching the film, I couldn't help but think of Megan Fox's comments about her former director, Michael Bay, because in this movie, the tone of the movie is so important, that she had to totally and implicitly trust Karyn Kusama, because her performance; and the fate of the movie, relies on the directors ability to walk the fine line between smart satire and awkward misfire.

This film isn't reinventing the wheel, or breaking any new ground. The metaphor of the horrors of high school life being, well, actually horrific isn't something that we haven't seen before. But that doesn't mean a fun, enjoyable film can't follow that path. Body reminds me, in a lot of ways, of Heathers, a superior film in a similar vein from 1988. Much like that movie, high school kids start turning up dead, but in Jennifer's Body it's the hot cheerleader behind the carnage. Cody's script plays with a lot of conventions of "teenager" movies, mocking a lot of the conservative opinions of "what's wrong with the

kids today." Sexually active females? Bad news! Rock and Roll music? That's the devil! Boys with raging hormones? They're asking for trouble! The pretty girl who seems perfect? Turns out she's evil! The difference here is, instead of the bitchy girl trafficking in mean spirited gossip and public humiliation, she literally consumes her classmates in spectacularly gory fashion. The movie also toys with horror movie conventions. There's a pretty well established formula in genre pictures: a male killer who usually preys on helpless females. In this movie, the female lead rushes to save her overmatched boyfriend from a grisly demise. The script is smart and funny, but the execution of a film like this is crucial. Megan Fox, in the title role, fully commits and trusts her director enough to deliver a promising performance.

While I praise Megan and think she just may be a case of not judging a book by its very, very, very fine cover, my favorite part of the movie was the evil rock and roll band Low Shoulder. They appear to be a thinly vieled knock off of The Killers, but the very best bit takes the piss out of Maroon 5. If you've got a movie with a lead actress that looks like Megan Fox and you rip on Maroon 5, well, let's just say that sounds like something I might be interested in.

Soderbergh Casts Female Mixed Martial Artist

Steven Soderbergh is one of the most interesting filmmakers on the scene today. He's constantly working, often alternating between big-budget glossy commercial films (like Erin Brockovich or the Ocean's 11 series) and low budget fare like Bubble or The Girlfriend Experience that get a small release and stay of the radar of the average film-goer. Soderbergh seems to do a good job of balancing his different sensibilities and making the movies he wants to make without compromising; which, in the film industry, is incredibly rare.

One of the things his small budget films allow him to do is make very interesting choices that a studio would never allow if millions and millions of dollars were at stake. That's why Soderbergh can do things like make a two part 'Che' Guevara film in Spanish, or cast porn star Sasha Grey in the lead role for The Girlfriend Experience.

Soderbergh, who recently had a film fall apart and was looking for his new project was rumored to be working on a rock n' roll musical version of Cleopatra that would star Catherine Zeta-Jones in the title role, be shot in 3-D, and was described by Soderbergh as "being like an Elvis musical." It sounded so damn crazy that I was fully on board with this movie, and I'm not exactly a musical fan. That, however, seems to still be on hold (I suspect in todays economy it would be quite difficult to raise money for a movie like that) so Soderbergh, who's an incredible workaholic, has moved on to a new movie. And, much like Girlfriend with Sasha Grey, the movie will again see a neophyte actress in the lead role. Gina Carano will star in Knockout, a film that producer Ryan Kavanaugh has described as "a mainstream action film with universal appeal for a reasonable budget." Think female James Bond meets La Femme Nikita. I'm a big fan of Soderbergh (Out of Sight is one of my favorite films) and I'm really intrigued by what he can get out Carano.

She's an intriguing possibility as an actress, especially for a spy thriller. I first became aware of her when I saw her on the show Off The Record and I was taken by her beauty. When this woman smiles; it's all over. She's simply a gorgeous, gorgeous woman. I was shocked to discover that she's also known as "the face of women's mixed martial arts." Yes, this delightful creature is also a highly skilled fighter. (She just suffered her first professional defeat last month, giving her a record of 7-1.) Despite it's title, the movie has nothing to do with boxing. This will be a spy-thriller with Carano in the lead role as a woman from the "wrong side of the tracks given a second chance to use her skills for constructive purposes," according to Variety. Soderbergh has a solid track record of coaxing surprisingly nuanced, assured performances out of the actresses he works with. Julia Roberts, who's never been mistaken for a talented actress, bagged an Oscar for Erin Brockovich and Jennifer Lopez has never done anything nearly as good as Out of Sight. There are no worries that Carano can deliver the physical requirements of such a role, and I'm sure the fight choreography won't be an issue. But her acting experience is limited at best. She appeared in a documentary called Ring Girls, and was also part of the American Gladiators revival of a few summers back, but beyond that her only actual "acting" is an appearance in the upcoming film Blood and Bone, a low budget flick about the underground fighting world starring a karate expert. While she is very raw as an actress, she is also unquestionably very charming in all of the interview appearances I've seen her do, so I'm very interested to see what Soderbergh can draw out of her. Knockout is slated to shoot in January in the States as well as some on-location stuff in Ireland and Turkey.

Is Stallone Pushing His Luck?

When it was announced, a few years back, that Sylvester Stallone was preparing sequels for his two big 80's film properties, Rocky and Rambo, I was, to say the least, quite skeptical. Had I been writing Awesome with a Side of Sweet back then, there would no doubt have been a few sarcastic, venom dripping posts about these unnecessary sequels and the desperation they represented in Stallone. Stallone, of course, was one of the biggest box office draws of the 1980's, but hadn't really made a film that an audience really connected with since the early 1990's, so it seemed like a last ditch effort to salvage his career when he dusted off Rocky Balboa's boxing gloves in 2006. The movie seemed like an even longer shot when you factor in how truly bad the last installment, Rocky V was. Some of my co-workers and I monitored the pre-production and the shooting of the film and were fully expecting the cinematic equivalent of a car crash when the movie was released. A large group of us gathered to see the film on opening night, after slamming back some drinks, fully expecting an awful film that would provide entertainment strictly because of it's epic badness. Then a funny thing happened: the movie was good. Stallone, who also wrote and directed Rocky Balboa, really understood what it was that drew people to this character originally (it was pretty hard to indentify with Rocky as an underdog when he was a millionaire and wearing the champions belt in previous entries) and he concocted a story that not only drew that out again, but also looked at still feeling relevant "past your prime" and the importance of believing in yourself and chasing a dream, even if everybody around you tells you that it's a lost cause.

His Rocky truly did surprise, but his next project, which he was also going to write and direct, was Rambo IV and it seemed incredibly unlikely that he would pull this one off. I was never a big fan of any of the Rambo films, and the character seemed so iconically 80's that I had great difficulty picturing him in an updated story line. (Many rumors floated on the internet about what the plot line would be the fourth film, ranging from Rambo taking on the Taliban; battling North Korean forces and even him taking on a full town in a hostage situation. There was also a draft that saw Rambo tracking down his kidnapped daughter whos involved with some cult.) At last, it appeared, I would get my cinematic car crash. While the film was still in production, an extended trailer was released online. I remember finding it posted online at one of the movie sites I visit and soon many colleagues were gathered around my desk as I cranked the volume and cued it up. What followed was a gritty, dark, violent montage of Rambo in full assault mode. The mayhem was so over-the-top that in included a scene where Rambo spins a jeep-mounted anti-aircraft weapon around to shoot the driver of the vehicle at close range. When it was over, we sat, briefly in stunned silence. This really didn't look awful at all. The finished film, that ultimately went by the simple title of just Rambo, was actually quite entertaining, although slightly empty headed. Stallone, somehow, had put together an impressive comeback and in doing so, instead of shamelessly milking his successful, iconic characters he actually gave them fitting final chapters that greatly improved on the previous entries in the series.

Until... Last week it was revealed that Rambo V had been green lit for production. I can't help but think this move might represent Stallone pushing his luck. Along with the news of the green light came a logline for the movie that saw Rambo slaughtering his way through a sea of drug lords and human traffickers in order to rescue a young girl that was kidnapped at the Mexican border. Not exactly awe inspiring, but even less when you realize that a very similar plot was floated as an option for Rambo IV. (Rambo's previously unmentioned daughter is kidnapped and he butchers his way through some cult to rescue her.)

Then came word that the aforementioned plot was in fact wrong. It turns out the film will be much, much nuttier. In this installment, the US Government have been genetically experimenting with a team of elite soldiers in an effort to engineer deadly killing machines. However, like all super secret government experiments in movies, something goes horribly wrong. One of the subjects has laid waste to the secret research facility and is on the loose and Rambo is called in to hunt the beast down. Yes, I said "beast." The target, which started out as an elite soldier, has now mutated into what is described in the official logline that Stallone faxed out yesterday as "(having a) man's cunning, a predator's savageness, and a prehistoric power that has transcended the ages." Rambo and his "hunting partner" (who the logline described as 22, "We need young people in the theatre! Get Zac Efron on the phone!") will be joined by a group of black ops to try and track down and kill the "beast." If it sounds an awful lot like Predator, that's because it is. I don't want to say "jump the shark" but it's a little odd for a series, after four installments spread over 25 years, to suddenly change genres altogether. Make no mistake, this is a sci-fi movie - Rambo is going to be hunting down some sort of supernatural beast in the arctic circle!

I gotta say... I have significant doubts about this, but he's surprised me before.

Check this out It's a voicemail that Stallone left for Harry Knowles from Aint-it-Cool-News wanting to clear up the confusion about the Rambo V plot. One more thing: is there a movie series with more fucked up titles then this one? The first film was titled First Blood. The sequel was Rambo: First Blood Part II. The third entry, strangely, was Rambo III. The fourth film was called Rambo (the exact same title as the second one, without the the subtitle) and the newest one is Rambo V: The Savage Hunt.

Maurice Sendak and Spize Jonze Talk "Where The Wild Things Are"

As I've already said, Where the Wild Things Are is my most eagerly anticipated film of the year. As a child, I absolutely adored the book, and I've been following the production of this movie through it's entire, lengthy journey from pre-production to screen.

To hear author Maurice Sendak speak so enthusiastically about the job Spike Jonze has done adapting the film to the screen leaves me with a huge smile on my face.

100 Years of Special Effects

This one pretty much speaks for itself.

Thank You, HBO!

I'm a big fan of HBO. I was a big Sopranos fan, I love Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I enjoy Hung and I've recently really got into the absurd - but entertaining - True Blood. Today HBO released some more good news: they've greenlit an 11 episode season of Boardwalk Empire, a new series from executive producer Martin Scorsese. The series will be set in the 1920's in Atlantic City and will focus on a character descirbed as "equal parts politician and gangster" that will be played by the always good Steve Buscemi.

Not won over yet? Well, the pilot episode will be directed by Scorsese himself who, by the way, is going to be a "hands-on producer" on the series. Need more? Well, the show was created by Terence Winter, a multi-Emmy winning producer from the Sopranos, and Entourage executive producer Mark Wahlberg will also produce. The show should arrive around this time next year.

I haven't been this excited about a television show since I heard about Love Court.

Everything Old is New Again. Again.

Despite the underwhelming box office performance this past weekend of Rob Zombie's Halloween II, Dimension, the studio behind it, announced a new sequel for next summer. This is only marginally interesting because A) Rob Zombie won't be involved and B) It's gonna be in 3-D. Studio head Bob Weinstein, in announcing the sequel said they were "in negotiations with a new director who has experience with horror and has a different take on the franchise." Rumors surfaced today about who that director may be, and let's just say, I doubt horror fans are too excited. The best source for all things horror movie, Bloody-Disgusting.com is reporting that Steve Miner might be the man. Miner, who's made a 3-D movie before, certainly has "experience with horror" as the guy who directed Friday the 13th Part 2 (a film so incompetently directed that there are POV shots in the movie where people look directly into the camera, indicating that they, in fact, would be looking directly at Jason) and the sequel, Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3-D. This movie is a ton of fun, because the acting is so bad, the directing so poor, and the 3-D gags so cheesy that I can honestly say that any time it hits a revue cinema, I do whatever I can to go see it. However, none of those things would make me want to actually hire this man to direct a movie. And don't get your hopes up for "a different take on the franchise" cause we've already seen that. Miner was the guy they hired when they "re-booted" the franchise back in 1998 with Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Jamie Lee Curtis' return to the franchise.

I understand that horror films are like the fast food of the film industry. There's not a lot of care ken in the production of these movies, and they're often churned out as quickly and as cheaply as possible, but how lazy can it get? They've already recycled the Halloween plot over and over again until after twenty years of sequels, they brought back Jamie Lee Curtis to play Laurie Strode so they could finally have Michael Myers kill her. After another pointless sequel (with a recycled director, Rick Rosenthal, the director of the original Halloween II came back to shoot the embarrassing Halloween: Resurrection, which saw Busta Rhymes try a kung-fu move on Michael Myers) they finally had to scrap it all and re-start it from the beginning so Myers could stalk Laurie Strode again. Now, after two shitty Strode "reboot" films, they're back to recycling a director who previously made an unimpressive entry in the series to make Halloween 3-D? Really? Getting rid of Rob Zombie's a great start, but recycling a director with zero good horror movies on his resume is a classic case of one step forward two steps back. And the step backwards is directly into a pile of dog shit.

UPDATE: Steve Miner will not be directing Halloween 3-D; but it will be someone with links to Miner's Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later.. It was announced September 7th that Patrick Lussier, the man behind My Bloody Valentine 3-D will direct the sequel. Lussier has a history with Dimension, as he was the editor on the Scream films as well has Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later. Expect a by-the-numbers slasher with an emphasis on fun rather then scares.

Hollywood's Obsession with "Reboots" Officially Out of Control

As a movie fan, it's been alarming for quite a long time now how obsessed Hollywood has become with remakes and "reboots" of movies. The term reboot is essentially marketing speak for "remake." Kind of like when you buy a DVD from Blockbuster, it's not used, it's "previously enjoyed."

"Reboots" have been particularly common in the horror genre with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street all recently heading that route. There have been some massive success stories; The Dark Knight and the James Bond reboot Casino Royale were both terrific movies. Success, in Hollywood, always breads imitation, so studio heads had staffers raid the vaults looking for old properties that can be "re-imagined" for a new audience.

It's distressing that instead of having filmmakers tell new stories, they've been pre-occupied remaking perfectly good movies. It wasn't long ago, people were complaining about the studios recycling old television shows as films. Now they've moved past that to recycling films ... as films. For awhile, my major issue was the fact that they seemed to be mining the 80's so heavily, and it seemed to me, that was too recent to already be remaking so many flicks from that era. But today in Variety I read something that officially signals the "reboot" era jumping the shark.

The Fantastic Four series - which started shittily in 2005 and saw a shitty sequel released in 2007 - is being rebooted by 20th Century Fox. There's already recent precedent for this, too. Ang Lee's 2003 film The Hulk was followed, in 2008, by The Incredible Hulk, (both attempts failed, in large part, because the title character in both interpretations was computer generated, soulless and boring.) So this is where we are at. Studio heads are so lazy and so paralyzed by fear of actually trying to create new properties that audiences care about, that they are recycling films - and lousy films at that - from just a few years ago. This does not bode well.