‘Flash’ Foe Ford Clears Up About Wipers
October 6, 2008
In this weekend’s well-meaning docudrama, Flash of Genius, Greg Kinnear portrays an inventor who struggled for years to sue car manufacturing behemoth Ford and get them to admit that they helped themselves to his patent on the intermittent windshield wiper. (Eugene reviewed it back at Telluride, and I basically concur with his assessment.)
Despite the real-life case being settled a couple of decades ago, Ford has taken this current opportunity to point out the factual inaccuracies in the motion picture that they’ve taken issue with, doing so in the form of this handy timeline, without causing any sort of formal stir, as covered in this accompanying text. Especially considering that the film’s subject, Robert Kearns, passed away over three years ago, I doubt it would (and hope it won’t) come to any sort of renewed head.
Maybe in thirty years or so, we’ll get a movie about a blogger battling impossible odds to get all the facts straight on either side of a movie in which an inventor battled impossible odds to get just some facts straight. Now, to just work the word ‘Genius’ back into the title…
Roger Ebert Talks to the Wachowskis
October 6, 2008
Somehow I missed this on Thursday, but apparently so did everyone else, since I didn’t see it linked anywhere. Roger Ebert was hanging out at a post-production studio in Chicago, watching the restored new print of The Godfather, when he was unexpectedly joined by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the famously inaccessible duo behind The Matrix, Speed Racer, and (people forget) Bound. Afterward, he got a opportunity to chat with them — not in a conventional interview setting, complete with a hovering publicist (the brothers don’t do that, remember?), but over a beer.
Ebert was impressed with the “zillionaires”: “Nice people. Friendly. No Hollywood attitude.” He writes that “[t]he blogosphere paints them as mysterious recluses, which might add to the legend but doesn’t match the reality.” But their being nice and friendly doesn’t make them any less mysterious and reclusive: I’d wager that Ebert only ran the piece because of their reputation for not giving interviews or talking to anyone in the press.
Anyway, it’s really interesting to “hear” them talk, though they mostly talk about the difficulties of keeping a moving 35 mm shot in focus and the brilliance of Coppola’s Godfather shot selection. It’s funny how keeping silent for a while will make such brief, mundane snippets into objects of arcane fascination. (Though since I think the Wachowskis are pretty formidable visual artists themselves, I find their perspective on that sort of thing interesting in its own right.)
IESB Pushes Out Info On Daredevil Reboot
October 6, 2008
It appears a Daredevil reboot is currently being considered. We get the news from an interview IESB had with Tom Rothman. Below is the interview snippet that reveals this news. IESB: One of the brands that has made Fox a lot of money is Marvel. Recently, there was a reboot of the Hulk, which […]
It appears a Daredevil reboot is currently being considered. We get the news from an interview IESB had with Tom Rothman. Below is the interview snippet that reveals this news.
Already Bored With Michael Cera
October 6, 2008
There are circumstances when an actor who always seems to be the exact same bloody guy is forgivable. When you go to see a Steven Seagal motion picture (do people still go to see Steven Seagal movies?), you anticipate to see Steven Seagal, nothing more, nothing less. Certain action heroes or 1 schtick comedians […]
There are circumstances when an actor who always seems to be the exact same bloody guy is forgivable. When you go to see a Steven Seagal movie (do people still go to see Steven Seagal movies?), you expect to see Steven Seagal, nothing more, nothing less. Certain action heroes or 1 schtick comedians are assumed to be the same guy each time… and to some degree that can work.
However, for the most part it becomes an annoying and often distracting trait when a performer seems incapable of being anything other than one character. Today’s case in point is former Arrested Development star Michael Cera.
Sunshine Cleaning Movie Trailer
October 6, 2008
What happened to Sunshine Cleaning? The film premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, but was met with some disappointment when attendees realized that it wasn’t the next Little Miss Sunshine. A fair comparison considering much of the pre-festival buzz came from the fact that it was produced by the same guys, has “Sunshine” in […]
What happened to Sunshine Cleaning? The film premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, but was met with some disappointment when attendees realized that it wasn’t the next Little Miss Sunshine. A fair comparison considering much of the pre-festival buzz came from the fact that it was produced by the same guys, has “Sunshine” in the title and even features a couple of the same cast members, including Academy Award winner Alan Arkin. If you can look beyond those preconceptions, you’ll probably enjoy this dark and sometimes morbid dramedy.Rose Lorkorswki (Amy Adams), a former high school cheerleader and now a thirty-something maid, is trying to create a superior life for herself and eccentric eight-year-old son Oscar. Her burn-out younger sister Norah (Emily Blunt) still lives at home with their dad Joe (Alan Arkin), who;s on the latest of a life-long string of get-rich-quick schemes. When Rose learns of the huge money to be made in the crime scene cleaning and bio-hazard removal business, she and Norah partner up to create their own company, Sunshine Cleaning. The film sold to Overture films for an estimated $2 million. A July 2008 release date was originally announced, but now the film is scheduled to hit theaters sometime in 2009. Check out the trailer below. Tell me what you think in the comments!
VOTD: Medellin Reviewed on Ebert & Roeper
October 5, 2008
Medellin Reviewed on Ebert & Roeper The Pitch: From the season premiere of Entourage, the fictional film within the show is reviewed on Ebert & Roeper (which makes it technically the last reviewed film in the shows history). Watch Ari Gold’s response at this link. Watch More Cool Videos Here! Video of the Day is a daily […]
Medellin Reviewed on Ebert & Roeper
Stay Classy: DirecTV’s Poltergeist Commerical with Dead Heather O’Rourke
October 5, 2008
Last night, I was listening to Tom Scharpling’s “The Best Show,” and the topic was haunted movies. Mid-conversation he brings up his disgust with the new ad for DirecTV featuring a living Craig T. Nelson and a nicely preserved Heather O’Rourke milking Poltgergeist in time for Halloween. Though I had seen this ad days just […]
Last night, I was listening to Tom Scharpling’s “The Best Show,” and the topic was haunted movies. Mid-conversation he brings up his disgust with the new ad for DirecTV featuring a living Craig T. Nelson and a nicely preserved Heather O’Rourke milking Poltgergeist in time for Halloween. Though I had seen this ad days just days ago, I had repressed it in horror (might have been high)!
Insert Caption: The Express
October 5, 2008
Welcome back to another installment in our groundbreaking, game-changing (to borrow a phrase from the news anchors of the world) Insert Caption series — where you provide the content and we provide the prizes. Last week we asked you to dish out some captions for a photo from How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which opens in theaters this day. Congrats to our three winners — none of whom include you, dude.
1. “But the ad said the auditions were for Hair” — Debra F.
2. “All Simon’s attempts to compliment Jeff’s “very masculine” hair piece ended in futility after mistakenly introducing himself to whom he thought was “Mrs. Bridges.” — Nathan H.
Tom Rothman Talks ‘Daredevil’ Reboot
October 5, 2008
Early last month, Variety published a rather scathing look at 20th Century Fox’s summer receipts and mentioned the studio was digging through its collection of superheroes with an eye on getting some of that blockbuster mojo back. It wasn’t surprising to see more X-Men spin-offs and sequels being talked about — but what did raise a few eyebrows was the inclusion of Daredevil. The Man with No Fear had a pretty disastrous debut in 2003, and his girlfriend/nemesis Elektra fared even worse.
IESB caught up with Fox’s co-chairman, Tom Rothman, and pressed him on the subject of revisiting Daredevil. It’s more than a passing fancy in the trades — Fox is thinking “very seriously” of a reboot. Says Rothman: “I think that the thing the Hulk showed, even though it did what it did, is that it is possible that if you really do it right the audience will give you a second chance. That it is possible. And I think that you see that when they did Batman Begins, the first Nolan motion picture, that you can have made some mistakes along the way or movies that the audience wasn’t that crazy about and then given the proper amount of time and the right creative vision behind it, you can, to use your word, reboot.”
Filed under: Action, RumorMonger, Fandom, 20th Century Fox, Newsstand, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Special Editorial - McCain And Palin Think Americans Are Morons
October 5, 2008
**This is a non-movie related personal view editorial. If like most people you’re only here for motion picture chat, just skip this post and head down to the next one** Yes, this is The Motion picture Blog, but sometimes when important or tragic events happen in our world that remind us that there are significantly more important […]
**This is a non-movie related personal view editorial. If like most people you’re only here for movie chat, just skip this post and head down to the next one**
Yes, this is The Motion picture Blog, but sometimes when important or tragic events happen in our world that remind us that there are significantly more important things than movies out there (hard to imagine), we stop our regular routine to at least make a mention of it. It doesn’t happen often, but it does from time to time. The American presidential election is upon us, an event that’ll literally shape the way the world looks in the coming years, and while I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut as long as I can, recent events compel me to talk my (limited and not the brightest) mind.
