I’ve been excitedly waiting for 2005’s ‘Sin City’ sequel. The first Robert Rodriguez film that I really liked and the best Frank Miller screen adaptation to date, ‘Sin City’ blew me away with it’s brilliant mixture of noir-ish black and white cinematophy, CGI backdrops, and great performances from Mickey Rourke and Clive Owen. After seeing ‘Planet Terror’, the better of the two ‘Grindhouse’ films, I become a confirmed Rodriguez fan. I can’t wait to see Rodriguez and Miller team up again for ‘Sin City 2’. However some disappointing news is making the rounds on the net. Origninally scheduled for a 2008 release, the sequel is now looking questionable. Doubts first cropped up when Michael Madsen said in an interview that he hadn’t seen a script and principle photography, scheduled to begin this June, wasn’t going to happen. Some feared the film was canceled but Frank Miller has said ‘Sin City 2’ is still on track for production, just not right now. Both Miller and Rodriguez have moved on to different projects – Miller is working on ‘The Spirit’ and Rodriguez is remaking ‘Barbarella’. No word yet on exactly why both director’s have postponed production of ‘Sin City 2’. Even though Miller seems optimistic the movie will still see the light of day, if history is any indicator, it would be unlikely Miller and Rodriguez’s schedules will line up again for both to shoot the film together. If it’s made, I would expect either Miller to work with a different director or Rodriguez to shoot the film without Millers active input. Either way, don’t expect to see ‘Sin City 2’ in theaters for a couple of years – at least.

As many of my faithful readers are aware, I absolutely loath the ‘Pirates’ franchise (see my earlier post ‘Did you Like Pirates of the Caribbean? Then you’re an Idiot’). And I’m not just referring to the widely panned second film ‘Dead Man’s Chest’. I hated the first one equally – including Johnny Depp’s shallow and pedantic acting. The plot was painfully predictable, the script was horrid, and the directing was mediocre. ‘Dead Man’s Chest’ only confirmed what I already knew, while surprising former friends and acquaintances who had previously praised the first film. From filmdom exile, I returned upon the word’s of critics who had the slag stricken from they eyes and finally saw what a debased mockery this franchise is – but unlike the prodigal son, I returned triumphant – the all seeing sage.

One of my favorite reviewers, Stephanie Zacharek, who writes for salon.com, has just published her review of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End’. Though she was fooled by the first release, she clearly saw the failings of the second and predictably rips the third. I’ve included some choice quotes from here review:

“The third and (please God) final entry in this screamingly successful Disney franchise is, like its predecessors, big on spectacle: There’s so much to look at that you never know where to look.”

“This is a glazed, inhuman, cluttered piece of work, a storytelling mishmash that buries the considerable charms of its actors under heavy drifts of silt.”

“There’s no reason we shouldn’t expect more … Disney will earn back every single piece of eight it spent on “At World’s End,” multiplied exponentially. But maybe moviegoers need to be more like swashbuckling privateers, out for our own pleasure and gain instead of that of the big studios. What if Disney made a “Pirates” movie and nobody came? What if we moviegoers just said, en masse, Talk to the hook, because this peg leg is taking its moviegoing booty elsewhere?”

Ah … if only moviegoers where that enlightened. Instead, the movie industry has slowly numbed us over the past half-industry, convincing the average American that a films budget is directly proportional to its quality and entertainment value. Like sheep, we continue to let Hollywood studios herd us towards they’re crap -which we willingly purchase. They’ve conditioned us to open our wallets whenever they dangle a shiny pretty object in front of our faces. Please – don’t be a sheep. Save your money. Take your family to picnic in the park this weekend. Don’t subject them or yourself to this abomination.

Read Stephanie Zacharek’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End’ Review.

The third installment of the animation juggernaut ‘Shrek’ pulled in an amazing $122 million this past weekend. That far out paces past animated flicks and puts the film third on the all time list behind ‘Spiderman 3’ and last summers ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 2’. What makes ‘Shrek The Third’ different than ‘Spiderman 3’ and ‘Pirates’ is that reviews so far have panned the movie. Also unlike the other three-quels showing this summer, the first two Shrek films were well regarded by fans and critics alike. But with a built-in family audience, ‘Shrek’ is proving cirtic-proof.

Hollywood is having one heck of a summer. Coming this Memorial day weekend, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 3: Dead Man’s Chest’ is projected to have a $180 million opening. One thing to watch for during this craptacular release is whether the nearly 3 hour running time hurts ‘Pirates’ box office take – especially after the initial rush of die hard fans. The failure of ‘Grindhouse’ is popularly blamed on it’s 3 hour plus edit. Hasn’t Hollywood learned yet that Americans can’t sit still for longer than 90 minutes? With the outstanding success of these films – all of which are mediocre at best – we can expect more of the same from studios. God help us all.

First off, yes, that is Tim Allen (then, Timothy Alan Dick) posing for the Sheriff’s Department in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I’ll get back to that story in a second, though. The Tim Allen News-of-the-Day is that he has signed on to be in David Mamet’s upcoming martial arts drama. I never thought I would put Tim Allen, David Mamet, and martial arts drama all together in the same sentence. It is a crazy world indeed.

Variety is reporting that David Mamet will be directing Tim Allen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Joe Mantegna, and a bunch of professional martial artists and fighters in his next film, Redbelt. The story, written by Mamet, follows a Jiu-jitsu master (Ejiofor) who jeopardizes his integrity after being seduced by the movie business and influenced to compete in ultimate fighting matches. Ejiofor, an exellent actor, is currently training with members of the Gracie family who are known worldwide for their Brazilian-style Jiu-jitsu. Tim Allen plays a troubled action star who meets the master after getting his ass kicked in a street fight.

Don’t be put off by Tim Allen starring in a drama. The last time Mamet cast a comic actor in a dramatic role it turned out pretty good. Remember Steve Martin in The Spanish Prisoner? Everything about this film sounds pretty cool. The key to it all will be if Mamet can direct fighting scenes. Apparently, he has some of the best martial artists and fighters in the world in the film, so it can’t be that hard. Sony Pictures Classic is putting the money up for Redbelt which starts production next month in Los Angeles.

Now, back to that mugshot. In 1978, Tim Allen was arrested in a drug bust and spent three years in jail because of it. It was in jail that Allen developed his comedy routines for protection because as he put it, “Humor was the best defense I had.” After he got out of jail, Allen started doing the comedy stand-up circuit which led to the career he has today. When I read about all of this, I developed a new respect for Tim Allen that I never had. I’m looking forward to see what he can do in a more serious role. Guess we’ll find out next year when Redbelt is released.

Read the Variety article here.
Learn more about David Mamet here.
Learn more about Tim Allen here.

I am not one to promote anything that MTV does. I think MTV and their crap programming are definitely one of the worst influences on youth society and culture. It isn’t just the youth of this country they negatively impact, but youth around the world because there is a separate MTV for Europe, one for Asia, and one for Latin America. I’m not sure if the Arab world has a MTV affiliate, but if they do it would easily explain one of the reasons they dislike our culture so much.

However, MTV.com did submit a neat question to several respected film directors asking what they would do if they took over the Harry Potter film franchise. Directors like Zack Snyder (300) and Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) gave some interesting responses. The Potter films have made billions at the global box office, and still have three more to release. I admit that I am a big fan of the Harry Potter books. They are well-written by author/creator J.K. Rowling with great characters and storylines. The first two movie adaptations really sucked, but the last two were pretty entertaining. The trailer for the latest film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, shows some potential for being a good film. However, we’ll have to wait until it’s released on July 13th before we know for sure. The final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, hits bookstores at one second past midnight on July 21st.

Click on the link below to read the MTV.com article, but as soon as you are finished turn off your computer, take a hot shower, then pray, do some meditation, and go sit in the middle of a forest for a week in order to cleanse yourself of the taint that being near anything MTV can leave.

Click here to read the MTV.com article.
Click here to visit the official site for Harry Potter.
Watch the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix trailer here.
Read about the history of Harry Potter here.

Joblo.com alerted us that Warner Bros. has launched the teaser site for The Dark Knight which is the sequel to Batman Begins. Critics and audiences alike fully embraced this re-imagining of Batman, and anticipation of the sequel is growing. As Joblo pointed out, one thing that is really cool about The Dark Knight is that Warner Bros. is keeping to the script’s title and not throwing Batman anywhere in there.

The only thing known about the story is that The Joker will be the main villain and Harvey Dent is being introduced. Harvey Dent is the Gotham City District Attorney who had half of his face horribly disfigured when a crime boss he was prosecuting, Sal Maroni, threw acid on him. The mental anguish of his disfiguring created the split personality of Two-Face who became one of Batman’s greatest enemies. At this point, it is all speculation whether Dent will become Two-Face in The Dark Knight. He could be set up for the next film.

With Christian Bale returning as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Heath Ledger as The Joker, Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, and all of the other minor characters/actors (except Katie Holmes who was replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal) from Batman Begins also returning it is pretty much a guarantee that the acting in this film will be top notch. Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan and writer David S. Goyer also return, so my expectations of this sequel are pretty high. July 18th of next summer is the release date. I’ll keep you posted on any new info as it comes out.

Read Joblo.com’s take on the Dark Knight logo here.
Read the history of Batman here.
Read the history of The Joker here.
Read the history of Two-Face here.

It has been three years since filmmaker Michael Moore pissed off a large part of Washington, DC (mainly George Bush supporters) with his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Now he’s back with his latest documentary, Sicko, and guess what? He’s pissing off people in Washington, DC again. This time, though, the only pissed off people are those in the Bush Administration and pharmaceutical industry.

Sicko is a close examination of this country’s health care system and industry. The Weinstein Co. is releasing the film and says that while Fahrenheit 9/11 divided a lot people along political lines, Sicko is actually uniting them. Well, everyone except for Bush supporters which there aren’t many of these days. Sicko has been shown to Republicans and Democrats alike with a positive response coming from both sides. The big hub-bub about the film right now doesn’t actually have anything to do with what’s in the film. The controversy is about Moore taking ten ill 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba for medical treatment this past March. Moore claims the Bush administration’s healthcare policies have left these people and more completely on their own to deal with illnesses related to their rescue works on September 11, 2001. The White House is saying Moore violated the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba. Since Moore fully acknowledges he took the ten rescue workers to Cuba, well, there isn’t much to argue. Moore does say the administration knew of his plans to do this way back in of October of 2006, and questioned the timing of the investigation being raised nearly two months after he went since Sicko is set to premier at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19th.

My opinion is that this is just another example of the poor decisions constantly being made in the White House. If they don’t want anyone to go see Moore’s film, then they should just not even say a word about it or Michael Moore. Before Fahrenheit 9/11 was released and the general public even knew what it was about, the administration raised all kind of hell about it in the media. That only raised public awareness and discussion of the documentary, made it the all-time top-grossing documentary ever at $119 million, and won it the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Academy Awards. This is going to do the same for Sicko. Moviegoers only had Spider-Man, Pirates, and Shrek movies on their mind before this. Now, you can bet Sicko will make a healthy run at the box office this summer. I had planned to see it anyway when it’s released on June 29th. I’m sure a lot more people will now, too.

Read more about this at MSN.com.
Read Michael Moore’s open lettered response to the White House here.
Read about Sicko here.
Read about Fahrenheit 9/11 here.

Variety is reporting that Senator Entertainment (not exactly a studio) has hired Gregor Jordan to direct an adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel, The Informers. The Informers is a tale of sex, drugs, and violence set in 1983 Los Angeles that weaves together stories of rock stars, movie executives, and a vampire among others. Three other Ellis novels (American Psycho, Less Than Zero, and The Rules of Attraction) have already been adapted to the screen. However, The Informers is the first that he has written the adaptation. Gregor Jordan directed 2003’s Ned Kelly that had a great cast of Heath Ledger, Naomi Watts, and Geoffrey Rush. Orlando Bloom was also in the film, but I don’t consider his inclusion in a film’s cast make it great. Shooting will start sometime this summer.

Read the Variety article here.
Read about The Informers here.