The UBS Evening Television & Movie News 11.19.09
Posted by George H. Sirois on 11.19.2009
A quick look at the latest theatrical releases, a reflection on the passing of the torch for the Big Screen Bulletin, the trailer for Daybreakers, some Andy Critchell goodness and a special appearance by Scene Anatomy 101. All this and more in the “I Saw It Again” Edition…
Welcome everyone to the latest edition of the UBS Evening Movie News. I'm George H. Sirois, and if you're on Twitter, you can find me HERE! And don't forget, for all of you who are new to 411Mania.com, make sure you check out all of our zones. We have some of the best writers on the Internet right here, and we love to hear from all of you! So keep coming back to read what we have for you, make us your homepage and if you have Facebook, make sure to join our group HERE!
CHOSEN ONES, STEP FORWARD!
"Eons ago, on the planet known as Denab IV, its creator Excelsior appeared as a vision to several people he deemed "Chosen Ones." Those lucky few were selected by him to lead their fellow Denarians in keeping the planet as the paradise he always envisioned. As each passing generation of the Chosen Ones reached a certain age, Excelsior visited them in their dreams to give them the wisdom necessary to pick up where the previous generation left off. This continued on until Excelsior's spiritual form was cast down to the planet he had taken such care in crafting.
After over seventeen years of developing the character Excelsior, it's time for his Chosen Ones to step forward and make themselves known. By sending in your $14.95 pre-order deposit (plus $3 shipping & handling), you will not only reserve your copy of the upcoming novel, but you will also be acknowledged IN THE NOVEL as the first wave of men, women and children to be told the story of Excelsior's return.
That's right. Reserving your copy will put your name in print! But that's not all! By ordering through me, you will guarantee yourself a personalized autographed copy that will be shipped from me to you once the book is published. So make it happen! You're just one click away from bringing Excelsior's story to the masses…"
And feel free to check out the new blog for the novel HERE!
We got a hell of a good edition for you this week, with the "Re-Writing Miss-tory" segment taking a backseat to an old favorite making a special appearance. At least, I hope it's an old favorite and hasn't been forgotten.
But first, I got a few words to say about the passing of the torch for the Big Screen Bulletin. I've known Chad Webb for a few years now and am proud to call him a friend. I also have no qualms with calling him a very talented and focused writer, especially when it comes to letting us "fearless readers" in on his passions. So many people can get too wrapped up in their passions to let out what they want to say coherently, but not only does Chad do that very well, but he has been given the task of overseeing a group of equally talented writers who do it just as well.
Fortunately for us, the quality of the Big Screen Bulletin never dropped when Chad took over as editor for the Movies/TV zone. In fact, I dare say it has improved since he never rested on his laurels when it came to the various sections of the Bulletin. If there was a section he was tired of doing, he came up with something new and put everything he had into making that one a success.
While I am sad to see Chad leaving the Bulletin he created, I am happy to see it is still going to be in very capable hands. Steve Gustafson has filled in for me on several occasions and has always been the first to volunteer his services for anyone who either has an emergency come up or needs some personal time away from 411Mania. He's a consummate professional with his deadlines and a wiseass with his content, which makes him a perfect fit for both the site and for me to have as a friend.
So raise your glass, guys! To Chad Webb for a job well done, as well as the great job he's going to continue doing here at 411. And to Steve for being the ideal candidate for stepping into Chad's very big shoes. Gentlemen, here's to you, and I'm looking forward to continuing the Monday ritual of reading a hell of a good Big Screen Bulletin.
And with that, on with the news!
SYBIL THE SOOTHSAYER
UPCOMING MOVIES
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON: In this sequel to the mega-blockbuster, "Twilight", Bella (Kristen Stewart) enters into the world of werewolves while threatened by the Volturi, an Italy-based coven of vampires.
I'm not a fan of this franchise by any means, and even less of a fan of the first film. But I do have to say that getting a much more capable director in Chris Weitz increases the chances of New Moon actually being a good movie. I don't know how good it will be, but since my wife read all four books, I'll be finding out soon enough.
PLANET 51: An astronaut (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) lands on Planet 51 and finds that this planet is inhabited by little green people.
It's a shame that this film looks like it's just begging to be swept under the rug, since its premise at least sounds amusing. I could be wrong, but I just don't think it will have what it takes to even approach the box office take that New Moon's going to get. I'll guess this film will come in at 3rd or 4th place at the highest.
Credit: TheMovieBox.net
MOVIE TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Daybreakers
JIM WEBBING AND HIS IT'S THE HONEST TRUTH DEPARTMENT
Love is in the air… and in the vacuum of space: Justin Theroux is heading to space. The actor-cum-writer is on board to pen a draft of "Space Invader," an astronaut romantic comedy set up at Fox.
Mike Lisbe and Nate Reger sold the project and penned the original draft of the comedy, which centers on a man who decides to go to space after he suspects that his longtime girlfriend, an astronaut, is cheating on him with another spacewalker. Will Arnett is attached to star.
Davis Entertainment, the production company behind comedies like "The Heartbreak Kid," is on board to produce with Principato/Young. The project originally was set up at Fox Atomic before migrating to big Fox after the shuttering of that division.
The UTA- and 3 Arts-repped Theroux, who could potentially direct the title as well, has been honing his writing chops. He penned the comedy hit "Tropic Thunder" at Paramount and wrote the upcoming Marvel/Par pic "Iron Man 2."
He's also on board to produce "Air Guitar Nation," a feature remake of the well-received doc.
I have to say, this movie sounds like it has some damn good potential to go somewhere. The fact that it's an original comedy that takes some chances with the outer space angle is a big plus, and having a writer as talented as Justin Theroux is another big plus. I'll be keeping my eye on this one to see when it starts shooting.
Credit: Hollywood Reporter
Let me guess: the ghosts are all male: Jeri Ryan and Marianne Jean-Baptiste will star in "Secrets in the Walls," an original telepic for Lifetime Movie Network to premiere next year.
Horror pic features Ryan as a mother of two (Peyton List of "FlashForward," Kay Panabaker of "Fame") who finds that her new dream house in the suburbs outside Detroit is haunted. Jean-Baptiste ("Without a Trace") plays the best friend who helps try to solve the mystery.
Christopher Leitch is directing a script by William Penick and Christopher Sey. Michael Larkin and Michael Goldstein of Larkin-Goldstein Prods. are exec producing in association with RHI Entertainment.
For years, Lifetime has tried to scare young women into believing that all men want to do is beat the crap out of Judith Light or Delta Burke or Meredith Baxter-Birney. Now, they're going to try and scare a new generation of viewers with an actual horror story. I'll give them credit for trying to get away from the typical "abused wife stands up to abusive husband" routines, but I'm not going to be holding my breath to see if it stands out in terms of quality, especially since the haunted house stories are kinda played out now. But at least I'll give them bonus points for putting Jeri Ryan back on the small screen since she is very deserving of as much work as possible.
ANDY CRITCHELL'S INTERACTIVE BABE PHOTO NEWS BRIEF WITH ANDY CRITCHELL
Hey everyone. This week's gal is Kari Ann Peniche. She first gained a degree of fame in 2004 when she posed for Playboy while still the reigning Miss United States Teen. Yeah, pageants don't really like any kind of controversy.
Anyhoo, she dated D-list celeb Aaron Carter and more recently was featured on a "sex tape" featuring Rebecca Gayheart and the guy from Grey's Anatomy. I used quotes only because it wasn't all that sexy.
Kari was on Howard Stern last week and in addition to admitting that she enjoys kinky sex she also mentioned that she was kicked off of VH1's Sex Rehab show. Yikes!
As anyone who has seen one of those "Celebreality" shows on VH1 can attest, you have got to be pretty nuts to get kicked off of one of those shows. Good thing personality/intelligence have no place here. Let's look at some pics…
See you next week!!
Every now and then, we come across a movie that - at first glance - turns us off because of a character doing something so incredibly stupid that it takes us out of the movie altogether. That happened to me a few years ago when I finally sat down to watch the first installment of a series that started back in 2004. Having to deal with the main actor doing a sub-par acting job was one thing, but to see the same guy do something that I could easily find a way around… it was too much to take, so I wrote the movie off as a missed opportunity and moved on with my life.
My life eventually led me to seeing the second installment of the same series, which - in my opinion - was a much better film overall and that encouraged me to watch III, then IV, V and this past month VI. The quality of the second film made me a fan of the series, I appreciated its attention to detail regarding continuity and I became truly fascinated with the main characters in this ongoing story.
Of course, having been fully caught up and enjoying all five sequels, I couldn't help but think: what if I was wrong about the first one? So I decided to give it another look, which brings me to this special appearance by Scene Anatomy 101. This week, we're not only going to discuss what I thought I was seeing, but we're going to break down what actually happened during the pivotal scene in the 2004 James Wan smash hit…
The story of the first Saw film is very simple, especially when you compare it to the other five films. Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and photographer Adam Stanheight (Leigh Whannell, in his first role and who also served as screenwriter for the film) both awaken on opposite sides of a broken-down industrial bathroom with thick shackles tied to their ankles. Lying facedown in between them is a dead bald man with a gun in one hand and a microcassette player in the other. Lawrence and Adam have a micro cassette tape in their possession, and on Dr. Gordon's tape are explicit instructions to kill Adam by 6pm, or else he will never see his wife and child again. The two men are also given a saw to help free themselves, but the saws are not meant to cut through the chains. They're meant to cut through their feet.
As both men try to figure out who put them in this predicament, Lawrence realizes that this whole scenario is very much like something put together by the man known as Jigsaw. He is notorious for putting very crude but effective traps together for his victims and giving them opportunities to survive. Of course, there is a price for survival, and it always involves the victim being pushed to their very limits by either mutilating themselves or someone else. The object of Jigsaw's game is for whomever survives to have a newfound respect and appreciation for their life.
By the time Adam and Lawrence realize who they are in relation to each other, they learn that someone is watching them via a two-way mirror in the bathroom and Lawrence believes who is responsible for all of this – an intern at his hospital known as "Zepp" (Michael Emerson) – they discover a cell phone hidden in the wall that can only receive calls. This is the only link to the outside world, and the only link that Dr. Gordon has with his wife and daughter. And Zepp gives Mrs. Gordon (Monica Potter) the responsibility of telling Lawrence that he failed to kill Adam in time. Lawrence hears gunshots and the sounds of struggling, but then the phone disconnects.
The tension has grown so much in this movie and the stakes have gotten so high regarding Lawrence's family that by the time the phone disconnects, he's practically a raving lunatic. And as he weeps clutching the phone, a sudden electrical burst goes through the chain and into Lawrence, causing the phone to fly out of his hands. Now, before we suspected it was Zepp who was doing the electrocuting when Adam tried to fake his death earlier, but as this scene unfolds, we see that Zepp is already away from the monitors and is on his way back to the bathroom so he can kill Lawrence.
So who is doing the actual electrocuting? Well, we'll see who it is later, but first Adam has to wake Lawrence up. His nerves are just as frayed as Lawrence's were before, and he is yelling at Lawrence from across the room.
ADAM: Lawrence! Get up! I need you!
Adam then starts grabbing pieces of broken tile and throwing them in Lawrence's direction. Eventually, one of them hits the doctor and he looks up, groggy and confused.
ADAM: Thank God! I thought you were dead.
Lawrence blinks as he sits up, unable to keep his balance. He stutters as he responds to Adam.
LAWRENCE: I… he… he electrocuted me…
ADAM: I know! The same thing happened to me, you see? I wasn't lying, you see?
After a moment, Lawrence regains his equilibrium and starts grabbing at the chain keeping him prisoner.
LAWRENCE: FUCK THIS SHIT!
The phone rings again, which causes Lawrence to stop futilely pulling on the chain and reach for the phone. Unfortunately, when it flew out of his hands, it was juuuuuuust out of his reach. He even grabs the box that the phone was hidden in and tries to use that to pull the phone closer. Again, he can't get the box to the phone.
LAWRENCE: No! No!
Now, here's where my problem with the movie came in. Earlier, Lawrence instructed Adam to use his shirt to pull the cassette recorder out of the dead man's hand. One would think that, even in both men's frantic state, Adam would have returned the favor and reminded Lawrence that he could do the same thing with his shirt.
But he doesn't. Instead, he simply tries pleading with Lawrence who is getting more and more frantic with each passing second and each passing ring from the telephone.
ADAM: Lawrence, calm down! There must be a way out of this!
LAWRENCE: SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! My family needs me!
Lawrence then reaches back towards the chain and pulls with all his might, screaming in agony, his screams echoing off the tiled walls.
ADAM: Lawrence! Stop it!
It seems like Lawrence is ready to calm down and start thinking about how to get to his family, but that's not the case. He's already made up his mind about what he has to do.
ADAM: Lawrence! Just calm down! There's a way out of this! There's a way out of…
Adam watches Lawrence his shirt off, but instead of using it to get to the telephone that is still ringing, he starts to wrap it around his leg. He pulls tight and puts the sleeve in his mouth so he has something to bite down on.
Lawrence grabs the saw and braces himself. His breathing is erratic, his eyes are wide open and he holds the saw tightly in his hand as he moves it to his ankle.
ADAM: No! Oh my God! Lawrence! Lawrence! What are you doing?!
And then we have the big moment that the whole film is built around: as the phone stops ringing, Dr. Lawrence Gordon - a broken man who has been cut off from his wife and child - begins sawing his own foot off to free himself from his shackle.
He screams with extreme pain and keeps his teeth clenched tightly on the shirt, but doesn't stop until he's finished. He throws the saw away as his eyes are immediately sunken and his face is deathly pale. Lawrence then crawls over to the cell phone and briefly looks at it, but that's not the reason why he did what he did.
Adam is now horrified with what had just happened, and is equally confused about where Lawrence is crawling. The way director James Wan and writer Whannell conceived this scene, everyone is SUPPOSED to think that Dr. Gordon sawed his foot off to retrieve the phone. Turns out I was one of those people who thought the same thing, because without giving the phone a second thought, Lawrence crawls over to the dead man in the middle of the floor. The dead man still has the gun in his hand.
Lawrence reaches for the gun and makes sure there is a bullet in the chamber. Now, Adam realizes what's about to happen.
ADAM: What are you… what are you? Oh my God! Lawrence, don't! No! Lawrence, please! I'm begging you!
Lawrence raises the gun in Adam's direction.
ADAM: Lawrence! It's not me who did this to you!
As Adam screams for mercy, Lawrence weakly responds with…
LAWRENCE: You have to die.
He cocks the gun and carefully aims, his hand shaking.
ADAM: No, I want to live!
LAWRENCE: I'm sorry… my family…
Lawrence pulls the trigger, shooting Adam and knocking him to the ground. It's a non-fatal wound, but we don't know that yet. Lawrence falls onto his back, crying with pain and anguish with the knowledge of what he just did to himself and to Adam. He then turns towards the two-way mirror and shouts as loud as he can.
LAWRENCE: THERE! I'VE DONE IT! NOW SHOW THEM TO ME!
This is one of those scenes that works the most when you re-watch it AFTER seeing all of the sequels. You get a much better understanding of how the Saw series is structured, and how each film lives and dies based on the choices made by the characters. Everything must be in its rightful place or else it doesn't work. If the cell phone had landed just a little bit closer to Lawrence, then he would have retrieved it before the ringing stopped. Then, who knows what would have happened to Lawrence and Adam? But, hey, that's the way things go in this series and in life. A lot of times, it's those little problems that are juuuuuuust out of our reach that cause us to act.
After re-watching Saw, I was able to forgive Whannell and Wan for what I believed to be a fatal error in the film. Until now, I couldn't accept that Lawrence would be so mentally shot that he wouldn't try to use his shirt to get the cell phone. But then, watching it again recently, it hit me. Suppose he did just get the cell phone, then what? He would still be trapped in the shackle and not know where he was. And he had no idea that Zepp would be on his way to kill him. There would be no way he could defend himself and no way Adam could do anything either, since he was shackled across the room.
The only way for there to be any kind of proper conclusion for the film was for Dr. Gordon to do what he had to do. And the way everything comes together creates a very satisfying ending to this first installment. I still believe the other five films were handled a bit better, but that's mainly because what keeps me wrapped up into this franchise is the ever-unfolding backstory. Since there's such a small amount of backstory to get into here – being the first chapter and the need to establish a bit of mystery – this is the only one that feels a bit too long for me. But, with the exception of Cary Elwes' less-than-his-best performance, giving Saw another look has helped me enjoy this a lot better than I did before. I'd recommend those who felt the same way about the first one do the same.
And that's a wrap for Chapter 139 of The UBS Evening Movie News! For Andy Critchell, I'm George H. Sirois and we'll see you next week!
