The Doctor in the Hallway News Report 03.28.07
Posted by Ben Moser on 03.28.2007
Welling is on Teen Wolf, McGowan's on the pole, and the struggle between good and evel is just plain on. All this and more in this version of The Doctor in the Hallway News Report. Read it, or I'll withold future celebrity autopsy invormation.
Hi kids, and welcome back to The Doctor in the Hallway News Report. With those lovable turtles sitting pretty atop the box office standings right after 300 smacked around its competition around, people are already declaring 2007 the year of the comic book movie. Especially knowing that Spider-Man 3 is going to break a record here or there and (whether critics and so-called purists like it or not) The Fantastic Four sequel is going to get at least a week at the top. Oh, and let's not forget Sin City 2 lurking in the shadows. There's almost certainly another indie comic or two out there that will surprise everyone and get some critical praise and maybe some bank to go along with it. Yep, we might even be allowed to forget that 2007 also gave us Ghost Rider.
With that in mind, let's news it up.
Welling thrown to the wolves
New TV Superman Tom Welling has given the Teen Wolf film franchise a boost after reportedly signing on for a new movie. In the new Teen Wolf, a remake of Michael J. Fox's 1985 movie, the fun-loving werewolf of the title will be played by a female. Welling will be part of the supporting cast of the new film.
Really? They cast this kid in a Teen Wolf remake and he's not even the wolf? Moreover, they're giving the wolf role to a girl? That tears it. No one will see this movie. Why? Think about it The original was about basketball. The remake will be about women's basketball. No. One. Will. Watch.
McGowan's views are polarizing(see what I did there?)
Germophobe Rose McGowan was so disgusted by conditions in a strip club where she filmed scenes for Quentin Tarantino's new movie Grindhouse she insisted crew members sanitize her pole. The actress plays a sexy stripper-turned-one-legged killer in the upcoming action film and she spent a few days convinced she was going to come down with a contracted illness. She says, "I made them Windex the pole. That's a lot of bacteria adding up over the course of an evening."
I'm really looking forward to Grindhouse. Really. Not because Rose McGowan is playing a stripper, not because Rose McGowan is playing an ultra-violent stripper with a gun for a leg, but because those poles will be so clean that, even though they will be on film, I will be able to see my reflection in them. And I do love looking at me…
Grindhouse is gonna be so sweet…
You want me to swing from your pole, then you'll have to clean it.
Haley Joel Osment would be funnier
Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear are teaming to star in DreamWorks' romantic comedy Ghost Town.
Steven Spielberg's go-to screenwriter David Koepp (War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones 4) will direct from a script he penned with John Kamps. The studio created a splash when it paid a reported $2 million for Koepp and Kamps' pitch in March 2005.
The story centers on a dentist who dies briefly during routine dental surgery and gains the ability to see dead people who ask him for help in contacting the living.
Seeing dead people who want to communicate with the living is all well and good until Patrick Swayze comes in looking for a new pottery partner or Ghost Dad decides that his daughter is dating a loser. Seriously, when you're hoping for the 6th man to show up because he's the least depressingly terrible movie ghost there is…maybe it's time to not see dead people.
I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier
The IESB reports that a bidding war is happening this week for the film rights to Jeff Krelitz's graphic novel War in Heaven.
The story follows Lucifer leading an army of Angels in rebellion in Heaven, with the aim to have battle sequences showing legions of Angels fighting each other.
Ah yes…the original struggle of good vs.evil that plays out today as Democrats vs. Republicans, The Bears vs. The Packers and Apes vs. People.
Yin & Yang
Tired of that eyeball poster? Behold the new Transformers posters!
To Destroy and Protect: a new LAPD slogan?
And now…outrage from specialty groups!
Officials at a top US suicide prevention group are failing to see the funny side of billboard ads for a new comedy that show people killing themselves. Acclaimed indie movie Wristcutters: A Love Story follows a group of people who have taken their own lives, as they take a trip through purgatory. The film, starring Patrick Fugit and Shannyn Sossamon, has won a handful of top indie film prizes in America, but the director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is not a fan of the film, or its marketing campaign. In a letter to producers, Robert Gebbia says, "You don't see people making fun of other causes of death, but you see it with suicide and mental illness." But producer Courtney Solomon isn't planning to pull the ad campaign, stating, "The movie's message is that love is better than suicide. Our job is to get people into the theatre in a way that's accessible to them. There are many different ways to skin a cat. God forbid someone was considering committing suicide. This film may change their opinion."
When groups get angry like this, I generally consider them to be wrong. So allow me to list for you some methods of death that I find to be hilarious that aren't at all related to suicide or mental illness.
- rabid animals that fall out of umbrellas as they open
- getting stepped on by imperial walkers(especially funny if it happens to an Ewok)
- sticking your head out the window of a moving vehicle
- slammed into a tree by a cyborg Jason Voorhees whilst in a sleeping bag
- slipping on a banana peel
- tied to a railroad track by a guy with a bad moustache
That'll do it for this week…
You know what? I doubted Will Ferrell when that NASCAR movie came out, so I refuse to doubt that Blades of Glory won't be hilarious. So there's the pick of the week. I'll be dishing out homework for you left and right next week, as it will be my last column before I take some time away from computing devices and popular culture in order to celebrate my nuptials. Hope you don't miss me too much. Formal hiatus won't be until next week's column is put to bed. So until then, don't do anything I wouldn't do.
(this week's sources: Hollywood Reporter, IMDB, Dark Horizons)
