Furious on Film Movie News Report 08.13.08

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 08.13.2008

Yeah, I am still not Arnold Furious...

Issue 152

Welcome to Furious on Film, and once again I am not Arnold Furious. While there is still no word on the whereabouts of one Arnold Furious and Ben Piper has become distracted in his mission to rescue said "Master of the Newsman," both myself, Shawn S. Lealos and one Jeremy Thomas are continuing to hold down the fort in their absence. Take this as an open notice, Arnold "HULK" Furious and Ben "HUNTER" Piper, the young blood is here and we are breaking the glass ceiling!!!!

HERE IS THE GNUS


We'll start off today with the weekend's sad news
Credit: 411MANIA.COM

Actor and comedian Bernie Mac, 50, died Saturday, Aug. 9, of complications from pneumonia in a Chicago hospital. He was born Oct. 5, 1957, in Chicago, Ill., under the name of Bernard Jeffrey McCullough.

Mac was one of The Original Kings of Comedy along with D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer. He received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his series "The Bernie Mac Show." On the big screen he appeared in Bad Santa, Guess Who?, Transformers, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and the Ocean films with George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

He is survived by his wife Rhonda and one child. He is preceded in death by his mother and two brothers.

* * *

Legendary musician (and the voice of Chef from South Park) Isaac Hayes died Sunday morning (Aug. 10) at his home in Memphis, TN. His wife found him passed out near a treadmill. He was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead at 2:08 AM. Hayes was 65 years old.



Wow. This weekend was a tough one as we lost two very talented individuals. Bernie Mac took me by surprise because I knew he had been sick and heard he was hospitalized, but I had no idea it was this bad. The guy was 50 years old! That's scary as hell. Take care of yourself people! Bernie Mac made a name for himself doing standup and headlined his own sitcom for a few years. He also appeared in one of my favorite movies, Ocean's Eleven. Mac told David Letterman in 2007 he planned on retiring soon so he could catch up on things he had missed in his life. Now, he won't get that chance. Once again, take care of yourself and live like tomorrow will be your last day. You just never know.

Isaac Hayes also took me by surprise when my wife told me while we were eating Sunday evening. Hayes had a stroke in 2006 and current appearances showed him still suffering the effects of that, so I would assume his death was possibly a cause of his deteriorating health since that incident. Before his work on South Park, Hayes had already established himself as a successful soul singer, his best known work being the theme song from the motion picture Shaft. He had nine Top 10 albums and eight Top 40 singles over his career. The theme song from Shaft would reach number one on the American charts while his comic song from South Park, Chocolate Salty Balls would reach number one in the UK. Hayes left South Park on bad terms in protest of the show's satirizing of Scientology, Hayes' religion. He admitted in recent interviews that he was no longer on good terms with the South Park creators. Regardless of recent controversies, Hayes is responsible for the voice of one of animation's most beloved characters and will be missed.

In similar news, Paul Newman has asked to return home from the hospital and is expected to pass away in the next few weeks. Newman, one of the greatest actors to ever live is 83 and has been retired for the past few years. Recently, his reps denied the reports and Newman himself released a comment that he is in good health. Regardless, it's a sad time to be a film fan.


Do these people represent Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears too?
Credit: Studio Briefing

DreamWorks on Sunday rejected complaints from a coalition of disabilities groups that the upcoming Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder subjects the intellectually disabled to ridicule and fosters hatred toward them. In a statement, DreamWorks spokesman Chip Sullivan said that the movie was intended to satirize Hollywood "and makes its point by featuring inappropriate and over-the-top characters in ridiculous situations." But when asked by the New York Times whether the disabilities groups might launch a boycott of the film, Timothy Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics -- and a co-producer of DreamWorks' Amistad -- replied: "Not only might it happen, it will happen."



"Not only might it happen, it will happen?" What the hell kind of statement is that? Regardless, the problems lie in the advertisements showing the Ben Stiller character talking about his prestige role as a mentally handicap man in his most recent movie. Now, the character, in my eyes, is not making fun of mentally challenged people. The character is making fun of the actors who portray mentally handicapped people in movies (see: Forrest Gump, I am Sam). The fact that the chairman of the Special Olympics doesn't understand that fact makes me wonder if they promote from within. How the hell does the venom go towards this small moment in the trailers and not towards Robert Downey Jr. is beyond me. Maybe people will protest anything to get attention. They should pull a Kevin Smith and show up to picket with the protestors.


Quentin Tarantino nabs his man
Credit: Hollywood Reporter

Brad Pitt officially has gone inglorious. The actor has joined the cast of Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards, signing on to play Lt. Aldo Raine, the head of the Jewish resistance in the auteur's World War II film. Additionally, Simon Pegg is in discussions to join the cast. David Krumholtz has an offer but may have a scheduling problem. Nastassja Kinski is meeting with Tarantino for the part of a German actress. Pitt's character is a Southern rebel who leads a band of eight Jewish American soldiers as they exact vengeance on Nazis in German-occupied France. Pegg would play a British lieutenant. Krumholtz's part would be that of a member of Pitt's team. Producer Lawrence Bender said the alchemy of Pitt and Tarantino, who have never worked together as actor and director, will yield unique results. "They're going to push each other and really help make something special," he said. Pitt's character is a voluble, freewheeling outlaw in the manner of Samuel L. Jackson's Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction, prone to saying things like "we're gonna be doing one thing, and one thing only, and that's killing Nazis," according to those familiar with the script.



Yes! Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino confirmed! Simon Pegg is a brilliant choice for this movie and, if he brings his straight man routine from Hot Fuzz, he should be a lot of fun with Tarantino-speak. I can't see David Krumholtz in anything in my mind except Harold and Kumar, but he was funny in that. And what does Uma Thurman think about Natassja Kinski taking her place as token female lead? Where the hell is Michael Madsen! Come on Q, give a brother a job! I'm getting more and more excited, but this probably won't be in theaters until 2010 at least. If it is, bingo!, but don't expect it.


Tom Cruise to get a Sex Change?
Credit: Hollywood Reporter

New mom Angelina Jolie is in negotiations to replace Tom Cruise in the Columbia spy thriller [Edwin A. Salt]. Screenwriter Kurt Wimmer will redraft the screenplay, about a CIA officer who must prove she is not a Russian sleeper spy out to assassinate the president, to suit Jolie. Phillip Noyce remains attached to "Salt" as director with Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Sunil Perkash producing. The title also will change. The project has a long history, with directors coming and going, though Cruise has long been tethered to it. The deal for the switch began to fall into place about two weeks ago, though Columbia topper Amy Pascal has been after Jolie for a project for more than two years.



So, Angelina Jolie is going to become the next Tom Cruise? There has always been grumbling about there not being enough roles for females in Hollywood films. Just look at the Academy Award Nominees to see what I mean. While there are a ton of great male nominations, you really have to scratch the bottom of the barrel for female nominees. This news makes me wonder why they don't just switch gender roles more often? Why should the woman always play backseat to a strong male lead when you can just switch things around and have the woman play strong. Who better than Jolie for this task? Now, I'm not saying this won't be anything more than another action flick that will be forgotten almost as quickly as Wanted was, but it's a start.


Are you ready for more Viral Marketing?
Credit: Hollywood Reporter

J.J. Abrams wants to make the earth move for you. The producer and David Seltzer, the screenwriter of the original "Omen," are working together to shake up audiences with a disaster flick for Universal involving an earthquake. The project is untitled and not intended to be a remake of Universal's 1974 movie "Earthquake." That film, released in the middle of that decade's disaster-flick frenzy that famously used "Sensurround" -- really just cranked-up bass -- to enhance the experience and became part of its popular studio tour. Details of the story are being kept in a seemingly tremor-proof vault, though as is Abrams' modus operandi, relationships will be at the core of the project. Abrams arguably rewrote the rules for disaster flicks with "Cloverfield," which thrust the big story to the background by making the audience see the bedlam through the prism of a personal relationship.



The creator of Lost and producer of Cloverfield has set his eyes on another project to spearhead. While Abrams has his hands full with the Star Trek reboot, he has picked up the idea to create a movie based on the recent California earthquakes. Seeing how great his last producing effort went as he revived the classic giant monster movie, I am pretty interested to see his take on the classic disaster flick. The 90s was the last time we got a huge onslaught of disaster flicks with Armageddon, Deep Impact, Dante's Peak, Volcano, and the greatest of them all - Christian Slater's Hard Rain. The only thing I am not ready for is another viral marketing campaign that just never seems to end. A lot of people love that shit, so I can't complain too much about it. If I don't like it, I shouldn't pay attention to it. I want to get my news, and those campaigns only seem to give small hints. Maybe I am spoiled - probably.





That's the news for this week.


What do you mean you've never seen…?
THIS WEEK'S REVIEWS

Instead of doing one of the former and a few of the later, I'm just going to mix the two into one big review.

SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (1973)


The Spirit of the Beehive is less a narrative film than a painting created by a great artist. Landscapes are given loving brushstrokes by the cameras and shots are allowed to linger on the land as the characters move through them. In a scene where the children Ana and Isabel approach an old abandoned barn, almost three minutes pass with only three small cuts of close ups to the little girls. The remainder of the three minutes is simply the camera sitting in the distance and watching quietly in an extreme long shot of the land framing the barn and the well to its left. The little girls are simply small figures moving in a solitary background that might as well been a painting by cinematographer Luis Cuadrado.

The fact that Cuadrado was going blind while the film was being shot makes the picture an even more amazing accomplishment. The fact that Victor Erice has only made two feature length films since this amazing debut is a tragedy. The Spirit of the Beehive takes place in 1940 Spain, shortly after Francisco Franco took over power. The film, made near the end of Franco's reign, was made in a time of censorship by the Spanish government. Films during this era were forced to use allegory and fantasy to disguise any political messages. While The Spirit of the Beehive does not assert an overtly political agenda, the lives of the people affected by the Spanish Civil War are presented in a way showing the feelings of the director towards the regime.

"Once upon a time ..."

The beehive in the title might refer to the beekeeper status of Fernando, the father of the tale. When we first meet Fernando, he is tending to his beehives. Later we witness him in his study where we see his own small beehive as he spends much time writing about it, trying to find the meaning to life encompassed by the hives. However, to see the true meaning of the title, one only need look at the house in which they live. Filled with stained glass windows, the light emitting through these windows a honey texture, symbolizing that within this house, and possibly within the culture of Spain at the time, they live in their own personal beehives. Just as Fernando traps bees in their hives to study and extract what he needs from them, the individuals living in Franco-controlled Spain were kept just the same.

However, this story is not so much about Franco's Spain, although the effects surround everyone just the same. The story is one of two little girls, Ana and Isabel, and their experiences as they learn about life and death. This would seem to be a strain, as young Ana is only 6-years old. What can a child that age truly know about life and death? The poignancy of the story rests in the face of Ana and what she experiences in the film's 90-minute running time. The story begins as a truck arrives in a small town, carrying the latest cinematic film to show the community. The movie is Frankenstein, and everyone gathers to watch the film in a small auditorium.

The beauty of the filmmaking style on display is Erice simply placing his cameras around the room and letting them take in the expressions and reactions of the people as they watch the movie for the first time. Using the form of cinema known as neorealism, Erice preferred to get genuine reactions from the group of non-actors he employed for the film. As young Ana watched the film, he had his cameraman sit on the floor in front of her and aim the camera at her face. The reactions she supplied could never have been accomplished by giving the six-year old instructions. They were so pure and beautiful they could only have been achieved in the heat of the moment. When she watches Frankenstein befriend the young girl, who the monster ends up killing, her shock is filmed in a way that could never be repeated.

As she left the theater, she asked why Frankenstein would kill the small girl and why the townspeople killed Frankenstein. She did not understand the concepts of life and death and needed to have them explained to her. Unfortunately, her source of knowledge was her ten-year old sister who filled her full of rubbish about spirits and how Frankenstein was a spirit that could be called upon. She then explained how she had seen such a spirit and all you needed to do was call out your name and they would come to you.

We then view small snippets of Ana's life as she tries to piece together the strange concepts of life and death. Her father takes the girls mushroom hunting and explains the dangers of eating the wrong sort of mushrooms. Her teacher brings out a large mannequin missing certain body parts and organs and has the kids put them back where they belong, possibly mimicking the creation of the Frankenstein monster. Her sister takes her to an old barn to show her where a mysterious spirit supposedly rests.

It is at this barn that Ana encounters a fugitive soldier from Franco's forces. She believes him to be a spirit, her own figurative Frankenstein, and helps him. She feeds him and even gives him her father's coat and pocket watch before returning one day to find him gone, only blood remaining where he once lay. Her life, in her mind, was taking the mysterious form of the Frankenstein story. When her father finds her at the barn, she runs away and while hiding in the woods finally encounters her own spirit, in the form of the actual Frankenstein monster. It would then kneel by her, mirroring the scene from the movie.

After returning home, we see her in the final scene as she retreats to her window and calls out her own name, asking for the spirit to return for her. The small girl, at such a young age, was confronted with death both on the movie screen; with her older sister, who faked her death earlier in the film, preying on the gullibility of her younger sibling; and finally with the soldier who she befriended. Yet, with no adult seeming to notice her long enough to explain the significance of such topics, she is left to her own devices, her own imagination and her own fears.

It is a world without adults we witness in this film. The father is too preoccupied with his own aging and the confusion of the society in which he lives. The mother writes letters to a mysterious loved one that was lost in the war. Every day she rides her bike to the train station to see if this person has returned. The splintering of the family unit is shown through the mise-en-scene, as the four never share a frame together. The small girls share many scenes together until the sister steps over the line when faking her own death. There is an early scene with the father and his girls as they hunt mushrooms and a second scene where the mother is combing Ana's hair. However, the mother and father never share a frame together, and even when they share a scene they are filmed separately. In one scene, the mother is already in bed and the father joins her. The camera rests on the mother's face while only the shadow of the father is seen on the wall behind her. In another scene she puts a coat on him as he sleeps at his desk, but you only see her hands, their faces never shown on the screen at the same time. Even when the four are having dinner together, the one time they all share a scene together, it is only single shots of the characters individually. The family is splintered and the children are left to their own devices.

When the film was released, it was criticized for being unbearably slow, intellectually ponderous and simply unwatchable, never in a hurry to reach its conclusion. While the film may move too slowly for some, it is one of the most beautiful films you could ever dream of seeing. It is comparable to a beautiful poem, shot with loving care using camerawork as masterful as you will ever see. The camera holds on subjects for longer than may be needed but gets the reactions the scenes deserve. The young Ana is filmed in a way, an almost documentary style, that makes you experience the wonder and fear that she felt in a way not seen often today. Recent filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro and Pedro Almodóvar have carried the torch that Erice mastered, but none have yet reached the immense beauty and perfection that Erice achieved telling the simple story of a little girl coming to grips with the world in which she lives.

"Soy Ana. Soy Ana."

HOLLYWOOD WHORES
will return when Arnold gets back...


You stay classy…Planet Earth.